The BlotterThe BlotterJJululy 2012y 2012 MAMAGAZINEGAZINE

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“A Letter”Dear Mr. White: Today the deer attacked and annihilated my hosta plants.Despite their being strategically situated at the back door, protected by theproximity to my kitchen sink window, somehow, and I assume under thecover of darkness, young bucks stealthily approached and did the deed.Last year the hostae survived until June 23rd, the year before it wasIndependence Day week. The coral bells not so long. I like to think I knewbetter and in a moment of blitheness – of hope – planted them anywaybecause they’re very pretty and you can mix and match them likeGaranimals and still end up with a nice garden. Unless all you’re reallydoing is feeding the wildlife a little expensive nosh on the side. It seems thatI’d be better off spending my money on corn in fifty pound sacks, flingingit out off the porch in buckets. The deer would be better fed, and I would-n’t have the mid-June disappointment of a garden of stems-only poking outof the dirt like a diorama of the 1917 shell-torn Ardennes Forest.Sure I’m grumpy about it. When I didn’t do anything special – didn’t movethe hosta close to the back door, didn’t hang bars of Irish Spring soap, did-n’t string fishing line from tree to tree to make an invisible barrier (ha!) ofmonofilament intended to frighten the deer in the dark as they inadvertent-ly bumped against it (again, ha!), the hosta tended to make it to the dog-days of summer. The more valiant the effort the worse the results. Otherthan seventeen year old boys attempting to get dates, I can think of few cir-cumstances in the known universe where this is the case.Speaking of which, when you are a parent, you believe that you can domany things. First and foremost is to protect your children. I’ve been stay-ing home for nine years, feeding, cleaning, teaching, and transporting mygirls through their lives. Each day they need certain aspects of me less.They can, with only a little assistance, run their own breakfast railroad.This summer we will migrate to them handling their own laundry. I stillmake lunches for school – because I like the idea of surprises and healthyfood, and by assembling their lunchboxes for them I can reasonably assureboth. Fresh raw snap-beans. Cubes of canary melon. Ham and Havarti onwheat. A small bowl of home-made chili. Carrot disks or a handful ofpeanuts. And I try to help with homework, although too soon I can seethem working math problems I cannot fathom. But theirs is nothing like my own childhood. They never wander off to gofishing two towns away. They never sleep outside in the woods on a sum-mer evening. I don’t even let them go home with their friends without aconversation with the friend’s parents. Am I being overprotective? Arethere more crazies nowadays, or is there just more of everything? If I don’tprotect them, will they inevitably be harmed? Or is it the hosta all overagain?To be honest, I sort of feel bad for the plants. They’re doing everything thatthey should be doing. Early in March the first green-white fingers poke upthrough the dirt like the hands of recently dead zombies. Like on televi-sion. Yes, television. I suspect, Mr. White, that you would not be happywith the direction that television has taken. The best show out there, stillcrafted by people who have followed the arduous path of creative writingfor a living, is called “The Walking Dead” and for all intents and purposesits stars are walking, groaning, drippy-nasty animated corpses. The worst?

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same by e-mail:chief@blotterrag.com.

sCAUTION

It’s been a long day. Oh,it’s been a long been alongbin along binalong day.

Walking, groaning, drippy-nasty animated corpses, sans quality writers, in ashow called “Survivor.”How did I get hooked on a show all about death? Tricky question, E.B..There was nothing else on? I thought that if I tried this, then there wasnowhere to go but up? Actually, it’s quite something, a fabulous ensemblecast of relative unknowns, seriously talented writers, and a plotline that youcan’t ignore. And believe it or not, I was terrifically moved by one of theepisodes – nearly to the point of tears. What does this say about me? I amemotionally involved with zombies and care deeply about mindless plants.That’s the twenty-first century in a nutshell, I guess.And who am I to be perturbed by deer? Am I not the invader in their space?I think I’ve been here a long time. Twenty years of watching the ice pushstones up through the earth into the back yard, watching the black walnutsfall, scattered about by squirrels, root and send up their waving-hands leaves.Twenty years of lightning and rain. Twenty years waiting for the rhododen-drons to figure out how to bloom. The deer have a species memory of whenthere was no house here, then the house being here. For them it is probablya tiny bit of fluff in the greater instinctual survival-education they pass fromdoe to fawn.Elwyn, I don’t understand how events seemed to conspire to prevent my hav-ing a nice garden this year. I know that a farmer’s actions must be akin tothose of a parent. I think I was attentive, but not smothering. Good plan-ning – at least what I thought was good planning – analyzing where the sunand shade were going to be during the spring and then where the hot rayswould pour down when the dry days of August sauntered in. It’s a bit likecommitting whether or not to let your child take the bus to and from school,or driving them yourself each day. Perhaps the real question is: are my children the hostae, or are they the deer?Is the act of planting hosta an act of defiance against the inevitability ofnature, or an inadvertent act of kindness towards it? And should I be mov-ing the girls towards the bus, letting them cross the street without my help,and stop effectively holding their hands each morning by driving them.Because despite all of your best laid plans, in the end children grow up, we’reall food for…zombies, and deer always get their hosta.

Sincerely,

Garry - chief@blotterrag.com

July 2012

page 3

FFuu ee ll ee d bd byy

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Word by Wordeditorial services

SHARON KEBSCHULL BARRETTAUTHOR, DESSERTS FROM AN HERB GARDENAND MORNING GLORIES (ST.MARTIN’S PRESS)

SKBEDIT@SHARONKBARRETT.COMHTTP://SHARONKBARRETT.COM

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TThhe Be Blloott tteer Mr Maaggaazizinneeannounces with pride the winners of the

2012 “Laine Cunningham Novel Award”:

1st Prize - Michael G. Williams of Durham, NC,

for his novel “Perishables.”

