3 A.M. # 94 - Life Story

I had no idea where to start. Her icy eyes pierced through me and it made me nervous. I’m a guy; I shouldn’t be nervous, but there it was. She just kept staring and I couldn’t help wishing to be elsewhere.

So, I opened my lips and lied.

“We were poor—couldn’t afford much when I was young. I’m an only child and my parents were working all the time.” That wasn’t exactly a lie, they did work all the time but we certainly weren’t poor. I was on the verge of poor now, but hey, that’s the cost of fucking up in life. Maybe she knew it was a lie? Those blue eyes masked everything or anything going on in her head.

“Anyway, we couldn’t afford much so I had to suffer the bullying of kids. Kids are ruthless. Once, I remember, a group of us—or them circling me. Two of them had baseball bats and the rest of them just stood there, arms crossed and glaring.

“Horror writers just don’t know horror. They don’t write about that, and if they knew horror that’s what they would write about. Anyway, that was my childhood. Just like everyone else’s: fucked up.” Did she catch my slip? Did she know that I had been one of the ones with a baseball bat?

It does not really matter because I kept lying. I kept digging myself in further. She just sat there, smugly silent and observant. Bitch.

“I survived it all, of course. Worked my ass off in school. I was loved by every teacher.” More lies. Some pitied me though, foolishly. “I made it into college only the money or scholarships wouldn’t cover everything. I dropped out, started dealing drugs.”

“And now here I am, sitting on a shrink’s couch.”

3 A.M. # 130 - Monotony

Pressed against the wall, Andrew closed his eyes. They swarmed over the wood chips, the monkey bars, and the swings like tiny, barbaric apes. One bellowed then charged him.

Andrew opened his eyes because of the cry. The brute pumped its small arms forward and back, accelerating toward terminal velocity with surprising ease. Lips parted around feral teeth.

Chip Brewster, that one’s name is, Andrew thought. Chip was six years old, already failing class and known as the meanest red-headed bully around. Chip’s sharp teeth glimmered hungrily.

Chip screeched; Andrew's heart leapt within his chest. The brute closed in and Andrew fell to his knees, curling up into a fetal position. The beast slammed the wall.

Warm up: Cat Lady

“Susie? Susie?! Where are you, darling?!” Mrs. Stengel squeaked, her left hand groping about in the darkness. A tumultuous bellow of thunder slammed into the side of the house shaking picture frames and inciting knick-knacks to dance. She steadied herself with one gnarled hand.

Lightning erupted, illuminating the living room ahead of her. Susie was pawing again at the front door. Every time she slipped out of her cage, it was the same thing. She always charged for the front door, always tried to pry it open. Curiosity would certainly kill that cat if she made it outside. That was why Mrs. Stengel had installed a padlock to the inside of the door. Susie had somehow manipulated her way past the deadbolt and the chain last time! No repeats of past mistakes.

“You’re just frightened by the storm, honey,” Mrs. Stengel soothed.

Susie wasn’t buying it. Her head jerked right and left, searching for an avenue of escape.

Mrs. Stengel’s right hand tightened on the metal shaft behind her. “Come on, dear. It’ll all be okay. We’ll just return you to your home downstairs where you’ll be kept safe and sound away from that storm. It certainly is a doozy!” The thunder boomed again, emphasizing the old woman’s words. Her old arm snapped out, bringing the net down around Susie’s head.

Susie whined and mewed as Mrs. Stengel cautiously lifted the net and clamped two fingers tightly on her ear. More mewing. Mrs. Stengel pinched tighter, tossing the net to the side entirely. “Now we’ll just take you back downstairs. You’ll see. It’ll all be better downstairs. You can play with the boys until this nasty storm passes.”

Susie kicked and whined and clawed but Mrs. Stengel’s grip was unbreakable. The door to the basement slammed shut with finality as they descended the staircase. Frustrated minutes passed as the old woman slowly descended the staircase.

The boys were huddled in their own cages, faces turned away. Susie cried out as the door swung open and she was shoved again into the cell. Taking no chances this time, Mrs. Stengel wrapped a chain around the bars and the door and applied a heavy duty lock. “That should keep. No more running away, Susie.” She turned and murmured, “the things I endure for taking in the neighborhood strays.” Mrs. Stengel hobbled up the stairs.

From above, another booming sound shook the house. Once the basement door shut again, Susie burst into tears.

“Don’t worry,” one of the boys—Sammy, she thought his name was—whispered. “Our parents are coming for us. Soon yours will, too. I just know it.”

Warm-up: You Cannot Run

Only two feet away, rain drizzled into the alley, bombs bursting against the cracked asphalt, scouring the city of its filth. Axe was lost in that photo again, dreaming of that picturesque Hallmark life, that sort of life so few ever attain. Framed in front of a grandiose manse, three beautiful faces stared out of the photograph, a happy husband and wife and their smiling daughter.

Perfection, or at least, damn near it. Better than this place, he knew. The cost was high—it always was. That is exactly why so few could reach that dream.

Axe rubbed his grubby finger along the daughter’s jaw line. He cursed as a smear of grime was left in the wake. He searched for a bit of newspaper, something not smelling of piss or excrement or booze, and scrubbed at the image. Some of the color rubbed off. A tear tugged at the corner of his eye.

Delicately, he gave the picture a kiss and slid it back into the newspaper padding beneath his shirt.

Winters were harder here. Everything was harder here. There was no roof above his head save for the corrugated cardboard box. That roof would melt through tonight because of the rain, he knew. Tomorrow would be spent scavenging for a new home or some temporary fix. Maybe he could beg for a box from the soup kitchen.

Beg. Once, such a low act would have made him cringe. Once. Now, times were different. They said you cannot run from your past. He had to, though. Anonymity became necessity. Axe cursed his fate.

