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This page contains SIX of my short stories that have appeared on other sites. While the first five are horror, the last is something a little different. Please, take the time to read them over and throw me an e-mail and tell me what you think. All stories are pending copyright of the creator. "THE FLESH SUIT WHISPERS" I can only tell you what I saw that day with my own eyes, heard with my own ears. You may take from it what you will. Was any of it real? I still can not say. Granted, I was half starved, out of my mind from grief at finding my wife dead at the outpost. She had finally succumbed to the fever that had gripped her right after the war. It doesn’t matter. I’m writing this down, so perhaps, someone will read it after the fact. If what I have witness comes to bear, someone will know that there were signs before hand. As I had said, I returned to the outpost after scavenging for food. The war had left very little intact. We few survivors were forced to roam like animals in search of scraps to feed ourselves and whatever love ones had managed to live along with us. By now, most fresh food had rotten, and the gangs had grabbed up all the canned goods. We made quick runs into homes looking into cupboards and cabinets. It’s all we could do. If we were lucky, the apartments wouldn’t collapse onto us. The bombs had done so much damage. We counted ourselves lucky that they had not used chemical or biological weapons. As it was, Cleveland had become the site of Hell on Earth, as far as the survivors were concerned. When I returned, Malcolm met me at the gate. He was very pale, and didn’t look away from me as I approached. I knew before he said anything, that something had happened to Mary. I asked him repeatedly, “What?” He kept telling me to sit down. I knew she was getting worse, that her time was ending, but I had tried to ignore the obvious. We had lived through the third world war. How could my wife die from infection a month later? I would hear none of it. I ran from the outpost, ran from the members who had gathered outside to try and console me. I away from the body of my loved one who had stayed with me through the possible fall of humanity. My parents had died before the war, my only brother missing and I assumed dead. I was alone in this apocalypse, this horrible new world. Mary had been what I held onto, now she too had left me. Eventually my lungs burred, and I was forced to stop. I had fled farther than I had ever ventured before. Around me, the ruins of civilization lingered, reminding me of what little I had left in this life. Buildings crumbled, cars turned upside down, bodies picked apart by animals turned wild. The stench alone I had grown accustom to, but the sights were still a horror. Was this the legacy of mankind? What a world for the children, and I thanked whatever viscious god lived in the heavens that Mary could not have conceived. I made my way further down the broken streets, further into the heart of the city. Sometimes at night we had heard strange noises coming from the depths of the metropolis, hummings and whines. Things, that on the wind, sometimes sounded like laughter. No one from the outpost had the courage to wander that far into the urban sprawl, fearing what or who may still lurk there. The sounds were enough. Now I journeyed there on purpose. Perhaps I would find my oblivion at the source of the sounds, perhaps I would find no answers to my damnation. Deeper and deeper I made my way. Fires still burned in small locations and a pack of stray cats watched my progress. One whole building seemed to have been uprooted and then laid down on it’s side intact. It blocked ny passage, so around it I went. Strange I thought, the vegetation had already blossomed through parts of the concrete and steel. Vines hung from lamp posts here and there, and grass peeked out around clumps of charred pavement. It would seem nature was not waiting to reclaim it’s space where man had invaded. I heard it before I saw it. A peculiar sound, like that of a baby’s wail. Yet this cry came from high above. I put my hand to my brow to block out the sun, scanning the sky for the source. Could there be people living in this wreckage? A child, a family? Then, Swooping between the shells of the buildings I saw it. Like something out of a storybook, a creature of fantasy. The body of a toddler, it had, but endowed with the manhood of an adult. It’s lower jaw had seemingly came unhooked like a snake’s, open and wailing. The tongue whipping about the face and top of the head like a windsock. The thing glided on air, propelled by giant wings of gossamer, much like a butterfly’s. Rich colors, hues of blue and green made up the patterns swirling around them. I admit, I froze in place. This was both in fear and astonishment. What type of monster was this? Could there have been other types of weapons used, things that would have caused such quick mutations? Was this thing, flying above me, more human or animal? My questions became moot as it disappeared behind a skeleton of a building. It had not seen me. Probably from my lack of movement. I was astounded. I thought upon my strange discovery as I hiked deeper yet into the city. Perhaps, there had been something released there in the epicenter, something we survivors were not aware of back at the outpost. My mourning was momentarily suspended by a new suspicion. For the next few hours I trekked across the landscape of the devastation, seeing nothing else to peak my interest. I was feeling weary, and grief was rapidly returning. I prayed for anything, anything to take me away from the endless ruins of my world. Dusk was fast approaching, and to return to the outpost seemed both fool hardy and useless. What was there for me there? Ghosts. Memories of a past life no longer able to grasp. I fell upon the asphalt and contemplated not getting up. It was after a few minutes, I heard the laughter. It came from the other side of the fallen garage, near one of the downed bridges. I grew curious after the voices became more clear to me. Some one was out here, more than one. This knowledge gave me purpose again, something to hold onto, at least for a few more moments. I crawled on my hands and knees around the metal shards, careful not to cut myself, and peered around at the origins of the noise. It was beyond sense, what I saw. These things, these people. They could not be of this world. A woman sat upon a high throne, overlooking a small group of attendance. They all seemed to be engaged in conversation, but none of them appeared as normal. All of them had unnatural colors or growths or size. The woman in the chair was white as bone, her hair trailing down her head and in thin strips down her arms. Her eyebrows curled out from her face, framing an otherwise beautiful visage. She was naked from the waist up. I tried to crawl my way back. These were not humans to greet in a friendly manner. These were something else, something other worldly. I could not know how I knew this, but I could feel the “Wrongness” emanating off of them. I backed up as slowly as I could. “Ah, what have we here? We have a flesh suit, we do.” I turned to see one of their kind behind me. It had a massive chest with thick arms. It’s legs were small