"The Man in the Elevator" #Fridayflash

Depending on how the story-writing goes, this might be my last share of my work in progress, 27. Too disjointed to be a serial, with wild stand-alone flashes, it's seemed appropriate to post excerpts for #Fridayflash. Thanks for reading. - CC

Previous installments (in order):
27
64 Degrees
The Visitor
The List

Photo by Synde Korman

The door to my apartment stood open. Maintenance men clad in overalls smeared white paint over the marks left by my past. Tiffany was gone, and so were the rest of my things. But the elevator. There were two. Which one was it?

I punched the call button, and the slow growl of the lift whirred into motion. The door on my right opened first, but was well-lit, clean of blood stains, and trapped dead ghosts. Looping, Stein’d called it. Had to be the second cab. I reached around, felt for the keypad—cool, round—and sent the car to another floor. I punched the call button again. This time, I believed I could hear the difference between it and the other. Slower, creakier. As if it drew up a heavy burden from a dark well.

The doors split and I looked away almost immediately, but the sight was burned on the backs of my eyelids. A dead man, tracks of feces marking the floor. Fingernails torn and bloody. Sightless eyes turned towards heaven. The stench. I could smell the days of decomposition on him but that was ridiculous. He’d died before I’d even moved in.

The fluorescent lights buzzed in their ballasts like blow flies and a trickle of ants had found a marching line to the inside of his coat. I stepped into the cab and let the doors close me in with him. 

Darkness fell upon the dead and the very dead as the cab descended to the ground floor. As expected, it stuck. The stories had said between third and fourth floors, but it was actually second and third. The lights came on and I blinked at a man in a business suit checking his watch with a mutter. He leaned forward and punched the G button again. And again. 

“Do you think that hitting the button over and over will help much?” I smiled, despite the impending situation. I knew how the story ended now. He glanced over at me. 

“Whatever, kid. I have a dinner party I’m supposed to be the guest of honor at and if this fucking piece of shit elevator doesn’t move…”

I sighed gently. “Think about what’s going on here.” Who died and gave me Stein’s position? It seemed right. I ran with it.

“Mind your own business, kid.”

“Have you tried the call box to see what’s going on with the elevator?”

The man opened the emergency call box and put the receiver to his ear. He frowned and toggled the hook a couple of times before giving up and letting the phone fall to the floor with a metallic clang. “Dead.” 

He started punching other buttons and turned to look at me. “Aren’t you nervous, kid? You probably have some hot broad to bang or at least a band show somewhere. I’ve seen the girls that go in and out of places of people like you.”

“Moved out,” I said. I didn’t see any point of explaining my own demise when he was yet to understand his.

“So why are you here?” The man tugged at his collar and tie. “It gets hot in here quick.”

I nodded and sat down against the wall. The man glanced down at me. “What floor did you get on at?”

I smirked and shook my head. “I don’t know if I should tell you now or wait, Mr. Ashbury.”

His eyes bulged. “If this is some sort of sick joke…”

I shook my head. “No joke.” I eyed and nodded at his briefcase. “Nothing in there to survive with. Not even a small snack. No water. It’s a holiday. No one is around to hear your call.”

Ashbury banged on the metal doors. “Hey! We’re stuck in here!”

I let my head tip back and watched the flickering florescent light. It’d go out soon. The interior would get hotter and hotter and Ashbury here might have had a heavy dose of water before he left his apartment.

“Think they’ll miss you?” I tilted my head up at him. It was hard not to smile. I felt a little crack inside me give way. 

“You little fucking punk. Of course they’ll come get us out. You can’t just let people die in an elevator.”

“But would they miss you?” I reached into my jacket pocket for the cigarettes Stein had given me. Words on the package swam before realigning themselves into Marlboro. Should have been Camels. Get it right. The swirls reconvened to reproduce the cover of a pack of Camels. My brand. I opened the box. 

“You can’t smoke in here!” Ashbury set his briefcase down and swung at my cigarette dangling from my lips but I dodged him easily.

