Menu Settings

MaryBeth set her coffee cup on the metal coaster on the antique end table and grabbed the remote.  Depressing the large red power button, the screen flickered twice and exploded to life.  The volume felt as if it were booming through a large fog horn.  The burst seemed to rattle the coaster and the metal lamp in the table nearly toppling the coffee mug.

"Steven!  Did you play with this thing last night when I told you just to leave it alone and go to bed?"

Steven stumbled out of the bedroom in his boxers and white t-shirt. His hair in the left side of his head appeared to have been tortured into submission by the pillow sometime in the night.

"I did leave it alone," Steven pleaded while rubbing his eyes.

"The damn thing was turned up to top volume.  I hope the kids didn't wake up.  I was hoping to catch up on the DVR."

MaryBeth began fiddling with the menu settings fighting her way through the sometimes German, sometimes French settings.  "What's with the languages?  I thought you said this TV was Swedish."

"The family is Swedish.  I think the TVER is from some place in Central Europe.  I would tell you where, but I don't want to expose you to my poor knowledge of geography."

"Try me."

"Umm.  Ok. Maybe, Sierra Leone?"

"That's Western Africa."

"Senegal?"

"Nope."

"Yugoslavia?"

"Right area, but no longer a country.  Describe it."

"I think it's a tiny one.  Has that science place and they don't take sides."

"Switzerland."

"Nooooo.  I don't know if that's right"

"It's ok.  I no longer care and just found the English setting."

"Is there more coffee?"  Steven didn't wait for a response and shuffled off to the kitchen.  MaryBeth picked a show and selected to play.  She flicked the jump ahead button and watched the screen flip past a vacuum cleaner commercial.  In the background she saw a ghost shape like her husband silently speed into the dining room hunching over as he stubs his toe in the cabinet in the hall.  The image flickered out an instant later.

MaryBeth blinked her eyes and stared at the empty space.  A moment later, Steven walked out of the kitchen with a cup of coffee before jamming his toe and unleashing a stream of vulgarity not often heard in such a combination.  Coffe splattered onto the floor and on Steven sending him crawling into the kitchen on his hands and knees.

MaryBeth shrugged the scene off and chuckled to herself as she sipped her coffee and enjoyed her show with a background of swearing husband.

CarolAnn's TV

The ad in the paper was cryptic, but not to the point that the cheap price of free could be ignored.  Steven was in need of a TV for his new place and this guy was just giving away a 42" LCD 1080p.  The ad said to call some local number and ask for a Sven or Jorn or something Swedish that Steven could not accurately pronounce. The seller took no offense.

Two days later, Steven lugged the 50 pound thing from his car and carried it into his new home.  He waited with excited anticipation of what his wife and children would say.  They had begged him to do some research and get them a repacement for the 100 pound behemoth currently in their living room that made the entertainment center creak and failed to pick up even local network channels.

Steven worked in sales for a local hardware wholesaler and had no interest in utilizing his experience to haggle on prices in his personal time.  This trait was one that frustrated MaryBeth to no end when he refused to even argue for a discount on the most commonly discounted items.  Robbie's orthodontist likely bought himself a new car with the amount he failed to discount on countless braces tightening and retainer fittings.

He was warned about the TV from the seller.  It had been brought from their home in Sweden and the menus were in Swedish, but it was a great deal for a working TV.  He was assured the reception and playback of high definition video was superb despite the unreal price.

It was priced to move and Steven was willing to be the mover.  He couldn't wait for the afternoon to arrive. What would MaryBeth think of this steal of a deal?  How excited would Robbie be?  What about CarolAnn?

Down in the Valley

The silver Camaro rounded the curb squealing tires ever so slightly.  At 45 MPH on the 25 MPH turn, the front end shuddered enough to blur the KNZE 2 on the vanity plates.  With the top down, Kinzie's long flowing hair screamed out the side window from the centripetal force as if trying to escape her skull.  The brake lights lit as the car skidded sideways along the end of the turn leading to the entrance to the Death Valley mall sending the rear quarter panel through the roaming dead standing in the middle of the street in front of the parking lot.  The train engine style front bumper sliced through the layers of the dead strewn in the parking lot on her way to the parking garage.  She lined the center point of the bumper with the carved out notch in the ramp and sped to the recommended 50 MPH on the handmade sign.  The front tires leaped from the pavement at the top of the ramp landing across the two foot wide gap at the edge of the next level.  The gap below lay stained in red from the bodies unable to understand the lack of floor and stumble to the grinders below.

Kinzie slammed down her foot on the brakes and directed the car into an open spot.  The engine idled as she checked and adjusted her hair from the drive. The engine cut out as she grabbed the keys and leaned to pull the machete from under the passenger seat next to her purse.  Her light weight knit jacket covered the slim leather holster she slid the large knife into before stepping away from her car and to the sliding doors outside of Macy's.  Just another quick trip to the mall and off for her mani-pedi appointment.

Up on the Mountain

Lilly turns twenty six today. There will be no birthday cake with twenty six candles and no silly cards in the mail.  The time for clubbing and drinks with close friends has passed.  In fact, it never was a time of bars and fruity cocktails with names that no one really feels secure ordering.  Lilly lived up on the mountain since she was twenty one and then some.  At twenty five, she laughed to herself about being able to rent a car without a another adult.  That was about all that twenty five was good for in the old world.  Not worth much more in this one either.

The year before, Lilly rang in twenty four by tossing her cousin's freshly deceased body off of the Caulky ridge.  The Caulky ridge was named after Tom and Claire Caulky who took a leap off of the rocky drop-off to their deaths not two hours after watching the hillside elders toss the body of their only son, Tim, off the same cliff to the rocky outcroppings two hundred feet below.  The Caulkys plead for leniency.  They plead for the chance to take care of their son another way.  The elders refused.  The group had lived on the mountainside for eight years at the time of Tim's death.  They had dealt with death on the mountain in this way for the previous six years after the first family member passed quietly in the night and rose again because the family did not let on that their elderly mother had taken ill.  The Caulkys were denied and off the ridge they went.

