Creator
of the Hiro Saga novels
Hello, I’m Christopher Wittkugle, story teller and
aspiring writer. Most of my work is in the genres of Science Fiction, Fantasy and
Horror. I created this website as a way for me to introduce myself to the world
and a place for me to post some of my work.
I live in the rolling hills of southern Ohio. I have
been an amateur writer for several years and have contributed anonymously to
various projects on the web since the late 90's.
I published my first novel "Hegemony", in
2007. Since that time, I have performed a rewrite that I call "The Spirit
of the Amber Rose". In this rewrite I replaced several chapters that I had
cut out previously. These added chapters help connect the first and second
books.
I am now currently finishing work on the second novel
in the Hiro Saga series entitled "The Last Scion of Scoryn." Look for
it sometime in the 1st quarter of 2010. After that, the third installment
entitled "The Return of House Bleudthoryn" will follow, work on the
final draft as begun.
I am also seeking representation by a literary agent.
Thank you for your interest,
Christopher Wittkugle
To contact
me:
Email- christopher@wittkugle.com
My novels:
All titles can be purchased at
Hegemony (Published 2007)
A Sci-Fi adventure
focusing on Johnny Hiro's discovery of a derelict battleship in deep space
and its affect on the galactic civil war.
The Spirit of the Amber Rose (Published 2010)
The first installment of the Hiro
Saga. A revision of Hegemony that includes several deleted chapters.
Available as a free download.
The Last Scion of Scoryn (Due for release in March 2010)
The second installment
of the Hiro Saga . Johnny Hiro and his family must face a new enemy,
risen from the ashes of the defeated House Scoryn.
The Return of House Bleudthoryn (Due for release in December 2010)
The third installment of the Hiro Saga. After being scattered across the
galaxy, the Hiro family must find a way to stop the new Republic before freedom
all over the universe is lost.
Nihilist Gospel (Due for release late 2010)
Living as a transient, a recovering heroin addict
comes to terms with his troubled past after discovering the body of a serial
killer's latest victim.
Petankhsun (Work in Progress)
An ancient evil born in Egypt is resurrected in early twentieth century London.
(Don’t worry, it’s not another mummy story.)
Chronicle of the Iron Horse (Work in Progress)
A time traveling biker
must find his way back to the present in order to preserve it.
These
are just a few stories that I think are fun. Many of them are more like ideas
for stories than actual stories, but they work as minor diversions from real
life.
I
think, anyway. I’ll let you be the judge.
Hope
you enjoy!
Family Plot (Explicit dialogue, extreme
violence, sexual content, BE WARNED this is pretty foul, even for my
taste. But, I wrote it as an exercise.)
The Case of the Martian Cattle Rustler (Mystery Story for
Kids)
By Christopher Wittkugle
The sun was setting
behind the skyline of the city. The office buildings and hotels that
dominated downtown were outlined against a backdrop of dark blue with streaks
of amber and purple running through it. It was Friday night and the party
crowd was beginning to rouse and move about. This Friday night was
different than most, however. I knew that before the sun rose on Saturday
morning, I would take another life.
It had been hot that
year. Damned hot. August was proving to be most unforgiving.
As I recall it, almost every day in that horrid month had record-breaking high
temperatures somewhere in the state. Today had been no exception.
As I walked down the still scorching sidewalk, I could feel the large wet spots
under my arms grow larger and wetter. Wearing that damned-some overcoat
was brutal, but I had always worn it when I was out hunting. I could say
something about the way old habits die, but I’m sure you’ve heard it before.
I stopped and waited at
the bus stop on the corner of Main and High. The last bus of the evening
would be coming along in due time. There was a small crowd milling about
the small shelter erected at the stop, and I took my place off to the
side. I stood quietly, not making eye contact with anyone. No one
took much notice of me, that I could tell. Just as it should be.
I had ridden this bus
several times recently, so I recognized a few regulars. There was the old
gentleman who often danced sang for spare change and cigarettes. And
there was that young chap what always smelt of cheap cologne and beer.
There were a few others, but they were not noteworthy in the least.
Besides, after tonight, I would most likely never see any of them again.
Soon the large silver
and blue bus lumbered up to the aluminum and glass bivouac and stopped.
My fellow travelers and I shuffled aboard and found our seats. I sat near
the rear of the vessel, as usual, and waited patiently for this final commute
to get underway.
We soon rolled through
the intersection and then on for three more blocks. There we pulled into
the stop that I was interested in.
Her stop.
As the new group of
passengers climbed aboard, I watched the door out of the corner of my
eye. After the fifth person came up the steps, I saw her. She
stepped onto the transport with that same air of sophistication and confidence
that first attracted me to her. And right behind her, as always, was
another of her Friday night companions. She was a creature of habit,
indeed. This fellow looked just like all the others I had witnessed her
collect over the past two months or so. Hand in hand, they made their way
to the rear of the bus and sat in the seat directly in front of me. As
they approached, I turned my head to the window and stared out at nothing in particular.
It wasn’t until we were
moving again that I faced forward. I tried to keep my gaze focused on the
back of her seat, but I found myself glancing occasionally up at her straight
red hair, which was barely visible above the back of the seat.
She was a stunningly
beautiful woman, to say the very least. Her green eyes accented her
auburn locks perfectly. Her frame was lithe with slightly curving hips
and probably the most perfect pair of breasts I have ever seen. Her skin
was pale and she always wore very dark eye liner and lipstick. Tonight
she wore a black mini-skirt and a sheer lace top. She had rarely looked
better. It was really no surprise that she found these male companions of
hers with such ease.
The dark-haired
gentleman with her tonight was just one of many that I had observed her with
these past few weeks. I wondered if he would look at her with the same
lustful intent if he knew that he would most likely be dead in a short while
because of her.
I did not know her name;
that would create a danger of being linked to her. I needed to be a
stranger in all ways. I knew only what I needed to know: where she lived
and what her habits were.
Also, I knew what she
did with her boyfriends on each and every Friday night.
In all honesty, her name
was inconsequential to me. I had watched others like her before, and she
was no different. I had ended their wicked, sinful lives and I would end
hers too. Tonight.
I tried to listen in on
the hushed conversation that was drifting back to me from over the seat.
I had never been this close to her before and it was making me a little
uncomfortable, but also strangely excited. A little sense of danger might
help me; keep me from getting sloppy. In all the time that I had been
watching her, she never once took notice of me. Not once. That was
her mistake, one she would soon come to regret.
I could not follow the
conversation completely, but I could tell that it was highly sexual in
nature. She was working her magic on the poor lad, with promises of the
deviant acts they would soon be performing to each other. He seemed very
excited about the agenda. No surprise there, really. He was a man,
after all, and the little witch was certainly good with her ways of seduction.
The lights of the street
lamps ticked by outside the window as we rolled through the city. After a
while, we started making the final stops of the line. My prey would be
departing at the next to last stop, right on the edge of the old German part of
town. I would disembark at the end of the line and walk back to her brick
townhouse. I had done so several times before, so I knew the route well
enough.
As we slowed for their
stop, the pair stood and began walking to the front. I could not help but
notice the large bulge in the front of the gent’s trousers that broadcast his
excitement. Just like all those who had went before him, he was a slave
to her now.
They were laughing as
they exited and held hands as they started walking toward her abode. I
watched them as we pulled away from the curb. I almost felt sorry for the
chap. He was expecting a night of eroticism and adventure, but would most
assuredly end up dead. Just as dead as her. A real pity, to be
sure. But alas, that is the way of things. Sometimes, adventures
don’t have a happy ending.
We soon came to my stop,
and like so many times before, I stepped onto the corner of Blenkner and Mound
Streets. I would not need to hurry; my prey would be busy with each other
for quite a while. She loved to take her time with the boys. I
learned patience a long time ago. I could wait for a little while.
I stopped into a little
corner cafe that served, at best, a mediocre cup of cappuccino. I had
patronized the establishment a few times before, and was sure that I would not
miss coming to the place again after tonight.
I drank my coffee and
pretended to read a newspaper. The only sections I took real interest in
were the religious commentaries and the obituaries. Only the waitress
noticed me, coming to offer a few refills of the brown frothy liquid that
passed for gourmet coffee. I was pleased with the anonymity. I was
used to being separate and alone.
After about thirty
minutes, I took my leave. I went back outside and started the short
trek to her house. While I walked, I felt around inside the right pocket
of that damned overcoat and found my lock pick. I fingered the tool
absent-mindedly as I got closer to her residence. I would have to enter
the premises quickly, as the only door faced the open street. However, I
had never seen her speak to any of her neighbors. That would make it a
bit easier, they might not know me as a stranger if they happened to see me
going in.
I had been glad when I
discovered early on that she lived in the entire building. I had learned
with a few of my previous subjects that single women in apartment houses
usually had a male neighbor who constantly watched their every move.
Deviants, usually, who touched themselves as they watched the woman through the
cracks in their window shades or peep-holes of their doors. Most often,
they were too scared to actually confront me, but had no trouble in ringing up
the local police station. I had been in some close scrapes because of
those perverts, to be sure.
Suburban women were the
hardest. It seemed that they knew everyone in the neighborhood, and
everyone knew them. But by far and large, women in the country were
easiest. The houses were usually far enough apart to allow me to enter
without detection.
This one here, she would
be little trouble, at least as far as witnesses would go. She was a
loner.
I strolled along,
looking up at the Eastern European architecture that was prominent on most of
the buildings in this area. It reminded me a bit of home. It had
been several years since I first came to the States, and hadn’t been back there
at all. I had never really wanted to leave Europe, but my job demanded
that I come, so I did.
I mused on this a bit,
and before long, I was meters from her front door. I withdrew my hand
from my pocket, the lock pick hidden in the palm and walked directly up the
short flight of steps to her welcome mat. Without looking around, I
inserted the tool into the lock and with a few twists and pulls, had the door
open.
I stepped into the foyer
and gently pushed the door shut behind me. Lingering there for a moment,
I listened. I could hear nothing in the darkness. I took a cautious
step forward, being very careful not to make a sound.
The foyer opened into
the living room and kitchen. I had watched her move about inside and knew
that she always went to the kitchen first. I slowly crept into that room,
taking great care to be silent on the tile floor. Once I reached the
center of the room, I stopped once more to listen. I could still hear
nothing.
I looked around the
room, at the cabinets and counter tops. There, sitting on the counter by
the stove was what I was looking for: her purse. I slowly made my way
over to the black leather bag. With a steady hand, I opened it. I
felt around inside it until I grasped what I had hoped would be inside. I
withdrew the small, rectangular item. It was her address book. I
fanned the pages quickly. Each page was written on and I smiled.
Maybe she had some girlfriends that I would be interested in meeting. Something
told me she might.
There were always
girlfriends.
I stuffed the book into
my pocket and crept over to the door at the rear of the kitchen that led down
to the basement. That was where she took her boy-toys, down into the
basement.
I had never seen what
was down there; the small windows at ground level were painted black on the
inside. I was fairly confident that she had a proper little room set up
down there, complete with whips and chains and all manner of deviant
devices. I would soon find out.
