UNNAMED story by Xaelifer

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ROUGH DRAFT - NOT COMPLETED, ITALICS, OTHER GRAPHICAL CONTRIBUTIONS LIMITED - MANY ERRORS TO BE FIXED!
by AMT...



“The moon has begun creeping,
across a windy sky;
And Death may be waiting,
with stars in His eyes.”

A small sound escaped old Martha Lode’s lips as the riding lawnmower shut
off in the middle of the steep hill.
She couldn’t reach the pull start from the seat, so she gripped the sides vainly.
A silky breeze breathed summer scents over her gray hair and flapped her pink and
purple flowery shirt. She hadn’t sweated for a long time, but, staring up the extra
thirty feet of sheer grass barring her from the top, she felt once again the greasy drips
prick her skin as they emerged. She heard Marvin on the other side of the hill with
the other mower, but couldn’t manage a yell.
She pushed her sneakered foot further and further onto the brake pedal. She
felt the tension on the pedal climb as it sunk near the bottom of the mower. Her eyes
watered because she was too afraid to close them.
There was a snap and a throaty yelp from Martha as the brakes stopped
working. She started back down the road of cut grass she’d made coming up. Tears
of frustration streamed down her face because her old bones would not permit her
the agility to climb out. The wheels creaked with the growing velocity.
There was a road below. Then a lot more hill.
The wind threw the grass in an angry good-bye wave to Martha as the mower
went faster and faster down the hill. Martha wouldn’t let go of the sides in her
personal puddle of fear. She stared straight ahead.
She would have whispered a prayer if she believed in that sort of thing, but
until now she had trusted brakes. And gravity.
The backward wind blew her hair into her eyes, but they pleaded with the hill
in front of her all the same. Its trees and grass and stones simply glared back at her in
mock indignation. They laughed and the wind desperately tried to blow her back up.
She didn’t last much longer.
It wasn’t the first strange death in Manley. And it surely wasn’t the last.

* * * * *

Let’s start off with a brief geographical view of the town of Manley, Oregon,
the place of Martha Lode’s departure. The main road, North Highway, bends into
the biggest part of town, and is laced by street lights, most of which are always on.
Branching off this road are numerous others, more unkempt and filled with potholes,
that form quasi-square blocks with houses. On one far side of town is a huge metal
granary, the so-called ‘fortress’ of Manley; it looked like a medieval castle to the
children. On the other is a mountain far off, the runoff creating a small lake circling
around it. This water leaks in from irrigation ditches because the whole thing is
covered in fields of numerous plants and dotted by the occasional tractor that spawns
dust devils on the not-so-fruited plain.
If we follow the highway, however, you’ll lose sight of the fields and come
into a miniature sage-brushed canyon. Houses instead of tractors dot this place, and
are occasional only in their density. Cool air plays tennis with hawks and hollows
out tiny caves. This place acts as a background and border to Manley; useless
country outskirts are all that’s left out here.
But Manley itself isn’t just another country town.
Interestingly enough, it has a listing of cruel deaths (with a suggestion of
murders) that have taken place there. A long listing. The deaths started a while back,
long enough that no one thought of the recurrence as strange or unusual because they
were spaced evenly enough for people to forget. And people forget very easily.

What Manley remembers from the first death:
We’re viewing the heart of town, the small store filled with food and candy
mostly, with an ancient gas pump outside. A paintless wooden sign bears to the
evening sky: Manley Goods.
Inside there is an old, balding man, about five foot six and chubby. His nose
narrows until the tip, where it widens in a bulb like a fleshy pimple, despicably
tuning his face like a baseball in a pond. He has hard eyes and smells of the ‘good
old days’ cologne. He is sitting in a nice black leather chair watching a group of
teenagers mill around in front of the candy rack.
They come up with change for a few bars of chocolate and he congests his
face to show his disgust with youth. He likes to make young people uncomfortable.
They may be funding his retirement, fifty cents at a time, but what the hell, an old
guy needs some fun sometimes too.
The teens leave except for one, a gangly wide-eyed youth of about fourteen or
fifteen years just back from a job shoveling manure, still in the rubber boots needed
for the job. His clothes depict poverty and he reeks of lack of bathing.
“Let’s go, goofy.” The old man says impatiently, seeing that it’s already 7:00
and bedtime is only an hour away.
“ ‘Kay, Albert.” The boy answers, licking spittle off his lips.
Albert rolls up his sleeves as the kid brings up a small carton of chocolate milk
and a bag of bread. He smacks the keys down on his register as he rings up the
prices.
“Supporting the family again, eh?” Albert sneers, snatching the money the kid
holds out. The kid looks down, shamed. Albert flips the quarter change in the air
and sneers again as the kid bends to chase it. “Yeah. Go away, half-wit.” The kid
silently glares at Albert after retrieving his change and leaves the store.
Albert soon locks the door and sighs.
He goes and straightens out his sitting area, wipes the chair off with his hand
in a ritual that has gone on since, oh, what was it, 1945 or so?
He opens his top drawer just next to the register and draws out a nearly empty
bottle of brandy. “It’s been a long time, brandy,” he says to himself (in utter love
with the phrase), knowing that he had taken a drink yesterday, the day before, and all
the days preceding that.
He has never been sure why he says that every day, and why he always takes a
big sip of brandy every day and dusts off his chair every day. Perhaps it’s some
ancient habit developed back in the golden years of youth when he had barely started
the store and was so immaturely excited to be old. He laughs to himself and sits
down. Finally alone. Finally alone. No more children to worry about pleasing.
Again and again. His life is becoming gone, not go, and he sighs again.
The dark eyes watching him smell his breath even from across the store under
the freezer.
Albert begins to chuckle, reminiscing about the old days a long, long ways
back. He remembers the wheat fields he used to go collect ticks in to show to his
mother, who always yelled at him. She was usually in a drunken stupor anyway,
and most of the time watching television, drinking, and burning his supper. He
laughs to himself. Yeah, old boy, those were the days, weren’t they? he thinks,
grinning.
The eyes are now under the Frito Lay display rack. It sees his hairs prick up
in the way the eyes have become accustomed to, the way hairs tend to when the
victim senses something watching him. But it never mattered, for it was already too
late for defense. They move through the wooden desk into the front drawer.
Albert turns, the smile leaking off his face and warping into a gigantic yawn.
He stifles it half way through and says sharply “Well, time to go, store. Take care of
yourself.”
He sticks the brandy back in the desk.
But he feels something else in there, something icily cool, like shade in
midsummer, but somehow darker. Like the air in an underground crypt centuries
old. He smells a burnt coppery aroma.
The eyes taste his flesh, testing it with shadowy fingers, and breath for him
inside his lungs.
The old man shivers, and starts pulling his hand out of the desk. But the hand
stays in a paralyzed encumbrance, and his eyes widen.
The drawer slams closed, an awful snap of bones the only sound but his
sudden scream. The store is insulated well (Albert hates winter weather almost as
much as he hates begging children) and no one hears the rest of the screams that pour
out of him.
Albert was the first, but he wouldn’t be the last.
Yes, the eyes decide as they turn red with revived life, they will like Manley.









