This is an old one. I think I wrote "Death Sentence" back in high school. I thought it was pretty cool back then. It seems a little silly now. Enjoy.

                                                                                                        ####

            Bill rested his body on the ancient mattress that lay upon the floor in his run down inner city apartment.  In his hand he held his most prized possession, a chrome Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum.  He admired the gun, marveling at the way it reflected the glare of the sole light bulb that jutted from the ceiling above his head.  This gun was his companion, his partner.  He fancied it as part of himself, an extension of his right arm.  It was a thing of beauty.

            Bill was a big man, roughly 6’ 4” tall with a 250 lb. muscular body draped across broad shoulders.  He kept himself in good shape.  Since he lost his last job there wasn’t much else to do but work out.  Work out and steal, that’s what he did.  That night wouldn’t be any different.  Bill was hungry.

            He glanced over at the red glow of the clock that sat on the floor next to him, 7:35 pm.  'Time to go,' he thought and hopped up off the mattress.  He grabbed a handful of shells out of a box next to his door, threw six in his revolver and the rest in his pocket as he headed out the door.

            The hallway smelled like spicy B.O. and some kind of ethnic cooking that Bill was less than fond of.  He breathed as little as possible when making any trips up or down the hallway.  On his was down the hall Bill bumped into Larry, the landlord.  Larry was a short, stocky, balding man of about 45.  He also happened to be one of the stinky blokes that made this hallway such a rancid, uninviting environment.

            “I’ll have the rent tomorrow,” Bill said with a smile, before Larry could ask about it.

            “Huh?”  Larry seemed a bit startled, “Oh, okay thanks”.

            Bill bounded down the steps like a twelve year old boy headed out for the daily stickball game.  The only difference was that Bill was showing his age by whistling the theme from “The Andy Griffith Show”.  He hated that song but he always caught himself whistling it.  In three long strides Bill was down the stairway and pounding through the door.  He had about five minutes to make three blocks.  That would get him to the quick mart by 7:40 pm.  The safe would be open by 7:45 pm, and that’s what Bill was after.  He figured he’d take about fifteen hundred bucks.  It was Sunday night and there were no weekend deposits so this was the best time to hit.  That store was a big fat turkey on Thanksgiving morning and Bill was planning a feast.  He loped down the sidewalk feeling pretty good.

            When Bill walked into the quick mart there was only one other person, other than the two clerks in the store.  Perfect, he thought because that one customer was on his way out.  Bill nodded and winked at that gentleman who returned the gesture with a smile as they passed in the doorway.  Bill looked behind the counter.  One clerk, an average sized, middle-aged man was filling up the safe while the other clerk, a tall, thin, pale redheaded kid of about sixteen stood at the counter.

            “Can I help you?” the redhead asked with a shiny, metallic smile.

            “Absolutely,” Bill replied returning the smile.  “I’ll take a pack of Marlboro box and…” he paused.  “What’s that guy’s name?”

            “Oh him?”  The boy said gesturing behind himself, “That’s Roy.  He’s da’ boss.”

            Bill couldn’t help but smile at the boy’s innocent, pasty face.  “Okay, then I’ll take a pack of Marlboro’s and tell Roy I’ll take all the money he’s got there in the safe.”  With that Bill hauled out his mighty hand held cannon and thrust it into pale face’s forehead.

            “Oh shit,” the boy whispered.  “Roy.  Roy this guy wants the money.”

            Roy began to turn around slowly, catching the light glimmering off the barrel of Bill’s gun.  He didn’t know what to do.  He wasn’t about to give this big, scum ball gorilla the money, but he didn’t want to see his only son, Ben take a bullet either.

            Just then the door opened and a woman walked in with two small children.  Bill spun around and aimed his gun at the woman.  “Do your kids a favor, don’t…”

            Before Bill could finish Roy lunged at him, tackling the big man.  As the two men were headed toward the floor the gun went off and Bill dropped it.  Then he noticed that one of the cherubs that had just come in with his mother was now missing most of his face.  Blood splattered against the walls and poured out of what was left of the poor boy’s exploded head.  The mother started screaming and Roy pounded on the back of Bill’s head, but Bill tuned everything else out and concentrated on the bloody mess that used to be a little boy.  Bill had never killed anyone before and would never think of killing a kid.  He could taste bile welling up in the back of his throat.  Then a good shot to the back of his head from Roy quickly snapped him back to reality.  Instinctively, Bill threw his left elbow back and connected with Roy’s nose, busting it along with Roy’s two front teeth.  Roy was done, for the time being.

            When Bill got up the back of his head was throbbing from Roy’s blows and Ben was standing in front of him.  Bill was now staring down the barrel of his own gun.  He didn’t like it so much from this angle.  He glanced over and saw that the poor mother who had interrupted the robbery with her two boys was now holding her baby’s lifeless body in her arms wailing madly.  While she sobbed she tried to push the boy’s brains back into his shattered skull.  Goddamn, why did that have to happen?

            Then he turned his attention back to Ben.  “Give me the gun kid.”

            “I called the police,” Ben stuttered.  “You ain’t goin’ anywhere.”

            Bill lunged at Ben and heard a loud crack.  Almost instantly he felt hot metal tear through his left shoulder.  He grabbed the gun with his right hand and drove his forehead into Ben’s nose knocking the would-be hero out on contact.  With his gun back in his own hands, Bill charged for the door.

            He stopped by the poor woman who was still trying to revive her dead son and said, “Hey lady, I’m real sorry.  Gimme’ your car keys.”  The words dropped heavily off of Bill's tongue. If only he could keep them from passing his lips, but he had to get out before the cops came.  Sirens were already wailing across the night sky.  The lady didn’t respond so Bill grabbed her purse and found the keys himself.

            Within’ moments Bill was in the woman’s blue Ford peeling out into the street right in front of a squad that immediately gave chase.  Bill’s shoulder was throbbing.  The pain seemed to expand with every pulse.  ‘Dammit,’ he thought.  ‘I didn’t even get the money.’  Blood pumped out of his shoulder like Niagara Falls.  He was starting to feel woozy, having trouble controlling the car.  He started nodding off when he saw a semi headed straight for him.  He yanked on the wheel but the big Ford responded like a big Ford, slow.  It was too late.  He saw a bright flash, a brilliant light like nothing he’d ever seen as his stolen car pounded into the front of a mountain of Peterbilt truck.

