Day 10

Word vomit.

Dark thought dark cloud, what is there to see tonight, you look so sweet in pale moonlight, I never would have guessed you were the Devil in sheep’s clothing, more like a wolf, a spawn of unholy madness, a tower of terror in the digital age, all messed up and no place to fall down on your face, never thought you would have seen the light now you’re just a pretty girl all a dither in this ancient world of wonder, thought you might seek out the Devil even though you’re a pretty one yourself, had you at hello did I, had you when I said goodbye, pretty little thing who waits to bite your face in the night, waits to slit your pocket with a watch and wallet, waits to stab you in the back with all the trappings of a wonderful wedding, with what you cannot explain, no, it’s just an early summer day and here you are, gleaming in the sunlight with all your teeth shining brightly and the words lost on you as you see me rise up out of the ashes, what have you done little woman, what is it you find, a monster creeping behind you with great black unfurling wings, will he eat you, oh, maybe he’s the Devil you ran from, maybe he is me but you thought you would escape, now you run, now you lie, now you scream for mercy but it is the blood on your hands, this is your penance my sweet, nothing you know will save you, oh, maybe now you have a chip with which to bargain. 

Day 9

Day 9

Gloves.

Scotty took the thick leather gloves off and shook the dirt from them, then wiped the red dust from his forehead with the back of his sweaty hand and leaned on his shovel. His brown eyes peered up at the sun, and he sighed a little as he saw how high it was in the sky. The scent of concrete, wet and earthy, was heavy on the construction site, and the rattle of trucks, cars, and the raucous jackhammer were all a blur of noise. Scotty breathed deeply through his nose, the musty smell of his dust mask both annoying and comforting.

“Hey, Longfellow, get back to work!” shouted the foreman from the second floor of the house frame. He said it with a grin, though. Foreman Frank had been a longtime family friend of the Longfellows, and Scotty owed this job to him.

“Yessir, Mister Foreman!” Scotty cried jovially, with far too much gusto, and began attacking the dirt frantically where he was digging the trench line. Foreman Frank barked a laugh, shook his head, and went back to talking on his cell.

Scotty continued digging, though at a much steadier pace, all the way from the side of the house, where the kitchen would eventually be, down to the street, where they would connect the plumbing lines with the city water lines. It was not a hard trench to dig, only 2 feet wide by 2 feet deep, but it took Scotty the better part of an hour to complete it. Afterward, he stuck the shovel back into its slot on the truck, smacked his gloves free of dust again, and joined the crew moving 2x4s from the delivery trailer to the house. It was slow work, and none of the other workers were in any particular rush. They were, after all, paid by the hour.

“Hey, Scotty,” said Oscar, a burly man in his 30’s with long, lank hair and shoulders like hubcaps, “You wanna take it a little slower.” He looked slightly annoyed that Scotty was on his third trip with the wood, while the rest of them were coming back from their first,

“The faster you go, the faster it goes!” said Scotty, cheerfully, repeating the old adage his dad had told him since he was young. Scotty didn’t love the work, but there were worse jobs, and at the age of 17 he had had a few of them already. Just last month he had been cleaning sewage trucks at the end of the day. Not something he would be keen to get back to, and now that he worked here he probably wouldn’t need to be frying burgers and asking snotty people in SUVs if they wanted extra Fry Sauce at Freddy’s either. As he went back for his fourth and final load of wood, because there was no more on the trailer, he felt a sudden burst of energy.

Tonight, he thought.

The work went slowly. He helped move the 2x4s and some of the bigger beams into place as more experienced men measured, cut, planed and finally hammered them into place. The dull yellowish frame of the house had been standing for days, and they were finally beginning the inside rooms. Scotty helped mostly with the ground floor, though Foreman Frank called him up to the second floor several times to carry heavy bags of tools and hardware down from the second and third floors. The house, when it was finished, would be a monster. 7 bedrooms, 3 full baths and 2 powder rooms, with living rooms on every floor, and kitchenettes on both second and third. It had already been bought by a cattle rancher, who had apparently got a big contract with Wally-World.

