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WHERE THE DEAD SPEAK: The third hallucination...



The Joker & The Thief: 1987 PART I Kabe Turner’s tired eyes explored the bright blue sky as he strolled along the supple pathway of Lincoln Park Hills.

Tiny gusts of wind grazed the tips of his hair on the back of his ears creating small goose bumps on the nap of his neck and along his forearms.

Clouds slowly drifted through the sky withdrawing gray trails.

The tree branches swayed with the wind dropping off remaining leaves and acorns to the earth.

The grass color had withered fair from the late fall season. Kabe pushed his hands deeper into his loosely fitted blue jean pockets, almost to his elbows.

His yellow shirt was unbuttoned all the way revealing his naked, hairless chest.

Two squirrels caught his attention as he watched them chase each other down the slopes of ol’ “Nut Cracker” hill.

It was reminiscent of his teen years, sledding with his friends, down the steep sloped hills, many winters ago.

More thumping sounds of acorns descending to the earth occaonally fell upon Kabe’s stroll.

The orange leaves crushed underneath his converse as he diverted his walk off the pavement along the dry grass in the direction of the frolicking squirrels.

His knees began to ache well before reaching the bottom of the hill.

Kabe continued across an open field where he used to play neighborhood football as a kid, the recollections brought a smile to his face.

“Flowerpot field” he and his friends called it; sometimes they would play four on four or even as many as eleven on eleven, depending on how well the word got around during the school day.

Kabe was twenty-four years old; stood around five-x give or take an inch, with a slight build, weighing about a buck fifty or so.

After he graduated, he found it all too real that he had been stuck here in the Quad Cities area and probably always would be.

Most of his neighborhood friends had moved away from the area.

Off to bigger better things, I guess.

Kabe thought to himself.

He and his family were amongst the lower class and it bothered Kabe, he learned at a young age that anything he wanted had to be achieved independently.

He was just running slow getting there. He tried to block his envy at times hearing about his friends’ parents helping them get cars and places to live.

Also immature for letting something that frivolous, waste his mental energy.

Still he firmly believed that in the long run, earning everything himself was the best thing to do, he would enjoy those things so much more.

Never taking anything for granted.

The depreson came from his Mom’s de and he had a mild battle with it from time to time.

It was not overwhelming to him though; he was strong-minded, and very high-spirited, always ready for any challenge that may lie ahead. Approaching the end of flowerpot field he came across Alleman Street, a meandering road that encircled the entire park.

He glanced both ways searching for oncoming traffic.

Something his father had always taught him to do.

Noticing nothing, he swiftly jogged across towards a wooden stairway leading down in between the outer edges of the remaining woods at the tail end of Lincoln Park trails. The dilapidated stairway creaked with every gradual step he took down it.

He had a vague memory of when the city first constructed the stairway, when it was placed there at the top of a hill by the home of an old friend of his when he was only eight.

Christian Neubauer had once lived in the gray house along the road at the bottom of the old decomposed stairway.

That friend was gone now too.

Christian moved away to Colorado Springs last Kabe had known and he had not heard from him in years. It took almost five full leaps to get down the stairway, fearing them to fall apart if too much weight had been placed on them.

He jogged until he came across his old friend’s house where he slowed a bit and gazed at the place he had stayed many nights throughout junior high school. His feet slid across the gravel road kicking around tiny rocks, dust cast into the air as fast as it evaporated away with every swooping step.

The house was now blue with a large deck built onto it.

Kabe could remember when the house was half-yellow and tan.

He always thought it was an ill-looking color, until now; there was no deck at that time either, just a broken down rusty basketball rim barley bolted above the garage door.

After pasng his old friends house, Kabe began jogging downhill again, the graveled road turned to pavement at the bottom of the street.

The memories from his past saddened him some, nearly caung him to tear up, especially the bittersweet ones.

Kabe reached into his upper shirt pocket pulling out a shriveled pack of Marlboro lights.

He immediately lit up a wrinkled cigarette and inhaled heavily.

As he exhaled the smoke, he coughed a little, grabbing his bare chest.

He had smoked for nearly two years now, and he began to feel the effects with every puff.

He looked up at the green street gn Seventh Avenue it read, a one-way street heading east.

The day had grown dark; the frigid night air hastily blew itself against Kabe’s body caung him to finally button up his shirt.

I knew I should have brought a fucking jacket with me, damn it.

Kabe thought to himself.

He flicked the cigarette from his fingers towards the oncoming traffic, after he felt the burn of the cherry on his fingertips.

