Sorry about the delay...

But for some reason my internet connection has been conspiring against me, as has my computer. Like just now, my computer keeps freezing for five to ten seconds at a time, apparently because I am typing too fast for my computer to handle as well as the myriad of programs I'm running alongside it (one other program). But, the gods appear to be smiling on me today, so we're going to try and post another story, right quick. Before my computer just explodes.

Short and sweet this time. This one is called "Attention".


Fuck. Everyone is staring at me. I hate it when people stare at me. Not only that, but there's a crowd gathering to stare at me, more and more rubberneckers by the moment. The worst part is that I can't do anything about it. Normally, I'd freak out, start shouting, or maybe just scuttle away like a cockroach at the sound of a light switch. But that option isn't available to me any more. Not now, not ever.
Sirens are approaching now. Great. Nothing to attract even more rubberneckers like a few flashing lights, some somber looking men in black trying to shoo them away. "Nothing to see here, folks." Yeah, right. Might as well just start selling tickets.
Fuck. News teams next. I'll be on the ten o'clock news now, for sure. Me, the one responsible for holding up foot traffic so everyone could get a good, hard look.
The cameraman comes rushing up, trying to get a good shot of me for the news. Won't get anything they can use tonight, though.
Cops appear, seemingly from nowhere. Within seconds, they've got barricades. Crowd control. Two or three burly mustachioed cops are holding back the crowd, which has nearly doubled in size now.
All for me.
I want to crawl away from all this attention, but I can't. I can't do anything but sit there and be stared at, like an attraction in a sideshow.
It's a relief when the coroner's van shows up to take me away.

Warning: Mature Content!

Okay, so the three that I've put on here haven't all been exactly kid-friendly, but I can't stress this one enough, this is probably the most foul-mouthed story I've ever written (at least at five pages, that is). It's about an unapologetic bastard who has lived the rock and roll lifestyle to the fullest, and is now coming to terms with the fact that it may not have been all that it's cracked up to be. So, just to give you fair warning, this story (were it given a rating) would be a hard "R" for swearing, drug use, some sexual content, and brief violence. Anyone that would find any of this objectionable, please, go to a different blog instead of sending me nasty remarks. Now, everyone that is still here is because they want to be, right? On with the story.


Farewell Tour

"...quite possibly the most influential band since The Beatles..."
Rolling stone, January 1984

The van was cramped, as always. Alex Grimswold lit another cigarette and exhaled into the swirling miasma of smoke that already permeated the entire van. It was everywhere. It was in the seats, in their hair, in their clothes. It didn't matter. They were supposed to smell like smoke. It was part of the lifestyle, another part of the role they played. Besides, this was their last tour. No one was going to miss it, even if they came out on stage smeared in shit and honey. He'd heard on the radio earlier in the week that there were actually people selling their blood to afford the exorbitant ticket prices that Roy had insisted on charging. Alex honestly couldn't give a fuck what they charged anymore. He already had more money than he could possibly spend in a lifetime, anyway, and he was sure that Roy had made at least three times more money than anyone else in the band.
The cigarette turned sour in his mouth at the thought of the fat little prig who had control over most of his life, and he stubbed it out on the armrest next to him. Everyone else was asleep, but they wouldn't have said anything to him even if they'd all been awake and watching him as he did it. It wasn't like this was the first time that someone had put out their cigarette on this particular armrest, as the forest of puckered black pockmarks burned into the faux leather could attest to. Besides, who the hell was going to yell at him? He was Alex fucking Grimswold, lead singer of the most influential band since the Beatles, according to more than one shitty little magazine. There were people right now selling their blood, just to see him shaking his aging ass on stage one last time.
Fucking imbeciles, he thought as he flicked the cigarette butt out the window. Who the fuck sells their blood, anyway? Transients and stupid fucking college kids who can't afford their next baggie of pot, that's who. Fucking tossers, the lot of them.
He remembered saying in an interview several years earlier, "Why should I be worried about my health? Come on. Hendrix, Morrison, Joplin, all of them burned out young and left a beautiful fucking corpse. I'll be pissed off at myself if I don't do the exact same thing." In another interview that same year, he was quoted as saying, "Of course I want to die young. That way, you get to bow out of the business before it starts feeling like a job. One way or another, I want to get the hell out of this place before it's not fun anymore."
Well, now it was too late for any of that. He hadn't OD'd, although Lord knows he'd taken enough drugs to kill a horse on more than one occasion. In fact, he'd actually taken enough horse tranquilizers one night to kill a horse, when they were on tour with some little rinky-dink three-man show that had faded into obscurity a few months later. He'd taken them about an hour before he was set to go onstage, had been stoned out of his mind when it came time to actually get up and play, and still put on a good enough set that the police came in and broke it up less than twenty minutes in.
It was no longer fun anymore, that was the main problem. Roy had seen to that. Even the shit that they used to do for kicks, like trashing hotel rooms and taking advantage of some young teenage groupies looking to sleep with fame for an evening had taken on the bland routine of a nine to five job.
"I ain't never had a nine to five, and I'll put a bloody bullet in my brain before I do." That was another of his quotes, a few years after his "I want to die young" interview. Christ, there was no privacy when you did this kind of thing. He'd said the nine to five thing to the reporter, some sexy little thing who didn't look like she was old enough to buy cigarettes yet, so he could get into her pants, and the next thing he knew he saw his face plastered all over every other T-shirt, looking mean as hell, with that quote stuck under his face like a nasty zit stuck to the underside of his chin. Before that, he'd look out into the crowd and see his face staring back at him off of the sea of black T-shirts, emblazoned with the legend, "Hendrix, Morrison, Joplin, Grimswold," on the front, and "All of them burned out young and left a beautiful fucking corpse," on the back. He was tempted to just start saying stupid shit intentionally, see how many of the little shits would come to his concerts with one of his T-shirts if he started quoting Mother Goose or something. The only thing that stopped him was the image of row upon row of that same mean face that wound up on all their T-shirts, with "Mary Had A Little Lamb" on the back.
The van shuddered to a wheezing stop, and he looked out the window to see where they were. Not at the venue, he saw. Not unless Roy had finally gone apeshit and had booked a gig for them at a gas station. Either they were low on gas, or the driver had to go drain the vein. Probably both, he decided, and leaned back into the battered seat. After a moment, he lit a joint, coughing as he took his first hit. The high rolled over him like a soft, hazy sea, and he let himself drift away.

