Nexus Fall 2014

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Nexus Fall 2014

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Fall 2014 Nexus Staff Zach Moore- Lead Editor Thomas Talbert- Fiction Editor Brandon North- Poetry Editor Jo Bell- Art Editor Adam Randolph- Assistant Poetry Editor Deborah Rocheleau- Assistant Editor McKenzie Reeves- Staff Photographer Brady Allen- Faculty Advisor Copyright Nexus, Fall 2014. All rights revert back to the author upon publication.

No part of this publication may be copied, distributed, transcribed, or electronically poted without the express written permission of Nexus or the writer or artist of the piece.

If you are interested in getting involved in Nexus, Please contact us at NexusLiteraryJournal@gmail.com.

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Editorial Greetings from the Nexus Editorial Staff.

Thank you for taking the time to read this issue of Nexus. So few individuals pay attention to contemporary art that the more modest or up and coming journals like ours are easily overlooked.

Unless something is branded, it’s difficult to be noticed at all. This was a problem with the older iteration of Nexus, leading to a period of its inactivity. What was once a well-known literary journal in the ‘70s lost its direction several years ago as other publications took to the Internet and social media to maintain a presence in the arts community. In the face of what has been a revolution in the way people communicate, a publication was forced to either change quickly or die out. It was largely due to this that there was a short period in which the Wright State community had no platform for artists to interact with the larger arts community.

Now in the second year of its ongoing rebirth, Nexus is moving forward, looking for its role in the artistic community. Though we are still in the building phase, our lead editor, Zach Moore, has led the way in creating a foundation for the future. Rooted in our online presence, our journal’s primary goal is to cultivate a community for creativity.

The title of our publication reveals our hope for a creative community. For us, the word nexus means “a central point of connection” for the artists we publish and their readers, whose own creativity sparks the raw material of art and produces fire. We feel that without creative minds engaging the work of the artist, this fire is absent—and therefore so is its illumination and heat.

To paraphrase Walt Whitman: for there to be great poets, there must be great audiences as well.

As we build this creative community around Nexus, we hope to pursue things like having an online comment feature for readers to interact with the pieces we publish, issuing podcasts of interviews, talks, and readings, and developing our overall social media presence by becoming active on sites like YouTube.

At this point we feel that instead of branding Nexus further ourselves, we hope our published artists and readers as a community will help us in determining exactly what this journal becomes. We are establishing a meeting place where creativity can flourish in the hope that there will be more and more creative minds who will add their materials and sparks for the fires we all need.

Let’s work together to make sure the embers don’t fade away this time.

We hope you enjoy the issue.

The Editors

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Table of Contents Poetry No Quiet Like This by B.B. Sanders............................................................................... 7 I Kept Tripping by Craig Cotter....................................................................................... 8 A Rebuttal, Of Sorts by Tori Lane................................................................................... 9-10 Calm Mornings by Domenic Scopa................................................................................ 11 Fiction A House on the Edge of Darkness by Janet Irvin............................................................ 12-20 Ah Studeny Morcra Jinaka (Cold Wet Flannel) by Lori Lopez....................................... 21-27 What Goes Bump in the Night Poetry Secret Cemetery by Domenic Scopa............................................................................... 29 A Bubbling Sore by David Williams............................................................................... 30 Fiction Blood Lust (Tragedy of a Love Story) by Lori Lopez..................................................... 31-39 Hunted by Theresa Thompson....................................................................................... 40-44 Sleepover by Jessica Shankland...................................................................................... 45-48 Art Staircase by Sarah Doebereiner....................................................................................... 49

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Fall 2014 Submissions

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No Quiet Like This

By B.B. Sanders Her bedroom stretches out empty of her presence.

Pictures, books, porcelain, small colored glass vases on the window sill define her energy that does not greet this morning.

Bird songs enter like fog.

[7]

I Kept Tripping

By Craig Cotter I kept tripping I thought disease— the sole of my flip-flop had split.

[8]

A Rebuttal, of Sorts

By Tori Lane I am bound by the crookedness of my smile.

Happiness displayed always as a contorted reality of who I am.

My grin does not eat shit and it has certainly had enough of yours.

It is appalling how much you have yet to know of me.

I do not put sugar in my coffee, nor do I drink it black.

I inject it, straight into my veins; slow was never my way to remain safe. My cup is always full.

There are more than two butts in any half-hour increment of my life. And this rebuttal is only half of why My pen rests comfortably on the only fuck you I have left.

I did taste you on the lovers we have shared, as they spit their remaining bitterness in my direction.

I took it gladly, because it matched my own.

That is what we had in common, them and I. A mutual distaste and mistrust for you.

But as time passed as time always does, my ability to see you as human drew a line between them and I. In the beginning I needed someone to confirm that you were a downgrade for her.

Triumph was knowing that I was better for her.

In trying to understand you, I discovered who I am.

And when they told me we were alike, I knew that they had grossly misread me.

And that I had grossly misread you.

With her, you were putting the wrong pieces together,

[9]

because it was what worked at the time.

With him, I was learning that not everything I didn’t understand needed my questioning or approval.

You want to know if this is hatred or curiosity, it is neither.

Not in regards to you.

Fear is all I have left. And all that is, is false evidence appearing real.

A constant silent weeping for the moments I have lost; that were never even mine.

Fear not that you will return, but that you have not left and you will not go.

Yes, I have thought of the rooms of my house you have been in.

And the one space that you wanted into the most was the one I was most careful with the lock.

The long dark corridors of her heart were no match for your wandering.

I left a candle burning deep inside her, a testament to the fire hazard I have always been.

[ 10 ]

Calm Mornings

By Domenic Scopa The toppled sign is pocked with bullet holes.

My grandfather would shoot the dead end street signs of backcountry Virginia, prone in the pickup bed of the rusted Ford Ranchero he planned to will to me.

He was testing if he was still accustomed to recoil, muzzle flash, gunpowder smell.

I don’t know much about the Korean War, except that he received a terse prosaic from the Draft Board demanding to give up the farm life he inherited from countless generations: his pond with trout and fattened catfish, the crooning of his cows with swollen udders.

It took sixteen days for him to travel to the country nicknamed “land of mornings calm.”

His drafted farmer friends are still there, their unrecovered corpses now fertilizer for the land.

Whenever my grandfather got a chill, he swore their patient souls were trying to seize his attention.

The sign lays tire-printed as a testament to those who did not heed its warning, slow down, slow down, slow down.

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A House on the Edge of Darkness

By Janet Irvin

The thud of sneakers. The sharp tick of a ball smacking the cracks in the pavement. Smack talk. I got your back! That’s my move. Yeah. The neighborhood boys playing hoops. With my ball. A shot slapped the backboard, banged through the rusted steel of the netless rim. Edging through the trees that lined the park access road, I stepped around the dumpster and swallowed hard. Saw the D inked on the leather, a D large enough to serve notice: This ball is mine.

“Shoot!” Candy’s voice barked above the grunts of the other boys.

Stay clear of them parkside punks, D. My mother’s words buzzed like mosquitos at my ear. But my hands itched to take back what belonged to me, to square my shoulders and send the ball arcing toward the hoop. Up and in. Swish. Show them chumps.

Prove Dante Pony wasn’t a pushover.

I counted the players. C-note, who sang as good as one of them American idol contestants. Squirrel, chipmunk cheeks and restless hands. Manatee up from Florida.

Moonie, whose pale white expanse of forehead explained his nickname. Everybody’s girlfriend Hoots, chewing her gum and acted all pissy ‘cause she wanted to go get a burger and asking every five minutes how much longer we gonna be here. And Candy, the great white shark swimming in a small, stagnant pond. Their bodies gleamed with sweat, brown and cream and ebony and linen. A regular United Nations of raggedy-ass desire, all playing with my ball.

“Your shot, Candy.” Squirrel said, his words toned down and respectful.

I glanced at the tattoo on Candy’s chest, a snake coiled around the body of a woman with humongous breasts. Soulless, that Candy Morningstar, my grandma insisted. Dangerous, the young girls whispered, giggling, sticking out their chests when he passed.

Even my sister Adrienne. She and I needed to talk.

“Company,” C-note sang out. At the top of the key, Candy shifted his eyes toward me and the gold tooth flashed in his wide-lipped mouth. Above his head, the purple streamers of the dying October day writhed, thorn-like and sorrowing. The dying light shadowed the park in a cold, black glove.

I stepped over a crack in the pavement, old memories surging. Step on a crack, break your mother’s back. Hissing, the solitary street light above the court winked on.

“You got some game today?” Candy rolled the ball in his hands. The others queued up behind him, bare-chested and jostling for space.

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“I’m open. I’m open.” Moonie danced away, arms lifted, fingers stretched like wires. Candy’s necklace flashed, a gold flicker in a fugitive ray of fading sun. Turning, he banked a shot off the backboard. I watched it drop through the hoop.

“Your turn, Cambodian.”

