bjciii... my twisted stories

The Thanatos Journals (Part 4)

2007-10-09T12:15:00.001-04:00

Okay... it's time for this one-way street to turn into a two-lane highway. I've given you a lot of salacious stories about death and destruction, feeding your overly-needy voyeuristic ideas of how revenge should play out, but I have a question for you.

It's sort of philosophical in nature, so mull it over:

Am I any more to blame for the death of someone than the knife or the gun used to do the deed?

I mean, in a sense, I'm merely a tool as well. Someone employs me to carry out a task. Therefore, if you think of me as a gun, someone pulled my trigger so I could pull another. In my mind, the person who had a problem and contacted me in the first place is actually the one who should be forced to handle any divine retribution.

To put it in another sense, here's a real-life example:

John Doe, my employer, is contracted by Jane Doe, the client, to kill her annoying ex. Jane pays John $50,000 to do the job, and then John contracts me to perform the hit for $40,000, keeping $10,000 for his trouble. So, I take that money, go do my work, and eliminate the annoying ex. The bullet that enters the head of Jack Doe, the ex, is fired from my rifle. My rifle is fired by me. I am contracted by John. John is contracted by Jane. Shouldn't Jane be the one to suffer in the eternal flames of hell?

I'm sure many of you could stretch it further and say that Jack did something to Jane to get her hot enough to hire a killer, but let's face it: it's not always that clear-cut. I believe there is a Latin phrase that goes Amantes sunt amentes (Lovers are lunatics). When you have that severe taste of affection for someone, sometimes your brain doesn't work right. I mean, when your head says one thing, but your heart literally pains you because you don't want to think logically... well, which part are you going to listen to? Kinda sucks, right?

So where does the blame lay? Do you blame Anheuser-Busch for making the beer that John Jones consumed before crashing his car and killing Polly Pureheart? Do you blame General Motors for making the car? Maybe it is all my fault, I don't know. It's not like it's keeping me up at night in any case... I was just struck with a really bad case of "Mexican Food Overload" and was caught without reading material. It's true... you do come up with some very interesting thoughts on the throne...

The Thanatos Journals (Part 3)

2007-09-05T14:10:00.001-04:00

Honestly, I have been having a lot of trouble trying to figure out how to start this one. I mean, I've introduced myself, I've told you about the first murder I ever committed... what else is there? I mean, there's a litany of death in my past, but which ones are worthy of narratives?

Oh... I know.

I told you before that these hits aren't exactly personal. I mean, logically, every murder is personal in some way. Some chick in some movie once said "'It's not personal'?? What does that mean? It means that it's not personal to you..." That's probably very correct. When I'm pulling the trigger on some mark, or sliding my knife across their carotid artery, I am not thinking of anything beyond a paycheck. When I'm taking their life, I guarantee that they are definitely wondering who I am and, more often than not, what they did to get here. It's definitely personal to them.

Well, one of my contracts was just a little bit personal for me. I mean, I didn't lose sleep thinking about him beforehand, and I sure as shit didn't lose sleep afterwards, but I do remember a split-second of intense pleasure shooting through my veins as I saw his eyes glaze over. Oh yes... I stood there and watched him die.

I don't do that very often, but I wanted to see him realize what was happening. I needed to see that for some reason. However, I'm going off on a tangent, aren't I? You're lost because I didn't use one of those "transitions" that every one of my writing teachers taught me when I was in school.

Okay... this contract came from the normal channel (that is to say, I was buzzed by my cell phone which asked me to download a file) and, truthfully, I didn't rush to check it out. I mean, I was out on a date of sorts, enjoying a fine meal with a fine bottle of wine and a fine woman. All three things led me to be very happy "in the now," so I didn't feel the need to ruin my mood by thinking about work.

Yes, even hired killers get that lovely feeling of ennui when thinking about work. I doubt anyone loves their job 7 days a week.

In any case, a few hours later, after the meal was digesting, the wine was coursing through my bladder, and the woman lay (satisfied) on her her bed, I finally looked at the phone.

If I had known whose picture I'd be seeing, I would have opened the file a lot sooner, asked for a doggie bag, and given the bitch cab-fare.

See, a few years back, I knew someone who spoke excessively about her ex-boyfriend. Apparently the guy was a real douchebag, but, for whatever reason, the link just could not be severed. Well, I severed our link after a month or so, but that was only because I couldn't stand to hear yet another "Tommy" story. What always confused me was that this guy was a horrible boyfriend, a terrible friend, but she still talked to him. No matter... I did what I had to do and left that coupling.

So when I flipped my phone open and saw Tommy's face, I was... well... is "excited" too strong of a word here? I don't think so. I mean, I wasn't coming in my pants or anything, but I was definitely sporting a semi-chub.

I have pushed aside any "angel/devil" scenario in my line of work because people need killing. This time, however, I let myself imagine the whole "good/evil" principle on my shoulders. The bad news? Only one showed up. The good news? It was my friend in the red pajamas.

I figured that I was getting paid $50,000 for this hit, so Tommy must have been a very bad boy. Turns out, I was right. See, he decided to go to some law school, get his degree, hang a defense attorney shingle, and took a case where he managed to browbeat a rookie cop on the stand, ensuring his (very guilty) client's acquittal on a technicality. Normally, I couldn't give two shits about this, but I was curious as to see what he had been up to in the few years since I last looked into him (yes... even hired killers feel a pang of jealousy. As I said before, I haven't loved anyone in a long time, but I'm selfish: When a woman is with me, I want her with me all the way... none of this talking about exes shit).

Turns out that my boy had gotten a rather prolific child-molester out of trouble. This lowlife piece of shit (yes, I despise anyone who preys on children... surprised?) systematically destroyed 10 families by manipulating the pre-teen sons into horrid acts. How did Tommy get the guy off? A clerical error. Well fuck me running... And people say that my line of work is morally objectionable!

So, in any case, these 10 families ponied up $6K apiece and called the right people (who took 10% off the top). Those people called me and I was to take care of both the piece of shit and the pedophile.

The pedophile, unfortunately, met with a horrible accident. See, he was walking through the woods, ostensibly enjoying the fresh spring air, when he miraculously found his penis nailed to a tree. Not only that, but a baseball bat fell out of said tree onto his head... 23 times. I wish I could have seen it because I would have so submitted that shit to Bob Saget and America's Funniest Home Videos.

Since that freak act of nature was already in the past, I decided to set my sights on our friend Tommy. He wasn't too hard to find as he was too busy living the high-profile life. Cars, hookers, drugs... the little fucker was living the shit out of his soon-to-be-ending life. Good for him. Life is transitory after all: have fun while you can!

Anyway, I watched him for a few days (a lot shorter recon than I am used to, but I started to get antsy), and saw his general biking route through the valley near his home. On the 4th day, I sat on a rock by the side of the road. Originally I thought maybe, if I pretended to be stranded or have a busted part on my bike, that he would stop. Of course, then I realized that he would have to be a semi-decent human being for the "good Samaritan" lure to work.

Silly me.

In any case, I was only on the rock for about 10 minutes before I heard his now-familiar puffing and rattling coming down the trail. As he got closer, I smiled, steeled myself, and yanked the steel-cable tight.

Perfect placement.

His body stopped in midair as his bike kept going along the path. I dropped the cable, which had caught him around the chest, and he collapsed to the dirt... with a satisfying crash. I got up, walked over, and placed my knee down on his chest.

"Hey buddy," I said, "quite a tumble. You okay?"

Gasping for air, he looked up at me with a gaze of pure arrogance. I would have bet $100 that his next words would be "Do you know who I am?"

"Do you know who I am, asshole?"

Shit... almost exactly right.

"As a matter of fact, I do. Why do you think I rigged the cable? Shit, boy... for a high-class defense attorney, you really are a dumb fucker."

His dirty-blonde hair was matted with sweat and hung heavy with the now-settling cloud of dust. He struggled against my knee, but I pushed it in harder and even heard the excruciating sound of a rib snapping. As he started to scream, I pulled out my knife and told him that I'd make it really hurt if he started that shit.

Good boy that he was, he stifled the scream. Too bad... I was gonna make it painful no matter what.

I dragged him over to the tree where I had secured the cable, and pulled out the shackles that I had driven into the ancient wood. Securing him tightly, I wrapped some duct tape around his mouth to shut him up.

"I'd love to apologize for how that's gonna feel when it comes off, but face facts Tommy-boy... you won't ever feel it coming off."

Perversely, that calmed him down. I think he figured I meant to talk to him, and let him go. Oops. Faulty logic, counselor!

He almost bit through the duct-tape gag as I put a bullet into his right-knee, but that lovely piece of tape held even when I snapped his other leg for fun. The worst part? He cried. I really, really hate criers. As his head rocked back from the punch, I shook my hand telling him that I really would appreciate him dying like a man.

This, of course, did nothing to stem the tide of those sweet, salty drops of fear. Honestly, at this point I was already tired of it and cut short my entire idea of how to make him suffer. It was good too, because I had another hour or two all stored up. Instead, I walked 4 paces, turned and put a bullet directly through his throat. I squatted in front of him and watched him gasp for air, all the while paying attention to the dawning realization of death reflected in his eyes. I can't really remember just how long it took for him to actually die, but I sat in rapt attention until the eyes just glossed over in that gaze of nothingness.

I think I sat there for another 5 minutes before I collected the pieces of my death kit and headed back to my rental car. Since I rented under Tommy's name and with his credit-card information, I didn't feel bad in the least when I torched it with my kit inside. I mean, really... he had enough money to cover an Audi rental, right?

Oh... there's one, last piece to this story. One last thing that made it memorable to me was that it was the first and last time I ever gave back the money I got for doing the job. I made 10 stops on the way to the airport and deposited 10 envelopes into 10 mailboxes. Each envelope contained $5,000 and a note:

In innocence, there is no strength against evil.
-- Ursula K. Le Guin
In evil, there is no protection from what is right.
--Me

The Thanatos Journals (Part 2)

2007-05-24T15:09:00.000-04:00

Never let it be said that I don't keep my promises. I told you that I would be happy to talk about the first time I killed someone, so here I am to tell you that sordid story.

Truth be told, the first murder I ever committed was a crime of passion. I know what you're thinking, and you're wrong: I've never killed a woman. Now, the other thing that just popped into your head? That's wrong too. You can be passionate about something that you're not in love or lust with.

