Asylum of Killer Smiles

By Jordan K. Sanders

A truly thrilling and well-written collection of short stories that grab and hold your attention in a perpetual state of blissful stimulation. Few writers have been able to skillfully weave such a diversity of storytelling and character creativity into a single prolific masterpiece (Hollywood would be wise to take notice). These stories easily transport us through time and place without borders so that we might explore for ourselves an unparalleled tapestry of storytelling. Whether you’re in transit, waiting or just chilling out do yourself a favor and get a copy of Asylum of Killer Smiles because this is the one book you absolutely don’t want to miss reading.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jordan K. Sanders
• Release date: Oct 6, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370309269

Jordan K. Sanders

Upon winning awards for writing at a young age Jordan dedicated himself to learning the craft. After years of study he embarked on a journey to better understand human nature in order to place identifiable characterizations into memorable story lines. Some say his writing style combines several of the best qualities of Hemingway, Poe, Bradbury and Koontz along with an archetypal penchant for creativity. Jordan, however, brushes aside such comparisons saying that ‘in order to bring readers the best possible experience the writer must understand that perfection isn’t a destination but a ceaseless expedition.’ Jordan’s current passion is for paranormal horror however he has expressed interest in delving into other genres. Please support writers by providing your constructive analysis as this will only enhance the reading experience.

Book preview

Acknowledgment

Dedication

A special dedicated to George Robinson who we are pulling for everyday.

Acknowledgment

Self made men are alien to this world therefore I must thank all of these good people for being a source of inspiration.

Father, Mother, Brothers, Barbara, Jessie, Willie, Javen, Briana, EJ, Junebug, Margaret, Tyrone, Toya, Michelle, Cole, Oscar, Robin, Eva, Stevie, Al, Brittny, Jennifer, Katrice, Rodrick, Selena, Stephanie, Robin, Shereka, Calvan, DeAndre, TonyO, Claude, Rev, Sister B, Betty, Regina, Demetris, JoJo, Ricky, Trey, Susan C.K., Zoey, Perry, Kemari, JoAnn, Dino, Tiffany, Danny, Kinard, Kenny, Robert, Jessie Jr., Gabriel, Zoey, Dallas, Travis, Shaenee, ZoeyA, Donald, God, and thank all of U...

Foward

Introduction

We subtitled this book, Big Boy Tales, in order to avoid any misconceptions. Only adults should read this book since children may suffer nightmares as a result. Within the pages of these short stories you will find ancient beings, retribution, greed, lust, love of life, the meaning of life, saints, sinners and even a new superhero. Yet still there are so many more exciting things (Easter eggs) hidden within these pages you will surely be pleased to find on your own. Some of you are reading this introduction perhaps wondering why it is so brief for a book that claims so much promise; Be assured that a long-winded introduction is absolutely unnecessary because you will positively love reading this book (perhaps more than once) therefore the author wants you to dive right in with complete confidence and without delay. But one last thing before you do: These stories are written in order to provide you safe passage as you explore people and places beyond the limits of an average humans imagination but be warned: these worlds hold copious amounts of terror which may cause an unsafe adrenaline rush resulting in a pronounced rise in your level of excitement so please read responsibly.