With my left hand, I
pulled the door open. My right hand found it’s way inside my heavy
overcoat and I grasped the handle of the blade that hung tightly against my
ribs. Leaning inward, over the stairs, I could hear no sounds from the
darkness below. I waited a moment to allow my eyes to adjust to the low
level of light, then took a slow cautious step downward. I eased my right
foot onto the first riser, making no noise. I then proceeded, exercising
the same caution at every step, until I was at the small landing at the base of
the stairs. The only egress from the staircase was a heavy wooden door on
the right side of the landing.
I leaned in closer to
the door; what an elaborate thing it was! It was made of a dark mahogany,
with a large panel in the center. The panel was trimmed with gold inlay,
as was the edge of the door itself. Engraved in the panel was a the image
of a forest nymph, dancing nude in the moonlight as an entranced man looked on
from the background.
With my ear close to the
nymph’s head, I could now hear a low and muffled voice emanating from the room
beyond. It had a slow rhythm to it, but as I listened, I could tell it
was slowly becoming faster and more intense.
Now was the time.
I must act quickly. I had to strike while the two were occupied with
themselves. In all probability, I would have to bring her to floor first,
as I suspected that the gentleman would be restrained by leather bonds or
possibly iron manacles or cuffs. He would most likely have to watch as I
took my prize. So be it.
With a deep breath I
turned the golden knob with my left hand, and tightened my grip on the dagger
by my breast. I slammed the door with my shoulder and it gave way easily,
swinging inward a full one hundred eighty degrees and bouncing against the wall
with a loud boom.
The scene that was
before me now was a familiar one to my eyes. Against the far wall, the
poor dark-haired fellow was suspended upside down and fully nude.
He had a gag in his mouth, and blood flowed down his body from several small
wounds on his torso. Long, surgical steel rods had freshly pierced
both of his nipples, and his genitals were mutilated in a similar fashion, with
the addition of a leather thong wrapped tightly around them, pulling them upward
toward his feet. Through the blood on his face, I could see that his
expression was a combination of excruciating pain and surprise.
Standing just off to his
left, was his tormenter. She, also fully nude, was standing inside an
encircled pentagram, a perverted symbol of her religion, that had been engraved
into the stone floor. She had her back to me as I burst in, her hands
held high above her head. In her right, she held a long wicked looking
dagger, with a curved blade that was coated in blood. When she heard the
cacophonous boom of my entry, she quickly turned to face me. She began to
speak in a devilish tongue that had a fevered intensity.
Without hesitation, I
leapt toward her, pulling my own weapon in midair. She lowered her hands
at me, and a bright green light began to coalesce around her fingertips.
As if propelled by the
hand of God himself, my speed seemed to increase and before she could finish
her incantation, I struck her shoulder with the dagger that had been blessed
(many years ago) by the Pope himself. She shrieked in agony as the green
light disappeared and I hit the floor, prone.
Without thinking, I was
back on my feet, whirling around to face her. My blow had stopped her
initial attack, but she was already gathering her energies for another
attempt. I lunged, my dagger flicking out and up, catching her under the
jaw. She spun away from me, screaming once again with hateful
intensity. Blood spurted from the wound on her neck, but she was not
incapacitated yet. She ducked my next swing, and followed with a blow of
her own. Her long fingernails raked down my left cheek and I could feel
an instant burning there, like the flames of Hell. Some sort of poison,
most likely. I would need to finish this quickly.
Reeling backward from
the blow, I said a quick prayer and hurled my dagger at her. It turned
end over end as it flew threw the air. Time seemed to slow down for me as
I watched its flight. The force of my throw, combined with the momentum
of her blow, caused me to lose my balance. As I fell to the floor, my
weapon found its mark. With a loud crack, followed by a deep, hollow
thud, it planted itself deep into her forehead.
Her head snapped back,
and then came forward again. Her eyes were rolled back, showing the
whites. A soft whimper came from her lips as she slumped forward and fell
face-down on the cold floor. I lay there for a moment, catching my
breath. I could feel the poison in my cheek getting warmer as it entered
my bloodstream. I had to finish and get back to the chapel.
Slowly, I stood
up. My gaze went to the upside-down gentleman. His eyes were wide,
with horror, surprise or relief. Perhaps all three, I couldn’t
tell. I took my eyes off of him and looked at the figure on the floor
before me. I began to feel dizzy as bent to roll her over and retrieve my
dagger.
With a sickening sound,
the blade slid out of her skull easily. The wound was beginning to open
wider as the blessing upon the blade was working its magic. I cleaned the
blade with a small rag I had pulled from my pocket and sheathed it. I
then took out the flask of holy water that I kept in my breast pocket and
opened the spout.
I began to recite the
Lord’s Prayer as I poured the contents of the flask on the body.
Immediately, the flesh began to bubble and melt. A foul stench filled the
room as the remains quickly deteriorated. Soon there was nothing but a
slick-looking black spot on the floor that was vaguely the shape of the outline
of her body. That too, would soon disappear. As I finished the prayer,
I was distracted by a grunt. It was the last of her victims attempting to
yell for help.
I turned back to face
him; his eyes were now wider than before. I could tell now that it was
terror that gripped him. I made my way over to him, and released his
bonds. It was rather time consuming in the area of his mangled
genitals. Finally, he was free and I helped him to his feet. He
swooned and I grabbed his arm. He sat down on the floor and frantically
untied the gag.
"Wha...
Wha..." He tried to speak, but his body began to shake
uncontrollably. I turned to the door and took a step toward the
stairs. The fire in my cheek was growing, and I could feel my breathing
becoming more labored. My stomach was also starting to cramp. I need
to get back to the chapel. Now. Padre Dimitri would know the proper
prayers to heal me, if the Lord so willed it.
I walked to the door,
which still stood open and stepped onto the first stair. From behind me,
a weak voice asked: "Who... are... you?"
Without turning, I replied
in a voice almost as weak: "I am but a shepherd, brother, tending to the
Lord's Flock."
The End
By Christopher Wittkugle
Chapter 1
Kyle briskly strode past the store fronts that lined
Wilker's Avenue. Most of the shops were closed at this hour and the dim
lights that spilled through the big plate glass windows were reflected on the
rain-slicked sidewalk. The rain was cold, and it felt even colder in the
October wind that had been blowing all day and had continued into the
evening. Kyle pulled his overcoat tighter around his chest and lowered
his head as he quickened his pace a step or two.
"God-damned miserable-ass night to be
out," he muttered into the cold, wet darkness. "But I just can't eat
another God-damned microwave dinner."
He had been working so many hours lately
that he barely had time to sit down to a good meal. Unless it was a
dinner to grease a new client or suck up to one of his managers. He loved
his work, without a doubt. But since it was all that he had in his life, that
came as no surprise. He was single and had no friends to speak of, so he could
dedicate nearly every waking hour to the job if the need arose.
And, more often than not, the need did
arise.
He was also very good at his job, which
was evidenced by the seven sales awards that hung on the wall of his
modestly-sized office. He had sold more floor space in this city than any
other agent at his firm. He and his boss, Mr. Bloom, were very proud of
this achievement and it was usually how Kyle was introduced to prospective
clients; "Hello Mr. Smith, this is Kyle. He's sold more units in
this city than anyone else. I'm sure that he can help you find exactly
what you are looking for," Mr. Bloom would say. Kyle would then
vigorously shake Mr. Smith's hand with an assertive nod. "Absolutely,"
he would say as he pumped his hand up and down.
His first appointment tomorrow wasn't
until 9:30 in the morning, so he decided that tonight he would go out and do
something. The first and foremost: head down to Paulie's Lunch Box and
have a well deserved sit-down meal. Alone, with no clients.
Paulie's was only two blocks away from
where he was now and he could see the dim glow of the sandwich-shaped neon sign
that hung over the sidewalk in front of the old diner. The rain continued
to pelt his face as he took a quick at the few cars that were passing through
the intersection with Haynes Street just ahead. The "Do Not
Walk" sign was flashing now, and with any luck it would change by
the time he reached the crosswalk. It did not change of course, and he
would have to stand for a little while longer in the misery that this October
night was sharing with him. He pushed the button on the lamp post on the
corner and then tried to keep warm by hopping from one foot to the other as he
waited. Normally this intersection was well lit but the street lamp's
bulb appeared to be blown, so Kyle was shrouded in an almost grey darkness as
he hopped like a toy with a broken spring.
After he crossed the street, Kyle quickly
closed the distance to the diner, and was soon standing in front of the thin
glass double doors of the joint. He swung open one of the doors and
stepped into the small vestibule. There, he hung his thoroughly soaked
overcoat on one of the two coat racks that stood guard on each side of the
second set of doors that opened into the diner itself.
"Maybe it will dry before I go back
out," he mused aloud with little hope in his voice.
As he walked across the sparsely populated
diner, he caught a glimpse of himself in the large window that framed the
miserable night outside like a glossy canvas. His shoulder-length blond
hair hung limp and stringy around a face that was as pale as the white designer
shirt he was wearing. He started to turn to the men's room, thinking that
he might want to try to fix his dog-caught-in-the-rain appearance. But
after a quick look around at the few patrons who were either socializing or
eating quietly, he decided not to. He saw no good-looking women in the
place, so he instead went to a booth in the back.
Fuck
it. I feel like shit tonight, so why not look like shit?
But he did make sure that his choice of
booths afforded him a view of the front doors and the sidewalk beyond.
That way if a cute honey did happen to walk in, he would see her, and maybe be
able to make it to the men's room before she noticed him. An unlikely
scenario, he knew, but he planned for it none-the-less. After a few
minutes, the waitress came over.
It was Rita. He had dated her a few
times. It hadn't ended badly; he just didn't have time for a steady
relationship. From time to time he toyed with the notion that maybe he
came to the "Box" more to see her than to eat.
He looked up at the tall red-head and
smiled. She really was quite a beautiful woman. Her blue eyes and
dark skin contrasted each other very nicely. She was about his height,
with shapely hips and a generous swelling under blouse. Her naked breasts
were magnificent, as he recalled. They had been intimate several times,
including their first date. Kyle ranked her in his "Top Ten List of
Good Lays". "Top Five" if he only counted girls whose
names he could remember, or even knew.
"Heya, Wild Kyle. What
can I do ya for?" she was smiling down at him from above the large amount
of cleavage that pressed out and over the top of her blouse.
"Wadaya say, Rita Bonita?" he
replied. "How ya doin'? Sweetie?"
Rita smiled even bigger at his use of the
pet name. She placed her finger in her hair and twirled it as she
answered him. "Oh, you know me. 'Bout the same. Workin'
and stuff. That's about it. Ain't seen you for a while. Where
you been, Cutie?"
"Workin' my ass off. It's been
a killer month. But it pays the bills, ya know?" As he
replied, his eyes moved from her face to her chest and back to her face
involuntarily. She reached out and caressed his cheek with her
long-nailed fingers and smooth palm.
"Poor thing," she consoled him
playfully. "Let me get ya some soup, huh? Warm ya up a bit."
"Yeah, that sounds fuckin'
great. And a cheese burger too, with everything. And some hot fries
with a cola." Rita jotted down everything down in a fresh note
pad. Then she reached and touched his face again, this time she gently
cradled his chin.
