#FridayFlash: Shy Cowboy

This is another exercise in character study; this time, I’m attempting to portray awkwardness and embarrassment, shyness and nerves. Please feel free to let me know how you like it, what works, what doesn’t, etc. Thanks for the read!

UPDATED: I’ve made some changes based on the feedback on 18 Dec 2009. I hope this is an improvement over the previous piece.

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He scrutinized his image in the rearview mirror and turned his head from side to side. His hat spat his hair out in tufts, and stubble crept over his cheeks, chapped lips and jaw. He sighed. It would have to do.

The pickup’s door screamed when he opened it. The wind knifed through threadbare denim as he seated his tired hat lower and zipped his jacket. He stuffed his hands in his pockets, sniffed, and headed for the general store’s entrance.

The wooden building seemed as brittle as the winter. His heels thumped a hollow cadence as he went up the stairs and crossed the porch. The bell over the door jangled as he stepped into the warmth. The figure behind the counter fluttered his heart and made his knees quiver.

She turned and beamed. “Hi, Jake!”

He thought he’d faint for a moment, then recomposed himself. “Hey there, Ellie. How’re you?” The moment he said it he felt phony. A blush burned his cheeks.

“I’m good!” She moved to the end of the counter. “Not used to seeing you in so much. It’s nice.”

Another burn in his cheeks. “Oh, well … you know. I keep needin’ stuff, so … um ….”

He felt stupid. He never knew how to talk to her. He’d been watching her, pining for her, for more than a year. She always made him feel special, even when the store was crowded. He couldn’t figure out what to say, how to say it, and he felt like a schoolboy with his first crush. He hoped he didn’t resort to pulling her hair.

She giggled. “Yeah, I guess we all keep needing things.” She leaned over the counter on her elbows and he panicked. He thought he might see down the collar of the T-shirt she wore, but the neck stayed closed. He didn’t realize he’d looked away until he glanced at her again.

“So, I … I … was just out an’ around, an’ thought maybe I’d stop and pick up a few … things.” He cleared his throat and ripped the hat from his head. He’d forgotten his manners and gritted his teeth in self-loathing.

“Oh, well it’s always nice to see you. I guess you know where everything is.” She winked at him and started to turn away.

“Y-yeah, yeah, but … um ….”

She perked a brow and turned back. “Need some help?” She smiled again and he froze, a rabbit in a coyote’s gaze.

He dropped his eyes and his stomach fluttered. “I-I … I wanted to … I think I wanted to ask you … Ellie ….” He swallowed but the lump wedged in his throat.

She leaned on the counter, her face curious and open. “Yes?”

He squeezed his fists to marshal his courage before he remembered his hat in his hands. He relaxed and stared at the crumpled brim and tried to find words, testosterone, and his voice. He smoothed the softened felt.

“Jake? Are you all right? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Oh, yeah! Yeah, I’m … I’m good! Really!” He spoke too loud and too quick and it sounded forced to him. He inwardly cursed his clumsiness and drew a long breath. “Ellie, look … I’m shitty – sorry, I mean I’m bad – bad at this. I know you got things to do and all, but I wanted to ask you somethin’ and I ….”

She tipped her head and offered a small grin. “It’s okay, go ahead. I’m listening.”

“But … I don’t want you thinkin’ I come in here today just for stuff … I ain’t … I mean, I’m dumb an’ all, but not so I can’t remember supplies more’n a day ahead, y’know?”

She smiled and nodded. “I know that.”

He stared at his shoes. “I sorta … sorta come in to talk to you today.”

“Oh?” She kept her voice even. He couldn’t think straight enough to figure out what that meant.

“So, I was thinkin’ … maybe, if you ain’t opposed ….” Again the lump choked him. He clenched his jaw and eyes shut, then popped them open before he looked her in the eye. “I wondered if you’d–”

The bell jangled and he jumped. His hands stung with adrenaline from the start and he bit his tongue. Bill Wahler and five or six ranchers from up Wildwood way tromped into the store, slapping their arms and rubbing their hands together.

“Woo! Cold out there!” Bill called, and tipped his hat back. “Hey, Jake! How you been, cowboy?” Wahler patted Jake on the back. “Ain’t see ya in a while.”

