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Dirty Cops

Them movin’ in from the city… it’s poisoning our town.

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They’re Crazy

After Chief Maxwell explains the first step of the plan to abduct the child the damn dirty cops mean to sacrifice to an alleged meteor, Jonathan takes the headphones out of his ears. He doesn’t want to hear anymore, doesn’t need to. In truth the decision was made before he even left his house, but still some part of Jonathan was holding out for proof. Well, he has his proof. These Fellers, five Wuester police officers led by who else but the town’s police chief, are damn dirty racist pigs. They’re going to abduct a child based solely on the color of her skin, and they’re going to sacrifice her to bring a rock falling out of space.

Well, they’re planning to abduct the child, at least. But they’re not going to go through with it. Not this time, not as long as Jonathan Knox has something to say about it.

‘They’ve clearly lost what’s left of their damn minds,’ Jonathan Knox rationalizes as he slips the rubber gloves onto his hands. ‘The chief said it himself, they’re forming a cult. They have to be stopped.’

Jonathan pats his pocket. The matches rattle inside their box. He reaches into the space below the glovebox and takes up the gas can, resting it on his lap.

‘And I’m the only one who can stop them.’

The cold and blowing wind of a blustery March night kisses Jonathan sloppily on the cheek like a relative at a holiday party who you don’t see all too often. He sneers against it, clutching the gas can tightly as rigid chills of uncomfort bolster his body with gooseflesh. Two steps down the road he turns around to stare at his idling smart car, then goes back to it and shuts it off, taking his keys with him. They won’t catch him, they won’t even know he was there, they’ll just smell smoke and suddenly the house will collapse, cave in on top of them; still, an empty car parked on the side of the road left to run is suspicious. Better safe than sorry.

Trudging up the road Jonathan looks up into the sky and sees the moon, almost full and shining brighter than all the little stars around it, even though it doesn’t shine with its own light. Kind of like Daniel Maxwell and all his little cronies; they’re filthy racist pigs, despicable, so empty in the head that they can’t come up with their own way to see the world. They have to steal an ideology from somewhere else, and it’s a shitty ideology, too. Jonathan Knox is no saint, he knows it fine enough, but he doesn’t judge folks based on the color of their skin. He doesn’t conspire to sacrifice an innocent child just to summon a meteor, for God’s sake; all he does is eavesdrop on his neighbors! Jonathan Knox is a saint compared to these cretins. Jonathan Knox is acting under the will of God, for God’s sake; those cops, those, those Fellers? They’re… well, they’re a Goddamned cult! They’re crazy!  They have to be stopped!!

The gasoline sloshes against the inside of the gas can. It’s heavy in Jonathan’s hand, but nothing he can’t carry.

It’s not a short walk from the spot Jonathan parked his car to the front door of Daniel Maxwell’s dark house. A short drive, yes; when Jonathan first got here earlier he parked right across the street, but then thought better of himself and decided it’s always better to be safe than sorry. Especially when dealing with the cops.

“Fucking pigs,” Jonathan mumbles aloud as the heels of his shoes scrape the dark pavement. “All they do is kill… kill and plot and kill some more…” Jonathan doesn’t hear himself speaking. “Well I think it’s time someone killed them.”

Very faintly Jonathan hears the hum of a car rolling up the road. He blocks it out at first, mostly because he doesn’t want it to be real, but then he sees the yellow slivers of headlight peeking through the trees to his right. Cannonball is a straight shot towards the center of town except here at the end where it curves like a candy cane, ending in a cul-de-sac surrounded by houses. Maxwell’s place is right along the bend, but Jonathan doesn’t know who else lives on this road. He knows they’re probably all cops, but he doesn’t know which cops. Jonathan didn’t account for being spotted by someone, he only thought of the cops in the basement – ‘Damn dirty cops,’ – but here someone comes! In a minute they’ll see him, they’ll see weird creepy ol’ Jonathan Knox trudging up Cannonball Road with a full can of gasoline in one hand and a bright white halo above his head but they won’t see the halo, they’ll only see the gas can. They’ll only see a villain, and they’ll probably veer over and strike him down where he stands thinking they’re acting under the will of God.

Biting his tongue so he doesn’t scream at the top of his lungs, Jonathan dashes off the road and leaps into the forest, landing hard on the frozen dirt and knocking the wind clear out of his lungs. He struggles about for a few seconds, lungs refusing to breathe, the dark of the night growing murkier as the black clouds of unconsciousness threaten to steal him asunder, then he breathes. Then he scurries behind a tree. Then he realizes he dropped his gas can so he scurries back out into the open, fumbles around in the dark until he bangs his knuckles against the unforgiving hard plastic, and hauls the gas can back behind the tree with him.

Two full minutes pass and the car never comes. It seems to have turned into a driveway down the road. Jonathan can see the red glow of the car’s back lights, the driver forgot to turn them off. Then they shut off as he’s getting up; looks like the driver had nothing to do with it.

Jonathan looks both ways before getting back on the street this time. No cars coming or going. He checks his pocket for the matches again and lo and behold they’re still there, rattling like a maraca inside their flimsy box. The gas can is still full, but he doesn’t need to shake it around to tell that. He can tell that just from the weight.

“Stop getting distracted,” Jonathan demands himself. There’s sweat on his forehead. He doesn’t want to wipe it off. “You have a job to do. So go do it, Jonathan Knox. Go do your work.”

Gas can in hand, Jonathan Knox continues along up the road.

---

Hello Commons, this has been the fourth subchapter of the first chapter of Under the Hood: The Imprisonment of Jonathan Knox, a novel about a man who likes to eavesdrop on his neighbors.

Under the Hood: The Imprisonment of Jonathan Knox is the second book in the W-2222 series, a series of books which take place in Universe W-2222.

Under the Hood: The Imprisonment of Jonathan Knox is available to read for free in its entirety on my website. Click here to check it out.

I’ve written a few other books, too. Click here to see the list.

If you like Under the Hood: The Imprisonment of Jonathan Knox and would like to help support my work, click here and buy an autographed copy of the book (or anything else!) from my store. Alternatively, you can snag a cheaper (and unsigned) copy from Amazon by clicking here.

If you’re there, hypothetical reader, thank you for being there. Be well Commons~

Convenient Incidents
The Father

Daisy Williamson

Daisy Williamson gave birth to a dead baby six months later. She didn’t speak a word to anybody for a full year after that; not to her husband, not to her living child, not to her dying father. Only to The Father, but those words were spoken only in Daisy’s head, and they fell on deaf ears.

For a great long time, Daisy believed she was silently ignored by The Father, that her pleas for an explanation, for some kind of understanding of why her life had spiraled out of her control were outright refused to her. For a great long time, Daisy stayed inside her house, not speaking to anyone, hardly eating anything, hardly drinking anything. She did not take care of herself, yet she stayed healthy, all the while her family began to fall apart before her eyes. Her husband lost his patience for her, her son Hilter Odolf stopped knocking on her door to check on her. For a great long time, Daisy let her world crumble around her and did nothing to stop it.

Then, she decided to stop asking after The Father. She decided to do something to get His attention, to force his hand, to give Him no other choice but to save her.

Daisy Williamson murdered her husband in cold blood when her son was at school one day, and she hid his body in the meat locker in the basement.

In the days that followed the murder, Daisy often came out of her room to take care of her son. She made him his breakfast, his lunch, his dinner. She made sure he bathed, and brushed his teeth, and did his homework, all of which he would have done without her making sure he did so. She ignored him when he asked where his father went, she pretended she didn’t hear a single word out of his mouth. And one day, when little Hilter was at school, she took all of his stuffed animals and gutted them, using the fluff to stuff her slain husband like a taxidermy animal, and after burying the felt carcasses in the backyard, she set Chester up on the couch for her son to find.

But still The Father didn’t speak to her. So Daisy decided to start taking care of herself properly, to show The Father that she loved herself as much as The Father loved her; she started eating well and going for long distance runs to get exercise, and she was fast. Daisy hardly weighed more than one hundred pounds at that point in her life and she ran like the wind, or at least, she ran faster than the pets around the neighborhood. The very pets that began to disappear shortly after Daisy picked up her running habit.

When the neighbors started to complain about how their pets went missing after Daisy ran by their houses, she told them to fuck off and call the cops.

When the cops came and questioned Daisy, she told them to fuck off and stop harassing her.

When the cops brought dogs into Daisy’s backyard and found all the dead animals, she let them in the house and showed them her husband.

When the cops threatened to lock Daisy away, she convinced them that her son Hilter was the culprit, that he was a psychopath, that he was holding her here as a prisoner, that she ran all the time to train so she could escape him one day. The cops believed Daisy and Hilter was taken away, and Daisy hoped The Father would see that she did it all to prove to The Father that she loved herself, but The Father still didn’t speak to her.

When the neighborhood pets continued to disappear long after Hilter was taken away, the cops came back and took Daisy away, and she stayed taken away for a very long time. She made friends at the facility she was taken away to, and she was happy there. She still didn’t hear the voice of The Father, but she was happy. She was at peace with herself. Then, one fateful day, Daisy slipped deep into a catatonic semi-comatose state. Her son Hilter Odolf, who was released from his own facility when he was a child, who grew up to be a world-renowned expert on schizophrenia spectrum disorders – took her out of her facility and into his own care.

