SNM Horror Magazine

Below are 5 short stories from all 3 of my novels.The first is from my debut short story novel Rituals Of Terror.The next 2 are from my new unpublished novel The Dark Art Of Wonder. The fourth is from The Banished, a complete theme novel. The fifth is from my first novel. As a writer, I strongly believe in being right on the battlegrounds with my troops. Some will see this as a cheap plug, but I see it as the only form of payment to offer a great FREE online horror magazine to the public. *All feedback is welcome.

      www.stevenmarshallhorror.com

 www.myspace.com/stevenmarshallhorror

                      Fresh Flesh
        Featured in Rituals of Terror 
                by Steven Marshall

     Lloyd was a bald, obese butcher. He loved his occupation dearly. Although his customers weren’t too fond of his hairy, unsanitary body that had difficulty supporting the massive three-hundred sixty pounds of lard he dragged around, they still came back to take advantage of the good deals he had to offer. Because his size was so vast and his appearance was so gruesome, his job suited him divinely.

     Lloyd’s father owned a slaughterhouse. Lloyd worked many a year with his father and it was agreed that Lloyd would get the business when his father retired. But when that time came, Lloyd decided he didn’t want the responsibilities after all, so his father sold the business and retired anyway. That’s when Lloyd became a butcher.

     Things actually turned out for the better. While his father was enjoying all the pleasures in life he had so long awaited, Lloyd was making more money in his new-found love: the butcher shop -- Big John’s butcher shop, a place that makes a helluva killing. Lloyd’s only disappointment was being in a place that only sees the finished product of death, rather than working in a place that slaughters innocent flesh while it’s still breathing. Where the carcasses are still kicking on the meat hook and being sent down the line for disembowelment. Where life turns into food with the dropping of a guillotine. Innocence had no place in this business; taste, however, did. The part of the business that Lloyd enjoyed most was the sound of hacking dead flesh; watching the cleaver sinking into the bones and pulling away the edible meat; feeling blood splattering upon him as he did so.  Pulling out the intestines and gutting the fat. Making ground beef in the meat processor, pretending it was Silly Putty. To him, this power had its privileges indeed.

     Every once in a while, a pretty young woman would come strutting into the shop dressed like a total slut. It drove him insane knowing that he couldn’t have them -- even prostitutes turned him down on occasion. Thinking about hacking away their bodies, so very young and ripe, became as real to him as life itself...‘first strip them of their nipples, then hack off the breasts and slowly dissect the wombs as if trying to practice freelance gynecology...HACK, HACK, HACK them all to death! Then shiskebab their wretched uteruses with a skewer and masturbate on their dead bodies ‑ how sweet their blood and ovulation would taste.  How sweet indeed!’

     Within a month, Lloyd knew every aspect of the business there was to know. His boss could see he knew what he was doing, even felt he was capable of handling his own business. Now that trust was established and a good relationship had developed, Lloyd’s boss began taking longer lunch breaks, sometimes as much as whole days off; even gave Lloyd a key to the place as a symbol of his trust. And Lloyd, being the obese mule he was, began having lunch at his boss’ expense. From hamburgers and roast beef sandwiches to ribs and chicken, even sirloin steaks. The privileges were getting better every day!

     One day,  whether it was sunny or rainy was irrelevant, Loyd’s boss informed him that he was taking the afternoon off for reasons unmentioned. That suited Lloyd just fine. After catering to the needs of the regulars and taking care of chores, Lloyd finally had the place to himself. While soaking up the blood on the counters with a dry rag, he noticed a sign posted on the window. It read: TODAY’S SPECIAL: BEEF TONGUE 50% OFF.

     His tastebuds were tantalized with the thought of trying something new. After peeling a slab off the frozen tray, he tossed it on the grill, sprinkled on garlic and salt, and let it fry away. When it was crisp, he scooped it up with the spatula, dipped it in a container of mustard, and indulged like a true carnivore.

     Moments after, the bell on the door jingled and in walked a customer. A customer with breasts the size of footballs, hips the shape of an hourglass, and a mini-skirt as short as the life span of the man whom she chooses. ‘A goddess of a wench,’ he thought.  HACK, HACK, HACK!

     “M-may I help you, m-ma’am,” stuttered Lloyd.

     “What’s today’s special?” she inquired, in a tone that could only be described as that of a rich, snobby bitch.

     “Beef tongue, ma’am.”

     “I don’t like tongue of any kind.  Let’s see...”

     ‘I’ll bet you’d like my tongue licking your hairy piss flaps, you luscious little bitch,’ he thought mischievously.

     “How about the sirloin steak?”

     “It’s not on sale, but I’ll give you a good deal.”

     “How much?” she asked, with a sort of half-smile.

     “How many would you like?”

     “About six would be fine.”

     ‘About six inches of my cock,’ he thought again.  “For you, ma’am, because you’re a regular,”...‘a regular slut,’...“how does twelve dollars sound?”

     “Thanks, you’re a doll.”

     He blushed at this, but enjoyed the power of controlling the inventory, knowing how much he could get away with, and knowing how to get away with it without being confronted.

     Because she got a good deal, she figured she should take advantage of the opportunity and get something else since she would have spent the money anyway. She leaned over the counter, looking downward at the shelves. Her eyes skimmed over the unappealing, yet delectable goods, while Lloyd’s eyes focused exclusively on her massive cleavage and permanently erect nipples. His groin awakened immediately at the sight... ‘big bouncy breasts and hardly anything covering them ‑ oh the motorcycle noises I could make between those babies!  Look at her; she’s a fucken slut, why else would she be wearing shit like that; unless she’s just teasing me, little cunt, HACK, HACK, HACK, she’s just begging for a big fat cock up her ass ‑ oh how I wish I was her bicycle seat...I gotta touch those warheads or I’ll explode!  She wants me to touch them, she’s not here to get a good deal…’

     Sweat was beading off his brow; his fingers were trembling, heart thumping, groin throbbing...slowly, carefully, he reached over the counter, palm open ‑ getting closer...closer...suddenly she looked up, stood upright, and handed him a $20 bill.

     “Th-thank you,” he stammered, his heart in his throat.

     “I’ll also take eight dollars worth of ribs too.”

     “Beef or pork?”

     “Pork, please.”

     ‘It figures,’ he thought.

     “Those look pretty healthy,” she approved.

     ‘They sure do...’  “Okay fine, I’ll give you three racks!”

     Staring deeply at her...eyes.

     “You won’t get into any trouble now, will you?”

     “No.  No, of course not,” he said, wrapping the contents.

     “I could afford full price, ya know,” she remarked.

     “I know, just like to keep our customers happy.”

     “You seem a little nervous today, you okay?”

     “Fine, yes, I’m okay,” he said, smiling nervously.

     She looked at him like the pathetic obese swine he was.

     He glanced at her in between like the dirty slut she was.

     “So tell me, do people really eat beef tongue?”

     “Yes, it’s quite a delicacy, good bargain on it too.”

     “Just the name of it, what’s society coming to?”

     “I just had some; it’s really not as bad as it sounds...”  ‘Or as bad as your cunt smells, you wicked little...’

     “Really? What does it taste like?” she asked, befuddled.

     ‘If I said dick you’d try it.’  “I’ll let you try a free sample and you can come to your own conclusions.”

     “Okay, thanks.  I’ll let you know what I think next time.”

     “Great.  Have a nice day and feel free to stop in anytime.”

     “You’re a sweetheart, thanks.  Bye now!” she teased.

     ‘Little fucken whore; HACK, HACK, HACK.’

     The same day ‑ a sunny day filled with warmth and radiance, (for those who feel incomplete without knowing) Lloyd’s father went to pay a visit to his former business, just to see how the new boss was holding up the fortress. When he arrived at the entrance to the slaughterhouse, its smokestack was burning bright with Grade A. Ominous clouds lingered in the ozone, making the sky surrounding it a hazy tint of lifeless gloom. The loud screams of the cows and chickens made one realize they weren’t about to tour Old MacDonald’s Farm. As he stepped out of his BMW, the stinging he felt in his eyes was not caused by the tires of his car kicking up dust from the dirt road into the air, but from the ashes of the cremated bones smoldering in the sky. 

     After greeting the empty faces of former work acquaintances, he proceeded directly to his former office, where he noticed a new glass door with the name ‘Walter Mazzioti, II’ engraved on it. The secretary was just returning late from lunch when she noticed her former boss about to knock on the door.

     “Excuse me...” came the husky voice from the other room.

     “Hello, Kelly, how are you,” he stated as more of a greeting than question, followed by a weak smile.

     “Mr. Washington, hi, I...thought that was you.”

     “Just stopping in to see the new boss.”

     “Well I’ll let him know you’re here.”

     “That’s okay, I thought I’d surprise him.”

     “He doesn’t like...surprises; sorry.”

     “Christ, you act as though I’m a total stranger!”

     “I’m sorry, it’s just that I’ll get in trouble.”

     Suddenly the door opened: “Mr. Washington ‑ hi!”

     “Runnin’ a pretty tight ship, eh?” mocked Washington.

     “It’s okay, Ms. Owens,” said Mazzioti to the secretary.

     “Just wanted to see how things are doin’,” said Washington.

     “Come in, have a seat ‑ relax!” welcomed Mazzioti.

     “Surprised you haven’t changed the name from Washington Beef Company to Mazzioti’s Meat Market.”

     “They’d probably think the Mafia took it over. Besides, you were the founder. I’m staking my reputation solely on your last name.” They sputtered a forced chuckle in unison.

     Slowly the smile fled Mazzioti’s face and something urgent took over his expression. He walked past Washington and shut the door gently then pulled up a seat for him.

      Washington confronted his concern:

     “What is it, Walter?”

     “Lawrence, we’ve been friends long before I knew the face value of a dollar, so what I’m about to say has nothing to do with our arrangement, nor am I insinuating that you’re trying to rip me off...actually, I’m glad that you’re here because you’re the first person whose attention I wanted to bring this to,” he said, through a flurry of blinking.

     “For God’s sake, Walter, what is it?”

     “When was the last time you surveyed the overall quality of the cattle?” he asked, more with his hands than his mouth.

     “Are you asking me when was the last time I dissected a cow to check for food poisoning?” he asked, analyzing the question.

     “Precisely...personally that is.”

     “Well, I usually had a separate crew for that, but personally I’d say six weeks before you took over, why?”

     “Well...some of them are slaughtered before they even get to us,” submitted Mazzioti in a low tone. 

     “How is that possible?” he asked squinting intensely.

     “When I say slaughtered, I mean internally.”

     “Will you stop speaking in metaphor!”

     “Something is corroding them from the inside out. So far, we’ve only noticed it only with the cows, but they’re the major source of the profits. I’ve noticed this contamination in their mouths, throats and stomachs and we've been running tests to determine the cause, but the results are still...inconclusive. While the brisket remains unaffected, the roast beef has been 80% unsatisfactory because it’s the outer cut of the upper thigh next to the stomach. It’s not so much that we’re not making a profit here, but we’re losing out big time! Lawrence, if there’s something you know, tell me now, damn it. Please!” exclaimed Mazzioti in dire desperation.

     “What do you mean, corroded?” asked Washington, puzzled.

     Mazzioti reached in his desk drawer and pulled out a handful of pictures taken in the early stages of the disease. Individually, he showed them to Washington and it was clearly evident that ‑ even for a crude man with stomach enough to have owned a slaughterhouse ‑ he was totally mortified to look at them even on film. One cow was worse than the next, many with insides rotted from the heart of the mid-sections; mouths decayed, throats bloated and coated with an undefined black substance, both slimy and moldy. An anthrax far worse than even a horror writer could describe. Yet the bizarre thing was ‑ even with the putrid-reeking stench that Mazzioti described ‑ there were no maggots of any kind to be found in the stomachs, arteries or intestines. It was beyond them how anything like this was even remotely possible. Their shocked, inexplicable expressions said it all.

     “When did you start noticing this?” inquired Washington.

     “A little over two weeks ago,” replied Mazzioti.

     “How many cows were actually infected?”

     “The last report stated 40% as of yesterday.”

     “And what was the percent in the first week?”

     “I didn’t seriously confront it until it grew to 15%; thought it was just a few bad apples in the beginning. Now all of a sudden they’re dropping like flies.”

     “You mean nothing fazed you until 15% of your cows became infected? For someone who’s so organized and such a good, smart businessman, how can you be such an ass?” chastised Lawrence.

     “It’s under private, and I stress private, investigation.”

     “How long after death does this plague occur?”

     “That’s what I’m trying to tell you ‑ they’re still alive when the corrosion sets in, they’re dying as they graze!”

     “Then maybe it’s obvious ‑ it could be in the grass! Who else eats the grass aside from the fucken' cows?”

     “No, no. It was the first thing they ruled out.”

     “Is there a toxic waste plant nearby that I never knew about, or a top secret government lab that spilled something?”

     “Lawrence, this isn’t the movies.”

     “How long before they die, once it’s spotted?”

     “Well, currently we’re studying several carcasses, but I would estimate no more than two weeks. Maybe three at the most.”

     “With something this serious, you’re still selling the shit?  Are. You. Crazy?!” emphasized Lawrence.

     “Relax...” soothed Mazzioti.

     “Relax?! They won’t just close you down, they’ll put you in fuckin' jail; maybe execute you!”

     “Lawrence, we’ve conducted test after test, and the outsides are totally unaffected, that much I’m sure of. Christ, things are tough enough trying to run a new business ‑ financially and mentally ‑ whaddya want from me? You want me to close down the business so you can get it back?”

     “As reasonable and logical as I am, I will hop over that desk and beat the living crap out of you if you make a remark like that again!  Next thing you’ll say is I’m behind it.”

     “I’m sorry. Look, I need a drink. You?”

     After a sigh, “Yea.”

     “Excellent!”

     They took a few deep breaths to let the tension slowly drain out of their systems. They looked at each other completely bewildered by the discovery they had stumbled upon. They were like children juggling something for the first time without even knowing what direction it was going. 

     Mazzioti pulled out a bottle of bourbon from underneath the pictures, fetched some glasses with ice and served the drinks.

     “Well, it’s spreading, so it’s safe to assume that it’s a living organism at work here,” deduced Washington.

     “No, it’s not safe to assume,” proclaimed Mazzioti. “That would have been determined from the very beginning.”

     “Maybe they don’t know what to look for.”

     “Here’s the deal: all the roast beef is pre-analyzed and put on back-order to confirm there’s been no change. The brisket has never been effected even in the worst cases cuz it’s the shoulder meat. But whatever's decaying their stomachs is enough to kill ‘em! Out of the remaining 20% of good roast beef, 95% of that 20 is guaranteed to be completely safe.”

     “I could see it now: we got this plague going on with just the cows, we have no idea what it is or what’s causing it but don’t worry, every 95 out of 100 of you will live.”

     “It’s better than that.  So far the worst result could be food poisoning and how many people have died of food poisoning? Hold that thought ‑ here’s where it gets better: the only thing people will assume is that they have indigestion. But the 5% we’re iffy about will cause them no harm if the meat is cooked properly ‑ then I guarantee that 99% is totally safe and just as delicious.”

     “And what about the other 1%?” pointed out Washington.

