Jim here–not only is this a tight piece of short fiction with twists and stabs but I’d have published it just for the sake of that hat! Gotta love a writer with a good taste in hats! – Jim
The Seer of Midway Mall
I’m not
a fortune teller. Not exactly. I mean, yeah, sometimes I see things, but I
can’t control it. I can’t choose when it
works, or decide whose future I’m going to get a look at. It just happens.
Like
today. I was cutting through the mall on
my way home from work. It was packed, as
usual, and people were irritable about the crowds, also as usual. I don’t know why I always go through the
mall. It shaves five minutes off my
trip, but it more than makes up for it in aggravation. Everyone’s in a hurry, you’re constantly cut
off or jostled, and the best you get by way of apology is a half-hearted
mumble. I’m always promising myself I’ll
stop going that route, but at the end of a long work day the extra five minutes
seems like an eternity.
I
managed to make it all the way to the far exit with my temper still in check,
which was no small feat. I was reaching
for the door when some Bluetooth-using, two thousand dollar suit type stepped
right in front of me. He had to get
pretty aggressive with his shoulder to get ahead, and I stumbled from the
contact, falling forward into him. He
didn’t even slow, just swung his elbow painfully into my chest, and said, “Out
of my way, dickless.”
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I didn’t
have time to get upset, though, because somewhere between his elbow hitting me
and him swearing at me, I had a vision.
I got a look at Bluetooth’s future, and it was not pleasant. I saw him walking alone through a dark
concrete structure. Or at least he
thought he was alone, but I could see someone was following him. He was yammering belligerently into his
phone, not at all aware of his surroundings.
My viewpoint in these things varies, but in this particular vision I was
looking from behind both of them, so I couldn’t get a good look at the person
following him. All I could tell from my angle was that he
appeared to be another “suit and tie guy.”
He carried a brown leather briefcase and wore a long grey pea coat. As he approached his oblivious victim from
behind, I saw a long handled claw hammer slide from inside his sleeve and down
into his hand. It was then I noticed
that he was wearing white latex gloves.
I could see him look around the structure to confirm they were alone and
quicken his pace to catch up to his victim.
“I don’t
care, you’ll do it or you’ll find a new job.”
The guy reached his car and the climax of his phone rant at about the
same time. Hanging up, he unlocked and
opened his car door just as his stalker crept quietly up behind him. The first hammer blow came down on the back of his neck. Bluetooth shrieked and fell face first onto
the driver’s seat. His attacker shoved
him through the car and into the passenger seat, then calmly stepped into the
car himself and shut the door. More
hammer blows followed. Many more. I won’t get into too much detail, but it was
bloody and, unfortunately for Bluetooth, he lasted a long time.
***
“Hey man,
you’re blocking the door.”
“Oh,
please pardon me.”
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And just
like that I was back in the mall, standing in a stupor with my hand on the
door, my heart trying to thump its way out of my chest. People were moving around me to the other
exits, many shooting me unpleasant looks for delaying them.
I stepped through the exit and into the warm spring sun, fighting a losing battle to get control of my heart. I took a moment to consider what to do, but quickly came to the same decision I always do. I reached into my leather briefcase, feeling for the surgical gloves and claw hammer I kept there for just such occasions. Down the street, I could just see Bluetooth turning off into a gloomy parking structure. Reassured by the hammer’s weight, I started off after him. After all, I’d already seen his future. Who was I to deny it?
Rob Caleval grew up on the Canadian prairies with a hockey stick in one hand and a book in the other. He holds a degree in English from the University of Regina and has worked in the emergency services industry for well over a decade. Between coaching junior lacrosse and wood working projects, he does occasionally find time to write something. His latest work can be found in the upcoming issue of The Freshwater Review.
This is the kickoff to a new series exploring nature that is kind of horrifying, at least in ways. Our first subject is Vampires Among Us. There are lots of animals named for vampires, sometimes due to folklore and sometimes for their appearance (like the Vampire Squid), but most of these animals don’t have blood sucking tendencies.
Vampire BatVampire Finch
Bats & Birds
There are legit vampire leaf-nosed bats in Central and South America that drink blood. They feed on mammals and are often shown to feed on livestock. They’d be kinda cute if they weren’t so creepy. There are also vampiric birds: some finches in the Galapagos have developed the taste for blood of other birds, mainly seabirds that flock to the islands to raise their young.
Vampire Bats
Leeches & Lampreys & More
And then you get into leeches and lampreys and other denizens of the water that are known to attach themselves to larger creatures and drink their blood. Leeches were even believed to have medicinal value (and still are in certain circumstances). And there are also numerous plants that are known to be parasitic and feed on other plants, wrapping their roots or vines around others to steal nutrients.
