Mandy White's Blog: Dysfictional

Have you seen the price of coffee lately? Holy shit, it’s going to cost more than cocaine before long. And maybe just as addictive… I mean, I’m not saying I predicted anything, but this story reeks of foreshadowing. I wrote this one for Goin’ Extinct: Tales From the Edge of Oblivion, published back in 2014 by WPaD Publications. The coffee apocalypse is starting to look like an actual possibility these days…just saying.

“At more than ten times the price per kilo, coffee replaced cocaine as Colombia’s most lucrative illegal export. Coffee cartels waged war on each other in hopes of controlling the world’s dwindling supplies of the precious brown bean.“

Battle of the Bean

Copyright © 2014 Mandy White

It was the end of the world as we knew it, and nobody felt fine. Remember that song? It’s been stuck inside my head since this whole thing began.

Anarchy reigned; society was in chaos. People rioted in the streets. Yadda-yadda apocalypse…

All because of one little thing. A tiny thing, really. Not quite miniscule, perhaps the size of a pea, but a tiny thing nonetheless.

The all-powerful coffee bean.

We were warned of the impending extinction of our precious bean, but like so many warnings before it, we chose to ignore it until forced to confront the ugly truth.

It began early in the century, when farmers in Colombia noticed a troublesome blight affecting the Arabica plants. The blight, known as “coffee rust”, was a type of fungus that spread rapidly, despite all efforts to eradicate it.

Some blamed pollution, others blamed global warming, but regardless of whom or what was to blame, Arabica crops in Latin America were wiped out by 2027, and from there it spread to crops in Africa.

Still, the public pooh-poohed. As long as Starbucks kept pouring eight-dollar lattes, there was no cause for alarm. The problem was far away from their sheltered yuppie environment. Cultivation was the farmers’ problem, not theirs. Even when the Arabica crops were gone and the price of that particular variety skyrocketed, people simply switched blends.

It wasn’t until every coffee plant on the planet was dead that we were willing to acknowledge that we had a problem. The problem escalated to catastrophic levels when the governments took control of the world’s remaining supply of coffee.

Coffee disappeared from supermarket shelves. Starbucks went out of business. Coffee shops with boarded-up windows littered the urban landscape.

At more than ten times the price per kilo, coffee replaced cocaine as Colombia’s most lucrative illegal export. Coffee cartels waged war on each other in hopes of controlling the world’s dwindling supplies of the precious brown bean. Penalties for smuggling coffee ranged from several years to life in prison or even death by firing squad, depending on which country one was arrested in, but that didn’t stop an intrepid few from trying their luck.

Street value of an ounce of ground coffee climbed higher than that of gold. Users traded automatic weapons, priceless family heirlooms and even the deeds to their homes for a cup of espresso, just to get one more fix of that aromatic black nectar.

We tried consuming tea, colas and caffeine pills, but it didn’t take us long to learn that caffeine wasn’t what gave coffee its addictive nature. It turned out there was another ingredient we had overlooked. A mystery ingredient that latched onto the brain much like cocaine did. Suffice it to say, lack of this ingredient made some people very unhappy indeed. Scientists analyzed it, tried to isolate it and tried to synthesize it but to no avail.

The increase in violent crimes due to coffee withdrawal led to the global legalization of marijuana. Pounds of Purple Kush, Amsterdam Indica and BC Bud now occupied the shelf space that had once displayed pounds of French Roast, Breakfast Blend and Decaf. A society of anxious, stressed-out bean-hounds became laid-back and complacent, sleepily smiling as they crammed their mouths full of snacks.

Of course, there were still the hardcore addicts, for whom nothing else but the bitter ambrosia would do. White-collar professionals became organized crime bosses, dealing the world’s most valuable substance to street addicts, some of them former colleagues. When the coffee finally ran out, one country accused the next of hoarding it, even though nobody had any coffee anymore.

With everyone at each other’s throats, the UN dissolved. Their final meeting ended in a massive brawl; a Battle Royal between nearly 200 delegates that resolved nothing. The situation deteriorated to the point of war, with everyone pointing warheads at everyone else.

With a bunch of coffee-starved world leaders holding their jittery fingers over the red button, I did what any sensible man would, and went to ground.

I found the bomb shelter in my neighbor’s back yard after investigating the sound of a gunshot. I found him at his kitchen table, where he had been trying to snort lines of instant coffee before giving up and swallowing the barrel of his .357. Poor bastard – everyone knows there’s no real coffee in that instant stuff, but looks like he died trying.

I found a shovel and thought I’d do the neighborly thing and give him a decent burial, but damn, the ground was hard! I tried a few different spots but kept hitting rocks, then at one point I hit something metal. Curious, I dug it up, and damned if I didn’t find a bomb shelter! Probably built during World War II and long forgotten under layers of landscaping. My neighbor probably bought the house without even knowing it existed.

So, when the threat of nuclear war became imminent, I packed some supplies and retreated into the shelter with plans to stay put for a few weeks or months until the coast was clear. I brought food, plenty of water, books to read, flashlights and batteries, but I needn’t have bothered to pack so much because when I got down there I discovered the shelves well-stocked. Sure, eighty-year-old canned goods might not be ideal, but they were better than nothing if it came down to it. I scanned my flashlight over the shelves and lo and behold! What did I see? Coffee! Cans and cans of magnificent, marvelous coffee!

I had packed a butane camp stove and several cases of fuel, so I was all set to prepare hot meals. Now hot coffee would accompany those meals! This dark, dusty hole in the ground had suddenly become paradise.

I’m writing this down, partly to keep myself busy so I don’t think about coffee. I also thought it would be a good idea to record what became of our world just in case nobody else is alive to do it.

As close as I can figure, it’s been about six months since I felt the first of the bombs hit. My food supply is dwindling, even the really old stuff. If I have to eat another can of cold lima beans I’m going to scream. Who the hell puts lima beans in a bomb shelter? I guess I could leave the shelter, but as long as I have coffee in my possession, I run the risk of getting robbed, maybe even killed for it. Lord only knows what’s happening up on the surface.

I’m down to my last can of coffee, but I’ve been putting off opening it because once it’s gone, then I truly will be out of coffee. After that, I will leave the shelter and see what awaits me up above.

I’ll wait one more day to open it. I can go without coffee for just one more day. I’ve been saving one last can of butane to make it nice and hot. Cold food I can handle, but cold water won’t brew coffee.

See? One day wasn’t so tough. Why not make it two? If I have a cup of coffee every two days, it will last twice as long. If I wait one more day before opening the last can, that’s one more day before I run out for good.

I made it a whole week. Wow. That’s one more week before I run out. As long as I have that can of coffee, I’m the richest man on earth. I might also be the only man on earth, but… mere details.

Two weeks, and that damn can of coffee sits there unopened, mocking me, daring me to open it. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Nice try, coffee can. I’m smarter than you. After all, you’re just a stupid can of coffee. I’m over you. I don’t love you anymore. I could quit you cold turkey if I wanted to.

Aw, fuck it. Since I know I can quit anytime I want, I might as well drink it and enjoy the last coffee on earth.

I’m doing it. This is it. I’m opening the can.

Tomorrow.

I’ve been out of food for weeks now, and starvation is weakening me more each day. The can of coffee still sits unopened, though. I have decided to save it until the very end. If the last thing I do before I leave this world is drink the last cup of coffee in that can, I will die a happy man. I’ll have to do it soon, though. I’m on my last two gallons of bottled water.

Maybe it’s time I left the shelter. There is probably clean water on the surface. Hell, I don’t even care if it’s contaminated, just as long as it will make a decent cuppa Joe. But… what if it’s total chaos up there? I’d be killed for my can of coffee for sure. I guess I could leave it in the shelter. Nobody knows it’s here. But what if I was followed on the way back, or worse, what if someone found this place – and my coffee – while I was away? Without my coffee, I have nothing. No, the only way it will be safe is if I stay and guard it.

When I finish the water I have open, I will open the last jug of water along with the can of coffee and brew a nice steaming cup of Heaven. When the coffee is gone, I will leave the shelter. If the world is destroyed, I’ll use the revolver I took from my neighbor’s hand and exit in likewise fashion.

NO! NO!!!! I went to open the last water jug and found it empty! DRY! All this time I thought it was full but I didn’t actually pick it up and shake it. The jug must have had a leak at the bottom because the water is long gone. No! No! No! I can’t live without water, because without water I can’t make coffee. A world without coffee is not one I want to face.

Goodbye world, whatever’s left of you.

* * *

The steel door groaned open. Two faces peered into the hole, closing their inner eyelids to shield their eyes from the rising dust.

“What is this?”