            When Bill woke, he was surrounded by light.  He was obviously in the center of some type of room but he couldn’t make out any walls or doors. There didn't appear to be any kind of ceiling, or anything else for that matter.  Everything was just bright, white light.  It was seamless.  There was no beginning and no end.  Bill looked at his shoulder and there wasn’t even a scar.  ‘What the hell?’  He thought.  ‘Am I dreaming?  Am I dead?’

            Finally he spoke.  “I must be dead,” he muttered

            “Not yet,” a voice responded.  He couldn’t tell from where, “but you will be.”

            “Who is that?”  Bill demanded, turning nervous circles desperately trying to locate the source of the voice.  “What the hell is going on here?  Who the hell are you?”

            “Who I am isn’t important,” the voice continued, “you’re in the future Bill.  How does your shoulder feel?  It was a mess when we brought you in.”

            “This doesn’t make any sense.  Somebody better tell me what the fuck is going on!”

            “Relax Bill.”  The voice continued in the same monotonous tone that it had begun, “It is exactly fifty years and two weeks from that fateful day at the market on Lincoln Avenue…”

            “Fifty years?  Are you crazy?  What, have I been in a coma?”  Bill interrupted.   His mind was freaking out.  He was sure that this was some kind of a dream or maybe hell or who knows what.

            “Bill, we brought you here.  We pulled you out of that car wreck because it would have killed you.  We brought you here with a time traveling device.  I would explain it to you but there are quite a few things that we know about our world now that you could not possibly understand.  Any explanation would only serve to confuse you more than you already are.  The important thing is that we brought you here because we need you.  We healed your shoulder because we need you to be strong.”  The voice droned on like some kind of learn to tape.  Bill was ready to scream.

            “Need me for what?”  Bill’s patience was at its end.

            “Testing Bill,” the voice calmly responded.  “You see Bill, we’ve developed a new, more humane method of administering capital punishment.  Your job is simple, Bill.  You just have to lay back, relax and we’ll determine if it works.

I tweeted a comment about vampires being more frightening than zombies. I can't remember exactly how it went. It was something like, "Sure, zombies are kind of scary but they've got nothing on my vampire." It was intended to be whimsical, perhaps just a reason to hashtag zombies and vampires in the same tweet. Like many of the silly things that pop into my head, it got me thinking. I'm not just talking about casually tossing the idea around either. I'm talking about incessantly mulling the concept over in my head. I do that sometimes, put a whole bunch of thought into something that doesn't have a ton of value. Anyway, at the end of the day vampires are way more frightening than zombies.

I realize that zombies are wildly popular right now as people prepare for the zombie apocalypse when the dead rise from their graves and stumble about like a bunch of drunk, homeless people looking for brains to eat so the idea that anything is more frightening than a walking corpse may draw some disagreement. Holy sentence batman! That was a long one. Anyway, I have good reasons to carry this opinion. First of all, zombies are dumb. They are far to easy to trick. Sure, if they get their hands on you a whole throng of them will eat your brains, rip your limbs off, and probably pull your intestines out. However, with some well applied make-up, a bit of a fake limp, and some awkward moaning you can totally blend in and completely avoid the carnage. You won't pull that crap with a vampire. They can smell the blood pumping through your veins, teasing them like a flash of thigh through the slit of a skirt. Second, they are slow. And don't give me that nonsense about those fake zombies in the remake of "Dawn of the Dead" that were sprinting everywhere like they were a whole pack of Usain Bolts. Everybody knows that real zombies don't get anywhere quickly. Even though they travel in packs of thousands upon thousands, the make-up, limping, and awkward moaning will get you to the clearing. After that a quick sprint will have you out of harm's way. Again, try to pull that crap with a vampire. You can't move fast enough. Not even if you are Usain Bolt.

Okay, up to this point we've covered dumb and slow. Those two things alone bury zombies right back in their waiting graves when comparing them with vampires, and I'm not even done. This one is completely obvious. You can totally see a zombie, or several zombies coming. They don't surprise you. They lumber up like a big, slow, lumbering, decaying dead thing and try to gnaw on you. You can literally see them coming from blocks and blocks away. Unless you're staring at your phone, then you're screwed. However, if you are even moderately aware of your surroundings, you can totally avoid any contact with the undead at all. You don't see vampires coming. You don't see a vampire until they want you to see them and at that point, you're already as good as dead - or undead if they turn you instead of completely consuming you. Like big cats vampires are hunters. They stalk their prey, even toy with it, for hours, days, sometimes weeks even before they make the kill. The helpless victims don't stand a chance. And don't even get me started on the seduction part of it. Zombies are ugly and grotesque. You know by looking at them that you don't want them near you. Vampires on the other hand are sexy and seductive. By the time they are ready to sink their fangs into your delicious pulse, you want them to suck on your neck. Now that is unbelievably scary!

Finally, I'll end my rant with this last point. Blunt force trauma to the head can kill a zombie. They are far too easy to kill. Even if you're half a chickenshit, you probably have enough balls to kill yourself some zombies. You'll need balls at least the size of that big ball of twine in Cawker City, Kansas if you're thinking about trying to take out a vampire. On top of those giant balls that are really going to slow you down, you're going to need a whole slew of equipment, knowledge of where the bloodsucker hangs his cape, a really, really good plan, and a whole lot of luck. Even with all of that, you're probably going to be sucked dry.

The sky was a radiant blue that day, not a cloud to spoil its clear perfection.  The sun beat down on my forehead.  It felt like it was cooking me.  I hoped that I was tanning rather than burning.  Just as the heat got to the point of being unbearable, a cool breeze picked up and took the burn away.  It was a perfect balance, the warm rays of sunshine being offset by a cool breeze.  I strolled through the park with my head up to the sky loving it.

As I walked the path, I noticed that the trees along side it were spaced too meticulously to be the work of Mother Nature.  She was much more random in her perfection.  I forgave them for being planted by men.  I was just happy to have their company.  They didn’t have any shade to offer me, as the sun was directly overhead.  They did give the squirrels a place to play though.  It was a wonderful distraction from real life.  The squirrels chased each other up the trees and down, squeaking the whole time.  I wondered what they were saying.  I tried to duplicate the sounds they were making, but I couldn’t get my mouth to do it.

