Pulphouse Fiction Magazine Issue #36, page 4
She didn’t meet a smooth-talking man at a crossroads.
She made no offers to gods.
She asked for nothing at any time and certainly never prayed.
She has no special power nor senses anything specific when what happens happens.
She simply feels how she feels. Imagines what she imagines.
A teenage girl alone in her room. She is self-aware enough to know how intense that can be all by itself. She imagines all the girls, all the bedrooms, all the feelings bottled and shaken and aimed and fired into the universe at the enemy.
Well, why not?
Nights later, nights without leaving cookies, Cynthia feels something in her bed.
She jerks her legs up into her, her feet instantly under her, crouched for power, her blanket off, her hands free and at her sides, one of them holding the handle of a Ka-Bar carbon steel fighting knife sharp enough to chop bone. The cookie container pushed behind her to her pillow.
So dark. Too dark.
But something.
She detects no figures, nothing familiar, no male limbs and torsos, no odors.
Anything?
She steadies, shallows her breathing. Just as the adrenaline drains off, she hears the sound and the adrenaline seeps back. A rustling. Then a thump in the dark.
She raises her knife so the blade is level with her line of sight.
“Fucking show yourself, pig,” she whispers. “I’ll gut the fuck out of you.”
Her body feels ready. Balanced. She could launch herself at any moment. And she would gut. For sure, without hesitation.
She catches movement deep within her closet. Too big to not be human. Air hisses out between her teeth.
She expects to smell crotch odor and cologne and liquor breath. She whiffs peppermint.
The figure emerging is wide, tall, thick.
“Cynthia,” it says.
She flexes, yet her mind tells her she will not need to. She does not stand down.
“You know who it is,” he says.
She hesitates. What does one say to this person?
“I don’t want to hurt you but I will.”
“You won’t have to, Cynthia,” he says and now he steps out and she can see it’s him in the gloom. “I just want to talk.”
She goes down to one knee, the knife hand still up and ready.
“Why do you want to hurt people?” he asks.
“Do I have to say it?”
“Of course not. That was stupid of me to ask.” He pauses, cocks his head. Then: “Are those the cookies?”
The container by her pillow. He sees it. Seven cookies within. She doesn’t answer.
“Cynthia. You have no idea how good they are. I have never tasted anything like them and I have tasted everything a hundred times over. Please. May I have a cookie?”
“No,” she says.
“Why not? I meant what I told you. Always the truth. I will give you whatever gift you like.”
“Get out.”
He still has his hands up. He steps a little closer to the bed. The muscles in Cyn’s shoulder and arm burn from gripping the knife.
“I know some things about you, Cynthia. You’re not always on the nice list. You can be on the naughty list next year very easily.”
“Over cookies.”
“Please. You have no idea how good they are. I can’t stop thinking about them. And I can’t replicate them. I’ve tried, oh, we’ve all tried, the whole kitchen’s tried. What is it? What’s your secret? I’ll give you anything! How can you refuse that?”
He points at the container. “They’re in there, aren’t they? Open it so I can smell them. Can I have one? Just one?”
He creeps closer. His legs bump against the base of her bed and the mattress moves.
Cyn’s shaking now. His proximity. His tone. He is not himself. They’re never themselves when they get this close to a bed. Close enough to smell what they want.
“I will gut you,” she whispers. “I swear I will.”
He makes the placating hand gestures again, but his tone changes. “You’re just a girl, why go this way?”
Cyn sneers and feels so much rage she almost can’t speak and she finally manages, “You’re in my room. My fucking bedroom.”
That registers with him. He steps back.
“I don’t think you know what you really are,” she says. “I know you can’t see everything.”
“Cynthia.”
“Not another fucking thing from me. Get out.”
He exhales and lingers, thinking of something else to say. At last he fades back into the closet and is gone.
Cookieless nights go by.
Notes still arrive. Each one shorter and a little less hinged.
