The Eclective: The Pride Collection Read online

The Eclective:

  The Pride Collection

  Copyright © 2012 by the Eclective

  With stories by:

  Heather Marie Adkins

  Rex Jameson

  P.J. Jones

  Shéa MacLeod

  M. Edward McNally

  Alan Nayes

  Jack Wallen

  The seven authors in this collection retain and hold their individual respective rights to their stories.

  This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material or artwork herein is prohibited.

  Cover Art by Jack Wallen

  Interior Formatting by Heather Adkins|CyberWitch Press, LLC

  Visit the Eclective at eclectivebooks.com

  The Usual Suspects

  Title Page

  Rex Jameson—Saving Suzanna

  Jack Wallen—Shero: Glam, Bam, Thank you, Ma’am!

  Alan Nayes—Gay Angels in Heaven

  P.J. Jones—Moon Blossoms

  M. Edward McNally—“Urbs in horto”

  Shéa MacLeod—Be Careful What You Wish For

  Heather Marie Adkins—Love & Disaster

  About the Eclective

  A Note…

  GLBT. Never before have four letters been placed together to create both incredible fabulousness and controversy. As a proud member of the GLBT community (I'll leave it up to you to figure out which letter applies) as well as the parent of a young, wonderful gay man, it has always been clear to me that the world is a much better place with love.

  Love.

  A singular word that transcends race, gender, religion, color and inspires music, poetry, laughter. Where would we be without love? And all the while, man tries to classify, gentrify, and quantify love, it just is — beautiful. The GLBT community thrives on love and shows us all that the quality of love, when strained, will always come back bigger, better, and with even more powerful jazz hands!

  This collection of stories is to serve as a celebration of every aspect of the GLBT community and is our way of showing our love and pride for our gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, and transgendered humans. The world simply wouldn’t be as fabulous without you.

  The Eclective.

  Saving Suzanna

  Rex Jameson

  Sarah pulled Morgana’s lips to hers as artillery shells ripped through a nearby apartment. Her partner’s long scarlet hair tickled her bare shoulders. Her fingertips toyed with Sarah’s straightened black hair before lingering on her dark tank top, palms against the tops of Sarah’s breasts. She pressed her forehead against Morgana’s before closing her eyes.

  Sarah had lost track of the number of ruined homes and apartments they had hid in since early nightfall. It was nothing short of amazing that any buildings in the northern sectors of the capital remained standing. The Northern Organizational Militia certainly wanted them gone.

  She kissed Morgana’s salty hairline. Her thoughts lingered on her decision to leave the southern sectors, thinking the northern people to be more tolerant and less likely to buy into the Militia’s divisive tactics.

  “I love you, too,” Morgana said.

  The words washed away Sarah’s fear and regret like a rogue wave. She opened her eyes and removed her father’s Glock from its home in her waistband. She disengaged the integrated trigger safety and grabbed Morgana’s hand, waiting for a lull in the firing.

  Within an hour, the sun would rise in the east, and there would be no good hiding places for the rest of the day. The long-range artillery targeting was too precise, and this neighborhood would be ruined the moment the range spotters had well-lit views of the few apartments that had refused to fall down so far.

  “We should’ve stayed in the southern part of the city,” Morgana said.

  Sarah sighed as she peered through a cracked window.

  Another explosion shook the foundations of the apartment and a baby’s cry echoed from the direction of a series of devastated houses across the avenue. Before Sarah could explain again that the southern part of the city was firmly held by the Militia, Morgana had released her hand and was bolting toward the door.

  “What’re you doing?” Sarah asked, squeezing her body between her partner and the exit.

  “There’s a baby over there,” Morgana said, grabbing the knob. “We can’t just leave it.”

  “It’s someone else’s child.”

  “Then why is no one shushing her?” Morgana asked. “She’s all alone. I can feel it.”

