CONTENTS
A Note From the Author
Chapter 1 - Big Foot
Chapter 2 - Things That Happened on My Last Birthday
Chapter 3 - Layers
Chapter 4 - A Strong Solution
Chapter 5 - Gibberish
Chapter 6 - 1OO% Barney
Chapter 7 - Urban Jungle Boy versus the Mighty Gorgon
Chapter 8 - The Big Game
Chapter 9 - White
Chapter 10 - Rat Trap
Chapter 11 - Ashes to Ashes
Chapter 12 - Last Tuesday
Chapter 13 - The Karaoke King
Chapter 14 - Georgina Finds Her Way
Chapter 15 - Contemporary Minute Mysteries
About the Author
Acknowledgments
If you enjoy DEADLY SHORT STORIES, you you might really like Carl S. Plumer’s novels…
DEADLY SHORT STORIES
© Copyright 2014 Carl S. Plumer
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles oar reviews—without permission in writing from the author at [email protected].
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, events, and places portrayed in this book are products of the author’s imagination and are either fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
For more information on the author and his works, please visit www.carlplumer.com
Editors: Becca Hamilton, Beth Lynne, and Kristen Plumer
Cover: Alan Davidson
ISBN-10: 0-9883669-7-5
ISBN-13: 978-0-9883669-7-8
First Version April 2014
If you liked these stories, why not let others know? Tell your friends. Chat about your favorite story from this collection on Facebook. Mention the stories on Twitter. Perhaps even leave a brief review where you bought the book online. Word-of-mouth is crucial for any author to succeed. Thank you for your support!
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As always, this one is for Kristen
A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
I won’t keep you, as I know you are probably eager to get to the stories. I just wanted to give you a quick background on how these tales came to be.
Short stories are a challenge all their own, a different challenge than long fiction. It’s about getting the plot and the mood down in as few words as possible. Capture a moment in a character’s life, a glimpse of a scene, and hope it resonates, seems real, and makes you reflect. More than that, makes you feel something.
A set of these tales were written strict to form as part of my experiment with a format called, “flash fiction.” Basically, this type of fiction involves telling a tale in under a thousand words, sometimes way under, as in only a hundred words.
“100% Barney,” “Rat Trap,” and “Layers” are all examples of a shorter (but not the shortest) form of flash fiction. “Urban Jungle Boy” and “Things That Happened on My Last Birthday” are examples of longer flash fiction.
The flash fiction stories in this collection were created with guidance and instruction of Pamelyn Casto. If you’re interested in learning how to write this way, participate in one of her classes. She is the first, the best, and the original when it comes to the art of flash fiction.
Some of these tales were the fruit of a single sitting; others, such as the longer ones, involved writing sessions over many days while the story grew out of my head and heart and into the real world.
I hope you enjoy the stories herein inscribed. I continue to write more of these short tales as I receive inspiration—which is why I foresee a Deadly Short Stories: Vol. 2 in the future.
CHAPTER 1
Big Foot
EULOGY
“He weren’t going to have his life stomped out by no big foot,” said the one in the black plaid Goodwill suit, as he winged a shriveled rose down onto the coffin.
“No, sir, he weren’t going to have his life stomped out by no size 170½ shoe,” said the next, sprinkling dirt clumps into the grave. “He weren’t going to; he wouldn’t have it.” Lightning flashed across the cityscape behind them.
“No matter which muthafuckin’ magazine editor’s size 170½ shoe was crushin’ the very life out of him,” said the mystery girl, mascara running down her cheeks as thunder played drums across the coroner gray sky. “The song of exultation in his black heart could not be snuffed out by no angry big foot. Charles Mansen, we hardly knew ya . . . ”
HISTORY
Given the name Charles Mansen by his folks as a grim joke (the Mansen part was for real, the Charles part unforgivable), Charles Mansen had put up with some serious ocean waves of shit in his young life.
“It’s spelled with an ‘-e-n’!” he’d shout as he fell, punches and kicks sending him to the ground.
But like the original Charles Manson’s gift for song, this Charles Mansen had a gift for pressing down onto paper little stories that meant a lot. At least to young Charles Mansen. So he’d write them up, crazed little tales of mayhem, slaughter, and ritual torture, and shoot them off across the Internet like poison darts. Hoping for publication, but never seeing any. Every night, a new story, a new dart, and by daylight, another mocking (or perhaps distracted) rejection. This, Charles Mansen found tedious.
Sticky Dee, his girlfriend of fifteen months and three weeks, found it more than tedious. She found it repulsive. When she discovered Charlie’s stories on his hard drive—of maiming, torture, and rape—she could only think this: What a monster. She made plans to leave him while fearing for her life and packing her things surreptitiously.All the while, Charlie Mansen (the unfamous one) continued to just write, churning out one ghastly story after another, and pissing them into the gutter of the Internet, only to find them all flushed back at him in time, usually quick time.
