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Short stories: A little suspense RESIDUUM
For three nights now I have heard the gnawing at my front door. Each time, I choose to ignore this and fall back asleep. If a mouse or squirrel is seeking access, let it try. Come morning, when I open the door to inspect the wood, nothing is there. No scratches, no gnawing. When it happens a fourth night, at two a.m., I grab my 34” maple Rawlings and crack open the door. Nothing again. But as I turn back around, the old man is sitting at my computer playing backgammon, his left leg dangling over the arm of the desk chair, his bare foot bobbing while he charts his moves.“Avis?”He turns. My God, it’s him. Looking just as he did when he died last year: ancient, a monk’s pate with a hula skirt of white hair, thick black frames port-holing genteel eyes.“Where’s my bulldog.”He clears his throat to repeat, minus the rasp, my bulldog.My butt puckers. The dog is elsewhere. Given up. I retrieve a statue from a nearby shelf, a white, palm-sized replica with bovine spots parked on its haunch
Short stories: A little suspense THE KEYS
THE BLACK BUS pulls to the stop at 30th Street splashing the water from the gutter and stops before you in an oily haze. The door opens and you step across and up the well-worn steps. The driver’s there on his perch in a white shirt and tie and black pants, and he glares down at you as though thinking—how dare you be here. You ignore his stare and your hand goes down in your pocket and there’s no change there, but no keys again either—and you try the other pocket and it’s empty too and you panic— you just had your keys but they’re gone again, where could they have gone to, you try the pockets again but nothing’s there.You’ve lost the keys again. Your house key. Your car keys. You just had them again but you’ve lost them again—Get off my bus, snaps the bus driver. Get off now. And the bus driver’s eyes push you back down the steps as you’re thinking the driver doesn’t have to be so rude why was he so rude—and you step back onto the curb and the bus door slides shut and the roar rises
Short stories: A little suspense DEEP FRY
Barnes read intently from the book in his lap—remove the neck and giblets from the turkey cavity. Discard or use for giblet gravy or stuffing—Wilson interrupted him again.Why do you want to toy with death like this? said Wilson.Barnes looked up from his magazine.I’m not toying with death, he said. I’m reading about deep frying a turkey.It’s a sin to toy with death, answered Wilson, pointing. You know that? It’s a sin just like playing Russian roulette would be a sin.Russian roulette?Right. Russian roulette. If the turkey’s even the least bit still frozen, it’ll explode when you put it in the fryer. These turkeys are like big bombs.Oh, and how do you know that?That’s what I read on the Internet.Why were you reading about deep frying a turkey on the Internet?Oh, I don’t know.Thinking of deep frying a turkey, Wilson?No. Of course not.Then why read about it?I read about a lot of things.Hum.Barnes let his feet down from the table and sat upright with the magazine spre
Short stories: A little suspense THE GHOUL AND THE GUNSLINGER
It was 1978. Rachel showed up at the Tudor-style house in Palo Alto for the party. A ghoul opened the front door. He leaned casually against the door jamb and, crossing one ankle, said, “Why, hello, Your Grace.”“That’s Duchess to you,” she said, without missing a beat. “You’re thinking about something and that makes you forget to talk. I can’t tell you just now what the moral of that is, but I shall remember it in a bit.”The Ghoul, replied, just as easily, “And the moral of that is — Oh, ’tis love,’ tis love, that makes the world go round!”Rachel was enchanted. She and Ghoul were quoting lines from her role as The Duchess in the multi-media production of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass put on by her slightly misfit company of players, The Antediluvian Repertory Company.It was Halloween. Rachel was twenty-six and she was all done up like a forties vamp in worn velvet. Her frizzy, long brown hair was piled high on her head and fastened with a rhinestone clasp. She
Short stories: A little suspense BAD PAPER
Leap year, winter of ‘84. Make a deposit at the local blood bank and get twelve dollars. If late, it’s ten. I hang out and drink all their orange juice.“Thank you, Sergeant Robinson, for your donation and service. Can’t stay here, all day.”This happens every time.“Just Willie, please.”I turn and hit the streets. Cash twelve-dollar check around the corner at a multi-purpose Package Store in West Roxbury. Get a sawbuck back. Bloody usury. This is bullshit. Young gypsy girl with sad eyes reminds me I have a daughter somewhere. Touches my hand, turns it over, scans the lines, frowns, and shakes her head. Gypsy girl knows. Never charges me for coffee at the Packy. Never says thank you for your service. Half Asian…maybe, “Have a nice day, Willie.”“If I were younger….”She laughs, smiles, hands over my coffee and paper sack. Good kid. Packy owner would fire her ass in a Boston minute if he knew about the coffee. Fran from the shelter and me, we loiter outside the Packy sipping coffee.
