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November 2008

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

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

Will’s Little Black Flower
by Brent Meske

Right Now

“Aww what the-“ he starts, and never finishes that thought. His entire body jerks to one side as he tries not to vomit over his financed shoes and suit. He succeeds, pitching his expensive lunch all over the faded green/yellow wallpaper in the hallway. Some lands on the floor as well, and he dances a pretty nimble number away from his own puke.

His name is William, and he likes it that way. It’s a respectable name, but something you could morph out of if you wanted. He can be Willy if he’s in a specially stupid, drunk, or high mood, or Will if things need to get studious. There’s Bill, for the less sophisticated crowd, and Billy for the least amount of sophistication. Billy is his favorite for Country Western clubs. Will he uses around some campuses, Willy on others. William gets its circulation around the office buildings, driver’s license, paperwork, and on his résumé.

Not only that, but his middle name is Joseph, which gives him just about as many nickname configurations as color combos on a Rubik’s Cube.

He usually goes by Bill.

At this moment, Billy / Bill / Will / Willy / William / Joseph / Joe / Joey / Billy Joe / BJ curses the name of several gods he knows, from Aphrodite to Vishnu and back. He even includes a solemn promise to Jesus that he will never, ever drive three states to meet an online girl ever again.

Why, for the sake of whatever name of whatever god you could choose, would he spend eight hours in the car, just to find himself in a completely alien city, at some freak chick’s rancid smelling apartment?

Two Minutes Earlier

“Hello?” Will called, and knocked again. There were definitely noises coming from inside. He thought it might be the TV, maybe, or the girl’s (Judy, this one’s name was Judy) voice telling him to come in. And so he’d turned the handle and come in.

He’d come because she was gorgeous, and she was fresh into college, and she was desperate, that’s why. On the other side of that door should have been a ravenous, sex-starved female ready to claw grooves into his back in her desperation to have him. He was almost harder than he could ever remember being, harder than the first pubescent mornings, where he’d been unable to pee for ten minutes of his twelve year old life.

When he’d tried the door though, it almost felt like she’d pushed something in front of it. It was hard to get the damn door open, so he shouldered it. He got it about two feet open when the smell hit him like a liquid punch to the face.

It was dizzying in its weight. It seemed to press into him like a solid. His eyes watered, and he gasped a sharp breath inward, from the accumulation of three weeks’ worth of decay. He blinked, and his stomach folded itself in thirds.

The rest was now history, once in the eating and once in the revisiting.

A Week Ago

“Oh ho, what’s this?” he said in semi-surprise. Very little had surprised him in a long time.

William, the man of many names, spotted the e-mail right away. He flipped over to his IM to find her already there. Still, he opened up the e-mail. He was nothing if not cautious.

It was long, and he scanned it quickly with a trained eye. Overall, to a guy like William, it said this: I want to talk, I’m really sorry about what I said. I’ve been looking at your pictures all day, and listening to your voice, and I do want to meet you after all.

So he double-clicked her name, and the little window came up. He started typing almost before the little box even appeared on the screen.

Hey, he typed. He always stayed invisible, in case multiple ladies were online. Nobody would see him, and that was just how he liked it most times. With the number of girls on Will’s list, he couldn’t afford to be swamped every time he sat down to work on a girl.

Hi!

Before he could reply with anything further, she came back at him again.

Look, Will, I know what I said before…

I’m really sorry, he told her. I was really upset. It’s just, after six months…SIX months! It feels like forever, Flower. She loved to be called Flower, whether she was a hardcore goth girl or not.

I know, she typed, and I thought about it a lot. People have their moments of weakness. I understand that. Just tell me you’ll never talk to her again.

William smiled with his fingers over the keys, and his face bathed in artificial light. It was the smile of a predator, the determined stare of a hawk with the grim smile of a crocodile. He was an Egyptian god if ever there was one.

I’ll do better than tell you, Flower. I’ll promise you. How’s that sound?

And this was the girl who threatened to kill herself just a week and a half ago. He’d let her stew in her juices, and she came back. He knew she would. Girls like her always did.

Of course, it was worth mentioning that our William broke that promise that very day, not three hours later, with the very girl who was the source of the argument. When she’d signed on, he pounced like a waiting predator. It didn’t take long. He got poetic with her, which was the source of his Flower’s problem. The other girl, who called herself Mona, started posting Will’s erotic chat poetry all over the Internet. She started with her blogs, and circulated from there.

Thank you, she told him. Thank you so much. I love you, Will.

He gave her the smiley face with the big teeth. I love you too, baby.

Do you have time to play? She asked him, with the little winking smiley.

I wish I could, he typed. I’m totally swamped with work right now. But when can I head out your way? He asked. When she told him, he hit up a website and printed out driving directions to her place. Then it was just a matter of waiting for the next week.

