The Last Dispatch
Credit: tensen01 of Deviant Art
Originally published in the Savage Henry Magazine, Issue 3. Image Credit here.
“All circuits are busy,” the monotoned male recording said. “Please try again later.”
Sandra trembled as she redialed the number. She pressed the cell phone so hard against her ear, it left an imprint. The phone’s blue glow made her cream-colored, smooth-skinned face look oxygen starved. Dial tone made connection.
“9-1-1,” a female dispatcher said on the phone, voice stern and stressed. “What’s your emergency?”
Words bubbled in Sandra’s throat but wouldn’t come out. She curled up in a fetal position, breathed in a mixture of musty carpet and motor oil. Even in the trunk’s darkness, the world around her spun like a record on a turntable, needle skipping with every revolution. Her heart pounded fast against her chest, stomach twisted tight like ringing out a towel. She felt acid in her esophagus, then an uncontrollable burst – a pop like a balloon thrusting bile into the trunk. She coughed.
“Help me,” Sandra finally mustered in a whisper. She breathed in short, rapid puffs. “Help me…I’m…hiding in my…mom’s car…trunk.”
“What is your address? Are you in immediate danger?” the dispatcher asked sincerely. “Are you hurt?”
“My family…they’re…dead, all of them…dead,” Sandra’s eyes widened. She controlled her breathing, wiped snot dripping from her nose, and cried, “They’re going to kill me. Help me please!”
“Ok, just keep calm,” the dispatcher said, taking a deep breath. “Tell me what happened.”
The images were fresh grafts upon her brain. Mother’s naked body lying ravaged and slashed on her parent’s bedroom floor. Father’s body on top of kitchen table, disemboweled and empty sockets for eyes. Tall slender gray hairless humanoid, long claws replacing fingers, a mouth that split down the middle of its chin devouring her father’s intestines. Then those narrow pink eyes staring at her.
“I ran…as fast…as I could,” Sandra’s breathing became labored again. She still heard those horrible shrill cries coming from outside, the pounding of fists against the garage door.
“Not another one,” the dispatcher said sullenly. She took another deep breath and said, “Look, we’ve received ten calls about strange gray creatures rampaging throughout the city. We’re trying the best we can to…”
Sandra shook her head, “Not creatures…demons. Terrifying demons. They’re coming for me, please! Get me out of here!” Her body shaking hard now as if seizing. “I’m too young to die!”
“Calm down,” the dispatcher paused then said in a shaky voice, “Well, we got a trace on your phone. I’ll try to send someone over.”
The demons continued to slam against the garage door in such a rhythmic fashion it sounded like strong pulsing bass from a techno beat. Sandra’s lower lip shook, realizing her end was drawing near. It hit her like a hydraulic press, expelling all the air from her diaphragm and paralyzing it with a gut-wrenching terror. She felt an emptiness emanate from her stomach, then move toward her heart causing it to ache with the sensation of a thousand needle pricks.
“It’ll be too late by then,” Sandra said softly, her breathing controlled for the moment. She fingered a candle inside a pack of emergency supplies, wondered if she should just light it and set herself ablaze, to avoid being eaten alive. She tuned the world around her out like changing radio stations. She fell into her thoughts, not a soft comforting pillow where she could curl up and fall asleep. No, she fell into a black oozing pit consuming every beautiful soul-stroking sensation she had, leaving her to realize her own mortality without any sense of pleasure.
“Oh my God!” the dispatcher screamed through the phone, “they’ve broken through our barriers.” Sandra heard gun fire through the phone, along with the same screeching sounds still tormenting her inside the trunk. “Take cover, they’re storming the…”
Sandra let loose a torrent of tears, red face squeezed tight, nose running like bad allergies. Torturous thoughts of a future that will not be paralyzed her like a potent venom. These demons are taking over, whatever they are. She could only hide for so long.
A loud crashing noise as the garage door collapsed, then she heard a pair of quick footsteps puttering around the garage. She gasped for air as an agonizing anticipation grew. She prayed the demons wouldn’t find her here, but then the trunk lid flew open. Two silhouettes stood over her. Two unfamiliar shapes.
“Please…don’t…I’m,” she stuttered, covering her face with her arms. The phone fell to her side, its light illuminating one of the demon-like creatures with its mouth open, spreading its face out in three directions and exposing two layers of sharp teeth. A loud screech drowned out her words.
“No, don’t do it!” the dispatcher yelled, “It’s eating my legs!”
Sandra’s eyes widened, her body felt frozen. Then it lunged, attaching to her neck and consumed her blood like a drain drawing a sink full of water. She screamed only for a moment before the creature tore out her vocal cord. The other creature ripped at her legs, plucking it from her pelvis like a turkey leg at Thanksgiving. Then the phone connection died, leaving the demons to devour their prey at both ends of the line.
Megalopolis, Resurrected
While I wait to hear back on resumes and pace around in circles until the New Year so I can score some freelance work, I dug out my notes and manuscript for a novel I started last year. After brushing off the dust, I spent a good three days hashing out plot lines, character arcs, and visualizing scenes in the story. Who knows how long my ADD personality will go through with the novel, but I’m pledging that I get this sucker finished and published by 2012. It’s long overdue that I finish at least ONE of these damn manuscripts that are haunting me in my box, begging for closure.
What’s the story about? Not telling; I will say it’s called Megalopolis, and it has to do with a “wild ride” that borderlines reality, dream, and madness, takes the character into a bizarre world juxtaposed like our own, yet different in sight, sound, and taste. And of course, no story is complete without a tragic love story to drive the character forward. But will he make it out alive? Will he find the secret of Megalopolis and in the process, find the closure he desperately needs, or will be consumed by its ubiquity? Or is it all a drug-induced trip frying his synapses while he lays in a hospital bed?
