The Biggest Fans

by

John J. Dillon

God, he loved speed metal, the overdrive, high gain, fuzzed up guitar solos and chugging power chords.  Even after years of crappo gigs and dismal paydays, he couldn’t imagine anything better, from corporate soft rock to unfathomable jazz, robotic classical to—worst of all—pop piano.  Nothing else mattered.  It had to be speed, speed, the faster, the louder, the crunchier the better.  Forever.

Viktor shouted a lyric and hit another screeching high E up at fret twelve, blasting the distorted hundred-watt note from his amplifier at the headbangers.  He held onto the soaring sustain, then slid into a chunky progression as Fry and Matz, bass and drums, thundered like a jackhammer duet.  A chickenfeed roadhouse, Blaine's Wreck Room at least offered a pumped audience craving rampage-grade thrash.  They'd paid their cash to see the Steel Rulers and wanted their faces blown off.  Viktor unleashed his lightning.     

Two more squalling songs into the set, he looked out over the bobbing heads and flying arms, spotted Trask at the far rear wall.  Bathed in eerie gray light, he was sweeping his arms sideways left and right, as if playing an invisible keyboard.  With a gnarlacious rush Viktor felt his fingers thicken, threatening his command of the fretboard.  He shot a freaked glance over at Fry and Matz strutting around hurling their own barrage of sound.  They were oblivious that Trask was out there stalking the Rulers from concert to concert, emanating brain havoc like an evil radio beacon.    

How many times had Trask appeared?  A defensive compulsion welled up demanding Viktor end this assault before his talent and career were dead.  Demolished by Trask, back from the dirt.

          He had to attack now, or Trask would escape again and return another night.  Viktor unstrapped his guitar and stepped off the stage, tanking the song and leaving Fry and Matz to fend for themselves.  He'd deal with them later.  The hall was suddenly full of shouts and boos.  Viktor shoved his way through the moshers to the wall where he managed to catch Trask, bring him down, and beat until his knuckles ached.        

#

          Viktor shifted in the hard chair as he regained awareness.  He didn’t know how he'd gotten here, the tiny baloney-pink room behind the stage.  His shoulders, neck, and arms throbbed and the floor seemed slightly tilted.  He remembered shrieking people pulling him off Trask, who'd broken free and scrambled away in the chaos.  Then he'd gone blank.  

          Fry and Matz sat across the table, eyes glaring in hi-def.  In a corner stood Mr. Blaine, stress disfiguring his face. 

          "You've blown your seals this time," Matz was saying, shaking an oversized head populated with pins and studs.  "You can't melt down onstage and attack members of the paying public.  Do I even have to say this?"

          Fry ran fingers tipped with obsidian black nail polish through his obsidian black hair.  "What sort of road dope are you into, anyway?  You seem… spaced.  More than usual."

          Viktor almost laughed.  Spaced.  Yes, that was it.  How he wanted to reveal what he'd been going through, seeing Trask these past weeks.  Trask, the ex-fourth member of the Rulers.  Trask, the buried one. 

          "I had too much to drink.  Some wimp gave me the finger and I lost it.  Sorry."

          Matz leaned forward.  "We had to beg Mr. Blaine to pay off the kid you clobbered.  That means we get nothing for tonight.  And this might not even be the last of it.  There were a lot of witnesses."

          Viktor marveled at how Trask had managed to break away and flee the Wreck, leaving some brainless doper in his place.  "So shoot me.  I said I was sorry."

          "I can see that."  Mr. Blaine shook his head, peeled himself from the wall, and left the room. 

          Matz flinched when the door slammed.  "Wonderful.  How to make friends."

Viktor resented how they were treating him like some third-string member of the Rulers instead of the exalted lead guitarist.  In their arrogance, they couldn't even conceive that his priceless talent was in jeopardy and he was fighting for his life.  "It was just a simple bar fight in an east Texas redneck club.  Not exactly Albert Hall.  No one's going to complain.  You ask me, it'll probably add to our badass reputation."

