“Maybe you could talk them into it. He’s underage.”
“Half a year or so underage, Isaiah. They could try him as an adult if this gets to court.”
“Alright, could we just go already? Mark sounded really broken up on the phone.”
Isaiah followed Rich to the door and to the man’s old car.
#
There had been a long wait in the police station, but Rich had finally talked the officer into letting him bail Mark out, regardless of if he wasn’t family. When Mark had come out of the jail cell, he looked upset.
“Thanks, Isaiah,” Mark whispered. “I owe you.”
“You don’t owe me anything,” Isaiah whispered back. “Friends don’t owe each other anything other than their friendship.”
Rich gestured the two of them along and out of the police station, where he and Mark climbed into the back seat while Rich climbed back into the front, pulling out of the parking lot soon after.
“Did you boys mess around in that cemetery down there?”
Mark was the first to speak.
“No, sir… W-We smoked down there, yes, and we were just hanging around the cemetery. We didn’t vandalize the grave.”
“Are you lying to me, Mark?”
“No sir,” Mark said. “Me and Isaiah found it and were afraid to report it, because of after what we…” he trailed off and turned his head to the side.
Mark had messed up.
“After you what?” Rich asked, stopping the car. “I knew you two and those other kids did something other than drugs down at that cemetery. Buck up and tell me what you did, you two. I don’t want you lying to me.”
“Rich, we didn’t…”
“You did something, Isaiah. Don’t test me. I could get out of this car and beat your ass for being so stupid.”
Isaiah nodded, sighing and looking over at Mark, wondering if he should say anything. Mark’s eyes showed that he wouldn’t have to talk.
“We were messing around with old magic.” Mark sighed. “We were just fooling around, sir. You know how it is on Halloween, with all of that old superstition and witchcraft and shit…”
“Watch your mouth, boy.”
“Sorry, sir. We thought it would be in good fun to try a spell out of one of Isaiah’s old books… We tried to bring her back to life.”
Rich had been looking at the two of them through the rearview mirror, but now Isaiah watched as Rich let out a long, harsh sigh. He reached up and wiped sweat from his hairline.
“That’s the biggest bunch of bullshit I’ve ever heard in my life.”
“Rich, we didn’t do it,” Isaiah said. “We…”
“I wasn’t talking to you, Isaiah. I never said you did it, did I?”
Isaiah shook his head.
“Keep your mouth shut until I finish. You two have messed up big time, especially you, Mark. You should’ve realized that going back to that cemetery would fuck you up the ass in the long run.”
Neither of them spoke. Isaiah listened to his father’s boyfriend and nodded when it was appropriate, keeping his eyes turned down so he could look at his jeans. He felt so stupid—so childish—at what he had allowed himself to be talked into. He was getting too old to believe in witches and demons and vampires and everything else under the moon.
Rich sighed again.
“You boys promise me you didn’t do anything?”
“Yes sir,” they both replied.
Rich nodded and started the car before driving them home.
#
“Never thought we’d be roommates, huh?”
Isaiah turned over and gave Mark a smile.
“Who’d ever thought we’d be sleeping in the same bed?” Isaiah joked.
Mark laughed and stretched, sighing as a small breeze came through.
“I wish I had a room like this,” Mark said. “I’d like to have the cool air blowing on my bare chest every night like this.”
“It gets cold up here sometimes. Dad put a heater and a cooler up here so I wouldn’t get too hot or cold.”
“And your own bathroom, too. You’ve got your own little house up here, Isaiah.”
Isaiah smiled. The small part of the attic that had his bedroom and bathroom was divided from the storage with a wooden wall. His room wasn’t big or fancy, but it was better than nothing. How many teenagers could say they had a bedroom like his?
“Everything will be fine, Mark,” Isaiah said. “They have no proof that you did it. Where’s the shovel or your foot or fingerprints? They won’t get you for anything.”
“I hope you’re right, Isaiah. You know how bad that’s going to look if I do get charged? That’ll be on my record, and I’ll never get into a good college.”
“Don’t worry.” Isaiah turned the lamp off. “Night.”
“Night.”
#
“Get down and scrub that linoleum, boys. I want to see my face in those tiles.”
They were barely out of bed when he and Mark were scrubbing the floor. If it was true about Isaiah’s father having to see his face in the linoleum, they’d be here all day.
How fun.
Isaiah glanced out the corner of his eye and looked at Mark, frowning as he saw the nervous look on his friend’s face.
“I told you not to worry about it.”
“I’m not. I’m worried about that other thing.”
The other thing was something to be worried about. If Trish was walking around when she was supposed to be dead, what would other people think? What would her parents think when they found out that her grave had been uprooted?
“We’ll deal with it tonight,” Isaiah whispered. “At midnight, after dad and Rich are asleep.”
#
That night, they dressed in dark clothing. Isaiah had snuck his father’s pistol earlier that day.
It was loaded with a single bullet.
One bullet to worry about.
One bullet to get rid of their problem.
