The Mortal Hole
Short fictions by Tom Lichtenberg
Smashwords Edition Copyright 2012 by Tom Lichtenberg
Smashwords Edition: License Agreement: This ebook is made freely available without restrictions for your enjoyment.
Table of Contents
Return of the Sexy Teenage Vampires
Attack of the Sexy Teenage Vampires
The Ghost With The Really Big Tits
Survivor at the Poetry Reading
The Futiles Epikles and other characters
These days you can be too careful. You can be so careful that you miss everything worth anything in this life. My time is short. The doctor told me I would live to seventy two if I was lucky. It's what his computer told him. He punched in all the data about me and out it came. Seventy two. I paid attention since it was exactly what the fortune teller told me when I was only twenty one. She also told me to watch out for people whose names begin with A and N. Like Anne. Or Andy. Or Angela. Angela's the one who owns this crappy newsstand. She don't pay me enough to live on but maybe just enough to make it to seventy two. I'm seventy one already
I've been working this night shift here down in the station for twenty seven years. Is this enough numbers for you? I don't want to lose you or get you confused. A paper used to cost a nickel, then a dime, then a quarter. Now it's what? A dollar for a fricking USA Today? You're paying for all that colored ink they use. Got to have something easy on the eyes. You know how it is. You see a movie, there'd better be tits. It's factored into the price of the ticket. I'm all about numbers. I'm adding them up in my head all day long. Ever since I was a kid I've been adding things up. My first word, they tell me, was "two".
You live long enough you see everything down here. Millions of people streaming by all the time, catching their trains, coming into the city and going back out. It's like schools of fish. Train comes in, legs swarm out, swooping this way and that, out to the street, up above ground. I see them up there too sometimes but mostly by the time I get off and go home it's pretty empty up there. Five in the morning is when I get off. I start around six in the night. It's a pretty long shift but I like it. I've seen every kind of thing at least once. Blood, guts, you name it. Cops call me Willy but my real name is Bill.
I don't know about ghosts but I know about corpses and I've seen them come back. That's right. Angela says it's just I seen so many people they all start looking the same, but I know what I know. They were kids, it seemed liked to me. I can't tell the difference between a high school kid and anybody else under thirty because they all look like high school kids to me now. These two, I pegged them for seventeen or eighteen. First time I saw them, the one called Anne came up to my stand one night and started chatting. She was a lively little thing, short black bangs, bright blue eyes, wore all sorts of rags wrapped around each other in every kind of color. She wanted to know what I would give her.
"I got nothing to give away", I told her, sneering my best 'get lost' look at her. She didn't go for it.
"Come on, Stanley", she said, "There's got to be something."
"The name ain't Stanley", I told her and she laughed.
"It doesn't matter what your name is", she informed me.
"So what's yours then?" I asked.
"Call me Anne," she said. "And give me something".
"So what is it you want?" I was curious. "People Magazine. Us? The Times? It's all that I got."
"You got cigarettes too," she pointed at my stash. I'm sort of not allowed to sell anything but magazines and newspapers and books, but I do a little business on the side. People who know me, know me. I can usually supply a thing or two, depending. It's the only way I made it this far. I don't get carried away, nothing heavy like narcotics, you know. I keep it simple. Barter and trade. There's other people who get stuff too and it's a whole little world down here, especially at night. You probably wouldn't want to know too much. Maybe you're one of those being-too-careful types. If you knew, you might become what they call a witness, and then those cops might call you by your wrong name too. You don't want that. So don't get involved. I'll tell them I never saw you.
"Got any cloves?" she wanted to know. That's when I pegged her for seventeen or eighteen. Clove cigarettes is one of those things you go through when you're of an age and live in a time and place. To me they smelled bad and tasted even worse. I never could understand why a person would ever smoke those things.
"Nothing to give away," I reminded her, and that's when she said the words that made my blood run cold. Well, it didn't exactly run cold but kind of chilly maybe. Definitely less than room temperature. She stopped smiling - she'd been smiling this whole time, like a kid who knew how to work her old grandpa as if he were Santa - and she leaned over close, right up to my face.
"You want to be nice, pops", she said, "'cause I'm going to be here forever".
Something about her voice made me take a step back from the counter and the next thing I knew I was handing over a pack of cloves and shaking my head and trying to get a word or two out, but the words wouldn't come. She grabbed the pack, gave me a wink and slinked away. Next time I saw her was only a few hours later. I had pulled the gate down and stepped out for a coffee when I noticed a crowd gathered around the juice place. I pushed my way through, as curious as anyone, and there she was, little Anne, lying on her back on the ground with her throat slit wide open and with the blood still oozing out. A damn shame, I said to myself.
I didn't see her again for a month. In the meantime I'd picked up another unwelcome guest, a skinny little runt by the name of Andy. He started coming around the day after that girl had died. Same thing almost, word for word. What could I give him? Got any cloves? You want to be nice, old man. I wondered if they had a script or something they'd rehearsed. You better believe I gave the boy those smokes a lot faster than I'd done with the girl. Andy didn't slink away, though I wished he had. He kept hanging around, talking too much. The boy had to tell his life story as if I was someone who cared, as if it was even a good one. So his dad was a junkie and his mom was a drunk. So he'd grown up in the Bowery on the streets. So he knew a good scam when he saw one. So he mostly foraged down here underground where the pickings were choice, in his words. Mostly he stole from the rich and gave to himself. He'd kill if he had to. Said he had had to. Didn't bother him none.
