Hey guys! Thanks for being there for me. You all are amazing. I have been going through a rough patch and I sincerely hope that I can be consistent for a while and if I am not, please try to understand. But I will try. I missed you all and I want to say thank you again. And again.
I celebrated my birthday on the 17th of April and I tried to blog that day but I couldn’t due to bad connection. Since I couldn’t throw a party or anything like that, a gentleman took me and my best friend out. I had fun. I realized that I hadn’t had that kind of fun in a while. And since I couldn’t pop the champagne bottle with my blogger friends, I decided to post one of my short stories; April fool. It contains scenes of violence and loads of swearing so if you are not into that kind of thing, I understand. I sincerely hope you guys enjoy it. Please bear in mind that I want my collection of short stories to get published some day so just tell me what you think.
I love you guys. Seriously.
APRIL FOOL
April 1st 1979. 7:48pm
Eric reassured himself that he was doing the right thing as he entered the dank and smelly joint. A fat and ugly woman dressed in a short see-through dress that showed her sagged breasts and flabby belly, was dancing to some crappy music in a corner of the small room. The men, mostly old butchers and pensioners were clapping and pushing coins and dirty notes up and down her dress exposing more wrinkled flesh. They looked like they were having the time of their lives.
Eric walked to the bartender who gave him the usual patronizing look before nodding in a direction. He thanked the old man and walked towards the table at the extreme right of the room. The man at the table had his head and hands on the bottles on the table and was oblivious of the young man’s presence. Eric wrinkled his nose in disgust and hesitated but he knew that there was no turning back now.
“Jake!” he tapped the man’s shoulders, “Jake!!”
Jake grunted like a wild pig and moved. Some of the bottles on the table fell off and broke. A red faced Eric looked around to see if they had attracted attention. The fat woman was wriggling her bulbous bottom in the face of a deliriously happy old pervert. No one had noticed them.
“Well, well, well,” Jake’s voice startled him, “Look who’s here to get his old man”
Jake was a big man. It was a wonder how he sat on the small chair though it creaked dangerously under him. His coffee brown T shirt was tight fitting and showed off his large biceps. He flashed a drunken grin.
“Nice garb Eric. Do you have a date or did you dress up this good to come get me huh?”
Eric looked from his white cotton shirt to his dark blue Levi jeans trousers and his well worn black and white Nike sneakers.
“Let’s go Jake.”
“Did she send you?”
“Doesn’t she always?”
Jake laughed and revealed small yellow teeth, “Now that’s my girl! Help me up son.”
“I am not your son!” Eric snapped. He was tired of reminding him.
His father was killed in a hunting accident some years back. He was ten years old. Some months later, Jake showed up at their doorstep. His mother had told him that he was her ‘special’ friend. Night after night, he had listened to them argue about payment of bills, Jake’s alcoholism and a whole lot of things. Then he began to hit her. His mother would try to smile with a spilt lip to bid him goodbye to school. Sometimes, she wouldn’t be able to come for the parents and teachers meetings or art days because she had a black eye. He had even broken he arm once. He had missed two weeks of school because he had to be at the hospital with her. He had listened to her cry her heart out all those nights. But she had always gone back to him and Eric couldn’t but wonder why.
He helped Jake to his feet. At seventeen, Eric was five foot nine inches tall, just a few inches shorter than his step father.
“Your mother knows what’s good for her boy,” Jake’s breath stank of booze and cheap cigarettes. “I just can’t wait to spank her!”
“Really?” It took all Eric had in him to resist punching him square in the face.
“Yeah, she loves it when I knock her around. Gives her the kicks I tell you”
“It does?”
They walked out of the room with Jake trying to walk without stumbling.
“Where’s the car?” Jake asked Eric as he walked towards a Volvo in the tiny car park opposite the bar.
“Over here,” Eric opened the door of the same car. “Mum bought it last week. I think it is for you but don’t say I told you or she would be mad at me.”
“The bloody bitch!” Jake exclaimed and ran to the car. “I like Volvos. How did she know that?”
Lucky guess, Eric thought as he remembered how he had snatched the car from a young couple. It wasn’t hard as both of them were high.
“Get in. She has other pleasant surprises for you I guess.”
“Really?” Jake entered the car. “And how would you know that son?”
“Because she told me to bring you to an old cabin somewhere out of town.”
“I didn’t think she was romantic. Infact, I didn’t think she had any brains at all.”
Well, isn’t that a surprise Jake?” Eric smiled mirthlessly
“Yes it is son. Take me to my whore.” He patted Eric on the back, “Take me to those surprises.”
“I sure will.” Eric drove off clutching the steering a bit too tightly.
