Category Archives: Short Story

The Harrowing Descent of Mr. Hand Puppet

It started innocently enough
he constructed a hand puppet
named ‘Willy Nilly’
to entertain his girlfriend’s young son
and together they put up clips
on YouTube.

“Hey-Hey-Hey! Duuuh! Howdy, Mr. Rabbit!”

The shows started getting longer
he made up more characters
–more puppets.

A shelving unit was built in the bedroom closet
where they would be carefully stored
when not in use.

His girlfriend joined in
she was a sassy little pink bunny
named ‘Boo!’

It was all in good fun
for a while…

Then something changed
the shows became angry
political and
at times bizarre and
uncomfortable to watch.

It was no longer for the son.
He started filming just himself
in the basement and
spending more and more time
with the puppets.

When it got to the point where he
was always in character
we knew that there would soon
be big mean trouble.

Mr. Hand Puppet
was what everybody called him
by now.

He would take the puppets for walks
downtown
talking to himself
in the voice of whatever puppet
he had on
at the time.

Then one day he just disappeared
but other people
started disappearing too soon after
from the homeless shelter
downtown.
The police would find strange scraps of
fuzzy bright material
at the crime scene.

They didn’t know what was going on
but I did
deep down I knew exactly that.

It was a week later
that I got the afternoon phone call
that would put it all to an end:

“Hey-Hey-Hey! Duuuh! Howdy Mr. Rabbit!”
Mr. Hand puppet
sounded peculiar perhaps because
he was far too happy
to be sane.
“What are you up to today? Hee-hee-hee!”

“Just tell me where you are.” I almost whispered,
by now ready for just about everything
but not this:

The front door of the house was
wide open and I
rushed upstairs
to find Mr. Hand Puppet
in the bedroom
lying face-down in a pool of
growing blood.

I froze.

My mind was racing with possibilities
and none of them good
even the fact that I was now standing in
the middle of a crime scene
was also not good

but those thoughts
were suddenly swept away
as from behind me I heard
the closet door
slowly being opened
and a voice say:

“Howdy Mr. Rabbit…

would you like to know a secret?”

Jenny Says Hi

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Johnny got drunk
behind the wheel again and
smashed his car into a tree.

Jenny wasn’t wearing a seatbelt
and died on the way to the hospital.

That was twenty years ago
and the only reason Johnny
had recalled it right there and then
as he left the party that night
was that across the road
parked right under the
lone streetlight
was a 1983 mustang GT
5-litre V8
blue finish with cobra rims.

Johnny froze
and dropped his keys.
Jesus.

It wasn’t just any mustang GT
sitting there as though shipped in fresh
from outer space
It wasn’t just any car
It was the car
the one Jenny had died in
the one with the rear left panel replaced
by a slightly deeper shade
the one with long yellow scuff marks
all across the front bumper
and worn dark tints
missing patches here and there

and of course the
silly smiley-face sticker on the side bumper
where Jenny had put it.

Johnny couldn’t breathe
as he approached the car as
inside the shifter sported a chrome skull
on a center console painted black and white.

He did that
twenty years ago
when Jenny was still alive.

Oh God.
This wasn’t happening to Johnny
There must have been some answer to this.
Some strange coincidence.

He decided to wait across the street
on the curb
sobering up –half falling asleep
until when near dusk some kid came
strolling along
cigarette in his hand.

Weird-looking kid
-strange eyes
nobody walked like that.

Kid went up to the car
and stuck his keys in.

“Hey!” Johnny approached.
“Where’d you get the car?”
“What’s it to you?” The kid asked.
“Where’d you get it?” Johnny’s voice grew louder.
“Piss off, man. I don’t answer to you.”

Johnny went to grab him but
the slippery bugger dodged it
shouting:
“Get off me! I’ll charge you!
You can’t just run around grabbing at people!”

Johnny managed to catch him by the shoulder and
spun him around against the car
the kid grinned
his breath smelled like rotten eggs.