I laughed out loud at myself just as a young fellow, maybe nine years old cruised by on a scooter.  He wore a helmet and all the pads that I never wore as a kid.  He looked back at me like I was crazy.  His raised eyebrows just made me laugh harder.  Maybe I am crazy.  I kept on.  My laughter subsided as the young man rode on out of sight.

I heard a crow cawing to my right.  They always sound so evil, nasty birds.  Nasty birds, that reminded me of a time when I had taken my son to the zoo.  He couldn’t have been more than two years old.  He was just starting to talk a lot.  We went to the aviary and he put his face right up to a bird that was roosting.  I can’t remember what kind of bird it was, but I remember what he said.  He looked at that bird, sneered up his lip and in a raspy little voice said, “Nasty birds.”  I laughed so hard I almost dropped him.  He really meant it.  We still tease him about that.

I started looking for the crow that had squawked, that nasty bird.  I came to a clearing.  There was a small building, bathrooms I think.  It was square and made of brick with two glass block windows that had vents in the middle of them.  The roof of the building came to a point and perched right at the top of it was the crow.  It was a big one.  I don’t think that I’ve ever seen a crow that big.  He must have been at least a foot and a half tall.  Well, maybe not that big, but he was a moose as far as birds go.  I sat and stared at him.  He stared right back at me.  Five minutes must have past while I was looking at him.  All he did was sit and squawk at me.

“You like birds do you?”  A man’s voice said.

At first I couldn’t spot the source of the voice.  I looked around.

He spoke again, “What the hell are you looking for?  I’m right here.”

Directly in front of the building that the crow perched upon was a park bench.  I hadn’t noticed it before.  Nor had I noticed the elderly fellow seated upon it.  I was confused.  How did I miss that?  I had been looking right at him.  Maybe I am crazy.  I chuckled at myself.

“Yeah, I like birds alright.  I have a cockatiel at home named Hercules.  I know that it’s kind of a funny name for a little bird, but the kids named him.  They were young and into Disney movies.  Hercules had just come out, blah, blah, blah.  You know how kids are.”  I have a tendency to talk too much and that day was no exception.

“Nope.  I can’t say that I do.  I’ve never had any.  I like kids just fine.  I just never got around to marrying.”  He shrugged.  “You want to have a seat?”

I shrugged right back.  “Sure.”  He seemed to have the same problem with being a little too wordy that I had.

As I walked toward the bench, I recognized him.  It was my grandfather.  No, it couldn’t be.  He had died fifteen years before that.  The resemblance was uncanny though.  He had a bit more gray hair and a few more wrinkles, but fifteen years will do that to you.  My face must have shown my shock.

“What’s the matter with you?  Why you looking at me like that?”  He squinted up his eyebrows.

I shook my head.  “Nothing,” I said.  “You just look like somebody I know.  Or knew, I should say.”

His expression said aha, but he said, “I get that a lot.  I look like everybody.”

I chuckled.

“What’s funny about that?”

“Nothing.  You just have a very distinctive look about you.  I can’t imagine that there are a whole bunch of people that look like you.  Besides my grandfather, but he died over fifteen years ago.”

He humphed, “Maybe you don’t get out enough.”

I shrugged, “Maybe not.”  I extended my hand as I sat beside him on the bench.  “Sean.  Sean O’Brien.  Pleased to meet you.”

As he shook my hand he said, “Emil Rukavina.  Likewise.”

He may as well have hit me in the head with a hammer.  “What?” I asked, shaking my head.

“I said Emil Rukavina,” he repeated himself.  “I know, Emil’s not a very common name anymore and Rukavina.  Well, I guess there aren’t that many Croatians running around this town anymore either.  There used to be though.”

I looked closer at him.  It just didn’t make any sense.  “That was my grandpa’s name, Emil Rukavina.”

“Hm, good name.”  Then he changed the subject.  “What would you have named him?”

“What?”  I was too stunned to have any idea what he might be talking about.

“The bird, your bird, you said the kids named him.  It sounded like you weren’t too fond of the name.  What would you call him?”

He had diverted me.  “Oh, I don’t know.  I probably would have called him Napoleon.  When he walks back and forth on his perch, he kind of hunches over and sticks the tops of his wings out.  They look like shoulders.  It looks like he’s a little dude walking with his hands behind his back.  It reminds me of a movie I saw with Napoleon as one of the characters.”

He reached in his pocket and pulled out a pack of Salems.  He offered me one.  I declined and got one of my own.  I can’t smoke those menthols.  It’s like smoking a candy cane.  I heard that the menthol crystallizes your lungs.  I suppose that could have been my mother trying to scare me off of smoking, but I wasn’t going to chance it.  Not that smoking regular cigarettes was any safer.  Somehow it made sense in my head.  Maybe I am crazy.

“My grandpa smoked Salems.” I said as I lit my cigarette.

“Alright kid,” he began.  “You’re pretty hung up on this.  Didn’t you say that he died over fifteen years ago?”

“Yeah,” I nodded.  “Mother’s Day, 1990.  I don’t remember any of it though.  I guess I blacked it out.  It sucks really.  I wish I could remember.  My mom has told me all of this stuff about it, but I don’t remember anything.  My wife says that it’s probably better that way.  I only have good memories.  I don’t know.  I wish I could remember.  I’ve even thought about getting hypnotized.  It seems kind of weird that I don’t remember you dying and here you are talking with me.  It’s kind of like I found you.”

“Slow down kid.  I already told you that I never had any kids of my own.”  He put his hand out as if he were stopping me.

I shrugged, “Maybe you have amnesia or something.”

“Do you hear yourself?”  A quizzical expression came to his face.  “Do you think that your family’s been lying to you for, what did you say, fifteen years?”

I sighed, “I know it sounds crazy, but you look just like him.  You sound like him.  You have his name.  You smoke his cigarettes for Christ’s sake.”  I shook my head, hands out in front of me as if I were holding something.  “I guess when you really want something to be real your mind plays tricks on you.  Has that ever happened to you?  Did you ever convince yourself that something you wanted to be true was, even when you knew it wasn’t?”

“I suppose.”  He nodded.  “But you know what they say.”

“What’s that?” I looked over at him.

“You can have a handful of want in this hand and a handful of shit in the other.  What do you got more of?”  He had his hands out and clenched into fists, as if he were holding something in each of them.  Then he opened them both and said, “Shit.”

