Infinite pieces volume 4, p.1
Infinite Pieces Volume 4, page 1
INFINITE PIECES VOLUME 4
“Searching for Sin” and other Horror Stories
Infinite Pieces
Book 4
Copyright © 2025 by Sterling & Stone
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Contents
Amethyst Smash
Amethyst Smash
Devil’s Fork
Devil’s Fork
Break Up From Hell
Break Up From Hell
If You Don’t Finish Reading This, Everyone You Know Will Die
If You Don’t Finish Reading This, Everyone You Know Will Die
Trailed
Trailed
Searching for Sin
Searching for Sin
Arms & Crafts
Arms & Crafts
Chris Wakes Up
Chris Wakes Up…
Bad Karma
Bad Karma
Ring Around The Rosie
Ring Around The Rosie
Gingerbread
Gingerbread
Buzz Kill
Buzz Kill
Extreme Clean Up On All Aisles
Extreme Clean Up On All Aisles
Prison Outbreak
Prison Outbreak
About The Authors
Amethyst Smash
SEAN PLATT
Amethyst Smash
SEAN PLATT
I couldn’t keep my eyes off of Kimi, and like usual, she didn’t want me to.
We’d been out behind Brunson’s barn for forty-five minutes already, and I figured we were a few minutes from kissing, then maybe some under-the-shirt stuff before Kimi took off her top.
Patience was getting harder, and so was I. But Kimi didn’t like it when I was too eager, so I was mentally reciting the Pledge of Allegiance to seem like I wasn’t.
Not exactly the easiest thing in the world, with Kimi in her little skirt and no bra. She liked to tease me, and I liked to be teased, but today the game was a little too long.
“Did you try the slaw?” Her eyes rolled to the back of her head as she swallowed.
“Yeah. It was delicious.”
I’d been done eating for a while. We could have done that at home. Instead, we were having a picnic all the way over at Brunson’s place because the bank had owned the land for more than a year. Everything was overgrown, no one ever came by, and it was a good thirteen miles from anything else.
The perfect place for a romantic early evening interlude without fear of interruption.
Neither my dad nor my brother was around to give me any shit. I could tell Kimi I loved her all I wanted to, and without worrying about all their oohs or aahs that were always a lot uglier than they sounded. Acting like they were playing when they were really trying to hurt me.
I was a year older than Kimi. She was just seventeen, but we’d been in love ever since she was in the seventh grade and I was in eighth. We had one class together, but that’s all it took. I needed to see her twice and talk to her once.
We’d been dating ever since the spring fever took us both four years ago. Everyone knew we were gonna get married one day, and they all liked to say it. Except for Kimi’s parents. They hated the idea, for sure. Liked to pretend I didn’t exist. But I knew it by freshman year and Kimi started believing it by the time she was in high school. Neither of us was dumb enough to say anything and take the ridicule. Until this year, when I was sneaking up on graduation and it was finally time to start making plans.
Most of the time, it was all I could think about. What life would be like for us, once I was out of school and could take care of Kimi full time.
I was good at building websites and was already making enough on the side to prove that college was stupid, at least for me. I didn’t want to be a doctor or lawyer or anything else that would keep me in school when I could start earning good money now. Kimi thought she probably still wanted to go and was doing all the homework to make college a possibility.
Still, it didn’t matter if we were gonna get married eventually or not, Kimi’s parents saw us both as young, and me as irresponsible, so we had to pretend like we weren’t doing it and always had to find the most far-off, secluded places before she would agree to so much as lock lips. Once we got down to the good stuff today, it would be our third time rounding home.
“You really should try this coleslaw.”
“I don’t think I can,” I said. “I think you took care of that for us.”
Kimi looked down at the empty container of coleslaw and started laughing. Then she turned to the half-empty bottle of wine and started laughing harder. I thought about pouring her some more but didn’t want to go too far. That happened once, and it wasn’t fun for either of us.
“Well, I’m still hungry, and the meat’s all gone.”
I shook my head and gave Kimi a grin. “Not all of it.”
She looked away, blushing, but was in no way uninviting.
I scooted closer. Put a hand on her shoulder, then slipped a finger under the strap of her tank top and lowered it. “I love you.”
“I love you too, Vic.”
Her words were slurred, but not too bad. She didn’t bother lowering the other strap herself. Instead, Kimi peeled off her shirt. Then, while staring into my eyes, she began to take off her bra.
It was unclasped, but still hugging her swollen breasts when she paused, eyes widening at something behind me.
I turned around and looked up just as an amethyst flash ripped through the dusk and exploded into the ground with a deafening crash, maybe about a mile away.