     “Lawrence, there has never been a more accurate phrase said than ‘anything is possible and nothing is impossible’. I can’t lose my business for 1% of the carnivorous population. Besides outta that 1%, who’s gonna trace it back to us? We are 100% protected, you and me. And by that time we’ll know exactly what it is and what to do about it. It’s impossible for anyone to hold us accountable. They’ll just blame the grocery stores or butcher shops they bought it from.”

     “I can't believe what I’m hearing. Okay, well I’ve ruled out compassion in you completely. So let me try a more direct approach that you’ll relate to: if just one person, forget about %, if just one person, maybe somebody who works here, traces it back to you not us, you’d have five things to contend with; investigation, lawsuit, prosecution, jail time and the shutdown of this operation. And everyone working here will have families suffering. You can’t take chances like this, you’re risking your business, your future ‑ use your fucken head!”

     “Point well taken. But if I close down, hire a science and medical team to investigate it, deplete the business savings by doing so, then our customers are gonna wanna know what the fuck is going on then the press, FBI, Board of Health and everyone else you could possibly think of will be coming out of the woodwork and everything you mentioned will still happen.”

     “...That’s the best point you’ve made yet, Walter. Sometimes you can be such a relentless bastard.”

     “A toast to silence,” smiled Mazzioti.

     “I still think there’s other alternatives.”

     “Everything will work itself out.”

     “...Before I agree to ‘silence,’ I want to ask you one more question: you said the contamination is found in stomachs, throats and mouths?”

     “Yea...”

     “So then what’s the deal with the beef tongues?”

     “They’re completely out of the picture. We suspect that’s where it's starting because they’ve suffered the worst damage, but it’s only a theory. None have been sold and the ones I questioned were all recalled. They’re not a big financial concern anyhow ‑ but now anything would help.”

     “So why are you assuming it’s not a living organism?”

     “That’s two questions...I’m not saying it isn’t, just don’t assume it is. I’m sure if it was, the pigs would have already been infected.”

     “But it’s an anthrax; a disease amongst cows.”

     “Only time will tell, Lawrence.”

     “Yea, but my son’s working at Big John’s and I’m positive I remember seeing a special for beef tongue – I’m telling you, if anything happens...”

     “Lawrence.  As a friend, I assure you that I personally check his orders and make sure he gets only the best. If anything, at least trust me on that.”

     “Yea, but if you recalled all the tongues, then how come he still has some?”

     “No cause for alarm; they’re probably just trying to move the shit from a month ago that they couldn’t get rid of. And that was long before any of this happened.”

     “Still, you can’t be sure how and when it started. Look, I’m not gonna breathe a word about this to anyone, but I want to make sure everything’s okay over there.”

*

     Because the pace of business was slowing down, Lloyd decided to close shop for the evening. He was more motivated to get a porno flick at the video store. He remembered a flick with a woman who looked similar to the one who entered his shop. ‘Gotta see that video ‑ I think it was her!  Same breasts, same slutty look. I can see her now:  Cunt the same color as her hair, one nipple bigger than the other...yea; she was the one who took it up the ass!  As a matter of fact, she was doin’ two guys at once! I’ll put it on frame-by-frame while I’m jerking off. When I spooge a load on her face, I’ll rewind it, put on the headphones and listen to her cooing away through the stereo  ‑ close my eyes and pretend I’m doing her doggy style!’

     When he got home with the video, he pulled down the blinds, locked the door and did as he had planned. Just when he was at the prime of erection, seconds away from ejaculation, the phone rang.

     “God. Dammit!” he shouted. “Why now? I can never have any time to myself ‑ hello?!” he abruptly greeted.

     “Lloyd, it’s me.”

     “Hi Dad, what’s up?” he sighed.

     “What’s that racket in the background?”

     “Hold on,” said Lloyd, hitting the pause button.

     “Lloyd, has everything been okay at the store?”

     “Yea, yea,” he grumbled, trying to rush him off.

     “Have you had any problems with the meat?”

     “No, why?”

     “So none of the customers have complained about anything, anything at all?” he inquired skeptically.

     “No, why?” he asked, scratching his stubbled chin.

     “Just want to make sure everything’s okay.”

     “Dad, this chick who’s a regular customer...kissed me today because I gave her such a good deal!” fantasized Lloyd.

     “That’s nice, Lloyd.  How do you like your new place?”

     “It’s fine, dad.” (So much for father and son chat).

     “Okay, I’ll let you...get back to whatever you were doing, but call me if anything goes wrong. I want to make sure Mazzioti is still giving you good deals.”

     “Yep...bye.”

     Even though it wasn’t the same woman he saw in the shop, a load of semen was streaming down his leg. He just imagined it was and the orgasm was just as satisfying. After two hours of masturbation, his body reeked a sour, musty stench. Stains of sweat outlined his armpits and his mouth was lacking saliva.

     He went to the kitchen, opened the refrigerator and grabbed a can of beer. As long as he was in the kitchen, he figured he’d grab a paper towel and wipe the puddle of semen off his leg, but it had already dried on like glue. So he took a swig of beer instead. Yet, even the beer had a strange taste to it; it lacked its distinct taste. He looked at the label and confirmed it was his brand, and it was unopened. So what was wrong? He didn’t confront it seriously until he opened a big bag of Doritos and noticed the same thing: no taste. Well, there wasn’t much he could do about it, so he tried them together ‑ and still nothing. For a lawyer, losing a case is frustrating; for a doctor, losing a patient is devastating; but for Lloyd, food and beer without taste was an indulger’s worst nightmare.

     It wasn’t until he lit a cigarette that he noticed a sharp pain in his mouth. Felt like he had a blister under his tongue. After the first few drags, it annoyed him to the point where he had to put it out.  It was safe to assume that this was what was causing the lack of taste in everything he shoved into his mouth. So then what was it? Immediately he ruled out Mono, unless...no! He couldn’t have gotten it from the prostitute he’d visited last week; it was too brief a kiss and no saliva was exchanged. It felt like a cold sore but, as convenient as it was to excuse it as that, he thought one couldn’t develop a cold sore in the mouth, only on the lips. Nonetheless, the little booger was annoying!

     The same night, the woman who’d irked Lloyd was making passionate love to her husband’s friend, simply because her husband was no longer suitable to her needs. Rhythmically, she rode his groin as if she were riding a bronco. When she was done, he sat up and commended her performance with a long, juicy kiss. That’s when she inadvertently heaved a mouthful of regurgitated beef bits into his mouth.

     Lloyd couldn’t go more than ten minutes without having something to drink. His mouth was constantly dry and the blister was beginning to hurt even when left alone. He clenched his bottom lip with his teeth as if trying to displace the pain. He started frantically retarding his mouth and contorting his facial expression. He sucked his teeth until his mouth was air-tight. If he left his face in the same position for more than 5 minutes, the pain would eventually catch up with him. He finally got fed up to the point of going into the bathroom, looking through the small medicine cabinet ‑ as disorganized as it was ‑ and finding an ointment for cold sores... ‘Fuck it.  Looks like the same shit, at least it’ll relieve some of the pain and I’ll be able to sleep. Blistex. Used to aid the discomfort of cold sores and blisters. Yea, this should work.’  In the beginning it cooled the irritation a little, but in so minuscule a way that he could have mentally tricked himself into believing it actually worked.

     Sleep was hard to find but, once it was achieved, that’s where he stayed. When he woke he felt no pain, thereby concluding the ointment had worked...until he swirled his tongue across his teeth and two of the fillings in his cavities fell out like shattered teeth in a cartoon.  ‘Shit! I gotta go see a dentist; he’ll know what it is. Wait. Today’s Saturday already, he’s probably all booked up ‑ I’ll go on Monday.’  Ten minutes after leaving an urgent message with the dentist, the phone rang.

     “Hello?”

     “Lloyd, Big John here.”

     “Yes sir, what can I do for you?”

     “Well, I promised my boy I’d go to his Little League game today and I was wondering if you could come into work for about four hours ‘til I get back.”

     “What about Cliff?”

     “He called in sick and I’m here by myself now.”

     “What time?”

     “Can ya be here in half-an-hour?”

     “I haven’t showered yet.”

     “Don’t worry about it; no one will know the difference.”

     “Well, I suppose,” he said, betraying his hidden anger.

     “Great!  I’ll be back at six to close.”

     “Be there soon.”

     “I appreciate it, Lloyd.”

     As soon as Big John left, customers came pouring in and out, non-stop. Lloyd started having difficulty communicating with them properly.  His speech became a slurred impediment, as if he were communicating in a drunken stupor. Pain so alive it was almost electric shot through his mouth just by saying the words, “thank you, come again.” Eating would have been a new form of Chinese torture, but he wasn’t the least bit hungry. For reasons unknown to him, his symptoms were still the same but something was causing his oral fluids to have a reverse effect. He felt an overabundance of saliva in his mouth when only moments ago it was completely dry. He yearned so desperately to spit, but not in front of the customers.  Swallowing his spittle was for some reason making his stomach acids boil. He almost felt seasick.  It wasn’t even the agony now, it was the blisters.

     Time’s unyielding hands dragged by for what seemed like an eternity. Many people passed by, half of them didn’t even so much as look inside. All Lloyd had to occupy him was his blister and the pungent stench of lifeless flesh.

     When six o’clock finally came, Big John was nowhere to be found. He wasn’t home, the crosstown shop was already closed and he wasn’t responding to his beeper. Therefore, Lloyd took it upon himself to close up shop.

     As soon as he got home, Lloyd raced into the bathroom to see what the hell was causing him so much agony. He looked in the mirror, opened his mouth, pulled his bottom lip down and raised his tongue. Just as he was about to get a glimpse, a wave of pain forced him to lower his tongue just long enough to scream. A salty taste filled his mouth, almost like the taste of blood, but nowhere was he bleeding. He tried again, exerting more caution this time. As he caught sight of it, he was utterly repulsed. It looked like some miniature-sized octopus; a small, opaque, pus-filled membrane with three long, scaly legs. The membrane itself had two little holes where the eyes would be, but there were no other distinguishable features.  Of course it was ridiculous to think it was actually alive, it just looked that way ‑ but the pain it inflicted in his mouth made it feel alive. He stared at it, confounded. That’s when he noticed a little red piece of skin, totally raw, hanging above it. On his tongue, it looked like a tiny little punching bag. Sure, his imagination was getting the better of him, but its presence baffled him. 

     Between the teeth on his bottom jaw dwelled a black, chalky substance. True, he wasn’t an every day brusher, but he never let his teeth go that long without maintenance. Maybe brushing would actually help break it down. He squeezed out a glob of toothpaste on the bristled end of his toothbrush before he turned on the faucet. After which he scrubbed away, jabbing the wiry brush from cheek to cheek and hacked gobs of white foam into the sink. The results he calculated were minimal. While the immediate surface of the black grunge flaked off, the majority of it was still caked on like soot. ‘Shit, what the hell is this?! It’s driving me fucken insane! Get the fuck out of my mouth!"

     By now, the anticipation of the symptoms was even more dismaying than the reality. He lifted his tongue and looked at it again: still the same vile little parasite he saw before. He stared at it hypnotically; it remained stagnant under his tongue. This time he took the liberty of touching it with his right index finger while his left hand held his tongue in place. The moment he made contact, the worst pain he felt yet had awakened in his mouth. Tears welled up in his eyes and a ghastly shriek filled the apartment complex. “God Damn thing!” He drew air into his teeth trying to deceive himself of the pain, but to no avail. Instead of the soft, pus-like blemish he expected feeling, it felt coarse, like a corn on a toe, but worse. The body of it felt quilled like a razor-stubbled chin. A strange notion stumbled into his mind. ‘What if it’s a form of mouth cancer? After all, I’ve been smoking cigarettes and chewing tobacco for at least ten years now. Maybe time is catching up with me already?’

     He tilted his head back and felt a sneeze coming on. When he let out a loud “Achoo!” he felt his tongue under attack by what seemed like a school of microscopic piranhas munching away on his tongue in unison. “Ow, ow, ow!” he screamed until the pain finally withdrew. The roof of his mouth felt like a sheet of sandpaper. His oral fluids were evaporating as if they were being drained out of his mouth like that instrument a dentist uses to suck out the saliva.

     It had been over six hours since he’d orally ingested anything other than oxygen; at this point, thirst was beckoning him the most. Opening the refrigerator door, he discovered how little was inside. Moldy Swiss cheese, two cans of Old Milwaukee, a box of Arm and Hammer baking soda, and a half-empty carton of orange juice and some moldy thing in the back.

     ‘No more beer. Need something healthy for a change. Let’s go with the vitamin C; maybe it’ll help.’ He poured the O.J. into a glass and put the next-to-empty carton back in the fridge. On top of the stove a swarm of flies had found a feast in the form of Lloyd’s leftovers as he swatted the air with his hand. They were apparently guarding the mountain of mashed potatoes they’d infiltrated on his plate. He wasn’t even trying to kill them, just clear a path to the refrigerator door.

     He went into the living room and turned on the T.V. As the picture came into focus, there stood a girl in a bikini drinking a carton of milk...“With beautiful hair and a great smile, milk is sure giving my body what it needs ‑ drink milk; milk does a body good...”  He vaguely pictured opening a carton of milk and seeing a wad of hair and a great smile in it. ‘Drink my milk, bitch.  I’ll give ya a pearl necklace and a milk mustache you’ll never forget!’ Finally, he took a swig of the orange juice and oh, what a mistake!! As soon as the citric acid seeped its way into his blister, he screamed at the top of his lungs, dropped the glass on the floor and ran into the bathroom. It was as though his mouth had been set aflame; his tongue felt like Satan being blessed with Holy Water. He turned on the faucet and rinsed his mouth out with water.As he spit in the sink, he noticed there were traces of blood oozing down the drain.

     He wiped the tears out of his eyes with a dry washrag, took the rag and stuck it between his lower jaw and tongue to absorb the last of the citric acid  The pain still gnawed at him like a bee sting in his mouth. He pushed his lip out of the way and looked in the mirror again. First he analyzed his teeth and it wasn’t until now that he realized just how skeletal and sinister they looked; almost resembled those of a caveman. His gums were purple and full of pain. The black soot was caked even higher between his teeth, rising like water in a tub. His tongue had the texture of an anchovy, and a scourge of white blisters was beginning to emerge on the side of it. Never more than now did it hurt to raise his tongue; as if every inch was a triumph over gravity. When he looked in the mirror, the sight of it almost made him vomit at his reflection.

     Its bloated, translucent body had emerged into the size of a pearl. Its scaly legs had taken on the appearance of sinewy tentacles, but on his tongue they looked like white, fleshy veins. As vile a sight as it was, that wasn’t what mortified him. What mortified him beyond repulsion -- him being someone who carves up dead animal flesh for a living -- was that the miniature-sized octopus had somehow attached itself to the red piece of soft flesh hanging under his tongue. It was as if the creature was using it as a nipple, sucking out the juices and draining it of color. ‘Holy shit!  This thing is alive ‑ it ain’t no fucken blister!  I can’t wait ‘til Monday to go to the dentist, I gotta get rid of it now!’

