Brickle
By
Nicholas Starr Kellogg
“Josh?”
“What?”
“I can’t sleep, I was wondering …”
“What were you wondering?”
“I was just, you know, I was just wondering if maybe you wanted to play Brickle.”
I sat up slowly from my sleeping bag on the floor. As of late, I’ve been feeling too old for these types of sleeping arrangements. Besides, I had a perfectly adequate bed in a more than luxurious room sitting dormant upstairs.
“Brickle?”
“Ya, Brickle.”
“We usually play that game in public only. Isn’t it kind of the point to do it to strangers?”
“I, um, well I don’t know.”
“Who would we even play it on, Elijah? Ourselves?”
I looked over at my glass of water before retrieving it and allowing myself some relief. My throat was hella dry, probably on the account of all the pizza and chips I’d been eating for the better part of the night. My sister, Deliah, and her friends Billie and Kimberly had come down to the basement for a little because they’d gotten the munchies from eating these weed gummies. Kimberely is always giving my sister things like that. LSD tabs, hits of acid, hash, hashish, Vicodin from her mother’s drawer— she even once slipped me a little blue pill that she’d stolen from her father’s medicine cabinet and watched as I struggled not to moan while running away from the kitchen table to evacuate my balls. Felt kind of good though.
“We could play it on … we could play it on the girls.” Elijah said, and as he did, I could swear that a little mischief lingered within Elijah’s strange overactive imagination. You see, it was Elijah that’d come up with the game Brickle in the first place. We were young, and at the time it seemed like something no more innocuous or peculiar than a normal game of Man Hunt we’d played when the neighborhood children got together for momentous block parties. “I was thinking that I wanted to play it with Kimberly … she seems like she’d maybe enjoy it.”
I scoffed at the statement, “In your fucking dreams Kimberly Nash is going to want to play the game Brickle with you. You see how big her purse is? She’s probably got a Glock in the fucking thing and if she caught you with within an inch away from those breasts she’d take it out and shoot you. Shoot you dead, Elijah, just get some fucking sleep man.”
“She won’t wake up.”
“That’s not how you play Brickle.”
“That’s how you play it at your friend’s house in the middle of night.”
“They have to have the opportunity to get away,” I said, the statement seemed fairly obvious considering just how many times Elijah and I have played the game. “How would it be fun if they didn’t have the ability to get away? What? Are we just going to creep around the house while everyone is sleeping and play without their knowledge?” As I said it, I felt a little sparkle in my heart and realized what I was saying sounded pretty fun. Like dark, indoor hide and seek when your parents are still out and you get to use the opportunity to ‘accidentally touch your older sister’s friend’s breasts in the dark.
“Ya.” Elijah said, he seemed reserved enough, but I swear he was trying to hold back the excitement the same as I’d held back the ejaculate during that blue pill fiasco. “Listen, why don’t you do it first? Let’s go to the kitchen, get the knife, and then why don’t you go into your sister’s room and see if you can score the first point?”
I didn’t like playing these games so close to home. But I couldn’t help but twirl my tongue behind the back of my teeth in little gyrating motions. My teeth were set to chatter, and I stood and Elijah followed as we moved like shadows up the stairs. I turned back before opening the door that led to the kitchen, “Elijah, just don’t touch my fucking sister, ok? The other girls are the only ones you’re allowed to explore, is that understood?”
“Scouts honor. I won’t touch your sister.”
I nodded.
We walked into the kitchen, and the house was still and quiet like a corpse in a tomb somewhere underground that’d yet to be discovered. I headed over to the knife block, thought about taking the largest one but realized it wouldn’t be practical for a game that required precision like Brickle. Besides, one wouldn’t want to cut his sister’s friends too deeply while they slept somberly within their warm cocoons. We are all going apple picking in the morning with my mom and dad, and I don’t want to be interrogated for large gashes on the girls’ arms. Or perhaps their legs, Billie and Kimberly, sometimes sleep in miniscule, silk shorts and I wouldn’t mind digging my tiny blade into the meat of their upper thighs. I watched as Elijah grabbed a knife larger than my own. Selfish little prick.
