“Da’ fuck? A smiley face?”
Larry shoved his phone back in his pocket and shook the large wet snowflakes off of his head. He walked into Rob’s yard. The rest of the neighborhood was dark and silent. Larry glanced around. It was a nice house, two stories, picket fence, and toys scattered on the front lawn.
What was he doing there?
The phone beeped. It was Sammael, yet again. The message read: “He’s awake and on the second floor. The door to the garage is unlocked. He forgot to check. Sigh, even after wifey reminded him.”
Larry walked to the garage door. He hesitated, then placed his hand on the ice-cold knob. It turned and Larry stepped inside the warm house. He exhaled and relaxed. This was easier than he thought it would be.
He tip toed through the house, stepped over scattered toys, stopped at the stairs and listened. He heard the clickety clack of the keyboard. The man must stay up at all hours typing ‘shyte’. Larry eased up the stairs. Did Rob have a dog? Larry racked his brain to remember if he’d ever commented about being a dog owner. Damn, the bastid wrote so much, and Larry never really read it all. Whatever, Sammael and Facebook didn’t say anything about a dog. He would assume there wasn’t one.
He paused at the doorway of what had to be Rob’s study. Large books were scattered, opened, all over the floor, much like the toys outside. Crumbled up paper was discarded into an over flowing trashcan. The room smelled like cigarettes and fresh coffee.
Larry heard Sammy’s voice in his head. Sammy whispered, “Wait for it ...”
Rob leaned down to pick up a discarded cigarette and Larry rushed in, grabbed the keyboard and wrapped the wire around Rob’s neck.
Rob gurgled something and Larry eased up on the taut wire. He said, “What?”
Rob said, “Obligations to guillotine must be requested beforehand and then dispersed within the society to be discussed and recommended or not. The ...”
Larry screamed and said, “You don’t make any sense! You just use big words to bullshit your way through life!”
Larry dragged Rob over to the window. Thankfully instead of struggling or fighting back, Rob simply yammered away. Larry didn’t pay any attention to the crap Rob said.
The cord was not long enough to reach. Damn it! He used one hand to push the slightly open window all the way up. Rob must have had it cracked to let out the cigarette smoke. Larry yanked the cord and the entire computer, monitor and all moved. Larry laughed and pushed Rob, still talking non-stop, out of the window.
He jumped to the side as the computer crashed to the floor, caught with the plug in the wall, and then the cord gave. Fuck! Larry glanced outside and watched as Rob landed in an awkward position outside on the frozen lawn. Damn! Rob continued to talk.
Larry raced back to the garage. He needed to stop Rob before he called for help. Once in the garage, Larry noticed a straight edged shovel leaning against the wall.
Sammy’s voice laughed with glee and said, “Now there’s a weapon.”
Larry grabbed the shovel and ran around to the back yard where Rob landed. Thankfully Rob was still there, hunched over in a ball and cradling his broken arm.
Rob said, “My humerus fractured as I collided with the terra firma, resulting in copious amounts of physical and mental suffering.”
Larry raised the shovel and said, “Shut da fuck up already!”
He jammed the shovel down, on Rob’s neck. Rob’s head lolled to the side. Blood spurted out of the headless corpse. Larry gasped for breath and leaned against the shovel a moment.
Rob’s head said, “A beheading was imminent and unforeseen. Sorrowful and yet poignant with an uncharacteristic...”
Larry slammed the shovel down over and over, until there was nothing left but pieces and parts. He screamed “Shut up! Shut up! Oh my fucking God, shut the hell up!”
Finally, exhausted, Larry limped back to the garage, dragging the bloodied shovel behind him. Even beheaded and dismembered, Rob had continued to jabber. Larry wiped the sweat from his forehead and placed the shovel back where he found it. He had noticed something useful inside. This should shut the fucker up for good. Larry cackled as he trudged back to where Rob’s body laid scattered in the backyard. He could still hear Rob’s voice.
