Fiction: A Bone to Pick

I thought about helping.

The day after the big thunderstorm tore through the city, I went to work as always. Police cars were all over the place, and so was a bunch of shredded insulation, and the company’s roof. Yellow police tape kept me out of the parking lot, so I found a spot up the block and walked down.

I sidled up to Kevin. “Nice of Pankhurst to let us know about this.”

“Sure was. Otherwise we might have wasted our time and come down here today.”

“That roof has looked better.”

“The roof isn’t the interesting thing,” Kevin said. “All these cops wouldn’t be here just for a roof being off. There are roofs off all over the city.”

“So why are they here?”

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Fiction: Corpses

First, Stephanie killed Grant, which he hadn’t been expecting. Then Loren killed Stephanie, which she hadn’t been expecting.

Now Loren had two dead bodies on his hands, which he had been expecting, but he still had no idea how to proceed. That part of the plan had never coalesced in Loren’s mind.

All the shooting had taken place in Loren’s cabin in the woods, so there were no witnesses and no concerned neighbors to call the police. There was simply the matter of the two corpses bleeding on the thick rug that protected the hardwood floor.

Spring had loosened winter’s grip on the soil, but Loren’s back began to ache as he thought of all the trouble it would be to dig graves, or even a grave. That sort of manual labor just wasn’t normal. Nor did he know how to use a backhoe even if he had had access to one.

He also lacked a vat of acid in which to dissolve his victims. The nearest river was miles away over rough terrain, and drought had turned it into more of a creek than an actual hide-the-body-in-the-depths river.

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Fiction: Gunsmoke in Mesa View Gulch

The lean, scruffy outlaw had plenty of space at the bar, and the conversations swirling around him in the saloon carefully omitted any reference to him.

He heard a feminine voice behind him, and the voice was saying his name: “Barker Krebs.” He swiveled on his barstool and caught a small fist with his nose. He bellowed briefly and began bleeding into his bushy moustache. He stared hatefully in the direction from which the offending hand had come.

There he saw a woman. She was built along the lines an Amazon if the designer had been instructed to bring the project in under budget. That made her five feet tall, counting the boots and hat.

“Barker Krebs,” she said, “you killed my daddy, burned our home…”

“I’ve never seen you before, girl!”

“And had unnatural relations with what would have been a prize-winning watermelon.”

Krebs’s eyes went wide, and he brought his hand down from his bleeding nostrils. “Sarah Jane Buonarroti. I thought…”

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Fiction: Home Again

It had taken a long time to get out of the jungle, and there had been many others that were just as lost.

Gradually, they found their way to the city; the ones they sought had gone, and the sense was that they had gone home. So the lost ones stowed away on the few remaining naval vessels in the area, gaining passage to the United States.

A lucky handful were repatriated in Hawaii, but most had to go on to the mainland. Once there, the search was hardly begun. The country spread out before them vast and broad and well populated. There were barely remembered place names; geography was not their strength. Still, it was better than no clue at all, and they set out singly or in pairs or groups to find their individual homes.

After years of looking, one grew increasingly eager, sensing that the search was about to end. Something about this small Ohio town felt familiar.

And – yes! Here was the house. And inside, the man dreamed.

Watch that hut, Pete. I think I saw movement over there.”

Pete grunted his acknowledgment.

Let’s move in a little closer, guys,” the lieutenant said, and the little knot of men approached the hut.

A young boy, perhaps eight years old, ran from the dark opening. He clutched a pistol and fired it blindly as he raced past the American soldiers. His shots went well over their heads, and a couple of the men chuckled at the child’s audacity even as they put their rifles to their shoulders.

I got this one,” Pete said. He extended the nozzle of his M9A1-7 flamethrower and pulled the trigger.

The boy could not outrace the blaze arcing through the air. He went down screaming, writhing. Pete gave him another shot of liquid fire and the boy lay still and was consumed.

It’s not enough to shoot the gun, kid,” Pete said. “Ya gotta hit the target.”

Pete’s wandering conscience sank deeply into him, and Pete awoke screaming.

He had willfully, callously burned a child to death. And because he had evicted his conscience, it had never mattered to him.

Now his conscience was home and happy and hard at work, and Pete’s anguished screams woke many on his block that night.