After The Phone Rang

She set the handset back down into its cradle, gently, as if afraid to spring a long-dormant trap.

“Who was it?”

“Grandpa.”

Her mother turned, a stony look of disapproval set on her face. It had only been a week since the service. “That’s not funny.”

“It was Grandpa.” She stared at the phone for a moment, slowly picked up the handset and held it up to her ear again; this time, she heard only a dial tone.

“Well if your grandfather called from beyond the grave, it must have been important. What did he say?

“He said, ‘you’re next.’”

Small Bones

He’d been a cop for years. Last eight, a detective: Vice, then Narcotics, now Homicide. He’d been a cop long enough — lord knows, a detective long enough — to have seen everything.

He got back up, wiped his mouth. Someone handed him a water bottle, which he fumbled at opening. The others waited patiently, not judging. They’d all been there, one scene or another. It happens. When he’d collected himself, he ducked back under the yellow tape and stepped carefully down into the gully.

“This was your case?”

“Mindy Earlmann. Seven. She’d be ten now.”

“You’re sure?”

“I remember the backpack.”

Lady Luck

I’ll make a deal with you: if you roll a six, I’ll cut you loose. I mean it, I’ll cut the ropes, I’ll unlock the door, and you can run. I won’t chase you. Any other number, though, and… here’s the gun right here.

Or, you can roll again. If you roll a six again, I’ll not only cut you loose, let you go, but I’ll wait until the cops come and let them catch me.

Or you can roll a third time. And if you roll a six again, I’ll take the gun and shoot myself in the head.

Hitman

The wife was in the bath, candles and a glass of wine, earbuds in, didn’t hear a thing. The two teenagers were out of the house: daughter at volleyball practice, son smoking weed with some underclassmen. The General was in his study, reading something, briefing papers, probably. I don’t really care. I shot him before he could look up, one round to the hairline.

That should have been it. But he looked up, surprised, then annoyed, and then kind of a perverse amusement, and the gaping wound in his head sucked itself closed, and he goes, “Who sent you? I’ll tell you who: someone with a sense of humor.”

You know what? I told him exactly who they were, and where he could find them. And I offered to take the contract for half my usual price. Because fuck you, don’t withhold important intel like, ‘your target is a demon’.

Yolanda Used To Be Amy

I spent eight years in prison for negligent homicide — Colton, and don’t ask me how him getting clawed by a demon and then shooting himself in the head is on me, legally speaking, but here we are — and when I got out, I moved to Minneapolis and changed my name. I worked a shit job for long enough to afford plastic surgery, and then changed my name again and moved to San Antonio. I work for a builder, managing the cash payroll for the undocumented workers, and for myself. No one here has ever asked for my social security number, and if they did, I wouldn’t show up the next day and their lockbox would be empty.

The baby, our baby, Colton’s and mine, would be about twelve now. They took her away, and later they told me she died, but I don’t believe that for a second. I don’t know whether she’s going to come looking for me one day, show up on my doorstop. I don’t know she’s evil. Not for sure. I don’t know she started that fire. But I had one of the guys find me a .32 without a serial, just in case.

Prisoner Alpha

So it’s an easy shift. No problems. You stand right here, and check in on the radio every half an hour. There used to be a chair, but they stopped letting us sit down after Portney fell asleep. Every once and a while, maybe once every three or four months, one of the big bosses comes down. You don’t have to check IDs or anything, Head of Security will be with them every time. Anybody else comes out of that elevator, you turn ‘em right back around. Don’t let them go down the hall. Nobody gets down the hall unless they’re with Head of Security. And son? Don’t go down the hall yourself. Ever. Don’t get curious, and figure, oh, no one will know because there’s no cameras. Even if you hear noises, don’t go down the hall. What kind of noises? Son, you’ll know it when you hear them.

Fantasy Drabble #382 : “Divorcée”

“You’re Fred? Sam’s friend?”

“…Yes, ma’am.” It was later than normal for a delivery.

“You can put the bags there, on the counter.” She tapped her cigarette ash into the kitchen sink, absent-mindedly played with the belt from her robe. “Sam said you’re quite the track star.”

“All-State, two years running. I’ll be on the college team come September.” He put the groceries down gently. He turned back, leaned against the counter. This is where I normally ask for a tip. “Sam mentioned you as well.”

“Well.” She smiled slyly, fangs just showing. “That makes this simpler, then, doesn’t it?”

Admit Bearer Plus One

I’ll clean up tomorrow. Maybe the next day. Whenever the room stops spinning.

