The Duel For Lady Branford's Hand

Look, a young man on the ground. His name is Lawrence Hamilton and he is dying and before his twentieth birthday. He is puffing up blood in spraying bursts. He’s wearing a dark blue petticoat, stained a darker shade by a sucking wound, a bullet hole. He’d been shot by a duelist’s bullet in a fair tournament.
George Branford was the other duelist. Ironically, he won the duel but he ended up dying first. His body is somewhere around here, in several places. Oh, look there. There’s his hand. I can tell by the ornate sleeve.
Lawrence’s second, his younger brother, has just died. His head should be bouncing into view any moment now. There it is, Charles was such a handsome man. Now claw makes mar his tender cheeks and that look of horror. Nothing would ever sooth that fear. He’s not likely to be chasing the girls about London anymore. Yes, I know. That was in poor taste.

Do you see the smoke that crawls across the field. The women, dressed in their elegant party dresses, are fleeing it. There is a thing inside that smoke. It might pursue with less lust if they would just stop screaming. Indeed, something is in that smoke, something with teeth, claws and a malice not found outside of man. The thing inside of the smoke has legs. I am quite sure. You can see all six of them. Just now, leering out from the smoky dregs. Look, the foreleg is crushing Mary Branford right now. She was the reason for the duel, you know. You see, Lawrence Hamilton had implied that he was familiar with Mary in the presence of George Branford, which he was. Lawrence had had her repeatedly over the course of the past year. She’s dead now, her skull crushed into the grassy soil. She was such a pretty thing. George Branford had her as his ward for almost six years before he made her his bride. The mean, old hags about town had a good laugh at Branford for taking such a young bride. Seventeen years old, I believe.
He found her in an orphanage, don’t you know.
The groundskeepers may never repair the grounds. The beast had torn the earth up in great mounds and it has thrown men down the hole from whence it came. They screamed as shadowy figure sunk fangs into their flesh. You see what you miss when you insist on being fashionably late?
Come now. We might want to retire inside. We can still see everything, I assure you. It’s just that the creature in the smoke is coming closer than I would like. Come, I’m sure Lord Branford has a nice Port or Sherry that we can sip. He won’t miss it, I’m sure. Yes, I am just wicked. Come now, up the stairs.
See now. The blood is beading on the window glass. Were we outside, the blood would have ruined our nice dress. Oh, see there! The last of the girls have fallen to the beast.
Oh, the wind is kicking up and the smoke is clearing. The beast is finding form. Arms, massive arm like black pistons. It’s all black as pitch. My word. Oh, the beast has gotten at the horses. I was right, it has teeth. Fearsome sharp, would you agree? Do you see it ripping into Lady’s hind? She was to be yours. I know, we’ll get you a new horse, a better one.
Oh, look. Lawrence Hamilton is still alive. Some spirit to that man, I dare say. He’s dragging himself, ruining that pretty petticoat. I thought I might have taken it once this was over. I know it’s bloodied and torn by a bullet, but I thought I could take it to the tailor. I’d need to let it out a bit anyway. Yes, just a bit.
Say, when do you think that this affair with the beast might end? When the creature winds down. Of course, silly question.
Oh, look there. Hamilton is going to Mary Branford. Silly man, he might have saved himself, but he’d rather play ‘Lover-boy.’ He’s cradling her now and there in the distance, the creature is coming. Its mane, its beautiful mane, rippling in the wind. It really is a beautiful thing. It’s like the centaurs of Greek legend, but made wrong. But still, it’s made quite right as well. It’s face, it has a man’s face. It has the face of a Moor, at the very least.
Hamilton doesn’t see, maybe he doesn’t care. He’s cleaning the dirt from her bloodied brow. Oh, my. He’s kissing her. His face is so pale. Surly, he should be dead for loss of blood.
The creature, its towering over them. Do you see its shadow? The shadow nearly reaches us. Hamilton must know that he is soon to be killed.
Oh, my. It’s teeth. It’s bearing its teeth. Isn’t it a wonder? Isn’t it breathtaking? Am I? I hadn’t realized that I was teary eyed. I’m being silly. I’ve gotten caught up in the excitement.
Oh. Oh, my. Hamilton is dead. He is still and the beast has done nothing to him. How odd. Is the creature moving toward the house? It’s shadow seems to loom closer, wouldn’t you say? Do you feel that? I can feel the ground shutter beneath my feet. The beast is coming upon us, I am sure of it. I would say we should flee, but the horses. The beast had gotten to the horses and we can not out run it on foot. I fear we will do as well as the women in the party dresses. Why would it ignore Hamilton? Of course, I’m sure you would not know.
Oh, lord! It is upon us now! I can hear its booming breaths. Oh, god! The beast, the beast is tearing the roof from the house! It will bring it down on our heads! We must flee! We must run, even if it means dying under its heel!
Do you hear it? Do you hear its roar? I can feel it in my bones. Keep moving, damn you! It draws near!

The Last Supper

Claws raked against the wood of my kitchen door and ragged puffs of air washed through the seams of the door. I peered out the clouded windows, my eye drawing on a looming figure silhouetted by the dying light. It wanted in, but its inhuman hands couldn’t work the doorknob. I dropped my hand to the doorknob to help it in. If the creature did as it was used to, it would break down the door. That wouldn’t do. I swung the door open and peered upward to a towering rat with an elongated torso. It was soaked with sewage water and clumps of brown mud. It had rained all morning and afternoon. The clouds had only parted as the sun descended behind the distant mountains. The purple Mountains majority had given way to gray mounds in the west. Everything was ash gray at the end of everything, except the grass. The grass was white, spindly and cluttered with broken bottles and other bits of trash.

The rat stood a full foot above me while on its hind legs and its foul breath mussed my hair. I stood to one side and gave it a this-way-please gesture and the giant rat fell to all four legs and walked in. The typical verb for a rat in motion would be, ‘scurrying’, but a creature of such size couldn’t possibly scurry. It lumbered to a counter where I’d left a loaf of banana bread to cool. I had drizzled a simple icing atop it and it bled down like it would on the cover of culinary magazines. The rat snatched it up whole and devoured it, wincing and hissing at the loaf’s heat. It ate greedily, dropping large crumbs on the ground. It finished it and then dropped to the ground to lick up the crumbs. I went to the refrigerator and took out a glass bottle of milk. The bottle was icy cold in my hand, sweating with condensation. I poured the milk into a glass bowl with a gilded rim. The bowl had been my grandmother’s. She’d brought it over from Poland after the Germans had evaded. I placed my grandmother’s bowl on the floor close to the rat. It hissed at me with mistrust and then moved a couple steps away from me. I stepped away from it and then the rat stepped back to find any forgotten crumbs. Once it was sure it had cleaned the floor of all the banana flavored crumbs, it licked at its whiskers with a long, thin, serpent like tongue. It spent a few moments enjoying the icing on its whiskers and muzzle before it examined the bowl of milk. It dipped its snout in the milk and then licked its nose. The rat eyed me mistrustfully and I stepped back a step. It started to tongue at the milk once it was sure I wasn’t posing it any harm. Its eerie serpent tongue dove in and out of the milk, splashing its face with beads of milk. It finished the milk and then flipped the bowl in its enthusiasm. Stray flecks of milk sprinkled the wooden floor.

