Category Archives: Round Robin

Hidden Freak

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Pine Grove had the unfortunate claim to be one of the most boring towns in Nowhere, America. Sure, if some ambitious soul in town were to write a brochure –and Bobby was positive there wasn’t– it’d have words like “peaceful,” “relaxing” or “pleasant” throughout it’s bland pages. Whatever the spin, it still meant boring.

That was until the carnival came to town.

From what Bobby could tell, it wasn’t really a carnival. He didn’t see any rides being built up other than a Ferris wheel on the far end. It was more like a sideshow gone rogue.

“I tell you, Fix,” Bobby said for the umpteenth time. “It’s better than a proper circus.”

“Would you just listen to yourself.” Fix paused before saying what he’s also now said for the umpteenth time. “There’s no getting better than a proper circus. In fact it cain’t call itself a circus if it ain’t proper.”

Despite Fix’s protestations he followed Bobby to the clearing just outside of town where the not-circus was setting up. By cutting through the woods and hopping the creek bed they were able to get there in half the time as taking the main roads. Not to mention they might be able to get a good look before getting kicked out. That’s when Bobby first realized he planned to do something worth getting kicked out for. No sense getting around it, so he embraced it with both trouble-wielding arms.

“Everyone knows the best part of a circus is the sideshow. The freaks.” Bobby was going to leave it at that, but then felt he needed to clarify. “The freaks that don’t mind being freaks.”

“There you go not making sense again.”

Fix stopped in a bank of pines to dig in his pocket. The light that made it through the boughs wasn’t enough to make the grass grow more than tufts here and there, but the layers of fallen pine needles made up for it, making the ground spongy and easy to walk on. Fix plucked out a pouch of chewing tobacco and pinched a generous lump under his lower lip. After pitting a few stray bits out he continued.

“What kind of freak don’t mind being a freak? As sure as hell would mind if I was a freak.”

This is where Bobby had some experience in. At fifteen he was just shy of seven feet tall. Put like that it ain’t so bad. But when he started school at almost two heads taller than the second tallest kid, he got labeled a freak. And even though by high school some kids started catching up, old labels were near impossible to shake. Maybe if he could’ve land a basket more than two out of ten times, he could’ve traded labels for basketball star. Now he’s just the Tall Guy, though he could still hear the underlying “freak” in its subtext.

“If the bearded lady wasn’t okay with being a freak, she’d shave. Since she’s alright with her freakness, she sits in a booth and makes money off your curiosity. If the fat–”

“I get your point.” Fix cut in and punctuated with a brown glob of spit. “Still no proper circus.”

“I wouldn’t think a sideshow would need clowns.”

This got Fix’s attention. He hated clowns. He was always breaking his little sisters clown dolls. Said they made him angry and couldn’t control smashing them. I think they scared him, but knew better than to ever tell it to his face.

Fix might have been a foot shorter than Bobby, but he made up for it in muscle. See, Fix didn’t get his name because he fixed things. He broke things. It might have started out on accident, but I think somewhere along the way he got used to the attention and kept breaking things. He got to hearing “You gonna fix that” in one form or another so much, the name just made itself.

“It might not be proper, but it sounds like it could be better,” Fix conceded. He got up and started their journey back up.

If Bobby knew it would the last time he saw Fix, he would’ve never mentioned clowns.

To be continued…

The Heist, Part III

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Read Part 1 here and Part 2 here. Now, for the conclusion of The Heist…

“Move that load,” McLaren barked, and his voice snapped the tension like a stick. He rolled the train door open, his pistol ready. As soon as he stepped into the sunlight, the shooting riled up. Foss and Slim grunted, working to right the fallen crate.

“No. The other end, idiot.”
“Heavy.” Foss stumbled in the spilled sludge and cursed. “Slippery, too.”

Beyond him the creatures shifted in the cage. Their talons screeched against the metal bars, sending sparks up Clark’s spine. McLaren’s words slithered through him. Halves.

In his half-seeing eyes, he saw his mother, her braid snaking own her arm, her hand doling out sand. As she painted the ground, she sang the night chant, her words weaving together a powerful healing, a return to balance, to order.

The spirit wind carried the sand away.

Slim’s scream pierced the dark, jerking Clark to action. He slinked through the crates to the far end of the car. The cage end. Clark fought against the stench, and darted to avoid the creatures’ mirror eyes.

Slim had gotten too close. A taloned hand had reached through the bars, caught him by the belt. Outside the train, the sounds of gunfire and death.

“‘O ‘ab him.” Free of effort, Clark’s mouth formed the ancient words. They are coming.

The creature eyed him, cocked his head to the side. “‘O ‘abai him.” They are here.

