SHADOWS OF DEATH: Death Comes with Fury (and Dark Humor) To a Small Town South of Chicago Read online

  CONTENTS

  Just The Eyes Playing Tricks

  What The Hell’s Going On?

  Blind As Eyeless Beggars

  Clearly, You Have Never Seen A Single Horror Movie

  We Run

  Like Milk From An Overturned Plastic Bottle

  Some Kind of Miracle

  We Are Never, Ever, Finished Here

  What Are You Doing Here?

  Sort of Wiggly and Almost See-Through

  “Flower. Can You Hear Me?”

  You Know Nietzsche, Right?

  Please Leave Before I Call Security

  Armageddon Time

  There Are Laws In This Country, Buster

  There’s Someone That I Want You To Meet

  Hey, You’re Just Gonna Have To Trust The Guy

  Something Different. Something New.

  Very Unprofessional Sobbing

  Good, We’re All Here Now

  In A Single Flicker Of Time

  Be with the People You Love

  The Sleep of Angels

  Other Books by Carl S. Plumer

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  If you enjoy SHADOWS OF DEATH, you might also like Carl S. Plumer’s other satirical, dark humor books . . .

  DEATH COMES WITH FURY (AND DARK HUMOR)

  TO A SMALL TOWN SOUTH OF CHICAGO

  A Teen Death Paranormal Mystery Adventure,

  Where Four Friends Unwittingly Release a Supernatural Epidemic!

  Carl S. Plumer

  someday has arrived.

  SHADOWS OF DEATH

  © COPYRIGHT 2015 CARL S. PLUMER ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from the author at [email protected].

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, events, and places portrayed in this book are products of the author’s imagination and are either fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author. For more information on the author and his works, please visit www.carlplumer.com

  Editors: Becca Hamilton and Kristen Plumer

  Cover Art: Alan Davidson

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-942947-06-6

  If you liked this story, why not let others know? Tell your friends. Chat about your favorite scene from this novel on Facebook. Mention the book on Twitter. Perhaps even leave a brief review where you bought the book online. Word-of-mouth is crucial for any author to succeed. Thank you for your support!

  somedaypress.com

  someday has arrived™

  This one’s for Hannah, for believing in the dream

  And, as always, for Kristen: “ ‘til death do us part”

  and to the next life, too

  CHAPTER ONE

  Just The Eyes Playing Tricks

  The curtain by the patient’s bed rippled against the window, although no breeze blew this night. In fact, the window hadn’t been opened. Down the hall, a nurse busied herself with sorting and filing forms. The hallway stood bright at 2:16 AM on a Tuesday. Carts were parked along the hall here and there; a mop stood in a bucket on wheels at the far end. Otherwise the night quiet and devoid of people.

  Back in the patient’s room, the curtain waved again. A shadow followed where the breeze would have been. Cables, tubes, and monitoring equipment kept the man company as he lay in the bed, the mattress propped at about forty-five degrees. Two pillows held his head firmly. His breath came slowly, and one of the monitors showed that his heart, though weak, remained steady.

  The shadow swept across the man’s face, covering his head and most of his chest. The heartbeat on the monitor sped up slightly, as yet nothing that would warrant concern.

  The double-paned and sealed hospital windows kept the cold air of October at bay. Leaves fell and skittered outside along the grass and across asphalt. The moon cut through the sky a righteous ghost. The room stayed warm, heated by modern technology. And the man, in his early fifties, dozed in comfort: not too hot, not too cold.

  The shadow floated by again. Where did it come from? Did the moon and the curtain conspire to dance shadows around the room? The curtain barely ruffled now, almost still. Yet, the shadow moved like a phantom doctor or nurse, going about their business. But no such thing existed, in this hospital or any other, as a wraith doing good deeds.

  Still, the shadow remained an anomaly, an unexplained phenomenon. Or, simply, a trick of the eyes, a trick of the light.

  The man breathed softly, sedated by a number of different medications. He would sleep well tonight, ordinarily, with those precise prescriptions flowing through his bloodstream.

  A routine check earlier in the week had revealed a problem with his heart. They had wanted to investigate further, so a series of stress tests was planned for the morning. The man had maintained good shape for his age. Other than the heart hiccup, really nothing out of the ordinary seemed wrong, from a health and fitness standpoint.

  The shadow appeared bigger now. Might it be a cloud crossing in front of that huge harvest moon? Ah, but still a trick of the mind. For the curtains were pulled tightly across, letting almost no light in at all. Certainly not enough brilliance to account for a growing, moving shadow.

  The shadow passed over the man’s countenance once more; he made a face, as if he were about to sneeze, then his facial features returned to repose. He continued dreaming, looking as content as a sedated man could, which is about a content as any man ever.

  The EKG device, tracking his irregular heartbeat, showed a couple in succession; new, but not necessarily alarming. The heartbeat ratcheted higher, by now that of someone exerting himself, like a runner, or someone under duress. The beats came faster still, now showing the pattern of a man in panic.

  The shadow by this time covered the man’s whole body and the entire hospital bed. It appeared darker than before, and somehow much denser, like spilled ink.

