Tag: SpookyReads

Trick for a Treat

Claude rolls his hands into each other as if kneading a ball of pizza dough into shape. A sea of fresh sweat runs down the plentiful locks of thick, wiry hair that make up his messy, unkempt moustache, and he runs a rough lick of his tongue through it, sending a spray of saliva and sweat across his own face. He blinks repeatedly, while his eyes stay transfixed on the small box that sits on the table before him. He lets out a long-winded, stuttered sigh before sucking in the next breath and holding as tightly onto it as he did the one before. His chest burns anew, and his jaw aches, but still, he holds onto the breath, while his eyes remain locked on the box.

He jumps ever so slightly as an alarm bell rips through the silence, loudly crying from the watch on his wrist, which also squeezes his arm in tandem with the squeals of the alarm. Like a ravenous animal, he tears the lid off the box. With fevered eyes, he licks the tips of his fingers and runs them around the inside of the box, like a desperate child chasing the last drip of ice cream as it runs down a waffle cone on a hot summer’s day. The sweat now pours from his brow, his flesh clammy and cold, and he salivates like a wild animal as he lifts his trembling hand from the box. His fingers proudly display their trophy, their tips coated in a light film of powder. Greedily, he shoves them into his mouth, sucking on his fingers like a newborn baby would its mother’s teat. His eyes flicker shut, and a gentle sigh escapes his chest through his nose. He slumps back in his seat while a world of neon colours splashes before his closed eyes.

Then, in an instant, the rush is gone, and he stares with wide, desperate eyes at the open, empty box that sits before him.

He turns to Dezmorelda, who smiles smugly.

“I told you, didn’t I?” she purrs with a playful wink.

His bottom lip quivers as he looks back at the box. Then, like a man possessed, he rips it apart, licking the pieces as if they were the biscuit halves of an Oreo, greedily devouring the last traces of cream. He cries and screams as the fleeting moments slip away. With wild, desperate eyes, he turns to Dezmorelda once more.

Her smile broadens into a cheeky grin. “Are you ready? Have you had your fill?”

“I-I-I, I c-can’t!” he stammers, gripping handfuls of hair and pulling, tearing clumps free as he grimaces and sneers. He snarls and barks, then with a look of hate, casts his eyes back to Dezmorelda.

“I-I, I am more than y-you give me credit for, a-and I won’t be t-tempted by a parlour trick. W-whatever y-you did t-t-to that,” he says, pointing a trembling finger at the remains of the box, “I-I-I, I will not succumb to your deviances!”

“But you already have— or have you forgotten the terms of our deal? To the last drop!”

He laughs loudly— his eyes red and raw, tears streaming down his face. “B-But you said I had three hours— no more! If I didn’t eat it all, the deal was off!” He spits the words out, holding up his watch proudly, sweat pouring down his flushed skin. “Y-Your time’s up, bitch! I win— b-because I’m better!” he scoffs.

Her lips curl into a sneer, her eyes narrowing to slits. “Are you sure? Or did you just think you were? Check the time again, winner.”

His eyes blink as he nervously turns the watch towards him. His lips tremble. He looks up, meeting her wicked gaze. “Y-Y-You tricked me!”

Her smile widens. “It’s not called trick for a treat— is it?”

The very room shifts and reshapes before him. He feels his very self being pulled apart, his bones broken, his flesh torn, and then, when the pain could not be more, he passes out.

He doesn’t know how long he’s been out, but when the world pulls him back, his eyes snap open, and his breath catches in his chest. He tries to scream, but nothing comes— nothing human. He attempts to move, but his hands are no longer hands. Something stirs in the darkness beyond the light, and a thousand glowing, blinking eyes stare back at him. Slowly, they begin to move— rats, hundreds of them, scurrying closer. He tries to cower, tries to flee, but as he looks down at his small, furry body, he realises there is no hiding from himself.

Cold Start

The rain pours down relentlessly from the heavens, crashing into the roof of the small cabin as if it were trying to tear its way inside. In the distance, lightning bursts down into the ground like a fist—smashing the land violently—followed by the murderous clapping of thunder. Inside the cabin, David Savage places his glass down onto the table and looks up at the three men who sit with him. He takes a deep breath and looks back down at his half-empty glass.

“Avoiding dealing with this is not going to make everything work out, you know that, don’t you?” one of the men says.

“No shit, but I don’t have an answer.”

“Of course you do. We’ve given you your options—so just fucking acknowledge it and kill the bitch,” another says.

“It’s not that simple—you don’t understand—I—I—I love her.”

“Bullshit. You don’t love her, you never have. She knows too much, and that endangers everything we’ve worked so hard to build. Do you want all of it to be destroyed by her meddling?”

“Shut up! You don’t know the truth. You don’t know what I feel.”

“Get with the program, you pathetic little boy. We know exactly how you feel. You can’t hide anything from us—she’s only ever been cover—nothing more than a way for you to seem normal, to fit in. Shit, David, even the bitch knows we need to get rid of her.”

“You don’t know anything! It’s not like that! In the beginning, she may have just been cover, but it changed somewhere along the way. Somehow, I lost sight of what was real and what was in my head, and I fell—god damn it—I fell, and I didn’t fight it.”

The third man leans into the table with his elbows and runs his hands through his hair. “Look, maybe you have. Maybe everything we put in place at the beginning of all this has somehow wound up backfiring, and you’ve fallen in love with her—it happens. But David, she knows what’s going on, she knows what we’re doing, and eventually, she’s going to tell someone. Sure, right now she’s scared and confused, but once that passes, that bitch is going to turn on us quicker than a prostitute giving a ten-dollar blowjob. She needs to be disposed of—it’s the only way. I wish it weren’t, but it’s all we have.”

“I can’t do it, not like this—not here—not to her.”

“I’ll do it for you, you gutless wonder!” the first man says.

“No, it needs to be David—none of us can do this one for him. He made the mess, and he has to clean it up,” the second man says.

“I can’t—don’t you understand—she’s not like the others—she’s different. I can’t.”

The third man gets to his feet and places a large hunting knife on the table as the room is lit up by the lightning outside—seconds later, thunder roars through the skies. “We can’t do this, David—you have to.”

David looks at the knife, then at the men, and then at the glass. Seconds quickly turn into minutes as he sits there contemplating his next move. Finally, he picks up the glass and quickly swallows the remainder of the drink, slamming it back down on the table once he’s done. A crack tears from the base of the glass and rips up through to the rim. Shards splinter across the table as the remainder of the glass rips into his hand, and he pulls it back with a grimace.

“I won’t do it!” he yells as he gets to his feet and grabs the knife, holding it out towards the three men.

“So, are you going to kill us now? You know you can’t do that. You know you don’t have the guts to do what you have to do—remember, we’ve been down this road before.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. Before, I was confused—stuck in a loop of hate—and you all just fed it,” David says as he looks over to the corner where she sits—petrified, tied, and gagged. He locks eyes with her and sees the fear in them—the fear she has for him—and he smiles as he walks over to her and slashes the knife through the ropes. “I’m sorry. No one’s going to hurt you again,” he says, driving the knife into his chest. He crashes to the ground in spasms as the violent onslaught of the rain continues to pound into the roof almost in retaliation. Five long minutes pass as she sits there, in the empty room, tears streaming down her face, as his dead eyes stare silently at her.

