The boy woke, eyes half-glued shut, cracked lips sealed in brine, his throat a painful parchment rattle. Above, the high rise pitch of gulls. The boy’s sun-baked face pillowed against a naked forearm and his eyes rested on the slow undulation of the distant dark line. Through the sleepy blur, blue met deeper blue along a horizon’s straight edge. The easy sway of the empty dinghy closed his mind down again, rocked him, cupped and cradled like a newborn. He fell back to sleep.
He dreamt he was standing on the dock. His father was already on board the Sea Giant, doodling over a map while Carol waited on a shaded bench below, dabbing at the face in a compact mirror. “For Christ’s sake Dallas,” she said, “is the kid coming or not?” “Come on Denny,” his father said. “Get your damn ass on board. Don’t keep your step-mother waiting.”
He didn’t want to go. In another dream - a real-life one - his mom had disappeared while on the water with his father. ”A devastating accident,“ Dallas had convinced the police. Her body was never found. And soon after his father was seeing Carol. In dreams, he heard his mother’s fading voice calling out his name, warning that this dream would not end well.
The open sea frightened him and what lurked along its vast bottom, in deep trenches scared him more. His sixth grade History book was full of imaginative stories and drawings, depictions of creatures grappling long cable-thick tentacles over wooden boats as terrified sailors looked to the skies… ocean-wide whirlpools boiling beneath calm seas… flat-headed serpents coiling to the surface, maws open wide. He had no trouble imagining any of it. And now in the dream, they were on the water, the Sea Giant humming straight as an arrow toward a targeted horizon. His father was drunk and arguing with Carol, a cold smirk crossing his face. And when he lowered his voice and looked Denny’s way, it was the look of an unfathomable creature and it scared him more than anything he could ever have imagined.
Carol was crying and he almost felt sorry for her until he saw it in her eyes, knew she was on board with what his father had planned. They were fish eyes, round and glossy-wet, compassionless. She looked at him, mouthed, ‘I’m not your mother… never will be… I’m not the one abandoning you,’ her words trailing as she watched Dallas approaching, one arm lingering behind his back. The sea was quiet. The sun saw with its great glowering eye. Then came the sudden boom from below water.
When Denny opened his eyes again, the light was gone. He looked up to the dark beauty of a berry blue ceiling; there seemed to be more stars than sky. It was quiet but for the lap of black water, the cool wind whispering over the contoured surface of the dinghy. He rolled onto his side, leaned up on one elbow, his thoughts wrapped in cotton, his face sore from sunburn and dehydration. Rubbing a swollen eye, he tried to focus on the shape draped over the bow - a flotation device or some sort of gear he thought. Blinking, he focused again and caught his breath; it was the shape of a man’s face and a whimper of ‘Da’ escaped him; when he saw its white teeth flash in the blue moonlight, he lost all consciousness.
In the dream, Denny sat in the dinghy, the cold aluminum seat biting into his bare legs. His father stood on the deck of the Sea Giant. He was reeling and yelling at Carol, screaming for her to get into the dinghy, screaming at Denny to get back on board. Carol sat terrified, unmovable. The dingy swayed as the boat rumbled, pushed away. A deep breaking sound from below the water shook the vessel, rolled it quickly, Dallas’s eyes widening, big as Texas and he grabbed for Carol as the Sea Giant went under, suctioned down, quicker than lightning to ground.
It was still dark when Denny woke. His eyes were slits, puffy, and it was difficult to see in the shadowy moonlight. He was lying on his back on the bottom of the dinghy. His body ached, his muscles wrapped in deep heat and he tried to sit up, found he was unable to move. The sensation of a small hand - a woman’s hand he thought - cradled the back of his head, tilting it forward and another hand was bringing a vial of liquid to his mouth. “Mom?” he croaked and a soft garbled voice sang in his ear, ‘drink this.’
As he tilted his head he made out the shape of someone saddled on the edge of the bow. It was a man, the face from earlier, body in silhouette, a black arm extended pointing a long forked staff straight out to sea, toward the brightest star in the southern constellation. There was splashing about in the water, what sounded like fish jumping, tails smacking and he sensed the dinghy moving quickly through the water. There was music - or what sounded of music - though none that he had ever heard before and the more he listened, the more it sounded like a tubular call coming not from a shore but from far below. And he wanted to go down. Eyes heavy, he wanted to go deep.
The fishing boat found him at daylight. The boy was cocooned, wrapped in dry kelp up to his neck, a nest of seaweed sprouting and coiled Medusa-like behind his head. His face was covered with small iridescent scales that flaked and dropped from his skin leaving it smooth and brown. The puffiness was gone from his eyes; they were now clear and smiling. Dolphins cut through the surface around the dinghy, watched, talked. The fishermen marveled at the sight, at the breathing boy, at the turbulent water receding far below.
Nov 29, 2012
Nov 8, 2012
This Cab Goes Out To The Styx
The big guy drops into my cab midway up Acheron. I’m thinking he’s drunk ‘cause he don’t look so good, his body ripped like a North-End bus seat, all nooks and crannies in oiled leather, babbling on and on with a full mouth of grumble, explaining how he just whacked some dude, how it’s part of the job, you know - mob-work – all shameful-bravado - but he’s holding his guts like something’s going to spill out - looks wet and shiny back there in the dark.