          Fry looked at Matz, stood up.  "Viktor, you either get a grip on yourself, end the ultra-fists, or we'll find another shredder.  There are plenty around.  We survived after Trask split, we can survive without you, too.  You know the music biz:  here today, gone later this afternoon."  He smiled with a weird, asymmetrical contraction of the muscles around his mouth.  "One more chance."

#

          Viktor gunned his sputtering old ATV into the bayou's thick forest as far as the scaly brown yaupon trees and soft soil allowed.  He parked and left the vehicle behind, began his hike into the marshy interior of the remote forgotten property two hours outside Beaumont, near the Louisiana border.  As he climbed over a sagging barbed wire fence and trudged into the woods, he continued to analyze the threat as he saw it.

Trask, alive?  Viktor had done a lot of research and didn't necessarily believe in ghosts, as his rational mind told him that a living Trask, no matter how far-fetched, was the best explanation.  Or was it?  Hadn't Trask once mentioned a long-lost brother?  Maybe this brother was a twin.  Theoretically, that could explain "Trask's" appearances.  He had to consider it.

But why would this theoretical brother torture Viktor—and with an air piano?  It was past Pluto impossible that he, or anyone, could know that Viktor had killed Trask a year ago.  Or that a piano had anything to do with it. 

He needed to pull this mystery apart and solve it.  The most logical answer was that Trask had actually survived their fight, dragged himself free from the grave, then spent months recuperating and planning his revenge.  He'd seen things like that happen in beaucoup awesome movies, so he knew it was possible.  What he needed was to start at the beginning, at the gravesite.  To see with his own eyes, first and foremost, if Trask had managed to unbury himself. 

                                                          #

An hour along the faint path through the woods, he came to the unnamed hidden creek he'd often visited over the years.  He turned north along the mushy narrow bank, watching his steps, pushing branches, heading for his secret fishing spot.  The foliage had thickened since the last time he'd been here, alone with Trask, on a break from touring for a private relaxing day of catfish, tequila, and chemicals.  The path was a little different now, compliments of the flooding common in this region.  But a half-mile on, the yellowish rock still jutted inches above the ground cover.    

He knelt to the stone, brushed away moss and dirt, found the X he'd scratched with his knife a year ago.  Viktor crossed himself.  Seeing it brought back what had once existed between Trask and him, their plans and hopes, and he felt a minor jab of sadness.  Despite their fight, Trask had been a fellow musician, deserved more than a raw pit in the ground.  So, Viktor had marked his passing, one artist to another, the decent thing to do.

"We need to add a piano to the band," Trask had declared, once fortified.  "Face it.  Speed metal's over.  The Rulers need to adapt, get out of this dead-end swamp circuit.  A guitar, bass, drums, with me on piano instead of rhythm guitar."

The very thought was a painful loud-hailer blaring inside Viktor's head.  A piano?  The instrument forced down his throat as a kid, day after day, by his wannabe concert pianist parents.  The unmasterable instrument that had sent him fleeing to the spectacular alternate universe of simple three-chord thrash, distortion, volume.  The instrument that could never in this eon mix with metal.  A piano. 

And Trask had even crazier Dutch uncle ideas:  "I'm the musical genius in this band," he'd boasted.  "I should be the leader, not you.  I'll get Fry and Matz to vote with me.  We'll rename ourselves and head to LA with a more commercial sound.  I have contacts.  You don't like it, leave."

 Viktor felt his nerves catch fire with rage.  Abandon the band for which he'd suffered years of bloody fingertips, sleepless nights, screaming dreams of suffocating crowds? 

The resulting explosive brawl hadn't gone well for Trask.  He'd been no match for Viktor's fists—and his camp shovel. 

At first, Viktor had been panicked by the inert body at his feet and the trouble he'd faced.  But later that afternoon, as he'd sobered up while putting Trask into the ground, he'd worked out a plan to handle Fry and Matz:  "I don't know where Trask's gone.  Maybe to La La Land.  Forget him.  We've got a gig to do and we'll do it as a power trio." 

No one had known they'd been fishing together, and no one ever wondered too hard about the sudden disappearance of yet another whacky loner itinerant metal-rocker for greener pastures. 

Three paces from the rock, Viktor plunged his shovel into the dirt.    

