Channel Surfing #1

Micro stories for micro attention spans.

Vampire Horse

Creeping on hands and knees, the good doctor brushed through nettles with the sleeve of his jacket pulled up over his knuckles, as his other hand clutched a crucifix close to his beating chest. His mistake was allowing night’s inky curtain to draw before reaching his intended destination, and as he crawled anxiously through the barbs and vines around him, he knew that his only hope was to abandon his grizzly crusade for another time. The sun does not easily find its way through the hills and woods of Transylvania, this he knew well, though of all the nights he could have chosen to perform his exorcism, this one appeared to be darker than usual, and its darkness fell with a haste that his carriage could not match. Fiends, such as the ones he hunted, were residents of the night, and to approach them in their nocturnal habitat would be to stride foolishly towards certain doom. Were he mere minutes earlier, he may have won a fighting chance, but all was lost, for tonight.

Though miles he was from the closest town, and without a carriage to return him to his lodgings, Doctor Lindeman couldn’t help but find a narrow humour in his current predicament. Indeed, humour is important to the doctor, for one cannot lay eyes upon the corpses of women and children without the ability to later escape into a smile or a laugh. And so it was that the good doctor allowed himself a chuckle, if only to escape momentarily from the horrors surrounding him. This, of course, was Doctor Lindeman’s final mistake. A vehement snort came from somewhere behind him, followed by the clip and clop of demonic hooves. And before the doctor could hold aloft his cross in defence, the shadow-born mare rose above him, a dark colossus, eyes as red as the tongues of fire, and it found his throat before a gasp could it muster.

****

Tourist Bot VS Reptile Man

Rubble and fire rained upon the scorched earth that was once the city of Amsterdam and the narrow streets, which had so hummed with life, now convulsed with screams and the wailing of sirens. The colours of the city had been almost completely drained and so the lights which once painted amber stripes upon the quiet Amstel now flickered faintly, only barely enough to sometimes illuminate the bobbing, floating dead that littered her waters.

Above the flames and ruin strode a cyclopean terror, a 300-foot tall amorphous beast, somewhat reptile and too man-like for those who saw it to fathom. Where it rose from, no one knew, and what path of destruction it had left in its journey, none would dare envision. All the people of Amsterdam knew was that their danger was both outlandish and immense, and that the city was no longer their own. Abandonment was their only hope so it seemed, and the crowds were frantic in their desertion, leaving homes and vehicles, in some cases family and friends, behind them.

Indeed, the city appeared to be lost, until the roaring, the screaming, and the wailing, was accompanied by a new sound. The city’s sky exploded with the thunderous hum of something akin to the drone of an airplane’s engine, and though few turned in their frenzy to see what was making the sound, a young girl stopped in her tracks, awestruck, she pointed to the sky and yelled at the top of her lungs; “Tourist Bot! He’s here to save us!”

Tourist Bot, a pearly war-machine whose sized equalled that of the reptile man’s, began to descend from the sky, landing just close enough to garner the beast’s attention. At first, the scale-clad gargantuan looked upon Tourist Bot with its fissure eyes as though in shock, but it quickly took to raising its hideous claw to the sky in an attempted barrage. But before the beast could lay a dent upon the magnificent Tourist Bot’s shining EU-emblazoned chest plate, it had already been shot to the ground by the great protector’s hand-missiles, and its fall to death was near deafening and a great grey smoke rose from its grave.

The streets of Amsterdam, now a monument to wreckage, erupted with cheers and praise. With the aid of Tourist Bot, the city was once again their own.

                                                    ****

Detective Deadbody

Detective Deadbody was idiosyncratic and that’s why his role within a case always hung by a thread, the head office could never understand a man from a working class background, a man with real dirt between his fingernails. His bizarre mannerisms disturbed those around him, and perhaps that’s why he never quite gelled with his peers. However much he perplexed and provoked them, whether intentionally or otherwise, he always managed to close the case. He was scorned from a stone’s throw but respected from a far distance. That’s why the man always had a home at Scotland Yard, and it was that same reason that brought Mr. Mayne to his desk that drizzly evening.

Mr. Mayne sat before the detective, puffed from his corncob pipe, and listened intently to what he had to say. To his credit, Mr. Mayne, a wealthy lawyer residing in a stately manor in Datchet overlooking the Thames, was not at all put off by the detective’s peculiarity. Detective Deadbody was leaned back in his seat, staring wide-eyed at the ceiling, and though this lack of eye-contact may have made the lawyer feel somewhat uncomfortable, he knew that this was all a part of the man’s mode of thought. He’d heard much about him, and he knew that the detective would steer him right.

A fly landed on the detective’s cheek and wandered about his hanging jaw before alighting onto the pile of papers that stood as a tower upon Deadbody’s desk. ‘The detective is an incredibly busy fellow’, thought the lawyer, and all the while he sat and puffed, his eyes narrowing and widening with every sentence Deadbody uttered. Each suggestion Deadbody put forward was a shock to the lawyer’s system, he’d clearly reviewed Mayne’s case with the utmost attentiveness and with that wild genius that he’d become so very well known for. Then the detective said something that shook Mr. Mayne to his core.

The pipe rattled in Mayne’s hand and his lip quivered.

“It’ simply can’t be” he stammered, though he knew that everything the detective had told him added up, as though he had, in those few minutes, pieced together the jigsaw puzzle. The lawyer pulled back his chair and breathed heavily.

“It was I all along, I’m responsible for the killings” he said, shakily pinching the handle of a knife from his jacket pocket, “by Jove, Deadbody, you’ve done it again”.

Thoughts bounced and reverberated inside of the wealthy lawyer’s mind, he shook with them, each revelation coming down upon him like a lightning bolt. All the while, Detective Deadbody remained deathly silent, calm as morning. Mr. Mayne shot up from his seat and looked upon the detective as a lost sailor might the glow of a lighthouse.

“We simply must stop me before I kill again!” he barked, knocking over his chair and slamming the door behind him as he left the detective to revel alone in triumph once again.

