CURFEW By Paul Salvette

Curfew


     Gan bashed the glass door of the electronics shop with the metal pipe sending a large crack propagating upwards toward the door’s trim.

     “Hit it again,” Gan’s friend Oat said. The three teenagers were standing behind Gan on the sidewalk, eagerly waiting to gain access to the valuable items inside. They had been lucky to find a shop with no metal shutter pulled down in front of the glass. This street in the eastern part of Bangkok, normally bustling with activity and traffic at 11 in the evening, was completely silent. Gan gave the door another whack, and the entire pane came apart with shards of glass shattering all over the entrance to the shop.

     “Don’t forget to grab all of the RAM. My buddy at Pornthip Plaza will buy it with no questions asked,” Oat said. The boys ran into the shop and began stuffing video cards, motherboards, digital cameras, and other items into large plastic bags they had found in a trash barrel two blocks away.

     “Bon, you dumbass, don’t take the headphones. They take up too much space, and they’re only worth 200 baht.” Oat, the de facto leader of the gang, continued instructing his friends on what would be the best and most portable things to steal, because they only had two 150cc bikes between the four of them to make their getaway.

     The shop’s owner came running down the stairs from her bedroom and saw the four boys ransacking her business. “Take what you want and get out!” Gan picked up a small plastic welcome kitty next to the cash register and hurled it at the woman.

“Shut up, lady. The police aren’t coming tonight,” Gan said. Just then, three police trucks with their sirens blaring roared down the street going in excess of 100 km/h. Only mildly concerned, Oat poked his head out of the shattered door and watched them drive past without even slowing down to observe the looting in progress.

“The cops are on their way to Lumpini Park, lady. They don’t give a shit about your stupid shop,” Gan said.

Like most Thais, Gan had watched the Prime Minister come on TV this evening and give his announcement that a state of emergency was now in effect for Bangkok and the surrounding provinces. According to the Prime Minister, “rogue elements” within the Ministry of Interior had subverted police districts throughout the country in an “unpatriotic” attempt to remove him and his cabinet from power. Gan was not completely aware of all the complexities of Thai politics and power struggles, but he did know that the police had decided to ally with the protestors who had been camped out at Lumpini Park for the last three months. However, the military had remained loyal to the Prime Minister. Prior to the government shutting down all the TV stations, the day’s news had been filled with footage of police officers and soldiers shooting at each other amidst the beautifully landscaped park in the middle of the city.

Most people were terrified of what would happen to their country, and they chose to abide by the Prime Minister’s declaration of a curfew beginning tonight. But, with law and order completely absent in an already chaotic city, the dregs of society were able to run amok.

“Open up the cash register, and we promise to go.” Oat said while trying to jimmy open the cash drawer with a knife. The woman, crying because she realized no help was on the way, ran back up to her bedroom and dead-bolted the door behind her. Oat ripped the cash register’s plug out of the wall socket, and threw it at the concrete wall. The drawer was knocked loose with bills, change, springs, and pieces of the chassis flying everywhere. After grabbing the big bills, the four boys ran out of the shop and jumped onto their bikes.

The two motorcycles raced down the street, and Gan, sitting behind Oat, unsuccessfully tried to light a cigarette behind cupped hands. Oat pulled up next to the bike Bon was riding and said, “Make a left on Soi 44. We need to get some whiskey.” They turned down Soi 44, and Gan noticed a man walking frantically ahead of them.

“Oat, Oat. Slow down for a second.”  Gan reached down from the left-side of the bike and grabbed a large rock that had broken off the curb. “Alright! Can you speed up?” 

Oat downshifted and fully opened the throttle. As the bike neared the man, Gan threw the rock in an underhanded motion and struck the man squarely in the back of the head. The man’s glasses flew off into the middle of the street. Gan looked back and saw Bon honking his horn in celebration and the man motionless on the ground, face down in the gutter.

“Haha, got him!” Oat yelled. “Let’s stop at the 7-11.”

The boys parked their bikes on the sidewalk in front of the store, which remained open despite the curfew. The young woman, who was working by herself, had heard the sound of the approaching bikes, and she looked nervously out the glass window as they rushed into the store.

Oat walked up to the counter and shoved the frightened woman against the cigarette display. “Give me and my friends two bottles of Sangsom, you ugly bitch.” The woman stood motionless in her green and white striped uniform with a paralyzed look of fear in her eyes. Suddenly, the woman ran out from behind the counter towards the back door in a panic.

“I guess it is going to be self-service tonight,” Oat remarked while his friends chuckled. Oat hopped over the counter and began taking the bottles of whiskey and scotch out of their boxes. He was laying them out neatly on top of the counter when Gan’s phone rang.

“Yeah.” He didn’t recognize the number.

“Gan, it’s Dad. I’m calling from someone else’s cell phone who is trying to help me out here on Soi 44. Some teenagers on bikes hit me in the head with a rock while I was out getting your mother’s heart medicine. Please help me. We can’t contact an ambulance because of this curfew, and they would never be able to get through all the road blocks anyway. I need bandages to stop the bleeding, and your mother needs her meds.”

“Sure, Dad. Please stay there, and I’ll find the stuff for you and Mom right now.” Gan ran outside the 7-11 and noticed a drug store across the street. There was a rusty metal gate blocking access to the windows and door. He located the old and corroded lock that was latching the gate to an anchor embedded into the concrete. He began looking around for a blunt object to smash the lock.

Glossary:

Pornthip Plaza – A well-known electronics mall in Bangkok

Soi -           A side street or alley
Baht –          Currency in Thailand (200 baht is about $US7)

Sangsom –       Popular Thai liquor

BIO:

Paul Salvette is originally from the United States, and has lived and worked in Bangkok, Thailand for two years.

DISCARDED TREASURES by Hal Kempka

Discarded Treasures


Violet dug through the dumpster sitting behind a gutted apartment building. After removing several newly found discarded treasures, she set them into a shopping cart between bulging plastic bags of recyclables.

She pushed the cart through the murky depths of the downtown alley and stepped onto the street. The putrid stench of grime and urine from her soiled clothing preceded her.

Passersby scurried past making a wide arc around her. They suddenly craned their necks and cast concerned stares upon hearing a muffled cry coming from a bassinet strapped to the cart’s child seat.

Violet ignored them and continued on, mumbling into the bassinet. After she shuffled down the street for several blocks a police squad car pulled up to the curb. The officer approached and nodded toward the basket.

