Three stories, short and true. / And misc writing, apparently.

[Cardinal Pizza Deliverance.]

I wrote some stuff during NaNo to amuse myself when the stories I was working on didn't want to go my way. Here's one, I fancied it the beginning of a child's book. :P

"Lock the windows," bitter Aunt Agatha ordered, scrunching her lips up into a circle of ruched skin.

Ent sighed. "And the doors. Salt the drains, cover the electrical outlets. Draw the blinds and plug the tub."

Aunt Agatha nodded sharply, precisely. As if filleting a fish with the jut of her chin. She turned and left the house, disappearing into the night with a flap of wind-blown linen and the crinkle of ancient crinoline. Ent sighed again, then began the nightly ritual of securing every possible entrance point. Stupid Aunt Agatha and her mouth like a cat's chapped asshole. It wasn't the danger of things coming INTO the house that disturbed the old bat. It was the threat of Ent getting out, without her consent.

Once the house was barricaded and warded with holy water, salt, jars full of broken glass and rusted nails, and twigs tied up with red string; Ent brushed her teeth. Swore as the foam and spit washed away the salt. Re-salted the drain.

Then she tucked herself into bed and sang herself to sleep like she did every night, making up songs about normal people who didn't have aunts that flapped like bats and hissed like cats while ordering and organizing every moment of every day only to disappear at night.

. . . .

It wasn't an owl. It wasn't wind or wind knocking tree branches into the window. Aunt Agatha didn't allow any of those things. It wasn't wind-blown litter brushing up the house. Or rain. It wasn't a stupid opossum or slinky skunk. Those weren't allowed either.

But Ent found herself woken up, all the same. She wiggled out of her warm covers and tip-toed to the window. Careful of the salt and jars and twigs tied up in red string, she pulled back the curtain. Night was thick and swathed everything in black. Abyss black. Black hole black. Ent couldn't see across the street. She couldn't see the street. She couldn't see her own paltry lawn.

The only thing in the window that wasn't blackness was a red palm. Someone with hands the size of her head and skin the same color as fire engines had their palm pressed against the glass. Smoke or steam curled away from the hand, where the skin came in contact with the wards and shields.

Ent leaned closer, reading the lines in the palm. It was a skill Aunt Agatha didn't know about because she hadn't approved it. Ent did it anyway. Nothing good, she thought, following the story of callusus and scars from wrist to clawed fingertips. She put her hand up to the red one, touching the glass because the wards and shields were keyed to her, after all. Her hand was swallowed by the creature's. She could have fit three of her hands, if she'd had three, side-by-side to go across the width of her visitor's palm.

And the heat coming off the glass was incredible, it burned hotter than fire. It sort of tickled.

"Little Pig, Little Pig, let me in." The hand's voice, deep and terrible, reverberated on the glass and thrummed in Ent's bones.

"Yeah, I think you have the wrong house. There aren't any pigs here." Ent replied. "You might want to recheck the address you're looking for."

A pause. Puzzled, Ent thought. She'd confused her first ever visitor. Oh well. Probably some kind of salesman. Aunt Agatha was always warning against them. She shrugged and dropped her hand.

"Little Red Riding Hood, sweet Snow White, aren't you going to let me in?" The voice crooned.

"Still have the wrong house, mister, I don't know either of those people. Who gives their kids such stupid names, anyway?"

Ent closed the curtain carefully and crawled back into bed. Some people. Everyone knew what a GPS was, these days. Why didn't more people use them?

She was asleep in moments, still muttering to herself.

ETA: Fixing word arrangements, adding a comma, and throwing in a scene break.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

 

[LMNO]

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

That was an awesome story!

[Don Coyote]

 

[Cardinal Pizza Deliverance.]

The sun rose, as it always did, scooting Aunt Agatha along on the first sunbeam. Forcing her to do her duty by her wayward ward.

She'd taught Ent that sunlight laid everything bare. Then she'd promptly grounded Ent and taken away every single book as punishment for pointing out that sunlight laid bare the fact Aunt Agatha would rather be eaten by rabid wolves or end up on daytime TV than continue her self-appointed task of tutor and nursemaid by making the lines on her face deeper. The child would not learn propriety.

