Super Short Fiction -- And So I Sat

The wind blew out of the west, cold and sudden. A cloud was over there. You see. Where I'm pointing. Over there.

That wrapper that was blowing around, the Payday one, that one wasn't mine.

I didn't cry, sitting there and if I did, it was the sand, the sand from the playground. It was windy, after all.

I saw the bus, across the park, on the street, heading where buses head on that street, through stoplights and past places people either are, will be or have been.

I don't know if the bus had anyone in it.

I could've been in that bus.

It went, with a farting cloud of black diesel exhaust. Black. Like my heart.

I could've sat in the back of the bus, staring at the one guy, nationality unknown, so drunk that you couldn't even smell his urine from when he pissed himself. In my book, that's quite an accomplishment.

I could've watched him slobber and drool on the seat, a long bubbly strand falling down, off the seat, drifting down to the floor, which was dirty, dusty and seemingly in need of a good infusion of drool.

Cars would whiz by outside the darkened windows. The bus would go fast, slow down, go fast again. A big, aged rock star, practicing tantric sex, trying not to cum too fast.

There were honks and yells outside but none of them were me. I listened to the yelling. I didn't hear the words, only the pain. The words are what we all focus on, those very loud words, as if they're important, but it's almost never them, it's almost never what they mean. It's almost always something else, something hidden, lying beneath.

We'd ride, me and my friend with the drool. Who knows? He could be my friend. Maybe.

Past more stores and offices, places of business where businessy people did businessy things in hopes that business would be good to them. For love or money, in this case, it was the latter.

She wasn't in any of them. She was later, further on down the line, at least, if she was there at all.

Sometimes the bus broke suddenly. I grabbed on to pole next to me, an aluminum pole. How many people had grabbed that pole before me? How many people grabbed on to it? To something? There's always a time when we need to grab on.

The bus doors opened, sometimes, and no one came on. No one. I could see them you know. They took whatever seat they wanted. There were lots of empties. Lots to choose from.

I felt my heart sometimes. It was beating. That was good I told myself. Hearts should beat. I remembered my head, on her breast, listening to her heart.

It went thumpity, thump, thump, thump.

Mine skipped when she was near. Hers, not so much.

It was in the papers, about the wedding. Or, I should say, the one paper. The afternoon paper was gone, sort of like hayrides in the autumn, with that girl you always wanted to kiss but never got the nerve to but thought you might could under a full harvest moon in a bouncy cart filled with hay.

Gone.

Another street done gone. Always going, the bus. One more stop, then on to the other, always ahead, always forward. Going and going and going.

She said she was going. She didn't smile or cry. It wasn't me, she said, meaning me, you know, and not her. It was what it was, as if it could be explained by being something else. It was so totally one with its wasness. It just, was.

I didn't know him. He had a name but I forget. She gave up her last name, like it wasn't an important part of her at all, like, a snake shedding a skin. She took his because she was his had become his and anyways, it was what it was.

I sat listening to the wind as the cloud came closer. It was cold now. The bus across the street started to roll with the evening traffic. The light had changed.

I wanted to roll with it, down the line, to where she was, if she was there at all.

But I knew better than that, so I sat, still, frozen, on the bench.

At least my drool didn't stretch down to the grimy, dirty, dusty floor.



Copyright 2011, M.R. Caffery. All rights reserved.

Curiosity and the Cat -- A 2029 Tale

Karen was sure she’d heard howling and hissing from the house across the street the night before but her father simply arched an eyebrow and told her that it was none of their business. That’s what he always said though, as if he had simply no interest in anything. When confronted with her frustrations, which was often, he’s simply sigh and repeat the same old line, “It’s not always so good to know, a lot of times, not knowing is better.’

Karen checked her messages and kept up to date on the school gossip that she missed out on in the summer. She wasn’t allowed to go out much, even though she was 17. She explained that it was simply that her father was a Jehovah’s Witness, but, the truth was, she was too, more or less, even though she didn’t like to admit it.