Then, as Scotty was holding the last board for the doorway to the 4 car garage in place for Gilbert to nail into place, he heard Frank yell, “Wrap it up, guys!”

Scotty’s pulse quickened. Once the beam was in place, he jogged around, making sure he had everything he had left at the site, including the empty Gatorade bottle and the snack wrappers he had stuffed in one of the work buckets. With a spring in his step, he hopped into the back of Oscar’s truck, and within minutes the wind was whipping his long red hair around, blowing the dust off his bright yellow shirt.

He watched the Oklahoma highway blow past as Oscar hurtled down I-44, then onto I-40, out west toward the edges of Oklahoma City. Scotty gazed fixedly at the clouds, shimmering with different colors, not a thought or worry in his mind as he got closer to home.

“Allright, kid,” said Oscar gruffly. He had already lit a cigarette and looked ready for a cold brew and a shower. “You take care, ya hear?” He eyed Scotty doubtfully, as though assuming the Longfellow kid did nothing but cause trouble in his off hours.

“Will do, Oscar,” said Scotty, slapped the side of the truck. He quickly ran down the long gravel drive toward the small, cheaply built stilt house. The front screen door was tattered from the recent storms. He would have to remember to fix that this weekend.

“Mom!” shouted Scotty, blasting through the door and towards his small room, “I’m going out!”

“You just got home!” she yelled back at him, coming out of the kitchen and wiping her hands on her gray, stained apron. “I made lasagna, you stay for dinner, then you can go out.”

Scotty groaned loudly, but knew there was no arguing. Maddie Longfellow worked long hours as a nurse at Integris Baptist Hospital, and she rarely had time to cook. When she did, her sons did not leave leftovers.

Scotty leapt into the shower, rinsed himself while humming along to the sound of Ozzy Osbourne on his shower radio. With a rush of excitement, knowing he was an hour or so until freedom, he toweled and dressed. His leather gloves, worn in the palms from handling so many different types of tools, lay forgotten on the floor, at least until tomorrow. Scotty slid on his nicest pair of jeans, drew a clean t-shirt down his chest, and, after lacing up his comfortable Vans, stuck a pair of black mesh athletic gloves into his back pocket.

The lasagna was delicious, but Jerry and Bill both talked his ear off about their days at school. Jerry, the youngest, had just started middle school, while Bill was finishing up high school. Bill asked longingly about Scotty’s job. Scotty had worked hard and graduated early, and he was saving up every cent over the next year to go to an out of state trade school, where he would learn to work with mechanical lathes and, hopefully, be able to transfer to a full time university with a mechanical engineering program with the credits. Bill wanted to follow suit, and hung on Scotty’s every word about what to do.

Finally, after pecking his mom on the cheek and yelling that he would be back later, Scotty ran to the garage.

He threw the door open and stared.

There she was.

His very own 1968 Road Runner. This was a real car, not like the fiberglass crap on the road these days. 425 horsepower, with a 426-cubic-inch Hemi V8, she gleamed in the dying sunlight, gloss cherry red with black racing stripes. Since the age of 10 he had been restoring this car with his dad, and it was only in the last few months that he had been able to drive it, as he finally had his license. He remembered with clarity the day they had stumbled across the chassis in a junkyard. It was his 9th birthday, and he had told his dad he wanted a truck. Stanley Longfellow, an engineer with an oil firm out of Oklahoma City, told his son that no boy should have a truck. They didn’t have anything to haul.

“Pick a car instead, son,” he had said, and it was at that moment Scotty had seen the rusted but intact blocky front of the Road Runner. It had cost them $1300, which Stan had said was a steal.

Scotty let out a war-whoop, and ran toward the car, sliding across the hood Dukes of Hazzard style. He shot through the window and slammed the ignition forward, revving the powerful engine. Before he shifted into gear, he slowly and carefully pulled on his gloves with glee. He was going to race tonight, and nothing could stop him.

