9 Tales From Elsewhere 10 Read online

  Talin spotted a woman and a young girl hiding behind the man. They looked frightened, so did the man, but his fear held a bit of anger too. Talin figured he didn't like to have strangers banging on his door in the middle of the night.

  "I sure hope so," Talin replied, and put on his friendliest smile. The cold rain had plastered his neglected hair flat on his head. He was half-starved, and seemed skeletal in the feeble light of the hidden moon. The eye patch made even his smile seem sinister, and it only seemed to increase the man's misgivings.

  "What is it you want?"

  "Well, my nephew and I are stranded out in this storm here, and I was hopin' that you could spare a bit o' food and maybe some shelter. I'm an old man and my knees are hurtin' somethin' fierce from the cold," Talin said. He pulled Brys into view, hoping that the sight of his nephew might put the man and his family at ease.

  The man narrowed his eyes. "There's a barn back there," he growled, and pointed to the back of his house. "You and your kin can put up for the night, just be gone come sun up."

  The man started to close the door, but Talin stuck his boot in it before it could shut. "What about a bit o' food?"

  "We have nothing to spare, I'm sorry," the man declared and brought the rusted tip of a scythe into view. "Now please, move your foot."

  Talin smiled. "Sure," as the word left his mouth, Talin slammed his shoulder into the door, and it flew backwards, striking the farmer in the face. He flew back a few feet, but managed to hold onto his weapon.

  The farmer swung his scythe at Talin. The attack was slow, and blood flowed from a cut on his forehead, obscuring his vision. The cramped confines of the house made it difficult for him to swing the weapon properly. Talin had his sword out, and as the scythe flew towards him, he sliced through its old wooden shaft, cutting it in half. The farmer glanced down in dismay at his ruined weapon, a moment before Talin's blade slid into his stomach.

  Brys watched as his uncle killed the farmer who was going to let them sleep in his barn. The farmer's wife was shrieking, saying things, but none of the words seemed to make any sense. The little girl was sobbing. They were the kind of heart wrenching sobs that only little kids could make, completely unconcerned with anyone watching their raw display of sorrow.

  "You couldn't spare even a bit o' food?" Talin snarled, his face pressed close to the farmer's. "Me and my nephew ain't worth a stale heel of bread to ya? Is that it? We're trash to sleep in the barn with the animals who at least get to eat?" Talin twisted his blade and blood bubbled from the farmer's mouth before his eyes got that faraway look that corpses and daydreamers get.

  Talin rose and turned his attention to the woman. Blood slowly dripped from the tip of his sword. "Food, woman, and a bit o' something to take the chill away."

  The woman was on her knee's holding her daughter between her arms. "Oh, gods! Why? He's dead! You killed him," she screamed, her words getting higher pitched each time she spoke. "You bastard, he's dead!"

  Talin advanced on the woman and raised his sword. The bitch wasn't gonna listen. He knew it. People never help you. You always have to take what you want from them. If you trust someone to do what's right, they betray you. He'd seen it a thousand times.

  "I'm sorry, uncle," Brys whispered and slid his knife into Talin's back.

  Talin grunted in surprise as pain blossomed out from the knife wound, and his hand went limp. He dropped his sword a second before he fell to his knees.

  "I had to do it, before you did it to me," Brys cried. "I'm sorry, uncle, I had to."

  Talin fell face first into the floor, and Brys stared transfixed as blood spread out from his uncle in a growing pool of condemnation. "I'm sorry," Brys whispered again, then grabbed Talin's sword and scabbard. He stumbled out of the house in a daze, no longer hearing the woman's screams or the cries of the small girl.

  Brys ran through rain soaked wheat fields, his own tears falling unnoticed as the world itself seemed to weep. He decided that life had a sickness about it that made the nights feel long and the days always so short and cold. It didn't seem right that a man should kill another man for a bag of gold, or that women were sore covered whores who'd throw you out into the rain when your coin ran out.

