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David Carpenter writes urban fantasy with a touch of humor. Learn more about him at the end of this section

Dwayne Harris swung the heavy, six-bar bull gate closed behind his truck.  As the local game warden, he didn’t need to ask permission. But as a one-time ranch hand, he considered it a distinct privilege to be allowed to pass through another man’s gate. There was a kind of a mystical aspect to it, a recognition that gates mark boundaries, boundaries that should only be crossed with prudence and respect.

That was especially true here on the Tres Colinas Ranch, a high-desert grassland that flowed gently up to rugged, rock-strewn mountains that rose from the desert floor like islands rising from the sea. It looked desolate, but there was all manner of game here: mule deer and antelope, turkey and quail, along with more exotic animals, like bighorn sheep. The terrain could be deceptive—the open, rolling plain concealed a complex network of gullies, dry creeks and arroyos that had been carved by centuries of late-summer rains.

You could hide almost anything in some of those arroyos.

Dwayne slid back into the driver’s seat, his breath condensing in the cold, dry air. It was still dark, but there was a faint line of red on the eastern horizon.  This section of the Tres Colinas was one of the more remote areas butting up against the Sierra Diablo: thirty miles off the highway, plus another hundred to the nearest town.  Most poachers knew better than to trespass here, but the lure of bagging an exotic sometimes attracted a darker, more dangerous breed.

His quarry would be just ahead, waiting for daylight. It was an odd time of year for hunters, and odder yet that Felipe Mondragon would give anyone permission to hunt his fifty-thousand-acre spread. The old man fiercely guarded his privacy— even the Feds had to get special permission to enter the property. Legend had it that Felipe once chased a Shell Oil geologist off the ranch with a shotgun. 

There was, however, one exception to the rule. The local game warden had unfettered access, based on a century-old arrangement between the Mondragon family and the State of Texas. That warden was hand-picked by Colonel Masterson, Director of Law Enforcement for Texas Parks and Wildlife, and personally approved by Felipe Mondragon. It was a one-of-a-kind appointment, complete with lifetime tenure and a whale of a non-disclosure agreement.

There were a lot of tall tales surrounding the Tres Colinas, ghost stories of hunters who went out and never came back. Hunters who weren’t prepared for some of the weirder things that could be found in the foothills of the Sierra Diablo. Bestias Monstruos, the old-timers called them.

Once, back in the 1980’s, some trophy hunter from Boston offered a much younger Felipe Mondragon a suitcase full of money for an unsupervised hunt. They found the trophy hunter’s empty truck a few days later.  The game warden, half a dozen ranch hands and a DPS helicopter scoured the area for a week, but the man’s remains were never found.

Dwayne wasn’t about to let something like that happen again.

He put the big Chevy Silverado into gear and eased on down the rocky, unimproved road, driving slow with the headlights off. After about three miles, he stopped in a low spot and shut down the engine. Like all game wardens, Dwayne preferred to maintain an element of surprise. You could tell a lot about a man’s intentions by how he reacted when a lawman popped up out of nowhere.

The three out-of-staters were standing around their rented Nissan crew cab, facing the sunrise, hands shoved in the pockets of their jeans to ward off the cold. None of them were looking his way. He glided silently around a patch of creosote bushes and approached them from behind.

“How you boys doin’ this mornin’?”

Dwayne’s voice was a basso rumble that climbed up to a pleasant East Texas drawl, and the unexpected sound made all three men jump.

The closest exhaled loudly and exclaimed, “What the hell, mate?”

“Crikey, he’s a big un’, ini’ he?”

“Quiet, you twits. That’s him. The one the clerk told us about. Big Dwayne, the game warden.”

Young, fit, and British. That’s how Molly described them.  She ran the Day’s Inn in Van Horn, and had tipped Dwayne off about three strange young men who were talking about hunting the Tres Colinas. There was something about these boys—he couldn’t bring himself to think of them as men, despite the muscles bulging beneath the flannel shirts— that set his instincts buzzing.  Young bucks, looking to make their mark.  He had seen their kind before, but it had been years since any had ventured into his jurisdiction. Old Man Mondragon had a soft spot for the old days, and if Dwayne’s hunch was right, these young men would be about as old-fashioned as you could get.  It was the kind of thing that might make it hard for Felipe to say no.

Dwayne kept a professional smile on his face and an easy-going tone in his voice. Nearly everyone in the county referred to him as ‘Big’ Dwayne, although most were too polite to say it to his face. At six foot six, he towered over the trio of young, athletic-looking Brits.

“Texas game warden, gentlemen. Would you mind showing me your licenses and ID’s?”

They shuffled around, rummaging in a leather satchel that contained their money and documents. Molly claimed that all they had were long guns, but Dwayne kept an eye on their hands anyway, using a flashlight in the pale pre-dawn light. They presented passports instead of driver’s licenses, but everything was in order.

“What you boys gunnin’ for today?”

“Scaled quail.” The tallest of the three grinned up at him, trying to look confident.  His passport listed him as James McAvoy. His friends were William Butler and Allan Cumming. All three had just turned eighteen years of age.

“Blues, huh? A little off the beaten track, if you don’t mind my sayin’. But you’re likely to find some, down in that arroyo.”

Butler and Cumming exchanged a furtive glance at the word ‘Blues’.

McAvoy flashed a guileless smile. “My thoughts exactly, officer. Would you mind if I asked, sir, how you knew to look for us here? We were under the impression that this is private property.”

“Word gets around, you know how it is. And you’re right about it being private property. I’m going to need to see your letter.”

“Oh, you mean from Mr. Mondragon? Of course.”

McAvoy pulled a folded piece of paper from his shirt pocket and handed it over. 

Dwayne read it briefly and handed it back. “It doesn’t specify quail. In fact, it doesn’t say anything about what you’re huntin’ today.”

“Oh. Is that a problem?”

“No, not if all you’re gonna to do is shoot a few quail. I’m going to need to take a look at your guns. Are they in the truck, there?”

McAvoy moved quickly towards the truck. “No, sir, we’ve got them here, in the bed. I’ll hand them down to you.”  He dropped the tailgate, revealing three shotguns. He handled the weapons with care, opening the action before handing each one over, making sure he kept the muzzle pointed in a safe direction. Young Mr. McAvoy was no stranger to firearms.

