Fractured Fairy Tales of the Twilight Zone: Volume 1

By J Cafesin

Fractured Fairy Tales Meets The Twilight Zone in this short story collection of four uniquely captivating, edgy, fantastical character-driven tales, each sprinkled with a touch of magic, and a powerful message that lingers long after the reads...

1. Ferrari Testarossa is his ‘lamp.’ Finnegus Boggs has been a Somalian warrior, an Egyptian scribe, a Cambridge professor. In 2015 he’s a doctor, and never in his over 5,000 yrs had he been carjacked. But Billy needs help to save his best bud, Tyron. Only a Marid Djinn has the choice to grant a wish. Will these two high school punks be awarded a chance to set things right and alter the course of their lives?

2. Hawk wanted the rabbit to present to a mate. Megan wanted her husband Mitch to wait, and talk to her instead of going to work. Neither got what they wanted, but both Hawk and Megan learned a valuable life lesson in Bird’s Eye View.

3. Michael still loves the family’s annual summer camping trip. His teen sister, Amy, doesn't. It’s likely going to be their last year among the ancient redwoods, the majestic elks, and the seemingly glowing round rocks Michael discovers along the bank of the roaring river. The Activation is a cautionary [campfire] tale for bickering children, and the parents who fail to silence them.

4. Faith is a fashion designer in love with her husband, Billy Rogue. Billy is a famous punk rocker, in love with himself. Sylvester McCain is with the Morality Police, and has traveled a sliver of light to reset Faith’s path in life in The Morality Police.

• Language: English
• Publisher: J Cafesin
• Release date: Jul 23, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310462009

J Cafesin

“Writing fiction is intoxicating. Fully engaging. Hot. Sexual. Physical. Mental. Spatial. Virtually touching real as I enter the scene, and I’m a million miles from solitude.” J. Cafesin is a novelist of taut, edgy, modern fiction, filled with complex, compelling characters so real they’ll linger long after the read.

Book preview

Fractured Fairy Tales of the Twilight Zone

Volume 1

J. Cafesin

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Copyright ©2014 by J. Cafesin

Published by Entropy Press at Smashwords

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Fractured Fairy Tales of the Twilight Zone is an original publication of Entropy Press.

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All stories within Fractured Fairy Tales of the Twilight Zone are works of fiction. All of the names, characters, places, and events portrayed in this short story collection are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Tales of Finnegus Boggs--Confessions of a Marid, Djinn: Billy & Tyron

Bird's Eye View

The Activation

The Morality Police

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Copyright© 2014 J. Cafesin

All rights reserved.

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No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to: Entropy Publications, San Francisco, CA; [e-mail]

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ISBN-10: 0615978444

ISBN-13: 978-0615978444

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Cover design by TargetMediaDesign

Website: FracturedFairyTalesTwilightZone.com

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Tales of Finnegus Boggs—Confessions of a Marid, Djinn

Billy & Tyron

It was Billy’s idea to rip off the liquor store. He overheard brotherabe on his cell say the place was ripe. Bounce was good—take either Fruitvale or Foothill Blvd outta there. Heart of the hood, where this kinda crap is happenin all the time. And Lucky Liquors is owned by an old chink who runs the gook mart from openin til closin because he's too cheap to hire help from the neighborhood. Serves him right gettin tagged every coupla years.

Slide convincin Ty to do the deed. Homies since Sunshine Daycare, and with time and a coupla whoopins earned respect as the cracka/nigga posse not to screw with. No fools in their face at school anymore, or on their streets edgin the rim of the hood, only their jank address and the popo's keepin em down.

Lunchroom Thursday, Billy goes on rappin bout takin what they deserve for bein dissed since they was kids. From jackin construction sites at seven, to rippin music, movies and software off the net, then burnin CD’s and sellin them on Craigslist at eleven, Tyron was always anglin for money. It bought respect. Bought freedom for Billy. He'll be flippin off his hammered old man and dick-head brother on the way out of town, and his mom too, if she'd stuck around.

"One strike gets us a sled and elevates us the rest of school, blud. Then we outta here, down to Hollywood, man, do some rappin, some actin, be whoever we wanta be, Ty. And even if we got caught, but we won’t, the most we’d get is maybe a short stint in juvie since we ain't got no rap sheets. And if we don’t get caught, and we won’t, I heard Chris say the gets around five large.’

Tyron stares at Audrey, the hoodrat who brought him out, across the lunchroom, now slummin with the cracka slanger, Baker. Five grand would get us some respectable treads. We be legally stylin by the weekend if we did the deed this week. And Ty's sly, white-tooth grin spreads like a crack in a cave against his dark skin.Late afternoon, tomorrow, Tyron says. Before the chink stashes his cash from the day in a safe or at the bank. Hoods and caps, keep our pus down, away from cameras.

We ain't gonna just glide in there and ask for cash, blud. And copin a gun is rhider, Ty, and it ain’t gonna be cheap.

We don't need no gun. Never liked em anyway. I'll thinka somethin.

No shit Tyron hated guns. Took his old man out in a drive-by when he was five.

After track, they're riflin through Tyron's shared closet for old baseball caps. Action figures missin body parts, busted Transformers, remoteless remote control cars once his, now part of his four younger half-brothers and sisters collection. Most of the toys were used when he got em, but now they're all trashed, except for the hard plastic stuff, like shields and swords, and his old toy gun, the black and silver Beretta M92 pistol hand-me-down he'd gotten for his eighth birthday from Uncle Martin, a replica of the ones in the The Matrix. Tyron holds it with both hands, points it out in front of him towards Billy still rippin through the collection of junk.