Look at the definition of the word "passion" for a second. It's derived from the Latin passus which is the past participle of patī meaning "to suffer." Along with the Catholic definition of the suffering Jesus went through on the cross, it also has come to be associated with "strong sexual desire; lust" and "violent anger" as well as "any powerful feeling or compelling emotion or feeling, as love and hate." So when I say that my first kill was a crime of passion, it doesn't necessarily mean I'm a Lifetime story with Valerie Bertinelli, okay?

It did involve a girl though... they usually do.

I was in high-school and dating this great girl. She had beautiful dark hair and alabaster skin, the most soulful eyes, and was so loving. I think I must have gravitated towards her because she just seemed so... lost. We got together and had what was the first and last purely chaste relationship of my entire life. I looked out for her like a brother, but we knew there was more to it than that. She meant the entire world to me, which as most will tell you, is a daunting feeling. I can honestly tell you that when she killed herself, any semblance of caring I had inside me vanished from me forever.

I just jumped ahead of myself, didn't I? Sorry. I haven't talked about Carrie in a long time and I don't like how it makes me feel. Lemme suck it up for a few more minutes and I'll go on.

We were together for about a year when, seemingly out of the blue, she slit her wrists after school one day. Her father actually delivered the news to me at my parents' house and I can't even remember what he said. Shit... I can't even remember what he looked like anymore. I do know that he shoved an envelope in my hand and stumbled back to his car.

I'll never forget the envelope.

It had my name in it in Carrie's deliberate cursive and my throat went instantly dry. The only thing I could think of was that I had something in my hand that she had left for me before killing herself. The imagination was in overdrive and I was terrified of what I was about to read.

I would have laid money on the fact that I did something wrong and this was her rebuking me for making her take her life. I couldn't have handled that. I knew that then, and I know that still to this day. If, when I opened that envelope, and I read anything that sounded even remotely like "It was your fault," then a lot of people would still be alive and I would be dead. I would be dead because I would have followed Carrie.

I can't live with guilt. Maybe that's why I'm so good at what I do.

But I digress...

I barely remember getting to the couch, but I remember every interminable second it took to open the envelope. I swore I smelled her perfume as I did, and I remember things going blurry. The tears I cried right then were the last ones I ever shed.

Unfolding the letter carefully and wiping my eyes on my sleeve, I began to read it.

I won't write it here because, frankly, it's none of your fucking business what the exact words my girlfriend wrote to me in that letter were. What you should know, however, is that my tears dried up and I felt a burning rage begin to smolder in my stomach. I had gotten angry before that and I've been angry since then, but that was the first time that I knew that someone should be very afraid of me.

Carrie had been raped. Worse yet, she found out that she was pregnant and knew her parents wouldn't have dealt with either piece of news well. She actually told me that she knew her attacker and even named him right there.

I couldn't think straight.

The sensory overload of losing the girl I loved because of someone's impulse control and anger management problem, it was too much. I remember trashing my room and breaking anything I could get my hands on. I remember collapsing on the floor, exhausted, and coming up with bare-boned ideas of what needed to happen.

To this day, that first kill was the fastest I ever went from planning to execution. I prefer to be thorough and anal about things, but Carrie's killer (and make no mistake about it... while she did the cutting, he gave her the blade) needed to be killed.

Until then, I never believed in guns. As far as I was aware, my dad had a gun for a long time, but I found it when I was 5, my mom freaked, and my dad got rid of it the next day. No... no ballistics in the house while I was growing up.

I preferred knives.

They were shiny, clean, and beautiful. I had a rather large hunting knife tied to the headboard of my bed (which, of course, was now in shambles), so I grabbed that and stuck the sheath in the small of my back before storming out of the house.

Night had fallen (as it was autumn, it was pretty early), but I knew where Tom Rutes hung out. The guy was nothing if not a total douchebag. He liked the baseball field behind the school because the dugouts were literally "dug out" of the ground. There wasn't a fence behind them, so there was no way to see in. When I got to the school, I wasn't surprised to see him sitting there, beer cans littered here and there at his feet.

He smiled drunkenly and offered me a beer, but I pulled out the knife and didn't return the smile.

Allow me to break the narrative for a second. Remember when I first started this whole thing, I told you that I stood over my first dead body with a smoking gun in my hand? I didn't bring it, so I'm sure the real sleuths in this bunch will figure out how it came into play.

Tom jumped up, a sight that still impresses me to this day as I swore he was too drunk to stand, and whipped out a pistol from the small of his back. He pointed it at me, but I knew he couldn't have hit me if he tried. The speed from which he got into position proved to be the only coordinated thing he did because his next move was to step back, crack the back of his leg on the bench, and go flying ass-over-head onto the ground.

If I had any humor in me, I might have laughed, but instead a calm came over me, and I took two long steps over to where his right hand was on the wooden bench, trying to prop himself up.

I plunged my knife through the back of his hand, pinning it to the bench keeping him just out of reach of the tossed gun.

The scream he let out was loud enough that, for a split-second, I thought he might have alerted people, but like I said earlier... I was lucky.

I picked up the gun and walked back to his folded up body. His shoulders were hitching as he sobbed for forgiveness. I pistol-whipped him.

You have no idea what you need to be forgiven for.

He just kept blubbering how sorry he was for whatever he had done to me.

I hit him again... and again.

I screamed at him that he had absolutely no idea what he had done, but I wasn't going to let that stop me.

Ignorance is never an excuse.

I told him to look up at me, but he refused. I walked closer and pressed the barrel of the gun to the back of his head, and he whined like a beaten puppy. I told him to look, but he still didn't do it. That's when I reached over and ripped the knife from his hand.

He wailed like the dead and flopped on his back. He had no choice but to look at me now.

I stood above him, in a perfect position for him to have nutted me if he had the brains, but he finally met my eyes.

That's when I pulled the trigger.

I emptied only 2 shots into his head: right between the eyes.

The sound was absolutely deafening, but what got me was that I actually saw him die. It wasn't a perceived death where I guessed that's where he was going, but it was actually seeing the life drain from his eyes in a moment.

I must have stood there for a few minutes, wrestling with the idea that I wasn't remorseful, but I snapped back into reality when I realized that, regardless of his screams, someone would have definitely heard the shots.

I took the gun, my knife, and did my best to drag all of my footprints out of the dirt on the dugout floor as I left. When I got to the grass, I turned around, half-expecting him to be sitting there again, but he was dead.

Not coming back.

When I got home, I wrapped up the gun in the clothes that I had worn, put them in a plastic bag along with my knife, and buried them in the backyard under the deck. If I was a suspect, I would have been caught, but everyone knew Tom was a world-class asshole and there were so many people of interest, the list really never got touched. Besides... only 3 people knew what he had done to link me to him: two of them were now dead.

When I moved out of my parents' house, I retrieved that package from under the deck and I keep it in a rather morbid shrine. I like to remember that, once, I was a feeling human being. Now everything I affect seems like a disguise. It seems like I try too hard to be normal, but I was normal... once. A long time ago... even if it was only 5 years.

Was it everything you hoped for? Did I blow the surprise for you? I promised, so I delivered. There have been many more over the past 5 years, but that was the one that lives in my memory most of all. I can remember the smell of the beer, the tracks in the basepaths, and the sound of that double-tap echoing off the walls in the dugout.

Then again, I'm guessing everyone remembers every little detail about the time they lost their virginity, right?

The Thanatos Journals (Part 1)

2007-05-04T12:06:00.000-04:00

I knew I should have felt something the first time I killed someone, but I didn't. I felt no immediate regret or remorse... not even sadness. I was standing there, a pistol in my hand, and a dead body at my feet, but I didn't feel like anything was out of the ordinary.

I don't think it would have made me feel any different if I had walked to the corner and bought a morning paper.

Maybe that's what was so odd about the whole thing: it seemed patently routine.

Of course that was 5 long years ago and I've been at countless scenes like that since then.

Okay... that's a bit of a lie. I may not have any moral compunction against murder, but I am human. More than that, I'm an American, damnit! I know exactly how many men I've killed, where I killed them, and how I killed them. I'm not dumb enough to keep a log of it, but I think it's only fair that I make mental pictures of each life I've ended.

Before you ask, I don't look at my jobs in terms of "good" or "bad" men. To me, there is no such thing. Good, bad, indifferent... it's just a way that people interpret things. There's no moral absolute in my world - just the job. I mean, let's face it, somebody had to do something pretty interesting to get someone angry enough to hire a killer to go after them! Granted... those reasons are not always intelligent, logical reasons. Sometimes some asshole with enough money to blow gets pissed off because someone beat them at the club tennis tournament. Who am I to argue the anger of people? I get paid either way.

In any case, I look at my job as nothing more than the human aspect of natural selection, only I make a living at it.

It's actually a pretty good living at that.

Sure, growing up Catholic and still practicing (well... sort of) makes for a very interesting dichotomy. I can't really deny that I'm breaking the 5th commandment every time I work, but I seem to be okay with it. Maybe it's because, according to my faith, I'm going to hell when I forget that I'm not supposed to eat a hot dog on a Friday during Lent. But priests who molest little boys are okay.

Yeah. I'm the hypocrite.

Sorry... tangent. I got a little wound up there. Sorry. But where to go from here? There's always the beginning, but what exactly is the beginning?

Would you like me to tell you about how I tortured small animals for hours when I was 6?

I can't tell you that. It didn't happen. I love animals... well. I love dogs. I've never killed a cat, but I don't think I'd pause over the trigger if Fluffy walked across my path.

Would you like to learn how my father used to beat me or my mother used to molest me?

Can't do that either... I have a great set of parents. Married for 36 years and never wavered in their love for each other or their children.

Honestly, I don't fit the stereotype of a mass murderer or serial killer. I think that's because you can't really put me in that category. I mean "mass murderer" is usually defined as someone who goes out and kills people brutally and indiscriminately. I actually am pretty humane... unless they really piss me off. If that's the case, I might make them feel something first.

No, I usually tap them between the eyes, use a fast acting poison, or a short knife stroke to their spine. There's no "kneecapping" or unnecessary torture involved in my kills. I'm a businessman, I'm not a sociopath.

Okay... maybe I can be considered a sociopath, but I leave that for the court-appointed shrinks to discover.