“I’m not sure. Looks like some kind of ancient ruins. There’s a cave or something down there. Let’s go down and check it out.”

They scuttled down the shaft into the cavern below.

“Look, there! Bones! What kind of creature is that?”

“I don’t know, but it’s not one of us. Look, only four appendages, and it doesn’t even have a tail! Must be some kind of weird old fossil.”

“What’s that object beside it?”

A webbed, green-scaled hand reached for the metal can.

“Is it some kind of weapon?”

“I don’t think so. Maybe it’s food or something. Look, I can open it.”

Sniff. Sniff.

“What is that?”

“I don’t know, but it smells delicious! Should we taste it?”

“No, it might be poison. Let’s go and ask Mom first.”

I have always said I’m not much of a romance writer because every time I try to write romance, somebody must die. I wrote this one for my first DysFictional collection, published back in 2012. It’s a deliciously dark combination of obsessive love, stalking, and witchcraft. Happy Valentine’s Day!

Your Heart Will be Mine

You twist through my heart

Like a bolt through a nut

I am a nut

Think twice before you bolt

Megan wept, curled on her side in the tightest ball she could manage.

She had been curled up in the fetal position on her bed for hours – days, actually, doing nothing but cry. Barely moving except to use the bathroom and drink a bit of water. She couldn’t eat, she couldn’t sleep and the ache in her chest wouldn’t go away no matter how many painkillers she took.

So this is what a broken heart feels like.

She now understood why they called it heartbreak. What she felt was beyond sadness; it manifested as a tangible physical pain in her chest that radiated down into her belly. It was the most horrible sensation ever, and it was all HIS fault. How could he have been so cruel to her when all she had done was love him? She didn’t know where she had gone wrong. She had given him everything; waited on him hand and foot and catered to his every wish but in the end it wasn’t enough. He took her heart and tore it to shreds and then walked out the door as if the last two years had meant nothing.

She wanted to die.

If I died, you’d be sorry! You’d have to live with it for the rest of your life, knowing that YOU were the one who drove me to suicide!

Died of a broken heart.

That would show him how much she loved him.

Nobody else will ever love you the way I do! You’ll see! One day you will come crawling back to me with your heart in shreds, then you’ll know how you made me feel. And then I can kiss you better. We can heal together.

No, she would not end her life. Life was worth living as long as there was a chance of winning him back.

She would get him back.

Or die trying.

Richard tried to leave her several times during the last year but each time she convinced him to stay. She begged and pleaded and promised to be everything he wanted in a woman but he became cold and aloof nonetheless. He didn’t want intimacy anymore. He participated in sex when she was persistent enough to make his physical urges overcome his mental reluctance but his lack of desire was obvious.

She was willing to accept his lack of enthusiasm in their relationship as long as he didn’t leave. They could work things out. She would make it better. She just had to make him see how much she loved him and he would know they were destined to be together.

The pregnancy changed everything.

The one thing that should have cemented them together forever was the catalyst that ended their relationship. He was willing to stay for the sake of the baby. He even agreed to marry her after much pleading and cajoling on her part.

It would be the perfect wedding. She had already chosen her dress – a high-waisted design that would look stunning even with the bulge in her belly. She booked the church and hired the caterer and sent out invitations. It would be the beautiful fairytale wedding of her dreams. Afterward, he would take her in his arms and carry her over the threshold and make love to her, tenderly and passionately the way a husband should. Their life together would be picture-perfect.

There was just one small detail:

She wasn’t pregnant.

Megan thought she was pregnant, without a doubt. Even though the pregnancy tests (three of them, to be exact) were negative, she assumed it was too early for them to be accurate. She experienced all the symptoms – the missed period, tender breasts, bloated belly, and irritability. She even felt sick in the mornings. When her period arrived late, it was easy to hide it from him since he showed no interest in her physically. Since their engagement Richard had become even more distant, never meeting her eyes and only speaking to her when necessary.

It didn’t matter that the pregnancy was a false alarm. She would be pregnant by the time they got married; she would make sure of it.

She managed to convince him to have sex once during the following month but it did not result in pregnancy. Panicked, she redoubled her efforts to seduce him, but the harder she tried, the less receptive he became. When they did try, he couldn’t sustain an erection long enough to finish.

Four months passed. Then five, and still she wasn’t pregnant. She faked the symptoms, pretending to get sick in the mornings and eating like a horse so she would gain some girth and appear pregnant. The wedding was just six weeks away and she only needed to keep up her charade until after the minister declared them husband and wife. After that, she could fake a miscarriage and he would be there to comfort her and they could try again to start a family.

She began to wear padding under her clothing to keep up the appearance of an advancing pregnancy.

* * *

She didn’t hear him come into the house that day.

The past few months, he had been moving around the house like a ghost, silent, never speaking unless spoken to. On that particular day, he came home from work early. Megan wasn’t expecting him. She stood in front of the bedroom mirror; trying on the next size pillow she was going to bind to her belly to make it look thicker.

She had no idea how long he had been standing there, watching her in silence.

He said nothing, but his eyes spoke the rage in his heart.

He refused to speak to her, no matter how she cried and pleaded. He started packing immediately and left that night, taking only the bare necessities. She clung to his leg, begging him to stay but he peeled her off of him in disgust. He walked out of her life without giving a second thought to their future together, leaving her blubbering on the floor.

Megan was not only heartbroken; she was humiliated. He told his family and all of their friends about her deceit and his reason for leaving. Nobody would speak to her.

She was alone.

* * *

A year later, Megan still sobbed herself to sleep but not as often. The pain in her chest had diminished to a dull ache but it never went away altogether. They said time heals all wounds but she knew that in her case it wouldn’t. She still loved Richard heart and soul and would never stop. They were meant to be together. He was hers and no amount of time or distance would ever change that.

She wasted her Saturday afternoons wandering through the mall, gazing at the gowns in the bridal shop, the sexy lingerie in Victoria’s Secret and the endless displays of adorable children’s clothing. From infant to toddler to preschooler… there were too many cute outfits to choose from. She should have been buying clothing for her own child – for their child. Instead, she could only look and dream.

She wandered toward the food court to feed her craving for sweets. She had been living on junk food and had gained a considerable amount of weight. It didn’t matter because she had nobody to stay thin for. At that moment, Cinnabon called to her.

A baby stroller blocked her path as she navigated through the tables to get to the food counters. She edged around it, pausing for a moment to admire the baby, a little girl about three months old, dressed in an adorable pink outfit. The parents, engrossed in conversation, giggled and shared an intimate kiss.

Megan froze.

No.

It couldn’t be!

It was him. Richard.

Her Richard.

Judging from the age of the infant in the stroller, he hadn’t wasted any time after leaving her. He might have already been seeing that woman behind her back! That would explain his lack of interest in Megan. The slut had already tired him out before he got home.

Rage boiled inside her when she saw the engagement ring on the woman’s finger – a large, stunning diamond solitaire. Nothing like the cheap little band he had grudgingly given her.

“YOU BASTARD!” Megan roared, sweeping the food and beverages off the table onto the couple’s laps.

“YOU DIRTY CHEATING MOTHERFUCKER!”

“Richard?” the woman said, her voice fearful. She pulled the baby stroller away from Megan.

“You stay out of it, slut! I’m talking to my husband. You’ve done enough already!”

Richard finally spoke up. “Get the hell away from my family, you crazy bitch.”

“YOUR family? YOUR family?” Megan sputtered. “What about OUR family? The one you couldn’t even give me because your dick was always limp!”

“I never wanted you, Megan. I never loved you. You were a mistake. The biggest mistake I ever made.” Richard’s tone was calm. He spoke the words without emotion. How could he not feel anything after sharing his life with her for two years?

Richard’s bitch had taken her child and moved away from the table. She was talking to the clerk at Cinnabon and a security guard was making his way toward them.

“You think you’ll be happy with her?” Megan yelled. “She’s nothing! You and ME! WE were meant to be together! Nobody will love you the way I do. Nobody!”

The security guard stepped between them.

“I’ll have to ask you to move away, ma’am. Leave these people alone.”

“Fuck you!” she spat, leaning around the uniformed man to make eye contact with Richard once more.

“You can’t escape fate, Richard. You’re mine! One day you’ll come crawling back. You love me. I know you do.”

Two more security guards came from behind and took her arms, leading her away from the food court. They demanded that she leave at once or the police would be called.

Megan left. She had said her piece.

Richard knew the truth.

She would make him see the truth.

* * *

Megan’s outburst with Richard energized her; freed her from the shackles of depression. She felt electrified, filled with new hope. She had a purpose again: Richard, and her future with him. She just needed to take the place of the baby-making whore in the food court and everything would be perfect again.