Sammael’s voice broke in, “Damn, can’t I get a word in edge wise here? Jebus, I hope he shuts up when he arrives in hell. Gawd, please sew his mouth shut.”
Larry squirted fire starter on the dismembered body and tossed pieces of cardboard around. He flicked the lighter and touched it to the cardboard, then squirted the house as the fire caught and jumped at the flammable liquid.
He backed away as the house blazed. He laughed and sat on the wet ground. His phone beeped. He glanced at the dead phone and a post from Sammael Mammon appeared: “Time for coffee.”
Larry stood and said, “Yeah, coffee sounds good right now.”
*~*~*
Josette Weiss lives in Tennessee with her husband. She has always wanted to be a writer, even as a toddler she would flip through picture books and speak gibberish, making up her own story on each page. In 2013 Josette's dreams came true. She published her first book, Haunted Reality, which is about an evil house haunted by more than just ghosts. Before the year was out, she published four more books. You can find more information on Josette Weiss at her website: www.Crossbonespublications.webs.net
Volta
Vicki Barnes
The clunk, clink ricochet as the iron bars slammed together echoed through the empty halls, the violent intro to the night’s usual lullaby. A somber tune played well by uniformed guards. Minions to God and man’s authority, our keepers as governed by the law of humans.
Someone sang,
Someone cried,
Someone silent,
Someone died.
Does it matter?
No not at all.
Death row.
My home.
My final call.
I turned the pages of my book, reading the words of someone long since dead. A forefather of my kind. Volta, the title read at the top of the page, the final dance of my soul. I had read this incantation like reciting a prayer, it was memorised, but it gave comfort to see the words. To read it one more time.
My final hours ticked by. The sound of the clock was quiet that night. I listened to the scurry of the vermin, the scratching of their claws on the cold stone floors. Somewhere close a pipe dripped. Someone used the lavatory. Someone passed gas. Such primitive creatures, they did not know what was coming for them. My neighbours. I was thankful this was my final night.
“Volta,” I said the word, said it slowly. It resonated in my head with its calming wings, soothing my mind. No, I was not afraid of my final journey. I did not fear the death I faced the next day.
We all make sacrifices.
For her, my love. I did it for her. They could take my body, my empty shell. They could lay it bare and carve it open, but they would not take me. Not my soul, not what was mine, my spirit. I was meant to be here. This was not their choice to take me.
Oh, I had to be punished, that was certain. I understood it. I deserved that much. A failure to my master, I understood his lessons. These were his teachings, but he had given me a way. A way to redeem myself and show him that I served him as I was meant.
Lucifer. My father. My keeper.
I was nothing more than a retarded vessel that served him with my own greed. It was a mistake and did not go unpunished.
An insult.
I was weak. I understood that as I lay on my cot in my cell. I could not help myself. She was a tease, those eyes, the way they spoke. Her mouth, the way it moved. So inviting. Calling to me and I could not help myself. I was a victim to the lure of a woman, like many men before me.
She was not mine to have. Her breasts, small and soft. Like a defiant child I took what was not mine and spoiled it. I was a fool. I knew that. I did not deserve the second chance that I had been given, but I was thankful.
>
Another chance to find Lucifer his Catherine, she wasn’t mine. I had read it in my book, it was all there. Find the girl, Catherine, ensure she is pure, offer her to him and he would come. He would claim his Catherine and in return, power. So much power. All I had to do was leave her pure, her innocence was his to sacrifice, but I was weak. He used the humans to punish me.
She hadn’t been pure though. It was a lie, shown in the eyes of the boy who interrupted me as I defiled her. Eyes the same as hers. The same mouth. Her child. She was a whore and not worthy, that was why she had to die. That was why I took her life. It was not my fault that the followers of God did not understand.
I closed my eyes on my last night. I pictured her face, sweet and unmoving. Dead. Sent back to whence she came, so she may be reborn to fix the crimes she had committed. It was not for her to give herself to other men. She was not supposed to do that.
When the guards claimed me from my cell to take me on that walk, the one that all the inmates feared, delicious excitement swirled within my chest.