He could feel the exertion on his legs with each step he took, as he had walked almost three miles from his house to vit his only friend left in the small town of Rock Island. He stood relaxed on the corner of Forty-Fourth Street, on the border between Rock Island and Moline.

Looking to the far west, peering down the road around five blocks or so, he could see the haze of Augie Bridge that crossed from the library over to Augustus College.

With leisured aspiration he reached back into his shirt pocket to pull out yet another cigarette, his fifth or xth, he had lost count.

The nic fit had to be suppressed.

At the edge of the dewalk he lit up his cigarette and waited for the traffic to clear up so he could cross.

He hetated to look to his right, finally retreating and doing so.

Towards the east de, lil’ Mexico, he and his friends called it.

He would dare not venture to far to the east alone without chance of averons.

After two minutes, the traffic light finally turned red clearing the road for him to cross.

Reaching the other de he walked to the closest set of cement steps and sat down to smoke the rest of his cigarette.

He looked up into the fair night sky and could distinguish the stars.

The steps by which he sat, lead to a house that looked to be abandoned; it was dark with broken boarded up windows and a large cerise door that was barely hanging on its hinges.

The house was an unpleasant lime-color with discolored stains that looked like it had been egged about a hundred times. Kabe push himself up off the stairs and walked up to what was left of the hanging door, he twisted the knob to see if it was locked.

The door loosened and shuttered as he pulled on it, it was locked.

He could probably rip it clean open if he nudged a little harder.

He looked around to see if anyone had been watching him.

The house on the left of him turned its porch light on, which intimidated him enough to wonder if the cops may had already been called.

You never know with these people around here, some stranger walking around a vacant home, especially next door to their house. Kabe regained his thoughts and walked away from the house.

He did not know what it was that made him walk up to the door, but it was almost like something had made him do it.

He extinguished his cigarette under his shoes at the top of the cement steps.

He was only about three blocks from Omar Redding’s house so he quickly hit the dewalk and began to run.

Runnin and smokin don’t mix, Kabe pondered.The night breeze picked up a bit lowering the temp a few degrees.

He covered his ears with his palms to keep them from the cold wind.

His long brown hair blew awry in the wind while he slowed down to a power walk.

Seventh Avenue Road had a moderate flow of traffic, the houses were vastly moving by on the right of him, until he finally slowed down to a walk again.

He had to catch his breath; the cigarette smoke had taken a toll on his lungs.

Finally, Kabe reached his friend Omar’s house; it was made of sullied mahogany shingles that had been busted up over the years.

There was no door attached to the hinges on the porch entranceway; free to anyone who could walk right in.

Although, there was a sturdy door inde the porch, to put a hold on any unwanted guests that happened to frequent the neighborhood area often.

He walked onto the porch where he could smell awful deteriorating trash that had sat on the floor next to the dense panel walls, which had a ngle coat of green paint on them.

He kicked some of the trash away from the door so he could reach it.

Presng his hands together he blew his breath into them so they would warm.

Kabe shifted the hair out of his eyes and gave four thudding knocks.

They had met in the direst of circumstances over by the sylvan slough, a place he went fishing alone all the time when he was younger.

It was after one of his full day’s worth of fishing without a ngle bite; he was sluggishly walking across the bridge minding his own when he had wondered upon three kids holding up a fourth.

Some black kid was being held up against the immediate edge of a small bridge.

The kid was crying and pleading for them to let him go, but they continued to ridicule him, spitting at his face numerous times. “Hey Willie,” the Mexican kid said.

“I say we throw him over man.”

A medium built white kid with a red scar that ran from the middle de of his neck down beneath his haggard shirt, punched the black kid on the de of his head almost instantly caung it to swell.

The oldest looking one was smoking a cigarette; Kabe figured that must have been Willie.

He abruptly approached the group of three; rendering what Willie was about to do with the cigarette, he knew he had to interrupt him somehow. “Hey guys, what are you doing?”

Kabe said swallowing his fear from being out numbered.

“You gonna throw this fucker over the edge?” “What’s it to ya!”

Willie snapped back, holding the lit cigarette closed to the strange kids swelling eye.

Kabe was quick tempered to anybody with a smart-ass attitude even if they were bigger and maybe even older than he.

He stared straight back at Willie never paying attention to the other two boys standing next to him. “Hey Willie, or whoever you are, why don’t you take that cigarette and shove it up your ass, along with your mom’s vibrator!”