Aunt Agatha approached the house, pursing her lips as she noticed the glaring scarlet smear on the wards around Ent's bedroom window. Cloven hoof-prints circled the house thrice. There was a steaming pile of devil excrement on the front porch.

Clearly more wards were needed. And some sigils pointing out just how rude it was to do a dirty on someone else's porch.

Already annoyed, she let herself into the house, carefully lifting her skirts over the unmentionable mess. Ent, as usual, was waiting to take her cape and hat.

"Ent," Aunt Agatha snapped, sorely tempted to hurl the hat at her young charge. "What happened last night? Why did you not call me?"

Ent's face clouded with puzzlement and then cleared. "A person came by looking for some pigs. Or a woman made of snow wearing a hood. He seemed rather confused. I told him he had the wrong house but I don't think he believed me."

Aunt Agatha's jaw dropped. "You mean you spoke to the devil? Did you let him in?"

"Of course not," Ent replied, rolling her eyes. "I thought he was a salesman, at first. And you always say that solicitors are like Mormons. They drink your tea and muss your carpets and scream too loud when you try to cook them, so it's best just to ignore them until they go away."

"Well then. At least you listen to SOME of what I say."

"Yes, Aunt Agatha."

"Have you had your breakfast?"

"Yes, Aunt."

"Very well. Today's lessons will begin with sigil writing. We're going to leave a polite but firm message for that devil, should he come back. It isn't seemly to be coming to young women's houses in the dead of night and using their porches for outhouses," Aunt Agatha sniffed in disdain. "Run and fetch the dragonsblood ink and the raven feather quill. We'll practice on parchment and go on from there."

. . .

Ent heaved a sigh of relief when Aunt Agatha finally left, waiting on the stoop until the door was locked behind her.

Ent watched as the older woman made sure the sigils they'd painted on the welcome mat were facing the right way, before she swept down the walk and disappeared.

If he was lucky, Ent thought as she began her nightly routine, the whatever-he-was wouldn't bother her again. If he was really lucky, he'd found whatever house he was looking for and had forgotten all about his little present on the front steps.

She finished locking the locks and placing the charms. She brushed her teeth and washed her face. Then she put on her pajamas and tucked herself into bed.

The covers weren't even up to her chin when something went rap-a-tap-tap on her window.

"Darling Sleeping Beauty, did you miss me?"

"Go away," she called, rolling over to put her bac k to the window.

She heard a dark, melodic chuckle. Then the steady thunk and thud of a swaggering gait circling her house. The footsteps stopped at the porch. Then they turned and instead of swaggered, they stomped straight back to her window. And this time it was no gentle tapping. The devil pounded on her window, fit to shake the glass apart and the window frame with it.

"What the hell is that? Sigils? Seriously? Do you NOT know who I am?"

Ent sighed and kicked off the covers. She got up and went to the window.

"Look," she said reasonably as she parted the curtains and raised the blinds. "I tried to be nice last night but I'm a growing girl and I need my sleep and you are just one rude mister, Mister."

The scowling face was all ruddy skin, glowing eyes, and sharp teeth. Ent rolled her eyes.

"You're being rude. You can't come in. I'm not coming out and if you keep causing trouble I'm going to have to call for help," she stated, crossing her arms and giving him her disapproving glare.

"And who will you call, you little brat? Ghostbusters?" The devil demanded, raking his nails down the glass in a horrible cacophony.

"I will call my Aunt Agatha. Which will make her mad and she will fuss at you. Then she will yell at me which will make me fuss at you. And then we will flay your skin from your body and use it for a nice rug or a bathrobe for Aunt Agatha. She fancies the color red, you know."

The devil glared. Then thought about it. He looked towards the porch and then back at Ent.

"Ooooh. Oh. You're THAT kid. Right, I got that memo. Hey, look, I'll just clean up a little out here and be on my way. I don't wanna keep you any longer than I have. You just go back to bed, sweetheart and we won't say anything about this to anyone, right?" He smiled at her, showing all his teeth to best effect.

She rolled her eyes again and closed the blinds.

"I bet salesmen are way more terrifying than you are," she muttered.

And then she went back to bed.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Nice! I like this Ent kid.

[Cardinal Pizza Deliverance.]

Bumpity.

[Pergamos]

Beautiful stuff.

