Tough Lit XI

HE LAST SUPPER Linda Boltman omorrow?” head away from the guard. “Would it matter if I was?”

“Most men pee their pants during the long walk.”

“I’m not most men,” Casey replied dryly.

The guard chuckled. “Yeah? Well, we’ll see about that.” He pushed the metal tray through the small opening. “Here’s your lunch. I’m supposed to ask what you’d like for your last supper.”

Casey looked at the food dispassionately. ”Same old crap, I see,” he murmured. He glanced at the guard. “My last supper, huh? So I can order anything I want?”

“That’s the deal.”

“No matter how expensive?”

“I said anything, didn’t I?” the guard replied, shaking his head. “Come on, it’s not that hard. Just pick your favorite food.”

Casey set the food tray on his cot, then put his hands on the metal bars of his cell. He leaned forward, his face inches away from the guard.

“Lobster,” he said, enunciating each syllable. He smiled broadly. “I want lobster.”

“Want anything along with your lobster?”

Casey stepped away and raised his arms in a deep stretch. “Hmm. Yeah, I want some shrimp scampi and a chocolate milkshake.”

The guard burst out in a hearty laugh. “Shit, man. You eat that and you’re going to barf all over the electric chair.”

“It’s my last supper, Burt,” Casey said. “You told me I could choose anything I want, so I’m picking my favorite foods.”

“All right, man, you’ve got it. Lobster, shrimp scampi and a chocolate milkshake.”

Casey looked at the tray holding a slop of food dished out on cracked china. “It will be far better than this shit. I gotta tell you, Burt, I’m not going to miss these meals one minute.”

The guard turned to leave. “Why don’t you close your eyes and pretend you’re eating lobster now. It’ll be good practice.”

Casey heard him chuckling all the way down the hall. * * * Burt let the metal door slam behind him after he entered the guard’s office.

Joe looked up from his paperwork.

“How’d it go, Burt?”

“He wants lobster for his last supper.”

“Lobster! Jesus, why can’t they ever ask for a simple hamburger?”

“Shrimp scampi and a milkshake, too.” Burt scoffed. “Shit, Casey’s last supper is going to cost the taxpayers a pretty penny.”

Joe shook his head. “Jesus, why didn’t he throw in a side of beef as well?”

There was a rustle of keys before the office door opened and Supervisor Jim Evans entered. “Afternoon, boys,” he said, taking a seat at the desk.

“Afternoon, Chief,” Burt replied.

“Joe, you speak with Casey Thompson yet?” Jim asked.

“Burt did.”

“And?” Burt grinned. “Wait ‘til you hear this one, Chief. He says he wants lobster, shrimp scampi and a chocolate milkshake for his last supper.”

Chief Evans cocked his head to the side and thought for a few moments before replying. “He asked for seafood? You sure about that?”

“Yeah. Said it was his favorite food,” Burt replied. “Why?” Jim reached into the bottom drawer and pulled out a large folder overflowing with papers. He dropped it on the top of his desk and pulled it open, running his finger quickly down the paperwork.

“Has he ever eaten seafood before?” the supervisor asked.

“Sure, but he ain’t never had lobster,” Joe answered, snickering. “He’s had fish sticks like the rest of the inmates.”

“And he ate them?” Jim pressed.

“Yep. Definitely liked them a whole lot better than the crap we usually 4

serve,” Joe responded. “Why?” “Not sure, but I’ll let you know in a minute,” Chief Evans said, picking up the telephone.

The two guards looked at each other in confusion, then listened in on their supervisor’s conversation.

“Hello, George, it’s Jim Evans. Got a question on the Casey Thompson case.” There was a slight pause, “Yes, I know he’s due to be executed tomorrow. Get your hands on his case file and give me a call back as soon as possible, will you?” Another pause. “Great, thanks, Doc. I owe you one.”

Jim hung up the phone and looked at the two confused faces staring at him from across the room.

“I got a hunch,” he explained. He pushed himself away from the desk and stood up. “I’ll be right back. Going down to have a little chat with Casey.”

About ten minutes later, Jim reappeared in the office just as the phone rang.

“It’s George returning your call,” Joe said, putting the call on hold.

“Got the file, Doc?” Jim asked. “Great. Take a look at your notes on Valerie Wilson’s autopsy. Do you have any record of a puncture mark, particularly on either thigh or anywhere on her body?” There was silence for several moments while he listened intently, occasionally nodding his head. “Just as I thought. How about the stomach contents? Can you verify what you found?” Jim chewed on the end of a pencil while he listened. A smile crossed his lips as he responded, “You’re a life saver, George, and I mean that literally.” He hung up the phone.

“What’s up, Chief?” Burt asked.

“When you told me Casey said lobster and shrimp were his favorite foods, it got me to thinking,” the Chief explained. “I checked the list of items found at the crime scene and sure enough, there it was.”

“There was what?” Burt asked.

“An EpiPen.” Joe scratched his head. “I don’t get it.”

“At the time of the murder, it was determined the victim had eaten seafood for dinner. Her body wasn’t even cold. The autopsy indicated that shrimp was present in her stomach contents when she died.”

“Sounds to me that makes Casey guilty,” Joe said.

“When I checked with Doc, he confirmed that there were no puncture marks on the victim’s body. If you have a bad allergic reaction, you would stab yourself in the thigh as soon as possible with an EpiPen. The epinephrine counteracts the effects of the reaction. A used outer covering was found at the crime scene, but not the actual EpiPen. There were no puncture marks on the woman’s body, which means the allergic reaction wasn’t hers.”

“Weren’t there prints on the EpiPen cover?” Burt asked.

“Wiped clean,” Jim answered. “By the time we fingered Casey as the killer, any sign of EpiPen marks on his body would have been long gone.

To be honest, after we had him, we were so sure we had enough proof Casey was the killer, no one thought to follow up on the allergic reaction angle.”

“Casey was the obvious choice. The boyfriend is always the first suspect,” Joe said. “Especially since he had such a flimsy excuse.”

“True,” Jim replied.

“Why did you want to speak with Casey?” Burt asked.

“I had one question…who did he know who was highly allergic to seafood?” Jim responded.

“And?” The two guards looked at Jim in anticipation.

“Valerie’s ex-husband, Jeff. Valerie told Casey Jeff was so allergic to shellfish that he couldn’t even kiss her after she’d eaten it. They’d had to make several trips to the hospital in the past when he kissed her after she ate lobster or shrimp. In fact, she said he was so allergic he always carried an EpiPen with him in case he accidently came into contact with any kind of shellfish.”

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Joe said, stroking his chin.

Chief Evans picked up the phone. “Now let’s see what I can do to get Casey out of that cell and back home again,” he said. “Oh, and boys,” he looked at the two guards, “Make sure he gets his favorite last supper. At the very least, I think he deserves lobster, shrimp scampi and a chocolate milkshake.” (bio on p19)

TOUGH LIT. XI

IDEAGEMS MAGAZINE

he Eagle’s Club Daniel Craig Roche to do their clothes shopping early on Friday nights. I assume they want to get back home early and get ready for a fun night out, and I don‘t blame them. If I had Fridays off I would be heading out early myself. But I can’t. I’m stuck at work and dreading every second of it. It gets boring when there is no one to ask questions. No one to clean up after. No one to talk fashion with.

I fumbled around with a clothes rack, arranging some shirts by size and color. It was tedious work, but it kept me from staring at my watch. Not that I had to. The large clock hanging over the registers let me know it was a few minutes past eight. I hated that clock. It reminded me that I still had two more hours left to my shift.

I thought about the people with regular nine to five jobs. I envied them. The young people were either out at the movies or at the club.

The old people were home, watching their favorite shows. I looked around at the endless isles of clothing. There weren’t more than ten customers in the entire store.

Boring, boring, boring.

As I stood there pondering suicide, I flinched as something hit me on the back of the head. The object fell to the floor by my feet. It was a security tag. I turned and saw Marcy standing at the end of the isle.

She crossed her arms and stuck her tongue out at me.

I pointed at the security tag laying on the floor. “Did you just throw that at me?”

She scoffed at me. “No.” “Liar.”

She approached me and rested her head on my chest. “Hold me Stephen.”

“Why?” “Ugh.” She slapped my arm. “Because I’m bored.”

I held her and she held me back, consoling one another in the middle of the store.

“Hey,” she said while releasing me. “You’re still going out tonight, right?”

“Depends on where you’re going.”

“I dunno. Maybe head into the city. Hit up the strip.”

“That sounds fun. I might be up for that.”

She pouted her lips. “You have to go.”

“Pouting your lips won’t work on me honey.”

She stopped pouting and slapped my arm again. “I know, but that’s why I love you so much.” She kissed my lips and held her face close to mine. She whispered. “If you don’t go, the girls and I are going to be very upset with you, Stephen.”

“Ha!” I scoffed. “You’re always upset.”

“Well what if I were to promise you that you’re gonna meet a cute guy tonight?”

“Oh, I’m sure I’ll meet plenty of cute guys alright. They’ll be hanging all over you as usual. You and the other girls.”

She rolled her eyes. “You never know…”

She looked over my shoulder. “Oh, hey, speaking of cute guys, it looks like you’ve got some customers.”

I followed her gaze and saw four young men standing around a display of jeans.

“Wow.” “I know right? And they’re in your department, Stephen. You should go see if they need any help.”

I bit the nail of my forefinger. “I dunno, Marcy. Maybe you should go.”

“Look nerd. Judy hired you because of your love for fashion. It’s your job to help the guys who come in here looking for some expertise.”

VOL 8, ISSUE 8

“I know…”

“Well, then. Go over there and be an expert.” She got behind me and pushed. “Go on,” she struggled. “Don’t be such a big baby. And don’t worry. I’ll be close by if you need me.”

“Fine,” I said. I’m such a pushover. I need to learn how to tell Marcy no. She is such a bad influence.

As I got closer to the customers, I couldn’t help but notice how cute they all were. It was intimidating, but they were all laughing with one another. They looked fun, so I managed to work up the courage to approach them. I tried to look professional.

“Hey, guys,” I began. “Can I help you with anything today?”

The laughter stopped, and they all looked up at me. The look they gave me made me wish I hadn’t said anything. The joy in their faces faded to confusion as they looked at one another. Then they looked me up and down with raised eyebrows, as though I were something foreign to them. It seemed as though they were trying to decide what to do about me.

I am all too familiar with this look.

In my short life I have come to learn that there are two looks men give me: either one of welcome acceptance or the one I was getting now. I have come to hate this look. I’ve seen it at least a hundred times, and it never gets any easier to deal with. It makes me feel like I’m an annoying vagrant begging for change, and they are trying to decide whether to beat me up or fling a nickel at me. It’s as though my very presence brings mixed emotions of annoyance and pity. I wanted to turn and run.

One of them stepped forward. He grimaced. “Look man. Nothing personal, but we’re kind of looking for something that will make the girls look our way. Not….” Again he raised his eyebrows as though he felt bad for me. “Not people like you.”

I was offended. “People like me?”

He sighed. “Come on, buddy. Don’t make me come out and say it.”

I didn’t know what to say. I stood there feeling stupid. He shook his head and returned to his friends. They all turned from me, walking toward the exit. On their way out I could hear them talking.

“Can you believe that guy?”

“What a fairy, huh?”

My mouth dropped. There was no need for that kind of talk, and I didn’t care for their tone either. I felt embarrassed and looked around, praying that none of the other customers heard the awful things those guys said, and I think I got lucky. No one seemed to notice, but then I saw Marcy. She came trotting over to console me.

“Oh, my God. Stevie, I’m so sorry.”

Damn it! She saw everything. I said nothing. I was too busy fighting back tears.

“Stephen? Are you all right?”

I shook my head. “No.” I wanted to say more, but I already felt the tears swelling in my eyes.

She reached out to hug me but I turned from her. Wiping tears from my eyes I walked away, leaving her standing there. I felt bad about it, but I needed to be alone. I couldn’t just flee from work, so I went to the bathroom where I could regain my composure in private.

The automatic lights flicked on when I entered. I grabbed some paper towels and patted my eyes. The paper was rough, so I went to the stall and used tissue instead. It was a little better.

Standing before the mirror, I dabbed away the tears. I didn’t like admitting it, but those guys hurt me. They made me feel like there was something wrong with me, and I suddenly disliked my reflection in the mirror. I looked pretty—too pretty.

No wonder they called me a fairy.

I wanted to leave the store. Get away from the clothing—the make-up—all of it. I wanted to be somewhere else and I wanted to be someone else. Just for a little while at least.

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5

Feeling a little better, I left the bathroom, and I ran into Judy on my way out. Just what I needed. The store manager gaping down at me.

A mess with smeared mascara around my eyes. She must have been standing outside the door waiting for me, and I doubt she liked what she saw because the worry lines surrounding her eyes deepened once she saw me.

“Judy?”

She rested a hand on my shoulder. “Oh, my God. Stephen, Marcy told me what happened. Are you all right?”

“Yeah,” I lied. In truth I wanted to run to my car and go home, but Judy was always good to me. I didn’t want her worrying about me.

“Are you sure? You would tell me, right?”

“This isn’t the first time something like this has happened to me. I’ll be all right.”

“You poor thing.”

Her pity bothered me. I wanted to get away from her.

“I’m fine. Honest.”

She removed her hand. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do.

Ok?” “Ok.” I just wanted to get back to work and forget anything happened.

Maybe put it all behind me like I always do and move on with my life.

I left her and returned to the floor, and I found Marcy in the shoe section trying on a pair of heels.

She looked up when I approached. “Hi, sweetie. You feeling better?”

“Yeah, I’m good.”

She smiled. “Don’t worry. You’ll forget all about those jerks once you have a few drinks.”

“Oh, you can bet I’ll be drinking. Especially now.” I sighed and changed the subject. “Hey, Marce?”

“Yeah.”

“You wanna help me feel better?”

She lit up. I could tell she was eager to help me. I loved her.

“Of course,” she said.

“I wanna buy a new outfit.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah, but I want it to be something that’ll make me look normal.”

“Whoa. Wait a minute. Normal?”

“Yeah. You know. I wanna look like a regular guy.”

“Oh, no. Seriously, Stephen no! You look great just as you are.”

“Thanks, but I’m serious.”

“Why? Cause of what those jerks said?”

I grimaced. “No. Well… sort of. I guess I just want to know what it would feel like to blend in with the crowd. To go unnoticed. I want to be left alone. Just for tonight. I want to be left alone for just one night.”

“Tonight?”

“Yeah.”

