Encounters Magazine #3 by Black Matrix Publishing LLC

ENCOUNTERS M

Volume 1 Issue 3

F H SF H SF SF H SF SF H H H SF

June/July 2010

JUST THE GOOD OL' BOYS by Brian Koscienski and Chris Pisano No matter what your job is, the time will come when you are obsolete ........................ NO MAN'S LAND by Jacob Friedman The trenches of WWI make the perfect hunting ground for an ancient predator ........... DEATH WITH A CONSCIENCE by Andre Cruz There are some tools that should never be given artificial intelligence .......................... COAL BLACK TALONS by Murphy Edwards You can run away from evil, or meet it head on .............................................................. A NEW ENGLAND by Harper Hull This London fog brings with it something far more ominous than low visiblilty ........... FIRE AND ICE by Paul Celmer and Pete Wood Titan is a permanent deep freeze, until a little warmth falls from the sky ..................... BLOOD OF THE STONES by Timothy Miller When you unearth a locked door a mile underground, it's best to leave it closed ....... THE LAST WORDS OF DANIEL SHUPAK by Erich Bergmeier Waiting until the end approaches is not the best time to speak your mind ................... VOIDBREAKER by William Wood Never take people with special abilities for granted .......................................................... WHITESYTCH WOOD by JJ Beazley It's just a harmless midnight stroll through the woods... or not ...................................... DECOR by Michael G. Cornelius If you think there is something weird about the new neighbor, trust your instincts ...... LIVE BAIT (AN ANGLER'S LAMENT) by Benedict J. Jones When you fish this private lake, beware what may catch you ......................................... WHITE MOON by Martin Turton You can go home again, but time changes the ones you left behind ..............................

3 7 19 24 29 32 36 44 47 54 61 72 76

(Table of Contents cont. next page) Front Cover by Char Reed, illustrating a scene from "No Man's Land" This publication copyright 2010 by Black Matrix Publishing LLC and individually copyrighted by artists and individuals who have contributed to this issue. All stories in this magazine are fiction. Names, characters and places are products of the authors' imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance of the characters to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Encounters Magazine is published

bi-monthly

www.blackmatrixpub.com

Black

Matrix

Publishing

LLC,

1252

Redwood

Ave.

#52,

Grants

Pass,

97527.

Our

Web

site:

F H SF SF H SF H SF SF

THE BELLY OF THE BEAST by Jack Mackenzie It's not often you see a dragon in the middle of London... and he's a bit cranky ........ 84 GATOR COUNTRY by Mel Murphy It's a moonlit night and something big is crossing the river ............................................ 89 TRUE BELEIVERS by Clare M. Clerkin-Russell 50 years is a long time to wait for rescue, especially on Mars ...................................... 97 HOLOTATOON by David Castlewitz Never get a tattoo you can't get along with ....................................................................... 107 REALITY HOUSE by Jack D. Gibson Encountering the paranormal, even when it's your job, can be a bad career move ..... 110 OLD GIRL by Alex Sivier While inside a giant alien lifeform, be careful what you touch ....................................... 121 LEVIATHAN by Lawrence Buentello Sometimes it takes a good push from the dark side to commit an act of revenge ........ 127 TROUBLE IN THE RED NEBULA by Mark DiAntonio The worst part of a suicide mission is not being told you're on one ............................. 135 IN THROUGH THE OUT DOOR by Michael W. Garza Standing too close to the particle accelerator can be a life-changing experience ......... 145

From the editor's desk... Welcome to the first expanded issue of Encounters. We have Our Featured Artist ceased publication of Night Chills, Outer Reaches and Realms and Char Reed redirected all or their content into a larger, bi-monthly, Encounters Char is a fantasy illustrator Magazine. working mainly within the One other change we've made is the addtion of some internal RPG industry. She spends illustrations. Each issue, we will showcase a particular artist with the cover and some interior art. This issue, we are happy to present pretty much all of her free time doing something art the work of Char Reed. related- working on As usual, we have collected a wide variety of fiction for your commissions, studying, reading pleasure. As you will notice above, we have created an browsing new artwork... easy way to scan the contents and quickly see the genre of each You could say she's story: obsessed. If you like her F - Fantasy artwork, you can check out H - Horror her website at charreed.com SF - Science Fiction or reach her at By consolidating the content under one title we have put char.reed@gmail.com. ourselves in a strong position for the future, and will be able to bring talented new writers and artists together with readers for years to come. We are also working on bringing a number of new novels to market, beginning with the release of Robert J. Knowles' Fractured Time this summer. We hope you enjoy this issue of Encounters, and we will see you in August with a new volume. Guy Kenyon/Editor

Kim Kenyon/Publisher

Just the Good Ol' Boys by Brian Koscienski and Chris Pisano

No matter what your job is, the time will come when you are obsolete. ___________________________________________________________

ichael hated this assignment. He hated the walking, but that limitation was part of the assignment. As well as dressing his best, but that he did not mind. Grousing as he walked, he stepped with precision in an attempt to keep the filth of the dirt road from marring the sheen of his black shoes. Every minute or so he ran his right hand over his suit jacket to shoo away potential wrinkles, his left hand gripping an attaché. Despite his professional attire, he refused to keep his hair short, his flaxen locks glowed from the noon sun while his ponytail reached the middle of his back. The road snaked through a forest, wide enough to keep the treetops from forming a canopy, and led to a cabin as dingy as the road. Around the ramshackle cabin lay accoutrements once meaningful, but now rusted and useless: a dilapidated push mower sans engine, a refrigerator with no doors for the crusty hinges, a couch with springs poking from the seat like the hairs of a dying man’s head. Michael noticed a primer gray car as well, but cared very little if it worked or not. He had no affinity for vehicles either. But there was one useful piece of furniture outside the cabin – a picnic table – and seated on its bench was a bald man, neck as thick as a leg, with muscular arms powering out of a sleeveless flannel shirt. Tattoos of religious symbols: crosses, stars (five-pointed, six-pointed, nine-pointed), an ichthys, a kalmia, an omkar, an ankh, a triskele, a menorah, a khanda, symbols of luck and blessing, blanketed his arms. This monster of a man was one of the men Michael needed to see. Michael approached the picnic table, trying not to think about how the crunching leaves and twigs scuffed his shoes. The man at the table stared at a little brown cup next to a large brown jug. The veins in his scalp seemed to push his forehead downward, a scowl that cut ravines into his face, ruddy from ire. Hand quivering, he reached for the cup and lifted it only a few inches. The trembling spread through his entire arm, the shaking forced him to yield to the cup and he placed it back on the picnic table. Michael wondered how an arm large enough to throw a person could not lift a tiny cup? Then the scowling hulk looked at Michael. And smiled. “Never thought I’d be 5

happy to see you, Michael. Looks like you can help me out here.” “Greetings, Warren. Should we…” Michael cut himself short due to the shotgun pointing at him. “Drink what’s in the cup,” Warren said, his voice deep and aggressive, his finger on the trigger. Michael sighed and rolled his eyes. “Warren…” “Oh, high and mighty Michael, you know I ain’t got no qualms ‘bout pullin’ the trigger. And it ain’t gonna be pleasant. Now drink.” Sighing again, Michael placed his attaché on the table then ran both hands over his suit jacket. With great trepidation, he reached for the cup and brought it to his lips. Pausing, he inhaled, trying to determine the concoction. Alcohol wafted through his nostrils and he smiled, remembering the immaturity of the cabin’s inhabitants. Throwing his head back, he swallowed the liquid in one gulp. And wanted to die, even though that was an impossibility.

A conflagration exploded within him as his ivory wings burst from his back, tearing his suit jacket to shreds. The bind that held his ponytail snapped, his hair frizzing, struck by invisible lightning. Tears mixed with sweat as Michael fought with gravity to remain standing all the while screaming, “OH GOD!!!” Warren howled with laughter. By the time he calmed himself Michael finished gesticulating. However, stray wisps of feather floated from his still twitching wings. His shirt and tie remained on his body, but sweat discolored the whiteness. Still trying to catch his breath, he panted, “What … was … that?!” “Just a batch of moonshine we whipped up. Here, my turn,” Warren said as he handed the shotgun to Michael. “What?” Michael asked. “I ain’t gonna drink it ‘les I gotta. And what’s in that gun is special. Can hurt angels like you and creatures like me. Now point it at me!” Contemplating pulling the trigger no matter what happened, Michael raised the gun at Warren. But the large man poured a splash of moonshine from the jug into the cup and slugged it back. He clenched his meaty fists and held his breath, his skin reddening to the point of purple. Veins rippled their way across his muscles. Even his tattoos looked ready to peel from his skin. With one eruption of fury, Warren let loose a roar that rumbled the very ground and reverberated through the forest, branches and leaves rained about the cabin. Panting, Warren wiped away a tear and laughed. “Now, that’s some good stuff! Roscoe sure knows what he’s doin’!” As if scripted, the cabin door opened and two scruffy men meandered out, hooting and cheering. One man, sickly and gaunt except for a bulbous bulge from his midsection that looked more like a boil ready for popping than a belly, sidled up to the picnic table and plopped down next to Warren. “Good stuff in there, yeah?” “Damn, Roscoe!” Warren yelled, still chuckling. “You sure got a way with the whiskey!” “Second favorite thing I invented. After these bad boys, of course,” Roscoe cackled, pointing to his trucker cap that displayed a logo of a cigarette company, and tugged at his ratty tee shirt, adorned by an advertisement for another cigarette company. His teeth yellow and brown, his gums blood red with hints of pus. Michael grimaced at the man’s hubris and sat down on the picnic table’s other bench. Fetching his attaché, he procured a pencil and notepad. Old fashioned, but he felt more comfortable with these means than any 6

other technology throughout the years. “Sure are proud of yourself, Roscoe.” “Ehhhh. Those ain’t the true disease, though.” “No?” Michael asked. “Neh. The pestilence is from within. In a man’s heart, his soul. Make him do all kiiiiiiiiiiiinds of crazy things.” “And you had nothing to do with that?” “Nope. Most I can do is toss a couple germs about. And science kills half and ‘education’ prevents the spread of the other half.” “So, what about the pestilence from within?” “That? That’s what man is born with, Michael. Addiction. They all got it. A few can control it. But they allllllllllllllll got it!” Roscoe cackled again. “And the best part is if they ain’t addicted to what I got, then they addicted to what Enos got!” Michael frowned. He turned to Enos and did a double take. Every one hundred years Michael performed this visit and took notes from these interviews. When the nineteenth century gave way to the twentieth, Enos was the skinniest of the bunch, but now … “Enos? You’re … you’re … fat?” Sitting on the couch, bowing it in the center from his prodigious girth, Enos smiled with thick lips, shimmering from grease. A pile of fast-food burgers accompanied him. The stained tee shirt, advertising the very burgers he ate, did nothing to stop his imperialistic gut from hiding his lap. Ham hands and sausage fingers picked a burger from the pile and unwrapped it. His chuckle resembled a gurgle as he said, “Yep.” “But … but … you’re … you…” “Ain’t like the ol’ days, Michael,” Enos said in between bites of his burger. “New kinda famine.” “How? You’re … I’m sorry, Enos, but you’re the opposite of ‘famine’ now.” “Just cause I’s fat? You thinkin’ too old, Michael.” Michael slapped his pencil down from frustration. He crossed his arms and frowned. Even his wings angled forward. “Oh, this has to be good. Please enlighten me.” “Famine don’t mean ‘no food’ no more. It mean ‘no nourishment.’ It mean ‘always hungry,’ Michael.” Michael leaned forward a bit, now interested in what the obese man had to say. “Go on.” Enos slurped the grease from his fingers and grabbed another burger from the pile. Holding it in his bloated palm, he showed it to Michael. “This ain’t got no nutrition. Got nuthin’ good for the body. No vitamins. Processed wheat, processed meat. Man killed whatever was good in the parts to make these here burgers. You eat these and you belly fill. But you

body starvin’!” His brows knitting, Michael leaned back. “Now wait a minute, Enos…” “And then you belly never full! You eat these, and you never satisfied. You eat more, ‘cause you need more.” Roscoe cackled again. “Ain’t that a hoot, Michael? In the old days, man was scared that one of us would come along and then be followed by the other one of us. And we thought that too! But man, he’s combined us! He now got an addiction to neeeeeeeever being satisfied.” “Man outsmart ol’ Enos. I always thought to take food from man. Ha! To make man hunger, I shoulda give him more food!” “Don’t you know it!” Roscoe howled. “And Mosta the diseases man gets, he gets from food – ‘cause he wants mooooooooooore food and he tries to grow it in places it shouldn’t! Swine Flu! Mad Cow! Great stuff!” Michael stared, trying to take in what he just heard. “And you two are trying to tell me you had nothing to do with that?” “Nope,” Roscoe and Enos said in unison. Skeptical, Michael continued with his interview, to Warren. “How about you? Those tattoos are new. Religious symbols? Doesn’t seem your style?” Warren grinned and leaned back, crossing his arms in front of his chest, flexing to show off the topic of conversation. “Yeah? Why not?” Michael snorted and shook his head, amazed at the gall. “Well … how about most of them promote peace?” Warren laughed, shaking the whole picnic table. “They can promote all they want, but the only thing they’re good for is what I promote. I’m their biggest fan.” “Warren, that’s …” “Frighteningly accurate? Think about it. Name one recent war that wasn’t about religion?” “That’s ridiculous. Just recently…” “It’s not about territory or freedom or resources like the old days. Just recently the good ol’ U. S. of A. went over to the Middle East. And ‘won.’ Did they take territory? No. They didn’t even take the resources that they said they were gonna take.” Michael frowned. “And you had nothing to do with any of these recent wars?” Warren laughed again. “I love startin’ me a good war. I really do. But I never thought to start one by sayin’, ‘My peace lovin’ god is better than your peace lovin’ god.’ That’s just brilliant!” “I’m not buying any of this from you three. Where’s Dean?” 7

On cue, the cabin door opened again, giving way to a thin, pale figure wearing a Nascar tee shirt and a trucker cap with the number “3” on it. “Hey, Michael.” “Dean,” Michael moaned his salutation. Dean strode from the door, carrying a six-pack of beer. He moved like a ghost through a graveyard on his way to the picnic table and tossed a can to each of his friends. With one final saunter he sat directly across from Michael. “What are you doing here Michael?” “The same thing I do every one hundred years. I’m sent to check up on you four. Make sure you’re behaving yourselves.” Dean sipped his beer and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “We been. Nuthin’ more wild than making moonshine.” “I don’t believe you, Dean. Especially with your likes. Both Heaven and Hell have been getting more souls.” A raspy chuckle. A sip of beer. “The average life span of man increased by more than a decade between the turn of last century and the turn of this century. And technologies have been growing by leaps and bounds. Longer lives. Greater prosperity. More and more people on this planet means more and more souls. More lives means more deaths.” “How convenient.” “Michael, Michael, Michael. Man is very convenient. The four of us were chompin’ at the bit the moment these monkeys became ‘man’ to get a piece of them. To inflict our ways on them. Little did we know all we hadda do was be patient. They say they fear us, but their actions say they love us!” “I don’t believe this.” Another swig of beer. “Look around, Michael. Do you see the steeds?” Not noticing until now, Michael took a moment to peek around. No steeds. Setting his jaw firm, he looked back to Dean. “No.” “Don’t you find it odd that the Four Horseman don’t have horses?” Wings twitching, Michael steeled his gaze at Dean. Dean continued, “We let them go. We hadn’t needed them for ‘bout fifty years now. We fire up that car now and again to go to town for supplies. That’s it. We’re just good ol’ boys now. You can protect man from us, Michael, but you can’t protect man from man.” Frustrated, Michael slouched and ran his hands through his hair, searching for answers. Realizing one thing, he sat back up and sighed. “Well, there’s still one saving grace.” Dean smirked, taking a slow drag from his beer. He

glanced at his comrades, drinking their beers. Turning back to Michael, he asked, “What’s that?” “The mark of the Beast.” Chuckling, Dean replied, “Come again?” “The End of Days. There will be no End of Days until the Mark of the Beast is on everything.” Laughing, Dean turned his beer can to show Michael the bar code. Warren, Roscoe and Enos followed suit, displaying the bar codes. Jaw dropped, Michael could only whisper, “The Mark of the Beast?” Dean answered, “Ain’t many products left without it. How long before man puts it on himself?” “No,” Michael mumbled, dejected. Even his wings sagged. “It’s not time for the Apocalypse to come.” “The Apocalypse ain’t comin’, Michael.” Dean’s

voice hollowed, an icy breeze across a tombstone. “It’s already here.” Michael sat for minutes, unable to move, processing all he had heard. Finally he sat straight, fluttered his wings, and ran his hands over his shirt in an attempt to smooth the wrinkles. Once satisfied, he reached for the jug, filled the cup and threw back a swig… __________________________________________ Collaborations from Brian and Chris have appeared in Bad Ass Fairies anthologies, Jupiter Sci-Fi and Fighting Chance. They have also been script writers for the HyDRO comic book series, and have started their own publishing company focusing on comic books, short anthologies and literary magazines.

Check out our Web site for back issues and a 6 issue subscription - all available in print or PDF format.

www.blackmatrixpub.com

No Man's Land by Jacob Friedman

The trenches of WWI make the perfect hunting ground for an ancient predator. ___________________________________________________________

The sky above No Man’s Land had faded in the

winter gloom to a pall of blackish clouds that hung low and clotted like a scar across the sky. Night was mostly indistinguishable from day, and when the cloud cover occasionally broke, allowing a few spears of guttering sunlight to filter through, it was cause for celebration. I was used to it, though. I had been for a long time. The sound of distant gunfire rolled across the plains like rain, the arrhythmic thump of artillery fire like thunder. The dry stink of charred soil and decaying plants saturated everything; our uniforms, our hair, our food. My gas mask had almost become a part of my face; I only felt it when the sweat gathered under my chin in a fetid, stale pool. The sensations were all there, but distant and muted. Sometimes a shell landed closer than the others, close enough to feel the rumble before you heard it, close enough for the sound to hurt all the way through to the bone, close enough to get my heart beating again. Each time the panic was shorter, and I passed the endless time between dawn and dusk wondering how long it would be before we stopped reacting at all. There were twelve of us, a dozen left from over a hundred, sitting in the freezing dirt. Of the twelve, only three had any life. Jon, the dark haired Irish boy, Quincy the doughy volunteer from America, and West, whose lip always seemed curled in passive indignation, like he was angry with the morning for waking him. I don’t remember the exact date, save that it was December. And it was night; I could tell that much. The clouds had parted just enough for us to see the sky, high overhead and starless black, dizzying and endless, so none of us could look at it for long. It was too much like a bullet-hole in the world. The clouds around the wound were puffy and fat, pregnant with moisture, making ready for a long cold rain, and my team was going through the motions of stringing up the worm eaten tarps over the machine gun so the powder wouldn’t get soaked. There wasn’t enough to shield us from the storm. We would just have to get wet. I had just finished tying down the last flapping end of the tarp through the thin metal ring, which was so rusted and weak that it looked ready to snap. I pulled off a bit of cloth from the tarp, just enough that it 9

wouldn’t be missed. I lifted my gas mask from my face, dabbing the cloth against the sheen of sweat that was dribbling in a slow march down my forehead. I took a deep breath. The night air was crisp and light. It flowed easily through my lungs and into my blood, invigorating my limbs, like a drink of fresh, cool water. For a moment I felt alive. Then an easterly wind howled across the barren plane. I almost gagged from the smell that it carried into the trench. Powerful, almost hard, it punched right through the callus of shell-shock and sent a boyhood tremor all through me. It stunk of familiar smells; wet dirt and cow shit and rotting meat and the worst kind of gangrenous breath, but all mingled together and bunched up like a fist. I gagged and fumbled with my gas mask, screaming an incoherent warning to my team. I felt a rush of fear, primal and old. I was afraid that I had breathed in a gas attack, I was afraid that I really was going to die. A man’s body tumbled into the trench, knocking me down. My gas mask, hanging lopsided across my eyes, blinded me. I thrashed and kicked against the sudden blur of chaotic motion, wrestling with my unseen foe. By the time my men pulled the weight off of me, I had stabbed the thing six times with my boot knife, and I was flushed and panting, sucking in the fetid air in great, thirsty gulps. Jonathan pulled my skewed mask from my face from arm’s length, curling his stomach in tight in case I lashed out at him in my panic. A sudden shame came over me then, pulling low in the pit of my stomach. Humiliating. I composed myself quickly and assessed the situation. I knelt by the perforated body and instantly recoiled. The stink was even stronger up close. It pushed into me despite holding my breath, rudely forcing itself into every sense. I could taste it. My eyes watered. It was sour and thick, like spoiled milk. My men were hardly faring better. West nearly choked on his words as he spoke. “He looks fresh from No Man’s Land.” He prodded at the body with his boot. The corpse couldn’t have been older than most of the boys in the trench. He wore no uniform, only a simple cloth shirt, white with brown stains so pressed into it that it seemed beige. His black hair hung like a tangle of snakes about his lumpy, malformed face. His skin was white as mold, and perforated with holes; bullet wounds, wide and

gaping, torn into his flesh from a mounted machine gun. The stink was strongest from them. I choked back my nausea and touched a gloved hand to them, pulled back my fingers coated with a thick, syrupy goo. Whatever this brownish red substance was, it wasn’t blood. In fact, the wounds weren’t bleeding at all. “How the hell did he get here?” Jonathan asked, taking the small brass periscope in hand and peering about the wasteland. He shook his head after a moment. “No sign of the Huns.” “Maybe they launched him,” Quincy said. “Like from a catapult.” West made a show of ignoring Quincy, “Well, it’s clearly been dead awhile.” Jonathan, our trusty medic, stepped over to the body and checked it carefully. Even he couldn’t hide a look of revulsion despite his training. “It couldn’t have been dead for too long. Flesh is lukewarm, supple. Rigor’s not set in yet. Hard to tell from the ugly mug, but it wasn’t gassed either. Face’d be all contorted, hands too. Hard to say what killed it.” “He’s not an it,” Quincy said, “This bloke was once a bloke just like any other bloke.” “Nothing left in there now. Body without soul is nothing more than meat.” “Either way,” I said, “somebody’s going to have to drag the body to Stiff’s Paddock. Whose turn is it to play corpse-wallah?” The three of them exchanged a glance. The stench alone would make the already unpleasant task of dragging the body three meters to the corpse pile a downright morbid affair. On the other hand, a task of that magnitude would lead to favors of equal strain; two draws from the dwindling pile of cigarettes, an extra shift of rest, first pick of the day’s rations. They argued in silent glances and jerky body language, before Quincy stepped forward. “I’ll do it.” Quincy slipped his mask on over his round, applered cheeks. “God, I can still smell him.” He took the body by its bare feet and dragged it along down the trench. We watched him vanish down the dark corridor of rock and mud, head low and shoulders bunched up around his big ears like he was trying to block out an unpleasant sound, but the only sound for miles was the anemic shuffle of the men in the trench and the mourning howl of a westerly wind slithering across the scorched earth.

he next day, I clambered up to what had come to approximate a standing position for us during these long months – bent knees, hunched back, lowered head, like a man in prayer. We were degenerating, all of us, into something grotesque and primitive. I fished 10

my morning cigarette out of the dwindling pile. I wondered which would damage our meager morale more; announcing that we would have to ration them further, or letting the men have this final indulgence until it was suddenly exhausted. I didn’t want to think about it. I tried my best to settle my whole body into the tired numbness left from sleep that kept my legs from aching. Only Jonathan was up. He was sitting there, mechanically putting stale rations into his mouth. I watched him eat as I slowly sucked my cigarette down to a withered stub, reading the lines on his face. The war had been hard on him – his freckled cheeks hung over his thin skull like a basset hound from the weight he lost. His green eyes still glimmered, a stubborn trace of humanity shining with desperate defiance, but they grew dimmer every morning, as if he was expecting to wake up in his bed back home, and the inevitable disappointment took a little more of a toll each time. He watched me watching him, saying nothing, just feeding himself with smooth efficiency. When he was done, he dusted himself off and walked over to me. “Mornin’ boss,” he said. “Sleep well?” “Decently enough, right. Y’know, Quincy once told me that he’d had a hard time falling asleep when he first came out to the front, since he was from the city. Without the sirens and tires on pavement and trains running by his window. Urban white-noise became something of a lullaby to the Yank, I suppose.” “Yeah, what of it?” “Just wonder how it’ll be when I finally make my way back home, s’all. Wonder if it’ll be hard at first to fall asleep without my gaspirator on, or the sound of gunfire off in the distance. Maybe move to Dublin, solve that problem.” I strained my ear against the silence. I had long ago learned to tune out the sounds of war. Dangerous where gunfire was concerned and I wondered now if the lack of its pop-pop-popping through the morning air was the result of familiarity, or a real absence. Jon seemed to understand, he nodded. “Aye, I don’t hear it anymore either, boss. S’why I didn’t sleep a wink last night. Maybe the Huns are out of bullets finally? Maybe we can pop on out of here and walk home.” He laughed at his joke with a hopeful mania. I changed the subject, “Seen Quincey around? I want to talk to you boys about cigarette rations.” “Haven’t seen him since he shuffled off with our new friend. Maybe the smell killed him?” “Or the Krauts,” murmured West from the pile of sleeping bodies. His eyes remained stubbornly closed,

hands folded across his sunken belly, a look of forced serenity contorting his features. I tossed my cigarette into the dirt. Ghostly wisps of smoke trailed through the misty air, curling around one another like snakes. “I’ll go have a look for him. Jon, keep a lookout, West, come with me.” The old-man of a boy grumbled his protest, but climbed arthritically to his feet. Side by side, squatted low, we walked down the long misty trench, the morning fog swallowing the path behind us as we walked. West complained the whole way. He wasn’t even speaking to me, not really. Bitching was his comfort, like Jon’s fantasies about home or Quince’s stubborn compassion. As far as I could tell he just needed an audience, but I wouldn’t have been surprised if the ornery little piss complained to himself when he was alone. Halfway to the Paddock, however, West nudged me, wanting to actually talk with me instead of at me. “Sir, can I ask something?” he said. “Go ahead.” “How come you handle the Mick and the Yank with kid gloves? Even before we got shipped out to this mess, you’ve been nothing but delicate with them.” “You think I’m showing favoritism?” “It’s just that you’re gentle as a lamb to them, but you’re nothing but a hard-ass when it comes to fellow Brits. At first I figured it was just on account of you expected more from us, but I don’t see much point in pushing us to succeed now, seeing as we’re all gonna die out here.” I knew I would need to proceed carefully. First, I’d need to speak West’s language; sarcasm. “I hurt your feelings or something, boy? Maybe I just thought a fellow Englishman would be made of sterner stuff. But if you want me to molly-coddle you…” “I’m serious.” “So am I. I just treat you like I think you should be treated. In truth, I don’t give a hately shit about where you came from, nor the others. Put a lad out in the NML for long enough, they all start to look skinny and ash-colored as the rest, and it’s hard to pick out an accent when words are shouted over gunfire. Tell me something; did you enlist or were you drafted?” “Enlisted.” “How come?” He thought a moment, “You want the honest answer, or the inspiring answer?” “Bugger inspiration, it’ll take more than the party line to get my blood up out here. Speak plain.” “I wanted to kill Germans,” he said. “Did you want to kill them because they were German, or did you want to kill somebody and the 11

Germans were the ones presented?” “The first,” he stammered. “I mean, they attacked us, right?” “Oh? A German attacked you and yours in particular?” “Well, no, but they attacked our allies, I mean.” I shook my head. “Don’t bullshit with me, West. Before you got shipped out to this little slice of hell you didn’t know any German who had personally pissed you off enough to earn a bullet.” He scowled at me. “What, are you suggesting that those Krauts across the way ain’t been killing us these past months? You think we should just head on over and make nice with them?” “Hell no, they’d cut us in half before we could wave hello. I’d do the same to them. My point is if events had played out different, and the Empire had been allied with Germany instead of America, you’d be asking me why I’m such a sweetheart to Private Gustav, and telling me about how you came out here to kill Yanks. War’s about countries being enemies, not people.” “Then why’d you come out at all?” Good question. “None of your concern,” I said. That should hold both of us. He opened his mouth to protest, but quickly snapped it shut, covering his nose. The stench told us we had arrived at Stiff’s Paddock, a little alcove carved out of the trench where we buried our dead, stacked on top of each other like dominos. It was an oppressive smell, dull but heavy like a factory press, but the violently foul aroma from our mysterious corpse was not part of it. Even buried the scent of the body should have been hovering over the paddock, and yet only the familiar stagnation of our own dead lingered. West stepped into the alcove and then stumbled back and away. His legs gave out beneath him and he fell on his ass, clutching a hand to his blanching face. “Jesus, Mary!” he yelped. I looked in the alcove. Stained crimson, lying face down in the dull brown of blood soaked dirt was Quincy’s body. His flesh was bleached white, and he was pinned to the floor by his own shovel. The corpse from last night was nowhere to be seen.

e got Jon and returned to Stiff’s Paddock. We stood around the impaled, bloodless corpse. “Jesus, Mary,” said West again, his skin bleached a pale, moldy green. “What the hell could have done that?” “One of the Krauts probably snuck in somehow,” I murmured “spiked the shovel through him to spook us.”

Jon knelt by the dead body gently, took Quincy’s hand in his and lifted it experimentally. It was the same color as the sky. “This is strange. It’s like he’s got no blood left at all.” “So what?” West choked, “There’s a goddamn shovel sticking out of his back.” Jon shook his head, his face blank. “That’s not what killed him. He wouldn’t die quietly from a wound like this. People would have come. But that ain’t what bothers me, what bothers me is the lack of blood.” “Fuck are you on about, Jonny? He’s soaking in it!” West was trembling, clutching his sides hard. I’d never seen him so rattled. “There should be more,” Jon said, dropping Quincy’s hand. It hit the dirt with a weak thump. “He’d have been thrashing around, screaming bloody murder for quite awhile before he bled out. It’d be splattered all over. Instead we’ve got some on his clothes and a neat little puddle under him.” West seemed to calm, Jon’s reasoning was infectious. “Didn’t hear no screaming. Couldn’t sleep last night so I definitely would have. But how do you do this to a person without ‘em makin’ a peep?” Jon inspected Quincy’s body while West and I stood uselessly around. It didn’t take long for him to find the answer. “Well, here’s something,” he said, motioning us closer. Beneath a thin layer of blood and dirt was a deep gash in his throat, long and jagged, like a wild animal had savaged his neck and lapped up whatever had spilled out. “This is what killed Quince,” Jon said. “The shovel was just to hold him down.”

e buried Quincy using the bloody shovel and returned to camp in silence. We told the other men that Quince had stuck his head over the top for too long and was hit. They didn’t need to know anything else. Hours passed as we argued in whispers about the possibilities; how the Germans could have snuck in, how they could have killed Quincy without alerting the rest of us, what they had done with the blood, but in the end no answers came beyond the simple fact that whoever had done the deed was still out there, unpunished, hunting us. The meager sunlight traveled across the cloudy sky bringing us closer and closer to night-fall. That night, I arrived at my decision. “Alright, listen up boys,” I said to Jon and West, “The Krauts are likely still hovering about Stiff’s Paddock, not much in the way of places to hide out there, so they’ve probably carved out a niche for themselves in our trench. Now, there is some good news about all this; if 12

they’re here, it likely explains why the waste’s been so still these past few days. It’s likely they’re running out of supplies and this is their last gambit to turn the tide. If we can find these Krauts, we might be able to go home.” I kept to myself the idea that maybe this was just an advance party of Huns, and that there may yet be more back across the way, lying silent in wait, or worse, that we were outnumbered in our own home. The trench was a tangle of carved dirt, winding around itself like a spider web: Plenty of places for the enemy to hide if they’d been able to cross No Man’s Land somehow. No need to bring that up, the boys would fight better if they had a bit of hope to clutch at. “So here’s the plan, then. When night falls, we’ll try to catch them unawares and turn the tables. Jon and I will squat near the Paddock to keep an eye out down the line, West, you’ll remain here with the rest of the boys and watch the NML for signs. Make sure they’re Krauts, and then shoot. No prisoners.” Both of them nodded, neither challenging my slipshod plan. With nothing left to say, the three of us watched as a hungry shadow grew from the west, plunging the blasted countryside into the long night.

on and I waited just outside the Paddock. Jon paced back and forth, adjusting and readjusting his clothes, his rifle, his boots. “Oi, boss,” Jon whispered. He was caressing his rifle, drumming his fingers against its side. “What?” “Is it okay if I ask you something?” I shrugged. “Just be quick about it.” He chewed his lip a moment, considering the best way to put it, “Do you believe in God, boss?” I sighed. This was the kind of question that was asked only of repentant criminals or by a young man realizing for the first time that maybe he isn’t the leading man in the human drama after all. It was the sort of thing people asked when they were expecting to die. “Believe it or not, I was a preacher before I was a soldier. Won’t tell you why I made the change, but here’s how I see it,” I said, “God gives no pity to the man who seeks him only when he can go nowhere else. If we survive this, and you’re back home with a pint and time to think, then you can accept God into your heart.” “No chance of confession then?” “I doubt anybody would listen,” I said. Then, quickly, I added “If I did it, I mean. I think I gave up that right when I picked up a gun.”

The smell came suddenly, spilling into the trench like Greek fire. My eyes watered and my throat burned around its potency. Jon smelled it too. His eyes widened and he lifted his rifle, looking quickly down both ends of the trench. “Back to back,” I whispered. Jon obeyed, and we pressed against each other, aiming into the darkness ahead. The smell grew stronger. The clouds parted overhead just a little, casting the trench in silvery moonlight. My heart banged against my ribs so hard that it hurt. The air in my lungs felt like shards of invisible glass. The seconds ticked audibly by from my watch, each one feeling like an hour, and I prayed, not for deliverance, but for whoever was coming to hurry up and get it over with. There was a sudden shift of movement from the darkness ahead of me, and with a violent, ripping sound something exploded from the walls of the trench in a shower of dirt and rubble. It was only a dozen or so feet in front of me and it cast up a huge cloud of detritus, impairing my vision. I saw a shape rise to its feet from inside the cloud. The smell was overpowering. It was all I could do to keep my eyes forward as the dirt and filth settled. It was no Kraut; it was the corpse that had tumbled into our trench the night before. The corpse Quincy had gone to bury. With a loping, animalistic posture, its back hunched in a perfect “C” curve, its arms taut and hanging almost to the ground, it turned to face me. Its body was bleached white and bundled up in painful tension, the bullet wounds that had decorated it the night before had faded. Its matted hair hung about its face like a black hood, obscuring its features but for two savage, golden eyes and a distended, snakelike maw filled with yellow teeth. The stench hung around it like an aura, and it exhaled jagged, ravenous growls from deep in its chest. It was more like an animal than a human. My mind screamed in revulsion; shoot it, kill it, make it go away, but my body wouldn’t respond. Its eyes, gleaming in the dark, had a tangible weight. I couldn’t move. A loud pop in my ear snapped me out of its spell. It was Jonny. He had turned and fired before the thing could level its gaze on him. I howled and fell to the side, clutching my ear, but I was still able to see that Jonny scored a direct hit, painting the thing between its eyes. Its head snapped back with a crunch, and its body followed in a jerky spasm, folding all the way back at the waist so its hands hit the ground behind it. It retained its footing, somehow, and we watched in stupefied horror as it rose in a languid motion back to an upright posture. The bullet hole in its forehead was 13

smoking. It didn’t bleed. “Get to the Paddock!” I screamed, hearing my voice only in my good ear. The other was ringing, and I felt a trickle of blood dripping against my neck. I lifted my rifle and fired. The creature jerked and stumbled when the bullets found their mark, but it never fell. It simply regained its balance and moved towards us with mechanical patience, not flinching against sprays of dirt from near misses, nor betraying any hint of pain from the wounds we had inflicted. Even though it only seemed to be walking, it was quickly closing the distance between us. Jonny, thinking quickly again, aimed low and shot its knee out, causing the creature to fall for a moment. Abandoning the strategic withdrawal, we turned and ran full tilt for the Paddock.

s we stumbled into the Paddock, the rain that had been building for days finally broke, falling in heavy, fat drops. Beneath our feet, a swarm of rats and frogs scattered, agitated by the sudden storm and our tumultuous arrival. The spade was still there, spiked into the dirt where Quincy was buried like a headstone, and I was surprised when Jonny threw his gun down and grabbed the spade instead. “What’re you doing?” I hissed, pressing my back against the far wall and aiming my rifle out at the opening to the Paddock. “Bullets ain’t doin’ shite!” Jonny responded, hoisting the spade like a spear, gripping the handle with one hand and the shaft just below the head with the other. I held my breath. We waited, both of us ready to strike at the first sign of movement. Steady on, I thought, there’s only one way for it to come. You have to trick yourself in order to survive in the trenches. Living in one place with death looming close as a lover for so long can easily break even the most hardened soldier. The first trick recruits learn is to rethink what they need to survive from day to day. Three square meals are replaced by one helping of lukewarm rations, regular showers are replaced with intermittent rainfall, and feeling is replaced with numbness. The second, and more important trick is to rethink your surroundings. No Man’s Land ceases to be a stretch of land existing just on the other side of the trench and becomes a deadly, impassable barrier, as impossible to traverse as the surface of the sun. I don’t blame myself, therefore, for forgetting that there was more than one entrance into the Stiff’s Paddock. The idea that anybody could leap from the trench and circle around through the No Man’s Land to come at us from behind was utterly impossible. Until I heard Jon scream.

