Tagged: Andy Martin

Our church worships at the altar of the Unholy Trinity. Its gospels are delivered as a trio of dark drabbles, linked so that Three become One. All hail the power of the Three.

What Can You Do?

I.

Now…

Morning and the air was cool, the city still sleeping except for the birds, so when Kate got to 2nd and Reed she kept going.

She was three blocks passed her usual turn around when she skidded to a halt.

She’d never seen this little park before, tucked in on the west side of Two Street and in the shadow of 95.

She jogged in place, taking the statue in, then shook her head and turned for home.

*

“You ever see that crazy statue?” she asked Craig.

“The Band of Brothers one?”

“No, it’s like somebody’s Nona…and a UFO.” 

II.

Now…

“I thought you were kidding.”

She gave him a look.

“Sorry.”

The statue was indeed somebody’s Grandma. She was waving a rolling pin in front of a crashed UFO. A little, big-headed alien was crawling out-

1956…

Allied Bread was on fire, and Marie could hear air raid sirens over the fire trucks.

Marie was running toward the bread factory, she had neighbors, friends working there, what could she do? 

A silver disk spun out of the columns of smoking rising from the factory and poured narrow beams of green light into the street, flames exploding where they touched down-

III.

Now…

“This is like some weird art thing, right?”

“I don’t know. If any place can keep a secret, it’s South Philly.”

1956…

Confused screams in the street, no one believing what spun above Two Street spraying laser-death.

The saucer dove to incinerate a fire truck and clipped one of Allied Bread’s Egyptian Revival columns and skipped across Two Street like a stone.

The bubble at the top opened, a little gray bug-eyed thing crawling out-

Marie was running, remembering the rolling pin in her hand, neighbors, friends, burning up all around her and raised it high-

What could she do?

The End

Our church worships at the altar of the Unholy Trinity. Its gospels are delivered as a trio of dark drabbles, linked so that Three become One. All hail the power of the Three.

When Dreams Come True

Arlo was cursed. He could never catch a break unless it was a limb or a relationship.  

In spite of this, Arlo still had a life to live and a dream to realize: To become a policeman of unquestioned bravery. In other words, a hero.

A renowned TV psychic promised his dream would come true.

Upon graduating the Police Academy, Arlo crowed happily how he was going to spend his life protecting and serving.  

On his first patrol he drew his gun, stumbled and shot himself through the eye.  

At his funeral an embarrassed Police Chief declared Arlo a hero. 

All’s Fair

Alyssa inserted the single bullet, spun the cylinder, and held up the coin, “heads or tails?” 

David pleaded, “Can’t we just keep sharing the water?”

Alyssa’s voice rasped, “Then we both die of thirst.” She flipped the coin.

David called heads. The coin landed, tails. A tear slid down David’s cheek. “I can’t.”

She took the gun, pointed it at herself. “I can.”  

“I love you!” David cried. 

“You cheated,” Alyssa answered, turned the gun and shot David in the head. She wiped the telltale tears from his face, kissed him, then sat back to wait for the rescue craft.

After Life

“Any questions?” Marcus had only one. How long did he have before the Big C ended him? The answers he got were vague: Three to five months.  Maybe a year. Maybe never. Live in the moment. 

‘Vague’ was Marcus’s nightmare. “How can I live in the moment when I don’t know how many moments I have to live in?” 

A precise man, Marcus devoted all his time and effort trying to find the exact amount of time left to him.

Finally, about to expire six months, two days and twelve hours from his diagnosis, he smiled. He had his answer.  

Our church worships at the altar of the Unholy Trinity. Its gospels are delivered as a trio of dark drabbles, linked so that Three become One. All hail the power of the Three.

Who cries for the executioner

They follow. Long lines of the silent. Never speaking, but always watching me.

I’d had to kill them. I’m the state executioner, paid to end their forfeited, judged lives. I comfort my soul with the knowledge some were murderers, thieves, rapists, vagabonds. 

It’s the others which haunt me. The women, the children I’ve killed. Their grey faces mouthing curses as they point to me, their killer. I cannot live with this and place my head in my own noose, jumping from the scaffold.

They watch no more, but I know they wait to meet me at the gates of Hell.

Burning desire

‘You will love me even in death’ was her curse, her screaming words a lament of pain, mixed with rage. 

Yet I’d loved her, cherished her. Turned a blind eye to her ungodly ractices. Then she rejected me, laughing at my proposal.

The laughter wounded and humiliated me.

So, I told the town about her deeds. Planted satanic evidence in her house. When she was convicted, I offered to ignite her pyre. I watched her burn. 

Afterwards, they found me in the smouldering embers, my skin charring as I kissed her partly cremated skull, my love for her finally rekindled.

Tales from the toolbox

I despise sloppy work, being precise, skilled, an artist and craftsman of extinction. 

My fees are reasonable, depending on the sentence requested. Inside my ‘special toy box’ is the simple long hafted axe, requiring strength and although it  requires proficiency to wield it. The double-handed sword is more efficient but not as awe inspiring. The garrot I find tedious, and multiple knife cuts death takes time. I charge accordingly. My secret passion is in the dark recesses of the box. A tinderbox for a good old-fashioned burning. Now there’s a spectacular execution.

I’m available for sanctioned executions and children’s parties. 

Our church worships at the altar of the Unholy Trinity. Its gospels are delivered as a trio of dark drabbles, linked so that Three become One. All hail the power of the Three.

