Toxic Tidbit: Birds of a Feather

Here's another story from Toxic Reality, my upcoming story collection.  Birds of a Feather is my foray into the Lovecraftian world.

Birds of a Feather

Algernon didn’t really understand his wife’s fondness for birds. She had come into their marriage with a parrot that had belonged to her grandmama and it had lived in a cage in the drawing room where it had moulted and shed and screeched and squawked. Algernon had loathed the parrot. One day when his wife was out making calls, Algernon had poured a dose of Godfrey’s Cordial down its feathered throat and that had been the end of the feathered nuisance.

Eleanor had been quite upset but as the bird had no mark on him, she could only accept the explanation that it had died of natural causes. If she had noticed the marks on his hand where the bird had pecked him (pecked him quite hard in fact), she had not mentioned it.

Algernon had suggested that Eleanor have the infernal thing stuffed if she missed it so much but his suggestion had been met with a stony glare and a glacial silence. Algernon had often told Eleanor that sulking did not suit her. Unlike a beautiful woman whose allure was only enhanced by a pout, a sullen expression simply magnified an ugly woman’s unappealing looks.

Toxic Reality...The Cover

Here's the cover. Designed by Joy Sillesen of StonyHill Productions, published by Dark Valentine Press. The core image was a photo of an oil spill taken by photographer Valeriy Kirsanov.

I am angry with my friend

She's not so much my friend as a good friend of several of my friends, but we share an orbit and I care about her. Last week she dropped out of sight. She stopped answering her phone; she stopped answering emails; she stopped posting on Facebook.
She went dark. I wouldn't have thought anything about that because when I'm busy, I don't tweet or update or post either. But here's the thing. The last status update she left on Facebook before pulling the plug was a stark, two-word message:  Goodbye everybody.
A frantic Facebook-fueled search ensued with people sharing information--where they last saw her, where she might have gone, who she might be with. Her sisters were all contacted and it was clear they had no idea where their little sister was.
They posted pleas for their sister to call them. Their kids posted pleas for their aunt to get in touch. No response. Radio silence. And the clock was ticking. People drove up and down streets looking for her car. People contacted a coffee shop where she was known to hang out. There was talk of posters and flyers and news stories on patch.com. (My over-burdened  NoHoNoir editor was ready to step up with an article, even though he is insanely busy.)

Free Friday Fiction

A mermaid tale that originally appeared in the Anniversary issue of Dark Valentine Magazine.

                                 Siren Song

He was the third generation in his family to follow the sea and young to captain his own ship. The Rebekah Lee was a three-masted barque made of two kinds of oak and two kinds of pine, eighty-seven feet long, and twenty-six feet wide. She wasn’t a large ship as whale-ships went, but she was as sturdy and reliable as her namesake.

When he left New Bedford on the maiden voyage of the Rebekah Lee, Nathaniel Goode had every expectation that he would return in three years with a hold full of whale oil and riches enough to build Rebekah a fine house in the best neighborhood in the city where they had both been born.

Rebekah had told him all she wanted was for him to return home safely, but he’d seen her wistful looks at the mansions whale wealth had built, had seen her lingering glances at the rich clothes the captains’ ladies wore.

Nathanial sailed for South America, leaving behind a father who was proud of him and a woman who loved him and a land-lubber business partner who envied him.

He sailed with a crew of whale-men recruited up and down New England’s coast, plucking them from harbors and taverns and seaman’s halls.  He knew most of them, or their families, even the Portuguese who’d come down from the Azores, looking for a berth.  They were good men and well-seasoned, and Nathaniel was pleased to see how smoothly they worked together.

The First Taste is Free

My new collection of short fiction, Toxic Reality, will be available shortly and as a teaser, I offer this story, "Finders Keepers."  It began life as a 450-word response to one of the Clarity of Night fiction challenges. Hope you enjoy it.

FINDERS KEEPERS

When my husband and son came home early from a camping trip, hauling a big footlocker in the truck bed and grinning like fools, I got a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach.  For one thing, Deke hadn’t called ahead to tell me they were coming home early so when I saw the 5150 pull into the drive my first thought was that something had happened to Andy. 

I’d been upstairs when the truck pulled in and had practically levitated to the front door.  Andy had launched himself into the house, throwing his arms around my knees and crowing, “We found a treasure mama.”  I looked up at my husband and he nodded excitedly, his expression somewhere between ecstasy and fear.  It was his O-face and I’d never seen it in broad daylight.

Deke brought the tarp into the living room and laid it down on the rug before humping the footlocker into the house.  It was one of those olive-drab ones you see in war movies, rusting at the corners and the latches, the paint peeling off the metal.  With the dirt and mold clinging to it, I couldn’t help but think that it looked a lot like a coffin.

“Open it, darlin’, go on,” my husband urged, and I felt a physical wave of revulsion.  I didn’t want to touch it.  I had the irrational thought that if I never touched it, I could deny the reality of it being in my living room, sitting there halfway between the sofa and the plasma television I’d bought Deke for Father’s Day.

Eager to show me what was inside,  Andy darted forward and sprung the latches.  He couldn’t quite manage the heavy lid, so Deke reached past him and pulled it open.

Inside the box was packed with small boxes and velvet pouches and bags and rolls of silk and satin.  Deke grabbed the first sack and pulled it open, pouring the contents into my hand.  Diamonds.  Each one as big as a walnut.  They were cool, like the earth they’d been buried in, but each one flashed with a fire that scalded me.

“They’re real,” Deke said.  “We tested them.”  He and Andy exchanged a conspiratorial giggle as they reached for more sacks, poured more jewelry onto the floor.  One box held tangles of gold chain heavy enough to anchor a yacht.  Another yielded what looked like a Celtic cloak pin.

“Look Mama,” Andy said, rummaging through the plunder and pulling items out willy-nilly.  “A crown.”  He put a bejeweled golden circlet on his head.  It was so big it slipped down his head and over his eyes.  Deke took it off him and put it on his own head.  “You’re a king, daddy,” Andy said, laughing.  Then he dived back into the sacks and boxes to see what else was there. 

Song for my mother

I miss my mother. She would have been 83 last month and I think she would have gotten a kick out of the 21st century. She definitely would have enjoyed YouTube, the closest thing to a time machine yet invented. I like to think she'd be surfing the net, clicking on videos that amused her. She loved this one, which was playing in heavy rotation on MTV in 1986.  Bowie and Jagger... Dancing in the Streets. This one's for my mother.

Writing Alchemy--Spinning Three Words into 100

Chuck Wendig's flash fiction challenge this week is to take three words out of a list of five (Ivy, Bishop, Lollipop, Blister, Enzyme) and write a 100-word story. I chose LOLLIPOP, BLISTER, and ENZYME.

LIFE SUCKS

Amy sucked on the enzyme lollipop and contemplated the holographic game board. She moved a piece and the AI moved three for the win.

“You cheat,” she accused and threw her lollipop through the board image, which popped like a blister.

The maintenance sensors dispatched a robo-scrubber to clean up the sticky mess.

Amy knew she needed the enzymes to thrive, but the candy tasted like ass.

Still, her parents hadn’t gone to all the trouble to therapeutically kill her in 2012 only to have her new doctors label her “non-compliant” in 2042.

Amy sighed and unwrapped another lollipop.