     He proceeded to the desk drawer and found a safety pin under all the debris, ran into the bathroom, and assumed the lip-down, tongue-up position. With the sharp end of the safety pin, he poked at the thing and felt pain ripping through his mouth each time he did so. He jabbed at it, even tried to scoop it up like an egg in a frying pan. He became so frantic that he missed and accidentally stuck himself in the gums. Slowly he pulled it out, ignoring the blood in his mouth, and focused back on the target at hand. His efforts would have been admired by someone who’s not too keen on self-inflicted pain, but his efforts brought forth no results. Although he could taste the remnants of pus in his mouth, there was no suggestion that he had damaged it. The pin temporarily put an indentation in it, but then it instantly resumed its normal shape. As he hacked gobs of blood into the sink, the thing started spewing more black soot in his mouth. For the first time, he could actually feel it sucking the juices out of his tongue.

     It seemed that the creature’s goal was to stay white and pus-filled. To achieve that, it sucked out all the fat and nerve fiber of the tongue. The black soot between his teeth seemed to be its excrement. An excrement that molded in his mouth like tar, using the saliva almost as a natural glue and stained the gums permanently. Just the opposite of a heroin needle, it sucked in fluid and deposited soot, whereas the heroin needle injects fluid and sucks out blood. Both are diseases; however, one is mental, the other is physical. He assumed the only way to detect it in its early stages was by noticing food stripped of taste - or  seeing a blister transforming into a rapid progression or decadence in this case. Its cure may be as simple as drinking milk, or as complicated as cancer. But theory and hunch only progressed the rate of decay, and Lloyd was no expert in the medical field.

     At this point, Lloyd was reduced to drinking water. All the things he had taken for granted (eating, drinking, smoking) had to remain absent from his system. Even talking would have inflicted excruciating pain, but pain was more evident in the task of thinking about how to rid himself of it. Out of all the things that could possibly happen to him, he had to have Alien Jr. in his mouth. The how and why of it all were beyond him.

     He perched him large mass on the couch; his ass so vast the cushions swallowed him -- and wished it away without success. Then again, doing nothing was always his first choice in any given situation. He sat and watched T.V. completely deprived of oral indulgences, when suddenly it happened...he felt a warm sensation in his mouth, a soft bursting sensation similar to a popped zit...

     This was it the creature must have exploded from indigestion and died!  He ran into the bathroom, looked in the mirror and discovered it wasn’t death that had occurred, but birth. The creature had hatched hundreds of little eggs in his mouth. It wasn’t growing larger, it was pregnant! It wouldn’t be long before hundreds of little octopi were infesting inside his mouth, looking for a nipple, or worse; making one!

     Instinctively, he reached in the medicine cabinet, grabbed anything that even remotely resembled a cure, figuring one of them had to work. As he applied the ointments, he felt the octopus squirming in his mouth as if it were trying to tunnel deeper into his tongue.

     As the medicine seeped into the birth-hole of the creature, it twisted like a mad dog chasing its tail and shot one of its legs through the tip of his tongue. Like a scorpion lashing out when being threatened, it retaliated with pure instinct. His scream was all too violent to be human as the creature forcefully reeled his tongue down to his lower jaw like a pull-cord on an attic door. An eerie feeling crept through his soul, knowing that the thing could think and defend itself.

     All he could think about was how rapidly the disease was turning his mouth into a decaying wasteland. Unlike Aids, there was no anticipation or forewarning. The creature seemed to be working double-time, without sleep. Foreseeing the next course of action it would take took a toll on his mind. He remembered a Crest toothpaste commercial with the slogan: “We make holes in teeth! We make holes in teeth!” echoing in his brain. He could  picture the creature saying, “I make holes in tongue,” and all the Crest in the world wouldn’t be able to stop it.

     That night he was too terrified to sleep, knowing that while he was, the creature would be at work. Just the mere thought of swallowing afflicted him with fear. He was paranoid that if he did, the disease would spread throughout his insides and his stomach would become an Octopi Haven. He slept on the couch with his head hung over the side to catch the drooling saliva in a cereal bowl. But every once in a while, the spittle would get too clammy on his face, so occasionally he would spit and wipe; otherwise he lay motionless like a beached whale. He still couldn’t move his tongue and he was reduced to breathing through his nostrils now.

     As sleep slowly dominated him, trying not to swallow became as difficult as trying not to blink; after all, they were normal bodily functions, and nature doesn’t like being defied. Slowly drifting off into an uninvited narcolepsy, he tried not to think about what was transpiring in his mouth but that was next to impossible.

    ‘Why me? I’ve never even heard of anything like this. Shit like this doesn’t happen in reality...maybe it’s from another world! Please God, I know I’ve been a shitty person, but don’t torture me like this! No one should have to suffer like this ‑ why do you torment what you create? Just kill me and get it over with already before I lose my fucken mind!’

     When sleep overtook him, he dreamed it was just a dream but, to think that, he had to be dreaming. The pain was so distressing that he could only sleep in a semi-conscious state. Every so often he awoke; his mouth twitching in discomfort when his tongue accidentally scraped itself on a tooth. As he fought a battle between sleep and consciousness, he noticed something out of the ordinary: maybe it was the heat, maybe it was his lard ‑ maybe a combination of both, but something was causing his body to discharge unusual amounts of perspiration to the point where he was lying in a puddle of sweat.  Most likely anxiety.

     In the background of sound he could still hear the National Anthem droning on TV, then mentally pictured a cacophony of static soon after, blasting him awake. His body automatically jolted and he sat up before he even knew where his mouth was. Upon becoming coherent, the thought of the creature was freshly etched in his mind. During the night he had drooled severely on himself like an ignorant dog. The gob of spittle was streaming down the side of his face and into his ear. Using the musty, sweaty sheets he’d dragged out with him on the couch, he stood up, wrapped them around his hand, dried his face, then unclogged his nose in them.

     The first thing he noticed as he stood was that his tongue was still compressed to his lower jaw.  He tried wiggling it free, but had as much success as a drunk man trying to achieve a hard-on with a limp organ. He ran straight into the bathroom with morbid thoughts filled his mind. His tongue didn’t even feel like a tongue anymore. When he turned on the light and looked in the mirror, he almost fainted from the shock.

     Corrosion had completely deformed his tongue, giving it the raw appearance of a crisp piece of bacon -- but swollen like an erection in his mouth, poking outward. Now his tongue was completely webbed to his lower lip with a thin, waxy, flesh-like layer of skin. It was as if the creature had set up a tent in his mouth. His tongue was so badly inflated at this point, that he couldn’t even close his mouth.  His neck was the same, if not worse, throat full of pain. Worse, his neck was shriveled up like a dried prune; skin was hanging down like a turkey gullet, as if the space between his head and shoulders had aged forty years, while the rest of his body remained preserved. His throat was so inflamed that his tonsils felt stripped. Every time he tried to swallow, it felt like invisible golf balls were getting stuck in his trachea.Even the act of breathing became more difficult than someone who has asthma and laryngitis at the same time.

     Staring at his blister-infested tongue, he realized he couldn’t even identify it as that.  It was completely brown, and there was no traceable evidence of its original color. His upper gums had a lavender glaze; his teeth were either drowning in black soot or no longer existent. His mouth was so contorted and twisted out of shape that its appearance on him almost made committing suicide justifiable. But that was a task for which he didn’t have the courage.

     He ran to the phone and called his father, remembering their discussion when they had last spoken. He assumed this was what he meant by calling if anything went wrong. On the fourth ring, Lloyd’s father answered.  Lloyd responded with the slow, stuttered speech of one who has a difficult time keeping their thoughts coherent:

     “...Excuse me?” replied the confused party.

     “Ta-me howital!” lethargically followed.

     “Who is this?” asked his own father.

     “Eee!” he screamed frantically.

     “I don’t have time for pranks...”

     “Nooo ‑ doe hagup.”  But he did.

     Although Lloyd had called back several times, his voice was beyond recognition. Sounded like a drunken man with a voice box. It wasn’t long before his father got aggravated to the point where he left the phone off the hook. That very night Lloyd choked to death on his own saliva. His death came as quickly and brutally as it had to the animals he once served.

     Five days passed and Big John hadn’t heard from Lloyd, so he did what he had to: he hired someone else. He was upset that Lloyd hadn’t called before deciding to quit. But business was business; another day, another dollar. In retrospect to the business, Big John didn’t like seeing things go to waste, even if he had already made a profit on the goods. Seeing that he was going to have to dispose of the remaining cow tongues that hadn’t sold due to the fact that they were going off, he prepared the two healthiest looking ones, fried them on the grill, and ate them on two slices of rye.

     Funny how dead flesh can sometimes look so appealing. Funnier how it slips one’s thoughts as to what part of the body it comes from. In only a matter of two days, he, too, learned a painful lesson in carnivorous festivities. Along with Lloyd, Big John became part of the one %.

*

     The next morning, the woman who bought from Lloyd was being rushed to the hospital by her husband’s friend. She was delirious with hysteria, howling like a wolf caught in a trap. Her eyes were raw with tears and her stomach was in knots. She focused the rear-view mirror toward her pretty mouth and was appalled at the sight: her lips were chapped and cracked; her tongue was twisted against the laws of nature; folded over her lower lip like a taco shell. Her lover couldn’t even look at her without feeling like he was riding with some kind of mutant. Sure he showed sympathy, but all he felt was embarrassment.

     Upon arriving, he parked his car in the fire zone, rushed her through the emergency room entrance and into the waiting room. Although she was as frenzied as a pregnant man would be, no one acknowledged her until her lover, to the best of his knowledge completed all of the paper work. Because she wasn’t severely bleeding, suffering from fractured bones, or dying, it took over an hour before a doctor was ready to see her. And because her lover had to attend an important court case, she had to wait there alone.

     She sat in the waiting room, trying in desperation to take her mind off her mouth. She started reading a three-year old issue of some fashion magazine until pain and discomfort made it impossible to concentrate. Instead she watched a show on the black and white T.V. overhead, partially successful in dealing with the bad reception, but couldn’t handle it anymore when she saw a man and woman kissing tenderly. The effort she put into shielding her tongue from sight made her mouth contort like a gorilla’s while her facial expression revealed the shocked awe of a trout’s when caught on a fisherman’s hook. She tried not to look obvious; still, the other patients stared at her. One looked at her with mock curiosity, trying to picture what had happened to her; concluding, in the perverted mind he had, that she just blew a horse.

     After seemingly endless waiting, a young, sultry black nurse approached her with a brown clipboard tucked under arm and a pen in hand.

     “The doctor will see you now Ms. Ashley. Is it Miss or Mrs.?” asked the nurse.

     “Mrs.,” came the slurred reply. 

     “Just sign this for insurance purposes, and it’s through the double doors and to your right,” instructed the nurse.

     “Fine.”  She painstakingly signed it, using her typical chicken scratch signature, and proceeded inside.

     Through the double doors was a long corridor. In the aisle lay a wrinkled old woman on a portable hospital bed, with no one attending her. How someone so old and corrugated could still be alive was beyond her comprehension. The woman’s arms were nearly the size of drumsticks; tubes were protruding from various parts of her withered body and excruciating pain was congealing her wrinkled-as-a-walnut face.

     She leaned towards her, feeling the first sympathy she had in years, and asked: “Ith someone taking care of you?”

     “Yes, dear, thank you.”

     “Whath wrong?” she asked with enormous difficulty.

     The old lady coughed weakly before replying, “kidney failure. Second time this month.”

     She embraced the woman’s hand for support when suddenly a voice interjected: “Mrs. Ashley?”

     “Yeth,” she replied in a muffled tone.

     “I’m Dr. Harlow, this way please. ma'am.”  She let go of the woman’s hand and  followed the doctor into the examination room where she would soon learn of her own affliction to tiny living hatchlings in her mouth.

     As she sat on the examining table, the doctor asked: “So you don’t know what the problem is?”

     “Uh-uh,” she replied, practically through her nose.

     “Well let’s have a look, shall we?” As the doctor focused his mini-flashlight toward her face, she covered her mouth with her hand, then put her other hand in the air as an indication for him to stop ‑ as if she were a traffic cop. When he did, she made another gesture with her hand to get her something to write on. The doctor tore a blank sheet off his reports, took a pen from his breast pocket and handed them to her.  The barely legible note read: ‘PLEASE DON’T BE OFFENDED!’

     The doctor smiled; assuring her he wouldn’t take offense, and further mentioned that he’d seen it all. At that moment, one of the floor nurses walked in and the doctor, as considerate as he was, asked his tense patient if she felt more comfortable with her there, to which she shook her head, ‘No’. When the nurse left the room, the doctor said, “Okay, let’s see what we’re dealing with here...say ahhh!” She rolled her eyes, made a face and bluntly grunted “Ah.”

     The doctor cringed with unconcealed disgust when he saw what was once a human tongue in her mouth. He didn’t just take offense, he took off ‑ to inform the other doctors. But what could the other doctors do for something that’s not even documented in the most recent medical books  Simply making a vague diagnosis would be a triumph in this case, let alone finding a cure. Indeed, the medical world can’t defeat what it doesn’t understand.

     Within twenty minutes the doctor returned with three others but, when they entered the room, Mrs. Ashley was lying on the floor with an empty bottle of tranquilizers in her hand. Between the transferred disease and the fear it inflicted, she couldn’t take it anymore. Sure, the doctors tried like hell to pump out her stomach, but her chest imploded because of how badly her insides were rotted. The only other living specimen left was Big John; but he, too, took the easy way out. He was found DOA with a bullet through his head, a gun in his hand.

     After four days, the stench of Lloyd’s vast, mewling carcass became so unbearable that his neighbors called the police. When the officers arrived, they had to break down the door and, to their disgust, found a blubbering corpse with flies swarming over it.  As they approached it, they realized that rigor mortis could not warp a carcass this badly, no matter how long it was deceased. His face was a cerulean blue, wrinkled and withered almost as if life never existed in it. The only remaining fluid noticeable was a trail of black saliva dried on his lips like tobacco juice. His face looked like an old catcher’s mitt, totally abnormal for mere dead flesh.

     Forty-five minutes after the police contacted the morgue, a coroner finally showed up.  Just glimpsing a brief view of the corpse, the coroner realized the body would have to undergo multiple tests and a complete autopsy. After the coroner came and  claimed the carcass and returned to the morgue, his new assistant medical examiner helped him unload the tundra into the holding vault. Afterwhich, they obtained the information from the police as to whom to contact to identify the body.

     Lloyd’s father showed up some three hours later and he couldn’t believe it was his son when they pulled out the vault drawer. Shock was his initial reaction, curiosity was the next. The coroner explained that they hadn’t conducted any tests yet, and he couldn’t even speculate but he’d be in touch soon.  After the father consented to the autopsy, they made the necessary arrangements and the coroner informed him that because of the thorough examination they had to conduct, the funeral service might not take place for as long as five days.

     The next day, when they finally got around to the autopsy, they had difficulty moving Lloyd’s enormous corpse onto the examination table. When they heaved the body onto the table, the assistant cracked a joke that, once the embalming fluid was injected, they’d need a fork lift to get him into the coffin. The coroner sliced Lloyd’s stomach open like a pig’s, peeled the skin back and pinned it in place. His innards were completely black and rotted. And if that wasn’t bad enough, there were hundreds of small opaque blisters coating his insides. Bewilderment was deeply etched on their faces.