“Look,” I lit my cigarette and handed it to him. “You may as well. No one cares about you in here.”

Ashbury scowled at the smoldering cigarette in my hand, so I shrugged and smoked on it myself. “This isn’t real.”

“Of course it’s real!” His face was red; a vein pulsed on the right side of his forehead. He stank of sweat and fear. The briefcase fell on its side as Ashbury tugged his tie loose. “Of all the complete horseshit. This is a real silk tie. I’m going to ruin my whole suit if the air doesn’t come on.”

“It won’t.” As hot as he looked, I didn’t feel a thing. I wasn’t looping like him. “What’s in the briefcase, Mr. Ashbury?” I grinned. “You can tell me.”

“None of your fucking business!”

I nodded sagely and took a pull on my cigarette. Ashbury coughed and waved the plumes of smoke away. “You’re stinking up the whole damn cab.”

“It was open when they found you three days later.”

Ashbury blinked. “Found me?”

I snorted smoke. “You’re dead, Mr. Ashbury.”

"The List" #Fridayflash

Happy Friday the 13th!

Yet another piece of 27 for your reading pleasure.
Previous installments (in order):
27
64 Degrees
The Visitor

“So, let’s go down the list.” He unrolled a strip of paper and put on a pair of reading glasses. I raised an eyebrow and he pulled them down his nose to peer over them at me. “Great effect, eh? As if I am in reading mode.” He cleared his throat. “Ahem. The dead shall not affect the living. Now what that means is, say you see an old enemy of yours walking a tightrope at a carnival someplace. Maybe he’s trying to impress the girl he stole from you. Don’t look at me like that, we know this doesn’t apply to you. You tossed aside every chance you had for a normal relationship.” He exhaled in a quick puff. “Say you see that enemy and all it’d take is one stray breeze…” His grin widened. “Not your call. Worse, his blood is on your hands. So.” He returned his attention to the little scroll. “With me so far, son?”

                     Photo credit: pagean97 from morguefile.com

I wasn’t sure what to make of the Grim Reaper. Or his sense of humor. I nodded mutely.

“You know, the rest of this seems to be blank, so there you have it. No direct effect on the living. No holding heads underwater, saving children from the path of a bus by pushing them out of the way, no contact that will change the course of their natural lives. Do you understand?”

“I think so.” I leaned over the table. “But I can’t even open a door, so I’m not sure how I could harm anyone.”

Stein rolled his eyes. “You’ll be surprised at what you’re capable of. Did you take the bus to get here earlier? No.”

“But how do I do other things?”

Stein rolled up the paper and crumbled it into nonexistence. “That’s not for me to say. I’m just the taxi driver. You have to have the address, otherwise we’ll drive in circles and I’ll charge you extra fare for wasting my time and fuel.” He sighed and pulled his glasses off, secreting them inside his jacket. “You’re a smart kid, Ren. Figure it out. Look around you. I know you’re ahead of the class just because you’re not looping.”

I furrowed my brow. “Looping?”

“Reliving your death over and over. It could be because you were just too fucked up to remember.” He grinned. “You’ve got to love drugs. See the gods, kiss the stars, feel no pain and bam! Wake up dead.” He stood and so did I.

“Keep in mind one little limitation, son. You’ve got a finite amount of energy. Think of yourself as a child’s toy with a fresh battery. The more you play with that toy, the faster the battery will drain. And once you’re out, and you still haven’t caught the train out of Limbo, well.”

“Well, what?” I was sliding down a slippery slope.

“You’ll find out soon enough.” He smiled and grasped my shoulder with a quick squeeze. “Welcome to the Afterlife. But this ain’t it. Except for now. Confused? You just got more sitting at that table than most have ever gotten. Maybe I like you. If I could ever like somebody, but no. It’s all business, as you’ll see."

"The Visitor" #Fridayflash

Yet more from my 27 WIP: 
Previous chunks found first here and here. - CC

Tiffany had her kit out and looked like she was about to shoot up anyway. She was still in a towel and Nine Inch Nails was still playing even though that album was from ’eighty-nine. It was my CD. I guess now it was hers. Just like anything else within her reach. My sister was supposed to have all of this stuff. Maybe she didn’t want it. Maybe she hadn’t been contacted yet.