Hours later, when the fiery wreckage was being sorted through by Oklahoma Highway Patrol and Maddie Longfellow, having buried her husband from stage 4 liver cancer only months before, was sobbing on the side of I-40, the fingers in the gloves, which had not quite burned through, still held the leather steering wheel.

Day 8

In need of prompt. 
Overstuffed, I sit on the couch, slowly letting the adrenaline drain from my body from the long, desperate day of toil. The potatoes have been cooked, the bills nearly paid. I place the headphones into my tired ears, only to take them out. Check on the kids. Pay the mortgage. Hear what is being said. This is the time I should be creating my novels, should be telling a story that would make an old man weep and a young girl sing with joy, but the distractions are not preventing the creation of beauty. It is within me where the blockage lies, from my soul, which does not possess any beauty in this moment. 
The lyrics scream into my ears, and suddenly, is that something? Is there an idea for me to pen, something original to develop? No, it is an old idea, an old song, one already sung by bards, and by teenagers who do not know a note from a tone. 
There are many things in my mind, but none of them are words. The words are what I desperately need, the words drive me from one moment to the next, a dying man across a barren desert in search of the words. 
My head aches.
There are many things in my mind. Will the weekend be long or short? How did I ever survive without rest, in the days I was young, quick and full of promise? I am not without promise now, but I feel the quickness has left my limbs, like a battery slowly drains throughout the long day. I become more quickly charged these days, sometimes quick to anger, but more often everything simply seems clearer. It is true what they say, then, that as the body slows, the mind does not necessarily. It is a paradox, but unimportant. I leave it on the glowing path I walk in my mind, lay it gently on the floor and move down the line. 
There are many things in my mind. The fear is there, but that lies closer to my chest, closer to the organ which, dare I think it, may stop at any time. Will it burst? Will it snap? I cannot not think about it, there must be some thought pouring into it or it will cease beating on its own. There are solutions to that particular problem, but they draw back to the quickness again, that quickness I desperately need these days. My anger flares, and I tell myself this too will change.
But then I feel the desire of ice cream, and that anger too lays upon the bright golden road of my thoughts. 
There are many things on my mind. Mostly, the thoughts bite, just like the pain in my head and back. It is easy for them to come and go, flitting in and out like canaries. Or are they robins or, oh what is that other bird. I feel angry when I force the words.
Sparrow.
There are many things on my mind. The many tasks on my to do list overshadow my joy of hearing each individual key click on my keyboard, but if there were ever a hypnosis strong enough to work on my mind, it is the typing of words steadily upon a keyboard. I wonder if Stephen King writes like this, fingers flying back and forth.
Probably. He probably knows all the words, sees them brightly in his mind, miles before he writes them. For me, it is as though accord connects to a dark room, from where the words fly willy-nilly, without rhyme, reason or rhythm. I can only see two steps in advance, so much in the moment does my tactical mind live; strategies are for action, for doing. In that, I can see leagues along. I can plan where to go, what to say, what moves to take, unless I am sitting still. 
They have probably invented a way to type while walking. But, there again, I lack the quickness.
There are many things on my mind tonight. As I look around my wonderful living room, surrounded by my wonderful family, a small part of me questions why they cannot come to the forefront and spill onto the page like oil onto the ground. Do I lack the required skill? The knowledge?
Am I bereft of story?
Am I just mediocre, just like Brian said then?
Quickly, for within my mind I have quickness now, I examine my life. 
I find no answers, negative or positive. The logic says the slight dehydration, the overwork, the toil of my body to provide for my family and to make my life better are what keeps the words from the page.
The heart says it is because I have yet to slay giants, to do something really extraordinary. 
The feet say it is because there is too much to say, too much I have already done, what needs more to be said?

Day 7

Lantern.