He says his name is Gregor but his friends call him by his nickname, ‘The Fuse’ and I want to say, “why, you got a short one” but he looks the type that might take it the wrong way, though it don’t matter to me ‘cause I’m just driving and doing my part here.
And he goes on and on - as do the dark streets - telling the tales that I know so well, the ones I listen to every day as they pay and play with twists and turns, shortcuts and back roads, the sorrow and the bluster endlessly swirling around like garbage in the street.
“Hey, Buddy,” he says finally, “you were supposed to make a right back there”, and I can see his eyes flash as he reads my ID card on the dash and then he’s mouthing, “ya you, Boatman… you missed my stop” but I know better, don’t say nothing.
All I hope is, he’s got the fare when we get to the river.
He says his name is Gregor but his friends call him by his nickname, ‘The Fuse’ and I want to say, “why, you got a short one” but he looks the type that might take it the wrong way, though it don’t matter to me ‘cause I’m just driving and doing my part here.
And he goes on and on - as do the dark streets - telling the tales that I know so well, the ones I listen to every day as they pay and play with twists and turns, shortcuts and back roads, the sorrow and the bluster endlessly swirling around like garbage in the street.
“Hey, Buddy,” he says finally, “you were supposed to make a right back there”, and I can see his eyes flash as he reads my ID card on the dash and then he’s mouthing, “ya you, Boatman… you missed my stop” but I know better, don’t say nothing.
All I hope is, he’s got the fare when we get to the river.
Oct 23, 2012
Inside Outside In
We stay beneath the wood behind the man and woman’s house, Bella by my side, his black fur sleek and shiny. We wait patiently while the man and woman leave food and milk, slip away a distance to watch, their eyes warm like the sun.
The sky is metal gray when two are born beneath the wood; there is not enough room when the rain falls hard and cold, water runs in narrow muddy rivers around us, the two embedded in my thick fur, Bella embedded in a curl, his fur thin and matted, falling away.
The man’s eyes are red. He looks down when he tells the woman he has taken Bella across the river to a place where he will have a chance.
Now a stranger with cold eyes has come and taken the two, telling the man with red eyes a similar lie.
Everyday, I look for Bella and the two, searching the familiar places, searching until the sun has gone and when the sun has gone again, the man takes me.
They watch from another room in the warm house. I sleep on a dry blanket and dream of Bella and the two who are here with me now, not by my side but finally inside.
The sky is metal gray when two are born beneath the wood; there is not enough room when the rain falls hard and cold, water runs in narrow muddy rivers around us, the two embedded in my thick fur, Bella embedded in a curl, his fur thin and matted, falling away.
The man’s eyes are red. He looks down when he tells the woman he has taken Bella across the river to a place where he will have a chance.
Now a stranger with cold eyes has come and taken the two, telling the man with red eyes a similar lie.
Everyday, I look for Bella and the two, searching the familiar places, searching until the sun has gone and when the sun has gone again, the man takes me.
They watch from another room in the warm house. I sleep on a dry blanket and dream of Bella and the two who are here with me now, not by my side but finally inside.
Oct 20, 2012
Afterglow
My stomach still leaps thinking about it, when I first saw the shaky handheld footage by Edward Weller, taken out behind Weller’s Amazing Attractions near Glenns Ferry, a one-pump tourist trap featuring two-headed rattlesnakes and mummified aliens… how the grainy images looked like a phony Hollywood sci-fi flick - a light source shimmering in the dust next to dilapidated tin sheds… a ‘spike of light’ is what Dad called it – a laser-like beam spiraling needle-thin into blue Idaho sky.
On the third day after the appearance, Dad showed up at school in his cruiser; I crazily thought he was there to make a drug bust or something but instead he took me away - my 7th grade teacher, Mrs. Watt was confused and not too happy as we were in the middle of a science test - and he didn’t say anything though he looked scared as we ran down the steps to our packed station wagon where Mom and Holly were already waiting.
We stayed in a roadside Motel 6 the first night and they wouldn’t let us watch anymore TV, told us to go to sleep as they turned the set to a curtained window, turned the volume to a whisper and huddled around it, watched in silence, though I heard Mom say, ‘what are we going to do?’ and since then we’ve camped off the road and they don’t say much, just listen to NPR on the radio while Holly toys with her stupid doll, whines ‘where we going mamma!’ every goddamn minute, and I’ll catch Mom’s worried smile cross her face – the one she’s so good at lately – but all she says is, ‘we’ll be there soon, baby… soon.’
The drone of radio seeps into the car’s back seat… I hear only bits and pieces of information – that there’s a military blockade and a no-fly area of ten miles around it, that it’s a flaming tree that has the religious types crying out, that the ‘spike of light’ is wider now and spinning into a fiery tornado, that it strings out into space with no visible end, that the Virgin Mary has appeared inside of it, that the Vatican is silent, that violence has stopped in the entire Middle East as they watch, that soldiers near it hear music, that others hear garbled voices, that there have been shootings, that God is returning, that it’s the devils work…
Hundreds of cars pass in the opposite direction, trucks and vans stacked with belongings on rooftops like cartoon caravans, people on foot with backpacks and suitcases, some carrying signs that say, ‘get me to the rapture’ and ‘the end is not near’, all going west toward the burning copper sunset and Mom whispers, ”they’re wrong” and I see Dad’s gaze in the rearview mirror, fixed like a man who has been told something secret and profound but he stays quiet.