She snapped off the tourniquet and lay back against the sofa, her gaze looking somewhere into outer space. She licked her lips and swallowed. Curious, I went to stand in front of her. Her gaze shifted to meet mine and a small smile crossed her lips.

“Well, hello there…” she drawled.

I shook my head. Of course she would see me all fucked up. “You’re in my house.”

“Uh huh.” She closed her eyes and rolled her head around on her neck. “This is what I need.”

“What happened, Tiffany?” I crouched beside her and she peeked one eye at me. 

“Pretty easy…you OD’d. Pills, whatever, man. I tried to help you. I put you on your side and you vomited and bled, and I was fucked up too, baby.”

What about the sex we had after? And then she was looking into my fridge. I stood again. She was zoned out. I wouldn’t get anything else out of her, but at least I knew how to make her see me. It was always said drugs opened our minds. I guess that included eyes too.  

There was a knock at the door. I peered through the peephole. It was the creepy guy from the cemetery, Stein. He grinned, and the door swung open. I had to step back out of the way.

 “Mind if I come in? Of course you don’t.” He stepped forward and shook my hand in greeting. His skin was hot, like a stovetop when the oven was on. He even sported a little scruff on his chin and no tie. He indicated the dinette set and pulled a chair out for me. “Sit.”

I did as requested and he took a chair across from me. We regarded one another for a few moments before he spoke. 

“I’ve put this off for a day to think on what I want to do with you.”

I sat back in my chair and rested my palms on the tops of my thighs. “Who are you, exactly?”

Stein smiled and pulled a pack of cigarettes from the inside of his jacket. He tossed them on the table. I glanced from the pack to him in question.

“Go ahead. I know you smoked. May as well stay comfortable. I don’t think they’ll kill you again.” He chuckled softly.

A book of matches was tucked in the cellophane. I slid it out, pulled out a slim, white cigarette and struck one of the blue-tipped matches to produce an equally blue flame. Stein slid a heavy glass ashtray my direction. 

“Now, let me get to why I’m here. About a week ago, you died en route to the hospital in the back of an ambulance. A shot was administered to your heart to try to jumpstart you, but you were already on the outside looking in by that time. Do you remember?”

“Sorta.”

“See, my main aspirations are hot hookers and blow, sometimes at the same time.” He laughed. “But my job is to make sure you get where you need to be now.”

“So you’re an angel.”

“Wrong. Angels can’t interfere with the free will of humans. Or just drop down to earth without a damned good reason. No, son, I’m the one that every man, woman and child, and any variation thereof waits for.”

“Death.” The cigarette didn’t taste like it used to, but the simple familiarity of holding it between my fingers and breathing out the smoke was comforting.

“Close. I’m the fellow that shows up along with. I get confused with Big D, but no, I’m nothing that grand, although I have a comprehensive benefits package.”

“Grim Reaper?” I couldn’t help but laugh. “I expected a faceless figure…”

“In a robe? With a big fucking scythe?” Stein mimicked holding the weapon and covered his face. He laid his hands on the table again, only to lace his fingers. “Too passé. Times have changed, and so have I.”

“So what’s this got to do with me?” I crushed my cigarette into the ashtray to extinguish it.

“Keep the pack.” Stein nodded at my hand covering the box. His gaze returned to meet mine. His eyes were dark, like they’d been at the gravesite. “I’d love to take you, Ren, but the truth is you might be somebody else’s. Point is, you have to stay here for a little while longer. Try not to haunt too many folks, eh son?”

“And do what? Just hang around?”

Stein shrugged. “Whatever comes to mind. Need a job? Look around you. There’s plenty to do. Just remember the rules of the dead.”

I frowned. “Rules?”

Stein laughed and waved a hand at me dismissively. “Everything has rules, you know that. Our rules are a little stricter than most because instead of fining you a fee, we’ll just send your ass straight to Gehenna.”

