My Stories

[Pulpmariachi]

It's like a David Lynch-kinda feel. Except without all the sex and midget.

[spacer]

Congrats your progress is easily visible and fast:)
It's Asimov's style! Right from Azazel stories, especially his humour. But the logic is indeed Lynchian ;D
Some sex as Pulp said and wished and the story will be complete.
To me your best story.

[Quorthon]

Dammit!! I need a length of time I can devote to reading these!!

I don't so much spend time on the board as I do lurking and occasionally popping in to look around and comment!

[Pulpmariachi]

I think that last one was your best written one, but I still really do like that vampire one.

Here There Be Monsters=Here There Be Tygers??

No, I'm just kidding.

The Bradbury version is better than the King one.

[Pulpmariachi]

Yggdrasil.

[Pulpmariachi]

You and your damned cliffhangers!!

[Pulpmariachi]

Interesting.

Was that some foreshadowing I saw there Mr. Frankenjohn?

Anyways, as always, eagerly awaiting your next installment. When's it coming?

Hurry hurry hurry.

AND WHY AM I THE ONLY ONE THAT COMMENTS ON THESE THINGS>>

[Pulpmariachi]

Great ending, Mr. frankenjohn.

Bravo.

[Pulpmariachi]

Instant Karma's going to get you.

[Pulpmariachi]

I have one, this is called "The Buttress Helicopter" and it's still in earlier drafts so . . . .

I had to put it into two posts because it's apparently too long or something like that. Oh well, here's PART ONE.

The Helicopter Buttress -- Part 1


When she looked up and saw the helicopter, Mercedes Estrada quickly dismissed it, turning her attention back to the three journals open in front of her where she wrote one word of one sentence in each of them respectively. In an attempt to gather together he thoughts, she looked out the window again, expecting to see the same hills she had always been able to see over the top of the houses, only now to see the same helicopter coming over at her, with no discernable desire of changing its current course. Mercedes never considered that the helicopter was flying far too close to the ground nor that it was coming straight towards her window, eight stories above the ground. Not knowing anything about helicopters and finding it a rather strange sight, Mercedes left her room to find her RA, all sorts of questions building up in her mind as she turned through the hall corridor, the helicopter made impact. The entire structure of the building was shaken and Mercedes fell flat on her face as the dust and debris exploded into the hallway, accompanied by a sonic boom that touched her bones. The air was clouded and dark, she could barley see through it, managing to get to her feet with the aide of the wall, feeling along it, trying to get towards her room, shaking her head in an attempt to rid herself of this high-pitched hum that currently raped her ears. Mercedes had no idea what to do, worrying about the condition of her possessions as two security officers burst from the stairwell, weapons drawn, running straight into where the gradually clearing smoke originated, straight into Mercedes’s room. She followed them in, spotting the damage inflicted upon her room. Pictures ripped from magazines of incredibly attractive men drifted from the air, being eaten away by barely seen flames. Gray ash fell from the ceiling like snow; Mercedes could see the individual ash flakes that fell upon the unturned furniture, her books and other school supplies had been flung from the makeshift shelves and her bed now rested crushed under the nose of the helicopter. The machine was still twitching, its top blades piercing the building in bent angles, that is, those that had not fallen to the ground below. Half of the helicopter had thrust itself into the room while the other half remained suspended in the air, the back propellers spinning out the last bits of their life. Slowly, the humming died down in her ears, allowing her to hear the security officers shouting in muffled voices, the barrels of their guns pointed straight towards the cockpit of the helicopter and Mercedes saw the two men inside, their blonde hair and blue eyes shining out through the dark debris. The co-pilot and pilot both looked shocked, confused as they looked around at their current situation. The pilot regained his senses first, noticed the two guns pointed directly at him, and reached down to grab something hidden under the seats. The security officers opened fire; Mercedes heard the dull pops of their weapons over the diminishing humming and saw the front windshield of the helicopter erupt in splattered redness. A faint mist blended in with the continuously clearing smoke and the security officers shouted further at the co-pilot who raised his hands and waited to be removed from the cockpit. Her RA came up from behind her, wrapped Mercedes in his arms, pulling her out of the area while she could only see the darkened logo on his shirt.