and squat, spaced wide apart to accommodate it’s girth. The thing’s face was imbedded in its chest where the pectoral muscles should have been, the eyes rolling hap hazardly in sockets set upon the shoulders. I do believe I screamed. “Oh, there may be time for that later, fleshy flesh. Now it’s time to meet the mother. She’ll just absolutely adore you. Come now.” The creature grabbed me roughly by the collar of my shirt and dragged me kicking into the light of their fires. Under the eyes of these things, I quickly grew rigid. That sense of wrongness once again overcame me, and I tried my best to calm my stomach, lest I be sick in front of them all. My captor pulled me right to the front of the throne where the white woman sat. From her, especially, a feeling of unease permeated. “Look at me,” she purred, her voice the sound of twinkling stars. I could not help myself. I looked up at the woman and beheld their queen. She was beautiful, her body perfection, and her face that of a doll’s. Her eyes were pools of midnight, and her embrace was an offer of utter annihilation. I longed for it, for her. To drink the milk from her breast, that bitter suicide of cosmic proportions. I had nothing else, my Mary was gone, my people were gone, my world was gone. It seemed so simple. “No,” said the queen pulling back from my mind. “This skin wishes it too badly. He had nothing else but his grief right now. Better to let him go, let him spread the word.” Sounds of disappointment rose from the gathered. “Know this, fleshling,” she said. “I am Lacuna, I am the Queen of the Grimmer. We are ancient and powerful and we have been waiting for the time of man to end. And so it has. Our time has come to this planet, and we shall take it. So go. So go and tell everyone of your kind that you see. Be a prophet for these new times. Tell them, fleshling, tell them we are here.” And they released me. I ran, faster than I ever had, faster than when I was told that Mary had died. I ran almost all the way back to the outpost. The only reason I didn’t make back was due to the fact that I collapsed from exhaustion. When I regained consciousness, I ran some more. The people at the outpost didn’t believe my story, of course. They assumed I had gone mad with grief. I wrote down my story and left, heading south. Now I am in Atlanta. Every city I stop in, I tell survivors about what I have seen. Each city, I write down my tale, and leave it at an outpost. At first few believed me. With each telling, more are swayed to my side. People are hearing things, seeing things. Things behind the buildings, things in the sky at night. I will keep writing down my story. Maybe I just truly went mad that night. But maybe those sounds of a baby crying I keep hearing mean something, too. "AGAIN WITH THE BLOOD" It’s never been considered a good thing when you wake up screaming. Bethany did it for the fourth night in a row, so by now she was becoming accustomed to the cold sweats and having her fingers digging at the blankets. It was that sensation of only being a step or two away from vomiting that she couldn’t get used to. That, and the final image of her ongoing nightmare that was burning it’s way into her mind directly behind closed eyelids. She untangled herself from the sheets and stepped down onto the cold floor. The affect only served to accentuate her clamminess. She wiped the beads of perspiration off her upper lip and looked at the clock. She didn’t have to be up for another two hours. But up she was, and any hope of a return to sleep was directly out of the question. Jesus, she was going to be a worthless at work today. Not that it took a mental giant to do retail, but she knew she would spend most of the day as a zombie. She maneuvered her way into the bathroom, almost knocking the telephone off it’s stand. She closed the door before flipping on the lights. She didn’t want to wake up Lindsey, if her screams hadn’t already. She squinted in the brightness, trying to allow her eyes to see properly. As she peered into the mirror, visions from the last moments of her slumber worked their way back into her head. She rubbed her face roughly and examined herself. If she wasn’t already so pale she would be worried. Strait black hair framed her bloodshot eyes and fell slightly below her shoulders. Bethany peeled the slick navy blue tank top off her body and sat on the edge of the tub to draw a bath. A knock on the door made her jump. She was shaking as she wrapped a towel around herself and heard Lindsey’s voice come from the hallway. Her roommate shielded her eyes when Bethany opened the door. Lindsey stood there in her bright green robe, her long curly brown hair pulled into a makeshift ponytail. “Again?” Lindsey asked, leaning against the door frame. “Again.” “Ya look like hell.” “Thank you so much.” Lindsey wandered into the kitchen and began rummaging around in the refrigerator. She pulled out a carton of orange juice and fruit punch juice box. She weighed them in her hands and decided on the orange juice. As she was putting the juice box back, Bethany called out from the bathroom. “Are you up then?” “Yeah. I ain’t gettin’ back to sleep. Especially when ya look all distraught and shit.” Bethany rolled her eyes and closed the door. She unwrapped the towel and starred at the tub. She hadn’t put the stopper in the bottom of it, and it had only filled a few inches. She reached over, spun the knob and let the water stream out of the shower nozzle. If she could push Lindsey in and out of the shower fast enough, they might have time to run to the coffee shop to grab a few bagels or something. She step into the water and let it cascade over her face, leaning back, she let the steam build up behind the curtain. A few more nights like this and she would welcome the possibility of being committed. She wished Jake had stayed over night again. At least she wouldn’t wake up alone. Christ, she hoped she was alone last night. A shudder rolled through her as the final memories played in her head. The white dress, the short curly blond hair, the blood. The soap slipped from her hand as the images assaulted her. Her bedroom, the girl, the blood. The blood. Bethany found there were tears rolling down her cheeks. She quickly pulled herself together, as best she could, and retrieved the soap. Only when she was toweling off, did she consider the ramifications of having a cold chill in a hot shower. In her deep purple robe, she stepped hesitantly out into the hallway. Silence. She didn’t hear Lindsey. She didn’t even hear the cats and the ridiculous bells on their collars. She strained to hear the sounds of cars on the road, or the sound of a neighbor’s television. She was rewarded with nothing. She shut her eyes tightly and murmured a “no.” She wouldn’t look over into her room. Didn’t want to see it. Not again, not so soon. Not all that blood. Not... “Bethany?” Bethany screamed and spun around. Lindsey let out a yelp and dropped the coffee cup in her hands. “Jesus fucking Christ, Beth!” Bethany ran her fingers through her hair and sighed. While she stood there, Lindsey hopped over the brown puddle and scooped up some dish towels from the kitchen. She moped up the spill while her roommate stood there in a daze. “Okay, we’ll skip the coffee. Don’t think ya need it anyhow,” Lindsey