Today, Daisy Williamson lives alone in the basement of the house she grew up in, that same old house on Fricker Drive. Her son Hilter owns the house – Hilter Odolf Williamson owns all the houses on this street, as The Father loves Hilter Odolf Williamson. The Father does not love Daisy Williamson. Daisy’s hospice nurse – a woman who will one day give birth to a boy named Marty who will follow in her footsteps and become a hospice nurse himself – loves Daisy Williamson, but The Father does not love His pretty Daisy Williamson. Not anymore.

That’s what Daisy tells herself every morning, afternoon, and night as her consciousness floats just behind her eyes, patiently waiting for death: that The Father doesn’t love her anymore. And she starts to believe it, too.

Until she’s given a reason not to.

---

Hello Commons, this has been the third subchapter of the last story from Convenient Incidents, an anthology of fifteen interconnected short stories which revolve around a man by the name of Hilter Odolf Williamson.

Convenient Incidents is part of the Third Spiral, an anthology of sorts called The Here and Now which is comprised of stories told from the various planes of Existence.

Convenient Incidents is available to read for free in its entirety on my website. Click here to check it out.

I’ve written a few other books, too. Click here to see the list.

If you like Convenient Incidents and would like to help support my work, click here and buy an autographed copy of the book (or anything else!) from my store. Alternatively, you can snag a cheaper (and unsigned) copy from Amazon by clicking here.

Be well Commons~

Sept the Sixth

Journal, I spent about thirteen hours researching the process of writing a novel. I took pages and pages of handwritten notes (in one of my notebooks left over from my failed college experiment, and speaking of which, I’m starting to realize I didn’t fail college. The college failed me. Hell, the college is a business, and I bowed down to its capitalistic ways to the point where I felt it was my fault that my “professors” [read: professional teachers] didn’t know how to teach, what a hoot! I got scammed, scammed I say!), I read articles on articles on articles, I watched dozens of half-hour-long videos on the subject of writing, but that wasn’t enough.

Y’understand me, Journal? Thirteen hours of research just wasn’t enough. So, I did it all again today.

I’ve never felt so energized, so motivated to do something before. In truth I’m a little worried because I feel manic as fuck, but even if this is some weird kind of mania, at least I’m being productive with it, y’know? I have the good energy and I’m putting it to use, so what’s the problem?

Anyway… actually, quick sidebar.

…                                     …                                    …

College is not a scam. Not for everyone. I don’t know why I feel like this is important for me to acknowledge in my own private journal – perhaps because Stephen King went to college for writing and it worked well for him, or perhaps I’m just part of a ridiculously extra generation – but I don’t really think all college is a scam. Some occupations need their occupants to go through a very thorough training regiment, and college is the only place one can go to endure that regiment.

But.

Some college majors – like, I don’t know, fucking POETRY?! – are not necessary. Sure, going to school for writing can help an aspiring writer quit their aspiring and get to the writing, but… how do I put this… some folks who aspire to be a writer need that inspiration to start themselves writing. Other writers – like myself, obviously, this journal is the latest in a lengthy series of journals I’ve written over the years – write out of habit, like it’s part of our DNA. Writers like me – I’m not going to call myself a true writer, because anybody who writes is truly a writer – don’t need to spend all that money on a piece of paper to feel like it’s okay for them to write down the wacky shit that pops into their head.

Writers like me do it all on our own, motherfucker. Step up or get to steppin’.

…                                     …                                    …

Anyway, so after two full days of researching the process of how to put a novel together, I think I have the whole process boiled down into five steps, which I’ll list to help me remember them. They are:

1. Inspiration
2. Notetaking
3. Drafting
4. Editing
5. Publishing

And guess what? I already have step 1 down and done with. After that shit that went down on Aug the Thirty-First – not to mention the countless hours of my life I dedicated to building up the world of The Hillside Commons, even if it only exists in my head – I might be the most inspired son of a bitch who went on to be adopted in the entire world. Next up is notetaking – I know, that’s technically not a word, but considering how human words are made up by humans to be used by humans for the purpose of expressing and sharing human ideas, I think I can get away with making one up – and uh, after the past two days, my brain is undeniably in notetaking mode.

I say all that to say this, Journal: tomorrow I shall begin planning out my novel. Like, properly. It’s great that I have a first line (and a kickass first line it is), but there swings a lengthy bridge between that kickass first line and the second line it shall flow into, a bridge I must cross with laces in my shoes. Y’know, just in case I run into a Scotsman playing the pipes who needs me to dangle off the side so he can go on his merry way.

Important sidebar: Samurai Jack is the greatest goddamn animation out there. Next to Primal… and they’re both made by the same guy.

IMAGINE THAT.

Anywho… yeah. I was very excited to write to you today, Journal. If you were capable of reading these words, I think you would see why. Now, I’m sleep.

Say thankya, Journal. ‘Preciate ya. Good sleeps and good dreams~

---

Hello Commons, this has been the next journal entry from Untitled Bigfoot Project, a novel about a writer who writes a novel about bigfoot.

Untitled Bigfoot Project is part of the Third Spiral, an anthology of sorts called The Here and Now which is comprised of stories told from the various planes of Existence.

Untitled Bigfoot Project is available to read for free in its entirety on my website. Click here to check it out.

I’ve written a few other books, too. Click here to see the list.

If you like Untitled Bigfoot Project and would like to help support my work, click here and buy an autographed copy of the book (or anything else!) from my store. Alternatively, you can snag a cheaper (and unsigned) copy from Amazon by clicking here.

Be well Commons~

Dirty Cops

Them movin’ in from the city… it’s poisoning our town.

---

Bullhockey

Breathing. Heavy, subtly terrified breathing. “Chief… you didn’t need to do that…”

Maxwell returns the handgun to the back of his pants and covers the butt with his red sweater, then turns and walks slowly back to the stairs.

“Chief,” Jim says again. The sweat is beginning to dry to his skin. It’s making him feel grimy. The condition of the basement isn’t helping. “I told you you can trust us… you didn’t need to give me the heart attack.”

“I think I did, Jim,” Maxwell says firmly.

The brains of the five officers shake around inside their skulls like Boggle dice trying to understand exactly what’s going on right now. Finally, one of them builds some words.

“You’ll have to explain that one, Dan.”

It was Officer Herm Billings. Suffice to say, he speaks for everyone involved.

“It’s simple, boys,” Maxwell casually explains, going as far as shrugging his shoulders. “None of you jumped on me, tried to stop what was going on. Even after the trigger clicked, none of you tried to attack me, pry the gun away, put a bullet in me.”

“Not that we’d’ve been able to,” says Vern, sweating just as much as Jim Hubert. “Gun’s empty.”

Maxwell raises an eyebrow. “You think so?”

Chief Maxwell brandishes the revolver once more. In one swift motion he aims, thumbs down the hammer, and unknowingly blasts one of Jonathan Knox’s three ceiling bugs into smithereens. The report of the shot is deafening, which is a good thing; everybody’s ears are ringing too loud to hear Billy Gene scream like a little pansy. He puts on a good show, that Billy Gene, but loud noises scare the man. Loud noises scare the man real good. As Maxwell puts the revolver back into his pants, everyone looks up to the hole in the ceiling.

“Like I said,” the chief murmurs. “Now I know I can trust you all.”

The five officers and their chief go on looking at the hole in the ceiling, at the phantom of dust and tiny pink fibres shrouding it, at the darkness of the upstairs where it leads to. By the time they can hear again the lightbulb chain swings no more. Nobody is displeased at that.

“All right then, Chief.” Gene Thorton. “You can trust us, now you know it. So what is this about?”

“Well, Fellers,” the chief begins, looking down at his feet. “I suppose there’s no easy way to say this… I called you all down here tonight to ask for… well, to induct you into a little group I’m try’n’a start.”

“Induct?” asks Herm Billings. “Don’t say induct, Chief. That makes it sound like you’re startin’ a cult.”

Chief Maxwell chortles at that, as though the thought has crossed his mind before. “Some might label it that way, sure… but the fact of the matter is, boys, that our little town’s… well, it’s been infected… or maybe invaded might be a better word, Herm, since you’re so keen about my diction tonight.”

Herm looks nervously to the other officers, then feels thankful for the fact they all look as perplexed as he feels. “I didn’t mean anything by it, Chief, I jus–”

“No’no,” Chief Maxwell says, waving him into silence with one pudgy palm, “it’s quite all right. I wasn’t bustin’ ya. Invaded really is the better word, Fellers.” A sniffle. The dust, along with the other shit floating in the air of this dungeon, is clogging his sinuses. He looks down at his feet again, then after a moment, back up to the faces of his boys. “There ain’t no easy way to say it, so I might as well just get it all out. Wuester ain’t the same as it used to be, boys. Our town has been invaded by aliens.”

