Whiskey Sour

I’ve been caught in my whiskey sour, not really feeling like myself today. My co-workers said I looked tired. My friends said I looked like shit. I woke up shitty, went through the day shitty, and now I’m ending it shitty.

But at least I have a drink.

My favorite bar has a nice ambiance. It’s very cozy but swimming with locals. If you want to yak it up, there’s people there to do it. If you want to drink alone, though, it’s the perfect place to be. Tonight I want to drink alone.

The bar plays old black and white movies. on a T.V. up in the corner. Tonight, they’re playing the old ’50s version of The Fly. I want to be lost in my whisky sour, but something about the movie has me entranced. Even though it’s muted and just there for show, I can hear the little man in the web screaming “Help me! Go away!” to the spider about to chomp of his head and suddenly it’s like my entire day flips up through my nose, all in the form of whiskey sour. It burns like a mother, but I keep laughing.

“Are you okay?” the bartender asks, clearly concerned that I’d cracked.

“Oh. No,” I chuckle, putting a napkin up to my nose. “Don’t worry. I’m just tired.”

Cave of Horror

Everybody has one place when they’re a kid. A cemetery, an old man’s yard, a brown van with “Free Candy” painted on the side. Ours was the Cave of Horror. It was a large, dark mouth that led into the rocky hillsides. We’d climb up there and nobody had ever come out… alive. Or at least that’s what we’d say to each other. We never really got with in ten feet of the thing, until one day…

“I’m gonna do it,” I said.

“Do what?” Keenan asked.

“I’m gonna go into the Cave of Horrors-orror-orrors.” We always did a spooky voice with an echo when we said the name.

“You’re kidding,” Bobby snorted, patting me on the shoulder. “You’re not kidding?”

“Watch me,” I said, and they did.

I walked right up to the cave, but I stopped ten feet short. It was hard to go any farther, since nobody ever had… at least nobody (gulp) who’s alive right now.

I took a brave step forward, thinking maybe I could just touch the entrance. I didn’t even have a flashlight or nothing, so maybe just touching it would be okay. I began to imagine all the scary monsters inside, the trolls and bats and giant lizards. It was better not to really think about it at all and just one. But then I started hearing noises, and at first I thought it was all in my head. It was a small thud on the ground, like something was hopping around or at least carrying a body whose head was hitting a bunch of rocks on the way out. I took back my brave step.

Frozen with fear, I started to see something leave the cave. It was something hopping. My mind went to little gremlins or goblins and I beated a hasty backwards retreat, tripping over a root or a branch on my way.

“Hey! Are you okay!” my friends shouted. “What’s wrong?”

The creature showed itself, it was hairy and twitchy and… well, it was only a bunny. I stuck my hand out to it, entranced by the cute little bugger. “Hey, little guy. How’d you get in that cave?”

The bunny kept hopping straight for me and jumped up to my hand, exposing its giant chompers. “Ouch!” I cried, now having a bunny hanging off my hand. It kicked around and stared at me with mean eyes. I tried pulling it off and that only made it bite deeper, to the point where I thought it was hitting bone. Then I tried punching it in the head. Somehow, I thought to grab its ears and it let out a cry and let go. I had it by the ears now, but I wasn’t sure what to do. Something else was coming out of the cave. Something big.

It was hairy and it was twitchy and it filled up the entire entrance. I could look right into the giant spider’s mouth, right past its pincers. Its legs were bigger than me and were covered in stiff knife-like hairs. The rabbit kicked in my hand as I looked in horror at the giant spider about to eat me. Its front legs raised up, charging me and it snapped its pincers, taking the body off of the screaming little creature in my hand. The pincers closed and the spider backed into the cave. I was left holding the rabbit’s severed head.

I began to walk home. My friends had run off and it took me a while to think to drop the head in my hand. I looked at its dead eyes and open mouth and then I kept walking. My parents saw the bite and didn’t seem to notice my thousand-mile stare.