     After analyzing the body for nearly three hours, Clayton, the coroner, took out his cassette recorder and began recording:

     “Subject: loyd Washington, 11/25/92. Time of death between 3:00 and 5:00 a.m. Found dead in home 11/24/92, cause of death...disease related. Contacted the party to identify the body Lawrence Washington ‑ relationship: father. Began a full-scale autopsy around 1:00 p.m. Recording  results  at 4:15 p.m.

     “Rapidly progressing disease found in body, origin is still unknown. We’ve conducted several tests and have concluded it to be a highly advanced disease, which contains hundreds of tiny single-celled organisms no bigger than a granule of salt, which were spread throughout the deceased’s body. Evidence suggests that it started within the mouth; specifically why is still inconclusive.

     “The disease is estimated to be a single living organism that is capable of giving birth, using the saliva as semen. This was confirmed in the biopsy examination under microscope when the tongue sample was analyzed. Disease spreads rapidly to the palatine tonsil and then progresses to the thyroid and tracheal cartilage until the glands are decayed. It seems that once the nerve fiber and tissues are destroyed, it then attaches itself to an adjacent part in order for it to preserve its existence. Death, however, doesn’t occur until it reaches the vital organs and burrows in the aortic valve. When it colonizes the stomach and intestines, the immune system can no longer fight it off and the individual is as good as dead.

     “I estimate that once the disease enters the body, the patient will die within five days, depending on the individual’s weight. We’ve contained a percentage of the living organisms and will send them off to the medical lab for further study. Altogether, we’ve detected approximately two or three hundred organisms inside the subject. The largest one was found under the tongue and was already dead when the subject arrived. My hunch is that's the mother and what we’re dealing with is her offspring. Also noted that between the subject’s lower teeth was a black, chalky substance found once we separated his tongue from his lower lip. Much like bacteria this substance creates lethal toxins inside the mouth which promote nausea when the individual swallows. In conclusion, I can only speculate that the organism is capable of protecting itself judging by the condition of the deceased’s mouth. No further information can be sustained on my part, due to the fact there are no previously documented cases to date. Funeral arrangements are currently being made by the father and we’ll do our best to preserve the subject in the meantime. This concludes the autopsy.”

     After Clayton hit the stop button, his assistant examiner, Daniel, a medical student fresh out of college, took a bite of his ham and cheese on rye and asked:

     “This sounds really serious, what do you think it is?”

     “I have no idea, nor do I know where it comes from.”

     “Do we have to go to the press with this?”

     “I’ll let them handle it – I’m just an observer myself, that reports to higher authority. That’s why the universities are funded with the big bucks -- for this very reason.”

     “I’ve never heard of anything that can kill so fast.”

     “Soon they’ll start an organization, asking for money.”

     “What do you speculate it is?” asked Daniel.

     “Well, I found traces of infected meat between his incisors, so who knows?  Scientifically this could be the next big plague  to wipeout mankind. Maybe, morally, AIDS is the punishment for abusing sex and this is the punishment for eating animals.”

     “If it’s beef, there are some anthrax plagues that have been transferred to man.”

     “Yea, but this isn’t a mere bacterial disease we’re dealing with – it’s a living organism! Worse...it has a goal.”

     “…First cancer then AIDS, now this. What’s next?”

     "We could get a finder's fee discovery if we can name it with some clever initials?" added Clayton.

       The assistant thought about it for a while then said:

      "How about COBS: Carbuncle Organism Bovine Syndrome? And it even makes webs in the mouth!"

      "Sounds like a winner -- write it down!"

*

     Lloyd’s funeral was small and there were  tears shed. After the service, his father proceeded to a major law firm to file a lawsuit against Mazzioti. Some five years later, his settlement left him a millionaire.

     Among the ranks of elite millionaires joined Coroner Clayton after stealing the Name disease idea from his assistant, who left a year later to become a forensics expert and had no idea until it was on the evening news one day, as were 113,000 documented new cases in that time frame. Washington was wrong. It wasn't even half-a-% of the carnivorus population - and no one traced it back to the slaughterhouse after a corrupt investigator was generously compensated to...go away. 

     This story doesn’t end with maggots devouring Lloyd’s body; but by the octopi devouring the maggots.

*

*This story was inspired by this very cover from a band called Destruction with a release called Mad Butcher back from 1988.

www.stevenmarshallhorror.com

                         © Copyright Steven Marshall 2006.

All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or republished by any means without the prior written permission of the author and the publisher. This is an original work and is protected under copyright law. 

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Miss Peach

Steven Marshall

Featured in "The Dark Art Of Wonder" 

It was spring, though still quite early in the season, when this mysterious woman came to live with us. Her purpose was to strictly manage the affairs of our household while mother was suffering some vague ailment, lingering but not serious. After dad passed away, mother was unable to cope by herself with the daily rituals of the house, exorcising dirt devils and exhuming the hidden horrors that lingered inside the carpets.  The house was large with three levels and many rooms, which seemed more intimidating in size after the fairly recent passing of my father.

The mysterious woman arrived on one of those misty, drizzling days which often prevailed during the young months of spring where we’d lived. It was a special time of year that remained a signature memory for me of a remarkable time in my life. Since mother was self-confined to her bed after the loss of dad, it left me to answer those sharp, hollow rappings on the door from the heavy lion’s head brass knocker. How they echoed through the entire house with haunting residue. 

Pulling open the door handle, so huge like a safety vault in my child’s hand, I found her standing there with her back to me, staring darkly into a world of mysterious mist surrounding our residence. Her long, black, almost bluish hair had glistened like a raven’s wing under the light of the vestibule.When she turned to finally face me, my eyes wandered up to the great ebony turban of her hair folded so tightly and elaborately into itself, I thought her eyes would pop from her head. She beheld a cold beauty about her; a stone in an icy lake of magnificent wonder.  

          “My name is…”

          “I know who you are,” I informed her.

          “Oh, do you now.  And who am I?”

          “You’re our new housekeeper…and my tutor.”

          “My name is Miss Peach.”

          “And I’m…Johnny Appleseed!” I said, amused by myself.

          “May I come in please.”

          “Yes. Mother was expecting you.”

By now, this stranger had already had a visual orientation of our vast surroundings and now wanted to gain access inside. Quite literally her place was an obscure one, lying somewhere between the peculiar mood of mother and my rambunctious one.  Moreover, the harrowing stillness of the changing season was unsettled, undecided, unclear.  Suppressed by otherworldly desolation behind dark battlements of clouds looming over a hibernal landscape stilled by nature, she at last undistracted herself for the moment to enter our vast home. Ironically, she appeared to reflect the exact mannerisms of the gloom of the day, absorbed in a dark aura of morbid clouds and engulfed in a fog all her own.

During the early part of her stay, Miss Peach was heard more often than seen. Her initial agenda, whether by instruction or interpretation, soon been engaged by her routine of wandering through the many echoing rooms and hallways of the house. Rarely was there an interruption in her sharp footsteps as they clamored and creaked on aged floorboards; day and night these noisy prancing crepitations signaled the whereabouts of our vigilant housekeeper. I would awake to her movements above my bedroom (as she lived up in our attic) with the clip-clopping of her high heels digging like daggers into the floor. The routine noises of always pacing busily about began to irritate me with her disturbances.  What was she doing that she could never quite settle herself in the privacy of her room?  Such a strange and mysterious creature, I concluded.

One time I was awakened in the middle of the night, though it was not her prancing that ruptured my sleep. I was also not sure why I couldn’t get back to sleep or even close my eyes again. I decided to get out of bed and further investigate the source of my curiosity. I quietly opened my bedroom door and peered down the dark and narrow hallway. At the end of that very long passage was the balcony window filled with an eerie, livid radiance of moonlight.Within the window’s portrait was the shadowy silhouette of one Miss Peach, as black as her raven-colored hair. She was staring so intently through the window that she didn’t seem to notice my presence. I watched her for some time then finally went back to bed. That night I had the most horribly vivid nightmare; so lucid in its realism.

The following day I began drawing a series of sketches depicting my nightmares. What first started as doodles in my schoolbook began taking on swifter evolutions of much greater size and ambition. I was surprised that these images did not include an overt portrayal of the illusive Miss Peach in the flesh, or any other banal images of her likes that might serve by way of symbolism or association. 

Instead my illustrations depicted scenes from some strange and cruel kingdom. Possessed by ever curious moods and haunted visions, I sketched some bleak domain obscured by mist whose depths brought forth a plethora of fog or strange clouds. The structure seemed to rise forever upward with jagged shadows and unseen acmes; all somehow twisted into suggestions of some bizarre savagery. From a matrix of fertile haze spawned forth a litter of towering edifices that combined both castle and crypt; a many peaked palace or multi-chambered mausoleum. There were also clusters of smaller structures, warped offshoots of the greater ones, lending home to a dwelling of an ominously intimate dungeon cell reserved for only the most exclusive of captivity and perhaps torture. The structure seemed to fold into itself and suffocate all who entered. 

I beheld no special genus in my execution of these phantasmal venues. My technique was non-developed, simple; a barbaric child sketch, unable to introduce images of dimension or depth. Certainly it did not capture the imagery of my imagination that seemed integral to a proper presentation. Like the mysterious making of their shapes, their source could only be found in one Miss Peach.

Although I had not intended on showing her my drawings there was evidence that she had indulged in some private viewings of them. They lay out in the open on my desk in my bedroom and I made no effort to conceal them.  Still, I had sensed a subtle disarrangement of my work and began to suspect their order was disturbed in my absence when I was downstairs having some breakfast.  Her presence in there was vaguely telling but inconclusive. Finally she gave herself away and was betrayed by her own curiosity. I had discovered a certain revelation in her investigation: Lying in between two of the drawings, pressed like a memento in an old scrapbook, sat a long black strand of her hair.

I wanted to confront her immediately regarding her intrusion, not that I resented her exploring, more to seize an opportunity to further scrutinize this devious and eccentric creature that pranced freely about our house. But she was nowhere to be found at the time and must have ventured somewhere outside the perimeters of our domain. 

I decided to reverse the roles and pry into the serenity of her private sanctum in the upper penthouse quarters of our house. After entering her room and rummaging about, I realized she was not using it at all, nor was she settled.  I sensed the curious presence of a woman from the bittersweet fragrances of her perfumes lingering around me and could easily distinguish the difference from those of my room -- then I had my answer.  As I turned around I found her standing there in the doorway, staring at nothing with anticipating eyes; face expressionless. 

I nevertheless found myself in a position of mild chastisement, losing the advantage I possessed earlier over my invader. Yet there was no mention of either transgression, despite what seemed our mutual understanding of them. We had drifted into an abyss of unspoken reproaches and sneaky suspicions. Then finally Miss Peach rescued my escalating awkwardness with an abrupt announcement:

“I have spoken with your mother,” she declared in a firm tone, “and we have both concluded that I should begin your tutoring on Monday to help you along with your…weaker subjects. Your mother doesn’t think you should go back to public school yet, until you have resolved the passing of your father. So we begin 8:00 sharp Monday morning.  We shall begin class here.” 

I must have unconsciously nodded in acknowledgment without even realizing. Right after her brief dissertation, she turned and walked away, leaving her words to resound in the cavity of the room as well as my mind. My presence seemed to have been eclipsed by the swelling shadow of Miss Peach.Nonetheless this extra-scholastic newsflash seemed to form the first personal bond between us. 

And so my tutorship would be conducted in her lair, bright and early on Monday. As I returned to the starless attic, I noticed for the first time how the slanted wooden ceiling exposed all its hideous rot spots along the old beams and warped frames like the ribs of some amphibious fossils or  some ancient inverted seagoing vessel that may carry us to destinations unknown. The only illumination by which I was schooled under came from whatever daylight the window drank in from the sun when it was not shrouded by the tall trees. When the overcast of late afternoon washed away the only light source, Miss Peach had provided her own in the form of an old oil-burning lantern which gave off a faint emanation of vanilla wax and fresh rain. The lights cascaded the room with wafting shadows of a tribal nature like an Indian wardance: soft, rippling phantasmagoric vapors on the wall. Dark ghosts of a yesteryear celebration of some bizarre sort.

Early in the afternoon, Miss Peach had taken the liberty to prepare some lunch to nourish my body after doing the same with my mind. It was during that time that I could now finally distinguish her pale and delicate features. In the kitchen we acquainted ourselves with each others' presence. After feeding me cheese, lettuce and tomato on whole wheat, she rewarded herself with the nectar of a freshly picked orange soon to be drained of its last breath to make her afternoon. Miss peach slowly escorted her soon to be victim to the Ginsu chamber and placed the naked ball of fruit in the blender. Then, without any warning, she flicked the switch of death and watched in awe as it became entangled in a shredded typhoon of citric acid; its pulpy, orange blood running scarlet on the see-through plastic walls of the blender. The massive dicing produced a rainbow reflection that hovered like a fractured soul inside it. And deep within the plastic death chamber, a seed's scream went unheard as the seed gazed up only to discover a large pair of human eyes bulging impossibly wide and staring down upon it. 

Miss Peach was diligently checking for stranded seeds in the blender while transferring the orange juice into her glass. She told me she had accidentally choked on a seed yesterday and admonished herself for a lack of observation. Certainly she did not want the seeds to muse over their triumph in the act of her repeating this foolish deed. And just as she lifted the glass to her lips in eager anticipation of relishing its sweet ice-cold taste, she suddenly succumbed to her senses and temporarily lost her sight. 

She wasn't rendered unconscious, nor had she blacked out; in fact, she was still standing in an upright position. A vision was starting to form inside her mind; she could sense its familiar embrace. Then she felt a hot flash of dizziness. She asked me to dismiss myself at once so she could suffer her euphoric spell in private. I questioned her not and did as I was told. I retreated back to the lofty den that was her parlor and now my base of new learning rituals. And she would see to that I received a proper education. 

I studied the attic room further while she was busy regaining her composure. The only furniture present was an old, antique Armour to execute my studies, a small, brown wooden chair, quite uncomfortable, and a white dresser where I presumed she kept her attire.  The low lying guest bed still looked unused as if no one, including herself, had bunked down in it.  Once again I turned around only to find her immediate presence upon me.

“In a room such as this…one learns things of great importance.”

Without trying to analyze her esoteric rhetoric, I acknowledged her brief discourse with a nod of comprehension.What followed was a series of fascinating lectures she imposed on my child’s fertile imagination. She was concerned with my development in subjects like history and geography. Occasionally she imparted her knowledge of science and philosophy, more in an informal manner. She lectured from memory, never from a book or film. And she never faltered in her delivery of countless facts in her unconventional way of enhancing and nurturing my education. Her discussions were not quite as meandering as her prancing footsteps in my mind. Eventually, I began to extract certain wisdom and ideas from her chaotic syllabus. She would revisit her subjects and say them in another way to see if they stayed cohesive in my mind by my reaction. She started from the very beginning of time with the first twitchings of amoebic life to man, portraying a world of the most rudimentary laws; ending in ones so advanced, they could only be described as visceral practices of philosophical intrigue. 

She taught in speculative theory, always leaving room for my own definition and interpretation without imposing a set in a stone viewpoint. In time, I became intimate with my knowledge of ancient atrocities and massacres over the centuries; curious methods of torture and punishment, brutal airs of exile, dark realms littered with dead city corpses; hot, sweltering jungles and deserts where life is intolerable to bear. And cold, icy ruins of glacial phosphorescence sheltering homes to cold-blooded life forms. Life was a strange mystery indeed. 