He had completely lost his mind.

Willie was nearly twice his ze.

He wore a torn up blue jean jacket hung open revealing a white shirt, stained with what looked like beer or maybe even piss.

Who knew coming from this guy.

He had long shaggy brown hair with acne that filled the cheeks of his face.

When he smiled, Kabe could see the abundance of cavities that had eaten at the poor kids teeth.

He could only imagine what his home life must be like.

There was a chain going from the front of his pants around to the back pocket holding his wallet.

His blue jeans were ripped along the kneecaps revealing his hairy tree stumped legs.

Kabe pulled out his carving knife from the back of his pocket, flinging it out without hetation towards the throat of the giant kid in front of him.

All Willie did was smile uncovering even more decaying teeth that filled his mouth, his breath shot straight up Kabe nose caung him to hold back his vomit from the utmost smell of whatever Willie had eaten for supper.

Kabe’s tackle box crashed to the ground spilling out most of his lures and fishhooks.

His fishing pole lay suspended over the bridge bowing up and down, nearly falling into the Missppi below.Everything had happened in a split second, Kabe could not even begin to ascertain the fact, that on his everyday ordinary walk back to his house, he would end up holding a knife towards someone’s throat.

His hands were bloodless from gripping the knife as hard as he could.

A cold sweat began to rivulet from his forehead, his body started to tremble initiating his back muscles to spasm.

He could hear his heart verbosely pounding hard on his eardrums. The other two kids released the black kid in bewilderment of what had just happened.

One of Willie's friends was a tall slender Mexican, wearing black overalls and a gray hat, slanted backwards.

He was the only one of them that looked like he cared about his appearance and hygiene.

The other medium built white kid had a shaved head and a goatee across his chin.

He was the one with the scar that ran from his neck down underneath his sweatshirt.

He was wearing matching black sweatpants that were rolled up to his knee on one leg.

Must be the new trend.

Kabe flashed through his mind, having to force his mind to scrutinize on the matter at hand.

The black kid collapsed to the concrete, coughing and spewing blood from his mouth.

They had been beating on him for some time before Kabe’s arrival.

All three kids were now standing de by de facing Kabe.

The black kid looked up over towards Kabe with one eye flowing with blood and the other swelled shut.

All three kids began to laugh because of his small ze; they were underestimating him.

“There’s three of us, you white boy bitch!”

The Mexican kid yelled at him with a gay smile along his face.

This angered him even more, overpowering any fear left in his body.

“You know you’re not gonna use the knife kid,” The Mexican continued, “so why don’t ya just pick your shit up and get the fuck out of here, before you end up looking like this nigger over here.”

All three howled with laughter now, without a care for the knife pressed to Willie's throat.

Scarface moved a step towards Kabe to instigate the fight even more.

By the looks of him Kabe could tell that the kid wasn’t intimidated by anything.

At least dying that is.

Because he wouldn’t hetate to push the knife deep into his throat, right after slitting cavity man’s throat, first.

“You wanna drown mother fucker, you wanna drown?”

Scarface spit, biting his teeth into his bottom lip.

His fists were clinched, with his fingernails sunken deep into his skin.

“Will throw your monkey ass over the bridge!” Kabe stared far into Willie's eyes, without fear of his own annihilation.

“Shut the fuck up you fuckin pigs, all of ya, I’ll shove this son of a…” Scarface interrupted Kabe punching his right eye hard, throwing him off balance and down to the concrete.

His left arm hit his fishing pole knocking it over the edge, he glanced at his pole falling into the river, in what felt like slow motion, he looked back at his three enemies only to be kicked in the face by Willie's huge hiking boot.

Kabe’s nose exploded with blood; it was broken.

He looked over towards the black kid only to see him picking up a rock and crush it to the back of the Mexican kid's head, knocked out cold; he collapsed face first to the ground.Kabe reacted in an instant, reaching over to the pile of fishhooks that had spilt over when he dropped his tackle box, lying next to him, clutching them in his right hand he quickly jumped to his feet and drove his handful of hooks straight into Willie's right eye.

“AAGGHH!”

He covered his eye with both of his hands.

Blood poured from between his fingers dripping violently to the ground.

Willie immediately started running leaving his friends behind.

Scarface's eyes were glazed in shock, overcome by astonishment of what he had just witnessed.

The black kid flew towards him impaling him right in the forehead.

Clean with his fist this time.“Mother Fucker!” he hollered. Scarface fell limp on his back.

The black kid spit blood at both of the remaining unconscious boys.