“You can’t go out looking like some average bum tonight. You have to go out looking like Stephen.”

“Well. I think I’m gonna go somewhere new tonight. There’s a hole in the wall down the street from my place called the Eagle’s Club. I think I’m gonna try it.”

“I thought you were coming out with me and the girls?”

I shook my head. “I’m sorry Marcy. I’m not in the mood. I just want to be alone tonight.”

“Well, that sucks.”

“Marcy, please.”

“No, it’s alright. I guess I understand. Well, if you want to be left alone, the Eagle’s Club is the place to be. It’s Friday night, and I guarantee there won’t be more than ten people in the place. People don’t go there to mingle. They go there to drink.”

My eyes widened. “Exactly.”

6

She sighed. “So you’re sure I can’t talk you out of it? You know how Kristen is. She can make anyone forget about their problems, and Jessica adores you.”

“I appreciate it, but I need this.”

“All right,” she shrugged. “I tried.” She put an arm around my waist. “Come on. Let’s go find you some clothes. Time to make a man out of you.” * * * Marcy and I spent the last two hours of our shift picking out clothes. I tried on several outfits before settling on one that made me feel average. I was happy enough with my purchases and went to my car with an overstuffed shopping bag. I threw the bag in the back seat and drove home. I felt unenthusiastic about the night, but I pushed on anyways. Something told me it was important that I go to the Eagle’s Club. Intuition maybe, but it was something I had to do.

For myself.

The rain was terrible. I’ve always hated driving at night in the rain.

The lights reflect off the wet road and I can never see the center lines, but I made it home alive, squeezing my little VW between two cars parked along the curb.

I hurried through a shower and left the bathroom without applying any makeup. I put on the clothes Marcy and I picked out and admired myself in the mirror. I looked so boring that I wanted to cry.

I hardly recognized myself, but I still wasn’t satisfied. If there was anyone I knew at The Eagle’s Club, they would recognize me for sure.

I reached into the shopping bag and pulled out the baseball cap Marcy picked out for me. I shuddered as I slipped it up onto my head, but when I looked into the mirror again I felt better. Tonight, I was no longer Stephen. Tonight I was a nobody.

It felt good.

I intended to drink until I was numb, so I left on foot. The Eagle’s Club was only a couple blocks away so it wasn’t too bad, and on the way I discovered a reason to like baseball caps. It kept the rain from falling in my eyes. I have to admit, I was glad to have it on.

I walked around the corner deli and saw the bar’s entrance to my right. It was on the lower floor of a triple level apartment building.

Some pale green vinyl siding dangled off the building and rested on the pavement, and the only neon sign in the entryway flickered on and off. There was a bad feeling about the place. Not a thing about it felt welcoming I had an unsettling feeling in my stomach as I reached for the door handle. I felt as though I were entering a dead end, a last resort for people who have lost all reason to live. I wanted to turn around, but the need to drink and feel sorry for myself outweighed common sense.

I stepped inside.

Entering the Eagle’s Club is like walking into a wall of smoke. The second I opened the door the smell of cigarettes encased me. I coughed, grabbing the attention of the men seated at the bar. They turned to look at me, but returned to their drinks once they realized I wasn’t anyone important.

A non-threatening man with a ball cap sat at the far corner of the bar. He looked to be about my age, and judging by his posture I assumed that he too had no intention of meeting people. His shoulders were hunched, he stared long into his drink, and he appeared to have a head full of troubles.

There was an older man sitting two seats over to his right. He had a red face and gray beard. The red-faced guy didn’t look very inviting, but the seat to the left of these two gentlemen was vacant. I sat next to the guy with the ball cap.

He looked up at me when I sat. I nodded, and he returned my gesture with a nod of his own. He then returned to his drink. Just a regular guy drinking away his sorrows. I could sympathize.

TOUGH LIT. XI

IDEAGEMS MAGAZINE

The good thing about places like the Eagle’s Club is that you don’t have to flag the bartender down to order a drink. It isn’t a busy place, so the bartender approaches you the second you sit down.

He came up to me and leaned on the bar. “Whatcha havin’?”

I didn’t want to attract any unwanted attention by ordering something too flashy, so I asked for a rum and coke. Besides, it would be nice to have something strong to drink. I stared at the baseball game on the TV while I waited for my drink. I didn’t understand the game, but I guessed it couldn’t hurt to pretend.

As soon as the bartender brought my drink over, the nonthreatening guy’s cell phone rang. In small places like the Eagle’s Club, a ringing phone grabs people’s attention, including mine. I watched as the man pulled his phone out and read a text message.

He typed a response and put the phone down face up on the bar.

There was no need for me to take an interest in the guy’s phone. I guess I was just being nosey. I admit I looked, stretching my neck to make out the picture on the face of his phone, and I was a bit surprised. It was a picture of a handsome young man. He was finely dressed and clean shaven. He could have been a model for all I knew.

It seemed like an odd picture to serve as your phone’s wall paper, but who am I to judge? I returned to my drink.

The bearded man sitting to the guy’s right scoffed. I looked up from my drink and noticed his pale blue eyes glaring. The blue of his eyes looked out of place among his red complexion. He stared down at the guy’s phone and turned to face him.

“Hey. Why you got a picture of some dude on your phone? You a queer or something?”

The guy stared into his drink and sighed, shaking his head. It was obvious he didn’t want anything to do with the conversation.

“Hey,” said the red-faced man with the gray beard. “I’m talking to you.”

As if wetting his throat for a long discussion, the ball capped guy took a sip of his drink and sighed. “You ever read The Secret?” He asked. “Where if something is always on your mind, and if you will it, and want it bad enough, you can have it?”

The man sneered. He didn’t seem to like where this conversation was headed. “Yeah, I heard of it. So you telling me you want this guy then? You telling me you’re a faggot?”

Again the guy sighed. He picked up the phone and stared at the picture. “This is a picture of my brother. He died in Iraq about two months ago, and I want him back more than anything.”

The bearded man turned an even darker shade of red. From where I sat I couldn’t tell if he was embarrassed or angry with himself for jumping to such a foolish conclusion.

“I… I didn’t mean—” The bartender interrupted him. He was angry. “You’ve done enough damage for one night, Bill. Finish your drink and leave.”

“But, I didn’t mean to—” The bartender raised his voice. “Finish your drink and get out!

Don’t make me ask you again!”

Flustered, the red-faced man left without finishing his drink. After he left, the bartender rested his arm on the bar and asked the man if he was okay.

“Yeah. I’m fine. Thanks.”

“No problem. Give me a yell if you need anything.”

The air was thick with smoke and tension. There was hushed chatter at the other end of the bar, but the people were polite enough to mind their own business. Too bad I couldn’t say the same for myself.

Normally I’m a very shy person, but I had an uncontrollable urge to say something. It took me several moments, but I finally worked up the courage to get the guys attention.

“Hey,” I began. “I don’t mean to intrude, but if it’s not too much to ask, I’d like to buy your next drink.”

VOL 8, ISSUE 8

He looked genuinely grateful, but he still hadn’t removed his eyes from his drink. Maybe he was shy himself, or maybe he didn’t want to reveal the hurt in his eyes.

“That’s very nice of you,” he said. “You serve in Iraq?”

“No.” He looked confused. “Then why do you want to buy me a drink?”

I shrugged. “I guess I kind of liked the way you handled that guy.

He was a jerk.”

“You liked the way I handled him?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?” For fear of how this mild-mannered man might look at me, I hesitated. After several moments I decided to just come out with it.

“Because I’m gay.”

Finally, he looked up from his drink and acknowledged me in an unexpected way. I certainly never expected to see it, but it was the kind of look I always hope to see in a man as beautiful as him. It was acceptance.

He took a sip from his drink and turned towards me. He removed his baseball cap, and I removed mine, and now we noticed one another for the very first time. We both smiled.

“You really want to buy me a drink?” he asked.

“Yes. I’d love to.”

“Good,” he said, his smile widening. “’Cause I could really use a daiquiri.”

Daniel Craig Roche was born in Sturbridge, MA. Educated at Becker College in Worcester, MA, Daniel currently writes fiction in a variety of genres, including literary fiction, horror and humor. He has held many odd jobs while chasing the writing dream, including mover, chimney sweep, plumber, forklift driver, factory worker and drummer for punk band Coffee Inc. Daniel is currently a member of the New England Horror Writers Association. Feel free to email Daniel at danroche@charter.net.

2 Perspectives

by Laurie Notch 1 beneath the rusting trestle, timbers rotting, scavengers, some winged, some not, scuttle for scraps spit up on spume by a languid tongue of sea.

2 I bounce and bob blithely, fickle flotsam on the sea, while hands, beaks, claws, jaws all vie for me.

Poems on Trees winner Ocean Park Writers Conference Aug. 14, 2013

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7

Meredith

by Matthew M. Bruno d and prim in his suit and bowtie, served as the Moonstone Trading Company. He checked and rechecked his numbers. The Moonstone Trading Company’s books were well-balanced, and he was done for the day. He decided to “treat himself.” He checked his bowtie in the office mirror, making a few minor adjustments. Satisfied, he started towards The Bridge neighborhood.

Arix, an assassin in good standing with a local mercenary company, made his way past Nazir’s Potion Emporium in the Merchant’s neighborhood, taking note of some mimes who were working the City Square—some mimes did better than others. A few City Watch, the police of King’s Reach, were in front of Al’s Pub, chatting with Al. As Arix walked by Al’s Pub, the sound of both music and raucous laughter spilled out into the street.

Even though it was approaching dusk, both the streets and the tall buildings of the Merchant’s neighborhood were well lit, well kept.

City sanitation workers swept the streets in King’s Reach hourly, workers who walked the avenues and boulevards, collecting and disposing of the occasional piece of litter, emptying the city’s trashcans as needed. The city’s streets were bright, thanks to numerous, strategically placed EverBright torches, magical torches that made light permanently. The well-spaced cobblestone roads were well-traveled, and the buildings’ faces were maintained, thanks to rigorous zoning laws. Fresh coats of paint—or stain & varnish— were applied every 10 years, whether they needed it or not. Children chased each other through the walkways, ducking and weaving through the throngs of people who filled the labyrinth of avenues and boulevards. th Drek stepped into the 5 Street Baker for some buttered bread before continuing towards The Bridge. He had considered stopping in Central Oils for fuel for his office lanterns, but he decided to get some cigars from Pend’s Tobacco store instead. As Drek puffed on an expensive cigar, a group of tourists were leaving the King’s Reach Public Library, renting and buying some old favorites. The tall buildings were complimented by wide cobblestone avenues. Both crowds of citizens and the occasional City Watchmen went about their business, traveling to and from the collection of buildings in the Merchant’s neighborhood.

Arix ducked into an alley next to The Arms & Armor Museum, waiting patiently to see if he had been followed. Keenly aware of the ebb and flow of the human traffic, Arix knew what to look for. He was safe. He activated the magic in his grey beret, evoking an extremely powerful disguise: he was now “Meredith,” a 12 year old schoolgirl. Meredith was short, just over five feet tall. She had long, straight, honey-hued hair, woven into pigtails, and big brown eyes, with high cheekbones and a round, cherubic face that showcased both full lips and a square jaw. Meredith was adorable in that cute, preadolescent sort of way. She wore a white blouse, a black, kneelength skirt, white leggings, and black shoes with big square silver buckles.

Meredith emerged from the alley and continued towards The Bridge as the occasional merchant from Mulmasten made his way through the Merchant’s neighborhood. Moonstone sailors, on leave, their pockets bulging with their pay, liberally spent their coins on a never-ending supply of suburban temptations. The sailors were asking a member of the City Watch for directions to the Banshee Tavern. The City Watch was more than happy to help them. Just before Ann’s Antiques, Meredith turned onto South Street, just past the King’s Reach Bank and Trust. She stopped in front of Tempora’s Clothing, inspecting a silk blouse, holding it up for examination, but 8

secretly looking past it, to the South Street walkways to see if anyone was following her. She waited, looking at several articles of clothing.

Satisfied that she was in the clear, she continued to The Bridge. City Hall, swollen with lazy bureaucrats, was closing for the day, and a steady stream of workers left the building, headed out to either a pub or home for the night.

Drek was near City Bower and Fletcher when he noticed a ruckus in one of the local cafés. The owner of The Banshee Tavern was starting happy hour, and loyal regulars waited in line, looking to buy ice-cold beer at an irresistible price. Members of the City Watch were assisting with the Banshee traffic. On the opposite side of the street, Madam Gentry’s Gallery was having another sale, and the usual collection of artsy-types arrived and mingled amongst the patrons.

Madam Gentry’s Gallery only admitted patrons by appointment.

Meredith was near The Temple to Nathaniel Morninglory, whose clergy flourished during the troubling times. Some members of the City Watch, those with a religious bent, were chatting with the Morninglory clerics, who offered both hope and promise to those who were going through crisis—“It was always darkest before the dawn,” the Morninglories were famous for saying. The clergy offered the promise of a new beginning to those who were picking up the pieces of their lives, starting over. King’s Reach Apothecary—with several locations scattered across the city—was popular with those who had various ailments: upset stomachs, sinusitis, or injuries. For a price, all infirmities could be cured.

Brentwood’s Park marked the change of neighborhoods.

Brentwood’s Park was the demarcation between the respectable parts of King’s Reach and The Bridge. The reek of urine and vomit assaulted the air in Brentwood’s Park. The tall, luxurious buildings of Brentwood’s Park gave way to the squat structures of The Bridge.

Wide, well-lit roads became cramped, shadow-infested allies dotted with refuse. Having survived a long history of delinquency, the residents of The Bridge were savvy: all of the windows had bars over them. The buildings in The Bridge had an unwashed, grimy face. They could have benefited from a bristle brush, a bucket of hot, soapy water, and an old-fashioned scrubbing.

Meredith overheard a conversation between Jared, the owner of The Downtown Pub, and Thrath, a delivery man. “You’ve got to be out of your mind,” Thrath said, his tone heavy with incredulousness.

“I’m not taking your package to Pete’s Gymnasium. Not without a guard or two, which I am not going to pay for. If you want me to take that package to Pete’s, then it’s going to cost double my usual fee, plus the employment of a swordsman…at least one swordsman,” Thrash added. “That… and you are financially responsible for any healing that I may need if the delivery turns into a fight.”

Approaching Armond’s Armor, Drek noticed a funeral procession pass him as he negotiated the dilapidated buildings of The Bridge.