Jake forced a smile. “Hey Bill, good to see you, sir. Ray, Davey, how you boys doin’?”

The ranchers huddled around him while Bill stepped to the counter. He pulled off his hat and swept his silver hair back. “Miss Ellie, how’s the sweetest thing in the county this fine day?”

Jake heard her laughter tinkle as she spoke with the flirty old man. He chatted another ten minutes or so with the ranchers, walked silently out of the store, climbed into his truck, and made the long, cold ride home.

 

 

All original content © 2009 J. Dane Tyler
ALL rights reserved.

#FridayFlash: Western-Fantasy Vignette 2

He stood under the salmon sky while the wind slapped denim, skin, hair. She faced away toward the road, skirt flapping over broken dust-colored boots. Her coat ruffled in the thin air. Her locks tattered as she held them captive beneath the hat she pressed onto her head with one hand. In the other she clutched their daughter’s hand.

He stared at grainy dirt, his lips dry and tongue swollen, boots caked in ashen dust. His calloused fingers rasped against his weary shirt when he wiped absently.

“I wish you’d say something,” he said, voice hollow and distant, the voice of a man speaking his last words on his last breath.

“It’s over,” she said, her throat tight. She turned her head, but didn’t meet his gaze. “It’s all been said. There’s nothing left.”

“I’m doing my best.”

“I know. So am I.”

He shuffled, squinted over the mesa ring to the east. The rolling ground swooped from the washes and canyons down into a flat which ran to the western horizon. Saline stung his eyes. He blinked.

“Please. Don’t.”

“I have to,” she said. “For me. For them.” She dipped her head toward the children. Beside his sister, their son’s eyes glistened under his straw bangs, lower lip quivering. “It’s … I have to.”

“It’s only been three years.”

“Only? You say that to me? Only? Three years. Three years of struggling, fighting for every moment, every inch, every sprout, every grain. Only three years. They deserve more than this. We left more behind. Better than this.”

“It’s going to come, just one or two–”

“Don’t. Don’t say it. You’ve said one or two more seasons for eight or nine seasons. It hasn’t happened. It might. I believe if any man can do it, you can. But I can’t take it anymore.”

Hooves pounding and the racket of wheels and rigging drifted against the wind. He snapped his head to the west, surprised. The coach. He didn’t realize it would come so soon.

He turned back to her. “I’m begging you. Please.” His voice croaked, broke.

“It’s not forever, you know that. When it happens, when you finally break this place open, I’ll come back.”

“I need you.”

“I need you too.” She looked over her shoulder at him then, and her fine, porcelain statue features took his breath away. Her soft, brown eyes, the smooth lines despite the harsh years, her firm, set jaw. His heart jumped in his chest. But the carriage drawing to a stop on the dirt pack in front of her shattered his moment.

The coachman looked down at her, dipped his head and touched his weathered hat brim. “These all the bags, ma’am?” His voice sounded gravelly and cracked as the road itself.

“Yes, thank you,” she said, and her voice danced on the wind into the western canyons.

“Ticket?” the coachman said, and dropped nimble as a sprite to the ground. His team panted and pawed, heads shaking, snorting. “Easy, now,” the driver soothed. “They be edgy this morn,” he said, and smiled through his dense dusty beard.

The man watched helpless as she fished into the bag draped on her shoulder and pulled out three paper rectangles. They snapped and rattled as the wind bent them over and broke them in her grip. The coachman stuffed them into a shirt pocket beneath his heavy jacket and stroked his beard. He nodded, gave her a practiced grin.

The coachman gestured toward the carriage, and pulled at a handle on the underside. A rusty metal step ladder groaned and shrieked outward. The wind tried to rip the curtains off the window when he opened the door.

The man stared with his throat too tight to swallow, to breathe. His son looked back again, a fat tear rolled down his cheek. “Bye, Daddy.” The words stabbed him like broken glass.

“I’ll see you real soon, son,” he said, but didn’t know how he managed to speak. “Real soon.”