I walked over to the old floor-model radio and turned it on. The static startled the rat and then I turned the dial trying to find the right music for the occasion. I mostly found more static, most of the stations went away when all the people went, but some stations run independent of people and probably would run forever. I stopped on a station playing old standards because it was the clearest station I could find. Dean Martin crooned “Is you is or is you ain’t my baby. ‘Cause lately, I’ve had my doubt.” The music filled the room and the rat seemed to approve because it went back to sniffing around for more crumbs. I walked over and took the bowl up. The rat had chipped the bowl when it filled it. I grasped the milk bottle and filled the bowl again. I placed the bowl away from the stove and the counter, so I could make our meal without bothering the rat. I’d left two steaks to marinate in lemon juice. I took them out of the refrigerator and tested the meat for tenderness. My finger left a deep depression in the dark red meat that was slow to recover. Just right. It wasn’t very hygienic, but I sucked the bloody lemon juice off the tip of my finger.

I dropped the steaks on a paper towel to allow the juices to drain a little. The Andrea Sister took up their half of the song. Their voices bounced in unison.
“Is you is or Is you ain’t my baby. ‘Cause lately, I’ve had my doubt.”
I sprinkled pepper on the steaks as they drained. The meat was tender, but I massaged it a little more, working the pepper into the meat. Juices bled onto the paper towel and then I lift the steaks to take out a pan. I set the propane burner and put the pan on. It needed to heat for a while. I wished the rat had given me more time. The bowl flipped over again and I looked over to the rat. It had finished the bowl again and was licking milk off its muzzle with its thin tongue.

The pan was about right, as were the steaks. I dropped the steaks in and they sizzled and popped. The sound startled the rat, though it shouldn’t have. It had been here for similar meals; grilled chicken breast, broiled Salmon, Veal. The meat was cooking cleanly and evenly. Great plumes of steam swelled into the air, only to fade into nothingness. I stabbed the meat with a fork and checked how pink the center was. The rat liked its meat slightly bloody. I flipped the meat and pricked my finger. I squeezed the blood out onto the pan. The blood sizzled on the browning steaks and the silver metal. It liked my blood. I put the pricked finger in my mouth and sucked the wound. It flipped the bowl over again, with more force than it had before. A large bit of the bowl’s gilded rim broke loose and slid away from the rat. I looked over to the rat and it was looking over to me. It’s black eyes looked fierce and hollow. I filled its bowl a third time, emptying the bottle. Milk leaked from the broken edge of the bowl as the rat drank.

I had a bottle of red wine on chill atop the refrigerator. I brought the bucket and bottle over to my dinning table, readying the table for the meal. The steaks were done and I transferred them to a plate my grandmother had also rescued from Poland. I took that over to the dinning table as well. The rat sniffed the air, its ear raising at the smell of bloody meat. I sat down at the table and put a napkin in my lap. I grabbed the neck of the bottle of wine and laughed to myself. I had forgotten the wine glasses. I got up and retrieved the glasses. By the time I sat back down, the rat was sniffing about the table, its body hunched low like a plotting theft. I laughed again, looking at the chair across from me. I stood up again and pulled out the chair for the rat. It looked to me, its eyes wide from the noise of the chair creaking against the wooden floor. The rat never could sit properly in a chair, but it would sit if you pulled the chair out for it. It was a minor concession the rat had made for me. It climbed in with its tail dangling down on the floor.

The rest of its body crowded the chair and the chair took the rat’s weight with creaking sounds of distress. I poured it a glass of wine and it licked its snout at the sight of the steaks. I cut up one of the steaks and then placed the slivers of meat onto a golden trimmed China plate before it. The plate had been a wedding gift from my mother and had mine and my wife’s initials.. It sniffed and then began to devour the meat. The rat always finished eating before I did and never used the fork or knife I left by its plate. I carved my steak and drank my wine. The steaks were cooked evenly and the meat had a gentle tang to it. It was still very hot and the juices rolled down the curve of my chin. The rat sniffed the wine and tipped the glass over, licking the wine up off the table top. The wine glass broke, but that didn’t seem to bother the rat. The wine glasses weren’t anything special. I’d picked them up at a department store, so my wife and I would have something to toast out of. We were celebrating my restaurant being review in Zagot’s.

The rat had finished its steak and had licked up as much of the wine as it could. It was eyeing the reminder of my steak, of which I had eaten a fair proportion. I offered it my plate, tilting it so the meat would slide into its reach. It devoured the little meat I still had and licked the juices off the plate. I sipped at my wine glass and peered at the rat as it licked grease off its whiskers. The wine hit my tongue with a dull, vaguely sweet warmth. The bottle was a 1967 Merlot, taken from my personal wine cellar.

The rat cleaned the juicy from its muzzle and whiskers and then it started to eye me. Its black eyes seemed to be calculating, though I knew better. It was just a rat, mindless and hungry.
“What a wicked thing you are.” I told it and then passing more wine over my tongue. It didn’t seem to get offended by the accusation. I placed the glass on the table and looked over to its broken glass. I took the napkin off my lap and placed it on the table.
“I’m the last. No more after me. No more good things after me. You’re the last as well. You’ll be alone, forever.” I reminded it. It just kept staring at me. I couldn’t bare to be alone and I hoped that it couldn’t bare to be alone, though it would never tell me. I was reminded of the tale of the Scorpion and the Frog. I thought of it almost every time it and I ate together. Its kind had killed my kind. My kind had killed its kind. The two of us were victims of our natures.

The two of us were the last survivors of the survivor species. Rats and people could live anywhere on Earth and, most of the time, did. I was feeling tired. I had poisoned myself and in doing so, poisoned the rat. I made a glass of lemonade laced with arsenic earlier in the day. I had the thought of just killing myself, but my thoughts turned to the rat, utterly alone. I needed to believe that the loss of me would injure the rat, that my presence mattered after all.

Later, I mixed more arsenic into lemon juice for the steaks. The poison gave the steaks a smoky taste. Rats normally tested food before eating it. Sniffed and sniffed and nibbled a little off to see if they got sick. Maybe it was careless, assumed that I didn’t have it in me.
I offered it my hand and it bit into it without apology. Blood bloomed across the table top and the rat lapped up that as well. It had taken the hand completely off. I hadn’t known it had such sharp teeth. The poison was affecting me or maybe that was the blood loss. I put my head on the table and the rat sniffed my flesh. Its breath was growing more ragged, deathly ragged. It was good to know it wouldn’t be alone. I fell from my chair and it laid down beside me. Our breathing slowed, mine slowing a little bit quicker than the rat’s. We both died on the floor and no one would ever mourn as but each other. We died alone like two rats in a gutter.

