Once upon a time, there was a knight who was feeling down on his luck. He didn't have a really great reason for feeling like he did.

Subscribe now

When he tried to work during the day, instead of the razor-like focus of previous years, he felt like his chest and heart was being squeezed by a giant, clawed hand. Instead of feeling enthusiasm for his work, he felt a pit in his stomach that could not be filled up, and his legs filled with lead, and he felt like he was sinking into the earth, being swallowed up, unable to be filled.

This was for no reason. He was miserable for no reason.

One day, he asked his dog what was the matter with him. The dog stared at him, didn't know what to say, and then rested his head on his owner's lap. The dog knew that he may not have all the answers, but that this simple act was often enough to improve things quite a bit.

That day, it did.

Copyright Nathan Schuetz, 2023. All rights reserved. No part of this may be used to train an ai

Subscribe now

Subscribe now

Shortly before I got caught for everything, I spoke with a hunter one rainy evening near the end of my shift at the Co-Op where I worked as a cashier. I was there that summer, saving up money for overpriced textbooks in the fall. It was easier work than waitressing, although it paid a lot less.

The hunter was still wearing his orange reflective vest and green-and-brown camouflage jacket. He was probably just getting back into town after a weekend trip.

Ahead of him in line, there was a younger guy with glasses and a Marmot raincoat. He was buying several packs of tofu, one pack of vegetarian hotdogs, and some other vegan foods—you know, stuff like that cheese substitute that isn’t actually that bad if you try it. Anyway, the hunter took slight offence to this.

When the young man had left, and it was the hunter’s turn, he said to me, in a disparaging voice, “Vegan weenies.” Then, to clarify, he said, “The food. Not the guy.” He then laughed, and further clarified, “Well, maybe the guy too, who knows.”

I’m always game for a conversation, so of course I thought to build on this little observation and see where it led to. I asked him, “You’re not a vegan, I take it?”

He laughed to himself again, and jerked a thumb towards the parking lot. “I have a deer out back there in my truck right now. Shot it myself earlier today. It’s just…”

“It’s just what?” I asked, while I swiped his hamburger buns and Tylenol across the scanner, heard them beep, and then put each into the reusable bag.

The hunter laughed to himself. “Don’t worry about it, I’m just being an asshole,” he said.

People like this always make for the best conversation, so I had to press him to keep talking. I said, “No way, tell me. It’s just what? I’m a bit of a hunter myself, you know.”

The hunter smiled; then hesitated, thinking better of it.; then shrugged, and simply said, “It’s the natural order.”

“Tofu is the natural order?”

He laughed. “Life eating life. My dad used to tell me… I mean, he was old school, but you know, not all of that is bunk, right? He used to tell me, ‘Boy, any animal who isn’t willing to kill, it don’t deserve to be alive in t’ first place.’ And I dunno… You ever stop to think about that?”

I thought to myself, what a wonderful person to have wandered in to the store to come and talk to me. It was like it was fate or something. You understand, right? How hard it is to find somebody who you can talk to about things like this without it getting really awkward?

“Do I ever think about that… let me see… sometimes,” I said with a sly grin. “You tend to agree with him, then?”

“I mean, what’s there to say? Those scientists, you know what, they keep finding out that even those little wee spiders feel pain; when you have ‘em stuck in those glue traps for days, and they’re drying out… it’s misery. That’s what I read. Also, they keep finding out how plants feel pain. Man. Mowing the lawn—imagine the carnage. From the grass’ point of view.”

I imagined a field of semi-sentient green strands perking straight up, unable to get out of the way while mechanical blades swung and ripped through them one after another, sucking the tops of their bodies up into the darkness, and this repeating hundreds and hundreds of times, while the whole field screamed.

“That’s a heck of a thought,” I admitted.

“But you know… I’m not going to stop mowing my lawn.”

“I like that expression,” I said, smiling. “I’m not going to stop mowing my lawn.”

“That’s right.” The hunter shrugged again. “I mean, my pa was right, wasn’t he? If you aren’t willing to kill, you had best just die because otherwise you’re in a bit of a tricky situation to figure out.”

I frowned while I slid the cheese whiz across the scanner twice until I heard a beep.

“I am not convinced that’s right,” I said. I lifted a finger and pointed it at him, then continued, “I can prove it, too.”

“Oh? You can prove it, huh? Let’s hear it,” the hunter said, seeming sincerely interested.

“What about babies? Should we go throw all the babies off cliffs just because they don’t have a killer instinct?”

“Well, no, babies are fine. Throwing em off cliffs, that’s old school evil. Homeric.”

I swiped the last of his items past, a can of ground coffee, while my hand went up to play with the red stone necklace I was wearing, and I thought about my first kills.

“I’m just saying,” I finally continued, “it’s not as natural as you think. I think you have to learn to kill. There’s a cultural component to it. It’s not automatic, it’s more like a tradition that gets passed on to you once you’re old enough. Until then, you might not even know how things work, right? Until then, it’s not like you deserve to die. You’re just a pup. Plenty of people never totally grow up in that way, too—most people, I’d say.”

My manager walked past at that point, and she gave me ‘the look’ as she heard me talking to the hunter about these things while a short line was forming behind him. I think I paled a tiny bit while simultaneously almost chuckling at how awkward that must have appeared.

“Maybe this isn’t a workplace conversation,” I admitted.

He paid for his groceries by tapping a thin, plastic card against the debit machine, and I gathered his bags together. We weren’t still offering free bags, nobody was at that point.

Before he left, he turned, and said, “You’re only half wrong. Name’s Joseph, by the way.”

I reached out my hand and we shook. “I’m Lisa,” I said, smiling.

He asked me for my number.

After that… you know what happened after that. It was all over the news.

The main thing to me however is how nice of a friendship it was growing into. While it lasted.

His perspective was a bit simple, it’s true, but he basically had the right way of looking at things and I felt like we could have some real conversations together. He had this old school way of looking at things, and lived life in a way that was closer to how our ancestors did, except he did so without ending up becoming some weirdo in the woods who couldn’t cope with modern society. A functional adult, not Ted Kaczynski. For better or worse.