  His uncle had taught him that the best way of dealing with this world was keeping a sharp blade at your side and your hand always ready to use it. His uncle had died teaching him that lesson. Brys gripped the hilt of his new sword as he ran, ready and trusting in it to do right by him.

  THE END.

  POPCORN AND THE TIME DOGGIES by S.L. Dixon

  Owen Sound - Early

  There was a spiked ball lodged somewhere deep in Roddy Barsten’s gut. It awoke him with a bolt of pain somewhere between the thresholds of being physical or mental. He rolled from bed three hours earlier than normal. It was impossible to stave off the feeling swimming up his bloodstream and into the pulses of his brain.

  Day begun on the aptly deigned wrong foot Roddy forced his anxious body to slow, taking the extra steps –trimming up his long white beard, combing out the sleep tangles, all along fighting an urge to rush.

  It was so damned early and yet something wanted him right on time.

  “Easy,” he said to his reflection as he combed wavy lines into the mat jutting from his face.

  The beard was a mainstay, it’s how most knew him. In time, he had come to understand the power of belief and the way it opened wallets all December long. He took three weeks of vacation time in December and went south to play Old Saint Nick to lines of screaming babies and snotty-nosed youngsters looking for a ray gun or video game or a pony or a new dad.

  Months away yet.

  It was Wednesday and it was the usual run from Owen Sound down to Guelph and then back that afternoon, arriving in Owen Sound between nine and ten.

  There were twelve stops between Owen Sound and Guelph. Little to see and nothing he had not seen before.

  South on 66 rumbled through towns dead or nearly dead, a few busy but boring towns (Truro’s furniture plant did well and Arthur had its successful car parts plant, a couple other blips had similar businesses. None held much to moon over).

  That spike called out and his mind took the message. Move! You’re late. That clock is a liar.

  At three-forty, he left home an hour early, according the schedule, stopped for a cup of Tim Hortons’ tea, and rolled toward the back of the bus station lot.

  “Maybe it’s life,” he said to his cup, thinking that driving bus isn’t exactly brain surgery or globe expedition, hell, it wasn’t even as exciting as long-haul trucking. “Beats the piss out of office work, though.”

  Parked, the early bus driver fought to quicken his pace. His bus was there and should be ready to go, besides, the passengers won’t be here for a long while yet.

  Sure they will, you’re not alone. Move it!

  He stepped through the backdoor after tapping his code into the lock’s keypad. The place was mostly vacant. Linda sat at her desk yawning, Roddy waved and she waved back. He noticed that she had stopped wearing a wedding band. He thought that perhaps she might make for a good next girlfriend to leave him behind someday.

  Could be your last chance, Roddy.

  He stepped down a hall into an office, picked up a clipboard and the key to his bus. On his way back out to the gravel lot where the buses sat dead behind wire fence until a driver showed up with a key, Linda called to him.

  “You’re only missing one. I saw them outside and counted. Crazy, eh?”

  “What?”

  “All but one passenger is ready to go, just waiting on one and you just got here and,” she peeked at the clock, “you’re early anyway. Crazy, eh?”

  He nodded. Yet, it was not crazy, not at all. They felt the score too. Of course they did. They felt those spiked ball. They had as much at stake as he did.

  Outside, Roddy circled the bus for a cursory glance, noticing nothing unusual, but on his second round noticed four softened tires. The spiked ball swirled like a h
appy puppy chasing its tail.

  On time is the time and early is not. Buses don’t run early.

  “Shit sakes,” he said and climbed the steps into the bus. He started it (it sounded peachy keen).

  There was a compressor shed just off the main garage. Kneeling at the driver’s wheel, Roddy checked his watch, if we get out of here in twenty minutes, we’ll get out of here twenty minutes early. The idea made him smile and the ball growled as if challenged.

  After inflating the suddenly soft tires, he continued his quick check. The bus had its safety checks and the mechanics declared it sound only a month earlier, so it was the driver’s job to notice the obvious. And to keep it clean.

  At the back of the bus was a toilet, and from the door, he smelled it.

  “Shit sakes.”

