by Daniel DeBrun

The sun was past its highpoint in the afternoon sky, and a cool breeze had started to pull towards the sun as sparrows flew by. Standing in the midst of a fenced in back yard that resembled an overgrown jungle, mosquitoes and no-see-ems were lurking in the shadows hunting their pray. The air was moist and kept a steady bead of sweat rolling. Each time the spade turned the soil in an effort to remove unwanted weeds and dead decay, roaches struggled to outrun the sunlight. In their final struggle, as they squiggled away, little brown lizards frenzied to reach their fortune – another belly-full. This was fascinating to the man and it pleased him to watch this massacre. Branches piled up in the yard acquired from a long morning of rigorous weeding and pruning, trimming and chopping, beautifying the landscape. About four feet long or more, a slithering black snake made way to safety moving too fast to react to. The speedy serpent was too fast to snatch. Leather gloves were worn thin, insufficiently providing protection, and blisters were rubbing through.

The woman was on the other side of the swimming pool, trimming, pulling weeds, and raking, to lively up the appearance of this beautiful tropical setting. Flowers were about, dead ones and alive. The woman was in the opposite corner of the fenced in back yard, helping, lending a generous hand. This was such an exciting and adventurous moment for them.
With his back turned, instantly, the most spine tingling, blood-boiling scream that had ever come across his ears, alarmed the man. The tragedy that this scream reflected had enough emotion in it to send shivers into the man’s spine and his heart shook, making him short of breath.

The man looked at the woman and then in the direction that her horrified gaze led, and that led to the moment he saw his child laying there. Laying there peaceful, with his eyes closed. Floating face up on the surface of the water in the middle of the swimming pool, the child had some white foam-like substance protruding from his nostrils and mouth. More screams followed. The man heard stories about when someone drowned, what the bodies looked like when pulled to safe ground. In real life, to him, it was a deeper shade of purple, a color that reminded him of a painful bruise. The man lifted the body from the swimming pool and the boy was a rag doll. “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!”

Not a breath of air remained in this lone child’s sole. Not even a pulse to give hope. More screams followed. Screams that were haunting the man and that made him nervous. “Call nine-one-one,” the man repeated as he kneeled; his son’s head held gently in his hand. The boy’s stomach was bloated and the skin stretched tight. It had been his last inhale.

The man quickly inserted two fingers into the young child’s throat to relieve the white foamy blockage that was preventing the boy’s airflow. He turned the lifeless boy on his side and encouraged the clearing of the boy’s air passage. The man quickly touched the boy’s swollen blue lips with a breath of air, and a prayer.

One, Two, Three… the man pumped the miniature ribcage hoping to spark the heart and wake his boy up from this nightmare. Sirens rang through the neighborhood and tears raced from the mothers eyes. “Please God, please God, please.” Connecting to the boy for the last time, the man shared the most precious breath he had ever exhaled; the boy screamed the most wonderful death defying battle cry that had ever come across his ears.

Daniel DeBrun is the current Web Master of the Elektraphrog web site. Daniel will graduate from State College of Florida with an A.A. and plans to transfer to one of the area’s art schools to pursue a degree in Web Design and Interactive Media. Daniel is father to the most amazing two boys on the planet, Austin and Aiden, and has almost been married for two years. He has been part of a “Three Time State Champion” wrestling team (placing third individually), spent three years working avionics on the B-1b Lancer, B-52 Bomber, and the B-2 Stealth bomber for the United States Air Force, and spent a few years working in casinos in Las Vegas as a Blackjack and Roulette dealer. Daniel has also done Hollywood extra work in a movie called “Race to Space” starring James Woods and Annabeth Gish, and recently took on the leading male role at Lemon Bay Playhouse in the stage performance, “Cheating Cheaters”. He currently works as a student assistant in the remedial reading and writing lab, and in the computer information systems lab for State College of Florida (Venice). Daniel is proud to be part of State College of Florida’s online literary arts magazine!

By Adam Gadomski

The sun began to set, sinking behind the edge of the known, and unknown, world. Darkness was ascending, coming out to play now that the light was tending to other matters.

The darkness had its own evil intentions, and I had mine.

I suppose that I should introduce myself. My name is Harlocke. Don’t bother looking me up; I change my name whenever I feel like it, and it’s always a different one. You’ve heard of me, no doubt. I’ve killed many people, done many unspeakable horrors. I’m the guy they blame every unsolved murder on. Their name for me is the “The Shaper”. I prefer Harlocke.

But I digress. We have much to do tonight, me and my unwilling friend. Yes, he’ll once again be joining me this night on one of my little–adventures.

