Prometheus Unending

You think yourself a god among men
That walks unchallenged on the fertile dirt of the one true creator
If they call you monster or spawn of Samael
What womb do I call my own?

Under a bruised horizon with open sores
That expels the tears of Heaven’s gate
I am reborn by flash of light
You scream of life and I arise.

At the first illumination of morning
I feel first touch
I taste first taste
I smell first smell.

These senses that form
Rushed through my veins unfamiliar
In context of cortex
I think only of future engagements, never what has been.

A single gaze upon your handiwork
Of yellowed eyes and frightful height
Of translucent skin and hideous feature
Causes you: my father; my mother; my teacher; my friend to flee.

Yellowed eyes find solace in yellowed pages
Of classic literature both fresh and aged
As I wait for the moment in my new life
To confront you.

You call me son
I call you father
God calls you Victor Frankenstein
God calls me your creation.

A Social Gathering

           As the night had gone on, it became increasingly clear to Mr. Carlisle and his guests that his party was beginning to die down. The excitement that had happened previously in the night, involving drinking and dancing and gossiping, had done a complete turnaround. Where there once had been drinking, there was flat-tasting beer and wine that had been drank so much it had lost flavor. Where there had once been dancing, there was Mr. Carlisle and his five party guests, who were all friends, who were all couples, who were all sitting in a semi-circle on his sofa and living room chairs and piano bench. Where there was gossip, there was awkward silence.

As Mr. Carlisle took this all in, he realized that his guests were becoming bored. Mrs. Astor took a long drag of her cigarette in its long holder, blowing the smoke out into a ring in the center of their semi-circle. Mr. Brighton sighed and finished the little wine he had. Mr. Carlisle looked to his beloved wife for help, for anything of use, but she was too busy staring at the rest of the guests. Suddenly, Mrs. Brighton spoke up.

Thank goodness for Barbara Brighton, Mr. Carlisle thought to himself.

“I have an idea.” Mrs. Brighton said aloud.

“Oh?” Mrs. Astor inquired. “I forgot you knew how to think, Barbara.”

A gentle smattering of polite laughter followed, which Mrs. Brighton took part in herself.

“You are such a comedian, Alice. An idea to entertain ourselves, I mean. No disrespect to Mr. and Mrs. Carlisle, of course, the party has been quite entertaining for all of us, I’m sure.” she continued, not missing a beat. “But what of a scavenger hunt, like we used to do?”

Mr. Carlisle heard his wife chuckle lightly to the left of him, just outside of his peripheral vision.

“You cannot be serious, can you Barbara?” Mrs. Carlisle asked. “We were younger then. We have lives now, and responsibilities. Those silly hunts won’t work anymore, they won’t have that spark of fun they once had.”

“And why not, Candace?” Mrs. Brighton retorted. “We had fun back then, didn’t we? What has really changed?”

“That is true, Candace.” Mr. Brighton agreed. “Don’t you remember when we were younger? When our parents would go off on business trips out of the country together and we would be holed up our mansions all of the time? We had to think of something else to do. Those hunts were our lives when the yacht club closed.”

“I say we should do it.” Mr. Astor said, grinning widely, sweeping his feathery brown hair (with a recent streak of grey, Mr. Carlisle noticed, no doubt from the most recent stock market crash) back behind his ear.

“I agree, love. Should we play with the same rules?” Mrs. Astor asked. “Three items to scavenge? The gentlemen versus the women? An hour allotted to obtain each item?”

“Splendid, Alice. You remembered the rules after all of these years?” Mrs. Brighton asked, clearly impressed.

“Oh yes, dear. One doesn’t easily forget the rules to our scavenger hunt.” Mrs. Astor sniped back with a smile.

A second gentle smattering of polite laughter followed, which Mrs. Brighton, again as always, took part in herself.

***

It was the third hour of the hunt, with only the Carlisles left to complete their task, obtaining a beef tongue. The Astors versed each other in finding a pig’s ear and the Brightons had successfully found a chicken’s foot. Mr. Astor had found the right ear, scoring a point for the gentlemen. Mrs. Brighton, however, managed to find a chicken’s foot and get it back to the Carlisle house before the hour ran out, scoring a point for the women. It had all came down to Mr. Carlisle versus his wife.

Mr. and Mrs. Carlisle had departed for their item with a kiss to each other, as was custom for the game. It was a symbol of good fortune and sportsmanship on their part, and was something that made Mr. Carlisle proud to be among such noble and good friends.