The yellow light bathed everything in an eerie light, making Giles feel as though he were in a surrealist’s painting. Obwall snored too loudly and Dunstill’s mouth hung slightly open as his head rolled slowly from one shoulder to the other. The swaying motion of the airplane had lulled most of the grime-covered men to sleep, but Giles stayed awake. He never could sleep in a vehicle. It always made him feel uneasy, his body moving faster than it was supposed to. Giles supposed it went back to blood, as his family were all dirt farmers from the Deep South, and had only purchased a car when Eisenhower built the freeways. The 1957 Chevy Bel Air was still the family car, a faded baby blue with spots of rust and a rebuilt engine so old it had parts from four different manufacturers. Giles could remember the feel of the steering wheel the first time-

‘Hey Joe,” said a sleepy voice to his right. “You mind killing the light?” Sergeant Creeg had fallen back asleep before Giles had a chance to answer, but he dimmed the light of his Coleman lantern all the same. The shadows lengthened, casting odd shapes on the steel floor and padded walls of the compartment of the C-17. Giles was just glad it was roomy enough for them all. He laid Military Strategy and Tactics: A Soldier’s Guide on top of his ruck, gripped the belts of his harness, pushed his boots out in front of him, and yawned widely, blinking the sleep from his eyes. All the other soldiers were racked out.

That’s odd, thought Giles. He could have sworn Lucas and Boles were awake just moments ago, chatting quietly about the mission. He looked at Boles. The red haired bodybuilder took up almost two seats by himself, but Giles had never seen him so relaxed, even clocked out in a bunk. Lucas, the skinny, dark haired scout of their motley crew was likewise normally tense, and had an odd habit of waking up every few minutes at night, ever since his previous platoon had been mortared for two days while taking an enemy compound. Now, though, he was splayed in his seat, limbs pointing at odd angles.

Giles looked at everyone else. Then he realized that their faces were clear, in sharp relief.

He looked at his lantern.

The little Coleman bulb was growing brighter. The dial was still, but the bulb burned with more and more force. Giles had to turn away.

A stab of fear ran down his throat.

The windows were lit from the outside. They were far up in the mountains, and the only thing they should see were clouds and stars, but he could see pale light taking up the entirety of each ovular window. Giles stared dumbstruck for a moment, his heart deep in his stomach. Was it an enemy plane? Were they going to be shot down? He glanced down the compartment toward the steps leading to the cockpit. He sat on the side of the plane, on the last row at the front, but at the right edge of the airship, blocked from seeing the flight deck. Were the damn pilots going to tell them what the hell was going on? He strained his ears.

And heard nothing.

There was no hum of engines.

There were no small gurgles of air escaping from the cabin air system.

Giles eyes bulged. With a massive effort, because it suddenly seemed that his entire body was filled with lead, he grasped at his buckles. His fingers felt like frozen sausages, stiff and lifeless, even though he could detect no change in cabin temperature. The muscles of his forearms burned from even this small effort, but he was able to unbuckle his harness. He pushed his body forward with another monumental effort of will, and his face hit the gritty slip-resistant strips.

Above him he heard a small pop.

The bulb on the lantern had exploded in its case.

Giles looked up.

With a terror he could not explain, he saw the filaments glowing even brighter, beginning to burn holes in the plastic case.

Giles took a shallow, shuddering breath. Then, suddenly, he felt a deep anger in his chest. The rational part of his brain had no idea what was happening, but his instincts told him his life was in great danger. He wasn’t going to die, cowering on the floor.

Slowly, he pushed himself upward, then onto his feet. He felt no vertigo, just the heavy sense of his own muscles, as though great weights had been attached to every joint of his body, pulling him down. He put one foot in front of the other, and began to stagger toward the cockpit steps. The faces of the men stood out like sentinels, as though each step were miles and his journey endless. The pale light from the windows had not faded, but had taken on a different hue, somehow less benign, more sinister. He leaned his right hand on the wall, struggling where gaps lead to storage compartments.

Finally, after what must have been hours, he reached the cockpit steps. He let out a small grunt of success.

Then something else grunted.

And clicked.

And, for some reason, let out a small squeal.

There were sounds above him, small clatters and creaks, as something moved on the flight deck.

It was not footsteps.

Giles glanced behind him. In the rear of the cabin, his lantern had finally burned itself beyond recognition. However, he noticed for the first time other lights, which had come to life. Battery lights from headlamps. Small pocket flashlights. Even a laptop screen, a blank white rectangle in the darkness. Like the lantern, they were all burning brightly, casting their light forward. He glanced upward, trying to see the flight deck.

