FRESH OFF THE BUS FROM CREEPYTOWN: The Eyestalk Kid

by

Al Bruno III

It began a year ago, on the third day of the Altamont Fair. It’s funny, we’d go to the fair all the time when we were kids but you know how it is when you grow up; you trade the merry go rounds and ferris wheels for productivity meetings and marketing reports. Timothy and I had no children. We had a hard enough time keeping our marriage and careers on an even keel, a rug rat would have been a disaster.

Considering everything that's happened I’m glad we made that decision.

Like I said, we went to the fair-, Timothy and I and our best friends Chris and Danielle.  We were all in our middle thirties, our stomachs were too weak for the really exciting rides and our minds were too cynical for the games of chance. There was still plenty to do and see though. There were crafts, classic cars and livestock displays and if we stayed till midnight there would be fireworks. And of course there was the food, cotton candy, caramel apples, deep fried Snickers and gyros.

Actually only the boys got the gyros, Danielle and I stayed behind rolling our eyes. They’d just got done saying how full they were but the sight of the girl working the gyro stand fired up their ‘appetites’. She was barely legal and barely dressed. We let them have their fun, the girl wouldn’t dress like that if she didn’t want to be ogled right? Besides the look on their faces when they actually tried to eat those half burnt things was worth it.

We might have called it a night right there if one of us hadn’t spotted the black tent.

It was squat and wide with an ugly hand-painted banner that read 'Dr. Tarr and Mr. Fether's Cavalcade of Oddities' and beneath that in all capital letters was ‘FEATURING AUDIENCES WITH THE EYESTALK KID FOUR TIMES A DAY!’. Beneath that was this ugly image of a snail with a little boy’s face.

“What’s an Eyestalk Kid?” I asked.

“We could find out.” Chris said, “I’ve never seen a real freak show.”

“Me either,” my husband replied.

It was ten bucks a head to get in. The babushka-wearing woman working the ticket booth frowned when we asked her to break a hundred and asked if we had something smaller. We didn’t so she transformed the act of making change into a minor tantrum. “Does your boss know you treat your customers like this?” Danielle said.

“Ah am Docta Tahh,” she shot back, “Ah am the boss smahtass!”

We should have turned back right then, told her to take her cavalcade of human oddities and shove it but I think we all thought her performance was a put on, a part of the show. All our stories of visiting the freak tent would begin with the part about the crazy lady working out front.

The inside of the tent was lit by clusters of Christmas lights. Canvas partitions divided one part of the tent from the other. Each of those cramped fabric-walled rooms held it’s own display or performer. The first section of the tent was just displays, pictures of other sideshow displays from years gone by, taxidermied two-headed calves and misshapen fetuses preserved in jars of formaldehyde. Everything was streaked with grime.

From there we moved to an equally grimy waxworks display called ‘AMERICAN MONSTERS’. I was always a fan of true crime stories but if not for the signs beside each figure I wouldn’t have been able to tell their Lizzie Borden from their Ted Bundy. By the time we had shuffled past nine serial killers and one sitting President we were thoroughly bored.

In the next part of the tent there a banner that proclaimed ‘BEHOLD THE UNICORN- creature of legend’.  The unicorn however was nothing but a deformed goat with a single horn jutting from its head. It bleated at us and glared from a single misshapen eye. None of us, or any of the other people that paid ten bucks to get in, were impressed.

The line moved forward again bringing us into the presence of ‘HUMAN ODDITIES - Howard Huge! Nora the Tattooed Lady! The Amazing Reginald!’ 

Nora the Tattooed Lady looked to be in her middle seventies and had to walk across the stage with the help of a cane. Howard Huge looked no heavier than the subject of your average reality show and he never looked up once from his smart phone. The Amazing Reginald scowled contemptuously at the audience as he bloodlessly shoved needles through his arms and face.

By the time the Amazing Reginald’s performance had reached the glass eating part of the show we were all feeling like fools. We’d been parted with our hard earned  by the cash at the promise of seeing something grotesque up close and in person. We were rubes.

Timothy turned to say something to me, an apology I’m sure, when a frail looking man in a Hawaiian shirt stepped out from behind a hidden fold in the tent. “Ladies. And. Gentlemen.” He coughed wetly for a few moments before continuing, “I am Mr. Fether. I hope you have enjoyed our little production. I hope we have brought a little wonder to your otherwise humdrum lives.”

Danielle exchanged a glance at that, a thousand sarcastic comments on our lips.

There was another long fit of coughing before Mr. Fether could speak again,  “But now you stand on the precipice of a true revelation. At this moment, in a specially prepared aerobionic chamber, the Eyestalk Kid and his hermaphrodite harem await.”

No one knew what he was talking about. ‘Aerobionic chamber’? ‘hermaphrodite harem’? It was getting warm in the tent and there was a aquarium odor filtering in to the chamber. Mr. Fether drew the curtain back revealing an empty pegboard wall. There were voices chanting behind that wall, wet whispers of “…allelujah…” repeating over and over again.

After some more coughing then Mr. Fether spoke again, “For a mere fifty dollars you may gaze upon the Eyestalk Kid, you may hear one of his famous sermons and risk his blessing!”

“Fifty dollars?” Timothy said, “You want more money?”

“The Eyestalk Kid and his disciples have specific needs that require specific payments,” Mr. Fether explained, as the ‘allelujahs’ grew louder and louder, “but you will find him worth every penny.”

“Let’s get out of here.” I said.

Danielle agreed, “We’ve been suckered enough for one night.”

“Actually,” Timothy said, “I want to see this.”

“Me too,” Chris nodded.

“Oh my God!” I shouted, “Don ’t be a fool.”

Timothy blushed again, “Honey you’re making a scene.”

And everyone was watching, the Human Oddities, Mr. Fether and all the rest of the people that had been suckered into the tent. Feeling self conscious I said, “Do what you want - I’ll be waiting in the car.”

Frowning but undaunted Timothy and Chris reached for their wallets, and, after giving me a guilty shrug, Danielle joined them.

I left them to it. 

Half an hour went by, then an hour. I’d expected them to come slinking back to the car by then but I was still waiting and alone as the fireworks began and the parking lot began to clear out. Eventually, despite my annoyance and despite the fact I was sitting up straight in the drivers seat of my car I fell asleep.

The sound of Timothy scrambling into the seat beside me was what woke me up. He was shouting, “Go!” He said “Get us home!”

“Where were you?” I asked as Chris and Danielle got into the back, “What took you so long?”

“We have to go home,” he said again.

Without the rows and rows of other cars and local carnies in orange vests it was hard to navigate dark, empty field that the Altamont fair used for a parking lot. Chris and Danielle were turned around in their seats the entire way to Route 146.  When speeding towards Albany, Danielle made eye contact with me in the rear-view mirror. It was too dark to be sure I she looked like she’d been crying, “We should have listened to you.”

