Tag: Allen Kopp

They Can’t Take That Away from Me ~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp

1942 ~ Phoenix, Arizona
They Can’t Take That Away from Me
~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp ~

(This short story has been published in The Literary Hatchet with a different title.)

My name is Charles A. Rilke (rhymes with “silky”). Some people call me Charlie but mostly I’m known as just plain Charles. I had been married for twelve years and had two children. We lived the American dream in a mortgaged-to-the-hilt ranch house in the suburbs. I was a solid citizen, a straight arrow, a model of sobriety, a true believer and a professional man. I figured my life was all plotted out for me until the day I died, without any deviation in any direction. I didn’t expect to find myself in love for the first time at the advanced age of forty-two.

I had a job I didn’t like very much as an editor at a publishing firm. I had been with the company for seven years and had been passed over for promotion in favor of younger, less-experienced people. I hated every minute I spent in the corporate world. I wanted to throw everything down and become a writer. Not practical, you say? You’re probably right.

Every morning I got into my aging Pontiac and drove the twelve miles to work. The morning drive could be fraught with drama, depending on the weather, time of year and traffic conditions. A sudden thunder storm, a little bit of rain or unexpected snow flurries? A cardboard box fell off the back of a truck onto the highway? Any ugly and unexpected occurrence might make me up to an hour late for work. Late again? Don’t worry about it. Make up your time at the end of the day.

My gas tank was nearly empty, so on Monday morning on my way to work I stopped at Gus Gray’s to fill up. Right away I saw there was a new attendant manning the pumps. He smiled at me as I pulled up and rolled down my window. His name, stitched in red on the pocket of his shirt, was Colton.

“Fill it up, sir?” he asked as I rolled down my window.

After he pumped the gas, he cleaned my windshield.

“New here?” I asked.

“Started last week.”

“You like it?”

“Who likes pumping gas?”

“Probably nobody.”

The next time I needed gas and stopped in at Gus Gray’s, Colton was standing beside the pumps as if I was his only customer all day. He gassed up my car and cleaned my windshield and before I left I asked him to check the oil so I could keep him near me for a little while longer.

As he raised the hood, I got out of the car and stood beside him. I watched him as he bent over into my engine. He checked the oil, said it was fine and closed the hood.

“You’re not like the others,” I said, saying what I was thinking without considering whether it was appropriate or not.

“How is that?” he asked.

“You don’t look like you just crawled out of an oil can.”

He laughed. “Nobody notices.”

“Somebody notices. I notice.”

“People just want their gas. They don’t care about the person pumping it.”

He was around thirty, I figured. He had brown hair, what little I could see of it under his cap. His face was covered with brown-blond stubble, just enough to look appealing instead of scruffy. He was broad-shouldered, trim-waisted, shirt tucked neatly into pants. His clothes were spotless and he wore new-looking work boots. He was a perfectly proportioned male specimen. I saw much in him to be admired.

“Gus Gray knows who to put out front to attract the customers.”

“Are you flirting with me?” he asked.

The next time I went into Gus Gray’s was for an oil change. I hoped Colton would be there. It was raining, so he was inside at the cash register. I gave him the keys to my car and sat down inside while he went to move my car. When he came back in, he seemed to have forgotten I was there. I got up and bought a soda out of the vending machine.

“Slow day?” I asked.

“What?”

“I said it’s a slow day because of the rain.”

“Oh, yeah. People don’t get out if they don’t have to.”

“Then why am I here?” I said.

He smiled and shrugged and I felt like the main thing I needed to do was to keep my mouth shut.

I sat back down with my soda and, after I had drunk about half of it, he said, “Gus is off today so I have to take care of any customers.”

“It’s always nice when the boss is gone, isn’t it?” I said.

“Yeah. Gus is all right but he runs a tight ship.”

“Yeah, I can see that.”

“You know what they say, though. It’s a job.”

“I don’t like my job very much, either,” I said.

“What do you do?”

“I work for Ellis and Peacock downtown.”

“What’s Ellis and Peacock?”

“Publishing house.”

“You’re a publisher?”

“Just an editor and a junior editor, at that.”

“What does an editor do?”

“I make sure copy is ready for publication.”

“What’s ‘copy’?”

“Stuff that other people write.”

“Why don’t you write it yourself?”

“I’m lacking in ambition and enthusiasm.”

“Why don’t you quit, then, and do something else?”

“It’s not that easy. I have a mortgage and two kids.”

“And a wife?”

“Yeah, a wife, too.”

“Most people have at least one wife running around,” he said.

“How about you?” I asked. “Do you have a wife?”

“Not me,” he said.

“Smart man.”

Over the next three or four months I saw Colton every time I stopped in for gas. We usually exchanged a few words of no importance that I recalled over and over in my mind until the next time I saw him. I wasn’t looking for any hidden meaning; I was only remembering the way he spoke the words and the look in his chestnut eyes as he spoke them.

I began thinking a lot about him as I sat at my desk at work. At night when I turned off the light I saw the cleft in his chin, the tiny chip in his tooth when he smiled, the way his trousers clung to the contours of his ass, his laugh, his hands, the hair on his forearms, the hair that spilled out at the top of his shirt collar. All the things about him I liked.

I wished that I might have a chance to know him better, to talk to him away from the station. Would he think I was a lunatic if I asked him to meet me in a bar or a restaurant somewhere? Would he tell Gus Gray and have me banned from the station? Would they call the police and have me arrested?

Being drawn to a good-looking younger man was not a habit for me; it had never happened before, not even in my younger days. Most people left me cold, didn’t move me one way or another. Hadn’t I decided long ago that feeling nothing was the best way to get through life unscathed? Hadn’t I always gone out of my way to fit in with the herd and not draw attention to myself?

And why would I think Colton would ever give me a thought? I was nothing special. I wasn’t especially young or good-looking or interesting. My car was boring. My hair was thinning on top and already I was starting to pack on weight around my middle. I believed I might be on the verge of making a complete ass of myself, as I did in high school when I thought I was a poet and published a poem in the school newspaper that made everybody laugh and hoot because it was so bad.

On a Friday morning, looking forward to two days at home doing as I pleased, I stopped in for gas. I had finally decided to ask Colton to have lunch with me one day or to meet me after work for a drink.

He wasn’t waiting at the pump as usual and he didn’t come bounding out of the station. The weasel they called Johnny Walker Red was there instead. He had long red hair that made him look like Rita Hayworth. I was sickened at the thought of having anybody but Colton pump my gas.

“Where’s Colton?” I asked Johnny Walker Red.

“Who?”

“Colton.”

“Don’t know no Colton.”

“He works here.”

“Oh, yeah! I forgot his name. I think Gus said he’s sick or something. In the hospital.”

“What’s the matter with him?”

“I dunno.”

“When’s he coming back?”

“I dunno. I ain’t his keeper.”

I paid for my gas and went on to work. I felt low and unhappy all day long. I only wanted people to leave me alone. I couldn’t wait to get back home in the evening so I could be alone with my thoughts.

I waited a few days and went back to the station, hoping Colton would have returned. This time Gus Gray waited on me.

“What’s happened to Colton?” I asked him.

“He called and asked for a few days off. He’s been sick. In the hospital, I believe.”

“Do you know what’s wrong with him?”

“Nope.”

“Is he coming back?”

“I guess so. He didn’t say.”

It was about this time that I started having trouble at work, which involved  enforced overtime. We had missed a couple of deadlines recently and the boss was ready to bring out the guillotine, set it up in the lobby, and start chopping our heads off. We were all going to have to knuckle down and work extra hours every day just to get caught up. It moved me one step closer to quitting but not without punching a few people in the nose first.

Days passed and I avoided Gus Gray’s. When I needed gas, I drove to another station farther away. If I didn’t see Colton, I reasoned, I would stop thinking about him and eventually forget about him altogether and go back to being the fatherly drudge I had always been, the same as everybody else, with none any the wiser.

After two weeks, I couldn’t hold out any longer. I had to know that he was all right and hadn’t died or anything. The next time I stopped in to fill up at Gus Gray’s, he was standing at the pump. I was so happy to see him I could have jumped out of the car and embraced him.

“May I help you, sir?” he asked, as I rolled down my window.

“You’ve been gone,” I said.

“Yeah.”

“They said you were sick.”

“I’m all right.”

“I missed you.”

“I missed you, too, sir,” he said.

“Fill it up.”

When he brought me the change from the twenty-dollar bill I used to pay for my gas, he gave me one of Gus Gray’s business cards. He had crossed through the print on the front and written his name and phone number on the back.

“If you ever want to talk,” he said.

I drove on to work, happier than I had been for long time. The good feeling lasted through the entire day. I was kind to my co-workers and felt calm and relaxed. I took an extra long lunch, by myself, and walked three blocks away from the office and had a good fish dinner at a better place than I usually go.

That evening, while my wife and kids were watching TV, I went to the phone with the card in my hand. Heart pounding, I picked up the receiver and then put it back again. I hadn’t planned on calling him at that moment; it was only a dry run to show myself I could do it if I wanted to.

On top of all the overtime at work, I began having trouble at home. My wife and I began arguing about small things. She had a biting tongue and so did I. A lot of the self-restraint I prided myself on had left me. I hated arguing and bickering but I couldn’t seem to help myself. My parents had had a miserable marriage and I seemed to be following their example.

The fight of all fights came on a Sunday. I had been hoping to have a peaceful day at home, resting up for the upcoming week of hell at work, but my wife and I started arguing at the breakfast table. After several hours of anger and tension, I packed a bag and went to a motel so I could be alone.

After I checked into the motel, I had a nap and then a quiet meal in the motel restaurant. After dinner, I sat down on the bed and called Colton’s number. He answered on the third ring.

He knew from the first word who I was. I didn’t have to explain myself. He said he was expecting me to call any time.

“Gus fired me,” he said.

“Why?”

“He thinks I’m too slow. I spend too long with each customer, while other customers are waiting, and I’m not assertive enough. He wanted me to push products to customers. Spark plugs, fan belts, wiper blades, motor oil, and all that kind of stuff. I told him I’m not a salesman, so he fired me.”

“I’m going away and I want you to go with me,” I said.

“What?”

“I’m going to quit my job in the morning. I hate it and I’m tired of being unhappy. I’ll pick you up wherever you say at nine o’clock, so pack a bag.”

“That’s a little impulsive, isn’t it?” he said.

“Probably, but I don’t care.”

“Where are we going?”

“I don’t know.”

“How long will we be gone?”

“I don’t know.”

In the morning I was up at six o’clock. After breakfast, I called my place of employment and instructed the secretary to tell the boss I was quitting. I’d never have to see or speak to that evil son of a bitch again. I’d mail in a letter of resignation later if they had to have it in writing.

I put my stuff in the car and checked out of the motel. I stopped at the bank and withdrew eight hundred dollars in cash from my savings account and arrived at the address Colton had given me at ten minutes to nine. He was waiting outside with a small suitcase. I asked him how he was, but he didn’t seem to want to talk so that was altogether fine with me. I didn’t feel much like talking in the morning either.

I didn’t know where I was going. I went out through town to the highway and headed west.

At lunchtime I had driven a hundred and twenty miles. I stopped for lunch at a restaurant on the highway at the edge of a small town. Colton and I sat across from each other in a sunny booth.