It was difficult labor.  He chopped his way down, ripping vines, scooping heavy, soggy clots only to have the sludge run back into the hole, refilling it halfway.  Viktor bore down, digging deeper.  He lost himself in the effort, unaware of dripping sweat or muggy air.

Soon, the shovel tapped a solid object. 

Viktor probed with the point of the blade, worked it around carefully, alarmed that there was something down there.  He straightened, drank from his canteen, grappling.  A rock?  A tree root?  He hadn't expected this.  He'd been sure. 

He gripped the shovel and leaned in, leveraged up until a human skull emerged with a sucking sound from the soupy brown water.  Staring, could feel the air clawing in and out of his lungs, tried to grasp what this—

There was something else down there too, sloshing.  Bright red flashed in wavelets, churning creatures breaking the surface.

Viktor forced himself to retreat.  Crawfish.  Hundreds, splashing, swarming on and about the remains, picking, tearing, nesting in their muck—

"What the hell are you doing on my property?" a voice behind him bellowed.

Viktor spun to confront a tall, bearded man dressed in hip waders and overalls.  He held a big white plastic bucket in one hand and a long pole net in the other.  Muscles bulged from his arms and his furious eyes demanded answers.

"I…"

"Did you hear me?  You poaching my crawfish?  Are you a poacher?"  The cloddish man stomped closer, craned his neck, gaped into the hole.

"I'm not stealing," Viktor said, knowing it was too late, words weren't going to help.  The muscular bearded man's eyes were as big as beanbags, fixed on the skull. 

The man dropped the bucket and crawfish gushed out onto the ground, escaping frantically in all directions, around Viktor's ankles and into the hole.  "That's… human," he said.  “You killed someone!"

"I swear, I had nothing—"

But the man had already pulled a cell phone from his pocket and was tapping. 

Viktor had only a second to decide, act, prevent.  There was no time to weigh the right course of action, the smart thing to do.  Instead, he lunged, shovel swinging.  The sharp blade opened a serious neck gash, sending the man to the ground.  Viktor swung again and landed with a ringing blow that left him very still.

He stood over the body for a long time, listening to the stream, feeling the heat of the day, watching the crawfish scuttle, twitch, and probe, until he was sure the bearded guy would never move again. 

Eventually Viktor saw no choice but to dig.  Heaving into the job, he enlarged the grave, making room. 

By sundown Viktor had smashed and scattered the man's phone and was racing in his bucking ATV back to his pickup truck parked miles away.   

Someone might one day find the double grave, but it would be a long way down the road with nothing to link him to it. 

The hicks would scratch their heads forever.

#

The Caveman's Club was halfway between Houston and Lufkin, yet the Steel Rulers played as if it were some metal Mecca on the LA strip.  Viktor bent the notes to roaring highs, Fry's bass boomed in counterpoint, Matz's drums were louder than the king's cannons defending the castle.  The bangers jerked to the sound blowing off the stage.  They'd paid their money to get their brains cauterized.  Viktor was happy to oblige with a ripping torrent of speed metal.

Howling into the set, Viktor saw Trask at the back of the hall in hazy gray clothes, hands palms-down and floating back and forth in the air, as if over a piano.  Viktor struggled to keep his fingers moving across the guitar neck but his notes were already clumsy. 

Trask was still alive, right here in front of him, tracking, torturing, trying to drive him schitzi.  But this time Viktor had a better grip, had figured out the whole picture.  Trask had dragged himself from his grave a year ago, spent months convalescing, then killed someone else and buried him there.  Just in case Viktor came back, searching.  It was all an elaborate setup.  Trask was the murderer, not Viktor.  It was as obvious as the surface of the sun.

From the shadows another figure appeared and joined Trask, a tall, bearded guy in overalls carrying a big white bucket.  While Trask worked his piano, the man flipped the bucket upside down and began to beat the bottom in time to the music. 

So, the goon was alive too, in partnership with Trask.  Viktor cursed himself for not making absolutely sure he was dead.  Now he was unearthed too, and they were ganging up on him.  But Viktor stayed cool, because it didn't matter.  He wasn't afraid.  The truth made him strong.  They didn't know who they were dealing with, his determination to protect what he owned.

