Shell of the Nut

Blood Hound

The detective’s assistant stood alone on the moor, etched in silver by the full moon’s light. His breath, which came in short, distressed puffs, froze before his eyes and mingled with the blue scraps of fog that drifted lugubriously over the moor.

He flexed his fingers around the cold steel barrel of his rifle. Not, actually, his rifle, but the American’s. He — the detective’s assistant — had picked it up from the ground where it lay beside the American, whose throat had been torn out, supposedly by the dreaded demon dog. If the local legend was true, the American would be the eleventh victim claimed by the beast. It was this very legend which had summoned the detective and his assistant to the cursed Scottish manor.

The assistant waited on the moor for his friend, the detective, as instructed. His heart pounded in his chest. He had spoken to the American not an hour ago, when the detective instructed them to take up positions on the moor and await his signal. Sometime between then and now, the American had been brutally murdered — if not, in fact, by some strange beast, then certainly by something. Or someone. Someone who was likely still out here, and the detective’s assistant feared he might become Victim Number Twelve — if the detective himself hadn’t all ready succumbed to that grim fate. Lucky number thirteen, then, the assistant thought to himself as he stood, shivering, on the lonely moor, his ears pricked up for sound — the detective’s signal, whatever it was to be, or footfalls indicating the approach of some unfriendly thing. His eyes strained to penetrate the fog.

He turned with a start. Was that a twig snapping? He held his breath and listened. No other sound came except the silent slithering of fog coiling around wet, black boulders. The assistant shifted his grip on the rifle, and remembered how he had scoffed at the American’s insistence on loading it with bullets fashioned of silver. The American had heard stories of man-eating wolf monsters that could only be killed with a silver bullet shot through the heart. But the assistant — a doctor, and friend to a consulting detective — was a man of logic and did not for a second believe such bilge. Still… He noted now how he clutched the American’s rifle in his sweaty palms, preferring it to his own army revolver. Just in case, he thought. Better safe than—

His thought was cut short by a piercing howl that made his blood run cold in his veins. The assistant readied the American’s rifle and scanned the horizon, finding nothing but pale pools of milky fog.

“Ha-hallo?” The assistant’s voice fell flat at his feet. He took a step backward, thought better of it and whirled around, taking aim with the rifle — at nothing.

Again, the ghastly howl, louder now. Nearer.

Over the blood rushing in his ears, the assistant thought he could discern a scuffling sound, as of padded toes rapidly striking the ground. Then — yes, he was certain now — the sound of heavy, ragged breathing, as of an animal. A throaty, slobbery huffing sound, getting nearer.

The assistant spun around, trying to get a fix on the direction of the sound. Just then, a curtain of fog some fifty yards in the distance swirled and parted, and a huge hulking beast — nearly the size of a pony! — stood glowering at the assistant with awful yellow eyes that glowed like carriage lamps. The creature struck a bristly dark silhouette, but even at that distance the assistant could make out its bared teeth, featuring a pair of large, menacing fangs. Fangs capable of tearing open a man’s throat, to be sure.

As the assistant raised the quivering rifle, the beast sprang forward. The assistant stilled his breathing and took aim, summoning all his military experience as the beast rapidly closed the distance between them. The beast leapt, flying at the assistant’s throat, and the assistant fired. The gun’s recoil knocked the assistant onto the frozen ground, but he heard the animal yip, and he knew his shot had found its target.

The assistant scrabbled to his feet, ready to discharge the second barrel if the beast was not sufficiently deterred by the first. A dark heap lay on the ground in a tangle of fog, like a black iceberg in a white sea.

“I got it!” the assistant shouted, hoping the detective was within earshot and near enough to reach the spot quickly.

Slowly, cautiously, the assistant approached the motionless heap, the rifle trained on the heap’s center. His breath caught in his throat and his eyes widened in horror when he peered into the tangle of fog.

There, his black blood seeping out from a wound in his chest, was the detective.

“Good man,” the detective wheezed. “Good man.”

The assistant was too stunned to form words. His mouth merely flapped silently.