“Remember,” I said, “It’s not about how deep the cut is, it’s about how much blood you get on the blade. All blood that’s spilled doesn’t count.”
“Don’t tell me how to play Brickle. I invented the fucking game,” He sounded incredulous, but I don’t think he should’ve been allowed to act like he was impervious to scrutiny considering what we’d done to that missing Belrose boy whose body hadn’t been found yet.
What? It wasn’t me; it was him. He lost. I won that day. He lost.
I walked down the long hall towards Deliah’s room; her door was shut and for a little while I was sure it would be locked and we wouldn’t have anyone to play with besides ourselves. But when I twisted the knob It opened with relative ease, my heart, beckoning to rip through my ribs and slide up one of those glorious thighs we gleamed upon entry— the light of the moon making them almost shimmer like disco balls in the center of a ceiling at an overnight, undead, coke-party. Bright pink. Light blue. Intricate little flowers lining those sleeping girls’ lingerie.
Eljah was at my back, and then he wasn’t. I turned back and realized that he was giving me privacy and thank Christ for it. My erection had already begun to create a tent in the center of my pajama bottoms, and no one likes getting watched when they are about to perform the first strike in the game of Brickle. I stood over Billie and Kimberly, my sister in the corner of the room with her back turned to me and her lacy underwear shown under the blanket. I was tempted to take from her— even after instructing Elijah that he wasn’t allowed to involve her— but she looked damn good for my blood. My blood. Everyone’s blood is your blood in the game of Brickle.
I went to Kimberly; she deserved it for always flaunting her curves towards my hormones. I allowed the passion of that wolfly lust to take over and knelt beside her. Her chest, up and down, up and down, pushing those magnificent breasts out as I couldn’t help myself from allowing a little bit of spittle to form into droplets in the corners of my quivering lips. I placed the silver blade against her meat, her tender, tender, meat that jiggled slightly upon my invasion. She stirred, but she didn’t wake. I slashed downward, using the tip of the knife to penetrate the way I’d done so many times before. I rivet of blood spilled over the base of the blade; it looked black in the white, effulgent essence of the moon that watched with its one eye. I collected the blood until I held a black blade, turned back, but before I left like an unannounced assassin, someone screamed.
“No!”
It wasn’t coming from my sister’s room … it wasn’t from our room but the terrifying scrams that reverberated down the hallway woke all the girls up. They looked at me, holding a blood covered blade with a stark erection.
“What are you doing in here!”
“HE cut me! The little fucker cut me!”
“Pervert! Get the fuck out!”
I ran to the hallway, dropping the knife because I didn’t know what to do. As I reached the kitchen, I heard my father on the phone with the police— I heard him wailing like a little boy who’d dropped his ice cream. I heard my sister and her friends leaving their nest and running down the halls. I turned and ran down into the basement where Elijah and the sleeping bags lay.
“Elijah!” I said, “What the fuck did you do?”
He turned and looked at me. “I … um … I cut too deep.”
“What the fuck man!” I heard my sister and her friends screaming from above. Crying. Wailing. The horrific pleas of the begging and the damned. “I told you … I told you only Kimberly and Billie.”
“Ya, but you didn’t say anything about your mother.”
Nicholas Kellogg weaves chilling tales from his home in Connecticut, where he lives with his partner and balances fatherhood, with two toddlers under five and a full-time job. Early morning prior to work, he creates nightmares while many are still having them. Drawing inspiration from the eerie realities of everyday life while exploring the darkness beneath the ordinary.
His novella Redman is set to be published with Black Hare Press and will be released within the year.
He has recently signed a traditional publishing contract for his debut novel Green, with Wicked Tales, an Imprint of DAOwen Publications.