  Sarah caressed her cheek and sighed. Her partner had been orphaned by a car accident when she was very young, and her foster parents had not been kind. The experience had driven Morgana to want to adopt her own lost children, and show them the love that had never been afforded her. That simple desire had put both of them on the Militia’s lists.

  “You can’t go out there,” Sarah said.

  “You can’t stop me.”

  Morgana kissed Sarah as she turned the knob and pulled the door. Sarah relented, as she always did.

  She hopped down the steps after the red-haired woman with the Glock at the ready. Sarah swiveled to each side of the avenue as she ran, hoping a squadron of militia in brown-and-black camouflage didn’t happen upon them in the open. The baby’s cries grew louder as they leapt over the remnants of a red-brick wall.

  Morgana grasped the frame of the door and used it to swing herself over a three-foot-tall plaster wall and into the house. Sarah followed her, checking every piece of broken furniture in the house with her gun like each hid a boogey-man.

  “She’s in here,” Morgana said, shouldering through a door and leaping into the darkness.

  Sarah wasn’t far behind.

  It took a moment to adjust to the absence of light, but when she managed to make out the outlines, her pale-skinned partner cradled a white baby. Its curly, sparse blonde hair framed a tear-stained face. In the corner, a section of the roof had caved in.

  “Anyone here?” she asked.

  “It’s OK,” Morgana said, cooing to the baby girl in the white, floral-printed dress. “You’re going to be fine.”

  Sarah checked the closets for anyone hiding amidst the ruins. She moved to a pile of rubble from the attic and found a pale foot with painted nails sticking out.

  Probably the mother.

  “We’ve got to go, Morgana.”

  Morgana lifted the baby to her shoulder and held the young girl firmly against her chest. She nodded and motioned for Sarah to lead.

  “It’s too dangerous out in the avenue,” Sarah said. “We’ll see if we can’t move through the yard. We can’t be more than two miles from the city boundary.”

  Morgana kissed the baby above the ear and nodded.

  Sarah lead with her gun, finger poised on the trigger and pivoting at each doorway as she made her way northward, toward the city limits. The approaching dawn filtered through the dusty windows as she checked the yard. She slowly opened a sliding glass door and peered left and right before leaving.

  No soldiers were in sight.

  She tiptoed across the grass and checked to make sure Morgana was still behind her. Along the way, a glimmer of metal in a dark compost heap of sticks caught her eye and she recognized the Kalashnikov by the barrel. As she stooped to pick it up, she noticed the sticks were bones, and the trash was anything but. Hours ago, this had been a person—just another casualty in NOM’s targeted campaign against the unwanted.

  Something tugged at her, and she turned to find the baby’s fingers intertwined in her locks. She grasped the little hand, pale digits contrasting against her own dark skin and looked up to find Morgana smiling, which was always infectious.<
br />
  The AK-47 made her feel much safer than the Glock alone, but it wouldn’t do a whole lot of good if they ran into a patrol of heavily-armed, well-funded Militia. She offered the gun to Morgana but her partner shook her head.

  Sarah placed the Glock in the back of her waistband before picking up the assault rifle. The magazine was flat and appeared to be a fifty-round clip instead of the stock thirties. She waited for another artillery round to hit somewhere nearby so she could try a test-fire.

  Morgana pushed her after a few seconds. “Let’s not stick around.”

  Her partner was right. In the middle of the yard, they were completely exposed.

  “OK.”

  She kicked through a locked side door and entered the adjacent house. Her heavy combat boots clanked against the linoleum flooring as Morgana’s tennis shoes squeaked behind her.

  An exploding ordinance outside the home knocked Morgana down, but she managed to turn and hold the baby above her. The little girl screamed at first, but as Sarah checked the bedrooms, her cries subsided. She panicked as she imagined the worst case—a militiaman muffling the girl and carrying Morgana and the child to a secluded spot, waiting for Sarah in ambush.

  Of course, that was just paranoia.

  Morgana was in the hallway on the floor, pushing the baby into the sky and flying her around like an airplane. It only took a couple of playful drops before the little girl was giggling.

