*****
More Fantasy E-books by Robert T. Jeschonek
6 Fantasy Stories
6 More Fantasy Stories
Blazing Bodices
Earthshaker – an urban fantasy novel
Girl Meets Mind Reader
Groupie Everlasting
Heaven Bent – a novel
Rose Head
The Genie's Secret
The Return of Alice
The Sword That Spoke
*****
I stand in the center of the coliseum, the pink sun blazing on my flesh, and raise the fairies I clutch in both fists. Their tiny bodies squirm between my fat fingers as they struggle to break free, but they're not going anywhere.
I turn in a circle with the fairies held overhead, and the army of bears that surround me on the dirt floor of the coliseum stop snarling. They stand on hind legs with red or pink tutus fluttering in the breeze, some balancing on beach balls, some perched on unicycles. They stare with wide eyes, claws twitching in the Faerie world heat.
And I wait for their answer to my question. "Who deserves the crush?" My throat hurts as I howl it at the top of my lungs. "Me or them? Me or them?"
I feel the bears' eyes upon me, bulging with wonder and hunger and fear. The moment is upon them, a moment they never imagined.
This is for you, Stan, I think, and then I roar, demanding their answer.
*****
I was roaring last night, too, in a very different place--my favorite bar in downtown Pittsburgh, called Boilermaker's. I was surrounded by bears then, too, of the human variety. My people, my family, not by blood but by love. The only family who'd ever truly cared about me.
I let loose with a roar in the midst of them, right after I blew out the candles on my birthday nachos. They cheered me with roars of their own, all of them strapping as lumberjacks. Ten big boyfriends clapping and kissing and throwing back beers and whiskey shots with bold abandon. Saluting our flag with the bear's paw in the top left corner and the stripes of brown, tan, white, gray, and black. All of us card-carrying members of the local chapter of the International Bear Brotherhood.
My people.
"Welcome to your thirties, Angus!" My partner, Stan, slung an arm around my shoulders and shook me hard. "How's it feel to be over the hill?"
I punched him in the stomach. "You tell me, Sluggo!" That was my nickname for Stan. A real term of endearment for the man I loved and still love more than anyone or anything in any world.
Stan looked like Ernest Hemingway with his bushy gray hair and beard, his barrel chest. "Screw you, Angus!" Laughing, he scrubbed the thick brown hair on my head in a brutal noogie.
"You wish!" said one of the guys--Horst or Louie or Al--and everyone cracked up.
"Another round!" said Stan. "For Angus' birthday!"
"Last man standing gets to kick his ass!" Big-bellied Horst shook his half-empty beer mug at me, jet black mutton-chop sideburns curling away from his ice cream grin.
Stan cracked his shot glass down on the table and stomped in front of Horst with shoulders squared under his red flannel shirt. "You'll have to go through me first!"
Suddenly, a crash like a thunderclap exploded in the room. We all looked toward it, though we already knew the source.
Sure enough, Pete the bartender/owner had brought the ol' baseball bat down on the bar again. "No fighting, jagoffs!"
Who could blame him? Last time the bears had gone ballistic in there, Pete had ended up with a shattered front window.
Not that we didn't love Pete or Boilermaker's. Not that we didn't pay to fix that busted window. It's just that that's the way we were. Rough and tumble. Loud and proud. A real band of brothers.
With benefits.
Pushing past Stan and Horst, I did what I used to do best--deflect with humor. "Who you calling jagoffs, pal?" Rolling up the sleeves of my heavy white sweater, I charged the bar, smacking my hands down hard on either side of the baseball bat...glaring up at Pete, way up at Pete, from my four-foot-five-inch height. "Take it back, Pete! Don't make me climb up there!"
Pete's eyes twinkled with mirth. He shook his head and looked away.
"Somebody get me a stepladder!" I said, and everyone laughed.
Crisis averted.
The guys chanted "Next round, next round," and Pete stomped off to fill glasses. Left me staring at myself in the mirror behind the bar.
What a hairy S.O.B. I might have been the shortest of the local bear brotherhood, but I was by far the hairiest.
Shaggy brown fur covered my head and my whole face except my eyes, lips, and the tip of my nose. More of the same covered almost every inch under my clothes...even covered my hands except for my fingertips.
How'd you like to go through life looking like a werewolf, right down to the hair on your palms? All thanks to the miracle of hypertrichosis, the disease that blasts hair growth into perpetual overdrive.
Welcome to my world.
Imagine the constant ridicule and abuse I put up with from day one. Imagine being abandoned by my parents at age three, then juggled like a hot potato from one foster family to the next. Always the freak, always the outcast, always the dog-faced boy. Growing up to scrape by as a home-based telemarketer. Hardly ever leaving my apartment, and then only with everything under wraps. Always just hanging on to life and sanity by the skin of my teeth.
Imagine living like that, and maybe you'll get it. Maybe you'll understand just how happy I was with Stan and the bears.
