Friday, March 30, 2018

Limited Time Free Short Story (Part One)

F



Marge

By

Christopher Nadeau




I want to tell you about the crazy lady and the monster that came for her in her hospital bed. I want to describe what I saw that night and what I will always carry with me. I want to, but I’m afraid I won’t do it justice.
It’s hard to wrap my brain around what happened that night and even more difficult to figure out when it all started.
I was recovering from a broken leg in Room 320 at Benevolence Hospital, the recent victim of my idiot friend Jerome’s drunk driving and desire to show a concrete median who was boss. Fortunately, the car swerved at the last instant, forcing the driver to take the brunt of impact.
Fortunately for me, anyway.  

Jerome, on the other hand, was on the sixth floor in a coma, the prognosis discouraging.  It was difficult for me to feel bad for him when I thought how that could have been me up there. 
Asshole. 
Maybe I’d visit him when I could walk again, maybe I wouldn’t.
It was during my last few weeks of convalescing that I first heard her.  She’d been brought in from some nearby nursing home; seizures or a stroke or something. 
Her voice announced her presence before she was rolled past my room.  It was the voice of pure confusion, of raw, unfocused age.  It was also the voice of a woman who had  taken no shit in her younger years, before time and dementia took their toll.  Her words were garbled nonsense, but her tone was undeniable.
“She hit me!” an orderly yelled. “I asked you to tie her down!”
“Sorry, man,” came the sheepish reply. “She looked harmless.”
“Nobody is harmless!”
Just what I needed. A troublemaker to distract the nurses from anything I might need. The gurney squeaked past my room and I sat up as far as I could without causing myself to see the new arrival.  At first I saw her gray mop moving from left to right, turning in time to lock eyes with me for what was probably only an instant but felt like hours.
I froze.  There was emptiness in those eyes that enveloped me, a pervasive sadness that seemed to possess its own life force.  Then she was gone and I was released.  I collapsed back onto my propped up pillow, exhausted for no reason that made any sense.
I tried to place the aggressive old lady out of sight and out of mind, but she had other ideas.
#
The night nurse was in my room administering my pain meds the first time she started.  It was such a loud, sudden intrusion, the nurse nearly dropped the tiny paper cup she’d been holding.
“Jesus,” I said. “What was that?”
Visibly shaken, she told me it sounded like someone was having a nightmare.  She advised me this was a rather common occurrence, especially when dealing with heavy doses of medication and patients suffering from dementia.
“Nothing to worry about, Ron,” she said. “I just wasn’t expecting---“
This time she did jump at the even louder wailing.  It came out in a long, rising and falling flat note born of despair and misery. The pain in that wail filled me up and my arms broke out in gooseflesh.
“What’s wrong with her?” I asked.
The nurse didn’t respond.  She was even more freaked out than I was.  Slowly, she set the cup down on my tray and excused herself.
I watched her go and sighed saddened by the sight of  someone who was able to do normal things like walk and go where they pleased.
The sound of the nurse’s voice drifted into my room from the hallway, her tone indicating concern and no small amount of trepidation.
“Can I get you anything?” she said. “The doctor said you can have water now.”
The old woman responded with a single guttural and drawn out word .
“I’m sorry?”
Mmmmmmmmmuhhhhhhhh.”
“I’m not sure what you’re---“
Mmmmmmmmmuhhhhhhhh.”
“Meds?” The nurse’s tone turned hopeful. “Sorry, sweetie, it’s not time yet.”
Then the old woman said it.  The name.  The word she would say over and over until that night when the monster…I’ll get to that. The first time she said it, I snickered, thinking she was bat-shit crazy, delusional, all the things that go along with age and dementia.
“Mmmmmaaaaarrrrrrggggggge!”
“There’s nobody by that name on this floor, hon,” the nurse said.
“Mmmmmaaaaarrrrrrggggggge!”
The nurse reappeared in my room a moment later looking frazzled and slightly amused.  “She’s asking for someone named Marge.”
“I heard.” Shifting as much as I could while she administered my pain pills.
“Poor old thing,” I said.
“Yeah.” She didn’t sound all that sympathetic to me.          
“Mmmmmaaaaarrrrrrggggggge!”
I glanced at the hallway and sighed.  “So, what time does she take her meds?”
The nurse chuckled. “In about ninety minutes.”
I grinned.  “I think I can survive that long.”
She returned the smile and, for the first time, I got the impression she was attracted to me.  Of course, it could have just been the medication kicking in and combining with wishful thinking.  She was most likely on some doctor’s radar anyway.  Doubtful she’d want to date a customer service call center supervisor when she could have some generously paid God complex possessing quack.
I drifted off to sleep with lovely thoughts like that filling my head until everything stopped.
#

“Mmmmmaaaaarrrrrrggggggge!”
My eyes popped open and I gasped, feeling my heart beat increase by about a thousand beats per second.  I felt adrenalin surge its way throughout my body, insisting on movement that was currently impossible. 
“Mmmmmaaaaarrrrrrggggggge!”
For Christ’s sake, she was still doing it! How long had I slept? 
I craned my neck to the left and saw the first rays of sunlight peeking in through the chintzy blinds.  Apparently, I’d slept through the night.
“That’s some seriously strong shit,” I muttered just in time to be heard by a male orderly.
“What is?” he asked.