There's so much awesome on this forum.

[Cardinal Pizza Deliverance.]

More random shit when I was supposed to be working on a novel.

I come apart at the seams rather frequently. Easily.

Sometimes I am sewn up so tight that not even air can pass between the tightly clenched stitches. I sit so still and silent inside my head, wrapped inside a tightly woven shroud of my own crafting.

It's quiet, in here. Still. Except for the endless screaming. Except for the steady trickle of blood, like the ticking of a bomb. Bound and caged in my own limits and boundaries I have nothing to do but think. Over and over again, the same thoughts replay.

Sometimes with pictures.

Then the screams get too loud and the blood soaks through and the stitching comes unraveled. I am spit out and split apart, divided into pieces and left gristly and blood-drenched in the sun to attract flies and predators.

But few things can eat my poison flesh and survive. Mostly, except for a few nibbles a few new wounds, I am left alone. Until I can gather my gobbets of flesh, skin, and sinew into a pile and try reassembly once more.

Most of this is painless, have no fear on that account.
Most of this, I don't even notice anymore.

So many pieces. So many irregular shapes to compile into a pleasing final construction. There is only one true answer to the puzzle of my parts.

But millions of combinations to try until I find it.

They ache when they are put in incorrectly. Corners smashed and pieces squished together, sometimes intentionally pulling the wounds open so the blood melds the parts into a solid wall of flesh.

But that never lasts. Blood is a poor excuse for adhesive, whatever sort might work here.

I have become somewhat numb to the cobbled together state of affairs.
I can cope. Thrive, even, if the planets align and the moonlight is bright.

Some pieces have found their mates and become complete. Other pieces have broken down into smaller, sharper splinters.

Finding the correct combination to make one whole person seems impossible.

Sometimes I don't care if I solve the puzzle.

But I can't stop playing with the pieces, like picking at a scab or poking a bruise.
Like a person raised from diapers up to always be working, always have busy hands, I cannot leave the parts alone.

I gather them up as they drop away. I polish them like precious stones. I pull away the maggots and pick out the debris. I turn them this way and that in the light, trying to discern clues as to their proper placement.

They fascinate me, these shards, these slivers of bone and gristle that once built a whole body fit to house an unfractured soul.

Rotting bits of mirror reflecting back only gore-smeared images, they can be washed and bandaged but the reflections are still tainted.

Until another sack is sewn and the shapes stacked neatly inside, fitting together as best they can. With the help of much crushing and swearing, and smashing. And then the sack is sewn shut. Rolled tight. Swaddled snugly.

And left to cure on the shelf to see if the joints and seams and hinges hold.

Or if the screaming will start again.

[Cardinal Pizza Deliverance.]

One furtive step at a time. Tense and ready to run. The wiry old man slips into the tunnels below the streets and winds down farther and deeper. Things have changed, the creatures - those wild, intelligent, murdering monstrosities are gone. The riddle was resolved, or so he heard through a friend of a friend of someone who might have been there to hear those words said and might not have been there at all. Everyone was disavowing knowledge of the creatures and of the immense cover-up operation going on now that the creatures were gone.

What had been a school was now just a crater, about to be filled with gravel and water and made into a large artificial lake with a park around it. What had been an entire slum was being 'revitalized' into boutiques and trendy condos.

When people couldn't cope, they forgot. They sandblasted and whitewashed and paved over.

It made him sick to his guts. And it kept him coming down here whenever he could get away from 'normal' life. He couldn't forget. He couldn't complete his 'meaningful reintegration'.

Liars and idiots, all of them.

He retraced the old route, still burned into his brain after years, leaving the man-made tunnels for nature-made caverns. Some were as big as the city above. Some bigger. He knew he was getting close when he heard the faint burble of water and picked up the heavy mineral odors in the air.

He knew he was close when piles of detritus; old TVs and small cars, broken appliances, piles of books and canned goods, cameras and lawn mowers and tool boxes; began appearing. No human had hauled all this garbage down here. No sir.

The curious ones had. The rampaging beasts had picked up anything that puzzled them and brought it down here for her to explain. Like she spoke the language. Maybe she had. Or still did.

