The Writers' Circle

Staring at the Sun
(c) Lee Pletzers



The man dragged his feet slowly through the park. He wore a pair of torn jeans, a dirty white tee shirt and a thick heavy coat. His hair was unkempt and his beard grew wild. In his hand he carried a paper bag and in the other was a torn open cardboard box. His shoulders were slumped and his head hung low as slowly he made his way to the deepest part of the park, close to the public zoo. Jacob Deans was a man beaten by life as he found a spot near a fence and curled into a ball on the sheet of cardboard. It was almost four in the morning. Normally he would be sleeping but the police made him move from the shopping center and he had bruises to prove it.

If lady luck was real and everyone needed her gentle touch, then he was truly fracked. He had tried so hard to make it and now look at him. Homeless, with nothing but rags and one thick heavy coat to keep the winter winds away. After years on the streets, the wind didn't bother him so much. 

He rolled over onto his back and stared up at the stars twinkling in the cloudless sky. 

"If only." he muttered quietly. Softly he repeated the broken sentence like a mantra and quickly drifted off to sleep. 

The half empty bottle of whiskey hidden by a brown paper bag rolled out of his open palm and continued down the slight slope, coming to a rest not far from the fence that bordered the park from the zoo.

He knew he was dreaming. It was the reason he had bought the bottle of cheap whiskey. The dreams took away the winter cold. The cardboard box he slept on sure as hell didn't help. For the past few weeks the dreams had been the same.

In the dream, he was watching himself open a drawer, only this him was doing well for himself and owned a bar. The desktop was covered with IRD forms. His best friend was in the dream also. Steve, the one person he could trust and he hadn't. His friend said the bar was a risk he wasn't willing to take and because Steve refused to place his savings at risk, Jacob had gone it alone and borrowed from the only people who would lend to him. Gangsters were assholes if you are late with payments. His competition, The Royal Arms, across the road was killing him. If only he had a little luck on his side, maybe then things would be different.

But they weren't. This was the hand he had been dealt. He had to like it or lump it because he couldn't change it. Some things were not meant to be. At least, Steve was still his friend and he often got a good nice hot meal and sometimes when his best friend's wife, Mary, wasn't looking he got a few bucks slipped into his hand. 

Steve was a good guy. If only he had listened. 

Whoa! Shit! A hand just flew out of the drawer. One awesome dream. Nightmares were good sometimes. Had to hand it to the imagination, after years of abuse, it could still deliver the goods.
He watched a well to do him drop to the floor, arms flaying about. Using the support of the rubbish bin, the well to do Jacob.Steve had called him Jake in this dream, which seemed to take place in real time not dream time.Suddenly he was covered with maggots. They squirmed all over the place. Jacob was sure he could actually feel them. He was aware enough to know they were landing on him, the real him and the dream him. He felt his body moving, shaking. His arms hitting different parts of his body. A twig or small stick broke through the cardboard mattress and dug into his back.

He felt the cardboard crunch up under him.and he heard laughter. Young laughter. The sound brought him out of the dream. Damn it. 

He opened his eyes against the harsh light of the park. 

Hang on, the park didn't have lights way down here near the zoo.

The light moved. It looked like a miniature sun hanging in outer space. Around it was darkness. 
Water doused his hair, but it smelt strange. It smelt like gasoline. Jacob scuttled away from the group as fast as he could. He kept moving back until he hit a metal fence, which separated the zoo from the park. 

A lion roared not far behind Jacob. He barely noticed. His concentration was focussed on a group of college kids wearing leather jackets. There were five of them. One held a torch, the circled beam of light waving from eye to eye. They were blurry figures behind the light. Two kids stood next to him, just off to the right. They inhaled deeply on their cigarettes, the orange tips glowing brightly like satellites in the starry sky. One held a baseball bat letting it swung lazily against his leg. 

"Where you going, scum?" the boy holding the torch said.

Jacob didn't answer. He was worried about baseball-bat boy. He scratched his bushy beard and tried to watch them all at once.  

"It's worse, he's dumb scum."

The others laughed. 

"You stink, dumb scum," the torch holder said. The torchlight dimmed. The torch holder hit it a few times but instead of glowing bright, it died. "Fracken piece of shit," he mumbled. "Bill, I told you to get new batteries," he said turning to face the person behind. 

