Unusual Events: A Short Story Collection

by Max Florschutz

  Principal Halkias didn’t say a word as they walked out.

  * * *

  “So it’s all taken care of?” Jonathan asked as he sat down next to her on the couch, clearly tired after a long day.

  “Yep,” she said, letting her phone slip out of her fingers and fall to the couch cushions. She watched it for a moment and then turned to look at her husband. “Turns out, it’s not the first time some parent has voiced concerns over this. Halkias’ butt is in hot water. He’s probably going to need a new job come next school year.”

  “Well, I can’t say I’ll shed tears when he leaves. What about Adrien?”

  She shrugged. “It took him a bit to realize that he wasn’t getting punished for being suspended. The school board will probably rescind it, but …” She caught his eyes with hers. “I think he’s earned a break. Maybe some dad time? You can probably call in sick.”

  Jonathan nodded. “We could go fishing. What about—?” He snapped his fingers. “Right. The retreat.”

  “Yeah,” she said, nodding. “I’m already packed. Don’t worry though. I’ll miss you.” She leaned to one side, snuggling herself into his chest as he wrapped his hands around her shoulders. She could hear his heartbeat pick up slightly at the contact. Aww, what a softie.

  “So, how did you know he was lying?”

  She froze. “What do you mean? I mean, it was pretty obvious. Nikki Halkias, Principal Halkias …”

  “Yeah,” Jonathan said. “I’m just amazed you remembered that.”

  She shrugged. “I’m a mom. You don’t mess with moms. We’ll tear you a new one.” His answering laugh was rich and light.

  “That … and I had a hunch. He was acting odd.”

  “Odd?”

  “You know … Sweaty, nervous … stuff like that.” And his heart was pounding a mile a minute. That was a big clue.

  “Good catch.”

  “Yeah.” She pushed herself a little closer. Huh, private time. Adrien’s off playing outside somewhere, we’re all alone in the house … “Hey, Jonathan?”

  “Yeah?”

  She took a slow, controlled breath. “Remember when I went to Argentina a few months ago?”

  She could hear his heartbeat pick up as she asked, the way his body tensed up beneath her. He remembered. Vividly, she was sure.

  “How could I forget?” he asked. “To get that phone call at six in the morning, to rush to get Lydia here so she could watch Adrien …” He went quiet for a moment, then spoke again. “Sorry. What about it?”

  “I …” Do I tell him? Her voice seemed to be caught in her throat. “Well …”

  * * *

  “So you didn’t tell him?” Jane asked as she peeled her shirt off, tossing it up onto one of the cabin’s two bunks.

  “No, I didn’t,” Alma said, shaking her head as she pulled off her boots and kicked them over toward the side of the couch. The cabin wasn’t a bad place—rustic, but certainly spacious enough for the two of them, and nicely isolated. The lights were electric—solar—and there was running water from a tank in the back, but other than that it was free of the ordinary trimmings of civilization. The lights weren’t even on at the moment; the sun had gone down, but neither of them had need of them for the time being.

  No, what I need is to get out of these pants, Alma thought as she undid her belt. The moon was rising soon, and contrary to some beliefs, clothes didn’t shift with you.

  “It wasn’t the right time,” she said as she began to tug her pants down. Jane was already almost completely undressed, her modesty only covered by her underwear. “Not right before I leave. He can have fun with Adrien that way.”

  “But when you get back?” Jane asked as she stripped the last of her clothing away.

  “Yeah,” Alma said as she tugged her shirt over her head and tossed it on the couch. Her bra followed. She could see the faint light of the moon rising on the horizon—thankfully it had been a late moonrise, or they wouldn’t have made it to the cabin in time. She kicked her underwear down her legs and atop the pile. Her skin was already beginning to prickle. “When I get back. I’ll tell him … or maybe,” she said, flashing her friend a grin as the edge of the moon poked its way over the edge of the mountains, silver light spilling through the cabin windows. “Maybe I’ll show him.”