I whirled around just in time to see two white me flat, and a spray of arterial blood blinding me. hands seize him by the throat, clawed fingers digging I was certain the thing was going to kill me next. into his neck with horrid ease. His shriek turned into a But as I wiped the blood from my eyes and shoved the wet, bloody gurgle and the creature yanked him up poor boy’s body off mine, I saw the creature turn in and out of the Paddock, into the NML. I stood frozen, the other direction and bound off. I tried to stand, get wrestling with the aversion I had trained myself to feel to my feet, chase the thing down, but my legs for the world outside of the trench. I knew it was wouldn’t respond. Black dots danced across my ridiculous, but for crucial seconds I had to convince dimming vision, and with a groan of resignation I sank myself that I wouldn’t instantly die if I followed, that I into unconsciousness, lying among the mud and rats. had a responsibility to save my friend. Gritting my I dreamed of London. When I lived there, amid the teeth, I forced myself to stand full and upright, blighted gray stone buildings I thought of the city as a bringing my gun up with me. When my head didn’t mold, a festering organic thing that spread outward in instantly explode from a Kraut’s bullet, the panic ropy tendrils. In my dream, though, I imagined it as a obscuring my vision cleared. big shaggy dog, choked with little bugs. Harmless, for The thing was standing just out of arm’s reach, as if the most part, little chiggers and things hopping along it had been waiting for me, holding Jon by the neck. through the tangles of matted fur, singing a high little Pale fingers were digging into Jon’s throat as if it were falsetto as the dog went on, oblivious to them. There made of bread, a steady stream of blood dribbling were other bugs, though, hiding even from the rest of down and soaking the ashen collar of his uniform. His the critters. They looked like the others, except struggles had grown feeble, but he was still beating instead of hopping about with their fellows, these ineffectively at the thing’s arms, which looked as solid bugs ate the others, gobbling them up and swallowing as stone. I aimed at the creature, steadying the whole, until all of the harmless mites were gone, sights. replaced. Then they turned on the dog, biting down And then it smiled, shark like teeth gleaming in a through the fur, into its unsuspecting skin, and grin that split its face almost to the ears. It hoisted Jon drinking its blood. The critters drank and drank, so into the air with one hand, dangling him in the way of much that they swelled up to twice their size. I my shot. watched from the detached, ghostly perspective of my “Wächter dies, Kommandant,” it said in a voice like dream as the dog slowed, weakened, lay down and a swarm of flies. It seized Jon’s waist with its other then, before my eyes, withered to a blackened husk hand, bony fingers sliding through cracking ribs with that cracked in the breeze. Then all of the not-so-little terrible ease. It dug its hand in deeper and twisted. bugs, all bloated with their meal, scattered to look for The poor boy didn’t even have time to scream as his other dogs to inhabit, hiding until the time came to head was wrenched effortlessly from his body with a eat again. sound like a garbage bag bursting against the floor. I didn’t even realize I was screaming until my throat awoke to the unexpected warmth of the sun on started to ache. my face. I didn’t open my eyes right away; I wanted to The thing lifted Jon’s spurting head high into the drift in this sightless euphoria, as though by ignoring air and tilted its neck back. It opened its mouth wide the trenches I could be transported away from them, and slurped the blood that spilled down in a red back to my warm bed back home, back to a warm cascade with greedy, lapping gulps, like a dog. Even breakfast enjoyed quietly with a newspaper bearing after months fighting in hellish, bloody warfare, I not even the mention of war. wasn’t prepared for the sight. As I watched it feed I Slowly, reluctantly, I opened my eyes and winced knew with the visceral, harried instinct of a prey against the punishing glare of the afternoon sun and animal that this thing was evil. suddenly I remembered the ugliness that was waiting As it guzzled Jon’s blood, I noticed that its injuries when I looked away. were closing right before my eyes, pushing out the It took more time to track down Jon’s head than it crumbled bullets and sealing shut with a sucking did to dig his grave. Really, I knew I was wasting time sound. The sight of it snapped me back to reality and I but conscience wouldn’t let me leave him lying shot once, twice, three times. The thing staggered scattered and un-mourned. I did my work quickly, back under the onslaught and looked at me in burning with energy despite my empty stomach and irritation. It tossed its meal aside and picked up Jon’s parched throat. My anger gave me strength, a sour body, hoisting it up as I loaded the fourth shot. Then, indignation curdling like old milk in my chest. Never with one hand, it hurled the corpse into me, knocking mind what it did to Jon and Quincy, the very thought

of that thing sent a tremor of disgust through me, a primal revulsion buried deep in the most primitive parts of my brain. That thing was an affront to me, an insult, its very existence a crime. I hastened back to camp in search of West. I arrived to find it a blood bath; the gray earth stained a faded red from all the blood that had spattered the ground. Even a headcount was impossible, as the dirt was strewn with scattered body parts, tossed about with heedless, orgiastic abandon. I couldn’t tell which parts had once belonged to whom. I sank to my knees in terrified despair. Even if most of the boys had been shell-shocked to the point of uselessness, West must have been able to rally some of them to fight. If that thing was capable of singlehandedly butchering nearly a dozen strong men, what chance did I have? I called out for somebody, anybody, to answer me. “Sir?” West’s voice came from one of the little holes we had dug into the trench. “Is that you?” “Yes! Where are you?” “Follow my voice,” he said warily. “Slowly. Let me get a look at your face.” I did as instructed, approaching slowly, crouching in front of the darkened hole. West was bunched up in there like a mole, curled up behind his gun. I couldn’t see much of him in the pitch, but I could tell that his hands were gripped in bloodless intensity on the handles, ready to fire, and that his eyes were wide and haggard, glinting out with feverish mania from the dark. He sized me up quietly for a moment and then he let out a sob of relief that sounded like shattered glass. “I thought I was alone,” he choked, crawling out from his hiding place and seizing me in a fierce embrace, burying his head against my shoulder like a child. As he stepped back again, I saw the sorry state he was in. Though physically unharmed, his uniform was caked in gore, bits of viscera still dangling from his boots. His eyes looked like hollow pits in his withered face. I would have expected myself to be as broken and fearful as the poor lad clinging to me, but something in his desperation bolstered my resolve. If nothing else, I promised myself quietly, I would get West out of this alive. “It called out in your voice,” West began. “We heard gunshots and screaming, so I rallied the men. Or tried to, anyway, it took a couple of minutes, too long, and by the time I realized that I couldn’t budge the rest it had already gone real quiet. Times before, I ignored how unnerving that silence is by not thinking about it, but when you’re listening for any sign of life it kind of makes you realize just how scary real quiet is.” He shook his head, sucking down half of his 15

cigarette in one drag. “I didn’t know what was going on, so I had us get into position facing the trench, downabouts where you and Jon went. We waited for what seemed like half the night. Then, finally, we heard you call for us. You said Jon was dead, that you were injured but you got the Krauts running. I sent the others out first and hung back with the rest. When the creature came, everything-” his voice broke, like he was gagging on the memory. “…everything got sped up, like in the pictures. Couple of shots, a few screams, and then one of the guys came running back. He was hurt real bad, his arm was like shredded meat. Then the thing pounced on him like a big dog and bit through the back of his neck. That woke up a few of the others, but some just sat there. Just sat there watching with droopy eyes while that thing just tore into us, like they were waiting their turn.” He stubbed out his cigarette and I handed him another. “It’s alright, Lad,” I said gently. Kid gloves. I didn’t need to hear anymore. Probably no coincidence that the sole survivor was the only one among the troops with enough willpower to even get properly scared. The thing was quick to be sure, but not omniscient, and West had dug most of our hidey-holes. It wouldn’t be hard to hide away while the monster was busy gobbling up the others. “I wasn’t sure if it was you or not,” West murmured, ashamed. “After listening to that thing eat…listening to it eat all the way ‘till sunup I really didn’t care much anymore. I’d have almost welcomed it; anything would be better than waiting in a hole to die.” A hard laugh forced itself painfully from my throat. “Funny, since that’s what we’ve been doing for all of these months.” I pulled him to his feet, turning him to face me. “Grab all of the supplies you can carry. We’re leaving.” “But we can’t just leave,” he said, looking at me as if I had just asked him to sprout wings and fly. “Nothing but No Man’s Land out there for miles.” I released him and turned, striding with big steps toward the edge of the trench. Ignoring his protests, I stepped out onto the field, spreading my arms wide and baring my neck to the world. No sudden gunshot, no gas attack, no shelling. All was silent. I turned to West, defiant of the barriers we had imposed on ourselves for so long. “I don’t think it comes out during the day,” I said, “so if my watch is right, we have five hours.”

e ran. With the last of our waning strength we crossed the blackened, charred wasteland. It was strange to look out, for the first time, at this bleak

expanse in the rapidly dimming sunlight. A cold, mournful wind howled unobstructed around us, like the land itself lamenting. We passed other trenches as we went. They stank of decayed corpses and old blood, cleared out by the creature. Even the rats had been eaten, lying in neat little piles drained of blood, like a warning. Neither of us spoke. We didn’t want to say aloud the creeping suspicion that both of us felt; that the creature had killed everybody else, that we were alone. With nothing left to do, we kept running, chasing the sun as it sank lower and lower toward the western sky. We spoke little, but once during the journey West asked, without looking me in the eye, “What do you think it is, boss?” I shrugged. I honestly didn’t care, “You must have a thought, since you breached the subject.” “I got ten years of Sunday school saying that thing’s gotta be the devil,” he murmured almost reverently. “No, no such thing as the devil. It’s not human for sure, but it eats our bodies not our souls. So take heart; the worst it can do is kill us.” He said nothing, but seemed almost comforted by that notion. We continued on, saying nothing else. As the last rays of light flickered against the horizon, we came upon another trench. It seemed empty as the rest. “We can rest here and keep going at dawn.” “I don’t know,” West murmured. “Look at the flag, this was a German trench.” He gestured to a tattered cloth shirt speared onto a bayonet; dirty white painted to show the German flag with what looked like blood. It rippled in the heavy wind with proud defiance. “‘Was’ being the operative word, lad. We’ll take the flag down when we leave; I’m sure the Jerries won’t mind any.” It was a strange feeling to find refuge in the enemy’s former shelter. Functionally, it looked almost exactly like ours. Bedrolls scattered aimlessly around the filthy earth, piles of rations, cigarettes and canteens placed open, yawning to the sky to collect the rain. Really, the only difference was the shape of the guns lying scattered and broken across the blood drenched dirt. How many of our boys had they killed from this little carved niche? I was so taken by the conspicuous lack of novelty that I didn’t notice anything was amiss until West spoke up. “Where are all the bodies?” He was right. The other trenches we passed had signs of violence, struggle, corpses carelessly strewn around in the grisly aftermath of the thing’s feeding frenzy. Not this one, though, it was comparatively neat. I looked around frantically, fearing that I had 16

made a horrible mistake when my eyes settled on the graves. Man sized mounds all through the trench, marked only by little crosses crafted from forks, knives, tongue depressors and other miscellanea. My blood froze in my veins. I opened my mouth to tell West we should go, when I was interrupted by cold steel against the back of my neck. “Was haben wir hier?” said a thin, phlegm-choked voice from behind. It was haggard, exhausted, but human. “Sind sie Mensch oder ein Monster?” “Mensch!” I said quickly, raising my hands. “Human!” “Turn around,” said the voice. I complied and found myself staring cross-eyed down the barrel of a rifle. Holding it in bony, malnourished fingers was a withered German with wild, unkempt hair, a scraggly beard and bright blue eyes that glinted with a manic light beneath deeply sunken sockets. Behind him was West, aiming his rifle at the German’s head, his eyes darting between the man’s gun and me, looking for a signal. I motioned for him to lower the gun, but slowly. “You’ve seen it too,” I said, carefully, “we’re not here to kill you. We need your help.” The German narrowed his eyes. His frail appearance belied his strength; his aim didn’t tremble a bit, and I could tell from his sharp, neutral expression that he wasn’t at all delirious. Then, a smile spread across his face, and before I could cry out in protest, he pulled the trigger. Click. The German laughed a hard, heavy laugh from deep in his sunken chest and lowered the useless weapon. “No bullets,” he said. “Else I’d have swallowed one.” He chortled again, slapping me gaily on the shoulder as if we were old friends. He spoke with a thick accent, but his English was confident and scholarly. “My name is Abraham. Welcome to my happy home.”

e waited out the night in silence, afraid of attracting the creature to our hiding place. Abraham fed voraciously on some of our rations – a peace offering. In a way, the forced silence of the trench made things easier for us all; with no alternative, we had to get along, at least until the sun rose. I allowed myself a bit of fitful sleep, but as midnight drew near, I was awakened by a distant voice—my own—calling “Come out, little Milk-sows.” I shuddered to hear it, and Abraham gave me a grim, knowing nod. The creature was hunting us. Eventually the thing went quiet, and the sun began its slow climb over the horizon. Dawn had come.

“At last,” Abraham said, rubbing his eyes. “We may speak once again. It is good to have company; the conversation with myself, it is not so good.” West glared at Abraham. “We’re not interested in chatting. Now that the sun’s up we’re leaving.” Abraham smiled again, a mysterious grin that looked out of place on his young lips. “Continuing the way you came? That way is further into our territory. You chase the sunset, but forget that there are still men who will kill you waiting beyond the hill.” He shrugged, helping himself to one of our cigarettes. “Assuming that you complete the journey. The creature isn’t aimless; it hunts as a man, with intellect and insight. And worse,” He tapped his nose. “It smells; and we are delicious as sweet meats. We live now only to satisfy its amusement. You have watched cats as they fling about the birds after the wings have been broken? It is the same.” “Like hell!” West barked, “It’s not smart enough for that. It’s an animal.” I shook my head. “Abraham is right, West. When it killed Jonny it spoke to me by my rank, and then left me alive. It wanted me to live to see it butcher the rest of my boys.” West sneered. “So, the Kraut’s ‘Abraham’ now, aye? In case you’ve forgotten, this man’s our enemy. What’s to stop him from using us as bait for the thing so he can make a run back to his friends?” Abraham breathed a series of perfect smoke rings into the air. “A tempting notion, when your unpleasant attitude is considered, but no. I join this fight in service to the fatherland; ah, how my youth seems lifetimes ago. I am an old man at the age of nineteen. However, of the many misfortunes inflicted from this monster, it has given me one blessing at least: the appreciation for our humanity. At the very least we are, all of us in this trench, human. We do not stink of rot or feed on blood. This war seems suddenly very small when hunted by a predator, yes?” “Still,” I said, “how have you survived by yourself? Why haven’t you made a run for home?” “‘Denn die Todten reiten Schnell,’” said Abraham with a thin smile. “The creature, he is fast. It would certainly overtake me if the night caught me in the open. I hide in the trenches, masking my scent with the mud and excrement. I am unsure if the creature sees through this ruse, or if it is simply afraid to approach me directly.” “Why?” Abraham smiled his crooked smile and held up a finger. He crawled into a foxhole, returning a moment later with a heavy steel pack attached by a rubber tube to a nozzle. I had never seen one up close, but I knew 17

instantly what it was: A flamethrower. “This weapon. In the feeding frenzy where the creature massacred my comrades, I discovered through blind luck its greatest fear. The beast, who shrugs off bullets, and poison gas and laughs away bayonets trembles at the sight of flame. Alone I could do little but wait to starve to death. Providence has brought us together, however, and now we may kill the beast.” West pulled me back away from the flamethrower, glowering at Abraham. “Or maybe you’re planning on cooking us to a nice medium-well and offering us to the thing in exchange for your freedom. Since it’s so smart and all, yeah?” West turned to me. “Sod this Kraut bastard, boss, I say we take our chances on a run for it. We might yet run into another platoon if we hurry, and maybe the thing’ll eat him before it chases us.” Abraham winced at the words. “That is a possibility, and you may even escape while the beast makes me his meal. Or, perhaps the thing, he will pursue the larger meal and allow me to make good my escape. Or to better our odds, mightn’t we all split up? A one-in-three chance is better than one-in-two, yes?” “That’s out of the question,” I said. Abraham looked at me, almost pleadingly. “Yes, I agree, but why?” “‘Cos he wouldn’t abandon me,” said West with some measure of smug satisfaction. “We have all been abandoned already,” said Abaham. “Since we were first aimed at one another like weapons and told to defend an empty wasteland with our lives, we were abandoned to our fate. We were, all of us, expected to die for dust. All that has changed is the means of our demise.” Abraham stepped toward West and seized his hands in supplication. “All that is different is that the creature does not care of nation; German blood is just as sweet as the British. You do not want to abandon one another because of your nationality, but compared to that beast, are we not all brothers? I beg, do not abandon me.” West shook him off. “What do you care? You’ve got the same odds of escaping as us.” “Maybe, but even if I escape that way, my life will be bought by sacrificing yours. I do not want anybody else to die out here. It is…” “Wasteful,” I finished. I turned to West. “The only reason we were told to take this land was so the Germans wouldn’t have it. I’d guess that the same is true in reverse. Right now the only one who has gained anything, anything at all from these past months is the creature out there. I

don’t want all of this to have been just to give a monster a meal.” Abraham nodded, “If we kill it, both our motherlands benefit, and at the very least the blood that has quenched the earth of this place will not have been for nothing.” West looked between us in grim silence, back out at the wasteland on all sides, and then down to his feet. “Is that your order, sir?” he asked, already knowing the answer.

usk came all too soon. West stood up without saying a word and climbed out of the trench, facing east, watching the darkness swallow the sky. Taking a knife, he drew the blade across the palm of his hand, spilling a drop of vibrant red against the colorless dirt. I watched from my hiding place in the trench, clutching a spade, as West opened and closed his hand in a heartbeat rhythm. A stream of blood trickled down his arm, and he picked his rifle back up and waited. I watched the horizon through binoculars and kept my nose perked, searching for sight or smell of the thing. Soon, I saw a faint shape dancing in silhouette across the skyline, an inky blot against the moonlight hurling through the sky for a moment before sinking back down below my vision. I saw it again a moment later, closer, gliding through the air a moment and landing. It was leaping towards us, covering kilometers with each jump! Soon, I began to smell it too, the stench made more pungent by its mad hunger. Almost an instant after I set the binoculars down, it made its final jump, landing several meters away from West with a loud crack. Even through the haze and distance, I could see its eyes, bright, glowing gold, fixated with unwavering intensity on West’s palm. West aimed his rifle at the beast, waiting for it to make the first move. It opened its mouth wide, running a thick tongue the color of bruised flesh across its fangs. If it smelled me lying in wait, it gave no indication. Slowly, languidly, it lowered itself into a crouch, running diamond sharp fingernails through the dirt, swaying its tangled mane of hair to and fro, grinning at West with hungry anticipation. West didn’t waver. He took care to avoid eye contact, watching, instead, the creature’s limbs. For a moment, neither moved. Impatience drove the creature to act first, just as we planned. Whether from hunger, or fear of the daylight, the thing had a time limit: our first advantage. It kicked off from its crouch, sprinting toward West in hypnotic, serpentine motion. West fired twice, missing the mark, and then narrowly 18

avoiding its first pounce. It slid a few feet through the dirt before righting itself, closer to the trench but still out of reach. West chambered another round, circling the thing slowly. It followed him with its gleaming, ravenous eyes, still smiling that toothy, bemused grin. West fired, aiming for its heart, and it didn’t even lift its feet to avoid the shot, instead twisting its body almost a full rotation as if it didn’t even have a spine. The creature laughed. West backed away inching closer to the trench, and the thing stalked slowly after him. I waited. Just a little closer. West fumbled and dropped his gun. The thing, seeing an opening, lunged forward, ready to tear West in half. Just as planned. Our second advantage was that the creature thought we couldn’t hurt it. If it was confident, it would indulge its instinct to torment its terrified prey. That was why West had been chosen; he was most afraid of the thing, and the creature knew it. The thing drew closer with terrible speed, but West had no intention of dodging this time. Ignoring his rifle, he pulled an emergency flare from his belt and struck it with a practiced, fluid motion. The flare sparked and leapt to brilliant life, casting a hard orange light. The thing screeched like a mangy cat at the light, lost its footing and tumbled in a heap to the side as it aborted its clumsy assault. It clambered to its feet and backed away a step, shielding its wide eyes from the flame, snarling. West’s hand was trembling; his shadow wobbled in the uneven light, but he kept advancing on the now rattled creature despite his fear. The creature retreated in time with his steps, and West slowly corralled the thing, edging it towards the trench. The thing was close to me now. I had to hold my breath against the smell. I waited for the last moment, and just as it was about to make a counterattack on West, I seized the spade and leapt from the trench. Even caught off guard, the thing was fast. It narrowly avoided my first swipe, which I had aimed for its neck, falling to its knees and bending its waist back splaying its arms out against the ground. It was back on its feet in an instant, swiping at my ankles. Its eyes were sharp and wide, its mouth closed, pinched shut in concentration. Its horrible smile was gone, and it looked between me and West warily as we circled it. It was afraid. We surrounded it, keeping West’s back to the NML, and mine to the trench. It turned and tried to feint by West, but at this range, even with its speed, it wouldn’t be able to get past him without risking the flare. In desperation, it spun back to me, now the lesser of two threats. After another moment’s hesitation, it bundled itself up and rushed me. It slammed into me.

When

the war broke out, I was new to the seminary; the white collar still chafed against my neck. Londoners are, by nature, only as pious as they are afraid, and that week their faith was very strong indeed. The Bishop had come to my church to help, to instruct us how to tend to the despairing mothers whose sons had been taken to the front. Unable to contain my doubts, I had asked the leathery old man why the church hadn’t united in condemnation of the war. “Surely,” I had said, “if we got together with the German archdiocese and spoke out against all of this it would do some good.” His answer was long winded, full of empty words and justifications about national interest and the complications of politics. We spoke for almost an hour, but I heard only one thing: “God can’t stop the war, and we don’t care to.” When I defrocked myself the following day, I knew exactly why I had done so. However, when I enlisted in the British army and requested shipment to the front lines, I had been in a daze, unsure of the reasons behind my actions. I was being carried along, like a puppet to my own instinct. For a long time, I thought it was because, with my life in the Church having gone to waste, I simply wanted to die. Death in the trenches, at least, would be a kind of revenge against that politician in a bishop’s robe. However, as I was shoved back into the trench by the stony weight of the dead creature, as I felt its yellow teeth snap inches from my face and smelled the rot on its breath I suddenly knew why I had come out here. In the Church, I was helpless to protect the men being used on the front, but here I had some small chance to help. As the monster and I rolled down into the ditch, I knew that if I could save at least these two boys with me, and one of them my “enemy,” it would be the best kind of revenge, and everything that had brought me here would be made worthwhile. I fell back, the wind knocked from my belly by the force, and I almost vomited as I sucked a lungful of tainted air. The spade flew from my hand, clattering behind the creature. I scrambled through the dirt on my stomach, grasping for it, ignoring the lines of pain that ran through my cracked chest with each breath. I managed to get past it and seized the spade just as it lunged. I spun around onto my back, screaming as I jabbed the spade like a trident towards the white blur descending on me. Its claws dug into my shoulder as if my flesh and bone were made of paper, but I caught the thing just below the chest, where sternum meets ribcage, penetrating its stony flesh with surprising 19

ease. High on adrenaline, not even feeling the pain, I scrambled to my feet and pushed the spade deeper into the creature in one motion, punching all the way through its back and into the walls of the trench on the other side. Vile, black fluid spilled from the wound across my hands and arms, itching and burning like gasoline where it touched, but I held tight, leaning into the handle to keep the thing pinned. It flailed wildly at me, slicing the air inches from my face, howling. “Abraham!” I screamed, pushing again as the monster bucked wildly. The wooden handle was starting to splinter, and I shifted my grip to hold it in place, the cracking wood driving shards into my palm. For a long, terrible moment I thought that the German had abandoned us. “Abraham!” Our third advantage was the war itself. No doubt the creature had chosen this spot as its hunting ground for a reason; death was common here, and it could pick the landscape clean of soldiers like a farmer in a field of cattle. It most likely knew that we would blame one another for any deaths, and that with so much bloodshed, we would likely be unable to seek help or refuge. It assumed that, if we did encounter the man that had chased it off, we would simply have killed him. Our advantage was that we hated this thing more than one another. When Abraham emerged from his foxhole, covered in dirt and shit to mask his scent, flame thrower primed and ready, the creature was so shocked it actually stopped its struggles for an instant and stared at Abraham in dumb incomprehension. Then, with a terrified yowl, it thrashed and pulled at the spade with renewed vigor, digging its claws into its own torso, trying to pull the thing that impaled it out from the inside, flinging its black, bilious blood across the trench. Too late. The flame thrower gave a frantic, ticking sound, and I threw myself away an instant before it roared to life, spewing a stream of liquid fire onto the monster.

he monster burned like paper, and the stench that it made as the flames greedily consumed it was worse than poison gas. The vomit I had been holding back came up with a rush, but it was a good feeling. I was purging myself of the stink. West climbed down into the trench, and the two of us watched Abraham mercilessly burn the monster. It flailed in agony and panic, its screams loud and piercing at first, but soon fading to choked gurgles and finally silence. The light from the fire was a hellish red and orange, and its tossing about cast jagged shadows, which slowly coalesced into solid shapes as its struggles slowed, and

finally ceased. The stink lingered on a moment longer, but that too was quickly dispersed by the wind, and all three of us breathed deep and unhindered for the first time. Once the tide of adrenaline had subsided, the pain from my wound returned. It was a terrible, sickly agony, sharp and sour, and I didn’t want to look at my shoulder for fear of what I might see. Abraham bandaged it with somber detachment, saying nothing about its severity except, “You will want to make haste to an allied hospital.” We rested awhile, saying nothing. West quietly divvied up our remaining supplies for the long walk home, Abraham smoked cigarettes like a boy who just lost his virginity, and I sat, trying to comprehend the pain in my shoulder. Eventually, as the black sky settled to a dark blue, we climbed out of the trench and turned to one another. “It has been a unique honor, gentlemen.” Abraham said. “But I believe we should now part ways; our countrymen will not understand, and it would be a black comedy if one of us were killed by a man after slaying a devil.” West shook his head, dizzy with disbelief. “I don’t know if I can do this anymore. How can I go back to war now?” “Indeed. And I, for my part, do not intend to. There are likely others of this creature, skulking about in parasitic communion with us, and it leaves a sour feeling in my belly to think of others being preyed

upon as we were. I shall do something about that, I think.” “What will you say happened out here?” I asked. He chuckled his old man’s chuckle. “I tell the truth. They will not send a madman to fight their war.” He favored us with another laugh and a sly wink, and then turned away. “Alez Gut, my friends.” We turned from him and began the long walk home. I tried not to think about Jon or Quince, nor to wonder how many creatures might be out there, hiding. I avoided speculating on how many lives this inhuman host had claimed throughout history, and I certainly did not want to think about the possibility that this one war that men made on one another, of our own volition, may have killed more. Instead, I consoled myself with the simple fact that, for me at least, the war was over. Warmed by the anticipation of peace, I rested my weight against West and together we strode on. As Abraham marched westward, deeper into the night, we made our way east, walking toward the dawn. __________________________________________ Jacob Friedman's work has been previously published in the University of Florida literary magazine, and in the Poet's House "Memories in my Mouth" collection. He received his MFA in creative writing from New School University in New York, and is currently a professor of composition at Miami Dade College and Barry University.

Death With A Conscience by Andre Cruz

There are some tools that should never be given artificial intelligence. ___________________________________________________________

He carried me to the beach because I had told

him that I wanted to see a real one before we completed our mission. When the helicopter had dropped us into the jungle, a strap from my harness had covered my eye. I never had a chance to see the inspiration behind my simulated dreams. Now I could feel my dreams becoming real. I sensed something falling on my slender body and I heard waves as they slapped the shore. I opened my large eye expecting to see a yellow sun and light rain falling from a partly blue sky, just like in my dreams, but the sun… The sunset’s light shone blood red through the falling ash as the ocean reflected the dying day, like a vast puddle of blood. The hot wind blew and I smelled death. Where is that smell coming from? My voice vibrated through his hands and the sensors in his gloves decoded my language to him. I could hear his respirator in his armored radiation suit adjust to his breathing. “I can’t smell anything, but from the looks of it, it’s probably all the dead fish washing up,” he said. He slowly turned me from right to left so that I could scan the ocean. I zoomed in my eye toward the shore and to my dismay Death waved back at me; its hands were full of dead fish. “Let’s go,” I said. “This is a nightmare.” “You’re a nightmare, Scythe,” he said. Scythe? I thought. I stored his new name for me in my processor. Then leave me here so that I can complete mankind’s interpretation of hell. He laughed, which he often did from my quips. The scientists made sure they paired me with a soldier who was compatible with my personality, or at least they said they did. We had been together for two weeks of basic training and a half-an-hour on this mission and I was already surprised in his name choice for me. Maybe it’s the environment? I thought as I looked at the shore, which was littered with hundreds of dead fish covered in ash. His chuckle sounded alien through his respirator. “You think this is hell?” He asked. “Wait until we reach the target.” He looked up at the falling ash. “By now they probably have a riot on their hands.” We turned and moved toward the jungle. I could 21

see that the ash collecting on the palm trees was making their tops sag, which gave the appearance that Mother Nature was bowing her head in sadness to the atrocity man had inadvertently committed on her beach. “Seriously though, I’m sorry about the fallout ruining what would have been a beautiful tropical sunset,” he said. You should feel sorry for the naval fleet that was wiped out from the explosion, I said. “I prayed for their families when we flew over the debris,” he said. You should have told me when you were praying, I said. I would have joined you. He stopped walking. “Scythe, please don’t say things like that. It’s creepy.” Why is it creepy? I asked. “You may have simulated emotions, but you are still a gun,” he said. Then I should keep quiet and be what you want me to be? I asked. A mindless tool that destroys anyone you point me at? “I don’t see the point in the egg heads giving you emotions,” he muttered. I watched the ash as it covered the last granules of sand. I just had to see the beach, I said, hoping his gloves would decode my lie with an honest tone. I did not want him to hear my fear. I did not want to kill anyone. He carried me toward the jungle. “I understand,” he said flatly. When we entered the jungle, I could see the sunset’s red light poking through the holes in the canopy, leaving large gaps of darkness hiding in between the tall trees. I tried to take in the smell of something new besides rotting animals, but with every other step he took, came a crunch of bone and Death’s aroma followed. “God,” he said after I heard a wet crunch. Thank Him for not allowing you to smell what you keep stepping on, I said. “What did I tell you about being religious, Scythe?” He asked. I ignored him along with the sunset’s red light and turned my eye inside out to scan for life. Light blue washed over the darkness and I held in my excitement for the sight of life-warm red.

“Do you see anything?” He asked. All I see is blue so far, I said. “Not even animals?” He asked. All dead, I said. A crash sounded. Fifty yards to our right! I said. He spun to our right and I saw a flash of red leaping toward us. He pulled my trigger and silence came from my muzzle. My bullet did not even leave a flash in the air or a casing to drop. The only evidence of my violence was a heavy thud that sounded fortynine point seven yards away. “Shit,” He said quickly. “What was it?” I did not want to say, for something new leapt from the rotting smell in the jungle. It was the smell of fresh blood. I replayed the target as it was seconds ago when alive; a six-foot red figure with a muscular frame bounding toward me with its arms outstretched. It wanted to take me or… no not it, he… I replayed the way his arms were outstretched. Dread came over me. That man was asking for help. “Scythe, what was it?” He asked. I wanted to say something reassuring, but before I could I said, I don’t“Jimmy!” A man screamed in the distance. He jerked me up and looked into the back of my eye to see who had screamed. I could see through the light vegetation a bright red figure kneeling beside a fallen one, which was losing its warm red color. The bullet’s computer chip, which was lodged in the fallen man’s right ventricle, told me he had died on impact. It was my first kill. He bent down and crept toward the grieving man, leaving me no time to think about the murder I had just committed, but leaving me too much time to feel guilt. “Jimmy!” the man wailed as we settled a few yards away from him. “How the hell did this happen? They didn’t shoot you when we escaped.” “It was me,” he said as he stepped out of the darkness and thrust me through the red sunlight into the man’s face. “Don’t kill me!” the man said and fell over his dead comrade onto his back. He ignored the man and walked to the corpse, which was turning from dull red to a shade of blue through my heat vision. Is that because his soul has left his body? I wanted to ask him. It’s because we shot him, I knew he would say. He knelt over the corpse. I turned off my heat vision and used the little light that shone through the canopy to see that the man, my first victim, looked like every other human I had encountered. Except that terror was the last thing he had experienced. All 22

because of my eagerness to live even though I was not alive. Why was I made to feel this? I asked myself. Laughter boomed from above me and for a nanosecond, I thought it was Death itself. “It’s just a damn prisoner,” he said after a hard exhale. I unfocused my attention from my regret and focused on the man who I had murdered. I then saw him in a new light. I realized he had on a prisoner uniform and, and, yes, therefore he wasn’t a man at all. Yes, he was an animal who… had merely escaped from the zoo. That’s what he would say. So, then, I am not a murderer. I wanted to laugh, but I didn’t have the components to let me. “And you had me worried, Scythe,” he happily said. I looked at the dead convict’s arms and noticed they had been severely burned. Despite my wishes, the dead convict’s last moments alive replayed in my mind. Those badly burnt arms, which only appeared a crude red to me when he was alive, were outstretched toward me asking for help. It, no he, he was asking to be saved. He, not it, was a human being not an animal. I could hear a man whimpering somewhere in the darkness of my mind. I then realized it was the other man, who was whimpering as he hid in the jungle’s thick vegetation. I was moved up and around, but I couldn’t see where the man had gone without switching to a special vision. I could only hear him trying to choke back his cries. How did he get away from us? I asked. “That piece of shit got away from us while I was thinking,” he said. About our first kill? I asked, ignoring his dehumanization of the man. “About our first kill,” he said, putting emphasis on our like I hadn’t said it. That’s right, our, first kill, I said, I know my part. “Good,” he said, which surprised me. I could hear the man trying to creep away; the thick vegetation wouldn’t let him leave quietly. “Are you ready to kill again?” He asked, which sounded like he was talking to himself. We don’t have to if we find him, I said. “And then what?” He asked. “We arrest him and put him where?” I let my processor search for the best possible solution while my emotions kept telling me to kill. I did not want the convict to harm me. I fought my fear with reason. When we find him, we will place him under arrest, I said.

“And place him, where?” He asked. We will bind him to a tree until we come back for him, I said. I felt his heartbeat quicken. I couldn’t tell if it was because of anger or fear. Are you okay? I asked. “Lead the way,” he said. I turned my eye to x-ray vision and scanned the jungle. I could still feel his rapid heartbeat, which made me think about my current emotion. I won’t let him hurt you, I said. He ignored me as he slowly turned me from left to right. Maybe he isn’t afraid, I thought. In the darkness, a white figure appeared like a ghost thirty-two point three yards away. Before I could say the man’s coordinates, I felt a burst of speed and then felt hot wind rush against my body. All I could smell from the wind was death. He held me tightly as he avoided trees, ducked under low vines, and leaped through thick growth toward the running white figure. I could hear the crunch of bones of the small dead animals as he ran over them. We are chasing a ghost in a graveyard, I thought. I could feel the hard pounding of his heartbeat through his gloves as we moved. I could hear his quick breathing. I felt his excitement as it started to corrupt me. I was even beginning to think that the rapid rhythm of his thundering heartbeat was my own. We were becoming something new to this dark world, something both man and machine. I began to worry. We were getting closer to the running man, so close that I could smell his perspiration, which smelled better than the rotting flesh that surrounded me, so much better, that suddenly I didn’t want to smell anything else. He smelled alive. I felt myself stop and rise to his face to take aim at the running man. Wait! I tried to scream, but before I could lock my trigger, he pulled it. I saw the bright white light disappear in the blackness and heard the ghost crash to the ground twenty-one yards away. While a pounding heartbeat made me tremble, I quickly turned on my heat vision, hoping to see a red figure where I heard the crash. The bullet sent back a message, which read death. Why did I kill him? I asked myself. I heard a footstep and I suddenly remembered the heartbeat did not belong to me. “That was the best way,” he said. I could feel his heartbeat begin to slow down along with his breathing. I searched my memory banks to find my words. For 23

you, I finally said. “For this mission,” he said. “We are not here to rescue the prisoners.” You didn’t have to kill him, I said. “Now you have a change in…” In heart, yes, I said, I tried to think like you about these convicts, but I can’t. They are people too. “If we did it your way he would have killed us,” he said. “You are fully armored, you shouldn’t be afraid of an unarmed man, I said. “You are a machine, you shouldn’t be afraid to die,” he said. “But you are afraid and that’s why you didn’t follow through with locking your trigger when I took aim at him.” I fell silent. He walked on. “You think I didn’t feel it when you tried to lock your trigger? I wanted to lock the trigger myself, but just like you Scythe, I couldn’t.” I didn’t want to kill him, I said. “You’re a gun and I’m a soldier, we didn’t have a choice,” he said. I could sense the shadows grow from between the trees. In silence, I switched to my night vision lens and let it turn the dead jungle green. There was no option for a rebuttal. He was right. I felt anger for being wrong about myself, for feeling that my emotions made me too special to be just another weapon of war. I’m a high end computer in a gun meant to keep a soldier mentally sharp, that’s all, I thought. Next, I should play chess with him. I saw a couple flakes of fallout ash lazily evade the trees as they drifted toward me. Keep a soldier’s mind sharp to kill in order to survive in a world that has been turned to this. I looked at the ash covering the vegetation. What’s the purpose of surviving in a hell like this? I asked myself even though my emotions were telling me the answer. I watched in silence as we journeyed through the low vines and tall vegetation. A new smell then came to me. It smelled of smoke and sweat. I felt dread for what was likely to come. Human life, I thought. I turned up my hearing to verify what I thought I smelled and that was when I could hear men laughing. I have probable targets to the Northeast, forty yards, I said. “Probable targets?” He asked. “You mean targets, Scythe. If two prisoners had escaped, then there are more in the area.” We will assess that possibility… I remembered what I was. You are right, let’s get closer so I can assess the situation.

“Just don’t get me killed during your assessment,” He said jokingly. I felt a warm spark then turn into a tingling sensation. Tell you what, I’ll stay here and you follow my coordinates, I said, wanting to stay in that moment, but he kept walking forward. He laughed quietly, just like I knew he would. We stopped when we both could see smoke moving above the canopy like thick black rain clouds. I switched my lens to partial x-ray vision, so I would not drain my energy, and looked through the trees. “What do you see?” He asked as shouts of laughter rang through the smoky night air. I could see armed skeletons dancing while a white fire that had consumed a five-story building with barred windows danced in the distance. I zoomed in on a pile of odd shapes that was to the men’s left and realized they were dead men with their arms and legs sticking out from underneath each other. I then remembered his question. I see hell, I said. “I told you,” he said. They killed all of the guards, I said. I felt relief and then slight disgust with myself. The mission is over, I said. “It isn’t and you know that,” he said. “You know what we have to do now.” I searched for another answer, but my emotions… I wanted to be numb, but those men were a threat. I quickly scanned my surroundings and found the perfect sniper position. I showed him the coordinates. We crept forward, the Grim Reaper and his loyal “Scythe,” toward the unsuspecting men, who all howled bloody murder in the fiery night. We stopped under a small opening in the undergrowth. I switched to my night vision to try to get a clearer image of the twenty men dancing in the great pool of night in between the jungle and the faroff burning prison, but the fire caused glare. I switched to my regular vision and tried to focus on the twenty men, but all I could see were shadows. At least, I won’t see there faces, I thought. He slowly laid me down and got himself into a prone position. I opened up my bi-pod near my muzzle and he planted it into the ground. So far, we were following our training to the letter, the next step was to clear our minds to prepare for the first shot. Ironic to me, as he looked into the back of my eye with his strong eye all I could see was a beautiful beach. I let my mind’s imagery leak into my eye to show him what I was thinking. To my surprise, he didn’t yell at me. Instead, I noticed his eye was glazed over. 24

What are you seeing? I asked him. His pupil constricted. “Home,” he said and squeezed my trigger. My bullet sliced through a man holding two pistols so fast that he stood dead for a second before collapsing. The other men saw the man collapse and cautiously moved closer to him. I converted to fully automatic and showed him that I had done so in my eye. He tapped my trigger and half of the men who were gathered around their fallen comrade joined him. The remaining nine men cried out in excitement and hit the ground, taking the prone position. What the hell? We both asked at the same time. Three of the men began to fire toward us, but too high. While the rest ran to the pile of dead bodies and took cover. What is this? I thought. The three men in the prone position eased their firing while the other six men who hid behind the corpses opened fire toward us. Bullets slammed in to the trees only inches above us, causing bark to rain down on us. He turned and I looked up at the huge craters the bullets were leaving in the trees. Your armor won’t hold up against repeat fire like that, I said. “Great observation,” he mumbled. I heard someone bark a command. He turned me back toward the men. I saw three of them were crawling toward us on their stomachs, while the other six continued to pin us down. “They are not prisoners,” he said. Why would an army invade this island? I asked. It is too far away from anything important. “There is the answer right there,” he said. I switched to my night vision again, but the glare was still too much from the prison fire. When I turned it off, I noticed that the fire’s light was still too far away and too dim to allow me to see clearly with my normal vision. All I could see were quick yellow flashes from the six men’s guns and the shadows of the three who were crawling toward me with deadly dark shapes in their hands. I felt a tinge of electricity in my side, which stopped my ability to think. The tinge flared up into burning pain and sent my mind ablaze with agonizing visions of men tearing me apart piece by piece. We are going to charge them, I said as more tree bark rained down on me from the bullets. “We?” He asked. “When the hell did you grow legs?”

