How About A Halloween Treat? My Short Story, "Rotten Apples."

 You'll dig this one. Really, you will. 

It was published in The Beauty of Death from 2016, I believe. 

"Rotten Apples" was written in a white-hot flash in October of 2014, a couple weeks after my father passed away. I was in Italy when I received the news. I was headed back in less than two weeks, but then my mother had a fall and...things went a bit sideways. I remember thinking of it as a way to hold on to some memories of things he'd said to me over the last few years, mostly job stuff; interesting and sometimes quite curious job stuff; that and some character traits. Some of (a lot of) the history of the father in the tale is drawn from real life. Enough to make me smile whenever I think of the story or reread some or all of it.  

I can see where I'd edit this or that (and did a few minor ones), but for right now, this is good to go. 

Enjoy!

*** 

Rotten Apples

By John Claude Smith

 

     Halloween loomed and the apple tree out back was bursting with a plethora of plump, blood-red apples amid a cloak of leaves the color of rust and old skin. Leaves that carpeted the dirt floor of the backyard as they always had at this time of year, as well as half the roof of the house. The sickly-sweet smell made my nostril hairs twitch and my head throb. Apples were everywhere, collecting as a silent congregation, watching over the proceedings.

I did not think much of it, but my only sister, Sara, blamed the late season surplus on Father, whom we buried beneath the tree last year. Her father, not mine, the secrets a family keeps often narrowed down to participants and not even siblings who would not know otherwise. My cousin Candi had decided to spill the beans to me ten years ago on a visit, over lunch. A lunch I never finished, what with the shocking news and her crooked smile of satisfaction at being the one to break this secret to me.

“You should taste the apples. They look fine, look red delicious,” she smirked, “but they don’t even taste like anything apple-like.”

I curled my brow, almost laughed, but changed my expression when biting down on the strange fruit. There was no crunch as my teeth sank into the rich, red skin with ease. I winced and immediately spat out the vile, mushy innards. Glancing inside, the color was an unhealthy bruise blue. I pulled the apple apart with my fingers. The seeds were paltry and few.

“Are they all like this?”

Sara nodded, her nose crinkling, an empathic response to my having tasted what she’d known for a while, or possibly the overwhelming smell, which felt like it was seeping into my pores.

“I tell ya, just like in life, Daddy infected the tree.”

I was never close to my father, though had grown closer over the last few years as he dealt with a variety of illnesses that left the doctors baffled. He finally succumbed to what they deemed was cancer that had spread throughout his body, even though the indicators of his downfall did not relate to what Sara and I had read about cancer. The natural path of attrition, losing weight and more, didn’t happen here. He seemed almost perfectly fine, except for the smudged slate of his brain. A blackboard littered with nonsensical scribbles, even though he could still hold a conversation. A curious frittering away…

Though his mind had always been, in a way, broken.

When we were kids, his paranoia was something to behold. His work in the national security field for the government lent his paranoia weight. Knowledge bred suspicion. Co-workers he once called friends became suspects conspiring to invade our privacy. Phone taps and regular sweeps of the house, looking for electronic bugs of any sort, for signs somebody was listening in on our average life, became the norm.

By the time he was let go from his job fourteen years ago, in his early sixties, it was as much about his erratic work habits as it was about his escalating mental delusions.

After six months of anger, he calmed down and adjusted to life away from the watchful eye of Big Brother. The adjustment brought calmness to holidays and any visits beyond that. But this did not last long. About eight years ago, once the inconclusively defined illnesses became prevalent, his fractured mental faculties kicked into high gear, the once prominent paranoia magnified to preposterous levels.

Worse yet was the onset of gibberish spat out in a different language, one neither Sara nor I could decipher.

Mom understood it, though. Or she claimed to, which may seem a curious statement, even as her translations always came off as quirky in a way that made sense in the context of how Father thought and would express himself. “It’s as if she’s jacked into his mind, been corroded by him,” Sara had said back then. Despite her perception, I didn’t see it that way. They were good people, though of course all families cater to the whim of private madness that defines the shape of personalities, conflicts, love.

You see, Father was a borderline genius, perhaps well beyond borderline. He claimed he quit Stanford after three months because he was smarter than the professors.

This did not hinder his quest for work in the electronics field as he was hired by Motorola soon thereafter, before quitting in the late 1960s to work for a private government organization in the capacity of national security.

Part of his conversations over the last couple years dealt with his travels in the field, working on Nixon’s plane in the 1970s, in obscure capacities with the satellite dishes up in Northern California, and even more complex narratives about security measures, means of observation and attainment of personal information stemming from covert surveillance devices within the architecture of buildings, bridges, traffic lights, ATM machines—everywhere. All kinds of James Bond spy stuff, without the smug smile, a wink, and a kiss. His knowledge was paramount and of a level most science fiction writers would have enjoyed channeling. I remember watching the Will Smith movie Enemy of the State and thinking Gene Hackman’s ultra-paranoid character had Father written all over him. What that character knew was the tip of what Father rambled on about.