At sixteen, Lilly was shoved into the back of the family's SUV with the barest of essentials before her parents plowed out of the garage barely clearing the still opening garage door.  Her father didn't stop for a moment.  Not after running down the cloying remains of Mr Farson from next door and her former best friend, Michelle Farson.  Lilly to this day is still not sure that Michelle was as dead as her father when they struck her with the car.  It didn't matter.  Her normal teenage life ended that day despite having hidden in their house for two weeks prior ever since the news of the infection spread to the suburbs.  It was startling how many people died on a daily basis before factoring in the new threat of infection from the newly raised.  The CB radio conversations she overheard while huddled in her room hating her parents for refusing to let her go out and check on her friend seemed like a hoax.  However, her family was greeted by thirteen other families on top of that mountain ten years ago.  Lucky thirteen they joked.  Lucky, indeed.  Saved from the constant threat of formerly beloved bodies dragging their decaying asses up and down the block attacking every man, woman, child, and family pet not secured behind reinforced doors and windows.

Ten years of learning to trap and share the meat of small animals with those she did not feel earned their keep.  A decade of scouring the trees and bushes for edible fruits, berries, and nuts to find out somebody didn't tell anyone about deathly allergies to be combined with the lacking of any anti-histamines or epinephrine to save them from the cliffs.  Over a third of her life spent cowering under ragged blankets in the cold and burying her own feces in the woods like an animal.  She was done with it.  Tomorrow, she would head down the mountainside to the main gate to judge the destruction of the old world.  She planned to break away during her morning trapping and scavenging to scout the dangers and, pending any insurmountable obstacles, return to the world she once knew.  God damn, zombies!

I am Benedict XVII!

He plants his hands squarely on the brick outlining the Riverside Mall sign.  His feet kick to the sky as his hat taps the bricks between his hands completing his handspring over the row of hedges beyond the sign.  Feet firmly on the ground for a mere second, he sprints to the nearby flagpole placing his hands around the pole linking his fingers.  He flings himself outward and spins around the pole twice before placing his feet against the concrete base and launching himself airborne into the grass.  His white robe twirls within his somersaulting form sweeping out in all directions in a crouch on the sidewalk when it ends.  The sidewalk lays out before him in a straight line towards the cul-de-sac housing the local electronics giant and the national retail chain, but he leaps from side to side like a football player taking on the tire drill.

At the curb, he pauses briefly looking in both directions as if cars are waiting to catch him off guard in a closed off shopping center at 3am.  He sprints for the bushes next to the bike rack and slides between them like he is heading for second base.  His tall white hat peaks out from the hole he entered through for only a moment before slicing upwards through the stiff branches to the standing form of a man in full papal vestments with the exception of the bishop mitre meant to look like an un-bejewled papal pretiosa.  The rope at the waist of the robe is let out tuck the length of robe up so as not to tangle in his footsteps.  The rope pulls tight and the form flows less with fabric but just as easily with fluid motion.  At the corner between the electronics store and retail chain, the bricks form a textured ladder he uses easily to skip back and forth vertically until he is hanging by his fingertips by the edge of the roof.

He dangles freely sliding one hand after the other until he is on the small metal ledge behind the Megatronics sign.  His tall cap peaks out from the central downward V in the M of the sign.  He peeks cautiously out for signs of security.  No flashlights are visible and no sirens pierce the stillness.  From the pants pocket found below the white robe, the form pulls a small camera and sets it on the ledge aimed out across the distance towards the outline of downtown Indianapolis.  The distance is far enough to allow the city scape to be taken in with the camera lens without being hidden by the faux papal cap.  A smirk crosses his lips as he imagines the expected image about to be produced.  The timer feature is engaged to begin the 10 seconds of beeping.  He leans back to keep from blocking the city outline from the picture leaving his head leaning against the M.

One beep counts each second.

Two beeps... the wind picks up and rustles the leaves on the ground twenty feet away.

Three beeps... he peers down in the low glow of the sign to make sure his robe is laying flat.

Four beeps.
Five beeps.
Six beeps... the robe straight, he looks back to the camera lens.

Seven beeps... the wind dies down, but the leaves rustle still.
Eight beeps... the sound gets louder and the thought that someone else is there starts to sink in.  With two beeps left, he prepares to grab the camera and run after the flash goes off.

Nine beeps... he never hears the tenth beep or sees the flash from the camera.  He does not see the muzzle flash from the tree line either.

Ten beeps... the mitre tips askew from the new hole beneath the brim on his forehead.  He is slumping down the sign, but the slope of the M is slowing his decent.  The distant outline of the city is mostly blocked from the picture taken giving the resulting image a more gruesome outcome.  Death caught on digital.  The memory card adds one final file for the police to review along with birthday parties and a camping trip with his friends.  Jonathan Campbell ceases to be, but his camera remains precariously on the ledge.

It is two days before someone is walking below the sign and realizes the dried puddle is coming from the sign above.  The discovery closes a recently opened missing persons report, but opens another one for the federal file.  The string of murders rises to four.  All public locations and all with young men in religious costumes.  The bullet casing is found in a nearby storm drain, but the shooter is long gone.  He is off to rendezvous with his team to determine if they closed their assignment or if the search for the real man continues.  Jonathan Campbell is not the first wrong target, but he will not be the last.

Love of your Life?

"Three men sitting at home on a Saturday night. What could be more exciting?" Adam sat back loudly groaning as a spring from the back of the couch jammed into his rib. He hated Jake's apartment and , to a lesser extent, Jake for refusing to buy new furniture like he was still living in his old college house. Jake had graduated from undergrad eight years back and been through three years of law school including an internship with the largest consulting firm in DC.

"Maybe watching a major boxing event?  Oh, wait.  That's what we are doing tonight."  Tyler gave Adam a snide look before landing on a different wayward spring in the same couch.  "Ouch  You need to toss this piece of crap soon, Jake.  If I get tetanus from one of these springs, you will be buying me a new TV with the punitive damages to my shattered soul."