He told me a little bit about himself. His parents, both dead, had been alcoholics. His mother kicked him out of the house as soon as he graduated from high school. He had had an older brother who died from a drug overdose. He had been married briefly at twenty-one to a girl he hardly knew. The marriage lasted less than a year. For the last ten years or so he had gone from job to job, looking for something, he wasn’t sure what.

“A life without much to show for it,” he said.

“No worse than anybody else’s,” I said.

 I asked him why he had been in the hospital and reluctantly he told me. When he was three years old, he had rheumatic fever and it left him with rheumatic heart disease, from which he would probably die by the age of forty. He made it clear he didn’t want sympathy or pity.

“When it comes, I’ll be ready for it,” he said.

I drove all day in a westerly direction, stopping only at mealtimes and to fill my car up with gas. Neither one of us talked about where we were going or what we’d do when we got there.

At eleven o’clock that night, after driving for fourteen hours, I had to stop. We found a quiet, inviting-looking motel with red-and-green neon signs just off the highway and I engaged a room.

We talked for a while and watched an old black-and-white movie on TV. When the movie was over, he wanted to take a shower. When he came out of the bathroom, he got into bed naked. I got in beside him and held him in my arms and kissed him. As he kissed me back, I realized I had, finally, the thing I had been dreaming about for months. If I died right at that moment, I would die happy.

After a long silence, he asked, “What state are we in?”

“Does it matter?”

“No, not as long as I’m with you.”

He surprised me by taking my hand and entwining his fingers through mine.

“Do you want to go back?” I asked.

“Nothing to go back for. No home to speak of. No job, either.”

“Don’t worry. You’ll find another job.”

“I don’t want another job. I’ve had plenty of jobs. I’ve thought about it long and hard and from where I stand it looks like I’m just about finished.”

“What are you saying?” I asked.

“Ever think about just bringing down the curtain? Ending things on your own?”

“I’ve thought about a lot of things.”

“I read a story once about a suicide pact between two men. It seemed like a good idea.”

“Why?”

He thought for a moment and then he said, “If you do it with somebody you care about, it’s not so lonely.”

I showed him the gun I had in my suitcase.

“I have two bullets,” I said.

He smiled as if he thought I was making a joke and then he knew I wasn’t.

“I see,” he said.

“Is it what you want?” I asked. “Truly?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“You have to be sure. No regrets.”

“I’m sure. I don’t have any regrets. Have you ever fired a gun before?”

“Sure.”

“Make sure the bullet does its job.”

“Don’t worry.”

“Wait until I’m asleep.”

“You won’t feel a thing. And know that I’ll be right behind you.”

I sat there in the chair beside the bed with the gun in my right hand. He turned over in the bed away from me and pulled the blanket up under his chin and went to sleep.

There was just enough light coming in from the window that I could see him. I watched him all night, listening to him breathe and sigh, and I knew he was the only person in the world I had ever loved in the way that I always knew was possible but had never experienced before.

He slept through the night and when he woke up a little after daylight he turned and looked at me.

“Where are we?” he asked.

“Still in the motel beside the highway.”

“What time is it?”

“Time to get up and get dressed.”

We were on our way again in a half-hour. We crossed one state line and then another with dizzying rapidity. I planned to keep driving for as long as I could and for as long as my car and my money held out. When it was time to stop driving and do something else, I’d know. Until then, nothing much mattered except my feeling of being free and the happiness I felt when I looked at the person beside me.

Copyright © 2026 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

Rain Continuing Tonight and Tomorrow ~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp

Rain Continuing Tonight and Tomorrow
~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp ~

(Published in Writers’ Stories Magazine.)

Louise Eldritch didn’t have an umbrella. By the time she walked the six blocks from the bus station to the hotel, she was soaked through to the skin. She stood there, shivering a little and dripping water on the floor, while she signed her name to the register, a false name that came to her in the moment before she wrote it down. The night desk clerk smiled at her familiarly, as though he knew her. He had the same smile for everybody, no matter who they were.

“I have a nice room for you on the eighth floor, Miss Whitehead,” he said, reading the name off the register.

“It’s Mrs. Whitehead. Don’t you have anything on a lower floor?”

“Not cleaned and made up. With all this rain, you see, we’re short-staffed.”

“I guess the eighth floor will have to do, then.”

“It’s nice and quiet up there and you’ll have a fine view. The elevator is in working order, so you won’t have to walk up the stairs.” He handed her the key.

She took the creaking elevator up to the eighth floor. The door opened on a long carpeted hallway, silent and deserted. On the way to her room, she heard voices coming from behind the door to one of the rooms. She paused for a moment because something about the voices seemed oddly familiar; first a woman’s voice, pleading and crying, and then an angry man’s voice. There was the sound of breaking glass and the woman screamed. A different male voice, higher-pitched than the first one, yelled as if he was calling a dog and then the other two voices were stilled. She wondered if maybe someone was in trouble and needed help, but she had problems of her own and didn’t want to become involved in anybody else’s. She walked on to the end of the hallway.

Her room was as dreary as she expected. The walls were covered with faded green-and-brown wallpaper and the ceiling spotted with water stains. She turned on the lights and stepped out of her wet shoes and draped her jacket over the back of the desk chair. She took a towel from the bathroom and dried herself off the best she could. She longed to get into a tubful of hot water to try to soak the aches out of her body but she was just too tired. The day and a half spent travelling on the bus had taken its toll. She wanted only to sleep.

There was one window in the room and beside it a small door that opened onto a tiny fire escape landing. The window and door were both covered with a heavy green curtain, the kind that completely shut out the light. She pulled back the curtain and looked out at the rain, which hadn’t diminished and was, if anything, coming down heavier than before. She looked down the eighty feet or so to the street but couldn’t see much of anything, other than a streetlamp at the next corner and the lights of an all-night drugstore in the next block.

It could be any one of a thousand different towns in America. In the two days she had been traveling, she crossed several states lines and had lost track of where she was. If she had known the name of the town when she arrived there, she had forgotten it, but she derived a sort of perverse pleasure in not knowing where she was. If she didn’t know where she was, didn’t it follow that nobody else would know?

The room, for all its shortcomings, was warm and dry, and for that she was thankful. After she smoked a cigarette, she took off her clothes and got into the too-soft bed underneath the pile of peculiar-smelling covers and switched off the light. She could still hear the voices coming from down the hallway but underneath the soothing sound of the rain they seemed detached and far away.

She lay on her back in the dark for perhaps half an hour, smoking one cigarette after the other. As tired as her body was and as much as she needed to sleep, she knew she wasn’t going to go to sleep without a struggle. She had the sensation of still being in motion; her head reeled and she had a knot in her stomach. She got out of the bed and switched on the light and opened her suitcase and took out some pills, one to calm her down and another to make her sleep. She washed both pills down with a swallow from a bottle of Kentucky bourbon that she had bundled among her clothes to protect it from breakage.

While she had the suitcase opened, she took the diary out of a zippered compartment and opened it and sat down on the bed and held it open on her lap. The diary was for her more than just a book; it represented the end of her old life and the beginning of a new life, the kind of life she had always wanted.

In the diary, in Byron’s own handwriting, was his own confession. She didn’t know why he would confess in writing to having two business associates killed in five years, but that was just his way. He was thumbing his nose at the world. He believed he could get away with anything and outsmart anybody; he believed he was infallible. He kept the diary locked in a safe to which only he had access and he believed nobody would ever even know of its existence.

He slipped up, though, and she found the diary and read it, as wives sometimes will. She recognized it at once as a gold mine. Byron would pay a lot to get it back. She had wanted to get out of the marriage for years and now here was her chance, as if dropped into her lap from heaven.

When she got a safe distance away—and she didn’t know yet exactly where she was going—she would contact Byron and make him an offer. She would start at five-hundred thousand; she didn’t want to be overly greedy. That amount would be enough to keep her comfortably well-off for the rest of her life. She could travel and keep a nice apartment and have friends and give parties and never have to worry about anything; live the kind of independent life she had always wanted.

Byron would kill her too, though, of that she was certain. He would use any means at his disposal to get the diary back. She wasn’t certain that he hadn’t been following her or having someone else follow her—a hired killer, perhaps. For that reason she had taken a meandering course across four states, had changed buses five times, and had stopped at a dreary old hotel on the edge of nowhere—a place that wasn’t even on the map. She didn’t think she was being followed, but still one could never be certain of anything, especially when dealing with a man like Byron Eldritch.

Almost immediately the pills began to take effect and her eyelids began to feel heavy. She put the diary away carefully for safekeeping and got back into bed again. Soon she was asleep.

She dreamed she was walking along a flat country road. She didn’t know where the road was but it seemed somehow familiar, as if she remembered it from her far distant past. Looking down at her legs and feet, she saw they were covered with the dirt of the road.

As she walked along this road to an unknown or uncertain destination, she heard a car coming up behind her. She stopped walking and turned around and faced the car. She was interested in knowing who was driving, but apparently no one was, or, if there was a driver, he was invisible. An invisible driver didn’t make any sense, so it was easier to believe the car was moving on its own.

The car was bearing down on her and she had the sudden sickening realization that it meant to run her down in the road and kill her. When it was no more than thirty or forty feet away, coming toward her very fast, she jumped out of the way just in time and it went on past her in a cloud of dust.

She was awakened from the dream at that moment by a crash down the hallway, as of something being thrown against the wall, and then a scream. After that she could hear the voices, louder than before, as though the argument was still going on and had intensified. She tried covering up her head with a pillow but it was no use; she could still hear it. She got out of bed and turned on the light and picked up the receiver.

“Night clerk,” the voice said.

“There’s an argument going on down the hall from my room, loud voices and shouting, and it’s keeping me awake.”

“What room are you in?”

“846.”

“Oh, yes. The eighth floor. I believe they’ve been celebrating. I’ll call them and tell them to keep it quiet.”

She heard the phone ringing faintly down the hall and the murmur of voices, followed by laughter and the slamming of a door, and then stillness. Whoever they were, they seemed to have finally stopped the arguing and settled down for the night. She switched off the light and covered up her head and went to sleep again.

It might have been ten minutes or an hour or two hours before a knocking on the door jerked her violently awake. She sat up in the bed, her heart pounding, uncertain for the moment where she was. When the knocking came again, she got out of bed and went to the door.

“Who is it?” she asked.

“Mr. Mendel calling for Mr. Sloan,” a raspy voice said.

“What?”

“I said, ‘Mr. Mendel calling for Mr. Sloan’.”

“I don’t know who you are,” she said. “You’ve got the wrong room.”

“I need to see Mr. Sloan right away.”

“There’s nobody here by that name.”

“He said room 846.”

“You’ve got the wrong room.”

“There came one day a lovely box of flowers.”

“What?”

“Will you let me in?”

“You’ve got the wrong room.”

“So you say, but can you give me a good reason why I ought to believe you?”

She heard a huff of breath and faint footsteps as the man turned from the door and walked away. A few seconds later she heard the elevator door open and close and then the faraway creaking as the elevator descended.

The next time she awoke she could still hear the rain, but underneath that was some other sound. She pushed back the covers and sat on the edge of the bed and stared into the darkness. It took a few seconds before she was awake enough to know that she had been hearing someone calling her name outside the door to her room, softly yet insistently. She went to the door and put her ear against it.