A long, thick cylindrical appendage, like a tentacle but larger than any sea creature had ever possessed, drooped over the edge of the flight deck, illuminated by the lights.

His heart felt ready to leap out of his mouth.

Tears began streaming down his face, an unknown horror gripping his chest.

“Giles,” barked Sergeant Creeg, “Wake up, boy, the damn plane’s getting ready to land and you’re dreaming about the fucking prom queen. Christ on a cracker.”

Day 6

Characters upset with the author.

Rocking back and forth in the weathered chair, I surveyed the small rolling hills outside my cabin as the sun sank below the horizon. The mosquitoes buzzed merrily, looking for their evening meal. I was glad I had already had mine. My lips wrapped around the stogie in my mouth, but I didn’t light it. The doctors warned me that it would cut an end to my already shortened days.

As the rays of the evening sun glanced off the small, brackish pond I kept my koi in, I wondered idly, but without much worry, how many more sunsets I would see.

A soundless explosion in my ears.

My hands flew to my chest.

An enormous weight crushed me, driving me toward the ground. Breaths came in short gasps.

Suddenly, I was back in the hallway of Stonemore High, red lockers and yellow tile floors reflecting fluorescent lights at odd angles. And next to locker 125…

“Otto?” I cried, uncomprehending. It was impossible, but there he was, tall and thin, arms crossed with a sarcastic smirk playing around his lips. He wore a tattered black suit and a red velvet bow-tie, and his complexion accentuated his strong chin and broad cheekbones. Otto stared at me and his smirk widened.

I glanced down at myself.

The hands were smooth and strong, free of knotted veins and wrinkles. I was back in my favorite pair of faded blue jeans, below which were white high-tops. I straightened up and tweaked the seam of my worn leather jacket down off my hip. But that couldn’t be, because that jacket had burned down in the fire.

“Been too long, Ken,” said Otto in the soft, deep voice I had always heard so clearly, like a bell behind my eyes.

“Otto… I… how…” The words couldn’t seem to escape my throat. “How… how are you…here?” I finally choked out.

“Kenneth, I’m surprised. Don’t you remember?” Otto uncrossed his arms and pointed down the hallway, toward Mrs. Gilroy’s classroom. The oak door with the glass pane swung outward moments before the final bell rung, and a young girl in a blood-red sundress came quickly down the hallway, her face blotchy and wet from tears.

“Angela!” someone shouted, and a young boy followed.

A young boy in white high-tops, faded blue jeans and a worn leather jacket.

His pudgy face was contorted in worry. He looked down the hallway, looked right through me, but seemed to take no notice. He saw Angela turning a corner and jogged to catch up with her.

I looked back to Otto. He wasn’t next to the locker, but I saw his thin figure down the hall, turning the same corner. I ran to catch up.

“Otto,” I said, the words coming more easily than they had in years, “I don’t understand! What is going on?”

“You’ll see,” said Otto, a small chuckle in his voice, “I can’t believe you haven’t already.”

Down the hall, the kid had caught up with Angela. Their words were indistinct, but I could see Angela getting more and more agitated. As she brushed hair back around her ears, I felt a long-dead flutter in my stomach come to life.

Then, with a shock, it hit me.

“Son of a…”

Otto turned his face to me, his smile wide. Somehow, though, it didn’t reach his eyes. He looked down at me, searching my eyes.

“That’s when I first thought of her.”

“Selena,” Otto said softly, but the humor had left his face. Otto had always been capricious, and now he glared down at me and crossed his arms. “My Selena.”

I looked up at Otto. His eyes, large and dark, just as I had always imagined them, seemed to glisten slightly.

“Otto… It was… You were…” I said slowly, thinking quickly, but it was pointless.

“Expendable. A fantasy. Just a phantasm in the night.” Otto’s nostrils flared, and he snapped a sudden finger.

