Nicole’s Bio:

Nicole Amsler makes her living as a writer, by writing press releases, magazine articles and web content for business clients. She owns Keylocke Services, a copywriting and marketing consultant firm for small businesses. Her business allows her to write copy for clients from her home office—squeezing in short stories and full-length novels in her spare time.

Fiction is her first love—from her first handwritten novel in 2nd grade to her many “drawer novels”—not yet fit for human consumption. Nicole has published a handful of short stories and is an avid proponent of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). She has won NaNo four times, including last year’s novel “Dismantling Spider Webs” about forgiveness. This year’s novel is titled “Zone Trippers” which examines identity. 

Nicole speaks regularly on editing, the writing process and marketing. She currently lives in Ohio with her family, where she runs a book club, stalks her favorite authors, teaches improv acting to elementary students and seldom sleeps.

She can be found on Facebook, Twitter, her personal blog and in the local coffee shop.

Looking for Death

By Nicole Amsler

 

Death is all around if we only look.

Nations of ants die in yards—cannibalized by cousin bugs or bully birds. Possum, coons and the neighbor’s hunting dogs get flattened—life slipping away as their once warm bodies become a speed bump. Eventually the county comes and shovels them off the asphalt—carting the stench and reminder away.

Death is everywhere and Mason’s eyes were trained to see it. Jenny’s death had peeled back the soft fur, leaving only the slimy entrails of death and its contamination.

The ambulance got lost coming for her but after futile attempts and pointless prayers, she was eventually planted in the ground and labeled, just like her tidy garden.

“Will another Aunt Jenny grow there?” her niece had asked and Mason understood her point. Why label a patch of ground if you don’t expect a crop?

Now Jenny’s garden was two years overgrown, indistinguishable from the brambles behind it. At the shed, Mason was stringing up butchered rabbits like so much summer laundry. Fifteen bucks already hung on the clothes line, painting the grass below bright red. He had just snapped another neck and slid the knife under the dewlap when he heard the whine.

Overhead, a black smoke trail chased a bi-engine plane across the sky, trailing down. The small plane shrieked as it began to spin.

Mason held the white rabbit motionless in mid-air, watching the plane pinwheel towards the ground. The plane disappeared behind the tree line and he waited.

He heard no noise and felt no impact. But a moment later a thin stream of black smoke rose above the spot.

He drove quickly towards Phoenix Lake, misdialing 911, keeping the smoke plume in sight and dialing again. The plane was tucked in a wooded lot near a hunting trail. It sat propped up against a sturdy tree, like a walking stick. Dirty smoke climbed out of the turbines while fluids leaked out of the bottom. The alcove reeked of jet fuel and turned earth.

“Hello?” he called out to the plane’s carcass, knowing better than to expect an answer.

A tiny sound echoed in the silence. At first, he thought it was the moan of a tree leaning in the wind but then he heard it again.

“Hello?!”

“Help...” a woman’s voice called from inside the wreckage. Mason stood rooted to the spot, unbelieving.

“Hang on! I’m coming!”

Laddering up a wing, he couldn’t reach the side door miles above him. The pilot’s window was splattered red and spider-webbed with cracks. Mason dropped down and angled his head in, trying to see around the dead pilot.

“Are you there?” she asked from the shadows. Mason counted three men with bloodied faces and blank expressions. She was hidden behind a bulkhead but he triangulated her location in the dim interior.

“Don’t move,” Mason cautioned. “Help is on the way.”

There was no answer from within the plane and his hope sputtered.

“Hey! Stay with me. What’s your name?”

“Jennifer,” was the soft answer. The plane shifted with an audible creak.

“Whadayaknow, my wife’s name was Jennifer—Jenny actually.”

“Was?”

“She died.”

The mistake of his words echoed across the empty chamber.

“Are the men okay?” she asked, shifting and then groaning. “We’re going to a conference. I just met them.”

He didn’t answer. Weren’t there professionals for this kind of news? He thought of the dead rabbits hoisted like surrender flags three miles away. He looked at the blood that watered the earth below. And finally with reluctance, he thought of his Jenny’s blood being washed away by the coroner.

“You’re gonna be fine,” Mason said, willing the words to be true.

In the distance, he heard the winding up of sirens. The emergency workers swarmed the area, skinning the wounded plane and dismantling it liked a dressed rabbit. Jennifer crawled out herself, standing and wincing but alive.

“Hey you,” she said, smiling weakly.

“Hey back,” he answered.

They shared an awkward handshake, wobbling towards a hug and then away. He patted her shoulder before they whisked her off to the ambulance and away.

“You two know each other?” an officer asked.

“Nope, just met.”

“She’s lucky to be alive,” he said. A platitude.

“Aren’t we all?”

It was then Mason noticed the other sounds around him.

Bird song.

Bug chatter.

Heron call.

Frog croak.

Snake slither.

The woods were teeming with life. It was all around, if only we’d look.

***