Short Story Milk Bar

 Velomaw shook his great scaled head. The horns continued to sound, right between his ears. “Are you well, Master?” Onack asked and Velomaw almost didn’t hear him over the horns. The great black dragon had bristled, though few scales had moved. I will return with Alannah, but I must tend to something else first. Velomaw replied and with a thrust of great legs and a pump of large leathery wings, Velomaw was airborne. He had almost forgotten about flying, how exhilarating the changes in air temperature were against his scales, how the currents moved across his wings. How the clouds that rode with him seemed to not move while the landscape sped by under him. Dragons did not often fly, dragons did not often come out of hiding. They had long been persecuted by the humans, hunted for trophies and killed for their gold hoards. Velomaw had been different, he had learned about saving one human, and that one human would protect him, or so it usually was. He’d felt betrayed by a family that ...

 Nearly 3 years ago I had a knock on my door. It had been in the evening, the sun had nearly set. I was living in a tiny studio apartment that I was being charged way too much for and working as a janitor for a nearby school. I looked through the peep hole and saw a man I did not recognize, I took the chance and opened the door anyway. He would be my first encounter with the monsters, and a vampire. He was short, portly fellow, looking like the vampire from the old TV show The Munsters . He wasn’t wearing a red lined cloak,with a high collar but he may as well have been. He wore dark small rimmed glasses, was milk pale, black slicked back hair with a window’s peak, and a black well tailored suit for his potato like shape. I would learn later that a great deal of vampires were lawyers, gave new meaning to blood-sucking-lawyer. They could walk around during the day with super strong sunblock and dark glasses. On days that the sky was overcast or early morning or late evening they did...

 “What makes you think she didn’t run off with Prince Eric?” I asked, referencing a popular movie about a little red headed mermaid. The mouse people had no idea how wrong they got it. We were now seated in my “office.” It was a sound proof room, probably no bigger than a jail cell above the bar. It contained a desk, a file cabinet and two chairs, mine and the client’s. A couple of pieces of “art” were on the walls. They were found in my great - uncle’s basement under the bar. I had inherited all of it, much to my surprise not knowing I had had a great - uncle Thaddeus Blackwood. The art wasn’t much, oil paintings, a simple gothic castle, a beach scene at sunset, and an image of a fox hunt, except the foxes had been replaced by wolves. The art was all signed I.R. a set of initials I was not familiar with. I noticed Thaloran’s eyes dance among the art. It lingered a little longer on the beach scene, and would be something all my clients would do. Like the scene that spoke to them wo...

Owen’s head throbbed. He was certain it was the throbbing that had woke him up. His eyes were dry and scratchy, his mouth felt full of cotton, he was voraciously thirsty and had to piss like a racehorse. His stomach was woozy, and as he opened his eyes found it hard to focus on anything he was looking at. Owen considered the ‘hair of the dog,’ but frowned seeing the empty tequila bottle and several empty beers. They were all littered in the yard around him. He relieved himself in the yard. His nearest neighbors were four miles away and he liked it that way. Owen stumbled up the stairs into his cabin. He’d completed it some months earlier and then built a small barn, and was now slowly fencing in his property. He had a small paddock already built, with several pigs in it. They watched him expectantly through the low bars of their pen, grunting and oinking waiting to be fed. Owen popped four ibuprofen and drank water straight from the kitchen faucet. Though it had been a few weeks ...

Trumpets were sounding, not the same horns that Velomaw was hearing, these were blown by human lips and with the intent that everyone could hear them. Lord Nathaniel Greyson of Greystone Manor jumped awake, his wife moaned next to him before her own eyes fluttered open at the sounds. “The King? Here? At this hour?” She questioned and very quickly moved from the bed, her and husband shuffled out of their bedclothes into attire to receive guests. The cockerel hadn’t even crowed and the sun was still below the horizon. Some of the servants were awake, but the trumpets had awoken the rest of them. People began to scurry around the manor to get candles and lamps lit. Nathaniel himself walked out of the manor entrance as the king and his entourage reached the main house. It was uncommon for the king to visit Greystone Manor, the lands with the title were not large, nor particularly wealthy. It had to be an emergency for the king himself to arrive. King Gawen the Wild, did not like his nickna...

  He preferred to just sleep, usually only waking long enough to eat the cow or sheep that had been tethered in front of him. Despite his large size he did not need to eat entirely that much, a nicely fattened steer could easily sustain him a week, and Onack had supplied him with some of the best beef he’d ever eaten. “Master!” The shout needled through his sleep and a small rock pinged off his face. Velomaw opened a large orange eye that narrowed on the plump man in front of his face. Onack immediately kneeled and groveled before him. Onack was usually a picture of wealth, tailored clothing, a well fed physique, probably too well fed, and rings on his fingers, gold chains around his neck. Velomaw lifted his head and tilted it left and right, examining Onack. The man was babbling and saying something, but was rambling too fast for Velomaw to keep up. Onack was dirty, clothing torn, something was missing, Velomaw couldn’t put his claw on it. His hair was disheveled, and Velomaw had ...

  Out of all the dives in all the towns, he had to walk into mine. At first glance the perfectly tailored three piece pinstripe suit made me think business man, not distraught husband. My bar was on the wrong side of town, the wrong side of humanity, but the right side for someone needing help but had no place left to go. Not all my customers were inhuman, but most of them were. The cliché was when someone obviously not regular clientele walked in the bar suddenly quieted. Most were here to drink away something, their humanity, their divorce, their addictions, not much was heard over the blaring antique bubble jukebox. It had been broken and overly loud for months, no one seemed to care much. If backroom deals or rather corner booth deals were being made, one would have to shout over it. The jukebox, loaded with 80s power ballads, a surprising request from the customers, seemed to keep everything calm. What customers I had were hunched over drinks of various concoctions for the...