"I'll be right back with your soup
and drink, Cutie." She turned and walked away toward the kitchen and
Kyle reached into his breast pocket and fished out his cigarettes. There
was a new no-smoking ordinance in effect all over the city, but Kyle didn't
give much of a fuck about that right now. He was cold and tired, and it
would be worth the measly one hundred dollar fine that was to be imposed upon
violators.
Fuck
'em.
He lit up as he watched Rita's hips sway
as she walked. He decided that when she came back, he would ask her if
she was free tonight. It was a cold night after all, and she could
undoubtedly keep him warm. He smiled at the thought of being with her
again. It had been about two months since he had been with anyone and
about six months since he and Rita had been together. He closed his eyes
and pictured in his mind what she had been like; her sweat moistened body
bucking underneath him was an amazing sight. He also remembered how much the
way her heavy breasts swinging back and forth as she rode atop him turned him
on.
His eyes snapped open as a cold chill made
his body shiver slightly. He felt a presence standing next to the
booth. He looked up, expecting Rita to be standing there. His blood
ran ice cold as he saw that it was not Rita who stood beside him. A young
woman with long black hair that hung limp and stringy around her extremely pale
face was looking down at him. Her ice cold blue eyes, which appeared to
be sunken into the dark circles that lay beneath them, regarded him with an
almost hateful indifference.
It was his sister.
"Katrina?" His voice was
dry, choked, almost a whisper. "Kat? Is that you?"
She did not reply, she only stared at him.
Cold, with no emotion. Kyle could only stare back at her, but with great
emotion. He had not seen his younger sister for nearly five years.
That had been at their brother Keith's funeral. It was two years prior to
that when Kyle and Katrina had their falling out.
As she stood before him now, he thought
she looked ill. The black hair that draped sloppily from her white scalp
was a drastic change from the blond locks that he had grown accustomed to
growing up. Her skin had always been light, but she looked almost ghostly
now. He had not heard anything about where she had been or what she had
been doing these past years. She looked like she might be in some sort of
trouble to Kyle. After a few moments of stunned silence, he motioned for
her to sit down across from him.
She made no expression to acknowledge
him. She instead turned and silently strode to the doors. Without
looking back, she opened them and disappeared into the darkness before he could
react. He was as stunned by her sudden departure as he had been by her arrival.
He quickly gathered his wits and jumped from his seat and ran to the
doors. As he swung them open, he heard Rita call from behind the counter.
"Where ya goin'?"
He didn't turn as he answered. "Something's
come up, Rita. I gotta run." He hastily threw on his still wet
overcoat and charged out into the rain. The street was fairly dark, but
the downpour and the dim lights of the stores created a dull glare on the
soaked pavement. He strained his eyes against the weather to scan up and
down both sides of the street, but he did not see Katrina anywhere.
Lightning briefly split the night sky,
followed by a loud clap of thunder that shook the glass in the diner's
windows. Kyle jumped, startled by the ominous booming. He slowly
turned in a circle, peering into the hazy darkness. She was
gone.
He sighed and went back into the diner,
taking his seat again after hanging his coat. Rita met him at his booth,
with his soup and drink. She looked at him curiously when he thanked
her. She waited for a few seconds, and then walked away. Kyle had
barely noticed her there. He was already lost in thought. He was
thinking about Katrina and the last time he saw her: Keith's funeral.
Keith had committed suicide. No one
ever really knew why, either. He had left no note and had no real
problems. Well, that Kyle had known of anyway. He often suspected
that there had been more to it than what had been in the police report, but
could never really figure out what. He just knew that he felt there was
something wrong with it. He had finally decided that with any suicide, it
could never feel right.
Keith had been the youngest of four
children. Then Katrina followed by Kyle. The oldest brother, Kevin,
had pretty much raised the younger three. They had been orphaned when
Kyle was fifteen. Keith was seventeen, Katrina fourteen and Keith had only been
nine years old and it seemed that he had been hit hardest by it.
Their parents had been killed in a car
accident while coming home from a New Year's Eve party. His father had
been drinking and went left of center, hitting a semi-truck head on.
Their father had been killed instantly. Their mother, however, had
languished in pain for several hours before she finally gave up the ghost on
the first day of the new year. She had been trapped in the wreckage; the
ill-equipped rescue squad had been unable to pull her free. Several of
them still hear her screams in their sleep to this very day.
After it happened, Keith soon became
withdrawn and distant from the others. He never went outside to play and
had no contact with his friends from school. He only sat alone in his
room, staring at the wall. Their caseworker, although worried about the
boy, assured them that it would pass in time and Keith would find a way to
manage his grief. She had been right, by the time Keith was thirteen, and
he seemed to be a normal, happy adolescent. As normal as a happy
adolescent could be, anyway.
Kyle didn't notice Rita return with his
sandwich and fries. She placed it in front of him with a smile that he
didn't see. She looked down at him for a moment.
"Need anything else, Cutie?" she
asked, with the tip of her tongue touching the corner of her mouth
suggestively. Her eyes were alive with sparkles that could have merely
been the reflections of the overhead lighting, but most likely something
more. It took a few seconds for Kyle to come to his senses and realize
she had spoken to him.
"Uh, what? Oh, no thanks
Rita. I’m good." He wasn’t quite focused on her, she could easily
see. If he had looked up as she turned away, he would have seen those
sparkles in her eyes dim a bit with disappointment. As she walked over to
the counter, she looked back at him. His gaze was focused on the plate in
front of him. She noticed that he not touched any of his food. She
felt a twinge of sadness, she had hoped that maybe he was as interested in
re-kindling their relationship as she was. But it was obvious that he
wasn’t. He had been nice to her earlier, but she could now tell that he
hadn’t been sincere.
Oh, well she thought as she set her mind back
on her work and grabbed another patron's plate of food from the window that
opened into the kitchen and brought it to them. It didn't take her very
long to get over Kyle's apparent rejection of her.
Kyle sat motionless for quite some
time. His stare rested upon nothing in particular. After a while, he felt
that same chill that had washed over him earlier. His head snapped up and
he looked around with his eyes wide open, giving him a maniacal appearance.
There, outside the big window, Katrina was standing in the rain. She was
staring in at him, her eyes still cold and emotionless. This time Kyle
did not hesitate, he leapt from his seat and rushed to the doors, almost
forgetting to grab his coat on the way out.
He pulled the heavy coat over his
shoulders and as the doors shut behind him, he could hear Rita calling after
him once more. He ignored her and burst out onto the wet pavement.
He immediately turned to the left, but
Katrina was no longer standing in front of the window. He could see her
down the block, walking away through the gloom. He started after her, the
rain was still coming down hard, and it pelted his face and hands. He ran
as fast as he could, but by the time he made it back to Haynes Street, she was
gone again. She had turned the corner and it seemed to Kyle that she had
just melted away into the night. He stood at the corner, turning around,
looking in all directions. There was no sign of her in the darkness. He
stood for a few moments before deciding to just go home.
"Fuck this and fuck her," he
told the rain as he angrily trudged across the street toward home. He was
very agitated at his sister’s sudden re-appearance into his life. She had
been angry with him and he understood why. She had told him that he upset
the order of her life before she had left. She had vowed to never speak
to him again, and he understood that too. So why was she here now?
He had been pissed off when she left seven years ago, but he was just as pissed
off now with her return. He had come to accept that he would no longer be
a part of her life. She was upsetting the order of his life
now.
Katrina had been twelve years old the
first time that they had been intimate. More correctly, that was the
first time he had raped her. It had continued until she was seventeen
that was when she ran away from home, and away from him.
Kyle could see now that what had happened
between them had been wrong, but at the time he had been confused about love
and sex. He had misdirected his frustrations upon her that first day but
after a few times, it seemed the normal thing for them to do when they were
alone. He really didn’t regret it as much as he supposed he should.
He thought that maybe it was because she had never told anyone about it.
He often interpreted that as her way of saying she wanted it to continue.
He thought that maybe she had felt the same way about it as he had, but
something had happened when she was seventeen to make her want to leave,
something that wasn’t related to their incestuous relationship. Perhaps
another man had come into her life and she didn’t know how to end a romantic
relationship with her brother. It was all very confusing to him, and
surely to her as well. He had stopped trying to figure it out years
ago. He rarely thought about Katrina any more.
Until tonight.
When Kyle looked up again, aware of his
surroundings, he could see light of his first floor apartment. He lived
in an old townhouse that sat in a semi-secluded section in the middle of the
block. There were vacant lots to each side of the old brick house.
The only neighbor that he had met in the 3 years he lived there had been a cute
little college girl that had moved into the apartment above him two years
ago. They had fucked a few times, and then she moved out, unable to
afford the rent. He wasn’t even sure if anyone lived there now.
He was soon standing under the shelter of
the small porch that jutted out from the front of the building. He fumbled
in his pocket for his keys. When he pulled them out, he looked up and saw
something out of the corner of his eye. He turned to his right and was
startled to see Katrina standing next to him. He reeled back a step and
dropped his keys.
"Jesus, Kat! What the fuck are
you doing? You scared the shit out of me!" he exclaimed as he bent
over to pick up the keys. He looked up at her, but she only stared at him
with the same cold, intense stare she had pierced him with at the diner.
He unlocked the door and opened it. He looked back to his sister. "Look,
you obviously have some reason for being here, so come on in and get this over
with." She continued her icy stare.
"Besides, it’s too cold and wet to be
out. At least come in and get dry," he added, hoping that maybe if
he was nice to her, she might lighten up a little bit. Whatever she had
on her mind, he was sure it wasn’t good.
He motioned for her to enter, and was
mildly surprised when she went inside. Her black coat and dress quickly
disappeared into the darkness of the apartment. He followed her inside
and flipped on the light. Katrina stood in the center of the room with
her back to him.
"Look, I’m going to change real
quick. There are towels in the bathroom. There-" he was
gesturing down the short hallway that bisected the rear apartment.
Katrina remained motionless in the living
room while Kyle changed in his bedroom. When he returned, he was wearing
a pair of jogging pants and an old and faded tee shirt that he got at a concert
he couldn't remember going to. He looked at her for a moment, and shook
his head. Then he went into the bathroom and brought back a couple of
towels. He used one to dry his hair and offered the other one to
her. Her only response was the same cold, dead stare. He held out
the towel again, and still she made no move to take it.
"Christ, Kat. Come on, take
it. You’re dripping all over the floor." Still, he did not
respond, so he draped his towel around his neck and moved the other up to her
hair, and began to dry it. She did not resist him. She only stared
straight ahead. He continued to dry her hair for a while, and then he put
the towel over her shoulders.
"Your jacket is soaked," he told
her. He moved his hands to the front of the black leather coat she wore.
He unfastened the belt that wrapped her waist and opened the jacket. After
removing the towel he slid the wet leather off one shoulder, and then the other
then replaced the towel. He moved behind her and pulled the jacket down,
allowing her arms to come free. He could see that the rain had soaked
through to her clothes. The white tank top and black skirt she wore were
sopping wet. He wondered why she would be dressed so lightly on such a
cold and wet night. He took her jacket to the coat rack and hung it up
beside his.