“WHERE DID YOU GET THE CAR!?” Johnny slammed his
hand down on the roof
right next to the bastard kid’s head.

The kid shrugged. “Alright. Uncle gave it to me, man.
Some old trash job he touched up. He’s a
mechanic. We good?”

Johnny turned away. Was it possible?
Johnny supposed it was. It had to be.
“Alright, never mind.” He said.

The kid picked up his cigarette.
“You need help, man. Cut down on the booze or something.”

Johnny walked away and heard
the car door slam behind him
and the engine started with that familiar
deep rumbling that he had always loved.

The car started off…
but stopped.

Johnny turned around to face the
red tail lights loudly flashing.

The kid leaned out the window
and looked back.
“Oh, Mister -and one more thing…

With a calm smile he said:
“Jenny says Hi.”

The Laughing

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I must have been twelve
the first time I heard it
deep in the woods
-the laughing.

Sometimes it was a woman’s laughter
sometimes it was a man’s
sometimes an old voice
and sometimes young

but there was something about
the laughing
unlike anything you’ve
heard before.

Deep in your bones
you knew that it was not
like you or me
or the forest or the
cars on the street
grown or made by man
or in any way
natural.

Nobody knew what it really was
why it was there or
how it came to be.

Nobody talked about it
but everybody knew.

When you heard it from your room
late at night you knew
that harrowing echo
wasn’t a teenager by the bonfire
a drunk in an alley
a coyote or another night
animal
this was different
there was something about
the laughing
that made you want to
crawl deep inside your bed
and stay there.

When it came
even the animals appeared
from the trees out
onto the streets
startled
eyes wide in terror.

You would wonder what it might
look like
but you never wanted to find out

of course,
unless you were a kid
on a dare.

Steven was sixteen
when he went into the forest night
through the trail then off into the woods
after it
following it
looking for it
because we had dared him
egged him on

we did not fear much
then

but that had changed

because we all heard
what it sounded like
when he had found it
or it him.

Even after the search party we never
told what really happened
that night.

We never caved
in fear that they would send us out next.

Even to this day
we don’t even mention it to each other
anymore
like we had forgotten
but none of us had.

Some nights still
the room drops in temperature
the blood stops running in my veins and
I become gripped by an old fear
when I hear it
because it knows
that I know that

thirty years later
what was out there
in the barren darkened wilderness
really wasn’t
young Steven…

laughing.

Her Flower is the Rain

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She absently plays
with the stitches across
her lips.

Her eyes
have more sky
than sky.

Laughter like wind chimes
she holds out her hands
to collect the rain

hides all her light
where nobody is allowed

and I’ve walked past her a million times

a million times.

Crazy Mexican Cocaine Cop Killer

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Fresh from leaving the scene
with bodies all over the floor
staring up at the ceiling fans
with glass eyes.

They looked exactly how Hector said
when he showed me my first:
“See, there’s nothing inside of them anymore.
You’ve got nothing to fear from a dead man
except his kid.”

Soon after the slaughter
I passed this cop on the highway
and he wasn’t looking at me right
something about the big, broad sneer
painted all across his fat, dirty face
really pissed me off

so I spun a 180
hard
half across the road
half across the gravel
fish-tail swinging wide
like her hips in those jean shorts.

Lord have mercy,
what a fucking whore
she was in the end
and it only made me want her more
than life itself.

I came up hard on his cop’s tail,
while throwing my nose into the rest of the bag.

Fuck, that’s primo Mexican!
Everything else they have is shit but
their coke and tacos? Holy fuck!

“Pull over, Pig!” I shouted
until he slowed down on the shoulder
as I picked up the revolver
lying across the
passenger seat.

“Hey Piggy, Pig Pig Pig…” I chanted,
“It’s your turn to pull over now.”

I fumbled the door but it opened anyway.

I got out of the car
raised my pistol
and bullets went flying
as I laughed.

