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    Flesh & Blood: Rollo's Short Fiction, #3
    Flesh & Blood: Rollo's Short Fiction, #3
    Flesh & Blood: Rollo's Short Fiction, #3
    Ebook164 pages2 hours

    Flesh & Blood: Rollo's Short Fiction, #3

    By Gord Rollo

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    About this ebook

    Since the dawn of time, man has told stories about fear. The dark fiction genre is filled with spine-tingling tales of bloodsucking vampires, flesh-eating zombies, and other ghastly creatures that mercilessly stalk the night.

    THE FLESH WILL ROT AND THE BLOOD WILL FLOW...

    Now collected together for the first time ever, acclaimed horror and fantasy author Gord Rollo shares his own nightmare visions about the terrible things waiting for us in the dark. Within this volume, you'll find stories about love lost and sweet revenge, self-mutilation and agonizing death, and the savage beasts and hungry mindless creatures that prowl the shadows in search of human blood...

    Flesh & Blood features the following short stories:

    -- On Fine Feathered Wings
    -- Darkness Comprehended (Co-written with Harry Shannon)
    -- A Simple Matter of Ethics
    -- Friends of a Forgotten Man
    -- Young Love
    -- A Typical Night in the Wilds
    -- Every Magician Has to Start Somewhere
    -- Lord Rat (Co-written with Gene O'Neill)
    -- Fifty Shades of Crimson
    -- Unplugged

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAshbury Creek Media
    Release dateNov 16, 2016
    ISBN9781540128614
    Flesh & Blood: Rollo's Short Fiction, #3
    Author

    Gord Rollo

    Gord Rollo was born in St. Andrews, Scotland, but now lives in Ontario, Canada. His short stories and novella-length work have appeared in many professional publications throughout the genre and his novels include: The Jigsaw Man, Crimson, Strange Magic, Valley Of The Scarecrow, The Translators, Only The Thunder Knows, and The Crucifixion Experiments.. His work has been translated into several languages and his titles are currently being adapted for audiobooks. Besides novels, Gord edited the acclaimed evolutionary horror anthology, Unnatural Selection: A Collection of Darwinian Nightmares. He also co-edited Dreaming of Angels, a horror/fantasy anthology created to increase awareness of Down’s syndrome and raise money for research.

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      Book preview

      Flesh & Blood - Gord Rollo

      Flesh & Blood

      Rollo's Short Fiction, Volume 3

      Gord Rollo

      Published by Ashbury Creek Media, 2016.

      Table of Contents

      Copyright

      Introduction

      On Fine Feathered Wings

      Story Notes

      Darkness Comprehended

      Story Notes

      A Simple Matter of Ethics

      Story Notes

      Friends of a Forgotten Man

      Story Notes

      Young Love

      Story Notes

      A Typical Night in the Wilds

      Story Notes

      Every Magician Has to Start Somewhere

      Story Notes

      Lord Rat

      Story Notes

      Fifty Shades of Crimson

      Story Notes

      Unplugged

      Story Notes

      Also by Gord Rollo

      The Jigsaw Man

      Strange Magic

      Valley of the Scarecrow

      The Translators

      Crowley’s Window

      The Dark Side of Heaven

      Peeler

      Gods & Monsters Vol. 1

      Time & Space Vol. 2

      Copyright © 2016 by Gord Rollo

      Lord Rat © Gord Rollo and Gene O’Neill

      Darkness Comprehended © Gord Rollo and Harry Shannon

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system without permission in writing from the author.

      This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance it bears to reality is entirely coincidental.

      Published by Ashbury Creek Media

      Ontario, Canada

      Book & Cover Design by Adam Geen

      www.adamgeen.com

      Zombie Hands Image from Bigstock

      www.bigstockphoto.com

      INTRODUCTION

      As you probably already know, this collection you are reading is the third volume in a series of short stories that I have released. When I first sat down to choose stories and to organize my published work into categories so I could group them together, it was rather easy for me to gather all the stories that fit into the theme of ‘religious horror’. I had lots of those to choose from and within minutes had my table of contents for Vol. 1, Gods & Monsters. I also noticed I had a lot of stories that dealt with alternate time and/or had more of a science fiction feel to them so Vol. 2, Time & Space didn’t take me very long to put together either. After that though, all bets were off. I still had a lot of stories to choose from but thematically the plots and subject matters were all over the place. I had stories about zombies, strange winged creatures, patients in mental asylums, magicians, vigilantes, and even some bizarre love stories that I liked. All pretty good stories that I thought you might enjoy but damned if I could think of something that united all of them like I’d easily done with the first two books in the series.