“Who’s there?” she asked softly. “Is anyone there?”

There was no reply but the unmistakable sound of someone breathing in air and letting it out again.

“Who is it?” she asked, louder this time. “What do you want?”

There was a long pause, after which a man’s voice said, “Aren’t you going to tell me I’ve got the wrong room?”

“Who is it?” she asked.

“What’s the point of asking such obvious questions?”

“I’ve got a gun and I know how to use it.”

The man laughed. “All right, all right,” he said. “No reason to get excited. So I’ve got the wrong room. No need to shoot me!”

She heard him walking away, followed by silence. She longed to open the door and look down the hall toward the elevator, but she was afraid he was playing a trick on her and when she opened the door he would force his way in.

She went to her suitcase and took from underneath the jumbled clothing the little .22 caliber handgun that Byron had given her in happier days when he traveled a lot and she was left at home to fend for herself. Having a gun nearby had always made her feel safer, even though she had never had any reason to fire it.

Clutching the gun to her breast, she got back into bed and sat against the headboard and pulled the covers up and stared into the darkness. The rain blew in gusts against the window. She went to sleep again.

She awoke to the phone ringing. She dropped the gun to the floor, forgetting she was holding it, and grabbed the receiver to silence the ringing.

“Yes?” she said, her voice breathless.

“This is the night desk clerk.”

“Yes?”

“I wanted to ask you if you’ve been bothered any more by the guests on your floor. We always follow up on these things.”

“What time is it?”

“It’s exactly one-forty-seven, Central Standard Time.”

“There was a man knocking on the door a while ago. He was looking for somebody he thought was in this room.”

“Did you open the door?”

“No.”

“If he comes back, don’t open the door. You never know who might be lurking about. We try to keep people out late at night who aren’t actually paying guests of the hotel, but sometimes they come in unnoticed for one reason or another.”

“Do you have the number of the local police force?” she asked.

“The police? What do you need to call the police for?”

“Well, I can’t say for sure. I have an uneasy feeling.”

“You don’t need to be calling the police, ma’am. I’ll be here all night, until seven or so, and if you’re bothered again pick up the phone and call me. Just don’t call the police.”

“I’m going to leave this place. I don’t feel safe here.”

“Where would you go in the middle of the night in the pouring rain? The dam might be breached and if it is this whole area could be under water. You wouldn’t even get a cab.”

“I’ll sit in the lobby or I’ll go to the all-night drugstore down the street and wait there until morning.”

“No need to do that, ma’am. Just go back to sleep. Everything will be all right.”

When she hung up the phone, her hands were shaking and she felt dizzy and short of breath. She took two more pills and drank the rest of the bourbon in the bottle.

Suddenly a pounding at the door brought her to her feet. She stared at the door in the darkness, as if expecting to see through it to the other side.

“Who’s there?” she asked.

This time a different male voice (with a hint of a foreign accent) said, “Open the door and stop fooling around!”

“I said ‘who’s there’?”

“If you don’t open this door, you’ll have to answer for it later.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. It’s the middle of the night. I’m trying to sleep!”

“Do you know how silly that sounds?”

“You’ve got the wrong room.”

“If you know what’s good for you, you’ll open the door.”

“Go away!”

For good measure, he pounded on the door again and kicked it with both feet.

She returned to the bed and pulled the covers up over her head, hoping to shut out any further disturbances. She longed to be at home where everything was certain and where nobody would dare bother her in the middle of the night. She was thinking about getting out of bed again and checking to make sure the door was double-locked, when the phone rang again. Unlike before, she let it ring ten or twelve rings before she picked it up.

“Yes,” she said groggily into the receiver, holding it several inches from her ear.

“You’re not fooling anybody,” a voice said quietly, followed by a click and the dial tone.

“Who is this?” she said, even though she knew no one was there. “Why are you doing this to me? What is it you want?”

When she hung up the phone, she felt ill and took two more pills to calm herself down. Unable to remember how many pills she had taken, she took two more. She then pulled all the covers off the bed and piled them on the floor and lay down on them and tried to cover herself up. She would make herself small on the floor underneath the bedclothes and no one would even know she was there. She would roll herself up in the corner and make herself invisible if that’s what she needed to do. She was more resourceful than people were willing to give her credit for.

There came then a rhythmic pounding on the ceiling and then on the wall behind the bed and then on the opposite wall. It was coming from every place at once and no place at all. She let out a scream and wrapped herself in the blankets on the floor like in a cocoon and covered her ears with her hands but she could still hear the pounding, loud and then soft like tapping and then stopping altogether and starting up again in a different place. When she could stand the pounding no longer, she stood up and made her way to the phone and picked up the receiver.

“Night clerk,” the voice said.

“What is that terrible noise?” she asked.

“This is the lady on the eighth floor, isn’t it?”

“Someone is bothering me, harassing me!”

“How so, ma’am?”

“It sounds as if someone is hitting on the walls and the ceiling with a lead pipe.”

“That’s just the plumbing, ma’am. Air gets trapped in the pipes. This is an old building. You hear all kinds of strange noises.

“It has to be something more than that.”

“Just try to ignore the sound and get some sleep, ma’am. Nobody is deliberately trying to bother you.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Good night, ma’am.”

The pounding continued for some time, growing louder and fainter and then stopping altogether. When all was quiet again, she went to the door and put her ear against it. She imagined she could hear blood coursing through the veins of whoever was standing there, just on the other side of the door. She wanted to call out to the person and ask who they were and what they wanted with her, but her own heart was pounding in her chest as if to strangle her and she seemed to lack the breath to get the words out. She backed slowly away from the door and, as she did so, the doorknob turned quietly one way and then the other. Someone was trying to come into the room.

She picked up her gun and, holding it in both hands, lay down again on the blankets on the floor and covered up, leaving only her eyes exposed.

From her vantage point on the floor she could see the crack underneath the door that admitted a sliver of light from the hallway; in that sliver she could see shadows as people moved silently back and forth, in and out. She had stopped trying to figure out who they were and what they were doing. She trained her gun on the door, holding it in both hands, ready to fire when needed.

She focused all her attention on the door for the remainder of the night, determined to stay awake to protect herself. She lay on the floor in the dark, listening to the rain, waiting for the next thing that was going to happen.

The pounding on the wall had stopped. People were no longer moving about in front of the door. There were no more phone calls, no more voices. She began to feel toward morning that everything was going to be all right. The awful night was almost over. She could get up in a while and get dressed and order some breakfast and catch the next bus out of town. With these thoughts in her head—and in this more relaxed state of mind—she fell into an exhausted sleep.

She had been asleep for only a few minutes when the door to the room opened slowly, without making a sound. A small sound—a footstep or a sigh or the clearing of a throat—woke her up. When she opened her eyes, she wasn’t terribly surprised to see two men in the room with her. They were wearing dark clothes and had no faces; they were only outlines in the dark. She reached for the gun but was unable to find it. She stood up and made her way around the bed to the far side of the room.

Standing in front of the door to the fire escape, she turned and looked at the men. They seemed for the moment to not know she was there. They weren’t looking at her but were instead intent on rifling through the clothes in her suitcase. She believed that when they turned their attention on her they would kill her, so she must somehow get out of the room. Since they were blocking the way between her and door, there was only one way out.

She opened the door and stepped out onto the tiny rain-slicked fire escape landing. She felt the cold sting of the rain on her face as she gripped the railing and looked down into the darkness for the steps that would lead her down to the ground and to safety. Hanging onto the railing with both hands she eased one foot down on the top step and then the other foot. When she stepped down to the next step, she misjudged the distance and her feet slipped out from under her. Try as she might, she wasn’t able to regain her footing. She held on for as long as she could but it was no use. The railing slipped from her hands and she was gone.

The awning over to the entrance to the hotel broke her fall. She was only knocked unconscious and would have survived if she had not fallen face-down into the water that had accumulated in the awning and drowned. Her body was discovered in the daylight and retrieved by firemen with hooks.

When interviewed by the police, the night desk clerk was voluble. Enjoying the unaccustomed attention, he disclosed everything he noticed about the woman. Something about her seemed terribly amiss. She seemed unusually nervous and appeared to have been drinking. He spoke to her several times in the night and she seemed distraught; believed somebody was bothering her for no reason. She complained about noise that only she seemed to hear.

After completing their investigation and establishing the identity of the woman, the police ruled her death a suicide with no indication of foul play. Since she had left no suicide note, maybe she hadn’t intended to commit suicide, but if that was the case what was she doing out on the fire escape before dawn in the rain? It was just one of those silly things that people do for which there is no logical explanation. 

Copyright © 2026 by Allen Kopp

 

by allen0997

The Last Hour of the Day ~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp

The Last Hour of the Day
~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp ~

(Published in The Santa Fe Writers’ Project Journal.)

Holton had come a long way from the city. He hadn’t seen another person for three days. For the first time in longer than he could remember, he felt at ease in his surroundings. He sat down on the riverbank underneath a tree and looked at the sky. The clouds had lifted and the sunlight glinted in gold on the water. There was still beauty in the world.

He took a tiny sip of water from the canteen. He didn’t have much left and he knew he was going to have to get more, and soon. He could go for a long time without food but water was a different matter. He would never get thirsty enough to drink from the river. If drinking from the river didn’t kill him, it could make him sick enough that he might never recover.

He took a tiny bundle from his pack and unwrapped it carefully; it contained the last of his food—a carrot, a piece of bread, a chunk of dried meat, and some candy. He wrapped the bread around the meat and began taking tiny bites. He chewed slowly to make it last longer.

Would building a fire and boiling some water from the river make the water safe for drinking, he wondered? If he was going to build a fire, he might as well stay the night. He was weighing these considerations in his mind when a sound startled him. He looked up to see a man walking toward him and he realized the sound he heard was the man singing. He grabbed for his pack and thrust his hand inside to where his gun rested on the bottom.

“I don’t have anything you want,” he said, when the man was close enough to speak to.

“Don’t worry,” said the man, who went by the name of Clement. “I’m not going to bother you. I only want to rest here for a while.”

“I’d like it better if you were to move along. There’s nothing here for you.”

“No doubt,” Clement said with a little laugh. He took off his boots and lay on the ground with his feet toward the river, just to the right of Holton. He was wearing clean white socks.

“I have a gun here and I know how to use it,” Holton said. “Just in case you have any ideas about trying to steal what I have.”

“I’m not going to steal anything. You have nothing I want.”

“What do you want then?”

He looked at Holton as if studying him. “I don’t want anything from you,” he said. “I’m not going to do you any harm.”

“What’s your game, then?”

“I don’t have one. Maybe I just want to hear the sound of a voice other than my own. Is that too much to ask?”

“I’m not much for talking. I really ought to be on my way.”

“Where exactly is it you’re headed?”

Holton relaxed a little and forgot about drawing the gun. He didn’t have bullets anyway. “I got out of the city and just kept going,” he said. “This is where I ended up. I don’t know where I am. I don’t even know if I’m in the same state or in another one.”

“Geographical boundaries don’t seem to matter much now.”

“Everybody in the city was dying. I knew I would die, too, if I stayed there. Once I left the city, I just kept going until I ended up here.”