Zrass Temm, a prominent merchant and former owner of Armond’s Armor, had recently been killed in his store during a late-night burglary. Two mercenary guards employed by the new owner of Armond’s Armor stood in front of the shop, deterring both drunks and would-be troublemakers. Several locals inside Armond’s marveled at a suit of newly crafted plate mail armor. One swordsman haggled over the price of a shield. Ivan’s Weapons was across the street. Ivan’s did well, with a steady flow of shoppers from sun up until sun down.

The Liquor Locker prospered, especially in the evening. For a competitive price, one could keep one’s party going all night long, as the Liquor Locker, with its staff of mercenary guards, never closed.

For the right price, one could buy a bottle of just about anything, anytime. As some customers emerged from The Liquor Locker, outof-work immigrants who roamed the streets looking for employment started to argue with one of the Liquor Locker’s mercenary guards.

The immigrants would have gone to The Merchant’s neighborhood to look for work, but, when they did, the City Watch chased them

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out, using their truncheons on those who protested. The mercenary guards shooed the immigrants away.

Near Marley’s Book Store, two bums traded punches over the rights to a long, narrow alley. The mercenary guards in the employment of Marley’s Book Store placed bets on which one would win. Kliss, a local homeless beggar, was lean, quick, with a nasty temper. He kept raining a fury of punches on Nrass’s face. It looked as if Nrass, shorter and chunkier and new to The Bridge, was losing.

The homeless who were not fighting loitered all hours of the day and night with the often sadistic mercenary guards thrashing any homeless who got too close to the shops. When a drunken homeless man wandered near The Majestic, a seedy, rent-by-the-hour motel, a Moonstone sailor, having hired himself out as bodyguard for The Majestic, thumped the vagrant on the side of his head with the flat of his sword. The drifter staggered, reeling away from the front of the Majestic, retreating to a shadowed alley to sleep it off.

Drek avoided the greasy-haired teenage pickpockets, who darted from alley to alley, always alert, ready for easy pickings. The streets of The Bridge were dotted with the occasional lost tourist, who was assured of having his pockets picked, if not outright robbed on the spot. Drek turned east, past Prend’s Pawn Shop who accepted the deed to your house for a quick loan. A customer had six months to complete regular payments to Prend, or forfeit his home. Many failed the requisite payments, ultimately ejected from their property, thus adding to the homeless problem.

Sran’s Casino was always popular with tourists who were brave enough to make their way into the heart of The Bridge. Many gambled away their earnings, leaving dejected, hungry, and broke.

Dozens of mercenary guards kept losers from disputing their losses, quickly ejecting, by force, those who became problematic. For the unfortunate losers, for those who had lost everything, a nearby homeless shelter, run by clerics who served Nathaniel Morninglory, took in those who lacked the money required to return home. The shelter closed down during the day, with the doors reopening at dusk. There, a guy down on his luck could get a hot dinner and a cot for the night.

Meredith spotted a few brave street vendors in The Bridge. They sold snacks, ale, and a smattering of information if the price was right. The vendors were flanked by steely-eyed mercenary guards, who kept them safe, for a cut of the profits. For those in trouble with the law, and for those with both enough money and the right street contacts, a Safe House, complete with room and board, provided customers with a temporary sanctuary, for as long as they could afford the necessary payments.

In The Bridge, collusions took place day and night. Drek passed some local drug dealers, flanked by mercenary watchmen, who were meeting under the safety of shadow. Rich kids from the nicest parts of King’s Reach braved the threats of The Bridge to get kadorib, a drug popular in the city. It could be either smoked or ingested. Coins exchanged hands, and everyone walked away satisfied.

Meredith navigated alleys laden with trash. Her squeaky-clean image contrasted with the grime endemic to The Bridge. Passing The Majestic, Meredith kept a wary eye on the buildings that had been condemned, which became a beacon for both petty criminals and kadorib addicts. With night approaching, residents would hurry home so as not to be outside after dark, even if they were armed.

She made her way to the river, the heart of The Bridge.

When two prostitutes noticed Meredith, they vaulted into action.

“Oh no!” Lilly snapped. “Oh, hell no!” she said, stepping over a random puddle of vomit and confronting Meredith. Lilly had shoulder-length, thick black hair and swarthy features. She had an ethnic sexiness to her. Lilly’s deep green dress, complete with a plunging neckline, showcased her hourglass figure. Lilly was accompanied by a shorter, curvaceous girl who had more than a passing resemblance to her. “The west end of the bridge is my side VOL 8, ISSUE 8

of the bridge, new girl—girly-girl. I work this side. You don’t work my side of the bridge,” she barked. Are you hearing me? These are my Johns, my work, my gold.” She opened her vest, revealing a small dagger. “Don’t make me cut up that little angel face of yours” she stated. “Go on, get out of here,” Lilly demanded, one hand on her dagger.

Meredith put on her best effect of intimidation, portraying defeat.

Her eyes downcast in submission, she left the west end of the bridge, taking her rightful place on the less-traveled, eastern side of the bridge, not far from some rich kids from the Merchant’s neighborhood who were looking to score some kadorib.

Drek ducked into The Majestic and got a room, paying for three hour’s rent. He got the key to room number five. Drek passed Sran’s Casino, oblivious of the Safe House that he had passed. He stopped in front of the Bard’s College and Theater and admired a street performer who was under the watchful eye of mercenary guards employed to protect him. Drek dropped some coins in the metal tip jar and noticed a satisfying clink as the coins clashed with the jar. The juggler worked in a quick salute, never taking his eyes off of the sand-filled leather balls that he was juggling. Rounding The Daily News Stand, which featured the latest and greatest stories, thanks to a hand-operated printing press, Drek noted a beautiful young girl who was standing all alone. He drank in her exquisiteness for a while before approaching her. “Hello,” Drek said. She was simply delicious in her black and white schoolgirl outfit.

She didn’t make eye contact with him. “Hi,” she murmured.

“Looking for a date?” she inquired.

“Yes, if the price is right,” Drek added.

“Three gold for in-and-out. Six gold for anything else. Ten gold for the night,” she said.

“What about five gold for some dance, massage, and in-and-out?”

Drek said.

Meredith thought for a bit, then nodded her head in acquiescence.

Drek smiled. “Good,” he said. “Meet me at The Majestic, room five.

Come in the back entrance. I don’t want to be seen with you in public.”

“Does it matter that I’m 12?” Meredith muttered softly.

Drek chuckled. “Should it?”

Upon arriving at The Majestic, Drek took off his coat, loosening his bowtie. He poured himself a tall glass of sherry, taking a small music box out of his coat pocket. He wound it up, letting it play a song that had been quite popular some years ago. He heard a soft knocking on the door. Drek unlocked it and let in his Lolita. He took another gulp from his glass of sherry. Drek sat on the bed. “Why don’t you dance for me?”

Meredith paused for a moment, slipping into character, then nodded, taking off her shoes and exposing her perfect little feet. She found the rhythm of the song wafting from the music box. Meredith performed a series of slow, sensual turns and spins, in perfect time to the song. She locked eyes with Drek, offering the occasional overthe-shoulder seductive glance. Drek’s pulse quickened, and he took another gulp of sherry. Meredith managed a decent Box Step, followed up with a few pirouettes and a Heel Turn. In the middle of a Free Style, she slowly unbuttoned her blouse, one button at a time, quite confident that the powerful disguise would not fail, so long as “she” didn’t drop the blouse onto the floor. The turns and spins exposed a see-through bra hidden under her white blouse. “How about a back massage?” she suggested. “I brought some scented oil with me.”

Drek agreed, stripping bare to the waist and laying face-down on the bed. His heart was racing. She climbed on him, straddling him and sprinkling some fragrant oil on his back. She began long, smooth strokes, with her powerful hands and fingers gliding over his skin, kneading his tired muscles. Drek was lost in delight. He couldn’t remember a time when he had felt this relaxed, this tranquil.

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“Oh, that. A couple miles back, we ran over a panther in the road. I couldn’t avoid hitting it, and the car got splattered.”

“Panthers are endangered. You should have called it in to Highway Patrol. You’re lucky neither one of you got hurt.”

“I’m sorry, sir. We didn’t know.”

“Okay, but Mr. Lambert, remember it’s a forty-five mile speed limit in this county.”

“Yes, sir, I will.” Jon waited until the police car left before restarting the Caddy. He crept home doing forty miles an hour.

A loud, strident noise woke Marion from a deep sleep. The glowing red numerals on the alarm read seven thirty when she realized the jangling noise was the phone ringing on the bedside table.

“Hullo” “Mrs. Lambert?” Oceola County Police Department. Detective Martinez here.”

Suddenly wide awake, Marion sat up in bed. “Yes, what is it?”

“I’m sorry to disturb you, ma’am, but I need to speak with you and your husband regarding the accident last night. How about eightthirty?”

Marion hung up the phone and turned to Jon. “Get up. A Detective Martinez is coming over at eight-thirty about the accident.”

A tall, handsome man with slicked, jet-black hair, a navy-blue suit and garish yellow tie got out of an unmarked black Chevy. Marion invited him in and offered him a cup of coffee.

“No, thanks, ma’am. I’m afraid I have bad news. Your car hit a man, not a panther last night.”

“A man!” Marion’s mouth gaped open. She locked eyes with Jon. “Detective, it was late. We assumed it was a panther because we had just passed the crossing sign. We were afraid there might be more cats around, so we left.”

“Unfortunately folks, this kinda changes things. Mr. Lambert, we’re going to have to borrow your car for a few days. We’ll need you and the missus to come down to the office and provide a statement about the accident.”

Jon’s face turned splotchy red, his tone angry, “Detective, I know you’re just doing your job, but we already told the policeman what happened.”

Marion pressed her fingers hard into Jon’s arm until he turned to face her. “Not a problem, detective. We’ll use my car and drive over in about a half hour.”

After Detective Martinez left, the tow-truck with Jon’s car following behind him, Marion poured herself and Jon a cup of coffee.

Marion tried to calm Jon down while he ranted and swore between sips.

Marion broke his tirade. “We don’t know anything about that man in the road. What if he was still alive when we ran over him?”

“That’s it, Marion. I don’t want to hear another word. Let’s go.”

“Remember to tell the detective exactly what we told that policeman when he stopped us. You know, Jon, he must have gone back to check out that panther after he left.”

The police station smelled of old coffee and stale baked goods when Marion and Jon entered the front door. They waited in a small office until Detective Martinez arrived twenty minutes later, pulled up a chair, and after licking his index finger, opened a manila folder.

“Did either of you know a man named George Franklin?”

Marion froze in her chair, her face void of expression. She remained calm despite the chill creeping up her back. Jon finally answered. “I did. George and Corrine Franklin work at the company.

George is an Executive. Corrine is a specialist in the Marketing Department.

“Mr. Lambert, do you know if Mr. Franklin was at the company event?”

“I didn’t see him, but his wife Corrine was there.”

VOL 8, ISSUE 8

Detective Martinez scribbled in his pad, looked over at Jon. “I hope this isn’t an inconvenience, but it would help if you and Mrs. Lambert would provide DNA samples before you leave.”

Marion remained stiff as a fence post, not looking at Jon when he replied. “Sure, we’ll do it on our way out.”

Marion dropped Jon at work. She told him she was taking the day off. She thought about George Franklin in the middle of Route 60 all the way home. What the hell was he doing there?

A colleague dropped Jon off from work while Marion sipped a glass of wine on the deck. He poured himself a stiff drink and joined her.

“Jon, this is serious. Was there something going on with you and Corrine Franklin? What if they think you had something to do with George’s death? “ “Me! I hardly knew the guy. I admit I flirted with Corrine, but that’s it. She had a reputation for stepping out on George. I have no idea what happened to him.”

“I’m just saying that nosy Detective Martinez won’t stop bugging us until they find out what happened. Don’t lie to me Jon. If you were involved with Corrine Franklin, co-workers will blab and that awful Detective will hound us.”

“I told you, Marion. I’m not having an affair with Corrine. We’ll get the car back, and that’ll be the end of it.” But that wasn’t the end of it.

Detective Martinez called, then stopped by a few nights later.

When Marion answered the door, she noticed the detective looked rumpled, his lime green tie loose around his neck.

“Good evening, Mrs. Lambert. Is your husband home?”

“Yes, come in.” Marion left him in the living room while she went and got Jon. “Mr. Lambert, I’ve got more bad news. We did find remnants of Mr. Franklin’s remains on the outside of your car, but what’s puzzling are two spots inside your car and a hair strand with your DNA on his pant leg. Can you explain that?

Jon exploded. “That’s ridiculous. There’s no way George Franklin could have been inside my car.” He looked over at Marion. “Marion, tell this guy he’s nuts.”

Marion’s voice quavered. “Detective Martinez, I’m sure this must be a mistake. We do know the Franklins, but we don’t socialize with them.”

Jon, Marion, and their hastily-called attorney spent the evening at the police station regurgitating the same information as before. Jon stuck to his story. Exhausted, they returned home. Unfortunately, they forgot about Mrs. Franklin.

Corrine Franklin played the bereaved widow to the hilt. She loved her husband. Copious tears flowed down her face as she admitted her mistake—the brief, unfortunate affair with Jon. Jon had a temper and was jealous of George’s position in the company. The media had a field day when accusations and rebuttals flew back and forth and a tearful Corrine threw herself on George’s coffin at the funeral.

Marion and Jon did not attend the service.

Marion stayed home after Jon was charged with George’s death.

She refused to talk to or about Jon. And that skinny detective was getting on her nerves. She saw him sitting in his black Chevy down the street last night. Why was he watching her house?

When Detective Martinez parked in a different spot the next night, Marion crossed the street. A chagrined grin suffused the Detective’s handsome face when she approached.

“Would you prefer to sit out here or come in for a cup of coffee?”

Marion noticed he looked more rumpled than usual. His orange-andwhite-striped tie hung untied around the soiled collar of his blue shirt.

Sitting at the kitchen table with two cups of black coffee between them, Marion’s gaze focused on the dark bags under Martinez’s blue eyes. “Why are you here?”

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Gateway An excerpt from the novel

by Daniel Dunlap s straight," Garen said once Dahlem had finished. lp you again? I’m already in enough trouble with the Commonwealth as it is, so why should I keep endangering myself for your benefit?” Dahlem sighed heavily, and then appeared thoughtful for a moment. “You know,” Garen said more calmly, “it would help if I knew exactly what was going on. So far, all I know is that you have a grudge against the Commonwealth, you’re trying to find some way to hurt them, and that somehow that messenger you captured fits into this.”