Short stories: A little suspense THE FAITH HEALER
During the winter of 1982, the New York City subways broke down frequently. I was living with my husband in an apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, but I noticed that the problems affected the whole system, because I commuted all over the city for my job. I was conducting residencies in the public schools for an artists’ organization. I spent one day of the week at an elementary school in the Bronx and another at an elementary school in Brooklyn. Just after the first of the year, I began a program at a junior high school out in Massapequa, Long Island.I got up early, especially when I went to Long Island. The apartment was dark. Nervous that I would oversleep, I usually awoke before the clock radio’s alarm and turned it off so as not to wake my husband. He was in graduate school. He stayed up late at night studying and slept in the mornings. After I got out of bed, I made coffee in the cold kitchen and drank it while I dressed by the hall light. I arran
Short stories: A little suspense MOONLIGHT ON THE BAY
As the rain got heavier, people moved inside. When the annual Art Walk was held in good weather, everyone stayed out and enjoyed the spring twilight. Last year’s mild temperature and clear skies meant poor sales. Tonight, just about every place was packed. Moving among the paintings on display was difficult, and some business owners grieved the occasional drops of water shed by hastily closed umbrellas, even as they celebrated the occasional keen interest in one or two pieces.Celia was soaked. She’d had to walk into town because her boyfriend, Terry, had been working swing shift all week at the hospital and just didn’t have the energy to get off the couch and give her a lift. Might she borrow the truck? Just for tonight? He reminded her that it was less than a mile, and that she was always saying how she needed to get more exercise. Celia was a cashier in an upscale grocery store, and found that hours scanning jars of imported olive oil, Oregon bleu cheese, and Japanese eggplant didn
Short stories: A little suspense PLEASE DON'T PUSH ME AWAY
“Ellen, honey, come with me. I want to show you something.”I thought I knew who was speaking. Peeling myself from the plastic straps of my lawn chair, I turned to see my Aunt Diana behind me, standing imperiously in front of the afternoon sun, her broad figure rendered dark. I tried to act like I hadn’t seen her. Even on such a warm and celebratory day as my cousin Jordan’s graduation–– a day when I thought the heat might sap everyone’s energy for petty family conflicts––I heard in her words a hint of intrigue, a change in the weather.I shuffled around to look at my little cousin, who was playing in the grass at my feet, throwing his older brother Jordan’s tasseled mortarboard like an ungainly frisbee two feet across the yard at a time. “I can fly!” he said. “I can fly!”I ruined the act by turning back. Aunt Diana had not looked away.My next thought was to buy time. “Just a few minutes, Aunt Diana, I haven’t given Jordan his present yet,” I sa
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- Short stories: A little suspense
WITHDRAWALS
I became a magicians dream. I could disappear. Gone. I found comfort feeling invisible to the outside world. Maybe somewhere, someone wondered where I was. Or maybe someone was looking for me. Or wanted to save me. I couldn't save myself, that's for sure. I didn't know who I was anymore, nor did I notice that I was slowly killing my soul and breaking my father's heart. There was always someone that could aid my escape. With a snap of my fingers or a text message, I was so far gone that no one could get me. I was unstoppable. Out of control; out of my body. I was a new person killing all that remained of my spirit. Losing consciousness was such a relief. Regaining it was not nearly as fun. My heavy head is being shaken by hands. They definitely aren't mine. My mouth feels open. The first thing my exhausted eyes find is his worried face. His brown eyes look like they are going to pop off and roll onto the bathroom floor next to my sprawled-out body. He's yelling at me. He'