I shook off their chanting, chased after the loose ball. Gathering it close, I dribbled to the hoop, balanced the ball on my fingertips, then pounded it through. The chanting stopped. Retrieving the ball, I glanced over my shoulder, kissed two fingers and lifted them skyward. Score. Then I wove my way to half court. A gust of wind lifted my jersey, cooling the sweat trickling down my spine. The day was turning cold.

“Hey.” Candy grabbed a handful of my shirt and yanked, hard. Unbalanced, I stumbled into his tattoo.

“Gimme the ball, Cambodian.”

“Stop calling me that.” Four years ago, when Mama moved us into the bungalow on Park Drive, I’d been a short, pudgy eleven-year old, with my mother’s eyes and no indication that I’d ever be as tall as my father. My ex-father. The one who ran away from us. Candy, only two years older but already muscled and close to six feet, seasoned by his ride through the foster care system, watched me dribble and shoot and asked my name.

“Dante,” I answered. Candy cackled like some crazy cartoon rooster.

“Dante? Ain’t that some literary dude’s name? Some Eyetalian? Sure as hell ain’t no name for a playground warrior. Your mama black or what?”

I shrugged, hitching up my pants with my elbows, while I measured the distance to the road. Candy moved closer.

“You look like that Tiger guy, the one that plays golf,” Candy said. “What’s his name? Woods. Yeah. Ain’t his mama look like yours?”

My mixed up white-Asian-black heritage wasn’t a thing I wanted to discuss in the middle of the basketball court. I stepped back. Candy poked my chest.

“Fuck that. We gonna call you Cambodian.”

I spotted Moonie free and lobbed him the ball. He rifled it back. I brushed my fingers over the worn spots on the leather. This present from Grandma Dee belonged to my dream. To make varsity as a freshman at Bishop Harover, the suburban school I attended on scholarship. After that newspaper article came out, scouts, some from colleges, a few from the pros, were already sitting in the stands at practice. Just looking, Coach Dunaway said, but my family said it meant a scholarship and all. To me, it offered a way out.

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Candy backpedaled to guard me, his gold tooth sending a message I didn’t want to decode. Moonie flashed me hand signals, trying to set up a new play. The court echoed with the squeal of sneakers, the crash of hands and bodies. Then Candy’s cell phone chimed. Everyone stopped moving. Moonie and C-note shuffled over to Candy.

Nobody looked at me. Candy checked the message, punched in a reply and nodded toward the road.

“Go home, Cambodian.” He grabbed the ball and elbowed me off the court.

“Gimme.” I swatted at the ball cradled in his elbow. The D scrawled across the leather stared at me, mute, pleading.

“Now.” Candy dribbled toward the hoop. He didn’t look back. “I’ll bring it later, when I come by to pick up my stuff.” His words swooshed around me, like a cobra gathering itself for the kill.

I jogged home. Our house, a story and a half on the last lot before the park road began, huddled among the overgrown junipers and honeysuckle. All the houses on the block shared the same tired look. Survivors of the first city housing development built in the mid-fifties, they stood sandwiched between the river, the busy four-lane street called Salem Avenue and the riverfront high-rise the people I knew called Crackside.

I startled a vulture helping itself to roadkill. He gave me a dead-eye stare, flapped heavily and headed toward the rusty brick projects only a block away. I could see the windows boarded over, the screen doors hanging loose, despair and poverty reaching grubby fingers in my direction.

When I reached our driveway, I slapped the street light pole and started my approach. I faked a pass, dribbled around an invisible opponent and rolled to my left.

Jumping, I slammed my imaginary ball into the hoop mounted on the front of the garage, the one my father, Edward Pony, nailed there when we first moved in. Before he took off for someplace we weren’t. That first year, he had to lift me up so I could dunk the ball. Leaning against the garage door, I listened for echoes of the past.

“Shoot, Dante. You can do it. I’ll help you.”

Liar. That help lasted just long enough to make the twins, and then he went away.

Pretend dribbling, I started my approach again. I liked being out here alone.

Playing with shadows. No crowds screaming, no coaches yelling. I ran through the sequence again, then hustled up the walk, eased open the screen door and hurdled the four steps leading up to the kitchen. Mama’s back was to me, her hospital blues stretched tight across her shoulders, her hands flying as she sliced potatoes into a cast-iron pot.

[ 14 ]

“Adri’s already studying, D. You better get to it.” She didn’t turn around. I heard crying in her voice.

When I saw the money scattered across the kitchen table, I balled my hands into fists.

“Martin come to see you then?”

She made one of those harrumphing noises. “He’s been and gone.”

I counted the bills. “Didn’t leave enough for the rent.”

“Don’t you worry about that. Just go do your homework now. Dinner’ll be ready soon.”

“Mama.” I took two steps toward her. My stepfather pretended to be a good guy, but he couldn’t give up his old habits. And when he got the urge to play the lottery or skip on down to the riverboat, they fought. I didn’t know what she saw in him.

“Won’t always be like this.” I banged my fist on the table. Mama didn’t even flinch. She was too used to angry men.

“You go do your homework, D. You listen to your coach. You go to college and then all will be better. For everyone.”

I had just reached the top of the stairs when she called after me.

“You got to watch out for the darkness, D. Shadows are waiting out there, waiting to swallow you up.” She hesitated, breathing hard, slicing the air with her knife.

“I’m always careful, Mama.”

“Well.” She turned her back. “I’m working an extra shift tonight.”

I paused on the narrow landing. An extra shift meant I’d be in charge. Through the door on the right, I watched the twins wrestling with each other, their three-year old bodies twisting and stretching as they tested their strength. Adrienne lay across her bed, reading. She looked up, waved and returned to her book. When the boys spotted me, they rushed to grab my legs.

“Dante!” Clinging to my jeans, laughing and dragging their heels, they begged me to play. “Please, Dante, don’t go.”

“Later, dudes,” I said, reaching down to untangle their fingers. “Right now Mama says I have to study.”

“Study? Why, D?” Jason snugged his head closer to my knee. Anson echoed him, lisping the word thudy. I pried their fingers loose and tickled them back to their room.

Anson started to cry.

[ 15 ]

Pushing on the warped door to my room until it unstuck, I tugged it closed behind me. I hoped Mama hadn’t found Candy’s package. Across the hall, Adrienne started humming a song for church tomorrow. One More River. Her voice made me think about water trickling over river stones. About Mama’s blue silk go-to-meeting dress.

About falling into sleep in a place where no one fought and no one cried. Soon, the twins joined her, their thin voices straining to repeat the melody.

Lifting up the mattress, I tugged out Candy’s bag. The brown wrapper, taped at the corners, stretched around the lumpy contents. I tossed it from hand to hand, but I didn’t open it. I didn’t want to see the junk inside, didn’t want to know. I stared at the snake stamped on the bag. Then I shoved the package back under the mattress and reached for my English book.

The assignment sheet from Mrs. Anders’ class announced Short Story #1. Incident at Owl Creek Bridge. I skimmed the first page. Some soldier falling into a river. I read the questions Anders wanted us to answer. Was this river like any river we knew?

What would it be like to be a soldier? Was this guy dead or alive? I propped my feet on the bed and tried to concentrate, but the package poked at me like that kid’s story about a princess and a pea I’d read to Adrienne when it was just her and me and I still thought we had a chance to live like ordinary people. I closed the book and opened the door.

Adrienne had finished with One More River and moved on to another song from the Baptist repertoire, one I didn’t recognize.

“Our God is an awesome God,” she sang, her sweet high notes soaring in the close confines of the bedroom. I closed my eyes and thought about flying. Flying to the basket, falling back to earth.

“D? You finished with your homework?” Mama’s call floated up the stairwell.

“Supper’ll be ready in ten minutes.”

I pulled out my biology text, checked the assignment. All right. Something I had first-hand knowledge of. Genetics.

My cell phone rang. I checked the number and groaned.

“Cambodian,” Candy’s voiced slithered across the line. “Still got my package?”

I fiddled with a pencil. “My mom’s here.”

I could almost hear Candy thinking.

“When’s she leaving?”

I checked the time on the phone. “She’ll be gone in forty-five minutes.”

[ 16 ]

“Bring out the trash after dinner.” Candy coughed. “Meet me by the dumpster.

And, D., don’t be late.”

The line went dead. Standing in the darkened room, I prayed this would be the end of it, but that mosquito buzzed in my ear again. You wish.

The sky, illuminated by the downtown lights in the distance and the streetlight above my head, revealed only the barest pinpricks of stars. The backwash of traffic noise from the highway, reduced now as the night crawled onward, flowed at me.

Checking for movement along the street, I hustled along the grassy edge of the road, staying in the shadow of the trees. When I reached the dumpster, I paused. The lid creaked when I opened it. Removing the package from the trash bag, I set it on the ground. Then I pulled the drawstring tight, swung the garbage up and shoved it into the crowded bin. Who else, I wondered, comes here besides me?

The dark ranks of pine and leafless hardwoods stared back at me from the park entrance. I squinted, trying to discern a darker pattern that would alert me to Candy’s arrival. When a branch snapped behind me, I knew I’d been fooled again.

“Hey,” Candy drawled, wrapping his arms around my shoulders and lifting me off the ground. “Scared ya, didn’t I?”