I felt sick to my stomach,“What happened?” I asked, “Tell me what happened.”

“We can’t tell you what happened. It’s still happening.” Timothy had his face buried in his hands, when he spoke his voice was muffled, “I’m sorry.”

Chris started laughing, the sound was almost a scream, “Tim! I’m wearing your shirt!”

Timothy barely spoke to me the next day. He said he wasn’t feeling well so I let it pass. When I got home from the office I found him lying under the bed covers and mumbling. He wasn’t running a temperature but his skin was clammy to the touch. 

Since I had no sick time left I decided to sleep on the recliner. The next morning I found him cocooned in the blankets and sheets, everything was soaked with sweat that had a swampy odor to it. Timothy wouldn’t speak more than two words to me but those words were, “Love you.”

I started to worry he might have gotten food poisoning from that gyro slut. He could barely lift his head off the pillow so I had to call him in sick to work. His boss was really pissy about it but there was no way Timothy could even drive himself in, never mind about actually do any work.

Four times. I tried to call him four times during the course of that day but he never answered, every call went to voicemail. I tried texting his cell phone but that was no better. Right before I headed out to my last meeting of the I gave Danielle a quick call to to see how she and Chris were doing. I barely recognized the voice that answered and the only reply to my questions was a garbled, “Go away.”

That night came home to find the refrigerator door wide open and a month’s worth of groceries either half eaten or left to spoil. Timothy was laid out in the couch, stains radiating out from him. The TV was turned to a channel that used to show nature documentaries but was now nothing but wall to wall reality shows about rednecks. I knew for a fact Timothy hated both.

He smiled thickly at me, “M’sorry. M’sorry.”

“What’s wrong?” I knelt beside him and stroked his forehead. This flesh felt like the skin of  pudding, “What happened to you?”

“Had to be there… m’sorry.”

The phone started ringing. A premonition made me want to ignore it but I didn’t believe in premonitions then. 

“Hello? I said.

A watery voice said back,“Tim?”

No one called my husband Tim except for me, and even then only when we were making love. He’d always been a Timothy, ever since childhood. “Who is this?” I asked.

“M’sorry Alice. M’sorry. Chris died. Didn’t want to… Face wouldn’t forgive the mirror. Shotgun. M’sorry. Tim? Almost time to go. Go home.”

“Danielle?” I couldn’t recognize the voice. I’m still not sure it really was her but who else could have been?

The voice whispered, “The Eyestalk Kid…”

Timothy gurgled a reply from his spot on the couch, “Allelujah!” Then he turned onto his side and vomited, with each heave of his stomach he called “Allelujah!”

I wanted to call 911 but my fingers wouldn’t move, not when I knew the worst hadn’t happened yet. 

Another premonition.

His stomach emptied my husband rolled himself off the couch landing on his stomach with a grunt of relief. His back was swollen and bowed outwards.

“Allelujah!” the voice from the phone said.

Then he put his face down in the puddle of his own sick and started slurping. With every slurp the lump on his back quivered.

“Stop it!” I screamed at him, “For God’s sake stop it!”

And he did, turning towards me to show a face that had become a mask of bile and eyes that were even more askew than before. “M’sorry.” he said again.

Then his eyes changed. The eyes I had looked into with love and anger and indifference so many times over the last seven years began to shift, slipping out of his skull on stems of writhing, pink muscle.

The last thing saw, before I fainted, was his gaping eyelids, brimming with tears. “Love you.” he said.

When I woke up hours later Timothy was gone. He’d left everything behind, his wallet, his clothes, his wedding ring. I called the police and found out they were already coming to see me. Chris was dead. They weren’t sure if it was suicide or foul play and Danielle was nowhere to be found.

They police didn’t want to hear about Dr. Tarr and Mr. Fether and the Eyestalk Kid. They’d already decided for themselves what had happened. It was an affair, my husband and my best friend. Chris had found out and it had driven him to suicide. I’d found out too and my broken heart had sent me into a delusional state.

Now it’s a year later and the Altamont Fair is back in full swing and this letter was supposed to reveal everything. It was supposed to tell you why the black tent might have been harder to find this year even though it has almost doubled in size. I was going to tell you what I saw when I paid my hundred dollars to see the Eyestalk Kid in his Aerobionic chamber. I wanted to write down word for word what he said and reveal to you the rites my body performed as my mind screamed for it to stop.

But now I know I can’t, it was hard enough for me just to write all this. I have to hit the keyboard of my laptop with bruising force just to make the letters appear. My fingers won’t hold their shape and my eyes can’t focus on what is right in front of me.

M’sorry.

 

 

This is Channel Ab3 Episode Nineteen: The Eyestalk Kid

Enter the black tent and be lost to world of the Eyestalk Kid.

The Eyestalk Kid written by Al Bruno III

It was produced and adapted for audio by Morbid Butterfly

It starred Krystal Donahue Richard Garner Josh Price Danielle Tanja Milojevic Maureen Boutilier and Rish Outfield

This episode's music was; 

Ghosts Volume 2 Track #17 by Nine Inch Nails

Atardecer by Jamendo Music

Glory Eternal by Darren Curts 

In The Bowels of Sanctuary and Many Strange Things by Derek R Audette

Sketching the Sun and Distant Worlds 2 by Kai Hartwig

Needles - End Credits by David Beard

Miris Magic Dance, Monster Promenade and Duet Musette by Kevin MacLeod

Our unpaid scientific advisor is Adam J Thaxton

The Channel Ab3 theme was written and performed by Rachel F Williams

Channel Ab3 logo was designed by Antonio G 

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This is Channel Ab3 is distributed and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Sharealike 4.0 International License

 

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THE NIGHT BLOGGER The Graveyard Game (and other cemetery plots) Episode Eleven 'Nuts And Bolts'

 

By Al Bruno III

 

January 26th: By the time Kris Halloran reached the building on Thornburg Street, the bullet wound had dulled from searing pain to a steady ache. He'd made it home without drawing undue attention, managed a clumsy but functional job of bandaging himself, and changed into a clean—albeit stolen—shirt. Now, his only problem was figuring out how to get the bullet removed. He couldn't go to an emergency room; even if he weren't a paroled felon, there was no way he could get away with the 'I was cleaning my gun when it went off' excuse—not with a bullet wound from a botched convenience store robbery.

In situations like this Dr. Thiesen was your only option. Every shady character in Albany knew that. All you had to do was meet his price and keep your mouth shut. Dr. Thiesen's three-story home was in one of the worst parts of Albany, but neither he nor his patients were bothered. Since Kris's ill-fated stick-up happened in Schenectady, the trip to Thornburg Street had been one of the most miserable experiences of his life.