"64 Degrees" #Fridayflash

 A few weeks ago, I posted 27. Here is Ren once again... thanks for reading. - CC

Photo credit: click from morguefile.com

Far away, there was a siren fast approaching. The sound swelled in volume until it was all I could hear, like it was coming from inside me. I dropped the cigarette to the floor to cover my ears. Hands took hold of my wrists and held me down.
I opened my eyes.

I was in a moving vehicle and my body was a bag of sand. The stretcher poked the sides of my arms, but I couldn’t move. The sway of the ambulance increased the roll in my gut and vomit spewed up, unbidden. A woman of indeterminate age held a bag to the side of my face and turned my head. Her gloved hands waved close enough to my face to poke me in the eyes. I wouldn’t react. The siren stopped and so did we. So did I.

I stood close to the curb under the eaves of the Mother of Mercy hospital and watched as EMTs unloaded a covered body on a stretcher. The scene wasn’t frightening or panic-inducing. Not after being that jacked-up. Speaking of which, I’d need to get more. Now that I wasn’t clean anymore. Strangely enough, the thought of not getting more didn’t launch me into a cascade of worry. I slid my hands into my pockets, the swish of the automatic doors stuck on repeat in my brain.

Lights progressed overhead, swoosh-swoosh-swoosh like dotted lines on a road, blinding and sweet.

We got him?

Negative. Try again.

Lightning zig-zagged in my chest cavity. The pierce of a needle straight through the sternum. I hated needles, with their shiny points and oozing fluids, like sharp dicks. Like…

Thunder rolled on the horizon. Trees shimmied overhead. I was standing in a grove. What the fuck was happening? A dream, nothing more.

Renalt had a dream, damnit.

Nate called me Renalt. Nobody called me that but family and family didn’t come around.

“It’s Ren, asshole. Ren!”

A hand appeared on my shoulder, hot. Blazing. My skin wanted to shy away from that touch.

“I’d say Renalt was a fine name, just fine as the day is long.” His voice had a slow, Southern drawl, white Republican. Cheap sports jacket, lemonade-sipping, Tetley tea Southern.

I turned to look at him. I expected a policeman or maybe a security guard, but he was young, not young like me but couldn’t have been more than thirty-five. Sandy-blonde hair with a pronounced widow’s peak above an arched Jack-Nicholson eyebrow. A girl would call him handsome, but there was something about his eyes. The nothing there. Shine of sun on nothingness, to return a bead of white among the black, so deep it swallowed his irises. He smiled, exposing a row of pearly whites too perfect to be anything but caps. I knew caps, I had them myself.

“Rock musicians have to have good teeth, son.” His smile never wavered and seemed genuine.

A cloud blotted out the sun, exposing my flesh to the prickle of cold air. “I never said anything.”

“Why are you standing here? I’d be over there.” He raised his hand, finger extended to redirect my attention to what I recognized was a memorial service. “It’s the last time you’ll be the center of attention. Might as well enjoy it.”

Sunshine beamed down on my head again as the cloud conveniently wisped away, burned through grey wool. It was a beautiful day. And this man had just told me something that was important. My mind ticked away at the sentence. Last time. Center of attention. I liked attention. Once. Very long ago, only but a few years but at my age, twenty seven, a few years was forever. Forever. A trickle of realization oozed down my spine like an oiled snake.

The gentleman smiled again. Sun beat down on our shoulders, he in all black, hands clasped in front of his equally-black buttons as if he ought to be clutching a bible and giving the Last Rites. My Last Rites. I was dead. Dead, and about to be laid to rest in the ground. My mouth dropped open and I turned to the small crowd in slow-motion, mouthing the negative word like a supervillain about to watch his empire crumple in oversaturated and pronounced superdust.

The grass did not crisp under my feet, my shadow did not run ahead of me as it had ever since the day I first poked one pudgy baby toe against the solid earth, no I was air; an angry wind that fluttered the Xeroxed fliers clasped in my family’s and friends’ hands. A sudden breeze that whipped black skirts against black stockings and blew my aunt into my sister.