"If it wasn't for the Jesus Complex, I'd never have started my own band."
Johnny Crash, Johnny Crash and the Thrashers

The spread was absolute shit, but then again, so was the program that had laid it out. He looked disdainfully at what looked like Ritz crackers and Spam lined up on a tray with something that could have been refried beans, could have been dogshit. Neither would have surprised him. He sat down on one of the couches instead, pulling the glass coffee table over to him. He pulled a vial out of his pocket and poured out a small mound of cocaine. He put the vial back and pulled out a razor blade, cutting the coke into small, neat lines.
He looked up to see Natasha looking at him with disgust, but he didn't give a shit. She was another part of the job now, another part of the nine to five that he swore he'd put a bullet in his brain before he ever fell victim to it. He remembered that she had been a lot of fun back then, able to suck his eyeballs out of their sockets by way of his cock, but that was all over and done with now. He'd always been more into the lifestyle than she had, and now he looked like a dirty old man trying to get fresh with a girl half his age, even though they were both barely in their forties. It seemed like all she could manage nowadays for him was contempt, or on really good days, pity. He'd be glad to never have to see that look in her eyes ever again. I'll snort to that, he thought, and bent over, feeling the powder rush up into his nose. Everything got brighter for a moment, just long enough to think that maybe he was actually going to feel the rush again, but the cocaine was neither of a high enough quality nor was there enough of it to break through the immunity that he had built up over the years. After a few seconds, the glow faded from everything, and he slumped back, too tired and too disappointed to do another line.
A technician poked his head into the green room, his eyes glancing off the glass table and then bouncing away nervously, like he was under strict orders not to see anything illegal back here, and said, "Uh... you guys are on in five minutes."
Alex nodded, and looked up just in time to see Natasha turn away in disgust, making a noise that sounded like the same clucking sound his mother used to make whenever he did something stupid. He felt something warm running down his face, and put a hand up to his nose. His fingers came away bloody.
Fuck, he thought. He looked around for a tissue, a handkerchief, anything. He finally found some napkins, and had just torn it in half and wedged the chunks up into his nose when the technician came back in said, "Thirty seconds."
He knew the tissues wouldn't last, but fuck it. He had a job to do. He was going to go out there, and he was going to give them the best fucking song they'd ever heard. He was going to be on national TV sometime tonight, when this piece of shit talk show aired, and by God he was going to make sure that his vocals made every girl cream in their drawers from coast to coast. He stood up, tucking the remaining bits of napkin into the pockets of his suit jacket, and stepped out into the harsh lights.

"Those guys were amazing, Still are. Listening to them, you'd just about think they invented rock and roll."
John "Bonebraker" Hannibal, Crystal Deth

The van was moving again, taking them to another sold-out show. Natasha wasn't talking to him, although that wasn't anything new. He thought about it, trying to pinpoint the last time when they'd actually been able to talk to each other without fighting. He gave up after a while, although he thought it might have been sometime in 1993. He couldn't remember. Hell, he couldn't remember much anymore, but he knew that back then, he hadn't been any better. He'd probably been worse, actually, but then again, so had Natasha.
It probably was 1993, he realized, because that was the year that they'd had their last big album, Virgin Mary with a Twist of Lime. He hated that album.
He hadn't spoken with either of the other two since before that, though. Wayne, who went by Blotto onstage because, (and this was another quote, they were just full of soundbites, it seemed) "Wayne is a pussy name," hadn't spoken to him unless it was absolutely necessary since the late eighties.
And as for Jimmy...
Well, it wasn't too late for Jimmy to stick a knife in his back, now was it?
It hadn't always been this way. They'd all known each other nearly twenty years now, ever since they'd all met in a coffeeshop and had just kind of fell in together. Back then, they'd all been stupid idealists, convinced that they were going to change the world, make it a better place, with songs like "Underage Pussy", and "One Week, Seven Drunk Tanks". He couldn't remember exactly, but he was also sure that they'd been communists, too, or at least had pretended to be. Everyone else had done their share of drugs, of course, but he'd always done more than his share. And then Jimmy went and got married, and he found religion, and blah de blah de blah de blah. It was all very nice for Jimmy, he was sure, but that didn't mean that the little prick had to go rubbing his face in it all the time. He was always trying to convert Alex, like he was a fucking Bible-thumping preacher addressing a congregation of sinners. No thanks very much, Alex happened to like his particular sins, and if Jimmy didn't accept that, then Jimmy could take his Bible and shove it up his ass.
Natasha was the only one who could even make eye contact with him anymore, and sometimes it pissed him off. He could always tell when she was judging him, could almost hear her thinking, "What went wrong?" Well, fuck her, he would think at those times. Fuck the lot of them.
Other times though, he would catch her mood, and it would depress the hell out of him. He would look back over his life and think of all the things he'd done wrong, and there were a depressingly large amount of things gone wrong. But those moods wouldn't last long, and he'd usually blame them on a bad line, or a bad joint.
The motion of the van was putting him to sleep, and he had time for one last thought before it took him. I've wasted my life, he thought. I've spent half of my life in this stupid van, and for what? Before he could think of an answer, he was asleep.

"The Jesus Complex came out of the British punk scene along with other influential bands such as The Clash and The Sex Pistols, carving out their place in the already overcrowded scene in huge, brutal chunks..."
Excerpt from A History of Rock and Roll, by Andrew Thompson

He was alone in his dressing room. The spread was much better this time, but he didn't care. He no longer had an appetite. He hadn't eaten in three days, unless you counted snorting coke as eating.
He was falling apart. He realized that now, had always known it back in his mind somewhere, but now there was no escaping it. He was falling apart.
He looked up again at the ghastly image staring out at him from the dressing room mirror. His nose had a sunken look, as though it had collapsed in on itself. His face was drawn tight, like a rubber band stretched to the breaking point. He thought he could see his skull through the thin layer of skin covering it. Jesus Christ, he looked like a skeleton. I need something to calm me down, he thought, patting his pockets. After a moment, he found the vial, and started going through the familiar ritual. A few minutes later, his head was buzzing slightly with the rush of cocaine, already fading out. He looked around the room, and came to a decision. He searched around for a pen, then a piece of paper. After a few moment, he put the pen down and walked out. After all, the little shits had sold their blood to see him, hadn't they? He couldn't disappoint his adoring public, now could he?

