Redirection

With the inception of my Author site, the direction of this blog is going through a change. I've debated upon using it as a vehicle for my rants, my political views, all the things I don't want to overcome the new home for my work. However. eh. I think it will be far more fun and interesting to use this blog as a vehicle for creative expression separate from my publication work.
That means; freebies, gaming recaps and concepts, fun shorts, etc. I'd like to have more interactivity with my readers here too. In the meantime, keep an eye out for more ;)

My Writer's Journey

Everyone has a story to tell. So many lives intertwined through time and circumstance, so many funny stories, heartbreaks, and struggles waiting to be shared. We all have something to say, something to contribute, and something to share. And in today's world; with social media, e-publishing, and micro-publishing, there are so many ways for us to share openly. The world has become a sea of voices, a forest of talking heads. Some more popular or sought after than others, but each as important.

For me, starting out with a fresh manuscript, a hope to be published, and the desire to be widely accepted as the writer I am, this sea is intimidating. If we all have a voice, if everyone is talking, who out there is looking to hear what I have to say? What chance do I have? I suppose this self-defeating aspect is partly why it took so long to complete my tale. That negative voice inside that whispers just loud enough to stifle the enthusiasm to write, that questions the validity in just the right way for doubt to grow. We all have that self-doubt, it is part of being a person.

What I have found through years of struggling to trust myself, to finish the piece for the sake of the story, and to give my characters the voice they deserve, is that it boils down to probability. I have seen an inspirational poster many times that depicts an empty basketball court, stating "you miss 100% of the shots you don't take." Who can argue with that? If you don't try, you won't succeed; if you don't ask, the answer will always be "no". Taking the chance doesn't mean you will always succeed, no one makes 100% of the shots they take. But, if you want the chance at succeeding, then you have to take the shot.

The Phone

This short story, posted just in time for spooky Halloween, is a dark one. It's meant to chill, to horrify, and set the mind wondering.

A chilling, mildly graphic, short horror story, about 3,600 words. Even mundane objects can become supernatural, terrifying and change our lives. This horror story is not for the faint of heart...it contains content that may disturb some readers. It is, essentially, rated "R."

Comments and thoughts, are of course, always welcome!


~ ~ ~ ~ -- ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ---∞--- ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ -- ~ ~ ~ ~
 

The match head flared to life with an explosion of light and heat. She dipped it into the candle, lighting the wick. It was the first anniversary of her daughter’s death and Maggie Cunningham sat alone in front of a small memorial she had erected in her apartment. A large framed picture of Gwen, surrounded on either side by towering candles, smiled back at Maggie. Treasures from her life lay spread on the table. A hairbrush from when she was a child, a necklace, and an ashtray she had made in high school art class and given to her parents, despite the fact that neither of them smoked.

Maggie smiled as she thought back to those warm and happy memories. When Gwen had been preparing for college, she and Maggie had gotten into a fight. It was a real blow up and, sadly enough, it had brought a long silence between mother and daughter.  The real shame of it was that Maggie couldn’t even remember what it was they had fought about.  She had regretted that she didn’t make an effort to make amends when she had the chance, especially now that her dear Gwen was gone.

Maggie breathed a long sigh and stared at the picture of her little girl. Gwen had been driving home in the rain, or so Maggie had been told. It was late at night and Gwen was in a hurry.  She had been going too fast and slid into the oncoming lane.  They said that it had been quick, that Gwen probably hadn’t felt any pain when the truck crashed into her car.  Maggie had been glad for that at least. She would have hated for her daughter to have suffered.

The phone rang.

Maggie, shaking herself from her thoughts, turned to look at it.  It sat next to her ancient answering machine on the baker’s stand in her kitchenette.  Again the bell rang, announcing the incoming call.  Maggie sighed.

She had been receiving strange phone calls for the last couple weeks now.  When she had answered, there was no one on the other end.  There would be no sound, save for some faint static. At first it started out as just one or two a day and Maggie thought that it might be a bad connection in the line.  Though, the number of calls grew, almost exponentially, every day.  Her old answering machine tape would be nearly full when she came home from work with static and silence.

Maggie finally had enough and called the phone company to complain.  They said that they had no record of any calls being made and agreed that it was probably a loose or bad connection in her wires.  They had put her on the maintenance list, but told her that it might take a while.

Frustrated, she attempted to figure out a way to shush the annoying thing.  The phone did have a feature where she could turn off the ringer, rendering the phone silent.  It was tempting, but Maggie needed her phone for work and she would hate to miss an important call.  She was just going to have to live with it.

