The Morelli Bros. (Chapter I, Part VI)

Posted on March 13, 2015 by R. Richardsson

It was his sense of sound that returned first. Even before he felt it on his skin, the grass and leaves sighed as a warm breeze brushed past them. Somewhere in the distance, a bird chirruped playfully, calling out to whomever would listen to its song. What darkness had once surrounded him was gone, chased away by the natural light of the sun.

“How long was I out,” he wondered.

His body ached, bruised from the rubble that had battered him in the alley. Slowly, he pushed himself into a sitting position, balled his hands into fists, and ground them into his eyes as he attempted to chase away the cobwebs.

When he opened his eyes, the light stabbed into them like red-hot daggers. His vision was blurry, but what he could see was nothing short of confusing. A sea of green surrounded him, undulating softly to and fro in the wind. His head barely poked over the tips of the soft blades of grass, which he could now identify by its fresh smell, something he hadn’t experienced since he was a boy.

“Luigi!”

As his vision swam into focus, he could see that he was indeed in the middle of the richest pasture he had ever laid eyes upon. The grass was deep emerald, and as he rose to his feet, he discovered that it reached nearly to his waist. Though the ground around his immediate area was flat, he soon learned that he was between two lines of hills that sharply rose and fell to either side of him.

“Luigi,” he hollered again as a sinking feeling began to grow inside of him. The last thing he remembered, before being swallowed by the darkness, was the look in his brother’s eyes as he slipped away. It was the fear of a man who know he was going to die.

He turned, and what he saw next stopped him in his tracks. Suddenly, the desperation was pushed aside, the need to find his sibling, forgotten. For, before him was something that in all his years as a plumber, had never existed until this moment.

Mario Morelli, son of Rocco and a master of his trade in his own right, was staring into the five foot diameter opening of a green steel pipe. There was only a few feet in before it dropped off into the ground, but it was the sign over the opening that gave him more cause for concern. In bold letters, in a font he didn’t recognize, was a word he could easily read.

EARTH

“…unngh…”

He didn’t have long to ponder the implications, for behind him, something was shambling toward him.

Trespasser (Part XIII)

Posted on March 13, 2015 by R. Richardsson

From high above the first floor of the foundry, the whistle signaled the end of the shift. As he had done much earlier in the day, he cut the supply of gas to his torch before removing his face guard and setting it aside. Every muscle in his body screamed for relief. It had been seven hours since his last break, a break which was long overdue. The foreman, having found someone less competent at their job to bitch at, had forgotten to remind him of his extra time and he hadn’t the inclination to remind him.

Despite the interruption, he had still managed to meet his quota for both shifts, and then some. Even though his mind continued to return to the phone call, he had completed his work with experience that was backed by decades of expertise.

“What did Davie mean, there was a problem with Vanessa? If something was wrong, why didn’t Marsha just call him? And for that matter, just where in the hell was she while this, whatever it was, was going on?”

All were questions that would have to wait, at least for another hour. Before he could return to Bryer Street, a trip to the locker room, a brief shower and change of clothes, and an hour drive lay ahead of him.

“John,” a voice he recognized as that of the second shift foreman called out, “can I talk to you for a second?”

“Yes sir,” he answered with a sigh, and then under his breath; “…now what?”

“Hey listen. I know you’ve been here for eighteen hours already, but I’m gonna need you to make sure the tanks are full before you leave.”

“Can’t you have someone else do it,” he spouted off. “I don’t have much left in MY tank. Besides, my next shift starts in a few hours, and, I could use the rest.”

He looked down at the smaller, younger, man with tired contempt. He could tell, by the way he shifted from one foot to the other, that he was acting on the words of the man before him, following through on the promise that he had briefly entertained the idea of escaping.

“Oh fuck it already!”

John threw his hands in the air, resigning to the task before him, before shouldering his way past the very miserable messenger.

“I’ll fill your goddamn tanks! I’ll replace the goddamn rods. And then, after than, I’m going the fuck home. Now, do you have a problem with that,” he growled after suddenly spinning around.

“N-not at all,” the younger man sputtered. “I’m sorry John,” he offered miserably. “I really am.”

“Fuck you,” was the only response he felt fit to offer.

When he returned to his workstation, he placed both of his palms against his forehead and pulled his hands down over his face in exasperation. “If we’d only gotten into the Union, this shit would never have happened,” he muttered unhappily.

It was hard work, and at times he thought he wasn’t going to be able to finish the task, but an hour and a half later found him at the other end of a shower, pulling on the last of his outside clothes, and gathering his things together to leave. It wasn’t until he looked at his watch, which now read 2:01am, that he remembered his friend’s cryptic request.

“Shit,” he spat. He hoped that it was just an old man’s worry, that whatever the news was, was only a neighborly concern. He didn’t have the energy for anything else.

The Morelli Bros. (Chapter I, Part V)

Posted on February 23, 2015 by R. Richardsson

Time has a funny way of distorting for those who find themselves trapped in a disaster, suffering from a loss, or experiencing unbearable pain. Seconds stretch into minutes, minutes into hours, hours into days, and days into eternities untold. Survivors later recount every detail as if waking from a frozen world where they’d had time to record every minute bit of information available.

So it was for young Mario Morelli, the oldest of two brothers who, before this moment, had been nothing more than a couple of plumbers carrying on their family business. At the moment the brick crumbled from the corner of the building, he heard, more than felt, something bursting up from the concrete below him. He held onto a majority of the brick, still clutching to it for dear life, while the rest rained down on his face and flew around him into the darkness which had swallowed two before him.

He cringed as something ricocheted off of the ground and into the side of his face, tearing a long gash that begun just behind his right jawbone, crossed over his nose, and ended over his left eye. Seconds later, though he could only watch from behind the shroud of slow-motion now covering his senses, his arms pulled in to cover his newly wounded face.

The darkness reached hungrily for him, and a part of him even heard it sigh contentedly as it’s cold embrace wrapped around his legs while pulling him in. Like a beast of myth, the darkness swallowed Mario in one gulp.

To his relief, the darkness wasn’t as complete as it had looked from the outside. There was as much visibility as one would expect on a foggy night, near a large body of water. Though only a few feet were visible around him, he at least had the comfort of knowing that he would see what was coming in the end.

Through herculean effort, he managed to tuck himself into as ball, pulling his limbs as close to his body as possible, as he prepared for the blow that was sure to come. He could feel his body accelerating as it was drawn by the unseen force into whatever hell awaited him. The ground whipped by in a blur beneath him, and the darkness crept in. His gut told him that he was farther above the ground than when he had started, though now it was impossible to tell, except that he had just passed a window that could have been a few, or several, feet above ground.

“Mama mia,” he exclaimed in falsetto. His voice cracked near the end, and before he could even take in another breath, he was no longer in motion.

Debris floated in the air around him, as it, too, was halted as suddenly as he. As he drew a shaky breath, the ground below exploded as a large, green pipe extended-

“What-”

-several feet-

“…the-”

-into the-

“…f-”

air, and just as suddenly, sucked him, and the debris around him, into the darkness below.