She would win him back. His heart had always been hers; he just didn’t realize it yet.

Having been banned from the local mall, Megan’s Saturday shopping trip took her to the streets and a new neighborhood where she had never been. Her Obsessive Compulsive Disorder made it difficult to deviate from an established routine. As a result, she seldom visited new places. Occasionally change was forced. This time she found it refreshing instead of disturbing. Her therapist, whom she hadn’t seen in more than five years, would have called it “a positive step”.

The weathered red brick buildings offered a nice change of scenery from the icy-smooth grey concrete downtown. The new neighborhood featured a wealth of second-hand stores, a few hippie bong shops and some dusty-looking used bookstores. It was in one of these bookstores that she found it.

The tattered brown binding of the book caught her eye and immediately she reached for it.

The Joy of Spellcasting.

She chuckled at the silly title.

It sounds like a cookbook. Why not? It could be fun. Megan purchased the book and walked home with a spring in her step.

She opened the book to the table of contents and quickly found what she sought.

Love Spells – page 131.

She noticed handwriting at the bottom of the yellowed page. The ink had blurred over time but was still legible. Megan held it up to the light to make out the words.

“Be warned, ye who goest here. Think ye long on what thou desirest. The spells contained within be those most powerful. What thou desirest, thou shalt receive.”

Megan smirked. It sounded like something out of a low-budget after-school Halloween special.

Good to know. Let’s see if it’s true.

She turned to page 131 and began to read.

There were several love spells and potions but most of them looked complicated. They contained ingredients she had never heard of and took too long to yield results. They ranged anywhere from six months to three years to complete a spell. Megan wanted results now.

She settled on the One Moon Love Charm. It claimed to return a lost love in one month and she had all the ingredients to make it work:

A container made from wood or metal.

A likeness of your lost love. OR

An object belonging to your lost love, OR

A sample of your loved one’s blood or flesh.

Write on a piece of parchment exactly what you desire.

Seal with your own blood or flesh to bond with your lover’s flesh for all eternity.

Bury the container three feet deep in dark soil under the light of the full moon.

Stand over the burial site and turn around three times and then say the incantation every night for one month. When the moon reaches its next fullness, the object of your desire will come to you.

Megan selected a heart-shaped wooden jewelry box Richard had given her when they first started dating – back when he still knew he loved her. The box held no jewelry except the engagement ring she no longer wore. She had been using it to store her favorite photos of Richard, all carefully cropped with a pair of scissors to a heart shape.

A likeness of your lost love.

What better likeness than an actual photo? She left all of the photos in the box.

OR an object belonging to your lost love.

Richard had left most of his belongings behind when he left, so why not add that as well? She selected a watch she had bought him for Christmas that he always seemed to forget to wear and his razor, which he had left in the bathroom.

OR a sample of your loved one’s blood or flesh.

Technically, the razor already had that covered, since it contained beard stubble and probably skin cells as well. She wanted to add as much punch to the spell as possible. More would be better, right? She cleaned the bathtub drain, extracting a slimy hairball made up of both his hair and hers. That covered both samples of their flesh.

On a plain white piece of paper, she wrote the words she had chosen:

Richard Cole, I desire your heart and nothing else.

She folded it neatly and placed it in the box.

She sliced her index finger with a razor blade and let the blood drip over the contents of the jewelry box.

Under the full moon she stood, on the fresh mound of dirt beneath which the box was buried. She turned around three times and then recited the incantation, which she had memorized:

“By the Earth below and the moon above,

You will be my one true love.

Bound in blood and sealed in Earth,

Waiting for our love’s new birth.

Empowered by the Law of Three,

Richard’s heart will come to me.

Three times Three.

So mote it be.”

She repeated the incantation two more times just for good measure. If the Law of Three was a real thing, then it made sense to do everything three times to amplify the power threefold.

The following night she repeated the ritual, chanting the incantation three times. After a pause, she recited it three times more.

She couldn’t stop the pattern once it had begun. Richard had hated her OCD but it was one of the things that made her organized and precise in everything she did. Every night she added three more repetitions to the incantation. When she reached the 29th night she recited it a total of 87 times. When she went to bed at night, the rhyme played over and over inside her head until she fell asleep.

The moon had reached the first day of its three days of fullness. It would be at its fullest the following night. Megan snuggled happily into her bed, confident that Richard would be with her soon.

* * *

 “Jenkins! Get in here! You gotta see this!” Ralph Anderson shouted to his assistant.

Jenkins wandered through the double doors of the morgue, stuffing the remains of a tuna sandwich into his mouth.

“I’m still on break. Couldn’t you have waited another ten minutes?”

“No, I need you to see this. You gotta tell me I’m not crazy.”

Jenkins approached the table where his superior was conducting a routine autopsy. The ribcage was splayed open, revealing the inside of the stiff’s chest.

“So what’s the deal? You find an alien in there? Looks pretty normal to me.”

“Look again. Tell me what you see. More specifically, what’s missing?”

Jenkins leaned over the corpse to take a closer look, licking mayonnaise off of his fingertips.

“Yeah, so it looks like you’ve already removed the heart, and—”

“But I haven’t,” Anderson said, almost in a whisper.

“Sure you have. It’s not in there.” Jenkins looked around at the empty stainless steel trays that surrounded the autopsy table. “So, where’d ya put it?’

“I’m telling you, it wasn’t in there when we got him.”

“So, what is this then, a serial killer case?”

“No. Probable heart attack. Sudden death, cause unknown.”

“So, where’s the heart?”

“That is the question, isn’t it? There was no incision in the body, no sign of hemorrhage inside. It’s just… missing.”

“We gonna record this?”

“Who’s gonna believe us? I’m closing him back up and labeling him a coronary.”

* * *

Megan woke the morning of the thirtieth day, feeling well rested and energized. Today, Richard would return. She would take a nice long bath and put on something pretty and fix him a nice dinner. It would be the perfect day – one for which she had worked very diligently.

She stretched and yawned, rolling over to caress the pillow where Richard would lay his head that night.

Her hand touched something wet.

Something rounded, about the size of her fist.

It was warm, and pulsed with a steady, rhythmic beat.

Copyright © 2012 Mandy White

As Bright As A Star In An Ancient Sky

This is where it all began: My journey from content writer to published author started back in 2010 with a short self-help booked based on my experience with domestic abuse. Though the book was well-received, my lack of experience in this type of writing was obvious. As a freelance copywriter, I had previously written hundreds of articles, advertisements, reviews, and other website content. After being hired to ghostwrite a couple of self-help ebooks that were published under another name, I considered for the first time that I should do one of my own. Writing The Jealousy Game was part of a long healing process after escaping a situation that had progressed to a life-or-death level of danger. When a family member confided in me about her boyfriend’s behavior, I recognized the pattern immediately and knew the danger she was in. It’s difficult to communicate to someone the direction their relationship is taking, especially when no physical violence has occurred (yet). I know, because I denied anything was wrong until I was so deep in peril and so exhausted from enduring abuse that escape seemed impossible.

So I wrote this book, in the same over-wordy, adverb-heavy style learned when writing content and being paid by word count. (Insert LOL emoji) And the crazy thing was, it was a hit. Readers liked it and reviews were good. I didn’t earn a fortune from it because I opted to make it as cheap as possible and gave away thousands of free ebooks.

I made the transition into writing fiction, which included some admittedly terrible attempts at storytelling until I learned what I was doing. I never stop learning, and like to think my style improves with each and every story.

I didn’t look at that first book, The Jealousy Game, for many years. I knew it would benefit from some polishing using my improved skills, but the motivation eluded me. It wasn’t until recently, after experiencing mental abuse once again, this time at the hands of a “friend”, that The Jealousy Game became forefront in my mind. I had begun to recognize a familiar pattern; one I had lived again and again with my ex, and even written a book about. I began to learn about the narcissistic abuser, and realized that my ex checked many of the boxes. I realized that I had written about narcissistic abuse before I even knew it had a name. The idea for a new book began to form. But first, the time had come to revisit The Jealousy Game.

The book has seen a fresh edit and a new, contemporary cover in keeping with the theme of red flags, because that’s really what the book is about: Spotting those red flags early in a relationship before too much damage has been done.

The Jealousy Game is available worldwide in paperback, ebook, and now audiobook formats:

“The exciting new product was promoted as “The Elixir of Life”. We bought it and, like the fools we were, consumed it in copious amounts. Beezy surpassed everyone’s wildest expectations.
If only it hadn’t.
If only it had been deadly…”

~*~ This story is a classic example of what we writers call “pantsing”, which means to write by the seat of one’s pants with no plot outline, just letting the story develop on its own. An episode of Black Mirror inspired me to write about the extinction of bees, but the story grew darker as it progressed. The ending surprised even me. I don’t normally offer trigger warnings, but delicate readers might want to skip this one.