Clark nodded. Understood. He watched the talons ease and Slim scuttled away, eyes wild as a cornered coon. “Devils,” he said. “All of you.” His boots found purchase and he bolted from the car, leaving the door pen behind him. Sunlight splashed across the crates bringing with it the sharp tinge of sulfur and gun smoke.

“Don’t just stand there, Walker.” Foss’s hands still gripped the end of the crate. , his hands still gripping one end of the crate. “Get the other end.”

Clark stepped through the sludge, feeling it collect around his feet as he worked. Set his hands to the crate handles and heaved. Heavy. How much had been harvested? He pressed away the sick chill and wiped an arm across his forehead. The grey sludge sank into his skin, vanished into his pores. He knew it–understood it–and not just from the look on Foss’s face. Clark reset his grip on the crate handle. “Let’s move.”

Together they shuffled their burden toward the door, knocking over other crates, making a mess of metal and wood. Outside the battle quieted and Clark’s stomach twisted inside him. What fate awaited them on the other side?

Clark felt the change in his hands first. The surging of nail growth. The knotting of knuckles. The prick of pin feathers forming along the tendons at the backs of his hands. The swath of sunlight that lit his skin confirmed what he already knew.

Kahkag. Carrion.

Foss fumbled out the door as Clark’s face stretched to razor-sharp. Clark let the crate go, let the jars tumble to ruin. He rolled the heft of the door, closing out Foss’s cruse. The creatures moaned, the blood of their kin felled to dust.

Clark turned toward the darkness. “Hema,” his voice rasped. One.

His steps light, he wound his way toward the cage, pulled the pearl-gripped Colt from his bag and fired a single shot. The lock gave way. The cage door swung open. Sunlight split the car in two.

He waited for the others to find their way, waited until the change grew complete.

At the door, he stretched his wings wide. Caught an updraft of arid wind. His eyes searched out the carnage below. The vengeful spilling on the sand. A returning to order, to balance.

His cry of defiance rendered the air. Free of effort, the spirit wind carried him away.

The Heist, Part II

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Part I can be found here. And now back to our story…

The smell of decay, feces and gun oil stopped them more effectively than the door with the lock. Slim heaved alongside the rail car, splashing orange against the steel tracks. If Clark hadn’t been too wound up to eat his breakfast, he’d be adding to the mess on the ground. As it was, he gagged and covered his nose and mouth with the crook of his elbow. He tried to use the burlap sack he carried, but it was too thick to catch the smallest of breath through.

Foss cackled and twisted his waxed whiskers.

“Told ya you shoulda’ waxed it. Smells no worse than a night after Cappy’s chili.”

Clark wiped the tears from his eyes. He didn’t have time to get used to the smell. They had a job to do. He stepped into the rail car and assessed what he could carry. Pistols, rifles, and crates filled with who-knows-what lined half the car. The other half was caged off and steeped in shadows. That had to be where stench came from. Clark did his best to avoid that side of the car.

He grabbed a Colt Peacemaker off a shelf and spun the cylinder. Though it was heavier than it looked, the polished wood grip fit nice in his hand. It beat the hell out of scrap he carried now.

“Gimme that.” Foss yanked the colt from Clark’s hand.

“More gun than you can handle, Walker.” His last word spoken like he took a swig from a spittoon. He went on to grab indiscriminately at guns and bullets, shoving them in pockets and belt loops.

A series of gun shots fired. It sounded to Clark to be several cars down. No time to get pissed over a stolen, stolen gun.

Clark opened his bag, and threw gun after gun into it. He came across another Colt Peacemaker with pearl grips. Looking over his shoulder he saw Slim and Foss trying to lift a crate of rifles, and he quick-swapped the rust-pocked revolver in his side holster for the Peacemaker.

A loud crash from behind and Clark nearly jumped his skin. Slim had dropped his end of the crate, smashing it on the floor. It wasn’t filled with rifles.

The crate spilled out small brown jars. Several shattered revealing thick gray sludge. Groans erupted from behind the bars on the other end of the car. Shadows moved behind the bars as shadows moved across his mind. The feeling had him gagging all over again.

The door was between him and the cage. He needed out and took a step toward the door. A gun fired from just outside and McLaren ducked into the car, his shirt sweat-soaked and dark beard covered in dirt.

“And where do you think you’re goin’?” He stared at Clark through squinted eyes. “Your bag’s near empty, Walker.”

“Half,” Clark said more as reflex than defiance.

“You’re still sticking with half are you?”

McLaren kicked open the door all the way, letting light fall into the cage. Fur, feathers, and flesh all trembled at the light. Taloned hands covered human faces, paws and feet paced back and forth. They screamed and growled and pleaded. Clark heard in his ears, and even clearer in his head.

“These are the only Halves I know, Walker.”