In the end, it all seemed worth it, both figuratively and literally. Despite the late hour, Dr. Thiesen was awake and ready to help. Kris was broke, so Dr. Thiesen agreed to accept payment in trade. The price? Twelve swatches of skin from various parts of Kris's body. It was a creepy as hell commitment, but Kris felt he had no choice. He'd heard stories of people paying with kidneys or worse. At least Dr. Thiesen promised not to touch Kris's elaborately tattooed arms, opting instead for skin from his belly and back. Even Dr. Thiesen had taken a moment to admire the intricate ink patterns stretching from wrist to shoulder—interlocking roses and barbed wire twisted in designs that drew the eye over and over.

Hours later, Kris awoke from the anesthesia to find himself alone in a cramped makeshift operating room. The gurney was bare, and the IV bag hooked to his arm was empty. What had woken him?

The transition between the two paragraphs is fairly smooth, but you could improve it by creating a clearer link between the noise and Kris's growing concern about time. Here's a revised version that tightens the transition and maintains narrative flow:

There was a noise coming from upstairs—a sharp, shrill sound that evoked the buzzing of cicadas but with a distinct metallic edge. It reminded Kris of something from his uncle's Lou Reed albums, though he couldn’t quite place it. Was it called metal music? Could that be how the stuffy Dr. Thiesen unwound after a grueling day at the office? Kris found the thought vaguely amusing.

However, the amusement quickly faded as he realized he had no idea what time it was or even what day. The windows in the room were blacked out, and there were no clocks in sight. Kris had a crucial meeting with his parole officer that he couldn’t afford to miss. If he’d slept through it, then all of this would have been for nothing. He called out for Dr. Thiesen, but received no response. Upstairs, someone was shouting—no, it was two voices. Kris wondered who it was, but then he realized he didn’t really care all that much. His main concern was finding his clothes.

It turned out that locating his clothes was the easiest part. Putting them on was agony. His shoulder hurt worse than before, and the places where the skin had been removed made everything worse. Dr. Thiesen had promised he'd take no more than a few inches here and there, but the pain and the bandages covering his body seemed enormous. Finally, Kris was zipped and buckled up; he couldn't find the stained stolen shirt but was glad to lose it, so he eased himself into his leather jacket. That done, he jammed his feet into his shoes like they were backless slippers.

The piercing wail stopped abruptly, and he heard someone scream. Was there another patient upstairs? Gruesome images flashed through Kris’s mind, throwing him into a panic. He yanked the IV out of his arm and started at a slow hobble for the door. He willed himself to move quickly and quietly, but a sudden flare of pain made him groan audibly.

As he struggled toward the door, a silhouette appeared in the doorway. The figure didn’t make sense—tall and lanky, with stooped shoulders, twitching arms, and slightly bowed knees. As the shape stepped into the light, Kris was able to make out its face clearly.

The sight set Kris running for his life, pain be damned…

###

...the police found Kris Halloran stumbling through traffic, his stitches torn open and his expression wild. He raved about having escaped from a house full of monsters, but when the police investigated his claims, they found nothing to support his story. There was no record of a Dr. Thiesen in the tri-city area, and the supposed house of horrors turned out to be an empty building. The property was owned by a Mrs. Mary Ingolstadt, a very elderly and confused resident of Switzerland. By the time the police sorted out these details, it was already too late. Kris Halloran, possibly anticipating his probation being revoked, had left the hospital and vanished without a trace.

I had been trying for weeks to speak to Ashley Fowler. I had visited her office a dozen times, called her, sent emails, and sent a fruit basket. But she didn’t respond in any way, not even with a nice civilized restraining order.

Feeling discouraged, I decided to distract myself. And what better distraction than a story that starts with a man screaming about monsters and ends with him vanishing without a trace? I wasn’t the only one captivated; other members of the FEAROFTRUTH message board had also become obsessed with the story, finally derailing the endless debate on "Is the Mothman gay?" that had been dragging on for months.

You see, Kris’s tale wasn’t unique. For nearly two years, stories had been circulating around the Tri-City Area about a physician who offered his services to those who couldn’t go anywhere else due to lack of resources or respectability. The doctor’s name changed frequently, but his modus operandi remained the same. You either paid in cold, hard cash or you gave up a pound of flesh—give or take a few ounces. There were rumors of criminals donating kidneys for plastic surgery and desperate parents sacrificing an eye or a limb. The message board was abuzz with speculation about what he was doing with all those spare parts.

I kept my eyes peeled and my ears to the ground—at least, in the social media sense.Inevitably the secret sawbones surfaced again, this time in Hamilton Hill. If you don’t know anything about the neighborhood of Hamilton Hill let me give you this succinct description- stay the fuck out of Hamilton Hill. The crime rate is high, the landlords are all scumbags, most of the businesses are shuttered and the population is either desperate or demoralized.

Ironically, the location where the man now calling himself "Dr. Ernest" chose to operate was just a block and a half from where Kris Halloran had lived. After trading notes with the TrueSeeker from the message board, I decided to dive into some serious investigating.

That’s how I found myself sitting in the stained barber chair that Dr. Ernest used as an examination table. I was a bit dazed and pretty drunk, with a bloodied, possibly broken nose, possibly a sore wrist and a strong possibility of a cracked rib—again.

“So,” Dr. Ernest leaned over me. He was fat with wavy black hair and a thick mustache. His voice, thick with a Turkish accent, carried no compassion, only boredom. “You get into bar fight?”

“Yeah,” I said. “But you should see the other guy.” And by that, I meant the other guy didn’t have a scratch on him.

“Did anyone see you come here?” he asked.

“No,” I replied.

“How did you hear about me?”

“Word gets around.”

He frowned at that. “And you’re on probation, yes? Do you have health insurance?”

I shook my head. This was my cover story: I was a broke ex-con struggling to stay out of trouble. The cover story and yet another fake ID from Cousin Roy were all well and good, but where did I get the injuries to match my little deception? Well, I actually did get into a bar fight. I had a few drinks to dull the pain and then went looking for trouble. I didn’t throw the first punch, but I did hurl a lot of profanities and committed the cardinal sin of praising the Boston Red Sox.

That remark got some attention, alright—attention from the largest Yankees fan I had ever seen. He took me down with his beer in one hand and a knuckle sandwich in the other. The bouncers quickly tossed us out of the bar. My sparring partner thought we were going to finish our fight in the street, but instead, I thanked him, handed him a small token of gratitude, and made a quick escape to my car while he stared in confusion at his brand-new fifty-dollar Denny’s gift card.

"Your nasal fracture is displaced." Dr. Ernest walked away and returned with a metal tray brimming with medical supplies. "And you’ve dislocated wrist."

"Dislocated my wrist?" I lifted my arm and winced.

Dr. Ernest said, "My rates are simple. I need seven hundred dollars in cash right now, or I take it out in trade. An ear will suffice."

