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Things You Need 1.
1.How’d I endup here? It’s a long story. That’s the thing about life, though. Never can tell how it’s going to go. As Woody Allen once said: “Want to make God laugh?“Tell him your plans.”Anyway, I certainly didn’t figure on thisbeing my life’s work. But it is what it is. If you’re interested, I can share how I got here. To start the story right, though, so you can understand my perspective better, I need to ask: You ever get fed up?Y’know, your job sucks. The spouse is a pain. The kids are sucking your life away. Finally, one day, you blow your fuses and think: Hell with this. I’m out of here.Ever feel that way?Sure you have. Everyone gets fed up eventually. Unless you’re a robot. Or a Vulcan, or a Zen Buddha Hare Krishna Weirdo, and those guys haveto get fed up sometime. You show me a Zen-bot who never gets fed up and I’ll show you someone with a few interesting ways of blowing off steam.Me, I was lucky—or at least I told myself so. In my
Things You Need 2.
2.It was my first visit to Clifton Heights Junior/Senior High School. Right from the start, I thought Clifton Heights was a strange town. Nothing obviously wrong with it. Not on the surface, anyway. Place was the same as any of the hundreds of towns I’d visited over the last twenty years. Homey little department and hardware stores, restaurants, and knick-knack shops. A town hall, three churches, the requisite small town diner and two high schools. A library, a lumber mill, and a little creek running past the town, with a bridge over it called Black Creek Bridge.There was a modest lake—Clifton Lake—to the east, and folks referred to the hills as “the Heights.” The clean streets were patrolled often by Sheriff Baker and his deputies. He seemed a decent guy. Certainly not the stereotypical small-town crook, who ran his little kingdom with an iron fist. Trust me; I ran into plenty of that sort back in the day.The students of Clifton Heights High were a bunch of hard-working go-gette
Things You Need 3.
3.From the outside, Handy’s Pawn and Thrift was like any other second-hand junk store. Random items filled both storefront windows. Old radios, ranging from transistors to stereos with combination eight-track players and tape decks. Rusted old milk cans. An old tricycle next to a plastic Big Wheel. A jumbled assortment of sports equipment—deflated basketballs, footballs, scuffed baseballs and dinged bats. Helmets, a pair of hockey sticks, and a few pairs of old basketball sneakers. Old mason jars filled with marbles, a pile of hammers, saws, another mason jar filled with assorted screwdrivers. A few stacks of old books, and leaning next to them, old records in faded sleeves.Standing on the curb, I saw nothing particularly enticing or remotely interesting. In retrospect, I think it was the sign hanging in the window that sealed it. Maroon with gold trim and gold lettering, it read:Handy’s Pawn and ThriftWe HaveThings You NeedI snorted because from where I stood, Handy’s didn
Things You Need The Way of Ah-Tzenul
THE WAY OF AH-TZENULEverything got strange when the new moon cycle started last April. Course, things always get strange when the moon changes. My goats and chickens act up, coon dogs howl more than usual, cows won’t milk. It figures, I suppose. We’re all tied to the moon more than we think. Farmer’s Almanac says so, same as John George Holmnan’s Long Lost Friend. Hell, moon pulls in the tides and such. Makes sense it messes with other things too.I’m rambling like an old fool. Happens when you get my age. Take a seat there on the sofa, son. Didn’t catch your name.Ah. You’re the new fella, ain’t you? Fresh in town from medical school. Pleased to meetcha.Anyhow Doc, I’m much obliged, you coming to see my Betty. Dr. Jeffers, he’s on vacation. He recommended you. Said you was a fine sawbones, which is fortunate. My Betty, she’s in a bad way. Has been since last April. As I said; moon pulls on all of us, but this business with my Betty? Well, that’s something else altogether. Someth
Things You Need 4.