“Good afternoon Ma’am. We received a call awhile ago about a baby crying. May I take a look?”

Violet flashed the officer a toothless grin. “Officer, do I look like I should have me a damned baby in here?”

“Well, I’m just responding to a citizen’s inquiry.”

She gave a rasping, hacking cough, and then spit on the street.

“Well here, take a look.”

Violet grumbled under her breath and pulled back the gritty baby blanket covering the bassinet. The officer leaned forward and then jumped back suddenly, gasping. He glared at Violet as she cackled and slapped her knee.

A relieved look flooded the officer’s face when he peeked back into the dilapidated bassinet. An antique, oxidized porcelain doll the size of a baby lay beneath the blanket, mechanically raising and lowering its arms.

He reached out with a trembling hand. Its lifelike face felt cold to the touch and its dull marbled eyes fluttered open and shut. A few bugs crawled in and out of a small hammer head-sized hole that marred the side of the brittle, cracking face.

“Now, does this look like some damn baby to you?” Violet asked.

“To be honest, ma’am, if I had only seen it from a distance, I would have thought it was.”

The officer questioned her for several more minutes and then drove off. She muttered several obscenities and turned to the doll.

“Oooh, my little prince, did that mean man scare you?”

Violet shook the baby doll’s chest, and chuckled when it echoed a scratchy, “Ma-ma, ma-ma.”

She leaned into the bassinet, and whispered, “Well, I know you are getting hungry. But have patience, and old Violet will get us some dinner.”

Violet kissed its forehead, and covered it with the blanket. Then she continued down the sidewalk, talking and laughing to herself as she dug through trash receptacles.

That evening, she waited in the shadows behind a delicatessen. Shortly after closing, the deli clerks carried several boxes of leftovers and outdated food to the dumpster. As soon as all the employees left, she stepped from the shadows and pushed the cart next to the dumpster.

As Violet dug through the garbage, a horde of rats suddenly scampered out of the darkness. They climbed over the grocery cart and bassinet into the dumpster. Their tails flicked with excitement as they squirmed about and burrowed into the rancid garbage pile. Violet kept swatting them away while they fearlessly competed with her for the food.

 “Go find your own food, you damned hairballs!”

After grabbing a few items, she set them into the shopping cart and started down the maze of dank-smelling alleys.

“Well, my little prince,” She said, patting the blanket, “I would say we have had a good night.”

Upon reaching the coal room of an old abandoned building, she pushed the cart inside. Violet closed the heavy door, and slid a thick wooden beam across it to keep out any unwanted visitors.  She lit several candles, and then sat munching on a molding clump of roast beef.

Violet heard a noise and caught a glimpse of a rat digging through the items in the cart. She grabbed a piece of broom handle, and threw it. As it clanged against the cart’s metal webbing, the rat scampered over the bassinet into the dark.

She walked over and peered into the bassinet. The doll clutched the rat between its hands and busily tore away fur and flesh. Violet chuckled and patted the doll’s belly.

“Now, didn’t I tell you we would be eating soon? You can always trust old Violet, my little prince.”

The doll’s bloodied lips curled into a smile and it cooed, “Ma-ma!”



BIO

Harold ‘Hal’ Kempka’s short stories have appeared in numerous Horror magazines, including Thrillers Killers and Chillers, 69 Flavors of Paranoia, Black Petals, Dark Valentine, Golden Visions, Night to Dawn, Sex and Murder, and Twisted Dreams. His stories have appeared in Anthologies from Pill Hill Press, Blood Bound Books, and Post Mortem Press. He is a FlashXer flash fiction workshop member, and lives in Southern California.

FRIGID AIR by Steven Miscandlon

A warm welcome to Steven with a cold story....

 I

Locally, they call it The Murder House. Just like that, with capital letters – even when spoken aloud.

It's apt, I suppose. You know, what with the murders and all. In fact, the guy wasn't just a murderer.

Worse.

He was a cannibal.

News isn't really my thing, so I can't remember his name, or how many people he killed and ate.

Or how it ended.

Did he kill himself? Shot by police following a dramatic armed siege? Knifed by one of his own victims who finally found the strength, or luck to fight back before being turned into a Sunday roast? Like I said, news isn't really my thing, so I'm not sure of the details.

I do remember headlines with the word 'CANNIBAL' though. And more than once over the last few months I've heard people talk in hushed, scandalized tones about The Murder House.

Daft bastards.

Elsewhere, the house would have been boarded up and quietly left to rot. Or boarded up then not-so-quietly torn down with its only epitaph being a brief article in the local paper, finally putting the whole sordid affair to rest.

But not on this estate.

Here, the second the police and coroner and forensic types had done whatever it is they do in places where people have died the landlord had it advertised ‘to let’ again.

Which is where I come in.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not entirely without imagination. I've seen Amityville and The Shining and The Haunting of Hill House and all those other films about buildings where bad things have happened.

But, for a house this size, the rent is a bargain. Fully furnished too, including cooker and washing machine and fridge and everything. Sure, the cooker's hardly state-of-the-art, and the fridge looks vaguely like something from the Fifties, but they work.

And the fridge is massive. I've never had one like it, but then maybe they don't make them like that anymore.

Yes, it crossed my mind that these might be original fixtures and fittings. That ‘that’ fridge might be the one where he had kept the bodies, or parts thereof. That ‘that’ cooker might be where he had boiled up his stew made of Stu, or whoever.

No, I didn't bother to ask the landlord, but what are the chances? I don't know fuck all about police procedures, but surely anything like that would have been removed for evidence, then destroyed or auctioned or whatever they normally do with murderers' household appliances?

Right?

II

I awake feeling groggy, sore, thirsty and hungry. It's a couple of months since I moved in, and I swear to God I've never slept like this before in my life. I don't know if it's the bed, the room, or what – but every night I seem to be getting at least nine hours of solid, deep, uninterrupted sleep.

Dead to the world.

But still, every morning – every morning – I wake up feeling like shit.

Tell you what though, bleary-eyed and headachy and scratchy-throated as I am this morning … I could murder a pizza. A craving like you wouldn't believe, I can almost smell it. Pepperoni and olives and tomatoes and jalapeños.

I'm ravenous.

I drag my carcass out of bed and stagger downstairs to the kitchen. I need to eat something.