He watched his wife lift their daughter into the dark of the coach. The coachman kept the door from tearing off, one of her bags hanging from his gloved fingers. When the man raised his eyes, the coachman offered a brief look of understanding and an almost imperceptible nod.

His daughter vanished into the coach without a sound.

His wife turned to face him. Her eyes shredded him with the pain, the ache they held. “It won’t be forever,” she said, and then kissed the tips of her fingers and blew over her open hand at him.

“No,” he choked, “Not forever. I promise.”

Her face broke. She stifled a sob, and launched herself into the coach. The driver closed the door, danced around the coach placing bags deftly on its top. A moment later he materialized in the driver’s seat and took the reins. The horses seemed more agitated still, but the coachman paid no heed. He stared down at the man for a moment, then gave him a somber nod with that same touch of fingers to hat brim.

The man didn’t respond, but the coachman didn’t wait for one. He prodded the team and snapped the reins, and the coach jerked and then rolled away.

He watched the carriage recede down the hill toward the flat to the east until it became a tiny speck.

His heart spiked when the black form rose just as the sun pierced the horizon, a winged blot of death on the pale sky. His heart froze completely when the dragon spewed wyrmfire in a blazing geyser pouring earthward. A blinding explosion blasted the coach on the road beneath the wyrm. The sound came seconds later as he raced screaming their names until his voice tore loose and flew away in the constant howling wind.

He knew then it would be forever after all.

All original content © 2009 J. Dane Tyler
ALL rights reserved.

#FridayFlash: Tickets, Please.

The wheels clattering over the track junction woke him from a restless sleep.

He blinked into the strange light. For a moment he couldn’t find the source of the blue-white glow, but gave it no further thought when he couldn’t recall getting on a train in the first place. He slid upright in the uncomfortable vinyl seat, and rubbed his eyes.

The car seemed impossibly wide. It rocked and clacked as the train rolled fast down the track. The engine droned somewhere, but he couldn’t tell from where. The long seats stretched to a wide aisle, and the car ceiling arched overhead in a way reminiscent of old, wooden train cars. Time-forgotten old, and the wood around the windows glowed with amber varnish and many years of sunlight streaming through the windows.

He sat alone on the bench, near the middle. The aisle to his left had to be four feet wide before another long bench reached to the windows opposite him. Doors punctured the walls to the fore and rear of the car, gleaming brass handles set into dark, rich wood grain and a café curtain squatting taut behind the mullions of the glass.

He tried to focus his thoughts, but the car’s dimensions distracted him. It’s huge. Immense. He craned his head to look behind him, and the smattering of passengers in their seats caught his eye.

They all seemed dazed, confused, eyes unfocused, most turned toward the windows.

He slid to the end of the bench, and stared out. A bleak, barren landscape rolled past. Long, solid plates of barren rock, an occasional spike of something like vegetation stabbed up. The few leafless trees seemed dead, the trunks and limbs an ashen gray. The sky, a heavy slate color, hung low. The rises in the distance jabbed crystalline skyward. Some vanished into the nesting clouds.

An alien, colorless landscape. He had no idea where he was.

He scanned the compartment for a conductor, and didn’t find one. He turned back to the window for a moment and realized the few plants crowding near the tracks rocketed by in a blur. The train sped along at a mind-bending speed, and the desert outside spread long miles into the horizon before the broken-glass mountains sliced it off.

“Do you know where we are?”

The voice startled him and his heart spiked. He jolted and spun on the worn seat. A woman sat beside him, her face powdery white, her eyes sunken into blue-black sockets. Her white hands fluttered in her lap, two agitated birds. When the train bounced over a bump in the tracks she jerked in start. A tiny, quivery sigh escaped her.

“N-no,” he said, but she stared past him out the window. “No, I don’t. I was hoping someone would tell me. Is there a conductor anywhere?”

“I … don’t know,” she said, and her thin, airy voice whistled from her. “I don’t think I’ve been on very long.”

“You don’t think?” He tipped his head at her with drawn brows. “You okay?”

Her dark purple and black clothes seemed dated to him, but he couldn’t tell. He didn’t keep up with women’s fashions, and she seemed young. Less than thirty-five, he felt certain. A strange little hat perched at the top of her head near the back and matched her dress, shawl and black lace-up boots. Her long, dark hair snaked around in an elegant braid and vanished beneath the hat.