“You may put on your masks now,
as the ball has begun,
and you may fling down your cloaks,
as the fire is O so nice and warm.”


“Yep, she’s deader’n a doorknob.”
“Just dandy.” Mart Geed breathed, trying to remember the face of old Martha
Lode. All he could seem to remember was her huge midsection and constant wedgie
in her undersized green pants unbeknownst to her. Her death was no tragedy to
him. He had hardly even known her, except in the worldly young-boy-to-old-lady
fashion.
He remembered the first time he had ever met her, when the neighborhood
ladies were at a get-together and he had to cook the food, which there was quite an
extensive collection of. She had called him cute. ‘Cutey-wootie Martey boy’, to be
exact.
He had never seen himself as cute. Sure, he had the generic ‘cute’ straight
blonde hair, and the tanned skin of a lifeguard at a pool, and the muscles of a farmer
in pipe lifting hell, as well as height, mental capability and general cleanliness, but he
was usually too busy doing odd jobs around town to worry about his hygiene.
He did everything. From rooting grass along sidewalks to bottling jam or
cooking, he was the one to call, said the people who had. He had done this since he
was ten, at least, in Manley. And he was appreciated by every neighbor within
miles. He had never done anything for Martha Lode, though, which was odd, and
that was probably why he couldn’t remember her that well. He didn’t try to.
“Didn’t she?” asked Robbie Lantgden, the informer of Mrs. Lode’s tragic
misgivings.
This boy, on the other hand, was short, spectacled, freckled, braced, bruised,
warted, pimpled, odored, and stressed in the ugly zone. A greasy flap of hair
obscured his vision like a trap door. He was two years younger than Mart, and about
two feet shorter. His teeth were like mini A-Bombs piled in different directions, and
his mouth leaked when he attempted to pronounce his S’s. But his eyes had no
sorrow in them. Or at least no sorrow that wasn’t coated with layers of stupidity.
“Didn’t she what?” Mart asked, looking down at him. He hadn’t been
listening. It’s hard to listen to Robbie Lantgen for a long while. Then again, it’s hard
not to.
“Well, duhhh! Haven’t you been lishtening? She made the beshtesht cookies
ever! They were, like, in chshocsholate and mmmm....” Robbie licked his lips, at the
same time licking greasy mud.
Mart wiped Robbie’s spit off his face with a sleeve. “Just like Mrs.
Cremmington and Ms. Violet? And the rest of them?” He said.
“No, shilly! Hersh were the beshtesht! Ms. Violet’sh only had the green
minty onesh, you know, you saw ‘em! They were good, but Mishesh
Cremmington’s were better’uns, but Mishesh Lode, she had the beshtesht!”
Robbie rambled on about the local cookie ratings. Mart looked out on North
Highway, and across the street where the Libley kids were playing on a mound of
dirt. He looked up at the bright orange sky, tinted with the life of evening. He
guessed it was about 8:00. He sighed, then got up from the bench, wiping his hands
on his pants, which were torn with the holes of labor.
8:00. Time for his last job of the day, cooking for the Orsons. Probably
another neighborhood meeting, considering that the last one was a month ago.
Neighborhood meetings were a pain. Best to be rid of Robbie and be there early, or
at least on time.
“And the Crimphshis have good desherts and they-“
”Well, I gotta go to the Orson’s. Be seein’ you, Robbie.” Mart interrupted,
even through the ceaseless babbling.
“-got good vanilla and, hey, wait, you can’t go, I was jusht going to tell you
about-“
”Bye, Robbie.”
Mart started walking up the side of the Highway. The sun was glazing his
eyes over with gold, and the street lights that were always on acted like orange food
coloring in a Manley of water.
It was a nice evening, and everyone was out. Mart started wondering that, of
all the nights like this he had been out, why he had never seen old Martha Lode.
People had said she liked to read and was usually out gardening with her husband
Marvin. Her house wasn’t that far away from the town, a little on the outskirts, but
near enough that he could be there within twenty minutes walking. He had heard
things about her like ‘dumb old bag’ and ‘mean old witch’ from kids, but had heard
things like ‘good person’ and ‘community helper’ from adults.
He sighed. No more thinking about her. She wasn’t important. He was
nearing the Orson’s house and could see that there were already a few cars parked
outside. No one would be last to a neighborhood meeting, and Mart would get
glared at if he was.
He started to jog.