I didn't try and talk back. Mostly I pretended to listen but I heard. There's a lot of bad stuff going on all the time. You think I don't know? Surrounded by all of this news all the time? It's all about who does the most damage wins. It's all pretty small time however. There'd be a lot of accounting to do if there was some god who actually paid attention to all of this shit.
"I do at least one evil thing every day", Andy bragged, "or else I just can't go to sleep. It's my thing."
"At least you got a thing", I snarled. I kept trying to get rid of the kid. It's not like he was bothering me, really. He wasn't interfering with business. Fact is there's a lot of grown men out there who notice a good looking boy so maybe he attracted some flies with his honey. I thought that I noticed an up-tick in trade. He stood by the side of the stand, gazing out at the crowds while all the time talking at me.
"It's got to be seriously evil", he told me. "I won't do a thing if it's not. I'll stay up for weeks if I have to".
"Come on", I snorted. "How many evil things can one person do? There aren't really even that many to start with".
"Sure there are", he informed me, and started listing them out, beginning with murder and rape and the other more obvious things you could think of. By the time he got down to stuff that were just plain mean I stopped him and said,
"Putting a thumbtack on somebody's seat is not what I would call evil".
"It was good for a nap", he replied with a smile, and that's when I saw he'd been messing with me all along.
"You ain't never done nothing", I said. "You just talk."
"How many bad things does a man have to do" he wanted to know, "before you would call him a bad man?"
"At least one," I replied, "and anyway, doing and being are not the same thing".
"You are what you eat", he laughed.
"What are you even doing here?" I asked him. "You've been hanging around me for days just talking and talking, and all full of shit the whole time."
"I've been waiting", he said.
"For what?"
"For my future".
"Right", I sighed. I was stupid for thinking the kid would make sense. He was nothing but a pair of lips flapping.
"There she is now", he said quietly and I looked up and saw her, heading my way. It was her, it was Anne, the same girl who had died. I know it wasn't only some lookalike. She was almost exactly the same except now along with her rags she was wearing a scarf wound up to her chin. She came straight for the newsstand, didn't seem to see Andy. He was just staring at her, and me? I was gaping at one, then the other, then back.
"Nice to see you, Stanley", she said, but there was no smile on her face and her lips barely parted when she talked.
"You got something for me?" she asked.
"What is it you want?" I managed to say.
"You know what I like", she replied.
"Have one of mine", Andy spoke up. He took a step closer to her and held out a clove cigarette. She turned her entire body toward him. There was a long moment when I swore nothing moved in the whole underground. The lights seemed to go dark and everyone stopped. I felt like I couldn't even breathe.
She looked straight into him with wide open eyes. She was something, that girl. Her eyes were not blue anymore, they were black, and you could feel the heat rising around her as if she were a walking power plant. I thought the sweat would come off me in puddles. Andy had nothing to say. He just held out his hand until she reached out and took the smoke off him. Then she turned her whole body back toward me and whispered.
"I told you I'd be here forever".
"How did you know?" I wanted to say, but I didn't say nothing. I noticed some movement around me. The world was all coming back into life and when I let out a breath she was gone.
"That's why I'm here", Andy said.
"You were waiting for her?"
"I never wanted something so badly", he told me. "The first time I saw her. I just had to have her".
"But you couldn't", I guessed.
"There was only one way", he nodded.
"That really was evil", I had to admit.
"Thanks", Andy smiled. "Do you believe in me now?"
"So what's next?"
"Stick around and you'll see", Andy said.
"I don't have much time", I told him. "It's my birthday next week. I'll be seventy two. I could die any time".
"You and me both".
"What do you mean?"
"She's going to need me now, but not the way I am now. Not like this."
"Don't tell me. I don't want to know".
"Don't worry about it, Stanley", he said. "Just keep some of those cigarettes handy. We'll be around. That's for sure."
They made a cute couple, I kept telling myself, weaving their way in and out of the crowds. There was always some out of the way corner where the kids could forage for blood. They took a little from here, a little from there. Nobody missed it. Nobody knew. It's the aftertaste, though, that's what they hate, and that's why the clove cigarettes. I always had wondered about that.
Now I know.
Return of the Sexy Teenage Vampires
Some bad things happen mostly during rush hour. People are careless. They're tired and not paying as much attention as they should. They fail to see things that are right in front of them. They see other things which aren't even there. They hear the noises of the crowd but later wonder why their arm is bleeding. It was just a scratch, but still, how did that happen? Moss Staley was only taking the train home from work the same as always. He got on at Civic Center, got off at Balboa Park. It was nothing but a ten minute ride, the same as every other day of the week, every other week of the year, no reason to wind up in the hospital with a massive infection spreading wildly throughout his body, putting him in a coma, not even wondering where he was.