“Garen, I’m asking you, and I’ll be a little more specific,” Dahlem said without answering him. He stared at Garen intently as he spoke again. “Do you know anything about a large, un-manned vessel that drifted through this sector? It makes no communication and makes seemingly random Trans-space jumps. If you can give me some information about its location, then I’ll pay you whatever price you want." Garen then sat quietly in his seat and resumed his silence. He glanced around the room, seemingly torn about the decision. Then, he stood and stepped towards the bulkhead. He flipped a small switch, dimming the overhead and floor lights.

“All right,” Garen said in resignation as he walked back towards the group, “here’s what I’ve got.” He sat down at the head of the table and clicked a small key set on the armrest. A quiet whirring sound began emanating from the bulkhead, and a large section of it flipped upwards revealing a large view-screen. It flickered for a brief moment, and then cleared. Soon, a blurred image materialized on the side of the screen. It seemed to be a picture of a large ship just engaging its Trans-speed drives and beginning its jump. Dahlem leaned forward in interest.

“That’s it...,” Dahlem said grimly, resting back into his chair and staring at the image. * * * After a flash of static, a research officer, dressed in a scientist’s white lab coat, appeared on the right side of the screen. “These are the files and recordings of what completely destroyed three of my scouting squadrons before it went past the sensor range of my outpost.” The picture had cleared a little, and a few details of the ship could be seen – mainly its weaponry, massive engine ports, and elongated bridge. It looked to be at least several hundred kilometers long, reaching beyond the edges of the screen in both directions. “It appeared near here several months ago, just idling in space. I sent several salvage groups to see if we could get it along with the three scouting squads. A few minutes later, I lost contact with all of them. I sent some heavy fighters, and I got the same result. After it had drifted past sensor range I sent a few more ships in to see what had happened, and this is what we found.”

The image changed to a video clip being transmitted from cameras all over one of the fighters. There were about twenty fighters of varying classes, all floating limply in space. Small fragments of their hulls floated about the area, and their engines were sparking erratically. “We recovered one of the data logs; unfortunately the audio was corrupted by damage to the computer.” The pictures changed once again to a video log of the battle.

The fighters were flying in formation ahead of the bombers, and orders could be heard being relayed between the multiple flights.

Dahlem watched as the fighters edged closer to the massive ship, voicing hails and orders to stand down. The vessel simply seemed to be drifting. He heard the commander begin to say something to the rest of the wings about it being unoccupied as the salvage ships moved in. There were huge debris fields comprised of dead fighterVOL 8, ISSUE 8

class ships, chunks of armor plating, and some slightly larger vessels surrounding it. They seemed to be trapped in a sort of light gravitational field surrounding the ship, and they only added to the aura of destruction surrounding it.

“Make a close range scan once you begin the salvage,” the commander ordered the boarding crews as they neared the ship. The camera view switched to one of the salvage crews. They were boarding the vessel through one of the many open escape hatches.

The men, dressed in space-suits, were laughing and joking among themselves as they entered the ship itself. Inside, there was no light, except for the lights mounted on their suits. The beams from these pierced the darkness for several meters until they hit the end of their range, bending shadows into eerie lines and waves that stood out through the illumination.

“I’m reading slight power fluctuations throughout the ship,” one of the crew said, glancing at a digital readout.

“It’s probably just the main computer trying to restore some atmospheric pressure,” their leader replied dismissively. “Don’t jump at shadows.” Strange echoing sounds rumbled throughout the underbelly of the ship as the crewmen walked through the empty corridors strewn with wreckage and dangling, sparking wires. He signaled two of the crew to stay behind near the end of the corridor they had entered from as they walked into the upper decks of the ship.

“I’ve never seen a ship of this model before." One of the technicians was wandering about, awe-struck at the vessel’s sheer size. “It would take years to build,” he continued, staring at a readout of a small scanner he was holding, “and I don’t understand half of this technology. It does seem similar to some old wreckage discovered recently though, dating back several hundred years– ” The other members of the boarding crew took no notice of their technician’s endless ramble as they walked towards the main command-deck cautiously. They stopped at the blast doors, which were sealed shut. A long welding line spanned the edge between the two halves of the door, effectively cutting off any entrance or exit.

The audio and visual cut in and out sporadically as the crew placed what appeared to be detonation blocks at the weak points of the doorway. The commander signaled to his crew to step back as he grasped the ignition coils and walked away towards some floating debris. The rest of his crew followed. As soon as they were all set, he entered in the code for the detonation sequence and pressed a small red key on the pad’s interface. The deck rocked violently side to side as the doorway exploded into deadly shrapnel. Flames burst in front of their protective shield, sending the people hiding behind it scrambling backwards. After a head-count, the commander signaled his crew, and they all moved slowly towards what was left of the doorway. The leader made his way carefully through the floating wreckage as they entered the room.

“Any life readings yet?” he asked, slipping his weapon off of his shoulder cautiously.

“Negative. However, there seems to be something over there,” one of the crewmen replied, indicating the captain's chair. The commander turned to look. the chair was turned towards the view screen, and there appeared to be something inside the chair itself.

The commander grasped the armrest and turned it, backing off as he did so. Lying on the chair was what was left of the captain, the uniform hanging limply over its dry bones still grasping the arm of its chair. Its skull was long, and it had three eye sockets in the front of its head.

“It isn’t human sir,” the crewman stated nervously to the leader.

“You think I didn’t notice that?" he replied, wiping his hand across his mouth. “Where’s that technician?” The boarding party glanced around, but he was nowhere to be seen. The commander opened up a portable communicator and attempted to make contact with him as the rest searched the nearby hallways. However, the technician

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was far out of range, lost deep, down through the countless corridors and hallways of the ship.

Wandering around aimlessly, the technician admired the arches and beautiful structuring of the inner passages. He smiled broadly as each new turn brought even more glorious sights. He walked quickly into the next room, and then stood still, awe-struck. It was a computer room, the main nerve center for the whole ship. Huge view screens hung from the bulkheads on almost all sides, and smaller ones filled the rest of the room. The technician quickly ran over to one of the huge keypads below the main screens and attempted to reboot it. However, when he entered in several commands on the pad, nothing appeared to happen.

He stared in confusion at the screens for a few moments and then noticed what was wrong. One of the main connection circuits was disconnected from its access point, and the wire was dangling from the panel limply. He quickly climbed up onto the panel and grasped the connection wire firmly. He strained to reach the panel until he was standing on the tips of his shoes. He reached a little higher, and then slid the wire into its socket with a loud clicking sound. The panel above him flashed and sparked erratically, causing him to slip back startled, and sent him crashing to the floor. The rest of the panels all started doing the same, seemingly shorting out. The technician scrambled backwards, trying to get some distance between himself and the panels as they glowed more and more brightly— Without warning, the screens became clear for a moment, and they all flashed one single image across all of the panels. An infinite pattern of zeros and ones, all moving in different directions across the screens, binary code that changed and morphed every second.

The technician tried to stand, but the rumblings heard earlier intensified, shaking the ship to its core and sending the technician stumbling to his knees. The computer panels faded into static, and the large blast doors on the far side of the room slowly began to close. The technician stared in horror for a moment, then staggered to his feet and began to run towards the ever-narrowing space between the two halves of the doorway. He tried to run faster, but the shaking of the ship itself caused him to stumble and lose his footing, sending him sprawling across the floor a few feet away from the doorway.

As he lifted his head, he stared in horror as the door’s edges near each other, until there were only inches left. Finally struggling to his feet, he was instantly smashed back down by the ship's erratic shaking. Groaning in agony, he looked up only to see a small beam of light from outside the room, his last hope narrowing until it was only a few centimeters wide… and then the doors slammed shut with a loud crashing sound, cutting off the small ray of light and trapping the technician inside.

The salvage commander and the rest of his crew were running back towards the waiting transport ship as quickly as they could. The shaking of the ship had gotten worse, and they hadn’t seen the technician in an hour. The binary code had appeared throughout the ship several seconds ago, and it lined computer panels on both sides of them as they hurried towards the place they had entered the ship from.

“What’s going on?!” one of them yelled, glancing around the next hallway as they skidded around the corner.

“I don’t know!” the commander yelled back, briskly looking over his shoulder as they neared the place they stationed their transport ship. “All I know is they don’t pay me enough to stay here while this thing falls apart!” They rounded the last turn and slid to a stop. There was the long corridor where they had boarded the vessel. They quickly bolted for the doorway, but then the commander stopped in front of one of the service closets. He stood silently as his crew flashed past him, and then one of them ran back to get him. He grabbed the commander’s arm and dragged him towards the shuttle.

14

Inside the closet, the two bodies of the guards they had left behind floated limply, riddled with bullet holes, their clothes scorched and burned, and air and blood hissed from the scarred holes and slashes in their suits. Their faces were frozen in their last, desperate attempts to breathe as their suits depressurized and the blood boiled in their veins from the rapid change of atmosphere and temperature.

“Go!” the commander shouted, finally recovering from his shock.

“Get us out of here!” Frantically and desperately, they removed their space suits as the doors of the transport slammed shut and locked into liftoff position. The engines made an ascending whine as they charged to their capacity, the crewman in the cockpit of the vessel glanced down at the meter anxiously as it rose– for him, painfully slow– to the readiness position.

“Full power– and we’re out of here!” He pressed one of the keys and pulled down the ignition lever on the control panel. For a moment, nothing happened. He stared at the controls in confusion, then pulled down the lever again. The entire view screen flashed the same code that they had seen inside the ship as the sounds from the engine continued to rise in pitch and intensity. The crew tried desperately to put their suits back on as the commander rushed towards the airlock. The crewmen yelled and screamed as they tried to force it open– some of them bursting with panic because they weren't yet suited up– but as they tried to turn the handle to open the door, sparks burst from the latch, forcing them back. They could see that the door was being welded shut from the outside.

The commander shoved his way towards the small window placed near the lock itself, and he looked through as best he could, cupping the edge of the round window with his hands in an attempt to dim the bright flames emanating from the airlock. There he saw it, a small robot. Its welding arm was stretched towards the door as it continued to seal the lock. Pausing its work, it stopped and turned towards the commander, looking down at him silently, its single eye flashing an eerie, bright red. Then, the numbers appeared once more, this time in the center of its retina. It turned back to its work and finished welding the door shut. As the engine's high-pitched moaning changed to a screeching sound, the robot turned and rolled off through the corridor, leaving the transport behind as it disappeared into the underbelly of the ship. The screams of the men inside echoed throughout the empty ship, reverberating with haunting clarity through the halls and passages as the engine's tone continued to rise in pitch. * * * The hull of the massive ship shook violently as the transport detonated on the surface, sending even more shrapnel into the debris field. “What the…” the flight commander was abruptly cut off mid-sentence as the picture quality itself began to degrade and the audio cut in and out. Bright lights flashed across the screen, a mixture of weapons fire being unleashed from the many ships and the rapid degradation of the recording. Panicked commands from the wing commanders could be heard, although no-one could make out exactly what they were saying. Then, the picture disappeared altogether, leaving only the high-pitched hiss of static. * * * Dahlem stared at the screen silently as the lights brightened and Garen rose to his feet. The rest all turned to each other and began talking in hushed tone. He glanced at them for a moment, then turned and addressed Dahlem. "That's all I got Dah, of course, I DID find out where it drifted. It seems, however," he added, beginning to smile broadly and rub his hand against his chin, "that info might just be worth something to you."

Staring at Garen with a blank look, Dahlem nodded and sighed with resignation as he stood up and fixed Garen with a cold look. He then slowly extended his hand and grasped Garen's own firmly. (bio on p19) "Name your price."

TOUGH LIT. XI

IDEAGEMS MAGAZINE

Deliberate, Part 2

by N. Dorian Louis ave moved into a quaint Victorian home. When p ld steamer trunk and makes it part of the décor, strange and eerie things begin to manifest. Here is the rest of the creepy tale whose first half featured in our Fall 2013 issue.

Christian knocked on Dora’s office door at around 4 p.m., hoping she would remember their dinner date and be close to finished with what he found clever but unimportant nonsense. At least she made a good living at it, he thought. Now if only he could talk her into having a child of their very own. Perhaps he would just plant the seed, whether she wanted it or not, he debated as he stood there, waiting for her to answer. He knocked again. “C’mon, Dora; open up,” he shouted!

There came no response…

“Damn! Dora – we have plans for dinner, remember?”

Dora slowly opened the door. Her expression was that of someone he didn’t know – vague – blank – almost as if she were possessed.

Christian just stared at her, then placed his hands on her shoulders and shook her gently. “Hey, we have to get ready for dinner,” he reminded her.

She blinked her eyes and smiled. This was the Dora he knew and loved. She had gone into some far off places in her writing before but never like this. “What? Oh, sure,” she said, and followed her husband down the hall to their bedroom. “Sorry, I was just… well, somewhere else, I suppose,” she offered as an explanation as they entered the room and shut the door.

Dora headed for a closet and removed a slinky-black dress and slipped it on over her head. She grabbed a pair of black stiletto heels and casually walked over to the bed, stopping only to remove a pair of black, thigh-high stockings from a dresser drawer. She sat on the edge of the bed as Christian watched her pull the stockings over her slim, shapely legs, before stepping into her sexy, black pumps.

“Watching me, are you?” she asked, coyly.

“Always, baby,” came the reply, with a warm smile and an inviting wink.

Christian adjusted his blue tie, took his wife by the hand and led her out of the room as she reached for her pocketbook and gave his hand a firm squeeze on their way out. * * * They arrived at Stan and Leslie Morgan’s at 7 p.m., just as requested. Dora smiled courteously, as Leslie, a woman with long, salt and pepper hair, wearing little make-up, stood smiling back at her, inviting her into their home. Stan and Christian, both corporate types, shook hands and both Christian and Dora headed inside, promptly taking seats on the living room couch.

Leslie left the room and swiftly returned with a tray of martinis, serving her guests, her husband and finally herself. Dora was impressed by this. Most women nowadays have no idea what it means to be a wife, she thought. Perhaps she had misjudged them, or maybe she had merely judged Leslie too harshly…

Stan lit a cigarette and offered one to Christian, who was known to smoke on certain occasions though Dora didn’t like it much. This time, Christian accepted. Dora then asked Stan if she could have one as well, causing Christian to look at her curiously before shrugging his shoulders and lighting her cigarette. “Since when?” he whispered.

“Since now,” she quietly returned, kissing him on the cheek and returning that wink he had given her in the bedroom an hour earlier.

