Little Deaths Read online

  LITTLE DEATHS

  BY

  JOHN F.D. TAFF

  For My Parents

  Thomas & Kathleen Taff

  Because of Whom

  I am a Better Person.

  BOOKS of the DEAD

  This book is a work of fiction. All characters, events, dialog, and situations in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission except in the case of reprinted excerpts for the purpose of reviews.

  Collection Copyright 2012 by John F.D. Taff

  For more information, contact: [email protected]

  Visit us at: Booksofthedeadpress.com

  LITTLE DEATHS

  Cover Art by Diego Candia

  E-book Design by James Roy Daley

  Graphic Design by Derek Daley

  BOLTS

  CALENDAR GIRL

  BUT FOR A MOMENT… MOTIONLESS

  THE WATER BEARER

  THE CLOSED EYE OF A DEAD WORLD

  SNAPBACK

  THE MIRE OF HUMAN VEINS

  THE SCENT

  CHILD OF DIRT

  ORIFICE

  HELPING HANDS

  IN MEN, BLACK

  DARKNESS UPON THE VOID

  SHARP EDGES

  THE LACQUERED BOX

  HERE

  THE TONTINE

  THE MELLIFIED MAN

  BOX OF ROCKS

  NOTES

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Preview: Tonia Brown’s - Badass Zombie Road Trip

  Preview: Gary Brandner’s - The Howling

  Preview: James Roy Daley’s - Terror Town

  Preview: Matt Hults’ - Husk

  Preview: James Roy Daley’s - Into Hell

  Preview: Paul Kane’s - Pain Cages

  BOLTS

  I can hear them coming up the stairs, the pounding feet on the treads, the quiet, gathered whispering of their voices. It swirls up the stairwell like the hiss and sputter of torches.

  I can smell the smoke, the papers burning in my office.

  I can hear her in the bedroom, sitting on the bed, rocking. I can hear the mattress squeaking. I can hear her strange, deep muttering, her thick moans.

  What have I done? Oh god, what have I done?

  I need to let her go.

  My worst fear, though—the fear that dulls my brain, that slows the blood in my veins to a crawl—is that it’s too late.

  * * *

  I saw them online, the bolts.

  I bought movie memorabilia: props, costumes, little knickknacks. I’d turned it into an online business over the years, buying pieces from studio auctions, estate sales, filmmakers whose lives had taken bad turns, other collectors like me. I had my own website where I turned around and sold them. It was fun, easy, and it provided a decent living without an office, a commute, or a whiff of anything even approaching actual work.

  As an added benefit, I could do it from home in the little office in the apartment that I shared with my girlfriend, Rachel… well, Rachel and the stuff that I chose not to sell. The trouble was, at least according to her, that I chose not to sell way too much.

  We shared a three-bedroom apartment, one of those lofts downtown where the space is open and the rent is steep. Still, we were 17 floors up with a great view of the city, and a balcony where we could sip drinks and feel cosmopolitan in the summer.

  The only problem was that almost every square inch was filled with stuff. One bedroom served as my office, another as storage. The rest of the place was lined with glass cases displaying all sorts of geeky stuff—the uniform cap Leslie Nielsen wore in Forbidden Planet, “hero” prop phasers and tricorders from various incarnations of Star Trek, a Jedi robe from Star Wars, even a fedora worn by Bogart.

  I replaced a lot of the toys I had had in my youth and lost—Major Matt Mason, Planet of the Apes figures, Ultraman, and Speed Racer. All for a lot more than my mom and dad paid for them back in the day.

  My absolute weak spot was horror movies. Rachel knew that if I happened across some piece from an old Universal or Hammer horror flick it would most likely not be put up for sale but instead would join the massive collection that threatened to overwhelm our apartment.