"The Jesus Complex gave their final show on January 21, 2006, in front of 10,000 screaming fans. Of course, none of them had the slightest idea what singer/songwriter Alex Grimswold had in mind for an encore..."
Excerpt from Leaving a Beautiful F*cking Corpse: The Rise and Fall of The Jesus Complex

God damn, he thought. Now that was a show.
Apparently the fans agreed. Looking out now, he saw rows upon rows of screaming fans. His angry face stared back at him from several rows, parroting out every stupid soundbite he'd ever said, drunk or sober. Many in the audience were in various states of undress, including three angry kids who were stomping around as naked as the day were born.
For a moment, it felt like old times, and he'd caught Natasha smiling at him a couple of times. God, it had felt good. For one moment, he thought about backing out. But then he felt the vial in his pocket, and he realized that there was no way out of it. He was in too deep. If he chickened out now, he would never do it.
He tapped the microphone, sending a wave of feedback bouncing off the acoustically perfect dome of the auditorium. "All right, listen up you little shits."
There was a moment of loud cheering, then they calmed down.
"Listen up, you bastards. I just wanted to thank you for one fantastic farewell tour."
Another roar washed over him, and he rocked back with it, feeling it like an actual physical force.
Grinning now, he said, "Without you wankers, I would've eaten a bullet long ago. Sometimes, I almost wish I had."
The three down in the pit were brawling now, and the crowd was nearly rioting. "Now, I just want you to know that right now is the best I've felt in years. My God, this might be the first thing that I've felt, period, in years."
They roared.
"But it all ends tonight."
The shot silenced the roaring of the crowd immediately. The only sound was the feedback of the microphone, squealing around the arena and bouncing off the walls.

"...Pandemonium ensued. It took police over three hours to restore order and even get the paramedics on stage. Of course, by then, Grimswold was long since dead."
From the final chapter of Leaving a Beautiful F*cking Corpse: The Rise and Fall of The Jesus Complex

Natasha looked out the window of the van, feeling slightly nauseous from the night before. She had gotten way too drunk at the funeral, and she had a serious hangover. The shades were serving two purposes right now, and she would've traded everything she had just to see him again. She'd spent the last two weeks crying, even though she'd thought that she couldn't feel anything for him that same day that everything went wrong.
The van felt different now, emptier, even though Alex hadn't really been there those last couple of months. Everything was different. It hadn't seemed like he'd been doing much more than just phoning it in, but now she realized that he had been the glue holding them all together. Without him, there was no band. They were no longer the most influential band since the Beatles. Now they were just three people who had lost a friend.
She sighed, and looked out the window. They'd come to a stop. She looked around for a moment, experiencing a feeling of deja vu. It took a moment, but then she realized what it was. This was the same gas station they'd stopped at a few days before...
She let the thought die, and stepped out of the car, feeling tense. She stretched, and walked around to the restroom.
A few minutes later, she was at the sink, splashing cold water on her face. She caught sight of herself in the mirror, the glasses too large for her face. They made her look like some horrible bug, and she took them off and threw them in the trash can. Her eyes were puffy, but they looked better to her somehow. She smiled, taking a moment to straighten her hair and smooth her skirt.
As she did so, she felt something in her pocket. She pulled it out, and looked at it. Alex's note.
The tears came all over again, and it took a minute for her to recover. Finally, she straightened out, wiped her eyes, and walked out of the bathroom, leaving the note on the sink.
The note simply read, Fuck this. It's not fun anymore.

So I'm a few days late... So sue me...

Okay, okay, here's the next one. Sorry about the delay.

Alcohol

It's three a.m., and I can't sleep. I can't sleep because of the dog.
It's not a real dog, mind you; at least not in the way you or I would think of it as being real. I could go over there and try to to touch it, but I think my hand would pass right through it. I say "think" because I've never had the guts to try it.
That's because I can see it just fine from where I'm sitting right now, and it's nothing that I would want to touch. It looks like a normal dog, like one of those little frou-frou dogs that you always see sticking their heads out of the socialite-du-jour's handbag, except that the crown of it's head is pulsing rhythmically. Like it's breathing.
I shift in my chair, and this is the signal the dog's been waiting for, apparently. It's skull opens up with a sound like someone losing their boot in thick mud, and the opening starts spewing out roaches.
They come swarming out like the dog is some hellish pinata that some unfortunate child just fetched a solid whack. The roaches are like a living sea engulfing my living room, crashing over my bookcases, my tv stand, my ottoman. In a few minutes, those waves will breach against the chair I'm sitting in, and I may or may not feel that horrible tickling as the roaches skitter up my arms, their little legs pumping double-time as they scramble over me, going nowhere as fast as they can. I don't know if I'll feel it. All I know is that one way or the other, I'll scream.
So I do the only thing I know how to do.
There's a half empty bottle of bourbon sitting next to me on the end-table, the cap already off. I lift the bottle to my lips, and the sea recedes a little bit.
The dog's panting now. I can see it's pink little tongue lolling out of it's mouth, but only just. The power company turned me off today. Can't say that I blame them either. I've been spending all my money on booze. I have to.
I'm not a drunk, or at least not by choice. And these aren't the DT's, either. It's not like this started because I stopped drinking my morning fifth of Jack or anything. Before this started, I'd never touched a drop in my life.
As to what this is, I don't know. The easy answer would be that I'm dead, and this is Hell. But I'm not dead. Nor does Hell have 24-hour liquor stores, at least not to my knowledge. All I really know is that it changes every night. Last night it was a baby. The night before it was my mother.
The first time it happened, it was me.
It never does the same thing twice, either. Like these roaches. This is new. And the dog, that's new too. It's never done animals before.
I'm not a drunk, or at least not by choice. It's just that alcohol is the only thing that helps.
The dog stands up, it's head still parted in that obscene mouth. The cockroaches are still pouring out of it's head in endless waves. The dog doesn't seem to notice, though, and begins to pace my apartment.
It acts like a real dog. It looks like one, except for that mouth. The dog putters around my apartment, sniffing. After a moment, it stops by a barstool that I used to use, back when I didn't have to drink my three square.
It sniffs the leg of the stool, and, finding something about the stool that it likes, lifts its leg.
I can see the piss hitting, the bar stool, I can hear the thin trickle-hiss sound that belongs to that act alone, and there's no puddle forming at the foot of the stool.
The roaches are still coming, and the living sea has become a living carpet. The cockroaches are probably two or three deep on the floor now, and yet I still have about two feet of clear, pristine floor all to myself.
The alcohol is keeping them back. I drink to this.
The dog's inspection is apparently done, and he pads back over to his spot and sits on his haunches. Thus settled, he locks eyes with me and just sits there, as calm as Buddha in the midst of the thrashing, roiling sea my dining room has become.
I went to the doctor today. That's what you do when you're feeling sick, you go to the doctor.
My dining room has reached critical mass, it seems. At least horizontally, anyway. The roaches are starting to stack on top of each other, and they've managed to get about six inches high.
For a moment, I wonder how many roaches it takes to fill an 8x10 dining room, but then I stop and add it to the mental filing cabinet marked Things I'm Probably Better Off Not Knowing.
The dog is still sitting there calmly, even though the roaches are up to his chest now. He looks like he's grinning at me.
A single roach breaks through the barrier and starts skittering over to me. A nip off the bottle makes it leap into the air as though it's just been goosed, and retreat back to the sea. Safety in numbers, I guess.
I knew what the doctor was going to say even before he said it. I mean, you drink as much as I do, then you have to know that even if you don't have it right at this moment, the check's in the mail.
The roaches are higher now. If the dog had been wearing a collar, then the roaches would be at collar-level now. In a few minutes, the dog will be swallowed by that pulsing, jittery sea, and still it sits, as cool as a cucumber.
Cirrhosis of the liver. It's done, crapped out on me. The doctor told me he could put me on the list for a new one, but it's a long list. I told him not to bother. I'd just wear the new one out, too.
The dog's up to the first mouth in roaches now, and that second mouth is still spewing roaches. I can't see it's little pink tongue anymore, but the dog's eyes tell me what it's tongue can't. Still cool as a cucumber, they say. Yes sir, everything's right as rain.
The doctor pleaded with me, almost. He told me that I was still a young man, with my whole life ahead of me. I told him that's the part that worried me, and walked out.
The roaches seem like they're ready to burst the seams of whatever it is that's holding them back. But I'm not ready for that. Not yet. I take another swig and the roaches start toeing the line again.
I lose sight of the dog, but not before I see his eyes one last time. No sweat, those eyes say. Happens all the time, those eyes say. Cool as a cucumber, those eyes say.
I hope I'll be that calm.
The bottle's almost empty. Not that it's the last one. Not even close. But I asked myself today, what's the point?
The roaches are coming faster now, rising steadily past the bar stool, the table, the TV stand. In a few minutes, they'll be ready to burst the seams again, right around the time the bottle gives up it's last taste.
The liquor cabinet's in here, only a few feet from where I sit. I can get up and grab another bottle of bourbon without stepping on a single roach.
But I asked myself today, what's the point?
So I think I'm going to try and follow that dog's example.
The sea of roaches has become a wall of roaches, six foot high and rising. They're also starting to bulge against the boundaries again.
In my head I keep seeing the dog, pink tongue lolling without a care in the world even as the roaches come spewing out, covering the dog, suffocating it.
The bourbon is almost gone, two swigs at most. I drink to this.
The roaches slow for a moment, but it doesn't matter. They're already higher than the archway that connects the two rooms, and I'd bet they're at least eight feet high.
I see that dog again, and I wonder if I'll be as calm, as cool as a cucumber. I doubt it. I don't know if I'll feel it or not when they swarm over me. All I know is that one way or the other, I'll scream.
I look down the neck of the bottle, see the last sip sloshing at the bottom. The roaches are already trying to burst the seams again, and it will take a lot more than what's in the bottle to stop them. What's more, I've waited too long. Even if I took this last sip on the way to the liquor cabinet, I don't have time.
I drink to this.