Lamprey Teeth
Spiders
Now I’m going to drift off into the realm where this becomes truly horrific. Spiders. Now, spiders aren’t vampires per se, seeing as how they actually kill their prey – they don’t just feed off of it while it remains living and wanders about its business. But because of their structure, they cannot eat solid foods, so they have to inject their prey with enzymes to liquefy it so they can slurp it out like a protein shake. That’s sort of vampirism on steroids if you ask me, just the kind that no one is coming back from.
Spider Eating
Bloodsucking Bugs
But let’s get back on topic. Now let’s consider mites and ticks and fleas and mosquitoes and the like. Some drink blood for their survival; others do so as part of their reproductive cycle (like mosquitoes which otherwise eat fruit and nectar but need the extra protein from blood to grow their eggs).
Ticks need to feed on blood once at every stage of their life cycle and can pick up diseases along the way (like Lyme Disease) but don’t always do so. Different ticks are more likely to come in contact with different things and often humans are not their preferred meal but they are opportunistic and will feed on whatever is available when necessary. Symptoms of illness from tick bites may take years to develop and can have really weird side effects (like the allergy associated with Lone Star Ticks which makes a person unable to consume mammalian flesh).
Spider
This story came to me in a sort of roundabout way from a rather unusual source. So I thought I’d share it with you, dear readership, and see if you can make heads or tails of it.
– Jennifer Weigel
Spanish Moss on Live Oak limbs, marker drawing by Jennifer Weigel
Dread Pirate Rum Tum Tugger could tell this was the right spot.
The site, beneath the sweeping limbs of the Live Oak, Spanish Moss swaying gently in the breeze, was a perfect match to the crude map he had bought off that soothsayer Deuteronomy.
The earth moved easily, as if it had been excavated previously. He dug in with greater fervor with each swipe. The sandy soil gave way to reveal something hard. He scooped and smoothed the remaining detritus from the surface as he uncovered a box.
The carton was simple.
No markings; no ornamentation; no writing. Just a plain cardboard crate, brittle from having been buried for so long but still sturdy. He hoisted it from its burrow.
“Ha HO!” he shouted to the passing breeze, rousing a small cloud of birds that erupted from a nearby thicket. They captured his attention for a moment, but he quickly refocused and returned to his task.
The box was locked but no difference.
Any self-respecting ruffian like himself could pick a lock in seconds. And he did so with panache, as was his way. He pried the lid open and licked his lips.
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Inside was the legendary Kernel of Eternal Life, a small sparrow’s heart, still beating.
Promotional Poster for Dread Pirate Queen Miss Kitty performance art by Jennifer Weigel
Artwork description: Myself as Dread Pirate Queen Miss Kitty wearing black bell sleeve shirt and black vinyl skirt with strapping leather belt over leopard print shirt and tights, with strapping leather boots, pirate head wrap and leopard cat ears.
Image text reads: Purr! Avast ye mateys, Dread Pirate Queen Miss Kitty invites ye to check out her booty stash and dig ye up a dungbie prize. Seek ye some buried treasure! Just grab ye a plastic litter scoop and dig… dig… dig… to ye heart’s content.
I created this image for a promotional poster for a performance piece in a charity art show in which I, as Dread Pirate Queen Miss Kitty, hawked a carnival sideshow style sidewalk installation. For a mere $5 donation to the animal shelter the show supported, gallery goers could dig around in a kiddie pool full of litter to find a prize: a cheap plastic trinket from the dollar store. I had some takers, including one kid who seemed to really enjoy the digging and whose parents were all in, saying “You know, you can totally do that at home too.”
Portrait of myself with dark makeup and crow skull headdress, backlit by the sun.
Happy Mother’s Day to the Queen of Everything… nothing gets by you.
Happy Mother’s Day Queen of Everything card
Artwork description: A Happy Mother’s Day card featuring a picture of a Nefertiti doll with swooping hair, glitter makeup, and elaborate gold and blue headdress and evening gown.
Image text reads: Happy Mother’s Day! You are the Queen of Everything and you shimmer brighter than the twinkliest star in the sky. Stay sparkly and shine on in your magnificent glitter bombasticness. You ARE truly everything everywhere all at once and you’ve seen and heard it all. Eyes in the back of your head and superpowered hearing mean we can’t get away with much no matter how hard we try. So Queen on and rule over home in sparkly sentinel.
Queenly scary early morning makeup mishap
And may this be a testament to why us kids shalt never get you out of bed too early or run amok while you are getting ready to start your day… Because being the Queen of Everything takes planning and preparation…
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