FRESH OFF THE BUS FROM CREEPYTOWN: Waiting For The Miracle

by

Al Bruno III 

 

The First Day 

 

Brother Simon and the elders of the fellowship led Judith out of the Settlement of Arbatan through the tall corn stalks to the brown sawgrass that covered the Meadow of Larn. They would go no further because the Vulgate of the Magna Mater decreed that from this point on, the supplicant must walk alone.

Judith wore only a thin, white robe with a cowl. Judith was younger than most supplicants, barely a woman in the opinions of some, but she had learned every verse of Cybele's writings, and she had passed the tests of purity and strength with ease. No one could deny she was ready for this.

As was the custom, the soil of the meadow had been sprinkled with shards of broken glass. They gleamed in the morning light like dewdrops. Judith walked carefully, but the flesh of her bare feet were ragged and bloody by the time she reached the Vessel of Transubstantiation.

To an outsider the vessel would look like an old steamer trunk, but it had been blessed by Brother Simon in the name of the Holy Mother. Now every angle and surface was infused with divine power. Kneeling beside it, Judith lifted the lid and felt along the inside, her fingers tracing the rope handle that had been added. Judith looked back to see the elders watching her, ready to pray when she took her place in the vessel and ready to give chase if she tried to run, tried to make it past the tall fences to the interstate.

Judith remembered the last time that had happened, the way the failed supplicant, Lillian, had been dragged back to the settlement, the way she had been tied down and given a hundred lashes. That had been ten years ago. The woman still lived, her home on the north side of the settlement where she made candles and sour wine.

Her face and body were a tangle of scars; she had no husband, no children, and when she eventually died, she would be left to the animals.

Was that what made the ruined woman come to Judith last night? Lillian had whispered through her window that trying to escape had been the best decision she’d ever made.

Alone in the meadow, Judith prayed that she would have the strength to survive the inner wilderness and that Cybele would find her worthy. No supplicant had been found worthy in over a generation, leaving the fellowship without a Holy Mother.

Now there was only Brother Simon to lead the way, Brother Simon who had gelded himself to prove his devotion. Judith admired him, and like him, she had no intention of turning away from her great calling. She had wanted this since she was twelve years old, and hadn’t there been signs and portents to encourage her?

Finally, it was time to climb into the Vessel of Transubstantiation. To fit she had to tuck her knees up tight beneath her and bend down until her head was almost level with them. After a

moment’s fumbling, she found the rope handle attached to the inside of the steamer trunk’s lid. She gave it a good hard tug.

Nothing happened.

She pulled again. Still nothing. The lid wouldn’t quite close. There was half an inch of space keeping the trunk from clicking shut completely. She shifted around a little, trying to make herself smaller, and exhaled for as long and hard as she could. Then she pulled again on the handle.

The lock clicked. She listened for the elders to approach and check to make sure she was secure. It wasn’t unheard of for

supplicants of weak faith and strong ambition to try and keep the lid from truly closing or jamming the lock with mud. As Brother Simon always said, “No chances can be taken in matters of faith.”

She heard their hands move over the vessel, felt them jostle it this way and that. Satisfied there was no earthly escape for her, they left the Meadow of Larn, abandoning Judith to the mercy of the elements and the wisdom of Cybele. 

 

The Second Day

 

For a time there was only darkness, darkness and the sounds of her shallow breaths. There was a nervous fluttering in her stomach, and she worked to calm it by reciting the Vulgate of the Magna Mater, those tales and proverbs of the faith set down by Shelia Small in the year 1979. The year before an angry God cleared the Earth, leaving behind nothing more than a veil of illusions and lies to beguile the unwary. Only those who dwelt in the grace of Cybelle were allowed to truly live.

By the time Judith reached the sacred hymns of Attis, her holy prison had grown warm. She could imagine the afternoon sun shining down on the Vessel of Transubstantiation, making the new padlock shine and faux brass fittings glisten.

The songs of birds and chirping of cicadas were muffled but still recognizable; she even heard the illusion of a jet airplane pass overhead.

It was so easy to look upon a sight like that and be fooled into thinking the outside world still thrived.

The rush of adrenalin faded, and her eyelids began to grow heavy. She was more tired than she realized.

Judith yawned, but her position in the trunk made it little more than a hiccup. The sacred songs began to jumble together. She didn't want to sleep. She wanted to be strong and alert for every moment of her ordeal, but it was so dark in the trunk.

