Dime Novels From Oblivion

Bojanko lit a cigarette and sunk his head into the collar of his long winter coat.  He was the only one standing on the windswept street. A cruel and persistent winter left the city feeling as desolate and empty as the starless night. Bojanko held the smoke in his lungs until he could feel his head begin to lighten. He puffed a small cloud of smoke and a plume of freezing breath. The air suddenly exploded into an icy gale that touched the flesh with the sensation of a thousand burning needles. He looked at his watch it was 1:37 a.m.
“Hurry up goddamnit,” Bojanko shuddered.
Two headlights appeared just beyond the far corner. The beams crawled along the road as the car slowly pulled up to Bojanko. He opened the rear door and briskly greeted the other passengers before jumping out of the cold.
The long car was designed to accommodate four passengers in the back. Bojanko was seated next to General Vasilli a giant of a man whose looming posture and bushy black beard made him resemble a bea…

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Todd turned off the car, unclicked his seatbelt, and stared out through the windshield. The only sounds were raindrops tapping on the hood and his restless leg bumping against the steering wheel. He reached for his phone charging on the dashboard.
“It’s too late to back out now,” he muttered to himself. He dialed a number and held the phone up to his ear. The call to a slightly longer than usual to connect and the first ring startled Todd.
“Todd is that you? Where are you?” A breathless female voice answered.
Todd was silent for a moment.
“Todd please..please just tell me where he s,” she sobbed.
“Meet me at Queen of angels cemetery in 20 minutes. Come alone, or I’ll kill him,” Todd said calmly.
“Todd, please don’t hurt him,” she begged.
“Just meet me at the cemetery,” Todd repeated.
“Where?” she asked.
“You know where,” Todd replied flatly.
“Please Todd just give him back to me I wo-”
Todd ended the call and dropped his phone on the floor.
He took a tissue from his jacket and dabbed …

King Ulterecht’s reign was in its 27th year when old age and the rigors of his lifestyle combined to assure he would not see the 28th. With his frail body wrapped in white linens, thin, pale lips, and shallow cheeks the king already resembled a corpse. Every shallow breath was one closer to his last. His mind was dissolving into a swirling sea of memories the king and the king could only watch helplessly as it drained into oblivion
While some may seem convinced more than others neither commoner nor king knows what if anything awaits in the void, but the king was a pragmatic man and after thinking about some of the more blood-soaked and debauched times in his life decided in one of his more lucid moments to summon Cardinal Henry.
The Cardinal had heard about the king declining health and was expecting the summons sooner or later. Henry brought with him a bible, a golden cross the king could grasp in his hand when he saw the white light beacon, and a ledger.
Henry’s arrival was heralded…

With growing detachment Anne watched the evenly spaced yellow dashes pained on the surface of the asphalt road stretch themselves out before disappearing under the car. Her eyes were drawn to the hypnotic visual rhythm and as the world around her narrowed her mind began to drift into the place where memories become living dreams.
The chattering phantoms grew louder, and their muffled voices became clearer and each one more distinct. Anne’s dead eyes weren’t seeing traffic and pavement. Reality was just an obscured and quiet backdrop happening at the fringes of an encroaching nightmare. Her sense of dread became a physically creeping sensation that crawled up her body through the fibers in her muscles and into her bones. Her stomach tightened, every breath became sharp and painful, her pupils dilated into ebony voids.
“Hey look a school bus!” Charlotte announced.
The child’s high pitched voice snapped Anne back to the present. She exhaled sharply and looked around the car with bewilde…

At the height of her professional career as a psychologist, Sophia Paulson transformed into the public avatar of her field. Her book “You just don’t get it: Unraveling the anxieties of modern adolescence” was an instant best seller. As it tuned out Dr. Paulson was not just a delight to read she was also quite easy on the eyes. Not six months after Sophia became the best selling author she was offered a chance to take on the much more popular medium of television.
She was pushing 40, but only the most subtle signs of aging had manifested themselves. Her slender body and still smooth and taught skin made more than a suitable frame for the demands of modern fashion, and she seamlessly blended professional poise with a hint of sexuality.
After about two years of dividing her time between her private practice and her daily sessions with her respectably sized audience, she was approached with an offer that at the time she figured would only be one time’s bizarre footnotes. For 4.8 million …

Miles Webber was once the most well-known musician in the western world. After his untimely death at 29 Miles’s mortal remains were interred in a private mausoleum. The single room structure with its Romanesque column and a statue carved in the likeness of the departed strumming a guitar placed at the summit of the pitched roof was like a small temple where legions of followers could flock to pay their respects.
Over the years through the crowds dwindled and before long even his most ardent admirers stopped making the pilgrimage to Miles's shrine. The decades passed, and the people who could remember seeing Miles play were themselves starting to part from the earth.
Life goes on, and of course, death follows. The cemetery continued to expand, and the once prominently placed monument to Miles was now obscured by mausoleums built for other forgotten entertainers.
Even before they died, the few lucky enough to have their remains committed to such an exclusive graveyard were commision…