“You’re going to have to get a rabies shot, son,”  my dad said.

We never went back there.

Trampoline Dream

Elian wanted to go to the moon. He bounced on his trampoline and higher he went, so much so, that he was sailing up into the frosty night air, so high that he could feel like this forever. But Elian wasn’t at the moon yet, so he put on his game face and dug his heels into the trampoline.

Blammo! Elian shot up through the clouds and past the stars. He had his protective goggles on so he was safe from alien laser attacks. Elian took advantages of his situation and floated around freely, bouncing off of meteors and spinning Saturn’s rings. Elian went right up, all the way to the north star. He grabbed the Little Dipper and smashed it into the Big Dipper. He made all the noise he wanted to and nobody would yell at him.

But oh no, Elian! He flew straight past the moon and he was shooting out into the other direction. Elian sucked in all the air in his lungss and blew out until his face turned red. This was just enough to change direction, and Elian floated gently onto the moon’s surface. He was greeted by five million alien basketball players.

“Have you got game?” the aliens asked.

Elian narrowed his eyes, looking like one mean dude. “More game than yo mama,” Elian replied. This infuriated the aliens and all five million charged Elian on the court. He bounced way up into the air with the moon’s gravity helping him out. Elian grabbed the ball and slam dunked it. Even five million moon men had nothing on Elian. He dribbled the ball so much and dunked it so hard that they had to replace the ball two times.

Suddenly, Elian remember what time it was. “I should really get home. My parents like me to be bed before th eclasses are over. He ended the game by shaming the aliens with a shatterboard. He stuck his tongue out while doing it, because it seemed like the thing to do. The moon men bowed down to Elian and his crazy b-ball skills.

“Come back any time, Elian. You have a place among the moonmen.”

The moon men waved goodbye and Elian went sailing down to Earth, down through the stars, down past the dippers and the Milky Way. He flew into the sky and settled down on to the trampoline. Elian would have fallen asleep there if his parents hadn’t called him inside. He was so excited about his adventures in space.

Elian’s mother tucked him into his spaceship blankets and said she’d tell him a bedtime story.

Elian thought about it for a mmoment. “Tell me the one with man on the moon again.”

“Okay,” Mother said.

“And have him play basketball against space lasers.”

“We’ll see,” Mother said.

“Pew pew pew!” Elian fired an imaginary gun and then he fell fast asleep.

Mother kissed Elian on the forehead. “Tell me what happens with the aliens tomorrow, sweetie.”

She closed the door and Elian snored lightly amidst the glow-in-the-dark stars and moon scattered all over his ceiling.

Magical Love Girl

“Drink it!” Hal yells, scrunching Crystal’s cheeks together. “Drink!”

“I don’ wanna,” Crystal can’t help but pout, her face being crushed together like it is.

“You’re gonna drink it and you’re gonna like it!”

“Nooooo-mulp!” Hal thrusts the vial into her mouth. Crystal bends down to her knees to cough it out. Already, she is changing. Crystal’s entire world turns a pinkish hue. Her lips feel fuller, her eyelashes longer. Her bust and hips swell. Her hair grows down past her knees and her skirt shrinks far above her knees. She has cleavage now, and cheekbones. All her baby fat has washed away. She feels dizzy, like she’s been spinning around for a full minute. Suddenly, a bright light surges from within her. She cries out and Crystal is no longer Crystal anymore.

“I’m Magical Love Girl Kasumi and I’m here to fight for all that full of love and kindness. Evil beware!” Magical Love Girl Kasumi stands in a wide, confident stance, her hair and skirt blowing in the sudden breeze that accompanied her arrival. Her left hand settles snugly onto her womanly hip, her right hand, palm out, telling evil to “stop!”

The crowd bursts into applause. “Go get ’em, Magical Love Girl Kasumi!” Hal yells amidst the uproar.