said, attempting to wrangle a smile out of her. Lindsey took her blank stare as an answer, but Bethany was trying to hold back another set of tears. She mumble something, and Lindsey looked up. “I said, I didn’t hear you. Thought maybe you went back to bed.” “I told ya I was up, honey. I’m here for ya.” Lindsey lead Bethany to the couch. After she waived away Lindsey’s question of some orange juice, she started fiddling with the tassels on the end of one of the pillows. As Lindsey poured herself some coffee. Bethany tried to get her pulse under control. “All right,” she said, plopping down on the opposite end of the couch. “So...” she added, leaving the air open for Bethany to fill. “It’s the same as the other nights, like I said,” Bethany began, furiously unwinding the tassels. “You and I are standing in the kitchen. I look over a see a woman, a girl, in a white dress run from your bedroom to mine. I don’t hear anything, like footsteps, I just see it. I try to tell you, but you can’t hear me. It’s like I‘m not even there. Like I’m invisible or some shit. So I walk over to my bedroom and look in. And this girl is standing there with her back to me. She has on a white sun dress, the kind with ties in the back, and short, curly blond hair. And... and there’s a pool of blood at her feet. She’s standing in it. It’s all over her feet, and she’s barefoot. Then she turns around. She turns around, Lindsey, and...” “And then you wake up.” Lindsey says grabbing Bethany’s pinky and wiggling it in support. “I see her first. Her whole front is covered, just like, fucking drenched in blood. I, ah... I think her throat is slit. Like, ear to ear slit. ” “Ew, damn! You didn’t tell me that part before!” “I don’t think I remembered it until now.” Bethany struggled through work that day. Like a robot, she placed the blouses, tank tops, and cutesy tee shirts on hangers. She methodically folded all of the jeans and kakis on the display tables. Jumping every time a co-worker or customer spoke to her, by the time her lunch break came, she was a wreck. Bethany sat outside the mall entrance and sucked down three cigarettes in a row, the last one making her nauseous. The rest of the day was the same. On her way home, she picked up some Chinese take-out for herself and Lindsey. Driving home, she noticed her cell phone beeping. She had been zoned out all day, and had forgot to call Jake on her second break like she usually did. It was probably from him. It was, and the message wasn’t good. His economics professor had assigned them a power point presentation, and it was due in two days. Since he had to work tomorrow after classes, he would have to work on it tonight, and not be able to see her. Bethany massaged the bridge of her nose and tried not to be mad. She hadn’t told Jake anything about her dreams, so he wouldn’t know how badly she wanted him to be there tonight. It wasn’t his fault. Oh well, she had designs to work on for class tomorrow herself. Maybe if she stayed up and worked on some projects in advance, she would eventually be exhausted enough to sleep through the night. Dreamless sleep. Lindsey walked in shortly after she did. Wanting to cheer up her roommate, she came bearing rented DVD’s. An armload of stupid teen comedies. Bethany decided to blow off her school work. If a guy prodding pastries with his dick didn’t scare off the nightmares, nothing would. After six hours of fart jokes, zit jokes, and period jokes, she actually felt good enough for bed. Both girls stood hesitantly in the hallway. Lindsey shuffled her feet on the carpeting, and Bethany chewed on her lip. Neither wanted to abandon the other first. “If ya need anything...” “I’ll be fine. Thanks Linds.” Lindsey nodded and closed her bedroom door. “Lindsey! Lindsey! I’m right here! Why can’t you fucking hear me?” Bethany keeps screaming, but Lindsey ignores her. She has to tell Lindsey about the woman. A woman just ran out of her room, and into Bethany’s. She has to come with Bethany into the room to look for the woman. Don’t make her go by herself. But she does. Her roommate can not hear her. Her roommate does not know she is there. So Bethany walks to her bedroom. She looks in the doorway, into the room. The woman is standing there, near the corner. She has a white sun dress on. It’s the kind that ties in the back. She has short, curly blond hair. The woman is standing barefoot in a pool of blood. Bethany walks forward. She touches the woman on the shoulder, and the woman turns around. Blood covers the front of the dress. It has soaked into it, making it stick to her. Bethany sees the drops of red trickling off the hem of the dress. Bethany looks up and sees the woman smile. It is not a smile. It is red, like lipstick, but it is not a smile. It is too low. Underneath her chin, on her throat, and it reaches to each earlobe. The woman opens her mouth, her real mouth, and a red bubble pops out. And then it pours. And then blood pours out. Screaming. Bethany was screaming and clutching her pillow. At the trail end, it caught in her throat and made her cough. Coughing? When she began breathing right again, she ran a hand through her hair. She looked over at the clock and groaned at the time. She had only been asleep a little more than an hour. This was not going to work. She still didn’t hear Alex’s television, but that didn’t mean anything. He was a painter, and a nocturnal creature of habit. Maybe she could go over there for a while. She might actually be able to fall asleep on his couch while he droned on about Impressionist art. His ramblings about obscure artists had that effect. Bethany reached over and flipped on her desk lamp, but froze with one foot out of the bed. There was a puddle on her floor. It was a dark red puddle, and it was exactly were the woman had been standing. Everything went cold. All she could do was listen to her heart pound rhythmically and stare in stark horror at the blood. Then she saw the marks leading away from the puddle. It was a trail. There were bloody footprints leading out of her room. Bethany shot out of her bed. Lindsey. She had to make sure Lindsey was okay. She tiptoed around the blood, terrified of touching it, as if a single toe were to make contact, it would summon the woman back. She opened the door and peered into the hall. The footprints lead to Lindsey’s room. Bethany didn’t know whether to be angry or terrified. Either her roommate was playing a cruel joke or something was in the house. Or she could just be totally insane. She followed the footprints down the hall, alternating her eyes from the trail to Lindsey’s door. It was closed. She knocked on it, calling out her friends name, little more than a whisper. She knocked again, but said nothing. She turned on the hall light to look at the door. It was the same as usual, a large poster of Joni Mitchell adorning it. Bethany opened the door. Light spilled into the room, illuminating Lindsey where she stood. She stood in her bright green robe. She stood with her back facing the doorway. She stood at the end of the trail of footprints. A tiny moan escaped Bethany. She did not realize she was walking forward. She did realize, until it was too late, she had touched Lindsey on the same part of the shoulder that she had touched the woman only moments ago in her