He was wondering, instead, how he got there. In his mind, undetectable and unknowable from without, the scenes replayed and repeated incessantly. Something inside him knew there was an answer on the tapes. The visions scrolled past in slow motion, no audio now, just images. It began, he had a feeling, on the sidewalk on Market Street. Usually he walked quickly to the subway entrance, not wanting to see, not wanting to know about the hordes in rags lining the thoroughfare, some muttering quietly, others shouting. This one was shouting. Moss couldn't hear it now but he shivered at the memory of the words.
“Hey pigs! how's your little world now? How's your master, the Devil? Must be proud, eh, pigs?”
Over and over, it began with “hey pigs!” and concluded with “eh, pigs?” in a perfect symmetry of invective. Moss had glanced up and seen the hateful face, contorted with venom on a small, slight balding gent. The man had seen him too and faked a lunge toward him, fists squeezing tight. Moss flinched and scurried onward. Don't look up again, he scolded himself. He knew he was in the presence of the burgeoning night life, surrounded by the newly runaway and the soon-to-be completely forgotten. He didn't want to feel the shame of really not giving a fuck about those losers. Hadn't he been a runaway himself and never ended up on the streets like that? Was it only luck, or were these children lacking some ingredient he unwittingly had.
That was ages ago, of course. He was long since past those days. Respectable, in fact, with his honest day's work and his honest day's pay, with his railroad flat, his mountain bike, and his annual new shoes. The images of these prized possessions flashed through his fevered mind as he lay on that hospital bed, unseen nurses worrying above him. Down he went, down the white tiled honeycombed stairway, following the blue line to the gates and tugging out his wallet for the ticket which he slipped into the slot and felt much safer then. Those people hardly ever came down into the tracks. That was money. Now it was only more of his kind of folks, the working kind. They had all survived that rush and stood there on the platform, watching the subway scoreboard and waiting for their own. He could jump on any train since they were all going to go his way. What wasn't?
The job was looking up. Harriet Clinch had hinted at promotion. He was almost certain his data entry skills were becoming more and more appreciated. At hardly an error a month, he was leading the pack. He wished they posted the tally more publicly, like at those oil change places where they tell you how long it's been since somebody screwed up. He had flirted openly with Gwendolyn on Tuesday, and here it was Thursday and as far as he knew she might have even noticed. The thought of her and certain of her curves caused Moss to look around. There. Who was that? Huge black eyes were the first thing he noticed, and a black turtleneck, fitting tightly on a slender frame, some kind of raggedy skirt below that looked like it was made of strips of multicolored crepe paper. He scanned the girl back up again. There was nothing in those eyes, eyes that looked directly at him, or through him more likely. He felt a heat off her gaze and looked away but the image was stamped in his mind. He knew he was going to think of her later.
Later. The seconds ticked off slowly as the train did not arrive and the crowd around him grew, thicker and thicker by the moment. Moss stood still, rooted in his spot, the spot he always planted himself in, night after night after night. Anyone who watched would know. Anyone who watched would, “why would anyone watch?” he asked himself and didn't want to think about the answer. Bad things tend to happen around this time, he told himself. People aren't paying attention. They're tired and only want to go home. It's the perfect time to do bad things if you were a doer of same. He didn't want to think about things like that. He noticed with relief that the next train was only a minute away. What could happen in a minute? Nothing bad, he decided. In fact, it wouldn't even hurt to take another look around.
She wasn't there. He turned and craned his neck to find her through the bodies now blocking the view but she was not to be seen. He looked in every direction, past the overly perfumed woman blabbing on her cellphone, around the big man struggling to fold up his sports section, through the identically dressed twin hags, but his eyes couldn't find the black-eyed girl. Somebody jostled against him. Moss kept his balance and kept his spot and turned to his right to give a scolding look at the offender. For a moment, he thought it was her, but quickly realized his mistake. This one was a boy, but it was an honest error. The boy was almost exactly the same size, and wore a black shirt, long-sleeved like hers (probably to hide his tattoos from his boss, Moss considered). The boy had a Mediterranean look. Moss in his coma was smiling at the phrase. Mediterranean. Lean-faced, soft cheeked, almost like a girl, almost like that girl. The boy smiled at him, a sort of apology smile, Moss guessed. Moss did not smile back. I'm not into boys, he told himself, not admitting the fact that if he was, he would be. There was something about this one.
The train should have come by now and the crowd felt the same way he did. He could feel the restlessness blowing through them like a breeze. No, it was a breeze, the oncoming rush of the train. The noise was coming too and Moss forgot about the boy, instead inspecting his spot and calculating the imminent shoves and pushes. He took a final look around as the train rushed in, and noticed, with a shock, the girl on his left, nearly leaning against him. Again he felt a kind of steam rising off her, and then her smell of freshly pressed clean laundry. She was looking at him, too, looking up at him and narrowing her eyes slightly. His eyes got tangled in her beauty. No other word for it, not even now, he realized and he knew in a flash he'd been wrong. Anything could have happened in that particular moment and he would never know it. And it was just a moment. The train was whistling to a standstill and the crush began behind him, shoving him toward the doors. The girl was gone. The boy was gone. Moss was hustled into the car and practically hurled against the far side of the car. He was sure she must be there but as much as he looked he saw no sign of her.
