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She pushes me down by the shoulders and kisses my chest, pulling my tunic farther apart and unbuckling my pants.

            Amm sits upright and pulls her shirt off over her head and then presses her breasts against me.

            She’s more feral when she turns to pleasing herself.

            When I fall asleep it’s filled with baseless thoughts I will never remember and she snores softly, her flesh bare and pale blue in the moonlight.

..9.45a.m.

            Her features are softer in the day, her skin a soft bronze and the muscles of her stomach twitch every so often as she breathes. The beautiful arch of her nose is pressed against a pillow and she lays on her stomach, her left leg, which is jackknifed beside her, and the rest of her left side is naked to me as I warm tea at the stove I keep burning low because of the already natural heat of the day.

            I sit and write the passage you see now on a small wooden table polished to a generic shine, I couldn’t even come close to naming the grain of the wood.  The sunlight makes her hair a healthy gold and it ripples like water when she yawns and stretches in bed.

            Amm raises and sits with her legs folded beneath her, the sheet folded forgotten around her ass. She moves with subconscious grace and her nudity is an afterthought but she looks at me mid-yawn and smiles, her hands in fists above her head.

            Her head cocked to one side and her teeth flashing white my vision tilts and skews, doubles and reels and in my unusual vertigo her 3a.m. counterpart overlays her daytime persona then the sunlight catches my eye.  When I look back to her she is the beautiful, naked daytime Amm, her eye brows furrowed in concern.

            “Hey,” she says simply, stepping off the bed and sidling to me. “You okay?  Were you injured last night?”

            I wonder for the thousandth time how much she remembers of the night life and the jobs we pull but we never talk about the death and violence of the darker hours.  The time I tried, the haunted look in her eyes was enough to make me regret the words.

            “Yeah, no, the sun got in my eyes for a second, that’s all.” For her own good I’ve learned to lie to her.  I shrug and put my arm around her, squeezing her hip in my hand and rest my head on her stomach.  I feel the urge to hide my writing but she has never looked at my writing nor do I believe she feels the urge to break confidence now.

            Her hands feel so good combing through what little hair I haven’t shaved off.  “Can we go to Freeman’s today?” The market, somehow I would rather face the brutal gangs of the night life than go shopping but I nod my head and kiss her firm stomach and move my hands down around her legs and pull her to straddle me over my lap.

            She kisses me and her hands run over my head again but her touch contains a hint of lust and possession that her night time persona always lacks.  Amm thrusts her hips against me and I fight my pants down with her cooing into my ear and her nipples hard, rubbing my chest through my shirt.

            Reaching down she takes me in her hand and…

..11.17a.m.

            There’s a dead bird marring the perfect horticulture median in the center of the Freeman market.  It’s some sort of red bird, like a cardinal but the black stripes over its back make it unrecognizable to me in my ignorance.  I look away and scan the closest merchant stalls finding Amm happily talking to a lady who weaves beads into paintings. Somehow I know one of these awful works of art is going to end up on my wall.

            She winks at me slyly as she ends her conversation with the bead lady and visits the neighboring stall to look at gracefully plain silver and gold rings that I can barely see in their displays at this distance.  Two younger girls cut off my view as they step up to view the same wares and I look through the crowd, enjoying the odd peace of the crowd.

            It may sound odd but in my work crowds tend to be filled with brass knuckles and snarled words – but these are day time citizens.

            I was deciding to join Amm to see what she found so interesting about these stalls though I knew it had to be something ingrained in a woman when the hair on my neck stood on end and I thought I could feel the air rushing past me.

            Colors blend and blur and I turn to find the jewelry stand leaning haphazardly toward the next stall over.  Amm stands, her hair held in a breeze that I don’t feel and one of the young girls that had recently joined her in shopping is pinned her Amm’s athletic body.

            The young girl struggles to no avail and my entire body goes cold because I’m looking at Amm’s back and the tips of her hair have suddenly gone a liquid, creeping black that has already begun the climb to her head.

            I gulp down a painful mouthful of bile and sprint for the jeweler’s stall but Amm speaks and her words are terror embodied and she raises her hand like a scythe above the young girl.