At least it’s quiet, finally: The DJ left hours ago. All my guests are asleep in the various nooks and crannies of the house, and all the humans are dead. Some of them won’t stay dead, and I’ll have a few more friends than when the party started.

It’s funny: I remember being brought to a party like this. It was Val’s. I remember being buzzed and being happy, and I remember being terrified and being bitten.

We really should do this more than once a year.

Hostile Takeover

Thank you, thank you. Thanks. First, I’d like to thank the outgoing Chairperson, Amanda Unvers, she’s been great, really fantastic last six quarters, Amanda. Let’s hear it for her.

So I know a leadership transition can be difficult for any well-established company, and I know there’s some trepidation in middle and even upper management about downsizing and other changes, and I’m here to tell you: there’s gonna be some downsizing and other changes, but we’re gonna get through ‘em together. Well, some of you aren’t: some of you will be torn to shreds and fed to the hellhounds we now have chained in the basement. Starting with Amanda here. But some of you are going to come through just fine.

Now, if you’re worried that you’re part of the torn-to-shreds group, you probably are. But there’s good news: you can get out of this group, there’s totally a way, and here’s how: inform on people who deserve to get torn to shreds more than you. I mean, ultimately, we’ll be the judge, Asmodeus, and Mammon and I, but some good dirt on your coworkers will go a long way towards swaying us.

Anyway, that’s all, and enjoy your casual Friday.

Our Final Rest

“Found him.”

I made my way to where Finch stood, hands on hips, looking down. “Are you sure that’s Thomas?”

He snorted. “How many skeletons you think there are out here?”

“Dunno. I’ll bet more than one.” It was an ideal dumping ground, actually, close enough to a gravel road that you wouldn’t have to carry a corpse far, but far enough from civilization that you could perform the task without once being seen. “Could be bodies all through these woods, going back decades. Maybe—”

“Fine, fine. But this is him.”

“It’s me, Ben.” The voice came from the skull, though there was no movement. There was no jaw to move, or lips or tongue, and yet…

A cold chill ran down my spine; I hissed at Finch, “Jesus, don’t do that. You always… Can you warn me before you cast the spell? Can you do that?”

“Well, not now I can’t, it’s done.”

“Sorry if I startled you, Ben.” The skull intoned, in that familiar voice. “Seriously.”

“Whatever, let’s get on with this. Who killed you?”

There was a pause, before Thomas’ skull finally said, “You don’t know?”

“If I knew that, I wouldn’t be—”

“It was Finch, Ben.”

Folio

“I’m looking for a book.” He was bone-thin, sickly thin, dressed in an once-expensive Italian suit gone frayed at the edges. “I’m told you have it?”

He knew the man on sight, knew the book he must want. “We’re closed.”

“It won’t take but a moment.”

If I excused myself to make a phone call, would I reach the telephone? “I—”

“Perhaps you have it in antiquities? I’d be grateful if you’d have a look. It’s a large book, an old book, written in a dead language—” The man was suddenly behind him, “—or more properly, the language of death.”

A Foggy Day

“We wait ‘til it passes.” He stared out the window, down into the white, where the streets should be, the ground. “Can’t be much longer.”

“It’s been three days—” She didn’t look up from her magazine, something from months ago, that had been left in a drawer in the room. “—without power, phone service, without anyone coming up out of that soup. How long are we just going to sit here? Until we starve to death?”

Sixteen hours ago, Frank had gone down to try to find the kitchen, flashlight in hand, and not returned. “We wait ‘til it passes.”

Artifact

Brraaaang. Brraaaang. A sound he hadn’t heard in years, and only then because nostalgic types would make it their smartphone’s ringtone. He dug the old bakelite relic out of the chest, set it on the dusty attic table, picked up the receiver and held it to his ear. “…Hello?”

The distant, tinny voice on the other end said, “You’re braver than most people.”

“Sorry?”

“The phone isn’t plugged in. Even if it were plugged in, and you paid for landline service, phones like this won’t work with the new system. So when this phone rings, any reasonable person would be given pause. Wouldn’t you say?”

“I suppose.”

“But you answered nonetheless.”

“I suppose I did. Was there something you wanted?”

There was a pause. “Well, as I said, it usually doesn’t get this far. I’m afraid you’ve rather thrown me off.”

“Sorry about that.” He switched the receiver to the other ear, held it in place with his shoulder while he straightened his tie. “Would it help if I admitted to being mildly disturbed?”

