The Quick-fire Killer (A short story)

The Quick-fire Killer

There’s a reason for most things, and there was a reason no one could catch the killer…, let me correct that, no body could keep the killer long enough to secure him safely in a jail.
Bell Edwards Lynn, he was no Jessie James, but he killed almost as many as Jessie did. Born 1947, in Minnesota, wanted by the FBI since, 1985, and no one have ever caught him, or kept him long enough to serve over 18-months in anyone jail.
Why? This is the story of killer, his victims, and why he has never been confined (and there is much truth surrounding this story).
His motives for his spree of killing, loose at best, but that is for you to decide, to me they were mostly—not all—what I’d call accidental. My name is Henry Lowell; I worked for the Bureau of Prisons, in Minnesota, where this all started many years ago, and lingers on to this very day. And I had him for a client once and only once, while working in a halfway house as his psychologist, along with the other forty clients there, on a work release program.
I worked in Minneapolis, on Lake Street, in those far-off days, that are all I can say, and I worked there from 1978 to the 1986, and thereafter went into private practice.
Mr. Lynn, he was brought to the halfway house for three months, for pretrial waiting to go to court. That is when I counseled him. He was trying to make bail—in-between, his hideous crime he was dating a 25-year old girl, this being in 1984, he was 37-years old then, they were on their second date, she tried to avoid his sexual advances, parked in downtown St. Paul, over looking the cliffs, a few hundred feet up. Below the terrain was rocky, and a little further out, the Mississippi river, and he threw her over: the alleged crime at this time, and under investigation, but he ran, and that is when it all started.

In February, 1995, some ten-years later, he was spotted, allegedly, and I drove down to Huntsville, Alabama to identify him, he was in the county jail on new charges, and I was the only one that had a picture of him, besides the FBI, who borrowed mine, this time he was in jail for rape, witnesses saw him, calling this young girl to the car, and he shot her several times when she approached, but the day before he had been put into jail under an alias name, for raping this girl, and had served 18-months at the work farm. The next day he got his revenge.
By the time I got there, I identified him, and when they walked him to the court house, he escaped, like a fly ready to be swatted, he was gone.
But this did not stop there, in 1999, in Columbus, Ohio, in the month of January, he shot a security guard after a dispute over a woman, he was trying to rip off her fur coat. This time he escaped the moment the police showed up, as if he had antennas in his head.
In June of 2004, he was involved in a shooting of a male family member, a nephew, in Portland, Oregon. They still don’t know how he escaped, they were ready to put handcuffs on him, and he disappeared like a flash. I mean, he didn’t really disappear, like a ghost, but with a blink of the officer’s eyes, he had swiftly, made his escape, and all the several officers were dumbfounded.
I had went to see the Chief of Police, Marty Wheeler, and tell him what I thought was the problem, but he said, “We don’t need psychologists, we need alert police,” and he put all seven of those officers on suspension for neglect of duty.
It was in 2006, in Falstaff, Arizona, in December; the next sighting of Bell came about, his victim this time was an armored car guard, shot and killed outside by a movie theater, witnesses said, it was purportedly Bell, and after I looked at the video they had, I confirmed it was, still I was working in private practice, but this case haunted me, and seemed to follow me, and took on a life of its own, with me. So I followed up on every clue I ever got.
The last sighting was in San Francisco, May of 2007, during a robbery, a tourist was shot to death, they thought the cameras had picked up another—female— accomplice.

Well, you might think, this was the end of the story, but it wasn’t, I was called into the FBI office, and asked, by one of the agents,
“You once were going to give some advise on this person’s behavior, that might help us catch him, unfortunately, the Chief of Police, Marty Wheeler didn’t care all that much, but we’re willing to listen. I had found later, that Wheeler had called the FBI up to ask me that very question, he was embarrassed and grieving, for the person shot in Falstaff, was his nephew.