"An ear?" My stomach went cold at the thought. "Why would you want one of my ears?"

"That is not your concern," he said. "Now, how do you plan to pay me, or are you wasting my time?"

"I’ve got the money," I said, pulling a handful of hundreds from my pocket. Dr. Ernest inspected them, checking their authenticity. They were real. Investigating the unknown can be pretty damn expensive.

Dr. Ernest retrieved a large needle from his tray. "Let us begin then."

The syringe was buried in my wreck of a nose and back out again before I knew what was happening. “What the hell was that for? What was in that needle? Are you crazy or something?” I sat up, then laid back down again, “I... I’m... what?”

“Just a little morphine,” he said matter-of-factly, “I need you to speak to me with more candor.”

“Candor...” I repeated, my voice slurred and mirthful. In that moment I loved the sound of that word more than anything else, “...candor candor candor.”

He held my fake ID up between his forefinger and thumb as though it was something rotten, “It says here you are Nathaniel Blades.”

I giggled, “Yeah it’s cool isn’t it?”

“It also says you were born in 1968.” Dr. Ernest’s expression darkened, “You don’t look 47 years old.”

The jig was up. I wanted to make a break for it, but my thoughts felt like they were slogging through molasses, taking what seemed like an eternity to travel from my brain to my limbs. By the time I finally managed to summon the will to move, I found myself already strapped into the barber’s chair. Meanwhile, the morphine haze was growing thicker.

As he fastened my feet down, Dr. Ernest asked, “Who are you really?”

“I’m… I’m totally that guy you mentioned,” I stammered. A chill swept over me as it dawned on me what was happening. “Why are you taking down my pants? That’s silly!”

Dr. Ernest called out to a shadowy corner of the room, “Gorto! Stop lurking about. You can come help me if you want.”
 

The face that suddenly loomed over me was straight out of a nightmare—shriveled yellow skin stretched tight over a bald, angular skull. Metal bolts stuck out from the sides of the head, each capped with a riveted top. Watery eyes glared from under a pugilist’s nose, and the mouth was filled with metallic teeth. Despite its grotesque appearance, there was something eerily baby-like about it.

Suddenly, I wasn’t feeling so giggly anymore. I screamed and began thrashing, desperately trying to free myself from the chair.

“What are you gonna do?” The voice that came from the nightmarish face was slurred and childlike. The figure wore a too-small Limp Bizkit t-shirt, which revealed patches of flesh on their too-long arms that didn’t quite match.

“What the hell is this?” I demanded again as Dr. Ernest placed a plastic saucer on my belly. “I just wanted my nose fixed!”

“And your wrist,” he added.

“Can I have my pants back?”

At that, Gorto said, “Baba, you’re scarin' me again...”

“You’re scared?” I looked from Gorto to Dr. Ernest and back again, “Did you just call him Baba?”

Dr. Ernest said, “No one comes to me for something as simple as broken nose—”

“—and a dislocated wrist.” I added.

“—and they certainly don’t come to me with a wad of brand new hundred dollar bills.”

“That’s how they came outta the ATM!”

“But Baba...” Gorto’s features were hard to read, but the worry in their voice was unmistakable. “Whatcha gonna do?”

Dr. Ernest brandished a scalpel, waving it as he spoke. “I’m going to open up his scrotum. If he does not tell me exactly who he is and who sent him, I’ll put his testicles on this dish and let him stare at them while he waits for morphine to wear off.”

“No!” I tried to cover my groin with my hands, but the straps on my arms held me fast. “No, no, no! There’s no need for that. My name is Brian Foster, and I’m just a blogger looking for a story.”

Gorto looked genuinely curious. “What’s a blogger?”

“It’s like journalism, but way sadder,” I explained. “Everyone’s heard of your Baba—the doctor who takes his payments in skin and bone. He changes his name, but they always call him the same thing.”

“Do they now?” Dr. Ernest glowered. “What do they call me, young man?”

“Uh...” I hesitated, wondering if sharing this would amuse him or make him angry. “They call you—well, not me, of course—Doctor Dread.”

“That is mean,” Gorto frowned.

“Yes, I agree,” I said quickly. “Now, can we get back to the testicle situation? And by that, I mean, can you leave them alone?”

“I am not sure if I believe you,” Dr. Ernest turned his attention to my ever-shriveling groin. “I have many rivals. How do I know you’re not trying to steal my research?”

“That’s not true!” I looked pleadingly at Gorto, “I didn’t even know he had research! You believe me, don’t you?”

“Baba,” Gorto reached out and grabbed Dr. Ernest’s wrist, halting the scalpel’s advance. “We can’t do this. Only volunteers, you promised.”

Dr. Ernest replied, “He knows too much.”

Yes, I can’t believe people actually say that in real life either. Maybe it was the morphine talking, making me an even more unreliable narrator than usual. But I knew one thing for sure: the danger I was in was real, the cold air on my exposed groin was real, and the sight of Gorto’s arm stopping the scalpel from cutting into me was all too real.

As I mentioned before, their arm was unnaturally long, with thick elbows and hands ending in sickly, spidery fingers. The flesh was a patchwork of scars and mismatched skin tones, with one section even sporting a swatch of black ink—just a tattoo.

The realization of what Dr. Ernest had done made me angrier than scared.

“Wait! Just wait!” The drug and adrenaline were waging war inside me, and I didn’t know if I was going to scream or pass out. “I thought you said only volunteers?”

“I think in your case we can make exception,” Dr. Ernest said, pulling his wrist free, but Gorto grabbed it again.

“What about Kris Halloran?” I asked.

“Who?” Dr. Ernest snorted.

“The last patient you saw before you closed up shop on Thornburg Street.”

“Oh. Him.” Finally, he looked away from my groin and shot a resentful glance at Gorto. “The one who nearly ruined everything.”

Gorto looked genuinely remorseful, or as close to remorseful as their face could manage. “I jus' wanted to talk to him.”

“I had to sacrifice months of work just to get away,” Dr. Ernest said.

“Is that why you killed him?” I asked.

“Are you some kinda idiot?” Dr. Ernest retorted.

Gorto released Dr. Ernest's wrist. “He ran away an’ went to the police.”

“And then...” I paused for effect, “...he disappeared.”

“Are you going to believe him or your own father?” The scalpel was heading for me again.

At moments like this, just before something terrible is about to happen, a strange feeling of being trapped takes over. It’s because you have a body that can be tortured and wounded, while your mind and soul are stuck in a front-row seat. That’s where I was at that moment—front row, waiting for the next horror. “He had some very nice tattoos!” I said quickly. “Roses and barbed wire!”

Both Dr. Ernest and I watched as Gorto studied their lower arm. Then they glared at him. “You said you wouldn’t hurt anyone else. You promised that if I performed you wouldn’t hurt anyone else!”

“Performed?” I said.