She didn’t think it’d be that way when her mother died. It was her mother, after all, who was the big religion freak. Karen loved those days, when her mom was alive, because her dad was sympathetic, someone she could talk to about her frustrations. He’d nod and hug her, run his hand through her hair and tell her they were on the same team, but, that it was a secret and not to tell her mom. If her mother knew, well, Karen knew that would be a mess. Her mother would go crazy. The faith was all that mattered to her, that and her family. Karen believed the faith part but wasn’t sure about the family part. She couldn’t remember ever going shopping with her mom.

Her bedroom window in the apartment gave Karen a great view of the house across the street. She didn’t know the lady’s name who lived there so she gave her a name, Plain Jane. So far as Karen could tell, it fit her. She was plain looking, a plain not-so-youngish face, a plain not-so-hot figure, perfectly ordinary plain breasts. PJ, as Karen shortened the name, tried to spruce it up. She tried to look hot but whatever she tried she always came out looking trashy.

Karen looked in the mirror and was always secretly excited by what she saw. She was, if she said so herself, rather hot. Boys wanted her. Men too.  Even men at the Kingdom Hall. She wasn’t sure exactly how she knew this, it was something she just felt. Of course, most of the boys at school were dumb and obvious. She laughed at them, even when she occasionally wanted them too, when she felt herself stirring, all over. When her father was away she’d go through her closet to the very back, where she hid her secret outfits, revealing tops, short skirts, mini-dresses, stuff she’d managed to buy on trips with her aunt or friends and hide away from her dad.

The apartments, the Mediterranean Gardens, weren’t Mediterranean and had no Gardens. They were blokish, concrete looking apartments with chipping white stucco that was yellowed in places from kids peeing on the walls and tagged with graffiti in others. Karen was amazed that there were so many different shades of white, or, so it seemed. Every time some graffiti was painted over, the white that covered it seemed different from the white all around it. Nothing ever seemed to blend in.

Many apartments were smart apartments, wired, and hi-tech. Not the Gardens. The only thing they had going for them was a fountain in an otherwise weed-strewn courtyard and even then, the fountain only occasionally worked.

Summer vacation was long and boring. Karen had wanted a job but her father had said no. He wanted her to stay home and study. He’d arranged with teachers at school for summer homework for his daughter. The upcoming school year would be her senior year, college awaited and he’d be damned if his daughter spent the summer hashing fries instead of preparing for her future. There was only so much staying at home Karen could do though before she was overwhelmed with the urge to go out and explore the neighborhood. Not having a car, she took to long walks (“Exercise”, she explained to her dad) hoping to see something, anything, interesting.

There was an alley between Fountain Drive and Hurley Lane. It was where the druggies were supposed to hang out and even though it was expressly off-limits, Karen went down it time and again hoping to see something. Once in a while she found used needles, some old-fashioned condoms (cheaper than the more modern spray on kind), busted bottles of cheap synthetic booze. She never saw any druggies though, so she was forced to imagine them all, which she did as she lay on her bed, and stared up at her ceiling fan, letting the twirling blades hypnotize her and take her away.

Her walks always led her past the house across the street, 1204 Maynard Way. It had a fern in the front yard, white garaged doors with red trim that went with the red brick of the house. Wind chimes hung on the porch. Plain Jain’s Subaru was usually parked in the driveway. It was, all things considered, a rather un-extraordinary house.

The following night Karen was determined to stay up and see if she heard the sounds again. Her father had come home and the two had eaten dinner together, as they always did. Even though he worked all day as an installation tech for the cable company, Karen’s father insisted on coming home and cooking dinner which was fine with her because it was one of the things her dad did very well. Some nights he was talkative, other nights, not so much. This night was somewhere in the middle. He talked some, inquiring about Karen’s reading and studying.  When dinner was over Karen retreated to her room while her father headed to the living room to watch TV.

From her window Karen texted friends back and caught up on dating drama. She had no dating drama of her own so she lived vicariously through her friends. There were boys at the Kingdom Hall her dad had singled out as potential dates but the last thing Karen wanted to do was date someone with her father’s approval. As much as she loved her dad and appreciated him being there for her, there was only so much of him she could take.