I explained it in the following manner, to agent Michael Bair, and his assistant, Richard Fitzgerald:
“Bell is a peculiar human being, with exceptional qualities, that he can often be one step ahead of his aggressors, it is not a matter of finding out where he is, or even catching him, but holding on to him, if indeed he wants to be in a defense mode. One out of ten-million people have this rare asset, if you read his IQ scores, and his Army background, and so forth and on, and the way he escapes, you will come to the conclusion, or you should, he has what I call, quick-fire intelligence. Once he senses you, he automatically goes ahead and creates a plan. He quickly calculates the location of the threat, and an escape plan, this all happens in 100-milliseconds of spotting his aggressor, and thus, positions himself, body, arms, legs, the route he will take. He is not magical, but has a rapid brain, that processes sensory information faster than the average man can think. Therefore as you are trying to subdue him, or thinking about what you are going to do next, he has already made his planned movements prior to take-off, his body is in position, he sees where the worse threat is, and the weakest points; this happens the second he notices an approaching risk, and now that he is a fugitive, his skills are sharper, and he sees all bodies as a threat. He knows somehow, the large or small postural changes needed to be made for his pre escape; he even corrects his posture as you are standing in front of him.”
“So,” said Agent Michael Bair, “it all has to do with anticipation, and flight?”
“Something similar to that!”
“How would you suggest for us to capture him?” asked his assistant.
“As I said before, you folks seem to get him, he just escapes, next time throw a net over him,” and that was the last time I heard of Bell, or the FBI. But who knows, that was only a year ago.

Written: 8-29-2008

Dennis Siluk's New Book: "The Jumping Serpents of Bosnia" out in November, 2008

“Along the coast of the Adriatic Sea lives what now is called the “poskok,’ better known as the ‘Jumping Serpent’. These creatures are some five-feet long and…can jump some three feet in the air and leap some five-feet in any direction …, simply by aiming…. But this didn’t happen by chance….” (See Intro page)

“The Tale of the Jumping Serpents of Bosnia,” was written in 12/18/02 at the Barnes and Noble, bookstore, in Roseville, Minnesota, in the deli; around, 8/2003 the tale was picked up and used by the Croatian Education System in Europe, what now is considered the short version. Next, it was picked up by several internet sites between 2004 and 2006. This is the first time in print, and with its longer version. In 2006, the author reedited, the story, and in July of 2008, revised parts of it, adding only slightly to the description, details, and explanatory elements of the tale. The back picture is of Garrison Keillor, and the author (both poets and storytellers).

Also in back of the book (interview from the Magazine :) “Lost Sanctum,” No: 2 (Wild Cat Books) Ron Hanna, Editor October, 2006 Interview with Dennis L. Siluk by Benjamin Szumskyj

Dennis L. Siluk, Ed.D., is the author of 37-books, several in English and Spanish, eleven in Poetry. This is his seventh book on myths, tales, and the supernatural. He lives with his wife Rosa, in Minnesota and Peru; he presently is working on, “Old Josh…” and “Cradled by the Devil.”

The Cadaverous "Wind Scorpions" (Flash Eldritch Fiction))

The Cadaverous "Wind Scorpions"
((The Camel Spider) (the Matevenados))

The Camel Spider



They had just finished a skirmish in the Afghanistan Desert, with the insurgents (a group of Taliban soldiers), it was a hit and run and suicide style tactic, for evidently they didn’t have any more capabilities. But there was much firing of small arms, and perhaps twenty-five of the insurgents, to a platoon type squad, of Americans, numbering a twelve, Josh McCord, an American Soldier, Buck Sergeant, was left for dead, and the platoon hightailed it out of there as they saw reinforcements coming to the rescue the—already, outnumber insurgents.
Two other American Soldiers were shot, out of the twelve, evidently they had time to pick them up, and drag them into their vehicle, but the Buck Sergeant was too far out into the open (several of the insurgents were killed also). Everyone—alive in the platoon that is—agreed, the three shots the sergeant took to his chest, were fatal, and even Staff Sergeant Garrison, said: “No man could survive that, he didn’t even have shirt on, he just had gone mad and shot several of the enemy to pieces, before he fell, we’ll come back tomorrow and pick up his body.”