  This time in more of a literal sense. After every trip, an after-school kid, recently a boy named Fish, had the lovely chore of scrubbing the can and evacuating the sewage contents. Sun-baked piss and shit trapped in a steel chamber, yum.

  The can was dirty, Fish screwed up.

  Maybe don’t blame the kid.

  The wary driver started the bus and rolled it back across the yard to pump station. Hose connected, the contents evacuated as he stepped inside to check on the room itself.

  Smears of shit greased the seat and the floor was sticky with piss.

  Getting pretty close to on time, any closer and it will catch you. This mess belongs to on time. Move or it will catch you.

  “What? What will?” he asked as he ran out of the bus to the hose, killed the vacuum and closed the connections. The gravel crunch under his feet, took a voice and a taunted, on schedule, Roddy, on schedule’s just fine and you know it!

  “Any other day.”

  He had never been so nervous or eccentric in his fifty-nine years on the planet. It was just a whim and he was… move it! He punched his code and ran inside to the janitorial office.

  “Roddy, Roddy!” Linda called out. She jogged back to catch him before he rushed back out, he had cleaning supplies and blue latex gloves on his hands, “Fish forget to do your bus?”

  He stopped, did not turn to face her, afraid his face would give away some level of craziness, even just a tenth of what he felt would send her off. There was always a conversation on her lips, there was always someone else’s trouble. Gossip.

  Maybe you ought to sit the day out?

  This was wrong, it was his day, it was his route, it was his time, and he was about to get out of there early. He glanced at his watch again. At best, five minutes early. Something told him that might be enough.

  “Guess so,” he answered the question.

  “Oh well. I had a call and a change, one passenger’s taking the bus on Friday instead,” said Linda, “I’ll you get the list for the pickups.”

  Roddy mused if that passenger thought it possible to run from destiny, to run from that spiked fucking ball, he or she was in for a world of surprise. Fate demands its prey head on. The only chance was running with some invisible bulls.

  It was there and it came with inherit understanding, survival knowledge. That inexplicable understanding that pulled the caveman through the Ice Age.

  “Bring out the clipboard while I’m working, would ya?” he asked.

  “Sure, you in a hurry?”

  He squeaked.

  Bent over the toilet, Roddy dropped the paper towel and the gloves down into the bowl and pulled the lever. They swished away and as he stood her heard Linda step onto the bus.

  It was dark and a halo of light rode her back like an aura. A voice, all-new for the strange morning, piped up, now or never, it said.

  “Here you go,” said Linda holding out a piece of paper.

  “Thanks,” he took the paper and she turned to step away, “I hope I’m not out of place here. Uh, I noticed the ring and everything, and well, I wondered if you want to go for a bite sometime?”

  Linda stopped and spun. It took a second to register and she felt her cheeks flush, “Oh, I’m sorry. I lost my ring, not my hubby, oh gees.” Linda was not a saint and had enjoyed nine different affairs in the fourteen years of her marriage. However, never with old looking men like Roddy Barsten, she added, “You’re not really my type.”

  The spiked ball offered applause and Roddy recognized it for what it was. A delay tactic.

  “Oh shit, ok. I’ve got to go now.”

  He pushed forward and tried to usher her away, “Now don’t get like that, Roddy. Don’t get weird.”

  “It was weird before I said anything. I need to move, see ya Friday.”

  Once Linda’s foot hit gravel, the buses shifter found a gear. At the front of the building, just below an overhanging shelter sixteen fare-paying passengers eagerly awaited the bus and its driver. Pulled up, Roddy swung open the door, leapt out, loaded the luggage in the under-carrier and leapt back in. There were virtually no greetings passed between the over-tired faces. All had time on their minds.

  A few wore smiles and Roddy had an idea of why.

  Short trips.

  One boy wore a mindless, medicated grin, his eyes told of vastly limited intelligence. His travelling partner was not so cheery.

  Maybe ignorance is bliss.

