Shock Totem 2 Read online

  PUBLISHER/EDITOR

  K. Allen Wood

  ASST. EDITOR

  John Boden

  ASST. EDITOR

  Nick Contor

  NONFICTION/SUBMISSIONS

  Mercedes M. Yardley

  SUBMISSIONS

  Sarah Gomes

  DIGITAL LAYOUT/DESIGN

  K. Allen Wood

  COVER DESIGN

  Hicham Haddaji

  Established in 2009

  www.shocktotem.com

  Digital Edition Copyright © 2012 by Shock Totem Publications, LLC.

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the US Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the written consent of Shock Totem Publications, LLC.

  The short stories in this publication are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The views expressed in the nonfiction writing herein are solely those of the authors.

  ISSN 1944-110X

  Printed in the United States of America.

  NOTES FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK

  Ah, our sophomore publication, the Murphy’s Law issue.

  It took me a long time to appreciate this one. As you’ll read in the editorial, Stand Up and Shout, this second issue didn’t come together as smoothly as our debut. As such, I was rather sick of it by the time it was released and it was quite a while before I could properly appreciate it.

  This one is different from the first issue, and anyone who has read our subsequent issues will know that they, too, are uniquely different from the others. Each issue has its own character, its own thematic identity, if you will. But we never knew what to expect after the debut, so when this one began walking a different, bumpier path, I questioned whether we were making the right decisions, whether the material stood up against the work in the previous issue.

  But that was then.

  Now, I love this issue. Yes, it is different—there’s a good amount of flash fiction, it’s not as long, the stories lean a bit more toward the fantastical—but that’s precisely why I love it, because it’s not like the debut.

  We were still getting our feet wet while preparing this one, learning the ropes, but I’m proud of it. More important, I dig the hell out of it.

  And I hope you do as well.

  As always, thank you. Horns up!

  K. Allen Wood

  November 16, 2011

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Notes from the Editor’s Desk

  Stand Up and Shout

  An Editorial

  by K. Allen Wood

  The Rat Burner

  by Ricardo Bare

  Sole Survivor

  by Kurt Newton

  The Spooky Stuff

  A Conversation with James Newman

  by John Boden

  Sweepers

  by Leslianne Wilder

  The Rainbow Serpent

  by Vincent Pendergast

  Strange Goods and Other Oddities

  Hide the Sickness

  Narrative Nonfiction

  by Mercedes M. Yardley

  Pretty Little Ghouls

  by Cate Gardner

  Messages from Valerie Polichar

  by Grá Linnaea & Sarah Dunn

  Return from Dust

  by Nick Bronson

  Leave Me the Way I was Found

  by Christian A. Dumais

  Upon My Return

  by David Jack Bell

  Howling Through the Keyhole

  STAND UP AND SHOUT

  An Editorial

  by K. Allen Wood

  Welcome to the second issue of Shock Totem!

  About time, right? I know, I know. Well, let’s get right down to it, shall we?

  NOBODY LEAVES THIS PLACE WITHOUT SINGING THE BLUES

  The road to publishing our debut issue was relatively smooth. We had nearly two years to put that issue together. Our biggest obstacle was winning over an already reluctant reader base, in terms of being a new, untested publication. I think we made a lot of progress on that front, and continue to do so as we move forward. But it’s easy to put out one issue. That’s been done time and time again.

  The real challenge is longevity.

  Getting this second issue to print proved to be a challenge on a few fronts. The first was content. When it came time to go to print, we simply didn’t have enough stories. Without compromising quality to complete an issue by our projected release date, we chose to delay it until we received work we felt was of the standard we had set with our debut issue. It was a tough decision, but the right decision. As Thomas Jefferson famously said, “Delay is preferable to error.”

  The second challenge was time—lack of time, to be exact. A few changes in my personal life—my employer moved farther away, my work hours changed, I coerced a woman to date me—and the days seemed to shorten drastically. It took some doing to rearrange things and get back on track.

  But we made it. Huzzah!

  Get down!

  NEWTON’S LAW

  One thing that’s always bothered me about certain small-press publications is seeing the same authors’ work featured. There’s good business sense in that, I guess, especially if those authors have a decent—or big—fan base. But it feels cheap to me. Good business or not. It’s no mystery that bad writers outnumber the good, but there is enough talent out there—I think, anyway, maybe foolishly—to bring in fresh, new voices more often than not.

  So during the process of working on the first issue we set a goal to not utilize a stable of authors. But here we are, two issues deep, and we’re sort of breaking that rule.

  Kurt Newton’s “Thirty-Two Scenes from a Dead Hooker’s Mouth” wasn’t originally slated for our first issue. We’d first accepted another story, “Sole Survivor.” But then Kurt submitted “Thirty-Two Scenes,” and we felt—because it’s like a sledgehammer to the gut—it was better suited for the debut. Since we obviously enjoyed “Sole Survivor,” we agreed to honor that initial acceptance and defer it to the next issue.

  Unless serialized, or some unforeseen situation presents itself, Kurt will be the only author to be featured in back-to-back issues of Shock Totem.