Final Purchases (New Story)

So, like I said, normally I'll be posting on here every Friday, but this time will be a brief break from the routine because I've got other things going tomorrow. Rather than just be a no good slacker and forget to post, I'm going to go ahead and put this one up early. This story is called "Final Purchases."

The store was dimly lit and musty as hell, which, Jonas thought, is actually pretty funny under the circumstances.
He'd already decided that he didn't like this store one bit, even though Dorothy was completely enamored with this stuff. Junk, he thought, surveying the aisles of battered toys, worn quilts, and badly dented picture frames. Hell, some of this stuff looked it had been through a pretty nasty fire at some point. Which, Jonas thought to himself, is probably pretty likely. Dorothy was currently cooing over a selection of old photographs that looked like they had to date to at least the 1920s, and probably even earlier than that.
Jonas couldn't have cared less about anything that this store had to offer, though, and let his gaze wander around while she picked through the shoddy stock.
His eyes landed on one of the staff, a pretty young girl probably no more than twenty-six. She was helping a wizened old hunchback of a woman get something off of one of the top shelves, keeping up an animated conversation with her the whole time she was standing on the stepladder. Pretty girl, he thought absently. She really doesn't belong here.
She got off the stepladder with surprising grace, considering that she came down from the top shelf carrying a large rocking horse that had to weigh at least as much as the girl, and handed it to the old woman. Surprisingly enough, the old woman actually jumped for joy and let out a loud whoop that caused more than a few people to look at her. The girl just traded a knowing smile with another employee who was walking past, showing a child of about eight to the display of comics.
The girl traded a few more words with the old woman, apparently offering assistance carrying the cumbersome thing, but the woman shook her head politely and walked off, clutching the rocking horse close to her as though it weighed no more than a pocketbook.
Jonas was brought back to himself by a tug on his shirt sleeve, and he turned around to see Dorothy holding up a tattered Raggedy Ann doll. "Oh, my God, Jonas, look!"
He looked closely at it for a moment, but he didn't see anything special about it. In fact, it was in pretty bad shape. One eye was working loose, hanging down from a loose thread like a bloodless parody of an eyeball wrenched loose from it's socket. The hair, which had originally been thick red yarn, was now worn and frayed to the point where Raggedy Ann was nearly bald. Her white apron was stained a dull brownish white, and her hands were covered in a faded pink stain.
"It's very nice, dear," he said dutifully.
"Nice," she said, incredulously. "This is more than nice. This looks exactly like the one I had when I was a little girl. I remember that I couldn't say Raggedy Ann, so I just called her my Baby Annie doll. I lost it when I was seven, and my parents couldn't get me to stop crying for days."
Jonas nodded, still listening with one ear, but getting increasingly tired of the dinginess of the store around him. He looked down at the tile floors disdainfully. Didn't they ever mop in here? He saw what had to be at least twenty years of dust, dirt, and God only knew what else.
He wandered around for a moment, picking up anything that caught his eye. Admittedly, there wasn't much. He stopped briefly to look at a box of baseball cards that had to be worth a small fortune nowadays, and considered asking how much it cost. Then he decided that a small fortune was probably exactly how much they were asking for it, and put it down on the shelf again.
He found an old Buck Rogers zapgun toy that he remembered playing with when he was younger. He held it in his hand for a moment, feeling a pleasant wave of memories wash over him. He'd spent countless days running around his backyard, pretending to zap space aliens back to Pluto, or wherever his imagination had summoned them from on that particular day. He looked around for a moment, trying to find the girl who had been helping the old hunchback a minute ago to ask a price on the zapgun, but she was nowhere to be found. Well, surely they can't be asking too much for this, he thought.. And if they are, why then I'll put it right back. No harm, no foul. He nodded to himself without even realizing it, and continued to stroll the aisles slowly, his arm swinging absently. Every now and then the hand carrying his gun (he didn't know when he'd started thinking of it as his gun, but he had) would smack against his hip, and even though he hadn't had a day in over twenty years where the slightest wrong move would send pain shooting through his arthritic hip, he didn't even notice. His hip didn't notice either, didn't even send up the slightest twinge when the gun hit, even though the zapgun was one of the old ones that was actually metal, and felt as though it had to weigh at least two or three pounds.
He stopped to look at a clothing rack near the back of the store. There was a suit on the rack, really the only suit on the rack, that looked exactly like the one he'd worn on the day he'd married Dorothy. He remembered it well, because he'd been poor back then, just like everyone else, and it had been his only suit. He felt foolish in it, because it was too short in the legs, and he looked as though at any moment he expected the wedding to be flooded out. Still, he hadn't cared, because the realization had come to him that the radiant woman standing next to him was his, that she had just agreed in front of God and everybody to spend the rest of her life with him.
He'd even laughed with Dorothy when, later that night, she'd told him that he'd walked around all day with a mustard stain on his pants. They'd both laughed over that, and then she'd snuggled up close to him, buried her face in his chest, and fell asleep. Jonas had stayed awake for a while longer, simply stroking her hair and marveling at the fact that she was his.
