Dangerous Lines: A Search for a Beloved Heart

Well, here we. Again, I decided to participate in another Stewart Sternberg assignment. This story came out so smooth it was scary. I've had it happen before with a few stories I've written in the past, but this was a first in a while. It was great to feel that ease as I saw what my story was trying to lead me to. To feel so free!Thanks Stewart! Thanks everyone for taking the time to look. And remember, this goes for all my work, be honest about this. I like honesty.

Dangerous Lines: A Search for a Beloved Heart


Is there a set time for a person’s death? Could it be that there is some force, some being out there that knows every person’s life span, and what they will die from? And is it this being, this force, which decides our fates? Well…

Yes, and no.

I turned to Val, my half brother, and scowled at him. He knew nothing of what it was to be human. And yet he insisted on tormenting me about all its faults. Humans die, humans get ill easily, humans can’t fly, and so on.

I was able to fly once upon a time, before my choice; I had wings. The choice to remain as I was, a creature that flew the night skies and feasted upon terror and anarchy. What was I, you ask? Well, not a vampire, if that’s what you thought. No. I…was a demon; one in a million that skimmed through this world’s shadows to literally fuck up human existence. I used to love it. Until I fell in love. Yes. I hear you scoffing right now. Demons don’t know how to love. True, but we can learn. Once I met Angela, I began to learn. We’ve been together for six years.

Val scowled back, his leathery wings folding up to hide behind his back. I needed no words of his anger. I saw his trembling fists, his cold red eyes on my new blue ones.

“You betrayed us all!” Val burst out as he stalked toward me. I held up a hand.

“Far enough, brother.” I said.

Val growled. His eyes like fiery orbs in the night. My own eyes had turned blue my second year with my dearest Angela. My dark gray skin was now a dark tan. Even my fangs have gone. I’m more human than I ever hoped to be. And I’m still changing.

Val stopped. All he’d have to do was swipe out with one claw and that would be the end of me. Yet, he remained a goodish distance away. Who said demons were all action and no talk?

He thrust one long talon capped finger at me.

“You left us for one of them! The very creatures we’re trying to kill! How could you be so fucking stupid?”

“I love her.” I said, as if that explained everything.

Val roared and rushed at me. I held up a hand again, not afraid. And he stopped. This surprised me as much as I was surprised when I found demons could learn to love. But, in the end, Val would surely kill me. He has displayed a great deal of self control, but it was fading fast.

Val sighed.

“Let her go. Come with me and the Lord might give you back your wings.”

“No.” I said and shook my head. “I can’t. If you were to love, you’d understand.”

I could tell by the way Val’s red eyes glowed hotter that that little piece of advice, or whatever it was, enraged him greatly. He stood nearly a foot away from me now, face to face. I could feel the cold radiating off him and shivered. HE must have seen this because he grinned.

“Come back and you’ll never have to feel again.”

“No!” Shouted into his face.

Val recoiled a little and then his flat, ape-like nose was pressed against mine. He was so cold that I could feel my new skin blistering. His fangs were bared. Not good. I backed away just enough to relieve my burning nose.

“Then you’ll die as you are, weak.” Val said.

“Rather that than die as you are. A monster.” I said, wanting to rub my hurt nose, but not daring to with Val so close. I didn’t want to show him just how weak I had become. But humans do have their strengths, oh yes, and I knew of one Val didn’t.

I gave him the kindest smile I could muster. He cringed back, frowning at me.

“What-“ He began, and then I said.

“I love you too, Val, my brother.”

To this, Val looked sick, he backed away from me, gagging. I stepped forward, meaning to say just how much I love him, which was false, of course, when he straightened and charged toward me, claws out, fangs snapping. He was going to kill me now.

Yet, he stopped a couple feet away from me, snarling like a rabid dog.

“Don’t you ever say that to me again! I’ll kill you if you do!” Val said.

“Go away, Val.” I said. “Go away, I’m happy now.”

“You’re fucking brain washed! How do you know if you’re happy or not? Huh? How do you know how to love?”
I smiled.

“I learned.” I said.

“Fuck you!” Val screamed into my face. His breath was like a dangerous gas. Mustard, perhaps.

Val was so angry he couldn’t stop from trembling all over. I knew what he wanted to do, so why didn’t he do it? Why not just end it all? What was holding him back?

“You’re a disgrace to what we are!” Val boomed. He pushed me, hard, but I managed to keep my balance.

