Yellow Mama Archives

Kenneth James Crist

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Coasting

 

By Kenneth James Crist

 

“What the fuck, Elaine!” David was pissed, mostly because he wasn’t getting his way. He was winding up into temper-tantrum mode and I was throwing shit into boxes, working fast, because this wasn’t going well. I was moving out and there was nothing David could do about it. We had lived together in his off-campus condo for a year, but now it was over. He just wasn’t getting it, yet.

“We’ve been over this, David. I don’t love you. I made a mistake moving in here in the first place and for that, I’m sorry, but I just have to move on. I was too young and naïve to know what I really wanted, and I thought living with you would be fun. I was wrong.”

“Wait. Wait, we had lotsa fun together, Babe. . . .”

“No, you had fun, David, making me do things for you . . . to you. As usual, getting everything your way. You’re a rich, spoiled, know-nothing, David, and I can’t stand being with you, anymore. I don’t know how I could make it any plainer.”

He went into his normal pouting mode, slumped on the couch with his lower lip hanging almost to the floor. It was almost comical, I thought, and I kept right on boxing things up and carrying them to the pickup I’d borrowed from a friend for the move. I didn’t have a car. My dad had offered me one of the pickups from the farm in Kansas, but I had declined. I was in my second year at a college in Massachusetts, on a scholarship, and my bicycle did just fine for getting me around. Kept me from having to go to the gym and endure the stares from all the jocks, too. In between playing with his iPhone, David continued glaring at me. That was another thing I was sick of. Playing second-fiddle to his phone. We couldn’t get through a meal or spend any time without him glued to the damned thing.

I’m what you might call a Kansas corn-fed farm girl all the way. I was raised in a no-nonsense environment of honesty and hard work. David was almost the complete opposite. He was raised by doting parents in a filthy-rich world that I couldn’t even conceive of, a world of little or no responsibility and anything you might want. I had reached the point that I’d had enough, and besides, I had recently  met the perfect man.

I met Monroe in the library, a place that was steadily failing as the internet took over as The Source for most college students. They could jump on the ‘net, plagiarize others’ work to their heart’s content, rearrange some wording, and get their “B+” grade and move on. I hadn’t been raised that way. I believed in doing my own work and getting the credit for it, not to be shared with anyone else. It turned out, Monroe was that way, too.

I’d started going to the library because I got tired of using David’s laptop and I couldn’t afford my own. It seemed everything I did on David’s computer was subject to his inspection, and even though he made mediocre grades at best, he always felt he could advise me on every paper and project.

I caught Monroe peeking at me over the terminal he was working at, sneaking looks at me almost constantly. At first it was irritating, but then it got to be cute, like watching a chipmunk waiting for a treat. And Monroe was definitely good-looking, although he didn’t seem to know it. The exact opposite of David.

David enjoyed tooling around in his custom-painted Corvette, paid for by doting Daddy, and watching all the campus cuties swoon while he ogled their bods, even when I was right there in the car with him. Monroe, it turned out, drove a four-year-old Camry that he’d worked and sweated for, gutting out those “easy” car payments as a carpenter’s apprentice at a cabinet shop in town. He was one of those guys who wanted a college degree, plus a trade that he could fall back on. In the event he wasn’t able to find a teaching job right away, cabinet-making paid at least as well as teaching, maybe better.

On that first day, when I met Monroe (Monroe was his last name and what everybody called him—first name Travis, which I seldom used except when we were making love. More on that later) I had finally gotten tired of the peek-a-boo routine and I just reached out and pointed at him and said, “Hey, Sport-o, how ‘bout some coffee?”

He had stumbled and stammered, also very cute, and finally we headed off to a Starbucks a block south. Over small lattes, I had checked him out, as he had been checking me out. He was taller than David and slimmer, but in a rawboned way. His hands were work-hardened and his face was angular, softened somewhat by a Clark Kent set of horn-rimmed glasses that magnified his hot blue eyes slightly. He had the little curl of dark hair on the forehead, too. He was quite a package and he was definitely interested.

“So, Monroe, why the library? Is that where you normally pick up girls?” I was being a bit of a bitch and I knew it, but I decided he might as well get the full treatment right up front. If he panicked and ran, well, maybe he didn’t deserve to even get to first base. After David and his spoiled-ass, expectant ways, I was ready for something different. And did I ever get it. In spades.

“I don’t have my own computer yet. And I can use one of the ones at the library free, so I spend a lotta time there.”

“Yeah, okay. I’m from Kansas, and I’m not rich, either. Up here on a scholarship and all. My dad would prefer I not be so far away from home, but . . . ” I realized I was babbling and made myself stop. Monroe was grinning at me. Straight, white, even teeth. Good dental care. A great smile. Damn, he was pushing all my buttons and he didn’t even know it.

“Well, there’s one thing we have in common,” he said, “being poor is okay, though. Makes ya work harder and you appreciate the things you do get that much more. So, there I am at the library at least four nights a week.”

I finished my latte and said, “Guess I’ll see ya, then, okay?”

“I hope so,” was all he said, that first night. I was still with David then and I had gone to the condo and curled up with him and sucked his cock just the way he liked me to, then mounted him and raced to keep up and get something for myself before his usual quick ejaculation left me unsatisfied, as he had done so many times before. And it wasn’t too hard to do that particular night, because I was thinking of Monroe and what it might be like to have his workman’s hands on me the whole time. . . .

Weeks went by and spring came to Massachusetts, all in one day, or so it seemed, and dammit, I fell in love. Big-time. Monroe had a loft over a garage four blocks from campus, and I found myself studying there more and more. “Studying” included a lot of fooling around and lovemaking breaks after the first few nights.

That was how we thought about it: Lovemaking, not just fucking. Because Monroe was different in that area, also. He was never in a hurry. He was always amazed by my body, which I didn’t think of as anything special. His touch was always gentle and yet when he touched me there, and there, and especially THERE, he awoke something in me that I’d never known I had. The man definitely set me afire.

His man-parts were average. His chest was brawny and covered with hair. His hands were hard, but gentle and loving. His attentions to my lady-parts drove me into a shaking, gasping mess and he loved to make me cum. I never had to hurry or try to catch up with Monroe. He usually got me off several times before he permitted himself the pleasure of orgasm. After a couple of weeks, I knew he was gone on me, too, and that was good.

I had hated facing the move-out, because I knew David so well. I knew how spoiled he was and how he felt he owned me. I saw him now as a petulant child and I couldn’t wait to get away from him. I knew he was vengeful, too and I was just a little afraid of him. Not too much, though. I had pinned him once when we were just wrestling for fun in the living room. He pouted for days and claimed I cheated, but I knew better. Having grown up on a farm and had my own share of chores to be done without fail every day, I knew I was just the stronger person. He had never hit me and that was a good thing, because I was pretty sure I would have kicked his ass quite handily.

I loaded the last of my stuff and fired up the pickup and headed for Monroe’s place. It was far enough away, I figured I wouldn’t have to keep running across David every time I turned around. And for that, I was glad. I looked back once as I left and saw David standing on the front stoop, hands on his hips, glaring at me. Maybe I shouldn’t have laughed, but right at that moment, I couldn’t help it.

It was a glorious summer. As soon as the semester ended, we took off for Kansas, riding the Trailways bus to Wichita, where my family met us. We stayed at the farm, my family’s farm, for two weeks, sleeping apart for decency, sneaking off to make love whenever we could, because we had to.

When our stay there was over, we took another bus to Indiana and went to his folk’s place. They were a bit more open-minded and Monroe and I shared a bed for the next two weeks. We made love at night, slowly and as quiet as church mice, with just the occasional giggle slipping through. Monroe’s mom said we made a cute couple.

~~~~~~~~

The summer was miserable for David. He was not only spoiled, he had a decided lack of coping skills and he spent the summer brooding about Elaine and her new guy. He missed her, to be sure, and he told himself it was because he loved her so much. But it really was because her leaving him was such a blow to his ego. Before he went back to college in the fall, he paid a visit to his dad’s man-cave and procured what he needed to take care of the situation. As he headed back to school, he was a little happier. He knew everything would work out okay, now.

~~~~~~~~

Monroe and I worked through the rush of getting our classes set for the semester. We compared schedules and arranged everything so we would both get the classes we needed, but we could still have the maximum amount of time together. The first week went smooth as silk and Friday afternoon, we left the library early. As we walked outside, hand-in-hand, there was a sudden sound from beside me. It sounded like an axe splitting wood. I will always remember turning to Monroe and seeing the wide-eyed look of shock on his face and the bloom of blood on his chest. He staggered backward and then just collapsed. Looking back, I think he was dead before he even hit the ground. The far-off sound of the rifle shot barely registered in my mind and I found myself screaming and trying to hold onto Monroe, even as his blood and his precious life were slipping away.

At the spot where Monroe landed and the spot where I wound up, we were behind a concrete park bench, which was probably all that saved my life. The firing of the rifle went on and on, and others were screaming and taking cover. Some were falling, struck down by the unreasoning rage and ego of my ex-boyfriend, David. He had stolen his dad’s AR-15 rifle and thirty rounds of ammo and he intended to use it up.

When he was at last surrounded by cops, being basically a coward, he dropped the rifle and gave up without fighting the police. Later, I heard that several of the officers were sorely disappointed they didn’t get a chance to kill him. Final score: three dead, thirteen wounded. David was booked into jail on three counts of capital murder and thirteen counts of attempted murder by use of a firearm.

And there he sat in jail, because there was no bail allowed for what he had done. I once again rode the bus to Indiana and attended Travis Monroe’s funeral. My heart was broken and it matched the grief of his parents. Somehow, we got through it, and when it was over, I went back to the college to somehow continue my studies. And to plan for the next event in my life.

First, I shipped a lot of my stuff home to Kansas and then, with the bare minimum of possessions, I moved back into the dorm. I got stuck with a roommate who was a total squeaky-voiced airhead. She could have been an irritation and a vexation to the soul, but I would not allow it. I ignored her. Blocked her completely out. I had too much to do in preparation for what was coming next.

In addition to keeping up with my studies, I self-educated in anatomy and biology, learning enough that semester that I could have easily aced any final exam in either discipline. For the other thing I needed, though, I turned to the internet. I hardly ever shopped online for anything, but I needed it to find one single item. The technology was just new enough, I couldn’t find what I needed in the books or catalogues available at the library.

Once I found what I needed, I ordered it, expensive though it was, and had it shipped by overnight express. David’s trial date was fast approaching and so was the event I was planning. The package arrived three days before David went on trial. The box was four-and-a-half inches long and one-and-a-half inches wide. It weighed four-point-three ounces. The contents fit nicely into my front jeans pocket, and there I would keep it until event time.

 

Day One of David’s trial. It was tedious to the extreme. Jury selection was a pain in the ass. An unnecessary pain in the ass, I thought. Picking a jury for someone like David? The cops should have made him kneel, right there on the grassy knoll, which was how I thought of his firing position, and shot him in the back of the head and left his carcass for the crows to pick clean. To commit such a heinous act as multiple murder of innocent people with an assault rifle, be taken into custody, and then be somehow magically transformed into a “suspect” was personally repugnant to me.

But, the jury selection was necessary so that precious David, coddled David, spoiled-ass David could be assured of a fair trial. He had no less than three attorneys at the defense table with him. The best legal talent that money could buy, to cross-examine and browbeat every witness, to examine and question every action of the police and every piece of evidence, to use every means, fair or foul to get David off, worthless David, the evil, spoiled little shit. And whenever they would bring him into the courtroom, the fucker would smirk at me. Impossible to believe I had ever liked this man enough to move in with him. To . . . well, to do the things he liked so well. . . .

Day Two. More jury selection. The triple-threat attorney team was plowing through jurors as my Dad used to say, “like shit through a goose,” getting them knocked off willy-nilly. At this rate it would be a month before actual proceedings began.

Day Three. People were becoming bored with the whole process. The courtroom, which had been packed on Day One, was now down to half-full. Good. Very good. Boredom and apathy would only work in my favor. Hopefully, in a few more days, people would be asleep in their seats. One could only hope.

It seemed to me that David was enjoying himself immensely. It was apparent that he was quite sure Daddy’s money and Daddy’s legal team would get him off, if not scot-free, then with a minor slap on the wrist. He had taken to pushing his swivel chair back from the defense table and leaning back against the wooden rail that separated the judge and legal folks from the commoners who were merely there to spectate.

Day Four. I arrived early and was first into the courtroom, when the Bailiff unlocked it for the day’s business. I took a seat in the front row, directly behind where David would be sitting. And I waited. As I waited, I thought about the love of my life, now tucked away so neatly in his grave, never to love me again, never to touch me again in his special way. I would never again hear his voice or lay my head on his chest and hear the stalwart beating of his heart. That had been forever stilled by the thoughtless act of a spoiled, jealous twerp of a coward.

I snapped out of my reverie as the bailiff called the court to order. Rose to my feet as the judge entered. Slipped my hand into my pocket and withdrew the very expensive Boker super-ceramic folding knife. A knife I had carried into the courtroom each day, without once setting off the metal detector. The blade was black as obsidian and three times sharper than any metal razor. The grips were of black carbon fiber. As black as David’s soul. It was double-edged and designed to last a lifetime. And it would. Last a lifetime. Not mine, but David’s.

The prisoner was brought in and after he was seated, his handcuffs and belly chains were removed. His feet remained shackled as a precaution against him attempting to flee. More jury selection. More boredom. More examples of excellent attorneys doing what they do best. Litigating and generating billable hours.

David leaned back against the rail and got comfortable. Today, he was being aloof. If he had even noticed me when he was led into the courtroom, he had given no sign. I gave it a couple of minutes. I looked back at the exit doors. The security guard was all but asleep on his feet.

Then, I flicked open the blade of my weapon and reached forward, casually and almost nonchalantly shoving the super-ceramic blade between the vertebrae in the back of David’s neck. It went in so easily, it was almost like cutting Jell-O.

I severed David’s spinal cord, and nothing moved. There was no shaking. No convulsions. Nothing. Except David ceased to live. No heartbeat. No respiration. No signals from body to brain that anything was wrong. No signals from brain to body telling the heart, lungs or the rest of the nervous system what to do. I had learned the biology and anatomy. I had learned it well. There was almost no blood.

Then, I just stood up and walked out to the center aisle and calmly out of the courtroom. I might have been headed out to the ladies’ room. The security guard even opened the door for me. Out in the hall, I picked up the pace a little, but I still did not run. I walked to the bike rack and retrieved my bicycle, adjusted my backpack and mounted the bike.

I rode south, down the hill toward the center of town, upshifting through the gears and building speed, coasting occasionally, then shifting up again and accelerating, always accelerating. Five blocks down the hill, I again coasted, then accelerated and shot through a red light intersection, not caring about the traffic. The bus station was now eight blocks ahead. The seat of the bicycle was rubbing me in a sensuous manner, almost like a lover. All the money I possessed was in my pockets, and the bus was still the most anonymous way to travel.

A freshening breeze lifted the hair away from my neck. It had been many months since I had felt this free. And no matter what happened from here on, I was satisfied that everything was as right as I would ever be able to make it.

Behind me, way back, miles away, over the roar of morning traffic and other city noise, I heard the barking of the first police sirens. . . .








Salton Sea

A Barry Wilder Short Story

Kenneth James Crist

 

It’s never a good deal when your dog dies. When you lose one of your all-time best friends and your dog within a month of each other, it totally sucks.

Roland Nesper was a retired Sheriff’s detective from Carbon County in Wyoming. He and Iva Gonzalez had moved down to Wichita with me and Iva had paid for that decision with her life. We had been ambushed right at my own home and it had been our final contact with the cartel and the bloodthirsty bunch of assholes who made up that jolly band.

Commando Cody, the huge Doberman, had been trained initially as a bomb dog for the Carbon County Sheriff’s department. That didn’t work. He was too enthusiastic for bomb work. They cross-trained him for drug work. Again, too much enthusiasm. When it was decided he would be put down, Roland stole him and after that he was Roland’s and Iva’s and mine, too, I guess. We had all loved him and cared for him equally, but after Iva was killed, I began to see him decline. Roland and I worked with two different veterinarians, but they were both of the same opinion. Large breed dogs tend to have shorter life spans, and even dogs in relatively good health eventually die.

My personal opinion was that he died of a broken heart, pining for his mistress. When his time came, he was curled up in his bed and one morning he just didn’t wake up. Roland and I took turns digging his grave in the hard Kansas soil behind my house. We buried him wrapped in Iva’s old leather bomber jacket and we put in a box of dog treats and several of his favorite, chewed up toys. When we were finished, neither of us had much to say. Roland took off his glasses and mopped his face with his bandana. It wasn’t just sweat he wiped away. He walked off toward the house and, when he was out of earshot, I said, “Goodbye, Cody. You were a good dog and a good friend. I’m sure I’ll see you soon. Take care of Iva until I get there.”

There are those who believe that heaven isn’t open to animals. That they have no souls, and they know nothing of God or Jesus or Vishnu, or Yaweh or any deity, so they cannot enter the Kingdom. I believe those folks are full of shit. Commando Cody had been highly trained and highly functional. He had saved lives and taken lives and, since I never knew him as a puppy, I often wondered if he had always been a serious warrior, dedicated to the protection of his people. Dogs who serve as Cody did deserve a place in whatever we call the afterlife. To paraphrase Will Rogers, “If dogs can’t go to heaven, when I die, I want to go wherever they go.”

Roland didn’t have it that easy. He already had two stents in his heart when he came to live in Wichita. We both knocked around my big old house, as content as two old guys can be in each other’s company, both nursing our losses and wishing things had turned out differently.

Commando Cody had been in the ground not quite three weeks, when Roland and I were sitting at the breakfast table, having morning coffee and he suddenly said, “Shit, that hurts!”

I said, “What?” But he wasn’t answering. He keeled over and slid to the floor, managing to break his own fall, barely knocking his glasses off. He was clutching his chest and I snatched up the phone and called 911, getting paramedics started. I found Roland’s nitroglycerine pills and got one under his tongue.

Firefighters from Station 17 arrived and started CPR and the ambulance took him to the emergency room. He survived that heart attack, too. Roland was a tough sumbitch. The following day the cardiologist decided to try and place another stent and during the surgery, Roland coded, and they were unable to get him back. I’m convinced he was halfway over to the other side and heard Cody barking and just said, “Fuck it, I’ve had enough, c’mere, Good Dog!”

I had Roland’s Power of Attorney and he had mine. He wanted to be cremated and I had that done. I drove his ashes up to Natrona County in Wyoming, and had him interred right next to Iva. When it was all over, and I was once again alone, I fell back into my old ways. I took Thumper, my Harley Ultra Classic, to the dealer for a tune up and oil change and while he was in the shop, I cut off the mail, put all the house plants outside and made sure all the utilities were on auto-pay. When Thumper came out of the shop, I packed my shit and hit the road.

As I had done many times before, I looked at the weather forecast and picked the direction in which I would encounter the fewest storms. I headed southwest. In one day’s ride, I was in Pueblo, Colorado and I stopped for the night. The following day, I rode to Taos, New Mexico, one of my favorite old haunts. I visited Kit Carson’s grave and also that of the famous actor, Dennis Hopper. I stayed the night, gambled a little at the tiny Indian casino, then moved on.

Southbound toward Las Cruces, the weather warmed, and I was soon in shirtsleeves and getting baked in the good, dry desert heat. Sometimes, when things have been going shitty, it takes several days and numerous tanks of gas to get my head straightened out. Moving on from the loss of friends is one of the most difficult things for me to deal with. In my imagination, a whole group of friends rode along with me and Commando Cody paced my bike, whenever he wasn’t distracted by a rabbit.

From Las Cruces, I headed further south and west, into the eerie desert country near the Mexican border. The last time I came that way, I had been going the other direction and had been caught by a storm. I had sheltered in an abandoned gas station and had been joined by a Western Diamondback rattlesnake, or perhaps by a woman. It had been a strange episode. I knew the snake was real and I dreamed the woman, but her footprints were there when I awoke. Now, as I travelled west, I watched for the old gas station, but I never saw it. Never even saw any place where it might have been. That in itself was disturbing. It was not the only disturbing episode I’d ever had when riding alone and somehow, I was sure it wouldn’t be the last.

When I reached Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, I decided to be a tourist for a while. I still had a National Park senior pass I’d bought at the Grand Canyon years before and the Ranger at the entrance allowed that it was indeed still valid. Best ten bucks I ever spent.

The day had turned exceptionally warm for the time of year, this being October, and I found myself buying extra water at the gift shop before I moved out into the park. I had done the tour and seen all the huge old cactus plants a guy would ever care to see, and I was headed out, when I stopped at a turnout that had restrooms. Figured I’d hit the can one more time before I headed further west.

When I stepped out of the restroom, there sat the most worn-out, bedraggled Jack Russell terrier I’d ever seen. No collar or tags. She just sat in the shade provided by the roofed overhang of the restrooms and panted. I looked her over and I knew she was in trouble. First, there was no one around. Second, there was nothing to drink, and third, she had accumulated several cactus spines in her feet.

I know enough about dogs to know that they cannot sweat. Therefore, they pant, to get rid of excess heat. Without water and shade a dog can sicken and die very quickly. I walked over to the bike to get some water. The Jack stayed right where she was, watching me. When I pulled a bottle of water out of the tour trunk, she saw it and stood up. I saw her tongue flop out and I could see it was swollen.

I walked to the trash barrel nearby and rooted around and found a Styrofoam container and popped it open. There was some dried ketchup in it, but it would have to do. I walked back to the dog and put the container down and poured it half full of water. She set to, lapping it up. As she drank, I walked around the area, looking for anyone else who might be around. I needed to find this little lady some help. There was no one but me.

When I returned, she actually wagged her stump of a tail and looked at the water bottle expectantly. “Okay,” I said, “but if ya make yourself sick, I’m not cleanin’ it up.” I poured the rest of the bottle into the improvised bowl and watched her go after it while I thought about those cactus spines in her feet. I knew that the cactus plants naturally shed a certain number of spines every year. She probably picked them up wandering the park. I supposed I’d never know how she came to be out here abandoned and alone.

I went back to the bike and pulled my tool kit and got out needle-nose pliers. I sat on a bench that was tucked up against the restroom wall in the shade and when the Jack was finished drinking, I gave her a couple minutes. She went around the building sniffing and peeing, but never letting me out of her sight. Finally, she came over and sat at my feet.

I petted her for a few minutes and talked to her, then carefully lifted her up to join me on the bench. I showed her the pliers and told her what I was about to do and that it would probably hurt. I started with the back feet, snatching the cactus spines out quickly. They had been in her feet long enough that none of them bled and several appeared to be infected. They would require more attention later.

My next problem was getting her to ride on a motorcycle. We’ve all seen Jack Russell terriers perform on stage and in circuses. They are one of the smartest and most agile breeds, but training must begin early for almost any dog to be comfortable on a motorcycle.

I walked her over to the bike and let her sniff her way around it. She carefully avoided both tires and I took that as a good sign. She was smart enough to know about the dangers of wheeled vehicles. In a few minutes, I lifted her up and set her on the seat. I figured that would be fine, until I started the motor. That’s when almost any animal will bail—when the machine starts making all those scary noises.

I let her get used to sitting on the seat while I put on helmet and gloves. Then I threw my leg over and sat down with her, putting her on the saddle in front of me. She turned and looked up at me and I didn’t quite know what her expression was telling me. I stood the bike up and flipped up the kickstand. She looked over the side to see what that noise was. I turned on the ignition switch and the fuel pump whined, and the radio came on. I killed the radio. I figured we didn’t need The Eagles right then, doing Witchy Woman.

With my left hand, I steadied the dog and with my right thumb, I reached out and touched the starter. I expected the Jack to bail right then, in a mad scramble to get away from this two-wheeled work of the Devil. I felt her shiver and she looked up at me again. I figured this deal might work out after all. I could feel her tail wagging, catching me right in the crotch. “Well, okay,” I said, “let’s do this.” I clicked the shifter into first and the Harley made its characteristic clang as it went into gear. I eased the clutch out and we rolled off, headed out toward the ranger station. In spite of the heat, I could feel the dog pushing herself back against me.

We rode several miles and when I rolled up to the ranger station, I killed the engine and the ranger tried to wave me through. I stopped and called him over.

“Sir?” He was looking at the dog and speaking to me.

“Has anyone reported losing a dog in the last few days?”

“Not that I’m aware of, but let me check a couple things. Sit tight for a minute.” He went back inside and picked up a phone. Talked for a minute. Hung up and made another call. Talked again. Hung up and made a third. Finally came back out and said, “No reports we’re aware of. Do ya wanna turn her in? We can have animal control come out and get her.”

The Jack turned and looked back up at me again and I knew what the score was then. “Nope. Think I’ll just take her along and we’ll see how that works out. Have a nice day.”

I started the bike again and we moved on out. I spent the first fifteen miles expecting the dog to just go, fuck this! and jump, especially whenever we leaned into a curve, but she hung in there and we soon rolled into a place called Ajo and I decided we’d call it good. I figured my new friend could use some chow, and air conditioning wouldn’t hurt, either.

I picked a small, single-story motel called, predictably, the Cactus Motel and got us a room. The dog waited outside the office and the desk guy asked, “Is yer dog house-broken?”

“Probably better than most of your guests,” I said, grabbed the key and went to the room.

When we got inside, the dog made the rounds, checking everything out. I watched her carefully to see if she was going to do anything she shouldn’t. In a few minutes, she jumped up on the bed, turned around a couple of times and lay down. I headed for the shower.

 

Thirty minutes later, we headed out to find food. I had no leash, but the dog stuck close and didn’t seem inclined to run off. We walked a couple blocks and found a hamburger joint with outside seating that was in the shade. I went to the window and ordered two double cheeseburgers, one plain and one with everything, a large order of fries, a Coke and a water, easy on the ice. I sat at an old red-painted picnic table that was scarred with many names carved into the wood. The dog ate off the wrapper of her burger and licked the paper clean. I fed her fries while we talked. I knew I was going to have to come up with a name and a collar and vaccination tags, and a leash would probably be a good idea, too. I was sure these were all things she was used to. After we ate, we walked around the town a bit and she got barked at by some Pit Bulls and some junkyard dogs. I was looking to see if there might be a veterinarian’s office, but I never saw one. We wound up back at the motel, watching TV on one of the three channels available until just past ten, when she jumped off the bed and went to the door. I let her out and watched from the door as she made her rounds. When she was ready, we went to bed. As I was drifting off to sleep, it occurred to me that this Jack Russell was getting me trained quite nicely.

In the morning, I knew her name. I don’t know how. I didn’t know then and I still don’t. I just woke up and looked at her, curled up beside me on the hard motel bed and said, “Bonnie, you ready to go out?”

In characteristic Jack Russell fashion, she bounded off the bed and yapped at the door. I said, “Hush now. Let’s not wake everybody up. Go do your business.”

She quieted immediately and went out into the lot, then found some straggly grass. I didn’t watch her. I figured if she was inclined to leave me, she would at some point. Might as well be sooner as later. I left the door open an inch and went to use the can. In a few minutes, I heard the door squeak as she shouldered it open and then her nervous pacing as she looked for me. Heard her sniffing and blowing under the door. Then, she tried to dig her way under. I said, “Hey. Quit that. I’ll be out in a minute.” She stopped digging and blowing and when I came out of the bathroom, she was again curled up on the bed.

We rode on up highway 85 to Gila Bend, where I was able to find a pet supply place and they clued me in on where to find the best vet in town. By noon, we were sitting in the vet’s waiting room. Bonnie was wearing a new collar and was on a leash. A box of liver-flavored doggie treats had been added to the cargo in Thumper’s trunk and we were next up to see the doc.

When the vet came in from lunch, I had a bad moment. She looked so much like Iva, the resemblance was uncanny. She was obviously Hispanic, but her name was Curry. Angelica Curry, DVM.

As she examined Bonnie, I told her how the dog came to be in my possession. “First thing we should do then, is see if she’s microchipped,” she said. She tucked Bonnie under her arm and confidently marched off down the hall somewhere. In a couple minutes, she was back. “Looks like you got yourself a free dog, Mr. Wilder. There’s no sign of a chip. So, I guess we’d better get her current on shots and get a fecal smear to check for parasites. No chip means no records, so we gotta start from scratch.” As soon as the doc said, “scratch,” Bonnie sat down and scratched her right ear with her back foot. The doc and I looked at each other and then we both laughed. Bonnie tilted her head, wondering what the joke was. She looked like the dog ‘Nipper’ in the old RCA ads, his head tilted just the same, listening to “His Master’s Voice.”

A half hour later, I had spent a hundred and eighteen bucks and Bonnie had a rabies tag and we were on our way. We had some ointment to put on her feet to help the cactus spine punctures heal and the doctor assured me that as soon as I put it on, Bonnie would try to lick it off. “Try to keep her occupied for a while after you apply it, so it has time to soak in and do some good.”

The day was hot, and we rode west on Interstate 8 toward Yuma. The heat of the sun and the heat off the Harley’s engine were tough on me and I knew Bonnie had to be suffering. We made frequent stops for water and potty breaks and just to find some shade. We stopped in Yuma and found a Dairy Queen and got ice cream. I figured this would be a novelty for the dog, but once she got started on it, I realized it was not her first rodeo. She worked the waxed cardboard cup all over the sidewalk and reduced it to sloppy shreds in short order. More water and more potty time, then we rolled into California. When we pulled out of Yuma, I tried putting her on the back seat, thinking she’d be further from the engine heat. It didn’t work. Up front was where she wanted to be and she almost fell off once before I could get pulled over into the breakdown lane and move her back in front of me.

Another fifty-seven miles put us in El Centro, and after a break, during which I gave Bonnie a rubdown with bottled water, we went north on state road 86 toward the Salton Sea. This was a huge lake that had been created in1905 by an engineering problem with the Colorado River and it had become quite a booming tourist attraction for a number of years. Since the 1970’s it had been in the process of dying. The salt content of the lake, along with pesticide runoff from farming in the Imperial and Coachella Valleys had killed off most of the marine life and the receding shoreline had killed the hopes and dreams of many entrepreneurs and property owners. I had wanted to see it before it was all gone back to desert and besides, it was on my bucket list. I figured it would be a glimpse into the past and also a good example of environmental disaster. I was right.

Just about everywhere we stopped, the skeletons of dead fish littered the shoreline and the place stank of death. There were whole towns that were abandoned, and they might have been fun to explore, but I figured there might be quite a bit of danger there, too. I didn’t need Bonnie getting attacked and killed by a wild dog or further injured by falling through a floor or something. Her cactus spine injuries were enough for her to deal with at the moment.

I did stop at several places that were just too picturesque to pass up. I took pictures of an old salt-encrusted pier that fell a quarter mile short of reaching the water. An abandoned motel that was now the target of taggers and vandals. An old boat, left high and dry several hundred yards from the water. A ruined aluminum house trailer, half filled with weeds and trash. At each stop Bonnie ran and sniffed and came back for more water. It was at the old trailer where we found the girl.

When she staggered out into the sunlight, Bonnie went right to her. No hesitation at all. But the girl turned away, as though she were afraid. I tried calling Bonnie, but she wasn’t inclined to return. I was also looking around for a car or any other form of transportation. I flashed back to when I found Bonnie, alone and left for dead in the National Monument.

I approached the girl slowly. I could see she’d been beaten and her clothes were torn. She looked to be in her late teens, maybe a little older, but not much. Her eyes were dark, and the wide planes of her face indicated Indio blood. As she saw me, she looked like a deer in headlights. She was ready to bolt, to try and run away. But she kept looking at my hand. I realized I was still carrying a bottle of water. I held it out to her as an offering of peace. She backed up another step. Thinking quickly, I sat the bottle on the ground, called Bonnie and backed away. When I was back fifteen feet, the girl moved forward, picked up the bottle and moved away again. She opened the water and drank greedily, glancing at me from the corner of her dark eyes, making sure I wasn’t moving on her.

When she had finished the water, I said, “You’re in trouble. How can I help?”

“You stay away from me…” Her jeans were ripped up, but I was pretty sure that was just fashion. People seem to have the desire to pay big bucks for torn-up shit nowadays. Her shirt was a feminine-styled T-shirt and it was torn, too. I was quite sure that wasn’t a fashion statement. She was holding herself together, not just the shirt, but her injured psyche, too.

From my back pocket, I pulled something I seldom use. When I retired from the Wichita Police department, I was issued a black leather wallet containing a retirement badge. I opened it to show her the badge and the retirement ID. She was too far away to realize it said I was no longer a cop.

As I tucked the badge wallet back into my pocket, I said, “What happened here?”

Suddenly, it clicked. I was safety. I was The Law. I was the person who would get her out of whatever horror had befallen her. Then, she rushed me, and I caught her as she threw herself in my arms and I held her as she sobbed and wailed and bawled out her pain.

Getting the entire story out of her took a half hour. I needed to get myself and Bonnie into shade, but the girl, Lupé Rodriguez, would not go near the trailer. Her story was a tale of abduction and rape and threats that if she came back and told, she would die.

She knew her abductors. She was from San Bernardino, and she had been working hard to keep her younger brother away from drugs and the local gangs. For her trouble, and as a lesson to her and others, they had abducted her at gunpoint and brought her here. Tortured her and raped her. Beat her and left her for dead.

Between Lupé and Bonnie, they finished off the water, so I knew we needed to move on down the road. I went to the bike and dug out the extra helmet. It’s a shorty helmet that doesn’t take up much room and it was packed full of socks and underwear. I got it out and gave it to Lupé and said, “I’ll take you home or to the nearest police station we can find. Your choice.”

She said, “No. No police. They’ll kill me.” She didn’t mean the cops.

I said, “Not if I find them first.” I dug a clean t-shirt out of my saddlebag and gave it to her. We had no water left, so I could do nothing about the crusted blood around her nose and mouth. She turned her back to me and stripped off the remnants of her own shirt. She wore no bra. Whether that was by choice or she had lost it to the thugs, I never found out. From what I could see, she was well endowed, but seeing the livid bruises on her body turned off any sexual desire I might have had. My t-shirt swallowed her up, being many sizes too large, but it covered her up too, and it, along with the helmet, would make her harder to recognize if we came across her attackers along the way.

I showed her how to mount Thumper’s rear seat and I avoided touching her as she slowly managed to get seated. Bonnie jumped from the ground and landed on the seat in front of me and we headed north, looking for food and water. And maybe some medical attention, too.

We didn’t see anything but desert until we reached Indio, which sits right on Interstate 10. I pulled into the first service station I saw because Thumper was running on fumes and Lupé headed for the ladies’ room. After I filled up, I moved the bike around front and went inside to get water and snacks. Bonnie sat by the door for a minute, and then changed her mind and went around to the shady side of the building, which also happened to be where the restrooms were.

In a few minutes, Lupé came around to the front, with Bonnie trotting happily at her side. Lupe came inside and went straight to a display of sunglasses. She picked out the largest, darkest pair she could find and looked over at me. Raised her eyebrows. I nodded and motioned for her to bring them. They would help hide some of the damage to her face and further disguise her. On the way up, she had told me about the car her attackers were driving. I was keeping my eye peeled for a white Honda with slammed-down suspension and blacked-out windows. Couldn’t be more than a few thousand of those in Southern California.

As we got ready to go, I asked the clerk where the nearest hospital was. He gave me directions, but when we got back out to the bike, Lupé said, “No hospitals, okay?”

“You need medical attention,” I argued, “there’s no telling what they might have damaged, beating on you like that.”

“No. Too many questions. Plus, the hospital would have to call the cops. If I was gonna die, I would have by now.”

We moved on up Interstate 10, headed toward Palm Springs and Beaumont. It was getting late in the day and it was starting to cool down a bit.

It was as we were passing by Palm Desert that Lupé leaned forward and said, “I just saw the car!”

“Where?”

“Back there, at that casino!”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. It was Hector’s car, for sure!”

I jumped off at the next exit and circled back. Took some confusing side streets and eventually came up on the Agua Caliente Casino and Spa. We cruised through the lot and she pointed out the car. I parked some distance away, and we got off the bike. I dug out my road atlas and phone and started working to find someplace not too far away that I could lure them to. I needed them away from the Interstate. Somewhere more isolated.

The town of Yucca Valley looked pretty good. It had a population of 20,700 souls and was just up highway 62 about thirty-five miles. I got out a pad of paper and a pen and wrote a note. It said, ‘I have Lupé and I know what you did. Yucca Valley tonight, pussies.’ I said, “Stay here,” and walked over to their car and tucked the note under the wiper on the driver’s side. Walked back and we mounted up and rode out. Found highway 62 and went north. I figured whenever they found the note, they would probably get the security at the casino to review the camera footage of the parking lot and they would see the bike and me and Lupé. They would know I was for real and they would need to find me and try to finish what they’d started and shut me down, too.

When we got to Yucca Valley, I figured we had time to eat. We found a diner and got burgers and fries. We both saved some for Bonnie, who was waiting out front by the bike. When we had finished and fed her, we went and found a motel. Nothing fancy, just a mom and pop that looked clean. I got a room with two queen beds and installed Lupé in the room and told her to keep track of my dog, then took off to find somewhere to ditch Thumper.

Less than a mile back the way we’d come from, there was a U-Store storage place. In fifteen minutes, I’d rented a unit large enough to park Thumper in. I would use it once and then disappear. Eventually, maybe after thirty days, they’d check the unit and find it empty and just rent it again. I parked Thumper inside, backed in, so I could get him out quickly. I broke out weapons. I unloaded my Glock Model 22 and carefully wiped off each of the rounds, then put on gloves and put each round back in the magazine, charged the weapon and tucked it in the waistband of my jeans in the back. I figured I might not have time to pick up any expended brass and I didn’t want to leave any prints.

Took out a new ultra-ceramic folding knife and carefully wiped it, too. It had a blade that was probably at least twice as sharp as any metal blade. I liked it because it wouldn’t set off metal detectors. I put it in my right front pocket.

Dug around in the trunk and found my brass knuckles. They weren’t really brass. Actually, they were made of stainless steel and they had half-inch spikes sticking out of each knuckle. Illegal in every jurisdiction I’d ever had occasion to check. They went into the left front pocket. I looked around in the storage unit and saw that they hadn’t bothered to clean it out very well. In one of the back corners, I picked up a dusty old Dodgers ball cap, a plastic Wal Mart bag, and a four-foot chunk of mop handle. Perfect.

*     *     *     *     *

Hector Lopez, Gene Fuente and Mark Jimenez found the note about an hour after it was placed on their windshield. They didn’t go back into the casino. Instead, they flagged down a casino security officer who was cruising the lot.

Hector talked to the guy. “Hey, Bro, you see anybody fuckin around my car?”

The security guy looked like he might be a retired cop. Gray hair, buzzed off short, red face, overweight. Wearing a tan uniform with epaulettes on the shirt. Probably couldn’t run thirty yards to save his ass. “This about the note?”

“Yeah, man. On the white Honda there.”

“Some guy on a blue Harley. Had a chick on the back and a fuckin little dog with ‘em. I was watchin’ pretty close. They didn’t do anything to the car. Just left the note and split.”

“Thanks, man.” Hector didn’t like this shit. The bitch shoulda been dead by now.

As they walked back to the car, Mark said, “I wanted ta choot her, man. I woulda chot her when you was screwin’ her, but you said no…”

Hector just gave Mark the stink-eye and said, “Get in the fuckin’ car, man. Let’s go find this biker asshole. Teach this gringo fuck to mind his own business.”

They piled into the Honda, the screwed-up suspension creaking and groaning as their weight settled in. Hector fired it up and the loud, expansion-chamber exhaust crackled into a rough idle. He slammed it in gear and spun around in the lot and headed for the exit. They would try very hard to be in Yucca Valley in thirty minutes.

In actuality, it took them more like forty minutes. As they came blasting into town, they never even noticed the old dude in the ball cap and jeans beside the road with a stick and a plastic bag full of aluminum cans. He was such a common sight, he didn’t even register. They drove around town for a half hour and found no sign of a blue Harley. They decided they’d stay the night and have another look in the morning. It was getting dark and they were in strange territory. The motel they decided on was a little nicer than the one Barry and Lupé chose. It was about a half mile further north. When they got their key and went to their room they failed to notice the guy with the stick and the bag of cans for the second time.

*     *     *     *     *

I waited until the three idiots were in their room, then strolled across the lot and wandered around the motel until I found a utility room that was unlocked. I stepped in and swung the door until it was open about an inch. From there, I could look past the ice machine and down the row of rooms right to their front door.

