Journalstone's 2010 Warped Words for Twisted Minds

by Compiled by Christopher C. Payne

  It was okay, though, because I had my gin martini to keep me company.

  * * *

  Quiet. The silence outside was almost a physical thing. Like a big, hulking monster in and of itself, sitting out there, daring anyone to bother it.

  I wasn't about to make a sound. Anything – even a hastily drawn breath – would probably be as loud as a cannon shot.

  I sat on the floor, back against the wall, shotgun in my lap, as far away from that shattered window and the door as I could get. Of course, there was another window on the wall above me. But it wasn't shattered. It was closed, and I was willing it to protect me against whatever was out there. It needed to protect me against whatever had taken my wife. Becca was gone.

  We had been married for about eight years. No children – Becca had miscarried during the first year and hadn't gotten pregnant again. It was a hard time for her and for me, too. I don't think we'd ever gotten over it.

  Clarke had always had better luck with women than I did. He also had more friends than I did – meeting people, talking to them, making them feel at ease, was always easy for him. He should have gone into politics. He never did.

  Sure, he had his faults, but who doesn't? He more than made up for them with his virtues. I mean, yah, he would take things without asking, sometimes returning them, sometimes not. He would get drunk and hit on my girlfriends. But I always remembered that when I’d needed him, he'd been there for me when no one else had been. That more than offset the problems.

  Even if Becca had . . . the image of that raised toilet seat came back to my mind. Cable guy. Right. Like that ever happened.

  Still, Clarke and Becca? The idea was ridiculous. Even though Clarke had never made it to our little after-work get-together, things like that happened, right? I knew better than anyone the stresses of that job, of dealing with BAK and those other clients. Things have a tendency to come up at the last possible second, even when you're heading out the door. It happens all the time.

  It was so quiet outside, but I wanted to hear a noise, anything, anything at all, to give me something to focus on besides the turmoil in my mind.

  I didn't get my wish. The quiet went on for a thousand years it seemed.

  * * *

  When I got to work that fateful day, the door to my office was locked. I tried my key, but it wouldn't work.

  I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was Clarke.

  “Nick needs to see you,” he said.

  “Okay,” I said. I knew right then that it was going to be bad. But for the life of me, I couldn't figure out what I'd done.

  Nick's receptionist told me to go right in. Nick was sitting behind his desk when I opened the door.

  “Come on in, and close the door, Bruce.” he said.

  I did as he asked, settling into the big, comfortable chair. It was so much bigger and more comfortable than the visitors' chairs in my own office. Nick looked at me a long while, his eyes narrowed almost to slits. He rocked back and forth, holding a pen in front of his chest, toying with it in his fingers. I could hear the antique clock he kept on a shelf against the wall ticking away.

  “There's a problem, Bruce,” he finally said. “A big problem. With the BAK account.”

  “What sort of problem?” I asked. “And why aren't you talking to Clarke about it? He's the exec on that account now.”

  “This is from your time handling it,” Nick said. “There are . . . irregularities.”

  “What kind of irregularities?”

  “The accounting kind,” Nick said. “Did you think we weren't going to notice?”

  “I'm sorry, Nick, I don't know what you're talking about,” I said.

  Nick snorted, and I realized then that he was really angry. I'd never seen him angry before.

  “It's too late for you to play dumb with me. You're caught. You got greedy your last day handling that account, Bruce, and that's what nailed you. You were embezzling from that account, and when your access was being revoked you decided to triple your usual take. It was too big to hide. All I can say is thank God we put Clarke on that account before you bled it dry.”

  “Nick, I still--”

  “Oh, for God's sake, shut up, Bruce. You're only insulting my intelligence and making yourself look bad. Now, we're not planning to prosecute, but you're fired. We'll ship your personal belongings to your house from your office, but as of now you are no longer welcome here. Turn in your corporate ID at the security desk and leave the premises. Now.”

