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The Water God of Clarke Street
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Things Slip Through 5.
5.Our waitress (whose tag reads Cassie Tillman) refills Gavin’s coffee. She offers me some, I politely decline, and as she walks away a startling realization hits me: our waitress, Cassie Tillman.JennyJenny Tillmanyou know . . . the senior who wears the purple eye shadowand the short skirts all the boys likeThe implication sends ice down my spine.If all these stories are true, or, as Gavin puts it, have Truth in them . . . how many are about folks I know?For example, Jenny Tillman. Cassie Tillman’s younger sister, a high school senior. She disappeared back in March. Got into a big blowout with her mother and stormed out of their trailer in the Commons Trailer Park on the edge of town. She was last seen hitching along Bassler Road, toward the interstate.Will I read a story about her next? Or maybe a twisted tale about how my next door neighbor—a gentle, seventy year-old retired nurse named Maude—is really a dedicated Satan-worshiper who dines on the flesh of cooked bab
Things Slip Through The Gate and the Way
THE GATE AND THE WAYThe woods behind Bassler House stank worse than anything Jesse Kretch had ever smelled. He looked up to bitch about it to Scott, but a tree branch smacked him in the face before he could speak.“Ow! Dammit! Watch it, Scott!”Small lines burned his cheeks. Scott looked back as he pushed through brush and more branches. “Sorry. You okay?”“Yeah. Guess so. Stings like a motherfucker, though.”“Pussy.”“Ass.”“Whatever. Just keep movin. We don’t have all day. Gotta have Mrs. Wilkins’ yard mowed by dinner.”Jesse scowled but said nothing as he followed Scott through the woods behind old Bassler House. They could’ve taken the easier way along Bassler Road, but that started off the end of South Main Street and looped around town. Way too long. This shortcut—through the woods behind the Commons Trailer Park—was quicker.But smellier, way smellier. The air reeked of bad milk and old piss. Mounds of bulging white plastic bags dotted the ground, some split open like
Things Slip Through 6.
6.“So that’s it?”I ask as we descend The Skylark’s front steps into the nearly empty parking lot so Gavin can take a smoke break. “Jesse Kretch is gone?”With a quick snap Gavin lights the cigarette in his mouth with a battered old Zippo, takes a drag and releases a gray-blue plume of smoke into the black sky. He stuffs the lighter into his front pocket, then sucks on his cigarette some more, its tip glowing a bright orange. He blows out more smoke and says, “When’s the last time you saw Jesse? Do you remember?”I close my eyes, thinking quickly. The answer comes sooner than I’d like. “New Year’s Eve. A few weeks after that 911 call. He’d been cutting up rough at The Stumble Inn. Drunk again, ranting and roaring his usual gibberish at the top of his lungs. That time, Deputy Shackleford and I brought him back to the jail so he could sleep it off. Next morning, I got him breakfast—coffee and an egg sandwich from the Quickmart down the road—gave him my usual speech about him sobering
Things Slip Through The Sliding
THE SLIDINGI’ve been remembering things, lately. Things I don’t want to remember, terrible things that happened long ago. I don’t know why. Actually, I don’t know much about anything, anymore. My writing career is over, I’m on the fourth year of a teaching career I hate, I’ve been drinking way too much, I’m remembering things I’d rather not and I don’t. Know. Why.I’ve tried to talk with Fitzy and Father Ward about it. They were there, of course. But the conversation always fizzles to a dead end and a change of subject. All they want to remember is the day three high school kids trespassed into the old spook house on the edge of town, and no matter how cleverly I’ve brought it up over the past few years I can’t get their shuttered minds past a certain point.They think—or NEED to think—nothing happened.But something did happen. We glimpsed a dark truth: that a shadowed world exists next to ours, one defying explanation. And I’m remembering it.All of it . . .***August, 1987
Things Slip Through 7.
7.Gavin has satisfiedhis nicotine-fit so we’re back inside The Skylark, enjoying the warm cups of coffee that Cassie Tillman refilled in our absence. Gavin sips from his and says, “So you see, you’re not the only one who has a hard time getting answers around here. No matter how much I hound Fitzy and Father Ward neither of them will admit anything strange happened that day. But I have a theory as to why.”“And that is?”Gavin tips his head. “I wonder if they’ve just come to accept what happened better than me. I ran away and became a moderately successful author who thought he was King Shit, getting as far as possible from my home and who I really was, and the one brush I had with writing about Truth scared me into writing for the market and for others only.”I nod slowly. “But Father Ward and Fitzy came home.”“Right. They came home and remained true to their calling, so maybe that’s why they don’t want to talk about that day. They don’t need to. They’ve faced whatever they saw
Things Slip Through Monster
MONSTERJesse Kretch squeezed the steering wheel of his truck with a white-knuckled grip. Bile stung the back of his throat. He’d thrown up so many times today and he wanted to throw up now, but his stomach was empty and another round of dry heaves would do nothing more than leave him wrung out and aching.And the voices.They called to him.Taunting and jeering. He screwed his eyes shut and bit his tongue to keep from screaming because the voices never stopped anymore. They kept at him day and night, laughing, prodding . . .They never stopped.Ever. That’s why he had to end this, now.Jesse grabbed a handful of his hair and pulled. Pain rippled across his scalp and cut through the voices, giving him some clarity. He’d discovered—quite by accident, when he’d punched the bathroom mirror in rage the other day—that pain cleared his head, so as he twisted and pulled handfuls of hair, the voices faded. But they’d be back. They ALWAYS came back.Which meant Jesse didn’t have time to
Things Slip Through 8.
8.I sit back and force myself to look away from Gavin’s handwriting. Dammit if that neat, looping script isn’t moving, and I just want to keep reading until . . .I shake my head slightly, trying to clear my thoughts. “So is Jesse lost in some other world . . . or did he just get the hell out of town? Which story is true? Which one happened?”Gavin scratches the back of his neck, offering me an apologetic look. “I don’t know. Both of those stories about Jesse and Scott came to me within several days, and while I wrote them they both felt right. All I know for sure is that no one’s seen nor heard from Jesse in months. Even you admitted that. Regardless of which story is true, I believe Jesse Kretch is gone and he’s never coming back.”“How did Scott die, then? Which version do you remember?”Gavin opens his mouth.Closes it, folds his hands and looks out the window, whispering, “I honestly don’t remember how he died. I just remember him being dead and no one wanting to talk about
Things Slip Through Bassler Road
BASSLER ROADJarred Simmons jerked awake, his heart hammering, expecting to see guardrails or trees looming in his headlights, but after several seconds of clutching the steering wheel he realized he was still traveling safely forward on Bassler Road.“Sonuvabitch.”He breathed deep and relaxed. “That was too close. Gotta stay awake or I’m dead.”But his eyes felt heavy, exhausted. Everything blurred and mixed together. He felt little distinction between him, his Dodge RAM and the road, which stretched out before him into the night.He rubbed the back of his neck. His last cup of coffee had worn off and his thoughts felt jumbled. His eyes burned, his face felt heavy and he had to force himself to focus on Bassler Road, which seemed much longer than he remembered.Granted, he rarely drove this way, so he didn’t know how long Bassler Road actually was. He usually left town the other way, southeast, out toward Woodgate and Utica, but his GPS had plotted the quickest route to the int
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