The street was quiet except for some kids trying to play kickball in the grass in front of the apartments. It was a Sunday night and these same kids were here every Sunday, their grandmother living in one of the downstairs units apparently. As usual they spent more time arguing than playing. Karen watched them through her open window and felt thankful she didn’t have any siblings.

Plain Jane’s house had some lights on but was quiet. There was just her Subaru parked in front. The sprinklers had been on earlier but had shut off. All was quiet.

Something fluttering around outside her window suddenly woke her and Karen sat straight up. A moth was twisting this way and that trying to avoid a bat that was locked in on it like some sort of missile. The moth had bounced off the window screen, seeking to use it as a trampoline, allowing it shoot past the bat’s head. Karen woke up just in time to see the bat execute a barrel roll, change direction and swoop up from below to snag the moth by bouncing it off its wing. As suddenly as it all happened, the bat was gone.

Bats, Karen thought to herself, would drive her father…well…bats! It was fear of vampires, as much as anything, that had crippled her social life. They’d come out of the dark, of course, after the Second World War. Everybody knew they existed but a lot of people just made pretend that they didn’t. Most mainstream news shows didn’t do stories on vampires or paranormal people, paras, as they were known. Those stories were still relegated to the afternoon talk shows and at-night sensationalist tabloids. Karen herself didn’t know any paras, or, any vampires for that matter, at least, not that she knew. With the Paranormal Registration Act, a few years back, a lot of paranormals kept to themselves, sought to keep their identities secret. Karen found herself looking at everyone, wondering if what she saw was the real them…wondering who they really were, on the inside.

She heard the rumble down the street and turned to look. A charcoal gray Hummer H5 rolled down her way, slowed and turned into Plain Jane’s driveway, right next to her Subaru. It was lifted and pimped out with custom exhaust and a lot of chrome. One of the biggest men Karen had ever seen slid out of the driver’s seat and headed to Plain Jane’s front door. He didn’t bother to knock or even ring the bell, he just went straight in.

Karen felt her heart race. It was already a warm night but she felt hotter all of a sudden. She knew, she just knew that something was going to happen. Maybe she’d hear the howling and hissing that had awakened her the night before. Her body was overwhelmed by nervous energy and the thought of sitting at the window sill waiting for something to happen was more than she could stand. She decided she could hear better if she went out and hid behind the trees, downstairs, in front of the apartment.

She slipped out of her room quietly in a t-shirt, shorts and her favorite Converse sneakers. She could hear the TV in the living room, still turned up. The clock on wall in the kitchen said it was almost 1:30 which meant that Karen’s father had fallen asleep watching TV again. He snored lightly on the couch. It happened from time to time, Karen knew. She also knew that her father was a deep sleeper and when he was out, he was out. She slipped passed the living room and made it to the door. She quietly unlocked and unlatched everything and headed downstairs.

Outside Karen could here the streetlight and the apartment’s security lights hum in contrast to each other, each on a different frequency. Crickets were about, chirping, wooing, angling for their nightly hook-ups. Karen walked carefully over to the elm just behind the “Welcome to Medite anean Gardens” sign, which had been missing its “r's” for a few years now. Across the street she heard yelling.

She couldn’t see any movement from inside though a light in front was on. Most of the yelling was a man’s voice, she could tell that much, but every know and then she heard a woman’s voice too, Plain Jane.

The street was quiet save from the hum of the swamp coolers and the various lights. Karen noticed her right leg shaking with nervous energy. She was sure something was going to happen and if she kept squatting behind a tree, she’d miss it. Her only chance was to run across to the house and see if she could peak in and see something.

In her mind, Karen could hear her dad yelling at her for even thinking of such a thing but she felt so overwhelmed with energy that she could hardly stand it. She looked up and down the street to make sure it was clear and took off running.