Nicholas Starr Kellogg - Author Website
By
Nicholas Starr Kellogg
“Josh?”
“What?”
“I can’t sleep, I was wondering …”
“What were you wondering?”
“I was just, you know, I was just wondering if maybe you wanted to play Brickle.”
I sat up slowly from my sleeping bag on the floor. As of late, I’ve been feeling too old for these types of sleeping arrangements. Besides, I had a perfectly adequate bed in a more than luxurious room sitting dormant upstairs.
“Brickle?”
“Ya, Brickle.”
“We usually play that game in public only. Isn’t it kind of the point to do it to strangers?”
“I, um, well I don’t know.”
“Who would we even play it on, Elijah? Ourselves?”
I looked over at my glass of water before retrieving it and allowing myself some relief. My throat was hella dry, probably on the account of all the pizza and chips I’d been eating for the better part of the night. My sister, Deliah, and her friends Billie and Kimberly had come down to the basement for a little because they’d gotten the munchies from eating these weed gummies. Kimberely is always giving my sister things like that. LSD tabs, hits of acid, hash, hashish, Vicodin from her mother’s drawer— she even once slipped me a little blue pill that she’d stolen from her father’s medicine cabinet and watched as I struggled not to moan while running away from the kitchen table to evacuate my balls. Felt kind of good though.
“We could play it on … we could play it on the girls.” Elijah said, and as he did, I could swear that a little mischief lingered within Elijah’s strange overactive imagination. You see, it was Elijah that’d come up with the game Brickle in the first place. We were young, and at the time it seemed like something no more innocuous or peculiar than a normal game of Man Hunt we’d played when the neighborhood children got together for momentous block parties. “I was thinking that I wanted to play it with Kimberly … she seems like she’d maybe enjoy it.”
I scoffed at the statement, “In your fucking dreams Kimberly Nash is going to want to play the game Brickle with you. You see how big her purse is? She’s probably got a Glock in the fucking thing and if she caught you with within an inch away from those breasts she’d take it out and shoot you. Shoot you dead, Elijah, just get some fucking sleep man.”
“She won’t wake up.”
“That’s not how you play Brickle.”
“That’s how you play it at your friend’s house in the middle of night.”
“They have to have the opportunity to get away,” I said, the statement seemed fairly obvious considering just how many times Elijah and I have played the game. “How would it be fun if they didn’t have the ability to get away? What? Are we just going to creep around the house while everyone is sleeping and play without their knowledge?” As I said it, I felt a little sparkle in my heart and realized what I was saying sounded pretty fun. Like dark, indoor hide and seek when your parents are still out and you get to use the opportunity to ‘accidentally touch your older sister’s friend’s breasts in the dark.
“Ya.” Elijah said, he seemed reserved enough, but I swear he was trying to hold back the excitement the same as I’d held back the ejaculate during that blue pill fiasco. “Listen, why don’t you do it first? Let’s go to the kitchen, get the knife, and then why don’t you go into your sister’s room and see if you can score the first point?”
I didn’t like playing these games so close to home. But I couldn’t help but twirl my tongue behind the back of my teeth in little gyrating motions. My teeth were set to chatter, and I stood and Elijah followed as we moved like shadows up the stairs. I turned back before opening the door that led to the kitchen, “Elijah, just don’t touch my fucking sister, ok? The other girls are the only ones you’re allowed to explore, is that understood?”
“Scouts honor. I won’t touch your sister.”
I nodded.
We walked into the kitchen, and the house was still and quiet like a corpse in a tomb somewhere underground that’d yet to be discovered. I headed over to the knife block, thought about taking the largest one but realized it wouldn’t be practical for a game that required precision like Brickle. Besides, one wouldn’t want to cut his sister’s friends too deeply while they slept somberly within their warm cocoons. We are all going apple picking in the morning with my mom and dad, and I don’t want to be interrogated for large gashes on the girls’ arms. Or perhaps their legs, Billie and Kimberly, sometimes sleep in miniscule, silk shorts and I wouldn’t mind digging my tiny blade into the meat of their upper thighs. I watched as Elijah grabbed a knife larger than my own. Selfish little prick.
