Psych!(Otic?)(Osis?)

By Harvey Stanbrough

This 10-story collection is all psychological suspense. Some of these storie are humorous, some perhaps a bit frightening, and at least one is somewhat lascivious. All delve into the human psyche.

• Language: English
• Publisher: StoneThread Publishing
• Release date: Sep 21, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370726288

Harvey Stanbrough

Harvey Stanbrough is an award-winning writer and poet. He’s fond of saying he was born in New Mexico, seasoned in Texas, and baked in Arizona. After 21 years in the US Marine Corps, he managed to sneak up on a BA degree at Eastern New Mexico University in Portales in 1996. Because he is unable to do otherwise, he splits his writing personality among four personas: Gervasio Arrancado writes magic realism; Nicolas Z “Nick” Porter writes spare, descriptive, Hemingway-style fiction; and Eric Stringer writes the fiction of an unapologetic neurotic. Harvey writes whatever they leave to him. You can see their full bios at HEStanbrough.com.

Book preview

Psych!(otic?)(osis?)

Harvey Stanbrough

the Smashwords Edition of

a short fiction collection from StoneThread Publishing

To give the reader more of a sample, the front matter appears at the end.

Full Contents

Memory

It was just shy of 3 p.m., very much the slow part of the day and almost the end of mine. And there came that car, slicing around the corner and leaning hard, complete with squealing tires. I expected to hear a wheel cover go tinning off across the sidewalk and clunk against the rock front of J. Alexander and Company, the local five and dime.

At least that boy was trying to turn the car. If he hadn’t tried at all he would’a jumped the curb right there at the corner, smashed through the ticket window and parked in the lobby of the Bijou theater. So good for him that he was climbing that steering wheel.

But no way was the boy gonna make that turn. He would hit the curb with his right front tire. He would bound up over that and end up high centered on a freshly busted fire hydrant.

And that would make ol’ Bose Morrison fit to be tied.

Bose’s been the fire chief since I was a boy myself, and that fire hydrant was only a little over a year old. He was none too happy when the state boys came through almost five years ago, nitpicking this, complaining about that, and worrying him about the other. When they left they were still riding him hard about our outdated fire hydrants.

‘Course, with Bose also being the mayor for the past twenty-some years, he was fretting on two fronts. The fire chief side of him didn’t like the state telling him what to do, even though he knew they were right about the fire hydrants. And the mayor side didn’t like having to figure out a way to come up with the money his fire chief would need to replace them.

He held the state boys off for over three years, but in the end he finally had to pony up the money to replace those hydrants. The point is, he was not gonna be pleased that this kid parked a ’72 Lincoln on the most visible one in town.

I could almost hear the crash and the hiss of the ruptured radiator. I could almost smell the ugliness of that nasty radiator steam mixing with the burned oil gushing out of the oil pan. And it was humid today anyway, so all of that would really hang up in the air for awhile.

Man, that was gonna be a mess to clean up. Ol’ Bose and his boys’d probably get stuck doing that too. That’d be an unpleasant few hours to say the least.

I wondered if the engine would lock up before anyone could get over there to turn off the key.

That or the kid might miss the fire hydrant by inches and slap himself into a head-on with Ol’ Sweetgum, the oldest tree in the county. I could almost hear the steel rending and the motor tearing loose of the mounts and the windshield glass shattering. I could almost see that kid shooting out through the windshield. Maybe the radiator steam would hide some of the goo.

If he hit that tree head-on through the windshield after he hit it with the car, at least that would be a quicker, kinder end than having to meet up with Ol’ Bose later. If Bose got in a mood, that old man could barely twitch and make you look like you’d been hit by a train.

That ol’ sweetgum tree, it’s anchored the city park since at least sixty years before there was a city park. Or a city, for that matter. Not that it was much of a city, with a population that fluctuated between 2550 and 2600, depending on deaths and births.

Still, the sign—barely visible white block letters on a faded, institutional-green, three-foot slip of base metal—read City Park. It was streaked with pigeon stuff, and you’d say, Well, sure, if you happened to see it. And it was mounted on an ancient pine four by four that was painted barn red to look more like redwood.

But it wasn’t treated, and it rocked at the base in a light breeze. That despite the fact the city fathers had voted unanimously to pay Caleb Jackson the price of two green steel T posts with spades attached and an hour’s labor to shore up that four by four. He even wrapped the new combination sign support with baling wire, top, bottom and center. But it still moved in the breeze.