The dreams that rushed up to meet her were of familiar faces and old arguments. All of her family and friends had tried to talk her out of this, sometimes out of doubt and sometimes out of love. Judith might have let them sway her if she hadn't been absolutely certain of her calling.

Soon they would understand. Soon she would be the new Holy Mother. This is what she had been born for. It was not her destiny to become another corpse at the bottom of the Great Ravine. 

 

The Third Day

 

It was night when she awoke again, the bird sounds replaced by crickets and frogs. Her shoulders and spine were aching, and her feet had gone numb. She wanted to inhale deeply, but the unnatural posture she was held in prevented that. It felt to Judith like she was trapped in a giant fist that was slowly closing in around her. Was that it? Was the Vessel of Transubstantiation somehow shrinking?

There was no stopping the panic, the terror that came with that thought. Judith clawed at the walls of the trunk until her nails broke, and she left trails of blood on either side of her. She called out for help, howling and sobbing. 

 

The Fourth Day 

 

The sounds and chill of the morning called her back to consciousness. Her head ached. Her hands ached. She had soiled herself, and even though it had been an inevitable part of the trial, she still felt shame and disgust.

Had her faith really been so weak? Was this how it had been with the others? Fear, pain, madness, and then death?

No. Judith told herself. She couldn’t believe that.

It wasn’t pride or foolishness that had set her upon this path. She knew the Fellowship of Cybele was growing weaker despite the

best efforts of Brother Simon. The Holy Mother had always said she knew her time would be brief, that she would be martyred by the faithless.

They needed a new Holy Mother desperately. Brother Simon was doing his best, but he needed three wives to assist him in his

duties, each one a young scholar, wise and beautiful beyond her years. The fellowship could never move forward on the path of Cybele without a woman leading them. No man could do it, not even a man as devout and self-sacrificing as Brother Simon. 

 

The Fifth Day

 

By her fifth day in the Vessel of Transubstantiation, hunger and thirst competed for attention with the muscle spasms that traveled along her body. Judith tried to keep her mind focused on the Vulgate of the Magna Mater, but instead her thoughts kept returning to the subject of food, especially the taste of wild blackberries. What she wouldn’t give to have a few of those with her now. Just a handful.

At first the sound was so faint that she was sure she was imagining it. A deep, animal grumbling punctuated by labored breathing. Before she knew it, the sound was right outside her holy prison. Beasts usually stayed away from the Meadow of Larn —the shards of broken glass saw to that—but this one’s curiosity, or hunger, must have gotten the best of it. Judith forced herself to stay quiet as the creature chuffed and grumbled.

Children of the fellowship were always warned about the bears that lived in the forest, but no one had ever seen one. It had been a game among the teenagers to go looking for them, to have something to brag about. The most anyone ever encountered was the occasional group of campers. Such strangers might look innocent, but the teenagers of the fellowship knew they were the living embodiments of temptation and far more dangerous than any beast.

They were always dealt with harshly.

Judith had been part of these acts of secret savagery only twice, once when she was twelve and once when she was seventeen. Both times she had been amazed and horrified at how much those devils in human shape had bled and begged just like real people.

The thing that might be a bear nudged the steamer trunk, rocking it in place. Judith squealed and tried to cringe away, but there was nowhere to go. The sound of her voice encouraged the beast. It pushed against the Vessel of Transubstantiation again, tipping it to one side.

Thump!

The thing that might be a bear beat its claws against the walls of wood and leather.

Thump! Thump!

Each blow was punctuated by a growl that almost sounded like a bark. Judith imagined the walls of the trunk coming apart like the walls of a tent, she imagined failing at everything she’d ever prayed for.

“Go away!” she shouted.

The beast made a startled noise then beat at the trunk again.

“I said go away!” She raised her thirst-ragged voice as loud as it would go, bellowing orders like she would at a mischievous child or amorous boy. “In the name of Cybele, go away!”

And just like that, it did. 

 

The Sixth Day

 

Time had lost all meaning. Sometimes it was night, sometimes it was day, sometimes it rained, sometimes it didn’t. The creature

that might have been a bear never returned, and that had been a great bolster to her faith.

But now some part of her wished it would come back just so she could feel something more than the serene agony of dehydration and starvation.