Leslie rose from her seat next to her husband and sat down next to Dora, admiring the locket around her neck and lifting it with her hand to get a better look. “I’m sorry, it’s just so lovely – I had to see it close-up.”

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“Oh, not a problem,” Dora stated, not paying too much attention to the jewelry around her neck.

“EMH – huh… is this an ancestor of yours?” Leslie asked, as Dora intently listened to Stan and Christian discussing world affairs.

“What? Oh, I found it in an old steamer trunk,” Dora told her, still trying to focus on the men’s conversation.

“You found it in a steamer trunk? Oh, another antique,” Leslie stated with a knowing glance.

Dora, now realizing that she had no other choice than to pay attention to Leslie, turned to face her and smiled. “Yes, the last of many.”

“You shouldn’t wear that – I mean, if you found it that way,” Leslie told her, with fragility in her voice that Dora wasn’t accustomed to hearing from her. Dora knew what others said about Leslie’s abilities and the keen observations she had made last time they had spoken.

“What do you mean?” Dora asked, now almost truly curious.

“Well, your husband did tell you about ‘the Devil’s trick’.”

“Oh, you can’t be serious,” Dora said with a smirk.

Leslie arched her back and looked Dora squarely in the eye. “It’s no joke, Dora. If you remove from their belongings a beloved object that belonged to someone who died in a horrific way, they will find you and make certain that object is returned to them. It has always been this way. If I were you, I would place it back in that drawer where you found it.”

Dora sat there, momentarily, her face frozen in a curious fashion, staring at Leslie and slowly shaking her head back and forth. “But how could you know?” she finally asked.

Leslie leaned towards her and whispered in her ear. “She wants it back. Emily… she wants her locket back…”

Dora backed away, tears suddenly streaming down her cheeks.

Christian glanced over at her. What’s wrong,” he asked, grabbing her by the arm with a worried look on his face.

“Nothing,” she said, quickly rising from the couch and grabbing for her pocketbook as she raced upstairs towards the powder room. * * * Dora stood, staring at her reflection in the mirror. She splashed cold water on her face and blotted her forehead with a towel. She lifted the locket from her throat and held it in her hand. “No, it isn’t true. It’s just a locket,” she told her reflection. Dora sighed, shook her head and rummaged through her pocketbook, desperately trying to locate her favorite lipstick – the one Christian had said made her look so sexy. She needed something right about now and that would do it. After checking various tubes, she found what she had been looking for, smiled at herself in the mirror, pursed her lips, and put on her husband’s favorite color – ‘Cherries in the Snow’.

No more of Leslie’s nonsense, she thought. She was determined to have a good night, even if the food wasn’t up to par. Christian had been looking forward to this and she was certain that no matter what, they would leave satisfied and by morning it would nearly be forgotten, food and all… though at this point, Leslie and all, is more of what she was thinking about and something inside made her very uneasy. * * * Sunday morning came, as did the rain, and a big package of rain it was, complete with thunder and lightning – wind and rattling windows.

Christian awoke to the latter and rolled over to find his wife sleeping soundly. He glanced at the locket around her neck and lifted it, staring at the engraving before yawning and returning his attention to the window where the weather was putting on quite an admirable show. Christian stretched, threw off the covers and rose to meet the gray, blustery day. If things kept up like this, he thought, it may just snow by nightfall.

As he headed down the staircase, intent on making that pot of coffee he so loved each morning, Christian suddenly stopped and

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15

turned, hearing a child’s voice call his name. “Christian,” the voice whispered, as if somewhere off in the distance. He shook his head, wiped his eyes and continued down the stairs. Again he heard the child – this time, laughing as she said his name. “Christian – Christian!”

Reaching the bottom of the stairs he looked up to see his wife standing on the second floor landing, staring blankly down at him.

Startled, he shouted, “My god!”

Dora just stood there, unwavering, slowly turning her head to the side. “What is it?” she asked. “Are you alright?”

“Yes, fine,” Christian said with a sigh of relief. “I thought I heard…”

“Heard what?” she asked.

“Nothing,” he said, smiling now, inviting her with a gesture of his hand to join him in the kitchen for coffee – coffee that he would make and serve, for it was Sunday and the only day of the week his wife allowed he serve her. Dora smiled playfully, rushed to the bottom of the stairs, took his hand and they headed for the kitchen and that wonderful morning ritual! * * * Christian and Dora sat opposite each other in the breakfast nook, Christian reading the Sunday paper – Dora just watching him.

Christian glanced up from his paper, sensing eyes upon him and asked, “What are you thinking?”

Dora reached over, grabbed the paper and tossed it aside. “I was thinking about last night at Stan and Leslie’s.”

“Not about the food, I hope,” Christian said, jokingly.

“No, not about the food; about what Leslie said to me.”

“What did she say?”

“She repeated what you mentioned last time we were there – you know, about ‘the Devil’s trick?”

“What about it?” Christian asked, uncomfortably.

“Oh, come on! You don’t really believe that; do you?”

Christian readjusted himself in his seat. “Yes, actually; I do,” he then returned, assuredly.

“But how can you be sure?” she asked, not confident she honestly wanted to hear what he had to say.

Christian hesitated, looking at his wife – searching her eyes for some understanding she may have of what he was about to offer. He sighed… “My mother… she found an old dresser in the back of our attic. She liked it, so she brought it downstairs and put it in my brother’s bedroom.”

“I didn’t know you had a brother,” Dora interjected, placing her hand on his. Christian retracted.

“I don’t anymore. I’m getting to that… Anyway, the dresser sat there for some years – five, I think, before my brother happened to find a love token in the back of one of the drawers. You know, they were very popular in the 1800s – an old coin with initials engraved on it and a hole at the top so you could put it on a chain and wear it around your neck. It apparently belonged to a young lady whose initials were FAL – Francis Anne Lowry. We only found out who she was later on – after my brother died.”

“How did he die?”

“He began to see her after he started to carry the token around in his pocket. He would sense her in his room at night. When he asked what she wanted, he was so unbelieving of the request that he refused her. One morning, we found him dead – in his bed. He was 12 years old. He didn’t’ know any better.”

Dora shook her head. “No, that wasn’t the reason. We have things in this house from how many people? Can you tell me? No, you can’t! Neither can I. Honey, it’s just a locket. Leslie told me the girl’s name, but it can’t be true. She said her name was Emily. Tell me you don’t believe this. Please, Christian!”

Christian shook his head and searched his wife’s face one last time.

He suddenly reached across the table and yanked the locket from around her neck.

16

“What are you doing?” she shouted!

“What has to be done. Francis requested the love token from my brother, but he kept it.” Christian then stood, kissed his wife on the forehead and left the room.

Dora sat there, unsure of what to do and placed her hand around her now stinging throat. Somehow the missing locket wasn’t all she missed in that moment. She felt another kind of loss altogether – one she didn’t even know she could muster up feeling for. She felt the loss of a child, but she didn’t know why. For she never had a child and could only imagine what losing one might be like. Whose locket was it? And if it did belong to Emily, she was long dead. But whose footsteps were those she had heard and that smell…

All this fuss was over nothing and it was merely a pretty necklace.

She would prove to her husband that no harm could come from wearing it and was certain he would place it back into the trunk. She would then retrieve it and place it back around her neck. If it had belonged to someone named Emily, she was certain the girl, now long deceased, would not mind one bit. Why would she? * * * Dora slipped into bed, believing Christian had already fallen asleep.

He rolled over and kissed her. “I thought you were sleeping,” she said, smiling and running her hand along the side of his face.

“No, just thinking.”

“About what, may I ask?”

“Things have been different around here, ever since that trunk arrived. I don’t know. Maybe it’s my imagination… maybe not.”

Dora shook her head. “What your friends have done to you!”

“No, really; don’t you smell it – the lavender?”

“Yes, I do, but Christian, what are you saying, that the house is haunted because of an old steamer trunk? Think about it. It sounds ridiculous.”

Dora rolled over and shut off the light on the bedside table. “Go to sleep,” she told him, yawning. “I’m sure it’s nothing, honey.”

Christian just lay there, staring at the top of their four-poster bed.

He turned his attention to the window and through a break in the curtains, noticed it had begun to snow… * * * Christian awoke to the sound of a child crying. He sat upright in bed and glanced over at Dora, who was, as usual, sleeping soundly.

He rubbed his eyes, trying to adjust them to the dim light of the room. A streetlamp outside gave the room a dull glow and Christian, now able to see, quietly crept out of bed and put on his robe.

Thump, thump, thump, as if a ball were bouncing down the stairs.

Christian walked out onto the second floor landing and glanced over the rail. He saw the figure of a young girl. She was sitting on the floor, a green ball in her hands. Her face was livid – her expression lifeless! She slowly turned her head in Christian’s direction. Her mouth opened and water rushed from between her lips, spilling onto the floor!

Christian gasped, gripping the rail – his eyes wide! Suddenly, the girl began to laugh. A great wind rushed the foyer, the ball rolled into the living room, she chasing after it, and the smell of lavender filled the house!

Christian turned and ran towards the bedroom door, grabbing for the doorknob, but the door slammed shut. He pushed on it and shouted, “Dora, open the door! Dora!”

“Christian, what is it?” she hollered, pulling from the other side. “It won’t open! What’s going on? Christian, open the door!”

Footsteps raced the second floor landing and Christian turned around and around, trying to follow the sound. Malevolent laughter filled the hall and the door of the guest bedroom flew open with a great gust of wind, knocking Christian to the floor.

Dora was pounding on the bedroom door, “Please, open the door!

Christian!”

TOUGH LIT. XI

IDEAGEMS MAGAZINE

“I can’t,” came his desperate reply! “She’s here, Dora. Quick, call the police,” he shouted as he stood up and tried in vain to open the bedroom door, thrusting his body against it.

“What are the police going to do? Christian!” Suddenly Dora shouted at the top of her lungs, “Oh my god!”

Christian slammed his hands against the bedroom door. “Dora!”

“Christian!” she shouted, then a thud and the sound of a body falling to the floor.

The wind ceased. The door to the guest bedroom creaked.

Christian turned his head and there Emily stood in the doorway, her pale, wrinkled hand extended as she walked along the hall, coming closer and closer to where he stood.

Christian backed away from her, shaking his head in utter amazement! She began to move around him in a circle, backing him up against the railing. She spoke in a fragile tone, water cascading from her mouth. “Mommy’s in the sea.”

“Emily?” He could barely believe what he was saying. “It’s alright, Emily. You don’t belong here. I put your locket back in the trunk. Do you want your locket?”

He was now flush against the rail with nowhere to go. She stood there, pale blue in bare feet, wet as was the floor now. “She took it back… Come with me, Daddy,” she said, her voice stronger now, water rushing from every orifice, spilling onto the floor, over the rail, raining down onto the foyer.

“I’m not your Daddy, Emily,” Christian gently explained, his voice quivering.

Emily’s expression became angry, her face contorted. She opened her tiny mouth and shouted at the top of her water-filled lungs! The sound was deafening – shrill - the sound of agony, the desperate cry of a dying child!

All the doors along the upstairs hall were suddenly thrust open by a savage wind! Dora slowly lifted her head from the floor, the locket she had retrieved while Christian slept swinging back and forth around her neck, debris flying about the room. She attempted to get to her feet but the wind would not allow it. “Christian!” she hollered as Emily lunged forward, forcing Christian backward through the railing, his body crashing to the cold, wet, marble floor below!

In an instant, Emily was smiling, kneeling beside him. The sound of falling objects echoed throughout the house! Christian couldn’t move. His back was broken. He gasped for breath, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.

Dora struggled to get to her feet and found she was now able to open the door. She made her way out to the second floor landing and glanced down to the foyer. She screamed! Emily looked up to see her. “Mommy’s in the sea,” she said, quietly, as the wind picked up a lamp and tossed it along the hall, hitting Dora in the head and rendering her unconscious.

Emily leaned over Christian and opened her mouth. Salty water poured from between her putrid lips, drowning Christian as he lay there on the floor, unable to move. He choked several times before becoming silent and still - his eyes open, staring up at the beautiful Art Deco chandelier, its crystals tinkling as the house went silent. * * * Dora sat at the kitchen table holding a bag of frozen corn to her swollen head and began to cry. She couldn’t call the police. They would never believe her. She couldn’t call anyone… All she could do was sit there, sobbing uncontrollably – praying it was all a nightmare and she would soon awake to find everything as it had been the night before.

Emily appeared and took her hand. The coldness of the little girl’s fingers caused Dora to jump in her seat. Emily just stared at her.

“Mommy’s in the sea,” she said quietly. “Who are you?”

“Dora. I’m Dora, Emily… Why? Why did you do it?”

“It was deliberate. They wanted us to die.”

VOL 8, ISSUE 8

Dora shook her head and again began to cry. Emily let go of Dora’s hand, turned and began to walk away. She stopped in the doorway, never turning around and said, “You’re not my mommy.”

Dora quickly stood and ran after her, the bag of corn falling to the floor, but Emily was already gone…

Dora stood in the foyer, staring at the body of her dead husband.

She fell to the floor. * * * The clock on the bedside table told Dora it was nearly four a.m.

Her body was sore, her head pounded and she had no idea what she was going to do or where she would go. Leaving this house was the only thing Dora knew for certain and she considered packing a suitcase but her limbs were aching and a feeling of utter emptiness had overtaken her. She would have to alert the authorities eventually. Christian must have a funeral, she thought to herself.

Whatever happened from there – whatever happened to her, was of no consequence.

She decided to take a hot bath, not that she wanted to, but the aspirin she had taken were wearing off and perhaps the warmth would soothe her bruised body, at least on the outside. Nothing, she was certain could warm her up inside… * * * Dora slipped into the hot water and Epsom salts she had sprinkled into the bath water and sighed. The house was calm now and though she was aware of Emily’s presence, nothing inside her could make her run. She barely had the energy to breathe.

The phone rang in the other room but she didn’t care to answer it.

She didn’t care much about anything just now and merely wanted to lie there while she tried to figure out her next move.

Dora closed her eyes as the heat from the water rose to meet her face. She thought about Christian and how much she loved him – about the plans they had made and of how she should have bore him a child. There was nothing now, merely memories – happy ones, and somehow that wasn’t enough… It was all her fault. If only she had left the locket where it had belonged, Christian may still be alive…

The bathroom door suddenly flew open as did Dora’s eyes! Emily sat next to her on the edge of the bathtub, smiling. “Mommy’s dead,” she said, reaching over, tearing the locket from Dora’s throat.