THE END

Why Bad Horse Is the Boss (Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog Fan Fiction)

The shadows swirled in smoky tendrils in the stables as Dead Bowie walked forth. Sweat worked down his cheeks in beads, smearing his eye shadow and foundation. Dust and debris played about in icy, blue moonlight which bled from a small, broken window.
Clip-clop.
Dead Bowie stopped in the shift of moonlight and peered around him. Mutated spider spun massive webs and stared at him with filmy-grays eyes. . His knees were knocking beneath him. Each and every atom in his body wanted him to run out into the night, to scream. The doors swung shut with a gust of wind and he knew that was no longer an option.
Clip-clop.
There was a snort in the distance; where the darkness was so pungent that it was almost tangible. The moon past behind a storm cloud and stole Dead Bowie’s light.
“You wanted to see me, Bad Horse?” The silence was aching in his ear.
Clip-clop.
His cowboys appeared from the shadows, humming his theme in a grin, dirge like key. They all wore handlebar mustaches and big Stetsons. Two of them went to either side of him and the third stood at his back, humming the tune in his ear.
“What’s this about, Bad Horse?” He tried to sound calm and collected, but sounded more like a frightened child.
Clip-clop.
“Bad Horse. Bad Horse. The Thoroughbred of Sin.”
“ You’ve lined your pocket. Pinched the till and soon, you’ll be done in.” Bad Horse’s sang slow and somber, gripping Dead Bowie by the arms and marching him forward. He dragged his heels and wrested wildly.
“No. No! It isn’t true! I would never! I swear!” He screamed on and on as the darkness enveloped him. The death whinny boomed like thunder and the ground shook. Dead Bowie screamed and howled and then made noise no more. All that remained with the shivering silence and a lonely, loathsome clip-clop.

Little Miss Holly And MR. Thomas

MR. Thomas was a simpleton my Mama hired to move furniture in the living room. That’s how I met him, being scolded by my Mama after he’d sent a glass cabinet straight through the living room floor. I came down after the crash and witnessed him and my Mama standing on either side of a perfectly rectangular hole in the floor where no hole had been.

He kept insisting that he’d put the cabinet down right, but sometimes thing went down further than what they were supposed to.
My Mama kept screaming at him, saying that was ridiculous, saying that he wouldn’t be getting one red cent and that he’d better pray her grace didn’t fail her. That she had the sheriff wrapped around her little finger and if she asked, he’d hang MR. Thomas, just for her favor. Mama was great for giving out her favor, whatever that meant. I’d see her take men upstairs to her room. Or I’d see her on some man’s arm, dressed to the nines and smelling like flowers. Or I’d see her coming home in some man’s arm, all silly from liquor and wanting to dance, and not caring that I was up past my bedtime.

She sent Mr. Thomas out of the front door and I went out the back one while she went back to staring down into the basement. Mr. Thomas had long legs and I ended up running full out, just to get to him.
“Don’t worry about my Mama. I don’t think she’d ever let anybody kill for her.” I said, once I was in ear shot of him. He kept moving along the road as if he didn’t hear me.
“Mister? I said, I don’t think my Mama would ever have anybody do anything to you.” I repeated. He kept moving along down the road.
“MR. Thomas?” I said helplessly. I was puffing badly, but MR. Thomas had stopped and turned to see me, seemingly surprised that I was talking to him.
“MR. Thomas, I was just saying you didn’t have to worry about my Mama. She gets upset some in the early afternoon, before her drink.” He still kept looking at me with that shocked look on his face.

“How’d you manage to put the cabinet through the floor like you did? I don’t think I ever saw again like that before, Mr. Thomas.”
“Things don’t go where you put them sometimes.” Mr. Thomas finally said, kneeling to look at me.
“My Mama said that’s what messy people think. They’re always losing their things and they want people to believe it just sprouted legs and walked off.”
“No. Not, never. Nothing sprouts legs. Things just fell though one another from time to time.”
“Nah-uh.” I told him plainly.
“Yeah, so.” He insisted. “You can see it easy if you look close enough. All the ground is, is a whole lot of shifting bits of dust. It’s a wonder that more stuff don’t find its way through.”
“How you mean that the ground is dirt?” I looked down to the floor beneath me, it didn’t look like he said.
“Well, it’s smaller than dust bits, but I don’t know what’s smaller than that.” I remembered hearing something about Atoms from some of my Mama’s friends.

My Mama had two lawyers ever one night and they were talking to each about some silliness called Atoms, that somebody had it in his head that the world was made of tiny Atoms after looking at a piece of cork. They were laughing pretty loud about it, but they’d probably be laughing at anything. My Mama and them had come to the house, pretty boozed up.

“Atoms, you mean? Two lawyer men my Mama know say that’s ridiculous.”
“Everything’s ridiculous at some point.”
“How’d you mean?”
“How’d we get here?” Mr. Thomas said, waving his hands around. I looked around, expecting to see the street we left out on, but we were standing by the river. I let out a little scream and Mr. Thomas let out a little smile.
“Yeah, that’ll happen sometimes. I wasn’t expecting you to follow me, little miss. Sometimes I hear voices when I slip through, but you’re the first to be talking to me.”
“How’d I get here?”
“You slipped through after me.”
“Slipped through what?”
“The air is all.”
I looked behind me, expecting to see a big hole in the air, but there was nothing. To the left of me, Mr. Thomas must have set up some little shack for himself. It looked rackety and weather-beaten, and its door was a flower-print sheet. Mr. Thomas started toward the shack and I called after him.
“How am I supposed to get home?”

“Oh!” Mr. Thomas slapped his palm to his head and turned to me. He walked over to me and offered me his hand. I took it and marveled at its size and how rough it was. His dirty thumb nearly eclipsed my whole hand as the two met. “My name is Holly.” I whispered, looking up to him. He led me forward and in the silence, I could just hear a slight rush of air.

“I almost forgot. Most people won’t let themselves see what I do. Most people have trouble believing in what I do.” Mr. Thomas said through a lopsided grin. I wished I was looking when we slipped through, but I was fixated on that strange man towering over me. Before I thought to look and Mr. Thomas released my hand and I was standing on the street before my Mama’s house. The front door was opened wide to let the cool air in and I could see my Mama moving about in the house. She called my name. Called it up the stairs where she’d left me. I didn’t answer, of course. I ran up the stairs and into the house and turned to waved goodbye to Mr. Thomas, but he was gone.