In time, however, Miss Peach and her specialized curriculum had dulled with repetition and familiarity, where it was initially so very engrossing. I began to fidget about in my seat, tapping my antsy fingers on my knees. I was looking up at the ceiling rather than gazing straight ahead, now feeling claustrophobic. Suddenly, as if sensing my preoccupation and distraction, she stopped talking. She approached, looming over me as did her shadow, now exacting her rubber-tipped pointer on my frail shoulder, grazing my neck. As I looked up, she was now leering down at me with her coal-dark eyes and a beehive of black bundled hair knitted tightly in place.

“In a room such as this one must also learn to behave properly” she stated, retracting from me as if being magnetically drawn to the attic window. All was silent henceforth as she gazed into a world of suspended animation hanging in obscure perpetuity.  She was also listening to it as well, apparently.     

          “I’m sorry, Miss Peach.”

          “Do you know the sound of something that stings the air?” she asked. “You will know the sound of that soon if you do not listen to me, young man.”

          “Yes, Miss Peach,” I said, automatically arching myself up in my seat.

          “You will be more attentive in the wisdom I bestow on you, child.”

          “I can’t help it. I’m bored being cooped up in darkness all day.”

          “You will stand and go to the corner by the closet door -- NOW!  You may remove your pants to receive your punishment …those too.  Hands out…” 

          Then after it happened: “That will be all for today.  Class is dismissed.”

           I gathered my studies and retreats to the hollow confines of room, confused.

Class did not resume the following day or even week…nor ever again. But my brief tutorship continued on in my mind long after. Subconsciously all her diatribes had manifested into my vocabulary, her shadowy visions and sweet smells lingered in my boy’s mind all the way to adulthood. It was a tender time of adolescent development for me and I feel her in my dreams to this day. Especially as I look out the window and see…stillness.

It seemed that my lessons with Miss Peach had continued their lingering effect on me in a profound way. Those afternoons in the dank attic must have exhausted something within me while mother was in her own faraway world, suffering from her own demons in her private purgatory. For a while, I could not leave my bed. During this limbotic period, Miss Peach had suffered a decline of her own, allowing her intangible sympathies and sorrows to come between us. There existed this newly formed bond between us that was severed with this guilty omen she possessed harboring remorse over something much deeper and more entangled. We had somehow reverted back into a restless wandering of anticipation that failed to settle itself into any kind of repose thereafter. To some extent, I think that my own process of degeneration followed that of Miss Peach and was transferred from the original source: mother.  It seemed my father’s death left a harvesting sorrow in his absence -- from which mother never truly returned. 

On her visits to my room, during those still and unsettled times of the season, Miss Peach manifested herself often and always unannounced with her new lessons of the day. I could observe the phases of her disillusion on both a physical and mental level. Her hair hung loosely over her shoulders and unfolded itself like the dark woven tapestry of a nightmare. Moreover, her need to cling to strictly mundane elements had quickly eroded from her being to unleash a more shockingly dark inner side of her, completely alien to me. 

My new relationship with Miss Peach was intimately conducted and practiced over and again with bodily exchanges of a highly questionable order to conservative beings. But any attempts to exorcise this unquenchable demon from her were a failure. Every time I woke, I found her sitting there on the edge of my bed, cursed by my lingering ailment, feeling long wisps of her raven-like hair draped down and tickled my chest or brushed against my face, summoning me back to that evil and forbidden place of pure feminine hunger. I eventually recovered from the physical ailments that plagued me…but the mental ones?    

In retrospect, I think Miss Peach had been lost to a world of wholesome practicalities that morphed into an extraordinary bond starved from her youth, while her mannerisms betrayed a fateful and hypnotic determination to satiate her inner demon longing to escape. That escape came in the form of me and my…apple seed. One that I could not have resisted nor even felt alienated by, but became well-versed in following the years to come. But apparently she still had one more lesson to teach me.

On the last day of her quite gainful employment sponsored by my ever plagued mother, (who now rests beside my father) Miss Peach asked me to go for a walk into the thick, looming fog outside of our house so she could show me one more sight. Having a child’s magical curiosity, I followed Miss Peach into that vast landscape of smothered mist. After journeying into the heart of it, we lost sight of the house, and even the ground beneath our feet. Instead, we found ourselves surrounded by a floating web of clouds submerged in some thick milky retreat. She took my hand as if self-guided by some unseen force of a peculiar vision, setting both of us on a strange feeling path. It was a more familiar sensation within her soft, velvety canopy of intrigue and this newly forming growth that could not contain itself any longer… 

When I tightened my grip on Miss Peach’s hand, which seemed to be fading in substance and texture, like the shadow of a lost dream; something so vastly interwoven then torn apart like a spider’s web blown in the gusty winds.   

In that landscape, we merged once again and had a revelation like a Leviathan rising into view from the abyss; a monstrous world defined itself before our eyes through the infinity of the fog, leading to a secret arcane discovery for us.

Still something lie obscured in the shadows, unconcealed in the overall discovery of my ultimate revelation. It was a righteous, cacophonous echo that wailed a siren of a much darker truth, one I was living and enduring without realizing the true nature of it.

The kingdom was coming into view by daylight way of thought. It was more vast and intricate than any of my oddest imaginings and it could truly never be sketched. Structures within portals sprung out in a patternless conglomerate of crystals clustered by multifaceted monuments and such of incredible architecture embodied in a misty graveyard of the dead’s deceased. Indeed it was a dead city as Miss Peach described. All the residents were entombed in its walls as faceless souls of the defunct! It looked like a mountain range with wildly carved peaks and chasms, sheltered by a medieval ominous sky of some great impending thunderstorm brewing on the dark horizon, suggesting a palace of atrocious potential; an infinite country that hovered beyond the fog, mist and unsettled skies of barren horizons.

          Miss Peach stood in hypnotic awe, consumed by the sight.

          “Did you hear them,” she asked. 

          “I heard…something,” I confessed.

          “They are the cries of what we cannot see, condemned by mediocrity. Sounds of things that sting the air before bearing down upon naked flesh. The sounds of lonely, suffocated souls forever reaching, but never quite touching. They can be found behind the vapors of an immense and awful kingdom of woeful decrepitude from whence we just came: it’s called the ailment of depression. Let this be a life lesson to you, forevermore… class is permanently dismissed.”

It was only then she released her hand from mine and drifted onward forever. There was no struggle, she'd known for a long time what secrets loomed beyond the background of her mental wanderings and the kingdom embraced her stealthy approach. Somewhere I heard the clip-clopping of high heels echoing far away. Perhaps she sought the ultimate in forbidden knowledge beyond human flesh. Nevertheless she inherited me the heir of her visions and expansive knowledge as I now stood a visceral explorer and student of the unknown, feeling a little richer in wisdom and understanding. 

The fog encompassed her shadow in a rapture of embrace until there was nothing visible left of her.  But her ghost in the fog of my mind lives on to this day. After I managed to find my senses and geographical bearings, I found myself standing facing the back of my house like it was there all along.

Soon after the odd disappearance of Miss Peach, our household established its routine of habitual rituals again; its daily cycle of life and lifelessness.  My mother had made a strong recovery -- no longer a victim suffering from the ailing, self-manufactured pseudo-illness that possessed her. She noticed the hired help had vanished without giving notice which caused little surprise in mother.

          “Such a flighty, mysterious creature,” mother observed.

I supported this brief characterization of Miss Peach but offered nothing by way of explanation for her disappearance or true nature of her flight. In truth, no words of mine back then or even now could have brought the least bit of clarity to aid the situation! Nor did I want to divulge the magical episodes of what she'd left behind in the attic or my room for that matter. For deep in those dark chambers remains the essence of my childhood, blossoming into a man. I'd often revisited her room where we frolicked in our own adventures. And the smell of her womanly fragrances still remains ever ripe in my mind today.  Especially on those long afternoons in early spring when I can’t close my eyes and hear the sounds that call out to me from a fog of an unsettled, changing season.

A cunning linguist Miss Peach remained, as did her vocabulary in me. Life has mathematically added a “zero” to my age since Miss Peach’s visit. I have gone from an 8 year young boy to an 80 year old man in a waking glance and I am flourishing on my deathbed now, dying of liver cancer. 

Indeed, this house, our kingdom, had taken over once-vibrant beings and usurped the very essence of life from their souls. First dad then mom then Miss Peach then eventually…me. And it all started with the death of who mom and I shared our lives with. I miss you both, but I’ll be coming home very soon. And thank you, Miss Peach, for that brief but memorable lifetime of wisdom…

*

© Copyright Steven Marshall 2008

                     

      Conversation With Death 

                           Featured in The Dark Art of Wonder

                       Steven Marshall

"May I have a cigarette?” asked a stranger passing me by in the park.

I obliged nonchalantly, but nonetheless provided him with one. And despite no evidence of being a smoker myself, he still somehow detected a target in me and my concealed treasure, of which he found himself a lucky recipient. Despite being a rickety wisp of a man, his tone conveyed that of a confident but gentle mannerism that posed no threat. Just a friendly, carefree old man down on his luck.

I could remember when the city park used to be a safe haven where people could go about their leisure; where joggers and walkers could drink the morning air into their lungs, couples could sip each others’ lips on a park bench and children could just be themselves at play without the worries of the new world disorders. Now the local gangs and troubled teens rule by majority, intimidating and deterring the good folk who once enjoyed the civil liberties of their tax dollars. Where addicts and homeless people have since claimed it as their place of residence by night, leaving their empty liquor bottles behind, or syringes of their habits in the sandbox for school children to uncover come playtime. Indeed, the park used to be a place of childhood dreams -- now littered with the filth of broken ones.

“May I have a light please?” asked the stranger again.

“What? Oh, yeah, sure,” I replied distracted.

“Would you care to join me on the bench and have one with me? And I promise I will ask nothing more of you other than perhaps your opinions and viewpoints.”

‘Did I hear him say perhaps?’ I mused in wonder. Normally I would not find much mental stimuli hanging out with the local vermin, but not having much of an agenda at that particular moment, I got the impression he was just seeking advice from the company of a stranger. Maybe he was lonely and in need of some companionship. Either that, or it was a prelude to him hitting me up for some money. I decided, as I sat, that time would be my only charity; otherwise more of his kind would emerge from the woodwork, like some regular night-of-the-living-dead, seeking my flesh.

“Ya know, you have that look of a thinking man trying to figure out the ways of the world,” he said with a raspy voice and haggard laugh as he exhaled the smoke from his lungs. Small talk/personal observations were typical rules of engagement in a New York city hustle, as a way of lowering people’s guards.

“What kind of look was that?” I humored.

“Perplexed…distraught. Not content,” he observed.

“Long day at work, just trying to unwind,” I replied, averting my gaze from him.

“You’re answering like a politician.”

“No offense, but after all, you are a perfect stranger.”

“First of all I'm far from perfect and it’s not that I’m a ‘stranger’ it’s that we’ve only just met. Besides, some of the best and impartial advice comes from strangers.”

Just as I sensed him getting confrontational, he demonstrated some reason and humor in his response that had caught my interest, at least for conversations sake. So I played along for the time being under the harmless guise of a cigarette as he chatted away about everything and nothing.

“Even though I’m on vacation at the moment, I can relate to a long day at work and being frustrated. I may not share your lifestyle and all, but I’m willing to wager that we think and feel alike about things and perhaps we have more in common than you think. There’s always parallels bringing people together,” he surmised with a smile.

‘Interesting perspective; did he just make a point?’ I thought. “What kind of work do you do, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Course not, I’m in murders and executions, but like I said, I’m taking a little vacation away from it all,” he said facetiously like some inside joke, which I didn’t really understand at the time.

“Ah, yes, mergers and acquisitions,” I said, half listening. “I’m familiar with the field, being an accountant.”

“Yep, everything seems to be this numbers game nowadays, destined to be some statistic,” he philosophized, easing along the conversation. I smiled politely, still expecting some pitch. He leaned forward, stubbing his cigarette halfway through on the edge of the bench.

“Care for another one?” I graciously offered to spare him the indignity of begging, groveling or worse.

“Sure I would and thank you again,” he said smiling, exposing a mouth full of rot with a vagrant’s pride.

“So what kind of advice were you seeking?” I asked, wanting to get to the point.

“I’m not seeking advice. As I said I just wanted your opinions and viewpoints on things. I’m a tired and lonely old man who enjoys the simple pleasures of a good conversation once in a while when I’m not working. No harm in that I hope!”

“Oh right, of course not,” I fumbled in embarrassment.

“I’ve had enough advice to last me a lifetime and none of it led to any success. Now all I know is I’m more time poor than money poor,” he brooded.

“Well, success isn’t always measured in money. As far as time, you can’t count time, only make time count,” I clichéd.

“Sounds like clever advice in disguise to me," he said. “Like I said, not interested.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Guess that’s just the accountant in me. Always budgeting things.”

“Well, you seem like you do pretty well for yourself, judging by your looks.”

“I try to live modestly. I might have a champagne fancy, but a cheap wine lifestyle…excuse me, I don’t mean anything by it with regards to you,” I hesitated, realizing he may want to part me from what little I had on me.

“No offense taken and just so you know, I have no monetary interest with regards to you, so you can relax,” he assured me.

“Let’s start over,” I said humbly. “What opinions or viewpoints interest you?”

“They are too numerous to mention…but lately and particularly today I had something on my mind…”

“You’ve got my full attention,” I assured him.

“I’m kind of curious by nature. Example: did you ever wonder what it feels like to be dead?” he asked out of nowhere.

“Pretty still I imagine,” I said vainly.

“I’m sure you can do better than that,” he encouraged.

“Are you feeling…suicidal or something?” I asked as a practical inquiry, all the while observing his condition.

“I didn’t say being dead, I just asked what death might feel like,” he clarified.

“I thought the point of death is that you don’t feel anything; you’re dead.”

“Don’t be so conventional in your way of thinking. Use your imagination and answer the question seriously. Go ahead and close your eyes if you have to,” he said with conviction.

“Is this the part where I get jumped and mugged?” I asked in a way that wouldn’t offend him or challenge his character.

“Be serious. Can you answer the question?”

“What does death actually feel like?” I quoted, affirming the inquiry before me.

“Exactly the question!” he stated confidently.

“Hmm. Let me think for a minute,” I said, buying time, at a loss for words.

“No problem, take your time. Remember there are no right or wrong answers, just your opinions and viewpoints,” he assured.

“Right, okay,” I said, feeling out the situation I had somehow obligated myself to. Somehow the wisdom was evading me at the moment, but my interest was intrigued by the challenge, so I attempted to humor him with some...poetic words. “Maybe like…the cool air of a grey sky ripened with decay in the late afternoon of a perpetual autumn,” I stated -- proud of myself, hanging onto certain words for an intended effect.

“Not bad for a first attempt. Now try again, but think more in terms of the body.”

“What do you think it is?” I asked, offended that he altogether dismissed my answer, without even considering my wisdom.

“You first. I asked you. I don’t want you plagiarizing my idea with my point of view,” he chastised wiggling a wrinkled finger.

