***
The next morning federal crews commenced clean up, the sinkhole the old asylum and a section of a shopping strip next door had been swallowed by surprised the small town. But Dan, an aging Texas sheriff deputy, knew his day was only starting when he saw the blood under a plank of wood the crew moved out from the hole with a small crane “Oh shit” he grunted “hold up!” he called to his crew, who came to a halt.
Further into the pit the team had dug, thirty feet below ground, he pulled up boards around the blood uncovering two young men. One had looked to have died in pain, his arm was broken and had probably bled out, but the other man seemed to be only a few hours’ dead, crushed buy the building’s collapse.
Both had cameras still intact, ones that he hoped provided the reason the two were here. One cameras screen was destroyed but its recording light and flashlight were active, he would have to wait till later to see what was on it. The other one he picked up gave him chills, his neck hair stood on end. On it was a man’s face, too close to the camera to get many details the face was wide eyed and hysteric, made all the more awful by the green glow of the infrared.
A small wind blew something gassy into his face, smelling of rotten eggs and feeling like dust, causing him to close his senses to the world. When it had passed he re-opened his eyes, but the camera was dead. With a shrug he turned towards his crew “Call crime scene”, from somewhere deeper in the rubble a phone rang.
The End
Looped
The tires crunched the pavement in a park Nick had never been before. The place seemed unreal, ridiculous even, but it was where he and his mother would spend their day.
They parked their green van along the sides of the small street which rolled down a hill to the nearby channel. From here he could see the waterway, no buildings were in the way, and this far out from the beach no trees called the sands home. In the flowing channel sat the aircraft carrier Arizona, he had no idea why it was there or why he even remembered the name of the old ship. He was sure it was important, that remembering such a ship was something he needed to do, but he was here to have fun.
In the middle of the road beyond the parking area adults sat up their beach chairs to bathe in the cancer giving sunlight oblivious to the cars that might run them down while the kids where left to play about the grassy dunes and a tiny kiddy pool. Eying the shallow water with distaste he frowned, this place looked boring, he would rather broil in the smoldering Rockport bay water than here.
There were a handful of other kids he didn’t know, most of them younger than his ten year old self. He walked over to his mother in her teal two peace, to nod down to the channel. “Mom, can I go see the ship?”
His mother turned her head to it unfolding her tanning mirror, “No hun, it’s too far to go without an adult.”
He eyed her, “Can we go?”
With that look that told you to watch it from atop her glasses, she sighed “Later, just let mommy relax, go swimming for a bit.”
He stomped his feet, “Can’t we head to the beach?” he groaned
“You know the water isn’t safe, won’t be for some time. Now go on, go play.”
Nick groaned again, but shuffled away, his shoulders sunken in defeat. Eyeing the ship his memory tugged at him, but stubbornly refused to let him remember anyway. He walked through the squeaky black gate and onto the brown cement of the pool area.
The ground here was too hot for comfort, he danced across it before jumping into the small wading pull. Only three feet deep and twenty long he wasn’t going to get much swimming done in here, he kneeled instead, letting the warm water protect him from the hotter sun.
He must have dozed because he woke leaning against the wall to the sound of a strange engine, like the buzzing of a large plane but also not. He rose out of the pool and looked to where no one else seemed to care, the ship.
Feet from it hovered a zeppelin, not a blimp you’d see above sporting events but the giant silver versions that used to be employed by Germany. On the top and bottom fins of its tail were red flags with a white circle surrounding a black reversed swastika, Nazis. This was ridiculous, Nazi’s existed today as small groups of white extremists and zeppelins had been extinct outside museums displays long before even his mother had been born. Still, he saw what he did, and as he thought of Nazi’s something tugged at his mind again about the ship in the harbor.
The zeppelin started to smoke from behind its hanging cabin and turned for the Arizona. Stepping from the pool he ran out the gate to his sleeping mother, shaking her awake.
“What?” she said as she fumbled to a sit, dropping her foil mirror to the pavement, “What’s going on?”
He was speechless, but she followed his gaze, “Oh my god, is it trying to make an emergency landing?”
“Mom do you know the Arizona, the ship?”
“From pearl harbor? Sure.” She said, the engine on the old blimp rose in strain, trying to gain altitude, or possibly speed.
Flashes of history came through Nick’s mind, Arizona, destroyed, thousands lost, “Not possible.”
He turned to watch the zeppelin crumple itself into the ship’s flat hull, his mother kept repeating “Oh my god”. At first it seemed that was all that would happen, but then a spark, a single warning that let him look away, and the a sun that lit the entire sky, covering everything in a blinding white wash, stole the day.