  “But that last day---” I remembered, right then, turning, seeing that I hadn't logged off of my computer, Clarke standing there, smiling at me.

  I remembered Clarke not showing up for our after-work get together.

  “Please, Bruce, don't make this worse. Go home. I'm sure you'll turn up something. Plus, you get to keep the money you stole from us. It's a sweet deal, I'd say.”

  There really was nothing else to say. I got up, a bit shakily, and made my way out of the office.

  I was in the parking deck, getting into my car, when Clarke slid up behind me in his own new car, a really huge SUV.

  “Hey, Bruce, I heard what happened,” he said. “Let's meet down at Kelly's for a burger and a beer, okay? You can talk to me about it.”

  “Sure,” I said, not really knowing why.

  * * *

  We sat in a booth, me nursing a beer and a burger, Clarke slurping down some oysters on the half-shell. I thought over my suspicions about him and, then, dismissed them as ridiculous. There was no way Clarke would submarine me. He just wouldn't do that.

  The mostly likely scenario was someone hacked my password and accessed the accounts that way. It happens all the time. At least that’s what I kept telling myself.

  “Man, that sucks,” Clarke said, taking a sip of his own beer after gulping down yet another mollusk.

  “It came out of nowhere,” I stammered. “What the hell is going on?”

  “Anybody who would accuse you of embezzling obviously doesn't know you,” Clarke kept going. He gulped down another oyster after dousing it with hot sauce. “You've been my best friend since eighth grade. All through college. You looked out for me; you were always there for me. You helped me get this job. Without you I don't know where I would be, Bruce, and that's a fact. It really pisses me off that someone would treat you like this.”

  “I'm thinking of suing,” I said.

  “Hmmm . . .” Clarke muttered, chewing a mollusk while he thought. “I don't know about that. They can terminate anyone for any reason, you know. Plus, they didn't make their accusations public, so you can't accuse them of slander.”

  “But they aren't right!” I said. “I didn't steal anything! Nick thinks I have all this money when I don't! I have no idea what happened to it!”

  “Shhhh!” Clarke patted my arm. “Maybe there is some legal recourse, I don't know. But I feel pretty sure that if you pursue it, Nick will press charges, and you'll find yourself arrested.”

  “Damn it,” I felt like my hands were tied behind my back. “You're probably right.”

  “I know I am. I think I know Nick pretty well. He's a vengeful little bastard. I think you'll find yourself a new job pretty quickly. You've got a good reputation on the street; lots of people out there know you. Someone will snap you up as soon as they hear that you're available.”

  “They're going to want to know why I'm available,” I said. I took a bite of my hamburger--it was cold and a little greasy.

  “You can tell them that your former boss was a real SOB,” Clarke just kept going. “He's got a reputation, too, you know. People who work for our clients know what he's like. Hell, I get people telling me all the time that they can't see how I keep working for him. I had lunch with Clyde at BAK just today and he said . . . . sorry. I guess that's a sore spot right now.”

  “Don't worry about it,” I said.

  “You're my mentor, Bruce, don't you ever forget that. I'll tell anybody who asks. Everything I learned, I learned from you.” />
  “So I can use you as a reference?”

  “Sure thing, buddy. Sure thing.”

  The waitress brought our check, and he grabbed it.

  “I'll take this,” he said. “After all, I'm the one who's working, right?”

  * * *

  I heard something moving around outside the cabin.

  It didn't sound like it was getting closer or even further away. It was just something rustling through the underbrush. Casually moving around out there, not worrying about being noisy.

  It went on for some time before my curiosity overcame my fear and I got up, as quietly as I could, to take a peek through a corner of the window.

  At first I could see nothing at all. I’d never seen darkness so complete before – the moon wasn't even visible now, going down behind a distant mountain.

  At last, my eyes acclimated, and I saw something move, just inside the tree line. I watched it for a long time before it started to take shape, and I could make out details.

