One Life & Many

by Steve Cartwright

He was an old man when the world ended.

          Coming back from the corner store, the pack of Juicy Fruit gum and TV  Guide in the little bag seemed to weigh a ton.

           Suddenly his breathing was liquid.

Suddenly the sky turned black with enemy bombers.

Wanting to catch his breath, he sank like bones onto a bus-stop bench. 

People all around were running and screaming, but the old man’s ears were  now like two stones. Hand to his chest, yes, growing unfocused, lips blue, head  lowering like a child fighting a nap.

His House

by Steve Cartwright

Whirling, swirling black clouds pressing behind his orbs,  seeming to pop his  eyes out.

Cold, no-feeling, gray, sounds scurrying up and down the  tonal  range.

Memory of a knife, in his own hand, blood spurting, splatter-splatter, drip snail-like down his wall.

Confusion, questions: why am I still here? Noise tattooing, crimson drips turn to shrieks at hitting his carpet. His body falling like the millionth tread of the  millionth foot in a  marching, chanting army.

Time heavy on his wrist, digital watch with seconds frozen  cold in rock, as are decades, none moving, even he no  longer bleeding.

Floating when he should be on his floor draining, now empty,  yet floating like  a dreambird tearing loose of gravity’s grip, only to find himself back in that cold-numbing grasp.

Why am I still here?

Eyes that no longer blink adjust to the dark, see candle flame shadows pirouette  and dosey-doe. Figures at a table,  interlopers in HIS room.

Outraged, he rushes them, shouts for them to get out, this is HIS house!

But they continue to sit, eyes shut, holding hands, six men  and women at their  flimsy table.

“I can feel a presence in the room,” one of them says, her eyes  flying open and  wide, searching every dancing shadow in the room. “There’s definitely something  in this room. . . ”

          Through the gray, frigid drizzle, he saw a light burning on the top floor. The Gold Room. No one was authorized to be in there -- the cleaning crew only worked when members were around -- you know how those foreign types steal.

          Marlowe considered himself young and fit at 52. with his .38, he was  confident he could take on any burglar, so he hurried to the ornate front door  and found it closed but not locked.

          The door creaked like some mythological beast as he nudged it open, using the barrel of his snubnose.

          The foyer was dark, but he knew his way around every inch of the Club. And the only light he’d seen from the street was in the Gold Room.

          Marlowe decided not to use the elevator. It would be quieter if he took the stairs. He envisioned getting the jump on the burglar, busting into the Gold Room, gun brandished, yelling for the maggot to raise his fucking hands or eat a bullet!

          His spine tingled as he crept up the rococo stairs, illuminated by ghostly ceiling lights and a twitching red candle that he snatched from a table. The thought of an interloper in the sacred Gold Room angered him, this was the room, so called for its gold tapestries, Persian rug, and curtains, where the executive board met to “yea” or “nay” applicants.

          Once on the top floor, he could see the door; it stood open, yet he knew it should have been closed and locked.

          In the middle of the golden room was a winged, velvet chair, in it sat a finely-dressed, dark-haired man with swarthy skin. He smiled at Marlowe and said, “What took you so long?”

          “Do it, scumwad!”

          “Come now, Mr. Marlowe.” The man chuckled. In his voice was a trace of some unknown accent. “I’m here to be interviewed for membership in your fine club.”

          Marlowe stammered, “Y-You’re a burglar!”

          “I assure you,” the man said, “if I came here with the intent to steal, this place would be one big echo chamber right now.” He stubbed out the cigarette. “My name is Vespaces. I am a representative of my government. I will be in your capitol only a few days, and was told this club of yours, Mr. Marlowe, was a place I could enjoy most splendid meals, the finest wines, and rub shoulders, as it were, with the elite of U.S. industry and government.”

          Marlowe lowered his gun slightly, thinking. Vespaces chuckled at his troubled expression.

          “Please join me,” Vespaces said, indicating a chair across from him. “I know that in a club as exclusive as yours, even a guest must be interviewed. Please. Sit. Interview!”

          Like a man hypnotized, Marlowe’s hand fell to his side.

          “Please. Sit, Mr. Marlowe!”