Cynthia doesn’t like that he’s in the house every night, but he’s stayed out of her room and away from her. She is fine tossing the notes, but she does indeed need something. More than one something. She realizes she can get these things with a fistful of cookies, no credit card required, not even a mouse click.
She leaves out a dozen cookies and milk — and a list of gifts she would like him to bring.
In the morning the cookies and milk are gone and the gifts are there.
A plastic footlocker, you know the one, containing the complete Classic Army Men Army Base including 350 (count) soldiers.
A new soldering iron and three spools of aluminum.
A set of microsurgery tools including forceps, dilators, vascular clamps, tenotomy scissors (Stevens variety), needle holders and sutures, and a microscope.
A vintage Wartime Warren posable 12-inch action figure. The big-size Warren hasn’t been manufactured in more than 30 years, but this one has that new toy smell.
He leaves a short note with the gifts.
I hope this helps you.
—S.
Warren mewls and thrashes, but he is no longer Warren. His name is Corporal Joseph Cerami and he knows who she is.
Cyn peels off surgical gloves and thinks of what she will need next from Claus. Three more Warrens, for starters. She still has some cookies to leave for him. She’ll make as many batches as she has to, but she’s pretty much stopped eating the cookies now. Her taste for them has faded.
Who needs cookies, she thinks.
She eats little live army men from her jar as she works, the texture across her tongue irresistible, the taste addictive, especially when they pop.
O’NEIL DE NOUX & DEBRA GRAY DE NOUX
Debra Gray De Noux joins her husband, award-winning mystery writer O’Neil DeNoux, in this wonderful and twisted take on the holiday party. Really fun.
O’Neil has published about fifty novels with more coming regularly. His awards include The United Kingdom Short Story Prize, the Shamus Award (for best private eye fiction), the Derringer Award (for excellence in mystery short fiction) and Police Book of the Year.
Debra Gray De Noux also has a lot of publishing experience since she started off as the managing editor and the beating heart of the original Pulphouse Publishing company back in the late 1980s. She and O’Neil met through the original Pulphouse corporation. Over the years, she and O’Neil have collaborated on a lot of different types of fiction under varied names. It’s great to have her back in the Pulphouse pages.
You can find out a lot more about O’Neil’s work at his website oneildenoux.com.
POPCORN FOR CHRISTMAS
O’NEIL DE NOUX & DEBRA GRAY DE NOUX
Some sick bastard's throwing a party in the morgue on Christmas Eve. That's what Johnny Russell thought as he passed the Criminal Courts Building after getting off the evening watch at the Crime Lab at eleven p.m. Still in uniform, Johnny turned off the sidewalk and walked into the Coroner's Office garage. He could see the door to the morgue was ajar. Someone was singing "The Little Drummer Boy." It sounded like Andy Williams, or maybe Perry Como. Johnny stopped and listened, twirling his PR24 nightstick by the handle, spinning it in circles.
It was dark in the garage of the old building. Built in the thirties, the huge gray concrete-block Criminal Courts Building dominated the corner of Tulane and Broad Avenue, in downtown New Orleans. Johnny noticed how chilly it was in the garage. He holstered his nightstick and checked his watch. It was five minutes after eleven. He stretched and thought about getting out of uniform, putting his nine millimeter Beretta away and maybe dropping in on the First District's watch party after all.
Glancing back at the morgue's door, he saw a young woman step out. Illuminated by the bright light from inside, she looked as if she was in a spotlight. Johnny was no longer chilly, not even tired anymore. He felt himself inching closer to the woman standing in the light. Her black party dress barely reached her knees; the woman had short dark brown hair, a slim figure, and nice slender legs, accentuated by her high heels. He could see her face in profile. She had a model's face, smooth and well made-up. He thought she looked beautiful.
The woman did not seem to notice him, turned around and went back into the party. Johnny followed. He paused just inside the door and tossed his hat on the hat rack next to the door. He was surprised his hat didn't tumble off. Instead, it caught one of the spikes, spun once and stopped.
