THE SCRAPYARD DIARIES

 

 

INNOCENT WHEN YOU DREAM

 

A man's struggle with nightmares and sleepwalking turns into a terrifying journey of uncertain reality.

 

ON A FOGGY NIGHT

 

An office worker's routine is disrupted by a strange fog and creeping madness.

 

BURMA SHAVE

 

Two strangers stranded on a deserted road encounter strange happenings along their journey.

 

MURIEL

 

In a fading desert town, a relationship between a middle-aged widow and a young man takes a haunting turn.

 

SOLDIERS THINGS

 

A man unveils the unsettling mystery behind his friend's haunting jungle wallpaper.

 

NOVEMBER

 

Haunted by his past sins, a young man must face a mummified creature driven by love.

 

FRESH OFF THE BUS FROM CREEPYTOWN: November

 

by

Al Bruno III

Before you reach the Scrapyard, you smell it: motor oil, rotting rubber, and damp earth mixed into a mechanical odor, the stink of the modern era. When the wind is strong and comes from the east, the whole Town smells like a scrapyard, but it is something you learn to get used to.

The Scrapyard is a chaotic maze of piled cars, with the most valuable parts already scavenged and placed near the office. In the center of the clutter are heavy-duty equipment and tools used for servicing large trucks and diesel engines. Further into the yard, hidden by stacks of corroded vehicles, are storage huts overflowing with miscellaneous items that have been abandoned over time. The center of the Scrapyard is occupied by towering metal crushers, forklifts, and cranes. But beyond all this lies a contaminated swamp, where the management has dumped chemicals instead of disposing of them properly.

I am the youngest of the six men employed by the Scrapyard, and there is always work to keep us busy. We move through the organized wreckage, occasionally crossing paths with each other or the mange-infested dogs that have made their homes in the refuse. Sometimes, we pull parts for customers who come from miles around to repair their vehicles; other times, we move stripped and decrepit cars to the crushers so they can be sold to recycling plants. The woman in the office gives orders through the speakers mounted on weathered wooden posts scattered throughout the yard.

It was not a perfect life and not the life I expected, but I had found a kind of peace. I was grateful to no longer be running from my past and to have avoided oblivion.

At least I had until this night, this terrible November night.

The end began with the fading light of a dismal workday. I was hard at work pulling radios and batteries from recently acquired vehicles. The task was grueling. My hands were greasy with oil and sweat, and bits of plastic had cut my palms in half a dozen places. The air had been clammy with the anticipation of rain all day, but not a single drop had fallen.

My thoughts that day were lonely ones. Just a few months ago, there were seven of us working at the Scrapyard, and Crenshaw, the best friend I'd had since I came to this Town, always worked with me. Between the two of us, we usually made quick work of jobs like this. But Crenshaw was dead; his sins had caught up with him. Now, the only person I had left to talk to was Muriel, my neighbor from the trailer park, and I had begun to find her presence uncomfortable.

While removing a tape deck from a crumpled sports car, I accidentally hit the button that released the trunk. I thought nothing of it; after all, I would probably be sent out later to retrieve spare tires or other abandoned items from there anyway. Once I had retrieved the radio, I went to the rear of the car.

I cried out at the sight but could not turn away. It was a feral shape, long dead and desiccated with time. The fur was a deep red. The snout was drawn back from the blackened teeth. Its red fur covered everything but the face and fingertips. The breasts were swollen with dried rivulets of sickly yellow milk. The horror I felt was not of the unfamiliar; it was the horror of recognition. This was the creature that had driven me screaming from sleep every night until I had given up dreams forever and lost myself in a life where I was only truly half alive.

Even more terrible was the realization that this creature, this Mother-Thing, that had pursued me in my dreams had done so not out of malice but out of love. The most terrible kind of love, a love that drove it to claw its way from my unconscious world to this Scrapyard in the middle of nowhere.

But apparently, the journey had been fatal. The sight of the mummified shell was not just a relief; it was a pleasure. I shut the car's lid with a satisfying thud. I walked purposefully towards my co-workers, ready to request—no, to insist they send the car to the crusher without delay.

It began to rain, the drops darkening the oil-tainted dirt beneath my feet. I was four steps away when the crooning sound began. It was muffled but insistent. I covered my ears. How many times had I heard those goatish syllables? In my youth, they had left me prone to fevers and nightmares, but as I grew older, I began to suffer from violent fugue states. Eventually, I began to lose touch with what was real and what wasn't, even reaching a point where I am still not sure if one of the doctors I visited was real or some elaborate hallucination.

It began to scratch at its prison with growing ferocity. Amid the noise of the machines and the bustle of the Scrapyard, only I could hear the sound. The metal of the trunk buckled and burst open. With a spidery motion, the Mother-Thing crawled to the ground. Its nostrils flared, and its wide, affectionate eyes easily found me.

Mad with terror, I fled, my heart pounding. Behind me, the lullaby of the Mother-Thing echoed through the maze of rusted cars and twisted metal, transforming the familiar Scrapyard into a labyrinth.

The rain began to fall in earnest, turning the dirt beneath me into mud. I didn't dare look back, but I could feel the Mother-Thing's presence close behind—not giving chase, just shadowing me like a parent watching over an errant child. That thought alone nearly drove me to my knees, but I couldn't afford to stop. I kept running.