"I did," Bill stated.

"Like shit you did."

Jacob saw his chance and took it. He picked up his whiskey bottle and as quickly as he could he got to his feet. He lost his balance and grabbed the wire fence to steady himself. The loose wire scratched against the metal bar. The sound was deafening in the quiet park. The zoo animals were also dead quiet.

"Hey, frack-face!" baseball-bat boy yelled. 

Jacob ran.

Baseball-bat boy was next to him instantly. The bat swung through the night air smashing into its target with deadly precision.  Jacob dropped. But fear got him to his feet. He faced the boy and swung his left arm wildly in a huge arch. He felt contact and heard the whiskey bottle smash. Baseball-bat boy screamed and dropped to his knees. 

Jacob's left temple throbbed, incredible heat burned around the cut as he ran as fast as he could. Suddenly he didn't want to die, not like this. Blood quickly rolled to his eyes. His vision blurred pink as he rounded the edge of the park and found the road. 

The streets were deserted. It had to be close to five in the morning, why were the streets deserted? There was always somebody around. 

He could hear a couple of the bastards chasing him. They were shouting but he couldn't hear the words clearly, only a mixed jumble of sounds. And mixing with that sound was the fateful roar of a car starting up. A loud car. A car with more power and speed than two hundred horses. A teenagers car. 
Jacob stole a glance behind but saw nobody. 

He dashed down side streets, alleys and around as many corners as possible. His feet hurt. He looked down at his torn sneakers. His big toe showed itself via a tear in the fabric. It looked swollen and the nail was red as blood. Bending down, he realized there wasn't a toenail at all. It had come off somewhere along the way. 

A car squealed around a corner. The sound froze Jacob. He waiting for them, his eyes staring at the corner he had rounded moments ago. The engine's sound was growing fainter but the second.

"Thank god," he mumbled. 

Screeching tires grabbed his attention. Had they stopped? Quickly came the sound of high revs and the protest of a vehicle reversing too fast. Another loud scream from the tires ripped through the quiet night. 

They were coming back. 

Wiping blood from his eyes and doing his best to block both points of pain, he took a deep breath and ran. It was all he could do. And hope they wouldn't find him and give up. 

Rounding a corner in the opposite direction of the car's engine sound, he spied a 24-hour gas station. The lights were incredibly bright against the darkness hugging the streets. He headed for it, surely someone there would help him, maybe call the police. 

It looked as deserted as the streets. No cars were filling up and he couldn't see the attendants inside. It didn't matter really. They would be somewhere. Possibly in the back room. 

With his remaining strength, he charged the station. He sprinted across the road. The curb caught his injured foot but he barely noticed. He hit the forecourt at a fast pace. His sneakers slipped on the smooth surface and he fell tumbling in front of the automatic doors. Which didn't open. 

He stood up and waved his arms under the sensor. The red light flickered but the glass doors refused entry. Cupping his hands against the glass, Jacob peered inside. It was empty. The inside lights flickered. The door to the toilet showed a green 'vacancy' mark. But more than that, there was a smell of emptiness. The air was dull, dead air. 

He stood erect facing the street. There was no movement now. But there was always movement of some sort. Jacob had been living on the streets long enough to know that. There was always movement. 
Car lights suddenly painted the street. The roar of horses filled the emptiness. 

He couldn't see them yet and hoped they couldn't see him either. 

Fear pumped his legs into movement and he dashed around the back of the station. He swerved between a number of parked cars. Car's whose owners was nowhere to be seen. There weren't any private houses allowed in this area. So, where was everyone? 

That didn't matter at the moment. Neither did the heavy stillness resting in this area. What mattered was hiding from those bastards. Why did they have to pick on him? There were at least a dozen others sleeping in the park. How did they single him out? And why didn't any of the others, some he called friends, help him? 

"I'm curse with bad luck," he answered himself, "that's why." 

The sound of his sneakers pounding the empty streets sounded hollow like a dead man's footfalls but he continued on. He refused to be an easy prey to catch. 

He could hear the car gaining on him. He ducked down an alley just as car lights swept the street. He sprinted down the alley and collapsed on his knees seeing the wall indicating a dead end. Breathing hard he hung his head and waited for them. He was trapped, cornered. Nowhere left to run. 
Car lights showered the alley.