“I … can’t be sure. I’m having trouble … remembering things.”

He stared into the middle distance and tried to recall how he came aboard. Where the train left from. When he bought a ticket. Where he’d be going by train. He glanced down at himself and saw the sharp-creased black suit, a rich crimson tie, his gleaming black wingtip shoes. He reached for his jacket pocket but felt nothing in the depths.

It occurred to him then he couldn’t remember his name.

“I’m … I’m having trouble remembering things too.”

“Are you?” her voice drifted, dreamy and absent.

“Yeah. I can’t … I can’t even remember my name right now. Do you suppose …?”

She blinked, slow and sleepy, and her eyes rose to him. “Suppose what?”

The door banged open behind them and they jumped together with all the other passengers, turned toward the sudden noise. The lights blinked out for a moment then snapped back on.

The conductor pushed through the opening. A massive, black form in a classic conductor’s hat and uniform. It rose nine feet toward the high, arched ceiling, and the yellow, featureless orbs glowed with an internal preternatural light. The tusks emerged from a thick, rolled black lip and ended in a blunt tip just below the eyes, a heavy brow working as the head swung on a thick stump of neck to and fro around the cabin. The talons on fat, powerful fingers scraped with chilling solidity on the wooden bench backs. The floor shook and thudded under the massive weight of its thick, clawed feet.

It glowered at the woman for a moment and then turned its baleful stare to him.

“Ticket.” The word rattled like stone falling into a vast well. The voice ground with gravelly baritone. It breathed in heavy puffs of fetid air.

“I-I don’t–”

The thing reached out with blinding speed and sank a steel-hard finger into the breast pocket of his coat. The lining tore with a shrieking rip when it pulled a solid gold ticket from its recesses. The conductor punctured it with one savage, spit-coated tusk, then stuffed it back into his pocket.

He sat frozen, eyes locked on its wide back as it waded up the aisle.

He turned to the window, gripped the wooden edges with white-knuckled fury. “Where are we?”

She shook her head, haunted eyes staring out the window at the bleak, unchanging landscape.

The train roared onward down the tracks.

#FridayFlash: Copyright Protected

Music oozed through speakers mounted high in the room’s corners and spilled over the murky half-light leaking through cracks around the heavy drapes and shut blinds. The sliding closet door stood ajar, revealing a jumble of clothes thrown haphazardly onto hangers and shoved onto the packed rod. Some stood free, wrinkling atop the mashed wads of others behind. The floor piled high with more fabric cadavers. A dresser, night stand and table teetered beneath piles of detritus and miscellany from their horizontal surfaces. Unmated shoes spread across the battlefield floor. Sugary, preservative-laden drinks festered in forgotten aluminum cans.

A black light buzzed in a fluorescent fixture over posters above the bed. Strange, eerie artwork adorned almost every square inch of wall space, some overlapping other. Exotic indie music band posters, prints of macabre and gothic people and places, vampiric images and statements, all stared into the heart of the room toward the unmade bed.

A voice waivered from the edge of the mattress. “Danny, you sure about this? You can get in trouble, dude.”

“Shut up, Aaron. I do this all the time. I haven’t handed in an assignment I wrote yet.” Danny sat at the computer, tipped back on his chair, long hair draped over one mascara-painted eye. “Besides, it’s not you doing it, it’s me. What do you care?”

Aaron shook his head, tossed his blond strands on the stale air. “Whatever. I’m just trying to look out for you.”

“Thanks, Mom, but I’m fine.”

Danny’s pale, sun-deprived skin revealed blue veins beneath the papery surface. Reflections from the metallic studs on leather bands glinted. Bangles and bracelets jangled with every mouse motion, and each button click and keyboard entry sounded with the prattle of rings on every black nail polished finger.

“At least hurry up,” Aaron whined. “What’s taking so long?”

“I said shut up,” Danny growled. “This assignment’s, like, a third of the grade, dumb ass. It has to be the right story, a really good one. I can’t just grab anything. I want to get a great one.”