The man from over there stood over here. He wore a smile that made a tiny dimple in the right side of chin appear and fade depending on the light. “Nice try, son. But you don’t have a leg to stand on now, do you?” His hearty laugh stopped me in my non-existent tracks. I glared at him over the gloss of my black coffin, of course it’d be black, everything else was black out here in the cheery, laughing sunshine, it made so much sense.

“You’re a piece of work, Renalt.”

I jabbed a finger in his direction. “Don’t fucking call me that!”

The man shrugged and held his hands palms turned out, as if in resignation. “Suits you fine, I’d say. Have it your way, son. Ren.”

“Who are you?” I was clenching my teeth so tight, it felt like they would crack from the pressure. “Who the fuck are you?”

The man laughed again. “I’ve got a few names that folks call me, some new, some old, but you can call me Stein. And Renalt?” He arched a brow. “Try living with Cristein all your life.”

“We’re dead.”

“Some would say that, yes.”

Throughout the ordeal, my coffin had been lowered into the grave. The rectangle looked to be a hole into eternity, except if I stepped to the edge. My coffin with its spray of ivory lilies and I don’t know what else gleamed up as the first clod of dirt struck the lid.

“You might not want to watch this part.” Stein stood at my side, peering down in the hole with me. He was just an inch or two taller than me. He squinted his black eyes—not beady, but they still reminded me of a crow’s—at the sun. “Coffee or liquor? It won’t make you sicker.”

“What?” I glanced down at my outstretched arms. White. Whole. I felt real to me. I turned away from the sounds the clods of earth made as the people I’d known buried me.

Beyond the flat, green lawn, a long black car hulked on the shoulder of the narrow cemetery road. I looked from it to Stein. “This is really happening, isn’t it?”

“Depends on your point of view, Ren. Not everything you experience ever really happens now, does it?” His smile gave me a chill.

“Why can’t they see me?”

Stein shook his head and stepped back from the scene at my grave. I followed him half way to the car, which seemed to be his.

“Because you’re not really here.”

I blinked. “What? What’s that supposed to mean? Of course I’m here.”

Stein gave a little snort. “Well, you are, and you aren’t. You-you is over there, about to become wormdirt. What’s left of you is up for grabs. You see son, you did a naughty thing, and as for all naughty things, there’s gonna be consequences.” He grinned.

In Memorandum.

I died last night.

The crows pierced the clouds overhead and the stars fell in and I died. Glistening veins pouring like a river, slinking over time-worn bones and the worms. Breeding, bursting, popping inside like crackling wood. Fires of love and life smoldered to a slow smoky trail of ashes. A blinding light, trailing over fingers, twitching as they curl under for the last time. Cold steel divides the line between flesh and meat, extracting my insides. Questioning the manner in which I passed. Burning skin twisting in the flames as it chars into dust.

Let me join my brothers.

Ahead is green. Seeping into the risk of me. Breathing for me. Being me. Thoughts faded and irrelevant to doing. Expectations rinsed away to expose the very center of me. Existing as a memory of many.

I am free.


Photo credit: lorettaflame from morguefile.com

Halloween Trio #2 "The Downside of 24-Hour-Stores" (repost)

Photo credit: clarita from morguefile.com

I’d be crazy not to follow you where you live. Your eyes, your lips—I can taste them when I bite the air. You pass through the aisles of flowers and the light glints off your horn-rimmed glasses. You clear your throat and clutch your handbag closer. I pause on the next row and stoop to catch a glimpse of your fingers caressing satin petals. You raise your eyes to mine, between pert stalks of begonias.

A gasp.

You spin on your heel and proceed the way you came. Tomato plants whisper past your bare legs.

Short skirt.You remind me of someone.

I halt midstep. 

You seem genuinely concerned.

Am I not following closely enough?

I’ll apologize into your skin.