Published in DysFictional 4: Apocalypse Aplenty: Copyright © 2021 Mandy White ~*~

EASY BEEZY

We were too busy looking for outside threats to notice disaster on our own doorstep. After World War II, we had the threat of nuclear war to worry about. When that didn’t materialize, the doomsayers warned us about Y2K, and then that Mayan calendar fiasco. We survived the COVID-19 pandemic, but something new always lurked around the corner; some potential disaster to keep us distracted from the core issue, which was the damage we were doing to our planet. Our oceans were dying, our forests decimated and our climate was changing. Yet even with all of those odds against us, we could have repaired the damage.

The extinction of the honeybees marked the point of no return for humanity. We had done a good enough job on our own of killing off our precious bees, but they were holding their own until the Murder Hornets invaded North America. The giant Asian Hornets fed on our honeybees, decimating entire hives in mere hours.

Of course, science had a solution. They genetically engineered a new species of bee, a Bee 2.0, if you will. They selected the best characteristics of all species of bee, including the Japanese honeybee, which was quite skilled at combating the invasive hornets. They mixed in a little of this and a little of that. Some say they combined genetic material from African killer bees with that of cockroaches and tardigrades to make the new bee harder to kill. It was all speculation. Nobody except the creators themselves knew exactly what went into the new bee.

We found ways to keep our food supply alive. Miniature computer-controlled drones were built to give the new bees a helping hand with pollination until their numbers increased. A new generation of self-pollinating hybrid plants replaced many food crops. The general public learned to embrace laboratory-grown foods. In the face of adversity, we did what humans always do: We survived.

Honey grew scarce and expensive. The old supplies dried up, and the meagre population of new bees wasn’t able to produce enough to keep up with demand. The honey shortage led to the development of unhealthy synthetic substitutes, most made from high fructose corn syrup. So the mad scientists at the genetics lab went to work. They took a little dab of Bee 2.0 honey and combined it with a bunch of other ingredients to make it stretch. The result was Beezy – the first honey substitute that tasted close to the real thing, probably because it contained actual honey. Some people said it tasted even better than real honey.

Beezy was so popular the FDA allowed it to be pushed to mass market without fully testing it. Early indications were extremely promising. The new 2.0 honey brought some unexpected health benefits. It proved to be a kind of super fuel for the immune system. A new over-the-counter pharmaceutical called “Easy Beezy” outsold every other cold and flu remedy on the market. Over time, we learned that not only did it treat the common cold and flu, it cured them – absolutely nuked them, in fact. It even killed the dreaded coronaviruses that had killed so many in the past. Further study revealed a plethora of uses for the revolutionary product. It eliminated cancer, diabetes, and an ever-growing list of previously terminal ailments. AIDS no longer existed. Vaccines became irrelevant. It even seemed to affect the aging process. Scars faded, wrinkles smoothed. Elderly people looked years younger.

People seemed almost…immortal. Time would tell just how true that was.

The exciting new product was promoted as “The Elixir of Life”. We bought it and, like the fools we were, consumed it in copious amounts. Beezy surpassed everyone’s wildest expectations.

If only it hadn’t.

If only it had been deadly.

I lost count of how many times I had prayed and begged and railed at God for bringing this curse upon us. But the truth was, God wasn’t to blame. We did it to ourselves. We created it; conjured this cursed amber elixir straight from the bowels of Hell.

Prolonged life. Disease-resistant. No more fear of cancer, of pandemics and other silent killers. Sounds great, doesn’t it? Who wouldn’t want that? What possible downside could there be? Someone offers me a food that can do that, where do I sign, amiright? That was the thinking of the general population.

Beezy took the place of artificial sweeteners in nearly every product worldwide. By the time any adverse effects were discovered, nine-tenths of the world’s population was consuming it on a regular basis. Except for the ones too poor to buy it, or people starving in third world countries. They were the lucky ones. I had a severe allergy to honey, so I abstained as well.

Lucky me.

I was angry at first. Angry that I had been denied the chance for immortality because of my allergies. Just one more chance for life to give me the big middle finger. I couldn’t swim in pools as a kid because of the chlorine. I lived in fear of insect stings. I had never tasted seafood, milk, or peanut butter. It wasn’t fair. And now this. The one product that might have cured my allergies might also kill me.

Yes, Beezy seemed like the answer to everything.

After all, who wouldn’t want eternal life?

Little Jimmy Wilson, for one.

Jimmy was an eight-year-old boy who lived on my street. He was riding his bike when some drunk asshole ran him down. The car dragged him for several blocks. His screams will haunt me until the day I die, which thankfully will be soon. The paramedics collected the pieces of poor little Jimmy and rushed him to the hospital. The surgeons did their best, but Jimmy was in bad shape. Arms and legs mangled. He had been decapitated, but somehow he was still alive. Unable to die but too damaged to heal, Jimmy was doomed to an agonizing existence as a stitched-up, oozing mess that should have been laid to rest with dignity.

As the years passed, more who should have died continued to live. Soldiers returned from the front lines of various wars with limbs blown off, holes in their heads, bellies full of shrapnel. Some of them were not much more than an exploded pile of meat, yet still alive, irreparable but conscious and feeling pain. Victims of violence, accidents, fires, all alive and suffering unbearable agony. All modern medicine had to offer was a pittance of relief in the way of pain medication. Powerful opiates were given freely without a prescription. All of them were addicted, but it no longer mattered. Nobody died from overdose anymore. Nobody died. The worst cases suffered brain damage but lived on, shuffling through the streets like zombies; broken and oozing, moaning and wailing in agony but still alive, sentient beings.

There was talk about putting them out of their misery somehow, perhaps through cremation, but the ethical argument was one no politician wanted to touch. None of them wanted to be the guy that tried burning people alive.

* * *

To escape the horror of reality, I made a daily trek to my favorite place – a grassy clearing at the top of a hill overlooking town. It was far enough away that I couldn’t hear the cries of the suffering. From that distance the town looked like it once had; normal, peaceful.

The smell of the wildflowers reminded me that I was still human, and still allergic. I fished in my pocket for the allergy medication I had bought the day before. The pharmacy had been out of my usual medication. Pharmacies were out of most everything except painkillers these days. There wasn’t much demand for other medications now that Beezy had cured everything. I paused to read the box of the unfamiliar allergy meds. Sublingual, it said. Place 1-2 tablets under the tongue as needed. Hopefully it would work as well as my regular brand. I popped two of the pills out of the blister package and placed them under my tongue. The metallic sweetness lingered long after the pills dissolved in my mouth.

I found solace in the silence, but most days I gazed to the heavens, praying for contact from another world, begging for one more chance. Was there anyone who could help us? Either heal this mistake we had made or send us into blissful oblivion?

Today, I lay on my back gazing into the azure sky and repeated the same mantra I’d spoken so many times before:

“If anybody’s out there, if anybody’s watching us, now’s the time to make contact. Please help us! Please save us from ourselves.” Tears streamed down my face. To another unseen entity of whose existence I was also doubtful, I added, “Please forgive me. I need to be free.”

I removed freedom from my pocket, placed the barrel under my chin and pulled the trigger.

* * *

The darkness cleared. The sky was still there, but now tinged with a touch of red. The sun must be setting. Slowly my other senses awakened. Numbness came first. I raised my hands to my face. It felt wet. My chin was gone. So was my nose, and one of my eyes. A gaping exit wound near my hairline told me I should have been dead. And then came the pain. A wildfire of agony ravaged what was left of my head.

Was this Hell? Was this God’s punishment to me for committing suicide?

No, I was alive. The sky, the rustle of wind in the grasses, the smell of the many pollens that bothered my allergies. I could still taste the sweetness of the allergy pills under my tongue, even though my tongue was no longer there. Sweetness. Sweeteners. Sublingual pills contained artificial sweeteners.

Beezy.

Easy Beezy, no more sneezy. I tried to laugh, but it came out as a gurgling noise.

Did this mean I was no longer allergic? Could I finally eat a lobster dinner or a peanut butter sandwich? I heard it sticks to the roof of your mouth.

What does it stick to if your mouth doesn’t have a roof?

Copyright © 2021 Mandy White

“What had started as a stupid YouTube stunt turned into a disaster of epidemic proportions. The idiots who ate laundry detergent pods experienced unfortunate side effects from the chemicals…”
~*~ Published in DysFictional 3 and WPaD’s Weirder Tales. ~*~

Ernest sat up in bed. “ You hear that?”

Louise looked up from her book. “What’s that, dear?”

“There it is again! It’s the basement door. It’s those damn zombies.”