The barn the Carlisles had chosen for their task was off the main road about ten minutes out. Mrs. Carlisle had chosen the particular one, her husband had chosen the O’Shaughnessy property, but she did not care for the cow there. It was too moody and unpredictable. So, Mr. Carlisle had repented and there he was, in the heat of the moment, ready to get his prize.

He had begun, as he always had, sneaking around the barn stealthily, so as to not wake any of the filthy animals inside. He approached the barn door cautiously. He moved it just a bit, to test it for any creaking. It had none. Mr. Carlisle loved it when he was this lucky on the hunts.

The door swung open easily, and he crept inside. He could already smell the poor hygiene on the animals in the barn. If Mrs. Astor had been here, he knew she would have gagged quite a bit, and maybe even thrown up. But he would press on.

He walked further into the one-room barn, which was lightly furnished. He quickly searched for the cow. It had to be the right cow and the right tongue to win the hunt for his fellow gentlemen. It had to be just right.

Finally, in one corner of the room lying on the floor on damp newspapers, Mr. Carlisle saw her. She was perfect.  She was slightly darker than the rest of the animals, but not significantly so. She was not a hideously overweight animal, but just enough to where Mr. Carlisle could tell that she was an overeater. Gluttony was in this beast’s vocabulary.

His wife was nowhere to be seen, and he had found the perfect cow; the perfect tongue.

The eyes of Mr. Carlisle’s prize began to flutter and awaken (which was due, he assumed, to the long period in which he stood over her) but he quickly shushed her so she didn’t wake the others.

She struggled for a moment, but he kept a steady hand and worked quickly.

***

The socialites sat again in their semi-circle, each with a drink in hand, reminiscing about their most recent scavenger hunt. Mr. Carlisle had won it for the gentlemen, and they were all toasting to their success in good fun.

“So, did everyone enjoy themselves tonight?” Mr. Astor asked.

“I did, Arthur. I haven’t had that much fun since college. The whole thing really is exhilarating, isn’t it?” Mr. Brighton replied, brandy in one hand and a cigar in the other.

“Oh yes, indeed, Benjamin.”

“Did anyone have trouble with their items?” Mrs. Carlisle asked. “Who did everyone choose?”

The Astors began, as Mr. Carlisle knew they always would.

“We had pig’s ear, and we chose Mr. Louis Farrell, age forty-five.” Mrs. Astor said. “He lost his job a few months back, and hasn’t found one since. He had been living with his mother, and refused to work picking the crops in favor of sleeping. He was like a pig in his lazy ways. We agreed that he accurately represented sloth, the sin of laziness, and he became the pig’s ear”.

 “We had chicken’s foot, and we chose Ms. Selena Gutierrez, age twenty-two.” Mr. Brighton said next. “A drug addict with serious violent issues from the Seaside District.  Barbara threatened her with a pocketknife for money, and she obliged, and threatened my poor wife. She was like a cock in a cock fight, so violent for nothing. Made me sick. We both agreed she accurately represented wrath, the sin of anger, and she became the chicken’s foot.”

Mr. Carlisle let his wife relate the story of their item, the beef tongue. They had not chosen Audrey O’Shaughnessy as he had suggested, but had instead gone with a Mrs. Opal Jennings. Her tendencies for overeating and gluttonous ways of not feeding her starving children lead to her ultimate choosing.

The group of wealthy socialites continued their light discussion, while a severed human ear, amputated foot and grey, slimy tongue sat in individual buckets of ice on the Carlisle coffee table.

“Oh, how I loathe being around them…” Mrs. Astor said, shuddering slightly and nearly spilling her red wine. “Those impoverished ones, those filthy animals, so unclean and unhealthy. The poor really are a nuisance to this country.”

“That’s why it is fun, dearest wife!” Mr. Astor said jubilantly. “These silly little games provide us with a challenge to go into those hellish animal pens. To let us reaffirm ourselves of our good choices in life over their poor ones when we feel low. It is simply life’s way, and a hell of a good time!”

There was a gentle smattering of polite laughter, and Mr. Carlisle joined in for the first time in years.

***

After their friends had left for the evening, the Carlisles destroyed the items and got ready for bed.

Mr. Carlisle felt very good that evening, he felt young and fresh and alive. He was pleased with the latest scavenger hunt, and wanted to do something else to recapture the days of his youth. He got his idea once he and his wife had settled into bed.

“Candace?”

“Yes, Campion?”

“We should gather the others tomorrow night, as well. Hold another dinner, you know. I could prepare my famous filet mignon I’m always going on about.”

“I think that’s a splendid idea, dear. But what ever for?