“It’s on the Internet, Danny,” Aaron said. “Jeezuz, man, don’t you think Marlin’s gonna find out?”

“Find out? How? These aren’t from fiction sites, ass-wipe, they’re from blogs. Who reads blogs anymore? Now chillax. This one’s really good.”

Aaron sighed in worried exasperation and stood up, the rasp of his worn black jeans and faded black shirt seeming loud in the still, musty room. Danny ignored him, tossed the hank of black mossy hair out of his eye and continued reading. He nodded as a grin snaked over his lips.

“Oh yeah … yeah, this one’s good. This is it.”

Aaron closed the distance from the full-length mirror on the back of the door to the computer desk in two nerve-powered strides. “Fine, get off the site now.”

Danny scowled up at him. “Will you fucking relax? It’s not like someone’s monitoring the–”

“Aw, shit man, this one’s copyrighted or whatever! You can’t use this one!”

“Screw that, it’s just some stupid ass’s little thing he puts on the bottom of all his posts, it doesn’t mean squat.”

“Dude, it’s patented or something! You can’t use it!”

“It’s nothing! I said forget it! It’s my homework anyway, so shut up already.”

Aaron threw his hands up. “You’re goin’ to jail, dickhead.”

“Up yours.” Danny clicked and moved the mouse over the text on the screen, highlighted all of it and clicked the right mouse button. He chose Copy from the context menu, then opened a new document on his local drive. Another right click; he selected Paste. “There. Now I just change a couple words here and there and I’m done. A two-week assignment finished in twenty minutes of reading.” He saved the document with no name.

“You’re gonna get in trouble for this if you keep it up.”

“God, you’re a pussy, Aaron.”

* * * * *

Danny walked into the house and felt the silence like a chill breeze.

“Mom?” His voice echoed through the house. “Mom, I’m home.”

No reply.

Danny listened for a moment, then strode to the stairs. “Mom? You home?”

No answer again. Normally his mother would leave him a note when she went out and wouldn’t be home when he arrived. It was unusual when she didn’t. He felt his pulse quicken despite himself.

He shook his head and bounded up the stairs to his room. With a quick, mindless motion he stepped in and shut the door behind him. He looked up and his breath caught in his throat.

A black-clad figure leaned on the corner of his computer desk. The monitor showed both the original blog from which he’d stolen his major creative writing assignment and the document he’d pasted it to. The figure, a tall, lean silhouette in a black ski mask and turtleneck, hooked a gloved thumb to the monitor.

“You’re a thief.” The voice was smooth and baritone.

“I—hey, how do you know I didn’t write it first? Maybe that guy stole it. Who are you anyway? How’d you get in here? Where’s my mother?” Danny’s voice sounded thin and weak. He knees felt the same way.

The figure thrust its masked chin toward the corner of the room beyond the door.

Danny turned. The scream ripped his vocal cords to shreds and his bladder let go.

His mother slumped in the corner, eyes bulging and shot through with burst blood vessels. Her blue-black tongue protruded from purple lips, her skin a sick gray pallor. A thin strand of plastic coated metal rope left a deep, dark bruise on her throat. One shoe dangled from her toes, the other lay beside her.

“Wh-who … who are you?” Danny said, and his vision blurred with acrid saline. “Jesus Christ, who are you?”

The figure rose to full height, and with slow deliberate movements, pulled a gun from behind his back. “Me? I’m the copyright protection method. Thief.”

Danny wept hard. For a moment.

All original content © 2009 J. Dane Tyler
ALL rights reserved.

#fridayflash: In Short Order

He drags on the cigarette and lets the smoke out through his nostrils in a gray-blue plume. It clashes with the red vinyl of the stools, chairs and pocked countertop. A lump of adobe which used to be a pile of donuts fossilizes under a glass cover at the L-turn. A waitress is smacking her gum and flipping through pages of a bright magazine with tattered corners and a permanent crease in the center.

He swipes absently at his straight hair and sweeps it out of his eyes. He stares at the dossier in front of him and shifts in his uncomfortable booth seat. The ash from his smoke is three quarters of an inch long, but he doesn’t notice. His heavy brows are drawn over coal-colored eyes as he reads the forms.