“How we gonna find this biker dude, bro?” Gene was pacing back and forth across the room and around the beds. He always paced when he was nervous or agitated. “This fucker knows all about us and we don’t know shit about him.”

“Relax, Bro,” Hector said, “if we don’t get him here, we’ll get him when he brings the fuckin’ bitch back home. That’s where we got the advantage. He’ll come to us if we miss him here. Either way, we’ll cap his ass. Take care a his dumb ass…”

Mark said, “Hey, you guys want somethin’ ta drink? I’m gonna get some ice and a Pepsi.”

Hector pulled out some money and handed it across and said, “Mountain Dew, man. Thanks.”

Gene just shook his head. He was clearly worried.

It didn’t take long. I figured they’d have to have ice and some sodas, and the smallest of the three guys got elected. He came padding toward me barefoot and went to the ice machine first. Filled his ice bucket, then stepped over to a noisy, clanking beverage machine. As he was putting money in the bill acceptor, I stepped out and started to walk past him. As his head turned, I wiped the blade of my knife across his forehead, opening a six-inch slit that went clear to the bone. In moments his eyes were flooded with his own blood and he was effectively blind. As he spun around, frantically wiping at his eyes and face, I carefully stuck him just above the right kidney at an upward angle, perforating his diaphragm. Now, he couldn’t see, and he couldn’t get enough breath to scream. As he stumbled around, I took one more swipe, catching his left carotid artery. I sidestepped the blood spray and walked away.

“What the fuck? He hafta go ta fuckin’ L.A. ta get ice? Jesus, Man…” Gene was still pacing.

Hector said, “Fuck, Dude, if you’re so goddamn worried, go check on the little fucker. Maybe he got his hand stuck in the machine or some shit.”

Out in the parking lot, I crouched between two cars and waited. I figured fifteen minutes, but it only took ten. I guess they were impatient for their drinks. The second guy was a little taller and heavier, and as soon as he came out the room door, I started for him. I reached him just about the same time he saw his buddy, lying by the soda machine. He was so busy staring at the body there on the bloody concrete, I just walked up and slugged him with the brass knuckles. I caught him a perfect shot right in the temple. I had all my weight behind it, and he went down like a sack of stones. There were four perfectly spaced holes in the side of his head. There wasn’t much blood and in a minute, I checked him for vitals. Found nothing. I checked him for weapons and found a nice little Defender .380. Probably stolen. I took it and dragged him over to join his buddy, then scurried across the lot and hunkered down in the ditch at the edge of the parking lot. I tucked the Defender into the front of my jeans. I had a view of the room door from about twenty-five yards away. I waited.

Inside the motel room, Hector was watching Jeopardy and managing to catch about every third answer. He was smarter than he let on. He had actually done almost two years at USC before he figured out he could make more money cooking and selling meth than he’d ever make in legitimate work. He dropped out and went to making drugs full time.

When the program cut to commercial, he suddenly sat up. He realized Gene had been gone six or seven minutes and Mark ten minutes longer than that. Something was going on. Briefly, he thought about the biker dude. Could he be out there? Was he that good? Could he have already fucked up Mark and Gene?

He got up from the bed and picked up an AMT Hardballer from the nightstand between the beds. It was a typical Colt 1911 knock-off, packing 7 rounds of .45 ACP. It was a brutal weapon and very scary-looking. He stepped to the door and cautiously opened it. He never had time to realize it was a mistake.

Six minutes, this time. The room door opened, and the third guy was there, silhouetted in the doorway. I centered my front sight on his head, which was turning right and left, and squeezed off one shot.

A single gunshot in an urban area will seldom even generate a 911 call. People who hear a single gunshot will first ask themselves if it was a gunshot or a car backfire. Most people who commit violence with guns are so unskilled they tend to completely unload their magazine and fire the weapon dry, hoping to hit something vital. Among cops, that’s called “spray and pray.”

My single .40 caliber round entered through the guy’s right eye and caused his head to snap back as it passed cleanly through. I know it passed through, because I saw the curtain on the far side of the room jump as the round struck it. I got up and walked south toward my motel. In seven minutes, I was in the bathroom, washing off a small amount of blood and gunshot residue. Seven minutes after that, I was in bed, with Bonnie curled against me.

From the other bed, Lupé asked quietly, “Did you find them?”

“Sure did.”

“Are they…taken care of?”

“Listen. You can hear the sirens coming.”

“Thank you.”

“My pleasure…”

In the morning, I walked down to the storage place and retrieved Thumper, then we got breakfast and I took her home. When we got to San Bernardino, she directed me to her neighborhood, but then had me stop a few blocks from her house, at a small park. We took bottled water and walked to a picnic table and sat.

“You understand, you can never say anything about this to anyone, right?”

She looked at me, then took my hand and said, “And you can’t either, Mi Amigo.”

“I have something for you, if you want it.” I took the Defender .380 out of my pocket and laid it on the wood beside her. She looked at it. Didn’t pick it up.

“You took that off Mark, huh?”

“If that was his name…”

“He pointed this at me when they made me get in their car.”

“You can keep it. For protection. But it may be stolen, I don’t know.”

“Okay. I’ll keep it hidden. Maybe I won’t get raped again or killed.” She picked up the gun and shoved it in the back pocket of her jeans.

“I’ll be heading out then. Have a good life, Lupé Rodriguez.”

Vaya Con Dios, Barry.” I looked for tears, but there were none.

I walked back to Thumper and Bonnie jumped up on the saddle. I stroked her head and said, “You ready, girl?”

She looked over to the park, where the battered young woman was walking away and yapped a couple of times, then looked back up at me.

       “Nope,” I said, “we gotta go home now. You gotta new house and yard and neighbor dogs to bark at. Squirrels to chase, too. We’d better head on down the road.” I turned on the ignition and thumbed the starter. Bonnie yapped a couple more times as we got under way. The girl never looked back.


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Late One Night, We Killed Them All

A Barry Wilder Short Story

Kenneth James Crist

 

Being home from the road actually felt pretty good for a change. I had been home several weeks, catching up on chores, getting the house cleaned up and the yard ready, doing everything from fertilizing the grass to shampooing carpets.

I was back from a road trip of several months, after the death of two of my best friends. Commando Cody, the big Doberman, had gone first. Natural causes for old Cody. He just got old and when it was time, he went as gracefully as he could. The vet said he was healthy right up until he wasn’t. In other words, he ran out of heartbeats.

Roland Nesper didn’t fare quite so well. He had a series of heart attacks, stents installed and all that, but the heart killed him in the end. I had carried his ashes to Wyoming and planted him next to Iva Gonzalez, a woman we had both loved at different times, but never competed over. I had buried Cody in my backyard, wrapped in an old leather jacket that had been Iva’s.

A lot of the miles I have ridden since the loss of my friends are a blur. There was that incident at the Salton Sea and a major disagreement with some gang people that they had lost, but other than that, the days have pretty much flowed together.

I inherited a dog along the way, a Jack Russell terrier I’ve named Bonnie, and she has taken to the lifestyle like a duck to water. She seldom even lets me out of her sight. I think she’s afraid of being abandoned again, like she was when I found her, wandering in the park at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. She has perfected the art of riding on Thumper’s saddle, either sitting upright in front of me or lying crosswise across my lap.

It was about the time I started running out of chores that I ran across what was at first only a curiosity, but later became a mystery and finally an obsession. On my handy-dandy home computer, I had installed a copy of Google Earth and sometimes when there was nothing good on TV, I would play with the software, like most people, getting satellite views of famous places: The White House, the Taj Mahal, the Pyramids at Giza. Then I started getting interested in things other people had found, mostly by accident. Area 51, which we all know doesn’t exist, but there it was, big as life, overflown by LandSat, the unclassified satellite that takes nice clear pictures everyone can see. I looked at shipwrecks and the hulks of crashed airplanes, based on coordinates anyone can find with the investment of a little computer time.

That got me interested in a game, or sport maybe, called Geocaching, in which people place small boxes or cans at certain hidden places and then publish the GPS coordinates on a website. You make your way to the site, find the cache, log in on a notebook contained there and if there’s anything you want in the box, take it. The only catch was you had to leave an object, too. That was fun for a while and on pretty days, Bonnie and I would go find a couple sites. I always logged us as Barry and Bonnie. Never bothered to tell anyone that Bonnie was a dog. She often left small Milk-Bones as her part of the contribution, and I actually think she was smart enough to understand that someone else would find the box and perhaps give the treat to their own dog.

One evening around the first of May, I was on Google Earth, looking at places in Kansas and seeing how recent the pictures were. Of course, you always have to look at your own house. The picture of my place was almost two years old. The detail, especially whenever a spot was available in street view, was pretty amazing. I “flew” out of town and looked at a couple of lakes in the area, seeing boats and swimmers from the equivalent of just a few hundred feet up. In the back of my mind I wondered, if the imaging from an unclassified satellite was this good, what must the high-performance military birds be able to do? The ones we mere mortals were never allowed to see. I had heard that if the angles and lighting were right, they could read a license tag on a car from orbit.

Skimming across the landscape, I found myself looking at everything from wind farms to combines cutting wheat, to tall granaries, to individual cars on the highways. Far out in western Kansas, I swooped over seemingly endless fields, many made circular by the use of irrigation rigs that travelled slowly around a central point. I swooped over a John Deere tractor with a doll beside it and a guy digging in the middle of a field. I was getting sleepy and I soon turned off the computer and went to bed.

That was at 10:30. At 4 A.M., Bonnie needed to go out and patrol the yard. I got up and let her out and stood on the sunporch with a .40 caliber Glock in my hand. I had been hearing our local coyote pack singing a lot lately. Coyotes get pretty bold at night, even in rather densely populated areas. And they like nothing better than a tasty little dog or cat for a midnight snack. As I stood there waiting and watching Bonnie doing her business, my mind wandered back to the satellite images I’d seen the night before. Something was bothering me about something I’d seen. I almost had it, but then it was gone. A few minutes later, we went back to bed. Bonnie tunneled under the covers and crammed herself against my feet. Gotta love those four-legged heaters. . . .

Over a bowl of raisin bran at a quarter to seven the next morning, my brain finally kicked in and a sudden chill ran down my back. A John Deere tractor with a wagon. A doll beside it on the ground. A guy digging . . . but if that was a doll, why was it as big as a person?

Ten minutes later, breakfast forgotten, I was back on Google Earth, looking hard and retracing my path across western Kansas. It took a half hour to find it again, but there it was. Big green tractor. Wagon hitched on behind, looked to be painted red. Figure of a woman, nude, or partially nude, splayed on the ground. Guy with a gray shirt, overalls and a red ball cap . . . and a shovel.

Digging a grave.

Oh, well, fuck. Here we go. Call the sheriff? What the hell county was it in? This would require some research. I knew how to take screenshots and I got busy. Pictures of the tractor and the guy digging, zoomed in as tight as I could get. Then working my way around, looking for the closest habitation. Finally finding a farmhouse and outbuildings, four miles to the east on what appeared to be a dead-end dirt road. No street view available. More screenshots. Printer working its ass off, printing everything out in living color. Then, looking for the nearest town.

Greeley County. There was Tribune, where the timeline ran through just east of the town, separating Central Standard from Mountain Standard time. I slowly worked my way back north and west, counting squares. Kansas is laid out on one-mile square grids in most areas. Seventeen squares north, and eight west of Tribune.

There was my spot. I switched to the GPS function and laid the crosshairs on the grave the unknown guy was digging. I scribbled down the coordinates and stopped to think about this. What were the chances that the satellite would be right overhead when some guy was burying a body out in the middle of nowhere? If it weren’t for bad luck, this poor schmuck wouldn’t have any luck at all.

But, was he really burying a body? Maybe the crazy bastard knew the satellite would be overhead at a certain time and did this shit for a joke, to show his buds and laugh about over a few beers. Some farmers plowed and planted pictures into their land—the American flag, maybe an actual portrait—knowing satellites and people in airplanes would see their handiwork. Maybe this guy had a goofy sense of humor and bought a blow-up doll and was having some fun.

And what were the chances that I would be dicking around on Google Earth and see the image? I thought, maybe I should run out and buy a lottery ticket . . . because I already knew it wasn’t a doll. And it wasn’t a prank. It was a woman. And she was dead.

Now would be a good time to call the Greeley County sheriff and tell them what I saw. Let them deal with it. But then, I thought, fuck it. This is mine. Why else did this chain of events take place? So I could call some county sheriff who probably has two deputies and three pickup trucks? Nope, I’m gonna take this as far as I can. If I get in too deep, then I can drop a dime on the local boys and bail.

Bonnie started paying attention to me, then. I guess she could smell excitement coming off me in waves. First, I went to the gun safe and looked to my weapons. I pulled out my Mossburg New Haven 12-gauge shotgun. It’s cut off to a legal 19-inch barrel and still retains the original stock and forearm. It is essentially a riot gun. A box of .00 buckshot and a box of deer slugs. Next, my Ruger AR-556 rifle. My “assault rifle,” some would call it, not knowing the AR designation actually came from Armalite, the original Colt model name for the rifle, which was sold to the U.S. military as the AR-15 and the M-16 during the Vietnam era. This one had a starlight scope mounted and sighted in for 100 yards.

Then, handguns. An old European model Berretta 92-S in blued steel, 9-millimeter, 16-shot capacity. A Glock Model 36, chambered for .45 ACP, its barrel threaded for a suppressor, and last, a Smith and Wesson Shield in .40 caliber. Lotta guns? Yeah. I’d rather have ‘em and not need ‘em than the other way around. This would not be a motorcycle trip. I was figuring a lot of dirt and gravel roads and maybe some cross-country driving through fields and rough terrain. I took the guns to the garage and opened up my Toyota Tacoma pickup. In the back seat, there was a doggie “hammock,” which fastened around the headrests and was designed to keep dog hair and other debris off the upholstery. Bonnie didn’t care for it, but I’d left it in the truck because it was easy to hide stuff under and still be able to reach from the front seat. The shotgun and rifle went under this, lying on the seats with the stocks toward the left side door.

In the Tacoma, the back seats unlatch and swing forward, with storage areas behind them. The Berretta went behind the left seat, the Glock behind the right, along with a box of ammo for each. The Smith went to its usual place, in the waistband of my pants, in the back. Two spare magazines went into the center console glove box.

Next, I went to my walk-in closet and started rounding up clothes. I was headed for farm country, and while I was not kidding myself about trying to blend in, I still rummaged around and found some old bib overalls that fit, some plaid flannel shirts, and some clodhopper boots that still had mud on them from the last time they were worn. I packed a medium-sized duffle and included my shaving kit and all the stuff I normally keep in there. I completed my ensemble with a couple of cheap, giveaway ball caps, one in black, with a Cat Diesel Power emblem, and one in red with Northcutt Trailers on it. Northcutt had a facility in north Wichita.

I thought about taking Bonnie to the animal hospital a mile from my house and having her boarded, but I knew she was smart enough she could prove useful, and besides, I hated leaving her. The look of reproach I would get from her would just about freeze my heart. I grabbed a bag of kibble and her water bowl and packed those in the truck and a half-case of bottled water went in the bed, under the locking tonneau cover. I threw in a spade and shovel and a pickax. I strolled across the street to Steve and Jeannie’s house and told them I’d be gone for a few days. They would pick up my mail and the daily paper and keep an eye on the place.

When we were ready, Bonnie hopped up into the truck and we set the alarm on the house and rolled out. I stopped on west Kellogg and filled the tank and we cleared town just before ten o’clock.

A hundred miles west lies the small town of Greensburg, Kansas, made smaller on the night of May 4th, 2007 when about 95 per cent of the town was destroyed by a tornado. Now, eleven years later, much of the town had been rebuilt, but there were parts that would never return. It was being rebuilt with an eye toward energy efficiency and was touting the slogan “Greenest Town in Kansas.”

I pulled into the Dillon’s store on the south side of the main drag and let Bonnie out to run. I said, “If ya got business to take care of, now would be a good time.” I watched her as she slipped around the back of the truck and carefully assessed the traffic, then, when the coast was clear, she set off across the street and into a number of vacant lots where a mobile home court had once stood. Once I knew she was safe, I went inside for coffee. My interrupted breakfast hadn’t lasted long and I noticed a display of muffins and snagged two on my way to the register. A few minutes later, I was back at the truck. I looked around for Bonnie, and when I didn’t immediately see her, I began to look around the parking area.

Two stalls to the west was a dilapidated old Chevy station wagon that had once been green. Inside the car were three or four kids sporting dirty faces and snarled hair. By the driver’s door was a fat, red-faced woman who was holding my dog. Bonnie seemed to be undecided as to whether she should be enjoying the attention or struggling to get free.

“This yer dawg?” The woman had a smirk on her face I didn’t like and there was a belligerence in her voice.

“Yep, she’s mine.”

“Ya know it’s ee-legal ta let a dawg run without no leash.”

“You the sheriff?”

“No, I am not. But I know him. I could call him an’ git choo in some trouble.”

Bonnie had now decided she didn’t care for this woman and she had begun struggling. “I’d suggest you put her down now,” I said, “and go call your friend the sheriff, then.”

“I’ll put her down when and if I get ready. Maybe I’ll just keep her for my kids, since she was runnin’ at large.”

I smiled tolerantly and then said, “Okay, Bonnie. Tell the nice lady bye-bye and let’s go.” I opened the truck door and Bonnie kicked her struggles up a notch. The fat woman had her hands full now and Bonnie had entirely lost her friendly demeanor. I heard the woman say, “Damned mutt, settle down!”

Then, Bonnie clamped down on the webbing between her thumb and index finger, whereupon the woman started shrieking. It didn’t take her long to let go.

Bonnie shot over to the truck and jumped into the passenger seat, as the woman continued to howl and hold her bleeding hand. I added insult to injury by saying, “I’d get that looked at, if I were you. She’s had her shots, but ya just never know.” By this time half the kids in the car were staring, and the other half were bawling. Mama got hurt and they weren’t quite sure how all this was going to turn out.

“I’m gonna sue yer fuckin’ ass! That animal’s dangerous!”

I decided I’d had enough at that point and I stepped over to the woman and moved up well within her personal space. Very quietly I said, “Her name is Bonnie. You had no business touching her, and in spite of that, she saved your miserable life today.”

Now she was sniveling, and she whined, “Whatta you mean?”

I eased my Smith and Wesson out of my belt just far enough that she could see it, but it wasn’t visible to anyone else. I said, “She kept me from having to shoot you dead in this parking lot. Go home and put some peroxide on yer fuckin’ hand and forget this ever happened.”

As I got in the truck, the woman had retreated into her car and was wrapping her hand with a filthy handkerchief and staring at me. I smiled at her and waved as we pulled out. Bonnie had discovered the muffins and had forgotten all about the woman dog-napper. As we rolled on west, we shared the muffins and had a good laugh.

Our total time to Tribune was four-and-a-half hours. When we got there, I decided we needed a place to stay before we did anything else. A room at a Best Western cost us eighty-six bucks, which included a “dog deposit,” presumably in case Bonnie ate all the wallpaper and sheetrock or destroyed the carpeting. I looked at the weather channel and discovered there would be a full moon that night, and I decided right then that I would go find the proper spot and do my digging in the dark. I fed Bonnie and we took a nap.

At around eight-thirty, we were on the move, grinding slowly up and down dirt and gravel roads, trying not to raise too much dust or attract too much attention. The area was all but deserted. I decided we should take a turn past the nearest habitation, the farmhouse I’d seen in the satellite photos. I pulled out the pictures I’d printed out and kicked on the dome light. I found the house and figured out where we were and then cruised on, making a couple turns and then we were moving up the dead-end road. The house wasn’t really a house, as such. It was more of a compound. At first glance, it reminded me of the Reverend David Koresh’s compound near Waco, Texas, where the U.S. government had backed itself into a corner it could not get out of gracefully and had wound up killing a shitload of people.

There were six buildings, but none that actually looked like a proper house. All were painted the same shade of tan and roofed in the same green metal. And other than that, there wasn’t much to see. Except a big green John Deere parked in the grass beside the biggest building. And a guy with a rifle standing in the yard. There was a big halogen yard light on a pole, lighting the place up like daylight, and the man with the rifle was making no effort to be stealthy. The rifle was some kind of lever-action carbine, probably a Winchester or maybe a Marlin, most likely a .30-30. He had it casually balanced back on his shoulder, holding it one-handed. He was comfortable with it, for sure. I was stopped at the end of the driveway and I decided to just play it cool. Just some guy who’s lost. Nothin’ ta see here, folks.

I put the truck in reverse and K-turned across the drive and drove away, feeling a cold spot on the back of my neck. I watched the rifle-guy in my mirror as we left. He never took the rifle down from where it was resting on his shoulder. He kept his eye on us as we left and as we were almost out of sight, I saw the flare of a match or lighter as he lit a cigarette.

“Okay, Babe,” I said to Bonnie, “let’s go dig us a hole.” Fifteen minutes later, the Toyota was tucked in behind the hedgerow on the east side of the correct field and I took the shotgun, the shovel, and the pickax, and we took a stroll.

Bonnie found the spot, as I knew she most likely would. In the drenching moonlight, her coat looked almost silver, and the ground was level enough, it was easy walking. My portable GPS got me within about five yards of the spot, and Bonnie did the rest. She walked right to the spot, where the ground was actually mounded slightly, and stood and then sniffed and pawed the dirt.

“Yep, that’s the place, Bonnie. Good girl! Let’s find out what’s down there.”

I slipped on some leather gloves and set to work. The pickax was not needed. The soil was loose enough, it was easy digging. Twenty minutes and I could smell what Bonnie had been smelling from above the ground. The body had ripened quite a bit. I was surprised the coyotes hadn’t been digging at the spot. I only removed about two and a half feet of dirt before I saw blonde hair and another ten minutes of careful work fully exposed the corpse of a woman, maybe twenty-five.

I dug out a small flashlight and took a long look around, then turned on the light. Near her feet, there was a cheap black plastic purse. I tossed it to one side and examined her as closely as I could stand. I would be throwing away the gloves. She had been beaten badly enough that her head appeared misshapen and I saw no other signs of injury. No gunshots. No stab wounds. Beaten to death, evidently. I turned off the flashlight just as Bonnie growled, and a woman’s voice said, “Freeze! Federal agent! Do not move!”

I let go of the shovel and raised my hands. Bonnie was still growling and I knew in just a few seconds, she would erupt into shrill, furious barking. “Bonnie. It’s okay. Settle.”

“Take off the gloves and drop ‘em.” The voice had a slight shake, maybe excitement, maybe fear. Definitely nerves. I don’t like nervous, armed people. I did what I was told.

“Hands behind your back. Don’t do anything stupid.”

I placed my hands behind me and my thumbs were grasped in one hand and cuffs were applied with the other. Very quick, and very professional. A very bright flashlight came on and the woman said, “Gettin’ ready to move her some place better?”

“No ma’am. Just seein’ if what I thought was here really was here.”

“Sounds like you and I need to have a talk. First, I’ll read you your rights….”

She proceeded to do that. I didn’t tell her I knew my rights better than she did. I didn’t figure it was the right time. She picked up my shotgun and checked it, stripping the rounds out of it and rendering it safe. “Let’s leave the shovel and pick here. We’re gonna take a walk to my car.”

She had parked right behind my truck and I had heard and seen nothing. She was good. At her car, she opened the back door and said, “Take out your ID and give it to me.” I surrendered my wallet and then she said, “Watch your head getting in. . . .”

There followed a few minutes in which she and Bonnie sat up front and she talked on her radio and petted my dog. Finally, she hung up the mike and said, “Okay, Wilder. Retired cop. One of the good guys. Vouched for by about thirty different people, even at this time of night. So exactly what the fuck are ya doin’ out here, diggin’ up a body?”

I told her all about my chance viewing of the burial going on, shot by satellite and my curiosity and need for something to do. She took my keys and went to my truck and retrieved the satellite pictures and looked them over.

Finally, she said, “Where ya stayin’?”

I named the motel and she said, “Okay. There’s a recovery team comin’ here to take . . .” She looked at a driver’s license she’d taken from the black purse. “Janey Rickett out there to a morgue and work the crime scene. I’ll follow you to your motel and we’ll see if we can get this shit straightened out.” She let me out of the car and uncuffed me, handed me my keys and wallet and let my dog out. Back in my truck, Bonnie stood with her back feet on the passenger seat and her front feet on the dash, watching the road and periodically looking over at me. I felt like she was enjoying the shit out of me getting arrested by the FBI.

When I reached my motel, I walked to my room and stood waiting while Bonnie ran the lot and took care of business and the FBI talked on her radio some more. Finally, Bonnie came back and we went in. I left the room door ajar and went to use the restroom. In a minute, I heard Bonnie’s collar tag jingle and I figured she was on the bed. When I came out, the agent was by the bed, again petting Bonnie and making friends.

“I should introduce myself,” she said, hooking her red hair back over her ear. “I’m Carolyn Foster, AIC of Western Kansas Division.”

I shook her hand and only thought to myself, Holy shit! Agent-in-charge? She’s young for that. . . .

“So, Mister Wilder—”

“Barry.”

“Barry, then. What do you imagine is going on out here?”

“No idea. Some guy’s idea of a quickie divorce?”

“Not exactly. I’m just glad I found you out there tonight, instead of the Mission of Life Ministry idiots. . . .”

“So, you’re dealing with a religious cult?”

“They just like not paying taxes. And having total control over their brides, the adults and the children.”

“The compound out on the dead-end road?”

“Yeah, you were out there, too?”

“Just long enough to turn around in the driveway and get some looks from a sentry they had posted.”

“This Janey Rickett was one of theirs, I’m pretty sure, but the women are brought out so seldom, we can’t even be sure of that. We know they have some really young girls there and that they marry them as young as eight years old, then let them grow and develop and consummate the marriages later.”

“When they’re of legal age?”

“Not always. The few times we’ve been able to even talk to any of the women, it’s been apparent they’ve been browbeaten and brainwashed into believing their leader sitteth at the right hand of God Almighty.”

“What’s his name?”

“Chas Burgher. He’s a big, mean, nasty son-of-a-bitch. Doesn’t care much about personal hygiene, either. I ran across him in Tribune once, in the Dollar Store. His body odor alone cleared the place out.”

“Have you tried finding some way to get an operative inside?”

“Twice. Both agents have gone missing. No contact and no reports after the first day. Both young women agents, cute and smart. They may just be captive, or they may be dead. We can’t be sure, but I’m not sending in another agent.”

“So, can’t you get a warrant and raid the place?”

“No, not really. I sent the agents in off the books.”

“It wasn’t authorized through channels?”

“No. I fucked up, and I’ll be the first to admit it. Now, I’m at a loss. I don’t know what my next move is gonna be.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t do anything. . . .”

She sat down on the end of the bed, still petting Bonnie. “What’s that mean?”

“Maybe if you just bide your time, the problem will solve itself. . . .”

“Huh. I don’t see that happening.”

“Oh, I think it could, if you and your folks just pull back and put your feet up.”

“Well, now, I can’t allow you to do anything . . . illegal . . . or improper. Besides, you’re just one guy. What could you possibly do, against them? I know they’ve got lots of firepower out there and they have the advantage of ownership. As soon as you step foot on their property, you’re a trespasser, and they could be within their rights to kill you.”

“Know what, Agent Foster? You worry too much.” I stepped over to the door and opened it. “I need to get some sleep. I’ll say goodnight now. . . .”

“Best you go back to Wichita, Barry, and forget about this. If you get in trouble, I won’t be able to help ya.”

“Yeah. I know. G’night, now.”

“Well, okay. I put my phone number in your phone, just in case you might need to talk to me . . . at some point. . . .”

I gave it thirty minutes and then took Bonnie out for another walk. I wanted to be sure Agent Foster was gone. Once I was sure, I took everything out of the motel room and we loaded up and drove back north, toward the Mission of Life Ministry.

I made one stop at a combination truck stop/convenience store and bought a gas can, a gallon of unleaded, and a package of road flares. Nothing illegal, just ordinary, everyday stuff every motorist should have.

I made my approach from the south, since the prevailing wind was from the north-northwest. If they had dogs, I didn’t want to set them off from too far out. I parked the Toyota over a mile south and hauled out the Glock .45. I reached under the driver’s seat and felt for the two Velcro strips and peeled them loose. Into my hand dropped an eight-inch long suppressor, which I stashed in my back pocket.

I grabbed the AR-556 rifle and the filled gas can and road flares. I knelt down and spoke to Bonnie. “Okay,” I whispered, “really quiet now. No barking, okay? Gotta be sneaky. . . .” I was pretty sure she got it, but ya never know with dogs unless you trained them yourself.

We started hiking north, directly across plowed fields, and as we got closer, we kept in the long shadows thrown by the buildings from that extra-bright yard light. We made it to the south side of the largest building, which was a hay barn, and in a quick check of the side of the building, I found a door set into the side near the east end. There was a hasp, but no lock. It had been secured by putting an old, rusty screwdriver through the hasp. I pressed in on the door and silently removed it. I opened the door as quietly as possible, but there was a bit of noise from rusty hinges. There was light inside, but not much. A couple of old, dusty electric bulbs were set high up on two of the walls.

Bonnie and I slipped inside and looked the place over. There was baled hay almost to the roof on the south end, stair-stepping down toward the north end, where there was an old table and a couple of chairs. Maybe this was where the boys came to play cards and get away from the women.

We climbed to the top of the hay bales and settled in to wait. I wanted to hit them at about 4 A.M. It was the best time to attack, when people are at their lowest and most vulnerable. As it turned out, we didn’t get to pick the time. Instead, we got to meet Chas Burgher himself.

We had been in place maybe four minutes, when a door at the north end of the barn flew open and he came in, dragging a small, struggling teenage girl. I watched as he dragged the child to the table and then strapped her face-down with leather restraints I hadn’t noticed before. The upper half of her body was on the table, and her feet were not quite touching the floor. He fastened more restraints around her ankles, to the table legs, as she moaned and begged. She knew what was coming, maybe from experience, maybe from the other women who had been there.

As he yanked down her jeans and panties, I pulled the suppressor from my back pocket and screwed it onto the Glock .45. From a nail on one wall, I watched Chas take down a razor strap. I was familiar with the strap, or “strop,” as it was properly called, from my own childhood. I knew it would cause a lot of pain and if overused, it could cut and split flesh. It was leather on one side and canvas on the other and almost three inches wide. Bonnie was sitting up with her ears raised and she didn’t like this shit at all.

He didn’t waste any time talking, but immediately began smacking her ass with the strap. She wailed and screamed, and he hit her about seven or eight times. I had Bonnie’s collar in my hand, keeping her from bolting down there to try and eat the guy. As we watched, he stopped and talked to her. I could not hear what he said, but I had an idea what was coming next. The girl did too. It was apparent, when she began really fighting the restraints, much harder than before.

I watched Chas Burgher unbutton his overalls and drop them to his ankles. He wore no underwear. He was much too well-equipped for the child he was about to rape, and as hard as it had been to watch the beating, I knew I was not about to let this shit happen.

As he took himself in his hand and stepped forward behind her, she took a deep breath. She was ready to scream loud enough to raise the roof. I squinted down the barrel of the Glock, over the suppressor and squeezed off one shot. He had just tipped his head down to watch his own penetration and the round took him in the top of his head. It blew a fine mist of blood out onto his back and he toppled backward onto the floor, dead before he hit the dirt.

There was silence for a moment, and then Bonnie was scrambling down, headed to the girl. I followed her down and went to the table and got out my ceramic knife and cut her restraints.

“Get yer jeans pulled back up and we’ll get ya outta here,” I said.

“Who are you?” She was sniffling and wiping her nose on the back of her hand. “You the cops?”

“Nope, but you’re safe now. Not gonna let anything happen to ya. What’s your name, Sweetie?”

“Ellie. Eleanor. Eleanor Miner.”

“How long ya been here, Ellie?”

“A . . . about a month, I guess. They grabbed me right off the street in Denver. I think they were gonna send me someplace. Maybe overseas, like to some Arab place. I got in trouble with him, ‘cause I wouldn’t behave myself and keep quiet.”

“How many women are here?”

“Maybe thirty, thirty-five, in three houses. Some of them are their own wives and stuff. We’re not all people who’ve been kidnapped. . . .”

“Okay, we gotta get ya outta here.”

“No! I wanna stay with you!”

“No, listen, it’s gonna get really bad here, shortly.” I took her face in my hands and made her look up at me. I wiped her tears away with my thumbs. “I want you to take this. . . .” I pulled out my truck keys and pulled the remote off the key ring. “Go out this door back here and walk straight south. In a little over a mile, yer gonna find a silver Toyota truck. Unlock it with this and get inside and lock the doors. My dog here is gonna go with ya. Her name is Bonnie. Can ya do that for me?”

She nodded her head and swallowed more tears and said, “Kay . . . okay.”

“Keep the dog with ya, okay? I’ll be there in a little while. . . .”

I walked her over to the door, and she and Bonnie slipped out into the dark. I gathered up my flares and gas can and got to work.

I splashed gas on the hay bales, on the table, on the walls of the barn, and especially on the body of Chas Burgher. When the can was empty, I checked myself and made sure there was no gas on me. Then I walked to the back door and ripped the tab on a flare and ignited it. As soon as it was burning intensely, I threw it back into the barn and shoved the door shut and leaned against it. Felt the force of the ignition push on the far side of the door like a dragon-beast from a fairy tale, blowing its hot breath around the door, lusting for blood.

I shoved the rusty screwdriver back into the hasp, grabbed my rifle and took off to the east, getting back into the dark, getting distance from the carnage that was coming.

It took a few minutes. Long enough for me to pick my spot and get into my prone shooting position. First, I heard dogs. Sounded like two, maybe three, raising hell, howling and barking. Then, I heard two gunshots, probably from the sentry’s rifle. That brought men out of the houses, and the yelling began.

I could hear, “Fire!” “Fire!” “Barn’s on fire!” Brilliant fuckers. Gonna do something about it, or just run around and yell at each other, belaboring the obvious?

I switched on the night scope, then immediately switched it off. The yard was too bright. Carefully, I sighted on the yard light and squeezed off one shot. The roar of the fire from the barn, along with the popping and cracking of old, dry wood, covered the sound of the shot nicely and the yard light winked out.

Men were running around in the dark now, trying to hook up garden hoses and get some water going. Waste of time on a hay barn, but I guess they needed something to do. The nearest fire department was twenty-four miles away. The barn would be gone by the time the first unit arrived, but maybe they could save the rest of the buildings.

I turned the night scope back on and went to work. The men were ghostly green figures in the scope, with a bright green dot at the aim-point, where the bullet would strike. I took my time and got the first three before they began to realize what was going on. As soon as they got their shit together and went for weapons, I moved. They had seen muzzle flash from the east. When they came back out with their own rifles, I was gone, moving through the dark around to the north. I picked a spot and dropped to the ground again and got a good shot and took out another guy. Now there were several women moving around, too, making it more confusing. No kids, though. I was glad. Kids didn’t need to see this. I got up and moved again.

As I reached the northwest corner of the buildings, I saw the lights on the big John Deere tractor, and I heard its big diesel engine start. Now it would get more interesting. The tractor started out, bouncing and roaring toward me. I stepped around the corner of a building and waited.

When the tractor came roaring by, I raised the rifle and shot the driver. The tractor was a fancy, air-conditioned, full-cab model. I watched the driver slump down, dead at the controls.

The machine continued on out into the fields, making a long arc around to the east. I tore my attention away in time to see a man taking aim at me with a shotgun. I dropped to the ground as he fired, and most of the shot load went above me. I felt the sting of some pellets on my left shoulder. There wasn’t enough impact for it to be lethal. It was most likely birdshot, rather than something deadlier.

He racked the slide, raising the gun nearly vertical to do so. Bad technique. He could have held on target while he operated the slide; it wasn’t that hard to do. As he started to lower the shotgun, I fired twice, both snap-shots with little in the way of aim.

The first shot missed. The second staggered him backward, and I saw blood erupt from his neck. He landed on his back and thrashed around for a few seconds. Very few. He was no longer a threat.

I looked back to the tractor and saw it still going and still turning. If it kept going like it was, it would soon be back. In its headlights, I saw a small brown and white dog, racing toward the buildings. Damn dog . . . you were supposed to stay with the girl. . . .

I could do little or nothing for Bonnie. If I whistled, she might or might not hear me and I might give away my position. I saw her go behind one of the buildings and then I saw two German shepherds headed my way. I looked for someplace to go, but I would not be able to make it anywhere before they would nail me. They were much too fast for me to have any hope of outrunning them.

They slowed as they saw me, hesitating just a little, not quite sure what to do, but I was upwind and they soon had my scent. And they smelled my blood. I saw their hackles come up and their tails bush out and then they were in motion again, coming on strong.

Then, from my left, a small brown and white rocket shot across in front of them, barking shrilly and raising hell. As one, both shepherds turned and started pursuing this interloper. I glanced around to make sure I wasn’t about to become meat, then looked back into the compound. Things were lit up nicely now by the fire, and I watched as Bonnie did an amazing thing. As the larger dogs closed on her, she made a sudden tremendous leap and landed on the low-hanging limb of a dwarf pear tree and scrambled over more branches until she was out of reach. Until that moment, I had never seen a dog climb a tree.

The shepherds milled around below the tree, confused and wanting very badly to kill this dog-cat. Or cat-dog. They had completely forgotten me. Then I ducked as more gunshots came, but they lacked that special sound you only hear when you’re out in front of the gun.

I moved around the outside of the compound and watched as several women, two in particular, shot several men, even walking over to where they had fallen and shooting them again, just to be sure. Most likely the two missing FBI agents, loose now, and armed with rifles they’d either found in the houses or picked up from the fallen. I decided maybe it would be a good time to move out. I looked back to Bonnie’s tree, but she wasn’t there. The two shepherds were gone, too.

I worked my way around to the south side of the compound again and saw Bonnie, racing between buildings, dodging back and forth, wearing out two big shepherds, then I didn’t see her again for a while.

And then, here came the damned tractor again. I watched in amazement as it drove itself directly into what was left of the burning barn. Its engine stalled, and it didn’t come out the other side.

I was halfway back to the truck, when Bonnie came up on me out of the dark. The other dogs were gone and there was no way she could tell me how she lost them. She seemed pretty proud of herself, though.

At the truck, I had to knock on the window to get Ellie to unlock the doors and let us in. She had actually fallen asleep in the passenger seat. When we got in the truck, Bonnie kept trying to crawl over the seats to get to me and I finally realized it was because of the blood from my shoulder wounds. I got in the back of the truck and dragged out my first aid kit and stripped off my shirt. Ellie helped me clean the pellet holes and apply a big gauze dressing. It would have to do, until I got back to Wichita.

As we left the area, I pulled out my cell phone and called Agent Foster’s number. She answered on the first ring.

“Ya better get out there. All kindsa shit going on out there, fires, shootin’, lotsa trouble.”

“I’m already on the way. The local cops are headed there, too. What did you do?”

“Me? I didn’t do anything. Oh, by the way, ya know that convenience store there on the north side of Tribune?”

“Yeah . . .”

“If you send somebody by there, you’ll find a young girl named Ellie Miner. She’s a kidnap case outta Denver. She’ll need a ride home. I think maybe there’s a number of kids out there. Human trafficking, I’m thinkin’.”

“Did you see anything of my two agents?”

“You mean the two who were walkin’ around, shootin’ assholes? Nope, didn’t see ‘em. Wasn’t even there. . . .”

“Good night, Mr. Wilder.”

“Barry.”

“Good night, Barry.”

“You got this, then, Agent Foster?”

“You betcha. And thanks. I think. . . .”

“You’re welcome, Carolyn.”

I dropped Ellie off at the convenience store. As she was about to get out of the truck, I said, “Promise me you’ll wait for the cops and not take any rides from truckers.”

“Okay. I promise. And thank you.”

She told Bonnie goodbye and kissed my cheek. I gave her twenty bucks so she could get an ice cream. Then we hit the road, headed home.

Bonnie curled up in the right seat and I could swear she was smiling in her sleep.





reba.jpg
Art by Kevin Duncan © 2018

Redhead Reba

Kenneth James Crist

 

“What’s this doggie’s name?” Reba June was sitting cross-legged on the carpet of the living room. From my vantage point in the kitchen, looking through the pass-through, I could see the smooth, white flesh of her upper thighs and a bit of her black panties. She was wearing a short green skirt, the same shade as her eyes, and a halter top. Her kinky, curly hair was just as red as I remembered.