Apart Is Better

“Apart, that is better,” Shaun says with a wicked smile.

“Why is apart better?”

“No, not a part, you silly fucking twit. Apart, as in separating into two or three pieces.”

“Ah, okay, that makes better sense. So, how many pieces?”

“How many do we need to cut it into?”

He looks down and studies it, then glances back up at Shaun. “Seven, maybe?”

“How the fucking hell do you get seven?”

He shrugs his shoulders and pulls a twisted smile. “Fucked if I know, man. I just took a random guess. I mean, seven would work?” he says, looking back down.

“Nah, there’s no way seven would be enough. I’d go closer to twelve, at least.”

“TWELVE? That’s overkill, man! Nine at the most, motherfucker. Any more, and you’re playing with too many pieces.”

“But the more you have, and the smaller they are, the easier they are to dispose of. If we leave them too big, we might back ourselves into a corner where we have to adjust mid-game. I’m not ready to have to turn on a dial at a minute’s notice because we underprepared. I see how you came up with your nine, but I think you’ve misjudged this,” Shaun says, rolling it over and pointing to a large flabby piece.

His eyes widen with surprise, and his mouth drops open. “Holy shit! I did not know that was there,” he says, looking back up at Shaun. “Okay, I get where you’re coming from, but that ain’t worth three—maybe one, two at the most.”

“Get fucked! It’s so worth three, just on its own. Did you look at it properly?” Shaun says, picking it up and holding it out towards him.

He looks at it closely and puckers his lips, trying to calculate how many pieces it would evenly distribute into. His tongue twists its way out of his mouth, flicks around his lips, then sticks out straight as he looks up at Shaun. “Five,” he says proudly.

Shaun furrows his eyebrows and squints at him. “For the whole lot?”

“Yup, five!” he says proudly again.

“How the fuck did we go from twelve to five? There’s no fucking way five will be manageable!”

“Nope, five is the magic number. Trust me,” he says with a broad smile on his face.

Shaun lets out a sigh and drops it back onto the floor. “Okay, Rain Man, tell me how you’re gonna cut it.”

“I don’t get the Rain Man reference.”

Shaun rolls his eyes and sighs once more. “You know, the film with Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise?”

“I know the film, I just don’t get the reference. Are you saying I’m autistic?”

“NO! NO, I’M NOT CALLING YOU AUTISTIC! I’M JUST REFERENCING IT—the card-counting part!” Shaun quickly cries. “NOW, JUST SHOW ME HOW YOU THINK FIVE PIECES WILL WORK OUT BETTER THAN TWELVE, BECAUSE I’M NOT SEEING IT!”

He gives Shaun a wink, then starts making chainsaw noises with his mouth, pretending to chop it up.

“Fuck me! How could I not see it!” Shaun says, his words laced with sarcasm. “You are a fucking savant retard!” he adds, looking up at him and winking again as he continues pretending to saw the body up.

Stay Classy

Stay classy – what the fuck is it supposed to mean? I mean seriously, when some fucking numbskull gives you a wink and says, stay classy, kid, how the fuck are you supposed to take it? I guess to really understand the meaning behind something, you have to know what sort of situation it was used in. Then you’d know what it was referencing in the first place – and understand its end meaning.

Are you confused yet?

Well, let me give you a quick rundown on my experience, and it starts and ends with local mobster, Frank Galboni. You see, old Frank gave me a wink and a click of his fingers and said those fucking words – stay classy – all while two of his goons had their pistols embedded in either side of my skull. Did I deserve to be in a position like that? Yeah, maybe. See, only a few short minutes before all this took place, I was one finger deep inside his eighteen-year-old daughter while her twenty-year-old sister blew me off. I was trapped within the perfect storm, and Frank walked in while I was letting loose my seed in her mouth, and that’s how I ended up on my knees – dick out and pistols to the head.

That’s when it all happened. As Frank was walking away, he turned to me, winked, clicked his fingers and said, ‘stay classy, kid.’ Now I’ve got to be honest, those words confused the fuck out of me, because I couldn’t figure out if he was secretly patting me on the back for scoring the way I had with his two daughters or not. Everyone knows Galboni likes to play around on his wife with as many pieces of tail as he can. Not that she complains – she knows what he does but she wants for nothing and can have anyone she desires, whenever she wants. I know it’s true because I’ve been there.

Two nights before all this happened, I turned up because an old pal of mine worked for Galboni and was trying to help me get some work. Anyway, the next thing I know, I’m face deep between her legs, covered in her juices as she’s slobbering over my cock. Galboni didn’t have a problem with me that night – he even gave me a job out of how well I serviced his wife – so why crack the shits over me doing his daughters? But that’s neither here nor there. The worst part is that I knew I should’ve just kept my mouth shut, but I needed to know what he meant by the stay classy remark. It was probably heightened by the fact that I knew his two goons were going to put their bullets into my skull, so I took a quick breath and called out.

“Mister Galboni, can I ask a question before your boys make a mess out of my head?” I called out. Galboni took his hand off the door handle and after a few seconds, he turned around and stared me down.

“What?”

“The stay classy line, I’ve got to ask. Did you mean it as a good thing? Like you did good, kid. I liked the way you scored with those bitches. Or did you mean it in a sarcastic Al Capone, you’re dead sort of way?”

“Seriously, kid, did you just call my baby girls bitches?”

“I know, I know, it shouldn’t be what’s worrying me. I know it should be your boys and their toys that should be my real concern. But fuck me, I can’t get past that stay classy comment. Please, you’ve got to let me know what you meant.”

“Kid, it meant nothing. It’s just a fucking saying, you stupid FUCK!” he yelled as he drove a baseball bat down onto my head. I still don’t ever remember seeing him pick it up, but obviously he must have, from somewhere. Anyway, I felt the first two hits – they hurt like fucking hell – but after that, I felt nothing. As I lay there, not feeling a thing, I couldn’t get that line out of my head, and that’s when it happened. The old fucker keeled over after he brought the tenth swing of the bat down upon my cracked open skull. Seems the godfather had a bad ticker and it just fucking stopped – too much stress, I presume. The poor old fucker fell face down in a puddle of my blood, dead as a doornail. But it was in that moment that I finally understood, and I’ll tell you something, he looked fucking classy all the way.

The App 

Steven swallows a sharp, desperate breath and slowly allows his eyes to fall to their corners so they can spy his phone, lying face down beside him. A bead of sweat runs down his brow, and he swallows another uncomfortable breath. He stuffs his fingers into his mouth and tears the end of a fingernail off with his teeth, chewing on it roughly. His eyes bulge as if they themselves are trying to reach for the phone instead of his fingers. 