It’s been a couple of hours since we made the southern curve around Tallahassee, heading for the Keys where Uncle Marcus is waiting with everything; I can smell the sickly tar-paper air, baked by the oven-hot heat of a tangerine sky and the wind leaking through the car burns like sandpaper on my skin, and while Mom and Holly doze, I ask Dad if we’re going to be okay but he only repeats what he said an hour ago, his voice cracked and softer this time, that we need to get to the water fast – get on the water soon… get on the water soon.
On the third day after the appearance, Dad showed up at school in his cruiser; I crazily thought he was there to make a drug bust or something but instead he took me away - my 7th grade teacher, Mrs. Watt was confused and not too happy as we were in the middle of a science test - and he didn’t say anything though he looked scared as we ran down the steps to our packed station wagon where Mom and Holly were already waiting.
We stayed in a roadside Motel 6 the first night and they wouldn’t let us watch anymore TV, told us to go to sleep as they turned the set to a curtained window, turned the volume to a whisper and huddled around it, watched in silence, though I heard Mom say, ‘what are we going to do?’ and since then we’ve camped off the road and they don’t say much, just listen to NPR on the radio while Holly toys with her stupid doll, whines ‘where we going mamma!’ every goddamn minute, and I’ll catch Mom’s worried smile cross her face – the one she’s so good at lately – but all she says is, ‘we’ll be there soon, baby… soon.’
The drone of radio seeps into the car’s back seat… I hear only bits and pieces of information – that there’s a military blockade and a no-fly area of ten miles around it, that it’s a flaming tree that has the religious types crying out, that the ‘spike of light’ is wider now and spinning into a fiery tornado, that it strings out into space with no visible end, that the Virgin Mary has appeared inside of it, that the Vatican is silent, that violence has stopped in the entire Middle East as they watch, that soldiers near it hear music, that others hear garbled voices, that there have been shootings, that God is returning, that it’s the devils work…
Hundreds of cars pass in the opposite direction, trucks and vans stacked with belongings on rooftops like cartoon caravans, people on foot with backpacks and suitcases, some carrying signs that say, ‘get me to the rapture’ and ‘the end is not near’, all going west toward the burning copper sunset and Mom whispers, ”they’re wrong” and I see Dad’s gaze in the rearview mirror, fixed like a man who has been told something secret and profound but he stays quiet.
It’s been a couple of hours since we made the southern curve around Tallahassee, heading for the Keys where Uncle Marcus is waiting with everything; I can smell the sickly tar-paper air, baked by the oven-hot heat of a tangerine sky and the wind leaking through the car burns like sandpaper on my skin, and while Mom and Holly doze, I ask Dad if we’re going to be okay but he only repeats what he said an hour ago, his voice cracked and softer this time, that we need to get to the water fast – get on the water soon… get on the water soon.
Oct 4, 2012
October 13 Preview - Ears Become Eyes
A trickle of seepage invades my blue jeans and I shake a little from the chill that grips and cramps my lower spine, pulls me tight to the dank stench of cold concrete, the stink of mental institution and I wonder if that’s where this sewer leads. Flat on our bellies and sweating like hot-dogs in the narrowing tunnel, my nose brushes Mitchell’s rubber heels and my flashlight falters over his thin shoulder where the beam stops against dark solid air; quietly listening, I’m beginning to have second thoughts. It’s the sound of late after midnight when the house walks and shifts and settles old cracking beams and bones, when echoing rain rumbles high on the roof and everyone you love is wrapped in warm dreams, everyone but you, alone, twisted and fitful in the dark, clutching the damp crooked sheets. And it’s there in the dead of night when you are surprisingly aware, when every sense is heightened and every sound now dons some perverted face with a slanted shape and a writhing purpose, when imagination truly gives birth and your ears become eyes and for the first time you begin to see all the possibilities. Mitchell continues to babble on, something about how this was my idea in the first place and that I should now go first and I want him to shut up and listen, listen because I hear something and it sounds like it’s oozing - - as if you can hear something oozing - - a sticky clop, a detached sound and I notice my jeans are now soaked through. Mitchell’s still talking but all I hear is something coming and I’m thinking I might just back away, inch down quietly and leave Mitchell to do what he does best and that’s to talk this out on his own because he doesn’t have much of an imagination, not like me anyway and he doesn’t see it, not the way I see it.
October’s 13/#1 - Somewhere Between Good and Evil
There are a slew of stories told by long haulers about a stretch of highway between the coasts where they say God and the Devil crossed paths while thumbing through America; it’s a stretch of bad karma, mysterious disappearances, unexplained occurrences where travelers inexplicably up and vanish into thin air leaving no answers or calls… just gone; and what happened at that crossroad, how it went down between God and the Devil… shit, one can only guess but one story went like this.
