B.E. Miller's Blog

Hello, All
This is a peek at a little over the opening chapter of my Horror Fiction Novel Glitch. The Novel came from a dream and became a draft in a month. It is a Rollercoaster ride for sure. On the surface it is gritty just like real life. But, underneath within the layers there are deeper meanings left for interpretation among the thrills and horror. I hope you enjoy and Thank You.


INTO THE ABYSS
First, there was nothing. Like he hovered over an abyss, dangled from a hook in his stomach. Like he was made of nothing but an absence of something that he couldn’t fathom, but he missed. Terribly.
Then there was warmth, but not the sweet kind. Smothering. Fucking sunlight. Benny opened one eye, taking a moment to orient himself from his nap. A fly circled the box of his days-old pizza. Probably felt like the king of its own castle. His head bubbled over thoughts as he continued to wake.
What would mom say about this fuckin mess, he thought and grinned. This was not the half grin of subtle amusement. The full grin woke him as he sat up from the couch and watched the fly buzz off. He stood tall and stretched, looking around his dim apartment and marveling at the disarray. His long, thin frame settled to a slight hunch as he grabbed his keys from the stand and made his way out the front door, down the dark hallway, and into the light of day. The air smelled like shit from the sewers mixed with food from the local shops. The people on the street, with their blank expressions and tired routines, scattered in all directions. Idly, he wondered if they ever had dreams like he did…like everything good in life had already been yanked away.
And left a void behind.
Benny stopped on the corner to light up a cigarette and take a drag before continuing his routine. Several blocks seemed like no time as he arrived at the gate leading to the old churchyard. Sighing, he extinguished his second cigarette under his shoe against the pavement and walked collected, but not calm, into the yard and down the concrete steps to the basement door. Calm would suggest that he was alright. He wasn’t.
None of them were.
The door was painted black and peeled with age, revealing the gray underneath. When Benny turned the metal knob, it made the sound of metal grinding against metal before it swung open. The room was well-lit, the bright halogen lights making it easy to see the circle of chairs in the middle, some already filled with familiar faces. He took his usual seat opposite the door, so he could quietly study those who arrived and take a headcount of those who had just stopped showing up.
The inside door at the top of the stairs creaked open and closed as Father Simmons made his way down the steps. The little priest, Benny mused as he looked at the short man with his pressed white shirt and black pants. His brown skin did well to hide his age. Only the salt in his dark curly hair gave some indication.
After the group was assembled, Father Simmons started the conversation.
“We all know why we are here.” He said as he looked around the room. “Who wants to go first?” His old eyes scanned the group for a volunteer.
The group sat quietly, and Benny kept a wager to himself as to who would be the first to speak up, smiling on the inside when it was Rose who raised her hand. Rose was…something.
“Hi, my name is Rose McCafferty, and I’m depressed. I think every day of ways to end my life. Yesterday I w—smiling. I was smiling as I thought about how I would be free if I walked off the curb and let a bus run me over. Today as I was walking here, I crossed an alley where I saw some questionable characters. I wondered if they were armed and wanted to shoot me or, if I attacked, would it force them to defend themselves.” Rose stopped and looked at the floor, crying.
“Anyone relate to how Rose was feeling?” Father Simmons asked gently.
Benny shifted in his seat. Depressed. Everyone used that word. Sad. Lonely. Miserable. Nobody ever said nothing. They never said they felt …nothing.
He was brought out of his musing as Charlie Case replied.
“I’m a recovering addict. I’m surprised I’m still here. It has cost me relationships, jobs, and my sanity. Every day I feel like Rose. I look around my life and just want to slide back into addiction and hope it kills me. I tried the system for help. The system is packed with cases. The system says I’m my own worst enemy and need to concentrate on restoring my life, but it's not that easy. When I interview for jobs and my drug problems surface, it prevents me from getting suitable employment. It becomes easier to resort to crimes for cash. I’m desperate, very desperate. Last night I almost beat an old lady for her purse. I hate being homeless and having no reason to live.” Charlie looked around the room and shook his head before beginning to cry into his hand.
Four out of six were crying now, and Benny could see Father Simmons with that same look of dismay on his face. Talking about your feelings was supposed to help. Maybe it did.
Benny shrugged his shoulders and then stiffened, realizing he was trying to downplay his own experience again, and sighed before speaking up. “I’m Ben Johnson, but people have always called me Benny, and I…I’m already dead.”
At least that got Rose and Charlie to stop crying. He waited for the warm internal reward for having done a good thing and it didn’t come. He grimaced and continued anyway, “My dad and I were involved in a car accident when I was ten. We skid on the ice and go left of center head-on with a semi. I was killed that day. I died in the hospital. I lay in the emergency room for five minutes, bloodied, broken, and lifeless. I could feel myself being pulled toward the light. I was warm and at peace. I felt fulfilled and comforted. I saw Jesus on a bright cloud surrounded by children. His arms were outstretched to me as he smiled.”
He paused, feeling a tightness in his throat and that same sense of loss from his dream. “Then I felt pain as I was brought back to life. The doctor saved me…and I hate him for it. I haven’t felt anything good since… but suicide is a sin.” He glanced up at the sympathetic faces and shifted in his chair. He didn’t have to connect the dots. They knew. Fuckin’ catch twenty-two.
His mouth moved to finish his story even though he hated it. “My father, however, did die shortly after I was revived. So, I was ten years old, fatherless, and back from death. My mom did her best, but she was depressed and lonely. On my eighteenth birthday, she killed herself. Found out I had secured a tryout for professional baseball as a pitcher and figured I was leaving her. I could sling a fastball at one hundred and three miles per hour straight over the plate. My future was looking up after all of the tragedy. But then, I ripped the nerves in my shoulder, and never fully recovered. My fastball slipped to seventy-three, and the pain from throwing made it too much.”
He cleared his throat, admitting to the rest of the reason he was there. Why they were all there. “I did what anyone would do. I turned to alcohol to solve my problems. I spent the next eight years drinking myself into oblivion.” It wasn’t worth sharing that it only numbed the pain in his shoulder. You can’t very well numb a void.
Another reason that Benny kept going. There was nothing to do but try to fill it. “That is until I met Father Simmons. Ever since I was ten, I’ve felt like half a person who didn't belong here, but I do the best I can. I would encourage all of you to do the same. I know it's hard to believe right now, but that is why we’re all here.”
Father Simmons smiled as he said, “There you have it. Even at our worst, we still must remember the light.”
The meeting continued, but without Benny, he was officially checked into his own noise. I sold it, he thought to himself, observing the father quietly. I’m different than these people, but Father Simmons has been so good and understanding, that ruining that relationship would hurt. He is the next best thing to a father to me. Thoughts of his father flickered through his mind. That day they were going to a hockey game. The laughter they shared filled the car. He can still feel his father with him and riddles over what his dad would think of him now.
Would he be ashamed of the man I am, he wondered. The dead end that I call my life. Why am I even still alive? The meeting had ended, and the room cleared before Benny even realized Father Simmons staring at him.
“Are you lost, son?” Father Simmons asked.
Benny snapped out of his self-imposed exile and answered. “No, Father, as hard as it is, I guess I’m right where I’m supposed to be.”
Father Simmons nodded and said, “Ok, if you need time outside the group, you know I’m always here.”
Benny shrugged as he waved at the father and walked out the side door, up the stairs, and into the night. It was quiet as the cool Chicago air filled the street. The sounds and smells drifted as Benny lit up and enjoyed another smoke, crossing the street blocks from his apartment.
Benny paused as a noise caught his attention from the alley. It was a woman sobbing, loudly. Benny walked into the dark alley and called out. “Hey, are you ok?”
He got closer to the sound as he went further into the alley. He turned when he saw a woman behind a dumpster with a man standing over her pointing a gun at her head. Benny immediately recognized the woman as he called out.
“Rose, what the hell are you doing?”