All the way through the Mission and through Glen Park he searched for her. After a brief uncertainty, he even broke his protocol and left his initial spot, making his way through the car, up and back, and even to the next car, and finally doubling back and venturing into the one behind. Finally he gave up. He must have missed her due to that initial hesitation and she must have gotten off at 16th Street. Sure she did. She would. A girl like that would certainly go there. He babbled in his mind, kept babbling, thinking of the girl and not even knowing why. There was nothing that special about her, just her black eyes, and her short, straight black hair, but no body, really, and he usually liked a woman with a body. In his dreams he did, at least. In the real world he'd hardly ever seen one. Gwendolyn has a body, he reminded himself.
“Gwendolyn has a body” was the sentence running through his mind when he stepped off the train and immediately collapsed onto the platform, blood pouring out from his right arm, just above the elbow. “Gwendolyn has a body”, he told himself, having no idea what could have happened to him. He could tell that there were people shouting, and just before he retreated entirely into his endless video stream he heard a quiet voice slip into his ear, a voice that must have been delayed somehow, that must have spoken earlier but taken all this time to go from mouth to ear to brain.
“Sorry, man”, the quiet voice said, and he knew it was the boy.
Attack of the Sexy Teenage Vampires
"Grubby animals!" he said. "Just look at them, crawling all over the place like vermin. They disgust me."
"Good they don't feel the same about you," she gave him a look.
'They would if they knew," he countered, but he knew it would never occur. To them he was only a boy, or else a young man, a little thing to notice, admire and want. The same with her. Together they'd been around long enough to sense, even to smell the meagerest whiffs of attraction.
"The one in the suit," he said.
"Is mine," she quickly offered up. This game they played. How fast they could know. Any man or any woman might be a target for the boy or else for the girl. It was important to know which, because in that knowledge lay the whole of the tactic. Plus, there were different methodologies of approach. Most were resistant to the simple and direct. You had to play games with these creatures. You had to be shy or be bold, be quick or be slow, be discreet or be flamboyant. Some could never be coaxed from their shells. Others would leap at the slightest opportunity. For example, the one in the suit. This one was hiding his secrets. He'd been alone for many years now but worked hard at trying not to show it. Already balding a bit and putting on weight, he went through a rigorous exercise routine to keep his middle-age years a little at bay. Up on the streets he walked with a purpose, eyes fixed on a distant destination. This way the muggers would not draw near. Never let them see a moment's hesitation. Hadn't he been through the gauntlet in his time? Hadn't he felt the blade of knife on throat? Not to be caught off guard, and the same was true for love; burned once, burned twice and burned again but after that it was going to take a lot for him to even twitch at a hint of an interest. What he didn't know about himself was something the seemingly young girl could tell. He thought he was still twenty four. That meant bait. That meant it was in his mind that she - what was she? seventeen? - might actually be in his range.
"But worth it?" the girl suggested doubt.
"Thin blood," the boy agreed. All this while waiting for the train that never came, the N-Judah line at rush hour. The cluster of beasts thickened while the youths sat on the round stone slab selecting meat as if it was their personal Mongolian barbecue stand. The one in the suit had no idea and never would.
"Lady Perfume," the girl sniffed out.
"Nice flesh," the boy said, inspecting the flabby arms. He liked to see them wobble about. It meant for easy pickings.
"Keep your teeth in," the girl advised as she observed some tightening of his brow.
"Share and share alike," he reminded her. Teeth were out of date. Nowadays the talent used a needle, just a prick is all it took. They had high tech drainage power these days, could pull half a pint in seconds flat. It didn't take much. The old school operators worked alone but you could spot them easily. Rags. Bad hair. You've got to keep up with the times. You need to go above ground and get some fresh air and let the wind take the stench of the station off of yourself. A pro needs to travel, keep moving around. You can't keep haunting the same old locales. You'll be spotted, too easily. They have cameras and stuff these days, old man. No loitering, and stay on your toes.
These two made it their business to see the world, although they had a definite preference for certain coastal American cities. It was the menu, mainly, which provided variety, taste and substance. You can't have the same old filling cow-fed obesity all of the time, a trend so dominant they now rode the rails right across the heartland, never even stopping, and forget about the south. Don't even go there, child.
"Pick of the litter," Andy announced, winking off to his right.
"Diamond clad dinner," she clicked, and on her feet went straight for the prize. Tall young man, looked army, like a fighter, with a tattoo on his neck that practically declared himself food. She, a scrawny little thing, all pale and black, sporting that retro Goth thing those days, even with a sapphire stud pierced through her cheek, worked her way towards him. He, big man, heaving that duffel bag over his shoulder like he really was going off to war that very minute, was looking above the crowd. From his height it was like a sea of evening hairdos all coming undone. Lord of all he did survey.
The boy followed Anne as she made her approach. This was going to be fun. Was she going to step on the guy’s foot or bump against his knee? Had to make herself known to him somehow. He'd never notice that tiny thing down there. Ooh, she did one even better. A hand so careless brushing up against ass and holding, hold it right there for just a moment. The apparently awkward looking-up chagrin. The looking-down what's that? Oh, that!
"Sorry," she barely whispered. He had to lower his head to catch it.
"Come again?" he asked in his husky military man way.