  Then came the piercing sound of the alarm, to match the flat, green line on the monitor’s screen.

  Within seconds, the first nurse arrived with a crash cart, another nurse only a few steps behind. They snapped on the light and ran to the man’s bed.

  The first nurse clicked off the screeching monitor. The second nurse went around the bed and felt the man’s pulse, or lack thereof.

  A doctor arrived, paddles applied, and attempts made to revive him. The doctor then pronounced the time of death. The cause of death would later be listed as “unexplained cancer.” Because they couldn’t come up with any explanation as to why a man with no cancerous cells when last examined two months ago would die from cancer masses throughout his body.

  The shadow had long since vanished, perhaps when the light came on, perhaps before.

  Perhaps it was never even there, just the eyes playing tricks.

  Conner didn’t like the way Almira glared at him, her face a hand-mixer twist, lips sideways, nose crunched, eyebrows squiggled.

  “What,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

  She didn’t say a word, but this is how she was. She tried to break people with the silent treatment. She could keep it up for days. One time, Conner had even seen her give this guy at school the silent treatment for an entire semester.

  Well, that wouldn’t work on me, Conner thought.

/>   “I’m sorry,” he said. Like most guys, he didn’t know exactly what he was supposed to be apologizing for, but he had a pretty good guess. It was on account of Flower. Yeah, that was her real name. And yeah, he’d kind of flirted with her. Wrong for a lot of reasons, not the least of which Flower and Almira being best friends.

  He could see Almira softening a little, like butter left out of the fridge for an hour.

  “Is this about Flower?” he asked. He may as well have said, “I’m a fuckin’ moron.” The effect would have been the same. She sneered. Her arms were already folded pretty tight, but now she pulled them closer, no gaps, like tightening a noose.

  Almira’s face went crimson. Not the pink of a new rose petal in spring, but big-tomato-squished-in-her-face red. Almira stomped her foot.

  “This has nothing to do with Flower or any other girl, you jerk.” A wriggle of tears fought its way down Almira’s cheek. “My Dad died!”

  “What?” Conner said. “When?”

  “Last night, at the hospital. She fell onto Conner’s chest, burying her head in his shirt. Wet sobs jerked from her body as he held her and tried awkwardly to comfort her.

  Then she turned and stormed out of Conner’s bedroom.

  For a moment, Conner stood in shock, then he pounded down the stairs after Almira. The front door slammed behind Almira as Conner’s Mom appeared in the hallway.

  “Everything all right?” she asked. “Why did Almira storm out?”

  “Everything’s fine, Mom,” Conner said, not looking at her. “Almira had to go, is all.”

  Conner trudged up the stairs and into his room. He shut his bedroom door and walked over to gaze out the window. What could he have said? Or done? He sucked at times like this. He had no experience with these things, with serious things. Not sickness, not sorrow, and especially not death.

  “You going to tryouts?”

  Conner was looking out the window, trying to understand why Almira would be holding hands with that moron Mitch—no, sorry, “Mitchell”—Lugermeister. She and Conner were still a couple, still going to the prom together, last he checked. Despite Flower. Despite Almira’s silent treatment.

  “Huh?” Conner said, or made some equivalent noise.

  “Tryouts, man.” Ricky Martin (yeah, again, real name) threw his backpack over his shoulder and didn’t blink while he stared at Conner.

  “I hate that,” said Conner.

  “What?”

  “You, like, never blink.”

  “Yes I do.”

  “You’re not blinking now. I bet you don’t blink for the next hour.”

  “That’s bullshit.” Ricky looked out the window, saw Almira, and turned back to Conner. “Well, that sucks,” he said. His eyelids remained motionless.

  Conner looked back out the window. She and her new boyfriend were like Ricky’s eyelids. They hadn’t moved. A strange weight pressed on Conner’s chest as though he was getting sick. No, more like the time Gator—name’s really Trevor but he took to wearing these shirts with alligators on them in sixth grade—Gator sat on his chest for ten minutes. This was before Conner started working out. They’d been wrestling (okay, Gator was picking on Conner) and Conner pushed back, more scared than brave and, really, just angry. If he’d thought for a minute, he would have quickly figured out that there was no way. Gator had Conner pinned inside thirty seconds. The point is, that same kind of pressure was what Conner was feeling now: Hard to breathe, with a deep sad feeling inside.

  Conner and Ricky Martin walked away from the window, down the corridor towards the gym and tryouts.

  “Hey, you want to go out tonight? I’ve got the car,” Ricky said, a big smile on his face.

  Conner turned his gaze toward his best friend. Ricky Martin wasn’t much of an athlete. He had no musical talent, he was no good at gaming, and he sucked at dancing. Basically, he did not have it going on.

  But Ricky could be funny. Ricky loved Chris Farley and even tried to comb his hair like his. The resemblance was all the more striking (once Ricky pointed it out to you), because of Ricky’s propensity to be on the heavy side, so to speak.

  “I want to go driving, thought we could head out to the new mall in Oceanside,” Ricky Martin continued.

  “That’s like two hours away.”