2nd Prize - Michelle Barker of Penticton, BC,

for her novel “The Beggar King.”

3rd Prize - Tamra Wilson of Newton, NC,

for her novel “Home at the Lincoln Hotel.”

Honorable Mention - Marilynn Larew of New Park, PA,

for her novel “The Spider Catchers.”

When the zombies came, Iwas at a potluck for my neighbor-hood association.

Odd, isn’t it? For all sorts ofreasons, not just that I’m a vampire.

It’s true, though, being therewhen the zombies showed up. I wasten minutes’ walk from my place,down at the Reinholdts’ five-bed,four-bath McMansion. Gods, but Ihate that house. When they movedin we didn’t have a neighborhoodassociation to stop them from con-structing that vinyl-sided monstros-ity and no sooner had they droppedthe last box in their front hall thanthey’d begun agitating to start oneso they could make sure their placestayed the biggest house in theentire development.

Typical mortals.Some of the more bothered

types went and talked to lawyers ortalked to the city or, in the case ofMr. Jones-Magnum - the only per-son who’s been here so long even Ihave cause to fear his attentions -talked to the city in the presence ofa lawyer and, eventually, everyonewho cared shoved their hands intheir pockets and slunk back uptheir drives in silent resignation.The Reinholdts knew how the gamewas played and immediately begancampaigning for Best NeighborsEver. With gift baskets and mownlawns and good candy onHalloween they whittled away justenough of the resentment againstthem that they got a neighborhoodassociation started without being itsfirst victims. By New Year 2002 itwas a done deal: Franklin Not FrankReinholdt was elected chair of the

neighborhood association, with athree-member rotating board tokeep the Reinholdts on a leash.Thus began their benevolent dicta-torship of our neighborhood.

The neighborhood associa-tion’s authority, I should note, doesnot extend to my yard. Oh, techni-cally it does but Mary LouReinholdt always somehow seems toflinch when she tries to look me inthe eye on my own turf. Every oncein a while she’ll come around andtry to tell me one thing or anotherthrough the screen door but shealways makes it fast and leavesfaster. Franklin Not Frank won’teven show up. He can’t handle it.He’s a wuss. The deal is, one of therules imposed on the Reinholdts –really on Mary Lou, because we allknow Franklin Not Frank is not thebrains in that operation – is thatwhenever the neighborhood associa-tion considers a new restrictionaffecting a current homeowner’sexisting property then the home-owner has to be notified before themeasure can be considered. The firsttime I actually met Mary LouReinholdt was for that very reasonabout four months after the associa-tion started.

Thirty minutes after sunsetI’d heard a ring at my doorbell. Iremember it took me a minute tofigure out that it was, in fact, thedoorbell. No one had rung mydoorbell in years, not even onHalloween. I turn the lights on likeanybody else but eventually myplace acquired whatever psychicstain puts people of a mind to

ignore it and move on. My guess is,I turn the porch lights on a little toolate and I leave them on a lot toolate and I’m never out mowing mylawn and people notice the littlestuff like that. People don’t noticethe house that always stays the sameso it fades into the background andthey eventually learn to ignore thehouse where the dogs yap all dayand the kids are always screamingbut they notice the house that has avibe of being just slightly off. Ahouse that feels and looks too emptystands out like an open grave.

Anyway, the doorbell rangso I walked downstairs and peekedout the peephole and I could seeMary Lou standing there on thefront porch with her lips pursed andher eyebrows knit together. Shelooked just as pissed as all get-out,like how dare I not answer her, and Ifigured she was a missionary orsome other kind of low-life. I flungmy door open so hard the hingessquealed and at the same time hitthe whole bank of switches in thefoyer so that the porch, front hall,front stairs and walkway were allsuddenly flooded with the brightest,whitest light possible.

A vampire never gets tiredof seeing surprise in a human’s eyes.

“Mister...” She fumbled fora moment, and I made a show ofstudying her face while she did. Iwanted to remember her but I alsowanted her, whoever she was, toknow that I remembered her.

“Surrett.” I leaned my frameagainst the door and the floorcreaked under me. I’ll say it, I’m notafraid to: I’m a great big fat guy. I’m

July 2012

page 5

An excerpt from “Perishables,”the 2012 winner of The Blotter Magazine’s Laine Cunningham Novel Awardby Michael G. Williams

middling tall, about six feet if Iremember correctly, but I weigh insomewhere around three fifty. I’dbeen out the night before, and justwoke up, so I was in my blacktrench coat and wearing the bootsthat give me a little lift and my thickblack hair was pointed eighteendirections at once because I hadn’thit the shower yet and she juststared and stammered.

“M... Mister...”“Surrett,” I said again.

“Withrow Surrett. And I don’t wantno damn Bibles or newsletters orwhat-the-hell-ever, so get the hell offmy land.” I slammed the door shutand flipped all the lights back offwith a smoothly reversed pinwheelsweep of the same arm. Mary Louwas left standing there just as blindas a bat. I could still see her outthere as I stomped upstairs to getout of my club clothes and intosomething more reasonable, like thebath, and I smiled to myself becauseI could smell that she was a little bitafraid.

That’s how I came to be amember of the neighborhood asso-ciation’s board. It was early. Somepeople were probably just gettinghome from work. Others wereprobably out on their porchesenjoying the April evening. Bywhatever means, from whateverplace, someone heard that exchangeand the next month I got a notestuck in the screen door by ananonymous neighbor: a resolutionto restrict the weight of dogsallowed as pets in the neighborhoodhad failed, and I had been elected tothe association’s board in absentia.