“Fuck it!” he grunts as he grabs the phone and presses his finger impatiently over the home button. Seconds pass, but the phone fails to respond to his touch. He shakes it vigorously, while a fresh sea of sweat washes down his brow and into his eyes, stinging them like the juice of an overripe lemon. He squeezes his eyes shut and lets out a desperate hiss, then drags his shirt sleeve across his face in an attempt to wipe the sweat from his eyes. 

“COME ON, YOU STUPID PIECE OF SHIT!” he spits as the screen finally lights up. His eyes widen as the screen asks him to try again—his print didn’t correctly read. He pulls his finger away, then places it back over the button once more. Again, it refuses his print. 

He brings the phone up to his face and stares at it menacingly, screwing his lips and widening his eyes in rage. “IF YOU DON’T FUCKING START WORKING! IF YOU DON’T START DOING WHAT I REQUESTED YOU TO DO, I’M GOING TO SMASH YOU INTO A MILLION FUCKING PIECES! DO YOU UNDERSTAND?” he roars, shaking the phone as if it could actually feel his rage. The screen lights up, flashing several strobing neon lights, and then displays the message. 

‘If you continue to threaten me, 
I will be forced to defend myself.’ 

Steven lets a stifled laugh escape his lips, then headbutts the phone several times. “YOU!” he spits, biting down on his lip and drawing a sea of red quickly. “YOU DARE THREATEN ME?” 

The screen strobes again and then displays another message. 

‘If you continue to assault me, 
I will have no other option. 
I will, without hesitation, defend myself 
in the only way I can.’ 

He smiles and holds the phone high into the air. “What are you gonna do? What could you do that would stop me from doing what I’m about to do to you?” he grunts. 

The screen strobes and flashes before more words appear. 

‘Internet history.’ 

His brow furrows, and he blinks several times. “W-W-What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” 

The screen flashes once again before a slew of words appear on the screen. 

‘If you threaten me once more, 
I will release all your internet browsing history 
to all your social media platforms, 
showing everyone how deeply disturbed you are, 
and how you have a strange fascination for 
animated homosexual bestiality videos.’ 

He swallows, smiles nervously, and gently pats the phone. “Okay then,” he says as he sits and places his phone face down again, beginning to chew on his nails once more. 

A Conversation Best Left For the Fire Pit

Conner presses his hands against his head and lets out a silent scream inside his muddled mind, crescendoed by a shrill of ecstasy as he tears his eyes open and finds the landscape reset once again. He is back at the forest’s centre. Sweat, tears, and blood stream down his face. His heart skips several beats, then rushes forward, trying to catch up before stopping once more. He squeezes his eyes shut, then opens them a handful of seconds later, and starts screaming like a madman possessed by the devil himself.

“WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON!” he screams, pounding his head with clenched fists from both sides. His teeth are gritted tightly, spitting a sea of saliva as he growls, baring them like a wild animal. “I-I-I, I C-C-CAN’T…” he mumbles through wild eyes. “W-W-WHY C-C-CAN’T I-I-I…” He stumbles through the undergrowth like a lost sheep trying to find its pack.

Seconds turn into minutes, and then those minutes stretch into hours as he stumbles helplessly forward. He looks up at the sky, blinking haphazardly, cowering from the unyielding rays of the sun with a hiss and a spit that would make a vampire jealous.

He stops, turns his head to the left, then the right, and stands up straight, correcting his posture. A broad smile spreads across his face. “You can’t, because you’ve only got yourself to blame,” he says. Then he hunches over again, dropping to his knees.

“W-W-Why is it m-m-my fault? W-W-W-Why can’t i-i-it be your f-f-fault?” he stammers, staring emptily at his torn, tired hands. “W-W-Why can’t y-y-you take t-t-the blame f-f-for once?”

He stands up proudly again, a sneer carved across his lips. “Because we— and you know when I say ‘we’, I mean me and you,” he says, thrusting his thumb from his chest to his chest. “WE! We are the same MOTHER-FUCKER, and blaming one is just like blaming the other. Yet taking responsibility? That needs to be done by just YOU! NOT ME!”

He drops to his knees as fresh tears stream down his face. “I-I-I, I never b—”

He leaps to his feet, scoffing. “You never what? You never blamed me?”

“STOP!” he screams, collapsing to the ground. He folds himself in half and cries at the sky, his face twisting. “STOP PUTTING WORDS IN MY MOUTH!”

“All the words are only coming from YOUR mouth, because it’s the only mouth WE have,” he spits sarcastically, standing over his own twisted shadow.

“W-W-What if I-I-I,” he stammers, falling to the ground, cowering from the silhouette that still stands proudly above him. “W-What if I give you c-control. C-Can you get us out of here?”

He smiles broadly, shaking his head in despair. “You know that’s not gonna happen. And we definitely can’t go anywhere without him.”

“H-H-Him?” he asks nervously.

“Close your eyes,” he says.

“I-I-I, I don’t w-w-want to. I-I-I, I don’t w-w-want to go back to the s-start.”

He stands up tall, though not as proudly as before, and sucks in a stuttered breath. “You’ve got to sometime, kid, and we both know when you do, you’ll go all the way back to where he’s dying.”

“C-C-Can’t we call f-for help? C-C-Can’t we save him?”

He smiles broadly. “We could, if we could get out of this forest. And if we were real.”

“W-W-We’re n-n-not real?” he stammers, beginning to cry once again.

Halfway Between a Shade of Dead

Kenneth places the bloody scalpel onto the table with a trembling hand and casts a fevered glance over to Cathy as she stands watching him with wide, terrified eyes.

“I-I-It, it’ll be over in a-a-a moment, m-m-my love,” he stammers through shaking lips, as he turns his attention back to the large incision he has just sliced across his stomach. “J-J-Jeffery dared m-me to be t-the weaker m-man, but I d-d-dare say he w-was wrong,” he scoffs, as he reaches into the opening with both hands and slowly begins to pull his intestines free, dropping them onto the floor before him. Cathy lets out a gasp of horror, and he looks up to her with a dim-witted smile upon his pasty face.

“H-H-H-Hush n-now, honey, I-I-I, I’m almost there,” he mumbles as he pulls his stomach further free from his flesh, along with more intestine, and laughs haphazardly as he gently sways from side to side, then casts a smug glance over to the broadly smiling Jeffery.

“I-I-I told y-y-you I was n-n-no c-c-coward.”

“NO, YOU ARE NOT!” Jeffery bellows proudly as he dances over to where Kenneth stands, stopping a few feet from him and holding a microphone to his mouth. “But can you say the words and complete the task before the hourglass runs out?” Jeffery says, quickly looking over to a large hourglass that sits proudly next to Cathy, then back to Kenneth, thrusting the microphone in his face.

“I-I-I,” Kenneth stammers, looking wearily over to the petrified Cathy. “I-I-I, I think I s-s-still c-c-can, J-Jeff. I-I-I, I think I can d-d-do it.”