  I had Bela Lugosi’s neckpiece medallion from the 1932 Dracula, one of Lon Chaney’s set of werewolf teeth, the dagger Karloff carried as Ardeth Bey in The Mummy. I had a stake and mallet used by Peter Cushing on Christopher Lee in one of the cheesy Hammer Dracula films, and Vincent Price’s costume from The Mask of the Red Death.

  That’s just the tip of the iceberg.

  I find it easy to acquire things.

  I find it hard to let them go.

  I found the bolts on eBay one morning. The several thousand dollars I had in my Paypal account from a recent sale was burning a hole in my pocket.

  I sat in my office, still in my bathrobe, still unshowered, a cup of cooling coffee on the cluttered desktop. As my fingers lingered over the keyboard, I felt a warm pair of lips smack the back of my neck.

  “Going to work, ace,” she said. Yeah, she called me names like Ace and Sport.

  “Have a good one, Rabbit,” I replied without turning. Yeah, I called her Rabbit. She was small and had big ears. Don’t judge.

  “Doing business or adding to the clutter we call home?” she asked, her head bent next to mine, her words, her breath tingling in my ear.

  “Can’t say just yet.”

  “Well, no more superhero dolls for a while. I hate the way they all stare at me when I get out of the shower.”

  “That’s because you have a hot ass,” I said, nuzzling her cheek. “Superheroes are notorious ass men.”

  She laughed, and it tickled down my spine. “Still…”

  I held up my hand. “I make no promises, woman!”

  Rachel kicked the back of my chair playfully.

  “Try to shower and dress before I get home.”

  “Again, no promises!”

  Footsteps across the carpet, the front door opened.

  “I love you, Ace!”

  “Love you, too, Rabbit!”

  The door closed, and I saw it.

  The listing headline read: ‘Actual Prop Neck Bolts from Karloff 1931 Frankenstein’.

  The auction came up straightforward enough. A pair of the neck bolts that Boris Karloff wore as the creature in the iconic film. The little bolts that conducted the electrical charge that brought all the dead pieces of the monster back to life… a kind of life, anyway.

  The description said that the pieces were made of hard cast rubber. Painted dull silver, in great shape. A certificate of authenticity was included, an actual letter signed by Jack Pierce.

  Pierce was a make-up artist who might have gone unnoticed except for his work on the Universal monster films. The actors brought the parts to life, sure, but Pierce’s make-up brought the actors to life. What you see in your mind when you picture these horror icons is not the authors’ descriptions, but Jack Pierce’s vision.

  Dracula’s pasty complexion, cape, and widow’s peak? Jack Pierce.

  The Mummy’s wrinkled skin, and slack eyes? Jack Pierce.

  Frankenstein’s flat head, green skin tone, and neck bolts? Jack Pierce.

  I knew—even as my fingers typed out my bid—I knew I wouldn’t be selling these.

  * * *

  They arrived late in the afternoon, while I was busy selling two of my less popular action figures. I thought this would make Rachel feel good… particularly when I told her about the life-size Battlestar Galactica Cylon I’d just bought.

  As I was packing the two figures, Rachel came in from work. She slammed the door, tossed her keys onto the table, dropped her pur
se, and flashed her eyes over to me. Bad day at work, bad day in traffic, or just a bad day. I didn’t know which, but I knew it didn’t matter.

  There I sat in the living room, still in my underpants and t-shirt, in a sea of packing materials.

  Shit.

  Rachel took a deep breath, expelled it in a loud, long sound that was half decompression, half pressurizing for the second round of whatever bout she’d been fighting that day.

  “More shit, Ace? Really?” she said in a voice where every word gained steam, gained volume.

  “Actually, these are…” I tried to begin.

  “Actually, why don’t you just sit around in your fucking tighty-whiteys and your fucking Punisher t-shirt all day and just buy, buy, buy. I mean, let’s pack this place like a warehouse! We don’t need a bedroom. And you evidently don’t even need a bathroom!”

  She lifted her purse from where she’d dropped it, looked at it as if she had picked up a snake, tossed it to the floor again.

