River Dweller

 After it bit me, I dropped the gun and started running. I hadn’t run but maybe 20 yards when I had to stop, bending over to welcome back the contents of my stomach.

There I was, all sweaty and huffing and trying to stop heaving. My hands shook, and I felt weak in the knees. I looked back. The house was farther then I thought. No sign of the dog or the thing that bit me… or my buddies. I thought maybe I could hear them calling for me, but my heart was pounding so loud that I couldn’t be sure. Then there was the wind and the darkness that obscured so much. I looked up as I panted, to see the moon coming out from behind the clouds. In the distance came a howling. 

Suddenly, to my surprise, I joined in. It was a shaky but throaty howl there in the sight of the full moon. I looked down at my paws and did a double take. My knees bent under my weight as I realized that what were once hands were that no longer. I hunched over on my forelegs and ran off into the forest, never looking back…

Jenn was poised on a branch in the middle of the creek like flow that the locals called a river, eying the water suspiciously. This river had been cleaned and restored, but Jenn remembered the history of it too well to trust the water. Legend had it that the river was once so polluted by chemicals that it had been known as the rainbow river. The only time it resembled an actual river by her standards is when the storm waters rose. The small ravine would fill with a torrent of water, as if the time of the Ark was upon us once again.

Above the whisper of the flowing water she could hear little. The forest was almost too quiet. There was an odd scent on the wind, however, that she almost didn’t know how to describe. It was an unpleasant odor, almost that of decay or refuse.

A bird call from the NW. Sarah was in position off the trail where it looped back around to return to the entrance. A shriek of girlish laughter from the other end near the lake was Jess’s response. Jenn was still reviewing her logic. If she was right, the stranger would attempt to evade detection. Otherwise Jess had now become the bait. She was hard to track, being invisible and quiet, except for one thing: Jess had a distinctive aroma… not quite sugar and spice, but like a spring breeze… all pollens, flowers, and earthy scents. Diamond was harder to track, slipping from one spot to the next so quietly that at times she was harder to find then an invisible girl. 

Jenn twitched nervously and sniffed the breeze again, reassured by Ashes’ smoky and crisp presence. For all of his bravado and aloofness, he had the qualities of a good noose: reliable, hardy, vigilant, and on a hair trigger. He rarely needed and almost never heeded instruction whereas Sarah had such strong instincts and awareness that she could perform almost any task with only a hint of direction.

Jenn liked to play her cards close. Her arrangement with Sarah had taken on a new quality when Jess found them. She remembered how it all began…

©️ 2024, Accountec, LLC

Where Did the Moon Go?

 I had never been so lost, and of all the places to be lost… the suburbs? A true forest, a true city, either would do. You can prowl urban sprawl as easily as the wild. But this? Far too civilized.

Leave it to that crazy cousin Vinny to give me bad information. I couldn’t even get a good view of the moon. One night I even caught myself howling at a street lamp. If anyone saw me I’d never live it down. 

I got bitten almost a year ago, and I’ve been on the run since. Me and my buddies were out drinking outside of a small town where I grew up. Someone came up with the fool idea of tryin’ to put down the crazy old mutt that the Rileys owned, but we were all scared of old man Riley and his shotgun. For good reason too. The old man was nearly blind but he was so trigger happy that the Sheriff’s office had been up there maybe half a dozen times to tell him to lay off. The mutt was mean as the devil to everyone but him. So we took it upon ourselves to do a public service, drunk as we were, sometime after midnight.

Wouldn’t you know they all chickened out and wanted me to go. I was just about to tell them off, even with a pool of green on it, but then they made it a point of honor. Fool that I am, I couldn’t walk away after that. 

Funny thing is, if I had believed in all that supernatural voodoo about witches and ghosts and demons, I never woulda gone. But at the time, didn’t feel I had any reason to. No sir, no full moon or tales of beyond would have given me pause. And so I went.

And yet, when I finally got my nerve and arrived at the top of the hill, the old man was passed out drunker then we was. Problem solved right? All I had to do was hold the gun straight for two seconds and do the deed. But no sir, that wasn’t in the cards that night. It was only then I realized how quiet it was. Old mutt should’ve been barking up a storm, with me so close and smelling so loud. Yet silence. Then I catch the faintest growl, more of a plea then a threat. 

This was beginning to shake my drunken nerves. Still, like a fool I pressed forward, my curiosity unshakable. Closer I crept, till I was on his porch. A bottle of Jim on the table, his snoring body collapsed on a rocking chair. He still clutched the shotgun. Gently I approached. Gentler still uncocking the hammer. Open clicked the chamber door. I barely breathed as I shakily withdrew the shells and snapped the chamber shut.