Clark counted five… what? People? Animals? Monsters? He wasn’t a monster. They weren’t skinwalkers. The screams in his head said otherwise.

Foss and Slim laughed and scooped up the unbroken jars.

“Break any more and it comes out a your cut. And you, Walker.” McLaren pointed his gun at Clark, a small tendril of smoke escaping the barrel. “You. I’ve got something else for you.”

“Sure, boss. Whatever. You know I’m good.” This wasn’t the time to press his luck with McLaren. Failing this job would leave him in a cell or worse.

“Glad to hear, Walker.” A smile split his beard wide, but he didn’t lower his gun.

Yelling came from outside. Whatever guard was on the train sounded like they were regrouping. Time was up.

“Now tell me again what makes you half a skinwalker? Nevermind, I don’t care. The proofs in the Walkin’, right?”

McLaren pointed to the caged monstrosities with his other hand.

“Start Walkin’.”

See how it all ends on Friday. You won’t want to miss it.

The Heist

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The red-tail hawk coasted on an updraft of arid wind. Clark harnessed the bird, using her sharp yellow eyes to search for the 6:15 train running late out of Jerome. The hawk screamed defiance, but then her hunting instinct took over. Prey was prey, after all.

She spotted the long black beast approaching the cut crossing Stolen Horse Gulch and banked, preparing to dive and snatch the snake in her claws.

Clark crashed back into his body. His legs were numb, his hands sweating a storm inside his leather gloves. Catching his nerves, Pally snorted and shifted beneath him. Clark ran a soothing hand along the horses’ neck. The big pinto gelding always had been too clever for his own good.

“Well?” Foss prodded, his face wrinkled in disgust. The rancid oil he used to wax his mustache gleamed in the slanted afternoon sunlight.

“Let’s go.”

Clark put his heels to Pally, acutely aware of how Foss watched him, like a cur he wanted to kick, but didn’t dare in case the dog was rabid. This might be the crime that made him part of the McLaren Gang, but Clark would never be one of them, no matter what he did. Foss, Slim, even McLaren himself— they would never believe that he was only half a skinwalker. And wasn’t that always the way of it. Clark never caught himself a break, just the scraggedy tail ends of ‘em. Couldn’t get into any school. Tried his hand at farming, but even his dirt crops had been poor— fields rocky and thoroughly studded with caliche, a bastard clay that was too coarse to be useful and too tough for anything but weeds. He’d considered looking for his mother’s people, but Daddy swore up and down that they were all gone. Everyone said Mama was a Navaho or else maybe Yavapai but Daddy claimed her “O’Odham from Snaketown,” which made no sense any way you spread it, seeing as there was no such place and no such people—not that he’d ever heard tell of, anyway. He wondered what she’d think of him now, joining a band of toughs to take this train. Granted, if McLaren hadn’t managed to board in Jerome, there’d be no heist at all.

The sound of squealing breaks snapped Clark’s attention: McLaren had held up his end of the bargain.

“Think of the devil,” Clark muttered to Pally as they swept alongside the train. McLaren was spooky like that. Man gave Clark the cold shivers, truth be told.

Beside him Foss and Slim began to holler, firing into the air. Clark shook his head at the waste of bullets. Didn’t those fools reckon they’d need ‘em more in a moment? The guards weren’t going to go down without a fight. Reaching the express car, Clark dismounted, drew his piece, and approached. Foss jumped down to cover Clark as he wrenched open the cargo door.

“Holy God.”

 

And thus concludes today’s installment of THE HEIST. Tune in Wednesday for the next episode!

Blueshine, Heartfire Part III

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If you haven’t already, please read the first two installments. Part I written by Amy Nichols and Part II by Amy McLane. Then read on to the conclusion…

Blueshine, Heartfire Part III

Jareb gripped the sewal with both hands, Gershu’s creeda forcing him to clean. No. He’d cleaned enough, but his hands wouldn’t let go of the sewal. One end locked in his grip, the other submerged in the cob.

His foot falls felt like they was missing a step down. A stutter-stop motion that sent ripples through the murky cob water. His eyes focused on the cob water. The interior airlock only half sewaled and the water was a solid grey. Bits of sand swirled in the cob; tangle hairs, rainbow streaks of grease, gelatinous matter that could have been mold or vomit or blackrot for all he knew. All this he could see in the cob, but not one inch of the sewal below the water.

Corded twists of his hair fell from his cap and framed his view of the cob, his stutter-stop swagger now sloshing the contents back onto the floor. The Gershu’s creeda screamed at his being to slop it up.

He stopped and swayed, lifting the sewal from the cob. His pocket burned. The Gershu’s creeda cracked as his hand flew from the sewal to slap at his burning skids. No fire. One hand away and it was easier to pull his eyes from the cob.

