Bizarre Tales Vol. 2

By David Fears

FIVE SHORT STORIES totalling 10k words; Looking for something different? Something that defies category? 1) "Many a Good Man" is a haunting trip that dumbfounds a young man after seeing a shapely woman sunbathing. Do they really rob banks? 2) "Something Woke Me" finds a young man revisiting his parents' history, including a critical moment that might deny his birth. 3) The Well of Ipetlatah is the stuff of legend and fantasy, as a great immortal spirit interacts with natives and then the white man in and around Ft. Rock, Oregon. 4) "The Great Blue Heron" is a bewildering tale of sacrifice and survival which mirrors heart-gripping terror by two women 150 years apart at the same location. 5) "The Afghan" celebrates but diffuses longevity and memory in a vivid scene of vague references.

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Fears
• Release date: Aug 24, 2015
• ISBN: 9781516322442

Book preview

Bizarre Tales Vol. 2

David Fears

Published by David Fears, 2015.

This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

BIZARRE TALES VOL. 2

First edition. August 24, 2015.

Copyright © 2015 David Fears.

Written by David Fears.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Bizarre Tales Vol. II | By David H. Fears

Bizarre Tales Vol. II

By David H. Fears

Something Woke Me

In the dream I knew her well; that much was certain. But the barest suggestion of her luminous eyes dissolved like a negative into smoke.

I sat up. My feet tingled, as if I’d been running.

In the shadows the furniture looked misshapen, ghostly. I parted the drapes and stared down into gloomy, rain-soaked streets. Dawn was tinting buildings purple, unpeeling the cold silver eyes of windows. Toward downtown, taillights darted across the canyon of streets.

A gaunt man in an old-fashioned suit and fedora hunched up the avenue. Headed to the Sixth Street play casting, I thought.

The dream woman’s panic clung to me like guilt.

Late was all she said, her tongue falling in slow motion. Had I been late? Had she?

Trucks lined the curb; muffled clanks of hand trucks mixed with workers’ shouts. Deliverymen rolled their produce and meats into the side doors of Morty’s diner. I envied them their schedules, their ability to steer great crafts through the streets of a waking city. Most of all I envied them their work. I hadn’t worked in months.

These broad-shouldered teamsters reminded me of my late father, who drove a produce route when I was a boy. It was the job he had when he met my mother. I’d heard the story of their courtship a hundred times when I was growing up, how Dad flirted from his truck every day when Mom walked to work, and how he kept asking for a date but she turned him down until the time she twisted an ankle in a sewer grate and he’d rescued her.

Dad died of prostate cancer eighteen years ago and Mom’s hanging on with Alzheimer’s. The last time I visited her she didn’t know me, talked to me as if I was Dad; she was angry I was late. I went along, responding the way Dad used to, calmly with understated laughter.

A pot-bellied cook was hosing off the sidewalk elevator. He hollered good-naturedly at the deliverymen, who loitered and passed around a match, throwing back their heads as they smoked.

A young woman in a black, shoulder-padded dress and high heels trotted by. The men turned their heads as one. It was like I was watching a vivid movie. Vivid as hell, every detail. She had flowing amber hair, curled up at the ends, and it bounced and swayed as