The dog thing was probablywhat Mary Lou came by to talkabout. I’ve got a Doberman namedSmiles. He weighs 150 poundsbecause I feed him some of my ownblood once a week. When I have togo to town on my own, or when Ileave him out front for the day to

guard the place, I leave him on achain that’s too big for a large manto grasp in one hand because that’sthe only chain Smiles hasn’t brokenyet.

That got my attention, so Itook the position on the board.What the hell, you know? Even we– especially we – can act on a whimand that was mine in that moment.

Being on the board turnedout to be pretty low-impact. Onceevery six months I went to a potluckat the Reinholdts’ damned houseand we’d have a semblance of ameeting. I’d walk Smiles up there -no lead, I’d hate to see the leash thatwould work on him if he neededone - and drop him off in theReinholdts’ fenced back yard. Hewould spend the entire evening sit-ting on their back porch watchingme through their series of Frenchdoors, ignoring their Jack Russellnamed “Killer”. Killer usually justbarked until he passed out.

The night the zombiesshowed up was the night of ourspring meeting. It promised to be apretty dull affair. The autumn meet-ings are always the ones wheresomebody gets pissed because theirneighbor isn’t raking enough fortheir liking or otherwise shit in thedonuts and somebody needs tothrow a hissy fit over it. Spring, on

the other hand, is easy-going.Spring is when they’re all dusting offthat old landscaping software andtalking about maybe this year they’llactually build those garden beds. It’sa time when they imagine every-thing will be exactly the way each ofthem, individually, wants things tobe all the time. As such, it usuallyinvolves nothing more fraught thana lot of sitting around munching onstale cheese balls and avoidingFranklin Not Frank’s “world-famous” jellied beef loaf.

Don’t ask. I don’t even knowwhat jellied beef loaf is. I asked onetime and all I got in return was,“Oh, eh.... heh heh... think of it as akind of sausage.” Franklin has thisweird vocal tic he only displayswhen I directly question something.It always starts with this half-heart-ed chuckle and then he avoids giv-ing me a straight answer.

That particular spring it wasremarkably warm - global warminghas finally caught up with us, Iguess - and we’d not had a singleflake of snow the whole winter.Raleigh isn’t exactly in the Alps butwe’re used to seeing a little winterweather. Not so that year, and we’dspent the first half of March withdaytime highs in the 80’s. As it waswarm the night of the meeting I’dmade do with some old jeans and astained t-shirt from the ’82 World’s

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Fair. You remember, the rainbowwaterslide kind of logo thing withthe flame icon at the far end and1982 WORLD’S FAIR on the nearend of the slide?

Come to think of it, maybeyou don’t remember. Oh well. It wasa fun time. Got to see the Budweiserhorses, the Clydesdales. You’veprobably seen the ads.

Me and Smiles went up thestreet at an easy pace. I was bringinghomemade biscuits and a batch ofambrosia salad. I love to cook,though I’m not particularly good atit. What tends to surprise most ofmy fellow kind is that I also love toeat. Most of us can’t keep fooddown, our bodies reject it outrightand it just comes back out, but mymaker was a smarter one than mostso she made me eat early and oftento teach me how to keep it in longenough to fool folks. I was, as youmight expect, not one to shy awayfrom an ample meal in life and so Iwas glad to take up eating as ahobby in unlife. I might never loseanother ounce of weight in all thetime I spend on this earth but atleast I can eat for hours and nevergain an ounce, either. It’s a smallcomfort, but with us every sensationcounts.

When I got to theReinholdts’ place, I skipped ringingthe doorbell and just walked Smiles

right on around to the fenced backyard. The moment my handtouched the latch on their gate,Killer went ballistic.

Mary Lou knew by thesound that I must have arrived andcame out on the back porch to greetus. She took one look at Killer andher shoulders sagged in a quiet sigh.For the first time in a long time Ithought I detected somethinghuman in Mary Lou’s body lan-guage but then the Stepford pro-gramming kicked back in and shesmiled as best she could.“Withrow,” she said, trying to purrand coming out sounding wrong.“So glad you could make it. I’m sureyou’re very busy.”

“Oh yes,” I responded, theambrosia and the plate of biscuitscradled in my arms. Smiles sat bymy feet and sniffed the air audiblyin Mary Lou’s direction. “Beenworking on some new stuff.”

“That’s nice,” she intoned,and then she turned and walkedback inside, leaving the doors hang-ing open. She couldn’t even handlethat much small talk with me. It wasnothing new.

A thought sometimesoccurred to me in those momentswhen Mary Lou so visibly bristled atinteraction with me: what if it was-n’t just that I’d pissed her off that

time on my porch? What if MaryLou was one of those people whocan just tell when something isn’tright? What if every time I spokeshe got those tingles up her spinethat said, That thing is not a humanbeing? There are vampires whobelieve that sort of sixth sense is outthere, in folks whose great-great-great-grandfathers lived in one ofour towns and somewhere along theline figured things out and now,generations later, they have scattereddescendants who can simply tell,through some genetic memory orotherwise inherited gift, that some-thing isn’t right about us.

Me, I don’t know what tothink about that. I don’t explicitlyconsider it impossible – I’m a vam-pire, I know a human being havingsomething like a gut feeling aboutus is way down the list of crazy-assthings that can happen – but I’venever known anyone for whom thepossibility was a real concern. MaryLou had made me start to give itmore thought, though, and for allthat my presence clearly made her alittle unhappy I have to say the feel-ing was mutual.

