Rooms Without Furniture

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  Fallen Stardust: A boy, an outcast and an alien must find salvation in a world of ruin. Samuel must find a medicine to cure the fever ravaging his village. Markus must find the motive that murdered those he loved. And an angel must find a future in a city crumbled into debris. But something lurks beneath the wasted world, and waking it may doom what little of humanity survives.

  The Sisters Will Dance: Blaine Woosely claws his way back to the living. He has cleaned his blood of his addiction, and an unexpected, family farm home rewards his efforts. Only, the country acres isolate Blaine when a sharp-toothed monster hunts to bring Blaine back to dark. The sad history of Blaine's blood brings magic to the country home's new master, but in the end, only Blaine himself can break his chains.

  Mr. Hancock’s Signature: The dead walk in Monteray. The corpse of a nearly forgotten farmer named Hancock arrives via train. Ian Washington remembers Mr. Hancock and vows to return the body home. Yet Mr. Hancock's body will not rest while Ian works to reopen a cemetery, and the corpse staring each morning upon the doorstep forces the town to choose between the isolation of their fear or the hope of their fellowship.

  Rooms Without Furniture

  Brian S. Wheeler

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  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

  Copyright © 2013 by Brian S. Wheeler

  Rooms Without Furniture

  Contents

  Chapter 1 – Heirlooms in the Attic

  Chapter 2 – A Model Home

  Chapter 3 – Dwindling Inheritance

  Chapter 4 – There Goes the Neighborhood

  Chapter 5 – Punishment for Peeking

  Help Spread the Story

  About the Writer

  Other Stories

  Chapter 1 – Heirlooms in the Attic...

  “Are you sure the sun’s not too hot, father?”

  Russell Pence squinted in the sunlight crashing through the attic’s small window as his son hovered above his cot. The effort taxed the muscles of his eyelids, and Russell wondered how soon it would be before it was impossible to close his eyes to the light. Russell forced his tightening lips to smile as best they might. The heavens had determined that his faith could withstand the affliction that stiffened his limbs so that they refused to move upon his command. He reminded himself that he had been chosen, as had so many of his faith, to suffer the disease because he would voice no blasphemy no matter the hurt.

  Russell’s eyes watered in the light. “Only a second more, son. Prop my pillows. Perhaps you’re right that I need a little shade. Only, I hate turning away from the window when that fool might be stepping closer to our door.”

  Mark fluffed a favorite pillow before cradling Russell’s chin and turning his father’s face away from the attic window and into the attic shadow.

  “Have you thought any more about seeing a physician?”

  Russell grunted and coughed. He suspected that his throat and tongue would soon fall victim to the approaching paralysis.

  “I have been blessed with such affliction, Mark. It’s not for a man to heal.”

  Mark sighed. He was not in the habit of doubting his father’s wisdom. He did not doubt his father’s faith would survive any test the Omniscient decided to cast upon him, no matter the hurts. Yet, Mark wondered if his father understood how sorely watching, powerlessly, tested the son’s faith. The ravages besetting his father were horrible. Mark did not feel so certain that those blights presented tokens of an Almighty’s judgment. He worried that his father’s affliction may have started from origins less divine, and more sinister, than his father believed.

  “Do you think he will knock on our front door, father?”

  Mark feared the man for whom his father gazed out of the attic window would eventually arrive in their neighborhood, just as the man had arrived at so many subdivisions throughout the flatland. Mark only asked to distract his father from noticing how he poked and prodded at the older man’s numbing arms and legs. Mark could not wiggle one of his father's fingers or toes, and his father made no indication he felt Mark testing the severity of his skin’s transformation. Mark unwrapped a coil of bandage and sighed at how the dark splotches had expanded so far upon his father. He noted how his father’s limbs swelled. He could not deny how quickly the affliction turned his father to stone in the attic’s shadow.

  “Of course he will knock,” Russell pushed the words out of his tightening jaw. “That fool isn’t going to stop knocking until he meets us all face to face. As if meeting us in the flesh would trick any of us into accepting his charity.”

  Mark noted how the cot sagged beneath his father’s increasing weight. Would he and his brothers any longer possess the strength to move their father to a location other than the attic?

  “Perhaps the Almighty has blessed a physician with the knowledge to slow the disease.” Mark offered. “A physician might be able soothe a little of the hurt. The emergency room would show you a little care, no matter how much we could pay.”

  A hiss sighed between Russell’s tightening teeth. “They will ask for much more if you take me to a hospital. The cost will be too high for the doctors to look at a sickness both of us know only the Almighty can heal.”

  “Could the Almighty not work through such instruments?”

  Russell’s breath rattled. “You have more faith in the intentions of those outside our door than I.”

  “But the stoning sickness advances so rapidly.”

  “You remain young,” Russell whispered, “and so I should forgive you for failing to see the true blessing inherent in my pain. If you can’t yet recognize the miraculous in my affliction, then try to follow my worldly motivations. I have sired many sons and daughters. Bless your mother’s soul, she gave us a grand family before she passed.”

  Mark’s heart quickened. “All of your children love you, father. Their hearts break to suspect how you suffer alone in the attic’s shadow.”

  “All the more reason for what I do, Mark.” Russell paused to refill his lungs, the effort straining his tightening chest. “I have provided a sheltering roof, and I have filled the plates gathered at my table. But I have to choose in the end. Not all the bills can be paid. I have sacrificed so that I might have something left to pass down to my many children. It will be little after it is shared. But it will be nothing if you call doctors to our door, or take my heavy body to hospital halls. You are a fine son who only wants to care for his father’s suffering. But understand my wants. There is a dignity in my hurt.”

  “So you would turn to stone so that we have an inheritance,” Mark shook his head.

  “You would do the same if it was you on this cot.”

  Mark’s gaze drifted out of the attic window. He looked down the long streets, expecting to see that fool of a man turn around the corner of his block. “It will be hard to convince Kate that it’s your wish to remain in the attic.”

  Russell paused before answering. “Kate’s heart is too soft for the world. Remember that
she is family. I would not expect her to agree. I only ask that she accept it.”

  Mark paced the attic’s cramped confines. How would he tell those siblings who waited for him to return from the dark attic?

  “Have I told you how I earned this home?” Russell’s voice drifted from the cot.

  Mark had heard the story many times, and it felt to him like a cherished fairy tale. “Yes. But I could use to hear it again.”

  Russell drew labored breaths. His chest rose very slightly. His stiffening face forced the smile to widen.

  “It’s a wonderful story,” Russell began, “a fitting story to tell of how I came to be able to build this home, and how your mother and I came to have so many fine children.”

  Mark settled himself atop a box and waited to hear one more time the telling of his home’s building. He stilled his breath so that he might better listen, for his father’s voice lost much volume as the stoning sickness seeped further through the older man's blood and made it more difficult for the wind to carry the weight of his words.

  * * * * *