Many of Tyler's faux legal speeches came across like he had failed out of a drama school instead of law school. More fake legal speak from Tyler meant another bout of fighting the urge to remind him he had failed out of law school within the first year. Luckily, crowd noise filled the room as the announcer entered the ring to announce the two large men planning to beat each other senseless for the enjoyment of everyone paying sixty dollars to watch from home.

"Any interest in making this interesting?  Side bets?  Drinking games between rounds?"  Jake maintained his drunken college kid mindset now partnering it with the flaunting of money now that he also had a job.  Not that he had a large salary, but it was apparent by his home that he wasn't spending much of whatever he made.

"I have this going 8 rounds."  Adam states confidently.

"Nah, 7 at best.  I'm guessing maybe 4 or 5.  Probably over before Denise can even get here and take Adam away."  Tyler jumps in undercutting Adam Price Is Right style.

"That's not going to happen anymore.  We split up."   Adam folded his arms resolutely.  Tyler looked chagrined at his comment.  Adam did not show any sense of remorse.

"Sorry." Tyler and Jake share the same emotionless response.

"Whatever." Adam waves a hand in the air to move on from the topic of his bachelorhood.

"Well, at any rate, I'm guessing it will be a decision after 10 rounds."  Jake prepares to explain why, but is cut short by commotion on screen and the ring side announcers attempting to dictate what just happened.

The champ is lying on his back with trainers surrounding him.  The challenger is standing with the ring announcers microphone somehow wedged into his glove like a weapon.  Blood can be seen dripping from the microphone as camera's shake and stutter attempting to get a view of the action.  Before the bell has even been rung to begin, the challenger is disqualified. 

"What the..."  Adam echoes the sentiment of the room.

"What the, indeed."  Tyler concurred.

As if on cue, the oven beeped reminding Jake the temperature was right for making the frozen pizzas he had pulled out for the event.  Tyler chuckled to himself at the beeping and then quieted at something else on the screen.

"Gentlemen.  The saying goes, 'When your night ends prematurely, extend it unusually.'"  Tyler, now sounding like a bad male enhancement drug commercial, speaks.

"That's not a saying."  Adam, still in a state of disbelief, states absentmindedly yet correctly.

"Well, it will be now.  Jake, toss me the remote."   Jake chucks the remote to Tyler before heading to the kitchen to turn off the oven.  'No reason to waste a pizza here with nothing to watch,' he thinks.

When Jake returns to the living room, Adam is shaking his head profusely.  "That's one of the most idiotic ideas I have ever heard."

"What did I miss?"  Jake plops into his run down recliner and groans as he lands on the wood beam running across the back behind the lack of padding.

"Watch for yourself"  Tyler clicks the quick rewind button twice and a 30 second ad typically seen later at night comes on the screen. 

Looking for love?  Found someone but want to know if this is your soul mate?  You can find out for sure by texting your first name, month and day of your birthday, and favorite pizza topping to 7685.  Text your information to SOUL and receive the first name of your soul mate now.

Tyler pauses on the last screen with the details and number to text.

"And what exactly are you suggesting, Tyler."

"I am suggesting we take advantage of fate.  This fight was never going to happen.  I think it was meant to put us here together and suggest we get on with our lives.  A cheap, late night style commercial during prime pay per view time?  How does that make sense.  These channels have other major cable channel events to market when the fight is over, yet this got put out instead.  I say we run with the ball when it is handed to us whether we were expecting to play or not."

"Stop mixing metaphors and say what you mean."

"I am saying, text for your soul mate.  Adam is even single right now."

"Barely single.  Don't you think I could use some time off from dating after Denise?"

"Oh, please.  We never liked her and that's only because we could both tell you never really liked her either.  That puts you right her with us.  Stop wasting your time with fill ins and find the real thing now.  We each text and get our soul mate names.  Then, we go find them.  Don't we owe it to ourselves to be happy?"

Tyler held for a moment as Adam and Jake looked at each other and back to Tyler with the same look of confusion at their friend.  "Well, that and I think it might be a fun way to spend a Saturday night.  We roll through bars looking for girls with these names.  If none are at the first place, we move onto the next.  Think of it as a love pub crawl."

Jake and Adam continued to look uncertain. 

"Fine.  I will reimburse you for the text charges and buy the first 3 rounds."

Like sleeper agents hearing a code word, Adam and Jake each flipped out their phones on cue.  Jake shrugged indifferently at Tyler as he began entering his information.  Of the three, Jake made the least effort to define what his time off from work would include.  Seconds after hitting send, a response returned.

"Awesome. Mine is a stripper name for sure." Jake flipped his phone closed and smiled with the confidence only a man with no clear weekend plans could manage. "Cinnamon. Fantastic. I know where I'll be going tonight."

Tyler's phone buzzed loudly.  "Savannah.  Could be joining you or I could find myself at a coffee bar.  Crap shoot.  I love it!"  Tyler smiled broadly looking at Jake before shifting his focus to the buzz from Adam's phone.

Adam stared at the screen on his phone speechless. Jake and Tyler jumped up and began putting their coats on.  They were a few steps from Adam to check what name he was staring so intently at when Adam flicked his thumb to the side of his phone and hit the lock key before anyone could see the message received. "Rain. It looks like I'll be joining you two tonight."

Jake tossed Adam his coat and grabbed his car keys.  A few blocks down the road, Jake and Tyler were planning their first stop as Adam sat quietly in the back. Reaching into his pocket for his phone, Adam looked down at the screen on his phone with some trepidation. The screen burned into his iris with the response from his text response.  One word lay before him.

Roger.

Mad Man in the Morning

Savagely beaten.  These words conjure gruesome images the moment they are spoken.  A victim of a horrendous crime barely recognizable as themselves afterwards.  Brad Pitt in Fight Club taking a beating from the owner of basement he had usurped. Deep dark beings come out to play when savagely doing anything.  Somehow, I am filled with those both deep and dark this morning.  I find a whisk to be excessive when making eggs in the morning, but my use of a fork for scrambling the yolks can be a bit savage.  Bits of egg are scattered over the counter as my arm motion whirls out of control for the bowl size I use.  I will brutally tear at the stain later with an antibacterial wipe.  It will suffer.