"It's just so crowded," she shrugged but touching him again with the same hand, this time on the side of the leg just below the belt. He had to look down there at the fingernails painted the same as the stud, and didn't he notice some eyeliner sparkles that color as well? Yes, she had a grace, and the thing was, he could have snapped her in two and that was definitely a part of it. He was turning, and as he turned, the boy did his thing, a stick and move jab with the point that would have made any old heavyweight proud. Big boy never felt it. Big man was all attention to the girl and she was now gliding away, just vaguely, peeling off into the crowd that somehow became a herd to the man, crude stupid beasts that were blocking his way to this catch and then wouldn't you know it, the stupid N-Judah arrives, and army boy has to go catch his train. For two whole stops he thinks about her and what could have been, and then there is this redhead getting on at Van Ness. But they had already forgotten about him.
"A-B positive," the boy said, licking the glass.
"Give me some of that," she grabbed it from him and took a long draw.
"Delicious," she said with a smile.
I was at work one day when my wife called to tell me she was hearing some weird sounds coming from the kitchen. She said it was like a rustling noise, as if someone was crumpling up newspapers behind the sink. I said she should just ignore it, but she said "easy for you to say". She was trying to get some work done and it was driving her crazy.
"Maybe it's mice," she suggested.
"Or rats," I said to myself after pausing to think long enough not to say it out loud. There was no sense in making the situation any worse. I told her I'd look into it when I got home, but if she had some other suggestions she should go right ahead and do whatever she thought best.
"I don't want to do anything," she replied. "I guess I'll just go into the office after all."
That night when we got home we didn't hear anything in the kitchen. I decided to inspect the perimeter of the house to see if there was any way any varmints could have gotten in, but I was already pretty sure of the answer. Our house was made of cinder block walls and a solid cement floor. There were no cracks that I could find, nothing to indicate there was any entry point for rats or mice or squirrels or anything like that. It could have been cockroaches, I thought, except that where we lived there were no cockroaches. Ants don't typically make a lot of noise so I ruled them out as well.
"It was coming from behind the sink," my wife reminded me, so we got out the flashlight and looked under there. It was possible. We had redone the kitchen at one point and put in new cabinets that were not flush against the concrete walls. If something had somehow found a way into the house, and then behind the cabinets, there was definitely a few inches of horizontal space behind the kitchen sink that could be inhabited. And there was a way in from the front, an electrical outlet that did not have a cover around it.
There were two questions now. One, how did it get there, and two, how to get it out, whatever it was. A trap didn't make sense until we had a better idea of what the thing was - or things were, if there were more than one of them - and the same went for poison. I was all for poison, though. I could take the temporary stench of a decaying corpse of any kind as long as it meant an end to the problem. If there really was a problem. After all, I had never yet heard a thing, and didn't hear the noises for a few days after that.
It wasn't until the weekend, when I happened to be around at mid-morning when I did finally hear it. Like my wife had said, it sounded like something crumpling paper, or crackling those really tiny packing material things that go off like little fireworks when you crease them with your palm. I tip-toed into the kitchen as if I was afraid it would stop at my approach, but it didn't. The noises continued. I could narrow it down, not to behind the kitchen sink, but over to the right a bit, behind the cabinet where we used to keep the cat food before we finally got rid of the damn cat.
It had to be rats. I don't know why I came to that conclusion, but I had had some experience with rats in a previous lifetime, and I thought I could smell them now. I decided again not to tell my wife about this suspicion, but went down to the store and bought some poison. This poison came in pretty blue blocks that allegedly tasted like peanut butter. That ought to do the trick, I told myself, and rushed home to toss a couple of the blocks through the open electrical outlet. Then I stood back and waited, silently for a time, unti finally I heard some tiny creeping noises, as whatever it was seemed to scurry closer and closer to the poison. I imagined I could hear gnawing then, and chewing, and swallowing, and just as I was about to do a silent fist pump celebration, I heard a frantic squeaking come from behind the sink, and then a banging sound like a little tiny head being bashed against a wall. I stopped in mid-pump and held my breath in anticipation of more victimly outbursts, but instead there was silence, Just like that.
We didn't hear any more sounds after that, and didn't smell any rotting corpses either. It was as if the poison had managed to evaporate the creature, or teleport it bodily to another dimension. Several times during the following week I inspected the perimeter of the house, but saw no dead creatures, and found no cracks. The whole thing remained a mystery, and I was on the verge of depositing the remaining poison blocks in the trash, when my wife shushed me one morning, and directed my attention once again to the kitchen. It was back. Or they were, whatever it or they was or were. The same scratchy noises. The same rustling paper, coming now from the other side, to the left of the sink instead of off to the right. I hurried to put some more poison down and waited for the familiar chomping, but it didn't take the bait this time. I waited and waited but all I got for my patience was to be treated to the endless rustling, which was beginning to really make me mad. I was thinking about ripping out the entire cabinet system just to see, just to find out what was back there, and hopefully kill it dead and find the hole it crawled in from and stop it up as well. But that would have cost a lot of money, so I backed away from that decision. My wife would not have gone for it either, at least not yet.