There may have been a struggle… a reckoning… an old-fashioned duel between madmen. And the exact spot of this encounter, Somewhere USA - - somewhere between fading cornfields and dirt cities, perhaps on a curve of blacktop a few miles outside of your own quaint town, a faulty bend in the road slightly past midnight. Perhaps they played a fun game of chance, rolled the dice and paved the road with the memory - - even number: let you go… odd number: eat you up.
I tend to turn up the radio when traveling, listen to upbeat music and think pleasant thoughts. Hell, I even pray a little as I travel toward the darkening horizon and bleeding sunset.
October’s 13/#2 - Dead Serious
That damn virus killed almost all of America, at least everyone I ever knew and loved, took our dreams and most of our wants. It left some alive… like those healthy slabs of red meat I see lurking behind the glass at the old butcher shop.
I’ve seen what their guns can do; they’re heavily loaded but it doesn’t really matter because there are more of us than the bullets they are running out of. Oh Lord I hunger for the days when we could embrace our old dreams, grab on tight to all this country had to offer. We are still those Americans - - even in death - - relentless and picky to the end, hungry for what we truly want and right now that would be living flesh. And seriously brother, we want you… fresh.
October’s 13/#3 - Once In A Blue Moon
On the slow days in simmering heat, Moe is content to lie in a loose heap and ponder the butterflies and bees that zigzag about, one-eye the few chickens that peck about the untended yard. The warm familiarity of the dog-eared porch is a steady comfort as he waits for the woman to return. There’s not much desire to stir things up, not much need to stretch out bony bones; those days are mostly behind him… but once in a while… once in a blue moon… something will stir…like the other night when that fox came rifling through… he’d jumped to the call, off the porch for the chase and fight, all that play stuff except, it hadn’t been a fox. Something bigger and upright on two feet had swiped at him, blurred on through and left a rake of nail that seared his hindquarter.
The woman hasn’t been around, more than likely down the road closing down the bar like she’s apt to do on a sweltering night like this. Moe’s hip is now a puffy black furrow, the scratch itching hot and personal and an even sweeter itch simmers just below the surface - - the insatiable need for flesh and blood to wet his mouth; he is pleasantly aware how his teeth ache and protrude and how - in drifting sleep - he is comforted with panting dreams that buzz through his head like annoying wasps, only the wasps now roar with the sound of a terrible ripping and he finds himself loping with purpose, faster than the wind, down the blue moonlit road toward light and laughter on the edge of town.
October’s 13/#4 - Frankly-Doctor-You-Make-Me-Crazy
i-not-think-good-for-nice-words. body-sore-from-needle-holes-and-slice-parts. doctor-say-I-truly-alive. me-grateful-for-all-parts-he-give. only-hate-blue-jolt-he-repeat-send-through-my-being-while-he-laugh-crazy-to-sky. jolt-work-first-time-and-now-annoy-with-fry-brain-and-once-he-finish-with-new-hand-sew-i-help-remove-laugh-from-crazy-him-face.
October’s 13/#5 - Six Feet Under
The Crawley kids are talking to a therapist. I’d be too if I’d found what they did. Joey White and Donald Forrester buried a blood-smeared mannequin’s hand in the kiddies’ sandbox by the park, a cool Halloween prank for sure but the kids ran home crying, got their folks and police involved.
There’s something else going on out there; camera crews are clogging the neighborhood streets and TV reporters are running haywire like it’s an OJ crime scene as the police barricade off the playground, blocking access to the park. My friend Henry’s dad is a cop and he overheard him talking with the other police officers, though I’m not sure Henry heard it right. There’s more to it, something about what those guys didn’t bury… or perhaps did… something about feet… real feet… lots of them… at least three bodies worth.
October’s 13/#6 - What Lies Beneath
October 31, 1947:
We, who live in the small hamlets along the northern territory shoreline may have seen something fall from the sky, crash into the deep bowl that was our lake; if we did see, nothing was said, only whispered.
October 31, 1960:
New housing developments overshadowed our lodgings when investors cashed in on the wilderness and wine colored lake; over the years we listened to their complaint - lack of wildlife to hunt, the poor fishing catch - and we told them it was just the way of nature.
October 31, 1973:
The mysterious disappearance of four boaters and their boats brought about an investigation by federal authorities but the cases remained unsolved as the lake - - a deep crater 2000 feet deep - - left no clues; we who knew left offerings near the water’s edge; the disappearances stopped.
October 31, 1986:
The developments went the way of ghost towns as strange sightings were reported on the lake and in the surrounding woods; several locals went missing and were dismissed as ‘runaways’ but we knew what we’d done; there were no investigations by the local authority.
October 31, 1999:
Only a few families remained on the lake and those who stayed and understood continued to leave what was necessary beside the water’s edge.
October 31, 2012:
Our skates cut the thin veil over the ice pond and we follow the blowing tornados of snow across the glass surface; something wide knifes beneath the ice and I sense the deep water below about to boil but I am not afraid.