Anything.

I approach the fridge, none too hopeful about my prospects of a decent feed. I can cook, but this is a genuine bachelor pad, and besides which I'm really fucking lazy. In an ideal world, every night I'd be preparing spaghetti carbonara, or goulash, or enchiladas … in the real world, it's more likely to be cheese toasties, or beans on toast, or a roll and bacon, or... Well, you get the picture.

I pull open the fridge door and scrutinize the contents. It's only a couple of seconds before my eyes come to rest on two slices of leftover pizza resting on a plate. Pepperoni and olives and tomatoes and jalapeños.

It's a cliché, but I stand there for a minute scratching my head. I don't remember buying or eating pizza last night. Or at any point in the last couple of weeks, for that matter. I wander over to the bin and put my foot on the pedal, peer inside in a vain hope of finding an empty Domino's box that I might have forgotten ordering.

I must be losing it.

I haven't been drinking. Well, not heavily at any rate. But I just can't figure this out.

Resigned, I go back to the fridge and poke at the pizza, then snatch it up before it can disappear in a puff of over-active imagination.

A few minutes later, and I'm sitting at the battered kitchen table chewing on the pizza. Okay, this whole situation is weird. But I'll tell you this for nothing, my friend. It's delicious.

III

A couple of weeks have passed and things have been reassuringly normal. No more phantom pizza slices. In fact, I'm absolutely sure now that the whole thing was just a result of absent-mindedness. Obviously I'd ordered in a pizza the night, or a couple of days, before. I dare say I was drunk or tired or something and that's why I didn't remember. No other food has mysteriously appeared or disappeared. No cases for The Eggs Files here, I'm afraid.

Still, I've been sleeping as heavily – no, more heavily – than I had before. And that shitty morning feeling has been lingering further and further into the day. I'm headachy and cranky and miserable more often than not, and it's not much fun. No, I haven't been to a doctor, because … well, because that’s not what blokes do. I'll think about it if bits start dropping off, okay?

My appetite has been all over the place too. Some days I'm surviving on little more than a packet of crisps and seven cups of coffee. Other days I'm so ravenous I could eat a kid with a scabby head, piling food down my throat like nobody's business. And the cravings. Not pregnancy-type pickled onion and ice-cream cravings, just an insatiable, burning desire for some particular dish or other, and God help any fucker who stands between me and my meal of choice.

Yesterday it was burgers. This morning, having just woken, it's sausages.

Do I have any sausages? I had a fry up at the weekend, can't remember if I used them all. So I drag myself out of bed and downstairs to the fridge and open the door and, a minor hallelujah, there is the plastic package containing a single, blessed sausage. Only one, but one is better than none, right?

I reach for it but then stop.

I rub a hand over my bleary eyes, forcing them to focus properly.

Not a sausage.

It's a finger.

I back up sharply, knocking against the kitchen table. I look down at my hands, making sure all of my own digits are where they are supposed to be. It seems like the logical thing to do.

My mind is racing.

Okay, not my finger, so it belongs to someone else. I'm not sure if that's better, or worse.

So how the fuck did it get into my fridge? I do a quick round of the ground floor doors and windows. Front and back doors are locked. All windows likewise closed … except the kitchen window. Which is open, just a crack. So what does that mean? Did I leave the window open and someone sneaked in while I was asleep and left a finger in my fridge?

I look again at and around the window. I can't see any footprints, or other disturbance that would point to an intruder.

I need to sit down and at this precise moment the kitchen floor seems like a better option than a chair, so I let myself collapse down onto the faded linoleum. This is some serious shit, right here. What do you do in this situation? Call the police? Put the thing in a Tupperware box and take it to a hospital?

I need some time to think. But in the meantime, I have someone's finger starting to decompose in my fridge.

So I do the only sensible thing. I gingerly remove it from the fridge … and put it in the freezer compartment. It'll keep better in there.

IV

For the next few days I'm a nervous wreck. Nail-biting is a disgusting habit, but one I've taken to with aplomb. My own nails, I hasten to add.

Every visit to the fridge is filled with trepidation. I avoid it where I can, instead trying to survive on Pot Noodles and other foodstuffs that I can store in nice, safe places. Like cupboards. But every two or three days I steel myself and snatch open the fridge door, both dreading, and morbidly curious, to find whether any further gifts have been left for me.

It's a week after the ‘Finger Incident’ that the fridge presents me with a human heart sitting on a plate. I'm assuming it's human, but how the hell would I know? I wouldn't know a human's heart from a pig's heart from a rhino's heart. But I do know what a heart looks like, and that's exactly what that is, sitting on an off-white plate in just a small pool of semi-congealed blood.

For a second, I think it twitches and I start to hear a beating and I'm thinking oh my God I'm in The Tell-Tale Fucking Heart... But the movement is just a trick of the light, or of my own imagination. And the beating, well of course that's just my own heart. It's a reassurance to know that it's still securely nestled inside me after all.

Now, surely, this is a job for the police? But... But inevitably the finger of suspicion will be pointed at me. Just as I suspect the finger in the freezer is probably pointing at me, right now.

No, this needs to be played carefully. I need time to think. More time to think. So, a bit of cling-film and the heart joins the finger in the freezer.

V

The next week passes in a tangle of normality and insanity. At times I can convince myself that everything is perfectly normal. I can forget the fact that parts of a person have a home in my freezer compartment next to the petits pois and the choc-ices. Admittedly, copious quantities of alcohol help preserve the illusion, but what can you do?

At other times, I feel like I've descended into some previously uncharted circle of Hell. Between the crazily heavy sleeping and the headaches and the hunger (dear God the hunger) and, oh yes let's not forget the old Tell-Tale Heart and the Finger of Blame sitting in the freezer … well let's just say it wasn't the best of times.

From avoiding visiting the fridge, I've now taken to a routine of checking it at least twice a day, waiting for the next offering.

Almost needing it.

When it does come, I'm not sure whether to be more shocked, or accepting of it as the only logical next step.

It’s a head.

One of the shelves has had to be removed from the fridge to accommodate it. I've no idea where it's gone.

Nor do I recognise the head. Once again, thankfully it's not mine. The man's face doesn't look at all familiar. Or … wait … does it?