I can smell your go-go boots. White leather. Flesh beaten into a semblance of innocence. Plasticine over your calves, leaving the knees bare. A symphony of gold and shimmering pinks with coffee. You disappear around the corner. I give chase.

The sliding doors part to depart you and I stop too late.

The parking lot resounds with screams of agony as the first rays burn my eyes.

Halloween Trio #1 "Nightlife" (repost)

 
Photo credit: spiroll from morguefile.com
 
“Early to bed

And early to rise

Makes a man or woman

Miss out on the night life.”

Early to Bed – Morphine

Deidre watched me from across the room, one leg thrown over the other like she’d been molded that way.

“You staying up much longer?” she said, reaching across the arm of the sofa for her glass of wine. Her diamond anklet twinkled in the 40-watt bulb’s light from under the amber art-deco lampshade. I shrugged, leaned back against the leather lounge chair and changed the channel. She sighed, swirled the wine around in her glass.

“You always end up staying up too late,” she pouted, her cerulean blue eyes struggling to meet mine. It was one feature I always liked about her. When we’d met for the first time, amidst curled smoke and the dark stench of expensive liquors, I couldn’t stop staring at them.

“Forget it Greg,” she said and stood. “I’m going to bed.”

I watched her climb the stairs and closed my eyes. It’d been months since I’d climbed those stairs behind her. I think it was about the same time she quit her nighttime job as a singer and given up on her figure. She still had her fake breasts. But her body’d caught up with them to justify their size.

I glanced upstairs just as the light went out in the bedroom. Half-past midnight I rose from my chair and went to the kitchen to pour myself a glass of scotch, plunking three ice cubes in it to chill the flavor. I followed it up with two more, just standing there.

It was a slow death, our marriage. A stalemate because neither would give in.

I picked up the bottle and took it into my office and shut the door. I could hear her faint snores overhead through the ceiling. I flicked the power switch on my Mac and sunk into my three-thousand dollar chair. It was the best seat in the house, and Deidre’d never sat in it. It didn’t have her stink or sweat on it.

A message popped up on the screen, making me smile.

Hey baby.

I twisted the cap off the scotch and drank right out of the bottle before responding.

Sorry I’m late.

The response came quick.

It’s alright. It’s her loss she can’t stay up later.

I laughed a little to myself, softly, lest the sleeping giant hear me.

You know I’d rather have you. What are you doing tonight?

Another drink. I licked my lips waiting for the reply.

You, I hope.

Just the words I wanted to see.

Where to meet?

Why don’t you come here? I typed.

LOL, are you serious?

Yeah. We have a pool…

Mm. Sexy.

I realized I’d been holding my breath and let it out in a shudder.

You got it. If she wakes up, it’s all on you, lover.

Fair enough, I typed back.

~~~

Forty-five minutes later, a silver BMW graced my drive. Clad only in my boxers, I directed it into the garage, closing the door behind it. The engine cut out, and the door opened.

“I can’t believe you did it,” I said, my voice colored with lust.

He smiled; a slow spread of those lips, and his dark eyes shined with devilish intentions. My bare chest crushed against the smooth tailored fabric of his shirt.

“Why don’t we just kill her,” he breathed into my mouth ahead of a scorching, biting kiss, sucking my bottom lip before we parted, me blinking in disbelief.

“Kill her?”

He nodded once and licked my taste from his lips, closing the door soundlessly behind him.

The more my mind turned it over, the more I liked the idea of her being dead.

~~~

I admit, we both had more than enough scotch to excuse the behavior. First it was a messy concept: an ax, or a knife through the heart. He suggested we stake her like a vampire and we laughed before fucking again. Spent, drunk and homicidal, we finally decided to smother her with a pillow.

“A pillow?” he laughed, and kissed me in the chilling waters of the pool. We were both naked with the pool lights out. She’d have to look hard to even see us from the second floor. I looked above us. The moon was neatly out of sight behind a copse of cloud cover.

I rose up out of the water without warning and grabbed a towel.

“Now?” he said, following suit. I watched his dripping form and grinned.

“Sick,” he said and popped my bare ass with his towel. We went inside to get dressed.