She shook her head, impatiently waiting for answering machine to pick it up.  To avoid having to hear nothing but that blasted, barely audible static, she had been reduced to screening her calls.  If there were an actual person on the other end trying to get a hold of her, then this way she would know.  If not, she could stop the machine and erase the tape.

The phone rang for a final time before the answering machine came to life, clicking and clacking loudly as it prepared to record.  Maggie waited, making small bets to herself which it would be; actual call or bad connection.

The answering machine clicked once more and then beeped.  The soft sounds of faint static came through the speakers.  Maggie sighed, having lost her own bet, and jumped up to erase the message.  Though, as she stepped over to the machine, her hand poised to hit the stop button, a new sound emerged from the static.

“Hello?”

Maggie blinked. Had she been wrong?  Was the connection problem affecting real calls now?  She reached for the phone instead.

“Hello, mom?  Are you there?”

Her hand froze, hanging just over the receiver.  What?  What was that?  Gwen?  Maggie grabbed the receiver and thrust it next to her ear.

“Hello?”

Only the sound of a dial tone met her.  Slowly, her hand fell from the side of her face, dangling at her side still holding the phone.  It couldn’t have been Gwen.  Her mind was playing tricks on her. It must have been a wrong number.  Someone trying to call home, that’s all.

She placed the receiver back in the cradle and hit rewind on the machine.  It spun its wheels for a moment and clicked to a stop. She hit the play button and listened to the message.  Nothing but that faint static played over the speakers.  There was no voice on the message.  Confused, Maggie played the message again and again.  Still there was only that stupid interference.

She couldn’t have imagined it, could she?  She was sure there was someone on the other end.  She shook her head, looking at the phone.  Could someone else's conversation gotten crossed on her line?  That might be it. Someone could have been chatting with her mother when the lines got crossed.  That would explain why they were saying “Hello, mom? Are you there?”

Maggie suddenly felt very silly for having even considered that it could be her Gwen.  No matter how much she might miss her, she was gone and Maggie would just have to deal with that.

She erased the message and went back to her daughter’s small memorial.

         ~~~~~      ~~~~~      ~~~~~      ~~~~~      ~~~~~    

When Maggie wasn’t thinking about how many messages she’d have to erase when she arrived home, her work days droned on in the same way they had for the past year.  The only bright spot was her best friend, but Maggie was caught off-guard when Angela started their usual lunch conversation about the tender topic.

“So, how are you holding up?  One year now.”

Maggie looked up from her lunch into the face of her best friend.  Angela had always been very caring and protective of Maggie.  She smiled wearily.

“I’m alright Angie, you can stop worrying.”

Angela beamed that annoying, knowing smile she always had when Maggie tried to convince her of something less than accurate.

“Oh, come on.  I know you better than that.  Look at yourself.  You look tired and stressed.”

Maggie sighed, “Oh, that.  That’s just because my stupid phone keeps ringing all the time.  I’ve got a bad connection, or something.  I’m fine.  Really.”  She continued to play with her food, separating the mixed Chinese food into small piles just as Gwen had when she was young.  She made one pile for the noodles, one pile for the bits of chicken, and so on.

Angela shook her head and reached across the table to place her hand upon Maggie’s.

“Margaret, look at me.”

Maggie looked again into her friend’s face.  Angela’s cold blue eyes stared back intently.

“Now, what’s going on with you?  Are you truly okay?”

Maggie pressed her lips together in a force smile and nodded.  “Yeah, I’m fine. It’s just…”

“Just what?” Angela pressed.

“It’s just that – well, my phone is messed up, like I said.  Well, last night, my line got crossed with someone else.  I guess they were talking to their mother or something because this girl kept saying ‘hello, mom? Hello?’  I just – I just thought it was Gwen for a moment, that’s all.”

“Oh, honey,” Angela said, coming around the table to sit in the seat next to Maggie.  “I know you miss you her, but you can’t keep doing this to yourself.  You have to move on.”

Tears welled up in Maggie’s eyes and she choked back a sob.  “How?”

Angela smiled warmly, taking Maggie’s hand in hers.  “I have no idea,” she said cheerily causing Maggie to laugh in spite of the threatening flood of tears.  She shared a chuckle then touched her friend on the shoulder.

“I’m serious though, you have to let it go.”

Maggie nodded, her smile melting away.  “I know, Angie.  Thanks for being there for me.”

Angie smiled, “Of course.  What are friends for?  By the way, you’re getting this right?”