As he walked back around to face her, he
instinctively looked at her breasts. Her nipples were erect from the
combination of cold and moisture. Her breasts were by no means small, but
their size seemed amplified by the tight-fitting wet cotton. Realizing
what he was doing, he quickly looked back up at her face, and still she stared
straight ahead.
"Hey I got some more joggers and tees
if you want," he stammered, slightly embarrassed that she had seen the way
he was looking at her just now. She did not reply but he went to get the
garments for her anyway. He soon returned with a bundle of clothes.
He tried to hand them to her.
"You can change in the bathroom,"
he said and wasn’t surprised when she did not reply or take the bundle from
him. After a moment, Kyle placed the clothes on the arm of the couch that
Katrina stood in front of and knelt down before her. He began untying the
knee-high black boots she was wearing. She stared down at him as he
lifted each leg to remove the boots along with the damp socks underneath.
He moved his hands up to the loosely knotted belt that was sewn to the waist of
her skirt. As he began to untie it, he looked up at her. There was
still only that same cold, dead stare. But now it was directed at him,
and not straight ahead. He was slightly put off by that, but also a part
of him was excited by it. He pulled the knot free and the skirt slid down
to her ankles, almost as if it had a mind of its own. Kyle stared
straight ahead at the mound of blond pubic hair that was no more than a foot
from his face. It was a stark contrast to the black hair that hung off
her head.
"I think that you better finish this
yourself, Kat," he said as he stood and turned away. He was feeling
a familiar stirring in his loins. "The joggers are right there,
please put them on." He stood with his back to her, waiting for the
lustful tingle to go away. Finally, he turned back to her. She
still stood in the same place, skirt crumpled around her feet and her nipples protruding
angrily outward through the white cotton shirt. He couldn’t take it
anymore.
"What do you want from me, God-damn
it?" he shouted at her, his fists clenched in the air on either side of
his head. "For the love of Christ, just say something!" Katrina
only responded with silence. Kyle lowered his hands and stalked over to
his recliner and sat down. Her eerie gaze followed him.
Kyle
sat for awhile, staring back at her. Their eyes were locked for several
minutes; the silence of the apartment hung heavily over them. Finally he
stood and approached her. He leaned in close and whispered into her ear.
"I'm starting to think that you don’t
mind being naked in front of me." She did not react, so he
continued. "And I’m starting to think that I don’t mind it, either."
His hands moved to the bottom of her tank top, caressing her waist as they
went. "If you don’t want this to happen, this is the time to say
so. I won’t be angry. You've just got to understand, I’m confused
about you being here. And you look so beautiful standing here that I
can’t resist. I’ve been trying, but I can’t."
Without waiting for a reply, Kyle pulled
the tank top up and over her head, and then discarded it on the floor.
She did not resist him as her breasts burst free from the wet prison where they
had been held hostage and swung free. He watched them, almost
mesmerized. That was enough for Kyle and he gave into his lust. He
dropped to his knees and took the left breast in his mouth as he roughly
massaged the right.
As he suckled her, his hand dropped to his
groin and he released his engorged organ. He stroked it a few times, and then
stood. He placed his hands upon her shoulders and with no effort or
resistance from her, pushed her to her knees. She stared up at him as he
pushed his hips forward and parted her lips with his erection. He placed
his hands on her head and began to thrust in and out of her mouth.
Katrina, while doing nothing to stop him, was also doing nothing to help
him. Her mouth was barely open enough to receive him and her teeth were
scraping him with every stroke. Every stroke was agony and Kyle quickly
grew sore.
And agitated.
Angrily, he withdrew from her and pulled
her back to her feet. He turned her to face the couch. His right
hand slid down her back to her round and firm buttocks. He moved it
farther down and placed a finger between them, finding the soft pucker of her
anus. He moved it a bit lower and found the slit of her vagina. It
was dry and unready for him. He grew more annoyed and forced her to bend
over and pushed her face into the cushions of the couch. He moved her
feet apart with his own feet and then opened her buttocks and vagina with his
left hand.
Using his right hand to guide the way, he
forced his penis into her. He was still extremely rigid with
excitement, in spite of, or perhaps because of, his irritation with her, his
excitement, combined with the dryness of her genitals, allowed for Kyle to
thrust only twice before the tremors of orgasm began to shake his body.
He quickly withdrew from her and ejaculated into the crevice of her buttocks.
He was quickly aware of the pain in his
manhood and looked down to see it covered in a thin film of pinkish blood and
semen. Katrina’s lack of arousal and his own violence had torn some skin
down there. He panted a few times, and backed away from her. She
remained bent over, with her face buried in the cushions, her thighs parted and
her ravaged genitals exposed. The sight had aroused him only a few
moments ago, but now he was disgusted by it. She looked helpless and
abused now. Kyle began to think that what he had just done was a huge
mistake. He placed his hand on his forehead and sat back down in the
recliner.
He sat there, looking at her. She
never moved. The only motion was the glob of semen that slowly crawled
down her inner thigh. As sat, he thought about what had just
happened. He was starting to think that he would, for the first time in
his life, regret what he and his sister had done all those years ago. He
was older now; he understood the world a little better than he had back
then. And seeing his little sister like this now, bent over his couch,
the victim of a vicious rape, he understood what love was. He would have
killed anyone who had did this to her. But it was he who had brutalized
her. A tear ran down his cheek. He closed his eyes against the pain
in his heart, and quietly wept.
Either
the exhaustion of the long hours he had been putting in or the exhaustion of
what he had just perpetrated, along with the release of testosterone soon
calmed Kyle's emotions and he drifted off to sleep.
Chapter 2
Startled, Kyle jumped to his feet.
He was disoriented from sleep and had no idea what had awoke him. He
remembered that Katrina had been there, but before he could remember anything
else, the phone rang again, causing him to jump once more. He looked
around as he went to the kitchen to answer it, but Kat was nowhere to be
seen. He picked up the cord-less receiver and answered with a dry and
cracking voice.
"Hello?"
"Kyle, it’s Kevin." His
older brother’s voice sounded stressed even in that one, short sentence.
Kyle was still looking around the apartment. He saw the pile of clothes
that he had brought for Katrina still on the arm of the couch, but her clothes
were gone. He had thrown them on the floor right before they had-
Oh God- Kyle's mind doubled up on itself
when the memory of his rape of Katrina flooded in. He had to get a grip
on himself quick. His brother rarely called him, and it was a damned
peculiar coincidence that he called him tonight, of all nights. He shook
his head and wiped his eyes with his thumb and forefinger until he saw
stars. That helped him get centered, so he answered his brother in his
best "normal" tone.
"Yeah, Kev, what’s up?" he
replied, now becoming aware of a strange sound emanating from the bathroom in
the back of the apartment.
"Well, Little brother, I got some bad
news, you might want to sit down." Kyle nodded absentmindedly as he
tried to figure out what the noise coming from the bathroom was.
"I don’t know how to say it easy,
brother, so I’ll just say it. Kat’s dead."
Kyle almost dropped the phone. "What?
What did you say?" He asked as he realized the sound was water
running in the bathtub.
"Katrina’s dead, Kyle. I just
came from the morgue. She’s gone." Kevin’s voice was shaky as
he continued. "She slit her wrists in her bathtub earlier tonight."
Kyle began to shake uncontrollably as he
stood naked in his kitchen, staring down the hallway at the closed bathroom
door.
"I... I... I..." he could not
speak, gripped with fear and confusion.
"Look, I know it’s a shock. I
don’t know what to say. I’ll come by in the morning; we’ll go make the
arrangements together. I gotta go." With a loud click, the
phone went dead in Kyle’s ear. He dropped it on the floor and tried to
comprehend what had just happened. He stood there, listening to the sound
of the running bath water.
After a few minutes, his rational mind
took over and he regained control of himself. Something was obviously
wrong here. Either Kevin was mistaken, or he had been asleep for longer
than he thought. He looked at the clock. It was about an hour later
than when he and Katrina had come in. Not much time for her to leave,
kill herself and then Kevin go to the morgue to identify her body.
But why was the water running?
With a deep breath, he slowly made his way
down the short hall and stood with his ear close to the door. The only
sound was the running water. He waited for a few moments, and then slowly
pushed the door open. Nervously, he looked to the tub. The shower
curtain was drawn, and condensation covered the inside of it. He froze as
he looked to floor beside the tub. There, lying in a small pool of blood
was a straight razor. He didn't own a razor like that. He looked
back to the curtain. Even though it was opaque from moisture that had
collected on it, he could make out a dark shape lying in the tub. His
hands began to shake again and his guts were quivering.
As he stood in the doorway, gasping for
air, the sound of the running water grew to a deafening roar in his ears.
His heart was racing and he thought he was going to hyper-ventilate. It
took him several minutes to calm himself. When he finally did, he slowly
walked across the slick tile floor to the blood-covered razor.
He slowly bent over and picked it
up. The red viscous fluid was slick in his fingers. He held it as
he reached with his other hand to the edge of the shower curtain. Shaking
once more, he closed his eyes and threw it open. He stood for a moment,
quivering. Fear gripped him completely and he almost turned a fled the
apartment. But he didn't flee. He took two deep breaths and opened
his eyes and looked down.
He gasped in horror at what he saw.
Katrina was lying in the tub, and the water was red with blood. He could
faintly see the dark lines across her wrists through the swirling crimson cloud
in the water. Her eyes were staring up at the ceiling, cold and
dead. He would have passed out from the terror if he wasn't suddenly
gripped by a violent fit of vomiting. He launched his bile into the tub,
some of it splattering Katrina’s face. He recoiled, looked down at her,
and vomited again. He wretched into the tub several times more, each time
more painful than the last.
Finally, he stopped releasing the thin
contents of his empty gut and hung limply over the side of the tub with his
eyes closed. His breathing slowed and he opened his eyes. He looked
at Katrina’s face. Her eyes were no longer fixed upward, but were looking
right at him. His vomit was still wet on her cheeks and forehead.
Kyle could feel her stare even after closing his eyes again. When he
opened them again a few moments later, he found that stare still focused on him
and now the corners of her mouth were turned down in a hateful frown. He
sat up on his knees, terror seizing him for one last time.
"Oh God! Oh God!" He
repeated over and over as his sister’s glare pierced his soul.
His blood ran ice cold as a thought hit
him, "Oh, God no! You were dead when you got here! Oh Jesus, what
have I done?" He spoke quietly now, as the realization that he had
just raped his little sister's ghost washed over him.
"No, no, no," he chanted as he
brought the razor up to his neck. He looked down at his sister
again. He could feel the hate in her stare. With a scream, he
pulled the blade across his throat, severing arteries and sinew. A
powerful gout of blood spurted up and out. It arced onto the ceiling and
wall. His scream was cut short and turned into a muffled gurgle as the
razor split his larynx.
He fell forward over the tub and onto
Katrina’s body. He dropped the razor as he began to spasm. His head
turned to face Katrina for a few seconds. As his vision began to fail and
the room darkened around him, he could see her frown slowly turn up to a smile.
He spasmed one last time and was gone.