“We believe in you!” a young girl cries, tears of admiration running down her cheeks.

Magical Love Girl Kasumi winks and blows a kiss into the crowd, then she turns to face her foe.

“Ah! Magical Love Girl Kasumi! Finally, we meet,” the lizard creature hisses. “I, Kimodo, have devoured the love from your best friend and now I will devour all the love from you next! What a delicious feast it will be!”

“Kimodo, your evil deeds stop here! I will destroy you for what you’ve done to the good people of this city, and to my best friend, too!”

Kimodo’s jaws open and her tongue flicks out, stretching to crash into where Magical Love Girl Kasumi’s feet once were if she hadn’t nimbly leapt out of the way. The street shatters under the immense force of Kimodo’s vile tongue.

“Your love-eating days are over, Kimodo.” Magical Love Girl Kasumi’s hands weave a complex sign, her finger’s meeting together in a oval opening. “Beautiful Love Bullet!” she chants, a beam of light shooting out from the opening.

“Gaaaah! Curse you, Magical Love Girl Kasumi!” The light engulfs the lizard-woman and she turns back into the school librarian. The day is saved. Everyone in the crowd cheers wildly.

Magical Love Girl Kasumi transforms back into Crystal, who slumps to the ground, exhausted from the mighty battle. Hal runs up to hug her and carry her back home to rest.

“You did it, Crystal! Magical Love Girl Kasumi saved the day!”

“Please stop,” Crystal whispers quietly through her sobbing. “Why are you doing this? Why are you doing this to me?”

The Lonely Rhubarb

“You’re just a weed,” the geraniums said and the lemon tree looked down on him. The roses were the worst. They ignored him entirely. Though Rhubarb was surrounded by his own brothers, even they were lost in their own misery.

“I don’t want to be alive anymore,” Rhubarb whispered before sobbing half the night.

“Shut up!” a neighboring rhubarb shouted, so Rhubarb suffered in silence instead.

One spring, when the flowers were all in bloom, Rhubarb felt more alone than ever.

“What’s wrong?” a strange little red fruit asked.

Rhubarb knew better than to hope for friendship. He’d only get hurt.

“What do you want?” Rhubarb snapped.

“I just wanted to talk,” the red fruit said.

“Yeah, right. You’re too pretty and sweet. Go talk with the roses.”

“Oh, my cousins are total d-bags…but… you think I’m pretty?”

“Um…” Rhubarb blushed the color of the strange red fruit. “Yeah, I do.”

“I’m Strawberry,” she said.

It wasn’t long before the two plants grew closer, Strawberry entangling herself around Rhubarb. Their caretaker, seeing this, harvested them and together they made the most delicious pie ever.

Glitterdust

You are in a deep, dark forest. The animals cautiously surround your group. They are not used to seeing people and you may be the only humans to enter so deep inside and live to tell the tale. You cut through the overgrown brush and come across the moss-side of a rock. The illustrious ranger, Darkfang, remembers from his experience tracking that the moss always points north. However, underneath the moss is also a cluster of tiny mushrooms. The mushrooms sparkle with intensity, as if warning you of some impending danger.

Darkfang fails his spot check and you and Alastair both fail your will saves. You are encased in a cloud of sparkling glitter, spewed out from the tiny mushrooms. It gets in your clothes and your eyelashes. You’re both sparkling  so intensely that you can’t even see anything at all. You both count your blessings that there’s nobody here to see how gay you look. You fail your spot check again and are surprised as suddenly, a swarm of tiny magic missiles fly at your sparkly bodies. A swarm of pixies fly at you with daggers drawn, whooping high-pitched little war cries.

Roll for initiative.