About the manuscript thing- I’m a painter. Officially, my“grandfather” was the painter.Officially, I’m just an heir whoreleases the occasional found workand burns the proceeds to fund anutterly failed attempt at a career as a

July 2012

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novelist. It’s a shitty cover if you carewhat people think, but I don’t carewhat people think. Mostly.Sometimes I care a lot. Pride is usu-ally what gets us in the end, all of us,human or otherwise.

The rest of the board wasthere already and Franklin was busytalking sports with Kathy Sams andHerb Watanabe. Franklin isn’t asports buff, and neither is Herbbeyond the usual water-cooler talk,but Kathy can’t get her head out ofit. Kathy played on the women’sbasketball team for one of the localcolleges, back in the day, and she’s abigger sports nut than anyone youcan think of. When I walked in shewas busy haranguing Herb andFranklin over their picks for anoffice pool on the basketball tourna-ment.

“Why the hell did you putMontana in as going to the Sweets?Have you ever watched Montanaplay? Every year they field the tenguys in the whole state who are oversix feet and not busy throwing balesof hay across a field somewhere.This year they just got lucky!”

That’s what I heard comefrom the living room. HerbWatanabe was trying to respond butKathy was fed up with trying toexplain it to him. Kathy officiallyconsidered the rest of us, whoranged from Herb, in the office poolbecause letting the boss take a fewbucks from him was a way to fit in,to me, who couldn’t care less with-out bursting a vessel from the effort,

to be lost causes. There was, she hadsaid one time over dessert, some-thing wrong with people who are sodisconnected from their communi-ties. Kathy’s team in college hadbeen good - very good - but this wasbefore ESPN was giving a damnabout women’s sports. I don’t haveto be a sports fan to know thatwomen get a lot more coveragethese days, and that’s a good thing,but Kathy was pretty bitter. She’dwon a national championship butno one she met ever recognized hername

Kathy and Herb hadbecome, over time, the only reasonsI didn’t walk from the board oncethe novelty of sticking it to theReinholdts wore off. Well, OK,that’s not true. The reason I didn’twalk was because I still enjoyedsticking it to them even after it was-n’t new anymore. Eventually Iwould’ve gotten tired of that,though. Probably. Kathy and Herb,on the other hand, they’re goodfolks. They joined the board in part,I have come to realize, because theywanted to keep an eye on busybod-ies like the Reinholdts but in partbecause they also thought the HOAthing had potential. They were justpeople like anybody else, suspendedin mid-air between a healthy dislikefor pointless bureaucracy and sin-cere optimism about their efforts. Igenuinely had no problem withthem once I got to know them. Ididn’t exactly start sending themfruit baskets every Christmas but I

had no reason to distrust them andcouldn’t manufacture a good reasonto ignore them if I saw them outwhen I was walking Smiles, so Iguess I have to say I liked them.

Dinner itself was the usualfare. We’d all brought a side dishand Mary Lou had done up a roast.Franklin had his jellied beef loaf outon the table and as usual everyonewas kind of avoiding taking morethan the amount exactly necessaryfor the sake of politeness.Conversation wound around theothers’ jobs - Herb is an architect,Kathy a programmer, Franklin doesadvertising jingles and Mary Lou isa property manager. Herb talkedabout how no one cares about gooddesign, and the conversation brieflybrushed up against how peoplethese days just like to live in thebiggest box they can squeeze onto aquarter-acre lot, but Kathy caughtMary Lou looking uncomfortableand so she steered us away into ask-ing about Franklin’s latest work.He’d supervised auditions for a cam-paign selling candy bars, and thatwas his big victory of the last sixmonths: kids all over the countrywere humming a tune he’d pickedfor them whenever they stuck a dol-lar in a snack machine at school.Everyone stayed politely distantfrom probing me about my “profes-sional” life, until Franklin said whathe always says.

“Your grandfather was alsoan artist, wasn’t he?”

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I shrugged. “He certainlywas.”

“Quite a gifted landscapeartist in his day,” Franklin said tothe others, as though he had toexplain it to them every six monthsor they’d forget. I always hate thispart of our conversations. NormallyI sit there and let it happen aroundme but that night, for some reason,I spoke up.

“He worked in a lot ofthemes,” I said without looking upfrom my plate. “Landscape was justto pay the rent.”

“Oh,” Franklin replied, try-ing to save face, “I didn’t mean toimply that his art was limited, it’sjust that landscape is what he’sknown for.”

“I didn’t know anyone wasknown for landscape,” Mary Lousaid over her glass of blush. Shesmiled at me, and I looked up tomeet her eyes. Mary Lou had a

funny look on her face, and Ithought again of that mythical sixthsense.

“John Turner,” I said arounda mouthful of broiled pork. “18thand 19th century. Hans Heysen,Monet, lots of well-known artistshad or have landscapes as some oftheir best-known work. And it’s stillquite popular. There’s Paul Sawyier,in Kentucky. Let’s see, Kurt Jackson,he does mixed media sea-front stuff.Very impressive. Lots of stuff ofCornwall; he also does some pho-tography.” I shrugged and satstraighter in my chair, set my forkdown on the plate, took a loud gulpof meat. “Landscape is a veryrespected theme, still, even if somepeople consider it ‘fuddy-duddy.’” Istopped. I was starting to get pissedoff, and my tone was showing it. Itake a finished piece - one I’ve beencareful to make using an aged can-vas, a supply of paints it’s hard to

find anymore, timeline-appropriatebrushes, all the things needed toproduce a work that’s effectivelybeen counterfeited even though Ireally am Withrow Surrett and Ireally did paint it myself - and showit to a curator or a dealer and theycheck the signature and then theycluck their tongues and say some-thing about how I was lucky to findit because surely there must not bemany unknown works by my“grandfather” left and then theylook at me like I’m the world’s worstleech, like they can’t believe I valuemy supposed ancestry so little as toplace a high price on it.