The Demonic Bathroom Tiles Get Me Everytime

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It could be in the mirror
behind you
seen just for a second
or spotted in a photograph
-something that doesn’t make natural sense.

It could be you.
It could be me or
it could be something else.

You decide.
I’m tired of trying to
discern ghosts from the blonde next door.

“You have a comfortable bed.” She said.
Though it was the third time she’s used it.
“Thanks.” I muttered best I could
as the toothbrush viciously scoured my bottom row,
me being a fervent believer in oral hygiene and all.

The tube was spent and when I turned to the trash to discard it
that’s when I saw it:
The patterns on a single tile of stained linoleum
appeared to be forming into a visage.
The more I grew fixated on it
the clearer it became
until it sharply resembled the face
of somebody screaming.
The eyes were blank with terror and
the lips stretched back far as they could go.

I would only know such pain
if I were in Hell
and that’s where this face came from
as it was a window directly into the bottom
of God’s boiler.

I began to hear the cries
of a thousand souls
-a million.

I thought of death, war, Walmart, eternal suffering, Cthulhu, diabolic torture, George W. Bush.

It was pulling me in.
It was pulling me in.

“What are you doing, Silly? You’re dripping.”
She smiled in the doorway, laughed, rushed down the stairs.

I looked back to the floor. I could no longer see it
so I spit, rinsed, spit and followed.

It was time for me to cook some eggs
with the Peameal bacon left over from camping.

It was a lovely Sunday morning.

She’s Angry and You Don’t Remember What You’ve Done Because You’re Such a Wasteful Drunk

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Boom.
There she was
all up in my face
all over it
everywhere
like saran wrap
but much worse.

Eyes wide wild and crazy.
Teeth gnashing out words
spitting
grinding
pointing
screaming
about something I did wrong
and that it was the last time
the final straw
as I was now in the pisser
the shitter
the doghouse
the dump.

Yes, I was in all kinds of heathen trouble
since the bad news kitty-cat became a Bengal tiger
and now it was flowing
-such harsh words from such hot lips-
as she unleashed a boiling cauldron of fury
right into the lap of my soul.

I tried to follow.
I tried to follow.
I couldn’t follow.

Evac and evade!
Evac and evade!
I couldn’t even get up.

All I could do was look at her
and wonder what it was
that I did wrong
because I was drunk again
and at the point where I usually stumbled
into the great big nothing
that I called sleep.

Finally, she marched off
like she was adequately prepared
to eviscerate the entire housing complex.

I was still wondering what I had done
that was so engagingly disrupting to her
inner calm.

I shrugged.
I had no idea.

I suppose that I would
find out tomorrow and that
my life would be
Hell
for a little while.

Mom’s Not Going To Be Around Forever

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She sounded good today
strong
vibrant in spirit
not like last time when she was weak
distant
sick.

Sometimes you don’t think that she’s going to
get any better

You called her from work
because you had so many things to do and
places to go after just like
every damn day
so you wanted to make sure that at least
you called
you made the effort.

But you’re miles behind on work.
You can’t stay on the phone
for too long you have a meeting and
a list of lists to accomplish.

You just wanted to say high but once you
have her on
she sounds so happy
she’ll talk about everything in her day
-the doctors, the medicine, the treatment, the cats.

You start to feel rushed because you have to go
and she can go on and on about everything.

But what else is she going to do?
Who else can she talk to and how often do you really speak to her?
She just wanted to hear from her son.
She just wanted to fucking talk to you
because for most of her day
she just sits around; is too weak to walk anywhere
and has nobody but dad to talk to when he’s not at work.

So when she says ‘I love you, son.’
you realize that one day
you will have done anything
just to hear her say that
just to hear her voice again
just to have her there
for just a little bit longer.

So when she starts talking about the flowers
or the birds in the yard
you don’t say that you have to go
you don’t rush to goodbye
you don’t hang up.

Instead
you find a chair
sit down
and you listen.