  The change was on her in an instant, her skin heating as the virus in her bloodstream surged into activity. Patterns erupted across her skin as hairs began to change. The world blurred as her eyes shifted. Ears moved and stretched. Her balance twisted. She shut her eyes and waited, waiting for the dull burn in her muscles to fade. When it stopped, she opened them again.

  Jane was standing across the cabin floor from her, a massive but slender wolf shape that was only somewhat human. She grinned.

  Alma grinned back as she looked down at herself, eyeing the mottled black-on-gold pattern in her fur. Now that it wasn’t such a shock, it actually looked kind of nice.

  I’ve always been a bit partial to this print, she thought as she looked down at her fur-covered body. Her tail—such a foreign sensation—lashed around behind her. Like Jane, she was still somewhat human, still standing on two hind legs and with opposable thumbs. The moon forced her to change, but she still had some control over how far that change went.. She still even had her hair, though it was shorter and more golden colored. Weird.

  “Well?” Jane asked, giving her another grin. “There’s deer around here, but if you’re not hungry, we can always see how quickly we can make it to the peak.”

  “Just running?” Alma asked.

  “Well,” Jane said as her body rippled and she dropped to all fours, more wolf than human. “With four legs instead of two.”

  “Sure.” It was like flexing a muscle. An unfamiliar muscle, but a muscle. The world shifted, and she fell to her hands … no, they were paws now, big and meaty, each with a set of claws.

  It was still weird. She walked towards the door, feeling her body’s range of motion and pausing to stretch. Jane tugged the door open, and a wall of fresh scents rushed over her, a whole world of unexplored sensation she’d barely noticed the last time she’d spent the full moon at the cabin. Jane gave her a nod and then ran out.

  She took a deep breath, and then followed.

  It was weird. Strange. She was no longer human. She was an Unusual now, a felinthrope. A werejaguar.

  But she was still Alma. And she always would be.

  Kitchen Creature

  What you’re about to read wasn’t actually originally planned for as a part of this collection. And by planned for, I mean that when I started writing the stories I’d outlined for Unusual Events, this one wasn’t one of them. The genesis of it hadn’t even crossed my mind. Then one day, as I was making breakfast, I dropped some chocolate chips (I was making the very meal the story’s primary character sets out to create in the beginning) and a very silly but entertaining idea entered into my mind. It was brief, but in a flash I knew exactly what I was going to do with it. Two days later, I had Kitchen Creature written out and I knew it had to be a part of the collection.

  On the one hand, it’s a very silly story. On the other, isn’t life sometimes?

  “I can’t believe you’re going to eat that.”

  Jose looked up at his roommate and shook his head. “You just don’t appreciate the finer things in life, man.” He gave the small, brightly colored bag a little shake, cellophane crinkling between his fingers, the mouth-watering contents rattling against one another like beans. Delicious, chocolatey beans. That also weren’t beans.

  “It’s disgusting,” Nick said from the kitchen table. “You come from a heritage that made one of the greatest foods on Earth—the tortilla—and you’re making that for breakfast.”

  “I’ve told you before,” Jose said as he began tugging the end of the bag open, revealing the delicious morsels within. Or at least, he tried to. The cheap plastic resisted his efforts, and he pulled harder. “I’m from Minnesota. America: the melting
pot, remember?”

  “It’s still a travesty.”

  He rolled his eyes and gave the plastic an even firmer tug. Still it resisted his efforts to open it, withholding the final ingredient to his breakfast.

  “Now isn’t that a little bit hypocritical?” he asked as he stepped towards the flat’s small, beat up stove. The bowl of pancake batter was sitting next to it on their small counter, already mixed. A small, battered-looking frying pan was resting on the stove, already oiled down. All he needed was the chocolate chips.

  If I could get this bag open, he thought, the material crinkling loudly as he tugged it again. For cheap plastic, it was doing a remarkable job of resisting his efforts to get at the goodies contained inside it.

  “How is that hypocritical?” his roommate asked as Jose stepped up next to the counter, his fingers still straining to pull the bag apart.

  “You’re from Canada, aren’t you?” he asked.

  “My parents are. So?”