Billy looks over at Tyron and his spotted face goes white. What the fu—. Then he gets the gun is fake and grins, his blue eyes laughin. Dope, home. Now all we need is caps and we’re tight.

We're gonna need treads to haul ass outta there, Tryon says. Shouldn't be runnin around that part of Oakland—ever, but retarded after popo's get called out on the hit.

Billy's bushy brows bunch, then his eyes light up like a bulb in his head turned on. I'm for liberatin my brother's Charger from the Mighty Max parkin lot. Jack it right after he starts his shift.

And how we gonna cop his keys, homeslice, Ty asks.

Done deal. It'll be slide. Chris made a set of keys that time he shredded me for losin em, then found em an hour later after layin me, and one fifty out for new ones. He keeps em in the stash box under his bed.

Tyron nods, but Billy sees his eyes glazin, his minds churnin. Ty's brain is always workin.

I gotta hold the gun, since it's mine, well, was. And I'm way more harsh than yo cracka mic mug. Ty's plan—he points the toy gun at the chink, covers most of it with his monster hands so it looks real, and then demand all the paper. Billy snags it and they jam. And with a bogus gun no one gets drilled, which keeps it in juvie if we get nailed. And with all the budget cuts, we probably wouldn’t do any time.

We won't get nailed if we do this right, home. Then we stylin.

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After track next day, Billy and Tyron walk from school the mile and a half to the parking lot of the Mighty Max swarming with Kardashian's. The Charger is parked at the far right side of the lot, bordered by trees lining the canal between Oakland and Alameda. The boys cut through the grove to either side of the car, get in and drive away.

They share a J the three miles to Lucky Liquors to chill, listen to Live105. Billy parks across the street from the gook mart. Store front windows stacked with boxes, bottles of liquor, cases of water and soda right up to the glass door with iron bars. Blue cloth awning full of white bird crap runs along at the top of the old brick building and shades the sidewalk below.

Sun's setting when Billy finally swings the Dodge round and parks in front of the liquor store after the rush of commuters. Put on tattered Oakland A’s caps forward, pull down rim to brows, then hoods over their heads to the brim of the caps. Tyron grips the toy gun inside the long pocket of his hoodie and holds it pressed to his stomach as he follows Billy’s lead out the car and into Lucky Liquors.

Billy goes to the cold cases in the back and pulls a six pack of Bud. Tyron gets a bag of pretzels and Lays and brings them to the register as Billy comes up behind him.

Chink stands behind the counter, seen only through the small space not packed with crap for sale. He doesn’t look at Tyron as he scans the stuff. The slant deserves to be messed with. Payback for all the slights, the looks, the suspicions, the assholes like this one who ignore him, try to pretend he doesn’t exist.

Gimmy everythin you got in the register! Tyron demands, but higher pitched then he'd wanted as he pulls the toy gun from his hoodie and points it at the clerk. Now, foinky! Sudden rush, like a speed buzz. Scared, but somethin else, too...Smart. Powerful. Heart pounds hard, but beats a steady rhythm in his chest.

The clerk finally looks up at him, speckled gray eyes wide. Then he looks at Billy.

You heard the man. Billy’s voice is deeper, angrier than Tyron's. Everything in the register now or my blud here puts your brains all over your booze. Billy eyes a golden bottle of Jack Daniels on one of the shelves packed with liquor along the wall behind the small, gray haired man.

Sup, home? Tyron panics as he watches Billy move towards the back of the store, not stay together as planned.

Elevatin us above the crap we’ve been drinkin. Billy rounds the counter to get the whiskey behind the old clerk.

Tyron hears a bang! the same instant he feel his guts burnin, like he's been stabbed, the blow sendin him backwards into the plastic bottles of soda stacked behind him, and then he's on the floor. He tries to scramble to his feet but the pain is so blindin, rips through in his stomach, his chest, and there's blood everywhere, on his hands, his gray hoodie...

...Billy's yellin in his face but it's hard to hear, to breathe. The chink, still behind the counter is yellin too, pointin a silver gun at them, a six shooter like in the old movies, and screamin about somethin, but Tyron can’t hear what with the burnin in his guts. Then Billy has the toy Beretta, holds it by the barrel wavin it around, his voice suddenly blastin.

—it’s fake! It’s fuckin plastic! Billy yells at the chinaman, then throws the toy gun at the old man, but Tyron can't see if he nailed him.

Then Billy's pullin on him to get up, helps him to his feet but he can't feel them and his legs collapse under him. Billy practically drags him out the liquor store to the Charger, opens the back door and drops Tyron on the back seat, stuffs in his legs and slams the door, then gets behind the wheel and hauls ass out of there.

How bad you hit, Ty? Billy glances back at Tyron once on Fruitvale, then watches him in the rear view as he moves with the traffic, hopin to blend. Talk to me, blud.

Tyron slumps in the middle of the back seat, body numbin now, watchin tagged houses of west Oakland passin in slow motion. He shot me. Why did he do that? He looks down at his hoddie soakin with blood. Oh God, I’m bleedin bad. Tyron curls on his right side to see Billy though the opening between

Reviews for Fractured Fairy Tales of the Twilight Zone

[Andrew Weiss · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

These short stories explore alternative realities. They are a fun read. I went through the whole book in a day, I couldn't put it down.