And why it hurt so unbelievably bad when I lost them. Why that birthday party turned out to be my last happy night on Earth.
*****
Pete had just brought out the next round when he showed up. Yuri.
The bears and I were grabbing our mugs, and the front door flew open and slammed into the wall. Yuri blew in like a gale or a mad dog, demanding immediate attention without saying a word.
He must've been seven-foot-six or seven, at least three hundred pounds. A wild Hawaiian shirt was draped over his massive gut, bursting with flowers in pink and gold.
Yuri's face was broad and ruddy and moist as a side of beef. His blazing red hair frizzed out in all directions like flames, like his head was on fire.
My mouth fell open as I gaped at him. I felt Stan make a sudden movement beside me.
"Magnifico!" When Yuri spoke, his voice boomed like a backfiring car with a Russian accent. "You knew I was coming, didn't you? Spaceba for the party, you big lug!"
Just as I wondered who he was talking to, one of us spoke up. My breath caught in my throat in surprise.
It was Stan. "Party's not for you, Yuri."
Yuri waggled his eyebrows, which were thick as squirrels. "Stush! What's the matter? No kiss for your old lady?" Yuri puckered his liver slab lips, pooching them out from under the giant walrus mustache he wore like a fox stole across his face.
"What do you want, Yuri?" Stan's voice was cold. His hand clamped around my shoulder and tightened.
Yuri's brows and walrus 'stache jumped high as his face lit up with an alligator smile. "So this is your new girl!" Lurching forward, Yuri reached out with one sausage link finger and tickled my chin. "Why, he's just a little cub!"
Suddenly, Stan lunged at Yuri, hooking his wrist and yanking his hand away from my chin. "Get out of here, Yuri. Now."
Horst, Al, and the others closed ranks around us, glowering. Yuri went on talking, never breaking eye contact with me. "Daddy bear Stush go bye-bye, little cubby." Then, he slid his gaze from me to Stan. "Unless, of course, he cares to send this cubby in his place."
"Never." Stan ground the word between clenched teeth. "Get out."
"The man said leave, gashole!" This time, it was Pete the bartender doing the talking. He pushed between Louie and Horst with ball bat in hand, looking stone cold deadly.
Yuri raised his squirrely brows and took one last long look into my eyes. "Sweeeet dreeeams, leetle cuubbyy." He sang the words with sickening false sweetness. "Uncle Yuri loooves you." Reaching into the breast pocket of his wild shirt, he tugged out a bright red business card and held it toward me.
Stan snatched the card away and shoved him back. Yuri stumbled one step before catching himself.
Then, laughing, he swung around and stormed out, nearly knocking over Horst and Pete on his way past.
*****
Later that night, I lay in Stan's arms and gazed at his face in the moonlight streaming through our bedroom window. He just kept staring at the ceiling, lost in thought.
"So who was Yuri?" I said. "An old boyfriend?"
Stan sighed. "Don't worry about it."
"But what did he mean?" I said. "Where did he want you to go?"
"Forget about him," said Stan. "He's just a big mouth looking to cause trouble."
"What did he mean when he said you could send me in your place?"
Stan grunted and let go of me. He rolled over and got out of bed. "I don't want to talk about it, okay? Just go to sleep."
I sat up and listened as he started down the hall. "Where are you going, Sluggo?" I called after him.
"I left something in the truck," said Stan. "I'll be right back."
That was the last time I heard his voice in this world.
Lying back, I listened as he put on his shoes and went downstairs and out the front door. I waited a little while for him to come back, and then I fell asleep.
When I woke in the morning, he was still gone. But his pickup was still parked on the street in front of our townhouse.
*****
I was worried right away. It wasn't like Stan to disappear without warning. Where could he even go without the pickup?
I started making phone calls. There was no answer at Boilermaker's at that hour, of course. Horst had no idea where he was, and neither did any of the other bears who answered their phones.
It was a Saturday, but I tried Stan's workplace anyway. He worked for a company that installed conveyor equipment in factories, and sometimes they did weekend installs.
But not this weekend.
So I got in the pickup--cherry red, extended cab, extended everything--and drove around town. I drove everywhere I thought Stan might be and looked hard and asked questions.
But Stan was nowhere. Just gone.
So now I knew, without a doubt. Something had happened to him.
*****
Sitting in the pickup in the hardware store parking lot, I leaned my furry forehead against the steering wheel and closed my eyes. I thought about the first time we'd met, which had been at Boilermaker's.
I'd seen a story online about the bears and had known instantly they were for me. Boilermaker's had been mentioned in the story as a bear meeting place, so I'd gone one Friday--still under wraps, of course, still covered head to toe in ball cap, trench coat, and gloves.
Stan had come right up and shaken my hand. He'd slapped me on the back, called me "buddy," and bought me a beer. I'd fallen in love with him right then and there.
We'd kissed for the first time two weeks later, in the cab of that very pickup.
And now he was gone.