            I can hear my heartbeat and in my ears and my lips are dry, my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth.

            And time seems to stand still…..

3a.m. had come and now the seconds were falling closer to one minute after.  I knew from the reports that there were at least four dozen men inside the building. I also knew that Amm was warming up because one of those men was screaming incoherently. A solid thump on the outside wall opposite us was followed by a brick dust as something pounded on it from the inside.

            The 20 had all drawn weapon now and merely waited.

            At the metal door I could hear muffled shouts and then the door, surely a solid four inches of iron, bowed outward like a sheet of tin and held for mere seconds before exploding into the alley.  Amm rode atop the door with the bloody leavings of what I guessed to be the man with the muscled arms.

            A gang of men swarmed after in a shower of sparks and shouts brandishing weapons of all make and size. 

            Amm, a beautiful girl at any time, stood when the door skid to a stop – she was covered in blood and gore and bits of rock and she stood like a goddess of death. In the light of day and in the first dim shine of twilight Amm stood only a head under myself at six feet with a blond and brown mixed hair and smiling brown eyes. She was athletic, even well muscled for that, and fairly curvaceous and never wanted for suitors in the least.

            At 3a.m., on any night, and when she stood feral before a pack of men, each of whom was easily twice her weight and size, she was transformed. Her hair was still a sandy brown and blond mix but the edges had taken on a black stain and it crept up the follicles at a snails pace.  And the eyes, her eyes so happily brown at any other time sparkled with firelight that was not there and shone with an eerie light as if consuming darkness.

            Even from above and even after two years of this experience I was frightened of the creature which Amm had become. The 20 closed on the scene to apprehend the hoodlums and low men, acting swiftly not in fear of escape but for the safety of our bounty.  Amm was what the Warden’s on the Block called a ‘loose cannon’ and could turn a bad situation into a blood bath.

            Flanders left my side and fell from the edge of the building catching a pinion we had placed there when we climbed up and he was lost in the fray.  I watch on as the 20 work with deliberate efficiency and nearly all the hoodlums are unconscious or restrained now.

            Then, as things often do in this line of work, the plan goes awry as more men spill out of the building and enter combat with the 20. I lean on the edge of the building, calling out signals to the 20 in the alley when things go from bad to disastrous as four of the gang members corner Amm.

            I scream to any member I think can get to her but all are involved with struggles of their own and one of the hoodlums takes a swing at Amm with a dice club, knife blades and nails sticking out from it’s head.  I leap down from the building myself, using the same pinion as Flanders had and run for Amm but I knew from the moment the men closed on her that they were dead.

            The man with the club misses by a long shot because Amm was now beside him and she reaches up almost lazily as if about to caress his jaw line and her shadowed face twists in rage. Amm grips the man’s jaw and removes it leaving a gaping hole of tissue and blood and the man falls with a low guttural slurping shriek.

            Braver than I would be, the remaining three men close on her.

            One wields a knife and immediately goes for a gut shot but finds himself biting down on his own knife in a gush of blood pitiful murmurs.  A wooden club whistles over Amm’s head and she pivots to one side and kicks high and wide, catching the man with the club on the ear, bowing him over. His remaining partner, also bearing a knife, stabs down and into his head and the wooden club falls heavily to the ground.

            The last man stands confused as his knife lodges in his friend’s skull and tries to free his weapon.

            I’m almost to Amm now and hoping to save the man’s life by knocking him the hell out but she’s on his back already, pulling his head to the side and exposing his neck. I can almost see the pulsing vein near his shoulder and then Amm bites into it, tearing away the skin and flesh.

            The man screams and pushes away from her and falls beside his friends clutching at his neck as if he could stop a flow of blood that great.  I shake my head and run to a stop mere feet away from the small massacre.  Around me the 20 are bringing things to a close and Amm turns her strangely pale face to me in the dark of the alley and gives me a half smile covered in blood that raises a bile in my throat.