Candy’s breath next to my ear, in and out, ragged, like he’d been running. He wore the smell of alcohol and weed.

I wrestled free, picked up the package and held it out.

“Here,” I said. “I don’t want it in my house no more.”

Candy rolled the package from hand to hand, rubbed his chin, shoved the smack in the back of his waistband. His gold tooth picked up the light from the pole lamp as he disappeared behind the dumpster. When he returned, he held out a second, smaller package wrapped in an old towel, a piece of wire holding it together. The towel didn’t hide the shape of the gun.

“I don’t want that.” I took another step back.

“This the way it is, D.” He stared at the darkened ball court. “You keep this for me, you get to do your ballplaying and your sister gets to be a little girl a while longer.”

“Adrienne?”

“She’s fine-looking. Sings fine too. Growing up fast.” He pressed the wrapped gun against my chest. “Lots of guys like ‘em young.”

[ 17 ]

“You better not.” I grabbed the gun, shoved him back.

He aimed his index finger at my face, pursed his lips. Bam. “Don’t worry, Cambodian. You got my back, I got yours.”

I shoved the new package in the pocket of my jacket. The gun banged hard against my hip all the way home.

The lights on the cruiser bathed the house in a swirl of red and white. I peaked out the upstairs window. Mama climbed out of her car. An officer got out of the patrol car, took her elbow and walked her to the door. I stuffed Candy’s gun under my pillow and opened a book. Adrienne came out of her room, yawning, her eyebrows lifting in that question mark frown. I shrugged. She pulled her sweatshirt tight, the gesture outlining the curve of her breasts, the swell of her hips. While I was playing ball, my baby sister had turned into a woman. Hearing Mama’s footsteps, she hurried back to her room, closed the door, but I knew she was there, listening.

“Dante?”

Mama stood in the doorway, staring with those soft, brown, wounded eyes that matched mine. Adrienne and the twins, they had our father’s cruel ice-gray ones.

“You’re home early.” I didn’t mention the cop. Didn’t look at her. Didn’t want to acknowledge the tears dripping off her chin. The lump in the pillow poked me in the ribs.

“Martin.” She used the back of her hand to brush her cheeks, wincing. “He’s not going to be coming here anymore.”

I should have been mad, but a bubble of joy threatened to explode out of me.

Exploded and swelled into fear as I realized what that meant. No Martin. No money.

When I slumped back, the gun stroked my neck. I sat up straight, held out my book.

“I’m studying, Mama. Just like you asked.” I thought she’d leave, but she just kept standing there.

“He’s dead, Dante. Martin’s dead.” She sobbed once, clutched her stomach, forced herself to straighten. “I’ll have to pick up extra hours at the hospital. I can leave the twins at the day care there, and Adrienne will have to stay home by herself.”

The barrel of the gun jabbed my back. “What happened?”

“Somebody shot him. At the deli. Took his lottery tickets and the keys to his car.”

She pulled her shoulders straight, took a deep breath. “You’ll have to get a job, D. After basketball season.”

[ 18 ]

Across the hall, Adrienne rocked back and forth, her shadow staining the slim opening each time she moved. The twins slept on, snoring quietly on their blow-up mattress. I looked around, at the magazine photos of distant islands push-pinned into the drywall. I wondered what it would be like to swim in the ocean.

“If I don’t practice year round, I won’t be good enough to stay on the team.”

“This isn’t about you now, D. We have to eat, pay the rent.” She rested her head in her good hand. Then she stepped forward, cupped my chin and kissed my forehead.

“After the autopsy, we have to call the funeral home.”

She shuffled down the stairs, each step a slurred surrender to the night and the loss of another dream. Sitting on the edge of the bed, I pounded my thigh with one fisted hand. With the other one, I reached for Candy’s package. When I looked up, Adrienne was standing in the doorway.

“What?” I pretended to rearrange the pillow.

Adrienne crossed her arms, hugged herself close to keep from shaking.

“You think whoever shot Martin’s gonna come after us?”

I shook my head. “Go to bed, Adri. We got school tomorrow.”

She tapped her foot, quick, nervous staccato beats. “You gonna work for Candy?”

“I gotta get some sleep.” I cut my eyes at the clock on the wall. Almost midnight.

Outside, the streetlight faded on and off. The bulb was burning out again.

“I talked to him, you know. After church last Sunday.” She put her hand on her neck, twisted one dark curl around her finger. “Said I was gonna be a looker. Said if you played ball with him, he was gonna protect me.”

I grabbed her shoulders and shook her hard. “Don’t talk to him. Don’t think about him. Ever. I mean it.”

“I’m scared, D.” She pulled away, tapped her foot. “I don’t want to be like Hoots.”

I stood by the window, watching the flicker of shadows over the road. “You’re not gonna be like Hoots. You and me, we’re getting out of here, gonna be something else. Something better.”

Adrienne looked around, turned away, her words trailing, comet-like, as she went into her room. “How? How are we gonna make that happen when this is what we got to work with?”

[ 19 ]

I waited, until Adrienne stopped tossing in her bed. Waited, until no muffled weeping drifted up from my mama’s bedroom. I used her phone to make the call. When Candy answered, I swallowed hard and whispered, “I know what you did.”

A curse. A long pause. “I’m coming over. You better be waiting.” Connection severed. When I closed my eyes, all I saw was darkness.

Ice crystals danced in the night, coating the sidewalks with a fine, slick film. Far above, through the clouds I spotted Vega. To the west, Aquarius was pouring his water over the heavens. Picking up a rock, I ran my customary route to the basket. Except this time I jumped at the streetlight. It only took one heave to shatter the glass. The light went out for good, throwing the road to the park and our house into deeper shadow.

Then I put on my gloves. Retreating to the front steps, I released the safety. I didn’t know how many bullets were left. All I needed was one. Snugging the gun into the juniper bush beside the door, I sat down. In my head, the squeaking of tennis shoes, the slap of the ball against the pavement turned into Candy’s voice, cold and demanding.

Shoot!

As soon as I asked the question, heard the answer, I’d know. And then I would.

[ 20 ]

Ah Studeny Morcra Jinaka (Cold Wet Flannel)

By Lori Lopez

“Some of my best friends are ignorant white fucks.”

My old man used to say that to the dame who birthed me when she’d look at him in that petulant way she had.

Heck, my old man used to say that line every time the sun rose, between the first hit of Camel and the first sip of bourbon. Then he’d scratch his balls, stuff his turkey-fat thighs into jeans so worn they were frayed at the seams, and shove his porkpie feet into Redwings, steel toed.

“Better to kick your scrawny ass,” he’d say, right before he slapped his Brooklyn Dodgers cap on his baldpate.

He’d give me that bugged-out, crazy-fucker look, smack the dame’s rear, plant a friendly peck on her cheek, and take the Coleman out to his Stepside. Daisy, with her big V-8 engine, would roar to life and the house would release a collective sigh as truck tires crunched over the rocky grit of the drive. Where he went and what kind of work he did, was none of mine, and if I made it to school without a backhand across my smart mouth, I counted it as a good day.

My name’s Roxi and everything I just told you is a bold-faced lie. ‘Cept daddy did wear steel-toed boots and used to call mama one hell of a good looking broad. Me, I was his Sweet Cheeks if I wasn’t earning a backhand for my smart mouth.

The dirt road I walked darn near every day for 12 years led from our hedge pen of a home to the local one room schoolhouse. I graduated with a grade point average higher than what filled the coffers on Easter Sunday in the speck of a church we called Saints Above. The preacher used to wear his coveralls if he was backed up at the garage he ran with old man Keller just out Route 68 this side of nowhere and town. He’d smell like burnt metal and fifty-weight oil, wipe his grease-blackened hands on a rag hung from his back pocket before he crack the holy word, and bring the parishioners to their feet with hands raised to the heavens. Mama would force me to wear my Sunday best and button my shoes with a hook that looked like a miniature version of the ice butler grand-pappy used to carry cubes.

[ 21 ]

On my 18th birthday, I took the double-barrel to the old man’s head where he lay under the belly of the Woodie he swore he was rebuilding since Moses saved the chosen people, but really used as a shade spot to take a siesta. I let the stock drop in the cloud of dust beside the John Deere, picked up the 20-pound sledge, and caught the backside of the dame’s skull where she stood pinning the clothes she’d pounded against a river rock with lye down by the mill. She never seen it coming.

I left for college two days later. Let the sun hit my back as I took the hard road with nothing but my saddle shoes to bear my troubles and my grand-pappy’s fedora to cover my ginger hair. I tipped the edge of that worn-out hat over my left eye as I passed the graves and strode long-legged northeast towards the hickory.

Now if ya believe this yank, there’s a man in the Big Apple ready to sell anyone with a handful of cash, a bridge. My mama didn’t raise no fools, just a smart-mouth with a propensity for what my old man called tall tales. Most call me a liar, but I’m of the ken it’s all in perspective.

