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Current Issue

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Issue #6, March 2005:

Death's Folly,

by K.B. Liomas

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A Bite of the Apple,

by Larry Centor

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Bubblegum Girl,

by James Monticone

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Witch Kingdom,

by Vera Searles

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Herman,

by Brian C.Petroziello

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The Kid Catcher,

by David Choate

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Previous Issues

John Carpenter pulled into the Happy Trails plat. He went down Roy Court to Dale
Street, took a right onto Scout Street, and, finally, into his driveway. They must have
someone chained some tortured soul to a desk, and under the tutelage of the rack and
thumb screws, made him churn out cutesy names for the streets in plats like this. After
a long day at work, he found it difficult to have sympathy for the poor wretch. He pushed
his way out of the car, and slung his blazer over his shoulder as he walked up to the front
door. He could smell the aroma of baking bread through the screen door.

"MMM." He said, as his wife was removing the bread from the oven. "That smells great."
He said. He tossed his blazer over a chair, and reached into the fridge for a beer. In the
back of the top shelf, he noticed a large bowl with a dinner plate covering it.

"Hey, what's with the bowl in here?"

"That's Herman." Said his wife, Terry.

"We give our leftovers names, now? I thought we just threw them out." He replied.

"Silly, that's Herman, the sour dough starter." She said.

"What does it start?" John asked.

"It's sour dough--you know--to make cookies and cakes and bread and things. You
replace what you use with more flour, sugar and water, and you have a constant supply
of dough. After it's been alive for a while, you're supposed to give some of it to a friend along
with something you baked. I got ours from the Rays. They got theirs from the Smiths. I'm going
to give some to your sister when we see her next week."

"You know, it's pushing the lid off. Should I be concerned about that. Is it going to take over the
fridge?" He asked.

"No, it just means that it's time to give some away, or bake something."

John shrugged, took a long draught of his beer, and was about to walk away, when he heard his
wife gasp. She was looking out the kitchen window at the patio umbrella as it cartwheeled past
the sliding glass door. "There's a bad storm coming, John. You need to bring everything in
from the back yard!" She yelled.

Around midnight, the storm started in earnest. John and Terry were awakened by a bright flash of
light, followed almost immediately by a loud crack that sounded like it came from everywhere, and
rattled the windows.

"John, I think it hit the house." Said Terry.

John tried to fight his way through the fuzzy haze of sleep to full consciousness. He staggered to
the wall and hit the light switch. Nothing happened. "Power's out too." He mumbled.

He stumbled into the kitchen and took a flash light from a drawer. He grabbed a yellow rain coat
from the hall closet, and braved the storm. He played the light over the house and roof from all
angles as the rain came, nearly horizontally, in wave after wave. He saw nothing unusual until he
came back in the house. The noticed that the refrigerator door was open. It showed black scorch
marks, apparently from the lightning strike. He closed the door quickly to save the food inside.
He draped the rain coat over a chair, toweled off and crawled back into bed.

About four AM, John and Terry, were again woken up by a loud crash. "Damn," he said, as he
stumbled out of bed. "I didn't think lightening could hit twice in the same place." He grabbed
his flashlight and headed for the kitchen. He never got that far.

There was something blocking the hallway. It was a gray mass that bubbled and roiled under the
flash light beam. The pungent odor of sour dough assaulted his nostrils. The mass blocked the
entire hallway, causing the walls to creak. It was slowly heading down the hall towards him--and
the bedrooms, bulging and tumbling every so slowly.

Fear gripped him. It immobilized him for a second. "Terry! Get the kids!" He screamed at the
top of his lungs. He turned and ran down the hallway to the children's bedroom. Terry was already
leaning over the crib. He closed and locked the door behind him. Terry stood, a bundle in her
hands. John ran to the single bed in the corner. His son, Bobby, was sitting up, rubbing his eyes.

"Bobby, get your slippers on." John said as he ran to the window. The house was a bi-level, so
the window was a story and a half above the ground. He threw open the window and felt for the
latches for the screen. Finding them, he forced the screen outward. He tore the lid off of the box
that sat below the window, cracking the wood. He grabbed the safety ladder and snaked it out the
window opening. He yanked on it, and when he was sure it was tight, he wriggled out of the window
backwards. Terry handed him the baby, and he disappeared from view.

