PUBLISHED BY:
The Authors of the Unblocked Writers Group
DIS-MEMBERED:
They Had it Coming
Copyright © 2014 by The Unblocked Writers Group (facebook)
Cover Design by Annie Walls
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by and means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the authors, except where permitted by law. This book is a work of fiction, however, certain members of the Unblocked Writers Group agreed through witnessed and written consent, to allow the use of their individual likeness and names as part of this anthology. Any other names, characters, places, and incidents depicited, are either products of the authors’ imaginations or are being used fictitiously. Outside of instances where the afforementioned consent applies, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or events is entirely coincidental.
All authors are members of the Unblocked Writers Group on facebook.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/244350892612/
This book contains graphic depictions of violence.
Dis-Membered
A Murder Anthology
TABLE OF CONTENTS
*~*~*
Acknowledgments
Eulogy
One Shade of Murder – Beth Tully
Living Stiff – Annie Walls
Sing Me the Blues – Julie Watts
Memory Details Assignment – C. Priest Brumley
The Three Trials of Atty Eve – Kris English
Welcome to the Afterlife – Jessica M. Kirkpatrick
Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder – Rob Houglan
Kill Rob – Josette Weiss
Volta – Vicki Barnes
What Would Brando Do? – Wayne DePriest
Meat the Parents – Moira Briggs
Outlaw Josie Woot – Larey Batz
Acknowledgments
*~*~*
First, thanks to all who gave their time and effort on this project. Annie ‘Kick Ass’ Walls, once again, you came through with an amazing cover that really captured the spirit of what we wanted to do. Thank you so much! You are a force of nature and I am forever in your debt. Julie ‘Jules’ Watts, what can I say. You totally and completely rock. Thank you for making the time to edit, review and beta these stories. I couldn’t have done this without you by my side. To Wayne DePriest, not only did you write a great story, you came up with a great title as well. To the founder of the ‘Unblocked Writers Group’, Tammy (tfc Parks). Through your vision, you’ve provided a home for a wild breed of misfit writers. Thank you for putting up with us.
To our victims—Josie, Rob, Annie, Atty Eve, Moira’s parents, Woodrow Wilkins, Kris English, Beth Tully: Thank you for being such good sports. Your sacrifice is greatly appreciated and shall echo throughout the pages of history.
To the authors—Josette Weiss, C. Priest Brumley, Julie Watts, Rob Houglan, Vicki Barnes, Jessica M Kirkpatrick, Kris English, Annie Walls, Beth Tully, Wayne DePriest … trust me when I say, it was a pleasure reading your stories and I appreciate the time you gave to this project. I look forward to working with all of you in the future and I wish you all the best in your writer lives.
Last, but certainly not least—our youngest writer, Moira Briggs. Let me just say I was completely blown away. To see someone so young with such an eye for detail is inspiring. And thanks to your mother (ED) for bringing you to our attention and giving us a chance to spotlight your talent.
You should all be proud of this project. I had a lot of fun and hopefully, we’ll get to do this again.
-Larey
Eulogy
*~*~*
Dearest friends, family members and honored guests, we are assembled here today to pay our final respects to the remains of an assorted bunch of characters, all who met their untimely (or timely) demise at the hands of the Unblocked Writers Group.
Whether by poisoning, decapitation, strangulation, repeated blows to the head, stabbing, un-elective surgery, fire, supernatural events, blunt trauma or a good old-fashioned ass-kicking, they have all served to remind us, in some small way, of just how precious the gift of life is to those they leave behind.
As for the perpetrators, it should come as no surprise, that the members of the Unblocked Writers Group are capable of committing such depraved acts. They are a special group. If you haven’t met them, feel free to venture in to see for yourself. Just know, that a welcome wagon awaits, and it’s filled with a collection of blood thirsty writers and the requisite tools of the trade.
So it is with somewhat heavy hearts, that we commit their latest batch of victims to the grave. Ashes to ashes, and all that good stuff. Break out the shovels and let’s get this over with.
