девочка

He took a deep breath as he left the building, sucking in the wet night air before he set off, trudging through the gray drizzle toward the next nondescript building, hands tucked in his pockets, eyes forward. These shit holes all looked the same, all smelled the same, all peddled the same garbage, but each had its own unique menagerie of incels, cat-fishers, and pedophiles that kept it in business. There was just enough crossover to set down a subtle trail of breadcrumbs to the next crime scene, but they almost always ended up as dead ends or self-fellating feedback loops. Sometimes it was like connecting dots, other times it took a leap of faith. 

After a short walk he came to to the next building. This place was old. The red bricks were cracked and worn and the door didn't fit in the frame. He gave it a gentle push and it flung open, slamming against the brick wall with a jarring thud. With the door open, a riotous flood of neon light spilled out into the wet street, bathing him in a grotesque rainbow of debauchery. He squinted his eyes, peering through the doorway and down the hall, then took a deep breath and pushed himself into the building. 

He made his way quickly down the hall, skipping past doors that his gut told him held nothing. One hall led to another, then another, then another. One floor led to another, then another, then another. Hall after hall, floor after floor. Ever so often there would be something that would catch his eye and he would take note of it or nibble at the bait and take a closer look, but each room turned out to be just another dead end.

The weight of the night was beginning to settle on him, pulling at his shoulders and blurring his vision. "One more," he whispered to himself, something between a promise and a threat. He shook the weariness from his eyes and jogged up another flight of stairs, taking them two at a time. At the top of the stairs he was hit in the face by the large neon letters: "девочка". 

"Fuck," he said to himself. "Gotcha." He reached into his jacket, pulling out the only weapon he ever carried, and kicked in the door. 

Pookie is Dead

Eloise sat at the dinner table anxiously folding and refolding napkins into odd shapes. Her husband had gone to meet her son at the transit depot. They would be home any minute. She looked down at the table, frowning at how she had arranged the paper plates and plastic cups. Was this how you welcomed someone home after something like this? Did you throw a little party?

She looked at the clock hanging over the built-in in her small kitchen, then leaned over the dining table to look out the window. There was a middle-aged man walking down the sidewalk with his hat in his hands. She hadn't seen her son in over ten years. Could this be him? The man saw Eloise in the window, nodded with a forced smile, then kept walking past her house. 

Eloise turned her attention back to the dining table, this time fussing over the decorations that she had hung up. They had been out of "Welcome Home" decorations at the dollar store so she had picked up "Happy Birthday" decorations instead. She felt the sudden urge to rip them all down and go lock herself in her room. When she looked back toward her bedroom her eyes fell on the worn down sofa and the empty spot where her son's cat used to spend her afternoons. The animal had left a permanent indentation on the sofa even though she had been dead for several months. Eloise pursed her lips. She hadn't thought about this part of her son's homecoming. He loved that cat and she had never had the heart to tell him that she had passed, especially in the last months of his incarceration. 

"That goddamn cat," Eloise muttered to herself. She had never understood her son's love of that animal. It was cunning and lazy, quick to anger, and difficult please. It wasn't even pleasant to look at with its mottled yellow fur, uneven teeth, and crooked tail. She'd cared for it because it was the one thing her son had ever asked of her while he was in prison. "Promise me, Ma, take care of her," he said to her as they escorted him out of the courtroom. And she had. For ten long years she had treated that awful little monster like a queen and it had repaid her diligence and her son's patient love by dying unceremoniously just short of his release.

Just then the sound of her husband's old truck came rumbling in through the window. She leaned back over the dinning table, straining to see her son through the truck's glossy windshield. The next few minutes passed as if in a dream, each moment bleeding into those before and after it, as she fought back tears, holding her boy in her arms. After she was able to get hold of herself, she put him at arms length and took him in. He was a skeleton, aged beyond his years and stinking to high heaven. His eyes looked tired and his skin was deeply creased. When he smiled, there was no light in it, just a weariness. But he was home. That was all the mattered.

"I'm so happy you're home," she said to him at last. 

"I am, also," he said softly, his eyes scanning the room around him. He gave a sharp whistle, his eyes lighting up with anticipation. "Where's my girl?" he asked.

Eloise glanced nervously at her husband, then looked up into her son's eyes. "I'm sorry," she said, taking his hand. "Pookie is dead."

Untenable

My mother never really had a firm grip on English and so when it came time to choose my name, just days after her and my father got off the boat in Los Angeles, her instinct on what would pass as a proper American given name failed her miserably as she uttered my name to the doctor: “Untenable.” Apparently neither the doctor nor the nurses attending her had any inclination to disabuse her of this choice. In my first years, this name didn’t affect me much. My parents didn’t speak English at home, and anyway they and everyone else in my family called me “Ten”. 