October’s 13/#7 – Skittles
He’ll do his part this night, string up the clattering bones and frayed cobwebs, wire the crinkled spiders and worn leathered bats, and light the surgically carved pumpkin. Oh yes, he’ll put the usual work into it, hell, he believes a skull when properly painted can look quite real, almost like it could smile again. Inside the house, he’ll turn out the lights and wait in the quiet knowing that before long the heavy shout of ‘trick or treat’ will land upon his doorstep and despite the darkened windows, the doorbell will ring over and over echoing no answer and the little devils will disappear. Much later, the last of them will trundle by, usually the greedy ones eager to cash in on the last of the sweet things. Shaking the atrophy that tortures his limbs, he will skittle up from the basement, plucking clots of dirt from his swollen features. And when they see him dressed like them in full nightmare attire, they will scream - knowing it’s too late - and try to run and he’ll raise a ruined face to the whitening sky - bulging feelers encircling - and oh yes, the treat will be on him.
October’s 13/#8 - Let It Out
Okay… open your mouth, take a deep breath and let it out. Oh… no, no, no… you call that a scream? Please, try it again and this time really let it go, the louder the better. Don’t worry. No one can hear you. It’s only you… and me… and this most interesting room.
October’s 13/#9 - There’s This Place
Here in the rural outskirt, there’s a shadowed road that weaves like a long black snake through swamp and thicket marked with buckled shanties that sprout like boxwood along its roadside, and if by some mistake you’ve taken this road, found your way down round Wellman’s Bog, you will come upon a nameless trailer park - a ramshackle of disintegrating trailer homes contorted every which way like some abandoned train wreck. There are no streetlights or paved driveways here, no white picket fences or beautiful gardens, no fancy cars or big-wheeled trucks… just a pool of society that has slipped from the mainstream and exist near the bottom; some may have a thing or two to hide but most are simple folk who choose to live quietly, wish only to be left alone.
Down in nearby Mallorytown, there is rumor this place is the Meth-man’s hangout, a zippie-hippie commune, a gypsy camp… a witch’s coven. It is easy to label what is not understood, to mistake what is seen, challenge what is believed… and should one poke around here late after midnight, well, there are things to been seen that may surprise - - turned-over cans and knotted bags of garbage may lean like deformed goblins and jitter in the dark when the wind grabs and tickles them… a smoke stained curtain may move and contort, then take on the appearance of a skillfully dissected face… blackened metal drums, the ‘trash burning’ type might belch a strangely pleasant “cooked” smell.
And should a hand touch your shoulder while you’re poking about, be glad that it’s only me because I’m mostly harmless, somewhat of a discarded scarecrow you might say that’s lost a bit of its stuff. I cannot tell you how long I’ve lived here but if you come in, stay for a spell, I will gladly show you why.
October’s 13/#10 – Nightmare Girl
She calls well after midnight, tells me she’s going to be late. “Please don’t be mad,” she pouts. “It’s been so busy tonight.” Truthfully, I’m not mad, just spoiled and lazy after all these years. My girl will do anything for me; she’s a nurse down at the county hospital. She knows what I am and bless her heart… actually believes she’s saving lives by delivering what I crave.
October’s 13/#11 - Little Horrors
For Fletcher Chapman, the little horrors of Halloween night are pure joy. He eagerly answers each knock, drops handfuls of candied treats into the outstretched bags, and savors the shrieks of ‘Trick or Trick’ and ‘Thank You!’ that echo around him in the October night. He is almost brought to tears as he watches them rustle away across his lawn like tumbling leaves.
Tomorrow is only a few hours away. Fletcher knows that in the morning, the real horror will begin. In the glare of new light, he will need to endure the torture of strangling traffic on his way to work, a monster of a boss lurking over his shoulder, his mummified secretary Betty’s clawing voice, the office trolls that scurry from the elevator and flow darkly down the halls, Connie’s poisonous cooking waiting on the dinner table, the silent zombies pretending to be his children and most of all, the specter of another year trapped in life’s suffocating nightmare.
October’s 13/#12 - In Our Town
No one goes out this night. Here, the earth binds and bends, gives up its contents in oily vomit, wet worm stench and all. Building exteriors blister and boil, statues and facades exhibit carvings of sutured faces bathed in blue moonlight, avenues of blasted trees stretch like black boned fingers, their silhouettes clutching and grabbing at the maw of night. Unspeakable monstrosities loll in every corner, slither over bridges, coil and cut along the gutters and walkways. Windows burn orange in blackened sockets and bristling lawns stab and carve, the waning moon, a rolling eye. Any other night though, it’s quite pleasant for an evening stroll… really.
October’s 13/#13 - Mixed Bag
It’s a mixed bag on our street but we’ve got it sorted out. The trick is to start with the Richardsons across from my house because they’re loaded and not chintzy with the sweets and buy nothing but Ghirardelli chocolate and oh man, it’s all King Size. Then it’s next door to the Shrewburys who are professional Christians but goddamn amateurs when it comes to trust and they naively leave their bountiful offerings out on a chair next to a pumpkin where we happily load up our bags to start the evening. From then on we take our chances, for it’s a ‘grab and run’ fest as we head around the block.
