“None,” Breuer said from the other side of the shower glass.
Mae startled, slid the glass door open. Breuer smiled at her from atop the counter, sitting with his hairy legs crossed, hooves for feet. He hadn’t aged a day.
“Don’t be scared, Mae-Vee. You really see me, huh? Incredible.”
“Breuer? How? I thought you weren’t real.”
“You can’t believe everything you hear. And why wouldn’t I be real? Just because you went five years without seeing me? Have you stopped to consider that you haven’t seen me since shortly after you started taking those goddamn pills?”
“Of course. But when I stopped taking them I still didn’t see you. And Trent, he said you were just part of my imagination. A hallucination.”
“Yeah, and Trent knows everything, huh? Minnow, I’ve done some bad things in my existence, but introducing you to that piece of shit Trent has to be the worst decision I’ve ever made. Ever.”
“You can say that again. Breuer, I got to be honest, I’m a little spooked to be seeing you right now. I was sure you were an imaginary friend. A hallucination.”
“Again, you can thank Trent for brainwashing you into thinking I don’t exist. And what you just said, about how you stopped taking those pills, that’s not true. You never stopped taking them. Good ol’ Trent, before he could legally write a prescription, he went to Mexico once a year to buy a shit-load of those crazy pills. You love your juice smoothies, don’t you? You were juiced, all right.”
“So you really are real?”
“Of course.”
Mae shut off the water and took her towel off the hook, dried herself, never taking her eyes off Breuer. “I just wish I could know for sure.”
“Ye with so little faith.”
Mae cracked a smile. “All you ask is faith the size of a mustard seed. Right, Breuer?”
“Exactly! And I don’t even get that much! But I know how you feel, honestly I do. You’ve been fed a lot of horse shit from people over the years. Get dressed, let’s go for a walk. The DMV?”
“Yep. I want my driver’s license.”
“And you deserve one. We have to be back by 3:00, though.”
“Why?”
“Are you lucky to have me back or what? What would you do without me? Verizon will be here to install cable and internet, remember?”
“Oh yeah! That’s right!”
“Come on, woman! Put those sexy clothes on that sexy human body of yours and let’s go get some sun! There’s a bee-yooo-tiful day out there waiting for li’l Maeve Minnow and her bestest friend to get reacquainted with one another!”
She smiled at him and got to putting on some clothes. Her shoes weren’t the best for walking in, they were more for looking cute, but maybe they could stop by somewhere and get a pair of tennis shoes. Why the heck not?
Mae took the key off the counter and slung her purse over her shoulder, excitedly asked Breuer if he was ready to go.
“Hell yes.”
“How do I look?”
“Like an angel.”
She headed to the door, paused when something occurred to her. “Breuer? Did you have anything to do with Tag knowing everything about me? You did, didn’t you?”
“And I suppose I made Amber have the hots for you, too,” he said facetiously and rolled his eyes.
“Tell me the truth, did you have anything to do with what Tag wrote about me?”
“I may have whispered things in his ear. I can’t remember exactly, it was a long time ago.” He winked at her. “I got to be pretty friendly with the muse in his head; great guy, his name is Dirk, and is extremely open to suggestion and dictation.” Breuer giggled.
She shook her head at him. “You’re incorrigible, you know that?”
Mae opened the door, said imaginary friends first. He curtsied and crossed the threshold. She stopped in the doorway. “You sure do a lot of whispering in people’s ears. That’s not very becoming of oneself. Whispering in people’s ears is for the devil. Maybe I should have named you Lucifer instead of Breuer, huh?” She chuckled at the thought, as did Breuer. “But heaven forbid I call you my guardian angel,” she said thickly, and giggled some more.
She closed the door firmly behind her and consequently heard a slight scraping sound on the other side of the wall. She’d later have to turn the upside-down ornate wooden cross back upright.
“What a bee-yooo-tiful day!”