“What do they know anyway?” he questioned the night or the storm. “I’ll do what I want, when I want. Yes, I will.”

A torrent of water suddenly ripped through Axe’s cardboard roof. Startled, he leapt out of the box, slipping on his newspapers and blankets.

Thunder silenced his groans and curses as he crawled to his feet in the alley. A bolt of lightning illuminated his home and the enormous rip in its center.

“Alex?”

Axe straightened; the hairs on his neck immediately erect. Cautiously, he turned his head, casting a glance at the entrance of the alley. A shadow hovered at its edge. “No,” he hissed, spinning. Axe—Alex backpedaled. The shadow stepped forward.

“You cannot run, Alex.”

“I—I—I,” he stammered, still edging backward.

“You gave us quite a bit of trouble. Who could have guessed you, so lazy and glutted on the wealth and perfect life you once craved so desperately, would give us so many problems.” Alex could hear the smile on the man’s face. “Two years! By God, you survived on the street alone and unseen! Tenacity! That sort of tenacity will make you a wonderful addition.”

“M—M—Madeline and Joanna? What about Madeline and Joanna?”

The shadow paused its pacing and held its hands down and out to its sides in a strange manner. “They will live out their lives mostly unmolested, unless they should seek us out as you did. Our dealings are with you and you alone, right now, Alex. You knew the price when you signed. Now, it is time for us to collect.”

Warm-up: Wordy monologue

“I’ve always loved words—always. There’s a beauty there and a rhythm and, gods, do I love rhythm. Listen to them! See them! If you can, feel them. There is nothing—almost nothing—like their caress.

“Words dance around and around, a wild movement filled with vivid color and razor-edged shape. Description, that’s where it all is. Description is what it is.

“Some people like math but I’m a words person. Words are description! Math is explanation. Math speaks one language—and it’s a beautiful language in its own right because it is universal but math rarely, if ever, describes. Math explains. Math is the musty, monotone teacher at the head of the classroom.

“Words are alive. They’re breathing and showing and telling, too, but more often they’re just out there living and doing and being. It’s so hard to just be, at times. But words do that.”

Warm-up: Flik's Fall

Just a little warm-up writing (so to speak)...
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He patted the beads of sweat from his forehead and reached for the water skin. The march could not stop here; not beneath the boughs of eternal fire in this damned forest. On all sides the withering branches burned ceaselessly. Curiously, the bard began to compare the blistering, black branches to a child’s stick-drawings. This artist had smeared reds and oranges and yellows across the image.

Another bead of sweat collected on Flik’s brow. They would not stop here, in the thick choking smoke, in the withering heat. There must be a clearing.

The gnome gulped down a mouthful of water. Around him, the weary faces of his companions were cast in a lurid light by the tunnel of fire. He listened closely to the cadence in their unique rhythms and mannerisms, observing and collecting each quarter beat and each beautiful melody. Exquisite music hid even within the ragged bickering between the Ragesians and Councilman Bower.

A haunting tune tugged at the bard’s senses. He snapped his eyes to the molten path ahead. Through the haze, he could make out a patch of light—a clearing. With a whoop, and a half-leap, Flik sprang ahead as quickly as his little feet could carry him. The rest were not long to follow.

The clearing was not much, just enough. A chasm stretched across the old road, its rim lined by the ever-burning forest. Still, the hole in the earth was large enough to pull the trees back and open the fiery tunnel. Fresh air flowed into the clearing along with a bit of that haunting melody.

Intent on deciding the path forward, no one else seemed to notice the tune. Flik focused on the sad key of its notes. It was incomplete, some notes lost on the wind, but whole in its own right. Something primal stirred within the chords, something that stoked the heart of this burning forest. He shuddered.

“It doesn’t look safe,” advised the councilman.

The Shahalesti elf took a long glance at the edge of the canyon. “The burning brush hugs too tightly to the edge. This bridge is the safest way to pass."

Councilman Bower sighed and set his jaw with a grim determination. “Fine. We’ll take it slowly, though. The cracks—"

“There are cracks in the bridge!” Flik chimed in. “This will make a great tale! Chased into the ever-burning forest of Innenotdar by the cruel fist of the Ragesian Army, the valiant heroes and heroines survived the heat and smothering smoke to find a chasm passable only via a crumbling bridge!"

“It’s not exactly crumbling,” corrected the elf.

“Are we done standing around?” demanded the Ragesian woman. She moved past the councilman, stepping onto the bridge. Everyone watched as she walked across, edging around a sizable hole.

“Me next!” Flik shouted. He ran out onto the stone, his friend Arc only a few steps behind. The view was incredible, stretching off hundreds of feet in either direction. Eighty feet below, fires burned in the scrub brush. The cliffs were stark, sandwiched between the oranges and reds of the flames.

The hole in the center was large, easily large enough for a man to fall through. Being smaller than a man, Flik clung to the railing as he passed. His eyes searched downward, noticing a few spots that were devoid of the flames. One of those spots was filled with water and what looked to be a broken carriage.

The haunting tune magnified in Flik’s ears when he stared down. He released the railing of the bridge to cover his ears. Flapping, flickering lights poured from beneath the bridge.

“Bats!” the bard shrieked. “Fiery bats,” he spit as bile rose from his stomach. Like everything else in the forest, the bats wore a skin of eternal flame. Blisters boiled upon the gnome’s flesh as he released his ears and swatted.

More and more of the beasts poured up from beneath the bridge, engulfing his body. Spinning, the world lurched in Flik’s mind.

He stepped off the bridge, into the hole.

The bats fell away quickly, so far above. Hanging between the bridge and the burning brush beneath, Flik could hear that strange melody beckoning to him with its primal energies just as the earth below called him to its bosom.