HOLLOW SUNSET BREATH by Greg Lammers

The tribes raped and murdered each other and those with no faction (and so enemies of all the various righteous), and they burned the city which they as one people had built together not long before.

He didn’t know the time or day, all the clocks were stopped.

He stumbled through quiet smoking streets – row upon row of gray busted concrete, bricks, pipes, wire, and rebar.

Muffled sobbing was the first human sound he heard.

He followed it to a woman kneeling in an exploded structure. He held out his hand. She looked up at him, wiped her face with one hand and with her other hand took his.

A man and a woman walked away from the ruins to begin again, as they had countless times before.

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JOCKO'S EXPLODING EXORCISM by Greg Lammers

Dara put the last of the dishes in the cabinet.

“Mommy, the old lady looked at me real mean and pointed toward the door. She said my room isn’t my room.”

“Well, that wasn’t very nice of her. She should learn some manners and be nicer to people.” Dara replied with a stifled chuckle.

Emma followed Dara around the kitchen telling her about the latest antics of the old lady that appeared in her room and was not very nice to the 4-year-old occupant.

“Mommy, her eyes glowed. It was scary.” “Oh gosh!” replied her Mom in mock horror, “How do you think she managed that?!” “Oh, she’s from the other side,” replied the little girl.

Dara stopped and looked down into Emma’s face, “From the other side? Where did you hear that?” She eyed the girl suspiciously, her patience growing thinner.

“She told me. She said she was from the other side and she told me to get out and take you and Daddy with me.”

“Okay Emma, that’s enough. The old woman isn’t real, the other side isn’t real, and you, me, and Daddy aren’t going anywhere.”

“But Mommy I…”

“Hey Dara, how about another beer?” The booming voice intruded from the door leading from the kitchen out to the porch. Jocko’s request was intended to achieve two goals: 1) to obtain another drink and 2) aggravate his friend Travis’s wife. He knew Dara didn’t like being asked to fetch drinks, so he took great pleasure in making frequent and loud requests.

“You know where it is, get it yourself!” She yelled, mouthing the word “Asshole” at the end of her reply. A few years earlier, before Emma, she would have yelled every part of the reply, including the asshole.

He laughed and walked through the kitchen, making a playful grab for Emma’s shoulder, which the little girl easily dodged with a squeal of delight.

Jocko grabbed a beer out of the fridge, opened it and took a long gulp. He grabbed another with his free hand and walked to the door.

“Thanks, for nothing,” he called to Dara over his shoulder as the door was closing. She rolled her big brown eyes.

She finished up and grabbed herself a beer out of the fridge, “C’mon Emma, let’s go hang out with the men.”

Emma and Dara walked out onto the porch to find Travis leaned back in his oversized camping chair, his head tossed back about as far as it would go, laughing at the story Jocko was recounting.

Dara immediately recognized the story. She’d heard it now she reckoned about 40,000 times, give or take. It involved copious amounts of alcohol, a strip club, and a bucket of frogs newly liberated from the river.

Jocko took a drag on his Marlboro, pulled the cigarette out of his mouth with his right hand, exhaled and continued, “The tall brunette, the one that never moved much, Man she was headed out toward the door with those frogs hopping after her!”

Travis was nearly choking with laughter at the remembered story. Dara could see the tears rolling across his face, out from behind the edge of his Oakleys.

Jocko was waving his right hand between himself and Travis, illustrating the movement of the tall brunette in flight. Dara’s animal-mommy vision zeroed in on a spark falling from the end of his cigarette in slow motion.

The cardboard box with the fireworks was sitting at Jocko’s boot-clad feet. “Buy One Get Four Free!” He’d yelled when he arrived earlier that afternoon carrying the box and a 12 pack. Dara watched the slow-motion cherry land in the box.

“Shit!” She yelled continuing the slow-motion motion theme as she grabbed Emma and lit toward the yard, not caring in that instant if the little girl repeated the word later.

“Oh it won’t catch!” Jocko laughed at his friend’s wife. He glanced down into the box to see the fuses for the roll of 2,000 firecrackers burning.

“Shit!” He yelled at Travis. They were both out of their chairs in an instant, following Dara and Emma.

The firecrackers began popping and then picked up speed, rapid firing for what seemed like an hour, though it was a little less than that. Then the pops slowed and stopped.

The 4 stood between Jocko’s and Travis’s trucks. Emma cried a little but quieted down when she was told it was okay. She’d been around fireworks before.

Then a fountain caught fire. Sparks showered the box and the newly stained porch decking around it. This caught a number of bottle rockets which took off in all directions.