I push my face closer, looking at the sunken, yellowish eyes, the skin sagging slackly from the cheeks. There's something about the petulant lower lip, now hanging loosely and showing a ragged row of grey stony teeth. Have I seen this face before? Certainly not friend or family, nor a former co-worker or drinking buddy. But … perhaps a face I've seen on television? In a newspaper?

Nope, can't place it. Don't pay much attention to the news, anyway.

Right now I'm faced with a bigger problem. That sure as fuck isn't going to fit in the freezer. There's no way I can risk taking it, or the other bits, out of the house to try and drop them in a bin or in the canal or something.

So they can't leave the house. I certainly can't bring the police in. Not at this stage. Panic sets in and my skin is crawling and my heart thud-thud-thudding and all I know is I need – I need – a way to dispose of these things. Then it strikes me.

There's really only one solution.

And besides ... I'm fucking starving.

Bio:  'Frigid Air' marks Steven Miscandlon's return to fiction writing after a gap of many years.  His self-published short story collection 'Forever Lost' is long out of print, but he's now out of the wilderness and enjoying picking up the pen again.  Steven lives in Sunderland with his partner Julie Lewthwaite, and recently edited (and designed the cover for) her first novel 'Convictions' (published as Julie Morrigan).

DIVINE NO MORE by Copper Smith

Divine No More



Forgiveness is a funny thing. Everybody needs it, craves it, can't go on unless the slate is forever wiped clean. Absolution seems to top everybody's wish list. And nobody needs it more than these men around me.

I'm a prison chaplain, a supplier of sorts for men addicted to the drug called forgiveness. They jones for that weekly fix worse than any crackhead or pill popper crawling the streets at two am.

These men have seemingly mistaken my confession booth for a sorcerer's portal, a device that washes their tarnished souls clean, renders them into new men. Men who haven't raped or shot a 7-11 cashier in the neck for twenty-six dollars and a box of Slim Jims.

It's hard to say who gets the blame for this bull market on the F word, but I'd say Alexander Pope is a good place to start – with all that To err is human, to forgive divine crap.

Pope never had to face a biker with a belly-length beard describing what he did to his ten-year-old stepdaughter to give him a two-decade stay in a maximum-security prison.

That's Trevor.

There's also Kal, who split his girlfriend's face in half with a steak knife.

And Greg the serial rapist. And Tommy who did things he'd rather discus only in the broadest of biblical terms:

"Fornication — yeah, did that. Thievery. Mutilation. Adultery. Um… that false witness thing."

When finished with his laundry list, he springs away, now burdened only with the weight of a dozen punitive Hail Marys he'll likely polish off shortly before diving back into the cesspool.

He strides with renewed vigor, almost lets himself smile once. He's a new man.

The Captain isn't a new man yet, but the ex-navy officer is stalking out a similar path to redemption.

He's normally a stoic man, hiding behind those lifeless eyes. Not just shy, invisible. But tonight the Captain leaps into a gabfest:

"I was on leave in New Jersey, bored, looking for something to get into. It was one of those days, everything was pushing me: Money trouble. Wife was leaving me. Just found out I had the clap. You know how that goes."

I don't but I tell him I do.

"So me and this guy Guardardo – Mexican guy, or maybe Puerto Rican, I don't know – we decide to knock over this gas station. One of those shitty little Arab places out in the sticks. No cameras, no glass, nothing. How fucking hard can this be..?"

He is drifting into the backdrop now, becoming scenery. I am floating away, off to another place…

"… So I pull out my gun and swear to God, you'd think somebody peed in his eyes the way he starts crying."

His tale yanks me into the wrong kind of nostalgia. Takes me someplace I'd rather not be – and swore I'd never return.

It's a drug store on the lower east side. My dad at the register, a second job needed to feed his four pain-in-the-ass kids. Mom's there too – God knows why. And Aunt Marie's chirping on in the background about the loud neighbors and her lousy husband and dreadful job and somebody shuts her up by jutting a gun into dad's face.

There are five of them. Their faces are pockmarked, dented by unhappy lives. Not until they snap into formation like a baseball team is it clear that they are just kids really. Do they even know what they're doing? Screaming at my father, ordering him to his knees, then raising a gun to his head, ignoring those shrieks in the background like they belong there.

One grabs Aunt Marie, drags her into the stock room. She kicks, flops, flips, twists like a walleye fighting a fisherman's tug. But she's no match for this angler, his hands like bricks of flesh over her mouth, her breasts.

Her screams taper off, drop to a defeated whine, then a whisper. She's begging now, please don't do this.

A siren closes in, pushing the room into a panic, a storm of jabs from the heavens that can only end with five gunshots. They find my dad's temple twice, save a bullet for mom's chest and fire a few warning shots to the onrushing cops before scampering into the night.

The police find the place in a shattered silence. Even the echoes are gone now. No motion, no life. Nothing but Aunt Marie struggling to her feet with unsteady legs and aiming her gaze into nowhere.

And me crouched behind the counter, eyes that have never been wider, heart pounding like a bass drum battered by a speed freak. Helpless, heartless, still. The world had exploded into a volcano of chaos and hate and there was nothing I could do. Except forgive them. At least that's what Aunt Marie wanted.

So that's what I did. And that's what I do. I Forgive.

And after forty-seven years I've done enough forgiving.

***

I swear I'm not going to cry. As I empty my desk and say my goodbyes to the staff, I try not to darken this sweet moment with the image of a grouchy old retiring chaplain bubbling into a schoolgirl's tears. But it's a challenge to hold the waterworks back. They've always been nice to me here. Valerie with those cupcakes on my desk every Monday morning. Shirley always smiling even when sharing the news that some inmate's done something awful again. And Darius, lets me in each morning without a customary pat-down. Because after all, what's a seventy-three-year-old priest going to do with a pistol tucked into his BVDs anyway?

I hobble up the stairs to my booth one final time with Darius, who's very likely on the verge of sharing some uncomfortable information about himself.

"I just want to say, Father Tucci, that since I been here, and been working with you and growing as an individual and trying to find Jesus and make Jesus more of a focal point in my life –"

I wave him away, back downstairs and he obligingly disappears. He understands. I want to be alone.

But I'm not alone. I'm joined by four men who file in slowly, unsure of why they were sent for.

"So this is it, huh Padre? Last day in the booth?" Greg asks.

"Yes, my son. This is it," I answer.

"So… did you dig our little going away present?" The Captain giggles. "She's still around if you want a lap dance before you take off."

