Tag Archives: Story

Young Secret

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a flash story by David G Shrock

Grunting, Sebastian Rhemus hefted the lectern. Even in his big grasp, the oak structure swung like an anvil and clomped onto the floor with a sound of authority.

“Is it centered?”

Sebastian peered over the lectern at the old man standing in the aisle between the pews. Using the man as a reference, Sebastian checked the alignment. “Yes, Father Young.”

Walking the aisle, Father Young waved his cane tapping pews. In his other hand, he held a lantern, the flame inside swirling. Tapping a pew, he stopped. Swinging the lantern around, he faced the wood bench and tapped.

Noticing the pew out of position, Sebastian stepped around the lectern and off the dais, boots thudding on the floor. Everyone expected a giant to help with lifting and reaching. While his father was away he was the biggest man in town.

“Margaret will throw a fit, you know,” said Father Young. He tapped the errant pew. “Everything has to be perfect for her wedding.”

Lifting the pew, Sebastian moved it into position, leg scraping the floor.

“Careful, boy.” Father Young raised the lantern.

Looking at the old man, Sebastian watched the reflection of the flame swirling within the black painted spectacles. He imagined colorless orbs hiding behind the dark lenses. Did the dead eyes see anything at all? Taking the lantern, he lowered the light watching the shadows creep up over the chasms making up the worn old face.

“I have one more task for you.” The old man smiled, the lengthening shadows twisting his face sinister.

Sebastian smiled even if unseen by the blind man. He recalled his father mentioning that a good priest was highly empathic. And Father Young was a good priest; nobody could mask their feelings from him.

Lifting his cane, Father Young pointed at the back corner of the nave. “There on the table,” he said. Lowering the cane, he tapped the floor as he walked. “Found it by the door this morning.”

Setting the lantern on the table, Sebastian looked the box over. Yellow parchment, folded on the sides, hugged the box. Across the top faded print spelled his name.

Looking at Father Young, Sebastian found a straight face. Why did someone deliver the package to the church? Everyone knew the Rhemus house stood at the edge of town.

“Well.” Father Young tapped his cane on the floor. “Don’t hold us in suspense.”

Slipping knife from belt, Sebastian set the blade to the parchment. Glancing over, he watched the lantern light blazing on the dark spectacles. The priest hid his own emotions well, and the dark glasses made reading his face impossible.

“My father isn’t coming back,” said Sebastian. Pressing the blade, he cut into the parchment. The world was a dangerous place, and sometimes travelers never returned.

Always dreading this day, Sebastian slowly ripped the parchment. He had expected a wood box with fancy carvings bearing his father’s possessions. A flimsy package covered in parchment seemed a sacrilege. And delivered home, not left on the church doorstep. Tossing the parchment aside, he removed the lid.

A revolver rested in a cradle of straw.

“Your father was a hunter.”

Sebastian felt the dead eyes burning into him. A chill spilled down his back, and sweat poured from his head.

Father Young clenched his teeth. “A killer.”

Reaching into the box, Sebastian touched the hardwood handle, the cold steel barrel.

Tumbling out of the old weathered hand, bullets jingled onto the table bouncing against the package. “He murdered more than a dozen of my kind.”

Sebastian watched the face harden. The old man lifted the spectacles. Instead of white orbs, Sebastian found golden jewels bursting with dark currents radiating from the center. He stood frozen, staring at the strange eyes.

“Only one question,” said Father Young. “Are you a child of God or your father’s son?”

Glancing over at the bullets, the gun, Sebastian shook his head. What did his father hunt? Men with strange eyes? Looking back at the priest, he studied the gold orbs. They appeared menacing.

Father Young stood strong, gripping the cane like a weapon.

Listening to his own beating heart, Sebastian stared, uncertain about any of this. He saw inside the strong creature, the frail Father Young, the old man that always looked after the town, the same man planning to conduct a wedding in a few hours. How could anyone take a life based on a rumor or a strange pair of eyes? He doubted his father ever did.

Realizing he had made his decision, he took in a deep breath calming his heart. Looking around, he noticed he stood alone. On the table, beside the bullets, an envelope waited.

Opening it, Sebastian found a letter of recommendation from Father Young for admission to university. A prize, it seemed.

At Margaret’s wedding, another priest presided in Father Young’s absence. Everybody had questions, and a few had their own ideas about where Father Young had gone. Sebastian simply shrugged whenever someone asked him. He knew the town had seen the last of Father Young.

The Rhemus house was short two giants. University called.

Suffocation Bell

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a short story

After facing an invisible killer, a taphephobic warrior discovers her master’s secret within a room of glass coffins.

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In white letters on blue, the sign announced Old Town, the shadow of Roseland. A gloom settled over the city, rain misting through the streetlights casting a veil. Cars groaned along the backstreets. From a nearby nightclub, music thumped while patrons in Halloween garb filed inside. The falling mist eased and floated shifting sideways, and fell again, moistening the ground, a wet fog licking the pavement.

Tigris waited for the streetcar. The night air felt cool, but the black coat stifled her. Opening the front, she let air inside. Peering up she felt the mist kiss her cheeks. Droplets speckled her dark glasses. Toe tapped to the rumbling beat of the club music.

The rhythm working inside her, she moved, rocking shoulders and swaying hips. Damp weather threatening suffocation, dancing was her breath of freedom. Head nodding, body bouncing, she danced in a circle.