Opening my eyes, I looked down...and I spotted something red on the floor, tucked under the edge of the mat. Leaning down, I snagged it, instantly realizing what it was.
Yuri's red business card. The one Stan had snatched from Yuri's fingers.
*****
I drove to the address printed in gold letters on the satin finish card. The address led to a building on the edge of the Strip district, a deserted storefront far from the Strip's thriving markets and restaurants.
The windows were waxed, so I couldn't see inside. The front door was closed, but unlocked. Heart pounding, I let myself in.
Sweat ran down my sides and back as I entered the darkened place and looked around. I was totally unprepared, running on panic and adrenaline, not thinking very far ahead.
Though I don't think anything could have prepared me for what was waiting inside that dump.
*****
The place smelled like mold and fry grease. The front room was empty except for a single folding card table, but I guessed this had once been a restaurant.
I almost called Stan's name, but then I thought better of it. Walking as softly as I could, I sneaked toward the swinging door at the back of the room. I could see a dim light glowing underneath it.
Cracking the door, I peeked inside the back room, and a chill shot up my spine. I couldn't believe what I was seeing; didn't even know what the hell it was, exactly.
Some kind of swirling disk hung in midair in the middle of the room, glowing with pink light. Streamers of mist spun around a central core, crackling with tendrils of energy. Everything smelled like salt water and ozone.
Gazing into the disk, I felt a little dizzy. It was like hovering above a cyclone, a hurricane, staring down into its whirling, lightning-filled cone.
I cracked the door wider for a better look. Took half a step into the back room. Still saw no one inside.
Then, suddenly, huge hands grabbed hold of me from behind and lifted me off my feet. Someone swung me back and up, and I saw that side-of-beef face grinning back at me.
Yuri.
"Looking for your daddy bear, yes?" Yuri waggled his squirrely brows and hooted. "Won't he be surprised?"
"Put me down!" I struggled in Yuri's grip, but it was like iron. I couldn't break free. "Let go of me!"
"Your daddy bear has gone home, little cubby," said Yuri. "But I will gladly take you to him."
Next thing I knew, Yuri was walking straight for the swirling disk, the vortex in the middle of the room. Holding me out in front of him like a baby.
"Here we go," said Yuri as he carried me closer to the vortex. "Hold on to your breakfast!"
And then, he pitched me inside, and I went spinning like a leaf in a waterspout.
*****
I landed face down in the dirt with the wind knocked out of me. Head still spinning for long moments after the physical spinning had stopped.
When I finally looked up, I saw a dozen pairs of eyes gazing down at me. I was surrounded.
And each pair of eyes came with a fur-covered snout. And face. And body.
Because all around me were bears. The animal kind, not the human kind from Boilermaker's. These were big-toothed, sharp-clawed bears, standing in a circle on hind legs.
And every one of them was wearing a pink or red tutu.
Slowly, I got up on my hands and knees. Had I ended up in some kind of bizarre circus?
Then, suddenly, a cloud of tiny flying creatures descended upon us...a swarm of winged people, male and female, each no bigger than five inches tall. Every one of them lashing out with showers of sparks that sent the bears backing away, swatting with black-padded paws at their snouts.
Fairies? Where the hell was I?
Pushing myself up to my knees, I watched the swarm of fairies in action, spraying sparks from their hands in all directions. I was just about to thank them for driving off the bears when they all spun and converged on me.
Like a swarm of bees, they stung me senseless, sending me reeling back down to the dirt. My body snapped and twitched with each new barrage, writhing under the whirling cloud of tiny attackers.
And then, all of a sudden, they lifted away and dispersed. Leaving me to gaze up at the huge pink sun blazing away directly overhead.
"Where am I?" I said it softly, to myself, not expecting a reply.
But I got an answer anyway. The roar of thousands of people all around me.
Thousands of people with blue and green skin, pointed ears, eyes like glowing gemstones. Thousands of people crowding the stands of a vast coliseum that looked like it had been built out of glittering flint and cotton candy.
*****
Yuri's voice boomed over the noise of the crowd. "Welcome, lords and ladies, to the main event of this splendid tournament."
Getting up out of the dirt, I saw I was standing at dead center of the coliseum field. The bears were still keeping their distance, but they were circling me on all fours, heads bobbing. Ridiculous in their tutus yet as dangerous as any bear in any forest back home.
"I bring you a contest to thrill your blood!" said Yuri. "A human cub will face a true bear...an escapee now returned to the fold for the ultimate death duel."
The crowd roared louder than ever, agitating the bears around me. I turned in a circle, fearing they were ready to attack.
"Witness now," said Yuri, "the battle of cub versus bear."
Just then, a huge cloud of tiny fairies burst from a gate along the wall around the field. They surged toward me and stopped suddenly just twenty yards away. And then they parted.
Revealing a gray-furred bear.
Barrel-chested and broad-shouldered, he stood before me, staring. Raising his paws, he roared, but I stood my ground. Because there was something familiar about him. Something in his eyes.
