BLAME

BLAME is up at Yellow Mama, one of my favorite E-Zines. You can get it here: http://blackpetalsks.tripod.com/yellowmama/id953.html

The White Van Challenge

OMINOUS IN WHITE

By Dana C. Kabel

 

            “Saddler, my office…please.”

            Tom looked up from his desk and saw his boss disappear behind the mahogany door. Patterson was undone; he never said please.

            Tom got up from his desk and followed.

            “Please…come over to the window and look at this.”

            Another “please,” Tom noted.

            The view was beautiful from four stories up. There was a park across the road with a jogging trail around a small lake, which meant plenty of women in spandex shorts bouncing around it.

            “There!” Patterson hissed, stabbing a finger against the glass.

            Tom followed the direction the finger was pointing in, to the dirty white utility van parked across the street.

            Tinted windows in front, no windows in the back, mud over the plate…a serial killer van.

            That was what they jokingly called them when he was a kid…stranger danger…look out for the serial killer van!

            “Y-you see it, don’t you?”

            If Tom hadn’t noticed it before, he certainly would have when the van suddenly peeled away from the curb and tore down the road, narrowly missing a crossing pedestrian.

            Patterson stumbled back with his hand on his chest like he had just been hit with something or was having a heart attack.

            “Jesus,” Tom said. “He almost killed that lady.”

            “What the hell am I going to do?” Patterson buried his face in his hands.

            “I…don’t know if there’s anything you can do at this point,” Tom said.

            “You idiot, you don’t understand…” Ah, this was the Patterson he was used to.

            “That van has been parked on my road every night for a week now. When I leave in the morning, he follows me. And now he’s stalking me here.”

            “Why don’t you call the cops?”

            Patterson laughed.

            “I called the cops. They can’t do anything about a van parked on a public street where parking is allowed. He tried to run me down a couple of days ago…came within an inch of me, I swear. When I called the cops again I found out why they won’t help me.”

            Tom raised his eyebrows waiting.

            “That little prick, Murphy…in accounting? His uncle is the head pig in the police department.”

             Murphy hated Patterson, just as everyone else on the floor did. Two days before Patterson announced that as a result of the faltering economy that raises and bonuses were indefinitely suspended, he went out and bought a brand new Lexus to replace the year-old Lexus he had been driving.

            The employees hated Tom too, because someone let it slip that he did, in fact, receive the yearly bonus and raise. Tom was the number two. He was the Smithers to Patterson’s Mr. Burns.

            “Still, if someone is threatening you…”

            “That’s the problem. This bastard hasn’t made an actual threat. Murphy’s uncle told me, you’re a fifty year old guy living alone with no children. A van parked outside your house just isn’t that sinister. Call me if they actually try something. Then he laughed at me.”

            “Man,” Tom said. “Well sir, I wish I could do something, but…”

            “That’s why I called you in here. You’re ex-military…fought in the war and all that…”

            “I didn’t really see a lot of action over…”

            “Don’t bullshit me, Saddler. I know you killed people over there.”

            “I don’t know what you’re suggesting, Mr. Patterson, but I’m not going to kill a guy for sitting in a van across from your house.”

            “Jesus Christ, you sound like the cops.”

            Tom shook his head and started to walk. Patterson wouldn’t fire him. Nobody would put up with the shit that he put up with.

            “Wait, Tom…please…”

            The third please was almost sickening.

            “I’m not asking you to kill anyone. I just…I need protection. Could you just…help me, until I figure out what this fucker wants?”

            “I have a wife and kids at home and I already put in fifty plus hours a week here.”

            “I’ll pay you. A lot. And…and you can take a couple of weeks off when this is over. Go on a nice vacation with the family.”

            At quitting time, the other employees left with the usual dirty looks and smirks on their faces. There was kiss-ass Tom, staying late again. The only guy with his nose planted so firmly up the boss’s ass that he couldn’t see sideways.

            “See ya, dick,” the Murphy kid said.

            Tom glared at him until he was out the door.

            A half-hour later, Patterson emerged from his office. He was staggering and there was booze on his breath.

            “A productive day, sir?” Tom chided.

            “Fuck you, Saddler. Let’s go.”