So the college stint lands me in a one-horse town this side of the Mississippi further north than anybody born in the bayou of Louisiana has a right to be. There’s hippies walkin’ these parts, and damn friendly ones. Aged hippies who wander the streets and remind folks to consider spherical harmony. Whatever that means. Someone once said my great uncle twice removed on my daddy’s side lives in this hole, but I ain’t laid eyes on him yet. He’s some sort of a private dick named Dick.

But now see that there’s a lie, too. Not the part about the private dick named Dick, but about me having any sort of blood ties to him. I actually learned about the dame swishing her tail in his establishment from a witch tossing bones to the ground one night during my misspent youth, when I contemplated lying backside down to earn a few coin. So I sign up for the Midwest college in a Podunk town hoping to increase my repertoire of crap to pawn off as genius and I’m walking, minding my own, when I run into, literally, the dame the witch told me about. Dreama. Who names a kid Dreama? And her mama, Big Delores?…. Well, we just won’t cross that particular stream without wearing my shitkickers and leather chaps while riding a Hog that cost thrice my college tuition and is loud enough to blast the windows outta a ‘53 Buick.

Uncle Dick, who’s not my uncle, operates a hole-in-the-wall coffee shop, bookstore, detective agency, called Café Noire. I tried to get a job there, but decided I didn’t much care for those who hangout at Café Noire, and when I inquired at a few other places around, I’m not given the fuzzy eye, but I’m also not welcomed exactly. There are probably reasons, reasons left unsaid.

[ 22 ]

The truth is I’ve had a few run-ins with the local law enforcement personnel.

Not here, in this God-forsaken town, but back home. ‘K, I didn’t exactly grow up in the bayou, my roots are a tad further north, like Detroit and while there, I might have tangled with the current chief in this village. Not to be mentioning the dog he keeps at his heels. They say dogs can tell the character of a person. I’d say the chief’s dog has my number, and I wasn’t quick enough to change it before having two or four exchanges with the beast. Might be true as well that the newest resident of this hell-hole once owned the house beside my best friend’s last living relative and caught me soaping his front door and putting M&M’s in his gas tank. Autoworkers are fired up about the sanctity of their creations and now that he’s moved to my last bastion of unknown to be closer to his daughter and grandkids -brats- I try to keep to the other side of town.

But that’s all behind me. I’m a college type, struggling with studies while I earn my keep. I work at Antioch College as a security guard, if you can believe the fates. I might have fudged a smidge on my application, and they’d been under the assumption, by no course of my own hand, that I’ve done this sort of work before.

Now, if you think working for a small town college in the middle of nowherenear-anywhere Ohio would be safe and uneventful, you’d be wrong. There’s been bear sightings. A piglet lost. Some man running around naked as a jaybird and let me tell you, wasn’t none too pretty. The biggest crime was the abduction of that grow-lady, Sow something. Every plant in her garden of beauty is edible. Seriously?

Last week, Mr. Sowmeister reported the misses kidnapped by illegals and that isn’t the only alien sighting reported to the Central Intelligence Agency. There’s a Yellow Springs lifer who is a member in good standing with S.E.T.I and if you ask me, the aliens are just trying to reach Mucky, the conspiracy alien invasion theorist himself.

Friday night coming on the end of the semester, not too close to final exams or too far from the start of the next, I’m trolling campus stealth-like with my fedora tilted and my beat-up leather duster swinging in my wake, when I’m attacked by two zombies carrying chainsaws at G. Stanley Hall Hall. Who names a hall after someone named Hall? If you remember, I’ve split the broad’s skull with a battle-axe and smacked the old man’s pate with a four-by-six, so there ain’t the likes of two punks with chainsaws going to scare me.

[ 23 ]

Reminded me of that movie with the man wearing a catcher’s mask, and maybe someone else would have run. Maybe someone else would have screamed. Maybe any other freshman college student living away from home for the first time, all alone walking the corridors of an ancient haunted building at close to midnight, would have fainted. Me? I did what any hired guard would do. I calmly walked back to the security office and called the local yokels.

I thought of the Second Rule of Zombies: double tap; and the 25th rule: shoot first, but hesitated. Swear I’d seen those two chainsaw-toting idiots before they were turned, at Ye Ole Tavern or maybe it was Peach’s, snuckered up to the bar. My reward for calling the police instead of pulling my side-arm and unloading all my frustrations in a blood bath like you ain’t see in eons, was the arrival of an officer I can only describe as Q-T. I mean, let’s be honest. Officer Matters is hot. I ignored Ed, his sergeant.

I might have given Matters a slight brush off, too, but that’s only because it’s been said he’s made eyes at that Sage harlot.

Sage, I don’t know her real name, has some sort of obsession with pigs. Of all things. And her mama and my mama once knew a neighbor’s neighbor’s kin, who lived next door to my fourth cousin’s sister’s mother, Mary, who owns a pig farm. Pigs are nas-ty.

So Officer QT starts asking all these questions about what the chainsaw- swinging zombies were wearing, and all I can think of is that skunk-pelt wearing Charlie and that one-boobed whore that Uncle Dick, who’s not my uncle, was traipsing after a few weeks back. Now if you were born with only one boob, wouldn’t you save your money to have another installed? And while I’m thinking on it, is the boob right in the middle of her chest or sat one side and the other’s just a carpenter’s wet spot?

I smacked my forehead when the thought of the town gypsy, Zigana, hit me, and I pondered if the two zombies were cursed by black magic, then I shivered because if a liar, um raconteur, crosses with the former, ain’t nothing good going to happen to the latter. Not to say the gypsy would have a reason to turn her wiles on me, but there was that incident with her granddaughter, Fatál. We crossed paths in the principal’s office after she was accused of putting a hex on Buddy the butcher’s son for saying Zigana was a fake a few years gone.

[ 24 ]

I’d taken my duster off before Officer QT arrived, and thus stood proper in my campus uniform when he started with his questions. My shirt was not open four buttons down. That is an outright lie proffered by Chickee in an attempt to make me look loose. Never happened. The two zombies as I recalled were wearing coveralls, gloves, hard hats, and goggles, or maybe it was a face shield like they use in the chemical lab.

‘Course, this seems odd for the middle of the night, but as I’ve pointed out before, well, I lie. I think the time might have been closer to noon than midnight, and the end of July.

Two Tuesdays past last Thursday we had a storm blow in, and some lightning struck the upper part of the sycamore that stood on the far end of the soccer field, so those men could have been there to take down the tree.

Doesn’t explain why the zombies were inside and ran when I yelled at them to stop, before high tailing it to the safety of the Spirited Goat for a strong drink of brew.

I’m also not sure why the cross-dressing transvestite-midget-dwarf-psychic was swinging from a rope hung out the west side library tower at six a.m. the next morning, or why he and the man wearing a tie-dyed kilt who lived next door to a bull-milking postal worker claimed to have seen the chainsaw-wielding zombies in the field while they played their dulcimers and watched old lady pig-owner hit a few golf balls toward the bike path.

All fables must come to an end and I’ve told many a fish story along the way, but what I’m about to say is the Gospel truth. The stunt I convinced Kent and Vinnie to perpetrate, two zombies running around the village with chainsaws chasing a college security guard, caused one of the older residences at the I-can-no-longer-live-aloneand-need-a-fulltime-home-health-aide facility, to have a cardiac event and thus the coppers were dispatched.

With the help of Sargent Ed and Officer Matters the incident was cleared up quickly and. I considered the case closed. Until the chief showed at my abode, requested entrance, insisted on summoning my parental figure, and waited a half hour for Riley to arrive home.

Riley, my sister and sixteen years my senior, took over the responsibility of my upbringing when our parents were killed in a single-vehicle crash caused by inclement weather. She does her best. Riley is a special agent for the interstellar space agency, known more commonly as the CIA, housed out of Area 51 in New Mexico. Her time is valuable and I’m not at the top of her list, so when her job requires her to be in orbit, Kent and Vinnie, two of Riley’s high school friends, keep an eye on me.

[ 25 ]

I stood in our overly furnished-with-junk living room head bowed, hands clasped, before the man at a few minutes passed the last supper, and waited my just due.

“I’m very disappointed in you,” Riley said.

Ten minutes of I-thought-I-raised-you-better later, I’m lying on my bed looking up at the underside of the staircase where all I can do is count the number of wolf spiders contemplating how long before I fall asleep, so they can feast on my inert form, and listen for the front door to close behind the chief. I don’t like being sent to my room without dinner or even a chance to defend my actions.

For instance, I did not, as suggested by some old biddy on Walnut Street spread cookie dough on her car, and only guessed it was chocolate chip because statistically that flavor is most often purchased by kids my age. I also was not on West South College Street last Wednesday after church Youth Group and thus was not the culprit who threw fish, eggs, and cheese on the car of the woman who owns Village Cyclery.

As for the toilet paper found wrapped around the almost brand new vehicle, I was watching Mister Finklestien’s pure breed bulldog Lady Bug defecate in the flower bed in front of the library at the time. And while we’re on the subject of vandalism, those freaks at the body shop were just trying to rip off Billy Wittman’s sister’s brotherin-law’s cousin’s father’s next door neighbor’s wife when they said her car would need a paint job to remove the substance that someone, not me, tossed on the hood. It was ice cream. Ice cream! Seriously, a little soap and water took it off, and the requirement that I spend the next two Saturdays raising funds for the Bad Seed motorcycle gang by participating in the car wash is just not fair.