“Now that we’ve done the scavenger, I believe it’s time for us to do a fox hunt.”

Fear Comes Calling (2 of 2)

            The night was brisk and dark, like every time Fear and I had met had been.

            As I walked to my childhood home, the night began morphing into our familiar battleground. The wind, once roaring, slowly died down until it was non-existent. The air, once sweetly smelling of Mrs. Johansen’s lilacs, now smelt of death. It was something I was, unfortunately, all too familiar with. On the same note the air had become colder and colder the close I came to my former home.

            By the time I stood in front of the heap of creaking, dead wood that once was my childhood domain, I could see my breath, which came out as steam in front of me with every step I took. I tugged at my robe until it was closer to my body, to make sure my warmth was in check. I chuckled a little upon feeling my ribs with my fingers. I realized I had become a spitting image of Fear himself. I was very skinny, with only strings of hair on my otherwise bald head. My eyes weren’t black, but my once green-ones had lost some of their green and the whites of my eyes had faded until they were a watery-grey color. They might as well have been black. My nose wasn’t broken, but somewhat crooked. One of my ears didn’t have a chunk out of it; rather, I had lost enough hearing in one to the point where it was probably as useless as His ear.

            I strode up the path to my home, finally stopping at the steps. The windows were broken, the whole place smelled of bird shit. I took a step up towards the stoop and the stair bent inward with a scream of wood splintering. I quickly got my weight onto the more stable stoop, but the stair kept the inward imprint of me. The night was dark already, but my house was a pit of darkness all on its own.

            A freezing gust of wind hit me, so strong it nearly knocked my small, bony frame over, and my door swung open.

            In the wind I swore I heard: Are you scared, Jimmy?

            I slowly rose to my proper height and gazed into the darkness.

            I swallowed hard, thought of my family, and hobbled in. The darkness swallowed me, and my door slammed shut with another gust of wind.

***

            I couldn’t see where I was, but since I had lived in the house for nearly twenty years, I knew where I stood, or what room the damp, stinking husk of wood once held. Upon entering, I knew I was in our foyer. The chandelier was where it had been for seventy years: right above my head. However, I could tell the cobwebs that draped over it, because some brushed over the top of my head.

            I walked a little further into the room, and the floorboards creaked under my weight combined with that of the cane. Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw a brilliant light in the corner of the room. As I strode towards it, the light formed into a human-sized medium mass. The mass was crying loudly, and it became louder the closer I got. Then, the mass took form into one I recognized. I realized it was my mother.

            She was crouched on the ground, facing the corner of the wall and crying.

            In shock, I barely knew what to say.

            “M-Mom? Are you okay?” I managed, stumbling over every word.

            My father appeared at my right, and with him, the old house changed into a new one. The house was empty, but I realized that what I saw before me was the house and my family on the day we had moved in seventy years earlier. The version of me, age six, was outside, as I could clearly see from the window, playing make-believe. My parents, however, were not as I had ever seen them before.

            My crying mother was grabbed by my father.

            “Please, Thomas, please no…” she yelled, trying to shield her bleeding face. My father would not listen, and beat my mother.

            “This will teach you to talk to another man, Martha!” my father screamed at her in between hits. “You forced me to do this!”

            “Thomas…no, you have it wrong, please…I was talking to Jimmy’s teacher, and he was wishing me good luck with Jimmy!” my mother sobbed.

            “This is it, Martha! If this is how you want to begin our new life, then so be it!” my father yelled back.

            I felt years of anger rushing through me, and it found its way to my fists. I ran towards my father, screaming. He turned to face me, but I took no notice. I ran and screamed towards him for what seemed like hours. Then, I reached him, and my hand went straight through his chest. I dug through it until I felt the heart, and I squeezed lightly, enough to cause some minor damage to it that could only be corrected through surgery, before being thrust back.

            I stood. My father lay on the ground, clutching his chest and writhing in pain. My mother stood, her face stained with tears, blood running out of her nose.

            I reached for my mother, leaning so all of my weight was on my cane.

            “Mother?”

Suddenly, the cane was thrust out of my hands. I fell to the ground hard, hitting the floorboards with all of my weight, crashing through it.

***

When I awoke, I knew what I had become.

I sat up where my grave had once been. My clothes were filthy and tattered, as were my clothes and socks.

 

My hair was in long strands that surrounded me, which I brushed aside with long, filthy nails.

Blood dripped from my mouth and onto my shirt.

What was once my body would be no more. Nobody would ever know that Jimmy Peterson ever existed.