Book 1

Give A Damn,Be Damned

Give a Damn, Be Damned. Every day since I was fourteen years old I woke up to a poster of my mans Hannibal Kane's first album cover. He made at least six more albums, not counting underground shit, before getting one eight sevened, but I got schooled on the first verses so I kept it in front of me to remember the lessons that made me the man I am. In those days what we didn't have we weren't going to get and I'd always be mindful, watching those dopes out hustlin', jackin' and slingin' themselves into a bid or a box but never outta da hood; never into the life they earned for, but always the mule, like Hannibal said; 'Mules r da fools keepin' prison society hummin', 1,2,3 dead to the head zombies keep on commin'. As for me, myself and I. Chillin' with the middle class is what I'm about, they have more money to pay for product and sure as hell want to keep private business private so I'm operating like Domino's or some shit except my hands are never dirty. My man Dodo takes care of deliveries. I'm strictly supply management, although it wasn't always this sweet; I've gotten my hands bloody more than I wanted to because fools just didn't wanna live, so I've had to silence people who didn't matter anyway for a greater good which, of course, is me. As Hannibal would say: 'We shall not perish but always shall cherish our rights to rise, seizing that prize. As it is written, so shall it be. Let no man deny your prosperity in this so-called land of the free'. Fools are still getting iced but I don't have to get my hands dirty anymore and there's definitely no trail leading back to me because the only people able to decipher my social media shenanigans already know what's up. Dodo is just another part of my plan. You see, he's one of them, so who better to hide in the land of snow than a snowball and best of all, he's a real wolf in sheep's clothing, yet another lesson from Hannibal: 'White privilege is real shit but ain't all that, make his privilege weak while making yo pockets fat'. Each day I put his philosophy into practice and each day I come out a winner, but today wasn't about that life, today was about family, blood relatives chilling out and having fun at our annual cookout in the park, compliments of yours truly. The food was so good last year I decided not to eat anything that would prevent me from eating everything at the cookout, so water for breakfast (or brunch if you know what I mean), then I'm going to freshen up, get Herm ready to go and get my mind right.

The sun's clear rays shed a blue-white glimmer all around the sleek metal machine leaning on freshly cut grass. The machine looked frighteningly alive as if it were a red dragon, breathing fire and belching smoke. In fact, it could easily be mistaken for a dragon with its chromed scales, huge rear claws, handle bar ears and crown shielded head. Herm is the one toy I couldn't allow myself not to have, despite Hannibal's warning: 'Don't cop to shit with a lifestyle that don't fit.' Herm is a monster, a custom Hayabusa GSXR 1300 chromed with red pearl fairings, a wide tire kit fitted with reaper rims, Allen Head exhaust and a stage three velocity turbo system that will blow the doors off anything on the road. When I made my first five hundred thousand, I bought a bike and its been my passion ever since.

I eased into a lawn chair next to the privacy fence boarding my property and lit up lil-yungyung which is an import from China that's supposed to be taking over but I've smoked from best to worse and I'm damn sure my product will beat this shit. Unfortunately, the law makes it easy for paying customers to get medical marijuana and prescription drugs are home delivery items, so my people are always looking out for some hybrid shit to knock mutherfucker's on their ass. I held in a chest full of intoxicating smoke before letting out a protracted sigh, repeating this until the cigarette had reached the tip of scurrilous disdain, at which point I had no concern for its comparative. I laid there for a few moments under a sea of cotton clouds floating by listening to birds serenading in the trees above, wondering what they could be chattering about or even if they understood a single principle of communication.

Making a note to light up social media about this bullshit weed as soon as I hit the spot, but for now I'll do a little tease with this new phone app while walking around to the front of my house. Herm was waiting for me in the driveway, as expected. This neighborhood was something else, I mean you could leave your wallet lying in the same spot and a person you'd never even said a word to, maybe someone out for a walk or something, would knock on your door and politely tell you that your wallet was outside. Or if you're not home, they'll leave a note and keep your wallet stored away in a safe place. To top it all off, no-one ever asks for favors out here. It's like family except so much nicer; I've lived here for four years and still waiting to see a dope fiend geeking on the corner, but that's never happening in Pristineville, USA. No way, these people keep their garbage sight unseen. But, from personal experience, I know doctors, lawyers and judges have some of the foulest garbage there is, but it's like Hannibal says; 'for white justice is blind, everyone else so unkind, justice for the rich, no justice for the poor, justice is a bitch and a goddamn whore.' So real affluence is more than just money. It's more about who you can pay and who you know, and if poor people knew anyone with actual power, they wouldn't be poor. There may not be any judges living out here but there are lots of white collars who have to flush their family shit more often than the people they condescendingly mock the only difference is they live too far away from the sewage drop-off to know their shit stinks.