I'm also not a serial killer in the strictest sense. Sure, my kills are singular murders that occur, but they don't feature ritualistic taking of souvenirs or sex-related compulsions. I kill because I'm paid: pure and simple.

Is that enough rationalizing? Do you get a picture of who I am? I'm the guy sitting next to you at the bar. I'm the guy joking around with his friends (yes, I have friends... another reason why I'm not a serial killer) and his girlfriend about everyday, mundane things. I'm the guy who visits his grandmother once a week and talks to his parents almost everyday.

In other words, I'm frighteningly normal.

Maybe that's why people don't suspect. As a matter of fact, no one in my life knows what I do. I basically take "business trips," recon my mark, end their life, and I'm home on the redeye. Bada-bing, bada-bang, bada-boom...

Maybe next time we'll get into my first one... but I'm frankly a little spent from trying to make believe I'm normal. I know I'm not... I strive to be, but I know I'm really not.

He Knows When You Are Sleeping

2006-12-23T23:20:00.000-05:00

Okay... I actually was proactive in keeping this one for history because I signed the bottom AND put the exact date on it: December 21, 1995. That means, folks, this story was written 11 years and 2 days ago AND I was only 20 years old when I did it. I have no idea just why I'm so damned dark and twisted, but I am now and was then. I honestly have no clue where the idea for a Santa Claus rapist came from, but it came... and boy did it hide in my head for a while. I mean, who the hell wants to see Santa become a vile creature? In any case, I did it.

Again, this is faithfully reproduced from the original text with only minor spacing changes since that day I typed this while manning the phones in Facilities Management in JP Morgan all those years ago. I have left all overly cumbersome sentence structure AND punctuation errors the exact same as they were back then to show you how I've actually matured in my writing. Scary huh?

Merry Christmas (or something like it)...

Pamela sat in the back of the squad car hugging her knees, rocking slowly, and crying softly. The police officers looked on in quiet sympathy as their hats held the falling snow. One of the crowd trying to make sense of this tragedy was Detective Theresa Tauder. She and her partner had arrived on the scene just after the first radio car had arrived and for the past twenty minutes she had taken in all the details with a discerning eye. The flecks of white began to grow on her auburn hair until she ran a gloved hand over the snowy cap. What a poor start to Christmas Eve.

"Pamela?" Tauder asked the pitiful creature in the back seat. When the girl didn't answer she began to speak anyway.

"I am Detective Tauder and this is my partner, Detective Maxtin" she said indicating to the only other female detective on the scene. "We'd like to help you get this man, but you'll have to help us. OK? What we need is a description of the man and anything else that seems particularly important..."

"It was him..." Pamela spoke, interrupting Tauder.

"Him who?" she asked while turning to see if anyone was lurking in the police quarantine.

"Santa Claus."

Maxtin appeared both shocked and amused at this revelation, while Tauder seemed to be choosing her words very carefully.

"By Santa Claus you mean..." Maxtin led.

"The hair, the beard, the rosy cheeks, the belly that shook like a bowl full of jelly... the whole bit." she said.

Tauder began to say something than thought better of it. She looked at her partner who quickly turned to hide the smirk that suddenly appeared on her face.

Pamela continued.

"I was sitting on the sofa watching the TV specials and I hear something from behind me. So I turn around and right in front of the fireplace was... him. He asked me if I was a good girl this year and when I didn't answer he just grinned. He walked over to me and..."

She burst into tears.

Poor girl. Tauder thought, everything always taught her that Santa Claus was a kind old man and now some psycho in a Santa suit rapes her and she'll be spending the next twenty years in therapy.

Maxtin and Tauder began to walk away when Pamela screamed out.

"He know; when you are sleeping, he knows when you're awake. He knows if you've been bad or good, so be good for your own sake!"

The two detectives rode back to the precinct in relative silence. The radio sang sweet carols and that mellowed the mood a bit. The sobriety of the night was later broken by another detective placing a greeting card depicting Santa on Tauder's desk with the caption "Have you seen this man?" on the bottom. Maxtin began laughing at this and Tauder could not help but chuckle. Gathering their things, the two female detectives left the building.

Upon arriving at their condominium, the ladies exited the warmth of the car and were blasted with cold winter air and flecks of snow began melting onto their faces. Detectives Terri Maxtin and Theresa Tauder changed out of their daily clothes and re-entered the living room in their pajamas. They giggled like schoolgirls and began to throw presents at one another.

Two hours later, while Terri Maxtin was fast asleep on the couch and Theresa Tauder was fiddling with her new VCR, there was a noise upstairs. Theresa looked at her roommate and when it appeared that it didn't faze Terri in the slightest, Theresa grabbed her police issue and trotted carefully up the stairs. She reached the first landing and flicked on the light in the TV room. She gasped.

In front of the fireplace stood a man. He was about six feet tall and weighed in excess of 300 ponds. He had a thick whit beard and a mustache of the same. His thick, wavy, white hair was hidden underneath a red hat laced with white and a white ball was perched precariously on the top of the cap. He was dressed from the ankles up in the same red material laced with white fur. He had a thick black belt and his boots obviously had been shined recently. His cheeks were indeed rosy and he carried a heavy red sack over his shoulder.

"Ho, ho, ho." he said with no laughter in his eyes. "You're roommate is now sleeping, and I see that you're awake. I know that you've been bad, not good, I'm sorry for your sake."

Theresa, having forgotten about her gun, stared at this creature, mouth agape. When she managed to speak, all she could say was: "Santa?"

"Ho, ho, ho Theresa."

I am hallucinating, she thought, this is stress manifesting itself and I am in need of some serious mental help.

"Sit down Theresa. I would like to clear a few things up. I am an elf. Old... yes, jolly ...no. I live in the South Pole and I visit those who don't do what my brother recognizes as good, so I get my list, and I check it twice, but I only visit who's naughty, not nice. My name is Sartin Claus and you've been a bad girl. You were entrusted with a job to uphold the law and preserve the public trust. You took that job lightly. Hopefully my little visit will help you get on my brother's good list next year. As for this year... well, let me put it this way, you better not cry `cause Sartin Clause has a bad temper."

He began to walk towards her and she was frozen in fear.

One Year Later...

Detective Terri Maxtin left the Depleyside Home for the Mentally Insane and wondered aloud how much longer Theresa would have to suffer. It was one year ago tonight that she suffered her breakdown. She claimed that she was raped by "Sartin Claus" and even though she appeared battered, the doctors reported no signs of sexual assault. The psychiatrists reasoned that she had done this herself to "alleviate the burdens that she had subconsciously harbored over her lackadaisical attitude towards her job."

Terri shuddered from the cold. It was Christmas Eve and she was determined to enjoy herself She had left work early, simply dropping some cases and leaving them until after the holiday. It wasn't as if they expected her to do work over the holiday! She felt she deserved a break from the pitiful masses. As she started up her car, Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band were singing "Santa Claus is Comin' to Town."

Sartin Claus my ass!!

The Line of Night

2006-10-30T11:20:00.000-05:00

I wrote this story in October of 1995 (holy shit... 11 years ago tomorrow!) to post on a newsgroup I used to frequent a lot: alt.horror.creative. You see, newsgroups used to be the places you went to talk about topics with people of like minds. I actually don't know if any still exist, but in the early days of the internet, they were all the rage. The only problem was if you stumbled across a binaries newsgroup, you would have to encode about a dozen messages into one file for a picture or a sound clip. Movies? Hah! We're talking dial-up here people! You make me laugh until milk squirts out of my nose.

Anyway, I was just over 20 when I wrote this and, according to my intro note to the group those 11 years ago, this was a "rush job" to get it done for Halloween. So please remember that this was a story of a newbie and NOT a polished job of someone who's written a lot more since then. Okay? Now that I'm done transcribing it, I have to say that it was a huge struggle not to change anything. I mean, I clarified some things and corrected some long-ago typos, but the story remains intact from over a decade ago. Enjoy...

He spun around and fired wildly.

Nothing moved.

"Oh shit..." he moaned. Nothing moving would ordinarily be good news, but in this case it meant absolutely nothing.

A shuffle came from his right.

He wheeled around and pulled the trigger until the clip was empty. Laughing maniacally, he ran headlong into the darkness. He held his arms open wide, as if to embrace the danger he had been running from.

There was a sickening snap as his head came rolling back from where it came.

Julie jumped as Brent jumped from behind the library stacks wearing a skull mask. He took off the mask, smiling like The Cheshire Cat.

"Happy Halloween," he said with an unreal grin.

Smiling, she hit him playfully in the arm.

"Bastard! You scared the hell out of me!"

He pulled her to him and kissed her quickly. As she reluctantly pulled away, she looked at her boyfriend as if for the first time. He stood close to 6'6" and was all muscle. She ran her fingers through his dirty blonde hair and he pulled back.

"Hey! It took me a while to get my hair that way!"

He was so vain.

The two walked out of the library into the chilled evening air, and she shuddered instinctively. Pulling her coat tight, she nudged close to Brent, and felt warmer. He was speaking about some stupid party he was going to, but she didn't listen.

The moon looks gorgeous tonight, she thought. Tonight's the night, she reminded herself.

Happy with everything, she walked across campus to her dorm with Brent in tow. he was such a child sometimes, but there was a certain dangerousness beneath his boyish exterior that she found so alluring.

"I'll pick you up at eleven?" he half-asked, half-stated.

"I'll have to meet you. I have a prior commitment."

His eyes narrowed. "With who?" he asked in a low voice.

"My sister, you jealous twink! Now get the hell outta here before I change my mind altogether!"

She grabbed his coat and kissed him hard, then pushed back playfully. He walked away dazed and she walked inside.

"FUCK YOU!!!"

Diana slammed the phone down with such force that it split the cradle down the middle.

"Everything alright?" Julie asked her roommate, sister, and twin.

Diana looked over with such a vicious gaze that Julie was almost frightened, but then her sister's expression softened and she smiled.

"Man problems," she said. "Looks like I'll have to wait for another week. You're a lucky bitch."

Maybe tonight we'll both get lucky, Julie thought.

Brent let the water run down his back and thought of the night ahead: Beer, music, and Julie. He began to laugh. Another virgin! He had consumed more virgins than a Hawaiian volcano. He felt clean. He felt ready. He felt it was time to begin.