Mary Lou arched her eye-brows and made an ‘o’ with hermouth. “I had no idea,” she said.Everyone else chewed in silence. Shemade a little ‘mm’ noise to indicateshe wasn’t finished, like she’d justrealized that perhaps she shouldclarify her statement. “I mean, I had

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no idea you were such an avid stu-dent of art, being a writer yourself.”

“Well,” I replied, “Fiction isan art.”

“Yes,” Mary Lou replied, socompletely and blissfully tactful thatno one could ever accuse her of try-ing to draw me out. “But there’s areason they call it ‘arts and letters,’isn’t there? I mean, there’s an art towriting, yes, but they’re not thesame thing.” She lifted an elbow topoint it at her husband, gesturingcasually with the same arm holdingup her glass of wine. “It’s not likewriting music, or, say, painting.”

I know what bait smells like,and I didn’t bite even though I wasdefinitely in the mood for it. InsteadI just shrugged again. “Maybe so. Iwouldn’t know.” Saying that washard - the part of me that starved ina one-room apartment over anappliance store in Asheville for fiveyears while I learned that landscapesare so important to the history of so

many artists because landscapes willsit still long enough for you to prac-tice your craft, to learn, to experi-ment, to compare the results of onetechnique with another, to learn thelittle inner cues that tell you whenyou’re doing something right, whenyou should just keep working andnot over-think it for a little bitbecause you’ve got that vibe; thatpart of me wanted to throw some-thing. The part of me that has tomaintain a public life just normalenough to go as unnoticed as possi-ble, though, that part of me had toride herd on everything else insideand it won.

Mary Lou was clearly tryingto come up with something shecould say in response to that non-reply, something that would cementher conversational victory, but I cuther off at the pass by jamming myfork into the sliver of jellied beefloaf I’d gotten and shoving thewhole thing in my mouth.

No one had ever seen any-one else actually eat the jellied beefloaf before. Shocked silencedescended on the table, and evenMary Lou’s pupils dilated a hair’sbreadth when she saw me do it.

I chewed, and chewed, andchewed. Jellied beef loaf, it turnsout, is a kind of sausage. Note thecareful use of that phrase, though.Imagine taking deviled ham andstuffing it into a sausage skin, thenbaking it or frying it. It doesn’t turnhard, but it’s not complete mush. Ittastes of salt and bland flesh, sothere’s nothing remarkable there. It’sjust meat-flavored stuff you put inyour mouth and you chew. I waschewing a lot of it at once, and Ichewed with merciless slowness.Chew. Chew.

Chew.Franklin was watching to

see what I thought, whereas MaryLou and Kathy and Herb lookedlike they were waiting for me to top-ple over dead.

I swallowed the slice, raisedboth eyebrows slowly, and then lift-ed my hands over the table. I wasvery careful to give the impressionthat I was either going to reach forother food or I was going to try tocover my mouth before projectilevomiting. I let that second or threestretch out, and then I reached forthe plate with the rest of the jelliedbeef loaf on it, carved a generouslength of it and lifted it onto myplate.

“Delicious, Franklin.” Inodded at him, and then smiled. “Ihad no idea.”

I picked up the entire sev-ered portion, one long and greasytube of dull beige-pink, and bit itoff like a candy bar. “Mmmmm,” Isaid, tonelessly, still smiling. I tookanother elaborately slow bite. “Yes,”I went on, rolling it around mypalate, pausing to let the bouquetexpress itself, then jawing it again.“Delicious.”

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After that, Kathy eventuallypicked back up the mantle of con-versation and wore that yokethrough the rest of dinner. She triedto talk about the artistic side of pro-gramming - elegant designs, smoothoperations, helpful commenting -and tried to use that to tie into writ-ing in an attempt to build a bridgebetween me and Mary Lou. Herbhelped her out as best he could, andover time it turned into Franklinand Herb and Kathy talking abouthow corporate structures obscurethe creative efforts of the individualsin their employ, no matter how cre-ative any one of them is, even ifevery individual in the organizationis trying to be creative. As theyturned into the Bad Luck Club,grousing convivially about the hard-ships of cubicle farms, Mary Loukept watching me eat as I finishedoff the rest of the plate of jellied beefloaf. If Mary Lou was onto me, ifshe wanted to watch me for whatev-er it was that raised the hair on theback of her neck, I was happy togive her something innocuouslybizarre: a taste for jellied beef loaf. Ieven smeared some on a biscuit andate it like pâté to keep her on hertoes. I smiled the entire time.

Franklin had just askedHerb and Kathy if they were readyfor him to bring out dessert andthey had made the appropriate nois-es about how it was too much butthey’d love to try a little when I real-ized two things: Herb and Kathywere lovers and that I’d just heard acar accident in the distance.

I doubt it will surprise youto learn that vampires have remark-ably keen senses. I heard screechingtires and a car horn and then thedistinctive tin can crunch of metalagainst an obstacle and I could tellfrom the sound that it was probablythree blocks away.

No one else had heard it atfirst, so when I looked up and

around towards the windows at thefront of the house and the streetbeyond the others all started in sur-prise.

“Hear something?” Kathyasked. The slight tremor in her voicetold me she and Herb and Franklinhad grown weary spending the lastfifteen minutes walking on eggs.She was jumpy.

I looked at her for amoment and nodded towards thewindow. “Thought I heard some-thing, but it could just be my imag-ination.” The others looked towardsthe windows, too, even Mary Lou,and then I heard the horn again.

“Was that a car?” Franklinlooked out in that general direction.