He didn’t think the ship had been nuclear, during Pearl Harbor such technology had been in its baby stages. Had the airship carried a bomb? It made as much sense as anything did right now.
Through all the screaming he caught his mother yelling that she was blind, that the light had taken her eyes. He was sure the hot light he could feel burning into his back, dousing him with a lethal amount of radiation, had done just that. He edged around without turning to find her sitting in her chair, clawing at her sightless eyes, her face as red as tomato.
Nick held her cheeks, “Shh mom, it’s ok, it’s temporary, you looked right at it.” He said as calm as possible.
“What’s happening?” she started, but he ignored her, he was listening to something that drowned out the screaming, the sound of a stampede coming closer, a shock wave that heat and fire rode.
It hit his back first, sending him to his knees, peeling away at his shirt in a flash. He looked up to his mother, her mouth had widened into a grin as her lips receded, her eyes sagged like miniature deflating beach balls, he realized they were melting. Nick’s back exploded in a storm of charring flesh, numbing his senses to the world, his mother’s skin peeled away from her, leaving nothing but a grinning skeleton that continued to scream.
He fell to the pavement, his last view the pool boiling red with several children roasted black floating within it.
Nick woke, sitting in the water, breathing hard, and rose from it, taking in his surroundings. Everything was ok, he looked to the channel and his blood ran cold. The Arizona still sat there with its name readable even from this distance. He knew the ship was impossible, so the impossible was about to happen, and he ran.
His mother was in the early throes of sleep when he took the mirror from her hands and pushed her off the chair.
“The hell?” she started as she rose from the pavement, forced out of her sleep.
“Mom, it’s all wrong, we have to go!”
She shook her head, “What?”
He nodded to the ship, “The Arizona, it’s a ship that sunk in Pearl Harbor.”
Turning to it, her face scrunched in confusion, his mother peered at the ship, “I can’t read it from here, are you sure?”
“As sure that in two minutes a blimp carrying a Nazi flag will crash into it and kill us, we have to go.”
She turned back, her eyes wide with bewilderment, “The hell are you talking about? Are you ok?”
“Mom we need to go, even if you don’t believe in that, it’s the Arizona, it shouldn’t exist.”
She smirked as she peered at the ship, ?
??Hun, it’s a recreation, a special of some kind, it’s” the sound of the zeppelin rising from behind the hill they were on cut her off, it appeared to rise from the ground. Maybe it rose from hell, a sinister two minute recreation of Word War Two that never happened. “The hell?” she said, watching it’s Nazi flags wave in the wind, “not possible.”
“Mom” he strained, then decided to screw it and ran, he was running when the sky turned from blue to white, till he felt the heat light his back, till the shockwave pushed him to the ground, and the heat peeled away his skin.
He woke, jumping out of the pool and through the gate. The ship was still there, and he had to work fast. He pushed his mom from the chair, “Mom! Bomb! We have to move!”
She shot up fast at this, a bomb threat more plausible than a fear of the impossible, “Where?”
“The cops are saying nuclear, leave the chair!” he said pulling her to the van, she eyed the others around them, a few stared, most ignored them.
“But, no one else…” she trailed off, in the distance the zeppelin Engine rose to a fury as it attempted to climb, fear lit his mother’s eyes, she remembered, “go now!”
They ran for their green Ford Aerostar, Nick slid into the back and pulled the side door shut as she turned over the engine, spun the van around, spitting loose asphalt at people and cars alike, and punched it, not caring for the others that sought to flee from her escape. “What the hell is this, how can this be happening? It was a dream!” her voice shook with fear.
The sky went white, but this time heat did not light his back, at fifty miles an hour and rising he and his mother had escaped the incinerating blast, he allowed himself a sigh of relief. A loud roar hit them, the windows in the van shattered at once and the pavement was close to the window all of a sudden, then to his face, and he was looking up into the blue sky.
He tried to roll over but he was in too much pain, his eyes could see their van just feet from him, smoke rose from the engine and inside, the column from it only outdone by the mushroom cloud that lied behind them. A limp hand hung from the driver’s side window, twisted from the wreck, something burst within his abdomen, and sleep replaced a great deal of pain.
He woke in the pool again, this time he did not rise, though his mother shot to her feet from her own chair. He knew it would make no difference.
Nick placed his palms against his eyes and wept for this was hell, and he wasn’t sure he or his mother deserved such. An engine rose in the distance, everyone began to panic, but he kept on crying.