Sometimes she would dream that she had never done this, that reality was her still home in her bed, or in Brother Simon’s bed.

He had asked several times for her to become his fourth wife, but she had always refused the old man as gently as she could. To have any husband in her life, even an emasculated one, would be a distraction.

She had been so sure of herself when she had entered the Meadow of Larn.

Just a few days of discomfort, she had told herself. How terrible could it be?

And look what those few days had done to her, locked in a box that reeked of piss, shit, and blood, insects crawling on her skin, muscles that ached and a head lost to confusion.

More and more she began to worry that she had made a terrible mistake.

 

The Seventh Day

 

It had been so long now, so long that she felt like she was already dead and rotting away, that she was a corpse that prayed to a goddess that didn’t listen.

But it wasn’t that Cybele wasn’t listening, was it? Cybele had listened but found her unworthy. And what was the fate of the unworthy?

Death.
All she could do now was wait. 

 

The Eighth Day

 

A few hours ago, or maybe it had been a few days, Judith had tried to gnaw her wrists open. She couldn’t remember when she had decided to kill herself, but she was too weak for even that.

She became more and more certain that she was already in Hell, that this was her the punishment for her presumption.

“What happened here?”
She started at the voice. It was familiar. It was Elder Gregory!
“Another bear. They’re getting too close.”

And that was Elder Mary!

Judith started to laugh. She had been right! She WAS the chosen one!

She called out to them, begging them to set her free so she could offer a prayer to the light of day. Her first prayer as the new Holy Mother!

“She’s alive?” Elder Mary gasped. “After all this time?” Elder Gregory’s voice broke “It’s a miracle!”

“What—what do we do now?” Elder Mary said.

When Brother Simon spoke, his voice was calm and passionless. “Throw her in the ravine with the others.” 

 

This is Channel Ab3 Episode Sixteen: Waiting For The Miracle

When Judith's faith and strength are put to the test, she must survive eight days in the Vessel of Transubstantiation.

Waiting For The Miracle was written by Al Bruno III

Music was Sad Horror Music by TheoJT

 It was produced and read by Daniel C Johnson

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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FRESH OFF THE BUS FROM CREEPYTOWN: Soldier's Things

by

Al Bruno III

From my first day at the scrapyard, I had formed a friendship with Crenshaw. Perhaps it was because he found in me a kindred spirit; he had known the horrors of war, and I had my own terrors to bear. It was obvious that he had once been a muscular man, but time and circumstance had softened his physique and left his posture bent. His nose showed signs of having been broken more than once, and the skin of his clean-shaven head revealed a deep surgical scar that must have been decades old.

While our working days left us too tired to do more than go home and rest, Crenshaw and I frequently spent our Friday nights and take-home pay in the Town's lone tavern.

We would talk about one thing or another—sometimes, it was to laugh over some misadventure in the scrapyard; other times, it was to mourn the death of one of the stray dogs that had made its home there. We rarely touched on our personal lives and never discussed our pasts.

One day during work, Crenshaw approached me to ask for my help. He asked to see me when our shifts ended. When my day ended, I stopped by the trailer part to change into a fresh shirt and speak to Muriel, but she was busy with a client. So I shrugged and began the long walk to the northern side of Town. Crenshaw lived on the third floor of an old hotel that had been converted into low-rent dwellings.

I found his apartment easily—the third floor, the first door on the left. When I knocked, he answered immediately. The apartment's windows were closed, and the chemical aroma of paint that filled the room was dizzying. My friend was wearing his ordinary street clothes, and it was evident from the sight of them that he had been working for some time, but he had been doing so with far more speed than care. I stepped inside and saw a chaos of red, black, and green spread across the wall. Still, beneath those streaks of pigment, I could see garish wallpaper with a stylized jungle pattern.

I asked him the meaning of this, he explained, his eyes wild and frightened, "That damn wallpaper. I can't take it anymore."

"What's wrong with the wallpaper?"

"It's in the trees," he said, "you can see them sometimes. They think they're just out of sight, but I can tell. I could always tell; that's why they put me out on point."

Rather than question any further, I started helping him cover the walls, coats of one color after another, one color after another, until the wallpaper was completely obscured. When we finished, it was past one in the morning. With nothing better to do, we sat on the floor and shared some beers.

I asked, "How long has the wallpaper bothered you?"