My brother would be born in my place. My father would stop beating my mother, after claiming he was confronted with what he feared most, but still had heart troubles. My mother would become suspicious of any of food she didn’t make, claiming it could be poisoned, and someone was trying to kill her slowly.

I grinned, excited for what was to come.

It was time to go to work.

***

The first time my brother saw Fear, I was standing in his closet, blood running down my bleeding gums, grinning the broken shards of glass that made up my teeth.

Fear Comes Calling (1 of 2)

          The first time I saw Fear, I mean really looked into his cold, black eyes, I was seven years old. It was my birthday. I have a summer birthday, so birthday parties for me were always a huge gathering of family and friends alike. My seventh was no different, and after various gifts were given and a birthday song was sung, everyone left. It was as if none of it really mattered in the end, like everyone was just there out of courtesy to my parents and I. Once the party had ended, my parents went about cleaning up and trying to salvage our home from the trash dump that had tried to take it over.

I took my new bicycle I had gotten (a beautiful cherry red Schwinn and a gift from my grandfather) and set off into the neighborhood. I rode past the houses of kids I had just seen ten minutes before, but none of them came out to greet or play with me. I rode past the local grocery store that had a sign displayed that proposed: “It’s your birthday? Come get a free cupcake courtesy of Melrose Grocery!” I knew Mr. Melrose, a plump man with a big mustache and glasses that sat on the tip of his nose. I often helped bag groceries at the store. He knew it was my birthday, but when I had come to get my birthday cupcake earlier that afternoon, he told me they had run out. Davey Stone came just as I left, and I saw Mr. Melrose hand Davey a cupcake.

I rode that Schwinn for what must have been hours, so long that when I finally stopped, I had no idea where I was. I knew every inch of my hometown, but where I was I had never seen before. I was in a field, flat except for the thick woods just to the south. The woods were dark, and I couldn’t see past the large trunks of the trees. It had been a windy day, but the wind had stopped. It had been a bright, sunny day, but the sun was now behind a thick cloud cover. It had smelled of sweet flowers all day as well, but now, I only smelt what smelled like burning trash. It was eighty-five degrees that day, but it felt like the temperature was closer to thirty. I was shivering; my bare legs (in shorts) were against the now freezing bright red metal of the Schwinn. That was when I saw him.

He was leaning against a tree at the front of the forest, smiling at me. His teeth weren’t teeth; they were jagged pieces of glass jammed into his gums. The glass was bloody from this, and was trickling down his chin and onto his neck in a fluid, dark red stream. His eyes glistened, but they had no pupils. They didn’t even have white parts, they were just black. They were just cold and black. His nose was twisted to one side; like it had been broken once before and never healed. He was missing a part of one of his ears; it looked like it had been bitten off. He had skin the color of curdled cream. He was very skinny, with strings of dirty black hair blowing in the slight wind that had started up. He was wearing a white dress shirt, now browned from what I assumed had been dirt. Splotches of a lighter brown littered it. I knew this was blood, I had seen the same colored spots on the apron of the butcher at Melrose Grocery. He was wearing tattered brown pants, which were too short, so his bony legs were displayed at the bottom of them, wearing brown socks, also tattered. His brown shoes had holes in them, and one pale toe stuck out. In one pale, bony hand, in between fingers that looked like twigs with sharpened yellowed nails attached to them, he held an old bowler hat.

The man’s mouth moved, but since he was so far away, I couldn’t hear what he was saying.

Suddenly, on the brisk wind that again blew past my ears, I heard the whispered words: “Are you scared?”

I simply sat back down on my bike, put my feet on the pedals, and turned around. I rode back the way I came. I turned once to see if he was still standing there against the tree. He was, still smiling at me, but then he put his bowler hat on and calmly walked into the woods, disappearing into the darkness.

***

For several years after that, I saw the man many times, often before or during tragedies in my life.

***

He was the drunk driver that hit my car off of a country road when I was eighteen years old, sending it spiraling out of control and into a river. I survived, but my left arm had been crushed in the wreckage. It was amputated soon after. When police arrived, they found a totaled blue truck on the corner of the woods, door ajar, the driver missing. I recounted to a therapist many years later that I had seen him sitting at the bottom of the river, cross-legged, hair sticking straight up as my car sat at the bottom of the river. His mouth was moving, and I didn’t hear what he had said. I didn’t have to, I already knew.

***

He was the doctor that performed my father’s open-heart surgery, who I didn’t meet until well after the surgery.

My father passed away on the operating table at age fifty-three.

I called the police, but when they arrived at the hospital they found a timid, young, normal doctor wearing the same nametag as the man.

