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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

Spring Flowers
by David Richards

The prettiest girls make the prettiest graves. It’s true. How do I know? I’ve buried a few in my time. You think I’m some kind of monster, don’t you? I know your self-righteous type; you go to church on a Sunday and then beat your kids Monday to Saturday. I know you like to dress up in your wife’s panties. I know you like to have phone sex with the teenager next door. I know you chase ambulances just so you can catch a glimpse of death. I know you do it because I do the same thing.

I felt tremendous guilt when Angela died. But the guilt I felt wasn’t one that made me depressed enough to initiate a search for the nearest blade. Oh no, this guilt had an edge to it. It made me high. It’s difficult to explain because I’ve never been able to recapture that same experience. It’s elusive, like the female orgasm.

Angela was a twenty-one year old student from the University of Amsterdam. It was her confidence that attracted her to me. She presented herself as a secure, eager, assured woman who knew that her future contained only good days and sensual nights. She carried a book bag decorated with fluorescent flowers, wore dark boots, tight jeans, and always close-fitting tops. It was only the barrier between her and me. The sun stroked her blonde hair with its demure rays.

Angela was easy to fool. I loved the way her curious blue eyes searched the box I held. I knew her bleeding heart couldn’t resist helping the man with the injured puppies. I even cried; that’s how good I am. Angela dialled the vet on her fancy mobile phone and when she did, I pounced. How pathetic that she didn’t even call out or put up much of a struggle. She could’ve escaped if she wanted to. I was intoxicated by her scent and the twilight.

Even though her physical strength was weak, her mental strength was awesome. It’s what I expected from her, intelligence and perseverance. Angela tried to flatter me, become my friend, and even tried to convince me that she loved me. I allowed her to whisper in my ear. Her hot breath dug deep into my mind and held onto it like a lover’s embrace. Her hand held mine and for a single minute, in that dank and cold abandoned building, I felt the clutches of humanity. I told her I wasn’t interested in love or friendship. I was interested in her life and the ease at which it can be extinguished.

Her death occurred at midnight. She cried like a little girl who missed her daddy. She wept into the silence until her eyes fluttered closed and her beating heart came to a permanent rest. For a second, I perceived remorse. I hated it. I said a little prayer (does it shock you that a monster like me can pray?), and wished her soul a peaceful and eternal rest.

Does it haunt you to know that I can be anybody and nobody at the same time? I bet it does.

And then I found Alicia: trustworthy, discrete, compliant, and damaged Alicia. The black clung to her dry hair. Red lipstick formed a broken smile. Her gothic appearance repelled people. It electrified me. I knew beneath her black denim jacket marred with images of death beat a compassionate heart. Pity the images of death were all wrong.

I told her I wanted her opinion on some wall colour choices for a new flat I ’d just purchased. The new flat in question was an unoccupied ground floor flat just two blocks from where I worked. It was situated in a bleak alley with no backyard, a limp front door, and chipped windows. I knew the neighbours were kids too wired to even care further than their next hit. It was the perfect neighbourhood, and Alicia succumbed to my polished lies.

Inside the abandoned apartment, Alicia loosened up. She kept close to my shoulder. I felt the electricity jump between us. She asked questions about the apartment. How many bedrooms? Was I doing the work myself? Who was I going to live with? And yes, pastels would be lovely in the lounge. Then the conversation took an unexpected turn.

“This isn’t about sex, is it?” she asked. She stood by the jagged front window. Broken moonlight draped her shoulders. Shadows played with her questioning face.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not stupid. What man knows about pastels?” Alicia’s laugh dangled with nerves.

“You're right. It’s about more than just sex,” I replied.

“Why me?”

I couldn’t answer her question. No one had ever asked me that before. The question hung in the sunless air.

She spoke in a defeated whisper, “You’re not going to let me go either, are you?”

Darkness propelled me towards her. I inhaled her soft scent lifting off from her pale skin. I tensed my fingers around her shoulders as if trying to dig deep to find the passion, the life squeezed inside. Holding my captured breath, I waited for her scream to bring noise to the silent night around us.

Nothing. Alicia deflated to the ground.

I sank with her and breathed into her ear, “Why not you?”

There are times when killing is just a matter of a process one has to go through. There are times when sympathy has to be forced out the way. There are times when love cannot interfere with the job at hand, but times were changing. A decomposing warmth slipped into my stomach. I suddenly hated myself for what I had become. In her splintered eyes I saw who I was for the first time: damaged goods, melted chocolate, sour milk, rotting vegetation in the summer sun.

I swallowed and repeated my question into her awaiting ear, “Why not you? Is it wrong that someone like me can choose someone like you? Don’t be afraid. I’ve done all this before.”