My jaw hung open as he said this.  I tried to respond but I couldn’t.  I couldn’t say anything.  My grandfather said that all the time.  He used that expression so much that when I think of him that is the first thing that comes to my mind.  That expression was part of him.  All of it, the words, the look on his face, even the hand gestures.  This man that I was talking to was my grandpa.  I just knew it.  I started to get angry.  Why wouldn’t he just give up the charade, hug me and tell me how much he’s missed me.

“You’ll catch flies if you keep your mouth hanging open like that.”  He looked up at the sky.

I shook my head.  “What the hell are you trying to do to me?”  My eyes started misting up.

“What’s your problem kid?”  He looked honestly confused by my behavior.

I was losing it.  How could it be that this guy was a perfect replica of my grandpa but wasn’t him?  Why couldn’t I remember anything about his death?  I don’t remember the hospital, the wake, the burial, nothing.  I was a pallbearer and I don’t even remember carrying his casket.  How can that be?

He spoke again.  “Maybe I’ll be getting along.  I think we’ve talked enough today.  Maybe we’ll bump into each other again someday, some other time.”  He started to get up.

“No!”  My shout startled him.  I put a hand on his arm.  “Don’t go yet.  I’m sorry.  I just really thought…well, I don’t know what I thought.”  I dried my eyes.  “Look, you look like you might have a story or two in you.  Would you humor me and tell me one?  Just let me pretend for a minute.  Please.”

A wide smile spread across his face.  “Sure,” he said.  “As long as you quit all that emotional crap.  Crying never solved nothing for nobody.”

I smiled right back at him.  “I know.  Somebody told me that a long time ago.”

“A story,” he began.  “Let’s see.  I was driving a delivery truck.  Oh that was a whole lot of years ago.  There was this fellow, Charlie Campman.  Nothing but trouble that guy was.”

As he told his story, I closed my eyes.  I had heard that story no less than twenty times from my grandpa when I was a boy.  It was the same story and he was telling it exactly the same.  Word for word it was the same.  The sound of his voice was the same.  I imagined myself sitting at his kitchen table across from him.  He was drinking coffee and smoking a cigarette and I was eating grandma’s cheesecake and drinking a soda.  I loved listening to his stories.

When he finished the story I sat for a moment with my eyes still closed.  Tears wanted to come out, but I was holding them in.  I folded my hands against my chest and took a deep breath in through my nose.  I smelled a mix of cigarettes, Hall’s, and coffee, the smell of my grandpa.  I smiled big as I opened my eyes and turned to look at him.  He was gone.  I stood up and spun a quick circle.  There was nobody around but me.  He couldn’t have gotten away from me that fast.  He was just talking to me.  I took another look around.  Nothing.  I was alone.

As I stood there, memories flooded into my head.  I remembered running from school to the hospital.  I remembered looking at my grandpa in his casket.  I remembered touching his face.  He was cold.  I remembered carrying his casket.  It all flooded back in at once.  I fell to my knees, put my head in my hands and balled.  I’m not sure how long I sat like that, but I might have stayed all day.  Instead, I was interrupted by a loud squawk.

I raised my head up and wiped tears from my cheeks.  They were quickly replaced by reinforcements.  The crow was still there.  He was staring at me.  He squawked again and then flew away.  As he left, it felt like a huge weight was being lifted off my shoulders.  I waved and he was gone.  I looked around again, still nobody but me.  I smiled, collected myself and started for home.

I don’t suppose I’ll ever see Emil Rukavina again, except in my head.  Who knows though?  Maybe I will.

The darkness surrounding me is much less than pitch, but dark nonetheless.  My room looks like a dream, everything having a bluish hue except for the alarm clock.  Its unrelenting bright green glow mocks me as seconds bleed into minutes that bleed into hours.  2:00 a.m. stares at me from the top of my dresser.  I should be sleeping but my mind won’t shut up and give me a moment of peace.

The shape lying next to me looks so far away, far across a desolate, uninviting desert of blankets.  Our bed seems so much bigger than it ever has before.  Perhaps it is the dream light of the moon slipping quietly in between the thin slits in the blinds or maybe it is my mind playing tricks on me as it remembers the argument we had. Whatever the cause, it certainly seems that if I reach across that desert of blankets I won’t come close to touching her.  Would she hear me if I shouted her name, or would my voice trail off long before it reached her ears?  How can she sleep?

She lays in a fetal position with her back to me, using the smallest portion of the bed that she can fit her body into.  The blanket covering her slowly rises and falls with the steady rhythm of her breathing.  I hold my own breath.  The mechanical sameness of every breath she takes is all that disturbs the silence.  Is she really asleep, or is she pretending?  The pattern of her breath seems much too steady to be faked.  She gasps suddenly and her body convulses like one of those actors pretending to die while a gorgeous doctor - with calculatedly messy hair - yells, “Clear!” and then hits the pretend patient with a defibrillator.  I jump a bit myself, her mid slumber outburst startling me.  She sits up and looks around the room, obviously spooked and disoriented.  Is she awake now?  Can she see anything?  Her head darts around nervously as she scans the room.  She looks right at me and squints, her face wrinkling up like she has a mouthful of raw lemons.  Slowly she relaxes and curls back into sleep.  My questions are answered.

What terror startled her so?  Perhaps she had been falling in a dream.  The worst dreams end with falling.  They say that if you don’t wake up before you hit the ground, you die.  I’m not sure who they are, but that is what they say.  I wonder if you would remember the fall if it didn’t wake you up.  I’m reminded of a reoccurring dream I have that involves falling.  I’m standing at the top of an unbelievably tall cliff.  The earth below looks like it does when viewed from a jet plane, all small and far away.  I feel I’m higher than even jets fly when I’m on this cliff though.  Every time I dream of this place, the sun is setting.  It’s so far away and it does such wondrous and amazing things to the sky.  The colors are shocking and vibrant; blues and pinks, oranges and reds, violets and colors that I don’t even know the names of.  I stare at it with mouth agape.  Then I feel the wind, wind that isn’t there in the beginning but comes after a time.  Prior to my feeling the wind, I’m comfortable and after it begins, I’m freezing.  That is no exaggeration.  I’m not merely cold.  No, I am freezing.  The tone of my skin hints of a pale blue, much like the white walls in my room look bathed in darkness and filtered moonlight, ghostly and ethereal.  I shiver, slightly at first, then violently, almost to the point of convulsion.  My teeth slam together, like chattering but faster and harder.  Always it is like that.