"Stan?" Could it be? "Is that you?"
The gray-furred bear roared again and nodded his head.
Somehow, this was Stan. An "escapee" of some kind from this place, turned human on Earth, now reverted to bear?
And now what? We were expected to fight one another?
"Let the killing begin!" said Yuri, and the crowd went wild.
*****
Stan backed away, but the other bears moved in and pushed him back. There were dozens of them now, loping along on foot or balanced on beach balls or unicycles. More were filing out of the gates all the time, driven onward by swirling clouds of fairies.
"Stan!" I moved toward him, though he tried to wave me away. "I don't care what you are, or were, or weren't. I love you, and I always will."
Stan roared back at me, louder than ever, and I knew he agreed.
But the other bears were on a different wavelength. They started to close in around us, pressing in on all sides, cutting off all escape.
"One must kill the other!" said Yuri. "Blood will spill on the sands of Faerie!"
Taking a deep breath, I ran to Stan and threw myself into his arms. Pressed my furry cheek against the warm, gray fur on his chest.
The crowd unleashed a deafening round of catcalls. The other bears moved closer, roaring with ferocious intent.
"If one of you will not kill the other," said Yuri, "we will end the impasse ourselves."
Suddenly, the other bears lurched and rolled and pedaled toward us. Stan and I stood back to back and met their charge with steely glares, ready to die together.
"I love you, Stan!" A polar bear and a black bear lumbered toward me, both licking their chops. "We'll survive this and go home together!"
Just then, I heard a sound like hoof beats on the ground behind me...and Stan was gone. Whirling, I saw a grizzly tear his head off with a single swipe of his paw.
"Nooo!" Through my tears, I saw the other bears move in to finish off Stan. I felt my legs begin to give way under me.
And then, I saw another cloud of fairies boiling toward me. A thousand tiny wings flashing in the pink light like the wings of locusts on the move.
Sorrow turned to rage in my heart, and my thoughts suddenly crystallized. Squaring my shoulders, I waited for the cloud to descend. Waited to do what some bear should have done long ago.
As soon as the cloud engulfed me, I snapped my arms out to either side and grabbed at the fluttering creatures. Caught one in either hand and held them tight.
I used them to shoo the rest of the buzzing horde away, and then I turned to the other bears with hands held high. Realizing, even as I did this, that I should have done this or something like it long ago. Decades ago. That this was what being a bear was all about.
Harnessing fear.
*****
Now I stand in the center of the coliseum, the pink sun blazing on my flesh, and raise the fairies I clutch in both fists. Their tiny bodies squirm between my fat fingers as they struggle to break free, but they're not going anywhere.
I turn in a circle with the fairies held overhead, and the army of bears that surround me on the dirt floor of the coliseum stop snarling. They stand on hind legs with red and pink tutus fluttering in the breeze, some balancing on beach balls, some perched on unicycles. They stare with wide eyes over muzzles rimmed with black or brown or white fur, claws twitching in the Faerie world heat.
And I wait for their answer to my question. "Who deserves to die?" My throat hurts as I howl it at the top of my lungs. "Me or them? Me or them?"
I feel the bears' eyes upon me, bulging with wonder and hunger and fear. The moment is upon them, a moment they never imagined.
This is for you, Stan, I think, and then I roar, demanding their answer.
And all the bears roar back at me at once, voices joined in a fierce explosion like the launch of a rocket or the start of a war. Claws thrashing at the sky with unmistakable defiance.
My brothers. I hear answering roars from beyond the coliseum, from the bears beyond those walls, across this world. I imagine all of them rising up at once, all the rejected, despised, and enslaved. All the ones who've had the power within them all along, lacking only the will to apply it.
And I know that this is where I truly belong. What my life has led up to. What I was meant to accomplish.
The bears turn their backs on me and gallop toward the stands. The crowd screams and stampedes for the exits.
Down in the dirt, I roar my lungs out, tears streaming down my face. And then I squeeze both fists as tight as they'll go.
*****
Special Preview: Heaven Bent, A Novel
By Robert T. Jeschonek
Now On Sale
Chapter 1
If I'd known then what I know now, I never would have gone toward the light. Seriously. This Heaven, I could've done without.
My actual life before death was much better. I was a movie star, for cryin' out loud. I had it all.
As recently as twelve hours ago, I had it all.
"So tell me, Stag, how does it feel to be nominated for your third Academy Award?" That's what the perky blonde morning show host asked during the live interview.
"Unbelievable." I said it with my patented humble-yet-confident grin, letting the bright lights cast a glare on my teeth. Down-to-Earth, salt-of-the-Earth, salt-and-pepper hair parted on the right. "It never gets old."
"What a track record." She, Susan F., was in a New York City studio. For reasons that weren't clear to me, I was in a separate studio across town, watching her on a monitor. Doin' the ol' split-screen tango. "And with two Best Actor wins under your belt, how do you feel about chances for a third?"