One night, I had meant to prove to him that killing is a learned thing, although admittedly, it was something that most creatures learned accidentally or by necessity at some point—but still: humans barely count as the ‘natural-born killers’ that we like to claim we are.

I was about to show him the proof, in full vivid detail, but he stopped me, and he just laughed and smoked one of his gross unfiltered cigarettes and talked about his instincts guiding him through the world.

As if. It was pulp fiction paperbacks, old movies, and adventure documentaries that guided him through his world; not some kind of internal compass called his ‘instincts.’ I adored him for it, but that doesn’t mean he was right.

The thing is, we mostly kill, truth be told, accidentally, while blundering about trying to do something unrelated to killing. As a species, I mean. Scraping coral reefs with fishing nets, for example.

Real killing is something you have to learn to do. When you get the blood on your hands, and it’s sticky, and it gets on your shirt, and you notice a tiny red streak on your chin in the mirror because you touched your face without even knowing, and you have to clean up after yourself, and process the carcass, and then go to work the next day like you’re an ordinary person… even when you’re not… it’s different. You are taking ownership of your actions. You are acting as a mature, educated adult. Somebody who has embraced ‘the natural order’ and has become at peace with it.

He was a stubborn son of a bitch. Hah. Probably still is.

I remember sitting, back then, in my basement, dug out over the last couple of years and full of those wonderful insects squirming under all those tarps, thinking about all of this while I finally decided that… this guy might actually be real. Like me. Not a real hunter in the way I was, but maybe a real human being; perhaps something close enough to what I was that I could feel kinship with him.

And I decided that I wasn’t going to cut him open and watch him bleed.

I decided that possibly I had finally gained a friend.

I’m glad he didn’t see them take me away. I knew there was nothing wrong with the things I did, but… I wouldn’t want to have seen his face when he finally realized what I really was. The poor tough guy would have turned green and been afraid, and I would rather not see him like that.

He was there in the Co-Op, at the other end of the store shopping for some eggs and cheese, when all those officers came to arrest me. Out of sight. I went quietly. It was fine.

I’ll get out one day. Maybe then we can resume our argument, and because I’ve really already won, he’ll have to admit it, and we’ll have a laugh about the whole thing.

Real killers are cultivated beings. It’s not a birthright. It takes a lot of work.

Copyright Nathan Schuetz, all rights reserved

Share

Subscribe now

Pardon my inconsistent posting. There was a death in the family. I wasn’t up to writing something new (it was going to be about the Howls from the Wreckage kickstarter, which is really cool), so I’m posting a short story I wrote a few months ago instead.

The story is basically me experimenting with “voice” and implied horror. I’m fond of it, but it’s definitely not perfect. I hope you enjoyed it regardless.

It honestly felt really good to move something from my “in progress / editing” list to my “finished / published” list.

If you liked this, remember that likes and subs are lovely things!

(Style is a big deal. Even Virginia Woolf agrees)

Barbarian Grunge

Virginia Woolf, on Rhythm

Looking to improve your writing? This is from a series of posts on rhythm in fiction. The first post is here. Virginia Woolf, in a letter to a friend (at least, so I’m told) Style is a very simple matter; it is all rhythm. Once you get that, you can't use the wrong words. But on the other hand, here I am sitting after half the morning, crammed with ideas…

Read more

4 years ago · Nathan Schuetz

The Fabulous Cat

The cat climbed up the tree at dusk and, yawning wide her mouth, she showed such fangs as would terrorize a clown at midnight.

Circus freaks and fugitive dentists altogether live a gleeful life, and this was a cat who lived that life. She had come from far away, from Edmonton, and settled here to enjoy the very clown-like hustle and the dentist-like bustle of a life filled daily with sheafs of cotton candy and lines of children holding drooping pizza, spilling pepperoni and pineapples onto the sidewalk to the glee of dogs and ants who felt like kings. How it was she had become a member of this troop—this is a story for another time. But she was a fabulous cat.

This cat, yes, this cat was named Orion and her speckled mind, so old and wise, was as vast and chilling, and sometimes even as joyful, as the cosmos itself—which is to say, a swirly mess with whirling colours and a dark centre filled with who knows what, and the only order to be found was what a bearded physicist with hair to his knees and a handful of centuries could find.

What was she up to this night? Timidly and then faster, faster, she walked then dashed along the branch above the fence and—whoosh!—she sailed through the sky, past the window of a family bewitched and bedazzled by their tv, and then—she tucked and caught herself, nestling against the window and listened and watched.

Beyond the pane the family sat arranged in a half moon, and speaking to them was a man in a white coat shaking a tool at them, beckoning, pleading, BUY NOW, this deal CANNOT last, your TEETH will thank you, your SMILE will thank you, and up he raised this tool and pressed the button and it buzzed and squirted out a stream of sudsy liquid, splattering onto a giant statue of teeth sitting before the faces of people in the audience who sat in rapt joy at what he was saying, rapt at watching this strange sudsy liquid drip from stone gums and painted lips, their faces like those just baptized. This man on the television was a great priest of the dentists, a man to be feared but whom none could oppose.

With the family transfixed, the cat pressed the window, and budged, and wiggled, and squeezed, and then her nose was through, and then her neck, and then she nudged the pane up just a little more, and she was inside. Quiet like all cats except the ridiculous (yet charismatic) Turkish Vans, she crept along the baseboards past a baseball and a badminton racquet and some birdies covered in cobwebs and dust (to the glee of the spiders), and up the carpeted steps covered with race cars and socks, climbing them one at a time until she came upstairs to the little boy’s room and slipped inside like a thief in the night. Inside the boy lay sleeping, the room lit only by the moon and by an object in the corner, and for Orion, this was as good as all the light in the world.

What was in this boy’s room, she wondered? He lay upon a bed in the shape of a rocket whose nose pointed at the window to the stars beyond. Opposite this vessel was a grey desk, a temple, and on this temple sat a minor god in the form of a glowing black rectangle that cast light even though it was black. These computers, she had learned, could take more than a little boy’s teeth—they could take their minds and souls as well, and for that reason, Orion feared the god. Other objects included roller skates, and storybooks, and folded clothes, and baseball caps, and plastic guns in all their painted splendour.