It was one of these bottle rockets that Dara watched sail up over the porch rail and make what seemed to her an unnatural turn toward Emma’s open bedroom window. Dara’s mind raced to the prospect of a fire in the house, the old farmhouse that she and Travis had spent so much time and money fixing up. There wasn’t a jury in the county, or any surrounding county that would deem her guilty of Jocko’s murder if her farmhouse burned.

There was a cacophony of booms and explosions. Then Dara saw something strange.

Covered in flowing black rags and long gray hair whipping every which way, it flew head first out of her daughter’s bedroom window. It flipped in midair, landed on unseen feet, turned and glowered at her with angry red glowing eyes, screamed and vanished.

The house didn’t catch fire. There was no damage at all besides a few marks on the porch and a mess to pick up.

Dara yelled at Jocko. His apologies upon leaving were sheepish and profuse. He returned the next morning before the family woke up and picked up the yard.

He didn’t come around much for a couple of weeks. One Friday night Travis told Dara that he was headed into town to meet his childhood friend Jackson – the one he’d nicknamed Jocko when they were little – at a bar.

She looked at him for a long minute and then sighed. “Oh hell, ask him to come out here,” was her reply.

Later that night, after plates of barbecue and cans of cold beer and a few of the tamer of the old stories, told in unusually muted tones, Jocko again apologized for the firework incident. Travis shrugged it off and mumbled something. Dara said, “Let’s forget about it.”

Jocko smiled at her, “Thanks Dara, that means a lot.” Then he paused before continuing, “So who the hell was that old lady?”

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A MEATY PROPOSAL by Greg Lammers

It was good.

Angela had to admit. The hot dog was good. It was plump and firm, not too dry, not too greasy. Sitting in a store brand bun, with only a thin line of yellow mustard, it was easily the best hot dog she’d had tasted in years.

That wasn’t saying too much though. Angela didn’t care for hot dogs in the least. She could count on one small hand how many of them she’d consumed in her life.

It seemed silly but her lack of appreciation for hot dogs, mixed with her boyfriend Jacob’s unhealthy adoration of them had set off more than one instance of hurt feelings, tension, silence, and eventual wild nights of makeup sex.

She took another bite and stopped. She’d bitten down on something, solid. Angela pulled the mangled section that had just been in her mouth away from the rest.

Sticking out of the remaining hot dog was the tip of a finger topped with a purple nail.

Angela made the kind of face a young woman might make after biting into something unexpected in a hot dog her boyfriend had cajoled her into trying. She shot Jacob a quick look of wrath and pulled the finger out of the dog.

It was a woman’s finger, slender, just about the same size as her own. Besides the purple nail polish (cheap and gaudy Angela thought to herself) the digit sported a not too large, but tasteful diamond ring.

She gasped,”You shit!” She looked at Jacob, tears welling in her big blue eyes.

Jacob dropped to one knee and looked up at her, “Angela, will you spend your life with me and be my bride?”

“Yes,” she responded without hesitation, “Yes!”

She pulled him to his feet and flung herself into his arms. They stood in a tight embrace, for the eternity that two lovers enthralled with a joyous new chapter in their love hold each other.

After they pulled to within arm’s length of one another she looked into her hand. She held up the ring, and the finger it was on.

“Where’d you find it?” She asked.

“I can’t reveal all my romantic secrets,” he responded in a gentle, mocking tone, “It took some time to find a woman with the same size fingers as you.” He smiled to himself. Seeing her reaction – it was all worth it.

“I know you don’t like hot dogs,” he chuckled, “Let’s have a real celebratory dinner.”

He led his fiancée by her hand, newly adorned with her engagement ring, out of their apartment’s tiny kitchen to their bedroom where sat a folding table covered with a pristine white cloth. Upon it, on ice, was their elegantly presented dinner, minus one finger of course.

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A QUICK SUCCESSION OF IMAGES by Greg Lammers

The TV screen hummed and sizzled. Electronic and electromagnetic noise paraded as random bits of light blanketing the surface in hyperactive snow.

The black tennis shoes were kicked lazily in front of the old multi-colored flea market couch. Blue jeans and an old faded red polo shirt lay empty on the threadbare cushions.

The midcentury cone lamp on the old plywood table flickered. If there’d been anyone in the dimly lit room with eyes to see, they might have started at a slight movement in the polo. Roaches and mice weren’t commonly seen in the old place, but one of them could have caused such movement.

The snow kept falling, bouncing and popping in and out of existence on the screen. A form began to take place in the randomness, there was a shape in the noise.