Starch is an enemy to speedy cooking in the morning and my patience is thin early.  I gash the skin of the potatoes and I slice through the flesh.  Slice.  Slice.  Slice.  No dice.  The torture is brief before reprieve.  Brief.  Reprieve. Held under the ice cold water ripping the essence of the potato from itself before mercifully tossing the slice onto a towel to dry.  A medieval scalding awaits them in boiling oil once all of the slices have been prepared.  They will at least suffer together.

Long strands of sinewy pink lay on the searing hot metal bubbling and popping the muscle and fat from a recently completed filleting.  Strips of meat ripped from the whole in thin layers only to be reunited in packing before being torn apart again and tossed into the fire.  Bubble, bubble, pop.  Bubble, bubble, pop.  Flip.

This sinister kitchen swells with the aromas of death and bacon as I dance in circles laughing maniacally at my creation.  A bit of egg up top.  A long dead slice of flesh here and here.  Sinewy strands now crinkles and twisted at the bottom and top.  My artistry of the damned lays in front of me for the taking.  My victorious cries break forth without warning, "Sweetheart!  Breakfast!"

My five year old bounds into the room like a wild animal ready to dismantle an unwitting gazelle.  She strides to her feeding site and mounts her chair.  I place the offering in front of her and she giggles.  Scrambled egg eyebrows, potato slice eyes, bacon mouth and a pointed bacon hat.  "I like the breakfast clown, daddy."

"I know you do, little love."  I kiss her head and return to my lair to cleanse the chamber of my crimes.  Tomorrow, the eggs will pay again and they will join the criminal flour in a hideous depiction of Disney vermin.  My darkness knows no end.

Chapter 1: Origins

Thomas Wilhelm taps his fingers rhythmically on the control panel in front of him. The tune in his head is an old Germanic folk song his parents sang to him as a child after they had moved to the US to help him sleep. He found the quiet of the new countryside very comforting like those of the open fields back as a small child, but he occasionally had trouble sleeping. These fields in front of him now hum some nights with the electronic equipment buried beneath the fields between the work compound and the adjoined living quarters of the workers and their families disturbing the illusion of the typical country fields.

For twelve years, Thom has worked with the Coyote Canyon Complex designing and executing plans for a self sustained manufacturing site. The idea was that of a sixty three year old industrialist who found Thom fresh out of MIT where he finished second in his class. When asked why Thom was chosen over Stephen Gastire who had finished first in their class, Thom was told it was his participation in the Building A Better Mouse Trap program initiated and cut off in his graduating year that gave Thom the edge.

The Building A Better Mouse Trap program was piloted with bio-mechanical and civil engineers to combine the hardware and architecture of factories with the usage data and work habits to adapt an efficient solution to energy waste including time management. Maxwell Coyt, known to his friends as the coyote, began buying plots of land in the countryside to begin building his idea for a new way of revolutionizing the working world.

After a decade of impressive design and automation, Thom spent the last two years tweaking his designs and working menial projects such as the pest removal project he currently monitors on his tablet screen. After the workers were hired and the operations put in gear, maintenance was the primary focus. When maintenance functions were fully automated, minor irritants like the bugs circling the exterior lights became Thom's priority.

As trivial as the complaints were, Thom made the effort to make every fix innovative to keep his interest. He created a pest identification algorithm combined with the external security cameras to determine when a high density of bugs were swarming. He programmed the alerts into newly installed rings based on bug zapper designs. When the alerts kick in, the affected outer light dims as the zapper rings lights up drawing in the bugs and eliminating the irritant nuisance.

At the same time, the refrigeration docks were experiencing a rat infestation threatening the food storage for the workers. The refrigeration docks were built to simplify storage of raw meats and produce by allowing large delivery trucks park with the food staying in cargo while the entire dock was cooled from freon pumps in the ceiling. Never one to make a manual solution where at an automated tool can be utilized, Thom had infrared sensor code installed in the camera systems and added grates over new freon chillers in the dock floor. By plugging in his bug algorithm and changing the parameter used to identify pest size, Thom setup the room to detect the small rodents via infrared sensors and kick on the floor based freon pumps to freeze the animals within twelve tiny scampering steps. From there, the cleaning bots made from the Roomba designs for homes scoop the dead rats and dispose of them.

This evening shift, Thom was staring at the little red lights on the screen enjoying the sudden end to the shuffle of bodies as the heat signatures faded into the cold when his supervisor, James Fulder appeared. James slams his hand down flattening the tablet face down on the console.

"What is this? Is this the monitor for the electricity usage on the arc welders?"

Thom pinched the bridge of his nose between his index finger and thumb before answering. "No, but I was trying to clear my mind to give my brain a chance to soak in the problem and get a fresh approach. We've been fighting with the numbers for weeks and the numbers don't show any trend to help me get a fix on a start point."

"Clear you mind, huh. Thought you were the whiz kid. The fresh out of college brain trust that Mr. Coyt leveraged his legacy on no questions asked. It seems to me that a genius like you doesn't need a break. And you can have this back when you solve the usage problem." James slid the tablet from the console top and carries it out the door with him.

Thom waited for the door to close fully before executing his childish mimic of James' comments. He shook his head and stared at the screen with the graphs and real time usage numbers from the night shift. After five minutes of staring at the same cascades of colors for the welders kicking on and off between products, Thom slid to the floor from his chair and began digging into the wiring beneath the primary control panel until he reached the pest management system control panel. Finding a spare output wire from the primary control module, he connected the systems sliding out quickly enough to avoid James seeing him not in his seat and fast enough to smack his head on the edge of the desk.

A few moments later, Thom was back staring at the same screen of electricity usage while peering at the small background image of the red dots from the docks hidden behind the graphs. Behind the usage windows Thom is now focused on, the pest management algorithm begins flickering to cameras in other areas of the factory awaiting the appearance of the next victim for the system.