Orion climbed upon the rocket bed and stepped, silently, carefully, towards the boy. His mouth hung open a crack, a spittle of drool hanging like a teardrop of ice cream dripping down the side of a cone. The cat reached forwards and lifted the boy's lips, ever so slightly, a millimetre at a time, and as the boy’s hot breath that smelled of hotdogs moistened the cat’s face, she eventually saw what she needed to see. No dentist or clown or babysitter had yet taken this boy’s teeth. But there was a hiccup with tonight’s plan, the likes of which drove uncertainty and hesitation deep into the feline’s heart. The boy was too young to lose his teeth.

Long had it been the way of the dentists and the clowns who used funny gas to help remove teeth to never take the pearly, food-encrusted treasures from those who were still pure at heart. The entire institution of the tooth fairy, grand as you know, was built on a pedestal of trust, and like engineers and accountants, the first rule of their professions was to do nothing to harm the public’s faith in the profession. There had been many a clown who, thinking it would be funny, would take a tooth from a boy and swap it with a tooth from a girl, and watch through the windows while hiding behind skeletal bushes in autumn as the children tried to tell their parents that their teeth were wrong. The parents would always refuse to listen. Such clowns had been barred from practice for years now, but some hushed rumours said that they still lurked in the forests, offering two-for-one root canals to those who still believed in them.

The cat swore, using words that only cats know, and pulled her furry paw from the boy’s face, watching the upper lip fall downwards and smack against the bottom lip with a moist slap. She was an honourable cat that would never take the teeth of one who was not ready, and for this, she was held in high regard amongst her peerless peers. She licked the spittle from his mouth as an added kindness, savouring the salt and the residue of mustard, and left the room, a fabulous saint amongst cats.

It is frustrating to be a cat burglar dentist, lurking to and fro, trying to time home invasions with the ebb and flow of teeth and human moral development, which peaked at a young age and then began its decline in pace with the children’s teeth beginning to fall out. Satisfying work though it was, she wondered sometimes… what did the clowns want with the teeth anyway? And why did they no longer wait until the teeth fell out naturally before claiming them, as was once the tradition long ago (the pearly days, they were called)? Back then, a child would put their fallen teeth under their pillow—much easier work to retrieve those than to retrieve teeth from a mouth. But oh well. At least they used laughing gas for it now, instead of the fear gas from the medieval period.

The End.

More fiction (considerably less silly):

Barbarian Grunge

Yellow Eyes — A Halloween Story

Slater grinned and said, “I’m down if we’re playing witches and gremlins or whatever. I love that stuff. Let’s break out some Ouija boards; get weird. I’m ready.” Slater then waited for a reaction, either from his nerdy cousin Max (who was being rather intense), or from either of his other cousins, Maron or Samantha. After getting none, he shrugged, then…

Read more

3 years ago · Nathan Schuetz

Welcome to Barbarian Grunge. I’m supposed to put a “call to action” here, in which I ask you to like and subscribe. Apparently, some people feel warm and fuzzy about making writers smile?

Share

All rights reserved. Permission is not granted for using this to train an ai

Share

Slater grinned and said, “I’m down if we’re playing witches and gremlins or whatever. I love that stuff. Let’s break out some Ouija boards; get weird. I’m ready.”

Slater then waited for a reaction, either from his nerdy cousin Max (who was being rather intense), or from either of his other cousins, Maron or Samantha. After getting none, he shrugged, then shifted Dandelion in his arms and scratched under the orange cat’s chin while it purred.

“No? In that case, I don’t really get what’s going on here,” Slater began, addressing Max. “I get that you’re mad, but you’re being a little crazy. We could have this discussion without you threatening us all with your invisible friend for one.”

Slater looked around the room, trying to find somebody to agree with him. Nobody spoke up.

He stood in the kitchen near the cabin’s entrance and the bedrooms. The others were in a living room of sorts, which was positioned a step-down from the kitchen and without a wall separating the two areas.

The living room had a large fireplace, and in front of that rested a glass coffee table, which was covered with strange objects that Slater didn’t recognize. Around this table, a few leather couches were arranged in a circle.

There were also sliding glass doors leading outside, which were being pelted by rain. The dark room was lit only by candles, firelight, and the occasional flash of lightning.

Slater tried again: “Okay, all at once. Say it with me. Your invisible friend isn’t real. Someone? He’s having a breakdown, he needs help. Look, let’s turn the lights back on. Let’s make some food. Let’s talk about this.”

Slater still got no reply. He began to pace, looking over the scene before him with a mix of humour and worry.

Somehow, Max Robert had the other cousins cowering in the living room while he stood in front of the fireplace, lording over them as if he had guns to their heads. They all looked haggard. Even Sam, the badass who used to be in the army, was looking down at her feet and shaking. And yet… there was no weapon or other visible cause for their worry.

Slater continued to pace, trying to work out what to say next. While he did, the room lit up with a flash of lightning, and he paused to wait for the thunder, listening to the rain pitter-patter on the windows until…

The world rumbled.

That was pretty close.

Dandelion stopped purring for just a moment, but then resumed.

Slater saw something move outside the window. He dismissed it: probably just a tree branch blowing in the wind.

What had happened was this:

The group of them were all cousins — “The Ginger Club,” they called themselves, due to them all having orange hair. They had arranged to spend Halloween together in a nifty log cabin on a hill overlooking a lake, spending the night telling spooky stories and drinking. To this end, Slater had ducked out to visit the liquor store in the nearby town.

When Slater got back from this trip (and had picked up his meowing cat), he came upon this unusual scene.

The really weird and scary part of this wasn’t exactly the nonsense that Max had said, although that had indeed been weird…

What Max had explained, matter-of-factly, was that he had summoned an entity. He said that this entity had left for the moment, but it would return soon. If it got back, and it didn’t have an offering – something to eat – then it would likely kill them all. Then he said that the offering should probably be Dandelion.