  Sarah stared at her partner as Morgana disregarded the warzone that was all around them. She shouldered the AK-47 via its strap and lifted the baby from the airplane routine.

  “Get up,” Sarah whispered. “We can’t stay here. Get up!”

  Morgana leveled a glare at her, but Sarah pretended not to notice. She shoved the child back to her lover and climbed through an opening in the wall without saying another word. She looked back at Morgana as the baby began crying again.

  As Morgana tried to shush her, Sarah rolled her eyes. She pushed away from the wall and sprinted across the yard. With every exploding shell, the baby buried her face into Morgana’s neck and sobbed.

  “You’ve got to keep her quiet,” Sarah said as she checked the street from a window.

  “She’s probably just hungry,” Morgana replied. “We can’t just leave—”

  “You know I would never say that.”

  She turned from her surveillance of the avenue and softened her eyes.

  “We’ve waited so long…,” Morgana said, tears welling and coursing over her cheeks and down her lips.

  Sarah checked the street once more but heard only muffled whimpers from behind her. She shouldered the assault rifle, turned and opened her arms. Morgana’s head drooped as she shuffled into the embrace.

  “Seven years…,” Morgana said, sobbing along with the child.

  Sarah kissed her forehead and then the baby’s. She nodded toward a hallway. “Why don’t you check the kitchen for some food? Maybe the family left something behind.”

  Morgana nodded emphatically. “Yes,” she said, grinning for the first time since playing airplane with the little girl. As Sarah returned the smile, Morgana’s grew larger. She stroked the child’s back as she rushed down the hallway.

  Sarah couldn’t help but think of the dozens of social workers who had turned their backs on them at the adoption agencies. Must have a strong male role model in the household, they said. Must have a stable relationship and fiscal outlook, they explained. But she and Morgana had been together for over ten years, and their combined income was well over six digits. Stable relationship was just a pleasant way of saying you don’t belong here.

  Around the fifth year of trying to adopt, Morgana had suffered a nervous breakdown. She couldn’t take the longing—the pink cradle that went unfilled, the new clothes that were never worn, and the toys that had no playmate. Sometimes she would lay outfits onto the bed and claim that little Suzanna was going to put them on after she got out of the bathtub. Sarah didn’t have the heart to confront her about it, and her inaction only made the delusions worse. It took the shrinks nearly two years to undo the damage, but here Morgana was now, holding a child amid the war-torn debris of a city that hated them.

  “I found some milk,” Morgana said, glowing from the hallway as the baby sucked and nibbled on the end of a straw. She kissed the child, dipped the end of the straw into the glass of milk, and returned it to her mouth where the little girl sloppily gummed at the plastic and slurped down the creamy goodness.

  “Did you smell it?”

  “Of course I did!” Morgana said, stamping her foot. “Anyway, she likes it.”

  Sarah’s stomach growled, and she realized the baby wasn’t the only one starving. “Was there anything else?”

  “I didn’t check,” she replied, grimacing. “Sorry…”

  Sarah briefly massaged her lover’s shoulders and watched the baby feeding before ambling down the hallway. The first door on the right opened into a spacious kitchen with an island in the center. As she rummaged through the barren cupboards, another explosion shook the house, and she grasped the countertop and braced her ears for renewed screams from the infant in the hallway. But the little girl must have been preoccupied with her straw.

  Sarah crossed the sink and looked out an eight-paned window into the side yard. A line of red roses masked a white picket fence, and smoke poured over them from the adjacent home. As she gazed into the grayness, a polished helmet bobbed through the ash. Sarah ducked and rolled along the countertop.

  Did he see me?

  She peeked around the cupboard and watched the soldier smash a window in the next house. Another soldier threw something into the building and both men sprinted along the side street.

  Sarah crouched and bolted into the hallway. She put her finger to her lips just as Morgana looked ready to speak. Before her partner was even able to raise an eyebrow, a massive detonation shook the walls and assaulted her eardrums. She could see the baby crying but all she could hear was a hollow bell tone that reverberated against the walls of her skull.