According to my mom the last straw was when I took, without asking, my sister’s doll and my brother’s skateboard, and while wearing board shorts with an oversized hockey jersey and my dead dad’s Dodger’s cap on backwards, went down to the store for ice, and instead of staying on the sidewalk, skated in the middle of Xenia Avenue. Apparently someone called the police stating that a vagrant homeless-looking man was seen with a baby strapped to his chest, skateboarding while carrying a bag of ice, and though I was gone by the time an unknown officer arrived, the witness gave a good enough description that he knew it was me.

“At fifteen,” Riley said, “you should understand there are rules and consequences.”

[ 26 ]

As if reminding me I’m not twelve is supposed to impress on me to behave. It doesn’t. Nor is her threatening to wash my mouth out with sodium hydroxide for fabricating stories a way to get me to stop. My honors English teacher believes I’m destined to be the next great fiction writer because I have such a vivid imagination. She even offered to sponsor me to attend the next Antioch Writer’s Workshop and parade my wares for the world because she thinks I’m that good.

I’m going to go sulk in the dungeon that is my hell and envision that during mom’s next outing to the great beyond hunting the undead and the illegal, Riley will forget she has a single child, and I can stay home, eat pizza covered in jelly and chocolate, while reading a book about the zombie apocalypse, and why global warming is my generation’s fault. Or, I could find Elvis and ride in his hearse taxi transporting the under-informed around Yellow Springs while singing off-key renditions of his charttopping hits and feasting on sugar filled donuts from Café Noire.

As my mama says too often, ain’t no kid of hers gonna lie around telling halftruths and bold-faced lies on a Sunday afternoon without first cutting the grass and doing the homework I left until the end of the school year because I think school is pointless.

“You figure out what’s not covered in horseshit, and I’ll go tip a couple of the cows behind Young’s Jersey Dairy and wait for the next big thing to cross my path.

Salute.”

[ 27 ]

[ 28 ]

Secret Cemetery

By Domenic Scopa Festive colored candles fence an unearthed grave as if exhuming corpses is a sort of birthday celebration.

A forensic anthropologist, himself a native Guatemalan, chisels calcified deposits collected on the collarbone of a charred skeleton.

He’s searching for his murdered family.

Where the soil breaks in a line of coffee bushes, two crows flap for lime trees.

The limes look like green lights.

Reagan gave the green light here, collateral calculated.

But what was that to the indigenous child burned alive in the village center?

To the pregnant woman hacked in bed?

An infantile skull stares up.

Its toothy grin makes it look as though it’s either madly laughing, or lamenting at a joke the flesh has played on it.

[ 29 ]

A Bubbling Sore

By David Williams The wind whistles about the grassy trunks of the trees. Not an animal stirs nor another sound is uttered. Amidst the circle of trees a pool of blood bubbles up from the ground; as if it were a spring. The pool grows and grows, lapping at the trunks of the oak, the pine, the birch, staining their moss covered bark a brilliant scarlet. The waves grow stronger as the pool grows. Now the spring has become a geyser, spewing forth colts and gore as if the wood sat atop an aquifer of horror. The geyser explodes with a violent storm, shaking and cracking the earth, raining down droplets of blood onto the leafy canopy. What was once a sickly, gurgling hick-up sound of a spring has become a gruesome torrent of mayhem. The tide begins to go, choking out once clear streams, turning water to blood. All matter of red gore, puss, and veins cling to rocks and the green fertile ground becomes a red sore upon the face of the world.

[ 30 ]

Blood Lust (Tragedy of a Love Story)

by Lori Lopez HUMAN

“Sonofa–” Ducking behind an overturned dumpster. I run out the other side my chest burns and I heave as I suck in air. I bob and weave, dodging the various objects flung at me. My pursuer could just fly down. Pluck me up. And plunge his eyeteeth into my neck. But he doesn’t. He chases.

I stumble, scrapping my knee on the debris-strewn alley while glass rains down from somewhere, something I can’t see. The slivers stab into my back and for a split second, I wonder if the scent of blood will change anything. I run into an open door, roll under a shelf leaning against a bare wall, and wince as shards of broken pottery littering the ground, embed themselves. Unsure of my tormentor’s position, I hesitate, afraid. I’m trapped.

I take a deep breath and control each exhale in an attempt to slow my racing heart. know the coursing blood only makes his desire worse. I can’t stay here. A second passes and I dash from my hiding place only to stop short. He towers over me like a Douglass Fir. His pitch black eyes pierce through the shadows and pin me. I couldn’t run if I tried. I know he’s hungry. Like me, he’s had little to eat since this ordeal began. Torturing himself? White flashes with crimson as he runs his tongue over perfect teeth. Inwardly I flinch. With slow deliberate movements, he brings his hand up to wrap around my throat. He tightens. I try to swallow as he pulls his lips back to bare those points. I close my eyes.

I almost hope he’ll do it.

Time halts as the seconds… minutes, pass, and I feel his stare penetrate my instinct for self-preservation. I can’t see, but I can feel him. He drops me. I cough, fall to my knees, and gasp for air. My lungs burn and my head screams. As I try to regain my composure, I hear him fly overhead, the distinct sound of massive wings bite into the air.

“Get on with it!” I stand up.

He’s flown up and landed on a beam high in the rafters of the empty warehouse I ran into in my haste to escape. From a crouched position, I see him watch me. I try to look into his eyes, to get inside his mind, and push him to be done with it, but my measly efforts have no effect.

[ 31 ]

I’ve been running from the damn vamp for roughly six months now and each time he’s gotten me cornered, easy kill, he backs off. I know in my gut that he’s going to let me go, again. A breath later, he stands and walks over to a window. With a single beat of wings, he flies away, leaving without his food. Me.

“Damn it, just kill me!”

My voice echoes off bare walls and I listen to unseen creatures scurry off. I fall to my knees, and lean forward as the tears escape. There’s nothing left. He’s amusing himself, drawing out the moment of my death in some morbid game, or…something.

This is what my life has come to. He chases. I run.

I struggle to get to my feet and walk out of the warehouse into a still night, barely lit by a hazy moon. I limp and stumble down the street. I’ve got a killer headache and the last time I ate? Couldn’t tell you that or when I’d closed my eyes for more than an hour. Wouldn’t call it sleep. I’ve no idea what city I’m in, the date, or year for that matter. Months. Could just as well be decades. My life is in constant peril and I’ve lost track of everything. When this began, I was out of the country without ID or money.

Getting back has been difficult, but I made it. For whatever good its done me.

Who is he, besides your basic vampire? A predator. Someone I trusted, once.

Now…he wants me dead. Why? Beyond the obvious that I’m food? I killed a friend of his.

His friend.

She was the very essence of my being. My entire world revolved around her and when she died…I wanted to follow.

I didn’t. My reward - I’ve become his prey.

My name isn’t important, or who I’d been before I met her, nor does anything that came before the now. This is all I have. Run and wait for him to finish me. To lose what little control he has learned over the centuries of his existence. The outcome of this scenario will be my death and put him on a path to self-destruction that even his kind will be unable to stay. I almost feel bad for him.

Almost.

There’s a diner a block down, I can see the lights as I exit the alley. The last meal I’d gotten was from a trashcan outside a Chinese carryout in another city, a couple nights ago, more maybe. Earlier I’d found a dollar on the sidewalk and all I can think about is how much I’d love a cup of coffee. Something normal.

[ 32 ]

I could call home.

Pushing the door open, I enter the near empty place and take a seat on the stool closest to the door. It’s a hole-in-the-wall that serves the wretches of a society on the brink of its own destruction.

People like me.

INVESTIGATOR

I’m a private investigator. It’s not bravado when I say I’m good at what I do. I should be, I’ve been doing it for more than a quarter of a century. My clients are willing to wait for me and pay my exuberant fees, because I never fail. What do I do exactly?

I find people. I don’t take the petty stuff, the quick buck; I’m in it for the big money.

I enjoy seeing the world on someone else’s dollar, but in truth, if the money and prestige went away, I’d still do it. Nothing better than a chase. I see myself as a hunter and the person in question, my prey. Why the client is searching for the friend, ex-partner, lover, or family member, isn’t my concern. Not to say I don’t find out, don’t be stupid.

A good investigator knows the whole by the time it’s concluded or they shouldn’t be in the business. That’s my opinion.

Usually I locate the target within a couple a days without a lot of fuss or bother.

Sometimes a few weeks. This time? Huh, months. Close to five. Not to mention four countries and two continents. The whole thing is starting to leave a bad taste in my mouth and cut into my profit. Failure isn’t something I’m willing to accept. It’d be bad for business.

Tonight, I’m hoping for some luck. It’s late and I’m sitting in a shithole diner in the warehouse district of a large city northeast of nowhere. I know my latest case was in the area earlier, but I lost him when he ran into one of the massive buildings. I’m about to toss money on the table and pack it in for the night, when I see a white male, face half-covered with a hood, walk in, and take a seat on a stool just inside the door.