If you stay here you will die, I said while more bark fell on me. “I know,” he said. Then you need to do exactly what I say so that you won’t be killed, I said. “Believe me, I’m listening,” he said. Fire twenty two yards to the six men’s right into that vegetation, I said, And make sure you don’t hit anything over here to give away our position. Even though I don’t have muzzle flash if you hit anything over here you will give away our exact position. “I don’t miss, you know that,” he said. Unfortunately, I do, I thought. He pressed my trigger and I sent a barrage of bullets through the small openings in front of us into the thick vegetation to the six men’s right. The men yelled at each other, turned, and fired on the vegetation to their right. Now! He jumped over the wide tropical stems and ran under the thick vines until he broke into the clearing where ash fell like snow. He raised me to his strong eye and aimed at three men, who looked liked menacing shadows. He fired on them before they could stand and I watched them succumb to death right before me with out even muttering a word of discontent. Stay focused! Look to your left at those men firing frantically into the woods and kill them before they kill you! He spun around and fired, taking the lives of those six men, leaving only dead bodies, silence and falling ash. I could feel his heartbeat lower and his breath ease as he still stood holding me in the firing position. “Now, it’s over,” he said. Yes it is, I said. He began to walk toward the three dead men; their limp shadowy bodies looking unreal while a soft orange glow came from the raging prison fire well beyond them. “Scythe,” he said. Yes, I said. “Back there, when we were in combat together…” Yes? I asked. “It seemed like you were a part of me,” he said. I didn’t say anything. He hoisted me up over his shoulder and I could only look up at the black sky while it snowed gray radioactive flakes on me.

“How did you know they would fire away from us like that?” He asked. Because I know fear all too well, I said. I then watched the falling radioactive ash. And I know how you humans react to it. He stopped. “You don’t know a God damn thing.” He jerked me down and pointed me at three sprawled corpses. At this distance, I could see the men’s torn flesh and see the blood as it began to cake on their prison guard uniforms. We turned toward the pile of dead bodies and noticed that most of them had been burnt beyond recognition. Only a few of the corpses’ arms and legs had prisoner tattoos that were still legible. “Jesus Christ! You let me get too carried away!” he said. “For the love of it all, why were you given emotions?” I thought about his question while I took in the environment. ‘Why were you given emotions?” I could feel the radioactive ash falling on me as that statement replayed in my mind. ‘Why were you given emotions?’ I could still smell men’s bodies burning in the tropical air as their killers, who were once given the power to reform them, now lay dead among them. ‘Why were you given emotions?’ I looked at the falling ash as it began to cover the corpses. I realized why the scientists gave me emotions, why they gave me this mind; I was surrounded by examples. How could I had not have realized it sooner. I then felt horrible. I am special after all. I then remembered his question, but was still in awe from the responsibility the scientists had entrusted me with, and I suddenly hoped not even a small part of him enjoyed killing those men with my power. Because I knew that just like fear, that dangerous part of him would grow like cancer and consume him like it had so many others of his kind. Even though we seemed the same, I just couldn’t stop thinking that ‘absolute power corrupts…’ refers to humans not machine. Absolute power corrupts… “What?” He asked. We are not going to fail another mission like this, I said. Absolute power corrupts, I thought. I then locked my trigger. Or we both will be seeing more of this ash. “I don’t understand,” he said. Then I’ll help you, I said. That’s what I’m here for. __________________________________________ Death With A Conscience is the first published story from Andre Cruz.

Coal Black Talons by Murphy Edwards

You can run away from evil, or meet it head on. ___________________________________________________________

Believe me when I say this, they are not human.

They may, at times, look like humans, they may act like humans, even walk and talk like humans. In truth, they are anything but. They are the ultimate predator, for they hide in plain sight, not just blending into the crowd, but becoming it. The first time I saw them, they were deep within the inner city, where poverty danced about the landscape consuming buildings and businesses with equal abandon. Lord how I’ve grown to hate the city. Not the sounds or the smells, those I have grown quite accustomed to, rather like actually. No, for me it is the never ceasing clot of people, and now, the need to constantly look over my shoulder. I had gone for a walk down Bennington Street to catch some fresh air and a cold pint at Muligans Pub. My sleep had been a bit off the mark and I was sure the brisk evening air, mingled with a bit of strong ale, would have me eager for bed and a night of fitful sleep. I took my usual stool at the bar and was soon consumed with the revelry of a night among friends. Having finished a third pint and a go at the darts with an eager fellow named Cullin, I’d stayed a bit longer than first planned. Since the ale was cold and the darts were hitting their mark in my favor, I had little concern for the time. At midnight I cashed it in and left by way of the back door. That’s when I saw them. A thick fog had settled in over the alleyway, hanging over the steam grates and rubbish bins like a woolen horse blanket. The ale had me in gentle spirits and I was whistling a merry tune to carry me along. Ahead of me by no more than twelve paces was a rather large gent who, by the look of his gate, had spent considerable more time in front of the tap at Muligans than I. He was a bouncing waggle of a man, nearly as broad as he was tall. He lilted from side to side as he walked, caught up in the merriment of a night on the tiles. I amused myself by watching as the fellow tittered to himself and weaved his way down the darkened alley, dodging trash bins, ash cans and the occasional sewer rat. Midway down the alley he stopped short, as if someone had thrown up a traffic signal which had gone to red. His belly jiggled in a tussle with his beltline as he swayed to-and-fro on the balls of his feet. As I drew closer, his body continued 26

its gentle sway, but his face went stone gray. It was thereabouts that the smell hit me. The smell of something long dead. It wormed into my nostrils and assaulted my sinuses, stirring bile in my throat and tears in my eyes. I leaned against an ash can and began to wretch. At that precise moment the far wall quite simply came alive with their form, as if the very mortar had become them, and they the mortar. When I reached eighteen I stopped counting them and crept as close to the darkened end of the nearest rubbish bin as I dared without stumbling and causing an attraction. Sweet Mother of Mercies how they did stink, though. The creatures were not lycanthropic, no werewolf or vampire, for none of those beasts could hold a candle to these. Neither were they some legend of distant folklore, conjured up to scare children and commoners half out of their rightful wits. Upon appearing from the wall they briefly flashed to a human form, then dodgered like a flickering torch before turning full-on into their true selves. They had no eyes to speak of, merely tight menacing slits high at the top of their protruding foreheads. By the look of their ears and their constantly twitching snouts, I soon made the logical assumption that they moved about largely by the sensing of smells and sounds. Both were quite keen. Roundabout their shoulders and outer thighs were thick wedges of razor sharp bone protruding from the flesh like slippery white daggers. The nape of their necks bore heavy wrinkles, taking on the appearance of a stack of cased sausage links, though the smell of their breath was something else entirely. The circle of creatures stood stark still, clicking their coal black talons about on the pavement as if they were signaling, one to another. Perhaps they were, for soon they thrust themselves upon the man in a violent and bloody rush. I heard him scream, then begin pleading, asking to be spared from whatever fate was about to befall him. Whatever mercies he begged for did him no good. Once they set about their work, there was no stopping them. Damning myself for leaving my only weapon at home on the bed stand, I crouched as low as I could, willing myself to blend in with the darkness of the trash bin the way I’d seen them blending with the brick and mortar only moments ago. My presence

appeared to be hidden from the beasts by the stench from the contents of the trash bin. I aimed to keep it that way. The first strike opened up an ugly gash in the man’s belly. His insides soon found their way outside, spilling forth in his palms like a waterfall. Blood gushed between his fingers, staining his shirt like an uncorked bottle of burgundy spilling out on freshly laundered table linens. I struggled to keep the ale within the confines of my stomach. The sight of so much blood sickened me, but not yet to the point of wasting good ale by throwing it up in a darkened alley full of crazed beasts. That was soon to change. Once the creatures had the man sufficiently weakened, they thrust their powerful talons into his ribs and lifted him onto a loading platform. His body had gone limp, his eyes glazed over from the shock of it all. They approached him at chin level and bit into his neck and thighs as though he were a freshly baked tea cake. They didn’t eat the flesh so much as merely melt it away. In a matter of moments, all traces of the man were completely gone, save for his clothing and a scruffy pair of hand-sewn loafers. Likewise, the creatures, having ate their fill, twittered briefly to a human form, then blended into the mortar and brick as cleanly as a knife through creamery butter. No sign of them remained. Salty tears rolled down my cheeks, hitting the concrete in noisy plops. I wiped my eyes with the sleeve of my shirt, fearful of what might happen if they heard me and returned to finish their feast. I could smell the man’s spilled blood, the raw metallic odor mixing with the smells of taverns and trash. The sound of clicking talons remained trapped inside my head. My hands trembled like a feeble drunkards, confident the beasts would return, yet still unsure I had actually seen them at all. I waited a full hour, crouched like a frightened bunny behind the trash bin, listening for the two o’clock toll of the central city tower, then exited the alleyway in the opposite direction. I made my way home in less than ten minutes, winded by running at full gate down Bennington Street and up the three flights of steps to my flat. Once there, I retrieved the revolver from my bed stand and a bottle of bourbon from the kitchen. I took blinding belts from the bottle, certain the beasts would appear through the walls or ceiling at any given moment.

came to on the couch some hours later, the bottle empty and the revolver clutched tightly to my chest. Sharp nailed fingers of pain stabbed at the back of my eyes, bullying me for being so careless. 27

At dawn I went straightway to the closest station house and filed a report with the Constable, but really, how serious could he take me? Me, shambling into his office smelling of strong drink and going on about hideous, eyeless beasts with black talons and dripping snouts, who appeared from nothing and ate an apesized man in the back alley of a local pub. What was he to do? I counted myself fortunate that he chose to let me leave the station with the simple promise to sober up and never speak of it further. After several days of rambling about from room to room, jumping at the slightest hint of a noise, I determined to keep the whole thing mum. The believing of such a story would be difficult at best, and even my closest friends would likely consider the whole matter nothing more than an amazing bit of tripe. It wouldn’t be the first time I’d been accused of allowing my liquor to do the talking. I didn’t want to be considered daft as well. I eventually returned to work, explaining to my employer, Winston Deaver, that I had taken ill and was bed ridden with chills and fever so severe I was swept into delirium. The sallow look on my face, coupled with swollen, bloodshot eyes made the story convincing enough to pass muster. Deaver was no fool. After missing two weeks work, I counted myself fortunate to still be in his employ. I determined to bury myself in the mounds of paperwork stacked at my desk and put the whole duff behind me. When I had all but forgotten my first encounter with the creatures, resigning it to the consumption of one too many pints and the exhaustion brought on by a demanding job, I again began to venture out in the evenings. Most of my trips were short, brought about by the need to visit the local chemist for scripts or a market to fetch tea and baked goods. My life had returned to normal, save for an occasional nightmare to disrupt my sleep. On the evening I walked to the tobacconist for a fresh fill of pipe tobacco, everything changed. I had decided to forego the usual meal from a tin and go out for a quick bite at Gaston’s Chop House after fetching the tobacco. I had regained my taste for red meat and as far as a well portioned porterhouse goes, there is none so fine as Gaston’s. The evening sky was clear, with only the slightest nip in the air. The walk to Gaston’s was a short one, so I elected to save the cab fare and leave on the heel. I grabbed my jacket and left for a night on the town, but not before sliding the revolver in my pocket. At the corner of Lennox and Calvert, I stepped to the crosswalk and waited for the signal to change. The

first scream hit my ears when I was well into the midst of Lennox and a ten ton tipper truck was bearing down on me at break neck speed. Had I not rolled to the curb, there would have been little more than bits and scraps to load into a funeral coach. The driver held fast to his horn with one hand while extending a finger in my direction through the open window. He rounded the corner at full gate, having one last go at the horn before speeding off into the night. I fingered the freshly torn hole in my trousers and dusted bits of ash from my jacket. The scream came again, louder this time, and more urgent than the first. Whoever it was, they were close, and from the sound of it, in extreme pain. I dashed toward the scream, unsure what help, if any, I could offer. A block up Calvert and through a bit of hedge and I was right on top of it, at which time the screaming turned to a mournful wailing so fierce I clapped my palms over my ears to block it out. What I couldn’t block out was the sight sprawled out on the cobblestone before me. A young woman, no more than twenty, was thrashing about as though she were possessed. She was bleeding. So much so that I could not distinguish from where, nor could I detect the extent of her wounds. As I approached her, the hedgerow came alive with a clot of shifting shapes, first human, then creatures. Those creatures. I squinted, balling my fists into my eyes in case I was seeing things, yet knowing full well I wasn’t. They were back, and they had seen me. There was no hiding among the trash bins, no pretending to be invisible, no wishing it away. I was caught up in it full on, whatever it was. I folded myself into the hedge, pulling the revolver from my jacket on the way in. I had six rounds in the revolver and enough for one reload. I counted fourteen of them. I was two bricks shy a full hod. There was little to do but aim carefully and pray. Always pray. The woman, by this point, was putting up an admirable fight with a can of hair lacquer and a nail file, but she was no match for those coal black talons and thick wedges of razor sharp bone. A pair of the beasts went to work on her midsection, having a go at her front bits like she was a shepherd’s pie. I watched her thrash about, knowing full well struggling would only prolong the agony of it all. From my place in the hedge, I opened up on the beasts with the revolver, hitting one at the base of the skull and two others in the upper chest. They dropped like a two hundred stone weight. My fourth shot went low and wide, bouncing off the cobblestone and burrowing harmlessly into the trunk of a nearby oak. I 28

had hopes the gun fire would bring help, but knew it likely wouldn’t, since Calvert was at the back of a section of abandoned industrial dredge that had yet to be rehabbed. The creatures scattered, taken aback by the sudden eruption of a .38 caliber hand gun. It lasted no more than a moment before they were back at the woman, this time with renewed vigor. The three creatures who’d taken my bullets flickered for an instant, then blended into the cobblestone and disappeared. One of the creatures, by appearances the leader of the group, turned his attention to the hedge. His ears pricked as he sniffed his way to my location at the far end. My finger tensed on the trigger, waiting for his slimy form to come well within range of my shaking hands. He parted the hedge in front of my face and I filled his with the remaining rounds from the .38. The creature fell out one side of the hedge and I the other. I had practiced loading the revolver on many occasions, but never with a heart full of adrenaline and a body filled with raw terror. I managed one round in the cylinder for every two I dropped to the dark grass at my feet. Having a go at ‘Hello Johnny’ in the tall grass while someone is being eaten alive a mere ten feet away can be a bit unnerving. At length I settled for the five rounds I had in the cylinder, swung it shut and brought the revolver up to eye level. A blood slicked talon parted a bit of hedge to the right of me, making way for that waggling snout and those menacing eyeless slits. I jacked the .38 hard up to its chin and pulled the trigger. The impact decorated the hedges with bits of putrid flesh and snout. Black talons slashed at the space I’d occupied moments ago, then disappeared. I knew I had to stay on the move, perhaps find a down-wind location and stay put. There was no discernable breeze and I was down to four bullets and a single prayer. I crashed through the hedges saying the Our Father and firing at anything that dared to move. I got off two shots before the revolver was batted from my hand. A flash of talons knocked me to the ground. Like razors, they dug into the meaty part of my back and ripped away bits of muscle and flesh, shredding it into long bloody strips. A second swipe rolled me over and caught me about the left temple, tearing out my eye. I groped about in the dark, searching for the eyeball like a child desperate to find a prized marble. One of the beasts flexed its talons and speared it up, savoring it like a freshly scooped melon ball. Blood filled the corners of my remaining eye, blotting out my vision. Then, just as before, as quickly as it all began, it was over. The creatures were gone. There was nothing

left of the woman to speak of, save for her purse and a shredded cotton dress, soaked to the full with blood. Had the creatures really gone or were they merely a part of the cobblestone and hedges I now stood between? I couldn’t say. I also decided not to find out. I was rattled, but more so by shock than pain. The speed of it all, the appearance, the tussle, the attack, was taking awhile for me to suss out. Having bundled my mangled face in the remnants of my shirt, I worked my way down Lennox Street, wedged myself through the transom over the doorway of Callihan’s Baked Goods and hid out till daylight. A month in hospital stuffed full of tubes and wires did little to settle my jangled nerves and relieve me of the shock of a wrecked body and a missing eye. The surgeon patched the wound as best he could, but with the condition of my face he had little left to work with. The hospital staff assumed I had either gotten myself into a bit of a go at one of the local pubs or was the victim of a merciless mugging by a heat of local thugs. They begged me to tell them which. Yet how could I? I was not much to look at after that. I spent much of my time sulking about, angered by the whole wedge I’d found myself in. I stumbled round my flat, giving anything a toss that wasn’t tacked down. The mirrors were the first to go. I cursed the creatures, myself, even my eye for seeing the bloody things in the first place. After that night, I stopped partaking of strong drink, for I could never allow myself to become careless again. At any given moment, when I was most vulnerable and least prepared, they could appear. It may be at a street carnival, or between the loose joints of my floorboards, changing to suit their needs, or perhaps simply lurking about just within the shadows to amuse themselves by inducing panic in their prey. Now that I had seen them, truly knew of them and what they were, they would be hunting me. That is why I despised the city. It distracted me, and I couldn’t afford not to pay attention. Very close attention. For if I didn’t, the moment my back was turned, or my eyes drifted to admire a brunette with a well placed curve, I was done for. With little support from the law, I took to relying solely on myself for protection. I set about the task of arming myself with every conceivable weapon short of cannon and grape. Knives and blades proved to be quite lethal. A well placed blade removed the head with one smooth swipe, but this required me to get too close to avoid those coal black talons. With only one eye remaining, I dared not give them a close-in advantage. A blast to the snout with a high caliber 29

hand gun proved to be the surest method to incapacitate them. I couldn’t actually say it killed them. Once attacked, they simply melded back into whatever they had appeared from. The attacks came more frequently after that. A young boy with dreadful piercings and a shaven head, out to celebrate his eighteenth and final birthday, an auto mechanic from Brindall, off on holiday, and an investment banker looking to score a hot bit of property from an elderly couple for little more than a chat and a dance. I saw them all, each attack more vivid and vicious than the one before, as if the creatures intended it to be so. And me, helpless to do anything but watch the carnage and blast away at odd bits of alien flesh. Each attack played over in my brain, like a cinema feature on an endless celluloid loop. The eighteen year old, having drunk his fill at the Bull and Horn, staggered into a vacant lot across from my office at the same instant I had locked up for the evening. He had scarcely hit the sod in his drunken stupor, when bits of turf began to rumble under him, churning in a rolling fashion. Then came the talons, thrusting up through the turf and straightway through the boy’s chest cavity. In less than two minutes, twenty-one creatures erupted from the earth and began to feed. I got off three rounds, but the distance from me to them had me at a decidable disadvantage. I didn’t want to hit the boy, though I doubt he would have felt it by that point. As I moved closer, they disappeared into the turf, taking the boy’s remains with them. The other two attacks were a bit of a combo. The banker was on his way to survey the prospective property when his auto chucked a wobbly. He limped it to the curb on Fenster Street and popped the bonnet to have a look. The auto mechanic, on his way to a pub crawl to soak up some of the local flavor and several pints, stopped to assist. That’s when the whole thing went pear shaped. The mechanic was busy fiddling with some greasy bit on the engine, telling the banker how fussy German autos could be. I rounded the corner on my way to post a letter at the precise moment the entire auto fluttered and belched forth a snarling pack of creatures. The mechanic was instantly cleaved in two from groin to forehead, toppling to either side of the gleaming black auto with a sickening thud. The attack put the banker on high alert, but it was too late for him to react. The creatures split up, half of them feeding on the remains of the mechanic, the other focusing on the banker’s meaty thighs. I’m sure they considered me a bit of a wally, charging round the

corner with a handgun going on about some pack of man-eating creatures about to have at them with teeth and talons. I wanted only to help them, perhaps save them if I could. Instead I only managed to boggle the whole sad mess, blasting away wildly as I dashed toward them. All that remained was a stalled German auto with a bloodied bumper, gleaming in the afternoon sun. After that they came at me constantly. I began to see them everywhere. In the lift, at a park, on the motorways driving everything from taxis to rubbish trucks. They usually appeared in pairs like an alien strike force, tormenting me with those endlessly clicking talons, or scratching at doors and windows. I survived only by keeping my wits about me and learning to fight like a madman. I put my full faith and effort into it, losing my job in the process and going through my life savings like corn through a hungry swan. The creatures had terrorized me, maimed me and taken everything from me I once held dear. I vowed they would never kill me. I took to the streets, living off bits and crumbs of whatever I could find. My flat was all but abandoned, empty of findings and furniture. I wanted to keep it, but I couldn’t afford to be that predictable. I had to stay on the kip, moving about like a vagrant. My

instinct told me that perhaps this had all happened for a reason, my one chance to finally leave the city. The changing of a habit starts with but a single day repeated. The torture of it all kept me just this side of insanity. At length, they would retreat from the fight, reverting back to whatever they were hiding in, becoming a piece of tin roof, a smoke stack, a railway platform, even the lamp posts I leaned on to steady myself. When I moved on, they did as well. Hunting. Feeding. Blending into the background. And waiting. Waiting for that single moment in time when I would let down my guard. When that time comes, and I know it will, they will move out of the shadows, clicking those coal black talons and sniffing the air, ready to feed. __________________________________________ Edwards has appeared in over fifty magazines and journals including, Dimensions Magazine, The East Side Edition, Black October, Horizons, MidAtlantic Monthly and in the anthologies Dead Bait , Assassin’s Canon and Abaculus II. His short story, “Mister Checkers”, was chosen to be among the best in science fiction, fantasy and horror of 2009 for the Leucrota Press Anthology, Abaculus III. He currently resides in Indiana.

A New England by Harper Hull

This London fog brings with it something far more ominous than low visibility. ___________________________________________________________

A small, plastic, red double-decker bus fell to the

ground with a clink. Fred Brewer sighed and reached down to retrieve it, feeling the familiar pulsing ache along his back. It had been another slow day in the offseason tourist trinket trade, and the awful December weather hadn’t helped. The cold, wet air always intensified Fred’s aches and pains, and now, as he pulled himself upright and dropped the toy bus into a box filled with a fleet of identical models, he noticed that a thick London fog was starting to roll across Trafalgar Square. He needed to get his stand locked up quickly and get home across the bridge, rest his aching back and have a nice hot dinner with the missus, maybe watch some telly. He’d had enough of miniature black cabs, telephone box money jars and teddy bears dressed as Beefeaters for one day. Eight years ago Fred had been a vital cog in Britain’s war machine helping to fight the Germans, working at a Spitfire factory; now he sold tat to foreigners with too much extra jingle in their pockets. It didn’t seem right. He’d be happy to see the back of 1953. “Evenin’ Fred!” hailed a familiar voice. Fred mock-tipped an invisible hat to the approaching man, dressed in the familiar orange jacket of the London Council clean-up crews and pushing a refuse cart. “Hello Phil mate! Lovely December night isn’t it?” The fog was thicker now, coiling around the base of Nelson’s Column and snaking its way up the famous statue. The entire square had the appearance of a swimming pool filled with dry ice. Fred realized he could no longer see below his knees and shook his head. He nodded towards Phil. “I better not drop anything else; I’ll never find the bloody thing!” Phil laughed, pointed at his cart stacked with brooms and litter pickers. “Don’t think I’ll be getting much done tonight, can’t see the rubbish.” Fred turned his head and looked towards Nelson’s Column. The fog was wrapped around the monument all the way to the old General’s waist now, climbing the stone like luminescent white ivy. Fred’s eyes widened, his mouth fell open and he pointed. “What’s that one-balled bastard doing there? Where’s Nelson?” 31

Phil, confused, was about to ask the old man if he was feeling alright when Fred fell to the pavement with a sharp gasp and became silent, unseen beneath the thick layer of ground fog that was unfolding across the entire city.

ouise Horton hurried through the big doors of the Royal St. Mary’s Hospital with her grey overcoat tightly wrapped around her. She only had her nurses uniform on underneath and it was bitterly cold outside, not to mention almost impossible to see. She rushed through the reception area and made her way to the Geriatric Ward on the ground floor. Old Doctor Smythe was at the nurse’s station and Louise grimaced. “Doctor, sorry I’m so late but they stopped the buses this evening and I had to walk in.” “I’m just glad you made it,” said Smythe, not unkindly, “we’re down two nurses already because of that fog. How is it out there now?” Louise hurriedly removed her big heavy coat and straightened her apron. “It got worse; you can barely see ten yards in front of yourself now! It’s awful!” “We’ve had a deluge of calls tonight, but as you can see,” said Smythe gesturing across the corridor towards the large ward, “barely any patients.” Louise stepped across to the double doors of the geriatric ward and looked through a small window. Most of the beds were empty. She turned back towards the Doctor. “I don’t understand…what were all these calls then?” “Deaths, Nurse. It’s an epidemic. There were a couple of hundred over-65 year-olds reported dead in the streets overnight. We’ve been getting inundated, people wanting to know if there’s a connection to the fog. Respiratory causes, of course, wouldn’t you say?” Louise nodded, noticing that Smythe had arched one of his bushy grey eyebrows at her as he asked the question. “I’m not so sure, unfortunately.” Doctor Smythe folded his arms. “From what I’ve heard and the few bodies I’ve been able to examine here today, it’s the heart and not the lungs. A number of them just dropped dead instantly, right in front of friends or family. A fair few of those supposedly said some very strange things as their last words. Seeing things,

apparently.” Louise was about to inquire further when the telephone began its shrill call at the duty desk. “Probably another one,” sighed the weary old Doctor.

ater that night, Reginald Smythe was shocked at just how thick the fog had become in the city. It was just as the young nurse had said; you could barely see your hands stretched out in front of your face. The Doctor kept himself tight to the store-fronts as he walked down the road, fearful of veering off into the street and not realizing. He only had to walk around the corner to reach his home at least; he had moved close to the hospital right after the war; his wife had been killed in the Blitz and his work was really all he had left to care about. At the corner Reginald stopped as he heard multiple loud footsteps ahead of him. The old man pulled back from the turn to let whoever was coming move past; they sounded like quite the group, police maybe. The stamping footsteps got louder and Reginald watched in shock as a line of marching soldiers materialized one by one in his small pocket of sight for a second and then disappeared back into the dense fog and marched across the road. They looked like Germans! He’d recognize that distinctive helmet shape anywhere. The marching men, in perfect unison, flickered quickly past Reginald in a solo column and he tried desperately to grasp details. He moved up to the edge of the corner building and pressed himself against the stone so they passed within inches of his hidden face. Yes, there it was – the dreaded swastika on the arms of the figures. Not the swastika he remembered though, this one was wrapped around a circular interpretation of the British flag. Oh my days, thought Reginald, panicking, before feeling a huge pull in his chest and falling to his knees on the wet pavement. The jackboots continued to pound the ground in front of him and were the last thing he saw and heard before his heart stopped.

ractically the only places that stayed open during the nights of the great fog were the public houses. Two tired looking elderly men wearing three-piece suits nursed pints of dark bitter in the corner of one such pub – The Wellington Arms – and talked quietly to each other like co-conspirators, empty glasses filling the dark wooden table before them. Outside in the London streets it was mostly quiet as people stayed home, windows fastened and doors locked. The stories about the fog had been spreading and folk were frightened. Arthur Hedley supped his pint and lit a 32

filterless Navy Cut cigarette. “So do you understand what they told us or not?” he curtly asked his drinking partner. John Masters tapped his pint glass and shook his head. “No, not really. Right above my head, all that.” Arthur and John worked at the landmark Battersea Power Station on the Thames. Unknown to the citizens of London, though, was the fact that Battersea was not actually a producer of power but a cloaked Ministry of Defense facility that researched what was hazily described as ‘future technologies.’ It wasn’t coal that the ships and trains delivered there. Arthur and John were employed in the Munitions Development department, having both worked on the infamous ‘Dambusters’ bouncing bomb under Barnes Wallis during the War. They had heard through the MoD grapevine that the fog enveloping London was due to a blunder in the mysterious Alternate Concepts division. Somehow the ‘witchdoctors and wizards’ over there had created or discovered this fog and now it was pouring out of Battersea’s four huge chimneys into the city, causing chaos. Whispers had been circulating the facility for two days now, strange talk of realistic visions and windows into different realities. Neither man had completely bought the gossip, but at the same time they had walked to the pub with their heads down, refusing to look around. They were scared to death and they weren’t entirely sure why. “My niece, you know Louise, nurse at the Royal, she told my wife there have been hundreds of deaths since the fog came. Heart attacks, they reckon. Even her own boss was found dead in the street this morning, just lying there not a hundred meters away from his own house. Some copper tripped over him.” Arthur lowered his head and furrowed his brow as he finished talking. “Time please, gents!” shouted the landlord at the bar, ringing a great brass bell. “Come on, Arty, I’ll walk you home,” said John, “We don’t want the fog getting you!” With the effects of a few strong pints running through their bloodstreams the two friends were a lot less cautious as they stumbled home through the banks of fog, heads up and eyes wandering. The old friends linked arms in an attempt to keep themselves on the pavement. As they meandered past the entrance to the Tower of London Arthur heard a strange creaking and stopped walking, looked up. John followed his friend’s sightline and drew in his breath sharply. Where usually there stood a ticket kiosk there was now a great wooden gallows constructed before the Tower, the top invisible in the thick fog. The two men could see several sets of

swinging legs above their shoulders and were grateful they could see nothing beyond the waists. John took Arthur’s wrist and started jogging across the road away from the hanging people, staring at the ground. “Don’t look back!” he shouted, “keep moving with me!”

“Y

ou’re a lucky bugger, Uncle Arthur,” said Louise Horton as she sat beside the hospital bed, “they’re saying over five thousand people died whilst the fog was here.” “Where’s John?” Arthur asked weakly, looking around the packed ward. “He didn’t make it Uncle, passed away last night, the poor old bloke. I’m sorry.” “Oh, bloody Hell.” Arthur put a hand to his eyes. “Has the fog cleared yet?” Louise nodded. “It has, finally. They’re still collecting bodies around the city now that they can see properly again. It’s just been an awful thing. All the hospitals are full too, lucky ones like you. They’re all talking nonsense though, saying there were Panzer tanks outside the Palace, Nazi banners on Tower Bridge, weird statues, firing squads in Hyde Park, ridiculous stuff – do you…do you remember seeing anything unusual?” Arthur grimaced, remembering the gallows and the bodies, the flight across the street, and then the sight that awaited them at the once Houses of Parliament.

That wasn’t his England. He shivered, looked to his niece and shook his head slowly. Louise gave a sigh of relief and squeezed her Uncle’s hand. “I need to do my rounds; I’ll come sit with you later before I leave.” As she walked away Arthur called out to her, “LouLou sweetheart, do they know what caused all this?” Louise turned back and crossed her arms. “They’re saying it was just very bad pollution from some dodgy coal, bad enough to cause hallucinations and even death in the weak-hearted. Like poor John. It came from one of the plants on the South Bank, they reckon - hope it wasn’t your place!” Arthur closed his eyes and tried to forget, but all he could see was the white fog opening up before them as he and John ran right into the midst of a large rally where a graying, diminutive man with a tiny white mustache was giving a speech from the steps of Parliament, being cheered on by black-clad Englishmen. __________________________________________ Harper Hull was born and raised in Northern England but now lives in a 19th century farmhouse in the American South with his much smarter and prettier Dixie wife. He grew up in a home crammed with classic sci-fi and horror books, and started writing his own stories in 2009. If you ever read one of his pieces, he just hopes you enjoy it. You can find him online at http://harperhull.weebly.com/

Fire and Ice

by Paul Celmer and Pete Wood Titan is a permanent deep freeze, until a little warmth falls from the sky. ___________________________________________________________

The twelve inch thick titanium walls creaked and

hummed from the constant raking of the savage wind outside. Inside the sensors read twenty-five degrees. But the temperature was dropping. A blue-white latticework of methane ice was already growing over the Emergency Pod's only portal. Death by fire or death by ice? Gonzalez had never thought much of that ancient question. But he now knew at least one thing: he did not like ice. "Damn," said Tanner, "it's bloody cold in here”. He cupped his hands and blew into them several times. "Where in Hell is Parker? She's been gone a long time." "Three hours," said Gonzalez absently as he peered into the darkness outside. His fingers drummed on his leg in rushed time with the silently mouthed words of the rosary, a ritual he had not performed since he was confirmed at fourteen. He lit a cigarette. He had a bad feeling that half a pack was not going to be nearly enough to get him through this. "Yeah," shot back Tanner. "Like I said, a long time." Tanner grimaced in pain from his shattered leg as he watched Gonzalez twist the thermostat that controlled the emergency Pod's last functioning heat generator. Gonzalez was lanky and had to stoop slightly to reach the controls. He didn't fit the Regs' uniform five foot ten specs the cheap bastards had allocated for occupants of the Company's cookie-cutter transports. So Gonzalez had to send out Parker. Tanner was within spec on height, but had an extra forty pounds of gut he didn’t need. He was an adequate co-pilot, but it would be more accurate to sum up his job qualifications in one line: Company man. He had crewed for Gonzalez many times before. They tolerated each other. Gonzalez just shook his head as Tanner spent his paychecks on alcohol and prostitutes, both of which were probably company products anyway. The irony of the arrangement seemed to escape Tanner. Gonzalez also knew Tanner had much contempt for his captain's intellectualism, especially Gonzalez’s archaic hobby of reading. Tanner had long ago given up in disgust trying to convert Gonzalez into a drinking buddy. And that was just fine with Gonzalez. What they did do together was haul supplies from the Federal lunar depots to the scientific and military outposts. And they did it quite well, at least as far as 34

the Company was concerned. On occasion they transported human cargo, missionaries for the outposts sometimes, but mostly research scientists like Sharon Parker. Gonzalez enjoyed debating with their “cargo”. He always found it interesting that men of faith were much more open minded to science than men of science were to questions of faith. Basically all routine shit, but nothing before was like this. Trying to save fuel on the approach to Titan, the Fed mandated Autopilot had grazed some bits of ice and rock from the outer rings of Saturn. The ship’s skin was torn in more places than they could patch in a lifetime. The command cabin blazed with fire. The three barely had enough time to scramble into the Epod. From there, they could only watch as the computer sent the pod to trail the dying transport that was going down in an unsurveyed quadrant near the south pole of Titan. The E-pod landed hard, knocking the wind out of Gonzalez. When he regained focus he discovered the impact had smashed two of their heat generators and destroyed the radio. And Tanner’s leg. "Never trust a man who can blow hot and cold with the same breath," said Gonzalez. He spun the thermostat as if he were turning an old style radio dial, desperately looking for a station in the middle of nowhere. "Huh? Goddamn, it is cold." "Aesop," said Gonzalez. "Small minds fear what they don't understand." Gonzalez continued to jab randomly at control buttons. Each breath marked the air, a diaphanous testament to the cold. The temperature had dropped forty degrees in two hours. Now water vapor inside was crystallizing. “Damn it. Why didn’t I grab a bottle of scotch before we ejected? Or some hash? Shit.” Tanner kept blowing. ”"Maybe the core is all used up." "No, there's plenty of plasma.” Gonzalez made sure of it by greasing a few palms back at the Depot. “Something else is wrong. The gauge says the thing is pumping out enough heat to make this place hotter than Hell. I don't get it." Gonzalez rocked from foot to foot in an increasingly futile attempt to keep warm. "Everything’s always been so easy for you. You think you can figure out anything, don't you, El Capitan," Tanner taunted. It was not Tanner’s worst. He was not above calling Gonzalez a wetback if he really wanted to dig the knife in. But Gonzalez had

been around Tanner long enough to know it was only Tanner’s way of blowing off steam. "Aesop," persisted Gonzalez, "wrote of two men. The first guy blows on his soup to cool it. The second asked what he was doing. The first said his breath cooled the broth. Later, outside in an icy night, he blew on his hands to warm them. The second, watching the first, couldn't understand and panicked." "Crap, panic? If I was going to panic, it would have been twelve hours ago. When this piece of shit smashed into the ground. Not over a bowl of goddamned soup. My breath only blows cold. Shit." They sat in silence around the dull green glow emanating from the center of the cabin. Gonzalez remembered as a youth living in oppressive heat. His parents out of some guilt over privilege and wealth resisted air conditioning in the New Mexico foothills. The priest told him that hell was a place of unendurable heat and then he went home and slept on sheets sopping wet from perpetual sweat. Now the memory of just being warm felt like some long ago storybook fantasy. After several minutes Tanner spoke again. "And, who is this Aesop anyway?" "Ancient Greek moralist. Learned about him in college." "Oh yeah. You went to a private college, didn't you Captain? Four years, learning about the 'classics'? Thank God, they closed those shitholes down." Then the airlock hissed. The sound of boots on steel. A figure staggered in and then slumped to the floor. Parker’s long black hair tumbled out in a wet coiling mass from beneath the helmet of her spacesuit. Gonzalez wrenched it off. Her glazed over eyes and drenched hair reminded him of hikers sick with heat exhaustion in the Mojave. It was not the sort of thing one saw in space travel. "Sharon. What happened?" Parker had a vacant smile on her face, her eyes wandering like she was drugged. "...heat....taste ...taste " she murmured. "What? Sharon, hold on." said Gonzalez. "She's delirious," said Tanner. "Good God. She's sweating to death. She must have had the suit set too high. The power supply is almost completely drained. Help me get this thing off her." Tanner crawled over to Parker. He panted heavily as he held her against his good leg. Gonzalez was able to pull the suit down to her torso with Tanner bracing. Gonzalez slapped her hard. "Sharon! Sharon!" She stirred only a little. Tanner wheezed from the exertion. "What a mess. This ain't surprising.” He coughed. “We’re the ones 35

who were trained for expedition work. Not some goddamned prissy little ivory-tower biologist," he said through clenched teeth. "And six months memorizing Company regs and auto pilot readouts qualifies you?" asked Gonzalez. "Hey, at least I-" "Just help me, damn it." Gonzalez interrupted. The two men stripped her suit off. It took several minutes, because Tanner had to stop with frequent gasps of pain from his leg. "You see that, El Capitan?" Tanner pointed to two small abrasions near the pressure collar of the discarded suit. “Looks like the suit's been breached. You sent her out in a piece of shit." "Jesus, Tanner, calm down. We probably punctured it just now taking it off her. If it was breached before she never would have made it back." Tanner did not reply, but his anger hung in the air between them. After a few moments Parker came around. "It was unbelievable out there," she mumbled. "Three hundred below. Wind. Ice...." "Did you see anything? Any sign of life? Any structures?" Gonzalez asked as he tried to help Sharon sit up. "No, no structures..." "What the hell did you expect, Captain?" sneered Tanner, “a four star restaurant?” "Perhaps we were put down near one of the outposts." Gonzalez said with little conviction. "No," said Tanner "we crashed on 'terrain most conducive to maximizing salvage of company property.'" Tanner recited the words from the flight manual. "The only people who will ever come will be here in a few weeks, following our homing beacon to salvage the ship. And graciously provide a Company nondenominational funeral, of course." Gonzalez continued talking to Parker, ignoring Tanner. "What about those readings you had? Before the asteroid field." "Must have been dust,” Parker mumbled. "You did make it to the ship though, didn't you?" "Yes…" "So where are the generators?" "I didn't...." "You didn’t even get one? What do you mean? That’s what you went for...." Gonzalez asked, fighting to control his anger. "Nothing there. All destroyed in the crash. All five." Tanner whistled. "That's gonna piss off the Company." "Shut up! Just shut the hell up!" shouted Gonzalez. Both men were silent for a moment, their eyes

avoiding the escalating tension between them to look back to Parker. Her high, white forehead was knotted with deep furrows as if she were fighting to bring back a memory frozen under miles of ice. "Yes, all five, I guess. It was hard to tell where they were. The ship was so dark. They were...I had almost no light, had to switch power over to keep me warm. The place was totally trashed. We were lucky we made it into the pod. I'd swear it looked like the generators were ripped clean from the wall. . . . " "What the hell do you mean, ripped?" asked Tanner, suddenly focused even as his teeth began to chatter. "Nothing. I just have to clear my head," Parker said as her face regained its porcelain smooth calm. Gonzalez walked over to the thermometer. "Ten degrees." "When the power goes out, we got enough oxygen for sixty hours," said Tanner. "Enough heat for maybe two," said Gonzalez, anticipating Tanner's thoughts. "What do we have that will burn?" asked Gonzalez. He began scanning their cramped utilitarian confines. "Not much," answered Tanner. Parker just sat with an intense stare directed at the center of the room, as if hypnotized by the fading generator. Gonzalez scavenged about the cabin seeking combustibles. He lit a fire using the bandages in the Med Kit and other bits of junk. He silently repeated a prayer from his childhood, one he was surprised he could still remember. Soon they huddled around the fire, almost caressing the tiny tongues of flame. The emergency ventilation system took care of most of the smoke. Gonzalez had a fleeting memory of camping trips as a youth. But he hadn’t needed those fires to survive. Parker dragged herself nearer the fire. She moved slowly, yet with an arresting beauty, like a ballet dancer would through deep snow. She pulled a small notebook from her pack. Then she began tearing the pages out one by one, letting each page flutter down into the flames. "Jesus, Sharon. What the hell are you doing with a damn notebook? Paper went out years ago," Tanner said. "It's from Oxford. They still use paper there." "Great. You and the Captain, a pair of fucking intellectuals. What the hell do you do you with it?" "I have a theory," Parker answered, obviously struggling to concentrate on the great effort it seemed to take her to feed each note-covered sheet into the fire. "The Titan survey probes showed there was life.” 36