                                                    ****

Rejected Stories: "Divil Get Behind Me"

Divil Get Behind Me 

(Rejected by The Penny Dreadful magazine, June 2014)

I can’t keep my eyes in front of me, because there they are, plump, peeking and dying for attention. Of course, I can’t turn my head either, just in case I catch a glimpse of that terrible grin from the corner of my eye and lose whatever composure I’ve managed to maintain for this long. I’m probably shaking wildly, people are probably staring, that’s alright, I’ve opted to close my eyes entirely. You can’t scorn a man for giving his eyes a rest at this time of the morning.

That was a mistake.

If there’s anything more dangerous to a man than his own sight, it’s his imagination, and that all too familiar warmth was enough to snap me out of my phony slumber. I need to try and find a spot on the wall that I can concentrate on for the next few minutes. It won’t be for much longer, I’ll get off this damned thing at Harcourt and walk from there. Why didn’t I just charge my phone last night? Just squeeze the yellow bar, keep your eyes on the wall as if it’s the morning paper, and for the love of Christ don’t stare at her tits.

A high-pitched “woo!” at the back of the LUAS is its way of letting me know that it’s here, that it’s watching with those wide, loony bin eyes, and grinning that terrible grin. I’m the only one that can hear it though, so when the tremor finds my spine, my entire body shakes, and those squeezed up against me click their tongues and crease their brows.

It’s been following me for two days now, ever since I opened the window. What a fool I was to go messing around with that arcane poison. A fool with a dream maybe, but that doesn’t make my actions any more human in nature, there’s better ways of making your dream a reality than messing around with books, daggers and capes. Now I’ve this to deal with.

Sometimes it takes the form of a scruffy black dog, sniffing away at my ankles, never falling behind me in the crowds on the streets. Other times, well, I’ve only seen it take this form once last night, but it appeared to me as a nebulous cloud of silver smoke, right above my bedside locker, urging me in a thousand ancient tongues to plunge into the night and steal the bodies of the uncorrupted. Mostly though, it just takes the form of a young Little Richard.

“Woo!”

Harcourt. I slip through the jammed tram and count my blessings as soon as my feet hit the ground, for some reason I get this mad idea that I’ll be able to just walk away from it, that it is limited by the same earthly restrictions as the rest of us are. No, not this foul beast, I’ve learned enough these past two days to know that.

I’m practically kicking up pavement in my frenzied haste, more concerned with being seen by co-workers or friends in my current state than with the fiend catching up with me. I keep close to the walls as I hurry down the street, keeping my head straight, never crooking it or looking behind me. Then, seemingly from out of nowhere, young ones.

They’ve just turned the corner and are now walking in my direction. I can suddenly feel hot breath on my neck and whispers, god awful whispers in my ear. They must be sixth years on their way to school, this is wrong. I bite into my lip and keep my shoulders stiff, maybe if I keep my eyes closed again, I won’t say or do anything and they’ll just pass on by. Nope.

“Woo!”

It came from my own mouth this time, I howled the devil’s howl. The girls are laughing and rubbernecking me now as if I’m some kind of freak show. I’m not a freak show, I just need help and you two young, voluptuous strumpets have no idea what I’m going through. You have no idea what my nightmares look like, my sexy, sexy nightmares. God damn it, Pat, listen to yourself for fuck sake. Keep moving.

When I finally make it to the offices, I’m panting and sweating bullets. And as if the day couldn’t get any worse, Pauline calls me to her desk and tells me that Trevor, my boss, wants to have a word with me in private. I do as best to clean myself up, wiping the slime from my face and taking a long slug from a bottle of water. You’re golden man, you can do it.

“Howaya Pat, how’s she cuttin’?”

“Grand, Travor, Grand. And yourself?”

“Ah, sure you know. Here, Pat, you’re a sound man and I’m going to spare you the sugar coating. You’re not the type of fellah to listen to polished shite. Do you have any idea why I called you in here?”

“Eh, maybe, Trevor. I know I’ve been a little bit…”

“I want you to bend me over this table, Pat. I want you to bend me over this table and reach deep inside of me until you find the heart I thought I’d thrown away years ago, that hidden organ that seems to beat whenever you are near.”

Did I just hear that? Did I make that up in my own head? There he is. Trevor seems frozen, awaiting an answer, and standing behind him is that cosmic devil, a pencil-thin moustache framing a sinister smile.

“Ehm, sorry. What Trevor?”

“The e-mail, did you send the e-mail for me yesterday?”

“Oh, yeah. I did and all, sir. I did that yesterday”

Trevor looks behind him to see what I’m staring at, but finds nothing. Only I can see it.

“Jesus Christ, Pat, get some sleep tonight, will you? Right, I’ll talk to you later.”

I stride to the toilets, pushing past people trying to greet me with a “good morning”. No, it’s not a good morning, it’s a shite morning. It’s a fucking nightmare of a morning. “Woo!”. I need to get out of here, I need a release, I need to scratch an itch. Then, suddenly, I know what to do.

When I hit the cubicle, I unzip myself immediately. This may be the only way to keep it away. It feasts on my carnal lusts, it plants thoughts into my head, it is trying to brainwash me. I sit myself down and close my eyes. If it wants to live in my brain, I’ll make sure I’ve cleared the gash. The cache, cleared the cache. I wonder why I didn’t think of this sooner, I’m almost enjoying myself, and that malevolent wail seems to be fading in nothingness. It’s as if I’ve just been given a shot of morphine for a dire, endless agony. Then I feel the wind on my face, and hear the sound of a crowd emptying onto the streets from a tram. Then I hear laughter, shouting, berating. I don’t want to open my eyes, but if there’s anything more dangerous to a man than his sight, it’s his imagination.

“Woo!”

TMINI Presents: Prince of the Rodeo.