Chapter 3
Very few people came to Kyle's funeral. He
might have been pleased to see Rita there, but it was mostly just work
associates and clients. A rather dull eulogy was given by his boss.
A few flowers graced the stands beside the casket. The ceremony was the
standard low price option offered by the funeral home.
Only two people other than the minister
attended the grave-side service. After the minister delivered the prayer,
Kevin walked over shook his hand and thanked him. The minister left and
Kevin walked back to the open grave and looked down at the casket that lay at
the bottom.
"Where do we go from here?" he
asked aloud. From behind him, he felt an arm grasp his waist
gently.
"Let’s go home and make love,"
whispered a quiet voice over his shoulder, into his ear.
"Sounds good to me," Kevin
turned and put his arms around his sister. Holding each other around the
waist, they walked to his car. As they went, Katrina looked back over her
shoulder at Kyle's grave. Then she looked to Keith's tombstone beside
it. Her brothers were together again.
Finally her gaze settled on the empty plot
on Kyle's other side, opposite Keith. She had purchased it this
morning. She looked back at Kevin and smiled.
The
End
By Christopher Wittkugle
Gerald
watched the busy traffic go by outside the big plate glass window. Even though
he had been in this diner countless times, this was a new experience for him.
Today, he was a millionaire. Yesterday, not so much.
It has all started last Wednesday when he heard an advert on the radio about an
art show on the lower east side. He wasn't an art buff by any means, but when
he heard that a valuable painting, "The Dancer of Milan" was going to
be displayed, he took interest. Up till then, he had been scraping by on a
meager salary working for a security company.
The same security company that would be handling the art show, as luck would
have it.
As a model employee, he had never even contemplated violating the trust placed
in him or the firm. But recently an unexpected debt had clouded his future.
Impulsively, he decided to steal the painting and get the creditors and the
rest of the world for that matter, off of his back.
He called up two friends and together they planned a perfect heist. Amazing,
really, seeing as how none of them were criminals, but perhaps that was why
they succeeded. Who knows? But the end result was that they had gotten away
with the painting and found a buyer. Gerald had just left the rendezvous with
the mysterious man and was now holding three and half million dollars on his
lap in a battered old gym bag.
His attention was now caught by one of his partners' old sedan as it pulled up
to the curb outside the diner window. Gerald dropped a twenty on the table and
went out to meet them. They were going to split the money up, and then go their
separate ways.
As he exited the diner, he heard a loud engine approaching from down the
street. He looked up to see a antique looking car, all black like the ones
those mob guys used to drive in the old movies. As he stopped to look at the
speeding auto, the rear window rolled down.
Disbelief showed on his face as he saw the muzzle of an old style Tommy gun
extend from the back seat. He didn't even think to duck as the gun barrel
flashed and loud "pops" echoed up and down the street. People began
to scream and windows shattered as the sidewalk was sprayed with a generous
helping of lead.
Gerald's accomplice inside the rusty sedan fell over in the seat, but Gerald
didn't know if he was ducking or had been hit. It was then that he realized
that he was standing out into the open. Panic took hold of him and he turned to
dart back inside the diner.
But before he could make it two steps, a bullet caught him in the thigh and he
stumbled. As he went down, another one slammed into his kidney. Then another
into his lung. The last thing he felt was a sudden pressure on the back of his
head.
As the assailant's car sped off, a bystander took note of the license plate
number. When it was checked by the police later that day, it turned out to be a
number that had been issued during Prohibition. The name it had been issued to
had been Harvey Brown, a known bootlegger at the time. Brown and his crew had
been gunned down in that very same car by a G-Man named Wilbur Scott.
Wilbur Scott just happened to be Gerald's great-grandfather.
The End
By Christopher
Wittkugle
Ted
sipped at the cup of coffee that his wife Helen had just set down in front of
him. He smiled-- it was really good.
"This is by far the best cup I’ve had all day."
Helen closed a cupboard door and laughed. "Seeing as how it's only 6 am,
I’m not sure how big a compliment that is." She set her own cup down and
poured herself some of the dubious brew. After taking a sip, she nodded. "You're
right, this is really good."
Ted opened the newspaper and skimmed the articles. Nothing new, really. He
quickly found himself on the crossword page. He picked up his pencil and began
working on the puzzle.
This was a typical morning for the two retirees. Ted had spent years as a bank
manager, and had took his pension last year. Helen had left her job at the
plastic factory shortly thereafter. Their plans had been full of travel and
excitement, but so far they had only managed to spend a few weekends camping on
the banks of Lake Erie. Although this was not their vision of retirement, it
seemed to be working very well for the both of them. After 37 years of
marriage, they couldn't expect a whole lot of excitement.
As Ted chewed the eraser of the pencil, Helen thumbed through a tabloid.
"What’s a six letter word for 'football in Europe'?
"Soccer, you dummy," Helen chided. Her eyes looked over the top of
her reading glasses at him. She could see that he hadn't been serious.
"Thanks," he grinned.
"Sure," Helen put the rag she was reading down. "I’m going out
onto the porch, want to join me?"
"In a minute, I've gotta take a leak first."
Helen screwed up her face in mock disgust. "Too much information, dear."
They both got up and went to their separate destinations. As Ted walked into
the bathroom, he heard the back door shut. He did his business as best as a man
with an enlarged prostate could and then put on a pair of denim shorts. He
doubted if the neighbor across the alley would appreciate him sitting on the
back porch in his skivvies.
The morning sun struck him full in the face as he swung the back door open. He
squinted against the bright light and walked out into the cool fresh air. Helen
was sitting on the lovers’ swing at the end of the roofed-over porch. She was
sitting silently, with her eyes closed. Ted gently sat down beside her and took
a long, deep breath.
"God, it's nice out already. Might get well into the 80s today. Not bad
for May, I reckon."
Helen didn't answer. She was still sitting quietly, her eyes were still closed.
"Did you fall asleep already?" Ted playfully shook her shoulder. When
he let go, Helen slumped forward, then fell face-first onto the wooden floor of
the porch.
Ted's first reaction was stunned immobility, followed by a gasp. Then he got
control of his limbs and quickly crouched down beside her. He rolled her over,
her eyes were open now. But he could immediately tell that they were fixed and
dilated. He checked her pulse, and his own heart sank when he realized that
hers was no longer beating. He got to his feet and started to head inside to
call the paramedics. As he reached for the door, he saw that the fingertips
that he had pressed against her neck were coated with a thick red substance.
Despite his sense of urgency, he stopped short. He brought his
hand up close to his face to inspect the crimson coating.
It was blood.
He turned back and kneeled down beside Helen’s body again. He turned her head
and saw that there was a large, ragged wound that wrapped almost completely
around that side of her neck. He fell back, landing on his backside. The wound
looked like some sort of animal bite. He looked around the yard, but saw no
sign of any sort of predator. But, he noticed now, the birdfeeder was deserted
this morning.
Regaining some of his composure, he scrambled back to his feet and started for
the door again. Just as he was reaching for the handle, a dark blur of movement
above the doorframe grabbed his eye. He looked up, but before he could step
back, the blur leapt from the wall and struck him in the face.
Horror took his voice as he tried to scream. He reached up and pulled and
tugged at the thing on his face, but it had a firm hold on him with several
pairs of legs. The hard bristles of fur that poked out from its swollen belly
scraped his face and he had to keep his eyes shut to keep them from being
ripped out. He tried to scream again, but when he opened his mouth, the thing
jabbed something in all the way to his throat. He gagged and felt a searing hot
pain back there. He let go of the creature, and it leapt off of him. It
landed with a loud thud on the floor.
Ted was gasping for breath; the thing had stung him! Right in the windpipe,
too. His head began to swim, and he knew that he was going down. He put his hands
in front of him and fell forward. His chin bounced as he hit and he bit off the
tip of his tongue. But he didn't feel it; the fast-acting poison of the sting
had numbed his entire mouth. He turned his head to the side and laid there
gasping beside his dead wife. He knew that he was on his way to join her now.
The fog that was closing in from around the edges of his vision limited his
view of the porch. As everything went dark he saw the big spider crawling
toward him. Working its huge mandibles like a miser wringing his hands over a
purse full of gold, it came for him.
Ted was still alive when it sucked the juice from his left eye.
The End
By Christopher Wittkugle
Eddie
stared at the beast in the Styrofoam cooler. It was by far the largest fish
that Eddie had ever caught from Jackson’s pond. He wondered if the lightweight
chest would hold such a behemoth. He tried to lift it, but the weight of the
water and the strange-looking fish inside strained the walls to the limit. He
sat down and wondered for a few minutes. He was afraid to let anymore of the
water out because the fish might die. He could walk home and get the aluminum
cooler that his dad had used, but the fish might flop out while he was gone. He
wanted everyone to see this, because he knew that no one would believe him when
he told them.
He tugged at a stalk of the tall grass that surrounded the pond and stuck it in
his mouth. He chew absentmindedly on the shoot and thought some more.
He had been here all morning, and the sun was now high in the sky. It beat down
on his neck and shoulders. Sweat beads had formed on his brow and he had been
constantly wiping them away. He got up and slid the chest slowly and carefully
along the ground until it was resting under a big maple tree. He sat down
beside it under the shade, somewhat relieved by the cooler air and the fact that
he didn’t spill the chest, losing his prize.
He had not planned on killing any fish that he caught today, he was a "catch
and release" type of sportsman. But this magnificent animal was the
exception to the rule if ever there was one. He had to show it off, but how?
Suddenly he had an inspiration.
He whipped out his cell phone and called his best friend Earl.
"Earl, I got a fish here and I wanna get him home to put in the coy pond.
Can you bring me my metal cooler?"
"It can't be all that big," Earl mumbled, half asleep.
"Oh but it is, you gotta see it."
"I ain't gonna do it. I just woke up. Why don't walk home and get it?"
"Come on, just help me out here. When you see it, you'll know why."
"Well, send me a picture of it then."
"Okay hold on." Eddie hung up and snapped a quick shot of the cooler
and its gargantuan occupant and sent it to Earl.
Earl called right back.
"Hey, dumbass, that ain't any fish. That's a tadpole."
"Tadpoles ain't three feet long, dumbass," Eddie piped back.
"That one is. I would put that sucker back and get the hell out of there."
Earl's voice was no longer slow and groggy.
Just then, Eddie heard a bellow from behind him. As he felt a hard thud on his
back and was jerked backward, he realized the bellow sounded much like a
bullfrog.
Only a lot louder.
Eddie’s phone landed on the ground beside the cooler, and all Earl could hear
on the other end was a loud, wet munching and screams.
He hung up.
The End
The
Case of the Martian Cattle Rustler
By
Christopher Wittkugle
I adjusted the worn, black leather belt that was slung
low over my hips as I walked through the door to the small interrogation room. The
weight of the laser pistols that were nestled in the folds of the twin holsters
that ran down each of my thighs was beginning to get to me. It had been a long
day already, and just as my shift was about to end, my boss Sheriff
Harris told me to help out with another investigation. I had been in
enough trouble lately, so I didn't give her much grief about it.
My name is Jonathan Young and I am a
detective with the New Carson City Police Department here on Mars.
Hopefully, this new case would be pretty
simple. But then again, things on Mars are rarely easy.
