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Kilt – Finale

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“I kind of lost it after that,” Paul said, slowly, softly running is fingers along the gauze that covered the stump of where his arm used to be. For all he knew his fist was still clicking away on that trigger in the belly of that thing. “I can’t tell you how I got away. I can’t tell you how I got to the hospital. You know what I know.”

“How do you feel?” Doctor Kernz said, setting his pen on his pad and lowering his pad to his lap.

“I feel…,” Kilt concentrated on the gauze and how the sensation of his touch felt against quiver of his new reality.

“Mister Kilt?”

Nothing.

Doctor Tarden Kernz breathed a deep sigh and slowly packed his things. Before he left, he patted Paul Kilt on the shoulder and moved out into the hallway. As he stepped down the hall, he clicked the speed dial on his phone and began making the arrangements to have his patient transferred to Starkton and finished by the time he reached the nurse’s station.

“Excuse me,” he said pulling up to the counter, “Nurse Pike, right?”

Amanda turned, “Yes?”

“Paul Kilt. We’ll be moving him to Starkton tomorrow.”

“Did he tell you what happened?”

“He told me what he believes happened.”

“Is he sticking with the big dog story?”

“I can’t discuss the specifics,” Kernz said signing his name at the bottom of Kilt’s chart.

“Will he be all right?”

Kernz looked at the nurse. “I believe he will. We may never know what really happened, at least until he decides to tell us. Our job is to make sure we get him headed in the right direction. At least to the point where he is no longer a danger to himself…or others.” He politely slid the file back to the nurse across the short expanse of the counter. “The long and the short of it is, we’ll just have to wait and see. It’s really up to him. He needs to find his truth and the courage to face it. Have a good evening.”

He gave her half a smile as he stepped away from the desk and walked to the elevator. What a day.

———————

Epilogue:

Tarden Kernz pulled his car to a stop at the end of the long driveway the led up to his house.

He lived on the farther edge of Cardington, probably as far as one could get before stepping into Blakewood County. He liked it that way. He liked to be close enough to his work in case of emergencies, but he treasured at least the perception of distance his set up allowed. The country road, the long driveway, the fair amount of trees that bordered the small lake, or large pond depending on how you look at it, all provided the illusion of serenity, solitude and distance.

He sat in the car for a moment, both reviewing and purging the day from his mind so that the evening belonged to him. The only work he brought home was the Kilt case, and that was just so he could make some additions to his notes before he had them transcribed for the official file.

He shut down the engine, popped open the car door, then scooped up the file and stepped a foot out onto the tarmac all in one movement. A moment later, he was out and heading for the front door. Without him looking, his fingers worked to single out the door key from the rest.

He grabbed a scent of freshness from the trees carried by the small breeze that moved past him, another item of note to further solidify why moving out here was such a great idea.

As he slid the key into the lock and the pins of the mechanism found their place, the crack of a branch rose up to his ears. It wasn’t out of the ordinary to hear such a noise. Not out here with the woods and all still, while he paused for the briefest moment, nothing felt as if it needed further exploration.

As he turned the key, a deep, low rumble reached out to him. Not so much a purr, it was bigger than that. It was more like..a growl?

His hand stopped on the key. His gaze, trained a second ago on the the lock and his hand slowly drifted up the side of the door and leveled off. If he were in front of a mirror, he’d be looking at himself now. His breath caught. His heartbeat seemed to slow as it moved from his chest to his ears.

He couldn’t place the next sound he heard behind him. There was no point of reference, but he imagined. It was close. It seemed…big.

His chest started to rise and fall with a heavy sense of urgency with each new breath.

The hand that held the key let go and dropped to his side.

The rumbling growl drifted closer.

Closing his eyes, he drew one deep breath to try and calm himself. He even tried to tell himself it was nothing and that he was being stupid, but the rest of his body resisted the notion of comfort.

He opened his eyes and slowly turned.

If Tarden Kernz had the luxury of telling his story of what happened next from a room set inside the safety of a hospital as Paul Kilt did, he could have said, that before the reality of his situation blew every circuit of his thinking mind, he could recall what looked like a dark, empty cave of blackness opening up before him. It came at him with a speed he couldn’t have imagined and the edge of the cave was lined with…teeth.

If…

Instead, there was no story to tell. The bits and pieces that were left of the doctor lay in a pool of drying blood. The folder filled with the notes and documents that detailed Paul Kilt’s experience, his horror, dropped to the ground with a flutter the instant the doctor ceased to be. A breeze kicked up working to move the pages away from the carnage. They blew and scattered across the driveway and into the trees to be lost forever.

Kilt – Part VI

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Kilt lurched as the head swung down toward him again, aggressively pecking at the hole in the windshield of his newly smashed tuck like a bird eagerly picks at a bit of seed.

He stumbled through the open doorway and rolled out into the rain. Head groggy and still working to normalize his breathing, his brain screamed, “Move!” Eager to comply, he inched forward from a crab walk to a crawl, then moved from his knees to the first few steps of a feeble run. The wind whipped rain tore into his eyes.

Just run, he thought. Don’t look back! Don’t even dare! Just run!

And as if his head was incapable of comprehending the messages form the brain urging him on, he turned ever so slightly, just to see.

It might have been the storm, the sound of the beating of the rain, the wind or the bursts of thunder, but in the time it took for him to get this far, far enough for his head to feel safe enough to chance an ill-advised glance backward, the animal-thing was on him.

With a grunt, the massive head swung at him at pretty much the same time his look back was complete. The nothing but rain image changed in a blink to that of a large, scaled, wall of head that hit him with the force of a truck knocking him easily from his wavering stance. Entirely off his feet, he flew backwards and down onto to the soaking wet ground.

He worked to tuck and roll himself to the point where he might be able to get back to his feet and felt as if here were making progress the wall hit him again.

Once more Kilt left the ground, tossed backwards away from, and yet still firmly entrenched in the creature’s sphere of control. Pain seared across his back as he came to an abrupt stop. He slid down and stumbled away from the trunk of the tree that cut his flight short, but fell in a way that his feet found purchase in the grass and was able to stand.

Gasping again for breath and squinting into the rain, he grasped the crow bar with both hands.

“Well?” he screamed into the rain. “Where are you? Let’s go!”

It was a good count of three before a large shadow filled his field his vision. The thing moved toward him….slowly. Kilt almost expected a heavy thud to quiver across the earth with each foot fall, but there was none. It moved with what he might describe as a certain sense of elegance.

Without taking his hands from the crowbar, he tried once again to wipe some of the rain away by digging his face into his bicep. The creature growled long and slow before taking in a raspy breath and letting loose with a deafening roar.

As the roar trailed off, the head shot down at him, jaws still open and in fact widening as it turned to capture him. Kilt swung the crow bar and missed entirely, tossed by the rain and his churning adrenaline. The head pulled back a bit, turned and then shot down on him again, chomping closed just shy of catching Kilt’s jacket. He swung the crow bar again back the other, but caught the target in stead with his hands and arm which the heavy skin deflected quite easily.

Once again, the creature pulled its head back and spread its jaws wide as it shot down at the small, wet man. The jaws slammed shut shy of his leg. Stand ing firm, Paul raised the crow bar over his head and brought it down with everything he had.

Everything shifted, like the moment you know when you hit a homer over a line drive, everything felt…in the moment. The curved, clawed end of the crow bar found its mark and pierced the tough hide sinking down to what Paul was convinced was the certain uneasy scrape of metal against bone.