“Oh, I’m sure it’s nothing. Just the wind.”

“Wind my ass!” Ernest muttered, glancing at the shotgun leaning against the wall in the corner of the bedroom. These days he kept both barrels loaded, just in case. “It’s zombies, I tell ya! I thought I told you to get rid of those fucking laundry pods.”

The door rattled again. Ernest had installed sturdy new locks, but they would never give up as long as what they desired lay on the other side of the door.

“Dammit, Louise! This is your fault!”

Louise peered at him over the rims of her glasses. “Seriously, Ern? And what do you expect me to do with them? Just throw them away? I paid good money for those, and I can’t buy them anymore. I’m not going to throw away perfectly good products! Besides, they get the laundry so clean and bright!”

“Clean and bright isn’t worth risking our lives.”

Louise gave him one of those looks reserved for naive children and simpletons. “Isn’t it? Stain-free clothes are worth a little risk. Don’t be a coward, Ernest.”

Ernest opened his mouth to argue, then closed it. He knew when he was licked.

“Ok, fine, use them up then. How many are left?”

“I bought the Mega Pack from Costco. I got in on the sale just before they pulled them from the shelves. It was one of the last ones, and I was lucky to get it. People are so rude. Fighting, clawing, just to save a few dollars.”

“Isn’t that the same thing you were doing?” Ernest pointed out.

Louise shrugged. “Well, I got them, so I’ll be damned if I’m just going to throw them away.” She sighed. “I’m sure going to miss those things. They get the laundry so clean and bright.”

* * *

What had started as a stupid YouTube stunt turned into a disaster of epidemic proportions. The idiots who ate laundry detergent pods experienced unfortunate side effects from the chemicals contained in the detergent. Brain function slowed. These individuals, clearly short on brains to begin with, became shambling, babbling shells of their former selves. (one still might argue that it was an improvement) The other, more disturbing effect was the hunger. The Pod People craved the colorful packets of toxin and would go to any lengths to obtain them. They possessed an uncanny ability to sniff them out. Stores stopped selling the detergent after the first few weeks of the epidemic to stop the looting. Citizens were ordered to turn their laundry detergent pods over to authorities. Anyone found with the pods in their possession would not be eligible for police protection in the event of zombie attack. Attacks were the biggest concern, because bites were the way the plague was spread. And Pod People were bitey little fuckers. They were faster than they looked, in spite of their shuffling gait, and inordinately tenacious when focused on something they wanted – that something being laundry pods, of course. A bite from one of the Pod People would transfer the toxins that flowed through their veins. Victims of bites began to crave laundry pods, overcome with an irresistible urge to eat them. If not apprehended and incarcerated, they wouldn’t rest until they found and ate some of the detergent. Over time, brain damage set in, transforming them from desperate junkies into shuffling, mumbling zombies. Pod junkies were more dangerous than full-fledged zombies because they still retained some of their (albeit limited) intelligence and still looked like regular people, aside from their desperate, pod-craving behavior. They were also contagious; a bite or scratch from a pod junkie was all it took to spread the addiction.

* * *

And now someone was trying to open the basement door, attracted by the scent of those godfucked laundry pods Louise was so bloody insistent on keeping. Ernest hoped it was just a zombie and not a junkie. Pod junkies were crafty enough to find a way past a locked door. Zombies just bumped against the door like a trapped Roomba until something else caught their attention. Either way, Ernest knew he was in for another sleepless night. He checked his guns to reassure himself they were loaded, and prayed the locks would hold.

* * *

The next night Ernest awoke sitting in his recliner, where he’d dozed off while watching TV. He heard a sound in the laundry room downstairs. He raced to the bedroom to grab his shotgun. The locks hadn’t held after all. One of the bastards had gotten in and from the sound of it, was in the laundry room chowing down on laundry pods.

A fucking pod junkie.

Ernest cussed silently and crept toward the sound, shotgun at the ready. The hunched figure in the laundry room had its back to Ernest. He raised the gun and clicked the safety off. The junkie stopped munching and turned to face him, streaks of blue and orange running down its chin.

“Clean and bright!” Louise giggled. “Yummy! And they make everything clean and bright!”

Louise wiped an arm across her mouth and Ernest saw the deep red scratches on the underside of her arm. The scuffle at Costco had yielded more than just a bargain on detergent.

“Join me, Ern. It’s Heaven! Heaven, I tell you!”

“Stay back, Louise. Don’t make me – ”

Louise lunged at Ernest and he squeezed the trigger.

Copyright © 2018 Mandy White

Published in DysFictional 3 and WPaD’s Weirder Tales.

I wrote this story in my head while scrubbing a greenhouse at work. Funny how mundane activities can inspire dark thoughts. This one will be included in DysFictional 5, scheduled for publication later this year:

THE RED HOUSE

Mona sloshed the mop into the steaming pail, the powerful aroma of bleach in the air. It was industrial strength; several times stronger than ordinary household bleach, but it was necessary, for this was, after all, an industrial task. Back and forth she scrubbed the floor and the plastic walls; section by section, panel by panel. Thorough bleaching would prevent the spread of harmful mold and other fungal growth to protect the seedlings that would soon fill the greenhouse.

Scrubbing greenhouses was one of the less desirable jobs at the nursery, so when Mona volunteered to finish cleaning all twenty greenhouses, nobody objected. The solitary work gave her plenty of time to reflect on her life and how drastically it had changed in such a short time.

Her husband had never allowed her to work outside the home. She had enough to do, he said, keeping his home clean and caring for the children. But once the children were grown and able to care for themselves, Mona found herself with little to do. When Richard lost his job, the bills began to pile up. When Mona suggested he apply for work at a local nursery that was hiring, she received a black eye for her trouble. Richard frequently let his fists do the talking. Mona had always cowed to his will, but this time she swore it would never happen again.

The bank was on the verge of foreclosing and Richard still hadn’t gotten a job. He sat at home in a drunken stupor, day after day.

Mona went behind her husband’s back for the first time, and went to work. She accepted the same nursery job he had refused. Richard didn’t appear to notice she was gone each day.

Until he did.

She didn’t notice his truck, following at a distance as she walked to the bus stop, and then following the bus until she got off and walked the rest of the way to work.

She didn’t hear him enter. Mona listened to her radio as she used a razor knife to trim excess plastic from a newly installed panel in the greenhouse wall, unaware of his presence until cruel fingers entwined in her hair, yanking her head backward.

“You fucking liar!” he growled into her ear, spraying spittle on her cheek.

“Ow! Rich, you’re hurting me!”

“Oh, you don’t know hurt, you sorry bitch. I’ll show you the meaning of hurt. You don’t lie to me and get away with it.”

“Rich, no! Please!” Rough hands gripped her throat, choking off her pleas for mercy.

Mona struggled to breathe. Flailing in desperation, she tried to thrust his hands away from her neck.

The world turned red.

At first she thought blood vessels in her eyes had burst from being choked; all she could see was red. Then Mona realized she could breathe again and the pressure on her neck was gone. She wiped her sleeve across her eyes, and then as her hand touched her face she felt the sting of a blade on her cheek.

“Ow!” The razor knife dropped from her hand.

She touched her cheek where the blade had scratched it and her hand came away red. Far too much blood for such a little scratch. Or was she cut deeper than she thought? She looked down at her clothes to find them also covered with blood, and a crimson pool surrounded her shoes.

Oh my God, I’m bleeding to death!

She stumbled backward, frantically patting her body in search of mortal injury and finding none. Her foot struck an obstacle on the floor and she fell, landing on top of the lifeless form of Richard. The pool of blood originated from a gash in his neck.

The razor knife lay where she had dropped it, covered in his blood.

“Oh, Rich! What have I done? What did you make me do?” she whispered.

So many times he had uttered those very words to her after beating her black and blue. He always blamed his rage on her.

* * *

Mona stabbed the compost with the pitchfork, lifting forkful after forkful of the heavy, smelly material. It was important to turn the compost regularly to speed decomposition. The other workers were happy to let Mona take on yet another unpleasant task. She was going to be very busy, between cleaning the greenhouses and maintaining the large compost pit. Springtime was on the way and new crops needed to be planted.

Mona had a hunch the compost would be extra Rich that year.

Copyright © 2022 Mandy White

~*~ …Do that Voodoo that you do… ~*~

Of all of my short story collections, I like DysFictional 3 the most because it contains so many of my favorite stories. This is one of those favorites. It also makes an appearance in WPaD’s Creepies 3 horror anthology, published in 2018 and 2019 respectively.

A STITCH IN TIME

The sound of the shower ceased. Heather’s head poked out of the bathroom, wrapped in a blue towel.