Chapter 01: We Are All Angels

The phone lines blink in an array of red across the switchboard at WCHR as Bishop Delaney and Rabbi Baum spoke. The Christian syndicated radio station hosted the Jewish leader in an attempt to broaden viewership and address criticism from local officials that the station was alienating sections of the community with a more radical view dismissing all other religions as foolish and useless. The religious figures had maintained a civil discussion, but each held their views as infallible and the conversation was hitting a wall of belief versus belief without reason or acceptance of opposing views.

"Let's break this up a bit and go to the phone lines." Johnny Treiger slapped his hand down on the switchboard at random connecting line 32. "You are live. What is your question?"

A female voice rang clear ripping into the brick wall of the Rabbi's beliefs with an notably un-Christian display of vulgarity before Johnny cut the line. "Let's try that again. You are live and remember to watch your language."

A young man loaded up and unleashed an anti-Christianity rant that managed to get twelve words before the vulgarity sang out again. Three more calls varied the attacks on each leader before each became too impassioned to be maintained civilly.

"Let's try one more time. You are live. Language and civility considerations are appreciated."

"Hi. I will be as civil and brief as I can be." The male voice calmly played out across the nation.

"We appreciate that. What is your comment or question?"

"No question, really. I just wanted to relay the meaning of life across the airwaves to hopefully break up the silliness that is this entire discussion you are having there today."

"Not so silly that you aren't listening in, I assume." Johnny smirks at his producer through the glass.

"Agreed. This came across my radio as I was flipping stations and had to pull over to give my two cents. Everybody that is listening and calling in with this deep rage in them over either side or both sides in this today need to step back. All religions are a joining of like minded people looking for guidance. We want to have some rules in the world to feel safe to be ourselves and live our lives, but we don't have tolerance for those wanting the same on their own set of rules. The truth is that... if you want peace, be peaceful. If you want tranquility, be tranquil. It isn't so hard. Be the change you want to see and stop taking everything so personal. You can only control what you do, so do it. And stop arguing so much. We have all heard actions speak louder than words, so go. Jimmy Tuscon. Signing off."

The line goes dead. Johnny Treiger and his two guests stare blankly across the booth at each other.

"Something to think about for us all." Johnny speaks, but his voice comes out in a hushed and subdued manner. "I see our guests are taking in the advice as well."

"True. Be well, Rabbi."

"And you also, Bishop."

In the booth, three men sit oblivious to the glow growing from their scalps. The entire radio station hums with the silence of the fluorescent lights and the subtle glow coming from the heads of all listening employees. From the station headquarters in New Jersey across the country in patches of listeners nationwide, the streets will be a little brighter in the evenings as millions of now docile listeners sport brand new halos.

001: Long Winter's Nap

As I lay dawn for a long winter's nap setting the alarm clock for April, a scuttle beneath the bed arises from the floor boards resonating into the rafters. Peering beneath the bed skirt to discover the scuttlebutt would frighten a wiser man, but this fearless being wrestled down the terrors of beasts of ill will living beneath the confines of the box spring decades ago. The desk lamp’s piercing light probed deeper and deeper into the mystery as the hem of fabric teasing the floor boards is lifted inch by inch. The raggedy edge of a long forgotten white sock is the first discovery though no treasure hunter would find this news worthy. Further probing and farther reaching, the light slips deeper and deeper into the wary depths of the cavern below the bed. The sock sits alone for a few inches before a black shape shuffles to the left and back to the right like some tiny running back escaping the tackling of the glowing light. Inches more light flood in and capture the cricket rushing for the safety of night on the other side of the room.

The mystery appears solved until a gentle nibbling noise is heard from the far corner of the bed. Flashlight in hand, a stronger attack on the dark reveals a tiny mouse nibbling on the bed post. The foot to the bed is feet away, but t is apparent from the angle this is not the mouse’s first patronage to this woodsy diner. A few raps of the flashlight against the metal under wiring to the bed frame ends the dinner prematurely as the mouse is heard scurrying out towards that same dark night as the cricket. Perhaps a refined ear can catch a crunching noise imagined to be the young mouse finding the aforementioned cricket a much more satisfying meal for the evening. A snap cracks through the quiet evening as a mouse trap takes its place at the top of the rodent food chain for the night.

A click of the flash light and flapping of the bed skirt dropping to the floor accentuate the stillness in the room. With only the bed lamp to quell before slumber can grasp the edges of reality and shake it from this place, a clatter of objects shift loudly and settle to the ground in the closet. Though startling to the stillness, no surprise or upheaval results from what has always been considered a leaning tower of baseball bats, hats, boxes and shoes waiting to give gravity its due. Another task beckons in the morning in the form of clean up, but the slumbering giant weighs heavy on the room and tonight is not the night for such concerns. The bed lamp sets just sixteen inches away from the bed highlighting the narrowness of the gap between the stumbling remains of consciousness and the graceful bounding dreams waiting.

In a blink, the lamp is smashed to the ground by an unseen paw and darkness prevails. The extinguished light dashes the definition of the room into a million points of bleak darkness. Previously unheard yet so heavy on the floor boards, only foot falls can be observed in the room before a pair of beady red eyes float up from the foot of the bed over the headboard. A warm draft pours over the pillow and warms what can only be assumed will be a final midnight snack for the beast in the dark. A retched odor hangs in the warm air over my face as the long winter’s nap becomes certain to be extended indefinitely.

Morning Jingles

Sarah rolls out of bed not realizing how close to the edge she had shifted in her sleep. The corner of the oak table next to the bed pierces her pajama top dragging a jagged streak up her back as she slips to the floor. Her shouts of pain echo expletives into the empty room. Her screams end with the back of her head laid out on the top of the nightstand. Her eyes stare up at the ceiling fan regaining focus on a dull hum and the squeak and wobble of the fan base that Josh never installed correctly. Memories of his incompetence normally made her smile if it weren't for the blood dripping down her back and the bump on the back of her skull.

