highgate (or the act of being grossly verbose)

During the day, Highgate Cemetery was peaceful, a little boring perhaps, when compared to the Highgate of the darkness. Night-time is when the spirits come out to play. Ghosts of wailing women search the yard for their children with rake-like fingers. The hungry dead rise from their tombs to feast on the blood and flesh of the living. Witched cast spells and conjure demons to corrupt the hearts of men. All this under the cover of darkness provided by clouds over a full moon.

But it was daylight when I ventured through the wrought iron gate into the historic cemetery, a perfectly safe time to enter, though the gate had been closed and the latch fastened. Determining it to be purely accidental that the gate had been left shut on such a beautiful morning for walking, I had no second thoughts about lifting the latch and slipping inside and closing the gate behind me once more.

Hands in my pockets, I began to stroll, taking in all the lovliness of the grounds as they spread ou below me. Trees flanked the grassy hills on all sides, their sweeping branches shifting in the wind and their brittle leaves whispering some long untold tale of nature. The tall and generally unkept grass rustled against the grey slate of the grave markers like a rattling breath.

I inhaled deeply. The air smelled of fall: of dead leaves and sunshine. My feet crunched in the fallen leaves as I walked the tiny, stone-lined path between the plots, admiring the aged stones and the romantic epitaphs engraved upon them in the flowery chiseled script of skilled hands.

One grave stone in particular had always scared and fascinated me equally every time I laid eyes upon it, and I felt my spirits sink as I turned the corner and saw it at my feet, a low, square stone, small and mossy with disregard. "I'm not dead, only sleeping," the epitaph read and then below that, the three chilling words that filled my heart with unimaginable dread: "Wake me up."

But what frightened me beyond measure, even more so than the strange epitaph, was the crude eye carved deep into the stone above the words. It was about the size of my palm, its almond-shaped lids containing an iris so dark and so large that hardly any room was dedicated to the whites. Three thick lines sprouted from both the top and the bottom in straight lines, giving the eye the appearance of having been drawn by a child. But there was nothing remotely childish or innocent in its sinister gaze.

I shuddered in the brisk October sunshine and pulled my sweater tighter around me. As I started to turn away, something caught my attention. The eye's dark iris seemed to glisten in the light as my shadow moved from over top of the stone.

Nothing could sate my curiousity, not even my unease, as I stooped down to further inspect this anomaly in the stone. I held out my hand and pressed my fingertips to the eye. A chill passed through me and I could feel the little hairs on the back of neck rise one by one. A cold trickle of sweat ran down the small of my back. My stomach turned.

Quickly, I drew my hand away and all feelings of disquiet immediately fled. With a sigh of relief, I looked down and found my fingers stained by with a dark red liquid. Horror surged through me once more like rolling thunder. I rubbed my fingers together, smearing the red into my skin and, as it dried, sticking my fingers together.

Blood.

that's the way i like it... ABSURD

Parker: I'm mad at you, you know.
Andrew: That's the way I like it.
Parker: Pardon?
Andrew: I said I've got a locket.
Parker: Oh? What's that got to do with anything?
Andrew: Everything.
Parker: To do with anything?
Andrew: Exactly.
Parker: I see... But I'm still mad at you, you know.
Andrew: I know you're mad, but I didn't know you were British.
Parker: I'm not.
Andrew: I knew it!
Parker: Knew what?
Andrew: You're not British.
Parker: I'm not? Then why do I talk like this?
Andrew: I don't know, you're crazy!
Parker: (jumps up)
Andrew: Do you have something you want to say to me?
Parker: (sniffs Andrew) You smell like babies... Do you have something to say to me?
Andrew: Yes... I'm a werewolf.
Parker: Well that's a relief.
Andrew: Why?
Parker: I like cats.
Andrew: Oh good, me too... Which reminds me... I ate your cat.
Parker: Jelly Bean?!?
Andrew: No, the other one... With the ears and the tail...
Parker: I only have the one.
Andrew: Oh, then it must have been that one.
Parker: Well, now I'm mad again!
Andrew: That's the way I like it.

goodnight, iris - chapter for NaNoWriMo

I.
John stood leaning against the dirty wall of the hotel room with a cigarette burning between his fingers. “Do you remember when we first met, Iris?” He put the cigarette to his lips and inhaled.

Iris nodded from her place on the dusty loveseat in the corner. “You pushed me in the mud and called me a bitch,” she said hollowly, staring at a spot on the wall. She hugged her arms around her body.