The guns were all brand-new, TriStar Hunter EX’s, a cheap over-under sold by Wal-Mart. None of them were loaded.

“These guns belong to you?”

McAvoy held up a wrinkled receipt. “Yes, sir. We purchased them in Del Rio.”

“Uh-huh. Let’s have a look at your ammunition.”

Mister Cumming hauled out a crate with half a dozen boxes of shotgun shells inside. “Here, sir. Do you want me to open one up?”

Dwayne checked the label and shook his head. “Nope, these are fine.”

There were three lariats lying in big coils near the back of the truck bed.  A pretty common sight in ranch country, but these boys weren’t cowhands.  And lariats didn’t usually have hooked chains in place of a loop.

“Everything all right, officer?”

“Yup, you’re good to go for your quail hunt. Just one thing, though—I’m gonna need to take a look inside that truck.”

Any doubts Dwayne might have had were instantly banished by the look on McAvoy’s face. 

“Ah, inside the truck, sir? Well, ah, I--”

The tow-headed one, the one named Butler, stepped off to the side and pulled a small stick from his sleeve. He pointed it at Dwayne and began muttering in what sounded like Latin.

Dwayne covered the distance in one long, sudden stride and dropped a hand the size of a shovel on Butler’s shoulder.  Butler stared up at him in wide-eyed amazement, his weird chant frozen in mid-word.

“Mr. Butler, I’m gonna have to ask you to stop doin’ that.”

He snatched the stick out of the young man’s hand as easily as he might have taken it from a child, tucking it into his belt with one quick, efficient motion. Butler tried to twist away and gasped in pain as the warden clamped down on his shoulder. Dwayne’s other hand moved to the butt of his sidearm.  “You boys step over there where I can keep an eye on you. You too, Mister Butler. And keep your hands where I can see them. “

Dwayne had a pretty good idea what he was dealing with now, sure enough to forgo cuffing and frisking them.  These young gentlemen weren’t used to being recognized; Butler had assumed he could finesse the situation.  But they weren’t likely to try anything serious— Virtue, Chivalry, and Service was their motto. Or soon would be if they managed to pass their test. 

McAvoy tried to smooth things over.

“Sir, I apologize for this unfortunate misunderstanding--”

Dwayne cut him off.

“Interferin’ with a law officer is a serious offense, gentlemen.  Am I makin’ myself clear?”

They nodded glumly as he opened the door and began rummaging around on the back seat. He grunted and pulled out a sheathed long sword. 

“Who does this belong to?”

Allan Cumming raised a hesitant hand.

“Vorpal blades are not allowed in the Sierra Diablo, Mister Cumming. I’m afraid I’m gonna have to confiscate it, along with Mr. Butler’s wand. I’ll write you out a receipt, and you can take it up with Judge DeLeon if you feel like contesting it.” He waved a hand at the truck. “The enchanted crossbow is a gray area, but according to the Scottish Addenda of 1840, that’s at my discretion, and I’m gonna allow it. The rest of it’s fine, although your chain mail is a little on the puny side, if you don’t mind my sayin’.”

McAvoy and his companions gaped at him and then at each other. “You know what a Vorpal Blade is?”

“I guess you could say I know a thing or two about the Order of Saint George. Been a while, though. You boys part of a new crop of Initiates?  Uh-huh, thought so.  All right, I’m going to need to see your huntin’ license.  The other one.”

The three Initiates exchanged glances, then McAvoy fetched the leather satchel. Inside was a small piece of rolled parchment, covered in sigils and signed with a wax seal.

Dwayne examined it carefully, nodded, and handed it back.  These boys were green, but they had a valid license, and Felipe had given his permission. And the Order wouldn’t have sent them here if they weren’t ready.

“All right, gentlemen. This license is good for catch-and-release only, and that means no souvenirs, not even a claw or a scale. Just so you know, I’ll be keepin’ an eye on you, and Judge DeLeon goes pretty hard on that sort of thing.  Mister Butler—”

“Sir?” Butler was trying to take it like a man, but he couldn’t keep a faint quaver out of his voice.

“I’d be within my rights to arrest you for assault on a law officer. It doesn’t matter one bit that it was just a Spell of Lesser Deceit.”

Butler looked sad. “Yes, sir.” 

“But if I arrested every two-bit yahoo who tried to lie to me, Judge DeLeon would run out of space in his jail.  So I’m gonna let it go, this time.  But you can pretty much kiss that wand of yours goodbye. Are we clear? Good.”

Dwayne tucked the longsword under his arm and wrote them a receipt for their confiscated property, along with a warning citation for William Butler.

“Now listen up. You want to hunt rock dragons, you’ve come to the right place.  They’re ambush predators and are well-nigh impossible to spot in some of these stone formations, so keep your eyes open and your wits about you.  If you do manage to find one it pays to remember that they have a real short temper. A typical specimen in the Sierra Diablo will weigh in at around twelve hundred pounds, and their scales will turn anything from a longsword to a thirty-ought-six, but they will go down if you can clap ‘em on the back of the head hard enough.  You can expect to get roughed up some, there’s a pretty good emergency clinic in Van Horn, if it comes to that.  But-- “He pointed his index finger at them “-- if you see something with a blue frill, you turn around and go the other way. You hear me?” The big man chuckled. “You mess with Old Blue and he’ll eat the three of you for breakfast. Chain mail and all.”

He left them gaping open-mouthed as he strode back into the brush, maintaining the illusion that on the Tres Colinas, a Texas Game Warden can appear anywhere, at any time, from any direction.

Especially when that Game Warden happens to be Big Dwayne Harris.                    

It had been a bad year, a year spent hunkered down while the worst epidemic in a century cut a nasty swath through family and friends. 

But I had made myself a promise, all those years ago, so here I was. Again. In a silent, wintery graveyard hundreds of miles from home, shuffling through four inches of snow to a marker I always had to look for.

You'd think I'd remember after visiting the thing 29 times.