One hand on the ground and one hand clenching the back of her top to keep blood out of the hardwood floor, Sarah rushes to the bathroom to change. A flick of the switch begins the slow buzz of the light fixture bringing a dim glow to the bathroom an instant too late for Sarah to see the open drawer. Her knee crashes through the cheap plywood crushing the drawer frame and spilling the contents onto the floor. Bouncing goes the hairbrush. Hopping goes the jar of cotton swabs. Crash goes the mirror across the tile floor coating each step to the medicine cabinet with shards of reflective glass.

Minutes tick by on the clock on the night stand while a set of bloody footprints form across the wood floor of the bedroom. A ding is heard clearly through the lonesome apartment, camera swinging to the kitchen where Sarah is sitting enjoying a cup of coffee with blood still dripping from her toes.

The least shitty part of your day could be Folgers in your cuuuup.

Terry finishes singing the last line into the receiver of his home phone, feet propped proudly on the kitchen table. "What do you think? We've never truly tapped into that pessimistic, 'I hate the world' crowd."

Click goes the line, dead as a job prospect from a top advertising firm.

An Undeserved End

On the trail past Bumbler Creek, a man lay stone skinned and dead staring into the night sky but grasping not of the depths of stars. The eyes grow grey one a deep blue like the passing breeze that now carried his stench like a leaf into civilized company. The nails on his hand turned backward as if projecting a film into the darkness of the struggle lost. Terror locked away into his unblinking eyes in their dim tones speaking to the ravenous pain long since drained into the lifeless creek. The shoeless foot lay bare and gnarled; another lost battle, this with the cold of the November evenings and the damp winds swept up from the waters. Three shoes stand silently, his torn from his foot and my two standing next to the scene. On three consecutive nights, the cloud cover bore shadow to the secrets of the open grave while I walk back and forth from my home to Rochelle. She, who is my destination this night, blinds me on my return plodding down the path home. My sight set on the lights quarter mile on leave me witless to see the wolves known to these woods. My heart skipping buoyantly on the sea which long since had claimed his. My step gingerly approaches each night past his un-waking horror.

Where was he aimed when tragedy struck? Did his heart also beat expectantly and blindly to the dangers of the dark? Was the warm breath of his end at the back of his neck as he dreamt of another’s? Did he cry a lost love’s name to the pert ears not understanding or caring? Did he plead to a mind unconcerned? Did he fight back against a will stronger than his own and accept the judgments of nature? I stand pondering for what seems like hours though my watch ticks only seconds away from me. I glance to the horizon at the unnatural light and back to the body.

“Shit happens, I suppose.” I speak to the night and direct my vision to the light in the distance.

DotT - Chapter One: Late Again

It was a Tuesday morning when the things with the tentacles took over. Tommy recalled this day for the few survivors he met along the way. Every Tuesday morning, Tommy would meet at the equivalent of the water cooler for the NFL week in review with Sam Baxter and Chris Haver meaning they stood together in front of the Coke machine in the lobby of the office building leasing space to Lawyer and Lawyer, LLC. The humor of the naming by the partners was a big reason for Tommy to seek the paralegal position there. Sam appeared one day at Tommy's desk one Tuesday morning launching into a rant on the Eagles taking Michael Vick and the implications of youth tormenting animals leading to sociopath behavior. Tommy placed the Farmer brief back on top of his "to read" pile so as not to lose his place. A voice over his shoulder joined in relating a story of a case from two years back in which a man had a history of capturing and torturing woodland animals in his youth before he was brought to court for being pulled over with the hands of twelve dead men in the glove box of his car. They, of course, defended him and attempted to claim the hands came with the car and there was no proof he had indeed killed these men, They lost the case, but it had lead to the running joke about having 24 hands in a glove box but no pairs of gloves. Chris and Sam became Tommy's closest work friends ever from that point forward.

This morning, however, Tommy was running late to work. He directed the front end of his Taurus through the parking lot and quickly into the only spot available far from the elevator in the parking garage. he was certain he would be reprimanded for his late arrival by the partners when he saw that Marian Fisher was still in her car in the reserved parking spot near the elevator. She did not look at him as he passed or attempt to get out of her car. The only thing she seemed to take notice of was the odd green boa she had brought along to work that day. Tommy chuckled at the odd sense of humor of his bosses as he continued along to the elevator bank. He did not grasp that the boa around Marian's neck was not a joke or made of feathers as he had initially thought. He barely caught the unassisted movement of the boa as the elevator doors closed. In sixty seconds, Tommy was at street level and crossing Randolph to his office. He gave a friendly yet unhelpful wave to the homeless man curled up on the sidewalk next to the front door in the green army jacket with the odd looking green tubes wrapped around his chest. "Anything to stay warm in that situation, I suppose," Tommy thought to himself. He would wrap himself in White Castle burger wrappers if it would help him survive a cold Chicago night without a home.

A squeal erupted from behind him as Tommy pulled the front door toward him and stepped on something squishy. Without looking back, he slid his shoes across the mats inside the front door and picked up the pace to minimize his tardiness. He waved to Hank at the security desk and rushed by the elevator bank as Hank screeched at Tommy rushing past. Hank also had a strange sense of humor, but never had the vocal range to pull off a sound so eerie. "Good for Hank," thought Tommy as he slammed his finger onto the button for the fifth floor. Two minutes of muzak ripped through the pleasant silence of the day forcing Tommy to look around for something to take his attention away from the torment of the instrumental version of MacArthur Park. The ticking up of the numbers was little distraction, but the smears of red on the elevator buttons on the opposite side of the elevator combined with the green glop on the short carpeting of the elevator. It appeared like a struggle had occurred here but Tommy was far too late this morning to spend his brain power thinking that over as the doors open and Tommy launched himself into the weirdest work day of his life.

Bedtime Stories

"Tell me a story!" Terry's chin pierced solidly into his chest, crestfallen. Moments after turning out the lights on what he thought was his slumbering drunken room mate. The slurred speech twisted his words into a single, nearly incomprehensible word. Terry could feel his night slipping away from him. Every alternating Saturday in Terry's work schedule during college football season, he found himself babysitting his roommate Frank. Frank has a standard stool at O'Malley's every Saturday beginning at 9am, hours before any game began. Frank had a tendency to become the alumni of any team with a large following at the bar on any given day. Today was the University of Iowa alumni group doing shots for every punt forced. It was a good day for the Hawkeyes.

