theoutersphere

[theoutersphere]

Sand Bar, a Sneaky Snake Story

    The sun beat down on Kessley’s back as she knelt by the river’s edge, letting it run between her fingers. She watched as a snake, nearby, swam past her. Its head perched above the water.

    About twenty yards behind her, Chuck was digging a large pit about six feet wide with a shovel. He had sheer determination on his face as he grunted with each shovel full of sand and gravel. At his feet were a half-empty bottle of whiskey and a body wrapped in a bed sheet.

    There was a rustling sound that caused Kessley to look away from him and across the river to the other bank.

She grinned, happily. “Did you see it?” She called to Chuck.

    Chuck got frustrated. “Did I see what!” He demanded.

    “The rabbit! It was all white and fluffy, like something out of a Disney cartoon!” She called back excitedly.

    He rolled his eyes, slung another shovel of dirt onto the pile beside the pit. “Is that why you liked Devin, because he was all perfect looking?” he shouted.

    “Not really, he just treated me good.” She told him.

    “I treated you good. I bought you things.” Chuck replied, sounding a little offended. He started digging out the pit again while they spoke.

    “It wasn’t like that with him. He let me do things.” Kessley clarified.

    “I let you do things.” Chuck retorted.

    “You never let me go to parties.” Kessley responded.

    “At the university? Loads of guys go to those parties!”

    “Those were my college friends!” Kessley reminded him.

    “My momma didn’t work.” Chuck told her, calming down a little.

    “Yeah, well I wasn’t your momma.” Kessley told him.

    “Yeah, you got that right.” Chuck retorted.

    After a few moments of silence, Chuck stopped digging yet again. “I’m stopping, water keeps bringing sand into the hole.” He had said.

Kessley watched as he rolled the body in and covered it with the pile of sand and dirt he had built.

    “So, this is where we say goodbye?” Kessley asked in a grave tone.

    “Not without a toast.” Chuck replied. He was tired and just let the shovel fall from his hand. He grunted as he bent over to get the whiskey that was at his feet.

    “Wouldn’t a kiss be much better than a toast of that cheap whiskey?” Kessley asked.

    “You’re still going to let me kiss you after what I did?” Chuck asked in shock.

    “I still love you for what we had.”

    The sun had lowered in the sky as Kessley sat back on the riverbank, and water flowed over her feet. Small puddles pooled in areas all along the river’s edge where she had been sitting. Butterflies fluttered back and forth along the bank, and some rested in the puddles and drank from them.

    Kessley patted an empty space beside her. “Sit beside me.” She said to Chuck. “I won’t bite.” She promised.

    He nodded and took a last sip of whiskey. He tossed the bottle and swaggered over to her. Stepping in one of the pools he sent butterflies of all different kinds scattering before he sat close to her. He kept his boots from the water’s edge.

    “Take your boots off, it’ll feel nice.” Kessley commanded him.

    He did as she asked, with a little help from her, and then rolled up his jeans, allowing the river to flow over his bare feet. He smiled despite himself.

    “Told you.” Kessley said, softly.

    Chuck leaned in for his kiss.

    Kessley kissed him, allowing him this one moment, and as she did so, the snake she had seen earlier that day swam back to them, darted for Chuck’s ankle, and struck.

    Chuck screamed and crawled away from the water’s edge. “Shit! That was a Water Moccasin!” He cried aloud and struggled to his feet. He fell back down, grasping his ankle.

    Kessley laughed and stood, watching him with a look of superiority as he ripped off his shirt and tied it above the snake bite in a hurry.

    “Don’t just stand there! Call an ambulance!” Chuck barked and crawled toward her revealing his back, which was covered in bloody fingernail marks.

    “An ambulance ain’t gonna make it out here. Besides, what are they going to say when they find you with a fresh mound of sand?” She said as she backed into the river.

He drew closer, “Fine, I’ll drive.” He replied.

    “How?” She asked. “I have the keys.”

    Chuck stopped at the water’s edge and looked at her with panic, “Oh. You wanna play, do you?” He asked, hobbling over to the grave, he quickly straddled it. He dug through the gravel, sand, and dirt with his bare hands. As he uncovered Kessley’s body, he realized she was wearing the same clothes as the apparition who was still smiling smugly at him from the river’s edge. Only his girlfriend at the river was not covered in black and blue bruises like the body he straddled. He shook his head and focused back on his task.