I never tired of looking at the masterpiece that was Herm, hell even the helmet looked fast standing still. I remember the salesmen telling me that the Bell HP7 was tough enough to stop a bullet, so obviously I had one customized black and red with an amber mirrored shield because people who didn't know me didn't need to know who was riding Herm. I put on my helmet and started Herm up. A smile broadened my lips as the engine pulsed its power throughout the nether regions of my spirit infusing me whole with unadulterated virility like a stud warrior who, being held back from a blistering battle, is suddenly untethered, free to roam and wreak the devastation that had been boiling in his blood. Within minutes we entered a corridor of drab buildings where concrete smothered the still struggling grass, where the air blew cooler and darker as a welcoming ambuscade for those purveyors of capitalism. As I flowed through traffic, a swarm of pedestrians flashed across my tinted eyes, some intent upon their destination, while others showering me with moist admiration that seemed to transcend me beyond their limitations. In fact, I felt somewhat invincible, like a comic book superhero who lives forever in a child's imaginings, thus filling me with confidence, much like I'd filled Herm with fuel.

I crossed the Small River bridge, glancing back occasionally at the city disappearing from my mirrors while anticipation pounded, double speed, against my chest wall. Soon we reached the rolling hills where skill was the only barrier separating life and death, just like the solid yellow lines separate bold from timid with vicious repercussions or enduring thrills. I throttled up in defiance of the vast collection of lives claimed by this road because they had undoubtedly relied upon luck, whereas I'd never depended upon luck during my ascent to the top of this game. Skill, as Hannibal wrote in that song Your Fear; My Friend-'Your Enemy, is the intelligence to separate others from things that rightfully belong to you, skill is the un-common denominator of living well or dying stupid, skill is wisdom's silent assassin and skill is a blade that doesn't sharpen itself yet yearns constantly for the attention of a blade smith.' In my case, fear was like the dark cloud I was born under, but at my house we never knew we were living under a dark cloud. We just thought it was a normal day.

Throttling up again I pressed my body against Herm, finding within that tempest true belonging as we melted into a single aerodynamic rocket that defined measures of space and time with speeds exceeding one-hundred miles per hour. The turns were sharper, narrower and steeper in some places, but I pressed on relentlessly screaming past unwitting drivers on the left and on the right long before they could identify Herm. The straightaway ahead signaled the end of today's thrill, so I throttled up a final time to one hundred ninety miles an hour. At this speed wind and earth merge into nothingness as though I'd crossed an inter dimensional plane into the furthermost corners of infinite space where the nonexistence of perception or confusion, desires or indifference, impatience or temperance, greed or benevolence, war or peace, sickness or health, youthfulness or aged, white or black bullshit along with the practice of piddly perfectionisms in an innately imperfect world. It was only within this tempest that I was released from the bondage of these trivial matters, free to bond with my realization of self, who couldn't otherwise experience the highest happiness of the soul but for these brief and precious moments. As purity of flight quenched my soul, I glimpsed a truck crossing the double yellow lines with a tomato-faced man behind the wheel who looked to be about fifty. The truck was an older Ford F150, the kind they made with lots of steel, but had surely lost much of its acceleration over the years. He was passing a woman in a minivan who appeared to be preoccupied with two dogs at the rear of the vehicle. A split second of panic filled my heart with ice water that instantly pumped mind numbing reasoning into my brain, forcing me to react rather than respond to the oncoming threat. I released the throttle while simultaneously depressing the clutch and back brake thinking that slowing down enough would allow the lumbering truck to pass safely but I'd pressed the brake with more force than intended and Herm began fishtailing wildly as I can now clearly see the glinting brown eyes of the tomato faced man who also seemed to recognize our eminent collision as he became more intent on passing the minivan rather than relinquishing his modest gain. I released the back brake, using a little back and front brake action to stabilize Herm, but the die was cast and there could be no salvage this day. We crossed into the grass together before being forcefully separated by a shallow ditch. It was all so surreal; Herm dashed into the air with a lovely pirouette before bouncing from his large back tire into awkward flips that seemed to last a brief eternity before his movements ended abruptly in a field that pulled him violently into its bosom of fire, all the while I'm falling, falling until I saw no more.