It’s never easy to say goodbye to those we love, or like … or just tolerate. We know not what lies in wait for these dismembered souls. All we know, is that their number was up. Yet, as we mourn, we must also be reminded—that no matter how gruesome their fate …
…THEY … HAD …IT …
…COMING.
One Shade of Murder
Beth Tully
It's New Year's Eve 2028, and I'm preparing to attend the event of the year for the sexually adventurous in all of the Pacific Northwest, the HUMP Gala. I am not actually one of these, not from the Pacific Northwest and not all that sexually adventurous, but I have my own reasons for handing over $1000 for a ticket, and the same amount for an outfit that will fit in here.
I've chosen my look carefully, picking a designer dress that hugs my curves while managing to look as though I've borrowed it from my roommate, as if I'm the sort of girl more accustomed to wearing Converse sneakers. I pull a wig of heavy chestnut curls over my short blonde hair and give myself a quick burst of Bigger Lips from my Home Medi Spa robot. I've sawed a quarter inch off of the heel of my left shoe to give my gait an awkwardness that I know will arouse the predatory instinct in the man who is in fact my prey. My ass wiggles as I stumble through the parking garage in my building and go past my own spot, occupied by the red Mercedes I usually drive, and enter a small old purple Prius, a ridiculous car borrowed from an intern at the law firm where I work.
My timing is perfect. I pull up in front of the venue just as Jesus Gris and Maria Acero are pausing on the steps to pose for a photographer from The Stranger, the local independent newspaper that covers events like this and people like them. I wait until I am sure Jesus is looking at my joke of a car, wondering how anyone driving that thing could be at an event like this, before exiting and handing my keys to the valet, who looks confused at being presented with the keys to a car like this one.
I take in the frankly terrifying sight of the King and Queen of this prom for misfits. It has been 15 years since the world was obsessed with their vapid sexcapades and it had been 15 years before that the two of them had met and explored the world of S&M together. The years had taken a toll on both of them. Their eternal quest for youth, both in their own bodies and those of others, had led them to buy more and more evolved cosmetic surgery robots and the result had left them looking like surprised, indignant house cats with molded plastic bodies. They sought fresh flesh to satisfy Jesus's twisted sexual desires. Desires that Maria filled, briefly, in the widely read, if poorly-written series that was later made into a wildly successful softcore porn film.
That quest had led them to my sister, Claire. Writing this now, it seems like something dreamed up by a lonely, cat-hoarding Twilight fan, but my sweet sister had, just like Maria Acero, come to this city as a young, newly-graduated, twenty-one year old girl, not knowing what her future might bring. He’d found her working in a coffee
house in the Capitol Hill district, and sent Maria in to befriend her and bring her under their spell. She accepted a job as Maria’s personal assistant, not realizing what being alone with them every day would do to her. Before long, she wasn’t just assisting Maria by getting her coffee and dry-cleaning, she was helping Maria in gratifying Jesus’s fantasies as well.
All of that might have been fine, but Maria, seeing Jesus become more and more obsessed with this younger woman, wanted to recapture the heady times when the whole world wanted to read about Maria biting her lip. Her blog, which had dwindled to only a few thousand followers, started to get hits again when she intimated that they’d added a new girl to their sex play, and the attention from the internet public replaced the attention she was missing at home. She became more and more detailed and specific in her postings, and directed more and more vitriol towards my sister, Claire.
The comments section on Maria’s blog became a dark and angry place where bitter lonely women made Claire the target of all their rage and frustration. Finally one day, Wanda Clemente, a small chubby woman with a mass of gray curls and watery, limpid blue eyes, used the information from Maria’s blog to find my sister. She snuck into her house while she was at work, and replaced all of the artificial sweetener in her kitchen with rat poison. My sister was dead three days later. Wanda was caught and convicted, but Maria and Jesus’s involvement in her downfall and eventual murder went unpunished. Tonight, I would end all that.