But I hadn’t felt this before: her hushed voice against my dry cheek, her unkempt eyes watching me, and her fractured smile begging me to say all of this was just a dream.

“My mother always said that I’d end up as someone’s victim.”

“You’ll be pleased to know that mother’s are always right.”

“Can you do something ... for me?”

“Anything.”

“Kiss me.”

Those two simple words kicked down the emotional door and a tidal wave ripped through my soul. Tears broke free for the first time since I was a child. I thought they were extinct. Apologetic words shaped my breath. Strange connections formed: soul to body, consciousness to mind, guilt to remorse, death to compassion, kiss to love.

The apartment was the wrong place to do this. I relied on shadows as witnesses for they cannot be found during the day. I used grimy walls for camouflage. This was my natural environment, but now it all had a terrible stench to it. The beaten down place was a mockery to Alicia. Although she kept to the darkness herself, I wanted a sudden burst of luminous light to fill the room and liberate us both. No light came. Just city sounds riding the frigid air.

Our lips closed the gap. My heart slowed to an irrational calm. Her eyes accepted mine. If kissing was the secret to time travel then I’d travelled backwards and forwards in a whirlwind of seconds and minutes. Bleeding warmth dripped from her lips. It lasted a second, an hour, and a lifetime.

The moral connections stopped when our lips parted and the kiss expired. Alicia smiled and closed her eyes. Her breath sat on the edge of my lips. Was it possible that she had taken my splintered mind and restored it? Had a simple kiss done the impossible? I can answer that simple question with another: when is a kiss just a kiss? When the lips you kiss are varnished with malice instead of compassion.

“It can be done,” Alicia whispered. “I’m not afraid.”

Alicia laid a hugging hand on my cheek. “Tell me your name,” she said. “Tell me who you are?”

Alicia was beautiful, as she lay against my chest in the pale moonlight. What is it about moonlight that makes men insane and women beautiful? Perhaps the glow came from within.

“It’s ... Thomas,” I replied. “My name is Thomas.”

My tongue tasted bitter from the sour name.

“Like the Apostle,” she said. Her eyes remained closed as if burnt by the moonlight. “He wasn’t present when the resurrected Jesus showed the scars on his hands and feet. ‘Except I see for myself, I won’t believe’ is what he said. Do you need proof, Thomas?”

“I thought I needed ... something. History and humanity have taught me that I’m not supposed to feel emotions. I’m told to feel cold and disconnected. My thoughts coach my heart into thinking that life means nothing more than a passing blink. Then ... you.”

“But that’s where they are wrong, Thomas. Look at me. Look into my eyes. I can retrain those disorientated thoughts and make them focus on nothing but me.”

If I wanted to believe in something it was now. If I wanted to believe in anything then the minute had arrived, and soon left.

“It’s too late for me. I’ve lived this tortuous life for so long.”

The mating of our lips had given birth to a screaming baby I didn’t want. Remorse. It became difficult to concentrate. I saw those girls’ faces fill up the space between the colour and tears in her still eyes. They floated around my head in a carousel of laughing faces, crying faces, and disjointed faces. Their cries pulled at my hair. All the madness of the world settled on my shoulders. I couldn’t bear it. Love is an evil mistress if she allows this much pain and torture to surface.

“Besides,” I said, “love cannot cure the habits of a lifetime.”

The needle pricked the air before her skin. I stared into her eyes and they spoke of regret.

* * *

I’ve often pictured her sliver of a ghost searching the grimy walls of the ground floor apartment. I’ve often imagined them all trapped in the mists of time, searching for a way out a world that they don’t belong in. I’ve sensed them following me, clawing and cursing me. I knew I was safe: ghost hands cannot do any harm.

As for Alicia, she deserved to be placed in the winter ground and not left face down in the city’s canals. I took her body to a park in Amsterdam. The great thing about this city is that it allows freaks like me to exist in perfect anonymity. No one looked at me twice when I walked through the alleys, passed the junkies and the hookers, and over bridges with a dead woman slung over my shoulders. They laughed when I told them she was passed out from too much beer. No one saw my tears.

This park is a haven for secret sexual desires. I knew I’d be safe. It made the perfect burial ground. Alicia won’t be seen anymore. Shadows will cover her face during the day and the ground will digest her.

This park has a statue of a nineteenth century English queen at its entrance. Follow the concrete path until you reach the fountain in the middle. There is a cafe on your right. Walk past the cafe until you reach a bronze statue of a man on horseback. Count out twenty paces from the base of the statue in an easterly direction.

Spring flowers now adorn the grave of the prettiest girl: the girl who traded her life for a single moonlight kiss, the girl who planted the seed of love deep in my soul. But it’s always dark there and it shall never grow.