"Crossing my fingers, Sue." I flashed my bright whites and showed my crossed fingers to the camera. "It would be an indescribable honor."
"We wish you the best," said Susan with her most endearing smile, as if I were family.
"Thank you, Sue." Nod and a wink. "I hope to see you at the after-party."
Aaaand cut!
"On a cold day in Hell," I added after the red light on the camera went dark.
"Screw you, too, Stag." That's what Susan F.'s voice said in my earpiece. Looks like my mic was still hot.
Not that I cared. "Love and kisses, S.F.," I told her as I unclipped the mic. Reaching under my gray sweater, I pulled the mic down and out by the cord.
As I popped out my earpiece (to the sound of her angry cursing), I saw someone open the studio door and stroll in. It was a guy--six-three, six-four--with broad shoulders, dark business suit, and red tie. High roller maybe?
"Hello?" I was irritated, because the only one walking in on me at that point should have been my manager, Shisha M. "You know I have to be at a film shoot in fifteen minutes, right?"
The guy cleared his throat. He was standing with his hands folded over his lower abdomen. "Hello." I couldn't make out his face in the shadows beyond the studio lights. "Hello, S.L."
I hopped off the stool, squinting for a look at him. "Very funny." More than a little pissed off because he was riffing on my call-people-by-their-initials routine. "What do you want?"
At that instant, somebody switched off the lights, and I saw the guy's face. For a moment, the pissed-off-ness poured right out of me.
My breath caught in my you-know-what. A cold chill rushed up my you-know-where.
That guy...
"About the film shoot." He shook his head. The hair wasn't salt-and-pepper, it was solid silver. But otherwise...identical.
To me. He could've been my twin.
"What about it?" I said, but my head was tingling. I had a feeling like very strong vertigo, like being stoned.
"Don't go back," said my twin. "Not today. Not ever."
As the initial shock wore off, I started thinking this through. I had no twin, so... "Who sent you, pal?" I straightened my back, squared my shoulders, copped a sneer. "Was it Brad? Was it Morgan? I've gotta say, you're the best Stag Lincoln impersonator I've ever seen."
My twin walked toward me, looking intense. As he got closer, I swear I could smell the ocean. "I'm begging you. Don't go back to the shoot, Willy."
My sneer turned into a frown. How could he possibly know that ancient nickname? The one I paid millions (conservatively speaking) to bury forever? "Whatever was remotely funny about this just stopped being funny." I yanked the phone out of my pocket and started punching 9-1-1.
At which point, my twin charged up and smacked the phone from my hand. "Listen to me!" Next, he hauled off and slapped me across the face. "If you go to that shoot, it's all over! Can you get that through your thick head, you arrogant ass?" He slapped me again, harder.
Where the hell was Shisha while this was happening? Where the hell was anyone? "Get your hands off me!" I pushed away from him, planning to plow my fist into the middle of his copycat kisser.
But that was when he started glowing with bright golden light. I thought I could hear a bell chiming somewhere far away.
"Last warning!" His voice was beyond urgent, beyond serious. "I'm telling you...you're telling yourself...stay away from the shoot!" He glowed brighter with each passing second. "And whatever you do, Jerry..."
He flared so bright, it was blinding, and then he was gone.
I stood there, blinking at the spots in my eyes. Wondering what the hell he'd been trying to tell me before he disappeared.
Just as I thought that, he popped back into existence in front of me, still roiling with golden glow. His voice crackled, and the bells I'd heard earlier were louder than before. "Whatever you do...don't...toward..."
I thought I heard screams between the chiming of the bells. The screams of not a few, but a multitude of people.
"Jerry!" Suddenly, his voice grew clear and strong. "Don't go toward the light!"
This time, when his glow flared and his body vanished, he didn't come back. I was left there with the echo of his words, the lingering smell of the ocean, and the tingling in my head, asking the one question that kept circling in my mind again and again.
"Was it Cameron?" I stared into space, my mouth wide open with amazement. "That was some serious 3-D, man. That had to be Cameron."
*****
An hour later, I got out of my limo at--you guessed it--South Street Seaport, the shoot location.
For a moment, I stood and took it all in. A four-masted tall ship, the Peking, bobbed gently in the water. A vast brick building spanned the pier, filled with shops and restaurants. Bright sunlight flared off the bold orange and red awnings and umbrellas fanned out around it like plumage. The air smelled like the East River, like gasoline (from the water taxi docked at the pier?)--and like the ocean, too.
I wondered briefly if that was important.
Shisha, that redheaded fiftysomething fireplug of a manager, never stopped texting as she slid out of the limo behind me.
Did I feel a little apprehensive after the warning from my twin? Not enough to breach my contract.
Looking back, well duh, how dumb could I get? But I'd mostly convinced myself the visitation had been nothing more than an elaborate special effect arranged by a prankster. I was in a TV studio, after all. Ever hear of motion capture? No way no how was I going to call off work and give whoever was pranking me the satisfaction.