When Josh McCord woke up, it was to a hot empty desert, no enemy, no friends, only twenty large six inch Camel Spiders, known as wind scorpions, surrounding him, and in the distance twenty more running as fast as a dog, perhaps fifteen, if not thirty-miles an hour, to see what their comrades were interested in. He had been shot once in the shoulder, once in and hip, and ones in his arm, bullets went through his body, like paper. Now he looked at his chest and arms a second time, it had spider bites on them. He knew they were usually not deadly to humans, more so poisonous for animals, but as he looked, he murmured, “Twenty, at least twenty, and there they come, another bunch.”
Lt. General. Martin Dempsey, acting commander of U.S. forces was in the region, and so most likely, the roads would be deserted, insuring his protection, so he didn’t expect any help until the following day, he was on his own, and now staring at over fifty of these wind-scorpions, he dreaded even to make a move.
He looked about, it was getting dark, how long he asked himself did he sleep, he figured with the bites he had, ones that hurt now, but didn’t before, the reason being, the giant insects inject an anesthetic into him, they did that to numb their prey, as it was injected into him, he didn’t want to fall back to sleep, if he did, the spiders would start all over again, and now they had him cornered, no need to search or hunt for him, only to wait, and when he fell to sleep, chew chunks of flesh out of him.
This was worse than war, he told himself.
All of a sudden, one large spider jumped three feet in the air, over his body to the other side of him; he perhaps was one of the several that bit him, for blood was on its front legs. Then he laughed, said aloud exclaimed,
“…maybe you think I’m a camel (ha-ha, ha!), and you want to eat my stomach dry, that’s why they call you Camel Spiders, yaw? They eat the stomachs out of Camels (ha-ha ha!)”
Once he slept, the spider would gnaw on him he concluded, and he’d not even notice it, wake up dead in hell or heaven, or to a body that looked like hamburger.
‘Why didn’t they check for a pulse,’ he angrily cried, ‘just assume I’m dead so you can get out of here and see that general, and have a hot meal.’


For the Buck Sergeant, it was the Day of the Dead, he knew these creatures normally did not choose to fight, unless provoked, so he remained still, and he also know, they had formidable jaws, so he had to be cautious in every movement he made, lest he get some of their painful bites, awake instead of sleeping. Either way he was fighting for survival. He also concluded they were attracted to light, so as soon as he could he had a plan, a flimsy one at best.
He lay there for several hours more, and then came twilight, and dark, he took his flashlight out turned it on, tossed it several feet from him, all fifty creatures circled it, and slowly he got up, he figured they’d hunted at night, so it was between the light, and sucking juices out of him or other creatures when they decided to hunt.
All of a sudden a lizard, ran past the Sergeants foot, and several spiders heard, and chased the lizard, capturing it, sedating it, then several move moved away, as if they were looking for dinner, rodents and perhaps perched birds on rocks or shrub about.
Now the sergeant was on the dirt road, he had made it without having the creatures attack him, although he couldn’t see what was behind him, and lucky he did not, it would have been heart failure or sure, only the moon above him for light, and the herd now more than a hundred followed the shadow he left. There, on the roadside, feeling weak and safe, he fell to sleep, and slowly the creatures surrounded him, numbed him so he could not feel what they had planned.

In the morning, Staff Sergeant Garrison came back to pick up the Buck Sergeant’s body, chasing, and running over the many spiders on the road, and then they saw the Buck Sergeant, and several soldiers jumped out of the vehicle, chased the uncountable number of spiders away that surrounded him—only to find him alive, but his legs chewed up, nibbled to the bone, and the sergeant covering his face with his hands, which were also bleeding bad from bites.

8-28-2008

Switched to Gravity ((Chasing the Caribou, near Barrow, Alaska)(Suspenseful Flash Ficiton))

Switched to Gravity
(Chasing the Caribou, near Barrow, Alaska)

(Suspenseful Flash Fiction)


(Summer of 1996) He put his nose straight forward, straight down, less than one-hundred feet from the surface of the tundra, the Russian pilot was chasing caribou, over the wide open spaces between Barrow, Alaska, and Point Lay, alongside the Chukchi Sea, then inland two-hundred and fifty miles we went, then back to Barrow.