Emily grabbed Dora’s neck and forced her under the water. Dora flailed around, water spilling onto the floor, but no matter how she struggled could not raise her head to take a breath!

Emily opened her mouth – sea water pouring from between her tiny lips, her nose and eye sockets! The cold, salty water replaced the warm bath water and flooded the room, driving out into the hall and cascading down onto the foyer floor and onto Christian’s corpse.

Emily sat there for a moment, blankly staring at the lifeless body floating in the murky bathtub. She lifted the locket and put it around her neck, then stood for a moment before the mirror, staring at her discolored reflection, smiling to herself… She slowly walked out of the room and headed down the hall, her footsteps creating small ripples in the water on the hardwood floor.

The house was quiet now, except for the sound of water dripping down onto the marble floor in the foyer. It sounded like rain – gentle rain, and the voice of Emily humming in the background turned winter into spring – if your eyes were closed – if you didn’t know what had happened here – if you merely listened… * * * Amy hadn’t been able to reach Dora since their last conversation and decided to drive up anyway. Sal thought better of it but Amy insisted. After all, this visit had been planned for some time and they had been so looking forward to it.

The snow fell hard that day and as they approached the house, noticed a moving truck parked in the snow-covered driveway. Two men were carefully loading a sideboard onto the truck. “Stop the car, Sal.”

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17

Footprints

by Barbara-Helene Smith d rattled the cabin windows. Bruce pulled the his chilled body. A hint of dawn peeked between the mountains, projecting a sliver of morning sun onto his face.

“First the wind, then the cold, and now the light. I’ll never get back to sleep,” he grumbled.

Bruce threw off the covers, shuffled across the cold, wood floor and grabbed a robe from the back of the rocking chair. He entered the main room of the old cabin where he had lived since his divorce two years ago. The sun’s first rays streaked through the thick glass windows, illuminating a miniature, spruce tree in the corner. Bruce closed his eyes and sighed. Not quite like other Christmases. He couldn’t help but smiled at the popcorn randomly strung around the tree’s scraggly branches, reminiscent of his childhood. Next year I’ll have to buy a set of twinkling lights. He shivered and hugged the bathrobe closer to his body. The fireplace embers were nearly extinguished.

“Damn, I should have restocked the wood before going to bed.”

He reached for the parka from the hook next to the front door and slipped his bare feet into the still-damp, fur-lined boots. His frozen fingers fumbled with the latch. He was greeted by a whish of frigid air when he opened the door. Stepping onto the porch, Bruce gazed across the yard, newly blanketed with snow.

“What the hell?” he said to himself, seeing footprints leading away from the cabin.

“Hello,” Bruce called out. “Anyone there?” He stared at the tracks.

There are no prints coming towards the cabin, only away. The person must have been here all night. Did he knock and I didn’t hear him?

Bruce’s eyes scanned the porch looking for evidence of the visitor and stopped at the pile of logs. Where are my work boots? I’m sure I left them by the woodpile last night. A cold chill ran up his spine. He gathered three logs and closed the door behind him. After lighting the stove to reheat leftover coffee, he went into the bedroom to dress.

Returning to the kitchen, Bruce poured a cup of coffee and filled a thermos with the rest of the pot. His mind wandered to the tracks in the snow. Who would be out there in this weather? The footprints are fresh. The man couldn’t have been gone long.

He removed a rifle from the rack on the wall and stood at the edge of the porch studying the regressing trail. The prints seem to drag a bit... like the person was injured or maybe... drunk.

The wind whistled past his ears. Bruce pulled up the hood of his jacket, tightened the cord under his chin and wrapped the wool scarf twice around his neck. Crystalline droplets froze in front of his nose as he exhaled.

He walked several yards and stopped to examine the footsteps again. They’re leading towards the woods. He trudged alongside the phantom tracks leaving his own marks in the deep snow. An eightfoot drift hid the boulders blocking the entrance to the forest. Bruce proceeded cautiously around the large rocks and stopped. The footprints disappeared.

Standing motionless, he listened and searched the surrounding area, then took a tentative step forward. A bush rustled to his left.

He jumped and pointed his rifle at the sound. A squirrel bolted into the underbrush. Bruce lowered the gun and took several deep breaths to steady his racing heart.

He crouched and listened again. The thick trees blocked the wind, making it eerily quiet. Dwarfed by the surrounding forest, panic suddenly engulfed him. He was alone, facing an unknown adversary.

Every muscle in his body tensed. The internal warmth contrasted with the surrounding winter air.

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You can do this, he repeated over and again in his mind, conjuring up courage, but not quite convincing himself.

His eyes darted back and forth with uncertainty, then stalled on several branches stacked against the rocks like a makeshift fort.

“Hello. Anyone in there?” Bruce called. There was no answer. He waited. He thought he detected a slight movement and walked slowly towards the haphazardly piled limbs. He pulled away the largest branch, exposing the bottom of a well-worn boot. The boot didn’t budge.

“I’ve got a gun,” Bruce shouted. “Come out, or I’ll shoot.”

His eyes remained glued on the shrubbery. He steadied the rifle.

His heart pounded and the blood rushed through the veins in his temples. He waited again. No one emerged. Is he dead or playing possum?

With his left hand, Bruce moved a branch. Through the darkness, he saw something crouched in the corner. He hesitated, then yanked another limb. A small figure cowered in the crevice, arms tightly hugging two, skinny legs.

“Marcie?” Bruce whispered.

Large, soulful eyes stared back at him.

“What are you doing here?”

A tear rolled down her cheek.

“Mommy died.”

Bruce flinched. My God, what happened? She was getting better the last time we spoke.

He reached for his daughter, kissed her gently on the forehead and cradled her in his arms. How did she find her way here by herself?

Rocking back and forth, he stroked her blond curls as she softly sobbed against his chest. Now is not the time for questions.

Bruce took off his parka and wrapped it around the shivering child.

When he lifted her, a boot dropped to the ground. The sight of the exposed, wet, red sneaker made him grin and his tension dissipated.

Holding the rifle and bootstrap in his left hand, Bruce carried Marcie towards the sun-drenched cabin, leaving behind a fresh set of footprints.

Barbara-Helene Smith has worked in academia, government, and the private sector. Her non-fiction articles have been published in peerreviewed scientific and professional journals. She discovered story telling after enrolling in a summer creative writing course. Fiction set her imagination free and she was hooked! An avid fan of mysteries, she can usually guess the outcome long before the book or television show ends.

Inspired by int i h h i f i s careers to plot suspense

Other Autho Linda Boltman is a writer and a painter. She has published nine ebooks on Smashwords, which have been released in the U.S. and internationally. Her short story, “The Captive” was selected by San Diego Writer's Ink Anthology, Vol 4 in 2010 as representing one of San Diego's finest writers. Linda’s stories have appeared in Tough Lit Magazine, Green Prints, Grand Magazine and The San Diego Reader.

Daniel Dunlap was born in 1994 and has lived in Topsham Maine for 19 years. Currently a student at Southern Maine Community College, Daniel has aspirations of being a professional author of science fiction, poetry, and other literary genres.

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19

Unchain the Sun

By Matthew M. Bruno p his steed at the foot of the mountain. His shadow bly long. Even at the foothills, the heat was oppressive.

He wiped the sweat from his brow. He let his eyes drift across the horizon until he saw the sun blazing in the eastern sky. He was fully dressed in armor, ready for battle. His steed shivered, defecating. He felt her discomfort. He stroked her long brown neck, soothing her. The hot desert wind blew in a steady flow from the east. He reached into his pocket and withdrew a sugar cube that he had purchased in the market. He held it in his outstretched hand. When the horse saw it, she gently took the cube from the cavalier’s hand, her tongue leaving the cavalier’s hand damp with saliva. She let out a small whinny, pawing at the ground in approval. The cavalier held her reigns in his hand. He paused. Perhaps he was gathering courage. Perhaps he was gathering strength. Perhaps he was gathering both. He gently drove his heels into her ribs. She responded by heading up the mountain. She began to pick up speed.

The merchants made last-minute preparations under tents, the olivecolored canvas tops blowing in the ever-present wind. It was always sunny, despite being so early in the morning. The market was alive with sound.

Street musicians could be heard in the distance, their music, floating across the bazaar, seemed to hang in the air. A traveling poet treated a group of children to his latest creation. Some performers with comical accents were putting on an impromptu show, their brightly-colored costumes noticeable from quite a distance. A lost child’s cries echoed across the ebb and flow of the shoppers. Dark-skinned merchants set up their tables, spreading out their goods for all to see: food, clothing, and other provisions were set up in neat piles on old wooden tabletops. The seafood displays began to attract the errant fly or two, which the merchants quickly shooed away.

The people of the village began their daily rounds. Some were looking for food for the day. Others were looking for the latest bargains. Signs directing travelers hung above the doorways, swaying back and forth in the neverending easterly wind. The retired gathered outside of Azir’s Tobacco Emporium. Each man was taking his turn at the large hookah pipe. They had gathered that way for centuries. They would sit and smoke, talking about life and love and politics until it was time to go home. It had always been like that. Across from the tobacco shop, a deeply tanned, middle-aged woman held up a grey blouse and examined it. She found it to her liking.

Nadir was going to haggle over the price of some bread when he noticed something that made him go pale. His eyes dragged across the horizon to the cavalier who was riding up the mountain just outside of the village. Nadir screamed, dropping the day-old bread. He ran to the center of town. Nadir began frantically to ring a large silver bell. The loud metallic ding filled the bazaar. Villagers, startled by the sound, started to gather in the marketplace.

When the old man pointed to the cavalier, there was a collective gasp.

Throngs of villagers made their way across the marketplace, past Azir’s Tobacco Emporium, finally settling at the foot of the mountain.

The heat in the easterly wind raced past him, leaving his face wind burned.

The temperature was oppressive. Panting, the horse began to slow down. She was exhausted. The cavalier pulled on her reigns. She stopped. He dismounted, his foot finding rocky ground, and he turned her around, facing the village. He held her long face close to his, rubbing her neck. It wasn’t fair to take her to the top. It wasn’t her fight. He gently nudged her. At first, she refused to leave him, but he insisted. She whinnied, slowly trotting down the sun-scorched mountain. She turned back to look for him, but he was gone, heading to the mountain’s summit.

He continued up the mountain. Every step was a punishment. There was no path, no convenient trail to help him. The mountain was an endless smear of tan and brown; its face was marked with deep, rocky crags. There was no foliage, no fauna to be seen. The rock face wound its way higher and higher.

Set in the eastern sky, the sun was relentless. There were no clouds—nothing to shield him from the never-ending burn. All exposed skin was turning red.

Each step was painful. In short time, he was bathed head-to-toe in sweat, exhausted and languishing. It began at his forehead, rivulets forming small rivers down his face and neck. The metal armor did little to protect him from the heat. Soon, his armor betrayed him, trapping the heat. The cavalier wondered if he would have to take it off. The climb provided no shade, no respite from the punishment. He reached for a sip of water in his canteen, cursing himself for not having brought more. Taking a large gulp, he continued his ascent. Secretly, he entertained doubts. All he had to do was turn around and go home. But he knew that quitting was not an option. If 20

need be, he would give up his life for the completion of his task. He had come too far to quit now. He knew that he could never give up.

As the crowd of onlookers followed the cavalier’s ascent, a fat man dressed in a sun-bleached tunic yelled, “That arrogant fool. He’ll be the death of all of us. The death, I say!” His beefy hand pulled a club from his belt, and he raced up the mountain to stop the cavalier. “I’ll show him,” he said to himself.

The cavalier felt as if he had been climbing for days. Each step was a labor.

His breathing was coming in pants, and he was low on water. It felt as if he were high enough to kiss the sun. Normally, at his elevation, the air would have turned colder. He would have no such luck. The temperature seemed to increase with each step that he took. His mouth felt dry. He couldn’t even spit. The cavalier lost his footing and fell, the sharp rock biting deeply into his forehead. Groaning as he picked himself up, he continued his climb, wiping the blood off of his face. He was nearing the summit.

The fat man passed the descending horse, pausing to smack it with his club.

It was a small victory over the cavalier, who had slowed down considerably.

He kept a tight grip on his club. He was determined to punish the cavalier.

This close to the top of the mountain, his sunburned skin was beginning to blister. The full heat of the desert was transferred to his armor, heating it to terrible proportions. Anywhere metal touched bare skin, it burned. His footing threatened to give way. The cavalier’s mind felt thick and dull. He was drenched in sweat. The cavalier staggered ever-onwards. He fell again. It was agony to get back up and continue.

The cavalier was nearing the peak. The last part of the journey was a sheer vertical face of about six feet. He reached for the top of the rock, trying to pull himself up, only to have his sunburned fingers betray him. He paused to catch his breath. He felt dizzy. The super-heated air burned his nose. His breathing came in ragged gasps. It hurt to move. Mechanically, he grabbed the top of the vertical face and dragged himself upward. Rolling onto the top of the summit, he screamed as his armor dug into the blisters that were on his chest and back. The blisters burst. He knew that he didn’t have much left in him. Swooning, he paused to fight off the dizziness. This was it. He was there. He would only get one shot at this before he went unconscious. It was time.

The fat man managed a hundred yards before he was too tired to continue.

Taking a cloth from his pocket, he wiped the sweat from his round, porcine face. He raised his hand to his forehead, making a visor to block the sun. He had lost sight of the cavalier. He sat down, deciding to wait for his return.

The cavalier staggered, withdrawing his sword from its scabbard. It was like standing too close to of one of the bread ovens down in the village. An ongoing blast of hot wind threatened to tumble him off the summit and down the mountain. He panted, holding his sword with both hands. He brought the huge sword high over his head, almost touching the ground behind him. He was a mask of focus. He blocked out the sun burn, the blisters, and the dizziness. Screaming, he brought the sword down onto the heavy metal cable, unchaining the sun.

There was an audible whoosh, a momentary vacuum, and then silence. The only sound was the sound of the sword dropping to the dry, rocky ground with a metallic clink. The cavalier fell to his knees, thanking God that it was all over. The scorching heat dissipated. The sun floated away like a child’s lost circus balloon.

The cavalier felt exhausted. He needed a moment to collect himself. Picking up his sword, he took a long, deep pull from his canteen, finishing it. The water tasted like heaven. Hurting from head to toe, he eased his way down the six foot vertical face, slowly laboring his way down the mountain.