You’ll have to find out when I’m done.
Nostalgia®
Originally published at 365Tomorrows.com.
The shakes began to violently intensify. Janus couldn’t bear it much longer, the nauseating craving, the blankness of mind, the emotional emptiness. He tightly gripped a long slender metallic canister that cost him a days worth of panhandling cash. His index finger rubbed a trigger button, which it wanted badly to press. The brown-washed beach accommodated others like himself – dingy-looking, rancid-smelling drifters caressing bottles inserted into their noses, some rolling on sand, others swaying in the warm sticky breeze absorbed in a deep trance-like state. This would be his refuge during the Trip.
After finding a secluded spot below a broken wooden pier, Janus stuck two short stubby tubes on top of the canister into his nostrils, felt the cold rubber scratch his sinuses, releasing a thin stream of blood that trickled down to his chin. Eyes closed, breathing deeply in and out, he pushed the button.
A rush raced right into his brain, bombarding his sensory centers with a barrage of scents. A salty sea breeze. Sun block smeared on skin. Sand saturated with a fishy smell. They formed images, resurrected long-buried memories of days before the giant dust bowls, the catastrophic toxic spills, and great global economic collapse.
Janus smiled and opened his eyes. He looked awestruck watching the plump orange sun igniting the sky with red and purple colors as it fell below the skyline. The crystal blue ocean stretched infinitely into the horizon and stretched back toward shore, waves breaking against the white sand. He felt the warm water wash against his bare feet as the tide rolled in with a whoosh. A tear rolled down his cheek feeling the soothing sea breeze tickle his ear, listening to seagulls fly overhead, embracing the stillness – the serenity – of the moment.
Then the vision broke. The scene shattered like glass. The once pleasant smells morphed into stagnant sewage. The ocean became a brown sludge. The blue sky hid behind a curtain of thick dark yellow smog. The carcass of seagulls and other animals lay scattered across the trash-covered, discolored beach.
Janus felt that familiar sorrow return. He held the canister, which had the word Nostalgia® – the Breezy Beach flavor – written down the side. It felt empty, like he did. He discarded it into the sand and dropped to his knees, already itching for the next Trip, anything resembling the world he once lived in. He laid on the sand in a fetal position, sobbing, shaking, yearning for another hit.
Janus controlled his breathing and sat up. He scanned the beach glimpsing others like himself seize with euphoria in the sand like fish flopping out of water, metal canister pumping scents that recalled memories straight to their brains.
It wasn’t always like this, he thought. There was a time when you could swim in the ocean here, a time when you could hike in the woods, even a time where you could drink the water without it being in a bottle. But it all changed.
Janus sniffed and rubbed his nose. The rebound from his Trip subsided, leaving a lingering lust for another hit that he could feel on his lips. He stumbled to his feet, looked down at the empty Nostalgia® bottle in the sand. Perhaps, he thought, I’ll try the Redwood Rush next.
Vandals
Originally published at 365Tomorrows.com
The sound of the spray paint can spitting neon green from its nozzle drowned out the ambient noise of the city: police sirens, echoing gunshots, and the monotonous drone of the Floating Eyes. Ty directed the colorful symphony across a giant raised billboard that read “One World, One People,” creating a large middle finger in the center of it all. When the spray paint puttered to an end, he appreciated his work like a viewer does at an art gallery.
Ty pulled down the black bandanna covering his mouth, looked at the smog-distorted cityscape stretching toward the horizon. He sat down, pulled out a protein bar, and devoured it whole.
“You again,” said a stern male voice.
“You know me,” Ty smiled and crumpled the wrapper, “I like my art.”
Ty looked up at the police officer wearing a gray uniform. Sown in to the uniform’s sleeves were American flags with one star instead of fifty. The officer looked up at the billboard, smiled.
“A middle finger,” he said. “Ah, can’t say that’s original.”
“It’s the symbolism that counts,” Ty replied.
“Either way, it’s against the law,” the cop said as he sat down beside Ty. Ty looked him over, noticed his disinterested gaze stare out across the city.
“But you’re not going to bust me are you?”
“No,” the cop smiled, “I’m not.” Radio traffic clattered from the cop’s walkie-talkie. He turned it down. “If the Governing Council can’t take a joke, screw ‘em.”
Ty laughed, “You know it’s much more than a joke these days. I think you see the same problems I see, only you’re a part of it…”
“Just trying to survive like everyone else,” the cop interjected. “You think I like busting kids like you for petty vandalism and sending you off to one of the camps?” he paused. “No. I’d rather be chasing murderers and drug dealers.”
A loud humming noise startled them both. A floating metallic orb the size of a human head hovered above. A glowing red computer-like eye scanned both of them.
“Warning!” a robotic voice said. “Crime against the state detected. Vandalism, First degree. Hateful speech, first degree. Defacing corporate property, first degree…”
Ty’s eyes lit up. He felt a strong urge to run but the cop’s eyes looking at his told him to wait. Ty took an anxious breath.
“I’m in the process of apprehending the criminal,” the cop said. “I don’t need any assistance.”
The Floating Eye focused its mechanical eye on him, “Officer Grace Steward, Homeland Security Division Four. You are aiding and abetting a political criminal. You will be…”
There was a click and a thundering boom.
It happened fast. Ty didn’t see Officer Steward whip out his sidearm and blast the Floating Eye in one graceful motion. As the smoking metal heap fell, Ty asked, “Why?”
Officer Steward looked at Ty, “I think you already know the answer. Now get out of here. There are plenty more billboards that need defacing.”