4.I stared at the reel-to-reel as it fell into a soft hissing click-click-click. After several seconds of listening numbly, I reached out and pressed stop.Silence rushed in, even more oppressive than before. I stuck my hands into my pockets and glanced around the store. No shopkeeper. He must’vegone, I decided, because there was no way he could still be around and not hear the tape playing.And what hadI heard on the tape? At the time I leaned toward an old radio drama of some kind. I’d listened to plenty of those over the years on the road between magazine gigs, on the AM stations. Re-runs of ‘The Shadow,’ ‘Suspense,’ and ‘Inner Sanctum Mysteries.’ They were corny as hell but entertaining. I especially loved how the hosts always shoe-horned their sponsor’s advertisements into the show. “Tonight’s tale about sex, murder, and revenge will give you a delightful chill ... just like the kind you get from sipping a refreshing Lipton’s Ice Tea on a warm summer da
Things You Need The Office
THE OFFICEJohn Pinkerton kneltbefore the bookshelf in the rear of his office. He searched the bottom shelf for something to read while toying with his old Magic Eight Ball, the quirky fortune-telling toy recognized by any child of the eighties.He’d been searching for what felt like hours. This happened often (more so these days), and he couldn’t honestly say it displeased him. Browsing his overflowing bookshelves presented him with an infinite selection of journeys waiting to be taken. Every book he’d read represented old friends he loved revisiting. The ones he hadn’t, new friends in waiting. Choosing which to read was a pleasing difficulty.He shook the eight ball with one hand, smiling. “What’s it going to be?” he whispered, running his other hand along the spines of books on his tightly packed shelf. “Some ghost stories, today?”The white polyhedron, suspended in liquid turned murky with age, jiggled as it revealed: Future is Hazy.John chuckled as he returned his atte
Things You Need 5.
5.The white polyhedron, suspended in old, milky fluid, jiggled as it revealed: Future is Hazy.“Story of my life,” I whispered. “Story of ... ”A chill hand gripped my heart.My throat tightened. I had to swallow hard to open it again. A rush of somethingfilled me. Dread, and fear. I felt lightheaded. I dropped the Magic Eight Ball and it bounced off the counter to the floor. It rolled away into the dark. I sagged forward and barely caught the edge of the counter with both hands, leaning on it for support as my stomach clenched and my knees buckled.I closed my eyes and took several deep breaths. “What the hellwas that?”An answer wasn’t forthcoming, but honestly, I didn’t want one. What I wanted was to get outand back to my cabin at The Motor Lodge. I didn’t care what I might do with my .38. I wanted out.Bracing myself against the counter, I twisted at the waist and glanced over my shoulder at the door. I blinked several times, trying to clear my
Things You Need Out of Field Theory
OUT OF FIELD THEORYBrian Palmer shivered in spite of the warm noonday sun. “This is it,” he muttered, staring at the picture he’d taken. “This is it. This picture is going to change my life. This. Is. It.”It was about time. All the other pictures he’d taken with his Nikon hadn’t been worth a damn. The first was out of focus. Couldn’t see the barn on Bassler Road for shit. Another was framed wrong, cutting the top off the old gazebo in the abandoned koi garden down the road. As for the brilliant yellow and orange koi swimming in the old pond next to the gazebo? Red and yellow blobs.Some of the other shots? Of Bassler Road curving into the distance? Of an abandoned old truck sitting by the railroad tracks? They were okay, but he knew what Professor Spinella would say: They looked like stock photos in Adirondack guidebooks found in tourist novelty stores everywhere.Which wouldn’t cut it if he wanted his final project for Philosophy of Photography to pass. He needed something uniqu
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Things You Need 12.