  Of course, you’ll notice Mercedes M. Yardley’s name once again graces our Table of Contents. This reason is simple: Mercedes is now part of the Shock Totem team. A wonderful thing (except for her insisting we wear heels and apple-red lipstick around the office).

  BETTER ROADS AHEAD

  One last thing before I leave you to it...

  We had no expectations when we started. We just wanted to put out a quality product that brought a little joy to people’s lives, including our own. At the time of this writing, we’ve sold nearly one thousand copies of issue #1. If we’d had any sales expectations, they surely wouldn’t have been that high. And the same can be said about reader and critic feedback, which has been unanimously positive thus far.

  When the road to issue #2 turned rough, we only had to turn around and see how far we’d come, see how many people were now walking with us, to know that there were better roads and better times ahead.

  It’s been amazing to watch readers and writers rally around us and help us build something special—something positive—within this field. We’ve met some wonderful people along the way, and Shock Totem has grown into something bigger than a magazine. It’s a community, a family—a strange, quirky, and often hilarious family.

  And we couldn’t have expected anything better.

  Thank you!

&
nbsp; THE RAT BURNER

  by Ricardo Bare

  Cherry looks like an old house sagging on its frame.

  Standing in the doorway, with a plastic cherry-red purse dangling from her cherry-red painted nails, she says, “I need the bed.”

  “What?” Jacob doesn’t hear her. A pair of sherbet-orange incantronic earmuffs cup his ears. The ghost of a voice is stitched into the cups and its whispers are modulated to cancel noise. The mic piece is broken off and there’s no music. He doesn’t care. He wears them because they make his world quiet, blocking out the frenetic drive-by rumbles of the cars and mopeds on the street outside, the screaming-anxious-laughing-groaning voices of the other tenants, the hookers catcalling in the alley, and the thing that bothers him the most—the interminable scratch-scratch of the rats scurrying above and below.

  Quiet.

  If he closes his eyes he can imagine he’s underwater, every sound reduced to a dull murmur. But he felt the click of her stilettos on the concrete—felt it quiver up the springs of the bed—followed by her customer’s heavier tread, so he was already looking at the door when she opened it. He saw her glossy lips move and knew what she said.

  He pulls one of the cups away from his ear.

  “I said I need the bed, Jacob,” she repeats slower and louder, words thick with a Kenyan accent. She shifts her weight from one hip to the other, foot tapping. Dark purple crescents hang under her eyes, marring the otherwise smooth coffee tone of her skin. Behind her in the hall a man in a wifebeater is hyperventilating a cigarette in his eagerness to get laid. The smoke rolls into curling grey fingers, beckoning like the smoke-dance of a Mexican witch.

  A glance at the window tells him it’s dark. Time to work anyway.

  Jacob slides the headphones down to his neck and blinks as the city noise crowds back into his skull. When he gets up the springs creak. The bed, sheets stained a faded sweat-yellow, almost fills the room. The apartment is barely more than a closet—four brick-and-plaster walls, a bed, a dirty window stuck half-open, and two beat-up plastic trunks, one for his stuff and one for hers. They have a deal. He gets to sleep during the day, but she gets the bed in the evenings for her tricks. They split the rent. He’s busy late into the night, so it works out most of the time.

  “Sure,” he says and slides past her. She flattens against the doorframe just enough to let him pass. Lavender perfume and clove-scented smoke wash over him. The lavender he doesn’t mind so much, but the clove makes him want to puke. He refuses to look at the client as he heads to the stairs and exits into the dank air of the alley below.

  It’s cold. The drain grates steam and gurgle. He zips up his black jacket and flips the hood over his head.

  “Hey, man,” comes a thin voice from the mouth of the alley.

  Jacob turns and frowns. That was fast. First customer of the night and he looks pathetic—so tense he’s about to pop. He’s a young guy in a long-sleeved white office shirt that’s too tight and a black tie. His narrow shoulders are bunched up on his neck and his arms shoot straight down, punching his hands into the front pockets of his work slacks. He stands at the threshold of the alley, shivering and teetering from heels to toes, hesitant to cross from the sidewalk into the space between the buildings. Beyond him cars whip by, their metallic bodies streaking within a galaxy of sodium lights and the brazen store-front bulbs of the shops and bars of Sixth Street.

  “Uh...I’m looking for a bar...supposed to have good burgers—”

  “Casino El Camino?”

  “Uh, yeah...that’s it.”

  Bullshit. But he humors him anyway. “Three more blocks.” He points. “They only take pesos there.”

  “Oh...okay...cool. Thanks, man.” But the office man doesn’t leave, because that’s not what he really wanted to ask, Jacob knows. Not the reason he’s standing there, shaking, in the first place. He pulls one hand out of his pocket and rubs his arm to warm it.

  “Is that all you wanted?”

  “Uh…” The office man leans forward and lowers his voice. “Are you the guy?”

  Jacob sighs and can’t help but roll his eyes. “Maybe.”