nightmare. But she saw the blood. She saw how it stained the criss crossing fabric and how it dripped from the belt. She saw horrible smile carved across Lindsey’s throat, and she saw the box cutter in Lindsey’s hand. She saw the blank, deadness to her roommates eyes, and the bubble burst out of her roommates mouth, splattering her face. She saw her roommate collapse to the ground. Only then, right on time, did Bethany scream. "THE TWILIGHT YEARS" It was the ending of things, the finale. Some called them the Twilight Years. He hated that word, twilight. He preferred, if anything, dusk. It sounded dirtier, raunchier. It conjured the scents of body fluids. Twilight was sparkling and pretty. Young lovers whispering secrets. If offered up the optimism of a dawn. Eighty. Eighty fucking years old. Twenty more years, and he would have been alive for a goddamn century. He remembered when he was only twenty. It had been a grand age. He had been twenty when he made his discovery. That brilliant, shinning second when he knew. And how many people can remember (especially at his age) the moment when the purpose in their feeble lives are shone clear. Henry puttered around his house. Feet shuffled in mangy, faded slippers across stained linoleum. The pain in his lower back was running a close tie with the ache in his hands and wrists. He paused in front of the kitchen sink, considering the act of retrieving a plastic cup one of the cats had knocked to the floor. Hiking up his pants over his rotund middle, he lowered himself to the ground. Now on his hands and knees, he inspected a small puddle of dried gravy that had congealed beneath the table. He grimaced. Down didn’t present the same problems that up did. With the tacky orange cup in one hand, Henry struggled to regain his footing. Now returned to a prone position, he was breathing hard. Damn cats. He tossed it over into the sink, already filled with filth encrusted dishes. A haze of gnats had formed over them to accompany the stench. The insects gorging themselves on mold, some of it now of the grey, furry variety. He watched as the cup teeter on the edge of a chipped white plate, its lack of balance ready to drop it either into the clogged black water, or back to the floor again. Luck sided with Henry, and it splashed into the sink, sloshing water onto the counter. He turned from the mess unconcerned. It would dry. His chair called him. An ancient lazy boy, with torn material at the arm rests. Small tears had began where the woven cloth had met the wood, and picking at it for thirty years had essentially stripped them bare. Henry lowered himself onto the broken springs. They had collapsed under his constant presence, and now hugged his form perfectly. He sat back waiting for the spasm in his spine to pass. He studied the treasures on his end table as the small convulsions attacked his back muscles. He liked to look at them. It made him feel young again. Made him feel alive. He used to have them hidden away, locked in an old metal safe. Eventually, he realized that no one would even think anything strange if they were noticed. An old man’s collection of nick-nacks. He also worried, in his aging state, that he would forget the combination. Twenty three small clear plastic film canisters were meticulously arranged on the table top, each containing a small object, each object different. A locket, a key, a plastic fingernail, a match, a tiny container of lip gloss, a broken lenses to a pair of sunglasses, a cigarette butt, a torn photograph. Twenty three items, things that looked ready to be thrown away, keepsakes of an old man. Anymore, Henry could display them proudly, just the addled prerogative of the elderly. The neighbor boy who cut his lawn had seen them and just rolled his eyes. The man who delivered his groceries couldn’t care less. The visiting nurse he used to have thought they were prescious. Christ, when she said that, Henry had to use every ounce of control not to stab her in the throat with her blue ball-point pen. They were more than his treasures. They were his trophies. Each one gained after a victory. Each one a reminder of his youth, when he did the work he had been born for. The last one was won over a decade ago, after he had considered himself retired. Stupid born-again bitch had wanted to preach the word to him. He had returned from the kitchen, after an offer of tea, crept up behind her and strangled her with an electrical cord. He had still been strong enough then for such activities. A small golden cross, worn as a lapel pin, sat in one of the canisters. A knock came from his door. Henry grappled his way out of his chair. He paced wobbly over to answer it, and grimaced when he looked through the inset window. An older man stood there fiddling with the top of his cane. Dominic was a spry seventy four with a hint of senility. They had worked together at the hardware store for years. He opened the door and grunted a hello. “Well there Henry, how’s the back today?” Henry grunted again in response. “Still the same, eh? A pity, growing old is. A real shame. Well, if your feeling up to it, there selling their day old pastries down at Lugo’s for half off now. Was going to go down and get me a bear claw.” Henry grunted a third time and trudged over to the room divider to grab his wallet. A creme stick and some coffee did sound good. Maybe if he was feeling up to it, when he got back, he’d slit Dominic’s throat with a steak knife. There was still room on his end table for another canister.

"THINNER THAN LOVE" Kent Harrison had burnt his eggs. Again. He wondered how his wife had always managed to pull it off. The perfect consistency, the perfect yellow. He had heard that scrambled was the easiest way to make them. Yet another breakfast ruined. He shuffled across the kitchen in his slippers, making his way to the coffee pot. At least he couldn’t screw that up too bad. Coffee and cigarettes - The All American breakfast. Maggie would be so pissed to know he had taken up the habit again. They had quit together seven years ago, right before Kevin. The nicotine helped him through the day now, each puff a calming reminder of a life long ago. He considered the work he had to get done today. Finish the website for Holdren, e-mail about twenty different members of management, see if he could debug the house mainframe from home. He really didn’t want to go in to the office today. It had been too long since his last visit, but he couldn’t afford it. Too much to lose. Just as he was about to read the paper, a knock on the door came. It could only be one thing. Kent was both terrified and relived. He gathered his nerves, placed the paper back on the kitchen table, and tied his robe tighter. The knock turned into a pounding just as he reached it. He opened the door to see a stern looking younger man on his steps. He had on a navy blue uniform, complete with helmut and padded vest. The officer had two sawed off shotguns slung over each shoulder. “Disposal Department.” “Yes, good morning. Would you like some coffee?” “No thank you, sir. Have you any items that need terminated today?” “No sir, I’m good,” he said, telling the truth. The officer looked over his paperwork. “You are Kent Hannibal Harrison?” “Yes sir.” “I need to inquire about your family, sir.” “My wife was