“What was that?” Kimi asked, surely tipsy and maybe scared.
“I don’t know. We can go check it out. After. If you want.”
But Kimi’s bra was already back on, and now she was reaching for her shirt.
“What are you doing?”
“I want to know what that thing was.”
“Now? Don’t you wanna finish?”
“We’ll finish later. I promise. Even if it’s in the truck. But I wanna go see, okay?”
I didn’t know how to refuse Kimi, and she said she’d even do it in the truck, which she’d always refused before. “Okay. Then let’s pack it up.”
I’d never tidied an area faster, gathering all of our picnic supplies into the basket, then rolling the blanket under my arm and tossing it all into the back of the cabin before opening Kimi’s door. It was all a little uncomfortable, seeing as she’d made me harder than Trigonometry and now I had to ignore it. “M’lady.”
Kimi climbed inside Bessie, then I slammed her door. Less than a minute later, we were barreling through an overgrown field, on our way to find something that fell from the sky.
“Think we’ll be able to find it?” she asked.
Kimi was buckled in, leaning forward to clutch the dashboard and smiling wide. I tried not to have my feelings too hurt that she was so much more interested in whatever fell from the sky than she was in the picnic I’d driven twenty-six miles to prepare.
“I don’t think it’ll be hard,” I said, stepping on the gas, the F150 still heading for the line of lilac smoke pluming into the sky.
Despite the lack of a road, it only took a few minutes to get there. I parked ten feet from the crater and told Kimi to stay in the car while I went to check it out.
Kimi jumped out of the car. “Like hell I will!”
She scurried over to the hole, beating me there by a couple of seconds. Was already peering down by the time I got there.
Kimi gasped.
“What is it?”
“I have no idea.” She shook her head. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Me neither. The hole was about the size of an inflatable swimming pool, and maybe twice as deep. A strange little violet artifact sat in its center, glowing. Small and odd. Metal, but maybe not. It still shimmered with heat from its journey through the atmosphere, the finer details sharp and unmelted in a way that seemed entirely alien. Not necessarily from another planet, but from nowhere near western Texas.
“What do you think we should do?” Kimi took out her phone.
I closed my hand gently around her wrist. “Well, I don’t think we should take a picture.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted.
It might have been five minutes we spent staring into the crater, or it might have been more like an hour. The sky did get darker, but it was hard to tell with the hole glowing so bright in every shade of purple.
Lavender, lilac, and mauve. Periwinkle, plum, and violet. They were all there. Amethyst, especially.
“I want to touch it,” Kimi said.
“Me, too. But I don’t think we should.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know.”
And again, we stared.
Eventually, Kimi started down into the crater. It was now dark, but I was afraid to check the time. I didn’t even want to take out my phone. I was horrified that Kimi was moving, especially in the direction she was.
“Wait! Don’t go dow n there.”
“Too late,” she said, halfway into the crater.
I scrambled down behind her.
She gasped. “It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
I couldn’t argue. It was a lovely piece of metal, though it also looked like a rock. Reminded me of one of the three pieces of jewelry my mom left behind before she ran off with Mr. Parker, but of course this one was different. And a million times more beautiful. The metal gleamed more than anything I’d ever seen. And it was so very purple.
But there was something not right about it, and both of us knew it.
“What’s that feeling?” Kimi asked.
“I don’t know. It’s like … there’s someone else there.”
She turned and looked at me curiously.
My eyebrows arched. “You don’t feel that?”
“I feel something, but no. It isn’t that.”
“Explain it.” I was practically begging, that’s how bad I needed to know.
“I need to touch it.” Her body lurched a few inches forward, almost involuntarily. “But I’m also …” She swallowed, almost couldn’t say it. “… repulsed by it.”
Kimi took a step.
I grabbed her by the arm, harder this time.
She shrugged me away, took another step.
I had to stop her. She was too close to that thing. “Please!”
She looked back.
“Wait.”
“For what?” Her face was rinsed in purple. Orchid forehead. Violet eyes.
“Let’s go.”
“After I touch it.” Kimi took another step.
“Please, baby. I’m begging you. Don’t touch that thing.”
I didn’t know what to do. Kimi looked like she was going to make a leap for the strange object. It was almost within her reach, and even though I hated to admit it, right now that stupid glowing metal whatever was more important to Kimi than I was.
It didn’t help that she couldn’t feel the menace there, looming around us.
What was so clearly a threat, Kimi accepted as an invitation.
“There’s nothing to worry about. What are the odds that we would be out here to see this, Vic? We were supposed to be here. This is for us.” Kimi took her final step and picked it up. “It feels as beautiful as it looks.”