The party began inauspiciously, but soon developed into a mix of demons, cinematic personalities, and sports heroes drinking, dancing, and making out. Brent, dressed as a vampire, had seen more than one Judge Ito and he laughed his ass off when he saw his friend Rondell with a Don King wig and a sign reading "OJ: The Juiced Juice." It was eleven-fifteen and he looked towards the door for the fifth time in the last three minutes.

She walked in and he gasped.

Julie was dressed as a veil dancer and it looked like she had lost many too many of her veils before the party.

He walked over and grabbed her close.

"I want to suck your... well, I'll let you pick the spot," he said with a horrible accent.

She only smiled and gestured upstairs.

Ohyeahohyeahohyeahohyeahohyeah, he kept thinking.

When he got upstairs, he was so excited that he barely noticed the witch behind him.

He woke up in a dimly lit room. His arms were tied behind him and he felt cold and wet. As his eyes adjusted to the dark, he saw he was naked. He eard someone approaching and found himself getting an erection.

"Julie, you kinky girl! I thought you were a virg..."

The words died on his lips as Diana walked on one side of him and Julie appeared ten seconds later on the other side.

"Diana is my sister. Do you remember her?"

"OH!! Yeah! You want a three-way huh?"

Diana laughed. "You could say that," she said. "But... " she glanced down noticing his hard-on for the first time. "Isn't that cute? You're aroused!"

She bent down to his groin and opened her mouth wide.

OhyeahohyeahohyeahohyeahohyeahohshitohshitohSHIT!!! OH SHIT!!!

She pulled away leaving a bloody mass where his pride had once been. he looked at her, still screaming, and saw her swallow his lost body part.

"Mmm-mmm, good!" Diana said, licking her lips.

She began to light a few red candles and, through his tears, he saw her pull out a wicked looking knife. She seemed to be levitating, but he couldn't be sure. She also pulled out a 9mm and laid it next to his body.

"For sport," she said with a wink.

Julie bent down to his head, began to untie his arms, and spoke softly into his ear:

"Happy Halloween."

He ran into the darkness with the gun in hand and, as he turned to fire, both girls took on a monstrous shape that seemed to be a cross between a giant bat, a huge wolf, and a human. They began to fly towards him. He ran hard. He ran fast. They were faster.

He spun around and fired wildly.

Tails From Under the Refrigerator

2006-09-13T21:19:00.000-04:00

I went out to dinner tonight with two very lovely women and I made a joke about how I don't like to dust as I'm afraid of what might grab me. One of those lovely women, Erin, made a joke about it and it got me thinking...

I walked through my life with little more than a backwards glance at the noises in the dark. I firmly believed in the whole "see it, touch it, smell it, taste it" philosophy and thought everyone else was full of crazy-talk when they gave the "Maloik," or touched the roof of their car when they went through a yellow light. Logically, that stuff makes no sense! How can any rational being look at a graveyard as they pass on the road and hold their breath? It's just stupid.

Or so I thought...

Oddly enough, most stories like this start out "The day began like any other day." This one won't, because it wasn't like any other day. First, I ended up oversleeping for the first time ever. Apparently a lightning storm blew through my neighborhood while I slept and blew a transformer on my block which, in turn, sent enough juice through various sockets that my alarm clock took an electrical shit on my nightstand. I finally opened my eyes about 90 minutes late and saw my front awning hanging askew from the window out front due to the severe winds.You may, at this point, be asking yourself how I could have slept through this stormageddon. I will, also at this point, answer you by saying: If I could sleep through an international flight with Godsmack's first major release blaring through my headphones, a little wind won't wake my ass anytime soon. So I look around and see the fried alarm clock, the dangling awning through the mini-blinds, and I reach for my wristwatch which was unaffected by the previous night's fun.

Oh fuck me running... I had managed to not only sleep late, but I was currently supposed to be administering my mid-term to a classroom full of not-so-eager college students. Looks like I was going to have to kiss some major ass and give a lot of extra points for this one.

As I resigned myself to being late, I ambled to the shower and saw something skitter under the claw-foot tub. I knew I was still a little groggy because I heard no clattering on the tile floor, so I chalked it up to that wierd shit you have in your eyes when you wake up. An uneventful shower later (cold, I might add... hot-water heater must have bit the shit too), and I was putting on my best school suit to impress, frighten, and soothe.

Seriously... dressing for a class is more important than dressing for a date. A date has 2 possible outcomes when you reach my age: You either go home alone, or you don't. When you're dressing for a class, you've got 20 or so people of varying ages and disciplines hanging, or pretending to hang, on your every word. Those people need to believe that that person in front of the class, prattling on endlessly about the importance of semi-colons and in-text citations, is in complete charge of the room. There really can be no question to that or anarchy breaks loose and all of a sudden you are no longer the teacher, but the target. Even if it's just an air of power, it's still perceived as such. Seeing as how my class would no doubt be pissed off that they showed up on time and I didn't, I had to look my best or I'd be eaten alive.

However, before any of that fashion sense would be put to the test, lateness be damned! I needed coffee. I cinched up my best red tie, pulled the dark three-button jacket tight against my bulging waistline, and I was off to my kitchen, smoothing the sides of my slowly graying hair against my temples as I hit the stairs.

Since the power was still out in the house (probably the neighborhood), I made the walk in a silence only punctuated by the groaning of the carpeted stairs under my frame. By habit, I opened the window from the front room to my porch to let in some fresh, post-stormy air. Mmm-mmm... smells good!

Here is where we go from reality to unreality folks... keep up because I literally had to re-read this about 2 dozen times before I was sure I got it all down. To be fair, I think I re-read it over and over because I still didn't believe it until I finally managed to look down at the blood-soaked bandage wrapped around my left hand.

Okay... time to continue. Sorry... it's all still new to me, this world... YOUR world of illogic and craziness.

So I make the same trek from the stairs to the kitchen that I make every morning and I grab a pre-measured package of premium roast beans from the freezer. As I empty the package into my battery-powered coffee-grinder (let's hear it for AAA Energizers people!), one of the precious beans drops from my hand, bounces off the badly-in-need-of-a-scrubbing kitchen tile, and rolls under that space under the fridge.

Wonderful. I know that a single bean doesn't really mean the difference between consciousness and sleep, but still... that's some expensive coffee I like. Ain't no jumpers in this house!

Going against every logical action I've done thus far, I get down on my hands and knees, on my kitchen floor, to find a single coffee bean under the refrigerator. To be fair, I probably wouldn't have even bothered washing it off and using it; most likely I would have just tossed it, but it was the sheer principle of the matter damnit!

I took off that decorative vent under the door to see if I could spot that little bastard, but I quickly forgot about that solitary coffee bean which I'm pretty sure is still sitting on that dirty kitchen tile as I type this. No, el bean de solo disappeared from my short-term memory as I saw what could only be described as a topiary of dust puffs under the fridge blocked all view of anything else.

Now my first thought was What the hell is all this shit and how did I get THIS much dust under here? That thought was definitely replaced with Why does it look like they are moving for my next one.

Here, the one part of my brain would have said Easy there pal. It's just the ceiling fan. These things are dust after all; there is no weight to them, so even the slightest breeze is gonna make 'em dance. Unfortunately that cool, hard logic that I was so fond of echoed in really quick with The power is out slick. No air conditioning and damn sure no ceiling fan. The porch window is two rooms away, and the kitchen windows are closed up tighter than a nun's knees. Those things are moving on their own. The sane thing would have been to move back and take a second thought while the other path was to say The hell with those crazy thoughts and sweep my hand under there to clear out the menagerie of what my grandmother always referred to as "dust bunnies."

Let me stop here. All you men will understand immediately which path I decided to take while you women will probably wonder why I did what I did. Let's just say it has to do with an innate sense of machismo. See, this sense of masculinity basically makes me, and every man for that matter, do things we know we shouldn't. We do it because we are men, damnit, and therefore shouldn't be afraid of anything. This is that sense that, even though we're just as grossed out by that damned spider you ladies call for us to kill, we have to do it because we refuse... refuse... to look anything less than fearless. Yes ladies, even if you're not around, we still act this stupid. I hope that answers one of those unanswerable questions for you, but I have digressed long enough.

So, with no further ado, I shoved my left arm deep under the fridge and swept outward intending to "free" the dust bunnies from their dark abode. Well... the path to hell is paved with good intentions right? As soon as my arm went in, I felt this absolutely excrutiating pain all over; it felt like I had plunged my arm into a bucket of needles actually.

At this point, all pretense abandoned, I quickly yanked my arm back and was shocked at what I saw.

Those dust bunnies were clinging to my arm and shaking violently as if they were in a feeding frenzy! I shook my arm, but those little bastards hung fast. I tried to beat them off with my other hand, but one just jumped over and gripped my pinkie between its... I don't know what. They were fucking dust for Christ's sake! How can dust have teeth? How can dust even be cognizant of the world around it? How can dust be attaching itself to me and causing this much pain?!?

I started swinging my arm against the wall, but that only succeeded in causing the in-wall ironing board to fall out and crack me on the head... hard. I don't quite recommend a sharp blow to the head to get you thinking straight, but as I momentarily was concentrating on my now bleeding head, I realized that dust and water were definitely not friends. I stumbled over to the sink, twisted the hot water tap so hard that it snapped off in my hand, and grabbed the sprayer. Cackling wildly and quickly losing vision due to the streaming blood into my eyes, I started soaking my left arm with the nozzle.

It worked. Almost immediately the pain was lessening as the dust bunnies were melting away on my arm. One actually dropped off and "ran" back towards the fridge before I sprayed it down like Bonnie & Clyde at a bank job.

I screamed at my victory and, for whatever reason, I yelled "I ONLY WANTED THAT FUCKING COFFEE BEAN YOU ASSHOLES!!" at the darkened space.

I think, had my morning's craziness ended there, I probably would have recovered to sanity eventually. I would have chalked all this up to some loose tacks under the fridge that tore me up and I was imagining the rest. Yeah... had the morning craziness ended there.

After I screamed at the fridge, I stopped for whatever reason. The rushing water was still hitting the sink with hurricane force and I was clutching the spray-nozzle like a Colt ready to take on John Q. Law. It was at this point that my break with reality occurred.

Slowly, that single coffee bean rolled out from under the refrigerator and came to rest about a foot from my foot. It was saying to me "Peace offering. You don't hurt us, we don't hurt you. Take your coffee bean and we'll call it even."