"Ever since I moved here, but I can't afford anything like the boarding house you live in. My medicines cost too much," he looked around at the garishly colored walls, "...my squad used to go over the border into Cambodia. We weren't supposed to, but those were our orders. We were fighting kids. We were kids too, but they were younger than us, twelve years old and ready to kill."

There was nothing I could do but nod with understanding and help myself to another drink.

"We did things in the jungle, sometimes to survive and sometimes just because we could..." He stood, grabbed a drying brush, and began dabbing at the bits of wallpaper visible near the edge of the floor. "The things I did..."

"Why don't you just tear the wallpaper down?" I said.

The look he gave me was one of horror, "No. No. No!"

With that, I steered our conversation to pleasant and mundane matters. For instance, there was a new waitress at the diner who had just dropped out of high school and the new junkyard manager who happened to be the owner's son. Both of them were equally inept at their positions. From there, we moved on to world events, local crimes, and corruption, large and small. After that, we talked about hopes for the future. I talked about my plans to finish my degree, and he spoke about wanting to buy a van to make his way to California and see his long-lost son.

Then we were silent, both of us aware that neither of those dreams could ever come true. Neither of us had the means or courage to make even the smallest of our dreams come true. In the long, despairing silence, we finished the last of the beer.

It was four AM when I bid Crenshaw farewell and boozily made my way home. The Town was utterly silent that night, the only sound coming from my uneven footsteps on the cracked sidewalk. My thoughts were consumed with my friend's story and the desperation that seemed to permeate every aspect of his life. Everyone I had met in this Town had similar stories to tell. Was it true for everyone else? How many were quietly suffering and struggling to survive?

By the time I reached my apartment, exhaustion had set in. I considered knocking on Muriel's door to see if she wanted some company, but in the end, I went to my own trailer and fumbled with the keys until I could let myself inside. As soon as I closed the door behind me, I collapsed onto my lumpy bed and immediately fell asleep.

When I woke up three hours later, it was already past noon. My head throbbed from too much alcohol and not enough rest. Groaning, I dragged myself out of bed and shuffled into the bathroom to splash water on my face. For a moment, I felt like I was going to feel better, only to throw up in the sink without warning.

After taking some aspirin to ease my headache, I went to work. Much to the manager's annoyance, Crenshaw never showed up. I assumed he felt just as bad as I did, but after his second day of not showing up, I was ordered to go to his home to tell him he had been fired.

I walked directly to his apartment at the end of his shift, feeling guilty about having to deliver the news. Jobs were few and far between for a man of Crenshaw's age and temperament. With each step I took, thoughts about his future consumed my mind.

That was the cruelest of ironies.

The door of his apartment was unlocked. The chemical-like odor was still strong, but a meaty butcher shop smell was beneath it. I fearfully pushed the door open and found Crenshaw dead. He had been slit open from throat to belly. The expression on his face was a silent shriek of horror. The scene suggested suicide, but the knife in his hand was bloodless.

I looked from his body to the apartment wall and saw that the weight of the many layers of paint had caused a wide swath of the wallpaper to peel away, revealing the exposed underside. The jungle pattern on the back was the same as on the front, but its colors were vibrant and fresh.

The vibrant greens and blues of the jungle scene appeared to shift before my eyes, revealing new details with each glance. It almost seemed to come alive in the dim room. Gradually, a sound filled my ears—a cacophony of chirping insects blending with distant calls of exotic birds. Rustling leaves hinted at unseen movements of tiny creatures, while occasional snaps of twigs underfoot suggested larger animals prowling nearby. In the background, a rhythmic chorus of croaking frogs added to the symphony, a constant reminder of the teeming life hidden within the dense foliage.

Then, small dark eyes peered out from the depths of the jungle scene, causing my stomach to lurch. Vigilant and alert, those eyes were undeniably human. A heartbeat later the eyes vanished, and the sounds dwindled. This must be shock, I told myself. After one last look at Crenshaw, I turned to leave, leaving the door open, my attention drawn to the payphone at the end of the hallway.

A sudden movement caught my eye, freezing me in place. There it was—a crouched shadow darting across the room and out the open window. My rational mind suggested someone had been hiding unnoticed in a corner and fled when my back was turned. Yet deep down, I sensed I was alone in there. Just as I sensed, the small shape had emerged from the wall itself.