I hadn’t seen Mr. Thomas around for almost three weeks. Mama had paid a man to fix the floor and soon, it was like the incident never happened. The busted cabinet was taken out by the trash-hauler and Mama had her eyes on a new one, as well as a new man to pay for it. Mama had brought a thin Yankee man to the house. He was dressed in a fancy, white suit with black pin stripes. Mama told me to call him Mr. Hobbs.

“You might be Holly Hobbs, if things go well.” Mama added. Mama and Mr. Hobbs got friendly over the following weeks. They got silly in the night time and they got grumpy in the mornings before their next drinks came. Mr. Hobbs told her nasty stories about how he tricked so-and-so out of a nickel or how he snatched a farmer out of his land.

I saw Mr. Thomas on the street in town, helping to load feed onto the back of a wagon. He was hefting four of those big sacks in his arms while the other man was struggling with one. Mama and Mr. Hobbs went into the Woolworth’s and didn’t notice that I wasn’t following them. The two of them were arguing about some silliness they got into at a cocktail party. I didn’t understand any of it.

I walked over to Mr. Thomas, who pulled the last sack of feed from the other man’s hands and dropped it on the wagon.
“How do you slip through the air, Mr. Thomas?” He spun around, trying to see who was speaking to him. His head swiveled about, looking for somebody adult sized. He spotted me finally and his lopsided grin appeared.

“Hey there, Little Miss Holly.” He said. The other man called to Mr. Thomas and told him they had to get the feed back to the farm. He told him to wait a minute, putting one of his massive hands in the air.

“ I gotta go, Little Miss Holly. Slipping through is easy, though. Keep yourself still and keep an eye on the air.”
I tried what MR. Thomas said, I stared at the air until my mama said she thought I’d gone soft in the head. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for, but I kept at it. I found what MR. Thomas was talking about while in bed, one night. It was like the fold in an open book, but not as deep or broad. It was a seam in the moonlight and I didn’t even wait to put shoes on. I jumped up and put my hand to it. My hand disappeared, so I pulled my hand back. The seam disappeared as soon as I did and I felt a little cheated. I was hoping that it’d come back. It didn’t that night, but I caught another one while playing in the front yard. Mama had sent me outside after Mr. Hobbs started tickling and kissing on Mama.

The seam appeared in the corner of the yard and I raced over. I did like I did in the night time. I put my hand in the seam. I felt a rush of wind streaming through my fingers. I moved forward, keeping my eyes open. I wanted to see what happened.
My hair wiped and rushed about as the seam enveloped me.

I was all light and sucking wind inside the seam and all of a sudden I wasn’t where I was. I was in a cotton field. The sounds of hoes tilling soil rang out in the distance. Field hymns rose up over the cotton. I didn’t understand how any of this worked, so I didn’t want to lose my way home. I had made it work. That fact had been enough for now.
I worked backward through the sucking void and fell backward into my front yard. The seam sealed itself off. It popped straight out of existence with a soft sort of crack like a twig snapping.

The sun was different in the sky, though I hadn’t notice at the time. I raced back inside the house, wanting to tell somebody something. Mama was aloe in the kitchen, sobbing on the floor. I stood frozen in place as she sobbed, not really understanding what I was looking at. Mama was holding her face, but I could just see a bit of ugly purple creeping out from under her clasped hands.

Mama had been hit before. Daddy was the hitting kind of man and so was a couple of other men Mama brought home. She seemed to have bad luck like that. She’d turned them out again and again, threatened them with the sheriff too. She wasn’t puffing and raging like she did with the others. She just sat there, crying like I was the Mama and she was the child. I did what she would have done if she found me crying. I couldn’t take her up in my arms, but I put my arms around her. That seemed to be enough. I drew my fingers through her hair and she put her head on my shoulder. I wasn’t sure if she knew that I was who I was, but that didn’t seem to matter.

She stilled herself and looked up to me. She had a nasty looking cut across her left cheek. It wept blood slowly, but the wound wasn’t bad at all. I thought about kissing it better like Mama had every time I had gotten hurt. She stopped me before I could and then she wiped her eyes. She got up in a hurry, giggling like she hadn’t been crying. She stepped to the water basin in the corner of the kitchen and wet a rag to clean herself up. She kept her cut cheek away from my sight and she was smiling as wide as she could.

Footsteps fell on the wooden staircase over head and I couldn’t think who it could be. Mr. Hobbs’ white pinstriped pant leg appeared halfway up the stairs. Mama hadn’t cursed him out and threatened him with the sheriff. I couldn’t understand what I was seeing. Mama ran to him and he put his arm around her waist. He put his lips to hers and then examined the gash on her cheek.

“The things you make me do.” He whispered in her ear. She whispered a quiet apology. None of this made sense to me.

Mr. Hobbs stuck around the house more and more. I kept my eyes on him, even though I wouldn’t be able to do anything if he were to raise a hand to Mama, which he did. He never slapped her when I was around and I never caught Mama crying on the floor again. I started sticking close to Mama for fear of what happened when I was gone. It still happened and something else started happening. Mama’s belly started to swell, as did her cheeks, chest and feet. I asked Mama about that and she told me that I was going to have a baby brother or sister. She didn’t tell me it, but I knew it was a bad thing that the baby was coming. Mr. Hobbs would be here to stay if he had a baby in our house.

For the first time in my young life, I understood impending calamity. Mr. Hobbs was the hitting kind of man and was looking to stay. I sought out Mr. Thomas as I realized how little I could affect my home life and Mr. Thomas kept coming to me in more and more improbable ways. He would call down to me from up in trees or he would come crashing out of my closet or he would fall straight off the roof, moaning but unbroken. I started to wonder if Mr. Thomas was a real person or if he was imaginary like my friend, Daisy Perkins, had.

“Are you real?” I asked Mr. Thomas while climbing up to meet him on a tree limb. He smiled a broad, crooked grin.
“Well, are you?”
“Course I am.” He said reaching down to help me with my ascent. I reached up and he took me by the hand, pulling me up to sit next to him. The two of us stared out onto the waning sun. Orange bled through the swaying trees and over distant houses. The tree we sat in was sticky with sap and the world was washed with the smell of pine.

“I’ve been slipping through, but I can’t go where I want to.”
“That’s easy. Just sniff the air.” Mr. Thomas said, miming the action.
“What?”
“Sniff the air. Close your eyes. It’ll be easier since you’ve been slipping.” I shot him a look and his grin broadened.
“You having fun?”
“No, just do it. You’ll see.” I closed my eyes and then cracked them open a little, just so I could watch Mr. Thomas.
“Wait a moment. Now. Sniff now.” Mr. Thomas said. I drew in air and smelt the Cocoa butter Mama got from a shopkeeper that was sweet on her. Mr. Thomas brought his massive hand to my back and pushed. I screamed as I fell. Wind ripped through my hair and across my face. The ground raced toward me, faster than I could imagine and then it was gone. It disappeared and was replaced with Mama’s spacious bed. I hit it and bounced harmlessly. Mama’s thin goose-down comforter enveloped me in a soft embrace as Mr. Thomas laughed breathlessly. I untangled myself from Mama’s blankets, my face screwed up in anger.