He’d seen the Gen Master use his creeda to burn a hole trough a Vind’s boot and commanded him to finish stamping the lavreen plumes flat.

“Don’t fret about getting your blood on the plumes,” the Gen Master told the Vind. “The flesh has been singed shut. You’re welcome.”

No, there was no fire burning his skids. No hole anyway or the charred beginning of one. Just the lump in his pocket.

He reached in. The Gershu’s creeda that had continued to crack shattered as his finger brushed against the gimlet. Shattered as sure as his heart had in a murkier mess than the cob.

He stopped walking. Jareb didn’t remember walking again, but he must have. When he stopped, he looked up to and into the B Drop. Gershu stood with a finger crooked over Effy.

“That was quick,” she said without looking away from the prostrate form of Effy. “Good. Then you can help your slut finish the floors in here. Her tongue doesn’t appear to do as a good a job as your sewal, even though I had her stomach emptied before starting.”

Her finger stiffened with more creeda and twitched in Jareb’s direction.

He clenched his fists waiting for the creeda to grip him as sure as he gripped the sewal. Whether it was his own nails or an edge of gimlet, he never knew. One or the other pierced his palm and he felt it.

The fire.

The fire entered his palm and traveled the veins up his arm. They were blue. It shone through his skin as bright as the inner dome lamps.

Jareb looked at Gershu. Her eyes were wide, but that damned finger still crooked at him. He could see the creeda, too. Never in his life had he even known it possible to view, but there it was jetting from her finger in a black mist. From the position of her finger it should have come straight at him, but it fell at his feet before his blueshine.

Effy retched.

The sight of her sent something roiling through him. He cocked his head to the right, and Gershu’s finger snapped, the flow of creeda ceasing.

“Enough,” Jareb’s voice sounded oddly fuller than it had. “Never again.”

The end of the sewal snapped, leaving the head in the cob. His footing was sure now, and he advanced on Gershu.

“Jareb, wait.”

Effy’s voice rasped like an opening airlock.

“Yes, Jareb. Listen to the slut.”

Gershu brought up both hands, nine of ten fingers writhing with creeda. The tenth dangled uselessly. The creeda didn’t come for Jareb or Effy. It shot down the hall in both directions.

“Just remember you made me do this. I only hope there’ll be enough left of you to clean up once it’s over.”

Gershu smiled and softly shuffled in her slippers. She danced in place as her creeda poured from her. Jareb saw her inner well of creeda start to dry up when he heard movement at the end of the corridor.

Ssshhhh-clump.

Ssshhhh-clump.

Jareb’s stomach dropped.

A hoard of Vindaline moved toward him in a slide-step gate, faster than he felt they should have been able to manage. Hard to manage because they were covered in black welts wherever he could see skin. Blackrot.

Jareb stepped in front of Effy, still on the floor. The handle of the sewal seemed useless against this mob of dead flesh, yet he held tight and ready to strike.

Gershu laughed and shuffled.

“The Vinds lack the ability to learn. There place is so far below, why we even allow them to be seen, I’ll never know.”

The blueshine flickered. He was to die here. This was it. Effy grabbed hold of Jareb’s skids and buried her face in the back of his leg.

The mob would kill them. Kill them, but not kill them dead. The blackrot would take their flesh, and Gershu and her creeda would puppet them like the rest of the mob.

The Vindaline closest to him looked to open his jaw. Looked because it didn’t stop opening. Its jaw unhinged and fell to ground with a rotten smack. Jareb could see the Vind’s eyes. He didn’t know him, but he knew the stare.

He sees the stare in most Vinds he meets, Effy excluded. That stare said, “Please. Please, make them stop.”

He wouldn’t end this way. He wouldn’t let Effy end this way either. His will resolved and the blueshine no longer wavered.

Gershu’s laughing dance didn’t stop. It continued as Jareb threw the sewal handle at the control panel by the airlock. Her slippers shuffled as the handle struck the Emergency Evac. Her fingers tittered even as the doors opened and the air, Vinds, and everything untethered rushed into open space.

Jareb and Effy watched all of this from inside the blueshine. The Emergency Evac counted down from ten and shut the doors once more. Not so much as a single corded twist moved on Jareb’s head.

Something burned in his chest and Jareb knew. A chard of his heart mended in the fire of the blueshine. And if a single chard could be fixed, the whole of his heart could be too. He held his hand out to Effy.

“I believe we’re to see the Gen Master.”

Blueshine, Heartfire Part II

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Amy McLane here. Before we continue with the second installment of Blueshine, Heartfire, I would like to take a moment to apologize for being MIA. Someone dear to me has fallen on some Interesting Times, and I, in typical fashion, hurled myself straight into the center of the maelstrom in an attempt to help this dear one. The events of the last two weeks have taught me some very big lessons about myself, and the world, and human nature, and I can say with no hyperbole that these lessons  will inform and shape my writing for the rest of my life. A veil has been pulled from my eyes, and I am older, and wiser, and wearier for it.