***

The University, as it turned out, were unable to obtain another room for both Mercedes Estrada and her roommate and they demanded that Mercedes see a counselor in the event she needed any psychological help. Mercedes found the sessions to be tedious, achieving the opposite of what was desired, and she thought her counselor would be much happier reading a homeowner’s magazine than anything else. She sat across the room from Mercedes, her back so straight that Mercedes ventured to guess she had had a pencil wedged in their since an early age. Her legs were crossed and a clipboard rested against her knee.


“Mercedes, has this helicopter made any impact on your social life?” her counselor asked.

“Not really, considering I never really had one to begin with,” Mercedes said, shrugging, finding more interest in the books that were stacked up against her counselor’s wall than the actual woman in front of her. She was sure that her counselor was marking that down on her clipboard but she was thinking more about how all the books on the shelf consisted of juvenile mysteries, predominantly Nancy Drew.

“Oh, Mercedes, dear,” said her counselor, “a girl your age should have a social life. It’s imperative to your development as a person. You won’t make a good wife unless you can maintain friendships.”

“I think I’m doing fine as a person.”

“How do you feel about living in a helicopter?”

“Right now, I’m seriously considering taking over my roommate’s side of the room. She’s never there and it’s not, you know, destroyed.”

“Oh, you can’t do that. You must respect your roommate’s privacy and space, even if she’s never there. How else can you form bonds of trust that will carry past when you get married?”

“Are you married?” Mercedes asked.

“Why yes, I love being married so much that I have eight husbands.”

Mercedes could not think of anything to say and ended up trying to remember how many of the Nancy Drew novels she hadn’t read as a kid until the time ran out.

* * *

Mercedes wished that she looked good in a hat, not that it would have mattered for now she wished she owned one just to hide everyone who kept looking at her, pointing and talking. Photographs of her were posted on the front cover of pretty much every newspaper she passed by. Men with cameras followed her everywhere; she would look over and see them trying to hide behind a bush, lenses pointed directly at her, snapping away. The tabloids printed blatantly doctored photographs claiming that she was having wild sex orgies in the back of the helicopter. Strangers asked her questions randomly and preachers on the campus plaza claimed that God was punishing her for some sort of sin she had committed and that she must repent, repent, repent. Mercedes became even happier with not owning a TV for every time she passed by one in the student center she found her face plastered all over it. At the bookstore she considered buying a scarf, nearly went to the check-out line with it, a black, soft piece of cloth with the University’s initials embroidered into the fabric, but she realized that it cost more than she would ever wish to spend on a scarf (and more that she had in her purse), so she put it back and went home.

* * *

She was frantically cleaning. She had found living space in the back area of the helicopter when the University had her move into it. Since the helicopter tilted inwards, all of her possessions slid to rest against the cockpit seats. A few pictures of boys half-naked had been torn from magazines and now decorated the walls of the helicopter, off-setting, or so she hoped, the bleak military black. Mercedes did her best to ignore the incessant pounding at her dorm room door, the sounds of the pounding, of the shouting from the reporters had yet to drown out of her and they only increased in volume when she turned on the radio, hearing a new Striking Oily Water song she wasn’t particularly fond of. Of course they weren’t really important to her, just very annoying, and she was more preoccupied with proving to Walter that she was perfectly capable of living in a helicopter. They had been lying in bed together, sweaty and stinking, when he had offered for her to move in with him. Which, for all intents and purposes, she thought would have certainly been more convenient but policy dictated she live in the campus dorms and she was sure that the officials were watching her very closely now. Her room had been set up with a tilt, with her dresser against the co-pilot’s seat and her bed against the pilot’s; her stereo was under her bed, constantly turned up as loudly as it would go; Mercedes didn’t give a damn if it bothered people in the middle of the night, they weren’t claiming residence in a helicopter. Once earlier the radio in the helicopter came to life, a voice calling out if the vehicle connected. Curiosity took the better of her and when Mercedes answered she was greeted by a particularly irritating journalist named Elizabeth Cochrane, who asked if life in a helicopter made her feel less attractive and Mercedes immediately scrambled to figure out how to turn off the radio immediately. The radio had gone off a few more times, the best she had been able to do was turn down the volume, but now she thought it best just to ignore it. The attempts at making contact, as was happening the moment she was straightening out the room for Walter’s arrival, had started off in great abundance but now occurred less with longer intervals of passed time before another attempt was made.

