First Lies

By Terry F. Torrey

16 stories of darkness and promise

 

In the beginning, as in many beginnings, there were deals with the Devil, attacks by unlikely demons, ghost dogs, strange things in a cemetery, long walks home, true love and true hate and true ambivalence. Hack Hammond fought "Indestructum" for his girlfriend and the world. Denis Grey took "A Walk Down Main Street" sometime after Clinton Irving vowed there would be "No More Lonely Knights." Angela found quite a reason to "Make It Big." Caspar Thomas should have thought things through before "Four Hours," and Conrad Warner should have seen it coming in "Dog Days." And everyone just stared at "The Obelisk." In the beginning, there were First Lies ….

 

Some of these stories have appeared in minor publications both on- and off-line. Though early work and rough, many of the tales here are genuinely good. Others are decent, but several are truly drivel. Read at your own caution.

 

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Provocative Press
• Release date: Oct 28, 2023
• ISBN: 9780971369719

Terry F. Torrey

Born and raised in upstate New York, Terry F. Torrey now lives in Arizona with his amazing wife and awesome daughter. A lifelong learner, his most prized accomplishment is completing the acclaimed Creative Writing program at Phoenix College. Now, Terry spends his days writing page-turning vigilante action novels, riveting suspense novels with shades of noir, campy but realistic pop-culture monster novels, and an assortment of other quirky, compelling, and heartfelt books and shorts. Be sure to join his e-mail list to be notified of promotions, special events, and new releases of things worth reading, and find all of his work online at terryftorrey.com.

Book preview

First Lies

FIRST LIES

Short Stories

TERRY F. TORREY

Visit terryftorrey.com for a complete list of works by Terry F. Torrey, and subscribe to the newsletter to be notified of promotions, special events, and new releases of things worth reading.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this work are ether products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

Copyright © 2001, 2023 by Terry F. Torrey. All rights reserved.

2024-01-09

To my parents.

You’ve always been my biggest fans.

I’ll always be yours.

CONTENTS

Strange Days

Ninety-Two Percent Water

The Obelisk

A Walk Down Main Street

Life and Death

No More Lonely Knights

Four Hours

Keen Message

Make It Big

Shecky

Demons and Devils

Indestructum

Fear

Empathy

The Deal

Bad Guys

Burned

Dog Days

New Shoes

Blood and Gore

About the Author

STRANGE DAYS

NINETY-TWO PERCENT WATER

D octor, the water in my body is keeping me awake at night.

Doctor Cane looked over his desk, staring calmly at Gloria Horner with his steel-gray eyes. The water in your body?

That’s right.

Mrs. Horner, how much water is in your body? asked the doctor, his voice smooth and level.

She brought her hands out from behind her back nervously. Her left hand clutched a volume entitled Body Trivia. It says here, she said, faintly offering the book, that ninety-two percent of my body is water.

How does that ninety-two percent keep you awake? asked Doctor Cane.

Well, it kind of sloshes around inside me.

And the sloshing keeps you awake?

Gloria nodded fervently. Yes, and sometimes there’s singing.

The doctor raised one eyebrow, slightly grinning. Singing?

Yes. Her lower lip trembled a bit.

Who does the singing?

I don’t know.

Is this person singing on the street outside your window?

It’s not a person. It’s more like a … a quartet. You know, like a barbershop quartet.

Is this barbershop quartet outside your window, serenading you, perhaps?

No. They’re inside me. Like right now, they’re inside my head. But when I lay down it sounds like they’re in my shoulder, or in my hip.

The doctor folded his hands on the desk. What do they sing?

She shrugged her shoulders and shook her head. I can’t tell.

What does it sound like?

German, I guess. But it’s inside my head and the acoustics get all messed up.

Doctor Cane’s smile twisted slightly bigger. So the voices sound like they’re singing something in German inside your head?

She lowered her eyes and nodded. What do you think it is, Doctor?

I’m certain that it’s just a simple case of nerves, he said. I’m sure that it will go away.

Gloria raised her head quickly. No! It’s not! The sloshing! Can’t you hear it?

The doctor shook his head. I can’t hear a thing, he said. I recommend that you just take it easy at your house for a few days. Relax. I’m sure it will go away.