“That wasn’t funny.” I said, getting up off Mama’s bed. Mr. Thomas stood in a corner with his arms crossed over his chest.

“You can’t control where the world opens up, but if you sniff, you’ll know where you’re going. It’s easier to go places you’ve already been, because of the smell.” I looked back toward Mama’s bed. There were leaves everywhere. Mama was going to be mad.
“You ever smell eggs?” Mr. Thomas asked. I looked to him again.

“No.”
“Since you’re slipping through more and more, you ought to be careful. Sniff the air before you go through. Don’t slip through if you smell eggs.”
“Where will the egg smell lead?”
“Somewhere horrible.”
“Where?”
“You read the bible at all? Preacher man talks about a lake of fire. I saw it once. That’s where it leads.”

Mr. Thomas opened up Mama’s closet and disappeared into her dresses. I followed, moving past Mama’s perfumed evening gowns and slinky sundresses. Where the back of Mama’s closet should have been, a long, low hanging branch was. I pulled the branch away and the river came into view. To the far right, Mr. Thomas and his shack came into view. Mama’s dresses disappeared as I moved further away. Mr. Thomas moved to the riverside. Mr. Thomas took his worn, leather boots off and put his feet into the river. I ran over, discarding my shoes as I moved. My feet dangled high over the water, but it was nice to watch it rush by.
“My Mama’s met somebody, but he’s a rotten sort of man.” Mr. Thomas frowned, staring down at me.

“He hurts her, sometimes. She’s going to have a baby and he’ll be around forever when it comes.” Mr. Thomas didn’t say anything, he just stared down at me with his miserable eyes. He brought his arm around me and pulled me in for an embrace. I gripped him as tight as I could as tears welled in my eyes.
I laid in my bed, hearing Mama and Mr. Hobbs laughing downstairs. Mama’s laughter sounded forced, not like it was when Mama could go out and get silly. Mr. Hobbs didn’t let her do that anymore. Mr. Hobbs was telling her one of his mean spirited stories about how he got over on someone else. He was getting over on Mama. That was the thought that led me to a plan. It wasn’t terribly well thought out, but if it worked, it would fix everything.
Mama was barefooted in the kitchen, making breakfast for Mr. Hobbs. Mr. Hobbs rested, stretched out on the couch with a wet towel on his forehead. Him not letting Mama drink, didn’t stop him from getting silly in the evenings.

“Smelling good in there.” He called weakly. I sniffed the air and was reminded of Mr. Thomas’s warming about staying away from the smell of eggs.
“Almost ready for you.” Mama said, shoveling eggs and bacon onto a plate. I was sitting on the kitchen floor with as she rushed past. The idea I had in bed the prior night was racing through my head. I peered out into the living room, watching Mama watch Mr. Hobbs eat. The two of them looked happy. Mama looked adoring and Mr. Hobbs looked sweet on her, too. I hated him as much as I’d ever hated anything and it was because of the lie they held up. The real Mr. Hobbs was tucked away in solitude. He’d rose his hand to Mama, but only when he was alone. I had to figure out what he’d do if I was alone with him. I’d make him mad. I had to get him alone and make him mad.

My opportunity came when Mama was napping in her bed and Mr. Hobbs was sitting on the porch with a drink in hand. He was close to napping himself. I sniffed the air and smelt rotten eggs. I also smelt pine needles. The sweet and rotten smells mixed and soured my stomach. I picked up a rock and chucked it at him as hard as I could. The rock broke the glass, skittering glass and smelly, brown liquid across Mr. Hobbs lap. The smell of eggs faded quickly as I moved toward the smell of pine needles. Mr. Hobbs got up, his face screwed up in anger. I laughed aloud to get his attention and Mr. Hobbs scanned the yard for prying eyes. He stepped off the porch and toward me, the muscles in his temples twitching. I backed away slowly, feeling the seam sucking me in. At the last moment, when his hand was cocked high to slap me, I gripped and pulled as hard as I could. We fell backward. I caught onto a branch and Mr. Hobbs bashed his head on a lower one. He kept falling and he didn’t land safely on Mama’s bed, like I had. He smashed against the ground and remained motionless. His body was twisted in unnatural ways and blood trickled from his mouth and nose. He looked up at me, his eyes wide and shocked. I climbed down the branches, scraping my hands in my haste. I finally hit the ground and stood over Mr. Hobbs. His eyes still stared straight up to where I was, but his hand crept along the ground. It landed weakly on my ankle. I knelt down and saw a single tear roll down the side of his face. I put my hands over his mouth and nose. He didn’t struggle. I don’t think that he could. He was soon gone forever and I walked home.

Mama cried when the sheriff came around and said they found Mr. Hobbs. They said it looked like he just fell out of the tree, though they couldn’t imagine why a grown man would be climbing a tree.

The house was quiet after the sheriff left. I stayed with Mama in the living room. She kept rubbing her belly as tears rolled down her face. I put my head in her lap and she started to stroke my hair.

“I’m sorry you’re sad, Mama.” I told her in a sleepy whisper. She didn’t say anything to me, she just dragged her fingers through my hair. I fell asleep there, with her repeating that moment.

I awoke in the night, darkness swelling through my room. Mama had carried me to bed. She’d be asleep in her bed and I wanted to climb in with her. I swung my feet out of bed and slid out of bed.

“Little Miss Holly.” Mr. Thomas said in a somber voice.
“Mr. Thomas?” He was sitting in the shadows, still as the night around him. “What are you doing here?”
“Bloody branches. Broken and torn.” He said.
“Mr. Thomas?” I said again.
“I know.” He whispered.
“The voices. They spoke to me. Brought me to you.”
“Mr. Hobbs.” I said softly.
“Why?” He was close to crying. His voice was shaking. I crossed the room to see him better, but he shrank deeper into the shadows.
“Why?” He said again.
“He had to go.” I said, flatly.
“You don’t understand. You don’t understand and I don’t have the words to explain.” He was crying now, his breaths rippling harshly. I moved closer to him, but I only hit the wall. He had slipped through before she could reach him. I left the room and climbed into bed with Mama. I didn’t see Mr. Thomas around anymore, but I always remembered him. The smell of rotten eggs woke me up in the middle of the night. Mr. Hobbs’ voice whispered in my ear. He told me mean-spirited stories and then told me he’d be waiting for me.

THE END

Late, But Not Forgotten, Again.

I've been working hard on my novel and I haven't had time to create new shorts for the page.
I should say, I haven't had alot of time. Soon you'll see a long short story and another fan fiction. I'll try to scare you some weird goodness for everyone.