The sky was low and gray, a jumbled mass of dark, swollen clouds that seemed to fade into a haze of tiny snow crystals that hung motionless in the air like an icy fog, reducing the grave markers to shadowy lumps of brown, gray, and white. In this light, the dim shapes all looked alike; I had to peer and squint to make out the inscriptions.

I stubbed my toe on something, causing my sciatica to flare, which sent a sharp pain shooting up my leg. I still wasn't used to it—it had been a little over a month since I hurt one of the discs in my back. I had been taking down Christmas decorations when I fell off the stepladder and twisted, trying to protect my knee, which I had hurt the week before. I blamed it on the ladder; my wife thought it was because I was starting to get old and needed to be more careful.

Like I said, it had been a bad year.

But bad year or not, I was here, limping through four inches of crunchy graveyard snow, looking for a particular marker. A small unpolished granite stone, with a simple inscription that was burned into my memory: 

Jeremy Putts 

Born: September 16, 1970 

Died: February 25, 1991 

Jeremy was a veteran, but the marker didn't mention it. His mother didn't want any references to the Army on her boy's grave. Can't say that I blame her: the Army was responsible for his death.

I know, because I was there.

He was my squad mate, but we didn't have much in common. Under normal circumstances, I would never have considered him a friend—he was a goofball with crooked teeth and a weird sense of humor. But we deployed together, so I came to know him fairly well.

His death wasn't particularly heroic. Our squad was working a mortar when something went wrong, and the round exploded in the launch tube.

Jeremy went down, riddled with shrapnel. Three or four others went down at the same time, but Jeremy caught most of it.

I was half deafened by the blast, but I did what I could—I got up off the ground, dragged him to the Humvee, and tried to stop the bleeding. I got a medal for it.

Jeremy died, and I got a medal.

Turned out I had been hit, too, but in the heat of the moment, I hadn't noticed.

I wasn't able to make it to the funeral, but I had made the trip to the cemetery every year since.

I spotted the marker and shuffled over to it, being careful not to slip and fall.

A squirrel was sitting on the gutter of a nearby mausoleum, its fluffed-up neck fur covered in a loose collar of snow, peering down on me with hard, beady black eyes. 

I recognized it right away: it was my spirit guide, the totem and symbolic guardian of my clan. At least, that's what he said he was. My shrink says he's just a projection of my subconscious. He's probably right—I mean, come on, everyone knows that squirrels can't really talk. But this particular squirrel had given me some pretty good advice, so I was curious about what he was going to say this time.

I gazed up at what was probably a figment of my imagination. "You again."

"Yep. "

"Can it wait?" I nodded at the headstone. "There's something I need to do."

"I know. That's why I'm here."

"Swell."

I turned and stared down at the stone, fingering the Commendation Medal in the pocket of my jacket. I hated that medal: most of the time it resided in the big plastic box I kept in the attic. But once a year, come Hell or high water, I got it out, put it in the pocket of my jacket, and drove four and a half hours to this lonely little cemetery.

So I could stand here and remember Jeremy Putts on the anniversary of his death. I never said anything because there was nothing to say. I would just stand there, thinking about Jeremy, the explosion, and its aftermath until my feet got cold. When it reached the point where I couldn't stop shivering, I'd get back in the car, crank up the heater and drive home again.

But today was different: the squirrel was here.

And it was looking at me. I could feel those beady little eyes boring into the back of my skull.

I turned around and glared up at it. "What?"

"You gotta say the words, man."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Don't give me that. You know exactly what I'm talking about."

The squirrel leaped to the ground and scurried over, paws flinging bits of snow behind it.

It hopped up on the gravestone, whiskers and tail twitching, breaking the gloomy spell that the dark, sullen landscape had cast on me.

Which irritated the hell out of me. Cemeteries are supposed to be sad.

"Look at me." 

I met his gaze and found myself staring into two tiny little voids of black. 

"Say it." The squirrel hopped to the left side of the stone. "Go on, say it."

I looked down at the inscription and sighed. "I should have done more."

The squirrel hopped on the right side of the stone- "But?"

"But what?"

"You know what. "

I sighed again, reliving memories of my hands, slippery with blood, desperately trying to apply pressure as the light faded from his eyes.

My voice cracked a little as tears welled up.

"I did the best I could."

The squirrel hopped back to the left side and hit me with the stare again.

"Nope. Try again."

I blinked rapidly, the cold stinging my now-wet eyes. I choked a little as I said the words.

"I'm sorry you're dead. I should have done more."

It hopped back to the right, tail twitching.

"And?"

The squirrel was right—I knew what I needed to say. But it had always seemed too trivial, too trite, too inadequate to mean anything. I gazed down at the stone.

"Forgive me, brother." 

The world blurred as the tears poured forth in earnest.

It was weird—until this moment, I hadn't realized just how badly I needed to say that. Jeremy had been torn up inside; the only thing that could have saved him was a full-blown medical team. A medivac was on the way, but it didn't get there in time. Intellectually, I had always known that. But I hadn't believed it. Not really. 

Deep down, I had always felt guilty about Jeremy. I failed, and he died, end of story.

I pulled my hands out of my pockets, took a breath, went down on one knee, and gently placed the medal at the foot of the gravestone.

And then I straightened up, staring at what I had done. I'm not sure why, but it felt right. This is where the damn thing belonged: in a graveyard.

I wiped my eyes and heaved a heavy sigh. "Rest in peace, bro." 

The tears welled up again. But then, in the middle of the hazy blur, I saw Jeremy nodding at me. 

It was just for a split second: I blinked, and he was gone. When I looked up, the squirrel was gone, too. 

I glanced around. I was alone, standing all by myself in the middle of a snowy field of cold, silent tombstones. 

Which was reassuring, in an odd kind of way. 

I took one last look at the inscription. I didn't need to see this anymore: I was never going to forget Jeremy. I would carry the memory of that gap-toothed goofball until I was laid into a grave of my own. 

I squared my shoulders, turned around, and started limping back to my car. 

My feet weren't cold yet, but I had done what I came here to do. It was time to move on. 

READ MORE LIKE THIS IN CORPUS CHRISTI WRITERS 2021

"Monica and Jerry are assholes." 