Initially I’m not afraid, just cold and confused.  The wind seems to blow from every direction, swirling all about me like a tornado.  Then I hear a howl behind me, or a screech.  It’s hard to determine the right word.  It’s high pitched on the surface, like a bird whistling with all its might.  However, beneath that squeal is a growl.  It’s deep and guttural.  Primal.  My heart pounds against my chest faster and faster.  Whatever is making that noise sounds to be directly behind me.  At this point, the cold no longer bothers me, yet my body still violently shakes.  I want to run, but the cliff before me offers no route for escape.  I inhale deeply and gather myself.  My fists clench.  Though I’m sure that the size of whatever thing makes a noise like that must be unbelievably immense, instinct or self-preservation takes over.  I spin around.  Nothing.  The howling, moaning, screaming, screeching, whatever that damnable sound is continues.  It comes from all directions, above, below and everywhere.  My hands clamp over my ears as I crouch to my knees, curling into a tight ball.  It just gets louder and louder.  It hurts.  I’m afraid my eardrums might pop.  Then suddenly, it stops.

Everything becomes still, not just calm but completely still, like death.  When I lift my head again, I’m surrounded by perfect white light.  It must be a zillion times brighter than the sun, yet it doesn’t burn my eyes.  The terror flees and the shaking stops.  Then I see it, small at first and then bigger and bigger as it approaches.  I don’t know what it is but I know that I want it.  It’s a sphere of color, not just one color but all colors all at once.  As I look at it, I’m filled with excitement like riding a bicycle for the first time without falling.  It’s as if the whole range of human emotion is rushing through me all equal and at the same time.  Perhaps it’s euphoria or bliss.  I don’t know, but if there is a Heaven this must be what it feels like.

I reach out for it as it approaches.  I stretch myself over the edge of the cliff.  It gets closer and closer to me.  I can almost graze it with my fingertips.  It moves slowly, methodically.  The howling comes again.  This time I’m not afraid.  I stretch further, reaching for my prize, defiant of that ominous, hellish moaning.  It floats just beyond my reach.

Then I see her, that white witch.  She’s not a fairy tale witch, green, ugly, and riding a broomstick.  In fact, she’s quite beautiful save for the terrible smile she wears.  She swoops down at my head, screaming that awful scream.  She circles me and swipes at me with her perfect hands.  I ignore her rants and continue to reach for my prize.  I’m so close now.  I almost have it within my grasp.  I just know that everything I’ve ever wanted is right there, just beyond my fingertips.  I lean out, further still, reaching, stretching, yearning.

Finally, the witch stops her attack.  But then, she does the unthinkable.  She grabs hold of my prize, my desire and she pulls it away.  It’s no easy task for her.  My prize seems to want me as much as I want it.  We stretch toward each other, but the witch is horrible and strong.  I keep reaching and reaching as that damnable, awful witch smiles that wicked smile and screams that grotesque song.  I fall.

The icy wind blasting my face and the wild convulsions in my belly - like butterflies on steroids - should have me terrified.  I’m not afraid though.  No.  I’m empty, lost, alone.  I have nothing.  She has taken it all from me, that witch, that succubus, that hateful spirit.

Sometimes when I wake from that dream, I can still hear that crazy howling.  It lingers.  It always ends with the same kind of startled convulsion that she just had, that shape laying across the bed from me in the darkness.  I wonder if she loses everything in her dreams that end in a start like that.

Her breathing slowly slips back into a steady and mechanical rhythm.  Too many thoughts race and dance through my head for me to find the same sleep that she’s enjoying; the argument we had, the words we said, that thick stack of papers she gave me.  I thought that we had it all planned out but she was cashing out before we hit the jackpot.  I guess it had never been her jackpot anyway.  I don’t think that she ever really wanted it.  It doesn’t matter now; she’s taken it away and given me my choice.  I can leave her and the kids and chase that jackpot on my own or I can forget the whole thing and always be left to wonder what might have been.  What kind of choice is that?  Neither option is anything that I want.  This bed just isn’t big enough.  “Stay on your side of the desert,” I whisper, “witch.”

The things I write aren't always disturbing, dark, or gruesome. Sometimes they are whimsical and silly. Scrubby for instance was an attempt at a children's book that extolled the virtues of proper hygiene. I've had a great bit of trouble trying to find illustrators for the children's stories that I've written though. I'm not sure if it would have amounted to anything. Oh well, if you hate it, at least it was free.

###

Scrubby was a dirty kid.  He never did use soap.

He had a kind of sour smell that made it hard to cope.

His classmates did try to ignore but to no avail.

After just a few moments they’d become quite pale.

Green almost or maybe gray

I’m not so sure.  It’s hard to say

I hope I never look that way!

Then one day in the bathroom Henry washed his mitts.

He lathered, scrubbed and rinsed them just as sure as a cobra spits.

Scrubby saw this oh sure he did and wanted to know what for.

“Why do you do that to your hands?  I’ve not seen that before.”

“To get off all the dirt of course,” was Henry’s reply.

“It’s sure not hard.  Here’s the soap, why not give it a try?”

Scrubby scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed but didn’t stop at his hand.

He scrubbed his arms; he scrubbed his back just as Henry planned.

He scrubbed his back; he scrubbed his front for at least an hour or two.

When he was done the soap was gone no soap for me no soap for you.

That’s okay for us because I think we all agree

now that Scrubby’s scrubbed himself he smells quite nifty!

I’m sitting alone in a musty, dirty room, a barren wasteland save a simple wooden chair in the center that I now occupy.  The walls in this room are a dingy gray that at one time was probably a bright white.  The floor is wood with a layer of dust so thick that my footprints can be seen from the door of the room to my chair.  The door itself is of the heavy wooden persuasion, the likes of which they just don’t make anymore.  There is one window, or rather, a covered hole boarded up with press-board that looks to be deteriorating as time trudges on.  “Why am I here?” might be the question on your mind, and maybe it’s not.  Either way, I intend to explain myself.