 

~~~

The bedroom was pitch-black; I had the windows covered with heavy drapes because I slept in most mornings. Owning my own bank chain did have its perks. I could feel him press against me as we crept across the room with my guidance. I knew the layout, he didn’t.

Deidre was a back-sleeper, which made it relatively easy. I picked up the pillow from my side of the bed and crawled up beside her. She snored gently, before snorting when I clamped the pillow over her face.

Her body came alive with movement and I could hear her scream through the feathers. We bought the good pillows, thickly stuffed with goose down and 400-threadcount casing. The pillow was built to kill, but she wouldn’t give up that quickly.

Her arms flailed until she found my face and dug her hundred-dollar manicured nails deep into my skin, cutting red slashes, demanding I let go but I didn’t. I could feel the blood trickle down my cheeks and clung to her as she bucked like a pissed-off bronco at a rodeo. Her fat thighs slapped together as she kicked, drawing her knees up to slam into my spine. I cried out and she threw me off her to fall on my head in the darkness. With a banshee scream, she leapt on me and I squirmed out from under her, throwing her back into the window. She ripped the curtains down and I took the initiative to wrap them tightly around her neck. I held it tight, until she stopped struggling and I held something limp in the eerie milk-stain of the full moon's light.

She was finally dead. I released the fabric, clenching my fists over and over, my heart thundering in my ears. Behind me I heard a low rumble and turned.

Where my lover was, there stood a monstrous black beast.

"Spoiler" #Fridayflash

Photo credit: alvimann from morguefile.com


This story is unique. An experiment from a dream I had this week. Hi-five to my muse. He gave me this, but on one condition: I had to write it backwards. So here is a story-written backwards. Enjoy - CC.


There’s a dull gleam to the moment you realize is your last.

In the side-view, I saw it. Real, but not real. It couldn’t be real. It was flying, and we were going close to one-hundred-twenty miles an hour. A death head in pursuit. A bony sound on the rear spoiler. Like pebbles hitting a window. I heard it before he did.

I glanced over at Bryan, his arms held straight out like he was pushing the steering wheel away, but his knuckles bled white. His eyes were locked on the road. I asked him why was he moving; we could get a better look if we stopped where the grass wasn’t so high. There was no moon, but we could see.

Hey wait, stop the car. Oh my God. Stop the car!

A beeping sound—echoing. A sound off of the old Doctor Who, when they still used wavy tricks to make the opening title interesting.

Religious icons of every creed and culture glowed phosphorescently in the sky, over to the right, like fit-together shapes. Like Tetris. A powdered-diamond-blast-pattern of stars filled the spaces between, gradually melting behind the clouds. Clouds to the left, smoked and swirling, geometric—like Incan designs—squared and labyrinthine. I looked out the windshield, hand pressed against the cold glass.

We were on our way home after a party. It was 3AM.

Jailed #Fridayflash

Photo credit: cooee from morguefile.com

“I write foresight,

One day you’ll find me in the distance

More sublime

But still never died before.”

Jail - NOLA (Down)

Ice crusted the glass; white piled in small drifts around the wipers. The moon smiled at me from her gleam on the hood, but my headlights were dismal candles, mocked by the enshrouding mystery of early morning fog.

I felt something. Something there. A chill that snaked down my spine, blossoming in spider-pricked gooseflesh on my entirety. My fingers cowered in their leather gloves, nearly releasing the steering wheel. A stunning realization that I was not alone in the car. I was afraid to look.

Afraid I’d be right.

The fog divided by the hood wisped along the window. Ghosts of sky, weighed down with wet and white to blanket the earth of mortals. I summoned the courage to take a quick glance at the passenger seat.

Nothing, aside from silvered shadows diffused by the windshield. I took a shuddering breath. Switched on the heat. The car felt like a tomb.

Glanced in the rearview mirror. Nothing but darkness and my wild, staring eyes. Adrenalin surged through me, thrilling my muscles. I increased my speed to shorten the duration to the next town. I’d get out. Shake it off. Maybe get a motel room. I wasn’t as young as I used to be; I could drive for twenty-four hours back when I was twenty.