On the couch, the jeans moved now along with the shirt. They bounced and appeared to fill. They took the formation of legs of course, what else would jeans fill with? The legs were short and hairy. The little feet didn’t reach all the way to the frayed cuffs.

Out of the neck of the polo shirt popped the head of Randy Racoon. His little green cap sat lopsided on his furry crown just as it had since he was born on a storyboard in the 1940s.

Randy looked down at the clothes that were filling out with his body. This was amazing, he’d never had a body. He hooted and jumped down off of the couch, nearly tripping over the long jeans. He chuckled and then looked at the now perfectly quiet TV screen.

Staring back at Randy was a confused and horrified Ken Gordon. A bit of potato chip hung out of his gaping mouth. Robbie saluted Ken, “Sorry, it was the only way…” Randy trailed off, giving the man in the TV an apologetic smile. Then the recently embodied Randy Racoon rolled up his new pants and skipped out of the room.

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WHEN FROGGIES GO A- by Greg Lammers

The frogs pounded on the barred doors and shudders. They screamed their croaky screams to be let in. She could hear them thumping against the sides of the house.

She’d have to go to her Dad soon to make it stop. He’d be upset. He would tell her again that he couldn’t keep doing this. He was growing tired, he wasn’t getting enough recuperation time. They’d retreated to this isolated house at the end of a dirt road but sooner or later someone was bound to notice the nearly nightly fires centered around the place, even if those fires only lasted a few seconds.

She’d tell him again that she couldn’t help it. He’d grumble but he knew she was telling him the truth, and he understood her. When he was young his father had moved them from one remote spot to another after repeated fires.

She sat and sobbed. She begged the frogs to go away but they didn’t listen. Once a girl summons lonely dark animal spirits they want nothing more than to be with her. Hordes of Hell-frogs were near impossible to banish but could be dissuaded for a while by ethereal fire. She was lucky to have a fire-wielder for a father – even a tired, grumpy one.

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A LADY AND THE BOYS by Greg Lammers

She walked past the boys – her name for them, though some were near 60. They leaned against and sat upon the crumbling wall in front of their empty lot, their bottles and cans now beside them on the ledge soon to be tossed into the grass among the cinder blocks, traded for others. Cigarette smoke mixed with warm breath in the cold. From above the green and gray military coats and old leather jackets, their eyes followed her. She felt their stares as she might have felt their fingers on her back.

One mumbled something for her. She didn’t need to ask what, she understood. She pulled her black coat’s collar up against her straight black hair, her long white neck, the wind, and their attention.

There was no traffic so she jogged across the intersection against the light.

The next day the same thing – like the day before and the day before that. She rounded the corner past the bar, then the liquor store, the laundromat and then the empty lot, the crumbling wall, the boys. There were the same stares, the same mumbling, that one of them stood to attention as she passed wasn’t lost on her.

The sun hung in the same spot veiled behind a near-twin of yesterday’s cloud when she passed them again. The nods, mumbling, and the rise of the brave one, all reenacted. This time he hollered after her. She looked back, paused, then continued…slower.

He followed her swaying blue jeans across the intersection, down the block and up a crumbling set of steps toward a cracked concrete structure like those on either side. She swung the old door open and strode inside with him on her tail.

Her black boots picked up speed on the stairs. He didn’t expect this acceleration and tried to match it. He wasn’t as fit as in his younger days when he may have matched a young woman up a flight or even two flights of stairs, but he did an admirable job considering the time he’d spent along the wall.

She let herself in a door near the end of the hall. He stopped outside the door for one breath, maybe two, then entered.

The room was empty save for a chair, one leg noticeably askew even to his glazed eye, it sat unoccupied as it had for years. He looked around the corner into the old kitchen, nothing.

He turned at a sound to see her standing before him, he could swear though that she’d just risen from landing as if she’d dropped from the ceiling. Her eyes were deep and brown, thin red lips smiled at him.

Her coat was gone. She wore a red long sleeved dress shirt, open at the collar. He moved toward her, removing his old coat. She stood stone still, allowing his approach.

He reached toward her as he drew near, she moved into him, ran her left hand up around behind his neck, under his long stringy blonde hair. He reflexively tilted his head back at her touch.

A pale right hand stifled the cry from his mouth as elongated canines gouged deep into his throat. His arms flailing uselessly he fell backward onto the dingy carpet and into his own blood, her hungry mouth never leaving him.

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UNDERGROUND REMEMBRANCES by Greg Lammers

I remember you there. You wore black pants and a black vest. Your shirt was a lighter color, perhaps gray. There was a gold pin on your vest.