He flung the bloody rock over the bridge and fell to the metal railing on the de of the bridge in exhaustion.

Kabe started to remove the hooks from his hand; blood would pour from his wounds more and more as he pulled out each hook, grimacing in pain with each removal.“Are you all right?”

He asked his new friend, who had looked as if he had fainted.

He pulled another hook from his hand clong his eyes tightly from the sting and overwhelming throb.“What’s your name man?” Kabe asked.

“Omar…Omar Redding.”

He said taking slow deep breaths…

Kabe's eyes peered down at his young overworked hands, observing the manifestations of numerous calluses and many different scars.

Those fuckin rusty fishhook ones were still there.

He blinked his youthful memory away.

And they would be for the rest of his life.

The putrid stench from trash bags thrown into the far corner of the porch permeated through the air without hetation.

Someone was moving around in the house, had been for a while.

Hopefully to answer the damn door soon.

The cold air and the smell were beginning to irritate him.

It seemed like twenty minutes had gone by before Omar would finally answer the door. “Hey man, sorry I took so long I was in the bathroom.”

Omar said sarcastically. Kabe finally got to warm up a bit in the house and instantly pushed the door shut behind him to shroud the smell.

The house also had a depraved scent to it but definitely not as ailing as Omar’s porch.

Kabe was standing in the kitchen area; it was painted baby blue with pressed brick colored tiles covering half the walls to the floor.

The floor was tan linoleum that noticeably had been overused through the aged years.

Kabe followed Omar to his room in the basement.

As he walked by the living room he could see nothing but pitch black, everyone must be gone or have been in bed.

Kabe lowered his head as he walked down the steps into the basement.

Even though Kabe was already short enough he still had to keep his head from hitting the ceiling.

The basement was nearly as cold as the outde was, almost.

There was turquoise carpet with plenty of dog feces on it and a ngle zed waterbed where Omar slept.

Kabe could see Omar’s alarm clock tting on his headboard.

It read 10:14 p.m.

“Now why did you want for me to walk all this way over here?” Kabe asked.

Omar smiled at him and walked in towards the back room.

He flicked the light on.

Kabe could see that the room in here was more organized then all the other ones, he had seen in the house.

There was an office desk with a file cabinet on the de of it.

He could notice a brown mini-fridge next to the file cabinet.

Omar pulled the top drawer to the desk and removed out a small key.

He used the key to open the bottom door of the file cabinet and jerked the drawer open with a firm heave.

“Remember hearing about that one weirdo that lived along Seventh Avenue that mysteriously came up misng?”

Omar said smiling with a surreptitious look on his face.

Kabe thought for a second. “No, who are you talking about?”

Omar reached way into the back of the cabinet until his arm was no longer seen he pushed the de of his face along the cabinet clamping his teeth together.

Kabe could hear things exuberantly being shuffled around. Finally Omar pulled out what looked to Kabe like an aged book from the drawer and smiled from cheek to cheek.

“I found this in an abandoned house, that one green house along seventh and forty fourth.

The one with the door barely….” Kabe interrupted. “The door that looked like it was ready to fall off its hinges, the one with all the egg white stains on it?”

Omar looked at Kabe in astonishment.

“Yeah man, how’d you know?” Kabe’s eyes lit up with awe.

“I walked right up to that house on my way over here, I stopped to smoke a cigarette right there, man.”

Omar swiftly walked over to him and handed him the book.Kabe gazed at it.

It looked hundreds of years old.

It was filthy and covered in grime.

There were torn and ripped pages sporadically between the books hard cover.

Sticking out of its de, were various pages half-torn on the edges.

“Late last night I broke in that same house, I went through one of the broken windows on the de of the house… look.” Omar raised his left arm expong a long scratch that ran from his wrist to his elbow it was filled with stale blood.

Kabe could not believe what he was hearing, what kind of a coincidence it was for him to try and open the door on the abandoned house, only to find out his closest friend had broken in there the night before.

Kabe lifted the book to his mouth and blew a gust of air at the cover.

Dust filled the air and back into their eyes.

He nearly dropped the book clinching his eyes and coughing from the assault of dust.

“I haven’t even looked inde yet man, I found the book in the attic of the house in some chest.

I heard something outde and quickly got the fuck out of there.”

Omar smiled as he told Kabe his discovery of his accolade.

Kabe rubbed his eyes with his hands and looked at the inde cover.

DIEM HAIN MARSHALLTOW it read.