“Motherfucker,” I said, and watched her dissolve into helpless laughter. The Corgi puppy backed up a step and cocked its head at her and just made her laugh harder.

“Why would you name it that?” She was still giggling and I added another slam.

“Because ‘Booger-snot’ or ‘Cock-knocker’ just didn’t have quite the pizzazz I was looking for.” Now, she was flat on her back, gasping and guffawing great gales of laughter. The three glasses of wine were making her a bit giddy, too, I suspected.

I had run across her at Quinn’s, a pub down in Old Town that I hadn’t been to in several years. It had been that long since I’d seen her, too. She had aged a bit, but chosen not to mature.

I finished fixing her screwdriver and carried it in, setting it on the coffee table.

I dropped down and sat on the floor and waited while she got herself under control, then sat up. She reached out to me and we kissed, her cool fingers playing in the hair on the nape of my neck. “Where you been all this time?” Her eyes sparkled as she asked it. “We always had so much fun together. . . .”

“And then you went and got married,” I said.

“And you got a dog and named him Motherfucker.”

“Not really. . . .”

“No?”

“No. His real name is Gizmo.”

She started laughing again and the dog was pawing at her lap. She pulled him up and reached for her drink.

“Shit. That’s almost as funny.”

“I didn’t name him. He was at the shelter and the people who had to leave him had already named him.”

“How could they leave this sweet boy?” She was hugging the dog, getting dog hair all over her top and her tits, which were not held in check very well by the skimpy cloth.

I got up and sat with my drink on the sofa, hoping she’d get over the dog and join me. She played with him for another couple of minutes, throwing one of his toys and laughing as he streaked after it on his stubby legs. Finally, she got up and came to the sofa. Instead of sitting beside me, she straddled me and sat on my lap, her skirt riding up almost to her waist.

We had been together many times in the two years we’d dated and each of us knew what the other liked. My hands stroked her thighs and we enjoyed a lot of orange-flavored kisses as the vodka kicked in.

In a couple minutes, I untied her top and freed her breasts, and brushed some dog hair off. There was a bit more sag there, but she was still very well put together. She stripped off my shirt and leaned into me, letting my chest hair tickle her nipples.

In another minute, I said, “Trade places with me.”

When she was seated, I pushed the coffee table out of the way and went to my knees before her. I pushed her skirt up, then her legs and began kissing her squarely on the center panel of her panties. She knew what was coming and she was just as eager to get there as I was. In moments, she was skinning her panties off and then I was invading her with my lips and tongue.

“Holy shit . . . I’ve missed this,” she murmured, a scant few seconds before she had the first orgasm of the evening. I held her tightly while she came, then she got the giggles again. “My damn husband won’t do that,” she said, “he thinks that’s just too dirty.”

As I started on her again, I whispered, “What a dumbass. . . .”

 

 

Later, in my bed, I asked, “Can you get away with staying the night, or do you hafta scurry home?”

She snuggled closer and said, “I probably should go home, but I don’t really want to . . . In a little while. . . .” Then we fell asleep.

It was barely turning daylight when I felt her scramble out of bed and she raced to the bathroom. I sat up and looked around. There was a broken trail of clothing from the living room into the bedroom. I got up and started gathering up her things and brought them to the foot of the bed.

Soon, she came out, having brushed her teeth and done something with her hair. I was worried just a bit.

“How much trouble are you in?”

She was slipping into her top as she said, “I texted one of my girlfriends. She’ll cover for me. Should be okay.”

Then the doorbell rang. We looked at each other and I heard her breathe, “Oh, shit. . . .”

I walked through the living room and out to the front parlor and looked out through the sheers in the bay window. In a moment, she was right beside me.

“Is that him?”

Again, “Oh, shit. How the fuck did he find me?”

“Duh. Your car’s right out front.”

“But how . . . oh, well. Guess there’s no help for it, now.” She quickly turned and kissed me and then yanked open the door and bolted past her husband, who turned and watched her as she flew to her black Honda.

Then he turned and looked at me. There was no animosity in his stare. No more than there would be in the eyes of a scientist examining an interesting specimen on a microscope slide.

He turned and stepped off the porch and walked back to his pickup and left. As soon as he was at a safe distance, Gizmo barked him the rest of the way.

 

 

I didn’t exactly haunt Quinn’s, but I started hanging out there more than I had been. I found her there the following week. She had the fading remains of a pretty good shiner and her split lip was healing nicely. As I slid into the booth beside her, I said, “Sorry I got you in trouble.”

She smiled carefully and said, “Not the first time I’ve been there, My Man. Besides, it was totally worth it. And you should see the other guy. . . .”

“What? You mean yer husband? What did you do?”

“Well, you’ve never been in my kitchen. It has an island in the middle, with a pan rack overhead. We were in the kitchen when he punched me. I wasn’t expecting it, and he got me pretty good. Then he turned around to stalk outta the kitchen and I reached up and got a cast-iron skillet.”

“Oh, no. . . .”

“Yep. I said, ‘Hey, motherfucker,’ and he spun around and I fuckin’ clocked his ass with the skillet. Knocked him colder than shit.”

“Oh, shit. Then what?”

“When he came to, one of his eyes didn’t look just right, so I drove him to the emergency room. I’d given him a concussion.”

“Didn’t ya get in trouble?”

“Nah. We were both fucked up and I just told ‘em we’d been in a car wreck. They kept him overnight. Next day, when I was drivin’ him home, I told him if he ever punched me again, I’d kill him. Pretty sure he believed me, too.”

Just then, a slightly younger, prettier blonde walked up to our table and Reba stood up and they had a quick girl-hug. “Who’s this nice lady” I asked, standing up from the booth.

The nice lady extended her hand and said, “I’m her cover, when she doesn’t get caught with her panties down. I’m Pamela.”

I turned back to Reba and said, “Well, I’m glad you’re okay and I really hate it that you got in trouble.”

“Yeah, this is only the second time in, what, four years? And I was a bad girl both times. After I got his ass home, we had pretty good sex. Nothing like you and me, though. But he’s learned there are some things I just won’t stand for. Being beat on is one of them.”

I glanced at Pamela and she hurriedly looked away. I knew I had been discussed at length by these two and that Pamela had my measure. I wondered if she’d make a move and, if so, how soon it would be.

 

As it turned out, it wasn’t that long. Pamela apparently had never had what Reba described to her about our times together, and it wasn’t long before I had my own personal stalker.

At first, it didn’t really register. I had stopped at my usual convenience store for gas and suddenly, there she was on the other side of the same gas pump island, seemingly having a problem.

I stepped around the pump and said, “Ma’am? Are you having trouble?”

She turned, and I saw it was Pamela and she said, “Oh! Hi, Jerry. I can’t get this damn thing to take my card. Would you mind trying it for me?”

As I put her credit card in the machine, she seemed to stumble a little and I felt one of her boobs bump against my arm. “Oops, sorry,” she said, giggling a little, “I had a couple glasses of wine. . . .” She steadied herself by gripping my arm.

The pump kicked on and I put the nozzle into the tank and started it. About that time, my own pump clicked off and I went and hung it up. When I looked back up, Pamela was standing on my side of the pump, watching me. “Nice to see you again,” she said.

“Yeah, you too, Pamela.”

Weird, I thought at the time. It would get weirder.

Two days later, on my regular day off, I was doing some grocery shopping, when I found Pamela again, browsing the aisles at the grocery store.

“Hi, Jerry! Hey, is that a new coat? Wow, that color looks good on you.”

“Um, thanks, Pamela. How you doin’ today?”

“Well, could be better . . . hey, are you busy tonight? I’ve got a couple friends of mine that want me to go to a play, and I could use an escort. . . .”

“Gosh Pamela, I’m really flattered that you’d ask, but yeah, I’m kinda tied up tonight . . . (Screwing my favorite redhead, whom you know very well. . . .)

“Okay, well, thanks anyway. Don’t let me keep ya. Nice seeing you, Jerry.”

I started watching by back trail and I soon realized Pamela was following me a lot of the time—too much of the time to be coincidence.

I didn’t say anything to Reba about it, and looking back at the way things turned out, I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t have made a bit of difference, if I had.

On a Saturday night, when Reba’s husband was in town and I was having a stay-at-home weekend, my doorbell rang at ten-thirty at night. I had already gone to bed and I was almost asleep. I had to get up and clear the alarm system, then go to the door. I took along my Glock, as I always do. Gizmo was right behind me. I’m sure in his little doggy brain, he figured he had my back.

Pamela was at the door, and she was far from sober. She was slurring her words and she was unsteady on her feet. There was a shit-eating grin on her face. It was raining like a bastard and her hair was wet and plastered down.

“Hey fella. I jus’ waz passin’ by an’ I thought, ‘I bet ol’ Jerry would like a lil’ company’ . . . how ‘bout it, Jerry, you up fer some fun . . . ?”

So, finally, with the help of some booze, she’d gotten her nerve up.

“Um, no. I don’t think so, Pamela. I’d like to hang out with ya, but right now you’re sloppy drunk and I don’t care for that. You go home and get some sleep. Maybe call me later, okay?”

As I gently closed and locked the door, I could hear her yelling out there, “Hey, you . . . you fucker! Am I not good enough for you? What the fuck! You got some cunt in there? You asshole. . . .”

It went on for a few minutes and then I watched from behind the sheers as she tottered back to her car and eventually drove away.

Just as I turned away from the bay window, I saw Gizmo stretching upward and putting his paws on the sill. He was staring intently into the dark, which was relieved only slightly by the streetlamps. Then, I caught a flash of a dark car going by, in the same direction that Pamela had gone. Desperate Pamela. Needy Pamela. The car was running with no lights. It didn’t mean anything at the time and again, even if it had, it most likely wouldn’t have made any difference. I tell myself that often.

 

On Monday morning, as I opened my garage door to back out and go to work, there were two police cars blocking my driveway, one uniform car and one plain vanilla slick-top. I walked out into the driveway and a plainclothes copper got out and spoke.

“Jerry Laughlin?”

“Um, yeah, that’s me. What’s up?”

“Gonna need ya to come with us.” The uniform was out of his car now, a big, strapping youngster in an immaculate uniform.

“Okay. I was just on my way to work. . . .”

“Call in. Tell them you’ll be in later.”

“What’s this all about, guys?”

“We can talk about that downtown.”

“I could drive my pickup and just follow ya down. . . .”

“Nah. You can ride with me. We’ll bring ya back when we’re done.”

“Am I under arrest?”

“Nope. Not yet. We’re just detaining you for questioning. . . . hop in, let’s go.”

No Miranda, no cuffs. I got to ride in the front, like a citizen. Down to the building I’d worked at, for twenty years. Up to the sixth floor and into an interview room. Then they let me stew for an hour, while they watched me. Watched my body language. Seeing how nervous I might be. Seeing if I was worried. Seeing if I would get pissed.

Finally, they came in. The first detective and another one, both in shirt sleeves and ties and empty holsters, carrying yellow legal pads and coffee in Styrofoam cups. None for me, though. We went through the preliminaries. Name, address, DOB, etc. I pulled out my wallet and took out my driver’s license and my concealed carry permit, then my retired police ID.

“You were a cop?” This came from the younger guy.

“Yeah. Right here. I’ve interviewed perps right here in this room.”

“When did you retire, Sir?” Now I was “Sir.” Things were improving, somewhat.

“About the time you were born, I would imagine. My ID number was 738, what’s yours?”

“2851, Sir.”

“So, let’s quit dickin’ around and you guys tell me what the fuck’s goin’ on.”

I had just taken over their interview and they would realize it in a minute or so.

“You know a lady named Pamela Richards?”

“I know a lady named Pamela. Didn’t know her last name. Blonde, pretty, about thirty, maybe?”

“Twenty-eight, yeah. How do you know her?”

I ran through the whole meeting, stalking, drunk-at-the-door story for them as they took copious notes, which I knew was all for show. The camera was rolling right on the other side of the glass, recording everything.

When I was finished, the older cop stepped out. In a minute he was back. This time I got coffee and a couple donuts. Now I was their hero. I was helping solve whatever they were working on. Halfway through the second donut, the younger guy said, “She’s dead.”

I set the rest of the donut down on the napkin it had come with and looked them both over.

“How?”

“Shot in the head. In her car. Saturday night at eleven thirty, or thereabouts.”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah. Fuck. Where were you?”

“Home, in bed. And all alone, damn it.”

“Okay, look, you’re among friends here. Any ideas who might have wanted to do this?”

I thought back to the dark car I’d seen running without lights and said, “Yeah, I’m afraid I do. . . .”

 

Reba was picked up the next day. The gun was still in her car. A firearms identification test proved the bullet that killed Pamela had come from that gun. Cops had already speculated the shooter was someone Pamela knew. The window was down on the car and it happened right in front of Pamela’s house. A search warrant on Reba’s house turned up clothing with microscopic blood spatter—blowback from the shot that killed Pamela. Reba eventually confessed and was convicted.

I took vacation time to attend the trial, but I never had to testify. In the hallway between sessions, and with court guards watching us closely, Reba said, “You know why this happened, right?”

“No, not really,” I said.

“One of the other things I can’t stand. Anybody trying to cut in on one of my guys.” She paused a moment and then asked, “You never fucked her, did you?”

“No. It never went anywhere near that far. . . .”

“Good. That’s good, Jerry. I’d hate to think there was any . . . unfinished business.”

And less than an hour later, she was convicted, and they gave her a life sentence.


I need to get rolling now. It’s three hours up to Lansing, where the prison is located, and Reba looks forward to my visits. Her husband divorced her about a month after her conviction. Nobody else comes to see her and she won’t be getting out for at least twenty-five years. I probably shouldn’t feel responsible, but if I’d let Pamela in and sobered her up, maybe . . . well, shit, who knows?





ramonashouse.jpg
Art by Kevin Duncan © 2018

Ramona’s House

 

Kenneth James Crist

 

1.

 

“Yeah, I haven’t had many people look at this one…because…well, you know.”

Yeah, I knew. The house had been empty for over a year. It was not in really bad shape, nothing wrong with it that a handyman such as myself couldn’t handle. The real estate guy was still yacking away.

“You can prolly get this ol’ house for a song. They’ve lowered the asking price three times now. They only boarded it up to save the windows. Kids around here are kinda little pricks, ya know. Bust out the windows in a heartbeat.”

“Can we go inside? I’m not buyin’ any house I can’t walk through.”

“Yeah. Let me go get a flashlight outta my car.”

While I waited on Mr. Oliver, the real estate guy, I walked around the house. Two-story, built in the 1940’s, heavy wooden siding that looked like it had about fifty coats of paint over the years. Sitting vacant all this time. Because someone had died in it. Front porch needed some new floor boards. But the roof looked tight and the foundation was good. Lost in thought, I jumped a little when the real estate guy stepped up onto the porch and rattled a ring of keys.

As he unlocked the front door, I asked, “Was it suicide?”

“Nope. Murder. Somebody killed the lady and took some stuff. A little money. Some jewelry. An old portable TV. So far, they haven’t caught anybody…” He adjusted his ball cap and pushed the door open. Turned on his flashlight and we went inside.

Fifteen minutes later, we were back outside. I was surprised at how good the house actually was. And it didn’t even smell. Well, no more than any house might smell when it’s sat empty for a year. Mr. Oliver said the lady had been found in the parlor and it had been several days between her death and when somebody found her. They had called a professional company to come remove the carpet and do the cleaning necessary when a body has been there a while.

I made a low-ball offer of eighty-six thousand, expecting I’d get bumped at least once. The house was worth nearly twice that, after all. The next morning Mr. Oliver called me and said I’d just bought a house. We set up closing and I sent the down payment that afternoon. Because of some good investments, I was now retired, and I could afford to pay cash for the house. It also meant I’d have all the time I needed to work on it and redecorate to suit myself.

Not to suit a wife. I don’t have one of those. Not to suit some other woman, or even some other man. There was just me and Snubs, my American Pit Bull Terrier. Yeah, I know, Pits have a bad rep. Wonderful dogs, often made mean and vicious and uncontrollable, by the same kind of stupid fucks who like to mess up everything around them. They have become the epitome of fighting dogs, used by idiots to bet money on. In some places, they are even banned. Snubs was lucky. I’d been driving through a rather seedy part of town one day and saw a little kid sitting on the curb with a box of tiny puppies. He was waiting for cars to come along and whenever a car got close, he’d throw a puppy into the street.

As you can imagine, I slammed on the brakes and got out. Yeah, I was pissed. I found myself yelling at this little cretin, “What the fuck are you doing? You can’t do that shit! These are lives you’re messing with!”

“Don’t make no difference,” he said, very nonchalantly, “mah Daddy’s goan kill ‘em anyway. Ol’ bitch ain’t taken keer a dem, nohow.”

Long story short, I snatched up the box and piled back in my car and drove. I was suddenly the owner of seven Pit puppies that were not even weaned and had to be bottle fed for another two weeks. I spent over a month getting them placed in homes. All except Snubs. He had one blue eye and one sort of gray and he was “tuxedo” marked, a uniform dove gray on top and white underneath. He was the one that followed me everywhere as soon as he was able to walk. He was also the one the kid had thrown into the street in front of my tire. As he grew up, he filled out into a fine, well-muscled example of everything the breed was supposed to be. He was too pretty to leave alone and, yeah, I took him to a good vet and had his ears cropped and his tail docked and dew claws removed. He was protective, but never mean. Usually the mere sight of him and the sound of his slightly hoarse bark was all anyone needed to convince them to screw around elsewhere.

I went to the closing on the house with Snubs on a sturdy leash and got the usual stink-eye from the realtor and the property owner. Snubs ignored them and went to lay down in a corner and took a nap. Real vicious, that one. After the closing, I started opening up the house, getting plywood off the windows and starting the process of cleaning it up and making it livable. It was nearly a month before I was able to move out of the old apartment, much to the joy of the landlord, who hated me and my dog, and finally occupy my house.

All the cleaning, painting and activity had caught the interest of all the neighbors, and within a day or two of moving in, Snubs and I had visits from no less than six women, four of whom were widows or divorcees, and we had enough pie and cake to keep us fat for a couple months.

We settled in and spent our days cruising junk shops and antique emporiums, looking for items to furnish the place. I had gone from a three-room apartment to an eight-room mansion (or, so it seemed) and I needed stuff.

Snubs went through the usual doggie thing, like, when are we goin home, Dad? Huh? Dad? In due time, he finally got it and settled in well. We had been in the house nine days, when we had the first hint of trouble.

 

2.

 

It was a Sunday morning and we had slept late. Being a middle-aged guy, I had gotten up at three in the morning to pee and Snubs figured that was a good idea, so I let him out. Ten minutes later, we were back in bed, him in his doggy bed and me in my California queen-size bed. It was nine o’clock by the time I shaved and hit the shower and as I got out and was drying off, the day went to shit.

I looked up at the triple-pane mirror on the medicine cabinet and froze. For a moment, I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand erect. On the mirror, carefully drawn in the steam, was a heart and within it, the words ‘Love You’…

I tucked the towel in at my waist and slipped quietly into the bedroom and retrieved a small 5-shot Taurus P-85 revolver from the nightstand. Snubs was still laying in his bed, not asleep, but not upset about anything, either. As I methodically went through the house, top to bottom, checking every window and door and looking for any intruder who might be there, Snubs was right there, ready to get in on any fun that might be coming. He had been with me on shooting expeditions. He knew about guns. They didn’t particularly bother him.

There was no one. Doors and windows all secure. I went back to the bathroom, almost convinced I’d imagined the cryptic message on the mirror. The room had aired out and the steam was all gone. By breathing on the mirror, though, I was able to make it come back. It was still there, in latent form now, but definitely there. Then I wondered if it could have been there all along. Maybe a prank, pulled by someone at Lowe’s home improvement center, where I’d bought the cabinet. The more I thought about it, the more I was sure that mirror had been wiped several times when it steamed up and I needed to see myself. I usually just used the bath towel and wiped it. As I did now. I wiped it very carefully, right to the edges.

The next thing I thought about was the numerous ladies who had come to visit, bringing their high-calorie tributes to the unmarried guy and his ‘nice’ dog.

I had done nothing to reciprocate their visits and their generosity, and maybe that had been a mistake. Maybe one of them had a key and just let herself in, quietly moved through the house, avoiding the bedroom where Snubs was pulling his lax form of guard duty and was able to slip into the bathroom and leave the message. At any rate, it seemed I had an admirer. It could be worse, I thought, as the shower scene from Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Psycho’ ran through my mind. She could have brought a knife and a hateful attitude…

Later that day, I went and bought and installed all new locks.

 

3.

 

Everything went well for another four days. Then came the Restless Night to end all restless nights. I piled into bed at about ten-thirty, after watching the news. In ten minutes, I was out like a light. I have a clock on my headboard that projects the time in red letters on the ceiling, so I know it was twelve seventeen in the morning when a long, mournful, pain-filled wail made me sit straight up and reach for that Taurus again. I sat for a moment, thinking I might have dreamed that horrible, breathy, screech of pain. It had happened that way before, on rare occasions. I had been a cop for a twenty-year career and I had seen enough horrifying shit to keep anyone awake at night and make for the occasional dream-scream.

But, whatever it was, Snubs had heard it too. He was standing at the bedroom door, a low growl rumbling in that deep chest, and I knew he was primed and ready to do whatever was necessary to keep us both safe. I jumped out of bed, gun in hand and grabbed a tactical flashlight I keep on the dresser and we went to check the house.

We checked the back first, because it was the closest, then we went down the hall, headed for the front. That was when the floor above us creaked. In older houses, floors squeak and creak. This house had tongue-and groove oak floors throughout, and they really sounded off when walked on.

I froze in place, and felt Snubs press himself against my leg. I could feel him trembling like there was a low-voltage electric current running through his muscles. I killed the flashlight and reached down to pet his neck. As we stood there, we very clearly heard footsteps move down the upstairs hallway, which was directly above us. This was pretty scary shit, but I was also getting pissed. I thought about stepping into my office and opening the gun safe and getting out something more substantial, maybe my 12-gauge riot gun. But that would take time and besides, the electronic lock would make a beep with each number entered on the keypad. I decided we’d just go for it.

We stepped as quietly as we could down to the end of the hall, (those squeaky floors again, only working against us this time) and I looked up the stairs. Up at the top of the landing, everything was pitch black. I decided stealth would do us no good and a whispered to Snubs, “Go! Go get ‘em! Get ‘em!” Bravely, or foolishly, he shot up the stairs like a rocket, ready to tear someone’s ass up. I followed, two steps at a time, my flashlight and revolver at the ready.

By the time I made the top of the stairs, Snubs was back, tongue hanging out and panting and looking at me like, “What the fuck?” I took my time checking everything upstairs and found nothing. There was only one stairway. Nothing came past us. And nothing was there. “Well, this is fucked,” I said aloud. Snubs snorted and headed back downstairs. I suspect he thought I’d somehow engineered this whole deal just to mess with his head. After all, humans can do some magical things, at least from the viewpoint of man’s best friend.

It took a bit longer to get back to sleep that night, and when I got up in the morning, the message was back on the mirror in the bathroom. Only, this time it said, “Love you, Pete”, and it was in a particularly hideous shade of orange lipstick.

4.

 

Oh, yeah, that’s me. Pete Lauffer. Old fart extraordinaire, buyer and fixer-upper of houses, widowed myself at fifty and, apparently the object of someone’s affection. I thought about calling the cops while I was standing there wondering how I was gonna get that greasy shit off my mirror. Not because the cops could really do anything, but just to start a paper trail, in case I did wind up blowing someone away in the middle of the night. But what did I have? Messages on mirrors and noises at night. I could see the carefully covered feelings of any cops who might show up, wondering what kind of pussy this retired cop was and why he couldn’t take care of business himself. I looked all around the bathroom for the lipstick, thinking it might be there, discarded in the tub or whatever. Of course, it wasn’t there. Just like the upstairs intruder.

Things began to change again four days later, when I ran into Freddie Carlisle at the grocery store. I turned a corner and almost rammed her cart with mine. Hurriedly backed up and said, “Sorry,” and gave her the patented Pete Lauffer smile, guaranteed to soothe jangled nerves. Then I realized I knew her, vaguely. “Oh, hi, it’s, um…” Trying harder than I should have had to for her name.

“Freddie. Freddie Carlisle. I stopped by just after you moved in…”

“Oh, yeah, I remember.”

“That’s okay, I think you had a lotta visitors for a few days there.”

“Well, yeah, it was kind of a whirlwind of activity…”

“I was the pineapple upside-down cake. One of my specialties.” I had to admit, out of all the women who had stopped by in that frantic week, Freddie was the one I was most taken with. She was on the upside of forty, and a very well put-together forty. Blonde hair, most likely tinted by someone who knew what they were doing and worn short enough to look pixie-like. Dark, liquid eyes and a body…well, let’s just say good-sized boobs and a tiny ass. That was enough for me.

“I remember. That cake was really good. I remember you mentioned you were a widow, too. Like me.”

“Really? Recently?”

“Couple years ago. Marcy had breast cancer that got out of control.”

“Don had a heart attack. One. First and final.”

“Yeah…well,” I said, “I’m gonna hafta move along here, and it was nice seeing you again. You suppose we could get together some time? Maybe go out to dinner?”

She dug in her purse and found a business card. Handed it to me. “That number is my cell phone. You just call me whenever, okay?”

As she strolled away, I alternated between looking at the card, (Freeman Motors, Freddie Carlisle, Sales Representative) and checking her tight little butt in her white Capri pants. Holy shit. Just call me whenever.

I was very suave about it. Waited until that evening at about seven-thirty, just after eating my microwaved Hungry Man chicken dinner. I found I was actually nervous. I hadn’t called a woman for a date in literally years. She answered on the first ring. Very professional phone-voice, pitched low and slightly breathy. “Freeman Motors, this is Freddie Carlisle.”

“Pete Lauffer, nice lady. Does that Freddie stand for Frederica?”

“Well, hi, Pete. Yeah, it does indeed, spelled with a ‘K’ at the end. What’s up?”

“I assume you’re at work. Didn’t mean to bother ya when you’re working.”

“No bother. Slow as hell around here. Haven’t sold a car in almost two weeks.”

“Well, tell me what nights you’re free to sneak out to dinner, then.”

“I’ll be loose tomorrow night. I’ll pick you up at six-thirty.”

“You’re gonna pick me up? Okay…”

“I’ve seen your truck. My ride’s nicer. If it bothers you, I’ll let you drive.”

“Sounds like a deal,” I said, and I noticed my heart had sped up a little, “see you then.”

Her ride sure as hell was nicer than my truck. She rolled up about three minutes early in a red Mercedes Benz E-Class coupe. I didn’t make her come to the door. I had dressed in a casual sport coat, no tie and tan Dockers, hoping I wouldn’t be over- or under-dressed. I hustled out to the car and she started to get out. I waved her back and said, “You can drive.” She had opted for a black skirt, just above the knee, white blouse, red belt, matching lipstick and matching ‘fuck me’ shoes. I was blown away. No nylons. Her nice tan let her get away with that. When I got in, she leaned over for a hug and an air-kiss, then snatched the car into gear and we roared off. I spent the first few minutes alternating between admiring her legs and watching the road as she skillfully whipped the car through traffic. She drove it like a Mercedes should be driven, using the performance without abusing the machine, and taking no prisoners.

She drove us to Bishop’s Grill, a place I’d heard about but hadn’t been to yet. It turned out to be more folksy than hoity-toity and the steaks were on the rare side and served sizzling on a hot skillet, tucked into a wooden tureen. Over dinner we talked about anything and everything and I could tell she was enjoying herself. When the check came, there was no bullshit about, let-me-get-that. She let me get it and we stepped on out into the evening.

“It’s kinda early yet,” I said, “would you like to go see a movie or something?”

She took my hand as we walked to the car and said, “Yeah, I’d like that. I have a home theater at my place and I have Netflix. Let’s go see what we can find.” Again, Holy Shit

Her house was actually smaller than mine and just four doors down on the same street. It was newer and had a more open floor plan, except for the bathrooms and the home theater. We settled in with a movie and a big bowl of popcorn and watched a few episodes of some modern western series about a sheriff in Montana or someplace. At eleven, I decided I’d better head home and she walked me to the door. She reached up to put her arms around me and we shared a kiss. Then another. She felt really good in my arms and my crank was screaming, ‘go for it!’, but I resisted, and I felt that was probably the right thing to do. It was too early. I sensed she appreciated my decision. We said goodnight and I walked up to my place. As I was unlocking my front door, my phone buzzed with a text message.

You taste good. See you soon?

I texted back, Damn right. Can’t wait. You taste pretty good, yourself.

I got back a smiley face emoticon. Snubs was overjoyed to see me and to see the grass in the back yard. While he did his business, I brushed my teeth, took a leak and got ready for bed. I don’t even remember my head hitting the pillow.

The red numbers on the ceiling said 4:40 when I came about half awake and snuggled up to the warm, sweet-smelling woman next to me. My hand slid over her stomach and upward, to cup a full, warm breast. I started to drift off to sleep, when alarm bells and a-woogah horns started going off in my head.

I snapped awake and suddenly sat up and watched in the dimness of the moon-lit bedroom, as the sheet on the other side of the bed deflated, like a hot-air balloon, that had just landed on the ground. Something (a woman, my mind said) had been there, and then it wasn’t. Like the lipstick and the creaking floor. I sprang from the bed and backed against the wall. Snubs was still in his bed, and he looked up at me with that, ‘what the fuck’ look of his. I stepped into the bathroom, fully expecting to find something new and maybe different on the message-mirror. There was nothing. I took a piss and flushed. Walked back into the bedroom. I was badly shaken and quite sure there was no way I’d sleep again that night. I turned on the overhead light and looked at the indentation in the pillow. Not on my side. On hers. Whoever she was. Whatever it was. I leaned over and grabbed the pillow and held it up to my face. There was the faint scent of perfume. And I recognized it. It was some stuff Marcy used to wear when we were young and full of love and sap. It was called ‘Poison.’

 

5.

 

It was time to stop bullshitting myself and admit that the goddamn house was haunted. Or occupied. By something outrageous or outlandish or maybe even dangerous. Sort of like the old saying about non-poisonous snakes—they won’t hurt you, but they might cause you to hurt yourself.

So far, my “friend” hadn’t done anything to hurt me or endanger me. But it—or she—was getting stronger, and she was scaring the shit outta me. I wasn’t quite ready to put the house on the market and move out. Not yet. But if things didn’t change, and soon, that was definitely an option. Once again, I let Snubs out into his yard and I went to make coffee.

One thing led to another and coffee soon gave way to bacon and eggs. I even made a whole tube of biscuits and Snubs helped me kill them off. Yeah, he’s spoiled, but he’s all I’ve got nowadays.

I showered and dressed and set off at eight to run errands and grocery shop. I had a feeling I might soon have a guest over for an early dinner and, hopefully, some messing around and somehow, I didn’t think Hungry Man was gonna cut it with this lady. I spent about two hundred bucks and I was amazed how little I got for my money. I spent some more at the local package store and got four bottles of wine, two I knew about and two that were recommended by the man at the counter.

When I got home, Freddie was sitting on my veranda, kicked back in a wicker chair with a book. She looked like she was prepared to wait all day, if necessary.

“You could have sent me a text,” I said, “and I would have hurried back sooner.”

“That’s okay. I have a rare day off and I have a feeling we’re gonna be worth the wait.” She helped me lug in groceries and she seemed to be impressed with the wine. When everything was put away, she hopped up onto one of the kitchen counters and sat, swinging her legs and said, “What shall we do now?”

I stepped over to her and ran my hands up her thighs. She was wearing red shorts and a tie-dyed t-shirt, and she looked scrumptious. I leaned in and her arms came up and we started where we’d left off the night before. As we smooched, she managed to scoot forward some, pushing those impressive boobs against me, then wrapping her legs around me. In a couple minutes, we came up for air and I nuzzled her neck, saying, “I’m sorry if this is going too fast, but you feel really good and it’s been a while…”

“Mmmm…really? How long?” Her hands were shoved down the back of my jeans now and I was getting hard.

“Bout a year and a half, I guess…” More smooching, then I got a hand under a breast. No resistance there, none at all.

“Four years, here. And I’m ready to break that losing streak. Let’s go get horizontal. Show me your bedroom.”

I walked her down the hall and into the bedroom and took my time undressing her, kissing everything I exposed in the process. She was reaching to me between my efforts and stripping me, too. When we were naked, she looked me over and said, “God, I’m glad you’re not all fat and nasty.” I sat her on the foot of the bed and pushed her back and moved downward, intending to lick her and make her crazy. Again, no resistance. Some women taste okay and some don’t. And with some, you just wanna live the rest of your life down there. Freddie was as sweet as honey and I gladly licked and tickled her until she grabbed my head and held me tight, locked her thighs on me and came, groaning and gasping, then giggling a little as I got ready to push into her.

She pulled me onto her and her legs opened and she said, “Easy, Big Fella, it’s been a while.”

“Tell me if I hurt you,” I gasped, and I pushed gently, and we were joined a moment later. It was warm and slow, and she was enjoying it, but I could tell she was feeling some discomfort. I surprised myself by holding off for quite a while, long enough to give her another good orgasm. After, we snuggled in the bed and I hoped she couldn’t smell that nocturnal perfume of the unknown entity that had occupied the place the night before.

I was ready for a nap, but sex seemed to energize her, and besides, she had probably had a decent night’s sleep. She suddenly bounded up out of bed and as she moved past me, I tried to grab her cute ass. She giggled and avoided me and scurried into the bathroom. Her gasp was loud enough, I heard it from the bed. Then, she walked back out and stared at me, standing hipshot, and making no effort to cover herself in any way.

“This is not funny, Mister. In fact, it’s a little sick, okay?”

“What are you talking about?” But, in a way, I already knew. I jumped out of bed and walked toward Freddie and she turned and went into the bathroom. I stood in the doorway and did some deep breathing exercises. On the mirror was the orange lipstick again. It read, “Get out, Bitch!”

Freddie was leaning forward onto the vanity top and she said, “What the fuck, Pete? If ya didn’t want me here, all ya had to do was say so…”

“Babe, I didn’t write that…”

“What? Bull—shit! Who else is here?”

“I…I don’t know.”

“The fuck you mean, you don’t know? There are people here and we’re in there…fucking…and you don’t know who’s in your own house?”

“No. Not people. There’s something here, but I don’t know what it is for sure…”

“Oh, yeah, here we go. Whatcha got, Pete, ghosties? Spooks? Spirits?”

“I’ve got no idea…” At that point, she pushed past me and went into the bedroom and started grabbing clothes and slipping into silky underthings. I could tell she was pissed and ready to storm out and I didn’t want that to happen. So, I sat down on the end of the bed, making no effort to get dressed, and told her the whole story, from the beginning, with nothing left out. By the time I finished, she was sitting beside me and holding my hand.

“Jesus,” she said, “that’s pretty unbelievable. If I find out you’re bullshitting me about this, you know I won’t be seeing you again. If this turns out to be some kind of weird turn-on for you, I’m not gonna appreciate it one bit…”

“No. Freddie, I promise, it’s not a trick or anything I’m in control of. Whatever it is, it’s real, and tell ya the truth, it’s started scarin’ the shit outta me.”

She got up and walked back into the bathroom, and this time she didn’t gasp. She screamed. I ran in and saw her staring at the mirror. The mirror was clean, the message was gone.

 

6.

 

I made a pot of coffee and we sat at the kitchen table. We were both fully dressed now, and I was sorry the afternoon delight had been so brief. I was ready for more, but she had other ideas.

“I’ll tell ya what, Pete. Any further hanky and panky will have to take place over at my house or in a hotel or, fuck I don’t care, in your truck in an open field somewhere. But it won’t be here.”

“I’m okay with that. I think whatever’s here doesn’t want you here. I’m not even sure it wants me here.”

“Well, I dunno, it got in bed with you…”

“Freddie, do you understand that I’m not sure about any of this? I’m not sure what’s real and what’s not? I mean, yeah, I think it was there…but I was half-asleep and there was only moonlight…maybe I could have…imagined at least part of it…or dreamed it, I dunno…”

She stood up and walked over to the sink and dumped the last of her coffee, then turned off the coffee maker and came to me. She stood behind me and wrapped her arms around my neck and spoke next to my ear. “Let’s get outta here Pete. If there’s some woman-ghost here, let’s let her have the place to herself for a while. Put yer dog out and let’s roll.”

We walked down to her house and got out the Mercedes and headed out. We drove in the country for several hours, and fifty miles away from the city, we found a barbeque joint where the beer was cold and the ribs were thick and juicy and we sat outside at old, scarred picnic tables and waved away the flies. We ate until we were stuffed and took our time getting back. We stopped by my place, so I could feed Snubs and then we went to her place. We went to bed and I expected we would be more relaxed with each other, and in some ways we were, but we were also just learning each other’s timing and rhythms. At some point, we slept.

Two more days went by and Freddie was back to work, doing long hours and not much pay, unless she sold an expensive car and got a fat commission. I spent time doing yard work and deliberately trying to wear myself out, so I’d be able to sleep all night. Snubs helped me by digging holes and carrying off my tools whenever he got the chance. On the second night, I was beat, and I found myself nodding off during the ten o’clock news. I said the hell with it and took myself off to bed.

There was a storm that night and lightning knocked out the power, so there were no lighted numbers on the ceiling when I woke up with an intense boner and someone’s mouth working it slowly. Jesus, she’s back, I thought, and then I just surrendered to the sensation. In the pitch-black, relieved momentarily every few minutes by remote flashes of lightning, she worked me up to the extreme edge of orgasm, then she would back off and let things settle. Soon, she moved up onto the bed, and straddled me. She seemed to have no weight, but she was becoming very strong. In the slight flashes of lightning, I could see that she had been moderately pretty and dark-haired. When I slipped inside her, she was as warm and real as any woman I’d ever loved. Her breasts were large and rather pendulous, with thick, hard, dark nipples. I took them in my hands and tasted each in turn and she ground her hips into me. As I came inside her, she arched back, and I heard that banshee wail again, the same as the night of the upstairs floor creaking. And she dug her fingers into my chest hair and pulled out a handful. As we finished, she faded until, on the next lightning flash, I could see through her, and then she was gone. On my belly was a nice big load of my own semen and a bunch of my own hair.

I leaped out of bed and headed to the bathroom to clean myself up and I noticed Snubs was not in his bed, or anywhere within sight. Probably the wailing ran him off, I reasoned, and grabbed a washcloth. I was grasping at anything to keep my mind away from the fact that I had just had sex with a ghost or spirit or phantom of some kind. And it wasn’t bad. My chest stung a little, but I’d had rougher sex. Now the mystery of the mirror messages was solved. My nocturnal visitor was evidently here before I bought the place and had now become infatuated with me.

I walked the house and found Snubs cowering in the front living room, behind the sofa. It took some coaxing to get him to come out, and even then, he spent some time sniffing around me. Whether he was smelling my sex-sweat, or that perfume, (Poison. It’s called Poison) or the smell of death, I could not know, and he could not tell me. But I was satisfied the entity was real. What had happened was not some half conscious wet-dream, although I guess the result was the same. I knew I was up for the day and I went and started coffee before I hit the shower.

As I got soapy and steamy and clean, I thought about the house’s previous occupant. Murdered, Mr. Oliver had said. But he’d never mentioned her name. I thought about possible ways I might find out more and the library came immediately to mind, but then my next thought was, what about the Internet?

When I stepped out of the shower, my eyes automatically went to the mirror, but it was blank. I realized I had been holding my breath, and I let it out with a sigh and a thank you to whatever deity was now in charge of my life.

I made coffee and heated up a couple of Pop-Tarts. I didn’t want to take time for a real breakfast. I had research to do. I turned on my laptop and let it boot up, then started the search engine. To start with, I put in my own address, and to my amazement, that was all it took.

Police were called this morning to 8556 Norway Place on a ‘check welfare’ call, where they discovered the nude body of the resident, Ramona Clark, 41. A detective at the scene said it appeared she had been dead for several days and that she was most likely beaten to death. The detective would make no further comment on this ongoing investigation.

Neighbors stated Ms. Clark lived alone and was employed at Claire’s Boutique in the Westerly Mall. When she failed to appear at her workplace for the second day, employees at the Boutique called police to check on her.