The old rage bloomed in me just then. I glared at him and roared.

“You have no right to touch me! Go away!”

The creature that was my half brother, growled and we began to move in a slow circle eyes fixed on one another. Then-

“Will what’s-“

The sound of the back screen door slapping shut an her words made me freeze where I stood. Val’s eyes, those wretched eyes, flickered passed me. HE looked at me again, and grinned.

“No.” I told him, but his grin lengthened.

“Don’t you touch her.” I said.

Val leaned closer to me, his grin like a dark cut sliced ear to ear.

“You will come back to us, Will.” He said to me.

He flashed passed me so fast I didn’t have time to realize it until after it had happened. Then I heard her scream, my wife, my life. Angela. I whirled on legs that felt like stacked water balloons. My heart clenched.

Val held her in the air above our back deck. He laughed.

Then, they vanished. Just like that…gone.

“Aaannnggelaaaa!” I cried. I raced to the porch.

Gone, gone. They were gone. Suddenly I knew why my half brother did not attack me, why he restrained himself from killing me.

“Because there are other ways to kill.” I murmured.

I sent my sight to the sky. My Lords have changed since I met Angela. I now worshiped the one from the Heavens. The other, that bowel sucking serpent, was mostly to blame for taking my dear Angela.

A few minutes later I went into the house, packed some clothes into a duffel bag, grabbed all the money from Angela’s purse and the small safe we kept in our office, and left the place I have called home for six years.

The night was warm, somber. As my shoes made soft scuffing clacks on the pavement, I brought up a fresh image of my Angela. Sweet, caring, loving, perfect.

I would find them, Val and my beloved wife, even if it took me eternities to do so. I would find them.

The End

Renewal: A Baby's Cry

I want to take time out right now from the Fairy story to reveal a Stewart Sternberg assignment. Part 4 of The Fairy will be posted either Thursday or Friday. Enjoy!


She killed her baby without realizing it. By the time she looked down, saw the pillow crushed over her infant's face, and lifted it off with a horrified shriek, little Becky was dead.

"No." She gasped.
"No, no, no."

She picked the baby up in her arms. She gave her mouth to mouth. The baby didn't so much as twitch or whimper. Little Becky was dead. Tears cascaded down Holly's face.

"No." Holly repeated. She placed her daughter's body back in the crib.

"Oh Jesus." She looked around the nursery as if seeing it for the first time. The walls capered with Looney Tunes characters. Here Bugs Bunny leaning against a mail box, chomping ona carrot. There Tasmanian Devil whirling, nothing visible but a foot here and a hand there, and his devilish eyes.

Holly didn't even remember walking in the nursery in the first place. Last she knew she had been sitting on the couch, watching Days of Our Lives, and crying for no God damn reason. So how the hell did she get up here without being aware of it?

Holly shuddered. Her right eye twitched. Her mouth opened, closed, opened, like a fish finding itself stranded on shore, struggling to breathe. A low moan escaped that fishy mouth. Her heart throbbed monotonously in her chest.

She turned away from her dead baby and left the nursery, eyes vacant, tears streamed her haggard face.

A few minutes later she sat on the living room couch, her husband's 12 gauge shotgun between her legs, muzzle pointed straight up at the ceiling. She wept.

Holly wept for her baby, the one she brought into this world, the same she had taken out. She wept for her husband, Rick. Oh what a good man he was. She wept for herself.

Normally St. Patrick's Day was a fun holiday. And with her being part Irish, she celebrated it full heartedly. This was the first time she ever hated the national holiday.

Holly lowered the barrel, and tilted the gun so the barrels' maw aimed at her head. She sighed, and opened her mouth.

When her teeth clacked against the steel barrel, she began to sob even harder. The taste of gun oil and cold metal filled her mouth. Her tongue quivered. Her eyes floated to the photograph on the wall just to the right of their newly bought plasma TV. Becky, fresh, and still flushed from birth. Her eyes were closed, mouth slightly agape. Her little red lips glistened. Oh God, she had been so beautiful.

Holly slipped off her slipper and brought her foot up to the shotguns' trigger guard, paused, and then slid her big toe through the trigger guard. Her eyes fixed on Becky there on the wall. Tears spilled down her cheeks in mini rivers. Then-

Just before her big toe moved to pull the trigger, a baby began to cry.

Holly froze, holding her breath. Could it be? Was Becky really alive?