He turned to look at her, and he stood watching her as she picked through a display of old, tattered quilts. My God, he thought. What did I ever do to earn that woman? Even now, he still felt the familiar rush in his heart, the way it sped up whenever she was near. Age had been kind to Dorothy, giving her a look of wisdom and experience without ruining her features, and he could still see traces of the young woman she'd been in her high cheekbones and soft, gentle lips.
He was startled out of his reverie by a voice near his shoulder, saying, "Are you finding everything all right, sir?"
He turned to see who had spoken, and he recognized the girl from earlier. She was smiling at him, and looked genuinely interested in helping him. "Oh, no. I'm fine. I'm just waiting for my wife."
She smiled, and said, "Well, let me know if you need help finding anything."
He was distracted by what sounded like a scream, and he ran forward, moving surprisingly fast for an eighty-four year old man. He didn't even notice that he'd dropped his items.
He didn't consider himself a hero, by any means. That others might have disagreed with him would have surprised him. To him, being a fireman had just been his job right up until retirement. After so many years with the department, it was hard to get away from the reflexes that were still there, just under the surface; like a hotrod under a tarp, dormant but aching to spring to life.
It hadn't been a scream for help, or of terror, he soon found out, but a shriek of delight. The boy that he'd seen another employee helping earlier was lying on the ground, a hyperactive puppy licking his face while he rolled back and forth, giggling.
Well, will wonders never cease? he thought to himself. What don't they sell at this place?
Jonas walked stiffly over to the quilts, where Dorothy was still picking through them. "We should get going," he said.
"Don't be silly. What's your rush?"
He looked pointedly at his watch. "I don't want to miss the train."
She kept looking through the quilts, not even looking at him as she said, "There'll be another train."
"Do you feel like waiting around for another train? Because I sure don't."
She swatted at him playfully, saying, "Oh, don't be such a grumpy old poop. It'll still be there when we get there. And besides, when are we ever going to come back here?"
"Well, I just don't know that we're going to be able to take any of this with us when we get where we're going. To be honest, I'm still not even sure where we're going."
She stopped looking at the quilts long enough to give him another one of those playful swats and said, "Well, I know where I'm going. If you don't want to come with me, then that's your problem."
"Come on. Let's go."
"Wait, Jonas, look at this. It's the blanket that we slept with on our honeymoon. My God, I never thought I'd see this again. Look, it's even still got our initials on it. You remember that, how we wrote them down with that big black marker? I didn't think those would survive the first wash, especially with the big washers that hotel used."
"Come on, Dorothy. Let's go." He was getting impatient now, and his hip was starting to throb again, probably from when he'd ran up to see where the scream was coming from. He tugged harder at Dorothy's arm, angry that his hip was acting up.
Still she resisted, and Jonas turned around with a yell on his lips. It died instantly.
Dorothy was standing there, clutching the doll to her chest in one hand and the blanket in the other. She was also holding some photographs that he hadn't noticed before. "Don't you get it, Jonas?" she said, and he was shocked to hear her voice quavering, to see the tears forming in her eyes. "We can't leave yet. This isn't just stuff, just junk. This is ours. And I'm taking it."
Jonas felt his shoulders slump, and he said, "I'm sorry. You're right." He stood still for a moment, then said, "Say, hold on a second, will you?"
Before Dorothy could answer, he was running towards the back of the store, hoping that his things were still where he'd left them. And there they were, laying in a neat little pile like he'd set them there rather than fling them every which way. He grabbed the suit off the ground, picking up the Buck Rogers zapgun (barely even noticing his initials scratched into the butt of the gun in the long, straggling handwriting that he'd used as a child), and as he did so, he saw a dress on the rack that looked exactly like the one Dorothy had worn on their wedding day. He grabbed it too, and then ran back to meet Dorothy.
She had found a few more things as well, and together they managed to get it all to the cash register. "How much do I owe you?" Jonas asked, reaching for his wallet.
He'd just realized that his wallet was gone when the girl behind the counter, the same one he'd seen twice now, smiled and said, "Don't worry sir. That's all yours. We were just holding it for you."
He smiled, and said, "Thank you," before scooping everything up in his arms and heading for the door.
"Do you need any help, Jonas?" Dorothy asked, and he broke into a large grin. "I sure do, pretty lady. You can carry this for me." He handed her the Raggedy Ann doll, which was no longer the dirty and stained thing that Dorothy had picked up off the shelf, but looked as fresh and pretty as the day that Dorothy had first played with it.
On the way out, Jonas saw a hat hanging on a coatrack near the door that looked familiar. He shifted the bulk of the weight into his other hand, then pointed with his free hand to the hat. "Excuse me, miss?" he shouted to the girl behind the counter. She looked up politely, and he said, "Is this mine too?"
She nodded to him, and said, "Why yes, sir, I believe it is."
He grinned and gave her a jaunty thumbs up, something that he hadn't done in years, but to be honest, he hadn't felt this good in years. He grabbed the hat off the rack and put it on with a flourish, the same way he used to do it when he and Dorothy were dating. He put out his arm, and said, "Shall we go, then, my dear?" Dorothy took his arm, and they walked out side by side.
They got to the station just in time to see the train pull out, and Dorothy looked at him and said, "Oh, dear. We missed the train."
Jonas looked at her and smiled. He sat down on the bench and threw an arm around her. "Don't worry. There'll be another train." She smiled back at him, and put her head on his shoulder. He kissed her lightly on the top of her head, and then he sat back to wait.

Perchance to Dream...