Maggie rolled her eyes.

 ~~~~~      ~~~~~      ~~~~~      ~~~~~      ~~~~~    

She dropped her keys into the tray on the table next to the door with a loud clatter.  She was officially home.  Her purse plopped next to the key tray.  With a heavy sigh, she slipped out of her coat and hung it on the rack.

Stepping into the living room, Maggie stopped to check her messages.  She didn’t really want to, but it had become a compulsion that she could not escape.  The answering machine readout blinked.  One message.

Maggie blinked.  Only one?  Had they managed to fix the problem?  She had become used to having thirty some messages a day.  She smiled and pressed the rewind button.  The machine scrolled back through the tape for a moment, clacking loudly as it did.  She pressed play and waited.  Static played over the speaker and she nodded.

“I’ve heard this tune before,” she said, joking with herself.

“Mom?”

Maggie froze again.  Her heart quickened in her chest.

“Mom?  Pick up.  Please.”

Gwen?  No, it couldn’t be.

“Mom?  I’m so lonely here.  Please pick up.”

The answering machine stopped playing with a loud clack that spooked Maggie.  She stood rooted, her limps trembling slightly.  Was someone trying to play a trick on her?  A crank call?  It couldn’t have been Gwen, it just couldn’t.  It sounded like her voice, but it couldn’t be.

The phone rang.

A screech escaped Maggie’s lips and she jumped in fright.  Again it rang.  Get a grip Maggie, she told herself.  She reached her hand out to answer the line.  As the receiver pressed against her ear, she could hear the hiss of static.

“Hello?”

Only the hiss.  Great, she thought, now I’m answering the static again.  Just great.

“Hello?” she asked again.

“Mom?”

Maggie nearly dropped the phone.

“Um…hello?” she said.

“Mom, is that you?”

“Who is this?”

In answer to this question, the sound of the static grew louder.  Maggie pulled the receiver away from her ear and squinted in pain.  A horrendous roar of interference suddenly replaced the faint hiss she had come to expect from her phone line.  She tried to talk over the noise once more.

“Who is this? Hello?”

The line went dead in her hands.  The sound of the dial tone blared in her ear.  Shaken, she put the phone back down on the cradle.  What was going on?  Was someone trying to play a joke on her?  If so, what a sick joke it was.  She took a deep breath, trying to smooth her ruffled feathers.  A nice cup of tea would help.  It always helped.

  ~~~~~      ~~~~~      ~~~~~      ~~~~~      ~~~~~    

Several minutes later Maggie was lying back in her favorite chair, a book in her lap, and a steaming mug of tea on the end table next to her.  Yep, she was queen of the castle, she thought with a smile.  The book was a classic.  A romantic tale of a swashbuckling hero and the woman he loved.  It was sappy crap, Maggie knew, but she loved the story any way.  She took another sip of the hot tea and settled in comfortably.

The phone rang.  Maggie’s lips pressed together into a thin line.  Not this time, she thought to herself and continued reading her book.  The phone rang again, and again.  Finally the answering machine picked up.  It clacked and beeped

“Hey, Maggie?  You there?”  It was Angela.

She struggled to get out of her big, comfy chair and get to the phone.

“Oh, come on.  I know you’re there.  Okay, I’ll call back in a while.”

The answering machine stopped with a beep and a clack just as Maggie made it to the phone.  Blast, she thought.  Almost had it.  She turned to go back to her chair.

The phone rang.

Quickly, Maggie turned to pick it up.

“Hey Angie, sorry, I was just-”

“Mom?  Is that you?”

Maggie’s blood went cold.

“Who is this?” she demanded.

“I’m so lonely here, mom.”

“Gwen?”  Maggie asked tentatively.  “Is it you?”

The static noise grew again, screeching in her ears.  As it grew, she realized that it sounded less like static and more and more like people screaming, terrible, blood curdling screams.  Terrified, Maggie slammed the phone down with a shout.

Her hands trembled at her sides.  What was going on?  What about the screaming?  Oh God, what was happening to her?

The phone rang.

Maggie froze like a deer in headlights, uncertain of what to do.  It rang again.  She took a deep breath and snatched up the receiver.

“Whoever this is, I want you to stop!  Leave me alone!”

“Whoa, sister.  What’s that all about?”

Maggie gulped.

“Angie?”

“Yeah, it’s me.  Who did you think you were talking to?”

“Oh, god,” she breathed a sigh of relief.  “I’m sorry.  I’ve just been getting all these weird calls, that’s all.”