“How long ago was that?” Clement asked.

“A week. Maybe longer. I seem to have lost some time and I don’t know how much.”

“Are you sure you don’t have the sickness?”

“I know what the symptoms are,” Holton said, “and I don’t have them yet.”

“But you expect to have them?”

“We heard the enemy dropped bombs with the sickness in them on every city. The people in the city would die first and then the sickness would spread to the spaces between the cities and the people there would die too.”

“You had family in the city?” Clement asked.

“I was new to the city. I have a wife and child but they’re far away in another place.”

“Are they all right?”

“I don’t know. There’s no way for me to find out now. I had in my mind that if I just kept going as long as I could I might come to a place where the sickness hadn’t reached or couldn’t reach for some reason, and there would be people there like me.”

“People without the sickness?”

“Yes. Or maybe people who know how to keep from getting the sickness.”

“You’re witnessing the death of the human race,” Clement said. “Not just the decline but the end. God brought it into existence and now He’s ending it.”

“You believe in God?”

“Yes. Don’t you?”

“I don’t know what I believe. If there’s a God, why is he doing this to us?”

“He’s not doing anything to us. It’s just something that happens. Do you know how many extinct species there are in the history of the world? There’s about to be another one, that’s all. Man is no more important than any of the other species that have become extinct. We’re important to ourselves but that’s all. This planet was here a long time before we came along, and it will be here long after we’re gone.”

“There might be places where people will survive the sickness. We don’t know yet.”

“They might survive for a while, but it will eventually catch them in the end.”

“How do you know so much about it?” Holton asked, suddenly suspicious.

“I don’t know any more about it than anybody else. I’m just repeating what somebody else has told me.”

“Maybe they’re wrong,” Holton said. “Maybe you’re wrong.”

“It sounds like you want to go on living,” Clement said.

“If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have left the city.”

“Maybe we’ve reached the end. Maybe there’s no point in going on. We could go on for another day or another month or even longer, but the end result is going to be the same. Why prolong it?”

“You haven’t told me yet where you’re going or where you’ve been,” Holton said.

Clement cleared his throat and looked out at the river. “I’m staying a couple of miles from here, over in those hills,” he said, as he pointed over his shoulder away from the river. “I stopped running shortly after the bombs fell. I figured there was no use trying to outrun the sickness. I wanted to spend my last days in relative comfort.”

“You have shelter?” Holton asked.

“Yes.”

“Food and water?”

“Food enough to last for as long as I need it and plenty of water. There’s a well nearby. It has the coldest, purest water you ever saw.”

“And there’s nobody else around?” Holton asked.

“It’s so far back in the hills nobody would ever find it.”

“How did you find it, then?”

“It’s a place I’ve known about since I was a child.”

The sun was going down behind the trees beyond the river and there was a sudden chill in the air. Holton thought about moving on but was too tired to even get up off the ground.

“I need clean water,” he said carefully. “I was just thinking about boiling some water from the river when you came along.”

“Don’t think about drinking that muck,” Clement said. “It has enough contaminants in it to kill the entire population.” He laughed at the irony of his remark. “I doubt if boiling would ever make it safe enough to drink.”

“I might have no other choice,” Holton said. “If I don’t get water soon, I’ll be dead from something other than the sickness.”

“You can come to the place where I’m staying,” Clement said, “if you don’t mind tramping a couple of miles through the woods. There’s as much water there as you could want.”

“I have nothing to trade for it.”

Clement snorted with amusement. “It’s not my water,” he said. “It was there when I came along and it will still be there after I’m gone. You might as well get yourself some of it while you can.”

Holton agreed to go with Clement, so, without another word, Clement put his books back on. When he had them laced up, he stood and motioned for Holton to follow him.

In a short time after they entered the dense forest, Holton was sure they were lost but Clement kept going without hesitation. The terrain was rough and rocky in places and they seemed to be going upward most of the way, as if they were climbing the side of a mountain. Finally, after what seemed two hours or more of very difficult walking, they came to a clearing with a little cabin in it.

Clement took Holton inside the cabin, which was two little rooms, and pointed to one of his two canvas chairs and told him to sit down and rest. While Holton was taking off his shoes and socks, Clement brought him a pitcher of water and a tin cup. Holton drank most of the water in the pitcher so Clement filled it again.

Clement had a little cook stove in one corner of the cabin that served as the kitchen. He told Holton to go out behind the cabin and get himself washed while he prepared the food. He gave Holton a shirt and pair of pants that were like new to put on after he had washed and told him to keep them because he had no use for them.

After Holton had made himself as clean as he could and put on the clean shirt and pants, he went back inside the cabin. Clement was just putting the food on the little table. He gestured for Holton to sit down.

They dined silently on canned soup, beans, spinach, and tomatoes. Holton ate his fill and leaned back in the chair with contentment. He was thinking that he should leave and not prevail too much on Clement’s hospitality, but he knew he would never find his way back down the mountain in the dark.

“You’ll want to stay the night now,” Clement said, as if he was reading Holton’s thoughts. “The forest is not safe at night if you’re not familiar with it.”

“Not safe,” Holton said. He thought about those words and then laughed.

After they were finished eating and Clement had cleared away the food and washed up the dishes, they went outside and sat on the step of the little cabin. It was so dark they couldn’t see more than five feet in front of them. Clement offered Holton a cigarette but he declined it, not liking himself in the role of the taker who had nothing to offer.

They talked about pleasant things that they knew before all the trouble came about. They talked about dogs and cats they had owned and books they had read and music they liked and trips abroad they had taken. Holton told Clement about his ten-year-old son and about how he and his wife planned to divorce, but if she was dead now, as he figured she was, there would be no need for the divorce. He said this with irony as if the thought amused him, but then he began to cry uncontrollably.

“It’s all right,” Clement said, unembarrassed, putting his arm around Holton’s shoulder. “I think you just need to let it out and then you’ll feel better.”

When they were back inside the cabin and Clement had rolled himself in his sleeping bag on the floor and Holton was lying on the cot, Clement started talking about the end that he knew was coming. He didn’t mind dying so much, he said; he had had a good life, what there was of it. He had seen the world and known true happiness. His greatest fear now was that there would be no one to bury him properly when he died. His body would be left lying out to rot in the open air where flies and other insects and starving animals would feast on it down to the bones. He could see himself, he said, one week after he was dead, one month, one year. It was too horrible to contemplate. He had seen and smelled rotting corpses in the war and he believed there was nothing worse. If he had a way to make himself evaporate in the air, to no longer exist, he would do it.

“I was hoping to find somebody I could rely on to bury me when the time comes,” he said.

“Maybe you won’t die,” Holton said. “As long as you’re alive, there’s hope you’ll go on living.”

“No, I’ve got the sickness in my bones. I can feel it. It won’t be long now.”

To humor him, and to repay Clement for his kindness and generosity, Holton agreed to stay for a few days and, if Clement died during that time, he would see that he was buried properly, in as deep a hole as Holton could dig. He would pile large rocks on the grave to make sure no animals could ever dig it up. He would even read some verses from the Bible if that’s what Clement wanted. In his heart, however, he was sure that things would not play out that way.

They slept soundly that night and the next day had a pleasant time relaxing in the sun-dappled shade outside the cabin, talking and laughing and forgetting the terrible state the world was in. By the evening, twenty-four hours after he had arrived at Clement’s cabin, Holton was starting to show symptoms of the sickness. His vision was blurred and his face wore a deathly pallor. He was vomiting blood and babbling incoherently.

Holton passed a very bad night on the cot in the little cabin. Clement tended him the best he could, but there wasn’t much he could do for him; he had no medicine. He gave him drinks of water, bathed his face in cold water, and tried to soothe his fears the best he could. Toward morning his body began turning black and he died just as the birds were waking up in the trees outside the cabin.

As soon as Clement realized Holton was dead, he went outside and began digging the grave under the trees in the clearing, in the spot he had set aside for his own grave. When he was satisfied the grave was the appropriate depth, he went back inside the cabin and put Holton’s body in the canvas bag that he had planned would contain his own body when the time came. Then he carried the bag outside and carefully arranged it on the floor of the grave so Holton was facing up. Gasping for air—realizing he was no longer as young as he once was—he said a silent prayer for Holton and, when he was finished, he filled in the grave.

All day long and during the night he expected to begin to see the symptoms of the sickness in himself, but the symptoms didn’t appear. When he awoke the next morning, he felt fine and was very hungry. He ate an enormous breakfast, washed himself at the pump and put on clean clothes.

Two days later he still felt well and healthy. He looked at his face in the mirror for any signs of change but saw none. He felt as well as he had ever felt in his life, in spite of the reduced circumstances in which he was living. He began to think that he was being spared the sickness for some reason or another.

That night a voice seemed to speak to him in a dream. He didn’t know if it was Holton’s voice or somebody else’s, but it was a voice he knew—maybe a voice from his distant past. The voice was telling him to go to the river and follow it south all the way to its end where it emptied into the sea—hundreds of miles. At the end of that journey he would find some kind of answer—perhaps not the answer he wished for—but an answer nonetheless.

He awoke in the morning with a resolve he hadn’t felt in a long while. The resolve had taken the place of the resignation he had felt since the bombs fell. He put as much food as he could carry into his pack, two canteens of water, and a change of clothes. He took one last look around the cabin and went out its door for the last time. With the slap of the screen door still in his ears, he looked toward the mound of dirt under the trees in the clearing and gave a little salute of farewell. Then he was gone, melding into the trees of the forest as if he had never existed.

Copyright © 2026 by Allen Kopp

 

by allen0997

Mr. Woodbine is Here

Mr. Woodbine is Here image 1

Mr. Woodbine is Here
~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp ~

The nurse came in and took Erwin’s blood pressure. He opened one eye and looked at her and asked if he was dead yet. She ignored him and a little while later she was back again, fussing with the equipment beside the bed, turning dials and flipping switches and writing things down on her clipboard.  A clear bag of liquid hung on a pole beside the bed and drained into his arm. He wanted to ask what it was but he was too weak to get the words out. He was sure he was dying, but he told himself he didn’t really mind. Life was far too much trouble, anyway.

In between times when the nurse was fussing someplace else, he saw people in the room with him. They moved quietly around the bed, as if they were keeping watch or waiting—for what he didn’t know. He couldn’t see them very well, but he knew they were there. (Sometimes one of them would lean over and look closely into his face.) If he tried to speak to them, they withdrew. He wanted only to say hello.

One morning after he had been given a sponge bath (he was beyond embarrassment), he opened his eyes and saw a strange man standing at the foot of the bed looking at him—strange because Erwin had never seen him before but strange also because he was wearing a double-breasted, pin-striped suit with a red carnation.

“Who are you?” Erwin asked in his faint voice.

“How are you feeling, kid?” the man asked.

“Feel stupendous.”

“You know you were shot three times?”

“Feels like more.”

“You know who did it?”

“Not telling.”

“You had surgery to remove the bullets.”

“They didn’t need to bother. I know I’m going to die.”

The man shrugged his shoulders. “I’m not here to say one way or another.”

“You a doctor?”

“No, my name is Mr. Woodbine.”

“You the angel of death?”

“No, but I appreciate the compliment.”

“The undertaker?”