And so, to everyone who might read this: I’m sorry. I’m here now. And I will be here, every Monday, and every third Thursday, from now until we all band together with matchsticks and kerosene and burn this puppy down.

And if you have not read it yet, here is Blueshine, Heartfire Part I.

Blueshine, Heartfire, Part II

Effy’s eyes went wide, her lips white. “Puncha,” she said, and then in Fed, her supply of vindal exhausted, “The dead man said.”

“Eh, Effy?”

“In the caskets. Had blackrot.”

Jareb nodded. Blackrotters got milled, that was the way of it. Otherwise they’d get up again, after they died, and spread their rot. He hated to think of Effy looking at such things, at scrubbing the flecks of bone from the millery caskets, but she was Vindaline, she was borne to bear it.

Effy shifted from foot to foot. “I can’t stay.”

“What he say?” Jareb asked her, feeling the weight of the gimlet in his hand.

“He was nutter,” said Effy, her curls rustling as she shook her head. “He said God sent him, he was an instrument of God and that he had hidden God’s instrument. In the dirt, he said, for the children of the dirt. For the children of dirt are the children of God.” She glanced around. “I should go.”

“Wait,” blurted Jareb, feeling the gimlet shudder in his clenched fist, vibrating into his bones. The heart of the scallic boy’s song came back to him in the rush of a broken memory-dam.
“The wheel turns and we are bound to it
Rise and fall, sun and moon, earth and sky
The wheel turns and we are crushed by it
And we die, and are born, and we die, and are born,
Again and again. There is no beginning and no end to time
And the children of dirt are the children of God.”

“You can remember,” said Effy, even paler now. “I thought I was the only one.” She inhaled through her teeth, a shuttering grasp at control. “I thought I was alone.”

“Of course I can remember,” said Jareb, surprised.

Footsteps sounded in the hall, not the tramp and stamp of Feds, but the soft patter pat of Maid-Mistress Gershu’s slippered feet. Jareb’s stomach flipped.

“Run,” he said, jamming the gimlet into his pocket.

“Remember,” said Effy, “Remember what I have told you every day. For three years.”

“Go.”

Effy spun on her heel. Not fast enough.

“Effy,” Gershu’s voice cracked down the hall. “There is dust in common room three.”

Gershu crooked a finger full of creeda, and Effy dropped to the ground, screaming in pain. Jareb fell to his knees next to her, knowing there was nothing he could do. Gershu pointed her finger, and Effy turned her head and vomited on the floor.

“You are a lazy slut,” said Mistress Gershu looming over them both, “And you do not ever learn. I think you are for The Brinks.”

“No!” Jareb cried.

Gershu pinned him with her eyes. “Two for The Brinks.” She snapped her fingers and Jareb and Effy both jumped to attention, held by her vice-like creeda. “You,” she said to Effy, “With me, now. And you. Clean this mess and then report to B Drop.”

Jared tried to speak as Gershu pattered away, Effy trailing helplessly after. He managed to grunt.

Gershu looked over her shoulder at him and smiled. “Don’t worry. I promise I’ll push you in together.”

Jareb leaned against the wall next to his propped sewal. The impulse to scrub screamed at him. He inched his fingers into his pocket and touched the blueshine gimlet.

Remember, she said.

Remember.

“Cast er inut, eh?” Effy said. The familiar greeting from their vindal pheran.

“Eh,” Jareb replied, “Farren sabit.”

“They are stealing our creeda to make the blackrot.”

“Eh,” Jareb replied, “Farren sabit.”

“They will poison the stars. Everything will end. The wheel will never turn again.”

“Eh,” Jareb replied, “Farren sabit.”

“Damn you,” said Effy.

“Eh,” Jareb replied, “Farren sabit.”

Jareb blinked out of the heartshine trance. Sweat burned in his eyes, and mirrors shattered in his mind, as his heart broke and broke and broke.

It was time for the wheel to turn again.

Blueshine, Heartfire

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We’re writing a round robin story this week. Here’s the first installment. Amy McLane will be posting part two on Wednesday, and S.C. Green will post the conclusion on Friday. Enjoy!

Blueshine, Heartfire

Jareb grew tired of cleaning. Not just tired. Fed up. He slopped the sewal into the cob and dragged it along behind him. Outside the night swarmed hot and his throat felt full of grit. He wiped the sleeve of his tunic across his forehead and pushed his corded twists back under his cap.

Slobs, the lot of them. Smiling and laughing. Carefree and careless. Leaving it to the Vindalines to clean up after their messes.