That day would come soon enough, the day the things began to speak. At first we couldn't make out the words. They were whispered and rushed and unclear. It didn't even sound like words the first time we heard it. It sounded more like somebody who couldn't whistle trying really hard to whistle, and I know what that sounds like because I'm one of those people who do that. My wife and I crept into the kitchen and sat at the table and strained our ears, because the sound was somehow oddly compelling. It was almost like music. She was the first one to realize it was speech. It was all sped up, she told me, like one of those old record players you could play the records faster than you were supposed to. I don't know how she understood it, and for a few minutes I figured she was maybe going crazy. That was not necessarily a new idea, but I thought about it long enough not to say it out loud. What was the point, after all? I did try to make some suggestions about what it could be, but she kept shushing me, so eventually I shut up and just listened, and then suddenly it began to become clear even to my waxy ears. It did sound like speeded up words, high-pitched and silvery but definitely English. There were syllables I could make out now and then, like '-er' and 'un-' and '-tion', but never an entire word altogether. My wife was having no better luck. This had gone on for something like a half an hour when I just lost it. I jumped up and stomped over to the sink and shouted as loud as I could, "WILL WHATEVER YOU ARE JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP?"
That did the trick. There was no further conversation or whatever you call it for the rest of that day. But that was the last time I yelled at them. After all, it wasn't their fault. Over time, we got to understand what they were saying, those poor creatures. We got used to the noises and didn't even try to poison them again after we found out more about them. They were only people, after all, unlucky people who'd been careless enough to have this appalling misfortune catch up with them. Yes, they were irrelevant and that was partially their own doing. Their lives were pointless and meaningless, true, but lots of our lives are like that, and we don't all have to pay such a price. No one could explain it. It didn't make any sense, but somehow, some way, they were people who had gotten lost in the system, fallen through the cracks, and there they were, and there was nothing anyone could do about it. At least they're not nocturnal, and once my wife explained her work-at-home situation, they were more considerate about when they voiced their futile complaints. I still think about tearing the house down some days, but mostly I just live with it. You can get used to pretty much anything in this life. At least that's what they tell me.
The Hook Of course this was a long time ago when boys didn't know it was okay to like boys, and girls didn't know it was okay to like girls, so everybody had to pair up, boy-girl, boy-girl, like that. And it was a campfire thing too so it was going to be romantic with lots of holding hands and sheepish grins. We were all eleven years old and just starting to play spin-the-bottle on play-dates. Most of the girls were just budding out and the boys were way, way behind. It was going to take a lot of catching up. And the girls were the leaders. They were in charge. It was Sally Gilotto and Masie Brown who decided everything important, like who would sit where. Sally had picked out Joey Vito, and Masie had her Willie, of course. When you were the only two black kids in a racist-as-hell eye-talian ghetto, you were going to be sitting with each other and liking it. That didn't stop Masie from bossing around all the other girls except Sally. She was the biggest and the loudest and the meanest so you'd be doing what she told you. She told Anna to ask Johnny to sit with her. She told Bonnie to ask Jim. If it wasn't Masie giving instructions, then it was Sally. Between them they divided up all the girls and instructed them on their impending partnerships. Not all the girls were happy about this. Rae Ellen, in particular, was not going to be touching Stevie the Albino no matter what anybody said. She might sit next to him, but there was going to be no physical contact of any kind. She said so right to Masie's face and Masie leaned into her and said, "You don't let him hold your hand, I'll tell him to grab your ass." "You better not," Rae Ellen gasped. "Then you better," Masie advised her. The girls were holding a council in the woods. There wasn't a teacher in sight and wouldn't be for a while. This was "free" time, meaning the teachers were free of the pests they were going to have to supervise during the school overnight expedition to Dead Man's Creek. They'd already casually mentioned "The Hook" to the children, so they wandered off to let the kids worry about that. There was nothing the teachers liked better than to scare the crap out of these brats, and the old story about the escaped convict with a hook for a hand who was said to haunt this park was always good for a grownup snicker. The eleven "other" girls were gathered in a circle around Sally and Masie while receiving their marching orders. After doling out assignments, Masie walked slowly around the circle, sticking her face into every subordinate one and asking, in her quiet, unfriendly way, "That okay with you?" and every girl nodded until she got to Rae Ellen. "I won't," Rae Ellen declared. The other girls got nervous. Rae Ellen was nearly as tall as Masie, and heavier, but notoriously slow of foot and usually a coward. She was always the first one out at dodge ball, and the last one to turn in her homework. Masie sighed, and took a step back. Rubbing her chin, she squinted at Rae Ellen and asked, "Who'd you rather go with, then?" Rae Ellen didn't have an answer to that. She had to think about it for a minute. Of course, those were the days when girls didn't know it was okay to like girls, otherwise she would have blurted out, "Why, you of course!" to Masie, but instead she filtered through the roster of boys in the class, easily dismissing one after another. "I don't know," she shrugged. "How come it has to be anyone anyway?" "Because. It's. A. Camp. Fire.", Masie uttered slowly. "This is how it's done." "I don't like it," Rae Ellen insisted. "Listen!", Masie snapped. "You got two choices, girl. Stevie