Our eyes lock for a second before he puts his money down and the waitress brings him a cup of coffee. One look at the guy tells me his luck is running thin. I’ve seen the worst of the worst, been in war zones a time or two, this guy’s got that look.

He turns toward the door as a lady wheeling a shopping cart enters and I get a look at his back. The hoodie is covered in blood, torn, and as I look at his feet, he’s only wearing one shoe. A gym shoe, like the kind I coulda picked up at a dime store with the change from a phone booth as a kid. One stop above being barefoot, thin rubber sole.

[ 33 ]

I watch as he scans his surroundings. Red-rimmed eyes. Crusted runny nose.

Suggestive of a drug addict. This is what I do for a living, drugs isn’t this guy’s problem. I notice the tear tracks dried on what I can see of his profile, which gives me hope that he’s ready to stop running. He swipes his arm across his nose and snot smears the black sleeve. Turning back to the counter he puts both hands around his cup and inhales the strong odor of hours-old coffee. The knuckles on his left hand are raw.

Stubbing my butt out on the plate, I reach into my jacket pocket and retrieve the photo of the man I’m looking for. The guy hunched over the coffee is the right height, slightly slimmer build. Harder to tell is the grime covered hair. The hood casts shadows over his face and I wait until he looks around again to be positive.

This is the closest I’ve gotten in weeks and I don’t want to start all over, again.

With another look from the picture to the guy, I set the photo on the tabletop, next to that, my cell. He looks up and I motion that he join me. After short pause, he stands and limps toward me. His smell reaches me first, blood, urine, and days-old sweat. It’s the unmistakable scent of trying to stay undercover as your options wither away. His clothes hang. He stops at my booth and looks from beneath the hood with hollow eyes.

I can tell a lot from a man’s eyes. This one’s the near side of a grave and just about ready to jump in. I tap the photo, motion to the bench across from me, and push the cell t’ward him.

“I’ve been hired to find you,” I say. He looks down at the cell and pushes it back adding a head jerk. “Your brother.”

“Don’t come looking for me again.” From the dry sound of his voice, I doubt he’s spoken recently.

He rips the photo into pieces before I can stop him, but I manage to grab his wrist as he moves to escape. With a firm grip and a little pressure, I force him to sit.

“How ‘bout some food?” I slide the menu over and motion for the waitress. Remaining silent as he orders, when she leaves I ask, “When was the last time you had a decent meal?”

He grunts his dissension or maybe its thanks, doesn’t matter. I’m not here for the pleasantries.

“What’s your story?” I ask, hoping if I can get him to talk, he’ll agree to call my client. All I need to get paid.

He retrieves his coffee and returns with it cupped it in his hands. He takes a long drink, and meets my stare. “My story… you wouldn’t believe me.”

[ 34 ]

I raise an eyebrow.

“I killed my wife and unborn child.” He states this as if he’s talking about a baseball score. I keep my face placid and wait as he adds, “I’m being stalked by a vampire.”

“You’re not wanted for murder.” I’d been given little more than the picture, money, and a name. I know the truth of the deaths. The vampire twist is new. Personally, I don’t believe in the undead.

“I didn’t outright murder them, but they died by my hand.” Glancing at his hands, his face tightens. “He’s been toying, pushing, but it’s inevitable.”

“Vampires, ha–” I cut my laugh short as he leans forward and sneers. “What?

Why?”

“He’d been my wife’s friend. When he found out what I did and that she…” He chokes on the word, twists his hands together and pushes the empty cup to the edge of the table.

There’s something in the way he says friend, a slight narrowing of his eyes, twitch of the corner of his mouth.

“He no longer has a reason to keep his word to her. He will kill me.”

The waitress brings the omelet he ordered and I watch my prey shovel it in. He’s like a ravenous animal, pieces falling out of his mouth that he quickly scoops up with dirty fingers.

“A vampire wants you dead, so you disappear,” I say when he’s almost done with the food. “Wouldn’t you be better off with a vampire hunter?”

“This isn’t a joke!” He drops his fork and slams his hand on the table as spit flies from his mouth. The outburst doesn’t bother me. I almost expect it.

“You ever piss off a vampire?” He stares at me then looks down and picks up a last speck of food, eyeing the plate in a way that makes me think he’d like to lick it clean. “Doesn’t matter that he’s sworn off humans. Every time he’s near me, he fights his very nature. If I were to take that to my family… Centuries of staving off humans.

I’ve seen him fight against what he is and almost lose.”

“So you read books, seen a few too many movies.” I relax in the booth and reach my arms out across the back of the seat staring at him. He’s lost it. “I was told you haven’t handled your wife’s death well. Complications during childbirth?” I push the cell toward him and nod, hands back to rest over the seat.

[ 35 ]

“Complications,” he laughs before he turns serious. “She was my life. My world.

I got drunk and we fought. I beat her. She fought back…” His face twists in some miasma of pain I can’t begin to understand and I know he’s back there. That night. As I wait for him to start again, I motion for the waitress to bring another omelet and more coffee.

“The more she fought the angrier I got and…and, I hit her harder. I heard the crack of her bones and watched as she collapsed in pain, but I didn’t stop. Couldn’t stop.” He pauses, looks again at his hands. “How’s that for complications?” His eyes focus on me.

He holds my stare, breathing heavy. The second omelet arrives, and he puts his head down back to devouring his last meal, if what he says is true. Minutes pass and he takes the toast to wipe the plate clean. A half-smile forms across his face when he looks up.

“Ever been married?” He asks. “Any children?”

“Divorced, one son,” I say. “And a brother,” I lie.

“My brother is married with two children. I’m not about to bring a mad vampire to them.”

“Call him.” I motion to the cell phone.

VAMPIRE

The PI remains seated as my quarry exits unsuspecting of the watch. I listened as they conversed, and am grateful in his acknowledgment that his kill must be singular.

I need to find him alone no longer in control of my nature in his company once again what my sire made me. A vampire. A demon. A preternatural being forced to that which for centuries I have fought. My desire for the taste of human blood all-consuming at the very sight of him. For a period, I have been occupying myself at his expense. This worthless human. This living breathing entity whose very act of existence drives me to the brink of distraction, near close to giving in.

But if I take what I so desperately want in a populated area, I fear I will be powerless to stop the carnage. I bide my time.

His face flushes as cold air caresses his skin and I remember the sensation of blood flowing through veins pumped by a heart that now only calls me to kill. I had once been human. Compliant of my destiny, unheeded, I traveled a road not coursed by those of my stature. My folly took that promise when a creature much like I am close to becoming, took my human soul.

[ 36 ]

I follow at a distance in the shadows. Each hurried uneven footstep inciting me as his blood rushes from vessel to vessel heating his very core and making me incensed.

I snarl as his pulse becomes frantic and he knows I watch. Deep in my throat, that familiar burn begins to beg me closer, drawing me toward the threshold of what I. Don’t.

Want.

I want him dead!

He owes me for the life he has taken surely as if he plunged a dagger into the myocardial sack and ripped it open allowing each precious drop of her deep crimson blood to tinge his hands and cover his continent. The vow I swore at our acquaintance, to leave the human, means little to me in the days since her death. What weight doth it hold over a soul lost? What punishment might she place upon my head worse than that which I endure at her demise? My own failure at her death. Though not my mate, I had pledged my eternal trust over her and if avenging that death is my denouement, then so be it.

I lick my lips and quicken my pace as he is near running, my composure ever more difficult to contain, or want to. I am a predator. He, my prey.

Hesitating but an instant, I expand what fate has given me, massive wings stretching feet to either side. A single stroke digs into the air lifting my body until I soar between street and lamp, knowing the shadow cast will increase his fear tenfold.

I can sense, near taste panic on the tip of a tongue that salivates. His temperature rises.

The odor of perspiration melds with his scent as he becomes aware my presence only a breath from taking his very essence.

Wing dipped I see a young female look to the sky searching for the sound that fills the night air. One look in her face and I see her. Not the female standing on the street, but the face which forever haunts my endless nights, the reason I ken my pursuit of his necrosis, as if she speaks from her sepulcher. I take leave atop a light pole.

I draw wing to back, a moment passes as I try to envision a different repast to satiate my need. Something not human. Closing my eyes, I listen to the sounds of the dark.

A clank of a metal garbage can, the lid pulled from its container by claws sharp as nails. The raccoon devours rancid meat ignoring the rat that scurries out of his way a step ahead. A few streets further a dog barks insistently. I can hear the small heart pound in the chest of a hare on the other side of the fence that surrounds the hound. The faint howl of wolves just beyond the city, more than one‌ three‌ four? Closer.

[ 37 ]

I sense another human, nearing his own grave, hidden beneath a blanket of newsprint dark in the shadows of a stoop. All easy kills yet none are enough to tip the scale, no alternative that will bring the same result. Retribution.

I am incapable of refraining, I do not want to. I have tried but…but… he caused her death. A single human. A vile piece of flesh whose blood runs free as hers ceased.

He is starting to slow, his exhaustion near complete and if I continue to tarry, the blood will sour.