It had been two weeks, and I was still muttering about my feud at work when I climbed up the tree with a chainsaw. They were the ones who had screwed up, but I was the one who ended up on the hook for it. It had taken me over twenty hours to clean up their mess. Twenty unpaid, uncredited, working-while-everyone-else-goes-home hours. A whole weekend, shot to hell. The anger welled up, making it made it hard to focus.

And lack of focus was something that a man in my position could not afford. 

Because I was eight feet off the ground, gingerly climbing an extension ladder propped against the big oak tree in my front yard. I'm afraid of heights, so for me, the top of a ladder is not a good place to be. But a windstorm had damaged one of the branches, and I didn't feel like paying two hundred bucks for a tree service. 

I was perched precariously with one foot on the second-to-last rung, clutching my chain saw and reaching a shaky hand for what I hoped was a sturdy branch, when I looked up to see a squirrel sitting six inches in front of my face. 

I froze in shock, standing perfectly still while a battle raged between my fear of heights and my instinct to jump. 

Fear of heights won.

"Whoa! Just take it easy, there, fella,” the squirrel said. “I'm here to help.”

An eerie, almost lethargic sense of calm settled over me. “Huh. A squirrel that talks.”

“Hey, I’m not just any squirrel, kid. I'm an extra-special, once-in-a-lifetime magical squirrel."

I squinted at it. It had been thirty or forty years since anyone called me 'kid'. "Magical, huh?"

"That's right. And today's your lucky day, because I'm here to do you a favor."

"Uh-huh." I stepped down to a more secure position and rubbed my forehead with my free hand. I had never had a hallucination before. I wondered if my insurance would cover a psychotic episode. Probably not. Maybe I could claim it was the result of migraines. It was October, that lovely time of year when my head hurts non-stop every time a cold front blows through. I could blame it on the migraines, and maybe get an MRI. 

Yeah, I should definitely get an MRI.

"Hey, fat boy! Look at me! Yeah, I'm talking to you, pal."

I shifted my feet on the rungs. The talking rodent was right, I needed to lose some weight. I hadn't been on the ladder five minutes and my feet were already starting to ache. I looked up at the splintered branch. Is it okay to use an electric chainsaw when you're hallucinating? 

The squirrel snapped its fingers. "Hey! You're not going to fall off the ladder, are you? Nah, I would know it if you were."

"And how would you know that?" 

Wait, it had fingers? I squinted at it again, trying to get a look at its paws. I don't wear glasses, but I probably should, it was a strain to focus on something so close. Why was my hallucination out of focus?

"Never mind, you wouldn't understand. Look, let's cut to the chase. You know that feud you're having at work? The one with Monica and Jerry? You need to let that shit go, man."

"Are you kidding me? After what they did? No way."

"Way. You need to let it go. And get yourself some glasses, you're walking around squinting at the world, not seeing jack." It held up a paw. "How many fingers am I holding up?" It chittered out a laugh. "Just kidding. But seriously, get your ass to an optometrist. And do the right thing, make nice with Monica and Jerry."

"Oh, right. And why should I take advice from a talking squirrel? You don't even exist."

"I'm your totem animal, dimwit, the sacred guardian of your clan and its soul-steering spiritual guide. This feud is eating you up, making you into an even bigger asshole than usual. You're taking it out on everyone around you, including your wife. Honestly, I don't know how she puts up with you."

"Of course you don't. Because you— " I poked a finger in his face " are just— a figment— of my imagination." I found myself swaying on the ladder, and immediately made a panicked grab for the tree.

"I've been trying to go easy on you, pal, but I can see that ‘easy’ isn't going to work."

It cocked its head and glared at me with its flinty black eyes, causing a chill to run up my spine. All the nasty remarks and mean-spirited gestures I had inflicted on the world over the previous two weeks flashed through my mind, an odious Parade of Awfulness that lasted less than a second but left me feeling nauseous and more than a little ashamed.

Monica and Jerry had made a mistake. And I had been a complete asshole about it. To everyone. For two whole weeks.

"Aw, crap."

"About time the light came on. You get it now, right?"

"Yeah."

"Then my work here is done. You know, I like you, kid. You're adorably clueless, but never in a boring way. More of a weird and awkward kind of thing." 

"Um, thanks?"

"It's all good. But I wouldn't turn down some pecans, if you happen to come across some."

And with a flick of its tail it was gone, leaving me with wobbly legs and a lot to think about.

The next day I buried the hatchet with Monica and Jerry, basically by owning up to my bad behavior and asking for their forgiveness, which they willingly gave. They made a big deal of it, actually. Told me how grateful they were for all the extra work I had done. And they made a point of saying that in front of everybody, including the boss. I still blush a little whenever I think about it.

Everything's cool at work now, people don’t look the other way when they see me coming. 

I went to a cut-rate optometrist and got a pair of glasses. Bifocals. I never wear them, but they're on the shelf by the TV if I ever need them. I'm still fat and I still get migraines, but the MRI came up clean, and the insurance company paid for it.

The doctor said my 'vision' was probably the result of stress and sleep deprivation. He wrote me a prescription that I didn't bother to fill. 

I know what I saw. 

What I did do was buy a big bag of unshelled pecans and put them in a bucket underneath the oak tree.

You know, for the squirrels. 

Read more like this  in Corpus Christi Writers 2019

Squirrels can't talk. Everyone knows that.

But maybe sometimes they can. There’s an exception to everything, right?

Because there is one in front of me right now, sitting on a branch, nodding his head at a grey, yellow-breasted bird that is chirping away at him.

"Uh-huh. Oh, that's awful."

I recognize the voice. It is the squirrel from the oak tree in my front yard.

Only that isn’t possible. The talking squirrel in the tree had been some kind of hallucination. It had spouted a line of nonsense about being my totem animal, the sacred guardian of my clan, my soul-steering guide to the spirit world. And then it told me to clean up my act. Transference, the shrink called it. Projecting my real-world problems onto an imaginary rodent.

Thing is, it gave me some pretty good advice. Which I took. And my life got noticeably better as a result. 

Hence the shrink.

And now my little furry hallucination is back, carrying on a one-sided conversation with a bird.

I try to get closer and discover I can’t move. This is a dream. Just a stupid dream.

The squirrel swivels its head. "About time you figured that out."

