Bleed

by Lori Michelle

  For the last several months, I’ve been having some disturbing dreams about what happened back then, and I’ve been toying with the idea of driving up to Hilton just to take a look around. I still own the property and the lake, so I know no houses have been built along the shore. Everything should be exactly as it was that night more than thirty years ago when my father disappeared.

  If I do go out there, I probably won’t go down to the lake. Or if I do, I’m going to make damned sure I don’t get too close to the water’s edge . . . especially if it’s late in the afternoon. I know how fast it gets dark out there in those woods.

  Still, I wonder what might be out there in Watcher’s Lake, and I wonder what I might find if I were to drive down that narrow dirt road and take a look around. It’s a beautiful autumn afternoon. Maybe when Matt gets home from school, he and I will hop into the car and take a little drive up north. I’ll bet we can get to Hilton long before dark.

  WHERE THE WILD WELO WAITS

  John Hawkhead

  John Hawkhead has been writing and creating illustrations for over 15 years. His work has been published in Australia, Germany, Ireland, Japan, Romania, the UK, and the USA. He specializes in short pieces, including short stories, haiku, one-minute plays (see YouTube) and short poems. John's poem “Helmand” was selected for the Royal British Legion’s official CD recording of war poetry for its Poppy Appeal 2010. He won First Prize in the HaikuNow! 2013 Awards [Traditional Haiku category] Books Published: Witness (Austin Hutcheon, 2010). John's wife Patricia has recently been given the all-clear for her recovery from breast cancer. Sadly, his sister Claire died at a young age as a result of a brain tumour.

  Under a sail jinx, by Long Sandy Nest,

  where benthos hurdles strand at rest,

  the Welo oozes flotsam song;

  cockled, gurgled, burbled along.

  It floods a bilge view; main faraway,

  viscous murmuring of shudder days;

  fluxed on mildew bludgeon rings,

  mizzen pots, straw-spat wings.

  Now jeopardy, now skiff baleen,

  teeming sanguinous, rheumy unseen,

  in mull-malty troughs, brackish lights,

  the Welo eye-starts . . . mines hollow nights.

  A BILLION MONSTROSITIES

  Mort Castle

  Mort Castle has had many award nominations and some wins, among the latter, the Bram Stoker and Black Quill. His work has been translated into Spanish, Italian, French, Hungarian, German, Polish, Russian, Turkish, Greek, Czech, and English

  It was so late that it was early when Rafael Martinez returned to his home, but when one visits the city, as Martinez did more nights than not, a Mexican turista city built to cater to the needs and desires and whims of wealthy gringos, there is much to do, much pleasure to be found and taken in places that are devoted exclusively to pleasure finding and taking. Martinez felt greatly welcome in the city, and why not? He was wealthy, BMW, Mercedes, Jaguar wealthy, Rolex watch, IBM computers, and Pierre Cardin suits wealthy.

  When he turned on the light in his bedroom, Rafael Martinez felt a flash of surprise—but half a moment’s appraisal convinced him that he had nothing to fear from the stranger who somehow had invaded his home and now sat in the arm chair by the balcony window. Rather than fright, Martinez felt anger that his privacy could be impinged upon—but no less did he feel a reassuring familiarity.

  Had he not seen many who looked like this—and had they not brought him a fortune? The stranger looked old, but it was not the natural aging that mankind is heir and prey to; rather it seemed the result of grievous wasting sickness that had stripped away layers of flesh to leave only a parchment skinned skeleton, with a bald head the color of old ivory and too bright, fever-glittering eyes.

  “Who are you?” Rafael Martinez asked sharply. “What are you doing here?”

  “You don’t know me?” The stranger’s voice sounded the way his eyes looked, a fever-glitter sound. “You should. I know you, Rafael Martinez.”

  “Dr. Martinez . . . ”

  “Rafael Martinez, you are no doctor.”

  Rafael Martinez sighed. Whatever this was, he was tiring of it. It was time to summon the police, he decided, and because he saw no threat from the stranger, Rafael Martinez, as he reached for the bed-stand telephone, announced such intention.