He felt his fingers returning to normal.  This time, it'd be different.  He'd end it.  He looked over at Fry and Matz, gave them a leader's nod, then shrugged off his guitar, hopped down to the floor, and with iron in his fists shouldered through the metalheads.

                                                #

Before long Viktor got used to the home, more or less.  At least that's what the others in the group, and the heavies in white shoes, called it.  The home.  So Viktor decided to just go with the flow.  But secretly he'd come to the conclusion that despite the serene, drowsy days and long, deeply groggy nights, it wasn't really a home in the normal meaning of the word.  It was someplace else, a place where they didn’t want you to leave, where they kept track of your movements, where things were very regimented and well-guarded.

But why let it bother him?  Really, when it came right down to it, he had practically everything he wanted.  He had friends.  He had classic television and movies that never got stale no matter how many times they ran.  He had decent food, though somewhat bland, and peaceful walks around the rolling green grounds twice a day. 

Practically everything. 

Sometimes, though, he craved a thrash metal guitar at a jet engine volume.  Something loud and piercing enough to crack granite.  He could feel his fingers squirming, as if they were little animals with primitive hungers of their own.

He'd asked once, very nicely, if that could be arranged, and the heavy in white shoes had offered up something more tranquil and balanced, something that wasn't so extreme, so aggressive.  Something soothing that the whole group could sing along with. 

Could Viktor play piano?

So each Saturday night Viktor clenched his jaws until he saw red, red sparkles, but played the house piano anyway, living for the brief chance to slip an interesting off-scale note or semblance of a power chord into the oatmeal of old showtunes and schmaltzy lullabies the shoes permitted him.

It wasn't much, but it would have to do, until the crawfish came scratching at his bedroom door. 

They were, after all, his biggest fans.

END

 by John J. Dillon

          Burke reached the edge of the clearing and peered from the dark maple orchard at Dooley’s Sugar House. The April night was cool and cloudless, a bomber’s moon emitting pale light on a landscape devoid of snow.

          He could make out shadowy farm equipment around the yard—propane cylinders, PVC piping, steel pails, carts, a mini-tractor. A flatbed truck was parked with a big circular plastic tank mounted on the rear. 

          Dooley’s “House” was the usual hovel-grade shack made of old lumber with a steep roof, concrete foundation, mist drifting up from a metal chimney. In the gray lunar light it looked like the bughouse of some fairy tale ogre. Not far from the truth, Burke knew.

          Last week he’d driven over from his home base of Nortwich, hidden his car inside a half-collapsed barn off a remote county road. Using a neck light to guide him, he’d marched under darkness across posted land, navigating with a hiker’s GPS to zero in on Dooley’s property from the south.

          Night recon was a strength from his military years, and all he’d needed for this hit was one easy casing trip to learn the cross-country approach through fields and woods.

          Burke leaned against a maple tree and studied the Sugar House. He saw no movement but eventually picked up distant twangy radio music. Around him stainless steel buckets hung from tree trunks, collecting maple sap dripping overnight for the morning harvest.

          Burke loved contracts that came with upfront discovery already in place. In this case Ranzino’s group had done most of the preplanning, making Burke’s job a cinch. No deep, tricky investigation was needed, just some light prep and setup, then, of course, precise execution of Ranzino’s rather unique instructions.

“You make this slimeball Dooley suffer for what he did to my own flesh and blood. Tell him what’s coming and why. Freak the bastard out, hear? ­Take your time. Then blow his balls off. I’ve got contacts in the coroner’s office, so I’ll know. Do it and you’ll have a hellacious payday, Burke.”

          As part-time careers went, working for Ranzino was Nirvana.

          Burke pushed away from the tree, and avoiding scraggly branches, followed the perimeter of the clearing around to the front of the shack where he assessed the entrance and covered porch. From this angle he could see the dented white SUV parked on the other side of the building, and off in the black woods beyond, two weak points of light—Dooley’s wreck of a trailer home.

          He lurked for a while, calculating the safety factor, then decided to move. He came back around the clearing and cut in toward the House, crossing the hard ground of the driveway with soundless steps. He reached a window embedded in the shack’s rough plank wall, inched sideways until he could peek through dirty glass.