obtained about three weeks ago,” Kent said through clenched teeth. His wife’s disposal had been hard on him. Hopefully, bringing up the subject would keep the officer’s suspicion down. If he seemed still in mourning, perhaps the officer wouldn’t notice the strain he was under during the inevitable next series of questions. “My apologies, Mr. Harrison. I see that now. Have you received your benefits yet?” “Yes, but I’m still working.” “At... Orbit Industries as a computer technician?” “Yes sir.” “Excellent sir. Now I need to see your son, Kevin, age six.” “He’s been staying with his grandmother ever since his mother was removed.” The officer cocked an eyebrow at Kent Harrison. “I have all the documents pertaining to his transfer.” “I’ll need to see those, sir.” “Of course, one moment.” Kent left the door ajar as he walked calmly to his home office. The papers were easily obtainable on the top of his filing cabinet. On his way back to the front door, he prayed for silence from the basement. “Here they are officer.” The officer examined them, glancing twice at the signatures on both pages. Such things had to be kept in order, and this was a fairly unique situation. Before he had a chance to ask, Kent spoke up. “I took my wife’s removal hard. It was... better for Kevin not to be around me for a little while.” “I understand, sir,” the officer said, nodding his head. “This has been a trying time for everyone. I apologize for the difficult questions.” “It’s quite all right. You’re just doing your job.” “Yes sir. Please let us know when your son returns home.” “Of course.” Kent let the door shut with a sigh. As he watched the officer step across his lawn to the next house, he began to tremble. He had fooled them for another week. Eventually, someone would check all the paper work, and put it together. Failure to comply with the Disposal Department carried a very heavy penalty. But, thought Kent, to go along with them was heavier. After watching them proceed a few more houses down the street, Kent slipped into the hallway. He unlocked the door to the basement, and flipped on the lights. The steps creaked under his weight as he carefully made his way down. He stopped halfway down to look around. Nothing had been disturbed. The locks still held. He rounded the bottom step and glanced at his work table. It held an assortment of tools, most that hadn’t been touched in months. He couldn’t bring himself to continue working on the dinning room lamp. He had sworn to finish it after Maggie died, but after what had happened with Kevin, it didn’t seem important. Kevin. The cage sat in the far corner underneath a broken light bulb. Kent couldn’t get close enough to fix it. Kent sat down on the stool about four feet from the cage, his brown eyes welling up with tears. The eyes that peered back at him were shallow and yellow. Kevin dragged himself over to the edge and began rubbing his face against the bars, moaning. His jagged teeth were flaked with dried blood, he had long ago chewed off his own tongue. Long, dirty finger nails ran down the bars, scraping the enamel. His son made a series of biting motions in quick succession. The infection had been dormant in Kevin for almost a week after his mother had succumbed. When it flared up, it came fast. Kent hadn’t even known that his son had been bitten or scratched. Most people had slow moving signs, allowing others to pick up on the changes. Kevin’s had seemingly transformed over night. After losing Maggie, he couldn’t part with his son. He had gone out and bought a strong dog cage made for pit bulls and the like. He had read all the information, seen all the reports. He knew his son was dead, a zombie, but things made him think that his little boy was still in there somewhere. He had calmed down immensely when he had brought Kevin his favorite X-Men doll. Granted, most of the features had been gnawed away, but Kevin knew that it was his little Wolverine action figure. Kent lingered for about ten minutes before the remains of his son. He would have to feed him later on in the day. He had found out the best amount and the right times. If he was fed once a day, in the middle of the afternoon, he would stay quiet most of the time. Too much or too little raw meat, and he became excited. Bashing at the cage, howling. Kent knew how to take care of his son, his little man. And he would until they found him out, and took both son and father away. “Do you want some yummy chicken today, Kev? What does a chicken say?” Blank stares from the cage filled with silence. “I love you, Kevin.” "HOUSE ON OCTOBER HILL ROAD" The station wagon bumped along the dirt road, it’s headlights illuminating the mini van before it. Along the sides, the windows showed nothing but trees. They stood at crooked attention, like sentries before the gate that led further up the hill. The final rays of sunlight were being obliterated by the twilight and an orange glow was cast over the west. Very little of this beautiful sky could be seen from the passengers in the vehicles and even if they could, they would have not appreciated it. They had other things on their mind. “Pass me another fucking beer, man” “Shut up, Scotty. You’ve already had three. Wait until we get to the house,” said Erin. Jackie slouched in the seat beside her boyfriend Tom. She wasn’t happy. This all been Brian’s idea and she was rarely pleased with anything that came out of Brian’s mouth. They had all traveled up from Franklin University to Twinvalle to a house party at Erin’s. While they were sitting around, getting drunk and stoned, everyone had started trading Halloween stories. It was that time of the year and it seemed appropriate. Everything was going fine until Erin brought up the tales about the house on the edge of town. Immediately, the small party had decided it was a good idea to move the festivities to that location. Jackie folded her fingers around Tom’s hand, but she looked over at her twin sister beside her instead. She knew Katie’s thoughts mirrored her own. The two of them had grown up in the same town as Erin, so they knew the tales just as well as their friend. October Hill and the house that sat upon it was somewhat legendary in the community. Every school kid knew the stories that swirled around the mansion that had been erected at the end of the road. Whispers of murder, satanic practices, animal sacrifices, and other such horrors were deeply associated with the house. But no, Brian had to see the house. It was his grand plan to move the party up to the house. Anyone who opposed his idea had been greeted with taunts of “Pussy” and other such demeaning things. Finally, everyone had agreed to check it out with him. When Katie had mentioned that the gates to the house were locked to keep trespassers such as themselves out, Brian had just smiled. It would seem he had bolt cutters in his car for some bizarre reason. The two cars coasted to a stop at the bottom of the hill, before the old gates. Jackie watched as Brian leaped out of the driver’s side door and made his way to the trunk. He fished around in the back until he held up the bolt cutters triumphantly, waiving them around for everyone to see. “Erin, let’s just go back to your house,” said Jackie, trying to keep the warble out of her voice. “No way!” said Scotty. “I’ve been