13 Bites Volume II (13 Bites Anthology Series Book 2)

by Adam Bennett

  He stopped and looked back in the mirror and a swinging movement caught his attention. His eyes grew large at the view behind him in the mirror. A faceless man dressed in a clown suit was hanging from a rope that had been tied to the rafters above. The sight jolted him and he almost knocked over the mirror. Fishing his phone out of his pants pocket, he fumbled trying to dial the police.

  “Hello, 911, what is your emergency?” The operator asked on the other end.

  “Hello, my, my name is Harry Roads. I’m here at the old warehouses behind the Sears building, and I think I just found another...” Harry swallowed hard. “Murder victim.”

  Before the woman on the other end could ask him about any further details, a song, much like that of a carnival ride, rang out. Harry followed it and it led him straight to the hanging body where he saw that it was coming from a cell phone.

  “Sir, are you still there?” the operator asked. Harry had picked up the phone and had seen that it was an alert for an incoming text message. ‘Two messages received’ was displayed on the screen and he mindlessly clicked to receive them as the woman asked him again.

  “Sir, are you still there? Do you need assistance?”

  “Yes, yes… I think we do,” he confessed as he dropped the phone that had two pictures of men sleeping; one of them, Harry assumed, was the man hanging above him, and the other was he himself. He took a few steps back when an eerie laugh rang out behind him as the doors simultaneously slammed shut and the carousel, in all its glory, once again came to life.

  Alan Seeger was born in San Francisco, California in the closing months of the 1950s. After growing up in Denver and Oklahoma City, he spent ten years in the Ozark Mountains of Northwest Arkansas. He now lives in South Dakota, where he has been since 2007.

  He is the author of the Gatespace Trilogy, a science fiction series involving interdimensional travel, love, intrigue, and nuclear weapons.

  www.alanseeger.net

  FIRST PERSON EXPERIENCE

  Alan Seeger

  From the journal of David Cortez

  Two days til wheels-up AKA Sunday

  I’m going to be so glad to get out of this bleeding asshole of a country and get back home. Six weeks in this pit of slime and I feel as if my skin is crawling right off my flesh. Everything in this godforsaken place is primed to eat you, lay eggs under your skin, suck your blood, or inject you with some kind of toxin, and if it’s not that, it’s the unending, blistering sun.

  Two more days. I can’t wait to be home.

  One day til wheels-up AKA Monday

  It’s a good thing I’ve been storing my data and photos on flash drives and sending them to the field office via courier rather than keeping them locally. I was standing by the road, waiting for the van that was supposed to pick me up to take me into the city. I stepped over to the other side of the road for a minute to ask one of the locals a question, leaving my duffel and my camera bag sitting on the other side of this donkey trail that they laughingly call a street, when some fuckwit on a bicycle came by and snagged my carryon bag, which contained my camera and my netbook. I tried to chase him down, but even on the old bike he was on, he was still too fast for me.

  I still have my phone, as it was in my pocket, but of course there’s no signal this far from the city. I told them I needed a satellite phone, but noooo. Dammit.

  So two hours go by, and still no van, and since there’s no phone signal, I can’t call to find out what’s going on. This sucks.

  Supposed-to-be-leaving day AKA Tuesday

  I ended up sleeping in a bark lodge last night yet again when I was supposed to be in what would have seemed like a luxury hotel room at the Fleabite Suites instead.

  Speaking of flea bites, I woke up this morning to discover that something had bitten me in the night. I had a lovely bite mark on my arm; it just broke the skin. Not a flea, though. It almost looked human, if it hadn’t been so small, just maybe half an inch across. Stung like a sonofabitch, too.

  Finally, along about 10:30 AM, the van arrived that was supposed to have been here yesterday at noon. Typical.

  One night here in the city, and I’ll finally get to fly home.

