Haunting

"Why are we camping again?"

Casey wanted to say it was to alleviate the situation of being entirely too lost, convinced the only people who ever wanted to be in Texas were Texans, but instead she opted for a much kinder approach.

"I'm sick of going through the same old habits. We go to a town, eat at will inevitably be shitty diner food and stay at a motel or sleep in the car. The weather's nice, there's a starry sky, and it looks like Gordon has given us a bonfire."

Mali and Joe turned to see Gordon emptying a bottle of whiskey into the pit, creating a glorious blaze that lit the night sky.

"........Yeah, I was totally starting a bonfire for us....roast something....that's it...."

"Maybe we should tell scary stories, I mean this is the right setting."

"Not a bad idea Joe, let's do it around the bonfire like back at Jesus Camp."

"And I'm officially not surprised."

"Of what Mali?"

"....nothing. Anyway, after my episode, I think I'd rather wait a bit before I go."

"Yeah, who the fuck is afraid of spiders? Why not be afraid of something like Jason?"

"Seriously, Joe, if you're going to invoke a horror icon, you can do better."

"What like Freddy?"

"Yeah Freddy, he's definitely scarier than Jason, or at least he could be. Dreams are far more frightening than real life because they're malleable. They can bend and mold without you having any real say in the matter and that sense of powerlessness really brings the fear. Jason just chases you and as long as you pay attention where you're running, there's a chance of escape."

"But that's what I like Casey, a false sense of hope, because when he does catch you, and he always does, your mind is crushed right before your skull is."

"Yeah, okay Joe, or maybe their last thought was maybe I shouldn't have had sex. Jason had weird rapist tendencies and really was pretty boring. I think creativity is a part of fear. I mean what's scarier, a guy who stabs people or a guy who dismembers them and eats their eyes?"

"Well that depends, are the stabbings random? I think people feel better knowing they don't fit the modus operandi and if there is no m.o. it is much more frightening."

"Silly Joe, people will generally fear the more sensational, even if the likelihood is small. Look at shark attacks, more people are killed by coconuts per year than sharks."

"Both o' you blokes are wrong."

"Welcome to the fold Gordon. If you are such a scholar on the subject matter, do share."

"Honestly, the dice speaks louder than I do, all six lil eyes o' hers. The truth is, reality is far more frightening than fiction. You'd be amazed what absurdities people have reached carrying the banners of the soft science and such in hand."

He was a physician, one of the best in all of Europe and Asia, documented for his roll in developing the first heart and lung machine, a scientific breakthrough that allowed the sustenance of life through artificial means. Reaching that point was laborious and required years of experimentation.

"Here's the new batch you ordered Dr. Bryukhonenko, ready to be processed."

"Alright, pick one and prep it for test #574A."

He wasn't the first dog to be captured by the Soviets, far from it in fact. Bruno was the 574th in a series of experiments propagated on his species for the advancement of the Soviet cause. He was unaware of the fate that awaited him, of the infamy he gain.

The nurse sedated the canine and placed him on the moving tray to be wheeled to the doctor. But first a stop had to be mad at station 2. Station 2 was situated in the back of the facility and had the appearance of a meat locker, complete with center drain. The nurse then passed the tray off to a large bald gentleman of 40. Silently the man picked up the bonesaw, the glean of the metal casted dancing lights on Bruno's soft white fur. The saw came down around Bruno's neck and with several motions, Bruno became matted with sanguine fluid. Sparks of plasma decorated the nameless man's apron as he applied a lumberman's task to the tragic canine's collar until his job was done and Bruno had big good morrow to his body. The nameless man then quickly wheeled the cart over to Dr. Bryukhonenko and the physician quickly hooked up the autojektor to the lifeless head. Within minutes the head awakened. It responded to stimulus and even made attempts at eating, though the treats lief was short lived as it dropped from the back of his throat. The experiment was considered a rousing success, but many more were to follow. bruno's had was cast aside, his life removed with the pull of a switch, treated like so many appliances that would succeed him.

The Old Switcheroo

By the time anyone could sensibly respond to her piercing cries of unutterable horror, Mali had practically climbed into the driver's seat.

The van swerved to and fro across the double yellow line, threatening to pitch them all over the precipice of a gaping slope to their left. Joe wrestled her from the floorboards betwixt the front seats as she kicked and howled and Casey reared her right arm for a firm, well-deserved hand across Mali's cheek.

"Spider!" she insisted, as though they were the crazy ones to not be screaming their heads off as well, indicating with two accusatory forefingers the seat she had been seated in a moment before.