Her cell phone rang, the caller ID working terrifically in identifying Walter.

“Hello?” she said.

“Hi, it’s me. I’ve just got up here. There are a lot of people in front of your door,” Walter said over the phone.

“I’m aware. I’ll be right out,” she said, hanging up the phone, climbing out the helicopter into her room. A strong wind had been blowing all day and it swept into her room, tossing around anything not tied down. At the door she paused, composed herself, then ripped it open. She was already pressing through the crowd of journalists before they realized she had even come out. They turned at her, bombarding her with questions that she couldn’t even discern. Of course Elizabeth Cochrane was there, Mercedes was pretty sure that she was camping outside her room for every time Mercedes left, Elizabeth Cochrane was there, asking question after question, following her into the girl’s bathroom, standing outside the toilet or shower stall, shooting off a heavy rotation of questions that had fallen into strong repetition. Sometimes on campus Mercedes had been able to avoid her but these moments of peace were rare and she was beginning to think that Elizabeth Cochrane had planted a tracking device upon her. She screamed questions louder than anyone else as Mercedes pulled Walter by the hand into the mob, into her room, slamming the door behind her.

“You’ve certainly become popular,” Walter said.

“It’s that Cochrane woman. I swear, I should just give her my body and maybe then she’ll leave me alone.”

“You can’t do that, you’re all mine, remember?”

He brought her in against him and their lips joined them. The pounding, banging, screaming became too much for her and she broke away, saying amongst Walter’s comforts, “I suppose you’d like to see my new room.”

“Are they going to fix that?” he asked, nodding towards the gaping hole in the wall.

“I don’t know, an architect’s coming tomorrow to see what they can do,” Mercedes said. “Come on, I’ll show you my set-up.”

[Pulpmariachi]

The Helicopter Buttress -- Part 2

The architect was a short, balding man who only grew horizontally. He inspected the helicopter, circling around the fallen body, mumbling to himself half in Indian and the other half in British-accented English. Mercedes had long ago abandoned trying to understand what he was saying while her advisor from the department of Archeology and the President of the University stood next to her in expensive suits, not once redirecting their attention away from the architect. Her counselor sat in her roommate’s chair under the lofted bed, clipboard resting on her knee, shifting through her roommate’s belongings, or what belongings her roommate had left behind on her desk. The dull roar of the reporters was clearly audible within the room until the President of the University called security. Moments later, Mercedes heard commotions outside, the unmistakable voice of Elizabeth Cochrane claiming that this was a violation of the first amendment, that it was her civic duty as a member of the press to be allowed to remain where she was, all to the agreement of the other reporters; however, their voices fell into decrescendo and disappeared all together. The President of the University made no move to acknowledge his victory, standing still until the architect finally turned his attention to the people in the room.

“No good, no good,” he said, slightly more coherent now that he was addressing someone other than himself.

“What do you mean?” asked the President of the University.

“Well, you see this helicopter here –?”

“It’s rather difficult not to see it,” said Mercedes’ advisor from the department of Archeology.