    Searching the body, he checked all her pockets before finding the keys in the last one and hobbled towards the jeep. As he did, he held the keys high with a triumphant look on his face. “Got ‘em!” He called out.

    As Chuck neared the jeep, he grasped his knotting stomach and the keys fell into the sand with a soft thud. His lifeless body came crashing down next to them.

    From the river’s edge, Kessley, who lured Chuck to sit close enough for the snake to bite, walked to the grave. The same body that Chuck had buried then uncovered for the keys was there. She leaned down next to her own body, and while on all fours, she put her head against her body’s chest. There was no sound, just the river flowing slow behind her and the flutter of passing butterflies.

She laid on top of her body and sunk into it until she was one with it. After the two bodies merged Kessley climbed out of the shallow makeshift grave and walked with a limp toward the keys on the ground.

                                                        The End

[theoutersphere]

A DOZEN SOULS FROM THE SUPERETTE

           Susan Jenkins dropped the receipt on the coffee table and pulled a silver 35mm camera out of a tattered red leather case. It was a single lens reflex, SLR, camera which meant it was able to have the lens interchanged and had a through-the-lens viewfinder. An exceedingly rare trait for a camera supposedly dating back to the first world war.    

Around that time cameras were made with a peep hole in the back that led out through a front window positioned above the lens. What you saw through the peep hole was not exactly what the lens was pointed at unless the photographer was a certain distance away from their subject. Farther away from the subject meant the viewfinder and lens lined up perfectly.  

           This silver camera's technology of through the lens viewing allowed a person to see through the back of the camera and through the lens at what it was pointed at no matter the distance. This was not a commercial technology until sometime after the second world war and not common for photojournalists until around the United States' Vietnam War.

           Holding it steady, she looked at the front of the silver camera and silently read the word "Unicorn" that was displayed across a brass plate above the lens. That is usually where most modern camera brand names are listed, above the lens, familiar brands like Canon, Pentax, or Minolta.

           A thin man with oil-slick black hair, Lieger, sat across from her on the sofa and spoke with a slight German accent, "You like?"

           "Oh, yes," she said excitedly.

           "Did you read the description I posted with it," he asked.

           She glanced up to him, "I must admit I only read the first part." She looked back down to the camera with warmth as if to a puppy, "But then I saw the pictures you posted too, and I just fell in love with its body.”

Lieger followed her warm glance, "It is exquisite is it not."

           "Please, tell me what it said," she implored.

           With the body language of a praying mantis Lieger leaned forward and supported his thin forearms on his knees. He intertwined his fingers as he began telling her, "Before the First World War broke out there was an engineer with a passion for photography. He was commissioned to get visual content for German propaganda. But as the war took its toll on Germany's resources, he was transferred to the fighting front with only a rifle. He had no camera. What was he to do without his passion and only death around him?" Lieger paused for an answer but did not give her time, "Design one, he told himself. According to his journals he spent an hour or so a night before going to sleep hiding in a rat-infested trench coming up with the idea and doing drafts."

           Susan glanced down at the Unicorn camera with deeper appreciation.

           Leaning in and pointing at the camera with a thin white knobby finger he asked, “And do you know how he created the body?”

           She craned her neck up slow as if lifting a heavy load, and her eyes adjusted on his excited gaze.

           “He melted coins. Coins, my dear, were still made of mostly silver. Ninety percent to be exact,” he said proudly of his knowledge.

           “It must be five pounds of it,” she commented. Her pupils enlarged.  

"It’s only a bit over a pound of silver. The rest is copper. Ten percent is copper.”  Not missing a beat, he went on, “I am not selling it for its silver weight, please don’t worry. I want it to be used. Now, let me go on. When the engineer lost a leg because of shelling he was sent back to the rear with other wounded soldiers. That is where he made use of the designs, he had drafted along with the coins that he collected off the dead. He melted them down and tooled them out. A few decades later Hitler heard of this camera. He sent Paul Joseph Goebbels and troopers to the engineer’s home. The camera's engineer was never heard from again."