  It was a deer, grazing on something a few feet away. I guess it was a doe – it didn't have horns, and I think that time of year the bucks all have horns. She didn't notice me as she stood there, chewing on something tasty she'd found growing on the ground, just a few feet away.

  I watched her for some time. I'd never actually seen a deer in person before, and she was the most beautiful, graceful creature I'd ever laid eyes on.

  Then something slammed against the window right in my face, causing me to fall backwards onto the floor, almost soiling my pants.

  It was a raccoon, masked face pressed against the window, looking inside, holding onto the wall with its paws while it played peeping tom. It was a cute little bugger, I thought, when my heart finally stopped hammering and my breathing slowed to something approximating normal.

  The raccoon glanced around, quickly, and then let go, dropping to the ground. I could hear the deer running away through the forest, and I imagined the raccoon was doing the same.

  I resumed my former position, shotgun held across my lap, deciding not to move until dawn no matter what I heard outside or how curious I became.

  * * *

  “I think Becca is cheating on me.”

  Clarke had agreed to meet me at Kelly's, and we sat across from each other in a booth, a beer in front of me, a Scotch-and-soda in front of him, and a big bowl of salted peanuts in the middle of the table between us.

  “Really?” Clarke asked. He had a handful of nuts almost to his mouth and paused when he said that, looking at me. “How sure are you?”

  “I just got that feeling,” I said. “I can't describe it, but she's been acting . . . really squirrely. Plus, there have been other things.”

  “Like?” he asked, tossing a peanut into his mouth.

  “Little things. The toilet seat being up when she's been the only one in the house all day. The smell of a strange man's cologne. And I found a condom wrapper in the trash.”

  “Bruce, I don't think--”

  “We don't use condoms, Clarke,” I heard my voice rising in volume.

  “Maybe it got there some other way. You know, some kids on the street, doing it in their car, and just tossing the wrapper into the bin outside the house. Because you know if they just tossed it onto the street the Nazi Neighborhood Watch would write down the license plate and report them for littering.”

  “Sure. That's entirely possible except this was in a trash can in the house,” I continued

  “Oh,” Clarke said, chewing absently. “Uh, do you have any ideas who it could be?”

  “No,” my voice was now losing a little control. “Nothing concrete. I have my suspicions, but nothing I can really put my finger on.”

  “I see,” Clarke said. His eyes seemed to grow distant then for a while, and I knew he was thinking. “What will you do if she is and you find out who she's been cheating with?”

  “I'll kill him,” I said, and my voice didn’t waiver on that note, as I stared straight into his eyes.

  Clarke was in the act of eating a peanut, and he choked on it, coughing. Finally, he took a sip of his drink to wash it down. He continued coughing and gasping for a while after that.

  “You okay?” I asked, and he just waved me off.

  “Kill him?” he gasped. “That's crazy, Bruce!”

  “Crazy?” I heard my voice going up again. “What's crazy is her cheating on me, after everything I've done for her. After all the indignities I've endured, all the things I've done to put food on our table. Now she's bedding down with some other guy and pretending that nothing's happening. That's what galls me more than anything else, Clarke--she's shameless. She looks me right in the eye and lies.”

  “If you did find something out, how would you kill the guy?” Clarke asked. “I'm just curious.”

  “I bought a gun today. A 9 millimeter Beretta. Of course, I have to wait three days before I can pick it up, but that's no big deal to me. I've waited this long, I can wait a couple more days.”

  “What do you mean you've waited this long? You think this has been going on a while?” Clarke looked pale and sweaty, I'm guessing because of the painful and recent experience with the peanut.

  “I think it's been going on for quite a while,” I said. “I just have that gut feeling. That it's been going on for years, maybe.”

  “Look,” Clarke muttered, leaning forward. “I have an idea. Let's get away for a few days. I've got the key to a cabin in the hills. Nick's cabin. We can all head up there, do a little fly fishing, sing a few camping songs, get away from it all for a while. What do you say? You, me, Sandy, Becca, all of us. For a couple days.”