I ran more searches and read about the investigation that really went nowhere right from the start. Ramona had no ex-husband, no boyfriend, no stalkers. She had mostly kept to herself except for vacation trips. She had been on a Mississippi River cruise the previous spring. I looked at the dates on the articles and realized I had moved in one year and one day after she was found murdered.

So, I didn’t know a hell of a lot more that I’d known before, except now she had a name.

 

7.

 

As I was paging through more articles, and not learning anything new, my cell phone buzzed and I found a text from Freddie.

Cat got yer tongue?

Nope. How ya doin?

Horny as catshit…

We should do something about that.

Yes WE should. I’ll be off today @ 5

Should I bring wine?

Yes, pls.

K. See you then…

There seemed to be a lot of cat-thoughts in her conversation, but that was okay. I was pretty sure I could deal with Freddie. At least she wouldn’t fade out and disappear on me…

I spent the afternoon napping on my sofa and watching TV. I caught an interesting news story out of Austin about some crazy bastard who was sending bombs to people, and I thought about Ted Kaczynski and Timothy McVeigh. I had some weird shit going on at my house, but at least nobody was trying to blow me up. In fact, the only thing that had happened to me was a pretty messy orgasm—not my first, by any means—and some hair loss, which would grow back.

I walked on down to Freddie’s house after I knew for sure she was home. She came to the door in a bathrobe, her hair still damp from the shower. She smelled wonderful and holding her was amazing. We headed straight for her bedroom and played for an hour, then camped out in the kitchen in our underwear, sipping wine and nibbling whatever we could find in her fridge—grapes, cheese, crackers, part of a summer sausage. We shared kisses while we ate and soon she was in my lap and we were feeding each other and giggling like kids. Soon, we hurriedly shoved things back into the fridge and cabinets and raced back to the bedroom.

By nine o’clock, we were exhausted from love-making and I stayed the night. At around three, I got up to get rid of some wine and when I came back to bed, we had another session and went back to sleep, holding each other. At seven AM, I woke up to Freddie singing off-key in the shower. I went in to join her and we actually behaved ourselves. When we were toweling off, she said, “Well, I guess the honeymoon’s over…”

I was wool-gathering and I said, “Huh?” Clever rejoinder, there.

“We just had a shower together and we didn’t attack each other once.”

“I was almost afraid to after last night.”

She grinned at me and said, “Me, too. Besides, I gotta get to work. I’ve sold two cars this week and I’ve got good leads on two more. This may be a record-breaker.” Then, she looked at me and said, “What happened to your chest? Yer missin’ some hair, there…”

“I…I was thinkin’ about shavin’ it all off…but I didn’t know if you’d like me that way and I lost my nerve.”

“No! Don’t you dare! I like yer furry chest. It tickles me, and I like that.”

“Okay, I’ll leave it alone, then…” I had just told Freddie the first lie of the relationship.

As I left, she had her car keys in hand. I kissed her and patted her ass and said, “Go get ‘em, Tiger.”

“You go rest, old man. I’ll call ya…”

I walked on down to my house and dealt with Snubs, who was frantic with love and had decided to show it by trying to knock me down. He wasn’t missing any meals, but he had sure missed his daddy.

I did house cleaning and a couple maintenance chores until noon and then decided a nap might be a good thing. Instead of curling up on the sofa, I went to bed. Stripped to my shorts and crawled right in. No guilt about it, either. I had worked hard to please my lady and she was right, I needed rest. I dropped off in about three minutes.

An hour later, I was awake. The bed covers had been pulled down and also my shorts, and something invisible was touching me, licking me and sucking me. I was transfixed, both by fear and by pleasure. I could see the slickness of her saliva on me and I could feel everything, but I could not see any part of her. I finally gasped her name.

“Ramona?”

I was rewarded with a pause in the action. I could still feel her hand wrapped around me, and then, very faintly, I could see the darkness of her hair and the shape of one breast. I whispered to her, “I want to see you. All of you. Show me.”

And she began to manifest. That is the only word that I could find to describe it. Very gradually, she began to take form. Her face came first and it was a lovely face. She showed it for only a second or two, then she bent back to her task, taking me back into her mouth. And then I could see her shoulders, her back, the curve of her hip, her shapely white legs, everything.

In another minute, I said, “Can you turn over? Can I do that to you?”

She did not speak. She turned onto her back and pulled her legs up and moved them apart, her toes just barely touching the bed. I moved to her and began nuzzling her, right where a woman loves it the most. She shuddered with pleasure and became even more substantial, and I could smell her sex as well as taste it.

I only performed cunnilingus on her for a minute, because I was afraid she would fade away before I could finish with her. I needn’t have worried. I slipped into her and she locked her legs around me and she urged me deeper. I moved until I was completely on top of her and I held her tightly as she came again and again, raking me with her fingernails and even biting me on my neck and chest. It seemed that her lust was endless, and we continued for quite some time, until finally I could hold off no longer and I fired what seemed like a gallon into her. And, at last, I heard her speak. She said, “Oh, Pete…” and then she was gone. And I had sheets to change…

Forty minutes later the bed was changed, the washer was running and I was getting out of the shower. My cell phone was buzzing on the counter. I checked it and found a text from Freddie:

No nookie tonight. One of the guys called in. Gonna hafta work.

Sell anything?

Not yet, but I think it’s a done deal.

Okay, stay safe.

Okay. Think I’m in trouble.

What? Why?

Think I may be fallin for this guy that lives on my street.

Hmmm…that could be good or bad. We better talk…

K. See ya later.

There was a smile on my face I couldn’t get rid of for a while. I really liked Freddie. But I didn’t know if I was really interested in being in love, or getting hitched or any of that jazz. I’d have to tread lightly, I thought, as I looked myself over in the mirror. The bite marks were fading, and Ramona hadn’t torn me open anywhere that I could see.

 

8.

I curled up on the sofa with a beer and a bag of jalapeno chips and started watching Forensic Files, with Snubs curled up beside me. Within a half hour, my eyes were heavy and I dozed off. I woke up with Snubs growling, standing beside me and staring at the hallway.

I put my hand on his thick, hard neck and felt him vibrating against me. “What’s goin on, Buddy? Somebody messin around?”

He jumped down and ran down the hall toward the stairs and I got up and followed. He stood at the bottom of the stairs, looking up.

I followed his gaze and saw Ramona, standing on the landing at the top of the stairs. She was naked and very substantial. She beckoned to me. I held up one finger and took Snubs and put him outside. I went back to the stairs and she was gone. I went on upstairs, on the off-chance that she might have stuck around, but it seemed she was gone again.

In the spare bedroom, where there wasn’t even a bed yet, there was a photo album in the middle of the floor. I had never seen it before and I had no idea where it might have been. I was pretty sure I had been everywhere in the house, but apparently not. The album was open to a page near the middle and there were two pictures there, both taken at a park somewhere. Ramona was recognizable in both and in both there was a man with her. I picked up the album and leafed through it. There were lots of family pictures, but throughout the whole thing there were only two pictures with the unknown man in them.

I wondered if she was trying to give me a message. Was this guy the one who killed her? I pulled the pictures out and flipped them over. One was blank on the back. On the other was written in blue ball-point, ‘Me and Luke, 6/16/08’.

So, Luke, who the fuck are you? I kept the pictures and slipped them into my back pocket. To the air in the room, I said, “Thank you, Ramona. I’ll look into this.”

It was going on four when I got to the police station. At the front desk, a crusty old sergeant tried to shine me on, but when I produced retired police ID, he relented and called back to their homicide unit. In a few minutes a florid, slightly overweight cop named Gilmore came out and got me. We went in the back and he offered me coffee. I knew about police station coffee, but I could smell it and it seemed it might be fresh. I tried a cup and it wasn’t half bad. We went to an interview room and took a seat.

Detective First Class Neil Gilmore was one of those deceptively easy-going cops, who seem about to nod off whenever they’re listening to you, but they don’t miss a thing.

“So, what’s this about, Pete?”

“Do you remember a homicide case a bit over a year ago, a woman named Ramona Clark, who was found murdered in her house over on Norway Place?”

“Yeah. You’re the guy who bought the house?”

“Yeah. How did you know that?”

“Lucky guess. Go ahead.”

“I was wondering, one old cop to another, if there have been any leads on the case lately, or if it’s a cold case now?”

“I hate the term cold case, Pete. I stay on these things and as far as I’m concerned any homicide is always an active case, but right now, that one’s in, ah…shall we say, hibernation?”

I pulled the pictures out of my back pocket and handed them to him. He looked them over on both sides and then said, “Well, I’ll be god-damned. Luke Johns. Where the fuck did you get these?”

“I found an old photo album in the house when I was doing some renovations. They were in it, along with a lot of others. He was only in those two shots, though.”

“You know what, Pete? We interviewed this guy and he told us he didn’t know this woman, never met her, etc., and yadda-yadda, and here he is. We can put him with her and we even have the date. You suppose you could bring in the rest of that album?”

“I could do that, or you could have one of the night shift troops come by and get it if ya need it right away.”

“Okay, we’ll do that. The sooner the better, I’d say. Thank you very much, Pete. This may just blow this case wide open…”

I drove home and after calming Snubs down, I trotted upstairs to grab the photo album, so I’d have it handy whenever the cops came to get it. Of course, it was gone. I stood for a moment, completely perplexed, thinking I might have put it somewhere without thinking about it, but no. I was sure I’d left it right there on the floor. Now, I was gonna look like an idiot when the boys in blue dropped by.

Finally, I stood right in the middle of the room and said, “Ramona? The cops were very interested in those pictures and they’d like to see the rest of the album. Where did you hide it, Babe? I need it…Ramona? You really want this guy caught? Yer gonna hafta help me out, here…”  Nothing. Well, shit. Just then, the doorbell rang and Snubs started going ape-shit downstairs. Under my breath, I said, “Fuck!”, and ran down to get the door.

Gilmore had sent a two-man car and I got the dog settled down and asked them inside. One of them said, “Really like what you’ve done with the place…”

I guess I must have registered a quizzical look with him, because he said, “We were on the initial call, when Ms. Clark was found.”

“Oh, okay. Well, I…seem to have misplaced the item they sent ya for. I’m sure I’ll find it in a day or so and I’ll be glad to bring it in, but…”

“Photo album, right?” The younger copper had tilted his hat back and was looking at me a little strangely.

“Yeah, it had a brown cover with some kinda gold strip making a square on the front…”

He reached past me and picked up the album from the kitchen table and said, “Like this one?” His partner was smiling slightly, and I said, “Um, yeah, that’s it. Damn, it’s hell to get old…”

“Okay, we’ll get this right down to the station…” I knew when they got in their car, the laughter would be uproarious.

After they left, I said, more to myself than to Ramona, “You know those guys think I’m an idiot now…”

I walked down the hall and stepped into the bathroom to make some water and saw the mirror. It said, “Get rid of her…” The message was fading, even as I read it. In a moment, it was gone.

Later that night, Ramona came to me in my bed and we did what we had become accustomed to. This time, she was almost gentle, but as she climaxed, she wailed and moaned, and tears fell on my chest. And when I looked into her eyes, I saw the smoldering coals of ancient forest fires and ruined burned cities, and then she closed those smoldering eyes and she was gone. As I was dozing off, I realized there was no mess to clean up. Ramona was growing stronger and more solid, more real all the time.

9.

 

Days went by and the summer was waning. I continued to see Freddie, but it was like she was on the side, almost like when I was with her, I was cheating on Ramona, whom I lived with, like it or not.

Snubs had gotten so used to her appearances, he didn’t get freaked or even excited anymore. A week after I turned over the photos to the cops, they picked up Luke Johns in Wilmington, Delaware. He waived extradition and they brought him back. He balked at a DNA test and yelled for a lawyer. They got him his lawyer and also a warrant for the DNA. His profile matched that of swabs they had taken of the bite marks on Ramona’s breasts, neck and shoulders. The bite marks had been withheld from the media.

On the advice of his lawyer, he never confessed, but a plea agreement was worked out to keep lethal injection off the table. He got life with no possibility of parole. And I got a call from Detective Gilmore, inviting me to a bash he was throwing at his place for the homicide division. Nothing fancy, beer and brats, come casual, but by all means get your ass over here.

I went. I was tempted to ask Freddie to go, but then decided I didn’t want to deal with all the questions. It was a decision I would come to regret and very soon. I realized I was keeping my activities with Ramona a secret from Freddie, even though she knew I’d had an encounter and she’d seen the message on the mirror. At the same time, I was keeping my activities with Freddie a secret from Ramona, as best I could. I had no idea if Ramona’s spirit could travel from the house, even as short a distance as four houses away, or if she was trapped where she was. I hoped she wasn’t able to follow me and watch as I frolicked with Freddie.

The party ran pretty late and I had enough alcohol that I shouldn’t have driven home, but I made it okay. When I stumbled into the back yard, Snubs was not to be found. I unlocked and opened the back door and he met me, all wags and affection, but not nearly as manic as usual. But I knew I had left him outside. Before I went anywhere else, I looked over the lock on the back door. It appeared to be intact and working normally. I could not see any evidence that the lock had been picked or the door jimmied in any way.

I stepped into the kitchen and turned on the light. Everything appeared normal, but Snubs was still acting strangely. I thought about that .38 revolver in my bedroom and I figured I’d better get that first, then check the rest of the house. When I stepped into the bedroom and turned on the light, I found Freddie. She was face up in the middle of my bed, the large butcher knife from the countertop set in the kitchen shoved up under her ribcage and into her heart. I reached out to her and took her slack, cooling hands in mine and bent my head down to her, whispering, telling her how sorry I was. In my imagination, I saw her, lured to my house somehow, maybe forced inside and then killed while trying ineffectively to fight off something she could not see. Dying because of the jealousy of a woman already dead. My God, why didn’t I just flee the house when that first encounter happened? Why?

Then, from behind me, I heard a grating sound almost like fingernails on slate. I turned to look and there Ramona stood in the doorway, her eyes glowing with evil and with blood on her hands. The grating sound was the laughter of one who was already dead and could never be blamed for the result of her jealousy. I closed my eyes and wept, even as I struggled to hold onto my sanity.

I don’t know how long I stayed there, holding Freddie’s dead hands in mine, but when I came around, it was to the high-octane stink of gasoline. I jumped up and ran into the living room, where I watched in fascinated horror as my red, five-gallon can of lawnmower gas levitated across the room, slowly turning, four feet above the floor, spewing gas onto the furniture and carpet. Again, I heard Ramona’s voice. Again, that low, grating laughter. And I ran. I found Snubs cowering near the back door, and I snatched him up bodily and bolted for the truck. I was suddenly as sober as I’d ever been in my life and I realized if Ramona could kill with a knife and handle a gas can, striking a match would be child’s play.

I started the truck and started backing for the street, when I saw the first flash of fire inside Ramona’s house. Because it really was hers. It had never been mine, and she was proving it now.

I drove all night and finally stopped, exhausted, at a mom-and-pop motel on the west side of Cleveland. I have no idea where we will go. I know I will never convince anyone that I didn’t kill Freddie and burn down the house. What am I going to say? “Well, see, there’s this woman who was murdered in that house and now, she’s a succubus and we’ve been screwing our brains out, but she got jealous of the woman who wound up dead in my bed and…oh, fuck…”

I know it’s only a matter of time before the police will track me down. And I hope that happens first.

Before Ramona does…



badassted.jpg
Art by Kevin Duncan © 2019

Bad-Ass Ted’s Christmas Adventure

 

Kenneth James Crist

 

People seem to think that once time travel was perfected, everything would just fall into place. That all of law enforcement’s problems would be solved, right? I mean, some A-hole kills someone, just go back to before he did it and arrest the idiot, right? No. Doesn’t work. The crime hasn’t been committed yet. Law says ya can’t touch him. You can maybe stop him and save the victim, but legally, ya can’t touch the fucker, even though you know that in your part of the space-time continuum, he’s guilty as shit. Enter the Problem Solvers. I’m Dale Rogers, number 666. I know, cool. I picked the number myself. Not because it is supposed to be Satan’s, but because the Bible says it’s the “number of the Beast”, and when I do what I do best, I am the beast…The newbies don’t get to pick their own numbers anymore.

Step number one: Travel to the correct time and locate the subject. Done. Subject found to be out for a night of casual drinking, which may or may not include casual sex later. He is young, white and good-looking. Most likely has good moves with the ladies. It’s a Christmas party at a local bar, starring a lot of people he works with.

The do-gooders all say we’re murderers. No better than the scum we deal with. In a way, that’s true, but I can guarantee, if the victims knew they were murdered on one plane of existence, they wouldn’t think that. But we try not to ever let the people we save know they were targeted. We just go back and quietly erase the problem.

Time travel is not cheap. And that’s a good thing, too, or every dumbass would be building a warp device and the space-time thing would be more fucked up than it already is. So, since it costs so much time and energy and money to send someone back to correct a problem, we don’t do individual cases. Maybe someday, if the cost comes down. Right now, all we’re doing is serial murder cases.

It works this way: If you go back in time and kill the serial killer before he gets started, all his victims get to live. It’s like it never happened, and in fact, it never did, because we erased it. After making an adjustment like that, a ripple moves down the space-time continuum and it sometimes takes months to find all the victims who, of course, are not victims anymore. We like to do reports on them, just to cover our collective asses. Just to show the powers-that-be what good things we’re doing. After all, it’s taxpayer money.

Step number 2: Insert yourself into the subject’s confidence. I work my way up to the bar and manage to bump into the subject, distracting him and at the same time, adding a little something to his drink. He’s too busy chatting up a set of big breasts with a slight personality to notice much else that’s going on around him. This is good…

In order that people in the past never know what we’re doing, we go to great lengths to fit in. For this case, my warp device has been fitted into a 1960 Chevy Bel Aire 2-door hardtop. It’s period-correct, right down to the whitewalls, silver piping and buttons on the upholstery and fuzzy dice. It’s had the necessary mods, of course, and I must be careful not to wreck it here in 1966. If it fell into the wrong hands, there could be hell to pay. It’s approaching midnight and the highway is empty as I ease the Chevy upward off the road and kill the lights. Wouldn’t do to have people see a car flying over. Cars that fly will happen, but not for at least sixty more years.

In the right seat, unconscious, is a famous serial killer, initials only, T. R. B., a dark-haired, handsome and charismatic guy who really liked Volkswagens. We know his body count was at least thirty. Some say as many as a hundred. After tonight, it will be interesting to see how many lives will be put right by my actions. Right now, at the age of twenty, he is innocent of any crimes, at least as far as we know.

Step number 3, Capture subject. Getting him out to the car was a touch of genius. When he went to the restroom, I followed him. Asked him if he was busy, or could he break away from the boobs for a little fun? Got his attention right away. Of course, he was suspicious. I could see it in his eyes. He wondered if I was “queer”, a term that became passé in the 1990’s, in favor of “gay”. What did I have in mind? Told him I had two very young girls out in my car. How young? Like fourteen and fifteen. What, just sitting out in the lot? No, drugged and stuffed in the trunk…

 

We’re cruising in the Chevy at 14,000 feet—I told you it had mods, right? —and I’m just waiting for him to wake up a little, so I can solve his problem. I like them to know they’re fucked, right at the last. I wouldn’t have to do it that way, but I have to admit, I like it. So tonight, I’ll give myself a little Christmas gift. We are far out over the New Mexico desert when he begins to come around. I hit a button and a section of the roof over the passenger seat slides back. The rush of cold air wakes him up further.

When we got out to the car, he was all, “Hey, cool ride. Big trunk, too, huh?” He was practically licking his chops. He might not have started killing girls yet, but he was not far off. I handed him the key and, when he popped the trunk, we had a bad moment. He was very fast, for being half drunk and doped, too. Once he saw the empty trunk, he turned and suddenly there was a knife in his hand. Fortunately, his heart rate had spiked, and the dope finally kicked in. He slumped back against the car and the knife dropped from his numb fingers. All I had to do was sort of guide him into the car as he started going down. Didn’t even need my stunner.

He looks out at the stars and then turns to say something to me, a sappy smile on his face. Oh yeah, he’s flyin’ high on the stuff, but it’s known for wearing off fast, so I just say, “Goodbye, Ted, you fucker.” Initiate step number 4. Erase the threat of subject’s actions. I hit the control on his ejection seat and blow his ass out into the night. No parachute, of course. If they ever find him, it will be just one of those mysteries that occur from time to time, unsolvable and soon forgotten. I close the roof and log the time and date into the computer. December 25th, 1966, 12:24 A. M. I set the controls for April 15th, 2108 and trip a switch. I’ll be home in time for supper.

As the sequence starts and the warp drive begins to whine, I think, “Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night…”

        My laughter is beastly and mostly lost in the noise of the field generators…



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Art by Kevin Duncan © 2019

The Very Special Valentine

or, Life Happens

 

Kenneth James Crist

 

When I was a kid, way back in the fifties, we made our own Valentines. Red construction paper and white paper lace, glitter to the moon and back. We made them by the ton, to exchange with classmates and then they always ultimately got thrown away.

Except, once in a while, there was one special one. That one came from whatever cute little girl you were crushing on at the time. And of course, you made one for her, too.

I have kept the one I got from Nancy Pfieffer. I’m 74 years old and I still have it. Nancy was my biggest crush and, I guess, my first real love. The Valentine was not only the best I ever got from anyone, but it was also the biggest. So big, that Nancy had to patch together four sheets of construction paper and use a whole box of lace. And the glitter pen must have worn out with the message she put on that sucker. It wasn’t just a cutesy little note. It was a letter.

We were in fourth grade then. Girls wore dresses to school in those days and actual leather shoes and white anklets. Barrettes in their hair, maybe polish on their nails, but never any make-up. That was a no-no until they reached dating age. And that wouldn’t happen until they were at least sixteen.

Nancy didn’t need makeup. Not then, or ever. Every time I ever saw her later in life, she looked flawless.

I’m sorry. Sometimes my mind wanders. Back to the Valentine. I could go get that Valentine right now and read it to you, but I won’t waste the time. I have read it almost to rags and I know it by heart.

It said, “Walt: I love you. I hope you love me, too. I will always care for you, no matter how long I live. If I’m lucky, maybe some day you will ask to marry me and make me the happiest girl in the world. Even if that never happens, I will always be there for you. Love and kisses, Nancy.”

I know. Pretty long and serious letter for a girl nine years old. But, sometimes, a person just knows. Ya know what I mean? Nancy and I knew we were meant for each other, even then. We spent our little kid years mooning over each other, holding hands on the playground, sometimes even sneaking in a kiss. We didn’t care when other kids teased us about being “kissy lovers.” We had each other.

Then life happened. Life fucking happened to both of us. . . .

 

My father died when I was two. Massive heart attack. He hit the floor like a ton of bricks and he was gone. I remember when the men from the funeral home came to get him.

Nowadays, they would use the term “morbidly obese” for what my dad was. To me he was just the big guy who carried me around on his shoulders and took me to town for haircuts and ice cream.

When they struggled to bring him down from the upstairs bedroom where he died, I remember hearing one of them whisper, “God damn, he’s a heavy motherfucker. . . .” Then another man hushed him. I suppose that was unprofessional.

My mother struggled along for a while, and after a couple years, went back to teaching school. Then the cancer came along. Breast cancer wasn’t something you beat in the 1950s. She had the double mastectomy. She had the massive doses of radiation. They even had some experimental drugs they tried. None of it mattered. It killed her in four years, and I was alone.

I remember that Nancy was there at her funeral, along with her parents and most of the town. My mom was well-liked and respected. After the service, Nancy and I sat on the back steps of that little Methodist church and held hands until her mom and dad came to get her. We cried together, and she told me she would always be there for me. It meant a lot to me then, and it still does, even now.

Then it was foster homes, scattered to hell and gone in other states for four years until I could finally escape to the military. We wrote letters back and forth. Some were pretty torrid, too, until her mother found and read some of them. Then, our jets got cooled rather quickly.

Before I got my discharge from the Air Force, I got word that Nancy had gotten pregnant and was getting married to Bobby Cannon, one of the biggest bullies I’d ever gone to school with. Maybe he’d changed, I thought. At least I hoped so, for Nancy’s sake.

And life continued to happen. Marriage and divorce, kids and child support, houses and cars and trucks and motorcycles and careers. But through all of that, Nancy was never far from my mind. I would get the occasional word from someone back home. Nancy had three kids. Then four. Nancy got divorced. Nancy got married again. Life happens. . . .

Years went by and we both kind of lost track, but then, less than a month ago, I got an email from a cousin. Included in it was Nancy Steiner’s obituary. Yeah, my Nancy. Steiner was her name when she died. Perfectly healthy when she skidded on ice and hit a power pole in the dark. Electrocution is as bad a way to go as any. They said, if she’d just stayed in the car . . .

But she didn’t. When she stepped out, her foot made the connection that carried seven thousand volts to the ground. I doubt if she knew anything. I made the trip back to the old hometown for her service and only wished I could see her again. They did a closed casket service, so that didn’t happen.

I spent several years alone, and I kept thinking about Nancy. I wondered what she looked like, after all the years we’d been apart. I was willing to bet she still didn’t need makeup. The more I thought about her, the more I was convinced that I just had to see her one more time. I needed to tell her how much I still loved her and how sorry I was that things didn’t work out for us. She’d said she would always be there for me, and I knew right where she was.

They hadn’t buried her in the big cemetery in our hometown, but in a small, isolated family plot, miles out in the country.

When I could no longer stand not to see her, I packed my truck and headed home again.

 

*     *     *     *

 

Modern embalming techniques are a miracle in themselves. Modern science has made it possible to exhume a person after as much as twenty years and, with some minimal restoration of makeup, have a second, open-casket funeral.

But Nancy never needed makeup, and she still doesn’t now. Yes, I went and found her. And I rescued her from that dark and evil place where they put her. She said she’d always be there for me, and she didn’t lie.

She was there. It was hard work removing the hundred or so cubic feet of dirt they’d put her under. I’m not the man I once was, and it took me two days.

I worked like a dog for my Nancy, and at last I removed her from the white satin. It was as white as the lace on that long-ago Valentine. She was as beautiful as ever and I put her in my truck and reburied the casket.

Nancy and I are together now, and we will be until it’s my turn to pass on. She doesn’t speak, but she sure is a great listener. The slight smile on her face tells me all I need to know. That she’s happy at last, glad to be with me and still in love.

Sometimes I worry that someone will find out she’s with me and I’ll wind up in trouble, or packed away in the booby hatch, but we don’t get many visitors out here. So, I just sit back and enjoy the company of my very special Valentine, and, just like always, life happens. . . .









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Art by Kevin Duncan © 2019

A Gift of Death

 

Kenneth James Crist

 

Always pitch your tent on high ground. I mean, if it’s just a silly little, one-man Wal Mart tent and it doesn’t look like rain, fuck it, put the damn thing anywhere it looks good. But if it’s a good-sized, serious tent and you’re gonna be there a while, find the high ground and, if there’s a stream or river nearby, look for high-water marks and locate above them. This way, if it storms, you get drainage and a flood won’t carry your ass away, to be found weeks later, drowned and a putrefying mess.

“Is this a good spot?” Katie had never camped out and it had been a while for me, too. We had forest all around and a stream nearby. We were on federal land in a National Forest and our permits were in order, all fees paid.

“This is about as good as it’s gonna get, Babe. We’re a few miles off the beaten path and I think we’re gonna have the place all to ourselves. It’s too late in the season for a lot of city folks to come up here. How you feelin’?”

“Surprisingly good, actually,” she said, “Other than being a little winded from the altitude.”

I was amazed at how well she was holding up. We had hiked in from a parking area several miles away. True, I had lugged most of the equipment, but she had done well, considering how sick she had been just a week before. I dropped everything I’d been carrying and reached for her. I kissed her neck and her lips and the top of her bald head and we sat down together and rested for a while.

Katie had survived cancer twice before. This time, she would not. I knew it and she knew it and all her doctors knew it. The chemo had left her weak and skinny and bald and she had good days and bad days. But now she had put all the bad days behind her. She had opted, now that she was nearing the end, to just let all the treatments go and end her life in the most natural way possible.

In the state we were in, laws had now been passed to allow assisted suicide, under the supervision of a doctor. I was that doctor. Nowhere in the law did it state that the doctor assisting had to be the patient’s regular physician. Any licensed doctor could assist. And when the time was right, I would help her on her way.

It would not be easy. We had been married only eleven years and we were still very much in love. We had hoped to be together for fifty, sixty, seventy years, but it was not going to happen, at least not this time around.

“So, you gonna show me how to set up a tent, or are we just gonna sit around and listen to the wind?” I gave her another quick smooch by her ear and got up and started breaking out the tent. It was not new, by any means, and it was borrowed, but I was familiar with what went where, and in about forty minutes, we had a canvas house, complete with mesh windows, roll up covers and a floor. Katie didn’t like bugs all that well.

Blowing up air mattresses when at an unaccustomed altitude is a pain in the ass and a dizzying experience. That took almost as long as setting up the tent. By evening, I had built a fire pit and we had a nice fire going and dinner was in the skillet.

I wish I could tell you about a whirlwind romance, riding horses in the surf, sneaking off to an isolated cabin for Christmas, calling each other in the dead of night, talking breathlessly about our love and our future together.

It wasn’t like that. When I was in Medical School at Kansas University in Wichita, Kathryn Ann Gilmore had just been there, on the periphery of all the craziness and 19-hour days, the absolute cramming of knowledge into the stubborn cranium that is the experience of med school.

She was a secretary, nothing more. No aspersions on that honorable profession, and one as dedicated as she truly made it a profession, not just a job.

Our first date was a total bust, mostly my fault. Dinner and a show had turned out to be Hardee’s burgers and me sleeping through a movie I can’t even remember now. Why she ever agreed to a second date is a secret she’s taken with her to her grave…

I don’t know why soldiers bitch about MRE’s. Meals Ready to Eat require only water and some heat and they’re ready to go. They will easily last 25 years and they’re actually pretty tasty. Better than their predecessor, C-rations.

We had beef Stroganoff and some canned peaches and a couple beers that I’d parked in the ice-cold stream when we arrived. We fed the fire and talked about anything and everything, except Katie’s demise. We carefully avoided that subject, at least for now.

At about ten, we turned in and, much to my surprise, Katie wanted to make love. We had tried a few times since the chemo had started, but found she was dry and it was painful, so we’d left it alone. On this first night in camp, she got in her purse and got out a small bottle and carefully anointed me with a very nice lubricant and then straddled me and carefully joined us together. It was the best we’d had in a long time. The darkness was good, only the light from the dying fire to illuminate the tent wall. It was hard to see the scar on her chest and the one missing breast. Afterward, she cried a little. Tears of joy. Tears of sorrow, too, I supposed. I held her against me and soon, we slept.

I would be the first to admit that my initial attraction to Katie was entirely physical. I wanted to fuck her. Sometimes, so badly my teeth itched. In medical-psychological mumbo-jumbo, she fit my “template”, so much so that thinking about nailing her was screwing with my grades.

She was small and willowy, small breasts, small hips, and at the same time shapely in a way that was almost voluptuous. With our schedules and all the studying, it was nine half-assed dates before I finally got her in bed…

As the days went by, I watched as Katie got steadily weaker and I knew she would never leave this place alive. She didn’t know it, but I had arranged an airlift of her remains by helicopter, once it was all over. I had scouted a small meadow just a hundred yards away for the chopper to land, so it could be accomplished quickly. Mr. Efficiency, that’s me, alright.

The first time we made love, I had expected a certain reluctance on her part, that she might have to actually be seduced. As it turned out, she was as hot to go as I was and many of the things I loved to do to her were exactly the things she’d been hoping for in a lover and eventually, a husband. I think I must have fit her “template.” Moving in with her meant I had to get some transportation, but I no longer had to pay rent. I bought my first motorcycle and we were off to the races.

On the last day, Katie woke up with chills and a quick check with a thermometer showed she was spiking a fever. It is often the case that the cancer does not kill the patient. Often a secondary infection such as pneumonia or influenza will do that, something the person could likely survive if their immune system was not already compromised by the cancer and the chemotherapy.

Late in the day, she rallied somewhat and was able to eat some soup and crackers and she got some good rest.

In a way, I regretted we had not had any kids. Once Katie was gone, there would be nothing left of her but memories and a few trinkets. No little Katie-clone to comfort Daddy or for Daddy to hold. But during our lives together, at least for the first seven years, we thought we’d have plenty of time for kids later. After I had my practice established. After I paid off a hundred and sixty thousand dollars’ worth of student loans. Now, time was short, and some things would never be accomplished. I hoped she had no regrets…

At nine in the evening, I was sitting by the fire, when I heard her call from the tent. I helped her to the chemical toilet and then she wanted to go back to her bed and she wanted me to join her. I held her as she shivered in the dark and she said, “I think it’s time to hook me up, Johnny.”

Through a veil of tears, I got out the equipment and started the IV. The process would be started entirely by her, with the simple press of a button, only and not until she was ready.

In the dark, she said, “I’d like to try making love one more time.”

“Are you sure? Do you really feel good enough?”

“No, but I want to anyway…”

That was a phrase I’d heard from her all our time together. Her first ride behind me on the bike. “Are you okay with this?” I knew she was scared shitless. “No, but let’s do it anyway…” then the discovery that she loved riding behind me, whenever we got the chance.

At an amusement park in Kansas City, looking at one of the world’s great roller coasters. “Sure you wanna do this?”

“Fuck no, but I’m gonna do it anyway…” Then, when we got off the ride, asking if we could go again.

This time she wanted to be on her back and we were careful of the IV and bottles and tubing. She cried out when she climaxed, and I was glad she had that pleasure. I stayed awake for a long time and eventually she slept. I figured maybe it was a false alarm and we’d have another day or so. I listened to her somewhat raspy breathing, not liking the sound of it at all, and I thought, Are ya sure you wanna do this, Katie? And in my mind, I heard her laugh and say, “Nope. But I’m gonna do it anyway…”

In the morning, I found that Katie had passed away, sometime after I slept. The button on the lethal IV had never been activated. The bottles were still full, all except for the normal saline, which was about half gone. In the steel-gray of the morning light filtering through the trees, I washed her and dressed her and wept at her enduring beauty and my own loss.

Last of all, I kissed her cold lips and then I went outside and called for the helicopter.

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Art by Kevin Duncan © 2019

Unreliable

 

Kenneth James Crist

 

Shit like this is a pain in the ass. I don’t think I really ask that much of my people. Loyalty, that goes without saying. The ability to keep their yap shut. That’s just common sense. A little job knowledge and the willingness to learn. I mean, c’mon, we’re all in this thing together, right? Ya take a fall, ya don’t talk to the cops. That’s why we have lawyers on retainer all the time. Yeah, tell ‘em yer name, address, fine. Date a birth, yeah, fine. They’re always gonna tell ya, “Hey Vinnie, yer not a suspect, okay? We just need some background, here…” Yeah, fuck that. You lawyer up.

Then they give ya that bullshit line about, “Hey, if ya didn’t do nothin’, whatcha need a lawyer for?”

“Sorry, fuckface, it’s a matter of principle…we don’t talk to cops without legal representation.”

It always amazes me on these TV shows like The First 48, how stupid people can be. I watch the way the cops work ‘em and it’s so silly. They sit in the little room and blab their ass off. I just wanna scream, “Get a lawyer, stupid!”

I mean, what da fuck, right? We all know what’s goin’ on, right? I mean, the cops know who they’re dealin’ with. They know when a guy’s mobbed up. They like ta act like they don’t, but it’s all bullshit.

So, then there was this Charlie idiot. Yeah, I know, he wasn’t a made guy, so I shouldn’t expect that much. Wasn’t family or nothin’. But, I mean, hey. Gave him a simple task. Get rid of this foreign prick that runs that grocery over on ninth. Asshole didn’t understand that when ya run a business here, ya pay. That way nothin’ bad happens and ya get a lotta custom, right? And nobody fucks with ya, right? Ya never gonna get robbed or nothin’. And if somebody tries some shit, they gotta deal with us. Way it works…Nope. Fucker wouldn’t pay. First one in a long time. Gotta make an example, right? So, I decide to let Charlie handle it. He was vouched for, somebody’s brother-in-law, that kinda thing.

I never said, “Make it look like a robbery.” If this Charlie fuck had half a brain, he woulda realized that would look bad, because of the protection thing. He shoulda grabbed the asshole off the street and disappeared him. Not that hard to do, but no, he hasta go for the big grandstand deal.

Next thing he screws up, he uses a semi-auto, instead of a revolver. Leaves shell casings all over the place. Fuck that. Use a wheel-gun, no ejected cases, everything stays in the piece. Use an unregistered piece, wear yer gloves, tape ‘em on so ya don’t screw up, heat of the moment and take ‘em off. Make it look like a robbery and get it done. Simple, in-and-out deal, if that’s the way yer gonna go. Gimme the money. No! Pop. Pop. Pop. He’s dead. Toss the weapon and split. Hardest killing to solve. Stranger murder. Simple. Right?

Now, this idiot Charlie doesn’t anticipate that the wife is gonna be there, too. Why the hell do ya think they call it a ‘Mom and Pop’ store? Of course she’s gonna be there. He pops the guy, she’s staring at his face, cause he’s too dumb to wear a mask and she’s screeching like a bad wheel bearing, so he pops her, too. Bad news. Now the whole neighborhood is up in arms and they’re looking to me to do something about this shit. Not the cops. Me. Cause I’m the one they’re payin’ protection to. Makes my goddamn head hurt.

Second screw up, the dumbass uses his own car. And he can’t drive a Ford Fusion or a Chevy Cavalier. Naw, this mope hasta drive an Audi A4 that he damn sure can’t afford. A Ford or a Chevy, there’s a million of ‘em ta look at, but how many A4’s are zoomin’ around that part a town, especially drivin’ like a fuckin’ maniac. So, he gets nabbed about four blocks from the scene with the gun in the car. Gunshot residue, foreign guy’s blood spatter on him, the works. We hear about it, get our lawyer on it and the lawyer finally gets the idiot to shut the hell up and at the arraignment, he actually gets bail. First offense, ties to the community and all that. Now he’s out and we gotta do something about him, because if it goes to trial, we already know this guy’s gonna spill his guts. Not that he really knows that much, but we don’t want any undue attention. As soon as they mention the lethal injection, he’s gonna sing like a fuckin’ bird and there goes the ball game.

I think about this shit for a while, then I walk outta my office and out inta the club. It’s two in the afternoon and the place is dead as a shitbug. I see Big Paulie and Tony Gee sittin on their fat asses, drinkin’ coffee. So I walk over and sit with ‘em. I’ve already made up my mind I’m gonna handle this myself. Never ask any of yer people ta do anything you wouldn’t be willing ta do yourself, right?

I tell Paulie, “Hey, I gotta go see a guy in Kansas.”

Paulie’s eyebrows fly clear up inta where his hairline useta be. He says, “What da fuck’s in Kansas, Boss?”

“Nothin’,” I say, “that’s the point. An I wanna take that new guy, that Charlie guy with me. Get me some plane tickets ta Kansas City. I wanna fly out in the morning. Okay?”

Tony Gee is head-bobbin like a race horse at the gate and he says, “On it, Boss.” Doesn’t ask me shit. Just does what I ask, without any bullshit. Good, reliable help.

Fifteen minutes later he taps on my office door and sticks his head in. “Yer booked on American, first class, six forty-five in the mornin’, Boss. Flight 2284.” I smile at him and wave him out, then pick up my phone. I call this Charlie nitwit. He answers on the first ring. By now, even an idiot like him probably knows he screwed up, so he’s bein’ Johnny-on-the-spot.

