Welcome…

This blog, In Perpetuum, is an experiment of fictional proportions. Although each story is substantively unrelated, there is a continuum binding all the entries together. Every tale leads into the next, maintaining an unbroken thread. Some of these stories may be inappropriate for younger readers. Due to other project commitments, new stories will be updated periodically, as opposed to weekly. Scroll down to view each entry, finding the most recent on top. Thank you for reading, and feel free to leave your feedback.

Best,

Deegan Hockstein

20 – Pandora’s Boombox

Ronny blushed as she listened to the handsome gentleman repeat her name. Looking down, the serious seeming young man introduced himself. “My name is Dean Woodburn… it’s a pleasure to meet you.” Dean, suddenly feeling a bit shy himself, asked if Ronny would care to join him for a coffee, should she have enough time before her flight’s departure. She hesitantly confessed that she did, and the two found a small table where they could sit and entertain each other with obviously futile flirtation. “So, Dean, what do you do?” asked Ronny, who, despite her newfound sense of self, couldn’t help but think she was being too forward, sitting down with a stranger simply because she found him pleasing to look at. “Well,” began Dean, “I’m an anthropologist, actually. I’m heading out to Taos, New Mexico, to consult about a curious find.” “Oh?” said Ronny, genuinely interested. Dean, nodding his head, continued, “Yes… I can’t really say much about it, but apparently a team of archeologists has made a rather interesting discovery. We may be on the verge of re-dating the advent of metallurgy…” Dean, his enthusiasm threatening to expose his bookish disposition, cleared his throat and tried to tone it down, hoping to appear less academic and more adventurous before the beautiful young woman across from him. “Wow, that seems like… sort of a big deal,” said Ronny, immediately cursing to herself for fear that she came across sounding stupid. Dean chuckled, appreciating Ronny’s simple, though correct, sentiment. “Yes! Yes, I think it very well may be,” he said. The conversation wove pleasantly in and out of Ronny and Dean’s past, avoiding anything too elaborate. A few flutterings of the lashes from Ronny and a calculated smile from Dean sufficed to quietly thrill each other.

19 – Ruby-Red Requital

Mark watched the young girl, her pace slowing from exhaustion, disappear on the horizon. He vaguely remembered her, thinking that she had probably babysat his children once or twice, but couldn’t recall her name. Veronica Myers or Ronny, as those who knew her called her, had reached the limits of her stamina’s potential. Her lungs were heaving, seemingly expelling fire with each exhalation, but that fact, as unpleasant as it was, was not the impetus for Ronny’s abrupt stop. Twenty minutes earlier, Ronny had arrived at Mrs. Treehorn’s front door, carrying several bags of groceries in each hand. Ronny worked at the supermarket nearby and it was her turn to do the morning deliveries. Ronny, her arms trembling from carrying the bags on the long walk, had arrived at Mrs. Treehorn’s house to find her front door had been broken into. “Mrs. Treehorn?” Ronny called out, her voice shrill and youthful. Having received no reply, Ronny had edged her way into the darkened living-room, finding, to her amazement, blood and debris everywhere. The sofa had been ripped to shreds, its body reduced to a splintery wooden frame, and broken glass littered the blood-spattered floor. Ronny had always been something of a curious, if not morbid, child, but in her adolescence that trait, which was overcome by more powerful, budding traits, had taken a backseat. When Ronny had found the sordid scene, its mystery producing a potent, practically electric allure, this quality of macabre meddling thoroughly reemerged.

18 – Detective Daniel Breton

Detective Breton, to put it frankly, was depressed. He plunged his fists into the pockets of his long navy-blue coat as he huffed out of the hospital, careful to straighten his posture and suck in his gut before passing an attractive young nurse. In his line of work, which was predominantly frustrating, sometimes boring, and very rarely fulfilling, one had to fabricate their own peace of mind because, surely, no one else was going to help. This task proved to be more exhausting and disheartening than Daniel Breton had expected. But, then again, the years had a tendency to pass quickly and what was once a young, impressionable cadet, was now a wizened – though, if you asked him, none the wiser – old detective, whose heart was as dry as his wit. He emerged outside of the hospital, drawing in a deep lungful of fresh fall air, and sauntered to his car, reflecting on the last time he had visited his ‘associate,’ Mark Mallory. Mark was a professor of theology, specializing in the occult, who taught at the local university. Years ago, Detective Breton worked a case wherein a young girl, her body arranged inside of a pentagram drawn in blood on the ground, was found dead. He had consulted with Dr. Mallory at that time, trying to take advantage of his expertise in order to catch the perpetrator, but hadn’t anticipated that he and the doctor would form an alliance of sorts.

17 – The Nightmare Man

“He’s conscious, Doctor. Yes, yes sir, but he’s not responding to any stimuli… No. His eyes are open, but he’s totally unresponsive. Okay, I’ll have him admitted,” said Nurse Hill, referring to Sheldon Courtland, the young boy who was dropped off moments earlier by a disheveled woman. The latter, Molly Brookes, left before anyone could question her about her statement. Molly wrote that she had found the young, malnourished child by the side of the road and drove him to the hospital. It wasn’t often that Nurse Brody encountered these despicable instances where someone discards a child, theirs or God knows whose, and abruptly vanishes, but from time to time it did happen. Sucking her teeth, Nurse Hill wheeled Sheldon Courtland’s immobile form into a smaller room, which contained three other patients, and patted him on the shoulder, saying, “Hang in there, child.” Nurse Hill, feeling oddly struck by the toddler, pet Sheldon’s hair as he stared blankly at the ceiling, unable to move. She scribbled something onto his chart, which hung at the foot of his bed, and walked off, leaving Sheldon alone with the other three patients. Though he could not move or speak, Sheldon could see, hear, and think just fine, which only made matters worse for the young boy, who was being tortured – silently, invisibly – by the spiteful, gnarled demon sitting atop his chest.

