The Fish Crosses Stories

So here's my attempt to continue the story crossing over the blogs. I throw my foot at fiction and hope you like it or hate it or at least read it :). Be brutal - it's been a while since I've worked on a story and I'm not sure, but I think this is one of the more unusual exercises I've ever seen. The story crossing was dremt up by the lovely Lucretia, continued by the talented forgottenmachine, followed by the imaginative Suzanna Danna and the ever creative Anne. This section is designed to follow Fense's descriptive addition and Gatsby has also added a part. You can read the whole story at Story-Crossing.


Brian Cane watched the car speed away, tires squealing and grinned. Soon the case would come to a head; soon it would be his time. He watched the woman—the sweet apple of his eye, his target, with that look of cruelty and the attitude of distain in her stance—adjust the moot perfection of her looks, finish her smoke and go back inside the club. He ached for her, as he ached for all his targets, but this one pulled at him more than any of the others, and he wanted to know why.

Brian Cane was one of the new breed of bounty hunters. For centuries the title “bounty hunter” had graced many heads, changing in definition as the time demanded, yes, but always meaning killer-for-hire, no matter what language you spoke. The only language Brian understood was money: he heard in money and spoke in blood. Some of the citizens referred to his kind as “Blade Runners”, an allusion to some movie or other Brian only vaguely remembered as a kid and from what he remembered, he didn’t mind the name. Now was the perfect time to be a killer-for-hire.

Since the advent of R.E.S.C.O.R. and the announcement of their revolutionary technique, Brian Cane had sat on the edge of his seat, awaiting the inevitable. In his head, the world was full of zombie flicks and now, heavens be praised, those fools who called themselves scientists had brought zombies into the real world, big as life and twice as colorful. He knew there’d be problems—dying changed people. Society wasn’t prepared for an influx of people who knew what it was like to die, of people knowing that death wasn’t the end any more. Religious groups were up-in-arms over the scientific and therefore sacrilegious resurrections and the courts didn’t know what rights to award the growing minority of “people” who were essentially the property of R.E.C.O.R.

Oh yes, there would be problems, and then, there would be him.

* * *

He felt sober. He felt scared.

Mike could feel his sobriety, a sharp white feeling lodged in the center of his brain. The car hummed and shook at the speed he forced it to go. That Bitch, he thought, and then liking the taste of the thought he said it out loud: “That Bitch.”

Ever since her reincarnation, for that was what it was—not a resurrection. Sure she looked and sounded like his wife but that was not her. The woman he had lived with and loved was dead and he just had come to grips with that.

“My wife is dead,” he said to the universe in general and his voice sounded shaky, unsure like he was fighting back tears, like he didn’t want to and couldn’t believe it. So he tried again. “My wife is dead!”

This time the words came out the way he wanted them to, like the way he wanted to face her: sure, steady and above all, in control of himself. But he wasn’t in control, not of anything. Damn R.E.S.C.O.R. and their need to defy death, life and God. Damn them for what they did to her, to him. If she was gone, dead and buried, then he could move on with his life, move onto mourning and get out of this slump he was in. If she was gone…

Mike shook his head to clear it. The anger was leaving him, draining away and all the alcohol he had downed at the club was coming back to him, a red mist threatening to totally overthrow his composure. He tried to disgorge thoughts of Kira, to focus on where he was going and what he had to do. But he didn’t care where he was going. It was enough that he was going away from her.

That bitch masquerading in his beloved wife’s visage, pretending that they still had a connection. It was fine for him to think these thoughts when she was not around, but the constant reminder of her presence, when she sought him out to torment him, did nothing but make him feel guilty. Guilty for letting her die, for not seeing the signs before, for not loving her anymore. What could he do? Every time he saw her, his heart thumped and for a minute wanted to throw his arms around her and—but then he’d see that look in those lovely eyes. The look that told him this wasn’t Kira, not his Kira anyways. That look hungered for his pain for the world’s pain, said the world owed her something and that she was going to take it, one way or another. A stranger parading as his dead wife—a zombie. Damn R.E.S.C.O.R.. Mike reached over, opened his glove compartment and took out the small bottle of whiskey he hid there for emergencies. He took a swig.

If she was gone, dead and buried, he could move on with his life…