Let’s see, where shall we do the wicked deed tonight? Night Club? I don’t feel like killing a drunken stripper-slut tonight. Maybe invade some one’s home? Or terrorize and torture some teens that are sneaking out at night? Hunting after human prey is sooo much more interesting–and unpredictable–than hunting animals. Animals are dumb, and oh-so-predictable.

What, does all of this make you uncomfortable? Why? You know, deep down inside of you, that you would simply love to have the freedom and courage to do these things, like me. Go ahead, admit it. No? Well, maybe after a few nights of this…

Well, you’ve watched me kill two teenagers who snuck out of their houses for a sweet, romantic rendezvous. You screamed at what I was doing to them? You disliked how I raped the girl after I crushed the boy’s skull with my boot? I suppose that I’m upset at that too; I now have to clean my boot. You are upset that the girl’s body is inside of a dumpster, contorted and dismembered almost beyond recognition? Why? Oh, your stupid morality. You have that still. Why? Why should I care about society? Whether or not it helps me isn’t the issue. If I can get away with it (and believe me, I always get away with it), then why should I worry? What does suppressing my desires for the sake of society, or “others”, do for me? Why should I benefit society unless it is also in my favor? I want to do what I want to do, so I do it. People get hurt, killed; why do I care? I owe them nothing, neither do you. Oh, now you’re crying. Sympathy for them? Let go of sympathy for anyone but yourself. It accomplishes nothing for you. Let’s try another…

I’ve killed a young man, trying to get home in time for–oh, what does it matter? He’s dead, and he never told me what he was running for. I used a serrated knife on him. I carved out his tongue, while still living. I think I may cut him up some more. A little insertion here, a little dismemberment there…

Oh, is something wrong? You’re yelling at me to stop? Why? What is so wrong with letting blood flow from dead veins? I already killed him; he’s safe from me now. What does it matter what I do to his carcass? He’s dead!

You really should have that moral compass thing checked. It hinders sooo much fun in life.

I’ve never felt as alive as I do when I take another’s life away. Have you ever read Dracula? The character Renfield, I believe he felt this way as well; although he merely killed animals and insects.

But, I once again digress. Let us move onward.

I killed a spider, but you don’t care. How interesting.

An old woman.

A police officer.

Two parents getting back from–again, what does it matter? They had three children with them too…

That will be my last kill for tonight; the police are coming now.

Well, I’ve tried tonight, with all of my strength, to convince you. You’ve weakened, but you’re still there. You’ve lost all hope in me, but I cannot lose you. No matter what I try, you are still there, begging me to stop. You won’t listen to reason, logic, anything. You insist that I follow you. What a stupid thing; I don’t even really believe you exist. Or, I at least didn’t. But…

No matter what I do, I cannot erase my conscience. I’ve–cried a few nights. I can’t believe the evil I’ve done. I blame everyone, and lash my hatred out at the world through my terror–and I am good at my terror. But the more I do it, the more that splinter known as my conscience prods at my mind. Oh, it gets weaker every time. But, that’s the problem. When it gets weaker, it annoys me more. The roar of disapproval is not what bothers me; it’s the whisper of shamed disappointment.

I’ve done all I can to thwart the menace that has killed my joy. No matter what I do–no, I cannot let it gain any ground. More killing. More rape. If I destroy enough of my soul (No! Souls do not exist!), I can relieve myself of this regret, and move forward to fulfill my lust for blood…

Who am I kidding? I hate this. Every emptied carcass, devoid of life, destroys my soul, my mind. I’m going insa–

No! We are having fun. Do you want to return to the life of a pathetic, no name cog in the wheel of society? We have a name! A reputation! A–

Yes! I would trade my freedom, my joy, everything in my existence, just to destroy the sorrow and regret from my heart–

You’re letting it win.

No, I’m letting you lose.

What did I ever do to wrong you?

What did your victims ever do to wrong you? Just think of yourself as my victim.

You need me! Where will you go without me?

To prison! Where a monster like me belongs!

Monsters don’t belong in cages. We need freedom to fulfill our potential.

May we never see the light of day

No!

Yes!

…

Sergeant Patterson stared at the audiotape. “Wow, that’s what he said?”

“Yes-sir, I think this, along with his official confession, is enough to convict him.” He smiled.

Patterson walked over to the padded cell. “Well, no, he’ll be declared insane, and put in a loony bin.” The Shaper was crying now, leaning his head against his knees. “That was some wild-eyed story, though. Just like that, 47 unsolved murders, all pretty much solved. We got our man. I wish that there was someone to thank for all of this.”

The officer shrugged. “I guess, maybe, his conscience?”

