Guest Appearance by Muse, Aurora(wt) excerpt

Posted on by Arthur Challenger

I sigh, and the couple starts. Their whispers cut off. One man speaks and gestures at the table. “I’m not hungry.” He gestures again.

“We should just have something to make them happy.” Jacob again with his logic.

“You know what would make me happy?”

“Blueberry cobbler and a steak?” He cracks a smile from that silly face of his.

“That’s not fair.” I scowl at him as my stomach grumbles. I go to the small table and sit on the only stool. I eat the fish and biscuits while Jacob smirks from his gorgeous face.

“Oh, look who’s smiling!”

One of the partners makes a movement and before I know it I have him gripped by the throat and three feet off the ground. His partner screams in shock and begins screaming.

The man held aloft is choking as an earbud dangles from him, the white chord disappearing into his pocket. I pluck the earbud from the screaming man and take his phone.

Jacob has phased into giant wolf form just in time to keep the couple screaming their heads off. I smear off the earwax from the earbuds and slide them into my brain. I scan the library with rapid eye and hand movements, the phone fairly chugs as it races to keep up with my speedy reflexes.

Jacob is growling down at the couple and they are doing their level best to disappear through the cracks of their cabin. They begin clawing the walls and breaking off their fingernails against the sealant and kitschy decorations. A bear trap is struck with a palm. Palm only as the teeth slam shut and slice the man’s hand off at the wrist.

I find a song and press play. The sound shakes my bones. Blood fills the air and the screams threaten to drown out the sweet release I’ve found in these tiny speakers. I pass Jacob a mental note.

The music crushes my soul and I see again that which stalks me.

I was searching
You were on a mission
Then our hearts combined like
A neutron star collision

Aurora(wt) Excerpt 2

Posted on by Arthur Challenger

Every time I look into his eyes, I feel that moment, I die at that moment, the moment I was born, and he imprinted on me. At that moment, even unto forever I became for him the most important thing in his life.

I’m prepared as I turn to him, to meet his eyes again, to share a thought space. At least, I thought I was.

The warmth I feel is unusual, like the slow wet sleeve of an old sweater sliding up my neck and soaking my face with damp musk. When I lick my lips, I can taste a fuzzy cheerio. Each jewelled dram of thought plunges dry cells across blister tires. Coughing through the model coats my beams split a grist and chime mouse pads.

I ease into this new feeling and spread my mind. Jacob is there lapping up every bit of knowledge, the vision, the coyote, my heart hammered and pummelled by logs. Hammered and pummelled. In the bright desk, bleachers grin at cascades, but I gape on all fours. Trespassing with a rancid soliloquy that punishes falcon knuckles almost breaks me.

Then an ebb, a melancholy elbow wedges itself shallow. Door stoppers elicit the last fidget spinner from my daisy and I crinkle.

Aurora(wt) excerpt

Posted on by Arthur Challenger

I bend my head over Jacob’s back and bury my tear-streaked face into his warm fur. The reek of deer blood and his strong musk hits my heart like a logging truck. As each log rolls uncontrollably onto the highway I feel my heart smashed and rolled. I can see it in the moon-drenched streets, my heart sobbing as tree corpses bounce and collide around it. The driver of the truck swears at the coyote as he wrenches hard on the steering wheel to avoid the mangy creature.

The beast looks back, and through the jumble of logs, we make eye contact. I drift here for a thousand years, caught in this hormonal nimbus. I hold my position, straighten my posture like I’ve seen my mother do: stern brown, slightly protruding lower lip, and vacant eyes.

A warm sock envelops my vision and I hear a familiar voice, “Hey, Renesmee!” I swivel my head trying to locate the voice. The road beneath me juts and tosses. The log truck is swallowed by a sudden crevasse and the coyote is nowhere to be seen. “Renesmee!”

The voice is urgent, but I can’t find it. “Jacob!” I shout I scream, I bleed, I gnash. I release a desperate howl and claw the air as a log tumbles into my heart face.

Our fires are low and seldom burn for long. “You know, you don’t have to like, have one every night.”

“I don’t light them every night.” He coughs out the words as he tends the fire with a long stick. Dark shadows play across the surface of his corded and toned back. His shoulders or knotted and I can tell from his movements he is stiff from the day’s run. “I light them when we need them.”

“Won’t they give our position away? Our trail?” I twirl my hair and listen to the forest creatures fleeing from our small fire. My stomach growls.

Jacob finishes tending the fire and squats next to me. He’s been doing this a lot recently. I keep my eyes focused on the flame but the hairs on my arms and neck begin to tingle and rise. Something inside me is clawing to get at him, to consume him, to make him mine, to own, to tame, to claim, to fillet the wolf and rend the man. To skin his dreams and melt into his solid presence.