"I'm not hearing any yarns being spun!" Frank's sense of time was slipping and his grasp on his esophagus was serviceable at best as "spun" was cut short with a guttural eruption. A wobbly arm rose slowly from the bed like a mummy in an old horror movie before a clumsy snapping sound was heard. Terry glanced out the door to the stairway down to the noise of his friends arriving. Shoulders slumped, he returned to his inebriated companion whose snapping fingers had lost the ability to make more than a subtle slapping sound as he continued to fail on his snaps.

"Well, what kind of story do you want to hear, little man?" If Frank was going to act like a child, Terry though, then I'll would treat him as such.

"I don't knoooooow. Just tell me something to make the room stop spinning." Frank bragged about his iron stomach claiming stories helped for his mind to focus and keep the room from spinning and tossing him into a bucket. He never bought into the "quitters" as he called the people who believed they would feel better the next day if they vomited when they had too much to drink instead of fighting it. A collection of audio books were kept on his mp3 player for such an occasion as when NPR was in music mode or, if drunk enough early enough, if "Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me" is on.

The sound of something heavy falling downstairs increasing the urgency to put Frank out of his misery quickly. "Alright. I've got a story for you. Once upon a time in this very room, a poorly shaved slob of a man decided to grace the world with his lumpy form on the beach by the lake."

"It's too cold for the beach today." Frank could be imagined to be pouting though Terry could not see with Frank's face buried deep in his pillow.

"That's why I started with 'once upon a time'. It didn't have to be upon today's time."

"Oh."

"So off to the beach you go with your towel, your 5 SPF because you are too stupid to avoid burning and old school style boom box that you unconvincingly hide a six pack inside."

"I did that ONCE!" Frank swatted blindly in the air nearly slapping Terry from his seat now at the edge of the bed. Sliding a little farther out of arm's reach, Terry hurries back into the tale.

"Well, on this day, you tried and succeeded as nobody cared about your drinking due to the fact that the beach was been ravaged by a GIANT KILLER SCORPION FROM THE SEA!" Terry paused hoping for silence and getting a muffled chuckle in return.

"You drop your beer filled electronics and tube of sunscreen in terror as you back away from the enormous arachnid over body parts of fellow beach visitors."

"Crustacean!" Terry shook his head. Frank got a D in Biology in college and thought he was an expert at everything.

"It's in the spider family."

"How many spiders have you seen at the beach?"

"Scorpions are in most desert stories. They live in the sand."

"So it came from the sand, not the sea."

"A huge ass scorpion FROM THE SAND is lumbering down the beach clipping limbs and shearing bodies in half. The blood is turning the beach into a mile long kitchen sponge soaking up the nicks and cuts of a million botched dices and juliennes."

"Rough chopped? Sliced? Brunoise? Minced? Chiffonaded?"

"What? Yes. Right." The confusion drifted in and out quickly as Terry remembered Frank's obsession with Food Network. "A chiffonade of legs with minced piles of brains! Mashed eyeballs and a brunoise of liver! Intestines drug out for the lengthiest sausage you've ever seen..."

Frank began to chuckle and mumble under his breath. Terry tentatively leaned in and slowly processed the word he was chuckling. "Sausage."

"This is ridiculous. Moving along. You rush for the tunnel under the street by the beach but are spotted by the thing's beady little eyes. It clamors over beach umbrellas, briefly gets tangled in a volleyball net and paused to bat a lemonade stand aside like a small insect. You clomp and stomp noisily towards your salvation, but the beast closes in on you running to the tunnel because you are a man wearing flip flops in public and unable to run away. Thus your last breath is nigh and deserved. The beast lifts you in the air from the small of your back and begins spinning you like a basketball around and around and around. The world spins around you blending colors and lights into a swirling cloud of imminent death. To reiterate, you are about to die and being spun around and around and around and arou..."

Two hands grasp Terry unexpectedly feels two hands shove him away. He lands hard on the ground watching Frank leap over him in a rush to the bathroom. The sounds of a "quitter" fill the hall. Terry lifts himself from the ground and walks back downstairs to the gathered friend in a world where it is still only 7pm and everyone else is still sober.

Annie

She has been training her eyes to see through it all. She's been on the valedictorian track since freshman year, but, three years later, she has yet to make any social impact. As much as she tries to be seen and be heard, only her teachers will really listen. She spends weekends alone with her family working around the house on projects her parents have put together for gardening and renovations. As much as she enjoys the time spent with family, this is not by choice.

Annie has struggled to fit in despite growing up with everyone in the community. When she had a birthday party at age 5, everyone was there. By age 10, the ones that were still at her parties had become transparent in their unwillingness to be there. At least her parents had friends and means to get them to bring their kids to the party. The shift from children with no real insight on each other to young men and women learning that they have a choice of who they should be and be associated with was too much for Annie. She spent time on the fringe in the hallways listening to the cliches that she was not a part of to find out what she was missing.

After years of imparting herself into each group as a floating body, Annie began infiltrating each with some subtle suggestions. In Chemistry, she noted to Christine that she liked the drawings on her book cover of the griffin. It reminds me of my favorite role playing game, she had started and continued as Christine's eyes widened. Annie was successful at becoming part of the role playing cliche, but only in the moments when the group was gathered away from everyone else.

When she was with the athletic group, she was the runner who followed the track circuit and marathoners in professional competition and Olympics. With the drama group, she quoted plays and songs from musicals. Annie found herself going from group to group so often that she no longer had alone time between any classes on any given day. Her grades began to slip steadily with the effort she was putting in to fit into the molds each group had her set into. She had no time for studying she realized one Wednesday night as she found herself slipping into bed after midnight having had no time to put into her studies.

"I feel like Jane Goodall with the apes. I've associated myself so well that I could be one of any of them, but who does that make me? They have all latched onto an identity they have chosen for themselves, but I don't see anything in any of them that I can identify with. They all think I'm something different, but I'm no longer a person when I'm alone as if I only exist in someone else's head", she says to no one.