  “I don't know, Clarke. Nick probably won't be happy with my going up there. And, I mean, me being cooped up with her on the trip there, then being with her in the cabin, nowhere to go . . .”

  “We, you and me, will be fishing most of the time. And what Nick doesn't know won't hurt him. Come on. It'll be good. Maybe you can get a better idea of what's going on with her. Observe her, up close. It'll help you make some decisions, won't it? Really, you don't want to do anything rash, something that you'll regret for years and years and can't ever undo.”

  I thought about it, eating a couple of peanuts, washing them down with my warming beer. “Sure,” I finally responded.

  “It'll be like the old days,” he said, brightening a bit, like he was looking forward to it. To be honest I was too--Clarke was right, it had been too long since we'd taken a trip together. He held up his fist, and I bumped it with mine.

  “You have always been such a good friend to me, Clarke,” I said, choking back tears. “I don't deserve you. I don't know what I'd do without you.”

  “I can say the same thing, buddy,” he grabbed me, giving me a hug.

  He, then, coughed and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I can say the same thing.”

  * * *

  I finally worked up the courage to go through my own baggage, finding this little tape recorder I always carry with me. I'm guessing if you're listening to this you found it, too. The battery seems to be fresh. I hope I'm talking loud enough for the mic to pick me up.

  I can hear something moving around outside. I would call out to see if it's Clarke or maybe even Becca, but something’s stopping me. Fear, maybe. Whatever it is, it isn't making much noise – only the occasional stick breaking or leaves rustling. If I listen very intently I think I can hear something that sounds like sniffing and snorting. Or maybe that's just my imagination.

  So I sit here on the floor, the shotgun pointed at the door, cocked and ready. I can hear something just outside, something on the porch, something turning the knob. When that door opens, I'm going to pull the trigger. It's the only way – this thing, whatever it may be, it’s just too fast for me to do this any other way. Whatever comes through that door is going to get itself shot before I can even decide what or who it is. Whatever is out there will not stand a chance.

  I hope like hell it's Clarke.

  Bori
s and the Neighborhood Watch

  By Wednesday Lee Friday

  Part One: The Arrival

  Things were looking up for me at the time of “the incident.” I hadn’t had an episode in months. The job was going well. I had a great girl, one I wanted to marry. Mom was even starting to trust me again. I almost felt, dare I say it, normal. Then, it all went to hell. It got away from me so fast, and I couldn’t remember how I got to where I was. The only thing I remember for certain is that I loved my girl.

  The lawyers got me all that lawsuit money while I was still in the hospital. I used my share to buy this house. It meant nothing without my girl. Without her it was only a monument to what I did not have, what was taken from me—not intentionally, but taken all the same. I hadn’t set foot inside my house yet, and I loathed every inch of it.

  That doctor said I’ve got to trust myself, to get on with things. She didn’t really explain how, just ordered me to do it. All of them suggested things that could never happen: going back to work, finding a new girl, calling Mom to see how she was. I didn’t see the point of making a life outside the hospital. I couldn’t imagine I would ever know how. Anyway, it was just a matter of time before something happened, and they sent me back.

  It wasn’t my fault. I’m supposed to tell that to myself no less than four times an hour. It’s what they call an affirmation. I call it a ridiculous waste of time. I do it just to spite them, to prove that this crap doesn’t actually work. There’s nothing that can make my life happy again. I don’t even know what I’m still doing here. Most people would be relieved to know that I was gone.

  Connie said I might as well go and see the house I worked so hard to fill with furniture. I wasn’t actually convicted of anything, so they let me use a computer in the hospital. I suddenly had all that money, so I bought a washer and dryer, couches, a big TV, even a refrigerator. It never really occurred to me that I might buy things like that new. Fridges just came with the apartment, washer/dryers were down the hall, TV’s got handed down friend-to-friend. This was all totally surreal.