“I...” I paused, considered,went on. “I’d swear I heard a caraccident just a second ago.” I setdown the last of the current biscuit.“But, you know, it could be any-thing.” I looked the other directionat the French doors off the diningroom and Smiles was still sittingthere watching me. He’s a prettygood gauge of when weird stuff ’sgoing down, but he can also be mis-leading. His only job is to protectme. If people are dead in the streethe doesn’t really give a damn unlessI’m one of them. Killer, on the otherhand, forgot Smiles just longenough to run to the fence and startyapping his head off.

The car horn soundedagain, closer this time, and thenheadlights splayed against the frontof the house. The horn was moreinsistent than before, and Franklinwalked to the front windows to sur-vey what he could see beyond theshrubs they’d placed there for priva-cy. “Someone’s just pulled up in thedrive,” he announced.

I knew that something verybad was about to happen becausefrom outside I could hear Smilesstart to growl.

I wasn’t going to start crazy

paranoia talk out of the blue so I satat the table and watched the livingroom and foyer. Franklin stood inthe bay windows, watching the carin the driveway, and narrated for usas the guy got out of his car and ranup the front walk to the door.

“What’s he look like,” MaryLou asked, and Franklin shrugged ather in the dramatic, both hands outto the side, both shoulders pumpingup and down way of an actor onstage.

“He’s just some guy,”Franklin said, but it was cut off bythe doorbell ringing frantically:RING-A-RING RING-A-RINGRING-A-RING, and then the guystarted beating on the front doorand shouting something we couldn’tmake out.

“Aren’t you going to answerit?” Mary Lou had stood from thetable and was trying to shout overthe noise, Franklin looking back at

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her uncertainly. His hand hadn’tmoved from the blinds; he hadn’tmoved from the window. “Answerit,” Mary Lou shouted, andFranklin took two hesitating stepsto the door. In those few seconds,the guy’s shouts had become lesscomplicated and more coherent.Whatever he was yelling before wasjust a muffled jumble of syllables,but now it was easy to make out:Help me, there’s been an accident, hewas saying. Help me, please; I need tocall the police.

Kathy and Herb were stillsitting at the table with me, and Inoticed that they had brieflytouched hands under the table, bothlooking to the other for reassurance.Definitely lovers. They weren’tgoing to do anything, and it didn’tlook like Franklin would either. Istarted to stand up, my napkinfalling out of my lap and into themiddle of my plate, but Mary Louhad already made for the door. Theguy was still tap-dancing on thedoorbell so I couldn’t make outwhat Mary Lou said to her husbandas she went by him but it was uglyand her face was set as hard as ananvil. With one twist of the knob

and a practiced sweep of her otherhand she’d undone the dead boltand yanked the front door open.The stylized, decorative ukulele onthe back of it - tiny, with threestrings instead of four, little woodenspheres suspended on twine suchthat they would bang against thestrings when the door opened -twanged a wild chord and the othersall jumped a little in anticipation ofwhat they might see.

The stranger on theirdoorstep was, in fact, just some guy.He was in his late 20’s or early 30’s,dressed in khaki slacks and a solid-color oxford button-up. His close-cropped black hair and his coffee-colored skin cooperated to makehim look a little younger than hemight actually be, and his wide, redeyes and choked speech indicatedthat whatever had happened outthere, he had just now started sob-bing over it. His head was turnedaway from the house, in the direc-tion he’d come, but when the dooropened he whipped back aroundand stared at Mary Lou, lips quiver-ing, for a long moment before hesaid anything.

“Holy fuck,” he mumbled,

his voice strangled and high-pitched. “Oh, god, we have to callan ambulance, I just ran some guyover in the street.” Other than hisvoice reaching for the top end of thescale and shaking wildly, he sound-ed pretty together. Shock, I figured.Turned out I was right, because heinterrupted Mary Lou when shestarted to say something inresponse: “But...” He shook hishead at her and she was quiet. “Butthen it happened again,” he said.

We all blinked at once.“Franklin.” Mary Lou was

very calm. “Go and get the tele-phone and call 911.” Franklin wasquick to obey, and disappeared intothe kitchen immediately. Mary Louhad never taken her eyes off the kidat the door, and this time he let hertalk. “Now,” she said, voice even,“Tell me exactly what happened sothat we can help you.” She reachedout and took the kid’s elbow and ledhim out of the doorway, into thefoyer, and closed and locked thedoor behind him. He sank into anarmless chair between two large,fake plants - a chair I’m pretty sureMary Lou would only let someoneuse in the event of an emergency, sothe kid at least had that going forhim - and took two deep, raggedbreaths. “Actually, first,” Mary Louadded, “Have you checked on eitherof them? Do they need first aid?”

The kid shook his head andhis eyes went wild all of a sudden,

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PencilPoint Mountain, and www.paintbrushforest.com

present Tree,

a collaborative, all ages, fine arts book illus-trated by members of Paintbrush Forest, agroup of artists from the Orange County,NC, area. Proceeds from Tree support theHaw River Assembly, a NC environmentalorganization. Check out www.paintbrushforest.com topurchase prints of the original book art, tomake a donation, and to order your owncopy of Tree. Or find us at many fine localTriangle retail locations. Thank you.

his pupils wide like saucers and thewhites bulging out at me. Trust mewhen I say that I know the look ofmortal terror on a human being.This was that, and everyone in theroom recognized it from firsthandexperience or from ancestral memo-ry.

It’s interesting, actually,there’s been research done on this.There is an evolutionary advantagein people looking all crazy whenthey’re real scared. One article aboutit said, basically, that it’s how cave-men knew when someone was com-ing up behind them. Bottom line,when one person sees another per-son do that - eyes wide, pupils dilat-ed, whites of their eyes just all overthe place - it produces fear in theobserver as well as the observed. Ittriggers the fight-or-flight mecha-nism.