One bullet to destroy the newly-risen Didada.
“Are we going out the window?” Mark whispered as he tied his boots. “We’re going to have to pass your dad’s bedroom.”
“I hope they’re asleep.”
“God, I hope so. I don’t need to see your dad and Rich… Not that it would be bad or anything, but I don’t… You know what I’m saying. I just don’t…”
“I get it. That’d be a great way to get caught, wouldn‘t it? We’ll scale down the side of the house and catch my dad and Rich doing it.”
They grinned, but they knew that they had to get out of there as soon as they could.
“Did you put the extra pillows under the blankets?”
“Yeah, but I don’t think they’ll mistake a bunch of pillows for us.”
“If we’re lucky, they might. Come on, we’ve got to do this.”
Mark nodded and opened the window. Mark looked down the side of the house.
“We have to go down that?”
“Come on, it’s not that hard. The way the house is, they’re basically stepping stones.”
“Stepping stones? Isaiah, you’ve got to be crazy. I’m not going down that.”
“I’m sure my dad would rather greet you on the way out, Mark. Do what you want. I’m going down the side of the house.”
Before Mark could say anything, Isaiah jumped down from the window and carefully made his way down the slanted roof. He grabbed the tip—where a window was lying under—and looked back up at Mark.
“Are you coming?”
“Isaiah…”
“Quit being a chicken-shit, Mark.”
Mark moaned under his breath and followed Isaiah down, retracing his previous steps.
“What if I fall?”
“You’ll fall in a tree, Mark.”
“Then on the ground.”
“Shut up and be careful, if you’re so worried about it.”
Isaiah jumped down and landed on the second floor of the house, then waited for Mark before he po
inted at the tree.
“There.”
“Oh, God, no…”
Isaiah didn’t wait for Mark to finish. He jumped and grabbed onto the largest branch, pulling himself up with his arms and sitting on the large branch.
“Come on, just like in gym.”
Mark seemed to think it over before speaking.
“Isaiah…”
“Mark, I thought you said you’d do anything for me?”
“I did, but…”
“I bailed you out of jail.”
“That was Rich.”
“Who do you think convinced him to do it?”
Mark sighed and made a running start and jumped into the tree, pulling himself up and climbing down.
“Well, we’re out of the house,” Mark said.
“Yeah,” Isaiah said. “Now all we have to do is get to the graveyard.”
#
When they got to the graveyard, they saw her.
She seemed lost, even in death. In life, she had been popular, but Isaiah knew she had been lost. She had been lost at school, among her friends, and probably even among her own family. She was shuffling around and tripping over herself, but her face was nothing compared to her real self. Maybe the face had come from a porcelain doll, but it wasn’t her face.
“Isaiah,” Mark whispered. “You have to send her back, right?”
Isaiah nodded.
“Didada,” Isaiah whispered. “Go back to where you came from.”
Isaiah raised the gun and fired.
#
The next day, the ‘porcelain-faced wonder’ was found. No blood had come from its face, and yet there was no real face. The porcelain had lain around the female thing’s body, and though no one bothered to autopsy the body, she had just been taken as a lifeless thing.
Trish’s parents never found out what had happened to their daughter.
The only two people who knew the truth about the ‘wonder’ were Isaiah and Mark.
#
A few years later, when they were in their twenties and sitting in a bar, drinking with each other, Mark looked over at Isaiah. Mark had since grown a full beard, while Isaiah himself remained unchanged. He still seemed like the same seventeen-year-old kid who had made a mistake.
“Are you thinking about her?” Mark asked.
“Yeah.” Isaiah stirred the ice around in his drink. “How come I still feel so guilty?”
“It might take a while to get over it, Isaiah, but think about it. At least we let her rest.”
Isaiah nodded.
We did let her rest.
He fingered the book at his side.
It was the same book that he had read from all those years ago.
“We’re going to the river to get rid of this, right?” Isaiah asked, looking up at Mark.
His friend nodded.
“Yeah, we are.”
Isaiah smiled.
He couldn’t wait to get rid of the thing.
The Scribes
These rants are not horrific, but the content might be.
Greg
I have a question. So usually in any kind of evil twin story you will ever see on TV, or read about in books, that evil dude always has a kick-ass goatee, while the good guy never does.
So stay with me. What if one day the hero decides he would look cool with a goatee and grows one? It’s just as cool looking as the evil dude's. Now suppose that they haven't met just yet, that this is all happening while they're in their separate realities. So does that mean that the "evil twin" (so to speak) decides his goatee is itchy and doesn't want it anymore, so he shaves it off?
But what if at this point the evil guy comes through the dimensional portal into the good guy's reality, and the good guy has yet to tell anyone that he's rockin’ the goatee look lately, ‘cause he was chillin’ somewhere no one would find him while he grew it?
Then this evil son-of-a-bitch can just come out of nowhere and usurp this guy's life. He’ll be all like, “Wait it's me. I’m your friend.” And then his friends will be all “No, it can't be! Jose would never grow facial hair!” (I’m not going to apologize for naming the hero Jose. When you're creating fictional goatee rockin’ heroes for an internet magazine's column for ranting, specifically to hone your writing skill, you can name him whatever the fuck you want.)