He exhaled a cloud of gray smoke that matched the color of the bedspread. “You pinched me first. It was justified,” John said, biting the cigarette between his teeth so he could smile at her. But it was the smile of a hangman; wild and hopeless. He could feel it pulling at his cheeks like his face was a rubber mask and he could only imagine how horrible it looked to her eyes.

Iris glanced over at him and said nothing for a moment. She looked as if she’d forgotten what he looked like and was suddenly surprised to see this strange man before her. Her face was so pale it looked green in the dim light given off by the lamp on the nightstand. Dark circles surrounded her blood-shot eyes. “John, we were ten,” she said finally, blinking, remembering herself and him.

John let the maniac’s smile fall from his face and took the cigarette from his mouth. “I know,” he said. He studied the soiled dishtowel wrapped around his left hand and flexed his fingers. It still hurt pretty badly, but the pain was slowly fading into icy numbness. He said nothing; he didn’t want to worry her.

“And it doesn’t matter now,” Iris muttered. She shook her head. Her greasy brown hair fell in her face and she made no move to tuck it back behind her ears.

“I know.”

Silence fell heavily in the tiny room.

“You shouldn’t be smoking in here,” Iris said after what felt like hours.

John glanced down at the cigarette in his hand and snorted. “Why not?”

“It’s a non-smoking room,” she explained, nodding to a sign bolted to the wall beside the bed.

He looked at the sign, then back at her. It was all so… funny. He felt the laughter rising up inside of him and fought to hold it back, just like the day that they had first met. Seeing Little-Miss-Perfect Iris covered in mud had been the funniest thing he had ever seen. Until now. The laughter bubbled over the surface and erupted from his mouth like a scream.

Iris jumped, her eyes widening in shock, but she quickly recovered and resumed rubbing her shoulders and staring off into another world – a better world.

John wiped the tears from his eyes and sighed. “You’re right, I. I should quit anyway.” He ground the cigarette out on the wall behind him and then dropped it to the coarse blue carpet beneath his feet. He watched her eyes shift toward the cigarette. Beneath the veil of weariness, he thought he thought he could see a hint of her old self. But maybe that was just his imagination, not her lip curling in disgust.

“Fine, I’ll put it in the trash,” John said, throwing his hands in the air and then bending down to retrieve the cigarette.

Iris said nothing, just watched him as he crossed the room and put the butt in the little hotel trashcan. By the time he returned to his post, she was looking at the wall again.

II.

John brought the car to a screeching halt on the sidewalk in front of Iris’s apartment building. He tugged on the emergency brake and grabbed the aluminum baseball bat from the passenger seat. With a quick glance out the windows and in the rearview mirror, he jumped out of the car and sprinted to her door, barely stopping long enough to close the car door properly behind him.

Frantically, he pounded on the doorbell beside her name. “Come on, come on,” he whispered under his breath. The door buzzed and unlocked with no salutation and John grabbed the handle and wrenched it open.

He took the stairs two at a time all the way up to the fifth floor. By the time he reached the landing, he was panting, but that hardly seemed to matter. He gripped the bat tighter in his hand and rounded the corner.

Iris stood out in the hallway barefooted and in her pajamas. Her carefully composed guise of dignified agitation dissolved as soon as John was within sight. She ran up to him and threw her arms around him. John could feel her hot tears running down his neck.

“I’m so happy to see you!” she sobbed, clutching to him tighter as if she was afraid he would disappear.

John kissed her cheek, then her forehead. “I’m sorry it took me so long.” He pulled back and held her face cradled in one hand. With his thumb, he swiped at the tears, and then kissed her lips.

“John, what’s going on?” she asked.

“I don’t know, but we have to get out of here,” he said, grabbing her hand with his free one and urging her down the hallway.

Iris remained rooted to the spot. “Shelia…” she whispered, glancing back over her shoulder at her apartment door which she had left slightly ajar. “Shelia’s in there… Oh, John, it’s awful,” she moaned.

John’s heart jumped into his throat. “We can’t help her, I,” he said.

Iris choked out another strangled cry. “We have to do something. We can’t leave her. She’s… she’s my best friend.”

John debated for a moment, then sighed. “Wait out here,” he said to Iris as he kissed her forehead once more and put the baseball bat in her hand. “If you see anybody – anybody at all – scream and hit them with the bat, okay?”