Before he could move away from the door, a tall blond woman in a Roman toga stepped up and gave him a good looking over. She told him to turn around and nodded approval after he made a complete circle. Pursing her lips, she kissed the air, wheeled and walked back into the party. There were several people in the hallway, three men and two women, all middle-aged and dressed up for a party. One man, in a bright green suit, stood brooding against the wall. He scowled at Johnny and said, "Evening, Officer," in a gruff voice.
Johnny hesitated a moment. His nostrils registered some strange odors now, ammonia and formaldehyde possibly, along with other rich smells of decay. He was about to grab his hat when he saw the woman in the black dress again. She crossed the hall from the pathologists' office into the autopsy room.
Weird, Johnny thought as he walked down the hall toward the autopsy room. Passing the refrigeration unit on his left, he looked in and saw a blond man in a blue suit kissing a woman in a baby blue dress.
The stereo began a version of "Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire" as Johnny moved into the autopsy room. The woman in the toga was sitting on one of the stainless steel autopsy tables. A tall Black man was now pressed between her open legs. They were kissing. A gray-haired man was holding hands with a gray-haired woman next to the other autopsy table. The woman in the black dress leaned against the wall near the far corner, alone, staring straight ahead.
Johnny felt his pulse rise as he looked at her. He could feel a tug at his heart. She was indeed beautiful, striking. She looked a few years younger than Johnny, probably twenty-two or three. He crossed the room, pausing at the stereo to discover it was Andy Williams after all, before standing back against the wall a few feet from the woman in the black dress. He noticed how small she was, standing next to him. He was six feet even. In her high heels, she was only about five-four. Her hair was a much darker brown than his hair, although her complexion was quite a bit fairer.
The older couple started dancing. Gently caressing each other, they looked romantic gliding along, even in an autopsy room. Johnny noticed the shelves along the walls of the room. They were lined with various glass containers. In the containers were organs and other pieces of human anatomy: eyes, livers, brains, and fingers. Johnny knew the fingers were for printing for identification purposes. Soak them in a certain chemical and they become straight and stiff. Easy to fingerprint.
Weird, Johnny thought to himself again and turned to face the woman in the black dress. She looked at him, and he couldn't speak. The girl's eyes were so dark they looked black. They looked as if they were black holes where no light could escape. Even under the bright light of the autopsy room, he could see no pigmentation in her irises. But it was the look in those eyes that seemed to grab Johnny's throat and freeze his voice. Her eyes were so sad.
Slowly, the woman's expression changed, and she smiled at him. It wasn't a flirty smile, or even a happy one. It was a sad smile. It reminded Johnny of a lost little girl. He smiled back and let out a sigh. For the life of him, he couldn't think of anything intelligent to say. So he gulped and continued smiling at her. I must look like a moron, he thought, smiling like a baboon.
Slowly, her smile went away. Her chin dropped momentarily before she raised it, bending her neck back and shaking her hair. A whiff of perfume caught the air now, causing Johnny's heart to stir. He felt his pulse rise even more, cleared his throat and discovered it was parched.
"Would you like something to drink?" he heard himself ask in a voice that sounded hoarse.
She shook her head.
He looked around and noticed there were no refreshments. He looked at the others. No one had anything to eat or drink either. Weird party, he told himself.
"Know what I would like?" she asked.
"Huh?"
"I'd like some popcorn," she said. She had a deep voice, sexy, a voice right out of one of those old Film Noir movies, those gangster movies with Bogie and Cagney and those stiff-backed women with desperate eyes, those dangerous women.
Popcorn, Johnny thought. She said popcorn.
"Um," Johnny said, "I'm trying to think of where we can buy some popcorn on Christmas Eve."
The woman turned to face him now, leaning her left shoulder against the wall, crossing her feet as she put her right fist on her hip. "I don't like store bought popcorn."
He couldn't read the expression on her face, but it wasn't flirty and wasn't as sad. Damn, he thought, she looks so sexy. He couldn't help looking her up and down, and then felt so obvious about it he looked away.
