My newest release is finally here, and I’m stoked to share this one with everyone!
Beat the summer heat with a collection of cool new stories, most of which have an apocalyptic tone – that wasn’t intentional, it was just the way things turned out. I seem to have apocalypse on the mind a lot lately.
~ A scientist develops body-swapping technology, but she must keep it out of the wrong hands… ~ The extinction of the honeybee brings an unexpected result… ~ A zombie virus only affects women… ~ A homeless hacker destroys the world’s supply of digital currency… ~ Teenagers navigate dating in a post-pandemic future… ~ A fugitive finds his benefactor and only friend has met with an unfortunate end… ~ An aspiring reality TV star finds herself in a real-life apocalypse…
~ A mysterious spot on the ceiling of a jail cell: Is it imagination, or a doorway to elsewhere? ~
The spot has grown larger. At least I think it has. Maybe my eyes are playing tricks on me. Maybe it’s my mind playing tricks on my eyes. I just don’t know anymore.
It’s been nearly three weeks since I first noticed the spot. I was lying in bed before lights out, glaring at the ceiling as I have done every night since I arrived here.
My first thought was that the brownish-yellow spot looked like a water stain from a leaky roof but of course that’s impossible in this place. Day after day, night after night the strange blotch on the ceiling has mesmerized me, commanding my attention day and night, even after the lights are out. I sense its presence even in pitch darkness; it emits some sort of invisible energy, like a thick phosphorescent glow that I sense to the very core of my being instead of merely seeing it with my eyes.
What the hell is it?
After the first week it began to grow, the edges rippling and undulating like a puddle of water lapping at the cold gray ceiling. It seemed to feed on my anger; I noticed that the fouler my mood, the faster the spot grew.
I was able to reach it by standing on my bed. The spot was warm to the touch and my fingertips detected a slight buzzing sensation. Was it a burn mark? Perhaps it was an electrical wire shorting out in the ceiling. Faulty wiring wasn’t uncommon in old buildings such as this one.
Sometime toward the end of the second week the spot had enlarged to the edge of the room and begun to spread down the wall. I began to get the feeling it was coming for me, to swallow me into wherever it came from.
I tried telling the guards about it but they just laughed and told me to shut up. They didn’t see any spot. They denied my request to be moved to a different cell, calling me crazy before resuming their never-ending poker game. I had no neighbors to confide in. The whole block was… well, dead. Except for me – the sole occupant of death row at that particular time.
The more I stared at the ever-expanding blemish on the ceiling and wall of my cell, the angrier I became. I was angry at my situation, at the people responsible for putting me there but most of all I was angry at the spot itself. How dare it invade my private space? What did it want?
One morning after I finished my breakfast I lost my temper and threw my coffee cup at it. I expected the plastic mug to rebound and rattle to the floor but instead it just disappeared. I swear it did, as God is my witness. It vanished without a sound as if swallowed by quicksand.
I caught a lot of shit for that one. The guards didn’t believe my explanation even though they tossed my cell twice and didn’t find the missing mug. They are still convinced I have it hidden somewhere.
Standing on my bunk, I reached up to touch the spot where the cup disappeared. To my surprise, the ceiling was no longer solid. My fingers slid right through the concrete as though it were soft butter. My whole hand disappeared past the wrist. I groped around but found nothing but an empty void on the other side.
Today, the spot is large enough to accommodate my entire body and I now know what I must do. I am going to follow that cup to wherever it went. I have no future here. I’ve just been served my last meal. Tomorrow is execution day, or E-Day, as I have come to know it.
I’m leaving, but not on a jet plane. Don’t know where I’m going but I won’t be back again. I ain’t sticking around to be put to death for a crime I didn’t commit. Ok, I admit I DID kill a man but it was justified. He had it coming for fucking my wife. I served justice in an unjust world and this is the thanks I get for it.
The spot ripples like water in a breeze, calling to me. It’s my way out of here, I’m sure of it. I don’t know if I will find the regular world on the other side but if I do you can bet I’ll finish what I started. After all, it takes two to tango. That S.O.B. couldn’t have slept with my wife if she wasn’t willing. She won’t get away with it if I can help it.
“I’m coming for you, Rosalee! You hear me? I’m coming for you!”
* * *
She sat with her head down and a wadded tissue clutched in a shaking hand. She dabbed at her eyes from time to time; not out of grief for the man who had just died from lethal injection but for the other who had died at his hands. Her ex-husband was an evil man and she was glad he was dead. Rosalee had attended the execution to see for herself that without a doubt he was gone forever. Maybe now the nightmares would stop.
Kevin hadn’t handled the divorce well. When she remarried, he lost his mind.
She would never forget the day she returned home from a shopping trip to see a barrier of yellow police tape surrounding her home and the ominous sight of a coroner’s van parked at the curb. When they wheeled out a gurney carrying a black plastic body bag she collapsed, wailing in anguish.
Rosalee knew Kevin was the one responsible for Troy’s death and he gave the police no resistance when they arrested him. In court, he said nothing in his own defense despite his court-appointed lawyer’s insistence that an insanity plea would be in his best interest. Kevin’s silence was almost as good as a confession.
Now, the monster that had made her life a living hell and destroyed her second chance at happiness was dead. Rosalee knew she should be feeling relief as she stood on shaking knees but she was still rattled from witnessing the last moments of her ex-husband’s life. The nightmares were still fresh in her mind – the much-too-real vision of a hand emerging from the ceiling of her bedroom, reaching, groping as if searching for her. And then there was the plastic cup that had inexplicably appeared on her bedroom floor one morning. Who had put it there?
As she waited for the guard to escort her back to the prison’s front entrance, Kevin’s voice still echoed in her head. Those last words he shouted just before losing consciousness from the injection:
“I’m coming for you, Rosalee! You hear me? I’m coming for you!”
DysFictional 