“What kind of weird calls?  Cranks?”

“I don’t know.  It’s just been weird, that’s all.  Sorry I snapped at you.”

“Hey, that’s okay, I get that all the time at work anyway.”

They both shared an uneasy laugh.

“I just thought I would check up on you.  Make sure you were relaxing for a change.”

“Yeah Angie, I am.  Or at least I’m trying to, if this phone would stop ringing.”

“Well, I’ll let you go then.  Just unplug it or leave it off the hook.  That should take care of it.  I’m sure that one night without the phone won’t kill you.”

“Yeah, I’m sure you’re right, Angie.  I’ll turn off the ringer.”

“Ok, well, get some sleep, you.  I’ll see you bright and early tomorrow for another great day at the grind stone.”

“Good night, Angie.”

“Good night.”

Maggie hung up the phone, feeling much better.  She reached down and flicked the switch to silence the phone’s ringer.  Then, she went back to her chair for some more reading.  Her seat was still warm, and so was her tea.  She smiled and settled in.

The phone rang.

She couldn’t believe it!  How could the phone be ringing?  Maybe, the switch was broken. She never had used it before.  The answering machine picked up with its raucous clicks and beeps.

“Mom, are you there?” it started.  Maggie struggled out of her chair, a frown on her face.  She had had enough.

“Mom, I’m so lonely here.  I need you here with me.”

Maggie came to the phone and ripped it off the cradle.

“Listen to me.  I don’t know who you are, but stop calling me!  Don’t call again!”

That horrendous screaming grew in her ear once more.  She slammed the phone down on the cradle, disconnecting the line, and then tossed it to the side.  There, now they won’t be able to get through.  She turned, heading back to her chair.

The phone rang.

She spun, not believing it.  It was off the hook!  She rushed over to it, and lifted the receiver to her ear.

“Mom? I need you!”

“What do you want from me?” she screamed.

Horrible screams filled her ears and she screeched back.

“Who are you?”

The line went dead.  Dial tone gnawed at her ear.  She collapsed to her knees.  Tears streamed from her eyes.  Her whole body shuddered in terror.  She had to find help, she had to get Angie!  Unsteadily she dialed her friend, botching the number twice before getting it right.  Maggie sobbed pitifully while the phone rang.

“Please, Angie. Pick…pick up the phone,” she stammered.  “Pick up the goddamned phone!” She heard a click on the other end of the line.

“Hello?”

“Angie,” Maggie sobbed.  “Angie, I need your help!”

“Maggie?  My god, what’s wrong?  Are you crying?”

“Angie, something’s wrong!  Someone keeps calling me.”

“Are they harassing you?  Are you okay?”

“Angie, I think it’s Gwen,” Maggie whispered, as if saying her name would bring the screams back.

“Oh my god.  Maggie?  Are you okay?  Have you been drinking?”

“Are you listening to me?  Gwen is calling me!  Goddamn it, she’s calling me, Angie!”

“Okay, Maggie, okay.  Just calm down.”

“I can’t calm down, Angie.  I can’t!  You’ve got to help me!”

“All right, Maggie.  I’m leaving now, okay?  I’ll be there in a few.  Just unplug your phone and make sure your doors are locked.  I’ll use my key.”

“Okay,” Maggie sobbed, “okay.  Thank you, Angie.”

“It’s going to be all right, Maggie.  I’ll be there in a few.”

“Okay,” she said.  Her hand fell from her ear and landed limply on the floor still clutching the phone.  “Okay,” she said to herself.  She blinked the tears from her eyes and sniffled.  She placed the phone back on the hook and slid over on her knees to the wall.  With a yank, she tore the phone cord from the wall.  It lay limply on the floor.  She breathed a sigh of relief and closed her eyes.  She was going to be fine.

The phone rang.

Maggie stared unbelieving at the phone unit in her hands, her mouth forming into a silent scream.  With a screech, she threw the phone away from her.  It collided against the wall, shattering the outer casing.  Electronic components rained upon the floor along with a shower of plastic shards.

The phone rang.

Tears streamed down Maggie’s face and she cried openly.  With a shriek she forced herself over to the broken phone and pulled the mangled ear and mouthpieces from the ground.  Holding them to her head, she cried, “What do you want from me?”

“Mom,” Gwen’s voice said quietly and sternly.  “You need to be here with me!”

The screams were louder than they were before, as if they were inside Maggie’s head.  They were horrible, the screams of a billion souls being eternally tortured.  The sounds of wet flesh being torn, of bones being splintered, and of organs being squished played in her mind.