The car pulled to a stop after eighty minutes of driving, in front of an old cabin.
“Well what do you know,” Jake whistled as he got out of the car. “This place is like in the middle of nowhere”
“Yeah.”
Eric had found the deserted cabin a few weeks back. It was surprisingly in good shape. It had a large four poster bed in one of the two bedrooms. He just replaced the dirty sheets. Everything had to be perfect.
“So is she in there?” Jake asked.
“I believe so. Let’s find out.”
They walked into the cabin with Eric in the lead. There was a candle burning in the sparsely furnished living room. A bottle of Scotch and a glass were on the small wooden table in the middle of the room.
“Ah! Claire has really gone nuts,” Jake’s eyes widened as he saw the bottle of Scotch. “She is in for it because Scotch really drives me wild.”
“Don’t you want to check out the bedroom?” Eric asked heading towards the tiny hall way that led to the bathroom and two bedrooms
Jake sat on one of the chairs, “No. Not now. I want to romance this bottle for a while.”
“She wouldn’t want you to be drunk Jake”
“Am I always not?”
“Excuse me then, I have to use the bathroom,” Eric walked down the hall and opened a dimly lit room. Once he was in it, he began to hit the walls in rage and frustration. He had wanted to be swift and ….merciful. But not anymore. Jake had pushed him to the wall by calling his mother names. He opened a drawer and brought out a pistol. He was about to take the baseball bat that lay on the floor when the door opened.
Jake staggered in with the bottle of Scotch in his hand. Eric hid the gun behind his back.
“What are you up to young man? Where the hell is Claire?”
“She must be in here somewhere,” Eric tried to smile. He stood up and made for the door but Jake hit him on the face. The gun dropped off his hand as he fell.
“What?” Jake tripped on the old carpet and fell spilling the contents of the Scotch bottle.
“You and your slut of a mother wanted to kill me?”
Eric held his stinging left cheek, “You bastard! He brought out a pen knife out of his jeans pocket and slashed the older man on the arm.
“Son of a bitch,” Jake reached for the gun but Eric was faster. He took the baseball bat and knocked it out of his reach and stood up.
Jake panted for a while and smiled mischievously, “So what’s next son?”
“This.” Eric hit the baseball bat hard on his left leg.
Jake screamed wildly, “You broke it! Damn you! You broke my leg.”
“That was for the slaps that gave her face those bruises,” Eric said menacingly.
The bat came down again on his right leg. Jake groaned in pain as he felt his leg break. “That is for breaking her arm. It affected me too Jake. I missed my exams and failed a class.”
“You son of a bitch! You coward! You got me drunk so you could do this to me? You gave me the goddamned Scotch to break my legs”
“You were already drunk when I got to that cheap joint Jake. Don’t fool yourself. You are a hopeless alcoholic Jake. And if you think I am a coward, well that’s your problem.
Jake’s legs were apart so when Eric hit his groin, it was right at target. Jake became unconscious.
Eric was breathing heavily when he dropped the baseball bat. There was blood on the floor and on his shirt.
He ran out of the room to the bathroom where he had kept the plastic keg that contained fuel. He quickly poured it all over the place and some, outside the cabin. He entered the Volvo before throwing the ignited lighter into the house. He heard the roof of the cabin blow off a few meters away.
April 1ST 1990. 8:45pm
“So I’ll see you tomorrow?” Shannon asked Eric and kissed him once more. “We could go to a fancy restaurant.”
Eric’s car was parked in front of Shannon's house. “I don’t know. I could be working tomorrow.”
“I could come over at night and sleep over,” Shannon flashed him a sexy smile.
“That could work,” Eric stroked her cheeks.
“See you tomorrow then. Goodnight,” she kissed him again. Eric waited for her to lock her front door before heading home.
He parked his car in his small garage and entered his house through the kitchen door. The house was dark and when he switched on the electricity, it didn’t work.
Strange, he thought aloud, I will have to call Mark.
He lit a candle in the kitchen and headed for his bedroom to get his mobile phone. He had forgotten it there earlier.
Once in the living room, he thought he saw a shadow entering one of the rooms. He heard the door close almost noiselessly. His gun was in his bedroom so he brought out a Jack knife from the pocket of his jacket. He opened the door of the room and scanned through it with the candle in his left hand. He saw nothing and exhaled. Must have been his hurting head showing him things that weren’t there.
When he turned to leave the room, the electricity came on and at the door, a grotesquely shaped figure with charred flesh and familiar eyes smiled through oddly shaped lips.
“Hello son,” it said. “Did you miss me?”
Lily Johnson.