Iris nodded slowly, her eyes never leaving her apartment door. Her fingers curled around the bat handle and turned white.

III.

“I’ve been thinking, I,” John said, taking a pull on another cigarette. He’d given them up for all of about an hour. Iris didn’t seem to care as much as she might have once.

Iris didn’t say anything. John could hear her ragged and scared breathing from across the room. It sounded painful.

“Will you marry me?” he asked, smiling wryly down at his feet. He looked up after a few seconds to see her staring back at him, her brow furrowed and her chalky white lips pursed.

“Now’s not the time,” she said.

“If not now, then when? I’m not gonna get a second chance!” John yelled.

Iris put her hands over her ears and squeezed her eyes shut like a little child who’s just been told that Santa Claus doesn’t exist. “Stop it, John!” she wailed. “Just… just stop it. I’m tired.”

John relaxed and crossed the room to kneel down in front of her. He took her chin between his fingers and raised it until she had to look him in the eye. He wiped the tears from her sweaty face like he had done what felt like a million years ago, but had only been the day before.

“Just let me tell you I love you then,” he said to her. “Will you give me that much?”

Iris sniffed and lowered her hands. She nodded her head mechanically. “Of course.”

“Okay… I love you.”

Her lips twitched once then fell still, unable to rearrange themselves into something other than a grimace. “I love you too,” she whispered, then let her head fall onto his shoulder. “I’m so tired.”

John stroked her hair and tried not to look at the blood stained dishtowel on his hand. “It’ll all be okay, I. Do you trust me?”

He could feel her nod weakly against him.

IV.

John pushed the apartment door open gingerly. The room was dark, the floral curtains over the windows drawn shut over the winter sunshine outside. He stuck his head inside the door and listened. “Shelia?” he called softly, not expecting an answer. “It’s me, John.” Faintly, he heard something bump in the back bedroom.

John stepped the rest of the way into the apartment and pulled the door closed behind him. He made sure it wasn’t locked just in case Iris needed to get in. Or he needed to get out.

He took a quick survey of the room, looking for something he could use as a weapon should he need one. His eyes fell on the decorative vase Iris’s mother had given her as a housewarming gift when she’d moved in five years ago. It sat on the table beside the sofa and had only been used when John had given Iris flowers on special occasions.

John walked over to the table and took the vase in his hand, testing its weight. It wasn’t a baseball bat, but he figured he could do some damage, provided the glass didn’t break.

Whatever was in the bedroom bumped again and John jumped, almost dropping the vase. He looked down the hallway for a long minute, staring at the closed door at the end. Through the crack underneath it, he could make out a shadow shuffling back and forth on the other side.

“Shelia?” John called again, raising the vase to shoulder level. “Is that you?”

The door shook as something slammed into it. There was a low, agonized moan.

John took a deep breath and began down the hallway as quietly as he could.

When he got to the door, he reached for the doorknob and let his hand come to rest on its golden surface. John swallowed and offered up a little prayer to Whoever may be listening before turning the knob and letting the door swing open silently.

V.

John watched Iris as she slept. Her chest rose and fell irregularly beneath the thin comforter he’d taken off the bed and thrown over her. Her hands moved restlessly beneath the cover.

He shook his head went across the room to turn the dial on the old black and white TV that sat on a rickety table in the corner. The screen came to life in an agonizing burst of white static that droned like buzzing flies in his ears. He changed the channel. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

John turned the TV off with an angry huff and sat down on the bed. The springs creaked ominously beneath him. Iris shifted under the comforter and then fell still with a pained sigh.

He let his head fall into his hands. What had happened? Everyone had gone crazy. The only thing keeping him sane was Iris. He knew he had to keep her safe from this madness, but even he could only do so much. And when he couldn’t anymore… well there was always the gun he’d gotten off the dead guy at the front desk when Iris hadn’t been looking. There was only one bullet in the clip, but that was really all he needed.

John squeezed his tired eyes shut and pressed the heels of his hands to his temples. His left hand seared with pain for a split second, a brutal reminder, and then faded to numbness again. He pressed on it harder and continued his vigil over Iris’s slumber with gritted teeth.

VI.

Shelia stood before the closet doors like she would have done any normal day when picking out an outfit for work, but this wasn’t a normal day, and the only thing about Shelia that was distinctly Shelia was the golden cross necklace she wore. The chain was imbedded in her skin in the sticky mess of clotted blood and torn flesh that hung from her neck like an obscene tumor.