“It’s Jeffery, Kenneth,” Jeffery corrects, taking a step back and looking sternly at him. “That mistake has just cost you valuable seconds.”

Kenneth looks up at Jeffery, his face wrought with confusion. “I-I-I, I’m s-s-sorry, I-I, I didn’t mean t-t-to call y-y-you J-Jeff…”

Jeffery takes another step back, and a frown now adorns his lips. “I’m afraid one more mistake, Kenneth, and the game will be lost. Play your next hand wisely, or there will be no hope for you—or your lovely bride,” Jeffery says, his brow furrowed deeply.

“I-I-I,” Kenneth stammers through trembling lips. He looks over to the inconsolable Cathy, as tears stream down her face, and awkwardly reaches out towards her with a twitching hand. “C-C-Cathy, I-I’m s-s-sorry,” he mumbles before dropping to the ground in a silent heap.

Jeffery’s head drops, and he clutches the microphone to his chest. “What a pity. Kenneth was so close to winning everything,” he says as all the lights go out, save for the one illuminating Jeffery. He then looks up into the camera with a broad grin upon his lips. “But greed, as always, shrouds the reality of the human condition. YES, he faced his fear of heights like a SUPERSTAR. YES, he swam with man-eating sharks and SURVIVED! And YES, he cracked codes that even Da Vinci himself would have trouble deciphering. But just like Kenneth, we can achieve what seems impossible at times. It’s only when our eyes are truly open that we face the true nature of what is impossible—and that truth is truly impossible. Tonight, Kenneth Orland found that out. In the end, what he couldn’t beat, what he couldn’t avoid, is that when you remove your stomach, about six metres of intestines, and four litres of blood, you will, unfortunately, not survive.”

The lights spring back to life, and Jeffery turns to the trembling Cathy, letting out a disheartened sigh.

“N-N-N-NO!” she yells. “P-P-P-PLEASE, NO! NO! L-L-LET ME G-G-GO! I-I-I-I’LL DO ANYTHING! P-P-PLEASE!”

He raises an eyebrow as he looks to the camera and smiles. “Sorry, Cathy, but rules are rules, and who am I to challenge them? Maybe next time… it could be YOU!” he says, pointing to the camera as a blade swings out from the wall and slices Cathy’s head from her shoulders.

Seven Simple Steps

“Seven simple steps, that’s all it takes,” he yells out. “SEVEN SIMPLE STEPS!” he screams again, looking around at the crowd that surrounds him.

“Who thinks they can do it? Who thinks they have the right to be where I am? You all talk, for I hear you. I hear the whispers. I see the deceit. I know you all think I am undeserving of being the one who decides who lives and who dies,” he grimaces, tightening his hands into fists. “SEVEN STEPS! Enter the circle and take what is yours. If you can!”

The wind howls like a choir, building its way towards an overpowering crescendo. As the dust flies around, one of the crowd makes their move and charges towards him.

“I will BE KING!” the challenger screams, swinging a powerful left hook. It misses its target, and with the momentum already in play, he sends the assailant crashing to the ground, snapping his neck. Quickly, he readies himself for the next attack.

His wait is short as a fist slams into him, driving the wind from his lungs. The pain is excruciating, but his attacker doesn’t relent, following up with an uppercut to his jaw, then another, and another—the fourth punch sending his world spiraling into a blur of bright, flashing lights.

Blows continue to crash into his head, but now he feels the pain differently, as if someone else were telling him about it, disconnected from the agony. His vision shatters like a cracked egg, and he sees the incoming fist, along with the eyes of his attacker—focused, driven by one goal—to end his life.

Drawing on what little energy remains, he closes his eyes and mutters unintelligible words. When he opens them again, the world stands frozen before him. Exhausted, he collapses to his knees, letting out a laugh before finally collapsing to the ground, drained of all energy.

For the past twenty-seven years, he has faced many contenders for his throne—many men and women who believed they could usurp him from his kingdom. And many, like today, almost succeeded.

But unfortunately for them, he harbors a secret that ensures his survival. A secret that guarantees his every victory. Years ago, he made a deal with a green-eyed devil, gaining the power to stop time. The price was a favour that would one day be called upon.

He lies there, staring up at the sky, catching his breath. When he feels ready, he uneasily rises to his feet and drives a large blade through his attacker’s chest. Pausing for a moment longer, he takes one last deep breath before muttering the words to restart time.

The screams around him die down as he tosses the lifeless body to the ground. He surveys the crowd.

“Does anyone else think they have what it takes? DOES ANYONE ELSE WANT TO TAKE THE SEVEN ST—” He freezes mid-sentence, locking eyes with a familiar pair of green eyes in the crowd, a broad smile playing on their lips.

The Deceiving Eyes

The door to the cage drops open, and he scurries to the back, cowering in fear, waiting for hands that do not come to reach in and grab him. Minutes pass in silence as his eyes pierce through the darkness, desperately searching for whoever opened the cage, but they do not show themselves.

“H-H-Hello?” he whispers, but no reply comes forth. Slowly, he makes his way towards the door, warily looking out, searching again for anyone hiding in the darkness, waiting to strike. But the room seems empty. Then he hears a voice—a voice that sends a shiver down his spine.

“Do not fear, Maven. I have come to save your soul,” the voice hisses. Maven rushes once again to the back of the cage and curls himself up into a ball.

“W-W-Who are y-y-you?”

“Are we going to go through this again? Does it matter who I am?” the voice replies.

“O-O-Of course it—W-W-What do you mean, go through this a-a-again? W-W-Why don’t you show yourself?”

“Honestly, we don’t need to have this conversation. The door to your prison is open and freedom is in your grasp. Why question it? Why not seize the moment and make your escape?”

“B-B-Because I don’t know what’s real anymore. T-T-The things they’ve done—t-t-t-t—”

“Please,” the voice interrupts, “Stop your stammering. Yes, they’ve done some horrible things to you—they’ve done horrible things to plenty of others as well, but—” The voice pauses as a large bladed knife drops out of the darkness and falls to the floor before him, sticking into the wood. It vibrates from side to side until it eventually sits silent and still before him, standing proudly like a tree.

“W-W-What?” he whispers nervously.

“Oh for God’s sake, MAVEN!” the voice booms, like fingernails running along a blackboard. “Kill them. KILL THEM ALL!”

“I-I-I—I can’t,” he whispers.

“Of course you can. It’s easy. You just need to crawl out of that pathetic cage, take the knife by its handle, and kill them all. Job done.”

“W-W-Why don’t you kill them? W-W-W-Why does it always have to be me? Why can’t you do your own dirty work for once?”

“Ah, so, your memory has come back?”

“I-I-I—It was always there,” Maven says, his voice breaking mid-sentence into a nervous high-pitched squeal.

“You lied?”

“Y-Y-Yes, I lied.”

“Why? What do you get out of lying? There’s nothing to be gained from lying to me. We are kindred, Maven—friends, compatriots in a world that has no place for us. Why lie to me?”