Holly wasted no time, she removed the shotgun barrel from her mouth. Her toe slipped away from the trigger and she set her foot down on the coosh carpet. Heart thrumming wildly, she put the gun down on the couch and stood up.

The crying lifted in volume just then. Oh Jesus, please, she thought as she stumbled out of the living room and to the stairs. There she paused to listen. A smile lengthened on her tear-wet face, because the crying came from upstairs.

She scrambled up the stairs, sobbing with joy.

"I'm coming! I'm coming sweet heart!"

Holly tripped, stumbled down a few steps, got up and raced to the top/ She turned left and stopped. Listening, she knew exactly where the crying was coming from. The nursery. Holly sprinted to the doorway, hesitated, and then ran into the small room. She trotted over to the crib.

"Mommy's here, sweetie. Mommy's-"

Becky still lay as Holly had left her. Lifeless, and still purple, mouth gaping , as if still trying to suck in air. It was from there, that sweet tiny mouth, where the crying came from. Holly backed away, shaking her head.

"No." Oh God. Nooo!"

She backed away until her butt struck the changing table. Holly screamed. She screamed, screamed, her baby was dead, dead, dead, still crying but dead, screamed-

Hon? Hol? Hey!"

She snapped awake, screaming. She sat up.

"Whoa, whoa! Hey! Holly, Holly! Easy!"

Hands groped her, then drew her into a warm, familiar body. The screaming stopped and she glanced around, suddenly lost.

"Shshsh." It was just a nightmare." Her husband, Rick's, voice, soothing, loving.

"Wha-wh-"

"It's okay. you're all righ-"

"Becky! Becky! Oh God!"

Holly burst out of bed. Yes. She was in her bedroom now. It was dark..night. But how? It was around noon when-

"A dream! She cried as she raced down the hall.

From behind her-

"Holly? Quiet you'll-"

"It was a DREAM!" She declared to the gloomy hallway. Tears bulleted down her face, but she didn't care.

She burst into the nursery, flipped on the light. Almost instantly after, a baby began to cry. She stood, watching a small bundled figure as it squirmed. Holly went to the crib, and looked down at the writhing baby. It was Becky, her, Becky, alive; alive and screaming her pretty, sweet head off! What a beautiful baby.

A firm, but very gentle hand, swung her around. Rick stood, frowning, but his eyes revealed only concern, not anger.

"She's alive! She's all right!" Holly shouted over Becky's bawling.

Rick's eyes drifted to their baby in the crib and then back to her.

"Of course she is." He said. Then asked-

"What was your dream about?"

Holly turned to look at her daughter, still crying, and smiled.

"Nothing important." She said.

"What?"

"Nothing!" She shouted, giggling.

Holly went to her baby, and lifted her out of the crib.

-----

Rick stood back, dumbfounded. He watched her cradle Becky and wondered just what that dream had been about. Because Holly hadn't so much as looked at Becky, until tonight. The doctor said she's need a close watching, and time to really see her baby, to love her baby. Now, however...now she pulled out a breast from her nightgown for their baby girl to suck on. And so everything was just fine. Everything was renewed.

Postpartum's a bitch, he thought absently...yes it is.

The End

Kill'em All!

Well, I somehow found time to write this story for a Stewart Sternberg assignment. I didn't think I'd get one done this time around, but I did. It was a quickie but I think it turned out all right. Oh and the drawing goes with the story. There's a scene simlar to it in the work that follows. Thanks. And do remember, I have to take pictures of the drawings with my digital camera so the quality of the drawings aren't always going to be so swell. Sorry.

KILL’EM ALL: 1982


Max popped the new cassette tape into his boom box and pressed down the PLAY button. There came a moment where nothing happened, and then, oh, and then, the fastest, most radical music lashed out of the speakers at him.
He sat there on the floor of his bed room, rapt, absolutely absorbed in what hammered out of those speakers. He couldn’t move and his temples pulsed with blood to the beat of frantic drums. His breathing paused as the heavy, gritty and insanely fast guitar riffs licked and screamed at the air and into his teen ears. The air around him felt thick in itself, sweaty almost. A ghostly smile lengthened on his pimply face.
If he’d known the music was going to be this intense, this intoxicating, then maybe he should’ve bought the tape when all his friends did. Man this was totally kickin shit! This-

“Max!” At first he didn’t even really hear his father scream. Then-

“Max! Turn that shit off! Open this door! Now!”