  “And what are you eating for breakfast?” Come on! he thought, tugging at the plastic. Come apart! Maybe he needed a knife. Or a pair of scissors.

  “Waffles,” Nick said. “So?”

  “With store brand American syrup?” Jose asked, grinning as he turned to face his roommate. “Isn’t that a crime worthy of exile in Canada? Or at least the death penalty?”

  “Oh, can it,” his roommate said, leveling a sticky fork at him. “Real syrup is expensive. I save it for the good occasions. Besides, I don’t think that’s on the same level as—”

  The bag of chocolate chips tore open with a sudden pop in Jose’s hands, splitting down the side and sending chocolate chips flying through the air. He yanked the bag towards his chest, trying to catch as many of the errant, sugary treats as possible in his arms, but he could still hear the telltale clicks of dozens of tiny brown chips raining down on the linoleum.

  “Nice,” Nick said.

  “Shove it,” Jose shot back, rolling his eyes as he pivoted and leaned over the bowl of pancake batter. The bag had torn almost halfway down its length, a good quarter of its contents spilling out and across his arms. He shook the chips into the bowl, the chocolate bits making soft craters in the batter. More than I wanted, but I guess that’s not so bad, he thought as he gave the top of the bag a twist, closing the gaping hole off with a loud cellophane crackle.

  Which just left the dozen or so chips that had fallen on the floor. He let out a sigh as he bent over to pick them up. There’s one … There’s one … There’s one … he thought as he grabbed several of them from beneath the table. We really need to clean this floor. He could see lint and hair sticking to some of the chocolate bits he was picking up.

  All right, he thought as he turned. I think that’s all of—

  No. There was one more chip sitting on the tile near the base of their stove, just a few inches away from the crack of darkness that led to whatever lay beneath the appliance. Oddly enough, the floor around the base looked clean, the linoleum clear of dust and dirt.

  Weird, he thought as he began to reach out for the chocolate chip. I wonder how we pulled that—

  His hand didn’t make it to the chip. Seconds before his fingers made contact, something long and thin, like a piece of colored, flexible wire, whipped out across the linoleum from the space beneath the stove and wrapped itself around the chip. Then it was gone, gone before his shout of surprise had even begun to burst out of his mouth. Sucked back into the dark crack of space between the stove and the kitchen floor, the chocolate chip vanishing with it.

  “What the hell was that?” he shouted as he stumbled back, the chocolate chips he’d picked up falling from his fingers and scattering across the rest of the kitchen. The back of his legs slammed into their cheap table, and from behind him Nick let out a small cry of dismay as something, probably his cup, toppled with a clatter. Jose didn’t look.

  “What was what?” Nick asked as Jose turned to look at him. “What’d you see a mouse or something?”

  “I—” He froze. What had he seen?

  “No, man,” he said, shaking his head. “No mouse.”

  “Good,” Nick said, picking up his glass and using the corner of his shirt to wipe up the small puddle of water it had left on the table. “This apartment’s crappy enough without us having a mouse problem.”

  Jose turned to look back at the stove. Of the long … tendril-like … thing he’d seen, there was no sign. Did I really just see that?

  “It definitely wasn’t a mouse,” he said, steadying himself as the shock wore off.

  “I didn’t know you were afraid of spiders,” Nick said.

  “And it wasn’t a spider,” he said, shaking his head. “I don’t know what it was.”

  “Well what did it look like?”

  “I …” He shook his head and shot a quick look at Nick. “I don’t know.”

  “Dude, what?” Nick asked, his brow wrinkling in confusion and then amusement as he looked up at him. “You don’t know?”

  He shook his head again. “No.” He still wasn’t sure he believed what he’d seen. He glanced back at the base of the stove. It looked just like it always did: A simple stove set back against the wall with counters on either side. Dirty, since it was a college apartment … though now that he looked at it, the strange clean patch around the base of the stove almost looked … regular. Like a half-circle. As if something from beneath the stove had been reaching out and—

  No. He shook his head again. He was seeing things.

  “Dude,” Nick said, some of the humor dropping from his voice. “You okay?”

  “What?” he asked, still staring at the stove.