          The lanky Dooley sat in an overstuffed office chair at the front counter, black pigtail hanging off the back of his head like a strip of beef jerky. From a sleeveless denim jacket his long muscular arms stretched out onto the rough wooden countertop, mallet-like fists meant for pounding guarding a whisky bottle.

          Aside Dooley, taking up most of the room, was a long homemade evaporator machine with temperature dials, hoses, and a steel trough mounted over a low gas flame. Steamy white vapor rose into a large ventilation hood in the ceiling. While Burke watched, Dooley raised the bottle, gulped, then turned and studied the gauges, checking the progress of the boil. Stacked on the counter like building blocks were shiny square metal cans stamped with red maple leaves. A whiteboard on the wall showed scrawled prices for Grade A Golden, Amber, Dark, and Very Dark 100% Pure New York State Maple Syrup.

          This was ideal: Dooley alone.

          Burke pulled from the window and crept along the wall to the rear of the shack. He found the rickety door, locked as it’d been during his scouting trip last week. Again he used two metal shivs to slide the bolt back. Hands in thin cotton gloves, he unholstered from beneath his coat a heavy revolver loaded with frangible polymer ammo, guaranteed to fragment on impact and take a lot of real estate with it.

          The cramped, ill-lit utility room was full of boxes, tools, bulging garbage bags. Burke crossed and quietly swung open the interior door until he saw the back of Dooley’s chair and the big evaporator to his left. Gun up, he slipped into the main room, the music louder now, inhaled the thick, sweet atmosphere of maple syrup cooking.

          “Hello, Dooley,” Burke said.

          Dooley jolted and spun around in the chair, bottle in hand. “Hey ace, we’re closed—” he blurted, then his glassy eyes found the big black hole pointed at him. His gaunt, unshaven face was not welcoming. “Who the hell are you?” he said, voice low, taking a calm sip of his drink.

          “Someone here to discuss your future.”

          “Put that damn gun away, ace. I don’t have any money.”

          “I’m not here for money. I need to deliver a very important message.”

          Dooley sat back, considering. “What’s that, ace? You want me to donate some Grade A to the state school’s lunch program?” He laughed with a dry heave, then took another slow sip, eyes still glassy but now weirdly focused and alert.

          Given the situation, Burke found Dooley about as funny as a styptic pencil. “Not quite,” he said “Let’s talk about the girl you raped.”

          Dooley remained composed, staring as if studying a simple leaky faucet. He wiped his chin with his wrist and leaned forward. “Raped? What girl would that be, ace?”

          “Her name was Lori. Ring a bell?”

          “Naw... You’re probably looking for Kenny Pile, runs a crap sugar house a few miles down the road from here. Never liked that ratbag. Sounds like something he’d do.”

          “Does he happen to drive a dented white SUV too?”

          Dooley tilted his head, but it wasn’t to listen to the music more closely. In fact he didn’t seem to be listening to the music at all. “Well, I wouldn’t know for sure. But lots of mooks around here drive dented SUVs, white, blue, black...”

          “Does this ratbag also tend bar three nights a week at a strip joint called Treats? Where Lori works?”

          A smile oozed across Dooley’s face. “You been spying on me,” he said. “But you’re way off base. I told you I don’t know any Lori, ace. Put the cannon away. I’m just an honest maple syrup farmer trying to earn a living.”

          “Turns out Lori may have been working in a strip club but she wasn’t some whore. She was a decent kid trying to get her life back on track after a nasty breakup. The bad thing for you, she’s related to a very important person around here. You’ve heard of Ranzino?”

          Dooley hesitated, fidgeted, a little less blood in his lined face. “Ah, I don’t think I’ve heard of any Ranzino.”

          “You wouldn’t believe how angry he is.”

           Dooley’s gaze diverted to the left, then came back, much more serious now, as if he’d discovered an unfriendly asteroid whirling closer. “This Ranzino thinks I raped some girl Lori? Tell him that I didn’t rape her or anyone else, no way. They all come to me because they want me.”