  Morgana recovered her balance from the violent jarring and reinserted the straw into the baby’s mouth. Sarah’s ears eventually regained their function, and new voices pierced the sonic blackout.

  “Is anyone in there?” a man yelled from the porch. “If so, you better come out.”

  Sarah gripped the AK-47 and moved toward the door. With a free hand, she motioned Morgana to get behind her.

  “It’s got the mark on the door, Tom.”

  “That don’t mean nothing.”

  “Leave it be,” the other man said.

  “But there could be—”

  “I said, leave it be.”

  Outside, a heavy boot kicked at the dirt, and Sarah raised the gun until the sight was about chest level on the front door. Her finger lightly touched the trigger as she waited for the two militiamen to make their move.

  “I’m telling ya,” the disappointed man said. “We stop checking houses, and we’re bound to miss some of them. What if they—”

  “Gotta honor the signs,” the other said. “One of these could be a board member’s residence, and then it’d be both our hides for your stupidity.”

  Sarah inched forward, her footfalls seeming to make less noise than the pounding of her heart or the rapid filling of her lungs.

  “Fine… whatever…”

  “Let’s fall out.”

  Heavy shoes shuffled and scurried down the cobblestone-and-asphalt avenue. Sarah peered out the window and watched the brown uniforms disappear across the street. She waited until another explosion ripped through the darkness and pushed the creaking door open.

  “Sarah!” Morgana said, grabbing at her tank top. “What the hell are you doing?”

  She nudged the oaken door inward so her partner could see the crimson paint. A long-dried, three-foot tall cross contrasted against the white paneling.

  “Do you think they’ll be back?” Morgana asked as she shut the door.

  “Yeah
. As soon as it gets light again, I think they’ll come out in force. Cross or no, they’ll make their way through this neighborhood.”

  “How long do we have until dawn?”

  Sarah checked her watch. “Maybe thirty minutes.”

  “We should check this place for a basement,” Morgana said, returning to her task of nursing the child through the straw. “Maybe we could hide.”

  “Maybe,” Sarah said, surveying a spire that peaked through the reddening skyline. They were only a handful of blocks from Saint Margaret’s Cathedral. “Or maybe we can find shelter in the Cross.”

  “They’re not going to let us in. They never have.”

  She listened for boot-falls but could only hear Morgana’s panting.

  “The militia won’t search a church,” Sarah said. “And we can’t hope to hide out in an abandoned home with a crying baby.”

  “But—”

  “Stay close and keep Suzanna suckling that straw!”

  She had used the name intentionally; she knew it had a special power over her partner. Morgana fell in behind her with the baby nestled on her shoulder and a straw in her mouth.

  “Two blocks, sweetie,” Morgana said.

  They jumped from the porch and into the avenue before darting down a side street. They passed a stream of liquid pouring from an intersecting alley. The surface was too congealed and opaque to be water. Sarah tried not to think of the horrors that marked the source, and Morgana kept her eyes forward and pressed Suzanna into her face as she ran.

  The houses were mangled with mortar craters and caved-in walls. Even some of the doors with crosses had been demolished in the shockwaves and errant fire.

  “Sarah, they didn’t—”

  “I know,” she said, sucking the cold, dry air into her lungs as she sprinted across the street. She could see the handles on the cathedral’s front door, but the church would have to wait.

  There were footsteps nearby that were not their own.

  Sarah pointed to a nearby alley. Her partner followed her into the darkness and kissed Suzanna’s cheeks repeatedly as she dipped the straw in the milk to proactively shush her.

  “Don’t cry,” Morgana whispered. “Please, honey, don’t cry.”

  But the baby was perfectly content with the milk and the straw. A cadre of soldiers in beige camouflage marched past the opening as the family dove behind a series of dumpsters. Two of the men pointed guns down the alley and stood like Greek demigod statues, poised to strike down some outmatched beast.