“No, no, no.” He took a cigar out of his pocket, rolled it around between his fingers, and lit it.

“You’re not supposed to smoke.”

“Well, I won’t tell if you don’t.”

“You’re police, aren’t you?”

“No, but I will tell you that I’m closer to being the angel of death than an officer of the law.”

“I give up then. I don’t feel like guessing anymore.”

“You give up too easily,” Mr. Woodbine said with a little laugh. He puffed on the cigar and blew a big cloud of blue smoke out over the bed.

“That ugly old nurse with the red hair is really mean,” Erwin said. “If she comes in and sees you smoking, she’ll probably stab you.”

“I’m not worried about her.”

“Who are those people standing behind you?”

“Oh, they’re nobody.”

“Well, if they’re there, they must be somebody.”

“They’re just curious. They don’t have much to do with their time and they want to know what’s going on.”

“That doesn’t tell me who they are.”

“They’re people you don’t ordinarily see unless you’re in the state you’re in.”

“Dying, you mean?”

“You said it. I didn’t.

“Tell me more.”

Mr. Woodbine opened his mouth to speak again, but the ugly nurse with the red hair came in and he left. When she pulled back the sheet and started poking at Erwin’s legs, he said, “Do you smell cigar smoke?”

“Why? Have you been smoking?”

“Not me.”

“If you smoke in this room, you’ll set off the sprinklers and that will make certain people very unhappy.” She pointed at the ceiling.

“I’ll tell him.”

“Who?”

“That man that was just here.”

“If anybody was smoking,” she said, “I would know it. I’ve got a nose like a bloodhound.”

“Am I going to die?”

“You don’t think I’d tell you, do you?”

He went to sleep again and a large, indeterminate chunk of time passed, maybe days or maybe only hours. Once when he awoke, he was aware of rain pattering against the window and then of Mr. Woodbine sitting in the chair beside the bed smoking his cigar.

“How are you feeling now, son?” Mr. Woodbine asked.

“How do you get in here all dressed up like that, smoking that cigar? Don’t the nurses try to stop you?”

“They don’t see me.”

“Well, that must be convenient. You’ll have to let me in on some of your secrets.”

“There’s nobody around. I thought we could talk a little more.”

“What time is it?”

“Does it matter?”

“No.”

“Tell me how you came to be shot.”

“An argument over money.”

“Ah!”

“And not very much money, either.”

“Not worth dying for?”

“If I live, I’m going to go find the rat that shot me and shoot him. Only I’m going to do it right. I’ll make sure he’s dead.”

“How do you know he’s not in police custody already for shooting you?”

“Maybe he is. I don’t know anything about what’s going on out there.” He pointed feebly toward the window. “The police were here asking me questions but I wouldn’t tell them anything. I want to take care of that rat myself. I never liked that guy anyway.”

“Revenge will be sweet?”

“It already is, just thinking about it.”

“What if I told you he’ll be taken care of and you don’t need to bother yourself?”

“I’m still going to kill him, except I’m going to make him suffer.”

“The way you’re suffering now?”

“Only worse.”

“Even if you live, you might not walk again.”

“I can kill the son of a bitch from a sitting position.”

“I have no doubt.”

“Why am I telling you all this?” Erwin said. “I don’t even know who you are!”

“It’s all right, because I know you.”

“I never saw you before in my life.”

“You have, many times, but you aren’t able to remember. I was there the time you nearly drowned in the swimming pool in high school. Remember?”

“I remember the incident but I don’t remember you.”

“Some of our memories are blocked out. The ones we’re not supposed to remember, for one reason or another.”

“You’re talking nonsense.”

“Not the first time and certainly not the last.”

“Tell those people to stay away from me. They’re getting on my nerves.”

“You just rest now. I think I hear that mean nurse coming.”

Anytime he was conscious, he expected to see Mr. Woodbine again, but Mr. Woodbine came no more.

Finally the day came when he arose from the bed on his own without any nurses fussing around him. His clothes were there, draped neatly over the chair. His wallet, glasses and keychain were on the table beside the bed where he would be sure to see them. He knew that he was being allowed to leave the hospital. Everything that was wrong with him had been fixed. He was renewed. He was going to have a fresh start. All his thoughts of revenge were gone. He didn’t even remember what had brought him to the hospital in the first place. He couldn’t wait to get outside and breathe the fresh air, even if it did smell like bus fumes. He jumped into his clothes excitedly.

He was going to tell the nurses goodbye as he walked past, but they were busy and didn’t look at him. Instead of waiting for the elevator, he walked down the five flights of stairs to the street. It felt so good to use his legs! Who said he might not ever walk again?

It was a brilliantly sunny day. As he walked down the broad steps of the hospital, he saw Mr. Woodbine waiting for him at the curb. They got into a waiting car and, as the car sped away, he lowered the window to feel the rush of air in his face. He was leaving pain and suffering behind. His problems, at last, were at an end.

Copyright © 2026 by Allen Kopp

 

by allen0997

Send Me a Postcard ~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp

Send Me a Postcard
~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp ~

(Published in Fringe Magazine.)

Since Paul’s mother lost her job at the hospital, she’s not the same anymore.  She stays in bed a lot of the time during the daylight hours, something she never did before. If she’s not in bed, she’s sitting in front of the TV in her bathrobe smoking cigarettes and watching soap operas and game shows with the sound turned all the way down. He stands in the doorway looking at her and she doesn’t seem to know he’s there until she sees his shadow on the wall.

“What are you doing?” she asks, craning her neck around to look at him. “You creep around the house like a thief.”

“I’m just looking at you,” he says. “What’s for dinner?”

“Oh, is it time for dinner?” she asks, looking at the clock. “I didn’t think it was that late.”

He goes into the kitchen and fixes himself a peanut butter sandwich. He is glad to see she has been to the store and bought some fresh bread while he was at school. He puts the sandwich on a plate and goes back into the living room where she is.

“Just help yourself to whatever you can find in the kitchen,” she says. “I don’t feel like cooking dinner.”

“Did you eat anything?” he asks.

“I don’t have any appetite,” she says. “I’ll have something later.” She reaches for her pack of Lucky Strikes and takes one out and lights it and inhales deeply.

He looks at her skeptically but she doesn’t know it. “Smoking is bad for you,” he says.

“So I’ve heard.”

“I’m not ever going to smoke.”

“Bully for you.”

“How about if we go to a movie tonight? There’s a western at the Criterion and a comedy at the Gem.”

“How about if we stay at home and watch TV? There’s a western on one channel and a comedy on another one, and you don’t have to pay to see them. I’m not made out of money, you know.”

He marvels at how mothers always say they’re not made out of money, but he says nothing because he doesn’t want to argue. He would someday like to see a mother made out of money, though. That must be a sight worth seeing.

“I have to write a book report,” he says.

“How lovely for you.”

“Do you want to help me?”

“What’s the book?”

“A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens.”

“Isn’t that kind of a grown-up book for eighth grade?”

“I read grown-up books all the time.”

“Oh, yes, I forgot. You’re already quite the little man, aren’t you?”

“I chose that book to read from the list. I’m the only person in the class who read it.”

“Isn’t that about the French Revolution or something?”

“Yes, they’re killing all the aristocrats. They’re mad at them because the king and his wife are rich and they don’t care that the peasants are starving, so the peasants want to kill all the aristocrats, whether they’ve done anything wrong or not. Do you know how they kill them?”

“Let me guess,” she says. “They cut off their heads with a thing with a big blade that drops down.”

“It’s called a guillotine. It was invented by a Dr. Guillotine. He was a Frenchman. They make them stick their heads through a hole and tie their hands behind their backs and then they let the blade drop down and wham! it slices off their heads.”

“Sounds divine,” she says. “I’ll be sure and add that book to my reading list.”

“They say it doesn’t hurt, but I don’t know how having your head cut off could not hurt.”

“Why don’t you try it some time and let me know?”

“I saw Daddy when I was walking to school today.”

“Where?”

“He drove past in a black car.”

“It must have been somebody else. His car is blue. Was it a new car?”

“I don’t know.”

“You can tell a new car from an old one, can’t you?”

“I think it was a new car.”

“Well, the next time you see him tell him to throw some of that money our way that he’s spending on a new car.”

“I wouldn’t ask him for money.”

“Why not? He’s your father, isn’t he? You wouldn’t be on this earth if it wasn’t for him, so he’s supposed to pay your way. That’s the way it works.”

He notices how many of his conversations with his mother always come around to the subject of money. He tries to steer her in another direction.

“Are you still looking for a job?” he asks.

“Off and on,” she says. “If it’s any of your business.”

“Do you want me to read the want ads to you? I’ll bet there are some good jobs in there.”

“If I wanted to read the want ads, don’t you think I could read them myself? You’re just a two-bit punk and you don’t know anything.”

“’You’re just a two-bit punk and you don’t know anything,’” he says, in exact imitation of her voice.

“You’re getting just a little too big for your britches!”

“’You’re getting just a little too big for your britches.’”

“Stop it!” she says.

“’Stop it!’”

“Don’t you know you’re driving me crazy?”

“’Don’t you know you’re driving me crazy?’”

“Do you want me to get up from here and come over there and slap you silly?”

“No, I don’t,” he says solemnly, using his own voice again.

“You remind me more of your father every day.”

“Well, what am I supposed to do about it?”

“Run away from home and join the circus. You could be one of their freaks.”

He knows she’s only teasing him, but remarks like that hurt him a little, he has to admit. It’s as if she doesn’t want him around her anymore.

“When I’m old enough, I’m going to join the navy.”

“Good for you,” she says. “Serve your country. See the world. Send me a postcard.”

A man and woman are kissing on the TV. Their noses are pressed together.

“Can we change channels?” he asks.

“No!” she says. “I’m watching this!”

He goes into the kitchen and gets an apple and goes out the back door with it and around the house and sits on the front steps, between the bushes that grow on both sides. He throws the apple up in the air a couple of times and catches it and then takes a bite out of it. The juice is running down his chin when he sees a black car pull up to the curb in front of the house, the same black car he saw that morning.

Somebody in the car motions to him. Fascinated, he stands up, throws down the apple, and crosses the lawn toward the car.

“Hello, son!” his father says brightly, rolling down the window.

“Did you get a new car?” he asks. He can’t think of anything else at the moment to say.

“No, it’s a friend’s car. I’m just borrowing it. How are you?”

“I’m all right. When are you coming home?”

His father turns off the engine and puts both hands on the steering wheel. “I’m not,” he says. “How’s your mother?”

“She’s fine.”

“Don’t tell her I was here.”

“All she has to do is look out the window and she’ll know you’re here.”

“Well, this is just between you and me.” He reaches into his pocket and takes out some money and hands his son a twenty-dollar bill. “Get yourself something good to eat,” he says.

“Thanks.”

“Well, I just wanted to see you for a minute and see how you are. I’ve got to be going.” He reaches to start the engine again.

“Daddy, can I come and live with you?”

“No, I’m afraid that’s out the question right now. I’m staying with friends. We’ll talk about that later when I’m more settled.”

“Mother hates me.”

“She doesn’t hate you. She loves you very much.”

“She’s crazy. She’s going to smoke herself to death and she doesn’t eat any food.”