If I had a hundred bucks for every time some self-proclaimed future me showed up to complicate my life, well...I'd be rollin' in it, these days, actually. But back then, there was just that once, so the odds seemed better that it was B.S.
"Seemed" being the operative word, in retrospect.
"This Distefano character, what a peach pit!" Shisha's upper lip curled as she texted. Unattractive? I didn't hire her for her looks; I needed a bulldog, and she brought plenty of bark and bite to the dogfight. "He won't budge on the backend points."
"Sounds like a deal-breaker, Mom." She's not my mom, but I call her that anyway. I even take her out for Mother's Day because it's good to keep a bulldog happy at all times.
"Only if I minded tearing him a new one." Shisha pulled on her giant sunglasses with the leopard-print frames. "Unzip the body-bag, Larry." (That's what she calls me, though it isn't my name.) "I'm goin' in with the spear gun." She dialed the phone like she was squashing bugs on it.
I almost said something to her about my twin, but it sounded too crazy in my head to sail it out there. Anyway, why bother?
How important could it be?
"Hey, anal probe!" That's what she said to the studio boss on the phone as she waddled away from me. "You better be wearing an adult diaper right now at this moment!"
Her voice quickly faded in the ruckus of the shoot. Members of the film crew shouted from every direction as they scurried around, prepping the camera, lights, talent, and set. Extras milled around one corner of the pier, blabbing to each other and on phones while they waited. A mob of onlookers crowded the street, yelling for attention, yelling at...me. (As usual.) And let's not forget the director, D.X. (That's his full name, FYI, I didn't abbreviate.)
"Yo, Stag!" He waved me over to where he was standing, in an open section of the pier near the tall ship. "There's been a change."
"What kind of change?" I frowned. "Another rewrite?"
D.X. pushed up his black ballcap with the movie's title on the front in white letters--Lie-Jacker--and scratched his forehead. I couldn't see his eyes behind his mirrored sunglasses, just the reflection of my own face. "More like an opportunity."
That exact moment was when I first heard the sound of the helicopter coming in from the direction of the Brooklyn Bridge.
*****
Twenty minutes later, I was hanging from a cable as the helicopter lifted me up into the air. All part of the "opportunity" D.X. had mentioned.
Now, I'm not afraid of heights, and I was secured by a safety harness wired to the chopper, but still. As I rose high above the pier, then swung out over the glittering surface of the river, I felt a punch of adrenaline. My heart pounded, and the pit of my stomach clenched. My hands, protected by thin leather gloves, clamped tight around the cable.
I was really out there. My feet were perched on a big iron hook at the end of the cable, clipped to stirrups on either side--but it didn't seem like there was much between me and the void. I knew the harness and wire held me fast, but the illusion of imminent danger, of being fractions of an inch from plunging into a vast gulf of space, was powerful.
It was one of those moments when maybe it wasn't so great being Mr. Movie-Star-Who-Does-His-Own-Stunts.
But I still had no inkling whatsoever of what was coming next. It was just another day on the job to me. My twin's warning was the furthest thing from my mind.
So the helicopter kept climbing and heading out over the river. Gazing down at the crew on the pier, I saw sunlight glinting off camera lenses and cell phone screens.
The plan was this: the helicopter would swoop in from the Brooklyn Bridge toward the pier; the whole time, I'd be suspended underneath, swinging back and forth as I tried to get a bead on the pilot with the gun I was carrying. According to the script, the helicopter was packed with explosives and aiming at the pier...but just before it got there, I would appear to get off a shot that appeared to hit the pilot. The helicopter would start to wobble like it was going to crash...
...aaaaand cut.
Simple enough, no? All I had to do was hang on and shoot a pretend gun. I'd been in lots of more complicated stunts with more room for disaster.
So I sucked it up, determined to ride this puppy out. Remember the multimillion-dollar contract, remember the multimillion-dollar contract--that was my mantra.
The helicopter cruised toward the bridge, then looped around to face the pier. I swung in a gentle arc under it, buffeted by the downdraft from the rotor.
How far up were we? Three hundred feet, I guessed--higher than the Brooklyn Bridge towers, which I thought were two hundred and fifty. Fear-of-God high, let's say.
We hovered around the same point for what felt like a long moment. My hands sweated inside the gloves as I gripped the cable more tightly than ever.
Then, I heard the signal in my earpiece. "Fill your hand, Stag!" D.X. snapped the words over the radio. I knew he was watching me through his binoculars--one of the glints of light on the distant pier. "Thirty seconds, yo!"
I took a deep breath, steadied myself, and reached into the holster strapped across my chest. I drew out what looked like a perfectly ordinary Smith and Wesson revolver--in this case, a stunt gun loaded with blanks instead of .357 Magnum cartridges.