Gordon leaned forward from the rear of the van and inspected the seat cushion. His nose scrunched up and he nodded with grim disappointment, "Yeah. Spider."

"Well, kill it!" Mali pressed.

Gordon shrugged and collected the shoe from his left foot in hand before steadying it high above the fearsome intruder, poised for the kill.

One swat, splat.

Parker expressed his disgust with a drawn-out ewww! while Joe searched the glove compartment for a tissue to clean up the remains of the tiny conquistador.

"Now where am I supposed to sit?" Mali groaned.

"Squeeze in with Gordon and Parker in back, I guess." Joe shrugged and turned to face the window, his interest now dissipated in Mali's troubles.

Mali worked her way down the narrow aisle of the van, careful to avoid the goo left by the spider. The boys parted, but it was asses to ankles for all intents and purposes, and Mali was left no choice but to slide onto Parker's lap. They exchanged an awkward smile before both stiffly fixed their eyes on opposite things.

"Are we still lost?"

"We've been lost for almost a day. I have no fucking idea where we are," Casey snipped, tired of driving and being accused of getting them all lost, but no one offering to replace her spot most of all.

"Well, we missed Rifle, clearly. Maybe Denver--"

"At this rate, it could be 'maybe Guadalajara'."

"Story time?" Gordon suggested, weary of the bickering.

Joe pulled the die from his pocket and gave it a toss down the aisle without a look.

"That'd be two," Parker affirmed knowingly.

Carl Marx was more than a man with a coincidental name; he was a hero - or to such esteem he held himself, at least.

The idea for his greatest feat came to him one notably average Tuesday morning, a moment of eureka that struck him the instant he lifted the carafe to fill his empty mug for the third time. The shock and awe of the scheme overtaking him was enough to spill the carafe across the table and onto the floor, rivulets of the steaming brew spreading over the kitchen like the tide. He knew he'd struck genius.

Marx shared more than a name with the deceased German philosopher; the two, should they ever had met somewhere in space and time, could have slapped one another on the back to commend their agreement in their perspectives on religion. 21st-Century-Marx, however, insisted on taking the analysis two steps forward, and every evening after work he would perch at his computer and ponder a way to serve all the religious of the world even just a teaspoon of their own bullshit. And finally, on a very average Tuesday morning, he at last had a plan.

As head of his graduating class from the most prestigious computer science academy on the western seaboard, Marx had been treated to the inside information of network diagnostics and security innovations in the computer realm since he was a teenager, and as such was one of the most gifted ---"

Gordon stopped in the middle of his story, his jaw left hung agape.

"Aw, fuck." Joe spoke for all of them.

Passing the right side of their van was a green highway sign, adorned with an enormous cowboy hat, reading in brilliant red, "Welcome To Texas, Partners!"

The Law

.........That's the problem with the law, it only goes so far. Did you know in New York a subway worker was acquitted after witnessing a rape and the only effort he put forth was notifying the proper authorities. The entire time the woman was being raped, from the point of her being pulled down the stairs to the actual act, they just sat and watched. The judge ruled that they had acted "within proper parameters," can you believe that shit? Don't let Seinfeld lie to you, there isn't any good Samaritan law. As long as you do the absolute minimal, you can safely fucking sleep at night. Look at Kitty Genovese. I'd like to believe that if I get stabbed, a stranger is going to fucking do something about it, not suffer from "Diffusion of Responsibility." No offense guys, but that's why I hate large groups of people because when I'm around them, I always think; these fuckers won't do shit. If something happens, I gotta take the fight in my own hands, I have to take care of myself and those around me because if I don't, who the fuck will?

It is a scary place we find ourselves. Where the majority always equals might and seem to rely on that at the cost of right. I always loved that scene in To Kill a Mockingbird where Scout approaches the mob and soon after they disperse. Powerful shit you know, the idea that a small child could impact a group intent on murder, its kind of scary. To me murder shouldn't come that easy, it shouldn't be a simple matter of size, that if you collect the right classroom of people, the result would be the end of someone. It sounds silly, but how often does it happen? It's insane how cheap life is and sometimes it feels like the law isn't doing us any favors.

"Yeah, I get you Casey, but I think sometimes the law is meant to be abstract, not a moral compass and maybe that's the distinction. You can't make someone be good."

Trying to keep her voice down so she wouldn't wake up Mali, Casey bit her lip a second to focus herself.