I manage a half smile, swiping away at that fog of awkwardness. But it's still too quiet.

"Um… why did you want to see us, Father?" Tommy finally asks.

I suppose I could deliver a speech here, but there's nothing to say. There is no parable for these men to ingest, no wisdom I could impart. Nothing.

They are here because they are, in one sense, stand-ins for the real targets. But they are in their own right, horrible men who've done horrible things to somebody's mothers and sons and best friends and stepsisters. They have not been washed anew with the blood of Jesus. Their slates have not been forever wiped clean.

I dig into my underwear and pull out my gun. No theater here, no flash. Just an elderly man scratching away at a sixty-three-year-old itch.

The Captain gets his first – just above his left eye, freezing his face into something like a nightmare set in granite. My gun's kick snaps his head back and into the wall.

These men scatter like rats, but somehow get nowhere, voices rising into shaky falsettos, hands covering what they can. I'm quick for an old man, too determined to make this happen.

I take out Greg next, before he can dive out the door. I catch the back of his neck and shoulder. He skids into the hallway in a streak of burgundy.

Tommy takes one to the chest before he can grab the gun from my hand. Kal gets his in the neck and floats to the floor with his face baring the stamp of disbelief.

Then there's Trevor. On his knees, crying, not begging because he knows it's too late for that. He can't bring himself to lift his chin from his chest and find my eyes. This is too ugly, happening too quickly. He just trembles like a broken child, hands held up, eyes a flurry of blinks. With a single blast his nightmare will be over.

But the blast never happens. My gun jams, its trigger holding firm against my determined tug.

Trever rises, breath choppy, legs unsteady. He yanks the gun from my grip, sending me headfirst into a pile of empty artifacts in a dusty corner. Everything is too shiny and smells like incense and rust. I turn to watch a grown man grunt back a baby's tears. He towers over me, deciding what to do, how to handle this ripped-open wound I've created.

And here I am, splayed before him, helpless:

"Please?"

Something in my hand is cold, thick. A crucifix.

Praise be to God.

I take a wild swing and bury the heavy relic in his forehead, urging him to he knees in a final groan. He leans into another blow, then another, then he drops, limbs curled the wrong way, eyes still asking why?

In seconds this place will be throbbing with chaos and questions nobody can answer. But I don't move. Why should I?

Nothing to do now but catch my breath and wonder what Aunt Marie would make of this mess on the rectory floor.


Bio:
Copper Smith is a writer of crime fiction and the shadowy figure behind Uppercut Avenue something the kids apparently call a "web-site." For some reason he lives in Minneapolis.

BEHOLD, FOR I AM THE WILL OF THE REAPER By Ryan Brinker

BEHOLD, FOR I AM THE WILL OF THE REAPER. 

I met her on the stairs, taking a drag from her beat up cigar, humming some song I didn’t recognize. Such an odd, eccentric woman, she asked if I knew the time. I told her that I didn’t own a watch, apologized, and continued up to my apartment. I couldn’t shake the cold chill going up my spine as I felt her eyes on me all the way up. It was such a menial, stupid little encounter. Still, I couldn’t help but make sure to lock my door. I sat in the dark for a little while. She was so beautifully imperfect. Like a lily on a grave…

Shaking, as I rest her body down, I try to wipe the blood off my shirt. Her sticky, sweet lipstick still clings to my lips from the last kiss my darling Annabel gave me that night. My memory was a blur, it was like the subsequent seven years between that fateful encounter on the staircase and now seemed to be missing. I tried so hard to remember it, but it was like a dream. I only realized after surveying the environment for a few minutes what I had done… I had murdered the only person that will ever make me feel truly loved. As I loaded her bloody, disfigured corpse into the pickup truck, her body teased me. That same slender figure I had seen so acutely and bare on our wedding night. Calm consumed me, and I finally realized what little regret I felt. I tried to remember our life together, but I couldn’t. All that I had was a face full of blood and a dead wife, just drifting forward. It wasn’t me. It looked like me, it felt like me, but it wasn’t. Who was the man that killed my beloved? I think I’ve seen his face, before. I swear I have.

My hand trembled as I slammed the door of my truck and drove away. For a second I wondered if she was still alive, but this thought was quickly put to rest. I remembered the moment that the knife went in. her chest retracted as she screamed and cried for the longest second of my life, and never came back out. After six years of marriage, sleepless nights watching your darling angel sleep, the slight moves, the whispered noises, while you contemplate her demise and don’t know why, I know what a living Annabel looks like. I started humming that damned song again, except, this time, I recognized it. It was our song… My beloved… My victim… My truck was going just over thirty five, but my thoughts were going a million miles a second. I had loved that song. She loved it, too. We were so alike. There were only two problems with our marriage: I was a psychopath and she didn’t notice. It’s funny, in a way. I think we could make it in another life. I’ll try the next one. We’re both going to the same place.

The truck pulled up by the lake. I got out in my long, black boots, I didn’t want to get my pants muddy or wet, I had work the next day. I put down the tailgate and slid her body out into my hands, watching the moonlight bounce off of her cherry red lipstick and the blood on her mouth. I cradled her in my arms; I didn’t want to hurt her any more than I already had. She had paid her life. That’s all she owed me. I started humming our song again, then I sang it, then I screamed it. My words became incomprehensible through my wailing cries. Tears rolled off the edge of my nose and onto her dress. She had just bought that dress for our seventh anniversary. I was just in a T-shirt. I’m so inconsiderate. She deserves better. She can have Satan.

I couldn’t stop shaking while I rested her into the water. It was so cold; she must have been so uncomfortable. I made sure to strap a life vest on her so that when all the air escaped her lungs, she wouldn’t float to the bottom and be forgotten. I knew someone would find her. I had no illusions of escape. I sat in my truck until someone came and asked me to help rescue her, unaware that she was already dead. I didn’t move. I didn’t move until the police arrived.

Now, as I sit in this cell, people ask me why I did it. I don’t answer. I don’t know. She was so perfect, too perfect for this world, that’s what I keep telling myself. I know the truth, however, and the truth is this: My darling Annabel is dead because I wasn’t powerful enough to stop it.

DEAD CIVILIZATIONS by Chris Benton

A long overdue debut from Chris...


