Vol 1, Issue 3

Pitch black surrounded him. Jerry sat on the floor, in the corner of his kitchen, knees drawn up under his chin. He wrapped both arms in a bear hug around his legs. His right hand clutched a Jack Daniels bottle by the neck in a stranglehold. A half-smoked cigarette dangled from his lips.

He couldn’t see his front door from where he sat in the dark, but he knew the little beastie was back. It had returned… probably had never left.

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He sat in the broken down chair staring at the computer screen. Blank. Couldn’t see it. Couldn’t touch it. The story was lifeless and adrift in the sea of His mind. He needed inspiration. A little poke here, a little prod there. Just something to get the ball rolling. It had worked before.

Sitting forward, He propped an elbow on the table. The cracked wood had softened on the edges from constant meetings with His hands. Not the only thing soft. A man’s mind goes soft. Squishy and a little moldy on the inside. Bread left in the cupboard too long.

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Three years ago, we would have said this:

What do you make of Candle Flame Winslow? Then again what does anyone make of her? I mean there’s the obvious stuff: that name—Candle Flame (What parent would do that to a child? Didn’t they know the torture they were sentencing their kid to?)—and the fact she’s barely 5 feet tall, round as a berry, with clearly bleached blond hair in volumes of unkempt curls, nearly blind despite attempts at corneal revision (eyes hidden behind voluminous rhinestone framed glasses), painfully shy, continually nervous. Any one can pick those details out.

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Let me set the record straight. Trolls do not live under bridges, and vampires don’t exist.

There, I said it.

Most times, legends are like the childhood game of telephone. It starts with one so-called witness swearing up and down that what they think they saw really happened. This information gets whispered into the nearest available ear. Then that person processes, interprets, and computes the data. The results are immediately spewed out, posted on billboards, set to print, and e-mailed in bulk. Either way, by the time point A reaches point B, there’s no resemblance to the rumor that started the great ball rolling in the first place.

So once again, trolls do not live under bridges, and vampires don’t exist.

At least, that’s what I had heard.

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The art of seduction had never really changed.

He smiled now, thinking about it. A little grin that only moved his bottom lip. In all this time he had never changed his technique of pursuing women. And why should he? He was good at it.

Standing out in the rain, the water cooled his skin but did nothing to cool his inner warmth. From his vantage point on the roof, he could see clearly into her apartment.

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My ship’s in Haitian territorial waters. Destination: Miami.

A Haitian patrol boat’s coming with sirens blaring. They fire a shot over my bow. I quickly stop the engines. Four sailors brandishing machine guns come aboard. General LeHate follows.

“What’s your cargo?” he snaps.

“Cadavers,” I say, passing the manifest. “For American medical schools.”

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