          “You cornered her in the alley behind Treats and dragged her into your dented white SUV, Dooley. Ranzino wants you to know he knows what you did and wants you to see your punishment coming.”

          “My punishment,” Dooley said. “What would that be?”

          “Knowing you’re going to die. Then dying. Kind of like Lori knew she was going to get raped then getting raped. Only more painful. And final.”

          Dooley didn’t seem fazed, but he wasn’t sipping his whisky anymore. Instead, he set the bottle on the floor without moving much, a single smooth motion with his arm, down and up. The boiling sap a few feet away made a dull hum. The radio music faded into static. “Ace, you must be some kind of professional, right? I’m telling you you’ve got the wrong person. This Lori, whoever she’s related to, must be confused. So put the gun away, go home, check your facts. You’ve made an honest mistake. Tell you what, I’ll do this Ranzino a favor. I’ll nose around at Treats, see if I can find out who might’ve done this no-class deed to this poor girl. I might be able to finger the real guilty guy.”

          “I see. You’re innocent.”

          “As a baby lamb.”

          “A lamb. Right. Dooley, tell me something. Do you have peppermint air fresheners inside your SUV?”

          Dooley stared, mouth frozen half open, tongue just visible. “So what if I do?” he said robotically. “Lots of people have air fresheners in their cars.”

          “Do they also have fingernail scratches on their leather backseats?”

          Dooley’s stare morphed into a gape. “Scratches? I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

          Burke noticed that Dooley’s right hand had moved down again, slightly closer to the chair seat than it was a moment ago.

          “So what’s it going to be?” Dooley said. “You want me to find the real rapist?”

           Burke took a step back, holding the gun steady. “Ranzino’s already got the real rapist,” he said. “So you can raise your hands and forget about the Hail Mary hunting knife you’ve got tucked away up under the seat.”

          Dooley’s hands shot up, started shaking like party decorations in the wind. His eyes darted around, unable to find a home. “Hey, hey. Let’s both of us calm down,” he said. “You can’t blame me for trying to protect myself. You’d do the same thing with some dude pointing a gun at you. But that doesn’t mean I’m guilty. We can still work this out between you and me.”

          “We can?”

          “Let’s say I do know this young lady, Lori. Let’s say we had a misunderstanding, that’s all. No harm done. I swear, she was coming on to me. Maybe I took it too far. But it was her fault as much as mine. I don’t blame her and she can’t blame me. That makes us even, right? I won’t let it happen again.”

          “I agree with you on one thing,” Burke said. “You won’t be letting this happen again. But I believe it’s time for you to meet Ranzino’s personal messengers.” He cocked the hammer. “Are you ready for a bang-up intro?”  

          Dooley sagged back as if deflated, shaking his head, looked around the room, then used the springy chair to launch himself up and out, lungs roaring, arms reaching, fingers clawed. It was a suicide rush but Burke was already pulling the trigger. The gun snorted twice and Dooley’s groin area exploded, disintegrating ammo scattering bits of flesh and more up across his torso, red holes appearing too, blowing him backward over the chair onto to the floor.

          Facing up, Dooley convulsed, arms thrashing, but with a screaming effort managed to pull his upper body around into a surreal twist, onto his stomach, then began to drag himself forward under the counter, dead legs behind.

          He went still long before he reached the front door.

          On the counter a can pierced by a random fragment dripped maple syrup over the edge, onto the back of his head.

          Burke waited, gun ready, until certain Dooley was finished with his escape plan as well as everything else on his calendar.

          He took from a zippered pocket a few small plastic bags of pills and tossed them around the scene to help the local cops decide this was another backwoods drug deal gone squeaky.

          As he left the room Burke took one long, last look around, then hit the kill switch on the evaporator. He didn’t want the House catching fire and ruining all that good New York State maple syrup.

                                                          ***

          The hanging bell at the front door of Burke’s Bakery jingled as a well-dressed woman with precision cut silver hair and a cheerful smile entered. She carried a briefcase and stepped up to the glass display counter where she eyed shelves of premium baked goods—old-fashioned cake donuts, apple fritters, jelly rolls, bear claws...

“Ms. Weaver,” Burke said from behind the counter. “How are you today?” He wiped his hands on his white apron.