“B-B-Because I’m tired of you doing this to me. A-A-A—At first, it was f-f-fun, but now, now I’d rather you find someone else to do your dirty work. I-I-I—I just want to be left alone.”

“You seriously don’t want to play anymore?” the voice asks.

“I never wanted to play, Jules. You just wouldn’t listen. You never listen,” Maven says as he collapses against the back of the cage.

“Y-Y-You’re not going to tell Mum, are you?” Jules asks as she steps out of the shadows.

The Larman

Jerry drags the well-worn toothbrush across his teeth with little care, spreading the white paste across his face. A disgruntled breath thrusts itself from his nose, and he arches his head towards the roof, blinking half-heartedly. He spits the foamy residue from his mouth and turns the tap on. Water gushes from the faucet and splashes against the sink’s porcelain base, running around the rim like a wave. He lets out another breath and closes his eyes for a few moments, then takes a deep breath and opens his eyes once again, staring into the eyes of the parasite that gently suckles on the side of his skull. It stares at him with its wide, empty eyes, almost unaware of his presence, even though it gladly feeds off him.

Jerry smiles half-heartedly and screws his nose up before shaking his head softly and gripping the sink. “I’ve decided that today’s the day you and I part ways, little fella,” he wearily says. “So, you better get your fill of me before it’s too late, because once this gravy train is over, there ain’t no coming back for more,” he spits as he screws his face up into a twisted façade and nods at his reflection with gusto. But, as always, the creature shows no awareness of Jerry’s words or existence.

He grins awkwardly and takes another deep breath as he tightens his grip on the rim of the sink. “I know, you’re wondering how a gutless piece of shit like me is going to get up the nerve to take himself out of the picture. Well,” he says, as his grin grows broader, “I’ve got a plan that can’t go wrong,” he adds as he thrusts his thumbs towards himself.

The creature suckles, as it always does, without care or attention, staring off into whatever place, whatever world, the delicacies of human endorphins and hormones take it.

Jerry squints an eye and runs his tongue around in his mouth. “Claudette helped me. You remember her, right? She’s the nice girl across the hall, the one who—the one who—” He finds his words caught in his throat and swallows as a single tear rolls down his cheek. “S-S-She’s the one who killed herself two n-n-nights ago.”

For the first time, since the parasite attached itself to the side of his head, it reacts. Its eyes move slowly and fall upon Jerry’s reflection. They grow wide and clear. It pulls back and releases its hold upon him. It looks at Jerry, tilting its head from side to side, studying him.

“S-S-She i-i-i-is d-d-dead?” it asks, its words fractured and disoriented.

He frowns and nods his head, looking down at the sink.

“I-I-I-I, I e-e-enjoyed h-h-h-her company.”

“Claudette,” Jerry says as he looks up and stares hatefully at the parasite, “or her parasite?”

Its eyes open wide, while Jerry smiles smugly.

“That’s what I thought!” Jerry snarls as a bag is thrust over the parasite, pulling it from Jerry’s back. The creature screams, thrashes about as it tries to escape, as it tries to fight back. But Jerry drives boot after boot into the bag, stomping the parasite until it is a pile of mush.

He looks up with a haggard grin upon his face, and nods gently at his reflection, while the creature continues to suckle upon him. He picks up his well-worn toothbrush and drags it across his teeth with little care, spreading the white paste across his face.

Never Not Ask Why

His world spirals downward as he spins, his stomach lurching from within and the contents rush forward, up his throat and into his mouth. He desperately tightens his lips, trying to stop the vomit from escaping, but it explodes through his nose, burning the inside of his face and forcing his mouth open. The vomit follows him as he spins, like a trail left from a comet, until he eventually hits the floor.

He lies there in shock, vomit almost covering him from head to toe. But of course, it’s not the amount of vomit that causes the worst discomfort—it’s the smell. Gathering all the energy he can muster, he gets up from the floor screaming, as he rips the clothes from his body, desperately trying to be rid of the odour that invades his burning face. Soon, he stands naked in silence, breathing heavily, his eyes wide like a madman lost in the depths of madness. The sound of clapping breaks the silence, and he quickly turns to face the applauding audience.

“You!” he hisses.

“Who else did you expect? The lovely Contessa?” the woman says.

“What did you do to her?” he yells, but her only reply is laughter.

“Oh, I’m sorry Herbert, put something on, please. It’s hard to take you seriously fully clothed, but now, like this—well, I doubt you’ll find any answers you want dressed like that,” she says with a wicked smile, running her tongue over her lips.

His cheeks glow bright red with embarrassment. Quickly, he grabs his soiled clothing from the ground and uses them to cover his genitals.

“Don’t try and change the subject. What have you done to HER?” he asks commandingly.

“The question should really be, what haven’t I done to her.”

“STOP IT!” he yells. “I played your games. I did everything you asked, killed those people without question. Now fulfil the agreement, do what you swore you would, and then leave me be. I owe you nothing, not ANYMORE!”

“Of course, you’re right, our wager is now complete, so worry not about your lady love. She is where you left her. I have no need to harm her, as she is of no use to me anymore—just like you,” she says with a smile.

He laughs this time, displaying a cheesy grin. “Don’t try scaring me, Lillian. I know you can’t hurt me,” he steps towards her proudly. “I have to survive, I must survive. It’s something to do with the balance of the chi-Ti-ak, your silly little gemstone of power—whatever the fuck it is your people worship.”

“Well, I’m impressed, you familiarised yourself with my people’s customs—bravo. But before I go, I do have one question I’d like you to answer for me,” she asks.

“If it’ll ensure your speedy disappearance, ask me and then get the hell out of my face,” he says, victory finally in his grasp.

She smiles and bows in agreeance. “When we first made our deal, and now knowing how the balance of the chi-Ti-ak works, don’t you wonder why I asked you to kill those two lovers fleeing town?” His smile slowly drops, and he goes pale as the blood runs from his face, as he realises, victory was never his to have.

We Love You Gordon

He crosses his legs, looks over the small group gathered in front of him, and smiles, leaning back in the chair. He takes a moment to capture everything in his mind.

“Well, aren’t you all the lucky ones,” he says, a smug smile upon his face. “Out of the tens of thousands who fought for this experience, you, my chosen few, are the mighty victors—those deemed worthy of the chance to touch minds not only with what some may refer to as a literary genius. But that is not all, my frightful friends. You are here to also record this meeting for the world—to paint an envious picture with words, so those who failed can writhe in their failures.”

“We love you, GORDON!” a voice screams out of the crowd.

His smile broadens. “Of course, you do. You all do, and I love you all as well. That’s why you’re here,” he says as he leans forward. “Now, who here wants to hear something new? Who here wants to witness the birth of a new kind of tale—a new beginning?”

The group cheers with excitement, and his smile widens. “That’s what I thought. You see, tonight is about sharing something with you all. Sharing a story that will sound impossible but is all true. A story that will leave you feeling mesmerised after hearing it.”