###
Author’s Note:
For those who could find less objectionable things to read than Fiddleback, these following words are for you. Some people have confessed confusion to specific aspects of Fiddleback; more commonly people have wondered at certain things unresolved in the story. Although I cannot promise you that some or any of these vagaries or injustices will be set to rights, what I will promise is some things will be explained in Fiddleback’s sequel. Sequel is the incorrect word, just as prequel would be. It’s more of a lateral. In Fiddleback, Mae was 14 years old (almost 15!) when she ceased seeing Breuer, the year 2007. It was in 2012 (five years later) when he returned to her. Fiddleback’s successor will primarily be set in the years between ’07 and ’12, but not limited to that time frame.
One last thing. To those who thought Fiddleback was disjointed so severely that it seemed more like two stories than one, pat yourself on the back because you are correct. I had been writing two novels, both had been shelved at one time. One novel featured Maeve Minnow and her abusive parents and imaginary friend. In the other novel was Tag, a bartender who wrote fiction and fell in love with his creation Mae Clark, and learned she wasn’t so imaginary after all. The parallel is Breuer wasn’t as imaginary as Mae thought. The idea came, and the two stories were weaved into one—more like chopped up and folded into one another. The chapters were left in tact, even the names Maeve and Mae remained. Perhaps it was providence, and the stories were destined to be united.
Jeff is an Air Force Veteran and indy author living in southern California. He has recently discovered that he loves writing and has since been churning out stories as fast as his mind can concoct them. Feel free to visit his Facebook page and leave a comment or just browse. If you enjoyed Fiddleback, the author implores you to try The Great Gray Superhighway and Fate Fatale. He will gladly accept your emails and vows to respond to each one, at
[email protected] Sample of Behind the Horned Mask
Let me begin by stating that I am not a writer—a conclusion you’d have arrived at on your own soon enough. I know no tricks of narrative nor do I have an extensive vocabulary, but I do know an editor (wink). I once lost a spelling bee trying to spell vakation. Writing isn’t my thing. Policing is. But when Norrah and I debated which of us should put this thing into words, her persistency in it being me won her the day. We haven’t put much thought into what might become of these pages, if anything, but we both agreed the events of late needed to be put on paper, and we’ll let fate or destiny take it from there. I should add that I have spoken with a couple others, and they agreed to write some things regarding this ordeal as well. To what extent I’m unsure of at this moment. So it looks like this is going to be a collective effort. I have the honor of leading off. And probably wrapping it up.
You probably don’t know me, so let me introduce myself as Jay Davis. Having been in the Marines before becoming a cop, I have long been accustomed to being called Davis, not Jay. Cops and military folks insist on calling people by their surnames, and I’d love to know why. For a while they were calling me J.D., but it didn’t stick, didn’t grow legs. Norrah calls me Jay unless she’s feeling particularly feisty or when I’ve gotten into some kind of shit.
If within the last year you’ve watched the news or listened to the radio, or have friends to chew the shit with about current events, you know who my girlfriend Norrah is. Norrah Petersen with an E, she’s Danish. She’s the one who’s given interview after interview on any number of news channels, news magazines, newspapers. I’d bet dollars to don
uts that most of you have made up your minds that Norrah is a lunatic. Or insane—I’m not sure if the two are the same thing. How could someone so sane-looking and pretty be so batty? I can tell you sincerely that she is completely sane, and has never told a lie that I know of. Everything you’ve heard her say is the truth. What was alleged to have happened at her house indeed happened. I was there that day, was one of the first cops to arrive on scene. That was the day I met Norrah. It was that first week of the news-frenzy that Norrah and I began dating. Well, I say dating but it wasn’t dating. As you can imagine dating wasn’t something she was suitable to engage herself in during that time, but we were something. Come to think of it, maybe we were nothing more than new friends, but we had a kind of intuition that hinted that we had found someone more than a friend, it just needed time to blossom, and blossom it did. Did I mention that I’m not a writer? I apologize in advance for running off on various tangents during the narrative, I don’t know any better. I’m also ruthlessly apologetic. I learned that trick back when I was a teenager working some customer service gig at Sears: apologize and apologize often, it works.