“We gotta go ta Kansas City in the morning,” I tell him, “Pick me up at the house at five A.M.” He starts to ask some shit and I hang up. He doesn’t have enough balls to call me back. If he has questions, he can call somebody else.

~~~~~~~

Five in the morning, I look outside, and the mope is sittin’ in my driveway. Guy on the gate called the house at a quarter till and told me he was there. I let him wait. I give it another five minutes and walk out with my carry-on bag and wave him off as he starts ta jump out to get my door. “Let’s just go,” I tell him, “Goddamn TSA wants ya at the gate two hours early. What bullshit. I look like a fuckin middle-eastern terrorist?”

“No, Boss.” He pulls outta the drive and cobs it and I tell him, “Hey, Charlie, cool yer jets. Let’s not get pulled over or some shit. That would just make us later.”

We put the car in long-term and I see we’re gonna make the flight with no sweat. Before we leave the car, I ask him if he’s strapped. He pulls a little Taurus revolver from an ankle holster. So, he actually has learned something. I tell him, “Lock it in the trunk. Otherwise we gotta declare it and they will run a check on it.”

“Good idea, Boss.” Yeah, no shit Charlie, like I been doin’ this shit a long fuckin time and never been to prison. Not planning on it now, either. Not over your worthless, skinny ass.

On the plane, they keep bringin’ booze and snacks and Charlie’s suckin’ it up and actin like a movie star, flirtin’ with the flight attendants and all that shit. Actin’ like he doesn’t have a dumpy little German wife at home. I know when this is all over, I’ll hafta console the grieving Frau and keep her quiet. My guys tell me she’s tired of his ass, too. I figure a hundred grand and a plane ticket back to the Fatherland should do the trick. They got no little kinder, so that’s a blessing.

By the time we land in Kansas City, he’s about half bombed, not quite staggering, but close. He’s really intrigued when a car meets us and takes us to a private air service on the other side of the airport.

 

And that’s why we’re in a helicopter, cruising over the Kansas countryside at two thousand feet. The chopper is leased to a Medevac outfit outta Kansas City and we’re on a ‘test flight’. The pilot is my nephew. He flew for the Army and came home from Desert Storm with his own set of problems. Keeping his mouth shut is not one of those problems, though. Dickie is a good kid.

Charlie The Idiot is strapped into the patient cot and we’ve chloroformed his ass. He’s in happy land and we’re lookin’ for a likely spot to put this moron. Lotsa empty space out here. It’s called the Flint Hills and it’s land that was open prairie for thousands of years, Indian tribal hunting grounds, and not much good for farming. Sink a plow into the topsoil here and you’ll just break it on rock. It’s good for grazing cattle, though, and it’s the perfect time of year, too. The ranchers burn the grass off every year. Kills a lotta insects and scrub cedar trees and shit like that. The ashes are good for the soil and the fresh grass comes up tender and green. Fattens the cattle and makes them better for McDonald’s or whoever.

On the horizon to our left, we see smoke and lots of it. Dickie banks the helicopter that way and I get Charlie unstrapped. We watch the fire front and I know Dickie is watching the wind, too. There are bound to be thermals above the fire front, rising air currents that might mess with the ‘copter and make it hard to control, plus the air above the fire will be oxygen-deprived and could cause an engine stall. Dickie puts us a mile ahead of the fire and I slide open the side door.

Dickie tilts the machine into a left bank, heels it over pretty hard, and it takes hardly any help at all to get Charlie out the door. We watch him all the way to the ground. There’s a puff of dust, almost like in a Road Runner cartoon and I slide the door shut. The damage from the impact, along with the burn-over of the fire will make an interesting case for whatever sheriff hasta handle that shit.

Most of the counties in Kansas don’t have much in the way of enforcement and no investigative people at all. If and when old Charlie is found, they’ll call in the KBI, the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, to handle it. I know they’re spread pretty thin and it may take a long time to identify Charlie. Or it might never happen at all.

I originally had the idea that I’d take the dummy to a meat packing plant. There are several of those in western Kansas. Put him through the process and people would be eatin’ his dumb ass two days later and never know it, but then I figured, could be some of my good people chowin’ down at Burger King and get a Charlie burger with their fries, so I decided this was better.

The other down-side to that plan was that too many people would know about it. Out there in Dodge City and Garden City, they employ a lotta Vietnamese and Mexicans, and they don’t know about how things work. Somebody was bound to talk, right?

This way, there’s only me and Dickie. And Dickie’s family and he’s good, reliable help. Dickie talks to Kansas City Center and gets a vector and we head back. Gonna be in time for a late lunch…

 

 


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Art by Kevin Duncan © 2019

Texas Redux

A Barry Wilder Short Story

Kenneth James Crist

 

Sometimes a guy just accumulates too many memories, and that’s okay if they’re good memories, but in the period of a year and a half, I’d lost three of my best friends. My best friend and lover Iva Gonzalez, retired from the Natrona County sheriff’s in Wyoming, had been killed by gunfire in my own garage. My best male friend, Roland Nesper, also of Wyoming had come to live with me after Iva’s death and had finally succumbed to a heart condition that had plagued him for a couple of years.

Then there was our dog. Commando Cody was a big, deep-chested Doberman and a badass law dog in his own right. I say our dog because none of us really owned Commando, and yet we all did, as much as a person can really own another living, breathing entity.

After Iva and Roland were gone, there was only me for Commando and he went through a grieving process just as surely as I did. He would pace the house, longing for Iva, because she had been his favorite. I had placed her old, comfortable leather bomber jacket in his bed, so he could at least smell her, even though I had taken him to the mortuary, and he had sniffed her remains and wailed with the rest of us, crying out his love and his loss.

I was never sure of his age, but I was quite sure he passed away of a broken heart as much as any illness. I buried him in Iva’s jacket.

Months later, I found a Jack Russel terrier someone had abandoned in a National Park in Arizona and she quickly learned to ride the motorcycle with me.

I had my encounters and adventures and tried to move on, but the ownership of the Harley Davidson that Iva had enjoyed so much was wearing on me, and in October, I went looking for a trade.

I settled on a new Kawasaki Voyager, a 1700cc V-Twin with fairing, bags and tour trunk, decked out in candy red paint, in fact the same exact color that Boomer had been, another Kawasaki two motorcycles back.

When I got it home, I parked it in the same spot Thumper had always occupied and let Bonnie out into the garage. She walked around the new machine, its pipes still ticking as it cooled down, and she kept glancing at me. Finally, I scooped her up and set her on the saddle and she continued to look the bike over. Finally, she jumped down and went to the door to be let back into the house, glancing back only once. Apparently, the machine met with her approval…

During the next few days, we bundled up and rode quite a bit. I figured if I could get the first 600 ‘break-in’ miles on the bike, we could maybe squeeze in a fall ride before the weather got stupid. I say stupid because we live in Kansas, and fall and winter weather in the Sunflower State can change with startling rapidity. As many farmers have said, “Ain’t nothin’ between Kansas and the goddamn Arctic Circle but a bob-wire fence and that’s only one strand.”

As we completed our warranty-required break-in and then got the bike back to the dealer for its first maintenance stop, I watched the ten-day forecast for Texas, Arizona and New Mexico. Daily highs were still hitting the high sixties in Texas, seventies in New Mexico and eighties in Arizona.

Meanwhile, the Kawasaki was taking on a personality. The first thing I noticed was that sometimes, when idling in neutral, it would suddenly bang into first gear, killing the engine. It did this a number of times and it was a little disconcerting when it happened, as there was never any warning. Then for several days, it decided to turn the stereo system on and off by itself. This could be while sitting, or rolling, made no difference. On the way to the dealership, it reset both of its trip meters without me touching anything. Twice. I told the service techs about these anomalies and they assured me they would check them out. They found nothing amiss.

In the end, the bike settled down after I named her. I decided Christine would be a good name, after the haunted ’58 Plymouth in the Stephen King novel. I was convinced at that time that she, too, was haunted.

In the first week of November, we packed my stuff and Bonnie’s accoutrements and headed out. I had decided we would go as far south as we could without crossing into Mexico, then head west as long as the good weather held out. Bonnie had her own leather jacket, boots and goggles. I stopped short of trying to fit her with a helmet. Most dog’s skulls, with the possible exception of the bulldog breeds, just aren’t shaped for a helmet, and if it isn’t fitted properly it does little or no good in an accident.

When it was warm enough, she would always prefer riding in front of me. When it got colder, she would opt for the back seat and more frequent stops to cuddle and warm up.

On the first night, we found a dog-friendly motel on the south side of Lubbock. On the second day, we found lodging in the only open motel on the east side of Marfa, Texas. I knew Marfa was a pretty remote area and that was why it had been chosen as a location to shoot the movie, “Giant” with Rock Hudson and James Dean. I had forgotten about the legend of the Marfa Lights, until I spotted a brochure in a rack in the motel office. They had a viewing area just a short ways east of town set up just for viewing.

There were stories, as there always are about any unexplained phenomenon, and the consensus seemed to be that the lights were attributable to car headlights on highway 67, which heads south toward Presidio. Or UFO’s. Or ghosts. But then, according to the brochure, the earliest anecdote commonly cited as an observation of the Marfa lights is that of the cowboy Robert Reed Ellison in March 1883. This was while he was herding cattle through the Paisano Pass southwest across the Marfa plain. Too far back for automobile lights. Bonnie and I decided we would go have a look. First, we went and ate at a Dairy Queen, the only place in town that seemed to be open, then we went back to the room and curled up for a nap.

I woke up at ten P.M. and it was plenty cool outside, so we bundled up and warmed the motorcycle and headed out. It was a brisk ride of only nine miles, but when we got to the viewing area, Bonnie was ready to get off the bike and warm up. There were several other cars there and a number of people standing or sitting in the semi-dark area. Bonnie had to move around and greet them all and be fawned over by one and all. She looked pretty spiffy in her leather jacket, with her goggles and scarf hung around her neck. Some people gave up and left and we settled in on a hard concrete bench to watch.

The profusion of stars was amazing, the Milky Way being clearly visible and after a while the car lights from the highway was more of a nuisance than anything else. By midnight, the tourists had all left and Bonnie and I had the place to ourselves. We could hear the occasional yip of a coyote in the distance, and Bonnie would growl once in a while, uneasy at the thought of something out there in the dark that she couldn’t readily identify.

I was bored but also stubborn and I decided we’d give it some more time. Then, I apparently dozed off. I awoke with a start when Bonnie gave out a yip. She was clearly agitated, doing her “spin trick” where she whirls madly in one direction, then reverses directions. She does that when she’s excited and also to score extra treats. I looked up toward the mountains to the south and saw six green lights in a slightly curved line. The lights faded to blue, pulsed back to green, faded to orange, pulsed back again. Bonnie was standing now, her forepaws on a low cement block wall and her face pointed toward the lights. I reached out and touched her and she was vibrating, almost buzzing. I sensed that this wasn’t just excitement…it was dread.

Whatever we were seeing, it was moving slowly toward us, and I was feeling a low, soft vibration coming through the concrete bench under my ass. I stood up stiffly and moved forward, stepping out from under the canopy of the viewing center. To my right, a soft, feminine voice said, “What the fuck is that?”

I glanced to my right and saw a smallish woman in a long black coat. In the dark, that was about all I could make out. Maybe some dark hair and light-colored skin. She wasn’t smiling. I had no clue when she had arrived.

“I have no idea, but I think we’re gonna find out…” I said. The vibration was getting stronger and the lights were getting closer. They were also pulsating more rapidly. I could see a faint glow below the lights, which seemed to be reflecting off the ground.

“That’s a goddamn flying saucer!” She was stepping carefully back, and I got the impression maybe she had experience in the military, and she was looking for cover. Not a bad idea, under the circumstances. Bonnie yapped and did her spin trick again. The lights grew nearer. Maybe a mile out, now. I had a small flashlight in my pocket, and I pulled it out and switched it on, pointed at the cement. I could see grains of sand and fine gravel dancing in the vibrations now.

I reached down and scooped up Bonnie and we stepped back beside the viewing building with the woman. There were small lights set into the walls, low down, to keep people from tripping and injuring themselves. By the lights, I could see her features. A spill of dark, unruly hair. A closed, tough-girl face. A trim body, a little heavy in the breasts. The term trailer-trash ran through my mind.

Abruptly, the vibrations stopped and the lights, including my flashlight flickered. I glanced at the lights out on the desert and saw the clear circular shape of a hovering disk and then it suddenly accelerated silently and flew directly over the viewpoint. I stepped out away from the building to watch it, as it banked to the east and climbed, accelerating at a rate that could only be termed as astonishing. In about seven seconds, it faded to a speck and was gone.

From my side, the woman said, “Holy shit! Look at that mother fucker go!”

I said, “Yes indeed. That was amazing. I’m Barry Wilder, by the way.”

“You on the bike?”

“Yup. When did you get here?”

“Bout an hour ago. I think you might have been snoozin’. Zippy there was on high alert, though. Good little watchdog.”

“Oh, sorry. This is Bonnie.”

“Hi. I’m Sissy Bowman. Sorry, Margaret, actually. I’ve been called Sissy most of my life.” We shook hands solemnly. She even shook with Bonnie.

“I think we just got treated to something most people never see,” I said, “we should feel privileged, I guess.”

“All I feel is fuckin’ scared. Sorry,” she laughed nervously, “language. I’ve always had kind of a potty mouth.”

“I was a cop, Sissy. I’ve heard every dirty word in every language you could imagine. Think the show’s over for tonight?”

“I’d bet on it. From what I’ve read, people report actual sightings out here maybe five times a year. Guess we were just here at the right time.”

“Well, I knew these things existed. I accidentally caught a picture of one out in California one time. Didn’t even know I had it until I was looking at the pictures later. Looked smaller than this one, though.”

“I’ve always thought people who saw UFO’s were nuts or just seeking attention. Now, I guess I’m part of the lunatic fringe.” Her grin was infectious in the darkness. Looked like she had all her teeth, too. Always a plus…

“Well, I guess we’ll head back. Nice meeting you, Sissy. We may see you on down the road.”

“Where are you staying?” She was starting to walk toward the parking area.

“We’re at the Maverick on the east side of Marfa. Seemed to be the only place open.”

“Yeah,” she said, “me too. See ya later…” She slipped into her car, an older Ford Fusion, tan or beige or one of those colors that are really non-colors. She started up and pulled out. Bonnie whined and looked up at me.

“Yeah,” I said, “she’s pretty nice, huh?” We mounted Christine and fired up and pulled out. I kept Sissy’s taillights in sight. Watched her pull in at the motel and drive further down from our room, which was right on the northeast corner. I parked and locked up and Bonnie took a last run before we went in. She did her business and then went down to Sissy’s door and sniffed around it. I whistled softly and she came down the sidewalk, stopping twice to look back.

Inside, I undressed, went into the bathroom and brushed my teeth and jumped into bed and got under the covers. I was cold from the ride back, and Bonnie jumped up and snuggled in against me. I got back up and went to my bags and got out my Smith and Wesson Shield semi-automatic and put it on the nightstand on the opposite side of the bed from the door. I climbed back in bed and settled in again. It was one thirty-five in the morning and I yawned and turned on my right side as I always do when I’m ready to sleep.

I think I had actually dozed off a little, when Bonnie growled and I was instantly awake. Then there was a light tapping on my door. I reached to the nightstand and snatched up the Smith and stepped out of bed. Went to the window and eased the curtain aside. Sissy was standing on my doorstep, hugging herself and looking around.

“Hang on,” I said, loud enough I figured she could hear me. Not loud enough to wake everybody else in the place. I grabbed my jeans and slid them on and unlocked the door. Bonnie was right there to give her a quick sniff, then she jumped back up on the bed.

“I’m sorry…this was probably a bad idea,” she said, “but I need to talk to someone and we both saw the same thing…”

“Come in, come in, you’re letting out what little heat there is.”

She was in shorts and barefoot. White shorts. Nice tan. Black female-type t-shirt. Nicely packed. “Girl, where are your shoes? You’re gonna freeze your ass off.”

She pushed her hair back on one side, hooking it over her ear, a gesture I would get to know very well in the next few days. “I run around barefoot all the time. Done it all my life. Winter…summer, doesn’t make any difference…my brothers used to say…shit, I’m babbling…”

I reached over by the bathroom door where there was a rack with a shelf and an extra blanket. I handed her the blanket and gestured at the only decent chair in the room. “Have a seat.”

She sat and pulled her legs up under her and wrapped up in the blanket. “Were you asleep?”

“Just barely, no big deal.” I wasn’t gonna start off lying to this woman. After tonight, I might never see her again anyway, so what did it matter?

“I’m sorry…”

“Stop apologizing, If I didn’t wanna talk to ya, I wouldn’t have answered the door. Okay?”

On the bed, Bonnie was lying with her head on her paws, looking like she was watching a tennis match, her eyes flicking back and forth to each of us as we talked. It was almost comical. I stepped over and sat down on the bed and ruffled her fur and stroked her.

“What’s her name again?”

“Bonnie.”

“Oh, yeah, right. She’s very calm with strangers.”     

“Not always. But she’s already decided you’re okay.”

There was silence for a moment and outside I heard a lone coyote yip a couple times. Then Sissy said, “So. Did we see the same thing? Was it a ship or did I see something that wasn’t really there?”

“I saw a good-sized, saucer-shaped craft. A classic UFO. Could be something the military is messing with or could be…”

“What?”

“From off-world. Another planet, another galaxy, another dimension. We’ll most likely never know.”

“Should I be scared? Because, so far I am. Kinda.”

“I don’t think so. I didn’t feel threatened by anything I saw. I think we should feel privileged to have seen it.”

“What if they know we saw them and decide…” She left the sentence hanging, as though she was afraid to complete it.

“What, to come after us? Look, thousands of people have reported these things for years. I don’t know that any of them have ever been harmed. I think UFOs and aliens are like snakes. They may not hurt you, but they might cause you to hurt yourself. Would you like some coffee?”

“If you’re gonna have some, sure, I’d take a cup.”

I got up and went to the bathroom where the little two-cup coffeemaker lived. Filled it and started it. I called out, “Cream and sugar, right?”

She said, “How’d you know that?”

“I was a cop. We know things.”

“Okay, Mr. used-to-be-a-cop, what else do ya know about me?”

 I thought about it as the coffeemaker chuckled and belched and then I took my shot. “Okay, let’s see…you’re…recently divorced and childless. You are adrift right now, looking for a new place to settle in and practice your skills. You’re kind of soured on men right now, but you really like men, or maybe only if they’re nice guys. You are not easily frightened, but tonight something spooked you and it wasn’t just the UFO.” I got up to pour the coffee and asked, “How’m I doin’ so far?”

When I stepped back into the room with the two cups, my Smith and Wesson was in her hand and there were tears on her cheeks. She didn’t point the weapon at me, but she gave me an almost hateful look and said, “Who the fuck are you, Barry Wilder? Did my ex send you to track me down? Is that what the fuck this is all about?”

I set her coffee down very carefully and held out my hand for the gun. “No. I’m not part of anything weird or creepy, Sissy. Swear to God. I’m just good at figuring out people. Been doing that all my adult life.”

She turned the gun over, reading the numbers and lettering on it, then gently placed it in my hand. She shook her head and sighed and said, “Okay, but that was a little too close. Remind me not to ask you any of that shit again.”

“Deal.”

“Why do you carry the gun?”

“Because I’m not strong enough to carry a cop everywhere I go.”

“No, seriously.”

“Okay, seriously. When I was a cop, I worked every kind of crime from shoplifting to triple homicide. I saw a lotta victims. And the thing that always went through my mind when I was dealing with someone who got robbed or beaten or murdered was, ‘if this person had only had a gun, this shit would have turned out differently’. So, as long as I can safely carry a concealed weapon, I will. I refuse to be a victim.”

“But what about the police? They’re supposed to stop crime, right?”

“The police very seldom stop anything. Their role is reactive. After you’ve already been victimized, they show up. They may or may not catch the perpetrator and begin the process of prosecution. But the victim has still been raped, or robbed, or killed. You know what they say, ‘When seconds count the police are only minutes away.’ ”

“Guess that makes sense.”

“I am amazed every day in our country that everyone doesn’t pack a gun.”

“You mean like in the Wild West…”

“Sissy, the Wild West didn’t have any kind of murder rate compared to most modern U.S. cities.”

“Let me ask you something. And if I’m outta line, you tell me, okay?”

“Okay…”

“Can I stay here tonight, with you and Bonnie? Cause, I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep down there in that room by myself.”

“Why don’t we do this. We’ll sleep in watches. I’ll watch for four hours while you sleep. I’ll wake you at six. Checkout is at eleven.”

She drank off the last of her coffee and got up and slipped into my bed. Bonnie looked at me like, What the fuck?? I took the chair and killed the lights.

I really meant to sit for four hours, but after Sissy was asleep, I got up and stole the other pillow and got as comfortable as I could in the chair. At least it reclined. When I woke up, sunlight was trying to burn through the curtains and my shower was running.

There were enough coffee packets left to make two cups, so I got the machine going and waited for Sissy to finish up in there. After a while, I heard the shower cut off, and in another ten minutes, she came out, looking refreshed and well rested. I handed her a cup of coffee and she looked at me over the rim and said, “Your turn. Kinda surprised you didn’t come in and join me.”

“Don’t know ya well enough, yet. Don’t feel like you’re not attractive or anything, or that I’m not interested, but I figured it was a little early to make a pass at ya. Didn’t wanna be rude.”

She thought about that and then said, “So casual sex isn’t your deal, huh?”

“I find the older I get, the more I need it to mean something.”

“Okay. Well, I guess I’ll go get into some clean clothes. Which way you headed today?”

“I’m open. I’m kind of a master of the ‘no destination’ ride. Given a choice, this time of year, I’d stay south because it’ll be warmer.”

“How about we head towards Tucson then,” she said, “and maybe tonight you’ll get lucky.”

“Okay, I’ll get us packed up and we’ll head out. Need to find a breakfast place.”

In about twenty minutes, we were headed up the highway toward Las Cruces, New Mexico and we were just a couple miles out of Marfa, when Sissy abruptly pulled over. On the right side of the highway was a tourist display, showing the characters from the movie Giant, larger than life and in full color. There was James Dean, with the Winchester rifle across his shoulders and Rock Hudson in that yellow ford convertible, the house in the background, and music from the movie soundtrack playing from some hidden speakers somewhere. I dug out my phone and Sissy and I both took pictures, just like real tourists. We stood at the fence for a few minutes and then, she abruptly turned around and reached up to me, lacing her fingers behind my neck. I pulled her in for a nice, soft morning kiss and then patted her butt and said, “Let’s cruise. I’m hungry.”

It was forty miles before we found a place to eat, and it wasn’t much, just a small place next to a gas station with a dirt lot. Bonnie stayed with the bike while we went in and got a table. As soon as we had coffee, she said, “Am I coming on too strong? I sometimes tend to do that. I mean, when I meet a guy I really like, and…shit. I’m babbling again.”

I reached over and took her hand and told her about some of my recent history. About Iva and Roland and even about Commando. I ended with, “So, I feel like I’m kinda vulnerable right now. I haven’t been with anyone since Iva was killed and, well…”

“I get it, Barry. I can back off a little.”

“Not necessary. I’m just kinda being careful, ya know?” About then our food came and we dug in. I saved some scrambled egg and hash browns for Bonnie, folding the food up in a spare napkin.

As we were eating, Sissy suddenly leaned over closer and whispered, “You notice that guy over there in the suit?” She cut her eyes to her left. I had in fact noticed him when he came in. The suit was black and kind of shiny. He wore a black fedora and had shiny black shoes and equally shiny black sunglasses, which he didn’t remove. Now she was making me jumpy, too.

“What ya think,” I asked, “classic M.I.B.?”

“What’s that?”

“Men In Black. Think he’s gonna come tell us to forget what we saw? Maybe threaten us?”

“Don’t joke around, Barry. Fucker’s makin me nervous…”

“Yeah, I get that, but he’s probably somebody’s grandpa, out for a tour of the Great Southwest. Don’t worry about him. Worry about me. I’m the one that’s probably gonna attack ya tonight.”

As we finished eating, I saw the man stand up and put money on the counter, then he walked out, not waiting for change. He went out and around the corner of the building and out of sight.

“There. All gone. See? No problem.” I’d no sooner spoken than I heard Bonnie out there, raising hell. I slid out of my seat and Sissy started to get up, but I said, “Wait here.” I reached back and pulled my Smith and headed out the door.

Bonnie had placed herself between the odd man and the bike. Her hackles were raised and I could tell she wasn’t just pissed. She was scared, too. The man was squatted down with one hand extended, trying to make friends. Bonnie wasn’t having any of that shit.

“Mister? I was you, I’d step the fuck away.”

He stood and turned and took in my size and the pistol in my hand, safely pointed at the ground, but still ready. He stepped back away from both me and Bonnie. His accent when he spoke was strange. I wasn’t able to place it.

“I assure you, I meant no harm. I merely wished to pet the dog a little…”

“She clearly doesn’t want anything to do with you and I trust her judgement. I don’t either. Best walk away while you still can, Sir.”

“No need to threaten me, Mr. Wilder. Like I said, I mean no harm.” He walked toward a shiny black Chrysler 300 as I stood there wondering if I’d heard him right. This fucker knew my name? Why? Then Sissy stepped up beside me.

“So you and Mr. Creepy introduced yourselves, did ya?”

“No. No, we didn’t…”

“But…he just called you by name. How could he know…”

“Yeah, no shit.” The Chrysler was pulling away now, almost to the street. There was no license tag visible on the back and as it went out of sight around the building and onto the road, I said, “Quick. Get in your car. I wanna try and keep him in sight.”

I quickly mounted the bike and Bonnie jumped up behind me. I fired it up and pulled out to the street. The Chrysler was nowhere to be seen. There were three miles of empty road looking at me and nothing to see. Sissy pulled up beside me and her window was down.

“Where the fuck did he go?” She was looking both ways up and down the highway.

“I’ve got no clue, Babe. He’s a hell of a fast driver or he just evaporated into thin air.” I thought for a minute and then shut off the bike and got off and pulled Bonnie’s food out of my jacket pocket. Sissy shut her car off and got out.

“Told ya that fucker was creepy,” she said. There was no hint of humor in her voice. None at all. We stood watching Bonnie devour her breakfast and then she trotted off to go examine the weeds and read the doggy mail. When I looked back up at Sissy, she reached for me and again I held her, thinking how good it felt to have a woman in my arms again. This time I didn’t let go quite as quickly.

*      *     *

Ten minutes later, we were back on the road. I let Sissy take the lead and I told her I would flash my headlight whenever I needed to stop, be it for gas or whatever. She tended to drive pretty fast, staying seven to ten miles over the speed limit at all times. I wondered if this was just a habit or if she was spooked and felt better psychologically outrunning any perceived threat. There was something strange going on, that was for sure, but I knew trying to outrun an unknown danger was a fool’s errand. Until one knows the direction the threat is coming from, one is just as likely to be running directly toward it. At any rate, I figured we had not seen the last of our friend in the Chrysler 300.

Since the Kawasaki would only make a maximum of 200 miles on a tank of fuel and gas stations could be few and far between, I opted for stopping every hundred miles to gas the bike and take a stretch, use the restroom and maybe get a smooch from my new girlfriend. We proceeded through the day and made Tucson by about four in the afternoon. She pulled off the interstate and turned left, passed under the overpass and into a Ramada Inn. I rolled up beside her and she buzzed down the window.

“This okay, Or do ya want somethin’ fancier?”

“Nope, this is fine. I don’t do fancy.” We parked under the canopy and ten minutes later we had a room with two double beds on the far back side of the complex. She put the car in front of the room and after I unloaded Christine, I put her in a corner spot and locked her down for the night. When I got back to the room, Sissy was in the shower and this time I went in and joined her. Bonnie took her choice of the beds and got the one nearest the door. Sissy and I came out of the bathroom and straight into the other bed, where we spent a couple hours getting better acquainted. As soon as Bonnie figured out what was going on, she snorted and curled up and made a point of ignoring our antics.

Sissy was smooth and sleek and well-toned. Five minutes into our first time together, it was clear there was no shyness to this gal. She made it clear that she enjoyed everything I was doing to her and I was doing it all.

I spent quite some time playing with her and kissing all the places I like and soon, I had invaded her most lovely spot, licking and sucking her until she came, squealing and digging her nails into the back of my head. As soon as her orgasm started to wane, I quickly mounted her, wrapping her up tight in my arms so she could barely move and I slow-fucked her until she came a second time, this one longer and more powerful than the first. I was slightly behind her and she was laughing and holding her hands on top of my head as I came, in case the top of my head tried to explode.

By seven, we had boinked and napped enough we were hungry. We fed Bonnie and I walked her, then we took Sissy’s car and went to find dinner.

Less than a mile up the pike, we found a steakhouse that seemed clean and not too busy. We held hands like teenagers while we waited for our food. I was relieved that Sissy wasn’t the gushy, giggly type. She hadn’t seemed to be very nervous when we first made love and I was pretty surprised at her sense of fun and games in the sack. While we got through a couple of mediocre steaks and salads, she slipped off one shoe and parked her bare foot on the seat on my side of the booth, so that I could rub her foot and reach up the leg of her jeans whenever my hand was not occupied elsewhere. It was clear that she liked to be touched a lot and that was working for me. So, when I saw the black Chrysler pass by out front, I didn’t do anything to call her attention to it.

Almost an hour later, we were back at the room, and we lingered in the car for a couple minutes, smooching and fooling around a bit, getting tuned up for round two. I had a hand up under her shirt and was enjoying the way her boobs seemed to fit my hands perfectly, when I happened to look out the car window and saw Bonnie curled up on the ground beside the bike. I knew we had left her locked up inside the room. I said, “What the fuck…?” and got out and called her.

She came to me in a sidling crouch, about as apologetic as any dog can ever be. I scooped her up and soothed her and she shook and quivered with nervousness.

“How did she get out?” Sissy was petting her too and letting her know it was alright.

“Someone was in our room, that’s how.” Sissy started for the door with her key out, but I said, “Wait.” I held out Bonnie and said, “Take her and wait over by the car.”

As soon as they were on the other side of the car, I drew my Smith and opened the door. I expected to find the place trashed, but everything appeared to be as we’d left it. I moved quickly through the room and checked the bathroom, then called Sissy inside.

“Nothing missing?”

“Not that I can tell. Bonnie must have slipped out and they couldn’t catch her. If they weren’t here to steal, then maybe they left something.”

“Like what?” She was glancing around apprehensively.

“Like maybe a camera or listening device.” I proceeded to check everywhere there might be a bug. I took down the smoke detector, checked the air vents, looked under the beds and other furniture. I found nothing. Finally, I sat down on Bonnie’s bed and told Sissy about seeing the Chrysler go past the steakhouse.

“Why the hell didn’t you tell me?” She wasn’t really pissed, just a little put out that I’d let it slide.

“I was havin’ too much fun playin’ with yer toes and I didn’t wanna spoil the moment.”

She kicked off her shoes and flopped back on the bed and placed her right foot up on my chest. As I started to massage it, she suddenly pinched my nipple with her toes. She had a hell of a grip and it smarted like crazy. “Ouch! Goddamn, Woman! Cut it out. Fuck!”

“That’s what ya get when ya don’t share, asshole.” She was grinning evilly and going for me again, this time with both feet. I flopped on top of her and started tickling some sensitive places I’d found earlier. In a minute, she had dissolved into helpless laughter. Bonnie moved to the other bed, smug in the knowledge that she was forgiven for not being a vicious attack dog.

*     *     *

I had been sound asleep, deep in a dream about low-flying saucer-shaped vehicles and a sense of dread, strange men in black suits and constantly being watched. Bonnie was at the door of the motel room, whining in a high pitch. Her tail was tucked under and, as I watched her, she began digging at the carpet, trying desperately to get out. Sissy was nowhere in the room.

I stepped out of bed and pulled on jeans and grabbed my Smith and Wesson. At the door, I tucked the gun in my waistband and picked up Bonnie. It was the first time she’d ever growled at me. I eased the door open and stared out into the parking lot. In the stillness, Sissy stood straight up, wearing only panties and a sleep shirt, her back arched and her hair floating as she looked straight up at the dark, infinite sky. Her bare feet were six inches off the ground and there was a faint, energized glow around her, as if she were holding a positive electrical charge of thousands of volts.

Bonnie struggled and fought in my arms, whined and yipped and then, incredibly, she bit me. Right on the same nipple Sissy had pinched with her toes.

I dropped her and she shot out the door, just as Sissy was whisked away, straight up into the sky. Bonnie was spinning madly around in circles, yapping as though she was losing her mind. I ran out into the parking lot and saw the same saucer we’d seen at the viewpoint east of Marfa, or its twin, as it cruised casually away to the north.

Seconds later, Bonnie ran back into the room and disappeared under the bed farthest from the door.

I stood there for a long time. What do you do when someone you know is abducted right in front of you? Call the cops? That would be about as useless as anything else one might do. I was pretty sure the Tucson P.D.’s jurisdiction ended at the city limits and I’d just be treated as another old nut job, someone to be snickered about at squad meetings for a few months until the next good laugh came along.

I walked up and down the parking lot for a while, trying to get a grip, trying to translate what had happened into terms of reality. Into terms I could be comfortable with. Finally, I looked at my watch and realized it was after four in the morning. I went back in and coaxed Bonnie out from under the bed and crawled back under the covers. I pulled her close to me, just to let her know I wasn’t pissed about her biting me. I knew I’d never make it back to sleep. And then, incredibly, I did.

Dawn was breaking in the east when I woke up. Sissy was standing at the window, naked, her back to me. Bonnie was nowhere in sight. I said, “Hey. Are you okay? When did you get back?”

She slowly turned toward me and with a chill, I observed that she held my Smith and Wesson pistol in her right hand, the barrel socked tightly under her chin, pointing straight up. The angle was perfect to blow her brains out. I saw a single tear sliding slowly down her face alongside her nose. I started to move across the bed, but I knew with certain dread that I’d never reach her in time. She pulled the trigger before my feet hit the floor. The gunshot sounded like a cap pistol. Not loud at all.

Then, instead of her blood and brains spraying onto the ceiling, it was as though a dozen invisible wires cut down through her and she was sliced into strips and yet she remained upright, then the invisible wires cut through her horizontally, more quickly now and then again from front to back. She stood for another second, staring at me and then there was just the hint of a smile before she tumbled into a pile of children’s blocks, made of flesh and bone. I could smell her blood and viscera, and I heard her last shuddery breath.

I sat up in bed with a scream locked in my throat and Bonnie shot off the bed and straight to the door. No Sissy. No pile of what had been Sissy, either. The pistol lay on the nightstand, where I’d placed it earlier. I realized I had been dreaming and shook my head to clear the cobwebs. I let Bonnie out and went to the bathroom for a wicked pee. I put on coffee and brushed my teeth. Bonnie had started raising hell outside and I figured she was being rude to some stranger who was just packing his car to leave. I pulled on jeans and went out to get her.

Bonnie was at the driver’s side door of Sissy’s car, scratching frantically at the back of the door opening. I stepped back into the room and grabbed the keys from the cabinet by the TV and went back out. Clicked the remote and unlocked the car. As I opened the door, Sissy sat up in the back seat, looking around, her face blank and sleepy.

“How…how the fuck did I get out here?” Bonnie was in the car with her now, trying to lick her face. Sissy was pushing her away. “Stop, Bonnie. Cool it! Barry? Why am I sleepin’ in the car? Did we have a fight?”

“You don’t remember anything?”

“No. What…? What happened? Somethin’ bad?”

“Naw. C’mon, let’s get you inside…”

I took her in, fed her coffee and got her showered and cleaned up. Took her to breakfast. She really had no memory of being snapped up by some kind of goofy tractor-beam, or whatever. And I decided maybe that was best. We spent another five days on the road and then I brought her back to Kansas. We are staying at my place and I have no idea how long this arrangement will last, or when she might get abducted again. Or if they might decide they need to check me out next. For all I know, they may have already done that, and I just don’t remember it.

I have looked Sissy over from the top of her mop of dark hair to her cute toes, seeking any mark that might indicate an examination or some kind of tracking implant. And I feel stupid doing those things, but that’s what abductees always claim, that they were examined and invaded and implanted with something. I have found nothing. Only time will tell. Right now, we are happy, and I’ll settle for that…

But that black Chrysler is out there, moving around, always just on the edge of my vision, or maybe five cars back in traffic. I never get a good look at it, but I know it’s there…



Kenneth James Crist is Editor Emeritus of Black Petals Magazine and is on staff at Yellow Mama ezine. He has been a published writer since 1998, having had almost two hundred short stories and poems in venues ranging from Skin and Bones and The Edge-Tales of Suspense to Kudzu Monthly. He is particularly fond of supernatural biker stories. He reads everything he can get his hands on, not just in horror or sci-fi, but in mystery, hardboiled, biographies, westerns and adventure tales. He retired from the Wichita, Kansas police department in 1992 and from the security department at Wesley Medical Center in Wichita in 2016. Now 74, he is an avid motorcyclist and handgun shooter. He is active in the American Legion Riders and the Patriot Guard, helping to honor and look after our military. He is also a volunteer driver for the American Red Cross, Midway Kansas Chapter. He is the owner of Fossil Publications, a desktop publishing venture that seems incapable of making any money at all. On June the ninth, 2018, he did his first (and last) parachute jump and crossed that shit off his bucket list.

freddie.jpg

Freddie’s Back

 

Kenneth James Crist

 

Julie carefully set the pet carrier down on the floor of the bus and slid it under the seat, then sat with it behind her crossed ankles. The bus pulled out smoothly and rattled along toward its next stop.

Across the aisle from her, an elderly gent smiled and said, “What ya got there?”

“My cat,” Julie said.

“Well, that’s a really calm kitty,” the old guy said, “must not mind riding, huh?”

“No, he doesn’t mind much of anything these days. . . .” Julie wanted to scream at the nosy old fart, “He’s fuckin’ dead, ya goddamn moron!” But she just smiled, and cast her eyes down, and thought about Freddie and how much she loved him.

She was taking him on his final trip to the vet’s, this time for what they called “disposal.” Freddie was right at twenty years old and she’d known this was coming, but it was still a hard thing to do.

Freddie, or “Freddie the Gimp,” as Tucker had called him, had passed away in the night. She’d found the big tabby half-in, and half-out, of his bed, when she got up that morning. It looked like his stalwart heart had finally given up, and he had just gone on with little or no pain. And that was good, but now she had this final chore to take care of.

She and Tucker had been cat people for many years, so this was not the first time she’d had to deal with the death of a pet. As the bus clattered over potholes and the brakes hissed and wheezed, she thought about old Freddie. Thought about the good times.

Freddie had been just another lost, unwanted gutter cat, when she and Tucker came home one night from Lucky’s, their favorite watering hole, over on West 40th.

The cab let them out into the rain right in front of their building and, as Tucker was paying the cabbie, Julie thought she heard a tiny mewl from somewhere close by. She had dropped the hood on her raincoat to hear better, even though once her hair got wet, it took hours to dry and would be frizzy until she could shower and get conditioner on it.

As Tucker stepped up onto the sidewalk, they both heard it again. Tucker had never been a pet person, but that was about to change. He helped her look, and just inside the opening to the old, unused coal chute, hunkered in the only dry spot around, was the tiny, half-starved tabby that would soon become “Fightin’ Freddie,” and “Flying Freddie,” and eventually “Freddie the Gimp.”

“Oh, my God, look at you!” Julie had scooped up the kitten and, even though he was half-wild, he had no resistance left in him and allowed her to slip him inside her coat. He went almost immediately from shivering to purring, and in ten minutes, he was in Julie’s kitchen, enjoying warm milk and being lavished with attention.

Like just about all cats, Freddie was a cat that understood a cat box and a food bowl with no coaching, whatsoever. She and Tucker used to joke about Freddie being on his fifth or maybe sixth life. It was as if he’d done the whole pet/owner routine enough times, he had it down pat.

Over the years—Freddie had lived to be twenty—other cats had come and gone, Jezebel, killed by a car when she had gone into heat and escaped out the door, Tommyknocker, felled by feline leukemia in his fourth year, and Johnson, who somehow found his way out onto the fifth-floor ledge outside their window. Johnson had jumped when Julie tried to get him back inside. Tragic events, but sometimes pet ownership sucked. And through it all, Freddie was always the man, the stud, the top dog of cats. And now he was also gone.

If Tucker was still alive, Julie was sure he would have shed a tear for old Freddie, but Tucker had beaten Freddie to the punch, having succumbed to cancer, four years back. It had been just her and Freddie then, and now that was over.

She supposed she’d need to get another cat. Living without some kind of companionship certainly sucked much more than pet ownership. She reached up and pulled the cord, and the bus started slowing for her stop.