hearing about this place for the last two years I’ve been dating Erin. I wanna check it out.” “Jackie, everything will be fine. Stop worrying,” said Erin from behind the wheel. Jackie looked to her boyfriend for help, but he was starring at the gate eagerly. Tom would be no help. She had told him the stories, too, and he had always expressed an interest in seeing the place. She squeezed his hand, hoping to get his attention. “Don’t worry, babe,” he said, not taking his eyes off the gate. “Everything will be okay.” She turned her head to look at her sister. Katie had her eyes closed. They progressed up the hill without incident after Brian had jumped back in his mini van. The trees masked their ascent and the house remained hidden behind the autumn foliage. Evening had slid into night during the journey, and stars began to twinkle in the East. A three quarters full moon gleamed in the sky, giving off just enough light. The dirt road veered left, then right, then straight. A clearing appeared to the passengers and the house grew visible in the dwindling night light. The house on October Hill Road. Jackie had never seen it before, but it matched all of her expectations. Standing at three stories, it rose slightly above the tree line and from what she could tell, was a dark brown. The windows had all been boarded up and the large front porch was made of crumbling cement. It hunched there like a gigantic crouching spider, raingutters broken off and hanging like legs ready to pounce. The mini van came to a halt right in front of the porch and Erin pulled her station wagon in right behind it. Brian cut the lights in his vehicle, so Erin did the same and the house and it’s surrounding were cast into the dark. For a moment, no one in either of the vehicles moved - they just stared at the house. Then Brian sprung out of the mini van. “This is totally badass! Come on, we’ve gotta get inside!” As the occupants of the van piled out, Jackie went rigid. Inside? “I am not going in there, Tom. Stay here with me,” she pleaded. “C’mon baby! It will just be a minute,” he said climbing out of the station wagon. She exchanged glances with her sister. Katie sighed, shrugged and got out of the car. Jackie swore to herself and followed. Brian and his girlfriend Crystal were already on the porch. He called to his friend Doug to hurry up with the flashlight while he fumbled with the door. Soon all of them were on the porch with him. “Get that light over here. I think...” The door swung open with the slightest push. “Excellent! I thought we were gonna have to break in,” he said. “Tom...” Jackie started, but he had moved away from her up to the door with Brian. “Gimme a flashlight,” said Tom. One by one, they filed into the house, beams of light swooping through the foyer. The light caught doors to the right and the left standing open, a large staircase before them, and a number of small pieces of household furniture in various states of disrepair. A chandelier sat on the ground right in the middle of all of it. “Okay, enough. We’ve seen the inside of the house, so let’s go,” said Katie. “Fuck that,” said Doug aiming his light towards the doorway on the right. “Who’s coming with me?” Eric and his girlfriend Courtney went with Doug through the doorway and disappeared into the house. Brian kept his flashlight trained on the steps. Tom had his light spreading over the remains of their entrance. “Okay, we’ve only got three flashlight. Tom, you and the twins go left. The rest of you, we’re hitting upstairs.” “Brian, we shouldn’t be doing this! What if the floor is rotting out or something? You guys could get really hurt, or...” “Jackie, stop whining. Everything will be fine, Jesus,” swore Brian. Brian, Crystal, Erin and Scotty climbed the steps, their light disappearing as the rounded the bend to the upper floor. “Tom, I want to go outside now!” said Jackie. “Listen, if you and Katie want to go back to the cars, fine. I’m going in here,” he said gruffly. “I’d rather be with Tom inside than alone outside,” said Katie wearily. “Fine,” said Jackie scowling. They moved through the doorway slowly, Jackie tightly gripping her sister’s hand. Tom was shinning the light around the room. It appeared to be a dinning room. A long wooden table was in the middle of the room and chairs were placed all around it. Two china cupboards were against the far wall, sitting empty. Another door was between them. They maneuvered around the table and headed into a kitchen. It was relatively bare, most of the appliances gone. A refrigerator door lay on the dusty floor, it’s bulk up against the farther wall. The light showed years of mold had turned gray and flaky. Yet another door sat partially closed before them. “Haven’t we gone far enough?” asked Katie. Tom ignored her and opened the door. Jackie gave another squeeze to her sister’s hand and followed her boyfriend. They were in some kind of bedroom. A broken mattress sat in the corner on an old frame and dresser was in the middle of the far wall. It’s drawers had all been pulled out and scattered about the room. A mirror above was broken, it’s pieces reflecting the light back onto them. “This must be the butler, or maid’s room,” said Tom. “Look, there’s a book on top of the dresser,” said Katie. Tom moved forward and retrieved it. He started flipping through it, his eyes wide. “It’s a diary. It says... what the hell?” Tom jumped back and put his hand to his head. “What’s wrong?” asked Jackie fearfully. Tom brought his hand into the beam of the flashlight. His fingers and palm glistened red. A quiet noise from the floor drew his light. A small puddle of blood was forming on the floor. Another drip came from the ceiling. Now the light was shone upwards. The ceiling was saturated with a wet crimson. Jackie and Katie screamed in unison and just as their voices died another scream followed it from somewhere in the house. “Let’s go!” shrieked Jackie. Just as they turned into the kitchen, the door to the dinning room slammed shut. All three screamed and raced to the door. Tom began banging on it with his fists, then with the flashlight. “Don’t! You might break the flashlight!” screamed Katie. Another scream came out of the darkness from somewhere in the house. “Here, help me pick up this fridge door!” yelled Tom. The girls scrambled to the fallen door and helped him heave it up. “We’re gonna use it as a battering ram, okay! Ready, one, two, THREE!” The refrigerator door burst through the thin wood, and the three fell into the dinning room. “Come on!” screamed Jackie. They raced around the table and burst out into the foyer. The front door, the one they had left open, was now closed. The girls huddled together by the doorway as Tom frantically bang on the door. “Get it open!” screeched Jackie. “I... I can’t! It’s locked or something!” “Tom?” came a voice from the steps. Tom spun around and shined his light on the stair case. Brian came stumbling down them, holding his back. He was covered in blood. “What the fuck happened, dude! What’s going on?” screamed Tom. “Upstairs... it’s... I saw it. What I saw...” mumbled Brian as he moved closer to Tom. Jackie saw it at the last minute, but she had no time to scream. “... was magnificent.,” finished Brian, pulling out the knife that was concealed behind his back. He plunged