Travel light, but take everything with you. That motto had served Herschel well all these years and he wasn't about to abandon it now.
He stepped over the fresh corpse. Putting down the gun, its barrel still hot and smoking, he went into the bathroom for his toothbrush, grabbed the bills from his roommate's rapidly cooling hands, and walked out the door.
Swing. That was what we did every time we danced. We'd grab hands and swing each other around with all our might, laughing all the while. Everyone made sure to stay clear when we hit the floor. Once, he dropped me. It was unexpected, a fluke. We were swinging, like always, when, suddenly, he let go. All i felt beneath me was the cold hard floor. After that incident, we stopped swinging for a while. We'd get onto the dance floor, and everyone would run clear, but all we'd do was kinda sway and maybe do a little hip-hop. After...
It was like the time he thought that Daddy was hurting Mummy, he was sure. He was certain there'd be a Reasonable Explanation, like when Mummy shouted at God in the middle of the night, and asked Him for 'more'.
He was trying to work it out, to see what the Reasonable Explanation could be. Sometimes there isn't one. One morning when Granddad Alan was alive and he was staying at the house, he'd found his granddad eating Smokey's SuperRabbit food for breakfast with Mummy's red label milk.
He'd tried to see the Reasonable Explanation but there hadn't been one,...
"What are you laughing about Jes?", inquired Sally.
"I just had the most wonderful dream", replied Jes.
"Can you tell me what is it about? Did you dream about winning the lottery? Or becoming a sophisticated cover shoot model? Come one now, spill it here? I want the details!"
Jes hesitatingly replies, "uhmm, well its about an ordinary day. I was in a beautiful beach and oh, i can only just imagine the warmth of the sun, the smell of the sea breeze and the feel of the wind in my hair".
"It was just perfect day", Jes added.
"That...
We had to move quick. Aside from the smell of decay, and the swarms of flesh-eating bugs that harangued us at every turn, the swamp was cold, and Dr. Fjord's injury was not getting any better. I didn't like dragging her through the murky waters like this, but I didn't have a choice. I held her as far from the water's surface as possible, but I couldn't keep her out entirely. She wasn't doing much to help, though I could tell it wasn't by choice. She was barely conscious.
"How far?" I asked, my voice no more than a rasp....
"What's that, Daddy?"
James hid a smile behind his hand and answered, "That's a telephone, sweetie. You put money in it to make it work."
"Nuh-uh. It's too big. See?" She pointed to his cell in his hand.
"It's from before cell phones."
She rolled her eyes and walked away, her four-year-old way of telling him he was nuts, and the conversation was over.
James chuckled, picked up the handset, and put it to his ear. He did it basically to show her that it really was a phone in case she turned around. What happened, though, froze his blood....
Travel light, but take everything with you. Everything that you might need. The bare essentials. Nothing that might be termed as excess. Nothing that might weigh you down, nothing that might, at the other end, end up in a cupboard or a loft, forever after forgotten and stored away.
That's the problem with belongings. You accumulate so many unnecessary things over the years, things that once meant something to you, perhaps even a lot, but that, over an indeterminate period of time, lost that once owned meaning and became, instead worthless, meaningless. The Valentine's Day card from an old lover,...
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
The droplets of drool fell like stones from the gaping monstrous mouth. Gusts of racid breathes portruded before it. Sckirrrrrrrrrrr. The earsplitting whistle of its call, feeling like nails were being dragged down a chalk board next to my ear.
More were coming. My fearful eyes could see the shadows dragging themselves along the ground.
Useless bloodied limbs, torn apart by the undergrowth hanging uselessly between their ferocious canines. Blood surrounded their snout.
They were coming. For me.
In 1921, he flew from the Great Rift Valley. Or so they think. "He" had used a little one passenger plane to conquer the walls of the seemingly unescapeable abyss. All i would have needed was a match and a stick of dynamite, but he had to do it the fancy way. Jonathan Ocre had been a simple farmer's son, making his living off caring for the neighbor's cattle. He'd jumped into the valley to see what was at the bottom, and most thought he was a goner. But he defied expectations and one day just burst out of the...
"Mary?" a middle aged, crows footed woman queried as she stepped over the threshold.
"Mistress…" the young maid gestured her in, both blushing. Somewhat flustered the farmer's wife surveyed the room.
"Tom!" she blushed on blushes. Something the old woman had not thought possible. Interest upon Interest. Clearly no Pythagorean shape would ever do this web justice.
"I haven't said naught, Po… I mean, Mistress." the plough boy blurted. He was good at blurting, the witch noticed. It was good he had found what he was good at, at such a young age.
"Meg, I need your help again…" the...