Now, days later, as I sit alone in my room with a drink in hand, I ponder whether what I witnessed was a horror that Crenshaw had brought home from the war or if it had always lurked patiently in that room, awaiting the right man burdened with the right damnation within him.

FRESH OFF THE BUS FROM CREEPYTOWN: Muriel

by

Al Bruno III

This Town is a cluster of homes and businesses that mark the point where the highway begins to stretch across the open desert. The Town is slowly fading, with the population growing older and dying off, leaving their homes and dreams behind. I live in a trailer park near the scrapyard that employs me.

The woman on the other side of the trailer park is a middle-aged widow living off her husband's pension. Still, the money she receives barely covers her rent. She lives on a fast food diet and reads tabloid magazines by candlelight. To make ends meet, she sells her body. Her name is Muriel, and I'm her last customer on the nights I can afford it. Our physical intimacies are just a ritual; she knows I'm there because I'll pay dearly for not having to wake up alone.

One night, it was too warm to sleep. We sat on the bed in the dark, smoking cigarettes and talking. I thought to myself how beautiful she looked as a shadow; her every feature softened. It was only when she inhaled her cigarette that the orange pinpoint of light revealed the toll time and her husband's cruelties had taken on her.

Somehow, the conversation turned to personal photographs, and she said, "No pictures. I burned all there was after my Mamma passed on, and I told Joe I didn't want any wedding photos either. I don't want anything to do with any of it. I don't like the way photographs look. It's not that I dislike how a picture makes me look. I know I ain't a beauty queen. I mean to say that I don't like how pictures look."

In my long-lost university days, I studied psychology, and this sounded like a case of paranoia. Still, the bitter experience taught me never to judge or be sure. "Why did you burn your mother's pictures of  you?" I asked.

"By the time I was sixteen, I was staying out all night, drinking and screwing around. It didn't matter what time I came home, my Mamma was waiting up for me. She always knew who I was with and she always knew what I was up to. She would yell at me, but she always yelled at me, and sometimes she slapped and pushed. It was that way ever since I was twelve. I used to tell myself she was jealous because..." Muriel paused. I could hear how much she wanted me to believe what she said next, "...I was beautiful then."

"Go on."

"I was maybe twenty-one when the cancer took her. I started going through her things, deciding what to keep and what to give away or sell. I  started to find photos of me, not in an album or a frame. They were just stashed all around," Muriel lit another cigarette and shook out the match, "all the photos I found of me were ruined. She marked them up  with some kind of a pin."

"What did she do?" I put my hand on her shoulder, but she pulled away.

"She poked out the eyes. I didn't know why; I thought maybe she was crazy or she hated me more than I thought," Muriel explained, "I don't know what came over me, but I held one of those ruined pictures up to the light and stared through the holes. I saw something through them. I  looked closer and held the picture right up to my face. The holes were like windows. I saw where I was when the picture was taken. It was the old  playground off Sixteenth Street."

"How?" I asked.

If Muriel heard, she ignored me. "It was the same with every picture I  found; they all showed me someplace I had been, but everything looked spent and tired. I searched and found more photographs I never knew she took, some really new. She hadn't gotten to a few of them. So I poked out my eyes. When I looked through the holes, I suddenly saw the past. It was like I had gone back in time, and I was four years younger and heading out of the house to raise a little Hell. I saw every minute of it, even the things I had been too drunk to remember before. It was like a memory but brighter."

I was shivering. I told Muriel she could stop now if she wanted to.

Annoyance crept into her voice, "I don't know how it works. Maybe I don't want to. But now I'll never know if she was just a shitty mom or if she treated me the way she did, so I would run wild to spite her. I'll never know if I was just a puppet."

"So you burned all the pictures," I said.

"Just in case someone ever wants to try and look through my eyes. My life may be shit but it's mine," she got out of bed and threw me my clothes, "get dressed, you can't stay here. Not tonight."

There was nothing else to say; I pulled on my pants and shirt and walked back to my trailer with my boots in my hand. The ground was cold and rough under my feet. I thought to myself of what Muriel's life had become, of what it might have been. Instead of going inside, I sat on my front steps, looked back to Muriel's trailer, and thought of all the glossy magazines she had strewn about every room. I wondered what I  would find if I thumbed through one- would the pages be pristine, or would the eyes of choice celebrities be poked out?