The cob’s wheels squeaked along the floor, echoing through the empty hall. Jareb licked his lips and whistled a dry tune, the one he’d heard the scallic boy singing from the rafters just after pranton, midday. He couldn’t remember it all. Just the starting notes and the bit that rose and fell again. Words, something about the feral stars of the Hobastion Belt. A place he’d surely never see. Not moving sewals and wiping slop. He whistled the song through again, filling in the empty spaces with snatches from the pheran songs he’d learned in his days before the migration.

He slicked the sewal along the floor where the footfalls tracked in sand from outside the airlocks. He lined up his foot alongside one of the prints. Counting the frayed bits at the toe of his boot, his matched up. His stride longer. His gate strong. Not limp or gnarled or monstrous as some would guess. No different at all, to be true. And why should it be? Because his craft lagged behind others his age? Because his mother fled to the Vindals to bear him? The thought left his throat thick, his shoulders tight. He wiped away the dusty prints. Erased them as those who left them would have him erased. Lost himself in the movement of the sewal and the moonglint in the shiny places.

Only when his back boot knocked the jaberstand off its bearings did he see the gimlet. He’d have missed it entirely he was so lost in his thoughts. He glanced along the corridor before bending to pick up the treasure. He turned the stone over in his hand, held it up to the light of the sky domes. Blueshine and heartfire, its facets cast the starlight into his eyes.

Who had been so hapless as to lose such a rarity? Surely someone would be missing this beauty. He tossed it once in his palm, feeling its grace. With this, he could make a change. Do some damage. Open some eyes. But wielding it required creeda he’d never tried. Did he have the mettle?

The slightest sound, like the cooing of a pip, startled him and he clasped his fingers round the gimlet tight. He turned, using the motion to tuck the prize into his pocket and place his hand again to the sewal.

Effy.

Her blue eyes and marble skin glistened from her efforts. Hers to care were the common rooms and millery caskets.

“Cast er inut, eh?” she said. The familiar greeting from their vindal pheran.

“Eh,” Jareb replied, wondering how long she’d been there, watching. Had she seen the stone? He fingered its smoothness safe in his pocket. “Farren sabit.”

He liked the way her dark curls rounded her face and fell about her shoulders. The way her tantor skimmed the floor as she moved. In another life, another station, he’d have drawn up the heart to ask her pavan. But here, with his lack of punt? His misshapen creeda? Despite her own lot, she would find better.

Effy bit her lip and spied him through her eyelashes. The same encounter each night. She’d blush and wave and be on with her work. He on with his.

Unless.

“Effy,” Jareb said, feeling his heart knocking inside. He drew his fingers around the stone and pulled his hand forth for her to see.

To be continued…

The Night Shift, Part III

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This is final installment of a three-part story. If you haven’t yet, you can read part one here, and part two here.

No sooner had the green goo spread to the Rock Star display than the door chimed and four more creeps swooped in. Agile bastards. Ugly, too. All red eyes and spitting mad. They cleared the magazine racks and the candy aisle before Reece or I could say boo.

“What do we do?” I yelled, but my words came out, “Whumma-shu-ah!”

Reece slipped one of the fiercer knives from her bag and, holding the point, tossed it to me. It dropped into my hands and my fingers gripped the molded handle. Perfect balance. Finest craftsmanship.

“Go for the kill!” she yelled, wielding two smaller knives, and she set on the sucker running at her. Caught him with one knife in the belly and the other in the eye.

Two more raced down the aisle toward me. I ducked behind the cardboard Godaddy girl, my feet slipping on green splatter and my heart pounding in my head. What was I doing? I didn’t know anything about gutting monsters. I was just Ted, the night clerk.

Then they batted the girlie away and I didn’t have time for indulgent thinking. The bigger one was on my right. Matted hair hanging in his eyes. The smaller ran a black tongue over his lips. I took a step back. And another. The cold of the beer case crept through my shirt.

“Reece?” My voice pinched in my throat. I heard a scream over by the coffee island. Didn’t sound human. The big one reached for me and instinct took over. I braced my back foot against the base of the cooler and pressed forward with the blade. It punctured through and kept going. The beast screamed as green oozed down over my arm.

I couldn’t pull the blade in time to cut the other smaller one. It leapt on me, clambering on my back and digging its fingers into my shoulders. I kicked the big guy off my knife and his body fell back with a squish. I stabbed blindly at the bastard on my back. I didn’t feel the blade stick, but his scream ripped through my skull. He released his grip and fell, leaving a slick of goop down my back. I turned to see Reece, breathing heavy, two knives poised in her hands.

“Thanks.” I shook the monster juice from my sleeve.

“Don’t thank me yet.” She looked past me toward the door. “There’ll be more. Their blood emits a chemical that attracts others. Works like a — “

There came a banging from the back of the store.