      As luck would have it, a friend of mine said that these stories were — and I quote — my whacked out, crazy, ultra-violent stories. Not exactly a theme, I know, but in many ways I saw that they were right. These unclassified stories were all quite nasty and far bloodier than the majority of the stories I normally wrote. I’m actually a writer who tries to keep a lid on the blood and guts in a story, because a lot of times too much gore in a story gets in the way of the plot and the violence is all the reader remembers. As I’ve progressed as a writer, I’ve tried to become a bit more literate minded and try to write stories that mean something to me. I’m big time into redemption these days and like to see a change in my characters. I also like to write about social issues a lot more than I ever used to. My novel THE JIGSAW MAN is violent, sure, but at its heart is a tale of redemption for Michael Fox, the main character, as well as a discussion about how advanced man is getting with science these days. Perhaps too advanced, in many ways. I wanted the reader to enjoy the story, absolutely, but I was also hoping there might be some thought or discussion as to whether scientists are starting to play God a bit more than we are comfortable with. Just because we can work what seems like miracles, should we?

      Let me let you in on a little secret, though. All talk of redemption, social significance, and religion aside, I still love a good gory story every now and then and I’m not too literate minded that I can’t enjoy a crazy story just for the simple reason that it is fun. The world is a hectic, stressful place these days and sometimes I just want to read fiction that helps me escape for a little while. It doesn’t always have to be soul searching or mind-expanding fiction to please me, and as much as I like to read ‘pulp’ fiction like that, I like to write it even more. There is just something so pure and satisfying about letting loose with all barrels firing, and writing something purely for entertainment’s sake. A writer can’t always change the world with every story they write, and I think we sometimes forget that and get a bit too serious.

      With that in mind, Flesh & Blood was born. Like I said, it is by far the darkest, bloodiest, and nastiest of my three short story collections but I’m not going to apologize for that. No way. In fact, I’m going to stand up and be proud of it, shouting from the rooftops that this is the collection you’ve all been waiting for. So strap on your seatbelts and make sure you cover the carpets and furniture with plastic tarps. What lies ahead will shock and surprise you, hopefully even make you feel a little off balance. If you feel the need to skip a meal or two along the way, hey, that’s okay as well. Most of all, I hope you will be entertained. That’s the whole idea here. Let’s just take a stroll down a dark alley together and escape the so-called ‘real’ world for a while. Sounds like fun to me.

      Just don’t say you weren’t warned…

      ON FINE FEATHERED WINGS

      Time's fatal wings do ever forward fly;

      to every day we live, a day we die.

      (Thomas Campion 1567-1620)

      The sun was already sitting low on the western horizon as the Birdman began his difficult climb up the sixteen foot high chain link prison fence, freedom on his feverish mind and a mess of sticky black feathers glued to his skeletal-thin body.

      No; not that Birdman.

      No; not that prison.

      Robert Stroud had long since left his iron-barred perch in San Francisco Bay for that great big birds nest in the sky, but unlike the famous Birdman of Alcatraz, Nickolas Denko planned to make it out of his cage without having to sit around waiting until he died. In fact, he wasn’t sitting around waiting for anything.

      He was going to fly.