the Albino, or", and here she smiled her cruelest smile, "or Walter." Sally burst out laughing, and little Emmy looked relieved for a second. As the runt of the litter she was always getting stuck with Walter. It was her doom. She no longer even resisted. Walter was big and Walter was fat and Walter smelled terrible and Walter was not even nice, whereas Emmy was exactly the opposite, but the popular girls had hated her ever since forever so what could she do about it? She wouldn't have minded Stevie the Albino for a change. Sure, he was pale and kind of creepy, but at least he wasn't Walter. "No way," was Rae Ellen's immediate response, followed by a silence in which her personal space was completely inhabited by Masie's awful leer. "All right," Rae Ellen finally muttered. "Girls!" Sally announced, clapping her hands. "Our work here is done. Off with you now. Go get your boys." "Dismissed!" Masie ordered, and the circle broke up. Soon there were only the two leaders standing there in that spot. "What'd you think about that?" Masie asked her partner. "I knew she'd cave," Sally laughed. "That girl is missing a spine." "I'm going to tell Stevie to grab her ass anyway," Masie joked as the two sauntered back to the cabins. Stevie was game. He'd grab anyone's ass. This kid was pining for action. "When should I do it?" he asked Masie as they conferred behind the boys' bathroom. "Anytime she gets up, after at least one campfire song," Masie concluded after some careful consideration. "Anytime after the first song. You might have to make her get up, though." "How'm I going to do that?" asked Stevie. He had as much imagination as pigmentation. "I don't know. Tell her there's a spider or something", counseled Masie. "Oh, good one," Stevie chortled. "She'll freaking flip." "And grab her good," Masie advised as she left. "Get a handful." "I will," Stevie promised. "You bet I will," he added to himself, rubbing his palms together as if trying to set his hands on fire. The boys went along with the plan like the captive little sheepdogs they were. Girls were girls and were temporarily ascendant. Next year they'd get even. Next year they'd start to shoot up and get even more wild and already the lead boys were dreaming of exploits and daring adventures. Right now all they wanted to do was jump off of rooftops and skate into oncoming traffic. The whole campfire thing was ridiculous, not to mention the stupid "hook" thing. Johnny's older brother had already spilled the beans about that. The whole thing was a lie and a scam. Stupid teachers. As if there wasn't enough dumb stuff in their lives already. The worst part was the gathering. Clumsily, the boys all held out their sweaty hands for the allotted girls to grab and lead them to the clammy hard logs they had to sit on throughout the campfire ordeal. It was already dark and getting cold and Mr. Pettiway - no surprise here - was having trouble getting the wood to light. Mrs. Rango cleared her throat a lot and made some dreary announcements about breakfast and kitchen duties and cleanup duties and "the big hike" across the little stream and around and back again that was supposed to take up most of the morning to come. The only boys who were happy to have a girl's hand in their own were Joey and Willie, who knew they were going to get some fondling action in later. Stevie the Albino had Rae Ellen's firmly in his, squeezing it so tight it hurt. She elbowed him and whispered for him to loosen up but he just grinned and pretended he was paying attention to Mrs. Rango. He was going to make this girl pay for all the other girls who'd ever made fun of him, and that was a pretty large number. He couldn't help it if he was different. It wasn't his fault he looked like a lab rat and had the personality of one too. He was born with a desire for vengeance and this was a golden opportunity. He couldn't wait for the singing to begin. It was Mr. Pettiway - no surprise here again - who finally got the festivities underway with a rousing version of "she'll be coming around the mountain when she comes", a time-honored favorite of two-year-olds everywhere. Stevie sang as loud as he could, and as directly into Rae Ellen's hostage ear as possible. Rae Ellen was not having fun. It only got worse when the song ended and Stevie the Albino shouted, "Look out! A spider!", and Rae Ellen leaped to her feet, ripping her hand out of Stevie's, who promptly used that very same hand to grab her right cheek and squeeze it as hard as he could. Rae Ellen screamed. The teachers and most of the other kids were startled, but Sally and Masie just laughed and laughed while Rae Ellen beat Stevie the Albino on the head and tore herself away from his grasp. Then she tumbled and fell and hit her head on one of the log benches and banged her knee and tore her dress all down the side. She got up sobbing and lumbered off into the dark woods, which only made Sally and Masie laugh even harder. "So slow", Sally choked. "Couldn't outrun a turtle", Masie added, while Mrs. Rango and Mr. Pettiway exchanged glances challenging the other to run off after Rae Ellen. Mr. Pettiway's glance said "well, she IS a female", so that meant Mrs. Rango was the one who had to go. Her return glance must have advised him to start up a rendition of "oh what a beautiful morning, oh what a beautiful day", because that is precisely what he did. Mrs. Rango had been teaching the sixth grade for seventeen years, so she knew what she was about. She had a flashlight all ready in her warm jacket pocket, and she'd hunted down stray girls in the woods on occasions before. This was not going to be a problem. All she had to do was follow the sound of the whining and before you knew it, she would get to sit out there in the dark and try and calm the miserable creature down. Although it was early in the school year, she already knew Rae Ellen pretty well, having watched her being kicked around on the playground for years. The kid always found a quiet corner and moaned loudly. This time, however, was different. As Mrs. Rango ventured into the trees she heard nothing but the obnoxious singing of her talentless colleague. Flashing her light in every direction, she was certain the girl had gone further, so she followed the only vague path she could see. Soon she was deeper into the woods and the campfire singing had faded into a distant hum. The only sounds now were the occasional owl and a