“The news said Titan was dead,” said Gonzalez. Parker said, “They didn’t release the data. It didn’t add up. That’s why they sent….” Her voice trailed off. She seemed distracted. Tanner coughed. “Why, they afraid this little piece of heaven would be overrun with tourists?” Parker continued, “Maybe sentient life. But what could evolve on a place like this? Cold beyond imagination. At night far below the temperature needed to liquefy nitrogen. A place where creatures would have to develop skills to fight for food, air, and above all, heat.” Parker finally finished by throwing the notebook cover into the fire as well. She closed her eyes. "Christ. What a crock of shit," said Tanner. He laughed without heart and added. “God, why did I ever want cold beer?” After several minutes, Gonzalez walked back to the thermostat. "Goddamn it to hell. We lost five degrees. That doesn't make sense. The fire should have helped at least a little." "What the hell is going on?" Tanner sputtered in white gasps of breath, now nearly unintelligible as his body spasmed with the cold. His voice had lost its sarcastic edge, "God. It seems colder than ever. Maybe the air-lock. I don’t want to die out here . . . ." Gonzalez saw that Tanner was breaking down. "David, I'll go check the seal. Be right back," he said in a sudden flood of compassion, even though he had thoroughly checked it for leaks at least twenty or thirty times already. Gonzalez was gone less than a minute. When he came back, the fire was completely out. And something else seemed wrong. "God, I need a cigarette," Parker whispered. She seemed to have recovered, her quick eyes flickered with new life. Automatically Gonzalez fished around in his pack and handed her one, the only one he had not thrown into the fire. She snatched the lighter from his hands. Her cheeks hollowed beneath her high cheekbones. She seemed to draw every joule of heat from the burning stick deep into her lungs. "Too bad there is nothing else in here that will burn," she said, her voice clear and confident as she exhaled a tight stream of frost-white smoke. She stared at the burning end of the cigarette. "I liked you." "Don't worry, we'll make it, Sharon," Gonzalez said, trying to comfort her and also perhaps himself. Then he turned to Tanner and said, "No sign of a leak. Looks like we are just going to have to hang on. Probably only another few hours till sunrise.” Earth’s star, that ancient fire in the sky now perpetually obscured by Titan’s nitrogen/methane clouds and

many hundreds of millions of miles away, for some reason still represented hope. â&#x20AC;&#x153;That's if the rescue ship doesn't get here first. Not too long, eh? Tanner? Tanner?" Gonzalez reached out to touch Tanner's shoulder. Gonzalez shuddered. Tanner was frozen solid. His eyes were still open as if he had become an ice sculpture for a dinner-party in Hell, starring blankly at nothing. In an instant Gonzalez looked back at Sharon. She sat serenely as if under a summer sun, her shoulders bare from where she had pulled her sweat soaked Tshirt up, the white wisps of the smoke from her cigarette twisting in languid helical coils to the ceiling, mingling with Gonzalez's icy breath. Fire and ice. She took another deep luxuriant drag, and threw her head back in exultation as she exhaled. Gonzalez could just barely see two tiny marks, a faint red blush against her pale throat. Living cramped together in deep space for a week gives ample time to notice many things about another person. The marks were not there when she went out.

Gonzalez, despite Tannerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s corpse, found himself focusing on the small details. "You never did smoke on the way out here, did you Sharon?" The first tendrils of panic raked Gonzalezâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mind, even as he raced to put all the pieces together. "I do now," she said, staring directly at him. She smiled coldly. __________________________________________ Besides writing science fiction, Paul Celmer works as a technical writer and serves on the Board of Directors of the American Go Association, a non-profit organization that promotes the teaching of the ancient Asian strategy game of Go. He has an M.A. in English from North Carolina State University. Peter Wood is an attorney in Raleigh, North Carolina. A life-long science fiction fan, he grew up in Canada watching the classic original Star Trek and reading Vonnegut, Bradbury, and other golden age greats.

Blood of the Stones by Timothy Miller

When you unearth a locked door a mile underground, it's best to leave it closed. ___________________________________________________________

Alyssa opened the door.

“Where’s your father’s gun?” Mike demanded, pushing right past her. “Is it still in the hallway closet?” “Umm . . . What’s going on, Uncle Mike?” Alyssa was more than a little confused. She and her uncle had barely spoken since the funeral. And even before that dismal day, he wasn’t the sort to appear on her doorstep in the middle of the night. “Is everything alright?” Mike grunted out something between a sob and a laugh. “Nothing is alright, girl. Not for a long time now.” Retrieving her father’s twelve-gauge from the hall closet, he pulled down a box of shells from the top shelf. Alyssa sighed. The least he could have done was take off his boots. The blizzard outside was in full swing, and he was dripping pink slush onto the carpet. Pink? Her brow furrowed at the puddles. It looked like snowmelt mixed with . . . Alyssa’s mouth went dry. “Uncle Mike, there’s blood on your boots.” Mike nodded, and continued to feed shells into the shotgun. “I was at the tunnel.” “Why would . . . Wait, did you say the tunnel?” Images of Alyssa’s father welled up inside her. Raw grief, grating as a dull knife, twisted into her soul. “After my father . . . You promised to close the mine, to seal it up!” Mike jacked a round into the chamber. “I did, Lyss. And up until three months ago, no one set foot in that hole.” “Then why . . .?” “The mine doesn’t belong to me anymore,” Mike snapped. “When your father died, I closed down production, just like I promised. But I financed that operation with a sizable loan. The bank was more than happy to foreclose and then sell it off to someone else.” “I don’t understand. If it’s not yours anymore, why were you down at the mine?” 38

A sudden gust rattled the window. Michael flinched, his fingers tightening on the gun. “They’ll be coming soon. We don’t have much time.” “Who’ll be coming? What are you talking about?” Mike stared at the frost-rimmed window and swallowed hard. “Them,” he whispered, his eyes glimmering with barely-controlled terror. “The workers, the police---just about the whole dang town.” Alyssa frowned. “You’re not making any sense, Uncle Mike.” Mike licked his lips. “Do you remember the night your father died? You were there with me, in the control room. Do you remember when his crew found the pocket?”

A shiver crept up Alyssa’s spine. “He was hallucinating.” Her voice was flat, emotionless, the exact opposite of the welling misery clawing at her heart. “Some kind of methane deposit, you said so yourself.” Mike reddened. “I know what I said.” He visibly ground his teeth. “I’m asking you if you remember what your father found!” Alyssa couldn’t believe her uncle was acting like this. “Calm down, Uncle Mike. I remember.” Maybe the stress of the foreclosure had been too much for him. Guilt touched her. If Mike was having a nervous breakdown, she was at least partially to blame. She was the only family he had left, and she’d shut him out for almost two years now, ever since the accident. “Dad said he found a door, a big, iron door almost a mile down.” “Yes, yes, a door. They couldn’t pry it open. So his crew wired the hinges with explosives. And then . . .” “And then the tunnel collapsed,” Alyssa finished. Mike shook his head. “That’s a lie. I know that’s what we told everyone, but you and I know the collapse was no accident.” “There was gas in that chamber!” “Don’t play the fool with me, girl! I was there!” “I don’t–” “You know exactly what I’m talking about! They got that door open before the second explosion. When your dad saw what came out, he started shouting into the radio, begging us to seal the tunnel. He was my kid brother. Did you think I would forget?” Abruptly, Alyssa’s patience came to an end. “What does it matter? He was out of his mind! Why are you doing this to me?” The hard lines of Mike’s face softened. “Because I promised to protect you, Lyss, and because my brother, your father, wasn’t crazy. There was something down there in the mine, something evil. Blowing the tunnel was the only way your dad could keep it from getting out. Now someone’s gone and dug it up again.” So it was a breakdown after all. Alyssa sighed, her anger dying beneath a cold blanket of guilt. This was her fault. She should have been there for him. “Uncle Mike, I know you’re upset. You want dad’s death to mean something, but you’re acting like a lunatic.” “A lunatic?” Propping the shotgun against the wall, Mike reached into his coat pocket, pulling out a wadded up handkerchief. Alyssa nodded. “It was an accident, nothing more. You don’t have to invent an imaginary boogeyman to make–” “Tell me.” Mike unraveled the handkerchief, 39

spilling a finger-length claw onto the carpet. “Does this look like an imaginary boogeyman to you?” Alyssa’s breath caught in her throat. Almost translucent, the reddish talon curved like a sickle and ended in a wicked point. “You found this in the tunnel?” She bent down, reaching for the bizarre artifact. “What is it?” Mike’s hand closed on her wrist, stopping her short. “Don’t touch it.” Releasing her, he pulled up his sleeve. His forearm was a crisscross of angry looking cuts covered with some kind of glossy coating. “It’s razor sharp. If I hadn’t sealed these up with superglue, I’d have bled to death before I got here.” Alyssa’s stomach clenched. Mike’s arm looked like it had been stuck in a wood chipper. “We need to get you to a hospital!” “No!” Mike pulled down his sleeve. “We can’t trust anyone! They’ve already . . .” His head came up like a startled deer. “What was that?” Alyssa cocked her head. “I didn’t hear anything.” “It came from outside.” Mike picked up the shotgun and moved to the window. “Cripes! They’re already here.” Alyssa hurried over. A black and white SUV was parking in front of the house. Its headlights weren’t on. “Uncle Mike, why are the police at my house?” Mike didn’t answer. The doors on the SUV opened, and two uniformed officers got out and started up the driveway. Although the heavy snowfall must have made the way slippery, neither of them ignited their flashlights. “Uncle Mike?” Mike chewed on his lower lip for a moment, and then nodded as if coming to a decision. “Okay. Get upstairs.” “What?” Mike left the window and headed back into the hall. “I need you to trust me, Lyss.” Using his handkerchief, he picked up the claw and stuffed back it into his pocket. “Get upstairs and don’t come down until they ring the doorbell. If they ask, I was never here.” Alyssa met his eyes for a long moment. “Alright,” she agreed at last, heading for the stairs. “But when they’re gone, you’re going to tell me everything.” “I promise. And Alyssa . . .” “Yes.” Mike picked up the shotgun. “They’re going to try to give you something, a stone. Whatever you do, don’t touch it. Tell them to leave it on the table, or make up some other excuse, but don’t touch it!” “Why . . .” Alyssa trailed off, silenced by the deadly urgency in

her uncle’s eyes. “Alright, I won’t touch anything.” There was a soft knock on the door. Mike pointed upstairs. “Go,” he mouthed, as he crept toward the kitchen. Alyssa tiptoed to the upper landing. The knocking came again, louder this time. Alyssa held her breath. A few seconds later, a third round of knocking, then the doorbell rang. Counting slowly to ten, she started down the stairs. “Coming!” When she reached the door, she took a steadying breath, and then opened it a crack. The police from the SUV were standing on the porch outside, their jackets unzipped despite the blistering cold. “Ms. Lorynn?” inquired the taller of the two. “Yes.” “I’m Officer Dane.” He nodded toward his partner. “This is Officer Grete. May we come in?” Alyssa hesitated. “I’m not really dressed for company. Can it wait until morning?” “I’m afraid not, Ms. Lorynn,” said Grete. “Don’t worry. This will only take a minute.” Alyssa opened the door a little further. “If it’s only going to be a–” “Thank you.” The men pushed open the door, forcing Alyssa to backpedal quickly to avoid stubbing her toes. “Hey, careful!” “Sorry,” apologized Dane. Closing the door behind him, he produced a leather bound notepad as Grete moved past them into the dining room. “We just have a few questions.” Alyssa watched Grete meander from the dining room into the kitchen. “Where’s he going?” Dane seemed not to hear her question. “Have you seen your uncle recently, Ms. Lorynn?” Alyssa raised her eyebrows, attempting to look surprised. “You mean my dad’s brother, Mike? No. Not since the funeral, anyway. Why? Is he in some kind of trouble?” “Do you know where we could reach him?” Dane pressed. “Any close friends he might be staying with?” Grete came out of the kitchen and started up the stairs. Alyssa crossed her arms over her chest. “I wouldn’t know. He and I were never close.” Dane raised an eyebrow. “I see.” Grete came back down the stairs. “Empty.” Dane nodded. He and his partner shared a look. “You live alone, Ms. Lorynn?” Alarm bells starting going off in Alyssa’s mind. This wasn’t how police were supposed to act, rummaging through your home in the middle of the night without 40

a search warrant or even a word of explanation. Something was wrong here. “It’s very late. If there’s nothing else, I’d like you both to go now.” “Certainly. There’s just one more thing.” Dane shut his notepad and slipped it into his jacket. When his hand came back out of his coat, he was holding a smooth black stone about the size of a hen’s egg. Tiny red jewels covered the surface of the stone, sparkling like rubies in the light. “Could you give this to your uncle if you happen to see him? The new owners of the mine found it in the company safe. We think it may be valuable.” The stone was beautiful, but Alyssa hadn’t forgotten her uncle’s warning. “You had better hold onto it. Like I said, I never see my uncle.” Dane extended the stone. “You’re his only surviving kin,” he insisted. “The jewel is yours by right. Take it.” Alyssa backed away. “I said I don’t want it.” Grete’s eyes narrowed. “He’s been here,” he said, the words erupting from his lips in a scabrous hiss. “She knows.” A cold weight dropped into Alyssa’s stomach. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Dane moved closer. “No? Then take the jewel. Take it, and we’ll believe you.” “No.” Alyssa's back struck the hall closet. She was trapped. “But why, child?” Dane smiled, inching the stone closer to her face. “Is the Jewel of Anarchy not pleasant to the eye? Do you not hear the red heart calling to your soul?” The stone made a popping noise, and a translucent red claw erupted from it like a hatching chick from an egg. Alyssa’s blood froze in her veins. This couldn’t be happening. More insect-like limbs punched out of the stone, followed by a tiny human-like head. The translucent red spider turned its red face toward her and issued a high-pitched and warbling hiss. Her sanity wavering, Alyssa leaned, flattened herself against the door. “No. Get it away from me!” “Do not fight us,” Grete advised. “Soon, you will be as–” The front door burst open. Whatever Grete had been about to say was erased by the roar of a shotgun, along with most of his jaw. Jacking another round into the chamber, Mike shifted his aim. “Get down!” Alyssa dropped. As if to shield the spider-thing, Dane hugged it close to his chest. It didn’t help. The shotgun coughed, and the creature disintegrated amidst the tatters of

Dane’s right arm. Hissing like an angry snake, Dane sprang straight up. Mike fired again. The closet door exploded above Alyssa’s head, but the shot missed the airborne policeman. Twirling in the air, Dane hit the ceiling feet first and launched himself at Alyssa’s uncle. He hit Mike as he was still trying to chamber another round. Knocking the gun away, he seized Mike by the throat with his one good hand and lifted him from his feet. “Defiler! I shall feast on your organs, myself.” His face purpling, Mike kicked and twisted like an angry wildcat. Dane ignored him. Heedless of the blood dripping from his shredded arm, he licked his lips and smiled. “Put him down!” Dane turned. Alyssa stared at him down the barrel of a leveled shotgun. “I said, put him down.” Dane laughed, his face twisting into a scornful sneer. “You think to stop us? We are legion. We shall consume you all.” Alyssa jacked the slide. “Consume this!” The blast took Dane high in the forehead, vaporizing his upper skull and throwing him against the wall. He wobbled there for a second--a marionette bereft his puppeteer--and then fell limply to the floor. Her heart racing, Alyssa lowered the gun and helped her uncle to his feet. “Are you okay?” “Thanks,” Mike rasped. He coughed, cleared his throat. “I thought I had him, but these things take a fair amount of killing.” “You don’t say?” Alyssa ran her trembling fingers through her long brown hair. “What the heck is going on? How did he move like that? And what was that . . . thing in the rock?” Leaning down, Mike removed Dane’s gun belt. Straightening, he then cinched it around his waist. “I don’t know exactly. When I drove by the mine tonight, it looked like every police car and ambulance in town was in the parking lot. I thought there must have been another accident, a cave in maybe. Figured I’d stop in and see what I could do to help. Give me that shotgun for a minute.” Alyssa handed it over wordlessly. Mike worked the slide, and then began to feed fresh rounds into the weapon from his pocket. “I went to the control room first, but it was empty. Almost went down to the mine then, to see what was going on for myself. That’s when I noticed the security cameras were left on.” “The cameras outside the tunnel?” 41

Mike handed her the reloaded shotgun. “Yeah, those.” Moving to Grete, he took the man’s gun from its hostler along with the spare clips from his belt. “What I saw in those monitors wasn’t like any rescue operation I’d ever seen. Cops, paramedics, even miners, they were herding people down into the tunnel.” “But why? Do you think it has something to do with the rock with the spider-thing inside it?” Mike shrugged. “Don’t really know.” He stuffed Grete’s gun and ammunition into his pockets. “But I saw plenty of those stones. They must have been running them up on the conveyer for days. There are six dump trucks loaded with the things parked right up next to the mine, and they were busy filling up another one.” “They’re making people bring up the stones from the mine.” Alyssa shivered. “It’s awful down there, dark and cold. I’m surprised someone didn’t make a run for it rather than go down in that pit?” “At least one did, that I saw. You remember the groundskeeper, Jeb? Police hit him with a stun gun. But that wasn’t the worst part. Soon as Jeb hit the ground, a paramedic put one of those black rocks on his chest. One of those red beasties hatched out the minute it touched him, and then it . . . it . . .” “What?” Mike swallowed hard. “It crawled into his mouth.” Alyssa's belly did a nauseating flip-flop. “It did what?” “Into his mouth,” Mike repeated firmly. “Next thing I know, old Jeb stands up and is helping to herd people into the tunnel, his own wife included. After that, I figured, to heck with the mine and ran back to my truck. Only thing was, there was a mess of those nasty red buggers in my pickup when I got there. By the time I’d crushed the last of them, a mess of those zombie-cops and such from the mine were blocking the exit. Had to run three of the bastards down to get clear.” Suddenly dizzy, Alyssa placed her palm against the wall to steady herself. “You ran down three people?” Mike gave her an odd look. “Don’t you get it? They aren’t people anymore, Lyss! Look at the bloodstains on your ceiling. How many one-armed cops do you know that can jump around like freakin’ Spiderman, huh? Once those things get inside them, they’re already dead!” “I’m not stupid you know,” Alyssa barked. She took a deep breath. “But . . . for crying out loud, Mike, I just shot a man in my entryway! Cripes! Spiders with human heads are hatching from rocks and have taken over the mine! How about you give me a minute or

two to process that?” “Sorry, Lyss, but we don’t have a minute. By now, just about everyone we know has one of those things inside them.” He pointed to Dane’s corpse. “When these two cops don’t show up back at the mine, we’re going to be up to our ears in spider-zombies.” The wind blew, rattling the window. This time, it was Alyssa who flinched. Mike was right. If there was one thing horror movies had taught her, it was that when your town is taken over by zombies every second counts. That, and always carry a lot of ammo. She hefted the shotgun. “What do we do?” Mike smiled grimly. “That’s my girl. First off, get dressed. When you’re ready, we get in my pickup and get the hell out of town. We’ll head for Gillett, and shoot any spider-eating zombie that gets in our way.” “And when we get to Gillett?” Mike shrugged. “Call the marines, I guess. If they won’t listen, then the FBI, or the CIA. Heck, I’ll wake up the president if I have to. They’ll think we’re a couple of nut jobs for sure. But if I say I’m an Osamaloving terrorist building a nuke in a mine, they almost have to send down a couple of army boys to have a look. Only . . .” He looked toward the door, his eyes troubled. “Only?” Mike sighed. “I just keep thinking about those dump trucks.” “What about them?” “What if they’re gone by the time the Feds show up? My brother died to keep those things from getting out. It makes my blood boil to think a couple of million of those buggers could get away.” Suddenly, Mike bent down and began to rifle through Dane’s pockets. After a minute, he pulled out a set of keys from the man’s jacket. Alyssa’s heart dropped. “You want to go back,” she whispered. “You want to go to the mine to try to stop those trucks.” Mike held out the keys. “Take their Bronco. It’ll be a sight better than your Taurus in the snow, and folks are less apt to stop a police car.” Alyssa’s expression darkened. Her hand flashed out, swatting the keys away. “How dare you?” “Lyss, I have to do this.” “Don’t you think I know that?” Alyssa growled. “But those things killed my dad, killed him and made me think he’d done it himself. And you want to leave me behind? I’m coming with you. Do you hear me? I’m going to crush the life out of every single one of those things, or die trying!” Mike said nothing for a long moment, peering 42

deeply into her hazel eyes as if measuring her resolve. Finally, he nodded. “Get dressed.”

The pickup made good time despite the blizzard.

“There it is.” Alyssa pointed to the snowy outline of two posts thirty yards ahead. Barely noticeable amidst the blowing white, the concrete posts marked the entrance to the mine parking lot. “I see ‘em,” Mike acknowledged. He pulled the pickup to the side of the road and killed the engine. “We’ll leave the truck here. Hopefully, we can get in and out before anyone sees it. You ready?” Alyssa peered out the passenger window. She couldn’t see it, but the mining office was only a few hundred yards away. Beyond that--she tightened her hold on the shotgun--the mine. Her heart quickened. “Remember what I said back at the house, about how I was going to kill all the spiders or die trying?” Mike pulled Grete’s gun from his pocket and clicked off the safety. “Yep.” Alyssa licked her chapped lips. “Not that I didn’t mean it, but that’s not the plan . . . is it?” Mike chuckled. “Not by a long shot, girl. Suicide isn’t what I had in mind.” “Me neither,” Alyssa admitted. “So, what exactly are we doing?” “Remember the fuel dump, the big metal tank we used to have feeding the conveyor system?” “Sure. It used to be right next to the tunnel, but dad had it moved for safety reasons a couple years before he died.” Mike zipped up his jacket. “When I was in the control room, I noticed they moved the tank back over to the tunnel. These things must be real anxious to get those rocks above ground. They got a line running from the dump right to the conveyor.” Despite all that was happening, the hard lessons Alyssa learned working with her father immediately leapt to mind. “That’s just stupid. If the line ruptures, if there’s even the tiniest spark . . .” Her eyes lit up. Mike grinned. “The whole dang thing, the mine, the trucks, the rig, it would all go up like the Fourth of July. The line’s just a rubber hose. Poking a hole in it isn’t the problem. Only thing is, there’s about a hundred spider-zombies down there, some with guns. We have to figure out a way to draw them away from the tunnel, you know, a distraction.” “What kind of distraction?” Mike chewed his lip. “I don’t really know,” he confessed. “I thought we’d try lighting the office on fire or may–” The driver’s side window shattered. A middle-aged

man with an orange crossing guard ribbon across his chest reached in and yanked Mike out of his seat. Mike’s gun barked out three times, and then he was gone. “Uncle Mike!” Alyssa shrieked. She screamed again as her door was ripped from its hinges by a wiry grandmother with horn-rimmed spectacles. “You were always one of my best students, dear,” Mrs. Bergner, Alyssa’s third-grade teacher, scolded. She tossed the ruined door aside. “Why don’t you be a good girl now, and follow me?” Alyssa swung the shotgun around. The old woman moved like a striking snake. Snagging hold of the barrel, she pinned it against the dashboard. She raised an eyebrow. “You’d shoot your favorite teacher? I’m shocked.” Alyssa leaned back. “You’re not my teacher!” Her foot came up, catching Mrs. Bergner under her wrinkled chin. Mrs. Bergner’s head whipped back, and she lost her dentures. But her fingers refused to relinquish their hold on the shotgun. “My goodness, all this exercise is making me hungry.” She gave a bloody, toothless smile. “Maybe I’ll just have a little snack before we–” “Duck!” Alyssa dropped flat, and thundering gunfire filled the cab. Bracing his arms on the broken window, Mike fired hot rounds over Alyssa’s head and into Mrs. Bergner’s torso. The old woman jerked crazily, and let go of the shotgun. Bright red blossoms bloomed on her yellow blouse, but she didn’t fall. Spinning away, she sprinted toward the parking lot, taking two more rounds in the back before disappearing into the falling snow. Mike stopped firing. Wiping a streak of blood from his cheek, he looked down at Alyssa. “You alright?” Alyssa blinked. “That depends. Did an elderly woman just tear the door off your pickup and then run off with a dozen bullets in her?” “Yep,” Mike climbed back into the truck. “And, right now, she’s probably telling all the other zombies we’re here. Guess I should have aimed for the head.” “Guess so,” Alyssa agreed, sitting up. “Well, at least they’re leaving the mine.” Popping out the spent clips, Mike expertly reloaded his guns. “Having them come after us isn’t exactly the distraction I had in mind.” His expression hardened. “We can still head for Gillett, Lyss. Like I said, I never was too keen on suicide.” Alyssa laid her hand over his. “Neither was dad. But he did what he had to do.” “That he did,” Mike agreed sadly. He reached for 43

the ignition. “And you were always just like him.” Alyssa smiled as the pickup rumbled to life. “What happened to the crossing guard, anyway?” A thick cluster of people materialized from the storm near the parking lot. There were men and women, both young and old, in the crowd. All of them were sprinting toward the pickup. Mike slammed his foot on the gas. “I aimed for the head.” The pickup roared into the parking lot, bashing through the townsfolk like a charging bull in a corn patch. Hopping and bucking over the bodies dragged under it, the truck sped toward the mine. The spider-zombies rushed the pickup like angry ants, throwing themselves in front of the vehicle as if trying to gum up its heavy tires with their very bodies. “Lyss!” Mike jabbed his finger toward the missing passenger door. Alyssa turned. A mangled teenager in a torn football jersey was pulling himself into the cab. His face was boyish, pleasant. But his legs were missing, and the wicked gleam in his eyes as he reached for her ankle was far from innocent. Alyssa blew his head off. A husky cheerleader vaulted the tailgate, landing in the back of the pickup. Alyssa swung and fired, blowing out the pickup’s rear window. Her aim was off. Instead of taking the cheerleader’s ponytails from her head, the shotgun pulverized her right knee. The girl teetered wildly, balancing on her one good leg. Alyssa put a round square in her chest. The onelegged cheerleader flipped back over the tailgate and disappeared. A claw-like hand closed on the shotgun barrel, jerking the weapon from Alyssa’s grip. Mike’s gun coughed twice. Mrs. Bergner, twin holes drilled just above her thick spectacles, slid off the hood, taking the shotgun with her. Mike handed Alyssa the pistol. “There’s seven rounds left.” Pulling the other pistol from the holster at his belt, he gave her that one as well. “And there’s nine in this one.” “What about you?” Mike patted his coat. “I got my jackknife and my lighter right here. Once we stop, I’ll need about ten seconds to punch a hole in the fuel line and get it lit. Think you can cover me that long?” A grossly overweight zombie in a fireman’s jacket bounced away from the front of the pickup, knocking down a pimply kid in a Taco World uniform and a gray-haired nun.

As the pickup shot past them, all three were already getting up. Alyssa swallowed. “If I can’t, you’ll be the second to know.” Mike actually laughed. “That’s my girl.” A massive fuel tank and a line of dump trucks appeared just ahead. Three zombie-police stood in front of them with their weapons raised. Gunning the engine, Mike headed right at them. “Here we go.” The cops opened fire. Whining bullets sparked off the hood of the pickup. Alyssa ducked low. “Hang on!” Mike jerked the wheel hard to the right and hit the brakes. The pickup spun like a top. Hammering into the police, it completed a full three-sixty and then banged to a shuddering halt against the wall of the fuel dump.

balding cop with a red mustache was pinned between the truck and the tank. He clawed at Alyssa through the broken window. Alyssa put a bullet between his eyes, and then followed Mike out the driver’s side door. The entrance to the mine was only fifty feet away. Almost immediately, three charred-looking zombies in ragged miners’ overalls emerged from the tunnel and began running toward the truck. Alyssa leveled her pistols. “Go, Uncle Mike!” “Hold em off, girl!” Mike sprinted toward the wristthick hose leading out of the tank. The zombies were closing fast. Alyssa opened fire. Her first two shots went wild. Then a crater appeared in one zombie’s neck. He tripped and fell into the snow. The next round put a hole above his right eyebrow. He collapsed. Dropping to all fours, the two that remained sprang like giant grasshoppers high into the air. Alyssa shifted her aim, and fired as fast as she could pull the trigger. One of the miners spun off to the side, bright red mist trailing from his chest and chin. The last landed on the roof of the pickup, apparently unscathed. Alyssa swung, still firing. But the zombie moved insanely fast. Pouncing like a leopard, it took a single round in its left work boot before burying her beneath its weight. Tearing the guns away, the zombie pinned Alyssa against the cold, hard ground. Alyssa squirmed and kicked for all she was worth. “Get your filthy hands off me!” Staring down at her with milky-white eyes, the burnt zombie gave a cracked and bloody smile. 44

“What’s the matter, princess?” he hissed. “Don’t you love me, anymore?” Horror, dark as a coffin’s shadow, stole Alyssa’s breath away. The world spun, and the sour taste of bile rose up into her throat. She recognized that voice. “Daddy?” The zombie nodded. “I’ve missed you, pumpkin. And guess what?” He reached into his ragged shirt and removed one of the black egg-stones. “I brought you a present.” A red claw cracked out of the stone. Alyssa flinched back, her paralysis broken. “No! Don’t do this, Dad! Don’t make me into one of them!” More cracks appeared in the stone. Alyssa’s father rubbed the hatching creature against his blackened cheek and sighed with pleasure. “Now be a good girl, and close your ey–” A foot of curved steel erupted from his mouth like a pointed tongue. Alyssa gasped The zombie’s weight was yanked from her chest. Releasing the handle of the pickaxe he’d just plunged into his brother’s skull, Mike dragged Alyssa to her feet. “Come on!” Alyssa let her uncle shove her into the pickup. Unreality gripped her. She felt raw, loose, like fabric stretched to the breaking point and then left out in the rain to mold. Ahead of the pickup, zombies were vomiting from the tunnel in their hundreds. Alyssa’s trance evaporated beneath the fear-soaked adrenaline that surged into her veins. “The mine!” “I see it!” The pickup peeled away from the fuel tank, squealing like a birthing sow. Mike swung the wheel, and they roared toward the parking lot. Alyssa spun in her seat. “They’re not following us. They’re heading for the fuel tank.” Mike nodded. “I severed the line right next to the tunnel.” The pickup fishtailed into the lot, banging into the side of a green pinto. Mike switched gears and headed for the exit. “That line is pumping diesel right down into their hidey hole. They’re trying to save their precious stones!” The pickup skidded out into the road. “There’s still no fire, Uncle Mike. How do you know it will blo–?” The world exploded.

lyssa tapped her fingers on the steering wheel, painfully aware of the loaded shotguns hidden beneath the blanket in the backseat. The passenger door opened. Mike got in. “Go.”

Alyssa put the bronco in gear and pulled out of the gas station. “Did they buy it?” Mike shrugged. “Hard to tell with the Feds. But, like I said, they almost have to check out a lead on known terrorists.” Alyssa turned onto the freeway. “Maybe the government will be able to find them all. If they get there fast enough, I mean. Maybe they’ll kill all the zombies that survived the explosion.” Mike chuckled. It was a dry, grim sound. Alyssa looked at him. “You don’t think so.” Her uncle reached into the backseat, patting the covered shotguns suggestively. “Neither do you, girl. Besides, there’s one other thing.” “What’s that?” Mike opened the map of Mexico they’d gotten two stops back. “Remember the six dump trucks I saw on

the security cameras?” “What about them?” Mike lowered the map. “When we blew up the mine, there were only three.” For a long moment, they just stared at each other. Then Mike lifted the map, and Alyssa turned her eyes back to the road.

few hours later, a familiar dump truck pulled out of the same service station. Careful not to spill a single stone from its dark load, it slowly accelerated and got on the freeway behind them. __________________________________________ Timothy Miller has also appeared in Afterburn SF, Antipodean SF, Lorelei Signal, Jupiter SF, Crossed Genres, and Outer Reaches.