“Ahh yes, of course,” said the architect. “But you see, what happened here was that when the helicopter came through it knocked out a support beam. Which means that now,” he took off his glasses and wiped the lenses with a handkerchief, “that this helicopter is supporting the entire foundation for the top half of this building. If you were to take it out, the entire building would collapse. I can guarantee this.”

“We have five hundred and eleven students, not to mention resident assistants and other workers who reside in the building. We have no room to move them out at all. There’s no room throughout the entire campus. You need to fix this, they can’t be living with the constant danger that this tower will collapse,” said the President of the University.

“I assure you, nothing like that will happen, if the helicopter remains in place. The slightest movement could upset something, anything within the building. Though I very much doubt that will happen,” he chuckled. “This thing is wedged in here very tightly. It would take much force to move it.”

“So, what you’re saying is that no one is in any actual danger unless the helicopter is removed?” the President of the University asked.

“That is precisely what I’m saying,” said the architect.

“What about Mercedes?” asked her advisor from the department of Archeology.

The architect said, “The little girl? What about her? She’ll be fine. Couldn’t be safer than inside the helicopter. If, hypothetically speaking of course, something awful were to occur, there are parachutes in the back of the helicopter that would allow her to glide down gently to the ground. Why yes, I would much rather be in this helicopter than in any other room in this building. Not that they all aren’t safe, for they are, I can assure you.”


Mercedes lingered after the rest of her ancient civilizations class to ask her professor some questions. The conversation continued up to her professor’s officer where Mercedes finally broke away, checking quickly that she had all the books she needed for that night. On her way out of the building she was stopped by an emaciated boy who was barley taller than her, trying to wave her attention. Bizarre designs decorated his shirt consisting mainly of symbols from ruins she recognized from some of her other classes, which really had no business being next to each to each other. She took one look at the boy, decided she would rather have nothing to do with him and exited the building. He followed after her, speaking rapidly.

“You’re Mercedes Estrada aren’t you?” he said.

“Yes,” she said bluntly.

“The girl who lives in a helicopter?”

She stopped, let out a grunt, and continued on.

“Wait, wait, wait. I just want you to hear me out,” the boy said.

“All right.”

“Listen: we can’t talk here, it’s far too dangerous. I know somewhere secluded.”

“Listen,” Mercedes said, “I’ve had a long day and I have a lot of homework tonight, on top of which I’m incredibly hungry, so if you want to say something go right ahead because I want nothing more than to go home.”

“Fine then. But you really shouldn’t eat anything, meat especially. That’s how they control you. Grow your own vegetables, never eat anything given to you . . . .”

“I’ll take that under consideration, thank you.” She started walking and the boy followed just behind her.

“That not what I wanted to say,” said the boy. “Just trying to give you some friendly advice. I wanted to ask you if you put all the inconsistencies together concerning that machine that’s sticking out of your room.”

“Honestly, I’m trying not to think about that.”

“No, no, no, but think about it. I mean, you’re only on the eighth story of a twelve-story building. Hardly the place to cause the maximum damage isn’t it?”

“I don’t know.”

“And for what reason would they attack a dorm tower? You know what’s happening? The government is trying to justify the prolonging of this war. But we always knew that they’ve been trying to do that since 9/11. Still, why a dorm? That got me thinking and I asked some of my sources if there was something peculiar concerning you and they told me that your mother’s in South America right now, am I right? I think that someone saw the opportunity to get more cash and while working for the government they’re doing something as an attack on your mother at the same time.”

Mercedes stopped and said, “Those are some claims. I don’t see how they add up.”

“I’ve still got to make more connections but I’m absolutely sure that this is what’s happening. I mean, weren’t the terrorists blonde-haired and blue-eyed?”

“Does that even matter?”

“All the news reports said the mercenaries were Arabs. How many Arabs have blonde-hair and blue-eyes? I’m right, aren’t I? And you know it. It’s like I said, Mercedes, justification for the war is diminishing and the government needs more for an excuse. That’s why you have a helicopter sticking out of your building.”