           Lieger pointed to the silver camera in Susan's hands, "This camera was found undamaged in Hitler's bunker. The lad who found it had been forced into the bunker as a translator for a couple of Russian soldiers when the city was being occupied. The two Russians were intelligence forces, excuse me, were with the intelligence forces, I believe is how you say that. They had orders to investigate rumors of Hitler's death. The Russians went into other rooms and during that time, alone, the translator realized the importance of where he was. He was at the pinnacle of a World War.” Lieger looked to the coffee-table and at his empty teacup.

           Seconds of silence passed, “Would you like some tea?” She asked.

           He spoke quietly and deliberate, "That room in the bunker was especially important he realized. Because not only was Hitler a commander in a World War but a commanding general in the forever war between good and evil. At that very moment, the young translator looked hard and quick around himself in that bunker.” Lieger had raised that white knuckled index finger as he spoke more sternly, “A flickering reflection caught the young translator’s eye. There on a side table, in the corner of the quarters, he saw the silver of the camera echoing back the light from the flickering bulb."  

      Susan was amazed- “Wow. Why do you wanna sell it to me?"

      "It has been hard to sell because of the story. I am sorry. That is not what I mean. I mean it is easy to sell to the kind of people who will not use it. The only people interested are, how do you say?”

           “I don’t understand?” she said with a quizzical expression.

“They are butterfly collector types. They want to jail its beauty. Put it on a wall.” He explained and added, “See it was built to take beautiful pictures and it still can. That is why I am visiting you. To see what kind of person you are."

           Susan tried to quickly assure him of what type of buyer she was, “I will use it I assure- “

           He interrupted, "You would appreciate such craftsmanship a simple butterfly collector could not, I feel." Shaking his finger in a-matter-of-fact fashion he went on, "After you put a bid on it, I researched you. Not being sneaky, mind you, it is all public information. What you, you, have bought from the internet markets and from your posts on social sites, I saw that you collect working cameras, and you use them." He nodded toward the camera, "This camera being from Hitler would certainly have been put on display.”

           Susan suddenly asked, "Oh, what about a flash?"

           "No need," he said with a grin and explained more, "See this ring around the lens near the body, you can turn it down to point-zero-two. A good camera lens will usually go down to one-point-two. This design will allow you to open the aperture wider than normal to take in light from one dancing candle. It will also capture the light from a dying wick. Pure magic."

     Susan took the lens off the camera’s body and placed the camera next to the receipt on the coffee table. She pointed the lens up at the bulb that was socketed in the slow-moving ceiling fan. She turned the aperture ring Lieger mentioned. There were tiny ticks with each turn as the circle in the center of the lens opened wider. She did not hesitate to comment, "Some might say that's impossible mister Lieger; however, I'm going to trust you on that." She picked up the camera body and remounted the lens, "All the mechanics seem to work!"

           "I am glad you approve."

           "Oh, you have no idea," she said with a friendly smile and stood.

      "It will be happy here then. Now I must go before I miss my plane. I could stay and talk about it all evening, but I have a few hours’ drive and the weather is getting worse."

       "I'm eager to start doing test runs myself. The superette down the road still develops film and they close at five." Susan mentioned while walking him to the door.

      "In this day and age?"

      "We may be a small Mississippi town, but we're a college town and liberal art students need a film developer. At least one to do the color negatives," she explained.

      "I see. Well, you are welcome to stay in touch.”

      "I'd like that. And you have a safe trip."

      "Thank you and it was nice meeting you-" Already out the door Lieger gave a haphazard wave. A gust of wind slightly fluttered his oxford shirt that looked to be about two sizes too big.

      She shut the door and checked the time on her cell phone. It read 3:06pm.

            Susan left the camera’s tattered case in the car and shut the car door. She started her trek when a sudden wind brought a mist through the parking lot. Susan cupped the camera under the black pea coat she wore.

           The cold took one last lick of her as she reached the entrance. When the superette’s door opened, she was engulfed with warm air. Before the doors even closed behind her a security guard offered her a cart and she turned it down with a simple shake of the head.

           After a long walk to the back, she turned onto the film aisle and scanned shelves for film.