At some point I must have slid to the floor and sat, but I can't tell you when it was. I vaguely remember the power coming back on, because the fridge eventually powered up and I heard the compressor spin alive. That, by the way, scared the shit out of me...

I remember walking to my bar in the dining room, careful to stay as far away from the underside of it as possible, and uncorked my bottle of Bushmills 1608 Reserve Whiskey which my good friend Bernadette had brought to me from Northern Ireland the previous summer. I don't know how long it took me to finish it, but as I sit here, it's still empty... on its side about 3 feet from my computer.

I saw a few more of those dust bunnied peek their heads out from under my desk, from under my bar, and from under my buffet. They seemed to be watching to make sure I wasn't going to flood the house or something. I mean... it wasn't just dust anymore was it? It was something else entirely.

So here I sit... 48 hours after that initial attack. I had to take a few personal days at work citing a personal issue, and I haven't slept since then. There's an uneasy truce in the house and I'm not sure how long it will last. I mean, they've proven they can hurt me, but if I sleep, they're quiet enough to climb in my bed and choke me while I'm laying there... right?

I mean, you're the expert on this... I'm new to this place. I never understood this crap before, but here I am mired in it! My life was logic and evidence. Your world was the one with the weird rules and the crazy theories. My days were filled with commas, nouns, and verbs while yours were filled with imps, gargoyles, and ghosts.

The only thought running through my head is from that movie my parents had me watch as a kid: The Wizard of Oz. I never really liked it, but I thought maybe I had to like it because I was a kid, so I pretended for them. Now, almost 25 years later, one of the lines that The Cowardly Lion spoke kept reverberating in my head:

"I do belive in spooks. I do believe in spooks. I do, I do, I do believe in spooks!"

God help me. I really do think I believe in spooks now.

Riddle (Part 2 of 3)

2006-08-07T22:07:00.000-04:00

I remember writing the original story in 3 parts. Here we are in 2006, probably a good 10 years or more since the story was first written, and I only have the middle of the three left in my possession. I was working in the Facilities Management department at a banking institution which no longer exists under the name it was then, and my boss was on vacation. He left me to organize something (it escapes me now what it was, but I know it was an absolute SHITLOAD of paper) in his office while he was away. I did and really flew through it, but it was a dark, quiet office where no one bothered me, so I naturally dragged this task out over a few days. No one cared nor did they have anything to say about it as they sure as hell didn't want to do the work I was doing! So, to keep myself sane in that back office, I thought up a story about a mad bomber who tormented a NYC policeman. Remember... this was, absolute LATEST, 1996; a full 5 years before 9/11, so bombing and NYC only really was thought of in terms of Die Hard With A Vengence. Over those 10 years, however, I did develop quite the love for my main character and I have come up with a few stories to throw him in, but nothing has been finished yet. In any case, since Steve keeps pushing me to add more stuff here, I figured I'd post the middle section for you to enjoy (or not... whatever).

Basically the first act was the set-up to this one and featured our main character, Graw, missing a clue and causing a jet to explode with hundreds of people on-board.

Riddle

The only light penetrating the dark room was that of the television. Even that was too bright for Detective Johnathan Grawer. He had taken a vacation day to sit at home and drown his sorrows in a bottle of whiskey after witnessing three hundred and fifty-six innocent people blown up in an airliner.

"I could have stopped it," he slurred. "I was there damnit! I second guessed myself, and I killed three hundred and fifty-six people." He started to cry, just as he had done thirty minutes earlier, and two hours before that, and one hour before that.

The phone rang. It rang just as it had all night and all morning. Graw had been afraid to answer it because he knew that if he didn't answer it, the game wouldn't start again.

He picked up the receiver.

"Jesus Jonny!! Where the fuck have you been the past twenty six hours? We've all been worried," Ray said with concern. "Don't worry about me Ray," Graw said with difficulty, "I've been hanging out with my best pal Jack. You remember Jack? Yeah, well Mr. Daniels has helped me to calm myself down a lot. So I'm fine and dandy ...too bad there's no brandy. That was supposed to be a joke Ray."

Ray didn't respond for a full fifteen seconds, then said, "Jon. Your pal called this morning."

Those five words chilled him so deep it sobered him up immediately. Graw closed his eyes and spoke.

"Give me a half hour."

He reached his desk twenty minutes after he got off the phone with his partner and saw that the big red box was still on it. He walked over and opened it. Inside was a framed picture of a familiar looking young boy. It had three red dots on it; one was in the shoulder area and two were in the chest. Graw knew he saw this kid before but could not remember where. Ray walked in the front door of the station, went right up to him and put his hand on Graw's shoulder.

"Look, it's not your fault this psycho picked you to torment. We've been partners for nearly fifteen years and from that experience I know that you're blaming yourself. So I have a piece of advice... snap the fuck out of it!"

Graw looked into Ray's face and grinned. Through fifteen years on the force Ray had never minced words, and Graw admired that. "Detective Grawer? There's a fax coming in for you," Allison, the aide, said.

Graw reached for the fax. It read: "Did you dream about me last night? I would say I dreamt about you, but I don't sleep much. To keep you on your toes I have another riddle for you: Where can one not get arrested for stealing? Figure it out without any help and I'll quit the game. You can met on that. Love always, RR"

What an asshole, Graw thought. He even used the nickname I gave him, the repellant riddler.

"Graw, this guy can't even type right; he misspelled `bet.' Not only is he a basket case, but he has typos. At least Al Capone didn't misspell..."

"Shut up Ray," Graw interjected, "Ever think it wasn't a typo? `Where can one not get arrested for stealing?' A baseball game. Since the Mets and Yanks are playing homestands, he wanted to give us a fair chance so he put `met' in there. I'll gaurantee it.

"Allison, alert Shea Stadium security to a possible 10-57 on site. Ray? You and I are going to catch the Mets game."

"Will you buy me some peanuts and crackerjacks daddy..." Ray said in a little boy's voice.

"Shut the fuck up before I whip your ass... sonny."

On the way to the ballpark Graw said, "What if we're wrong again? He didn't set a time limit, so we'll never know if we're right until we find the bomb. So what if `met' was a typo and not a clue? I hate this fuck! He confuses the shit out of me!"

The police cruisers pulled in right before the game started and there was a concerted effort to find the bomb during the game. Police dressed as vendors checked the audience, security officers checked unauthorized entrances for players and personnel, and a few officers even went out as part of the grounds crew to sweep the infeild for explosives. Everything was clean. When the final out was made, Mets 3 - Phillies 2, nothing happened. No explosion, no screams, no stupid messages. Ray went back and checked in with the precinct to see if anything had exploded. The answer was negative. Graw went home to take the rest of his vacation day.

Upon entering his apartment, Graw took off his holster and laid it on the chair next to the door. He went to the liquor cabinet to visit his pal "Jack" and sat down to watch TV. As he sat he heard a metallic click. His blood ran cold. He looked down at the remote and there was a note taped to it. "PLAY ME" it said. Graw turned on the power and pressed play.

A shadowy figure emerged on the screen. Every part of him was visible except for his face. "Detective! Where can one not get arrested for stealing? In one's own house of course! Why steal what you already own? Now that I have you as a captive audience, you might want to listen to me."

Jon sat sweating on his La-z-boy, his eyes glued to the screen.

"Four score and seven years ago... " the man began, "OOPS! Wrong speech, my mistake. A decade and seven ago you murdered my baby brother in cold blood. I hope you remember. He was trying to escape from the juvinile hall my bitch of a mother sent him to. He jumped the fence and ran to the gas station across the street. There he planned to make a quick score and I would drive him and I far away. But as luck would have it a young, hotshot cop named Grawer was in the office making a phone call when he heard my little brother enter. He held up his gun, his UNLOADED gun, and demanded money. The shopkeeper began to hand over the money when this cop jumped out and yelled "Freeze!' Pretty original Detective. Anyway he whirled and pointed his UNLOADED gun at you and you fired three times hitting him once in the shoulder and twice in the chest. Am I boring you yet?"

He remembered the picture.

Graw sat there horrified. The boy had been so high his eyes were bloodshot and his speech was slurred. He had pointed the gun at him and pulled the trigger. Graw didn't wait to hear a bullet, he fired three times and took down the perp. Now his big brother wanted revenge? This was too crazy.

"You killed him," the man continued, "my only friend, my only family and you took him away. " The note of whim went out of his voice only leaving bitter edged hate. "My innocent little brother was my only friend and you killed him. You get a premotion and I got to visit his headstone every day. I vowed revenge for him. I will avenge my brother and I'll make you suffer long and hard. I learned a lot about explosives detective, and when I'm through you'll know a lot about them too.

"You may get up," he continued," I put a dud under your seat to make you more receptive to this tape. I hope you enjoyed this trip down memory lane detective. Ta-Ta."

The screen turned to snow.

The most horrible sound

2006-07-24T14:06:00.000-04:00

It wasn't that long ago that I would stumble out of bed and use my slingshot and a container of paintballs to silence the horn of the ride for my illegal immigrant neighbors. See, I liked to sleep until, say 6:30, and those fuckers were blasting their horn at quarter till 6 waiting for the multitude to scramble out of the house on their way to whatever job they had this week. That horn caused me to peg the car with deadly accuracy because... that fucking horn!

Now I only wish I could hear that horn.

The sunlight streamed into my room, but I've never felt more in the dark in my entire life. I wept for hours because that sunlight caused so much joy that the songbirds were trilling their throats hoarse and I just hated them for it. I looked down and saw that my stereo had gone on again this morning because I never bothered to reset the alarm to keep it off.

A few minutes passed and I placed the bat back next to my bed; the stereo would turn on no more. What might have been comical and possibly theraputic a few weeks ago was yet another horrible reminder of my life. The smashed stereo now sat (or more to the point, lay) next to the used guitar I once bought (with amp) for $100 from an ex-girlfriend's sister. Of course that guitar had seen better days because now the neck was broken from the body and skewered the amp's sole speaker. The sole remaining string that hadn't broken ("D" I believe) basically held everything tight while the world was pulling it apart.

I trudged down the stairs and saw someone banging on my door. I gave them the finger and walked into the kitchen. I was most definitely not in the mood to deal with friend or foe, family or stranger today. If I was forced to be social, people might find themselves garroted by that remaining unbroken "D" string upstairs.