The weird and scary part was this: Slater concluded that his cousin Max, caught up in self loathing, was coming unhinged and was scaring everybody with how unstable he was. Slater didn’t believe in demons. But he did believe in the frailty of his pushover cousin’s self-esteem.

Slater was not aware of the yellow eyes that watched the cabin from among the wet trees outside the window.

Maron finally looked up at Slater and glared into his eyes, her face contorted with anger. She said, “Give him the stupid cat.”

Slater was incredulous that she was buying into this, and replied, “No, I don’t think that’s quite how this will work. Dandelion may be a bit old, and a little senile, but he’s a good kitty. Aren’t you boy? He’s going to stay here with me. We can keep talking this out, though.”

Maron stood. She took a deep breath and marched over to Slater, eyes red from crying earlier but bulging with anger now. “I…” she tried, then she bit her lip. After a moment, unbelievably, she yelled, “It’s not bullshit! That thing he’s talking about is out there. We all saw it. If you don’t want to believe him, fine, he’s being ridiculous right now, but give me that cat.”

Slater looked at her at first uncomprehending, but then he realized what was going on.

“Holy crap,” Slater said.

“Holy crap is right,” Maron replied.

“This is a prank. You’re all in on it!” Slater exclaimed.

Maron stared dumbly.

The scene went silent for a moment until Max quietly said, “This isn’t ridiculous to me.”

Sam’s face contorted, as if she was trying to keep her mouth shut while she searched for the right words. “Didn’t you say it would come back and kill all of us? Doesn’t that include you?” she finally snapped.

“I don’t know. I think I’m fine with that, if it comes down to it. This is going to make it right between us, and as for afterwards, I haven’t thought about that much.”

Slater rolled his eyes and turned away, headed to the dark kitchen to check if there was any popcorn left. He noticed that there was no hum from the fridge, as if the power was out.

Everybody was being so dramatic. It was nuts!

“You worthless-” Sam began, staring at Max.

Slater turned back to look at the living room just as Sam began to speak. Then, suddenly, there was an explosion of breaking glass after Max hurled some object at the coffee table. Now, candles were laying on hardwood next to a scattering of tarot cards, weird arcane implements like bowls and wands and shining coins, as well as sharp glass triangles that glistened in the firelight. The table still stood, but the surface was destroyed. In the corner of the room, a baseball-sized black stone orb stopped rolling and came to a standstill, apparently unblemished.

Slater hadn’t noticed the strange items until now. For that matter, the candles were not emergency candles – they were thick, fancy items with a strange, oily smell to them. Max must have set it all out while Slater was away.

“Don’t call me worthless,” Max said quietly. “Don’t. Every time you all have to feel better about yourselves, or have to feel powerful, you turn on me. That’s not what’s happening tonight.”

Dandelion’s claws were digging into Slater’s shoulder. The loud noise had terrified the frail cat. Slater held him tightly.

Slater tried his best to restrain himself. “That glass could have cut somebody,” he managed quietly. “You’re expecting me to pay for that? This place is on my card. But go ahead, trash the freaking place!”

The liquor bottles Slater brought back not long ago were still in a plastic bag on a table nearby, thankfully unreachable by everybody. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath to steady himself.

Sam continued, “You want to talk so much about how we mistreated you, how we pushed you around, fine, but let's take a moment and also talk about all the nice things we did for you – stuff that obviously doesn’t count, because that would get in the way of your little sob story, and your tragic little pity party will have to end. Take some responsibility for what happens to you, because bad things happen to everybody, and that’s just part of life!”

“Don’t, just don’t!” Max retorted. “You are always going off about how much I owe you! I don’t owe you anything! You all treated me like crap, and now you’re all acting like it never affected me!”

Slater opened his mouth but stopped himself.

Sam continued, “That’s not an answer. I asked about the nice things we do for you. I’m talking about the – hey, listen to me! — I’m talking about the crap that every one of us has to put up with every day and how everyone — you, me, Maron, Slater, this freaking cat – we all just have to learn to take it! For years, I’ve had my own problems to deal with, including having to deal with your tantrums and complaints, but you don’t see me having a breakdown over it!”

Just then, Slater caught a hint of something outside one of the windows. He turned to look at it, and it looked for just a moment like…

No way.

“Yellow eyes,” he said.

The eyes blinked, then disappeared.

Sam, still seated in the living room, started to breathe heavily and Maron hurried over to sit next to her, her own breath coming out fast and laboured.

“Okay,” Slater began, “I didn't understand why you were all buying into this until now. That was a fancy trick. I can’t believe Max has somebody out there in that rain helping him prank you all.”

Just then, lightning flashed and lit up the cabin with white light; shortly afterwards, the world rumbled once again.

“This isn’t funny any more, though. This is getting messed up,” Slater said.

Nobody replied.

“Hey, if you’re all so scared, why don’t we just feed Max to it?” Slater suggested jokingly, but with an edge of nastiness as he tried to hide his growing tension over the situation.

Max glared, eyes shining in the candlelight. “You can give up that cat, or we can all sit here and wait. But I’m not going to get thrown under the bus again.”

Max had always been dramatic, but he’d never threatened anybody before. Tonight, he seemed capable of violence.

“What’s with the cat, man?” Slater asked. “What do you have against Dandelion? This guy’s as old as you are, almost. Why do you have to drag him into it? That’s what really freaks me out.”

“Remember the cliff jumping last summer?” Max asked, refusing to answer Slater’s question directly. He gestured at Sam and continued, “How you swore at those old people because you were trashed? Do you remember what you did when I pointed out the blue and red lights in the distance?”

Slater went cold. He had been there for that.

What happened was that Sam had put an open beer into Max’s hand and sent him on the trail to walk towards the cops. She sent him to distract them so that the others could pack up and go hide somewhere.

Admittedly, Slater had also urged him to do it.

“You used me as bait,” Max said.

Sam sneered, “You agreed to it! You didn’t have to do that!”

“What was I going to do, let all of you get records? Of course I did it. But I shouldn’t have.”

“You’re right, you shouldn’t have,” Sam agreed.