It does not trigger that invampires because a lot of the basichuman instincts simply shut downafter the Big Bite. That doesn’tmean it gives us a warm fuzzy,though. In the movies, it’s alwaysDracula running around with thatstupid grin, his fangs hanging outlike a TV antenna got stuck in hiswindpipe, people screaming up anddown the countryside. It isn’t likethat for us, not really. We - well, thesmart ones, anyway - try to avoidcreating fear as much as possible.Fear gets people talking. Fear makesit hard to keep something secret andit makes people overreact. Whenhumans start shuffling around andlooking to each other for guidancewe start hoping they’ve got theirtorches and pitchforks well out ofreach. Fear makes people do crazythings.

“No, they don’t need firstaid,” the kid said, shaking his head.I wondered what the hell was takingFranklin so long with 911. “No,they...” The kid threw his hands upto his face and pushed back the skin

around his eyes. “They’re dead,” hemumbled. “And... they look dead.They look... really dead.” We weresitting in silence, and then the kidwent on after a second or two.“They look like they’ve been dead along, long time.”

Kathy and Herb both heldtheir breath, and Mary Lou wrin-kled up her forehead. “What do youmean?”

“I mean they were corpses,”he said after a second. “I mean therewere corpses in the street.”

“Dead bodies in the street?”The Mary Lou Reinholdt that askedthis question was not one humanbeing concerned for another; shewas the wife of the president of theLondon Towne neighborhood asso-ciation.

“Dead bodies... walkingaround,” the kid said, and then heturned to one side and puked hisguts out all over one of Mary Lou’splastic plants.

Franklin chose that momentto emerge from the kitchen. “Icalled 911; they said the policewould be here soon.” He looked atall of us, looked at the kid trying towipe his mouth on his sleeve,looked back at Mary Lou. “Theysaid they were already close by, so itwould be quick?” Franklin’s expres-sion was one of confusion andbewilderment. Mary Lou lookeddown at the stranger, then up atFranklin and made a motion with

one hand, against her other arm. Irealized she was trying to mimeinjecting something. She thoughtthe kid was drug-addled.

“OK,” she said to him, tak-ing a step back, and Franklin doingthe same, very casually. “So what’syour name?”

“Jeremy,” he coughed.“Jeremy,” Mary Lou said

very gently, “We’ve called the police,and they’re on their way to help. Inthe meantime, I think if we go out-side and look again you’re going tofind that you’ve imagined some-thing very terrible and it’s shakenyou up very badly.” Mary folded herhands together in front of her. “Doyou want to go outside and check?”

Jeremy looked at her withhis red-rimmed eyes and thenlooked over to the door and shookhis head violently. “No way, lady, noway,” he panted. “No way am Igoing back out there.”

“Well, Jeremy, that’s up toyou.” Mary Lou was 110% conde-scension. “I’m going to go see, andI’ll be right back.” Before anyonecould say anything - thoughFranklin did at least open his mouthfor just a moment - she’d whippedthe front door back open and goneout, pulling it shut behind her.

Kathy and Herb were look-ing intently at one another, bothhands still clasped under the cornerof the dining room table, and Icould hear Smiles growling again

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July 2012

outside. Killer was barking his stu-pid little walnut of a brain out. Noone noticed as I slipped in perfectsilence out the French doors ontothe back porch. I may be a lumber-ing fat-ass but any vampire worthhis salt at least knows his wayaround some gauzy curtains and asimple door latch.

The back yard was silent fora moment when I stepped outside –Killer ceased his yapping just longenough to look at me, and Smiles’growl stopped as soon as I was in hispresence again. For those few sec-onds I closed my eyes and openedmy ears and let my senses roll outacross the yard, then over the fenceand into the adjacent lots, on outacross the neighborhood. I couldhear televisions in several houses, acough that sounded like it wouldn’tget better anytime soon – had to beOld Lady Jenkins, the one with allthe in-home care – a couple ofradios tuned to a local call-inrequest show.

I could hear soft footstepson grass, someone shifting their feetback and forth.

I could hear shuffling, shoesscuffing against asphalt as though adrunken man were staggering downthe street.

And another.And another.Very softly, I could hear

Mary Lou praying under her breath.I opened my eyes, and the

night was gone. Darkness is noenemy of mine, and these old eyescan slice right through it. Smiles waswatching me, waiting patiently for acommand. I signaled him to stayand went out the gate to the frontyard.

Mary Lou was standing atthe curb, on the grass, looking oneway and then another and shiftingher weight between her feet. Herlips were moving but I don’t think

she was exactly in charge of whatwas coming out. Fight or flight isnot an instinct many people arereally at home with anymore intheir insulated little lives.

I strode up and cleared mythroat from about six feet back.Mary Lou whipped around withwide eyes, took a moment to recog-nize me, then turned back andlooked mutely up the street. I tooktwo more steps to stand beside her,and followed her gaze.

Three corpses in their one-time Sunday best were staggeringmindlessly in small circles in themiddle of the street. They wereprobably thirty, maybe forty feetaway. If they had noticed us yet theydidn’t have much in the way ofshowing it. They just turned andturned and turned again, arms stiffby their sides, hands clenching andunclenching reflexively.

You’ll not mind I don’tdescribe their faces.

“Whu...” Mary Lou wasoutside the mind of someone whocould form words for the moment.

