If you kneel like the cop knelt on George Floyd’s neck as a way to honor Floyd’s memory, then you jus’ might be a sheeple.

That unscratchable itch over came him again and Clay Rollins found himself loading his nondescript, white 1974 Chevy van with all the necessaries. As he sat behind the wheel, he glanced in the mirror and saw the six dolls, all hand-crafted to look like the popular Cabbage Patch dolls, each neatly seated and properly restrained on the side seats.

“They still creep me the fuck out,” he thought.

He’d bought them at a church’s craft fair during last years big Christmas push for the authentic item. He’s seen the many national TV news stories of ‘grown ass-adults,’ as he called them, fist-fighting one another for the last remaining doll on the shelf.

“Don’t want any part of that stupid shit.”

Tonight, if successful, he would make his sixth kill. After murdering the child, he’d offer an incantation, transferring the youngsters soul into one of the dolls. While he hadn’t seen any results from his black magic spells, he continued the practice anyway.

“Besides, it kinda satisfies my obsessive-compulsiveness.”

The hunt underway, he found his victim only a few minutes after the sun had officially set. The girl was playing hop-scotch on the sidewalk in front of her home.

He slowed the van, stopped lifting one of the dolls up, it appeared to be peeking over the edge of the open passenger window at the child. Within a minute, the little girl noticed and came happily skipping up to his van.

“I have five more in back, wanna see’um?”

He popped the door open and she willingly crawled in. Within a second Clay had his large hand over her tiny mouth and was nonchalantly driving away.

That night, a few minutes before midnight, after performing his incantation, Clay buried the now-dead child in the gray sand dunes of the beach, near his other five victims.

“My own cabbage patch of kids,” he chuckled at his joke.

He returned to his van and lay on the floor between the two row of seats, reliving the nights events. To his way of thinking, “It had been a good night.”

The was sound was so small, that even had Clay had recognized it, he would have had no chance to react.

About seven-thirty, the following morning, a police officer noted the van. He’d seen it the night before, but because he’d been busy on other calls, it has sat there the entire time, in violation of city ordinances.

“Come on, time to get your ass outta here,” the cop shouted as he rapped his night stick along the van’s side.

With no answer, he looked through one of the rear windows, where the curtain was partly drawn back. The officer discovered Chase Rollins, covered in dried blood, dead.

In the seats, properly belted in, sat six look-a-like Cabbage Patch dolls, also soaked in drying blood.

Being out of a paying job again has put me on the road to a stress attack. Elevated blood pressure, headache, sickly stomach and a case of anger, have been my companions for the last few days.

And before you start giving me remedies (not to discount your caring for me and my health,) know that I’m doing everything my mental health doctor is recommending. This includes no booze and to get my ass outside for a daily walk.

She suggests that I also avoid watching the evening news on television. She knows how I end up yelling at the various talking heads and all the lies, propaganda and fake news they spew.

I add to this the viewing of videos shared on other social media platforms, including this one among many:

https://twitter.com/i/status/1266921821653385225

Talk about pissing me off. I’d be willing to die on my porch standing up against this sort of UNCONSTITUTIONAL thuggery.

These people were doing nothing unlawful on their private property and for the cops and National Guard to threaten and then fire weapons at them is beyond the pale. I don’t care if they were paint ball and they felt they had a duty to act; unconstitutional is unconstitutional.

Anyway, the attempted sharing of this video has led me to stop using Facebook. I posted it and somehow the social networking platform’s algorithm made it practically invisible on my wall.

As for the loss of my employment: the COVID-19 scare and the bankruptcy of a couple of national store chains during these state mandated closures has left the image processing plant in Reno closed for good. The place had been in operation for over 30-plus years and it’s a shame to see it shuttered. (Pun intended.)

With this, my wife has been sending me applications she finds online, for me to fill out. We had a little tiff over an application for the position of COVID-19 Contact Tracer.

She saw the ‘$17/hour’ tag on the job-site ad, and got excited, wanting me to fill out everything as fast as possible and get an interview set up. On the other hand, I didn’t want to to because I’m not even sure I believe in all the hype surrounding the ‘virus,’ and I don’t feel it would be a ‘good fit,’ since I couldn’t honestly say my heart isn’t into it.

This has, along with this ongoing and needless situation, caused me to reassess my position on a lot of the information coming from so-called ‘trustworthy’ sources. Okay, that really isn’t true – I’ve never fully trusted these sources as I’ve found many to be wanting and dishonest over the years.

And as this stuff continues, I continue to write. I am trying to use all this crap to my advantage by integrating it into various stories, something I don’t think enough writers – especially ‘horror’ genre authors – are visiting.

Further, and I swear that though I’ve been blogging for around 20-years there is always something to learn about the Internet and posting, I’ve concluded that it doesn’t matter the length of the story, it’ll only be visited by jus’ so many people. So whether 100-words or less, or a thousand words, I’m posting my stories as one and will endeavor to avoid parting them out.