Then the world would fall into chaos all ‘cause some guy decided he didn't want to shave. It kind of gives you a whole new perspective on facial hair, now doesn't it? And what's more, who's to say that this hasn't already happened to other heroes who didn't share my line of thinking and the same shit happens to them? Everything is systematically falling apart and no one can stop it ‘cause we find that this madman has strategically hidden the best hero’s razors in his dimension, while at the same time, creating panic in the other world, saying that cancer is related to not shaving periodically.
He then went and gathered uncharted, unholy, bat-shit crazy power to create a rift in the space-time continuum, letting the evil twins’ peek into our dimension so that they can strike at an appropriate time to slay those that protect that world.
We find that the only man capable of such a heinous, evil, intricate crimes of passion was the person we had all least suspected. Not old man Withers (the guy who owns the haunted amusement park from Scooby doo), not Bill Cosby (although we all know he wished he thought of it first), not Michael Bolton (the bastard is planning something, though....if only we knew what) and certainly not me. I mean, I could and all, but then who would beat everyone at Halo during all hours of the night?
No, it could only be the most sinister, evil bastard ever known to the face of the earth, that sweater wearin’ fuck, Mister Rogers. All this time he's been plotting this intricately fucked up scenario. It's all been right in front of us. Collecting his army of children, his sniping training for the Navy Seals, faking his own death, and let’s not forget that no grown man owns that many sweaters without eventually having something to prove! For God's sake, he's just a man! In any case, the presence of Rogers makes this ordinarily stupid-shity rant idea seemingly possible. Without him, I fear that the world would be safe....for now.....
Bill Goldberg
What is the deal with the so-called professionals that make up our society? Do they think they can just do whatever they want without any regard to public safety, or common courtesy? Let’s not even begin to talk about morals. Morality died the moment it was incorporated into law, the moment politicians began to take speech lessons from preachers and other great and border-line retarded prophets.
We, the people, must first recognize ourselves as the common people, those that work a grueling shift that consists of back-to-back mindless, thought-numbing, skill-deteriorating jobs. Most of us try hard to succeed. We try hard to make ends meet, while these professionals are following through on agendas that are aimed at squeezing more and more out of us. They are like vultures, plotting how much more we can take, how much more pressure our paychecks can absorb. It is thinning. Let’s not even discuss gas, because that would be a never-ending rant, an anthology of hateful blogs of why the industry insists on killing our way of life. We are Americans. It is our right to drive fuel-chugging vehicles, just like our women are allowed to participate in beer, or any other alcohol, chugs. Chugging things, any substance, destroying our own body, our own country, is our right.
Getting back on course, these professionals will have you believe that they are not connected. Bullshit. The medical staff and the lawyer you wish you could keep on retainer may not be in the same building, but they have the same philosophy: “I’ll help, but someone has to pay. Someone will pay… how much can you pay?”
Then these assholes have the nerve to drive around in their lavish cars, gloating about their wonderful life, which exist because of the constant mental, physical, and economic rape they put us through. Rape is a crime, ladies and gentlemen. So why is it they get so upset when you key their cars and destroy their property with urine? Because they stil
l want more. They want more respect, forcing us into an enclosed mentality that they are better; but they aren’t. These Harvard grads aren’t any better than the rambling drunk on the corner of 5th street, or the Asian prostitute that left me handcuffed to the bed and stole my wallet, phone, and clothes. Those that hate what I am telling—the truth I am spilling onto this sheet, so that YOU KNOW THE TRUTH—stay with me. Let your anger blur the page with tears of hatred. No, seriously I made a bet I with the editor. Harvard, fuck, any college is all about parties these days. These spring break pricks party with loads of drugs and beer to ruin themselves in a group environment. Then they want to turn around and act all professional—no, not at all, not even close to being a person of respect.
Respecting these types would be the same as respecting a rapist, a drug dealer, a thief, a junky, a whore, and should-have-been ditch digger. Play your cards right, America.
—Bill Goldberg.
Kim
Handicaps have been a part of our society for a while now, ever since the medieval times when they didn’t know any better. It was a time when a paraplegic was thought to be cursed by a witch, which was okay for the respected handicap, but terrible for the local hag.
We live in America, the greatest and most stubborn country of all, and we treat handicaps right, at least now that it is required by law. Places of employment now hire with welcoming smiles because they don’t want to risk being labeled with discrimination, which is similar to that of a witch hunt but without the hanging and burning of all sorts of individuals with handicaps and disabilities. They are given private doors, ramps, special permits, and parking. Which, by the way, why is it bad to use a handicapped person’s reserved door? It isn’t like a parking spot, in which one would block for long periods of time. If no handicapped person is around, it should be an American freedom to use the fucking door. I rant about this because where I work they act as if it is a sin to do such a thing.
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