12.So there’s notmuch more to tell. You’re probably expecting some big reveal, right? A twist? Maybe I signed a contract with the shopkeeper and traded my soul for my continued life, or existence, as the guy called it?Well, I hate to disappoint. No such thing happened. The guy shook my hand, took the gun from me, stood up, walked past me, down the long hall with no end (and believe me, in the time since I’ve explored it, and there is noend) and he disappeared, never to be seen again.I never did get his name.I sat on the floor for a long time. Finally, obeying an urge I didn’t understand, I got up. Brushed myself off, ran my hands through my hair, and got ready to open Handy’s Pawn and Thrift for the day.I’ve been here ever since.This town isn’t so strange, now. The people here in Clifton Heights are mostly good folks. Sheriff Baker is a good man, and I feel bad about him missing his wife. Gavin Patchett—the English teacher who took me out to dinner a lifetime ag
Things You Need 11.
11.Did I pullthe trigger?It’s a helluva cliffhanger, to be sure. Maybe I pulled it, and the round in the chamber was a dud, or I got one of those two empty chambers. Or maybe it went off, but by some freak chance—you read about them, from time to time—the bullet got lodged in the chamber or something, and all I got was a painful mess of powder burns in my mouth.Did I pull the trigger?Helluva cliffhanger.I sure as hell wanted to. I was done. Maxed out. Brains fried. All that crazy shit happening to me? On top of a useless, nomadic life? I’d been carrying that .38 (which I recognized, now) around with me forever, always alone and never having nobody, coming from nothing and no one, with no place to go, nowhere to belong.So, yeah. I wanted to pull it. Bad. My finger tensed on it and everything.Putting the muzzle in my mouth and swallowing its business end while staring into that old mirror triggered it. Made me remember everything. My dad, Barry, the mill worker, who e
Things You Need 10.
10.I cowered againstthe stairway, shaking. The hand clutching my lighter with a white-knuckled grip jittered, throwing its faint orange light over their withered faces. Lips peeled back from white, jutting teeth. Blind eye sockets stared, stopped up by crusty dead matter. Wispy cobweb hair—what remained—clung to skulls sheathed in tight, leathery flesh. Mouths gaped wide in silent screams.I can’t tell you how many there were, exactly—three or four—nor can I say how they were positioned, because I couldn’t hold my hand still. It kept jerking up and down, the light flitting across their faces, filling up their blind eyes. Maybe two of them were embracing, one’s head buried in the other’s neck. Lovers? Husband and wife?I’ve told myself maybe those weren’t real corpses at all. Could be they were old, cast-off Halloween decorations. Very genuineHalloween decorations. Made of foam, or something, and dressed in old rags. I’ve told myself this, and on some days, I actually be
Things You Need When We All Meet at the Ofrenda
WHEN WE ALL MEET AT THE OFRENDAThe horizon above Hillside Cemetery was slowly bruising a crimson-purple, shading to the velvet darkness of an autumn Adirondack evening. Night birds sang. The crisp air nipped Whitey Smith’s hands and face. Dry leaves rustled underfoot as he shuffled along the path leading toward the cemetery caretaker shed. His assistants, Judd and Dean, had raked leaves all week, but it hadn’t mattered. Never usually did. When autumn came, leaves covered the ground. This was the way of things.Flowers bloomed in spring. Crops grew during summer. Leaves fell in autumn, and things died during winter. Except Maria, who died a month ago of pancreatic cancer, which was the way of things.People died.He shuffled to a stop, grasped the knob on the shed’s door, swallowing a grimace as arthritic pain arrowed glass slivers into his knuckles.“Sonofabitch.”He turned the knob and tried to open the door but couldn’t. It had rained yesterday, and the door had swelled as it
Things You Need 9.