The Last Words of Daniel Shupak by Erich Bergmeier

Waiting until the end approaches is not the best time to speak your mind. ___________________________________________________________

Margaret says, "It's only blood," and Daniel passes

her a tissue. He frowns because he remembers what a bloody nose can mean. "I suppose it doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t matter now," she says, anticipating his thoughts. "Dessert is on the table," he says. "I'd love it if you came down." "In a minute," she says. He leaves her in the bathroom with a tissue twisted up into her left nostril, a bloody wick connected to a ticking time bomb. She slumps with her palms against the counter. "Goddamn this headache," she says. Bill is in the living room by the window, a slanted glass of whiskey between his fingers. He is running his thumb across his field of vision as if tracing the horizon. "When do you think it'll get here?" he asks. "Any minute now," Sandra says. Daniel walks up behind them and places a hand on Sandra's shoulder. "Dessert anyone?" "Eat, drink, and be merry, for tonight --" "It's just strawberries and vanilla ice cream," Daniel says, interrupting. "With all the stores being closed, we had to make due with what we had." Bill smiles and says: "Hey, Sandy, remember that night we spent in La Conception? What was that, our third date?" "Our first." "Really? Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s amazing how it all blends together." He Turns to Daniel and continues: "Sandy had been learning Spanish and was determined to order her food with all of those lessons, even though the staff were perfectly capable of speaking English. Only when it arrived it wasn't strawberry ice cream at all. It was strawberries and ice cubes! But my God, Sandy put a single strawberry on every one of those cubes and ate them as if that was exactly what she had always intended. Too much pride to say otherwise." He looks down into his glass, solemn. Sandra checks her watch. There's a commotion coming from the kitchen but none of them thinks to look. They know it's only Alvin and his new girlfriend, Bettie Davis (a name she started using when she was in college), arguing loudly or maybe making love. Daniel thinks back to the first time that he was formally introduced to her, at one of Alvin's book signings. How she'd tried to hug him and he 46

pretended not to understand, worried that Margaret might recognize their past. He spent the rest of the night remembering what she would have felt like pressed up against him, or how her hair would have smelled. "Is that for me?" Margaret asks, coming down the stairs. Daniel hands her the bowl of ice cream, half melted now from the heat of his hand. She kisses him on the mouth and he can taste the blood on her lips. "So when is this thing supposed to get here?" Alvin says, stepping into the living room for the first time since the ruckus in the kitchen began. His shirt buttons are misaligned. Bettie Davis trails behind him like a cloud caught up in his powerful wake. "All hype and no delivery!" she yells. "Just like one of his books," Sandra says, and everyone laughs for the first time all night. Alvin bows to her as if conceding. "It's been eleven and a half hours," Bill points out. "It was supposed to take twelve to reach South Wyndham Falls, and that's further from the initial blast point than we are." Daniel thinks back to that morning, when he first heard about the accident. An explosion at a research facility in southern Pyongyang that had sent out a lowvelocity shock wave capable of disassembling every morsel of matter on the planet. He is still amazed at how quickly he'd come to terms with the idea of being obliterated. How quickly, in fact, the entire human race had accepted the inevitability of its own extinction. For him it was because he'd lost any real interest in living long ago, back when he first realized that Margaret had become his responsibility instead of his joy. As for the rest of them, of their motivations he could never be sure. "So this is it," Bettie Davis says, smiling. Bill squirms at the window, searching for the right phrase. "Sandy, I want you to know that I've always --" "Oh, cut that shit out," Daniel says. A little more anger in his words than he'd intended. "You should have said all of that before you got here." "I think it's sweet," Bettie says. "You think everything is sweet," Alvin says playfully. "Because you're a sucker for that sort of garbage." Bettie buries her face in the waves of his leather

jacket and the hair falls away from her neck. Daniel follows the curve of it down into the fabric of her shirt. "What are you thinking about, Daniel?" Margaret asks. "What?" "I'm thinking about that time we went camping at Lake Russell," she begins, ignoring his lack of a response. "We'd spent the night in that hot tent because we were afraid that if we opened any of the flaps the mosquitoes would pour in like tap water. So the whole place smelled like human sweat. And when we finally undid that main zipper to let the sunlight in, there was this deer, standing there, not five feet from our naked bodies and not at all disturbed by us. I consider it one of the most perfect moments of my life." Everyone else is quiet. Daniel presses his eyelids shut. Ripples begin to form in the middle of their glasses, little waves on an ocean of wine. The vibrations are getting closer. They can all feel it, a rumbling in the pit of their stomachs. It means the impact is only minutes away. "Do you think it will hurt?" "Like hell." "It wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t. We'll be obliterated. Liquefied." "Do you remember that time with the deer, Daniel?" "Of course I do." "I love you." He doesn't answer. For the first time in his life he doesn't answer. What he would tell her, if he had the nerve, was that he was thinking about the night she'd told him that she was sick, that all of those nose bleeds had been for a reason. He remembers it because it was the night he was planning on leaving her. His bags were already in the closet, packed. But then she'd said to him, 'I'm sick Daniel,' and he knew he couldn't leave, not if he wanted a clear conscience. Certainly not if he wanted to start his life anew. "I think we have one more bottle of wine in the basement," he says. Making his way quickly down the rickety wooden steps, Daniel becomes aware of how completely the voices from upstairs are swallowed-up by the background vibrations; how easy it would be (if he decided that he preferred it) to die down here, alone. "It might be easier if you turned on the light," Bettie says. Daniel turns to find her familiar outline, defined by the glow of the stairwell. She flicks the switch. He allows his eyes a moment to adjust and says, "I 47

was trying to feel the vibrations through the floor." He crouches down and sets his palms flat on the foundation. Bettie's bare feet slap against the stone. She squats down beside him and lays her hands next to his. Her hair brushes past the tip of his nose. It tickles him and he can feel the hot tears collecting in the corners of his eyes. "Your wife is beautiful," she says. "A beautiful person." Daniel raises an eyebrow. Beautiful, sure, but dull; the kind of person you realize you don't want to be around when you know you're about to die. Bettie smiles. "Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve always thought of her as a character in some classical Victorian novel. Compassionate, steadfast, and conflicted. A lady of virtue," she says. "Have you ever read A Mill on the Floss? It's one of Alvin's favorites." "Why should I care what that asshole reads?" Daniel asks. Bettie laughs, assuming it was a joke. "You know, I would never have met him if not for you," she says. "What?" "Alvin," she says. "If you hadn't gushed so proudly about him back then I might never have gone to that reading. I might never have fallen in love." He leans back against an exposed stud and bites his lower lip. "I suppose I should thank you," she says. "Yes," he says. When they emerge from the basement - the last bottle of wine gripped between Daniel's quaking fingers - they find Sandra and Bill stuck together like a pair of candy apples; red and round and top-heavy. They are pressed hard into each other's bodies, not wanting to be caught off guard. Outside Daniel notices the horizon as it begins to glow. He imagines the atoms of the atmosphere being pulled apart and then put back together out of order. The way something like that might play with the light. "Here," Bill says, handing him a filthy plastic cup. "I think I'll skip the glass this time," Daniel says. He watches Bettie as she walks over to Alvin and slips her hands into his pockets. Alvin smiles at the feeling of the warmth on his legs. "Where'd you get to?" he asks. "You've had enough, I suspect," Margaret says, her eyes on the wine. Daniel looks at her. The crusted blood around the lip of her nostril. He lifts the bottle up to the light and decides that he can swallow the rest in a single, determined gulp. To hell with her notions of civility in

the face of death. His first swig polishes off only about half of what he'd expected. It makes him hate her even more. Margaret reaches for his arms. "Daniel, stop." He opens his throat proudly for the second time and lets the rest of the sour liquid cascade toward his stomach, only this time it washes back and he can feel it burning his sinuses. "You're an idiot," she says. The room shakes. A little more violently now than before, causing a vase to topple from the coffee table and smash across the floor. Little shards of glass decorate the space between everyone's feet. Daniel moves toward the closet to fetch the broom, a force of habit even as his house is falling apart around him. Margaret catches him by the wrist and forces him to look at her. Her eyes wide, aglow with nervous energy. What is she thinking? he wonders. Is she aware of the stiffness in his features, the hard edge of his upper lip and the furrow in his brow; a look of cold indifference? Or is she oblivious to all of that, choosing instead to picture them as contented lovers on the cusp of an eternity together? Entombed in a pure, sickly sweet sort of happiness? He feels Bill's fat back against his own. They've all come together now in the center of the room and Daniel feels claustrophobic; surrounded by a throbbing, sweating, panicked mass. He wants to push everyone away from him, into the far corners of the house. To clear a little space in which to die. But more than that - more than distance and silence and love he wants to take his wife by the shoulders, set her face about an inch from his own, and scream out: "I would have left you if you hadn't gotten sick! Or if I'd known that it was all going to come down to this; to us dying

in our living room within a year!" "Tell me you love me, Daniel," She says. "Yeah." "What does that mean?" He can smell Bettie Davis. He watches her as she wraps herself around Alvin, that swine, the supposed love of her life. He sees them kiss, hard, and his belly knots at the thought that it might have been his tongue sloshing around inside of her beautiful mouth. "Daniel?" The rumbling is like thunder now, only seconds away from impact. The windows are rattling so hard that it's a wonder they haven't smashed. If he'd left Margaret they could have been together. He and Bettie. He wouldn't have to sit here in the last moments of his life, watching her nuzzle another man. A hack writer who hasn't written a decent thing in over a decade. His friend - his best friend. A man he'd come to hate. "Daniel?" He turns to her, their faces both twitching with emotion. How do you fit everything you've ever wanted to say to a person into a single second? he wonders. How do you concentrate all that you are into a drop? A sentence? A syllable? The windows give in. Daniel clears his throat as if to speak, but then never says a word. __________________________________________ Erich Bergmeier is a freelance writer who lives on the outskirts of Montreal. He spends most of his time fishing on the banks of the Ottawa River and translating the works of minor German poets. His fiction is forthcoming in Basement Stories and Kasma Magazine.

Voidbreaker by William Wood

Never take people with special abilities for granted. ___________________________________________________________

The hairs on the back of his neck stood up and

ozone burned in his nose. He squeezed his eyes shut but the blue-white energy oozed closer, growing brighter. The visions didn't care if his eyes were closed. "Talk to me, Michael." Archana sounded tired today. "Sorry," he said. "Another flash. Give me a moment." "Take your time." Her voice was tinny but he could hear her concern. "I've got a good read from Carmody. Just need yours to proceed." "Roger that." All of this was still new. Already three missions under his belt, but the guy in the other Box had logged hundreds. They were a rare breed, Michael knew. Countless reminders during training had reinforced how valuable his contributions were to the Service, to the Union. Only one intuitive in every half billion citizens, theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d said. "Take your time," she repeated. She wanted him to do well and he wanted to do a good job for her. She was the first woman he'd had feelings for since Sarah. Since the accident. Three years now. The Service had come along at just the right time to spare him the emptiness. The expanding blue-white fire was fading now, dispersing in tiny swirls. He knew Archana understood the recovery time he needed for his vision to clear. Just like seeing with his real eyes. The emptiness became gray again, then black, gaining depth with far-off bursts, each one illuminating the otherwise hidden clouds of the void. Hard edges thrust from the billowing shadows. He hung in the Box but the walls were gone, transparent. A thin access boom fell away beneath his feet, one hundred meters to the main body of the Victoria. His stomach tilted and he felt unsteady, dizzy. Better than before, but unsettled still. The huge voidbreaker cone was below and forward of his position. The habitat rings and drive section behind him. "I'm oriented." "Very good. Proceed." Her voice was more relaxed, relieved. Ahead was a planetary disc, in crescent, greens and 49

tans. Stars began to resolve and he called out directions and distances the way he'd been trained to, Archana reading each one back. "Reading confirmed. Stand down." Forcing his awareness back to his body, he located the mushroom-shaped pendant hanging from his harness. A star twinkled above and to starboard, drawing his gaze. The scene swirled. "What's your status, Michael?" He was looking head-on at a ship. A big one. Cylindrical and bristling with antennae. The scene shifted again and he could see the gray bulk of the Victoria, centered on a large wallscreen. "I see another ship," he said. "Looking back at us." Long seconds passed, the image fading with each flare from the void. "Good read, Michael. Stand down." The lights in the room flickered to life, replacing the darkness with banks of dull white machinery. Releasing the harness, he drifted to the hatch leading down the boom. Hundreds of tests during training and multiple reads over the last three missions and he'd never experienced multiple visions before. No intuitive had. The Boxes were specifically designed to filter out garbage and help them focus. To create optimum conditions for their visions. "And, Michael." She paused. "The Captain wants to talk to you."

Michael jogged along the narrow service corridor.

Strips of maglev track ran along the floor and ceiling, orange cargo trolleys tucked into the bulkheads every twenty meters. His commplant popped. "About done?" "Aren't you watching me, Archana?" "All the time," she answered. He pictured her sitting at her station, long black hair pulled back, biting her lower lip. "How was your talk with the Captain?" He could see the wide red stripe ahead on the deck, wrapping up both sides of the wall. No man's land. At least when the voidbreaker was active. Two hundred years of â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;breaker technology scattered mankind amongst the stars like seeds in the wind. Voidships with their huge voidbreaker arrays splayed spacetime like their ancient namesakes, the ocean-going

icebreakers that cracked swaths through frozen seas. "I got the usual speech." He softened his voice, adding a bayou woman’s Cajun drawl. "You've been through a lot, young man, but with all of the political unrest these days, it is imperative that we make a deep and lasting impression. You must keep it together. No more double visions or ghost ships. Only a couple of reads remain and then it's clear sailing. Can you do it?" Archana laughed at the impression. Can you do it? The Captain's favorite expression, heard daily by dozens. Right foot landing squarely on the line, he pivoted and headed back. Last lap. He preferred to run around one of the four habitat rings at the ship's stern. The gentle upward slope made for a better workout. Not this trip. With two intuitives on board, the senior got first pick and Carmody chose the rear half of the ship. Every ten strides, he passed between sets of large windows. Thick glass portals looking out into the starless void below normal space. Each morning he called the bridge to have the blast shields rotated clear. They claimed this was ship's protocol. Structural integrity and such. Simple truth was normal people avoided staring into the void. "We're still on for dinner at Lochlands Pier when we get to One Twenty Colony, right?” she asked. “I hear it’s amazing." He stumbled. Memories of his beloved Sarah grew less frequent as the months passed, but images of their many dinners on the beach remained strong. He forced his thoughts back to the present. "You bet. If the voidbreaker weren't blasting right now…" "Can't have you frying my brain, can we?" "Preferably not." So strange that the same voidbreaker-induced anomaly that produced intuitives’ visions also made them lethal to normal people. But only when they were close together and the voidbreaker was active. He treasured those times when the voidbreaker had to be shut down and he could wander among the crew and spend time with Archana. "Preferably?" "As long as…everything else works." He winced, unable to believe what he'd just said. What if she— She laughed. "Oh, you'll pay for that, mister." Light flickered on the other side of the glass. Like distant lightning in a midnight storm. Looking through the windows further down the corridor was a jumpy view of the first of the habitat rings. Even a kilometer away, black on gray scars were visible, evidence of past campaigns, forming a patchwork of generationsold repairs. 50

But she held together, this former battleship. Some bureaucrat in the Capitol saw wondrous symbolism in the conversion of a warship to a diplomatic vessel. A grand gesture of peace by a benevolent but misunderstood Union. Michael just thought they were too cheap to build a new one. "Need you in the Box in thirty," said Archana. The Box. Cold spread through his body when he thought of the spherical chamber. Of the harness that suspended him in the center, detached from everything. Floating in the void. His feet struck the rubberized deck matting. Eight weeks was a long time to be isolated from the rest of the crew. Enough time to feel a little crazy in your own head. But he was isolated even when the voidbreaker wasn't active. Only Archana was different. "Just gonna grab a shower first." He slowed his pace and came to a stop at the lock. Pulling a water bottle and a towel from his bag, he took a long drink and stepped inside. Light flickered through the windows behind him as the blast shields closed.

he planet was closer since the voidbreaker had been tuned based on earlier reads. He'd given a long series of subjective vectors, validating Carmody's with only minor deviations. Differences dismissed due to his inexperience. No phantom ship this time. Michael fought down the lump in his throat and sighed. At least their operation could proceed. A simple mission of intimidation. Peace through strength. The Victoria would surface in low orbit around One Twenty Colony. The colonials would immediately condemn the maneuver as reckless and belligerent. The Captain, Emissary for the Union, would casually remark that Earth had made recent advances in voidbreaker technology and could now surface with great precision wherever and whenever they wished. After two centuries of unpredictable emergence points, sometimes varying billions of kilometers, such control would give any military a decisive advantage. Fear would do the rest. As long as intuitives remained a secret, the Union was unstoppable. "Just waiting on the quartermaster to sign off," said Archana. "How are you?" Lightning flashed. First behind the planet and then off to port. He considered his answer for a moment. Better to be okay, he thought. "Fine." The view twisted, exposing the other ship rising above him, details more clear than before. People moved behind the windows and he could almost make

out the white lettering along her forward hull. Another dizzying shift and he was back atop the familiar strut that supported the Box, the Victoria spread out beneath his feet. A point of light moved against the darkness to his right. The other ship. Small eddies formed in the darkness between the two ships. Wakes expanded toward him, bridging the gap between the ships. "Something else moving out there." "The second ship?" "No. Smaller."

he forward mess hall was empty. Michael stepped over the threshold, triggering the lights. A grid of plastic tables filled the room, each bolted to the floor with eight chairs swung out from beneath. They looked like enormous bugs on some giant entomologist’s pegboard in the brightening light. Dead. Spindly legs sticking straight up. The vaulted ceiling was rare on the Victoria, the mess being positioned in one of the few areas along the outer surface of the ship where the curve of the hull did not quite allow for two complete decks. He felt guilty for forcing everyone out of the forward section, for being the only person to use the rooms intended for hundreds of crew people, not one lonely twit. That's what he and the other intuitives were called. They preferred intuitive, but the nickname went way back. Derogatory nicknames never die. He looked down the list of available meal packages at the readychow console. Lots of choices, the dispenser having been stocked just prior to the evacuation of the forward section of the ship and the initialization of the voidbreaker. He selected the stroganoff and listened to the hiss from the machine as the prepackaged meal was heated to an edible temperature before clunking to the counter in front of him. Just like Mom used to flash, claimed the black film cover. It did smell good. "Michael." He jumped, almost dropping his tray. "Sorry," said Archana, amused. "The Captain wants to speak with you. " "Great," he murmured. The screen rippled to life before he could even peel the film from his dinner. "How many missions is this for you, Mr. Bennett?" She wasted no time with pleasantries. "One Twenty Colony makes four, ma'am." Captain Chang's fiery red hair, green eyes, and pale 51

complexion dissolved any thought that she shared the same ethnic origins as her name. Her own bio spoke of the disparity as the result of an unfortunate but rewarding union from her youth. She stared into his eyes through the video connection, unblinking. "Mister Eddington has logged three hundred seventeen, not including One Twenty and has reported nothing unexpected." She raised her eyebrows. "Ma'am, I've never experienced this before. My readings have always been by the book—" "Until now." The view had zoomed as they talked and her head now dominated the entire screen, resolution so tight he could see each wrinkle, each pore. "But, ma'am—if I may—if Mister Eddington—" "Twelve years and tens of thousands of readings," she continued, ignoring him. "Never anything like this. Never have any of you seen anything more than a nice outside view from the Box." Michael sat frozen. She wasn't even going to entertain the possibility. She looked off to her right, her shoulders dropping slightly. "There are only thirty twits—pardon me—intuitives in the fleet…and two of you are aboard my ship. Quite an honor for you, this crew, for this ship to be chosen for this mission." "Y-yes, ma'am, but—" "Quite an honor for me." She looked back at him, eyes locking onto his. "We are about to stop the rising tide, Mister Bennett. One Twenty is the biggest and most outspoken. When she falls in line, the other worlds will too." "But, Captain, my visions must mean something." "That you're special, Mister Bennett?" She shook her head, one corner of her mouth turning up slightly. "I'm sure they do. You've had a difficult run of things. I'll have a look through your service record. Perhaps I can arrange some R and R when we return to Earth." "It's not that, ma'am." He didn't know what to say. Was she right? Maybe he was crazy. "Or," she continued, her voice slow and quiet, "perhaps an extended re-evaluation and re-training session." His eyes widened and he opened his mouth to speak, but thought better of it. She was threatening him. Chang’s face softened as the view on the screen zoomed back. "There was an expression in water navy a few hundred years ago. Fair winds and following seas. That's what we need from you, Michael. No storms, no phantoms, no fantasies. A clear, clean read with no waves. Can you do it?" He clenched his teeth letting the seconds drag on.

He was a pawn, an asset. Like One Twenty, just another dissenting voice to be forced into line. Eyes cast down at his dinner, he nodded. "Good. I see we understand each other."

This is all wrong, thought Michael.

"I've got a good read from Carmody," said Archana, a quiver in her voice. "Just looking for yours to confirm." He jerked his head left and right but all there was to see were a few isolated stars floating in the billowing darkness. The Victoria stretched out below his dangling feet in perfect detail. Flashes of blue rippled in the distance. Where was One Twenty? An entire planet could not be gone. "What did Carmody see?” "Irrelevant," answered Captain Chang. The Captain? Not Archana. What's going on, he wondered. Voidship captains were a tough lot, part arrogance and part insanity was the joke. Chang had never once spoken to him during a read. He assumed she felt it beneath her to speak directly to a twit, even a twit guiding her ship through the space below normal space. "What do you see, Mister Bennett?" Her words were clipped, her voice impatient. He twisted, craning his neck as the harness tightened across his chest. A yellow-white star brightened ahead of the ship and to his left, as though a cloud had moved aside. One Twenty's primary was a yellow-white, very similar to Earth's sun. That star couldn't be it. They had taken read after read over the last few weeks. Tightening their emergence point, the point they would resurface into normal space, to a precise orbit over One Twenty. Planets did not disappear. "Michael." Archana's voice wavered as though she were uncertain or frightened. "The Captain needs you to respond now. What do you see?" He could not tell them. First he's seeing phantom ships and then not seeing planets. The techs and doctors had praised him throughout the intensive and sometimes painful months of training. One of the best they'd ever seen. Now I'm losing it, he thought. "I'm not sure." Brilliant blue erupted from directly beneath the voidbreaker cone, blinding him. Great. They're never going to believe this. "I got a flash, very close. Standby." "Mister Bennett, what did you see before the flash?" The Captain again. "Ma'am…" He wondered what Carmody saw and wished he could ask him before answering. This was a 52

silent read though. No contact between the intuitives. Captain's orders. He forced a heavy sigh. "All I saw was the empty space. A few stars. One G Class, close in. Ahead and to port." The scene was beginning to reform around him but there was something wrong. He was facing aft at the habitat rings. Along the ventral side of the Victoria. A thin boom jutted from the drive section beyond the rings, ending in a gray, equipment-studded pod. Early models had been cubical, hence the name. Designs change though, much faster than the language. It was a Box. Carmody's Box. "Well done, Mister Bennett," said the Captain. "Mister Eddington confirms your read precisely. I had the 'breaker engineers temporarily detune the system. I'll consider your…improved clarity during this session when I review your record." Detune. She detuned the voidbreaker as a test. He gritted his teeth. The habitat rings were getting closer. He passed through them, continuing to accelerate as he approached the aft Box. His muscles tensed as he flew faster and faster, passing through the pressure hull and coming to a gut-wrenching stop inches from Carmody's face. The other intuitive hung in his harness, eyes closed, black hair standing on end. A milky luminescence leaked through the cracks of his eyelids, and tiny strobes of blue popped in the air all around. He was a bug caught in some ethereal web. Do I look like that? "Michael," Archana's voice was a whisper. "She had to know if she could trust your reads." A test. Michael watched as Carmody took a blocky pendant hanging from a thick cord around his neck and placed it to his lips. Light glinted from the small, white cube. A secure commchip like diplomats use. Michael reached out to touch the chip. White lights began to snap on, slicing into the scene. The whirr of the equipment replaced the deep, inaudible hum of the vision. He released the buckle and shoved himself clear of the harness, bile rising in his throat. "I'm sorry," said Archana but he was already through the lock.

ichael pressed firmly behind his left ear. "Carmody Eddington," he said. Immediately, he heard soft static like distant rain. The connection was good but Carmody wasn't answering. Flopping onto the uncomfortably plush couch, he stared at the ceiling. Do planners really believe an

overfilled piece of furniture eases weeks of isolation? "Come on, Carmody. Answer me." He heard a sigh. "What is it?" "I need to talk to you about--" "Your multiple visions? Forget it. Just do your job." Michael flushed. "I saw another ship. Another ship looking back at us as we surfaced. How could they know where we’re surfacing?" Odd sounds tickled his ears. Paper crumpling or tearing maybe. "They can't. Not possible. Just confirm my read. So long as you see the same thing I do, no one cares about the hallucinations you have on the side. Get it?" "They're not hallucinations--" "Michael, for god's sake, give it a rest. Aren't you freak enough?" The sound of water being poured filtered through. He imagined Carmody standing at a sink like his own. Then pacing around his quarters, glass in hand. "Let's talk to the Captain. If you try, maybe you can see it too." "Sorry, Mikey. Not in my plan." "This could be our lives." His chuckle echoed in Michael's ears. "Yeah, I'm sure, Mister Melodrama. My life includes going home. You talking like a madman is only going to mess things up. For me. For you. For everybody. "Carmody, please." "Chang has been asking me about you, about how we twits tick. How we know what we know. If we can tell when one of our own has become unstable, a liability.” He paused. “I’d be worried if I were you." "A liability," Michael repeated softly. Ice clinked in a glass. "Do you really want to dig your hole any deeper? If you don't get some perspective and stop spouting nonsense, you're gonna wind up under a knife and a knanoscope for the rest of your life." "So you won't help?" "Not a chance. Just give her a good reading. One that matches mine. Who knows, someday we may even get out of these poorly gilded cages." A soft, wet sound came across the connection. Michael pictured Carmody in the Box from his vision. "Did you just kiss your pendant?" "What?" "The diplomatic commchip." "A private download from my father—how did you know?” "Last time we were in the Box." Seconds passed. "You bore me," said Carmody and the static vanished from his ear. 53

'm not sure this is allowed," said Archana. She whispered, her words slurred as if she wasn't moving her lips fully as she spoke. Michael sealed the lock and drifted to the center of the white sphere, to the straps that would hold him centered in the chamber. "There are no rules that say I can't come out here and practice." "And there's none that say you can either." He slid into the rig and connected the clips to the master buckle. "I want to try something…and practice. Remember?" "Fine," she said. "Let me know when you're ready." He could almost see her fidgeting in her duty chair, glancing nervously around the command center, completely failing to look inconspicuous. The thought made him smile. Michael closed his eyes, took a deep breath and stretched his arms and legs out. A psychic, spacefaring vitruvian man. His smile widened. "Do it." Clunks reverberated through the chamber as the lights shut off and the amplifiers encrusting the inner wall of the sphere came to life. A dull rumble filled the air as the creeping stillness washed over his hands and feet and moved toward his body. Even the slightest movement required an effort. Good, he thought. I'm getting better at this. His muscles felt warm and tight as the calmness flowed down his arms and up his legs. Earlier he'd thought of Carmody and suddenly found himself in the Box with the pompous bastard. He had to try that again. If he could control the visions, he could prove the phantom ship and the rest were true. The Captain would have to listen. "Status, Michael?" The heat reached his abdomen and torso and rushed into his head like a geyser blowing upward. The room was gone. Dark clouds billowed in the distance and the gray-white bulk of the Victoria spread beneath him. "I'm oriented." Chang said she was going to review his record. When and where would that take place? Lightning flashed in the distance and he was facing downward, swooping along the main body of the ship. Bulkheads and passageways and people flashed by too fast to focus on. Movement stopped instantly as before and his body yanked hard in the harness. The Captain sat cross-legged on the floor of her quarters, sipping from a china cup, staring straight up at him. After a moment her eyes darted left and right, not looking at him after all. Her boots sat squarely next to her floor mat and the top button of her duty

jacket was undone. Other than that, she was in full uniform. Never off duty. He turned and looked at the wallscreen she was reading. His picture dominated the left half. Other pictures of family and friends flipped by on the right along with numerous pages that must have been text but he could not read them. The words appeared more as outlines than individual letters. Pictures of his mother and father appeared. A blob of unfocused lettering across his mother’s image took the shape of the word deceased in capital letters. Same across his father’s. He'd only been a teenager when they’d died. A decade before he’d met Sarah and years before the accident that had taken her. Sarah appeared on the screen. A photo he'd never seen of her. She was beautiful, walking along a beach, eyes cast down. Must have been from their trip to Coastal City just after he turned down the offer from the Service. Tears formed in his eyes. "Michael." His stomach twisted. "I'm going to need to shut down your…test," said Archana. “Combat wants unnecessary power usage terminated so they can prep for the last 'breaker adjustment." "Roger that." Across the bottom of Sarah's photo was a longer smear, different that the others, but he couldn’t quite make it out.

e'd counted the ventilation slots above his bed ten times. Still thirty of them. Climate controls switched on a distant air handler every five minutes, thirty seconds. So much time alone. Only one more read until they arrived—one more adjustment to the voidbreaker. Michael was to be relieved of duty afterwards pending a full medical. The redundancy of two intuitives was necessary to the mission, but not the return trip. Two hours and reveille would sound. Maybe they were right. His mind, his life had been collapsing for months, years really. Despair at the loss of his Sarah. Shame at fleeing into the Service rather than grieving with her family, their friends. And now guilt over his feelings for Archana. His commplant popped. "Michael Bennett. Secure." Carmody, requesting an encrypted link. Michael rolled his eyes in the dark room and flipped onto his back. The last thing he wanted to do was talk to him, but he wasn't sleeping anyway. "Secure," he said, accepting. The soft static of the connection switched to a low tone. 54

"How did you know about the chip?" Carmody's voice was shaky. He'd been drinking too much coffee or stimm. No greetings or small talk from this bastard, Michael thought. "Hi, Carmody. How are you?" "Cut the crap, twit. How'd you know?" "I saw you with it during the last read." He heard the air handler switch on again, followed long seconds later by a gentle movement of cool air across his face. The tone was still present in his head so Carmody had not dropped the private link between them. "Look, I'm not good at this." Carmody coughed and cleared his throat. "You know who my father is?" Michael kicked the thin blanket to the floor. Carmody's father was a corporate ambassador, moving around freely representing Union interests. A real radical according to the newsfeeds. "So?" "I've been trapped in the Service for nine years. Nine years, Michael." He coughed and switched to a whisper. "Look, when we surface tomorrow there'll be another ship. They'll cripple us—take out the drives, voidbreaker, weapons pod too, I guess—but no one's going to get hurt." "That’s treason, Carmody.” He shuddered, suddenly chilled. "They're never going to let us go. Don't you see that?" A sharp sound came across the connection. Glass breaking followed by a frustrated groan. "This is no way to live, Michael. Confirm my read and I'll tell them you're with me. You can even drag your girlfriend along too." Michael stood to switch on the lights and then thought better. Secure links blocked out other monitoring but he wasn't sure how comprehensive that was. He shook his head. "What are you saying?" "Confirm my read." The tone faded, leaving only the whisper of moving air.

"Secure." Carmody was calling.

The mission’s final read had begun thirty minutes before. He'd listened as Carmody rattled off data and observations across their common channel to Archana. His own vantage point had started as always before changing in a series of violent swirls to the other ship. He was standing on a platform in the phantom ship's operations center. People moved about, intense but slow, as if underwater. "Secure," Michael answered. A young man in the wrong color uniform nodded slowly and turned in his chair to face a large bank of controls.

Displays blinked, replacing camera views with lined graphics of the Victoria. Crosshairs appeared and swam around the display, stopping one by one. Locking in. "All pretty convenient, huh," said Carmody. "The Service makes you an offer after an exam but you decline. It's a free Union so they can't force you. A few weeks later, your woman dies." "Wife." "Accident, right? Freak accident?" Michael squeezed his eyes shut, but the scene remained. Sweat beaded on his forehead, despite the forced ventilation. Terminated. The word across Sarah's photo. The photo he hadn't taken. The word was terminated. Archana was speaking to him too but her words were soft and far away. Drowned by the pounding in his head. By the deafening white noise from all around. Lightning flashed to his right in the inky blackness, swallowed an instant later by the roiling clouds. "Think about it," said Carmody. "Who are they going to believe? Let this happen, Michael.” The vast expanse of space flickered around him. A planet overhead. A bright sun in the distance. The bridge of the other ship. "Why were you on a secure link, Mister Bennett?" The Captain, an impatient edge in her voice.

Perspectives shifted and blended, all backlit with blue flashes. Memories bled into nows and the starry sky opened before him in the tiny room. His wife. Carmody. Archana. The Captain. "Mister Bennett!" "M-ma'am." Thunder broke through the eerie silence of the vision. "You went secure during a read. Explain." "Sorry, ma'am. Mister Eddington was just making sure I'm okay. The last few reads have been…rough." "I see." She cleared her throat. "And are you?" "Yes, ma'am." His shifted in the harness, taut straps holding him in place. "I'd like to confirm Mister Eddington's read." "Clear sailing?" The Victoria hung, small and fragile, before him. Close enough to reach out and touch. Three shadowy needles streaked toward her. "Yes, ma’am. Clear sailing." __________________________________________ William Wood has appeared in the “Creature Features” anthology from House of Horror and several titles from Living Dead Press. Other work pending publication has been accepted for anthologies by Library of the Living Dead and Lame Goat Press. Shorter pieces have appeared online at Flash Me Magazine, Alienskin Magazine, Everyday Weirdness, and Everyday Fiction.

Whitesytch Wood by JJ Beazley

It's just a harmless midnight stroll through the woods... or not. ___________________________________________________________

Gregory

Jordan loved woods. He always had. He’d been brought up on a suburban housing estate that was placed at the furthest fringe of the city environs. The boundary hedge at the end of his long back garden had been, in a physical sense at least, the very boundary of civilised suburbia. Beyond it had lain the impenetrable depths of a wild and ancient wood. And what a fabulous wood it had been: rich, mysterious and compelling. The trees were massive, with all-enveloping crowns and gnarled old trunks that had folds and grooves and strange protuberances standing out in gruesome relief. Some of the shapes looked like faces. Most of them were ugly, and some of them looked unfriendly. He’d regarded them often with a mixture of suspicion and fascination, but they hadn’t bothered him. He’d known well enough that the trees couldn’t move, so neither could the faces. There were a couple of footpaths running through it, and Gregory occasionally took one of them as a short cut to school. They were the only means of making progress in this dark and dappled world. Either side of them the woodland floor was a dense mass of undergrowth that prevented movement by anything other than the small animals he knew must live there. On one occasion he’d found the entrance to a small tunnel that burrowed through the densely packed brambles. He had crawled in to investigate. Being a small boy, he’d managed to squeeze himself along it, assuming that it must have been made by a badger or a fox. He had come to a point where it branched into two forks, and his way had been blocked by a dead rat lying at the junction. The incessant rippling of its skin had told Gregory that it was full of maggots, performing their natural role by gorging themselves on what was left of the defunct rodent. He’d found both the options open to him repulsive. Neither crawling over it nor moving it out of the way appealed to the sensitive child and he had retreated backwards with some difficulty. But that was a minor incident. The wood had provided the perfect playground for an imaginative young boy, enabling him to don the mantle of noble knight, dashing outlaw or fearless jungle fighter with great authority and realism. And that wasn’t all. He’d felt the peace of the place too and, beyond that, the 56

harmony of nature and a sense that the wood had a life that was somehow greater in its whole than the sum of its parts. The faces on the trees might not offer any physical threat, but he was sure they watched him. And he only went into the wood during the day. He never presumed to enter it after dark. Never. Sadly, Gregory had been granted only a few years to enjoy his sylvan idyll. His family had moved closer to the centre of the city when he was eleven and his arboreal playground had been replaced by crowded housing, an old slag heap and a disused railway line. The wood soon passed into history, put fondly away in the box of treasured childhood memories along with innocence, untrammelled joy and a belief in Father Christmas.

t was nearly a quarter of a century later when he moved with his wife and dog to a quiet village in the English countryside. The community was friendly and functional, and the surrounding landscape typical of the English Midlands: gently rolling, pastoral farmland with neat fields occupied by herds of Friesian milkers. There were plenty of walks and several empty fields where his dog could run unimpeded. And there was a narrow stream meandering along the bottom of a shallow valley where he could wile away the odd summer evening in a setting of blissful tranquillity. But it was finding Whitesytch Wood that pleased him most. It was the first time since he’d moved house at the age of eleven that he’d been blessed with a wood on the doorstep. In fact, it wasn’t quite that close. It was about a mile away down a rarely used lane that ran off the top end of the village. But that was close enough. The walk only added to the pleasure of going there. Unfortunately, it wasn’t quite up to the standard of his legendary wildwood either. There were plenty of massive stumps testifying to the pedigree of the place, but the trees that stood there now were young conifers. The undergrowth had been mostly cleared and access to all parts was easy. It was obvious that the owner had felled the old standards and replaced them with fast-growing varieties to make a quicker profit. Gregory didn’t like that. He knew it was one of the ways in which nature was being unduly exploited for commercial gain. But at least it was a wood and that was better than nothing.

