Category Archives: Short Stories

Mike popped the trunk and threw his bag inside. In the dim light cast by the weak bulbs in the car, he caught sight of the tire iron.

“Are you hearing this?” Chris persisted. “I wonder if it’s some domestic dispute.”

Another “Fuck you, Sherri” echoed across the campground.

Chris listened for Mike. He’d heard the warning dings of the car door ajar, the punch of the trunk’s latch releasing, a shuffle of luggage. And now he listened to some metallic clink. “Mike?” What if it wasn’t Mike? “What are you doing?”

Again: “Fuck you, Sherri.” And this time, another “Relax! God!”

“Mike?” Chris fumbled for his flashlight and turned it on, illuminating the inside of the tent. He sat up and shone the light at the mesh entrance but couldn’t see out. He unzipped the tent door, grabbing onto the oversized tag warning to “Keep all flame and heat sources away from this tent fabric” which he’d neglected to remove from the zipper after purchasing it three days earlier.
Mike was standing by the car, looking slightly guilty.

“What are you doing?” Chris said.

Mike held a finger to his pursed lips.

“What’s going on?”

Mike shushed him.

Some campers were confronting Sherri’s companion. The words “quiet,” “need to,” and “police” rose above the other mutterings.

“Call the police, then!” the man shouted. More barking reverberated over the dark lake.

Mike had already imagined how things might go. He’d walk calmly over to the asshole and deliver a few intimidating lines – something like “Say, “˜Fuck you, Sherri’ one more time. I dare you.” Or maybe, “Don’t worry. I’m not going to call the police. By the time we’re done here, you might be the one calling the police.” Yes, they were silly one-liners, but aren’t there times when the bad guys are so bad that you can forgive the over-the-top machismo of the hero?

It was no mystery why Mike was a better windsurfer than Chris. Much better, in fact. He’d gotten beyond the 12-knot barrier soon after beginning and was working on his slam jibes, quick 180-degree turns that lost little speed. A week in Hood River and he might come away with an aerial jibe or two if he worked at it. Chris, on the other hand, preferred long, straight glides in calmer waters, when the surface wasn’t so bumpy. Give him a big lake with little boat traffic and he could traverse it dozens of times without tiring. Truth be told, water scared him a little. He hated falling off the board, sinking into the dark drink of unknown depth. And that’s why skating on its surface was so exhilarating.

“I’m gonna go talk with Sherri’s buddy,” Mike said.

Chris noticed the tire iron that Mike was half-concealing behind his thigh. “Seriously?”

The commotion started just as Chris was drifting off to sleep. He dreamt of a ninja leaping onto his car and smashing the windshield with a hammer. And though it would only take a second or two for him to realize that, in reality, someone across the campground had broken a beer bottle, the dream logic persisted long enough to cross over into the waking world. He had to save his car. He would need help. He shouted Mike’s name.

It was unfortunate, really. The ninja scenario had provided a common enemy, a reason to band together again. And the hope of being of one mind with Mike outweighed the dread of discovering the car’s windshield in pieces on the dashboard.

But outside the tent, putting away his toothbrush, was Mike, who, unaware of such amicable intentions on Chris’s part, felt that the shout was one more demand, one more instance of Chris holding him back. What would happen, once they got to Hood River, if Mike were to hook up with some hottie and take her back to the hotel? Would Chris emerge from the closet, shouting “Mike”?

“Did you hear that glass break?” Chris spoke to the flimsy wall of the tent.

“Yes.” They were in a campground. A bottle broke. Big fucking deal.

A thick silence punctuated Mike’s yes, as the entire campground held its breath, listening as if more bottles would break. And then more bottles broke. Three of them, actually. Each shrill crash came at a regular interval: one, one-thousand, two, one-thousand, three. And then came the first shout: “God damn it, Sherri!”

Dogs barked in the distance, probably somewhere across the lake. Mike exhaled audibly, vowing that if shit like this continued throughout the night, he’d kill someone. Of course, a part of him wanted it all to go south; it would make his anger just.

“I was just having the weirdest dream,” Chris said. Like Mike cared.

A woman in the distance implored someone to relax.

“Fuck you, Sherri!” came the reply.

“Mike, are you there?” Chris’s voice once again rose from the darkness, disembodied – like a conscience.

Don’t be surprised if you’re ever on the interstate west of Spokane and the road kill still looks alive. Here, where the urban sprawl gives way to tall pine forests and then to high, treeless plains, things don’t die easily – despite the open skies, the lack of obstructions, the frequency of collisions. Exit at Fishtrap Lake and beyond the still-snarling dead possums on the roadside you’ll see the landscape turn strange. Unlikely mounds of rock covered in wispy grass, small abrupt hills that seem drawn by children, a crooked tree here and there, winding roads – it’s like something from a Dr. Seuss story. A perfect setting for a murder.

There’s no way, of course, that Chris Vance could have known what would happen once he headed off the highway toward the campground at Fishtrap. Though he’d claim later that he’d had a bad feeling about the place, the truth is he had no such premonition. But he did have an argument with his passenger and friend, Mike Wallace (yes, Mike Wallace), which soured the entire evening. Chris wanted to stop for the night; Mike wanted to push through to their destination – Hood River, Oregon – where the two would spend ten days windsurfing.