“You don’t have an outlet in here,” she said.

“Well, it ain’t the Hilton.”

Heather held up a blow dryer. “How am I supposed to use this?”

“There’s a mirror in the hall. The outlet there should reach.”

Josh heard an exasperated sigh, followed a few minutes later by the sound of the blow dryer in the hallway. He rummaged in his sewing box for the right scrap of fabric. He found a suitable piece, snipped it to the correct shape, and then threaded the needle with matching thread. He sat calmly, stitching the pieces together.

The blow dryer stopped. Heather returned to the bathroom and Josh heard the clatter of makeup items being dumped on the countertop.

“I appreciate you letting me stay here,” she called through the open door. “I didn’t want to bother with a hotel for just one night.”

Not like you couldn’t afford it, Josh thought.

“Not a problem.” He snipped the thread and started a new seam on the other side.

“I’m going to stop by the hospital on my way to the airport. I need to see her one more time before I go…you know, just in case.”

Josh said nothing.

“I really wish you’d go with me.”

Not a hope in hell, he thought.

“Josh?” Heather poked her head out of the bathroom.

“What?”

“Did you hear me?”

“I heard you. And the answer is no.”

“But Josh! She’s our sister!”

“YOUR sister. Not mine.”

“She’s sick, Josh. Really sick, and they don’t know what’s wrong with her.”

“Don’t care.”

“How can you say that? How can you not care?”

“You have no idea how easy it is.”

Heather emerged from the bathroom, fully dressed and made up. She stood in front of Josh. “How can you be so cold? She is your sister, Josh! She is family.”

“Ex-sister, and she is no family of mine.” Josh stitched furiously, pulling the thread too tight and causing the fabric to pucker. He loosened the thread before continuing.

“But she needs us. She has no one else.”

“Boo-fucking-hoo. I told you I don’t care.”

Heather thrust her cell phone in front of his face. “Please, just look at this. I made a video so you can see I’m not exaggerating.”

Josh finished the seam and knotted the thread before pausing to watch the video. He supposed it would be disturbing to watch…for someone else. The woman in the video screamed and thrashed on the hospital bed.

“What’s with the restraints?”

“Apparently she tried to claw her own eyes out. According to the doctors, she came in that way. Blind and screaming about pain in her eyes.”

“Holy shit!” He let out a chuckle. “She really is fucked up.”

“You think this is funny?”

“It kind of is. Not ha-ha funny. More like poetic justice.”

“You know what I think? I think it’s guilt. She regrets what she did to us, especially to you, and can’t express it, so it’s made her sick.”

“I agree with you there. She brought this on herself.” Josh said.

“Why don’t you go and see her?”

“Now that’s funny!”

“Maybe your forgiveness is all she needs. Couldn’t you find it in your heart to try?”

“I’ll send thoughts and prayers.” His voice dripped sarcasm.

“Don’t you think she’s suffered enough?”

“Oh, no. Not even close.” He snipped the thread and reached for a spool of red to match the next piece of fabric.

“What the fuck are you even doing? Are you sewing?”

“It would appear that way.”

“What are you sewing? Are those…doll clothes?”

“Mama Antoine has been teaching me.”

“Who?”

“Mrs. Antoine is kind of like a mother to the whole block. She makes dolls. I help her out with chores and she’s been teaching me to make stuff. I’ve learned a lot from her. It’s very relaxing.”

“I don’t even know what to say. I don’t know you.”

“And that’s always been the problem, Heather!” Josh set aside his sewing project to give her his full attention. “You don’t know me. You don’t know what I’ve been through. You don’t know much of anything except for your own life. Where the fuck were you when I was thrown out of my home? The house MY father wanted to leave to ME, his only son. You knew what Dad wanted, but you didn’t stick up for me. You didn’t stand with me when I wanted to challenge the will. You knew Kristen was mentally incompetent, but you just stuck your fucking head in the sand! Where were you when she was out of control, and I needed your help?”

“I didn’t know how badly out of control she was, Josh. I wish things had gone differently.”

“A stitch in time.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“It’s an old saying: ‘A stitch in time saves nine.’ It’s about taking preventative measures. If you act when you first see a problem you can prevent something worse from happening.”

“I couldn’t possibly have known how bad it would get.”

“You didn’t WANT to know. I tried to tell you, but you wouldn’t listen. In fact, you went to great lengths to make sure nobody could tell you anything. Running around the Australian outback with your husband, hiking some Bibbity-Boobity Trail. Who in their right mind goes for a walk for three fucking months?”

“The Bibbulmun Track is a huge commitment. We trained for months to prepare for that hike.”

“Your timing was impeccable. You found the perfect place to hide where nobody could reach you. A convenient excuse to not get involved. Let poor dumb Josh twist in the wind while Miss Psycho destroys everything his father worked a lifetime for.”

“It wasn’t like that.”

“It’s always like that. You’re always training for some kind of marathon. You use fitness as an excuse to hide from anything you don’t want to face. You ignored what was happening, what she was doing to me. It wasn’t until she attacked you that you stepped up and did anything. But by then it was too late.”

“There are things more important than money, Josh.”

“Says the wife of a millionaire. You didn’t get pissed off until she wanted money from you. Yeah, there are things more important than money. Dad wanted me to have his fishing gear and tools. Those are the best memories I have of him, and it meant more to me than money. I would’ve gladly paid for them, but I wasn’t even allowed to do that. Instead, she has an estate sale behind my back and sells my memories to strangers for a few lousy bucks.”

“It was wrong of her to do that, I agree. But can’t we let by-gones be by-gones?”

“Maybe you can, but you have a lot less to forgive than I do. You didn’t have your life torn apart. You weren’t the target of personal attacks, of false accusations. You weren’t driven from your home into a shitty apartment without so much as a memento.”

“Isn’t that a bit dramatic?”

“How is the truth dramatic? Dad was my best friend. We did everything together. When he got sick, I took care of him. She never called or visited. Not until he was on his deathbed. Then suddenly she showed up, looking all weepy. And everybody bought her bullshit act.”

“So I can’t talk you into coming with me to the hospital, then? I have to leave if I’m going to make my flight.”

“I think my answer is pretty clear.”

Heather stomped to the spare room to collect her things, then with the slam of a door she was gone.

Josh didn’t have to explain himself. He had plenty of reasons not to care what happened to Kristen. He didn’t believe in Heaven and Hell, but if there was an afterlife, he hoped his father waited for her on the other side to make her answer for what she’d done.

* * *

The three siblings shared a mother, but the girls had a different father than Josh. When their mother was diagnosed with cancer, Josh was only twelve. Kristen was eighteen and Heather, five years her senior, was already married to a famous athlete and living in Sydney.

The day after their mother’s funeral, Kristen moved out, stating that she could not live another day in that house with HIM. She despised her stepfather, and resented Josh’s close relationship with his dad.

With both sisters gone, it was just Josh and his dad. He spent his teenage years fishing and learning to fix cars. His father was his hero, his mentor, and his best friend. Josh was well into his thirties and still living with his father when the old man’s health began to fail. With Kristen estranged and Heather in Australia, it was up to Josh to take care of his dad, which he did lovingly. His father promised to leave Josh everything: his house, his tools, his fishing gear – the things that had shaped his childhood and held beloved memories of their life together.

When the time came, Heather made the trip from Australia to say goodbye to her stepfather.

And then came the reading of the will. Josh assumed it would be a will created by his father leaving everything to him as promised; him being the only biological child. Then came the surprise: Josh’s father had never made a will. But his mother had, years earlier, when she was dying. Her husband, grief-stricken, had signed without question. After her death, that will became his and he had never bothered to update it. Their mother’s will named Kristen as executor, or “executioner”, as Josh came to call her, and ordered all assets to be sold and split equally between the three children.

At his father’s funeral, Josh faded into the background and Kristen took center stage. She played the role of bereft daughter to perfection, sobbing and hugging, soaking up sympathy like a toxic sponge. The moment the door closed behind the last guest, the tears dried and a ruthless tyrant stepped forth.

Growing up, Kristen had been the embodiment of middle child syndrome: acting out to get attention, and then telling lies to get out of trouble. She was jealous of her siblings: of Heather, for having more privileges due to being older, and of Josh, for being the “spoiled baby”. Josh was the only one of the three who had a relationship with his biological father, and Kristen did little to hide her resentment.

Being appointed as executor finally gave Kristen a chance to stick it to her brother and sister. Mentally unstable, drunk with power, and bent on revenge: it was the recipe for a perfect storm. A shitstorm, that was.

She arrived at Josh’s home unannounced, suitcases and screaming children in tow. She moved into “her” house and declared everything in it to be property of the estate, even Josh’s personal belongings. She barked orders at Josh like he was a servant, then screamed and raged when he refused to obey.