- Short stories: A little suspense
THE LOGISTICS
As many reasons as there are to kill yourself, there are just as many reasons to fake your own death. The reason is the easiest part. Pick one. Losing your job, losing your lover, losing the cap to the toothpaste; they’re all extremely valid reasons to disappear. The why isn't the hard part, the hard part is the where, when, and how. Truly, planning how to kill yourself is certainly more difficult than actually killing yourself. Whether you’re preparing for a wedding or a suicide; the logistics will always be the death of you.For Celeste the where had already been decided. The pristine and fully- furnished beach house she purchased on impulse with her first series check had been vacant for years and was just begging for a little drama. An hour drive in her cherry-red convertible brought Celeste to the main entrance where she casually entered the gate code and coasted to the semi-circle driveway. The exterior had been repainted twice since she had bought the property. The
- Short stories: A little suspense
LEILANI
I still remember the first day I saw her. It was in English. She had positioned herself at the front of the classroom and I took the seat directly behind her. My friend Rebecca walked in a few moments later and noticing that there was no empty seat next to me, looked confused.Sitting behind Leilani had not been my choice. Natural desire had pushed me that way and it would have burned within me had a decided to sit anywhere else. It might have been the darkness of her skin, compared to the paleness of all of ours that pulled me in. Her lips were stained coral and she smelled like candy. I assumed she did not know perfume and make-up were not allowed. Her hair was a thick sheet of black and it hung over the back of her chair, taunting me. I wanted so badly to stroke it and that longing scared me. “Excuse me,” she said, turning around. “How much is the Shakespeare collection for this class?” “I…I don’t know.” Syllabi for all of our c
- Short stories: A little suspense
TALK OF THE TOWN
There’s a town on Florida’s west coast that you’ve never heard of. The people that grow up there never escape. The ones that arrive there, do so to die. You might mistake it for a nursing home gone wrong, heaven’s waiting room if you will.So it shouldn’t be a surprise that after Jason managed to escape this place four years ago, he hadn’t returned. When he meets someone new in Chicago and they ask the obligatory “where're you from,” he gives them the name of the closest city. If it wasn’t for the death of his grandmother, he never would have come back.Admittedly his life in the city wasn’t perfect. His job as a secretary to an unscrupulous attorney was unfulfilling at best. He had hoped it would be a temporary job to pay the bills until an improv troupe discovered him; but he hadn’t been on stage in over a year, his confidence was shaken. Still on those nights when he laid in bed, fretting over a failed audition, one fact managed to soothe his bruised ego, “At least I’m not back hom
- Short stories: A little suspense
TOPPING
The children were gone. Lila, the youngest, had just moved out three months before. Marilyn reached up for the branch of the cherry tree, and the stepladder beneath her fell backwards as she did. Flattening out as it hit the lawn. Marilyn cursed and pulled herself up with one hand. In the other she held a small saw; she needed to prune, top off the branches of the tree, and the tree was too high now to do it from the lawn.She sneezed twice, and cursed again. She had never had allergies until the year she turned forty, and now they hit her every single spring and every fall. It was late April, everything turning bright green, and the tree was covered in blossoms. There once had been several cherry trees in the yard. Jay had practically planted an orchard lining their side road when their daughter Allie was a toddler. He had told Allie it was the Cherry Lane from the song Puff the Magic Dragon, and he used to sing the song to her nightly while rocking her, over and over, and it used to
- Short stories: A little suspense