* * * * *

Agent Jack Kervach stepped out of the headquarters office at exactly the same
time Mart Geed learned of Martha Lode’s death. He took care to make the door
slam just hard enough to let Vice President Jameson know that he was mad about his
orders but easy enough to not get any trouble.
He sometimes hated working for a paranoid secret agency. Especially one
with an pushy prick like Jameson running everything. But that’s life for you.
As an investigator of the unidentified, Jack liked proving to Jameson and the
rest of the paranoid people of the world that “ there are no aliens, never have been
any aliens, and never will be unless you have children”. But the orders he had today
were utterly ridiculous. It pissed him off to be pushed over the borderline of
ridiculousness even when working for an agency devoted to finding aliens, ghosts
and ghouls in the bleakest corners of Earth. Ridiculous.
Travel three thousand miles because of some whim Jameson cooked up with a
bunch of old, meaningless deaths. That pushy prick. Jack knew that Jameson was
just giving him this little assignment as a vacation because, here’s the bottom line,
folks, Jameson didn’t like Jack Kervach. And that pretty much summed it up.
Except for the part about Jack thinking of Jameson as a complete asshead. You
know, it’s a good way to get someone you don’t like out of your face for a while to
just send him out to nowhere for a nowhere reason. Jameson was good at ‘ways’.
Jack didn’t want to dress in a black tuxedo and go prancing around like Sean
Connery 007 in some half-baked land of rocks, wind and memories. He didn’t like
Sean Connery. He knew that being a secret agent wasn’t that hard and it pissed him
off that someone like Sean Connery could go and do the impossible without a second
try. And Jack never even had the chance.
So he put on his brown, scruffy leather coat (which was emblazoned with an
array of patches depicting the Grim Reaper, and mostly showing the death of
something or other - a design to make Jack Kervach look like Hasta La Vista in a
jacket that wasn’t working), sighed, and headed out of the building, with what little
quenching looking pissed off supplied.
He had a long way to go. The trip would be boring, when he got there it
would be boring, and the trip back would be boring. The trip to the airport would be
boring.
Boring, boring, boring.
What an exciting life. It’s surprising that being a secret agent wasn’t more fun.
He hadn’t even encountered a monster hiding in a closet yet. He laughed within his
head. Laughs were hard to find in a boring life.
Now that he looked at it, closing the way between the office and his car, his
entire life had been boring. Actually, boring wasn’t a good enough word for it.
Stupid was a better word. He had known that before he had gone to law school,
become a cop, and eventually a secret agent. The way his career went to action-
infested jobs for the law was only his way of ‘pepping it up’. It hadn’t helped. He
knew old senile men in wheelchairs at rest homes that had more exciting lives than
him. It was as if Jack got up from bed at home, turned into a slab of fly-attracting
meat, and threw himself in the freezer. And that was a spyglass to his existence, he
realized, a stupid, pushy spyglass being shoved right up his nose to see into his brain.
Law school had been alright, he supposed. At least it had had an ending for
him to look forward to. He had been a good student. ‘Straight A’s’ and his mother
telling him over the phone from New Jersey that “You’s a good little boy and I’ll
bake ya some cookies and send them Fedex because the US Postal Service is not
working anymore like it were when I’s a little girl, and I were a little girl once!”.
And she would go on and on like that in the same, totally illiterate monotone. He
liked it, though.. He hadn’t had many friends, but there was mom, always baking
cookies. Yes, he figured, compared to his current life, law school was a roller-
coaster.
After that, he had become a police officer in a small town in Colorado, a long
ways from his mother, who stopped calling him as soon as he joined the force, and
hadn’t since. He got his first taste of the country life there. That would be one
reason he didn’t want to go on his current mission. He knew what country life was
like. Waking up at 5:30 to the smell of the local farmer with a tractor, being as loud
as possible. Nothing for miles but fields. He had hated it. There hadn’t been any
action there, either. Just tickets for speeding and drunk driving to deal with. He did
a good job where he could, however, got paid, but still hated it.
So he moved to New York and enlisted for the FBI, showing good records that
he had maintained in Colorado, a steady, healthy life, and everything required for a
federal job. Instead of getting to be a Bureau agent, he was stuck into an empty slot
in a low-budget classified operation like a parody of the X-Files. He was supposed to
investigate the old folks who claimed they saw flying saucers, and the young kids
who say they were kidnaped by green little people. It was fun for a while, but four
years of it had destroyed his life. He had had four years of telling people that there
weren’t any aliens, and then pretending to investigate. He knew there weren’t any.
Jameson only made it worse. He was hired in Jack’s third year. He started
pushing him around as soon as he saw him. Jameson was a paranoid tennis-playing,
five-foot-six jock completely convinced of his own superiority. The complete
opposite of Jack.
Jack hated tennis, was sure of reality and six-foot-one. He wanted to kill
Jameson right now, wanted to kill his job, wanted to kill his life. He wished he could
move to Hawaii or somewhere nice and sit on his rump all day, drinking and eating
and just living. Talking to Mom, maybe.
He got in his car, an old beat-up bug, the kind kids play the game ‘slug bug’ to
and can’t figure out which color it is, and started driving to the airport, bored already.
He involuntarily scratched his side, where his gun-strap pushed against his ribs. He
turned on the radio. Country music with some old hoot whistling and a-strummin’ a
guitar. A good reminder of what was to come.
What was to come? Investigating murders from decades ago in some old
worthless town, living in a cheap hotel because that pushy prick Jameson wouldn’t
support survival funds. The jerk wouldn’t even supply gas money.
The road bore on. He was very depressed as he watched it fly under him, like
a good life, his feet not even touching it. He wondered why Mom hadn’t called in so
long. Maybe he would call her when he got back.
Maybe he would call her when he got to Oregon. If the neanderthals had
found out about phones yet.