“The pain meds. Knocked me out all night and then some.”
He smiled. It was a genuine smile, probably the kind he only used with people who seemed “normal” and didn’t remind him how he would most likely wind up one day. How we all wound up eventually.  Like the old lady in the room next door.
“Mmmmmaaaaarrrrrrggggggge!”
The orderly grunted. “Sorry. We would move you but we’ll all full up at the moment.”
I shrugged, tried to look unconcerned.  The orderly helped me sit up and glanced at my suspended broken leg.  He told me he’d be back in a minute with a bedpan and I told him I’d just give him a cup of coffee if he was thirsty.  Laughing and shaking his head, he left my room and me alone with…
“Mmmmmaaaaarrrrrrggggggge!”
Who the hell was Marge anyway?  Was she real or some conjured version of reality originating deep within the mind of a so-called demented woman?
Once, when my grandmother was still alive and in a nursing home, I entered her floor in time to hear an elderly man named Tom telling someone they were fired and to “Get the hell out of here and go some other place!”  He wasn’t talking to anybody I could see and I often wondered if the person being “fired” had been real or just some bit of beef Tom consumed.  I felt the same way about the old lady in the room next to mine. 
I had to know.
“Mmmmmaaaaarrrrrrggggggge!”
There was too much emotion in her voice, too much meaning in the way she dragged out the name.  I was convinced the old lady was calling for someone real, someone she needed or had known.  Maybe somebody who would make everything better.
As if on cue, the word was joined by more.
“Mmmmmaaaaarrrrrrggggggge! I’m sorry, Marge! I’m so sorry!”
I felt a tear forming in the corner of my eye and blinked it away.  So much anguish and pain trapped inside a failing mind.  I wanted to go to her, to tell her Marge wasn’t available but I was, and if she needed anything at all, she just needed to…
“Mmmmmaaaaarrrrrrggggggge!”
But God help me, she needed to shut up!
#
The old lady didn’t shut up. She kept going, day and night, diminished less and less by whatever meds were administered.  The nursing staff grew weary of her, making inappropriate and unprofessional comments about the customer they’d begun calling “The Wailing Wall.” I wanted to admonish them for this behavior, but having seen what happens when nurses and aids and orderlies decide they dislike a patient, I kept my fucking mouth shut.
But when I got out…
“Mmmmmaaaaarrrrrrggggggge!”
One of the nurses snickered from the hallway. “I think she wants Marge.” 
I’m sorry, Marge! I’m so sorry!”
“Don’t you wonder what happened?” I said.
The nurse looked up as if remembering I was a human being and blinked.  “What?”
“Aren’t you even slightly curious about who Marge is or was?”
She laughed. “Sweetie, there is no Marge. That lady is mentally ill and the sooner she’s back where she belongs, the better.”
I think my jaw dropped because I remember getting really thirsty and having to close my mouth.  What a bitch.  Did these nurses think they were immune to the ravages of time because they worked here? How could they be so goddam callous?
I’m sorry, Marge!”
Okay, maybe it wasn’t so hard to see how.
#