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR

“Why are you crying?” Carmine took a final drag of his cigarette and then dropped it on the ground, watching through apathetic eyes as the woman flinched from the spark. “You asked for this.” He held the gun on her, but the safety was still on. The money she’d offered was a fucking insult and he normally would have just walked away, but he knew her face and she knew his name.
“I…I don’t know,” she sobbed, trying to make herself smaller, as if that was even possible.
“Rose, what the hell are you doing?”
The voice came from his left and a quick glance turned into two, his hackles raising because now it didn’t matter if he’d intended on killing her or not. Another fuckwad made this a problem. He released the safety, causing the woman to let out another sob and the stranger to stop in his tracks. “Who the fuck are you?”
“I’m her friend from the group.” The man raised his hands to show his compliance. “We all meet and talk about shit.”
Carmine looked at Rose and back at the man, examining his slicked black hair topped off his blue jeans and brown leather jacket. His jaw tightened. The man looked sedate enough, but something rankled him. Like if he stared long enough, he’d see something else, like those stupid eye puzzles when he was a kid. “This bitch paid me to put a bullet in her brain, then you show up. Are you a cop?”
“Uh, I’m just a guy,” the man muttered in reply and then looked away.
It was bizarre. Who looks away from a man holding a gun? Did both of these fuckers have a death wish? “Does ‘just a guy’ have a name?”
The man got down on his knees and looked up with begging eyes and spoke. “Ben…Benny. Look, please spare her and just kill me. Please, just don't hurt Rose.”
Carmine stumbled back a step. The sight was alarming for multiple reasons that he wasn’t in the mood to explore. “Holy fuck! You’re fucking crazy. You’re both fucking out of your minds.” A laugh burst out of his chest, and he lowered his gun before glancing back down at Rose. “I’m keeping the two hundred bucks and you’re going to forget this arrangement. Handle your own shit and don’t let me see either of you again.”
One last glance at the stranger…Benny, and he turned and walked down the alley, extending his middle finger once he was far enough away without turning around. “Now fuck off, both of you.”

***
Benny moved to help rose to her feet and whispered. “What the hell are you thinking.”
“My husband is cheating on me. I went home and caught him. I think she was a prostitute… So, I saw that man over on the corner and knew who he was from the neighborhood. I told him I wanted to die and paid him.”
Benny looked back down the alley.
“Who was he?” He asked.
Rose wrapped her arms around herself, feeling cold even though it wasn’t. “Buy me a drink now that I’m broke, and I’ll tell you.”
Benny holds his arm out and Rose links her arm through his as if they were just taking a fucking stroll. “Come on, we both need a drink.”