It wasn’t until I started elementary school that I started to suspect something was wrong. On that first day, I had never seen so many pink-faced, blue-eyed children in my life. It was as if I had gone to heaven, and now I was surrounded by a choir of golden-haired little angels. But this illusion was shattered the moment Ms. Jollenbach stumbled over my name during roll call. 

“Un... ten...able?” she asked hesitantly. Unaware that there was a problem, I raised my hand eagerly.

“What’s your name, sweetheart,” she asked me, smiling. “I believe there’s a mistake on this printout.” At this, the little angels in the room began giggling maliciously.

“Untenable,” I said proudly. This only seemed to encourage the children around me. “My name is Untenable,” I said again, my confidence deflating like a balloon with a tiny hole in it. 

Legacy

Ethel was reading a Hamish Macbeth novel when she heard someone knocking on her front door. "Who is it?" she called out, not taking her eyes off the page.

"It's me, Ethel. I mean it's me, it's Agnes," a muffled voice answered.

"Oh, Agnes, it's unlocked, come in," Ethel said, scanning the last two paragraphs on the page then tossing the book on the kitchen counter. 

"Ethel!" Agnes cried out as she came through the door, "Why aren't you ready yet?"

"Ready for what?" Ethel asked, unconsciously patting at her short bob. 

"Today is election day," Agnes said, pursing her lips in annoyance. "You're going senile, Ethel. It's a wonder you don't forget where your nose is."

"Oh that," Ethel scoffed. "I knew you'd come get me when it was time so I didn't worry myself with setting a date in my head."

"Well I'm here," Agnes said, "now let's get going. Everyone in the unit is going together and we have coordinated with the other units to make sure our turnout is as high as it can be - well, except for Doris in number 3, she had a fall this morning; and Elmer in 45, his horrible daughter already mailed in his ballot - but the rest of us will all be there, voting as a block."

While Agnes chittered on Ethel grabbed her cardigan and then the two went out to catch the shuttle waiting on the palm-lined street outside. The shuttle was nearly full by the time they got on, but they were able to find a seat together near the front. 

As the shuttle started down the road, a plump woman in her early 80's stood up at the front of the bus. This wasn't particularly noteworthy as the average age of the people on the shuttle was 79. 

"Hello, everyone," the woman said to her fellow riders. "My name is Phyllis, you might know me. Anyway, did everyone get a copy of their voting card as they got on the shuttle?"

She held up a card with large-font instructions printed on both sides.

"That's just wonderful," she said with a cheery smile as everyone nodded and held up their cards. "Anyway, you all know what to do," she continued. "For many of us, this might be our last election, or one of our last, so this is why we all vote together; together our votes have more power, together we can really make things happen." She held up her card as if looking over the instructions, then turned back to the people on the shuttle. "Anyway, when you vote, just follow the instructions on this card to the T. This is the state-wide platform that we all agreed upon, a platform that will mess things up for future generations as much as possible. It will take these kids decades to untangle the mess that we will be leaving behind for them. We can't live forever, but by voting together, we can ruin things for everyone else long after we are all dead and well into the future. And the best part is, none of us will be alive to have to deal with the consequences!"

At that, the entire shuttle erupted in cheers and laughter. Agnes turned to Ethel and nudged her with her elbow. "I just love this," she said. "I just love shitting the bed for these future generations."

"Agnes!" Ethel gasped with mock horror. "Language, please!"

Both woman burst into wild laughter. 

Dentures

Paul kicked at the pile of corpses rotting in the midday heat, pushing a bloated old man off a boy whose pale face was covered with patches of soft fuzz. 

"Hey," he called out, "I've got one here." 

John looked up from the mouth of a middle-aged man then walked over to where Paul sat hunched over the dead boy. "Be careful with it," he said, gazing over Paul's shoulder. "You don't wanna crack 'em."

Paul waved off John's advice and gave a swift yank on the large pliers he had shoved into the boy's mouth. "Look at this!" he yipped, holding the large pearly tooth up for John to admire. "That's a thing of beauty."

John snatched the tooth from the pliers and then held it up to his own gap-toothed smile. "How does it look?" he asked Paul.

"Looks like this boy's mouth is going to buy us meat for dinner," Paul laughed, smashing his boot on the boy's chin and shoving the pliers back into the boy's mouth to extract another tooth. 

He made quick work of removing the rest of the teeth while John cleaned each one and then placed it in a small pouch. After they finished they moved on to another pile of bodies and then another, searching for men with teeth worth taking. By the end of the day they had collected a small fortune in teeth. As they made their way from the killing field the two men chatted merrily. 

"What will you do with your cut?" Paul asked John. 

"I'm gonna buy myself as set of new dentures," John said with a rotten grin.