          I haven’t introduced myself, and I won’t.  My name is neither relevant nor important.  Think of me as the wonderer.  I am someone who asked too many questions and is now driven to have some answers.  Why should the answer-less questions that mercilessly tax my brain mean anything to you?  I don’t know.  Perhaps they shouldn’t, but you’re still here so I’ll keep talking.

          For quite some time now, one question has troubled me.  What happens when we die?  Do you know?  Don’t bother, even if you were confident enough in your beliefs to offer an answer, I wouldn’t believe it.  That is, of course, unless you had evidence.  Not doo-dah, horse pucky ramblings about faith and heaven and hell, but real, tangible, physical evidence.  I am very confident that no one living possesses that evidence.  Therein lies my dilemma.  The only way to answer my question is to find out for myself.

          Hanging above my head I have fashioned a noose.  I was a boy scout so it’s a damned fine noose if I may say so myself.  It will definitely do the trick.  I must say something now.  I am not crazy by any stretched of the imagination.  Nor am I mentally disturbed in any way.  I am quite sane and logical.  I have accomplished everything on this earth that I wish to accomplish here, except for answering this one question.  Believe me, I have tried.  I have researched it endlessly.  I have spent the better part of the last five years investigating this mystery.  As of yet, I have found no real proof to support any theory currently being employed on the subject.

          I’ve read accounts of people who have had near death experiences and been brought back to life to spin fantastic tales of bright lights and robed figures beckoning them home.  I don’t think that’s evidence.  My reply to those wonderful, warm stories is, when your heart stops, your brain continues to function.  Perhaps your subconscious shows you just exactly what you’re expecting to see.  A body will go into shock to protect itself when traumatized.  Maybe this is a form of that protection.

          I’ve spoken to church officials who assured me that if I give myself to god and give the church ten percent of my income, I can feel confident that upon departure from this life I shall have a peaceful afterlife with god in heaven.  It sounds great, but faith ain’t proof.  Lot’s of different people have faith in lots of different gods and, strangely enough, they all think that they are right.  They can’t all be right.  Nope, no proof here.

          I’ve had logical people try to convince me that when you’re dead, you’re dead and that’s that.  I suppose that’s just as plausible a theory as any other.  What makes us as human beings so much better than the other creatures that we share this planet with?  Why are we so special?  Well, there is only one real way to find out.

          I’m now going to stand up on my chair and slip my head through the noose.  At this point, I’d like to ask that if you have a weak stomach or are in any way not interested in sharing this experience with me, would you please leave now.  For everyone else, I am now kicking the chair out from under me…

          My neck did not snap.  I’m choking…I can feel my eyes bugging out of my head…my head is pounding…I can’t stop kicking my legs…I’m getting dizzy…I think I’m going into shock…my chest burns…hurts…it hurts…everything’s getting black…it hurts…hurts…


The End

The crumbling brick is hard and moist against the back of my head.  I’m not sure how I came to be here, or how long I’ve been here.  I don’t even know where here is.  I’m obviously in a cell in some kind of a tower.  Judging from the view out the one window in the circular room, it’s a rather tall tower.  It must reach thousands of feet into the sky.

I stand up and walk toward the window.  The floor beneath my feet is brick, as is the ceiling above my head.  It is all brick, brick, brick, brick.  Everything is brick in this place, old, pale, crumbling, wet brick.  Well, everything but my cot and the heavy wooden door.  Oh yes, there is also a hole in the door with three thick iron bars covering it.  There, everything is brick except for those few things.  I hate brick.

The window is just three feet in front of me when my progress is halted abruptly by the heavy iron chains that bind me to the wall.  These chains aren’t brick either.  There are two more items.  I forgot about those.  In any event, the window is really just a square hole in the wall.  It doesn’t sport any glass or bars or the sort.  It is just an opening.  All I can see out that hole is water.  Perhaps it is an ocean.  Since I don’t know how I got here, it’s hard to know where I am.  Considering where you are at any given point is completely relative to where you’ve been.  The only thing about my location that I can be completely sure of is that this window faces west.  I know this because I watch the sun set in that direction every day.

I crawl back onto my cot.  It’s cool and damp.  Everything in the room is cool and damp.  I’m surprised I haven’t died of pneumonia or some crazy thing like that yet.  Oddly, my health seems to be holding up pretty well over these…I don’t know.  I don’t know how long I’ve been here.  I suppose it must be years at least, judging from the length of my hair and my beard.  The hair on my face doesn’t grow very well, yet my beard lightly brushes the floor when I walk about.  How long would it take me to grow that much hair?  If I could figure that out, I’d know how long I’ve been here.

Time doesn’t seem to matter much confined within these walls.  At first it did.  I’d keep track of the days by watching the cycle of the sun.  At that time, I’d still been holding on the idea that I’d eventually escape this hell high above the world.  I know now that that will never happen.  Yes, I’ve given up.  I fully expect to die here.  Fortunately, I’ve given up on lamenting my situation as well.  I suppose I’ve accepted my fate.  Though accepting a fate such as this is not my nature.  I guess my nature has changed during my time here, as imaginary as time seems in this place.

A tray slides under the door.  Scrape, click, scrape, click as it slides over the worn brick.  Silence surrounds me as I wait for my host, my keeper, to address me.  I refuse to break it, so she does.

“Your dinner,” she says.  Her voice is sweet and soft like a song.  I know it’s a fake.  That’s not her voice, merely a disguise for the truth of the terror behind her teeth.

I don’t know why she continues to pretend to be some soft, beautiful maiden.  She’s already tricked me and trapped me in this place.  It’s not like I can escape.  Why keep up the charade?  I keep quiet.

She laughs, “I know you’re in there.  Where else would you be?  Such a hero, trapped by a mere woman.  What would they think of you now?  I wonder.”

Still I remain silent.  Let her think I’m escaped or dead.  She calls herself a woman.  She’s a witch, an enchantress.  I was a hero before I fell victim to her wiles.  She sapped my strength, stole my courage.

“You don’t have to speak,” she continued.  “I can smell you.  Go ahead and hide in your cell, coward.  You’ll spend eternity in that damp tomb, and I’ll make sure you live forever to enjoy it.”

“Damn you!”  I can’t keep quiet any longer.  She knows just what nerves to squeeze.  “Why do you keep me here?  You have no use for me.  I remain here in this cell, locked away from the world.  What purpose is there in that?  What good am I to you?”