* * * * *

The phone rang right as Mrs. Delaware Orson announced the dinner to the
neighbors and set the steaks down. Mart definitely cooked an excellent steak, she
was thinking, but she didn’t want to say anything. Having a boy cook for you wasn’t
community-original, you know. She would let them think she cooked them.
The noise was already enough that no one heard either the phone or Mrs.
Orson. The huge-bellied farmers and even huger farmer wives were talking, mostly
about Martha Lode’s death, and how especially surprising it was to such a little town.
There was a general shuffle as they all unconsciously noticed the steaks and moved
into eating position, still blabbering.
The blabbering decreased some, though, for now the table was complete, with
enough courses of food to serve eight battalions in the War of Gettysburg, if they
were all hungry. The were all like vultures suddenly, guerillas in Vietnam, assassins,
lone-rangers, all flying in circles over the food while upholding the bulwark of
ceaseless friendly-talk to keep the others out of the first serving.
In the midst, Mart brought out some olives to top it all off, and Mrs. Orson
eyed him quickly, hoping no one would notice. She didn’t want them thinking she
wasn’t part of the community having someone cook for her. Cooking was the
trademark of all the women, and in itself a trademark of no one, although none of
them realized that. Mart went back into the kitchen, and she bit her lip. She was
excited about the food, too, having the capacity for the table itself, but community
was definitely more important right now.
“Early bird gets a worm, I reckon!” One of the farmer men suddenly shouted,
plunging his fork through two slabs of red steak. And so it began.
Man for himself. Clatter of forks, arming of the battalions, sinking of knives,
and the recurring of mouthful after mouthful. Mrs. Orson threw herself in a chair,
huffed, and reached for a steak.
Only one man in the room didn’t reach for a steak at the same time the others
did. An old skinny man in blue suspenders instead grabbed a handful of olives and
ate them slowly and carefully, watching everyone with blue eyes. He was almost
completely invisible, unnoticeable but for his little curly white beard. Not a single
person had said anything to him since he showed up.
Alan Durles was this man’s name. He ran Manley General Goods. He had
since any candy-buying teenager could remember, having inherited it as soon as his
brother, the former owner, had died. Most the kids around town were good friends
of his. Mart and Alan had gone fishing countless times. Mart sometimes worked at
the store stocking what little amount of stuff could be stocked. Mart refused pay for
that. Alan was especially old, and Mart liked him, thought he deserved what he
could earn at that age. He was also especially modest.
His brother, Albert, who was only five years older than Alan, was thought to
have died of a heart attack many years ago.
(But there was so much more to that death...)
And Alan had inherited the store, giving up a long career struggling as a
writer. So had become of his life, tending to the little market and making what he
could of age. He wasn’t married, never had been, had no living relatives, and was
getting older by the day. Mart guessed he was eighty or so already. It would be a
troubled day when that old boy died.
Alan enjoyed his olives. He liked olives. He never even looked at the steak.
Mart was in the kitchen, washing his hands. He was tired today. He realized
that no one had answered the phone in the other room when it rang. The old fat
men must’ve been to busy letting their eyes glisten over my steaks, he thought. He
wondered who it had been.
And then, as if to answer his speculation, the phone rang again.
It was far too loud in the other room where they were eating, so Mart decided
to pick it up in the kitchen. The phone stopped in the middle of an urgent ring.
“Hello? Orsons’ resid-“
”Hi! Let me talk to Delaware!” The voice almost cried into Mart’s ear,
sounding urgent.
“Uh...Just a second, please,” Mart said, wondering who this person was, and
what right he had to yell into the phone like that.
Mart went into the other room and nearly had to cup his hands and holler to
get Mrs. Orson’s attention. She looked up curiously, dribbling steak sauce from a
cheekful of steak, and got up, huffing through the food. It definitely wasn’t
community-original to give the phone to someone who’s busy eating.
She picked it up. “Yes?” She said in her most pleasant tone, and almost
burped.
Mart watched her as her face curved inward in kind of a grimace. What was
happening?
“Oh, my....oh, dear. Truly? Hold on. I’ll tell them. Oh, dear, is that so? I’ll
tell them that, too.”
She hung up the phone softly and didn’t even look at Mart as she went into
the eating room. Mart followed her.
The room went quiet as she motioned and said that she had something
important to say. Someone belched in the silence and his wife nudged him in the
ribs, summoning another belch.
“I...” Delaware Orson said, clearing her throat, “There’s been an accident.”
That always means something bad, Mart thought, something bad.
Mrs. Orson inhaled and announced in a dire voice: “John Feebs is dead.”
There was a momentary gasp.
“He was...run over by his tractor. Repeatedly. Just a few minutes ago. The
sheriff found him and Winnie just called me.”
Silence.
“No one knows who was in the tractor. I’m sorry I had to tell you right now,
but Winnie said it was urgent...and I...”
She sat down, suddenly really embarrassed at the silence. They couldn’t finish
their meals. That wouldn’t be right. She knew that she had sent her community-
originality down the drain. There wouldn’t be another neighborhood dinner at her
place. She sat there glumly, looking at her plate. Definitely not good.
Mart crept into the kitchen and out the back door quickly, taking his coat off
the hanger near it. He wanted to talk to the sheriff. John Feebs was a nice guy to
Mart, and he wanted to find out what happened exactly. His farm was about half a
mile away.
Two deaths in the same day. He would have to find out exactly what
happened.


The eyes were getting hungrier now. Satisfaction took such a toll. And the
toll was increasing.




“The surprise in your eyes,
what lies in demise!
And sin will be pouring in,
and your mind must find,
And make the graves behave;
Is tomorrow without sorrow?”