I awoke to a blazing orange-red sun licking the abscesses of a yellow-white sky. The ground beneath me was barren, completely unlike last I saw it, and the trees in the distance stood as leafless platoons of milky-white death. Perched upon those trees were Vultures, huge condor-like creatures looking down with bloody red pupils floating in a pool of crimson mist sporting matching bills dripping with lust, all of them unabashedly bearing wicked smiles and gazing upon me with the resolve of predator to prey. I felt about myself thinking that maybe I had a weapon to fend off these beasts because even my helmet could serve as a deterrent against an attack, but I suddenly realized that I was butt bone naked. The how I didn't know but the why I cared much to know. However, now wasn't the time for answers, now was the time for moving. I got to my feet and began moving towards what I assumed to be East as this was where I left the road, but within twenty steps I viewed a sight I could never have imagined; there were gigantic snakes of assorted colors stretching out for miles, tangled and coiled into one another in some sort of mad hissing frenzy, a sex frenzy. For miles and miles, these snakes were engaged in some kind of orgy which confirmed East definitely was off limits. I turned North and again twenty paces before my eyes saw another sight unseen: Tentacles rose from the dusty plain beyond, followed by a colossal head covered in gelatinous vomit skin. It was larger than an aircraft carrier with a beak the size of a small island. Evidently, it couldn't see because it searched the plain with its tentacles for what I concluded to be vibrations and I had no intention of creating anymore vibrations in that direction, so I turned South, this time forty paces.

Howdy doooo?

A man spoke to me, or at least enough of something that fit the physical form of a man to make me feel like I hadn't completely lost my mind. He was a squat troll looking figure with bristled salt peppered hair that had visible uprooted spots which were deeply creased and ash colored much like the network of wrinkles that crinkled his nose and folded his brow over elongated pupils thus pulling back his thin lips into the distortion of a smile which made me uneasy, to say the least. But I conceded that this was only a dream and the only thing that can hurt you in a dream is yourself. Still, the way he looked at me, always sideways, incessantly grinning with yellow canine teeth. I had to suck in a mouth full of courage before asking;

What the fuck is this place, and who the fuck are you? I said with a lot of bombastic street flavor.

Who the fuck am I?! Who the fuck am I?! Haaa!!! haaa!!! haaa!!!

This unbalanced laughter went on for about five minutes as he seemed inconsolably amused by my question, rolling around in a ball of dust while folding his spine in half as though each vertebrae were hinged together. Upon the length of his nude body were wriggling whips of scars, a vicissitude of turbulent suppurations, craters of autonomous mutilation and, most disturbing, an empty bush where there should be at minimum a baby sprout. Admittedly, the latter turned my stomach and caused me to place two guards at my own considerable endowments, which were indeed inseparable from the value placed upon my own life, perhaps even more valuable than my own life, no doubt.

I see you've noticed; my burden no more. Worry still yet worry not. He said, grinning sideways before breaking down into more unbalanced laughter.