In just moments he appeared in the window once more, and Terry helped him ease Bobby through
the opening. He threw the boy over his shoulder and prepared to descend the ladder again. Behind
Terry the door was groaning and straining as the frothing dough ball pressed against it.

"Don't wait, Terry, get on the ladder now!" He went down the ladder as quickly as he could. He could
see Terry at the top rung of the ladder. "Hurry!" He yelled again. He picked up the baby as his wife
stepped off the ladder. He could hear the splintering of the wooden door, as the grey blob
overwhelmed it. "Into the car." He said.

They scrambled into the car, and drove slowly down the street, stopping partway down the block.
Sweat poured down John's face. He was shaking. Terry was looking at him. "What is it, John?"
She asked, struggling for breath. She had followed his directions to flee the house, without knowing
why.

"I don't know--exactly." He said. "I went down the hall. The refrigerator door was laying on the steps.
Then this white thing blocked the hallway. All of it. It was coming after me. There was this--this odor.
It smelled like rotten yeast or fermented bread." He noticed something in the side mirror. It was
whitish, and oozing out the bedroom window. "Oh my God!" He screamed.

He got out of the car, and watched as the glob finished oozing down the side of his house. It
reassembled into a ball, and moved across the front yard in the direction of the house on the right,
like some giant soccer ball gone berserk. It tumbled with remarkable speed until it was under the
windows of Mrs. Wysnewski's house. He watched in horror as it oozed yeasty tendrils up the brick,
and tore through the window. The rest of its expanding bulk followed the tendrils into the now
smashed window. He heard a terrible scream. Then there was the sound of more exploding wood.

"Terry we need to wake the neighbors! You take that side, I'll take this side." He ran to the house
next to Mrs. Wysnewski's. He kept punching the door bell and screaming. Finally, a bleary eyed man
with a full five o'clock shadow came to the door. "It's a thing--and it's big, and it got Mrs. Wysnewski."
He bellowed, sure that he sounded like a mad man, which in truth he was. "You have to get everyone
out--now!" Mr. Grant didn't quite understand, but he could see the fear and madness in his normally
sedate neighbor's eyes, and he could hear the crunching of wood next door. He ran upstairs to wake
his family. John ran to the next house. Terry was doing likewise on the other side of the street.

In minutes, several families stood at the end of the street, huddling around an assortment of vehicles.
They peered intently through the driving rain in the direction of Mrs. Wysnewski's house. In the hazy
darkness, they could barely make out the side of Mrs. Wysnwewski's house as it was thrust outward
and fell flat to the ground. The creature then headed rapidly toward the Grant's. This time it did not
wait to find a window. It now seemed much larger than it had before. It just simply pushed its way
through the side of the Grant's house.

Several of the group held cell phones. Mr. Grant put his down, and looked at John. "The police
think it's a joke. They think we've been having a block party or something--and that we're all drunk.
They won't send any one out."

A tremendous sound issued from up the street. They watched in horror as the Grant's house
seemed to explode. All of the remaining walls were simply thrust outward. The destruction of the
house was followed by a great sound, not unlike that of a belch magnified one hundred fold. A
foul wind blasted down the street, whipping their flimsy clothing, and assaulting their nostrils with
a fetid stench.

"We need to get all of the neighbors up." Said John. "Lets meet at the back of the plat. On
Hayes where they're building the new houses."

They scattered throughout the plat, blowing horns and stopping to knock on doors, to rouse more
of the neighborhood out of their beds. The pounding rain had stopped, but lightning still lit the clouds
overhead. It looked like the grand finale of the fireworks on the Fourth of July. The crashing of
thunder filled their ears, and echoed off of the sides of the houses in the neighborhood.

The residents of Happy Trails assembled in the rear of the plat. The lots here were mostly vacant,
but here and there the foundations of new houses were taking shape. John was speaking to the crowd.
His cell phone rang. It was one of the neighbors. He had driven up to the entrance to Happy Trails, to
see if he could coax the police to investigate. Two large trees had been felled by the storm, and now
lay across Roy Court, blocking any access to the plat. John relayed the bad news to the crowd.
"We're on our own folks, at least for a while." He finished.

It was Mr. Grant's cell phone that went off next. He nodded several times, then flipped the phone shut.
"The Newtons just spotted it. It's just like John and Terry said. A big white blob. It's still on Scout
Street, but it's getting near the corner. The Burroughs' house is probably next--and it's getting
bigger every time it comes out of a house."