The animal-thing lurched back with a scream in its throat, carrying Paul and the crowbar with it. On the second shake the creature made to free himself of the stinging pain in its snout, Kilt lost his grip on the crow bar and again flew backwards and down into the wet, grassy muck below.

The creature, unable to reach the weapon with its short arms, snarled and shook its head.

Kilt hit the ground hard…again, and rolled to a stop as the water beat down upon him. Has he lay on his stomach fighting for breath without sucking water into his lungs, he felt the lump.

The gun.

The creature swung its giant head back and forth as the screams told the tale of its pain, frustration and anger. It shot it’s jaws down to the ground again and again, blindly searching for the thing that cause this.

Paul pulled himself to his feet and reached his hand into his pocket. He pulled out the pistol and took aim…as well as he could.

As the anger grew as a distraction to the pain, a new fire burst into the creature’s dark eye. Squeezing its eyelids shut and jerked its head in recoil. A roar tore from its throat that turned into a ragged scream. Rage took control, issuing simple and base commands.

The first shot landed square in the middle of the creature’s eye. He was sure of it. It was all he could to stop himself from doing his end zone victory dance, but there was no time for that. The thing was hurt, he thought, but not hurt bad, not dead. He fired again…missed.

The little flash of light was nearly missed but it was enough. The creature spun and trained its remaining good eye on the spot where the light came from and lunged.

The animal-thing cut through the rain in his direction with a speed he could never describe if all the words were his. Kilt fired again. Missed again.

Another small flash of light confirmed everything. The creature leapt forward as it opened its mighty jaws.

A cave of darkness, darkness surrounded by long, razor-sharp teeth opened before him. His eyes grew wide, then wider still as the cave and the teeth disappeared and with it the sight of his arm and the gun. Thinly connected lines of tissue sent impulses to the hand as it squeezed the trigger again and again. Muffled shots reached out to him from inside the closed mouth and while the louder shots ended, the hand kept pumping the trigger instinctively.

Click. Click. Click. Click.

 

Kilt – Part IV

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“Dammit.”

Kilt peered out into the darkness as the automatic doors opened wide to release him from the bountiful confines of Barner’s Groceries. The moment he stepped forward, the falling rain seemed to intensify, even more with the next step. He paused on third step, that one that would move him from the relative safety of the door’s overhang and into the brewing elements, as a gust of wind forced the rain at him, as if almost a warning.

“Shit.”

He turned his head back to the store just as the automatic doors closed behind him leaving him to stand alone in that moment of decision, back to the store or forward into…whatever this was.

As his brain began to weigh the pros and cons, the rest of his body was working toward the as yet to be realized decision. He shifted all three plastic bags into one hand, then grabbed the collar of his jacket with the other and pulled it over his head. Surely, he didn’t look as ridiculous as he felt. One deep breath later, he lunged into the downpour and made a break for the truck.

The wind and rain intensified still, blowing him sideways a bit and drenching him to the bone no more than three steps deep into the parking lot. He could see nothing. He heard only rain. He tried to move instinctively to where he thought the truck was parked and hoped he was right.

Two steps later, his brain sent out a single message, “Keys,” and the hand that held whatever protection he got from the jacket released it and plunged into his pocket. He felt for the fob and pressed what he knew to be the unlock button, squinting through the sheeting water to see a flicker of light from the truck’s tail lights.

There.

A quick course adjustment, three steps and a splash later and he was clawing at the door handle to get inside.

Once he slammed the door shut, he sat for a moment listening to his breath mingle with the sheets of wind driven rain blasting his windshield. He tried to wipe some of the water from his face, but really just pushed it around. Everything was soaked. He could end up sitting here all day, he thought, but he didn’t want to. Whatever he was feeling earlier in the day manifested itself in his head which throbbed now. Better to get home.

He put the key in the ignition and turned the engine over. He loved this truck. The dashboard blower started in earnest, working to remove the building condensation from the inside of the glass while the wipers slapped water away as fast and efficiently as it could…which ended up being not very good. He put the truck in reverse and backed out of his spot slowly. So far so good.

——

From what he could tell the roads were fairly deserted. And why wouldn’t they be? What kind of idiot drives in something like this?

Even on a fairly bad day, the trip to the store takes about 12 minutes, max, but Kilt, ever diligent in his desire to doing something stupid as safely as possible was determined to take his time. The wind began to add small branches, leaves and bits of garbage to the mix of rain it hurled at him, but he pressed on.

As he neared the left onto Crestview, the rain seemed to hiccup just long enough for him clearly see the sign and notice that the street was clear of anything he could run into. The brief reprieve allowed him to stop squinting long enough to realize how hard he was working to see…anything, and, how much his head was pounding.

“Note to self,” he muttered. “Get food before stupid storm hits.”

Taking advantage of the minor pause, he spun the wheel to take the turn. The rain returned the second the car banked around the corner and his visibility once again disappeared.

Typical.

He straightened the wheel, then raised his foot gently to press on the gas. If he had the ability to record the moment and review it over an over again, his story would stay the same. As he pressed the pedal to urge the car ahead, a blood curdling…scream, for lack of a better word, coincided with his movement as if he created it.

The noise tore into his head and in one movement, he slammed his eyes shut, slammed both feet onto his brake pedal and gripped his steering wheel to prevent his head from banging into it. The lurched into a skid that was not likely to occur on a dry street, but there was so much water, every movement was amplified.

Despite what he confirmed just before making the turn, that the street was clear, the sliding truck came to an almost immediate and jolting stop, the force of which drove his chest into his steering wheel, cutting his breath. Mixed with the sound of water and debris washing over him, came the sounds of grinding metal, breaking glass and something else.

“What the…”

Another roar tore through the air, causing him to cover his ears with his hands. His body lurched as he fought for a new fresh breath.

Another car? A tree? His aching brain seemed to spin in his skull. What could he have hit? God, let it not be another person…a kid or something!

The new noise, a soft grating, came up from the newly accordioned hood of his truck. As he gasped holding his chest, he blinked at the new batch of water hitting his face through the newly demolished windshield. Whatever it was, it was alive, and it was huge.

One more deafening roar later, and as if by premonition, he looked out into the storm, lightning flashed and he saw them as clear as anything for the first time…teeth.

Kilt – Part III

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“Mister Kilt,” Dr. Kernz said with a certain level of matter of factness, “Paul, if I may. This is our third meeting. I can’t prove it of course, at least not yet, but it’s clear that you are not being one hundred percent forthcoming regarding the reality of your injury.”

Kilt looked down at it right hand and stared at the way he ran his thumb back and forth over his finger tips in a soft circular motion. If he had his other hand, he was sure he would have clasped all of his fingers together to accommodate his thumbs tapping each other gently in assured defiance, but his thumb tapping days were over for sure. And with that, some level of his confidence.

“As I explained in our first meeting, we need to figure out what exactly led to your injury. Your insistence that it was a dog, sounds, as we agreed, unlikely to impossible. I surely find it implausible. So if you expect to head back to your home upon your release, instead of a cozy room in the Starkton facility, I suggest we try to explore some new ground. It’s for your own good and the good of the community.” The doctor paused, “I’m here to help.”

Kilt jerked his head away from the oddly calming and near hypnotic thumb movement as if the doctor made a loud noise. His breath quickened as he caught the other man’s gaze.