Mom, on the other hand, was street savvy. Her intellect was ground floor, not lesser so much as of a different focus. She’d been raised in Brooklyn, learned to live by any means possible. She didn’t even graduate from high school, her tooth-and-nail upbringing constructed around necessity in the now and not forward looking in any way. I could not understand at what point she would have learned the unusual language, words often sounding as if the product of an accidental marriage of incompatible letters, especially since it had not arisen until the last two years or so. Wouldn’t there have been signs before now?

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Mom stepped off the porch and onto the hard dirt riddled with weeds. She waved her hand at the tree. “Daddy blesses us still.”

“You tasted these?” I asked, canting my head toward the fallen apples, still wiping the sticky juice from my fingers onto my black jeans.

“Just takes some adjustment to what he’s imbued in the fruit,” she said. Imbued. One of Father’s words. Perhaps he’d imbued her intelligence with a broader vocabulary by osmosis.

“Mom, it would take more than that. Why do you lie to yourself they’re any good?” Sara said, lacking tact in the face of honesty. Rather blunt, as usual.

Mom glared at her. Sara glared back. I stared at both of them. Another Mexican standoff. They were of the same fabric, no matter how much Sara would deny it if asked point blank. Like Mom, she was stubborn, too; with force.

We stepped onto the porch and past the sliding glass door.

The house was modest, broken in by the years and, yes, imbued with the personality of our family. The neighborhood had changed all around it, but the house looked pretty much as it did over thirty years ago when my parents settled us here. A paint job a couple years ago really emphasized this, an odd effect, as if we’d stepped back in time.

Sara and I had gone off to live our lives. Or at least fake it. I had a marriage that failed on every level and a couple of long relationships that petered out as if the natural course of my time with anybody was about six years. The last one ended almost two years ago, and I’ve been unhappily single ever since. Sara had also fumbled through her own relationships and was single as well. At this point I’d lost any maternal desire to have children, even as my parents had always wanted grandchildren. With Sara also being in her early forties, I didn’t foresee heirs to the throne of our misery, probably a good thing. We’d met minimal success in our fields of interest. We’d learned how to get by on less, because more was never a result of our endeavors. Life was a slog, with happiness always ducking around a corner.

After her latest job debacle, Sara was even living at the house, which might explain her harsher tone toward Mom. She had a way with pushing each of our buttons, inspiring frustration if not outright anger.

Even though I lived in the town next door, I hadn’t been to the house since Father’s memorial, a private, family function. It was a clunky affair that left a bad impression. I skipped on Thanksgiving and Christmas, feigning an overload of work. I was sad, but personalities clashed about the tiniest things, leaving me worn out by family affairs.

I had needed the break, but enough time had passed at this point. With Mom’s demand we got together for a real celebration of our father a year after his passing, I felt I would give it a shot, knowing full well it would probably end up a mess. Though Mom wanted a celebration, there’d been no specs, no plans. Nothing like, say, having a dinner out in his memory, or maybe an evening spent watching his favorite movies. This was our way, to meander without a set destination.

“Can we get some heat in here?” I asked, to no one as I strolled to the hallway, and the heater. Before I flipped open the plastic door to press buttons and break the chill, Mom rushed by and grabbed my hand.

“No. Your father needs it like this. He…enjoys this time of year.”

“You’re kidding, right?” Nonetheless, I pulled my hand from hers and looked toward my sister, my “what the hell?” expression quite evident.

“You think that’s weird, you should see the master bedroom,” Sara said, scooting past Mom, who had retreated into herself, though with Sara’s giddy statement, she snapped, “Not now.”

“Oh, yes. Now,” Sara said, hand to the knob as I followed her down the hallway. She pushed the door open with a flourish. “Ta-da!”

The room was empty, except for a blanket and a pillow stuffed into a corner close to the bathroom door. Worse yet, the ceiling, for the length of the far side of the room above the window sagged obscenely, gray and discolored. It looked pregnant with disease or at least with something wrong.

I turned to Mom as she rapidly approached. “What is going on here? Where are the beds? What’s…that?” I said, pointing to the bloated ceiling.

“I don’t mind sleeping on the floor,” Mom said, shrugging her shoulders.

“Mom is off the deep end with dear old Dad, I would reckon,” Sara said, thumbs in the loops of her faded blue jeans, rocking back and forth on the heels of her yellow and black tiger-striped sneakers.

“Mom, this…this is not good. You can’t sleep on the floor. What of your back? You’ve had back issues for years. I’m sure this doesn’t help. And…the ceiling, for fuck’s sake.”

Sara laughed and I could not help laughing myself, though I am sure we were both laughing for different reasons.

Mom shuffled past me and barked, “Move,” as she shut the door. I was miffed to the nth. Sara walked off, posture tall, as if her hell was now our hell.

