Excerpt from "See Rick Run"

The guns spat the uniformed men’s contempt for their victims with deafening shrillness. Some flinched and closed their eyes. Some stood dully, their minds refusing to recognize the oblivion that scythed down the ragged line. Others spat curses and vain defiance even to the end, their words buried in the abrupt scream of the execution’s thunder.

Richard did not curse; his tongue was dry and his voice frozen in his gut. He did not stare or flinch either. Seeing what was coming was worse than anything, but not seeing it coming was worse still. When death came for Richard, he did what came most naturally to him- what he’d done throughout a life that seemed a hundred years past- he ran.

Actually, he fell. The embankment they’d been lined up across proved to be steeper than it appeared and Richard fell and rolled down the spongy moss and dirt that hoisted the line of men and women in the final, brief moments of their lives. The men with the guns had used fear to force them this far into the forest, but they’d already begun shooting- what was the worst they could do to Richard now?

As the mud and water of the shallow stream beneath him rose to end Richard’s tumble, he glanced upstream and saw dozens of bodies following his path with much the same grace. The idea of hiding amongst the dead flashed into his head for a moment only. Life or death, the only thing that mattered was to run, as hard and fast as he could.

He hit the water, his limbs scrambling to gain purchase in the staining silt and he lunged downstream on all fours. His eyes registered the shapes falling around him, but the sound of his own breathing pushed other thoughts from his head. Rising from the stream’s scarlet water, Richard made for the tree line and shivered as shackles of ice melted from his legs and chest with trembling strides.

The guns’ roar didn’t pause, but Richard felt a tremendous rush of air behind him and he zigged to put the thickest tree he could see to his back. Scouring heat, like the wrath of a vengeful god, blossomed behind him and swelled with bloated zeal. Green withered to black and grey in the licking conflagration but, even as the oxygen from his lungs was torn away by the flame throwers’ breath, Richard ran. Without a direction other than “away,” he cleared trees and bushes and pits with unflinching urgency.

Even after the sounds of death faded and the heat of exhaustion tore at his muscles and even after the forest’s edge gave way, Richard ran. The shadows of buildings and civilization had just begun to creep up from the horizon when he heard it. A distant howl that managed to be both shrill and deep grew by degrees until, with a finality like a popping soap bubble, it burst in a sound so loud it became silence as it washed through him.

Richard did not look back, but he slowed his pace into a pained walk, allowing his exertion to catch up to him. He had no words and just let himself pant as the sky around him bled a torn and tattered crimson.

On My Shoulder

You know the concept of an angel and a devil on each shoulder? Cartoons used it a lot when I was a kid, so I guess the idea just got imprinted in my brain. Anyway, in my room, I have a wall mirror to my immediate left and a window to my right. At night, the light in the room makes the window a sort of dusky, blurry mirror which is what made me first think of the cartoon cliché. I have two copies of myself, one on each shoulder. Since the window-copy is shaded and murky, I decided that was the devil and the mirror was the angel. From time to time, and always in a joking manner, I’d ask them what they thought I should do before I’d make a decision of no real consequence.

One night, a friend called me up, telling me that he had too much to drink at a party and wanted me to go help him home. This guy was something of a pain and this sort of call was nothing new. It was late and I was tired, but I try to be a Good Samaritan, so I was hesitant to just abandon him to the subway at that ungodly hour. I glanced over my left shoulder to the mirror and raised an eyebrow as if to ask what to do. My reflection was unhelpfully mute.

I turned to my right and opened my mouth to ask the rhetorical when I noticed something strange. The reflection, sparse and vague as it was, seemed to have its lips frozen in a silent “no.” I moved about it and it mimicked me perfectly but for that unchanging expression. I checked the mirror, but saw nothing strange in the faithful reflection.

I was reasonably intrigued and not at least a little freaked out. Slowly, I told my friend that, no, I wouldn’t be able to make it and he should try someone else. He hung up and I turned back to the window. The abnormality was gone.

The next day, a Saturday, I slept in and due to a series of strange dreams and the shorter daylight hours of winter, I didn’t wake up until it was dark out. After a groggy “morning” ritual, I took my usual seat and thought of my friend. I gave him a call, to make sure he made it back alright, feeling bad about not going to help him due to some slight visual hallucination. The phone rang for nearly a minute and as I was about to hang up, a stranger’s voice answered it.

The stranger identified himself as a police officer and asked me why I was calling. When I explained, he told me that, regretfully, my friend had not made it home. He’d been savaged by some creature, possibly a rabid dog of some huge size. He said they were working with animal control to track down the beast but, he confided, he’d never seen wounds like those before.

Nervously, I thanked him and hung up. I looked at the window reflection for a long time, trying to see… hell, I don’t know. Something. Eventually, I gave up, but something in my peripheral caught my attention and I turned to the mirror.

For a split second, I saw myself, torn apart and gore-drenched, just as the officer had described my late friend. Written on the mirror’s surface, above my corpse were the words: “the one time you take HIS advice…” My corpse seemed to be grinning at me.

I don’t use mirrors anymore.