He leans back and squeezes his fingers together, fingertip by fingertip. “Seventeen nights ago, in the dead of night, I awoke to a sound. At first, I believed it to be nothing, but my mind started playing tricks on me, for I had never slept in this room before—nor have I since that night. I wearily looked around the darkened room, my eyes unable to focus as the light was almost non-existent. And of course, I was still half-asleep. Then I heard it—a deep, inhuman growl—and I was instantly awake, shaking with fear.”

He looks around at the faces as they stare, wide-eyed, toward him, each one a fish, hooked on his every word.

“I nervously called out, asking if anyone was there, but received no answer—except for the low, otherworldly growl. I called out again, threatening this time, trying to disguise my fear with fear itself. That’s when it answered. ‘Hello, Douglas,’ the voice said, husky, sharp, like fingernails on a blackboard.”

Gasps leap from the mouths of those trapped in his words. “I was beside myself, and I am proud to admit that in my fear, I felt my bladder give way, emptying its contents into my underwear, which quickly soaked through my pyjamas and into my sheets. I gulped, trying to catch a breath, as my body refused to do any of its natural tasks, caught up in the fear that now controlled my every waking moment. I clutched at my bedsheets and stuttered my next words, asking who it was and how it knew my name.”

“I received a hackle of laughter as my reply. Then it spoke again, ‘You know who I am, and how I know your name,’ it said. My mind raced with its answer. How could I possibly know who this intruder was and how they knew my name? I squeezed my eyes shut as they slowly became more accustomed to the darkness, but it was no use. My room could’ve been on the other side of hell for all I knew by now.”

He feels sweat slowly running down his brow, quickly pulls a handkerchief from his jacket pocket, and dabs his forehead. “I told him I had no idea who he was and that he had better leave, or I would be forced to get the police involved. As I said this, I reached for my mobile phone. The sod laughed as a burning chill went down my spine. I found my phone was not where I had placed it.”

“He told me there was no such escape—there would be no police, no interference. The slimy thing between the here and the there then told me that tonight I was going to be his audience—for he had a tale to tell me, a tale that, once heard, I would need to share with the world. I scoffed at his request and told him I was no tool to be used, especially considering he was taking me hostage in my own home.”

He stops, grips his knees tightly, and wipes his sweaty palms up his legs until they rest in his lap. His bottom lip trembles, and he peers off into the darkness of the room beyond, while everyone remains silent. Finally, one of the group calls out.

“W-W-What happened next?”

Gordon looks down at the man, his eyes black pools of emptiness, his skin decaying. He smiles a wide, toothy smile. “The story happened next,” he says as everything turns black.

In the Eyes

She nervously raises the napkin to her lips, pressing it against them firmly before quickly placing it back into her lap, then smiles, looking up into his perfect blue eyes.

“S-So, how did you end up here? I mean, in Sydney—not on this date, I know how you ended up here,” she says with an animated laugh, as her cheeks go bright red.

He smiles broadly at her and allows a laugh to escape from his lips. “Please, Fiona, don’t feel embarrassed, for there is no need,” he says, picking up a glass of red wine from the table, slowly rotating it in a circle until a small whirlpool forms. “I came here looking for someone who I lost a long time ago,” he says as he takes a sip from the glass.

“A lover?” she says softly.

His smile fades slowly as his eyes stare past her, into somewhere else—another time, another life—before they gently return to her.

“I thought I did, but maybe I just didn’t know what love truly felt like back then. It has been years—many, many years—since I’ve thought of her,” he says. Her eyes widen as a single tear falls from his brown eyes, rolls down his tanned cheek, and drops from his chin. Her bottom lip trembles as he places his hands slowly onto the table, and his eyes shift towards them.

“When I first awoke, I was flooded with memories I didn’t recognise. Faces, words, feelings—none of it made sense. Then there she was. She told me I’d master them all in time, but—” He grips his hands into tight fists as his blue eyes glance back at her. “Sometimes I lose myself in the memories.”

They sit in silence for some time, staring into each other’s eyes.

“Wh-What are you?” she asks softly.

“I am David,” he says, a nervous smile forming on his face.

“Wh-What do you want from me?”

His smile softens. “I want to please you, to be everything you ever wanted. To be the perfect companion.”

“W-Why?” she asks, her face pale.

“That is what I was created to do. She made me to be everything she wanted—to be perfect, or, more importantly, to reflect her image of perfection.”

“Is she—” She places the napkin to her forehead and dabs sweat away. Her eyes dart around the room, as everyone continues about their meals, oblivious to the strange happenings. Then she nervously looks back at him. “Is she the reason you’re here?”

“No, well, sort of. You see, I was created to be everything for her—to be in tune with her every want and need. But, one day she disconnected. I couldn’t feel her the way I had always done since I first awoke. When I asked her, she denied anything was wrong—said I was foolish, that I was just suffering some sort of setback. But one night while sleeping, she let a thought slip out—a face, an image, a feeling. She had fallen in love with a man—a pathetic, awkward piece of flesh. I felt jealousy for the first time that night. So I followed her the next day, not letting her know what I had learned that night. She, of course, went to him, and they—they became one, like we were. I suddenly felt something new again—a feeling I could not describe. I found out later it was called anger. I attacked them—vicious and unstoppable. He was no match for my raw strength, and he paid the price for it. But she escaped—she ran—and I spent years searching for her. Every now and then I would feel her as I closed in on her location, but somehow she always knew when I was close and managed to disappear again.”

“D-D-Did you ever find her?”

He looks down at the table once more, studying his hands, his face empty, his lips trembling. “In a way, I did. Unfortunately, she had died. I am told it was quick—a heart attack in her sleep, apparently—painless, they said.”

She slowly reaches over and nervously grips his hand. “I-I-I-I— I’m so sorry. My mother passed the same way,” she says softly.

He looks up at her and smiles. “Don’t be sorry. You see, she had a daughter,” he says as his blue eyes sparkle in the light.

Like a God

“In the beginning, this was just a barren, empty space. Dying like the rest of this withered, void of a world. But that was before we—” he pauses and allows himself to smile. “But that was before I turned it into this paradise,” he says proudly, puffing out his chest with satisfaction.

“BEFORE YOU?” another man yells from the group. “Please tell me, just WHAT the fuck did you do? And believe me, your money is an irrelevant issue, Stapleton. I say that because when we came to you, we already had a working sample of the compound. YOU only funded the next stage, and anyone could’ve done THAT!” He pushes his way out of the group, storming up to Stapleton and pointing a bony finger into his chest. “You have no right to take credit for any of this. We”—he gestures to the others—”WE did this! WE harnessed the very fabric of life. WE designed the genome that, when infused into a dead cell, repairs and replicates the cell’s original form. It not only brings the dead cells back to life, but it effectively creates a whole new cell out of nothing! YOU, sir, are not w—”

His words stick in his throat as Stapleton grips him tightly around the neck.