“Well, that was quick.” Reece wiped the knives on her jeans. “This place have an emergency cutoff switch?”

“Of course.”

“Destroy it.”

She ran for the automotive aisle. I ran for the bullet-proof box. Grabbed the fire extinguisher and smashed the crap out of the plastic casing covering the kill switch. Then I smashed the crap out of the switch itself. Bits of plastic and metal fell to the linoleum. Reece raced toward the front door, her arms full.

“Grab your keys. Let’s go.”

I locked the door behind me and looked up through the glass to see Tina walking toward me. Eyes red. Arms reaching. Spit dangling from her mouth. Gathered around her were a dozen or more nightwalkers.

“Get away, Ted!” Reece called from the pumps.

But my eyes were fixed on my boss. She slammed her palms against the glass. “I’m disappointed in you,” she growled. “You were supposed to be oblivious. Too stupid to figure it out.”

Reece’s voice came behind me again, closer. “Get. Away. Ted!”

She’d rigged a contraption out of hoses, duct tape and oil funnels that stretched from pump number five all the way to the door. And she worked that makeshift flamethrower with the same steady hand I imagined she used to torch sugar on fou-fou egg tarts. The flames ignited a chain reaction through the cans of WD40, toilet cleaner and all the other kinds of chemicals she’d stacked around the front of the store.

We’d barely run far enough, when – boom — the blast shattered the night.

Later, after the fire’d burned to coals and she’d doctored my scratched-up skin, Reece pulled out her ULTIMATE EDGE bag once more. Sharpened a clean knife and stabbed two Vienna sausages out of a can. Held them over the heat. “So, what are you going to do now, Ted?”

The first hints of dawn tantalized the deserted street. I pushed the ashes of what had been the store with my shoe. “No idea.”

“You’re pretty good with a knife.” She held the perfectly browned sausages out to me. “I could use a sous-chef.”

I blew on the sausage before taking a bite, wondering what else this woman had up her sleeve. “Let’s talk about it over coffee.”

I was gonna need something bitter with no cream or sugar before making any decisions. That was for damn sure.

The Night Shift, Part II

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Part I of The Night Shift is here. Part III will be posted on Friday.

The kid jumped at the sound of her voice. He spun, a neat heel-toe that I never would’ve guessed was in him. Then he hissed at the chef. If I’m lyin’ I’m dyin’.  Frickin’ hissed at her. I thought that was super weird.

Things got weirder directly.

“Oh shit,” said the chef.

They ran at each other. At least, that’s what I thought was going on. But the kid, he runs down aisle two at the chef, and the chef runs up and jump-kicks the shelving , like she’s the goddamn Karate Kid. The whole thing tips. The kid skids on a packet of Skittles and bites it just in time for the metal shelving to smash down on top of him in a hail of Snowballs and Corn Nuts.

I thought my brain was going to short-circuit.

“Oh my God!”  I hustled out from the counter. “You all right son?”

“Stay back,” said the chef.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” I’m screaming now, and I don’t care. “You think you can just come in here and fuck up my store, kill some kid cause he looked at you funny? You think you’re some kind of fucking gunslinger or something?”

“Nothing is wrong with me, sorry about the mess, he’s not dead-”

“He’s not?”

“-Hell no, and he’s not a kid. And no, I’m not a gunslinger.” She hooked a thumb on the black nylon strap on her shoulder and swung her bag around so I could look at it.

“THE ULTIMATE EDGE,” I read. Okay. She was nuts. As if there was any doubt at this point.  Just gotta keep her calm until the cops get here. “I don’t know that purse brand, but I’m sure it’s a great one.”

“It’s a knife bag.” She squinted. “Ted.”

I rubbed my hand over my name tag. Back and forth.  Back and forth. “Knives, huh? For cooking.  At your job. ‘Cuz you’re a chef.”

The chef turned, set THE ULTIMATE EDGE on the counter.

“You don’t have to show me-” I said as she pulled on the zipper.

“Name’s Teresa. You can call me Reece.”

“Ted.”

“Yeah. I got that.” Reece unpacked THE ULTIMATE EDGE. Knives glittered. Big ones. Small ones. Skinny ones. Mean ones. Reece picked one up.

“Do you mind not doing…that?” I asked. Something rolled against my foot. I looked down at a can of Vienna Sausages. I looked over at the kid, still pinned beneath the metal shelving. His eyes were open. He wiggled. One arm was almost free.

“Hey!” I said. I walked over to the kid on legs shaky with relief. “Anything broken?”

He looked at me, mute.

I bent closer. “I said-“

His hand shot out from under a bag of Fritos and grabbed me by the throat. The pain was instant. I couldn’t breathe. I pulled at his hand with both of mine, but he was strong.  A shadow fell over me.