Our Fate (Quick Trailer) and Our Fate Breakdown

Title Sequence: “OUR FATE”

(JANE DOE by NEVERSHOUTNEVER begins)

A young man sits across from a girl at a coffee shop table. The camera is aimed at their sides so that both are in fully frame. The two are seemingly having a pleasant conversation. The camera begins to rotate, drawing inward slightly so that the frame cuts out the two at the waist. The camera moves to the back of the young man’s head, showing the face. The coffee shop setting bursts into flames behind her. The other patrons are dead. Gore is splatter across all the walls. In the distance, gunfire crackles. The girl is unfazed by the destruction.

The young man stands and walks away from the coffee table, horror plastered on his face. The girl is confused and calls out to him as the war torn setting reverts to the peaceful coffee shop.

The coffee shop setting changes to a night club around the young man as walks away. He leans up against a bar and smiles at another girl. The camera remains at waist level and then rotates to face the girl. She mouths “Hello” and behind her the club is blown apart by a strong wind. This girl is, again, unfazed. Behind her, the sky is gray and swirling with thunder. Mechanized creatures herd people across an ash gray landscape, brandishing massive machine guns.

The young man stumbles away, his face pale and sickly. He backs away and trips into a bus seat as the night club disappears, only to be replaced by a city bus. The camera backs away to show the young man’s full frame. The bus stops suddenly and a girl falls into his lap. The camera cuts to the young man, framing his head and part of his shoulders. He smiles at her. The camera cuts to the girl, framing the head and part of her shoulder. She smiles back. Behind her, the sun shines and there’s endless fields of greenery. Cartoon birds flutter about in the air and people join hands in fellowship. The camera returns to the young man who is sitting in this vision, his head and torso in frame. The young man is thrusted out of this vision by the massive hand of another man. The hand appears from the bottom of the screen and catches him by the shirt. The camera switches back to the city bus, showing the full frame of the young man struggling with the other man. The camera would be placed at the back of the bus, as they move toward the front. The camera cuts outside the bus as the young man is tossed off the bus in a heap. The bus begins to roll away. The camera rotates as the bus rolls down the street and out of view. The young man stands up, his back to the camera.

The title card reads “OUR FATE”

Premise summary:

The basic premise behind “Our Fate” is that the fate of humanity is somehow directly intertwined with the main character, a cocky psychic named Joel, meeting and falling in love with a girl he met on a bus. Joel has brief gleams into the future, a gift he has no control over, but a gift he was once able to use to win the lottery. These gleams into the future turn apocalyptic after when Joel goes on a date after meeting the girl on the bus.

As the series progresses, Joel finds this girl, Jane and finds she is engaged to be married. Even if she wasn’t, Jane is put off by Joel. Joel must break off her engagement, get her to like him and in the process steer humanity toward World Peace.

Fight Forever

The Steward of Wolves was sentenced to fight forever. Slaying thousands and thousands of his own wolves. They launched toward him, claws out stretched and fangs bared. The Steward swung his sword and swatted the wolves away. He’d been howling in his horror. His wards were slaughtered around him. It hadn’t always been like this, bloody and brutal. He hadn’t always been the Steward of Wolves. Before the wolves found him, he was a man like any other. His former name was Jonathan and he loved a woman name June.

June had died as horrifically as any death Jonathan had ever known. Horrific to him, of course. To the paramedics who cased her body way, her death was common. It was just a common mugging gone wrong. A six inch blade had slid between two of her ribs and the mugger had run off, leaving her purse as a consolation. Jonathan and June had finished a late dinner at a hip, new restaurant which June had been after Jonathan to take her to. They turned a corner leading to parking garage, Jonathan lagging between, when the mugger emerged from a corner. Jonathan was trying to scare up his car keys and hadn’t realized anything was wrong until June gasped in deeply. Jonathan remembered the event being more grand and dramatic than it actually was. In his mind’s eye, the mugger swelled forth from the shadows like a tar bubble from a pit. He remembered the six-inch blade being more of a sword, twice the man’s arm length at least. The mugger had a cruel smile filled with bloody fangs. This, of course, wasn’t true. The mugger was only a man, a terrified drug addict who was a little high and looking to get higher. A drug addict who meant to scare June with a couple thrusts through the air, but actually stabbed her. When he realized what he did, he dropped the knife and ran off.

Jonathan caught her before she hit the ground. Common sense suggested that the red stuff was supposed to stay in, but Jonathan was too terrible to use such knowledge. At first he was just screaming out of horror, but as his wits came back to him, he screamed for help. Help came too late. One of the parking attendants hurried out to the sounds of Jonathan’s screams and phoned in to 911. She took her last breaths as the paramedic pulled in and Jonathan was reluctant to let her go.

Once the terror had subsided, Jonathan had gone numb. Most of what happened after that hadn’t registered to him. Apparently, the police had asked him questions and apparently, he answered them because when he woke up the next morning, the mugger was in police custody. The police had him identify the man in a line-up and he fingered the one who looked the most like fanged monster he’d seen. He thought that might have been wrong, though. The man he saw too skinny to do the damage he’d seen. He shivered too much. His face was etched with too much terror to be the thing that cut into his soon-to-be wife.

He was sure she would have said yes. He wanted to wait until they got home, figuring they could have consummated their impeding nuptials, heavy on the ‘mate.’ He felt sick to his stomach that he had waited. He figured that he’d kill himself. The thought would have waned, had he someone to express it to. He was alone in the big city, except for a body cooling on a shelf in the city morgue. As it was, the thoughts festered in his head like his brain was meat going bad. He had no idea how he’d do such a thing. He had razor blades and a box of rat poison under the radiator. He had a belt and could hang himself in his closet. He could probably get some pills, though he had no interest in interacting with other people. He sat on the floor of his apartment, turning her engagement ring over and over again in his hands when he first heard the padded footfalls of an animal in the other room. At first, he was uninterested in the noise, not even paying it enough attention to question the foreign sound. The sky was blue and animals made noise in the other room. Never mind that he didn’t own any animals.

He only followed the noises when the padded footfalls turned into claws scraping against tiles in the bathroom and yips echoed in that small space. He stood in the doorway of the bathroom, ignoring a snow white wolf the size of bear. He was ignoring the wolf because there was a dead man in his bath tub. The man had unremarkable blue eyes and ash blonde hair like Jonathan had. He was tallish like Jonathan was and had lean muscle like Jonathan had. The only difference between him and the man was that Jonathan wasn’t dead. He didn’t think he was.

In movies, suicide victims hang their arms over the sizes of the tub to show off their self-inflicted wounds. This man’s head lolled back and his hands rested in his lap, underneath a crimson waterline. Jonathan stepped away from the doorway, no able to understand the information he was seeing. The massive wolf followed him into his kitchenette, where he found another man laying on the floor with froth foaming off his lips. His unremarkable blue eyes were glassy and staring out into nothingness. He was utterly still with his head resting on his forearm. He was wearing one of Jonathan’s favorite shirts, one with the iconic Woodstock logo.