The school had vanished. We stood on top of a massive volcano, the glowing magma spitting flames occasionally, and a fierce wind tearing across the barren landscape. Small bits of scrub littered the uneven ground, and the sky was black as soot as a massive storm rolled in. Sulfur burned my lungs, and my pulse quickened, but I had no need to look around. I knew every detail of the landscape, having dreamed every inch almost every night for nearly 14 years. Otto stood next to me, looking across the open chasm at two stick-like figures. They moved gracefully, but the elegant movements were broken by sudden bursts of ugly posture, as though they were having some sort of seizure.

I couldn’t help it. I smiled. This was Mount Dunkall, the same landscape I had spent an entire weeks putting onto paper. I remembered the fitful nights of sleep, the moments I would wake with excitement, only to scribble a few scarce words onto paper and then heave myself back into bed.

“I’m glad you’re excited,” said Otto grimly. His arms were still crossed, but his posture, usually relaxed, was rigid like a statue.

“Otto, we don’t have to stay,” I said, and I suddenly noticed the difference in my voice. With a jolt, I looked down to see the old hands had come back, and the weariness had returned to my limbs. I missed my cane. “We shouldn’t-“

“How long did you know?” asked Otto. “Did you know from the beginning? Or did it come over time?” He stared at me. “Your memories are unclear, you see. Other things,” He said the words with disdain, “took precedence.”

I frowned, a deep resentment building up in my chest at his tone. “Like Angela? Like Charlie and Tiffany?” I paused. “Like Renee?” I said softly, and sniffed. Even now, I couldn’t even say her name without the pain returning.

Otto glowered down at me. “What makes you think they matter… any more… than her?” He pointed across the chasm, just a jet of fire loosed itself from the mass of magma and illuminated the far bank. I could see them clearly, Otto looking fierce, with a long sword in his hand, striking towards Vallin Von Vender, a gruesome figure clad in shining blue armor. Out of the darkness came a third figure, a striking woman in chain mail, who swung a massive mace toward Vender. The hulking form of Vender stumbled, but quickly regained his ground and began to swipe furiously at Otto and Selena with his massive battle-axe.

I remembered clearly how the scene would go. I closed my eyes and sighed. As much as he was in my head, I suddenly realized I could feel Otto’s emotions and memories, could see every line of dialogue I had composed, every detail I had given him. He had been one of my favorite characters to write, and was so real to me, that I understood his pain.

“But you aren’t real,” I blurted out angrily. “You all were in my head.”

“And that makes us expendable?!” Otto roared, grabbing me by the shoulders. His eyes gleamed with fury and sadness. “You toyed with us! You threw us against all sorts of evil… and for what? For entertainment!” He spat bitterly.

A sudden howl ripped through the air, and we both swung around to see a colossal mass of fur with glowing red eyes lumbering along the lip of the volcano. It was moving slowly toward Otto and I. The eyes were locked on us, and I knew the creature immediately. Varg, the deadly monster of Felgar Forest. I glanced at the three battling figures on the other bank. They showed no reaction.

A cold stab of fear hit me in the stomach. I knew this story. Varg did not belong here. Varg belonged to the Fallen series, and I hadn’t written that until well after Otto and Vender had this final showdown. Otto looked to me, and I could see he was more confused than scared.

Across the bank, Vender let out a roar of pain, and one of his arms spurted blood. He swung his axe slowly, and the other Otto stabbed him cleanly through the chest.

“No,” I said, the cold filling moving up my spine. “No, that’s not how it goes! She… she should have…”

The Otto next to me stared, then shook his head. “I don’t… understand…” he said slowly.

A light burst in the sky. Through the clouds, a small silver and green tube hurtled towards the ground. Inside, I could just glimpse a figure, bald and hook-nosed. Glandin Four.

“Otto!” I yelled, suddenly looking around. Otto had gone, and so had Selena and Vender. The wolf Varg was only yards away, and as the ship crashed into the earth, I felt the shock-wave push me back.

“Clear!”

“He’s unresponsive. Resuming CPR.”

“Clear!”

“Still nothing.”

“Clear!”