Jason Applebee stepped forward through the crowd. He carried a shot gun over his shoulder. He
was dressed in camouflage pajamas, and wore a stainless steel mixing bowl in a grotesque imitation
of Patton. His feet were clad in Patton slippers which had tiny cloth busts of the famous general, even
to the famous helmet, and pearl handled pistols. "I think everyone needs to get weapons, and we
need to pull our vehicles across its path--like a barricade." Others in the crowd nodded in agreement.
There were shouts of "Yeah! Yeah!" Some in the crowd were thrusting fists in the air. In a flash, people
were jumping over fences, and scurrying through back yards. In minutes a line of cars was coming up
the street. Sandwiched in the midst of sedans, conversion vans and station wagons was a semi truck.

Applebee was standing by his pick up truck. "Follow me!" He yelled as he jumped into his truck.
They pulled the vehicles into a couple of parallel lines at one of the intersections, a block from the last
sighting. Jason Applebee was now standing on the hood of his truck, bull horn in one hand, riding crop
in the other, and he was barking orders to his neighbors.

John, Terry and Mr. Grant came walking up to the defense line. "Who put Applebee in charge?" Asked
John.

"He's former military." Said Applebee's wife, as she stood admiring her husband. "He spent a lot of
time in the army until they gave him that section whatever discharge." She said.

John groaned as he surveyed the barricade. He marveled at the amount of weaponry his neighbors
had assembled. One of Applebee's neighbors was pulling a laws rocket from its canvas holder. It
caused John to recoil in horror. "Terry, remind me to put the house up for sale if we survive this--and
don't let the kids play at any of the neighbors houses." He said.

It wasn't long before the blob made its way around the corner, and headed toward the assembled
neighbors. It roiled and billowed like one of those huge inflated balls that kids pass around at rock
concerts. Applebee was standing over the shoulder of his neighbor with the rocket.

"Be steady, man" He said. "Don't fire until--hell, the damn thing don't have no eyes. Shoot it!
Shoot it."

The neighbor had pulled up the gun sight, and had removed the caps. Applebee shooed some
neighbors away who were standing in the way of the recoil. The neighbor pressed a button, and
there was an audible whoosh. Orange and red tongues of fire shot from both ends of the olive
green tube. The missile took only an eyeblink to reach its target. It buried itself into the midsection
of the beast, and disappeared from sight.

The crowd could hear a muffled explosion. The beast stopped in its tracks, as if it was paused on a
vcr. It shook and shuddered, and there was a tremendous rush of air in the direction of the defense
position. The neighbors gasped, and clutched at their throats. They held their noses, and some
dropped to the ground retching from the fetid stench of the sour dough laced flatulence.

The monster only stood still for a moment. It resumed its rush at the barricade. The neighbors
did not wait. They broke ranks, and ran in the directions they came from. Some stopped to help
the slower among them. They expected the creature to be on their heels. Instead, the beast
surrounded a couple of the cars. They could hear braking glass, and the tinny sound of the
crushing of metal. The whitish mass found the semi--and stopped. It enveloped the entire length
of the trailer. It collapsed the sides, and began sucking out the contents. Great slurping noises
drifted down to them. The beast's feeding frenzy gave the people the chance to regroup in the
back of the plat, near a partially completed house.

"Hey, Orv. What were you haulin'?" Asked Mr, Grant.

"I had a load of groceries. Ya know, flour sugar, syrups. All kind of stuff." Replied Orv, the
semi driver.

"Now, how do we stop it?" Someone asked in the back of the crowd. "Why's it keep gettin'
bigger?" Asked someone else.

"I'm not sure how to stop it." Said John. "But, I think I know why it's growing larger. Terry, what
makes it lift off the lid in the fridge?"

"When you use some of the dough to bake something, then you add sugar, flour and water.
That makes it grow. It's kinda like feeding him--or her--or whatever. I didn't see whether it had
a thingie or not, ya know." She said.

"So when it goes through a house, or it ate the semi, it's eating the sugar and flour, and probably
anything else it comes across. It's probably getting water from bursting pipes." He rubbed his
chin, and shook his head.

"I have an idea." Said Mr. Grant. He started speaking to the assembled multitude. Soon people
were hurrying around the plat once more.