“Well, she’s just going through a rough patch right now. You’ll understand when you’re older and not hold it against her.”

“I’m going to run away from home.”

“No, you’re not. You just stay put for now. We’ll talk more about a different kind of arrangement later, after things have settled down.”

He starts the engine and looks over his shoulder to see if any cars are coming. He makes a u-turn in the middle of the street and speeds off in the opposite direction from which he came with a little squeal of tires.

When Paul goes back into the house, his mother is waiting for him at the door.

“Who was that you were talking to?” she asks.

“Nobody. A man looking for the hospital.”

“That was a black car, wasn’t it?”

“I think it was.”

“Did he try to get you to get into the car with him?”

“Of course not.”

“Did you tell him how to get to the hospital?”

“I tried to.”

At ten o’clock that night his mother is still in front of the TV, but now she’s asleep with a bottle of gin on the table beside her. On the TV is a skinny old man in a tuxedo doing a tap dance in front of a wall of mirrors that reflect the people watching him.

He goes into his room and shuts the door, moving the bureau in front of the door so nobody can come in. He starts to work on his book report; writing it should be easy because he’s already read the book, but he can’t seem to concentrate. Luckily it’s not due for a few days.

He turns off the light, finding the dark comforting; it makes him feel safe. Far off in the distance he hears a siren. The wind is blowing against the house as if to blow up a rainstorm. He settles under the covers and sighs. The last thought he has before going to sleep is about the guillotine. He wonders if it really hurts or if it’s just like a whisper on the back of the neck. Of one thing, though, he is certain: He will never know for sure.

Copyright © 2026 by Allen Kopp 

by allen0997

Percy Picket Succumbs to Infirmities

Percy Picket Succumbs to Infirmities
~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp ~

(Published in Abandoned Towers magazine.)

Mr. Percival “Percy” Francis Harrigan Picket, of Harmony Hill, entered into eternal rest on Thursday, the sixth of September, having attained the age of eighty-five years, four months, and sixteen days. He was preceded in death by his parents, Dewey Alonzo Picket and Alameda Hortense Fredericka (Wicket) Picket; and conjoined twin sons, Alfredo Joshua Torrance Picket and Alphonse Jerome Tyrone Picket. He was also preceded in death by his beloved wife of fifty-eight years, Louisa Maria Helena (Belladonna) Picket, with whom he had ten children.

Surviving children are Victor Hugo Pierce Picket (wife, the former Beatrice Carlotta Pogue Hinchcliff); Tammany Hector Guillermo Picket (wife, the former Magdalena Maybeetle Montclair); Lawson Jervis Wicket Picket (wife, the former Clara Beedle Champagne); George Emmett Grayson Picket (wife, the former Grace Gruber Grudnick); Georgiana Victoria Regina Chinn (husband, Chang Win Chinn); Albertina “June Bug” Dunleavy (husband, Dixie Clement Dunleavy); Alice “Tiny” Wigglesworth (husband, Charles Chandler “Chick” Wigglesworth); and Lucille Lucretia Faith-Winterhaven (wife of Montague Sidney Faith-Winterhaven III).

The deceased is also survived by a brother, Raleigh Gunderson Hartselle Picket; a sister, Adelaide Emmaline Picket Moncrief; and grandchildren Arundel, Woo, Lotus, Astoria, Polly Esther, Brigadier, Judson, Lupé, Xerxes, Chandler, Trixie Bell, Enar, Gunnar, Fritzie, Bongo, Hermes, Echo, Pan, Lou Anne, Jade, Opal, Bean, Babby, Rockwell, Belvedere, Zaza, and twins Jag and Dag. Great-grandchildren include Gaston, Pluperfect, Sasqueesha, Cavendish, Bump, Doral, Horatio, Hector, Eff, Bea-Elza, Vamoose, Lothario, Coriander, Barclay, Oona, Splurge, Penny Ante, Dosie Patootie, Nimbus, Torsten, Lala, Biffy, Maybelle, and quadruplets Choi, Chang, Chen and Ah-Choo.

Also surviving are many nieces and nephews, cousins, business associates, and friends, as well as a special companion with whom he enjoyed white-water rafting and five-card stud, Dinwiddie Oglethorpe-St. Clair, of Steamboat Springs, Colorado, and Council Bluffs, Iowa.

Throughout his long life, the deceased was known as a caring and philanthropic individual. In spite of his large family and his successful and distinguished career as a mannequin designer, he was always ready to don his white makeup, glittery nose, baggy tuxedo and red wig to transform himself into the beloved clown, Mr. Peevish Quackenbush. As this well-known clown character, he was often seen riding on floats in parades and lending a hand at charitable fund-raising events. He often stated to friends and family in later years that it was as Mr. Peevish Quackenbush that he felt most alive. He was frequently quoted as saying, “Mr. Peevish Quackenbush is more Percy Picket than Percy Picket is.”

And it was in mid-life that he launched his second career, that of a professional circus clown. Leaving behind family, home, and business, he traveled with the Fitch Brothers Circus for fifteen years as one of its star attractions. Mr. Otto Fitch, owner and founder of the Fitch Brothers Circus, has stated unequivocally that it was Mr. Peevish Quackenbush who saved the circus from bankruptcy. “We would have never made it through the hard times without Mr. Peevish Quackenbush bringing in new customers in every town,” Mr. Fitch stated. “He is what kept us on the rails.” A life-size statue of Mr. Peevish Quackenbush can be seen on display at the National Clown Museum and Hall of Fame.

In keeping with the wishes of the deceased, he will be interred in the clown car that he made famous in the clown section of the Cemetery of the Holy Ghost. He will lie in state in full clown regalia at the Seltzer Water Funeral Parlor tomorrow evening only from seven p.m. until closing. Tickets may be purchased at the door. Bring the entire family.

Copyright © 2026 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

Seascape ~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp

Seascape image5

Seascape
~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp ~

(This is a repost. It has been published in Black Lantern Publishing.)

Blanca Longworth and her husband checked in on a brilliant, sun-infused day in early May. They had a delightful room on the fourth floor with a little balcony overlooking the ocean that from that distance was like a mirror reflecting the sunlight. Feeling tired from the long journey, Blanca lay down on the enormous bed to rest her eyes and soon she was asleep.

When she awoke, she knew from the way the sun slanted into the room that it was very much later than it had been. She arose and went into the bathroom and fixed herself up and then changed her clothes and waited for her husband to come back—back from wherever it was he had gone—to take her downstairs to dinner.

She waited for twenty or thirty minutes and, when her husband still hadn’t returned, she made up her mind to go and have dinner alone. She hadn’t eaten all day and was feeling faint from hunger. She was sure he would understand and would be able to get something for himself later from room service.

When she swept into the crowded hotel dining room, she noticed a few heads turn in her direction. She enjoyed being the woman alone, the woman with a slight air of mystery. For all anybody knew, she might be an heiress or a movie star or an important novelist. She seated herself at a pleasant table-for-two beside a window and a young waiter appeared at her elbow with a menu and an appropriately servile attitude.

After eating her spicy and too-heavy dinner, she left the dining room and, not feeling like returning to her room just yet, went into the cocktail lounge. She was irresistibly drawn by the sound of the music and chiming laughter and the clink of glassware.

Feeling slightly awkward and out of place, she sat at the bar and ordered a martini. She drank the martini quickly, finding it good for her digestion, and ordered another one. By the time she had taken a sip from her second drink, a young man seated himself beside her at the bar. She turned and looked at him with curiosity and when he smiled at her she smiled back at him.

He was perhaps ten or so years younger than she was, making him twenty-eight or thirty. Speaking with a slight foreign accent, he told her his name was Tibor. He had a charming smile and brown-blond hair combed straight back from his forehead that revealed the superb shape of his head and perfect small ears. They exchanged small talk for a few minutes and then he asked her if she would care to dance. She shrugged charmingly and consented.

While she was dancing with Tibor, she thought she had never felt more natural and more at ease with a stranger. As they moved around the dance floor, she felt the strength in his arms and shoulders. She tightened her hold on him and moved in a little closer.

When the dance floor came to be too crowded, they sat down at a small table in the shadows and ordered fresh drinks. After a while, he reached his hand across the table and placed it on her hand and asked if she would care to go someplace else with him. His soft eyes glistened in the romantic light.

She smiled sadly and, in answer to his question, held her left hand in front of his face and waggled her fingers so that he would see her wedding ring. Seeing it, his smile faded and his face clouded. He stood up and, bowing formally from the waist, apologized for his presumption and excused himself. Then he was gone.

After Tibor left, she was just another lonely middle-aged woman sitting pathetically by herself in a barroom. She continued to sit at the small table for a while longer, feeling the kind of sweet sadness she hadn’t felt since she was sixteen, and then she stood up and went back to her room.

Her husband still hadn’t returned yet, but she was glad in a way to be alone with her thoughts. She wouldn’t like having to explain that she had been dancing and drinking—however innocent—with a handsome young stranger. She went out on the balcony and breathed in the scent of the ocean and listened to the soothing sounds of the surf.

When she awoke at seven o’clock the next morning, the first thing she was aware of was that she was alone in the bed. Her husband still had not come back. She got out of bed and called down to the front desk to see if anybody had left any messages for her, but there were none.

She had a light breakfast and then took a long walk down the beach. She walked to an isolated spot and spread her blanket on a pleasant incline and lay down. She read her novel for a while and then, growing weary of reading, stared out at the ocean, the enormity of which had always frightened her in a way. Soon she became sleepy and fell into a light doze.

When she awoke it was to the sound of voices. A man and three children had come upon her but they hadn’t seen her yet, although she could see them. Her pleasant feeling of being isolated from the rest of the world was gone. She stood up and walked to the water’s edge, thinking to speak to the man and the three children, and that’s when she saw a sailboat gliding by about fifty yards out.

One lone man was on the sailboat. She could see him clearly until the sail shifted around in the wind and obscured him. In the couple of seconds she could see his face, she was sure it was her husband. He had the same gray hair and goatee, but he was too far away and moving too fast for her to be sure. She waved her arms, thinking to get the man’s attention, but he was occupied with navigating the boat and didn’t see her. Then he was gone.

Clouds were now obscuring the sun and a chill had come into the air, so she went back to the hotel. Before going to her room, she stopped at the front desk and asked the clerk if anybody had seen her husband, but he assured her nobody had. She told him that if he saw her husband to please be sure and tell him she was looking for him. The clerk nodded his head solemnly and scribbled on a pad, pretending to make a note, but after she left he tore the sheet off the pad and threw it away.

She had a prolonged, leisurely dinner, sitting at the same table as on the previous evening, and when she was finished she once again went into the cocktail lounge. She sat at the bar and ordered a scotch and soda, her husband’s favorite drink; she drank it down and ordered another.

She hadn’t dared to hope that she would see Tibor again but when she turned partway around and looked over her shoulder, there he was. He was sitting at a table toward the back with a blond-haired woman in a red dress. They were both sitting on the same side of the table and he had his arm draped over her shoulders and was nuzzling her neck and laughing. He was obviously quite drunk.

She left quickly, before Tibor could see her, but it was mostly her disappointment that she didn’t want him to see. On the way up to her room in the elevator, she laughed at her own foolishness.