From inside the glass waiting booth, a young man watched her while nodding his head to his own music playing through his earphones. Beside him, a balding old man stood with hands stuffed in pockets. Wrinkling his nose, he eyed her suspiciously. Not everyone enjoyed dancing.

Tigris stopped dancing, but her toe continued tapping.

From the left, a blazing headlight flooded the tracks. A bell toned twice. The streetcar whirred to a stop spraying light shining from its compartments. Doors clicked open sliding apart along the side of the steel beast. The old man shuffled through the door, and Tigris followed glancing around the interior washed in blue-green light. Even dark glasses failed at fighting the brilliance within the compartment…(continued)

Suffocation Bell[59k] PDF Suffocation Bell[302k]

To continue reading, click on an icon above, PDF for print or ePub (and unzip the file) for reading on your digital reader. For ePub see Adobe Digital Editions for desktop, or Stanza for iPod Touch/iPhone.

This dark fantasy adventure provides a peek into the Draco Torre mythology including minor characters from my novel, Raven Memory.

I welcome and appreciate comments on this story, including negative constructive criticism.

It’s Saturn

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Dad set the telescope on the driveway. Unfolding, the rickety tripod clanged into position. It wobbled on its feet, slender tube drooping. Dad scanned the sky, looking over the first few stars awakening in the fading light. He knew the major constellations and could recognize several planets, but not much more. This was his first time, too. Hunched over, he lifted the tube aiming into the southern sky and peered into the eyepiece.

Watching, I waited. He nudged the scope, turned a knob at the base of the eyepiece. Looking at the sky, I saw a bright gleam floating in the deep azure. I asked him what he was looking at. Head bobbing, he switched between peering down the length of the tube and into the eyepiece. He adjusted a knob. Rising up, he stepped back.
Slinking up to the instrunment, I followed directions. Nearly the same height as the telescope, I only had to lean over a bit to peer into the tiny opening at the back. A shining blob caught my eye. It wiggled within the view as I wobbled on my feet.

“It’s Saturn,” he said.

I had seen photographs of Saturn in a magazine. The blob inside the telescope appeared nothing like the planet on the glossy pages. I gazed at something shaped more like a squished ball. Holding my breath, keeping still, I gazed into the eyepiece. The slender oval drifted sideways. And I saw it. The tips on either side of the round center were rings. Staring at it, details emerged. Nearly lost in a blur, two specks of darkness marked the space between the rings on either side of the planet. Peering up, I looked at the bright gem in the sky. Saturn, I thought.

Realizing destinations filled the sky, the world expanded around me.
The hunger took over. I had to know more. Pouring over books at the library, I absorbed it all. But never too much at a time. After each section, each small bite, I thought it over. The numbers and other data became images in my mind. But everything seemed so big. The schoolyard became a scale model, basketball sun at one end and a marble Saturn at the other. Walking from the basketball to the tiny blue plastic bead planet, I imagined the trip. Eight minutes for light, a few less for my feet. Looking back at the basketball, I saw the sun. Peering the other way, beyond the other end of the football field, I spotted where the marble rested in the grass. I saw Saturn. My eyes opened and questions poured in. What kept everything together?

“It’s gravity,” Dad said. Explaining the force holding my feet to the ground, he told me the same force held the planets in orbit. I argued that a force is physical like pulling a wagon. “An invisible force,” he said. It sounded like magic. A good story, but it did not sit well with me. Not one bit.

It never sat well with Newton, according to a book. The implication was in the mathematics tested by observation. But what caused the force? Spinning a bucket over my head held the water inside, but my arm and bucket were real, a physical force. And the book pointed out that Mercury did not play by the rules of the invisible force story. Predictions of positions lost accuracy over time. The problem simmered in my head for years while I read books and thought about other problems. I took small bites, imagined the meanings, asked questions. My skills improved as each answer revealed tougher questions. Sitting in the car while picturing planetary orbits, the answer leaped into my thoughts.

Dad listened to my explanation. I told him that objects followed natural pathways within the fabric of space warped by the objects themselves. Newton’s mathematics relating gravity to a force was only an approximation. Gravity was not a force like twirling a bucket of water.
“You shouldn’t believe everything you read,” he said. Wise words, I questioned everything. But his bites of knowledge were less frequent. I was on my own.

A book on relativity, requiring small doses of reading and long hours of imagining, confirmed my suspicion. This different story and its mathematics predicted Mercury with high accuracy. I never shared this with Dad. We talked about comet hunting and viewing planets. Problems twirled through my head as I worked them out on my own. Everyone has their own pace, their own hunger.

In a park after sunset, I set up my new telescope. The heavy instrument whirred on its motors tracking the sky, revealing Saturn in clear detail. No longer a squished ball, the object in the eyepiece appeared much like the photos in the magazine. Within the rings, Cassini’s Division carved a black line. Above the rings, two hazy stripes-cloud belts-crossed the planet. A couple walked up and asked what I was looking at.

“It’s Saturn,” I said. Sometimes folks asked more questions, and I answered them in small handfuls. Knowledge is best served a bite at a time. The couple did not ask any questions, and I only offered instruction on peering into the eyepiece. They marveled at the details, their small bite, and went on their way.

Take small bites, savor each delight.