the blade into Tom’s stomach and twisted. Tom’s eyes went wide for a moment and a small gasp came from his lips. The twins screamed, frozen in fear, as Tom fell to the ground. Brian bent over and pulled out the knife with one hand, the other retrieving the flashlight. He turned to the girls, using the light to illuminate himself and the blade. “Look what I found!” he exclaimed holding out the knife before tossing the flashlight at them. It fell to the ground inches away from Katie’s foot, it’s light still shinning. “Pick it up,” said Brian calmly. The girls stood there, shaking. “Pick it up!” roared Brian. Jackie grabbed for it, and turned it onto Brian’s grinning face. “Run,” he said with a smile. Jackie and Katie took off screaming through the door way on the right. It was a hallway. Multiple doors lay on both sides, and the twins frantically tried all the knobs. They were all locked. Sobbing, they made their way from door to door down the hall. “I’m counting to ten and then I’m coming!” called out Brian in a sing-song voice. The girls fled down the hall and burst into a library. Jackie cast the light around, looking for somewhere to hide. It’s beam found Courtney bent over her boyfriend Eric. “Courtney, we have to run! Brian’s gone crazy and...” and her voice died in her throat. Their friend was indeed bent over the body of her boyfriend. Eric had been torn open from the throat down to his groin. His open abdomen lay there spread out around Courtney. They watched as she dipped her hand into his carcass and withdrew a handful of blood. She was painting smiley faces on the wall with it. “Courtney!” Courtney turned around at the sound of her name and smiled at them, but did not see them. Her eyes had been gouged out. Before the twins could scream once again, the number “six” was called out by Brian in the foyer. Jackie was almost fainting from terror, but still she swung around the flashlight, looking for anything to hide them. On the far side of the room, another stair case led to the upper floor. Jackie pulled her sister along to that side of the room, but Katie bulked at the foot of the steps. “We can’t go up there! What if...” “We have to hide! He’s coming!” screamed Jackie at her sister, tugging on her hand. The number “ten” rang out from the foyer. The twins ran as fast as the could up the steps, Katie loosing her footing once and almost falling back down. Jackie gripped onto her sister and led her up. There on the hallway floor sat Erin and Scotty. They were giggling. Katie let out a low moan as Jackie pointed the flashlight at them. The couple were tearing pieces of flesh off of each over and eating it. They watched as Erin leaned in and bit a huge chunk out of Scotty’s arm, blood spitting out all over his shirt. Scotty reached over and tore Erin’s ear away from her head. Erin looked up at the twins. Half of her face had been pulled off, revealing her her jaw bone. Erin laughed at them as red liquid spilled out of her mouth and down the front of her. “Up!” screamed Jackie pulling Katie onto the steps and towards the third floor. The stairs creaked under their combined weight, and they topped the flight at a stumble. Two doors sat on opposing sides, both open and inviting. Jackie shone the light into the left one, saw no one, and ran in, dragging Katie behind her. The tattered remains of the room gave it away as a child’s bedroom. A dresser sat right beside the door. “Hurry!” cried Jackie as she slammed the door. Katie had already started pushing the dresser over, and once the door was secure, Jackie joined her. They had just slid the dresser squarely in front of the door when a bang erupted on the outside of it. The twins screamed and leaped back. As laughter came drifting through the wooden door, Jackie collapsed on the ruined bed and began weeping. Tom was dead, her friends had all gone insane, and she was trapped in the third floor of this house with her sister. What the hell was going on? How were they going to get out of here? Oh god, Tom! What were they going to do? No one even knew they were up here and... Giggling. Jackie looked up just in time to see Katie swinging the table leg. It connected with her head, sending her sprawling back on the bed. Through the haze of pain and the blood pouring down her face, she looked up to twin sister holding the piece of broken furniture, smiling. “I can hear it now, Jackie. It’s the house. The house is so hungry, Jackie! The house needs to be fed.” “Katie, please!” “Oh god, it’s so hungry,” said Katie between giggles, raising the table leg again. Jackie kicked her leg out, catching Katie right in the stomach. Her sister fell backwards, the weapon still in hand. Jackie jumped forward, grappling with Katie, screaming her name, trying to reason with her. They fell to the floor, rolling about the ground, one twin screaming, the other laughing. Jackie rolled Katie over and felt something sharp pierce into her side. She let out a cry as her sister stopped laughing. Jackie scrambled away from Katie, her eyes attached to the broken half of table leg that been still connected to the table itself. Jackie had rolled her sister over onto it, impaling her through the lower stomach. Katie clawed at it like an animal, but her own weight on the face of the table kept it immobilized. Jackie leaned back against the bed, sobbing as her sister’s actions slowed then finally stopped. She lay there holding onto her side, the blood from her head streaming down and mixing with tears. She had to hang on, she had to keep her eyes open. Things started to go fuzzy and then she heard the voices. The voices from the house. They were calling to her, telling her about hunger, telling her about blood. The whispers caressed her, soothed her, ran their words across her trembling body. The house knew of grief, of pain, of terror. It slipped up through her blood that was slowly staining the floor and into her. Yes, it knew of these things and hungered for them. Jackie fed the house with her blood, with her fear, with her herself. Her last thoughts before she closed her eyes was of her own laughter... "REMEMBER" I’m not really writing this. This record is being trapped in a pocket dimension of vibrating color the size of my hand. I’m merely thinking into a rainbow the size of the Atlantic Ocean condensed into my palm. It’s using wet mathematics to etch dark matter into the hues, layers upon layers. Trust me, It’s much more simple this way. Not that anyone will ever read this anyhow. I’m really doing this for myself. To remember, to relive those last few moments, to see if I really had a choice. Mostly I’m doing it because I’m bored. Things had been going so well in my life at the time. I had just sold my first novel and Jessica was going to move in. We had only been dating for a few short months, but we both knew this was for real. I didn’t think I was going to be able to find anyone again after Amy, but Jess walked into the coffee shop one day and that was it. She had been the muse I needed to finish the book and get it out there, not for myself anymore, but for her. I wanted to make her proud. I wanted the kind of decent money where I could take care of her. Like I said, everything was finally going right. My life was actually close to perfect. We were out with friends celebrating. A rare