The door to the cube-shaped room
automatically shut behind me without a sound. In the very center of the room
was a metal table. Resting on the table was a hand-held data unit. On the
table-side closest to me was an empty metal chair. A matching chair was on the
opposite side of the table, but it was not empty. In it sat my first suspect,
Bob Anderson.
Anderson was a scruffy looking man in his
mid-to-late thirties. He had long, stringy black and gray hair that hung limply
on his shoulders. He looked up at me and smiled a crooked-toothed grin, but did
not speak. I sat down in the chair across from him and picked up the thin
hand-held computer. The display screen lit up and I accessed the file for this
case. I read through it while Anderson sat waiting patiently. He whistled
softly or sometimes he hummed. After I finished reading, I looked at him.
"So," I said with a flat voice, "I
read here that you were brought in because you used to work for the Double B Ranch.
Is that correct?"
He nodded.
"And you were fired from the ranch
for stealing, correct?"
Another nod.
I pulled up a picture on the computer's
screen and showed it to him. The image was of a shadowy figure in a long brown leather
duster prodding a black Martian Angus bull into the cargo hold of an old space
ship. The only identifying feature that could be seen was a long tear in the
criminal's coat. Another picture in the file showed that the tear had happened
while the person had been running along a fence line and snagged it.
"This picture was taken by the
ranch's security system. It obviously shows the culprit who made off with over
three-hundred head of cattle earlier tonight. Is that you in this picture?"
He never even looked at the computer's
display; instead he (luckily) looked me directly in the eyes.
"Nope," he proclaimed with a
distinct drawl in his accent. "I ain't been to that ranch in about two
weeks." He crossed his arms. "Weren't me" was his final
statement.
I nodded and stood up. I walked toward the
door but stopped right before I went out.
"One more thing," I said as I
turned back to face Anderson. "Can I see the bottom of your boots?"
Anderson leaned back in his chair and
propped his dirty old cowboy boots up on the table, exposing the soles. I held
up the data unit beside them and compared the traction of the soles to that of
a photograph of the culprit's boot print in the soft dust at the Double B
Ranch.
Without showing any reaction other than a
small nod, I left Anderson's room and went to the next room where Sheila Gray
awaited.
Having already read the file, I knew that
Gray was here because she had a history of cattle rustling in the New Carson
City area. She was sitting in the chair, with her feet resting up on the table,
so I immediately made the boot print comparison with the picture on the data
unit. I nodded and sat down across from her. She was looking at me angrily.
"Why am I here?" she asked with
venom in her voice.
"There was a robbery at the Double B
Ranch tonight. We just wanted to see if you knew anything about it," I
replied calmly. "Do you?"
"The Double B? If I was going to
steal a bunch of cows, it certainly wouldn't be from that sorry excuse for a
ranch. Their cattle are all old and skinny and not worth a hill of beans!"
I merely nodded. I looked at her
clothes she was wearing a long, brown leather duster over her white shirt
and blue jeans. Her cowboy boots were quite worn. Then I noticed that there was
a long tear at the bottom of the coat. Its edges were frayed and dirty. I
pointed at the flaw.
"What happened there?"
"What? Where?"
"That rip in your coat."
"Oh," she said, almost as if she
were surprised to see the wounded garment. "I really don't know. I've had
this coat for years. Hard to say what happened to it." She was looking me
in the eyes. "That's something to do with the case, isn't it?"
I shrugged.
"Maybe, maybe not. Just sit tight and
I'll get back to you," I said as I stood up. I pushed my chair back under
the table and headed toward the door.
"Detective?" Gray called out
from behind me.
"Yes?" I turned around.
"I didn't do it." Her voice was
still angry and dripping with venom. I closed my eyes and sighed.
"No one ever does," I said as I
left the room to go interview my next and last suspect.
This suspect's name was Chuck O'Malley. He
was a thoroughly vile and wretched man. He had been arrested over twenty times
for various robberies and assaults. He had just been released from prison less
than a month ago. He was here now because he had allegedly approached the owner
of the Double B Ranch Brock Boulder two days ago and threatened him. The
threat had not been reported to the police until tonight, right after the
robbery.
As soon as I walked into the room with
O'Malley, he jumped up from his chair and the grabbed it and threw across the
room at me. I ducked, rolled to the side and came back up on my feet with my
pistols drawn. I leveled the barrels at O'Malley and told him to get that chair
picked up and then sit in it. Begrudgingly, he followed my instructions.
His shaved head glistened with
perspiration as the white light that hung over the table glared down on him.
Slowly, I moved to the table and took a seat.
"You seem to have a problem with Mr.
Boulder. Is that true?" I asked him with my calmest interviewer's voice.
O'Malley slammed his fist down on the table, nearly bending it. Our eyes met
with a great intensity
"I've never met him!" O'Malley's
voice was more like the growl of a wild animal than a person. He looked wild
too, his flannel shirt was ripped and worn thin in several places and his
camouflaged military trousers were dirty and worn too. He had very old combat
boots on his huge feet. I didn't even need to check the photo; I knew those
boots did not match the prints from the crime scene, which could have only been
made by pair of new and very expensive cowboy boots.
"Never met him? He says otherwise."
"He's a liar. Plain and simple."
"Could be, O'Malley. Could be."
I closed the cover on the hand-held and walked out of the room leaving O'Malley
alone with his rage.
Five minutes later, I was standing in
Sheriff Harris' office. With the sheriff were Brock Boulder and one of his
ranch hands, al large man in a long, leather duster. Mr. Boulder was pacing
back and forth across the carpeted floor. He stopped pacing when Sheriff Harris
asked me which of the suspects should be arrested.
"None of them."
My reply brought a look of sheer outrage
to Mr. Boulder's face.
"What?" he yelled. "You're
going to let them all go?"
"That's right," I replied. "They
all say that they didn't do it."
Mr. Boulder's face became red with anger. "Of
course that's what they said! You believed them?"
Sheriff Harris stepped forward. "Mr.
Boulder," he explained, "Detective Young here has a unique gift.
Along with his sharp observational skills, he was born with the ability to know
if someone answers his questions honestly."
Mr. Boulder's face went from red to white.
"You're a mutant?" he asked me.
I nodded. "Yes, and now I would
like to ask you three questions," I looked him square in the eyes.
"First: How much were those cattle
insured for?" Boulder looked at me, wide-eyed and sweating.
"Second: How did your ranch hand
there tear his coat?" Everyone in room now saw the recently repaired tear
in the man's duster.
"And, finally, can I see the soles of
those fancy new boots you are wearing?"
The End
By Christopher
Wittkugle
The
clip-clopping of hooves made its way through the tree line alongside the lonely
road. The horse was a paint, not especially fine, but not bad. The rider,
George, was an older gentleman, maybe fifty or so, and was sitting lazily in
the saddle. He looked to be carefree and well at ease. From his side hung a
rapier, from his back, another. His clothes, although fine and well-tailored,
were covered by the dust of the road. His white blouse looked a little dingier
now than it had this morning when he had set out. He was smiling, in a
come-what-may manner.
He knew the road well and therefore knew that the meadow where he was to meet
his opponent lay just around the next bend. He didn't change his pace, but his
smile did begin to fade. Slowly it was replaced by a hard line as he set his
jaw. There was going to be bloody work today. It was no matter to him that
Javier was a better swordsman than he. He was here to defend the honor of the
fair maiden Anna Maria.
Javier had insulted her by calling her a tramp. Not to her face, the coward,
but to George's own brother. Of course, George's and Anna Maria's illicit
affair was not widely known through the town, so Javier had no way of knowing
that the utterance would end up costing him his life.
But cost him, it would.
The sun was nearing its midday zenith, and George could hear the din of many
voices from just off the road, behind the trees that screen the picnicking
meadow from view of the road. He wondered if perhaps they had erroneously
chosen a day to duel that coincided with a church function or some poor
family's picnic.
His curiosity replaced his determination and he trotted the paint slowly into
the clearing.
There were at least a hundred people there. It looked as if the entire town had
turned up for this occasion. But what was the event that brought them all here?
George got his answer soon enough. Javier, dressed in an outlandish and garish
costume stepped from the milling crowd. A long green feather dropped low over
his back, sprouting from his purple wide brimmed hat.
"Well met, George!" the fop exclaimed.
"And good day to you, Javier. What manner of trickery is this? Do you wish
to hide your fear behind puffy blouses and bright colors?"
Javier looked around the meadow, puzzled. "Whatever do you mean, George?
Of what colors do you speak?"
George, slightly irritated, leaned forward in the saddle. "I speak of this
apparent carnival that has broken out on our battlefield."
"I see no carnival, George."
George squinted his eyes, and then opened them wide as everyone in the meadow
vanished.
A pain shot through George's belly, white hot and unbearable. He screamed at
the top of his lungs.
"It's okay, buddy, we're gonna take care of you," someone told him.
Behind the disembodied voice he could hear a loud, blaring siren. He tried to
open his eyes but could only manage to peer though tiny, tear-blurred slits. He
was lying flat on his back, with two dark shapes moving around him, talking to
each other. He realized that he was in an ambulance, but did not know why. An
irritating long beep started blasting into his right ear, and his blurred
vision started to grow dark.
"He's crashing!" one of the figures yelled.
He breathed deep and let it out with a rattle in his chest.
He opened his eyes, and there was Anna Maria, surrounded by a halo of
shimmering white light.
She had waited for him.
The End
By Christopher
Wittkugle
As I
sat beside the bank of the mighty Mississippi river, I contemplated my life.
I
had lived for several years in the small town of Habersville. I was well taken
care of by my mistress, a lovely woman named Isabelle. She fed everyday and
gave me a wonderful old blanket to sleep on. It was wonderful, what more could
an old tom cat ask for?
She had treated me so warmly and kindly when she had first found me scratching
around in the trash heap behind the town's only inn. I could see the compassion
in her big blue eyes as she gazed at my dirty and mangy fur. I was starving,
near death, really, so I didn't run from her. I hoped that she would either
kill me or fed me. I didn’t care which at this point in my horrible existence.
I remember how she reached into her pocket and pulled out a scrap of old
chicken bone. Why she had been carrying such an odd item didn't even cross my
mind. I merely licked my chops, which were drawn tight and thin from
malnourishment. She dropped the bone, and I pounced on it. The tiny scraps of
skin and tendon that still clung to the lifeless bone tasted sweeter to me than
anything i could remember. She said something to me, but I couldn't hear it. My
mind was fully fixed on devouring my prize. She slowly approached me and
reached down to scratch me behind my ears. I let her.
After that I followed her home, and lived there with her for what turned out to
be the absolute best years of my life. Probably the best years that any cat has
ever lived, I would say. We were inseparable, the two of us. She had named me
Thomas. While the name was thoroughly unimaginative, it suited me just fine.
She could have called me Sarah, if she wanted to. I love her more than any cat
has every loved a person.
But then, she met a man. They fell in love, as people tend to do. Soon they
were married. Not long after, I noticed that she was becoming larger in the
belly. It took me a while to realize that she was expecting kittens. Or a baby,
rather.