The pixies surprise you a second time as you are too sparkly to notice anything but the blood oozing from your magic missile wounds. The pixies stab at you, their little daggers coated now in your blood and glitter. You try to counter-attack with your own weapons, but you are blinded from the glitter clinging thickly to your eyelashes, so much so that you look like bioluminescent drag queens. The pixies flutter out of the way of your attacks and then move in for the kill. As the swarm of pixies wrestle you to the ground, the last and only thing you see is the sparkle of glitterdust.

The Twins

The twins walked, skipped, and hopped along the railroad tracks. They brought snacks and sang songs and told stories about space pirates. High fives were exchangeable with the currency of low fives, and sometimes one was just too slow and missed out. Each time they heard a train’s horn blowing off in the distance or its engine chugging along, ever rapidly louder, the twins would find a way to get off the tracks. At first, they just stepped off on either side of the track, but then they started spinning, dancing, and dosey-doing off the tracks. When the train went by, they would meet back on the tracks again and laugh about what kind of faces they made at the passengers or what kind of secret government weapons were being hidden  in the cabooses.  The twins had much more fun spinning and dancing and dosey-doing than they ever had at home with their parents. And they’re not afraid of getting their fit caught or tripping, either, because they don’t drag their feet. They walk like soldiers, always reminding each other to keep forging ahead. The twins will always be there for each other, even when a really long train goes by. Especially when a really long train goes by!

Road Trip (Revised) and North (New Chapter)

I’ve been changing around the zombie novella a bit. In particular, I’m doing an overhaul of the Jerm/Micah story arc.  Here’s a revised chapter and a new teaser chapter to whet your appetite:

ROAD TRIP

Jerm keeps pushing the CD into the Buick’s deck.

“Micah… hey Micah!”

“What?”

“CD player’s busted!”

“Shouldn’t be. Just got it installed last year. It’s probably the CD.”

“Well, keep better care of ‘em, jackass. I keep telling you that you need one of those books to keep all your CDs in it.”

“Hey, if you want music, then just sing something. Give me a break there, man. I’ve been drivin’ since Oklahoma.”

“Hey. Don’t worry about it, boss. Yer doin’ such a good job innyway.”

“Fuck you, man. Take the wheel. I gotta take a piss.”

“Ahh, bullshit. We should open a lemonade stand, we got so much stored back there.”

“You know we can’t take any chances openin’ the window, Jerm. One bug flies in and we could be zombies, too. So just take the wheel and shut yer trap for a sec.”

“Man, yer paranoid.”

“You gonna take the wheel or do you want to hold my junk for me while I go?”

“Yeah, yeah. I got it.” Jerm sighed, awkwardly switching over to the driver side and almost taking the car off the road.

“Careful, man! Keep it straight while I’m going or this car’s gonna smell even worse than it does.”

“Yeah, okay, Micah. Whatever, man… hope we can get to New Mexico soon.”

“Desert’s the place to be, Jerm. Not enough life around there to be zombie food.”

“Speakin’ of, we got ourselves a hitchhiker.”

“Just drive by.”

“But she’s hot.”

“Dammit, Jerm! Just drive!”

“What are you, gay?”

“At least let me put it back in my pants. Hand me the gun.”

“What? She ain’t a zombie.”

“She still has teeth, don’t she? We don’t know if she’s turning or what. Just hand me the gun.”

Without opening the windows, Jerm signalled for the woman to crawl into the passenger side.

“You guys are life savers. Name’s Jaclyn.”

“Jeremiah. This one’s my brother, Micah.”

“Kinda queer bein’ stuck all the way out here,” Micah said.

“Only one queer is you,” Jerm mumbled.

“My car ran out of gas a few miles back. I’m from Odessa, but I hear North is the way to go right now. I still can’t believe it, the dead walking around and everything. It’s crazy. I mean, I keep thinking it’s all just a bad dream I’ll wake up from… thanks for picking me up, guys. I was worried I wouldn’t see anybody out here.”

“Me an’ Micah are both comin’ outta Little Rock. Damn skeeters are turnin’ people into flesh eaters! Desert’s dry enough so they don’t breed at all, but Micah’s still paranoid. That right, Micah?”