When the cavalier neared the foothills, he noticed the fat man, who had noticed him, too. The fat man charged up the mountain, screaming incoherently at the cavalier, who drew both his sword and his shield. He was too tired to deal with this buffoon. As he neared him, the cavalier brought the shield up to his left shoulder and ran down the mountain to meet the fat man. He threw his entire weight behind his shield, body-checking the fat man, who, stunned, dropped his club. The cavalier swung the flat of his blade against the side of the fat man’s head, smashing him to good effect. The fat man lost his footing and fell, rolling back down the foothills, stopping in the horse’s offal.

When the cavalier reached the bottom of the mountain, the crowd parted.

A young girl of twelve stood her ground. She approached the cavalier. She had been crying. The cavalier walked stiffly to his horse, oblivious of the fat man. The pain of his movement was evident to the onlookers. “What will we do now?” she asked. “How will we live?”

The cavalier reached into his pocket and gave the horse another sugar cube. “My dear sweet girl,” he said as he climbed up into the saddle, “it has come time for you to make your own fire.” (bio on p10)

TOUGH LIT. XI

IDEAGEMS MAGAZINE

Room 3327

by Charles E J Moulton d been sleeping, dreaming strange dreams about pigeons and lightning bolts. When he woke up, his face turned white, stretch marks scarring his already decrepit face. Pain dug into his wooden heart like an axe into a rotten oak. Tesla wore the expression of someone tortured silently by a thousand demons.

The scientist’s slight resemblance to the character in Edvard Munch’s 19th century painting The Scream seemed uncanny to the silent visitor, a beast screaming loving sensualities into his left ear. Mouth flung wide open into a soundless cry, the ‘Ah!’-like grimace echoed out into the eons as silent vocal dust. Tesla screamed, a short interruption to the silence. He had just accidentally bit on his own tongue and now the blood spread with his saliva around his gums.

It tasted like an antidote to heaven.

A beast had entered the room.

Tesla felt like running away from it all, disappearing into the oncoming night and never ever coming back, going back to Serbia, to die, to sleep, no more, and by that sleep perchance to dream. The Bestia Non Grata before him remained steadfast, not uttering a word, still, unwilling, anonymous.

The old man’s blue-grey eyes resembled static orbs in pastures of white fairy-dust. The eyes that watched time slow down felt himself fall into an oblivion at a faster pace. Like endless streams of hectic insects buzzing, the wings of time flapped like crazy, in slow motion, screaming loud curses to deaf ears, with an endless fear as a result.

Pressing the back of his head against the bedpost in his small New York Hotel-room, he crumpled the bed sheets, wrinkling them tattered and torn with his bare fists, making his entire body shiver in his own hard grasp.

The 86-year-old man repeatedly bashed his cranium against the wood now, on purpose, hearing the wind from the open door whisper sweet words of death in his troubled soul.

“You’ll be dead soon,” the telepathic wind of the stranger shouted in an eager whisper, using the beast as an alter ego.

Four feet away from his bed, the beast loomed above… It… the thing, looking like an obscure version of an Egyptian God, whispering curses to the wind. Memories flooded back across the room into the old man’s soul. Everything the beast wore had a resemblance to something he had once seen or liked, something he could relate to.

It all seemed so familiar, as if he had experienced all of this before.

A pigeon’s head graced the shoulders. Unlike the pigeons Nikola always fed in the park, this head did not move, it pecked with its beak against the glass of the light bulb that surrounded the head. All that seemed to be proof of the fact that he imagined it all.

Then, however, the familiar feeling came over him, a sense of it all happening again and again.

It gazed at him with its penetrating eyes, sparks of lightning crisscrossing inside a hollow stare.

From a distance, these reflections looked like the dancing summer lights of his childhood lake back in Serbia. He remembered sitting there with his mother, drinking milk and speaking of science and of fiction. Like the milk that now rested in the hotel cup on the nighttime table, the milk tasted of love. After 86 years of life, he still liked milk.

Milk reminded him of home.

Mom. He still remembered mom.

He still loved mom, wherever she was now.

“Mother,” Tesla whispered to himself.

“I am here, Nikola, but you must take care of yourself now,” his inner mom responded. “You are a famous man. A scientist. A prizewinner. A legend in your own time.”

“A mad scientist, mom,” Tesla cackled.

“You are my boy, Nikola.”

“I will always be your little boy.”

VOL 8, ISSUE 8

Look away, his fear persisted. Don’t look at the beast. Close your eyes.

But Tesla couldn’t avoid the fear.

And so, Nikola’s eyes again turned to the stranger by his bed.

Something else glittered inside those ocular cameras. Something different. Sparkling, elusive. After a closer look, Nikola Tesla understood that these were his own multiple exposure sparks from 1899, created by himself back in Colorado Springs. Bolts people had heard clashing from a distance of 15 miles. How they had complained about the fallout of appliances. His appliances.

Upon the pigeon’s head, a Kamilavka resided. This clerical top hat, worn by his father in church and worn by all Serbian- Orthodox priests, had Nikola Tesla going back years and years into his own past, shivering at the thought of having his own childhood recollections perverted in such a way.

The light bulb that kept the pigeon’s head imprisoned enclosed it, the bottom half of the winding mechanism transforming into a kind of a throat. The light bulb meandered into a version of his own Tesla coil, the one he had patented in 1891.

Edison. Of course, everything was Edison’s fault. Edison, who had triggered the existence of this creature, had found a way to penetrate his own mind. This thing, a response to Edison’s jealousy, created havoc in his spirit. Edison, whom he had left in 1885, going to do bigger and better things, win awards and invent machines, had found a way to return to the material world twelve years after his death.

Machines the smarmy hotel manager loved. Coils and light bulbs.

Edison. He had not been able to work with that man who had cracked jokes at his expense.

Tesla, not understanding American wit?

Had he understood Serbian wit?

Wit? No, nitwit.

Light bulbs or not, Tesla had disliked Edison.

Edison had never come up with the idea of that Tesla coil, so his jealousy, or Tesla’s reaction to that jealousy, created this... creature.

As Tesla bashed his head against the bedpost, on and on, he wondered if there was more?

“I bash my head against the bedpost, like I make the same mistakes over and over in every life,” Tesla whispered to himself. “My head is bleeding. It is time to go.”

This bird? A visitor? From where? Hell? Ridiculous. Hell. An invention.

Such thoughts belonged in third rate fiction novels and not in his mind.

What about his own super-weapon? Had someone sent this creature to steal the plans for his super weapon? If he only could remember where he put his folder with the diagrams and the description of the weapon.

He couldn’t remember.

His oncoming loss of control had a disadvantage: forgetfulness.

Accordingly, Tesla could not remember where they were, the plans.

Would the Nazis find them?

Were they to blame for the appearance of the beast?

The fact that he had only ordered 17 napkins instead of 18 in the hotel restaurant yesterday, only walked two blocks instead of three and shaken hands with that hotel manager? Was that a reason for the existence of this beast?

Fear, compulsive fears, occult anguish.

The Devil.

“Oh, no,” Tesla spat. “I didn’t say that.”

Tesla shook his head profusely, like a squirrel searching for a nut. God damn it, Tesla himself felt like a nut. The nut of the Pigeon Goddess, ready to be eaten and digested.

The Pigeon Goddess. Yes, that is what he would call that thing that stood before him. The Pigeon Goddess moved toward him one step at a time, raising her wings inside the golden outer rason, traditional holy Serbian wear.

The Podryasnik, the inner rason robe with its wide sleeves, covering those eagle’s wings, at the moment resting, ready to raise and challenge him at any moment. Challenge him to not kill him.

“Who are you?” Tesla heard himself croak.

The strange creature did not answer. It simply stood there as immobile as a statue. Tesla began shifting his feet, shaking his hands, shivering,

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21

screaming soundless screams, the smell of his own sweat overcoming him, the taste of blood oozing into his mouth, the sound of the wind nailing his audial connection to the world, the sight of the pigeon-head scaring the crap out of him.

His own fear bubbled inside him like the volcano under a mud pit, if such a thing existed. He felt his own scream rise up from his lungs, hit his vocal chords and eject itself through his mouth like a fireball on a catapult.

“Who are you?” Tesla repeated, now yelling.

The feet of the Pigeon Goddess, simple alternating current motors similar to the ones he had invented in 1887, moved twice over toward him on clonking steel heels.

Rasons, clerical wear, light bulbs. Tesla’s breathing accelerated. He now panted like an exhausted dog.

“Talk to me, damn you,” he cried. “What are you doing with that shovel on your back?”

Slowly and solemnly, the creature lifted one of its eagle’s wings and pointed at Tesla, then lowering its wing and returning to its immobile state.

Moths danced in Tesla heart, angry moths with only one intention: to be relieved of this tension. Death. No death. The creature’s return in order to bury him, that thought bubbled in his bowels like a boiling gas bulb only to arrive as a tear.

Strapped on the creature’s back was a shovel, not unlike the ones he had used in 1886, earning $ 2 dollars a day as a ditch digger during his time of terrible headaches and bitter tears. What did the strange creature want to do with that dirty shovel, ridden with mud, dripping with slime? Dig a grave and bury him? Where? Here in the hotel?

The extended nightmarish scream sounded like the kind of shout coming from a man in a fever dream, his body too loose and inactive to use his vocal chords. The last yell of anguish, flabby, lost and terrified, attracted the creature. It took a third step toward him, raising the level of his anguish, making it sizzle.

Worms?

No, they looked like the Vibro Cholerae, the cholera bacteria that had plagued nine months of his teens, providing him with many near-death experiences in that year of hell, 1873, giving his 17th year a painful memory that might have been partially a cause for his neurosis and fear when it came to bad luck.

Magnified chlora bacteria crawled inside the bulb under the head.

How his mother had taken care of him back then, before the fame, before the stress, before the gambling debts. The common people—how they watched him when he walked the streets, knowing how smart he was, how different.

Sometimes, he hated these people that all used his electrical appliances and never thanked him for it.

“He has a screw loose,” they cackled, looking at him from the side, as he fed the pigeons. “He is such a smart man. Why does he live in that hotel? Why is he a bachelor? Why does he walk so strangely? You know, there are people who say he has developed a super-weapon. The Nazis are interested in that thing. They will kill him one day, you know.”

People couldn’t keep their mouths shut. Sparks flew around his head when he heard them say those things, chatting behind their hands.

Sparks, like the ones inside the light bulb, making those Vibro Cholerae fly. The Pigeon Goddess even seemed to be producing the clicks he had heard in radio signals in 1899. He had thought those clicks came from outer space. Extra Terrestrials.

The old man let go of the bed sheets, still grimacing, still raising his eyebrows and rushed across the carpet with bare feet, knocking down the cup filled with milk.

He turned around fast, aiming to pick it up with his shaking hands. His fingers reached for the cup and saw her, the Pigeon Goddess, striding slowly up towards him. Tesla now threw himself against the wall, hoping the creature would go away.

Drip. Drip. Drop.

The faucet in the bathtub.

Drip. Drip. Drop.

Leaking.

Drip. Drop. Drop.

22

Now, the Pigeon Goddess seemed like his own father, pointing a sacral wing at him, forcing him to be a priest.

“I want to be a scientist.”

“What good has that done you? Governments chasing you for your secret plans? Going to confiscate your plans.”

Drip. Drop. Drop.

For once, the leaking faucet felt like a welcome guest. If he only could find his way into the bathroom and stay there. Maybe the Pigeon Goddess would then disappear and leave him alone. The plans for the super weapon, where were they? His old mind could not remember that.

If government officials came knocking on his door, he could tell them that.

Slapping his wet palms against the hotel room wall of 3327, Tesla found his way into the bathroom, feeling his way along the floor. The 9 foot tall beast followed him step by step, the bird’s head gazing at him with empty eyes. His 6 foot 2 inches tall frame rubbed against the wallpaper, hoping to escape the calumny of this licentious demon.

Tesla slipped inside, closed the door behind him, felt the beast pulling at the door. Tesla grabbed the handle, fighting to close the damned thing. The creature’s wings pulled the door back. He felt himself being pulled in toward its magnetic pole. Something else now existed beyond that door. Something new and even more frightening.

Tesla gave the bathroom door one strong pull, closed it and locked it, rushed to the bathtub, closed the shower curtain, squeezed the faucet shut. Squeeze the bastard shut. Knuckles white with pain. There. No more drip, drip, drop.

Tesla still breathed heavily, his open mouth still uttering that soundless cry of help. Senile and elderly, Tesla just wanted to rest. He couldn’t rest.

He had to run, run, run away from that beast. His own hot breath fumed the tiles, worse than any hot water would. He heard the slow flapping of wings outside the door, waiting to eat him, spit him out into the open grave and shovel the dirt back onto his remains.

The subsequent bang sent a shock wave across his body that threw him across the tub, making him land on his back. The injury returned and the memory of the taxicab having run over him back in 1937 appeared vividly in his mind. Tesla supported himself on his hands, an imaginary screw boring into his backbone.

Tesla shook his head, holding his ears, his old body scorching with pain.

The banging got louder, the hectic insects from before returning with a vengeance. The anonymous beast lifted his wings, he could hear it, and bashed them repeatedly against the bathroom door. The bright lights of the echoing space he was in could not help him. The steel feet of the demon kicked it, saying nothing, uttering every hateful emotion simply by kicking and bashing its wings bloody.

The first hole. He saw that left alternating current motor that the Pigeon Goddess called a foot bashing the door in. Another bash. Another bang. Now two steel feet had created holes in the door. Behind those holes, Nikola Tesla now did not see the hotel room anymore. He simply saw... yes, what was behind those holes? It looked like a pit. Like a demonic abyss… Hell?

With one swift stroke, the door of the bathroom ripped wide open and displayed a dark blue hole. Water seeped down from the bathtub he was in and down the floor towards the door. Now, Tesla realized the house was no longer on a vertical angle. The house leaned over to the right.

More and more, it tipped over to the extent that Tesla, himself, had to hold on to the edge.

Tesla no longer sat inside it. He hung from it, dangling like a mountain climber, fighting not to fall into the hole beyond the door. For one moment, he gazed downward, saw the washbasin hanging on the right side of what was now a wall. The golden lamp that hung from what used to be the ceiling now dangled alongside it on a horizontal angle.

Tesla looked back into the darkness and realized the bird had left. The lamp that hung from the bathroom ceiling crashed alongside the current wall and rolled alongside towards the door. It bounced a few times, rolling over and then disappearing into the black. The old man still hung there from the bathtub when he listened for a crash, a thump, a bash or any kind of sound that indicated where the bottom was. Tesla heard no bottom. It seemed the lamp would fall forever.