Dr. Ernest’s mouth opened and closed a few times before he finally said, “Go to your room. I don’t need your help anymore.”

“Why do you always lie to me?” Gorto asked.

Dr. Ernest shouted, “I do what I have to, for the future of all mankind.”

Again, who the hell talks like that?

This guy, I guess.

“You said,” Gorto’s eyes were full of tears, “you said you’d stop.”

He pointed the scalpel at them. “Go. To. Your. Room. You need to get ready. We have company tonight.”

When Gorto leapt over the barber chair, they looked like something out of a low-budget horror movie, but a horror movie nonetheless. The sobbing scream they made, however, was very human...

###

...and then I woke up.

Now, before you start getting annoyed, let me clarify: I woke up in that same makeshift operating room, in that same barber chair, but I was no longer tied up and pantsless. I don’t remember passing out; one moment I was witnessing that classic tableau of a monster rising against its creator, and the next was nothing but blackness. Just as well, I suppose; I’m not sure I would have wanted to see what happened next.

The streaks of blood on the walls and floor told me everything I needed to know. Gorto had saved my life, but it looked like they’d stolen my wallet. I still had my watch, though, and it told me it was eleven in the morning.

Since I was already four hours late for work and I’m a glutton for punishment, I decided to have a look around. I woozily headed for the basement stairs.

Item: Fingerprints recovered at the scene revealed that Dr. Ernest, aka Dr. Thiesen, aka Doctor Dread, was actually Elyas Yavuz. He had been a renowned surgeon about twenty years ago.

Item: Shortly after his wife gave birth to triplets, Dr. Elyas Yavuz began suffering from late-onset schizophrenia. His fellow surgeons noted that his work was becoming dangerously slipshod, and his wife reported that he spoke to her less and less and took to sleeping in his office.

Item: Dr. Elyas Yavuz began submitting long, rambling articles to medical journals and other doctors he thought might share his views. These articles quickly became infamous and a cause for concern.

Police photographs of the second story reveal a wall stacked high with medical supplies. On the opposite side, three freezers stood. One contained pharmaceuticals that could only have been obtained illegally. The other two held more organic materials, including two highly preserved bodies of young adults, each showing signs of considerable and repeated vivisection. Finally, there was an oil drum filled with acidic chemicals. A very fresh-looking arm protruded from it. Just a few hours ago, that arm had been poised to use a scalpel on me.

Item: Before Elyas Yavuz could be committed, he fled his home city of Izmir, taking his young children with him.

Item: The good doctor’s papers revealed that he had become obsessed with the works of William Sharpe Shaver. He was convinced that by the year 2025, the beings described would rise from the depths of the Earth and humanity had to adapt to 'the Great Becoming' by any means necessary.

Item: Several times in these treatises, he stated his willingness, in fact his eagerness, to subject his loved ones to these alterations.

The same set of police photographs shows that the basement had a large sinkhole that seemed to go down at least thirty feet. A ring of Tesla coils surrounded an altar made from a strange alloy that required samples to be sent to a cryptic, yet intimidating, federal agency for definitive identification. Atop the altar were several artifacts that defied easy explanation: metal pieces with intricate designs, shimmering crystalline shards set into metallic frames, and a perplexing device with interlocking rings. Nearby were segmented tubes etched with shifting lines and twisted metallic  baubles with cryptic markings. A compact box with a complex lock sat among them, its purpose unknown but clearly important.

These objects were later carted away by well-dressed agents from the same cryptic, yet intimidating, federal agency.

Item: Several police officers assigned to the case were severely disciplined for discussing the oddly feline-looking tactical headgear they wore. Someday, I need to look into what the hell that was all about.

But for now, I’m sitting on my couch while Cousin Roy and Sara are engaged in a very aggressive game of Gin Rummy, and thinking about Gorto. Were they really what was left of Dr. Yavuz’s children? My instincts tell me yes, and I can’t imagine the agonizing medical impossibilities inflicted upon them.

If I think about it too long, I find myself hoping that the sonofabitch was still alive when Gorto shoved him into that oil drum.

Where is Gorto now? I can’t say. I hope they find someplace... someplace good. To help them along, I’m not going to cancel my credit card. They can run those babies right up to the max. I’ve always wanted to see what it felt like to declare bankruptcy anyway.

Not every monster is out to get you, and not every healer is a saint. Lesson learned.

I guess that’s about it.

Except...

Gorto, if you’re somehow reading this, thank you.

  

THE NIGHT BLOGGER The Graveyard Game (and other cemetery plots) Episode Ten 'The Crimson Chimes'

By Al Bruno III

 

January 4th: The owner and chief moderator of the FEAR AND TRUTH message board went by the username 50Fingers. His real name was Mike Whitehead, and he lived in Greenwich Village. When he wasn't moderating debates about whether ghosts can poop (they can't), he ran a record store. And I mean a real record store—Chelsea's Garage, which specialized in vinyl, collectibles, reissues, and every accessory for turntables you could imagine. He insisted I drive down to the city to meet with him, believing he might have a way to help Sara. So, I took the day off and started the 3-hour drive to New York City.

Three Depeche Mode mixtapes later, I walked through the front door of Chelsea's Garage. Inside, the store exuded old-school charm with polished wooden floors and walls lined with shelves of vinyl records. The rich, earthy scent of aging vinyl and the faint hum of a turntable created a nostalgic atmosphere. The layout was both organized and eclectic, with neatly categorized crates of records and rare collectibles displayed in glass cases.

The walls were adorned with posters of classic jazz legends and iconic album covers, giving the store a gallery-like feel. In one corner was a large vintage record player surrounded by turntables, amplifiers, and other high-end audio equipment. Warm, golden light from hanging fixtures bathed the space, casting a cozy glow over the rows of records. Mike Whitehead stood behind the counter, expertly handling a stack of records.

He was curly-haired and dressed in loose-fitting clothes. The shape of his face suggested he hadn't smiled in a long, long time. He came out from behind the counter and greeted me enthusiastically. His voice had a distinct tone, with a slightly lower pitch and rhythm. He spoke slowly, pausing at times, and there was a soft, muted quality to his voice.

And that was when I realized he was deaf.

He quickly ushered out his remaining customers and closed the store early. Then, after putting on some Nina Simone, we settled in the back room with coffee generously spiked with brandy, catching up on everything that had happened. Occasionally, he asked me to slow down and repeat myself so he could read my lips more easily. Once we finished catching up, he began discussing his research. "The first quote I found was in the 9th Edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, in a chapter about magic."

"That's not the starting point I expected," I said.

"It came out in 1880 and was significantly revised in the 1885 and 1889 editions," he said. "From there, my studies led me to Hippolytus's Refutation of All Heresies. He was a Christian theologian and martyr, and the magic chapter of the Britannica paraphrased his description of a ritual for Hecate."