Okay, so if I'm being completely chronologically accurate, then this story has to be first, because it is hands down the oldest story I've got in here. It's called "Perchance to Dream", and I actually had to turn on the light while I was writing it. That may be simply because I'm a bit of a sissy, or maybe it's genuinely scary. I'll let you decide.

Tuesday:
"Lewis? Is there anything you'd like to say?"
Lewis sat on the couch across from Dr. Kilbourne, smoking a cigarette lazily. This was their second session, and it had been as much a waste as the first.

Dr. Kilbourne waited for a moment, then, when Lewis' only answer was to lean back and slowly blow a large ring of smoke into the air, sighed.
"Mr. Parker, it is your money and you are certainly entitled to spend it however you see fit, but doesn't it strike you as wasteful to spend seventy-five dollars an hour just to sit on that couch and smoke a cigarette?" Kilbourne asked.
"Not my money, Doc." Another of those smoke rings.
Kilbourne took his glasses off and massaged the bridge of his nose. Finally, just to fill the silence, he started flipping through his notes. "Ah, yes. I arranged payment with one Amelia Barnard. Is she a sister, girlfriend...?" He let the question dangle.
"I guess you'd call her a girlfriend." Lewis answered.
"Quite a girlfriend to be paying for your treatment."
Lewis didn't answer, just made a noncommittal gesture with his cigarette.
"Why does she think you need treatment, Lewis?"

Lewis started shaking, and for a moment, Dr. Kilbourne thought he was having a seizure of some kind. After a moment, though, he was able to figure it out. Lewis was laughing.
"Alright, Doc. I'll play along. Let's see, my mother didn't love me. She used to beat me when I was bad, and she had a really skewed version of what was right and wrong. She was a religious crackpot, used to say she could tell when I was having impure thoughts, and would hold my hand to a hot stove whenever she caught me at it. I didn't have a father. When I was twelve I killed my first puppy dog. Is this what you want to hear, Doc?"
"It depends, Lewis. Is any of it true?"
"Not a bit of it, Doc. My father lives in Atlanta. My mother died when I was twenty-three. I'm over it now. All in all, I'm pretty normal."
"Then why are you here?'
Lewis didn't answer, instead stubbing out his cigarette in a nearby ashtray and lighting another one.
"Lewis?"
The room was quiet for a moment, except for the soft hum of the tape recorder.

"Lewis?" Kilbourne repeated.
"What are you so afraid of?" Kilbourne asked.
Lewis lifted his head to look at him, and for a moment, his eyes shone with pure, naked fear. His hand trembled slightly.
Then he regained his composure.
"I can't tell you."
"Why, Lewis?"
"Because you'll think I'm crazy."
"I'm not here to judge you. I just want to help you. I can't do that if you won't tell me everything."
Lewis looked across at him, the cigarette dangling for the moment, forgotten. Kilbourne remained silent for a moment, then said, "Lewis, do you really think that whatever is wrong with you is unique? I mean, I can't give you details due to patient-doctor confidentiality, but I've seen everything. I've seen schizophrenia, I've seen people who are still afraid of the dark well into adulthood, I've seen crippling phobias of the most mundane objects. One person even had a phobia of plastic cutlery. You can't shock me, Lewis. I guarantee it. In fact, I dare you to try."
Lewis laughed at this. "Alright, Doc," he said. "Since you dared me, I'll tell you. Try this one on for size. For the past two weeks, I've been having nightmares. Only the kicker is, and you're gonna love this, the kicker is that when I wake up, some part of my dream is still there."
"How do you mean?" Kilbourne asked.
"Well, for example, if I have a dream that I'm dying of thirst in the desert, then I'll wake up with sand in my shoes, or a cactus in the living room, or something."
Kilbourne pushed his glasses up, then asked, "And how long do these manifestations last?"
Lewis widened his eyes, then said, "Goddamn, you know how to cut right to it, don't you, Doc? You see, when it first started, they would disappear almost immediately. I could actually watch them disappear, and at first I could almost dismiss it as another part of my dream. Almost. But now, the stuff is sticking around, longer and longer."
Kilbourne was scribbling a few notes, and he looked up as Lewis said, "So, what do you say, doc? Shocking enough for you?"
"No, actually. Aside from a few details, this sounds like you have a pretty standard case of night terrors. Most people grow out of them at a young age, but if you experienced anything particularly traumatic at that age, then they may not go away. Or if they do, then they may resurface later in life."
"Uh-huh. That's great, thank you. Here I was, thinking I was losing my mind, and you tell me it's just a standard case of night terrors. Tell me, doc. How is that brilliant analysis worth seventy-five dollars any more than me sitting here smoking my cigarette was?"
Kilbourne sighed inwardly, but he said, "Well, the first part of dealing with any problem is identifying the problem. Now that we know what's wrong with you, we can proceed with treatment. It's just like any other doctor, Lewis. A physician can't treat your cancer if he thinks it's the flu."
"Wow, that's great, Doc. You really know how to put a guy at ease, you know that? First you tell me it's a 'standard case', and then you compare it to cancer. Bravo."
Kilbourne sighed. "Admittedly, it was a poor choice of words. I was just saying..."
"Can it, Doc. I know what you were saying. I'm just giving you a hard time. What your type would undoubtedly call a defense mechanism." Lewis lit up another cigarette with a shaky hand, then said, "So, what do we do now?"
"Well, there are a few things we can do. First and foremost, we should try and get at whatever childhood trauma..."
"That's BULLSHIT!" Lewis interrupted. "Jesus Christ, Doc, don't you get it? I'm not Ed Gein, I didn't have abusive parents or anything like that. I never killed small animals. I couldn't have had a more idyllic childhood if I'd grown up in an episode of Leave It to Beaver. The closest thing to a childhood trauma would be the one time that my parents didn't come to a Little League game, and we lost. And you know how I dealt with that? I cried, and then the coach took us out for ice cream, and I got over it. I moved on."
Kilbourne scratched a few notes into his pad, then said, "What about grandparents? Were you close to your grandparents?"
Lewis waved his hand dismissively, sending a cloud of smoke wafting towards Kilbourne. "Sure, I was close. But I was sixteen when my grandparents died. They died together. Car crash, near Pismo Beach." Lewis stopped for a moment, long enough to take another drag, then chuffed laughter. "Pismo Beach. I always thought it was something that they made up for those old Bugs Bunny cartoons. Hell of a way to find out it's real, huh?"
After a moment, Lewis stubbed out his cigarette in a nearby ashtray. "Look, I know what you're getting at. But nothing ever happened to me that would drive me over the edge. I didn't even remember my dreams 'till about three weeks ago."
"When did you start remembering your dreams? Do you remember the exact date?"
Lewis thought back. "I know it was a Tuesday, so that would make it... the fourteenth?"
"Okay. Did anything happen on the fourteenth?"
"Like what? Like did I get abducted and anally violated by space aliens?"
Kilbourne smiled. "Well, that, or anything else maybe equally traumatic."
"Nothing. I mean, it was just a normal Tuesday. I went to work, just another day at the grindstone, you know. I went to lunch, went back to work, clocked out, went home."
Kilbourne made a few more notes. "Anything special happen at home?"
"Nope. Came home, watched TV with Amy, then went to bed."