It was on either the fourth or fifth night of the old lady sharing the floor with me that things became a little strange. By this time, she’d graduated to simply telling Marge she was sorry to actually imploring her for forgiveness.  She also said something about not meaning to “do it,” whatever “it” was.
I used my newfound increased mobility to turn over enough to pick up the hospital phone and call my brother Ned. In case you’re wondering why I haven’t mentioned that anyone came to visit me, it’s because I neglected to mention I’d recently moved to this state within the past few months and hadn’t know anybody except Jerome the Vegetable. Ned wanted to come see me but was too busy looking after our cancer-stricken dad.
“Leaping off tall buildings yet?” he said.
I closed my eyes and absorbed the familiarity of his voice in this strange place where everyone was like some extra in a late-night movie.  “I am the proverbial one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest. How’s Dad?”
Ned sniffed. “In remission.”
It was as if the room decided to leave me behind.  I felt removed, set aside, preserved for a special, gleeful moment.  Sadly, I did the fist pumping thing a bit too hard and paid the price deep inside the cast enshrouding my leg.  I cried out.
“No dancing!” Ned said through laughs.
“Thank God,” I said. “Thank God, thank God.”
“You might wanna thank Doctor Bashir, too.”
I let the moment last a bit longer.  We’d lost Mom a couple years ago to childhood Diabetes and the last thing we needed was to lose…
“Mmmmmaaaaarrrrrrggggggge!”
“Godammit!” I yelled.
“That’s an interesting way to celebrate,” Ned replied.
“I need a small favor and your research skills will come in very handy.” Ned worked in the research department at the local community college and could find out anything about, well…anything.
Ned, now all business, asked me what I needed.  I told him.  He asked me if I was sure.  I told him I was.  He said okay, he would see what he could dig up.  He just needed the old lady’s name.
“I’ll get that,” I said.
We hung up.  I stared at the white walls of my prison, gaze passing the silent yet running TV, and wondered if I was doing the right thing.
“Mmmmmaaaaarrrrrrggggggge! I didn’t mean it! I was scared. Do you forgive me?”
I nodded; I was definitely doing the right thing.

(To Be Concluded)

Note: This is a copyrighted story that appeared in The "Hospital" anthology in 2012

Wednesday, March 28, 2018

I Rate the MCU: Phase Three

And now we come to the end as of now. Since Phase 3 is still in progress, I'm obviously stopping at the most recent film but I will add to it as the later ones are released. This time around, you'll likely notice a diminished enthusiasm and a creeping annoyance in my tone.

Captain America: Civil War- The Law of Diminishing Returns is, as the hipsters say, a "thing" and nowhere is it more obvious than this third Captain America outing. Hats off to Marvel for making a dozen films before this became the case but damn! They really saved it all up for this disappointment. My criticisms are numerous, yet the real irony is that I can still find enough enjoyment in this movie to watch it from time to time. Still, it's an over-crowded mess filled with sub-plots galore, absurd contrivances and easily the most anti-climatic showdown in the franchise's history. The much touted battle royale between titans is reduced to little more than a stalling action for the main plot and a parking lot brawl with little actual consequence. Iron Man 2 is often maligned for being an obvious franchise bridge yet for whatever reason this one gets a pass? Fanboys, I disdainfully shake my head at you!

Doctor. Strange- A brief restoration of sanity and quality to the MCU, this long-awaited origin film featuring Benedict Cumberbatch as the Sorcerer Supreme almost feels like a DC movie, and that's not an insult coming from me. This is a wonderfully absurd piece of thoughtful filmmaking that provides a nice rest for all the obnoxious franchise building going on in the other films. Ironically, this nice break would continue with

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2- Something happened on the way to the GOTG sequel. I sat in the theater and loved every minute of it! How, after my unimpressed reaction to the first movie, this one was such a great experience is either a testament to my incredible open-mindedness (Doubtful!) or the fact that James Gunn et. al. improved upon every single criticism I had of the first film and delivered an incredible sequel. I am now a fan of this franchise.

Spider-Man: Homecoming- And here endeth the honeymoon! Marvel spent years trying to finagle the rights away from Sony (who was absolutely destroying Spider-Man with those awful Andrew Garfield movies) and they finally got him, recast him, made him a kid again and threw him awkwardly but enjoyably into the mix in Civil War. Expectations were high for a movie that finally got the character just right and delivered the MCU goods in new and exciting ways. And on paper, it was all there to happen. Tom Holland is a great Peter Parker and Michael Keaton's Vulture was the most refreshing villain since Loki. But then a hit and miss script seemingly more concerned with the trials and tribulations of teenage existence was chosen and what could have been the best MCU movie since the Avengers turned out to be enjoyable but shockingly mediocre.

Thor: Ragnarok: An enjoyable threequel, this Thor installment eschews the melodrama of the previous installment and builds on the humor of the first with mostly satisfying results. Chris Hemsworth knows his character well enough to poke fun at him, although the poking gets a tad obnoxious at times. Tony Stark's influence aside, I often had difficulty with the wacky line deliveries but the story worked and the interplay of the characters sold the film's minor shortcomings.

Black Panther: I really enjoyed the first three fourths of "Black Panther" but the Third Act was a bit of a mess. It didn't make it a bad movie but I do find it mildly overrated. It went from potentially great to sort of hackneyed and cheesy. One thing Marvel keeps doing that bothers me is handing these important films to directors who have never made a big budget film before. Sometimes it pays off, usually it has mixed results and this one was no exception.

Tuesday, March 20, 2018

An Unexpected Positive Review of Sorts.