Jacob looked to his right at the back door to a restaurant. It had a frosted glass window with the words, No Entry, printed in large red letters. He jumped to his feet and ran shoulder first into the door.
  

***



Thick blue smoke wafted through the small back office of the bar. It entered through the gap at the bottom of the door and via cracks in the cheap made window frame. It wasn't only the smoke Jake Deans could smell, but also the patrons. The spilt whiskey was strong on their clothes and breath. He hated it, but owning a bar was what his father had always wanted to do and had failed. Jake had to prove that he could do it and did, but he got lucky. He always got lucky. He would buy a lottery ticket and get third diversion or place ten bucks on the nose of a horse, an outsider at that, and it would come in first. Yep, one lucky son of a bitch, is what everyone said. 

Even the damn bar was lucky. One week after opening the Royal Arms down the road had a mysterious fire and bang, everyone was here. 

Jake couldn't think of a name for this place so he simply called it, 'The bar'. He got up from his leather chair and Oak desk and made his way to the bathroom. He opened the door and the barroom sound rushed in, crashing against the far wall and his ears.  

Pushing his way through the crowd, he mumbled greetings to a few of the regulars. There was a line in front of the toilet door, both the men and woman's, but he loathed the thought of getting a private one in his room. Money wasn't a problem and he spent very little. Jake just wanted to be one of the guys. 
It took roughly ten minutes to get into the bathroom and another minute to do his business. He went to the sink to wash his hands and found the plug drowning in vomit. Using the chain he unplugged the sink and washed the puke away. Briefly he wondered how many used condoms he would find in the morning? Luckily he had a cleaning staff, real professionals costing him enough for him to claim that he just scraped by each month, when in fact he did very well at the end of the month.

With his hands washed he returned to his office, leaned back in his leather chair and closed his eyes. Soon it would be morning and he could go home.

He had just entered his thirty-seventh year, had a thick mop of black hair and bedroom brown eyes. His olive skin was smooth and wrinkle free, except the eyes. He had a beard on his chin and a moustache on his lip. Jake Deans was a happy man. 

Until it happened to him. And it happened hard. 

Opening his drawer, Jake pulled out the IRD forms. He had a box with all receipts and last Year's IRD form. He didn't get a refund last year and wanted one this year. His luck would bring it if he asked it too. Lady Luck was a strangely beautiful and dangerous woman. A woman he had loved at first but over the years slowly grew tired with her. And as such, hadn't used her power in a long time. Was she still with him, or had she packed her bags and left? 

Suddenly his stomach churned. A bubble of gas burped its way out. Spasms ripped through his stomach and he felt his late dinner rising. 

Like a rocket he was out of his seat and then suddenly on his knees holding the rubbish bin in his shaky hands. A second later it rocketed out. Tears filled his eyes as more of his dinner choked out in spits and spats. 

Breathing heavily, Jake looked at his mess, thinking he would see half digested mince pies and foamy ice cream. And there it was. 

It moved.

Jake fell back in surprise.

"Idiot," he said after collecting himself. "It's just settling."

He scooped up the bucket to take it to the toilet where he could wash it out. The tax forms lying sprawled on the desk looked an easy snatch for anyone to come in and grab. Why would anyone do that? "I'm an idiot," he said with a smile creeping along his face. But the urge to put the IRD tax forms back in the locked drawer was irresistible. His office locked but it seemed important to put them away and so he did. 

He sat down to do it and placed the rubbish bin of settling vomit next to his desk. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. There was no after taste in his mouth like there usually was after puking. That was lucky, wasn't it? Lady Luck was still his lover. That was good. 

His vision was still blurred from his tears and he was sweating. The clock above the office door ticked loudly. Too loud. The sound echoed through the small room. He could hear the cogs turning the second hand, slamming it against the next mark. Standing up too fast, his chair tilted and dropped to the floor. It made no sound. He stumbled to the door but his sweaty hands couldn't turn it. Finally, somehow it opened and Jake tumbled into the bar. Everyone had his or her back to him. Brown hair, black hair, gray hair, long hair, short hair, curly and straight, waved and styled. They were all looking out the window. Looking at something he couldn't see yet. 

Quickly he pushed his way through the crowd. No one greeted him. The bar room was dark but light was streaming from outside. It shot through the room in an array of bright colors. Orange, blue, yellow and green shot over his head and waved left and right like a spotlight at a concert. 