16 – Solemn Samuel Lacrum

“Crazy bastard…” said Joey as he exited the brush and climbed back into his truck. He turned the ignition key and the radio, which Joey had left on, erupted with a guitar solo of epic proportions. He lowered the volume and resumed his journey down the long stretch of deserted highway in search of the downed power line. In actual fact, the power line he was searching for dangled wistfully several hundred yards behind him. The lone electrician unwittingly drove past it while adjusting his radio, inadvertently setting a curious series of events into motion. He drove for another twenty minutes, beginning to suspect that he had passed the damaged wire, and entered a part of town that he had not previously been to. The woods parted, revealing an old house that looked fairly large and modern for being out in the boondocks, and as Joey looked at the structure his eyes alighted on a swaying cable about one hundred feet ahead of him. “Gotchya!” said Joey, feeling confident that he had found the illusive power line in need of repair. He pulled his truck to a stop on the side of the road and hobbled out, carrying his tool belt with him.

15 – Are You Dead Or Are You Sleeping

As he ate his breakfast, thinking of how best to approach his extorter, Alex fought back against the urge to forfeit his plan. When he discovered who was behind the threatening notes, which alluded to incriminating photos of him and his boss’s wife, Alex decided that he could handle the situation on his own. Ricky Leonard, the oppressively hard working, nebbish fellow in accounting, had held a grudge for Alex for the past few years. No one in the office really knew Ricky, but he knew all of them, keeping tabs on his coworker’s shortcomings and personality flaws. For Ricky, the compulsive detailing of all of his associates failings was a ritualistic practice, but he hadn’t considered it a lucrative one until he had noticed Alex, the bane of his existence, flirting with the bosses wife. Tracy, her long legs known for captivating the attention of the male employees, would come to their workplace from time to time to see her husband, Mr. Freidman. On one such occasion, Tracy stopped short of going into Mr. Friedman’s office, seemingly considering an alternate and perhaps risky plan, and had walked back toward the row of cubicles behind her. Ricky Leonard, diligently working away, had happened to look up and see Tracy’s furtive retreat, which perked his attention. She went to one of the empty desks and scribbled something onto a post-it note before turning and finally entering Mr. Friedman’s office.

14 – The Harlequin’s Despair

Harry watched Val go through the motions of her job without any presence of mind. “Whoever that old creep was… He must a meant a lot to her,” thought Harry. As the hours passed, Harry felt less and less needed, deliberating over whether to appeal to his cousin for dismissal or not. He decided to remain with her until closing. Whatever Val was mixed up in – with the older gentleman and the younger, brutish local – it had obviously shaken her up, and Harry thought it insensitive to leave. The hours dragged on and Harry found himself sitting alone, reflecting on his father’s death. Aside from Val and her parents, Harry didn’t have any family left. Harry and his father, Duke, had a difficult relationship. Toward the end of his life, Duke went out of his way to deride his son’s wish to become an actor, finding ample opportunity to say as much. As Harry looked into the crowded bar, imagining the dreary future that proffered itself to him should he stay in Texas, he felt confident that he was making the right choice in moving to Tennessee. He and his father had never gotten along and, despite the awful feeling that he was defying his old-man’s dying wishes, he knew what he had to do.

13 – The Creep

As the tall, svelte, middle-aged man left the motel, he whistled an old song, which he couldn’t remember the words to. It had been a good night and the young woman he left sleeping behind him would definitely survive. Reginald Masters hadn’t always been as good at knowing when to quit, but he learned the hard way, through years of failure and heart ache. Reginald considered himself a cowboy at heart, being a true-blue, born and bred Texan. Unlike most of his contemporaries, who might also attempt to call themselves old cowhands, Reginald actually had been a cowboy. It was over two hundred years ago, but Reginald still recalled his life on his ranch vividly. He had a wife and two sons once, but lost them to a debt collector, who, upon finding Reginald’s family unattended, had collected much more than the debt Reggie owed.

12 – Sinister And Dexterous

“Well, I am!” the strange woman belted in response to Kristy’s question. Sandra Moore peered over the counter at the sad looking young woman ringing her up. “I’m sorry, I was just making conversation,” said Kristy, “I’d love to travel, myself.” Sandra considered apologizing to the shop-girl, but held herself back, afraid to make contact. Instead, she watched the girl bag her items up in silence, desperately exercising the last bit of patience she had left. Sandra had made up her mind. No matter how close to the edge of her wits she had come, or how much they had put her through, her sons were in danger and Sandra was going to find them. She had dashed inside of the small market to gather a few essentials, but was feeling pressed for time as her flight was leaving in less than an hour. Sandra had sworn to herself that she wouldn’t cave, allowing her devious sons to manipulate and control her once again, but the frightened plea that Jake had left on her answering machine elicited an irrevocable urge to retrieve them from the clinic where they were admitted.

11 – Frequent Flier

Markus and Julie finished giving the police their statements, and tried to see Devon one last time before the ambulance took him away. As Markus rounded the rear of the vehicle, peering inside at Devon’s blissfully unconscious form, he saw his other two cashiers sauntering down the road toward the supermarket. “Is he going to be alright?” Markus asked one of the medics. “From what we can tell, yes.” was the technician’s curt reply. “What the hell could have done that to him?” said Markus, inquiring about the giant bruised bite on Devon’s chest. The medical technician straightened his back and sucked his teeth, considering Markus’s question. “To be honest, I have no idea… something big” he responded. Markus and the medic nodded to each other before going their separate ways. As Markus approached Eric and Kristy – the former his least favorite employee, and the latter his most – he found himself silently posing the same question he always did when the two arrived together: “What could Kristy possibly see in that punk?”