The stench of sweat and whisky hung warm and the tip glass was empty, as usual. That’s the problem with small towns, everyone knows each other and everyone has each other on a tab that never gets returned. Abigail would’ve kicked up a stink about the filth of the bar and the fact that she’d be the one to sweep up the glass shards, but it was “faggot bashing” night and the three beards howling with laughter in the corner of the bar were clearly still in a fighting mood. She kept herself behind the tap, took the orders and just hoped more of them didn’t show up, falling through the doors of their pick-ups and kicking open the bar’s door. Tuesday is faggot bashing night for the boys and it’s nights like this that blood accompanies the ochre blotches on their vests.

It’s the same old rodeo every week. They pour themselves full of booze and roll their beat up cars slowly through the streets, throwing empties at passers-by and yelling at anyone they suspect to be a homosexual or anyone they simply don’t recognize. Mostly they just hurt people, regardless of their sexuality. There was only one gay couple in the town and they left three months ago. The boys ran them out after a year’s worth of broken windows, black eyes and death threats. Still, every Tuesday night, they go faggot bashing, “Just in case”.

Ethan, the ringleader of the trio, swallows back his whisky with haste, just so he can return to the bar and try his hand at Abigail. She knows this, so when he saunters over with the tip of his cap, she’s already pouring him one before he can attempt his usually slurred, porno mag flirting.

“Whassa matter darlin’? Boys too loud for yer likin’?”

“It’s just Tuesday is all” she drones, slipping him his glass and a dirty glare.

“Tuesday’s Tuesday alright, damn right it is” he smiles crookedly, knocking back the glass like a shot of cough syrup. He slides the glass back over to her with a wink. She pours him another.

“Y’know sugar, I always did wonder something about you.”

“And what was that?” she asks only because she has to. He leans in over the counter and tips his hat back even further, Abigail’s eyes are elsewhere but she's getting the full waft of his sickly, biting breath.

“I always did wonder what you look like without them panties” he sneered, and as soon as the words oozed from his mouth, the gang behind him erupted into barked laughter and banged their hairy fists on the table like tribal drums.

It was at that moment that the bar door creaked drowsily, and the gang fell silent with eyes narrowed and with slight lingering grins.

The man was tall and slender, shoulders to ankles in dark denim, a long cigarette hanging from his moustachioed lip. A plume of smoke escaped his nostrils and his eyes traced left to right as he walked towards the bar. Abigail had never seen him before and judging by the sudden silence of the faggot bashers, either had they. Ethan crooked himself to face the stranger with a furrowed brow.

“Well, you ain’t a usual sight.” he spoke with a monotonous venom as the stranger silently pulled a seat at the bar. The stranger didn’t return words. Abigail knew what was coming and quickly asked what the stranger wanted to drink. He eyed up the bar’s shelf without a word.

“Y’know, the lady askin’ you a question, stranger,” Ethan burped, looking him up and down. That’s when he noticed the handkerchief. It hung from his backside pocket, crimson red. Ethan turned to grin at the boys, then faced the stranger once again.

“Say, nice little hankey you got there” he slurred, slamming a .357 magnum on the bar table, “where’d you get it?”

Abigail was about to pipe up to try and dismantle the situation, but the stranger had already turned a pair of sunken eyes on Ethan. His voice was cavernous and he spoke with careless lethargy.

“Why you asking?”

The two slobbering henchmen immediately kicked back their chairs and marched towards the bar to stand side by side with Ethan, who was now spinning the pistol on the bar table and stabbing the stranger with a glare. Abigail was slowly reaching under the bar for her shotgun when one of the brutes pulled a pistol on her and shook his head. There then followed a moment of silence, a weighing of options, thumping of hearts and thoughts of lead and flesh.

“So, what kind of faggot does that red little hankey make you?” Ethan drank deeply in his own words, his words were his greatest weapon. Fear is the first stage of death.

The stranger flicked his cigarette to the ground and slipped the handkerchief from his back pocket. He pursed his lips and stared at it for a moment before dangling it in front of Ethan’s face, who remained deadpan and fixed.

“This here hankeychief?” the stranger smiled for the first time, he licked his lips and whirled the handkerchief around his finger, “Well, I’m not sure what red is supposed to indicate in my little circle...”

It all happened so quickly that Abigail’s body hardly had time to jolt to the lightning pops of gunfire that bounced off the walls and painted them with gore. She shattered bottles as she fell back against the bar shelf, her jaw locked wide and her eyes set firmly on the grisly sight before her.

All three faggot bashers twitched madly in rivers of their own DNA. One of the lackeys was gasping for breath and reaching for his pistol before one final crack sent his eyes rolling to the back of his head like a slot machine. Abigail’s entire body trembled and words tripped over themselves to escape her mouth.

“…because this here hankey used to be white” he drawled, wiping specks of blood from his face with the thin cloth. He slid back onto the bar stool and fired up another cigarette.

“I’ll have a Malibu and pineapple, if you got it”.

TMINI Presents; Alien Hooker Brigade .

The sedan rolled slow and cautiously along a strip of glowing neon lights and pallid brick, and his eyes sought movement in every corner of darkness. When a vehicle moves in such a way and in a place such as this, it is an unspoken dialogue to those who lean against street lights. There is a clear intention, though it is a subtle kind of communication. A gentle whisper for attention from streets whose eyes never shut.

Howard hadn’t made love to Pauline in six months. At first he thought the wedge in their sex life was attributed to the birth of their little girl, but it wasn’t long before he fully digested the reality of their situation. Earlier in the year, he’d successfully pitched a marketing plan for a nuclear energy company operating out of capital city, one that had been planning to mine uranium near a town called Campton, about eighteen miles north of the city. The townsfolk didn’t take kindly to the idea of having large camps and even larger drilling apparatus interrupting their day to day lives, and the company needed a way to sell them the idea that their mining would be profitable for both company and locals alike. Howard suggested, in order to sway the dim-witted hicks, that the company hand out free bottles of Oxycontin to the townsfolk, including the children. Howard’s plan had worked. Drilling and excavation began immediately while the mullets and pregnant bellies of Campton lay on their couches and collected saliva on their chests.  

While driving through the town, he saw a three-year-old nodding off on its trike. Industry prevails once again.