  Something’s going on, though. There are huge crowds of people in the street, and they don’t seem happy. There’s a general feeling of unrest. I don’t know how else to describe it. I’ll be glad to get to the airport in the morning and get the fuck out of this country. For now, though, I’m staying inside. I did dare to venture out for a few minutes this afternoon; I went down the street to a little café that I was familiar with from my last time in-country and bought enough food for my afternoon meal and for dinner tonight. Even that was strange, though. The café owner used to always greet me with a big smile, calling me “Mister Cortez,” and I speak just enough of the language to tell him what I want. This afternoon he was sullen; it was like he didn’t want to be there, and he couldn’t get me out of the place fast enough, almost like he didn’t even recognize me.

  Finally-got-in-the-air-day AKA Wednesday

  At last!

  This airline is a far cry from American or United; it isn’t the most luxurious, they don’t provide the greatest customer service and their flights are often delayed for hours, but at least I’m in international airspace at last and in 19 hours or so I will be at home, thank God. It’s only been six weeks but it feels like years, literally.

  And on top of everything else, I feel like shit. I’m seriously thinking of checking myself into the hospital when I get home. I don’t know if it’s some kind of tropical bug, or fungus, or something I ate, but I feel like hell.

  Thursday

  Jesus. I don’t even remember how I got home. I remember being on board the plane, but then the next thing I knew I woke up in my bed, in my own apartment, with absolutely zero memory of the trip in between. It was like one minute I was in my seat, over the Pacific, and the next I was here.

  I barely had the energy, but I checked over my things and everything seems to be here, apart from the items in that stolen carryon that I’ll never see again. I don’t know who helped me get home, got my things into the apartment and put me to bed, but at least it appears that they didn’t rob me blind.

  According to the TV, it’s Thursday afternoon, so it’s been something like 27 hours since I boarded the plane. I remember nothing whatsoever of the last 25 hours or so of that. I don’t know what I had — have, maybe I should say, because I still feel like death warmed over.

  My head is pounding, my eyes burn and my salivary glands feel swollen behind my ears. I’m taking four Ibuprofen and going back to bed.

  Friday

  Woke up at 3 AM. Head still hurts, but apart from that, I’m feeling marginally better.

  I turned the lights on, but it made my eyes hurt, so I’m sitting here in the living room in total darkness. It hurts my eyes to watch the TV, too. I went and sat by the window and looked out over the lights of the city for a while, but I got the oddest sensation that I was going to fall headlong into the lights, almost like they were stars in a galaxy or something. Wound up lying on the sofa in the dark, in the coolness of the A/C. Fell back asleep.

  When I woke up again, the sun was rising. I went to look out at it and it made my eyes burn. At least I can watch TV now, though. I watched the network for an hour or so and saw the story I’d filed. The editors botched it, as usual.

  Saturday

  I don’t know what’s happening.

  I have this strange craving for meat. I don’t just mean a burger or a steak — I mean raw meat. It was all I could do not to go to the store down the street from my building and buy a pound of hamburger, but two things put me off… first, I didn’t think I could stand to go out in the sunlight, and second, I was pretty sure that as soon as I pulled the package out of the cooler, I would have been unable to stop myself from tearing into it and eating it, uncooked, raw and bloody, right there in front of the cooler, sitting on the floor in the back of the store. Then, I suspect that I w
ould have proceeded to find some more, wherever it was available. What’s wrong with me?

  In the end, I made do with what was in the freezer; I thawed a roast in the microwave for as long as I could hold himself back and then devoured it. Then I curled up in my bed and went to sleep.

  Sunday

  I thought things were bad before. Now I know that I am truly and totally fucked.

  I woke up sometime in the wee hours of the morning… I think it was about 2 AM. I wasn’t paying attention to the time, because I felt like I had ants crawling all over my body, from head to toe. After an hour or so, it was like the sensation began to change to needles penetrating my skin everywhere. Jesus. I took a big dose of Benadryl to try to relieve it, but it didn’t help.