rustling of the first autumn leaves to come down. Mrs. Rango slowed her pace, and peered about more cautiously. She considered doubling back, that she had gone too far as it was, but she convinced herself that Rae Ellen was definitely not back there, or she would have spotted her the first time. Minutes ticked away as Mrs. Rango moved further and further into the trees. She could hear the bubbling sounds of the stream coming steadily into range. There was no bridge in this direction. She would be able to get no further than the water. Rae Ellen could not have gone past either. She was certain she would find the girl there, if not sooner., Mrs. Rango was still calm and full of confidence, but at the snapping of a twig somewhere off to her left, she remembered the story of the hook, and her serenity fled. It was not a fairy tale. The man with the hook did exist. He was real. His name was Homer Perkins and he'd been convicted of multiple assaults and a murder. He had lost his right hand during a robbery, when he'd had to chop it off himself to get free from a cast iron door that had slammed down as he was making his getaway. He had escaped from prison about seven years earlier, and was last seen right there around Dead Man's Creek. "Nonsense", she said to herself, as she whipped around anxiously, waving her flashlight as if it could ward off all evil. Nevertheless, she turned back before reaching the stream. She made her way quickly, returning to camp in far less time than it took her to search, but when she returned empty-handed, she suddenly felt foolish and embarrassed. She marched up to Mr. Pettiway, who had held up his hands to make the children stop singing when Mrs. Rango appeared. She whispered two words. "Your turn", and dismissed him with a wave of her hand. Mr. Pettiway was also prepared with a flashlight and dutifully marched into the night. He was gone a long time. Mrs. Rango kept the kids occupied with pseudo-scientific babblings about nocturnal animals and their habits. Rae Ellen returned very quietly and wasn't noticed for several minutes. It was Walter who pointed her out. "Hey, Lookee here," he exclaimed. "Look what the cat drove in." "Hi," Rae Ellen shyly waved to the crowd. "Welcome back," Mrs. Rango declared, and walked over to her. She sat down beside Rae Ellen and calmly asked if there was anything she needed. Rae Ellen whimpered a bit that she would like to go and change, so she did. The kids took advantage of her and the teacher's absence to jump around and shout and finally stop holding hands. They were so sick of holding hands. They were sick of being chained to each other like that. Before a minute was gone, all of the girls except Sally and Masie were gathered together, and all of the boys except Joey and Willie were grouped up on the opposite side. Those couples remained as they were and ignored all the rest. Mr. Pettiway later declared it was the worst trip ever. He'd somehow ended up the stream, staggered back soaking wet and wound up in the hospital with pneumonia. Still, he felt lucky. When the hook had reached out and seized him by the collar, and he'd been spun around and seen that look in those eyes, he thought for sure he was a goner.The Ghost With The Really Big Tits
This is a true story. I swear it on my grandmother's tomb. At least I think it's true, and I would swear it on my grandmother's tomb if I had any idea where it was, or even if she has one. We never talked much, granny and me. I'll take the blame for that. After all, when she died I was only two months old and not able to add much to any conversation, let alone a chat with a ninety-eight year old lady. Then no one ever told me much about her, like where she was buried or maybe she was cremated and they sprinkled her ashes somewhere special. All I ever had of granny was an old photograph of when she was young. She was a pretty girl.. A very pretty girl. The kind of girl who never has a chance to be anything else than that very pretty girl everybody was always saying she was, the same kind of girl this story is about.
The girl's name was Gloria Gatusso and she died when she was only seventeen. Hit by a car, just like that. One day she's walking down the street, minding her own business, attracting all the usual attention she drew whenever she went anywhere or did anything. The next thing you know, this red pickup truck comes careening across the lanes, right up on to the sidewalk, smashing her into the big glass window of Sam's Coffee Shop. She died instantly, everybody said. Never felt a thing. And it was a damn shame, they all agreed, because she was such a pretty girl, a pretty girl with really big tits. Oh, and such a nice girl too. Everybody liked her. Everyone. She always had a smile and a kind word on her lips and it was said she was the same girl at seventeen as she's been at seven, as she'd been at two months old - the most beautiful, and the sweetest baby ever born. You could never get too far into a conversation about Gloria without her beauty taking over. It was her shadow and followed her everywhere, even after her death.
It was only a few weeks after "the accident" that the first report began to circulate. She'd been seen. She was still there. At Sam's Coffee Shop, in the window, and she was gorgeous and smiling and happy. The young man who reported this vision had never known Gloria in life, or even heard of her. He'd been walking down the street when he saw this apparition and, startled, stopped and stood gaping at her. She was looking right at him and he turned around to see if there was someone else behind him she might have been looking at, but there wasn't. He turned around again, and she was gone. Curious, he went inside and asked about the girl he'd just seen in the window. Sam, the crusty and greasy old bastard who ran the place, shook his head and grumbled he didn't know what the guy was talking about. There was no pretty girl, no girl at all in the window, or in the diner itself for that matter. There were only a few old drunks nursing lukewarm coffees and stale breakfast rolls. The young man described the girl in great detail, not neglecting to mention her rather large breasts, of course, as well as her mane of very blond hair, those big blue eyes and bright red lips, the light blue sun dress that clung very nicely to her body and the white leather pumps on her feet.
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