The Confabulator Cafe

Author: slundberg

  • Maxwell Edison, Werewolf Hunter

    Maxwell paced the darkened student med lab, waiting for the DNA results. His prey was a pretty, quizzical biochem major named Joan. She was suspiciously fervid when it came to her studies. There was a good chance she was at the science lab after hours herself. He wasn’t sure what, exactly, she was studying, but he was pretty sure he knew what she was.

    The machine dinged and he checked the results. Bingo.

    Joan was a werewolf.

    He picked up his cell phone and gave her a call. He was actually a little shocked she answered, considering the time.

    “Hello, Joan? Max Edison. We have Advanced Biology with Professor Luna together?” He paused while she took a minute to place his name with his face.

    “Yes, of course. Hi. I’m glad you called.”

    He smiled a predatory smile. He’d spent half the semester manipulating her so that she’d give him her phone number. With his broody good looks and silvered tongue—so to speak—he’d finally won her over, despite her hesitations. He wasn’t one of them, after all, and they rarely dated outside of their pack.

    “How would you like to go see a movie with me sometime?”

    She giggled and agreed. They picked a day and time.

    “Excellent. I’ll pick you up Thursday at nine.” He pretended to jot down her address as she gave it to him. He already knew where she lived.

    He already knew everything he needed to know about her. (more…)

  • The Wrong John Dunham

    The ghost didn’t leave after the séance was over.

    That hadn’t ever happened to me before. Although I hadn’t ever had a real ghost show up to one of my fake séances in the first place.

    It started off as one of the fake séances Madame had me do for her shop’s off-the-street clientele. Madame Nneke—whom everyone just called Madame—was the owner and proprietor of Tarot Express, a hokey tourist trap that provided all the New Age stuff any neo-pagan could wish for. Madame pulled out all the stops for the tourists—lots of smoke and mirrors, knocking under the table, me pretending to be in a trance when I pretended to contact the dead. That’s what people expect when they walk into a shop like Tarot Express.

    Mr. and Mrs. Dunham had been no different.

    “Our son was killed overseas. We just want to know what his last thoughts were and let him know how proud of him we are for his service.”

    They presented the medal of valor that had been included with all of his personal effects.

    I made a show of contacting the dead and about jumped out of my skin when he actually showed up. I sat frozen, staring at him. Luckily, the family thought it was part of the act. Unluckily, I didn’t know how to proceed with him standing there, staring at me. (more…)

  • The Dragon’s Lost Library

    I met the dragon the summer after my fifth grade year.

    It was the start of summer vacation—a magical time for children. The days were full of possibility, and back then, the summers seemed endless. That summer, I planned on spending hours curled up on the bottom bunk bed, my fantasy posters surrounding me in a cocoon of magic, as I explored other worlds.

    The first day of vacation, I talked mom into dropping me off at my favorite used bookstore. I loved its musty old smell, the chaotic stacks of books, and the ferocious feline that stalked the aisles unless it was lounging in a pocket of sun. The place always felt tinged with magic (although that could have just been me). It was staffed by an eclectic mix of college students and retired librarians. The owner was a young, pretty blonde who always had a twinkle in her eye and a knack for finding the perfect book for every patron. I always half-expected that one day one of the clerks would hand me a copy of The Neverending Story, and my adventure would begin.

    That summer, she had begun collecting and selling art, which was how I found the dragon. Among abstracts, landscapes, and realistic-looking bowls of fruit, I found a handful of 8×10 fantasy prints. I wanted them all, but I could only afford one with my allowance money if I wanted to buy a new book. I spent several minutes waffling between the prints. The one I kept coming back to, though, was one of a red dragon in a cavernous hall, the far corners lost in shadows, surrounded by piles and piles of books, reading by candlelight.

    I felt drawn to this dragon and his hoard of books. This dragon was a creature I understood. I felt a powerful yearning to curl up next to him and borrow a book off of his stack.

    The shop owner laid a finger on the side of her nose and winked when I bought it. (more…)

  • The Last Christmas Tree

    Needle grew up like most trees. He started as a seed from a pine cone. He was raised in a greenhouse until he was big enough to survive outdoors, where he was planted in the ground.

    As Needle grew, he heard rustling amongst the other trees, who had been planted in neat rows alongside him, that they lived on what was called a Christmas Tree Farm. Silver, Needle’s sister at the end of the row, tried to point to a sign one windy day, where she swore there was neat lettering that said so.

    Needle didn’t know what a tree farm was, but he was happy. He got plenty of water, and humans came by and made sure to keep all of them pruned and healthy.

    Trees have no concept of time. Time is a human construct. All Needle knew was that he lived for a time in what humans might call contentedness.

    But as the weather turned from hot to cool, there was the horrifying sound of machinery and the wailing of trees in the distance. Rumor flew on the wind, and all the trees near Needle held their collective breath.

    But the danger seemed to pass, and life returned to normal. Snow, rain, pollination, and heat. Needle continued to be content, except for every now and then when the sound of horror came around again.

    The rest of the time, the trees didn’t think about it.

    Until the day they had no choice. (more…)

  • Find Me Tonight

    The boy watched the pink foil helium balloon hover listlessly in the moonlight. It was the last remnant from his sister’s birthday party earlier that day. During the party, it had been perky, dancing happily in the breeze. Now, enough helium had escaped that it had begun its inevitable slump toward the ground.