  Roddy Barsten’s Owen Sound to Guelph route got on the road, four-minutes earlier than the scheduled boarding time. It felt good to be away. It was far from a guarantee and whatever caused that spiked ball’s manifestation was not a pushover.

  Chatsworth – Still Early

  Roddy didn’t check his clipboard for first-stop departures. Nobody ever rode the ten minutes from the station to Chatsworth that early in the morning.

  Two people stood in the 10 Past 66 convenience store parking lot. Both wore weary masks of enthusiasm, fear mixed with urgency. Fate demanded they ride and that was what they’d do.

  The bus parked under the store’s sign (a haywire clock face where the minute hand jump beyond the borders of time). An ominous thing at that moment. Time was the pertinent factor and those nervous faces knew it.

  Both women and neither had luggage beyond their massive faux-leather purses. The door swung open and the lead of the two stepped forward.

  “Did you check your horoscope?” she asked, her eyes were red and her deep brown paled at her cheeks.

  “What?” Roddy asked.

  As a driver, he answered all manner of questions through that door, but never that one.

  “No, I bet you wish you did! I bet you feel it, yep!”

  The woman’s excitement stirred a rumble from within the paused steel tube. She led the next up the stairs and walked the last open seat. Only the smiley faces sat in the first half of the bus.

  Roddy glanced at his watch. If he rolled out that second, he was still better than fifteen minutes early and that was almost too early. At every stop, he might need to wait.

  No you won’t, they’re all ready at the stops, waiting. Move it.

  He cast a glance down at his clipboard and saw the tickets from Chatsworth were but two, “Hey, I need to see your tickets!” he called back.

  “You think we’d get on if we didn’t have to?” the lead woman called up.

  “Right,” he mumbled and pulled the swing handle.

  The bus slid smoothly into first gear and rolled to the lip of the empty parking lot. The asphalt pad was skinny and short, just barely long and wide enough to pull through and back onto the highway.

  Highway 66 continued south and Highway 10 branched east. There was a stop sign and a merge lane for those going from 10 West to 66 North. There was also a crosswalk for the local foot traffic of the sixty-five hundred residents of Chatsworth. A woman in a blue business suit stood at the crosswalk. She pulled a brass stopwatch from her pocket, checked the time, pocketed the watch while lifting her plain face, winked at Roddy and began a slow, confident stroll across the busy highway.

  Southbound, a Chapman’s Ice Cream truck puttered along at just below the speed limit. The driver saw the woman at
the last possible second and wrenched his steering wheel. The truck screeched with a metallic brake on rotor cry, followed immediately by the airbrake yowl.

  Jack-knifed on the highway and blocking all traffic.

  The woman, of course, was gone.

  The minutes sped by in double time. Fifteen minutes before boarding meant twenty to twenty-five minutes ahead of schedule down the highway, but waiting for an ice cream truck to unhitch and then hitch on from a better angle, maybe even wait for an out of town tow to straighten him, was likely to eat every moment of early.

  Roddy groaned, eyes holding the numerous eyes watching him in the mirror. Even the grinning faces of those feeling that their luck made them exempt from the unavoidable doom ahead soured with the prospect that nothing remained on their side. The forecast was flexible. Fate was never perfectly predictable. Sometimes storm debris flew across counties to land right on your head while you watched the black clouds through binoculars.

  “Where’d that chick in the suit go?” a man dressing the part of handyman asked, a former grinner.

  “Chick, chick!” the cloudy boy called out, the old woman next to him whispered into his ear and he quieted.

  Nine minutes passed, then ten, eleven, twelve and thirteen. There were cement barriers around the lot. They were short.

  Short being a relative term. He thought that if he had a truck, he could tour right over the barriers and back onto the highway. Bounce right along southbound.

  “Driver. Driver, you got to do something!” a woman cried out.

  Roddy attempted to match the voice with a face in his mirror and couldn’t.

  You know, she’s right. If you don’t do something, this spikey cancer ball will find its place in the real world, it’ll… “Fuck it,” he said, knowing that the rigged game he played did not care for his efforts.