Dead Civilizations


It’s still dark out when I pick Paul Wayne up from his singlewide. He’s waiting on the porch smoking a cigarette and drinking Gatorade. He’s wearing a raggedy Dale Earnhardt shirt and hacked-off jeans and from a distance, you don’t know he is dying. He tosses his rod into my flatbed as I brake to a stop beside Tori’s station wagon and slides into the cabin with a bewildered smile dancing under his jaundiced gaze.

“How’s Kate?” he asks, slamming the door.

“She’s hanging in there.”

“Well, Tori finally left me,” he declares with a strange enthusiasm.

“What’s her car still doing here then?”

“The transmission went out on it. Besides, it’s my car anyway, I bought the damn thing.”

“She take a cab or something?”

“Does it really fucking matter how she left Carlton?”

“No, I reckon not” I say, pulling out of his yard.

We pass pale fields fathering the bones of barns and homes and after a few minutes Paul Wayne finally says, “You would have never known that she’d have that kind of final coldness hidden inside her.”

“I imagine not.” I should be brooding upon the recent escape of my own wife. Instead I remember the night about a year back when I picked Tori up from a gas station, her nose candied with dried blood. I drove her around town for hours, and discovered she was also a fan of National Geographic. We found ourselves at Dunkin Doughnuts during the early morning hours talking about dead civilizations, all the ruins we wanted to explore. In the parking lot we kissed and lied to each other for a few minutes before I brought her home.

“Women are mysteries, and once you solve them, it’s too damn late,” Paul Wayne says lighting a cigarette.

***

Dryer Lane is a narrow, cratered dirt road that crawls for a hundred yards before ending at the lip of a small root -choked slope surrendering to the Neuse. We get out and grab our rods, making our way to the shore’s feeble finger under a gaunt congress of long leaf pines. As we’re weighing and baiting our lines Paul Wayne asks me, “How long ago did Kate leave?”

“The fuck you talking about?”

“No bullshit today Carlton, please, for me.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Oh, well hell, that’s nice, you’re the only person on this planet I can share my shit-stink with and here you are taking the fifth like that fucking pervert senator all over the papers.”

I shake a Winston out and light it. After a few of drags I tell him, “A couple of weeks ago.”

“Why did you lie all this time?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I’m still in denial or something.”

Paul Wayne gives me an infected grin and lights a joint.

The sun is climbing the trees after our third cast and there are no birds to praise it. The Neuse fades from black to bronze and we stand there for a while smoking and playing our lines.

“You remember the time I caught that forty pound flathead?” Paul Wayne says, his eyes never leaving the water. “Boy she was a beauty. That was some fry we had that night wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, until Ronnie Blair grabbed Kate’s ass.”

“That was pretty damn funny; you almost killed that sorry sack of shit.”

“I should have killed him; at least I would have finally proved to Kate how much I loved her.”

“Shit Carlton, a waste of seed like that doesn’t deserve the privilege of murder.”

“The privilege of murder,” I echo. I think about these words, turning them around and around like small, ancient artifacts. After a couple of minutes I ask, “Who deserves the privilege of murder?”

“A person who can leave a permanent hurt,” Paul Wayne tells me, “the person you dearly love.”

“You mean Tori?”

He doesn’t answer me and I remember what my headlights briefly caught inside Tori’s car parked out front earlier. The back seat stuffed with bags of clothing. My mouth is dry as well as my mind and a cold beer right now would be a blessing. But I brought no beer, because I’m sure a few of them would probably kill my friend.

Paul Wayne’s rod suddenly bends and he’s pumping his reel, bringing the bite home, wearing a rictus of delight. I forget about Tori’s car, joining into his profane chant of triumph and for a bright, scalding moment the boys buried within us are alive and screaming. A couple of minutes pass and Paul Wayne hisses something I can’t make out and hands me his rod. He wades several careful feet into the shallows and bends over hauling out a pissing bundle of bone and rusted chain.

“What the fuck is that”? Paul Wayne doesn’t’ say anything. He walks back to shore and tosses the pile at my feet. I back away a few steps and my shoulders are throbbing with something deeper than rage. “The fuck is your problem man?” I shout at him, already done with his mood.

“That is the sorriest sight I’ve ever seen in my life,” he whispers. He drops to his knees, inspecting his catch. “Pit bull,” he says holding the skull under his palms. There isn’t much else left to it; just the ribs, spine, and a hind leg all webbed with malign quarter inch links. He traces the chain and finds the lock inside the ribcage. “Combination,” he declares. He turns to me and asks, “You got any WD40 in your truck?”

***

It’s going on two hours and Paul Wayne is still playing with the lock. He’s sitting cross-legged in the mud with the carcass on his lap, searching for the right sequence. Nothing is biting today and nothing ever will. I’m thinking about Tori’s car again as I finish reeling in my ninth cast and I tell him, “Alright man, I’m leaving.” He doesn’t respond and I say, “Well, I’m going to Last Loop for a couple of beers you can stay here all day fondling them bones if you want.” I pick up my tackle box and begin to make my way up the slope, never looking back. I put my rod and box in the flatbed and slide behind the wheel.

As the truck roars alive, Paul Wayne walks past me cradling the chained remains in his arms like a child. He carefully sets them in the back and gets in. He’s left his rod behind. “A cold one does sound good,” he says softly.

There are no words on the way to the bar, only the rattle of chain and bone. I pull onto a grave of crushed bottle caps and kill the engine. I hand him two twenties from my wallet. “Get us a couple of beers, and some shots, I’ll be in shortly.”

“Where you going?”

“Calling Kate’s sister, just want to make sure Kate’s ok.”

“Well, don’t’ drool for forgiveness too long, the side-effects may include puking and depression,” he tells me. His eyes are wet with death and something worse. He turns and shakes his head all the way to the black mouth of the bar’s entrance.

I call Paul Wayne’s trailer and listen to his phone ring for over a minute. The Pepsi thermometer outside reads ninety but I’m shivering. I walk back to my truck and drag the carcass out of my flatbed. I sling it into the middle of the parking lot and slide behind my wheel. As I’m pulling out of Last Loop I see Paul Wayne in my rearview standing in the entrance. He’s smiling like a fried skull and raising a bottle to me. I bury him in a cloud of dust.