You smiled but only with your mouth. Your eyes communicated something else. Determination perhaps? Cruelty? Maybe they communicated nothing. Maybe I am only ascribing words to your eyes now, afterward.

There were evenings of talk about things that mattered little and important things too. You told me that you appreciated that even though we were so different we could have calm conversations about anything.

You stood over me, your face a blank. Maybe there was pity there though and I don’t want to admit it now. I imagine my face was one of surprise. The wound was deep and it hurt a lot at first but not for long.

When my eyes closed I lolled my head to the side. You must have been in a hurry for you ran away before I could say goodbye. Maybe you were shocked by the quantity of blood.

The funeral was quick. The clergyman was a competent bullshitter, more competent than some I’ve heard. The things he said of me were outright fictions. I won’t call them lies because I don’t think he believed there to be some truth for him to grab hold of. He may have been correct in that.

Now again I gather strength from the cool Earth. I’ve died many times, been murdered more than once. But I’ve never encountered such a brilliant and complete betrayal as yours. I commend you for fooling a creature who has lived long enough to convince himself that he couldn’t be fooled.

You can be sure though, I will return for you.

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RECURRING BLURRIES AND STICKER SHOCK by Greg Lammers

Kaylee stared at the screen. She held the camera up and took a photo of the wall. She looked back down at the screen. Oh no.

Kaylee’s assignment, along with all the other students in her 5th-grade enrichment class “Exploring Your Environment,” was to take 3 photos of 3 different things they liked at school, and then write a paragraph about each one explaining why they chose to photograph that thing.

Ms. Conrad had issued each of the eight students an inexpensive but reliable digital camera to use for the project. Kaylee’s was blue. There was a “Hello Kitty” sticker on the face right under the flash. Kaylee resisted the temptation to peel it off and leave sticky gunk on the camera, so she ignored the sticker as best she could.

She scrolled through the pictures she’d taken. There were 4 shots of the monkey bars. There were 3 shots of the cafeteria counter where Ms.Svoboda, who was so kind to Kaylee worked. The first 6 pictures Kaylee’d taken were of the gym where she played foursquare and basketball with her friends.

She sighed, not a usable picture in the bunch.

Instead of going to recess after lunch as she normally did, Kaylee went to Ms. Conrad’s room. Ms. Conrad was eating a sliced grapefruit which sat on a paper towel on her desk. She looked up and smiled at the girl,

“Hi Kaylee.” “Hi Ms. Conrad. Ms. Conrad, something is wrong with my camera.” “Oh?” Ms. Conrad asked. “Yes. See, there is a blur in every shot I take. It looks kind of like a person, or a monkey…or even a hot dog with arms.” Kaylee and Ms. Conrad both giggled. “Let’s see if we can make out what it is if we expand the image,” Ms. Conrad suggested.

Ms. Conrad fished in her desk drawer and pulled out a cable. Kaylee gave her the camera which she plugged into the PC.

Ms. Conrad clicked on the folder of the camera’s photos and started scrolling through each one. “See!” Kaylee exclaimed, “There it is.”

Ms. Conrad clicked on a photo and centering the blur, turned the mouse wheel to zoom in on it. The blur grew larger and the teacher and student saw that it was a person. With one or two more turns of the wheel, the face came into focus.

Kaylee gasped! Ms. Conrad chuckled, “Kaylee Nilsson, you’re playing a trick on me!” “No, that’s so…I don’t know what happened. Honest!” Kaylee stammered, staring at her own face smiling back at her from the photo.

“Here,” said Ms. Conrad, bemused, “I’ll get you a different camera, maybe this one will capture clearer images for you.” She pulled her hulking set of keys from her gigantic purse, and went to a locked cabinet, opening it with a little silver key among the seemingly hundreds on the ring. She pulled another little digital camera much like the first one Kaylee had used from a shoebox and handed it to the stunned girl. “There you go, try that one out.”

Kaylee took the camera, started to say something more in her defense, but decided against it, “Thank you Ms.Conrad.”

“You’re welcome Kaylee.”

Kaylee trudged down the hall. Her next class was Math with Mr. Diaz. Kaylee did well in every subject, but Math was not her favorite. She was confused and a little upset by the pictures and her interaction with Ms. Conrad. Kaylee had taken the pictures herself. She knew she wasn’t in them.

She had a tough time paying attention in math class. They were working with fractions. She was familiar enough with the use of fractions not to get lost, even though she didn’t listen to as much of what Mr. Diaz said as he might have liked.