  But the stranger was out of the chair, and he gripped Martinez’s wrist, and his fingers were remarkably strong and no less remarkably hot, and Martinez could not pick up the telephone.

  “I’ve come because of the clinic,” the stranger said.

  “I see,” Rafael Martinez said. “But this is quite irregular. We can make the proper arrangements if you will come tomorrow directly to the clinic . . . ”

  “To Rafael Martinez’s famed clinic,” the stranger interrupted.

  “Where I treat the afflicted . . . ”

  “With purges that twist their guts and foul-tasting elixirs that make their heads spin, with hot baths that draw their tiniest bits of remaining strength streaming from their pores in rivers of sweat, and cold baths that freeze their pain within them, with brutal massage and spinal re-alignment that bends their already bent bodies into bizarre postures of screaming misery . . . I know the work of your clinic, Rafael Martinez, and I know you do all this—and you do that which is far worse: You sell false hope to the hopeless.”

  With the stranger’s strong hot grip on his wrist, and the stranger’s eyes unblinking and piercing, Rafael Martinez began to feel fear.

  “Who are you?” he demanded.

  “You know me,” the stranger said, and he let go of Martinez’s wrist.

  And it was now that Rafael Martinez felt within his blood, within his bowels, within his lungs, within his bones and the marrow of his bones, the peculiar movement of a billion and a billion times a billion multiplying monstrosities.

  The pain swelled inside him, waves of pain without diminution, as his body inexorably began to consume itself.

  Rafael Martinez fell to his knees.

  “You know me,” the stranger said once more.

  Rafael Martinez looked up through curtains of thick red and screamed the stranger’s name.

  “Cancer!”

  DANCE OF THE BLUE LADY

  Gene O’Neill

  Gene O'Neill has been nominated for the Bram Stoker award nine times, won twice and published 150 stories, novellas, and novels. He has a rash of short stories coming out this year, and is currently working on a novel The White Plague.

  Timothy Shaw winced when his mother said, “Goodbye, Timmy, I’ll see you at lunch.” Timmy was really a little boy’s nickname, but Tim was thirty years old now. Today, he didn’t complain though as he slipped out the front door. His mom had been sick lately, and Uncle Liam was here to drive her over to see the doctor in Jackson.

  Tim paused outside the door and listened for a moment as they talked. Earlier they’d been whispering loudly back and forth, as Tim had dressed for work in his room. Uncle Liam was always pretty bossy. He liked to give everyone advice, including Tim’s mother. That’s what he seemed to be doing this morning.

  “Kathleen, the boy is a man now. It’s past time to discuss his future—”

  “Can’t it wait?”

  “No, we need to make some decisions, just in case things don’t go well in the next few days at Sutter Memorial Hospital, and well . . . ” His uncle’s voice tapered off.

  There was a long pause, then his mom said in a barely audible voice, “We’ll talk tonight, after dinner, Liam. After I have a chance this afternoon to explain the situation to him.”

  “That’s fine.”

  Tim wasn’t too good with numbers or reading, but he usually picked up well on what people meant when they talked, especially how they felt. Even though he wasn’t sure what they were talking about, he knew his mom was definitely upset.

  It was nippy outside. He blew on his hands, pulled up his collar, hurried over to Main Street, along the two blocks o
f wood-planked sidewalk of Marshall Creek in the Sierra Nevada foothills, past the boarded-up storefronts called downtown, seeing no one out on the street. As he came to the end of Main Street, before it climbed away from the town and headed over the hill toward Jackson, he crossed the road to the town park. A neat, green area of grass, bushes, and oaks, much smaller than the city park over at Jackson. With no play equipment, no statues, no birdbaths, no fountains, no picnic tables or grills. Only two buildings in sight. The old gazebo back on the mound of grass that rose up then sloped down and dropped out of view before reaching Marshall Creek. And far to the right under a large spreading oak, the restrooms.

  Tim headed toward the cinderblock building.

  Waiting for him near the public toilets was Chatterbox, and the gray squirrel was indeed chattering away this chilly morning: Click, click, click, click.