My car, and now my short skirt, had definitely captured Jesus’s attention, and I felt his gaze on me as I passed them and entered the club.
Inside, the club had been transformed into a Sybarite’s imagination. The dance floor was thronged with men and women of all ages, dressed in wisps of silk and satin. Above them, nearly-naked people of several genders danced on mirrored pedestals and, even higher than that, two completely naked girls swing and spin from trapezes that looked to be made completely of light. One had blue hair and one had red, and while neither of them had any pubic hair they had each painted a small strip of bright color where it would be.
I ordered a vodka soda from the open bar and positioned myself where I knew I’d be visible from the VIP dais where Maria and Jesus would be seated. The crowd parted before them as they entered and took their seats of honor. It only took another moment before Jesus saw me. He called one of the bouncers over and whispered in his ear, pointing at me. A moment later, the bouncer was in front of me.
“He wants you,” the bouncer said, taking my agreement as a given. He led me to the velvet rope separating the two of them from the rest of the party goers, opened it, and gestured for me to join them.
I’d had most of this plan down cold, but I dreaded having to make conversation with the two of them. I was afraid Maria would say something unbearably stupid and I would not be able to control my desire to laugh in her smug, vapid face. Luckily, I’d no sooner settled myself on a cushioned ottoman at their feet when the crowd on the dance floor erupted in a shriek.
Two of the naked trapeze artists had crashed, and high above the crowd their bodies bounced off of each other and became entwined in the trapeze wires. The one with blue hair dangled head down, one ankle wrapped in wire that she screamed was cutting into her flesh. “It’s cutting my foot off!” she shrieked. “Help me!”
Everyone was looking at them. I’d never have a better chance.
I reached under my skirt and slid the two hypodermics filled with liquid cocaine out of their hiding place in my garter straps. Could I do it? After this, I would be a murderer. I might go to prison. Washington has the death penalty, even though no one has been executed here since 2021. Killing the two of them might be bad enough to bring it back. I had to steel my heart and think of Claire.
I removed the plastic cover from the needles, and held them in my hands, pointed towards them. Maria was wearing little more than a G-string, and her bare thighs looked soft and easily punctured. Jesus would be more difficult. His pants were a good-quality wool gabardine, but his shirt was a thin silk. I’d have to hit her thigh and his stomach at the same time. I imagined my arms at the correct angles. I could do this.
Claire wouldn’t have wanted this. The thought hit me like a brick to the face. Like my sweet sister’s spirit was speaking directly to me. This was wrong. It wasn’t what she would have wanted. I should go home, take care of our parents. Not kill Jesus and Maria.
I let the tension slip from my body. All right, Claire. For you, I will let this go.
I started to rise from my ottoman, planning to find a trash can where I could dispose of my unused murder weapons.
“Wait,” Jesus said, grabbing my wrist as I rose and throwing me off-balance. At that moment, three burly firemen broke through the crowd and started carrying a ladder up to the VIP platform. One of them knocked into me and I fell forward. Instinctively, I put my hands out to break my fall.
My hands that contained the uncapped, cocaine-filled hypodermic needles.
I felt the palm of my left hand stop flat against the silk that covered Jesus’s still rock-hard, if liposuctioned, abdomen. I felt my right grip Maria’s bony thigh. I knew that meant the needles had found their mark. Both their bodies convulsed, but no one noticed as at that moment the trapeze wire sliced through the foot of the blue-haired trapeze artist, severing from her leg and sending her plunging into the crowd.
“Get out of the way,” another fireman shouted, as they rushed to move a trampoline underneath the remaining girl. As they parted the crowd to move the inert body of the blue-haired girl away and try to rescue the redhead, I was pushed and shoved far from the VIP platform. I was, in fact, right by the exit. I stopped and rose up on tiptoes to peer at the VIP platform. Maria and Jesus were slumped over, but no one seemed to notice as the firemen unfurled the trampoline and the redheaded girl fell to safety. I slipped out the door and into the night.