 “Very well, Mr. Burke! Are you ready for some good news?” Her smile grew broader.

          “You know me, Ms. Weaver. I love good news.”

          She set the briefcase on the glass counter. “I’m honored to inform you that the Nortwich town council voted to give Burke’s Bakery our ‘Merchant of the Year’ award.”

          “To me?” Burke said.

          “Correct! You beat out The Hikey-Bikey Store and Massive Hardware.” She leaned over the counter. “It was really no contest, you won hands down. Everyone goes crazy over Burke’s donuts.”

          “I’m truly humbled.”

          Ms. Weaver opened the briefcase, took out a bright gold foil sticker and a triangular chunk of glass. “Here’s your window sticker and award plaque. Can I get a quick picture for our newsletter?” She raised her phone.

          “Of course, of course,” Burke said, holding the plaque to his lips and posing.

          Ms. Weaver lined up the shot and snapped twice. “Perfect. Give me a quote.”

          “I don’t know what to say, Ms. Weaver. I try hard to make the best pastries I can for the town.”

          “You’ve succeeded,” Ms. Weaver said. “You know I’m here twice a week.  I absolutely adore your creations. You’re an artist.”

          “Thank you very much for your business. Which is your favorite?”

          “Hands down, right over there, the new item.” She walked to the end of the glass counter. “These maple twists are from heaven. Crispy dough covered with a sublime maple glaze and dotted with tart red currants. I’m gaining weight just looking.”

          “I use only the finest local maple syrup.”

          “I can tell. I’ve never tasted maple twists like them. But they have a special flavor. Almost mysterious. I can’t quite place it.”

          He leaned forward with mock intimacy. “Don’t say anything, but that’s a touch of beef jerky I bake into the dough.”

          “Genius,” Ms. Weaver said, shaking her head. “How did you ever come up with such a work of gourmet art?”

          Burke shrugged and smiled. “I guess I just draw from life around me. And there’s something else that makes them even more special.”

          “Tell me. Your secret’s safe!”

by

John J. Dillon

          Dan jolted awake, breathing hard, shaking the bed. Cathy sat up in the dim light of early dawn and saw him, half covered, yank his arms to his chest, as if protecting himself from a violent attack. She put a hand on his knotted face, felt the heat on his skin, the tension in his muscles. Again.

          “Hon,” she said. “You’re okay.”

          Dan kept his eyes averted from her. “Cath?” he said.

          “It’s me. Don’t worry. It was just another one of those nightmares. It can’t hurt you.”

          Gradually he turned, saw it was her, then slumped back down, reassured. He grabbed her hand. “Yes, a nightmare,” he rasped. “But a vision too. Crocodiles are everywhere. I’m telling you, almost everyone’s a crocodile hiding beneath their human skin. We’re surrounded by crocodiles.”

          Cathy felt the familiar dread surge through every cell in her bloodstream but managed to stay calm. “Dan, no. There’re no crocodiles, lizards, whatever, hiding inside anyone.” She attempted a patient, comforting smile. “You’re safe.”

          “You’ve got to believe me. They want to kill us and take over.” His hand clenched tighter. “We don’t have much time. They’re fearless. We have to kill them first. All of them—”     

          “Please, stop. What you’re saying isn’t real. You’ve been working way too hard, under terrible pressure at the firm. That’s what’s causing these nightmares. You know it’s true.”

          “Oh, they’re real, Cath,” he said quietly. “So keep your voice down too. You never know where they’re lurking.”

          Cathy felt her chest become ice. “Honey, they’re not real. Just think for a minute. You haven’t had a decent night’s sleep in years. You come home at dawn, sack out for a few hours then drag yourself back to work. No one could take the endless deadlines, the crazy clients, the shot nerves. We’ve got to change the cycle.”

          “I’ve seen what we’re up against, what’s hiding beneath the surface of everyday life. We, the human race, have got to fight back before it’s too late.”

          Cathy shifted, drew close with a warm embrace. The clock on the night table read 6:47, only two hours since Dan had crawled into bed. Fatigue felt like a rusty nail through her skull.  “I’m begging, let’s go far away, to the Mediterranean or somewhere. We could recharge, get well. We’ve never had a real vacation, you and me.”