I followed her as she headed for the garage, though heard mumbling from the master bedroom that perked up my ears with cat-like concentration. It sounded like that weird language Father had spoken toward the end of his life.

I had a flashback memory from a couple months before he passed, a conversation of sorts, before leaving after a visit. Something forgotten, yet now…

“The English language, all languages, the languages of humans,” he paused, eyes skittish, head tilted back, “it’s like I feel I need to pluck the words out of thin air before using them anymore. As if that’s the only way at this stage I can even speak to you, Natalie.” He smiled, eyes bright, an inner joy leaking out. I remember thinking it made no sense, whatever he was trying to say. Then he spoke a sentence in that other language, the words abrasive on my eardrums, rubbing them wrong, and my body responding as if an eel rippled through me. He smiled wider and said, “You’ll understand soon enough.” But he was gone before understanding was attained.

Mom’s words, like Father’s, yet I felt I could understand them now, if I heard them more clearly or—

It all made no sense. I shook my head and stepped into the garage, where Sara was swigging from a bottle of white wine.

“Why didn’t you tell me about all this before I got here?”

“You had to finally get your ass here to really understand, that’s why. You think I like how this is playing out? What if their insanity is going to be ours?”

I hadn’t even thought about the possibility. That wasn’t the issue right now. The issue was what to do for Mom to help her. I grabbed the bottle of wine from Sara’s hand, took a swig.

“We need to do something, Sara. Help her.”

“Ha! You know how she can be. She accepts help begrudgingly. And she doesn’t see what she’s doing as anything wrong. She talks about Dad as if he’s relaying messages to her or some such shit.” She started to cry. I set the bottle on the clothes dryer.

“Hey, hey, sis,” I said, hand to her arm. “We’ll figure this out. We’ll figure out what to do.”

“No, no we won’t. You don’t get it. She’s been talking about this celebration as if it’s a homecoming for weeks. Tomorrow, All Souls Day, she acts like Daddy’s going to drop in for a visit. Take a break from his afterlife shenanigans and grace us with his rotting presence.”

“She’s always been a bit loopy. Don’t let her sink her talons in. We’ll figure it all out and make things right.”

Sara wiped her eyes and brittle blond strands of hair from her face. I hadn’t realized how drained she looked, the lines defined by more than the years. At our age, the onslaught of time is defined by wrinkles and sagging breasts and buttocks, but this was different.

She stared at me, her hard edge back.

“There’s no ‘right’ to be made here,” she said, downing four, five big gulps. “I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, but I know there’s nothing ‘right’ to fucking be had here.”

The doorbell rang.

“Let’s deal with trick or treat and today and Father’s celebration tomorrow,” I said. She set the bottle back on the clothes dryer and stomped past me. I stood there, utterly perplexed. Taking another mouthful of wine, I swished it around, coating my tongue, my teeth, and heard a child’s voice from outside say, “Trick or treat?”

Trick or treat, indeed.

I dreamt I was an insect wrapped in a polished black carapace, suffocating as it covered my body and spread to my face. My antennae twitched, the sensation felt in my belly. I comprehended something the dream did not reveal, but it remained vague, a shadow in the background. I woke up wondering if Gregor Samsa was my soul mate. I cursed Kafka, Mom, this house, the damned apple tree, and Father’s absence.

I heard voices through the vents. Listening intently, I could tell it was Mom and…somebody else. A voice with a masculine foundation. Obviously not Sara.

I shoved the sheets aside and set my bare feet on the carpet. The shag was cold as I stood and clicked on the lamp. The kitty with the rolling eyes wall clock stared back at me. 2:49 a.m. Hell. I listened to the light hum of the mechanism of the clock as I pulled on my deep blue flannel robe. Listened to it slow down and fall silent.

I glanced back up at the kitty clock. The always rolling eyes were frozen as it stared at me.

What the hell was going on?

The house was dark, though a hint of light played out from beneath the door to the master bedroom. The door to Sara’s room adjacent to the master bedroom was open. It was never open at night when we were younger. I slowly made way down the hall, pulling the robe tighter around me, the autumn chill coiled as a snake around my bones.

As I peered into Sara’s dark room, there was no sign of her.

I turned toward the master bedroom and lightly tapped my knuckles on the door. The whispering sounds of conversation fell silent.

I sniffed and covered my nose with my left hand. The funky fragrance from the rotten apples had seeped into the house.

I heard shuffling sounds, but no one opened the door.

“Hey,” I said. “Mom. Sara. Open the door.”

The door opened and Mom’s face filled the gap.

“It’s not quite time, honey.”

“Time for what?” I asked, hand to the door, pushing gently but firmly. Mom stood steady in response, unmoving.

She turned and croaked something in that language that only she and Father spoke. I hadn’t ever thought of it that way until now, perhaps her brusque intonation inspiring this observation, but those words, if they were words, seemed sculpted from the throat of a toad.

“What’s going on? Where’s Sara? Let me in.” I pushed harder, tired of games. Tired of it all.