  “I didn’t…”

  “No, you didn’t,” she said, cutting my words off as expertly as if she’d done so with a knife. I could almost see them hanging there, dripping meaning or blood or whatever it was that truncated words drip.

  “You didn’t get dressed, you didn’t shower, you didn’t clean the place like I asked. You didn’t do jack shit. What is it again that attracts me to you, can you remind me?”

  I shrugged, threw my arms wide. “My irrepressible charm?”

  Rachel narrowed her eyes, prepared to say something, then stomped off into the bedroom instead, where she slammed the door but missed the satisfaction of several action figures arranged on shelves outside the bedroom toppling to the floor.

  I took the opportunity to quickly clean the place, picking stuff up, lightly dusting with an old sock, putting dishes into the dishwasher and giving everything in the kitchen a light spritz of Windex and a rubdown.

  Then, I jumped in the shower in the second bathroom in my office, brushed my teeth, pulled on some real clothes and went back into the main room.

  She still hadn’t come out, so I made a quick call to her favorite Thai takeout, opened a bottle of chardonnay, set out some dishes and candles.

  When the food showed, I paid the delivery guy, took the brown paper bag reeking of deliciousness to the table, lit the candles.

  And did what I should have done from the very beginning.

  Waited.

  After a while, the aroma of the food seeped under the door, yanked at Rachel’s nose as in one of those cartoons. The candles had burned halfway down, and my chin was slumped against my fist, elbows on the table.

  I heard the door creak open slowly, a small, dark figure standing in the dark wedge of the bedroom.

  “Dinner?”

  I jerked awake, jumped to my feet.

  “Rabbit, you okay?”

  She lingered in the dark, one of her small hands grasping the edge of the door. “Yeah, pretty sorry, though.”

  “Sorry?” I asked, as if struck by momentary amnesia. “For what?”

  “For being an asshole, for dumping on you as soon as I got home without even saying hello.” She considered this for a moment. “You know, that kind of stuff.”

  “Already forgotten,” I said. “Apartment is clean. Boyfriend is clean. Dinner is served, though probably a little cold by now.”

  I saw her face peer out through the darkness, saw the smile that had attracted me to her originally. The bedroom was in total night, the dining room lit only by candlelight.

  But, man, her smile lit the room, every corner of it.

  We ate dinner, me finally giving her the space to say what she needed. It was relatively tame stuff, the normal ingredients in your run-of-the-mill bad day.

  “I didn’t really mean it,” she said after a while, staring at the pile of cold Pad Thai on her plate.

  “Listen, I know you’re pissed about all the stuff I buy…”

  “Silly boy.” She smiled, and it totally, I mean completely removed any sting from what she’d just said. “You make your own money, you can buy whatever you want. It’s just that… well… you can’t let go of things. Why can’t you let go?”

  “I sold two pieces today.”

  “And how many pieces did you buy?”

  I thought about that life-size Cylon and took a deep breath.

  “Let’s start house-hunting again. You’ve been wanting to do that.”

  “Sure, let’s find a nice, new place so you have even more square-footage to fill,” she said, then immediately looked at her plate. “Sorry.”

  I bit my lip. “So what are you saying?”

  Slowly, she raised her head, gave me a shy version of the flashier smile.

  “I’m saying that I’m sorry. And if you could let go of some of this stuff, if you could let a little of me into this apartment, that’d be great.”

  I felt something tight and nervous within me deflate, and a smile floated to my face. “Are we talking chintz and wicker and old country roses? Or candles, hippy beads, and patchouli?”

  “Neither, fuck-face,” she said, another pet name. “Now take me to the bedroom or lose me forever.”

  I did, and we made the kind of love that told me it was all okay.

  * * *

  For a while, at least.

  Then, as they say in the movies, she died.

  Well, they don’t actually say that in any movie I’m aware of.

  Yet, still, she died.