I can but trust she will absolve me for taking his life.

Sweeping down from my perch, I strike.

The first puncture of fang into his flesh, the split second as it penetrates, the tear of tissue, the visceral response like no other and I am ravenous in my suckling unable to stop the thirst long denied pressing me further until nothing else can penetrate my psyche. The last beat of his wretched heart.

Elder

“You will not find the solace you seek in this.” I step closer to a figure near lost in his own divergent. As Coven Elder, our pact compels me to reign in his rapaciousness lest the entire city become his feast. “What of your word?”

He kneels with the corpse half draped over his body and cleaves to the torso to conceal his compulsion. Lost in grief he has succumbed to a nature we all fight from the beginning of a change none in truth seek. Blood drips from pointed eyeteeth as he looks up. I step closer, seeing what I sensed; he is both lost in the deed and grateful it is done.

Taciturn, he leaves me to read his thoughts answering my question in my mind. It has no hold.

The head hangs limp over his arm exposing the neck punctures as the bright red liquid runs freely, my kin’s saliva negating the clotting factors. The sweet bouquet wafts up, warm and inviting. Face pale, the heart has halted, all presence of consciousness exhumed, released from the tethers of a world that in the end betrayed the human.

His guilt is palpable. His inner demon is victorious and though I knew the inevitability, near as old as myself, I trusted him to abstain from a personal vengeance. Justified, I could exile him from the coven, but he has not been the first to plummet for a lesser grievance.

[ 38 ]

I feel a speck of blame lies in my own. Ill thought, I allowed his licentious despair and fear this act marks his demise. A spiral into a realm far darker than that which we have traversed.

“Your covenant?” I ask. “To protect humans.”

That wasn’t human, he screams in his thoughts, broadcasted as if bellowed.

“Your promise to her then? She loved…” I start, but he lashes out with a snarl and swipe of claw meant for my throat.

Him, he bristles, still refusing to verbalize a pain that for months has tortured as surely as he tormented the wretch. He killed her!

Not directly. Not intentionally. I hold my tongue when his eyes burn with an anger I thought doused by the kill. Leaning forward to rend canines to abdominal wall, he begins to disembowel the dead, the animalistic disgorgement grating as it echoes off brick structures.

Close enough to touch I keep to myself, and squat level in proposing gentle counsel. “Least not this. She would have laid her life before you. You do her no honor in this maliciousness.”

He laps at the blood soaked viscera before daring to acknowledge my words.

Intentions do not change the outcome. He offers what she had taught him, his eyes flicking up, but a minuscule to presage me.

“This will not return your heart.” I turn to a truth he refuses to receive, for as much as she loved him, “You were not her choice.”

He growls. The guttural sound starts deep within his chest, a basal instinct to protect in full swing since his first meeting of the creature. Aggrieved that she chose someone other than himself, he is incensed at the aide-mémoire.

“Each incarnation, she chose another.” I press. When he emits a sound like a feral fledgling, I stand pressing wing, aware that in his humor, he could easily take me.

A breath passes, his visage shifts, and he returns to suckling the exposed neck, consuming the lifeblood until there is naught but dust. No better than his sire made him, he has given into bloodlust.

[ 39 ]

Hunted

By Teresa Thompson

Dr. Beauregard burst onto the camp site. His pulse was going a mile a minute and his chest pumped rapidly as he attempted to suck in as much air as he could.

“I saw it,” he said eagerly, trying to whisper but failing. “I saw it. It was right over there.”

As he bent over to catch his breath, he pointed a bony finger at the dense blackness of the forest he had just come from. The thick trees encased the base camp, alive and heavy with promise that had, so far, not delivered. But it may have just granted them a gift.

“Okay, okay. Calm down,” Rick said quietly. He turned to their two teammates who had been drawn out of their tents by the urgency in the doctor’s voice. “Jimmy, get the video equipment. Ashley, sound. Everyone make sure you have your night vision and backpacks. Dr. Beauregard will lead us to where he saw… something, and I want everyone prepared and recording in case we stumble upon it.”

Ashley and Jimmy glanced at the doctor for confirmation. This was, after all, his expedition, his theory they were trying to prove. Dr. Beauregard appreciated the respect they still had for his authority.

He nodded his approval. The two teammates glanced at each other and smiled.

“Did you really see it, Dr. Beauregard?” Ashley asked.

Still trying to get his breath back, Dr. Beauregard simply nodded again.

Ashley’s eyes lit up with excitement as she practically skipped over to where Jimmy was already raiding the supply trunks.

The team was trying to gather evidence to prove the existence of El Chupacabra, the mythical vampire beast. It was claimed that the fanged creature raided farmlands in the Southern U.S. states and in Mexico. Terrorized famers would stumble upon their animals, finding their necks mauled to pieces and their bodies drained of blood.

Dr. Beauregard had spent the better part of the last decade researching the myth.

All the time and effort had led him here, to this moment.

As Dr. Beauregard watched Jimmy and Ashley animatedly gathering supplies, he envied their youth and exuberance. They were still too young to have been exposed to the evil the world had to offer. An evil that Dr. Beauregard was all too familiar with himself.

[ 40 ]

Reaching up a hand to wipe away his adrenaline-fueled sweat, he felt the scar running up the side of his head, behind his left ear. The chemo treatments had done away with the few patches of hair Dr. Beauregard had left after sixty-five years on the earth. Now he wore a dark bandana to not only cover his shiny dome, but also to hide the puckered, red area that was the only evidence of the unsuccessful brain surgery he’d had four months ago. The angry bump felt like a ticking clock. A constant reminder that he was living on borrowed time.

This was his last chance to prove his theories correct. He had to find hard evidence. Now. Otherwise, what would stop people from calling him a fool once he was gone? He had no family to defend the honor of his name. No wife or child who would take up the cause after his passing. All he had was this expedition. This dark patch of forest on the northern side of the U.S/Mexico border was where his legacy would be written. He either came away a hero or left a failure. There were no second chances.

Not for him. Not anymore.

“You okay,” Rick asked, snapping Dr. Beauregard out of his trance.

“Yes. Just eager to get moving. El Chupacabra is here. I know it. And we need to hurry.”

“If it was here, it should still be in the vicinity. The goat farm on the other side of the forest is a perfect temptation. El Chupacabra won’t stray too far from a free meal.”

If, Rick had said. That same note of uncertainty had peppered his words earlier when the doctor had first come bursting out of the woods to tell of his sighting.

“Do you doubt me?” the doctor asked with a genuine note of curiosity. “I know what I saw, Rick.”

“You know what you think you saw. But it was dark and you didn’t have any equipment with you. It could’ve been anything: wolves, bears, mountain lions. They all live in this forest.”

“It may have been dark, but it passed right by me and I got a decent enough look.” Dr. Beauregard’s voice started to rise above the quiet volume they were all attempting to speak in. Maybe he was a dying, old man, but he wasn’t crazy. “The thing was gray, scaly, and smelled like death. It also walked on its hind legs. Tell me if that describes any other forest animal.”

“Alright,” Rick said, attempting to placate him, which only irritated the doctor more. “Alright. That’s why we’re going in to investigate. If it’s out there, we’re going to find it.”

[ 41 ]

He turned and walked over to the supply trunks to get his equipment, shaking his head.

Rick uncertainty was crystal clear, and Dr. Beauregard couldn’t hold back his resentment. He knew this expedition had been long and unsuccessful. They had already been here three weeks, and they hadn’t even found so much as paw tracks or mangled animals to show for their time and effort. Everyone’s nerves were on edge and their minds were beginning to doubt.

With a frustrated sigh, the doctor began to pack his supply bag. He added his flashlight and map, his compass, threw a few bottles of water in as well.

His mind churned as he performed the routine action.

Rick and he were colleagues, both professors of History at OSU. But Dr. Beauregard could remember a time when Rick was just a skinny, pimple-faced teenager taking his Mythical Creatures class. He’d been so eager for any piece of information that the doctor could share about El Chupacabra. Hell, that was why he was the first person on Dr. Beauregard’s list of people he wanted on this expedition, why he allowed Rick to have such a major part in it.

Maybe some of Dr. Beauregard’s resentment came from his own anger and frustration about his health. Or maybe he subconsciously believed Rick was right to be skeptical.

Who knew, maybe the tumors currently growing in his brain were playing tricks on his mind, turning his decade-long obsession into an illusion.

No. He couldn’t think like that. He saw something. He knew he did.

After what felt like ages, the group was finally ready to go. All recording equipment was switched on. Everyone lowered their night vision goggles over their eyes as they began their trek into the thick forest. The sun had set hours ago, but the heat from the summer day still hung around, trapped within the confines of the wall-to-wall trees.

The humidity and the heaviness of the equipment worked together to build up a sweat on all of their faces as they began their search.

They hacked their way through thick foliage with machetes—a tough thing to do when you were attempting to chop as quietly as possible. They climbed over leg-sized vines, tripping every so often when the darkness grew too thick and the obstacles were not visible in their goggles. They spotted a few deer, a family of raccoons, even stumbled upon a wolves’ den, but no Chupacabra.