The voice sighed. “It’ll have to do for now. Hopefully the flickering lights will have more success.”

“Come again?”

“Nothing.” A click, then only dial tone.

Flurry Of Blows

The ghost was in the doorway, again, staring at him, again. “Go away.”

She floated in, along the wall with the bookcases, a spectral fingertip stretched out to pass through the book-spines like a stick clattering down a row of fence-posts. She turned the corner, kept following the wall. She kept her eyes on him, always.

“There’s nothing for you here. Perhaps the kitchen.” If she were to find the hammer that killed her, she would find she could touch it, lift it, and then she would come for him. “Or, perhaps the stables.”

She was behind him.

“Or, try—”

The Cost Of Doing Business

Twitchy is the first one to arrive. He’s always early. He doesn’t come in immediately, not that he ever does. He sits in his van, slumped down in his seat and nervously watching the building for a while. Sometimes he does this for as long as twenty minutes before sprinting for the stairs. Today it’s only five.

Twitchy isn’t his real name; I don’t know his real name. I don’t know any of their real names, except for Lucy.

Twitchy doesn’t say anything to me. He slips past me when I open the door and only relaxes — relatively speaking — when it’s closed again. I don’t like being alone with him, but there were guarantees. I go back to making the tea. The tea is part of the deal, and the cookies are part of the deal, and they have to be perfect, or there’s complaining.

The Witch comes next, leaning on her cane. She rings the bell once and waits patiently. She smiles at me when I open the door, thanks me, calls me ‘dear’. She leaves behind a faint scent of powdered sugar and vanilla when she passes. Sometimes she asks me about my day. I try to be vague; she doesn’t pry. If I didn’t know the company she kept I would have no reason to fear her, none at all.

There are three more. Sometimes, like today, the Fat Man gives the Kid a lift, and they arrive together. Sometimes the Kid pedals up on a bike, or rolls up on a skateboard, or doesn’t show at all. Fat man is wheezy and exasperated, and immediately eats a cookie but ignores the tea; the Kid is lost in his smartphone.

By the time I see Lucy approaching the bottom of the stairs, I’m done with my part. I grab my purse and slip outside, pulling the front door closed behind me.

When Lucy reaches the landing, I begin, “Listen—”

“Good afternoon.”

“Listen—”

“Is everyone here?” He interrupts again, his tone civil and imperious. “And is everything prepared?”

“There was a murder. Last time, that night.” I rehearsed this, practiced it in my head, but just being near him, the anxiety…

“I’d imagine there are murders every night.” His mouth stretches slowly into a smile. “People being people.”

“This was the kid from downstairs. From downstairs.”

“I don’t see what that has to do with—”

“The cops came. They were asking questions, was there anyone strange around, any vistors. They asked the rental office for the security footage.” I shake my head. “A kid, Lucy. A six year old kid. That wasn’t part of the deal.”

Lucy looks at me like my mother used to look at me when I was little, when I railed against an eight o’clock bedtime. He puts his hands on my shoulders; they are uncomfortably warm against my skin, but under them a chill spreads through the muscle and bone. “The deal was, you live. Instead of bleeding out all over the roof of an upside-down Charger like your boyfriend. There’s nothing about the kid downstairs in the deal. And there won’t be anything on the security tapes.” He brushes nonexistent dust off my coat-sleeves, he straightens a collar that was never askew. “So stop worrying.”

He steps past me, opens the apartment door, closes it behind him. There is polite applause from the others. I hurry down the steps. I will go to the diner on the corner, and order lunch, like I always do; I will eventually vomit it into the toilet in the back, like I always do.

Fantasy Drabble #380 ”Barry Constantine”

I killed a demon in the parking lot of a Waffle House three days ago. That’s not really the beginning of the story, but it’ll do for now. Since then they’ve been trying to find and kill me. One of us for every one of them, that kind of thing. But they’re not that bright, so the number of us I owe keeps going up.

Sorry. But staying alive is kind of a priority for me. So if I’m asleep and someone knocks on the door, asks to come inside, but can’t say the Lord’s Prayer… don’t let them in.

What Was Before Now

There is the beach, and there is the ocean, and there is the sky. Shards of broken boat litter the beach and the ocean, but there are none in the sky, none that she can see. Presumably it was her boat, the boat that deposited her here, but she doesn’t remember anything about it.