But not here. I wouldn’t—couldn’t—get out here. This was in-between land, this dazed cushion of damp down and beguiling muted colors.

I turned up the radio. Rich, mahogany tones of bass guitar and silken deep voices comforted me. The ice crept in from the outside. My breath was frozen and fell to my lap like snow. I dropped my gaze to my thighs. A flash of light. Thunder in my ears, trapped. Rushing.

It was dark then. Only the green dials gave approximation of where the dash could be. I felt disengaged. Wet. Before the window closed on my last breath, I finally saw him. He was there to meet me, only he couldn’t follow.

Then it was dark no more.

"Stiff" #Fridayflash

Photo credit: xandert from morguefile.com

She left me here. Ragged and weeping on the floor like a leaking faucet. Bats fly in a blurred tornado of red ears and beaded black eyes. Fingers twitch and face itches from the tiny haired feet of a spider.

                                                                         

She lied to get me here. Face stitched to the cut-pile carpet with undulating waves of russet sunset and one very thin thread of azure. She was so sure. Took awhile to lie down and wait for the numb and shock of thunder to transverse my system.

I should’ve listened.

Should’ve bared my soul long ago and taken the hand that would’ve been here. Now that my time is near. I don’t know where I’m headed but it sure isn’t heaven.

I hear her below and I still can’t take in breath long enough to break this frozen death to knock three times and let her know I still want her.

"Vicarious" #Fridayflash

Photo credit: xandert from morguefile.com

“Part vampire, part warrior,

Carnivore and voyeur

Stare at the transmittal.

Sing to the death rattle.”

Vicarious – Tool

A woman fell on the cracked sidewalk and chanced a glance behind her. The two shaded figures were gaining. With a sharp cry, she clawed to her feet again and fled. An ATM machine stood silent, waiting for customer to insert card. Her silhouette grazed over the glass lens of the camera. She turned a corner into the alleyway. The two figures gave close pursuit. Out of sight, her scream was cut short.

A man stood outside his house gazing up at the sky at the darkened hulks roaring overhead. His wife stood at the door halted by his harsh words. Great bellies seemed to drift overhead before the bay doors opened. He registered as a slight orange and red blip on the monitor screen before the blast.

A girl lay on her stomach over her bed, grinning into her webcam. Accented murmurs filtered from the screen. She smiled coyly before unbuttoning her blouse. The elderly woman next door was slowly mottling as her Pekinese caught and jerked strips of flesh. On the counter, her overly simplified cell phone rang. The gas stove never lit. The web camera image dissolved into a fit of static when the duplex exploded.

A business woman stepped onto the elevator downtown and selected a lower floor. She popped open her clutch to extract her lipstick, her eyes climbing towards the ceiling where the camera blinked, comforting her. She swallowed the lipstick and bit into her lip as the cable snapped and the car plunged ten stories into the garage. The doors bulged but wouldn't open.

______

Up in the sky, an old building stood defiant against the winds, swirling through broken glass to catch old scraps of paper and rustle tattered drapes. Curling wallpaper flaked to the moldy carpet. One room remained unaffected by time. A great bank of curved monitors, stacked artfully to form one solid wall of hundreds of changing images, and an eye to the world. Yellowed New World Order posters clung to the walls. Graphs of human violence in various locations of the globe highlighted with circled lettering.

Still seated, though it’d been long ago that his legs had last been strong, a man slumped in an overstuffed office chair. Every so often he moaned softly, gaping his toothless mouth. His grey tongue snaked out to flick dust off his lips.

Hordes of cockroaches and rats scurried along and over abandoned desks, skittering over the CRT monitors, three of which had ceased function. The figure jerked in his seat, shaking his fingers gently over the arms of his chair. Wires danced from his fingertips, and his eyes shifted under his sealed eyelids.

On the top left monitor, gunfire, sending a body to the ground.

His mouth pulled upwards in the semblance of a smile.