Em loved it too. Em was Gregory’s young border collie dog. Like all of her breed she was intelligent, inquisitive and brimful of seemingly boundless energy. She never stopped moving except when she was asleep or waiting to be fed. The sparse undergrowth in Whitesytch Wood suited her perfectly. She could explore the myriad scents and chase startled rabbits to her heart’s content. She never caught any, which pleased Gregory, but neither did she tire of the innocent enjoyment she got from trying. No doubt the chase was the main thing anyway, and it gave Gregory great delight to see her bright-eyed, active and happy. That was why it seemed so unaccountable when she stopped on the track one day and stared dead ahead. She never did that and he peered hard in the same direction, curious to know what could be holding her interest. He could see nothing moving and nothing out place. She was in front of him at the time and he walked past her, assuming it would break her mysterious reverie and rouse her to frenetic activity again. It didn’t. She continued to stand stock still and he walked on. The track ran in a straight line and slightly downhill for about a hundred yards, before making a sharp right hand turn. That was the direction she was looking in, but still he could see nothing. He called to her when he was half way down but she offered no response. And yet it seemed that she was not refusing him, rather that she was oblivious to his presence. Gregory found her behaviour inexplicable, but continued to walk down the track to see how long it would take for her to follow him. He arrived at the bend and looked back. She was still standing in the same place, rigid as a piebald statue, and Gregory found her unaccustomed stillness so strange as to verge on the unnerving. She’d never done anything like that before. And then he had a sudden thought, or maybe “impression” would be the right word. For that’s what it was, an inner sense that there was something close by that his dog could see but he couldn’t. He was standing on the apex of the bend and there was a grassy area between the track and a bank of shrubs. He suddenly felt that the mystery lay there and sensed that, if he walked onto the grass, it would disturb whatever was holding Em’s attention and release her. He tried it and it worked. The moment he set foot onto the small, green space, Em came to life again. She trotted toward him as though there had been no break in her activity, stopping to sniff unconcernedly at little points of interest on the way. Whatever spell had been holding her captive, it was gone now. 57

Gregory was intrigued and looked around. The air was still and there was no sound other than the occasional trilling of birds hidden among the foliage. There was nothing visible to explain his dog’s strange behaviour, and none of his physical senses betrayed anything out of the ordinary. Em’s extraordinary diversion from the norm would have to remain a mystery. The episode was only the first of several odd little incidents that happened during his frequent forays to Whitesytch Wood. On one occasion he saw a tree branch swing suddenly and unaccountably through ninety degrees, gradually coming to rest in its rightful position. It seemed as though it had been held at right angles and then released. But what could have held it? When he investigated he found that the branch was too high to be reached by even a very tall man, and there was nothing close to the tree that could have been responsible. Another time he saw a small cloud of smoke, or mist maybe, drift suddenly across the path in front of him. There was no steady stream as there would have been had a fire been lit somewhere, just a single, small cloud that appeared and was gone in a couple of seconds. And he often felt that he was being watched, and even followed, by something undefined but large and invisible. Fortunately, Gregory wasn’t a nervous type and his odd encounters with the unexplained did nothing to diminish his enthusiasm for trips to the wood with his canine companion. He never felt threatened in any way. Not, that is, until he broke his childhood rule and went into the wood at night. And he only did that at the behest of a young friend who did not share his inner conviction that other forms of reality lie beyond the surface of the natural world. The house next door to his was owned by a widow of around sixty. Dorothy Watkin was a simple and irrepressibly affable soul who liked nothing better than to be useful. Generous to a fault, she was the sort who would cook meals for tramps and give them clothing from her late husband’s wardrobe. She had three grown up sons. The two older ones had families of their own and lived some miles away in the nearby town. The youngest, Mark, was unmarried and lived at home. Mark was in his early twenties. He was highly intelligent and had gained a bachelor’s degree through the Open University. But he’d never lived anywhere other than in the village, and what he’d inherited of his mother’s affability sat naturally with a generally unsophisticated view of the world. He loved mysteries, and made an enthusiastic audience for Gregory’s tales

of strange happenings in Whitesytch Wood. One afternoon early in October, as the two of them sauntered down the darkening lane and sniffed the first hints of wood smoke, Mark made a suggestion. He’d always loved Halloween, he said. Why didn’t they go into the wood at midnight on 31st October? Gregory agreed immediately, simply to avoid the embarrassment of seeming foolish or timid. But a small voice called out to his conscious mind from somewhere deep inside. He knew that it was the voice of his childhood instinct and chose to ignore it. He hadn’t yet recognised that children can sometimes understand the more subtle aspects of reality better than adults can, and that their natural intuition gets blocked by the process of growing up. Gregory was thirty five and, at that age, a man is expected to behave like an adult. So what harm could it do to indulge Mark’s wish to visit Whitesytch Wood at the witching hour of All Hallows Eve? The agreement made, the matter wasn’t raised again until lunchtime on the fateful Saturday. Mark came around and reminded his neighbour of their arrangement. Gregory hadn’t forgotten it and said that he would call at eleven thirty to give them plenty of time to be in the wood before the clock struck twelve. He felt slightly uneasy at the prospect of entering a wood at night. He’d always felt that woods had two spirits: the daytime one that was generally benevolent, and its wilder, more unpredictable brother who took over when darkness fell. Trees always seemed different at night, even the ones that stood alone. The thought of being surrounded by hundreds of them, imbued with a dark spirit that might be less than friendly, was uncomfortable. He shrugged it off as we all would. He knew, as we all do, that the fear of nocturnal woods stems from nothing more than a primitive race memory. Woods used to hold real, physical terrors at night and our genes have never forgotten it. The scientific age says so. There was no threat; it would just be a bit of fun.

regory knocked on his neighbour’s door shortly before 11.30. Mark opened it and stepped out. Both men were well prepared for their adventure, suitably wrapped in warm clothing and sensibly shod in strong boots. And they had both thought to bring a torch. The night was cold, crisp and clear but they realised that there would be little light penetrating the canopy of even a young conifer wood. Gregory had decided not to bring Em along, even though his wife had suggested it and the dog had looked distinctly put out at being left behind. His sense of disquiet encouraged him to err on the side of caution. Whilst there was the 58

slightest possibility of risk, he didn’t want Em to be subjected to it. They walked quickly out of the village and turned along Whitesytch Lane, engaging in trivial conversation through steaming breath. Mark remarked on the coldness of the night and the likelihood of frost before dawn. And then he asked, in his engagingly childlike way, “Do you think we’ll see anything?” “Doubt it,” replied Gregory. “Hope we do.” “What do you expect to see?” “Dunno. Ghosties, ghoulies and four-leggedy beasties!” Mark’s choice of phrase was trite and predictable, and Gregory replied in similar vein. “How about witches in black cloaks going in and out of a mysterious house that wasn’t there yesterday and won’t be there again tomorrow?” “Yeah, that’ll do.” They fell silent again until they reached the entrance to the wood. Gregory shone his torch at his watch. It was thirteen minutes to twelve. “You ready?” he asked. “Yup.” “C’mon then.” They stepped over the shallow gully that marked the threshold and entered the darkness of Whitesytch Wood, their two torches lighting up the track ahead of them. Gregory expected to feel apprehensive, but he didn’t. He felt nothing at all - no sense of menace, no irrational fears and no sense of any presence, threatening or otherwise. He was disappointed. A small tingle of fear can be quite enjoyable as long as it stays within manageable proportions. That was what they were there for. What sort of an adventure would it be if there wasn’t the slightest hint of anything to set their nerves on edge? He listened for the hoot of an owl or the scrabbling of some small animal going about its business. Nothing. The only sounds were those made by their boots snapping the dry twigs that lay on the path. There wasn’t even a breeze to persuade the branches to whisper behind their backs. When they reached the bend in the track which had been the object of Em’s mysterious attention back in the summer, they stopped for a few moments and shone their torches in all directions. Nothing there either. No feelings, nothing to see, nothing to kindle any sense of mystery. The only impression gathering weight in Gregory’s mind was that he had been mistaken. Nocturnal woods were just daytime woods

with the lights turned off. Any notion of dual spirits, menace and parallel dimensions seemed preposterous. He suggested as much when he said, “Bit boring really, isn’t it?” “Can’t be twelve o’clock yet, though,” replied his companion. Gregory looked at his watch again. “No. Seven minutes to go.” Mark remained enthusiastic and suggested they go further. They turned the bend and walked along a flat, straight section, passing the tree whose branch had swung so mysteriously. There was no movement there now and they soon reached another bend where the track turned left to continue its progress down a short incline. That required a little care in the dark, but they managed it safely enough. They were now at the lowest part of the wood and Mark suggested they wait there until midnight. There were still two minutes to go and Gregory agreed. And so they waited in silence for a full five minutes. By the end of it Gregory was bored and wanted to go home. He looked at his watch again. “Three minutes past,” he said. “Looks like we’re out of luck.” Mark reluctantly agreed and they decided to call it a night. They made their way back up the slope, turned the corner and retraced their steps along the cross section. They both mumbled that the whole exercise had been a bit pointless and Mark was clearly disappointed. He wasn’t the type to get bored easily. Gregory was. He just wanted to get home to a hot drink and bed. He ignored the grassy patch when they reached the second bend and turned left to walk the final two or three hundred yards. And that was when he felt the sudden thud of apprehension hit his stomach and spread rapidly to engulf his body in goose bumps. He stopped and shone the torch around. There was nothing to see and no sound to disturb the stillness of the night. “What?” asked Mark. “Don’t know,” answered Gregory. “I suddenly felt something.” “What, something touched you?” “No, no - not physically. Just a feeling, inside, like we’re not alone.” “Oh, c’mon Greg, you’re just trying to spook me, aren’t you? Good try mate.” “I’m not actually, no. I really felt something, very strongly.” “Let’s hang on then, see if anything happens.” Mark’s enthusiasm was irrepressible, but he hadn’t 59

felt what Gregory had. “I don’t think we should,” replied his companion. “It doesn’t feel good. Trust me.” “You serious?” “Dead right I’m serious. I think I’d rather leave, and I think we should stick together.” “But we came here to see something – experience something – whatever. We can’t leave now, just when something’s happening.” Gregory had been looking about him during the conversation. He was having second thoughts about woods at night. The lack of any physical sound or movement had not dimmed the sense of menace that was gripping him, or eased the prickling sensation on his skin. If anything, they were getting stronger. He turned to his friend and thought for a second. “OK, let’s put it this way,” he said. “I don’t like this and I’m not staying here. You can if you want. But I don’t fancy walking the rest of the way on my own and I don’t think you should be alone either.” Although Mark had felt nothing himself, something of Gregory’s genuine concern was starting to communicate itself to him. He began to feel apprehensive too, and his show of reluctance was not entirely genuine as he muttered his agreement. They turned to walk on and then looked around when they heard a noise behind them. They shone their torches at the empty path and the trees standing still and inscrutable around them. “What did that sound like to you?” asked Gregory. “Like somebody breathing out – only louder,” replied Mark. Gregory agreed and they stood in silence for several seconds. There was no repetition. “Probably a gust of wind,” he suggested, even though he didn’t believe it. Hearing the mysterious noise had removed all traces of Mark’s earlier enthusiasm. There was something fundamentally immature about him. He was the sort who rushed into adventures easily and rushed back out again as soon as they became difficult. His apprehension was already beginning to grow into the first stirrings of panic. “Let’s run,” he said as they turned to continue their walk towards the perimeter. “No,” replied the more controlled Gregory. “It’s getting foggy and I don’t fancy falling. We can speed up a bit though.” All the time they’d been speaking, Gregory had felt the goose bumps getting stronger. And the mist that was now thickening around them seemed to be a part of it, whatever “it” was. As they walked on with quickened stride, the sensation began to change. It

wasn’t just on the outside any more. It was seeping inside him, carried there perhaps by the damp air that he was taking in with every shortened breath. And something of the first glimmer of understanding was coming with it, though it was still vague. He began to sense that some channel was being opened, some line of communication between him and something hideous. Oddly, it didn’t feel malevolent; but it did feel destructive. He suddenly had an image of a big cat stalking its prey. The predator feels no hatred for the hapless object of its lethal intent, merely hunger that nature dictates must be sated. “At this pace we should be out in a minute or two at most,” he said. But panic was beginning to grow in Gregory too, and he was struggling to suppress it. He knew that panic destroys logic and dissipates the vital energy of will. The twin forces needed to work together if the two men were to avoid being trapped and caught by something that was capable of doing them great harm. Exactly what, he didn’t yet know; but the situation was beginning to feel that serious. Mark was younger than him, and taller. His pace was quicker and longer. Gregory was concerned that he was getting ahead and might break into a trot. “Don’t run,” he said. “Whatever you do, you mustn’t fall.” Mark eased his pace slightly and allowed Gregory to catch up. “OK,” he said. “But I don’t like this Greg. Won’t be long though, eh?” The older man could see that his young companion was beginning to crack. The transition from easy enthusiasm to cold terror had been remarkably rapid. Gregory realised that whatever was gripping his own consciousness had got inside Mark too; and he realised that the excitable young man lacked the strength to resist it. If they were to escape their fate, the means of doing so would be down to him. They hurried on in silence and Gregory tried to concentrate on anything that would close down the channel that was filling his mind and body. He didn’t want to see what it was about to show him. He didn’t want to know. He just wanted to be out of the wood. On and on they went and Gregory began to suspect that rather more than two minutes had elapsed. Mark was aware of it too. “How long have we been walking?” he asked. His voice was beginning to tremble and carried the tone of someone on the verge of hysteria. “Don’t know. Seems a long time, doesn’t it? Probably just an illusion. Keep going.” 60

By now Gregory was trembling too. He told himself it was just the cold getting to him. He knew it wasn’t. He felt hot. He knew that it was some horrible influence at work. He fought back the urge to turn around, lie down and give in. Gregory wasn’t the sort to give in, but he’d never felt anything as strong or insidious as this before. They carried on walking. Mark began to blubber and mumble incoherently. Still the track went on endlessly. The few feet they could see through the mist showed no sign of the gully that would signal the exit from the nightmare. And the view seemed to be getting shorter as the mist continued to thicken Suddenly, Gregory heard a dog bark. He grabbed Mark’s arm and stopped. “Listen,” he said. Mark was sniffing and shaking like a frightened child. There it was again. Definitely a dog’s bark, and it sounded like Em. But how could that be? She was at least a mile away and shut in the house. Some instinct made him shine the torch at the ground. There was the gully. They were at the edge of the wood. Mark saw it too and they looked at each other briefly. They moved to step across it – and froze. Neither of them was able to take the one step that would make them safe. Gregory had known the same feeling before. He had a fear of heights and had experienced that strange phenomenon in which it’s possible to climb so far up a ladder and then be quite unable to go any further. This was the same. No matter how hard he pushed himself, his legs simply wouldn’t make the necessary movement. He tried going back a little and taking a run at it. It didn’t work. As soon as he got close, the strength seeped from his legs and he came to a halt. He was breathing hard and the power that had invaded the core of his being was getting stronger by the second. Mark started to cry openly and sank to his knees, asking in a hopeless tone what the hell was going on. Gregory forced himself to think. But logical thought was becoming impossible, replaced by incoherent mental ramblings that produced nothing but a sense of helplessness He felt himself weakening as the power continued to strengthen its grip. He couldn’t resist it any longer. He knew it was what was holding them there, blocking the passage of will from their brains to their legs. He felt like a fly in a spider’s web, waiting to be eaten. The power, it seemed, was in full control. Struggle was pointless. Some dreadful fate awaited them. There was nothing else. But the power had a vulnerability of its own. In opening the channel to make its attack, it also allowed

its own intentions to become evident. As Gregory let go of resistance, he began to understand what was happening. He knew that the spirit of the wood was weak itself, weak from lack of nourishment. He knew that it wanted to take from them their very essence their vitality, their will and their energy, all those things that make the living truly alive. He knew that if they couldn’t get across the perimeter they would die, or at least be reduced to pale, pointless shadows of their former selves. But he also saw the limit of their attacker’s control over them. He reached down and shook Mark by the shoulders. “Get up,” he said urgently. “Come on. Get up. Now.” Mark had reached that point where he felt too weak to get up, but he was also too weak to disobey a command. He climbed slowly to his feet. “Take your coat off,” ordered Gregory. “Why?” “Don’t argue, just do it.” Mark began to do as he was told. Gregory was already holding his own coat and grabbed Mark’s as soon as both arms were out of their sleeves. He tied one sleeve of his own to one of Mark’s with a firm reef knot. Then he gave one end of the makeshift rope to his friend and barked another order. “Walk backwards across the gully.” “I can’t.” “Try.” Mark tried and stopped inches from it. “Told you, I can’t” “Is that as far as you can go?” “Yes.” Mark looked enquiringly into Gregory’s eyes. “OK,” said Gregory. ”Whatever you do, don’t let go of the coat. Do you understand?” Mark continued to look at him, helpless and uncomprehending. He said nothing. “Do you understand? Grip the coat firmly. Don’t let it go.” “What are you going to do?” “Push you over the threshold. Don’t let go of the coat.” A look of hope entered Mark’s eyes. He nodded. Gregory pushed him and he fell backwards into the mist. Gregory peered hard and shone the torch at where he assumed his companion had fallen. He could see nothing except the white vapour swirling in the beam of light. He shouted. “Now, pull me across.” Nothing happened for several seconds. Gregory became anxious. He shouted again, gripping the sleeve of his coat and pulling it gently to make sure that the other end was still held. Suddenly he lurched 61

forward from the strength of an almighty tug and fell heavily next to his companion. They were both on the other side of the gully. He lay there for a few seconds, an immense sense of relief filling his mind. He expected to feel triumphant, but he didn’t. Mark sat up and looked around. He didn’t feel frightened any more. Shaken and astonished, stunned even, but not actually frightened. Suddenly, there was nothing to be frightened of. His spirits were returning as quickly as they had faded. He spoke first. “How did you know what to do?” Gregory turned over onto his back and looked at the stars. There was no sign of mist. The air was as clear as it had been on the way out. “I read its mind, for want of a better way of putting it. I knew what it was doing to us, so I knew how to get over it.” Mark’s juvenile sense of excitement was back in full flow and he wanted to know everything. What had it been doing to them? And what was “it” anyway? Gregory felt weary but explained it as well as he could. “It got into that part of our brain that generates fear. It knew that fear makes you mentally weak – more easily manipulated. By the time we got to the edge of the wood – even in those short couple of minutes – we’d developed massive amounts of fear; and that fear had generated a desperate need: the need to get out of the wood. Somehow, it turned that need into illusion - several illusions actually. “First, there was the optical illusion that the path was never ending. We couldn’t see the gully that was in front of us all the time. Then there was the physical illusion that we were still walking when we weren’t. We must have been standing on the edge of the wood for about ten minutes. It was bloody lucky that we heard the dog bark. That one simple, beautiful little sound reconnected us with the outside world so that we could see where we were. “But then there was the really clever bit: the mental illusion. It made us believe, somewhere in our subconscious minds, that the edge of the wood was an impenetrable barrier. If somebody told you to run into a brick wall your brain wouldn’t let you do it. Your muscles would refuse to move before you got there. That’s why we couldn’t step over the gully. We believed that we would just be kicking a brick wall. I knew I couldn’t get over that one, even though I was aware of it; the illusion was too strong. “Then I realised something. My brain might not let me walk into a wall, but it wouldn’t stop me pushing someone else into it. That was the way out: me to push, you to pull. And I thought we’d better have a makeshift rope to be on the safe side. I knew I

wouldn’t be able to reach across the barrier and I didn’t know whether you’d still be too much affected to reach across it as well.” “Brilliant,” said Mark with undisguised admiration. “Bloody brilliant mate. You’re a genius. So what was this ‘it’ that was attacking us?” “The spirit of the wood – the genus loci in its most literal form. It let us get in, but it wouldn’t let us leave. It wanted our energy, our life force.” “Bastard!” “Not really. I felt its hunger. The real bastard is the bloke who cut the trees down and replanted with conifers. He didn’t kill it, you see. He just took all the energy out and replaced it with scraps. And now it’s desperately hungry, hungry for the life it probably had for thousands of years.” Gregory continued to lie on the edge of the road admiring the stars that he’d thought he might never see again. Mark put his coat on and sat thinking for a while. “So what would have happened to us if we hadn’t got out?” he asked eventually. “Don’t know exactly. We’d have been gradually drained over the next few hours probably, the course of the night maybe. I don’t know how long. Then we’d have ended up dead or gibbering morons I suppose.” “So why hasn’t it happened to anybody else? Other people must have been in there at night, lamping for rabbits and so on.” “I suppose we picked the right night. Halloween, the time when the veil between this world and others is said to be at its thinnest. It probably wouldn’t happen any other time. Let’s hope nobody goes in there next year, or that the wood is a bit less hungry by then.” The two men were silent for a while. Mark looked with fascination into the empty darkness of Whitesytch Wood while Gregory continued to watch the stars. He was conscious of a curious paradox: how far our own dimension stretches, and how close can be the others of which we are blithely unaware. He began to feel cold and sat up. “I think it’s time we went home,” he said. And so they walked off down the lane, leaving the dark and silent mass of Whitesytch Wood receding in

their wake. Mark looked back once. Gregory didn’t. The lights were on in Gregory’s house when he arrived home. His wife was still up. The first few minutes after opening the front door were spent dealing with a mad flurry of tail wagging, squirming, leaping and licking from a dog who loved him madly. And then he told his wife the story. Her reaction was mixed. She frowned a few times, said ‘hmm...’ occasionally, and asked whether he and Mark had eaten any wild mushrooms. But she did admit that Em had seemed unusually agitated for a while shortly after midnight, and had barked a couple of times at around twelve fifteen. No description of Gregory’s feelings of gratitude towards his dog need be attempted. He and Em never did go to Whitesytch Wood again. He felt reasonably confident that the disturbing events of Halloween were not likely to be repeated during the daylight hours, if at all. But he couldn’t be certain. And he remembered the episode on the track that day, when Em had been held rigid by some invisible force. Even if he were in no danger, the same might not hold true for his dog. And so their rambles became restricted to the lanes and empty fields, as well as the occasional stroll along the bank of the stream. He could see the wood in the distance from some of the higher parts of the landscape and truly wished it well. And he mused often on the tendency in humans to treat nature as something to be exploited for the sake of convenience or commercial expediency. Though no longer a Christian, the words attributed to the crucified Jesus sometimes occurred to him. “Father, forgive them: for they know not what they do”. He had a feeling that Mother Nature might not be so generous. He had, after all, been given the benefit of personal experience. __________________________________________ JJ Beazley has appeared in numerous online and print publications including Ragged Edge Webzine, At Ease With the Dead, All Hallows Magazine, Twilight Tales Online, Sinister Tales Magazine, Arkham Tales Webzine and the first issue of Encounters. He resides in England.

Décor

by Michael G. Cornelius If you think there is something weird about the new neighbor, trust your instincts. ___________________________________________________________

Old Mrs. Hildebrand moved in to the Utley house

late on a Tuesday night. And I mean late. I know it was late because the lights from the black van that pulled up in front of the house shined deep into my bedroom and woke me up. Curious, I crawled sleepily out of bed and peeked out my second floor window. I couldn’t see much. Even though it was pitch black outside, no one had bothered to turn on the porch light. I could only make out the dim shapes of old furniture being hauled in by a couple of burly guys. There was a lady there, too; she was dressed all in black, but I could see the pale outline of her face and hands against the dark quality of night. The whole scene was pretty weird; certainly not something we were used to seeing around Upper Hollow, that’s for sure. But all in all, for me, “pretty weird” was hardly worth staying up for, and yawning, I ambled back to bed and was soon fast asleep. Of course, by the next morning the entire block was talking about the new neighbor—especially my mother. My mother had long ago elected herself “Queen Bee” of the neighborhood, and the occasion of someone new moving in was just the sort of event she lived for. I am sure she was up with the sun, baking a batch of her infamous cranberry walnut muffins—or as my sister Sooz and I called them, her “spy” muffins. Whenever my mother felt the need to intrude upon a neighbor’s life, she’d bake them a batch of her muffins and take them over laced with practiced kindness and a million prepared questions. Whether a death in the family or a new job or a new nose, there was Mother, ringing the bell bright and early, muffins in one hand and the steely sense of righteous determination possessed only by the town’s leading gossip in the other. Mother had even started baking her muffins for cases of divorce. My father had once made the mistake of remarking to her that this, he believed, was just a smidge past good taste, which not only caused her to make liver for dinner three nights in a row but also to spread the unfortunately true rumor around the neighborhood that my father, in a pique of what can only be considered morbid curiosity, once had eyebrows waxed at the upscale salon in the mall. Besides, Mother said, people have to eat breakfast whether they’re happy or sad, and Sooz and I knew that for our mother, unhappy people were the 63

hungriest of all. But at least a basket of muffins was a traditional gift for a new neighbor, so Mother didn’t cut too unusual a figure as she strutted across Canterbury Lane and knocked hard on the new neighbor’s door. Unfortunately, Mother seemed to be getting the “nobody’s home” response, meaning, of course, that her knocks went unheeded and unanswered. When I say unfortunately, I mean that more for the poor saps who don’t answer the door than my mother, because such a response usually leads to a round of peering into living rooms and the occasional “Yoo hoo!” being blasted through any open window. Repeated unanswered door knocks only make my mother more determined than ever to root herself past the unfriendly silence and worm her way deep into the secrets she will soon become convinced that the folks inside must be hiding. But that’s my mother for you; she isn’t happy unless she’s digging into someone else’s life, and I’m just glad when it isn’t my sock drawer she’s busy eyeing, if you know what I mean. For us kids on the block, life went on as usual. Summer vacation had just started, and we were out of school. So we only cared if the new neighbor had kids the right age for street kickball, and judging from the antique furniture I’d seen going inside the house last night, I sort of doubted that. Still, any new neighbor had to be a big improvement over Mean Mr. Utley. The old coot had lived on the block longer than anyone else here, and was notorious in the neighborhood for threatening to shoot any stray raccoon, dog, or child that even set one foot on his lawn. I guess every neighborhood has some house that, through the actions of the mean old coot who lives inside, becomes forbidden territory for the local kids. Well, for us, that was Mr. Utley’s house. So if I wanted to play a nasty trick on Fatso Higgins or Cooter Mooney I’d make sure to kick their ball deep into Mr. Utley’s yard. Neighborhood rule meant that the owner of the ball had to fetch it, so when the ball ended up somewhere between Mr. Utley’s poison ivy patch and his sagging old willow tree, they’d either have to sneak in themselves and get it or have their dad go over when he got home from work and ask nicely for it back. Either way, it was totally worth it, because whether they got caught by Mr. Utley or had to send their reluctant fathers over, they still caught

holy hell, since no neighborhood dad liked dealing with Mr. Utley anymore than their kids. Of course, I had to be careful and not abuse this fact, since sometimes it was my ball that “accidentally” would go over the fence. The first time it happened, Mr. Utley caught me sneaking out of his yard and shook his fist at me while chasing me down the street with his sawed off Winchester. The second time I fell in the poison ivy and itched for a whole week. The third time I became something of a neighborhood legend when I managed to retrieve the ball safely without being caught by either man or plant. Only trouble was I still caught holy hell from my mother later that night since I had ripped my new jeans climbing over Mr. Utley’s wrought iron fence. Not only was there a hole where there shouldn’t have been any, but I think my mother had a pretty good idea how I got that hole, and she told my dad to talk me over good for stepping into Mr. Utley’s yard again. My dad, however, only gave her a look like he was going to do it, but never did. Later, when he gave me my lunch money for school the next morning, he slipped me an extra fifty cents so I could get an ice cream. I sort of think my dad did that because he appreciated that I was solving my own problems without his help, and that this time, he didn’t have to deal with Mr. Utley for me. So anyway, whatever neighbor we got was certainly going to be an improvement. It was just a matter of someone finding out what kind of new neighbor we had, and, of course, no one was better suited for such a task than my mother. That first day she strutted over with her muffins practically every hour, on the hour. It was almost funny to see her keeping a sharp eye on the clock and then, when the appointed time arrived, watch her check her hair and make-up in the big hall mirror one last time before waddling across the street. On about her fourth trip my father commented under his breath that this was the most exercise she had got in years. And still her persistence was not rewarded; by the time dinner rolled around, those muffins were still in their perfectly-appointed basket on our kitchen counter. After being dragged across the street at least a half dozen times they were starting to look a little the worse for wear, though my dad still caught holy hell for trying to filch one right before dinner. Still, you can’t say that persistence isn’t its own reward, or that things don’t come to those who keep on trying. My mother must have given up going across the street sometime just before dark; so imagine her surprise when our doorbell rang right around nine o’clock that same night. “Now who could that be?” she said in her “oh-so-delighted” tone that indicated, for 64

once, gossip seemed to be coming to her. She checked her hair and make-up again, then answered the door. I was sitting in our den at the time, watching reruns on TV, so I couldn’t see who had come in. Normally when I was sitting on the couch I could just sort of crane my neck this way and twist my body the other and catch a glimpse of who’d just come through the door in the big hall mirror. This was always a good tactic whenever it was possible I was going to be getting in trouble with Mr. Utley or either Fatso or Cooter’s mom, depending on what I had done to them earlier that day. When I saw one of them standing there, that usually gave me just enough time to try and hide, though sooner or later my mother would root me out and chew my head off for whatever I had done. This time, however, I couldn’t see a thing, so I just went back to watching my show. Fat lot of good that did; about five seconds later I heard my mother calling for me. “Rocky! Rocky!” she bellowed. I rolled my eyes and as slowly as possible got up off the couch and trudged over to the door. It was only then I saw who had come in. It was the same lady I had seen the night before, though I have to say she looked much better in our foyer than she did through the dim haze of my bedroom window. She was short, young enough, and wearing a tight black skirt and an even tighter shirt that really showed off her best features. I mean, her titties were huuuge. I was in love, though since I was twelve, I had no illusions about how long it would last. Still, wait until Cooter and Fatso heard about this. “Oh, there you are,” my mother chirped, as if she hadn’t known where I was the whole time. “Rocky,” she continued, putting one of her fat arms around my shoulders, “this is Mrs. Scheepers. She’s living in the house across the street.” “Actually, it’s my mother who is living there,” the woman said with a warm smile. She had just the tiniest accent—Mexican? I couldn’t be sure, but my father railed that anyone with an accent was Mexican, so it made a kind of logical sense to me—and flashing dark eyes. Her nails were long and red as rubies, as were her lips. Frankly, she looked like a vampire, which, I have to say, was a good look for her. “My husband and I bought the home, but it’s for my mother. You see, she is quite old, and somewhat infirm. She recently suffered an illness, and is only now recovering.” “Oh, what’s wrong with her?” my mother asked with the tone of a woman about to open a box that holds a fourteen-carat diamond engagement ring. For Mother, a neighbor’s tragedies really were a girl’s best friend.

“Stroke,” Mrs. Scheepers confided, a response that brought a sympathetic and yet somehow satisfied cluck from my mother. If Mrs. Scheepers noticed, she didn’t let on. “So we purchased this place for her, to enjoy the peace of the suburbs in her retirement. The city doesn’t agree with her much anymore. I’m sure you know how it is,” she finished, though none of us knew who was supposed to know how it was or what “it” actually was though, like any twelve-year-old boy presented with a pair of knockers like that, I didn’t actually care. “Oh!” my mother said in a tone that indicated she hoped she was the first individual on the block to be presented with such fresh scoop. “And what is your mother’s name?” “Mrs. Hildebrand. She is, of course, quite a dear, but getting on. She’s apt to be a bit dotty at times, and certainly doesn’t get around as she used to.” “Well, I’m sure we’d be glad to pitch in and help,” my mother said. “There’s so much to do when you move into a new home, after all.” This little offer got looks from me, Dad, and Sooz—we were sure none of us wanted to lift a finger to do a thing for the old bat, and we were just as sure my mother only wanted to offer as a way to get inside the house and get all the information on the new neighbor she could. “Both the kids are good in the yard, and Don is much handier around the house than he looks.” Yeah, right. The last thing my father tried to fix was the pilot on our water heater, and he still had the burn mark on his arm to remind him of how good that went down. Ever since then, we’d proven to be sensible souls who called the handyman at the first sign of trouble. Thankfully, we could tell it wasn’t Mrs. Scheepers’ first go around with a busybody like my mother, and we marveled as she masterfully dodged my mother’s offers of “kindness.” “Oh, thank you so much,” she said, “but really, that is too much to ask from such kind, new neighbors. No, my husband and I will see to it that all my mother’s needs are met. I only came over to ask you to please do your best to avoid bothering my mother, if you can. She does need her rest in her recovery.” And with that Mrs. Scheepers and her gorgeous bozungas turned to go, though not before my mother had signaled to my father to go into the kitchen and dutifully grab the basket of cranberry walnut muffins. Mrs. Scheepers kindly received them and left, though my mother’s quick counting seemed to assure her that not all of the muffins had actually left the house, and Sooz and I exchanged a smile, as we felt sure my father would be in for it later. So that’s how the entire neighborhood learned all about Mrs. Hildebrand or, as us kids soon called her, 65

Old Mrs. Hildebrand, since anyone too infirm to get out of their house deserved an insulting moniker of some kind from the neighborhood kids. Still, a sick old lady was hardly big news for us or for anyone, and so soon the neighborhood turned its attention to other, seemingly more important, matters. In addition to being the “Queen Bee” of Canterbury Lane, my mother also styled herself as the Martha Stewart of all Upper Hollow. Consequently, any holiday meant parties, decorations, and festivities. And for my mother, this meant not only in her own home, but—and this was where she always told us she felt her true passion lay—my mother coordinated all decorations and block parties for every holiday for the entire year for all of Canterbury Lane. This meant circulating her now-infamous “Home Owner’s Association Approved Décor List,” a booklet that revealed—in scrupulous detail—all the varying “do’s” and “don’ts” of decorating on our block. Of course, my mother never bothered to explain to anyone that she herself comprised the entirety of the local Home Owner’s Association. And that her list and block parties and holiday “convergences” were just her special way of being a controlling w-i-t-c-h. Still, people went along and, for some reason, seemed to like it. So when each and every house in the neighborhood pretty much ended up looking just like the other, everyone, especially my mother, was pleased. Of course some people have to spoil everyone else’s good time, and for my mother, her neighborhood nemesis had always been Mr. Utley, whose refusal to even answer his door wearing pants generally rendered friendship lights at Christmas time a distant possibility. Still, with Mr. Utley gone, my mother was thrilled at the prospect of finally adding the last house on the block to her cadre of holiday followers, so when Flag Day rolled around, Mother was quick to act. For Flag Day, every home on the block flew—you guessed it—one simple flag, always hung to the right side of the door. And sure enough, my mother trotted over one evening, in her most patriotic red, white, and blue suit, to Old Mrs. Hildebrand’s to present her with her very own pre-approved flag and flag holder combination set. Of course, no one answered her knocks; but Mother left Mrs. Hildebrand the cheerfullywrapped bundle (in Old Glory paper, no less) and a little note to explain its proper use. However, June 14 came and went, and no flag flew at Old Mrs. Hildebrand’s. Mother was stymied; she was determined to add this house to her collection. Still, she reasoned that no one could blame Mrs. Hildebrand for not giving in just quite yet. After all,

she had just moved in, and she was sickly; perhaps her daughter and son-in-law had not visited in time to set up the flag properly? My father also speculated that perhaps Old Mrs. Hildebrand just didn’t see Flag Day as a real holiday, a question that earned us another round of liver for dinner and likely earned him a good tongue lashing later that night. Still, Mrs. Hildebrand pleased my mother in other ways. The old Utley house had been growing steadily more decrepit over the years. The place was just a small bungalow, easily the smallest and oldest home on the entire block. Whereas most homes were bi-level brick monstrosities built sometime in the 1970s, Mrs. Hildebrand’s house was much older, and therefore, much dingier and, as my mother always said, much more of an eyesore. Still, there were signs early on that Mrs. Hildebrand was intent on having the old place fixed up, at least some. The old wrought iron fence, for example, was repaired, and what was once a twisted mess of rusted metal soon gleamed shiny and bright black new. The gate worked now, too, and could lock, which made retrieving stray kick balls more difficult though, truth be told, without Mean Mr. Utley living there, precious few balls wandered their way into the overgrown yard anymore. My father was heard to remark that fixing the fence must have cost a pretty penny, which made my mother hope aloud that perhaps the Scheepers had “real” money and were certainly the “kind of people” that ought to be invited over for one of her specially made dinners. I always hated it when mother had one of her dinner parties, because it meant I had to spend the day cleaning my room (why, I didn’t know, since I doubted Mrs. Scheepers was interested in my baseball card collection or seeing how tidy my closet could be) and dragging up extra chairs from the basement for people to sit on. But, without any way to contact Mrs. Scheepers in the city, mother was stymied there as well, and we were all safe, at least for now. Flag Day was just the warm-up for summer; the real event was always the Fourth of July. Whereas on Flag Day ostentatious displays of patriotism were disallowed, on Independence Day they were highly encouraged. Décor trumped decorum in our neighborhood. The flashier, the gaudier, the more tasteless, the better. Of course, our red, white and blue displays were as big and brassy as anyone’s, but as long as folks flew their flags and somehow marked the celebration, mother was pleased. The evening always culminated in a big barbecue held right there on the street, where the dads all gathered around a few rented grills and the moms all circled around my mother, fearing her wrath enough to feign true bonds 66

of friendship with her. My mother angled every year for a feature on the gathering in the city newspaper, and every year she was firmly turned down. This year, however, her calls to the local features editor finally met with success; flushed with triumph, mother was determined that this would be the most tastelessly garish Fourth of July ever Yet alas, Old Mrs. Hildebrand proved to be as stingy a hold out for Fourth of July as she was for Flag Day. Mother visited the house often, left notes, and even one night threatened to stake out the joint if no one would permit her entry. Finally, Mrs. Scheepers came over, as boobalicious as ever. She was full of apologies for taking so long to respond, saying that her job and her mother’s health problems had been keeping her so drained lately. But Mother wasn’t having a drop of it. She wheedled, nudged, pumped, primed, and even threatened to decorate the house herself. “At least fly the flag, for Christ’s sake!” she wailed. At this, I sucked in my breath; a “for Christ’s sake!” certainly showed the seriousness of Mother’s intent. But Mrs. Scheepers proved to be a nut too tough for even Mother to crack. She apologized up and down, but insisted that her mother preferred no displays of any kind. “Not even the flag?” Mother asked again, but Mrs. Scheepers just shrugged as she saw herself out the door. “Damned foreigners,” Mother grumbled as she left. By this time Mrs. Scheepers and her still-as-yet-unseen husband had clearly turned from the “right” people into the “wrong” people. To make matters worse, Mother’s most-desired spread in the local paper was marred by the fact that, in the upper left-hand corner of the neighborhood photo, Old Mrs. Hildebrand’s plain Jane house could clearly be seen not flying the flag. Mother was steamed; clearly, something must be done. To us kids, though, Old Mrs. Hildebrand wasn’t really much of an issue. She didn’t chase us with a sawed-off shotgun, or threaten to call our parents every time we sneezed. Still, there was something a little creepy about her, or so I was told during our last kickball game of the summer. School was starting the next day. And I was determined to go out a winner, so I gave the ball a little extra oomph during my last time at plate. Sure enough, the ball bounded over Kitty Parsons’ head and landed smack in the middle of Mrs. Hildebrand’s yard. “Go get it!” Fatso yelled at me. He was rolling the ball for the opposing team, and even though rollers never really moved all that much, sweat was still oozing out of every corner of his body. “You get it!” I hollered back. “It’s your ball! That’s

the rule!” But Fatso only shook his head. I balled up my fists and charged the roller’s mound, determined to make my point one way or the other. But even a sock to the jaw couldn’t convince Fatso to go after the ball. “I don’t care what you do, Rocky,” he bawled. “I’m not going in there, you can’t make me!” “What’s your problem, you big baby?” Cooter asked. Fatso had always been something of a cryer, but I had never seen him react like this to just going after the ball. Fatso sniffled and wiped his snot on his arm. “I just ain’t going up there, okay? If you want the ball, you go get it!” By this time, I was more curious about what was going on with Fatso and Old Mrs. Hildebrand than anything that was happening in the game. Cooter was, too; I could see it in his face. No one else quite felt the same way, however. “Are we playing or what?” Vance Jonson yelled. Vance Jonson was a fourth grader who I knew for a fact was still wetting the bed as late as last year. I decided to throw him our neighborhood kid version of the middle-finger salute (we used our pointing finger, just in case anyone’s mom was watching) and pulled Fatso over to the side of the street. Meanwhile, Kitty had long ago gotten sick of everyone jawing about getting the ball and had gone and gotten it herself. So for a while, the game went on without us. Fatso wasn’t blubbering so much anymore, just sort of sniffling to himself. I wasn’t sure the best way to figure out what was going on with him, but I should have just left it to Cooter, who always knew how to get to the heart of things. “What the hell is wrong with you, big baby?” he said. Fatso and I both raised our eyes because we knew whenever one of us risked the use of the word “hell” in any sentence outside of church it meant he was pretty serious about what was being said. Fatso finally stopped sputtering long enough to speak up. “Haven’t any of you ever seen her?” “Who?” I asked, unsure what Fatso was talking about. “The old lady. Mrs. Hildebrand! Haven’t you ever seen her?” Come to think of it, none of us had actually seen Mrs. Hildebrand in person, though the thought did bring to mind the sight of her daughter and her two big front headlights. I’d even adapted an old song, just for her: “Jeepers Scheepers, where’d you get those peepers?” I tried sharing this with Cooter, but he was more interested in what Fatso had to say. “Well, I’ve seen her!” Fatso said. “Through my bedroom window, 67

late at night sometimes.” Fatso’s house neighbored Mrs. Hildebrand’s on the east. “And I tell you, something ain’t right with her.” “Well, she had a stroke,” I said. At this point I didn’t quite know what a stroke was; I just knew it could mess a person up pretty good. But Fatso shook his head. “It’s more to it than that,” he said. “It’s—” But here he clammed up again and wouldn’t go on. “Well, what is it?” Cooter finally asked. Fatso lowered his eyes to the ground. “You guys remember back when she first moved in?” We both nodded. “Well, there was this calico cat that had been coming around at the time. And—well, I had been feeding it some. Giving it some milk and stuff. You know, just to be friendly to it. I mean, you know how my dad is about pets.” We sure did. If you believed everything Mr. Higgins said, then Fatso’s father was allergic to every animal known to mankind. As a result, Fatso was the only kid on the block who didn’t have a pet of any kind, even a lizard. “I was feeding it behind Mrs. Hildebrand’s house, because Mr. Utley had died and no one had moved in yet. I thought no one would see me there. Anyway, the day after Mrs. Hildebrand moved in, I went looking for the cat—but I couldn’t find it anywhere. Same thing the next day, and the day after that. Then, on the fourth day, I was back behind Mrs. Hildebrand’s house, and I saw these bits of fur—calico, just like the cat. And so I got curious and followed them around and I found this spot that was just covered in blood and fur.” He looked up at both of us and swallowed hard. “It was my cat, I know it.” I looked at Cooter. He looked at me. We could tell Fatso was pretty shook up about all this, but he could also tell that we weren’t buying the bull he was selling. “So?” Cooter said. “It was probably just a coyote, or the Lehmans’ dog that ate it.” But Fatso shook his head. “No, I swear it didn’t look like that. It looked like—it looked like it had been sacrificed or something.” Now Cooter and I just started to laugh. “Sweet Christ, Fatso,” I laughed. “I knew we shouldn’t have watched that Friday the 13th movie last time you came over to my house to spend the night.” But Fatso shook his head again. “No, guys, I swear, sometimes at night I can see her moving around her backyard. I don’t know what she’s doing back there. There’s no lights or nothing, but you can tell it’s her. It’s like—like she’s floating, the way she moves around. Like she ain’t touching the ground at all. I swear. It’s creepy.” I didn’t know if Fatso was trying to pull our legs or

what, but I was pretty sure that, as a general rule, human beings were incapable of floating—except, of course, when they served turkey burgers and threebean salad at the junior high for lunch. On those days, everyone was floating, if you know what I mean. I mentioned this to Fatso and Cooter, and while Cooter thought it was hilarious, Fatso wasn’t laughing. “Shut up, Rocky” he said to me. “Hey, if you guys don’t believe me, then come over and see for yourself. Sleep over this weekend. One look at her and you’ll know what I mean. Something there just ain’t quite right.”