She stops laughing.  “I know that you’re here.  That is enough for me.”

Then she is gone.  No footsteps, she is just gone.  I don’t bother saying anymore because I know that she is not there.  That is her way.  Engage me in a discussion and then leave before it becomes anything.  I won’t eat my dinner either.  The food can sit there and rot and I’ll starve.  I don’t care anymore.  This isn’t any kind of life.  My eyelids grow as heavy as the bricks that make up these walls.  The world disappears.

I wake to total blackness, surrounded by a seamless void of nothing.  It is as if my eyes are still shut.  I blink them a few times to make sure that they are open.  A few moments doesn’t do anything to help them adjust to the darkness.  Everything remains pitch.  There must not be a moon tonight.  I close my eyes, hoping to find sleep again.  It’s elusive.  I’m wide awake.  Perfect.  How long until morning?

I wasn’t always a prisoner in this tower.  I used to be something, a hero I suppose.  That’s how my people saw me.  I protected my city against armies, ogres, giants, and dragons.  They would stop me in the street to sing me songs of praise.  Then she came.

She wandered into the city one day, cold and alone.  The people in my city are kind, caring, and gullible like me.  The first door she knocked upon was opened to her and she was welcomed in.  She stayed with them for a time and became part of their family.  They treated her just as they would one of their own.  Little by little, her story came out.  She came from a kingdom far across the great ocean of the east.  No one, not even I, bothered to question how such a petite, frail, young girl could survive a trek across the great ocean.  She was just so convincing.  In any event, the dwarves in her kingdom mined the mountains to the north of it.  Apparently they dug too deep and disturbed those things that live in the earth, those things that serve humans best when not thought about.  The mountain exploded and left a pit in the earth a mile across.  Her king sent soldiers to investigate but they never returned.  Animals began vanishing from the fields and folks from the surrounding villages spoke of winged creatures carrying screaming people off in the night.  As time went on, the stories grew wilder and became more frequent.  The king mounted an assault on the pit and whatever the creatures that lived there were.  His forces were slaughtered.  Then it came.

The thing that she described coming out of the ground to take the city sounded like something I knew to be a dwarf myth.  It was a king of the underworld, a demon.  The myth is an old one that tells of the creation of the earth.  During the great battle of the gods, Tsachna was bound up within the earth, trapped in a great mountain.  No one really believed in that myth, but the monster this young girl described certainly fit the description of Tsachna.  Apparently, the dwarves had released him from his prison and he destroyed her city.

According to her, Tsachna was the size of a castle with red, smoking skin.  He had a body like a man, but his head was like that of a dragon with horns all over it.  His mouth was filled with giant, terrible teeth and it dripped fiery lava.  As she spoke of this terror destroying her city, she shivered and wept.  Not one soul doubted the authenticity of her story.  Of course, I was sent to slay the demon.  That was my lot, disposing of those things that would threaten mankind.  She insisted on accompanying me.  Why no one tried to stop her, I’ll never know.

The journey across the great ocean of the east is a long one, a full month or more depending on how favorable the winds are.  Two days into the journey, and my whole crew took ill.  After a week, they were all dead.  The ship was empty except me and the girl.  This girl on the ship was different than the one in the city had been though.  She wasn’t quiet and scared.  No, this girl was aggressive and vocal.  Halfway through the journey, I was intrigued.  By the time we reached shore I’d been enchanted.  The next thing I knew, I was imprisoned in this cell towering high above the world.

It had all been a lie.  Sure, the kingdom was empty, but there wasn’t any ancient demon prowling about.  There weren’t even any signs of a struggle.  The castle she showed me had never seen a war.  For a long time, I didn’t believe it.  I wouldn’t let myself.  Her spell was strong.  She kept me in a confused daze, much like being drunk.  After a while it wore off though.  After a while I saw through her lies.  By the time I did it was too late.  I was already trapped in this place.  I’ve been here ever since.  I guess the people of my kingdom take me for dead.  I might as well be.

The sun must be close to rising.  The first little hints of light begin to break up the blackness.  I slowly rise off my cot and stretch.  Warmth in my muscles seems to chase the tightness away.  I walk toward the window until my chains stop my progress.  Damn chains.  I tug at the right one, much like I always do when walking about.  It gives slightly.  I pull harder.  I can’t see anything, but I definitely hear the brick cracking as the heavy iron plate that’s bolted to it pulls away.  I pause, gather my strength, and pull again.  The chain cuffed to my right wrist clatters and clangs about the bricks.  After a few moments of tugging, the chain fastened to my left wrist does the same thing.  After all of this uncounted time, I’ve loosed my chains.  How many times have I unsuccessfully played at the same exercise?  I can’t even count.

I’m free.  Granted a heavy wooden door stands in my way on one side, while a drop that would frighten the most fearless of hawks waits on the other but still, my binds have been loosed.  I can use my arms.  Hell, I could try to remember when my tongue still had some sweetness and coax that witch in here.  Then I could choke that demon with the very chains she bound me with.

I walk all the way to the window.  I’ve only gone three feet farther than I’ve walked for the last…well I don’t know how long it has been, but it feels like I’m soaring to the sun.  My skin is all tightened up into bumps.  I could shout.  I could sing loud all the songs of freedom I used to sing with my armies after conquering a foe.  I suppress the urge though, lest she hear me and spoil the surprise I have planned for her.  I stretch my head out through the window.

The world swims before me, zigging this way and zagging that way.  It spins like the wheels of a wagon.  Queasiness sets into my stomach as my body heaves.  There isn’t anything in me to expel, but my body heaves again and again in a vain attempt.  My knees weaken and go slack beneath me.  Those damn bricks jump up to smack me in the head.  Once I’m safely on the floor, the dizziness slowly creeps away.  My stomach still feels a bit squishy, but I think the heaving is finished.  The ground is much farther away than I thought it would be.  I’ve never been afraid of heights, but I don’t even like to imagine being this far above the ground.  I crawl back to my cot slowly, afraid to even try standing up.

The sky brightens as I slowly begin to relax.  My breaths are slow, deep, and calculated.  She should be by with breakfast soon.  I need to be ready when she comes.  I’m sure that I’ve lost at least fifty pounds wasting away in this place, but I feel able enough to choke the life out of that witch.  I may be able to do it on will alone.