*~*~*
Tully is a Brooklyn writer. "I Should Hate You" is her unpublished memoir series which takes place in the punk rock scene of New York in the Eighties and early Nineties. It is the erotic, true story of an obsessive, doomed teenage love affair, shown through the prism of their sexual encounters as they explore, adore and finally degrade their own and each other’s bodies."
You can follow Beth at:
https://www.writerscafe.org/writing/Mick_Lush/1027987/
https://www.facebook.com/BethTullyAuthor
Living Stiff
Annie Walls
Atty succeeded in opening her eyes from heaviness only to find she was shrouded in darkness. Memories flooded her mind as panic started an involuntary tremble in her body. The tarp that covered her felt like itchy canvas against her nose and forehead and smelled of freshly cut grass. Her mouth was gagged and her body bound to a table with thick straps. Numbness weighed her limbs down from the tightness.
The hopelessness of her situation began to weigh on her as questions came to her mind. Where was she? What happened to her? She remembered taking out the trash, but it got fuzzy from there. And more important, what was going to happen to her?
Letting out a scream, tears leaked down the apple of her cheeks in her attempts at struggling loose. She panted hard for air through duct tape, and thick saliva leaked from the openings as mucus flew from her nose, coating the tarp and her face.
“It’s no use.” The sudden voice made Atty pause in her battle. Her chest pumped up and down as she sucked in what little air she could through her nose. Swallowing a lump past her dry throat, she tried to pinpoint the location. Footsteps thudded closer and she was bathed in bright light. She blinked from the harshness of it. A man tossed the tarp aside. “Straps are quite tight.” As to pinpoint the statement, the man thumbed the tension of one.
Once her eyes adjusted, a chill crept up her spine, locking her up with terror. The creak of small wheels drew her attention to what he was doing. An IV pole came into her line of sight. What was he going to do with that? It was not like she could ask.
Her tongue felt heavy, and as panic set in, she jerked back and forth. The table rocked and screeched against the floor.
The strap at her torso jerked tighter, momentarily stealing her breath, but she continued her movements.
“I said it’s no use.” The stern tone did not match the smile on his face. The smile changed into something a little more sinister as his gaze left her face, roaming her body. “You have lovely skin,” he murmured and seemed to force himself away. Atty noticed his thick accent. He was far from home, apparently. A weird hat adorned his head like some kind of joke. A witches hat, maybe, but Atty really expected it to open some eyes and tell her she’d be placed in Ravenclaw.
She felt a prick of a needle and watched as he set up an IV bag. A fog came over her and darkness blanketed her once again.
***
Scratch, scratch, scratch. The noise woke Atty up some time ago, and she could do nothing but listen to it. Scratch, scratch, scratch. Whatever it was, it didn’t matter. She was no longer strapped down, but she couldn’t move her body from the bed she was now in. Tubes snaked from her arms to the IV bag, no doubt keeping her groggy, too. Tears leaked from her eyes as she thought of her husband and children. She pushed those thoughts away and concentrated on the sound, hoping it would be like counting sheep.
She did not know how long she sat, counting. Scratch, scratch, scratch. A door opened and footsteps ensued. It was surely the next day. Day? How many had she been here? Her addled mind tried to take in her surroundings, but her vision blurred everything into a dreamlike scene. The footsteps stopped by her a brief second before continuing on. Another door opened on the other side and closed promptly. Straining past the beeping of machines, the footsteps faded as if walking down stairs.
For a moment, Atty was able to breathe a sigh of relief, but once again felt heavy as another dose of drugs made its way through her system.
Before she knew it, the door opened. The man had returned. “Ah, Atty. Time for a tour, shall we?” He was certainly chipper as he moved behind Atty’s bed. The sudden jerk of the bed whirred as it lifted her stiff body into a sitting position and to her surprise it wheeled forward. She tried to speak but her mouth wouldn’t work. A saliva-filled sound escaped her throat.