I pull up beside Tori’s car again. The shades are drawn on all the windows. I try thinking about my wife but she seems strange and distant to me now, like a pleasant dream you give up trying to preserve. I think of my friend, hoping that forty bucks is enough to put him out of his misery. And I think of Tori, of the morning we held each other in the dying dark of the Dunkin Doughnuts parking lot, of the frail promises we left to rot inside each other’s ear, of the dead cities asleep all over the world we planned to wake together hand in hand. I sit there, listening to the mournful purr of my truck’s engine, waiting the rest of my life for the front door of the trailer to open.

BIO:
Chris Benton was born and raised in Wilmington, North Carolina where he still resides. He can be found on Facebook.

HER LAST DIARY ENTRY by Jim Harrington

Her Last Diary Entry

I wasn't aware of him until he sat next to me. He was the unshaven, fingerless glove type I'd expect to find at a bus station or sitting on the sidewalk with a paper cup at his feet--not someone I'd encounter at the motor vehicle office. I tightened the grip on my purse and looked around for another seat. There wasn't one.

The man coughed into his sleeve and asked if the author of the book I was reading was any good. I ignored him and wondered why he cared. He didn't look like the reading type. Was he hitting on me? He coughed and asked again.

"I like her," I replied, without taking my eyes from the page.

He coughed and said, "Good."

I guess he didn't get to talk much, because even though I only grunted in response to most of his forays into conversational topics, he kept on coughing and yakking. Our "discussion" remained like that until he brought up the mother who killed her children because they wouldn't stop crying. I glanced from side to side. No one was paying attention to him that I could tell. I let out a slow breath and turned an unread page, hoping the man would stop.

"How can a mother do that?" he said, looking at me for the first time.

Leave me alone.

He didn't.

I only half listened as he prattled on, until he mentioned a similar case from my hometown. That's when I heard him say my former name. My body tensed. I dropped the book. I leaned down to pick it up, my hand shaking, and tried to act like I hadn't heard him.

"That case remains unsolved," he said. "The woman's car was found at the bottom of a cliff along the Pacific Coast Highway, but the police never located a body." He leaned closer and spoke in a near whisper. "Some think she's dead, like her kids. Others are sure she's alive and remarried with new children, children who are in danger. Me? I don't have an opinion. Well, except if she is alive, she should turn herself in."

I remained quiet, staring at my book without seeing the words. Five minutes later, too frightened to listen any more, I left without taking the eye test. I sensed him following me out the door, but when I turned around, he was gone.

***

Back home, I take a sip of scotch, and stare at the distant tree tops. The gun I keep around, just in case, rests on the kitchen table. I'm tired of waiting for someone to recognize me after all these years, like the man at the DMV maybe. That's why I called the police and told them what I did. They're outside, threatening to ram the door in if I don't open it.

On the way home, I decided to turn myself in, but now I realize I fear going to jail more than I dread committing suicide. Good things can't happen to a woman in prison convicted of shooting her own children. The man at the motor vehicle office had that right. He was wrong about me remarrying and having more children.

I know. I'm babbling. I'm afraid of what will happen if I stop writing. God, my hand is shaking so much I can hardly write.

I'm sorry, Katie and Sam. I do love you and know I won't be going where you are. I've missed you every day, even the days I tried to forget, but now it's time for all of us to rest.


Bio:
Jim discovered flash fiction in 2007, and he’s read, written, studied, and agonized over the form since. His recent stories have appeared in Thrillers, Killers 'N' Chillers, Flashshot, A Twist of Noir, The Short Humour Site, Dew on the Kudzu, and others. Jim's Six Questions For blog provides editors and publishers a place to “tell it like it is.”

SPANISH DAGGERS By LaVa Payne

Spanish Daggers

Once upon a time in a land far, far away—oh, scratch that shit!

In a ratty-tatty old shotgun house in a town about the size of a matchbox (700 or so) there in that place. I lived next door to an old bastard.

            Now I say he was an old bastard but then maybe I am being a little harsh. I know that from my conversations with him that he had a unique or odd way of situating himself. Conspiracy theories and left-sided political campaigns—but whatever right?

            Anyway…

It was a rundown house with planks missing out of the side boards, paint chipping where there was paint and huge gaps of space close to the foundation. The house was like the town, old and in need of repair. Not that this pothole in the road was much of a town, but it was a town nonetheless.

Anyhow, I entertained this old man from time to time and pretty much went about all of it together and untouched for the most part. Kind of handy he was, always slapping me on the ass until finally it became as natural to me as a handshake.

            Well, I was sitting on the rotting old porch, visiting of course, when the old bastard began to rattle off a random tale.               

            The old bastard coughed, “You know this town ain’t been right since those feds came in, ya know?”

            “I know,”   I remarked.

            “People these days and times think and believe just damn near everything, ya know?”

            “Yeah—I agree,” my head bobbing with a gesture not necessarily agreement.

            “Well,” I said noticing his distraction with the noise of the nearby buses passing on Bonita St.

            “How do you handle all the chaos, the noise and such running around on this corner?”                 

            The old bastard just grimaced. “Hell, I don’t tolerate much of that shit anymore,” he sighed and picked his nose, “you see them there yuccas?” The old bastard pointed to the edge of his yard. I watched his finger motion with its crooked, rheumatic bumps.

            “Why do you have all those Spanish Daggers edging your property?” I engaged the idea wanting to hear him spout off like a wound oozing puss.

            “You know as many times as I have told you this ya ought to remember.”                           “Humor me again.” I grinned thinking about his animated face and hand gestures, especially the finger—which always made me laugh the way he flipped people off like it was a Spanish Dagger  cutting out the  heart and leaving the soul  ashamed and bleeding.

            “Those damn kids,” he began, “used to run all over my yard—hell, now they ain’t. HA!” he coughed and spit a plug of mucus over the edge of the porch. “They might fall on one of my spiny friends out there ya see.”

            “I know,” I laughed until I cried, “bet they don’t even come near your property now do they?”   

            “Nope!” he coughed again into his hand and wiped it on his left sleeve.

            I was laughing. The buses and school children were running about noisily. Usually, I am not home to see and hear the entire racket. Today was a little different.

            “Say,” I began to ease into the question, “how many cars have you seen going in and out of that thicket over there?”

            The old bastard turned his attention towards me. “May have seen twenty or so of them there grey boogers going in and out I’d say all hours of the night and day too. Strange stuff is goin’ on over there. Do ya know anything about it, girlie?”

            I shrugged, “All I know is that they from some acronym in Washington showing papers to everyone that they are doing some sort of research on a tree fungus or something. What did they say to you?”