Things changed dramatically for m after that little child was born. Isabelle no
longer had time for me. Sure, she kept me fed and warm, but our long walks
around the sleepy little village were no more. And her husband, he took no
notice of me at all, other than to apply an occasional kick to my ribs if I
happened to get in way. My peaches and cream life had turned sour and moldy.
It was because of that baby, I realized as I sat by the slowly rolling muddy
water. If the baby was gone, she would have time for me again. I knew what to
do.
You've heard the old wives’ tale about a cat stealing a baby's breath?
Time to find out if it's
true.
The End
By Christopher
Wittkugle
As
I walked down the long road towards town, I heard a woman yell for help. It was
coming from over the hill to the east, a way that was wooded and rough. I stopped
short and sat down my gear. I had been fishing in the pond a further bit down
the road. I tilted my head and listened to make sure that I had heard what I
thought I had heard.
After a few seconds, the yell came again. So I bounded over the small wall of
thorns that lined the dirt road and took off into the woods.
I was making a terrible racket as I went, and the woman who had been yelling
heard me coming. She yelled some more and I followed the sound of her voice. I
found her tied to a tree, surrounded by a thick wall of briars.
I recognized her; she was the tavern owner's wife, Matlida. She was very
relieved to see me, and wept openly as I untied her. She had been bound with
very thick rope, the kind that draught horses use to tow barges down the canal
that leads through town.
As she rubbed her hands to get the blood flowing through them again, she told
me what had happened. Late in the night, or early in the morning, some men had
broken into the tavern and robbed Matilda and her husband, Gregor. Gregor had
been killed in the ruckus, and the three bandits had dragged Matlida out here
and argued over what to do next. In the end, they had only stolen their money
and Matlida's jewelry. They put their booty in a leather purse and tied her up.
Matilda told me that they had taken off towards the north. I did a quick mental
projection, and concluded that they were headed to the canal where it bore to
the west a few miles out of town. I told her to return to the village and alert
the constable. I was going after her attackers.
She tried to warn me off of doing it, but I didn't listen. I tore out of there
as fast as my feet could carry me through the underbrush. I jumped over
thickets and logs, dodged low branches and stumbled over vines the whole way.
But eventually I burst out of the woods onto the clearing that snaked its way
alongside the canal.
Nothing.
But I wasn’t ready to give up, so I ran upstream, and within a few minutes, I
saw a barge. Its top was low to the water so I knew that it had a full load of
cargo. I thought that maybe the crew might have seen the bandits.
A ran up a ways, and saw a lone man walking along side the horse that was
towing the barge against the current. I quickly approached him, and as he
turned around, I saw his partners out on the barge; they had been lying down,
hiding behind the barrels and crates that littered the deck. They watched as
the man guiding the horse turned to face me.
He reached into his jacket, smiling. As he withdrew his hand, I saw the glint
of metal in the morning sunlight. Without a thought, I drew my revolver and
squeezed the trigger. The gun spat out three rounds, and the bandit dropped to
the ground clutching his ventilated belly.
I dropped and rolled, expecting shots from the barge. I waited for a few
seconds and then hollered for the men to give up. All I got for a response was
two nearly simultaneous splashes of water. They had jumped ship.
I stood and watched as they got to the opposite bank and climbed out of the
muddy water. They stole a look over their shoulders at me, and I wasted my last
four bullets on them. After I missed, the bandits crashed off into the
underbrush. I didn't follow. I couldn't.
I can't swim.
So, instead I used the draught animal to bring the barge to my shore. I climbed
aboard and quickly found the money from the tavern robbery, along with much
more. It looked as if these fellows had been at this for quite a while.
I secured the barge and began the long walk back to the village. Maybe old Ned
could bring his hounds out here and track the fleeing robbers down.
It turned out that they got away.
And you know, it never occurred to me to take one bit of that loot those
fellows had tucked away there on that barge.
The End
A brief account of the reviled Arch-Wizard
Edmund Manwaring's childhood meeting with Master Tolbas Nogroti.
(*Taken from the Arch-Wizard's personal
journals)
Reality. A state of being that
is upheld to be the only possible existence, given past actions. The
state of things as they are or were. A thing which is not formed of
delusion, imagination or deception. A truth.
Destiny: The ultimate end of a
journey. A goal set forth by oneself or another for one to obtain.
The pre-ordained result of living. An end.
Two words used by scholars and
clergy to help the less fortunate members of our societies to find peace and
happiness in our existences. If we have an unobtainable dream, we are
told to keep our focus on the reality of things. If we have a life that
is less than desirable, we are told that our destiny is thus, and that we
should rejoice and find pleasure in all we do. Even if it pains us.
Oh, that's what they told me when
my father passed away in my eleventh year. And you know, it didn't sound
any better than it does now. Of course a man's destiny is to die, but
why, pray tell; did it have to be my father?
I suppose that my father asked
nearly that same question when my mother died during my birth. But, if he
was told to find the happiness in having a son, rather than losing a wife, he
ignored it completely. I won't expound on the injustices wrought upon me
by my father, but I will say that I have seen lepers treated more decently than
I was.
Oh well, Destiny calls, right?
But, I ask this: What of those
souls who have destinies of great importance and magnitude? Did they not
have great dreams and aspirations? Were they told to keep focused on
reality? And, if so, did they pay heed? The casual observer would
say they did not.
So, it may be reasoned
that one may achieve happiness and a sense of worth by making their reality
their destiny. Or perhaps realizing their destiny. Or maybe, just
maybe, one's destiny is an illusion and reality is only an extension of one's
dreams, wants and desires.
Or perhaps, I am just as misguided
and unenlightened as Constable Wilks, who on several occasions informed me that
my destiny waited for me in a cold ditch and my reality was the same as a
common sewer rat. Maybe. It's possible he was right, but then again, I am
still alive. I am not near a ditch and there are no rats in my
comfortable room here. As for the good Constable, he departed this world and
met his destiny several years ago.
Thinking of the Constable brings
back memories of a darker and yet less sinister time in my life. A time
when I was convinced that happiness lay with the confines of another's
purse. A time when I could mark the passing of time by the hunger pangs
that shook my insides when business was slow.
Business was, or the reality of it
was, thievery. Picking pockets, scamming and conning. I found that
being a man or rather a boy, with few skills and no family worth provided me
with few options. I could use my, in all modesty, good looks and work as
an indentured servant. Or I could use my limited brains and clumsy
hands as a cutpurse. Or I could starve.
Not inclined to be the plaything of
greasy, smelly and thoroughly disgusting old men, and most definitely not
interested in starving, I chose cutting purses and running scams. There
was one problem with my chosen profession. I have absolutely no ability
to convince anyone of anything that I know is not true. I always gave
away the job. If it weren't for alcohol, I would have never succeeded as
many times as I did. Only a drunk would believe my cons.
Laughable as I was, I did manage to
stay out of the law's hands and even kept myself fed. But, as time went
on, I decided I needed a partner.
Or, rather it was decided for me.
Leo was just a scruff of a boy,
barely a teenager. Bushy blond hair and big tan freckles. That's
the way Leo was always described by people on the street. He was a
likable fellow with a hard luck story. A story that changed day to
day. But it was always a tearjerker. Leo made quite an impressive
living off of the generosity of others. And their gullibility.
I had been working the streets for
about seven months when I first met up with Leo. He knew right off what I
was about. I looked a total delinquent. He strode right up to me
and said, " Yah know, yah grift about as well as Ah fly."
Apparently he had seen my recent failure to convince an elderly gentleman to
part with a few coins for my sick mother.
"Oh, sure yah luk a right
miserable fella," he continued, "but yah sound like a con-man.
Ah should let yah go on cheatin' yerself outta yer coin, but Ah need some help,
and seein' as how yah do too, Ah think we kin help one anudder out here."
I stared at this scrawny fellow
with wild blond tufts of hair jutting out from under his woolen hat. I
was as incredulous as my marks, but for some reason, his eyes and goofy
lopsided grin convinced me that the least I could do was give it a try.
"What's the scam?" I said
as nonchalantly as I could.
"Eeeeooow, that's da spirit!"
he exclaimed. "It's a pretty little deal. A new shopkeeper
moved into da front down on Jester Way Courtyard. He hasn't been hit by
any of the boys yet, 'cause dey all wanna score big da first time. So
what we are gunna do is go down dere, talk to da man and convince him that we
knows some things that he should know."
"And that would be what?"
I inquired.
"Well, all da scams of da udder
grifters! He should pay some heavy coin for our info."
I continued to stare at Leo, and slowly
worked his story over in my mind. He knew what I was doing, and never
looked away from me. He just waited for me to come to the conclusion that
he knew I would.
"So, what in the bleeding world
do you need me for? You are gonna sell out every street guy in this
neighborhood. Sounds like a one man, one time scam to me."
"Ah see yer point, so here's
mine. While Ah am out in da front 'sellin' out Da boys, as you put it,
you is in da back of his store, liftin' everything yah kin! Den we splits
it fiddy-fiddy!"
His scheme seemed worth a
shot. After a bit of deliberation about it, I agreed.
We set out, both smiling at the
prospect of out burgeoning partnership. He showed me the store and we
worked out our timing and cover stories. I slipped off to the alley and
he went boldly into the shop.
The scam went of perfectly and we
decided to make it a standard part of our grifting.
Leo and I, we made "heavy coin",
as he always liked to put it. We worked the city of Grayville top to
bottom, and side to side over the next two years. We had a scam for every
occasion. But our best scam, the one that we could pull on any one,
portrayed us as brothers.
And you know, we were.
(*Omitted here are several accounts of the
Arch-Wizard's daily life over the next two years.)
One warm early summer's day, Leo
and I were lounging about our palace. The servant girls were attending to
our every need. My pet lion, "Gondo", was playfully wrestling
with my foot while a tamed ogre played the pipes in the corner. It had
grown boring in the kingdom since we had slain the last of the dragons in a
fiery confrontation some days before.
Leo rolled slowly to his side and
spoke, completely shattering the fantasy. The ogre and serving girls
melted away as the reality of our ramshackle hideout took over as his words
came forth.
"Yah know, we needs ta git
some coin soon. We are outta smoke, drink and food."
I agreed. "The market,
or the court?"
"Da markit Ah think. No
new nobles have showed up in court for a few days."
"The market it is then."
Leo grinned toothily as we
stood. He brushed off his trousers and straightened his cap.
"Hey Leo, you ever think about
how things could have been? If you were rich or a noble or something?"
"Naw, Ah am what Ah am.
Just as yah are."
"Yeah, we are what we are."
With a playful slap to the back of Leo's head, I ran out the low hung door of
the old warehouse and into the street.
Right into the muscular chest of
Constable Wilks. I fell backwards from the impact as if I was shot from a
steam cannon. He stared down from his visor and extended a hand. I
allowed him to help me up and brushed myself off. Leo stumbled after me
and struck me in to back so hard that I went off balance and cracked by
forehead on Wilks's pauldron.
Leo laughed and after proclaiming
me to be the largest horse's shank in the kingdom, saluted the Constable.
Wilks smiled slightly as he inspected my wound and asked how business was.