  I tried distracting myself with a movie, then a video game, but once again, no luck. I don’t know what to do. At least I don’t feel ill any more. On the contrary, I feel curiously, vibrantly strong. And it’s very strange… it seems as if I don’t need the lights on, even at 3 AM. I can see in the dark.

  Don’t know what day it is. Lost track. Something’s happened, though. I got hungry, but what I was craving was the raw meat thing again. Instead, I forced myself to order a pizza. It was late — about 10:30 PM — but I called Fazoli’s, where they’ve known for years what I’m going to order as soon as I call; a medium garlic and anchovies, extra cheese. Except this time, this is how the call went:

  Them: Thank you for calling Fazoli’s, what can we get you tonight?

  Me: Hey, there. How you doing this evening?

  Them: Hey, how are you, Mr. C? It’s been a while.

  Me: Yeah, I’ve been out of the country for a few weeks.

  Them: So, medium garlic and anchovy pan pizza, extra cheese?

  Me: Uh, no, actually… gonna do something different tonight… give me a large, thin crust, beef… actually, triple beef. Three times the normal amount, okay? I’ll pay whatever. Light on the tomato sauce and the cheese.

  Them: Okay. Triple beef. You want garlic on that?

  Me: NO! No garlic. No.

  I sat patiently waiting, ravenous, my stomach making terrible, hungry sounds. That’s the last thing I remembered until I awoke on the sofa, disoriented and confused, half-remembering dreams about blood, and screams, and more blood.

  I sat up, certain that I’d merely dozed off, and that no more than thirty minutes could possibly have passed. I started to go to the kitchen, feeling as though I needed to rinse an odd taste out of my mouth. I reached for a cup from the dish drainer that I kept by my sink, when I realized that my hands and shirtsleeves were crusted with what looked like dried blood.

  I ran scalding hot water in the sink, squirted a generous amount of hand soap onto my hands, and began scrubbing with all my strength. It wasn’t long before there was a heavy rapping at the door. The pizza delivery, I surmised. But my hands were still stained a deep crimson.

  I went to the door, but left the lights off, hoping that it would be enough to hide the blood. Before I got there, the knock came again, accompanied by a shout: “Open up! Police!”

  I opened the door and two of New York’s finest were there, sidearms leveled at my face.

  The other thing I noticed was that there was blood out in the hall, too — spatters and gouts of blood on the walls, the floor… even the ceiling. I started to say something, then everything went black.

  Woke up in an alley, behind a dumpster. Vague memories of the cops yelling, eyes wide, screaming, more screaming… more blood…

  What the hell am I?

  Sirens howling in the distance. Bullhorns blaring. The voices reverberate off the sides of the city’s skyscrapers and create a cacophony of noise. It makes my brain ache to hear it. It makes me angry to hear it.

  I don’t know what to do, where to go. Have to get out of here. Have to…

  Suddenly there is a policeman, flashlight in one hand, gun in the other. I realize all the cops that are around, the sirens… they’re searching for me.

  He’s there at the mouth of the alley. I tense, hoping he won’t see me behind the dumpster, but he does.

  “You there — behind the trash container! Come out with your hands on your head.” He turns his head, just for a moment, to call out to his brother officers. “Over here! I think I found him! I think —”

  But before he can finish, before I even think of what I’m about to do, I leap for the opposite wall. Before my eyes, by hands and arms begin to change, to lengthen and extend… resembling nothing I recognize… with long claws… and just as everything begins to go black, I hear a shot, and a sensation like the sting of a hornet tags me in the back. Goddamn. He shot me. The little shit shot me!

  I vault off the far wall, moving back towards him. I see his terrified face. He’s a policeman, for Christ’s sake. What must I look like, to scare the shit out of him this way?

  The last thing I am aware of before darkness takes me again is my massive paw with its six-inch claws, already caked with dried blood, tearing through his throat; his sightless eyes roll up in his head as he crumples to the ground…

  It seems that each time I change, it lasts a little longer and there is less of me remaining when I come back to consciousness.