"Can you think of anything, anything at all, that you think might tie into your dreams?"
Lewis leaned back on the couch, his brows knitted as he thought of an answer. Kilbourne felt like there might be some hope for him yet. This was the first time that Lewis looked as though he was actually considering the problem. Finally, he leaned forward and said, "Nothing, Doc. Nothing except for the dream."
"Okay, let's talk about the dream then. What was the first dream you had?"
"It's going to sound stupid, but it was a nightmare."
Kilbourne nodded. "I had guessed as much."
"I was being chased down this long hallway by a gigantic spider."
"I see," said Kilbourne. "Are you arachnophobic, Mr. Parker?"
"To a certain extent. I mean, I don't spend my nights looking for them before I go to sleep, but if I see a really big one, like maybe larger than a silver dollar, then I get the willies."
"The willies? What do you mean?"
"Well, I suppose that the most common things that happen are my head starts to itch, especially on top, and I get a really crawly feeling all over, you know?"
"And how do you normally deal with these situations?"
Lewis smiled. "Usually with the heel of a shoe, or a newspaper. Whatever's handy. Maybe a shotgun, if it's bigger than a breadbox."
Kilbourne chuckled.
Over on Kilbourne's desk, the timer dinged softly.
"Well, Mr. Parker, I'm afraid your time is up for this week, but I feel that we've made some progress today. I'd like to see you in here again on Thursday, if that's possible."
Lewis nodded. "It should be. I'll call if I can't make it."
Kilbourne stuck out his hand. "Until next time, then."

Thursday:
"Do you mind if I ask how you hurt yourself, Lewis?"
Lewis had come in to the office with his right forearm swathed in bandages. He looked down at his arm now, pointed to it, and said, "This?"
Kilbourne nodded.
"Oh, nothing serious. Just burned it on a rock formation in Hell last night."
"Another dream?"
"I don't really know that we can keep calling them dreams, Doc. Not when I wake up with battle scars."
"Okay. Then what happened last night?"
"Well, I went to bed as usual, and almost immediately I was in a cave. It was hot in there, almost impossibly hot, and I could feel my clothes sticking to me."
Kilbourne interrupted. "What were you wearing in your dream? Were they the same clothes you'd gone to bed in?"
"No, Doc, it was this Little Bo Peep outfit that I like to wear on weekends... Of course they were. Why does it matter?"
"It doesn't, really. I'm just curious at this point."
"May I continue, Doc?"
Kilbourne nodded. "Please."
"Okay, fine. So, anyway, I knew that I was dreaming, so I figured that I would try to prove it to myself."
"So you touched a rock formation?" Kilbourne asked.
"Not yet. Don't get ahead of me. Anyway, so I figured that maybe I was just sleepwalking or something, so I figured I'd walk around in the dream until I bumped into something. I have this coffee table that I always bark my shins on, so I figured I'd probably run into that, or a wall, or anything, you know. So I started walking."
"I don't know how long I walked, but if you held a gun to my head, I'd say at least an hour, just in one direction."
Kilbourne nodded again. "Well, maybe you were walking in place in real life."
"Running. After a while, I figured I was doing the same thing you just mentioned. Like I was on a treadmill or something, right? So, I decided that since I'm not even coordinated enough to run in place when I'm awake, there's no way that I could do it in my sleep."
"I ran for about ten minutes before I stopped. I wasn't winded or anything, I just gave up."
" I wasn't thinking. I just leaned against a rock formation, looking for a good spot to stop and think about what was going on, trying to apply logical thought. Well, you see what happened."
"So it is burned then?" Kilbourne asked.
"Pretty badly, actually. Doc's trying to decide whether I need skin grafts or not. Only reason I'm not in the hospital right now is I discharged myself. I didn't want to sit around with my thumb up my ass while everyone tried to figure out how to treat an impossible wound."
Kilbourne frowned. "Lewis, I can't say that I approve. No matter how you got the wound, you should make sure that it's properly treated."
"Right, yeah, I know, my father said the same thing. But Doc, I'm not worried about that, what I'm worried about is the fact that this seems to be... I don't know how to put this... getting more real, I guess."
"Well, it worries me too. But I'm sure that we could find a rational explanation for the wound. Did you leave a burner on, maybe have a curling iron that you could have burned it on?"
"Well gee, Doc, I kinda like to cuddle up to my curling iron when I go to sleep. It keeps me warm at night."
Kilbourne puffed out his cheeks. "Your sarcasm isn't helping, Lewis."
"Neither is your insistence that we find a rational explanation. Weird shit is going on, Doc, can't you see that? I mean, it scares me. It scares Amy, too. She moved out last night, Doc. Did I forget to mention that little tidbit? She says she woke up because I was thrashing in bed, and watched this burn form on my arm. No curling iron, no stove. Nothing. Just me, lying in bed, magically thinking a burn into existence. How do you explain that rationally, Doc?"
Kilbourne thought for a moment. "You said she just woke up herself, maybe she walked out to the kitchen to find you there and forgot..."
"Oh, come on, Doc, that's bullshit and you know it. How do you forget that you walked out into the kitchen and just magically decide, 'Oh gee, he burned his arm on the stove, I guess I'll just remember watching it form on his arm out of nowhere while we were both in bed.' "
Lewis drummed his fingers on the couch for a moment, then stood up. "I'm out of here."
"But your time isn't up."
"Keep the seventy-five bucks."
"I'd like to see you again on Thursday, Lewis."
Lewis didn't answer, except to flip Kilbourne the bird as he slammed the door.

Wednesday:

Lewis sat up in a cold sweat. Christ, that was a bad one. He nearly didn't make it out that time. If it hadn't been for... for...

He grasped for the remnants of the dream, trying to keep hold of whatever had happened, but it fell apart even as he tried to remember it. He may as well have been trying to grab hold of fog. Oh well, there were no new wounds, nothing lurking in the darkness here. Shit, he couldn't live like this anymore. He looked up at the clock, saw that it was past four. He picked up the phone, knowing full well that Kilbourne wouldn't be in his office. He left a message on Kilbourne's machine, telling him that he would be there at the appointed time, and not to reschedule it out from under him. After that was done, he walked into the kitchen and got a glass of ice water.

