Scenes from the Secret History (The Secret History of the World) (35 page)

When he reached the carpet Lyle stayed down, huddling, shaking.  He wanted to sob, wanted to vomit.  Things he’d always disbelieved were proving true.  The pillars of his world were crumbling.

“What just happened in there, Lyle?” Charlie said, kneeling beside him and laying an arm across his shaking shoulders.  “What this all about?”

Lyle gathered himself, swallowed the bile at the back of his throat, and straightened his spine.

“You know what you said about this house being haunted?  I’m beginning to think you’re right.”  He looked up at the clock radio which now read
1:11
.  Who knew how long it had been running backwards.  It could be three in the morning for all he knew.  “Fuckit, I
know
you’re right.”

“What we do about it, man?”

Something strange and angry had invaded their house.  Was that anger directed at him?  At Charlie?  He hoped not, because he sensed it ran wide and frighteningly deep.  Charlie wanted to know what they were going to do.  How could he answer that without even knowing what they were facing?

He grabbed Charlie’s arm and got to his feet.

“I don’t know, Charlie.  But I know one thing we’re
not
doing, and that’s leaving.  This is
our
place now and nobody, living or dead, is chasing us out.”

The rest of the hauntings and sundry mayhem are here…
The Haunted Air

September

GATEWAYS

(preliminary study by Harry Morris

for the limited cover)

I decided it was time for a fish-out-of-water story
… and more Otherness-twisted humans. 

Jack loves NYC and loathes leaving it, so I had to come up with a compelling reason for him to leave.  What better than his father hit by a car and in a coma?  How can he say no?

I chose a place as unlike NYC as could be: The Florida Everglades.  I spent a week down there researching it and it’s beautiful… but the mosquitos!  Jack’s not used to horizons and they go one forever there.

He learns all sorts of things about his father (we finally find out what’s in that lock box) and that the apple hasn’t fallen all that far from the tree.

I made the Lady his dad’s neighbor and had a lot of fun with her dog and her name.  I think I created some compelling supporting characters to come along for the ride.  And of course… Hurricane Elvis.

The things is, how does a man with no official identity board a plane these days.  And armed.  I mean really, you thing Jack’s gonna let some lame son of a bitch hijack his plane?  NFW.  So he’s got this ceramic knife taped to his underarm…

GATEWAYS

(sample)

Jack reached the OmniShuttle Airways counter an hour before the next scheduled flight. 

Before dropping Gia off, he’d had the cab take him over to Abe’s where he left the package to be overnighted to his father’s place.  Abe used a small, exclusive, expensive shipping company that didn’t ask questions.  The cab ride had been uneventful, but it felt so odd to be moving about the city without a gun either tucked into the small of his back or strapped to his ankle.  He didn’t dare risk trying to sneak one onto the plane, though, even in checked luggage, now that they were x-raying every piece.

The ticket purchase went smoothly: A mocha-skinned woman with an indeterminate accent took the Tyleski Visa card and the Tyleski driver license, punched a lot of keys – an awful lot of keys – then handed them back along with a ticket and a boarding pass.  Jack had chosen OmniShuttle because he didn’t want any round-trip-ticket hassles.  The airline sold one-way tickets without regard to Saturday stayovers or any of that other nonsense: When you want to go, buy a ticket; when you want to come back, buy another. 

Jack’s kind of company. 

He asked for an aisle seat but they were all already taken.  But he did manage to snag an exit row, giving him more leg room. 

He had some time so he treated himself to a container of coffee with a trendoid name like mocha-latte-java-kaka-kookoo or something like that; it tasted pretty good.  He bought some gum and then, steeling himself, headed for the metal detectors with their attendant body inspectors.

He made sure to get on the end of the longest line, to give him a chance to see how they conducted the screening process.  He noticed that a much higher percentage of the people who set off the metal alarm were taken aside for more thorough screening than the ones who didn’t.  Jack wanted to be in the latter category.

This is how a terrorist must feel, he realized.  Standing on line, sweating, praying that no one sees through his bogus identity.  Except I’m not looking to hurt anyone.  I’m just looking to get to
Florida.

When it came his time, he placed his bag on the belt and watched as it was swallowed by the maw of the fluoroscope.  Then it was his turn to step through the metal detector.  He put his watch, change, and keys into a little bowl that was passed around the detector, then stepped through. 

His heart skipped a beat and jumped into high gear when a loud beep sounded.  Damn!

“Sir, have you emptied your pockets?” said a busty bottle blonde woman in a white shirt with epaulettes, a gold badge, and a name tag that read “Delores.”  She was armed with a metal detecting wand.  A dozen feet behind her, two security guards stood with carbines slung over their shoulders.