Six women. All missing in the last three months, give or take. All of them traceable to this area and no farther. One in particular has his attention. A pretty brunette named Cindy Wilkes. Her photo is like a model’s head shot. She’s in professionally done make-up, her hair delicately coifed around her slender face, one hand on her cheek. A tiny rhinestone winks from its bed in her painted fingernail. It’s that little stone that captures his attention. A distinctive mark someone would recognize if they saw it.

A meaty, cigar-choked voice from the back grinds into the dining room. “Order up!”

He glances up at the clatter of a stoneware plate on the metal pass-through shelf, and the waitress brushes her palms on the tiny scallop-edged apron cinched around her waist. She pats her hair into place, but the plastic shield of her hair spray gave up hours ago. She grips the edge of the platter with the pads of her fingers, careful not to damage the manicure which cost more than her pink polyester uniform. The tag bouncing from the top of one boob reads “Madeline”.

Madeline spins on squeaking orthopedic shoes, tattered from years of hard floors and hard shifts. Still smacking gum behind bright scarlet lipstick, her cheap pantyhose swish against her skirt as she rounds the corner to his table.

“Here ya go,” she says around the gum. One edge of the plate bangs onto the pitted Formica and Madeline slides it with practiced ease behind the dossier. She drops her weight onto one leg and thrusts her hip out to catch the hand which falls on it. “That it for ya?”

He doesn’t look up. “Can I get more coffee?” he says, but doesn’t meet her eyes. His fall back on the page.

“Yeah, gimme a minute,” she sighs, and doesn’t hide her exasperation.

He juts his chin forward to acknowledge her statement, but when she turns her back to him he looks up. “Hey, wait a sec.”

She stops. Her posture screams irritation when she turns back to him, hand on hip again. “Yeah?”

“Let me ask you something.”

“I already told you, apple, cherry and blueberry.”

“No, not that. Look at these pictures.”

She exhales frustration through her nose and paces back to the table, where he’s spreading a series of 3×5 photographs over the dossier folder.

“Ever seen any of these girls?” he says, and looks up at her for the first time since he came in an hour ago. It took him forty-five minutes to get around to ordering.

Madeline puts one palm on the sticky table top, the other still on her hip. She gazes at the photos, touching each one with a long, hooked nail before moving to the next. He watches her face, and sees something flash on it.

Recognition, maybe.

“Seen ‘em?” he says, and watches her closely.

She stands and shakes her head. “I dunno. Lotta people come through here on their way to someplace else, y’know? I don’t know. Maybe, maybe not. None of ‘em look familiar.”

“None of ‘em? How ‘bout this one?” He points to the photo of Cindy Wilkes, taps it.

“Nah, not really. Why? You a cop?”

“No, I ain’t a cop,” he lies. “But all these girls were around here recently. Sure you’ve never seen ‘em? Maybe they came in here to eat?”

“Nah, I don’t think so. Maybe one of the other girls who work here. You know, day shift.”

He nods. “Okay. Thanks.” But he’s not convinced.

He watches from the corner of his eye as she squeaks back toward the kitchen and bangs through the swinging door. He hears her chattering and that grindy-smoke voice answers, but he can’t hear what they say.

He takes a bite of his burger, and something hard stops his jaw from chewing. He fishes his fingers into his mouth in search of the foreign matter, brows drawn over his raven eyes again. He finds it and pulls it out.

His breath catches in his throat and his heart spikes when he sees it, his eyes bulging from their sockets. He feels the nausea swirl in his stomach as horror freezes his blood.

A fingertip. A delicate fingertip, with a broken painted nail on it, a tiny rhinestone embedded in the lacquer.

He’s too busy vomiting on the table to hear Madeline come out of the kitchen with the shotgun in her hands.

~end~

Morning Commute

Eddie sat in his usual corner at the back of the train car on the upper deck, face turned to the window. He didn’t look at me when I got to the top of the stairs at the front of the car. Usually he smiles. A woman in the front seat opposite us on the lower level was the only other person in the car. She had a pastel pink and yellow blanket over her outstretched legs, feet on the facing seat, head tipped onto her shoulder. The dark outside tarred the windows. Only stray piercings of light got through when a car passed or a street light went by.