I suppose I should start at the beginning and assume you have no knowledge of Norrah and the shit that happened last year. Some of the details I learned second-hand from Norrah, so keep that in mind as you’re reading personal details of her history and recent experiences, as I wasn’t a part of her life until the day that the twenty-three people went missing. Funny thing about that, the number twenty-three almost begs to have the word the before it. Without the it’s just a number; with it becomes the greatest unsolved mystery of our generation. The twenty-three who went missing.
Lake Arrowhead is a mountain town of ten-thousand or so people, located in the San Bernardino mountains in southern California. The elevation is around five-thousand feet, and it snows a few months out of the year. People unfamiliar to this region might find it hard to believe that folks shovel snow a few months out of the year right here in southern California. But it does snow, and it was snowing on that fateful February 14th, Valentine’s Day. And on top of that, it had been colder than a whore’s heart for the week leading up to it. Being a cop I see a lot more work when it’s sub-freezing, as a lot of dumbasses drive the speed limit on roads with black ice, and I inevitably wind up having to fill out paperwork because of it. Fun fact: there are ten times more fender benders up here in the winter than there are in the summer. Ten times!
Norrah’s house isn’t on the lake, but she has a great view of it. It’s a grand old three-story house at the end of a cul-de-sac, no neighbors too near, fairly remote, and it’s great if privacy is your thing. No houses behind her for a quarter mile, just untamed pines and underbrush and a steep hillside rolling away from it and eventually into the deep-blue lake.
From the driveway you enter the second floor—the bottom floor can almost be termed a basement. Being that the home is on a hillside, the front of the bottom floor is underground while the back isn’t and has windows affording a view of the lake, and even has remote access. The top story is Norrah’s bedroom, a pair of guest bedrooms, and a bathroom. The second floor is a large living room with its back wall a series of large windowpanes, a deck where you can sit and sip wine while admiring the beauty of Lake Arrowhead. Norrah could suntan on that deck naked with no chance of being seen, other than by me. I keep trying to get her to do just that because she’s both pasty and looks marvelous naked. I’m sure Norrah will just love to know I wrote that.
Let me give you a brief history of how Norrah came to live in this house and why Paul was a tenant therein—Paul Klein is another name you’ve been inundated with on the news. The house was bought by Norrah’s grandparents Jack and Dolores back in the 80’s, a kind of retirement home. When her grandpa passed away ten years ago it was too much house for just her grandmother (2,600 square feet). Norrah’s parents had been living in Denver by then and had no interest in moving back to southern Cal. So when Dolores decided to move into an old-folks community, she let Norrah live there. The house isn’t quite paid off yet, but it was bought at a time that real estate was laughably cheap, a mortgage of under a grand, so it was a sweet deal for Norrah. When Dolores dies, the house will become her granddaughter Norrah’s.
When Norrah first moved in she was working at the only grocery store in Lake Arrowhead, Stater Brothers—there’s a Jansen’s Market as well, but it’s small. She rang up groceries. She’s thirty now, so that would make her around twenty at the time. After so many years of being a checker I guess she came to the grim realization that if she didn’t get an education she’d be doing that shit for the rest of her life. Six years ago she began taking night classes at a community college down the mountain in Yucaipa, about a forty minute drive from her house. Only taking two classes at a time, it would take her nine or ten years to get that vaunted bachelor’s degree, and as I write this she is still a ways away from attaining that goal. Because she was taking classes she worked less hours, though not much less. Her expenditures were higher because of the insane prices at the gas pump, tuition and books. She lived alone in a large house, so it seemed like a good idea to find a roommate to share the expenses with. The house is ideal for such an arrangement, being that the bottom floor can be accessed without stepping foot into Norrah’s living area. It is somewhat of a basement, though I don’t know of too many basements in which there is remote access; keep in mind houses up on the mountain are on slopes, so while the bottom floor is underground at the front of the house, they are typically above ground in the back—did I mention that already? There is a hatch that can be lowered over the portal of the stairs leading down to the bottom floor, and when Paul moved in she did just that. It gave the façade of the bottom floor being an apartment, separate from the upper stories. There is a bathroom down there, but no kitchenette. Just a hot-plate and a microwave on a dresser, a little mini-fridge. The bottom floor is a studio apartment; the only door other than the backdoor is that of the bathroom. Norrah charged him four-hundred a month, just under half her mortgage payment. He had been living there for three months when the event this story is engendered from took place.