“Aliens?!” Officer Hubert blurts out. The crystalline coating of sweat on his skin is beginning to melt back into liquid form. “D–… Chief, do you mean… the grays? ”

“No, Jim, I don’t mean the grays,” Chief Maxwell says gravely. “I mean the blacks. The browns. The colords.”

“The c–…” Billy Gene rapidly shakes his head a couple times. “Chief, are… you’re telling us there are beings from outer space in Wuester… right?”

Chief Maxwell says nothing, holding his steely stare.

“Right? ”

“I think we all know damn well I ain’t talkin’ about no space aliens,” Chief Maxwell barks, reaching around behind him. All the cops think he’s about to whip out the gun, but in truth he just has an itch from the sweater. “This used to be a nice town, a quiet town. A peaceful, respectable town populated by God-fearin’ hard workin’ good ol’ white folks, but that all changed when the citiots started movin’ in. Puerto Ricans, Guatamelans, Mexicans and Cubans and the damn Haitians, and worst of all, the blacks.”

Nobody is really sure what to say.

“They’re different than us, boys,” Maxwell continues, oblivious to the mood. “They think different, eat different, shit and piss different, they even breed different than us white folks. They’re poisoning our Wuester, Fellers… if I may call you Fellers, anyway.”

“You can call us whatever you want, Chief,” Jim says. Jim Hubert feels utterly at home right now. “And for the record, I for one agree with you.”

Everyone looks at Jim Hubert. Then, everyone looks away from Jim Hubert.

“That’s a lovely sentiment, Jim,” Chief Maxwell says, almost sadly, “but I don’t think you understand what I mean. When I say Fellers, I don’t mean fellas. I mean…”

Chief Maxwell trails off again, his eyes stuck on his shoes. Glances are shared with everyone but Jim Hubert, who can’t take his eyes off the police chief. Well, that’s not true; Jim can take his eyes off Maxwell, he just don’ wan’a, y’understan’?

“Chief… this uh, this group you wan’a start–”

“It’s okay, Herm,” Chief says, looking up with kind eyes. “You can call it a cult. That’s really what it is, after all.”

Herm swallows. His throat clicks. “This cult, then… uh… it doesn’t happen to involve… white robes, does it?”

Police Chief Daniel Maxwell assumes a fierce and flabbergasted look about his face. “White robes?  What, do you think this is some Ku Klux Klan bullhockey, Herm?”

Herm does indeed think this is some Ku Klux Klan bullhockey, as far as the wideness of his eyes describes. In fact, all the officers in Chief Maxwell’s basement seem to think this is some Ku Klux Klan bullhockey, and only one of ‘em’s disappointed when Maxwell tells them not to be ridiculous.

“I know it may seem like the contrary, boys,” Maxwell continues, “but this issue I’ve brought you down here to discuss hardly has anything to do with race.” He thinks for a moment. “Well, it has to do with race, but…” A sigh, meaty and bellowed. “I ain’t no white supremacist, just to make things clear. I don’t think the whites are any better than the browns or the blacks; hell, I didn’t even think we were any different before I read what I read.”

“What’d you read, Sir?” asks Vern. Vern likes to read, he can’t help but ask.

“Well that’s why I brought you all down here,” Chief says, aware of the fact that he’s talking them in circles. Some things need to be circled a few times before they’re pounced on, it’s just the way it is. “You may have noticed my choice of clothing for tonight’s meeting is… different from normal.”

They did notice. Vern even mentioned it, but because he didn’t get an explanation when he first brought it up, he decides to keep his mouth shut.

“These clothes, the blue denim pants and the thick red sweater, this is… well, these are our white robes, so to speak. Our uniform. If you all agree to be Fellers, you’ll each receive a set.”

Lots of thoughts are racing through several minds. Nobody is sure of what to say. Then…

“I’ll be straight with you, Chief,” says Gene Thorton. “I think it’d be best for everybody if you just came out and said whatever it is you’re meanin’ t’say.”

A chorus of nods and yeah s and uh-huh s affirm this.

“A’ight, I s’pose I should.” He takes a deep breath, then gives it back. “Do you boys remember, back in August, when that meteor fell and hit that boat floatin’ in Lake Atacama on the other side of town?”

The boys remember it so well it could have happened not twenty minutes ago. A few folks even drowned. They were young; ‘twas a tragedy felt across the whole town.

“Well that night, on that very same night, there was a loud flash of light in my backyard–”

“A loud flash of light?” Vern asks. “How can a flash of light be loud, Sir?”

“Can it, VanDunk!” bleats Hubert. “Chief knows what he said!”

As if he was never interrupted, “I was up drinkin’, as this was after the wife left me and took my son… she took my Goddamned son! ” He accentuates the word son by striking the stairs with his fist. “What was I… oh. Right. So I was up in the livin’ room drinkin’, lookin’ out at the darkness through the slider my wife demanded me to have installed right before she left me and took my son… and so I’m drinkin’, lookin’ out there, and then it happens. The loud flash’a light, knocked me right off my couch. Didn’t spill my drink, though. It takes more than a flash of light for Chief Daniel Maxwell to tilt his nightcap. Had I known the meteor hit at the same time, then maybe, but…” Maxwell shakes his head. “I keep gettin’ off track!”

“It’s all right, Chief,” Herm hazards. “Take your time, we’ll be patient for you.”

“No, you don’t understand,” Maxwell says, holding his hands out in front of him. His trembling hands, sweat leaking from the palms. “The book said I would have a hard time tellin’ y’all about it… the book knew this would happen…”

The police officers feel uncomfortable again. All five of them. Yeah, even Jim.

“There was a book,” Dan Maxwell says when he feels capable, “laying in the grass, in a black spot. The flash of light burned a hole in my back lawn, the scorch mark is still there. But, the book… it was called The Tome of Rock, and it said… it…”

Suddenly, Daniel Maxwell doesn’t feel very capable anymore.

“Chief,” says Vern VanDunk, “what did it say? What did The Tome of Rock say? ”

“Everything…” Chief Maxwell mumbles, staring at his hands again. “It said the meteor that fell was an omen, called it The Precursor. Said it would only fall when our town was in danger of being mortally poisoned, and it mentioned our town by name. It said white folks are different than colored folks, said we’re children of the stars, said that colored folks have their colors from the dirt of the Earth, that they look the way they look because they’re connected to the Earth on a spiritual level. Us white folks, well our spirits are connected to the stars, boys, and for a long time Wuester was all white folks. Ain’t no ethnic folks in this town for the longest time, not even down towards the center, and that made Wuester special, made it into a kind of energy vortex… but boys… now that the colored folks… the Earthen folk…” He sighs. “Them movin’ in from the city… it’s poisoning our town. Disrupting the vortex.”

If the minds of the five police officers in Maxwell’s basement could be merged together and then translated into words, the translation would be this: “…what?”

“I now how it all sounds, but… the Wuester vortex… to keep it simple, boys, the Wuester energy vortex cannot be disrupted, it can’t be allowed to spin out. If the Wuester vortex is allowed to spin out, then… then…” Chief Maxwell seems to have a frog in his throat.

“Then what, Chief?”

Maxwell’s pupils dart to the outer corners of his eyes, facing opposite directions. His back straightens up, chest puffs out, fingers bend and contort in unnatural ways. In a voice foreign to his mouth, an ancient voice, deeper and vastly more garbled than his own, he says, “Calamity. Scourge. Destruction the likes of which yee mortal swine hath never before conceived of, shall never again live to see for your lives shall be ended, bodies withered to rot, minds scattered to the winds, intangible souls perished and consumed whole. Praise Thee, Rock! Praise Thee and fell unto our poisoned town! ” Chief Maxwell then closes his eyes and falls off the stairs, landing flat on his face.

Nobody says a word. Nobody makes a move. Nobody knows what the fuck just happened, and quite frankly, nobody wants to know. Even Jonathan Knox, snug in his heated smart car parked smoothly down the bend from Chief Maxwell’s house, chooses to pretend his equipment is responsible for what he just heard. The bugs must be malfunctioning; one of them got taken out, after all.

“D’y’see now, boys?” Maxwell grumbles as he picks himself up with shaky arms a full minute later. “This shit… this ain’t no joke. The book said that would happen, if and when I had trouble gettin’ myself to share with y’all its secrets, and it said I could share its secrets with only you five. Mentioned y’all by name, too, as it did me.”

For a few tense, uneasy moments the microphones scattered throughout the chief’s basement pick up only quiet breathing.

“What else did it say?” Herm asks, looking at Maxwell squarely. “How are the… Earthen folks–” The word feels like sludge spewing out of his mouth, black and glumpy sludge. “–disrupting the vortex? How is their being here poisoning Wuester, Chief?”

“The vortex formed because of us white folks, boys. Our being here elevated the town on a metaphysical level, made Wuester higher in a sense, but all the Earthen folk moving in is lowering us back down, and if Wuester is allowed to touch the ground again–”

“Then the vortex will spin out,” Jim says, as if a great epiphany has occurred to him which finally explains his upbringing. “And… and we’ll all perish.”

“That about sums it up, Fell–… boys. That about sums it up.”

