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November 2008

Comet Press open for submissions

Our print division, Comet Press, is currently accepting submissions for horror, suspense, and dark crime novels and novellas. Visit www.cometpress.us for details.

Available for order from Comet Press

DEADLINES: AN ANTHOLOGY OF HORROR AND DARK FICTION, will be released in November of 2008! Visit www.cometpress.us

Street Walking
by Jason Jeffery

This was the street I always heard about, the one mother constantly warned about, her words like knives spewing hate coated comments about it. In books they described it as evil, a place of death and dying. Terrifying stories I read as a child while hiding under my blanket, mother in her room believing I was asleep. There I sat late at night a flashlight the only source of illumination in the room. My eyes traveling across the page cultivating the fear from the seeds mother had planted. Through the years I avoided these streets, walking the long way home instead of taking the short cut. Never looking down these side streets that were everywhere, their shadowy tendrils stretching out to me. They followed me, stalked me, never giving me a moment’s rest, never stopping their constant invitations, never ceasing their siren’s call. When I looked down them they spoke to me, their dread and decay floating past me into the night air. The goblins and trolls hiding amongst the dumpsters. The murderers and rapists leaning against the brick walls. The hookers and drug addicts swinging playfully amongst the fire escapes. I could not see them, but their taunts and chides fluttered past my ears, their threats stung my eyes, and their temptations watered my mouth.

Each day I passed the street, trying to ignore its enticing song, putting thoughts of mother into my head to help squelch the rhythmic tones permeating out of the concrete walls. Making my way home after a long day at work, footsteps echoing along the pavement, thoughts of mother in my mind, her life lessons echoing back and forth. Tonight its call enraptured me, my mind seeing it not as the dark entrance to hell, but as a haven shining white lights and pulsating feelings of safety, serenity. Mother’s voice screamed in rage at the thoughts passing through my head. Do I risk it? Do I take the chance that mother was wrong, overreacting as she was known to do?

I reminded myself of the time she made me break up with Susie, the sweet girl from down the road. My first girlfriend when I was the ripe age of fifteen. Susie’s golden hair shined in the sunlight, her blue eyes pierced my soul, a beauty that could only be captured in a song. Yet mother was in my ear warning me Susie was no good, that she was a slut, her vixen ways used only to destroy a man‘s heart. Like the good son that I was I broke it off with Susie, the spite and disgust I had for her showing itself in the words I used to end our young romance. The spite and disgust planted into my head by mother. Little did I know then Susie was a slut, mother had been right. That did not make me any happier with the decision, a decision based on the rants of an overbearing mother. I could have lost my virginity, becoming a man that summer, instead of standing on the edge of darkness, thirty-four years old and still a virgin. Mother took care of that for me, making sure none of them were good enough, preventing any of them from plunging their talons into her little boy‘s heart.

Mother would go into cardiac arrest if she were standing here watching me take my patent leather foot off the safety of the sidewalk and placing it onto the street. The shoes color shifted from a light brown to a slick black that was shined so perfect the stars above were reflected across its surface. My left leg broke the invisible barrier separating good and evil, my pants transforming from kaki brown, that safe earth tone color mother always said I needed to wear, to a velvet purple. The color painted my leg moving up past the knee casually stopping at my waist. My shirt shifted from a bland white with brown tie, colors mother said made the world see I was business only, to a black, silk shirt, pearlescent, shimmering in the moonlight, a tie matching the pants, a luscious purple. If only mom could see me now, walking where I shouldn’t and wearing those clothes pimps wear, as she would put it.

The clothes brought out another personality, the real me, the one that hid for years, mother’s voice, her constant screeching pushing that side down. Be that, don’t be this, be here, don’t go there, always making sure I walked the straight and narrow, never setting foot off the beaten path. Tonight I am me, the man I should be, the man that was murdered years ago by mother, her personality stifling him. Tonight I was finally free of the grip she had over me. The true me strutted past the lowlifes, their eyes staring as I passed, my confidence showing them I was the man. The women looked at me longingly, desire floating from their eyes. The men stared in envy, the greenest of green envy there ever was.