Kristen made it her mission to make Josh’s life as miserable as possible. She convinced the rest of the family Josh had been stealing from his father. She had her lawyer waste countless hours poring over years worth of old bank statements. When no evidence of fraud was found, she accused him of stealing “estate assets”, which were, in fact, his own belongings.

Josh had no choice but to leave. He walked away from his father’s legacy and the only home he had known for 34 years, and moved into a cheap apartment. Yet again, Kristen spun it to make Josh look like the villain and she the victim. He had walked away and left her, a poor single mother, to care for that large house and property all alone. Nobody in the family cared to hear Josh’s side of it.

Heather watched events unfold from a distance, through the rose-colored lens of Kristen’s lies. Josh begged and pleaded with her to listen to the truth before it was too late, but his pleas went unheeded.

By the time Heather suspected a problem, four years had passed and she was thousands of dollars out of pocket – money she had sent Kristen for “estate expenses”. When Heather refused to send any more money and demanded to know when she would be repaid, Kristen showed her true colors. She vowed to drain the estate until not a penny was left. Heather hired a lawyer and brought Kristen’s reign of terror to an end, but by that time Kristen had already wasted most of the money. After legal fees, only a few dollars remained.

Josh didn’t care about the money. Everything that had mattered to him was gone. All he had left of his father was a collection of bittersweet memories.

But maybe Heather was right. Maybe he should pay the bitch a visit.

* * *

Josh stood in the doorway for a moment, observing.

Kristen moaned in pain and thrashed on the bed. Her face was covered with angry red scratches.

Josh entered the room. The door clicked shut behind him. Kristen turned toward the sound, her sightless eyes glassy from pain medication.

“Who’s there?”

“Hello, sister dear.”

“You!” The glaze in her eyes turned to clarity.

“Yeah. Me.”

“You did this to me.”

“Actually, you did it to yourself.”

“Fuck you!” she spat.

“Poor little Kristen. Always the victim. And look at you now. Hope it was worth it.”

Kristen responded by literally spitting at him.

“Gross. You always were a slob. You invaded my home and stole my father’s things, and didn’t even have the decency to clean up after yourself. I had to clean your nasty hairball out of the shower drain. Luckily, I had a use for it.”

“I never asked you to come here. Get the fuck out!” Her fingers groped for the nurse’s call button. Josh yanked it out of her reach.

“Don’t worry, I’m leaving. Just had to see you one last time.”

“Get out! Help!”

“I’m going to need you to shut up now, Kristen.”

“Help! He – ” Kristen’s scream cut off abruptly.

“That’s better. I’m sick of hearing your voice. All it does is tell lies.”

Kristen kicked her legs and fought against the restraints. When she tried to scream, no sound came out. She gasped and panted, but remained mute.

“It’s a shame you have to be strapped down like that. I think I can help.”

Josh held an object in his hand. A doll, hand-sewn from scraps of cloth. A clump of human hair harvested from the shower drain adorned its head, embedded in a bit of wax. Pins protruded from its eyes and various other parts of its body. 

“You were always such a pain in the neck,” he said. He twisted the pin he had just inserted into the doll’s throat and shoved it deeper. “There. Now I’ve returned the favor. Now you won’t need those restraints anymore.”

Kristen’s struggles ceased and she lay limp on the bed.

“How’s it feel to be powerless? At someone else’s mercy?”

Her unseeing eyes smoldered with the blackest of hatred. Tears trickled down her cheeks.

“I don’t know what you’re complaining about. You may be paralyzed, but at least you aren’t numb. You can still feel everything. Everything. ”

He examined the doll thoughtfully. “I wonder what we should do next. We’re going to run out of room eventually. When that happens, a nice jab to the brain should finish you off.

“I’ll leave you alone…for now. But every once in a while, when you feel a little twinge…or maybe a big one, you’ll know I’m thinking of you.”

* * *

Josh stitched the final seam together and snipped the thread. He admired his handiwork. Mama Antoine was right. He was getting better the more he practiced. All it needed was a final touch.

He ran his hand over the carpet below the hallway mirror and found what he was looking for. He then proceeded to the bathroom, where the blue towel still hung on the shower curtain rod. There, he found three more long auburn hairs. Cleaning the shower drain produced several more.

He lit the candle and melted the wax while speaking an incantation in an ancient language.

Josh inserted a pin into one of the doll’s knees, then the other. He repeated the process with six more pins in the legs of the doll.

Heather didn’t deserve what Kristen had gotten. She wasn’t a bad person. Self-absorbed perhaps, but not hateful like her sister. With a few preventative measures, Heather could improve. She could learn to face her problems instead of running off to the wilderness. No more hikes. At least not for now.

Copyright © 2018 Mandy White

*This silly story was my winning entry to the 2020 Evil Squirrel’s Nest Seventh Annual Contest of Whatever:

It combines a bit of Irish luck with an unforgettable Oscar moment. Literally one of the shittiest stories I’ve ever written, but that didn’t stop me from publishing it in DysFictional 4. Enjoy!

THE MURPHY’S PAW

Ashley ducked into the first shop she saw with an OPEN sign, praying it had air conditioning. The bell jingled and she breathed the cool air with relief. She had an hour to kill before her audition and didn’t want to sweat away her perfect makeup. If she waited in a coffee shop, she was sure to eat a donut or three, and she was desperate to keep her weight under control. The last three auditions, they had told her she was too heavy for the role. She wasn’t fat, but by Hollywood standards she was twenty pounds overweight. If she wanted to land a breakthrough leading role, she needed to slim down.

She wandered through the dusty little shop, examining the odd assortment of objects in the display cases. What the hell kind of store is this? she thought. She hadn’t noticed a sign on her way in. The place seemed to have a little bit of everything: old jewelry, books, odd ornaments, even some taxidermy. A stuffed possum lay belly-up on a log with a squirrel standing triumphantly atop holding a tiny sword to the possum’s chest. The squirrel was dressed in an adorable Confederate soldier uniform.

An item in a glass display case caught her eye. She paused and leaned forward for a closer look.

“Interesting, isn’t it?”

Ashley looked around for the owner of the voice. “Hello?”

A thin old man stood up from behind the counter. “Sorry ’bout that. Cleaning is a full time job around here.”

From the look of the place, he hadn’t been cleaning for long.

He nodded toward the object in the case. “It’s an interesting piece, isn’t it?”

“It looks like a… a hand.”

“That, me lass, is none other than the Murphy’s Paw.”

“Don’t you mean Monkey’s Paw?”

“No, Murphy. It belonged to me great-great grandfather, Seamus Murphy. He lost it in an accident.”

Ashley jumped back a little. “You have an actual human hand, and it’s from your grandfather?”

The store proprietor beamed proudly. “Great–great grandfather. Yes, indeed!”

“Isn’t that kind of gross?”

“Not at all. It’s well preserved.”

“What’s that mean?” Ashley asked, pointing at the sign. It read, Wishes Granted, Results Guaranteed.

“Just what it says. Legend has it, the hand has the ability to grant wishes.”

“Interesting, if true. How much?”

“Fifty bucks.”

“Are you kidding? For a stupid hand?”

“This is no ordinary hand. This is the hand of THE Seamus Murphy.”

“Never heard of him. What did he do that was so great?”

“Oh, it’s a heck of a tale. Y’see, Seamus was a bit of a drunk. He was also accident prone, probably due to the fact that he spent most of his time drunk. He was always falling down stairs, or tripping over things. As the story goes, one night in a Dublin pub he met a shifty salesman who convinced him to buy some salve he called ‘The Luck of the Irish’. Being the shrewd fellow that he was, Seamus refused to buy anything without trying it first. The salesman instructed him to rub some of the stuff on his hands and then try his luck at a card game. Seamus won, of course, given that the fellows he was playing against happened to be accomplices of the salesman. Seamus gave the salesman all of his winnings, plus the rest of the cash he had in exchange for what was probably just a big jar of lard. He slathered the stuff all over himself from head to toe, boasting that he was now the luckiest man on earth. He staggered out the door of the pub and promptly slipped on the ice and fell. Greased up as he was, Seamus slid down the stairs at lightning speed and shot out into the street like an Olympic luge racer, right into the path of an oncoming tram. The tram car missed his head by inches, but ran over his arm, severing his hand. Seamus kept the hand as a souvenir, calling it his ‘Lucky Paw’. By his reasoning, having lost only a hand in such a freak accident was a stroke of luck, when he came so close to losing his head. Seamus carried the hand with him everywhere, which was usually to one pub or another. In exchange for a pint of beer, he would allow people to touch the hand for luck, and make a wish. After Seamus died, his ‘Lucky Paw’ was passed from one family member to another, and eventually ended up with me.”