I frantically scribbled in my notepad. "What kind of quote?"

He cleared his throat. "Infernal, and earthy, and supernal Hecate Chthonia, come!
Saint of streets, and brilliant one, that strays by night;
Foe of radiance, but friend and mate of gloom;
In howl of dogs rejoicing, and in crimson gore,
Wading 'mid corpses through tombs of lifeless dust,
Panting for blood; with fear convulsing men.
Gorgo, and Mormo, and Luna, and of many shapes,
Come, propitious, to our sacrificial rites!"

"Wow," I said. "It's definitely got an oomph to it."

"Hecate," he began, "that's what you're dealing with—the triple-faced goddess and patron deity of witches. Well, the bad witches, anyway."

I nodded, recalling childhood viewings of The Wizard of Oz, with its fairy godmother-like good witches and terrifying bad ones. "So all I need is to burn some sage?"

"You need more than that. This is serious, Brian. Hecate is a triple-faced goddess. Gorgo is her aspect that birthed the legend of Medusa, Mormo is the Chthonic Mother of the Barghests, and the Thousand-Faced Moon?" He looked worried. "It relates to her ability to change her form, but other sources, like the Constantinople Document, suggest it reflects her ability to inhabit the bodies of both willing and unwilling vessels."

"I don't like that. I don't like that one bit," I said. "But what about the clowns? They must be related."

"We need to go back to the Constantinople Document for that," Mike said. "There's a single paragraph that mentions a subsect of the cult called the Athanatoi, or the Ashen Hearts. However, the author spends the entire paragraph insisting that this subsect does not exist."

It was all too much; I buried my face in my hands. "What am I going to do?"

Unaware I had spoken, Mike got up, refilled our coffee cups, and put on a new stack of records. This time, it was the legendary Jimmy Scott. "There's someone I think can help you, but she's dangerous."

I looked at him glumly. "Do I have a choice?"

"I don't know," he said, draining his cup in a single gulp. "But her name is Ashley Fowler."

"Ashley Fowler?" I cocked my head. "THE Ashley Fowler?"

"Yes."

For those not in the know, Ashley Fowler is from my neck of the woods; she's rich, influential, and believes she's the Devil. She inherited her family's fortune after her father was killed by an intruder—well, that's her version of events, anyway.

Despite my areas of investigation and interest, I'd always steered clear of her. I always thought she was a crank of the highest order. "I guess she's my next step."

Mike sighed heavily, his frown deepening. "You have to be careful with her. She's the real thing."

I asked, "How do you know for sure?"

And then he told me the story of the night he met her, the night he realized the Devil wore a blue dress…

####

The Statement of Mike Whitehead

…back then, I was the drummer of a six-man jazz combo called 'The Fifty Fingers.' We were pretty popular among Albany's rich and famous. We used to play at the Fort Orange Club all the time. You know the place—private club, big bucks, even the Governor was a member. One time, Jack Nicholson was there. He tipped us a hundred bucks each.

I'd been playing music since I was a kid. My father was a jazz enthusiast, and he got me started on the drums when I was just eight. By the time I was fifteen, I was already sitting in with local bands. My father was happy that I had found success at an early age, but he wasn't happy when I dropped out of high school to tour full-time with the Fifty Fingers.

Even if I hadn't been a sixteen-year-old kid, joining 'The Fifty Fingers' was like a dream come true. All of the other members were in their forties, but they never talked down to me or called me 'Kid.' I had been brought in to serve as a backup for their original drummer, whose health had begun to slip. He was a great guy, but Parkinson's made him hang up his sticks less than a year after I joined. The band toured up and down the East Coast. They taught me a lot—like how to fake a song we didn't know, how to get by on about four hours of sleep, how to drive, how to improvise, and how to make instrument repairs on the fly while on the road. I also learned that even jazz bands had groupies. Oh boy, did I learn that.

By the night I met Ashley Fowler, I was thirty years old and pretty much in charge of the band. It was practically a different band by then; all the original members had aged out but one. So there we were, 'The Fifty Fingers' playing another gig at the Fort Orange Club for some political bigwigs. The guests were dressed to impress—men in sharp tuxedos and women in elegant gowns dripping with jewels. There was champagne, caviar, and two hundred-dollar steak dinners. I didn't know if anyone was really paying attention to us. The bass player said we were just there to be background noise, but at least we were well-paid background noise.

Everyone noticed when Ashley Fowler arrived at the party. She wore an elaborate blue dress that flowed around her like liquid, with intricate beadwork and a sweeping train. She was gorgeous, with short red hair and black earrings that looked like flames. All conversations paused as she made her way to the guy hosting the party and gave him a casual hug.

From my vantage point behind the drumset, I could see the atmosphere changing. The band once had a gig in Georgia where we were the entertainment at a wake; everyone there acted like they were having a good time, but you could tell they weren't. That's what the party was turning into, but what did we care? We were just the band; we played on.

We took a break about halfway through the party. Most of the guys went to help themselves to the open bar or try and make small talk with some of the single-looking guests. I decided I needed a smoke break, and since it was too cold outside, I went down to the stairs in the back of the kitchen.

The cellar was dimly lit, with firewood stacked against the walls and a faint, musty smell in the air. I was leaning against a wooden beam, taking a drag from my cigarette, when I saw her walk out of a dark corner of the room I had been so sure was empty.

"Hey Mike." Her voice was smooth and confident.

I blinked, caught off guard. "You know my name?"

"I know a lot," she replied, her gaze unwavering. "I have a proposition for you." With any other woman, I might have mistaken that intense look for flirting.

"What do you mean?" I asked, drawing on my cigarette to play it cool.

Leaning in, she said, "I have a request. I want you to play 'Satanic Blues.'"

Raising an eyebrow, I answered, "That's a great tune, but it's Dixieland. Not really fitting for this crowd."

A mischievous glint appeared in her eyes as she smiled. "Oh, I'm sure you can make it work. And I can make it worth your while."

Finishing my cigarette, I narrowed my eyes. "Why's it so important?"

Her smile grew wider. "It'll give the Governor a headache and make him leave early. When he gets home, he'll find a very newsworthy surprise waiting for him. We need to get the timing just right."

Shaking my head, I said, "I'm sorry. No requests tonight."

Her expression shifted from eager to sulky. "I can make it worth your while."

"I'm not going to risk my career for a request," I replied firmly.

"What career?" she shot back. "You don't have savings, family, or a lover. If something happens to you, you'll end up alone and broke. Is that what you want?"

Growling, I responded, "Not everyone gets rich by shooting their dad."

Her expression darkened. "You should have listened. Now you'll listen."

Before I could react, she spat in my face and said something in a language I didn't recognize. I wiped the spittle away, anger rising in my chest. "Bitch."