“I have been terribly cursed, as you now know. Better that the medicine be dispensed by a physician, eh?” The detective chuckled mirthlessly, and blood leaked out of his mouth. “I knew you could do it. Dead shot, old boy. Not like that oafish American chap…” He coughed — a terrible, bubbly-sounding affair. “I preferred a friend to break the curse, anyway. Thank you. Thank you…”

The detective, returned to his human form, then shut his eyes and expired on the very moor that he had terrorized.

[904 words]

Fearless,

that is the kind of men they were: when César Ramírez charged across the empty dust road brandishing his knife, The Man pushed away from the porch post and sauntered into the road to face him, hands hanging loosely at his sides like a gunfighter’s, but he wasn’t wearing guns because there was a sign on the outskirts of town and the Sheriff had everyone’s guns locked up in a cabinet in the jailhouse (César kept a knife hidden in his boot), but the fact that The Man was unarmed wasn’t the only reason his fearlessness was so disconcerting; it was also because The Man was rail-thin and in a clean white suit more befitting a sermon than a brawl, and finally because The Man — worn like an old Spanish coin — was easily two decades older than Ramírez, but his fearlessness did not deter Ramírez, who was also fearless and only kept coming, muscles coiled, his mind blurred with the bloody image of his slaughtered friend, Gomez — carcass bleeding on the wooden planks, throat slit open — which of course had been the work of The Man, César knew, because he had watched the quiet stranger ever since he rode into town three days prior, and the way he ambled so easily about when all others went around so cautiously was unmistakably sinister, and so to avenge Gomez’s death, Ramírez took a hard swipe at The Man’s jugular with his knife when he was close enough — but all at once the motionless hands of The Man came to life and there was a tangle of limbs and a swift muscular twist and the ground was kicked out from under Ramírez like a stool and the next thing he knew he was on his back, dust choking him like the rough hangman’s noose, and he was blinking up at the big yellow sky and The Man was explaining why he was going to spare César’s life: because The Man was forming a posse to go out to Mesa to do someone else’s dirty-work, and it couldn’t be done without César — Fastest Draw South of the Rio Grande — on their side, and eventually César agreed (the poor devil), but when push came to shove out in Mesa, when César found himself facing the mouth of a blazing Remington rifle, a strange thing happened and the Fastest Draw South of the Rio Grande couldn’t get his Colt out quick enough, and later in the cantinas, when everyone was drinking and telling stories, people would ask what happened to César Ramírez out there in Mesa — why, out of six fearless men who had gone out, had he been the only one not to come back alive? — and The Man wouldn’t say anything, he would only take a long pull from his bottle of beer, the kind of pull that says, That’s what happens to a man who thinks he’s immortal, when he charges you with a knife and gets thrown into the middle of the road like a sack of feed.

[507 words]

Box of Stories: A Tale in 6 Sides

1.

Scott Edison puts an ad on the internet: “Lot: 1 shoebox full of unused and unusual story ideas. Bidding starts at $500.”

2.

Diana Pritcher knows Scott Edison from a writing workshop some years ago. She remembers that he was full of intriguing premises, but that his execution of them often fell short of their potential. By contrast, Diana can write beautifully about something as dull as a ball of dryer lint, but she often wishes she could think up more compelling plot lines. She remembers wishing she had access to Scott Edison’s mind. And now, it seems she has.

Diana has recently come into some money (an aunt passed away). She bids $10,000 for Scott’s shoebox, and wins.

3.

Will Fleetwood is convinced that he is a conduit for ideas. He has lots of ideas about things that someone else later goes on to make a reality. Someone that Will doesn’t know, never spoke to; they just suddenly seem to have his same idea.

He never writes his ideas down. He doesn’t see the point. He fixates on a particular idea for a while, maybe even tries to write a screenplay based on it. Then he will hear about someone else’s project, based on almost exactly the same idea — sometimes exactly the same idea, and Will abandons his project and moves on to the next thing. It is as if he’s a radio-tower, broadcasting his ideas into the ether, to be picked up by other, quicker, more productive artists.