It turns its attention back to the bird, nodding and responding with sympathetic noises to a cascading series of whistles and chirps.

I try to wake up. I pinch myself and it hurts. What does it mean if your dream feels real, but you can't wake up?

The bird flutters away, lost in a blur of dusky wings.

The squirrel fixes me with a flinty-eyed stare. "You catch all that, pal?"

"Huh? You mean the bird noise?"

"Bird? Oh, yeah. Sometimes I forget you can’t see things as they really are. That was Chat, one of my fellow spirit guides. "

"Chat?"

"As in Yellow-Breasted, get it?"

I most certainly do not get it but decide to play along. "So, what did Chat say?"

"You have a problem, pal. A big one."

I sigh. "What is it this time?"

"Unfinished business. From way back. It’s holding up your spiritual growth, so you need to clean it up, pronto. "

"You're going to have to be a little more specific."

It speaks slowly and distinctly, like it’s talking to a moron. "Un.Finished.Business."

"Oh, come on! That could be anything."

"It's your dream, pal. Figure it out."

There is an audible click and my wake-up alarm starts blaring.

Ever had a dream that was so vivid you can't get it out of your head? I spend the rest of the morning trying to forget it, to no avail. 

It is bugging me, so I stay at my desk for lunch break, drinking diet Cokes and chugging peanut M&M's while I watch funny cat videos on the Internet. You know, trying to shake myself out of it.

And then, when that doesn’t work, I do a search for 'Yellow-Breasted Chats'.

A whole page of images comes up, showing yellow-chested birds taken from various angles, along with cautions not to confuse them with New World Warblers. I click on the first image. It is a promotional shot for the local library, which is co-hosting the Thirty-First Annual Chat Roundup at a nearby park.

Thirty-one years. A cold, prickly line of goosebumps goes up the back of my neck. 

I know that library, it’s in the neighborhood I grew up in. And I have unfinished business there, something I have never told anyone, ever. Something I buried a long time ago. 

Something I wanted to forget.

When I go home, I go straight to the garage and climb up into the attic, slithering through a hot, narrow space filled with cardboard boxes, boxes that are bulging with things I no longer want or need. Things I spent good money on, and which therefore cannot be thrown away.

But over there, in the corner, is the big, heavy-duty plastic box, the one that contains old high school yearbooks, a letter jacket from college, and other assorted junk that, for one reason or another, has acquired sentimental value. Stuff that money can’t buy.

I squat over it, shoulders hunched up against the rafters, lungs rasping from the dust. There is a whoosh of air when I unseal the lid. The plastic is dull and faded on the outside, but on the inside, it is still as smooth and shiny as the day it was made. It isn’t much to look at, but there was a time when I kept pretty much everything I owned in it.

There are some old photographs on top, color prints that are hardly faded at all, pictures of a much younger me smiling at the camera. I resist the urge to go through them, plunging my hands down through the layers, down to the dreck that lies at the absolute bottom of every barrel.

There is a book there, with an old, crackly plastic dust cover. I pull it out and squint at it.

The Influence of Sea Power on History, by Alfred Thayer Mahan.

A library book, checked out from my old neighborhood library. Checked out, but never returned.

There is a little piece of paper stuck between the pages, with the due date printed on it. Nothing special about that date, except for the fact it was the same year my dad lost his job, and a few days before we got evicted from our house. 

We ended up living in a windowless one-room apartment in the back of an upholstery shop. 

I lost the book during the move.

And then, months later, when I found it again, I was too embarrassed to take it back. I had never gone back, to any library in the city. Ever.

But I kept the book. Through senior year in high school, my hitch in the Army, then college, my marriage and career. I kept it. 

Buried at the bottom of the big plastic box.

I heft it, feeling the weight of it as sweat trickles down my face. 

This has gone on long enough; it is time to pay the piper.

I crawl down out of the attic, get in my car, and return to the scene of the crime.

The place hasn’t changed much. The brickwork is worn in places, and a couple of trees have gone missing, but the layout is the same.

I march solemnly up to the desk, take a deep breath, and place the book in front of the librarian.

"I would like to return an overdue book."

She glances at it, frowns and then flips open the back cover. There is an empty pocket for a signature card, which libraries no longer use. She raises an eyebrow.

"Been a while, has it?"

I look down at my shoes. "Yes, ma'am."

She turns to her keyboard and rattles away for a moment, pauses, and then rattles some more.

There is a bulletin board behind her, with pictures of Yellow Breasted Chats and posters promoting the Audobon's 31st Annual Chat Roundup. It started the exact same year I checked out the book. 

One of the pictures includes a squirrel, which is staring straight into the camera, making it seem that he is staring straight at me.

"We no longer show this book in the system."

"Huh? Oh. How much is the fine?"

She shrugs. "It's not in the system."

The bulletin board squirrel’s relentless black-eyed stare makes it hard to think.

"Oh. Well, uh, I guess I really ought to pay something..."

She shakes her head. "Sir, we don't show this book in the system. There's no way to calculate a fine."

"How about a replacement cost?"

She gives me a long, cool look and then rattles around on the keyboard again.

"The current volume is listed at 37 dollars and ninety-one cents."

"I'll pay that."

She doesn’t say a word as I count out the money, but she does give me a receipt.

And she does keep the book. She obviously doesn’t want it, but she keeps it.

Because, being a librarian, she understands. This isn’t about the book. It’s about unfinished business, and I am finally free of it.

Squirrels can't talk. I know it, you know, it, we all know it. That’s not in dispute, okay?

But as I turn to go, I could swear that squirrel on the bulletin board winks at me. 

My name is David Carpenter: Writer of stories, adopter of cats, player of games. Graduate of the United States Coast Guard Academy with a second degree from the university formerly known as Corpus Christi State. After a stint in the Coast Guard I became a computer programmer, a choice that I enjoyed but would not recommend for normal people. I live in Corpus Christi, Texas and write urban fantasy with a touch of humor

“What if?” Those two words all too easily send Devorah Fox spinning into flights of fancy. She is the author of the best-selling The Bewildering Adventures of King Bewilliam literary fantasy series and many other books. More about Devorah at the end of this section.