The helicopter drifted sideways as the seconds ticked away. Hanging there, in those lost beats of time, I took one last look at the view--Brooklyn sprawling to the left of me, the lower tip of Manhattan at my right...the East River flowing ahead of me, running down to the upper bay of New York Harbor. It looked so vast, so alive, so intricate...and yet so distant, so small. From my God's-eye view, suspended at a great height, it looked like a tabletop diorama spread before me, built by a lonely hobbyist to serve as his own little world. A place for him to project his hopes and dreams, to live vicariously in the million million secret nooks and crannies where an unfulfilled heart can dwell. It reminded me of another cold and distant world cobbled together to hold a lonely soul, a bitter, jaded bastard only fit to inhabit imaginary places.
It reminded me of my life, in other words. My career in film. My self. Because that's what I've gotten from twenty-two years in the movies--two Oscars and a portable fortress of solitude that follows me wherever I go. More money than I can count and less happiness than the scabbiest bum in that city out there.
That's what I was thinking as I hung there, waiting for the call. The next scene.
And then the clock ran out.
"Action!"
As the word came over my earpiece, the helicopter surged forward. I swung back on the cable as if I were riding a flying trapeze.
"Okay...okay..." D.X. was watching, timing my next cue. "Aaaand...gun up!"
Gripping the cable tightly with one hand, I raised the Smith and Wesson with the other. As the helicopter zoomed toward the pier, I aimed the barrel at the belly of the aircraft.
Clenching my jaw, I jerked the gun around as if I were fighting to get a bead. For the benefit of the distant cameras, I made the movements bigger than they had to be.
The helicopter charged ahead. We were coming up fast on the pier, on the end of the line.
"Stand by, Stag," D.X. said in my ear. "Just a few more seconds..."
I continued to jerk the gun, trying to aim at the pilot...but I couldn't get a clear line of sight from my angle below and behind the aircraft. Then, the helicopter lunged to one side, swinging me out wide, and I finally had it.
The shot. The gun-sight was lined up with the pilot's helmeted head.
At that exact second, you-know-who barked in my you-know-what. "Fire! Fire! Fire!"
I hesitated for a heartbeat, as if I could sense that this was the tipping point. As if I knew deep down that this would be the last normal second of my life.
And then my finger squeezed the trigger.
The sound of the blast roared in my ears. The recoil spun me around like a pinwheel in a tornado. As I spun, I saw the glass of the cockpit shatter, and the pilot's head buck forward in a blossom of red.
And I knew instantly, without the slightest doubt.
That gun was not firing blanks.
I spun like a stone on a string and pinched my eyes shut against the dizziness. Instantly dropping the gun, I clamped both hands on the cable.
D.X. dropped the F-bomb five times in a row in my earpiece. "Oh my God! What happened up there?"
But his voice didn't matter much to me. I was too busy hanging on as the helicopter lurched out of control. It pitched from side to side, then seemed to stabilize for an instant.
Just before it bolted hard left and plunged toward the water.
"He's going down!" said D.X., as if I needed the running commentary.
Snapping my eyes open, I saw the glittering surface of the East River spinning toward me as the helicopter spiraled out of the sky. It was coming up fast.
Things looked bad for me, but my mind still raced, straining for a plan.
"Get the rescue crew out there!" said D.X. "Hang on, Stag!"
I decided to do the opposite. Maybe I'd stand a better chance if I jumped clear instead of being pulled in with the wreckage.
Reaching under my shirt and into my pants, I released the wires from the safety harness. They sprang away from me like snipped piano wires.
So now only the single cable tethered me to the helicopter as it spiraled downward. And I had only seconds to leap free of the whole mess.
I whipped around on that cord like a tail behind the falling aircraft, waiting for the best moment to move. The lower the better, I thought; the lower I jumped, the less likely I'd be to pancake on the water's surface.
"Goodbye, Stag!" said D.X. "I'm sorry this happened!"
Just before the helicopter hit, I let go of the cable and tried to dive free. But I forgot something.
"Good luck!" said D.X. "Good luck on the other side!"
The stirrups clipped to my feet.
Instead of jumping free, I flipped forward, caught by the stirrups. Hanging upside-down, I saw the chopper break the river's surface below me.
The helicopter dove, but its momentum was cut by the splashdown. The cord leashed to it snapped me forward like a pebble in a slingshot, pitching me at the water.
Time seemed to slow down as I rocketed toward the roiling surface. The helicopter disappeared below, leaving only churning brown waves pierced by the cable.
Here it comes. That's what I thought. And then I thought of something else.
For the first time in years, I thought of my turning point, the night when I really started my climb to the top. The night when I left A.E. for dead.
"Remember," said D.X. "Go toward the light!"
And then the river parted around me, bitterly cold. And I plunged into darkness and silence.
And the breath I'd meant to hold for as long as I could rushed right out of me, and I was gone.
*****
What happens next? Find out in Heaven Bent, A Novel, now available for your favorite e-reading device!