There was one-hundred speed film for bright days, snowy days or for portrait shots in bright artificial light. The four-hundred speed film is good for your regular run-of-the-mill inside or outside shots, and it's a newspaper film, a good knock around film speed. The sixteen-hundred speed film was mainly for nighttime photos.

           It's the eight-hundred speed film that will be good in the superette, where every 4th florescent bulb is flickering or out. Not nighttime but also not a fully lit environment.

           She picked out a twelve-roll exposure from a display case of assorted film. She read the green cover. It had "800" in large print on it.

From her back pocket came a song with the lyrics, "I can see her lying back in her satin dress. In a room where you do what you don't confess. Sundown, you better take care. If I find you been creeping around my back stairs,” She finally dug out her cell phone and answered, "Hey babe!"

           Her husband was on the other end, "Another one? Where are you?"

           Stress lines appeared between her eyes, "I'm testing film for it right now." There was a loud thump and then some knocking around.

           George replied angrily, "Two-thousand dollars for a camera?"

           “What was that noise, George?” Susan asked sternly.

           “Don’t worry about it!” He replied.

           “You kicked the coffee table didn’t you.” She answered.

           “Baby come on; you can’t just go spending willy-nilly.”

           "Hitler owned it."

           George’s voice spilled through the phone in an insulting manner, "Hitler owned it? Come on, I didn’t marry that big of a sucker, did I?"

           “It doesn’t matter what I believe. That same story will get me more than I paid, especially if it works.” She said firmly and ended the call abruptly putting the phone in her back pocket. She formed a smile and approached the photo department's long-haired cashier who walked up to the counter when she saw Susan approach.

           Lieger parked his dark blue BMW in the superette's lot about three cars closer to the store than Susan's. He turned off his phone's GPS with the superette’s directions on it and put it in his pocket. He exited the car.

Untroubled by the cold wet wind he popped the trunk. Filling his trunk were five-gallon buckets with black lids. He pulled the handle up on a few and grimaced each time then let go of them. Rain dripped from his nose as he found a lighter bucket and removed it. He shut the trunk with his other hand. He returned to the driver's side.

He leaned over and sat the bucket down in the passenger's seat just before he got into the driver’s seat and shut the car’s door. After shaking rain off his greasy hair, he puckered his lips and blew a drip of water off the tip of his nose.

           She flipped open the back of the silver Unicorn camera and immediately began loading the newly purchased film into it. She made sure not to expose any film from the canister, besides the normal first few lead frames that hook into the camera’s back spool. Once she had the spool looped with film Susan turned the spool’s lever. It tightened the film across the guide rails. She closed the back cover that held the pressure plate against the film inside.

She took the tail of her brown blouse from under her coat and wiped the lens clean, but a couple of threads from her shirt stayed on the lens. She held the lens up close to her mouth and gave a few blows of air. The lint disappeared in the first swoosh of breath.

           She lifted the camera pressing the small square viewfinder on the back to her eye. She sat the aperture to five. She put the shutter on one-sixtieth of a second and pointed the camera at the long-haired clerk that leaned over a printing machine checking prints. "Hey," Susan called out.

           The clerk jerked a look toward Susan, "Wait!"

           Susan snapped the picture. In that sixtieth of a second a sliver of a needle poked Susan in the corner of her eye and slipped back into the camera’s viewfinder unnoticed by anyone. Susan did not feel it, like one does not feel a paper cut right away.

           "It's okay. They're tests," Susan said to the clerk.  

           "Don't go sharing them!"

           Susan smiled, "Don’t worry, just tests."

Ready to take another shot, she moved through a nearby an aisle of digital storage devices and computer monitors still in brand new flashy boxes. Her eyes scanned the shoppers littered about. “This is going to take no time,” she whispered to herself.

           With his car running and the heat on low Lieger wiped condensation from the interior driver's side window. He peeled the lid off the empty bucket and put them both in the back seat within reach. He cracked a grin as he swiped a glance toward Susan's car then to the store front. He noticed that a security guard had come out and was lighting a cigarette. Lieger lost his grin and his eyes narrowed.  

           Susan stood below a "Shoe Department" sign. She let the camera hang from her neck and took a deep breath then looked at her palms. They glistened with moisture under the flickering fluorescent. She put her hands under her peacoat and wiped them on her dry blouse. Seeing a woman inspecting shoes Susan pulled her hands out and snapped a photo quickly. The needle from the viewfinder did what it does, in and out of her eye at the instant of the snap. No pain and she did not see it.