I am fine. Maybe even a little excited. Yes, though I am afraid, I am also curious about what lies ahead. There will be doubt, there will be pain, I know. Reluctance, resistance, even rebellion. I expect that. One does not seek to conquer so potent a force as desire without a struggle. Desire is a cruel master that in ruling my life has ruined my life, forcing me to do things and make choices that led me away from perfect peace. But conquer it I will. I must, if I am to live. Here in this cell, devoid of distractions of any kind, I will wrestle with desire, until one of us emerges the victor.

Though I am naked I am not cold. The room is at a temperate constant. Though there are no lamps, it is not completely dark. A sliver of light from the corridor glows in the crack between the floor and the door, which is locked from the outside. With this light, I can assess my surroundings. They are as I requested: bare. There is nothing on the smooth, matte, bone-colored walls. No furniture, so I sit on the floor. The pale vinyl tile is hard and unyielding under my bones, and clammy. It does not absorb my perspiration. But this is a minor discomfort.

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He was going to have to kill her. He didn’t know her name, where she came from, what she did, what she was doing in this hotel, or even what she looked like, although he could imagine. A big woman. Puffy face. Piggy eyes. Thin bleached-out hair. Of course, she might not look like that at all. He didn’t know; he hadn’t seen her yet. It didn’t matter. None of it—her appearance, her occupation, her reason for being in the room next to his—had anything to do with why he had to kill her.

He lay on the hotel bed and stared. Room-darkening drapes produced a dense blackness against which he could project the pictures he saw in his mind. He had never killed anyone before—or should he say yet, since it seemed he would have to kill her. But he didn’t doubt he could. He achieved every goal he or anyone else set for him. He had earned his moniker, The Closer.

How would he do it? Shoot her? No, too noisy. And—admit it, he told himself—too quick. Yes, he wanted her to suffer, as he had suffered. So, poison? Too remote, too impersonal. He wanted her to know as she died who was the agent of her death. He wanted to see her pupils widen with comprehension before death turned her eyes to glass. Strangling, then?

The Closer imagined his hands around her throat. A fat woman like her, the neck would be fleshy and thick. He would have to squeeze until his fingertips went white and his wrists ached. Would she make a noise? How would that sound? Like the throttled gurgling she made now, as she lay snoring in the room next door, unaware of his growing fury?

Stab her, then. Or cut her cursed blubbery throat. There’d be no noise that way.

Long into the night, The Closer lay awake entertaining himself with such fantasies, while under the surface his rage festered.

###

It seemed he had gotten to sleep only minutes ago when the wake-up call roused him. He might as well not have slept for all the good it did him. He hated having to face the day not well-rested. Lack of sleep slowed his reactions and thought processes. It wouldn’t jeopardize his success. He would prevail despite his fatigue but it would make his work harder. Damn her for keeping him awake!

He picked up the attaché case, left his room, and called the elevator. No sooner had a bell chimed to signal its arrival, the door of the room next to his opened. She stepped out, the woman who had robbed him of his sleep, stolen his night.

“Oh, hold that, please,” she called, and hurried to join him in the tall, narrow car.

She was not fat and piggy-faced. Instead, she was petite with sleekly-styled hair. Her pink lips smiled at him, albeit tentatively, and almond-shaped brown eyes, though friendly, betrayed a hint of unease. She gripped the handle of her purse with both hands and he wondered if she had perceived his enmity. It had been strong enough to penetrate the thin wall separating their rooms.

Under other circumstances, he would have made a play for her, although a woman as attractive as she was unlikely to go for someone like him. He bore no illusions about his homeliness: medium build, thin brown hair, brown eyes in an almost soft, clean-shaven face. Nor did he resent it. His unspectacular looks aided him in his work.

He strode to the front desk. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched her exit the hotel. The draft from the rotating door fluttered the skirt of her silky dress. He turned to the front desk man and asked, “The lady in 410, is she staying another night?”

The clerk smiled and nodded. “She booked it for a week, Romeo.”

She may have, The Closer thought. Nevertheless, tomorrow someone else would occupy Room 410.

It was late evening when The Closer stepped from the elevator into the fourth-floor corridor. Once again, he had proved he was aptly named, though it had cost him a long day with no time to stop even for meals. He’d been too busy to give the woman in 410 a moment’s thought, but as he passed her door he tensed. His brain flooded with the images he had conjured last night. Before this night was over, he would take action. First, he absolutely had to get some sleep.

###

The scream was unlike anything he had heard before, the last desperate cry of a helpless animal facing its inescapable extermination. The wailing went on long past the moment it yanked him upright in his bed, continued uninterrupted as he sprinted from his room. Hair standing on end from the sheer terror in the scream, he pounded on the door to Room 410.

“Miss, are you all right?” he called. No response. He rattled the doorknob. Locked! He hurled himself at the wooden panel. It wouldn’t budge and still she screamed. Aiming his shoulder at the door, he rammed it with a strength he didn’t know he possessed. The wood cracked. He flung the shards aside and stepped through. Moonlight from the uncurtained window spotlighted her where she lay in bed, screaming still. He raced to her.

“Miss! Miss!” He clasped her shoulders and shook her.

Her eyes opened. She stared at him unseeing but the scream did stop. Several minutes passed while she gasped for breath and her eyes lost their unfocused look. “Oh, it’s you. I, I—”

“What was it?” The Closer asked. “A nightmare?”

She shook her tousled head. “More like night terrors. I dreamed I was being slashed.”

The Closer felt his face grow warm with embarrassment as he remembered his murderous fantasy from last night. From what dark corner of his soul had those vivid homicidal visions come?

“It went on and on, I was powerless to escape.” She took several deep breaths. “I guess I’m worried about going ‘under the knife.’ I’m having surgery tomorrow. For sleep apnea. It gives me the most awful snoring.” Her eyelids lowered. “Perhaps you heard me. I know it can get very loud.”

“Yes, I heard you,” he replied. “Kept me up all last night. I thought if it continued another night I was going to have to kill you.” He chuckled. “Or at least get you to change rooms. I’m a traveling salesman, I need my sleep.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she said. “I will switch rooms if you like. But I hope to be getting better. I’m in town to see an otolaryngologist, an ear-nose-and-throat specialist. He’ll perform an operation that should help.”