The Barking
Koll was a man of his late fifties, he was fine he was not handsome, with his age lining his gaunt face, protruded chin, risen cheekbones, sunken eye sockets, and bony, crooked nose that caused him to look like devious jester, not improved buy his early, near complete balding circled by a layer of thin long brown and blond hair. He was also okay that, because these looks, he was alone. He preferred solitude.
Koll entered his house, scented of pine cleaner, not bothersome kids or filthy pets, or wives in heat. White walls surrounded an organized room, one he cleaned down to the gaps in the kitchen tile floor every other day. It was peaceful except for the A/C which hummed its relaxing tune against the Texan summer. And because the kids and their parents had yet to come home from their work, their play times, or their schools, he’d have the whole neighborhood to himself, peace and quiet.
The first thing he did, as he did every day, was strip off his blue jean suspenders and white T-shirt which smelled of his outside life, chemicals and puke, and threw them into a closeted hamper to the side of his entrance hall. In his bleached briefs which stretched around his bony hips he retreated to the living room furnished with a soft brown rug and faux wooden paneled walls, only marred by matching leather couches, a coffee table, his entertainment set, and a handful of windows, cloth blinds drawn shut.
Koll disregarded his HDTV for an aging record player that had been his since his childhood, an era where taped music just started to put records out of business. Once his late father’s player he kept it in pristine condition, when he set on a relaxing quartet album, the jazzy swing tunes of John Coltrane, it played with crystal quality he expected today’s CD’s, or even worse digital recordings, lacked.
As John’s saxophone quieted for a rise he had memorized from years of listening he crossed through the living room, around the other side of the entertainment center and a small marble topped island, into his marble tiled kitchen. With his new mirrored fridge Koll poured ice and fresh filtered water into a large cup before pouring that into a much larger blender. Next he retrieved a handful of strawberries and blueberries, blending the concoction together while pouring in lines of spiced rum with meticulous care, watching each brown line swirl into the colorful mix before adding another. Within minutes he finished crafting his own personal blended treat that helped relax him enough to handle life.
A bark, it was his neighbor’s troublesome dog, but it was much too early for the Johnsons to be home, or it to its ruckus. Of his whole neighborhood, the cars, the kids, the parties and the holiday fireworks, nothing drove him up a wall like his neighbors dog.
A short stocky pit bull of white with brown patches on its back and over its right eye, colored like a cow, the little beast caused a ruckus every day. Its owners arrival home triggered an attack on his neighbor’s front fencing and attached gate, when his masters entered the house it’d go after the sliding glass door until it’s owners let it in, when it was outside with the owners it attacked its giant plastic ball, rolling it along the back fence and if someone was mowing, or edging, or just farting loudly in their own yard, it’d attack that side of the yard.
And each time it went into its frenzy it barked, a high-pitched female yelp edged with fleshy guttural sounds that drove into his head like nails at a hammers flat end driving in a migraine that shook his arms each time it yelped.
He sipped his mixer, there was nothing he despised more than that dog, which was now, despite being alone and no other noise coming from outside, in full out psychosis, attacking one of its fences. He prayed that the thing might break through and become a stray, to be run down having never faced a road without its master.
Koll crossed his living room to reach his wooden back door, through it he stepped into his small backyard where he saw the dog’s aggressor, a good sized orange tabby watching from atop the fence, the look on its face one of knowing amusement as it watched the apparent lesser intelligent specie’s useless struggle to get at it.
That yelping was becoming an ache behind his eyes, the claws scraping the fence nails on a chalkboard. He placed his drink on his back porch to pick up a small rock from his backyard garden to chunk it at the mystery cat. It missed, hitting below it and leaving a white streak on his side where the rock broke in two before ricocheting into the yard, but the cat received the message and was off into another yard, away from the loud mutt and violent man. Koll allowed himself a small smirk before the headache began to once again dig into him as if trying to push the two white orbs out so it could bore into his mind.
It was still yelping, no longer at the cat but now at him. He walked towards it with a mission, picking a handful of rocks this time, ignoring the disorder it caused his garden. It was time someone taught that dog manners. He pushed himself up on his tiptoes so he could lean both arms onto the fence, a sidewise planked weave of Spanish culture he hated, thought it too easy to penetrate for crooks.
The dog jumped at him, not getting much air between its back paws and the ground, only tearing midway up towards him, leaving him enough distance for safety. Its mouth was wide but relaxed, yelping every other time it jumped, its tail waving with enthusiasm, it didn’t look the sort of dog that would hurt anyone but he cared not for its abundance of compassion and love, he cared that it learned to shut up.