“Remember,” I said, “It’s not about how deep the cut is, it’s about how much blood you get on the blade. All blood that’s spilled doesn’t count.”
“Don’t tell me how to play Brickle. I invented the fucking game,” He sounded incredulous, but I don’t think he should’ve been allowed to act like he was impervious to scrutiny considering what we’d done to that missing Belrose boy whose body hadn’t been found yet.
What? It wasn’t me; it was him. He lost. I won that day. He lost.
I walked down the long hall towards Deliah’s room; her door was shut and for a little while I was sure it would be locked and we wouldn’t have anyone to play with besides ourselves. But when I twisted the knob It opened with relative ease, my heart, beckoning to rip through my ribs and slide up one of those glorious thighs we gleamed upon entry— the light of the moon making them almost shimmer like disco balls in the center of a ceiling at an overnight, undead, coke-party. Bright pink. Light blue. Intricate little flowers lining those sleeping girls’ lingerie.
Eljah was at my back, and then he wasn’t. I turned back and realized that he was giving me privacy and thank Christ for it. My erection had already begun to create a tent in the center of my pajama bottoms, and no one likes getting watched when they are about to perform the first strike in the game of Brickle. I stood over Billie and Kimberly, my sister in the corner of the room with her back turned to me and her lacy underwear shown under the blanket. I was tempted to take from her— even after instructing Elijah that he wasn’t allowed to involve her— but she looked damn good for my blood. My blood. Everyone’s blood is your blood in the game of Brickle.
I went to Kimberly; she deserved it for always flaunting her curves towards my hormones. I allowed the passion of that wolfly lust to take over and knelt beside her. Her chest, up and down, up and down, pushing those magnificent breasts out as I couldn’t help myself from allowing a little bit of spittle to form into droplets in the corners of my quivering lips. I placed the silver blade against her meat, her tender, tender, meat that jiggled slightly upon my invasion. She stirred, but she didn’t wake. I slashed downward, using the tip of the knife to penetrate the way I’d done so many times before. I rivet of blood spilled over the base of the blade; it looked black in the white, effulgent essence of the moon that watched with its one eye. I collected the blood until I held a black blade, turned back, but before I left like an unannounced assassin, someone screamed.
“No!”
It wasn’t coming from my sister’s room … it wasn’t from our room but the terrifying scrams that reverberated down the hallway woke all the girls up. They looked at me, holding a blood covered blade with a stark erection.
“What are you doing in here!”
“HE cut me! The little fucker cut me!”
“Pervert! Get the fuck out!”
I ran to the hallway, dropping the knife because I didn’t know what to do. As I reached the kitchen, I heard my father on the phone with the police— I heard him wailing like a little boy who’d dropped his ice cream. I heard my sister and her friends leaving their nest and running down the halls. I turned and ran down into the basement where Elijah and the sleeping bags lay.
“Elijah!” I said, “What the fuck did you do?”
He turned and looked at me. “I … um … I cut too deep.”
“What the fuck man!” I heard my sister and her friends screaming from above. Crying. Wailing. The horrific pleas of the begging and the damned. “I told you … I told you only Kimberly and Billie.”
“Ya, but you didn’t say anything about your mother.”
Nicholas Kellogg weaves chilling tales from his home in Connecticut, where he lives with his partner and balances fatherhood, with two toddlers under five and a full-time job. Early morning prior to work, he creates nightmares while many are still having them. Drawing inspiration from the eerie realities of everyday life while exploring the darkness beneath the ordinary.
His novella Redman is set to be published with Black Hare Press and will be released within the year.
He has recently signed a traditional publishing contract for his debut novel Green, with Wicked Tales, an Imprint of DAOwen Publications.
Nicholas Starr Kellogg - Author Website