Her saying that filled me with chills.
But it must’ve stopped feeling beautiful. Kimi dropped the thing and cried, “OW!” She looked at me, her face twisted in pain. “That thing just stabbed me!”
I looked down at the glowing metal rock. “I don’t think it stabbed you.”
“It stabbed me, Vic. There were, like, these tiny little metal claws. They grabbed my finger and stabbed me.”
“Okay.” I wasn’t going to argue. “Wait! What are you doing?”
“I dropped it. And now I’m going to get it.”
Kimi bent down.
I scurried two steps behind, then grabbed her by the arm. “We don’t know what that thing is.”
“Exactly. Aren’t you curious?”
“Sure, of course, but not enough to go out and touch the thing. You just said it burned you.”
“I said it stabbed me.”
“Right.”
She bent down and picked it up again. “OW!”
And again, she dropped it into the dirt.
“That thing fell from space. It’s probably still burning. It could be radioactive or something. You have to—”
“I told you it stabbed me, Vic.” She gave me a dirty look, then — impossibly — went to pick it up again.
“Kimi …”
“What?” She turned around and looked at me, kneeling, her hand hovering an inch from the rock.
“Let me get it for you.”
Kimi stepped aside. I took off my shirt, remembering how fifteen minutes ago she was taking off hers, and then used it to gather the rock or whatever it was.
But I didn’t feel any heat.
Curious, I unwrapped my shirt and picked up the rock. It felt smoother than I imagined, especially considering the thing definitely had its edges. I’d never felt anything like it, though it did make me think about squeezing Kimi’s breasts. She let me do that all the time, even in the truck. Not that the feeling was the same, it was just alluring like that.
I laughed. “I guess it doesn’t want to stab me.”
“Shut up,” Kimi said, though she was laughing, too. “Are you going to make me a piece of jewelry?”
“With this?” I held up the rock. “I wouldn’t even know how.”
“I bet your dad would be happy to help.”
“Like I’d ask him. How about I drill a hole through the top and stick a piece of string through it. Then we can call it a necklace.”
Kimi shook her head, smiling.
“How about if I get you a Ring Pop at Lotty’s and I’ll rubber band this thing to the top.”
She shook her head again, a second away from laughing.
“Okay, I got it. How about I use it as a hood ornament? Then we can share it. Not like I go anywhere without you unless I have to.”
And there it was. She shoved me while laughing. “Give it here.”
I handed it over. Kimi dropped the rock into her purse before the thing could burn her or stab her or whatever again.
“You really think you should take that?”
“What do you want me to do with it?” She looked at me like I was crazy. “Leave it here?”
“Why not?”
“It’s a space rock, Vic! How many times in your life you expect something to fall from the sky? And right when we were about to do it. I think that’s special.”
“Were about to do it,” I mumbled, pouting.
“We can still do it.” Kimi nodded to nowhere a few feet away. “Then I’ll have my special sky rock to remember it by.”
I still felt uncertain and must have looked it.
“Come on, Vic. Give me one good reason why I can’t take it with me.”
“Because we’re not supposed to be out here.”
“You drove me out here because you wanted to fuck me.” She laughed and slapped me on the arm. “So fuck me.”
Then she took off her shirt and looked down at my crotch.
Four minutes later we were back in the F150 and on our way home.
“What are you gonna do with that thing?”
Kimi shrugged. “Why do you care?”
“I don’t.”
“You do. This thing has you all worked up. I haven’t seen you this agitated since—”
“I’m not agitated.”
And I wasn’t. There was just something creepy about that rock and how much Kimi wanted to keep it. Seemed a bit obsessive to me.
But then again, that’s how Kimi was about everything. Including me.
I walked her to the door like always, once again ignoring the creepy figurines lining the front steps. I promised to come by tomorrow after church. Her parents always took a nap after service, and sometimes I liked to sneak into her room. Kimi was even acting like she wanted me to sneak in tonight, teasing me like a dare. Said she needed me to keep her safe from the scary rock.
Before I could work up the nerve, Kimi laughed and slapped me on the shoulder again.
But the next day, she turned me away after service. It took her more than ten minutes to answer my pebbles on the glass. Long enough that I seriously considered splitting.
She didn’t look happy to see me when she finally came to the window. “What are you doing here?”
“I told you I was gonna come over.”
“Well, you can’t stay.” Kimi was practically wagging a finger. That wasn’t like her at all.
“You’re not happy to see me?” I felt stupid standing there, grinning up at my girlfriend like an idiot.