            She fondles the palm of my hand with the tips of her fingers and presses her body against my left side and I feel the inhuman warmth that comes to her at 3a.m. Amm purrs in my ear and paws playfully at my shirt with the same hand that tore a man’s jaw from his face only minutes ago. Some sadistic side of my subconscious lust rises to her lack of indecency but I quell it as I look beyond the carnage to the gang thugs and hoodlums we captured alive.  It wasn’t a bad night, all things said.

            Feeling ignored Amm slips her fingers into the top of my trousers and massages the length of my groin.  Amm became my lover during the daytime hours over a year past and I failed at that time to realize how much of her personality carried into her night time transformation.  So I became the lover of a woman who was two very different women, and the night time woman did only one of two things with any enjoyment:

            Kill and fuck.

            And if she has recently killed there is only one thing Amm really wants to do – fuck.

            I look at her and know I have to pay her some tribute of gratitude and admiration for her contribution to the night’s work.  I brace myself for the taste and kiss her bloodied lips and feel her tongue tasting of salt and raw flesh flick into my mouth.  Even in my disgust she triggers erotic flashes and lust and I pull away, trying to focus again on the job.

            The 20 are gathering the captured hoodlums and Flanders dispatches Mannick to bring in the pokey so we can collect bounty on our live heads.  Amongst the blood, death, sweat, and the carrion eaters I am sure circle already; the night is good.

            I swallow the sweat and blood from my kiss with Amm and shudder with the effort it takes not to lose the nights dinner. Amm stands at my side fondling and caressing me to get my attention but I refuse to look at her for the moment and respond to the cough Flanders uses to interrupt my thoughts.

            “Speak, Flanders.”

            “The inside is a blood bath. I’m not sure how many we lost yet, there are some… body parts we haven’t connected with bodies yet. It’s bad inside. The problems in the alley were mild by comparison,” Flanders finished, but I watched him fidget with the hem of his tunic.

            “What’s your issue, Flanders?”

            “Sir, with your permission I will speak with you later.”

            “Sir? Yeah, Flanders, we’ll talk later.  Get your ass in gear, gather all the valuable weapons and get the 20 in whatever parade rest dress down you can manage out of them. Ferns and the police will be here shortly.”

            Flanders grunts and says with a sneer, “Pokey.”

            I speak through my gritting teeth to my second in command, “Stow your flak, Flanders and move your ass.”

            Almost as if I’d summoned him by speaking his name Ferns appears at the mouth of the alley with his cadre of shtick savvy, round bodied policemen. They stroll in casually, stepping heavy footed around the hoods lying on their stomachs, hog tied.  Ferns is a contrast with his flesh force, skinny as a rail in the middle of mounds fat and mouth breathing. Even so, I always get the feeling of un-health more so from Ferns than from his round policemen.

            “Flossen,” Ferns drawls, peering down his hawkish nose.

            “Ferns,” I say, forcing myself to unclench my jaws, “right on time as usual. Were you crouching behind the dumpsters?”

            He chuckles softly, nodding his spindly head, “No no, Flossen. Unlike most of the raff around here lately, I try my best to stay away from trash.”

            I tighten my embrace on Amm as she stiffens and leans away from me. No matter how distracted Amm may appear, and until that point she had been busily nibbling at my neck, she never misses or forgets anything.

            And there were no happy mediums with Amm, she would kill Ferns and every one of his police rather than speak with them or trade veiled insults. She had no disdain, no anger, and no empathy; not after 3a.m. – she knew threat and affection.

            “Just get to it Ferns before things get out of hand, I’d hate for you and your men to have to leave while we settled everything down again.”

            Ferns presses his lips into a thin line and motions for his men to gather the bound hoods and get them to the wagons in the street without taking his eyes from me. Amm is nearly snarling at my side and he breaks his stare to look at her like he was viewing a rabid dog on a leash.

            I am done for the night with Ferns no longer looking for the ill banter we share almost nightly.  Hugging Amm to me I walk down the alley away from the street and into the darkness. Amm is still glancing back at Ferns, tempted to break from me and destroy him so I slip my fingers into her pants to my knuckle and squeeze her ass.

            Her tongue flicks out over her rich red lips made even more brilliant by the dark blood still wet on her mouth.