  * * *

  Rachel and I seemed to move past some barrier in our relationship. I sold more things than normal… especially after the Cylon arrived.

  One night a few weeks later, we went to bed, turned off the lights and snuggled in the warm sheets. The sounds of the city through the open window were comforting—police sirens, the blat of car horns, the squeal of tires. All far enough away to sound strangely soothing, like crickets in the country. Sleep came quickly.

  The next morning was Saturday, and I got up, left Rachel to sleep a little. I snuck into the kitchen and rooted through the cupboards and found the stuff to make banana pancakes.

  I had a few stacked on a plate before I looked at the clock again. Nearly 10 a.m., and it seemed strange that she wasn’t awake yet. Turning off the gas, I placed the last pancake onto a plate, slid the pan into the sink.

  The bedroom was quiet, still. A picture-perfect beam of golden sunlight shafted through the slats in the blinds, fell all dusty-sparkly onto the comforter.

  I sat on the edge of the bed, and moved my hand through the spray of dark hair that fell across her pillow.

  “Rabbit? Breakfast is ready.”

  I smoothed away her hair. It wanted to drape her cheek. I kissed her there, with my hand holding her hair to the side.

  Cold.

  “Rabbit, come on.” I moved the covers aside, rolled her over.

  She flopped bonelessly onto her back, one arm flailing out and striking the headboard hard enough to have hurt.

  Her eyes were closed. Her mouth was closed, too, and I couldn’t hear her breathing.

  I was holding my own breath now, wanting to say her name but unable to articulate one word, one sound. My hand, shaking badly, went to her forehead, her cheeks, her throat. Each time I called her name in my head, Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit!

  Then, “Rachel!”

  It came from my mouth, strangled and dry, as near a wail as anything I had ever uttered.

  She didn’t stir.

  My shaking hand went to her chest, palm flat against her sternum.

  Nothing stirred beneath it. Her skin was as cold and plastic as a doll’s.

  I swallowed something dry and raspy that lodged in my throat, blocked my airway.

  She was dead.

  I scooted across the bed, fell to the floor with a thump.

  I sat there for a few moments, sat and didn’t move, sat and didn’t think. My brain ran, just ran, like a runner who didn’t know when he’d crossed the finish line, didn’t know wh
ere to stop, how to stop.

  I swallowed the bolus that seemed to clog my throat, and my heart lurched into motion again with a tremor.

  Pulling myself up, I leaned over the bed.

  She was mostly uncovered, my Rabbit. She still wore her t-shirt from the night before. Her limbs were thrown across the bed, her hair sprayed across both our pillows.

  Her skin was blue—light, unnatural blue. The warm morning sunlight falling through the window had given it the illusion of life, but there was none.

  My Rabbit, my sweet Rabbit.

  My brain thoroughly disengaged, I shuffled into the kitchen and drank a cup of coffee, picked at the pancakes.

  I waited for my brain to tire itself out, come back from wherever it was, and tell me what to do.

  I could not make the call, could not imagine making that call, the call that would bring men who would come and take her away on a metal gurney.

  As I sat there, her body cooling in our warm, early morning bed, I looked around the place, looked and saw all of the stuff, my stuff, staring back at me.

  Without thinking, I launched myself from the chair, sent it skittering back across the tile floor, into the kitchen. I grabbed the nearest glass case, five feet tall and filled with memorabilia, and toppled it over, screaming in anger.

  The entire case shattered, spraying the floor with shards of broken glass, figures, broken bits of irreplaceable items.

  Breathing heavily, I went into my office, kicking, arms thrashing, sending things into the air, across my desk, clattering to the floor. I shrieked, wordless and raw, and I stomped and threw and tore papers until I was exhausted.

  Finally, I slid on some papers; fell to the floor amidst the carnage.

  I looked around the room, panting like an animal, stunned at what I’d done.

  Then my eyes caught them there on the floor, atop a flutter of papers, sealed in a plastic bag.