As I looked at my telephone answering machine, the message indicator blinked with the number 20 in the LED screen. I did get one of the only smiles of the last few weeks after I put it in the microwave on HIGH for 10 minutes. I assume it was a nice explosion, but I didn't stick around to watch.

I managed to sit on my couch and grab the bag I had lugged in from a friend's house the previous night. As I unzipped it and took out its lone content, I thought about that little fucking bastard from across the street and how he thought it was so funny lighting off that firecracker above my sleeping head as I lay on the front lawn after my yardwork. The last sound I ever heard was my own eardrums popping and then nothing but the ringing and the throbbing of my heart.

I lived with no scarring, but is this a life? No music. No voices to comfort you. No comedy to make you smile. No horns to rail at. No nothing but a buzzing ring and a rising and falling pressure sound in my fucking head.

I looked at the gun I held in my hand and realized that I wouldn't even hear it go off when I pulled the trigger.

BtVS: Begin Again (7x01)

2006-07-18T14:47:00.000-04:00

A few years back, my buddy Jim was telling me about a contest he was either entering, saw, or running on a fanfic site about scripting out the 7th Season of the immortal television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Since I was a huge fan of all things Joss, I gave the first episode a shot. I wrote this at my old job one day and stopped because I didn't get much feedback on it. So this is how I would have started Season 7 (its final season). Basically, since the high school was being rebuilt, I felt that it would have been cool to kind of echo the first scenes from the pilot where Darla was luring in a stupid human before feeding on him. Granted I chose Dawn to use, but she's not my favorite character and it was more out of necessity than anything else. There's also a reappearance of an old "friend" the no one really saw since the fourth season (I think). Turns out I kinda hit some things pretty close and others I missed completely. Eh, it's my story and I'll thank you not to burst the bubble.

Oh yeah... please note that this was, quite literally, my very first attempt at writing a television script or a screenplay of any sort. For those of you who actually do this, I apologize if it's just not formatted correctly or downright horrible.

Season 7 – Episode 1 “Begin Again”

INTERIOR – Science Classroom
[The camera pans through what appears to be a classroom laboratory. It’s just a little brighter in the room than the dark of night outside, but still it’s obvious that it’s nighttime and there should be no one there. The camera comes to rest on a window after going from desk to desk showing the newness of everything. The window breaks as a white hand snakes inside and unlocks the latch. Suddenly a head pops up and it’s Dawn Summers. She slides into the room, quickly followed by a boy Charles James. They giggle as they walk to the classroom door. They open and exit.]

INTERIOR – School Hallway
Dawn: I don’t know about this. I mean… we’re forced to be here 5 days a week anyway, why are we sneaking in tonight?

Charles: Don’t you want to be the first to see Sunnydale High: The Sequel?

Dawn: Please… Janet and Miguel snuck in 2 days ago.

[Charles looks like someone just cancelled Christmas for him. Dawn stops and a worried look crosses her face.]

Dawn: Did you hear something?

[Charles strains to listen and is looking down the hall with Dawn behind him.]

Charles: No Dawn… I don’t hear a thing.

[Charles turns around and Dawn grabs him and kisses him deep. As they are clumsily groping, a locker slams shut and they both jump. Dawn looks down the hall at an approaching figure with sheer terror on her face. She fumbles for a stake in her purse as the figure leans against the locker in the mostly dark. Still not bright enough to see who it is.]

Voice: I don’t think big sis would like that li’l bit…

[ROLL OPENING CREDITS]

EXTERIOR – Summers’ Home
[Same house as it ever was, but there are very colorful flowers blooming out front now. It seems brighter and more vibrant than the last few times we experienced it. The front door opens and Buffy Summers walks out in a smart business suit and she bends down to pick up the paper. As she walks back, the camera cuts…]

INTERIOR – Summers’ Home
[Tracking shot of Buffy walking through the front door looking at the paper as she crosses through the living room, closing a desk drawer with her hip while continuing to read the paper. She continues on into the kitchen and grabs a cup of coffee that’s steaming. As she sips the cup and reads the paper, she crosses through the dining room and ends up at the bottom of the stairs. As she crossed through the rooms, we notice everything is well kept and looks very warm (loving). She is standing at the bottom of the stairs, still reading the front page while sipping the coffee.]

Buffy: C’mon Dawnie… we’ll be late!

[Dawn walks down the stairs looking like any high-school girl should look on her first day of school as a sophomore in High School. She appears to be very tired, but is attempting to hide it.]

Dawn: I still can’t believe you’re a telemarketer Buffy. It’s like… you spend all night fighting and then you wake up the next morning, put on a suit, and annoy people more than the things you dust.

[Buffy looks up from her paper with a definite “we are not amused” look.]

Buffy: It beats smelling like DoubleMeat all the time besides… someone needs to do it.

Dawn: Can’t you find something more… respectable though? I just tell my friends you’re an escort. [She smiles a toothy grin]

[Another look from Buffy. This time with a raised eyebrow and a very slight smile.]
Buffy: Car. Now. Move.

[As Dawn scoots past, Buffy swats her on her butt with the paper. She grabs her bag and closes the door behind her.]

INTERIOR – Dawn’s Room
[The curtain parts just a little as the camera catches Dawn and Buffy backing out of the driveway. As they drive away, the camera pulls back and follows the POV shot into the bathroom as we see the shower and a wet towel hanging. As the camera slowly pans around, the edge of the mirror becomes evident and the camera does a 180-degree rotation to show Spike standing in front of the mirror. He has changed a lot since the last time we saw him. His hair is longer and at it’s “natural” color of dirty blonde / light brown. His face is completely speckled with stubble and he has a weariness about him. He looks down at a note he’s holding.]

POV – Dawn’s Note
Note: Spike, Buffy won’t be home until 5, so you can get cleaned up without worrying about bumping into her. I’m sorry I can’t let you stay, but no one would understand. Let me know where you go. Dawn

[He crumples it up and tosses it in the toilet. He starts to disrobe.]

EXTERIOR – A car driving through the streets of a city.
[The camera follows a car driving for a few seconds then]

INTERIOR – Car
[Xander Harris is driving and Willow Rosenberg is in the passenger seat. They are both smiling and gabbing along as they drive.]

Xander: So the flight was okay? Any good movies? Did you get to partake in their lovely vomit scented bag?

Willow: No regurgitation necessary. The flight was good. I think spending time with Giles in England helped a lot. I didn’t think about… well you know… Tara more than once or twice a second.

[Xander reaches over and holds her hand.]

Xander: We’re all here for you Will. Buffy and Dawn can’t wait for you to move back in and…

[Willow has a scared look on her face.]

Willow: I can’t… I just… not in that room… No… I…

Xander: Will. Will… calm down. We take it slow. No one expects you to treat it like it never happened. We’re here. You’ll get through it.

[Willow lost all sense of humour in her face as she stares out the window heading back to the Summers house. Xander is still holding her hand.]

INTERIOR – Credit America
[Buffy sits at her cube wearing a headset. She is leaning against her hand, propping her face up while playing Solitaire on the computer with her free hand.]

Buffy: …and all at an incredibly low rate of… No sir. No sir, I don’t really think I should give you my home number. Sir… would you be interested in… hello? Hello?

[She sighs and rips her headset off as she throws it on her desk. She turns and sees John Marcus, a co-worker smiling.]

John: Another wonderful day in the trenches huh?

Buffy: You know, this morning my sister compared me to an evil, blood-sucking thing that should be killed. I’m beginning to think she might be close.

John: Hey. Telemarketers are the scourge of humanity. On the hate scale we’re just below lawyers and right above umpires. That’s pretty good company!

[Buffy gets up and stretches as John is definitely checking her out.]

John: So, um… what are you doing tonight for dinner… I mean do you… maybe want to grab a drink after work?

[Buffy smiles and sees how hard that was for him.]

Buffy: Thanks John, but my friend Willow is coming home from England today and it’s kind of important that I be there tonight. Maybe some other time.

[John smiles easily.]

John: I’ll hold you to that.

[As he walks away Buffy smiles a little sadly and turns back into her cube to grab her headset.]

INTERIOR – Summers’ House
[The front door opens as Xander carries Willow’s bags inside. He turns to look at her, but she’s standing in the middle of the front walk looking terrified of the prospect of going inside. Xander smiles a little and carries the first wave of baggage upstairs. As he enters Willow’s new room (Dawn’s old room), the closet door closes quietly as he drops the big bags.]

Xander: For such a small girl, you sure do have a lot of crap Will.

[He exits the room and tromps down the stairs to get the next wave as the closet door opens and Spike emerges dressed and cleaned up.]

Spike: Hotel Summers open for business… again. Doesn’t that girl ever want to live alone?

[He slides out of the room and hears Xander coming up again, so he runs into the Master Bedroom (now Buffy’s room) and slides under the bed.]

EXTERIOR – Summers’ House
[Willow is still standing on the front-walk, wringing her hands thinking about everything that transpired.]

FLASHBACK SHOTS – Tara smiling, Tara being shot, Tara dying.

[Willow closes her eyes and begins to fondle a necklace she has. It’s an Egyptian Ankh and it seems to calm her down quite a lot. She looks at the door as Xander exits.]

Xander: So if you give me a day or two I can build you a cozy little tree-house that you can stay in because I don’t think Buffy & Dawn really want you camping out in the middle of the yard.

Willow: [smiling somewhat] I’ll be fine, but not right now. It’s just… it’s the first time I’ve been back since… and it’s just not as easy as I hoped it would be. Xander I wasn’t even here for Tara’s… I don’t even know where she’s… I’m a horrible person.

Xander: Hey… Giles said he thought it would be best to go right then. We all listened. He’s the boss remember? Believe me… everything is going to work out. C’mon… I’ll buy you an ice-cream cone.

Willow: Gee. How can I resist a man who offers dairy products?

INTERIOR – Sunnydale High School Hallway
[The hallway is filled with students as Dawn is smiling and talking to her friends as they pass the Honorable Richard Wilkins III Memorial Auditorium. It’s the end of the day and everyone is slamming lockers, packing books, and leaving the school. Dawn arrives at her locker and begins to pack. Deliberately, she looks to the left at the double doors to the library. With a look of curiosity, she finishes her packing and walks to the double doors. As she opens them we see a library that we’ve never seen before. Instead of the dark, dreary place from Seasons 1-3, there is a full wall of windows that provide adequate sunlight. The remaining walls are painted a light cream and the books take a back seat to the central computing area in the middle of the room. The middle-aged female librarian, Janice Benny, smiles at Dawn as she walks in.]