           The lady in the shoe department immediately doubled over. She reached for the arm of a nearby chair and finally clutched it after two attempts. She used the chair for support as she stammered closer to it and plumped down. She slouched forward and rested her head in hands. She took deep breaths.

           Seeing this Susan went back to the photo department and found the long-haired clerk loading paper into the printer. “Excuse me, mam.” Susan announced.

           “Hold on,” replied the clerk and finished loading the paper and stood up. “What can I help you with?”

           “I think its an emergency. I was over in the shoe department testing the camera and saw a lady collapse. Well, she almost did. Hs may need help.”

           The clerk started walking toward the shoe department and asked “Was she in it or near the department?”

           “She was in it, sitting in one of them chairs.”

           “Okay thanks,” the clerk replied.

           Susan, with the silver camera, pivoted and marched to the hunting and fishing department where she stopped behind a life-size deer decoy. She held the camera chest high while watching a customer at the cash register. He was brawny with biceps that bulged beneath his short-sleeved camo shirt. He was intent in his inspection of a scoped rifle.

           She stepped out from behind the decoy’s antlers and moved slowly towards the bearded man. She stopped about ten feet from him.

           As he faced the counter, he raised the rifle up above his black beard and rosy cheeks putting the scope to his right eye. In front of him was the hunting department's sales counter and behind it was a display of more rifles and some shotguns. He turned to check the scope’s long-range focus. Susan's peacoat, only ten feet away, filled the scope’s viewfinder.

           Click.

           The thin needle did the same thing, in and out of her eye in the instant of the shutter’s click. No pain grimaced across Susan’s face and her eyes never darted to the needle’s microscopic orifice.

           The hunter lowered the rifle and apologized for pointing it towards her, "I'm sorry mam, didn't see you. I was just checking the scope."

Susan attempted to wind the mechanical lever so that another empty frame would take its spot behind the lens for exposure, but it would not wind. She tried three times. She looked at the picture count indicator on top. It read "12." She recounted each photo she had taken while whispering, "The photo department, men's department, this picture in the hunting department."

           "You're f- 'n crazy lady," yelled the bearded man from behind her.

           Susan, in her own world, continued mumbling, "Arts and crafts department, toy department, the couple in lawn and garden, the mother in the baby department, a picture in the electronics department, shoe department, fabric department." She began the left hand again, "kitchenware and lady's department."  She looked at her last fingers she unfolded for the count, "That's twelve."

           She froze and tilted her head slanting her gaze inward. The pulse of blood flowing through her ear drums amplified outward and the blood in her neck bulged the length of worms and squirmed judiciously down her jugular in segments.

 She hurried back to the photo department rewinding the film. At the photo counter she took the full roll out of the Unicorn camera and handed it to the approaching long-haired clerk.

           "How fast can you get these developed?" asked Susan.

           The long-haired clerk looked up at the clock behind her on the wall and smartly said, "Come back in an hour. Oh wait, we'll be closed. Come back in the morning around nine."

           Susan, in her haste, let the smart remark go over her head and pleaded, "Is there any extra attention you can give regular customers?"

      "Let me call the manager."

           "Wait!" Susan dug in the black peacoat pocket and pulled out a damp fifty-dollar bill. "Keep the change."

           The clerk palmed the bribe, "Give me around twelve minutes.”

           “Thank you,” Susan said.

Stopping short, the clerk turned back to Susan and returned the bribe, “You know, don’t worry about it. That lady was having a heart attack. An ambulance is on the way.”

           “Oh good, I mean good an ambulance is coming.”

           “I know what you meant. Just give me a few minutes and we’ll have your pictures right out.”

“Thank you again,” Susan said with glee as the clerk walked away with the film canister.

           Lieger took a last puff from a cigarillo and thumped it out of his driver’s side window into the cold day. He raised the window as he watched the superette's entrance. Still no Susan he grunted and exited the car.  

           With eyes closed, Susan held two fingers to her neck as she checked her pulse.

           "I'm sorry, but there's a ghosting."