Scrape, click, scrape, click, the old tray goes and scrape, click, scrape, click, the new one slides in.  Chills dance all up and down my spine as a shiver races through my body.  It is time.  Finally, I’ll get my chance to face down that witch, that demon.  I try my tongue but it lies limp behind my lips.  Where are all those golden words I had planned?  I shout at her in my head.  I imagine everything that I’m going to do to her, but I can’t get my mouth to work.  How can I attack if I can’t even lure her close enough?  Say something damn it!

She speaks before I can.  “Your breakfast hero.  I see you didn’t touch your dinner.  I slave for you and you show no appreciation for my efforts.  Sometimes I wonder why I bother.”

She pauses for a response, but still I can’t muster one.  I’m losing my chance.  No matter how long I’ve been here, one night, unchained, knowing that freedom is just on the other side of that heavy wooden door will surely kill me.  Say something!  Still nothing comes out.

“I can sustain you whether you eat or not,” she goads me.  “Don’t think that you can escape me through death by starving yourself.  I’m a wonderful cook you know.  You may as well enjoy my efforts.”

I fill my lungs until they feel as if they’ll burst in my chest and clench my fists into tight balls.  My whole body tenses as I open my mouth.  Say something!  “I’m sorry dear,” my voice sounds foreign to me, but it is working.  “I wasn’t feeling well last night. I didn’t feel much like eating.”

“Really?”  She knows I’m lying.  “Whatever could be ailing you?  My spells should keep you quite healthy.”

“I don’t know.  I just didn’t feel like eating.”

The room wavers slightly, like a reflection swaying with ripples on the water and she materializes before me.  I keep my arms at my side.  She knows I’ve broken my chains.  I have to make a move.  I can’t.  My arms won’t work and my legs feel limp.  Why am I so afraid of her?  I could wrap these chains around her neck and squeeze the life out of her body.  Why won’t my limbs cooperate with me?

“You’ve been bad,” she smiles.  “What has happened to your chains?  And look what you’ve done to my wall.”

My head slumps.  “I’m leaving.  You can’t keep me here any longer.”

Her laugh is like the wild shriek of an angry dragon.  “Where do you suppose that you’re going to go and what exactly do you think that you can do to me?”

“I could choke you with these chains witch.”

“All of these years I’ve toiled over you, cooking your meals and keeping you comfortable in this grand tower and this is the thanks you offer.  You unappreciative bastard!  Do you think that it’s easy to keep you here?”

I look up at her.  Her eyes are wild and seem to be growing bigger, bigger than eyes should be.  They’re getting red.  Not bloodshot, they are more like fire.  Her hair begins to dance with the same flames.  She expands with every breath she takes.  She’s getting bigger.  Her whole body is glowing as faint flames begin to lick the air around her.

“I’m not afraid of you anymore,” I whisper.  My voice has a weakness that betrays my words, so I say it again, this time with force.  “I am not afraid of you!”

Flames are swirling around her now.  She rants and mumbles.  Her words aren’t anything that I understand.  Maybe it’s another language or maybe it’s just gibberish.  Either way, the volume of her voice seems to increase with the intensity of the swirling flames that engulf her now.  I can barely make out her form in the fire.

The flames come close to my face.  It is like I stuck my head in an oven.  The odor of my eyebrows and ridiculous beard sizzling away fills my nostrils up.  I can’t push any harder against the wall for fear that my skull might crush.  I have to move.  I have to get away.

I jump off the cot to the side of her.  Her fire almost fills the whole room now.  I can no longer see her in the flames.  It is as if she became the flame.  Perhaps the fire exists in place of her.  The only thing I’m quite sure of is that I need to get out.  I can’t get to the door.  I don’t want to burn to death.  It has to be two hundred degrees in this room and it just keeps getting hotter and hotter.  My body is covered in a thick sheen of sweat, glistening like ripe apples after a heavy rain.  The window.

I shuffle towards the hole in the wall, that portal to a view so nauseating.  I can’t look.  I know how far it is.  What would be worse, to burn to death like a greasy steak on the fire, or plummet like a rock and break upon the waves so far below?  The fall will be terrifying, but death will be swift.  I could probably survive the flames for at least a few minutes, burning and watching my flesh get crispy as fat melts and oozes from it.  I dive out the window.

My fall is brief, three feet at best.  The ground is solid beneath me.  Where is the great open space, the miles and miles of my fall?  Slowly I raise my head.  The city surrounding me, my city, is a fat, roasted turkey placed before a starving man.  My eyes devour every brick and every plank of every building.  People walk by my prone body, a mixture of sympathy and loathing drips from there downward glances.  “Poor drunk,” I hear somebody say.  “Get a job you bum,” from somebody else.  Slowly I raise my head.  Some of the faces are people I know but they obviously don’t recognize me.

My hut is behind me.  It was all a lie, an illusion.  All of the time I spent in that tower, and I never really left.  The witch is gone.  I’m free.  The laughter that pours out of my lips is something so foreign to my body that it hurts my ribs, but I don’t stop.  I just laugh harder.

Through the years I have written several short stories, poems, random thoughts, and other nonsense. I'm going to use this space to share these. Some are very polished and some are lightly edited. Have a read and and let me know what you think, if you're so inclined.

Happy Reading!
Mike

So here it is, my first post to my first blog. The last several weeks have been super exciting. The official release of Hell and the Hunger is fast approaching and it is really generating buzz. I think I have slept about three hours total this week trying to keep up with everything. I'm exhausted. It's a good exhausted though, like running a marathon...not that I've ever done that or anything. Typically, if you see me running you should probably run too. I'm not scared of much and I only run when chased. Odds are there is something really big and scary following close behind.

Being that this is my first post in my first blog, I'm obviously new to this. I do intend to add useful content, but I think that will end up in a different category. I need to keep a place open where I can just ramble about whatever happens to be in my head at the moment my fingertips hit the keys. I kind of like the idea of offering up unscripted, unedited thoughts. Let me know what you think of that. If nobody is interested in the dark circus living in my cranium, I'll skip the random musings and stick with finding useful things to blog about.

Today, I have nothing useful. It's midnight, the house is quiet, and my new Hell and the Hunger poster is staring at me from across the room. I love the cover of that book. It's a hell of a story too. I can't wait until you read it!

Good night
Mike