          “Vacation?” Dan recoiled as if she’d plunged a knife in him. “We’re in mortal danger. No vacation’s going to help us. Crocodiles will be there too. They’ll be watching, plotting to kill us, then jump out and tear us apart, eat us. We’ve got to band together. We can’t run away to some beach and drink wine all day.”

          “...And when we get back,” she said, doing her best to continue with an even voice, “you can take a leave. My job at the college will carry us until you’re better.”

          He looked at her with an inhuman doubt distorting his face. “Better? You think I’m crazy, don’t you? You want me to go back to seeing that crackpot shrink.”

          “Dan, no, you’re not crazy. It’s that damn stress factory that’s doing this.” She pressed her face into his chest, lowered her voice to a whisper. “Let’s end this starting today. It’s Saturday morning, you don’t have to drag yourself back to that office. Call in sick later. Sleep all day if you want. Then we’ll talk, plan together for a healthy life. I want to see the old Dan back, the happy-go-lucky guy I married. We’ll get you there. Okay?”

          Dan gazed with brutal exhaustion. Eventually the pill he’d taken earlier reasserted its narco-authority over him and his eyes dulled, trance-like, then closed. He seemed a thousand planets away.

          Taking his hand, Cathy watched the morning sunlight grow stronger through the curtains, knowing this couldn’t go on. They had to get away from the evil boiler room the company had become. Soon, one, or both, of them would snap for good. She dozed off, but after a while roused herself, too worried to sleep soundly. She dressed, slipped downstairs into the kitchen. She sat at the table and watched the swaying trees, the birds, the secluded neighborhood outside the windows, tried to lose herself in the serene beauty. Should she call Dr. Ector? But what could he really do? Dan despised him.

          She rested her head on the table in a daze of anxiety.

          Around noon the doorbell rang, jarring her from the fog.

          She trudged to the front door, checked through the security peek and saw a tall man in khaki standing on the front porch holding a large package. For Dan? She opened the door a crack.

          Grinning, the delivery man held the box out. “Smokey’s Wings.”

          “I didn’t order any wings. You have the wrong house.”

          The delivery man looked confused, began to fumble in his pocket for the receipt, balancing the big box in one hand.

          In that moment, while the man was digging, Cathy caught the strong intoxicating fumes of roasted chicken, barbeque sauce, and hot garlicky bread, felt how deeply hungry she was, a craving from the abyss of her stomach like a chain saw from hell, chewing a path up her esophagus to hit the back of her throat where her tongue seemed to explode. She lunged out the door in a fury at the box, grabbed it in her mouth and ground down through the cardboard, tasting the mash of rich food. The man released the box, stumbled backward as Cathy hooked it with both hands and tore with her teeth, ripped it open, splattering wings onto the porch concrete. She dropped to her hands and knees, scooped the slopped food into her snapping jaws.

          She looked up at the man standing away from her, staring. “What the hell are you looking at, you moron,” she said. “Screw off. I said you’ve got the wrong address.”

          The man fell to his belly, pushed forward with all fours, slithered toward her with a powerful back and forth swaying lope, sucked up a stray wing from the concrete. Cathy realized he was an impressive male. A large, impressive male.

          “We’ll work together,” he said. “Wings aren’t much of a meal. Is there more food in the house?”

          She looked back at the open door, the hallway, the stairs beyond leading up, considered new priorities. “Yeah, there is.”

          “Excellent,” he said, dragged himself forward a few feet then stopped abruptly. He turned an odd queasy gaze to her. “Truthfully,” he said, “my nerves are in shreds. I’d rather you go first. I’ve been having terrible nightmares about enraged hippos hiding among us...”

John J. Dillon’s worked for many years in the computer industry, and his favorite job was on an atom smasher project. During that time, he’s published non-fiction and fiction—book reviews, mystery/crime short stories, edited textbooks on the reign of Joseph Stalin, and co-authored a spy novel from Cliffhanger Press.  He finds Italian cooking worth robbing gas stations for.  So his favorite party topics are cybersecurity, crimewaves and despots, and meatballs.