            Tom shut his computer off and got up. He had the whole afternoon to realize that Patterson had no intention of following through on his promises. He would talk his way out of floating anything more than a mere pittance to Tom and indefinitely put off the two weeks’ vacation he was promised.

            “Here,” Patterson said when they got in the elevator. He pushed a brown bag into Tom’s hands. There was a gun in the bag, and some loose bullets rattling around.

            “What the fuck! I don’t need this.”

            “Yes you do. Now make sure it’s loaded!”

            It was dark outside. Patterson was holding onto the side of the building when the van screeched to a halt on the sidewalk. The side panel door slid open. Patterson screamed shrilly.

            Tom turned around and smashed him in the face with the butt of the .38. Patterson fell to his knees trying to hold in the blood that was spraying out of his broken nose.

            “You fucker, Saddler!”

            Tom heeled back and kicked him in the ribs.

            “Hurry up,” he shouted.

            The Murphy kid jumped out of the van and grabbed one end. Tom grabbed the legs and they threw him into the van like a sack of shit.

            “You’ll make things right when you get his job?” Murphy asked.

            “Yeah,” Tom said, handing him the .38. “Here’s your first bonus.”

 

Buy it Before You Try It!

My next piece of twisted writing can be found in an anthology from Gutter Books called Out of the Gutter 8. The story is called You Oughtta be in Pictures that I should have been pimping in time for Valentine's day. It's a rather romantic little piece of flash about sex and porno and snuff...er, I mean stuff.

Anyway, as much as I would love to put up a link where you can read it for free, you have to BUY it! Moohoohaha (evil laugh). It is my second story in one of the Out of the Gutter print offerings and you can purchase it here in solid form or for your lovely electronic reading device. I prefer Kindle...when you get tired of reading, you can watch porn on it. Or Netflix.  Here's the link for purchasing OOTG 8 http://www.amazon.com/Out-Gutter-8-Matthew-Louis/dp/0982688792/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1361600936&sr=1-1&keywords=out+of+the+gutter

As well as a lovely picture...



Yep, that's my name on the cover. Yep, I'm bragging about that. bitch.

Crystal Freaking Meth Baby

Okay, I really can't believe I forgot to put this one up. My friend from across the pond, David Barber, gave this story that I had so much fun writing, a home at Thrillers, Killers 'n' Chillers. Despite my various sultry dalliances with every brand of alcohol under the sun...including Listerine and rubbing alcohol, I have never taken methamphetamine. Met lots of folks who have. Such a fun drug...for other people to take. I guess the closest I have come to that kind of sick high is drinking lethal doses of lethally strong coffee. Oh well, if any authentic meth heads have a problem with the real feel of the story, drop me a line. I'm not in the book, so you'll have to try every variation of every ten digit sequence of numbers you can list and systematically eliminate everyone who answers the phone that isn't me. It won't take you long...if you're a real meth head. Or you can read and comment here http://thrillskillsnchills.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2012-10-07T12:33:00%2B01:00&max-results=10&start=8&by-date=false

The Bad Blogger

I admit it...I am bad. In my forty-three years on this earth, there have been many things that
I have been bad at. At various times in my life I have been a bad student, a bad athlete, a bad musician, a bad friend, father, husband, worker...etcettera etcettera, blah-blah-blah. Never mind all of that, I did not intend this to be a post on self-degredation and self-loathing. Nay, my ego demands that I brag from time to time about all of the things that I am good at.

For instance, you will never hear me admit that I am a bad writer. My writing is something that I have been complemented on since I was a small boy, and I have had nothing but time to improve upon it.

Having said that, a good writer does not a good blogger make. My entries are few and far between. The only time I pay attention to this ethereal little corner of the Internet that I can kind of claim as my own, is when I have a story appearing somewhere in print or evailable online.

This serves as an attempt to plug my product and archive a new published story. However, in light of the recent geographical changes in my life, I seem to have forgotten this dark little hideout entirely.

The greatest part of this sin is that I have had work published that I have plugged on facebook and have not archived or plugged here in six months. I was almost afraid that when I tried to log on, I would find virtual yellow police tape roping off entrance to my own crime scene.