"Maybe." She turned and walked away, her heels clicking sharply on the cellar's uneven floor. I was left alone, fuming.

I went back to the stage, trying to shake off the encounter. The rest of the gig went off without a hitch. I was relieved to learn that Ashley Fowler had gone home after our confrontation.

The next morning, I woke up to the sound of wind chimes. Since I didn't own any wind chimes, I figured the noise was coming from my neighbor's apartment. The soft tinkling was faint but persistent, so I brushed it off, got dressed, and went about my day.

But the sound didn't go away. Everywhere I went, the chimes seemed to follow me. At first, they were barely audible, something I could ignore. However, the next day, the sound was louder. I tried to tell myself it was just a figment of my imagination or maybe some auditory illusion brought on by stress.

But I was worried I was having some kind of stroke or something. The longer I heard them, the more the sound became distorted. They began to sound less like metal and glass wind chimes and more like something being tortured and just out of sight.

I visited my doctor, who ran some tests and told me I was perfectly healthy. He suggested I might be overworking myself and also recommended I see a psychiatrist.

And the chimes grew louder each day, their sound becoming increasingly unbearable.

The intensity of the noise started to affect my daily life. It was so loud I could barely concentrate. I was constantly on edge, unable to focus on anything but the relentless clanging. I started missing gig after gig until the band had to hire a temporary replacement drummer.

At night, the sound became unbearable. I'd lie in bed, tossing and turning, desperate for escape. I began drinking heavily until I passed out just to get some sleep. When that stopped working, I started taking sleeping pills. Eventually, I began combining both, hoping for relief.

Finally, there was the last night. The chimes were like a thousand metal chains being dragged through my brain. I lay in bed shivering and sick until something in me snapped. I went to the kitchen and rooted in the silverware drawer until I found what I wanted and didn't pause to think about what I was doing.

I stabbed out my eardrums with a steak knife...

###

…that night over dinner, I told Sara everything I had learned—except for the part about the 'unwilling vessels' and the last part of Mike's story, the worst part, the kicker.

What Mike said felt like a splash of cold water. Even now, days later, part of me wants to insist that he was crazy or lying. But I've seen too much over the years to let myself believe things like that.

So what was the kicker? The last part of Mike's story?

"The chimes," he said. "I can still hear them, Brian. I can still hear them."

 

THE NIGHT BLOGGER The Graveyard Game (and other cemetery plots) Episode Nine 'A Trace Of Arson'

By Al Bruno III

 

January 2nd: How was your New Year's Eve? Don't feel bad if it wasn't great because I spent mine almost dying. In fact, I probably should have died tonight. I should have finally suffered the consequences of taking too many chances and chasing too many secrets. As the old saying goes, when you stare into the Abyss, the Abyss stares back into you. And then it's only a matter of time before the Abyss decides to kill you for staring.

It all started with the Halfmoon fires. Halfmoon is a quiet, rural town nestled between the growing cities of Clifton Park and Saratoga. Developers have been gobbling up the farms and pastures of Halfmoon for over a decade to build shoddily constructed apartment complexes and barely populated strip malls.

Gotta love progress, huh?

Probably the chintziest of these new apartment complexes was Clifton Corners. It had been poorly designed, hastily built, and managed in a way that suggested the owners outright loathed their tenants. If that wasn’t bad enough, the place also bordered one of upstate New York’s cruddier cemeteries. The owner of this depressing prefab cul-de-sac, along with half a dozen others like it, was a man named Trace Buskin.

What can I say about Trace Buskin? That he came up from humble beginnings to become a millionaire real estate developer? That environmental groups hate him but local politicians love him? That he has the county sheriff’s department in his back pocket?

Or how about the fact that tonight he knocked me out and tied me to a tree?

Wait, I’m getting ahead of myself.

This is what happened. I had figured out that three of the five cases of spontaneous combustion either involved residents of Clifton Corners or had occurred within just a few blocks of the complex. The first thing I did was bring the results of my investigations to the sheriff’s department, but they dismissed them and instead continued to harass anyone with an arson record or a nontraditional amount of melanin.

However, my theories caught the attention of an editor at Metroland, the Capital District’s finest hippie rag. She asked me to look into the matter and write a full-fledged exposé.

And they say you can’t find success as a blogger.

Sara Bishop and I spent about a week investigating the phenomenon of Spontaneous Human Combustion. There are all kinds of theories about it: psychic volcanoes, freak reactions of intestinal gases, nefarious government experiments, and the old standby, angry ghosts.

I tried to interview some of the tenants, witnesses, or friends of the victims, but only one person would talk to me—a crazy old coot named Leo. That's when I fell back on my old standbys of spying and skulking. It didn’t take long to notice that, for an absentee landlord, Trace Buskin spent an awful lot of time at Clifton Corners. I also saw him coming out of the woods bordering the cruddy old cemetery a few times.

Spying and skulking isn't easy in the middle of winter with snow on the ground and an icy breeze threatening to snatch the straw fedora from your head. I know it was the middle of the night, but you'd think I would have heard footsteps on the snow or glimpsed Trace Buskin coming up behind me with a tree branch the size of a baseball bat.

When I woke up, I found myself tied to a tree with my own shoelaces. I tried to speak, only to discover that he had gagged me with my own belt. I struggled to break free, to scream, but there was no escaping. Meanwhile, Trace Buskin paced and ranted. He wore nothing but a three-piece suit, no coat, no hat, nothing. It was starting to snow again, but he seemed oblivious to the cold.

“And you!” he pointed at me, “What are you doing following me around? I’m a respected entrepreneur!”

“Mmmph mmph! Mmmmph mmmmmph!” I replied.

“I’m doing the best I can. I’m a human being. I work long hours because I have to! But do you think Gladys understood that? Men have needs.”

I shrugged sympathetically but it didn’t stop the ranting. “It was all their fault.” Trace Buskin’s voice became distant, “They made me.”

Oh great. I thought.

There are three things you never want to hear someone say because they're always a sign of impending disaster:

“They made me!”

“Hey watch this!”

And of course:

“There’s no such thing as flesh-eating land mollusks!”

Trace Buskin started trembling. Veins of yellow-white phosphorescence spilled out from where he stood. The snow around his feet melted and steamed, while the wet grass beneath it burned and blackened. Those fiery veins started advancing toward me.

At moments like this, I can beg for my life with the best of them, but all I could do was make more “Mmmmph!” sounds. I can also run pretty well, but I couldn’t run anywhere until I got myself loose, and I didn’t see that happening anytime soon.

So, you can imagine my surprise when someone started untying me just then.

The belt was the first thing to fall away. I turned my head to see who my rescuer was.

“Leo?” I gasped...

###

Transcript of Leo Peter’s Interview

 

...you want me to talk into that thing? OK. You kids with your phones, they’re like computers and cameras and every other damn thing. When I was a kid, my Dad said there’d never be anything like Dick Tracy’s two-way TV wristwatch. His eyes would bug out if he could see all this.