We had just left Point Lay, now was further inland, in the interior of this isolated region, he spotted a herd of caribou, descended from five-hundred feet to one-hundred, watching the caribou herd running in a sedate circle across the brownish tundra of June.
He had showed his flying skills earlier by doing some loops high in the sky, spun from 2000-feet up, and dived to five hundred, now one hundred. The good thing was that there were no poles or trees to get in the small plane’s way—thank goodness.
He closed the throttle, was right in back of the caribou, and then opened it again climbing, frightened the animals some, for me it was a high.
“All right,” he said to me, “you got what you wanted, was that close enough, I mean, I almost rammed into them, matter of fact, don’t tell anyone I got so close, I could lose my license over this.”
“It was close, almost too close, but I got to see them, instead of seeing dots, underneath the plane’s wheels.” I commented.
He was now smiling, almost laughing, and doing some thinking, didn’t give me the impression he digest all I said; next, he was now turning the plane around and chasing the herd again. I could almost touch their tails, and then he checked the gauges, and made a last turn upwind, over their heads passing them like a huge eagle.
“For gad’s sake, stop chasing them,” I said, “I think you’re scaring the daylights out of them!”
“Right,” he said, “let’s get along,” and he pointed the head of the plane towards Barrow, north.


It was a drowsy hazy day, he slid slowly beneath some clouds, shifting slightly, rising and falling.
He, the Russian Pilot, was coming just to the right of the small narrow airstrip at Barrow, Alaska, the plane fishtailed, trying to land, overshooting a little, not having the extra speed and height he needed, he cut the switch, raised the nose of the plane, his tail was down, the landing was seemingly fine, my stomach went up to my throat—blood filled my nose, then went up to my head, so it felt, as my head hit the front of the instrument panel, then I heard the roar of wind as he opened up his window and flicked his cigarette out,
“It’s a crash,” he said, “hang on,” and that was all the time he had left to say anything, and had he not switched to gravity—who knows? The adjustment saved us from a fatal crash.



Note: There is more truth to this story then meets the eye, on the white and black, perhaps it should be called historical fiction. Taken place June, 1996; written August 27, 2008; most everything I write has historical fiction in it, or some kind of experience I’ve had. I usually do not pull it out of my head unless it has been there.

The Porn Star (Flash Eldritch Fiction)

The Porn Star
(Flash Eldritch Fiction)



He couldn’t stay married so he simply stopped getting married after his forth marriage. It was most difficult to keep a romantic relationship, romantic, ongoing while living this lifestyle, he’d tell you up front, even his wives he told up front,
“It's very hard, extremely complicated, if indeed, possible, matter of fact, statistics are against you, that is to say, the greater part of marriages no matter where you go around town, the state, the country, and perhaps around the world, maybe not including Bangkok, don't work, they just don’t work. Sad but true.”
“Why?” said his new and youthful girlfriend of 23, he being 57-years old at time.
“Very rarely do they ever last a long time,” he exclaimed.
“Because of your age?” she asked, realizing it took a lot to get him going, if not using Viagra, that is to say, he was limp at times: their relationship being less than a year old, it never dawned on her it could be familiarity. He emotionally got going, but physically it could be troublesome, if not at times a hard strain.
He was like the old Greeks, the Romans, the Asian societies, feeling man was not made to have one ongoing physical-sexual relationship, why in heavens name he picked out a heavy duty Judeo-Christian, with strong cultural values in that area, was beyond everyone scope of reason, matter of fact it bothered us some at the studio to have him select such a person. Not criticizing her, rather him, he knew better, I mean when he told her the truth about him, it was crushing, and what did he expect? What he thought he should have, he tried, that alternative lifestyle, he had the attitude, but now he wanted a mate to fit into it, when it wasn’t him.
He never felt guilty, that was not him, not at all, and she felt guilty for falling in love with him. He told her he was a porn star, and the cut, petite,
Spanish girl, stood in shock, just staring, said, “What does that mean?”
He said, “I love you to piece, every part of you, I adore you, and love looking at you naked, and want to marry you, and I know I have taken you before marriage, with the intention to marry you, but I had to tell you first of my profession, I have made five-hundred porn movies, and perhaps because of this my genitals, even at fifty-seven seem to travel in all directions, and I don’t want to stop, we can marry and let me stray, my heart will remain with you.”
Then she said, “Then it shouldn’t matter if I stray?”
He thought about it “Isn’t that against your values?”
“Yes,” she said, “but I am pregnant!”
“What does that have to do with the statement you made on straying?” said the porn star.
“I don’t know, I just said it,” said the Judeo-Christian, Spanish girl.
“We’ll get married than with the understanding we both can stray?” he said.
“But it isn’t your child,” she commented.
He stood there in shock, dumbfounded, “What do you mean it is not your child?”
“Your producer came over one night when you were gone, and asked for you, evidently you were bragging you hand a virgin, and he wanted to see me, he told my of your business, and rapped me.”
Before she could say another word, he was out of her apartment, and on his way to the studio. He was so mad, when he walked into the studio, he hit Carlos, the director so hard along side of the head, and he killed him; and was sentenced to twenty-years in jail.
The only thing she ever said to him was at the courthouse, when they were taking him away, “Jealousy is a hard thing for me to understand, perhaps as hard as a physical and emotional monogamous relationship is for you.”
The Spanish girl never showed up to see him while in prison, never wrote him, never wanted a thing to do with him thereafter, and was never pregnant. And he died on August 27, 2007—at the ripe old age of seventy-seven years old, with all those prison inmates, his new buddies.