The Scrapyard blurred around me. I dashed through a clearing. I saw a cluster of metal drums, their rusty surfaces marked with streaks of greasy residue. Some were closed tight, while others were missing their lids. Inside was a mixture of thick black sludge and murky liquid. I veered away from the drums and rounded another corner to find myself confronted by a wall of rused cars. Realizing I had trapped myself, a fresh wave of panic surged through me.

I turned on my heel and retraced my steps. Ducking under a low-hanging crane arm, I dashed down a narrow alley formed by two rows of crushed vehicles. I stumbled over a half-buried tire, barely catching myself before I fell. A too-large hand grasped at me, but I managed to pull away.

Then I saw it—the entrance to an old storage hut, its door barely hanging on its hinges. Sobbing with desperation, I lunged towards it and threw myself inside. The Mother-Thing's song stopped abruptly as I slammed the door shut and barricaded it with a toppled shelving unit.

Moments passed, and the scent of mildew and rust filled my nose. I pressed myself against the wall, trying to quiet my breath. Glancing around the hut, I realized the small window was too narrow to fit through, and there were no other exits besides the door I had just barricaded. My clothes, drenched with rainwater and sweat, clung uncomfortably to my skin.

Then, fingers scrabbled at the gap between the bottom of the door frame and the floor—long, thin fingers covered with thick red hair. They scratched and scraped at the wood, searching for a way inside. Then, the Mother-Thing began to prowl outside the storage hut. I waited, the sound of raindrops drumming against the hut's roof. Then I heard a bestial voice near the window, a grunting language I could not comprehend but still understood.

"Little one,
Why are you crying, why are you crying?
In the shadows of dreams, I sing to you."

I searched frantically for something, anything, to defend myself with. There was a rusty crowbar leaning against a filing cabinet. I grabbed it, the metal cool and heavy in my hands. It was a feeble weapon, but it was all I had.

"Little one,
Why are you running, why are you running?
In your broken memories, I call to you."

The maddening voice seemed to reverberate through my skull. My hands trembled around the crowbar, the weight of my fear almost too much to bear. Night had fallen entirely, and darkness pressed in on me from all sides.

"Little one,
Why are you running, why are you running?
In your broken memories, I call to you."

A sudden burst of light illuminated the sky, heralding the approaching storm. If there was thunder, I didn't hear it; the song of the Mother-Thing was all I knew. When the flash faded, and shadows returned, I found myself at the door. Somehow, I had moved the toppled shelf away.

"Little one,
Why are you trembling, why are you trembling?
In the storm, I embrace you."

My free hand was reached to open the door. The sound I made was a gurgling shriek. I pulled my hand back as though it had been burned. There was only one thing I could do. I raised the crowbar and smashed it against my face again and again.

"Little one,
Why are you struggling, why are you struggling?
In the mire of solitude, I found you."

I collapsed to the ground, my vision clouding over with red. My mouth quickly filled with blood as I mustered all my energy to strike myself twice more before losing consciousness.

"Little one,
Why are you weeping, why are you weeping?
In the agony of your heart, I howl for you."

When I awoke hours later, huge welts had been raised up on my face. One eye was swollen closed, and my nose was bent. When I coughed blood into my hand, there were chips of a tooth.

The storm was gone, and with it, my tormentor, but it was still the middle of the night. I wondered if any of my co-workers had looked for me or if they'd paged me on the speakers.

I stumbled out of the storage hut and walked out of the Scrapyard, heading home with unsteady steps. The potholes that riddled the streets of the Town were brimming with rainwater, undulating in time with some secret rhythm. I flinched whenever I saw my reflection in a shop window. Every few steps, I spat blood onto the damp sidewalk.

The lights in every trailer in the park were off except for Muriel's, casting a solitary glow. I wondered if she was seeing a client or cutting pictures from magazines. For a moment, I longed to see her, but instead, I headed home, deliberately avoiding her window to avoid being noticed.

Once I was home, I instinctively started packing a bag, but then I stopped myself. Where would I even go? How could I escape the creature that was born from my own inner torments and memories? Instead, I rummaged through some old supplies I had kept since my university days—a pen, a notebook, and some matches. As the sun rose higher in the sky, I filled the pages with words, recounting each terrible and absurd incident that led me to this point. It was surprisingly easy.

Now, as I put down my pen, I realize these words may never be read. Who are you? An investigator sorting through my belongings for evidence, or a laborer sent by park management to clear out my trailer so it can be rented again? Will you read this hastily scribbled diary or simply toss it aside?

The Mother-Thing patiently awaits me in the Scrapyard, an ever-present specter in both waking and sleeping realms. It calls to me relentlessly, its perverse affection promising a metamorphosis I dreaded but might always have been meant for.

There is no choice for me anymore, not really.

Tonight, after the owners and employees of the Scrapyard have left, I'll go back. But instead of confronting the heart of the nightmare, I'll let it pursue me for a while. I'll lead it towards the oil drums. I wonder if they will catch fire or explode.

My only hope is to survive long enough to hear the Mother-Thing's song become a scream.

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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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.