[ 42 ]

Hours passed and still no sighting. With aching shoulders and heavy legs, the group decided to call a temporary halt. Equipment packs were eased off of sore shoulders as they all found a spot on the forest floor to take a break. The recording devices were switched off.

Dr. Beauregard took out a bottle of water and sipped long and hard. The water slid down his dry throat. He replaced the cap, swatted at a mosquito on his arm, and glanced at his three teammates. Rick had his flashlight and GPS out, already mapping the route back to their camp ground. Jimmy guzzled down water, and Ashley rubbed her shoulders as she stretched her neck.

The dejection and resignation painted on all of their faces broke Dr. Beauregard’s heart.

He saw El Chupacabra, he wanted to shout. He did. He had been so sure of it.

It wasn’t just a figment of the imagination of a dying man. It couldn’t be. That would be a blow too cruel to accept. But the niggling doubt that had been planted with Rick’s earlier words had only grown as the night wore on without a sighting.

“I think we should call it a night,” Rick said with a pitying glance in the doctor’s direction.

“Rick’s right,” Ashley said, staring at her feet.

Ashley, his biggest supporter on this trip, who only hours ago had enthusiastically leaped into action when they set off to investigate.

As Jimmy voiced his agreement as well, Dr. Beauregard deflated. It was as if someone had pulled him apart at the edges to let the air escape. Some of his remaining hope leaked out with it.

Rick placed a hand on Dr. Beauregard’s shoulder and squeezed. The role-reversal was another cruel blow. The student was now leading the teacher.

“We should get back to camp,” he said. “We can look again tomorrow.”

But the truth was written in the way he held his mouth in a tight line. They weren’t going to find anything. Not tonight, or any other night for that matter.

Dr. Beauregard nodded. “Let’s head back, then. We’re all tired and need a break.”

The group gathered up their equipment and turned back toward camp, a lot more slowly and less urgently then when they had begun.

[ 43 ]

But just as they had taken a few steps, a menacing growl went off like a gunshot just behind them. They all stopped and glanced at each other as the overwhelming smell of decay hit them like a punch. Something rustled the branches just to the left of the group and they all turned quickly toward the movement.

Dr. Beauregard caught a flash of gray scales as the creature shot away.

“Turn the camera back on,” Rick barked. “Track it. Let’s go.”

The group took off after whatever had just been beside them. And Dr. Beauregard felt his dying body come to life once more as they plunged into the darkness.

[ 44 ]

Sleepover

By Jessica Shankland

It was 1986 and I had turned thirteen over the summer. Now the leaves were changing and Mom had gotten out our winter jackets and boots from the bin in the attic.

I was the middle of five kids. I had two older brothers and two younger sisters. We were all pretty close but this weekend everyone was having sleepovers elsewhere. It was my weekend to stay home and have friends over, so I invited Lisa, Rachel, and Tammy.

Tammy lived next door so she just walked over after school with her stuff. Lisa and Rachel rode the bus home with me.

Mom had prepared after school snacks for us: peanut butter and jelly on saltine crackers. We ate them at the kitchen table, whispering about boys from school, which ones were cute and which were gross. I noticed my mom was pretending not to listen, which was embarrassing. Then she interrupted us and said we needed to stay inside tonight because there might be a big storm.

Around seven o’clock, the sun having already set, we decided to play in the basement. The basement had 4 bedrooms and one long open room outside of them all. My older brothers had their bedrooms down there while my sisters and I slept on the main floor, in the bedrooms opposite the hall of our parents. My friends and I went to the very back room, a guest room that was the farthest away from the stairs leading up. All the lights that led us there were on pull strings and made tink-tink-tink sounds as the metal strings flapped against the light bulbs.

“What should we do?” asked Lisa. She and I were sitting on the bed while Rachel and Tammy were on the floor. We brought nail polish and combs and hair ties down with us, hoping to become beautified over the next few hours.

“We could read the revelations from the Bible,” Rachel said, playing with a scrunchie.

“We could have a séance,” Tammy suggested.

“Who would we séance?” I said.

“I don’t know,” said Tammy.

“I think my brother has an Ouija board, and we definitely have like, a million Bibles lying around,” I said. “I’m sure we can find something fun to do with those.”

[ 45 ]

My friends looked at each other and nodded. I ran out of the room to gather our props. I went upstairs and asked my mom for a Bible. She asked why I wanted it and I said we wanted to read it. She handed me one off the bookshelf with a delighted look on her face. Then I ran back downstairs and into my oldest brother’s room, knowing exactly where to find the hidden Ouija board. Mom would have flipped if she knew one of those was in her house.

The large open space outside of the bedrooms had five small basement windows surrounded by what looked like metal basins they were chopped in half. Mom was right when she said there would be a storm tonight. It was raining, the water filling and mixing with the dirt outside of the windows. I could also hear the wind howling outside.

But I knew we were safe in the basement, because that’s where we always went during big storms.

I brought the book and the board into the room and sat them on the floor, shutting the door behind me. The four of us looked at them, contemplating.

“Let’s use the board first,” Tammy said, reaching for the box and pulling out its contents.

“What should we ask?” Lisa sounded giddy.

“How about – “ began Tammy.

“How about we see if there are any spirits in the room,” Rachel finished.

“Oh that’s silly,” I said.

“Why, are you scared?” said Rachel.

“No!” I said, as I grabbed the planchette and slammed it on the board.

The girls grabbed the planchette with me, and Rachel asked the question, “Hello, is anyone there?”

We waited and nothing happened.

“If there is anyone there, please let us know now,” Tammy said.

We were all shaking, our childish nerves and fear of the unknown overtook our imagination.

“This is stupid,” I said. “No one is here. My mom said Jesus is watching over our house, protecting us.”

My friends shrugged in defeat.

[ 46 ]

“Let’s do something else. Let’s paint each other’s nails. Who wants to go first?” I said.

Rachel ended up going first. We took turns sitting on the bed while one girl painted the nails from the floor. The other two sat off to the side and braided each other’s hair. The storm was picking up and though we were in the basement I could hear the rain crashing into the house. The lights flickered a couple times. Mom yelled down the stairs once and asked if we were okay and if we needed anything. We said we were fine and no, we didn’t need anything.

Lisa went last, sitting on the bed while I painted her toe nails pink. She held the Bible in her lap, flipping through it quietly. Suddenly there was a loud bang of thunder and the lights flashed off. Tammy and Rachel both yelped, and I felt them grab my arms. I said it was okay, just stay calm; they should come back on soon.

In the darkness, my senses heightened, I could hear paper flipping. The lights began to flicker and we could see Lisa. She was mumbling words, and I couldn’t figure them out.

“She… she’s reading it… it backwards!” Rachel said.

“Her eyes!” Tammy said.

Her eyes were rolled back in her head and she was staring down at the Bible, flipping the pages one by one, steady, fast.

Within seconds, the lights turned off again, and the three of us screamed. Lisa began to laugh but it wasn’t her laugh. The three of us jumped up as I felt for the door and swung it open. As soon as I opened the door the lights came back on.

“Where are you guys going?” Lisa spoke in her own voice.

We turned around and looked at her. She looked normal, her feet swinging against the bed, just four of her toe nails painted, the Bible opened on her lap.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, noticing our awed looks.

“You were –”

“Your eyes –”

“Reading –”

“What?” said Lisa, a look of sincere confusion on her face.

We didn’t know what to tell her.

[ 47 ]

“What are you reading?” I asked.

Lisa looked down. “Um, the book of Isaiah apparently.”

“What page is that?” Tammy said.

Lisa looked down and up quickly. Her eyes grew large and she frowned.

“Six hundred and sixty-six,” she said.

I could feel my heart pounding against my chest. I was freaked. We all knew that was a bad number. I suggested that we go back upstairs and try to forget what happened. I put the Ouija board back in its hiding place and handed my mom the book when we got upstairs.

“You girls okay? Are you sick? You’re all quite pale,” my mom said.

“We’re okay,” I said, “I think the thunder and the power outage just scared us a little.”

“Honey, it’s only a light rain. The heavy stuff missed us. There was no thunder, nor did the power go out. We were lucky.”

My friends and I looked at each other dreadfully before we walked slowly to my bedroom.

I never did get answers to what happened to us that night, and I refused to go into the basement alone for the longest time. But even now, as an adult, I still shiver whenever I hear the tink-tink-tink of a metal string brushing against a light bulb.

[ 48 ]

“Staircase” Artist- Sarah Doebereiner

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Call for Submissions Winter 2015 Issue Wright State University’s Nexus Literary Journal is currently accepting Fiction, Poetry and Art submissions for our 2015 winter issue. This is an open submission call, which means we are accepting any type of fiction, poetry and art. If you would like to be published in our 2015 winter issue, please email your submissions to Nexusliteraryjournal@gmail.com with what genre you are submitting to in the subject line. Please refer to our website for guidelines for all genres. Deadline is Friday February 6th by midnight.

[ 51 ]

Special Thanks The Nexus staff would like to thank all of our followers, supporters, and contributors for helping us revive Nexus. Without all of you, Nexus would not be where it is.

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