He and Mona had a nice two-hour session together after his Flower finally gave up her address. It was one of those chats that started off with him salivating, like looking at industrial strength fireworks before the big show. It also didn’t let up until he got her to take a few new pictures with her phone, describing in gorgeous natural detail some of his most vivid poetic imagery. Couple those with the anticipation of meeting his Flower, and it was easy to get off that day.

Seventeen Days Ago

“How could you? You told me you loved me,” she hissed, almost as though the words could somehow erode her skin. He could hear the tears over the phone, like they might wet his ear or drip down onto his hand.

“Flower, listen to me-” but he didn’t get any further. There was a mad shriek over the phone, followed by something that didn’t sound like laughing, but didn’t sound like crying. He stared at the wall of his apartment and wondered if he had himself a real live loony on his hands.

“Don’t call me that,” she croaked, “Don’t try to play with me anymore, Will. God, I loved you. I can’t believe-”

“I still love you baby, please, listen to me,” he said in his gentlest tone.

“I’m a toy for you, aren’t I?”

“No,” he said rapid fire, “Nonononono, you’re not a toy. Listen, it was stupid. Completely retarded. I was drunk, and you weren’t online, okay? People were already going at it when I came into the chat room, six of them at least. You have to believe me.”

“I can’t believe I fell for you,” she said in a pathetic croak. “God, I should go and kill myself.”

“Baby,” he said in a tiny voice. “It’s been so long. I’ve been thinking that you never wanted to meet me face to face.”

“I don’t-“ she said, and he was overcome by the sound of her crying. They were huge, body wracking sobs by the sound. “I don’t have anybody out here. I can’t- I can’t believe, oh my god.”

“I love you,” he whispered. “I’m sorry.” Later he would give his ‘I love you’ to a girl named Jessica, a cheerleader chick in some tiny Nebraska town. The night after that it would be another incredible poetic night with Mona. There were six girls in total beside Flower, and he kept meticulous notes on their interactions, so he wouldn’t confuse them.

“I can’t talk right now,” came the throaty groan.

“Baby no-“ he started to say, but the line was dead.

Now

Will staggers away from the partially open door, coughing and spitting out the last of his lunch. It’s nastier than nasty. He gets about two steps away from the door when the sound hits him.

It’s the three-note twinkle, the familiar Instant Messenger sound. He hears that muffled sound and can bolt from sleep as though death is on his heels.

He freezes and turns back toward her door, wiping his chin on his sleeve.

A computer inside her apartment twinkles again. Will pulls his t-shirt up from beneath the dress shirt and covers his nose with it. He’s sure that it won’t do much good, but does it anyway. He stalks into her apartment, expecting the smell to jump out at him at any point. His eyes, wide and frightened, scan the place as he breaches the door. Behind the door is a pile of mail, newspapers and magazines almost a foot high. Will never sees this; his eyes are fixed on the computer.

Amazingly enough, the smell has diminished a lot. He can barely detect it now. It hardly matters anyway, since he’s allowing himself to be drawn in, like a moth, toward the familiar blue glow.

It has a nice, big flat screen monitor to start. The desk is also massive, taking up a full third of the tiny apartment’s living room and dining room area. He does a cursory sweep of the apartment, trying to look for what could produce such a stench, but the computer has already done what it always does: mesmerized him. He nearly sways like a cobra before the snake charmer, and a moan comes from deep, deep within him as he peers at the screen.

There’s a familiar message box, only at the top it’s got his screen name on it. Inside the box is a message.

Hi Will. The next message reads: Come in, make yourself at home.

“What?” he breathes.

Another window pops up, and he recognizes this one immediately. It is the little amateur movie screen generated by the web camera perched on top of his computer. The image materializes out of a warm, digital black and resolves into a picture of his Flower, the little goth girl named Judy.

She’s in his apartment, almost five hundred miles away.

It’s pretty amazing, considering he’s never told her his address, nor his last name.

She looks just like she did in her photos, which is to say very anxious, very pale, with platinum blonde hair. The black lipstick and choker only serve to make her seem more like a living corpse. It’s not his scene, but he’s been around the block, he’s seen the clubs. Judy isn’t anywhere near as bad as it gets.

Go on, the message comes through, sit down. We need to talk. Strange how you never told me you had a webcam.

He isn’t aware that he’s sat down until his fingers are punching the keys, rapid fire. The look of perpetual confusion on his face doesn’t lift while he types.

How did you get in my apartment?

Don’t you worry about that. she replies, We need to talk about how many girls are here on your list, and what your notes have to say about them.

That’s none of your business, he types. And there’s a funny little prickle of fear, making him sweat in some very uncomfortable places. His hard-on has completely vanished, and it’s been replaced by adrenaline. He’s trembling now.

Sure it isn’t, she types, but you promised me.

You broke that promise.

Where I’m from, we don’t just say things we don’t mean.

Will picks up his phone and dials the police, then presses the green button. For a second, he holds his breath, and shakes, and tells himself that this girl has to be some freak computer genius. He stares at the webcam, and realizes she’s staring right into it.

“That’s not going to do you any good,” her voice comes into the phone. “You’re not in Kansas now, are you?”