It takes a few minutes, but it all soaks in.

“So how do we stop it?” Gene asks at the same time that Billy opens his mouth to speak.

“We don’t,” Chief Maxwell says flatly, rousing looks of confusion. “Rock will.”

“Rock,” three of them say, do not ask but say.

“See, the meteor that came in August, The Precursor, that was an omen. It, along with the appearance of The Tome of Rock, was meant to signify that Rock is coming, that Rock is on Its way here. See, Rock is a much bigger meteor than The Precursor. A smarter meteor, too; when Rock lands, Rock is go’n’a send out a massive radioactive shockwave that’ll turn all the Earthen folk in Wuester into piles of dirt, leaving the children of the stars alive and the vortex undisrupted. But as smart as Rock is, Rock can only get so close to Earth before It needs to be guided. That’s where we come in.”

“So we’re meant to summon Rock, then!” Jim Hubert says enthusiastically. “That’s what you’re go’n’a say, ain’t it, Chief?”

“It is,” Chief nods. “Boys, The Tome told me that on the sixth day after the sixth week after the sixth month after The Precursor landed, Rock would be in our planet’s orbit; that day is the day after tomorrow. To herald– nay, to fell Rock unto our town and cleanse our little patch of Earth of all the dirty Earthen folk, we need to make a sacrifice. An Earthen child, one who was picked out by The Tome just like you all were, just like I was.”

Somber silence sets in as the gravity of the situation drops its full weight on the shoulders of the five Wuester police officers and their sweaterclad chief. For the love of Christ, this might actually be real.

“Can we see the book?”

“‘Xcuse me, Herm?”

“The book, this Tome of the Roc–”

“It’s The Tome of Rock, Billings!” snarls Jim Hubert. “You heard Chief say it just as well as all of us!”

Herm blinks at Jim a couple times. Then, to the chief, “You got’a understand, Chief, this shit you’re tellin’ us…”

“I know,” Chief admits. “It sounds ridiculous, sounds like some horsecock conjured up by a braindead hillbilly who had one shot of unfiltered gasoline too many one too many nights in a row.”

“Well put. So uh… you understand that… now I don’t wan’a speak for everybody here, but I know for myself… I just cannot possibly proceed without seeing the book.”

“That’s just the thing, Officer Billings,” Chief Maxwell says, shaking his head slowly with shame. “That’s just the fuckin’ thing. I can’t show you the book. The very first page said that only I can read its words, that anybody else who reads it, who so much as peers between the covers will spontaneously combust, as will any and all of their loved ones.”

Herm Billings looks suitably disappointed.

“I’m sorry, Herm. You’ll have to take my word for it… and look, I’m not a smart man. I’ll be the first one to admit that about myself, I ain’t no vallid dicktorleyan, a’ight? I don’t know if I could make all this up… all I know is what happened to me, what I found in my yard, what I read. And what I read was instructions… instructions I have no choice but to follow.” Maxwell stands then, looks down at his boys. “I don’t like it any more than any’a’you do, but I think we got’a do what we got’a do this time. Boys, will you do me the honor of joining me as Fellers so we can save our precious town from the Earthen threat?”

None of the officers say anything for a minute. They don’t look at each other, either. In the driver’s seat of his smart car Jonathan Knox is clutching his chest with one hand, his left ear with the other. Not even the vermin are running through the walls.

“Just to be clear,” Herm finally says, “you want us to join your cult, wear the blue denim pants and the thick red sweaters with the blobs on ‘em–”

“This ain’t a blob,” Maxwell says sternly, gesturing to the blob. Upon closer inspection under the dim orange glow the officers see that it indeed ain’t a blob but rather a polygon of some sort, with rigid and uneven edges. “It’s a silhouette of Rock, and for your information, I did not buy this outfit, nor did I make it. It was delivered to my house, along with the rest of yours. Found the box sitting outside the back slider.”

Herm sighs. “You want us to join your cult and help you sacrifice a black kid so a meteor will come and kill the rest of the… the Earthen folk, living in this town. Am I gettin’ all’a’this, Chief?”

“Yes, you are,” Chief Maxwell says without missing a beat. “You are indeed, Officer Billings.”

Billings shakes his head. Even chuckles to himself. It’s a defeated chuckle, a very Fuck it, I guess so chuckle. “Count me in, then.”

“Me too,” says Jim, lowkey angry that he couldn’t be the first to join the cult.

“Me three,” says Gene Thorton.

“Me four,” says Billy Gene with a dash of reluctance.

Vern VanDunk says nothing, and so everybody looks at him, scrutinizes him maliciously, expectantly.

“Got somethin’ to say, Vern? ”

“Well…” he says, “it’s just that…”

“It’s Tad,” Hubert says, further prodding him. “Ain’t it, Vern? Faggoty Tad.”

“Thaddeus is a good man,” Vern says. “He’s Earthen, but he’s a good man. My sister loves him very much. I don’t know if I can bear to see him killed.”

“It’s him or it’s us, Vern.” Chief Maxwell has folded his arms. “I hate to make it that simple, ‘cause this ain’t no simple thing, but that’s what it comes down to. It’s him or it’s us, and I choose us. Your fellow officers here – your brothers – choose us. So what do you choose?”

Vern seems to think for a moment, although not a thought crosses his mind. He’s merely stretching this out as long as possible – it’s a pretty easy decision, is it not? The hole in the ceiling tells Vern that it’s a pretty easy decision, but it’s not the decision itself that’s troubling him. It’s the making of the decision, the choosing to value his life over that of another human based solely on the words allegedly printed in a book he’s unallowed to read.

“Who was it written by?” Vern finally answers.

“Pardon?”

“The Tome of Rock,” Vern says. “If it’s a book it had to be written, so who was it written by?”

Again, without skipping a single beat, Chief Maxwell says, “Chalak.”

The room goes so silent it’s as if the lightbulb broke upon the uttering of the word.

“S–…say again, Chief? ”

“I don’t know if they’re a man or a woman, and I don’t know if they came from Earth or somewhere else, but that’s the name signed at the end of The Tome. And they sure seem to know all about us. Chalak. And you know what?” He folds his arms tighter, pops his thumbs up out of his armpits. “Maybe Chalak is enough. I’m about as involved as I can be, but I don’t think I want to know any more about all this than I need to, y’follow?”

“I follow,” Vern admits, mourning his brother-in-law who will never be. “A’ight. A’ight, fine Chief. I’ll do it. For Wuester I’ll do it, I’ll… I’ll be a Feller.”

Maxwell nods, satisfied. “Good. Now that we’re all together on this, I’d like to get started straight away. I feel like it would be best to waste as little time as possible on felling Rock to Earth. Ain’t no tellin’ how far Wuester’s dropped already, how close the vortex is to spinnin’ out.”

“We need a plan, then,” says Jim Hubert, rubbing his hands together.

“And we got one,” Maxwell says, sounding relieved. “Chalak took care of everything, Fellers. The Tome has a plan, has every detail down to the minute of the day, and it said I can share it with you… but before I do, I need to warn you. This one’s a doozy.”

“This one is a doozy?” Jonathan Knox asks himself. “What about all the other ones, you sick deviant pigs,you damn dirty cops? ”

“We can handle it, Chief,” Vern says, looking around at the nodding faces of his fellow Fellers. “Anything The Tome says we got’a do, we’ll do.”

“I know y’will, Fellers. I know y’will.” Chief Maxwell draws a loud breath through his clogged and snotty nose, then opens his eyes back up and exhales it between his chapped lips. “A’ight, now lis’en up. As of tonight we are The Fellers of Rock, and we have a duty to perform, steps we must complete. The first goes a little something like this…”

---

Hello Commons, this has been the third subchapter of the first chapter of Under the Hood: The Imprisonment of Jonathan Knox, a novel about a man who likes to eavesdrop on his neighbors.

Under the Hood: The Imprisonment of Jonathan Knox is the second book in the W-2222 series, a series of books which take place in Universe W-2222.

Under the Hood: The Imprisonment of Jonathan Knox is available to read for free in its entirety on my website. Click here to check it out.

I’ve written a few other books, too. Click here to see the list.

If you like Under the Hood: The Imprisonment of Jonathan Knox and would like to help support my work, click here and buy an autographed copy of the book (or anything else!) from my store. Alternatively, you can snag a cheaper (and unsigned) copy from Amazon by clicking here.

If you’re there, hypothetical reader, thank you for being there. Be well Commons~

Convenient Incidents
The Father

The Vessel

The second time Daisy heard The Father talking to her, it didn’t speak in the same voice.

Nor was Daisy’s last name Ironfield; she had gotten married to a man named Chester Williamson and they had a baby together, a baby boy which Daisy named Hilter Odolf for reasons she firmly believed in at the time of his birth but could no longer remember. But that’s all right, life is ironic that way; besides, she wrote her first baby a letter explaining it all, a letter he wasn’t to open until he turned eighteen years old, which was about fourteen and a half years after the day The Father spoke to Daisy again.