The future, that she can see. She sees the float plane that is to come, the yet-unfired signal flare, she sees the pilot and the wave of his gloved hand. She knows what she will say and how much of it he will believe. There is a gun under the seat, but she won’t discover that until later, sometime tomorrow, long after she realizes she can fly the plane without him.

It will be a three hundred and seven mile trip — most of it alone — to the weather station, where the radio is, where civilization can be reached. The radio operator will have been the pilot’s wife, and she will feel a momentary pang of guilt and regret in the face of the woman’s panic.

This will all be prelude.

The next part, the important part, she won’t be allowed to see until it’s much closer.

The Next New Amsterdam Vampires

It’s me, and Rocky, sometimes, and Willa. Still no Coral, still no Wen. Rocky would leave if Coral came back, probably, not that he’s said that explicitly. Willa’s young, or was young. Rocky made her. She approached him, wooed him, pitched herself as a candidate. She practically opened her own veins and pulled him by the hair to drink.

She’s fine. I don’t mind Willa. Terrible taste in music, but who gives a shit. She drags us to clubs and goes after blondes, always blondes: Rocky is her sugar daddy and they’re looking for a three-way. It’s a strong play, and usually pays off for them. I do what I’ve always done.

We have a house, this time, bought with pooled money as a fixer-upper. It’s comfortable now, though by design still non-descript. Rocky’s converted the basement into a bachelor pad and Willa’s room is a pink-and-white daydream festooned with LED string lights. Late mornings, I check on both of them, the way Coral used to.

Rocky is still asleep, and alone. Willa is up, earbuds in, dancing around in her skivvies, folding laundry. There’s a girl in her bed. “She going to be a problem?” I am channeling Coral, who was probably channeling her own maker, whoever that had been.

Willa pulls one earbud, squints, asks, “Huh?”

“The girl. Problem?”

“Nope. No problem. She’s for me.”

“Sure, but…” I pull the door shut behind me, take a step in. Willa nonchalantly stays between me and the bed. “Are you… is she alive?

Willa grins. I know this grin from other situations. It’s puckish. “She’s Schrodinger’s co-ed.”

“She’s a college student?”

“Not anymore.”

“Willa—”

“I told you. She’s mine.” She takes out the other earbud, crosses her arms. “I’m sick of just having two old dudes to talk to. I like her. She’s staying.”

Meaning Willa has made her. Meaning she’s turning, even now, lying in the bed. “I wish you’d consulted—”

“Did Rocky ask you for permission before turning me?”

“No, and that was a problem, just like this is.”

“I am not a problem.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“O.K., dad.” Behind her, a momentary stirring: a weak groan, a form contracting into a fetal position, a heavy sigh.

“Does she have a name?” Do you know her name? How much consideration did you give this?

“Emma.”

“You realize she’s your responsibility.”

An eyeroll. “Yeah.”

“You have to teach her. You have to… you barely know what you’re doing yourself.”

“Rocky will help.”

Speaking of Rocky; he’s behind me. “Hey, somebody’s at the front door.”

Willa glances out the window, sees a beat-up Toyota at the curb. “Oh, that’s her boyfriend.”

“Her b—”

Willa grabs a pair of pants. “I’ll get rid of him.”

Emma sits up with a start. “What… ” We all turn to look at her. “What’s going on? Will?”

Willa starts to answer, but realizes my hand is around her throat.

“Listen up, everybody.” I never understood Coral. Not really. “Here’s some new rules.”

Leaving The Nest

She was packing when he got home. “What’s this?”

“I’m going.”

“Where?”

“L.A.”

“Awfully sunny in L.A.” He sat on the edge of the bed, arms folded, prepared to talk it out. “Maybe reconsider?”

“Fuck off.”

“If you would just calm down and—”

“No really,” she spun suddenly, pointed a finger trembling with rage at the bridge of his nose. “Fuck off.”

He shrugged, got up, took off his suit-jacket. “How about one more for the road then?” When he turned again, she was inches from him, fangs out, eyes like pinholes, hissing. “I can’t tell, is that a ‘yes’?”

The Umbrella Man

He’s in the crowd somewhere, beside the lady with the grocery bags, behind the two middle-school girls sharing a pair of earbuds, a few steps ahead of George from down the street walking his dog. He ducks around lampposts and between parked cars where the sidewalk is blocked, never motionless, never breaking his stride. His progress through the city is relentless.

You ignore him, because deep down, you know he’s going to someone else’s office, or home, or table at the coffee shop. He’s coming for them, not you. You wouldn’t see him coming, if he was coming for you.