Occasional Beasts: Tales Occasional Beasts: Tales By John Claude Smith Omnium Gatherum Los Angeles CA Occasional Beasts: Tales Copyright © 2018 John Claude Smith ISBN-13: 9781949054002 ISBN-10: 1949054004 “The Wounded Table” Originally published in the chapbook, The Wrath of Concrete and Steel, Dunhams Manor Press, 2016 “Dandelions” Originally published as a stand-alone chapbook, Dunhams Manor Press, 2014 “The Cooing” Originally published in Nightscript Volume 1, 2015 “The Occasional Beast That is Her Soul” Originally published in White Cat Magazine, 2012 “This Darkness…” Originally published in For the Night is Dark anthology, 2013 “I Am…” Originally published in A Mythos Grimmly, 2015 “Beautiful” Originally published in Fossil Lake: An Anthology of the Aberrant, 2014 “Chrysalis” Originally published in Phantasm/Chimera, 2017)Vox Terrae Originally published as a stand-alone chapbook, Dunhams Manor Press, 2015 “The Land Lord” Originally published in the chapbook, The Wrath of Concrete and Steel, Dunhams Manor Press, 2016 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or trans- mitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval sys- tem, without the written permission of the author and publisher omni- umgatherumedia.com. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is coincidental. First Edition For Alessandra, always… and my wonderful son, Gabriel Acknowledgements: Thank you to my faithful readers, the writers/creative individuals whose art inspires my own and the publishers and editors whose invaluable help shaped these tales into their ultimate forms. Table of Contents The Glove . p. 9 The Wounded Table . p. 57 A Declaration of Intent . p. 71 Dandelions . p. 82 The Cooing . p. 104 The Occasional Beast That is Her Soul . p. 110 This Darkness… . p. 118 Personal Jesus . p. 133 I Am… . p. 159 Beautiful . p. 174 Chrysalis . p. 183 Vox Terrae . p. 198 The Johnny Depp Thing . p. 221 The Land Lord . p. 239 About the Author . p. 284 The Glove llie Cahler is on her hands and knees. This is not the first time she’s been in this position. She does not ex- A pect it will be the last. After all, money needs to be made and sometimes she needs to resort to methods in line with the lowest common denominator. But in this instance, she does not feel the urgency of another driving the point home. This is just a sideways avenue toward potential finan- cial satisfaction. She is on her hands and knees, drooling, head bursting with images monstrous and bizarre. —an array of astonishing colors sliced from every angle of a rotating prism distorted into shapes that resemble the known—insects and elephants, fluttering wings and yawn- ing mouths upon mouths, an orgy of hunger—with the un- known—quivering, amorphous blobs highlighted by a pre- ponderance of what looks like ottomans with what might be eyes at the ends of each leg and rimming the whole of the “body”—Allie cannot be sure, she really cannot be sure—yet all of this seems alive, constantly moving, mutating, irresistible, yet terrifying, as glottal sounds pulled from unseen throats and the amplified hum of electricity wrap it all in an audio nightmare cloak that threatens to decimate Allie right then and there, leave her a pool of molecular human stew, and she knows this—she knows this… But then it simmers from light to shadow, the caustic ra- dio-wave transmissions dialed down to irritable scratching in the background of her sensory input. She feels almost human again—almost—yet the unfamil- iarity still leaves her floundering— 9 The Glove Allie is at a loss and does not remember how she got into this position. The moment of inception, kicking her legs out from beneath her, has passed. But this does not matter right now as she does not know how to stop the onslaught. Tamped down, it still feels like it will crush her. Her heart’s pace is hurried. She wants to scream, but she knows this will not go over well under the circumstances, so she restrains the urge with much difficulty. She senses vertigo, or is it a kind of spiraling that has noth- ing to do with vertigo? Everything is so foreign, alien… No matter the sub-levels of degeneracy that has filled the tattered seams of her marginal life, aided (amplified, abused) by alcohol, the bottle being where the weight of existence and thoughts gone to shit go to die, these images slink (tumble, avalanche) out from behind the curtain, the secrets of Oz revealed. She thinks of the