She could hear her heart pounding in her ears as she came to a stop underneath the largest window in the front of the house. It was dark, drapes and curtains pulled tight. Karen could hear more yelling from within but she couldn’t make out any movement. Sitting crouched just underneath the window, she wasn’t able to make out much in terms of actual words, the sound of her heart competing with the yelling inside. She wondered if she’d be able to see anything from the back.

Karen slipped around the side of the house, sticking close to the wall. A short wooden gate led to the back, she didn’t see any “Beware of Dog” sign anywhere so she swallowed down her nerves and decided to go around back to see if she could see anything. The yelling was louder here, on the side of the house. In the backyard Karen could see the light shining in a room, she crept up to the window and looked through it. The red drapes were separated just enough, in the middle to where she could make out what was happening inside. 

There was the man she’d seen pull up in the Hummer. His shirt was off, his dark hair slicked back into a ponytail. He had a short-trimmed beard. When he turned around he had a large dark cat tattoo which seemed to take up his entire back. Plain Jane was there too, giving as good as she got in the yelling department. Her dirty blonde hair was pulled back as well, dressed only in a black tank top and short red shorts. She looked small in comparison to him but the size difference didn’t stop her from getting in his face and screaming at him.

When Plain Jane screamed, he seemed calm, assured. He didn’t flinch. He waited for her to yell herself out. As she wound herself down, she turned as if to leave, the man reached out a powerful hand, caught her by the arm and threw her back, behind him, onto the bed. He turned to face her and let out a long, low snarl.

Karen felt her blood freeze. It was just like the sound she’d hear last night, the sound that had woken her up. Plain Jane lay on the bed, on her back, fingers digging into the mattress.  She snarled back and started shaking her head.

Karen heard a voice inside her, way down, deep inside that told her to run. Her shaky right leg was frozen know, along with the rest of her. She couldn’t not watch if she tried. As Plain Jane shook her head, her whole body began to shake, taking the bed along with it. Her skin seemed to bubble, as if boiling underneath.  The tank top ripped down the back and along with it, Plain Jane’s skin, a mound of black fur rising up from underneath it.

It all happened at once and yet, for Karen, it all seemed to be happening in slow motion. First Plain Jane….then….the man, both changing, transforming, right there in the bedroom, right before her eyes. First one, then the other, shed their skin as easily as a person might take their clothes off. The man quit standing and fell to all fours. His face now the face of the cat that had been on his back. His snarl was louder now, and he showed his fangs. Plain Jane swished a long tail in agitation on the bed, peered back her ears and snarled back. It was clear who was who from the difference in size. Without realizing she meant to, Karen heard herself scream.  The man-cat quickly swung his head in her direction.

Karen started to stumble backwards but her feet felt as if they had weights on them. Her legs wouldn’t bend. She simply fell, straight as stick, heavy as a  stone, landing on her back. She tried to breathe but it seemed the more she tried the less breath she could get.  She turned to her side and tried to get back up to her feet. She heard the glass shatter about the same time as she felt the shower of glass hit her, just before the man-cat landed on top of her, knocking her to the ground.

Looking into the cat’s eyes, in the brief second before it sank its teeth into her neck and ended her life, forever, all she could think about was her father.

“It’s not always so good to know, a lot of times, not knowing is better."



 Copyright 2011, M.R. Caffery. All rights reserved.

Fiction Short: Werewolves Suck

Gwen put the finishing touches on making her bed, pulling up the corner of her Universal Monsters bedspread to cover her pillow.  The deep blue/gray of the bedspread was be speckled with classic horrors:  Frankenstein’s monster, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, the Phantom of the Opera, the Mummy, the Wolf Man and, of course, Dracula replete with cape and penetrating eyes.  Gwen grabbed her backpack and skipped her way down the stairs.  She made a quick detour to snag her lunchbox off the kitchen counter and headed towards the door, the swishing of her summer dress being all the alerted her parent's to her having been there.

"Come straight home after school, young lady," Her father yelled over his shoulder from the kitchen sink where he was washing out his coffee cup.