He hadn't come back for a long time. She'd rejected his last offer of help and then the whirlwind of fighting and hiding and everything going batshit had kept him away. Busy. A blow to the head and a hospital stay and wading through well-meaning but idiotic social service counselors had almost made him forget.

It still smelled like the creatures down here, under the wet and stone. Like snakes and blood and swamp. Like carrion and a predator's fetid breath on the back of his neck. But maybe that was just the hot springs.

One by one he searched the caves until there was only one left. The biggest cavern where they'd slept. Where she'd held court, so to speak. He peeked through the opening, carefully. Then, feeling stupid, he sauntered on in and began his search. The walls of this cave were still covered with some bioluminescent slime. The hot springs were still roiling away. Bits of metal and other things glinted in the nooks and crannies. Parts of the floor were worn baby smooth from the passage of sliding coils. Pieces of the wall were broken off in ragged, ripped chunks. Evidence of past battles?

She was still here. His heart shriveled in his chest and got lodged in a lung, making it hard to breath. She was here all right.

Laid out beside the largest hot spring, on a tattered but colorful pile of blankets and foam padding and scraps. Dead. Little more than bone and cartilage. Her hooks gleamed in the dim light. They crossed over her chest where something black was pressed to her withered ribcage. He peered closer, absurdly afraid of waking her.

She'd been so tired, the last time he'd seen her. And now she was finally resting.

The thing held to her chest was a rectangular box. A tape recorder. His mouth fell open. And then he realized her pillow was a lumpy sack of what had to be cassette tapes.

He suddenly missed the cocktail of emotion-removing medications he'd weaned himself from before escaping the hospital.

Carefully, he reached out and slid the box from her grasp. Her corpse didn't want to let it go at first, but he tugged sharply and she let it go with a small clatter and whine of metal as her hooks, the blades, rubbed together. Cutting her paper-thin skin.

More carefully, he lifted her head from the pillow and took that away, too. Something in her neck snapped as he put her head down on the makeshift bed and her skull turned to one side in a raspy flop. Staring at him with accusing and immensely sorrowful eye sockets.

He swallowed hard and backed away, almost falling into the hot spring. He was breathing too fast. Sweating.

He sat down and the box slid. His thumb hit the play button, which was almost pierced through from the press of the tip of her hooks. It scraped on the pad of his thumb as her voice leapt from the box, filling the cavern.

"There's only one left. All the others are gone. My legs stopped working after my last fall. I tried to climb out but I fell. It brought me back here. Chiding away like I was a straying kitten and it a mother cat."

A gurgling, crunchy cough came from the tape. He winced at the noise and winced more at the shrill shrieks of a concerned monster. Then her voice returned.

"It is very concerned. I don't know why. I brought nothing but trouble to them. But I won't be alone when I die, which I think will be soon. It's very dark in here and I'm so tired. I wonder if my family has any idea what happened to me. I wonder if they care.

I always thought I'd have a pile of regrets when my time came, at an old age. I always thought there'd be grandchildren and maybe great-grandchildren. But there isn't anyone but this creature and I find that I have no regrets. It is the most strange and alien thing I've ever experienced.

I'm going to turn this off and rewind it part-way. Then I'm going to sleep. We'll see if I wake up."

The click startled him. He almost dropped the box. But he didn't. Instead he put it in the sack with the tapes. He went to her side and found a blanket to cover her with.

Then he left, taking the sack with him.

He wouldn't come back. She needed her rest. But the tapes would keep him company.

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

 

moar plz.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Oh, wow.

[Cardinal Pizza Deliverance.]

And now for something entirely different than the last thing.



The first thing I notice is tobacco smoke. Richer, more pure than cigarette smoke. Less foul.

The second thing I notice is the rock. Here again. Or still.

The third thing I notice is his chuckle. Wry, sardonic.

"Why do you keep coming here? Why do you spend so much time here?"

I pull myself into a sitting position, spine straight and legs crossed at the ankles. "I spend a lot of time in a lot of places."

He asks again. "Why here? Why so much?"

I shrug, rolling tension from somewhere else and caused by someone else free from my shoulders. "I guess this place means something to me. It's a special place. A lucky spot. A lodestone."

His laughter hasn't changed, just faded around the edges a bit. "Well isn't that something?"

"Yeah," I say, looking around.