I judge Paul Klein to be about twenty or twenty-one years old (I can’t say that with any degree of certainty). When he interviewed with Norrah to take residency in her house, he had said he was going to college at the University of Redlands, or U of R. That was a lie. He also said he was working part-time at Papagayo’s, a Mexican restaurant. That was also a lie. Turns out much of what Paul said was bullshit. Paul is a big mystery in most aspects. He’s a good looking kid, the kind of smile that girls are eager to revisit, the kind of charming witticisms that make girls giggle, and exceedingly well-spoken for a kid so young. The damned thing about Paul Klein is that when detectives began investigating his history following the disappearance of the twenty-three, they found nothing. Not jack shit. It was as though he didn’t exist prior to moving into Norrah’s. And other than the registration and insurance papers on his Dodge Ram, and his Wells Fargo bank account, there are no records of his existence, not even a social security number. Being that he wasn’t a suspect of foul play against the missing people (I’ll elaborate on that later), he got by without having to prove much of his past. I don’t like Paul, disliked him from the moment I met him, and can’t put a finger on why exactly that is. Maybe it’s because his smile looks phony to me. Something doesn’t jibe with him. I’m not the only one who feels that way about him, though most don’t. Most gobble up his bullshit wholesale. Norrah didn’t feel the same way about him or she wouldn’t have let him in her house, but I suspect she was lured in by his good looks, though she won’t admit it. When I pester her about it she blushes and changes the subject, so you be the judge.
February 14th was the day it happened. By February 15th Lake Arrowhead was a town that most American’s were knowledgeable of. By February 21st a respectable percentage of the world had heard of Lake Arrowhead. The largest unsolved mystery of all time, many people say. I was pat
rolling highway 18 when I got the call from dispatch. Never when dispatch calls do you think this is the time that everything changes, that this call is the one that you’re going to be writing a fucking book about. I took the call indifferently, how was I to know? I was the second officer to arrive; Fred Guthrie the fat ass had just pulled up when I got there. An hour later every cop on the mountain was there. Twenty-three people gone missing under highly unusual circumstances will do that. The F.B.I. didn’t arrive till the next day, as people aren’t considered to be missing until twenty-four hours have passed. Instead of telling you what we found (or didn’t find), I’m going to recite Norrah’s story for you, a story which she’s told me time and time again. I will make no exaggerations whatsoever and will confer with her often as I write the particulars. I honestly wish she’d write this shit. But I’ve come to love her, and there is little I wouldn’t do for her. So here it goes:
Part 1:
Chapter One
A man with red skin, horns, and a tail walks into a pub on Halloween, sits at the bar. Impressed, the bartender whistles and says, “You take your costuming serious, huh?”
“I do,” the man replies.
“Well it’s a special occasion, so why not, eh?”
“It is. It’s the only day all year I don’t have to wear one.”
The weather forecasters had gotten it all wrong, as they often do. I swear, it could be twenty-one degrees out and they’ll predict a low of thirty-three. Or they will say eighty-percent chance of snow when if they stuck their damned heads outside they’d see that it’s already snowing. I digress. The storm that was due to arrive on Monday night, February 15th, had arrived Saturday night, the evening before Valentine’s Day. Two feet of snow dumped on the mountain like Jack Frost took a massive icy shit, blanketing the San Bernardino forest with holy whiteness. Cal Trans is great at clearing the roads, and come Sunday morning, cars didn’t need chains to traverse the winding mountain roads. That Valentine’s Day morning Norrah was getting ready for work at Stater Brothers when her bottom-floor tenant Paul Klein lifted the hatch and entered the living room. It wasn’t off-limits to him to be above the basement floor, but it was understood that his place was down there and her place was up there, and there was little-to-no need for him to come up. Occasionally he did come up, but always with good reason—to pay rent (always on time), to offer to chop some of the logs lining the side of the house into firewood, to drop off a couple bottles of red wine his friend got for free from work (sample bottles from a wine rep), and the last and most consequential occurrence of his upstairs intrusion was on the morning of Valentine’s Day.