Mom stumbled back but did not fall. The pungent odor caused me to gag. I felt woozy and almost lost my balance.

A bright, full moon caressed the branches of the apple tree, reflecting their windblown dance along the walls as it radiated deep into the corners of the room, adding mystery to the geometry. I swear the swollen ceiling vibrated.

Perhaps the heady aroma from the strange fruit was potent enough to alter the surroundings. I laughed at the absurdity yet knelt forward to vomit.

“There, there,” Mom said, stroking my hair. I pushed her hand away, wanting nothing to do with her or this place. No wonder I stayed away.

She said something entwined in that toad-croak of a language. A response emanated from above, deeper and muted. I angled my vision toward where it came from. The swollen ceiling. Mom enthusiastically clapped her hands together.

“Daddy says it’s okay, we can start now.”

A sound as of wood shifting, and the swollen ceiling quivered again.

Another vocalization, deep and droning, the cadence monotonous as it went on and on, from above.

“Daddy says since you are of his blood prior to transformation, you’re the only one able to carry on the family legacy. Says, Sara just didn’t have what it takes—”

“What are you talking about? Prior to his transformation—what? You make no sense. I know from Candi he’s not even my real father—”

Mom smiled, teeth glistening sharply. “That bitch doesn’t have a clue. As I just said, he is your father, it’s just the father you knew is not the father he was before his transformation.”

“You’re mad,” I said, not allowing her nonsense to infiltrate my brain. “Where’s…” But my question was derailed by what the moon’s candle-like flicker through the windblown branches revealed as I looked behind Mom and saw Sara on the floor, where the pillow and blanket were. Her unblinking eyes stared toward the window.

“Sara,” I said, knowing there would be no response.

I grabbed Mom and yelled, “What have you done, you crazy old bitch?”

She only smiled as my fingers dug into her arms. “She would have gotten in the way. We can’t have that, honey.”

I raised my hand to slap her. To strike her and run from this lunatic asylum and never look back.

There was a sound like something tearing, splinting…and the sagging ceiling erupted. The force caused both of us to crumble to the floor. I banged my head on the wall, a moment shrouded in a deeper darkness.

I shook my head to sweep away the intrusion of a transitory abyss that wanted to devour my consciousness and immediately raised my left hand to my nose, the sickly-sweet intrusion too much to bear. Apples were everywhere, piled high as the ceiling from which they’d been expelled. Some scattered as if running away, which sounded like a good plan to me. A couple bounded off my legs. I reflexively kicked them, not wanting to be stained by their touch.

The toad-croak of a language, loud and clear. From the pile. Loud and clear and I felt it twitch within my chest. Fluttering as the wings of a hummingbird.

“If you’d just gotten yourself pregnant, had a boy, Daddy could have imbued the boy with the knowledge of who he really was. Of what he was, such beauty.”

She was mad, or saner than I ever would be again. She spoke of impossible things as if they were happenstance. Yet happenstance played out before me.

I started coughing and the sound was rougher, deeper than the expected intonations.

From the pile of apples, the toad-croak of a voice again. Father.

I felt it within me, spreading from my chest to my fingers, the back of my brain, my knees, and my ankles—everywhere.

“Daddy needs an heir, and you’re no spring chicken, Natalie. He’s decided to…hurry things along.”

One coarse bleat from the mound, an exclamation point to Mom’s statement, and I was crawling faster toward the door. Getting away was all that mattered. I didn’t want to stick around and ask, so, how’s it going on the other side, Father?

Another bleat sliced through me, fluttering with intensity deep inside me. The wings of many hummingbirds in battle. I gasped, but even the gasp felt alien.

“Daddy says he’ll make things right.”

The mound of apples quivered, as the swollen ceiling had quivered, tumbling all about. As they tumbled, a dark figure was revealed. A dark shape. The moonlight haloed the silhouette. Indistinct movement was highlighted, but no arms or legs or anything vaguely human could be garnered from what I witnessed. It was only amorphous, fluid…

I forced myself to look away, to reach up for the doorknob and get the hell out of this place. To no avail. Father’s next words, in that language, changed me. Sheared off a parchment layer of skin to divulge a truth only these bizarre circumstances could reveal.

When he spoke, I became the fluttering, my body hitching as I fell to my back.

I heard something beating on the wall to the left of the strange shape. Something to the right, as well. A different kind of fluttering, like tribal drums warding off the monster…or calling King Kong to the sacrifice. His silhouette swelled as the ceiling had swelled. The edges flattened, taking on the aspect of a cut diamond, yet unsettled.

“Just relax, honey.” It was a preposterous proposal. “Daddy needs your womb. You weren’t using it anyway.”

Then, Father spoke to me.

I felt my insides flutter outward in transition. That toad-croak of a language dissecting me, freeing me of my humanly conceits. Opening me to my true self.

“You were always your father’s daughter, Natalie. Always,” Mom said.