(I’m posted out through June 13 already, so those will not count under this missive.)

Lastly, my frustration over the ‘lack’ of readership is gone to the wayside. I understand that don’t write about food, health and beauty, music, history or massive amounts of poetry, which are by far more popular than my faux ‘horror’ genre and other odds-and-ends — so I’m cool on it – jus’ as long and you and I keep writing.

Boy, I needed to vent…and it’s almost better than sex! NOT!

I can’t believe it’s already riot season. I still have my murder hornet and COVID-19 decorations up.

Into their third decent of the 2020 Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission’s season, pilot Fred George and engineer Maurice Oliver, of the deep-sea submersible, “Aegir” cautiously approached the sea bed. The yellow and black, two-person craft had been named for the Norse God of the oceans.

During their second assent, the duel propellers of the craft had kicked up so much silt that the pair could hardly see beyond their own flood lights. This time they were allowing the weight of the craft to easy them into a closer position with the ocean floor.

Finally, after hours of dropping through the inky blackness, the radar showed they were nearing bottom. George turned on the forward and bottom lights, then gently throttled the submersible forward.

“Top side, this is Aegir – we’re on the bottom,” Oliver spoke in an even and calm voice into the mic.

“Roger, Aegir,” returned a woman in the same evenly paced voice.

“What is that?” George asked as he brought the power to neutral.

Oliver looked at where the pilot was pointing.

He could see a lengthy white object that seemed to be tapered, “No idea.”

Together they worked to position the craft over the object and then carefully retrieve it from the soft silt. Gently, it was placed in the retrieval basket in front of their bubbled canopy.

“Looks like a spear point, perhaps obsidian. We’ll know more once we get top side,” Oliver said.

“Well, what ever it is, it doesn’t look like it belongs,” George offered.

Wife: “Does it look like I’ve gained weight since the quarantine?”

Husband: “Honestly, you weren’t that skinny to start with — so no.”

Time of Death: 3 pm

Cause of Death: COVID-19 related

I hope to always care about things the way my dogs care about sticks.

 

Tired, he felt himself beginning to doze off. Taylor got to his feet and leaned on his spear, continuing his vigil.

Night time came and still he stood guard. It wasn’t until it was dark that a sudden stirring came as a faint glow from the cauldron of stones.

“There you are, bastard,” he said, moving closer to the ledge to get a better look at it.

He watched with a combination of fright and fascination as the creature twisted about, trying to render a hole through the lining of the two realities. Suddenly he felt the ground beneath him shudder and the beast, if that’s what one could call it, bellow and bay.

It pushed hard against the envelope, coming closer and closer to the ledge where Taylor stood. It was now or never, as he raised the spear over his head and spring on the demonic outline, like a mountain lion.

The spear slipped though the membrane with easy and with Taylor’s help was driven into the creature. It was with a hideous and tortured squeal that they both disappeared.

The ungodly thing struggled for only a few minutes, then became suddenly still. Taylor withdrew his spear and stood triumphant on its carcass as the body slipped through an unknown universe.

Like his reality, this one was filled with stars and other celestial bodies. But unlike his reality, he could breathe and when he spoke, he heard his voice echo.

Taylor rapidly slipped through the reality, through an entire university in less than 45 minutes. Then without warning, the dead body of the slayed beast struck an unseen force, a sac of some sort and Taylor found himself toppling into it.

He slipped through the tissue-like lining and found himself in the deep cold of the Indian Ocean, southeast of Madagascar, though he would never know this. Instantly,Taylor Rundel was crushed like a watermelon in a kitchen’s trash compactor and soon all of his being ceased to exist as the creatures of the deep feasted on what remained.

My wife uses so much hand-sanitizer that the odor makes it difficult to have dirty thoughts.

That night as he lay in bed asleep, he dreamed a nightmare; the thing, the creature, the face with the teeth was trying and succeeding at busting through the barrier. It was a barrier that once Taylor awoke, realized was a membrane that kept an alternate reality, perhaps an entire alternate universe from violating this one.

That morning, he decided he had to stop it before the horror on the other side tore that protective fortification. This too, had come to him in his nightmare.

That day he returned to the spot. He searched the stones and walked among them unable to find a possible portal or gate. Neither did he he the beast again.

Taylor did find a large and jagged piece of white obsidian, a volcanic rock that should not have been where it was. He kept it, considering in a gift from the gods on this side of the veil.

With the stone and a carefully selected Pine Nut tree, stripped of its branches and about ten-feet long, he returned to his apartment and began crafting a weapon. By the time he was done, he created a spear, that with the heft of his 200 pounds, he was certain would kill the awful thing.

That evening, an hour and half before sundown he left his place and headed for the formation. All night he sat on the ledge above the formation, looking down and into the center of the rocks.

Nothing.