“So, um, Charlie,” said Sticky Dee, who had never heard of the notorious Charles Manson, so that was never a problem. “Like, what the fuck?”
“No,” said Charlie. “I don’t know.”
“Like,” said Sticky Dee, “what’s with all of these fuckin’ stories, anyway?”
“You been reading my stories?” Charlie screamed, raising his hand to her.
She flinched, took a step back. “No, Charlie, don’t . . . ”
He lowered his hand. “Don’t what?”
Sticky left that evening, standing briefly at the corner as the bus puffed to a stop. She looked up at Charlie Mansen’s bedroom window, knowing he had already composed another story and was trying to inject its fever into the veins of the ‘net.
DEFEAT
After Sticky Dee left, Charles Mansen went crazy. He couldn’t sleep. He couldn’t eat. He certainly could no longer write. And he didn’t go out to the local watering hole. Well, one time, he did go out, but that was a disaster. Coincidentally enough, he ended up at the same bar that Sticky Dee was at with her new “love interest.” Charles Mansen nearly lost it. He imagined cutting Sticky Dee with his knife and writing on the walls with her blood, but he didn’t own a knife. So, instead, he finished his drink and went back home to his room above the stairs, where he composed his word songs and wrote a story about Sticky Dee. And then he sent it out like a guided missile against the Internet. The next day, a direct hit: acceptance.
“We’d love to print ‘Sticky Dee Will Live Forever (In My Heart and On the Internet),’” the email said. Charles Mansen read this sixty-one times just to be sure he wasn’t missing the word “not.”
TRIUMPH
“St
icky Dee Will Live Forever (In My Heart and On the Internet)” ended up being anthologized in Best of the Net. In The Pushcart Prize. In The Best Short Stories in the History of Ever. In other collections. Which meant one thing: greatness. Or so he naively believed.
Charles Mansen grew impressed with himself and wrote more, now convinced people would find him popular and women would enjoy standing next to him. But nothing else from that day forward ever received acceptance. Not a single one of his many horrifying stories of glorified horribleness found life on the ‘net or the printed page. Although he wrote 1,121 more stories, prose poems, and non-prose poems, all were rejected with varying levels of rage, disgust, malice, and glee. Each rejection stabbed the sensitive Charles Mansen much like a rusty fork to his heart, with the tandem dangers of blood loss and lockjaw (although worse for Charles would be “lockhand,” if there was such a thing). Then, one day, Charles Mansen’s window on the world suddenly closed. His connection abruptly unplugged. His social network unexpectedly de-socialized. He ceased writing. But more, he simply ceased.
THE FEET
The Big Foot won in the end, tragically enough. Stomping like a critical eye in the storm straight towards Charles Mansen’s apartment. Right up the stairs to his bedroom. Directly on top of his oily head. Crushing the life out of him in an apparent heart attack (the official story). But no mere heart attack could have stopped a talent like Charlie’s; only the Big Foot could. Yet, in truth, the Big Foot was strike two—you’re out. Because Charles Mansen was no mere mortal; it took not one broken heart, but two to kill him. First, for the love of Sticky Dee. And second—the final footnote—for the recognition he never found, but for which he craved as much as Sticky’s love.
CHAPTER 2
Things That Happened on My Last Birthday
For a footballer, Gar isn’t that large. Not like a wall, or a battleship. But he makes an impression when he enters, holding a thick fencepost over his head like a trophy.
“Yaaaaaa!” he says, and stomps around in a circle. He looks at my kitchen floor while he dances, as if he were being careful not to crush small animals.
“Here you go,” Gar says when he’s done, shoving the post at me. It’s heavy as hell, and I drop it right away.
The stupid thing leaves a splinter in my index finger, another in my thumb, and a third in my left wrist.
“Damn,” I say, but he is already gone, down the hall to the living room and the rest of the partygoers. Reluctantly, I join them, pulling at the splinters, but getting nowhere.
“How’s the birthday boy?” someone shouts. I nod feebly to acknowledge the shout-out. Then I sit down in the corner on the broken lounger I found on the street last week. (It’s almost lost that stench, which was cat pee, I think, but might’ve been human.)
I sip the last inch of beer from the bottle someone left there. Cheri brings me over her gift, although I am trying to go unnoticed.
“Check this out,” she says.
She means the small package she’s holding out to me, but as usual, I am staring at her cleavage. It’s gotten to where I don’t even know I’m doing it anymore. Until it’s too late. Until she’s looking at me looking at them.
I take the package.
Turns out, it’s not wrapped at all. It’s a box-sized shipping box, for something she’s bought online. But she’s colored it in to look like wrapping paper. Using magic markers, crayons, paint, glue, and sparkles.
“Nice,” I say.
“Open it; come on,” she says.
After a bit—the box and I fall to the rug in battle as I struggle with the packing tape—I get the thing open.
Inside, wrapped in bubble wrap, is a tiny, sharp knife with a chrome handle.