He tested it by letting the smallest rock he held fall to the ground, the animal stopped jumping long enough to investigate before starting at him again, the yelp
, jump, yelp, jump combo without missing a beat. With rising annoyance Koll rose his hand, a larger pebble gripped between his thumb and forefinger. With a flick of his wrist he snapped the rock at its furry target, pelting it dead center between the eyes.
The pit yelped, tucking its tail between its legs and backing off a few feet. When it tried to return he flicked another at it again, though he only hit the ground, kicking up dirt, the dog gave in, sauntering, head low, tail pressed against its belly, back towards its porch to await its master in quiet.
Satisfied, Koll returned to his reclusive paradise, deciding now a good time to write, even start a new chapter, while the dog was behaving. His house held two floors with a basement; his second floor was small, a single thin hall and three rooms, including the master bedroom and bath. Sterile, planer than his living areas, it was here he felt most at home within his solitude. A story off the ground he was away from the people and animals that bothered him and his worries in his place of peace.
His room was white, white carpets, walls, with a white wood dresser and bed frame with fresh bleached sheets and curtains on the small windows overlooking the backyard. There was no entertainment system up here, his form of entertainment in his bedroom came from a small collection of novels and human science texts. He pushed a magazine on surgery off his bed and from the pile picked up his little green leather backed journal, a book he was sure one day would interest someone, the book that might make him a true immortal amongst the people he could not stand.
Koll flipped open to the last page he had written on and realized that the last chapter was complete, the chapter of the one who had been quieter than most. He drew a line under the words that mimicked the chapter’s title and started his fifth chapter, titling it ‘The Barker’. He didn’t realize until now who his target would be, but it seemed fitting.
‘The furry thing was at it again today’ he wrote ‘for the past two years since it was a puppy it has annoyed me and I sense that its time is drawing to a close, it is time to make one more thing learn that annoying me is something no one ever gets away with.’
His writing drew on, finishing out ten pages of the journal in clean practiced cursive, pausing to make small changes or fixes here and there. He was creating side notes when his concentration broke. Yelp, pause, yelp, pause, the dog was at it again. Work set aside Koll rose and strolled to his master bath to peek out the window which faced his neighbor. A cream brown Cadillac sat in the driveway, its headlights shut off and his neighbor, a well dressed overweight man with a full head of shiny black hair, climbed out to walk towards the gate to great his loud mutt. He hated how healthy looking the man was, and how happy his family appeared to be, slightly less than he hated that dogs barking.
His neighbor passed gate into his yard and the dog stopped yipping, but he knew it wasn’t permanent, soon the dog would attack its favorite ball and the yelping would resume, this time with no pauses for jumping. Koll could no longer write for the night, his only hope to not be sporting a migraine by bed time was to drown out the noise. He turned for his shower, turned it high and hot, dropping and kicking off his briefs.
Nude, his body looked emaciated and jaundiced in the mirror, but illness and malnutrition had brought this upon him, and he knew he brought it upon himself, eating never a priority. A cup of coffee, liquor, a donut and a microwave burrito fit his usual schedule until his body cried out for its good meal he fed it once a week, which he made by hand, taught by the chef his father had been. If only he became the rich chef his father envisioned him to be he could have lived above everyone, on the roof penthouse of a tall building far away from people and dogs, so far away even the symphony of traffic sounds insignificant.
He ran a handful of shampoo through what little of his hair he had. After his ritual of cleanliness he shut the water off and listened, at first there was nothing, his hearing confused and deafened by the rushing water, but soon it was there. The damnable barking, no breaks, no pauses, not even to breathe, he thought it amazing the dog didn’t kill itself the way it went on. He’d do the thing a favor and teach it another lesson if he wasn’t sure the owner was out with it.
Exhausted, he climbed out of the shower and placed a robe on his chilled crooked body, the day tired him and he was ready to drown out the annoyance with more noise. Back in his bedroom he could still hear it, bark, bark, bark. In his lone closet, sliding aside its door, the old man brought out an old portable record player, upon it was the album for Top Gun. It was a record nearing the end of the era, when low quality tapes began to replace records, but it was still a good record. He’d play not classical music this time, but actual songs, most by Kenny Loggings, a musician he thought no less genius than Coltrane, who was loud enough cover that damned dogs barking.
He set the needle and after a silent second Highway to the Danger Zone roared to life. Stripped of his robe Koll lied nude in bed, rolling so he could wrap himself into his warm comforter, the only embrace of love he’d ever need.