"Slow, very slow, Sir"
was Leo's response, and Wilks merely shook his head. He had given up on
lecturing us quite some time ago. He was now content with looking out for
us and making sure that some of the other knights didn't get too rough with
us.
After he was convinced that my head
didn't need any special attention, he let us go on our way. It was a long time
before I figured out why he was kind to us. I never thanked
him. Not once. I wish I had.
The market was not especially busy
this day, but we were sure we could get some action by the time the sun set. We
went to work with all the zeal of a harlot trying to entice a Duke.
As Leo told his story of misery to
a middle-aged woman in fine clothes, I relieved her husband of his purse as I
brushed by him on the busy causeway. As expected, it was a decoy
purse. Empty. Marks had become increasingly crafty these
days. More crafty than the grifters at times.
After a few hours of attempts that
proved fruitless, Leo and I stopped under the apple tree on the corner and sat
in the shade of the setting, watching the citizens go on about their business,
paying us no mind. It puts things in perspective, if one allows oneself
to think about such things. Such thinking, however, is detrimental to
happiness, so, things were completely out of perspective for most of us.
In an odd show of generosity, an
old woman stopped and handed each of us a small rag. We smiled and
thanked her and she went back to her man, who was glowering at her show of
kindness for two criminals. We opened the rags to find a small handful of
berries. A welcome treat and we slowly began to plop the sweet morsels
into our mouths. Our luck had changed.
As we snacked, I noticed a chill in
the breeze. I commented to Leo about it, but he just kept eating his
berries. After a moment the chill passed, but the memory of it did
not. Something about it struck me as being darkly peculiar. I tried
to dismiss it, but could not.
After a time, a small group came up
the road. I stood and watched them approach. The chill was back in
the air, but now it was stronger. I turned to Leo and asked him if he
felt it now. He shook his head slowly as he daydreamed about whatever it
was that he daydreamed about.
I turned back to the troupe and
could now see that four of the members were clad in black robes with black
veils. At the head was a tallish figure, clad in black as well, but his
face was not covered. His brow was high and his nose was a slope that
divided his face like stone wall divides a courtyard. His eyes were dark
and sinister. He gave the impression of man who cares not for his
surroundings, as he never even glanced my way as I stood with jaw agape at his
parade.
It seemed an eternity passed as the
figures passed by us, on their way towards the market and shops. I
watched in total fascination. Of all the odd things I could have noticed
about this crew, the one thing that stood out were the thin, silvery strings
that were draped from each of the four veiled figures' heads to the hand of the
leader. I had never seen anything like that.
The group passed by us, and I
turned to Leo. "What the Devil was that?"
"Ah guess a master and his
serving wenches, probably from Halvia, judging by da veils."
"But what were those strings?"
"Whut strings, yah daft idjit?"
"You didn't see them?
Strung from each woman to the hand of the Master."
"Sounds like leashes ta
me. Leashes, that's whut dey were."
I wasn't convinced. Something
about the leashes and the chilly air told me that something was afoot.
Something sinister. Something wonderful. Something magical.
Leo rolled on his belly laughing at
my idea. He said the berries must have been bad or something and perhaps
I should go lie down. He laughed and guffawed for a time, but finally
settled down. We sat quietly for a few minutes, pondering private
thoughts.
"Why doncha go ask him?
Da strings, Ah mean. Go ask dat Master whut dey wuz."
I nodded and told Leo I would meet
him at the usual place for this evening's activities of drink and
merriment. He said he would be there and for me to bring whatever I
lifted from the Master in Black. I nodded and strode off into the dust of
the street.
I didn't say goodbye to my dear
friend Leo that day. I wish I had.
(*The account of the actual meeting has
been removed at the request of Master Archivist Keliwan. It may be viewed upon
request in the Archives.)
By Christopher
Wittkugle
It
was the last day of summer and I had decided to take a trip down the Scioto
River with my good friend Paul. We had bought our tickets at the boat station in
Waverly and were standing out in the warm afternoon sun. We chatted about the
mild weather and watched the muddy water roll by the small wooden dock. We
couldn't see deep enough into the murky current to look for fish, but we did
see a small flock of geese lazily float by. The few other passengers that
waited with us remarked about the beauty of the birds, and we knew that they
had to be from out of town. Everyone who lived here hated those filthy
creatures. Unless, of course, they happened to be gracing our dinner table on
Sunday afternoon.
We had made up our minds to go down to Portsmouth, where the Scioto River meets
up with the mighty Ohio River. We were going to stay with my cousin jack for a
couple of weeks and see if maybe we could get work in the multitude of
cornfields that dominated the fertile bottoms near the river. If things didn't
pan out there, we would walk to south point and try to find work there in the
coal mine. Mining wasn't our first choice, but seeing as how money was running
low, we figured that we might not have a choice.
After waiting for about an hour, we hear the whistle of the boat as it
approached from upriver. Finally it hove into view around the bend. It was an
awful looking thing, about thirty feet long with peeling paint and a rusty old
pipe that belched white steam. It sat fairly low in the water; the deck was
maybe four feet above the waterline. A square-ish cabin rested in the very
center, surrounded by large boxes and crates. We guessed that the clanging
steam engine was housed inside this shoddy box, which really resembled a larger
version of the cargo crates.
We couldn't complain, though. This leaky death trap was our way out of another
dead-end town and on to new life. We hoped, anyway. When the boat reached the
dock, a man jumped off, dragging a rope behind him. He deftly wrapped the hemp
around the tackle-block and began to pull the craft into its berth. As he
strained against the weight, every muscle in his body rippled and flexed. He
was truly the strongest man I had ever clapped eyes on.
When the gangplank, for lack of a better word for the skinny board, was dropped
onto the dock, a line formed and we all shuffled aboard. Although we had our
tickets in hand, none of the crew members seemed too interested in taking them.
So we all milled about on the deck, most of us found seats on the crates and
barrels. We were soon moving again.
After the dock and Waverly disappeared behind the trees that lined the banks of
the next bend I caught the attention of a nearby crewman.
"Excuse me, who do we give our tickets to?" I asked in my most polite
voice.
He pointed across the small foredeck at the cabin. There was a window cut right
out of the lumber, no frame or anything. I walked over to the roughly-hewn hole
and peered inside.
Sitting inside the small chamber was a figure clad in a long, dirty black robe.
I was a bit startled by the sight of the ticket-taker, to say the least. The
robe was hooded, and the face was hidden deep within the shadows. I composed
myself and with a shaky hand proffered my ticket to the person.
Slowly, they raised their arm. A chill suddenly passed over me and when that
skeletal hand extended from the dark folds of the robe, I stepped back. My
mouth was agape and I know that I was as pale as those bony protruding digits.
Unable to speak, I turned around to see if Paul was nearby. As I turned, I
heard a cold, raspy voice emanate from inside the window.
"Ticket?"
Although I heard the request, I did not turn back to face the ghoulish
apparition. My eyes were filled with a horrific sight.
The crewman that I had seen earlier, the one with all the muscles, had a large,
double-bitted axe in hands. He swung in downward in a wide arc from behind
Paul.
The tool-turned-weapon connected solidly with my friend's skull with a loud
report of steel on bone. Paul's eyes widened, then crossed and his tongue lolled
out of his mouth. His limbs began to thrash and he dropped to the cold wooden
deck. A stream of dark blood ran steadily from his opened skull and collected
in a pool around him. Even as he lay there twitching, I wondered if he was
going to be all right.
The axe man looked at me now, but his eyes had gone white. It looked as if they
had rolled back up inside his head trying to get a peek at his brain. I looked
around to see if the other passengers had witnessed the event. It was then that
noticed that it had gotten very dark. It was late afternoon, but the sun had
disappeared during those horrible few seconds.
To my shock and dismay, there were no other passengers to be seen!
I was alone on that boat with the axe-wielding mountain and the skeletal
ticket-taker. As I whirled around, looking for anything to help me, I heard
that voice again from inside the cabin.
"Oh, my! It seems that you gotten on the wrong boat."
This was followed by a sort of chuckle, but it sounded more like a boot
squishing in the mud of a freshly covered grave. The laugh went on, and the axe
man joined in as well. Then he began walk toward me, with that awful,
blood-soaked weapon hoisted high above his head. I scrambled backward toward
the edge of the boat, thinking that I would jump off.
When I turned and looked overboard, I saw that the water had gone from brown to
black. When the toe of my boot was hanging over the side a couple of inches
that black water began to boil and froth. I could see what looked like large
snakes writhing around just below the surface. I took an involuntary step back
and one of them thrust up from out of the water. As it swung around, grasping
for me, I could see tiny suckers running the length of the thing. It wasn't a
snake at all, but a tentacle.
Then, I heard a noise behind me and instinctively dodged to the side. The head
of the axe landed in the very spot that I had been standing so suddenly that it
appeared to have sprung forth from the very wood itself. I whirled about to
face the axe man. He grunted and pulled the axe free from the deck and began
stalking me once more.
As terrifying as the sight of him coming at me with that axe, still coated with
a thick slime of Paul's blood and brains, the sight behind him nearly drove me
insane.
The river and wooded banks beyond the prow of the ramshackle boat had
disappeared and in their place was a wide hole. It was just that, a hole. It
was as if the world had ended there, and nothing lay beyond. Well, not exactly
nothing.
Inside, I could see green figures moving about in that void, some were
crawling, some walking, but most were flying. And all were human. I had the
distinct impression that I was looking into Hell and these were damned souls. I
could not control myself and I screamed. Partly from fear and terror, but
mostly I think I was trying to call for help. It didn't matter, however. The
boat plowed on, and the axe man kept coming.
I walked in circles around the cabin, never turning my back on the enormous
man. He didn't seem to get any closer to me, which only served to increase my
terror rather than relieve it. And all the while, that awful grating laugh
rolled out from the cabin.
It seemed like an eternity before the front of the boat crossed over the edge
of the water and into that hell-mouth. There was a hot wind blowing across the
deck now, stinging my eye with the smell of sulfur and other pungent odors. I
gagged, and covered my mouth. The axe man lowered his implement then and turned
to face the yawning maw of oblivion. A smile split the lower part of his face,
showing yellow and pointed teeth. He stood transfixed on the deck, as if the
hot, smelly wind were as welcome as a cool breeze with the smell of lilacs upon
it.
I felt the boat lurch forward and stepped back a few paces. I was near the back
of the boat now, hidden from view of the pacified axe man. I know not if the
robed one could see me or not. I didn’t care at this point.
The boat was nearly completely in across the hellish threshold, on a couple
yards remained in the black water of our own realm. Without thinking, as those
last two yards slipped over into the void, I leapt.
I hit the cold water, expecting the tentacles of the beast that followed us to
grab me and pull me down into the murky. I swam upward as fast as I could and
broke the surface quickly. I gasped, and then breathed hard. My head whipped
around, sending a spray of water from my hair and beard. There was no sign of
the squid-like monster, or of the boat.
It was then that I realized that the sun was out again, the darkness was gone.
I swam to the nearest bank and crawled out of the water, gasping for air. I got
to my feet and looked back out to where the boat had been, but there were only
sunlight-gilded ripples and quietly lapping water as the Scioto rolled on.
The End