Micah fishes through under the back seats for water bottles with actual water in them. “Yeah… so, Jaclyn. You up here all by your lonesome?”

“Well, I have some family headed up to the Northern states, see if they can get into Canada. I took longer getting out ‘cuz my boyfriend wouldn’t leave. I don’t know. Guess I was bein’ dumb wanting to stay with him in zombie country.”

“Naw. We were the same way. We all heard about it in other places but we thought we could all just shoot ‘em all dead and have a few beers to celebrate. It wasn’t like the movies, though. Even covered in DEET and holed up with boxes of ammo, we knew we weren’t gonna last against a third of Arkansas.”

Jaclyn pulls her sleeve down over her arm. “It’s terrible out there.”

“Here’s some water,” Micah offered.

“Thank you.”

“That rash on your arm… that’s from the heat?”

“Oh, yeah. It’s nothing much.”

“I can take a look at it.”

“No. Don’t worry about it.”

Micah pulled out his gun. Jerm swerved the car over to the side of the road. “Whoa, Micah! Holy shit! Quit playin’ with that thing!”

“I ain’t playin’. That’s a bug bite.”

Jaclyn shook her head. “No. It’s not–”

“Don’t lie to me, bitch. Our daddy had a bite like that before we found him gnawing on one of ma’s arms.”

“It’s just a little bite! I mean, it probably wasn’t even infected. Most bugs are just normal bugs, okay? I mean, if I start gnawing on people, you can shoot me.”

“Yeah, Micah! Maybe it’s not the end of the world. Just hold off for a sec!”

“Can’t take any chances. You and I both saw what happened to Little Rock, how fast it all happened. Jaclyn, please get out the car. You can keep the water. Here’s a few extra bottles, too. It’s not water, but you’ll thank me when you get thirsty enough.”

“You can’t be serious. Please! Just drop me off in the next town.”

“Micah–”

“Shut it, Jerm. Just step out of the car and there won’t be no trouble. You’re better off than when we found ya. Just be thankful for that.”

Jaclyn removed herself from the car, sobbing and cradling bottles of water and urine. When the door slammed, she dropped the bottles and put her hands on the windows. “Please!” she wailed through the glass.

Jerm looked straight ahead, not starting the car.

“What?”

“I ain’t talkin’ to you, man.”

“Just drive, Jerm. No more hitchhikers.”

A bottle of piss hits their back window as Jerm pulls away.

NORTH

“I’m gonna turn this car around.”

“Jerm, we did what we had to.”

“I’m not talkin’ to you.”

“You already said that.”

“I don’t like it, man. I come back home from fightin’ in one desert and now I’m out here in another. What the Hell, man? I’m back home and the killing just don’t stop. I don’t want to keep murderin’ people, Micah.”

“It wasn’t… Jerm. Listen to me. Back in Little Rock… that wasn’t our family out there. They were tortured, man. We had to put them to rest. And that girl was as good as dead, too.”

“Does that make it right?”

“They were already dead. We did what we had to.”

Jerm slams on the breaks.

“But she—Jaclyn—that girl back there? She was a human goddamn being! She was still alive, you jackass! You, me—we’re gonna have to live with that so don’t try to hide what we did with pretty words. It’s an insult to her and everyone else we left behind.”

“We did what we had to.”

“You already said that, Mikey.”

Jeremiah clicks on the only FM station running in the area and starts driving again. He keeps his eyes on the road; Micah stares out the window, looking at the barren landscape and the pink sunlight fading into the horizon. James Taylor is singing about fire and rain.

After about fifty or sixty miles, Jerm clears his throat. Micah looks ahead to see a buzzard with only one wing hobbling across the road. With the high beams on, they can see it only has one wing and its beak seems cracked and hanging slack.

“That thing dead?” Micah asks.

“Looks like it.” He starts to swerve toward the bird.