“Help,” he said, nearly spitting out the p. “How will you help?”

“I…”

“You don’t believe my story. And if I tell you what I think really happened, at least how I remember it, I’m pretty sure you won’t believe that one either. So, it seems a stint in Starkton is probably inevitable. But since you’re so keen on ‘helping,’ I’ll give it to you, warts and all.”

The doctor silently leaned back in his chair, implying in part that he was happy enough to have reached this point. He waived his hand before him as a gesture to Kilt that he was welcome top proceed, please…go ahead.

Kilt swallowed hard, turning his gaze back to his thumb and fingers.

“It was a weird day to start with. I wasn’t feeling well and I’m never sick, but I was off enough to call off work for the day. The reports of a possible storm that evening started early as I recall, but I don’t think they had any idea what type of storm was heading our way.”

“What do you mean?,” Kernz broke in, “Type of storm.”

Paul nodded his head at the doctor as if to look, but kept his eyes trained on his thumb moving back and forth, back and forth. “Aren’t you from around here doctor? Couldn’t you feel it? This storm was going to be different. Different before it even got here. Most storms are stirred up by weather patterns controlled by Mother Nature to help her take care of her business. But this was no Mother Nature storm brewing. You could feel it in the air the closer it got. It wasn’t like electricity or anticipation. It was more like…dread.”

“Dread?”

“Yeah,” Paul said, not realizing how much harder his thumb was pressing against his fingertips. “Dread. Like Mother Nature stepped away for a moment and something else jumped in to steer the storm machine that day.”

“What kind of something?”

“Something…dark.”

“Go on.”

“The clouds…the storm system didn’t just roll in like most storms do. It crept in. It changed the air. It, it, didn’t cover the sun, it was more like it…absorbed the light causing the darkness to increase. And when it got here, it seemed to lock this town down as if it meant to stay a while. Even when the street lights went on, they seemed to have to fight to share enough light to hold back the darkness, at least until the power went out. Even my headlights had a hard time cutting into that blackness.”

“You weren’t home then?”

“No,” Paul said, watching his thumb move. “I was coming off some double shifts, so the cupboards were bare as they say. Even though I felt bad, I would have felt worse with no food in the house and I tend to think storms are better when accompanied by the welcomed comfort of a twelve pack. My plan was to skip to the grocery and get back before things got bad. I left my house just as the winds were picking up and damned if I couldn’t tell something was off the moment I stepped out of that house.”

“The dread?”

“Yeah…,” Kilt’s voice trailed off for a moment. “But not right away. Like I said the air felt…different. The moment I closed my front door, I don’t know if it was a smell or how thick the air seemed, but that first deep breath was nearly like a brick to the head. I had to steady myself for a moment before I moved to my truck.”

“What happened next?”

“Nothing, really. I brushed off the feeling because I didn’t really have anything to connect it to. I just wrote it all down as maybe being sicker than I thought. I got to Barner’s. I got what I needed. I paid and started to leave. In the short time that passed between entering the store to when I stepped on that pad to open the exit door, the light was gone. The darkness had taken over and it was just starting to rain.”

An open letter to congressional Democrats

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Java typed with determination and focus, as she was prone to doing in these situations:

An open letter to congressional Democrats –

Dear congressional Democrats:

You don’t know me, but…Ouch! Need some salve for that burn?

Just kidding. My apologies for the snark so early in the note. I sometimes hold that until the end as sort of an exclamation point on the ideas I try to convey, but dang it all if you all didn’t just slap your own big exclamation point on your moment in the sun as the majority seat holders in the U.S. Senate.

I imagine you feel a little salty heading into work these days, what with the Republicans waving their index fingers around, screaming “We’re number one!” and basically telling you all to go suck it. It will make me proud to know that despite the tanning of your hides, you will proceed in your duties as elected officials with grace, professionalism and the knowledge that you are still good people who are there to do a job and to do it the best way you know how. Rise above it.

I would tell you to remember this moment and the feeling that comes with having been defeated, even in what they call a lackluster mid-term election. I would tell you to use this recent string of events as motivation to get back up on your proverbial political bicycles and make a truly inspired effort to regain what was lost so that you might continue to work on making the world a better place. I would tell you all those things…and more… if I thought for half a second that you might a) listen and b) actually remember. Sadly, my faith and my hope in both those areas are severely degraded, if not completely shattered. Shadoobee.

I’m guessing you don’t remember, because those who don’t remember their histories are bound to repeat them and guess what? You’ve been here before! That’s right! You have had it all, the control, the faith of the people, the momentum to proceed with a reasonable agenda and boom, you squandered it! Pissed it away, as my grandfather might say, through petty squabbles, lack of conviction, misguided alliances and dare I say, a fair bit of your own hubris. With all your power and promise, you accomplished nothing. And while you can say, “Well, the Republicans didn’t do anything either.” (which will make you sound small, petty and immature) you forgot that they are the masters of that game and it is an arena where you clearly cannot compete.

I think you need to take some time for reflection. Not a lot of time mind you. You could probably suss this all out over the few minutes it takes to drink a decent cup of coffee. But you need to consider what went wrong and how to fix it, for while you may be down right now – you are not out…provided you get your shit together. Here are a few things to ponder.

  • The people did not let you down – Quite the opposite, you let the people down and this is their way, misguided as it might appear right now, of telling you that you sucked it up.
  • Try taking more credit for the way things are going – You need to pay more attention to the real world and less of what’s going on over at Fox news. Things in America are better than they were when you retook control. Yes. There is a lot more to do, but housing is up, employment is up, the stock market is up (aside from a few days here and there where the market takes a dump – but hey, we all have our off days) gas prices are down. I’m not convinced that you really had anything to do with these trends, but it’s fair to say they happened on your watch and the mindless collective called the voting public appears to believe what they are told with little question (for evidence, please refer to Tuesday’s election results).
  • WTF – Middle East and other areas of global unrest – Look, this is a thorn in everyone’s paw. Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses. A case could be made that the for many on the other side of the world, creating and maintaining a constant state of turmoil, unrest and a slow simmer of self-destruction seems to be what they do best. I mean, after all this time, if they really wanted to work things out, they probably could. My guess is that there is more money in turmoil and distress than in peace, so until we can create a higher profit margin for peace, we are kind of stuck. The point here is, many have tried. Many. Have tried. For decades and decades to get things straight over there. At some point, the rest of the world is just enabling the conflicts. The Republicans were burned by it and you have been burned by it. I don’t have any answers on how to resolve it, but we need to decide how much longer we need to participate, what we are going to do where – do it and then get the hell out of there and focus on the good work that needs to be done here at home.
  • Reacquaint yourself with Dr. Seuss’s story of The Zax. – Seriously. Read it, or watch the cartoon, or have somebody read it to you and show you the pictures. I don’t care. There is a message for congress there.

I could go on and on, but I realize that you are only congressional representatives after all, and that your attention spans are short, your memories are thin and your intentions are about as deep as the next election. If you take that as fairly harsh criticism, then I’m OK with that. If you could muster up a moment of self-reflection I dare say that you will come to the conclusion that you deserve it.