“I’m sure everything will go just fine. Don’t worry,” said The Closer.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” she replied. “Again, I apologize. I will change rooms. Right now.” She reached for the bedside phone.

He caught her still trembling hand. “Oh no, you don’t. I wouldn’t be able to keep tabs on you that way.”

She dipped her head. When she raised it, her eyes were bright and merry. “You’re an angel. How can I ever repay you?”

“Have dinner with me? As soon as you recuperate? I’ll be in town all week.”

“I’d like nothing better,” she replied.

“You’ve got it, Pretty Lady.” He smiled. Another deal consummated. Yessir, they didn’t call him The Closer for nothing.

If I failed to submit my story on time, I'd never get a chance like this again. The deadline loomed, but I couldn't be more firmly stymied if I were cast in quick-drying cement. I couldn't squeeze out another syllable if my life depended on it. My life didn't, but the opportunity sure did. I'd accepted an invitation to contribute to an anthology. My first publication credit! My writing career would only go up from here. I was nearly done but needed a killer ending, something to resonate with readers. The closing date for submissions hanging over my shoulder cast a shadow on my keyboard. I felt the deadline's hot breath on the back of my neck.

I fired up my work playlist, jazz instrumentals that I find relaxing and freeing, but I did more chair-dancing than writing. I left my living room writing niche and fixed my favorite coffee. The legend on the mug mocked me—Writer's Block: When Your Imaginary Friends Won't Talk To You. I tried all my trusty block-breaking tricks to no avail.

READ MORE IN CORPUS CHRISTI WRITERS 2021

Chapter One

I wiped my brow with the sleeve of my chambray shirt. A light tee shirt would be more comfortable in the sweltering heat and suffocating humidity of a South Texas summer day but the heavier shirt's tight weave made a better barrier against the ferocious mosquitos. It had taken days for the ground to absorb all the standing water from Hurricane Harvey. The pests hatched in droves. Floodwaters flushed rattlesnakes and fire ants from their homes just as Category-4 force winds and twelve feet of storm surge had driven us Port Aransas residents from ours.

Parched, I grabbed my water bottle. As I sipped, I spotted a figure approaching from the end of the street. My pulse quickened. Few who lived in my Beachside subdivision had returned from evacuation. In the motel to which I fled for two weeks, I learned about looters and squatters who descended on our small city to take advantage of empty and unsecured homes. Did this person have bad intent? Should I confront him? Lock myself in the house and call the police?

He drew closer. Through the dust and haze I recognized the figure. I sighed with relief and greeted him. “Hi, Elmore.” Sweat dampened his tee shirt Dirt clung to his boots and jeans. White hair poked out from the stained sweatband of his sun-bleached Dallas Cowboys ball cap.

read the first chapter in Corpus Christi Writers 2020

She unlocked the door to the business office, housed in an old, wood-framed cabin separate from the main resort building. The inn’s owner felt that there was no point in wasting expensive showy real estate on mere staff so no highly polished wood floors, no roaring fireplaces, or sparkling crystal chandeliers for them. Instead, Candy's storm boots squeaked on a worn linoleum floor. A balky fluorescent light sputtered overhead and the steam radiator clanked and wheezed.

That wasn't right. The lights should be off, the heat turned down. Normally Candy was the first one in. She turned everything on. Someone else must have gotten here first. Certainly, it wasn't any other member of the staff. No one but she ever came in early, ever spent a single minute more than necessary here.

The door to her boss's office was ajar. Sleink himself in early? Incredible, Candy thought.

“Good morning, Sir,” Candy called. No response, but that didn't surprise her. It was appropriate for her to greet him but he wouldn't lower himself to return the gesture.

Candy sat at her old desk in the reception area, pulled off her boots, and slipped her heels on. She stuffed her gloves into the pocket of her winter coat and hung it on the back of her chair. There was coffee in the pot by the door. Noticing the lack of aroma, she touched the pot and found it cold. Leftover from last night, she decided. Heaven forbid Sleink should make a fresh pot. After all, that was her job, along with handling the phone, typing, and filing, if that all didn't get in the way of her primary duties, like fetching ink from Greenfield.

“I'm going to get some water for coffee,” Candy called. She took the pot down the hall to the ladies room. As she rinsed it out in the sink, she made a face at herself in the mirror. “You gutless wonder, Candy Wadsen,” she scolded herself. “If you had any spine at all you'd tell Sleink to make his own coffee. Shouldn't be beyond his talents.”

The face in the mirror frowned back at her with anger in its brown eyes. Oh, but it might interfere with his precious work was the retort. Or to be more precise, his precious hobbies. Sleink was a collector. First it was pocket knives. Next it was scissors. Then it was letter openers. Lately, he was into fountain pens. Just yesterday he had almost giggled with something approaching glee when a new catalog had arrived with the office mail.

“Hold my calls,” he had told Candy then retreated into his office to revel in glossy photos of deluxe writing instruments.

“Coffee's on, Mr. Sleink. Can I get you a cup?” Candy poked her head into his office. “Mr. Sleink?”

He was slumped face down on his elegant mahogany desk.

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FROM Book One in The Bewildering Adventures of King Bewilliam

“Moo."

Moo? King Bewilliam frowned. What was a cow doing in the throne room?

"Moo."

King Bewilliam no sooner had set his gaze on the Bell Castle’s richly-veined marble floors, the opulent woven tapestries, the straight lines of courtiers resplendent in their gold-braided uniforms than it all vanished.

His heart jolted and he felt a pervasive icy chill.

“Moo.”

I’m asleep, the King thought. I’m dreaming. I need to wake up. He opened one eye. He had been dreaming but what vanished was not the cow but the throne room. Instead, the sight that greeted him was another eye: big, brown, and deep.

King Bewilliam opened his other eye and found himself face-to-face with a large Guernsey regarding him with mild curiosity. 