The impish tard finally composed himself enough to raise a crooked index finger in the direction from which he came, then began walking that way without making another sound. I was completely averse to following this freak, contemplating my best chance would probably be with the Vulture-like creatures remembering that they usually eat dead or dying, but my body inexplicable made its own decision and I followed as if being pulled by invisible chains. The imp moved quickly although he appeared orthopedically challenged as his right leg had a jerky gait that threw his head violently to the right but soon that same jerky gait affected the other side, violently throwing his head left, alternating his disability from one leg to the other at miscellaneous intervals throughout our journey until we reached an island fortress separated by burning sands. Stretched out from the darkened mouth of the pale-yellow fortress was a boundless moat offering unsafe passage over the erupting anger of blue fire that billowed phantoms of evil who attacked the ramparts with ravenous force. Half way across the moat there was an odor that smacked me in the face with staggering force. It smelled like ten-year-old moldy rind cheese soaked in alcoholic urine, vomit, rotten eggs and more vile things I couldn't even imagine. An overpowering stench that caused my mind to reel from the disorder of smells. Layers upon layers of putridness twisted into a noose that constricted my senses. I turned away while my body continued to move forward through the icy arches of what I now believe to be Hell. For all I'd had to do in life to survive, maybe I belong here, but this eternity thing never really dawned on me until now. Of course I grew up in the church much like just about every other black child in America, but how can you take a bunch of worn out mutherfucker's who claim they want forgiveness for the same damn thing they keep doing over and over again? They should be in Hell because at least I own my dirt. No matter, I just need to scope things out because I know there's always an angle.

Okay, wait and be called, haaa! Haaa! said the imp with an anxious flailing of his arms.

I still didn't get your name man? I asked, pulling back the last word.

My name is your name, your name is my name, haaaaa!!!

The imp didn't wait around for further questions as he hurriedly disappeared through the arches which he'd led me through. Looking out into the courtyard for the first time, I couldn't measure nor count the throngs of madness filling my thoughts with dread: Men or women, some of which I couldn't tell who was what. They looked to be dehydrated versions of humanity, but it wasn't a lack of fluids but a loss of spirit, a vitality that had been sucked away by unnatural forces leaving only husks of humanity. Some chewed their fingers like bubblegum, plegic's dragged themselves across sand leaving waves of ragged skin in their wake, a variety of troupes howled in agony as searing lashes from sight unseen parted their flesh, bodies were strewn about the walls hanging by their own intestines, combatants stood toe to toe brutalizing each other with murderous remorse, pedestrians aimlessly walked about upside down and sideways as ornaments of this maddening maelstrom but most disturbing of all was the incessant chatter of incoherent agony pounding desires of irregular reasoning into my skull. I turned in the direction from which I came but was met with scathing emanations whose raging frigidity charred the marrows of my bones so I immediately reversed course wondering how and who would call me but that concern was short-lived as another kind of searing pain delineated my destination and I staggered towards it with involuntary vigor.

Beyond the stile of my path the witless wanderings of the damn had ceased as many gathered into a festering wound, ushering me through their gauntlet of woe with salacious molestations which stricken me bearer than I'd ever been in life. In that moment, my mind shrank back to its infancy and the metal of my manhood sank beneath the considerable depths of terror from which there was only sight unseen amongst humanity's shadows. But as I staggered forward, bullet holes of light appeared in rapid succession until I was pushed from the obfuscatory womb into a richness of light which at first seemed warm and welcoming but was really fragile and precarious. Looking upon a new being I felt like a prisoner of my own primordial insanity, completely prostrated by an overwhelming quantity of misery, unable to separate imagination from reality as the successive phenomenon of fright heightened my senses to the reality of this Hell surrounding Hell surrounding me.

Step forward and be welcomed, pet.

The voice of a hundred women spoke these words, and their portentous cadence trembled me. Her body was otherwise anatomically superb except for the oddity of four perfect breasts being attended to by malformed suckling babies, whose eyes reflected the void of her unceasingly dark orbs. She had body length oily, jetty black hair that matched her lips, which added focus to sharp gleaming teeth that reminded me of large predators just before their jaws snapped shut on their prey. Her elongated, sharpened nails were crimson-dipped, highlighted by an opaque skin color suffused in dark blood, and there were opulent displays of vanity surrounding her scaly throne as attendants incessantly serviced her with a frenzied state of debauchery.

"Although none are worthy of my indulgence, I will grant few words in obedience. I am Lilith, the omnipotent, first love of man's creator, number one concubine to Lucifer and ruler of limbo, which is where vile spirits wander in exile of their bodies.