As she rose from her seat and slid out the carrier, the old guy said, “Take good care of that kitty, now, Miss.”

And Julie, to her own surprise, heard herself say, “I will, Sir. Have a good day

. . . . ”

And that was May the 9th. . . .

*     *     *     *     *

Julie got home a little after noon and set about fixing herself some lunch, even though she didn’t really feel hungry. As she got out bread, and lunch meat, and the Miracle Whip, and some cheese, she could almost feel old Flyin’ Freddie winding around her ankles, working her for some cheese, or a bite of ham.

Freddie earned his wings the way most cats do—by making those sometimes disastrous, sometimes hilarious, seemingly impossible jumps that cats do, much of the time with little or no thought towards what the landing was going to be like.

It was one of those jumps that eventually displaced his right hip, popping the femur bone out of the socket and, in spite of a skillful veterinary surgeon’s best work, leaving him with a permanent limp. It was slight, to be sure, and it never slowed him down much, but it earned him the title, “Freddie the Gimp.” Again, Tucker’s wry sense of humor kicking in.

Julie sat down with her sandwich and suddenly found herself bawling like a little kid, her tears wetting Wonder Bread, and totally unable to do anything about it. She spent the rest of the day moping around the apartment, too heartsick to go to work, even though she worked from home via computer link. Her concentration was shot, and finally she logged on just long enough to drop an email on her manager, letting him know she was sick.

At about four in the afternoon, she had another crying fit when she caught herself putting food down for Freddie. It was automatic. One of those things you do out of habit, and she was halfway through the routine, when she realized there was no big tabby anymore, to partake of the nasty-smelling tuna.

She started to dump it down the disposal, but then the word “disposal” crawled across her mind.

Disposal. Just like they had said when they took care of Freddie’s remains. . . .

. . . and she carefully set the bowl back down on the floor in its usual spot and fled the kitchen. . . .

 . . . and in the morning, the food was gone.

She had logged on about six minutes late, and had her coffee maker going, when she noticed the empty bowl.

I must have dumped it down the disposal after all. That was what she thought. And that was reasonable. But it nagged at her all day. Was she certain she’d set the bowl back on the floor, and left it? Not really.

Too much turmoil. Too much emotion churning her thoughts. Maybe there was a rat. Again. One of the hazards of city life. It had happened before. But that time, ol’ Fightin’ Freddie had scored some major points. Killed a nasty old rat about half the size he was and posted it right inside the doorway from the hall for all to admire. And he was admired, and feted, and celebrated, for a while, too. What a good kitty!

She took a break at lunchtime and, while she was drinking a diet Dr. Pepper and eating a sandwich, she looked at Freddie’s bowls. Water bowl: stainless steel and shaped so it couldn’t be turned over. Food bowl: plastic and translucent, like Tupperware. She should pick those up, wash them, and put them away.

But then, that would be admitting, once and for all, that he was gone. And she was alone. Really alone.

With a sigh, she got up and went back to the living room, where her computer workstation was set up. Took her Dr. Pepper with her.

In ten minutes, she was lost in her work, her concentration level blocking out traffic sounds, the upstairs neighbors bickering (The “Bickersons,” Tucker used to call them), and whatever other distractions there might be.

A half hour after lunch, she heard Freddie flipping his food bowl over in the kitchen. It took three times before it sank in. Damned cat needed fed. Or thought he did. The cat’s dead.

She froze at her keyboard and felt the little hairs on her arms trying to stand erect. Quietly, she rose from her chair and said, “Freddie?”

She stood very quietly and waited. Bonk! There went the bowl again. She eased slowly toward the kitchen doorway. Bonk! She tried to remember all the spots where the floor creaked. But then trying to sneak up on a cat . . . stupid.  

Finally, just as another Bonk! came from the kitchen, she stepped around the door frame and saw the bowl, still quietly spinning and then settling back into place.

She felt the blood draining from her head and thought, faint . . . I’m gonna faint. . . . She yanked out a chair and sat, getting her head down to touch her knees.

 She really felt her heart arrythmia then, more pronounced than it had ever been, before. She remembered the conversation with her doctor. Julie, people die from this, all the time. It’s nothing to fool with. We’ll need to get you on some meds and get them adjusted and monitor your progress. . . .

Slowly, everything came swimming back. The bowl didn’t move, and everything was quiet. So quiet, she could hear purring. Freddie always purred when he was about to get fed.

As soon as she felt a little better, she got up, stepped across the kitchen, ran the can opener and filled the food bowl. Then she left the kitchen and went back to her workstation. She was pretty sure if she stayed and watched the food disappear, seemingly into thin air, she might just quietly go mad. . . .

Because, well, she was starting to believe it, now. All her life she had been fascinated by tales of ghosts, spirits, and hauntings. Maybe it was the same hope that we all have, that there really is an afterlife, and that we really do move on to a better place. Of course, in most religions, it is taught that animals don’t have souls and that, therefore, they cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

Julie, in her own personal belief system, felt that “was hoss-shit,” as Tucker would have said. She was quite sure that when she at last passed over, she would not only enjoy the company of Tucker again, the only man she had ever really loved, but she was sure all her cats would be there, too. That belief was what kept the fear of death at bay, much more than the pronouncements of any preacher.

And so, the months passed, and every day of every week, Freddie became more real to Julie. The food disappeared every day, but strangely, there was never anything in the cat box. She still kept it, though. She was pretty sure Freddie just came to her place to eat, and that he did his business, if any, on the other side. And at night, when she was ready for bed, she would often hear that lusty purr, as the big guy settled in for the night. Usually, just as she was about to drop off to sleep, she’d feel Freddie jump up on her bed and settle in, just like always. Freddie provided much comfort.

*     *     *     *     *

“9-1-1, what is your emergency?”

“Uh . . . yeah, my name is Danny Rodriguez, and I’m the super at 138 West Eleventh.”

“Yes, Danny, what’s goin’ on over there?”

“Well, I have a lady that lives alone up on the fifth floor, and nobody’s seen her in a couple days, and I was wonderin’ if you could send a couple officers over to contact me, so we can check on her?”

“Sure, Danny, we can do that. Be about ten minutes. Officers will contact you right out front, okay?”

“Yeah, okay, I appreciate it. Her cat’s drivin’ me nuts. Botherin’ the neighbors, too.”

“Her cats?”

“Naw, just one cat. Damn thing’s been yowlin’ and raisin’ hell better part-a two days, now. We need some relief. . . .”

“Okay, Danny, why don’t I just send an Animal Control officer, too?”

“Okay, thanks, that’d be great.”

 

Officers arrived at Julie’s apartment and contacted Danny, who was only too glad to use his passkey. From inside, the infernal yowling could be heard by one and all. But it stopped as soon as the key was turned in the lock.

Julie had passed on and was no doubt passing the time with Tucker and her cats. She was in bed, and it looked like natural causes. While the officers waited for the coroner, Animal Control arrived.

The older of the officers, Cal Worthy, told the Animal Control guy, “Sounded like a big ol’ damn cat, but we haven’t seen it. Glad it was raisin’ hell, though. Otherwise, she mighta been pretty ripe, time somebody found her.”

“Okay,” the animal guy said, “I’ll go find it. Don’t worry about it, I got a way with cats.”

In twenty minutes, the coroner’s van was pulling up out front, and the Animal Control guy (who had a way with cats), was back at the door.

“This shit is way weird, guys,” he said, “I keep hearin’ the damn thing, but I can’t find it.”

“Thought you had a way with cats,” Worthy said. His partner just stood back and grinned, keeping his opinion to himself.

“Yeah, well, I keep hearin’ it purrin’, and sometimes it sounds like it’s right behind me, but when I turn around, it’s not there. Pretty sure there ain’t no cat . . . or maybe it’s a fuggin’ ghost-cat. Anyway, I got another call. If it shows up, call me.”

As he headed for the elevator, Worthy said, “Yeah. Ghost-cat, my ass . . .”

The guys from the coroner’s office did their thing. Worthy and his partner stayed out near the door into the hall. When Julie was photographed, examined, bagged, and tagged, they came out, rolling their gurney.

“Well, it’s been real, and it’s been fun,” the older guy quipped, “it just hasn’t been real fun.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Worthy said, “did you guys see a cat in there?”

“Nah. No cat. Not that we saw.”

“Okay, thanks, guys. See ya next time.”

Worthy felt something brush against his ankle, as he reached for the door to swing it closed.

There was nothing there, but when they got to the car, he found cat hair stuck to his uniform trousers.




ym_76_oct19_justme.jpg
Art by Kevin Duncan © 2019

It’s Just Me

Kenneth James Crist

 

“Mommy, is weer-woofs real?” From the other end of the house, I could hear Lisa talking to her mom. Sweet Lisa. My only daughter.

“No, Honey, werewolves are just made-up stuff, like Frankenstein and the Mummy. Just stories. Let me tuck you in, Sweet Girl.”

“’Kay, Mommy, but who made ‘em up, if they’re not real?”

“Werewolves came from European folklore, probably to scare little kids and keep ‘em in line. There ya go, Baby. G’night.”

The tiny hairs in my pointed ears allowed me to hear my wife as she walked almost silently from my daughter’s room. Marie, my gorgeous blonde wife. I could smell her, too. Her menstrual cycle would cause her to flow heavily tomorrow. I could smell her that well.

I heard her as she went into the kitchen and started loading the dishwasher. Her smell was intoxicating. I really should go, now. Especially since she had no idea I was even in the house. We had been separated for four months now. The trouble was over my absences. Once a month, I would be gone for several days and I never had a good answer when she wanted to know where I went. She suspected I was cheating, but I wasn’t. At least, not in the way she imagined.

She was finished with her kitchen chores. I heard the dishwasher start. I should really have left right then. No hesitation, just get out. I could have just slipped out the door, and she would still be alive. If only she hadn’t screamed when she saw me . . . the screaming always brings it on more quickly.

 

*     *     *     *

Sebastian and Thompkins agreed; the crime scene was one of the worst they had ever seen. The man had not just murdered the wife and child, but the horror of the arterial spray on the walls and ceiling, the entrails draped on the furniture, the woman so brutally violated . . . and yet, the child appearing so peaceful in her bed, merely dispatched as gently as possible, by suffocation. The wound tracks on the woman suggested he’d used a serrated knife, but so far, they hadn’t found any weapon at all. Like all good cops, they would suck it up and do what was required, but they already had the confession. All they were really doing was putting the final nails in the guy’s coffin. . . .

 

*     *     *     *

The moon is in a position where I can see it through the bars of my cell. It is rising right now, fat and bloated and magnificent. I’ve been here a month, awaiting trial and very soon now, I will begin the change. When this first started, I dreaded it. It was painful and took hours to complete, but now it happens in mere minutes, and when it does, it is almost like a sexual release. I look forward to the increase in strength, the sharpened senses and even the dulled intellectual functions. I know that when I change, these bars will not hold me.

And, man, is that fat little guard with the big key ring and cocky attitude gonna be surprised. It’s coming now and so is he . . . yeah, relax little fella . . . run that key ring along the bars for the last time . . . come to Papa . . . oh, my, what big eyes you have . . . see? See it all?

Yeah, little fella, it’s just me. . . .



Milky Way Galaxy. Solar System. Earth.

 

Kenneth James Crist

 

 

Lying awake at night while someone you care about suffers is really not my thing. I had met Sissy Bowman at Marfa, Texas, while on a motorcycle ride with Bonnie, my Jack Russell terrier.

We had met under strange circumstances at the viewing area for the Marfa Lights, a phonied-up tourist attraction where supposedly, one could view “ghost lights.” What we had seen were actual lights of a UFO, and later it had come to Tucson and abducted her. Things got stranger when we encountered a “Men in Black”-type, who seemed to be keeping track of us everywhere we went.

During this strange vacation, she and I had become lovers, and we wound up back at my place in Wichita, and we had been living together for a couple of months. It was now the Christmas season, and those who really got into the festivities had decorations up, and the neighborhood was lit up every night.

And Sissy was suffering. Nightmares every night, acid reflux every day, and never knowing when the next page in her strange adventure would turn.

Of the abduction in Tucson, she claimed to have no memory. She had been snatched right in front of me and returned before morning, unharmed, but still scarred in some way, too deeply strange to understand. The only time she seemed to be able to let it all go and find some comfort was when we made love, so we did that a lot.

After the throes of orgasm, and in the afterglow of good sex, she could often get several hours of deep, restful sleep before the demons that plagued her psyche would get revved up again.

Now, as she mumbled in her sleep, her voice rising gradually to a breathy, screamy pitch, her feet and legs twitching as she fled in her sleep from the things that haunted her, I got up and used the bathroom, then came back to bed. She was approaching the end of a predictable cycle, when she would finally sit straight up in bed and scream, sometimes repeatedly, and she would sometimes wet  herself, and we’d have to change the bed.

I had learned just where to break into her dream cycle to prevent this, but this was also not without its dangers, as sometimes when awakened during these dreams, she would lash out, swinging and fighting. She’d managed to smack me a few times, some pretty good blows, but so far, she’d never drawn blood.

I waited beside her, getting my timing just right, then wrapped her up in my arms and got control of her hands as she woke up. The final scream died in her throat, then as she realized she was once again safe, she turned into me, her body hot and damp, her breath sour and her hair sticking to her forehead. She buried her face in the side of my neck and whispered, “God, Barry . . . fuck me. Hold me and fuck me till I can sleep again. I need it, Baby. Can you love on me some?”

I didn’t answer her. I usually didn’t, as actions speak louder than words. When this whole sequence occurred, she was almost always aroused and wet, and she wasn’t interested in foreplay. She wanted me inside her, the sooner and harder and deeper the better. I was more than happy to oblige. If sex was the medication, I could certainly be the doctor. Usually, she would climax several times during an hour of slow lovemaking, and I had conditioned myself to hold off as long as possible.

This night was just a little different, though. At 3:35 AM, when we were finished, she lay there for a little while, and I thought she had gone back to sleep, but then she said, “They were very tall and thin. Their faces were thin, and they had no noses. Their eyes were huge, and I felt like they could see through me all the way down into my fucking soul. They kept telling me that everything was all right, but they never spoke. It was all in my mind. They . . . put these probes in me . . . up my ass, and into my vagina . . . down my throat . . . into my ears. There was no pain, but it was the most frightening thing . . . because I was totally helpless . . . couldn’t move, or speak, or anything.”

I kept silent. This was the first time she had admitted to being able to remember any of her abduction, and she was on a roll, so I kept my yap shut and let her ramble.

“I’ve read about a drug that doctors use to paralyze patients so they can intubate them. It’s called succinylcholine. This was the same thing. It was horrible. I could hear, smell, feel, and see, and other than breathing, I couldn’t do shit.”

“Do you remember being picked up?”

“No. I remember going to sleep in the motel, then I was awake and the . . . beings were . . . hovering over me . . . and the nightmare started.”

“And that’s what your nightmares are about . . .”

“No. In my nightmares, I am one of them. One of those tall, skinny, alien things, and I’m being hunted, and chased, and abused by something worse . . .  infinitely worse . . . monsters from a different world, or maybe a different dimension. Horrible things that I can never quite see. It’s the dread . . . and the certainty that they will get me, and there’s nothing I can do to survive. . . .”

Again, she turned to me, and I held her until she finally slept again. I didn’t sleep at all the rest of that night.

When dawn came, I got up quietly and dressed. Went out to get the paper. Yes, I still take the Wichita Eagle, even though I can get fresher news almost anywhere. I don’t think what you get in 8-to-15-second sound bites and news stories really has any depth to it. For that, you need paper. Besides, I like crossword puzzles.

The black Chrysler was a block and a half away, to the west, where the street curves around West Millbrook Park. Apparently, this weird fuck thought he was being sneaky. Half the car was visible, looking through the trees and bushes. I was careful not to look. In Tucson, he had tried to make friends with Bonnie and he’d also called me by name. We were apparently his assignment and, dedicated asshole that he was, he was still with us. Fuck him and fuck his horse, too. I went in and put on coffee.

Sissy was still in bed, and as I drank coffee, I paced the kitchen and stewed. It wasn’t so much the fact we were being watched, or maybe even stalked, it was the arrogance of these people, or entities, whatever they really were. As though people were no more than bugs or worms. Bugs and worms that needed to be watched.

Finally, I slipped a Glock model 22 into my waistband and went out the back door. My backyard is completely enclosed by rose of Sharon and trumpet vine, but it was December, so the cover wasn’t as thick as I would have liked. I stepped out to the back fence, in the southwest corner, where I had the additional cover of a lawn shed, and stepped over the four-foot chain link. The property behind the house had recently been turned into a Frisbee Golf course and, during its first year, it had drawn a lot of players. Now, not so much. It was cold out, for one thing. Frisbee control suffers when you can’t feel your fingers.

I set off across the park to the south, moving further east all the time, skirting neighbors’ backyards until I reached the creek a third of a mile away from the house. The banks of the creek were high enough that once I was down in there, I was out of sight. I walked west until I reached 119th street, then I worked my way back north, using trees and shrubbery as cover until I was right behind the right rear corner of my weird friend’s Chrysler.

I was all ready to just step up and open the passenger door and slide right in and make myself comfortable, when I realized the guy wasn’t in the car. As I started to turn and look around, I smelled Old Spice and felt cold metal against the back of my neck. I froze in place, not hard to do when the temps were in the thirties, and waited to see what was next.

“Good morning, Mister Wilder.” Again, that slight hissing sound with the voice, perfect English, spoken by a Puff Adder. “Please leave the Glock pistol right where it is and go ahead and get in the car. . . .”

Suddenly over my snit and more than a little humbled, I stepped forward and tried the door. It was unlocked, and I slid in, as my friend came around and got in under the wheel. I decided I would just bore right on in—damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead. As his ass hit the seat, I brazenly asked, “Just who the fuck are you people, anyway? What gives you the right to watch me all the time?”

“You need to relax, Mr. Wilder. We’re not watching you. We’re watching her.”

“Why? What’s the point? You already took her and did every kind of examination you could do. What’s the point of the harassment?”

“The point? Then you don’t know the full story yet, do you Mr. Wilder?”

“I’m not sure I know anything about any of this. What’s it all about?”

He turned to me, and I looked at his pasty white complexion, no evidence of a beard at all. Lips that looked fake and a nose that might have been glued on. He pulled down his sunglasses and looked over the dark lenses at me. His eyes had the same irises you see on a rattlesnake, black and elliptical against a gold-yellow background. “She’s the same as me, Mr. Wilder. Only different. . . .”

I felt the hair on my neck stand erect, and my blood ran cold. I jumped out of the car and ran.

*     *     *     *     *

I took Sissy to breakfast at Jimmy’s Egg, a breakfast and lunch place about four miles from the house. Over a Popeye’s Revenge Omelet, I listened as she prattled on about some movie she’d watched on Netflix the night before. When she realized I wasn’t really paying attention, she stopped, then said, “Okay, what’s goin’ on, Barry? You’re off in la-la land. Did I keep you awake all night, or what?”

“I had a conversation with our friend in the Chrysler this morning.”

“A conv—whataya mean you had a . . . what the fuck, Barry? You tryin’ ta get us killed?”

“Yeah? Why would that get us killed?”

She pushed her plate away and hid behind her coffee cup. Giving herself time to think. . . .

“I—I didn’t mean literally get us killed. . . . I just—”

“The fuck you didn’t. I didn’t just talk to him. He showed me . . . what he is. He’s alien. I saw his eyes. I got right up in his face. He’s not from here. Not from this planet . . . or this dimension, whatever. And he said you were ‘the same’ . . . only different.”

“Wh—what?”

“Yeah, right, Sissy. It’s time, Babe.”

“Time . . . for what, Barry?”

I threw some money on the table and got up. “Time to tell me just exactly what the fuck’s goin’ on. And no bullshit. Either that, or when we get back to the house, you pack yer shit and get on down the road.”

I walked out and headed for the pickup. As I started it up, she came out and ran for the truck, piled in. Her makeup had started to come apart, tears cutting through face powder, mascara not far from disaster.

I jerked the truck into reverse, and she grabbed my wrist and said, “Wait. Please. Just wait—a minute. . . .” I shifted back into park and listened to the heater fan running. Finally, she reached for me and took my face in her hands, turning me toward her. She looked into my eyes, her pretty dark eyes brimming and then she blinked and they changed. Her pupils changed and they were like the Chrysler guy’s, elliptical black against a gold background. I recoiled slightly, my breath catching, and then she blinked again, and there were her own pretty eyes back.

“Jesus, Babe . . .” I was speechless for a moment, then I said, “Okay. Tell me.”

She was digging Kleenex out of her purse, and she said, without looking at me, “As best I can determine, I’m some kind of hybrid. Maybe an experiment, I don’t know. When they . . . took me . . . it was just to see how their lab rat was holding up. I think . . . this is what they want to do to all of us. They want to breed out regular humans and prepare us for . . . what they do.”

“What they do? What do they do?”

“They travel the cosmos. Across space. Across time. Across dimensions. They have enemies, and they have friends. They are at war, and they have been, for thousands of years. Some of the races they are at war with would enslave our planet, if they could. When they have made enough hybrids, our race will be that much safer.”

I put the truck in reverse again and backed out. Turned and headed for home. About halfway there, she sighed and said, “So where does all this leave us? Gonna kick me out, now?”

I reached for her hand. Felt the desperation in her grip. “No,” I said, “I’m not kickin’ ya out. It just leaves me curious, that’s all. Makes me wonder how many other . . . hybrids there are. And when did you . . . know you were . . . different?”

“There are thousands, Barry, scattered all over the world. And . . . sometimes I can feel their minds reaching out, trying to find others. It’s kinda creepy. When did I know? Not until after they took me. I looked in the mirror one morning, and there were my eyes . . . changed. It scared the fuck outta me. I thought I was losin’ my fucking mind. But then I started havin’ the dreams, and I finally started to get it. I figured it out.”

“So, does this mean I’m gonna get picked up next, and they’re gonna do this shit to me, too?”

“It doesn’t work that way, Hon. My mother had to have been implanted with their genetic material for this to happen. And it’s probably the reason I never had any kids. Maybe the genetics wouldn’t carry to the next generation, so they made me sterile. I don’t know. That’s just speculation on my part.”

We arrived back home, and I pulled into the garage. The black Chrysler was gone from its place down by the park.

We sat in the truck a few moments more, and I said, “So the normal humans, people like me, will eventually die out and be replaced by hybrids?”

“I think that’s the plan. And I really don’t think there’s anything we can do about it.”

“Do me one favor, okay? Try not to show me those eyes while we’re in the bedroom, boinkin’ our brains out? I think if anything could cause me to have ED, that would do it. . . .”

*     *     *     *     *

Four nights later, just about bedtime, Sissy walked out of the bathroom, already in her oversized sleep-shirt, her teeth brushed, her makeup off, and she suddenly stopped. She stood for almost a full minute, her head cocked to one side, a look on her face that one gets when listening intently. Then it was over, and she came to bed.

“What was that?”

She snuggled in against me and murmured, “What was what, Hon?”

“You just . . . kinda stalled there for a minute, like you heard something strange. . . .”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll tell ya in the morning. We’ve still got a little time….”

“Time for what? What’s goin’ on, Babe?”

“Never mind. . . .” She slid a hand down to the front of my shorts, and in no time at all, I forgot all about it.

The next morning, I awoke to the smell of coffee and the shower running. I went to the kitchen, got a cup, then went and joined her in the shower. No messing around, though. She seemed in a very business-like mood. After we were dressed and sitting at the kitchen table, she said, “We need to pack a bag and get on the road.”

“Get on the road? Where we goin’?”

“Somewhere east of here. I’m not sure where, but I’ll know as we go.”

“Know as we go? Sounds mysterious.”

“Not really. You know how you use a Garmin when you travel? Well, it’s like that. Something is . . . calling me. Needs me . . . to be at a certain place, at a certain time. We don’t need to hurry, but we do need to get started.”

“What about Bonnie? Do I need to board her?”

“I . . . don’t think so. I think she can come. We might need a pet-friendly motel. Or maybe not. It’s not clear yet.”

“Dang, Girl. You sound like one of those magic 8-ball toys—‘Answer not clear, ask later.’”

“You know, I had one of those growing up. Used to ask it all kindsa shit. Never did me much good, though.”

 

An hour later we were getting on the Kansas Turnpike at the east Wichita terminal, Bonnie already curled up in Sissy’s lap. We were in my truck, and some Scott Joplin ragtime piano was on the CD player. We were both in a festive mood, and I wondered if we were possibly whistling past the graveyard. I had a foreboding that this would not turn out well, but there was really no reason.

Three hours later we were into the Kansas City sprawl, looking for a motel to check in for the night. It was just past noon, and most places let you check in as early as twelve. We found a place on the Missouri side of the river that allowed pets, as long as we didn’t mind paying an extra twenty bucks. I decided Bonnie was worth twenty dollars any old day, and we got a room with two queen beds. We got some lunch and then took a nap.

At 6 PM, Sissy woke me up and said, “We hafta go, Barry. Right now. C’mon, get up.” Bonnie was already at the door, her nose pressed to the crack.

“Better let her out so she can do her business,” I said.

“She’s already been out. Twice. She’s just excited. She’s probably picking it up off me. . . .”

“You’re excited?”

“I am . . . and I don’t know why. I also have a feeling of dread. Again, I don’t know why.”

We piled into the pickup, and Bonnie took up her usual station, her back feet on the back seat and her front feet on the console between the front seats. I called it her copilot position. Sissy provided directions, and we moved deeper into eastern Kansas City, eventually into a dark and dreary warehouse district. Up and down three different streets before she suddenly said, “There! That one. . . .”

“It’s all dark, Babe. Doesn’t look like there’s anyone there. . . .”

“Pull around back. Let’s see what’s what.” I drove down a grubby alley, barely wide enough for the truck, hearing broken glass crunching under my tires. They were Michelin steel-belted radials, but still. . .

Behind the three-story building, there were about forty cars squirreled away in the dark. No one around at all. As soon as I turned off the truck, we could hear a deep, throbbing beat of music, coming through the dank, dirty brick of the old building. It was so loud, I could almost feel it in my teeth. As we got out, I made Bonnie stay in the truck, telling her, “Kill anybody that fucks with the truck, okay?” She wasn’t happy being made to stay by herself, but I wasn’t about to take her in there, not knowing what we’d find inside.

Sissy took my arm, and we walked around toward the front. Halfway down the alley, a door popped open and a huge man looked out. He said nothing. Trying to speak over the roar of the music would have been futile, anyway. He motioned us over and looked closely at Sissy’s face, particularly her eyes, then he stepped back and motioned us inside.

Wishing for earplugs, I followed Sissy into a huge room painted totally black. Or maybe it was just filth caked on the walls. Lasers in every color flashed with the pounding beat of a live band, if it could be called that. The stage, at the far end of the room, was raised two feet off the main floor. Speakers as big as garage doors were stacked to the ceiling, being powered by the biggest amps I had ever seen. The band consisted of four skinny, white pencil-necks in black grunge wear, two on guitars, one on an electronic piano, and a drummer. A banner behind them announced, “Last Day on Earth”. Maybe the name of the band, or maybe a statement of fact. There was a bar to our right, where four bartenders were free-pouring drinks and sweating their asses off. On the dance floor, about a hundred people gyrated to the music, not even attempting conversation. Sissy nudged me and headed for the bar. She didn’t even try to speak to anyone, just pointed and made a stirring motion with her fingers.

In a minute she came back and handed me a somewhat sticky glass filled with something too sweet and too loaded with rum. I drank it, anyway. It had been a while since I’d poured anything down my throat that made me cough and made my eyes water. Pretty wicked shit. I decided right then I wouldn’t be having a refill.

Sissy and I didn’t dance. In fact, we avoided the dance floor completely, opting instead to find an unoccupied corner and hang on each other and smooch. There was a lot of that going on, both on and off the dance floor. After we’d been there about half an hour, I moved my lips right against her ear and asked, “See anybody you know?”

She shook her head, and I moved in on her again and asked, “Okay, what are we doin’ here?”

“I’m not sure. But something big is going to happen, and everyone here knows it. . . .”

“I know,” I said, “you can feel the excitement.”

It was about twenty minutes later when there was a rumble that shook the floor, and the music abruptly died. After the din we’d put up with for over an hour, the silence was deafening. The big guy from the door came out onto the dance floor and yelled for everyone’s attention. When he was satisfied he had it, he said, “Ladies and gentlemen, please clear the floor. Stand by the walls and say any goodbyes you need to. It’s time.”

 We moved back to the walls and suddenly, with a ripping and squealing sound, a hole about eight feet in diameter opened in the ceiling. There were gasps and a few screams, but no one moved. I put my arms around Sissy and said, “What the fuck? What is this?”

“We’re going away, Barry. We’re being taken up. Just like the Rapture, I suppose. . . .”

“Damn. If I’d known that, I wouldn’t have brought Bonnie. . . .”

“No. Not you, Barry. Just us. The hybrids.” There were tears in her eyes and at the same time, they looked like snake’s eyes. “I . . . I don’t think we’ll be back….”

Just at that moment, a small, pretty teenage girl walked out into the center of the dance floor, directly under the hole in the ceiling. A sharp, hard blue beam of light snapped down, and the girl looked up and suddenly shot straight up through the hole and out of sight. The light remained, and I watched as, one by one, the people all walked into the beam and were taken up. It got down to the last few, and Sissy grabbed my arms and stretched up for a last kiss. Her mouth tasted coppery.

“Goodbye, Barry. Thanks for everything. I love you.” She turned, waited for another woman to go ahead, and then stepped into the beam, and was gone.

The last to go up was the huge doorman. As he stepped into the beam, he turned and looked at me and placed his finger over his lips, in the classic librarian’s motion for silence. And then I was alone. . . .

The blue beam went out, and I was left in the great empty building, the only sound the humming of the amplifiers. I walked over and stepped up onto the stage and found all the electric plugs and pulled them. I left the laser lights on so I could find my way out.

As I walked back to the truck, I wondered what the cops would think when they found all these abandoned cars behind the warehouse. Then, as I unlocked the truck and Bonnie greeted me, I said, “Fuck it. Not my problem. . . .”

She jumped in my lap, and I petted her for a while. She kept looking around for Sissy, and I knew it would be a while before she stopped that.

We drove to the motel and collected my bag and Sissy’s stuff that she wouldn’t be needing anymore. It felt almost like it feels when someone you care about passes away.

Almost. . . .



Robby Metcalf-Aftermath

 

Kenneth James Crist

 

Living under a bridge in an urban environment, along with an ex-police dog and a six-foot black rat snake, would not be most people’s idea of a good deal. To me it’s heaven. I have everything I need and nothing I don’t need. I have friends who will not abandon me or ever fuck me over for money.

I’m Robby Metcalf and I was a soldier. Like many others, I was wounded in a war over in the sandbox. Unlike most, I actually gained something from the experience. Instead of PTSD, I got a different “disorder”. I inherited the ability to talk to animals. Not just dogs and cats, either. I can understand bird chatter, rat squeak and snake hiss. I can understand the silent language of animals that move stealthily enough to walk up your ass and kill you.

They don’t always like me very well. Some never like me at all. But they all talk to me, sooner or later, even when they think they won’t.

 

“Fuzzy, cut it out…”

“What’s he doin’?” Alice Ann and I were in bed at the Holiday Inn, first floor, first door inside, where it was easy to let Fuzzy out to pee. Amazing what an NSA Special Agent could get, when she put her mind to it.

“He’s laughin’ at us.”

“Why, because we were noisy?”

“Yeah.”

“I never heard him.”

“I could hear his tail thumping the rug. That’s the same as laughter.”

“So, he thinks it’s funny when we’re boinkin’?”

“Yeah, he calls it ‘that puppy-making thing you guys do.’ When we get noisy, he really digs it.”

Alice giggled and pulled the covers over her head. We’d been meeting whenever we could, ever since the NSA had booted me out of their program and let me go back to my life. I had convinced them my talent for talking to animals was lost, or at least of no value to them anymore. Alice knew better, or I was pretty sure she did, but she wasn’t saying anything. Life was good.

#     #     #


On a Wednesday morning, after resting up from a strenuous weekend with Alice Ann Ackerman, I woke up before sunrise and slipped out of my sleeping bag and walked over to my outdoor pee spot. I love the fall in the northeast. In spite of being in a rather large city, in spite of traffic smells and cooking odors, fall was in the air and the temperature was crisp. Fuzzy joined me in a few moments, yawning and peeing at the same time. When we were both finished, he said, “Hungry, Boss. What’s for breakfast?”

“How about we go see Slim over at La Bagatelle? Haven’t been there for a while, and he makes the best omelets…”

“Sounds good. Can we go now?”

“Yeah, we can, Buddy.” I called over to the big snake, who was still in my sleeping bag, “Lucille, you can bite anyone that fucks with my stuff.”

I heard a muffled, “Hurry back, Lover.” I knew if she had eyelashes, they’d be batting at me.

Fuzzy rolled his eyes and said, “Sheesh.” Or what passes for that in dog-ese.

As the white guy with the big German Shepherd walked south from his nest under the freeway, a sawed-off punk named Jerome Fontaine, an employee of a drug dealer named Levi Espinoza, watched them and talked on a cell phone.

“He’s out and about, Bro. Find out what the boss wants ta do…”

“Call ya back,” a voice on the other end said, and then cut off.

Robby had ripped off Espinoza for twenty-two thousand bucks while Fuzzy killed one of his Pit Bulls. This had happened the previous year and Espinoza had sent a couple torpedoes to find and kill Robby. They had been killed and disposed of by agents of the NSA. Espinoza didn’t know that, of course, he only knew his money and his two gay friends had disappeared along with a pink antique Imperial. The car was now painted black and residing in a cartel member’s garage in Ensenada. The two pink gunsels were in fairly deep graves in a different part of Mexico.

“Rome” Fontaine’s phone twanged a couple bars of La Cucaracha and he picked up. “Boss is dealin’ with another thing right now. Just keep an eye on ‘em and he’ll call ya in a little while.”

“Okay, you got it, Bro.” Easy enough duty. Just creep along and watch a white dipshit and a mangy-lookin’ mutt…

 

“You hearin’ that, Boss?”

“Hearin’ what, Fuzz?”

“That squealin’. Drivin’ me nuts…”

“I don’t hear anything, Fuzz.”

“Shit! That guy needs ta get his car fixed.”

“It’s car noise?”

“Yeah, real high-pitched. Brake squeal, like.”

“Which car is it?”

“That old, nasty one back there,” Fuzzy pointed with his nose back the way we’d come. “He’s been back there ever since we left our place, just creepin’ along.”

I finally woke up and realized we were being followed and the squeal from the old car’s shitty brakes was probably too high-frequency for me to hear. To Fuzzy it was like a constant dog-whistle.

“Okay, stop lookin’ back. If we’re being followed, let’s not let him know we’ve figured it out. Let’s see what he does.”

And that was exactly nothing. He just hung back and when we went up to the back door at Le Bagatelle, he parked a block back where he could see us. I knew this was not any government agency. They would never be that sloppy. They would have some type of small device embedded in my phone or maybe even up my ass, so they could track me without being made. I suspected this was from the dope dealer I’d ripped off almost a year ago and that meant we were probably going to war.

It was sort of a letdown to find out Slim wasn’t there. There was a new cook and he looked us over and said, “Slim told me bout youse guys. Wait here. I’m on break in fifteen.” Then he closed the door. Dude had long, greasy hair and a pock-marked face. He was six feet and about 200 pounds. Looked like he marinated himself in sweat and grill grease.

Fuzzy said, “Who was that?”

“I dunno. New guy…”

“We gonna get fed?”

“Don’t know that, either. He said fifteen minutes.” We sat down at the old picnic table we’d used on many occasions and waited. While we sat, I kept stealing glances at the car down the street. Old, nasty Ford LTD, maybe an old cop car. Guy sitting in it, wearing a hoodie and dark sunglasses, trying to look all bad. I hoped he didn’t decide to try a drive-by or something ridiculous like that.

It was almost fifteen minutes on the dot. The man came out with two large Styrofoam carry-out boxes and said, “Here ya go, guys. On the house.” He wiped his hands on his apron and sat down with us to have a smoke.

As he lit up, I asked, “What’s your name?”

He offered a semi-greasy hand and said, “I’m Deke, Slim is my cousin. He’s in the hospital with some kinda foot infection. Asked me if I could fill in for a coupla weeks. I din’t have nothin’ goin’ on and I could always use the work.”

“Well, it’s nice to make your acquaintance. Thanks for the chow.”

“Oh, yeah, no problem. You really talk to animals and shit?”

“Yeah, I really do. Comes in handy, too. This big guy here is Fuzzy. Hey, Fuzz, offer the man a paw.”

Fuzzy stopped pushing his foam container around and sat up on his haunches and stuck out his right paw.

Deke shook with him and said, “I’ll be damned…”

“Fuzzy’s glad to make your acquaintance, too. Hey, Deke, do you recognize the dude in the old Ford Crown Vic down the street to your left?”

Deke was really cool. He took a drag and looked down under the table, then let his gaze travel up to the sky. Checked out a bird and then took a glance at the Ford.

“Oh, yeah. I know that little bastard. He robbed me almost two years ago. Got off cause he was a juvie at the time. He’s the reason I started packin’ a gun every goddamned place I go. Fontaine. Jerome Fontaine. Goes by ‘Rome’, thinks he’s some kinda great lover, too. Limp-dick little loser…”

“Yeah, well, that little shit is followin’ me around, and I know why. I just don’t know yet what I’m gonna do about it.”

“He’s hooked up heavy with a dope-dealin’ shitbird named Levi Espinoza. Dude’s a bad one…”

“I know. I ripped him off a few months back and Fuzzy here killed his favorite Pit Bull. Then, when he sent some guys to try and kill me, the government made ‘em disappear. Now I’m at the very top of ol’ Levi’s shit-list.”

Deke stubbed out his smoke in an old, cracked Bakelite ashtray and said, “That’s not a good place to be, my man, but I’ll tell ya what…anything I kin do to help ya out, you just holler and I’m there.”

“Know where I can get a gun?”

He said, “Hang on a minute.” He went back inside the restaurant and in a few moments reappeared and handed me a business card. On the front it said, ‘AAA Upholstery—Fine Furniture Refinishing, Automotive Upholstery, Seat Covers”, then there was a phone number and ‘R. K. Dickey’ at the bottom along with an address on South Custer.

“Go see this guy. Tell him I sent ya. He’ll call me to verify, so don’t get antsy. Sometimes these deals take a while.”

I thanked Deke again for the handout meal and for the referral and Fuzzy and I stepped out, headed for an obscure upholstery shop.

 

It was a twenty-five minute walk and ol’ creepin’ screechy hung back there like a shadow. Fuzzy complained that the constant brake squeal was making his head hurt. We arrived at a single-story building with grimy plate glass windows on the street side, fake brick siding and garage bays on the side, fronting onto a cracked and weathered asphalt parking lot. I stepped inside and found a massive black guy seated behind an old steel desk that looked like military surplus. His voice was high-pitched, but in no way effeminate.

“Help you?”

“Yeah, Deke sent me over. I need to buy a gun.”

“Don’t know anybody named Deke…”

“Okay…well, he gave me your card…” I produced the card and showed it to him. Fingers the size of bananas reached and delicately took the card. He peered at it and said, “Go outside and wait. Take yer hairy friend with ya.” Not unfriendly, but not trusting, either.

Fuzzy and I went out and settled on an old bench that was propped against the wall, roughly between the windows. We waited twenty minutes, then the door opened and a small, balding white guy about fifty waved us in. As we stepped inside, he said, “Follow me.”

We walked back through the shop area and into a tool crib. He closed the door behind us and turned and rolled up a rubber mat, exposing a trap door in the floor. He raised the trap and reached over to a wall switch and flicked it. Light came on below. “After you,” he said, “dog stays up here.”

I carefully stepped down a very steep set of stairs into a Disneyland of weaponry. On the walls and stacked in the corners were every kind of rifle, shotgun and machine gun I’d ever heard of or seen. In a center glass case were about ninety or a hundred handguns.

The guy came down the stairs behind me and said, “What did ya have in mind, Robby?” Suddenly we were on a first-name basis.

“I’m partial to semi-autos, and things that don’t require a lotta care. I need good knock-down power and high dependability. Low cost doesn’t hurt, either.”

“Glock man, huh? Okay, I got a few. All these are untraceable. Pick whatever ya like and I’ll tell ya what it’ll cost.” He rolled open the case and we got down to business.

Ten minutes later, I was nine hundred dollars lighter and I had a Glock Model 22, .40 caliber, 15-shot in my belt and a box of ammo in a brown paper sack. The cost was almost exactly double what it would have been from any legitimate gun store. The paperwork was zero, thus the high price. The man had allowed me to load the piece before I left and, as an afterthought, he’d thrown in one extra magazine. Mr. Squeaky Wheels followed us all the way home.

 

They came for me at four minutes after four in the morning. I know, because I’d been waiting up under the bridge underpass by Lucille’s den since just after dark. They came in two cars and they parked two blocks away. Fuzzy spotted them first, of course, and I sent him around to the south to flank them and keep them from getting back to their cars.

They were pretty brazen and way overconfident. They walked up out of the dark, looked at my sleeping bag, which was stuffed with leaves and trash to look occupied, and started shooting.