She was at the beach with Chester, Sandy Hook specifically, as it was the only beach Daisy’s father ever took her to as a little girl. The Williamsons were living down in Piscataway at the time, and the drive wasn’t terribly far, so they hired a babysitter to look after Hilter and they took themselves a day trip. The Williamsons didn’t just want to get away from their baby, though – Daisy had some very important news to tell her husband. It seemed that the condom broke… again. Daisy was pregnant, Hilter would have a little brother, and Daisy wanted to take her husband somewhere special to break the news. So there they sat on a pair of towels as the waves crashed against the sandy shore. Daisy took Chester’s hand, turned to him, opened her mouth, and said…

Nothing. Daisy said nothing, because she heard a voice in her head. A deep voice, a voice course like dried lava, a frighteningly masculine voice. A voice which called itself The Father.

‘You don’t sound like The Father,’ Daisy thought back to the voice. She had dealt with many voices speaking to her from within the confines of her skull by that time, and she had learned how to talk back without moving her lips. She had gotten quite good at it, in fact; sometimes, talking to the voices inside her head felt more natural than talking to other humans for Daisy Williamson.

‘Yet I am The Father,’ the voice growled. ‘Leave that man and take a walk, Miss Daisy. I have a favor to ask you.’

Daisy didn’t realize Chester had been looking at her the whole time. She closed her mouth and dropped his hand, then got up.

“What’s wrong, darling?” Chester asked as he prepared to get up himself. “You looked like you were about to say something.”

“Um… I need to take a walk,” Daisy said nervously as her left hand absently started playing with the end of her hair. “Alone. I’ll be right back, just… just stay here, please.”

Chester looked concerned – not half as concerned as he felt, for he knew when his wife, bless her soul, was hearing the voices – but he respected Daisy’s wishes nonetheless. There was nothing stopping him from keeping an eye on her though, which is exactly what he did.

Daisy fought the urge to sprint away from her husband. She wanted to get away from him, from all the other folk laying out on their towels that day; she wanted to be alone so she could talk to The Father again. She hadn’t spoken to The Father once since she was a child, she missed The Father. The Father was the first one to tell Daisy that she was special, and for that, Daisy loved The Father. Lots of her friends and lovers told Daisy she was special over the years, too, but none of them meant it like The Father meant it. The Father saw Daisy for who she truly was; she couldn’t quite explain it, but she knew The Father saw her differently than everyone else saw her. Even if The Father sounded differently the first time they spoke, it was still The Father speaking to her now. And she wanted privacy when she spoke back.

There was nobody blanketed out by the jetty, so the jetty is where Daisy stopped walking. She turned back and saw Chester sitting up rather than laying down. She knew he was looking at her, keeping an eye on her, and she thought it was fine. As long as he stayed back there, she didn’t care what Chester did. She was now alone with The Father, and that’s all that mattered.

‘Are you there?’ Daisy asked. She sat down on a large black rock to look out at the green ocean. She saw a fishing boat out in the distance, and a flock of seagulls floating past where the waves started breaking, but she didn’t get an answer. Not until she got up to start walking back to the camp where her loving husband was waiting for her.

‘I’m always here, Miss Daisy; and how convenient it is that you came to the very spot I wanted you to go.’

Daisy froze in place, then sat right back down. ‘What do you mean? And where have you been all these years? I’ve been calling out to you ever since you showed me the clearing in the woods by my old house. Why didn’t you ever answer?’

The Father scoffed rudely in Daisy’s mind. ‘The laws of time’s passage do not apply to those like me, Miss Daisy. I have many children, some of whom are more important and deserving of my attention than you are. I am here now, is that not good enough for you?’

‘No, it is good enough,’ Daisy assured the voice of The Father, her heart pounding out of her chest. ‘I just… I missed you… I love you.’

Disgusting, sick laughter. ‘Then you shall do for me the favor I ask of you, now won’t you, Miss Daisy?’

‘Yes,’ Daisy told The Father without a moment of hesitation. ‘Yes, I’ll do anything you want, please, just… please don’t leave me again.’

The Father said, ‘Climb on the jetty and walk out to the end.’

‘What’s at the end of the jetty?’ Daisy asked, but she got no answers. She began to weep, but then straightened herself up and climbed onto the jetty. Keeping her eyes pointed at her feet, Daisy walked down the row of slippery black rocks, totally unaware that Chester had gotten up and started away from their camp.

Salty green ocean water sprayed up and wetted Daisy’s face when she reached the end of the slick jetty. She wiped it off with the bottom of her tee-shirt, taking her many tears with it. ‘Okay, I’m here. What should I do now, The Father?’

The Father did not answer.

‘Hello? The Father? Are… are you there?’ Daisy sighed, and the tears began to spill anew. “Were you ever there…?”

‘I am always here, Miss Daisy. I see every move you make, I hear every twisted thought to spin through your mind. You talk to voices, Miss Daisy, you speak to beings who aren’t really there. You are sick, you are broken. But I can fix you.’

The breath fled from Daisy’s lips. She felt a terrible tightness in her chest. Something was wrong, The Father would never say those things to her. The Father said she was special, not sick. The Father–

‘You’ve done well to come out here. Look between your feet now, Miss Daisy.’

But Daisy refused to look between her feet. ‘Why do you keep calling me that? You didn’t call me that the last time we spoke.’

Daisy’s mind was quiet as a mausoleum for a moment. Then, ‘Do you really doubt me, Miss Daisy? You dare cast doubt upon The Great Father, the One Old as the Earth Itself? Perhaps I was wrong about you, Miss Daisy. Perhaps you’re not who I believed you are. Perhaps you’re not one of the special ones.’

“No!” Daisy shouted at the ocean, then threw her hands up to her mouth. She didn’t bother turning around; she knew the others were probably looking at her now, wondering what’s wrong with her. But they were just upset because The Father hadn’t spoken to them; they had a void in their hearts, a gaping chasm they didn’t know how to fill, a chasm they didn’t even know they had because they’d never spoken to The Father before. Because The Father had never spoken to them. ‘No, I… I’m sorry. I’ll do as you say, The Father. Whatever you want.’

‘Then look down between your feet and pick up what you see.’

Daisy looked down between her feet then. They were firmly planted on two different rocks, and wedged in the crevice between those black rocks was what appeared to be a glass bottle. Daisy bent down and wrestled with it a bit, but she eventually got it out. It was a glass bottle, all right, one that should hold a message, but this bottle was empty. It had an old piece of cork stuffed into its mouth, and on the side of the thing was a painting of a little boy. No… it was a clown, and he was saying Oh Noooo.

‘Is… is this what you wanted me to find?’

‘Yes,’ said the ugly, drooling voice inside Daisy’s head which called itself The Father. ‘Now open it, Miss Daisy.’

‘Why do you wan–’

‘Open the vessel, Miss Daisy, and all shall be revealed.’

Daisy opened the bottle, and suddenly, the ocean disappeared. The jetty disappeared. The sky, the clouds, the bright shining sun, the mirthful sounds of playing children, the smell of salt on the air – Sandy Hook was gone. Daisy Williamson was alone, floating in a black miasma of darkness, holding the vessel in her hands.

‘Well, Miss Daisy, it seems that we’re at an impasse.’

“What do you mean?!” Daisy Williamson screamed defiantly into the darkness. “Where am I, what’s going on?!”

‘You are with me now, Miss Daisy. All alone in the darkness.’

“You’re not The Father! Who are you?!”

‘I am the Great Old One, Miss Daisy. I am the darkness under your bed, the shadows which consume your shack in the forest of your youth when the sun falls and the moon refuses to rise. I am everything you fear, mortal woman, and I am here for your soul.’

“I fear nothing!” Daisy shouted, and she felt the words scrape against the inside of her throat. It burned, but it felt good, like the bruise you walked away with when you finally stood up to that mean bully who made fun of you for laughing when nobody told a joke. “I’m rugged, just like my father told me! And I’m special, just like The Father told me! You can’t have my soul, you terrible thing! You’re not even real!”

‘Oh I’m real, you sniveling little shit; my true form is putrid, ghastly, horrifying, the bane of all innocence; what I truly am cannot be described by the words of mere mortals, but you cannot see me as I am. You refuse to see me, because you are not afraid of me, and that is very noble. But look around you, Miss Daisy, you of the glimmering mind; you are lost in darkness and the darkness is me. I have you, Miss Daisy, and I will not let you go with hunger in my stomach. You will stay here in limbo until you surrender to me that which I crave.’

“I refuse this soul to you, Great Old One!” Daisy challenged, or rather, heard herself challenge; those words were not her own. Those words were that of The Father, The Father had come back to Daisy at long last. The Father came back to save her! “I refuse you this soul, you vile, pathetic demon! Relinquish yourself to The Void! Return to Godspace for your inevitable rejection! Return to The Sandbox to be banished to nonExistence where you belong!”