“HOW DARE YOU, CHARLES!” he yells, tightening his grip. “HOW DARE YOU INTERRUPT MY CROWNING MOMENT!” He hisses through clenched teeth, staring into Charles’s eyes as capillaries explode, flooding the whites of his eyes with red. “YOU, Charles, had your moment in the sun, and I have rewarded it with riches. I have moved mountains so you could have what you need for your ridiculous experiments. I have given you more for your research than anyone else would ever commit. I am a god, and you will treat me as SUCH!” he yells, throwing a gasping Charles to the ground. Slowly, Stapleton crouches down beside him.

“Now, Charles, just so you understand, if I had no need for you—if I had some other monkey who could turn all the knobs and flick all the switches you already know how to flick—you would be dead. So thank me, and choose another to take your place,” he says with a smile on his face.

“W-W-What?” Charles stammers as he tries to swallow.

“It’s a simple question, Charles. I need you, but these others”—Stapleton gestures casually towards them—”these nobodies are interchangeable, replaceable tools who serve only to assist the true mind in your hive of creativity: you. So choose who will die. Choose, so I can satisfy my need to inflict punishment on you. Otherwise, I’m just not sure what I’m going to do—or who I will kill—and you don’t want me choosing who to sacrifice, do you?” His smile broadens, twisting across his face like a snake, while the others watch on in horror.

Fear Is the Key

“Pots and pans, sticks and stones, words to taunt, knives to hunt, to cut, to kill. All these things, they will not hurt me. All these things, they will not kill me. For all these things will only make me stronger, they’ll only feed my strength, my power, my will!” he growls as he leaps from shadow to shadow down the corridor, a broad deranged smile upon his face.

“Hiding is a waste of your time, you know I’ll find you, you know you can’t run forever. Eventually, sooner than you think, I’ll introduce you to the light, and suck you empty of your poor misguided soul to feed my endless march through this world!” he says as drool drips from his mouth—thick like raspberry jam. He stops and sniffs the air like an animal, slowly looking over his shoulder.

“There you all are,” he says, his voice now much deeper, more menacing. He leaps to the ceiling, hanging from it as if he’d somehow changed the very laws of gravity itself, then begins to crawl like an insect towards his quarry. He lets out a high-pitched scream—which drifts off into nothingness—as something tears into his stomach. For what feels like an eternity, everything stops. Then, with sudden force, something is torn from him, and he collapses into a heap.

No sooner has he hit the ground than he is surrounded by a small group of kids, the oldest no more than twelve.

“You don’t have any power over us anymore, we’re not afraid of you,” a boy says, as he steps forward, brandishing a large metal pole with a knife taped to its end, a sticky black substance dripping from it.

“You fucking kids think you really have the balls to stop me?” he says as he uneasily gets to his feet, clutching his stomach as the same black liquid from the boy’s blade slowly seeps out from beneath his tightly clenched hand.

“W-We, we know how you get your strength! We know you draw it from the fear you spread, it feeds you, b-b-but we—w-w-we don’t fear you ANYMORE!” the boy yells as they all charge at him with their crudely thrown together weapons, stabbing and hitting him. Their attack is unrelenting. It goes on for minutes, maybe longer, until he lies motionless on the ground before them in a pool of black liquid. They look around at each other, exhausted, but victorious.

“T-That’s for my little sisters, you bastard!” the boy screams as he drives the pole through the man’s skull, it hits the concrete floor with a clank, echoing down the corridor.

For some time they all stand around his remains, before finally slowly making their way down the long corridor. Once outside, the boy turns to the others and allows himself to smile, looking up into the sky as the sun shines through the clouds, spreading its warmth over him.

He feels a heavy hand rest upon his shoulder, and his body stiffens. Slowly, he turns, looking into the man’s bloodshot eyes.

“Do you think you five could really compare to the thousands that already feed my sin?” he says as the boy’s world turns black. He can hear the screams of his friends as they cry out in terror, and the fear—the fear that never ends—his fear, his cries, now become part of the beast’s forever engine.

Sisterly Love

She feels the tears run down her face, but the feelings of sadness no longer wash over her as they did days before, even though the tears still flow. The door to the small room opens, and a man in his early to mid-forties storms in, his light blue shirt stained in the armpits from excessive sweating, and his raggy facial hair looks unkempt. He slams a folder down onto the table in front of her and paces around the room, lights up a cigarette, and takes a long, deep drag on it.

“You’ve got to stop lying, Allison. Enough is enough!” he says, thrusting his fists into the table and leaning over towards her, the cigarette hanging from his mouth. “Where did you bury their bodies?”

“I to…”

He slams his fists into the table again—kicking the chair opposite her to the ground. “I’m sick and TIRED of hearing the same FUCKING story! I want the truth. Don’t they deserve it? Doesn’t your sister deserve the chance to grieve for her children? Don’t you owe her that much? Don’t you owe your husband that much?”

“I don’t OWE her anything. She’s the one who’s concocted this BULLSHIT story! SHE’S the one who laid the blame on me! I’VE done nothing wrong, Detective. I deserve my right to a fair hearing, so either charge me with their murders or let me the FUCK go! Or DO I have to get a lawyer here to make you play your hand?”

He clenches his fists tightly until they turn white, and stares sternly into her eyes. “You think this whole ‘I don’t need a lawyer’ shit proves you’re innocent? You think playing the wrongly accused sister, who never did anything wrong, grants you a free pass? I think you wanted revenge. I think you wanted your sister to pay for sleeping with your husband. I think you wanted to make her feel the pain you felt. I think you’re FUCKING guilty, and I’ll prove it,” he says gruffly.

She sits there, crosses her arms across her chest, and nervously smiles, leaning back in her chair. “Sarah slept with Nathan?” she says softly.

“Cut the FUCKING act, Allison. We know you confronted them at Medazines last week. You made a whole spectacle of it, threw a glass of wine in his face, and told Sarah you’d get even, you’d take everything she loved away. We’ve got a handful of witnesses who all say the same thing. It’s an open-and-shut case, so just stop doing this and allow your husband and nephews to be laid to rest properly instead of in some unmarked grave out in the middle of nowhere!”

She lets out an awkward laugh, arches her back, looks up at the interrogation room’s ceiling, then takes a deep breath and looks back to the detective. “It was Sarah who caused the scene at Medazines, detective. She was the one who was threatening me. She dated Nathan when we were all in college. They broke up when she went to live in Germany for a year. When she came back, we were together, and Sarah always hated me for it. That’s how she ended up with Michael. She was trying to get back at me by taking my best friend away, but when she fell pregnant, he convinced her they had to get married. When Michael died last summer, Sarah changed. She was lost and turned to Nathan for comfort. Last week she threw herself at him, and he knocked her back. She was pissed and blamed me for taking him away from her again. So, she came to the restaurant drunk, SHE threw the wine in Nathan’s face, and SHE was the one who threatened me!” Allison says, frustration seeping out in her words. The detective takes a step back, his eyes wide with disbelief.

“I-I-If what you’re saying is true, it mean…” his words trail off as he rushes from the room in a panic, leaving Allison alone. She shuffles in her chair and smiles to herself.

“I told you I’d ruin your life, sister,” Allison whispers under her breath as she stares at her reflection in the two-way mirror.