In this way she passed an entire week at the hotel. Telling herself she didn’t care about Tibor but catching a glimpse of him every chance she got and seeing him with a different woman every night, all of them prettier and younger than herself. (Tibor never looked directly at her, so she couldn’t be sure if he knew she was there.) Taking walks on the beach, occasionally sunbathing (she never went into the water, as she was deathly afraid of drowning). Eating large, lavish, expensive meals (her loneliness seemed to increase her appetite). Alternately reading her book and dozing on the bed in her room. Shopping for things she didn’t need and spending all her ready money. Smoking cigarettes on the balcony of her room while watching people come and go on the beach a hundred yards away through binoculars she had purchased on an impulse. Most of all, though, she waited for her husband to return, wondering all the time where he had gone and why she didn’t hear from him. She took to asking every chambermaid, desk clerk, or bellboy if they had seen him, thereby earning a reputation for herself as a crazy woman.

On the morning of her seventh day in the hotel, just as she had dressed to go out, there was a knock at the door. She opened the door, seeing a small man, slightly cock-eyed, wearing a dark suit. He told her he was the assistant manager and he needed to speak to her. She had no other choice but to allow him to come into the room.

“Since you didn’t have a reservation for this room,” he began nervously, “we were wondering if you intended on staying past today.”

“I’m not sure,” she said. “You’ll have to ask my husband.”

“Is he here?”

“Not at the moment.”

“The thing is,” he said, clearing his throat loudly, “this room is reserved after today. I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to vacate this morning.”

“I couldn’t do that until my husband comes back.”

“The room is no longer available to you after today.”

“Might I move to a different room?”

“I’m sorry. The hotel is all booked up for the coming week. There’s a convention in town, you see.”

“So, you’re telling me I have to leave today?”

“I apologize for the inconvenience, but I’m sure you understand.”

“My husband isn’t going to like this.”

“If you’ll call down to the desk when you’re ready to check out, they’ll have your bill ready for you.”

After the little man left, she checked to see how much money she had left and discovered only a few dollars remaining in her purse. It was clear she wasn’t going to be able to pay the bill, which she was sure was sizeable by now.

She went down in the elevator to the lobby and walked past the front desk and out the hotel to the street that led away from the city. She began walking away from the hotel and didn’t look back.

After she had walked for more than an hour, looking straight ahead and never once stopping, an enormous black car pulled up alongside her and stopped at the curb. She could feel someone in the car looking at her, but she didn’t turn her head and kept walking. As she continued to walk, the car inched forward to keep pace with her. Finally she stopped and turned toward the car. A man inside had rolled down the window.

“You need a lift,” he said, a statement rather than a question.

He swung the door open and she got in beside him without hesitation and closed the door. As he sped off and for several minutes after, he was looking straight ahead and seemed to forget she was there. She studied him, though—the way the stubble grew on his cheek and the pout of his lips—and she was sure she knew who he was, even though he was pretending to be somebody else.

“Where you headed?” he asked.

“Nowhere,” she answered, taking her eyes off him and looking at the unreeling scenery.

“You just left everything behind, didn’t you? Everything you owned?”

“I don’t think that’s any of your business.”

“My name is Alvin.”

“No, it isn’t. Or at least that isn’t what you said before.”

“All right. If you say so.” He smiled and ran his fingers through his hair.

“I see you’ve dyed your hair and are not as suave and polished as before and have dropped the accent, but you’re not fooling me. I know who you are.”

“Is that so?”

“You’ve been watching me all week while pretending not to.”

“What?”

“I saw you with a different girl every night. You knew all the time I was there.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I was sure the name and the foreign accent weren’t real. You were like a made-up character in a story. Nothing about you was real.”

“Have it your own way. Everybody in this town is crazy in one way or another. You’re no exception.”

“Some people are not so easily fooled. Keep that in mind.”

“I will.”

She was silent for several miles and then, as if it just occurred to her that she was in a speeding car, she asked him, “Where are we going?”

“Someplace a long way off,” he answered. “Do you want me to let you out of the car?”

“No.”

“I didn’t think so. Do you have any money?”

“Not even the price of a pack of cigarettes.”

“Would you be surprised if I told you I have a dead body in my trunk?”

“Not very.”

“Just remember. I warned you.”

She moved over closer to him and put her hand on his arm and her head on his shoulder and let out a long sigh. “I knew you would come for me,” she said. “I never stopped believing.”

Copyright © 2026 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

A Cross-Eyed Woman ~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp

Cross-Eyed Bitch

A Cross-Eyed Woman
~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp ~  

“Did I tell you I’ve got a new girlfriend, grandpa?”

“Is that so? What’s her name?”

“Lucille Meisenbach.”

“How much does she weigh?”

“A hundred and thirty.”

“How old is she?”

“She’s a year younger than me, grandpa.”

“Don’t be in no hurry to marry a person with a name like Lucille Meisenbach.”

“I’m not. I only just met her.”

“Make sure you know everything about her before you marry her. Her people, too.”

“I’m not going to marry her.”

“What’s wrong with her?”

“Nothing, except that she’s cross-eyed.”

“You don’t want to marry no cross-eyed woman.”

“Okay, I won’t.”

“Cross-eyed woman is a sign of trouble.”

“How do you know, grandpa?”

“I’m seventy-three years old. I’ve seen everything and what I haven’t seen I’ve heard about.”

“I wouldn’t want to marry her, anyway.”

“Why not?”

“She’s got six toes on one foot.”

“How many on the other?”

“Just five.”

“Eleven toes is bad luck. It’s a mark of the devil.”

“If you say so, grandpa.”

“You don’t think you’d want to marry her after you’ve known her for a while?”

“No, sir.”

“You say that now, but if she gets it into her head to marry you, she’ll find a way to ensnare you against your will.”

“I don’t think that’s going to happen, grandpa.”

“Why not?”

“She’s not very smart.”

“You don’t have to be smart to be evil.”

“I wouldn’t exactly say she’s evil, grandpa.”

“You probably just don’t know her well enough to see her evil side.”

“If I start to see it, I’ll dump her.”

“Maybe she won’t let you dump her.”

“If I want to dump her, she can’t stop me.”

“I see you know very little about women.”

“I know enough.”

“Just make sure you find out everything there is to know before you marry her. If she’s got them two flaws, she’s bound to have others.

“I haven’t seen any others.”

“Well, she’ll be setting her trap to catch you.”

“I don’t think so, grandpa.”

“Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“I went over to her house for dinner on Sunday. We had fried chicken. Her mother’s name is Vera Meisenbach.”

“How old is she?”

“Forty-three.”

“How much does she weigh?”

“Two hundred.”

“A big woman.”

“Yes, sir. Big and tall. Broad shoulders. A wild look in her eye. Kind of scary.”

“And that’s not all, is it?”

“No, sir. She’s got a hump on her back.”

“Uh-oh! A big woman with a hump on her back has a cross-eyed daughter with eleven toes. Freakishness runs in the family. That’s not good.”

“I can’t claim to be perfect myself.”

“You’ve got the right number of toes, you’re not cross-eyed and there’s no hump on your back.”

“That’s true.”

“Count your blessings.”

“Yes, sir. I also met Lucille’s daddy. He’s a little bitty man like a midget.”

“A pattern has been established.”

“Lucille told me he’s got a metal plate in his head that lets him pick up radio transmissions. I tried to keep from laughing.”

“How much does he weigh?”

“Ninety-four pounds.”

“His wife weighs more than twice what he weighs?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Not pleasant to contemplate. How old is he?”

“He’s forty-nine years old.”

“And his name?”

“Luther Meisenbach.”

“Any other progeny besides Lucille?”

“A brother named Norland Meisenbach. He’s sixteen.”

“Is he cross-eyed?”

“Not that I noticed, but I didn’t pay that much attention.”

“How much does he weigh?”

“A hundred and ten.”

“That’s small for sixteen, isn’t it?”

“I guess so.”

“Anything freakish about him?”

“He’s got a turned-in foot and he doesn’t talk much because he’s got a stutter.”

“So there’s something wrong with every one of the Meisenbachs.”

“Yes, sir. I guess you could say that.”

“If you take my advice, sonny, you’ll get as far away from that bunch as you can. They’re not wholesome to be around.”

“Yes, sir. I don’t really care that much for Lucille, anyway. When she looks at me, it looks like she’s looking over my shoulder.”

“She’s probably looking to her satanic master for direction.”

“You sure have opened my eyes, grandpa. I’m glad we had this little talk.” 

“Not at all, sonny. That’s what grandpas are for. And be sure and bring her around some time so we can all get a good look at her.”

“I was thinking about Sunday dinner, grandpa.”

Copyright © 2026 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

Find Out Where the Train is Going ~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp

Find Out Where the Train is Going image 1

Find Out Where the Train is Going
~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp ~ 

(This short story has been published in Selected Places: An Anthology of Short Stories.)

We’re in a long room that was once used for something else. There are thirty beds in two rows. These are accommodations for guests of the state: check bouncers, bigamists, shoplifters, pickpockets, prostitutes. You could go on and on calling out their misdeeds, but why bother? They are the morally bankrupt repeat offenders who are not beyond being redeemed or reformed. Give them two years, or four or five, and they’ll be out if they’re lucky. Redeemed? Not very likely. The really bad ones, the hardened criminals, the murderers, the ones that would throw acid in your face and enjoy doing it, are in another part.

Juniper Tarrant has only been in residence for a few days. She didn’t do anything. She is innocent. She was left with some hash or blow or something—she wasn’t even sure what it was called—that belonged to her boyfriend, a man named Ed King. He disappeared and she went to jail, no matter how many times she told them it wasn’t her fault. Her one hope is that he comes back and tells them what really happened. Of course, she’s going to stick a knife in his ribs if she ever gets the chance, but that’s something that is going to have to wait.

On her fifth or sixth day (she has lost count already), her lawyer, an elderly man named Arthur Lux, comes to see her. She meets with him in a tiny room with a table and two chairs. A blank-faced guard stands against the wall, a silent observer. As she tells the lawyer again everything that happened, he writes it all down.

“When I woke up,” she says, “he was gone.”

“Who was gone?” the lawyer asks. “You have to be specific in your answers.”

“Ed King.”

“Was that his real name?”

“It’s the name he gave me.”

“Did he use any other names?”

“I don’t know. Why would he do that?”

“How long had you known him?”

“I don’t know. A few months.”

“How many months?”

“About six.”

“You didn’t know he was involved in the selling and distribution of drugs?”

“No! And if he was, I wasn’t!”

“Do you have any reason to believe he deliberately framed you?”

“No! Why would he do that?”

“So, the two of you were living in this hotel together. What was it called?”

“The Excelsior. And I wouldn’t say we were living there. We were staying there for a few days.”

“For what purpose?”

“Why does anybody stay in a hotel?”

“Hotel records show the room was registered in your name alone.”

“Ed always took the room in my name.”

“Why is that?”

“He always had the feeling that somebody was following him. Watching him.”

“And you suspected nothing?”

“No. I stayed out of his business.”

“After the Excelsior Hotel, where were you planning on going?”

“I don’t know. If Ed knew what our next move was, he hadn’t told me.”

“So, you traveled around with him from place to place and you didn’t know what kind of activities he was involved in?”

“He told me he was a salesman.”