‘Silence!’ bellowed the Great Old One as the darkness around Daisy trembled. She was alone again then, with no memory of The Father’s presence in her being. She knew only that the Great Old One was angry, that He was angry at her. That His darkness was beginning to swallow her physical form. That it hurt terribly to be here in His darkness, that the pain would only grow more severe until there was nothing left of her. The Great Old One might not get Daisy’s soul, but her life would end in a blink, and in the back of her mind, Daisy saw a vision of young Hilter Odolf growing up without a mother. His life would be ruined. Unless…

“Listen to me, vile blaspheme!” Daisy screamed as she began to sob. “I will die before I give in to you, Great Old One! You may not have my immortal soul… but…” she trailed off, afraid of her own intentions. Was she really going to do this?

‘Yes, yes you are, Miss Daisy. I may not have your soul, but…’

“But… I cannot leave my baby boy without a mother. I grew up with only a father, and I do not wish the same on my Hilter, I can’t. I am carrying his brother, Great Old One, I am in possession of another soul. A soul…” She almost couldn’t get the words out, but that was okay. Daisy didn’t have to say them alone. The Great Old One would help her. The Great Old One would pull the words out of her. “A soul you may have if you release me from your hold and never approach me again.”

Sunlight eviscerated the darkness. The bottle – nay, the vessel – now full of the purest, whitest sand, fell from Daisy’s grasp and disappeared back between the rocks. Daisy’s legs were wobbling. She felt weak, she felt a gaping hole in her stomach like something had been stolen from her. And she fell.

And Chester Williamson caught her, pulling her back up on the rocks.

“Daisy!” Chester shouted. “Daisy, wake up!”

Daisy drifted somewhere between awake and asleep, aware of the world around her but unable to answer its pleas.

Chester checked her pulse. She was alive; her pulse was slow, but she was alive. As he approached from the shore, Chester called her name many times, but Daisy didn’t answer. She acted like she didn’t even hear him, like she slipped into a coma or something while she was standing out on these slick black rocks that nobody should be walking on in the first place. Carefully Chester manages to carry his fainted wife back to the beach, and when a troupe of lifeguards came up to question him, he gave them an earful about how there should be warning signs, that his wife nearly fell into the ocean and broke her neck! And the lifeguards did put up signs, warning signs that will go totally ignored by many human beings, both young children and grown adults alike, for a great number of years to come. The warning signs will be especially ignored by one child specifically: a boy named Tad, Tad Flannigan, the boy who will find the bottle with the clown painted on the side when his family is vacationing here many years in the future, and that family will be consumed by the Great Old One just like Hilter’s unborn baby brother, for not all those like The Father are quite the same as The Father, something Daisy Williamson found out on that bright and sunny day, and only because she chose to listen.

---

Hello Commons, this has been the second subchapter of the last story from Convenient Incidents, an anthology of fifteen interconnected short stories which revolve around a man by the name of Hilter Odolf Williamson.

Convenient Incidents is part of the Third Spiral, an anthology of sorts called The Here and Now which is comprised of stories told from the various planes of Existence.

Convenient Incidents is available to read for free in its entirety on my website. Click here to check it out.

I’ve written a few other books, too. Click here to see the list.

If you like Convenient Incidents and would like to help support my work, click here and buy an autographed copy of the book (or anything else!) from my store. Alternatively, you can snag a cheaper (and unsigned) copy from Amazon by clicking here.

Be well Commons~

Sept the Fifth

If being both impressed and proud of yourself for doing an exceptional amount of work in one day – a day following a day of such inane procrastination that I wrote six separate journal entries – is arrogance, then I’m one arrogant son of a bitch who got adopted by a nice lady and her husband.

I’ll fill you in tomorrow. I’m fucking beat.

But not beat enough for our little formality.

…                                     …                                    …

Say thankya, Journal. ‘Preciate ya. Good sleeps and good dreams~

---

Hello Commons, this has been the next journal entry from Untitled Bigfoot Project, a novel about a writer who writes a novel about bigfoot.

Untitled Bigfoot Project is part of the Third Spiral, an anthology of sorts called The Here and Now which is comprised of stories told from the various planes of Existence.

Untitled Bigfoot Project is available to read for free in its entirety on my website. Click here to check it out.

I’ve written a few other books, too. Click here to see the list.

If you like Untitled Bigfoot Project and would like to help support my work, click here and buy an autographed copy of the book (or anything else!) from my store. Alternatively, you can snag a cheaper (and unsigned) copy from Amazon by clicking here.

Be well Commons~

Dirty Cops

Them movin’ in from the city… it’s poisoning our town.

---

Powerless

“Was that…?”

Jonathan squints his eyes, as to hear the feed better. One of the police officers compliments the chief on his piece, whatever that might mean, and then asks if it’s a six-shooter.

“Oh my God…” Jonathan Knox might not know what a piece is, but he sure knows what a six-shooter is. It’s a gun. “Oh my God! ”

In a flurried scramble Jonathan scoots back from his desk, ripping the headphones out of his earholes in the process.

“Cripes!”

He bends over, puts the headphones back in, stands up, and braces himself with two palms flat on his desk. The conversation being conducted in the Wuester chief of police’s basement continues on slowly; Chief Maxwell has something he needs to share with the officers, but he doesn’t know if he can trust them. A couple of them try to convince him, fine, but he’s not… oh, now he’s walking, he’s… ‘Oh my God.’

Chief Maxwell is going to kill one of them.

He knew it, Jonathan just knew it, that Maxwell is no good. He could smell it on him from the very beginning, could hear it in his voice, see it in the way the spittle flew relentlessly from his lips when he flapped ‘em during his Poor Me, My Wife Left and Took the Kid lecture he forced Jonathan to listen to on the taxpayer’s dime. Killing cops is fine, let ‘em all die, but for a chief to gun down one of his own… there’s something wrong with that. Something twisted, something… something evil. Something evil and dark. Something that must be brought to light.

“No,” Jonathan mumbles to himself as he waves one hand behind him in search of the cushioned chair. “No, I’m only listening at this point. He might not… he could be bluffing.”

From the way the bugs are making it sound, it’s pretty obvious Officer Asshole isn’t bluffing.

“Still… even if I was going to stop them, I don’t… how would I do it?”

Just then, Chief Daniel Maxwell unknowingly says There’s only one way to know if I can trust you directly into Jonathan’s ears. Jonathan stands up straight to let his arms dangle limply at his sides, as though they were powerless to do anything else. There’s only one way.

Jonathan Knox pulls the headphones out of his ears and lets them drop.

“There’s only one way.”

He presses the spacebar, setting DoorKnox to record the rest of the dirty cops’ secret meeting as evidence – evidence that will never leave the desktop in Jonathan’s basement. Already powered on and running DoorKnox, Jonathan takes his laptop under one arm, headphones plugged in as to uninterrupt his listening, and heads up to his garage to load his smart car.

---

Hello Commons, this has been the second subchapter of the first chapter of Under the Hood: The Imprisonment of Jonathan Knox, a novel about a man who likes to eavesdrop on his neighbors.

Under the Hood: The Imprisonment of Jonathan Knox is the second book in the W-2222 series, a series of books which take place in Universe W-2222.

Under the Hood: The Imprisonment of Jonathan Knox is available to read for free in its entirety on my website. Click here to check it out.

I’ve written a few other books, too. Click here to see the list.

If you like Under the Hood: The Imprisonment of Jonathan Knox and would like to help support my work, click here and buy an autographed copy of the book (or anything else!) from my store. Alternatively, you can snag a cheaper (and unsigned) copy from Amazon by clicking here.

If you’re there, hypothetical reader, thank you for being there. Be well Commons~

Convenient Incidents
The Father

The Clubhouse

Daisy Ironfield first heard the voice of The Father when she was nine years old.

It was a sweltering hot afternoon in the middle of June and young Daisy was sitting on the concrete walkway by the pond up the street from her house feeding broken bits of bread to a family of mallards. There was a mommy and a daddy and seven adorable little ducklings quacking around that day; there were nine the last time Daisy came up here, but there was a big ol’ catfish living in this pond, a big ol’ black catfish who swam quicker than a water snake. That’s just life, honey, Daisy’s father would tell her when he was sober enough to speak clearly. Birds usually eat fish, but sometimes the fish get ‘em back. Life is ironic that way.

Yes, life is very ironic, especially for Miss Daisy Ironfield – most of the kids she went to school with who had a single parent had a mother, but Daisy had her father. For most kids with single parents, their fathers left because they went to fight in the war; for Daisy, her mother left to protest. Most protesters were hippies who liked to smoke pot; Daisy’s mother was a hardcore conservative republican businesswoman (who still opposed the war, go figure), and her drink of choice was cold whiskey, a stark opposite to her easygoing father and the six joints he would burn every day. Most pot smokers got happy and creative when they smoked their pot; Daisy’s father got borderline catatonic and had trouble speaking when he was high. Life is ironic that way, and so Daisy Ironfield spent a lot of her time by the pond at the end of her street, unlike most kids her age who hung out at the soccer fields on the other side of Stonetown. That didn’t bother Daisy, though; while most kids wanted to fit in with everyone else, Daisy Ironfield preferred to be alone. She always had, because life is ironic that way.