      Up and up Nicholas climbed, his grip on the fence precarious at best, all the interlaced feathers stuck on his hands and feet not making this as easy as he’d hoped. In his head, he’d pictured scaling the high fence in seconds, unfurling his majestic homemade wings and posing just for a moment in the last dying rays of twilight for guards and fellow inmates alike to gape at with wonder and awe at his avian body. And then before anyone could react, launching into the open night sky; the icy November wind blowing in from the North catching his fall and lifting him high above the astonished crowd gathered below. He’d maybe give them all one last wave as he flapped his dark wings once, twice, three powerful times and then banked left out over the prison wall heading for the new life that awaited him on the other side. Freedom; in every possible way imaginable, was his for the taking and no one could…

      …Nicolas’ left hand slipped, several long black feathers drifting to the hard concrete surface of the yard below, the rest of him barely managing to cling to the steel mesh and avoid the plunge himself.

      Stay focused, he reminded himself. Your plans don’t mean shit if you smash your skull open before you even start.

      The Birdman took a deep breath to slow down his racing heart and began to climb again, more determined than ever to leave this hell hole behind forever. Stillwater Prison could kiss his feathered ass goodbye, as far as he was concerned.

      Hand over hand.

      The fence freezing cold between his toes and on the bottoms of his bare feet.

      ***

      On the outskirts of Oak Park Heights, Minnesota, the state’s worst offenders are housed in a 443 inmate, nine unit maximum security penitentiary more commonly known as Stillwater Penitentiary, acknowledged by many in the system to be America’s hardest prison. Inside this Level 5 (maximum) facility Nicholas has been declared by a board of physicians to be a delusional schizophrenic with obsessive-compulsive tendencies and resides with 52 other unbalanced men in the Mental Health Unit. The MHU is still maximum security and nearly as nasty as the other lockdown units here but the inmates inside the MHU aren’t segregated and have access to the facility’s exercise yard for two hours every morning and night.

      Staring out that chain link fence at the fields beyond every day for the past six years has twisted thirty-eight year old Denko’s mind even further from center than it had been when he arrived here, a common run of the mill sex offender from nearby St. Paul. On the outside, it had been the pre-teen girls he’d obsessed over, but with children removed from his world now, it’s the birds that have earned his warped sense of love. The crows, to be specific.

      The inmates in here are terrible to him; mercilessly taunting, beating, and raping him whenever the guard’s backs are turned. Not that the screws are any better; the guards as mean as the convicts, the only way to tell them apart are the uniforms. The crows take Nicholas away from all that pain and humiliation. Watching the glorious dark birds circle in the sky above Stillwater has given him many wonderful thoughts spinning around in his troubled mind, grand dreams of a fantasy life far away from this frigid place.

      And then one day back in March of last year, Nicholas started to notice the long black feathers that fell from the sky and blew around on the ground; precious gifts from his feathered friends and previously tossed as trash by the clean-up crews who raked the grass and swept the concrete yard on a daily basis. It was only a matter of time before Nicholas volunteered for the job and the first scratches of a desperate plan began to form in his disturbed mind. The birds didn’t shed feathers all year long, of course, but it seemed they’d drop one here and there regardless of the season, perhaps just for him. In his dementia, it meant the crows were supporting him; speeding his plan along, helping any way they could. They had a connection you see; Nicholas and the crows. He didn’t understand it yet, but even back then he knew that it was true.

      Knew that it was special.

      Nicholas immediate went on a severe diet and exercise plan, literally starving himself to lose as much weight as possible and transforming his already thin body into a shell of skin and bones. Lean and mean was the plan. The lighter the better, regardless of what the doctors told him. He also began storing as many feathers as he could collect, eventually filling a small storage area beneath the stairs in the janitorial department where he kept his rake and brooms. As crazy as his idea for escape might seem to some, the Birdman was bound and determined to succeed.

      ***

      The Birdman finally clawed his way to the top of the fence, freedom only a few flaps of his wings away. He stood to his full 6’ 2" height upon the top rail, using only the metal light post beside his left hand to help him balance. The fence’s steel barbs cut into the tender bottoms of his feet and the chilly wind blew right through his carefully applied layers of feathers and stung his naked flesh beneath but none of that mattered anymore. Those sensations were just pain and Nicholas had been dealing with that all his life. All the Birdman cared about was that first exhilarating moment of flight, the moment he’d been waiting on for the past twenty months.

      Caw… CAW! he shouted into the sky, letting his friends in the fields beyond know he was on his way. In his heart, he truly

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