8-27-2008 714

Clotted by a Python (Flash Eldritch Fiction)

Clotted by a Python
(Flash Eldritch Fiction)



(Intro :) His body was swollen, lumped, inflamed looking, bruised, and his last feelings were that he was deserted, clotted by a python, and this was going to be how he died, what people would read in the morning paper the following day.

“The young man was only 23-years old, discovered at the Como Park Zoo (in the summer of 1957), he had let an eleven-foot python out of its glass and steel bar cage, in the little stone zoo building, built sometime in the 1930s. He was an intern from Chicago, living in St. Paul, Minnesota, a Biologist. He worked the night shift, cleaned the cages, fed the animals, and insured all was well. There was a security guard also who walked the ground the grounds, in particular, over in Midway area where they had all the rides for the kids. It was now 2:00 a.m. All was quiet.
“The Intern, took the eleven-foot python from its habitat, and carried him out into the zoo atrium area, where in the morning visitors would come through to see the twelve cages, that held lions, and tigers, and large snakes, and monies, and two wolves.
“He, the Intern, was playing with the snake, put him around his shoulder, held him by the back of the head, but came the moment the python got irritated, had rolled upward a tinge, from his shoulders to his neck, no longer playing. The Intern, drew in his breath, tried to, it was difficult, as the viper had already crept downward towards his left wrist, and bit it, holding onto it with a solid grip, as the snakes lower body, had previously risen, from underneath his light coat, it had already circled upward and doubled around his neck, forming a lump, a knot or loop, around his neck, he tried to draw in his breath again, and found out it was next to gone, and he went to shout for help—the security guard was circling the midway area—but all you could hear was a whimpering sound, by the intern.
“The powerful arms and shoulders, the young intern couldn’t pull the snake away. He heard the whistle of the Security Guard, which indicated all was right in the Zoo area, and the intern knew he was close by; so close, yet it might just had been a thousand-miles away: an adult, helpless as a child he was, with urgent eyes moving, looking for help, a way out, battered overalls, in a world now that was deaf and dumb to his whimpering petition.

“The snake, now head to head, stared at his victim, it had risen slowly to eye level, as if it understood it was going to take the intern’s life, and wanted to showoff. Perhaps revenge for keeping him cooped up in that jail they offered as its new home.
“Now it was rapid whimpering, then the intern fell purposely, to the floor, there the scuffle continued, to no avail.

“In the morning, the janitor found the snake outside of the building, the intern on the floor, inside. His overalls half torn off, as if the snake and intern had a great battle. All that was left now was for an epitaph to be written.”

Written 8-26-2008

Valentina ((...and the Violent One) (a short story))

Valentina
(…and the Violent One)