What was your name again? Brian Foster? You don’t look like a Brian. You look like a Darrin or a Karl.

The fires? Sure, I know about the fires. I told the police and the fire department everything I knew, but they didn’t want to hear it. They said I was disparaging a great man. A pillar of the community. Hah! I knew Trace Buskin when he was just a punk selling drugs on the street corner.

Oh yeah. He was a drug dealer back in the seventies. Trust me, Brian, you look far enough back into any rich man’s fortune, and you’re gonna find at least one crime was at the start of it.

What does this have to do with people catching on fire? It all started with him; it started back in May when Patty Kransky got a hundred-dollar fine from the complex. It was total bullshit. Her family came to visit, and she let her grandkids play Frisbee outside her apartment. So management hit her with a hundred-dollar unaccompanied minors fine.

Yeah, unaccompanied minors. It's one of the many bullcrap rules Buskin shoves down his tenants’ throats. No kids are allowed to play outside unless there is an adult right there watching them, even if you live here and they’re your own kids! Even if you’re watching them through the parlor window.

Bad enough they nickel and dime us with all kinds of other stupid fees, but what they did to Patty was just awful. She’s retired and on a very fixed income.

And when they hit you with those fines, they want the money with your next month’s rent, no negotiations allowed. I loaned her the money, but I also went down to Buskin’s main office and chewed him out.

Well, let me tell you, the high and mighty Trace Buskin doesn’t like getting called on his nonsense. He tries to feed me some cock and bull story about liability insurance, but I don’t buy it. I told him, ‘No reputable apartment complex would do this.’

Then he called me a toothless old bastard, which I am. Hee hee! Before I left his office, I told him he should kill himself.

Oh, you should have seen the look on his face.

A few days later, I get woken up out of a sound sleep by this high-pitched screaming. I get out of bed, look across the complex, and see flickering light in the window of Patty’s apartment.

Me and about a dozen other people called 911. One of the guys living next to her, this big Irish kid named Dana, he kicked her door in, but it was too late. She had burned up.

It was like you said. Just Patty burned up, none of her furniture, none of her carpets, not even her damn clothes!

Now, the cops and fire company aren’t there five minutes when Buskin shows up. He lives in Saratoga, so I was thinking to myself that he got there pretty fast. I figured he was at some kind of a party because he was all dressed to the nines in a suit that probably cost as much as my rent.

Yeah Brian, very suspicious. I can’t tell you anything else about what happened except that prick Buskin charged Dana for the damage he did kicking in the door.

A few days later, I’m up around 4 A.M. Sometimes I have trouble sleeping thanks to injuries I got back during the Tet Offensive. No. Nothing heroic, when the shooting started, the damn LT panicked and ran me over with his jeep. Broke a bunch of my bones and dragged me about twenty feet. Somehow he still ended up going home with a medal; I went home with a medical discharge.

Where was I? Oh yeah, 4 A.M. I’m watching TV, I get up to take a piss, and when I come back, I see Trace Buskin wandering around the complex. Now I’m thinking to myself that maybe he’s got some kind of girlfriend living here, but all the women here are middle-aged or older, and if a rich man’s gonna fuck around, he’s gonna fuck around with a young filly. Otherwise, why be rich? Huh?

I thought about saying something, but my show was coming back on, so I went back to the parlor.

That morning, they found Dana burned up in his bathtub; the damn shower was still running.

After that, I tried to keep an eye out for him, but when it came to every other fire, I was a day late and a dollar short.

But everyone that died, they were friends of mine. Even the two guys that died in the car fire near the overpass? They hung out with me at the bar sometimes.

None of it makes sense. Buskin’s a prick, but he isn’t a murderer. Rich men don’t kill people for kicks. But then who’s doing this?

You got your work cut out for ya, kid.

###

…Leo was following me while I was following Trace Buskin. I'll give the old coot props; he did a much better job of not getting caught.

Now, I’m not one to look a gift rescue in the mouth, but while Leo fumbled with the triple knots securing my hands behind my back, those trails of fire slithering along the snow-covered ground toward me were getting awfully close.

Then Trace caught sight of the old man. I didn’t think it was possible, but his expression became even more crazed. “You!”

His rage was a physical thing, washing over me as a wave of heat. It scalded my flesh and set my eyebrows smoldering. I screamed at Leo, “Hurry! For the love of God, hurry!”

The knots loosened enough for me to snap the shoelaces. I got clear of the tree just as it started to burn.

“Don’t you run from me!” Trace called after us. “Don’t you dare.”

I would have loved to make a run for it, but if I did that, I would have had to leave a seventy-year-old war veteran behind to die in my place. The snow crunched under our feet as we tried to back away.

“How the hell is he doing this?” Leo grabbed my arm as we retreated. “What is he?”

“I don’t know. Let me think... Let me think... Maybe we can talk him down or something.”

Trace Buskin was stalking toward us, and every tree he walked past went up like it had been doused in gasoline, the snow around them evaporating instantly. When he spoke, his voice crackled, “You think you know me? You think you know what I had to do? What I lost?”

“You think we care?” Leo spat back.

I face-palmed. So much for talking him down. More tendrils of fire bled toward us; I thought to myself that this sure as hell wasn’t some overactive intestinal gases.

Which, I realized, might mean...

No more backing away. I stood my ground as the woods went up around me. “Trace Buskin!” I said in my loudest and most accusatory voice, “You are dead. I don’t know for how long, or what happened, but you are dead.”

He laughed smokily and kept coming. Leo made a frightened noise. The iron fence of the cruddy cemetery was just a few feet behind us, the snow against it piling up. We were cornered.

All I could do was keep talking, “You are dead! You must have died weeks ago. Don’t you remember?”

Trace Buskin slowed, his expression of rage becoming one of confusion. This time when he said, “I am a respected entrepreneur,” it didn’t sound like he believed it. He pointed at Leo, “He made me.”

“You. Are. Dead.” I said, my voice an angry staccato.

“I’m a human-”

“What happened?” I cut him off. “Was it a heart attack, or did you take Leo’s advice and kill yourself?”

He looked down at himself, his expression incredible in its grief. The rivers of flame recoiled backward, lashing themselves up and over his body. Now he burned, now veins of fire crisscrossed over him until he was nothing more than a smoldering jigsaw. That jigsaw folded and twisted in upon itself and collapsed.

Then it was gone.

The woods grew darker as the fires went out. It wasn’t a gradual thing; it was like it had all been a special effect that someone had decided to turn off.

We stood there in stunned silence until we heard the sounds of sirens approaching. Leo turned to me, “What did you do?”

A full explanation would have taken too long, and I was too tired. So instead, I just adjusted my straw fedora and said, “I guessed.”