He had just put the glass in the sink when he heard something rush past the kitchen door.

Lewis slowly reached into the knife drawer, trying not to make any noise as he extracted a large, wicked-looking butcher knife. He edged out slowly, poking his head into the hallway.

Something skittered out of sight just around the corner.

"Oh, Jesus, no," Lewis said to himself. Suddenly, the knife seemed to be a horrible idea. He had absolutely no desire to get any closer than was necessary to the thing that he'd glimpsed darting around the corner. Lewis edged slowly upstairs, trying not to attract the creature.

He'd made it to the head of the stairs when the spider came back into sight.

Lewis bolted for the bedroom door, the creature letting out a hellish shriek unlike anything Lewis had ever heard. He slammed the door shut behind him, holding it shut as the creature on the other side slammed into it with a sickening tangled thud. Lewis heard it back up, its legs ticking on the tiled floor outside, and then run into the door with a full head of steam. The creature's legs slammed into the door a split second after its body, sounding like somebody throwing a handful of pebbles at a window. After a moment, he heard it back away again, and he braced himself for another attempt at the door, but the maddening tick-tick of its legs continued away down the hall. He listened for a few more minutes, long enough to ensure that it wasn't just getting the mother of all running starts, and then slowly eased away from the door.

Lewis rummaged under the bed for a moment, all the while muttering to himself, "Just a few minutes before I was naked in a hot tub with Scarlett Johannson, but no, this is the dream that comes to life." After a minute, he found what he was looking for, and pulled it out of its box.

He and Amy had fought about the gun when he'd bought it, but now he was glad he had it. He checked to see if it was loaded, and, when he saw that it wasn't, began filling it with shells.

He saw the phone by the bedside table, and briefly considered calling 911. Then he envisioned the conversation that would follow.

"Hello? 911? Yeah, I'm being attacked by a giant spider that came out of my dreams and now is trying to kill me. What? No, I'm not on drugs, ma'am..."

Scratch that.

Lewis took a deep breath, then slowly, softly, edged the door open; cursing to himself when the door creaked.

The hallway was empty. He searched the entire upper floor slowly, holding the gun out in front of him like he'd seen in dozens of cop shows. He had no idea if he'd be able to actually hit anything with it once push came to shove, but he at least looked like he knew what he was doing.

The second story was clear. Lewis slowly worked his way downstairs, his nerves as taut as piano wire. The kitchen was empty, as well, and Lewis had seen that the living room was empty before he got into the kitchen. That left the downstairs bathroom.

Lewis paused in front of the bathroom door, taking a moment to wipe his sweat-slick hands on his t-shirt before he opened the door.

He jumped back, expecting the spider to come barreling out like a bat out of hell, maybe landing on his chest, and he would have to fight it off before shooting it twice, three times, as many as it took to kill the damn thing before he would give into the full-body shiver that was trying to work its way out...

But none of that happened.

The bathroom was empty.

Christ, what a relief. At least I'll have one hell of a story to tell Kilbourne when I...

His thought was interrupted by a long green, strand of spittle that hit the floor in front of him with a sizzle.

Slowly, Lewis looked up.

The thing was perched directly above him, and it let out another of those hellish shrieks before detaching itself from the ceiling.

Lewis dove out of the way, feeling the air displaced by the monster's descent assisting him in his leap. He fell over the couch, tipping it and landing on his face with a brief glimpse of stars before he was on his feet again, gun at the ready.

It was crouched, primed for a leap, and as it jumped Lewis fired six shots, in rapid succession.

The creature shrieked again, this time in pain, and Lewis watched it go limp in mid-flight, its many legs swinging up and over its head. Lewis ducked, and it hit the wall with a sickeningly wet thump. It slowly slid down the wall, leaving a black ichor on the wall.

Lewis edged over slowly, his revulsion sending wave after wave through his body, making him shiver like an end-stage pneumonia victim.

It wasn't until Lewis had stopped shivering that he realized the creature was still moving. Before, he'd been able to write off the jittering of the creature's body to his own shivers, more a problem with his viewpoint than with the corpse itself.

But now, he was no longer shivering, and the creature still jittered and shook as though one of its legs had deposited itself in an electrical outlet. Lewis just had time to scream when the creature's stomach split open.

Thursday:

Kilbourne was worried. He'd gotten Lewis' message, and had felt no small amount of relief that he would be coming to his appointment. Lewis was making progress, he felt, and Kilbourne thought that he might be able to help him before he seriously hurt someone. Someone like himself.

But Lewis hadn't shown. That had been three hours ago, and Kilbourne hadn't been able to reach him either by cell phone or by his home line.

Kilbourne had decided to drive past his house, just to check. He didn't have anyone else scheduled today, and he never took any time off anyway, so he figured he deserved to leave early today.

Lewis' house was dark, and looked as though no one had lived there for a very long time. Kilbourne felt a shiver work its way down his back for no real reason that he could identify, other than that this just felt... wrong.

He couldn't leave, though. After all, he'd come this far. Resolutely, Kilbourne marched up the steps and knocked on Lewis' front door.

After a few moments, he knocked again.

When the third knock failed to get any response, Kilbourne tried the door.

It was locked. Not only that, but the doorknob was sticky with some sort of substance that made the shiver race up and down Kilbourne's spine all over again, as though it were brand new.

Kilbourne looked in the window. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the darkened interior of the room, and he had to cup his hands around his eyes to block out the glare, but when he was able to see he nearly screamed aloud.

He was on the phone with 911 dispatchers before he got to his car, and was spitting out the address even as he pulled away from the curb.

The interior of Lewis' house had been draped from floor to ceiling with thick, ropy spiderwebs.

As Kilbourne pulled out, leaving at least a layer of tire rubber on the road in front of Lewis' house; a small, almost delicate looking spider slowly lowered itself from the doorknob, climbing down the steps and into the tall grass before disappearing altogether.

Howdy do, all.

So, I've currently got another blog group that I'm part of, but I feel as though I really shouldn't post all of the stories I've got because this blog also hosts 5 other people. I don't want to cramp their style, ya dig? If you would like to see my other blog, go check out Chupacabra Can't Be Stopped. It's pretty rad, and if you like what you see there, another member, OZ, has her own blog too, called the Obscurian. Anyhoo, this blog is far too long for just an introductory thing, so I'm just gonna call it good here. I'm going to post a new story on here every Friday, starting with some of my older ones and progressing forward chronologically so that eventually I'll be posting current stuff. Oh, and before I go, some of the stories may contain harsh language, graphic violence, and (if I'm feeling really saucy) even sexual content. So, if you are offended by any of those things, I hear Martha Stewart has got a lovely blog. Go read hers instead.