  The office man notices and his dumpling cheeks redden. “Look—let’s drop the spooky spy crap, okay? I’m looking for the guide. Are you him or not?”

  Jacob stares back at him for a moment, until the office man’s breathing slows, until he lowers his eyes and clears his throat. “Maybe you should tell me what you’re looking for—then I’ll tell you if I’m the guide.”

  “Black door. The flyer said…” He pulls a rumpled paper from his pocket, starts to smooth it out. “Black door…” his voice trails off. The paper and his hands disappear again.

  “Then I’m the guide.”

  “You’re the guide?”

  “I’m the guide.”

  “I’m—”

  “I don’t want to know who you are.”

  “Okay...that’s cool. Look...uh...sorry about that. I’m just nervous”

  “It’s fine.”

  The office man relaxes his shoulders some. “Okay, cool...do I pay you now?”

  Jacob nods.

  “Fifty bucks, right?”

  He nods again.

  The office guy counts out three wrinkled ten dollar bills, two fives, nine ones, and four quarters.

  For a fraction of a second Jacob thinks: Go back. Go back, you stupid fool. Take your money and never come to this alley again. But the office man steps from the sidewalk into the alley and Jacob knows that he’s just crossed into a world that only has one conclusion. It ends the same way with every soul that drifts to the mouth of this alley. He tells himself it’s not his responsibility to care for strangers. He’s just the guide. The guide takes his money and says, “Follow me.”

  They walk deeper into the alley, past hills of trash piled high like ramparts against the buildings—black plastic bags, hemorrhaging used diapers, rotting vegetable matter, and cardboard. Rats patrol the heaps. Some of them are big. Some of them look like they could bite a cat’s leg off. Someone—a drunk Wikipedian from the university, he thinks—once told him the big ones were actually nutria, not rats, but still part of the rodent family. Huge things with front teeth the same color as his earmuffs—nuclear orange. Punk soldier rodents in their castles of trash. But the distinction makes no difference to the guide. They’re just big rats with freakish orange teeth and he hates them all the same—their skittering, chirruping, and scratching. He hates their black accusing eyes and grey muzzles and long bald tails. They make his insides feel tight. And there are always just too damn many of them. The burner never comes often enough. He should get Lopez to call the burner…

  “Damn,” the office man says. “I thought they were bad by the river...don’t they freak you out, man? You live here.”

  The guide glares at him.

  “Guess so.”

  They wind a path into the area that used to be Fifth Street, but is now an urban swamp of peeling buildings, lean-tos, and snaking alleys that all sprang up sometime after the city seceded from the rest of the state. The office man keeps his hands stashed in his pockets and carries on a verbal barrage that makes the guide want to put his headset back on.

  At an intersection of three alleys they catch a whiff of pungent stir-fry drifting through a tall chain-link fence obscured with a plastic privacy weave. They walk next to it, avoiding the brown sludge running down the center of the alley. Halfway down the length of the fence the office man pauses to get a good sniff. He puts his hand on the fence...raises up on his toes…

  A black shape slams into the chain link from the other side. The top of the fence pitches outward—for an instant the guide sees slavering white canines, smells carrion breath. A hail of vicious barks rip out and boom through the alley.

  “Shit!” The guide flinches.

  The office man screams and leaps away from the fence, stomping a silver trash can lid. The lid slides under his foot and he ends up sprawled on the wet concrete.

  The
fence wobbles back into place. The dog’s claws rake against the plastic. They can see his hulking shape through the semi-translucent weave, pacing, barking. Some kind of Mastiff.

  “Damn.” The office man is still on his ass, palms holding him up. “Sweet holy...son of a...damn...gave me a heart attack!”

  “Yeah. New dog, I guess. Let’s keep moving.”

  The guide waits for him to get up and they resume, winding deeper. The dog’s barks echo after them.

  The office man spots a shop entrance wreathed in potted jasmine vines on a corner and tries to read the Spanish flickering on the sign over the door: “Bru...ha. Mo...lee...oh, that part’s English. Molly Murder. Hey, you’re not taking me to a witch, right?”

  The guide shakes his head. They move past the witch’s shop, leaving the sweet jasmine scent.

  “‘Cause, I’m not into that. No Rabbi’s either. So—”

  “I don’t know what it is. I just take you there.”

  It takes ten more minutes to get to the dead-end alley where the black door is, the door that’s only there when money has changed hands between the guide and a client. The door that has no handle and sits in the brick wall like a hunk of smooth basalt. Over it a sickly greenish bulb flickers.

  “You can go in. I’ll wait out here.”

  The office man licks his lips. “Just go in?”

  “Just go in.”

  “But there’s no—”

  With a click, the door opens an inch.

  The office man frowns, looks at the guide, and then goes to the door slowly. He puts a hand on the black surface. “Hello?”

  He’s gone. The door closes. Jacob grabs a plastic bottle-crate out of the trash and carries it to the door and sits, elbows on his knees, like he’s sat hundreds of times before. A sudden bitterness in his mouth makes him spit and he puts his headset on, closes his eyes, and listens to the soft susurrus inside.