While this brought him wealth, esteem and endless invites to wealthy college fraternity parties, he could see that his work had fallen ill on his liberal wife. Her disdain for him was apparent in her narrowed eyes, and her disappointment apparent in the glass of pinot grigio she poured herself at the breakfast table.

“You’re a fucking pig” she’d utter.

“Are those new shoes?” he’d ask, flipping the page of yesterday’s paper.

He’d been trying to appeal to her in the bedroom, but to little affect. A hand would spider gently up her thigh, a lick of the lips, but she’d remain motionless and seemingly engrossed with her iPad. She didn’t even know how to use one. It was obvious that her interest in his body had disintegrated along with her respect for him. He tried to offer her some Oxy, just to further illustrate the “good” he was doing for the people of Campton. She took up the bottle and tried to knock all of its contents back with a bottle of red she’d been saving for a rainy day. They both spent that night in the hospital and that was the last time the two of them would share a room with a bed for months.

Clarke from work had told him about the Kønnite prostitutes that linger the sidewalks of Little Køn town, a street once known as Parker’s Avenue. “Best sex in the world” he’d laugh, cheeks flushed and arms stretched out, “they’d fuck the lord’s name out of you a thousand times a minute!”. Though he looked like your typical business fat cat with a receding hairline, Clarke was one of the more progressive types these days. He was willing to accept and even avail of the alien practices and traditions that were slowly spreading from city to city, those that began in warehouse slums and bloated out to apartment complexes.

When they arrived, we really didn’t know what to do with them. The UN were frightened out of their comfy chairs, the media were raking in the Benjamins and cryptozoologists and UFO fanatics were frenzied in their told-you-so’s. Their intelligence was evident in how easily some of them could communicate with and socialize with us, but they were ultimately a submissive race who did as they were told. When they were told to jump, they were concerned with how high. At the beginning, it was largely believed that their meekness was a ploy to earn our trust or bypass our typically human paranoia, but that wasn’t the case at all. We had definitely been studied from afar, but obviously were deemed harmless.

Even though the Kønnite are far more advanced than we are, their level of expertise have no place in our global society. They are capable of things, illusions and magic, abilities that are of no practical use to men in high rise buildings. So it was that the male of their species were allocated jobs in manual labour, heavy lifting, digging, drilling and sometimes they stood at doors as bouncers. No teenager without an ID is going to spit gruff at a seven foot tall humanoid jellyfish with arms as wide as tree trunks.

Unfortunately, the females, whose bodies were much smaller and less imposing, were left in a state of occupational purgatory. They can create and repair unfathomably complicated technology, but earth has no such technology. They can communicate telepathically with almost any living thing bar humans. Their scientific knowledge is legendary, but earth has not the resources to accommodate their research.

So, it’s a street like this, Little Køn town, where you find the females.

***

He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel and tried to avert his gaze from the shapely figure approaching him from the sidewalk. You could almost confuse her for a human woman, were it not for her large, mushroom-shaped head. She strutted towards him, her almost translucent flesh glowing angel white under the street lamp, and she tapped on his window. He made a point of waiting a few seconds to register her. They both knew that a transaction was about to be made, but he didn’t want to appear too enthusiastic. “Play it cool” he breathed to himself, turning the car radio off and rolling down the window.

“Liking is?” She asked with a high-pitched purr.

He cleared his throat and raised an eyebrow.

“Yes. Yes I most certainly am liking is.” He grinned nervously, examining her perfectly manicured tentacle limb. He wondered what exactly she can do with such an oddly formed appendage. Then he swallowed hard, realizing that he’d soon find out.

“For make kissing?” her English is terrible, but it’s obvious by her mismatched and colour-conflicting attire that this lady Kønnite hasn’t seen much farther than Little Køn. She’s probably not used to seeing human females around these parts, so her reference levels are zero.

“Eh, yes. I’d like very much to kissing” he tries to keep his words simple, though he’s not sure if it constitutes as “talking down” to her or not. The last thing he wants to do is offend a hooker whose pimp could open him up like a can of tuna. “How is much?” he adds.

The Kønnite took a moment to measure his words. She spoke to herself in her own tongue, a dialect, that to Howard, had the pithiness of Japanese. She eventually held up seven of the nubs which constituted as her fingers and nodded her head. That gesture did little to inform Howard, but he nodded his head in return nonetheless. He’d brought six hundred papers with him, just to be sure.

When she slithered into the sedan, Howard’s muscles relaxed considerably. In his mind, the hardest part was over. Now all that was left to do was drive this mutant sex machine to a secluded area and find out exactly what you’re supposed to do with them. He had to halt himself mid-breath when he was about to try and make small talk with the female. What exactly would they even talk about, even if she could understand him? So, what’s it like on Køn? Did you catch the show about the monkey in the wheelchair last night? What’s your sign? Howard realizes that he’s about to get extremely weird with a telepathic alien scientist in the backseat of his company car. Howard realizes that normative conversation has no place in this vehicle.

He’s about to make a left turn towards the coastline before he feels a warm, jelly nub rub against his hand.

“Not is direction. Is…” her thought process seems to have a lot of hang-time, Howard wonders if she’s brain damaged. “…is beach car.”

She wants to go to the car park by the beach. Howard doesn’t complain, that stretch of empty tarmac is as good as any a place to do the deed. The only people who wander the beach at night are the winos, the type to take a quick gander through your window, slug from their brown bag and shuffle off into the darkness. No problem.

On the way, Howard thinks about everything Clarke told him and a strange excitement starts to graduate in him. He remembers those lewd schoolboy recitals by the coffee table, Clarke detailing every depraved and sinister act he’s ever committed with women of both human and alien origin. The warm slime that excretes from every orifice, and they have many. Their insatiable thirst for human flesh and fluids, their love-making as a pantomime for extreme violence. Howard thinks that he might ask this Kønnite to strangle him for a little while. An act that Pauline would never indulge him, even when he indulged her idiosyncrasies. The sedan comes to a slow halt before an inky ocean torn by white moonlight.