ELAINE'S IDYLL
I put on my makeup in a cracked mirror, and purse my lips: a web of rose-red lipstick against fair skin. Skinny jeans, cold shoulders, a pearl clip, and – a soupçon of Chanel No. 5. The last breath in Nana’s old bottle.I set the perfume bottle down – amidst the salves and rolling change and the unfinished scarf I’ve been working on for what seems like forever – and flit fitfully about the room, looking for my ballet pumps. There! – I took them off when I remembered it had been three days since I’d watered my lilies, and their lugubrious scent was dissipating.I’m sick of shadows.Tonight, I’m going.They’ll all be there. The old gang. Two by two. Andy and Jen, who will be holding court as always – Kit and Joseph and Hector, Morgan bringing along whichever one she’s recently bewitched – Benny and Rob, ambiguously – And he! Finally – finally – on Facebook, with a new photo – and still as bold and handsome and marvelous as a knight springing from the pages of a pop-up storybook.Just li
- Short stories: A little suspense
LIFE DRAWING
Determined not to look, Samantha strode past the tall mirrors that covered an entire sidewall in the studio. Her third-year college drawing class would arrive in a half hour and she hustled to set up the easels, arrange the model stand lighting, and select a cassette to play on her ancient boom box.But the mirrors drew her in and Sam stopped to stare. Jeez, I look like a scarecrow…I should be planted in some farmer’s cornfield…and my hair looks like gray straw.The door at the back of the studio rattled open and that night’s model sauntered in: pale, well-padded, wide hips, big breasts, with red hair worn in a French braid.“You’re early, Lucy. What’s the rush?”“Ah, ya know…boyfriend problems. His jock buddies keep razzing him about me posing nude. I told him it’s my body and ta fuck off.”“That doesn’t sound good. He should come by sometime. I’ll pay good money for a male model who can hold still for forty minutes.”Lucy grinned. “Yeah, that would teach ’im. Whatcha got planned for
- Short stories: A little suspense
THE LAST ORIGINAL THOUGHT
“Oh my god, Dave! Did you hear that, the television? Dave, you have to get a load of this!”Dave had not heard the television, or Jennifer, for that matter. He was in the couple’s study, head wrapped in enormous noise-canceling headphones, eyes dancing across the lines of text displayed on his laptop monitor. A nightly habit of late, he was writing at the large oak desk he had inherited from his father.He was absorbed in reworking a particularly dense section of dialogue when Jennifer burst into the study, backlit by the television in the adjoining room, a silhouetted specter portending the death of his productivity. With arms spread wide in mock dramatic fashion, she descended upon her bemused husband.“Come on, you know I’m working — ” he started.“On your novel, allegedly. You’ve never even let me look at it, so for all I know you’re watching porn in here. What’s your poison? Guy-girl? Girl-girl? Girl-girl-girl-girl-” she was counting them off on her fingers, “girl-girl … guy?”“Y
- Short stories: A little suspense
TIE-DYE
Peter and Sonja slouched in the audio-visual room of the vasectomy clinic, giggling like sixth graders. Sonja wished there was a sink with paper towels, so she could make spitballs. The movie featured a barbecuing man in a red-checkered apron who had had a vasectomy on Friday and was well enough to grill a T-Bone that very night.“This is incredibly stupid,” Sonja’s lips tickled Peter’s ear. He swatted at it as though a mosquito had been nibbling on it.“What?”“Are you actually taking this seriously?” she yelled above the volume. “Don’t you get how ludicrous this is?”Decades later, whenever Sonja saw a man barbecuing—at a church picnic or at a county fair—the grainy footage came flooding back, along with the jowly face of the man in the red-checkered apron, jousting with the sinewy steak.Sonja’s biological clock had starteding going haywire around her thirty-sixth birthday. It seemed to change its mind every week. Some days she fantasized that she was pulling out its springs with h