He looked at the faces of his friends and regulars but shadows and bright light obscured their features. He recognized none of them. 

Slowly he made his way to the window. 

The closer he got the stronger the light seemed, yet no hands shaded any eyes. Jake found he was also able to handle the brightness. People had their hands pressed against the windowpane. Others stood on tables or chairs for a better look. Curiosity was cruising through him now. Everyone at the window was tall and blocked his view. They were extremely tall. Many stood at least six-five or seven feet high. 
As he reached the first row of lookers, they parted for him. And Jake faced the most brilliant sight he had every seen. Two moons rose side by side and just above a sun smaller than the moons shot it's rays over a light blue sky with streaks of red. 

"It's the Morning Star," someone said. "He's come to claim what is his."

Jake looked at his watch. The time was three forty-seven in the morning. "What the hell?"

Lightning flashed through the sky. Black clouds covered the moons and sun. All went dark. Red lightning struck the ground in front of the bar. The window rattled but did not shatter. 

"It's your fault!" someone screamed.

"Jake you fracked it up," another said. "You pushed the Morning Star away."

"What the hell are you all taking about?" Jake replied. He spun around to face them. The barroom lights flickered on. This light hurt his eyes. His stomach churned again. 

Something touched his feet. It felt slimy and the sudden movement tickled. Jake looked down and saw a white worm sliding across his feet. "What the." A white blur, momentary in its appearance, flashed past his eyes and struck his foot. Now there were two white slimy frackers sliding across his feet. 

Jake realized he wasn't wearing any shoes. Where were they? He always wore shoes. Nice shoes. Expensive shoes.

Another thin-skinned bag of yellow white squirmy matter fell onto his foot. This one was different than the others. It had red streaks and its head was clearly distinguishable from the tail. Two small black eyes stared at him. It had a tiny mouth, which opened exposing a mouthful of tiny pointed teeth. It reared back like a snake about to strike. 

Jake took no chances. With a quick flick of his foot, he sent it flying towards his closed office door. It struck one of his patrons in the face.

A face full of boils stared at him. Empty eye sockets and peeling rotted skin hung in strands off a gray skull. Strings of matted hair hung over shoulders as a bony hand grabbed at the red streaked worm. It avoided the attack and disappeared in an empty eye socket.

Jake fell back against the window. 

All the patrons were in varying stages of decay. It reminded him of the movie, Night of the Living Dead, only much, much worse. 

Bony hands grabbed him by the shirt collar and lifted him off his feet with ease. He clawed at the wrists to no avail. The dry skin broke off falling like dust to the floor. 

It laughed.

It's breath foul as Jake was brought nose to nose with the thing. 

"Are you lucky, Jake? Huh, always?"

Jack's body was shaking. He tried to stop, didn't want to show fear in the face of terror, but discovered he couldn't stop. 

"Huh, Jake. Are you one lucky son of a bitch?"

Others grouped around. Jake didn't want to see their faces or bodies and tried to look away, to look somewhere else but he couldn't. They were everywhere. The stench of death assaulted his nostrils. 
Panic.

That was a new emotion for Jake and he wasn't quite sure how to deal with it, so he let it run free. 
His legs kicked wildly at death. He twisted his body madly side to side. The grip broke with the sound of snapping bones. He fell to the floor, got quickly to his feet and said, "Yes, I'm a luck motherfracker."
Suddenly he was grabbed from behind. Many hands lifted him up by the clothes and threw him at the large window. The glass shattered around his body. He felt the sharp edges tear through his clothing and burn his skin in slices of blade like pain.

He saw the ground rushing up to meet him. He closed his eyes against the ensuing agony - which never came.

Someone's hands were on his shoulders shaking him. His eyes snapped open and Jake saw his best friend and bar tender, Steve. Concern colored his face, just as it did three years ago when he mentioned starting the bar. The only fight they had ever had was over this place. Everything was wrong in Steve's eyes, location, timing, price, staff and license. Many bars came and went, he argued, very few survived. But this place was doing well, almost from opening night. His best friend had many good ideas but needed Jake's courage to put them into operation. 