  “Yes, my lad,” said Ricky Martin. “But the area throbs with single hotties. Have you been there recently? Better than clubbing.”

  Conner didn’t say anything. He still had that big weight on his chest, remember?

  Ricky Martin kept on talking. “I get the feeling you could use a little girl-watching, or maybe more than watching.”

  Ricky Martin moved his hands to lock in front of him like he was about to push an invisible door open. Then he started squeezing transparent rubber balls rhythmically, one in each hand. Amazingly, his tongue actually hung out of his mouth about halfway as he mimed.

  “Maybe,” Conner said, smiling despite himself. Ricky would need to work on his pathetic attempts to pantomime feeling a girl up.

  “No ’maybe,’ bro. Pick you up at seven. Mall closes at ten and we want to get good pickings.”

  Conner called Almira like three times before seven, and then Ricky Martin came around. Maybe her cellphone wasn’t charged because it went right to voicemail. He left a message the first time, but after that he stayed silent. Conner was a little worried about it. Not really, but you know, a little.

  Ricky beeped his car horn and, before they knew it, they were off toward the turnpike. After that, the mall appeared almost by magic on the horizon. The two friends were sufficiently stoned as they rolled through the parking lot. They found a spot right by the entrance near Macy’s and ran in out of the cold.

  Ricky Martin did not exaggerate, as he let Conner know.

  “Ricky Martin does not exaggerate, right?” He waved his hand across the front of them, a king presenting all his riches to his guest. Girls were everywhere. Tight round bottoms, long legs in short shorts, lots of “cleavage, cleavage, cleavage” as the song goes. Girls still in summer clothes at the beginning of October.

  They targeted a couple of hotties sitting by the fountain by themselves—a blonde and a brunette. The boys marched forward like two cops with the urge to hand out tickets to meet their quota of the month.

  So, on the way over, this is how Ricky Martin was coaching Conner, as if he needed coaching. He liked to talk, and he thought he was good at this. You be the judge; here’s how it went:

  “So you say like this,” Ricky Martin was saying, “’How are you tonight, ladies?’ I got my patter down pretty good, don’t you think? I always start with ’How are you tonight, ladies?’ as my opening gambit.”

  “I guess,” Conner said.

  “Believe me, though, it’s not so much what you say,” Ricky went on, “but how you say. You gotta be full of confidence, see. A twinkle in your eye, and a bounce in your step.”

  “Got it,” Conner said, only half-listening.

  “Then you follow up with one of two options.” Ricky Martin paused. “I could lay this out nicely in a flowchart, by the way, if you want. You know, ’If YES, go to option two, If NO, exit with a devil-may-care laugh.’ You want me to set that up?”

  “No, Ricky, I’m good.”

  “Sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Seriously, no problem.”

  “Ricky, I’m sure,” Conner said, shaking his head back and forth.

  “Okay, okay. Don’t have to get upset. Shall I go on?”

  “Can you be stopped?”

  “Ha, ha, good one. ’Can I be stopped.’ Ha.” Ricky Martin draped his arm around his friend. “You slay me, seriously.”

  Conner said nothing, which Ricky took as a ’Go’ sign.

  “Okay. Option One is: ’You from around here?’ See, you already have them comfortable by asking them how they’re doing. So this is a natural next question. You feel me?”

  Conner was looking at the basketball shoes in the window of t
he store they were passing.

  “Sure, I’m with you so far,” he said.

  “Good,” Conner said. “Well, Option Two is something you say only as you’re sitting. That’s critical. Don’t say it unless you are beginning to sit down next to the target.”

  “Okay, no sitting.”

  “No, no using Option Two unless you’re sitting.”

  “That’s what I meant,” Conner said, stopping to admire the display for a game console he was coveting.

  “So, as you are sitting, you say, ’You mind if I sit?’ This is quickly followed with. ’So, what brings a lovely lady/lovely ladies such as yourself/yourselves here tonight?’ I think it goes without saying that this is delivered with a well-executed wink.”

  “What is?”

  “The line. You wink as you talk as you sit. Are you even paying attention?”

  “What?”

  “Are you listening to—”

  “I’m messing with you. Of course I’m listening.”

  “You idiot,” Ricky Martin said. He threw a weak punch at Conner’s shoulder then went on. “Remember, and this is important, you have to exaggerate it a bit. You know, to make sure it comes across.”

  “You mean the wink?”

  “Precisely, give it some gusto. Don’t just blink or something.”

  “Okay.”

  “Oh, by the way,” Ricky Martin continued. “Here’s some free professional advice: You should slip in some flexing during this whole process. Don’t overdo it, of course. Just a little bulge here and there. Let ’em know there’s more to you than meets the eye, so to speak.”

  “Okay, makes sense.”

  “So, try it out. You’ll be amazed.”

  “How many girls has this worked on? I mean, for you?”

  “Irrelevant. Trust me, though, it’s foolproof. So it will even work for you!”

  “Nice,” Conner said.

  Nevertheless, Conner took what Ricky had been saying to heart and decided to give it a try. He walked over to the girls they had their eyes on and began his Ricky Martin technique.