It's a lot darker than usual. Almost all the stars are hidden but whether they've fled or there are just camouflaged clouds blocking their light, I can't tell. Only a few glittering specks follow their ancient dance steps across the sky. Unceasing rhythms, reassuring continuity in chaos. A reminder that some things are more permanent than others, but nothing lasts forever.

"Why do I come here?" He asks, taking a drink from a bottle. I can't see it or smell it, but I hear the slosh of liquid and the click of glass against teeth. The clink-scrape of glass against stone as he puts it down. I can't see him either, but I still have a fair idea of what his expression would be if I could.

I wonder if he can see me. Then I shrug again and put my arms behind me to lean back for a better look at the stars.

"I used to pass out answers for everything," I say. "But maybe I've run out of 'em. Used them all up on small, silly questions like 'Which toothpaste is better?' or 'What kind of pie for supper?' instead of the important things like 'Why are we here?' and 'Where do we go next?'. Sorry about that."

He laughs again, more amused and more bitter at the same time. Regardless of the emotion in it, it's a good sound. Like ice cream. All sorts of delicious flavors but it's all good. Even the ones with bitter flavorings.

He'd probably use alcohol as a metaphor. Which is fine for him. But I've tasted some of the shit he drinks and no way would that work for me. So ice cream it is.

"Maybe this place means something to me, as well," he says evenly, punctuating his sentence with clicks, sloshes, and clink-scrapes. "Maybe it reminds me of something better. Or more real. Or something terrible best left forgotten, except for the scars it gave me as a souvenir."

"But this one piece is nice," I observe, directing my comment to the stars. "This little bit left over is a nice spot to think and remember on."

"Heh. Yeah."

A glass bottle nudges my shoulder in the darkness. I accept it, my fingers touching his. Hopefully he doesn't see my wince. Turpentine or tequila? I take a sip and swallow carefully. The much-better-than-it-could-have-been stuff, praise Jose. I take another more appreciative sip.

And he chuckles, all amusement this time. "Still a light weight."

"Says the guy who may as well be drinking diesel fuel," I say, passing the bottle back.

He laughs again and the bottle disappears into the dark.

[Cardinal Pizza Deliverance.]

Note to self - Finish this thought :

A grey and silent night inside the stone and metal walls. The search lights turn the clouds into something dirty and gives them a menacing glow. A glower. In the woods around the compound, shuffling noises and scratches continue on unceasing. Sniffles and muffled screams.

On the wall-walks, a ledge along the inside of the walls five feet from the top of the wall, we've got our perches. And all we have to do, all night long, is listen.

To the zombies. The mindless, endless hordes of walking corpses moaning and trying to scratch through the walls with bloody fingernails. They try to pile up on top of each other to get over the wall, but fall down. Clumsy as crabs in a bucket. If they catch sight of us they wail. High and keening. It's a cross between a baby calling for its mother and the condemned spotting the hangman.

. . .

Peters looked at me with wide, scared eyes. Sweat beaded on his skin and the grip on his gun was too tight. All white knuckles and numb fingers.

"Do you think they'll ever get in?" He squeaks each word out like there's a mouse in his mouth doing the talking for him.

"If they do, they'll tear us apart," I said. "It's been too long since they've been fed."

"Sarge says they aren't people anymore. Just animals. Zombies. Monsters." Peters wiped the sweat from his face and gave me scared eyes again. "He says if they get in, we'll end up just like them."

I sighed. "He isn't a fucking sergeant. He's a god damn district manager for Kwiq Tryp gas stations. The only reason he wants us to call him 'Sarge' is because we're using his guns to hold the wall. His name is Dale."

Peters frowned at me. "You don't like the Sarge? He's protecting us from the zombies."

"Dude. This isn't a movie. Those aren't movie-type monsters. Those are real people. Exhausted, frightened people. We aren't letting them in because we don't have enough food and water for everyone as it is and the people outside the walls out number us five to one. They're just people. But they're a mob and they'll tear us apart because they're hungry and terrified."

"That isn't what the Sarge says."

"That's because Dale is the hero of his own fucking story."

"But when the helicopters come, they'll just take us, right? Because we're the people. They'll help us kill the zombies and everything will be okay."

"Jesus Christ," I muttered. "Just watch your part of the fucking wall and don't shoot anyone."