“Don’t… I don’t want to be scrapin’ bird parts off my car.”

“Whatever, man.” Jerm turns the while a little and they can hear the beak scrape along the side of the car.

Micah gives Jerm a look like he’s chewing on old gum and wants to find somewhere to spit.

“What? Just paint. Don’t worry so much, man. Take a nap for a while. We’ve both been up for a day and a half at least.”

Micah still has trouble sleeping but he’s able to fade away after not too long.

“Wake up!” Jerm swats at Micah. “It’s five in the morning and I think I’m seein’ things, like zombies outta the corner of my eye.”

“What the Hell’re you talkin’ ‘bout.” Micah rubs his eyes and stretches in his seat. It’s pitch black out but it will be morning soon. They awkwardly crawl around the seats to switch places. Micah grunts as he rolls the seat back up to the steering wheel. It sounds like a spine cracking.

“Where are we?”

“We just hit Colorado about thirty minutes or so back.”

“All right, Jerm. I got it.” He starts up the vehicle again and starts back down the highway.

The sun had just started peaking on the horizon. Something shadows were moving on the horizon. “Uh… Jerm?”

“What? I was just starting to drift off.”

“You know how  you said you were seein’ things?”

“Yeah?” Jerm took a second before he bolted upright. “What? Zombies?”

Micah pointed his finger toward the side of the highway. A large group of people were stumbling along the road, though it became increasingly obvious they weren’t people at all. They all had working legs, but some had chunks missing from them in most other places, maybe from the buzzards. The silhouette of a woman and child tripped over and pulled themselves back up to follow the group.

“Where the Hell do they think they’re going?”

“I’d reckon same way we are: North.”

Yumi Sakugawa

It’s the weekend. Yumi rolls over and sees that it’s a little past eight. The clock is taunting her. Already the voices begin to crowd in her head. They are memories, and they have come early to take control of her brain. It used to be that she would get stuck on one thought, usually a negative thought (the kind with hooks and barbs) that feeds and grows throughout the day. But not today.

Yumi sits down with the morning light and listens to traffic go by. She is alone, but not really alone. When she listens closely, she can hear a whisper of someone encouraging her and guiding her to a better day.

The negative thoughts, she lets them pass through her brain. She lets the positive thoughts pass, too, though she hovers around for a moment to gather their warmth. Yumi can hear her own heart beat and she is happy for this small miracle. She allows her breath to pass her lips and enter her nostrils. She can’t control the air, nor does she try to anymore. Somewhere, people are driving in their cars. Somewhere, a tea kettle is whistling.

Clint Pereira

Clint. Meaning: “fenced settlement.” Also synonymous with westerns. Word of advice: don’t laugh around his mule. Mule doesn’t like it. Thinks you’re laughing at him.

Pereira. Meaning: “peartree.” Pereiras got around, like really got around. “Pereira” is like the “Smith” of Portugal, only the Portuguese couldn’t stay in one place. They took a ship, sailed around and banged a bunch of people and/or made them read the Bible. There are Pereiras in India. There are Pereiras in Brazil. There are Pereiras in China. The Portuguese may have almost single-handedly invented the term “coolie,” which was kind of a dick move, Portugal. Kind of a dick move.

Clint Pereira. Meaning: ?. He’s probably a cyborg from the future. They say he has artificial eyes and his right arm turns into a gatling gun. His left hand has magical powers, like how his thumb and index finger can squish people’s heads. Clint Pereira takes pie seriously. He’ll shank you for it and blame it on your dog. And then you’ll be dead and your dog will be arrested and spend his life in prison, whining and looking all sad halfway through his eyelids. All because you got greedy. People like you are the reason Clint Pereira formed a secret society to destroy the world with the right amount of love and hate and laser beams. The process probably involves sex, but who would know? All the good pickup lines are taken by the people who don’t want to blow up the world.

Jerks.