I’ll tell you, it’s hard to say if it’s a scarecrow that answers the door or just old Mr. Finn in suspenders yelling, “you damn kids get off my yard!” but we know he tends to be loose in his thoughts so we’ll wait patiently until he dribbles some candy into our bags though last year he dropped two cans of Campbell’s tomato soup in mine… then we’ll slide next door to Dr. Mullin’s house which is no problem as he is happy to dump handfuls of sugary loot into our bags being our family dentist and all… then it’s two doors down to Joey Perdomo’s place which smells like cabbage and Joey’s old man, Mr. Perdomo, will yell something like ‘those little fags again’ from his broken recliner … then we’ll drift back across the street, through the hedge, where we’ll skip the young couple at number 113 because they never answer the door though we’ll stop to take a peek because last year I swear I saw the woman standing at the living room window with her bare snacks on display… then it’s over to the Wilfords where no matter how good my disguise, Mrs. Wilford will squeal through her clown makeup, “that’s a super costume William!” while she doles out homemade bullshit like wooden cookies and teeth-breaking toffee which she’ll say are “healthy alternatives” or some crap and we’ll smile and shout, “gee, thanks Mrs. Wilford!!!” then grenade them into old man Finn’s yard on the way home…but not until we’ve hit the Docklees, Crabtrees, Neidermiers and Chans who are all pretty generous with the candy and compliments, though the year I wore my Zorro outfit and lost my moustache and hat, Mr. Chan made the mistake of thinking I was some sort of a black-caped Ninja or something and everybody laughed at me. One thing for sure, we’ll skip the houses where we know the loners live because there’s no need taking a chance on getting poisoned or ending up in Emergency with a razorblade lodged between your teeth and gums… I mean it’s no way to end the night unable to bite into all that pure sweetness.
A trickle of seepage invades my blue jeans and I shake a little from the chill that grips and cramps my lower spine, pulls me tight to the dank stench of cold concrete, the stink of mental institution and I wonder if that’s where this sewer leads. Flat on our bellies and sweating like hot-dogs in the narrowing tunnel, my nose brushes Mitchell’s rubber heels and my flashlight falters over his thin shoulder where the beam stops against dark solid air; quietly listening, I’m beginning to have second thoughts. It’s the sound of late after midnight when the house walks and shifts and settles old cracking beams and bones, when echoing rain rumbles high on the roof and everyone you love is wrapped in warm dreams, everyone but you, alone, twisted and fitful in the dark, clutching the damp crooked sheets. And it’s there in the dead of night when you are surprisingly aware, when every sense is heightened and every sound now dons some perverted face with a slanted shape and a writhing purpose, when imagination truly gives birth and your ears become eyes and for the first time you begin to see all the possibilities. Mitchell continues to babble on, something about how this was my idea in the first place and that I should now go first and I want him to shut up and listen, listen because I hear something and it sounds like it’s oozing - - as if you can hear something oozing - - a sticky clop, a detached sound and I notice my jeans are now soaked through. Mitchell’s still talking but all I hear is something coming and I’m thinking I might just back away, inch down quietly and leave Mitchell to do what he does best and that’s to talk this out on his own because he doesn’t have much of an imagination, not like me anyway and he doesn’t see it, not the way I see it.
October’s 13/#1 - Somewhere Between Good and Evil
There are a slew of stories told by long haulers about a stretch of highway between the coasts where they say God and the Devil crossed paths while thumbing through America; it’s a stretch of bad karma, mysterious disappearances, unexplained occurrences where travelers inexplicably up and vanish into thin air leaving no answers or calls… just gone; and what happened at that crossroad, how it went down between God and the Devil… shit, one can only guess but one story went like this.
There may have been a struggle… a reckoning… an old-fashioned duel between madmen. And the exact spot of this encounter, Somewhere USA - - somewhere between fading cornfields and dirt cities, perhaps on a curve of blacktop a few miles outside of your own quaint town, a faulty bend in the road slightly past midnight. Perhaps they played a fun game of chance, rolled the dice and paved the road with the memory - - even number: let you go… odd number: eat you up.
I tend to turn up the radio when traveling, listen to upbeat music and think pleasant thoughts. Hell, I even pray a little as I travel toward the darkening horizon and bleeding sunset.
October’s 13/#2 - Dead Serious
That damn virus killed almost all of America, at least everyone I ever knew and loved, took our dreams and most of our wants. It left some alive… like those healthy slabs of red meat I see lurking behind the glass at the old butcher shop.
I’ve seen what their guns can do; they’re heavily loaded but it doesn’t really matter because there are more of us than the bullets they are running out of. Oh Lord I hunger for the days when we could embrace our old dreams, grab on tight to all this country had to offer. We are still those Americans - - even in death - - relentless and picky to the end, hungry for what we truly want and right now that would be living flesh. And seriously brother, we want you… fresh.
October’s 13/#3 - Once In A Blue Moon
On the slow days in simmering heat, Moe is content to lie in a loose heap and ponder the butterflies and bees that zigzag about, one-eye the few chickens that peck about the untended yard. The warm familiarity of the dog-eared porch is a steady comfort as he waits for the woman to return. There’s not much desire to stir things up, not much need to stretch out bony bones; those days are mostly behind him… but once in a while… once in a blue moon… something will stir…like the other night when that fox came rifling through… he’d jumped to the call, off the porch for the chase and fight, all that play stuff except, it hadn’t been a fox. Something bigger and upright on two feet had swiped at him, blurred on through and left a rake of nail that seared his hindquarter.