          Marlowe walked over and sank into the overstuffed chair, his brow still furrowed, his gray eyes crinkled. “But, how…”

          With a dismissive twirl of his hand, Vespaces said, “As I am sure you perceive, I am a foreigner. My country is a small one in the middle of the jungles of South America. I, Mr. Marlowe, am an agent of my government, if you will.” He popped a filterless cigarette into his mouth and grinned around it as he flicked a silver lighter.

          “If you watch CNN, Mr. Marlowe, you no doubt have seen a news report from my country. There have been several murders on the jungle roads, murders mostly of hapless foreigners -- DEA agents, corporate men working on various oil wells, or cutting down trees. There are many foreign businessmen in my country, Mr. Marlowe.”

          As he spoke, Vespaces poured an amber drink from a crystal carafe into two glasses; he handed Marlowe one, never missing a beat in his story. “The CNN report made it all sound very mysterious, these murders, because each victim had both his feet surgically removed.”

          Marlowe absently sipped his drink, but abruptly stopped. “And why do you think that is, Mr. Uh… Vespisses?”

          Marlowe’s empty glass clinked onto the table beside his chair.

          “The severed feet, you see, to my benighted countryfolk, means the victim cannot walk his path into the hereafter, so it is a horrible act. Silly, these superstitions, do you agree?”

          “But, why kill foreign businessmen?” Marlowe asked, feeling suddenly warm, attributing it to wearing his overcoat inside the house; but, looking down, he remembered the first thing he’d done was remove his coat. “they’re bringing jobs to your country.”

          “They’re cutting down our rainforests, Mr. Marlowe,” said Vespaces, his black eyes suddenly narrowed. “My benighted countrymen think these forests are sacred. Once they are gone -- we are gone as a people, as a country. So, Mr. Marlowe, we have declared war on your country. It sounds funny, yes, doesn’t it? You are so immense, and we are so puny. So my country decided to declare war on you -- but not tell you.”

          Vespaces stood, he was tall and sinewy beneath his dark suit. “So, we have sent soldiers -- such as myself -- into your country, into places such as this, where we are conducting guerilla campaigns.”

          Marlowe tried to jump to his feet, but fell, instead. Confused, he bowed his head and screamed when he saw his feet, still standing in their shoes, and the arteries at the end of his severed legs shooting blood onto the gilt carpet.

          From under Marlowe’s chair crawled a midget, as swarthy as Vespaces. In the midget’s pudgy hands was a bloody surgeon’s saw.

          “In your drink, of course,” Vespaces said, standing over the squirming Marlowe and kicking his gun aside, “I sneaked a powerful, fast-acting painkiller.”

          At the door, Vespaces joined his fellow countryman, and Marlowe, his life quickly shooting from both sawn legs, watched their backs.

          Vespaces said something in parting. But Marlowe’s face was in the gold carpet and his senses failing fast, so he never heard.

by Steve Cartwright

There should be two inside.

Nate followed Cybel to the bar where she hooked up with that weird-looking guy.

If the witch was gonna cheat, Nate thought bitterly, fingering the 9mm in his coat pocket, she ain’t waiting long after our argument.

A cruel smile revealed his crooked teeth. Witch, he thought, creeping up the dark, back stairs, she sure the hell is!

They’d only been dating twice when, drunk, she laughingly told him, “I’m super-supernatural! A daemon!”

“You’re drunk,” he told her, unbuttoning her red blouse.

“I really am a daemon,” she whispered, her eyes rolling up in sudden ecstasy.

On the second floor, he walked out on creaking floorboards, looking, and finding, apartment number 2 in this weird guy’s sleazy apartment building.

“You’re the first human I’ve ever dated,” Cybel told him a few hours ago, and that somehow started the drunken argument.

He listened outside the thin door. Heard noise like a whirlwind inside. Drums? Twilight flutes blaring orgasmically. What the hell!

Nate, pulling the blue-steel 9mm from his pocket, reminded himself there will be two: shoot her first. Then shoot the bastard!

Testing the knob, it was locked, so, without thought, he busted it open with his broad shoulder. The room was dark, but an obscene bonfire blazed. Cybel, naked, danced around the fire, but her arms ended in snapping

serpent heads! Her suddenly red eyes snapped onto him. Before she could scream, he shot her in the head.