“Volta.” One word, but it would be my release from this body and into the next. The judge vowed I would never walk this earth again, but he was wrong.
A guard’s thick hand grabbed my arm. “Silence,” he said. His voice lacked any form of command that I would recognise and obey.
Soon, though. Soon his time would come. We would meet again. Not here, not in this place, but within his lifetime. He would remember me. He would never forget me.
They laid me down on the steel table and I saw her through the glass. Not Catherine. No, she was dead and gone. But a face so similar, so delicate. The weeping sister, come to bear witness to my execution.
The straps went on, the needles pierced my skin, but they would not keep me there. This was not what I was meant for. I did not wince nor cry. I did not fight them. I watched.
The innocent boy by his aunt’s side. He stared at me. Eyes that knew me. I stared back. His soul was tainted, he had seen. He had been there when his mother had died. It had been unfortunate. I did not see the need to take him too. He was nothing to me, until then. My new vessel. Perfect, just for me.
“Any last words?” They asked.
Yes, yes. “Volta, volta.”
There was a frown on my executioners face. I did not care and neither did he. It wouldn’t matter. None of it would matter.
I stared at the boy. Watched his soul through his eyes as the hot liquid began to fill my veins.
“Volta,” I said.
The leaping dance.
The soul dance.
The boy and I, we danced. From our bodies. Unseen to those in the room. “Volta,” the incantation repeated like a mantra.
My destiny. My choice. I was chosen to find her. Catherine.
I opened my eyes. New eyes. Innocent eyes that had seen death.
My rebirth. I watched my old shell through the glass slip from this world. A gift to the boy. His horror welcomed death. I did not. He could have it, it was his to keep.
It was a fair trade. It ended the suffering of his tormented soul.
I grinned and clutched the hand of my new aunt.
“Volta,” I said as I breathed in the air of my freedom.
*~*~*
Vicki Barnes is crazy… Not that bio. Vicki Barnes is a writer, she has been writing since forever. First published when she was five in the local newspaper, she still writes today. For a long time she spent her time writing as a gamer, writing on online saga for one of the gaming sites (since gone, sadly) Now Vicki is working on her novel somewhere between studying for her degree in psychology. A lover of the fictional world, Vicki resides in the North of England and can usually be found online on facebook when not writing or gaming. https://www.facebook.com/AuthorVictoriaBarnes
What Would Brando Do
Wayne DePriest
In the blackest of leather, he walked into the bar. A Wild One. A modern day Brando. At least that’s the way Oliver Prender thought of himself; that’s what he wanted to be. The reality was a bit different. Oh, he had the leather jacket. He had the oiled, slicked back hair, even if it was prematurely thinning. He had the swagger. He had the bill of the Johnny cap tugged down slightly to the right. It might have been the pallor that took away some of the effect. It might have been his hundred forty-seven pounds draped over the six foot two inch frame. All in all, he didn’t garner the sort of attention he thought he should from the dozen or so people scattered around the bar. What he did get were nods in his direction accompanied by half smiles that might have indicated humor or disbelief. One or two patrons tapped the shoulders of others and indicated Oliver with a ‘Get this’ thrust of a thumb.
“Beer?” Oliver said, as he got to the bar. He tried for a baritone command. He got a tenor half question.
“Can you narrow it down for me, buddy?” The bartender was a gray haired beefy guy, with forearms the like of which Oliver believed his own would be if he kept at the weights.
“Um ...” Oliver tried to think of a brand of beer. A commercial popped into his head. “Miller.”
The bartender raised one eyebrow in question, a trick Oliver thought was pretty cool and had tried to master as he stood in front of the mirror every morning, wishing he had more beard to shave so he wouldn’t have to shave.
“Lite,” Oliver added in response. “Miller Lite.”
