She swings the hammer down again and again. Bone crunches, blood splatters. Her stomach churns as she raises the hammer to swing it down once more . . .But she stops and squeezes the hammer’s slick rubber grip. Blood oozes between her fingers. The hammer shakes in her hand.And then she drops it to the pavement where it hits with a dull ring and she looks at what she’s done to his face, and realizes . . . she likes it.And wants to do it some more.She kneels and sobs.Then vomits.MondayGavin Patchett glared at the stack of essays sitting on his desk, then glanced at the first one before him. He tapped it with his red pen, leaving clusters of smeary crimson dots near its heading. He read the first paragraph, squinted and read it again, hoping it would make more sense the second time.It didn’t. Just made him feel tired was all.He closed his eyes, sighed and rubbed his warm forehead. Maybe he’d call in sick tomorrow, sta
3.I lean back against the booth’s thin leather cushions and pull my hands away from the journal, staring for a moment at Gavin’s elegant script. The words themselves seem to shiver and twitch across the page.I look up at Gavin, who’s nonchalantly devouring the stack of blueberry pancakes he ordered while I was reading.My mouth opens, but nothing comes out.Fortunately, Gavin speaks for both of us, after swallowing a forkful of syrup-drenched pancakes. “That whole thing was horrible, and I feel awful that it took a tragedy like that to sober me up. But after everything died down, when I finally dried out . . . I knew things had to change. I haven’t had a drink since.”I reach toward the journal but don’t touch its pages. It’s as if I’m afraid of something happening to me if I touch it, which is ridiculous. It’s only a journal. Paper bound by a leather cover.That’s all.“You wrote this. After it happened?”He reaches for his glass of orange juice, compliments of the waitress,
WAY STATIONIt was QuestCon, New Hampshire’s largest SpecFic convention. Attendees packed the main lounge of Portsmouth’s Holiday Inn, bunching up in clots around tables and chairs and the bar, chatting with old friends, hitting up new ones. Con veterans worked the scene, happy to be among colleagues and friends. Younger, more inexperienced folks bounced nervously about, balancing between worshipful awe and their overwhelming desire to be “noticed” by peers and role models, and amongst them drifted fans asking for signatures, wondering respectfully (most of the time) when their next book or comic book would hit the stores.It was a full house, everyone busily engaged and enjoying themselves and, Jim Goersky couldn’t help but feel, glancing at him and Gavin Patchett from the corner of their eyes.“Listen, Franklin,” Gavin snapped into his cell phone, “the distribution sucks and you know it. Why the hell weren’t there more copies of Forever War at the Barnes & Noble here in Portsm
4.Gavin has finished his pancakes and is now sipping from his coffee, watching me with a neutral expression. I again push the book away from me, as if prolonged contact with it could hurt me, somehow.Which is ridiculous.It’s just a journal full of stories, that’s all. So what if Gavin’s story about the Pital girl was eerily accurate? Gavin wrote fiction for a living, he made stuff up. That’s what writers do, right? Make stuff up.Right?I meet Gavin’s calm gaze and speak carefully. “So. This story’s . . . a . . . what do you call it? A metaphor. Symbolic. Of how you realized there was more to life than your writing career.”Gavin raises his eyebrows and says, “Is that what you think it is?”I clasp my hands together on the booth’s tabletop so hard my knuckles ache. “I don’t really know what to think, Gavin. You brought me here with cryptic allusions to a Truth, then have me read these stories . . . ”I wave at the book and I swear Gavin’s flowing script wavers and trembles,
THE WATER GOD OF CLARKE STREETIt was a cold winter day and Carolyn O’Neil was pissed off at her imaginary friend Bob the Water Sprite.“I hate you Bob,” she rasped, trudging through powdery snowdrifts, “I hate you! Adam Stillman thinks I’m a freak, and it’s all your fault!”“I hate you.”Her angry footsteps scraped the frozen sidewalk and her ponytail swished against the back of her neck as she recalled today’s disaster in sixth period study hall. It had been the most humiliating experience ever and she had Bob to thank for it.Adam Stillman was the most popular boy her age. Athletic and graceful, with brown hair teased into a skater cut, his bright blue eyes made her knees buckle. She tutored him in Math every sixth period but they might as well live on separate planets. He was a basketball god that all the cheerleaders worshiped. She was the kinda-chubby smart girl everyone ignored. He only tolerated her because she helped him keep his grades up so he was eligible to play ball.
5.Our waitress (whose tag reads Cassie Tillman) refills Gavin’s coffee. She offers me some, I politely decline, and as she walks away a startling realization hits me: our waitress, Cassie Tillman.JennyJenny Tillmanyou know . . . the senior who wears the purple eye shadowand the short skirts all the boys likeThe implication sends ice down my spine.If all these stories are true, or, as Gavin puts it, have Truth in them . . . how many are about folks I know?For example, Jenny Tillman. Cassie Tillman’s younger sister, a high school senior. She disappeared back in March. Got into a big blowout with her mother and stormed out of their trailer in the Commons Trailer Park on the edge of town. She was last seen hitching along Bassler Road, toward the interstate.Will I read a story about her next? Or maybe a twisted tale about how my next door neighbor—a gentle, seventy year-old retired nurse named Maude—is really a dedicated Satan-worshiper who dines on the flesh of cooked bab
THE GATE AND THE WAYThe woods behind Bassler House stank worse than anything Jesse Kretch had ever smelled. He looked up to bitch about it to Scott, but a tree branch smacked him in the face before he could speak.“Ow! Dammit! Watch it, Scott!”Small lines burned his cheeks. Scott looked back as he pushed through brush and more branches. “Sorry. You okay?”“Yeah. Guess so. Stings like a motherfucker, though.”“Pussy.”“Ass.”“Whatever. Just keep movin. We don’t have all day. Gotta have Mrs. Wilkins’ yard mowed by dinner.”Jesse scowled but said nothing as he followed Scott through the woods behind old Bassler House. They could’ve taken the easier way along Bassler Road, but that started off the end of South Main Street and looped around town. Way too long. This shortcut—through the woods behind the Commons Trailer Park—was quicker.But smellier, way smellier. The air reeked of bad milk and old piss. Mounds of bulging white plastic bags dotted the ground, some split open like
6.“So that’s it?”I ask as we descend The Skylark’s front steps into the nearly empty parking lot so Gavin can take a smoke break. “Jesse Kretch is gone?”With a quick snap Gavin lights the cigarette in his mouth with a battered old Zippo, takes a drag and releases a gray-blue plume of smoke into the black sky. He stuffs the lighter into his front pocket, then sucks on his cigarette some more, its tip glowing a bright orange. He blows out more smoke and says, “When’s the last time you saw Jesse? Do you remember?”I close my eyes, thinking quickly. The answer comes sooner than I’d like. “New Year’s Eve. A few weeks after that 911 call. He’d been cutting up rough at The Stumble Inn. Drunk again, ranting and roaring his usual gibberish at the top of his lungs. That time, Deputy Shackleford and I brought him back to the jail so he could sleep it off. Next morning, I got him breakfast—coffee and an egg sandwich from the Quickmart down the road—gave him my usual speech about him sobering