Alan Durles left only about ten minutes after Mart did. No one noticed; by
now all the eaters were seeking some kind of a syphoned, one-eyed redemption in
telling of all the good things John Feebs did for them, in turn taking the chance to fill
themselves with the rest of their meals. They all knew, though, that John Feebs had
been utterly insolent to each of them. He had been extremely nice to the kids
around, but had never shown for any community matters and had nearly yelled at
anyone trying the push them on him. He had liked Alan Durles, and Alan had liked
him.
Although Alan was, in truth, one of the wisest and most intelligent men in
Manley, he was thought of lowly by the community. This may have been because
he was a frequent visitor to the house of John Feebs, who wasn’t just thought of as
low, but abhorred, or because he was the brother to Albert Feebs, who was also
disliked before he died many years ago because of his hostility to children, or maybe
merely because he was smarter than the community and they knew it.
Alan left the Orsons’ yard in his ancient old pickup truck. It was the kind of
vehicle that needed an ‘old’ before its name no matter who said it how. It was
brown, but not with paint, and made a noise like an angry pudding scratching its
neck when started up. It was loud, and it purred out coal black fumes from the
exhaust pipe with reverence. Alan loved it, secretly wallowing in the fact that it
angered anyone who was within a square half-mile with almost every type of
pollution you wanted.
He began driving over to John’s farm. He wondered what John would look
like dead. He had always been energetic and alive; the kind of man you never see
sleeping. Alan wasn’t grieving over his death, of course, because the two had agreed
long ago that when someone dies, you get over it and go back to bailing the hay.
John wouldn’t appreciate Alan grieving, so he didn’t.
Alan Durles also didn’t grieve about any of the other deaths he had seen. And
he had seen nearly all of them since Albert’s.
Which was odd, because he was a millimeter away from realizing the truth
about them. And anyone who realized the truth about those deaths would grieve.
Oh, yes, anyone would grieve.
Alan turned on the radio to some hoot whistling and a-strummin’ a guitar.