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About the Author
Robert T. Jeschonek is an award-winning writer whose fiction, comics, essays, articles, and podcasts have been published around the world. His young adult urban fantasy novel, My Favorite Band Does Not Exist, was named one of Booklist’s Top Ten First Novels for Youth. Simon & Schuster, DAW/Penguin Books, and DC Comics have published his work. He won the grand prize in Pocket Books' nationwide Strange New Worlds contest and was nominated for the British Fantasy Award. Visit him online at www.thefictioneer.com. You can also find him on Facebook and follow him as @TheFictioneer on Twitter.
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E-books by Robert T. Jeschonek
Fantasy
6 Fantasy Stories
6 More Fantasy Stories
Blazing Bodices
Earthshaker – an urban fantasy novel
Girl Meets Mind Reader
Groupie Everlasting
Heaven Bent – a novel
Rose Head
The Genie's Secret
The Return of Alice
The Sword That Spoke
Erotica
Kiss of the Acolyte
Horror
Bloodliner – a novel
Diary of a Maggot
Dionysus Dying
Fear of Rain
Road Rage
Humor (Adults Only)
Dick by Law – a novel
Literary
6 Short Stories
Getting Higher – a novel
Mystery and Crime
6 Crime Stories
Crimes in the Key of Murder
Dancing With Murder (a cozy mystery novel)
The First Detect-Eve
The Foolproof Cure for Cancer
The Other Waiter
Who Unkilled Johnny Murder?
Poetry
Flight of Ideas
Science Fiction
6 Scifi Stories
6 More Scifi Stories
6 Scifi Stories Book 3
Beware the Black Battlenaut
Give The Hippo What He Wants
Lenin of the Stars
Messiah 2.0
My Cannibal Lover
Off The Face Of The Earth
One Awake In All The World
Playing Doctor
Resist the Red Battlenaut
Serial Killer vs. E-Merica
Something Borrowed, Something Doomed
Star Sex
Teacher of the Century
The Greatest Serial Killer in the Universe
The Love Quest of Smidgen the Snack Cake
The Shrooms of Benares
Universal Language – a novel
Superheroes
6 Superhero Stories
7 Comic Book Scripts
A Matter of Size (mature readers)
Forced Retirement (Forced Heroics Book 1)
Forced Betrayal (Forced Heroics Book 2)
Forced Partnership (Forced Heroics Book 3)
Heroes of Global Warming
Mr. Sandman: The Dream Lord Awakens - graphic novel script
The Masked Family – a novel
The Wife Who Never Was
Thrillers
Backtracker – a novel
Day 9 – a novel
The Trek It! Series
Trek This!
Trek Off!
Trek Fail!
Trek Script!
Trek Script 2
Trek Novel!
Trek You!
Trek It!
Young Readers
Dolphin Knight – a novel
Lump
Tommy Puke and the Boy with the Golden Barf
Tommy Puke and the World's Grossest Grown-Up
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Now on Sale from Robert T. Jeschonek
A Young Adult Fantasy Novel That Really Rocks!
One of Booklist's Top Ten First Novels for Youth
Being trapped in a book can be a nightmare—just ask Idea Deity. He’s convinced that he exists only in the pages of a novel written by a malevolent author . . . and that he will die in Chapter 64. Meanwhile, Reacher Mirage, lead singer of the secret rock band Youforia, can’t figure out who’s posting information about him and his band online that only he should know. Someone seems to be pulling the strings of both teens’ lives . . . and they’re not too happy about it. With Youforia about to be exposed in a national magazine and Chapter 64 bearing down like a speeding freight train, time is running out. Will Idea and Reacher be able to join forces and take control of their own lives before it’s too late?
School of Rock meets Alice in Wonderland in this fast-paced, completely unpredictable novel of alternate realities, time travel, and rock ‘n’ roll. If your favorite band does not exist . . . do you?
"Overall, My Favorite Band Does Not Exist is a wacky and enjoyable trip...full of intriguing, imaginative concepts that keep a reader hooked." –Thom Dunn, The Daily Genoshan
"This first novel has all the look of a cult fave: baffling to many, an anthem for a few, and unlike anything else out there." –Ian Chipman, Booklist Starred Review
"Chaos theory meets rock 'n' roll in adult author Jeschonek's ambitious, reality-bending YA debut." "...this proudly surreal piece of metafiction could develop a cult following..."–Publishers Weekly
"Reading this reminded me of authors like Terry Prachett and Neil Gaiman…" –BiblioJunkies
Now Available from Graphia Books!
Order today from your favorite bookseller.
*****
THE BEAR IN THE CABLE-KNIT SWEATER
Copyright © 2012 by Robert T. Jeschonek
www.thefictioneer.com
Cover Art Copyright © 2012 by Ben Baldwin
www.benbaldwin.co.uk
Published in November 2012 by Pie Press by arrangement with the author. All rights reserved by the author.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Design by Pie Press
Johnstown, Pennsylvania