In many ways, Steve was luckier than Jake. Long term relationships didn't work with him. He quickly grew bored with any woman who got serious with him. At least he always had Mary to fall back on. She was also a bar tender but with a body to die for. But that was it. She didn't possess much else but was a very nice girl who liked to have on and off casual times with Jake. And that was fine with him. 
Sometimes, he gave her a lot of serious thought. He often wondered what life would be like to have Mary living with him. But always those thoughts vanished after he had caught his breath. These thoughts usually came after seeing her tight young body riding him. Her long dark hair covering his face as she licked his neck. Her fun playful bites and her tongue sliding in and out of his ear. But the most he liked about her were her eyes. They were bright green and seemed to look straight into him and read his soul. 

"You all right, man? You were screaming."

"Yeah mate," Jake answered slowly. "First bad dream I've had in a long time," he lied. "Shit, I can't even remember the last bad dream I had." Jake shook his head. He spun the leather chair around and saw the rubbish bin close by. He suddenly remembered vomiting in it. He turned back to the desk. There were a number of papers scattered across the desktop. 

"It's four thirty," Steve said, "maybe you should call it a night. I'll close up if you like."

Jake gave it some serious thought. He had no one to go home too, so what was the point? He decided to stay and most likely sleep here the night. The bar was warm and on a quiet street where traffic was sparse. 

"It's all right, Steve. I'll stay. Thanks anyway."

"You sure?"

"Yeah, if I have another nightmare I'll be sure to scream for you." Jake smirked but Steve did not. 
"First time I've seen you fall asleep while working on something." He pointed to the desk. A blue pen was lying on an Inland Revenue Tax Return form. On the form, half a word was written.

Jake didn't remember doing that. In fact he hadn't started filling the papers out yet. Quickly he got out of his chair and went to the rubbish bin. It was empty. He closed his eyes.

Steve smiled. "It'll be gone as soon as you get started on that tax stuff."

"I can barely remember it now," he lied. 

Steve smiled. "Good," he said heading for the door. 

Jake tried to get a look into the barroom when his friend opened the door, but he couldn't crane his neck far enough. 

He hadn't exactly told Steve the truth. In fact, Jake had been having this dream for the past few weeks. The living dead, what a scary thought. 

Jake tried to focus on the IRD tax forms but the images of decaying flesh that fell to the floor like dust wouldn't leave. With each sentence he read, the skin dust floated in front of his eyes. He shook his head but it didn't seem to help. 

Jake shuffled the papers into a neat pile. Paper scrapping paper sounded like breaking bones.
He opened his drawer to put the IRD forms away. 

"Huh, Jake. Are you a lucky son of a bitch?" a croaky voice whispered from the dark corner of the drawer behind three boxes of pens. 

Whiteness.Harsh.Bright.Hard to focus on.A blurry form.

A hand shot out of the drawer. A glow of red outlined the features. The fingers stretched looked for something to grip. It flexed towards him. 

Jake jumped back, his whole weight on the arm of the chair, tilted it. The legs squeaked on the wood. He crashed down, hitting the floor hard on his side.

The hand was growing longer. 

Almost on him now. 

Jake tried to scoot away. 

He grabbed at the rubbish bin to help him up. His hands struck the rim too hard and the plastic folded in the middle. He released it, at the same time shuffling away with his hands behind him. A score of white flew from the rubbish bin, and hit like small pallets from a BB gun.

They squirmed across this face, hundreds of fish-belly pale, boneless things that coated shiny wingtips with a snot-like substance. They moved across his eyes, wobbled up his nose, a few dropped into his open screaming mouth. They fell against his ear and crowded into the collar of his shirt. 

Jake swiped as many of them off as he could. He still felt them roll down his chest when he stood up. Could still feel them on his face even though he knew they were gone. Just like the white hand was gone. 

Shivers covered his whole body. He could feel them everywhere, even on his fingers and hands. His muscles quivered against the imaginary puss slimed ghosts. He needed to wash up and reached the door in three short jumps.

It sung open revealing an empty barroom. The night sky was brightening to dawn. A yellow glow gleaned against the office building across the road. And for a moment, the briefest of moments, he forgot the squirming things in his clothes and stared at the rays of the rising sun tattooing its way through the crack of night. It looked different. He could see the streams coming down from heaven. Hundreds of thousands of lines hung down and coated the city streets. Then it was over.

Such a short glimpse. The image was cruel in its shortness. It was the briefest of moments. But it was beautiful.