‘Course it would move a lot farther than that, and faster too, if that boy didn’t manage the corner. And no way was he gonna make that corner.

All that was left to see was whether he’d center himself on that fire hydrant, miss to the right and ram that tree, or miss to the left and snip off that sign and its three-masted post. And if he did that, no way would he pull that Lincoln to a stop before he submarined into that duck pond.

That’d mean some dead ducks for sure. I mean, ducks generally don’t pay attention to anything outside their immediate vicinity anyway. And our ducks are particularly clueless, or at least they seem like it. Some ornery boys fed a few of ‘em some jalapeno bread last weekend. Those ducks were obviously in pain, but they just kept coming back and lining up.

So if the kid takes out those ducks in particular, that would almost be some of that natural selection thing. If they’re stupid enough to keep coming back for jalapeno bread, there’s a good chance they’ll be on the shallow end of that pond when that Lincoln hits.

Now I’m no mechanic, but I’d bet that hot engine hitting that almost frozen water would also mean a cracked block in the Lincoln. And it would mean some water damage too. That’s a sure bet. One thing an old boat like that isn’t, is waterproof. And plus, it’s a Lincoln, so the seats almost have to be leather. Either that or really good cloth. So the boy could just write those things a note goodbye. Well, except he was probably occupied trying to negotiate that corner.

I could just see his eyes. I’ll bet they were the size of saucers, his eyebrows arched and Oh crap! welling up in his throat. And that curb coming closer. I could just see it.

But then just in the nick of time, I mean at the absolute last possible instant, he saved ol’ Bose a headache on that showcase fire hydrant and himself a headache of a very short duration on the bark of that ol’ sweetgum tree. He also saved the city fathers the expense of hiring ol’ Caleb again to replace that sign.

He saved those ducks too, not that they would ever know it.

Somehow, through God’s own grace—or maybe he was runnin’ high on somethin’—he missed that curb.

If that Lincoln wasn’t on two wheels it was only because it didn’t have enough sense to teeter that far. He came around that corner doing a level sixty-five miles per hour if he was doin’ a mile, and his brake lights glowing all the way. I can still smell the rubber cooking on that asphalt.

But he made it. And that should’a been that.

Only it wasn’t.

All of that took the better part of, I don’t know, maybe one, two seconds? Just long enough for me to process the shock and suddenness of it all. I clipped my reports together with my ballpoint and slapped the whole thing onto the passenger seat, then reached to turn on my overheads.

I guess I was glad he made the corner, but a tiny part of me sagged. I felt tired all over that I was gonna have to chase that kid down. And unless he had a really good story, I’d have to run him in and set up the video camera and book him. Then that was one more report to do when I finished the ones I was already working on.

Well, that’s my job, so it’s okay. But it really was the slow time of day and I was looking forward to a cup of Blanch’s horrible coffee back at the station before I headed home.

So with my reports and my ballpoint in the passenger seat, I hit the toggle for the overheads. Then I glanced through the windshield to follow the kid’s progress as I reached for the gear shift and—

Wham!

It was over before I could put my cruiser in gear.

I put it in gear anyway, pulled out of my favorite place next to Jan’s Garage and Towing, and drove the three blocks up the street to park behind that quivering Lincoln.

And there was ol’ Bose, sitting in the driver’s seat of the fire engine, eyes wide, gaping down at the hood of that Lincoln. The front half of the car was smashed against the left front quarter of his fire engine. The motor on the Lincoln was racing hard and the back tires were resurfacing the roadway with melted rubber.

I came out of my cruiser and ran the few steps to the car.

The boy had slumped right in the seat, probably after slapping against the steering wheel. Somehow his right foot was still on the gas.

I glanced at the boy as I reached through the window for the gearshift lever. He had a good-sized lump growing across his forehead. I put the gearshift lever into park, then turned off the key and grabbed the right leg of the boy’s jeans to pull his foot away from the gas pedal.

As I backed out of the drivers’ side window, I noticed the door was jammed back into the frame. I’d have to get the boy out through the other side. Maybe Bose would help me.

As I turned to look up at him, a wall of that stinky steam hit me full in the face.

But it cleared when he came through it across the hood of the Lincoln. He dropped to the ground beside me and pointed. That’s my car!

I frowned. Your car? Then I started around the back of the car. "Come on,