Their whispers floated by my ears, their words talking about me, cursing me for being so handsome, cursing me for being so unattainable. Yet they did not approach, fear of not living up to unintentional standards kept them at bay, a force field of self loathing. Never in their wildest dreams had these lowlifes ever imagined someone would grace them with a presence like mine. They were nothing to me, I was here for one reason, and one reason alone. To find her, the one that would pop my cherry, make me a man, to show me the womanly ways I had read so much about yet never had the chance to experience.

My eyes scanned their faces, toothless, scabbed, sore infected lips, none of them good enough, none of them the type that would make mother proud, make her happy for her boy. A woman I could bring home that mother would see and fall in love with, knowing the girl would take care of her son as she had. That girl would not be here, in the darkness, trapped between the drug dealers and rapists, what good woman would be here. No she would be at church, teaching school children, or at home taking care of her mother as I should be. She was not what I was looking for, no, I was wrong, bringing home the beauty queen would make mother happy, I did not want that, and she did not deserve that.

There she sat, my angel of the night, a cigarette dangling from her herpes covered lips, her make-up worn off from hours of sexual encounters. She smiled and I could see she had teeth missing, some black, others brown with decay. She was perfect, if I brought her home to mother, mother would run into the back bedroom and hide in the mothball scented closet, scared of the diseases I brought into the home, scared of the illnesses I contracted by consorting with such a woman. Yes she was perfect, she would make everything okay. I approached her, my suave demeanor overtaking her, my slicked back hair glistening in the moonlight, she could not resist me.

I reached toward her, my extended arm an invitation of pleasure, an invitation to a new world, taking her from this place of disgust, this place of sin. I would save her, bring her a new life, one that did not answer to the pimps, did not depend on the drug dealers, one not infected by the rapists. She would live again. She looked at me, awestruck, amazed that one such as myself would approach her, would look at her at all, her head turning around to see if I meant the girl behind her, but I did not and she realized this. She was the target of my seduction. She walked toward me shyly, her eyes giving away her true nature, the face said “I never have,” her eyes screaming “for the right price.” Yes she was perfect.

We walked down the street surrounded by faces shinning in the streetlights, their eyes glaring at us, their greed wanting us, their cowardice keeping them at bay. She was on my arm, an elegant stance for an elegant lady, she needed to feel this way, needed to be shown she is something more than a cheap, disease infected whore, let her see I could give her the world. Give her everything her life never allowed her to have, giving her misery coated heart a new way of life, a new vision of her decrepit future.

We found a secluded corner, not exactly a bedroom with white satin sheets, but our passion overcame our senses. The shadows hid our bodies from the moonlight, hiding our presence from the rest of the lowlifes. Her warmth washed over me as I held her close, the scent of other men permeating past her dollar perfume. This was her past I reminded myself, those men helped bring her here to this point in our life, never allowed to intersect until fate felt it was necessary. My nose rubbed against her throat, smelling her soft skin, ignoring the manly beast smell inside her pores, absorbing the vanilla scent her perfume tried to protrude. I locked her eyes with mine, showing my compassion for her, showing her she meant the world to me, she smiled, her black teeth showing behind her rose petal colored lips.

The knife flashed through the night air, its blade glinting in the moonlight, the handle hidden in stealth by my hand in the midnight darkness. Her blood flew across the wall beside us, her throat gouged open, her head falling backwards held on by a few tendons. Another swipe of the knife and the head dropped to the ground, rolling amongst the water and dirt, a cigarette butt sticking to her eyelid. The body shivered and shook in my arms, convulsing as it slowly realized it was headless, the warmth still pouring out of her, the smell of other men replaced by the sweet sickening smell of blood.

I let the body fall to the ground no longer needing to feel its presence and reached down to pick up the head, my trophy, my one prize mother would approve of. She would see I did not lay with such filth, that I did not allow my body, my temple to be infected by such a lowly life form. I walked down the street, heading back toward the exit, the other whores staring in disbelief, envious of this wonderful girl who got to leave the cracks of life, filled with dregs and degenerates, to be lifted higher than any other. My Eve, my Juliet, she took my virginity from me. Her gift of life feeding mine, allowing me to quicken myself.