I convinced my mother not to press charges against the poor doctor, who swore he had no open-heart surgeries scheduled at all that month.

***

He was the landlord who “found” the dead body of my brother, who had committed suicide in his apartment at age twenty-five.

After his death and funeral, I was helping my mother clean out my brother’s items from the apartment when I found numerous journals and videotapes that belonged to my brother. Upon viewing them, I realized my brother had seen the man numerous times in the past few years, maybe even more than I had. He thought nobody would believe him, and the man finally scared him to death.

The landlord was found dead in his apartment, his face cut to shreds to the point of being unrecognizable, in what the police now claimed was the work of a serial killer targeting the apartment building.

None of the other tenants ever died during the time the case was open.

***

The man dealt me his final blow when he was the male nurse that took care of my mother in her final years.

When my mother’s body was found by neighbors on her eighty-seventh birthday, it was clear that she was slowly poisoned by the aide, who had been with her for several months, and who could only come around on the days I worked.

The autopsy of my mother’s body confirmed that she had died a slow and painful death. Scribbled on the bottom of the autopsy report in a different writing were the familiar words.

Are you scared?

***

I lived the rest of my life alone.

I never married, I never had children.

I didn’t want anything to happen to them.

I moved into a small house in my old neighborhood, where the other neighbors thought me crazy. I was the bogeyman the neighborhood children told stories about, the old man who snapped and murdered his entire family.

Come October, I had decided I was ready to die. I was seventy-six years old…how much longer could I live anyway?

That was when I found the words written in what looked like blood on the wall of my bedroom, on the night of October 30^th.

It was an address: 9182 Harmon Road, where my childhood home still sat, now rotted and barely standing. Under it was a smiley face, drawn in what was definitely not ink.

I accepted the challenge the man proposed. I would meet him in my old house. I was finished. He had ruined my life up to the point I was living it, but I refused to let him ruin it anymore. I put on my slippers and my robe, grabbed my cane, and snatched my hat from the rack by the front door. I was wearing my armor, I was prepared for battle.

I began the walk to my childhood home.

The Night, Cold

The night, cold.

The blanket, warm.

The bed, comfortable.

The sleep pants, scratchy.

The pillow, soft. No, the pillow, hard.

The ability to sleep, impossible.

The time, 2:43 p.m.

The event, every night.

The event, the same time.

The window, locked.

The glass, reinforced.

The gun next to the bed, loaded.

The monster, outside.

The monsters fangs, enormous and stained.

The monsters eyes, yellow.

The monsters fur, black.

The monsters claws, long.

The fear inside me, in my throat.

The monster, growling softly.

The monsters claws, scratching the window softly.

The window, screaming.

The monster, silent.

The moon, missing.

The monster, calculating.

The victim, me.

The victim, frightened.

The window, suddenly unlocked.

The window, suddenly opened.

The monster, in my room.

The gun, on the other side of the room.

The monster, tall.

The victim, small.

The monster, roaring.

The victim, standing.

The monster, ready to pounce.

The victim, fearless.

The monster, attacks.

***

The morning, arriving.

The time, passed.

The neighbor, worried.

The police, called.

The police, arrived.

The police, investigate.

The victim, dead.

The victim, depressed.

The victim, suicidal.

The pictures on the wall, of a monster.

The monsters fangs, enormous and stained.

The monsters eyes, yellow.

The monsters fur, black.

The monsters claws, long.

The caption on every picture, death.

The victim, tormented by nightmares.

The victim, unable to cope.

The cause of death, suicide.

The case, closed.

The skeptic neighbor, unsure of result.

The neighbor and the victim, friends since childhood.

The single piece of evidence, uncovered at crime scene.

The evidence, fur.

The fur, black.

The victim, no pets.

The monster, real?

 

Mary's Story

Since the age of four, Mary’s parents had tried to educate her on the dangers of drunk driving. As it turned out, one of Mary’s uncles on her mother’s side died in such an accident, and to prevent Mary from similar circumstances, her parents decided it would be best if they began the process at an early age. Her mother would tell her stories of nasty little bogeyman that lived in beer bottles and gobbled up drinkers, with Mary at five years old. When she was seven, Mary’s father showed her a picture of a car accident caused by drunk driving. This disturbed Mary, because she could see the victim in the photo. His mangled face would be one of the things that she would truly remember from her childhood. The video of a second accident she was shown at ten gave her night terrors. Once they began, her parents didn’t understand why they should stop at just drunk driving, when their precious little girl needed protection from the whole world.