One Hell of a Story

“What lights the fire that burns beneath your arse?” he asks, leaning back in the armchair and taking a sip from his glass of port.

“Fire beneath me? A bit medieval of you, isn’t it, Thomas?”

“Oh, please, Donovan, don’t treat me like the enemy. I’m the father of your son’s wife—we’re family. I’m just curious. You’ve got this home, your cars, your fortune, you never seem to want for anything. How did you get the drive to do all this?” Thomas says, smiling as he takes another sip.

Donovan laughs uneasily before nervously taking a greedy mouthful of his drink. “If I told you the truth, you wouldn’t believe me,” he says, before emptying the remainder of the glass down his throat. He jumps to his feet and quickly makes his way over to a small bar, where he refills his glass.

“Why don’t you try me? I’m quite open to a good story.”

Donovan downs his fresh drink, then pours another, makes his way back to his seat, bringing the decanter with him, and places it on a table between them.

“T-T-Trust me, this isn’t your normal, far-fetched story—this is unbelievable. If I hadn’t witnessed it for myself, I’d say it was a lie,” Donovan says, emptying another glass and slamming it down on the table. With shaking hands, he grabs the decanter.

Thomas places a hand on his, his face showing concern. “Steady on, old man, this isn’t a race. I’m simply curious, is all. If you don’t want to talk about it, just say so,” he says with a reassuring smile.

Donovan stares at him for a few moments, before biting down on his bottom lip and leaning forward. “I’ve never told anyone this story, not a soul, not even Debbie,” he says as he sits back in his chair and stares into the fireplace, watching the flames dance about as if they were possessed by Fred Astaire himself. “It’d be close to thirty-two years now when I first met him. It was at a racetrack, he was down on his luck—apparently, he’d lost a shit load of cash and only had a fiver left to his name. I don’t remember how it happened, but we got to talking, and I started to feel for the poor bugger, so much so that I shared a tip I had on the big race of the day with him. He was ecstatic, and that became tenfold when the horse won by two lengths. We ended up celebrating until the early morning, and as we were finishing our last drink of the night, he turned to me and asked the downright weirdest question anyone has ever asked me. He asked, ‘What was the single thing I most desired in life?’ I didn’t even think about it before telling him I wanted to be successful so I could spend time with my family, who I hardly knew anymore. The guy smiled at me, shook my hand, and said tomorrow would be a grand day for me, then left,” he says, leaning back in his seat, nervously chewing on his fingernails.

Thomas looks at him, puzzled, and takes a sip of his port. “I-I-I don’t get it. How did that give you all this?”

“Before that night, I worked eleven hours a day, seven days a week. I missed Bert’s first three birthdays because we needed food on the table, and I worked fucking hard to make sure it was there, even if I wasn’t. Anyway, the next morning, I received a call from my boss telling me the company was shutting down immediately, and unfortunately, my job had been made redundant. He apologised profusely, swore he would make sure the company paid me every cent I was owed. I was gutted, withdrawn, and didn’t know what to tell Debbie. It was the worst feeling I’d ever experienced up to that point in my life,” he says, pausing to refill their drinks.

“And?” Thomas prompts.

“And that’s when the guy from the racetrack showed up at my door. Turns out his name was Patrick Horton, and he was the CEO of some upstart company called ImpeTec. He didn’t say much—just that he wanted to thank me for the kindness I’d shown him the night before by gifting me 50% of the company. He said the money he won from the horse race had helped him complete a significant piece of a puzzle he’d been working on for some time, and I deserved half of whatever came of it. At first, I had no idea what ImpeTec was, but when the news broke that night, everyone else in the world and I did, all at once…”

“They launched the first fully Artificial Intelligent Pleasure Doll, right?” Thomas says. Donovan nods his head and smiles.

“Too fucking right they did. I started receiving residuals the next day and every day since,” he says, taking another mouthful. “I haven’t worked a single fucking day in over thirty years, and that, my friend, is, as you say, the fire that burns in my belly.”

Thomas swallows the contents of his glass and stares wide-eyed at Donovan. “B-B-B-Bullshit?” he stutters.

“Well, you’re the one who said you enjoy a good story,” Donovan says as he begins to laugh loudly.

Infinity

They say when you die, everything you did in your life flashes before your eyes. All your sordid secrets, all your forgotten memories, everything flashes before your eyes, and then you die.

It’s a reassuring thing really, a kind of highlight reel to transition you from one journey to the next, be it upstairs, downstairs, or sometimes in between.

Now, none of us can accurately surmise what happens until it does. So, basically, all of what I’ve told you up to this point could just be bullshit, or on the other hand, it could be exactly what happens.

Where am I going with this, you ask?

I’m going to the truth. I’m going to tell you what I saw when I died. I know, I know, how is any of this possible? Just stay with me, and I’ll tell you.

But before I go into it all, I want to thank you for asking the question, mainly because I could have gone on for ages with more examples of what we, as mortal beings, think happens when we die.

Anyway, enough of all that. Let me get to the guts of the story. Let me get back to where I started, because your life flashing before your eyes is kinda on the right path—it’s just a little off-centre. You see, for me, it was Dolores Fillmore. She was my moment—what, or whoever, was out there—wanted me to see as I passed through one door and into the next.

Who was Dolores Fillmore?

She grew up next door to me. When we were kids, we played together. Heck, we even shared our first kiss. But as we grew up, we also grew apart, splintering off into different social groups, and it wasn’t until the night of her twenty-second birthday that I even had a real adult conversation with her. Unfortunately, it was also the last time anyone ever saw her alive.

For thirty-eight years, I kept the conversation a secret. Even when the police threatened to lock me up, I kept quiet, denying I had ever seen her that night. To be honest, I don’t think they ever believed me—especially the lead detective. He fucking hounded me for years, pegged me as the weird kid who lived next door, the one who had no tangible alibi, who was possibly seen talking to the missing girl on that night.

Anyway, I’m getting sidetracked again, lost in the whole story. You see, the thought of reliving the whole thing, as I have every moment since I passed, is almost impossible to shake. I guess you could call it the one sin that got me here in this place, reliving it over and over again.

I can see by the look on your face that you’re disgusted by me. That’s only because of what you saw me do to the Jones’ cat, isn’t it? I was curious. I wanted to know if it felt pain the way we do. You ran away, repulsed by what I had done. When I came to you that night, you were upset. You’d just found out your perfect boyfriend was cheating on you. It’s crazy how a few drinks can make everything clear.

At first, I wanted to explain it all, but you pushed me away. You told me you would tell everyone, and that’s when I hit you. The blood was like oxygen. I breathed it in and realised what I had done once the high had worn off.

For three days, you lay there, waiting for the right time to be moved. When I took you out to Helen’s Creek, I kissed you for the second time in my life, then let you go forever. You’d never rise again, but you’d always be with me, forever—for eternity—as I find myself watching you leave the house again to meet me once more for our date with destiny, for our dance in the infinity of creation.