Reece.

“WHY ARE YOU HERE?” Reece shouted at the kid.

The kid spat at her.

Reece screamed in pain as the kid’s saliva struck her skin.

“You’re 86ed, you dumb mother,” she said, and stabbed the kid in the chest.

Green stuff came out, the exact green of those pine tree shaped car fresheners.

No red. No red at all.

I finally got the kid’s hand off me. “What. The. Hell?” I choked out.

“I told you he wasn’t a kid. They’re Nightwalkers, Ted, and where there’s one, there’s always more.”

I looked at the green puddle spreading across my floor.

“Tina’s gonna kill me.”

“Tina is not who you gotta worry about. Unless-”

“Unless?”

“She the owner?”

“Yup.”

“That would explain it.” Reece sounded almost relieved.

“Explain what?”

Reece looked at me.  “She’s their Queen.”

The Night Shift

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The world doesn’t end once the sun goes down. The last tail light fades to a red pin prick before guttering out, but I’m still here, a creature of the night. Now don’t go yelling vampire or demon spawn or some such crazy nonsense. There’s no such thing. I’m just Ted.

The night clerk.

Once the street lights come on, I clock in and man the bullet-proof cage that hasn’t seen anything stronger than a .22 caliber spit wad in the twenty-some years I’ve worked here. Tina says I can have all the coffee I want while I work. She thinks it’ll help me stay awake through the night, and I’ve been known to go through more than two pots on my shift. Truthfully, I just like the bitter, no cream or sugar taste. I have no problem staying up till sun rise.

I think the common misconception is that nothing happens in the middle of the night when you’re outside city limits. That couldn’t be farther from the truth. I see all sorts.

Just the other night this lady comes in wearing a black shirt with two columns of thick buttons. The cuffs were rolled several times just so her hands wouldn’t get lost in the sleeves.

‘That’s an interesting shirt.’

‘I’m a chef,’ she told me as she reached for a pack of cigarettes on the display case.

‘Let me grab you a fresh pack from here,’ I said. Those packs on display haven’t been rotated out in years. If someone should steal one, I’d hate for them to enjoy it, too.

‘Thanks,’ she said.

As she put the pack back on the shelf, the cuff pulled back just far enough for me to see a light scar across her wrist. She must have seen me looking because she said, ‘Cooking accident. An oven doesn’t care how long you’ve been using it. It’ll bite you just the same.’

Her mouth might have smiled while she said it, but her eyes looked tired from repeating it.

‘Ain’t that the truth. That’ll be three seventy-two.’ I took her money and a couple pennies from the spare change tray and gave her thirty cents back.

Now on a different night, or maybe a different time that same night, I might have chatted a bit more. It’s not often I get to talk to an actual chef. Outside though, another car pulled in the lot, and most people won’t talk to a stranger if they know another stranger will overhear them.

‘Do you mind if I stand outside and smoke?’

‘Sure, sure,’ I said. ‘Just don’t get near the gas pumps. Nothing might happen, but we could get an earful if the wrong person sees you.’

‘Got it.’

The chef lady pounded the pack of cigarettes against the palm of her hand as she walked out the doors, sounding the electric chime as she crossed the threshold.

No one had gotten out of the car yet, but I could see two people talking in the front seat. I’m pretty sure the car was green. It was hard to tell being that it was covered in mud, most of it fresh. Usually I’d wait behind the counter for someone to come in, but instead I waddled out from the bullet-proof cage and headed for the beer coolers. My knee was acting up that week, so it took me a bit to get up to speed. Sometimes I tell people it’s an old football injury acting up, but really I’m just getting old. I also used to tell people to avoid getting old until I thought about the alternative.

So I waddled to the beer coolers and locked them. I still had an hour before last call, but it could save me some grief later. At least so I thought. I poured myself another cup of coffee and headed back to my little cage of glass. It’s more like plastic, but they tell me it’s bullet-proof.

The passenger door opens up and a kid gets out. Maybe he’s not so much a kid, but at my age, if your hair ain’t gray or falling out, you’re still a kid to me. He’s got his hood pulled up, hands in his pockets, and never looks up as he comes in the store. I couldn’t keep from smiling as he headed for the beer. He pulled on the cooler door and nearly lost his balance when the door didn’t open like he expected.

Now I could’ve just asked the kid for his ID. That usually sends them running through the door. But I was enjoying watching him fumble around, staring at a seventy-five cent bag of Doritos as if there was something meaningful to find in its list ingredients.

That’s when the door chime went off again. The chef lady was back.

‘I think I’ll bring home a nightcap, too,’ she said.

As soon as that chime sounded, I knew this would go sour. Well, less amusing anyway.