The next day, Annie attempted to return to her place in society as the studious book worm she had been before, but found her new standing in each group threatening that. She declined time to discuss the preference on number of sides to a die for gaming and if training for a run in bursts of high to low speeds was better than a straight steady pace for a long distance. She shook her head each time someone gave her a quote from a play or line from a song as she did not recognize them in some cases and, in most cases, was too preoccupied catching up on homework to give any thought. Within days, she was an outsider again.

For three weeks, Annie settled back into her groove of spending all of her time working on school work and with her family at home. The phone calls slowly ceased from the different groups, but she did not notice for a couple more weeks when she suddenly started missing the calls. Annie found the reentry to be nearly impossible. She was beginning to understand the concept of burning bridges behind her.

One night, Annie slept soundly. She awoke feeling as refreshed as she ever remembered feeling. She smiled in the morning out of pure happiness and her eyes settled into every piece of the morning from brushing and flossing her teeth to the scarf she tied around her neck as she prepared to walk out the front door. She made one final stop in her parents' bedroom before heading out the door and off to school.

Through the front doors, Annie travelled into the long corridor of people she had pretended to truly know. She felt a burning in her chest that did not upset her. The burning heated up her face and the smile that formed there was sickly and frightening to anyone who may have noticed her. She was sure nobody did notice her.

"I had a wonderful dream last night," she stated in a voice too weak to pierce the cluster of noises from group after group of friends engulfed in their own discussions. Undaunted, she tried again. "I had a wonderful dream last night," she shouted to the full hallway and reached into her backpack. The hallway quieted for a moment and some groups started to turn her way when they placed where the shout had come from. A young man in her class she had never noticed coincidentally as he was in her same outsider circle grabbed her and pulled her into the empty classroom. He held the wrist of her hand deep in her back pack.

"I don't have a good feeling about your intentions with that smile and the focused intent of your hand in that bag. Can you please spread your fingers wide and pull your hand back out?" Neal's frightened eyes met the half crazed eyes of Annie. He felt her fight with his hand to hold onto the surprise in her bag. "Please, Annie."

It could have been the please repeated to her with those pleading eyes, but Annie would later realize it was the use of her name that snapped her out of her psychotic break. The realization that she was an actual person to someone she did not know and had put no false pretenses into went a long ways towards breaking her down. She pulled her hand out empty and dropped the bag to the ground. Annie backed away almost surprised when the bag fell open and the handgun from her parents' bedroom slipped out. Neal barely registered that actual sight of the gun having already convinced himself of what she had been reaching for moments earlier.

They talked for an hour outside of the school skipping their first period classes. Neal comforted Annie telling her she was not alone. He was the second in line for valedictorian behind her and had always watched her in awe. He was not jealous of her ability, he was in love with it. When Annie slipped off the academic radar for a bit, he did his own investigation and saw how she had conformed herself to the multitude of seemingly self assured students in their class. It turned out that Neal was one of the few students actually sure of himself and his place in life.

He explained to Annie how the loner role was not really the shunned outcast of the world when it came to high school. Neal had observed the same groups Annie was pushing herself into, but from the individual stand point. When Annie and the majority of the group left the hallway, Neal observed a single group member at her locker or staring at himself in the mirror in the restroom. Outside of the group, the people Annie was jealous enough of to want to shoot were less sure of their place in life than even she was before she lost herself.

Annie went back on her track and ended up narrowly beating out Neal for the speech at graduation. She thanked her fellow students for teaching her something in her four years in that high school. She spoke of a sense of camaraderie and a sense of purpose, but she urged each student to find out who they were individually and not to settle for anything less than what they truly desired in life. She accepted the applause knowing well that most were not paying attention and many would not understand her words until years later when the truly valuable time of learning about themselves was nearly over. Neal stood the longest and clapped the loudest to Annie's ears. Life for each of them was wide open.


There's something in the way she makes believe, please be careful, Annie dreams that everyone is dead. - Our Lady Peace

The Series Hits A Speed Bump

"Dear ABC/Producers of Great American Bachelor,

My name is Tyler Gantry and you may know me as the newly selected bachelor for the next season of your show. I am excited about the opportunity to be apart of the show and enter into my journey towards finding my one true love from the 25 or so you have selected because you know me better than my parents and sister and friends who have done a horrible job with blind dates in the past. Especially my sister. She actually set me up with a transvestite once. I don't think she was insinuating anything, but I do think she was drunk or on something hallucinogenic, but I digress. That is not the intent of this letter.

When I was suggested to you by Rachel, my ex-girlfriend as you know, we had been apart for three months. She was dating and feeling guilty about breaking my heart and wanted to see me happy again. Something happened during whatever letter she wrote you and she started thinking about all of the great things she had to say about me. As she thought about what she had sent, she began thinking of how the guys she was dating after me all seemed to be missing things on that list. In the past two weeks, we've begun seeing each other again and have become more connected than when we split up. We started where we left off and I feel ecstatic to tell you that we are more in love than ever. That brings me to the point of this email.

I am aware that I have a contract to start shooting episodes in a week from today. However, I do not feel it is fair to the women chosen and the fans of the show to go on the show and lie about trying to find love when I am back in a happy relationship again. If you feel the need to bring legal action, I understand. If you have any flexibility and no back up bachelors, I have a suggestion that may rectify the situation. My best friend, Davis, is a great guy. We have the same sense of humor and interests. Davis has a good job and a good family life. I am also told and aware that he is an attractive man that I believe you will have no problem marketing for the show. The only thing is, well, he's kind of married. I say kind of because they are separated. no kids, just married but separated.

Before you roll your eyes and get your lawyers on the phone, I plead of you to think about the option. Davis Baker is a great guy with a failing relationship. You are always looking for good candidates and a new angle. What better angle than a man still married looking for what he's missing and what went wrong in his own marriage while he's still in it. I guarantee he will break down a few times during the run of the series.

Thank you and I'm sorry again,

Tyler Gantry"