Read Mist and Shadows: Short Tales From Dark Haunts for Free Online

play with me or make sure I had my bath before bedtime. I was eight years old—old enough to make my own lunch and take my own bath. She said she would make sure I’d get off to school in the morning, and she’d be home home to say goodnight, but I was responsible for everything in between. I understood. Ma hated her job but there was nothing else for a woman with her limited skills. A fourteen hour shift would pay the rent and buy groceries. The least I could do was make it easier on her.  
    So Daddy left and Ma raised me to be independent.  
    “You must be fierce,” she said.  
    Fierce. When I thought of fierce, I thought of lions on the Savannah. Or of the aborigines who retook Australia. I thought of the miners who traveled to the asteroid belt to make enough to send money home to their families.  
    Fierce? I could understand fierce. I promised myself I’d never cave into disease, love or fear. We didn’t have the luxury for those things.  
    Growing up, I managed to survive the fear. Love? It had its own agenda. But disease wouldn’t be ignored. Ma’s system was riddled with cancer from the chemicals she had to use every day. She was dying and I was the only one who could take care of her.  
    The SYSTEM provides insurance for family members, so when Ma’s old bitch of a boss kicked her out of the factory, I joined Algor and Ma got in to see a doctor. But it’s too late. No hope , they say. The cancer’s too advanced. Go home and wait to die. Too many people, not enough hospital beds. Even for those who have insurance. So I hire a nurse for the times I’m out Jumping, and I talk my way through it with Margaret. But sometimes I have to get away from the whole gray, bleak life. So I come here to drink whisky.  
    Joe stares at me. This is my fourth drink. I usually order three. “Things rough for your Mama, kid?”   He always calls me kid and I always call him Pop.  
    “Yeah, Pop. She’s going fast. I’m scheduled for another Jump tomorrow and I don’t know if she’ll be here when I get back.”  
    “Christ sake kid, you Jumping tomorrow and drinking like a fish?   If I known, I wouldn’t a give you that last drink. I don’t want the SYSTEM down on me cause one of they Jumpers get sick. Gimme that,” he says with that street slang crack-wide smile of his and pulls the whiskey away from me. I lunge for it, but he’s faster and he pours it down the sink. “What you thinking? Huh?”  
    I shrug. “Don’t yell at me. Listen, Pop, I hate my job. When I get home all I hear is my Ma crying because she hurts so bad. If I give her the pills she wants, they’ll lock me up because you know she’ll take them all. If I don’t, she hurts.”  
    Joe leans across the counter. He takes my chin in his hand and gently bops my nose. “Lisa, you a good girl. Your mama, she understands. Her hurting ain’t against you. The pain, it eating away her body. She die soon and be out of it. Don’ louse up you life just to speed up what come naturally.”  
    “I want a drink, Pop.”  
    “Nah.”   He presses a card in my hand. “Go play a game. Good VR shoot-em-ups over in the corner. Take out your stress.”  
    “I don’t feel like hooking myself up to another electronic monster.”  
    Gaming is too much like Jumping. I drop the card on the counter and wander over to the tables where they’re playing penny-card poker and dimesy-craps. Nobody has much spare change. The poor are very, very poor and the rich...they live out in the country. I’m one of the few left in the middle class. But the real money in Jumping will come when I pension-out. Then I’ll move to a tropical island and sleep on the beach.  
    Meanwhile, I toy with wagering, but before I can make up my mind, I hear a soft voice behind me. I turn around and there is a beautiful, (I mean, exquisite ) woman. She has hair so black it makes me shiver. Coiling down her back in long, long ringlets, it ends right above her thighs. She’s