"Yes dear, you know what night it is tonight!  No hanging out after school!"  Her mom chimed in as she finished stirring half and half into her own cup of coffee, to her father's left. 

Gwen heard them both as she opened the front door and yelled back over her shoulder a loud, "Okay!"

The walk to school wasn't long, per se, but it was several blocks.  Gwen worked her way up to her usual, casual lope and listened to the birds chirping all around her.  It was still warm in the morning, but summer was over, though you couldn't see any real signs of fall yet.  Gwen sniffed the air and caught a familiar if unpleasant scent carried on the thin morning breeze.  Chucky was on his way to school too.

"Werewolves suck", Charles Meyers yelled, as he crossed the street in Gwen's direction.  She'd never liked "Chucky" as he was more commonly known, so she just kept her gaze straight ahead and kept on walking.

Chucky didn't seem to care.  He just watched Gwen walk on ahead of him, her bouncy pig tails bobbing up and down, classic "The Wolf Man" lunch box swaying by her side.  Gwen Talbot wasn't the prettiest girl at Crystal Lake Junior High, but she wasn't homely neither.  Chucky watched the pig tails sway and followed them down to the waistline of her dress, noting with a 13-yr old boy's approval how Gwen's waist became slender here before curving out below.  As always, her dark blue dress was long, modest by Crystal Lake standards but Chucky liked that it left things to his imagination. 

Coming back to the bobbing pigtails Chucky thought about the word, pigtail, and, from there, he had images of pigs, being slaughtered, cut up and squealing in terror as blood erupted from wound after wound like so many bursting pimples, mini volcanoes of dark red, liquid lava, spraying this way and that.  Chucky thought about the switchblade in his pocket.  He had the urge to run up to Gwen and grab one of her pigtails and pull it back hard.  She was a little taller than him, having gotten her growth spurt earlier, but if he yanked on a pig tail, he could pull her head back.  It'd be easy then to use the switchblade and slice her throat open. 

Chucky lost himself in imagining what Gwen's eyes would look like:  the shock, the fear.  He imagined the sounds her now open throat would make.  Would air come pouring out of it, as well as blood?  Could he smell the blood, like some killers said they could?  How dark would it be?  How hot?  He felt himself stirring between his legs as he thought about how he'd be the last face Gwen would ever see. 

He'd drag her off into the bushes of the bike trail that ran along their shared path to school.  He knew that much.  He'd watch her twitch and gasp as the color of life drained out of her face.  He'd slip his hand down into his jeans and touch himself.  He'd do it,  just to feel it, but as soon as she stopped twitching and gasping, he'd stop.  He'd have a better idea.  He'd peel her blue dress off her shoulders, being careful not to touch her any more than he had to and wriggle it down her now stilled body.  He'd stop and stare at her then, looking to see if all of her was as tanned as she looked.

He'd slide off her panties.  He imagined them pink, with a red bow, decorated with hearts.  He wondered to himself what it would look like.  He'd seen pictures of cunts before, in his dad's "Hustlers".  He had a general idea of what he should do next.  Still, he wasn't sure that he'd put his thing in there.  If she was dead, what if she clammed up?  What if he got in but couldn't get out?  He might try and practice on it first, with a stick.  If the stick went in and out okay, then he might give it a try himself.  Or, he might just stab it, use his switchblade and cut it all up, leaving it a bloody mess.  He wasn't sure, but, he was sure it'd be awesome, no matter what it was!

Chucky caught himself in his reverie.  He was ready to take the steps up to the front doors of school.  Other kids got out of his way, shooting him nervous sideways glances, like they always did.  There were whispers, the occasional breathless snicker.  No one got in his way, not even the taller boys.  Everyone knew about Chucky and everyone gave him his space.  There was a general consensus among the students in particular, that he wasn't quite right.

Class after class, hour after hour, Chucky navigated his way through the halls of the school, wandering about with an aimless shuffle.  His long greasy bangs hung down and partly covered his eyes, an advantage, he'd found, allowing him to stare at other without being noticed.  Other students moved by him, touching one another, hugging, laughing, waving across the hall while Chucky moved alone, as if in a bubble of his own making, seeming to both occupy space with the others but, also, seemingly not there, all at the same time. 