Dead Girl Writing On A Blackboard (Don’t Turn Her Around)

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I lifted my head and looked around me. Mist breathed out from beneath every door down the hallway as though on cue, lapping up against my feet, slowly reaching out for my face. I scrambled back and stood up with a start as it violently swarmed around my legs like bees upon a honey-covered child. Seeing that no harm came from it, I wandered through toward the light coming from a classroom at the end of the hall –unease building with each step. A flickering fluorescent strobe greeted me when I came to the doorway.

Looking into the classroom, I saw the back of an unfamiliar little blonde girl writing ‘I won’t let go’ over and over again on the dull surface of the blackboard. Her hair was tossed over her face like an old mat and she wore a white dress dashed with streaks of long-dried blood. Despite everything screaming for me not to and not knowing what I was hoping to find, I walked up to her between desks far too small for me, placed my hand upon her shoulder, and turned her around.

Her face was gone. It might have seemed like she once had one, but it was covered over by a sickly growth -a veiny veil of taut skin that wrapped like a suffocating shroud around her features. I could almost make out socketless eyes and maybe a hole where her nose had been. But her small mouth I could definitely see beneath as it was opening and closing, working to form the words that she was still writing out into the empty air now that I had pulled her away from the board. Seeing that this situation would be of no use to me whatsoever, I turned her little fragile body back to the board where she continued to scribble away in pretty handwriting – as girls always seemed to have– the same words, over and over and over again:

‘I won’t let go’.

Disappointed, I left the classroom and the sound of her relentless scribbling behind me as I made my way to a field behind the school where yet another phantasmagoric entity awaited to molest my conception of reality.

(excerpt from ‘The Dweller’ – coming out soon)

Why You Had To Kill A Man

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He put your sister in the hospital
again
so now you’ve got to do something about it,
don’t you?
Fuck if he’s your friend.

You pull over by the shed.
There he is,
fold-out chair on gravel half in the shade
looking like a dead man.

“I’m sorry, Man.” He keeps saying.
“I’ll get help. Things will be different
from here on in, I swear.”

And you could hear the same thing
so many times from every
addict, rapist and murderer out there
that it almost seems comical
once you stop believing them.

“You’re my friend, right?” He continues.
His hands groping all over yours
eager for some sort of forgiveness
to what he considers is a flash
in the Goddamn pan that’s how
fucked up he is.

“See,” you hear yourself say.
Words seething out through gritted teeth.
“what the did I do last time but
just stand there and smile?
Just fucking smile?

The truth is that you’re a child.
Just a big, overgrown stupid kid
that swings at whatever
abuses your ego
and you can’t be fixed
because you’re not smart enough.”

You don’t give time to respond.
You can’t hesitate for a second
because he’s bigger than you
stronger
meaner.

Instead you hit him across the face
hard with the tire iron
again and again
because your sister was on life support
so he obviously didn’t deserve his.

You’re my friend, right?

When he stops moving
for good
you throw the iron
on his unbreathing chest
prints and all
because you want everybody to know
that you had done this.

That was the whole Goddamn point.

You didn’t bring a shovel
because you had no intention of burying him
so you leave him there.
You leave that place
but you’ll take it with you
wherever you go
from here on in.

It’s easier to do what you need to get done
at night cause when it’s over
you can toss it in a ditch or
kill the lights and not have to
look at it anymore
but when the morning comes
the sun will uncover your sins
as it burns a hard glare
across everything
and what you’ve done
will follow you
deep into the next night
and every night thereafter
and they’ll follow you
until they catch you
because no good deed goes unpunished
-years behind bars
just scratches on the wall
and hours in the yard
while she replaces this asshole with an
even bigger one
next time she’s crooked for a fix
and it’s just the way it is.

So you just keep fucking driving
as long as there’s road
that leads to somewhere else
though it all seems to lead
to the same place
in the end.

But right now
feels good,
doesn’t it?