9.I wasn’t dyingafter all. I heaved a big cough and blew little speckles of stuff—not insects, more like sand—all over me. Then I had a sneezing fit lasting about ten minutes or so before I finally cleared my throat with several hacking gasps.I blinked dust and grit from my eyes. My mouth and tongue tasted gritty, but I was all right. Nearly passed out after that dark sandy stuff puffed in my face, but I was all right. I dropped the black pyramid to the floor damn quickly, though. No more rubbing it and reading those weird-ass words, for sure.What was that stuff? I never found out. At the time I thought maybe it might’ve been some sort of hallucinogenic drug. Something that screws with people’s minds, makes them hallucinate. The things I saw when I accidentally snorted it was worse than any nightmare I’d ever had.I’m not sure how long I sat there, blinking and spitting. Felt like a long time. Weird images spun in my brain, the worst of them a snarling, hissing Jesus on a
Things You Need The Black Pyramid
THE BLACK PYRAMIDReverend Norman Akleyperused a table of odds and ends in front of Handy’s Pawn and Thrift, which offered its eclectic collection as part of Clifton Heights’ Monthly Sidewalk Rummage Sale. Norman’s right hand flitted from object to object, never quite touching but considering each as if his fingertips could judge value by intuition alone.Norman loved rummage sales, but only occasionally did he find anything worth consideration. When he did, he picked it up and examined it, wondering if it would plead to be taken home. Most often, however, he shook his head, noting a slight imperfection here, a stain there. He’d replace the item, offer the table’s curator a polite smile, and move on to other tables, their contents varied, sublime, ridiculous, amusing, or simply odd.The items on Handy’s table were varied indeed. A pewter beer stein, its embossed Viking bust glaring. Neat rows of used but polished tobacco pipes. Not-so-fine, yellowed china. A felt-lined box of
Things You Need 8.
8.“Please! I don’t know where my husband Shane is! That’s all I know! That’s the last time I saw him! You have to help me!”At that point my circuits were nearly fried for good. Forget the fact I was locked in a weird-ass thrift shop whose clerk had vanished. Forget my rental car being stolen or towed or whatever. Forget the .38 I couldn’t remember putting away back at The Motor Lodge, and forget the crazy hallucinations I kept having. Here was the impossibility of an iPhone coming to life (when mine wouldn’t work at all) connecting me with some hysterical lady who in the space of ten minutes or so (though it felt much longer) told me some crazy story about being lost in a high school-turned furniture store wherethere were things in the lockers... she’d somehow gotten separated from her husband. It was a crazy story, but the thing is, I remembered—sorta—passing a sign reading SAVE-A-BUNCH furniture on the way into Clifton Heights, with the impression of a large build
Things You Need A Place for Broken and Discarded Things
A PLACE FOR BROKEN AND DISCARDED THINGSThe sheer size of Save-A-Bunch Furniture impressed Shane Carroll the most, initially. He hadn’t expected it to be so large and sprawling. Also surprising, it was a re-tasked high school, which was unexpected in itself. Such a modestly-sized town as Clifton Heights not only having two in-use schools but also an unused high school on its outskirts. Converting it into Save-A-Bunch also impressed Shane in its utilitarian efficiency.It hadn’t taken long, however, for another feeling to impress itself upon him as he and Amanda strolled through its labyrinthine hallways, past recliners, sofas and armoires. He couldn’t name the sensation, exactly. A nagging sense of unease? Discomfiture? An odd displacement which made everything feel slightly out of place?He didn’t know what it was. Something about the old school’s halls—now lined with refurbished and used furniture of all kinds—set him slightly off kilter. He didn’t know why. Everything looked clea
Things You Need 7.
7.I laid thelast page down on the pile strewn at my feet. I slumped where I sat next to the word processor—a Texas Instruments 8010—and covered my face with my hands. The instant darkness made me sleepy.So tired.Of everything. My job. My life. Driving from school to school. Doing my shuck and jive to get kids selling magazines, kids who half the time didn’t give a rat’s ass. Tired of them, tired of the same motels, the same cars so alike I couldn’t remember anything about them, the same old bar whores. I was tired of the whole damn game.That’s why I’d bought the .38, of course. I’m sure yousaw that coming a mile away. How could I have missed it? It was right in front of my face. Had been for over a year. How many times can you sit in your motel room—or cabin—and cradle the gun you bought for “personal protection” before you get the message, loud and clear?Anyway, sitting before a pile of paper spit out by a Texas Instruments word processor, on which was written a