The harsh fluorescent lights buzzed and the speaker crackled.

An automated voice droned “The next stop will be … Lake Townsend.”

Eddie looked rumpled, battered. His clothes looked disheveled, unkempt. It took a minute to register, because it was out of his nature. He was always pressed and energetic, ready with a smile and greeting. I’ve been riding the train with him every morning for six years now, and he never once failed to offer a bright morning start.

He drew a sigh and I sat in the seat next to him. I know, sitting right next to him wasn’t really a “guy” thing, but something was bothering him. Then the train creaked and the wheels ground. It rocked gently on the tracks and got underway.

“Eddie?” My voice seemed loud in the empty car. “Eddie, you okay? You look like hell, man.”

He sighed again. “Do I? I feel like hell too.”

I swallowed. He didn’t turn to face me, just kept staring out the window. When we passed streets, I saw few if any lights on the road. A dark late-autumn day, wet and cool. It was like being in a cave. The brightness in the train car deepened the dank.

“What … everything okay?” I didn’t know what to say.

“No … no it’s not.”

I shifted in the uncomfortable silence. I opened my mouth to prompt him again but he cut me off.

“Something happened on Friday.”

“This past Friday? The thirteenth?”

“Yeah.” He drew a third sigh. “I was on my way home. You know, I’m one of the last riders on the last train at the last stop. Sometimes the conductors don’t even check on me after they get the ticket. I don’t think they’d stop if they didn’t have to.”

I waited a moment for him. He finally continued.

Pages: 1 2

Rock-a-Bye Bully

I stood in the fresh country air, feet on the lower runner of a split rail fence, elbows on the upper. The strong sun beat down from behind the hazy clouds in the cadet blue sky and beaded sweat from under my long, silky bangs. The tall grass tickled in the muggy breeze and bugs buzzed and whined somewhere in it.

In the distance the trees seemed dense. Jungle dense. To a west coast kid, this place was like Africa or South America. It felt like being in the Amazon basin, and I expected night time to be filled with alien sounds of nocturnal animals crying their bloodthirsty wails into the stillness at the moon.

But it’s only Kentucky, and

Pages: 1 2

Western-Fantasy Vignette #1

A short (less than 2400 words) vignette with a western flair, but a fantasy foundation.

I had a dream several weeks ago, and this was the dream.  There’s another piece of it, too, though it seemed unrelated in how diverse the scenes were.  I’ll get to that one soon, I hope.

Enjoy, and please feel free to let me know what you think.  I appreciate the read!

======================================================

He lowered his haunches onto his broken, dust-caked boots.

His fingers touched into the powdery, silver dust in the dirt.  The fine, flour-like granules blew into a tiny cloud and wafted on the air currents along the tops of the more grainy, sandy gravel and grit of the box canyon.

He held it up to his eyes, narrowed them, and rubbed his fingertips over it.

Platinum.

His brows drew lower over his face beneath the brim of his battered hat, and he tugged it lower on his head.  He rubbed his hand over his stubble-crusted chin.

Not far.  Somewhere in the canyon, probably.

Pages: 1 2 3 4

A Jog in the Park

By now, my dad knows I’m missing.

I don’t know where I am.  I’m lying in sand.  I was running, running through a park.  Someone came up behind me — I thought it was another runner — and then a sharp pain, on the back of my head.  Blackness, shot through with stars, then a binding over my wrists.  Something over my mouth next.

Pain.  A lot of pain.

Pages: 1 2 3 4

Do Not Enter, Part 5

The end of the story.  If you’re interested in seeing it from the beginning, you can do so from this page.

Thanks for following along, everyone!

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A hot wash of air rushed up from behind Rose.

It raised the hair on her arms and neck and a shudder wracked her body.  She heard her breath, thready and whimpering, rasp in the tight confines.  She felt the air heat, a layer of gleaming, slick sweat caked her skin.  She turned her head, slow, her eyes searching in the dark for the eerie dances of light.

The door stood black against the bright, hot edge of orange and yellow which danced on the wall, and from the crack between the door and jamb.

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