“But you guys didn’t even help me with my community service. Safe from all the possession charges, but me with my summer gone.”

Sam, her eyes red from crying, said, “For crying out loud, we -”

Max talked over her and said, “I think that, for once, one of you should find out what it’s like to get thrown under the bus. It doesn’t have to be the cat, I’m okay if you want to put a person out there. I wasn’t certain whether I would be or not, but I think… I mean, that would be fitting, wouldn’t it? Either way, tonight, somebody is going to pay the bill for everyone else, and it will not be me!”

Maron glared at Slater, her voice harsh, and she yelled, “He wants to feed Dandelion to that thing, and you’re going to give him up. I know you love him, but I’m not going to die for some stupid cat that probably doesn’t even have a year to live anyway!”

Why is everybody acting like this?!

Dandelion was scratching him now, trying frantically to get away, but Slater held him close.

“That’s insane, and no, we’re not doing that. There is no ‘thing’ out there.”

Sam glared at Max coldly. Mournfully.

She asked, “Max, are you sure you can’t stop that thing? There’s no other way?”

“There is no ‘thing’ out there!” Slater repeated.

“There is no other way,” Max replied.

Wet lines ran down Sam’s cheeks. “You asshole.”

Sam stood up and faced Max. She held out her arms helplessly. He shook his head. She took a deep breath.

Suddenly, there was a gasping or a choking sound. Slater hadn’t caught what exactly happened, but Max’s head hit the fireplace behind him, Sam’s hand pressed against his neck. Blood spurted out from his neck like a short squirt from a water pistol. Sam let him go, and he slid down to the ground, a bloody triangle of glass sticking out of his Adam’s apple.

Slater couldn’t breathe. He was so stunned that he dropped Dandelion, who scampered away to hide in one of the bedrooms.

Sam slid open the glass doors that led outside to the porch and the forest; she then took Max by the hair and dragged him outside into the darkness while he gasped and struggled.

There was blood all over the place.

Outside, there was the wet sound of something hitting something, and then Sam came inside.

It felt wet all of a sudden. Slater smelled something and looked down.

I just pissed my pants.

“Why did you do that?” Slater exclaimed. “Is — is he okay?”

Sam collapsed onto the floor and looked numbly at the ground, hands shaking.

“Why? Oh my god, Max -“

Slater began rushing towards the door, but then he froze.

Outside, he couldn’t see anything, but he could hear. He heard ripping and tearing and a wet gasping sound, and finally a deep, echoing, primal roar like something from myth, and he felt tiny, like prey, and he shook so badly that he fell to the ground, his legs too wobbly to support him. He couldn’t breathe.

Then he saw yellow eyes through the glass sliding door. They looked right at him, and he cried out.

Slater can’t remember clearly what happened next, except that they fled.

He had seen something, but he couldn’t bring himself to recall it.

He remembered running to grab Dandelion. He remembered the sound of breaking glass as something entered the cabin. Finally, he remembered running through trees and rain towards the car, and he remembered coming to his senses hours later in his car, having driven somewhere, the car at that moment being in a ditch on the side of a highway he didn’t recognize while a stream of cars rolled by.

His two cousins were with him. Maron was sobbing in Sam’s arms.

He remembered saying, “The bear. The bear got Max!”

And he remembered Maron saying, “It wasn’t a bear. You know what it was.”

He remembered blaming Sam for killing him, saying that they had imagined the part at the very end, and that there had never been any ‘thing’ out there at all. He insisted that they were all just doctoring their memories so that they wouldn’t have to face the truth — that Sam had killed their cousin. That Sam was a killer.

“Max didn’t die because of Sam,” Maron said, her voice cracking. “Leave her alone. Max died because he wanted to get revenge on us with his special Ouija board. And he thought we would just take it.”

Share

Subscribe now

Breathlessly, she begins, “I said once that Christian was a good Christian, and, I know how that sounds, it’s like I’m making fun of him, like I don’t believe in that stuff, haha - but I don’t know, I don’t think I ever came right out and said it’s all foo-fah, I just had some fun with it, but you should know that, even if I didn’t totally take it entirely seriously all the time, that Christian did. And part of that, as cheesy as it seems, is family; dedication to family, lecturing people about family, making time for family; for dinners; for church; for little outings, and I don’t think any of you realize, completely, what it would mean for him to just pick up and leave. And if you combine that with his weeeeird readings lately – you don’t understand how strange it is to have a man read you bible verses over dinner while you smile and nod, and then one day to have him come to dinner talking about witchcraft and rituals and – I’m sorry, I’m ranting. It’s just not him. Something is wrong, and I need to find out what, and find out how to help him, and bring him home! He should come home, right?”

Subscribe now

Share Barbarian Grunge

This teaser is for a novella called The Alienation and the Black Stones. Chapter 1 is here as a preview:

Barbarian Grunge

The Alienation and the Black Stones: Chapter 1

Part 1 Chapter 1 1.1 From above, a blue Honda Civic can be seen speeding along the winding highway. Yellow light casts across the scene almost horizontally, painting long shadows of the small car onto the sides of hills. Grass sways in the breeze and tall white wind turbines turn in the distance…

Read more

4 years ago · 1 like · Nathan Schuetz

If instead, you find writing about writing to be more your thing, check out

Barbarian Grunge

Rhythm in Pulpy Fiction, with Two Examples

You may have heard of Alan Moore, the grey-bearded anarchist magician best known for writing comics. You may have enjoyed a few of his stories: Watchmen, From Hell (the comic, not the unrelated movie), The Killing Joke, Swamp Thing, and V for Vendetta, to name a few…

Read more

4 years ago · 1 like · Nathan Schuetz

Note: In this interesting fantasy setting, designed by somebody else, you are either an elf, or you are a slave. A “kelari” is a high ranking slave used for dangerous, armed work.

Subscribe now

Jakob Smiles

A Backstory

(There is a discussion below)

My name is Jakob Smiles. The son of Nico Smiles. I know that you don’t know his name for if you did then you’d be crapping holes out back your pants. The cause of him not being known was his fine skill at subtle jobs, the sort you want to keep unknown - the knife at night, the absent treasure. My dad was Kelari, the pride of fey who like their pets and toys. He taught his boys well, and I was best among his litter.