  Tim approached the men’s side of the building, slipped his hand out of his jacket pocket and kneeled near the squirrel. In his palm were five Cheerios. “Hi there, boy,” he said, as the little animal set up on its back legs, carefully plucking each individual piece of cereal out of Tim’s hand, and then popping them into its mouth. “Hungry this morning, eh?”

  Quiet now, with puffed up cheeks, Chatterbox turned and scampered up the nearby large oak. Tim watched the squirrel disappear up the tree, and then smiled to himself. Chatterbox was his only friend left in Marshall Creek.

  After checking around the cinderblock building for non-existent trash, he peeked into the open door of the men’s restroom. Everything look fine, just as he’d left it yesterday. The women’s side was in the same condition. No one had used either restroom. In fact, the toilets were rarely used now that almost everyone had moved away from Marshall Creek. Still, Tim had his job to do.

  He checked the wastebasket, then the paper towel and toilet paper dispensers. Nothing needed servicing today. Now for the cleaning. He went to the supply closet at the far end of the women’s restroom and took out his equipment. With his green duster, he brushed imaginary spider webs and dust from the spotless cinderblock walls; next, he swept the polished concrete floor with the big mop-broom after spraying it lightly with a coat of pine scented oil; then, he thoroughly scrubbed both sinks and the two toilet bowls with Comet, wiping the fixtures down with a thin coat of 409; and finally he sprayed and cleaned the big mirror with Windex. Mr. Spinoza, the Mayor, had shown Tim the routine years ago. Back when he was first hired. His mom said the money to hire him came from an old bank account his grandfather had left to keep up the park. But the money had run out last year around Easter time, and the town could afford nothing more. Tim had continued working five days a week in the small park, taking money for his supplies and gas for the power mower from his savings. Actually, he only needed to come for half a day now that no one regularly used the facilities. It wasn’t necessary to do anything in the afternoons—except Fridays when he mowed the lawn and trimmed bushes.

  He repeated his cleaning routine next door on the men’s side. By the time Tim finished polishing the mirror in the men’s restroom it was almost 11:00. He took all his supplies and equipment back to the cleaning supply closet on the women’s side, carefully storing them away.

  Then, Tim walked around behind the men’s restroom to the storage shed, the padlocked door marked, Staff Only. He took out his key and unlocked the old shed, his pulse speeding up slightly. He opened the squeaky door, ducked his head in, clapped his hands, and smiled broadly. Inside the storage shed, next to his neatly arranged small tools, shovels, rakes, hoes, and big power mower, was a piece of casted sculpture, a statue roughly shaped into a feminine figurine, five feet high, her face lacking distinct features. She wore a coat of greenish-blue rust. On her base were two words faintly stamped into the metal: Prima Ballerina. Tim couldn’t read the inscription, but he’d carefully written down the letters and asked his mom what they meant. He’d seen the ballet on TV a number of times and loved the dancers in their funny costumes. So he understood the elegance suggested by the unknown artist.

  He’d found the statue with three other sculptures, a birdbath, a number of metal picnic tables and benches, and a bunch of other stuff, all packed tightly into an old Quonset hut down by the creek. He’d gone exploring down there after his mother told him that his grandfather had odd ideas about a park. She said that before Tim was born, when his grandfather agreed to set up a trust fund for maintenance of the existing park, the old man required it be cleared of all the donated clutter from the gold rush days. Tim’s mother said her father insisted a park should be kept as pristine as possible—a word Tim liked the sound of, but didn’t fully understand. He knew it meant something like: just green grass, bushes, and trees. The old man had reluctantly agreed to keeping the gazebo donated by the owners of the Fort Ann Mine Company for concerts, and allowing the construction of the restrooms as a modern necessity. But the rest of the stuff had been given away or stored down out of sight in the Quonset hut. When Tim first uncovered the figurine, its natural beauty had taken his breath away. He called her simply, the Blue Lady.

  Eventually Tim had drug the Blue Lady up here to the restroom storage shed, nearer to where he worked. Each day after he finished his janitorial chores, he opened the shed and rewarded himself with a long look at the beautiful sculpture. Sometimes, like today, Tim lifted the Lady out of the shed, closed his eyes, and after a second or so, he’d imagine classical music playing down at the gazebo—violins and all the other instrumental sounds. Then, for a few minutes the Lady would dance for him. Graceful and elegant—two words his mother often used describing the ballet on TV. Oh, how wonderful. He never touched the Lady when she was dancing. No, he didn’t dare. Neither did Tim clean off the rusty stuff. It was like a special blue-green costume she wore. No, the Blue Lady was marvelous just the way she was. And her special dancing and the classical music were Tim’s secret.