* * * * *

John Feebs’ farm was vast. It was located near the base of the mountain, just
far enough away that you couldn’t see the faces of the people wandering the Manley
streets, but close enough that you could jog to and fro. A dirt road salted with rocks
screeched past the corn field, turning toward North Highway, which was about a
half-mile east of the farm. It was a wonder how John Feebs had kept it producing
year after year, as it was almost thirty acres square.
The corn was beautiful. It was emerald green and nearly seven feet tall, with
fine, bulging shucks peeking out. This field took up half of the land Feebs owned,
and a child might have though there were lost tribes of corn people out there. The
other farmers were definitely jealous. The corn was like an army of green martians
from an Edgar Rice Burroughs story.
John Feebs’ tractor was dumped across the road into an irrigation ditch across
from the corn. A jagged trail of mangled growth led through the field, as if the
tractor had suddenly exploded and shot through the field like a rocket. The road was
torn to bits where the tractor had traveled before falling into the ditch, and the whole
place stunk with gasoline, which was running steadily into the trench from behind a
huge, slightly spinning tire.
The tractor, itself, was even worse. The windshield had a huge hole in it
where something had broken through, and blood was everywhere. Red fingerprints
were clustered as if they were being catalogued, and a stench overpowered the
gasoline by ten. The seat of the tractor was torn completely off, and was lying in a
heap inside. The wheels lolled back and forth, one in midair. They were greyish-
white once, but were now lined with red.
(And they would call this one an accident, too...)
Four cars were slapped onto the scene - two police vehicles, one pulled into
the corn field, a minivan, probably belonging to the one who had shown up first, and
now Alan’s pickup.
Alan had expected not to grieve at John’s death. But he hadn’t expected it to
be like this. No, not like this. His eyebrows shook like leaves in a heavy wind as he
pulled up and got out.
No one was looking at the tractor. In a circle of four people and two officers,
something was turning them white as sheets.
Alan advanced slowly. He vomited into the corn field when he saw what they
were gathered around.
A big, dirty mound was slumped on the road. ‘Scattered’ was a better word. It
was faintly crimson, but covered with dirt, like a blanket of gore. Tubes, in lines like
cords from a stereo, were blasted, resembling rays of sunlight, in every direction. A
stream of foul red was steadily flowing into the ditch. Tire marks pushed all this into
the ground, so that the road resembled an ancient painting of Hell, like a distortion of
Dante’s Inferno, flat and lifeless, but vivid and animate.
The eyes watched in cruel anticipation. They loved the visages - oh, they
loved to see how their hard work was admired! The old man emptying his stomach,
the fat woman whispering a scream from her soul, the people in the silly hats and
black jackets completely unaware of a solution... This was so much better than the
others. They had been so simple, but now the eyes had found the inside, the blood,
the everything. This death was a revolution to the eyes! The puny victims were so
much more than peach-colored flesh!
So much more!
Mart appeared on his bicycle, steadying himself on Alan’s truck as he got off.
Alan ran over, wiping his face with his arm, shouting.
“Don’t go over there! Don’t go over there!”
There were tears in Alan’s eyes. Mart blinked and frowned, but pushed him
away and began walking to the site.
He saw the gruesome scene and a strange, new courage poured into his soul.
He thought, he knew, that he should have been crying at that moment, at seeing
John Feebs’ entrails scattered across the dusty road like a liquid collage. Instead, he
was angry. Oddly, he was infuriated that someone would come here - come to
Manley - and do this to a person - that a death like this could ever pierce the purity of
a small country town. It angered him even more that Martha Lode had probably
been murdered, and many others, too.
He clenched his fist and his knuckles turned white. He stood there thinking,
looking at the sunburst of gore and hearing Alan’s sobs behind him.
A roar and blast of dust appeared as two police vehicles flew in on the dirt
road. Mart heard the bellows of police officers ordering one another around. He was
tapped on the shoulder. He turned.
The face was round. Round, round, round. The bald head almost seemed to
twirl it was so circuitous. It was like a big, glowing orb. The eyes were fat, juicy, and
stretched the eyelids. The mouth was a narrow crevasse on a hilltop with thin sides
and chocolate lining. The crevasse moved.
“Did yer know this man who is now dead, boy?” The voice was as fat and
juicy as the eyeballs and clearly stated a disrespect for youth. The mouth was
chewing something, like a big, soggy mess of cat droppings. Its breath stunk. This
man was a police officer.
The eyes, which had been waiting impatiently, took their chance. They flew
out of the corn field and in a millisecond reached Mart’s mouth.
Mart blurted in a very odd, wispy voice, “Fat, fat, fat, fat. You are as bulbous
as you are odorous, you officious pig. Why don’t you have another doughnut? I hear
the colonies in your stomach are looking for new recruits.”
The fat police officer blinked in confusion. He had never hear the words
‘officious’ or ‘odorous’ but he definitely understood the word ‘doughnut’. There was
something bedeviling about the boy’s voice, a kind of possessive justice that was
just...wrong...
“I...I’ll be getting along, now, and you just be a good boy, yahear?”
He waddled away, hurrying to find something to do to occupy his obese
physique.
The eyes laughed inside of Mart’s mouth and flew out. They loved playing
tricks like this on the stupid humans. Voice was such an easy thing to control! And
what it could achieve!
Mart blinked, dazed, and briefly saw the eyes as they darted back into the
cornfield. Terror filled him for that moment, as the figure the eyes occupied was
horrid. A long, black cloak of darkness, like a splat of ink on the landscape, that
moved like a jerky corpse spun into the field. A chilling laugh spittled his mind.
He instantly sprinted after it, pushing a police officer out of the way. The corn
stalks smashed together as he burst through them, and he could barely see bits of the
inky hide of the creature in front of him through the millions of canes barring him
from his goal.
Chase, chase -
a beast in view!
A war for nothing,
a love untrue!
A terrifying voice echoed through his brain, and he screamed in agony. The
voice was blood-curdling. The endless mirage of corn slapping and slicing his face,
arms and legs mixed with the laughing, mocking voice of a fleeting phantom spun
him into a strange madness - and the only thoughts traveling through his head were
of the poem.
It was such a beautiful poem.
So nice of a poem.
He liked that poem.
Abruptly, Mart awoke from the madness. He was lying sprawled across
collapsed corn stalks, bleeding and lost. The walls of green and tan spread out
forever, and they looked almost like a gathering council to decide his fate. He felt
very alone, and it was utterly quiet. The evening sun was sinking; shallow darkness
was prevailing over the land of corn. His head spun like a drunk hummingbird and
he stood up.
I see the one
he of distress
A quick call
and it will end!
Mart’s eyes widened. This time the voice in his head hinted at something -
some sort of riddle. The gnarly, ancient laugh scattered throughout his mind and he
felt nauseous. His vision seemed to twirl around in a blur of color. He desperately
tried to understand the meaning of the strange riddle that was repeating itself over
and over again in his head.
A crow cawed and pierced the silence in a short discord.
Mart jumped to the side, and landed in another heap of himself, just in time,
the meaning of the riddle suddenly slapping his face. The black, inky figure streaked
overhead and Mart felt a coldness probe his body as the thing came close.
It was gone. Mart sat up and looked around frantically. His nose was
dripping blood down onto his shirt, and his arms were sliced from the corn. He felt
dizzy and diseased. A riddle. The thing had tried to kill him and had recited a
childish riddle! Outrageous! He was lying there broken and bent and it was laughing
and narrating poetry!
Suddenly it appeared in the open, its inky tentacles surveying the small
clearing the battle had wrought.
It was a blob. As Mart stared at it in constipated disbelief, that was the only
word that came to mind. It was a thin blob, somehow, though, as it kept changing
size and shape. It was a dark, putrid black, like a dyed scarecrow, and just the visage
said that many evils competed through its veins like cars on a racetrack . It looked to
be about fifteen feet high; Mart was sitting down and staring, gawking, upward at the
strange monarch. It looked like some kind of mummy with the black lace stretching
and flapping like so many worms and swords.
But Mart hardly noticed, for he was staring deep into its eyes, swimming in
what he found there. Terror. Pure, pure terror siphoned and cleansed from a great
fountain of fear, ready to leap at its master’s first desire. The terror itself was
enjoying this. Mart had no idea how, but it was enjoying this.
...charmed, I’m sure...
He, himself, was enjoying the eyes, though, strangely. He was hamstrung by
an unfitting belief that they loved him like family. They were so alike, Mart and the
eyes. Mart made a poem and recited it to them, for he was growing a quick
friendship with them. They would be comrades forever. A murky fog drifted across
Mart’s mind and threw out any other thoughts besides the love of the eyes. They
were so beautiful, like big, mushy puppy eyes on a cartoon show. So obedient.
Beautiful:
Laced with faulty flowers,
Creamed with death,
Marred with passion,
And unchained,
Never to rest.
The eyes seemed to smile in benevolence. They were so kind-hearted, it seemed.
Mart smiled. He loved the eyes. They never did anything bad or wrong. He would
do anything for them. They were so proud.
Suddenly, out of a chiseled corner in his mind where sanity was lurking, a
song sprang into his head:
“...tainted love, oh tainted love...”
and vanished as quickly. He wondered why he remembered that song. He
had only heard it once, and he hadn’t liked it that much. Oh, but what was the
matter? The eyes loved him. Surely they weren’t

TAINTED

Mart’s head almost burst. The creature flew back a few steps in surprise, and
the conjunction between their eyes snapped. The word had been loud and clear, like
smashing his head against a bell. Relieved from the infection the creature had
pawned him, his mind’s fog cleared and the creature screamed in panic, trying to get
back to Mart, to charm him again. Mart felt the urge to run to the creature’s shaking
open arms, but something was stopping him, keeping his sanity in check.
He was being slapped hard again and again from an unknown force, to keep
him awake from the charms and compellings of the eyes. The word ‘tainted’ recited
itself over and over and over and over until he thought his face would melt.
Something burst out of the corn stalks. There were three loud bangs, a blur,
the creature’s outworldly scream magnified by ten, and then total silence.
The sudden complete lack of noise almost hurt Mart’s head as much as the
chiming word, which he abruptly couldn’t remember. Everything, all the
excitement, drained away. The world was suddenly shady and nice, and Mart’s
mind was slowly returning to normal. The monster was gone. Dead. Done for.
Nothing to worry about anymore.
He pushed the bushel of gloom in front of his eyes away and the first thing he
saw almost scared him.
A tall man with a pale, lean face and a sharp nose stood in front of him, a
small handgun clenched tightly in his right hand. He was wearing a jacket that was
once brown, but was now vandalized with Grim Reapers. Under that he looked a
little like a young James Bond, Mart thought. The man looked duly spooked, and
was staring down the corridor of trampled corn where the creature had fled.
Mart stood up slowly, aching and bleeding, and asked, “Where is it?”
The man blinked as if he had never noticed Mart and turned to face him, the
tip of the pistol following his movement. It was pointed directly at Mart’s face and
the owner didn’t seem to notice.
“Name’s Jack, er, Special Agent Kervach.”
And Jack Kervach fainted.