Lunch hour found Chucky looking for a place to sit.  The school year, though still fairly new, had already settled down into familiar patterns for most.  There was that one lunch table, to be shared with those particular friends. Chucky had thus far made a habit of taking his lunch outside, seeking out a place of his own to eat, but today, he felt wired, buzzing off the high he got from all the energy around him.  He looked around for a place to sit and saw that Gwen had a table all to herself, off in the corner.

Gwen liked finding a place by herself to eat.  She had unique dietary requirements and, as most every 13-year old did, she was afraid of being labeled "weird" or "gross".  She was a pretty girl, seemingly transitioning to her teen years easier than some of her friends.  She wasn't shy, but she was reserved.  Smart as she was, she didn't seek to flaunt it.  Though she dressed modestly, even in gym class, she had impressed her PE coach by being both stronger and faster than he'd expected a "frail looking thing" like her to be. 

Gwen didn't think of herself as frail, though, her aloofness may have given some that impression.  She liked people well enough, she just liked being outdoors, exploring the woods behind her family's home, even more. She climbed trees and ran trails.  She had talked her father in getting her a tracker's guide book which had pictures of animal prints and she'd taught herself how to differentiate one animal from another.  She could easily tell a buck deer from a doe now and rabbit prints from cat ones.  She knew what a bobcat's paw print was like and how it differed from her friend Nancy's cat, Mr. Bojangles.  She'd also become very good at noticing the smell of things. Her nose automatically crinkled as she sniffed the air and caught the scent of Chucky coming up behind her again.

"Werewolves suck", Chucky said, as he sat at the table, on the opposite side of Gwen. 

"I heard you this morning,"  Gwen wiped her mouth with her napkin and fastened up her lunch box, seemingly done already.  She drank some water out of her store bought water bottle.

"You scarfed down your lunch fast, huh?"  Chucky eyed her under his bangs.  He couldn't really see her boobs, her dress not being that tight, but he wondered what they looked like anyway.  He imagined them with razors, or, syringes sticking out of their nipples. 

"Or, did you even eat anything at all?  Maybe you're one of those barfer babes."

Gwen snorted a demure little snort.  She saw no point in eating anything she was going to turn around and throw up later.  Some of the girls were into that, while, some others preferred eating nothing altogether.  Not her though.  Gwen liked food.  She liked meat.

Chucky poked at the slimy Salisbury steak that had come with his school bought lunch.  He stabbed it a few times with his fork before using his knife to rip a piece off to eat. 

"Serial killers are better than gay werewolves." 

Gwen just stared at the way Chucky talked with his mouth open.  He had the manners of an animal she thought to herself. 

"Werewolves do not suck.  They're stronger than serial killers anyway.  They can kill any of them."

"Nu uh!"  Chucky almost spat out the piece of meat he was chewing before he pulled off a save with his tongue. "Jason can't die.  Michael Meyers neither.  Freddie Krueger.  No big ugly dog can kill them."

"They can't die because they need to have other movies.  If they fought a werewolf though, they'd die."

Chucky thought about this.  To his mind it was the stupidest thing he'd ever heard.  Clearly, serial killers were real and werewolves weren't.

"Whatever.  They can't die. You shoot them and they don't die.  Some big dumb dog couldn't hurt them."

"Wolves are very smart, actually."  Gwen knew this as she had a whole bookshelf at home dedicated to wolves. "Maybe they can't die from regular stuff.  You know, bullets and stuff like that.  But if regular stuff can't kill them, they must be magic.  And everyone knows that if you're magic, you can be killed by something else that's magic."

Chucky thought this over but had a hard time concentrating.  Wendy Bussard had walked buy wearing her way too tight jeans again.  He tried to see a panty line somewhere but couldn't.  He lost himself in imagining what the bottom half of her would do if he cut her in two.