  After the dance today, Tim carefully put the Lady back in her hiding place. He locked the shed, circled once around the park to insure that everything was in good shape, and waved goodbye to Chatterbox in the oak tree, before heading back home.

  It was still early so he walked slowly along Main Street, glancing at the signs above the boarded up window fronts, finally pausing at SHAW’S HARDWARE/DRY GOODS—the second part of the sign almost completely faded out now. He wasn’t sure what DRY GOODSmeant anyhow. His grandfather had started the store back when the mines and mills were still running at full strength, maybe fifty or even a hundred years ago, he wasn’t sure. Then, his mom took over when Grandpa died. Tim had been just a young boy then, a real Timmy. She said the town had 3,000 people back then after the Mother Lode was discovered. But people had moved away as the mines closed and the lumber mills shut down. She said the unlucky town was off the beaten track and didn’t get the tourists, like Jackson and Sutter Creek over on well-traveled Highway 49. Tim didn’t understand the numbers or much of what she called economics, but he’d watched his mother shrivel up and grow old unsuccessfully trying to make ends meet at the hardware store. Until last year after the 4th of July parade in Jackson, when she finally closed it. Then just before Christmas she found something wrong in her chest, a bump or something. Tim shook his head. Thinking about stuff like that made him feel funny, kind of sad, nervous, and helpless all at the same time. He sighed and continued along the boardwalk.

  As he passed by the boarded-up windows of the GROCERY STORE/U.S. POST OFFICE, he heard a voice behind him, “Hey, Timmy.” It was Mr. Spinoza, who lived behind the grocery store he once ran. Mr. Spinoza had been the Postmaster and Mayor, too, back when the town had been full of people.

  Tim nodded and smiled.

  “How’s your mother doing, Timmy?” Mr. Spinoza asked, the use of the nickname making Tim clench his teeth. The ex-Mayor was like the rest of the old people left in town: they all called him, Timmy. “Haven’t seen her out and about for a while.”

  “Fine, Mr. Spinoza,” Tim said politely. He knew his mother wasn’t fine, and he d
idn’t feel like mentioning the doctor visit today. He also hoped if he were quiet that Mr. Spinoza would mention something about his daughter, Ava. When the store closed, maybe two years ago, Ava went away to Sacramento to college. Before that she used to occasionally come over to the park and bring Tim a tuna fish sandwich and a cream soda or root beer at lunchtime. “Least I can do for all your hard work, Timothy,” she’d said. Ava was only seventeen then, but she seemed older to Tim. Sometimes he’d pretend that she was his girlfriend. But he knew that was silly. He was too old for her, and, besides, she already had a boyfriend—a football player from Sutter Creek. She was sure pretty though, and had been a really good friend. He missed her. He’d never actually had a real girl friend to take over to the movies in Jackson or anything like that.

  Mr. Spinoza didn’t say much about Ava, just that she was doing okay at Sacramento State, maybe going to be a nurse pretty soon. He said to give Tim’s mom his best, then the ex-Mayor disappeared around the side of his grocery store. Tim watched the stooped old man go, the smells of something cooking reminding him it was lunch time.

  At lunch that afternoon, Tim’s mom had fixed his favorite, meatloaf and mashed potatoes with gravy. But he hadn’t really enjoyed it all that much, because he felt something was wrong. For one thing, his uncle was not eating with them, out walking, checking out the Fort Ann up on the hill. And his mom’s eyebrows were drawn together in that funny kind of way. She wasn’t eating, just sort of moving her food around on her plate. At last she set her fork down.

  “Timmy, we need to have a little talk.”

  He knew this wasn’t going to be like that sex thing, because she didn’t have that silly-nervous smile on her face, her voice strained and high pitched. No, she was really serious . . . and almost looked scared.