Ones and Zeros

The thrust, the firepower, the ones and zeros.  The flawless timing of every component, every brain involved.  The money.

Meritok Corp., with this mission as a trophy of its holdings, a token to the planet that owed its progenitor the spoils of a man who reflected the promise of global community, bankrolled the Juliette.  Andries sat in its cockpit, waiting to depart asteroid Murnau-8 with samples of the blue ore detected by a previous probe.

Outside the window, a purple cloud advanced.  Sensors warned 1,000 feet, 500, 100…  Fixed, angular faces poured from it.  Cabin lights went out like candles.

Gray

Backup power and communication failed.

An hour passed, then another.  Ignition failed, countless times.

Murnau-8 turned away from the Sun, snuffing out all ambient light.  Andries sat strapped inside the Juliette, playing a loop of his life movie, his conquests.  And failures.

Shining a penlight, he fumbled for the case under his seat.

The Gray Pill.  Chemical execution in a vitamin-sized caplet.  Three time-release phases—sedative, paralytic, heart stopper.  Less than a half hour.

Dark tranquility cupped Andries.  Like clockwork his muscles became leaden, breath labored.  Above him hovered a glowing face like those he’d seen through the window before.

Wait for It

The asteroid mission he’d funded, supervised, and flown solo as his money and legal machine stipulated, had dissolved.  It sank under last-second failure, marooned him in the land of a blue ore whose gases promised repair for an overheating Blue Planet.

Barely conscious and fading under the paralytic phase of the Gray Pill, Andries felt the jolt of ignition as the Juliette’s power returned—the result of commands queued up before it blinked out.

He lifted off, managing a feeble, resigned laugh as the spirits of this rock returned him to a desolation encased in the artifacts of his kind.

Our church worships at the altar of the Unholy Trinity. Its gospels are delivered as a trio of dark drabbles, linked so that Three become One. All hail the power of the Three.

Nymph

The creek flowed southeast through hills scraped raw for coal and gypsum before winding through the ‘burbs and into Philadelphia.

Mark waded, casting upstream where the bank eroded, the tree roots making a shelf for trout underneath. He dropped the fly just short of the roots and hooked up, the fish running hard downstream.

Rod high, he reached as it surfaced, not a trout at all, more like an otter made of plastic bags and weeds but somehow alive. His fingers were gone before he could pull his hand away, his blood staining the creek as the thing slashed downstream-  

Pupae

Dad was on midnights so when Anthony came in yelling about something in the creek, Theresia shoved him out the door, Dad’s hanging coat a reminder to “BE QUIET.”

Now that she saw, she wished she’d woke him up.

There was a mountain of trash and leaves under the Rhawn Street bridge, the creek backing up behind it, running over the bank.

“I told you T!”

“We gotta call someone-”

A shudder ran through the big mess and it opened its eyes.

It dragged itself under the bridge, the bottles in its back shattering on the stone-

The bridge collapsed-

Emerger

“Wake up.”

“Huh?”

“Wake up, you smell that?”

“Jesus, low tide?”

“We’ve never smelled it like that before-”

Brad was heading for the window. They were almost a mile from the river-

A roaring, blinding light-

“Kate!”

“Brad!”

Somehow, they were both alive, the front of their row home yawning open to their narrow street.

A gas explosion?

There was another boom, the wind pulling at them, their neighbors were screaming, and over the smoking pile that had been Snyder Ave, Brad saw a leg, hundreds of feet around, coming down again, river water and trash raining down from it-

THE END

Our church worships at the altar of the Unholy Trinity. Its gospels are delivered as a trio of dark drabbles, linked so that Three become One. All hail the power of the Three.

Missing Person…

“You gotta learn kid, it’s always the same with these people. He had problems, but he was getting his act together. Bullshit,” Damico shoved the clipboard at her. “I’ll drive, you write.”

Cruz nodded. The missing guy’s Abuela looked like her own, but tough luck for Abuela, her grandson looked like every creep junkie asshole who’d ever hissed at Cruz in the street-

“In a perfect world, you’d mark that ‘NHI” and move on-”

“NIH?”

“No humans involved.”

Cruz laughed, she loved it.

*

Miguel woke underground, the dream of an old woman he loved fading, replaced by burning hunger-

Floater…

“Look ma’am, if we got no body, we got no reason to be here.”

The jogger was pale. Cruz believed her; she’d seen something in the river. 

“I know what I saw-”

Damico waved over the Schuylkill. “Maybe you did, maybe you didn’t. If you did, it-”

“She. The body was a woman.”

Damico gave Cruz a look. “-she’ll pop up. And ma’am, it’s getting dark. It’s not safe for you out here alone.” 

*

Underwater, she clung to a shopping cart on the bottom, listening to the sounds of prey above. She was ravenous but her time would come.

No Humans Involved…

Damico was bit and bleeding bad. 

“We gotta get back to the car.”

Cruz looked out the doorway of the abandoned rowhouse.

“They’re all over it.”

“Fucking set up, Jesus,” Damico whined.

Cruz was plotting her route to the car when the floor gave way, spilling them into the basement and the waiting mouths below.

*

“Back up, back up,” Miller said, twisting in his seat.

Timmons reversed and hit the spotlight. Skinny bodies faded under the El as he did.

Miller was pale.

“Jesus, it can’t be, but two of them junkie fucks looked just like Cruz and Damico.”