Europe’s The Final Countdown is slipped into the car’s player. As soon as that booming synth filled his ears, Howard was filled with a new confidence. It's a victory song, a montage of success, the sound of breaking the ribbon in first place. That’s his tune, that’s the song he wants to dance to tonight. "Nah nah naah nah" he hums, awkwardly slipping an arm through his suede jacket.

“Money, is your having?” she smiles, if that’s what their smile is supposed to look like. Howard fishes out every last paper from his pocket and holds it in front of her like a winning hand. This is about to happen.

“I’ve got everything you need” he grins, shaking frantically and unzipping himself, “do you have what I need?” he bites his lip, sharing eyes with the hooker for the first time since she hopped in the car.

"Yeah, I’ve got exactly what you need you motherfucker” she spits in disgust, holding a gold star badge in front of him like a winning hand. Suddenly the darkness of the car park is cut by a flush of reds and blues.

***

Howard leaned his head against the wall and let his eyes blur the ceiling. He sat between two other men. To his left was a sparse young man whose afro sat atop his head like a cloud. And sitting to his right was Clarke from work, stone-faced and silent as though Howard was a stranger. All three of them wore handcuffs.

The station shuddered with activity. Men in tight Zegna suits roared in protest as they were led forcefully to holding cells, and a group of Kønnite women, standing on high heels and waving around cigarettes, laughed among themselves. Howard thought he heard one of them hum something through chirped laughter. Nah nah naah nah.

***

Grym Weepr (Short Fiction)

He’d spent the last twenty minutes whisking around the house and unplugging every electronic appliance he could find, but still the shrilling drone tortured him like nails pressing against his temples.  It had begun that evening while he was coalescing with his armchair and taking in a television show about a morbidly obese man and the machines that keep him breathing. His eyes glazed in the light of the flat screen he’d bought with the last of his birthday money and a cup of milky tea grew cold in his hands.

It wasn’t unusual for him to lapse into that dead trance on a Monday night, it wasn’t unusual for any night of the week either. What was unusual about this night in particular was that, at exactly half past eight, the television screen went blue. The talking head of the fat man was weeping hopelessly while chewing on some kind of bun meat, the next moment the screen was blank. As soon as this registered with him, our hero peeled himself from the armchair and leaned in to the screen as if to ask it a question. When it wouldn’t afford him a response, he decided that pushing every single button on the remote control would remedy the problem. He was missing the fat man and he would miss no more of it.

After a few moments of crazed button bashing, the word “tuning” appeared in green text on the top right-hand corner of the screen and was followed by a percentage mark. He took a sip from his ancient tea and hoped that when the tuning reached 100%, he would be reunited with the fat man and his anemic goblin wife. 50%, he returned to his rightful place on the armchair and began to tap his fingers on his thigh. It was only a new television, perhaps that’s why it was acting up, he thought. He was glad that he wasn’t paying the licence. 75%, it was tuning in quite quickly, maybe he wouldn’t have enough time to go make a fresh cup of tea after all. 95%, he smiled assuredly and lay back in his seat. 100%, the screen turned completely white and began to fucking scream at him.

****

It wasn’t just the television, it was the radio, the microwave, the kettle. Everything electronic, everything that was attached to a socket in the wall was picking up a signal from Satan’s radio station. The whole apartment shivered with the terrible screaming and weeping of static. All he could do at first was cover his ears, swear through a bound jaw and pray that he wasn’t about to be burned alive in an electrical fire, then it all became too much for him. He shuffled towards the screen and in one quick motion he unplugged the chord from the wall. The drone did not cease nor did it calm.

He rushed from room to room with hands clasped tight against his ears, unplugging everything from the walls, switching off every light, eyes darting in the darkness in search of something amiss. He leaned against the wall and slowly pushed himself down the hallway towards the sitting room. He would have attempted to fire up one of his candles but that act alone would require he remove a hand from an ear, a limb he could not afford with the risk of excruciating agony.

In the darkness he fumbled closer to his apartment door, though he knew that he would have to travel much farther than the lobby in order to escape the ghastly drone. The shapes of his apartment began to reemerge as his eyes adjusted to the dark, though sight did little to ease the torment of hearing. He hadn’t the capacity at that moment to understand what was happening or where the piercing noise was coming from, all he wanted to do was get outside, and he knew with all certainty that he was close to escape. That was until his hand reached out and searched eagerly for a door handle that was no longer there. At this point, our hero is rather certain that he is completely fucked.

He threw himself against the door with loud thumps that he could almost hear through the static wail. He pleaded with neighbours who could not hear him and swore loudly to a god he hadn’t asked of anything in years. The navy and black shapes of his apartment began to tangle and distort like mutated dancers. The window shed faint light on surroundings that he was no longer familiar with.

He shimmied towards the window, trembling violently with each step as though his bones were on the verge of snapping. He could feel every single vein in his head pulsating, his skull encased grinding gears and loose bolts. When he drew closer, the light from the window faded as though the moon itself had decided to piss off. He moved faster and in strides, but by the time he reached the sill, the light had completely abandoned him. He couldn’t hear his own screaming, but he could feel the sharp knives of agony in his throat.

****

Then, abruptly, the noise faded to a euphoric silence. The television screen shone in his face and he was greeted once again by the ailing fat man and his blubbering. His clothes were drenched with sweat and he felt stuck to the armchair. He wondered how long he had been sitting there, wondered what had just happened. His teeth rattled and his eyes raced to every corner of the room. Everything was exactly as he had left it. Then there was a gentle tapping on his apartment door.

He picked himself up from the armchair and felt the warm slime on his forehead.  He couldn’t comprehend what had just happened, but the silence he now enjoyed was overwhelming. It couldn’t have been a dream and it was too impossible to be reality. He pulled the door open, and there stood an old woman, her face a maze of wrinkles, a long black shawl hanging across her gaunt shoulders.

“What?” the only word he could muster for the figure standing before him.

“How are ya, Tommy?” she smiled up at him. Her mouth hung open like a puppet’s and her eyes watered kindly.

“Who?”

“I’m herself.” She said. Her eyes narrowed and a cusped tongue licked at her chin “You’re not dead, sure.”