But I never asked or looked for fear of having to spend all my nights alone.

FRESH OFF THE BUS FROM CREEPYTOWN: Burma Shave

 

by

Al Bruno III

The desert heat pressed down on us, making every footstep a misery. We kept glancing up, hoping to see a town or a gas station beginning to resolve itself in the distance. Still, all we saw was the asphalt of the interstate, cutting a straight line to the wavering horizon. I was glad to have someone to walk with on this Hellish trip, but I rarely spoke. The man I walked with was the regional sales manager for a software company named Spaulding, and he talked enough for both of us.

"All I know is someone's getting sued. I don't give a crap if the car is a rental. This is lost wages and time," he said, "did you see those potholes? It's a wonder they don't have a wreck every week and twice on  Sundays!"

Both our cars had been damaged by potholes so wide they had almost cut across the road, yet neither Spaulding nor I had seen them until it was too late. We had been heading in opposite directions but ended up having to pull over to our respective sides of the road within a few yards of each other.

"And this is an interstate! With all the money we pay on taxes, they should be taking better care of these roads. They're the arteries of the nation. Shipping and commerce, you know what I mean?"

I nodded in agreement. Spaulding had tried to call a towing service and the police, but his cellphone couldn't find a signal. I, on the other hand, had no cell phone, no credit cards, and even my car wasn't properly registered. Ever since I quit my job, I had been living a ghost-like existence.

"How long do you think we have been walking for?" Spaulding said, "Must have been hours and not a single car has come by. There's a new off-ramp near Eden's Corners. I bet it's funneling off all the traffic. Not that it's any kind of excuse for this kind of shoddy upkeep. I mean, look at all those potholes! It never ends."

While none of the dents in the asphalt passing us now were as deep as the one that damaged our cars, they had a jagged quality I found singularly unpleasant. Each hole in the blacktop gaped like the mouth of a lamprey. I made sure to walk on the uneven, litter-strewn side of the road.

Spaulding pointed ahead, "I know the town up ahead, not much of a town really. The only business making any money is a scrapyard. They've got a store that used to be a Woolworth's, but it's owned by some old fart, he runs it by himself, and you can tell. His daughter runs the lunch counter, and she's not a bad cook. Just stay away from the pork chops."

Wherever this town was, there was still no sign of it, and the sun was beginning its downward descent. I did not want to have to walk this stretch of desert at night. There was too much emptiness here. The desolation left my stomach churning. I couldn't wait to reach the town my companion was talking about, but I suspected it would be some time before I could move on again. There was no way I could pay for the repairs my car would need.

"There are no kids; it's like some kind of a retirement community. Everyone's my age or older, heck, even the town whore is pushing fifty," he gave me a mischievous nudge, "but she knows what she's doing, so who cares?"

After another ninety minutes of walking and pointless conversation, it was dusk. I had heard about how cold it could get in the desert at night, and I didn't want to think of how dark it would get. I wondered quietly if we would see the lights from the town soon, and I worried that this was all some waking nightmare I could never escape.

My bladder groaned. I excused myself and headed for a nearby road sign. Spaulding called after me, "Don't shake it more than twice buddy!"

As I relived myself, I thought again of the circumstances that had brought me here, not just the potholes or the dwindling funds; I considered everything. There were times when I worried about my sanity. It wasn't so long ago that I had entertained such lofty aspirations, but now all I  hoped for was to sleep through an entire night and awaken feeling safe.

The sun had almost set, and the sky had turned a murky shade of purple. I  could barely read the print on the weathered old sign- 'BURMA SHAVE.' I  chuckled at the thought this was more of a relic than an advertisement. A sound reached my ears. At first, I thought it was the sound of wind moving through trees, but there were no trees, only solitary cactus and half-dead bushes. Then I thought it might be the sound of an evening tide, but that was an even more ridiculous idea in a desert. Finally, I  decided that it must be an approaching vehicle, and I quickly finished and ran to the roadside.

I found myself alone. There was no sign of my companion anywhere. I  called his name, but there was no answer. A faint slithering sound caused me to turn around just in time to see something pale disappear into the blacktop.

The gloomy dusk left me uncertain of what I had seen, but sometimes, I'm certain what I saw was a human hand slipping away as though it were being swallowed by oily liquid.

Spaulding had called these roads the arteries of a nation, but what might happen if those arteries became starved for blood?