Valentina was a young cut, petite woman of twenty-three years old, where she was from no one quite knew. But she was young and a woman of ingredients—you might say—of that present time anyway. It was said, and we all kind of guess it to be more right than wrong, she was from Peru, living in San Francisco: from poor stock, as they say. She had never married, and had she it would have been someone who owned a business, or a thousand acres of land, and was educated, and could take care of her in a lively and interesting style. But as I said, she was not married, and really had no intentions to for the moment. What she wanted was not what she needed, but what she sought after and got. We in San Francisco, up around Castro District, had listed to her talk in several of the nightclubs (this was back in 1969), she could be a little more than loudly of her adventures, and she had many, and those of us who befriended her, had looked upon her a little coldly and a little suspiciously for a ruthless girl, who said she was from the mountains of Peru, but at other times, she said she was from, a city within a large Valley of Peru, as she told us her tales of those men who took her here and there, both white and black men she met of means, until she met the violent one.
Let me explain, she, Valentina, had little money, worked for Lily Anne, a dress designing company, down by Market Street, and she would flirt with the designers, and supervisors, and she’d tell us, she simply would touch a persons hand, flirt a little, knowing in the back of her mind she was after something she wanted, not needed, and was more than willing to use socioeconomic currency (her body), she called it ‘a form of evolutionary psychology’ and it worked—well, most of the time.
The main manager, was Jewish, they called him Absalom. He was married, but went to Paris often without his wife, for the owner of the fabric factory, to buy textiles among other things. She herself was a seamstress on the third floor with Mr. Green.
Valentina, had been worn by Mr. Green to keep everything at work business, meaning, not flirting and on and so forth, but she did anyhow, so when he left home, Absalom, without his wife, she went along as his secretary, but we all knew, from her boasting at the bars, she had bartered her body for the trip, a form of business perhaps, and she called it, ‘a just progress,’ and smiled, he got sex, and she got a trip to Paris, paid in full, and for him, the company simply used it as a tax write-off.
She looked at those men whom attracted her, not for good looks but who were smart, good providers at home, thus, these were the ones she was attracted to, for the part, there were other reason she was attracted to me other than that and I shall tell you that in a moment.
Matter of fact, she even told me one day in the bar, “Touch my hand, or let me touch yours,” and I let her touch mine.
“There she said, we’ve made physical contact, now all I need to do is flirt a little more, and most likely we will end up in some kind of an agreement, exchange for your needs vs. mine.”
She once invited me over to her apartment; it was on Dolores Street, a ways away from the Castro District. There we watched TV; she only ate and drank and watched TV, on Sundays at home, and she walked about with her pajamas on, and said, “You see, even you and I can come up with a need, and being mature, simply both can watch TV.” And she laughed.
“Why,” I asked “are you laughing?”
“Because you are thinking now, what do you have besides your item, which I need, so you can take me to bed?”
Well, she was right, what could I say?
Anyhow, I walked around the house like a camel in heat, and then she asked me to come into her bedroom, she was lying on her bed, her legs up, arms crossed and resting under her head, asked me,
“Do you have a girlfriend?”
“Not really I said.”
I kind of felt at this stage, she knew men more than they knew themselves, in that she figured it out, the way man was programmed for the last ten-thousand years.
She didn’t think of me as beautiful, nor even loved me, but I had something she wanted because she pulled me into her and we had sex. I asked her,
“What did you get that you felt you needed from me?”
I mean to say, I hadn’t but a few dollars to my name, no car, a steady job, and a few bucks in the bank. I studied Karate at the Gojo Kai-Karate dojo, in Castro, when I wasn’t working, and seldom dated for lack of money.
“You do have a rough quality about you, like a mild brute; women like that, and your educated somewhat, and you have a job, but not much money, that is why our friendship will take over our sex lives, I’m afraid I enjoyed you but, there will not be a second round.”
“Fine,” I said, adding “after this, a friendship is just fine,” and we both laughed.

On the day she died it was learned that she had been fishing with a bellboy at a hotel here in San Francisco, in the downtown area, of all people to meet, she met a Peruvian from the Amazon. Being a mountain girl, she was far from the Amazon of Peru, and thought it to be quite mysterious, so she told me, “I have a craze to go there, if only I could talk this plain looking Peruvian man, of fifty-years old to take me. His wife died some time ago, and says he wouldn’t mind going to the Amazon with her, and he’d pay her way, as long as she gave him sex. And we all learned here in the bar, she went with him, and he and she never returned, he went back to Lima, where he was from, so it is said.
Anyhow, what took place was death. They went camping for two weeks, he taught her many things, she’d call back home, even up here at the bar and said, “Guess what I’m doing, eating and catching those little fish that eat people, perinea’s.·”
None of us here were surprised to learn that she was doing what she was doing, beyond that we were, when we had learned of the final blow, that she evidently fell into a dark water tributary, fell off a rowboat, more like pushed off it, if you ask me—off into the Amazon River, and she was eaten up—flesh and blood, to the bones, by these little critters.
Some say the old man didn’t want to let her go back to San Francisco alone, without him; he didn’t want to share here. And she made a formal demand to be taken back on the next boat, this is what we heard, perhaps gossip and I would guess the request had been made as violently as possible, for that was her strange style.