But... fact be known, they sold him cheap, way back when I, a foolish son, provoked a bear-like beast and... dad was hurt defending me, never to recover fully. Regrettable. How could a boy do so much harm? Maplegarten’s creatures are cursed.

After that, they sent me far to Oakenwalk to ally with another crew to steal an Oath Sword. A suicide mission with me on point. Still, I did the risky deed and then came back to base to show my crew the spoils. A human took an elven sword! Yet... my ally from that other crew, Anja, a sorceress, revealed to us the sword was fake, was bait, a beacon to lead them to idiot thieves. Anja hid it from their scrying eyes and we escaped. Thank fey.

My lord was impressed with her, and bought her, paying quite the price. Our skills together deadly strong, our brand new crew then stole the cursed skull from Bantamlight and took the name ‘The Bantam Skulls.’ Later, we slew the cleric Raimond Cohen - even now the men of Swinehood cry out for our blood for this.

The deeds we did were ones that none thought sane to try, and so our lord assumed us brave. But fools are brave. We always felt so safe and sure like silly kids who knew no cares.

I wed that girl. Anja. She didn’t know any better.

After she and I were joined, I felt so light I dared to dream of life with her away from here where we could live without the yoke. A smart escape I planned, and she agreed. Hah. We failed to last a single night. At dawn they asked her who had planned it. She said she had. My world is still spinning like her head was after the blade fell.

You buy me cheap today, but woe to those who think the price is paid. I’m loyal, but I’m cursed. Yet... you probably need me.

Discussion

In a tabletop RPG, somebody called the ‘game master’ creates the world, decides what rules it will obey, fills this world with people, creates an interesting situation, and then runs a game using all of this for a table of ‘players.’

This is a rhythmic writing study to write a character backstory for such a game.

Rhythmic Writing?

The extremely short story takes an iambic rhythm and deliberately breaks it from time to time for effect.

An iambic rhythm is one that follows a pattern of da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM. The famous example is, “so FOUL and FAIR a DAY i HAVE not SEEN,” from Macbeth. This rhythm is said to resemble human speech a little, and so it feels somewhat natural in many cases. The problem is that it can become a little monotonous after a long enough stretch, and a break in a rhythm can be quite striking.

Specifically, I find these rhythm breaks are disorienting, and can be used to convey a feeling of disorientation. In fact, I found above that it was extremely disorienting - more than intended, which led to a lot of edits to tone things down. These rhythm breaks should perhaps be used only for effect and not for variety, and always deliberately. This is the main takeaway from this study.

Do let me know how you find it, I would love to know. Personally, I love how this piece turned out, although the first few lines are a bit vulgar, and there wasn’t room to elaborate on any details. My brain is turning about all the ways I can adjust things next time.

If you are trying to improve your writing, join me. Subscribe. Comment. Share. It’s quite the voyage and you shouldn’t have to go it alone.

Subscribe now

Share

This is part of a series of posts on rhythm in fiction. The first article is here:

Barbarian Grunge

Rhythm in Pulpy Fiction, with Two Examples

You may have heard of Alan Moore, the grey-bearded anarchist magician best known for writing comics. You may have enjoyed a few of his stories: Watchmen, From Hell (the comic, not the unrelated movie), The Killing Joke, Swamp Thing, and V for Vendetta, to name a few…

Read more

4 years ago · 1 like · Nathan

PS, thanks to Oleg ( the author of a slick short story named Pulling No Punch cards), for feedback on the style of a previous piece.

Chapter 1

1.1

From above, a blue Honda Civic can be seen speeding along the winding highway. Yellow light casts across the scene almost horizontally, painting long shadows of the small car onto the sides of hills. Grass sways in the breeze and tall white wind turbines turn in the distance.

The car is speeding, but from so high up it looks as if it is barely moving at all. It’s headlights automatically turn on as the sky dims. The car comes up on another car, honks, then swerves around and ahead of it.

1.2

In an unknown basement, somebody is sweeping wood dust off of a hardwood floor with a scratchy straw broom. Nearby, a power sander rests against the wall, still plugged in, bits of wood dust clinging to the side. Near to that is a faded blue bucket of water. There is one figure stirring the water inside with a stick, while another lowers themself into a crouch and sets down a yellow tray covered in jars. Yellow light streams through the window casting a glare of 4 small rectangles on the wall and floor.

The crouching figure squeezes and unscrews the lid from one jar, containing crushed ginger, and then another, containing wild rose buds. Both are gently poured into the faded plastic bucket, mixed with the spring water within.

After the floor, freshly sanded, is swept, the figure who stirs sets aside the stick and begins soaking linen cloths. They hand cloths to the others, and they set to scrubbing the floor clean on their hands and knees.

1.3

Inside the blue Honda, the air conditioning blows and it is chilly inside, but the driver’s clothes are damp with sweat. His hand grips the steering wheel tightly, knuckles a little white. His strained eyes blink, his head tilting to try to stay alert.

His foot hovers over the gas pedal. The car rounds a bend, and as he comes out of it, he presses down with his foot and sinks slightly into his seat as the car accelerates. As he comes to the next bend, he presses the breaks, takes the turn, and then accelerates again.

It’s probably too late. He tries to smile. His vision goes blurry, and his mouth opens into a contorted O. He can’t breathe, his chest heaves. He wipes his face - can’t let my contacts fall out – and tries to force a breath out. He pushes the emergency lights button on his dash. There is a tick, tick, tick, tick sound as he pulls the car to the side of the road onto the narrow shoulder, 2/3rds of the car on the grass, make sure other cars can pass.

Get a grip. He feels good, he’s got it under control. I’m over reacting. Deep breath. Everything will be fine. His breath catches in his chest. I just need to drive...

He sits there in his little car howling, sobbing, pulling his hair, trying his hardest to just breathe. There’s no point, I can’t do anything! It was too late yesterday. She’s gone! It’s my fault!

He checks his phone again, no reply from his text messages.

