Of Wharves, Loneliness, and Monsters

Yes, I know I've been discussing horror movies on a writing blog, and my justification is that I'm writing about them, aren't I? Okay, that's fairly lame, but it's my train set and I'll crash the engines into the bridge supports if I damn well want to, okay? But I also don't want to forget those little orphaned pieces of writing, or indeed writing news, that can so easily end up scattered amid a flurry of desktop files or even somewhere out there in cyberspace, where no one can hear them digitally scream.

First off, Indies Unlimited just published Indies Unlimited: 2013 Flash Fiction Anthology—their latest collection of Flash Fiction Challenge winners from last year—and I am particularly proud of my own small contribution. You can buy the anthology here, but I'll also repost my story with its prompt. Remember, these are accompanied in the book by the beautiful photography of K.S. Brooks, and I really urge anyone to get their hands on the full-colour print edition. So here's the prompt, followed by my story: 

This is where it had been happening. Back in the summer, when Gary Kessler disappeared, everyone had thought he had drowned. When they found his body, they knew differently.

Then there was the little Hamilton girl, Old Tom Billings, and half a dozen more.

Most of the time they never found the bodies. Sometimes they would find parts. The town council didn’t want to hear about it. They stuck their heads in the sand and hoped it would go away. Deputy Aldridge knew differently. He had seen it. He saw it take Sheriff Wilson, and he knew it had to be stopped. He came here tonight to put an end to it. He just had to wait till dark.

***

Till Dark

Although he’d seen terrible things, a pretty sunset never failed to bring a tear to Deputy Aldridge’s jaundiced eye. And this was as pretty as any, down by the lake that lay placid as mirror glass under the warm hues of a fading day.

No time for sentiment tonight, however—he had come to stop a monster. A thing he called, simply, The Horror. The town had suffered enough. He would wait until full dark, the time it always indulged its predations, and he would end its thrall. Checking his Glock 17, he felt a strange calm descend.

Crouching in the dwindling light, senses alert to the gentle sounds of evening—the creak of a frog, water sounds, a distant train—he recalled the awful endings already endured by the townsfolk: the Kessler kid, rangy adolescent limbs torn off; old Tom’s unspeakable final minutes; and worst of all, little Lucy Hamilton. His nightmares about her fate alone fueled the raging insomnia he’d picked up after Gulf War I. No, it would end tonight. Only one of those killings had been prompted by cunning not bloodlust: Sheriff Wilson. His old friend had come so close to solving the mystery.

Aldridge was tired. No more. All light had leached from the sky, barring a sprinkling of stars. It was time. All was quiet. Even the frog seemed to hold its breath. Deputy Aldridge sighed, inserted the Glock into his mouth, pointed up toward his brainpan, and put an ending to The Horror.

Second, and this is a simple one, I wrote a haiku recently. It's my first, but I kind of like it. Here it is:

Now I am alone

I hear the windchimes sing, though

there's no longer wind

And last but not least, now and again I join Dan Mader and co on his blog for the free writing exercises he hosts there every Friday. The latest one had a two-minute limit which, as anyone who's ever attempted it knows, is actually very difficult in terms of building any coherent narrative. They're more ephemeral and impressionistic, usually. But on this occasion a tiny short story appeared unbidden, which you can read among the other excellent entries here, but I also felt like I wanted to embellish it a little, which I've now done and will post here for posterity... or because I hate to see lost little orphans. (Oh, and yeah, it's still short. Just not that short.)

Wharf

"It's down at the wharf." Lauren was insistent. Her frown was adorable, always was. "The thing in the water."

"Then we'll go there." I wanted to see it, after all.

"You'll see it." Trembling, tears beginning.

We were fast. Wharf rats ourselves, really. Running between the ancient guano-spattered pilings and docks, laughing in that serious way we always had. One that was also kinda sad, truth be told. 

Lauren needed this and I wanted her to. Show me, I mean.

But we looked everywhere. All over hell's half-acre and then some. Red neon Firestone signs from pure memory. A tawdry motel named The Shamrock. These were the years soon after the noisome winds blew garbage like soiled snow through the rusty alleyways and gunmetal gantries. These were the quiet days following. The high plains whistle inside our flinching ears.

And we kept looking awhile. Beneath the water and out. Backs of warehouses, well inside loading bays, deep within oily backwaters, long-dead feathers floating on scum. Alert we stayed. Studied reflections aplenty and craned our necks to the mostly birdless sky. Where light came. But we never once saw Lauren's creature. Sure didn't mean it never existed. Just never saw it is all.