"I'm not saying you make someone be good, but by the same token, we can't encourage apathy on the part of our fellow man. Yeah, I get good is subjective, but there are some principles that are timeless if you want to have a structured society. Yeah, at one time murder was commonplace, but the mitigating factor was who was being murdered, not the act itself and the same goes for rape. All I'd like to know is that if I'm getting raped in front of a group of strangers, and all they do is call the cops and continue to watch, I'm going to do everything in my power to see that they are held accountable and I'd like to believe the law has my back."

Casey and Joe continued their heated discussion, that was until Mali interrupted with a startling howl.

Lurid Document

With Casey subdued by the road before them and the cullings of Tori Amos reverberating through the badly-misused speakers, the rest of the troops had fallen into a malaise of fatigue, each thrown against their respective seats and windowpanes, their eyes pulled to the occasional distances between trees and hillsides. It felt like they had been driving along this merciless road for weeks.

Twice through the night, Parker convinced Casey to pull over and ask for directions, but twice now they had fallen short at the ghastly sight of the lost souls willing and able to work third shift at desolated gas stations in the middle of the Great American Nowhere. The torn, crinkled map passed through everyone's hands at least once before being discarded to the littered floor, deemed useless and deliberately obtuse.

Gordon yawned and draped his arm around Parker's shoulder, inciting an immediate twitch of panic from his poor seatmate. Parker wrestled him away and scooted himself to the far end of the minivan's bench seat, glaring down Gordon with a hatred insulated in a long, sleepless night on the road. Gordon chuckled and blew him a kiss, amused at Parker's demeanor.

"I'm bored," he lamented.

"I can tell. Stop touching me," Parker demanded.

The puddle of sweatshirt ahead of them, which contained somewhere within the tiny body of Mali, groaned disapproval at the commotion before settling back in to a quiet snore.

"I'm bored and I think we're lost," Gordon whispered.

"We're not lost," Casey muttered from the driver's seat.

"Can you tell me, then, how thirty miles spans six hours? The last time we saw a sign for Rifle was at eight-fifteen - I know because I saw Parker take his stupid pills, which he takes every bleeding night at eight-fifteen - and that was clear over six hours ago. How fast are you going, Casey?"

"The speed limit, Gordon," Casey replied.

"There's no way. We must have whiffed it altogether."

"Well, Gordon, next time we stop at a gas station - which won't be long, we're almost on E again - you can cosy up to the guy behind the counter and ask for directions."

Parker, ever vigilant in keeping the peace (since that very morning when he decided to suit the role of mediator, at least), interrupted by waving his hands in the empty air between them. "Calm down!"

Gordon pushed him aside.

"Really, though - do you know where you're going?"

The puddle of sweatshirt groaned again.

Mali was dreaming.

Yellow clouds drifted overhead, rivulets of honey trickling from their soft, doughy bellies to the bed of mints below. Overwhelmed with sensation, the princess sprinted across the deceptively large face of the flower petal, eager to peer beyond its edge. Underneath, all the world bloomed with tongues outstretched for a taste of the sky. Leaning over the edge, the princess gripped the edge of the petal with excitement, too late discovering the heft of the flower could not support her as she tumbled into thin air. Like a leaf in autumn, she drifted end over end toward the earth below, but why so slowly?

Nearer and nearer the earth crept. Ever slower and slower, she fell. Vexed and perplexed at the odd nature of her freefall, the princess folded her arms and scrunched up her nose. Even the birds turned their heads to stare as the princess fell at slower and slower speeds, to which they asked one another why? Revealing no answers, to themselves or otherwise, the birds flew on, quarreling back and forth.

God's work? Unlikely. Eventually, the ground ceased its approach and the princess discovered she was, in fact, stuck just ten feet from the ground. Suspended in the air with no way to free herself, the princess huffed and wondered what to do. She considered all possibilities, but soon relented, unable to come up with any good ideas.

With no recompense in mind and no one around to help her, the princess lamented before she relented and drew her finger across the face of a honey rivulet nearby, suckling at her forefinger while wondering what had happened. Honey? Ah! That's it!

Honey is a sticky mess. All it takes to gunk up the sky is a few light showers of honey! Pressed to get herself down from a mere few stone from the ground, the princess pondered what could be done in her predicament. Perhaps she could eat her way out? Even with an appetite for honey such as hers, eating a whole sky full of honey was a dautning task. Nevertheless, it was the only good idea she could think of. So she did.

No one can say if she ever got down.

Even me.

eXcitement is best left to the

Travellers

Mali awoke with a start, certain something was amiss.