“I thought I did.  Let me check again.”  He patted his pants pockets front and rear but, except for his wallet, they were empty.  He pulled out the wallet.  “Could this be the culprit?”

She waved her wand past it without a beep.  “No, sir.  Step over here, please.”

“What for?”

“I have to wand you.”

When had “wand” become a verb? 

“Is something wrong?”

“Probably just your belt buckle or jewelry.  Stand here, back to the table.  Good.  Now spread your legs and raise your arms out from your body.”

Jack assumed the position.  The moisture deserting his mouth seemed to be migrating to his palms.  She waved the wand up and down the inside and outside of his legs, then across his waist where she got a beep from his belt buckle – no problem – and then she started on his arms.  Right one first – inside and outside, okay; then the left – outside okay, but a loud beep as the wand approached his armpit.

Oh shit, oh hell, oh Christ.  Abe you promised me, you swore to me the knife would pass the detectors.  What’s happening?

Without moving his head, Jack checked out the two security guards from the corner of his right eye.  They looked bored, and certainly weren’t paying attention to him.  To his left a handful of unarmed security personnel were busy screening – wanding – other travelers.  He could barrel past them and dash back out into the terminal, but where to go from there?  His chances of escaping were nil, he knew, but he damn well wasn’t simply going to stand here and put his hands out for the cuffs.  If they wanted him, they were going to have to catch him.

“Sir?”

“Hmmm?  What?”  Jack could feel the sweat breaking out on his forehead.  Had she noticed?

“I said, do you have anything in your breast pocket?”

“My–?” 

He jammed his hand into the pocket and came out with his package of Dentyne Ice.  Gum in a blister pack… sealed with foil…

She ran her wand over it and was rewarded with a beep.  She took the pack, opened it to make sure it was only gum, then dropped it on the table.  The rest of the wanding was beepless.

The future that had been telescoping closed at warp-11 now opened wide again.  Feeling as giddy as a man with a reprieve from death row, Jack retrieved his watch, keys, and chain, but he left the damn gum.  It had put him on a train to heart attack city.  Let Delores have it.

As he hefted his gym bag strap onto his shoulder he fought an urge to ask Delores if she wanted to inspect that too.  Inspect anything you want!  The mad inspectee strikes again!

But he said nothing, contenting himself with a friendly nod as he started toward his gate.  He reached it with just enough time to make a quick to call Gia.

“I made it,” he said when she answered.  “I board the plane in a couple of minutes.”

“Thank God!  Now I won’t have to figure out how to bake a cake with a file inside.”

“Well, there’s still the flight home.”

“Let’s not think about that yet.  Call me when you’ve seen your father, and let me know how he is.”

“Will do.  Love ya.”

“Love you too, Jack.  Very much.  Just be careful.  Don’t talk to strangers or go riding in strange cars, or take candy from–"

“Gotta run.”

He wound up in a window seat in the left emergency row with the perfect traveling companion: the guy fell asleep before takeoff and didn’t wake up until they were on the Miami tarmac.  No small talk and Jack got to eat the guy’s complimentary bag of peanuts.

The only glitch in the trip was a slight westward alteration of the usual flight path due to tropical storm Elvis.  Elvis… when Jack had heard the name announced on TV the other night he’d done a double-take that would have put Lou Costello to shame. 

He wondered now if there’d ever been a tropical storm named Elliott.  If so, had it been designated on the maps as T.S. Elliott?

Elvis was not expected to graduate to hurricane status, but was presently off the coast near
Jacksonville, cruising landward and stirring things up, just as its namesake had in the fifties.  Though the plane swung westward to avoid the turbulence, Jack could see it churning away to the east.  From his high perch he looked out over the rugged terrain of cloud tops broken dramatically here and there by fluffy white buttes from violent updrafts.  Elvis was just entering the building.

You can accompany Jack on his Florida trip here…
Gateways

November

Criss
cross

(the color version of the

Gauntlet Press chapbook cover)

This is one of the darkest Jack novels
… and where the
Compendium of Srem
makes its first appearance in modern times. 

I needed a cult for this, but I wanted to make up my own rather than horn in on someone else’s.  I’m a recovering Catholic and don’t understand how they buy into the transubstantiation myth, but they do.  I didn’t know if I could sell something that far out, so I started researching and was astounded by what people believe.  I’m not talking small-time kook clubs like Heaven’s Gate.  Big-time religions too.  Mormonism was so obviously built on a scam.  And Scientology… wow.

I came up with the Otherness-inspired Dormentalism which has upset many Scientologists who think it’s a swipe at their cult.  Well, if the shoe fits…