It began with playful college-boy goading, but when Mike finally said, “God, you’re always pussin’ out,” the awkward silence that followed confirmed that he meant it.

“Fuck you,” Chris said, spotting a sign for a campground and pulling on to the off ramp.

It was Mike’s turn to pay, and his mood was improved when he discovered how cheap the place was — well below the price of your typical KOA or other side-of-the-highway campsite. As he gave the gregarious, gray-haired campground owner twelve dollars, he felt like he was getting some revenge for Chris’s pigheadedness. They only had four and a half hours left to Hood River. It was ridiculous that they were stopping now, at nine o’clock.

Outside the office, Chris was standing at the edge of a small inlet, examining the labyrinth of docks and small fishing boats. The inlet was flanked on one side by a 20-foot cliff; a red and white hand-painted sign warned that cliffjumping was prohibited. The sun had set recently, leaving a still-blue sky, but robbing the world of shadows. Mike stood by his companion, saying not a word, but following Chris’s gaze to a spot on the surface of the shallows where bubbles were rising like boiling water.

They said nothing to each other, despite being faced with this blatant curiosity. Was it a bullfrog? A spring? A swamp creature awaiting the hour when the campfires went dim?

“We’re at site thirteen,” Mike said. Behind him, a floodlight turned on, illuminating Chris’s squinting face.

They got in the car and drove 30 feet to site thirteen, where they wordlessly set up the tent and unpacked their sleeping bags. Chris crawled into bed first and listened to the quiet chatter of campers across the grounds, the snapping of twigs in fires, and what he thought sounded like waves lapping the shore, the origin of which was as mysterious to him as an easy friendship.

By the time I’d finished throwing him into the dumpster, I felt oddly calm. He was right: after the first one, you just kind of know it’s right. I ripped open a couple of plastic trash bags to cover his body, spilling rancid leftovers in the process. Some things are ugly when spilled. Like rice. It looks like maggots. Others, like Szechwan Chicken, look no different. But then there are things like milk or blood, it turns out, that look quite beautiful.

I told Maggie I cut my arm on a piece of sheet metal hanging out the back of some pickup truck. We ate the Chinese in the emergency room – quietly until Maggie asked if I was having second thoughts.

“About what?”

“About college.”

I had no idea what she was talking about, of course.

“Cuz I got online this afternoon and found out that you’ll be an Oregonian resident in two months. So you can start up next fall, like we talked about.”

Thanks to the casual drug use in my past, I was well practiced in bullshitting my way through subjects I had no recollection of. Which is how I got Maggie to recap “our” lunchtime conversation.

We’d apparently come up with a five-year plan. “I’ll be a monkey’s uncle,” I said.

“Why?” Maggie said.

I tousled her hair and claimed I was just delirious from blood loss.

“I don’t suppose you’d be up for a friendly match of snooker when we get home?” she asked.

“Again?”

“What do you mean? It’s been, like five days. I think this is a record for you. Besides, you have to redeem yourself for last night.”

He was a good guy, Eric Two. They’re all good guys. But you have to kill them. It doesn’t get easier, but you have to do it.

I told him to screw himself.

He swung the knife toward me. I held up my left arm, the one he thought was broken, knowing full well I was offering it as a sacrifice. But before he cut me, I plunged the chopsticks into his Achilles heel. A split second later, I felt the slice across my forearm. My own blood splattered into my face as he fell to the ground.

I’ve never heard anyone scream like he did. I’d shoved the chopsticks behind his Achilles tendon, penetrating the soft patch of flesh between the tendon and the ankle. He was writhing; his knife lay on the pavement beside him. Only when I reached for it with my left arm did I realize that I couldn’t move my hand. He’d cut through several tendons just below my elbow on the outer, hairy side of my arm.

I grabbed the knife with my other hand and stood above him. But in the three seconds I took to contemplate how best to proceed, he kicked me, landing a blow to my groin. In real fights, it turns out, you don’t ever have time to think.

As I doubled over, he stood up. “If you make it out of this alive, there’s one more thing you need to know.”

I noted his chopstick-skewered heel.

“If you meet a first-timer, like yourself, you have to make him hate you.”

“Screw your rules,” I said, dropping to the ground and sweeping my leg toward his. I made contact with the chopsticks. He went down. I plunged the knife into his thigh and pulled it out.

Possessed, I jumped on top of him, slicing both of his arms at the elbows, rendering him essentially immobile. Then I put the knife to his neck.

It was almost disheartening to see how easily human flesh gives way to a sharp knife. Maybe more difficult than cutting through ravioli, but definitely easier than slicing a bagel. I wasn’t prepared for the amount of blood, though. I thought I was being delicate, poking into him like he was a water balloon. But blood gushed out.

He let loose terrified shrieks as the knife was covered in a violent rush of red ooze. It got on my hands and made everything slick. I pulled the knife from his neck and blood spurted into the air like a geyser. He wouldn’t stop screaming, so I chopped at his Adam’s apple like a sous chef dicing carrots. That stopped him.

But my squeamishness returned full force at the sight of the bits of red pulp on the knife. I tried to stand but slipped on blood, landing with a thud on top of him. I thought he started screaming again but I was nose to nose with him, staring into his eyes, which had lost the spark of life; I realized it was I who was screaming. I could smell my own breath.