Compelled to scream, I opened my mouth wide, only to utter a toad-croak sound. The language of our race, Father’s and mine.

Apples rolled past me as he approached…

*** 

Yeah, I like that one a lot. Hope you enjoyed it, too. 

Signed, Sealed, Delivered...Werewolves!

 OUR SAVAGE ANATOMIES!

That's the gist, let's dig into details. As you know, my new short novel is called, OUR SAVAGE ANATOMIES. It's available from the publisher, Hybrid Sequence Media, as well as at the 'Zon in both paperback and digital, as well as elsewhere, as far as I know. 

That said, I've received some copies of the paperback and it's beautiful! Rufus and Sasha and the gang, just beautiful. That cover art by Małgorzata Mika is fabulous...but you know that already. Point being, I have copies and would like to sell some. That's part of the deal, y'know? But the deal here is, let's see...

$12.50 via PayPal, friends and family option, gets you a signed copy and includes shipping (in the USA). 

A deal? That's a steal! 

But you know you want it. 

This deal will last until November 9. Three weeks. 

Let's Rock!

Email me at jcsmith0919@yahoo.com with the subject line "OSA" so I don't just delete your email like I do most of them, haha. Or you can get in touch with me via messenger or Bluesky messages. 

Again...

Let's Rock!

OUR SAVAGE ANATOMIES Origin Story: "Home Is Where The Howl Is"

I've mentioned already the events that led to the origin of OUR SAVAGE ANATOMIES, so now it's time for a treat. Those events led to me writing a short story for an antho call. I've mentioned how after writing the story, I realized if I wrote one more sentence after the ending, which in the short story is a true ending, I could run with these characters. I didn't know there would be a Jack Pandemonium or anything, but the seed was planted. Your treat...is the story itself, "Home Is Where the Howl Is," where we meet Rufus and Sasha and Mister E. in the mysterious town in Italy. 

I'll even add the line that I knew would trigger my brain to See Where It Goes (and the wild path it decided to take while getting there, haha) after the short story. 

An edited version of this story takes up the second and third chapters of the novel. 

Enjoy!

***

Home Is Where the Howl Is

    The crisp scent of burnt sunflowers threaded the light breeze, less an odor, more a signifier that another long, hot summer was reaching its end. Autumn, still circling the periphery, had yet to slip through the seams. It was an in-between time; a time when anything was possible. Rufus Skye sniffed the air and registered the acrid bite of olives, the potent aromas of rosemary, oregano, peppermint. West of Senigallia, where the Adriatic Sea lapped at white sand shores while beachcombers sat beneath rows of beige and blue umbrellas, a trace of salt still lingered in his nostrils.

    He’d wound his way through the labyrinthine roads that crisscrossed through the Marche region, many barely fitting the expected description. The roads dipped and sloped upward at precarious angles. He wondered how cars made it from one tiny village to another tiny village under such perilous conditions yet had seen a few driving faster than he imagined safe along his trek. He also wondered why the old crone who had pointed him in this direction had chosen such a wayward one, then realized, when one is heading for a destination that lacked a name, the path shouldn’t be easy, and, for all he knew, there would be nothing when he reached it; nothing but nothing in the middle of nowhere, Italy.

     Walking the dodgy roads was work, but he was used to the feel of the earth beneath his feet.

     The previous evening he’d slept beneath the stars, stretched out amidst dirt and weeds down an aisle of a vineyard, immersed within the burgeoning fragrance of young grapes reaching maturation. He’d taken a few into his mouth, suckled then squished them on his eager tongue, savoring the promise of sweetness, before spitting out the dregs. Almost ready to be plucked from the vines, mashed into wine, but not quite. He’d fallen asleep beneath a sheet of stars that shined deeper than what he was used to. He’d been mesmerized by the Milky Way, an imposing white brushstroke across the vast heavens, while insects cavorted across his naked arms and face, beetles and untroubled stink bugs and ants, so many ants; he minded not the least. As he succumbed to slumber, the dreamworld opened to him, the curtains of the unconscious pulled aside to permit wild, primal visions to frolic, as often happened the few days before a full moon filled the night and he was made to run, to rage.

     Today would lead to such a night. He only hoped to make it to his destination, the one not on any map, though villages masked in mirage made something that might seem already sketchy even more so, before the full moon turned him into something he detested.

     As he passed by Loretello, a village that corresponded to the crone’s directions as “near, but not quite there,” something glimmered to the north. Not far, but not close…but not far; distance was inconclusive, really.  Within the glimmer that drew the corner of his eye in its direction, another village smaller than even Loretello’s meager margins, took shape. As if the mirage were taking a deep breath, coming to life.

     As if he was meant to see it. The thought made his heartbeat quicken. He didn’t dare look away.