The woman hasn’t been around, more than likely down the road closing down the bar like she’s apt to do on a sweltering night like this. Moe’s hip is now a puffy black furrow, the scratch itching hot and personal and an even sweeter itch simmers just below the surface - - the insatiable need for flesh and blood to wet his mouth; he is pleasantly aware how his teeth ache and protrude and how - in drifting sleep - he is comforted with panting dreams that buzz through his head like annoying wasps, only the wasps now roar with the sound of a terrible ripping and he finds himself loping with purpose, faster than the wind, down the blue moonlit road toward light and laughter on the edge of town.
October’s 13/#4 - Frankly-Doctor-You-Make-Me-Crazy
i-not-think-good-for-nice-words. body-sore-from-needle-holes-and-slice-parts. doctor-say-I-truly-alive. me-grateful-for-all-parts-he-give. only-hate-blue-jolt-he-repeat-send-through-my-being-while-he-laugh-crazy-to-sky. jolt-work-first-time-and-now-annoy-with-fry-brain-and-once-he-finish-with-new-hand-sew-i-help-remove-laugh-from-crazy-him-face.
October’s 13/#5 - Six Feet Under
The Crawley kids are talking to a therapist. I’d be too if I’d found what they did. Joey White and Donald Forrester buried a blood-smeared mannequin’s hand in the kiddies’ sandbox by the park, a cool Halloween prank for sure but the kids ran home crying, got their folks and police involved.
There’s something else going on out there; camera crews are clogging the neighborhood streets and TV reporters are running haywire like it’s an OJ crime scene as the police barricade off the playground, blocking access to the park. My friend Henry’s dad is a cop and he overheard him talking with the other police officers, though I’m not sure Henry heard it right. There’s more to it, something about what those guys didn’t bury… or perhaps did… something about feet… real feet… lots of them… at least three bodies worth.
October’s 13/#6 - What Lies Beneath
October 31, 1947:
We, who live in the small hamlets along the northern territory shoreline may have seen something fall from the sky, crash into the deep bowl that was our lake; if we did see, nothing was said, only whispered.
October 31, 1960:
New housing developments overshadowed our lodgings when investors cashed in on the wilderness and wine colored lake; over the years we listened to their complaint - lack of wildlife to hunt, the poor fishing catch - and we told them it was just the way of nature.
October 31, 1973:
The mysterious disappearance of four boaters and their boats brought about an investigation by federal authorities but the cases remained unsolved as the lake - - a deep crater 2000 feet deep - - left no clues; we who knew left offerings near the water’s edge; the disappearances stopped.
October 31, 1986:
The developments went the way of ghost towns as strange sightings were reported on the lake and in the surrounding woods; several locals went missing and were dismissed as ‘runaways’ but we knew what we’d done; there were no investigations by the local authority.
October 31, 1999:
Only a few families remained on the lake and those who stayed and understood continued to leave what was necessary beside the water’s edge.
October 31, 2012:
Our skates cut the thin veil over the ice pond and we follow the blowing tornados of snow across the glass surface; something wide knifes beneath the ice and I sense the deep water below about to boil but I am not afraid.
October’s 13/#7 – Skittles
He’ll do his part this night, string up the clattering bones and frayed cobwebs, wire the crinkled spiders and worn leathered bats, and light the surgically carved pumpkin. Oh yes, he’ll put the usual work into it, hell, he believes a skull when properly painted can look quite real, almost like it could smile again. Inside the house, he’ll turn out the lights and wait in the quiet knowing that before long the heavy shout of ‘trick or treat’ will land upon his doorstep and despite the darkened windows, the doorbell will ring over and over echoing no answer and the little devils will disappear. Much later, the last of them will trundle by, usually the greedy ones eager to cash in on the last of the sweet things. Shaking the atrophy that tortures his limbs, he will skittle up from the basement, plucking clots of dirt from his swollen features. And when they see him dressed like them in full nightmare attire, they will scream - knowing it’s too late - and try to run and he’ll raise a ruined face to the whitening sky - bulging feelers encircling - and oh yes, the treat will be on him.
October’s 13/#8 - Let It Out
Okay… open your mouth, take a deep breath and let it out. Oh… no, no, no… you call that a scream? Please, try it again and this time really let it go, the louder the better. Don’t worry. No one can hear you. It’s only you… and me… and this most interesting room.
October’s 13/#9 - There’s This Place
Here in the rural outskirt, there’s a shadowed road that weaves like a long black snake through swamp and thicket marked with buckled shanties that sprout like boxwood along its roadside, and if by some mistake you’ve taken this road, found your way down round Wellman’s Bog, you will come upon a nameless trailer park - a ramshackle of disintegrating trailer homes contorted every which way like some abandoned train wreck. There are no streetlights or paved driveways here, no white picket fences or beautiful gardens, no fancy cars or big-wheeled trucks… just a pool of society that has slipped from the mainstream and exist near the bottom; some may have a thing or two to hide but most are simple folk who choose to live quietly, wish only to be left alone.