“I figure,” she says, “if you lose your nerve, you can always use the knife. You know, slice something real deep.” She saws in the air above her wrist, then smiles at me.
“Cool,” someone says behind her. It’s Jackson. “I had the exact same fucking idea. Here you go, bro’. Cyanide.”
He didn’t even bother to wrap it. It’s in a McDonald’s bag. He’s written “Bro” across the front. I take the bag and put it on the table, next to the beer.
“Thanks, man,” I tell him.
“No prob-lame-o. Happy birthday.”
“Hey,” says Boleo, getting up off the couch, making a big deal, as usual, over his knees. (“Ow, that smarts!”) “I’ve got something for you, man.”
He limps over to the coat rack I found on the street last month, which is now held together with twine almost the whole length of it. Still works fine, though. Only tips a bit when there’s too many coats, which is why I don’t use it for that. Boleo grabs something from behind the rack and brings it over to me.
“Here you go,” Boleo says, handing me a long, somewhat thin, somewhat heavy box. “Enjoy.”
He goes and sits back down while I unwrap. It’s a shotgun. Used, scratched up considerably. But in working order, I presume.
“Um, thanks, Boleo.”
“Figured a shotgun would come in handy,” he says, tossing me over a couple of shotgun shells. “Think mouth. Many happy returns.”
“Well,” I say, putting both gun and shells on the rug in front of me. “I guess it’s time.” Talk about awkward, talk about buzzkill, talk about party-pooper.
“Yeah,” says some guy I don’t remember ever meeting. He’s standing over by this painting I found last year of the moon rising over the ocean. One of those Sears & Roebuck paintings, perfectly good except where someone sliced the canvas across the middle. I glued it back together and secured duct tape across the back for extra strength. You can hardly tell.
“Okay,” I say, stalling, I guess, looking for someone to say, hey, never mind, skip it, not necessary.
But no one does.
I shuffle to the window and tug it open. Sixteen stories up. I remember when I was sixteen. Life sucked then. I heard it was supposed to be sweet, but not for me. All downhill from there, to be frank.
I step up into the window and sit on the ledge, feeling like a monkey in a cage.
“Need a hand?” Gar, the footballer, puts his hand on my back and gives me a mock shove. He turns to the crowd in the room and says, “Huh? Right?” Most everybody laughs, except, thank God, Cheri.
“Love ya,” she whispers when she gets closer. She leans in to give me a kiss and I’m expecting to feel her lips on my cheek. But she catches me off guard—I almost fall out the window!—by kissing me exactly on the lips.
So this, at last, is what she tastes like. Vanilla and honey. Just as I dreamed. I have a woody starting, wouldn’t you know it? With everyone watching.
I try to sit in such a way as to make the bulge less noticeable, but there’s only so much I can do, since I’m the main attraction.
Despite the circus this has become, I have to go through with things now.
This was my idea, and I’ll look like an idiot if I don’t.
I breathe in the crisp night air, and prepare myself to jump.
CHAPTER 3
Layers
Eddie Sandbach loved layer cakes more than anything. Next best was anything that reminded him of layer cakes. Like a mattress with a box spring, the bedspread spread on top like green frosting. Or sedimentary rocks, with their layers of stripes. Or the brightly colored dishes stacked in the cupboard, each color a different delicious flavor.
When nothing was around to remind him of layer cakes, Eddie Sandbach would make his own reminders, using anything as the layers. Toy trucks piled as high as the top of the TV.
Books were easy, making perfect, well-balanced layers. Then the cats and the dogs (the black cats representing chocolate, the white pups vanilla).
So when the tornado, itself not a bad approximation of layers, but more like a funnel cake, arrived to spin a path through the middle of town like an oversized, insane whisk, it was only fitting that, when the twister was done:
the floor had become the first layer,
the couch the second,
Eddie Sandbach the third,
and the fourth the refrigerator,
with rain water like shiny icing,
dripping down
over it all.
CHAPTER 4
A Strong Solution
LIGHT IN AUGUST
I stared at the rising sun as I stood on the porch of a crappy seaside bar in Marblehead, contemplating a bump on my noggin, when this car pulled up and someone said, “That him?” and someone else said, “Yeah. That’s him.”
I glimpsed the flare of the weapons before the sound of the wall splintering behind me reached my ears. I would’ve leapt to my feet if my head wasn’t swimming. Instead, I dropped and crawled as fast as my nauseous body would allow toward a rusty white soda cooler on the other side of the entrance.
Splinters pa-chinged around me as each bullet inserted itself into the dry wood like sperm into an egg, looking to impregnate me with newborn death.
One bullet finally hit home, hit its mark, pay dirt. Blood pumped from my leg in spurts, like a deadly orgasm that wouldn’t stop. Tunnel vision encroaching, I slid more than crawled now, my back to the cooler.
In seconds, whoever this was stood over me, as expected. He pointed his weapon at me like an accusation, like a prediction. Then came the click-click-click of an empty barrel.
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