He glides the window down to get some air, trying his best to breathe, his finger on the button wet with tears as he waits for the window to finish lowering. Deep breath. Deep breath. He needs a tissue, he’s getting a headache, he needs water.

I don’t know what I’m going to do.

1.4

In the basement, there’s a new bucket. The figures are twisting open the lids of the other jars, and they in turn can smell lemon juice, pollen, earth, and rust. The final jar contains thick red liquid – the top has scabbed a little so the surface of this liquid is skimmed off and set aside on the tray, a tiny red pool collecting below it.

All the ingredients are gradually, bit by bit, poured into the new bucket, which already contains a strange smelling liquid, prepared the previous night, while one figure stirs it with a wooden stick.

A plastic bag sits next to the sander. A figure picks it up, tears it open, and takes out a bundle of fresh blue cloths and gives them to their companions. They do the same with a bag of rubber gloves. The 3 figures put on their gloves and dip their cloths into the mixture, and begin wiping it across the floor. It takes a little while, but it begins to soak into the wood, and the newly sanded and cleaned floor takes on a pleasant stained look.

After wetting the floor, they wipe it down with paper towels and plug in a large industrial fan. The floor dries very quickly. It would be best to leave it overnight, but it isn’t necessary for the stain to be perfect.

Subscribe now

1.5

The blue Honda turns off the highway and cruises down a long road, past the new-ish Walmart, past the traffic circle that confuses visitors, past the Tim Hortons with the wind-blocker in front of the door, past the Co-Op and the field that is always covered with gophers, and down the hill into town. A sign with a large 50 appears, and then a yellow sign blinking as it polls his speed and displays 65.

Kids play around here. I could hit a deer. He slows, but not for safety, but because he feels weak at the thought of what he will not find at home.

He pulls up to his house, recessed behind two leafy trees and at the end of an overgrown set of stepping stones from the garden centre last year. The sun is glaring in his rear view mirror and the streets are getting dark. The sky is big here. There are bundles of clouds spread as high and as far in every direction as he can see, dark masses with golden rims lit up brilliantly in the evening light as the horizon begins to turn orange.

Ignition off, keys pulled out, door open. He hears the leaves rustle. The street is empty of other cars. Christine’s car is already gone. She’s already gone.

He jogs up the stones to his front door, climbs the steps, fumbles with his keys but the door is unlocked, because nothing bad ever happens here.

The house inside is an open floor plan, with a kitchen and dining table right in front of him, eggshell white walls, and tasteful art hanging in picture frames all around. In one corner is a dog statue, a replica of the one from that old tv show, Friends.

“Christine?” he tries.

Shoes still on, he walks to the bedroom. His legs are sore from the long drive, his feet hot. Mostly his legs feel weak, they don’t want to take him there, it’s like he weighs a thousand pounds and he grips his hand into a fist and forceshimself forward. He pushes open the bedroom door, heart paused – the room is tidy, the bed is made, the laundry put away, but nobody is in it. He gasps, I knew it, I knew it.

He looks inside the bathroom. The guest bedroom. The freaking closets. He wanders to the stairs and heads down, the steps creaking and moaning under his weight. He looks in the laundry room, the second bathroom, the den, the furnace room, the other guest bedroom. The crawl space! He goes upstairs, his hand wandering to the light switch out of habit, and realizes, the lights aren’t on, I forgot to turn them on.

He walks to the dining room table and collapses into a chair.

He imagines all the times they made each other breakfast here. Complaining about work, about money, about politics. She makes really amazing poached eggs. I’m never going to eat poached eggs with her again.

Just then, the screen door squeaks open, the front door knob twists, and Christine steps into the house.

1.6

The chalk was made from local clay and small brittle coloured stones. It was gathered, dried, and then ground into a powder. The powder was added to water and left to sit until it separated. The coloured part was skimmed off, and was left once again to dry. The remains, once again, were ground into even finer powder, after which is became a useful pigment. A small amount of ground rose petals was added to the final mix for symbolic reasons.

The fan is clicked off and its whirl fades. The chalk is distributed into 3 bowls and each figure takes a delicate spoon and begins spreading the powder across the surface of the floor. It’s an intricate pattern.

1.7

“Thad,” Christine says, and looks at him strangely. She watches him sideways as she walks around him at the table. He turns to face her, tries to speak, fails. She walks into the bedroom. He follows and sees her go into the closet and pull down a piece of luggage. It’s heavy, and she pulls it behind her, rolling along the floor.

She hasn’t left!

She’s packed.

I know how this ends.

“Need a hand with that?” he asks, folding his arms, face trying to smile but failing.

She smiles politely, and walks past him to the guest bedroom.

“I mean, you going somewhere?” Thad asks, trying not to sound... too harsh.

“Don’t worry about me,” she says, stops, rests the luggage on the ground, and puts her hands on his shoulders. “Everything is going to be just fine. How was your trip by the way?” She takes the luggage by the handle and walks towards the door, not looking at him.

“You want to know about my trip?” Thad asks, incredulous. “It was fantastic. Best fucking trip of my life.”

“Don’t swear,” she says, not looking at him. “It’s low class.”

“This is really happening? I didn’t believe it. I knew this was going to happen, but why?”

Christine smiles. “You’re not making any sense. You need to stop and try to think clearly. Excuse me.”

“You’re not right in your head,” Thad states. “You can’t go.”

Christine frowns. “I’m right in my head. You can’t talk to me like that.”

I didn’t mean it like that. Or... no, I did. This time, for the first time ever, I did mean it like that.

“I know what’s happening. You’re not yourself right now. Come on, stop, listen to me. You’re... being controlled by something!”

Thad grabs her arm to stop her from leaving. Her eyes flash wide briefly and for a second Thad worries he’s scared her, but her eyes narrow.

She takes his hand with hers and lifts it off hers, and twitches, staggering back. Then she stares into his eyes. It’s like she’s staring at a stranger. Like somebody she’s never seen before just grabbed at her. “Hands off.”

I’m reading too much into this. Is this really happening?

“Where’s the necklace I gave you?” Thad asks.