I had moved down and was behind one of the concrete bridge pillars. As soon as they opened up, so did I. By the time they realized they were taking fire, three of them were on their way to hell. Three more went down before anyone tried to run. Two more went down, shot in the back as they fled and Fuzzy got the final guy, just as he got to his car. I listened to him screaming as Fuzzy tore his ass up, while I walked around and made sure of the others.

By the time I walked down to where they’d parked, there was no more noise. I called to Fuzzy and he ran up, ready to tear up anyone else he could find. I said, “Sirens?”

Fuzzy said, “Yeah, Boss, they’re comin. Long ways off, though.”

“Okay. It’s time to go to Levi’s house. You up for that?”

“Will I hafta kill any dogs?”

“Don’t know. Maybe.”

“Okay, let’s go get it done.”

I reloaded the Glock and we headed north and west toward the dope-dealer’s place. No sign of Squeaky Wheels. I asked Fuzzy if the car with the noisy brakes was one of the ones parked back there. He wasn’t sure. “Those cars never moved, Boss and I didn’t notice when they pulled up.”

 

Thirty minutes later, we were across the street from the house that had been Levi Espinoza’s place. It was entirely dark and there seemed to be no activity. I wondered if maybe he’d decided to move, of if maybe they only used the house when they were actually open for business. I sent Fuzzy up to have a smell. He went up to and then onto the front porch and came back, moving almost silently.

“There are people in there, Boss. I can smell ‘em. What now?”

“Go around to the back, in case anybody comes out that way. I’m gonna start some shit.”

Fuzzy moved off into the dark and I started grubbing around in the street, finding any rocks, pieces of broken curb stone, bricks, anything I could throw. Before I could get anything started, Fuzzy was back. He sidled up to me and said, “Mr. Squeaky’s got his shitty old car parked in the back yard.”

“Okay, good. Let’s not let him leave, okay?”

“You got it, Boss.” He was gone again.

I started chucking rocks at the front of the house. No reaction until a lucky throw took out a window. Then lights came on and in a minute, old Levi himself stepped out on the porch. He was in boxer shorts and carrying a big pistol.

“What the fuck’s goin on out here?” He sounded half asleep.

I spoke just loud enough so I knew he could hear me. “Killed yer boys, Levi. Now I’m here for you.”

He threw two wild shots in my general direction and started to back toward his porch, peering into the darkness. He hadn’t been smart enough to even bring a flashlight.

I reached around the big elm tree I’d decided to take cover behind and shot him twice. He dropped like a sack of turds. I saw more movement in the house and two younger dudes ran out. One started spraying the whole neighborhood with a 9 mm Mac eleven that was rigged to fire full auto.

On TV, those things shoot for about an hour. In real life they fire their thirty rounds in about one and a half seconds and it’s time to reload. If they don’t jam first. He fired it dry. Clicked the trigger half a dozen times before he realized he’d run himself outta ammo. Realized he hadn’t brought another mag.

As he turned to run back to the house, I got a nice clean spine shot on him and stopped his clock. He made a small puff of dust as he hit the ground. A bullet creased my cheek and knocked bark off my tree and I ducked back. That stung like a sumbitch and then turned weirdly numb. My eye was watering like crazy and the guy we liked to call Mr. Squeaky was boldly walking right at me, capping rounds, determined to be the hero.

I stepped around the four-foot tree trunk and fired from the other side, left-handed and right-eyed. One of my rounds ripped through his shoulder, halting his forward progress. As he staggered back, I gave him two more, both in the chest. Sucking chest wounds are almost always game-enders. He went down and landed on top of his boss’s carcass.

I whistled for Fuzzy and we got the hell outta there. The sirens were a little slower this time. Maybe they knew a dope dealer lived there. Or maybe they were all tied up at the other scene at my place and had to get some guys free to make the call.

Fuzzy and I headed out to an all-night diner over on Inverness. I figured when we got home the cops were gonna be all over this and it wouldn’t take too long before they’d be matching my expended casings to both crime scenes. I was looking at going to jail, which I wasn’t too worried about, except, I didn’t know what I’d do about Fuzzy. I sat down on the front steps of the diner and told him I was probably in trouble.

“They gonna put ya away, Robby?” The fact that he used my name showed his level of concern.

“I really don’t know, Big Guy. Maybe. If they do, you know where to go to get fed?”

“I can figure it out. I’m hungry right now.”

“Okay. When in doubt, eat.” I stepped inside to the counter and ordered two big sloppy cheeseburgers and Fuzzy and I sat in the parking lot and ate grease and watched the sun come up.

After an hour, we went on toward home. Louis Tambar’s unmarked was parked at our place when we arrived. Everyone else was gone. No bodies, no mess. My ruined sleeping bag was neatly folded and tagged as evidence and two techs were leaning against their van and smoking.

Louis stepped out and looked me up and down. “Please tell me you weren’t involved in this cluster-fuck. Or that other bullshit over yonder.”

“What happened?” I looked at him as innocently as I could.

“Yeah, right.” He looked at his two techs and said, “Swab this guy for GSR.”

“You really don’t need to bother, Louis. Here’s the weapon.” I turned around and raised my shirt. The lab tech slipped on gloves and took the Glock.

“Gonna read you yer rights, Robby.”

“Go for it. Do what ya gotta do, Man.” He produced the card, went through the drill.

“Wanna talk here, or downtown?”

“I’d just as soon talk here. These guys came after me just after four. I was ready for ‘em.”

“Obviously you were. You know who they were?”

“Yup. They worked for Levi Espinoza. Or worked with him.”

“And you know he’s dead, right?”

“Yep. I made him that way.”

“And how did that happen, Robby?”

“After this deal went down, I went to his place to try and talk to him…”

“And?”

“He came out shootin…”

“That where ya got that nasty-lookin’ hickey on yer cheek?”

“Yep. Let’s go with that…”

He turned to one of the techs and said, “Get a picture of this injury here.”

The tech came over and shot four quick frames from different angles and then put his camera away.

“Okay, we’re goin’ downtown now, Robby. You want Fuzzy taken to a shelter, or what?”

“That would be the last thing I’d want. He’ll be fine right here.”

Louis took me down and placed me in the little room. My statement was taken and gone over a dozen times. I resisted the urge to embellish or give details that weren’t specifically asked for. The chief of detectives came in. The watch commander came in. I was pretty sure there were a lot of people on the other side of the one-way glass at different times.

At one in the afternoon, Louis Tambar came in and said, “Okay, let’s go.”

“Where we goin?”

“Headed over to Wal Mart.”

“Why we goin’ to Wal Mart, Louis?”

As he cranked up the unmarked, he said, “You’re gonna need a new sleepin bag. That one’s got bout thirty bullet holes in it. Listen, I’m not gonna bullshit ya. There are forces at work here I don’t understand any more than you do. I think you’re gonna be okay on this deal, but it could still go sour. All I can say is, from a law enforcement point of view, you have cut through a lotta shit and maybe even saved some lives at some point in the future. Right now it’s in the hands of the District Attorney.”

 

An hour later, we were back, Louis Tambar had left and Fuzzy and I were getting ready to take a nap. My cell rang and I checked the number. Area code 202. Washington, D.C. I flipped it open and said, “Hey…” I was expecting Alice Ann’s voice. Instead, I got her boss.

“Mr. Metcalf?”

“Yeah…”

“Don Lawson here, NSA.”

“Yeah, Don, what’s up?”

“Robby, it’s about Agent Ackerman…”

Alice Ann Ackerman. Triple-A. I’d just seen her on the weekend. We’d spent Saturday and most of Sunday shacked up at the Holiday Inn down on Broadway.

“What happened?” It came out in a croak. My heart seemed to have moved up into my throat.

“She was shot this morning, Robby. We were doing a fugitive apprehension over in Virginia. We got into a gunfire exchange. She caught a bullet and it was a while before we could get her to safety. She was dead on arrival at the hospital.”

I was silent.

“I know you and she were close, Robby. I wanted to be the one to tell you…”

“Thank—…thank you, Mr. Lawson. I appreciate you taking the time to call me. I know it’s the most difficult part of your job…”

“I’m sorry, Robby. I’ll call and let you know about arrangements…”

After we hung up, I sat and stared and listened to the traffic. Fuzzy moved up against me and I wrapped an arm around him. “Tell me,” he said. He knew something bad was coming.

“Alice got killed. Got shot. She’s dead, Fuzzy…”

He sighed and dropped down to the ground and laid his head on his paws. I looked at him and his eyes met mine. Then he said, “I don’t feel it.”

“What?”

“I don’t believe it. I think if she died, I’d know it.”

“They just told me, Big Guy. She got shot…”

“Bullshit.”

Twenty minutes later, my cell chirped. I had a text message and the readout said, “Alice A.” The text read, “Suck it up, Buttercup…”






Oklahoma

 

Kenneth James Crist

 

Four months later . . .

Bonnie and I drove straight back from Kansas City, back from the strange “happening” in the old building with the throbbing music and the sudden stillness, the hole that opened in the ceiling and the hard, blue beam of light, the tractor beam, or whatever they might call it, that took Sissy Bowman away.

Bonnie was anxious and whiny for the first fifty miles or so, constantly pacing the back seat and standing up on her hind legs to look out the windows. I knew it would be that way and any efforts to try and soothe her and make her understand would be a wasted effort. Some things just take time.

I am always amazed at the loyalty of dogs. Sissy had only been with us for a couple of months, but Bonnie had claimed her as a friend and, in her world, that meant for life. I knew that as time passed, Bonnie would settle in and more or less forget all about Sissy, unless Sissy was to reappear. Then, with just one sniff, Bonnie’s world would at once be filled with joy. That’s the way dogs are. Sometimes they seem to forget, but they don’t. Not really. They never forget a friend and they never forget an abuser.

When we got back to my place in Wichita, I didn’t do anything about Sissy’s stuff for a while. I needed to let it sink in that she was really gone. Besides, her property was not really mine to dispose of. Her car was occupying half my garage and her clothes took up a little less than half my walk-in closet. I would need to deal with all that eventually, but I was giving myself time. Getting back to living the bachelor life would be tough enough. I felt that having her stuff around would be almost like she wasn’t really gone.

I spent my time as bachelors do, taking care of a house and yard, going out to dinner occasionally and getting Christine out for a motorcycle ride at least a couple times a week. Sometimes Bonnie went along and sometimes she just didn’t seem all that interested.

For the first couple of weeks, Bonnie jumped at every sound. The doorbell would just about give her fits. She was waiting for Sissy to do that miraculous thing that humans do—just magically appear from wherever they’ve been for so long, acting as if they haven’t even been gone for long at all.

After a few weeks, she seemed to calm down and things got back into a more or less normal routine. Sometimes I would find her, though, back in the walk-in closet, if I had forgotten to close the door, sitting among Sissy’s shoes, with Sissy’s clothes hanging above her. Sometimes I’d have to pick her up and carry her out of the closet and close the door to get her mind off the missing friend.

It was almost four months to the day when I took a ride to Tulsa. I was restless and I needed to get out and move. There was a BMW dealer in Tulsa, the closest one to Wichita, and I had been thinking about trading bikes again. I’d never owned a Beemer and I thought maybe a change was needed.

I went by the dealership and spent an hour browsing expensive bikes and shooting the shit with salesmen who didn’t seem to really care if I bought anything, or not.

I rode home, arriving late in the day. I moved the truck out of the garage and pulled the bike in. Put her in her regular spot. Pulled the truck back in and went into the house. Killed the alarm on the way in. I looked out on the sun porch and saw Bonnie, patiently waiting, sitting by the steps, watching the door.

I turned to my left and Sissy was sitting on the sofa in my family room.

I was shocked. But then, in light of everything that had been going on with her, I shouldn’t have been. I walked directly to her, expecting her to jump into my arms . . . or at least expecting her to acknowledge my presence. What I got was a fixed stare that looked right through me. I waved my hand in front of her face, snapped my fingers, spoke to her. Nothing.

I backed off and went to the back door and let Bonnie in, off the sunporch. Bonnie shot in the door and flew into the family room, yipping with joy. She ran in circles and then leaped into Sissy’s lap; then she stopped abruptly and jumped back down to the floor. She eased back up and sniffed Sissy’s ankle and then backed away in confusion. Then she began to bark. I knew something was very wrong and now, Bonnie did, too.

Sissy never even glanced at Bonnie. She was still as a statue, in a trance-like state. My mind was spinning through questions and possibilities: How did Sissy get here? The alarm was still set when I came in the house. Was she beamed through the roof? Reduced to energy and then reassembled here? Was she . . . God help me . . . still human? Still Hybrid?

Not knowing what else to do, I approached her cautiously and sat beside her. I heard her draw a shaky breath, and I automatically reached out for her and pulled her into my arms. At first, she was rigid. Not resisting exactly, but not, I sensed, wishing to be held, or maybe not wishing to even be touched.

I moved my lips close to her ear and whispered, “Sissy . . . Sissy . . . are you there? It’s Barry. Are you okay? Where are you, Sweetie?” I felt I was babbling, but I had no idea what else to do.

After several minutes, a shudder seemed to run through her, and she suddenly was grabbing at me, as a drowning person would, and then she was pressing against me, tighter and tighter, almost as though she wanted to climb inside me. When the tears finally came, I held Sissy for a long time. . . .

Days went by and Sissy and Bonnie became best friends again. I expected that Sissy’s nights would be filled with nightmares again, but she seemed to sleep peacefully. In fact, she slept too much. The bedroom became almost like a sick room, where a patient was wasting away and slowly approaching death.

She seemed to take no interest in much of anything, and I was actually looking into finding her some professional help. My problem with that was, who would believe her? Whatever she told a psychiatrist, it would not be believed on the face of it. It would be taken as the ravings of someone deeply disturbed, in effect a total whacko.

Our best times during this period were not in bed, like in the past. In fact, she seemed to have no interest in sex, or any kind of close contact. The best I could hope for was a hug and an occasional kiss. During this month-long funk she was in, our best times together were just sitting on the sunporch, usually in the porch swing, watching birds and squirrels and laughing at Bonnie’s attempts to chase down and capture critters that were too fast and too wily for her to rule.

Sissy didn’t eat much and seemed to have little interest in what she ate. Whatever was set in front of her, she picked at and sometimes ate enough to sustain life, but there was no joy in eating or drinking anything, as far as I could tell.

I worked steadily at trying to get her to talk to me about whatever had happened to her, but at the same time I was trying not to be intrusive, or overbearing. I knew from experience that if she was ever to confide in me, it would happen when she was ready, and not before. Trying to drag information out of her would be an exercise in futility.

A couple times a week, I tried to get her out on the bike, and sometimes that seemed to help a little. The speed and wind and motion seemed to satisfy something within her, and it was after a three-hour ride, upon our return home, that she unexpectedly took me by the hand and led me to the bedroom.

Once there, she was suddenly desperate to get out of her clothes, and to be held, and kissed, and caressed, and loved. It was a long session, and each time she reached orgasm it seemed to make her more desperate to get there again. Late in the evening, having worn each other out, we collapsed into sleep.

In the morning, she was gone.

 

During the night, Sissy had removed all her clothing and property from my house. Her car was gone from the garage. She had made it as though she had never been there at all. She was not answering her phone.

I spent two days debating whether I should call the cops. I finally did, and reported her as a missing person. A description of her and her car was broadcast, and her information was entered into NCIC, the national crime information database.

Four days later, her car was found at Cheney Reservoir, twenty-five miles west of Wichita. There was no park permit on the vehicle, which had prompted the park officer to run the tag. Responding officers found the car unlocked, the keys in the ignition and all of her property inside the car. Her purse and ID were sitting on the seat. There was no note or other indication of what had happened or her state of mind at the time. Speculation was that she had committed suicide by merely swimming out until she became exhausted and drowned.

I wanted to have her car towed to my house, but the County Sheriff, whose jurisdiction that part of the reservoir fell under, declined, stating they would hold her car and property as evidence, pending further developments. They also processed the car for fingerprints and blood, or any other evidence of foul play. They found nothing interesting in their search.

 

Then began a series of dreams, or maybe nightmares might be a better term, in which I saw Sissy, sitting in a patch of sunlight, on a creaky old straight-backed chair, in a shabby living room of an abandoned, tumble-down house somewhere. She did not speak or move in these dreams, but merely stared at the floor. There never seemed to be anyone else there, and she did not seem to be in any immediate danger.

But the same repetitive dream occurred each night for six nights in a row and each time I dreamed of her, the sunlight patch moved further across the floor, which was littered with cigarette butts, used condoms, and drug paraphernalia, the old carpet filthy and stained with God-only-knew what foulness.

When I awoke on the sixth morning, I’d had enough. Even though I had no idea where Sissy was, I could no longer ignore the dreams. Somehow, I had the feeling that if I would just undertake the simple action of finding her, I would be guided in the completion of my quest. And inaction was worse than uselessly burning up gallon after gallon of fossil fuel. I made a meager breakfast for myself and also cooked an egg for Bonnie and added it to her kibble. I put a case of bottled water and a few clothes in the truck and headed out, with Bonnie parked on the passenger seat.

I drove aimlessly for a while, trying consciously to let in any “vibes” that might come my way, but nothing seemed to enter my mind that was of any help. In two hours, I was near the Kansas-Oklahoma border, on a farm road I had never seen before. I came up to a tee intersection and stopped. Just for the hell of it, I looked at Bonnie and said, “Which way, babe? Find Sissy! Where’s Sissy? Find her!”

She immediately looked to her right, toward Oklahoma and barked, three sharp yips, then looked at me, her tail going ninety, and did it again.

“Okay,” I said, “works for me. . . .”

I turned south and hit the gas. Drove for a half hour, with Bonnie standing on the seat, front paws on the dash, staring straight ahead. When I came to another tee intersection, I again said, “Okay, which way? Where’s Sissy? Find her, Girl!”

Again, she looked to her right. More enthusiastic barking. I turned west and somehow, it felt right to me, too. Another twenty minutes brought us to highway 281. I pulled up to the stop sign and made my third inquiry.

This time Bonnie bolted across the seat and into my lap, looking south through the driver’s side window. More yapping and tail-action. I turned south on 281 and hit it.

We drove down 281 and made a brief stop in Alva, Oklahoma, for gas and some beef jerky we shared, and some water. We continued south and passed the entrance to the Little Sahara sand dune area, where people who loved dune buggies spent their weekends tearing hell out of the terrain.

Soon enough, we were in the “Glass Mountain” area. The Glass Mountains, also called the Isinglass Mountains, are red in color, with a wide, uniform band of selenite crystals toward the tops. Selenite is actually crystalized salt, but settlers to the area thought the crystals were isinglass, also known as mica.

It’s a desolate area, and I was starting to think we were on a wild goose chase, or maybe a doggie pipe dream. I had slowed, looking for crossroads, and I passed one, at which point, Bonnie went apeshit, spinning and barking in her seat.

I stopped and backed up. Bonnie looked west, so I went west. Four more miles and I pulled up to a four-way stop. Bonnie jumped in my lap and looked south.

“Are we close? Is she down there?”

No barking this time, but my hand on her back could feel her quivering with excitement. I turned south on gravel, and we cruised slowly along another two miles. Found a side-road, not much more than a dusty track between fields.

Bonnie went to her side and stared down the track. I turned that way and far ahead, I could see a house. Bonnie was beside herself, jumping into the back and back up front several times.

When I got to the house, I knew it was the right place. There was an old, rusty chain across the weedy, grown-over drive. I pulled up to the chain and stopped. Shut off the truck and reached into the glove box for my Glock model 22.

I let Bonnie out, and she shot for the house, barking her squirrel and bunny-chasing bark. I took it a bit slower, as I made my approach. I saw unpainted siding hanging crookedly, a roof ravaged by weather and full of holes. A tree growing out one window. A front door hanging on one hinge, which screeched horribly as I pushed it open.

Inside, the straight-backed chair I’d seen in my dreams. The nasty beige carpet. The abundance of butts, needles, and condoms. No Sissy. But it was the right house.

I heard dog feet hollowly plunking down some stairs and more barking. I continued through the house and found a stairway into blackness of a cellar. At the bottom, I could see the eye-shine of my dog looking up at me. I said, “Wait. I’ll be right back. . . .”

I turned and went outside, sprinted to the truck and grabbed a powerful tactical flashlight. Cursed myself for overlooking it in the first place. Trotted back to the house and went to the cellar stairs. Looking down with some decent light, I saw the missing stair tread that might have injured or killed me. Made my way carefully down, and I could hear snuffling over in one corner.

Sissy was lying supine on a filthy mattress, clothed in jeans and a sweatshirt, equally nasty. No shoes in evidence, and no sign of injury. I looked at her and the first thought that went through my head was, I’m too late . . . fuck me, she’s dead….

Then, she opened her pretty dark eyes and said, “Barry? I had a dream. You were coming to find me. Where am I?”

I sat down on the mattress, and pulled her to me, and she immediately began to weep, burying her face in the front of my shirt. Bonnie crawled into her lap, and we sat for a long time like that.

Soon, I got her up, and walked her up the shaky stairs, and outside to the truck. Stood her there and made her change into some of my clothes, which were grossly too large but at least they were clean. I chucked her clothes into the back of the pickup, under the tonneau cover.

Once parked in the cab of the truck, I handed her a bottle of water, which she opened and drained. I handed her another. It went down a little slower. I fired up the truck and we headed for home. Bonnie settled in her lap and seemed inclined to never lose sight of her again.

We made a stop at a drive-through burger joint in Alva, and I fed both my girls. Sissy decided that was the best food she’d ever had in her life. I had a million questions to ask, but I knew if I bided my time, I would eventually get the story. And if I pushed, I might not.

As we pushed on north, Sissy tilted her seat back and snoozed. We arrived home as dusk was settling in. When we pulled into the garage, she asked, “Where’s my car?”

“It was found out at Cheney Lake, babe. The sheriff has it. We were afraid…well, that you’d committed suicide, or someone had killed you.”

“I don’t remember going there. I don’t know what happened. I know I was picked up again. I know I didn’t make the cut, and they let me go. . . .”

“Wait . . . what . . . you didn’t make the cut? What does that mean?”

There was a long silence, and we finally got out of the truck and went inside.

“I need a shower, Barry. I need to be clean. Then we’ll talk, okay?”

She went off toward the bathroom. I parked on the sofa with Bonnie, and we waited. Watched the news. Watched Jeopardy.

Finally, Sissy came out, combing her damp hair. She sat beside me on the sofa and curled her legs up under her.

“They had room for four hundred people. Hybrids. Whatever we are. Were. They had four thousand of us and they could only take four hundred.”

“Where? Take you where?”

“To the universe, Barry. They took us up and out and showed us wonderful things. They can cross space. They can cross dimensions. They can cross time, Barry. And they had all these . . . hybrids they had created. But when it was all said and done . . . all the testing over, and everything, only four hundred got to go with them. I wasn’t one of the four hundred. And I was just cast aside. Dropped off. I found myself at that old house, and I didn’t have the will to do anything. If you hadn’t come to find me, I’m sure I would have died there.”

“Okay. In a way, that sucks. But I’m glad they didn’t take you. I’m glad you’re safe, and you’re back. I’m pretty sure Bonnie’s glad, too. You know she’s the reason I found you.”

“Well, I’m back to just being an ordinary person now. You won’t be seeing the weird eyes or anything again. They gave me something that . . . reverses the process. I’m no longer a hybrid.”

“And they told you this?”

“Yes, and I can feel it. I’m just a normal person now. I won’t be immortal, like . . . like them.”

“Immortal? Really?”

“They live for thousands of years. And when they get too old, they just clone a new body and . . . kinda move in. They go on forever. . . .”

“Hmmm . . . not sure I’d care for that. . . .”

“Yes, you would. If you were chosen. But that was the last batch. At least for a few hundred years, anyway.”

“Okay, well, in the morning, we can go see the sheriff and get your car, and your purse, and ID, and stuff . . .”

“I don’t care about that, right now, Barry. I want a good bed, and a good man, and I want good lovin’ . . . can ya take care of that?”

I took her in my arms and said, “I can only try. . . .”

And I did.





Lives Alone

by Kenneth James Crist

 

In the morning, while the

dew is turning the

grass to diamonds, he

mounts Rabbit-at-Dawn and

moves toward the mountain.

 

In his medicine bag, a

lock of her hair, a

chip of turquoise she has

given, and a bear totem

reside.

 

He is Friend-of-Bears,

in life, a white man of

little consequence,

aged and slowly

failing.

 

In spirit, he is another

entity, born to ride the

Iron Horse to his

chosen destiny, that of

a warrior.

 

In his heart, he carries the

memory of Lives-Alone-Woman,

his last and best

love, who has chosen

solitude as her way.

 

Be Well, My Love, he

murmurs, as he spurs

his Iron Horse and the

air begins to thin, and

Rabbit-at-Dawn snarls.




Never Fuck with a Gun Collector

by Kenneth James Crist

 

So, when I stepped outta the bathroom, after taking a hefty dump, and realized there were two guys in my family room, I jumped back quickly and went for my guns. Which of course were not there. Of course. Not lying atop the dresser in their usual places. A Smith & Wesson Shield in .40 caliber and a Glock model 36 in .45. Gone. Well, shit. From the family room, I could hear one guy say, “Was that him? Is he out?” Yeah, that’s “him,” fucker. I peeked behind my pillow and looked at the headboard. Yup, they missed the Taurus P89, five-shot revolver. .38 Special, not my fave, but it would hafta do. I’m still in my undershorts when I step out and level the Taurus. Most accurate short-barreled gun I’ve ever owned. Actually patterns well at seven yards. Guy on the left is a big ugly fuck, three-day beard, bad teeth, meth-head, I would imagine. “Hey, put it down, man,” he says, “got yer wife right here. You might hit her, man, put it down.” And he’s right. About her being there, not about the rest of it. She’s there, all right. Why she thinks, at her age, she can get away with baby-doll pajamas, is beyond me. She’s scared. And she should be. She’s in a bad position. I can see her nipples through the sheer material of the top, and she’s actually excited enough, they’re hard. Excited by fear. Well, okay, I guess that works. These idiots watch too much bullshit TV. I don’t take any time to think about what’s about to go down. I’ve done all the thinking already. I’ve run these kinds of scenarios in my mind thousands of times. And the guy thinks I’m not gonna shoot because I might miss. Well, tell ya what, Slick, I can’t dribble a basketball or do algebra, or carry a tune worth a shit, but I don’t miss. I fire one for effect, and by the time he finishes the word, “down”, the bullet is on the way. It takes him just above his left eye, and he’s all done. I fire another and it misses him, as he’s already falling. Other guy is smaller, but he doesn’t have a woman to hide behind. My Glock is in his hand, but he never even raises it. Too busy gaping at his buddy, whose brains are sprayed on the popcorn ceiling and leaking onto my carpet. I give him the last three shots, and that’s that. Stupid bastards. Think you won’t shoot because yer old lady’s in the way. Fuck. What they don’t understand, is that when you’ve been married long enough, maybe both of you have just been looking for an excuse to pick up a gun and take a shot at the other one, anyway. And so here I sit on the front porch, sipping a Corona Extra and waiting for the sirens. With three dead people in the house. Yeah, ya don’t get a chance like that but maybe once. I wasn’t about to pass it up, either. Put that round right through that hard left nipple. It’s gonna be a long night. And the neighbors are gonna shit. And the homeowner’s association is gonna take a dim view of this, too. Probably gonna hafta move. Fuck. I hate moving . . . all I can do now is hope for a ruling of justifiable on two, and accidental on one, and I’m home free . . . nipples for aimpoints . . . ain’t that a pisser. . .

 



Jingles and Mr. Hammer

 

Kenneth James Crist

 

“Well, Mr. Hammer…another one bites the dust, huh?”

Mr. Hammer was not his usual, talkative self this evening. Jingles continued walking along the waterfront past the ghostly shapes of piers jutting out into the river and the rusty arms of cranes, dripping with moisture. What few lights still worked down here were mostly swallowed up by the thick fog. Far off, a couple miles out into the bay, the mournful hoot of a sono-buoy shoved the silence rudely aside. The silence pushed back.

Well, that was okay. Mr. Hammer had his moods, just like anyone else. Jingles continued his evening stroll, quietly churning the loose change in his left pocket. He didn’t know why he liked that sound so much. Didn’t even really think about it anymore. He only knew he liked it and the habit was where his street name had come from. Jeffrey had been known as “Jingles” since grade school, where he had outperformed everyone in school at being lazy and inept at schoolwork.

It wasn’t that he was stupid or slow. He just didn’t see the need to know all the shit they tried to pump into your head—a certain amount of math and science, he supposed was okay, but why did he need to know the principle exports of Venezuela, or, for that matter, who all the signers of the Declaration of Independence were? Fuck that.

Faintly, he heard Mr. Hammer snigger.

“What’s funny, motherfucker?” He waited, slowing his walk so he could hear better. Mr. Hammer never raised his voice. He always spoke in low tones, usually in a whisper. But then, Mr. Hammer was a badass mother. He didn’t need to raise his voice. Ever. Jingles listened intently. No answer.

“What? Cat got yer tongue, Mistah? You kin say it. Go ahead. We bein’ buddies and all. Think you gone hurt mah feelin’s or some shit?”

Mr. Hammer said, “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it…” Then the snigger again.

“The fuck’s that supposed ta mean, man? Doomed…shit…”

“I’m saying perhaps you should have stayed in school, Jingles. You’d be better off for the experience.”

“Yeah, fuck that. You know how them rich-ass, spoiled punks treated me there…”

“I only know what you tell me. If you’ll recall, I was not around during the formative part of your life. Had I been there, things would have turned out much differently, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, Mistah Hammer, you got that shit right.”

Mr. Hammer asked, “Are we done for tonight, Jingles? Or are you up for another?”

“Naw, Man, I’m tired. Think it’s time ta go get some sleep…”

Mr. Hammer agreed and Jingles and his friend walked around the next block and headed for home.

#     #     #

The landlady, Mrs. Soames, happened to be taking out trash just as Jingles arrived at his apartment. She didn’t like Jingles at all, but he was always on time with the rent money. Usually it was in the form of greasy, smelly bills, fives and tens mostly and she had been known to actually throw his rent money in with the laundry. Most people didn’t know that so-called paper money was more cloth than paper and you could wash it without doing any real damage. And Jingles always smelled, too—just like the nasty money. She wondered if he ever bathed. The nasty creep. She remembered one time when he had given her money that had something on it that looked for all the world like blood. Might have just been ketchup, but she washed the bills anyway.

#     #     #

Lieutenant Callahan put down his coffee cup and pulled out his pager, held it up to the light to read the printout.

“Fuck, Johnny. We got another one.”

His partner, John Galloway, took a final chomp on his Bismark and, with his mouth half full said, “Yeah, where at this time?”

“Pier 51. Goddamn floater. We better roll.” He tossed some bills on the table and stood up, grabbing his coat. The waitress, seeing the detectives about to leave, scurried over with two Styrofoam cups of coffee, lids already snapped on tight. She liked the two Irish cops. They were daily customers and they tipped pretty good, considering what they made as New York’s Finest.

Galloway said, “Thanks, Maggie,” and swooped in to give her a quick peck on the cheek, missing and getting her ear instead. She felt goose bumps run down one arm and up her leg at the same time. She wondered if he had any idea she loved him. Big fucking lug…

The partners stepped out into morning fog and light drizzle, and the cacophony of cab horns, tire screeches, hissing steam, bus brakes and everything else that was the background noise of the Big Apple. Their unmarked Crown Vic was parked illegally at a hydrant a half block up, the NYPD plaque on the dash. They crammed themselves into the car, buckling up without even thinking about it and Callahan picked up the radio mike. He cleared with Central, advising they were on their way to the floater call.

“Copy, D-44, break, D-11, 91st and Sims, a 10-40, see the lady, says she heard a gunshot…” the radio chatter continued ceaselessly as the Crown Vic headed toward the team’s twenty-eighth homicide of the new year. Galloway reached under the seat and pulled out the split-lens red and blue “Kojac” light and plunked it on the dash, stabbing the plug on the curly cord into the cigarette lighter. The light began to spin and some of the drivers actually noticed it and eased over a bit, allowing the unmarked to squeeze through. Callahan blipped the horn and yelped the siren a bit now and then to wake up the “idjits” who hadn’t had their caffeine yet, and gradually, they worked their way toward the waterfront.

“Jist anuuther foine die in the borough of Manhattan, Johnny me bye,” Callahan said in his put-on Irish brogue and Galloway gave him the finger as he nursed his coffee.

#     #     #

Central had told them it was a floater, Callahan thought to himself, but they damn sure didn’t tell us it was a floater chick. He looked into the white iridescence of the body bag at the once-beautiful young woman. In spite of the puffiness of exposure to the river water, in spite of the beginnings of decomp, he could tell she had been a looker. He used a small LED flashlight to do a cursory examination. Grey skirt, slightly above the knee, black top made of some silky, clingy material, maybe real silk. Red shoes from some expensive place uptown. Ankle bracelet, two rings and a tiny Rolex watch. So she had money and robbery wasn’t a motive. No purse, of course, but he had a feeling about this one. He would almost bet there was a missing persons case already sitting in the computer on this gal.

Dark bruising around the eyes, but not the kind you get from a prick boyfriend. The back of her head was mush, the eye darkening from the brain-bleed as she died. Another fair bet: there would be no water in the lungs. She was most likely dead before she went into the water. Such a shame…

Galloway was fifty yards away, interviewing the guy who spotted her. Nobody special, just a guy who happened to look over the side of his tugboat as he was headed out into the harbor. Saw something he didn’t like the looks of. Cut his throttles and grabbed a boathook and bingo! Pulled her aboard and called 911. Harbor Patrol boat was first on the scene and brought her ashore. Callahan lit up the first cigar of the day and motioned for the coroner’s guys to zip her up and roll. It might be a week before he got an autopsy report, maybe six weeks for toxicology, depending on how busy they were. The wheels of justice, he thought, doing that slow grind thing. But there really was no justice for something like this. Justice would be finding the asshole that did this and beating him to death and dumping his ass in the river.

In the meantime, their caseload wasn’t getting any lighter and there was always court to tie up their time, too. What a bullshit way to make a living. The sun was up in the east by the time they headed for the station, beams of sunshine blasting down through the canyons between the skyscrapers of Manhattan. His mind made one of those jumps to Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities and the opening line, ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” and he realized how much he both loved and hated this city.

#     #     #

Dr. William Tarn, M.D. “caught” the autopsy of Callahan’s floater from pier 51. He did his gross examination, looking over every inch of the body, now stripped naked, the clothing already dried in a special cabinet, then bagged and tagged for evidence.

Surprisingly, there was no evidence of any kind of struggle or sexual assault. In fact, the woman had been a few days into her menstrual cycle and there was a tampon still in place. No broken nails, no bruising that could not be attributed to being tumbled through the water and possibly bumped by boat traffic. All post-mortem. No injuries, except to the back of the skull.

Dr. Bill used clippers to carefully remove the long, blonde hair from the back of the skull. He was expecting a number of blows, but it appeared there was only one. A massive strike with a heavy object had done this lady in. After photographing the wound from several angles with a digital camera, he made a clean incision around the back of her skull, peeling the top of her scalp forward over her face. More photos of the skull itself, now exposed, the cranium clearly showing cracking and a depressed fracture. He readied his bone saw and went to work, cutting across the top of the skull and around the back, then using a chisel and a small hammer, he popped open the cut section, allowing more photos of the inside of the skull.

Using a scalpel, he reached in under the brain and cut through the spinal cord just beneath the brain stem and carefully removed the brain, weighing it, as with all the other internal organs, then sitting it on a bread board to be sliced, in order to look for lesions or tumors. All other causes of death must be eliminated for the “true cause” to hold up in court. For every damned good doctor doing this kind of work there were any number of damned slick attorneys interested in getting the suspect off on any possible technicality.

Later the sliced brain would be fitted neatly back into the skull, the skull section replaced and the scalp sutured, so that the mortician would be able to make her presentable for her funeral. Might even manage an open casket with a little makeup on the eye darkening.

Blood and bodily fluids were drawn and labeled for toxicology and the doctor’s dictated report was typed up and a copy forwarded to Callahan at Homicide. The doctor moved on to his next case. He would perform seven autopsies that same day. On the fourth one after the blonde Jane Doe, he saw the exact same skull trauma on a 34-year-old homeless man from down in the Bronx. He picked up the phone and called Callahan.

#     #     #

Jingles and Mr. Hammer slept late and then got up and took a shower together. They didn’t do that very often, but sometimes it was necessary. Jingles often wondered what people would think of their relationship if they knew. It wasn’t just a working relationship. There was also love and respect and mutual enjoyment. There were many things they both liked that they could do together. They both liked strip clubs and they both liked to watch porn videos. The ones with women bound and tortured were the best, Jingles thought. Mr. Hammer preferred videos of women masturbating with vibrators and dildoes.

Often they would watch their “shows” just before they went out for their evening stroll. If they were successful in their quest for companionship, they would come home and sleep. If not, they might be frustrated and they would have to find other outlets for their libidos. When Jingles was a boy, he had often abused animals, but he had outgrown that phase and moved on to better things. About the time he stopped hurting animals, he discovered how much fun it was to play “dress-up” with his older sister’s clothes. She had caught him a couple times, wearing her bra and panties and called him a “creepy little pervert”, but then lots of older sisters thought such things about younger brothers. No big deal…again, Jingles had graduated to bigger and better things.

Jingles applied his makeup as Mr. Hammer watched. He seemed amused that Jingles would bother with all that “goop”, as he called it.

“If anything bad happens, you’ll be identified anyway,” he would often tell Jingles.

“That’s not why I do this, and you already know it,” Jingles replied.

“Yeah,” Mr. Hammer sighed, “I know. You like to get in really close and the makeup helps…”

Together, they ate supper, nothing fancy, chicken pot pies, and when they finished, evening was setting in. Time to go out.

#     #     #

“Callahan! Line two!” The detective nearest the front of the bullpen was holding up a phone, waving it in the air.

“Callahan.”

“Bill Tarn, Callahan. Got something for ya…”

“Talk to me,” Callahan said, grabbing a pen and a legal pad.

Dr. Tarn told him about the homeless guy he’d autopsied and the similarities in the head wounds.

“Think it could be the same guy, Doc?”

“Same M. O. Same weapon, I’d stake my reputation on it. Now I’m wondering if there may be more.”

“I’ll see if I can put a guy on it…”

“That’s okay, Detective, I’ve got three interns with time on their hands. I’ve already got one going back through our files. Got calls in to Jersey, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, you know the drill…”

“Okay, hey, that’s great Bill. Let me know soonest, okay?”

“Yup, you got it.”

Callahan hung up the phone just as Galloway walked into the bull pen on his way back from the coffee pot. Galloway looked at him and said, “What?” Galloway knew the look.

“Doc Tarn just did a cut-job on a homeless guy from the Bronx. Same M. O., same weapon. We got ourselves a serial killer.”

“Well shit, don’t let the word get out, or the chief will do the usual.”

“Yeah, first he’ll have a cow and then he’ll form a fucking task force and take our case away.”

“Right. And I want this fucker myself. I wanna put the cuffs on so tight he’ll shit himself.”

#     #     #

Jingles and Mr. Hammer did something they rarely did. They took a cab, clear over to the west end, west of Central Park and then began their walk, back through the park. As they moved, they kept to the shadows as much as possible and people-watched, after all, people were what they were all about.

Jingles was wearing new shoes and they were hurting his feet, but he could stand it for a while, as long as things went well. Finally, they approached a man seated alone on a park bench and they sat coyly on the other end. The man seemed interested and soon there was a conversation. Terms were offered and rejected. Adjustments were made and an agreement was struck. The man stood and offered his arm. Jingles took it and they moved off into the park.

Soon they reached a darker area, where the lighting wasn’t quite as good, and Mr. Hammer made his appearance. To his amazement, Jingles found that the young man didn’t seem intimidated at all. To his further amazement, as Mr. Hammer was deployed, the young man rather calmly produced a Glock handgun and shot him twice in the chest. He found himself on the pavement, feeling agonizing pain and with his vision darkening around the edges, suddenly surrounded by police and hearing sirens in the distance. They were for him.

#     #     #

Callahan and Galloway made the scene of the officer-involved shooting in Central Park West. An undercover vice cop had picked up a prostitute who turned out to be a cross-dressed male. He had tried to attack the officer with a hammer. The officer had fired his weapon twice. The pseudo-hooker had died right there on the pathway.

Callahan carefully walked the scene, noting two expended cartridges from the officer’s service weapon, already marked with yellow plastic triangles on the ground. He looked at the body of a light-skinned black male, wearing a blouse and skirt and red, high-heeled shoes. Fucker even had a string of fake pearls and earrings.

The lab guy stepped over and said, “Check this shit out, Cal.” He handed Callahan a clear plastic bag. Inside was a 26-ounce, ball-peen machinist’s hammer. The wooden handle had been carefully carved into the shape of a penis, or perhaps a dildo, so that the head of the penis was at the end and the steel hammer part looked almost like a set of balls. The handle was finished with what appeared to be many coats of clear shellac. Callahan looked more closely. There were letters there, under the clearcoat. Meticulously burned into the wood were the words, “Call me Mister…”