But Max found he still couldn’t move. He was digging the music, oh yeah, digging it baby. His head throbbed wondrously. Christ it was like being high or something, even though he had no idea what that felt like yet. But if had gotten high he imagined this was what it felt like. Beautiful. Absolutely-

“Max!”

Max came back to himself with a start. The door to his bedroom trembled on its hinges. He reached over. Hit the STOP button, and sighed. He already longed to hear that thunderous music again. He reached out to hit the PLAY button again, but-

“Max, you open this door right now so help me, or I’ll bust it in.” His dad’s voice was low, and ominous.

He got up off the floor and unlocked his door.
His dad, a tall, thin man with a bushy mustache, stormed in.

“What in Christ’s name was that crap I heard?”

Max cleared his throat, opened his mouth and-

“Tell me! What the fuck was that crap I heard?”

“I-uh-“

Max’s dad strode to the boom box without warning, and ejected the new cassette tape. He held it in his hands and scowled down at it as if was some rotten slab of meat. His broad forehead furrowed.

“Met-all-ica? Who’s that supposed to be? Metallica? Sounds like a bunch a coke heads makin a bunch a noise to me. Why the hell you go’n get something like this for, huh? Why waste your money?”

He brandished the tape at Max as he spoke.

“This is crap, Maxi. Why can’t you listen to some good ole Johnny Cash, or, I don’t know, Bruce Springsteen? Why this shit?”

Max could only shrug. All he knew was that he liked the music he heard from that defenseless tape in his dad’s large hands. He loathed Johnny Cash and hated The Boss. All that country and pop music made him want to gag. But this, this, why, this music was different. It was revitalizing, energizing.
His dad rolled his eyes, pulled up a loop of tape from the cassette, slipped one callused finger through the loop, and yanked. Foot upon foot spun out and on to the floor.

“Dad no!” Max rushed forward.

His dad gave him a rough shove backward.

“Get back max! This is for your own good!”

His dad snapped the plastic cassette in two. Shards of plastic rained to the carpet. Max froze in a state bordering horror. His dad gave Max a somber look, sighed and dropped the ruined cassette on the floor amongst the rest of the ruin. HE then left the room without speaking.
Once his father was gone, Max hurried over and knelt before the mess that used to be his brand new cassette tape by a new band called Metallica. Ten bucks down the drain. He mowed all those lawns, for what? This? To sit here looking at a broken tape?

“Shouldn’t have played it so loud.” He murmured to himself without being aware of it.

This probably wouldn’t have mattered anyway. His dad had ears like a dog and could possibly even hear if Max let loose a fart.
Max gathered up the remains of the cassette tape and tossed it in the small trash can by his night stand. As he stood there looking down at the mess rage bubbled up inside of him. Who was his dad to tell him what he could and could not listen too? IT wasn’t like the old man had bought the tape for him.
He looked in his wallet. All he found was a five dollar bill. Not enough to by another copy. It was enough, though, to buy a used David Bowie tape. But Max didn’t much care for David Bowie. The guy was good, sure, but just not something he liked to listen too all the time. Might as well just save the five and mow a few more lawns to make another five dollars and then re-buy the new cassette from the music store down town; a new band called Metallica. What a cool name too: Metallica. And the title of the tape he liked too: Kill’em All. Good stuff.
So, Max went out to mow some lawns.
By six that evening he came home, sweaty, hot and with two extra dollars to his name. His dad had gone off somewhere. His mom was finishing up dinner. No one had really needed their lawns to be mowed today. He went straight his room, turned on the fan and sat in front of it. As the sweat cooled on his skin, giving him goose bumps, he heard a faint click! sound. He ignored it and let the fan continue to cool him down. That’s when the strangest thing happened.
Music began to rumble out of his boom box on the night stand. Startled, Max whirled on the end of his bed. The boom box continued to hammer out music. Heavy music. Metal music. But…
No, that couldn’t be. The cassette was broken, the tape ruined, how-

“Scanning the scene in the city tonight! Lookin for you to start up a fight! There’s an evil feeling in our brains, it’s nothing new, you know it drives us insane!” Screamed the vocalist for that new band Metallica.