     The flow of time ticked sporadically, humidity drawing sweat from gasping pores. As with his dysfunctional cell phone—the crone had told him it would be useless once he neared his destination—the considerations of time as he knew it seemed out of sorts. The unnamed village grew larger as he approached yet seemed almost claustrophobic once he stepped through a sizeable, archaic entranceway. The doors towered twice as tall as a man, yet the wood seemed sturdy as if it had been constructed recently. The village was walled, great bricks surrounding the borders. The only path lead around a handful of old houses and boarded-up businesses and a steepled church that looked weary, yet as with the doors out front, there was a strength imbued in the structure. He walked toward a table at the edge of the spacious terrace that overlooked vast brown, ocher, and green fields. That’s when he noticed a copse of trees distinguished by a vibrant reddish hue like nothing he’d ever seen before. What made them stand out even more was that they were set dead center of a barren field, a perfect triangle.

     “Beautiful, eh?”

     Rufus turned toward the commentator. The man’s eyes were buried beneath the shadow of a leathery, well-worn hat the color of midnight. Darkness blended with darkness until the man tilted his head back and smiled, only to reveal sunglasses, another layer cloaking his features. Perhaps his intentions as well. Rufus was often made wary in situations such as these, conversations with strangers or just strangers taking notice of him. A conglomeration of deep folds dissected the lower half of the man’s face, black lightning holding up the upper half being eaten by an abyss.

     “The red trees or everything?” Rufus pulled back on the reins of paranoia which, in his case, was more like heightened awareness. There was a difference. It was the way he had to live.

     “Everything…and those red trees.”

     The man sat at the table across from Rufus, pulled out rolling papers and a bag of tobacco from inside a leather jacket that matched the hat in color, tone, mystery. Seemed Italians liked to roll their own, at least as far as he’d witnessed in the so far at the few caffe’s he’d frequented since he’d landed in Rome. As the man rolled the cigarette between his knobby fingers, he pulled his concentration from the process and back to Rufus.

     “Do you know what we call those trees?” He licked the tip of the cigarette, purely unfiltered, and struck a match against the metal grid of the table. Rufus was surprised to see the head erupt in flame, in fire.

     “I just got here. Still getting my bearings.” He smiled wanly, still on edge.

     “We call them the blood trees. The blood orchard.”

     “Blood trees? A blood orchard?” Sure, the red could be considered blood-like, but it seemed a bit much to Rufus. “Sounds rather grim to me.”

     A waitress scooted over to their table. Her hair was shorn to the scalp, black stubble caressing her otherwise smooth skull. Black on black slacks and blouse. Everything about her was panther sleek. Dark blue eyeliner circled eyes the color of a frozen sea. Her lips were thin, though the mouth was large and also trimmed in dark blue. The sun danced on those lips as she moved them and spoke to the man across from Rufus. He couldn’t make out what she said, his Italian meager at best, yet was quite sure it wasn’t Italian. With this observation, he thought it surprising the man spoke to him in English. Perhaps Rufus looked like a tourist. Perhaps he looked like a foreigner, like he didn’t belong here.

     Perhaps, despite perceptions otherwise and the underlying promise of something positive, he didn’t belong here.

     Perhaps it was all fantasy speculation for such a creature as him.

     The sun was moving swifter toward setting. He’d need answers sooner than later if he wanted to avoid a scene.

     Music started to play, filling the air with chords cast as moods, dark moods before twilight took over and dark skies would follow. Rufus nodded his head to the song, something thick and gothic with vocals that scraped deep into places one rarely explored. Type-O Negative in all their delightfully gloomy glory. What brought a rare smile was realizing the music was not coming from the caffe the waitress now entered, it emanated from the church adjacent to it.

     He turned to the man, to ask a question, but the man was a step ahead of him.

     “The rumors are true. What flows in your veins is what brought you here. To us.”

     Rufus internally questioned how the man could have any idea what flowed in his veins. If he did, he might scatter before moonrise. Of course, the sense in this thinking was instantly swatted away as one would any pest or aberrant train of thought. A man living in such an enigmatic place would know so much more than Rufus could imagine.

     Still, caution scooted around within the confines of his thoughts, even as he tried to embrace the possibilities.

     “Who is us? You and” --he thought it quirky, but he had to choose somebody, and since the waitress was heading toward them with two goblets of who-knows-what, she fit the bill—“her?”

     Rumbling laughter rose from deep within the man, exited his mouth past teeth too perfect for a person of his age. An indefinable age, sure, but all evidence suggested ancient wasn’t a bad guess.

     “Me. Her. Everybody who ends up here.”

     The waitress smiled, the piercing tips of her glistening canines longer than the norm, polished by the slowly setting sun. The light played on her features as well, something malleable, subtly twitching beneath her pleasing countenance.

    Rufus’s head grew light as the possibilities began to bloom all around him. The hush hush secrets hinted at in dark net grapevines and whispered down transient alleyways in metropolises made of steel and pain opened their arms to him.

     The man took a sip from his silver goblet. Rufus peered over the top of the one near him, noting a rich, red liquid. It was too cliché to think it blood, even under these less than cliché-ridden circumstances, so he leaned toward a no-frills Bloody Mary, though didn’t make any effort to taste it.