Jonathan moved into his bedroom and found yet another doppelganger hanging by the neck in the closet. He was too tall to be completely off the ground. His legs were partially folded underneath him and his face went puffy and purple. He turned away from this sight and saw a fourth twin laying on the bed in a suit. He had little occasion to wear a suit, but he kept one from a wedding he went to a year back. This body was the least vile, but the most disturbing. His skin was pale, but his cheeks were eerily rosy. His lips had some color to them and he had a flower in his breast pocket. His hands rested on his chest and he might have been sleeping, the way he looked.

Jonathan then turned to the wolf, not wanting to see the bodies anymore. The wolf looked deep into his eyes, speaking Jonathan’s life to him without saying anything. Every moment of his life, from the cradle to moment of June’s death, flashed through Jonathan’s mind and soon tears rolled down his cheeks.
“Is this real?” Jonathan asked, expecting the question to be rhetorical. Expecting the answer to be yes. The wolf answered with his stare. The wolf’s eyes were like yellow moons welling with wildness and steely perception, all at the same time. The wolf said no with its impossibly yellow eyes that might have glowed like lanterns if the light were to go out. He would have those eyes once he became the Steward of Wolves. He walked forward to the wolf and the wolf explained everything in the span of seconds. Jonathan fell to one knee like he was swearing allegiance to the wolf. The fall was more out of weakness, but he swore allegiance to the wolves all the same.

The wolves wanted him for no better reason than he was barely clinging to this world. He was a vessel needing to be possessed by something. Why not the wolf? Jonathan still had no interest in living until after it was too late for him. The massive wolf turned into a cloud of white smoke which Jonathan inhaled, coughing and choking on it.

The Steward walked away from where Jonathan had knelt. The Steward felt nothing beyond his duty, but what remained of Jonathan felt blind, screaming terror. Jonathan was scratching at walls that he couldn’t get at. Outside, in the world, the Steward moved through the night bathed streets. Jonathan had been barefooted in his apartment, so the Steward was barefoot as well. The Steward was moving steadily northward, toward the distant smell of Pine trees and open spaces. No mortal man’s nose could possibly smell such things, but the Steward wasn’t a mortal man. He wasn’t ever bother with until he hit the Interstate. A man walking barefoot on an active highway drew attention and soon, swirling blue was at his back.

A police siren whined behind him and the Steward ignored it. Next, a police officer was calling over to him. The man was on foot and gain on the Steward. His hand wrapped around his arm and the Steward employed strength that Jonathan never had. The Steward broke the man’s hand and he screech like some predatory bird or some prey animal. Either noise was fleeting in the wild, but the police officer kept on screaming. The noise got the Steward’s ire up. Noise meant excitement in his world. Noise meant time to kill. He didn’t though. The Steward reasoned that this was about he had to get to his duty. This, of course, wasn’t true. Jonathan had stayed his hand. He understood exactly what the noise meant to the Steward and his overwhelming horror brought sickness to the Steward’s stomach.

What the Steward did do, however, was take the police officer’s car. The Steward had no knowledge of piloting a motor vehicle, but Jonathan did. Jonathan felt snake-like tendrils worm into his mind and his father teaching him how to drive flashed in his mind’s eye. He was happy to give the Steward the information if it might he could just get away from the screams of the injured policeman. The police car arced away from the injured man and rolled off down the highway, moving faster than Jonathan would have ever driven. The Steward hadn’t put on the sirens, though the police men had left on the flashing lights. It occurred to Jonathan that the sirens should be on and wished he could get the Steward to turn them on. If he could do so, everyone, including the Steward himself, might have been safer.

The lights were enough to part the traffic on the interstate and the Steward made his way toward the scent of Pine. What the Steward hadn’t considered was that police officer routinely checked in with their station. Or that police cars were equip with tracking devices. Or that he should have considered one or both of these things. As it was, the sound of whining sirens was a surprise. Three cars followed the Steward’s stolen vehicle at a few car lengths distance. More lights flashed and whirred ahead of him. They were looking to box him in, but he was going forth into it, at speed.

The car ahead moved to block the Steward and the Steward found more horsepower. The car lurched forward and the two cars collided. The intercepting car spun out of the way in a burst of sparks. He kept up at that speed, with some horrific grinding sounding in his ear. Jonathan then understood something that should have been obvious. The Steward knew exactly what was going on in Jonathan’s mind, but Jonathan had no idea what the Steward was up to. The Steward was just keeping him until he wasn’t useful. His life or consciousness was going to be chucked away afterward. A new wave of terror washed over Jonathan, but the Steward kept moving onward.

The car gave up just off of the interstate and the Steward left it in the middle of the road with a long line of cars honking their horns behind him. The Steward took off northward on foot again. Trees loomed in the distance, the rising sun spilling a red and purple bruise up into the sky. He broke the tree line as the police crested beyond the line of blocked cars. The Steward moved faster among the trees somehow and the policemen who followed were all but gone shortly. Long after running was necessary, the Steward kept running. Black wolves flanked his left and right, keeping their distance. As they picked up his scent, the black wolves converged on him. The wolves and their Steward blazed through the darkness, ascending up a slope.

They moved higher and higher, the terrain growing more and more rocky and it occurred to Jonathan that they were heading up the side of a mountain. It also occurred to him that there wasn’t a mountainous barrier between New York and Canada where the Steward was heading.

Jonathan begun to accept that the Steward was not of the natural world and, therefore, could do things outside the realm of the natural world. For instance, he could transport himself out of it. The trees stooped low like old men as the Steward climb with his wolves. The wolves had found positions at the Steward’s heels like massive yipping shadows. Also, it occurred to Jonathan that he should have been able to see sunshine in the east, but all Jonathan could see was swirling gray clouds which the Steward had pierced through. Dew and frost clung to his cheek as he moved and the clouds only grew thicker. Soon, neither the Steward nor Jonathan could see anything and then the ground fell out from under their feet. The Steward had sprung up before the fall, suggesting that he had expected it. The black wolves followed, their black fur rippling like some odd deformed, little wings.

They caught the ground hard and unexpectedly. The wind whined weakly through a dense smoke and through a mass of blackened Redwood trees. The ground and the base of the trees were chard black from some wildfire long extinguished. The massive black trees were like towering leviathans turned to stone. There was an expectation of mysticism in the air and Jonathan wouldn’t have been surprised if Medusa slithered her way through the swirling smoke. Medusa didn’t come, but more wolves did. They howled mournful cries through the ashen air and it echoed for forever. The forms appeared from the distance, hundreds of them and with them, stood a man.