            “Hell, I don’t know. They came up here waving them papers and such and I told 'em I didn’t believe in eminent domain and such shit and wished that I supported owning a gun.”

            I put my hand over my mouth and tried to keep from laughing.

            An old scraggly cat hopped up on the edge of the porch.

“Ah must be dinner time.” The old bastard farted.

            “How long you had that cat?”

            “Ah, I say now, I have had that there cat for about two years now. Came up one day strutting around in front of that there window like he was that there romance model—ya know who I’m talking about?”

            “Yeah, I think I do. Blonde-headed romance model?”

            “Uh huh, that is him alright.” A disgusted grimace followed, “Biggest waste of hair I ever seen! Well that cat there walked ‘round here looking at his self in the window so much I wanted to call him Fabio but...” He shrugged his shoulder and coughed deep—no phlegm this time.

            “Well what do you call him then?” I nudged his arm.

            “I call that there tom, One Ball—because that’s the way he came. Can’t say how it happened though. Tragic I reckon. Guess it was just his lot to be born that way or somethin’.”

            “You call your cat One Ball?” I was holding tight to the edge of the seat trying my hardest not to fall off and get a grip on myself before I lost all composure. “Well do you think that you should go ahead and feed him now?” I said moving the conversation along.

            “Yeah,” the old bastard disappeared into the darkness behind the screen door and came back with a can of cat food. He was completely ignoring me at this point. 

            “This damn old porch should’uv fell in by now.” The old bastard said and laughed to his self as he kicked an empty can of cat food off the edge of rotten boards.

Clink!

The old bastard began to ramble on. The pile of cat food cans were growing-up like the scraggly weeds--a bastard robot child from the Star Wars sequel.

He hated that sci-fi shit. Who gave a damn whether or not we landed on the fucking moon— ain’t any gold up there. Hell, in his mind it was another scam.

The government pulled all kinds of shit. Them som’bitches had to explain all those embezzled tax dollars to an illiterate nation, somehow.

Most folks would believe anything back then and even now. He laughed about that crazed woman who had made a bundle of money selling tumbleweeds. Yeah, people would just about buy anything.

            “Well now…where was we?” the old bastard cracked his persimmon smile exposing yellowed fragments and gaping holes. Old One Ball, hopped up on the rotting wooden side beam, flicking his tail back and forth. The old bastard leaned over to scrub the cat’s head. Cat food sat in the tin can attracting an entire fly mafia with all its’ connections.

“It’s a conspiracy I tell ya. All those damn scientists goin’ in and out of there like they own the damn place. Immanent Domain my ass! They ain’t takin’ anything that I know of.” His suspicious eyes watched another flint grey booger pull off the road and disappear into the thicket.

I laughed. “Yeah, a real conspiracy is going for sure.”

“You reckon all those hippy researchers been looking for some exotic mushroom to get all there little buddies high on back in Washington or some such shit?” he screwed his nose and mouth up revealing his yellow, broken shards. “Hell, they were disturbing the peace of the land almost as much as the nearby school yard that keep a ringing noise going on year round with a basketball game here and buses coming and going all day long—when is a man going to get any peace and quiet. Those yapping brats! I hate ‘em. Hope they like my yuccas.” He laughed heartily. “Damn little snot-noses, let ‘em run and play in my yard. Con found it.” The old bastard waved his fist in the air with defiance.

All I could do was bow my head and laugh hard. I finally had to get up and walk towards the cat eating from the fly infested tin can. I glanced into his house past the darkness through the screen door. Piles of newspapers stacked up like bachelor tables ready for a pizza box, were scattered amongst the sparse furnishings of the living room. One odd chair from the seventies sat against a far wall covered in peeling wallpaper as the main attraction. An old box set TV with “rabbit ears” on top was the centerpiece. “You still got one of those old TV’s I see.” I looked over my shoulder to see his face change to amusement.

“Hell why couldn’t them ears be attached to them fine bunnies at the Hefner Mansion in Los Angeles?” But an aching gut took away the thought. The old bastard pushed me out of the way and went into the darkness again and emerged with his own can.

“Most of that interest has past me now,” he snorted as he chomped on a sardine sandwiched between saltines.

“Uh, huh, I hear you.” I raised my eyebrow at him and thought to myself what a disillusioned old bastard. “So,” I said, “You know, I wonder if the rumors are true about those government guys?”

“Tell it girlie, what have ya heard?” he gulped down another sardine almost whole. I wondered if he ever chewed.

“Well, I heard that they are researching fungus that grows as a possible cure for cancer.”

“Nahhhhhh,” he opened his mouth sardine meat hanging on jagged edges like Jaws emerging and flesh dangling between deathly spikes.

I turned my head and rolled my eyes. Some damn people should use a toothbrush though in his case none would suffice. “That’s what I heard.”

Then one of those grey boogers parked in the driveway. We had not noticed this car coming down the road. We had been busy shooting the shit. A man in casual khakis and a starched white shirt moved toward us.

“Maam, sir,” agent man addressed us coldly.

“Yes”

“Yup”

“We are evacuating everyone, please come with me now.” Flat tone hit us both with the edge of a steel blade on the throat—cold unyielding.

“But…” I was stammering.

“Hey we ain’t…” The old bastard started.

They took us.

#

Together in the backseat, we sat silent waiting. I watched the town disappear behind us in the rearview. I felt sternly awake and the agent’s faces appeared only stolid to me. We were locked down in a makeshift detainment area outside of town.

Weeks later, we all found out. Those funguses that the feds had been investigating were actually contaminating the soil via the trees and natural composting process of our region. No one we talked to in the government agency could tell anyone how long the contamination had been going on in our area. Apparently, our town was one of the first ones to get treatment. No one died luckily. But everyone in our town went through weeks or/and months of detoxification as the government called it.

I got home about three weeks later after the incident to find my small pothole in the road an old place with a different feel. People that were usually gregarious had changed. No one talked about the treatments. We all just had been through it. A community rape--a dirty government conspiracy.

Even the old bastard was different. I asked him one day, “Why did you cut down your yuccas?”

The old bastard simply replied, “They spiked us all do we need anymore?”

And the old bastard was right. No one and everyone would ever be the same and chaos and noise had ceased. We all had died. The government had indeed spiked us all to death with Spanish Daggers of their own accord.

The End