            To the casual viewer on Mary’s home life, one couldn’t tell the probable abuse charges that could be leveled against Mary’s parents. One wouldn’t want to see and hear the other atrocities the two had committed, which they would have claimed to be helping their daughter prepare for a bright future, away from not only alcohol, but also drugs, sex, gambling and various other vices of human nature. The casual viewer, though, would have been aware of the obvious symptoms of abuse, which were displayed by Mary at an early age. Of course, none of this could ever happen, because nobody would ever get close to the paranoid couple and their daughter to casually view them. Even if somebody had the idea, nobody wanted to try.

            So Mary was raised with these beliefs in mind, and when her parents were killed by, of all things, a drunk driver, she was placed in an orphanage, as she had no other family to be found. “Scary” Mary, as she was called by the other children, wouldn’t speak, wouldn’t eat, and would barely sleep. Her parents had frightened her away with such notions, and it had worked. Mary would be terrified of everything a human girl was supposed to do. Of course, this meant that nobody would adopt her, and Mary stayed in the orphanage for a time, not welcome by her peers or superiors.

***

At twelve, Mary’s third year in the orphanage, she was approached by a disturbed boy named Leroy Bright. Bright, after it was discovered he was abusing his younger siblings and cousins, was abandoned at the orphanage, where he continued his predatory ways. He took a liking to the mysterious girl named Mary. He was known by the older kids to be not picky with his “close friends”, especially those who were female, and warned the younger ones to stay away from him. When he got you alone, the older kids claimed, he would not be as nice as he appeared. The nuns had tried to get the police involved, but Leroy found a way of convincing them he wasn’t who they thought he was. Thus, the abuse would continue. He had even been linked to the rape of an adult woman on his sixteenth birthday, but the police had again never found a way to catch him, as DNA was not as prevalent then as now. For Leroy, Mary was the prize that seemingly couldn’t be won.

            Leroy approached Mary the same way he approached all of his victims: with curiosity. He studied her, tried talking to her, but with no avail. He would ask about the strange tendencies “Scary” Mary had, and then try to exploit them. Again, Leroy was met with failure. This only intensified Leroy’s obsession with Mary, the forbidden fruit. He was determined to see what made her so special. Why she wouldn’t talk, yet still have a voice through the stories told about her. Why she wouldn’t eat, yet never become malnourished. Why she wouldn’t sleep, yet would never appear to have any exhaustion. Though Leroy Bright never would live up to his last name, he certainly was willing to try.

            Mary was never affected by this sudden intrusion into her otherwise lonely life. She continued her odd behavior, never interacting with Leroy, which made even her most verbal opposition impressed. She, the girl who had no friends, thus no support, thus no help, was beating Leroy Bright. How could it be so? New rumors began to surface about Mary. That she wasn’t a demon, but an angel. That she wasn’t a terrifying alien waiting to steal their brains, but a robot, programmed for good and protection. Mary, as usual, took no notice of her enemies turned friends. Without saying a word, Mary’s status in the orphanage changed.

            One cold December night, near Christmas, Bright decided to end his quest, once and for all. He had tried his usual methods, but they hadn’t worked like he hoped they would. He would have to move on to Plan B. Over the years, Leroy had encountered somewhat similar situations, and had resorted to his Plan B in the past. It had, unlike Plan A, a 100% success rate. Leroy’s plan would be simple, as it always had. When the nuns would take the younger children caroling for Christmas, he would strike. He would take Mary from her room, which no nuns would ever go near. He would take her someplace unseen, and then he would finally complete his nearly year-long quest. He would slay the dragon, he would eat the forbidden fruit, and he would win the prize.

            Leroy put his plan into action the following evening, when the carolers left. He snuck out of his room, crept down the stairs on to the second floor, where the 12-15 year olds had rooms. Leroy made sure he hadn’t been followed, and slyly went to Mary’s door. He paused for a brief moment, and thought in his head how foolish he had been to not use Plan B earlier, and how clever he was for using it now. He turned the doorknob to her room, and snuck inside.

            As he entered, Leroy found it was dark, as it usually was during Plan B. As he shut the door behind him, however, something odd happened. The lamp, which was the same in every orphan’s identical room, suddenly turned on.

            There, on her bed where he had expected her, sat Mary, in a flower-print nightgown with a single butterfly on the chest. But around her, fourteen orphans, aged 12-18, stood. This meant, Leroy discovered slowly (he was never good at math) that every orphan that hadn’t gone caroling stood around his prize. As if, he had decided, they were guarding her from him.