The man wore a flowing black cloak made of fur. The cloak rippled as he advanced to the Steward and the Steward tensed. Jonathan feared there would be a fight, but a fight didn’t come. The man’s wolves circled and sniffed at the Steward’s wolves and the two men glared at each other. The man was old and wore. He had matted gray hair and a scruff of dirty gray beard. He had a permanent sneer on his face and his lips arched up, revealing dirty, yellow canine teeth.

“Who are you?” The man asked. The Steward didn’t answer and Jonathan had the notion that the man wasn’t speaking to him anyway.
“Jonathan.” He said and his lips obeyed him.
“Jonathan, would you have taken your life?” Jonathan didn’t answer the question because he truly wasn’t sure. He knew he didn’t want what the Steward was giving him.
“Would you have killed yourself over the girl?” The man asked.
“June.” Jonathan said, his voice shaking weakly.
“Slain by some gutter snipe itching for his poison.” The man said.
“Yes.”
“Are you a coward?” Jonathan didn’t answer because he wasn’t sure. He felt more than ever like something disembodied. A pointless wisp of vapor rattling around in another man’s head.
“Would you kill him? This man?” Jonathan didn’t answer. At the time, he believed it to be a hypothetical question like “Would you kill for a million dollars?” But hypothetical question turned out not to be as cries echoed in the distance. They were the throaty cries of a man. There were also guttural growls of predatory dogs. They weren’t killing the man, but they were hurting him.

The old man flung his cloak to one side and revealed a sword hanging in a black leather scabbard. He drew the blade and it was a brutalized, chipped thing meant for hacking. This was no Excaliber, nothing noble about it. It was for killing, not for admiring. The edge could have done with sharpening, but the tip had been sharpened to a pin-point. The old man offered Jonathan the sword, hilt first. The Steward was the one to take it, but that was all he did. The sword hung limp in their hands like its existence was something foul. The man’s cries came closer, echoing through the towering trees. He was crying for mercy from wolves, a ridiculous notion.

His form came into view through the smoke. He was on his back, kicking and struggling against two black wolves. They were muscle-packed and moving the man with ease. The man was crying and bleeding and looking like he pissed himself. The other wolves, old man’s and the Steward’s, converged around the man and made a full circle. The man was released, but he curled into a ball, understanding that he was hopelessly trapped.

This man, of course, was the drug addict who killed June. It didn’t matter how he got from his holding cell where he was awaiting trial to this mystical, chard forest. What mattered was that he had a sword in his hand and an opportunity to kill the man who killed someone he loved. The Steward, nor the old man prompted him to move forward into the circle of wolves, but he did anyway. The drug addict looked up to him, his eyes wide and fearful like he was staring up at a vengeful god. And that might have been what he was. He had the understanding that he was supposed to become something vicious and dangerous. Something that understood that noise meant excitement and noise meant it was time to kill. Jonathan wanted to and he didn’t know if that was his own or the Steward’s influence.

The blade rose, seemingly of its own accord. Jonathan didn’t want it to, but at the same time, he did. The drug addict whimpered and begged, but him begging to Jonathan was as ridiculous as begging the wolves. Jonathan heard the words coming from the man’s mouth and understood that they were words, but he could take meaning from any of them.

The wolves glared and shifted in excitement. Blood was coming. The kill was coming. Meat. Meat. Meat. They yipped and cried for it, jumping over one another and licking their lips.

The drug addict locked eyes with Jonathan, hoping to find his humanity and then he stopped begging. The wolf’s yellow moon eyes burned into the junkie’s decayed mind. Drool rolled from his gaping mouth. He was looking at something that was no more human than the wolves crying for blood.

The kill. The kill. Give them the kill. The words sank into Jonathan’s mind, digging in like talons. There was no reason. There was only the blood to come. The blade dropped and the addict screamed.

The blade slammed into the ashen earth and quivered violently. The wolves went silent and the rest of the world fell silent after them. The Earth might have stop spin for all Jonathan knew. The addict wouldn’t take a breath, though Jonathan had done nothing to take it from him. Jonathan released the blade and backed away a step. The addict stayed below Jonathan, stark still and glaring. When he realized he wasn’t dead and then he thought he might be allowed to escape now. He slowly rose, taking pains to keep his posture as cowering as possible. When the addict was at his feet, Jonathan took him by the collar and began beating the hell out of him, screaming wildly. The wolves roared and howled. Blood and teeth scattered onto the earth below. Jonathan thought he might have broke the man’s jaw and he was glad. The man’s begging had offended him.

As sudden as the beating started, it had stopped. Jonathan had stopped himself in mid-swing like someone had stopped him. He was puffing and his jaw was tensed. The junkie was on his knees, held up only by Jonathan’s hand curled around his shirt front. The addict’s face was a mashed and bloodied version of itself. His eyes were swollen shut and blood streamed from the purple bruise. More blood dribbled from his lips and down his chin. The addict attempted to say something, but it was only nonsensical gurgles that spat blood into the air.

Jonathan released the addict and he clattered to the ground in a heap. He turned around to see the old man, but he was gone. In his place, towered the white wolf. His yellow moon eyes urged for Jonathan to finish the kill. The black wolf swarmed around the white wolf’s legs like ants around their queen. However, the white wolf wasn’t anything as mild as earthly royalty. No. This wolf was a god of some sort. The God Of Savagery. The God of Murder. The God of Blood. Whatever it was, it wanted Jonathan to kill the junkie.

Why? What did it matter if a city boy killed a city junkie to a God? The only logical reason was that it wanted Jonathan in his kingdom and there were certain rites that needed to be paid before that could happen.

Again, the question was asked. Why? Why would it want a suicidal man? He arrived at another answer in the form of another question. Who is the master of wolves? Who is the master of the savage things? All this God had was violence. An entire life of violence. An eternity of violence. Maybe it was like a poison. Maybe not a poison, but something that was fundamentally changed by the addition of some small thing. He would tear himself apart, or this place would tear itself apart like two wolves killing each other over meat.

Jonathan moved out from the circle of wolves, carving through a sea of black, niggling fur. The white wolf glared and Jonathan felt the Steward take hold of him. He had no where to go and expected to die by some horror fashion. The addict made panicked gurgles and Jonathan didn’t need to look to see that the circle was breaking. The meat was defenseless and hurt could be as good as dead. The Steward’s hold weakened as its want to devour slithered into both their minds. The Steward was a wild thing without Jonathan’s will and its subjects were feeding without it. The white wolf moved forward through the swarm of ravenous wolves toward Jonathan. This would be how he died. The white wolf opened its massive maw and a glimmer of light washed across his face. The fangs never pierced his flesh and death did not come.

He sat on his apartment floor, turning June’s engagement ring in his hand. Sorrow still burned in his chest and June was still murdered. Jonathan could still smell smoke and could still feel tendrils of the murderous anger. In the silence of his small apartment, he could hear phantom footfalls of black wolves and the howls of the wild.