John flipped open his cell phone, and called the lookouts. He was satisfied that the monster was
still near the barricade. Finally resting after it's feast from the semi. He asked the lookouts to come
to the back of the plat. "We have another job for you." He said.

Soon more cars were careening to a stop in front of the partially finished house. There was a poured
concrete foundation and walls, but no walls or roof. The builder had dug down four feet, and had piled
up dirt another four feet to make the slope and pitch of the yard to be. The house itself was built in a
factory in Omaha, and was trucked to the lot to be assembled on site. Men had torn apart the bundles
and were busy cutting lumber; tossing the wood into the basement. Women tied together bed sheets.
These were tucked into the pile of lumber, and brought back to the rear corners of the foundation
walls, and out into the lot.

"John, help me with these joists. These are the new laminated ones. If you stand then on edge,
they're super strong, but if you lay then on their side, they flex, and can break if you put too much
weight on them." Said Mr. Grant.

They laid a number of them on their sides across the foundation walls, until the middle of the foundation
was covered. Others brought bags of flour and sugar, and other food items, that were piled onto the
joists, until they began to sag. Everyone stood back and nodded in approval. The Newtons, the former
lookouts, began pouring flour and sugar on the ground in a line in the direction of the monster.

The remainder of the assembled throng went behind the foundation to wait for their quarry. The lightning
flashes were growing more intense. The bluish streaks illuminated the neighbors like an angry strobe.
They stood in a semi-circle around the foundation, looking like some primitive tribe awaiting the start of
a mystic ritual. They were adorned in the raiment of their clan--rain coats, fuzzy robes and flimsy night
gowns. The children wore yellow rain slickers and clear ponchos. They were shod in sandals, and some
wore the totem of their clan on their feet--fuzzy slippers with the heads of doggies, kitties, bunnies and
even cartoon characters. Two carried unlit torches and lighters. Others had rakes, shovels, baseball
bats, and several had garden rascals, whose four sharp tines could cleave monsters and weeds with
equal ease.

They didn't have long to wait. The bulbous white blob that reeked of stale sour dough came down the
middle of the street, following the trail of flour and sugar that had been laid out for it. It rolled, frothed
and bubbled. It made sickening noises that approximated belching and the emission of gas.

"Steady now! Hold your positions!" Yelled Mr. Grant. Sounding like a field commander in some
bad drive-in movie. The modern day tribe held their ground--their makeshift weapons at the ready.

The monster ate its way along the trail to the pile of food on the joists. "Now!" Yelled Grant. Two
tribesmen lit their torches to full flame, and touched them to the bed sheets strung tautly to the corners.
They had been thoroughly soaked with lighter fluid. Orange and blue flames danced down the sheets
to the pile of lumber in the basement. Flames erupted, filling the foundation with an eerie orange glow.
The monster had begun devouring the offering, causing the joists to creak loudly and sag further as it
settled over the food.

The flames rose higher until they finally licked the bottom of the joists. Suddenly the makeshift wooden
platform gave way. The monster fell into the flames. The ground shuddered, as if in tune with some
ancient rhythm. It was as if the monster was screaming. The residents of Happy Trails could feel it in
their very souls.

There was an audible noise--like steam building pressure in a boiler. It was an evil hissing sound.
It lasted only mere seconds before there was a loud explosion. The air was filled with flying shards of
crusty sour dough bread, cookies, and tea cakes. The crowd ducked, or hit the ground for safety.
John lifted his head to see what was happening, and immediately a missile struck him full in the
forehead. The force of the blow sent him reeling backward. He picked it up. "Lady finger." He
said to Terry who was prostrate by his side.

"It looks like a cookie." She replied.

"No." Said John. "It really is a lady finger. I think it's Mrs. Wysnewski." He grimaced, and flung
the piece away from him. When the storm of sour dough pieces stopped raining down on them, the
tribe approached the basement. The lumber was already beginning to turn to red and black embers.
In some places, red and blue flames flickered warmly. Reddish coals broke away, and tumbled to the
concrete floor. It started raining again. There was more hissing as the falling drops met the burning
wood. There was a collective sigh of relief from the crowd.

The authorities would later attribute the damage to the ferocity of the storm. "Lightning strikes, straight
line winds, even maybe a small tornado", the weather service said. But, one thing was for sure, no one
in Happy trails ever made sour dough starter again.

The End


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