“Right, okay,” I replied, still thinking. “How about, let’s see… how about an empty shell frozen in blackness, like a perpetual winter night isolated in the still of time.”

“Stop with the fancy ear pleasing bullshit. Allow your vision to become clear in the darkness. Feel what the body would feel. Try once more. Think deeper.”

I sighed, a little disenchanted and was starting to get fidgety, almost losing interest. Like he had the defining answer to it, yet probably no place to even call home. Who was he trying to fool, saying that he was on vacation? He looked like he hadn’t showered in weeks and was now clutching at straws just to keep my company and perhaps acquire more cigarettes. By this point I just wanted to complete the objective before me so I reluctantly decided to play along. Now concentrating, I allowed myself to sink to a depth I had not previously known. I really started getting in harmony with death and picturing it vividly in my mind’s eye. Then something came to me:

I depicted a ruin of dark underground catacombs buried deep beneath the earth, glowing with glacial phosphorescence in some subterranean wasteland. Deep inside of it, I envisioned a wooden casket standing in an upright position slowly opening its stiff door. As it came into full view, the cadaver was barely supporting the last of its flesh. Its emaciated muscle remains were clinging feebly to its fragile bones. Its hair looked like spidery cobwebs sprinkled with dust and age; its eyes sunken into the shells of their sockets; lips all shriveled like dried up worms around its smiling skeletal teeth. The corpse had an empty and haunting vacancy on its expression, as if it could almost look right into me, despite having no eyes.

I held the image vividly inside my mind as I stomped out my cigarette underfoot. And now I imagined the actual feeling of death as one I never had before…

“Yes, of course, that’s it: the answer was right before me the whole time…dying is but a cigarette burning down slowly with each passing day. Life is the ember consuming it to ashes. The smoke is like the soul ascending and dispersing in the air. And the act of death is the stomping out of a cigarette underfoot, leaving only the ‘filter’ of the corpse behind; your life merely vanquished and extinguished just as quickly as that.”

“I’m afraid it’s much more simple than that,” he commented. “When the fluids are drained from the body and the flesh has gone ragged with decay, the feeling of death is nothing more than a prolonged itching sensation that cannot be scratched. Simple and as complicated as that,” he concluded, stomping out his own cigarette, smiling with a profound wisdom.

“That’s it? A terrible itch, nothing more?” I asked in disbelief.

“That’s it, my friend,” he said convincingly.

“And how is it that you have such knowledge?”

“Well, I’ve been doing this for quite some time now, that’s why I needed a small vacation. Murders and executions and all. For example, the body I’m residing in was my last victim, Calvin Walker. I needed to take a walk in the flesh and see things from the point of view of those I claim. So this black gentleman you see here next to you was Calvin. He was scheduled for a heart attack. Once I confirmed my target I walked up to him, wrapped my hand around his heart and took over his body.

But I’ve been on vacation nearly a week now and I have to be getting back to work very soon. Gotta fulfill my demanding quota in this crazy numbers game! They raised the bar on me once again. In about ten minutes or so, I have this party of four scheduled for a fatal carwreck -– right across the street from here. You can stay and watch if you like, perhaps gain some perspective…” he said convincingly.

“Good one, you had me going there for a minute.”

“Oh, by the way, funny we should run into each other now, almost ironic in fact! Your number is coming up; not now. But soon. If I had more time, I’d clue you in, but I don’t want to spoil the surprise of death. Not to worry, we’ll reschedule and meet again. Then true knowledge of this shall be yours. Well I quite enjoyed this conversation and your perspective...but I have to get going now. Thank you for the company and for the cigarettes…and careful, these things could kill you someday.”

“Look, I didn’t catch your name and all, but how naïve do you think I am? Do you really expect me to believe that you’re…?”

Then, something out of the corner of my eye seized me in the midst of my sentence…

As I turned to glance at him, his whole body suddenly slumped forward on the bench and just crumpled onto the ground in a lifeless spill. The man lay face-first on the ground and showed no sign of getting up. I panicked and immediately sprung off the bench and ran as fast as I could, never turning to look back or even consider if it was a prank. But the strangest feeling came over me that told me that what I saw that day was indeed the face of death, if in fact it had one.

Along with the unexpected trauma imposed on me that day, I still look back and reflect in dark wonder and awe, pondering when my time is coming. A haunting memory resounded as I recollected the dead thing on the bench. More disturbing were the words he spoke when I confirmed in New York Newsday a head-on collision claiming four lives on that day. I have now resolved all my doubts with a certain belief that it was not my imagination. While there was no mention of the older black gentleman, often homeless folk dying in the park don’t make headlines. Maybe I am reflecting on the very phenomenon of death itself…or the form in which it appeared to me.

It’s now two months later and still I observe every precaution, not knowing exactly what he meant by ‘soon’. But I have since stopped smoking, even though I know I still cannot avoid the inevitable if it should quickly claim me. So each time I think in retrospect of that day, I have a renewed sense of life and a profound appreciation for death. And often these thoughts are accompanied by this soft tickling right at the base of my neck. Sometimes I can even feel these deep internal itchings, like the reaper’s sickle tickling my stomach with a feather of death. Alas, they are ones I cannot scratch…

And if you were to ask me after this incident, I would say, “Life is not a walk through the park…but who’s to say death isn’t?"

            *                 

 The Beauty of Decay

Featured in “The Banished”

 Steven Marshall

        The vast overabundance of toxic chemicals in the enclosed atmosphere created spontaneous combustion, triggering explosions throughout the entire factory with deadly radiation. The noxious gases flooded the halls like water in a ruptured submarine, choking the lungs of anyone who breathed it and collapsing them to an agonizing death. Just inside of a minute, half of the inmates on the workforce labor crew were banished to extinction from the initial blast. The other crew on the level below were fleeing for their lives and seeking refuge from the radiation seething through the air. No one knew or cared what had happened to the guards or the other factory workers. Their only concern was seeking immediate shelter and temporary safety before becoming extinct themselves.

          The explosions reverberated above and around them as they frantically followed each other progressively downward to the lower levels until they reached the boiler room. The inmates of the second crew had seized a hostage who they forcefully escorted along. He was the last surviving janitor who worked boiler room maintenance at the factory. He led the inmates straight into the closet supply room in fear of his life. Once inside they shut the door and flicked on the lights. Above them, they could hear thunderous explosions, footsteps racing, voices screaming and hollow thuds of fallen bodies collapsing to the floor. Mass chaos was escalating above and around them. It was difficult to distinguish the explosions from the gunshots.

          The air in the supply room was rippling with vapors from the intensity of heat, making it unbearable to breathe. There were eleven of them in there in total, sucking up all the breathable air in a small contained environment. Each moment of panic and anxiety drained the source of their precious remaining air. Together they had been randomly thrown into a predicament of dire consequences with no hope of making it out alive. Each surveyed those amongst them to see whose faces they recognized. They knew they had to devise a plan quickly and swiftly.

          “What the fuck happened?” screamed one of the inmates.

“Can't you see, there’s been a chemical explosion! The entire factory has been destroyed!” responded Jake, addressing the mediocrity.

“What the hell are we going to do?” asked another.

“I’ll tell you what we are going to do,” asserted Jake. “Use this as our one chance of escape! But not just yet – it’s still too lethal up there; it’ll peel the flesh of your bones before you can make it out. We must wait, but not too long. They’ll want to contain the area and will probably have the National Guard out here within the hour because it’s a prison break security risk.”

“How long 'for we get the fuck outta here?” asked the first.

“At least 30 minutes, but we’ll need to prepare ourselves before we can go back out there as the toxic fumes will still be rippling in the air.  Believe me, you don’t want to breathe that shit!” reinforced Jake.

“He’s right. We don’t stand a chance until some of the debris settles,” intervened the factory lab technician, who instinctively followed them into the boiler room. “You think it’s hot in here now? Wait until you get upstairs and feel heat from explosions! We’ll need to bundle up.  Even a half hour might be too soon to go.” 

“It will have to do and we’ll just have to take our chances,” persisted Jake, assuming a leadership role among them.

“Who the fuck are these two?” a Mohawked skinhead wanted to know.

“I’m Stan Hammond, one of the factory scientists here.”

“I’m…Robert, the boiler room maintenance guy.”

“Robert, I take it you are knowledgeable about the layout?  Would you like a second chance at life?” negotiated Jake.

“Yes. Sure,” Robert humbly spouted.

“If we make it out, you are both coming with us. If either of you try to escape I will kill you myself,” promised Jake.

“What the Hell do we need the other one for?” the skinhead protested in reference to the scientist. “The more we have with us, the more it slows us down. The better chances the cops will have at spotting us.”

“Hostage for now, knowledge for later; knowledge on surviving out in the woods. We must band together as one despite any of our differences and backgrounds. We'll have to accept the fact that if we survive beyond today, life will be much more difficult than we knew it and forevermore tainted. We’ll have to make a home in the woods so as not to be caught by the cops. That includes learning how to hunt for food and sleep outdoors. We stand no chance in society. Not now, not ever. There will be a national APB out on us.”

“Wait. How many of us are in here? (After counting) 11? Hey, where’s Russo and Sugar Pop?” asked the skinhead, assessing their situation.

“If they’re not here then assume they’re dead. If not by the explosion then gunned down by the guards. Now let’s not waste any time or oxygen on irrelevant details. Robert, where do you keep the paper face masks you use when you’re cleaning?” asked Jake, refocusing the priorities.

“Right over here in this box,” obliged Robert, pointing to it.

          The inmates tore wildly at the box and shredded it open. A full supply of paper masks started toppling out, enough that they could take a handful each. They would need at least that to shield them from the toxicity looming about in the air. They found some worker jackets on a storage rack. They passed them around until each had a coat and extra face mask then prepared themselves mentally for what lay ahead.

“Robert, tell me you know the way out. Keep in mind the continuance of your life depends on the right answer here,” interrogated Jake.

“Yes. Yes I do…” Robert said, exasperated.

“Great choice for an answer! Now Robert, same stakes as the previous question. Do you hold the magic key for the way out? Don’t let us down with the answer, Robert, we are quite desperate and will do whatever it takes to get out alive!”

“Not exactly. The factory doesn’t issue keys to the workers, only management. When you guys come to work they turn the whole place into lockdown. Even I’m treated like a prisoner. But I do know where the exit is. Isn’t that key enough?” Robert boldly inquired.

“It is for now, but don’t let me find out otherwise that you’re lying!  So then we’ll need some kind of battering ram for the door. What do you have that’s like that?”

“Just a hammer in my toolbox to smash the knob. We would only have enough time to break the knob off.  Can’t saw, pick or batter the door and breathe that shit all at the same time, you’ll collapse and die.  So it’s your best bet.”

“What kind of door is it?” asked Jake.

“Full metal security door with a round iron knob. There’s no digital access so it’s not code sensitive. It leads out to the loading dock for incoming supplies.”

“What’s beyond that?” probed Jake.

“Dirt road, leading to a 20 ft high barbed wire metal fence all the way around it. Same material and height as what’s around your prison. You’ll need some large wire metal clippers.  Fortunately I got a pair right here in my toolbox.”

“Good, we’ll need them. What else obstacle-wise?”

“Nothing I can think of. Just whatever is left of the guards.”

“Just in case something happens to you, what’s the exact way to that door?”

“Well, you go up one level, make a right into a reverse L, then another right down the corridor to a gray metal door. That leads to the fence which is code locked.”

“Assuming the police aren’t swarming the area by the time we make it that far,” scowled the skinhead with grave disapproval.

“There’s no other choice. It’s all or nothing. You can stay and take your chances or be ready to die out there. Either way, death will come quickly,” Jake said grimly to the group, advising them of their fate.

“How long we been in here now? I’m getting claustrophobic,” inquired Jackson, one of the two black inmates among them.

“Not even fifteen minutes. We have to wait at least that long before we go back up”.

“Sh-iiit. It’s like the ferret going in da snake hole,” observed Jackson.

“You mean mongoose. Let’s just hope that no one’s home,” corrected Jake, all the while maintaining a leadership role.

“What else we gonna need?” asked Jackson.

“Whatever we can find.  Let’s start looking,” suggested Jake.

          The next fifteen minutes were ones of  anxiety, curiosity and apprehension. They had managed to acquire some crude smashing devices, a few stabbing instruments, a painter’s tarp to cover over the sharp razor wire fence -- and two hostages/tour guides. Each grew increasingly nervous about the grueling situation they faced where life could turn to death in an instant.  Some might already be statistics for death, they just didn’t know who among them yet. Would it be death by radiation, suffocation, gunshot elimination or just some random explodification somewhere along the way? Would any of them even survive beyond today or were they all destined to die, each silently wondered. The odds of survival in light of their situation were against them. Given their current predicament, there was no other choice.

          With sufficient layers of paper masks wrapped around their faces they looked like true bandits as they exited the boiler room. Above them, they heard fast moving footsteps pursuing other fast moving footsteps clanking along the hollow metal platform. A gunshot was fired and a voice cursed the air. The sound of a body fell and then a more authoritative voice sounded. After a brief pause, “Fuck you pig,” resounded off the walls then yet another gunshot rang out. “Yo, dat sounded like Sugar Pop!” whispered Jackson. The footsteps gradually withdrew as they waited a full minute before proceeding onto the next level where the radiation was most intense.

          “If it was Sugar, he’s dead now. Here’s the plan: Weapons guys in the front and back and supply guys in the middle. We’ll need to form a barrier around us and be ready for anything. “Just keep your voices down and stay sharp,” whispered Jake to the group.

          As they opened the door to the ground level of the factory, back the way they came, they could see the air vapors swelling and pulsing with radioactivity. They made a run for it all at once and proceeded stealthily according to the route that Robert had laid for them. Immediately they could feel their eyes and lungs burning with sharp painful omissions of the lethal vapors in the air. It was almost unbearable as the tears welled up in their eyes blurring their vision. It felt like an entire onslaught of bees had filled their chest and were stinging them in unison as they ran in an L pattern along the scalding hot metal platform.

          They made a right down the long corridor leading to the rear exit of the factory. Sure enough the dead body of Sugar Pop lay crumpled up on the platform as they passed. By the time they reached the exit, their skin was molten hot, starting to boil and shrivel like dried prunes. The skin on their arms was beginning to clump and melt like a puddle of wax corrugating over itself. There were no visible openings along the way where any of the explosions had blown holes through the walls, thus they were faced with the gray steel door in front of them. They were incredibly weakened from the otherwise short trek due to the combustion of chemicals cascading in the air. A clump of flesh fell off one of the inmate’s cheeks and he started choking on the air, violently coughing up blood. He fell to his knees and his facemasks shifted underneath his chin. He breathed in and puked up some bile-like mucous mixed with blood as his eyes rolled up in his head. Death came slowly and painfully as he bucked and convulsed a few times before it claimed him.

          The skinhead wasted no time mourning his death as he smashed the hammer over the knob several times. It started to dent and bend, but the radiation had usurped much of his strength. He cursed at it while the others desperately implored him to break past it. Fear and adrenaline coursed through them intensely, uncertain if they could hold out even for another second. Jake slammed all his weight into the door and kicked at the knob but to no avail. The skinhead took one last whack and the knob finally buckled and gave way.