My one parting notion to you would be that while you are down right now like the stock market in ’07, you are not out. The deck is shuffled and you still have some good cards to play. You will need to be smart over the next year or so, which will be hard, I know, but buckle down and get the work done. I’m fairly certain that you can count on the Republicans doing nothing, aside from setting their focus on the next election, but I’m pretty sure the potential for a bright future lies ahead if you do what you need to do. And if you, meaning both parties, could consider for at least a half a second what it is you are supposed to be doing in Washington instead of what you actually do (or more commonly, do not do), the put upon cogs and wheels of this country – the American people would be truly grateful.

Your friend – Java

 

 

 

 

An open letter to the new republican congress

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Java typed with determination and focus, as she was prone to do in these situations:

An open letter to the new republican congress – Dear new republican congress:

Your don’t know me, but I wanted to be one of the first to congratulate you on your retaking of the U.S. Senate and retaining control of the House! Congratulations! And while this may sound sarcastic, I have to tip my hat to you, well done. Really, very well done.

On the surface, I would attribute this turn of events to a small miracle or raging luck. But when one digs deeper, it’s easy to visualize how this is really the one thing you, as a group, have wanted bad and have worked hard on to actually accomplish since the tables upended for you in 2006. If we disregard divine intervention and pure luck (I’m not willing to go as far to say some souls weren’t sold for this outcome) one could surmise that your good fortune comes at the hand of three primary factors.

1. Bottomless financial resources and a singular focus

2. Clever maneuvering and positioning

3. The mindless collective called the voting public

To be brief, let’s again be honest with each other. You spent billions to get here. And not just for this race exclusively. You’ve been spending money hand over fist to reclaim what you feel is rightfully yours since ’06. And if you weren’t making money in a vast suburban basement operation somewhere in middle America, you certainly have some very wealthy benefactors with cash to spare who want you back in the driver’s seat. (Be careful. Those favors and promises are going to come faster than a fist full of Christmas bills in February). Reports appear to indicate that you outspent virtually every opponent in every race. So, like any winning sports team who can afford the best players…wait, sorry. That one doesn’t work. Even with the money spent – you don’t really have the best players. Ok – so, point one – money.

When we look at clever maneuvering and positioning, your manipulation of voting districts and voting laws really are to be admired. And the voting public, whom I’ll get to in a minute, really don’t seem to mind, or actually realize what’s going on around them. Let’s consider that they are so busy working to survive these days, that rezoning districts and such is just too much to bother with. The up here for you is that you developed a plan, you put it into place and it appears to have worked to your advantage. Cheers!

On this last point, I want it known that there are many people in the mindless collective called the voting public that I call good friends and family. Good people who get up every day to do the best they can to eek out a living on this earth and try to have some fun while doing it despite getting punched in the face everyday, just for trying. They carry the wealthy on their backs and seem happy to do it, if and when they get a little piece of the good life to make it all worth while. That said, collectively, the voting public is not very bright – and that is polite. They have no long-term memory. They have no real short-term memory. They are easily distracted by the shiny object and miss the big picture entirely. They are easily swayed by whomever has the biggest sign. More often than not, they just can’t be bothered.

Take my district as an example. We keep electing the same dunderheads over and over, but if you look at their records in congress, they have not successfully introduced or passed one major piece of functional legislation during their entire tenure. They make no waves. They vote the party line. Nobody knows who they are or what they do. The only thing they are really good at is getting re-elected and going to parades and mall openings. Because there is nothing to say they are doing a bad job, or to be more descriptive, any job at all, they are just good guys doing the right thing.

I do not blame you for taking advantage. People should be smart enough and dedicated enough to make informed voting decisions…and actually vote instead of naming each cheek and voting for the one that itches more.  So, the voting public absolutely gets what they deserve. As my grandfather use to say, ignorance is acceptance.

And this is not like the PTO. We can can’t count on a few dedicated people to be able to do the work of many for all. All to the point, you played it right. You swooped in during a lackluster mid-term election with your money and your big signs and your “don’t blame us, we haven’t done anything…really…nothing…in years,” script and got just enough of the right people to the voting place and here you are. Winners.

The big question now is, now what? Will you further deconstruct the middle class? Find a nice war to ramp up somewhere? Remove Obamacare from the face of the earth? Further reduce opportunities for women and the less fortunate? Your options are many, but I suspect your decisions are few…and have already been made. 1) Do nothing. Hey – who can criticize? It works. If you actually do nothing but spew rhetoric and get in the way of others, with patience, you get to win. But I suspect you have your eye on the bigger prize making 2) Take back the White House in 2016. Then you will control the planet and it will be so much easier for you to continue to do…nothing. But it won’t be your fault, or your problem. It’s what the people want right?

I wish you all the very best in the years to come. May all your wishes come true. And again, congratulations! Well played you crafty bastards. 🙂

Your Friend., Java

 

 

My Test Results

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Hey All:

My name is Jasper Radnits. I have just completed every single inane online Facebook, Pinterest, Yahoo, social media, email, whatever you can come up with “fun quiz” known to mankind. Every. Single. One.

Of course, some yutz out there, with more free time on his or her hands than should be legally allowed is probably churning up a whole new batch of meaningless, less than clever, not even mildly interesting drivel for the masses to waste even more time doing…and sharing. All with the veiled objective of sharing something about themselves, as if knowing what sort of root vegetable you are tells anyone anything about you. It’s gross.

And why, do you ask, would I take every single test available if I am so set against them?

To get it over with. To put aside the nagging and preposterous notion that I lack a sense of fun and playfulness that those who call themselves my associates think I need to have. To illustrate the absolute and vast nothing that the exercise accomplishes even with the most well intentioned set of questions meant to help us open up to and identify with those whom we call our friends. As if we, who are determined to be the same root vegetable, have a stronger link or association than those who are not.

But, in the interest of being an active player in the morass of social media noise and distraction, I offer you my friends, colleagues, lurkers, stalkers, passers-by and so on, a brief look inside the me I am, as defined by this long and unnecessary series of test results.

If you want to know me, know me as:

  • Root vegetable – Beet
  • Prince – Aladdin
  • Princess – Pocahontas
  • Mountain – Nanga Parbat
  • Mold spore – Aspergillus
  • Cereal – Frosted Flakes
  • Radial tire – Uniroyal
  • Classic figure from literature – Tartuffe
  • Famous symphony – Edvard Grieg Work: Symphony in C-minor, EG 119 (1864)
  • Ice cream – Rhubarb
  • Pie – Pumpkin-olive
  • Hobbit character – The Old Took
  • Matrix character – Dozer
  • Piece of construction equipment – nail gun
  • Titanic passenger name – Mr. R. L. Beckwith
  • I am 11 percent “girly”
  • I would last 84 minutes in a horror movie
  • European city I should live in – London
  • Kind of candy – Dots
  • Tattoo I should get – Full back art of Dirty Harry saying, “Do you feel lucky? Punk?”
  • Spirit animal – Vole
  • Mythical creature – Jibakurei
  • Boy Band – N’Sync
  • Type of chocolate – Carob
  • Under the bed lint shape – Washington crossing the Delaware
  • Kind of pizza – lemon pepperoni
  • I am 8 percent “cowboy”
  • I am 24 percent old fashioned
  • My patronus – Chipmunk
  • Indiana Jones character – Sallah
  • I do not practice proper etiquette
  • President – Millard Fillmore
  • Comic book hero – The Thing
  • I am 2 percent 70’s
  • My dog is well trained
  • I am not a cougar
  • Comfort food – Ring Dings
  • Popular soda – Ginger Ale
  • Classic TV Character – Lurch
  • Type of car I should drive – Camero
  • Horror monster – Jason Vorhees
  • I am 84 percent classy
  • State I should live in – Idaho
  • Favorite color – Burnt Sienna
  • I do not give a shit
  • I am 4 percent witty
  • I am very likely to regret this weekend
  • I Love Lucy Character – Ethel
  • Flintstone’s character – Mr. Slate
  • Jetson’s character – Elroy
  • Lost in Space character – robot
  • I’m more rubber duck than rubber chicken
  • I am more Ernie than Bert
  • I should have been born in the 40’s
  • Type of cookie – macaroon
  • I am the sad emoji
  • I have 12 screws loose
  • I am addicted to bacon
  • My celebrity mentor is Puff Daddy
  • Flower – Dandilion
  • My life is 42 percent awesome
  • I am left brained
  • I am more Sith than Jedi
  • International sandwich – Chip Butty
  • My dream job – Subway train operator
  • Type of beer – lager
  • I am 21 percent lovable
  • I will have 8 kids
  • Pro quarterback I should date – Andrew Luck
  • I am addicted to coffee
  • Late Night Host – Craig Ferguson
  • Word that describes me – buoyant
  • My nickname should be – Clarence
  • Number of people secretly ion love with me – 106
  • I am 28 percent nerdy
  • Wine I should be drinking right now – Champagne
  • My worst quality – I’m noble
  • Who will play me in the movie of my life – Wayne Knight
  • Kind of sea creature – King Crab
  • Language I should learn – Sanscrit
  • I was note a problem child
  • I dream of having two right feet
  • I am 74 percent chill
  • I am 53 percent cute
  • My dog is very awesome
  • Vacation I should take – Nebraska
  • I hate Justin Bieber
  • I should not be a nudist
  • I am a country bumpkin
  • Classic rock band – Average White Band
  • The ancient civilization that suits me best – Aztec
  • I am 0 percent Kardashian
  • Who I was in a past life – Elsworth J. Kimitz
  • Seriously, why are you still reading this?

Kilt – Part I

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Paul Kilt stumbled through the double glass doors of the emergency room, dizzy, no… light-headed, still moderately coherent…luckily, and clutching the plush towel over the end of his newly stumped left forearm. The lights, while flickering due to the growing storm outside, were still bright enough to make him squint as he took a deep breath and forged on toward the customer intake desk.

Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen steps to the welcomed support of the faux marble countertop and a certain measure of prevention from landing face first on the floor.

His counting steps was something he had done for as long as he could remember. His trying to keep his face from smacking the floor with any ferocity, and losing consciousness, was something he tried to keep from doing since college.

On sixteen, he hit the counter hard and leaned onto it with his full weight, puffing out  heavy bursts of air to match the effort. He let his head rest softly on the window as his breath splashed itself across the glass in small, temporary waves of condensation. His head swam. His arm throbbed. His legs quivered. He was sweating and shivering all at the same time as his resistance to giving into shock started to falter.

“Off the counter and on the line please.”

The voice was heavy, gritty, and colored by age, countless cigarettes, a measure of malt whiskey and fair amount of contempt for those she spent her eight-hour work shifts attending to.

“I’m sorry?” he muttered, still trying to catch his breath.

A burly hand reached across and slid the visitor window open with an air of authority.

“Incoming patients must stay off the glass, stay off the counter and stay on the line. We will get to you as soon as possible.” The hand then slid the glass pane shut.

Paul rolled his head along the glass to where he could see the floor, blurry, but still. “Ha!” he thought. There was a line of tape on the floor about a foot away from the counter. Go figure.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I would… love to step back to the line there…the one you have on the floor, really, I would. But I…”

The window slid open again, fast and loud. The business end of a clipboard emerged. “Due to the storm, our computer system is down. Complete the top portion of the information sheet remembering to add your full name, the name of your insurance carrier, insurance group number, family history, any allergies and what brings you to the emergency room tonight. Then have a seat and we will call you when we’re ready.”

He blinked hard to see the end of the clipboard that protruded from the glass partition. It hung in mid air, waiting for him to take it and his place among the others who had brought themselves here for an evening of gentle care and healing.

“Sir?” The floating clipboard jutted out a couple of times indicating a sense of urgency.

He looked down at the death grip his right hand had on the towel, grown damp now from the mix of rain and blood. His subtle laugh forced a tiny hiccup through his body which sent a fresh shiver of pain into his left arm. “Uh…,” he managed through the wince. “I can’t…I’m not really in a position to…”

The clipboard hung in the air for a moment longer and then, ever so slowly, receded back to disappear behind the glass.

“Name?” the gruff voice asked, but he heard it as “nay-MAH!”

“Paul”

“Middle initial?”

“T.”

“Last name.”

“Kilt.”

“Killed?”

“No, Kilt. K-I-L-T.”

“Like the dress.”

“No,” he shifted again, hoping to ease the throbbing coming from the wound. “And it’s not a dress. It’s a traditional garment worn by men dating back to the 16th century and originating in the Scottish Highlands.” He had explained his name so many times in response to the “dress” question that even in his debilitated state, it just rolled off his tongue.

The elongated pause that followed reflected what he was certain to be the deep soul-searching on the part of the emergency room representative as she considered whether or not she would take this any further because she, most assuredly, was not paid enough to “deal with this kinda shit.”

“Address,” complete with an exaggerated hiss of “sss.”

“67 North Algiers Drive, Cardington proper.”

“Phone number.”

His vision started to blur further, as his head grew heavy. The voice seemed to come from farther and farther away.

“Phone number,” the request came more stern this time.

“Three.”

“Excuse me? Ugh. Do you have your insurance card Mr. Kilt?”

“Forgot…to…grab it.”

Another pause allowed him to hear more clearly the pounding that was starting to build in his ears.”

“Reason for your visit this evening?”

This time, the pause was his. Not so much for payback as he was trying to stifle throwing up. “Bleeding…to…death,” he managed. “And…the allure…of…good company.”

“Cause of injury, Mr. Kilt.”

He tried hard not to laugh. It hurt too much. His eyes traced his surroundings back and forth as if he might never see anything ever again and he was taking it all in. He felt himself slipping away from the counter and into the nothingness that was both the air of the emergency room and the darkness of being unconscious. And in that very last moment of lucidity, he giggled, “dog bite.”

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Boys – Part XI

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The nauseating sound of tearing sod, breaking rock and dripping mud rose up from the center of the backyard.
Beams of bright ogange-yellow light shot from the crack in the earth.

The rumble in the ground made it difficult for Taddy to stand. Using the house for balance, he forced himself up, but held close to the side as if standing on a cliff. As the crack expanded, more light reached into the darkness. It was a little easier to see,a s if his bad movie form before had been colorized. It was also, he gathered, easier to be seen. The minotaur thing stood at near attention behind the make-shift table where Gunther lay barely moving.

With his hands and back pressed against the siding, Taddy could feel the shaking in the ground slow, then fade, then stop. The falling rain, accented by a burst of wind were the only sounds now and that settled in for the moment as the new standard in calm.

—

He rose slowly, up from the crack in the earth and into the sweet air of the surface leaving the earthen stench of sweat and decay behind him. He breathed in slowly and deliberately, savoring not only this moment, but relishing the promise of what was to come.