     “The blood orchard was born hundreds of years ago.”

     The man paused, removed his sunglasses to reveal eyes that made butterflies awaken within Rufus’s belly. Oil-stains filled the orbs, no white to trim the pupils, only swirling rainbows, before the man blinked once, twice, and an even more stunning quality appeared. The pupils were white and trimmed in black, a reversal of the familiar. Dimples somehow cut through the layer of lines at each corner of his mouth. His tongue flicked lightly along his chapped lips, the forked tips smoothing out the dry, dead pink skin.

     The man continued.

     “Those trees were nurtured with tears of blood.”

     Tears of blood? Was he implying the blood trees, those in the blood orchard, were born of actual blood?

     “Lacrime di sangue,” the waitress said, as she stared out toward the trees. Rufus was so taken by the man’s eyes, he hadn’t noticed the waitress had loitered back toward them. She steered her focus in Rufus’s direction, her features slightly different than he remembered thirty seconds prior. “You’re going to love what’s next.”

     Rufus thought that a curious statement until the man continued his tale.

     “Yes, those trees were nurtured by tears of blood. Vampire blood.”

     Vampire blood? Could Rufus be hearing this correctly?

     “To what purpose?” Uncertainty flitted around the tattered edges of rumor becoming fact.

     The man glanced up at the waitress. Rufus took both in, along with movement at the periphery, a sprinkling of small groups or couples in conversation, smiling and laughing. A vibe of unmitigated joy filtered through him, quashing the butterflies while enlightening everything he’d heard of this place. If it was true. If it was all true…

     But first, what of those trees?

     “Survival for our kind. Survival without having to murder—”

     “The humans,” the waitress interrupted, her ears taking in the story, but her eyes watching the sun set. Rufus did a quick glance behind to note the golden glow, as if the horizon were on fire. He swiftly turned back toward the man.

     “I’m not exactly sure what you are saying,” Rufus said, understanding how he felt when it came to murdering for survival—blood was needed; blood and flesh—having felt so alone for so long. He thought he was the only one cursed to exist as he did to feel anything approaching empathy, thought himself more a freak than he already was. A werewolf whose human conscience was the overriding force within him; well, almost overriding, a notch below survival instincts and the need to kill.

     “You understand, my friend. We feel as you do. We want as much to avoid the primal side of our instinct, at least when it comes to dealing with the humans. We get no pleasure out of killing, but we have to. Choice is banished when the ache becomes too much.”

     “At least, that’s how it used to be.” The waitress nodded as she said this. The man telling the tale looked up at her again. Rufus noted a smile rise out of the aged, fleshy cartography of his face, as if he were pleased about something Rufus could not make heads or tails out of. The waitress’s occasional interjections, or something more, something else.

     Rufus had to admit he felt himself as Sisyphus, shifting the weight to a reasonable place, one he felt might be lessening the more the odd tale revealed. He noticed the nametag pinned above the waitress’s left breast, red marker scribble designating her as Sasha. He liked the way the word rolled around on his mind’s tongue. He liked much of what was being revealed to him so far, yet his always-present suspicion disallowed him fully giving into what he was learning quite yet.

    “Throughout history, there have always been vampires, as well as other creatures who live in the shadows.” The man took another sip. Sasha folded her palms across her abdomen, attentive. “But before the fifteenth century, we had been a vile, sinister presence. Our role in history was lethal, our engagement with the humans wrought in blood and death.”

     “For the sake of survival,” Rufus said.

     “Yes,” Sasha said.

     “Change was needed, or at least desired by a few. Those who found our condition ne’er unbearable, preaching resistance to the call of our savage anatomies.” The old man reached for his goblet, fingers caressing the stem, but did not pick it up. “But they were met with opposition from those who relished what those savage anatomies demanded.”

     Rufus knew how hard it was for him, not even a vampire but one driven by the call of the full moon to completely bury his human aspect. He wondered, if what he was being told had foundation in the reality he lived in, how personal restraint was attained when, no matter his futile efforts, the full moon’s pull was irresistible. 

     “Years of battle ensued, neither side gaining ground.” The old man leaned forward and shook his head. Rufus could read in his strange eyes and the way he held his hand up to cradle his forehead, the man was not just telling a tale, but sifting through memories.

     “Shall I?” Sasha asked, calming hand to the old man’s shoulder.

     “Please.”

     “Eventually, those like us dwindled to a precious few and most of them were slaughtered out there by the others, in that field.”

     The old man put his hand on Sasha’s and sat up, sunglasses propped back atop the bridge of his nose, though Rufus found it unnecessary as darkness descended. He had a passing thought about vampires and sunlight, was set to ask how the old man and perhaps Sasha—perhaps everyone strolling on the terrace—seemed somehow untouched by the rays, casting shadows when there should be none. A rumor dispelled, while another took shape? What Rufus really wished was that they would hurry up with their odd tale, wondering how much was meant for him, since he was not a vampire.