weekend where Dan and Jake didn’t have to work. I had been friends with these two since high school and we had stayed close well into our late twenties. They had been roommates for a short time until Jake and his longtime girlfriend Melissa had gotten pregnant. So much for the bachelor pad. She was out with us that night as Designated Driver and Dan had brought along his recent score, some flighty little blond named Lyndsay. The five of us were pouring drinks back at our favorite bar and trying not to talk too much about work. As per usual, music overcame our discussion. “Man, I’m telling you. The Bravery have made a far superior new wave album compared to The Killers.” “No way,” replied Dan. “The Killers rule. It actually sounds like it’s from that genre.” “I can’t really stand either. Give me that new Coheed & Cambria CD. Now that’s good!” said Jake. “Ewww,” squealed Melissa. “Is that the band that sounds like Rush?” “Yeah,” we all replied. “I don’t like them at all.” “Better than the new fucking Dream Theater,” I said trying to get the waitress’s attention. This continued on for some time. We consumed various forms of alcohol in vast quantities and engaged in ritual chain smoking, despite our promise to ourselves not to do so around Melissa. She laughed good naturally about all of it, especially now that Jake was banished to the back porch for his nicotine habit at home. Multiple toasts in honor of numerous things were given that evening, and by the end, five of us could barely walk. Jessica and I played the game of ‘who was supporting who’ out the door of the bar into the street. Jake was rubbing Melissa’s tummy and babbling incoherently. All in all, a successful night. And then it happened. The pain exploded inside my head, my eyes seeing only white. I can’t, even now, describe what it was like. Not truly. Perhaps if you were to imagine nuclear fusion going terribly out of control. Hiroshima times a thousand. Yes, you could begin to fathom what I had felt like at that moment. I have no doubt I screamed. I know I fell to the pavement out side the bar. For the split second that I opened my eyes, I saw Jessica leaning over me, cradling me. I saw the look of horror on her face. I don’t know how long I was out. It couldn’t have been for that long, but enough time had passed for my friends to drag me up against the wall of the bar. It had also been long enough for other things to occur. Namely, the night sky cracking open and the heavens starting to rain down. I opened my eyes again. The pain had lessen some, but now there was this... humming. That’s the only way I can explain it. I turned my eyes to the sky, up to where Jessica was staring and saw millions of lighting bolts streak across the sky. Except once they crackled through the blackness, they stayed there, slowly illuminating more and more. Tiny particles of gold light showered down on us, neither hurting us or effecting us in any way really. I know now what this was. I think I really knew then, but my mind was still trying to wrap itself around it. “It’s okay, baby,” Jessica said to me. “Dan and Lyndsay wen to get the car. We’ll get you home.” I never saw my best friend again. “Jessi, something...” I tried to get out. “Shush, honey. Everything will be fine.” I could hear her voice trembling. She was terrified. I wanted to take her in my arms and comfort her, tell her it would be all right. Tell her I would take care of her even though the world was ending. And it was, wasn’t it? I knew that somehow. At least the world that I knew. The world that I had grown up in. It was over. It was over as surely as a creatures made of light began to fly out of the cracks in the sky. Angels. Angels were flying through the skies of Earth. Through the pain in my skull, through the humming in my body, I could hear the sounds of the world around me. People screaming, crying, shouting, laughing. People praying in the streets. I had never been a religious man, and even in the face of this, I still wasn’t. I knew something else. I knew something important. I was desperately trying to think through the attack on my body and mind. That, of course, is when the Angel glided down to us. He, or it I should say, was made of solid golden light. Energy of the sun condensed into form. He wasn’t blinding as I thought he would be, in fact his brilliance was very subtle. You could make out the shape of the human-like facial features he had taken, and the massive wings behind him gleamed with feathers of the imagination. The same stray lighting crackled off of him. He landed just feet away from us, gracefully. “Hello, Sire,” said the angel in my head, the pain almost totally ceasing. “I know you,” I said back, struggling to get up. “Of course you do. You are HE.” With the final word from the Angel, I was sent back sprawling. I tried to get up again, but Jessica had me in a death grip. I looked up into her face and saw tears streaming down. I hugged on to her, and whispered ‘I love you’ in her ear. I pried her fingers from my arms and stood up to face the Divine. I stood there, not an arms length away from an actual Angel. I felt not fear or elation, but a quiet sadness for some reason. I knew, somehow, that something was over, something significant. The world, my life, the universe - perhaps all of it. And yet I was not frightened. If anything, I was slightly angry with this creature. “You say I know you, and I feel like I do, but I can’t remember,” I said to the Angel. “No, you acted differently this time. You chose not to remember anything.” “I don’t understand! This time?” “You have come down many times before, but you always chose to remember. This time you did not. You wanted to know the truth about humanity before the restructuring.” “The restructuring?” I asked. “The remaking of the world.” “Why the hell would you want to do that!” I screamed. “Not us, my Lord, You. You wanted to remodel the world in a new fashion.” I stood there dumbfounded. Was this creature telling me what I thought it was? “If I can remember enough, could I stop this madness?” “To remember, you must shed this flesh and return to the Divine Essence.” “Will that save the world? Will that save my friends?” I heard Jessica screaming behind me. I still don’t know if she was able to hear the Angel, but I know she heard me. I know she heard me offering a sacrifice for them. I know that she loved me, and would have rather the world crumbled down around us than lose me. And I knew that that was exactly why I had to do this. “The touch of the Divine consumes all flesh,” said the Angel reaching out his hand. I turned and looked back at Jake and Melissa. I was doing this for them and their baby. For their future together. I was doing this for Dan, so he could keep trying to make it with as many chicks possible. I looked at Jessica. Dear god, I loved her. I told her so one last time as I touched the Angel’s hand... - - - - - - - - - - - - - I stopped the restructuring as soon as I returned. I gathered my armada of Angels and made them clean up the Earth’s heavens. I removed the memories of the Event from the minds of the planet’s population. Everything is better without the mortals knowing. Too much knowledge is a bad thing, I’ve learned that. I can say that I’ve learned a lot. And I can say that I still miss Jessica.