familiarity of that thought as it nudges between the celluloid-flicker of imagery and knows it is an in- adequate perception. It posits human knowledge, or at least knowledge of the tale, perhaps the movie for most. There is nothing familiar here. A voice cuts through the mind mush, a shovel digging into the exploding colors and indescribable creatures, calling her back to the moment at hand. A hand on her shoulder shakes her roughly. “Miss Cahler.” The voice is urgent, yet distant. Allie senses in the tone a dollop of dismissal. She senses the speaker’s faith in why Allie is here, in what she is doing at this moment, or at least the moment before being derailed by the images and well beyond the drooling and hallucinating, is looked upon as fraud. An act. She feels another grip her forearm while pulling at what is clutched in her fingers. Finally, Allie releases the item and emits a gasp, as if she’s been holding her breath the whole time. The images swoosh into dream dust as she coughs and coughs again. She wipes at her mouth and immediately sets her eyes on scan, surveying the scene, her predicament. But this time 10 John Claude Smith in a different manner, gathering after-the-fact information. Allie notes the figures looming over and around her, shuf- fling about. She glances to her right and sees Mr. and Mrs. Telfer, the parents of the missing two-year-old child, Catherine, whis- pering to each other, their postures curious. More unbelievers, she suspects. Just like the policeman, Officer Mattel. When her focus settles on the couple, they instantly turn away. Confirmation. Their clothes are expensive. Allie thinks this as she stares down past the frayed hem of her dark blue thrift shop skirt and at her knees, the dark stockings torn. Her knees bloody. Officer Mattel helps Allie to her feet. He has always been kind to her. Allowed her presence in situations in which he might usually turn her away. He probably wants something from her she has no reason to give to him, no matter he’s handsome. It’s not what she needs from him. In helping her up, he’s a bit rough. Allie wonders if this is a part of his normal protocol as a big, tough policeman, or if his anxiety has curdled into well-worn weariness when dealing with those of her ilk. What would her ilk be? Those willing to help, but not by a means he can understand or even validate. Not that Allie un- derstands those of her perceived ilk, either. After all, she’s not a real psychic, if there is such a thing. Not one to believe in the paranormal to any degree. She is made of different fabric. Much as the strange fabric of the glove at her feet. The glove a key to opening doors with- in her mind. Doors to places she’s never imagined. Doors to worlds and creatures that inspire bile to scale her esophagus. She deters the climb, covers her mouth and belches quietly. Wishes she had a drink, right now, damnit… Allie stares down at the glove and wonders what the hell she’s gotten herself into this time. ~ 11 The Glove Allie Cahler, rhymes with dollar. That’s what that tattooed Vietnam army veteran loser, Mickey what’s-his-name, called her after her first month on the streets. She was fifteen. Sad truth was she knew his words made sense. Allie liked to think she got a BS in BS from the School of Hard Knocks, with a minor in Wink-of-An-Eye Deception. Bullshit was the cornerstone of her repertoire. It kept her head above water. Helped her stretch that dollar into next week, maybe longer, though she was always hungry for more. Always hungry. Period. Her talents were honed during her humble early years, talking the stragglers and strangers who slipped between the cracks along the edges of the door to the ratty apartment she and her mother called “home, sweet, miserable home” out of coins, cash and food—whatever she needed. It also helped her squirm out of situations that threatened to go to rot, derail- ing the mono-driven advances of the degenerate roll-call of space-filling step-fathers and boyfriends her mother engaged in after her father split when Allie was three-years old. Even as an “uncle” or two had touched her in places a five-year old girl should not be touched, she learned fast enough how to deal with them thereafter. Though drugs and sex played out all around Allie, she didn’t fall into the clutches of either. Alcohol, though…that was an- other story. When she left, she felt as though she’d made it through the constant turmoil unscathed.