"Yeah.  Whatever."  Chucky drank his fruit punch and slurped the last few sips out of it loudly.  The school fruit punches never had enough drink in them to satisfy anybody, he thought. 

"Any wolf come after me, I'd just stab it to death."

Gwen stared at him a moment and got up to leave.  Chucky had a mean spirit, she thought to herself, and on top of that, he wasn't very smart.  Anybody who knew anything knew you couldn't kill a werewolf with a simple knife. 

Chucky watched her go but got distracted again, as one of the new sixth graders suddenly got sick to his stomach and threw his lunch up, all over the place, in front of the cafeteria trash can. 

The afternoon went on uneventful. Chucky stumbled his way through class after class, his mind lost in dreams of bloody mayhem he wanted to bring upon his classmates and teachers.  Mr. Winchell was fat, so, Chucky imagined cutting his fat belly off it landing on the floor of science class and all its contents oozing out.  They could have a quiz, or a contest, in identifying what everything was.  Sally Trueblood was Indian and she got Chucky to wondering if she was the same on the inside as everybody else.  Maybe he could kill her and that annoying Norma Bates and peel their skin off.  Then he could cut into them and start comparing their insides, see what sort of differences there were.  He had cut them open around their belly buttons when the final bell rang, letting school out for the day.

The afternoon sun shown lower in the sky now that fall had come.  Students piled out of Crystal Lake, heading this way and that.  The bus stop was off in the other direction, large yellow buses all lined up waiting for their passengers.  Chucky shivered just thinking about being trapped in one of those things as he made to head back home the way he'd came. 

Of course, Chucky never went back home right away.  His mom was likely drunk and passed out, as she often was.  Sam, the man who was living them was likely drunk and, unfortunately, not passed out.  The last thing Chucky wanted was to see him.  When he did, he got dizzy and felt a loud pounding, mixed with a high pitched buzzing in his brain.  All he could see was red, all around him.  Whenever he thought of Sam he felt himself shake.  There was nothing he wanted more than to kill him, to slice him open.  Chucky was sure if he did, that Sam's blood would look bad.  Maybe it wouldn't even look like blood, maybe it'd be more like bugs, roaches and spiders and centipedes, living inside him all crawling out through the holes Sam would make with his switchblade. 

Sam laughed at the thought as he imagined himself stomping the bugs as they tried to skitter away from him.  He'd yell, "Take that muthafuckas!" and he'd dance as he stomped them, yellow gut sprays blasting this way and that. 

As he wandered off along the bike path and into the woods that ran alongside it, he kicked his feet at any and anything in his path.  Off in a clearing that seemed to be getting just a sliver of light, he noticed a dead rabbit, its throat torn out by some dog or cat.  He headed into the clearing to play with the rabbit.  He pulled out his switchblade and started stabbing it, cutting at it, ripping pieces off it.  Soon though, his thoughts got foggy and Chucky found himself yawning.  Before he knew it he was fast asleep, lost in a late afternoon nap. 

A shriek owl woke up, bobbing its head around in circles and staring down at him from the branches above.  In the moonlight Chucky could see it's big round eyes staring at him.  A full moon was out and though the forest was dark, it had a magical light to it.  Chucky pulled himself to his feet and decided that he should walk through the forest and make his way home.  He wasn't sure how late it was, but it felt late.  He headed off out of the clearing and into the trees.

The forest at night was filled with sounds to things Chucky couldn't see.  He liked it during the day, as he was able to creep around and watch any people that happened to be around, hiding in the underbrush unseen. At night though, he was always on his guard, always restless, certain that instead of doing the watching, he was the one being watched.  He clutched his switch blade tightly in his pocket. 

Another clearing ahead had sounds coming from it.  Two kids from Springfield Senior High had chosen tonight to spread out a blanket and make love under the stars.  Chucky took the guy for a jock, seeing as he had a letterman's jacket, piled atop the rest of the clothes he wasn't wearing.  He huffed and puffed and made load groaning sounds as he rocked his body on top of hers.  From his angle, behind them, Chucky couldn't make out much about her but he could hear her, moaning and giving litte yelps of pleasure.  Chucky pulled his blade out of his pocket and pushed the button, activating it, swinging it out from its long dark handle with a swoosh as it locked into place. 