She looked him up and down once again for good measure and shook her head. He’d never met this woman before, but obviously she knew who he was. Now she was staring at him as though he were a complete stranger.  His lip began to quiver as the light which spilled onto the hallway from his apartment disappeared. The hag smiled warmly once again.

“Ah sure, we’ll wait ‘til you are, so.”

****

Preview "Jack Absinthe" (Short fiction)

Jack Absinthe

Killed the headlights, popped a mint between his cheeks to foil the odour and then Jack was strolling up that drive-way with a purpose. Big house, too big for one old timer, doubt he had many visitors while his ticker was still ticking. That’s money for you. The family are inside now though, probably tapping on walls, rooting through drawers and yapping like they still know each other. Greedy fuckers, the type that only want to know you while you’re gasping on a hospital bed, more tubes in you than the London underground. I’d wager that’s exactly what they were at, can see them now; “How are you, daddy? We brought you your favourite sweets, daddy. I’ve a mortgage, daddy”.

Even the fucking doorbell has a pretentious jingle to it. Brahms? No, but sounds similar enough. It’s going on for ages, harmonious piano fingerings for the odd Jehovah Witness with a pamphlet. What’s wrong with a buzzer or the traditional “ding, dong”. Where do you find these people? A shadow through the hazy glass and then an open door, finally.

“Ah, Mr.Goodrick I presume?”

“One in the same.”

Except I’m not one bit like Joe Goodrick at all. Goodrick is the young butcher on the town’s main street, but these people won’t know that. The stick of a man that’s just greeted me at the door won’t know my name until I’m on the next flight from Shannon to Heathrow.  He’s dressed to the nines anyway, probably expecting a camera crew and a release form. That’s not how I operate.

He pinches my coat with his thumb and index and throws it over a Christmas tree of a hanger. There’s chattering and nattering from the dining room down the hall and then suddenly silence as the door clicks behind me. The mannequin walks on ahead of me towards the rest of the party and I follow with my eyes bouncing off the paintings on the walls. Cherubic faces, spread wings, harps, swords dug deep into dragon’s flesh , this explains it all. A water into wine sort of fellow, wine into blood, flesh into bread, until he himself into the ground. Fair enough.

There’s four of them, brother and sister and the two spouses I’d wager. The stick man is probably the eldest, there’s his sister seated comfortably on a Chesterfield leather couch next to her hubby. I can tell she’s the sister because she’s as thin as he is, head on her like a tinker’s pony. The other woman is sitting at the table, a troubled brow, fear of God in her, not enough of it for to extinguish the greed of jewels.

“Everyone, this is Mr.Goodrick, he’ll be orchestrating tonight’s…symphony.”

“Don’t call it that you slimy fucker.”

Shit.

“I’m sorry?”

“Sorry”, I twitch my head madly and purposefully for a moment, eyes rolling, “the energies in this house are causing a great turbulence in me. Great energies. Bad energies”.

His wife shakes in her little satin dress, that unsettled her a bit more. Is no one here dressed respectfully? I slap the briefcase on the table and they all start to gather around, no point in dilly dallying, I won’t spend a second longer in here than I intend to.

They all begin to take their seats around the table, then the brother kills the lights.

“What’re you doing?”, I’m already starting to lose my patience with them.  The brother looks at me like I’ve a third eye.

“I was under the impression that such practices required candle light, Mr.Goodrick”, he gawks, switching the light back on.

Of course you’d think that you thick Dublin couch-dweller. You people are always “under the impression”, never knowing, just reading, drinking and assuming. I return to my briefcase.

“Television shows aren’t an accurate representation of my field of work, just exaggerated fairy tales and voodoo.” I’ve to stop myself before I go any further, “Here now. I was told I’m to contact your father, something Bishop…”

“Clarence Bishop” he corrects me with a nod of the head.

“Right, and I’m supposed to be picking his brain about a hidden fortune?”

They all trade eyes with each other. Table of the last supper, except only Judas and the boys were invited, they know that I know. The sister fixes herself up in her chair and lets off a little cough. She’s the first of them to speak up, fair play to her.

“Our father, in his later years, became somewhat paranoid with regards to the financial stability of the family after his death. He was sure that once he passed away, that certain characters that he worked with would try to stake claim to his fortune while leaving the rest of us out of pocket.”

I’m not looking at her, but I’m nodding my head. Go on.

“We’re to believe that, during this time, he may have withdrawn a large sum of money in order to keep it from the banks and any legal matters that might see it taken from us.”

“And you want me to find out where he’s hidden the money?”

“That’s right.”

I knew this before I even turned the key in the car, but if there’s anything I value in a person, it’s honesty. It was honesty with a colourful dressing for the pallet, but honesty all the same, more than I’d expected from the spoiled bitch. May be of no use to her in the end though, if he meant to keep it hidden then he probably means to keep it hidden still. We’ll soon see.

I lay the bag of pills down on the table to an audience of wide eyes and furrowed brows.

“Now, these are for inducing.” I begin. The sister’s husband has an awful grimace on him, as if I’ve just opened a paper on page three on display for his youngest boy. He must be a doctor.

“I’m sorry, where did you get those?” He asks. Ah, so he is.

“Young lad.”

“Sorry, that’s quite illegal.” He pipes up once again, this time raising his voice.

“First of all, no need for you to be sorry” I’m addressing him but not looking at him, “Second of all, I assure you, what we’re doing here tonight is absolutely, positively illegal in every sense. There’s nothing legal about this operation.”

They’re communicating with their eyes again, ashamed of what they’re doing in the first place, even more ashamed now that their spiritual medium has just produced enough opioids to kill Big Bird several times over.

“This is for revival. To be administered as soon as my vitals start to fade.” I slide a vial of epinephrine across the table towards doctor pisshead and he takes it up, trembling.

“What do you mean, revival?” The brother is starting to lose the plot now too. I can see it in his eyes that he’s starting to reconsider this whole affair. Maybe thinking he could have gone a more traditional way about stealing his father’s money. Could have hired a private investigator instead. Could have taken a shovel to the back garden and gone treasure hunting by himself.  He’s starting to regret picking up that phone, but there’s no turning back now, his greed outwrestles his fear. It’s people like the Bishops that keep me in business.