As the last light of the day faded into darkness, I began to run, keeping my every footfall far onto the soft shoulder.

FRESH OFF THE BUS FROM CREEPYTOWN: On A Foggy Night

by

Al Bruno III

We live in a world of surveillance, cameras, code numbers, and background checks. Our every purchase and infraction is recorded by mindless computers and soulless bureaucrats. Our births, our lives, and our deaths are nothing more than information to be filed away.

It was after I had quit the University that I found myself a part of that never-ending process. I had secured steady and suitable paying employment in the field of medical billing, cross-referencing information for eight hours a day. The process was mindless enough; an insurer would call, and I would find the correct records and pass the information along. No names were part of the transactions, only numbers curtly passed from one disinterested voice to another. From what I understood, my fellow employees and I were merely there to correct database errors and investigate irregularities.

I worked in a wide room that was nothing more than a grid of half-cubicles and desks. I wore a headset and hunched over a computer. I had long ago forgotten that each sequence of numbers that passed from my lips was a life encapsulated.

The morning of the impossibly heavy fog, I walked into the building to find myself one of the few employees who had risked the drive. That meant a crushing workload and mandatory overtime, but I didn’t mind; I lived alone in a studio apartment that might have been a cell; I never went out on weeknights and slept through most of my Saturdays. Sometimes, I  would treat myself to a movie on a Sunday afternoon, but I always took great care to sit in the back row of the theater, for if I spied a single blemish on the fabric of the screen, it would be all I could focus on for the rest of the show.

The first few hours of my shift passed slowly; the diminished staff had created long hold times that left every caller with a litany of complaints and a waspish tone. I kept my tone apologetic and respectful.

Somewhere to my right, a coworker was coughing endlessly; behind me, another banged his mouse on his desk in frustration.

 

When I excused myself to the restroom I realized to my discomfort that someone was crying in the bathroom stall.

My lunch hour was quiet and lonely. I spent some of it outside smoking one cigarette after another until the sight of the fog began to play tricks on my eyes. It left me with a strange feeling of vertigo, as though I was slowly spiraling into emptiness.

The second part of my shift is when it began. The call was ordinary at first, but the voice on the other end of the line cut me off mid-greeting with a demand for information. I did my best to comply but had to ask the caller to repeat himself several times.

The numbers he gave me were wrong—completely wrong. Please understand that I am not talking about faulty account information or transposed digits.

I mean to say that the numbers themselves were wrong.

They were integers that existed outside the zero through nine that I had been taught and lived with for all of my years, but I knew these were numbers I was hearing nonetheless. I could almost see them in my mind,   impossible symbols that no human hand had ever drawn.

The caller made an impatient sound as I stared at my keyboard in dismay. Could any key express the characters the caller was describing? Though my college education was incomplete, I had studied enough to understand the concept of imaginary numbers, but this was more than that. These were alien numbers,  blasphemous numbers, and every time the caller repeated them, I felt an ache in my head.

“I don’t understand,” I finally admitted.

The caller simply repeated himself again and again, until the numbers sounded like a prayer in an unknown language. I disconnected the call and pulled off my headset. Shudders worked their way through my body. I looked at the windows. The fog had blunted the afternoon light, casting everything into shades of gray.

I heard the numbers again; I looked at my headset, but it was silent. Standing, I listened to those terrible syllables coming from the mouths of my coworkers; they murmured them with easy familiarity. I cried in alarm, but no one looked up from their work. I ran to find a supervisor, but he was also on the phone, speaking facts and figures that made no sense at all. He didn’t look up when I called his name; even when I  touched his shoulder, he did not react, and his flesh was clammy with sweat. I could see the veins in his forehead throbbing as he spoke.

There was a loud crack, and the lights flickered and went out. Something similar had happened the previous year; a truck had crashed into a telephone pole, snapping power lines and leaving us with nothing more to do but, while away, the remainder of our shifts with small talk and gossip.

Despite the dead phones and darkened screens, my coworkers continued to talk. In fact, they spoke louder and faster, their voices finding a chaotic rhythm.

I fled from the madness, leaving my job, apartment, and possessions behind.

As I said before, the modern world has reduced us to numbers, but what if the numbers we chose to do that with were the wrong ones? What if we have unknowingly reduced ourselves to nonsense?