Other people might see two people having sex in the moonlight but all Chucky saw was two people, naked and vulnerable.  He licked his lips and thought how easy it would be to surprise  them.  He could get on top of the guy and slit his throat from behind.  He'd bleed out, right there, on top of her, Chucky on top of him.  She'd scream and scream and scream, unable to do anything.  Chucky took a step in their direction when he heard a twig snap somewhere off to his right, in the shadows. 

He looked into the dark to see what was there.  In the dark, through the branches, he could see a pair of glowing eyes looking back at him.  The eyes disappeared and were suddenly replaced with an unearthly sound, a howl, a wolf's howl. 

In spite of himself, Chucky felt a shiver go down his spine.  The groans and moans in the clearing stopped, suddenly, and were quickly replaced by a load shriek and a desperate fumbling for clothes.  The two midnight lovers scrambled, in sheer terror, to both get dressed and out of the forest as quickly as they could, the time they took to do one necessarily slowing down the time it took to do the other. As they disappeared into the shadows Chucky looked around, searching for the large glowing eyes.  Everything was quiet.  All he could make out were shadows and darkness all around. 

Stepping out into the clearing he tried to straighten himself up.  Whatever the glowing eyes were, he told himself, they were gone and, good for them!  They must have sensed their danger, being so close to him.  He bared his teeth into the dark and attempted a growling sound. Nothing. 

"Yeah!  You better fucking fun!"  He yelled at the top of his voice, to no one and nowhere in particular.  The forest was unmoved, responding only with silence.

Chucky walked over to the discarded blanket the lovers had been using and peed all over it.  He looked around the clearing and seeing nothing, went back to making his way home.  Nervously he began to peel the skin off of the fingertips on his left hand with the switchblade, re-opening old scar tissue in the process.  As he tramped through the trees, stomping his feet as loudly as he could, he wondered how he could get over being afraid of things the way real serial killers did. 

"Jason would never be afraid of a fucking dog," he mumbled under his breath.  He saw the bike path cutting close to the forest up ahead and headed towards it, deciding to take it the rest of the way home.  As he stepped out onto the path, just ahead of him, he came face to face with the largest dog he'd ever seen in his life.

The dog, or, more clearly, a wolf, stood across the path facing him straight on it's eyes glowing in the dark.  It was big, amazingly big, and black but its form could be made out clearly in the moonlight.  Chucky froze.  Instinctively, he pointed his switchblade ahead of him and started to shout but found it hard to find his words, as he saw his hand trembling.  He felt a warm liquid run down his pant leg. 

At his display the wolf seemed to smile and, as it did, it uttered a low, earthy growl.  It took one slow step towards him, followed by another.  It was that second step that was the last thing Chucky would ever remember. 

The wolf's paws knocked him down, on his back.  Once on his back, Chucky dropped his knife and closed his eyes, paralyzed with fear.  In one clean swift bite, the wolf had torn Chucky's throat out as he made is very final sound, a tiny gasp of surprise.  Grabbing the body by what was left of the neck, the wolf dragged it off, into the trees and thrashed it from side to side finally succeeding in separating the head from the rest of the body as the spinal cord severed.  Lost in the shadows of the forest, the wolf's ghastly work continued, out of sight and heard only, it seemed, by the darkness itself.  Soon, all fell quiet.

Gwen Talbot came out of the forest, adjusting her dress, covered in blood that wasn't hers.  Seeing the switchblade on the bike path, she walked over and picked it up.  She pushed the button and watched as the blade sprang to life and locked in place.  She looked it over, side to side but she didn't look overly impressed.  Locking the blade back into place she threw it into the underbrush and started to walk her way home. 

In a quiet voice, with a big bloody smile on her face Gwen whispered to herself, "Werewolves suck, my ass."



Copyright 2010, M.R. Caffery. All rights reserved.