ooter and I weren’t exactly swallowing any of Fatso’s fish tales—after all, last year he’d been convinced that this new family that moved in must be terrorists, just because he heard they came here from India; he even called the cops to report them, and looked even dumber than usual when it turned out the family was from Indiana, and not India. But any night away from my mother was a good one for me, so we both quickly agreed to a sleep-over. We had to do some convincing to get our parents on board—school would have started by then—but soon it was all set up for Saturday night. We waited in Fatso’s room with only his desk light on, “so she can’t see us,” as he explained, and stared out the window at the shabby little house across the street. I admit that while I didn’t give any credence whatsoever to any of Fatso’s claims, I felt a certain—excitement? nervousness?—as we hunkered and waited for something to happen. And waited. And waited. At some point I think it struck Cooter and me at the same time that sitting around on a Saturday night and spying on a woman who was probably around a hundred and twenty-two years of age was a damned waste of our time. Of course, if Mrs. Scheepers was visiting her mother at the time, that would have been a whole different ball of wax. But seeing as how she wasn’t, Cooter and I rounded on Fatso mercilessly. “Waah, waah, waah,” Cooter said, doing a pretty darned good imitation of Fatso crying his eyes out the other day. “I’m afraid of the old witch next door!” “Shut up,” Fatso sulkily replied, but the cold reality of his humiliation was slowly sinking in. Angry, he picked his baseball mitt off the floor and threw it against the closet door. “Hey wait,” I said, my eye distracted by a light turning on next door. “Something’s happening.” The light was shining below us, in what looked like a small old kitchen. I strained to see—yes, there she was, there was Old Mrs. Hildebrand in the flesh. And 68

damned if “old” wasn’t the best word to describe her. I couldn’t see much from where we were up in Fatso’s room, but I noticed a tangled mess of iron gray hair and skin more wrinkled than the shirts I shoved to the back of my drawers. “What is she doing?” I wondered aloud as Mrs. Hildebrand shuffled closer toward us. She had reached up into a cabinet and pulled out a large drinking glass. But she didn’t fill it with water or anything like that; instead, she went into her refrigerator and pulled out a pitcher of a vile-looking concoction that was red, deep red, as dark a red as anything I’d ever seen. “Gross. What is that?” Cooter said under his breath. We were all watching real quiet like, wondering what the drink was. We watched as Old Mrs. Hildebrand poured herself a glass and downed it in one, long satisfying gulp. She wiped her face with the arm of her tattered, ratty grey nightgown and rinsed the glass out in the sink. Then she did something none of us expected her to do. She took one of her spindly, spiderlike hands, reached into her own mouth, and slowly, almost delicately, began to— “Ieee,” I said as Cooter punched Fatso on the arm. “You brought us over here to watch an old lady pull out her dentures!” he exclaimed, punching Fatso again for added emphasis. “That’s nasty,” I agreed, reaching over and punching Fatso once myself, just to show my support for Cooter. “Wait, you guys, wait!” Fatso said, a hint of excitement raising in his voice as he rubbed his sore arm. “It’s going to get weirder—just watch!” But as we watched, the old lady didn’t head out to her backyard in her tattered old nightie and float around as Fatso had promised. In fact, she didn’t do anything except turn around and shuffle toward a door at the far end of the kitchen. She opened it up and stepped through, leaving the three of us staring at her empty kitchen and leaving two of us plotting our revenge on the one who made us watch it all in the first place. “Fatso, you are the biggest wuss of all time,” Cooter said crossly. “I can’t believe you think anything about that was scary.” “Come on, you guys,” Fatso tried defending himself. “What about that drink, huh? That was probably blood!” “That was probably tomato juice,” Cooter snorted. “My grandmother drinks it all the time, though usually with vodka in it, too.” “I tell you guys, something really weird is going on over there,” Fatso intoned. “Well, then prove it,” I said, a crazy grin spreading

across my face. “Prove it. Go on over there, knock on her door, and prove something weird is up.” Fatso stuck his tongue out at me. “No way, man,” he said. “Why not?” Cooter needled, picking up the challenge. “You chicken?” “No,” Fatso lied. “Yes, you are,” Cooter dug, poking Fatso in his ribs. “Yes you are, chicken chicken bawk bawk bawk!” he added, flapping his wings and doing his best chicken impersonation. “Shut up!” Fatso replied. “I’m not scared. It’s just—it’s just too late to go over there, that’s all.” “It ain’t even ten o’clock,” I countered, “and besides, you know she’s up. We just saw her.” “And what am I supposed to say, huh? What am I supposed to tell her I’m there for?” I had to admit, Fatso had me there. But fortunately, Cooter came to my rescue. “I know!” he said. “Tell her you’re selling something for school. You know, like taking orders for candy or something. We do that all the time.” I nodded enthusiastically; it was a solid plan. “Yeah, good one, Cooter!” I said. Fatso could tell it was a good plan, too; that’s why he didn’t like it. “That’s stupid,” he muttered. “And what if she wants to buy something?” “Then pocket the money and tell her it’ll come in a few weeks,” Cooter said. “She’s so old I doubt she’d remember it by tomorrow, anyway, and then we get some extra cash.” We could tell that there was no way Fatso wanted to go over to Old Mrs. Hildebrand’s house, but Cooter and I were too into the idea to let it go now. “Come on,” I said. “If you do it, I’ll let you ride my bike all day tomorrow.” It was no secret that I had the newest, most expensive bike in the neighborhood, part of my mother’s never-ending quest to ensure that we looked better than everyone else in every way possible. But Fatso only shook his head. “Do it and I’ll steal you two candy bars from the pharmacy before school Monday,” Cooter offered. Cooter had been stealing us candy bars from his uncle’s pharmacy on and off for years; I always figured his uncle sort of new what he was up to, because while Cooter was sometimes smart, he was never very slick. But if his uncle could always look the other way, then I figure, for free candy, so could I. Yet, even the thought of free chocolate couldn’t convince Fatso. I took a deep breath; time to play my trump card. “You do it or I’ll tell Angela Parsons you looked in her window last Fourth of July and saw her changing after she got soaked by the water balloons 69

her sister threw at her.” I could tell by Fatso’s enraged look that I had him. “You swore you’d never tell!” he thundered. “And I won’t,” I countered, “if you go over there.” I paused, letting the reality of my victory sink in. “All you got to do is knock,” I said. “You don’t even have to go in.” “What if she don’t answer?” Fatso asked. I could tell he was planning a “ding-dong and ditch,” knocking real fast and running away even faster. “No way,” I said. “You got to wait over there for—what? Two minutes?” I asked looking at Cooter. “No, three,” he said, enjoying the tortured look on Fatso’s face. “She’s old, after all.” “How am I supposed to know three minutes is up?” Fatso whined. “I don’t know,” I said. “Just wait until it feels like three minutes has passed. Do it or I’ll tell!” Threatened with supreme humiliation—not to mention the total ass-kicking that Derek McDaniel, Angela’s boyfriend, would give him—Fatso reluctantly got off his bed and put on his sneakers. Cooter and I took prime seats by the window and watched as Fatso slowly appeared outside the wrought iron fence of Old Mrs. Hildebrand’s house. He paused out there for an awful long time, and for a few minutes Cooter and I felt sure he was going to chicken out, but finally Fatso worked up enough courage, moved past the gate, up the rickety old wood steps, and knocked on the big wooden front door. He waited there—ten seconds, twenty, thirty. A minute passed, then a minute and a half. We watched the old house closely, but no lights came on indicating that Old Mrs. Hildebrand was moving about anywhere in the house. I figured the whole operation was going to be a total bust when, just through the hazy light coming off from the Higgins’ house, we saw the front door open. The look on Fatso’s face was priceless. Even from so far away we could tell he was scared out of his wits. Cooter and I struggled to hold all our laughter in so that we wouldn’t miss a minute of it. “I wish we could hear what was going on,” Cooter whispered as we watched Fatso trying desperately to explain to Old Mrs. Hildebrand why he’d come over so late on a Saturday night. Suddenly we saw the porch light go on, and then the light in the living room where Mrs. Hildebrand must have been standing. That was strange—we didn’t see anyone moving toward the light switch. Well, maybe it was close to the door, or maybe she had one of those clapping contraptions. Still, even more surprising was when Old. Mrs. Hildebrand moved aside and Fatso—nervously looking about and

practically pissing in his pants—walked on in. We couldn’t help it. Cooter and I just about busted a gut laughing. This had worked out better than we could have hoped! I couldn’t imagine what story Fatso was telling Mrs. Hildebrand now, or what story he’d have to tell us when he got back. Maybe—just maybe—he’d even come back with a little money. That’d be cool. The chuckles dying down in our throats, Cooter and I turned back to the window to watch some more. The lights were out. All the lights in Mrs. Hildebrand’s house—even the kitchen—were out. Cooter and I stopped laughing real quick. We looked at each other, feeling real nervous. Cooter was the first one to speak. “He’s probably almost home,” Cooter said. “He’d need only be there a minute.” “Yeah, you’re right,” I said. It made sense. “He’ll be back in a second.” Only he wasn’t back in a second. Nor a minute. In fact, ten minutes passed, then twenty, then thirty. Cooter and I got real uneasy quiet. We kept stealing glances at the house next door, but it was pitch as the night, darker inside than it was outside. We fidgeted nervously. We didn’t know what to do. We didn’t want to tell Fatso’s dad what we’d been up to because we didn’t want to get Fatso—or us—into any trouble, but after forty-five minutes passed we figured we had to do something. It was late now, and I felt sure Mr. Higgins would be asleep, but that didn’t matter. I was just about to head downstairs to wake him when the bedroom door began to slowly open. It was Fatso. For a moment the two of us just sat there, stunned into quiet, as Fatso walked into the room and sat down on his bed. Finally, Cooter spoke. “What—what—where you been?” he sputtered. Fatso had this glazed look on his face, as if he was staring at something far off in the distance, and he was calm, way too calm, since Fatso was normally one of the most nervous people I knew, but other than that, he seemed completely fine. He was almost better than fine; if anything, I swear his face looked cleaner now then when he left. “Where the hell you been, man?” Cooter asked again, using our special “word” for emphasis. Fatso just looked at him stupidly, and when he finally spoke, he sounded as far away as he looked. “I don’t know what you mean,” he said thickly. “I’ve just been visiting with Mrs. Hildebrand. She gave me some cookies.” He gave a mighty yawn and got into bed. “Come on, guys,” he said. “Let’s go to sleep.”

Four days later I pulled Cooter out of the lunch 70

line to have a confab inside the second-floor boys’ bathroom. “We have to tell someone,” I whispered to him, though since everyone else is at lunch, I don’t know who I am worried will overhear us talking. “Tell someone what?” Cooter said. I knew he was just playing dumb, since I knew he knew exactly what I was talking about. “About Fatso!” I said anyway. Cooter looked me square in the eye. I could tell he was freaked out inside just like I was, but he wasn’t going to let on at all. “What about Fatso?” he countered. “There’s nothing with him!” “Yeah, well, that’s the problem,” I retorted. “Usually, there’s always something wrong with Fatso. He’s always going on about something his dad did or whatever else is wrong with him. You know how he is!” It was true. Fatso was an unrepentant whiner; always had been. Whether about how his teachers didn’t like him, or how his dad got mad at him for nothing, or how some part of him or the other was hurt or sore or swollen to the point of being ten times its original size. With Fatso, it was always something. Most kids’ll tell some kind of whopper to get out of gym class every once in a while. But Fatso once told Mr. Carson, our gym teacher, that he had arthritis and couldn’t play volleyball that day; the sad thing was, Fatso actually believed he did have arthritis, but Mr. Carson didn’t buy any of it for a second. He told Fatso sure, he could skip playing volleyball for that day—and then made him run laps around the track for the entire gym period. It may have given Fatso something else to complain about, but he sure learned his lesson. Only now, Fatso wasn’t complaining about anything. In fact, he was barely talking. Most of the time he just sat there, staring ahead blankly, as if most of him wasn’t even there. In class, the teachers didn’t notice at all; heck, they were usually grateful when one of us was quiet and not causing any problems. But all the other kids noticed, especially the ones on our block who were used to Fatso never shutting his trap. The curious looks that had started on Monday had turned to whispers by Tuesday, which had turned to out-and-out questions by today; that was how come I’d pulled Cooter out of lunch and into the bathroom. But Cooter wasn’t having it. “Rocky, there is nothing wrong with Fatso and nothing to tell. What are we gonna do, go up to his dad and say, ‘Hey, Mr. Higgins, your son acted good in school today so we think there’s something wrong with him?’ And what are we supposed to say about Old Mrs. Hildebrand? That she gummed him into silence? Don’t be stupid, Rocky.” And without another word Cooter barged out

of the bathroom and headed back down for his tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwich. I stayed behind, running it all over in my head. I had to admit that Cooter had a point. Even if we did tell someone, what would we say? We didn’t see anything actually happen. And in a day or two, Fatso would be back to his normal, complaining self, and Cooter and I’d probably send him back over to Old Mrs. Hildebrand’s just to shut him up again. Only it didn’t quite work out that way. It took a couple of weeks, but someone besides us kids finally noticed that Fatso had stopped talking. This meant visits to the doctor, and then the school shrink, and then, on a rainy Thursday morning, we noticed Fatso hadn’t been in classes all week. I raised my hand. “Mrs. Cornelson,” I asked our teacher, “what happened to Fatso?” Mrs. Cornelson gave me one of those indulgent looks teachers always give students when they have to share delicate information. “Toby,” she said, using Fatso’s real name, “has been moved to Special Education.” I think my jaw must’ve hit the floor at two hundred miles an hour. Special Ed? I tried catching Cooter in the eye but he acted like his shoe was all of a sudden real interesting and avoided looking at me for anything. Fatso in Special Ed? What the hell had the old bat done to him? I tried talking to Cooter again after the bus dropped us off on Canterbury Lane, but he wasn’t having any of it. “Just drop it, Rocky!” he said, storming off to his own house. I sat there in the middle of the street, just staring at the old Utley place, wondering what had happened to Fatso in those walls. The house looked so plain, a little run-down but just so ordinary…it didn’t seem like anything bad could happen in there at all. I got so lost in thought I didn’t move until Derek McDaniel drove up on me, beeping his horn hard and scaring the crap out of me as he pulled into the Parsons’ driveway. When I got home, my mother was full of the news of Fatso’s “demotion,” as she called it. I guess I should have been impressed that Fatso’s dad managed to keep it secret from her as long as he had, but now the entire neighborhood was sure to be talking about it. My mother had all sorts of details, too, about his new classes and the sudden drop in his I.Q. Course, when I asked my mom why Fatso had been moved to Special Ed—what had caused it—she just shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know, dear,” she said, giving me that same stupid look Mrs. Cornelson had that afternoon. And then she went on and on, but I had stopped listening. I felt pretty sure I knew how it had happened to Fatso. I just didn’t know what. Or why. 71

t’s a common rule amongst our neighborhood that adults generally don’t have a clue about what is really going on. Not compared to us kids. None of the adults knew that Farley Smoletz was going to leave his wife until it happened; but us kids knew two weeks beforehand, since his son overheard him talking to his new girlfriend on the phone. And none of the adults knew that Mrs. Parsons drank half a bottle of vermouth everyday before her kids came home from school until she went off to rehab; but us kids knew, because her kids told us. That’s how it is in nice neighborhoods like ours. Even my mother, for all her status as the biggest gossip around, didn’t know anything like the secrets we kids did. Even those we didn’t share—even those we couldn’t tell—everyone else still knew. We just felt it, down deep, on some level, and we knew. We knew what was going on. So as a consequence not one kid on Canterbury Lane was about to set foot onto Old Mrs. Hildebrand’s front porch, even if Cooter and I’d never told anyone what went down the night we stayed over at Fatso’s house. From that point on we made doubly sure no kick balls ever ended up in her yard, and anyone selling Girl Scout cookies or candy for band or magazine subscriptions for the chess club never tried knocking on her door. I guess we had already learned the hard way that when some place seems sinister, it’s best to leave well enough alone. Of course, some adults never learn, my mother being chief among them. The leaves were starting to turn and that meant Fall was upon us. And Fall meant Halloween. After Christmas, Halloween was my mother’s favorite decorating time of the year. There was nothing she loved more than to see every house on Canterbury Lane covered with pumpkins and dried corn and ghosts and goblins and witches—or, as my father called them, “Your mother’s relatives.” Of course our house was always the one most plastered in Halloween paraphernalia, but mother made sure that every house on the block had something to mark the holiday. Two years ago this super-religious family—the Coopers—moved in. They were the kind of religious people who think Halloween is some sort of pagan Satanic devil celebration and therefore do not celebrate it any way, not even to give out sweets to the kids out trick or treating (they actually gave us little religious pamphlets instead, which Fatso used to pick his teeth when some nougat got caught between two molars.) Well, my mother worked on those folks non-stop until they finally agreed to put up one measly little pumpkin on their front porch to celebrate “the change of the seasons”—that was the bull puckey

phrase my mother used to finally sell them on it. Sure enough, on Halloween night, some wag decided it would be fun to go to their house and smash their pumpkin all over the front door. I swear I asked every kid on the block three times if they did it, and they all said no. Now don’t hold me to this but I also swear that I saw my mom sneak out of the house on Halloween that year real late, after she’d figured everyone else was asleep (I was having trouble falling asleep on account of the sugar rush I was feeling from having already ate half my candy.) Now I’m not saying my mother actually did smash the Coopers’ pumpkin, but they got the message alright and had moved out before Christmas. So this year my mother had just as much a challenge as before—to get Old Mrs. Hildebrand to somehow participate in decorating for Halloween. Mother waited until two weeks before the day—that’s when folks were actually allowed to decorate on our block, only two weeks before the day (to Mother, anything else was just too tacky)—put on her best suit and her favorite “spooky” vampire bat pin, and fluffed her hair one last time, determined to convince Old Mrs. Hildebrand that it was time to either put up—decorations, that is—or be prepared to be taken down. But when my mother opened the door, she saw, to her shock, that all her efforts were for naught—because Old Mrs. Hildebrand had already decorated for Halloween. The old bat hadn’t exactly gone over the top—there was just one item marking the holiday on her porch—but boy, for one item, it really packed a punch. Old Mrs. Hildebrand had put up one of those life-sized witch dummies that hang from a rope by their neck. This one was dressed in long gray and black robes that hung down past where its feet would be. A big, pointed black hat covered its face, but patches of ratty, tatty gray hair could still be seen poking out from underneath it. There was something about that dummy—something about the way it swayed so heavily, the way a stiff wind just got it moving slowly back and forth—that scared the socks right off me. Mother, I could tell, was pleased—she felt like she had finally got through to Old Mrs. Hildebrand. I could tell she was already planning where Mrs. Hildebrand would put her nativity in her yard for Christmas. Every day for the next week I had to walk past that dummy twice, on the way to get onto the school bus, and then again coming home. And every time I walked by I shivered. I couldn’t help it. Every other kid on the block felt the same way. But the parents were pleased as punch. Maybe this meant Old Mrs. Hildebrand was feeling better and was ready to join the neighborhood 72

proper. Us kids snorted. Next thing we knew, our parents might actually be inviting the old bat over for tea or dinner parties. Of course, leave it to my mother to start the trend. “Rocky,” she said to me one day as I got home from school, only two days before Halloween. “Do me a favor, and take this invitation to Mrs. Hildebrand.” “Invitation for what?” I asked, incredulous. My mother gave me her exasperated why-did-Godever-decide-to-punish-me-with-such-troublesomechildren? look. “For the annual Halloween Extravaganza.” I snorted, but kept it to myself. The annual Halloween “Extravaganza” was a revolving party where the adults would go, after the kids were done trick or treating and tucked safely in their beds, and enjoy hard cider and cinnamon doughnuts. This year Fatso’s family was hosting. “Mom, the old bat ain’t gonna go to something like that. She doesn’t even ever leave her house,” I said, though that made me think of Old Mrs. Hildebrand floating in her backyard, her tattered gray gown flapping in an unfelt breeze as she stalked her prey. Okay, I thought, enough scary movies for you. My mother gave me another exasperated look, this one punctuated by a big sigh. “Rocky, when you are more mature you’ll realize that for old shut-ins like Mrs. Hildebrand, just the fact that they were invited is enough. Now do as I say.” I balked. I didn’t want to go over, even now, when it was still somewhat light out. “Make Sooz go. Why do I have to do everything?” I whined, hoping that my mother would get sick of asking me and think that giving up was the best possible route to preserving family peace. “Your sister is watching Toby for the Higgins’s,” she said. “You know he can’t be left alone right now. Here,” she added, holding out a neatly addressed envelope—calligraphy was one of Mother’s hobbies. I still didn’t want to go. And I knew I only had one recourse left open to me. “Why don’t you get off your fat ass and do it yourself?” I said, sounding much braver than I felt. There. I had done it. I had insulted my mother and cussed in the same breath. No way she was going to let this slide. I was going to be sent straight up to my room without supper. And someone else could deliver the invitation to creepy Old Mrs. Hildebrand. My mother’s eyes flashed. Oh, crap. Now she was pissed. “Rocky!” she yelled. “How dare you—how—” It wasn’t often that I rendered my mother speechless. “You are in big trouble, mister!” she finally sputtered. “You are to go straight up to your room without supper and think about what you said—” Yes! Victory!

“—after you deliver the invitation. Now go!” Crap. I still had to go over there and now my mother was super pissed at me. I reluctantly pulled on my coat and stepped onto my porch. Of course, I could just pretend to deliver the invitation. I could just lose it on my way and come back home. But I knew my mother would be watching me. And right now, I was feeling just a bit more afraid of her than I was of Old Mrs. Hildebrand. So stuffing my hands and the invitation in my coat pockets, I marched sullenly over to Mrs. Hildebrand’s house. I paused in front of the wrought iron gate, just as Fatso had. Is this what he felt? Was whatever had happened to him about to happen to me? I looked around to see if anyone else was around, to see if there was someone else I could say “Hi” to, just to feel normal again, just for a minute. But no one was there. Canterbury Lane was deserted. So I turned back to Old Mrs. Hildebrand’s house. I couldn’t keep my eye off that horrible dummy, swaying slowly, slowly back and forth, even though now I didn’t feel any breeze at all. Why did my mother have to have this thing for holiday décor? Who cared what anyone’s house looked like? As long as the people inside were nice and didn’t care if you messed up their lawn a bit when playing hide and seek, then who cares what decorations they had up? I could feel my mother’s eyes on me, and I slowly opened the gate door and walked into the yard. It felt like it took me a hundred years to get from the gate to the bottom step of the rickety old porch. The entire time my eyes never left that swaying dummy, moving back and forth, back and forth, moving on some power all its own. As I got closer I realized with no small amount of dread that the dummy looked a little like her—like Old Mrs. Hildebrand. Same sort of hair, same sort of ratty, tatty gray robe. I went up one step, invitation clutched in my hand for all I was worth. This is so stupid, I thought. There’s nothing wrong with the old bat. She’s just some old lady. All you

got to do is drop this in the mail slot and run. That’s all. There’s nothing to be afraid of. Nothing at all. Not even that dummy. But I was afraid. I was. Don’t be stupid, my brain yelled, trying to reason with the more cowardly parts of me. She’s just an old lady who had a stroke and wears dentures. She didn’t do nothing to Fatso. She ain’t gonna do nothing to me. Neither is that dummy. Just go. Just do it and run. Just go. Go. Go. But I had to check out one thing first. The dummy. I had to see—to see its face. I don’t know. I just had to. Just had to. So I stole up real quiet like. Just down kind of low. The dummy pushed against me. It was heavy—much heavier than I ever would have imagined those things could ever weigh. The face. It was covered by the hat. I reached up—so slow, my hand shaking like anything. Had to see it. I moved the hat, took it off so slow so no one would notice what I was doing. I just had to see that dummy’s face. Had to. I saw the face alright. But it was no dummy. It was Old Mrs. Hildebrand. I had only seen her for a few minutes from Fatso’s bedroom window, but there was no mistaking that wrinkled old mouth and that iron gray hair. But now, up close, I could see her eyes—eyes that weren’t normal, eyes the color of rubies, or the color of blood. And they were looking right at me. And then I saw—the last thing I ever saw—was her mouth, and what she had behind those dentures—teeth, sharp teeth, rows and rows and rows of sharp, sharp teeth. And then I screamed. __________________________________________ Michael G. Cornelius has published short works of fiction in several magazines and journals, including From the Asylum, Velvet Mafia, Futures Mystery Anthology Magazine, The Spillway Review, and more. He has published three works of fiction, including most recently the horror novel The Ascension (Variance Publishing), plus several non-fiction books and articles.

Live Bait (An Angler's Lament) by Benedict J. Jones

When you fish this private lake, beware what may catch you. ___________________________________________________________

Sam

looked down at his fingers, thought, and winced. He sat back under his bivouac and looked out over the lake before him. The water rippled silver in the early morning sunlight and a low mist clung to the surface like white candy floss. His eyes returned to his fingers and then to the blade of the filleting knife he grasped in his other hand. He stabbed the knife into the grass next to him and popped open a fresh can of lager. He supposed that this was all Pete’s fault really.

n the corner booth of a pub just off Fenchurch Street, two days earlier, Sam and Pete were just finishing their first Friday lunchtime pints. It had become a ritual over the last year for the two of them to meet up for a few pints at lunchtime now that they had commitments which kept them home on Friday nights most weeks. “Anyway it’s virgin man, never been fished.” “Not open to the public yet, then?” Sam asked. Pete shook his head. “Kev Waterman, the bloke that owns it, just got his hands on it - inherited it. He got it from some branch of his family that he’s never met. They lived out in this big house in Dorset with some serious acreage. Anyway when the last of them died, or whatever, it passed to him because there was no will! Lucky, eh?” “Ain’t the word.” Pete nodded and swigged the last of his pint. “He didn’t even know there was a lake till he went down there and had a walk about the place. It’s a size by the sound of it and he’s been gradually filling it up with more fish. He’s going to open it properly later in the year.” “And he’s given you a free pass?” “Yeah. I’ve known him for years, but Terri’s got the six month scan tomorrow morning. I’d try to get out of it but I reckon she’ll leave me if I’m not there to hold her hand.” “And this Kevin won’t mind me taking your place?” “Sam, seriously, you’d be doing me a favor. You can look the place over and see if me, you and the boys could make a weekend of it down there later in the year.” Pete took a folded sheet of paper from his pocket and passed it to Sam. “There are the directions. The weekend is yours if 74

you want it.” Sam grinned. “Not much else to say is there – another pint?” After his second lager Sam headed back to the office. He phoned his wife, who after a year of marriage was used to his sudden fishing trips, and told her about Pete’s offer. His boss let him slip out early and once he’d loaded his gear into his old Ford he hit the road and tried to escape from the city before rush hour hit with full force.

t was close to ten O’clock when Sam finally pulled to a halt at the end of a long private road. He parked up on a large gravelled area, that he took to be the car park, and climbed out of his Ford. It was good to be out of the car after so many hours, he’d have to tell Pete that his directions were rubbish when he got back. The lights went on in a small cottage that abutted the car park and a man soon emerged. “Sam?” “Yeah – you must be Kevin?” “Yes, Pete said you’d get here in the end.” “Six wrong turns later...” Kevin clapped Sam on the shoulder. “No worries, and believe me when I say it will be worth the drive. It’s a great spot. I just hope you’ll tell people about it when you get back to the big smoke.” “I definitely will. Is that the big house?” Sam gestured at the large cottage and Kevin laughed. He pointed further down the road to where a massive house sat completely in darkness. “This is just where I live. That’s the old family pile. When I took it over I found the place flooded and the damp is something awful. All sorts of stuff in there, antiques and piles of crap I’m trying to clear out. Maybe if the fishing business does well I’ll be able to fix the place up, but it’s a money pit so it’ll be a while before I can play the country squire. Till then I’m stuck down here in this old grounds keeper’s cottage.” “Will I need to bring the car up closer to the lake?” “No, grab your gear and I’ll give you a hand taking it up there. It’s only a ten minute walk.” It was closer to half an hour but they made the walk with ease. They stood atop a rise which overlooked the lake and Sam looked down at several hundred yards of marshy ground which ran down to a

spit of land which jutted out into the dark waters. “I’ve laid some wooden pathways around the lake. The marsh is pretty bad so watch your step – I can’t afford to lose any would be customers. Stick to the gang planks and you should be okay, if you get stuck I won’t be able to hear you shouting for help back at the cottage.” Kevin led Sam by the light of his head torch across the across the gang planks over the marsh and onto the spit. Sam smiled. It was magnificently quiet. “This do you?” “It’s great,” replied Sam as he dropped his gear down. “There’s a bloke from the Fishing Herald out on the other side of the lake. His name’s Tarrant, he came down this afternoon, and hopefully he’s going to give the place a decent review that’ll drum up some business. Right then, I’ll leave you to it. If you need anything come down to the cottage or else I’ll see you Sunday.” Sam watched Kevin’s light bobbing back down the path through the swamp like a will-o-wisp and he sighed happily. This was why he loved fishing; solitude, silence, space. He dealt with the most important matters first. He ripped two four packs of lager out of the crate he had brought with him and put them into a plastic carrier bag. He ran some fishing line through the bags handles and sank it in the shallows to chill. That done he popped open a slightly warm can and began to set up his bivouac shelter.

nce in the warmth of his sleeping bag, aided by a few lagers, Sam usually slept soundly but tonight he was restless. The reeds rustled outside the bivvie as something moved through them. Twice Sam left his sleeping bag and scanned the reeds with his torch. It must have been a duck or some other water fowl trying to get comfortable for the night, but it unnerved Sam. The call of some nocturnal animal echoed across the water like a scream and Sam gave up on trying to get to sleep and cast out his lines. As the sun rose over the lake Sam saw another bivouac on the opposite edge of the lake. That must be the reporter, Tarrant, and judging from the size and grandness of his bivvie the pay at the Fishing Herald couldn’t have been half bad. Sam dug out his binoculars and looked across the lake through the early morning mist. He laughed. Top reporter the bloke may be, but top fisherman? He hadn’t even emerged from his bag yet. Sam lit a cigarette and got himself settled. He had a feeling that this was going to be good day. 75

By lunchtime Sam had caught and netted several large carp and a good sized pike. He opened his first lager of the day and looked out across the lake. His neighbour had still not put in an appearance. He again picked up the binoculars but saw no movement. What a wanker, thought Sam. This guy was wasting his time in this prime spot, sleeping. It was almost midday and he decided that he’d take a walk around the lake with a four pack and see what this bloke was up to. Might even wake him up – Sam’s grin returned with the thought. The earlier sun had faded and the sky had taken on a bruised, overcast, look but the walk around the lake through the marsh was a pleasant one. It took around twenty minutes before the reporter's bivvie came into view. Sam heeded Kevin’s advice and stuck to the wooden pathways; he had no desire to become mired in the soft ground and brackish pools that were dotted around. The path brought him out at the rear of the bivvie. It had looked so neat and serene from the front that what Sam saw made him look around with worry before he approached. Heavy drops of rain fell as Sam approached the ruined bivvie. Torn green fabric flapped in the breeze, a bottle of vodka lay smashed in the grass, and gear lay everywhere in various states of destruction. The stuffing of a sleeping bag hung out of it like the intestines of a mutilated beast. “Hello?” Sam called out. There was no answer. One of the torn pieces of fabric that hung from the bivvie flapped wetly in the growing breeze. The dark wetness on it looked a lot like blood to Sam. He made his way to the front of the bivouac and saw the broken rods floating on the surface of the lake. As Sam considered what had happened a movement across the lake caught his eye. The rain obscured his vision but he thought he saw a dark figure near his own bivvie. It was enough to set him moving. He back tracked along the wooden paths as the rain lashed at him, soaking him to the skin. He knew that he needed to tell Kevin about what had happened at the reporter’s camp, but he was more worried about his own gear. If he headed down to the cottage his own rods might be snapped and smashed by the time they got back. As he closed on his own camp he wished that he had one of the knives from his tackle box with him. Even on private land you never knew who you’d run into at these isolated fishing spots. He approached from the side and called out loudly as he readied his fists in an attempt to make anyone who was lurking in his bivouac flee quickly. “Alright, who’s there?”

There was a sudden rustling followed by a splash. Sam rushed around and found nothing but his own gear lying in the grass. His stuff had clearly been rifled through but looked unmolested. He grabbed up a filleting knife that he usually used for cutting tangled lines and began to circle around his bivvie. There was nothing. The rain abated as quickly as it had begun. Whoever had gone through his gear must have thrown themselves in the lake and made their way away through the reeds. He scanned along the banks of the lake with his binoculars but couldn’t see anyone. Suddenly he remembered the phone in his rucksack. He always brought it with him but rarely used it – preferring to be free of such modern constraints when he was fishing. He began searching through his rucksack. He’d phone Pete and get Kevin’s number. Kevin was bound to have a shotgun or something down in his cottage and he could come up here and they’d be able to search for the trespasser together. He located the handset and pulled it out. As soon as he did he knew something was wrong. It felt too light. He soon saw why – the battery had been removed. He searched the bag, but found nothing. Either he had forgotten the battery or his visitor had taken it. He was glad of the knife in his hand. Sam lit a cigarette and tried to think of what to do. He didn’t want to leave his gear again but didn’t want to drag it back to the cottage with some weirdo watching. He looked back across the lake and was surprised to see someone sitting in a chair outside the reporter’s bivvie. He grabbed up his binoculars and focussed in on the figure in the chair. It was that of a large man wrapped in a green poncho that matched the color of his bivvie, and a yellow fishing hat that was pulled low over his eyes. Sam raised a hand in greeting and the figure reciprocated. Buoyed by the sight of someone else on the lake, Sam beckoned at the man who once more raised his hand in salute. Sam beckoned again and once more the man raised his arm in return. This is stupid, thought Sam as he began to lower his binoculars. As he did the fat man slid forward and slipped from the chair with his arm still raised. Raising the binoculars again, Sam studied the fallen man more closely. He now sat on the grass rather than on his chair. A leaky crimson line, the smeared smile of a drunken clown, ran across the man’s throat. Then Sam saw why the arm remained in the air in that hideous salute – it was held up by fishing line. Sam followed the line with the binoculars and saw how it fed around the reporter’s bivvie and down into the reeds. He saw how it ran around the curve of the lake, held up here and there by high 76

reeds, toward his own camp. The spot where the line finally dropped and disappeared into the reeds was less than ten feet from where Sam stood. He tightened his grip on the handle of his knife and rushed at the reeds. He splashed down into the reeds and slashed around. There was no one there, but Sam found the line tied up to a low reed. He realised that although the pull of the wind could have caused the dead man to twitch it would have taken the strength of human muscle and pull to raise it in a wave. Sam backed out of the reeds and walked slowly back to his camp as he thought through his options.

few minutes later Sam was heading back up the spit toward the wooden boardwalks that led through the marsh. He put thoughts of his gear being wrecked to the back of his mind. There was a dead man across the lake and Sam didn’t want to join him. Every noise in the marsh around him made him quicken his pace and hurry onward. A few yards along the wooden path and he pulled up. Ahead of him, on the path, wet stones had been left in a rough ‘U’. A little beyond them he found more grey algae covered rocks that had to have been placed deliberately. They formed an ‘r’ shape. As soon as Sam’s eyes touched on the third set of stones he turned on his heel and pounded away from them. The stones had spelled out more letters; ‘m – I – n – E’. The light was beginning to fade as Sam pushed on. The gangplanks suddenly stopped dead in the midst of the marsh. He could see where they had been torn up but not where they had gone. How much of the walkway was gone was not clear either and Sam couldn’t see where it started again. The sense of someone watching him made electrons dance over the skin of his back. There was no way that Sam could try to cross the marsh in the failing light. He could be sucked into one of the pools and drown or become mired and at the mercy of whoever was out there. Whatever is out there can wait, Sam decided. He built a fire and once it was burning well he tossed on a handful of damp reeds. Even in the half light of the dusk Kevin should see the smoke that the damp reeds gave off; unless he’d gone down to the pub, unless he’d gone out for a drive, unless it was Kevin himself creeping around in the reeds. Sam adjusted his grip on the knife. He had been holding it so long and tight that it felt as though his palm was blistered. As the sun's light began to die he again saw movement around the reporter’s camp and grabbed up his binoculars. The body of the fat reporter was being dragged toward the reeds. The view of the thing that dragged the reporter made Sam recoil from his

binoculars. A wet, sloping, grey head topped a thick set body of similar grey colouring that looked as though it had been daubed with handfuls of wet clay. The patterns that covered the things body made Sam think of Celtic warriors covered with woad he had seen once in a book. The thing looked human enough at first glance and Sam could have convinced himself that it was someone enclosed in a weird wet suit if it wasn’t for the face. Even in the dusk the black eyes glittered wetly, long moustaches of flesh hung from the things face like those of an old west bandido, and its mouth seemed overfilled with long, thin, sharp teeth. Suddenly those teeth bit down on the corpse's hand and tore free several fingers; they came away being trailed by lines of sinew and gore. Sam looked away and pulled out another can of lager. He tried not to think of the things eyes.

am looked back at his fingers. It had been a long night. He had twice chased the creature off with a hail of stones and had seen it in the beam of his torch as it tried to work its way behind him. Now dawn was here and it was Sam’s chance. There was only one of those things out there. The message on the path had said mine, not ours. He looked down at his fingers and sucked his breath in. He was right handed anyway. He wouldn’t really miss these few fingers – would he? He finished his lager and threw the can onto the remains of his fire. He took off his sweatshirt and tore it to strips. He tied one tightly around his wrist and stuck the blade of his knife into the embers of the fire. Tucking his index finger alongside his thumb Sam laid his hand on the top of his tackle box and pressed down on the knife handle. He looked down and watched his pinkie, ring and idle fingers twitching on top of the box like live bait. The pain

was like nothing he had ever felt before. Sam bound his hand as tight as he could and tossed the fingers out onto the grass. The thing ran from the bushes and crouched down over the severed digits. Sam stepped out from the bivvie, naked from the waist up with his own symbols smeared on his chest in blood, swinging a weighted fishing line. The creature looked up and the weights and hooks hit him full in the face, catching in his horrible grey flesh. Sam yanked the line and felt a surge of pleasure. As the thing clawed at the hooks embedded in its face Sam ran in low and stabbed up with his knife. Talons slashed across his chest as Sam’s knife bit true. It sank twice into the creature's belly in quick succession. The things arm spasmed and the talons caught Sam across the face. Sam kicked at its knees and rammed the knife into its throat. He was roaring with unleashed fury. His booted foot stamped down again and again until all that remained beneath his feet was a bloody grey pulp. The breath rushed from his lungs in great jets.

am saw them as he walked away from the corpse of the creature. Another half dozen of them appeared across the lake, running down from the direction of the house, and all bigger than the one he had killed; all carrying spears. Sam picked up his knife and waited as they dived into the lake and disappeared under the surface, heading toward him. Blood leaked out from Sam’s face and chest, staining the grass. He sighed and readied himself. __________________________________________ Benedict J. Jones is a writer from London, England. He has had six other stories published previously in both print magazines and e-zines.