“I’m wearing it. Excuse me,” she leans past him to grab a bag hanging off the back of a chair.

“Give it to me. Please. I need it right now,” Thad says.

“This lovely necklace is mine,” she says, and turns to leave.

Thad panics. She is his entire world. He knows she is gone, knows why she’s gone, knows it’s somehow his fault, but she’s right here.

It isn’t just that – he doesn’t know where she’s going. It’s not safe to let her go. Maybe if I can -

Thad grabs her shoulder, pulls, spins her around, and grabs at her neck, feeling for the necklace, finds the chain, then closes his fingers around it. He catches a glimpse of the shiny, carved black stone that dangles from it and a shiver runs down his spine. She reaches up and grabs it as well, her other hand pries at his.

“This necklace – you won’t believe me,” he cries.

“Get your hands off me, what gives you the right-”

“Give me the necklace, it’s – it’s poison, it’s poisoning you!”

“Take your hands off me or I’m calling the police!”

Thad has never been in a fight before. When she punches him in the nose, he sees it coming and doesn’t even recognize what it means. He staggers backwards, confused, and then suddenly the pain hits him, and his face is hot and wet.

“What-” he begins.

She cries out, then steps forward and hits him again. He stumbles backwards, tripping over the chair he was sitting at, falling partially on the table. The chair slides out from under him and he slumps to the ground. He reaches up to steady himself but is too stunned, he can’t even process what is happening.

He can’t see through his tears. He can hear Christine cry, breathe heavily, and stumble backwards.

“Don’t ever touch me!” she exclaims.

She exhales like she’s in pain. Thad plants his hand, pushes himself up to a sit, wipes the tears from his eyes. She’s holding her hand like she hurt it.

Boxers fracture?

“You need to put a brace on that.”

She glares viciously and fearfully at him. He stays down. There’s something wet and sticky on his shirt.

“Christine... do you remember who I am?”

“Of course I remember!”

“Why are you going!?” Thad cries. “Do you even know?”

She glares at him. “The fact you would ask somebody that shows that you have zero respect for them.”

“You made me poached eggs a few days ago. It was one of the nicest mornings we’ve ever had. We are close. You’re forgetting, but it’s true. We have never been closer. You’re being controlled, you’re not yourself”

She scowls at him, turns, pulls open the door, and steps outside. Thad stumbles to his feet and tries to rush out after her.

I sound like a fucking psycho, a wife abuser. Jesus, what do I do? It’s like she’s being kidnapped, and I can’t do anything about it!

1.8

Thad didn’t notice a car pull up while they were inside. It idles at the curb behind his car, engine purring. It’s Christine’s car but somebody else is at the wheel. The lights are on, casting Christine’s shadow down the lawn, blinding him.

“Who is that?” Thad asks. He ambles towards the car, stumbles from some pain in his side, then arrives at the side of the car and looks inside.

“Christian...?!”

Thad goes cold. His hands shake. His legs wobble.

“Hi... do I know you?” Christian asks.

“Christine, stay here. Come on. Christian’s not himself, it’s not safe,” Thad tries.

“He walked out on his wife, just like you’re walking out on me. You’re both being affected by something, I’ve seen it. You have to believe me... Why don’t you believe me?”

Christine looks at him blankly, without any emotion at all, and asks, “Why would I believe you?”

She opens the car door. Thad pushes it shut. Christian switches off the ignition and steps out of the car.

1.9

Sitting in a little circle around the sigil marked on the floorboards, the three figures recite old words in tune with one another, long passages in a language that nobody speaks anymore from an old one-of-a-kind book. At the centre of the circle is a little basket full of black stones.

1.10

Christian places himself between Thad and Christine. He’s wearing a polo shirt. He works out and has thick arms. His physical presence makes Thad feel unsafe.

“1s there a reason you think you can tell people what to do?” Christian demands.

“Christian, don’t,” Christine says. “I don’t want you to get get hurt.”

She doesn’t want HIM to get hurt?

Thad steps backwards. Christine walks around the car, gets into the driver seat. Christian opens the passenger door and climbs in.

“Send me a post card?” Thad waves his arms about. “Bring me back a souvenir? A t-shirt that says ‘I loved my husband, but forgot and went missing’? You don’t even know him!”

She briefly looks confused, but then frowns. She takes the car out of park.

“I love you! You’re like air! I don’t know what I’ll do without you. Please, please, please stay!” He pleads. “Just listen to me, I can explain everything. It’s a disease or something, it’s affecting people all over here. It’s – please stop!”

Christine shifts the car forward a couple of inches.

He suddenly understands how Carla felt.

Thad continues, ”It’s crazy, I know! I don’t know what I will do without you, I can’t do it, what if something happens to you?! You’re not yourself. I can’t handle it. Take me with you!”

“Right now, you do feel like a stranger. I’m leaving. It’s time,” Christine says.

The car pulls away, and Thad collapses onto the grass, trying to breathe.

Thad doesn’t know it, but he suspects it: that’s the last he will ever see or hear from his wife.

1.12

At the centre of the circle, the little basket of black stones is carefully removed, these new stones now ready for use.

1.13

From above, a small black car pulls out from under a tree, away from a curb, and drives down the street to a stop sign. It’s headlights cast a cone of light into the late evening street, lighting up a stop sign as the day’s light almost completely fades. The sky is dim, approaching black. The car turns and heads out of town, unhurriedly, leisurely.

Subscribe now

Chapter 2 is here:

Barbarian Grunge

The Alienation and the Black Stones: Chapter 2

Miss chapter 1? You don’t need to read it, but if you would like to, here’s a link: Chapter 1. Part 2: The Investigation Chapter 2 Clarissa, a few days earlier 2.1 On the highway, surrounded by grassy fields with a view of the mountains, is a little diner. It has grey bricks, scuffed white trimmed windows, a white door, and a torn, faded green awning that sa…

Read more

4 years ago · Nathan

Share

Dear reader:

If you happen to have the time, it would be very kind of you to write a comment and let me know what you think of this story. It’s hard to judge things that I am too close to and I would appreciate your feedback quite a lot

Leave a comment