     He felt it begin to itch beneath his skin. Everywhere beneath his skin. Bones, muscles, the corpuscles beginning to quicken their pace. He consciously slowed his breathing, tamped down what he could.

     “There is no way to explain what happened next beyond the details. Magic cannot be defined. It simply is. Perhaps the gods played a hand.” The old man had picked up the tale again as Sasha began to shuffle in place. The few other people meandering around the terrace seemed aware of something; Rufus realized it was the night they were all responding to as the old man continued: “As they died, those like us, their tears drenched the soil. Tears of blood. The long night fell into caterwauling revelry. Those determined to leave the status quo alone celebrated as if victory for all time had been attained, and initially that might have seemed a correct assumption.” The old man paused, drew in a breath, and said, “I can still remember the din. It rings in my ears even now.”

     Rufus was not surprised by the old man’s claim. He took his own deep breath, almost released a low growl. He could feel the moon’s persuasion deep within him. 

     “The vampires in that field perished overnight, perhaps fertilizer for what followed. Trees sprouted immediately, noticeable to the few like us who remained. We set fort within those trees, not knowing what would come next, until the call of what we were became too substantial to resist. At that moment, seemingly without provocation or a blade to puncture the woody flesh, one of the trees began to bleed. And I went to taste the red nectar.” His hesitant fingers gripped the stem of the goblet and raised it toward Rufus. “Blood. Sweeter and stronger than any other blood. Blood with a purpose. The blood orchard supplied us with an answer to what we had been searching for. Now, all vampires can live with the humans without the bloodlust corrupting the peace we seek.”

     “But what of—”

     But what of werewolves? The rumor had been simple: come to this place and you will be amongst those like you. All talk so far had been about vampires. What if he had been led to this place of vampires to be slaughtered for his differences; because he was a werewolf? 

     Rufus stood as his body trembled, fighting what he was.

     “Relax,” Sasha said, as she began to unbutton her blouse. A group of people to Rufus’s right shifted within their clothing and transformed into bats, the discarded material shushing to the cobblestoned surface of the terrace.

     “But I am not a vampire. I require more than simply blood.” Rufus felt hope, rarely considered in his life, slipping…

     “We know,” said the old man. “All men are hybrids. Only a sparse few are as we are, vampires, and as you are. Werewolf.”

     “How can you know what I am?”

      “Nobody comes here without a purpose. You did not come here of your own volition. You were driven to come here by what fills your heart. And, of course, secrets meant only for you. Only for those like you, though nobody is exactly like you, Rufus Skye.”

     No introductions had been made. The old man knew his name. Perhaps vampirism included mind-reading abilities. He would have to find out later.

     “But what am I supposed to do about—”

     His body started to shift, the change emanating from within. Hairs pricked his skin from beneath layers of epidermis and poked through. His nocturnal vision grew sharp, crystal clarity amidst the oncoming tide of night.

     “Relax,” Sasha said again, slipping out of her slacks. Her body was coated in dark brown fur that covered her whole human form.

     Relaxation had never been his way, though. Rufus fought against transformation. Yet, here he was, for the first time face-to-face with another who was a werewolf.

     “The blood from the trees is not just for vampires. Its power is for all the creatures who live as whispers upon wind and in shadows that rarely see light.” The man nudged the goblet in front of Rufus toward him. “Have a sip—”

     “Not yet,” Sasha said, as she stood upright on sturdy paws and sprinted toward the edge of the stone wall surrounding the terrace. “You won’t need to kill tonight. Follow me and we can join the rest of our brothers and sisters in the forest.”

     She held out her paw, an invitation Rufus was still hesitant to take.

     “Well, don’t take too long,” she said, as bones and cartilage crackled as her snout elongated, and she raised it to the moon. She howled, sprung onto the ledge, and leaped.

    Rufus was overwhelmed by the sensations, the conflict inside, as he ran to the ledge and leaned over, spotting Sasha a good five meters down as she dashed toward more familiar trees constituting a forest. Exuberant howls met his ears.

     “Go,” the old man said. “Go now, you’ll be fine for the night. Drink with me tomorrow. Remember, you are no longer alone.” A firm hand brought warmth to the fur shrouding his shoulder.  “You are one of us and we welcome you with open arms.”

     With that, his clothes shredded as he’d not removed them as Sasha had—fighting what he was, what he’d always fought against—his snout did as he’d witnessed Sasha’s had done, the final stage, yet this time he welcomed it and the howl that would follow as he moved toward the ledge…and swung himself over it.

     He landed firmly with a spring in his step, ready to run free of dread or trepidation for the first time ever.

***

There ya go. 

Now for the line that set it all in motion: 

"Despite all appearances to the contrary, it was the first and last night of true freedom Rufus Skye would ever know."

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Here's Rufus. Yes, he's looking at you.