John tasted bile in the back of his throat. He swallowed it and adjusted the vase in his sweaty grip.

She hadn’t seen him yet. He could just hit her over the head and be done with it.

But just as John began to raise the vase above his head to deliver the blow that would crush the skull of his girlfriend’s best friend of nearly twelve years, Shelia turned and fixed her rabid eyes on him. John froze in horror.

Shelia opened her mouth and screamed. It was nothing like John had ever heard before, like nothing he ever could have imagined. It was the scream of a wild animal.

She rushed at him with her face twisted into a malicious snarl, her glaringly white teeth made brighter by the blood that flooded her mouth and stained her gums.

John didn’t think, he just let the vase fall.

Its sturdy base hit Shelia square between her eyes and shattered in John’s hands, nicking his fingers and slicing into the palm of his left hand. Shelia fell in a heap at his feet and John scrambled backwards to avoid her gnashing teeth.

There was a sizable chunk of vase still clutched in his fist and John used it, embedding the glass into Shelia’s chest as she staggered to her feet.

Her blood stung like acid as it poured out of the wound and soaked John’s shirtsleeve and skin. It made his grip on the piece of glass slippery. He bared his teeth and pushed deeper, forcing Shelia to her knees and then to the ground. He didn’t let go until she had stopped moving. Even then, he wasn’t certain she was really dead.

John stood over her body, panting. As the adrenaline began to fade, the pain in his hand flared up.

He backed out of the room and down the hallway, keeping his eyes on Shelia just in case. She didn’t move.

John grabbed a dishtowel off the counter in the kitchen and wiped as much of the blood off his hands and forearms as he could before wrapping it around his cut palm. He went into the living room and opened the front door and walked out into the hallway.

Iris was at his side before he could shut the door behind him.

He turned and her eyes fell on the blood that covered his shirtfront and forearms. She took a step back, her eyes tearing up again. The aluminum bat fell from her hand and hit the floor. The noise echoed in the silent hallway.

John pulled her to him, forgetting the blood and the pain in his hand. He tangled his fingers in her hair. She gripped his torso as if her life depended it. And maybe her life did depend on it.

VII.

When Iris woke up a few hours later, she asked for water. Dutifully, John brought it to her in a paper cup and held it to her lips, letting the liquid dribble into her mouth slowly. He sat down beside her on the couch, leaving space between them.

“Remember when you proposed to me?” she asked. Her voice was hoarse, barely more than a whisper.

“Yeah, what about it?”

Iris stared at that spot on the wall. “I think I might just accept.”

John smiled. “That’s great. What made you change your mind?”

Her eyes swiveled towards him, but seemed to lose focus. “Remember what you said, about not getting a second chance?” John nodded and she continued after taking a deep, labored breath. “Why would you need a second chance? Why not just do it right the first time?”

He nodded. “Exactly.”

She crumpled against his chest like a flightless bird. “You don’t have to be scared, John.”

He kissed her forehead. “I know.”

“It doesn’t hurt any more.”

Grimly, John peeled back the comforter from around her body and lifted her shirt to inspect the bite on her side, just below her ribs. It stunk like rotting meat and the shredded edges had turned a sickly green color since the last time he had checked it. The muscle underneath was shriveled and black.

He lowered her shirt and tried to give her a comforting grin as he rearranged the comforter around her.

“It doesn’t hurt anymore,” she said again.

VIII.

“John, I need to tell you something.”

John gave her a sideways glance, trying not to take his eyes off the road as they sped along. “Yes?”

Iris looked down towards the bat that rested against her leg. “She bit me,” she said quietly.

Horror gripped at John’s chest. He slammed on the brakes. The car came to a halt in the middle of a desolate intersection. He watched a broken stoplight swing in the breeze overhead and what was left of a person stumble along a few blocks ahead. “What?”

“Shelia bit me,” Iris repeated. “At first I thought she was just sick, you know? She was sweaty and her skin was gray. She said she felt like she had the stomach flu.” Iris shook her head. “I told her to go back to bed, that I’d call into work for her.” Her eyes found John’s finally, after looking everywhere but at his face. “I went in there with some juice later on… I didn’t know, John… Oh, God!” Her chest heaved, but she had no tears left to cry. She covered her face with her hands.

John leaned over the center console and hugged her.

“I’m sorry,” she moaned into his chest.