No! It won’t go away! I’ve tried that already.

You tried relaxing?

Yes.

For how long?

I don’t know. Several days. It didn’t work. The water inside me just kept sloshing and those voices just kept singing.

Mrs. Horner, the water inside you is mixed with many other things. It can’t slosh.

It does.

The doctor sighed. Mrs. Horner, does the water even slosh in your arms?

Yes, she said uncertainly, her eyes burning bright but curiously.

Doctor Cane’s smile twisted even more. He slid open his center desk drawer and lifted out an axe. Its edge gleamed in the office lights. Mrs. Horner, would you like me to show you that the water in your arm can not slosh?

She stood still for a long while. Then, slightly, she nodded.

Doctor Cane rose from his desk and moved around it to her. He took the book from her hand and put it on the table. Slowly, he grasped her forearm with his left hand and brought it down on top of the book. His left hand held her arm in place and he hefted the axe in his right. Are you sure? he asked her.

Again, she nodded.

After a brief pause, he smiled. Then he chopped the axe downward through the tissue of her arm and into the book.

A torrent of water gushed from the wound, flooding across the desk onto his chair. Gloria snapped her head back, face toward the ceiling, mouth open in a silent scream. Her head began to collapse into itself.

Doctor Cane let go of Gloria’s arm and stepped back a step. He watched, and his face twisted into a smile of satisfaction.

Gloria’s head and neck and shoulders slowly collapsed into her torso as the water continued to flood out of her arm. Suddenly, the air was filled with hollow voices, thick with German accents, singing. Then a tiny boat gushed out of Gloria’s arm. The three occupants stopped singing and furiously paddled to keep their craft straight in the current. The flow took them over the edge of the desk into the chair.

By this time, Gloria’s body had collapsed enough that it could no longer stand. It toppled over onto what was left of its side. When it hit the floor, it split in the area of her hip, and water gushed out onto the floor. Within seconds, all that remained of Gloria was her clothes around an empty shell of skin in a pool of water on Doctor Cane’s floor.

Doctor Cane stopped smiling after a minute and sighed. Kneeling, he gathered what was left of Gloria into a ball and threw her into his trash basket. Reaching onto his desk, he lifted the book Gloria had brought and looked at its cover. Laughing, he threw this book into his trash on top of the ball of Gloria.

THE OBELISK

It was August eleventh, and despite the heat, despite the humidity, despite the insects, despite the threat of rain, they flocked to the Little Grove Cemetery to see the obelisk. They knew that tonight there would be no rain. In Little Grove, it never rained on the night of August eleventh. And tonight would be no exception.

They brought blankets and lawn chairs and coolers filled with soft drinks and beer, and they arranged these articles on the ground near their cars. Little Grove Cemetery is situated on several hills, a small hill surrounded by several larger ones, and the obelisk sits atop the small central hill. A paved road winds through the cemetery, and the grass beside the road was by eight o’clock thick with parked cars and people sitting around sipping from cans.

People talked in low voices while more cars made their way along the road, looking for a place to sit. Some people began parking their cars out of view of the obelisk and taking their things up on the broad, empty south hill. Some young people climbed a few of the trees, to sit on the lower limbs, to watch the obelisk.

At about eight-thirty, the sun began to go down, creating a dazzling sunset of fiery orange. The sky was perfectly clear. Mercury and Venus became slowly visible with the setting sun.

By nine, the cemetery was getting pretty full. A policeman wandered among the people to make sure that they were abiding by applicable laws. The cemetery was abuzz with the soft conversation of the people.

By nine-thirty, the sun was gone and the stars were out. With the darkness, a tense anticipation began to fill the cemetery. The people on the north hill watching the obelisk could see Mars and Jupiter blazing low on the horizon. The full moon crept above the trees to the east. A brilliant panorama of stars and constellations graced the sky. The air was tainted with the odor of freshly cut grass.

At ten o’clock a representative of the cemetery who had been monitoring the flow of people into it closed the big iron-wrought gates across the entry road and put out a lit sign that announced that the cemetery could hold no more visitors. The sign made no one return home, though. Those refused entry to the cemetery made their way to the park downtown, where they still were allowed an adequate view of the obelisk and the sky above.

A few journalists were in the crowd, both in