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xf_book_clubThis week's story, nominated by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bravenewcentury, is "Strangers and the Strange Dead" by Kipler. In the 2000 Spooky Awards, it tied with "Aquinnah" by Anjou for first place for best mid-length story. I suspect it would make many writers' top ten lists, as it is technically brilliant, memorable, and original.
Summary: In which dead bodies and shivering people disturb the hilltown of Bradenton, and our young, orphaned narrator serves hot beverages to the investigating agents even as she ponders the peculiar, elusive nature of their relationship.
I was in the coffee shop, late afternoon, mid-January. I liked to work the afternoon shift, from 11 to 4:30, because no one came for a bagel or a sandwich at 4:00; the most I had to do was brew another pot of decaf, refresh the cream in the creamer. That gave me time to sit in the big booth and write. I was working to save money to start at college the next fall. Technically I was too old to be a freshman - 21 - but it was time for me to get out of town. So, I sat alone in the coffee shop with my books and my paper when the door opened and the bell went off to alert me. A man stood there in the slanting light. I couldn't really see him but heard his voice: "I need some food."
I got up and moved behind the counter.
"We close in a half-hour," I said. "There's not much left. A couple muffins and some beef barley."
"Soup?" the man asked, and I looked at him then because his voice shook and his teeth chattered as he finished speaking. He was slight, swallowed by the jacket he wore. His lined face was dirty or bruised - I couldn't tell which - and his right coat sleeve was torn from elbow to cuff. At first I thought he was drunk but then I saw a drop of water run off the pull-cord of his hood and realized that he was wet and cold.
"You OK?" I asked, wondering if I should be alone with him.
He looked at me, then pointed out the window, toward the hills.
"I was up there," he said. "I need some food."
"Your car break down?" I asked.
"No. I was up in the woods."
Up in the woods was nothing in summer and even less in winter. Bare trees, cold ground, our little mountain and then another and twenty minutes' drive on Route 60 to the next town.
"You were camping?" I asked. The man stared at me, his face blank as though I'd been speaking a language he'd forgotten. I pressed on. "Were you lost?"
"Lost," he said. "Yes."
"God," I said, and scalded myself pulling the ladle out of the soup pot. I brought a bowl to the man, and he looked at it for a minute, as if he'd forgotten how to eat, too, but then he picked up the bowl - no spoon - and drank the broth down in a series of gulps. The barley and celery he pushed into his mouth with the fingers of his left hand. The fingers were shaking, still.
"Can I get another bowl?" he asked.
The smell of him hit me then. I knew it from hunting parties and schools of fishermen, times when they'd come back from a trip to the woods with no running water and no women. And I knew the smell from trips to Boston, walking past the men on the street-corners, the ones who rattled tin cans as I moved by. People who are tied to normal life don't carry that smell.
If the link doesn't work, her stories are archived at Gossamer. If anyone has a working email address for her feedback, let me know. Suggestions for next time can be made here.
Strangers and the Strange Dead.
Kipler's Fan Fiction
bravenewcentury, is "Strangers and the Strange Dead" by Kipler. In the 2000 Spooky Awards, it tied with "Aquinnah" by Anjou for first place for best mid-length story. I suspect it would make many writers' top ten lists, as it is technically brilliant, memorable, and original.Summary: In which dead bodies and shivering people disturb the hilltown of Bradenton, and our young, orphaned narrator serves hot beverages to the investigating agents even as she ponders the peculiar, elusive nature of their relationship.
I was in the coffee shop, late afternoon, mid-January. I liked to work the afternoon shift, from 11 to 4:30, because no one came for a bagel or a sandwich at 4:00; the most I had to do was brew another pot of decaf, refresh the cream in the creamer. That gave me time to sit in the big booth and write. I was working to save money to start at college the next fall. Technically I was too old to be a freshman - 21 - but it was time for me to get out of town. So, I sat alone in the coffee shop with my books and my paper when the door opened and the bell went off to alert me. A man stood there in the slanting light. I couldn't really see him but heard his voice: "I need some food."
I got up and moved behind the counter.
"We close in a half-hour," I said. "There's not much left. A couple muffins and some beef barley."
"Soup?" the man asked, and I looked at him then because his voice shook and his teeth chattered as he finished speaking. He was slight, swallowed by the jacket he wore. His lined face was dirty or bruised - I couldn't tell which - and his right coat sleeve was torn from elbow to cuff. At first I thought he was drunk but then I saw a drop of water run off the pull-cord of his hood and realized that he was wet and cold.
"You OK?" I asked, wondering if I should be alone with him.
He looked at me, then pointed out the window, toward the hills.
"I was up there," he said. "I need some food."
"Your car break down?" I asked.
"No. I was up in the woods."
Up in the woods was nothing in summer and even less in winter. Bare trees, cold ground, our little mountain and then another and twenty minutes' drive on Route 60 to the next town.
"You were camping?" I asked. The man stared at me, his face blank as though I'd been speaking a language he'd forgotten. I pressed on. "Were you lost?"
"Lost," he said. "Yes."
"God," I said, and scalded myself pulling the ladle out of the soup pot. I brought a bowl to the man, and he looked at it for a minute, as if he'd forgotten how to eat, too, but then he picked up the bowl - no spoon - and drank the broth down in a series of gulps. The barley and celery he pushed into his mouth with the fingers of his left hand. The fingers were shaking, still.
"Can I get another bowl?" he asked.
The smell of him hit me then. I knew it from hunting parties and schools of fishermen, times when they'd come back from a trip to the woods with no running water and no women. And I knew the smell from trips to Boston, walking past the men on the street-corners, the ones who rattled tin cans as I moved by. People who are tied to normal life don't carry that smell.
If the link doesn't work, her stories are archived at Gossamer. If anyone has a working email address for her feedback, let me know. Suggestions for next time can be made here.
Strangers and the Strange Dead.
Kipler's Fan Fiction