“I’ll need to come back from the afterlife somehow. Unless you’d rather leave me there. In which case you’ll be left with no money and a dead Corkonian in your house.”

There’s that look again, from all of them. They thought we’d just sit around a table and chant for a while until I start rattling in my chair and spitting out Latin like the Pope himself after a speedball. That’s the trouble with the living, they’re lethargic and have no manners in communicating with the dead. They think ghosts and goblins are something to be summoned, never think to go visiting them themselves. They make the dead do all the footwork.

I take out a newspaper clipping and show it to the brother, who has gone translucent pale, the poor fucker.

“This your da?”

“That’s him” He stutters.

“Grand job.” I take a handful of the pills and the wash them down with a hipflask full of the strongest spirits you could get into the country.

A collective gasp, fluttering eyelids and hands clasped across mouths. The usual response from a magician’s audience, except I’m not a magician. This is science at its most dangerous and illegal. Finally, I place a leather bound book on the table, I don't say it, but this is to keep up an air of mysticism about the whole operation. For some reason, people feel more comfortable in the hands of magic than in science, pity.

"Don't forget to wake me up" I say, propping myself up and laying down on the dining room table.

"Dragway" (Short fiction)

Frank washed the car’s dashboard with one final ghost of thick smoke and flicked the spent cigarette out of the window. He’d only been driving for about half an hour but the frayed packet of Marlboro on the passenger’s seat told him he’d already inhaled his last five. He used to chain smoke while under pressure but right now he was as cool as the evening breeze sweeping up dust on the crumbling road he burned along. The head of Mt. Cammerer peeked ahead of him from a copse of orange trees and that was the high sign that he was close to his destination.

The exhausted old Plymouth his client had given him had started coughing up fumes as soon as he’d hit the interstate from Cosby and he thought he’d never get to where he was going. He should have smelled the trouble as soon as he’d smelled the funk of whisky on his client’s breath, but there wasn’t much he could do at this point. He never took on a job unless his client gave him a decent amount of bills for his pocket and a car for transport and the sweaty pig had given him both, so he really shouldn’t be complaining. He just wished he’d been given a more trustworthy vehicle as opposed to a rusty old tin with cancer. The service he offered wasn’t exactly risk-free for either party. 

 
A Benjamin Franklin peered out from a wrinkly alligator skin wallet on top of the dash board, one of the five Franklins he’d been paid for the job. An extremely low price for what he was doing but he needed the cash nonetheless, his real job wasn’t exactly well paying. Money was only half of the deal anyway. He was to be given a car that he could dispose of afterwards. He also didn’t want to know any names or see any faces; he wants them loaded into the trunk of the car before he arrives and wrapped up in something to foil the smell. Most of all; he doesn’t want to know how the person ended up in the trunk of the car. He liked to construct their stories by himself on the drive. For the last ten minutes of forest road he’d been coming up with a story for the guy in the trunk. At least he assumed it was a guy. 

 
He turned the nob of the car’s radio and skipped through a few channels of static before finding a decent station. “Black hearted woman” by The Allman Brothers Band did well enough to hush the sound of the body sliding and pounding in the back. Frank took a bottle of Old Milwaukee to his beardy mouth and threw it back with an almost vexed gulp. He knew it was a bad idea to drink on the job but he also knew that it was a bad idea to take the job in the first place. He always needed something to put a little kick in his boots. There was already enough evidence to implicate him in this; if he allows hesitation he’ll be allowing the possibility of copping out. He occupied his mind instead with the story he fabricated for the poor bastard he was transporting. 

 
He figured it was a city boy from the North, maybe Chicago. Only a naïve Northern boy would get himself killed by a fat drunk. He was one of those long-haired, hippie, music journalists on his way to Knoxville to cover some rock n’ roll concert in the Tennessee theatre. He was one of those types that had more money than sense. The hippie sped his shiny Camaro down the interstate with a joint hanging out over his goatee and enough pills in his head to numb a horseshoe to the chest. Maybe he took so many pills because he was already afraid of what might happen to him down these parts. Just like Frank, the hippie needed something to take the edge off. 

He was probably a Dylan. Frank always associated anyone with long-hair with his old drinking buddy, Dylan, whose hair damn nearly touched his ass. So this Dylan guy was already a cocktail for disaster. A Chicago boy with a head full of drugs and an irrational fear of dungarees and pitchforks, headed down South for the very first time. The poor bastard was probably pissing himself at the thought of having to turn down one of the dirt roads to find a hotel for the night. The idea of having to mix with us country bumpkins probably shook his core. Dylan’s fear of us probably came from the movies. He was one of those guys who spent too much money down the theatre on those double-features. If you spend enough time watching movies about inbred mutants from the South cutting up and raping more “civilized” folk; you’re going to start thinking it the true way of things.

Frank tugged at the wheel to make a sudden turn down a sharp bend in the road and was instantly greeted by the sight of white and blue aluminium on the other side. There was a cop nursing a shotgun ahead of the car and as soon as he saw Frank coming; he waved him down. Fucking nightmare, Frank thought, slowly taking his foot off the gas. He’d never experienced trouble like this on a job before, he knew where and when they were on patrol. This shouldn’t be happening. As the busted Plymouth rolled towards the squad car, a hearty smile began to form on the cop’s slender face. 

The Plymouth came to a slow halt next to the squad car and that’s when Frank saw the deer. He rolled down the window and the young officer approached, smiling ear to ear. 

“Damn Morgan, am I glad you happened to be rolling on by!” he boomed , leaning in on the window and laughing, “Hey I didn’t know you drove a Plymouth.” 

 
“Hey now, you know I wouldn’t usually be caught dead in one of these crap wagons, Bones.” Frank smiled and shook his head, “My sister-in-law came into town from the city there two day ago. This ain’t no car for these wrinkly roads I tell ya. I told her I’d take it to the yard; see if I couldn’t find some parts off ol’ Dodger, fix her right back up.” 