Janice: Can I help you dear?

Dawn: Um, no. I just heard so much about this place from my sister that I pictured it… well really different.

Janice: Oh, well as you know it was just rebuilt. The architect who designed this library was very insistent on this design. Feung-sheui I take it or something similar. Apparently no one ever came in here before the school was demolished, so they decided to redo the entire structure of it. I am quite fond of it myself.

Dawn: Yeah. I guess it is nice. Just a lot different from the stories I’ve heard.

[Ms. Benny’s face clouds over momentarily and she moves from around the desk.]

Janice: And what stories would those be child?

Dawn: Oh! Nothing. My… uh… older sister graduated from here a few years ago… the last graduating class actually, and she just described the library in great detail. Believe me, it was nothing close to how it is today. I think Giles… I mean the old librarian Mister Giles, would have a fit… from what Buffy said about him of course.

Janice: Buffy? Your sister is Buffy Summers?

[Dawn has a look of questioning and a trace of fear on her face.]

Dawn: Yes. I’m Dawn Summers, Buffy’s younger sister. Why? How did you know about Buffy?

Janice: [Quickly] Some of the older staff told me stories that’s all. Some sort of troublemaker… but that doesn’t mean you’ll fall into the same pattern right dear?

[Dawn backs away slowly.]

Dawn: No, of course not. I… I have to catch my ride. Thanks for the… information.

[Dawn exits the library as Janice Benny walks back into the stacks. She leans against a bookshelf and slides it back into the wall. An ornate grate sits on the floor beneath where the bookcase stood. A low murmuring is heard emanating from that grate.]

Janice: Soon he shall rise again and feed on the blood of the Slayer. Her power will be his and all the world will be under his command.

[Off-screen]

Voice: Miss Benny?

[She smiles malevolently as she slides the bookcase back to it’s original spot.]

Janice: Coming dear!

INTERIOR – Café Diablo
[Xander & Willow are drinking coffee and just then Buffy bounds in behind Willow and grabs her in a tight embrace. As they pull back, both sets of eyes are glistening with tears. Xander just smirks.]

Willow: Hi.

Buffy: [Laughing] Hi. How are you feeling after that long and exciting flight back to this side of the pond… that is what they call it over there right? The pond?

Willow: Yeah… the pond. Ooo… and they say things like ‘the boot’ for a car trunk and ‘a flat’ for an apartment… and… and… chips aren’t chips, they’re crisps because chips are fries and fries… well fries aren’t anything, but…

[Buffy grabs Willow and hugs her again.]

Buffy: Welcome home Will.

INTERIOR – The Summers’ House
[Dawn is sitting on the couch watching TV when Spike walks downstairs.]

Dawn: Spike! I thought… you weren’t… Buffy will be home any minute!!

Spike: It’s okay Dawn. I’m leaving now. That ponce Xander was playing bloody bellhop carrying up all the bags Willow brought back with her. I looked through her things, but she didn’t pack any sweets. What I wouldn’t give for just one good English toffee…

[Lost in thought, he shakes his head and smiles at Dawn.]

Spike: Anyway, while I was waiting for Harris to leave, I must have fallen asleep underneath Buffy’s bed.

[He sees the look on her face.]

Spike: Nothing like that love… I crawled under there to hide and just drifted off. No peeking, no poking, no bloody prying. I know she’ll never forgive me for what I did and I don’t blame her in the least, so I’m not planning on doing anything else that will add to it. Thank you for helping me out Dawn. Keep an eye on your sister.

Dawn: Stay out of trouble Spike.

Spike: Well that was very matter of fact l’il bit… I promise to try. I guess I might go north and rub it in to Angelus that he’s not the only “special” vampire anymore. Oh the look on his face will be priceless.

[Spike looks one last time and leaves the house. Dawn looks almost sad, but turns back to the television.]

EXTERIOR – The Summers’ House
[As Spike is turning the corner, a car comes down the street and he dives behind a bush. The car passes The Summers’ House and he shakes his head, dusting himself off.]

Spike: My how the mighty have fallen…

Voice: They have farther to fall William… much farther indeed.

[Spike wheels around and looks into the face of a man who is smiling, but not with any trace of kindness.]

Spike: Liam…

INTERIOR – The Summers’ House
[About 15 minutes have passed and Buffy enters the house with Xander. Willow is closer to the door than she was earlier, but still looks frightened. Dawn runs to the door and looks out. Willow waves with a half-smile.]

Willow: Hi Dawnie.

EXTERIOR – The Summers’ House

[Without hesitation, Dawn runs out and hugs Willow. They both cry.]

Dawn: I missed you so much Will.

Willow: I’m so sorry for everything Dawn. I’m so so sorry…

Dawn: It wasn’t you Willow. It wasn’t you at all.

[Dawn pulls back and looks at Willow. Tears are flowing freely.]

Dawn: You’re home now and that’s what matters.

[Dawn grabs Willow’s hand and slowly leads her inside.]

EXTERIOR – Credit America
[Buffy & John are leaving work. Many people in suits, all looking very driven, are rushing past them into cabs, cars, etc.]

John: So how was your friend. Did they get home okay?

Buffy: She did. It was really good to see her. I think Dawn is really good for her right now.

John: Dawn being your sister?

Buffy: Oh, sorry. Yes. Willow, my friend, has been having a really rough time of it and she and Dawn are very close, so Dawn is the best thing right now for her. I figured since I promised you that we’d grab a drink, I’d let those two hang out and chat.

John: Sounds like a plan. If you don’t mind, I just have to stop by my aunt’s house before we go. I can meet you at the bar if you’d like…

Buffy: Nah. It’s probably easiest to just tag along with you right now.

[John smiles very broadly.]

INTERIOR – The Benny House
[Buffy & John walk inside and enter the living room where a woman is standing at the window looking out.]

John: Buffy, this is my aunt… Janice Benny.

[Janice turns to greet the two.]

Janice: I’ve heard so much about you Buffy. I even met your sister today.

Buffy: Dawn? Where did you meet Dawn?

John: Aunt Janice is the librarian at Sunnydale High School. Keeper of the Stacks isn’t that right?

[Janice smiles sweetly and nods.]

Janice: You get to meet so many interesting people at my job.

Buffy: Yeah. I remember. Librarians are the social animals of Sunnydale.

John: Has my friend been to see you yet Aunt Janice.

Janice: No, but I have heard from him lately.

John: You just have to meet him Buffy. He changed my life. You always hear these people say this so and so took them from this lowly creature and gave them this purpose or that… well in this case it’s just so true!

Janice: I’m very sure he’ll be ever so pleased to meet you.

Buffy: So, who’s this friend you’re so vocal about?

[Buffy hears footsteps behind her. As she turns to face the newcomer, she is hit across the face with a candlestick. Buffy falls and John looks down in a frenetic trance.]

John: Uncle Ethan. I’m glad you could join us.

[The camera pans up to the newcomer and it’s Ethan Rayne. He stands with a candlestick in his right hand, his face pulled back into a sardonic grin.]

Ethan: The Master will rise again and when he does… he will reward me for bringing him back from the hell this little girl condemned him to.

[END CREDITS]

Deja View

2006-07-14T10:27:00.000-04:00

This story was originally written in 1998 when I was working in the Facilities Management Department at a pretty reknown banking institution. I have NOT edited it, so this is the same text I had 8 years ago... ---bjc

Andy weaved through the traffic like Terry LaBonte on the NASCAR circuit. There was traffic slowing ahead of him, but he punched the gas and slid into the oncoming lane of traffic to get around the turning car. As the traffic signal turned red ahead of him, he eased the car to a stop and took a look in the rear-view mirror.

He was a ruggedly handsome man. His hand ran through his short, light brown hair absently. As his eyes shone like cuts of jade catching the rays of a bright sunbeam, he smiled. The curve of his lips accentuated the two-inch long scar on his left cheek; the pinkish gash was in stark contrast to his dark complexion. It was usually the first thing people noticed about him.

The light turned green and he punched the gas once more. Normally, this trip to Dr. Weidel’s lab took him a good twenty minutes without traffic, but today, he was in sight of the converted warehouse and only ten minutes had ticked off the clock. He roared into the parking lot and screeched to a halt mere inches from the concrete wall. Laughing, he popped the trunk and grabbed his gear. As he walked up to the door, he was already shaking from the adrenaline. The door swung open with a click and he walked inside.

The lab was a cross between a machine shop and a physics professor’s office. There were engines and oil all over, but the walls reflected intelligence beyond that of a mechanic. There were countless sticky notes with undecipherable notations on them stuck to more sticky notes stuck to dry-erase boards with more notations and of course there was the obligatory poster of Albert Einstein with his tongue sticking out. It was located on the outside of the bathroom door. Physics humor.

“Ahh, Mr. Jensen. So good of you to be early for once.”

Dr. Heinrich Weidel wheeled himself into the room. He stood about five feet, eight inches… if he stood. Dr. Weidel had been confined to a wheelchair since he was emancipated from Auschwitz, the sole remaining member of his family. He was only 10 when he was freed by Allied troops in that early winter of 1945. The identifying numbers still bore faintly on his forearm, but, as he told Andy many times, the physical part he could handle, the emotional part was the toughest to bear. His snowy white hair was closely cropped and became a tad darker as it wrapped down his face and met under his chin. His eyeglasses were, of course, perched on his head, not doing any good except by improving his hair’s eyesight.

“Andrew. You seem a little… tense. Are you going to be alright with this experiment?” he said calmly, yet his eyes shone through the giddiness of a young child. In truth, he was probably more excited than Andy.

“Cocked, locked, and ready to rock doc! I have been looking forward to today since you fist told me what was going on here. Just let me get changed and we are ready to go!”

Without waiting for a reply, Andy raced into the back and started to get changed. Off came his jeans and T-shirt. On went the sleek black wetsuit / stealth gear. He emerged from the room holding a watertight case about 3 feet long by 6 inches wide by 6 inches deep. He inhaled deeply and walked to the large metal and glass pool in the middle of the room.