            Leroy Bright, again never the smartest, tried threatening the others, who at least two were of his past victims. This had, however, no effect on them. When Bright tried his most common response, physical contact, next, and it proved to be his undoing. He rushed at Mary, but suddenly fell to the ground. He discovered that he had been grabbed around the ankles by the other orphans. Two others grabbed his arms, and soon, he was held to the ground. One by one, the fourteen kids attached themselves to him. They held his hair, his torso, everything. When he thought they were finished, the tinier ones began grabbing his nose, his ears, and his lips.

            Bright tried screaming, but his screams, equivalent to his victims, fell on deaf ears by the nuns. They were busy making cookies and watching old movies and knitting sweaters. Leroy Bright found himself being torn apart by the children, limb by limb. It would be the worst and last pain he would ever have in his life. He never saw Mary’s face during the entire incident, though if he had, he wouldn’t have been surprised by its expression: one of neutrality. The children put Bright’s remains in a box found in one of their closets, wrapped it in gingerbread men wrapping paper, and put a stamp on it.

            The stamp read: “DO NOT OPEN UNTIL XMAS” in little red writing.

            It was placed under the Christmas tree in the orphanage’s small living room. The nuns were none the wiser. The mess of blood in Mary’s room was covered with a rug. The kids found that they were willing to do anything for the girl who never spoke. They told Mary that come Christmas morning, the nuns would discover the gift who couldn’t keep on giving (because he was dead), and would immediately accuse Mary. They told her to leave the orphanage, which Mary did, slowly and silently.

            Mary walked out of the orphanage’s back door, which led out directly into the woods. The other kids decided that if anyone would protect Mary, Mother Nature could. So Mary left, disappearing into the dark, snowy woods, accompanied only by her raggedy wool coat, two peanut butter sandwiches (which the others figured she would never eat) and a bottle of water (which the others figured she would never drink).

            The kids never saw their idol again.

You're a Dead Man

            The rotten excuse I called a father, horrible though he was, taught me everything I knew. He taught me how to hunt, how to trap, how to shoot a gun, everything. Then he left. I was twenty-two at the time, my sister was six. A mother had never been a part of my father’s life, so it would make sense if it wasn’t a part of ours. He came home from work, got drunk, grabbed a few shirts, and left, disappearing into the forest.

When I found out, I knew someone had to handle the debt my father had left, even if it was with the mob. The bastards came around sometimes even after my father’s disappearance, asking about the money that was rightfully theirs. Once, I came home from work to find one of them in the house, ransacking the place. We tangled, and he nicked off a piece of my ear with an ivory-handled switchblade. He demanded that the money be repaid, or next time, he would hurt my sister. Late that afternoon, after the man left, I told my sister (who was at school at the time) that I had been attacked by a dog, and told her not to worry about it. We went out for pizza afterwards like nothing happened. As far as my baby sister knew, nothing had.

            The arrival of zombies in my life turned out to be a bit of a blessing. I had learned a thing or two about keeping pets from the various toads and stray dogs I had raised in secret, afraid of my abusive father’s wrath. Zombies were no different than a stray dog: feed them, discipline them, you’ll get along just find. I learned the hard way to be more careful around zombies, when one bit my finger two years ago. I self-amputated it before it spread, but the close call had me concerned. If I had died, then and there in that cellar with that freak groaning and rotting next to me, what would happen to my sister?

            To ensure survival, I started a business. The years of quick thinking thanks to continuous home invaders left me a hardened soul. For that, customers were willing to pay for my services, which were unique. I would go out, sometimes with friends, sometimes alone, and find zombies. Always under the cover of darkness, always silent. That was how you didn’t get killed. You would trap the beasts, using a variety of methods.

            Once captured, you would gag them; to be sure they couldn’t bite you, and then hog-tie their limbs together, so they couldn’t get away. It was a lot like trapping a deer, only if the deer wasn’t dead and wanted to bite you and turn you into another deer. You (and/or some friends, who came in handy at this point if you bagged multiple undead fuckers) would then load up your catches in a horse trailer. After driving them to a set location, usually an abandoned house, you would unload them in the cellar, still tied.

            I had learned with the first zombie I caught, who I had taken to call Freddy Finger on account he had a finger (of mine) in him that the zombies could be trained, and could even be made relatively intelligent. With Freddy, I experimented with reward and punishment. When he would do something I wanted him to, I would reward him with the proper, formerly homeless human prize. When he would try to bite me, I would blow a dog whistle, which, thanks to the disease affecting him, would make him cry out in pain like any dog.