Something moved against his dick. 

"Frack no, not there!" He ran for the men's room jumping over knocked down chairs and darting between tables. By the time he reached the toilet, he had his belt undone and his zipper unzipped.

***

Jacob slammed into the door. His shoulder punched through the frosted glass sending broken shivers onto the floor inside. An alarm instantly broke the thickness of the night. Only his heartbeat was louder and it drained the sounds of threatening teenagers. 

Reaching through he unlatched the lock and charged in. His coat pocket caught the doorknob and stopped him instantly. He fumbled to get it off.

He heard car doors slam.

He heard death coming.

With the coat finally dropping off his shoulders, he turned and ran through the short backroom, through another door and he was in the kitchen. 

The alarm made his ears hurt.

"I can smell you in here, motherfracker." That sounded like flash light boy.

"You're gonna burn for doing that to me." Baseball-bat boy said. He didn't sound very well, obviously from the bottle attack. 

Jacob truly felt sorry for that. He knew they wouldn't listen to his apologies, so he pushed through the kitchen into the dining area. He dodged circle tables of many sizes to the front door that looked like a problem. It was solid and heavy with no glass. 

He went into the dining room and picked up a heavy chair with a high back and thick red padding on the seat. Jacob couldn't hear them anymore. Checking behind him he saw the light of the torch swing past the glass of the kitchen entry double doors. They thought he was still in the kitchen. They won't think that in a second.

He hoisted the heavy chair, spun around and released it.

It left his hands in slow motion. The legs touched the large tinted dining window. The tint seal tore, the sides widening as energy helped the chair through the glass obstruction. Cracks spread like a spider's web. The glass became a sickening white color. Suddenly it was all falling down like a tsunami reaching the shoreline. 

It took a moment for Jacob to register the sound. The sound of shrieking death followed by the tinkling of bells as small shivers hit the pavement. 

Without hesitation, Jacob jumped through the opening and briefly wondered where the police or security was. The alarm had been going for a good five minutes now. 

"Over there," flash light boy yelled and shone the beam at their prey. The light caught the back of Jacob's head and he ducked sideways into the shadows. 

The following shouts of the teenage hunters chased Jacob down a side street. He heard the threats and their promises of what they would do to him when they caught him. 

The threats made him run faster. 

He turned left into a part of town he had never visited before but felt like he knew. He ran past the burnt out remains of a pub. The sign was still readable especially in the increasing light of morning. It read: Royal Arms. The pub that had destroyed his father's dreams. Now he was beginning to understand.

Further along the road he saw lights glowing through the windows of another pub called 'The Bar'. The name rang a bell, but he couldn't place it. 

He had the uncanny feeling his life was about to change. No, it was more than change; it felt like the end. And the sounds of the youths behind him on the adjacent street reinforced that feeling. Yet it didn't sadden him. In fact, he was glad it was about to be over. Life was a wasteland of shit and he didn't want to be a part of it any longer. But he would not make it easy for them. 

I'm only thirty-seven, Jacob thought, and it's going to end like this.

He tried the double front doors to 'The Bar'. They swung open easily and he wasn't surprised to find it empty.

Inside was warm. The interior looked good also. Déjà vu set in as he walked towards the bar. Opposite him was a door to the manager's office. A plaque on the door read: Manager Jake Deans. A plaque below it read: office.  

And suddenly he knew where he was but how he got here was a mystery. How the frack had he entered his dream? A memory, faded by time came flooding in. The memories of a television show. A science fiction drama about.Damn he couldn't remember. 

From outside he heard pounding footfalls and mumbled out-of-breath speech. It stopped outside the door to this bar. 

Jacob pushed through the small swinging door at the side of the bar and hid under the counter. 
The entrance doors to 'The Bar' swung open. Jacob heard one hit the stopper and bounce back.

"The fracker's in here," baseball-bat boy said. "Where else could he run?"

"He's a fast one," flash light boy said. 

"He ain't that fast," a new voice said.

A female voice said, "I don't think he's here. Besides this place gives me the creeps."

"Why is that, babe?" Bill asked. "It's just a bar."

"Something's wrong, is all."

"Shut up, both of you," flash light boy said. "He's here somewhere, find him."

"Sorry boy's were closed." 

Jacob froze at the sound of his own voice. 