  I don’t know how I got out of the city, although I have a vague recollection of the top of a semi-trailer. I am lying in a meadow of tall grasses, and the sun is raising blisters on my skin. I howl in pain — an inhuman sound, if ever I heard one — and search for a place to hide from the light.

  I wake and look around my surroundings, and realize I am in some sort of hut; it is of flimsy wooden construction, but serviceable. I creep outside and find myself in the meadow, under the light of a fat, silvery full moon. It is beautiful. I lift my face to the sky and let out a howl that becomes a scream. I wonder for a moment where within my being that sound originated from; then I hear a near-identical howl-scream in the distance.

  Without even thinking, I start in the direction of the sound.

  Minutes later, I find the source. She is beautiful, red-haired and silver-eyed.

  Soon there will be more of our kind.

  Ever since reading The Time Machine at an early age, Sarah Brett fell in love with words and the places to which they can transport the reader. Between moments of fangirling and movie marathons, Sarah can always be found on her laptop, creating a new world.

  www.sarahjbrett.wordpress.com

  HELLOWEEN

  Sarah Brett

  I watch, hidden within the shadows cast by dim streetlamps and flickering candles inside the demonic faces of carved pumpkins. Tonight is my night. Samhain, All Hallows Eve… it has many names, but I don’t care. Tonight means only one thing to me... Death.

  “Great.” Richard Porter sighed as his doorbell rang again. This was the third lot already! He growled his frustration as he grabbed the bowl of candy from the side table. He put on his best smile, but it turned into a grimace. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror on the wall — the shadows under his eyes, the half-grown beard on his face… the face of a stranger, lately, not the smiling man he had once been.

  Ding dong, the bell chimed again.

  He didn’t have time for this. So much still to do.

  “Trick or treat!” three children chorused as he swung open the door. Their faces lit up with glee as they stood on his doorstep.

  Richard viewed them with a small amount of bemusement. One was dressed as a cowboy, complete with mini-Stetson and chaps; a little girl next to him was dressed as a popular movie princess, but it was the child dressed as a clown that caught his attention. He really hated clowns.

  “Here you go, kids.” He thrust the bowl towards them as they each took their treats, their bags already over half full. “Good haul this year?”

  The little girl nodded with a shy smile and he had to admit they were kind of cute. Well, cute in a weird way, as he eyed the clown up and down once again.

  His heart panged for a moment, remembering his last Halloween, whe
n a little face in a pirate’s costume had looked up at him, eyepatch covering one brown eye so like his own. He remembered them sharing so many sweets, until they had both leant back against the couch groaning with stomachaches, much to his wife’s amusement.

  “Happy Halloween!” the children trilled, running off toward the next house.

  He stood on the doorstep for a moment and looked around the neighbourhood, slowly coming back to the moment. He gazed around himself at all the decorations and all the children walking the sidewalks in their elaborate costumes. He looked back to his own front lawn, bare and barren. Not unlike his life these days, if he was honest, but he hoped after tonight that might change. Maybe he could start hoping again.

  For tonight, though, he had a job to do.

  He closed the door with a sigh and headed back toward the kitchen.

  He looked down at the disassembled gun lying on the table, the bullets ready to load in their box to the right. His bag, its contents spilled out, sat next to it; a glass bottle of water, some cloth and a dog eared leather bound book. All innocuous enough looking to the untrained eye.

  Richard knew better than that, though. These were his tools of the trade.

  The water was holy water; it had been blessed by the Pope himself. The book was a very dogeared leatherbound Bible, handwritten in the seventeenth century, complete with exorcism rites in Latin. The cloth was his stole, also blessed at the Vatican. Wrapped inside the stole was a blade made with salt ingrained steel, carved with tiny intricate runes and a handle made of elder wood, over eight hundred years ago by Scandinavian monks.