            Before we slip out of the lamplight and out of the alley Shank looks up at me where she sits on a large hoodlum crying against the pavement. It looks as if she ended up breaking most of the teeth in his mouth to pacify him.

            “Shank, let Flanders know we bugged out and flew home. The 20 have R&R for two nights, pay granted.”

            Shank whoops and starts for the rest of the 20 to spread the news gliding between the tied gang members like a swift breeze.

..3.17a.m.

The 20 were only hired at night when the quiet and honest slept and the twisted and vile walked the streets.  The 20 weren’t hired by the twisted and vile, no, quite the contrary, they were hired by the bright peoples of the day to police or bounty hunt the creepers of the night.

            It was also not because the 20 weren’t effective and efficient during the day that they were specifically hired for the unwholesome night contracts. It was because of three a.m. that the 20 remained in the twilight hours dealing with the twisted and vile when the lawful citizens lay abed.

            The 20 called her Amm but her mother laid the name Ante Meridiem on her birthing papers and so her name remained after twenty three summers. Amm was held inside the 20 like a hand in a glove shrunken by the spring rains. She was wild and angry and forever trying to prove to the streets and her friends that she was beyond fear.

            But it was her fear that brought this on – and the fear was born again every night at three a.m.

            And it’s at three a.m. that we fall upon this story, when Amm’s fear and curses limn the street with a palpable tension.

            So look down now, look down now from your perch, upon Amm and what is bourn of fear.

..2.54a.m.

Time, Flanders?”

            Flanders looks up at me, the urine street lamp light illuminating his shaved head, forehead and his glittering brown eyes.  Flanders truly loves this part, when the plan comes to fruition, whether or not it works the way it was written or is completely improvised.

            He, Flanders that is, nods to me and looks at his pocket watch that he winds every night at eight thirty when the street movement begins.

            “Two fifty five, Boss.”

            That’s me, Boss.  The 20 stopped calling me Hank after the first three contracts and at first it felt like a mocking admonition but I quickly learned otherwise and now I answer quicker to Boss than Hank.

            But the time has come and Amm is on the street below us, her frontal features smothered in darkness with the lamplight at her back casting a shadow into the alley. Flander and I watch from our dark perch, stashed behind crates on the roof of a neighboring building. Seventeen other people are hidden and waiting close at hand and each knew the plan better than they knew their mother and each one was fully capable of acting on the fly when the plan fell apart.

            And it always falls apart.

            Flanders raises his right hand so that the multi-hued bricks of the building across from us distinguish his hand by contrast, his fingers spread wide like an awkward star – then deliberately folds one finger out of sight.  Four minutes till three a.m.

            Amm, below us, weaves drunkenly in the alley and comes to a leaning rest against the metal alley door of the multi-hued building.  On the roof I hadn’t heard the scratch of her boots against cobble that must surely have accompanied her walk in the alley and certainly hadn’t heard the soft metallic tone when Amm leaned into the door, but she must have made enough noise for the occupants.

            Because as Flanders folded another finger (three minutes till 3a.m.) a man with a bald head and arms that seemed too muscled for the rest of his body opened the door so quickly he ended up catching Amm as she fell inward.  I could tell Amm was nerveless, sagging in the man’s arms as if a rag doll.

            The man recovered fairly fast, turning his head as if looking at someone and shouting while pulling Amm out of the alley.  Even in this soft breeze his words became only a muted droning called into the room behind him and the man and Amm were soon only patches of shadow thrown across the alley floor and then nothing when the door closed and all was calm again.

            Another finger folded, two minutes till 3a.m.

            Like shadows themselves the rest of the 20 closed on the alley like the fingers of Flanders hand folding with each passing minute.  From my rooftop perch I could see all seventeen take their places strategically placed by each of the alley mouths.

            At this point I always get a metallic taste in my mouth as if I’ve just bitten my tongue and blood is mingling with my spit but it’s not so, it’s simply the anticipation of action. I can taste it, the excitement and the threat of harm.

            Flanders folds another finger, one minute till 3a.m.  He drops his hand to the hilt of his preferred weapon, what we call a hard hatchet.  Unconsciously Flanders pulls the hatchet an inch from its sheath, testing the freedom of movement.