Adam Gadomski is a student at the State College of Florida.

by Daniel DeBrun

It was a huge wave-less waterbed that’s wood frame and headboard were made of mahogany. It had been finished with an almost black wood stain and a glossy polyurethane coating. Multiple blankets, none of them matching or correlating in any particular way, were keeping me warm and perfectly comfortable. Fifteen or so candles of various colors and sizes were meticulously placed on the waterbeds grand headboard and scattered about the bedroom giving off a radiant glow that would give anyone a sense of peacefulness and serenity. I had absolutely no clue how much this setting would influence me for many years to come.

I was brought up in a mediocre suburban city just outside of Chicago, Illinois called Batavia. The winters were almost like what you could considered a “frozen tundra”. A landscape of bare-naked trees that looked like death, and with the exception of an icy blanket of pure white snow every so often, the ground consisted of dead brown grass or tilled up remnants of cornfields. Summer was hot, sweaty and sticky. I thought of it as the shit hole, armpit of America. If it wasn’t for the cool crispness of autumn, with its broad array of earthy colorful leafs falling down, or springs amazing budding of new leafs and flowers, I surly thought I was being reared in Hell.

I had always been an extremely physical kid, a ruffian, somewhat of a tyrant, but only in a very competitive way. Any chance I could get I would be off into the neighborhood, involved with pickup football or blacktop basketball games. Hardly the type of person that one would have considered studious, I was more street smart then anything. I would have never picked up a book unless I was forced to, until a day that I can still so vividly remember, during a language arts class in sixth grade. “I have finished grading the papers, class.” Mrs. Mc Alpin said. “I’m quite pleased to say that mostly all of you have done very well.” She added. “But there is only one of you that received a 100% and that is, Daniel De Brun.” I was shocked. For the first time in my life, my name was called aloud in class for an academic praise, and not to subdue some random act of silliness. Mrs. Mc Alpin had asked me to stay after class that day. She told me that she would be entering me into a program that included about twelve academically gifted students from the entire population of the school. From this point on, I would leave my regularly scheduled class at the time, and join up with the gifted class every day for an hour.

After that year in school had passed, I possessed a new love of poetry and reading, but at the same time I, as I always had, lived with a lack of parental supervision. I literally watched and read anything that my heart desired. Influenced by my older friends in the neighborhood I rented the movie “The Doors”. I was mesmerized by Jim Morrison’s deep monotone voice. He didn’t even have to sing his lyrics.

Speaking with his poetic language, soft and slowly, would bring listeners into some sort of a daze. My friends had been correct. The movie and music from “The Doors” was like no other. Jim Morrison was a star among rock stars, in my own little mind.

Seventh grade literature class provided freedom to explore any poet that we wanted to. By that time, I had developed sort of a passion for, “The Doors”, and the lyrics that were in their music. Jim Morrison officially became my study icon. I loved the freedom, and inquired into a poetry book that incased hundreds of Jim Morrison’s poems. I have a poem in my head that I still to this day can recite:

“Let me tell you about Texas radio with a big beat. Let me tell you about heartache and the loss of god. Wandering, wandering in hopeless night. Soft driven slow and mad, like some new language. Reaching your head with a cold sudden furry of a divine messenger. Out here in the parameter, there are no stars. Out here we is stoned immaculate.”

I found myself in that “all too comfortable” position. Lying in my waterbed, with a small library of acquired biographies and books about Jim Morrison and “The Doors” stacked on the oversized Mirrored headboard. This is where I absorbed a lifestyle that resembled one of Jim Morrison’s. I couldn’t tell you if my decision to follow the path of a rock star into wild experiences was made consciously or subliminally. With ether regard, I surrounded myself with friends and acquaintances that also venerated venereal exploration, indulged in a vast array of psychedelic drugs, and regularly breathed marijuana. I had completely lost a connection with what had driven me to reading and poetry a few years earlier. If I had been influenced by a more responsible group of kids, or even took it upon myself to revere a more amenable subject, I probably wouldn’t be a thirty year old college freshmen as I write today.

Daniel DeBrun is the current Web Master of the Elektraphrog web site. Daniel will graduate from State College of Florida with an A.A. and plans to transfer to one of the area’s art schools to pursue a degree in Web Design and Interactive Media. Daniel is father to the most amazing two boys on the planet, Austin and Aiden, and has almost been married for two years. He has been part of a “Three Time State Champion” wrestling team (placing third individually), spent three years working avionics on the B-1b Lancer, B-52 Bomber, and the B-2 Stealth bomber for the United States Air Force, and spent a few years working in casinos in Las Vegas as a Blackjack and Roulette dealer. Daniel has also done Hollywood extra work in a movie called “Race to Space” starring James Woods and Annabeth Gish, and recently took on the leading male role at Lemon Bay Playhouse in the stage performance, “Cheating Cheaters”. He currently works as a student assistant in the remedial reading and writing lab, and in the computer information systems lab for State College of Florida (Venice). Daniel is proud to be part of State College of Florida’s online literary arts magazine!