Suddenly, she was there.  There that night.  There, in the car with her daughter as she had rounded that corner.  Sitting in the passenger seat as Gwen screamed, slamming on the brakes. The truck plowed into them, collapsing the cabin of the car.  Gwen’s body was pulverized.  Maggie could see it all, in her mind.  Gwen’s bloodied face, her one remaining unseeing eye, turned to Maggie.  Gwen looked right at her.  Maggie choked on her tears, sobbing helplessly as she stared into that eye.

“You belong with me,” Gwen said.

Maggie cried in anguish, dropping the shattered remains of her phone.  She grabbed the sides of her head and cried.  The screaming grew louder.  She gritted her teeth, trying to fight against the sound.

“You belong with ME!”

Maggie screamed.

 ~~~~~      ~~~~~      ~~~~~      ~~~~~      ~~~~~    

The elevator doors opened and Angela rushed out.  Her cell phone was pressed against her ear as she finished her conversation with the emergency dispatch operator.

“Please hurry!”  She dropped the cell back into her purse and began rummaging around for the keys.  She stopped before Maggie’s door, struggling to find her keys.  With a cacophony of tinkling, she drew them out and quickly unlocked the door.

“Hello? Maggie? It’s me!” she shouted, rushing into the apartment.  She closed the door behind her and locked it.  “Maggie dear, it’s me!”

Only silence answered her.  The room was dark, the only light coming in from the window.  Angela took a step into the living room.

“Maggie?”

Something crunched under her foot.  She stopped.  Taking a step back, she bent down to look at what she had stepped on.  Plastic bits littered the floor where the baker’s rack normally stood.  It was gone.  Angela stooped down to examine the plastic pieces, and realized that they had once been the body of the phone.

“Oh, Maggie,” Angela uttered, shaking her head.  She stood and turned to the darkened room.  “Maggie, where are you?”  Angela reached over to the light switch and flicked it.  Nothing happened.  She flicked it a couple more times.  Still nothing.  She ventured a step, and then another into the large, black room.  Even in the dark she knew the layout of Maggie’s house and could navigate well enough to get back to the bedroom hallway.  She flicked on the hall light, squinting against the sudden brightness.

“Maggie, are you okay?” she shouted toward the bedroom.  There was no response.

Angela’s cell phone rang.

Angela jumped, a gasp escaping her lips.  The cell phone rang again from within the purse hanging at her side.  She gave a small laugh at her jumpiness, drew the cell from her handbag, and hit the talk button.

“Hello?”

“Hello? Angie?”

“Maggie?” she asked.

“Angie.”  Maggie said over the small phone.

“Maggie, are you okay?  Where are you?  I’m standing in your apartment.”

“I’m fine,” Maggie said.

Angela breathed a sigh of relief.

“Where are you?” Angela asked, turning around to go into the living room.  The light from the hall fought the shadows back and Angie found herself face to belt with Maggie.  Lying on its back on the floor under her friend’s dangling feet was the baker’s rack.

Maggie’s voice came through the small cell phone, “I’m with my daughter now.”

Angela screamed.

Shame: The Steering Wheel Incident

My wife thinks it's a good idea to share something funny here, before posting some of my other short stories. That is, she says that my horror story is too dark, and many of my short stories are fan-fiction, and she really, really, really wanted me to start off with something that shared a bit of my sense of humor, albeit generally dark humor, before sharing samplings of my other work.

This "episode" is a short story from what I'm currently calling "S.O.S.: The Unusual Life of Seamus Orly Stickman." It is a planned collection of short stories which chronicle unfortunate events in the life of a character named Seamus, whom has come to be known as "Shame."

Quickly, too, I want to stress that while I'm delighted to share some of my work on this blog, I will not be posting each of Shame's stories here. His misfortunes, after all, are intended to be a collection in a book. ;)

This short story, a sampling of Shame, is about 1,100 words, is currently in it's second draft, and entitled "The Steering Wheel Incident."

~ ~ ~ ~ -- ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ---∞--- ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ -- ~ ~ ~ ~

    Seamus’ first car was something of a character in its own right. It was temperamental, quirky, and prone to a condition known as vapor locking. The little blue car experienced heat from the engine so great that the gasoline in the fuel line became vapor before ever reaching the engine, which is so thin, the engine lacked the fuel to continue running. In the heat, Seamus’ first car often reacted as if it was out of gas. The antics of the car often left Seamus waiting in parking lots, on the side of the road or other unusual places – waiting for the fuel to cool and return to a liquid state – sometimes for hours. As a result of this, in the hottest months Seamus would have to turn the heater on full blast to cool the engine enough to keep it running, smothering himself in constant oven-like heat despite the ninety degree, or worse, heat of the summer.