“Ruination! The thought of progression
wilts with nasty regret
and mind’s dimensions
mark the tip of a bullet!”

That night, as Jack Kervach and Mart were on their way to the hospital,
Robbie Lantgden was rolling and turning in his small, dirty bed. He was having a
dream.
He was watching an endless wheat field sway back and forth. Vivid scents
poured and poured across him. It seemed that the universal Time factory had a
meltdown, and he was stuck in eternal bliss.
A figure was approaching from a hundred million miles of wheatfield away, a
purple figure. It was now closer, only an eternity away, and the world was moving,
swaying. The purple figure came closer and closer and closer and closer. Only an
eternity away. Eternity. Closer.
It breathed and it unhooded itself.
The world was now black and gray and lifeless: a huge, crimson skull balling
through space. There was nothing Robbie could do but watch the inky wheat fields
sway back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, for eternity. The vermilion jaws
of the skull chomped up and down and sputtered out bloodless words -

Laugh laugh laugh laugh
Ha ha ha

Robbie’s eyes flashed open, tears streaming down the sides of his head onto
the pillow. The pounding life of reality started hitting him with a sledgehammer. He
was instantly inundated with fear and confusion, and he abruptly fell out of bed. The
strange beat of the words in his dream ran through his mind, repeated again and
again. It was like the war drums that his plastic Indian toys had.
The whispers of the trees outside his open window, the creak of the crickets in
his pet lizard’s tank, the skittering of mice in the walls, the breaks and tiny screams
throughout the house, the occasional bump in the night tortured him happily. Lying
on the floor on a spiky toy, his face turned toward the wall, he thought once about
turning and looking under the bed and peed his pants.
He realized he was sobbing. No, not sobbing, whimpering. Like a little girl.
A little schoolgirl. Girly little Robbie, all spooked up the wall and peeing his pants.
He was a bigger boy than this - he was strong, he was able! He could do anything!
What’s a bogeyman that screams about eating you besides a big, dumb old fakey?
He wanted Mart. He whimpered some more.
After an hour or so of dreading the hundreds of creatures’ fingers and tentacles
and spinal cords that were reaching out for him in the darkness, Robbie got brave
and jumped up, dashed, and flew out the window of his room.
He crash landed about ten feet into a large rose bush, which wasn’t too happy
about the whole thing and decided to prick him with its thorns. He moaned vainly
and rolled out onto the lawn. Painfully sobbing, he took light comfort in the smell of
the grass and the night air. Balled neatly, like a cat in the sun, Robbie’s eyes bulged
with tiredness.
Girly little Robbie. Always staying up too late because of the monsters under
his bed. What a wimp, he thought, what a complete loser. He lost himself in these
thoughts until slumber shut his mind.
He lay shriveled, bleeding from the thorn-pricks, until the sun rose on its
throne of gold.

* * * * *

Delaware Orson was also lying in her bed, sleepless after the events. First the
death of Martha Lode (bless her dear heart), and now the death of John Feebs. Both
in the same day...
It was the closest thing to un-community-originality she had ever encountered.
She reasoned this out and decided she would go downstairs and have a cookie
and some leftovers from today’s dinner. Dinner was always friendly, and never
messed itself up with unnecessary deaths. She shuddered at such a mean thought,
but snickered a little, too. She hadn’t liked John Feebs.
She stood up and groaned with the sag of her obesity. Her and the bed could
have been accurately compared to a rising glacier and a falling ocean. Delaware
sometimes said to herself when she was extra mad at something she had done that
“Momma wouldn’t of named me Delaware unless there was physicaliciousness
involved!” merely to madden her even more. She was truly obsessed with vanity and
sociality - was a complete narcissist and had a passion for yelling at certain barbarous
people who weren’t civilized. Unfortunately, she was bloated-looking and couldn’t
talk without lacing the face of the listener with spittle. She had quite the Atlantis of
overbitten teeth.
The body parts of Delaware Orson massed and migrated like a herd of fat
cows to the stairs, where she lifted her night gown and proceeded with as much posh
as a fat woman could manage in a thousand years.
She smiled as she imagined: she was Belle in Beauty and the Beast, traveling
nightly down to see her new love, the chocolate cake of her dreams. She laughed
and licked her chubby lips. She frowned. Horrible taste - the drool again. She
would have to get her teeth fixed, she decided.
Turning the corner of the stairs and sliding through the dining room, she
finally arrived at her destination. She snuck like a vast, white assassin and slowly
opened the refrigerator door, shaking with anticipation.
There was her target, sitting right on the middle shelf, drooling with
advertisement of a luscious kind! It would be a hit and run operation. She rubbed
her hands together and took the cake out.
Her stomach provided a drum roll.
The space between the silverware drawer, plates, milk, and table was covered
in a matter of seconds. She sat at the table and raised her fork. Poised like a gigantic
python...
Delaware Orson ate the cake.
And, when she was done, she wiped off her mouth with the corners of a
napkin, like a classy lady. She left the table, walls, and the bit on the ceiling for later.
Streaking in a thunderbolt of agony toward the kitchen window, the eyes
screamed in frustration and rage. They burst through the window and glass rained
down on Delaware. A black stain lashed through the house and the front door flew
off its hinges as it departed. Delaware’s ripped nightgown fluttered in the sudden
breeze of energized, electrified air and her eyes popped wide open. The occurrence
was over in a flash and her dining room was absolutely filthy.
The house was covered in corn leaves and stalks. It smelled like burnt copper.
Delaware was standing, stunned, being precipitated upon by the many parts of
a corn plant. Her hair was a mess. She would have to go fix it up. Yes, that’s what
she would do. She wandered upstairs with a blank look in her eyes. Fix up her
hair...