           Susan opened her eyes, "A ghosting?"

           The long-haired clerk chunked an envelope on the counter.

           Susan fanned out the pictures and spotted a cloud of some sort in front of her subjects. It was on each picture. She stopped at the bearded man's picture and brought it quickly up for closer inspection. In it, there was a white transparent globe in front of him. Though transparent, what it covered was out of focus, slightly blurry. Where his beard was there was only the shape and no sharp outline of it. Where the rifle was in the picture, that he had pointed at her when she snapped it, was only a dark area in the fuzzy shape of a rifle. It mixed with the earth tones of his camouflage shirt. She sat that picture aside.

Shuffling back through the photos she noticed the white stuff was all about the same size in each photo and they too were as transparent. Each exploded out of the person’s mouth in a billowing fog.

      Susan looked at the lens on her camera, "I don't see any smudges. Maybe it's your machine?"

       The clerk looked to her from the printer, "It's on your negatives too and I checked the processor. It's something with your camera. Maybe there's a smudge on that mirror inside that flips up and down when you click it."

      Looking at the clerk's name tag Susan asked, "It's Martha, right? I'm sorry I forgot your name. I'll look in-" Her speech was interrupted as she buckled over in pain. She dry-heaved then said, "I feel sick." She swooped up the envelope and photos then hurried away cupping the camera against her stomach.

Looking through the front windows of the superette, Lieger's large dull eyes, in dark socket, sparked to life as he saw a hunched over, Susan coming toward him.  She walked quickly toward the front door where he stood in wait on the other side. Oblivious to him, she finished stuffing the pictures and negatives back into the envelope as she hustled forward.

Ripping his gaze off Susan, Lieger ducked his head and pivoted slightly away from the window where he had stood.

Just as quickly as she had opened the door, she darted her gaze back down to the envelope of photos and stuffed the last one inside. Before the door closed behind her Lieger bumped into her. She dropped the envelope.

"Oh dear! I'm sorry," Lieger said.

           Off balance Susan grabbed her stomach and tried bending forward to recover the spilled contents of the envelope. Instead, Lieger picked the pictures up. "You do not look well." He said.

           "I think... I'm about to throw up."

           He put an arm around her in a seemingly comforting manner and he steered Susan in the direction of his parked car, "Let me drive you home."

      The security guard stepped out and loudly asked, "Can I help ya’ll?"

      Lieger slowed their pace and glanced back, "It’s okay sir, I'm her friend."

     The guard asked, "Ma'am, is it Okay?"

Susan tried to give a friendly wave to the guard, but her arm fell short, "It's okay." She glanced slightly up to Lieger who was steering her along with his arm, “I don’t want to puke in your car.”

           "We can roll the window down,” replied Lieger.

           She struggled the words out. "And your flight?"

      "It was delayed, and I remembered this store."

      Susan didn’t say anything else as she was helped into the car. A sharp pain shot through her abdomen when she tried to buckle her seat belt. She tried to buckle it again but doubled over and dry-heaved. Moisture formed around the edges of her mouth with each heave of her stomach. More and more until a white ooze dripped out of the corners. She wiped her mouth between heaves.

      After getting into the driver’s side seat, Lieger put the keys into the ignition and cranked the car.

      "Put the window all the way down," she struggled out.

      "I do not think so," he calmly said and hit the switch that locked her door.

      Susan doubled over in pain again as he put her Unicorn camera in the back seat. He took the envelope from her lap and gathered the pictures from it. With them neatly in his hand he started going through them, "They are beautiful."

           Susan grunted out, "What?"

           When he thumbed through to the last photo his thin-lipped smile widened, "Perfect."

           "Please lower it," she cried with her head resting against the window. She breathed like a fish out of water as windblown rain spat against the window.

           Lieger looked away from the pictures and said to Susan as she contorted again from pain, "The needle is so tiny and thinner than the edge of the sharpest razor." He reached into the back seat and grabbed the empty black bucket, "You used a twelve-roll exposure film. Then we should need only one bucket." He put it on the floorboard between her knees, "Put your head over this."

           She did so.