Daisy’s hand scraped the bottom of her brown paper bag. “Uh oh,” she said. “Sorry duckies, you ate all the bread!” The duckies quacked a few times and wiggled their tail feathers, then began to swim away as Daisy stood up. She looked with curiosity over her shoulder at the mouth of the woods as she walked back towards the street, wondering where that wide ol’ trail might lead to. She’d asked her father to take her back there a few times at that point, and he always said he would, but it still hadn’t happened. It’s not that he was lying, or that he didn’t love his daughter – Daisy knew better than to think that silly nonsense – he just always forgot. He always remembered to buy himself more pot, but he forgot to take his daughter for walks in the woods. Life is just ironic that way, and that’s okay.

‘But is it okay?’

Daisy stopped at the end of the walkway and turned around, but there was nobody there. “Who said that?” she nervously asked, but nobody answered. So, Daisy kept walking. She made it about halfway across the lawn before she heard the voice again.

‘Would you like to go for a stroll through the woods, Daisy Ironfield?’

“Who’s there?!” Daisy squealed as she whipped around quick enough for the hem of her skirt to fly up to her kneecaps. But there was nobody there, just the duckies. She looked back and forth and took a step backwards, then whispered, “What’s going on here? I don’t like this…” to herself.

‘Do not be afraid, my pretty Daisy Ironfield,’ the voice said in its soothing way. ‘Don’t you know who I am?’

“No…” Daisy mumbled, crumpling up the empty paper bag and squeezing it. “Who are you?”

‘You can call me The Father, Daisy,’ said the voice, and how ironic was it that The Father spoke in the voice of a woman?

“But… but I already have a father,” Daisy said to the voice in her head.

‘That you do, little one, but I am not he; nor am I a he, nor am I a she. That’s not important though; would you like to go for a stroll through the Fricker Drive forest with me?’

“Um…” Daisy said as she looked around. There was nobody up by the pond, nobody driving by on Fricker nor on Barnstatter; there was just Daisy, The Father, and the lil’ duckies in the pond. “Okay… but we can’t be gone very long. My real father’s gonna be worried.”

‘Fret not, my pretty Daisy Ironfield; we won’t be gone long at all,’ replied the voice, and they weren’t gone very long. Only for an hour, maybe two. The Father guided Daisy along the wide trail – The Father told her it was used to cart uncut logs and chopped lumber when folks used to have big farms back here in the forest in the eighteen’hundreds – through the shallow woods and down a very rocky hill, then took her right at the first junction, leading her down the trail that eventually leads to the now flattened ruins of an old farmhouse built on the shore of the Wanaque Reservoir, which was going through a terrible dry spell during this particular June. At the triangular junction that will be degraded into a trench of muddy water by quads in the decades to come, The Father had Daisy go right again, and together they followed the old logging road until it came to an end in a grassy little clearing where all the trees had been chopped down. Sunlight poured in through the hole in the canopy, giving the clearing an otherworldly glow.

“What on Earth is this amazing place?” Daisy asked, in awe of this sunbaked oasis hidden deep within this dark forest.

‘This is very special land, Daisy Ironfield. Almost as special as you.’

“I’m… you think I’m special?”

‘I know you’re special – you’re going to come back here, Daisy Ironfield, but I will not be with you.’

“But… how will I find my way here?”

‘Worry not, little one; you shall remember the way,’ assured the voice of The Father. ‘Tomorrow you’ll come, and you’ll bring your father, your real father. When you get here, you’ll tell him you want to build a little clubhouse together, and he’ll absolutely love the idea.’

“He will? How do you kno–”

‘Because I am The Father, and all are my children. I must go soon, Daisy Ironfield. Can you get back home on your own?’

A deep blue sadness washed over Daisy, a sadness she could not explain but a sadness she felt nonetheless. “Why do you have to go?”

‘Because I have many children, little one, but not all of them can hear me like you can.’

“They… can’t?”

‘They cannot, Daisy Ironfield, they simply cannot,’ said The Father in His loving feminine voice. ‘You have a beautiful mind, my pretty Daisy Ironfield, you stand out to those like me. That’s what makes you special, but you must be warned: not all those like me are quite the same as me.’

“What do you mean, The Father?” Daisy asked, tears flowing down her face.

‘You may find out in due time, little one, but only if you choose to listen.’

“But what does that mean?” Daisy asked again, but she got no reply; The Father had gone away.

Daisy turned away from the clearing and started to walk back along the old logging road, but something caught her foot in the grass and spilled her out. Daisy didn’t cry when she fell – she’s a tough one, she’s rugged, as her father liked to say. She simply got right back up and brushed the foresty bits off her knees, then went looking for what she fell over. It was a rock, but not any normal rock – Daisy tripped over a crystal that day, a big hunk of white quartz shaped sort of like an egg that had a bit of lichen growing out of it. There was something about the crystal, it spoke to Daisy – not in the same way The Father spoke to her, mind you, but she felt that it was special. No; she knew it was special, just like The Father knew Daisy was special.

Daisy carried the quartz egg all the way back to her house with her that day, and that night, she slept with it cuddled in her arms. A few weeks later, after Daisy and her real father finished building her clubhouse, her father found a cut section of a log that someone cleared away from the old logging road near the clearing and stood it up in the middle of the clubhouse. He even donated an old red tablecloth from the basement to Daisy’s special clubhouse, and it was upon that clothed section of log that Daisy’s crystal found its home. Daisy would speak to her crystal when she found herself back here in the clubhouse her father built for her in the clearing, sometimes for hours at a time, even, but it never spoke back like the voice of The Father did. It simply listened, which is all Daisy wanted. Someone to listen who wouldn’t forget.

Daisy would come and go from her special clubhouse many times over the next few years of her life, but the crystal egg never left its sacred space atop the clothed log, not until a stormy day many years later when Daisy’s first son would wander back here and find it, along with a decapitated body lying at the base of the altar.

---

Hello Commons, this has been the first subchapter of the last story from Convenient Incidents, an anthology of fifteen interconnected short stories which revolve around a man by the name of Hilter Odolf Williamson.

Convenient Incidents is part of the Third Spiral, an anthology of sorts called The Here and Now which is comprised of stories told from the various planes of Existence.

Convenient Incidents is available to read for free in its entirety on my website. Click here to check it out.

I’ve written a few other books, too. Click here to see the list.

If you like Convenient Incidents and would like to help support my work, click here and buy an autographed copy of the book (or anything else!) from my store. Alternatively, you can snag a cheaper (and unsigned) copy from Amazon by clicking here.

Be well Commons~

Sept the Fourth (rerererecont’d)

Remember in that last entry when I said it’s been more hours than I can count? That was a lie. It’s actually nighttime now, though, and I’ve gotten zero work done. My head isn’t even fuzzy anymore, I’m just procrastinating like a right asshole. I couldn’t even bring myself to start the outline, like, I made a single bullet point on a piece of looseleaf (technically I titled the looseleaf too, got’a give myself that) and proceeded to spend the rest of my day on YouTube.

But that got me thinking: maybe, just like I don’t know how to write a novel, I don’t know how to plan a novel.

Maybe going from a blank page to a completed manuscript to a printed book balanced on the tip of my boner (my boner which rose because I wrote a goddamn book, bow down peons) is a whole complicated process. Maybe it’s an art form that I’m totally unaware of, that I need to study first before I go about attempting it.

Of course, I realized all this after spending my day watching short films and animations and music videos and shit, but, y’know. That’s uh… that’s just part of the process, I guess. I don’t know. I didn’t research it.

Ugh.

…                                     …                                    …

What I’m trying to say is tomorrow I’m going to legitimately research the process of creating a book, that’s the goal. Not going to worry about writing or outlining, I’m just going to learn the process. All I know right now is that you have to not only trust the process, but also love the process, and I’m just the type of guy who needs to get to know something before he can love it.

It’s time to sleep, Journal, for tomorrow I take notes. Just like I did in college, but this time I’m not paying tens of thousands of fucking dollars per semester. I’m doing shit right, in other words. Fuck yeah.

…                                     …                                    …

Say thankya, Journal. ‘Preciate ya. Good sleeps and good dreams~

---

Hello Commons, this has been the next journal entry from Untitled Bigfoot Project, a novel about a writer who writes a novel about bigfoot.

Untitled Bigfoot Project is part of the Third Spiral, an anthology of sorts called The Here and Now which is comprised of stories told from the various planes of Existence.

Untitled Bigfoot Project is available to read for free in its entirety on my website. Click here to check it out.

I’ve written a few other books, too. Click here to see the list.

If you like Untitled Bigfoot Project and would like to help support my work, click here and buy an autographed copy of the book (or anything else!) from my store. Alternatively, you can snag a cheaper (and unsigned) copy from Amazon by clicking here.

Be well Commons~

Dirty Cops

Them movin’ in from the city… it’s poisoning our town.

---

Vermin

A cockroach with wing cancer loses its last grip on the webby pink fibreglass and plummets into the dimly lit chasm below. It lands dead with a hollow tic on a nearly bald surface, then tumbles to the floor where it rolls into its grave, a shallow crack in the floor.

“What in the hell was that?” asks Vern, rubbing his head with a callused hand. “You sure it’s safe to gather down here, Chief?”