It is said that there arestranger things in heaven and earth,et cetera, and they ain’t kidding. Iknow the world holds some esotericand arcane shit because I’m one ofthose things myself but I had neverseen the dead literally walk. I mean,we’ve all seen the movies, right? Ihave, anyway. Shit, for a solid threedecades all I had to watch at nightwere old movies on UHF channels.These fellas weren’t exactly Night ofthe Living Dead and weren’t exactlyFrankenstein. No one could confusethem for a mutant or a junkie on abad batch. They were dead things,plain and simple, walking around.They did not moan, they did nothiss or howl, they just turned inslow circles, around and around,their eyes locked in front of them.

“Go inside,” I said to Mary,very softly. “Just go inside. Lock the

door behind you.”She still wasn’t very capable

of listening and just stood there. Istarted to get antsy. Surely theywould notice us eventually, right?Surely they would sense we werehere: smell us or hear us or see us orsomething. They were dead, yeah,but in the movies that’s always howit happens, right? Someone screamsand then the zombies all stop whatthey’re doing, turn slowly andcharge. I really didn’t want to be inthat scene of the movie. I alwayshated those parts the worst, whensome idiot loses their shit and getseveryone else killed.

I put my hand around MaryLou’s chin and turned her head sothat she looked me in the eye. Withall the force of personality I couldmuster, I drilled into her mind withmy own and said, very distinctly,“Go inside and lock the door and letno one in or out.” There’s a reasonwhy the Count always gets what hewants when he’s alone with some-body in the vampire flicks. Maryfoggily turned around and startedstumbling back towards her frontdoor.

I watched her go, checkingover my shoulder to see if the threewalkers up the road had heard us oranything, and as she neared thefront door she reached for the knob.The door opened before she gotthere, though, and Franklin NotFrank poked his head out.

“EVERYTHING OKAYOUT HERE?” he called to me,unnecessarily loudly. He was scaredand wanted to demonstrate toeveryone that everything was pre-cisely OK out here.

I heard the scuffling in thestreet stop, and turned around tolook. None of the walkers werelooking at me, but they had turnedtowards the house, and the frontdoor, and the source of the shout.They started shuffling towards the

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house and their stiff arms started totwitch.

I will kill that man beforethey do, I swear to God, I thought.What I said, however, was yelledover my shoulder. “Get her in thereand shut that fucking door!”

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Final Tidbits: We’re thrilled by the response to the Laine Cunningham Novel Award. So many of youare out there really working at the writing game! Beach reading - get your child or grandparent a copy of Tree, published

by PencilPoint Mountain (www.pencilpointmountain.com,) an imprint of The Blotter Magazine, Inc. What is an imprint? It’swhat happens to your right cheekbone when you are a wise-ass to Evander Holyfield. Need karma-reparations? Make a donationto The Blotter (www.blotterrag.com.) Buy a Blotter t-shirt while you’re there, we’re almost out and want to place another merch

order. And, as always, visit your local independent bookstore, faithful to a fault and with plenty of air-conditioning! Stop spinningin circles, asking, “Where have I seen that girl in ‘Hunger Games’ before, or was it something I misremember in a dream?” Open

a book, turn on the local jazz station, grab a handful of pistachios, call your Dad - there’s some concern about your car title,and give someone you like a kiss, they deserve it, and if they don’t, well, you do. Got it? Good!

The DreamJournal

real dreams, real weirdPlease send excerpts fromyour own dream journals.If nothing else, we’d loveto read them. We won’tpublish your whole name.mermaid@blotterrag.com

School is always a good-dreambad-dream. I can’t find myschedule. I can’t pull up mypants. I can’t get to class on time.I don’t know anyone in my classand I can’t remember anythingabout the subject. Halfwaythrough, I’d like to go home, butthe traffic of other students miresmy feet in an agonizingly slowlinoleum slog down hallways thatall look alike and jut at architec-turally unsound angles. I want togo home, I think, but where ishome? Is it my parents’ oldhouse, long sold so that theycould retire to warmer climes? Isit a beach house full of memoriesof fine sunny days? Is it my ownfirst apartment, or first pur-chased house, or is it the house Ilive in right now, with my familyand my current life? Strange howI can’t grasp all that and justshow up to class on time.

MEH - Chapel Hill

CONTRIBUTORS

Richard Ong is a renaissance man whose colorful career spans fromworking in the engineering sciences and information technology toshort story writing, poetry, photography and painting. At the moment,he is engaged in writing a screenplay for an independent action filmcompany in California. Richard currently resides in his cluttered, mustybedroom office in Scarborough, ON, Canada.

Michael G. Williams is a native of the mountains of Western NorthCarolina and has lived in the Triangle area since 1992. He believestraditional publishers have to make one major psychological shift tosurvive the explosion of self-publishing and ebooks: publishers musttransition from acting as gatekeepers to acting as guides. In an era inwhich anyone can produce anything and put it up on the Kindle storetraditional publishers must begin to market themselves to compatibleauthors rather than the other way around, offering their expertise andmarket access to help creators make their work better and more wide-ly recognized. In addition to writing almost exclusively in first-personabout vampires, private investigators, magic and hackers who live onthe moon, Michael is also an avid runner, walker and bicyclist, playerof tabletop roleplaying games, reader of books, decade-long partici-pant in National Novel Writing Month (www.nanowrimo.org) and heoccasionally reviews comic books as Klarion atwww.pinkkryptonite.com. The character of Withrow was created for agame in 1998 and Michael has been writing him ever since. Michaelcan be reached at michaelgwilliams@gmail.com. Visit www.robustm-cmanlypants.org/perishables for information on obtaining the rest ofPerishables.

Phil Juliano lives in Minneapolis, which may or may not be theAsheville of the ice-fishing and indoor-mall-water-park set.

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