Down in nearby Mallorytown, there is rumor this place is the Meth-man’s hangout, a zippie-hippie commune, a gypsy camp… a witch’s coven. It is easy to label what is not understood, to mistake what is seen, challenge what is believed… and should one poke around here late after midnight, well, there are things to been seen that may surprise - - turned-over cans and knotted bags of garbage may lean like deformed goblins and jitter in the dark when the wind grabs and tickles them… a smoke stained curtain may move and contort, then take on the appearance of a skillfully dissected face… blackened metal drums, the ‘trash burning’ type might belch a strangely pleasant “cooked” smell.
And should a hand touch your shoulder while you’re poking about, be glad that it’s only me because I’m mostly harmless, somewhat of a discarded scarecrow you might say that’s lost a bit of its stuff. I cannot tell you how long I’ve lived here but if you come in, stay for a spell, I will gladly show you why.
October’s 13/#10 – Nightmare Girl
She calls well after midnight, tells me she’s going to be late. “Please don’t be mad,” she pouts. “It’s been so busy tonight.” Truthfully, I’m not mad, just spoiled and lazy after all these years. My girl will do anything for me; she’s a nurse down at the county hospital. She knows what I am and bless her heart… actually believes she’s saving lives by delivering what I crave.
October’s 13/#11 - Little Horrors
For Fletcher Chapman, the little horrors of Halloween night are pure joy. He eagerly answers each knock, drops handfuls of candied treats into the outstretched bags, and savors the shrieks of ‘Trick or Trick’ and ‘Thank You!’ that echo around him in the October night. He is almost brought to tears as he watches them rustle away across his lawn like tumbling leaves.
Tomorrow is only a few hours away. Fletcher knows that in the morning, the real horror will begin. In the glare of new light, he will need to endure the torture of strangling traffic on his way to work, a monster of a boss lurking over his shoulder, his mummified secretary Betty’s clawing voice, the office trolls that scurry from the elevator and flow darkly down the halls, Connie’s poisonous cooking waiting on the dinner table, the silent zombies pretending to be his children and most of all, the specter of another year trapped in life’s suffocating nightmare.
October’s 13/#12 - In Our Town
No one goes out this night. Here, the earth binds and bends, gives up its contents in oily vomit, wet worm stench and all. Building exteriors blister and boil, statues and facades exhibit carvings of sutured faces bathed in blue moonlight, avenues of blasted trees stretch like black boned fingers, their silhouettes clutching and grabbing at the maw of night. Unspeakable monstrosities loll in every corner, slither over bridges, coil and cut along the gutters and walkways. Windows burn orange in blackened sockets and bristling lawns stab and carve, the waning moon, a rolling eye. Any other night though, it’s quite pleasant for an evening stroll… really.
October’s 13/#13 - Mixed Bag
It’s a mixed bag on our street but we’ve got it sorted out. The trick is to start with the Richardsons across from my house because they’re loaded and not chintzy with the sweets and buy nothing but Ghirardelli chocolate and oh man, it’s all King Size. Then it’s next door to the Shrewburys who are professional Christians but goddamn amateurs when it comes to trust and they naively leave their bountiful offerings out on a chair next to a pumpkin where we happily load up our bags to start the evening. From then on we take our chances, for it’s a ‘grab and run’ fest as we head around the block.
I’ll tell you, it’s hard to say if it’s a scarecrow that answers the door or just old Mr. Finn in suspenders yelling, “you damn kids get off my yard!” but we know he tends to be loose in his thoughts so we’ll wait patiently until he dribbles some candy into our bags though last year he dropped two cans of Campbell’s tomato soup in mine… then we’ll slide next door to Dr. Mullin’s house which is no problem as he is happy to dump handfuls of sugary loot into our bags being our family dentist and all… then it’s two doors down to Joey Perdomo’s place which smells like cabbage and Joey’s old man, Mr. Perdomo, will yell something like ‘those little fags again’ from his broken recliner … then we’ll drift back across the street, through the hedge, where we’ll skip the young couple at number 113 because they never answer the door though we’ll stop to take a peek because last year I swear I saw the woman standing at the living room window with her bare snacks on display… then it’s over to the Wilfords where no matter how good my disguise, Mrs. Wilford will squeal through her clown makeup, “that’s a super costume William!” while she doles out homemade bullshit like wooden cookies and teeth-breaking toffee which she’ll say are “healthy alternatives” or some crap and we’ll smile and shout, “gee, thanks Mrs. Wilford!!!” then grenade them into old man Finn’s yard on the way home…but not until we’ve hit the Docklees, Crabtrees, Neidermiers and Chans who are all pretty generous with the candy and compliments, though the year I wore my Zorro outfit and lost my moustache and hat, Mr. Chan made the mistake of thinking I was some sort of a black-caped Ninja or something and everybody laughed at me. One thing for sure, we’ll skip the houses where we know the loners live because there’s no need taking a chance on getting poisoned or ending up in Emergency with a razorblade lodged between your teeth and gums… I mean it’s no way to end the night unable to bite into all that pure sweetness.
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