Suddenly he remembered the science fiction show. It was called, Stories in a Parallel Universe. 


***


Jake zipped up his fly. He had found nothing. Damn dreams, he cursed silently. It hadn't seemed like a dream at the time. Opening his drawer, the hand of light leaping at him and the slimly parasites. All so real. Real enough for him to sleepwalk into the bathroom. 

He hadn't told Steve that he had been having the bad dreams for almost a month. But they weren't anything compared to the latest. This was by far the worst and most intense. The feeling of maggots crawling over his skin remained. It was the worst feeling in the world. 

He filled the washbasin with hot water, cupped his hands and splashed his face. He rubbed his eyes and looked in the mirror. 

The image that stared back with its mouth open in silent laughter barely resembled its owner. The hair was patchy and twisted and clogged with mud. The cheeks were transparent showing the gray bumps of bone and rotted blue cheese veins lined his face coming to a blotted clump spread out like wings in the center of his forehead. 

Jake rubbed his eyes again and the image was gone. What replaced it was just as bad as far as he was concerned. The mirror reflected a man raped of sleep and under stress but even with these dreams, his eyes showed a man who was generally happy. 

"The eyes don't lie," he told the mirror. 

Using paper towels from a dispenser next to the sink, he wiped as much water from his thick beard as he could, balled it up into a squishy wad and wiped his eyes and nose. 

The sound was unexpected. Jake heard the front doors hit the stopper. And it sounded like they had been thrown open. 

He froze, listening intently for any further sound, like footsteps coming his way. Instead he heard young voices. Most likely teenagers out for a bit of fun. He looked at his watch. It was five thirty nine. Most likely teenagers ending a night of fun, he corrected himself. 

The fear of confrontation left when he heard a girl's voice. He smiled at the mirror, "Be brave," he joked and opened the door and said, "Sorry boy's were closed."

He walked towards the motley looking group, with long hair, spikes reached to the ceiling on one holding a flash light, no hair on the other with a baseball bat. Stud collar around the girl's neck. The other two dressed like normal kids. Wanna be bad boys. Jake couldn't stop himself from smiling. 
"Guys, we're closed," he repeated.

The group stared at him silently.

Uneasiness returned with their stares. Jake backed up a step, only then did he realize he had made a mistake. 

The kid with the baseball bat moved fast. Jake stopped the strike to his head by sacrificing his arm and raising it in the path of the swinging bat. The bone snapped with a loud crack. Jake was too surprised at the pain to cry out. He cradled his arm as the girl ran forward and kicked him in the solar plexus and the baseball bat pulled back for a second strike. 

The kid with the spikes and the flashlight grabbed the girl by the back of her leather vest and held her back. "Finish it," he told her. 

The four other stepped back. Screaming, the girl pulled a butterfly knife out of her vest. With practiced wrist movement, she swung it open, producing the blade. 

Jake held out his hand. "Please," he said his voice weak with pain.

"Please," she mocked. Like lightning she leaped forward. Jake didn't stand a chance. The girl was so fast. She punched the blade into the ragged shirt Jake was wearing, the tail hung out over a pair of jeans worn thin and littered with holes. 

Jake staggered back staring at the knife embedded below his left breast. He was surprised to see the ragged smelly clothes he wore. And if it weren't for the pain, he would have thought he was dreaming. 
"I should've known," he whispered dropping to the floor.


***



Jacob had squeezed himself behind a crate of bottled beer. He heard flash light boy say, "Let's get the frack out of here."

"I second that," said baseball-bat boy.

"You were only meant to cut him, not kill him you stupid bitch."

The girl was crying. "I didn't mean it," she protested, "I'm sorry."

"Let's go before anyone else comes."

Jacob heard them crash through the door.

He waited a minute before venturing out. Lying sprawled on the floor was a homeless man that looked like him. He went to the fallen man. His leather dress shoes clicked on the polished wood floor. He hiked up his suit pants when he squatted next to the dead man. 

The man suddenly breathed. His eyes flickered open.

"I should've know it would be you."

Jacob stared at Jake.

"I've been a parasite for so long, I forgot who I was sucking luck from."

Jacob nodded in understanding. 

"Finish it," Jake said motioning to the knife, "pull it down. Become me." He laughed. Blood flowed over his lips. "Your turn to be a parasite."



END