It had been carved by something sharp.

Kabe opened turned the first page as more dust retreated at his face.

The writings in the book were English mixed with other languages Kabe couldn’t understand.

He browsed page to page perceiving what looked like drops of dried blood.

Cobwebs were strung along each page snapping with every turn.

He looked through it until he came to the page marked האדס There was an extraordinary looking map scribbled on it with a blotch of ink on the far left of the page. What the hell is this?

This inkblot has to be some sort of destination; at least that’s what it looked like.

Kabe thought momentarily.

“Look at this shit Omar it’s a map of some sort, I have no idea of where though.” Omar looked at the page closely in bafflement.

He ran his stump black finger along the dotted line of maybe some sort of trail and followed it until it ran to the ink blot.

Kabe noticed when Omar's finger reached the top of the inkblot three was another strange marking above it. It read את לעלוץ.

Both of their eyes met in disbelief and skepticism. “What do you think it means?” Omar asked Kabe.

Kabe looked back down at the sandy page and noticed even more tiny markings that were along the rambling dotted trail.

They were smeared away but even if they hadn’t been, neither of them would have been able to understand them.

He continued on, turning along the sunder pages until he reached the inde of the back cover. There was a tear along the top edge.

Kabe grabbed the torn edge and pulled it free without much restance.

It was hiding something.

Both of their mouth's dropped wide open.

Their eyes glistened in astonishment.

A gold-colored chain necklace with a solid white gold star adorned with seven red rubies encircling its sharp edges.

On the front of the star-shaped piece was a tiny golden gargoyle with green emerald eyes. Kabe detached it from the book and rubbed it with his fingers.

“How much do you think its worth, Kabe?”

Omar said again smiling from cheek to cheek.

“I have no idea how much its worth but I want to know where it came from and what this book means.” Kabe handed the piece over to Omar and closed the book.

“This is some sort of journal man, I think we need to get back into that house to see if there some sort of misng pieces.”

“Sounds good to me but before we head over there let’s try some of this shit first.”

Omar opened the top drawer of the desk and pulled out a hand rolled joint.

His lit it up with his lighter and passed it over to Kabe.

Kabe puffed on it, immediately coughing repetitively and pounding against his chest.

Omar and Kabe went back into the other room with their newly found treasure and sat on the edge of the water bed.

They smoked on the joint and talked about how they were going to get into the house.

Next thing Kabe realized was the time.

Omar's alarm clock now read 11:46 P.M.

it was getting really late now and if they went over there that night, they could avoid the worries of anyone seeing them get into the house.

At least they hoped so.

“I can’t believe you went into this house without telling me first, you know I would have gone with you.”

Kabe told Omar.

Kabe’s eyes were glossy red and Omar's matched.

“I don’t know man, when I walked by there after going to the git n go I noticed the broken windows an thought of how easy it would be to get inde, so I waited until late in the night and went over there, Everyone in town had always talked about that strange guy that had lived there and how he came up misng, or died, or whatever.

I asked my mom about it and she said that happened fifteen years ago.

She also told me never to go around the house, Guess that’s what made me want to see what was inde.”

Kabe put the roach out in the ashtray that sat on the floor full of cigarettes butts.

He knew now he would be awake the rest of the night.

He stood up and brushed the loose ashes that had fallen on his pant legs off and pushed away the hair from his eyes. ************************************************************************* By Michael Mowder, Jr.

2000 MORE TO COME...
MOWDEReeL Wednesday 8/31/2011 at 03:42 AM | 81900
havent finished this piece yet, but I'm curious how much success have you had getting your work published?
Matt_Molgaard Friday 9/02/2011 at 05:10 PM | 82086
Honestly, I've never tried.

I wrote these probably 10-13 years ago and they had lay dormant nce.

I stumbled across your guys' literary forum, trying to market a movie short I had done earlier this year.

I figured I would put them on here because of the horror genre, which, as you can tell, I am a great fan of...

I hope more than anything that the reader enjoy's them.
MOWDEReeL Friday 9/02/2011 at 05:24 PM | 82089
you're talented: I'd look into some print publication avenues if I were you.
Matt_Molgaard Friday 9/02/2011 at 11:18 PM | 82098
I agree with Matt. You have a Clive Barker-esque quality to your work. Ever read The Books of Blood? Or Cabal? Very milar, vivid details. Anyhow, this is a great place to post and thank you for the opportunity to read some of your work!
Jonny Sicko Friday 9/02/2011 at 11:26 PM | 82099