"Moo, moo," said the cow although to the king it sounded distinctly like “Who, you?” which, it seemed to him, was an excellent question given the circumstances. Was he not King Bewilliam, ruler of the Chalklands, master of Bell Castle? So what was he doing here staring down a cow? He shook his head to clear the fog of slumber... 

copyright Devorah Fox

Read the rest of this chapter in Corpus Christi Writers 2018: An Anthology

or buy the book on Amazon

“What if?” Those two words all too easily send Devorah Fox spinning into flights of fancy. She is the author of the best-selling The Bewildering Adventures of King Bewilliam literary fantasy series. This includes The Lost King, awarded the All Authors Certificate of Excellence 2016 and The Redoubt, voted #35 of 50 Self-Published Books Worth Reading 2016. She also wrote the mystery minis, Murder by the Book, a Top Book of 2017,  One Bad Apple, and the Fantasy/Sci Fi Mini Lady Blackwing, a Top Ten Short Story in the 2017 Preditors and Editors Readers’ Poll. She co-authored the contemporary thriller, Naked Came the Sharks with Jed Donellie and contributed to several SciFi/Fantasy anthologies. Her thriller, Detour, finished in the Top Ten Thrillers in the 2016 Preditors and Editors Readers’ Poll. The Zen Detective, a mystery, was voted #34 of 50 Best Indie Books of 2017 and was named a finalist for the Golden Book Award Contest 2017. Born in Brooklyn, New York, she now lives on the Texas Gulf Coast with rescued tabby cats ... and a dragon named Inky. Visit the “Dee-Scoveries” blog at http://devorahfox.com. 

See her on YouTube at  https://www.youtube.com/user/devorahfox.  The proceeds from the anthology The Magical Book of Wands benefit The American Library Association

Dylan Lopez is an English graduate student at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. His current research focus is on digital circulation, centered on an anime review site. Give it a visit: https://azura12345678910.wixsite.com/animejudge MORE ON DYLAN AT THE END OF THIS SECTION

A muddled stain of lights struggles past

nebulous pillars, primordial constants

drifting across a stellar stage—

endlessly expanding.

Far expelled from the hunting grounds of Arcadia,

shamed Callisto rolls through her endless night—

like a battered pearl embracing magnetic tempests,

bound to a vicious, lunar circuit.

Cold is the gardener’s land without those tender stars,

beaming flares born in the dust-filled, knotted veils

of Chaos, noble pyres spend to the embers, 

furnishing fields and skies with humble glow. 

And I, on my cosmic dérive aboard a Catherine wheel,

break from the stellar tides, parsing through wondrous

trails of light and muted fields of slumbering stones,

out into the vast astral scenery, to find myself.

READ MORE LIKE THIS IN CORPUS CHRISTI WRITERS 2021

Where the girl can’t shriek her boyfriend alive.”

—David Wojahn

A thicket of languid weeds choked the front yard

leading into the unremarkable, urban misery.

Cracks riddled the weather-beaten walls, and

hollow colors split through the shattered-glass prisms;

an unquiet, hueless welcome.

We left a half-finished game of chess in the living room

with a paralyzed calendar veiled in timeless obscurity

The strung-up polaroids hanging on the walls are 

smudged with indifference; their edges worn,

cheapened by a soft neglect.

The gas stove bellows a black malaise, an overbearing

tone to complete the stagnant coffees and plundered

pill bottles that filled the rusted kitchen sink.

A wash of medicated thoughts rushes on down,

blank, anxious runaways.

We used to live here together, in this damp derelict.

We left in a hurry, saying we’d be back before Fall.

Dylan Lopez reads "An Afterword for Love" from Corpus Christi Writers 2020

I am the one caught answering,

lost in the evening of Being—

that hears your flat strikes

against the patient timber door

where you ask, with feigned modesty

to stay in the empty guest room.

The latest tenant of a shut-in heart

soaked in scarlet jets, flush with

patchwork-shades of disregard—

a reckless tempest raving, beneath

the bent cries and tilted howls resounding,

grating against my love-scratched corridors...

Against the foreign hour’s demands

I am here with you; a transient tied,

            Truant of time.

A steward to the innumerable imagined, the generations

            yet embarked.

Just as you feel the searing touch of the sun emblazed, so I felt.

Just as any of you have known the shimmering coastal reveries, so I have

            known

The melodies sung symphonic—with buoyant delight.

Just as you reach your hands into the shallow pools pondering their fortunes, I reached yet

           was pinched.

Just as you look on the treasure-laden leviathans come to harbor, their harlequin crates

            enshrined, I looked.

I too journeyed across the former bridge,

That long-iron lattice, now overtaken—

Its wind-battered braces hurled into the bay,

Replaced by silk-thread suspensions, stained

with the sparkling brilliancies of ocean pearls.

II

These and all else were bliss to me, as they are to you,

staring across the violet horizon into teal-hued waters

           from the bayside balconies.

I loved it well, the city and her motley crowds

We greeted each other with cool tenderness,

a soft-swaying love, caressed by the gentle tide.

III

There is nothing between us then,

No love undone by the separation of grey years

Whatever time plots, it cannot prevail over us

I too lived here, in the shadow of the washed harbor.

I too drove across the shore of Corpus, baptized in the waters around it.

I too prayed in the mission house, christened by the crystalline skyline.

I too felt the abrupt changes, the widening gyre of my age—

In my solitary hold, among the lush seagrass and wild oxeyes

I came into being, breaking through the surface threshold

I came to know myself, reclaimed from the savage storms

I found myself on the vestal shore, delivered by the gulf sands,

            ever-merciful.

I familiarly recall the nauseating journey from King

High school to the unfamiliar Island University,

With its own ecosystem, staring out into the sea.

Beside me on the unsound bus was a pretty German

Girl who, by the end of the relieving trip, would

Become something more to me than a mere seat partner...

Read the rest in Corpus Christi Writers 2019  

Dylan Lopez is an English graduate student at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. He is currently the Managing Editor of the Windward Review and President of the Islander Creative Writers. His work has been featured in Trinity University’s High Noon, Island Waves, Corpus Christi Writers, and Open All Night. He is a recipient of the Robb Jackson Poetry Award, in honor of TAMUCC’s Robb and Vanessa Jackson. His writing explores the themes of love, depression, and internal struggles in fantastic, mythical, and sometimes drearily realistic settings.

His current research focus is on digital circulation, centered on an anime review site. Give it a visit: https://azura12345678910.wixsite.com/animejudge