“Damn boss, at this time?” 

 
“Hey, I didn’t say I weren’t going for a drink too.” 

The two men spat laughter until they were red in the face. Frank was this kid’s superior at the precinct. He should have known it was James Cooper when he first turned the corner. Cooper was the youngest guy at the station and was constantly being ribbed by the senior officers for his twiggy build. They called him “Bones Cooper”. Thankfully for Frank, what Bones didn’t have in body-size; he didn’t make up for in intelligence. 

 
“Anyway, as you can see boss; I got me a problem.” He pointed to the large carcass slumped in the middle of the road, bathed in Frank’s headlights. “Son-of-a-bitch ran right in front of me. I couldn’t swerve or nothing, unless I wanted to fly out the window.” 

“Say no more, son.” Frank stepped out of the Plymouth and the two men approached to inspect the dead deer. Bones laid his shotgun on the hood of the squad car and grabbed the hind legs of the beast while Frank took the front. A cold sensation chilled Frank’s skin as he stared into the one remaining eye of the mutilated animal. He’d seen human bodies before with their eyes open and he always thought they looked as though a part of them was still alive. If Frank was the first cop on the scene at a crash; the first thing he’d do was close their eyes. The eyes are the worst.

Cerebral mush splattered and left a hideous painting on the dry, grey tarmac as they heaved the carcass to the side of the road. They swung it once, then twice and then released it to murky forest upon the third swing. Bones grabbed his chest and took a deep breath, already fatigued, before smiling and shaking Frank’s hand. He thanked Frank and the two men went to return to their vehicles, but before Frank could slam the door shut; Bones called to him. 

 
“Oh, Frank. Have you seen Bill today?” 

“Not today, kid. Why?” 

“Ah it’s prolly nothin’, I came in late today is all. I’ll see you tomorrow Frank!”

*** 

Dylan probably needed to fill up his Camaro and that’s where he met the fat pig. Frank’s gums were bleeding. The pig probably saw the car and instantly thought; here’s a fucking opportunity. The hippie was probably agitated to fragility, he probably made every mistake you could make as a city boy down here. Slurring his words, shaking with the breeze, letting the pig see his fear. He let the pig see a weak spot and the pig knew where to hit. He probably got him while he was fishing a few notes out of his wallet to pay for the gas. It wouldn’t have been a gun; that would have been far too obvious. Probably took him down with a fist, then strangled him. The pig was a big fella, he could easily break a neck like a chicken bone. He broke Dylan’s neck. Not Bill’s. 

He cut the lights of the Plymouth and stared at the opening of the forest where a dirt path began like a vein into its heart. Dusk had stolen the light he had hoped to keep for the journey so he grabbed the torch from the back seat and popped the trunk. He paused for a moment, shining the light on the registration plate. 476-CYK. It’s just Dylan. 

He pulled the trunk open and shone the light on Dylan, mummified in bed sheets, masked by a white pillow case dotted with blood. The pig had to have broken his legs to fit him in the trunk; the guy was tall and lanky. Just like Bill. No, just like Dylan. Frank lifted the legs first and with every bit of strength he had; dragged him out of the trunk, letting him fall to the ground with a terrible thump and a crackle of twigs and leaves.
He had persuaded himself to go to the passenger seat of the car and fish out a cigarette, but he remembered that he was all out. He slapped his forehead. This was not the time to cop out. He was already trying to buy his time; the first sign of a man who is about to cop out. 

The pig probably sobered up later on in the day and realized what he had done. Frank dragged the body along the dirt path, a path that had been dug out from the bodies dragged before. The pig knew that Frank was a cop, so he panicked when he saw him roll into that junkyard, the collection site. He was probably sweating bullets when he saw him come. Probably started having second thoughts, that’s why he was so flustered. It wasn’t because he was a cop-killer.

Poor Dylan’s concert was probably underway right now. There were folks up at Knoxville wondering where he was or why he was so late. His VIP pass has probably been either given away or sold off to a kid on the streets. There’s a photographer in Knoxville right now and he’s wondering “Where the fuck is Dylan?”. There’s definitely not a young woman in Cosby waiting for her husband to come home. No he’s already home. He’s on a sick day. 

Maybe if he just pulled the pillow case back, just to have a peek, even just at the guy’s hair. He’d be able to end all this worried speculation right now, this paranoia which in the last twenty minutes had enveloped him and chewed his brain. He’d be able to say “Yep, that’s a Dylan alright. Hippie son-of-a-bitch”, then collect the rest of his cash and get home in time for his game shows. No, that ain’t gonna happen. It’s not Bill. Bill is at home. 

“I see yuh” 

As usual, the old moonshiner’s eyes found Frank first. At first he stood as a silhouette in front of the dim lights glowing from the cabin’s windows, but as Frank drew closer; he could see the toothy grin wrapped tight in the long, white beard. 

 
“How much?” the old man drawled, slipping his hand into the front of his dungarees. 

“How much you got?” Frank breathed heavily, dropping the legs of the corpse in front of the moonshiner.
The old man shook as he cackled, his fist clenching a sweaty ball of notes. The man’s eyes were always painfully widened, as if he were stunned. His thin fingers on one hand always stretched in spider legs as though he were constantly grasping at something. 

 
“Got exactly what you need, son.” He said, placing the crumpled money in Frank’s hand with a terrible smile. “I hope this one’s easy to cut through. Teeth ain’t what they used to be.” 

Frank shoved the money into the pocket of his dirty leather jacket and turned to leave. He never cared to share a dialogue with this man. He just brought him the bodies and that was that. He didn’t want to know what happened to them, yet the old moonshiner always seemed to want to drop hints as if it excited him.

“Hey boy!” 

Frank shoved his hands in his pockets and kept walking.

“You hungry?” 

That disgusting throaty laugh followed him back to his car. The radio couldn’t silence it. It echoed in his head all the way to the junkyard. It walked with him on his way back home. The laugh bounced off the walls of his bedroom and it rang through the halls of an empty police department.

***