A guy in a brown leather coat three stools away grinned. Oliver could see the grin in the mirror behind the bar. It wasn’t pretty. Neither the grin nor the mirror. The mirror was grimy with smoke and fingerprints and God knows what else. The grin was cruel and missing three teeth on the left. Well, technically the missing teeth were on the right because of the reverse effects of looking in the mirror. The visual adjustment rationale came unbidden into Oliver’s head. Weird stuff like that had a way of doing that. He wondered if he should do something about the guy who grinned.
WWBD? What Would Brando Do?
Something cool for sure. Something so cool and, at the same time, so badass that every other tough guy in the joint would know that Marlon Brando was nobody to fuck with. Something like a casual backhand to the grinning mouth; a backhand that would leave the guy spitting blood and several more teeth. With whom nobody should fuck. That was the problem right there. Brando would be dropping this guy like a bad habit. Brando would be beating the guy like a rented mule. All Oliver Prender could do was correct his own grammar.
“Two seventy-five,” the bartender said as he set a bottle on the bar.
Oliver pulled the leather wallet from his back pocket with a practiced ease, thanks to the hours in front of the full length mirror on the back of his bedroom door. But he fumbled with the stiff new leather and the tight snaps. When they finally gave, he dropped the wallet. It hit the edge of the bar and fell, stopped six inches above the floor, and swayed back and forth on the silver chain looped to his broad leather belt.
Oliver blushed and hauled the wallet back up to his hand. Thank God I zipped the zippers. He flipped the flap back, tugged open one of the zippered pockets and, shielding the contents from the bartender and the guy in the brown coat and bad teeth, carefully separated three dollar bills from the sheaf of nineteen and laid them on the bar. “Keep it,” he said.
The bartender looked at Oliver, looked at the three dollar bills and picked them up. “Thanks. Thought for a minute you might be a tightwad. Now I can get that operation.”
“Operation?” Oliver asked with concern.
“Yeah. On my eyes.”
Oliver squinted, wishing he’d worn his glasses. But cool guys don’t wear glasses and his eyes were too sensitive for contacts. Besides, it’s only a little farsightedness. If he squinted he could see just fine. So he squinted. “They look fine to me.”
“Yeah. They look okay. But I see dumb asses.”
The guy in the brown coat was looking at Oliver, grinning. “What the hell are you supposed to be?”
Oliver ignored him, concentrating on another
sip of beer. He rotated the bottle in the wet ring on the bar, the way he’d seen actors do it in movies. They always looked so pensive when they did it. He put on his best pensive look; thoughtful, perusing the mysteries of the universe or perhaps the ways of a woman. It made him look slightly daft.
“Hey!”
A finger poked him in the left shoulder, knocked him just a little off balance.
“I said ‘What the hell are you supposed to be?’ Don’t you hear so good?”
It was the guy in the brown coat that Oliver could now see was dirty; the leather cracked in several places. He was standing next to Oliver, one hand behind his back, the other with a finger extended for another poke.
WWBD?
Now, this is where Brando would calmly say something like, ‘I hear real good. I hear the ambulance coming to take you in for repairs.’ Then Brando would slip off the stool while the guy was busy on that, and Brando would clip him on the jaw, quickly, efficiently, and the guy would drop to the floor. Brando would finish his beer so cool and calm and not even look at the guy he decked until he was ready to leave. Then he might kick the guy in the nads. That was Brando. But he was Oliver, so he thought about the guy’s coat and was willing to bet, and give three-to-one odds, that the guy didn’t have a painting of a leather-clad pig astride a Harley with ‘Hog Wild’ in dripping, blood-red letters below it on the back of his jacket.
So it wasn’t any Brando bravado that came out of Oliver’s mouth. It was just an answer to the guy’s question. “I hear just fine. I was just thinking.”
The guy grinned, exposing the gap in his teeth. “That’s funny. So was I. Know what I was thinking?”
“How could I? I’m not telepathic.”
“I was thinking if you could guess what’s behind my back?
“I don’t know.”
“Guess. That’s how this works, buddy. I got something behind my back. You get to guess what it is.”
“If something is behind you, technically it’s in front of your back. So behind your back is really in front of you. And I can see that you don’t have anything in the hand in front of you.”