So to begin mending this grievous error, I am announcing that way back on December 10, 2012, Court Merrigan published one of my favorite stories in the Bareknuckles Pulp online magazine over at Out of the Gutter. Calling Home is featured in issue no. 20, and you can find it here http://www.outofthegutteronline.com/2012/12/bareknuckles-pulp-no-20-calling-home.html as well as on the link to the left along with all of my other published works. Thanks Court. Next time I won't drop the ball on timely pimping.

Sleep deprivation does crazy things to the ordinary person.  Just think of what it does to someone who is already mentally bent.  For instance, for a couple of weeks I was lucky to get one or two hours of shut-eye a night and spent my days enjoying:
  -jitters
  -ringing in my ears
  -dizziness
  -headaches

When I thought it couldn't get any worse, it did.  There was a follow-up of:
  -disorientation
  -hearing voices, and my favorite...
  -hallucinations.

It turned out that some of my arthritis medication was tweaking with my cholesterol and high blood pressure meds and with some Frankenstein like experimentation, things are pretty much back to normal.  Well...crazy normal.

During this strange period that happened just a couple of weeks ago, I did a shit load of writing.  Unfortunately, a lot of it is what your would expect from a disoriented, hallucinating insomniac.

I also had one of my favorite stories run by Joe Clifford over at The Flash Fiction Offensive.  It is called Nothing Left To Lose,  and it can be called a homage to a famous scene from The Deer Hunter.

While I did hock the shit out of this story on facebook, I thought that I wrote a little something about it here and put the link up over on the right.  In fact, I would have bet money that I did so.  Must have been dreaming...or day dreaming at night...or hallucinating or whatever.

Anyway, here it is damnit.  I'd apologize, but...what the hell would it mean anyway?

find it here http://www.outofthegutteronline.com/2012/07/nothing-left-to-lose.html

read it and weep bitches.

We all float down here.

Let me tell you a little about the world I live in.  Tony Soprano is still breaking legs, Max Cady is doing a thousand pullups in his prison cell, waiting for the day he walks out into the world to bring vengence to the lawyer that sent him up the river, Michael Corleone is in the men's room looking for the gun taped behind the toilet, and Travis Bickle is standing in front of the mirror with a gun saying, "You talkin' to me?"

I grew up on this shit.  I am the Cable Guy; raised by the boob tube and nurtured by the silver screen and pulp fiction.  Call me crazy, but when Michael Madsen dances to Stuck In The Middle With You and slices the cop's ear off with a straight razor I get a little tingle up my spine.

And yes, The Deer Hunter was one of my favorite movies of all time.  Yet when I wrote the story, Nothing Left To Lose, I wasn't consciously thinking about it for one second.

I was on facebook and saw a post from Joe Clifford that my favorite flash site, The Flash Fiction Offensive was in need of submissions.

The first story I had published online was Catching Up, which was accepted by DZ Allen for his Muzzleflash magazine.  Mr. Allen was an assistant editor of Out of the Gutter, and Muzzleflash was his baby.

He went on to accept a handful of other stories from me over the course of a couple of years before he decided to shut the site down and concentrate on his own writing.

After a short hiatus, The Flash Fiction Offensive was born; created by a couple of other assistant editors from Out of the Gutter.

As anyone reading this probably knows, eventually the very talented David Barber eventually took over duties at FFO and did an exceptional job.  Now Joe Clifford and Tom Pitts are at the helm continuing to put out quality fiction.

Am I biased?  Sure I am.  But I can afford to be.  Read any story in the FFO archives by any of the writers who have been published there and you will find some damned fine stuff.

So when I saw the post calling for submissions at oh, two something in the morning, I put a pot of coffee on, sat down to my laptop, and pounded out the first thing that came to mind.

It was fast, it was violent, and yes it was inspired by one of my favorite movies of all time.  But I really wasn't think Deer Hunter when I wrote it.  The next day when I read it and carved a couple hundred words off...yeah, I saw it then.  A similarity, a homage that bleed out of my subconscious.

Man was I happy when I read Joe Clifford's flattering introduction and saw that he pointed out the connection.  So what are you waiting for, go here http://www.outofthegutteronline.com/2012/07/nothing-left-to-lose.html and read it.  And while you're at it, peruse the archives of this great Ezine.  Or else.  I know where you live. :)