The barely audible growl was coming from round back. I tossed the shells into the grass and made my way around the house. The growling grew louder. 

The mutt was sprawled out on the grass. I pulled my piece and held it steady as a drunken man could. Yet as I crept forward, staring down the creature in my sights, I noticed he wasn’t looking at me, but towards the bushes on my right. 

And that was when it bit me, out of nowhere, leaping from the bush and rushing foward, its form like a wolf but larger.

©️ 2024, Accountec, LLC

Contemplations from Zee Rafters

They think I did not know. Yet even an old bat with a hangover could hear them. My father always told Vlad, verk that sonar, my boy, that’s what makes the Drakuls who we are, our famous (sometimes infamous) listening skills. You never know what you might catch.

Yes, yes, I knew the girl was there. The why escaped me at first. Yet even with that blabbering dolt carrying on below, even without twitching, Vlad got the gist of the conversation. Strange, they were to me. Strangers that seemed stranger then Vlad himself, which of course I found impressive. Perhaps my arrival was vell timed, if a bit undignified.

Zee legged one was more irritating in his oddness. Vlad tried to give him the benefit of the mortality. Life can be rough, I don’t know how they do it. It mystified me how anyone could choose to live here. It vasn’t dark enough, cold enough, and was made entirely from wood and fiber. Verse, it was a long fly from zee nearest cave or castle. 

Vhile the little crazy one fumed, I made a mental note to see if the woods they had mentioned had any caves. I needed to stretch my sonar. And you never know, the bat next door could be a vampire too, you never judge a bat by his hide…

Vhy did I stay? Believe Vlad, I thought about it at great length. Perhaps zee humans had good veins, Vlad said. Perhaps Vlad vas in a rut. Perhaps I had been drinking too much blood. An undeath can be quite long. Vhatever the reason, it was a velcome change of pace. Also, Vlad was determined not to leave on such an undignified manner as I arrived.

The sun is shining. I should sleep...

©️ 2024, Accountec, LLC

Ashes, Dust, and the Others

 The Nerbe of dat bat. Spidey scrub and scrub and di floor is still stained.

He had been fussing about Vlad for what seemed like hours, scrubbing, stopping, crawling back and forth fuming, and on and on. You’d think with eight legs he could scrub faster. 

Sunlight was streaming through the window and vlad hung from a rafter, fast asleep ever since Spider chased him off the floor. The critter was so in a tizzy that he didn’t even notice me slip out the window.

My name is Jess, though they sometimes call me Dust. I’m almost 16, but I left home years ago. Even before my fading, when I became invisible, people didn’t notice me much. I can be very quiet.

I saw on the roof for a few minutes, looking out towards the Southern horizon. It was beautiful, all blue Skye, wisps of clouds, and sunlight above trees, houses, and streets. The people of the world were coming out. 

“Almost time.” A shingle said. Gradually the outlines of a lizard became greener.

Jess smiled. Below, she could see Diamond exercising barefoot on the grass, the tips of her fingers rising to the sky, her eyes closed in meditation.

Jess slid to the edge of the roof and carefully dropped down. A young man leaned against the wall, a lighter in his hand and a smile on his face. He met her eyes and gave the slightest nod but said not a word. The two of them could communicate with nothing more than a look, so intertwined they were that people rarely spoke of one without mentioning the other, closer even then most siblings. They belonged together. Where there was Ashes, there would forever be Dust.

“So tell us the plan, Jenn.” Sarah was walking towards Jess and the old picnic table splintering on the concrete slab. 

The lizard ascended the table and stood, clearing her throat. Everyone sat.

“I’m told there’s a new face in town causing some panic around the woods by the lake. Disturbing the neighborhood. There’s been various reports.”

Ashes stifled a yawn. Jess smiled. Jenn cleared her throat and scowled at Ashes.

“I asked Sarah to poke around.”

Diamond spoke softly, her almost colorless eyes as peaceful as a mountain lake. “Whoever they may be, they’re being careful, and no one knows why. They cover their tracks. But passersby say there is a presence watching them, and items randomly disappear or move. A group of neighbors have offered a cash reward.”

“That’s where we come in. I’ll scout the River while Sarah and Jess set the trap. Ashes, if they flush, you are the noose. Clear?”

Diamond nodded. “Let’s go catch a thief.”

©️ 2024, Accountec, LLC