He has claimed, “Hey, I thought of that first!” so many times that his friend, a playwright, has begun to believe him, and won’t talk to him about his ideas for future plays, lest Will unintentionally beam them out for others to snap up.

4.

Scott Edison sees Diana Pritcher everywhere: on the New Fiction table at the bookstore; on best-seller lists; on the Today Show.

She never mentions the box in interviews, but Scott can recognize his ideas, just as a mother would be able to recognize her children. In the past two years, there have been five novels and a dozen short stories scattered across various publications. All of them are based in part or in whole on an idea from Scott’s shoebox. A stunning rate of output, but Scott knows there are far more than 17 good ideas in that box.

Scott reads everything Diana Pritcher writes. It’s good. She’s good. She could make a ball of dryer lint interesting, but Scott’s ideas are better than dryer lint.

His old crush on Diana flares up again. He emails her: “Congratulations on all your success! I would love to buy you a coffee to celebrate, and catch up…”

He wonders if she’s still a lesbian?

5.

Diana Pritcher, still a lesbian, rides the #5 bus. She sits placidly enough on a plastic seat, her purse in her lap, her hands on top of that, her cell phone in one hand. But her nostrils flare, belying her rage. How dare that little shit suggest her latest novel — “Her greatest,” raves the New York Times — came from one of his little scrawls on a tattered scrap of paper in a shoebox?

The shoebox rests beside her on the plastic seat. She is meeting that little shit at the same coffee house where she met him a year ago (two novels and nine short stories ago) to “catch up,” and she’s going to thrust his stupid box right in his stupid face.

He wants it back, she knows. He said he thought he would like to start writing again, and could he have his ideas back. She reminded him that she’d paid $10,000 for those ideas and they were hers now, and he should think of new ones. He began to speculate how much money she’d made from her books, especially this latest one, an international best-seller with two movie studios bidding fiercely for the movie rights. He suggested that perhaps he is due to a modest percentage, since they’re all his ideas.

Lucky for him it was a phone conversation, or she would have slugged him in the gut. She may, still! She told him that her latest was not actually based on one of his fuzzy, half-baked ideas, thank you very much. He tried to argue that her exact premise was written down inside his box. That’s when she decided to return it to him. She’s a successful author now, with ideas of her own and enough clout to get them published. She doesn’t need Scott Edison suckling from her—

Her cell phone vibrates in her hand and her heart jumps into her mouth. She answers. “Hello? Hey, baby, what’s going on?” It’s her girlfriend, Michelle, calling from the hospital. The bus is noisy but Michelle’s distress is clear enough to make out. The X-rays have shown something.

Shit. Diana has just passed the stop where she could transfer and head to the hospital. She yanks the signal cord sharply. She’ll get off at the next stop and backtrack on foot to her transfer. “Ok, baby, don’t worry. I’ll be there in half an hour.”

6.

Two stops later, Will Fleetwood boards the #5 bus. Uncomfortable in a collared shirt and necktie, he’s headed to the premiere of his friend’s latest play, about which, in accordance with his radio-signal curse, he knows nothing.

He heads for the only open seat, then draws up short when he sees a shoebox on it. He points to it and says to the friendliest-looking nearby passenger, “Excuse me. Is that yours?”

“No.”

Will keeps pointing and looking around. Everyone shakes their head or shrugs or ignores him.

He picks up the box — it’s surprisingly light, there must not be any shoes in it — and sits down. He holds the box awkwardly, wondering what to do with it. Wondering, too, what’s in it. He hefts it. It rustles slightly. His mind begins to race. He imagines an exotic, possibly poisonous, lizard nestled in a bed of leaves. But there are no air holes in the box. Maybe it’s a dismembered finger on packing peanuts. He curls his own fingers around the lid, wondering what sort of devilry he might unleash on the #5 bus when he opens it. But it’s almost more fun not knowing. As Will sits in the plastic seat, bumping along with the bus, he debates with himself about whether to prize open the box, or to leave its mysteries intact. And his radio-tower brain begins concocting story ideas:

A man boards a bus to find a mysterious shoebox containing…

Perhaps he would write this one down.

[1,101 words]