Her Passion

 

Kenneth James Crist

 

She had a passion for emasculation. She loved to make guys love her and then, slowly, ever so slowly, reduce their manhood until they were the ones crying and blubbering on the phone, tears and snot running, gulping, gasping with their pain, as she whispered, “I know, I know, Sweetheart…but this is the way it has to be…”

She used every kind of story on every kind of man, once she had so thoroughly locked them into her web of hot sex, both “normal” and “abnormal” and lies that she so skillfully manipulated.

She’d lured men from every social stratum and every walk of life. She’d driven the homeless crazy with passion and caused the suicides of several Wall Street high-rollers and at least one member of the local mob hierarchy. Families had been broken apart and lives ruined that were only distantly related to her victims. And victims they were, even though, in her twisted mind, she was always “the victim of love gone wrong.”

She came by the greatest part of her looks naturally. Just good genetics. The creamy skin that took a great tan, the blonde hair that looked even better with a little “tune up” at the salon, the flat stomach, round firm breasts and shapely, strong legs were all given her as her natural inheritance, and she used them to her full advantage.

She was an accomplished liar by the time she was six and had gotten away with an actual murder when she was nine. It was just a little kid from the neighborhood, accidentally backed over by his Mommy’s car. The cops never suspected the boy had been dead of a crushed skull for twenty minutes when Mommy failed to check behind the car as she backed down the driveway.

Her name was Carla Mae Price (a pseudonym) and emasculation was her game. And that was where I came in.

 

The Club Venus De Milo was where I was working at the time Carla came into my life. I was working the door, not as the actual bouncer, at least not most of the time, unless a big brawl got going, then I would jump in, but I hated to do that because it was much too easy for me to kill some redneck asshole. That sort of thing fell within my wheelhouse, as the saying goes.

At Club VDM, women were only charged a cover if they were ugly or clearly slithering, snaky street whores. Fair is fair, and if they wished to ply their trade at our place, they should at least pay the cover.

Carla never paid a cover. She started coming around in the dead of winter and I have to confess, she looked daisy-fresh whenever she came in that door, giving a hint of spring soon to come. Never drunk and sloppy, never bitch-hot horny, just cool and fresh, that’s how she looked. Under the veneer, beneath the luscious exterior, now there was a different story. Oh, my yes. And I knew it the first moment I laid eyes on her. She set off a klaxon in my brain like those in the old, World War II movies about submarines. “Ah-woo-gah! Ah-woo-gah! Dive the boat!” Fuck, yeah. And right then, I knew what would be happening to old Carla. Just a matter of time. Sound General Quarters, Bo’sun, this shit’s gonna get ugly…

To say she attracted attention from the get-go would be an understatement of the first degree. When she strode confidently to the bar in her platform heels, those tanned, sleek calves bunching below a mid-length skirt, firm boobs bouncing just a little, it was like someone screamed, “Tench-hut!” on a Marine base. Yeah, fuckin’ heads turned. New meat. That’s what was going through half the heads in the place. The male half. And that’s what was going through Carla’s head, too. And I knew eventually she’d get around to me. Because I was the only guy in there that wasn’t impressed. And that wouldn’t do it for Carla. I could feel that first date looming on the horizon. Far, far in the background, down where I live in the darkness, I could hear a familiar chuckle.

I was amazed that it took her so long to hit on me. I’d seen her leave with a couple different guys, but from talk overheard, none of them got to first base. Not challenging enough, I assumed. Taking down the average geek would not afford her enough pleasure. She needed someone tough and nasty. A week after I first saw her come in that door, she stayed until closing one night. Made her approach as we were clearing out old Guffey, and Sam-the Gimp, our resident lushes and closer-downers.

Came up to me and said, “Hey, Dickie, you suppose you could help me get my car started? It’s crankin’ pretty slow and it may need a jump. If we can get it goin’, I’d buy ya breakfast.” Sure, Sweetie, why not? Tonight’s as good a time as any.

Of course, when we got to the lot, her little Toyota fired right up, but she still felt like breakfast and did I wanna go? Like I said, Gorgeous, tonight’s as good a time as any.

She picked the Red Ball Diner over on Taft and Eleventh and I followed her there. Old chrome and stainless steel thing, made to look like an actual dining car. Pink and green neon and big windows steamed with condensation. She picked the last booth in the back and, as we had our eggs and pancakes, she set about pushing all my buttons. Made sure she hung on every word coming outta my mouth, made sure she touched my hand once in a while. Kept one leg pressed against mine under the table. Showed me a mile of cleavage and managed to sneak an extra button undone when I was looking elsewhere. Yeah, she knew the game and played it well.

Back outside in the cold, she slipped once on an icy patch and by the time I got her stabilized, we were locked up in a pretty good clinch. Her face was right there, her breath on my cheek, one breast pressed out of shape against my chest. And then the kiss. Tongues sliding and tasting, teeth grazing each other, her breath shuddering with contrived passion. “Would you like to stop by my place for a nightcap?”

Sure would, Little Girl. Let’s see whatcha got…

I would have never expected a double-wide mobile home. I really expected more class from ol’ Carla, but that was it. It was in a nice park on the south side, but it was still a bit tacky. Nine minutes in the door, and half a Bloody Mary and we were wrestling out of our clothes on the sofa.

Hafta give her a nod, she was pretty good in bed. Turned on all the hot stuff, used her mouth, tongue, fingers, whatever it took. This was just the warmup, but she didn’t know that. The main show would come later. I’d give it a couple days. Might as well enjoy myself with the little tart. One of the perks of my job. Not the doorman at VDM. The other job…the dark and dirty job that I’d been doing for so long, I could scarce remember when it started.

A week into the affair, she had me wrapped around her little finger. I was panting like a dog every time I got a sniff of her, and I got lots of sniffs. She was pretty sure she had me. She was also pretty sure we’d performed every imaginable sex act that two heterosexual people could make happen, but she was wrong. She was about to get an education.

We closed VDM at 2 A.M. just like always and Carla was ready to party. We had done her place practically to death and she was eager by now to go to my digs.

She was impressed with the building. Seven stories, all brick, valued at 19.1 million dollars. I had the entire seventh floor penthouse complete with roof garden. I didn’t tell her I owned the building, but when you’ve got a boss like mine, and you’re good at what you do, you get the perks.

The elevator was almost completely silent as we glided to the top. The doors opened onto a foyer finished with a mirrored glass floor. Yeah, it’s a little disconcerting the first time you walk on it, but you learn to ignore it. Further in, we stepped into Bacchanalian luxury. The decorator’s fee had been ninety thousand, and it showed. Carla was agape, literally, her pretty mouth hanging open. It snapped shut when I picked up a $200 box of French chocolates. After all, it was Valentine’s day. I opened the box and said, “For you, Sweetheart. I hope you can find something you like.”

She was into the candy like a duck on a bug and I had to feed her some champagne to keep her from eating too many. They were laced with barbiturates and I didn’t want to kill her. Not just yet.

In fifteen minutes, we were rolling naked in my super king bed and in spite of the carnal activities going on, Carla was having a tough time keeping her eyes open. As she experienced a slow, lazy orgasm and dropped off to sleep, my phone rang. Not my cell phone. The red scrambler phone on my desk just a few steps away in my study.

“Dickie!” The voice was hollow-sounding and echoey, just like always, because of the electronics.

“Yeah, Boss…”

“How’s that little project going?”

“Going good, Boss.

“When will you take care of the fucking little problem?”

“She’s sleeping right now, Boss. But she’ll wake up in a couple hours and we’ll get this taken care of.”

“Good. You understand, she has to know it’s because of Anthony, right?”

“Understood, Boss. No problem.”

“She has to suffer, Dickie, okay?”

“She will, Boss. Consider it done.”

 

The acts of vengeance began ten minutes after Carla woke up at four A.M. By that time, I had restrained her with what hospitals call “hard restraints.” They are made from space-age nylon and adjust around the wrists and ankles, then they are secured to the bed with thick leather straps.

At first, she thought it was kinky and we were just playing another sex game. I had laid out an array of dildos and vibrators that would put a Swedish sex shop to shame. There were plenty of lubricants, too, all the way from regular Vaseline to a “hot-shot” kind that had Habanero pepper in it. Let the fun begin…

Carla was into orgasms and she was one of those women who could come almost continually with the proper stimulus. I made sure the stimulus was proper until her energy level was flagging and she began to whine and thrash around every time I approached her.

When I brought out the car battery and saline solution, I saw real fear on her pretty face for the first time. I let her watch me hook up jumper cables to the battery. Struck an arc across the cables, just to show her it was for real. Fastened one of the clamps to her breast and that was the first time she cried out. When I redid the penthouse level, I installed great soundproofing. Good thing, too. It was gonna get loud pretty soon.

Fastened the other clamp to a pad of steel wool and drenched her with the salt water. She was gasping and crying when I came close to her already sore crotch with the steel wool pad.

“This is for Anthony F______________,” I said, and hit her with the current. It knocked her out, and I’m sure the pain was tremendous. Did you know you can actually weld metal with a car battery and a coat hanger wire? Yep. Lotta amperage in a car battery. I waited for her to come around.

Once she was back and fully awake, I said, “You remember Anthony, right, Carla? You knew who his father was, right?”

Her eyes were so big I thought they were gonna pop right outta her skull. All she could do at that point was whimper and roll her eyes.

“Pay attention, Carla! This is because of what you did to Anthony. Not to mention however many other guys you fucked over. This is the part where you pay, Sweetie.” I hit her with the current again, this time a quick shot to her belly. The muscles contracted and she screamed. I briefly touched the steel wool to her opposite nipple. Another good long scream. Now we were getting somewhere.

Now she broke into a sobbing chant, “PleasepleasepleasepleaseI’m sorrysorry sorrysorry nonononono, don’t—yahhhhhhhhhhh…” as I hit her with the current again. She bawled, she cussed, she pissed the bed. She screamed. The video cameras mounted on the ceiling and the walls picked it all up on six channels in living color and sent it direct to Don F____________’s mansion over in Jersey.

Carla and I were into it for almost an hour, when suddenly the red phone rang again. I picked it up on the second ring.

“Hello?”

“That’s enough.” The Boss actually sounded a bit disgusted. “Finish it.”

“Kay, Boss, you got it.”

“Leave the cameras on…”

 

While Carla thrashed and squealed, I carefully pushed an icepick into her chest, right beside her heart. Then I hit the icepick with the car battery. And her heart simply stopped.

There are two trash chutes in my building. One opens into the hallway on each floor and services the whole building. The other opens into my apartment alone and it does not stop in the building’s basement. It goes much deeper. So deep in fact that when I dumped Carla’s violated remains into that special chute I never heard her hit bottom.

       Two days later a special courier brought me a package. Inside was a lot of money and a bottle of Dom Perignon. There was a card, too. All it said was, “Well done…”



Confetti and Juicy Fruit Gum

 

Kenneth James Crist

 

She picked him up on a lonely

road, just like her

Mother always told

her not to.

 

His thumb was out, and it was

raining, and her mood was

one of reckless

endangerment.

 

When he got in, she expected that

wet-dog smell, but it was not

to be. Instead, he smelled of

clean clothes and masculine

aftershave and his breath was

redolent of Juicy Fruit gum, her

favorite.

 

“How far are you going?” he

asked, and her whirling mind

said, “All the way…” but her

mouth said, “Rochester,” and

longed for Juicy Fruit gum.

 

Their talk was of trivial

things, but their thoughts were

moving mountains of

passion, and as they neared

Rochester, she asked, “Where

can I drop you?”

 

Her voice shook as she

spoke and her heart

skipped when he said, “At

your house…”

 

Later, between clean

sheets, he applied all he’d

learned in his confusion of a

life, and when she popped, her

thoughts and emotions

 

Exploded like confetti, to

land on the floor of her

mind, and later be

swept out with the other trash.



Closure…

 

Kenneth James Crist

 

You might as well call me Crank. Everybody does. I was Crank when I was still a copper and I’ll be Crank when I die, which will happen sooner or later. I plan to have it carved on my tombstone. See, the idea of dying doesn’t bother me. What bothers me is what pretty much bothers all cops. Dying while looking stupid.

I’m not a cop anymore. I retired from that shit quite a few years ago. Now I draw my pension and my Social Security and I live my life the way I want to. I take care of business. We’ll get to that.

Crank Howland. It’s Kerry, actually, and I never minded my real name, but once, while I was working narcotics, I developed leads that took us to a house on Wichita’s north side that was so full of methamphetamine that the cleanup crew had to wear hazmat suits. I got the handle then and it kinda stuck. Meth was known as “crank” among this particular bunch of biker trash, you see.

Nowadays, I stumble outta bed whenever the mood strikes me or the prostate demands, and after a wicked pee, I go find any type of hot brown liquid that might be handy, preferably loaded with caffeine. After I get the handful of pills down, for cholesterol, blood pressure, acid reflux, joint pain, and memory loss, plus the vitamins and iron and a testosterone booster, I head for the north crapper and get that outta the way. Then I hit the shower and I’m ready to get to work.

Martha likes to sleep in. She’s number three. I married the first two, then I gave up on that shit. Martha is younger than my daughter and pretty set in her ways. I don’t bug her much and she leaves me alone, too. She works as a dental hygienist and has a little two-seat sports car I can hardly cram myself into. She likes to eat out, and she doesn’t cook. She also likes lots of kinky sex and, even though I’m old, I ain’t dead.

I would describe my typical day for you, but you see, there are no typical days anymore. Another thing I gave up. The case I just finished with two days ago was a murdering piece of shit named Buck Cardington. He was arrested in connection with the disappearance of two girls from East High School more than four years ago. They were found eventually in an old barn in Butler County, almost forty miles from Wichita. They had been repeatedly raped and sodomized and tortured in various grisly ways, then made to kneel in the dirt and shot in the head.

The cops and the district attorney thought they had an airtight case and the papers had him headed for death row, even though the death penalty hasn’t actually been used in Kansas since 1965. But, he walked on a technicality. Seems the DNA they used to match him up with all the jizz and spit they found on the corpses was obtained illegally, or at least ruled that way by the pussy of a judge, who was so scared of being overturned on appeal, he let this fuck-stick go. And of course, once he was acquitted, because of the double jeopardy rule, he could never be tried again for those crimes. I had no doubt he would eventually be caught again for something equally heinous, but there were two families out there to consider. They needed closure. And they would get it. And then there are the families of his future victims. So, you see, from my point of view, there is some pressure to get this done.

Tracking these guys down is never that difficult. And eliminating them wouldn’t be, either. But when I say the families needed closure, that’s just what I mean. They need to know this bastard suffered for what he did to their children. This is the part where it needs to get nasty.

I started by finding out where he was living. Not hard to do, since all court proceedings are available to the public unless sealed by a judge. I never use contacts within the police department, even though there are lots of guys there who would be more than glad to help me. I can’t risk someone remembering that I was inquiring about this guy or that one, when they turn up later.

Buell “Buck” Cardington actually lived on my old beat on the northeast side in a run-down duplex with a chubby sometime prostitute named Samantha Healy. It had been speculated, but never proven, that Healy helped lure the two girls he’d killed into their van and maybe even helped with some of the nasty stuff. I decided early on that I wouldn’t mess with her unless she got in my way.

I needed a place that was remote, but not too remote. I needed people close enough to hear the action. Maybe hear the screams. But far enough away I could ease outta the area and not be seen.

My transportation is a 1990 Ford F-150 pickup truck. Hunter green and rust. Talk about a blend-in vehicle. This is farm country out here. This truck doesn’t get a second look. I bought it at the Wichita Auto Auction a couple years ago, then took it to some guys I know. I call it my “sleeper” and my “joke truck”. Privately, I call it the War Wagon.

We crammed the biggest V-8 motor we could fit into it, fitted with special heads, valves, carbs and a supercharger with a demand system, so it didn’t pull all the time, only when needed. We fitted a beefed-up six-speed automatic tranny, with a lock-up converter and a Dodge Ram rear end. It would do just a tad over a hundred and forty.

Since the girls had been found in Butler County, I decided ol’ Buck should be found out there, too. Butler county had become much more populated in the years since the girls were found, though, and it was harder to find a good place.

I finally decided on an abandoned mobile home, settled on its foundation and slowly going to ruin on a side road only a half mile from the nearest farmhouse. The Burlington railroad tracks ran by a quarter mile south. Just about perfect.

Buck liked to drink and carouse and it made him an easy target when I was ready. I had scoped out his two favorite drinking establishments and both were as nasty as he was. The Slicker was an old clapboard building on north Broadway. The back parking lot was butted up against an auto salvage and the War Wagon looked right at home there. It took a couple evenings to get his routine down, but then when I was ready, it was no trick to just wait by his car, with my truck right there, backed in, and when he staggered out, I thumped him with a blackjack and rolled him into the back of the truck. Took a look around to make sure I was unobserved, then hopped up into the back and trussed him up with plastic flex-cuffs.

I had spent a week getting the old nasty trailer ready for him. Each time I went out there, I drove up the Burlington tracks until I was behind the house, then drove the truck down the embankment so it was out of sight. I would then make my approach from the back using natural cover.

The explosives might have been a problem, were it not for a publication called The Anarchist’s Cookbook. Anybody can get a copy and it makes for very interesting reading. The difference is, I actually do the things outlined in the book. Like making my own plastic explosive on a hotplate in my garage. Can’t make the shit in the house. Martha would have a cow.

The detonator was constructed in my garage, too, along with the pressure switch. I wore surgical gloves the entire time I was working with the components, knowing very well that the department of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives would be called in by the Butler County Sheriff and they would collect every speck they could find.

Each time I went out to the trailer, I took a brand new plastic gas can full of gasoline and set them inside the place. I wanted a fire, and not just a fire. I wanted a conflagration. The only thing I wanted blown clear was fuck-face Cardington’s wallet, with ID inside.

#     #     #

“What the fuck, man?”

Fuck-face was awake. He was no longer trussed up. At least not like he had been. He was now suspended from a block and tackle, with his toes touching a bathroom scale.

I walked over to him and offered him a snort of meth, just to clear his head. He snorted. Then I said, “You and I need to come to an understanding, Buck.”

“Fuck you, Man! You’re a cop! You can’t get away with this shit…”

“Not a cop anymore, Buck. Retired now, but still taking care of business. Now shut up and pay attention.”

“Let me down, cocksucker and I’ll kill yer ass!”

“No, Buck. Your killing days are over. Your dying day is here now…”

“Oh, what? You gonna cut me up? What?”

“Nope. I’m not gonna do anything to ya. You’re gonna do it to yourself.”

“Yeah, fuck you, Man…”

“Listen to me, Buck. Your life depends on this…you ready?” He merely glared at me.

“I took your wallet, Buck. It’s lying on the front steps. Underneath that bathroom scale is about eleven pounds of plastic explosive. See all these gas cans? They’re all full. There’s a pressure switch in the bathroom scale, Buck. When I lower you down and your full weight is on the scale, it will prime the fuse. Nothing will happen until the weight is removed. Then the whole thing goes bang. Understand?”

Suddenly, fear and concentration overruled booze and meth and he was cold sober. “Like—like one of those Bouncing Betty mines they used in ‘Nam…”

“Bingo! You win the booby prize. I want you to know this is for the two girls from East High…”

“Hey, Man! I was acquitted for that, Man! Not guilty! You understand that, Cop?”

“Yep. I understand. And I know you did it. Look around. See the video cameras, Buck? As I leave, I’ll start them running and a live feed will go out over the Internet and it’ll be uploaded to my private server at my place. You know about YouTube, Buck? Of course you do. Lotsa porn there and I bet you know just how to get to it. After I look the tape over and edit it just a tad, it’ll go up on YouTube. Anyway, all you gotta do is stand still. As long as you stand on the scale, you live. Try and jump and run, you’re fucked. The plastic has an explosive velocity of twenty-four thousand feet per second. Think you can outrun that. Buck?”

Buck continued to swear and call me names, as I lowered him down until his full weight was on the scale and he felt that tell-tale click of the pressure switch arming itself. Then, suddenly, he was my buddy. He begged and wheedled and moaned and cried as I was leaving.

Forty feet outside the door, I used the remote to start the cameras. I made it to my truck and drove on out. Buck lasted a long time. Pissed himself several times. Shit himself once. Cried, apologized to me and to everyone he ever hurt. Begged some more. Screamed my name over forty times. Of course, I edited those parts out. Then I took it to the public library and used one of their computers to upload it to the net. The video makes very interesting watching. And the families can watch it any time they want. It shows how to destroy a man, be he predator or saint. How to reduce him to a blubbering, whining gob of protoplasm. He lasted nineteen hours, standing on ol’ Betty. They say the explosion was deafening. And the fire burned a long time…



George’s Personal Big Bang

 

Kenneth James Crist

 

 

My name is Crank. Not really, no. I got that name on the police department long ago and it stuck. It had to do with a really large drug bust, a biker gang and meth. Long story, but that was it. I’m retired now, and I do all the shit most retirees do. And I also work some little projects. Things the cops can’t do.

The last time I needed some plastic explosive for one of my projects, I took some common window putty and packed it into a mold the same size and shape as a stick of Semtex. Semtex is some foreign-made shit, and very powerful. It is also very stable, and practically odorless. Like all plastic explosives, it is easily molded into shapes, and therefore it's great for making small devices. It also can be set off without a blasting cap. All it takes is a spark of the proper intensity, introduced into the explosive itself. I took my block of window putty and put it in a Ziplock bag and put it in my pocket and went looking for Marty Collins. Marty runs the property and evidence section at the police station.

I knew exactly where to find Marty, actually. He would be drinking his lunch at the same bar he had used for the last ten years, The Roll Call on Second and Main. Marty is a dedicated alcoholic, and probably the only lush I can say I have ever really admired. He has exquisite control. He can maintain a certain degree of drunkenness the way a diabetic can keep his blood sugar balanced, and he can walk that teetering edge for days. He is an alcoholic, but he's not trying to solve any problems with booze. He's just thirsty. All the time. And he's pretty much a mellow drunk. I doubt that he's been in a fight, or even an argument, in years.

Marty got pulled off the street years ago because of his drinking problems and they put him in a program, because he was a good cop, and got him dried out for a while, then, just to be on the safe side, they put him in property. He didn't stay dry long, but at least now he wouldn't get anybody hurt.

After "running into" Marty, and buying him a few, I walked back over to the property office with him and sat around and shot the shit about old times. Finally, he went to the can to take a dump, and asked me to mind the phone. I was only too happy. While he was occupied, I went to the "hot locker" and exchanged my window putty for a similar stick of Semtex. Just that simple. The explosive had already been analyzed for court, so there was no worry about the switch being discovered, and after that particular case was over, it would be destroyed.

Now, a little Semtex goes a long way. Like I said, it's powerful stuff. The project that I had in mind involved another friend, who ran the best damn pawnshop in the city. I won't tell this guy's name, but he was a swell fella, even if he was an Arab. And I have nothing against anyone because of race, color, religion, or whatever. In my book, you’re a good guy or you’re an asshole. Anyway, he called me one day after I retired and asked me to stop by. Over the years, he'd cut me some pretty sweet deals on guns and stuff, so I was happy to oblige.

When I got down there, he put his nephew to minding the shop and took me upstairs, where he and his family lived, an honor he'd never bestowed upon me in all the time I'd known him. Over tiny cups of thick, dark coffee and sweet rolls, he told me about a guy he called Big George the Greek. Real theatrical- sounding name. Anyway, this loser had been coming around for some time now, making my friend and everyone else in the area pay him protection, so nothing bad would happen to them or their business. At first, he would just shake them down for a few bucks a week, all friendly-like, and it was no big deal. But lately he was cutting himself in for a larger and larger percentage, and it was starting to hurt. Not just my friend, but a lot of other people in the area, too.

This guy made a lot of noise about his "mob connections," which I knew was bullshit. For one thing, the actual Cosa Nostra families have never found the Midwest to be very profitable. The cops aren't crooked enough for those people to run most of their rackets, and there aren't enough really big cities, where the population will support a large gang of thugs. The other reason I knew Big George the Greek was really Big George the Gasbag was because people who are really mob-connected don't go around telling everybody. Not if they want to stay alive. The word "Mafia," after all, means "silence."

So, I found out everything I could about ol' Georgie and started working on my plan.

 

 

Microchips are truly wonders of the modern age. Consisting of tiny circuits and transistors, they can accomplish very complex tasks, or very simple ones. In this case, I needed a way to set off a charge and kill a man, while being reasonably certain that it would harm no one else in the process.

I got my microchip from an old telephone answering machine that I had chosen to replace, because it had started cutting off messages before the hang-up. This was a cheap unit, made in Taiwan, but it still had some nice features. One of the things it would do was to allow the owner to call from any touch-tone phone and retrieve messages. You just called home, waited through the message, and after the beep, put in a three-digit code. This one was 613. I took out the microchip and tested it by hooking it up to the receiver in a phone, and to a multi-tester, to check current flow. Sure enough, every time it "heard" 613 on the keypad, it showed current flow through the secondary circuit. This was my remote control. This bomb would need no batteries, because it would use the power supply of the telephone itself. All I had to do was design the package and get it into a phone ol' Georgie would use.

House burglary is not nearly as difficult as most people think. If it was, there wouldn't be as many stupid assholes doing it every day as there are. One of the best burglary tools for popping house and apartment doors is a common two-pronged dandelion digger. The end is sharp enough to dig into the door jamb, and the shaft is sturdy enough to spring the door over in its opening enough to defeat the latch. Now if the homeowner is smart enough to have deadbolts with say, a one-inch throw or better, then you might as well just kick it in and risk the noise. Of course, there are always dogs and alarms to worry about, but there are still lots of unprotected homes out there to pilfer, if that's your inclination.

In twenty years of police work, one thing I did learn: If you're going to commit crimes, work alone. Most criminals get caught because they shot off their mouth to impress someone, or because someone they committed a crime with shot off their mouth. So the rules are: work alone, never admit anything, no matter what, and if you’re caught, never talk to the cops and always get a lawyer.

Georgie had a very common two-bedroom bungalow on Hyacinth street in one of the seedier areas of town. Knowing that the best time to do residence burglaries is in broad daylight, I started watching Georgie to get his routine down.

Not much to see, really. Turned out his wife worked to support his lazy ass, and when he wasn't out shaking down good working people, he was at a pool hall a few blocks from my friend's pawnshop. Little Wife left the house at seven-twenty every morning to be at her job, and one could see Georgie stagger out anytime from then till noon.

On the day I planted the device, I watched him leave at about nine-thirty, and as soon as he was out of sight, I pulled up in my truck, got out in my blue coveralls, and set an orange traffic cone in front and at the rear of my truck. I mean, what could a guy do to look more like some utility repairman, than set out cones? Then I got out a tool belt full of tools and strapped it on and went into the backyard. I went directly to the back door and knocked. You should always knock at least twice, and wait a minute or so, just to be sure that the house is empty. Burglars wind up becoming murderers all the time because they get in a house, get surprised, and panic.

Nobody answered my knock, and no dogs barked. While I was waiting for a response, I looked for signs of an alarm. No tape on the windows, no alarm company signs in the yard. It's funny how many thieves think that they can't be ripped off. Like they're in some kind of fraternity or something. Fraternity, my ass. Most thieves will rip off their mother, given half a chance.

Anyway, I felt good about my odds, so I cracked the door and went in. Once inside, I made myself stand just inside the door for one full minute by my watch. This wasn't just to listen to the house and to get used to its layout; it was also to let the old heart settle down from the adrenaline.

After the full minute, I walked quietly through the whole house, looking for telephones, but touching nothing. I reasoned that there would be one phone in the house that would be used more than any of the others, and that would be the one I'd booby-trap. Turned out the cheap bastard only had one phone, a wall type, hanging in the kitchen. Five minutes later the receiver was packed with Semtex and the trigger was hooked up. All it needed was to be off the hook and receive the correct code.

Don't let anyone tell you that the telephone company isn't part of Big Brother's network. The phone company computers log the source and destination of every phone call made in this country. The police, with or without a court order, can see these records. So if you have dirty work to do on the telephone, use a pay phone, never use the same one twice, and get away from it as soon as you're done. And don't leave prints.

I called Georgie from a pay phone in the biggest shopping mall in town at 7:35 the next morning. It wouldn't have been necessary to have any conversation with him at all, but in his final moments, I wanted him to know he'd stepped on his dick.

When he answered, he sounded sleepy. I said, "Hey, George. Are you awake?"

"Yeah, who's this?"

"This is the devil, George. Calling you home."

"Yeah, right. Is that you, Vinnie?"

"No, George. It's not Vinnie. It's not anyone you know, and you're not paying attention. For a guy that's about to die, you're not paying attention well at all."

"What the fuck're you talkin' about?"

Slowly and patiently, I explained it to him. "George, you fucked up. Let me explain it to you. You leaned on the wrong people, then to make matters worse, you told people you were with the Family. I understand you may have even named some names."

Silence now, only breathing, trying to figure it out, then: "I didn't name no names."

"That's because you don't really know anybody, Georgie. Say it."

"Say what?"

"Say you don't really know anybody in the Family, and then I'll give you a message."

Silence again, then a heavy sigh. "Okay, Okay. I really don't know anybody that's in the Family. Now what's the message?"

"613"

"What?"

"613, George. That's the message."

"What's it mean?"

"It means you're dead, George." And then I dialed it. There was an electronic shriek from the phone in my hand, then a dial tone.

By the time I walked through the mall, got back to my pickup, and turned on the police scanner, the dispatcher was putting out the call of an unknown explosion on Hyacinth. I switched over to the fire department "A" channel and as I drove home, listened to the rescue squad and first engine arrive and report no smoke or fire visible.

Semtex is a very clean explosive and will often use up so much oxygen when it explodes, that there will be no associated fire after the fact. I switched back to the P.D. channels, and just before I shut off the truck at my home, I heard the officers at the scene request the homicide team and coroner.

 A couple days later, I stopped by the pawnshop and had some of that black, bitter coffee the Arabs make, with the friend. He wanted to give me practically everything in the shop, he was so happy about Big George biting the big one, but I just accepted a heartfelt handshake and a hug. Anything more might be traced back to the pawnshop, and we can’t have that, now, can we?

Besides, what I do is fun, in a grisly sort of way and keeps me entertained in my old age. . . .






The Gas Man

Kenneth James Crist

 

So, I’ve told you about Big George the Gasbag. George bought it with a phone call and some plastic explosive in the receiver. And another time when I blew up an old trailer house with a guy inside who was a serial killer and the D.A. failed to convict the louse.

I do stuff like that. My name is Kerry Howland but you can call me Crank.

 I got the nickname when I was a cop. Twenty years and eleven months and I’m remembered for that one drug bust. It made all the papers and I had my fifteen minutes of fame. There was so much meth in that place when we took it down, guys in hazmat suits spent weeks on the cleanup.

Big George was number nine, and there are some, like I say, that really aren't very interesting at all, and some I can't even remember clearly, but numbers twenty through twenty-nine sure made headlines, and were probably the safest ones I did, from the standpoint of getting caught, that is. Nobody likes a dope dealer, the cops least of all, so when I took out the crack house, with nine dealers and users inside, I didn't expect much of an investigation.

Of course, like most large cities, we have our share of drug houses. The police gather what evidence they can, make their undercover buys, and their raids, take care of their arrests and reports, and eventually some of these cases even come to trial, those that aren't bargained out by prosecutors who have full dockets and scant time in which to work up most cases. There are even convictions, but the penalties bear little resemblance to what they should be for the total amount of lives ruined by their addictive poison. Of course, the same could be said for the companies that produce tobacco products and liquor. If there were no market for these things, there would be no business, no dealers, and no problem. But the market is always there, especially among teenagers who want to be cool and are often pressured into drug use by their peers.

This particular drug house sold the poison that killed my niece. She was with some other kids, and they went there on a weekend. They probably felt safe going into that area of town, because there was a carload of them, and two of the boys had been there before, and knew the dealers. Anyway, they went there, made their purchases, and left, and went to one of the city parks to get high. Caroline knew better than to do this shit, of course, but I think she was just excited to be with this particular crowd, and one of her friends later revealed that she had a bad crush on one of the boys in the group.

Crack cocaine is a very pure form of the drug that is smoked by placing the "rock" on a small screen in a crack pipe, and heating the drug with a flame, while drawing the vapors into the lungs. The effects are an immediate and intense "high", along with a racing heart and feelings of power and invincibility. The downside is crushing depression after the high is over, and a very real danger of cardiac arrest, not to mention an intense addiction that is one of the hardest of any to break.

Caroline never got to the addiction stage. The very first time she smoked it, she went into ventricular fibrillation, and by the time all her friends, who were all high at the time, realized something was really wrong with her, and rushed her to the nearest trauma center, it was too late. The attending physician pronounced her six minutes after she came in the door, having found no vital signs present. My sister, a single mom, was devastated. Caroline had been her sun and moon, her reason for living, and her hope for the future. I was a pall-bearer at Caroline's funeral. Naturally, all of her dip-shit druggie friends were there, all weepy and sniveling. I could have cheerfully killed them, too, but I figure they'll keep fucking around with drugs, and take care of themselves, soon enough.

From the records section at the police department I was able to obtain the investigating officer's reports, just long enough to read them "for my own peace of mind", as I told the kindly clerk, Jancy Ferguson.

“This is just something, I have to do,” I told her, “Caroline was my niece, you know…”

“I’m sorry, Crank,” she said, and I was pretty sure I saw a tear in her eye as she went to pull the file. She was very understanding. The interviews the cops had done with the other kids gave me the location of the house, but not the identity of the particular asshole who sold to them that night. On that one point, all of the kids agreed. They wouldn't tell who the seller was. Whether they were afraid of him, or just felt uncomfortable "squealing" is anybody's guess. No matter. I soon came up with a solution that would take care of the problem.

 

 

At a gun show which was held out in the County, I purchased a half-dozen very special 12 Ga. shotgun shells, called "Dragon's Breath". These are a nasty combination of sodium and phosphorus, and are guaranteed to throw a blast of flame for 300 feet, and light up any combustibles they come in contact with. I also purchased a second-hand Mossberg 500 pump-action shotgun, because it was cheap, and in good working order, and I didn't want to shoot this shit through any of my better shotguns—it tends to fuck up gun barrels.

The Fire Marshall of our fair city has declared these shells to be a fire hazard (no shit!) and made it illegal to sell them within the city limits, but at the gun shows, you'd be amazed what you can find. I've seen illegal bayonets being sold as "tent stakes".

The afternoon before my strike, I went to the crack house, dressed in my blue coveralls, and wearing a gas company I.D. that I made on my computer, and printed on my color laser-jet, then laminated. I had a Sears Multi-tester, one of the old ones with a dial and needle on the front, and I set out my cones in front and back of the truck and walked right up like I knew exactly what I was doing. As I came up the walk, I heard one of the fine, upstanding citizens say, “Wonder what da fuck dis here cracker wants?”

“Hi,” I said, “Kansas Gas and Electric. We’re checking furnaces and meters in the area. We’ve got some pressure issues and we have to find out where the gas is going. It’s a public safety thing. Won’t take very long.”

The biggest and oldest of the three idiots on the porch looked me up and down and said, “Yeah, shit, whatever man…”

And I was in the house. Just that easy. This dumpy old house had a floor furnace, and it was warm weather, so when I got to the basement, the first thing I did was cut off the pilot, then I clamped a set of vise-grips on the valve and bent it back and forth until it cracked. Not much of a crack, just a little one. Enough to start a small gas leak. Natural gas is heavier than air, so I knew it would settle to the floor of the basement, and build up until it was discovered or ignited. I could tell by looking around their basement that nobody ever went down there. Next, I looked for and found a convenient gap in the basement wall, not far from the meter, and left a walnut-sized piece of my Semtex plastic explosive mashed onto the broken concrete. Then I headed back upstairs.

“Everything’s cool with the furnace. I’ll check the meter and then I’ll be outta your hair.”

“Okay, man, don’t let the doe hit ya in the ass…”

That got a laugh from his buds and a skinny little red-headed chick who had come out to see what was going on. She was clearly stoned and she looked like she hadn’t bathed in a few days. Grubby nails, smeared makeup. Needle tracks. So crack wasn’t all they sold. I made a show out of checking around the meter with the “sniffer”, then I returned to the truck, pulled the cones and left.

 

I came back after dark, truly amazed that they hadn't smelled the gas, and also that the place hadn't already blown up.

I parked a block away, and took the shotgun, which was wiped clean, and wearing gloves to avoid prints, I carried it up the alley, and stood at the back of the neighbor's garage. I was about ninety feet away, too close really, but it couldn't be helped. I had five Dragon's Breath rounds in the shotgun, and my Colt 1911A1 semi-auto, in case I needed to convince someone not to fuck with me.

When I fired the first round at the gap in the basement wall, I guess I expected that there would be a pause or a time lag between the shot and the result, but apparently I must have gotten the gas-air mixture pretty close to perfect combustion stage, because it was the God-damnedest ball of fire I'd seen in a long time, and the house just went up like a bomb. I had enough time to duck back around the garage before the blast wave hit, and enough time to hear screams, then I hauled ass back down the alley to my truck, and drove sedately away.

Two of those pukes actually lived to make it to the local burn unit, where they later expired, but seven were blown to bits and cinders, and chunks of the house rained down as much as two blocks away. Of course, it also cost a lot of neighbors their windows, but I figure they could have stopped the drug activity any time they wanted, by doing nothing more than making a few phone calls, so let them pay, too.

There was the usual boo-hoo from every slick preacher and councilman that could get near a microphone, or TV camera, and there was an "intensive manhunt" for the "unknown assailant", which just meant that the police didn't have a clue, and if they did, they didn't give a fuck.

I sold the Mossberg at the next gun show, five minutes inside the door, for exactly what I paid for it, and God only knows who's got it now.

Do I sound calloused in my attitude? As if maybe I don't care? Well, as I said starting out, there are a lot of assholes out there that the world would be better off without. I could cheerfully bomb a crack house a day, until Hell freezes over, and never feel any remorse.


Kenneth James Crist is Editor Emeritus of Black Petals Magazine and is on staff at Yellow Mama ezine. He has been a published writer since 1998, having had almost two hundred short stories and poems in venues ranging from Skin and Bones and The Edge-Tales of Suspense to Kudzu Monthly. He is particularly fond of supernatural biker stories. He reads everything he can get his hands on, not just in horror or sci-fi, but in mystery, hardboiled, biographies, westerns and adventure tales. He retired from the Wichita, Kansas police department in 1992 and from the security department at Wesley Medical Center in Wichita in 2016. Now 76, he is an avid motorcyclist and handgun shooter. He is active in the American Legion Riders and the Patriot Guard, helping to honor and look after our military. He is also a volunteer driver for the American Red Cross, Midway Kansas Chapter. He is the owner of Fossil Publications, a desktop publishing venture that seems incapable of making any money at all. On June the ninth, 2018, he did his first (and last) parachute jump and crossed that shit off his bucket list.


































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