The young female listener, Jennifer, told Dennis,
“You know, maybe I’ll travel when I get my own money, I don’t want any parallel violence coming my way. I thought about that as you know.”
“Awa yes, I know you did,” I said “That’s why I share this story with you. We just don’t know people, what’s in back of their minds!”

8-25-2008

Fireside of eh Yellow Planet (Science Ficion/Flash Fiction)

Fireside of the Yellow Planet

(The Russian Account)

(An out of sequence, ‘Cadaverous Planet’ Sketch)







If someone is reading this, then it means you have been to the fireside of thee Yellow Planet, or you know someone who has, someone who may have access to the journal account of the first mission to that side of the planet. Read this carefully if you plan on going there, because it is a living and dangerous planet, all sides of it. Historically, this is the second time humans have been on this planet, recorded anyway, and the first time human eyes have seen the fireside.
Tangor recorded the first mission here, and he had left a warning for all those whom may follow, and I have just given it to you, in my own words of course.

“Never mind about the warning,” said Igor, the others three on his expedition, nodded their heads ok, but the warning was to the point, not the less the three along with Igor would have tier first mission, the first part of their mission, into the deep woods as Tangor ventured.
Talcoss, David, and Ximena, the captain’s crew, of the Russian Space Federation, walked into the thick of the forest, the same one Tangor and Rognat had, and was subdued by the leafage just like they were, by the living organisms thereof. (Had it not been for Siren, and her quick thinking, it would have been curtains for them two.)
While Igor was within the forest, he also got drowsy, and over heated, and saw his three comrades barely standing, and ordered them to go back tot the ship, and he quickly went back to the ship also, perhaps taking into consideration, Tangor’s message—a bit too late.

He had left a bottle of natural medicine in the ship, once on the ship he drank it and lost consciousness, when he awoke, he discovered his three partners were all dead, his medicine had soaked into his bladder, saturated it, saved him, whereas it was just the other way around, the deadly fumes from the leafage on the planet, its yellow mud, soaked into the bladders of Igor’s shipmates, and killed them. Why he didn’t tell his mates he had the medicine was because it was costly, and there was only enough for one person’s recovery. He was foretold of the plants deadly vapors—not quite believing it—but what was more important he survived, and believed I now. And for the moment, this was priority for the Federation: how to survive on this deadly planet, and then to go to the opposite side, the fireside and bring back a description of it, for it had never been seen by human eyes, not even Tangor’s or anyone from the United States, Russia would be the first. This was part two of the mission.

As the space craft, circled the planet, and Igor attended to his anxiety, that is, his close call to death, the ship orbited closer to the planet’s surface.
After collecting his thoughts, he sensed something was wrong, only to discover he was right, the roof, the space craft’s front head, was leaking, yellowish moist mud had started to eat it way through the ships metal structure: a substance that was plentiful where he had just been, and it was growing stem like tentacles.
As he looked out his port window, he could see the fireside of the planet, it was all it was made up to be, the sun seemed to be baking the planet alive, no moon to provide shade, and the water on the planet, as he could see from his monitors, was boiling, in streams and lakes and so forth, no waterways untouched by the sun’s rays. He wanted to land the space craft, and scrape the living mud off his ship, evidently, the faster the ship went, the tighter the mud molded into and through the ship’s outer metal. But if he landed, it would have to be in a boiling lake of fire. Perhaps that would kill the substance on the outer surface of the ship he thought, because he couldn’t see a living green thing below. He couldn’t turn the ship towards earth; he’d never make it, especially with holes in his ship.
He had to think fast, before the yellow mud ate its way all the way through into the ship’s inner guts, crippling it.
Other thoughts came to his mind were: on one side of the planet, there was much oxygen, he felt on this side there was very little, and if a hole was in the ship, he’d lose what he had, and would be forced to land. His best scenario for survival was to land the craft, and let the heat to the work for him, and hope he can reach orbit again, if not, he had other plans, not good ones, but plans nonetheless. Thus, his conclusion was to land in the lake of fire.

