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Things You Need 12.
12.So there’s notmuch more to tell. You’re probably expecting some big reveal, right? A twist? Maybe I signed a contract with the shopkeeper and traded my soul for my continued life, or existence, as the guy called it?Well, I hate to disappoint. No such thing happened. The guy shook my hand, took the gun from me, stood up, walked past me, down the long hall with no end (and believe me, in the time since I’ve explored it, and there is noend) and he disappeared, never to be seen again.I never did get his name.I sat on the floor for a long time. Finally, obeying an urge I didn’t understand, I got up. Brushed myself off, ran my hands through my hair, and got ready to open Handy’s Pawn and Thrift for the day.I’ve been here ever since.This town isn’t so strange, now. The people here in Clifton Heights are mostly good folks. Sheriff Baker is a good man, and I feel bad about him missing his wife. Gavin Patchett—the English teacher who took me out to dinner a lifetime ag
Things You Need 1.
1.How’d I endup here? It’s a long story. That’s the thing about life, though. Never can tell how it’s going to go. As Woody Allen once said: “Want to make God laugh?“Tell him your plans.”Anyway, I certainly didn’t figure on thisbeing my life’s work. But it is what it is. If you’re interested, I can share how I got here. To start the story right, though, so you can understand my perspective better, I need to ask: You ever get fed up?Y’know, your job sucks. The spouse is a pain. The kids are sucking your life away. Finally, one day, you blow your fuses and think: Hell with this. I’m out of here.Ever feel that way?Sure you have. Everyone gets fed up eventually. Unless you’re a robot. Or a Vulcan, or a Zen Buddha Hare Krishna Weirdo, and those guys haveto get fed up sometime. You show me a Zen-bot who never gets fed up and I’ll show you someone with a few interesting ways of blowing off steam.Me, I was lucky—or at least I told myself so. In my
Things You Need 2.
2.It was my first visit to Clifton Heights Junior/Senior High School. Right from the start, I thought Clifton Heights was a strange town. Nothing obviously wrong with it. Not on the surface, anyway. Place was the same as any of the hundreds of towns I’d visited over the last twenty years. Homey little department and hardware stores, restaurants, and knick-knack shops. A town hall, three churches, the requisite small town diner and two high schools. A library, a lumber mill, and a little creek running past the town, with a bridge over it called Black Creek Bridge.There was a modest lake—Clifton Lake—to the east, and folks referred to the hills as “the Heights.” The clean streets were patrolled often by Sheriff Baker and his deputies. He seemed a decent guy. Certainly not the stereotypical small-town crook, who ran his little kingdom with an iron fist. Trust me; I ran into plenty of that sort back in the day.The students of Clifton Heights High were a bunch of hard-working go-gette
Things You Need 3.
3.From the outside, Handy’s Pawn and Thrift was like any other second-hand junk store. Random items filled both storefront windows. Old radios, ranging from transistors to stereos with combination eight-track players and tape decks. Rusted old milk cans. An old tricycle next to a plastic Big Wheel. A jumbled assortment of sports equipment—deflated basketballs, footballs, scuffed baseballs and dinged bats. Helmets, a pair of hockey sticks, and a few pairs of old basketball sneakers. Old mason jars filled with marbles, a pile of hammers, saws, another mason jar filled with assorted screwdrivers. A few stacks of old books, and leaning next to them, old records in faded sleeves.Standing on the curb, I saw nothing particularly enticing or remotely interesting. In retrospect, I think it was the sign hanging in the window that sealed it. Maroon with gold trim and gold lettering, it read:Handy’s Pawn and ThriftWe HaveThings You NeedI snorted because from where I stood, Handy’s didn
Things You Need The Way of Ah-Tzenul
THE WAY OF AH-TZENULEverything got strange when the new moon cycle started last April. Course, things always get strange when the moon changes. My goats and chickens act up, coon dogs howl more than usual, cows won’t milk. It figures, I suppose. We’re all tied to the moon more than we think. Farmer’s Almanac says so, same as John George Holmnan’s Long Lost Friend. Hell, moon pulls in the tides and such. Makes sense it messes with other things too.I’m rambling like an old fool. Happens when you get my age. Take a seat there on the sofa, son. Didn’t catch your name.Ah. You’re the new fella, ain’t you? Fresh in town from medical school. Pleased to meetcha.Anyhow Doc, I’m much obliged, you coming to see my Betty. Dr. Jeffers, he’s on vacation. He recommended you. Said you was a fine sawbones, which is fortunate. My Betty, she’s in a bad way. Has been since last April. As I said; moon pulls on all of us, but this business with my Betty? Well, that’s something else altogether. Someth
Things You Need 4.
4.I stared at the reel-to-reel as it fell into a soft hissing click-click-click. After several seconds of listening numbly, I reached out and pressed stop.Silence rushed in, even more oppressive than before. I stuck my hands into my pockets and glanced around the store. No shopkeeper. He must’vegone, I decided, because there was no way he could still be around and not hear the tape playing.And what hadI heard on the tape? At the time I leaned toward an old radio drama of some kind. I’d listened to plenty of those over the years on the road between magazine gigs, on the AM stations. Re-runs of ‘The Shadow,’ ‘Suspense,’ and ‘Inner Sanctum Mysteries.’ They were corny as hell but entertaining. I especially loved how the hosts always shoe-horned their sponsor’s advertisements into the show. “Tonight’s tale about sex, murder, and revenge will give you a delightful chill ... just like the kind you get from sipping a refreshing Lipton’s Ice Tea on a warm summer da
Things You Need The Office
THE OFFICEJohn Pinkerton kneltbefore the bookshelf in the rear of his office. He searched the bottom shelf for something to read while toying with his old Magic Eight Ball, the quirky fortune-telling toy recognized by any child of the eighties.He’d been searching for what felt like hours. This happened often (more so these days), and he couldn’t honestly say it displeased him. Browsing his overflowing bookshelves presented him with an infinite selection of journeys waiting to be taken. Every book he’d read represented old friends he loved revisiting. The ones he hadn’t, new friends in waiting. Choosing which to read was a pleasing difficulty.He shook the eight ball with one hand, smiling. “What’s it going to be?” he whispered, running his other hand along the spines of books on his tightly packed shelf. “Some ghost stories, today?”The white polyhedron, suspended in liquid turned murky with age, jiggled as it revealed: Future is Hazy.John chuckled as he returned his atte
Things You Need 5.
5.The white polyhedron, suspended in old, milky fluid, jiggled as it revealed: Future is Hazy.“Story of my life,” I whispered. “Story of ... ”A chill hand gripped my heart.My throat tightened. I had to swallow hard to open it again. A rush of somethingfilled me. Dread, and fear. I felt lightheaded. I dropped the Magic Eight Ball and it bounced off the counter to the floor. It rolled away into the dark. I sagged forward and barely caught the edge of the counter with both hands, leaning on it for support as my stomach clenched and my knees buckled.I closed my eyes and took several deep breaths. “What the hellwas that?”An answer wasn’t forthcoming, but honestly, I didn’t want one. What I wanted was to get outand back to my cabin at The Motor Lodge. I didn’t care what I might do with my .38. I wanted out.Bracing myself against the counter, I twisted at the waist and glanced over my shoulder at the door. I blinked several times, trying to clear my
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