CONCESSIONS

This sample is from a short story that will be featured in an upcoming self-published collection, Sinister Shapes and Sadistic Symmetries 
Concessions is a tale of a man who must concede all the wrongs he committed to the one person he ever truly loved.  

          Thomas Lang always suffered the same nightmare whenever he fell asleep.  He saw his wife, Kara just standing there without a care in the world.  Tom couldn’t tell where they were, some nondescript field under a sunless sky with his wife poised next to a grey, gnarled, tree devoid of any leaves along its monstrous branches.  A knot would always form in his throat as he looked at her.  He wanted to scream, curse, then sob for her to return home but the sounds would never come.  Muted and impotent, Thomas just stood, gazing at the form of his wife.

            Kara’s warmth, her smile and figure would sway next to the monstrous tree.  It was only when Tom felt the familiar pangs of guilt beat against his chest did she start to change.  Tinges of red, pink hints of vibrancy and life corroded to a grey hue almost matching the same color as the old tree.  The weight of life in her withered and became nothing more than bones held inside sagging bags of dried skin.  Strands of blonde hair floated from her scalp before eventually clumps would be blown away in their entirety by a numbing wind.  Thomas didn’t care about any of that, he still had his wife, still needed her.  But it was when her eyes changed that he lost any and all recognition of Kara. Emerald stones darkened into two pitch-black voids nestled within her skull.

            There never was any doubt.  Thomas knew he was planted in the middle of a dream.  But, to see his wife after six months made him wish for any modicum of reality in the dreamscape he found himself.  The blackness in Kara’s eyes started to sparkle, something swimming beneath the surface just on the brink of lashing out and attacking. Her lunge forward was just as spontaneous, a blur of violence he never thought resided inside her.  That was when Tom’s own eyes would open. 

            “Tommy, you having a stroke over there or what?”  A familiar voice asked from the driver’s seat. 

            The entire girth housed in and about Caleb was something barely contained in the confines of the driver’s side of Thomas’ sedan.  It was no surprise.  Tom knew spending three times a week at a gun range then rehydrating with beers at the nearby bar didn’t qualify as exercise to anyone but Caleb.

            “I’m alright.”  Thomas said, ignoring the coozie-wrapped, silver, can in the big man’s hand. 

            “Hell, we could have packed more guns in my ride.”  Caleb said.

            “We didn’t need any guns to begin with.” 

            Caleb shifted again and revealed a holstered pistol jutting out of side.  “One shotty and one glock might not be enough for some crazy cult of drugged up hippies.” 

            “I told you.  He’s some alternative medicine quack, a holistic doctor, a snake-oil salesman.” 

            Caleb rolled his eyes and blew a raspberry that thankfully rippled out his mouth. 

            “That’s what they all say, then we’re all getting hacked to bits and thrown in some fire pit or being fed to pigs or getting our skin sliced off and made into-.”

            “I get it!” 

            Tom didn’t look at his friend.  Instead, he gazed at the moving landscape along the straight-shot of vacant road.

            “What time is it?”  Tom asked.

            “About quarter to five.” 

            “Shit!  And its Friday, right?  I forgot to call Kara’s mom and check on Gabby again.” 

            Their daughter was a perfect amalgamation of Tom and his wife.  A pudgy child, Gabby Lang was a bright-eyed joy to both of her parents.  The child saw wonder in everything.  Even when Kara grew ill, the sunny disposition in their daughter remained a constant.  It was only when the beloved wife and worshipped mother left, did that spark in their child become doused with grief laden tears to smolder anything resembling happiness to ash.

            “Hell man, you been asleep since I took the wheel back in St. Francisville.  I figured this whole thing was taking its toll.  So, I decided to let you get some shut-eye.” 

            The urge to find Kara kept Tom awake at almost every hour.  Since she left the family on a pilgrimage for a cure, Tom morphed into an anxious wreck.  Sleeping, eating, and even conducting the basic needs of his child had to be remembered.  The only thing that remained in his psyche was finding his wife.  Even his memory began to pay for it.  His brain became a fog ridden mess.  Knowing it was too late to call, Thomas pushed the notion aside. 

            “Do you know how much further we got?”  Thomas asked.