After Math was Music class. Kaylee enjoyed music and the singing transported her mind away from the strange pictures in the other camera. By the time Music was over she was cutting up with some of her friends, enough to get a long look of reproach from Ms. Fleming. Kaylee straightened up after that but she still shot Emma a funny face and they giggled, just a little.

After school, Kaylee stayed for Exploration Club until her Dad picked her up. She got permission to take her camera and get her photos for the assignment. She took photos of all the places she had that morning. When she scrolled through them they were all clear and in focus, nothing blurry in or about them.

Her Dad picked her up at the usual time and they headed home. “How was your day?” He asked, as usual. “Okay,” she replied. She went on to talk a little about what they were singing in music class. She didn’t mention the camera or the weird photos, she didn’t think he would believe that she hadn’t engineered them herself. She was starting to wonder if somehow she really had put herself in them.

They got home. Kaylee went to the kitchen to get a glass of milk. As she sat down with her glass and a book about whales her Dad walked in. He was carrying his briefcase which he reached into. “Hey, Kaylee,” he said pulling out a couple of sheets of paper. “These wound up in the office today. Doug, you remember Doug? The big funny guy that runs our shipping dept? He remembered you and asked if you might want them.”

He dropped the papers on the table. In front of her were two sheets of brand new “Hello Kitty” stickers, including 4 of the one someone had put on Ms. Conrad’s camera.

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THE NEW KID AT LUNCH by Greg Lammers

The new kid sat by himself at a corner table staring expressionless at the wall. He took regular bites of his sandwich. He chewed with his mouth open. His stringy hair fell down to his clothes which looked old and in need of some repair. They hung loose around his thin frame.

Ethan was almost running, carrying his tray back toward the kitchen. He dropped the tray on top of the others like it. He would have to hurry to catch his friends already outside.

He saw the new kid sitting by himself.

“Hi, my name is Ethan,” he said as he sat down across from the smaller boy. “What’s your name?”

The boy’s gray eyes moved to look at Ethan. His eyes didn’t meet Ethan’s eyes though, they seemed to be focused above his head, or maybe his forehead. He said nothing.

“I just wanted to introduce myself,” continued Ethan, “we’re playing undead monsters outside if you want to play when you’re done.”

The new kid smiled and hummed to himself “hmmm.” He continued to look just above Ethan’s eyes like he was remembering an event from long ago or thinking about a toy, or favorite food, or game he might like.

“Okay, nice to meet you. Maybe we’ll see you outside,” Ethan said over his shoulder as he stood and turned to leave.

The new kid watched Ethan walk away. He looked down at his sandwich and took another bite. He felt happy. He’d met someone in his new school. He’d been in many schools in 120 years, this one seemed nice. Plus, his Mom had packed his favorite sandwich again today, the blood seeped into the bread just like he liked.

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IF NOT A WARNING, AT LEAST A SPEEDY DELIVERY by Greg Lammers

He had to warn them.

He ran out of the old shed, nearly tripping over a plank lying on the hard earthen ground. A nail sticking up might have gone through his foot. He looked down at his old brown boot, no, it must not have pierced him, there would be blood and pain.

He’d heard others coming up the trail. They were laughing, making noise. He could hear them through the trees, “oooooooo” went the male voice, “Stop it!” replied the female.

He almost tripped again, this time over a tendril of a withered tree winding across the path. A limb of a thorn tree grazed his forehead, no blood this time either. He was lucky or agile, he’d go with “agile,” a little joke his mind allowed him.

He could hear their voices growing louder. He was heading in the right direction. “Hey,” he tried to combine a whisper and a yell through the trees at them. “Hey, shut up!” There was no reply other than their continued laughter.

A screech echoed off of the trees near him. He looked up and saw a big black bird looking down at him. He could have sworn it wore a mocking grin. This place was getting to him. He’d been out on this old farm too long.

He ducked under a branch, “Hey!” He wasn’t more than a dozen feet from them now. They stopped and looked at him with open mouths. They’d thought they were alone out here, after all, couples didn’t come out here to not be alone.

The dead grass and leaves crunched on the other side of them. His heart sank, it was too late. The young man and woman followed his gaze to the tall figure on their other side. He had heard them too.

The tall man smiled, “I guess you’ll want to take care of it fast, Ted.”

Ted sighed. He could see the pliers, picks, and hammers hanging off of Quinton’s belt.

“Yeah,” he said, pulling out his pistol as he stepped closer to the pale-faced and wide-eyed couple, “I guess so.”

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