Michael Cieslak of Dragon's Roost Press recently re-posted a glowing review of the for charity horror anthology Desolation: 21 Tales for Tails and, while it doesn't single out any particular contribution or author, but the reviewer certainly seemed to enjoy herself.

My short story was "Beautiful Libby & the Darkness," a peculiar story even for me that takes place in a Concentration camp where experimentation on a young woman results in immediate disaster for the Nazis involved and long-range disaster for the victims of her appetite through present day.

Read the review here.

Monday, March 19, 2018

...THEY KEEP PULLING ME BACK IN!!!

I received the following email last week:



Hello, Christopher. Due to the overwhelming success of ERIE TALES, there has been an uptick in demand for previous issues.  We are very excited; however, this presents us a new challenge:
We’re running out of table space! While we’d love to have all ten issues of ERIE TALES, we simply don’t have the room. ERIE TALES 1 through 4 are only available in ERIE TALES: OMNIBUS (Vol. 1). We will be doing the same for ERIE TALES 5 through 9, as we begin to phase out production. ERIE TALES 5 has been out of print for over 3 years.
As we begin to consolidate, we are aware that there may be no contract signed for previous anthologies and we did not want to wade into a gray area of copyright without consulting our authors first.  Without your consent, our options are to pull the anthologies completely, robbing future readers of your stories, or excising specifically your story/poem. We’d really rather not do that.
We would like the opportunity to reprint your tale “Jeremiah's Malady” from ERIE TALES 5. We are confirming non-exclusive reprint rights of your story/poem for the print and digital editions of ERIE TALES: OMNIBUS (Vol II). Aside from the corrections of the typographical errors and general formatting clean-up, this stories may be identical to previous versions. There is no payment associated with the reprint of this anthology and no contributor copy is offered. In the event of space constraints, we may not be able to print all confirmations we receive, but we will let you know either way.
Your response (a Yes or a No) to this email is all that is necessary.  If you would like a new bio added, do send that along as well. 
Please respond by June 1, 2018.

Regards,

Peggy Christie, Secretary
Great Lakes Association of Horror Writers




Naturally I gave my permission. They're a good group and I was once a member and, honestly, I'd forgotten that story even existed! It was about a sentient virus that an entire bloodline had to carry lest it escape and infect the human race.

So once again somebody emerges from the ether and pulls me back into the writing world.

Tuesday, March 13, 2018

Kaiju.



My second novel "Kaiju" is technically out of print but it's still available through the Barnes & Noble website. One independent seller is actually selling it for $1.99! I suppose I'd find that mildly insulting if not for the description of the book's physical condition. 

I'm planning to re-edit this novel at some point in the not-too-distant future so I suppose this could become a collector's item or at least a good comparison to whatever Version Two is like. 

Monday, March 12, 2018

The Greatest Compliment.

Any positive review of my work is appreciated, of course. When you're a relative unknown, most of the comments you receive come from readers as opposed to critics. It's rare that a reader will take the time to review something they read, especially when it isn't a famous work. And while many of the reactions I've received have been favorable, I don't think there is a greater compliment than this.

"Insightful

Sunday, March 11, 2018

Raving Review.

I may have posted this before but it was nice to run across this reader review of my short story in the "Shadow Masters" anthology from a few years ago. Scroll down to the bottom for mention of yours truly.


Thursday, March 8, 2018

Quote of the Week.

(Cocaine) Makes you think you're smarter than everyone else. Makes you talk too much. Makes you think you're incredibly attractive even when you're fat and old. Makes you think you're on top of the world even when everything is falling apart.

Does that make you think of anyone?
-Tad Williams


  

Tuesday, March 6, 2018

Oops, I done it again!

Clearly the rumors of my semi-retirement from fiction writing were greatly exaggerated. At least for the moment. The apparently controversial Dark Regions Press has a contest and the concept grabbed hold of me like a lecherous wino at an outdoor cover band concert. The maximum length of 1000 words seemed a good starting point, although short lengths can often be rather intimidating for a writer like me.

I went through three basic ideas for my deserted island story before I was satisfied. Interestingly, each rejected idea strengthened the overall finished product because there were elements of each I really liked. Just not enough for the conclusion and overall raison de'tere.

The result was a short story that clocked in at just under 1000 words titled "Day 38." Having taken a lesson from "Lost," the concept of someone remaining on a desert island for months and years seemed a tad difficult to believe.

I'm not a newbie. I don't automatically expect that because I wrote it somebody should publish it but I'd be lying if I denied this got my creative juices flowing again. I'm pretty sure my sub-conscious knew that would happen.

Bastard~

2 Migraine-inducingly Moronic Posts

 No commentary, no attempts to rationalize. Just gaze, if you dare, on the stupid!