The elements of the moment proved to be a minor distraction and with a wave of his hand, the wind and the rain no longer dare enter his arena of destiny. It still came down of course, all around him and with great determination, but where he stood and where he willed, nary a drop would fall. Not ideal, of course. Even moving the rain took extra energy, but with the next transformation so close, it seemed trivial not make the scene as pleasing as possible.

He looked around slowly to find most was to his liking. The Calligar stood at the ready having prepared the altar, haphazardly it seemed, yet functional to its purpose. He stepped closer. His breath caught for a moment at the sight of the new vessel, young, fresh, some would say innocent to the hard ways of the world, and most certainly, the underworld.

He leaned over the boy, raised a large eager hand and clumsily mopped away the residue of rain from the small face, careful enough not to cut the tender flesh with his razor edged nails. Placing his hands on either side of the boy’s head, he moved them in slowly, nearly engulfing the smaller human skull. And from that first touch, he felt the connection, a direct line created.

He threw his head back, taking in another full, fresh breath and released the push, the flow of his energy and his essence into his new mortal body.

—

The new pressure on Gunther’s head was like a hammer to the skull, igniting once more the splitting pain and fire, but there was something more. He had no words, but he grew hot, burning from the inside out as if he were being filled with lava. Boiling energy surged into him making it harder to breath or to move and yet when his eyes shot open, Gunther began to scream.

—

With the new light, Taddy watched the new beast rise up from the hole in the ground as if on a small elevator. He stretched hard, reaching full into the sky much like Taddy had seen his dad do after “watching the game” on a lazy Saturday afternoon. He watched it all unfurl before him, while he stood, pressed against the house, just a casual observer waiting for the next commercial.

In his head, a new mantra rose up to consume what was left of his processing power, “OHMYGOD, OHMYGOD, OHMYGOD…” He never really heard the words. The words weren’t meant to form a message. It was just habit tied to panic tied to disbelief that set off the whirring engine of noise.

Then he heard the scream.

Gunther’s voice, ripped and ragged with terror and pain cut through all the noise, leaving his mind vacant and white for one hot second. The next message came in clear as a bell, “Go!” Without another thought, he pulled the kitchen knife from his belt and tore off for the altar.

—

Boys – Part X

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Taddy, in a full-out tear, slipped into the muck as he breached the corner of the house. As he went down, the lightning flare revealed the full figure of a beast he had only seen bits and pieces of so far. The flickering light held off the dark and the sheeting rain just long enough for him to see the thing drop Gunther, quite unceremoniously, to the ground. It pulled its head back and let out a roar that mixed with a crack of deafening thunder.

“Dammit.”

Lingering flashes of residual lightning made the scene across the lawn look like something from a grainy and poorly maintained monster movie. Taddy worked to keep the water from his eyes, squinting and wiping the pelting drops from his eyes as he willed himself to see deeper into the cheap looking animation that played out before him. Gunther rolled slowly to his side mere yards away as…that thing stood over him and howled.

The creature, reminded him of the giant minotaur from Stanley Kaldon’s 1956 classic, Labyrinth of the Damned. Big and ugly and likely surrounded by the smell of death.

The Calligar screamed into the dark thunder, calling his master. It’s head whipped to the left and right, its large black eyes searching for the right tools to make the offering. A large pole stood, stuck in the ground just behind him and next to a small table that would serve him well. It’s massive hands reached out and grabbed the pole, immediately pulling and shaking it free from the wet, muddy ground. He raised it over his head and then, holding it like a giant bat is his hands. He raised the pole a bit more before bringing it down fast and hard.

The pole came down so close to Gunther’s head that he could feel the wind it made followed by the earthy stench of the deep ground. He flinched raising both a dizzying fire in his head and a sharp breath catching pain in his chest. Broken rib flashed through his mind, quickly followed by broken ribs, every last one of them of them for all he knew. The monster stepped away and he tried to raise his head.

Without really knowing it Taddy slipped closer to the outside wall of his house and started inching along the foundation line trying to see and trying to stay hidden. If he could get to Gunther while that thing was distracted, they might make it out of this mess. As best as he could tell, Gunther was alive. He was moving a bit and he held onto that. The rain didn’t help but he was certain he could hear the other boy breathing. Well, wheezing anyhow.

The beast had forced the pole deep into the ground, much deeper than when he pulled it out. If Gunther stood up at tat moment it would probably rise up just above his head. The Calligar had stepped back to grab the flat surface which was, Gunther knew, the bulk of Taddy’s family’s backyard picnic table. He spun and raised the table up, setting the flat top of the table down onto the pole. He began lashing the two together with the ropes and wire he pulled off the nearby drying rack. Once he finished, he stepped back throwing another earth-shattering howl into the rainy sky.

The howl forced Taddy to pull into himself, covering his hears and hoping the sound of the rain covered any whimper his fear and surprise may have generated. A line from Souls on Mystery Island spoke to him, “I’d pay cash money on the dot, to get that thing to shut up.”

Underneath him, Gunther could feel the ground tremble ever so slightly beneath him. How sensitive he was, he wondered in the fog of his head. He didn’t know how the ground could be trembling, especially with all the rains coming down, still…he knew. And the very, very soft tremble began to grow, up into a full shake at least until…

The Calligar reached down and seized upon the legs of the little one. He dragged his prize through the dirt and raised him up before slapping him down upon the table contraption, the…altar, he created with the pole and the small table. Gunther landed hard, like the next cartoon fish in a monger’s shop. He whimpered and tried to recoil from the pain, but everything was pain, there no other way to respond.

Taddy noticed the ground shaking now. He pressed his hands against and into the wet grass to make sure. The shaking grew more intense and the sound of the shifting earth began to roar up canceling the voice of the rain. He looked from the ground back to the alter just in time to see the ground just below Gunther spilt open.

Boys – Part IX

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Martin J. Gibbons, 57-year-old house painter.

Randall R. Stibbs, 49-year-old insurance agent and financial advisor.

Alison May Baker-Smith, 37-year-old soccer mom, mother of three.

Cody Timpkins, 28-year-old drummer for the up-and-coming rock band, Syzzle.

Andrew Taylor Corliss, 19-year-old trouble maker and doer of nothing whose friends once called Tack.

The list of recently missing, seemingly disconnected persons, grew slowly, almost deliberately. Each plucked from the burden of their every day struggles with the unknowing intent of serving as the vessel that would bring the dark master to the light of day.

Each one failing the task due to the weak and inadequate construction of the human animal.

He raised his hand before him and turned it slowly, deliberately. The once youthful skin of Andrew Taylor Corliss sat uncomfortably taught and bloated like a too small glove pulled over his fingers and palm. The skin, once smooth and dark, was now pale, dry and covered with liver spots and wrinkles.

He slowly clenched his hand into a fist and watched as the remnant flesh gave way to the pressure, popping and tearing and slowly peeling away as the fist flexed tighter and tighter.

He yearned to roam the lands above again to witness his work first hand, to drink in their tears and savor a symphony of screams. Still, for all that comes with unfathomable power, power in and of itself can be…restrictive. Yet, to effectively do his work among them, he must in essence be one of them. And so the process is what the case demands.

Such a frail species.

He loosened the grip and shook the hand away from him, flicking the last residue of young Corliss from him and toward the decaying pile of what was left of those who came before. A diminished skull from one Martin Gibbons, whose empty eyes stared through the pair of broken glasses resting in a cock-eyed fashion across a shriveled nose. He was strong and outdoorsy, but the process of transference puts so much strain on the human form, that the flesh ages at an accelerated rate. Martin Gibbons, at least the shell of Martin Gibbons, proved the least useful of all.