“What did he tell you he sold?”

“In his day he sold cars, washing machines, life insurance policies and other things, too. He didn’t like to talk about it.”

“And you didn’t question him?”

“Why should I?”

“And you thought he was a perfectly legitimate salesman?”

“I had no reason to believe otherwise.”

Arthur Lux closes his notebook, puts his pen away and places one hand on top of the other. “Would you be able to identify him if you saw him again?” he asks.

“Of course!” she says.

“Were you in love with him?”

“I thought I was but right now I hate him so much I could kill him.”

“Did you give him money?”

 She shrugs and pushes her hair back out of her face. “All I had,” she says.

“How much?”

“Five thousand dollars and some change.”

“It seems he did you a dirty deed.”

“If he would only come back and square me with the police,” she says. “Tell them the truth about what really happened. That’s all I ask. I would never bother him again.”

“Maybe you should be more prudent in your associations in the future,” Arthur Lux says with a sad smile.

“Thanks for the advice. It’s a little late.”

“We’re doing all we can but, in spite of our best efforts, we haven’t been able to locate him.”

“You’ve got to find him!”

“There’s no indication that he even exists.”

“What are you saying? Do you think I made him up?”

“I’m not saying that at all. I’m saying that he probably gave you a false name and that he planned on running out on you from the very beginning.”

“I fell for his line. I was such a fool.”

“We’re all fools.”

“Can’t you pull some strings to get me out of here? Some writ of habeas corpus or something? I don’t belong in prison.”

Arthur Lux reaches across the table and pats her arm. “Don’t despair, my dear. Something is bound to turn up.”

Now, every night at nine-ten, just before lights out, a passenger train goes by the prison. For fifteen or twenty seconds the long room with the thirty beds is filled with the clatter and excitement of a train on its way to some undisclosed location. Some of the prisoners cover their heads with their pillows to try to drown it out, while others wait to catch a glimpse of it and, if the light is just right, to catch a glimpse of some of the people riding on it. The train goes by so fast that it is just a blur, but some of the prisoners claim to have seen passengers on the train that they recognized. One woman said she saw her husband who was supposed to be in a mental institution but was obviously out having a good time. Another claimed to see the daughter and son, twins, that she gave up for adoption at the time of their birth twenty-seven years earlier.

Juniper Tarrant falls into the habit of watching the train every night. She is one of those who, for a few seconds at least, feels a curious sense of release and possibility as the train goes by in the night. As long as trains carry happy people from city to city, the world cannot be all terrible and bad. Some day I’ll be free and I’ll be the one on the train.

After a week or so of watching the train, she sees Ed King, looking out at her from one of the sleek passenger cars that glides through the night like a bullet. She sees his face so clearly she cannot be mistaken: the dark hair with a little gray mixed in, the brown-green eyes, the little scar above the right eyebrow, the commanding chin. He is wearing a gray suit with a light-blue shirt and a red tie. She remembers the tie. It was the one tie of his that he liked the best.

She turns away from the window, lets out a little cry and is sick. Lying on the floor, she has a kind of seizure. The prisoner in the bed next to her calls for help and she is taken to the infirmary. When the doctor examines her, he tells her she is going to be a mother in about seven months time.

She is given a sedative and kept in the infirmary overnight for observation. In the morning she is desperate to talk to Arthur Lux, her lawyer. When she asks to call him, she is denied. (“What do you think this is, a finishing school?”) One of the matrons will try to get a message to him if she can. The message is simple: I saw Ed King on the train. Find out where the train is going and there you will find Ed King.

Copyright © 2026 by Allen Kopp

 

by allen0997

A Head of Its Time ~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp


A Head of Its Time
~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp ~

(This short story has been published in Death’s Head Grin.)

Frankie Zell was not accustomed to the fast life. She grew up on a farm, where she lived plainly and simply with her mother, father and two brothers. Painfully shy and stick-thin, she was never pretty or attractive in the way other girls thought themselves and in fact she never gave much thought at all to the way she looked.

In her late teens, though, Frankie began to change. She lost her adolescent awkwardness; she became rounded in the places where she had always been angular. She developed flawless, pale skin and a head of lustrous, chestnut-colored hair. She turned into the beauty she was always meant to be, like the lowly caterpillar turning into the ravishing butterfly.

She began to attract the attention of young boys and older boys into manhood, some of them as old as forty or fifty years. When she would go into town on a shopping trip or to pay the light bill or see the dentist, people would stop what they were doing and look at her because they weren’t used to see so pretty a girl on the streets of such a dreary town. Some more astute observers said she ought to go to Hollywood and try out for the movies. She was as pretty as Rita Hayworth or Ava Gardner or any of those others.

Through a friend she became acquainted with a boy named Angus Persons who lived with his parents in the best neighborhood in town, where the finest homes were. His father was president of the bank and raised horses on a ranch he owned. Angus was the same age as Frankie and planned to be an attorney and one day go into politics. With his good looks and family connections, he would go far. He might one day be governor of the state or a senator in Washington. Frankie would be just the right kind of wife for him. They planned an elaborate June wedding to which everybody in town was invited.

Angus and Frankie indeed made a handsome couple. When they drove around town in Angus’s beautiful convertible sports car, they were like something out of a dream. People who saw them were admiring, envious, or maybe even a little bit jealous.

Frankie had never driven a car before but Angus taught her to drive. When he was busy working or at school and didn’t have time to spend with her, he let her drive his car as if it were her own. She enjoyed driving on the hilly, curvy country roads between the farm she lived on and the town where Angus lived. She liked nothing better than letting the top down on the car and driving as fast as she could and letting the wind blow her hair. She discovered that fast driving exhilarated her and made her feel free in a way that nothing else did.

On a brilliant May morning one month before Frankie and Angus were to be married, Frankie was driving in the hills and valleys she had known all her life. Bathed in the fresh morning sunlight as it was, the landscape was as beautiful as anything she had ever seen. Past fences and farms, horses and cows, and the occasional scenic barn or grain silo, she drove with abandon around curves and up hill and down dale. Her car—or rather Angus’s—was the only car on the road.

At one long downward hill with a sharp curve that wrapped around a scenic promontory of rock, signs warned prudent drivers to drive slowly and carefully. The treacherous curve could be difficult to negotiate even for the most experienced of drivers.

When Frankie Heywood came to the hill, she ignored the signs. She had driven the hill many times before and didn’t fear it. She sped up to experience once again the thrilling downward whoosh and the tension on the wheel as she struggled to keep the little car on the road.

In the middle of the curve, with her downward momentum and her accelerated speed, she lost control of the car as if an invisible hand had reached out and pulled the steering wheel sharply to the right. In the blink of an eye, the car left the road, became airborne, and sailed out over the tops of the trees. In her final seconds, Frankie had the time-stands-still sensation of being suspended above the earth—breathless and in defiance of the laws of gravity.

When she failed to appear for her luncheon date with Angus in town, he became alarmed and started calling all the places she might be, but nobody had seen her. He called her home and Frankie’s mother told him not to worry, that Frankie was probably enjoying herself too much—wherever she was—to be aware of the time. Deep down, though, Frankie’s mother believed that something bad had happened to Frankie.

The next day, when nobody still had not seen or heard from Frankie, her mother called the police and filed a missing person’s report. The police questioned Frankie’s mother and father and brothers extensively about Frankie’s habits and associations, but none of them were able to tell them anything that helped in finding her.

The police began an extensive search for Frankie between her home and the town. They theorized that she was living a secret life and had run away from home or that she had been abducted by a person or persons unknown. If they were able to find the car she had been driving, that at least might give them some clues.

Two days later a young police officer found a hubcap in the underbrush near the dangerous curve. Angus recognized the hubcap as belonging to his car. From this clue they were able to piece together what had happened to Frankie on the day she disappeared.

When they found the sports car a quarter of a mile or so from the road, concealed in the trees, Frankie’s body was in it. Her head had been sheared off at the shoulders, neatly and cleanly, as with a sharp blade.

Logic dictated that Frankie’s head would be not far from her body, but when police searched the surrounding area (and much farther away), they were never able to find any sign of the head. After a few days they gave up the search, telling Frankie’s mother and father that the head must have been carried off by wolves or some other wild animals. It was still possible, though, that the head would be found and, if so, whoever found it would be sure to report it to the police. Finding a head by itself was not that common an occurrence.

As distraught as Frankie’s mother was at having lost her only daughter, she was even more distraught at the idea of Frankie having to go to her grave without her head.

Frankie’s mother took an old china vase she had had for a long time that was roughly equivalent to the size and shape of a human head. On the front of the vase was painted a bouquet of flowers, but on the back was nothing, so on the back of this vase she painted a semblance of Frankie’s features using the watercolor paints that Frankie sometimes worked with. (Handles on the sides of the vase were a good approximation of human ears.)

When she was finished painting a fairly credible approximation of Frankie’s face on the vase, she put Frankie’s wig on it and then took it to the funeral parlor and asked the undertaker if he would put the vase where Frankie’s head should be. The undertaker was happy to comply, knowing that grief sometimes causes people to make unusual requests.

At the funeral-home visitation, people were surprised to see a painted vase in place of a real head, but most agreed the vase was less jarring than no head at all. The undertaker artfully arranged the collar of Frankie’s dress around the neck of the vase so that the vase did indeed look like a part of her body. He draped a veil across the open lid of the coffin to soften the effect, as he frequently did with the bodies of accident victims.

The entire town turned out for Frankie’s funeral, as they would have turned out for her wedding. Angus Persons, looking solemn and more handsome than ever, was impeccably dressed in a dark-blue suit and dark glasses that hid his eyes. Several young women, friends of Frankie’s who considered themselves fully capable of stepping into Frankie’s shoes, kept their eyes on Angus in the hope that he would look their way. Which one among them wouldn’t jump at the chance to marry the future governor?

Frankie’s head was never found. According to local legend, her ghost was said to walk along the highway at night near the dangerous curve, looking for her head. She wanted to find her head, the legend went, so she could stick it back on her body and go through with her wedding to Angus Persons. Every year at Halloween, different variations on the headless bride theme appeared at parties and on the streets of the town.

As for Frankie’s head, the truth was quite simple, as the truth often is. Not long after her head was separated from her body, a buzzard spotted her head lying in the brush about fifty feet from the wrecked car. It swooped down and picked up the head (by the hair) in its talons and flew away. Carrying its gruesome cargo, the buzzard was flying back to its lair (or wherever buzzards go when nobody sees them) when the weight of the head became too much and the buzzard dropped the head quite without meaning to.

The head landed in a tree, on a natural shelf formed by the convergence of several large branches thirty feet off the ground. The head was perfectly upright and lodged in such a way in the top of the tree that no amount of wind and weather would ever shake it loose. As long as the tree remained upright, the head would stay where it was and nobody would ever see it.

Crows pecked at the eyes until there was nothing left. Birds used the hair for their nests. Insects and other birds ate away at the flesh, tissue, and brain until, over time, the head was only a skull.

Several generations of chipmunks used the empty skull as their home. When the chipmunks moved on, as they inevitably do, the skull became a sanctuary for small birds, with one eye socket serving as a way into the skull and the other as a way out. As you see, nature always finds its own way to make use of things.

Copyright © 2026 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997