TOUGH LIT. XI

IDEAGEMS MAGAZINE

Tesla felt the remains of the bathwater drip on his fingers and struggled to hold on. Grabbing on with both hands to the edge now, he felt himself grasping the bathtub like a dog paddling in water: desperate.

His heart now struggled to stay to comprehend where he was or if this actually was a dream or reality. It seemed real, but that couldn’t be, could it?

Tesla heaved himself up. With all the strength left in his body, he heaved himself up towards the edge and finally managed to support his left elbow on the edge of the bathtub. One foot swung up on the white surface would be enough, and he could be seen as a saving grace.

Tesla swung up on the edge, but slipped and fell, hit his chin and simply rolled off the tub, falling into oblivion through the door into what seemed to be an endless ride of black. In fact, this seemed to be a closed tunnel leading somewhere. Cave walls surrounded this tunnel. He only saw these brown cave walls as he fell, deeper and deeper into the unknown. As he fell, he turned upside-down and back into his normal position. He gazed upwards into what had been the bathroom. He still saw the bathtub, the hanging lamp, the shower curtain and the dripping faucet, but it was all so far away now. He dared not look down. His heart feared too much what he would see. And so, the man most New Yorkers saw as the ultimate mad scientist looked to his sides.

What he saw there made his soul jump.

The blood that still lingered in his mouth now had a sour tinge. It burned on his tongue. Somehow, the scenes he saw displayed on the walls made the blood taste worse. He now even smelled that blood trickle down his chin. His hand reached to wipe it off and felt how thick his own blood had become. As he felt himself fall, he gazed at the drop on his finger. Inside that drop, there were Vibro Cholerae, those wormlike bacteria that had made his life miserable in his youth.

Panic-stricken, Tesla shook his hand and saw a scene from his life displayed. It seemed to follow him while he fell. In the scene, he was near death, in pain, in bed, pale, shaking, sweating, nervous, ready to leave this world, surrounded by dear ones, crying, hoping for the best, but expecting the worse.

Other scenes appeared before his vision, but they were all mixed up and not chronological at all. Taxicab hitting him in 1937. His time at the Budapest Telephone Exchange as a chief electrician in 1881. Tesla holding a copy of TIME magazine on his 75th birthday in 1931. Tesla writing his article in the year 1900, stating: “For ages this idea that each of us is only part of a whole has been proclaimed in the consummately wise teachings of religion, probably not alone as a means of insuring peace and harmony among men, but as a deeply founded truth. The Buddhist expresses it in one way, the Christian in another, but both say the same: We are all one.”

Something slapped Tesla on his cheek. The force of this punch had the strength of a lightning bolt. The old man did not scream anymore. No open mouth, no wide-eyed stare. This time, he closed his sunken eyes, flashed his teeth and tensed his throat veins. It looked like an expressionist painting of endless pain.

Tesla opened his eyes and saw a black floor, polished to the nines, shining and black. The floor actually remained the only visible thing here.

No tunnel above, no bathroom, no scenes from his life. Just a black floor.

He realized that his presence gave a light to this place.

Tesla supported himself up on his hands, every single bone in his body cracking, the muscles throbbing. The throat veins, one moment ago tensed, felt like steel wires by force stuck into his mouth and injected through his gums down into his lungs. Unable to relax his throat, he only with great effort managed to get up on his hands and knees. His heavy breathing echoed in whatever huge vault he was in. Moreover, his breath ejected visibly cold smoke, visible breath, and a wave of chill came over him.

Now tense all over, Tesla wandered back and forth, searching for something he recognized or something he did not recognize for that matter. Anything at all. All he could see was this black floor with himself as the light.

Solitude, he always liked it. As a boy, he would walk for hours on end and deliberately avoid people. In fact, he would turn and go the other way when somebody approached.

VOL 8, ISSUE 8

This place contradicted that. Suddenly, at 86 years of age, Nikola Tesla, one of the most famous scientists in the world, found himself praying to meet someone, anyone, even the Pigeon Goddess.

“Hello?” His voice echoed in the open cathedral-like blackness of this place. It felt like a deserted factory with the lights off, only that not a single light could be seen. Not by him, not by anyone, except the light that surrounded himself. He seemed to be the light.

Nikola Tesla now longed for people. In the hotel room, at least, he’d had the light from the window, the radio to turn on, a book to read, the sounds from the street and the possibility to go out. Hell, even the smarmy hotel manager now seemed a fitting diversion from this darkness.

“Hello?” the old man repeated.

Strange noises now emerged from elusive corners. Sounds that seemed to come from electric machines somehow, but accompanied by voices. Whispers, cackles. Then silence. My God, what was this place.

Tesla turned around, faced the darkness, heard another voice, a woman, now. She spoke no intelligible language. A train, it seemed like. A passing train. A man speaking, moaning.

Tesla turned around again, now only to hear a whizzing sound from above. Something approached from above. A sound like a projectile. A fast sound.

Slowly, Tesla looked up, almost feeling like a man caught in the rain.

From above, raindrops fell. No ordinary raindrops. They were huge raindrops. Big drops, whose fabric nearly constituted of light within a light, silvery in color. Now, Tesla saw what this was. Something silvery glittered up there. He was in the bathtub, miniscule, running away from whatever drops the dripping faucet provided. He was in the bathtub in the bathroom again, but now the light had been turned off.

Nikola Tesla sat up in total darkness, fumbling around, feeling for anything tangible, feeling for anything at all, for that matter. He found nothing familiar. Nothing he could recognize, anyway.

The strangest sensation came over him. Someone was in here with him again. He gasped aloud and at once felt such fear, because he would have absolutely no control over what would happened if that person jumped at him in the dark.

Dead or alive, who knew? Now he knew what blind people felt like.

Not even a light. Walls? Also steel. Now, he travelled back in time to 1873, seventeen years old, scared to his wits, hypnotized with pain, interrogated by death, his life about to be changed for the worse.

“Hello?”

No answer. Not even a shallow breath. Nothing. Why did he think someone….

Tesla decided to try to move one foot, just in order to see if the floor felt like real floor or if that also was steel. Now, if walls and bed and floor felt like shiny steel, this had to be the bunker and only the good Lord knew where in the world that was. That could be anywhere. No one knew.

His feet slid down onto the floor and felt a shiny surface, polished to the nines. This felt like steel or some metal, no doubt. One of those famous “airtight” and “watertight” cells with artificial air pumped in through some weird system embedded in the walls. High technology received from some other galaxy, most probably.

Tesla felt how his old heart pumping harder than he ever had felt before. He feared that his heart would actually give up the ghost, because it couldn’t take the stress any more. Breathing in once or twice, he called out once again and received only a response from the echo of this vault.

The sound that came from above sounded like projectiles. Wet projectiles. No, wet ... some things. One of them landed close to where he lay with a strange splashing sound. The old man’s head snapped back as soon as he heard another one of these splashing sounds. This one arrived closer to where he was. Then and there, he realized that the surface he lay on had nothing to do with steel.

Nikola Tesla was in his own bathtub, only now as miniscule as one of these drops. Every second that passed brought more water into the bathtub. The faucet no longer leaked. The water poured out of the faucet and Tesla found himself in the middle of his own bathtub.

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The water level arose to what would been a dozen feet in the real world, twisting and turning and leading to ...

Tesla grimaced again, his mouth forming that unbelievable screaming expression, his gaze turned crazed.

The water led to the funnel to the sewage system.

Tesla fought for his life. Throwing his arms about, he slipped down the sewers. Just in the last seconds before he disappeared, he saw the bathroom light turn on and the Pigeon Goddess run in, lean over and reach for his shirt.

He felt a claw reach for the end of the fabric. It seemed strange that he actually prayed to escape into the sewers and away from the dark Goddess. How mixed up everything seemed. A mythical creature chased him, consisting of dear memories from his life. How was that for Yin and Yang?

Hot damn, was all he could say.

Or as they would say in Serbia: Idi do djavola.

Tesla did find himself on a hell ride, as it were, rushing down the pipes toward the sewage rats, going deeper and deeper into dirtier territory, deeper and deeper into filth. Soon, he found himself swimming for his life, wondering where in hell he was, still in New York, among old bottles and cigarette butts, toilet seats and dead bats.

Tesla’s clothes stuck to his skin. The second skin of the wet cotton made him edgy. Somehow, it made it difficult to swim, as if his clothes were not clothes anymore, but a parasitic fungus.

Swimming for his life as he got splashed out of a tube into the river, he knew the Statue of Liberty gazing at him from behind his head. She seemed to spit at him, knowing that all his fame had been a fluke. A neurotic part of him gritted his teeth, spitting at the damn jealousy he had experienced in this town, knowing how brilliant he was and how certain people had fought to crush him.

An exhausted Nikola Tesla crawled up on a New York City pier that night, wet, aching, angry, neurotic, ingenious, shaking, nervous and wondering how he had been able to arrive here in the depths of the night, pigeons pecking at his wet clothes and the Statue of Liberty, in his mind, at least, convinced how much better than he she was.

An injured pigeon arrived at his side, one with an eye hanging out of its socket. The sight scared Tesla a bit, a mix of repulsion and pity rising in his heart, vomit and love filling his bowels at the same time.

Tesla’s head ever so slowly rose, led by blue-grey eyes. A tall figure in the uniform of a Serbian-Orthodox priest, walking on steel feet, squeaked with its pigeon’s beak inside a light bulb. The creature flapped an eagle’s wing at the scientist, 305 feet up into space. Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi’s sculpture from October 28th, 1886, no longer held a torch in her hand. She held a replica of something completely different in her hand—a severed head of a round, sturdy looking face with penetrating eyes, full-bodied lips and eyebrows that pointed inwards toward the nose. The Pigeon Goddess held Thomas Edison’s severed head in his hands, as he might have looked when Tesla first started working for the Continental Edison Company in France of 1882.

In the other hand, the Pigeon Goddess held the Tesla coil, sparkling and spitting electric blue light. The scientist slapped his hand against his hand, letting out a scream as the Pigeon Goddess slowly bent over, pointing a wing at him. The hot air from Tesla’s mouth protruded against his hand, creating a very warm and almost bloodlike heat against his fingers. He stood there, looking like a golden catholic fresco, hand on mouth but not necessarily hand to mouth. This heat felt warm and familiar, almost like a warm blanket that he could slip into and snuggle inside. However, that was the only warmth here right now. Fear crept inside his heart like a lizard in the desert heat.

“Not long now,” he told himself, “if I am not fast enough, I will be dead.”

The dark night made Tesla stall. He waited, flirted with cowardice, trying to run. But he knew that beyond the nightly fog there were lurking shadows. His limited gaze could only make out the stone wall sixty feet away. The rest vanished. A few dry branches spoke of a cold winter.

A moving branch swayed to and fro. A creature stood waiting for him to open the book. Tesla reached out and felt the familiar touch of those boney wings. The rugged texture made his fingers sway like a boat on 24

stormy water. The sensation prickled his fingertips as he gazed over at that mysterious beast.

How long could he survive in this hotel? His blood ridden tongue now tasted of wine, salty meat and potatoes to last him a month. But would he be able to survive the Pigeon Goddess. She had summoned him.

Tesla’s belly shook from a nervous sigh. He raised one index finger and bit it. It was time. Oh, God. Tesla kissed his own hand, as if he wanted to show himself that he loved himself. No matter, he told himself. Being rich and well-known in the region had no relevance when it came to staying alive.

One tear protruded from his left eye, making his hand slowly crawl up and remove it.

“Born in to wealth, but dying in solitude,” Tesla whispered to himself, as he gazed upon the moors. “What kind of a life is that?”

Slowly, he lowered his hand, watching that bush again. He waited for that wolf to come out. Now and then, he glanced over at the book like a nervous soldier ill willingly preparing for battle.

“A combat battalion is on its way,” he mumbled. “They smell my fear, like I smell the sulfur of wolves.”

As he looked into the eyes of the Pigeon Goddess, Nikola Tesla felt the real demons of the real world approaching with a steady step, seeking the plans for the super weapon. In this fantasy nightmare, he felt the cold breath of the demon bird breathing vocal moans on his spirit. In the real world, however, the demons wore a swastika.

Reinhard Gehlen and Otto Skorzeny were already climbing the stairs, yet unseen by the smarmy hotel manager and yet undiscovered by any housemaid. She would discover Tesla later on that day, wearing clothes the Nazi conspirators had dressed him in. As for now, 86-year-old Tesla dreamed strange dreams about the Statue of Liberty turning into a Pigeon Goddess, an army of Pigeon Soldiers marching to take his soul away to better worlds, rats and lizards chewing on his remains.

The irritating sound of the leaking faucet in the bathroom with its steady drip-drip-drop drifted away from his audial attention for a moment. The dainty plop of a pencil falling gave way to a much louder rumble of a wooden chair being scraped against a hotel floor. Tesla woke up cocked his head to the right, a cold wind travelling from the open door and hitting his face. The strange mixture of exhaust gas from the street met his nose. He smiled, remembering his mother, remembering milk, remembering Edison, remembering cholera, remembering Serbia, remembering the smarmy hotel manager.

Tesla heard the leaking faucet again. Penetrating his ear, he again entered reality and saw nothing but the darkness of all these filled shelves of existence, library after library of memories. And somewhere in the shadows of these old shelves, he imagined seeing Thomas Edison smirk in a corner.

Someone was in here. Tesla’s attention drifted away onto something more sinister, something more elusive. The voice from the other side spoke to him in amble prose that if he followed this road of unusual discovery he would become something darker and richer… Eternal.

The fascists were going to suffocate him, but 2000 people would attend his funeral.

Before the fascist conspirators lowered that pillow onto his shaking face, Nikola Tesla saw the Pigeon Goddess in the corner, shaking, laughing and pointing its ill-willed wing at the lonely old man.

The beast took the shovel off its back, raising it at the sky as a gesture to bury Nikola’s Tesla’s physical life and give the spirit freedom.

As the fascist conspirators clothed the old man in a suit and tie, the beast cried, reciting Serbian Epic Poems. And while the next generation of living demons rummaged the room 3327, searching for Nikola Tesla’s secret plans and diagrams of a super weapon, a folder they had promised the Führer, the scientist’s soul left his body, getting ready to travel the eons in order to embark on his greatest adventure.

Resolving his eternal karma and meeting his own inner demon. A strange creature by the name of the Pigeon Goddess.

Charles Moulton has been a professional stage performer since he was 11. Charles is also a prolific published author. Learn more about Charles at http://www.reverbnation.com/charlesejmoulton.

TOUGH LIT. XI

IDEAGEMS MAGAZINE