            “Until the Waco: Part 2?  I’d guess still a ways to go until we get to this compound you talked about,” said Caleb.

            “Think we can make it there by tonight?”

            “Damn Tommy, we’ve been on the road nonstop.”  Caleb whistled.  “You think if we were heading out to rescue Kara you’d want get your strength back first.  Hell, who knows what they got in the boonies, snipers hiding in trees or bear traps laid out in the fields.”

            Thomas sighed at his gun-nut compatriot.  “For the last time, Shaw is a con man and those people who gravitate to him are harmless. Most are probably dying for God’s sake.  They’re desperate to cure whatever’s killing them.” 

            But the people Thomas saw that followed Shaw to fix their broken humanity did worry him.  He saw the images on the internet, the comments, the praises for Shaw’s miracles.  The so-called “doctor” just appeared out of the blue and helped those he deemed that needed the most out of his treatments.  It could have been considered lucky that a man with a high success rate like Shaw reached out to them.  Still, the idea of his wife going off with a man who insisted he could fix her when all medical science failed was absurd.  Shaw brought others with him to share testimonials with Kara.  These survivors showed her pictures of life before Shaw and paradise afterward.  He remembered the girl who claimed to be dying of cancer.  How she took his wife’s hand and pleaded with her to go with them.  Then there was a man with AIDs and the heroin addiction he swore Shaw fixed both.  All the healer wanted to do was fix the broken, repair a million Pinocchio’s like the good Geppetto he was.  No fee, no bank account transfers, no money, just Kara to go and the support of a loving husband.  Tom refused both.  Geppetto was still a puppet-master whose nimble fingers tugged at marionette strings.  Tom refused to be tugged along.  Fights increased, a fire and rage bellowed from Kara that belied her illness.  A husband like Tom couldn’t take it and left for a three-day excursion with Caleb that left both men in a substance riddled stupor in between the legs of women not worth remembering.  When Tom returned, he found Gabby with his in-laws, a phone number, and Shaw’s promise bring Kara back to life. 

            “We need to keep going,” said Tom.  

            “Boy, you really haven’t taken a good look in a mirror, have you?  Hell, you never acted this concerned even back before she got cancer.  Now you’re straight up killin’ yourself with grief.”

“It’s not cancer you jackass, it’s severe tissue disease.  And she needs real treatment or else she’ll keep on falling apart.” 

Caleb’s words hit their mark though.  Panic and fear wore at what vestiges that made Tom anywhere near a good man.  When it came for the moment for him to step up and take on the responsibility, the burden, he failed.  Eventually as the care for Kara increased and Tom’s needs were cast under the shadow of her illness, a desire never felt before crept into him.  At first, it was the simple urge for Tom to get away, go back to his idle world.  Nights coming home late to avoid his extra added chores, or to refuse to hear about the pains of Kara’s illness.  Unexpected business trips would follow, the kinds not sponsored by the firm Tom worked for, but the ones complete with anonymous and detachable escorts unhindered by debilitations that made Kara too pain stricken for anything worth Tom’s time.

The day shifted, from a voyeuristic sun to the eye of an uncaring moon, and the world passed into fields then humid woodlands of the southern landscape treading along bubbling swamps.  They came to their destination.  The building was something ripped out of a Civil war era novel, a structure of antebellum dignity and backbreaking slavery.  Just as opulent as some of the mansions he saw on television, the building was something that still inspired awe and tainted nerves with fear.  Lengths of towering brick walls lined along the property, the top of the house stood high with mountainous pride. Off in the distance, behind the walls and looming mansion, rows of trees obfuscated the rest of the terrain.  From the stretch of dirt that guided the sedan closer, an outcropping of proper and well paved cement forked from the main road.  Caleb pulled the vehicle into the driveway and stopped before a set of massive gates and a lonely metal intercom that stood next to Tom’s side of the vehicle. 

            “Do we want to do this the easy way or the fun way and try to climb the walls?”  Caleb asked.

            “You’re a jackass,” said Thomas before rolling his window down and reaching out for the button.

            The intercom crackled to life.  The buzzing only lasted for a second then was followed by a silence that only seemed amplified outside amidst the serenity of the quiet country environment.