  “Dude, seriously,” Nick said. “You okay?”

  His mind finally seemed to catch up with what was going on. “You didn’t see it?”

  “See what?! Come on dude, stop fooling around, I’ve got class in twenty minutes.” Nick started to get up.

  “No, no, I …” His waving hand slowed his roommate, and he pointed at the stove. “You see that clean patch?”

  “What, on the floor? So? So we’ve got a clean patch.” Nick started to move again. Then he paused. “I didn’t know that was actually the color of our kitchen floor.” He looked down at the tile beneath his feet. “Huh.”

  “No,” Jose said, shaking his head. “Why is it clean?”

  “Dude, if you’re trying to freak me out—” Nick began, but Jose shook his head.

  “No,” he said, pushing himself away from the table.

  Maybe he was nuts, losing it. He’d heard stories about other students going crazy, snapping under the stress of classes, finals, and too much human interaction. Earlier in the year there had been an engineering student who’d stripped down to bare skin during an exam and run out of the building screaming “I am the soul of Archimedes!” Maybe he was having a breakdown like that.

  There was still a chocolate chip in his hand, though. Maybe he could find out.

  “Hang on,” he said as Nick began to walk away. “Watch this.” He took a hesitant step closer to the stove and then, his eyes locked on the crack at the base, tossed the chocolate chip in a low, lazy arc. It clattered across the floor, bouncing before coming to a stop almost a full foot away.

  “Watch what?” Nick asked. “What, were you trying to get it to slide under the stove or something?”

  “No,” Jose said, shaking his head. “Just give it a second.”

  “Give what a second, dude?” his roommate asked. “A mouse? What are you—?”

  “Shh!” He held up his finger. “Come on …”

  Nothing happened. The chocolate chip sat immobile on the off-white tile. Maybe I did imagine it, he thought as the silence stretched out. That’s it. I’m really losing it.

  “Dude,” Nick said, shaking his head and taking a step towards the stove. “What am I supposed to be—What the hell is that!?” The last bit came out as a scream, Nick jumping back and recoiling as the same long, thin tendril that had appeared earlier slid
out from beneath the stove, wrapped its tip around the stationary chocolate chip, and then vanished back into the small crack, taking the bit of chocolate with it.

  “You saw it?” Jose shouted, almost sighing in relief.

  “Yes I saw it!” Nick yelled back, his eyes wide as he pressed himself up against the kitchen wall. “What was it!?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, shaking his head. He saw it too. I’m not losing it. “I saw it grab the first chocolate chip.”

  “How long has that thing been under our stove?”

  He shook his head again. “I don’t know. I don’t even know what it is.” He picked up another chocolate chip from the floor and tossed it towards the base of the stove. Again the tendril snaked out, faster this time. Once more the chocolate vanished into the space beneath the stove.

  “Dude,” Nick said, stepping up next to him. “Are you feeding it?”

  “We don’t even know what ‘it’ is,” he said, looking at his roommate. “Have you ever seen anything like this?”

  “Are you kidding me?” Nick asked, a look of disbelief on his face. “Of course not!”

  “Well, as long as I’m not the only one who sees it,” Jose said, crouching and flicking another chocolate chip towards the base of the stove. Again the tendril lashed out and back, taking the chip with it.

  “This is weird,” Nick said, crouching next to him and staring at the small gap the tendril had receded into. “How long do you think it’s been there?”

  “I don’t know.” He shook his head and looked at Nick. “It can’t have been that long, right?”

  His roommate shrugged. “I wonder what else it eats?” He reached over to the table and tore off a small chunk of his waffle.

  “Hey!” Jose said as his friend tossed it onto the floor in front of the stove. “Dude, that’s got syrup on it.”

  “Oh, now it’s syrup,” Nick said, giving him a flat stare for a moment before turning his attention back to the clear spot in front of the stove. “Whatever man, it’s just a … You see!”

  The tendril was back, though this time it poked at the waffle before tugging it back into the space beneath the stove. Then there was a very faint trilling sound, almost like a bird, and Jose looked at Nick in surprise.