Max’s heart trip-hammered in his chest. He moved off the end of his bed and looked in the trash can. The ruined tape was gone. His eyes fixed on the boom box.
Five minutes later Max sat, one ear tilted to the closest speaker of the boom box. Silvery saliva drooled out from one corner of his mouth. His eyes stared off into nothingness, wide and vacant. His mouth stood agape and what looked like blood spattered the side of his face nearest the boom box. This reddish liquid also poured and sprayed out in pulses to the heavy metal music still pounding the air. The claret dripped from the edge of the night stand to the floor. Most of what used to be Max was nothing more than a husk now.
An hour later his mother was calling him down for dinner. He heard his father screaming for him to shut the shit off, damn it, shut it off right now! Ah, but he couldn’t shut it off. He loved the music. The music was the world. The music gave him true life!
After a few minutes, Max finally stood from the floor and shuffled toward the door of his bedroom. He knew what to do. The music told him what to do. The music was God, and he must always obey God.
He paused. Some of the real Max tried to push itself back in. He realized that he was carrying a mini sledge hammer in his right hand. He noted the blood all over the night stand. Then he was pushed back again and the music took over for good.
Max opened the door, and went to join his family for supper. He knew what to do. The music told him. He’d Kill’em All!

The End

Head Rush

Head Rush


I sent her roses by the dozens and poems by the thousands. Yet still she doesn’t acknowledge my existence. I know she knows who I am. But I don’t think she realizes what a swell guy can be; that I can treat her better than any of the other more attractive men can; those filthy swine that are only after one thing. Well, tonight I’ll show her Max Quinton isn’t just some crazy man. I’ll show her what those men really want from her. Then maybe she’ll see why I am the best of them all.
Despite even my blasted dislocated eyeball.
It dangles there on its stalk now, the heavy wetness of my eyeball resting on my cheek. I hate it when it does this. And oh how it hurts when I’ve got to shove it back into its socket. I do so now, as I sit in my car across the street from her apartment. I do it in one quick gesture so it won’t hurt as bad. The eyeball goes in with an audible wet popping sound. I roll my eyes, adjusting it better in the socket and then I get out of the car. I’ve got a job to do tonight.
I look up and spot her current lover and her in the single window of her apartment. They appear to be dancing. Well, they won’t be for long. I climb the short thatch of stairs to the apartment building’s front doors. I enter.
Her apartment is on the second floor, third door on the right. Number 10C. I stop here, staring at the closed door and praying I don’t find them doing anything nasty when I come in. That just might drive me over the edge.
I take out the straight razor I bought at the old drug store south of town, from my jacket pocket. I open it. The blade gleams in the soft light of the corridor. I take a deep breath, turn to the door mark 10C and kick it open.
Rushing in and find them on the floor, her hair in disarray and his jeans unbuttoned. I scream and rush at them, swinging the straight razor in long quick slashes. The girl I love scrambles off the man, the sickening swine and runs to her bedroom and closes the door. The man, the swine, only has time to sit up before I slit his forehead in two. He screams in pain as blood flows out of the gash and into his eyes. The lower part of the gash flaps down to his eyebrows.
Oh, but what’s this? He’s getting up now. His screams are gone. Now I see rage in his bloody eyes. This doesn’t frighten me a bit. I sucker punch him with my free hand directly in the nose. Blood splatters everywhere. I giggle as he crumbles to the floor. Now I must show my love what a swine he really is.
I grab onto the collar of his shirt and drag him to the closed door. I can hear her sobbing. I knock on the door.
“Leave me alone! I called the cops on you! They’re-“
“Open the door my love.” I say. “This swine has something to tell you.”
Said swine is moaning and moving. She doesn’t open the door so I kick it in. She’s standing near her tiny closet, weeping like a lost child.
I set the swine on the bed and slap him to wake him up. He screams and I slap him again. He calms down enough for me to speak.
“Now,” I say. “Tell her why you’re here tonight.”
He glances at the woman and then back at me.
“I don’t-“ I slap him again.
“You do know. Why are you here tonight? What did you plan to do?”
“Nothing! I-“
This time I run the razor down his cheek. He shrieks and yells.
“To screw her! Just to screw her and leave!”
“That’s what I thought.” I say and turn to her.
“See? He only wants you for one thing.”
She looks at the man on the bed, then at me. Her crying has tapered off a little. I nod, turn to the swine and slit his throat.
That done I turn to her. She’s screaming now. But that’s okay. I saw in her eyes how diluted she really is. My love is a slut. She knew why the swine was here.
I advance toward her, straight razor lifting. I think I’ll cut off her face. My eyeball has popped out again, but I ignore it, for now.

The End

This was my take on Stewart Sternberg's assignment. And I might add I had a lot of fun with it.