Jack Kervach smiled deliriously in his oozy morphine-sleep. He was
mumbling something that Mart comprehended only by the happiness-look of the
special agent’s drool on the pillow.
It was a waning morning, the kind of morning to be spent riding an ATV
through a national park and drinking Cool-Aid through a ten foot straw. Mart was
tired and felt demented by some lost love. He was confused and bitterly discussing
the night before with himself.
The creature, he supposed, was still out there. He had decided that after
thinking back to every crummy horror flick he had ever seen. A gun didn’t kill
hellsent mind-stealing black blobs with just three shots. He ran his hand across his
face and yawned, trying to decide what to do. Having stared at the babyish, Mel
Gibson/Winston Churchill complexion of Jack Kervach for three hours, he was
close to hibernation. Those saggy, sad eyes had to mean it was spring.
He leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling. The builders of this
building, so to say, must have been a local group. They had done a horrible job.
Stupid people.
What was he thinking? Was he going insane? Hospitals could do that to
people, he guessed. At least there weren’t anymore of those idiot police officers. He
was almost glad he could remember telling that one off, whether or not it was the
creature’s voice.
Mart imagined himself as a different, more normal person right now. He
would be thinking Where are my parents? What will they think? He would be
twiddling his thumbs and afraid to sleep because it would be, according to various
odd members of the community, bad for his ‘karma’. He would have big, sad,
frightened eyes and tightened muscles. He would have a full bladder and a lined
forehead.
But Mart didn’t have parents. He wasn’t afraid - worse things had happened.
He didn’t need to tighten his muscles. His hair was combed and he had emptied his
bladder three times in the last four hours. He had talked amongst the doctors and
nurses. He had even laughed at a vulgar picture someone had drawn on a pop
machine, drawn by someone who was holding a walker, presumably.
Mart got up and stretched his arms and walked outside to see that indecent
picture again. He needed a laugh.
Yes, that’s right, he thought to himself as he made his way down the hall. He
didn’t have parents. Somehow Mart Geed managed to live alone, seems how his
parents had died the year he had gotten a job. He could support himself.
Everywhere he could make money he could walk. Bills were no problem. He had no
need of anything but the basics - and little of those. It wasn’t as hard as people made
it out to be..
Maybe he wasn’t scared because he had no idea who Jack Kervach was,
although it seemed like he had seen the man before somewhere. Oh, hell...
As the pop machine spat out Mart’s last seventy-five cents of caffeine he
leaned up against it. So tired...
“Oh for God’s sake! I’m in hee-haw heaven!”
A familiar voice bellowed throughout the quiet hospital. Old tubed men and
their machines swivelled to find the heart of the noise. Mart’s head snapped up and
he ran back to the room, leaving his pop in the bay.
Inside the room two nurses gathered around a brawling Jack Kervach,
desperately trying to skewer him with their morphine-needles.
“Dah! They’re spawns! Help! Bumpkins all around! Heeelllllpp!”
Mart held back a laugh, standing under the doorway, as the skirmishing
special agent finally subdued into a sleepy-eyed quiet. “Who are you people? Where
am I? Where’s my car? Where are my clothes?”
“You’re in the hospital, mister...uh...Carvatch Jack,” one young nurse piped
in a staccato, reading the name off of the list. Jack Kervach paused his appraisal of
the room and muttered a short duh.
Mart walked into the room. .
Jack Kervach met his eyes and twitched.
Robbie Lantgen burst in, breathing heavy. He started a sentence, but stopped,
sensing something strange in the atmosphere.
Slow moments later, Robbie finally piped up, knowing that it was his job to
say something witless, “What - are you guysh married or shomething? Hehehe - bet
you is!”
All eyes revolved to meet Robbie’s and his cheeks filled with color. No one
was laughing.

...
Far as I've gotten...what's the input?

 

Hi Xaelifir. Is it alright that I read this in chunks? My first impression is good. So here is just what I didn't like much:

a) I think you should consider if you want to bring us (the readers) in and out of the story. You introduce us to the story, and then you takes us out in the next phrase. Then somewhat back in the story in the third phase. I would have like to be inside the story all the way even if it meant a longer introduction
b) Don't tell us that Albert is gonna die. We want to be surprised. I like your writing. It DOESN'T get boring and long winded with time. just the opposite. Don't be afraid to write long. Make some more deep character discription. Introduce us to the city this way too. Then perhaps jump in time. Your style reminds me of Stephen King, and if anyone writes long and exciting it is him. So what if you get 1/10th into the story before you stop it. As long as the 1/10 really kept us interested.

Anyway all of this is just from reading the first quarter. Perhaps it is all wrong when I finish. So don't take this as anymore than a note to myself.
And it is really great to read something not related to forgotten realms for a change

[This message has been edited by Nobleman (edited November 17, 2001).]

 

Thanks for the input, Nobleman. I'm still working on making it in-depth. And as for you, Taluntain, very sorry! Won't happen again. In the story I am trying to copy the town where I live, which is, for the most part, very in depth but shallow, if you know what I mean. I try to record characters I meet when I walk around. I have yet to insert myself into the story, but I plan to.

 

Hey, this is great!
I think it's perfectly OK to tell us that Albert was going to die, since it was the tale of the first murder/death in Manley, and it would maybe be hard to follow if the story suddenly jumps back in time without explanation... So no need to change that, in my opinion.

And a little constructive criticism: Maybe it would have been better to not post all of this at once... I fear that some of the readers are scared by its length.