"Well," he said, "what about movie house popcorn?"
"I like homemade popcorn," she said in that deep, velvet voice. She shook her hair again, slower this time, and asked, "Do you like popcorn?"
"I love it." That was true. Johnny could feel his heart thundering now, along with a stirring between his legs.
"I'm Johnny," he said, extending his right hand.
"Laurie," she said, pulling her hand behind her back as if he would grab it. Arching her right eyebrow, she said, "You wouldn't happen to have some popcorn at home?"
"I sure would."
She blinked and looked down again, as if she was embarrassed by her own boldness.
"I can pop some up in a minute."
Her eyes were still directed at the floor.
"I don't mean anything by that," Johnny said. "I'll make a deal with you. I'll give you my gun. I won't try anything funny and you won't shoot me, okay?"
Laurie looked up and he could see her eyes were damp. She was biting her lower lip. Cautiously, she reached her right hand out and ran the tips of her fingers across his New Orleans Police star-and-crescent badge. Her touch was so light he couldn't even feel it. Laurie nodded once, and pushed herself away from the wall. He liked the way she did that, the smooth movement of her body.
She led the way out, past the old couple still dancing, past the toga lady sitting on the autopsy table with the Black man still standing between her legs, past the refrigeration unit with the blondes in blue still kissing, through the hall, past the brooding man in the bright green suit. Johnny followed the movement of her hips. He scooped up his hat on the way out.
True to his word, Johnny withdrew his Beretta before opening his apartment door and tried to hand it to Laurie, who smiled and shook her head. He returned it to his holster and opened the door to his small mid-city apartment. It smelled a little musty inside, so Johnny quickly lit a couple of scented candles he kept in the living room. At least the place wasn't too messed up, he told himself as Laurie looked around the living room.
"Kitchen's in here," he said, flipping on the light switch to his tiny kitchen. By the time Laurie slipped in the kitchen doorway, he had his favorite popcorn pot on the stove, the oil already heating up. She leaned against the door frame and watched. Johnny grinned at her, and poured one cup of popcorn kernels into the pot.
He could smell her perfume again, faintly. Stepping away from the gas stove, Johnny unfastened his gun belt and placed in on the small wooden kitchen table. He stepped back to the stove, grabbed two pot holders and shook the pot. When the first kernel popped, he put the lid on the stainless steel pot, leaving it askew to allow the steam to escape, but not enough to allow any of the popcorn to pop out. Laurie watched intently from the doorway. He noticed how she had moved her left knee forward. She had such nice legs, long slender legs for such a small woman.
Johnny shook the pot continually. When the popping stopped, he moved the pot to another burner and pulled a huge amber colored glass bowl from the cupboard. He poured the popcorn into the bowl, then thought of maybe two bowls, in case she wanted something on hers.
"You want some popcorn salt?"
"No," she answered, reaching over to grab a few warm kernels. "I like it plain."
"Me too." Johnny was surprised. He was the only person he'd ever known to like it plain.
"Do you like the old maids?" she asked.
"The what?"
"The half-popped seeds."
"I love ‘em."
"I'll fight you for them," Laurie said, smiling and scooping a handful of popcorn before turning and heading back into the living room.
"When I was a little girl, we always did this on Christmas Eve." She told him in that velvet voice when they were seated in front of the TV. They were facing each other, cross-legged in the center of the living room, the bowl between them. "We always popped popcorn and watched old movies."
Johnny had found It's A Wonderful Life on one of the cable channels. They were at the part when James Stewart first met his guardian angel.
"Why don't you do it anymore?" he asked.
"They're all gone now."
"Oh."
Johnny hadn't realized he was hungry until he started in on the popcorn. It was delicious. He enjoyed watching Laurie as she ate. She took generous handfuls of popcorn each time, then ate each kernel one by one. When she took a drink of Coke, she took small sips. He noticed her hands constantly moved.