Rushing over, he kicked her hard, screaming at her accusingly.

Suddenly a muscular arm coiled around his throat, stifling his scream as Nate watched two serpent heads engulf his head.

He forgot there would be two inside!

by Steve Cartwright

“How’d you like being the one in the cage, Mr Dog Catcher!”

The blurry man ran out of an alley, grabbed me by my uniform collar and shook me. “You’d rather be running free in the wind!” He hit me on the head with something hard. “Napping in your own bed!” Whack again to my head. “Chasing tennis balls!” Whack!

The last punch knocked my legs out from under me. I fell to the sidewalk. Slowly, my swollen eyes opened and I could see the white terrier I’d just captured and stuffed into a city-issued crate.

“Dogs want to be free! Not imprisoned! Prison is punishment!” My assailant’s voice sounded far away, as if issuing from a nearby tavern, as if calling from under a tavern table.

At least he stopped hitting me.

I was face to face with the terrier, separated only by the wire crate wall. I watched as her teeth snapped against the bars, trying to get to me.

Pulling myself to my knees, I looked at her bulging eyes.

Fidgeting with the latch, I threw the crate door open with a good degree of fear. When she jumped on me, I expected to feel her teeth sink deep into my throat; but she wrapped her paws around my neck, hugging me hard, and licked my ugly face; and licked and licked and licked.

I climbed into her crate & locked myself in; the dog gave me a snack, then walked to the Animal Control truck and climbed behind the steering wheel, and drove away in my truck.

by Steve Cartwright

         Jobbo awoke one icy morn and was surprised to see a mysterious metal box on his bedside table, watching him.

         As if sensing the sleeper was now awake, cogs shifted in the box, and its speaker popped and buzzed, and an “on” light glowed, like an accusing red eye.

         “I command you to move not, my son!” announced a male voice, soft and fuzzy, as though broadcast from a great distance.

         “Who put this box next to me?” shouted Jobbo, snatching up and examining the glistening box, feeling a force pulsing.

         “You will obey me!” the box demanded.

         Jobbo hurled it back and rolled to the bed’s edge.

         “Move not! I command you—stay abed!”

         “Can you see me?” Jobbo stammered, looking around his cheap motel room for a camera.

         “When I come to you, you better not have disobeyed me!”

         “Are you coming here? Do I know you?”

         “Stay abed, for I control all aspects of your puny life!”

         “But I have to go to work. Gotta take a shower or I’ll be late!”

         “I can transfer a million dollars into your bank account. Or—I can hit the delete button!”

         A silence undulated like a serpent, and Jobbo climbed slowly from the crumpled, wet covers, eye on the box, and hurried to the bathroom, where the hot shower pleasured his flesh on such a winter morn.

         After drying off, he thought about fleeing from the box. In his mind’s eye, he saw himself fleeing down the shadowy corridor; then outside by the murky pool.

          But what if he is hiding by the pool, Jobbo thought, waiting to drown me?

         Shoulders slumping, Jobbo returned to his bed. The strange box was still there, but the red power light no longer glowed.

         Alarmed, Jobbo snatched up the silent box and shook it with trembling hands. “I can’t hear you!” he cried, tears flowing. “Please don’t abandon me!” Collapsing to the floor, the dead box bounced into the shadows. “Please forgive me!”

It’s well-known that an artist becomes more popular by dying, so our pal Steve Cartwright is typing his bio with one hand while pummeling his head with a frozen mackerel with the other. Stop, Steve! Death by mackerel is no way to go! He (Steve, not the mackerel) has a collection of spooky toons, Suddenly Halloween!, available at Amazon.com. He's done art for several magazines, newspapers, websites, commercial and governmental clients, books, and scribbling—but mostly drooling—on tavern napkins. He also creates art pro bono for several animal rescue groups. He was awarded the 2004 James Award for his cover art for Champagne Shivers. He recently illustrated the Cimarron Review, Stories for Children, and Still Crazy magazine covers. Take a gander (or a goose) at his online gallery: www.angelfire.com/sc2/cartoonsbycartwright. And please hurry with your response—that mackerel's killin’ your pal, Steve Cartwright.