FRESH OFF THE BUS FROM CREEPYTOWN: Innocent When You Dream

 

by

Al Bruno III

 

 

When I was young, I was prone to fevers and nightmares, something that my doctors and my parents alike put down to a weak constitution and an overactive imagination. Even as I grew older and stronger, nightmares continued to plague me, nightmares that no drug could keep at bay,  nightmares that frequently had me lashing out violently as I awoke.

As you can imagine, when it came time for me to attend University, I felt I had no choice but to live alone. The lack of companionship only aided my focus on all things academic. My grades were strong, and my instructors began to take a special interest in my academic progress.

Unfortunately, in my second year of studies, I began to experience incidents of sleepwalking and nocturnal violence. On four separate occasions, campus security had to apprehend me.

This is how I came to the attention of Dr. Palatine, the University's leading expert on the subject of sleep disorders. Perhaps it would be more appropriate to say I was placed under her care and supervision. She was a handsome woman with iron-gray hair that was streaked with red; she wore thick glasses and spoke with an Eastern European accent. Dr.  Palatine explained that she had just returned from a long sabbatical where she had been conducting what she called 'the purest research.'

Dr. Palatine shared her theories about the nature of REM sleep and the source of dream imagery in the collective unconscious. She requested I keep a journal and a tape recorder at my bedside. Still, I must admit that the nature of my waking terrors left me with little clear or consistent information to impart.

This lack of hard data to work from led her to invite me to live with her. I felt I had no choice but to accept. Dr. Palatine lived in a crumbling brownstone several miles from the college campus. She made room for me in her basement so that my night terrors could be controlled and monitored with the greatest care.

My only night of observation began with Dr. Palatine giving me a mild sedative before having me lie down on the cot she had prepared for me. She sat beside me in an uncomfortable-looking, rust-colored chair with a pen and notepad in hand.

Soon, I was asleep, and I found myself in the most lucid dream I had ever known. In the dream, I found myself alone in the basement, staring up at the single bare lightbulb that was the only illumination. Dr. Palatine and the rust-colored chair were gone. A strange feeling of dislocation washed over me as I stood and walked up the basement stairs.

I found the cellar door had been locked from the outside, but I felt no panic at this realization. What better way to curtail my nightly meanderings than a locked door? I rapped on the door and called for Dr. Palatine. When there was no answer, I began to knock louder and louder. I called her name over and over, but there was no answer.

The feeling of dislocation grew stronger, and in my mind's eye, I saw myself beating at the door in ever-growing panic. I looked so small, like a forgotten child.

Without warning, the basement door rattled on its hinges as though something had been thrown against it. Fingers scrabbled and grabbed through the inch-wide gap between the bottom of the doorframe and the floor; they were thin and covered with thick tufts of red hair. They scratched and scraped.

Even now, you might assume that this was all some sophomoric prank, but my every sense told me this was not the case. Whatever was on the other side of that door was bestial and twisted. The grasping of the fingers became more frantic, as though searching for something precious that was just out of reach.

It was as though my every childhood nightmare was coming true. Hadn't the fear of seeing this very personal incubus driven me to night terrors and fugues?

I screamed at it. The claw-like hand retreated. There was a moment when I thought it was about to retreat, but then it began to sing. I cannot describe that voice; I do not know if that voice can be described. All I can say is that the sound that reached my ears was a loathsome crooning.

Unbidden, an image arose in my mind: the creature burbling nonsense, trying to lull the pink, quivering shape at its breast to sleep.

Desperate to escape that sound, I backed away, only to lose footing. I tumbled down the stairs, striking my head and plunging my mind into merciful, mindless darkness.

How long before I awoke again? I cannot say, but I do know that I blinked my eyes to see the basement door wide open. It took me some time to find the courage to mount the stairs, but when I did, I found myself in a barren house.

There was no trace of Dr. Palatine. Not only had she disappeared from her home, but she had also vanished from all University records. All my professors insisted there was no Dr. Palatine, that there had never been a Dr. Palatine.

The more I told my story, the more I became a subject of derision and unease. I left the University in the middle of the semester and never returned.

I found gainful employment far away from the University, but I had lost the capacity to dream, and with it, I had lost all sense of certainty in the world around me. I began to fear that I no longer dreamed because I  was still asleep in Dr. Palatine's basement, that I had never awoken at all.