    It had been a lovely party. Full of sunlight and laughing, presents and cake, and kids running around in the grassy field playing ball. Or tag. The boy didn’t know.

    He had been distracted by something else.

    Behind the park shelter was an old railroad track choked with dense trees and bushes. He’d seen a glint, though. Something shiny was calling to him from the dark undergrowth. His mom and his aunt were too busy wrangling all of the other children to notice him, so he hopped off the bench and made his way over.

    When he got close enough, he heard laughter. He looked over his shoulder, to his sister and her friends chasing each other around the playground. Had one of the older kids slipped away? The boy wanted to play with the older kids rather than his sister and her friends, so he chased after the laughter in the trees.

    Once he ducked through the tree line, he immediately tripped and landed hard on the old metal tracks. Tears stung his eyes as he looked at his hands, scraped on the rotting railroad ties.

    “Get up, boy. Those scrapes won’t kill you.” (more…)

  • My Only Human

    Everybody has a death. When a person is born, one of us is born, too, and we stay close to them their whole lives, making sure they stay on the path to meet us in the end. It’s a little like having a guardian angel, I suppose. I like to look at it more as a love story. I am very anxious to meet my human.

    It will be soon.

    I watched her grow from the tiniest baby, to the most adorable toddler, to the sharpest little girl, to an ambitious teenager, then a driven young woman. She’s very successful in her career, although lately she seems lonely and has been trying to find love. She wants a little girl of her own. I can understand. I try to steer her away from those choices, though. I know how hard it is for humans when they have to leave loved ones. She will be with me soon—sooner than I think she’d like—and I wish her to spare the worry of someone missing her. (more…)

  • What Happened to the Goat

    Horace looked at his phone with a frown, flipping back through the last few messages.

    “Is that a goat? Who the hell steals a goat?” the recipient had sent.

    “Time is running out.” he had sent back, going for menacing to get whoever was on the receiving end’s ass in gear.

    “Sorry. Wrong number,” had finally come back, and then they must have blocked his number, because it had been thirty minutes and they hadn’t heard anything else from that number.

    “Well, that didn’t exactly go as planned.”

    “This here is a beautiful goat. How in the world does that person not wanna run out here and save her? Poor thing,” Jasper said, stroking the goat’s silky fur.

    Horace grimaced as the kid bit down hard on Jasper’s finger. He supposed they had it coming. They had kidnapped her, after all.

    “Maybe it really were a wrong number?” Horace mused. (more…)

  • The Wandering Library

    “If you don’t tell me where the library is, I’m gonna shoot you in the head.” Azalee cocked her shotgun and leveled it at the man’s face. Her stance was menacing, but her tone was bored. Of all the damn bounties, why had she been assigned a damn library? Road warriors were supposed to take down fleeing targets. The thrill was in the chase, after all. Libraries stood still. Could anything be more boring?

    The man stared up at her defiantly, though. “You’ll never find it. It’s lost, lost, lost.” He laughed, then—a manic sound.

    Azalee raised an eyebrow. “I know it’s lost, old man. Why you think I’m harassing you? Tell me where it is.” She was getting nowhere with this old crazy bastard, though. He wasn’t properly motivated. Surely there was a life other than his own he valued more.

    She fired the rifle into the ceiling. The old man flinched as dust powdered his face, but it was the squeak from the cupboard that Azalee had needed. She gave the man a wicked smile and turned the rifle on the cupboard.

    “No!” he yelled. “No, please! I don’t know, all right? Nobody knows where the library is. It’s lost. It’s been lost since the End of Days. I swear it!”

    “Come on, gramps. Gotta give me something to go on, here. Word on the road is you know a thing or two about it.”

    The old man darted a look to his hidden whoever and licked his lips. “I know a thing or two. But it’s not enough, ok? The library moves. It’s the only way to keep it safe. Keep it hidden. Any time anyone thinks they’ve tracked it down, it’s gone again. Moved on. It’s how it’s stayed lost for all these years.”

    The man blinked rapidly as Azalee lowered her rifle.

    “That a fact?”

    He nodded, arms raised before him as he nodded.

    “A wandering library. Interesting.” Perhaps this bounty wouldn’t be so boring after all.

    She popped the shell from the gun, catching it in midair. “You tell me what you know about where it’s been, ya? And you and your cupboard can live.” (more…)

  • The Tithe for Broken Dreams

    The witches brewed the cauldron of dreams only twice a year—once at each solstice. People came from all over the world to add their spit to the powerful potion in hopes that their dreams would come true by the next solstice.

    My wealthy father made the pilgrimage every time. He never shared with us what his dreams were, but clearly they never came true, since he kept going back.

    Or maybe they did, and that’s why we always went back? Because one wish was never enough? (more…)

  • Maybe While I’m Asleep

    Once upon a time, the story of Sleeping Beauty ruined my life.

    I get that the fairy was just trying to do a good thing, making the entire kingdom fall asleep while the princess was cursed so she wouldn’t have to wake up alone, but leave it to royalty to never consider the little guy. You think the scullery maid was pleased to find that a century had passed her by, while the stable boy she loved was out in the country on an errand when the spell came down? He was long dead by the time the spell was broken.

    Not to mention, when it became known that such a spell was possible, there was an explosion of copycats. Again, I’m sure some of those sprung from noble intentions. Maybe in some cases, it was for the best, and ended up fine for everyone.

    Not so much for me.

    The spell has been cast, and pretty soon, there will be no staying awake in this house. This isn’t going to end well for me. (more…)