Mercedes looked at him for a moment. She inhaled and said, “I don’t care. I just want to finish this year up. I do hope all your theories work out, though.”

She left the boy standing in the middle of the road. Her stomach rumbled and she decided that she was going to have the biggest cheeseburger that the University dining halls would allow.

* * *

When she got home two in dark suits that boxed their bodies together were waiting at her door. They waited until they were absolutely sure she was Mercedes Estrada before moving forward, flashing their badges, identifying themselves as agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. She shrugged, trying to key her way into the room while the agents, who looked identical to her so she was unable to discern between the one who referred to himself as Agent Bones and the one who referred to himself as Agent Skullz who asked her if she would be able to answer a few questions. They waited outside for door until she invited them in; one of the agents took from his breast pocket a small notebook and pumped out questions, like How much have you been fraternizing with that boy outside?, Do you have any suspicions about the terrorists who drove their helicopter through your dorm building?, Do you believe what that boy said to you outside?, You know that your mother’s safe, right?, Did you actually see the terrorists? and other such questions strangely similar to the one the boy on campus had put forward. Realizing eventually that she did not know, or even really care, answering all their questions with an “I don’t know,” “I guess,” or “Okay,” the FBI agents calmly dismissed themselves and vanished.

* * *

She stacked up her textbooks at the corner of her desk and turned on her laptop. Mercedes pulled out a worksheet given to her earlier, resting it on the surface of her desk. Checking facts in her textbook and on the Internet she proceeded to fill out the worksheet, growing more and more frustrated as she continued on. The paper continually slid towards the top of her desk and the lines she wrote looked like they were composed by a beginning learner of penmanship. Mercedes managed to finish but did not bother to check her answers. She shoved the paper into her bag and paced around her helicopter room.

From outside she heard the twirling blades of a helicopter, which took her a moment to register. She rushed out of her helicopter and looked out the gaping hole in her room, watching as another helicopter came towards her. As before, the helicopter was flying at a relatively low altitude and it wasn’t turning from its current course. Thoughts of what the boy had said flooded into her mind: they were coming to get her. She couldn’t scream, she couldn’t move. The second helicopter came closer, then stopped, hovering in midair. A spotlight burst on, one thousand watts of light hit Mercedes directly in the face. She tried to shield her eyes but it was no real use as she heard a megaphone crackle on and a male voice shouted out at her: “Mercedes Estrada, we would like to ask you some questions. What are your living arrangements in the helicopter like?” The question entered her ears but took a moment to comprehend. All the tenseness that was building up within her body dropped and she shook her heard as she went back into her helicopter, calling the police before she flopped down on her cot. She stared at the ceiling of the helicopter, listening to the questions that were being shot through the megaphone until the sounds of another helicopter pierced the night accompanied by another megaphone which demanded in an authoritative male voice that this was a violation of the University’s air space. The first megaphone said to back off, pig while the second helicopter repeated its same message. Mercedes drifted off to sleep in the midst of the argument.