“I am,” says the chief as he’s coming down the stairs. “Ain’t nowhere else we could congregate tonight, Fellers. Ain’t nowhere else we could congregate.”

“I think a piece’a yer ceiling just hit me in the head, though,” Vern continues. The impact didn’t hurt, yet still he continues to rub his head. “What if it all comes down on top of us?”

The police chief says nothing, merely leans standing up against the support pillar at the foot of the stairwell and stares into the dim basement with squinted eyes. His face is naked, lewd with stolid contemplation, like he has something to share but doesn’t quite know how to say it.

“Chief Maxwell?”

“Would y’leave’im be a’ready, Vern?” snarls Officer Jim Hubert. He’s leaning against the back wall fiddling with one of the many holes in the sheetrock with his middle finger. Subconsciously. “The man’s clearly asked us here for a reason.”

“I understand that, Jim,” Officer Vern VanDunk barks back. “I’m just wonderin’ what that reason might be, is all.”

Jim snorts as if to bring mucus into his mouth to spit rudely, but then doesn’t spit, as he’s in Chief’s basement. His mouth sounds full when he speaks. “Well that’s why he’s the chief and you ain’t, VanDunk.” Addressing the chief, “I sure think it’s swell of you to invite us all back to yer place, Chief Maxwell. You c’n have us here as long as you need, Sir.”

Chief Maxwell continues to stare off into the muggy basement air from that sturdy support pillar, hands in the pockets of his blue denim pants, chest rising and sinking in steady rhythm beneath his crimson sweater. Above their heads the lightbulb chain swings back and forth, casting a swaying vine of black through the dim orange-yellow glow.

Gene Thorton and the other two officers share a look. Then, Gene opens his mouth.

“If you don’t mind me asking, Chief, what’s with the getup?” All eyes fall on the chief’s clothing, specifically the large blue blob in the center of his sweater. “I ain’t never seen you without your police uniform on.”

“Not just yet, Gene,” the chief says calmly, his stare unblinking. “Not just yet.”

“Then when? With all due respect, Daniel, we should all be out patrollin’ the streets tonight.” Vern hides his hands behind his back, grabbing one wrist. “You made the schedule yerself, Sir.”

A moment of silence is observed, as if to appreciate the scuttling of unseen vermin in the walls, in the ceiling, mayhap even up the stairs to get away from all these intruders in their home. Vermin don’t like intruders in their home.

“Why don’t you just shut yer trap, VanDunk?” Hubert spits.

Vern turns, one eye opened significantly wider than the other. “Now why is it that you are always on my ass, Jim? Why is that?”

Jim snorts again, then swallows loudly.

“Well? ”

“Better me than that faggoty Tad I always see poppin’ in’n’out’a yer shack.”

Hands are thrown so close to the ceiling the knuckles brush insulation. “Thaddeus is my sister’s fiancé, Jim! You know that!”

“I don’t know shit.”

“You’re invited to the wedding! ”

“And I ought to be,” Jim growls as he withdraws his finger from the gaping hole in the wall so he can crack his knuckles. “I broke that bitch in first, after all.”

“All right,” Billy Gene announces, stepping towards the stairs. “This has been fun, Chief, but I’ve got a quota to fill.”

“Hey Bill.”

Billy turns to face Jim Hubert.

“Why don’t you–”

“Enough,” says Chief Maxwell. “Nobody’s leaving, I’m ready now. We’re just about to begin.”

Officer Gene sighs, then begins to turn back towards the stairs. “C’m’on, Chief, stop playin’ a–”

Billy Gene freezes. Just about everybody in the room freezes. Someone audibly gulps.

“Billy,” Vern says, his voice unnerved and low. “I don’t think the chief’s playin’ around.”

As if to agree with Officer VanDunk, Chief Maxwell thumbs the revolver’s hammer back with a thick click.

After a few uneasy rounds of looking from one pair of eyes to the next, Herm Billings says, “That’s, eh… that’s a nice piece y’got there, Chief. What is that, a six-shooter?”

“Five,” Maxwell says calmly from behind the barrel. The barrel trained on Billy Gene’s heart.

“Wow. Old boy.” Herm Billings licks his lips, but not out of any sort of hunger or thirst. “Bet there ain’t even a serial number on ‘er.”

“No sir,” Chief Maxwell agrees, his arm steady. “And if there was, I’d’ve filed it off myself.”

That hangs in the air like the odor of musky mildew.

“Why don’t you boys all have a seat? I’ll put the gun away and we can begin.”

“Begin what?” asks Officer VanDunk.

Nobody answers, especially not Chief Maxwell.

“There ain’t nowhere to sit, Chief,” is bravely pointed out by Billy Gene.

Maxwell bounces his eyes from the floor back up to Billy’s. “The floor’ll do fine.”

Evidently, the floor’ll do fine; the five police officers sit down on the carpet of grit covering the concrete floor of their chief’s basement. The chief himself sits down on the bottom stair, the old wooden step groaning under the weight of him. Ten perplexed and fearful eyes stare up at Chief Maxwell, ten boys in blue all suited up and ready to listen to exactly what he has to say, two whole pewfuls of churchfolk ready to receive their gospel straight from the holy book. Liking what he sees, Maxwell unthumbs the hammer. The gun stays gripped.

“Now boys,” Maxwell begins, his voice heavy with rasp, “I’m sure you’re all wondering why I called you here tonight. I–… there is a reason, a… a good reason. There’s something I need to discuss with you tonight, but…”

Maxwell trails off into silence. The officers exchange nervous glances like trading cards, Vern’s I’m trying my best here for Hubert’s You damn well better be.

“Go on, Chief,” finally escapes the mouth of Billy Gene, despite the gun still being pointed at him. “Whatever you need to tell us is clearly somethin’ important. Go ahead and say it, Sir.”

Maxwell looks up at him for a moment, then back to his shoes. He goes ahead and stays silent.

“Whatever you have to say, Chief, it won’t leave this basement,” offers Jim Hubert. Chief raises his head. “You can trust us, Chief.”

“Trust…” the chief mumbles. Nods his head. “Yeah, trust… that’s what I’m looking for.”

Police Chief Daniel Maxwell stands from the bottom step and crosses to the middle of the shabby basement, the handle of the revolver gripped tightly in his sweaty palm. His eyes are locked onto those of Jim Hubert.

“You say I can trust you, Jim,” Maxwell says as he shoots the gap between Billings and Gene, coming to a halt before Hubert. “Is that right?”

“Yes, Sir,” Jim Hubert says from the depths of Chief Maxwell’s shadow. There’s nowhere else he’d rather be right now.

“Can the same be said of all of you?” Maxwell asks earnestly, looking around to check the faces of the other four uniformed officers.

The other four uniformed officers, their eyes widely open and mouths tightly shut, slowly nod their heads in agreement. Amiable enough, considering the heavy iron their chief is swinging in their faces like a metal dick of sorts.

“Well, I do believe you, boys. I think I can trust you.” Pointing the barrel at the ground, Maxwell thumbs the hammer. “But I don’t know that I can. Not for sure.”

A panicked confusion leaks from their pores.

“How ca–” Jim starts, then goes deathly silent when the barrel presses into his forehead.

“Chief!” Vern says in a panic. “Chief Maxwell, what’re you doing?! Don’t kill him!”

“I do think I can trust you boys,” says the chief with sweat on his brow, “but I don’t know for sure.”

The silence is so dense that heartbeats are audible.

“How, then?” Billings says dryly. “How can you know for sure?”

Chief Maxwell shrugs, his fat index finger wrapped snug around the trigger.

“I trust you, Chief.” Hubert. His voice is shrill, but it’s Hubert all right. “You might not trust me, might not trust us, but I–…” He gulps. “I do trust you, Chief Maxwell, even right now. And I want you to know that.”

Chief Maxwell looks around at his officers. They’re all nodding, lookin’ a bit like pigeons bobbing their heads. All aside from Jim Hubert, of course. Jim’s hardly even breathing right now.

“Well I’m glad to know that, boys. I truly am glad.” A long moment slinks by, and Billy Gene swears he sees the chief’s bottom lip quiver. “Because, boys…” A shaky sigh. “There’s only one way to know if I can trust you. Only one way I can know for sure.”

Then, he pulls the trigger.

---

Hello Commons, this has been the first subchapter of the first chapter of Under the Hood: The Imprisonment of Jonathan Knox, a novel about a man who likes to eavesdrop on his neighbors.

Under the Hood: The Imprisonment of Jonathan Knox is the second book in the W-2222 series, a series of books which take place in Universe W-2222.

Under the Hood: The Imprisonment of Jonathan Knox is available to read for free in its entirety on my website. Click here to check it out.

I’ve written a few other books, too. Click here to see the list.

If you like Under the Hood: The Imprisonment of Jonathan Knox and would like to help support my work, click here and buy an autographed copy of the book (or anything else!) from my store. Alternatively, you can snag a cheaper (and unsigned) copy from Amazon by clicking here.

If you’re there, hypothetical reader, thank you for being there. Be well Commons~