Mr. Stibbs suffered from an as yet to be diagnosed heart condition, substantially reducing his potential usefulness. Pity, he had a certain look that would have served him well, up there.

The woman was interesting, but again, the transference ravaged the mortal system. She just wore out too quickly for his needs.

Corliss showed promise, real promise. Yet perhaps, in his excitement in finally being able to reach the surface, he probably added more stress to his new form than he might have originally intended. At least until he was top side. The reflection of the once, some might say handsome and brooding young man, seemed to shift all too quickly to middle age and then to the more useless aged and decrepit, then to a pile of rot.

Failures all of them, but in each failure a lesson learned, an adjustment made and an extension of the possibilities that lie ahead. There are no real mistakes in this world, only curiosities…experiments. This time, he would go younger still. Perhaps a smaller and more resilient body would make the transference easier both on the vessel, and on him. So many transferences in such a relatively short period of time had a way of ‘running down the batteries’ as they might say on the crust.

He looked at his clenching fists. He had been charging is batteries long enough. It was time to really get some business done.

Boys – Part VII

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Tears would have been easy. They were building to the brink of release as a sob hung in his throat waiting for permission to go. But Taddy held firm, dropping the doorknob and fiercely wiping his eyes clear with his now dusty sleeve.

For the moment, Gunther was gone, but his words hung with him. “Do you want to be the crier?”

Even at his young age, the catalogue of monster flicks and horror movies the two devoured gave him a substantial amount of data to work from. Real or imaginary, didn’t much matter.

He knew that nothing good comes to the ones that lose their cool. The hero stays focused. The “crier” just ends up being the next on the list. Every movie they saw seemed to have one. Someone so freaked out that all they can do is sob and yell about their impeding doom as if it were some sort of self–fulfilling prophecy. They got in the way of the ultimate resolution and you were relieved to see them go. The boys suspected even the producers were happy to get rid of those annoying characters for they often suffered some of the more excruciating deaths.

He would not be the crier. Cliff from The Cult of the Bleeding Eye might have said it best, when it all starts to crumble and things seems dire, there are always two things to focus on. One – survival. Two – rescue.

Taddy found the flashlight and clicked in on, grateful for even the dim light that it offered. He stepped through the shattered pantry door and into the kitchen. Crouching low to the ground, he moved the small puff of light over the tiles. The markings settled into the crushed ceramics looked like giant – hooves.

“Crap.”

Standing, he made his way to the island, now set askew by whatever invaded their kitchen and began to paw through the utility drawer until his hand brushed against an opened pack of batteries near the back.

He shuddered through a breath of relief and quickly replaced the batteries in the flashlight. Clicking the button, a newly revived and strong beam of white light filled the room. Taddy smiled. Success!

He then ran to the counter and grabbed a large knife from the block of wood on the counter. The sounds that engulfed him were the now familiar sounds of the storm. No more heavy asthmatic breathing. No more stomping and growling.

Taddy burst from the kitchen, ran down the foyer and into the front sitting room. Everything was in shambles. The couch and table were crushed, the front bay window, smashed. Shards of glass and debris were everywhere. The cold autumn wind and sheets of rain whipped at the open space as if trying to climb in.

Taddy dropped back to the front door and slid his feet into his sneakers. He had to remember to tell his mom that this was exactly why he never untied them. He swung open the front door and stepped out onto porch. The fierce storm welcomed him to its realm by nearly blowing him over. The rain was hitting him so fast it was hard to keep his eyes open.

“Gunther!” he yelled, trying to brush the rain from his face while working to shield himself from stinging, cold, wind-charged droplets.

“Gunther!”

A bolt of lightning crashed hard and bright nearby and the following thunder marked the strike with an earth-shattering rumble. Through the wind and rain it was difficult to define, but out back, or along the side of the house, there was a substantial crack and a crash.

Taddy ran to the far end of the porch, leaping over a couple of the giant hoof prints that had crushed their way into the wood. Even with a renewed life, his small flashlight just didn’t have the power to give him enough beam to see down to the back of the house.

“Gunther!”

He waved the flashlight urging it to go farther, but it was at its limit.

“Graww!”

The now familiar growl fought its way through the storm to Taddy’s ears from the backyard.

Shoving the knife through his belt loop, he grabbed the porch rail as he had done hundreds of times and vaulted over the edge to the increasingly soft, rain-soaked ground. After the initial cold and uncomfortable shock of the icy water draining into his shoes, Taddy tore out for the backyard.

Boys – Part VI

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The boys huddled close in the kitchen, surrounded by darkness, save for the dim light pushing out from the small flashlight Taddy held tight in his hand.

Down the hall and in the front sitting room, someone or something apparently crashed through the large bay window.

With their faces softly lit by the glowing bulb, they looked at each other as they listened carefully, closely, trying to discern what might be sounds foreign from the ever-present whistling of the angry winds, the splashing waves of rain and rolling thunder.

“He’s got asthma,” Gunther dared to whisper, almost mouthing the words.

Taddy looked back at him with his face curled in confusion.

“He sounds like my Uncle Rory. He has asthma.” Gunther started to pantomime the heavy, labored breathing of his uncle with the added emphasis of his tongue hanging out. Taddy nudged him with his elbow and mouthed, “Shhh!”

The sound of labored breathing faded into the sound of rain attacking the windows. For a moment, they could almost believe they imagined the sound of what they believed was smashing of the front window. Then another crash from the room reached them. Of course he had no point of reference having never heard it before, still, Taddy knew it was his mother’s coffee table.

“Graww!”

The noise, a growl or moan, or whatever it was that they had yet to name, forced Gunther to grab on to Taddy’s shoulder tight enough to make the Taddy wince.

Their eyes grew wide. A large, pounding step, or what they believed was a step, sounded from down the hall, then another and maybe a third. It was hard to tell through the thunder, but when a definite fourth step moved from the muffled softness of the front room carpet to the hardwood of the foyer, the game changed. Whatever was in the house was coming their way.

Gunther held on tighter as the boys looked at each other. Their expressions were clear. The message, concise – run – but neither of them could move.

Taddy broke the stare first whipping his head side to side. He doused the dimming glow of the flashlight and pulled Gunther across the kitchen floor to the pantry.

“Thud! Thud!”

At the door, Taddy consciously slowed down enough to hold the panic at bay at least long enough to purposefully get his hand on the knob, turn it as quietly as possible, swing the door open enough to push Gunther inside, step in next to him and close the door softly.

“Thud! Thud! Thud!”

The heavy steps that tread the span of the front hallway in only a few steps, moved into the kitchen, and whatever hit the tile was heavy and sounded like metal on stone.

Taddy kept his hands on the handle of the pantry door holding it tight, just in case. Gunther pressed himself back against the shelves loaded up with canned goods and plastic bags of dried noodles and rice.

“Thud! Thud”

The weight of whatever made its way to the kitchen was enough to grind and splinter the tiles beneath it.

“Graww!”

The roar of the thing gave way to a heavy, rasping breath. Each gasp came long and slow, pulling with it a rumble like waves moving pebbles and sand with each pull.

There was a sniff and a snort and then … nothing.