Dr. Weidel called this monstrosity “the hydro-temporal displacement chamber” or HTDC for short. Andy, after finding out what those words meant, simply called it the time tub. He had been merely working his way through college when he spotted a help wanted sign on the Cherry Pit (the hangout for he and his friends). It promised experience in the field of physics, a personable manager, and, most importantly, nine dollars an hour. He came to find that he learned a lot of physics from his personable manager, Dr. Weidel. He learned to like him almost as a father figure. All he had done to earn his keep was cleaning and reaching for the infirm doctor.

It was about six months ago, Dr. Weidel decided to tell Andy what he was working on. He had dreamed since he was a child that he would discover the vehicle that would take him back to before the Nazi SS came and took him and his family to the death camps simply because of the choice of their religion. He dreamed about leaping back in time to stop Hitler before he came to power. He fantasized about stopping the face of madness before it could infect others. It was now time to show his dreams to another. He trusted Andy because his own grandmother had been whisked off to another camp to die like millions of others. Her ticket had come because she was too vocal about not wanting her children to be raised in a Nazi regime. Dr. Weidel found that same hatred for the Worker’s Party in this young man and felt a kinship with him. When he finally discovered the secret to jumping in the temporal sense, he shared his findings with Andy, hoping that he wouldn’t think the old man crazy.

Far from it! Andy seized the chance to right the global wrong that Hitler and his armies had perpetrated on the planet. This is where they stood now… poised on the brink of the past while staring into the future, praying that things will be different when he returns. Andy looked at the pool, now beginning to swirl counter-clockwise slowly. Bolts of blue electricity began to form, drawn to the center of the rapidly swirling funnel. Vaguely a light began to shine through the center of the pool. Andy looked back at the professor and waved. He jumped into the electric blue water.

He landed hard on the slate roof and managed to roll to the flat portion before falling into the street below. He smiled and looked up. There, among the wash that a housefrau had hung out was a small swirling opening, hidden by the flapping sheets. According to Dr. Weidel, he had 30 minutes before that portal closed. He didn’t wait to find out if it was accurate.

Andy had traced this route many times in his mind. This portion of the city had not changed in the almost sixty years since this time originally existed. He ran and leapt and ducked and rolled through wash and over gaps in buildings. Around chimneys and climbing railings until he finally reached his destination. He overlooked the square where, it appeared, millions of Germans were standing amidst the red, black, and white symbol of hatred and intolerance. Everywhere Andy turned, another flag emblazoned with the swastika hung. He scanned the crowd for the main platform where his target would be standing. He found it 1000 yards away.

Most of the crowd were holding the Nazi flag and chanting along with their neighbor in support of der Fuhrer. Andy watched as old men and women, young boys and girls, and men and women his own age were swept up in the speech. He was amazed at how one speaker, no matter how passionate, could persuade a country to embrace a policy of hate and of intolerance. He listened to the rambling German and could not pick up many words. He heard “Jews,” “inferior,” “master race,” and “Germany” several times. He shook his head as if to cast off slime that the words from the front had brought him. He decided it was the time to complete the course of action he started by coming here.

Andy knelt down and opened the case he brought with him. He began pulling out dark pieces of metal and as he assembled the pieces, it began to take the shape of a sniper’s rifle. He caressed it with almost a sexual touch. He lay down on his stomach and looked through the sight: Hitler was impassioned and gesticulating wildly. He barely stopped talking. Andy took a breath…

“Rot in hell”

…and pulled the trigger. The madman’s head imploded with the entrance of the lone bullet and then exploded in a cloud of red haze. There would be no more camps and no more death. Hitler had been laid to rest in the year before World War II would start. It was 1938.

The crowd started to react in waves. Those being the closest to the stage and its main attraction caught wind of the murder before the back of the crowd. However, the news spread in a heavy current and before long the entire crowd was worked into a frenzy running and screaming and looking for the man with the rifle. None thought to look at a rooftop almost a mile away, if they had, they would have seen Andy, proudly looking at what he had done and placing his weapon back into its case.

He picked up the rifle case and began the walk back to the entranceway to his time. He retraced his steps and reached the swirling electric-blue hole in time. He threw his case in first and watched it shimmer and disappear.

“Pretty damn cool doc!”

He backed up about five feet and ran into the portal. He disappeared from 1938.

He heard a click and when he opened his eyes he was staring at two men in black uniforms. Their armbands had the swastika emblazoned in their arm, but the fields were reversed. Instead of a dark symbol of hatred, the bastardized symbol was a deep blood red on a field of black.

“Achtung!”

Andy instinctively put his hands up and said, “Don’t shoot!”

The two men stood there with their Luger pistols aimed at his head, daring him to breathe. The taller of the two men was the prototypical Aryan soldier. He was muscular and his chin was chiseled to a point. His closely cropped blonde hair was partially hidden under the officer’s cap he wore. His piercing blue eyes bored a hole into Andy’s head as he switched his gaze to the other man. His blonde hair was sticking out from underneath his cap, but it was darker and unkempt. His eyes were a much darker blue, almost blackish and when he spoke, his accent was not a German one.

“You must be the man who broke into Dr. Weidinriech’s lab and attempted to sabotage der Furher’s laboratory. Stand up slowly and we won’t shoot you yet.”

The man spoke in clipped tones, much like a native New Yorker. And…

“Dr. Who?” Andy asked. He looked around and discovered this was not the lab he had left from. The sticky notes had been replaced with whiteboards with defined handwriting, legible to anyone who could read. The picture of Albert Einstein now showed Adolf Hitler saluting the crowd with the caption: Mien Furher: Martyred for his people. The reversed flag of the Nazi regime hung on the sidewall.

“Dr. Weidinriech,” the taller guard said, “but you already knew that didn’t you traitor?”

“I have no idea what you are talking about! Who are you and where is Dr. Weidel?” Andy was grasping at the last straws of sanity when a man walked into the room behind him. He turned and gaped in shock at the man he knew as Dr. Weidel, but obviously was not.

The man was five feet, eight inches tall and was skinny and had a hawkish nose. The glasses, which his Dr. Weidel wore, were perched at the tip of his nose. The beard he had grown so accustomed to was gone. The clean-shaven scientist was wearing a black lab coat with a red swastika over his right breast.

“Who is that man? And what are all of you doing in my laboratory? I have the personal assurances of our leader himself that I will have no interruptions of my work! It was a lucky coincidence that you caught him, but what were you doing here in the first place Heinrich?”

The shorter, Americanized Nazi answered, “My apologies Heir Doctor. We were passing by and saw a strange light. Franz and I were hoping that there were no problems and we came to make sure that things were all right. We saw this man step out of the shadows and thought he looked out of place so we grabbed him to prevent him from doing any damages to your machines. That is all.”

The doctor seemed to ponder this and said, “From now on, I will thank you to investigate only when screaming is involved. You could have walked in on a ‘strange light’ that would have burned your entire body in a flash of a second. These machines are not just contraptions gentlemen…”

“Uh… hello? What the hell is going on here?” Andy broke into the conversation. “Where am I, because this definitely isn’t where I am supposed to be.”

Franz tightened his grip on Andy and shook him once to get his attention. Heinrich moved in front of him and spoke.

“You, my treacherous friend are in New York City, the scientific capital of the Nazi World Reich. You are now being taken to the detention center where you will face charges of trespassing and destruction of property.”

“The What World Reich? How did that happen? Hitler’s dead! You lost World War II… right?”

Heinrich slapped him across the face with his glove. “Acting like you are mad will not save you. Our beloved Furher was murdered, but his memory lives on. World War II, as you call it, was a great victory for the Reich under General Wilhelm Von Fasbrau. He became prime leader after the Nazi army crushed the Allied troops in 1942.” Heinrich seemed to be reciting a well-enacted scene in a play. The words were there, but spit out mechanically, as if implanted there. “In 1944, the German people propagated the globe taking over the world economy and pioneering the scientific advancements that make society today. Our honored leader led the charge that crushed the American people in 1944 and now the entire world is under his glorious leadership.”

Andy shook his head and remembered a saying from his father The evil that you know is sometimes better than the evil that you don’t son. When you charge into things blindly, you will hurt things more often than help them. How very true. His eyes were focused on the floor when he noticed his rifle case lying five feet away. The guards must not have seen it when they grabbed him. He lifted his head and surveyed the situation. Franz was still holding him, but Andy hadn’t struggled so the grip was loose. Heinrich was discussing things with the doctor and seemed to be intent on that.

Oh God, let me remember those moves I saw on Saturday morning wrestling!

Andy drove his elbow into Franz’s stomach and wheeled him around as a human shield. He grabbed the gun and pointed it at Heinrich’s head.

“Throw your gun down. NOW!”

Heinrich did as he was told. He looked amused.

“You realize that you will never escape don’t you? We have 10 men outside waiting for us.”

“Well dude that’s where I got ya. I don’t plan on going outside. I plan on going through there,” he nodded towards the HTDC. “Now Doc, be a good boy and set the controls to spin this thing to August 1, 1938. Believe me when I tell you I know how it works, so one wrong turn, I kill you all and set it myself. This way you can live until I set things right. So do it.”

Dr. Weidenrich spun knobs and flipped switches and Andy heard the crackle of electricity. He smiled and pushed Franz towards the other two men. He stopped to grab his case and leapt up onto the tub’s wall.

“For what it’s worth Doc… I am sorry we didn’t leave things the way they were.”

He jumped.

The familiar sensation hit and he rolled to his stomach. He was back in Germany, 1938. He heard the crowd noise swelling and he dropped the pistol and hastily assembled the rifle. He started running, falling along the way. He didn’t have much time. He rose above the last chimney and saw himself take aim. He couldn’t close the gap between the two of him in enough time.

“Sorry grandma…”

He took aim and fired. As he witnessed the blood spraying from his own head he collapsed. The crowd heard nothing as Hitler kept speaking about the Third Reich and how it would last for a long time. Andy lay dying on the rooftop watching the other him, the previous him, twitch its final spasm. He closed his eyes and though about the future, his present, and how it was all behind him.

Explanation and Copyright

2006-07-14T10:16:00.000-04:00

Steve (see Jay's link on the side) was pretty damn smart to start his own "story BLOG," so I will do what most of the world does: Copy the idea!

This is a statement to let everyone know that EVERYTHING I post on this BLOG is my intellectual property. Unless I specifically give you permission to repost anything, you do NOT have my permission to repost anything.

I can't promise these will be good nor can I promise that you'll enjoy them, but I promise that I liked writing them and I enjoyed them. That's really all that counts right?