"There's nothing to be sorry about," he said, willing his voice not to shake. He pulled away and pressed on the gas. "Come on. Let's get out of here.

IX.

Iris had stopped breathing.

John held her head cradled in his lap, petting her with one hand and gripping the .22 with the other. Any minute now, she’d wake up again, and he’d be ready to do what he needed to do to take care of her. But for now, he’d let her rest. She deserved it.

He stared at that spot on the wall, wondering what she had seen there. All he saw was dirt-stained paint.

Iris took in a sharp breath, pulling John from his reverie. He wiped his eyes and watched as her chest began to rise and fall in short, quick bursts. This was it.

John pulled Iris closer and pressed her to him. With his thumb, he switched off the safety and placed the gun against her temple.

"Goodnight, Iris," he whispered as he pulled the trigger.

tree climbing - nonfiction

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Parker looked up into the tree. She could hear other children laughing up there above her, but the only thing she could see was leaves and the occasional disembodied foot as its owner swung his or her leg back and forth.

She could do this. She could climb straight up that tree and hang from the branches with the best of them… Well, she could if she was about a foot taller and had substantial upper body strength. As it was, she was 4’11” with arms the consistency of chicken wings: all fat, no muscle.

But she wouldn’t let that stop her, couldn’t let that stop her. How would she ever become a singing veterinarian pop sensation who also acts, designs clothes in her spare time, and takes the photos for the ads for said clothes if she couldn’t climb a little tree?

Parker looked up again. Okay, a medium-sized tree.

She stood on her tippy toes and reached up, her splayed fingers barely scraping the bark of the lowest hanging branch. She sighed angrily and let her arm fall. It was a big tree… Definitely a big tree.

Parker put on a face of fierce determination and bent her knees. She glared at the branch; how dare this tree mock her size by growing a branch too high for her to reach. She sprung, unleashing a Tarzan-like battle cry as she flew, arms extended, into the air.

Miraculously, she felt that branch land solidly in her palms and she wrapped her fingers around it so it couldn’t get away. It was only a little tree after all and Parker alone had the power to tame it, to force it into submission beneath her sweaty hands.

Her non-existent muscles strained as Parker began to pull herself up, slowly inching farther and farther away from solid ground and closer and closer to the sky. Her chin was level with the branch, her stomach; just a bit more…

Parker’s arms twitched and gave out. She was jerked away from her dreams of soaring through the treetops and to reality. Pain rippled outward from her armpits to her biceps. She let her body drop heavily.

But as her body fell, Parker became suddenly aware that something else was rising… Namely, her shirt.

Panic mounting, Parker looked up to find that her shirt was caught on the branch. She wiggled her body, but all she succeeded in doing was pulling her shirt off more. But she refused to ask for help from the parents standing nearby. Instead, she wiggled harder. Still, the material slipped; past her chest, past her shoulders, until it covered her face, the collar tight across her neck. Parker struggled to maintain her grip on the branch and her decency.

She couldn’t see anything with her shirt obstructing her vision, but all of a sudden, something pulled on the fabric and her shirt was torn free from the branch. Parker hastily pulled her shirt back down to cover herself. She sniffed and looked at the man standing in front of her, someone’s dad that she was really glad she didn’t know.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes…”

Parker ran away before he could see her crying.

hillbilly BBQ - flash fiction

"What 'chu think, ma? Breast or thigh?"

The old woman sucked her teeth and stirred the pot of creamed corn on the stove. "I don' know, pa! Whichever's the freshest!"

The old man grunted and lifted his keys from the singing fish key hook. He left the house through the kitched door and made his way next door to the woodshed whistling an eerie tune.

Inside, he flipped the lightswitch. The bulb flickered to life with some difficulty. The old man grunted again in approval and strode across the room to the freezer.

He inserted a key into the padlock on the handle and turned. The lock unhinged silently. The old man lifed the freezer lid and peered into it. After a few moments, he selected a length of meat wrapped in saran-wrap about as long as his forearm and twice as wide. He sniffed it, shrugged his shoulders, and closed the freezer before heading back to his house.

"I got a purdy good sized thigh here, ma!" the old man yelled as he shut the kitchen door behind him.

The old woman went over to inspect the meat with her bony fingers. "It'll do," she confirmed as she took it from his hands. "Damn tourists... at least they're good for somethin', right, pa?"

The old man laughed and looked longingly to where his shotgun stood propped in the corner. "Sure are, ma... Suuuuuure are..."