Taddy waited for a long moment and before he dare take a breath. The only sounds that came to him were the winds, the rain and the low rumbles of thunder.  Almost believing he might have let that which was Video Hell get the better of him, He turned back to where Gunther was. Even in the dark, he smiled as he turned.

Long seconds drifted into minutes and in the absence of any noise in the kitchen, Gunther pulled himself from the shelves. He inched forward slowly and deliberately to find Taddy. He reached forward…

The top half of the door exploded into a shower of splinters. Taddy wrapped his tired hand around the door handle with renewed enthusiasm and a full-fledged panic. He screamed.

Above his head and through the hole, a large hand or claw reached into the pantry, wrapped itself around Gunther. Gunther screamed. The arm quickly pulled back, but Gunther was too big to fit through … on the first try. On the second try, one with clearly more force, the rest of the door and most of the jam exploded into splinters. Gunther’s scream ended immediately on impact.

The heavy feet turned on the kitchen floor, the metal sound on tile creating a high-pitched screech. The thudding sound of the foot falls traveled back up the hallway, into the front room and out through the large bay window.

Taddy stood in the dark. The remnants of the door, the handle he held on so tightly to, shook in his hands. The rain outside grew fiercer as the lightning flashed.

In the fleeting seconds of bright light, Taddy saw the debris littered all around him. In the debris, Taddy saw blood.

Boys – Part V

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“Taddy?” Gunther said, in a whisper just loud enough to be heard over the rain attacking the attic roof.

“Yeah?”

“How long are you going to hold my hand?”

“Shut up,” Taddy said quickly letting go. “Just shut up and give me your flashlight.”

Gunther felt around him. “Wait,” he said. “”I thought you had a flashlight.”

“Mine’s dead, remember?”

“Well, I don’t have one,” Gunther said, trying to force any sign of a whimper from his voice.

“Then we’ve got to go get the one my mom has in the kitchen,” said Taddy, still whispering as if the darkness demanded it. “And we’re going together.”

“Right,” Gunther said. “I mean you’re not leaving me up here by myself.”

“Let’s go then.”

Taddy started to inch his way toward the hole in the floor and stuck a foot down through to find the ladder. Gunther inched with him, keeping a hand near Taddy’s shoulder so he wouldn’t lose touch as much for the connection to comfort, as it was a way to accidentally fall down the hole.

“Don’t push,” Taddy said.

“I’m not,” Gunther insisted.

Once on the ladder, Taddy’s instincts took over. He made the climb and descent in the dark thousands of times and was able to slip down into his bedroom in seconds. Gunther followed with a little more caution, but made it to the floor safe and sound.

“I can’t see a thing,” said Gunther. “This is crazy! I mean, look how dark it is. Where are you?”

“I’m over here.” Taddy clapped his hands and reached out for his friend. Gunther found him and the two began to slip their feet along the floor, inching their way to the door.

“Gah!”

A large flash of lightning filled the house, trailing off into the flicker of tiny strobes of light. Any progress the boys made toward adjusting their sight to the darkness was dashed in those seconds of brilliance.

“Boom!”

The thunder followed as they were still rubbing the brightness of the flash from their eyes.

“This sucks!” Gunther shouted. “I can’t see. Now I can’t hear. Really … this sucks!”

“Come on,” Taddy said. “There’s a flashlight in the kitchen. We’ll be there in a hot second.”

They continued their careful movements across the floor, to the stairs and down to the foyer. They inched their way to the kitchen, running their fingers lightly across the wall as a way to stay clear on their path.

Taddy reached the cold tile first. He stepped forward and reached out for the chopping block top of the island in the middle of the room. Finding it, he walked himself around to the second drawer where his mom kept the flashlight and any other number of assorted and likely useless odds and ends. He pulled the drawer and pawed around inside until he found it.

Click.

“That’s it?” Gunther asked, still standing on the edge of kitchen.

A pathetic, whimper of a glow lazily forced itself from the small light. Bringing recognition to Taddy’s face. He smirked and shook the light. It went dark. He hit it a couple of times and the light came back a little stronger, but not much.

“This is all we have unless I can find some more batteries,” Taddy said. “Or, until the power comes back.

“What about candles?” Gunther asked. “Do you have any candles?”

“Yeah,” Taddy said. My mom has a bunch in the…”

Any word Taddy might have said was murdered by another glaring flash of light. The boys had just enough time to look at each other before the thunder followed.

BOOM!

“Ahhhh!” The boys screamed.

“I wish it would stop doing that!” Gunther pounded on the wall next to him.

CRASH!

“What was that?” Taddy yelled. “What did you do?”

“Nothing,” said Gunther, running into the kitchen. “I … nothing. It sounded like window in the front room. You saw me. I was right there. I swear I didn’t…”

“Shhhh! Shush! Hush! Shut up!” Taddy said, trying to cover Gunther’s mouth.

The boys stood in the faded yellow glow of the sad flashlight, listening hard for whatever it was Taddy thought he heard. After a moment, they turned slowly to face each other.

“Footsteps.”

“Breathing.”

While they spoke at exactly the same time, it was clear, they each heard something different.

Boys – Part IV

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Video Hell spewed gore, blood, screams and horror down upon the boys from the large flashing screen. 

The two stared, wide-eyed and unblinking. The knots in their stomachs, visceral responses to images they had never seen, and could never imagine before. The vivid colors and sounds raised the level of their education, by exposing them to the broader notion that true evil may actually lurk behind close doors and in thick shadows, and that true evil was angry and merciless.

The flickering lights and sounds from the screen joined with the brilliant flashes of lighting from the raging storm that began its romp through Cardington. Waves of rain raked the roof, at times making the television hard to hear.

Unknowingly, the boys had inched closer to each other and enlisted the potential protective powers of their sleeping bags by having them at the ready, should the need to pull them over their heads arise. The converted attic seemed smaller somehow. Close.

“My God, Brock,” said the soon to be unraveled character Sally Moon. “What are they? What are those things?”

“I’m not sure,” said Brock Addams, or hero for the moment. “I remember Spoons saying something about the mouth of Hell or whatever, before … well, all Hell broke loose. He said something about the creatures who guard it or something. I’m thinking these might be whatever those are.”

“Riiight,” said Sally, “But they didn’t guard it. I remember him saying something like, should the mouth of Hell open, the first wave of terror to descend upon humanity would be the, the…ugh. I can’t remember.”

“Corgoons, Corgons, Corlons …” Brock said quickly, as he tried to jumpstart his memory.

“Cordallits!” said Sally. “Should the mouth of Hell open, the first wave of terror to descend upon humanity would be the Cordallits, a mindless army of Hell bound beasts that kill without compassion and without remorse. They have one goal and that is to rid the world of those who stand the path of the Master’s return.”

“Cordallits,” said Brock. “That’s it.”

“How many of them are there do you think? What do we do?” asked Sally.

“Pull it together, Sally,” Brock snapped. “I remember now.” He walked to a giant closet and swung open the doors. “Spoons said there’s only one way to kill a Cordallit, and that is…”

BOOM!

The blinding flash of light and explosive thunder happened virtually simultaneously. It was loud enough and strong enough that it shook the whole house beneath them.

The blast took everything, but the thrashing sound of the relentless rain attacking the attic roof. Brock and Sally evaporated into the darkness. The attic went from close to claustrophobic.

Two hands reached blindly for each other in the darkness. A minor dash of relief pulsed through them as they touched, quickly replaced by panic as they clenched.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaah!”