           Lieger talked calmly and pat the back of her soaked head, "You are so pale Susan. Like ivory. What a sweet analogy.” He continued to pat her head and grinned while doing so, “In my country, when I was young, my grandmother had ivory vases that she kept many different flowers in.” He paused, looked at her with care, his eyes had warmth, as if the sheen of indifference that covered his pupils since leaving her house had rolled back in his head. “Susan, I lied to you. The camera he designed and made was to steal enemy souls. He never wanted Germany to lose a life in war again. But the first war was over by the time it was built. When Hitler discovered the camera, it was through the eyes of his maddening mind, and I do not think people around him truly believed the camera was able take souls. He seemed even madder to them when he spoke of it.” Lieger paused and was looking beyond the parking lot and world around him when he continued, “See, there was no translator that discovered it, Susan. Hitler assigned my great grandfather to be its caretaker." He looked from the rain that whipped against the windshield, "How can good triumph with all its souls stolen? It cannot." He tightly gripped Susan’s dripping black hair and lifted it back out of the way of her face she held over the opened bucket.

           Liger described her ordeal she was suffering, “That ooze coming out of your mouth is your body’s normal defense mechanism. It is a lubricant for anything that you reject. It makes it easier to expel things, so they do not lodge in your throat and cause you to suffocate. But don’t worry, what you are about to dispel is of no solid matter. Your body does not know that though. So do not be alarmed.”

           Susan jerked forward then back.

           “The inside of your mouth is drawing up into itself as the contents of your stomach climb and grapple up the walls of your insides.”

           He leaned forward and when he got to her level he could see her face, “I pulled the hair from your face not so it would get anything on it, but so I could see your expression. Well, and to make sure all the contents get into the bucket too, I do suppose.” He stared at her as her mouth opened like a scream. White foam dripped out in knots. She would close it to swallow then open it again like she was about to throw up. Unlike when she was dry heaving there were no painful grimaces or doubling over. She just held her head there and opened her mouth each time.

           “Let me get your mind off it for a minute. If it comes while I talk, I will stop rambling so we can concentrate on the matter at hand. Shall I begin?”

           Susan replied with nothing, it was as if Lieger was not there. Her mouth only opened again for vile matter to be tossed forth out of it, but nothing came. Just a slow drip of white foam. She closed her mouth and swallowed.

           “I will tell you something Susan, at your house, I learned where and when you would be testing the camera. And even after knowing all that information I went into auto mode and said to keep in touch. Why would I have to set up a correspondence when you already told me everything I needed to intercept you. Well, it is good practice cause in the end something might have interfered with your plans. For example, a neighbor could have visited and stayed too long. If that had happened without setting up some sort of communications, it might take me another day or three to figure out a way to peacefully intercept you and get what I need. Plus, A hotel room for three days is more expensive than not one at all. And I had no flight planned but I do now. I’m going to book one for tonight. I’m having warm thoughts of Berlin while you sit there growing paler like death has taken you and decay has set in.” He studied her after saying all that. She had the same open mouth expression as she had when he started. He leaned in even closer and said angrily through grit teeth, “I’m thinking of sitting by the fire smoking a fat cigar and sipping scotch. What are you thinking of right now?”    

She screamed twelve liquid souls into the black bucket between her legs. They splattered like thick clumps of sour milk and a warm fog rose over the bucket’s edge.

           No more comes out of her.  

           He snatched up her weak head by the hair and put the lid onto the full bucket. He hit a button on his door and unlocked Susan's. Reaching over her back he opened the passenger's door. He twisted his body in his seat and brought up his long thin right leg. He gave it a kick pushed her out. He reached over and shut her door.

           Lieger’s tires streamed rain in an arch as he drove his dark blue BMW away, with his bucket of souls, as Susan struggled to her feet.

           A distant pop came.

Concrete chipped up beside her feet.

Then another couple of pops came muffled by the damp air.

           Drenched, Susan turned to the front of the store and saw the bearded man through the rain. He had the rifle up to his eye.      

            She wobbled weakly, left to right, like a dead reed of wheat. She tightly closed her pale eyes being thumped by heavy drops fell from the sky. Moments later, when she had opened them the security guard had tackled the bearded rifleman and they wrestled at the Superette’s front door. She shrank into herself and sat in the parking lot just the sound of an ambulance siren grew louder as it neared.