* * *

She spent the next day with Walter where he drove her through the foothills, playing music as loudly as his car would allow. Their textbooks were in the backseat, falling around the floor at each turn. Mercedes had brought them under the illusion that it would be wonderful to study outdoors for a change, of course, that never came to fruition as they ended up sitting at the edge of a mild drop-off, lips locked, music blasting. Walter ended up killing the battery but they were fortunately able to find someone to give them a jump start before the sun disappeared completely behind the horizon. The man who jump-started them recognized Mercedes from the papers but she didn’t really care, watching him as he set up the cables to Walter’s battery. With the engine running Walter thanked the man who said that it was no problem at all and he drove off. In the car Walter and Mercedes decided that they would head over to Walter’s house for the night, making a quick stop at Mercedes’s dorm on the way over. Upstairs she found she couldn’t keep her hands off of him, running them up along his sides and placing his all over body, pulling him into the helicopter, where their clothes were strewn all over the metal floor. Strange, animalistic noises rose from each of them as they met each other’s thrusts with such force that the cot was pulled back before gravity took over and it slammed into the back of the pilot’s seat. Again and again this happened, the sheets became drenched with precious bodily fluids, until the cot hit the seat so hard that the entire helicopter shifted and above them they heard the sound of something bursting. Quite suddenly the windshield of the helicopter was covered in water, distorting anything that could be seen out the glass. Walter jumped off Mercedes, having enough sense to throw on his underwear whereas Mercedes simply ran naked into the main room, getting hit in full-force by the fire sprinklers gushing out all the water held in reserve. From outside the window she could hear the annoyed yells of other students in the tower, the curse words, the screams to cover something up before it totally got ruined. The helicopter now rested at an angle, the left-front of its nose against the ground. Mercedes stood in the center of the room, her hair matted against her head, hot water drenching her skin, unable to move from where she stood, staring at the helicopter, not noticing Walter come out in his boxers which immediately clung to his skin, outlining everything, and wrap a blanket around her shoulders and drenched body. She didn’t notice him until he said, “I think we broke a water pipe,” at which point she screamed and began attacking the helicopter, kicking at the body of the beast, hitting it as hard as she could with her fists until her hands her cut up and bleeding, though the blood was washed away by the blasting sprinkler systems. The cheap carpet on the ground became mushy, water oozing out with every step she took, flung forward with every kick that she made. Spider webs were left on the windshield and she even left dented parts of the body. Walter only watched as she exhausted herself and collapsed to the ground. The water had by then become too much for the carpet to absorb, a thin stream had formed and was flowing out, around the helicopter body and out the gaping wall onto the pavement below. Eventually, the reservoir of water in the sprinklers ran dry but the interior rain had yet to cease as the water that sprayed everywhere dripped down from the ceiling, not to mention leaking from above. Walter dropped next to her against the helicopter, watching her for a moment before draping her with his arm. Mercedes fell into him, not crying or even feeling anything all together. She simply sat there as her bangs fell into her eyes in black strands. A familiar pounding sound came at the door, which she heard at first but then blocked it as she passed out….

* * *

The remainder of the semester went by, Finals coming and going then leaving the students a few months time for vacation. Mercedes ended up taking some summer courses, living in an apartment with Walter just off-campus. She would have gone home but her mother still had yet to return from her trip so she saw no reason to return. Honestly, she had been all-too-happy to repack all of her possessions, protected by the helicopter from the interior rain, and get as far away from the tower as she could afford. Sometimes she found herself passing by the building while riding her bike, trying to get to a class or a store on the other side of campus, always seeing the helicopter tail still sticking out of the building till one afternoon she saw a crowd of people gathered around in orange mesh vests and yellow hardhats behind a line of yellow ticker tape. She parked her bike across the street, watching as the men directed a large crane towards the tower, aiming towards the tail of the helicopter that hung so far above the ground. Mercedes was as men on ladders attacked the crane to the helicopter and retreated backwards, finding any sort of cover. The grinding of mechanical engines filled the air as the crane backed up, tugging at the helicopter, which creaked and groaned as it was being removed. Bits of the building were torn out, crashing down at the ground the workers had long since departed. Once momentum had been gained the helicopter slid out easily, as if heavily lubricated, and the crane swerved it around, letting it softly drop in the middle of the parking lot. The top-most stories of the building moaned before collapsing upon themselves, the force too much for the remainder of the structure to bear. The concrete split and exploded outward. A cloud of dust and debris hid the collapse from Mercedes’s view, as the building stopped scraping the sky and disappeared into the rapidly expanding cloud of rubble. Mercedes took one of her three notebooks and held it up to her eyes as the dust and debris and chaos spread out to her, overtook her, and caused her momentarily to disappear.

March 2007

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, guys.