“What in the-“ he starts, but like earlier, doesn’t finish that thought either.

Judy, the too-pale goth girl, reaches up and grabs the webcam. Only, that’s not right. Her fingers reach the edge of the window and curl over it. The other hand does the same, and now she begins to pull, and now Will realizes that he really has to take a leak, and now he realizes that if he doesn’t he might just piss himself. The web camera window expands until it’s the size of most of the screen. Then her sneering face, complete with blood-red gums, is facing him larger than life.

The phone falls from his hand to thump on the rug.

Will doesn’t know why it’s the gums that strike him, or the rims of her eyes. They’re both redder than red. She opens her mouth, and the sound that comes from the computer speakers is almost a whisper, but nearly deafening.

“Will,” comes the hiss, “You crushed me. You crushed me and threw me away. You thought you could just lie to me, and lie to me, just like you lied to the other girls.”

The hands dart from the computer screen in a flash of pixilated bluish white light, seizing Will’s terrified face. Her grasp is hot and full of static, and sears his nerves in a blinding bolt that heads straight for his brain.

He sees her, sobbing on the floor here, curled into a tight ball.

He sees her standing in front of a mirror, with mascara and eye shadow streaking her face like great black waterfalls.

He can’t look away while she takes half a dozen sleeping pills, then drags a chair to the center of the room, where she ties a thin nylon rope around the ceiling fan. She tests its strength, (it holds, she’s all of five feet and eighty-nine pounds) and makes a careful measurement.

She ties a noose, now working in slow, deliberate movements. Her tears have slowed. She’s mumbling to herself.

Will watches while she holds herself on the chair, and starts to nod off. When it happens, she’s sitting balanced on the high chair back. It’s not long; she tumbles backward, catching herself on the rope, on her neck. There are a few moments of furious struggle. The chair goes over. Her feet whip back and forth, scissoring through the air only about five inches from the floor.

Now the view is strange, and he realizes he’s looking at her dead body from the computer screen. He continues to watch, how can he not? Sometime later, her struggles cease. Has it been five minutes, or five years? Another time later, the door opens to see a woman’s terrified face. There’s a scream, picked up in a hollow way by Judy’s headset microphone, attached to the computer. Days have passed, maybe more than a week. Will understands this. She’s begun to decompose, and the smell drew a neighbor.

Later the cops appear, but this is all unimportant. She fast-forwards it for him. They remove her body, do a light investigation, and place yellow tape over the doorway. Somehow none of them work much with the large desk, with the expensive computer setup in the center of everything. They leave the tape and close the door.

Then, since he’s still watching from the computer, it gets even stranger. Gentle whispers, little breezes not resembling anything, they appear. The door opens for them. These invisible little streamers of coincidence and otherworldliness move over the yellow police tape, pulling it down in fluttering ribbons. Then those little streamers reel it all into the apartment and wash the tape out of sight.

Will screams and jerks himself back. The chair slows, hits a knot of rug, topples, and spills him out onto the ground. He looks up at the ceiling fixture, and back toward the computer.

There is a burning sensation on his face, and he touches it to find raw skin and fresh blisters. He screams through the pain, and realizes that he can’t see very well. He gets to his knees and begins to shuffle toward the door.

“No,” he groans. “No, no no.”

“Yes,” the speakers wheeze. “Yes yes yes.”

The door slides closed, and he watches while her deadbolt engages itself.

“I swear,” he says. “I’ll never-“

“Too late for that,” she says. Her voice is pure void. He looks back, and finds her climbing up out of the huge monitor. Her head turns to face him, or maybe her whole body reverses itself, Will can’t be sure. He thinks he might be going blind. She’s made of light now, and staring at him with impossible eyes. Her eyes are covered with black, all black.

“I’ve seen what’s ahead,” she said. “I asked them, before they obliterated my soul to make a new one, if I could have this one thing.”

One leg pulls up and out of the monitor, perching on the desk. Then the other. She doesn’t jump, she doesn’t float, but somehow she makes it to the floor.

“If there’s any justice, I told them, any justice at all, you’ll let me bring this one with me.”

His mouth works open and closed, and a remote part of him realizes he’s pissed himself. She’s crawling now, between his splayed legs.

“I don’t think they believe in justice, William. But I talked them into it.”

Her hand reaches through his clothes, seizing his most prized possessions. He cries out through the blinding, blistering pain. His pants, a synthetic blend, begin to melt and stick to his body, burning him further. All Will can do is scream.

So he does. He screams and screams and screams.

The police find the body ten minutes later. There isn’t much to make of it, just charring. Any identification on the man with many names has been melted into a puddle on the slightly smoking rug. He’ll never be identified. His relatives will never be informed of the mouse, webcam, headset, and part of the keyboard that need to be removed from his abdomen and throat.

“Hey,” one of the policemen says to one of the others, “You remember seeing the computer here when we got that girl out of here a couple of weeks ago?”

A few of the policemen look up. One of them says, “Huh.”