          Just as the first few of the pack burst through, another gunshot ruptured behind them and another inmate fell; a skinny, rakish looking white guy with awful jail made prison tattoos and a long mullet. The bullet had planted itself into his spine as he was hurled forward. Behind them, a young prison guard, horribly marred and disfigured by the chemicals of the radiation, stood weakly against the railing. A muscular biker inmate in back turned and saw him and reacted immediately. He held in his possession a very large wrench from the supply room and cast it right at the guard. The wrench boomeranged through the air and struck the officer in the side of his head as he turned to avoid it. The firearm was knocked out of the officer’s hand and he lost his balance, dropping it over the rail. He tried valiantly to grasp it, but must have been too dizzied from the impact of the wrench. His body toppled over the rail where he met a certain death in one sickening hollow thud.

          They burst outside into the warm sunny air and stayed clear of the exit as much of the contained radiation seeped out in waves and escaped along with them. The factory scientist had crouched down inadvertently and caught a lungful of the lethal fumes. In doing so he threw out his back, but hobbled along with the others as they made their way to the fence. All they had to do was cut through the fence and escape if more police didn’t arrive by then and seal their fate.

          Jake was the first to the fence with the wire cutters. He clipped one link at a time, trying to cut a rectangular pattern enough for them to escape. It took several minutes before he made any progress. One of the Hispanic inmates, Hernandez, was not a man of patience and was losing it by the second. He was the one carrying the painter’s blanket and decided to climb the fence and heave the blanket over it for a quicker escape. As he ascended to the top, the sharp razor wire easily pierced through the blanket so he doubled it up and secured it in place. He got half his body over just as Jake was almost done snipping through the wire. Another sound like that of beating thunder filled the air. They looked up to see a military helicopter in the near distance. Hernandez looked up too and the razor wire was now carving itself into his exposed hands. He winced in pain as large drops of blood pelted the dirt on the ground. He screamed and cursed as he lifted his leg and flailed it over the other side of the fence.

         The blanket suddenly ripped open and his left arm fell through the opening. It shredded nearly all the flesh off his arm like he’d shoved it down a garbage disposal. Twisted tendons and sinew, like uncoiled licorice, scarcely clung to his limb as the skin peeled off like silk. He screamed as the chopper approached and tried throwing his other leg over, hoping his weight would carry him the rest of the way. Instead his arm got tangled up even worse in the razor wire as he went to fling his body over. He was now dangling in the air in suspended motion, hanging by his arm as the merciless barbs sunk into his bone making him an ornament of pain realized. Blood was now spilling like rain onto the sand and there was nothing anyone could do as they watched on helplessly. With his body dangling on the other side of the fence, they could not even so much as kill him to spare him the suffering. His shrill cries would forever be etched in their nightmares as he howled in pain until he lost his voice and was simply hissing and gurgling at the air with the last strength that his lungs could muster.

          Jake cut down the fence just in time for his group to escape before the chopper could make visual contact. The rest hid in the tall grass whose bristles blew like hair from the downdraft of the chopper. The spotlight from the chopper surveyed the open area, probing the ground, passing them. That’s when the pilot noticed the body of Hernandez twisting and squirming on the fence. Neither the pilot nor gunman could believe the amount of blood spilled from his shredded limb. Mercifully, seeing his mutilated condition and knowing that he was beyond any medical help with radiation exposure they opened machine gun fire on him. A swarm of bullets violated his torso as his body twitched and danced, pierced by the razor wire, where he languished – a human shish-ka-bob.

          The others waited for the chopper to disappear before making their way through the field and into the thick of the woods. They were actually surprised that only three of them had perished in their escape. But how deformed and infected had they become in their brief encounter with the radiation? How many years had they lost in that fateful moment? No matter how strong or muscular each might have been, it had to take some exacting and permanent toll on them. The radiation coursed through their veins and into their very lungs, completely mutating them. Their hair fell off their heads in large clumps. Their skin became all matted and charred, boiling with newly forming cysts. They were nearly blinded from all the harsh toxins. It even hurt to speak.

           But at last they were free. They had robbed the system of the time they would have rotted in prison for the duration of their sentences. Never more than now did they realize how alive they were; but it was through their pain and suffering that life seemed to regain its meaning. Like cultures who willingly desecrate their flesh for beautification with tattoos, brandings, or body piercing, they discovered that pain must be experienced before its beauty can be realized. Tonight they came to realize a new kind of beauty in the extreme through the curse of radiation. Pain was the nightmare that had left its inevitable scars on them to prove that life was in fact, real. What aesthetically unpleasing decay had they suffered for their freedom?  What further losses must they endure for their struggle to survive? Like some cultures, they would have to learn to embrace their pain. Soon they would eventually discover the beauty of decay. 

*

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      MISTRESS OF DECEPTION 

                 STEVEN MARSHALL 

He knew not the patterns of her foul lies

Blind to the betrayal gilded in her smiles

Characters and tales were part of her art

Alas, fidelity was negligent in her heart

In love, there’s always one you betray

In theory, there’s always a price to pay

But after the flame dies in passion’s heat

Nothing scorns the soul more than deceit!

                                      W. Shakespeare                                       

      Learning rather abruptly of the news she received today, Missy Delgado dressed up in her most sexually appetizing outfit:  a sheer, low-cut, black silk-fringe blouse that revealed her cleavage. The fine garment scarcely deceived the eye and, in doing so, left little to the imagination. Her black leather pants caressed her every curve as if painted onto her body. Eyeliner, black as tar, personified her cold, black eyes, giving her a sinister glare; but they were lightened by a captivating shade of hot-pink lipstick which silhouetted her tender and lavish lips. Teased-out dirty-blond hair in one light, a lightly-bleached hue in another. A deep cinnamon tan with a well-proportioned body always caught the eyes of even the most faithful.

      Over the years she learned to master two types of smile: The first, portrayed as innocent, never failed to highlight all the sensuality in her face. The second was portrayed as the cat that swallowed the canary; used to crush the fire of many a man’s heart from flame to ash. Also used to manipulate sexual innuendo in an unconcealed and frivolous way.  But how she could break a man was no match to how she could make herself irresistible, if she so desired. And tonight, she desired very much so.

      All tucked away in a luxury apartment in upper Manhattan, she lived the life of a spoiled little primadonna brat. But she was daddy’s little primadonna brat; a multi-millionaire’s daughter who had a grim sense of responsibility. Aside from attending college, her life was meaningless. She had no concept of the real world, hers was painted for her. How suitable indeed that she conveniently owned a shiny, red Corvette purchased with daddy’s credit cards  just because she turned twenty one. But plastic money was more beneficial than the real thing. Real money she couldn’t earn by herself. Now, three years later, she still had no obligations, never settled into any kind of relationship, never applied herself in college to pursue something with any promise or cause. Her financial dependency, like that of a human leech sucking generously the blood of its gracious host in parasitic contentment quickly transformed her into this brazenly shallow, superficial person. But she still had one thing: her sex appeal.

      Every Friday night, Missy could be spotted at either some bar or nightclub; wherever more action dwelt. Inevitably, she would either attract or provoke romantic interlude with any decent looking, libido-active man harboring in such areas.

      Tonight happened to be Friday night, but Missy didn’t want it to be just any old Friday night. Tonight was going to be different. She wanted to meet a man, not just any cretin who slugged along ‑ but a real challenge she could leave an ever-lasting impression on; a married man who’d never forget their encounter for as long as he lived.

      Ryan Ashley sat alone at the bar, sipping on his fifth Martini.  Drowning his sorrows, he still couldn’t escape from the emptiness he felt within. His wife of over ten years had left him for his best friend. It wasn’t discussed, it was simply done. She made a quick departure, giving no forewarning of her intentions, then mysteriously drifted off into an uncertain future.

      There was no proper rationalization for her motive. Maybe she was experiencing some mid-life crisis that was smothering her womanhood. Maybe she realized that she could no longer partake in the best of both worlds. But one grueling fact outweighed everything else: their hearts had forever parted.

      Ryan sat there, staring at his drink; unsuccessfully coping with the natural beauty of infidelity. He didn’t want to be in an alcoholic frame of mind, get annihilated to imbecility, or worse; he just wanted to forget about his emotional warfare and have someone to talk to.

      Missy couldn’t settle herself into any kind of decision as to where to go, so she resorted to the aimless sauntering of bar-hopping.

      Just exiting the ladies room of her third bar ‑ all freshened up and dressed to kill, but having no one here worthy enough to admire the finished product ‑ she realized that this scene was about as dismal as the local cemetery after dark, so she decided to head out.

      Before exiting, Missy glanced through the smoke-infested room and noticed a handsome man’s eyes enraptured in a mesmerizing trance. She pretended not to notice when, in fact, she did. She strutted around the bar and sat a mere two stools away from him. Cloaking her secret narcissism, she summoned the bartender’s attention and ordered a Manhattan.

      When served the drink, she opened wide her purse but there was no money to be found. Embarrassed, she decided to fumble around, as if believing that money would magically appear. By this time, the bartender, an older gentleman, was growing impatient with her.

      The victim, seeing the damsel in distress, quickly came to her rescue. He got up, sat beside her, and asked: “Excuse me, but can I buy you a drink without it sounding like a come-on?” She looked up and saw a very handsome and debonair gentleman with black collar length hair, blue eyes and a great smile, sitting down beside her. “Oh, thanks whoever you are,” she replied smiling with noticeable interest.

      “Ryan. Ryan Ashley.”

      “Melissa ‑ how are you?”

      “Interesting if you get to know me...except for tonight.”

      “Yea, haven’t had a helluva great day myself.”

      “Mine was worse.  Trust me.”

      “What happened?” she asked.

      “...Wife left me for my best friend.”

      “How long were you married?”

      “Oh, ten years and change.”

      “You getting a divorce?”

      “It just happened last night.”

      “What did?” she asked, before sipping her drink.

      “I caught her in bed, with him!”

      “Yea, that does suck,” she sympathized.

      “As far as I’m concerned it’s over.”

      “Well, that still doesn’t top my day.”

      “Okay, I’ll bite. What happened to you?”

      “My doctor just told me I only have one year to live,” she said, revealing no trace of emotion on her facial expression.

      “What? That’s terrible! What ‘exactly’ did he say?”

      “I’ll send you your bill by mail,” she joked.

      It was clearly evident that, no matter what it was, it didn’t matter. Death was death and that’s all there was to it. Maybe some cancer or tumor -- or something for which there was simply no cure. Compared to her problem, his seemed minuscule.

      “I don’t know what to say, because I’m not sure what I would do if it were me,” he said with sincerity.

      “Don’t say anything. Besides, talk is cheap. All I know is that from this day on I’m going to live life to its fullest -- and I’m gonna start with you.”

      “What exactly did you have in mind?”

      “How bout going to your place and having hours of meaningful sex, even if it doesn’t mean a thing?”

      “Listen, you just went through quite a shock today and...you’ll probably wind up regretting it.”

      “Are you saying you’re a bum lay?”

      “No, it’s not that.  It’s just that...”

      “Your wife? You didn’t throw her out, did you?  This is all just a big line or something to get me in some cheap motel?”

      “Okay, okay, believe me, I’d be the last person to turn you down...just as long as you know what you’re doing.”

      “Good, glad to hear it. People waste so much time saying things they don’t mean. I do the honest approach myself. It doesn’t insult your intelligence or tell you all kinds of bullshit. Look, I just made an oath to myself; so why don’t you take this opportunity and use me to get revenge on her?” she asked, her subtle, evil grin enticing him like an aphrodisiac.

      “I don’t want any revenge, I just want it to be over,” he sighed, downing his Martini.

      “...Then just use me,” she purred in a suggestive tone.

      “I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone like you.”

      “Excuse me if I’m acting out of character; I must confess, I’m not feeling particularly prim and proper today.”

      “I think under the circumstances it’s understandable,” stated Ryan, rationalizing her behavior.

      “So, shall we?” inquired a playful Missy.

      “After you,” he insisted.

      Ryan settled the tab, leaving a generous tip and escorted her outside in the cool breeze of the night.

      While tracking down their cars Missy suggested that Ryan lead the way back to his apartment. He got in his Mercedes and waited for her to reach her car. As the Corvette pulled up behind him, he was surprised to observe the caliber of her ride for someone of her age.

      By day, Ryan was a brilliant young lawyer, the best in his firm, and he still had his whole life ahead of him. He couldn’t believe that after spending ten years with the same woman,having so many memories, since that day she marched down the aisle in virgin white, that it could all change overnight. Even her smell was still in the sheets. Now he was about to indulge in an act of raw carnal lust with a sex-crazed woman he’d never met before, right in the very bed his wife was fornicating in last night.

      So many beautiful memories were wasted.

      He still couldn’t fathom the outcome.

      What an ironic twist of fate indeed.

        It wouldn’t be easy starting over again.

      Here he was with this strange, erotic woman who was worse off than he. How could he possibly display emotion in sex with someone else? Maybe purifying his conscience by way of raw lust wasn’t the answer after all ‑ for him or her. Maybe she might not want it to end after this. She might become attached; unable to get rid of. Worse, she might even have a nervous breakdown right in the middle of sex! And another thing: how could she mentally obstruct what she’d been told? No one can possibly distort death, no matter how strong the will. As for Ryan, he rarely acted on feeling or instinct. After all, he was a bona fide lawyer, he stuck to the facts and the fact was, under the circumstances, now wasn’t the right time because they were both emotionally vulnerable. Maybe it was just his conservative nature, but was it really worth the gamble?

      For Missy, death was certain but life was not. Yet deep down, she realized that her predicament was inevitable. She also realized that wallowing hopelessly in misery throughout the remainder of her earthly existence would be a grave injustice to herself and the men who admired her.

      Ryan pulled into his driveway and shut off the engine. He looked in his rearview mirror and saw her slowly pulling up behind him. His conscience was starting to play a contradicting role as far as his libido was concerned. As he got out of the car, he saw her standing there, her hair blowing like wildfire in the wind; her nipples perked by the cold. Approaching her, he was about to reconsider but, before the opportunity could present itself, she started kissing him. In kissing, they weren’t just mindlessly dueling with their tongues in lust; they were touching each other’s souls. This conveniently made him forget what he was going to say.

     They walked hands entwined to the front door.  He reached in his pocket and fumbled with the keys, finally finding the right one.  Upon entering, he mentioned that his eight-year-old boy was asleep and they would have to be quiet. Slowly, he pushed the door ajar and they proceeded inside.

     She walked into a beautiful, luxurious two-story house overlooking the Hudson River. A home such as this could easily make one forget its relation to New York City. Its stilts enabled the balcony to peek over the water in such a way that made New Jersey look like its backyard. During the night, the parkway that lay parallel to the façade of the house was infrequently used, so the passing vehicles coasted along at a gentle hum, while the city noise and tension resided elsewhere. 

      She admired the creative interior decor as she walked inside.  How every artifact within blended in artistic harmony; it had a distinguished presence. This guy had every quality she admired: good looks, exquisite taste, humble and modest personality and, above all, money unlimited! But she couldn’t have him the way she wanted him and that made her unsure of herself.

      Through the doorway was a hallway with a marble floor which led out to the living room. A chandelier with dangling crystals gave a prism-effect, similar to a strobe light, which simultaneously cast an illuminating reflection off the marble floor. Inside the living room was a stone-framed fireplace roaring and crackling with flames. Tucked within the maple wood wall unit in the back was a 36-inch Sony flat-screen TV which interfaced with the power satellite on the roof. Inside the den lay a three-piece cream leather sectional which partially surrounded a glass table and in the corner was a bar fully-stocked.