    This was a problem that plagued Seamus on many, many occasions and given the misanthropic nature of the vehicle, it would choose the absolute worst moments in which to break down. There was the time that it decided to die for over half an hour directly in front of a public bus picking up students from a major university. The time that it vapor locked in the left-hand turn lane of a major intersection during rush hour.

    Of course, Seamus would never, ever forget the time that it seized three times on prom night, once on his way to retrieve his tuxedo from the rental place, once on the way back home from the tuxedo rental place, and again when he had to cross from the northern part of town to the far southern part of town to pick up his date.

    As a result of his vehicle’s peculiar habits, temperament, and bizarre ability to discern the absolute worst moments to become a two thousand pound paperweight, it was decorated with the remnants of Seamus’ despair and rage. Dents and scratches mired the surface of the old blue jackass.

    Then came the day when Shame was on his way back to his friend Allen’s house way on the other side of town. They had just finished with a particularly vicious bout of table tennis at a local arcade/laser tag place. It was a typical hot day in mid-August. The temperature was pushing one hundred degrees, and as was usual, Shame was blasting hot air through his vehicle’s vents, bathing Allen and himself in blistering heat. As was also usually the case, the open windows provided little respite from the hot air since one hundred degree ambient temperatures rarely cools anyone down.

    They were just approaching the turn off to Allen’s house when the all too familiar sputtering and jerking wracked Shame’s car. Instantly, all the anger and hatred Shame had ever felt for his car’s issues boiled to the surface and he began shouting at the accursed machine.

    “Come on, you piece of crap!” he yelled, pulling into the turn lane for a mall to his left, hoping to make it before his car died in the middle of oncoming traffic. Allen, not previously having been privy to this particular joy kept asking what was wrong. Shame, between shouting not too encouraging slogans at his car, tried his best to explain what the issue was.

    Slowly, the stuttering, sputtering blue car limped its way into the parking lot just before completely dying. Shame coasted it into an empty spot, slipped it into park, and gently applied the parking break. He took a deep breath... and then smashed his fist into the center of the steering wheel, bending the metal plate inside and closing the circuit for his horn, which then began blaring for all to hear.

    Fortunately for Shame, his vehicle was too old to have been equipped with an air bag, for that would have certainly set it off, punching him right back in the face with an explosive bag of air.

    While the horn blared at Shame in retaliation for the strike to the steering column, Allen began yelling about something or other, but Shame was too enraged to hear what he had said. Instead, he began tearing at the steering wheel cover, attempting to rip it off to expose the bent metal plate beneath.

    Shame, deafened by the ceaseless horn and blinded by a completely new level of vehicular induced rage, tugged and pulled at the metal plate, desperately trying to bend it away from whatever it was touching, endeavoring to silence the ear-splitting torment issued from the ruined console. Finally, after what certainly must have been hours of ripping away at the console, the dreaded horn fell quiet.

    Slowly, Shame’s vision began to clear and he could see the results of his frantic tearing. The once solid metal backing to the steering column was now twisted and jagged in places. Short, pointy metal fingers jutted up at his face as if defying him to punch them again. The sounds of ragged, heavy breathing broke through the ringing in his ears and he quickly realized it was himself. He turned to look at Allen, who stared back at him with a wild look of… concern.

    “What?” Shame demanded.

    “Nothing…” Allen said, uncertainly.

    Shame opened his door and popped the hood latch. He could see several people throughout the parking lot staring at him and the now silent car. Shame shrugged them off and hefted the hood, exposing the hood to the hot August air. Allen climbed out of the car then, coming around to stand next to Shame as he glared down at the engine.

    “Now what?” Allen asked.

    Shame scoffed and made unhappy noises before answering. “We wait.”

    And wait they did for over an hour and a half. Shame had even pleaded with a nearby restaurant and for a pitcher of ice water to dump on the engine of his temperamental car. During their wait, Shame apologized to Allen for his display of anger and explained how frequently he had had to deal with this problem. He also tried to replace the vinyl and plastic steering wheel cover, but to no avail. The bent, aggressively protruding metal would not allow the cover to fit back on. So Shame chucked the cover into the back seat, where it lived for the rest of the life of the stubborn blue menace, Seamus’ first car.