            Now, like every night at 3a.m. as it has been for two years or more, since the first night at the time the 20 were forged, silence falls like a blanket on the entire city block as the seconds tick past on the wound time clock in Flanders pocket.  I’ve asked the nineteen others about those last few seconds before 3.a.m and none of them admit to feeling and hearing the same things I have taken note of over the last two years as the 20 became a prominent entity in the night time activities of the city.

            Seconds before 3a.m. the same things happen each night: the hair on the back of my neck stand on end and goose bumps raise on my flesh and the air seems to vacuum out of the sky and whistle through the eaves and flues of the buildings and houses, it’s like the coming of a tornado from the tales of the northern counties. And just as those tales relate, destruction follows in the wake of the dark winds.

So my hang up with this story is that I was adapting it from something I had previously written but I found that in rewriting I was losing the lackadaisical fairy tale quality it originally had in exchange for description and normal story procedure…  and it seemed boring to me. So I think I’m going to scrap it and work on the original and just post that up.

Ahoy, another nautical expression!

2024 AFTER CHRIST

SCREENFEED ABCmillenium:

Narrator: Welcome all to the new age American family, deep in their morning habits. Live, from the Rome Dome, “Real Living”.

Loud applause from live audience.

Mother enters kitchen followed by gleeful children skipping to their chairs to eat “Rave Puffs,” new and amazingly un-addictive!

Boy: Mom, today at school we get to build our own ballistae!

Mother: That’s lovely son, at my age all we did was take Family Environment.

Girl: Yeah, but Billy is so stupid he’ll blow his hand off. Laughs.

Boy: I will not, I will not!

Mother: Hush children. Angelina, zip me up please. Thank you.

Finishing breakfast, mother and children exit kitchen, leaving hummer-bots to clean their litter. Exiting the house, the mother and children hug.

Mother: The two of you have a nice day at school today, and Billy, be careful with your trinitrotoluene.

Kids in chorus: You too, mom, don’t work too hard. Laughs.

Mother: I promise not to. Oh, and kids, don’t forget to take your acid tabs at lunch.

Cut for commercial announcements.

Narrator: Today’s “Real Living” brought to you today by the new and improved Acidity. Yes, kids, you heard it. It’s fun to take a trip, put acid in your veins!

Listening to your heart slow down while you’re trying to go to sleep is like a lullaby and metaphorically,  you’re the baby in the cradle.

Listening to your heart slow down while you’re forcing your eyes open in the darkening cab of your car as gas leaks onto the pavement and you’re staring at the crushed remnants of the vehicle that destroyed the daylight is also like a lullaby and metaphorically, it’s for you whom the bell tolls.

Like a mime I can lay my hands to the air and feel solid flesh, fingertips and memory, I can’t forget the curves of your body.

A sensual bond where only a soft breeze caresses my skin and raises goose bumps along the insides of my arms and when I feel a bit naughty…

But I curl and no one is there and I feel the almost silken fabric slip along my bare skin and the bed envelopes me before I sleep - it’s a sin to live so well.

In front of the soldiers travelled a white gilded carriage on angled wheels drawn by large black horses of burden layered in gaudy mantles of white with golden filigree. The driver held the reins of the drawn carriage but looked very near sleep as he swayed back and forth in the leather seat. Soldiers on horses traveled to either side of the carriage but the horses were undecorated and very much not horses of burden; the beasts looked impatient and ill-tempered.

As the small army verged upon the village green the carriage and entourage rolled to a stop and the foot soldiers came to a halt behind it. Lou the Louse elbowed and shouldered his way through the outer ring of towns men to stand before the gathered soldiers as the unofficial village mayor. Lou was a jealous, abusive and tyrannical husband and father but also possessive and standing before the gathered army it was unsaid but officially stated that he would die before he gave up his village.

But even in the moment of his saving grace, Lou sneered when he noticed Harm standing at his right arm with scythe in hand.

Kramer.. please, where did you go wrong?

How you used to set upon us the giggles sliding through the door.

Your hair a wild array of standing comedy and the nemesis down the hall.

But where did you go wrong?

Looking through the glass… don’t know how much time has passed.