            Eventually, Freddy became my first employee. When I first opened for business, people didn’t take me seriously. It took me multiple meetings, accompanied by my undead associate, with various functions to convince them. Often, Freddy would get a free meal out of these meetings, which both he and I learned to enjoy. Soon after, I started getting calls.

            My first job went as smoothly as planned. With help from Freddy Finger, I took out a squealer who, if he squealed, could get several mob soldiers killed. I was paid handsomely, and put on the don’s retainer. I’ve been called back since to deal with other problems. Over the years, I managed to amass a respectable business, completely under the noses of the cops. They don’t even know what happens when my employees are involved, and consider it just another zombie attack. They even have a police code over the radio now for such attacks.

            To keep the business fresh and lasting, some targets are killed, chopped up and fed to the zombies, but if one of my guys is compromised in the venture, the hits are quickly turned into mindless, decomposing thugs. It’s the cruel but effective cycle of business. My zombie hit men are known all over the planet in the world of organized crime, as well as in some above ground markets. They are sold, bought, even bartered. The best part of it all? The green flows like a river into my pockets and those of my employers.

***

I’ve since retired, after a second close call with one of my “employees” caused a third heart attack. I’ve handed it over to some trusted friends, and even gotten family involved. A few years back, my nephew Gordon approached me, looking for work. Of course, I helped him out, he’s flesh and blood. Now, he’s a major figure in the operation, and has even brought younger, more energetic men to the table, which he’s begun replacing all of the original workers with, ones that started alongside me thirty years ago.

            Upon reflection, I recall many things about my business that I now miss and formerly loved. It seems that even an old, monstrous gangster like me still has feelings. Some of the past jobs stick with me in my mind, but one especially so.

***

            About a year before I retired, one of my live employees discovered a man named Randall “Whitey” Sheets living in a retirement home outside of Atlanta. Wily for his age, he often snuck out to drink and gamble with his old buddies. In his prime, he worked for the mafia, and was known for his violent tendencies and assured results. Often, the mob sent him out to collect debts, discovering his knack for making such debtors either pay or find a nice new home in a hole somewhere.

            Turns out, one of those debtors was the dirty bastard I called “Dad”. Sheets would visit, I learned, long before my sister or I was born, and would take it upon himself to punish the drunkard via torture. That was when the missing mother piece in my fucked-up family puzzle disappeared. She couldn't stand his constant, threatening presence in her life, so she left, just like my father would do so many years later. Sheets even visited the children of the debtors, and had a pension for threatening them with his weapon of choice…an ivory-handled switchblade.

            I paid Mr. Sheets a visit one unusually cold November day, claiming to be a cousin. I drove my Cadillac; two of my men drove a battered Dodge truck with a horse trailer attached, crammed full of my employees. I met with Sheets, who looked awfully terrible, though he was not that much older than I was. I wore a hat to both protect myself from the cold and hide my ears. I convinced him to meet me later that evening, for a wild night on the town. He readily agreed with me.

            That night, he snuck out as planned and met my men and I at the location I told him. We exchanged words for a moment, before I asked about his switchblade, and I said I admired it. He told me a story about it that I had heard once before, when I was in it. I took off my hat as my men grabbed him. I showed him my ear as I told him how well I had fared since our last encounter, and told him about my business. I opened the trailer as my men let him go. Sheets ran off into the woods, followed by some close, undead friends of mine.

            I never saw him or those zombies again. The nursing home where he once lived, convinced Sheets had finally rid them of his awful presence, never filed a police report, as Sheets had no family except of the organized crime variety. It seemed his disappearance was a blessing in disguise for almost everyone he was involved with, including his mobster friends, who never even asked questions regarding his disappearance. His body was never recovered, although I heard a story when I returned to Georgia later in life about some kids finding a blood-smudged, ivory-handled switchblade lying in their barn, surrounded by pieces of flesh, scraps of clothing, and a large blood stain that looked like something was dragged out of the barn.

            The handle of the switchblade was engraved with a simple “Whitey”.

***

            My success story is not typical, that much I know. I’ve made my fortune in a most unsavory way, and openly embrace my approaching time in Hell for my horrifying deeds.

            Why, you ask? Why eagerly await damnation, even get excited about what will happen when I arrive?

            The answer, dear reader, is simple. I’ve already survived hell on Earth, my undead hit men came from this place. I've prospered from such. Now, my sweet sister can live comfortably when I am gone, sure to do so for many years after, and thus, so will her children, and their children, and their children, and so on. I said it before, I’ll say it when I die, the zombie epidemic was a blessing for a poor boy from Utah with an abusive father and an absent mother.

            I’ve beaten the Devil once.

            Why not get excited to do it again?