“So it’s kind of like a family heirloom, and you’re selling it? Why?”

“I sell antiquities and oddities. This is both. And I believe that it may be of use to someone.”

“Why would someone want a gross old hand?”

“For its power. According to the old stories, it really does grant wishes. Of course, every wish has its price.”

“You stole that from that monkey story.”

“No, no, nothing quite that dark. The Murphy’s Paw will give you luck. Grant wishes even, in exchange for the equivalent in… misfortune. Nothing devastating, of course. Just a bit of inconvenience. Give and take.”

“I’m no stranger to bad luck,” Ashley said. As she gazed at the hand, a sense of calm came over her. She felt oddly attracted to it. “It does have a kind of gothic charm. I could do with a little luck right now.”

Ashley purchased the hand and went to her audition. As she waited for her turn, she wished and wished to land the role, whatever it was. She was nervous,as she always was before an audition. She reached into her bag to find her lipstick and felt movement. A finger caressed her hand, almost lovingly. Instead of scaring her, it had a calming effect.

The audition went well. They liked her, but not for the lead role. She was cast as the lead character’s chubby sidekick. Work was work. She accepted the role, but she wasn’t satisfied. She wanted to be a star.

Back home, Ashley removed the tissue-wrapped hand from her bag and examined it. It didn’t disgust her the way she thought it would. It felt warm and comforting, like a hug from an old friend. She clasped the hand in hers. The fingers seemed to close over hers, surprisingly warm. She closed her eyes and wished. She wished to lose weight effortlessly and stay thin forever. She wished to be thin enough to land a role that would make her famous. She wanted to see her name in lights.

Six weeks later, Ashley arrived at an audition for the lead role in a major motion picture. She nailed it. They said she had the perfect look for the role. She had lost more than twenty pounds. Sure, the sudden onset of multiple food allergies, gluten and lactose intolerance was inconvenient, but it did keep her thin. She couldn’t eat anything anymore without suffering severe gastric distress, except for salads and plain rice.

The movie was a box office hit. She became one of the biggest names in Hollywood, and her face – at least the face of the character she played – was on the cover of every magazine. The problem was, nobody was interested in seeing her. All they saw was the disfigured serial killer with a unibrow that she played in the movie.

It wasn’t exactly what she’d had in mind when she wished for stardom.

She held the hand once again, and wished.

She wished for an Academy Award. But no ordinary one. She wanted a truly historic Oscar moment; one that people would be talking about for years to come. She would be world famous, and nobody would ever forget her face. When she walked down that red carpet, all eyes would be on her.

* * *

Oscar night arrived, and Ashley had been nominated.

She was so nervous, she downed a bottle of champagne in the limo on the way to the awards.

Her stomach gurgled. That salad she’d had earlier wasn’t agreeing with her. She had ordered gluten and dairy-free, but the salad dressing tasted suspiciously good. When she inquired about it, the waiter informed her that their house dressing contained cream and the kitchen had gotten the order wrong. It was too late; she’d already eaten it. It was probably fine; there couldn’t possibly be that much cream in it. The champagne calmed her nerves, but it made her a feel bit queasy. Walk it off, Ashley. You’ve got this, she told herself. She took a breath and checked her makeup one last time. She was ready for the red carpet.

Ashley stepped out of the limo to a flurry of camera flashes, a vision of glamor in her sparkly white gown.

Everyone was there. OMG! Was that Meryl Streep just ahead of her? It was! She waited until Meryl had entered the building, then began her walk down the red carpet. She smiled and posed, ignoring the perfect storm brewing in her belly.

Someone from People Magazine was asking her a question. She leaned forward to hear, and then suddenly with a huge URP! she vomited champagne all over the reporter. The force of the puke unleashed a geyser at her other end and she splattered the red carpet with foul brown liquid.

People screamed. Cameras flashed. Hands holding cell phones raised high, all recording video.

Ashley did win the Oscar, but was not present to accept it, having fled following the incident, which became known in headlines as “The Shittening” and “The Shart Heard Round the World.”

Copyright © 2021 Mandy White (Not that anyone would want to steal this shitty story! LOL)

An as of yet unpublished story inspired by my late uncle, whose implausible vision of seeding clearcuts was… perhaps not as crazy as it sounded.

Uncle Avery was considered the family nutjob. The family tolerated his eccentricities, given his service record, but I could tell they secretly thought of him as just another crazy old pothead veteran and only listened half-heartedly to him. I found his stories entertaining. Avery was great company beside a campfire. Many a night I sat, riveted by his often graphic accounts of his many brushes with death during his time as a military pilot in the Middle East. As time passed, Avery’s tales veered away from war stories toward current events, which morphed into apocalyptic and inevitably to conspiracy theories.

He was convinced that “The Big One” was coming any day. He claimed to have seen all the signs: flocks of birds; unusual clouds; numbers in the subway that matched the birthdates of members of our family; all indications (to him) that a major earthquake was imminent. When The Big One hit, he said, the West coast would be wiped out, the interior of North America would become waterfront, and Vancouver Island (where I lived) would sink into the ocean. My attempts to explain to him that the island was in fact a mountain, securely anchored to the ocean floor, fell on deaf ears. Uncle Avery would just shake his head, light up another joint and tsk-tsk in pity at my ignorance of the facts as he saw them.

Y2K had Avery practically salivating. He spent the better part of the nineties warning anyone who would listen of the chaos to come. The banks would go broke and everyone’s money would disappear, he said. Anyone with any sense should withdraw all their funds from banks and carry cash, or better yet, buy gold, because even that cash would soon be worthless and society would revert back to the old ways. All electronics would malfunction; Stephen King’s Maximum Overdrive wasn’t fiction, but a warning of things to come. Cars would no longer run, except to run down every human in their path. Even seemingly benign items like toasters would suddenly achieve sentience and attack their owners. As much as I enjoyed ol’ Avery’s tales, even I drew the line at killer toasters. He seemed almost disappointed when the world didn’t end on January 1, 2000.

I was glad, in a way, that he didn’t live to see the post-millenium rise of social media. He would surely have been swept up in the tsunami of fake news and conspiracy theories that dominated the lives of the weak-minded.

Climate change and logging were among his favorite topics (next to aliens and natural disasters, of course). He would gesticulate wildly at the tree-covered mountains around us as he ranted that there were no trees left. None. Not a single one, despite clear evidence to the contrary. The trees, he explained, were sophisticated holograms projected by the government to hide the barren, clear-cut landscape. He had the solution, he told me, and one day they would all see the truth.

Avery did his part to protect the supposedly nonexistent forests by signing up to fight forest fires. I often wondered if he saw the massive hole in his theory by the fact that the very trees he was flying his water bomber over, that were ablaze with very real flames, were the same ones he insisted were mere holographs. Avery lost his job as a firefighter pilot after just two seasons, due to navigational discrepancies. He was reprimanded for flying off-course several times before he was finally dismissed.

Avery let me in on his secret, and I never betrayed his confidence. Nobody would have believed me anyway. His “solution” to deforestation was almost as outrageous as the idea of holographic forests.

In the end, Avery wasn’t taken out by climate change or earthquake or alien invasion, but ironically, a tragic fire. On the threshold of homelessness, he had been living in an old Winnebago in a low-rent trailer park. According to the fire department, a propane leak sparked by a lit cigarette was the cause of the fire.

I kept Avery’s secret, but curiosity drove me to see if his solution had borne any fruit, so to speak. So, in late August of the year he died, I took a trip to the mountains. Using the coordinates Avery had given me, I followed a dusty, washboard-surfaced gravel road, which narrowed to a single lane at times. Upward I climbed, the road snaking back and forth up the side of the mountain. No guard rails, just the sheer face of the mountain on one side and the dizzying sight of the ever-deepening valley below. When I reached the top, I stopped, shouldered my backpack and checked my compass.

I found a trail that led into a stand of very real trees and followed it. As I hiked, I reflected on Uncle Avery’s life and what would hopefully be his legacy. It was a crazy plan, but Avery had the tools to pull it off. Avery believed that the only way to reverse the damage done by excessive logging was to not wait years for replanted trees to grow, but to seed the clearcuts with something that would grow quickly and prolifically; to produce oxygen prevent soil erosion.

I emerged from the treeline on the opposite side and my jaw dropped in wonder. A magical green valley stretched before me. Taller than my head, branches thickening with buds amid thin, serrated leaves. They were magnificent.

Avery’s idea to use his firefighting plane to dump loads of water mixed with fertilizer and germinated cannabis seeds wasn’t as crazy as I thought.

Copyright © 2021 Mandy White