      Ryan turned on the studio lights dimly to simulate a comfortable atmosphere, then they proceeded toward the bar. Missy took off her jacket, hung it over the stool to her left and sat down in front of him.

      “This is a beautiful place you have,” she complimented.

      “Oh, thanks, what would you like to drink?”

      “Ya gonna wine and dine me, huh?”

      “Actually, I just ran out of wine.”

      “Okay, how about a Sloe Comfortable Screw?”

      “Excuse me?” he inquired, not acquainted with the drink.

      “Let’s see. Southern Comfort, sloe gin, Peach Schnapps and some orange juice,” she instructed, as she made herself comfortable.

      “Coming right up,” he dutifully replied.

      “So whaddya do; if you don’t mind me asking?”

      “I’m a lawyer,” said Ryan, preparing the drink.

      “You must be a damn good one by the looks of the place.”

      “What about you? You seem like you’re doing pretty good.”

      “I own a beauty salon,” said the liar to the fool.

      “I should have known. You are what you represent,” smiled Ryan, as he presented the drink.

      “Thanks,” she smiled, blushing at the comment.

      “Here ya go ‑ a Slow. Comfortable. Screw.”

      “Thank you.” Did she say thang-Q?

      After their first drink, they moved to the couch to talk, but the topic of death never came up; nor did divorce for that matter.  Instead, they infected their souls with laughter and their bodies with liquor while becoming acquainted. Suddenly the smile left her face. Ryan felt this awkwardness as he put his drink down and paused; an awkwardness not of fear or of guilt, but one of uncertainty. She tucked her fingers underneath her shirt, pulling it over her soft, cinnamon-tan shoulders; in doing so, the glare of her gold necklace shimmered in the light. She leaned forward and pulled him toward her by his tie, reeling him in like a fish. During a passionate session of the lips, she could feel his fingers trembling as they glided across her thighs. Alleviating his insecurity, she leaned inward and sat on his lap with her legs wrapped around his waist.

      The thought of intercourse started tantalizing his mind when she kissed his neck and nibbled his earlobe with erotic intentions. Burning with intimate intensity, she accidentally dug her nails into his chest when she felt his manhood arrive. She French-kissed the boo-boo as if to say, “I’m sorry." He lay down with his back against the bearskin rug and the soft rush of the fireplace in his ear. She began to unzip his pants and unbutton his shirt, when suddenly they heard a voice echoing down the hallway.

      “Daddy, is that you?”

      “Crap! Danny it’s after midnight you’re supposed to be in bed!” bellowed Ryan, losing his...manhood.

      “Who’s she and when’s mommy coming back?”

      Two questions he didn’t want to answer, or explain, only to be asked more. Not only was it bad timing, but Ryan didn’t know quite how to tell him his mommy left them for the man who Danny called “uncle” all these years, despite being unrelated. Then how would he possibly account for this other woman’s presence?

      Danny looked at his father with that inexplicable expression of boyhood tantrum that a child can portray and stormed off into his room, both confused and upset. Ryan certainly didn’t foresee this as the type of father and son moment he envisioned. Speechless, he dropped his focus downward and sighed.

      “I’m sorry,” sympathized Melissa.

      “It’s not your fault; just gimme a minute.”

      “I’ll go wait in the bedroom; which way?”

      “Down the hall and to the right.”

      “Okay, meet ya there.”

      She proceeded towards the bedroom, still partially naked. Upon entering, she was even more impressed by this than the living room.  Inside was a queen-size waterbed with a dark blue velvety comforter and plenty of pillows. A breeze gently tore through the room; behind the designer drapes were the open French windows that led out to a balcony overlooking the water. There was also a lounging sofa in the far corner and still plenty of room to spare. Enough room for a walk-in closet and a private bathroom. She slipped into the bathroom, one sure place to find a mirror, took out her lipstick and applied a fresh coat of pink while waiting.

      Ryan headed towards Danny’s room, mentally rehearsing how he was going to console him. Just as he was about to enter the room, he heard a door opening behind him. He turned around and saw the live-in housekeeper coming down the hall in an old maroon bathrobe and pink fuzzy slippers. She called out to him:

      “Mr. Ashley, is that you?”

      “Yes, Carolyn, what’s wrong?”

      “Nothing. Is everything okay?” she inquired.

      “Yes and no. But don’t worry, I’ll handle it.”

      “Okay, I was just coming out to put out the fireplace; I must have dozed off.”

      “That’s okay. how was Danny?”

      “Fine. I put him to bed at nine and took care of a few things while you were gone.”

      “Thanks, I’ll talk to you in the morning.”

      “Goodnight,” she said and walked away.

      Ryan was really grateful for having someone as thoughtful and reliable as Carolyn. She was like a part of the family. To Danny, she was like a grandmother; always there for him. It wasn’t until now that Ryan realized how much that she had helped out over the years, especially during critical times such as these.

      Ryan knocked lightly on the door and called out to Danny but got no response. He opened the door slowly, peeked his head inside and saw Danny in bed under the covers with his Golden Retriever next to him. The dog picked its head up, jumped off the bed and trotted towards Ryan, wagging its tail. He took him by the collar, guided him out of the room and shut the door behind him.

      “Hey Champ, how’s it going?” asked Ryan.

      “Mommy isn’t coming back, is she?”

      “Doesn’t look too good.”

      “Where’d she go?” asked the eight-year-old.

      “She wanted her own life, but it has nothing to do with you.  I’m sure when she gets settled into...wherever she’s going, she’ll want you to visit her.”

      “I don’t wanna visit her, I want her living here. With us. The way it was.” His words were like verbal daggers.

      “Well son, things change. People change. Life’s not always fair.  Looks like it’s just going to be me and you.”

      “Who were you with before, daddy?”

      “Just a friend, now go to sleep. We’ll talk some more in the morning, I promise. Okay Champ?”

      “Okay.  Love you daddy.”

      “I love you too Danny.”

      “Can I keep Goldie in here with me tonight?”

      “Oh, alright, but get some sleep. And I don’t want to see you wandering around the hallways again.”

      A few minutes later, Ryan entered the bedroom. Once inside, he shut the door behind him and took the precaution of locking it.  In the midst of removing his shirt, he grabbed the remote on the dresser, pressed a button, and out slid a stereo from the wall unit.  He put on a Mozart CD and dimmed the lights, creating a perfect atmosphere to seal their rhapsody of intimacy.

      Missy lay down on the bed and felt the waves rocking her as if she were on a sailboat in the middle of the ocean, having not a care in the world. Not drunk, but comfortably buzzed, she continued to flirt with him until he had completely succumbed to her femininity. Such a firm, curvaceous figure she possessed, undeniably stimulating. Again, they kissed and touched then burst out of their clothes and got under the covers, where their bodies bonded as one in sheer ecstasy.

      Danny had inadvertently become the recipient of foreign, ungodly noises as he lay there in bed with his teddy bear, wondering why his mother left them and trying to envision, as best he could, how things would be without her. Throughout the entire ordeal, he hadn’t really witnessed any arguments; however, it’s difficult for a child at that age to dawn upon the realization that there was no more love between his parents.

      The flames of ecstasy kindled for over three hours; each moment ignited a raging inferno of desire and anticipation. Ryan could almost feel her energy missing from his life; she exhausted emotions in him and awakened a new passion he had yet to discover in himself. This was his first encounter where the woman was the sexual aggressor -- and that accelerated his self-esteem. Ultimately, he got more than he bargained for and had a haunting suspicion that his wife felt the same way about her choice.

      Missy, however, maintained her cold, emotionless indifference toward him; he was a brief rendezvous on the crossroads of passion. Even if the circumstances were different, how could she possibly fall in love with anyone with the reservation of knowing she was going to die in a year’s time? To her, life’s uncanny sense of humor circumstantially forced her into an absence of emotions.

      “You were great, I think your wife is who's missing out,” she said while lighting a cigarette.

      “Then how come I’m the one in pain?”

      “These things take time to get over.”

      “Yea, but time doesn’t heal all wounds.”

      “Can’t dwell in the past forever,” she clichéd back.

      “Yea, I guess you just have to...learn to move on,” he sighed.

      “That’s precisely what I’m doing now!” she proclaimed.

      “You have to adjust to a whole new way of thinking.”

      “...There’s so much I haven’t seen or done yet!”

      “Yea, but you can’t blame yourself for something that you’re powerless over.”

      “People have no idea what I’m going through, I wish they knew exactly what it was like,” she retorted cynically.

      “Stay the night with me. I need someone’s arms to wake up in come morning,” he said, staring into her eyes.

      “Me too,” she sighed, burying her head in his chest.

      Ryan felt sheer sympathy for her. How could someone so alive, so healthy and so warm, be dying?  Indeed, it was hard to fathom.  At least he had an opportunity to make a new start for himself. He still had his son. He realized, with that in mind, that he wasn’t at a point of no return. He also knew deep down that the situation between him and his wife would probably never be resolved. With all the divorce cases he’d handled, he never imagined his would be one. Seeing his client’s downfalls helped him to foresee problems occurring ‑ and that had kept his marriage intact, up until recently.  Indeed he wasn’t at fault, but that was no consolation to his pain.  Like every marriage, theirs wasn’t without its trying, bitter moments, but none dramatic enough to justify his wife’s reckless abandonment.

      Ryan was still awake an hour after Missy was fast asleep. The thought of his wife having sex with another repeatidly kept gnawing at his innards. He remembered the good times so distinctly, it hurt to think about them. He remembered the symbiosis they shared. How their relationship was this unbreakable bond of trust. How nothing at all could come between them. How she meant more to him than life itself. Now, all that was shattered and he realized that blind faith was merely a cesspool of ignorance that ridiculed trust.

      Behind his back, a friend he’d known for over fourteen years, who he'd graduated law school with, was violating his woman. He felt alienated from the most sacred things in life that were of value to him. Somehow life just seemed altogether meaningless now. The only thing that really mattered to him was Danny. He thought about how hard it would be to raise him alone and how difficult it would be to explain the whole situation.

      He looked over at Missy and somehow knew it wasn’t meant to be and yet he didn’t know what was. One thing was certain though: things wouldn’t get easier from here on in and there would be many obstacles to overcome along the way.

      Missy had begun to stir in her sleep. Ryan shut his eyes and pretended to be doing the same. It wasn’t long after that the ‘act’ of pretending brought forth the real thing. Near dawn, he dreamed in bits and pieces. He saw his wife on the day of their wedding; a day he would never forget. She ran towards him with a smile on her face and a bouquet in her hand as she plunged into his arms. The memory was so intense; it seemed to be happening as if in a cataclysmic frame of slow motion. He imagined he was holding her. Subconsciously, he convinced himself that Melissa was the dream and that when he awakened everything would be back to normal and his wife would be there next to him. Again, he was back in the dream with his wife. He envisioned himself with her and Danny on some grassy field in the dell of a valley during springtime. In this dream, he could almost feel the warmth on his face as the sun’s rippling vapors washed across the horizon. He could see her smiling so vividly and it seemed so real that he refused to believe he was only dreaming. Suddenly, he looked into her eyes and the nightmare unfolded. A sinister smile emerged on her face as she stood up and raised a steak-knife at him; her eyes unmasking the expression of a lunatic.

      He grabbed her wrist and it required all the vigor and fortitude he had to restrain her from brutally gashing his throat. Over her shoulder in the near distance, he could see his friend perched in a tree, laughing and taking pictures.

      During the struggle, she seemed to possess this uncontrollable vehemence in her quest for domination. He screamed in utter panic as he felt the weight of her body pressing down on his chest, so life-like he could feel himself hyperventilating. Just as she was moments away from overpowering him, he freed his right arm, clenched his fist with such force his knuckles burned white, and crashed it mercilessly into her jaw. He saw her head buck backwards and ironically enough, she whimpered like a dog. When he opened his eyes, he realized it was his Golden Retriever he had belted.

      He sat up, with his emotions in a frenzy as the dog jumped off the bed and quickly retreated from the room. He looked around. It was morning. He saw the bedroom door was ajar and went to shut it, even though he recalled locking it. Upon becoming coherent, he noticed that neither Melissa nor his wife was lying there next to him.  Quickly realizing that Melissa was in fact not a dream, he scanned the room and saw that all his possessions were still intact. He called out to Missy but got no answer. He got up and looked in the bathroom; still no sign of her. Suddenly he heard his son running clumsily down the hallway, calling out to him in an urgent tone.

      “Daddy, what are you yellin’ about? Did mommy come back?” inquired Danny with childlike vitality.

      “No. Did you see a girl, Danny?”

      “You mean the girl last night, with no shirt on?”

      “Yea. Her. Where is she?”

      “I dunno, I thought she was with you.”

      “Where could she have gone?” Ryan thought aloud.

      “Is everything okay, Mr. Ashley?” asked the housekeeper.

      “Fine, Carolyn,” he shouted down the hall.

      “What’s that on the mirror, daddy?” interrupted Danny, tugging impatiently on Ryan’s hand.

      “What’s wha...” he stammered.

      Ryan looked at the floor-length mirror and saw the impression of hot-pink lipstick engraved upon it. He froze in shock as he read the words: WELCOME TO THE NEXT LEVEL OF AIDS… 

      Below the mirror lay a folded up note addressed to Ryan from Missy. Confounded, he asked Danny to leave the room and shut the door. He unfolded the note and read it with a hot, nervous feeling:

      ‘Great time, helluva a lay. Oh, by the way, I thought you’d be interested in knowing I was recently diagnosed with a new form of AIDS. It’s called HANDS, which is short for Hyper Accelerated Nerve Damage Syndrome. It’s this wicked, aggressive offspring of a sexually transmitted diseases that’s transferred through saliva. When the saliva interacts with the bloodstream, it quickly hyper-accelerates the infection process. It breaks down the circuitry of your nerve endings until your brain becomes isolated and cannot facilitate commands. It’s like...MS meets AIDS then mutates! It certainly takes the waiting out of AIDS and kills you in a year. 

       Since I was always accused of being selfish, I thought now would be a good time to change my ways by sharing something with someone and that someone happened to be you. Do you remember when I French-kissed your open wound? That was my kiss of death to you, to ensure that I would not be alone in my plight. Can you feel my Hands reaching inside you and wrapping around your soul? Can't you just feel my fingers crawling through your veins caressing your lifeline, touching you ever so intimately? Isn’t that what you really wanted? Someone to feel your pain as you will now feel mine. Such an intimate exchange of our fragile mortality. I now leave you in my very capable HANDS, as my disease courses through your body. Please feel free to share and be selfless like me and the one before me. This truly is a remarkable plague. You’ll have to excuse me while I continue to spread the word, thereby giving something back to the community. 

      Forever inside you, I remain faithfully yours…always.’

      He looked behind the markings at his reflection and saw the face of a soon-to-be dying man. Now he knew what it was like.

      And that his life was imprisoned by a fate of grim uncertainty from a rapidly progressive condition; with passion and lust he, too, shall shake and infect the world.

                                                *

                                       © Copyright Steven Marshall 2006.