Note: of the many sketches and short novelettes, and stories this author has done pertaining to the Cadaverous Planets, this story here was not meant to be part of the sequence, that was written over the past five years, although it is in relation to the characters of that series, and of the solar system the author has used, being that near his infamous planet Moiromma. 8-6-2008 (This is the second story of the Yellow Planet); modified 8-25-2008.

"Abernathy's Park!" (Flash Fiction)

“Abernathy’s Park!”


“Caroline Abernathy had not always been a country girl. But the time when she wasn’t, or hadn’t been, was back around 1937, and to be honest, it was only for a five-year period, between her fifteenth and twentieth birthdays, when she attended college, such a short period, folks she knew on the plantation, and down in Fayetteville, who were fifty or older, back in 1972, only remembered her being gone, and many of her old friend forget she had ever left North Carolina; because she had stayed at the plantation some twenty-two miles from the city all those other years, after she got married.
“She was a young woman then, attending a New York City-university, her father had gone to Colombia University, and his brother to Harvard, and her, to the city’s college. Everyone, that is—everyone in her family, believed she didn’t need an expensive education, simply to get married and have kids, but she persuaded her father, and grandfather that it was more than a mere formality for the family, it was tradition they get a good education.
So they paid her tuition for five years. One extra year for her Masters Degree in public relations, in which she was convinced that she would go on to get her doctorate. Actually she declined to continue, meeting Cole Abernathy, and marring him, that following spring, and brought out to what she felt at time his family’s remote plantation.
She never felt the victim, rather an overconfident wife, and well done job at school, that would help with the business her husband was in thereafter, and calling her new life –with child—a great success in all conquered areas.
Now, at fifty years old (in 1972), the story itself was old and unoriginal, she had told it to herself a hundred times, and her dead husband, who died of a heart attack because of her son’s death six-months prior to his, whom died of syphilis, given to him by his Vietnamese wife, Vang—your mother, then living with her original husband—a bigamist—in Saigon, it all was too much. That was why this country girl went into the barn, behind her Mansion, in 1972, and hung herself. Her imagination darted every which way, I remember it quite clearly. She even went to Saigon to kill Vang, had a knife in her purse, found her with her grandson—you, confronted her, and on her prowess behavior, in being able to hide two husbands from one another, or at least one from the other, then tired of reason, looking at her grandson, something forbid her to kill Vang, the predictable elopement took place, she ran back home, to that barn and hung herself, the final escape.
She now is buried in that little patch of a cemetery in the back fields of her once, 1200-acre plantation, with Cole, her husband, and Langdon, her son, and Josh, who died just before she hung herself, Josh Jefferson Jr., a black workman, who had labored on the plantation most all his life.
And a neighbor named Mrs. Stanley, who was first on the scene, heard her dog barking from inside of the barn, who had woke up to find her hanging, she called the doctor and the sheriff, and the account was settled, and Betty Hightower, from New Orleans, her younger sister, came to settle what needed to be settled in the estate.
“A few people came to claim money, and even the property, but the will was specific, Betty got it all, and that about how it was Mr. Josue Abernathy,” said Mr. Wright, the lawyer who handled the Abernathy case, adding, “you needn’t have come all this way from Saigon, I mean its been twenty-years since your grandmother died.”
“What happened to Betty Hightower?” asked Josue.
“It all was a mess back then, she went to finish what Caroline couldn’t do, and in the process was rapped, and died a mile away from your mother’s house. Her husband had died, and her daughter, likewise.”
“Well,” said Josue, “where did all the money go?”
“To all of us in this county, we paid for a park with the money, and we even named it after her ‘…Abernathy’s Park!’ I hope you don’t wish to fight the whole county on this matter?”
He stood up. And the attorney merely rose slowly and bowed to his client, and said, “That will be $500-dollars sir.”
“What…” said Josue?
“I don’t work free!” said Mr. Wright.
“What if I challenge the will?” said Josue.
“That would be your second mistake.” Said the attorney, and Josue wrote out a check right then and there.


8-24-2008