White Moon by Martin Turton

You can go home again, but time changes the ones you left behind. ___________________________________________________________

I couldn’t take any more. I snapped the viewer

shut and settled back into the seat of the hover car, looking out onto the streets of a town I had once known so well. Relar’s Town hadn’t changed at all in the thirteen standard years since I left. The same streets covered in the same fine red dust, the same jumble of towering spires and rickety shacks, the same impossibly high red mountains looming over the whole sorry town. I leaned forward and touched the driver on the shoulder. “We’re still being followed?” The driver didn’t turn even though the airlanes were deserted; most of the traffic in Relar’s Town scuttled along the ground, clouds of red dust billowing into the air about them. “Not since we left the dock at Hestinar, sir.” I nodded, unconvinced. The usirads always kept an eye on me. Only to be expected: one hundred thousand credits was a lot of money in anybody’s language. I flipped open the viewer again. No matter how many times I saw them, the images still left a chill seeping through my stomach. Seventeen images of death and torture; the geradin youngsters looking shrivelled and black, nailed to the ground and twisted in some strange alignment, their beak-like mouths skewed in a rictus of agony. “Where to, sir?” I realized the driver must have been aimlessly wandering the airlanes while I was lost in my thoughts. I gratefully closed the viewer once more. “Manostin Tower. You know it?” “Not yet, sir.” The driver pressed a few keys on the pad next to his left leg and waited for the answering message before swerving over a grimy tracking-truck and away to the western quarter of the town. Buildings slowly drifted past on either side. Houses, hostels, shops, shacks, eateries… each one bringing with it a raft of long-buried memories that made me realize I might not have left so much of myself behind as I might have thought. Or hoped. Relar’s Town was a hard town, a hard town which bred a hard people. The streets were quiet at this time of day; most of the people would be down at the mines out beyond the mountains to the west. The few people I did see paused to watch my slow progress in the airlanes; a hover car was a rare enough occurrence 78

to generate some interest. I didn’t recognize the people stopping to watch the hover car drift past, but I knew them. I knew the lives they led out here on this forgotten planet on the edge of the Veil. I knew the misery of the work in the mines and the memories of a too-recent war which haunted them all. I knew because I had once been one of them. And the cost of my escape still wracked my gut as I watched Manostin Tower slowly drift into view.

ommander Ravelle had been expecting me at lunch. I arrived at his office as he was having his first coffee of the day, the sun barely peering over the redtinged horizon. Such little games we play to try and gain the upper hand. Ravelle was a severely well-groomed man. Startlingly clear blue eyes and snow-white hair combed carefully to one side. He didn’t look pleased to see me as he swung his feet from the table and put his coffee cup down. He looked even less pleased when I walked into the Spartan office and took the seat facing him across his desk. “Nathan Ragnar?” he asked, turning the screen of his computer dark before meeting my eyes. I nodded. “I was told you could do with some help out here.” I had studied Ravelle’s file. His record was as squeaky clean as they come: perfect wife, perfect kids—one boy and one girl, perfect service record with the cops; three badges for service beyond the call, two recommendations from two different governors… the list went on and on. He was a man to watch carefully; nobody with a record like that ended up in a shit-hole like Relar’s Town. Ravelle leaned back in his chair, his hands clasped across his stomach. “Help?” He savoured the word like a delicate wine, looking up at the dishwater-grey ceiling. “Help? We’ve had seventeen murders in the past six months. I have twelve of my best men on it.” He rocked his seat back and forth, his eyes now on mine. The whites of those eyes were remarkably clear. This was a man who was not suffering from lack of sleep. “What makes you think we need your help, Ragnar?” “Seventeen dead geradin children, for one thing.” I thought of the dead youngsters out on the red mountains, tortured and staked to the ground. My anger should have been real. And yet my sharp words

were an act, a delicate dance in getting the upper hand over this aging cop on this shit-pot world. Before Ravelle had a chance to respond, I produced a letter from the breast pocket of my suit, “and this gives me the right.” I watched him carefully as he read. No response. Impressive. Finally, Ravelle looked up. “It says here you’re from Relar’s Town. That you were one of those to run. I heard only nine got away in those days.” “That’s right.” The oxygenator hummed in the corner of the office. I looked across the desk at Ravelle still holding the letter. I knew he wanted me to tell him about the escape, to tell him how I did it. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. I wouldn’t tell anybody of all that it had cost me, least of all Ravelle. Instead I nodded to the sheet of paper in his hands. “It also says to give me all the details you have on the case.” Ravelle rose to his feet and left the room. When he returned, it was with a folder as thick as the T’mplaar bible. It landed with a loud thud on the table. It was battered, the edges of the photos creased and folded as they poked out of the edges of the pages. I looked at him, the folder untouched before me. He hadn’t sat back down; he stood by the window looking out on Main Street. “Is this it?” Ravelle smiled. The sun bathed his cheek in a warm red glow as he looked at me. “I’ve given you everything the usirads asked for.” He grimaced as he said this last and now he did take his seat. “Tell me, Ragnar, it’s said the usirads…change people, change their brains. Is that right?” Ravelle’s smile was smug, superior. Somebody had said something to him out in the corridor. Something that pleased him. I shrugged, matching that smile, “The usirads want to find the killer. And they’re prepared to do all it takes.” I took the file and strode to the door, paused for a moment. “Renata Doyle,” I said. “What about her?” Ravelle’s tone was short, impatient. “Have her sent to me at Manostin Tower, room twoeleven.” I closed the door behind me without waiting for an answer.

anostin Tower. I didn’t even bother trying to lie to myself. The only reason I had taken a room there was the amount of times I had passed the double doors of the hotel and stopped to watch the aging men stumbling away in their fine suits with young blondes dangling from their arms. The times when I had paused and craned my neck to watch the iridescent blue lights shooting up the sides of the tower before 79

exploding into a shower of golden lights cascading into the night sky. I had wanted that lifestyle for myself. Wanted the money, the easy sex. I had wanted it all. But now I had the money; now I had lain on a bed of Risar feathers as I watched the fires of the Eye of Jerohim, now I had bathed in the waters of Ri and been fanned by golden-skinned beauties as scores of galaxies spun before me; once I had done these and more, I saw Manostin Tower for what it was. I saw the broken bulbs as those blue lights streamed the sides of the building, I saw the red dust trodden into the pale carpets, I saw the desperation in the doormen’s hands as they waited for the their tip. Even the young blondes looked older than I remembered, their faces gaudy with paint. I lay on my back on the bed watching the tendrils of smoke from the cigarette twist lazily to the ceiling. Another plume of smoke blown through the air. It rippled and spread across the ceiling. The notes Ravelle had given me lay open by my side; I had read them three times already. Seventeen dead geradin children. I had lived in Relar’s Town for the first twenty years of my life and never seen a live geradin, the eternally shy creature which lived inside the mountains around the town. The killer was human. This much was clear from the knots which had held the children, by the knife used and the angle of the cuts. And the cruelty. The killer was human. Humans and geradins had no contact. How had the killer managed to find seventeen geradin children? Another breath of smoke flowed across the ceiling. It was times like this when I began to wonder where the line was drawn, the line between what was me and what the usirads had implanted in my brain. I thought of the geradin, the natives of this planet hidden away in the caves honeycombed throughout that vast range of mountains. All of the victims had been staked to the sides of these mountains. The killer had been confident enough to capture the youngsters and torture them right outside their very homes. I let the cigarette fall into the ashtray balanced on my stomach. I closed my eyes. A gentle breeze fingered my hair. I opened my eyes and found myself standing on the narrowest of ledges with Relar’s Town far, far below me. It was a jumble of dark shadows and sickly-pale lights through the red mist of the smog, cupped as it was in the bowl of the surrounding mountains. I had never known that you could see the stars even in the daytime from this high up in the mountains, free of the pollution of Relar’s Town. But there they were; golden balls of light far above me,

barely seen against the parched blue sky. There were also the parent ships, the ships that traversed the worm holes. Incomprehensibly huge with hundreds, thousands of lights stark against the giant scarred hulls…but these were not to be looked at, turn away parent had said. These were the ones that brought the strangers, those who dwelled in the world below with their towers of grey and their foul-smelling chimneys…no, turn away from those. But wait, what was that? Move closer to the edge and look down, too far away from the parent…look back, but there is that noise again. A stranger, and it is struggling to hold to the mountain, it is not built for climbing. Insignificant. Lives over in an instant. Birth and death in a moment. Turn back to look for the parent, but something catches the eye, something glittering in the stranger’s hand, and then it looks up. It has no face, a white moon… A loud hammering at the door shattered me from the connection and I jumped up, the ashtray spilling over my shirt and the bedding and I swore loudly. “Nice hair,” Renata Doyle said as I opened the door. I put a hand to my hair. It was all over the place. Fifty credits for a haircut and it had given me nothing but trouble. I ran a hand through it a couple of times; it would have to do. Doyle sat on the bed and swept ash onto the floor with a grimace. I hadn’t seen her for thirteen standard years but she hadn’t changed much; eyes a little harder maybe, hair a touch longer and not quite so black, but she still had a body to die for. “So you hit the big time, Nathan?” she said. “Can’t say I expected that.” She ran her hands together, brushing the ash away. I didn’t know what to say to that so I just shrugged. “I wouldn’t call running errands for the usirads the big time.” I sat down next to her, leaning back on my hands. “You joined the cops,” I said. “I think that was a bit more predictable.” Doyle was five years older than me and had always been the one catching me stealing from the ahmoep at the corner of Guends, or dragging me and the Climbers away from the barriers at the bottom of the mountains, climbing tools still swinging from our hands. I don’t think any of us would have been surprised she joined the cops. “You and me both.” She tossed me a badge; it glinted in the red glow of the sun as I sat up and caught it. Was that a flush of pride I felt as I looked at the gleaming metal in my hand? I denied it even to myself and closed my hand over the image of the setiph of justice hovering over the burning mountain. Nobody had thought to change the symbol of justice even once the giant native birds had been hunted to extinction during the war. “Ravelle wasn’t too happy 80

about issuing that. He pulled a few strings,” she nodded to my fist still clasped around the badge. “It expires in fifteen days.” I thought of the figure on the mountain; the faceless one, the one with the glittering metal in his hand. “We’d better get moving then,” I said.

elar’s Town was a different place by night, full of shadowy alleys, pale lights, the chatter of those released from the mines, the hum of the trackers trundling the streets. I hurried after Doyle down Main Street. She sliced through the crowds with barely a missed step. Things stay the same and things change. As I looked at the fat naked woman, her heavy breasts swinging ponderously as she gyrated in the window, I was remembering that that building used to be a nice restaurant. Ethan and I had walked past that same window thirteen years ago and Mena had run out onto the street and called my name. My heart had lifted at the sound of that voice; a strange fusion of hope, anticipation, pride and fear coursing through my veins that she should hurry out onto the street after me in the gathering gloom. The fat woman’s ungainly gyrations had increased in pace as she saw me pause. I hurried on. Relar’s Town wasn’t always so busy on a night. The crowds had come because tonight was Lysan Night; the night when the glow of the Lysan Lights lit the night sky and the governor arranged a fireworks display to add to the effect. Doyle came to a sudden halt as I finally caught up to her. She ignored the muttered complaints of the people forced to break around her like a river around a great rock. “So you think the killings are related to that?” She nodded up to the night sky; a pale whitegreen light curled above us like a giant tidal wave. I looked up at the lights. Cold fire raging across the heavens. I thought of the faceless man climbing a cold hillside under a parched blue sky, glittering metal clutched in his hand. Would he be concerned with charged particles blazing across the night sky? “Not necessarily,” I said. Doyle’s breath wisped in the air as she wrapped her arms around her thick coat. “Then what in the name of shit are we doing out here?” I grinned because I knew it would annoy her. “I’ve come to see somebody and I didn’t know where to find him.” She nodded as though this was the most obvious thing in the world. “You still can be an annoying little shit, you know that?” I shrugged. “You’ll wait here?”

Doyle made a show of looking around. Everywhere people milled, their faces lit in the eerie glow of light sticks or the pale light of store windows. There was the smell of roasting rison meat in the air and Doyle’s eyes travelled in that direction. “I’m sure I’ll find something to occupy myself with,” she said. She had already headed off in the direction of the assutar cart before I left her. Crowds of people already filled Terusan’s Peak, a shortened promontory over a dry valley. Fires had been lit in the oil drums scattered about, their flames warming my cheeks as I stepped over the outstretched legs of the giggling stargazers. None of this would be for Ethan, I knew. He wouldn’t want any giggling girls or chattering friends to distract him from the shifting, swirling colours above. It was all he could do to cope with the fireworks. There. A solitary figure sitting in the dark, his long legs stretched out before him. I knew it was Ethan before I even saw his face. I sat down next to him. I followed his gaze up to the heavens: green-white spears now charged upwards, their summits tinged with red. It was Ethan who broke the silence, though he still didn’t look at me. “You came back then.” I nodded and stole a sidelong glance at him. He looked older, his hair had started receding at the temples and he needed a shave. “Not by choice, Ethan.” “She waited for you. She waited all night. I had to drag her away in the morning. She thought you were dead, that you wouldn’t leave without her.” Still his eyes never left those lights above. Mena. Ethan had been with me the evening she had run from the restaurant to me. I nodded again, though I knew he wouldn’t see it. I had seen the admiration in his eyes as he looked at Mena that evening, and that had made me want her all the more. “I knew she’d understand,” I said. “I couldn’t get us both out.” Ethan finally did look at me. His eyes looked red and tired. “You used her, Nathan. You knew they’d be watching her and you took the chance.” His eyes flickered for the briefest of moments to my belt. “And then you come back with a badge. You have some gall, Ragnar, I’ll give you that.” The change of name didn’t escape my notice. I let it slide. I touched the badge. The metal felt cool and heavy—it felt good. And I hated myself for feeling that way. “You know the badge doesn’t mean what it used to. I’m here for the geradin killings.” The sky glowed a sharp green behind Ethan. 81

“Typical of you, Ragnar. You don’t come back for family or friends or Mena. No, you come back for some alien kids being cut out in the mountains. Welcome back, Ragnar.” This wasn’t going well. I decided to cut to the chase. “I thought you might help me, Ethan. With the case.” “Me help the great Nathan Ragnar? Help the man who brought the Sertantri Slayer to justice? The man who chased the recugani across seven star systems?” Ethan must have seen my puzzled look. “I’ve been following your career, Ragnar. Since the embargo lifted, more news has been reaching us.” He looked old and tired. My suit probably cost more than he had earned in his entire life. “You can leave, you know, Ethan. Nothing is stopping you leaving.” “You said you needed my help.” I let my eyes fall to the floor. “The killer,” I said quietly. “He’s a Climber.” A swirl of red in the sky above earned a gasp and some murmurs from the crowds about us. “You mean he climbs, Nathan. That doesn’t mean he was a Climber.” I watched the colours writhing above us; reds and greens and whites stark against the blackness. How would they look from up in the brooding mountains looming about us? Up on that ledge where the geradin child watched his killer approaching, where the skies were so clear you could even see the stars in the daytime? The memory of the contact brushed against my mind, dry and brittle. “The Climbers ended then? When I…when I left?” The Climber’s had been the one thing that had united us, the one thing that had made a life working in the mines, made living through a galaxy-spanning war bearable. To soar in the air with the city far below us was something only those young boys who spent the better part of their lives in the mines could appreciate. There had been nine of us who had revelled in the secrecy, who had thrilled to the danger of trying to sneak past the barricades and climb the red mountains. Ethan looked at me, his face tinged with the green from above. “Yes, Nathan. Everything came to an end in Relar’s Town when you fled. Is that what you want to hear?” He took a deep breath and sighed. “What is it you want from me?” I was silent for a long moment. I watched the school children scurry about at the end of the promontory, readying the fireworks. A teacher stood in the middle of them, imperiously ordering them about with great sweeps of his arms. I always had

trouble telling the age of children, but these looked young enough to have no recollection of the Embargo. Would their lives be so different because they weren’t haunted by the memories? I hoped so. I looked back to Ethan. “Nobody could climb as high as us, Ethan. Remember? But you never saw how high the killer was. That’s how he finds the geradin, by climbing so high they aren’t so wary of humans up there. Only a Climber could do that, Ethan, I know it.” “I never believed the rumours.” Ethan shook his head and rose to his feet. “Until now. The usirads really must have screwed your brain if you think any of us could have killed those kids like that.” I stayed where I was, looking up at Ethan; the lights were now a shining yellow behind him. “You can reach me at the station if you change your mind.” This caused him to stop just for a moment. “I hope they’re paying you enough for this Nathan, I really do.” I watched him walk away, stepping carefully over the sprawling legs and bodies. I noticed he was thinner than I thought he would have been. Life down in the mines could do that to a man. There was a shout and high-pitched laughter. The fireworks had been placed. I turned and saw Doyle making her way to me. She waved when she saw me watching her. Did she shout first, or was it the other, the thing the usirads implanted in my brain that gave me warning? Perhaps they happened together, Doyle screaming her warning and reaching for her blaster pistol; and the image in my mind, a vague impression of my back offering a tempting target lit by the yellow lights against the night sky. Whatever, I hit the ground before Doyle had reached her blaster pistol. Still, a searing, burning scorched across my shoulder. The fireworks had started; their explosions loud in the night air so only those closest to me heard my scream of pain. I ignored them, my blaster pistol already in my hand as I stumbled to my feet and ran for cover. I had a good idea of where the shooter was, the fleeting image had told me he was somewhere near the silver tree at the western end of the promontory. I crouched and ran in the opposite direction. I reached an old riyas tree and pressed my back against it, my heart pounding and the blaster pistol held against my chest. I looked to my left and saw Doyle crouched behind a low wall. I was beginning to think nobody had heard the shot at all; everybody seemed to have gone back to enjoying the fireworks and the lights. Doyle pointed and mouthed, “Left.” I spun away from the riyas, my blaster held before me. Shouts to 82

my left and right as people saw the weapon in my hand. I ignored them and headed for the silver tree, hoping Doyle was covering me. A dark figure peeled away from the tree and there was a blaze of blaster fire from my right. I said a silent thanks to Doyle and increased my pace. Now people were beginning to take notice, clambering to their feet and shouting out. I cursed, pushing them to one side, barely caught sight of the figure running to Relar’s Town. “Get down!” I shouted. “Police! Get down!” I saw the shooter about to enter Relar’s Town, and took a wild shot. I missed. Doyle was already running past me, blaster pistol held in two hands. I swore as I saw her disappear from sight behind a neglected single story house and I ran faster, my lungs burning and my shoulder screaming in pain. The streets were deserted. Even here the explosions of the fireworks were loud and with each flash of lights in the night sky I flinched, waiting for the burning pain of a blaster pistol shot. I pressed my back against a flaking brick wall and peered around the corner. Nothing. “Doyle?” I called. It sounded loud in the brief pause between fireworks. The street flushed red under the lights from above. There was a scurry of feet and I ran after them, trying to cover every angle at once with my blaster. Another house, this one looked better kept than the others. A young boy was looking out of the window at me. I showed him my badge and pressed a finger to my lips. I had barely turned away when the elbow smashed into my jaw, and as I slumped to my knees I felt the heat of another blaster pistol shot blaze past my ear.

“Y

ou let him get away.” I’d taken off my shirt and held it against my cheek. The white shirt was now stained a thick red. Doyle was driving the tracking-truck. “I saved your life,” she said without turning. “You were careless.” I pulled the shirt away; it clung to the wound, sticking to the blood. “So did you get a look at him?” “It’s probably best I didn’t. Nobody wants the usirads sniffing about. It might be best if you leave, Ragnar. Safer. For everybody.” I nodded. “Perhaps it would be. But I’m going nowhere.” She drove the rest of the way in silence as I watched Relar’s Town drift past in the darkness. I had fled at a time when war raged among the stars and the Coalition had placed its Embargo on this little world. Now there was an uneasy peace, the Embargo had been lifted. And Relar’s Town had never seemed

so dangerous and threatening as the black alleys and blinking blue lights meandered past and the burning in my shoulder and the gash in my cheek blended into a throbbing, pulsing pain that made my vision grey. Doyle finally pulled up outside a faceless grey tower-block. “Not so grand as Manostin Tower is it?” she asked as the door opened with a whisper. “This is where your parents live.” I craned my neck, searching out the window among the hundreds of others and saw the light wasn’t on. “They not home?” Doyle grabbed her coat from the seat of the hover car and tossed it over her shoulder. “I live alone now, Ragnar.” Her eyes were shadowed in the darkness as she pressed a button on her keycard and an elevator swooped down the side of the tower. We rode the elevator in silence as I watched Relar’s Town spread out below us. The lights had almost finished now, only the occasional flash of green or yellow which lit the black town in an ethereal glow. The elevator came to a stop directly outside Doyle’s door. “Let’s have a look at your shoulder,” she said, pressing another button as she stepped out of the elevator. The lights flickered on as she threw her coat onto a well-worn chair. She pointed to another chair and I slumped gratefully into it. I could have done with a drink, but instead Doyle stood behind the chair and prodded at the wound on my shoulder. I flinched more than once; she didn’t have the most gentle of touches. “Ragnar?” She turned to the kitchen, which was more of a sink in the corner of the living room. “Yeah?” I flexed my shoulder against the pain. “How did you know this was my parents place?” How did I know? I hadn’t even thought of it. I had just known. I turned to look at her; she was filling a glass with cold water and squeezing out a rag. The media wall behind her was black and empty. “I don’t know. Didn’t you say?” The rag burned like fire as she pressed it to my shoulder. “Is it true what they say, Ragnar? About the usirads? How they mess with people’s minds?” “Someone told you the usirads go around telling people where cops’ parents live?” Doyle continued to dab at my shoulder with the rag, some of the burning was easing. “I’ve seen the scar, Ragnar.” She traced a finger along the scar, a two inch cut from above my left ear to the top of my neck. There was a matching one above my other ear. “What did they do to you?” What did they do to you? The VIC had taken the Embargo seriously. Only nine people had escaped the planet during the shut-down, and the VIC were the 83

reason. When the usirads had found my scudder careering toward a cold moon, I had been slumped over the controls and on the point of bleeding to death. I remembered a cold, ridged table and wires and pipes. And pain. Excruciating, shattering pain. And white lights so bright I could see them when I squeezed my eyes shut. It had been six years later when I left that room. A war had ended and millions more had died. But I lived still. The rag had fallen still on my shoulder. I looked at the floor between my feet as I spoke. Doyle wasn’t too big on vacuuming. “The usirads want to find the killer, and they’ll do all it takes,” I said. It had become like a mantra to me; something I told myself when I lay awake in the dark wondering what had been put inside my skull. Against my every expectation, Doyle laughed, shattering the quiet of the apartment. “You really believe that, don’t you?” A yellow light swam across the window, probably a police delver on patrol. “Nobody cares, Ragnar. Nobody is bothered about the geradin. Ravelle and his cronies are creaming off the profits of the risonwood trade since the Embargo lifted and everyone else is trying to get on with their lives.” She shrugged, “so a few dead geradin in the mountains. People have got bigger things on their minds.” “The Climbers,” I said. Doyle grunted. “That what you used to call yourselves? Can’t say you did much climbing, the amount of times we caught you by the barriers.” But we had. There had been ways past the barriers, past the patrols. I looked at Doyle, “The barriers are still there.” “Ravelle had them put back. Trying to look like he’s doing something. Nobody is allowed near the mountains.” There was one person I needed to talk to. The one I had been avoiding since my return. “Mena. Do you know where I can find her?” To her credit, she met my eyes. “Nathan…I thought Ethan would have told you…” When people say things like that it can only mean one thing. “No. No, he never told me. How?” “The riots. She was caught in the crossfire. Ethan stayed with her ‘til the end. They were married, you know.” “She married Ethan? She can’t have. She didn’t love him.” Doyle grimaced and rose to her feet. “You left her, Ragnar. You don’t know what it was like here during the riots. Ethan was there for her when you left.

Through everything.” Something she had said suddenly struck me. “Until the end?” “What?” She looked down at me. Another police delver passed, lighting the apartment in a faint yellow glow. “She clung on for a while? She didn’t die straight away?” Part of me was disgusted at the rising excitement I felt. I ignored it. “No. I heard she lasted a week. Why?” I was already reaching for my jacket, the throbbing pain in my shoulder now a dull ache. I clipped the badge to my belt and holstered my blaster pistol. ““She suffered for a week. That’s why he keeps them alive, to make them suffer like she did.” “Stay, Nathan. Just leave it,” she called after me. I had already closed the door behind me before she finished speaking.

oyle had been right. There were hardly any cops at the barriers as I followed the path to the mountains. More memories. A scraggly bush that I had used to pull myself up a steep incline. A fallen rock which I had sat on with Mena and talked about travelling among the stars. It was a path we had followed many times in the old days, but still my hands were soon cut and bleeding and the knees of my suit were scuffed and torn. A ledge just out of reach and I jumped and dug my fingers into the stone, pulling myself up and screaming out in pain as my shoulder bled. I heaved, and crawled onto the rock, pressing my back against the red wall. Nobody cares, Doyle had said. I looked up, craning my neck. Somewhere up there, thousands of feet above me, a geradin child had watched his murderer climbing up to him. It hadn’t known any better, too trusting, its attention caught by something bright and gleaming in the killer’s hand. I pushed myself to my feet, spat a gob of red dust on the ground and carried on. Each ledge, each hand-hold was agony. My fingers were shredded, my shoulder gushed blood and still I pressed on, punishing myself. She thought you were dead…Mena had complained about Ethan following us around, complained about the way he looked at her. What had she thought when marrying him? Another ledge, more hand-holds and I swung my leg, scrabbling for purchase in the fine red soil. He must have known I couldn’t go any further. He was crouched on the ledge, his helmet by his side…no face, a white moon. He reached out a gloved hand and, 84

despite myself, I grabbed it and let him pull me up. I scrabbled away from the edge, gasping for breath. My suit was ruined and my hair felt thick with red dust. Ethan sat next to me, his own back against the wall. He looked comfortable in his pale green CUY suit. Hammers and axes hung from his belt. We had always dreamed of having one of those suits in the old days. Now he did. Relar’s Town spread out before us. I had only managed to climb a few hundred feet, not enough to escape the thick smog of the factories. “You should have told me,” I said. Ethan shrugged and scuffed at the dirt with the heel of his grav boot. He would be able to jump twenty feet into the air with those on. “You left her to die, Nathan. You left us all to die. She died when you left her; she was never the same after that. And then she died all over again when she saw you were still alive and hadn’t come for her.” He pointed at my badge with an anarchist axe; I hadn’t even noticed he had it in his hand. “And then you come back flashing that when a couple of insects get killed?” He shook his head looking out onto Relar’s Town. I could hear the murmur of the tracker trucks and the grinding of the factories. “How much are the usirads paying you?” he asked. “One-hundred thousand.” Ethan laughed. It made my skin crawl. “Onehundred thousand? For some dead insects? You know how many died in the riots?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Seventeen hundred. Seventeen hundred people killed when the VIC wouldn’t leave after the war. Where were you with your badge then, Nathan? Where were the usirads?” “It wasn’t those children who killed Mena, Ethan.” That laugh again. “They aren’t children. You know how long those things live? I bet the one up there,” he gestured vaguely with the axe, “was a couple of thousand years old.” He looked at me; I saw nothing of the old Ethan in those eyes. “You have to be careful, you know? They crumble when you cut them, think they’re made of dust or some shit like that.” “You have to stop this.” I remembered the way he had treated the setiph when we had found the giant bird, its wing shot through. So long ago. Ethan ignored me. “I took her to them, you know.” “Who?” “Mena. When she was dying. They live for thousands, hundreds of thousands of years. They don’t die. Don’t suffer. They could have helped her.” Ethan’s eyes were bright. “All they did was chitter around her. She called your name, you know that? My wife called your name as she was dying?” He laughed again,

“Anyway, now the geradin know what it is to suffer. To die.” I had already rolled away before he struck at my face with the axe. Then there was nothing but air beneath me and I screamed in panic before landing on my side twelve feet below. Ethan jumped after me, his axe still in his hand and his grav boots slowing his descent so he came to an easy rest before me. “Ravelle doesn’t care about the geradin. You think you can just wander into the mountains and find me and he never thought of that?” He walked to me as he was speaking and I scrabbled away. “As long as the usirads aren’t sniffing about, he’s happy.” He kicked my legs away and I fell to the floor. Those grav boots were heavy. Another swing of the axe and I threw myself onto the path below, a couple of ribs broke as I landed on a rock. And then I saw…I saw myself crumpled and bloody on a narrow path, and I saw a pair of grav boots aiming for my face, trying to burn it away, burn away the memory with the heat from the grav boots. The blaster pistol slid into my hands and I spun, shooting for the wisps of smoke coming from Ethan’s boots. The shot knocked him to one side, and his head hit a rock-face with a sickening thunk, blood spraying into the air and then he landed half on the path before me, desperately grabbing for purchase in the loose soil before the weight of his boots pulled him over the edge. I dived forward, my ribs white agony in my chest, and caught his hand. I met Ethan’s eyes. There was a hundred foot drop below him. I wondered if he would survive the fall. Despite the pain in my ribs and shoulder, I smiled.

e had been waiting in Ravelle’s office for over ten minutes. I shifted in my seat; it gave me some small satisfaction to bleed on his chair. I looked out of the window; Doyle was looking at me. I nodded at her, but she turned away back to her desk. Ethan grinned. “You see? Nobody will thank you

for this. The cops get their take from the risonwood market, the rest of us get on with what’s left of our lives. There’s no place for heroes here.” Ravelle hurried into the room. He looked less wellgroomed than I remembered. I liked that. He looked at Ethan and then turned to me. “So, you got him then?” It sounded like I had just brought him the doughnut he had ordered. “You might want to put some proper ‘cuffs on him.” I had used one of his own leashes to tie him. It hurt like hell when I stood. “Ragnar?” I looked back from the doorway, the sun bathed Ravelle and Ethan in its red glow. “The badge? I mean, you’ll be leaving Relar’s Town—might as well give it back.” “I lost it. In the mountains.” I nodded to Ethan. “He’ll tell you where.” I closed the door behind me without another glance. “Where to sir?” The driver was waiting for me as I climbed into the seat behind him. I settled back into the plush seat. I was silent a long moment, turning the badge around in my fingers. It felt cool and heavy, gleamed red in the sun. The setiph of justice hovering over the mountain. I checked my messages on my viewer; no contact from the usirads. The money was already in my account. They would have been following me, they always did: one-hundred thousand credits was a lot of money. I clutched the badge, “Manostin Tower, you know it?” “Yes, sir.” The hover car swerved over a trackingtruck and back to the heart of Relar’s Town. __________________________________________ Martin Turton's work has appeared in Night Chills, previous issues of Encounters Magazine, Realms Magazine, Strangetastic, The Rage of the Behemoth anthology, Shadows and Light anthology, Afterburn SF, Reflection's Edge and numerous other online and print publications.

The Belly of the Beast by Jack McKenzie

It's not often you see a dragon in the middle of London... and he's a bit cranky. ___________________________________________________________

“Dragons

are quite real,” Professor Sterling stated flatly, carefully removing his circular spectacles and gently rubbing the lenses with a white handkerchief, “At least in the psychological sense.” A Hanson cab clopped its way underneath the Professor’s window. He pulled his pocket watch out of his waistcoat and noted the time (2:30 in the afternoon). He suppressed an excited smile as he calculated that in less than 19 hours he, Professor Archibald Phillip Sterling, would be at Buckingham palace standing before Queen Victoria herself. “No,” his visitor said, shaking his head. “No, no, no. This dragon were real, guv’na, not psychy-whotsits.” The man, Bilgin, had showed up at his flat less than ten minutes ago in a state of great agitation, insisting on seeing the professor. He stood now in the middle of Sterling’s office, his shabby work clothes a mute testament to his working class life, fidgeting nervously with the cap in his hands, the one he’d respectfully doffed as he’d been ushered in. “Are you saying that you believe that there is a real dragon loose in London?” the Professor asked. Bilgin shrugged. “I dunno if I believe it, guv’na, but I seen it wif’ me own eyes, I did. An’ I swear on a stack o’ bibles that I ain’t had a drop to drink!” Sterling noted the man’s eyes drift forlornly towards the bottle of sherry that Sterling kept on a convenient shelf. “Not as yet, anyways.” Sterling ignored the man’s comment. “Well, Mister Bilgin, that’s quite a claim, but I don’t see why you have come to me about it…” “Well, it’s ‘coz o’ your work, innit? I seen the pictures in the Times o’ you and’ I read… well, I had it read to me… that you’d studied them Iggy-wanas in the Gallpa-goneo islands, just like Mister Darwin did.” Sterling let out a laugh. “I studied Tuatara lizards in New Zealand,” he said. “They’re big, certainly, but they’re just lizards.” “Oh,” Bilgin said, his eyes dropping to the floor in disappointment. He remained downcast for an instant only then came right back up with a cheerful smile. “How big?” he asked. Sterling was taken aback. “Two feet long, at most,” he said, holding his hands apart to demonstrate the distance. “Well, there ya go,” Bilgin said. “This lizard’s bigger 86

‘n that! Loads bigger!” The professor sighed and regarded his watch again. He supposed he could have a look at the man’s supposed dragon, though it was likely to be a wild goose chase. As long as he was not late for supper and was able to be rested for tomorrow, then what would be the harm? He agreed to accompany Mister Bilgin (“It’s just Bilgin, Guv’na” the man said.) back to his house to see this supposed dragon. He poked his head into the living room where his wife was mending his best jacket, the one that had been torn while en route back from his expedition to Auckland, and told her that he was off to see a dragon. “Don’t forget your hat, my dearest,” his wife said over her prince-nez. “And please send word if you’re going to be late for supper. And don’t forget that you have an appointment with Her Majesty tomorrow.” “I shan’t.” He smiled warmly at his good wife and allowed Bilgin to lead him out into the street and toward his abode.

ilgin’s house was in the East End of the city which came as no surprise to Professor Sterling. Neither did the offensive odors of that particular area of London, nor the sound of caterwauling felines, screaming babies and shouting men and women that drifted from the windows of the slum row houses to either side of a steaming muddy street. Sterling was beginning to wonder now what had possessed him to allow this man to lead him into this fetid street when he began to see scorch marks on the red brick buildings. “My word,” the Professor exclaimed. Bilgin said nothing but continued to lead him further into the heart of the squalid neighborhood. They came to a part of the muddy street that was burned black. A horse cart was turned over, its one wheel spinning lazily in the air, the driver and horse portentously absent. They rounded a corner and Sterling was confronted with a scene of chaos and devastation. Several of the row houses were burned and broken apart. The sound of keening voices could be heard and it sent a shiver up Sterling’s spine. He saw men and women staring in absolute shock at the devastation. Children sat in the street wailing in terror and no one came forward to

comfort them. In the center of it all was one of the brick houses, now nothing but a hollowed out shell. Red bricks were strewn everywhere and most everything around it was scorched black. And there, in the middle of it all, sprawled the dragon. The beast lay on its back, its scaly hide the color of dark bottle glass. It looked to be about thirty feet long, and was probably longer. At its thickest point it was wider than ten feet. Its prodigious belly was exposed and the hide that stretched to cover it glistened in the wan sunlight. The beast possessed a long, articulated neck and atop sat a fearsome head that boasted several spiked appendages, a cavernous mouth and rows of sharp teeth, some as fully as long as a man’s forearm. Sterling stared at the great beast in utter amazement. He could hear his heart hammering wildly in his chest and he could barely breathe. “My word,” he managed after a moment of stunned silence. Bilgin nodded. “I told ya, Guv’na” he said. “How did it get here?” Sterling asked. “I didn’t see it at first. I heard a lot o’ screamin’ then I looks up an’ there it is, just flyin’ around. It makes a great bellow and then shoots a great flame outta its mouth. It ate a few people, a couple a horses, burned all wot you see aroun’ here, then it landed and… whoom! Over it goes and there it is, kippin’ on its back like that.” Flew. The idea boggled Sterling’s mind. He could not see the creature’s wings. They must have been folded behind its back, underneath the creature. He would dearly love to see it with its wings fully outstretched. He wondered what the creature’s wingspan would have to be to raise its not inconsiderable bulk. “How many people did it eat?” Sterling asked. Bilgin shrugged. “”alf a dozen, I reckon,” he said “and two horses.” “Extraordinary.” Sterling watched as the dragon lifted its head. The beast opened its mouth and Sterling gasped for breath as an overwhelming odor was exhausted from the great, toothy maw. Sterling pulled out his white handkerchief and covered his mouth with it, then he stopped and pulled it away. The odor was unpleasant, but not unfamiliar. He had smelled something very like it in his own home. “Gas,” he breathed. “The creature expels gas.” Just like the gas that was laid on in his own home, this creature produced naturally a substance that was 87

easily flammable. But whereas Sterling needed a match to light the gas in his lamps, so to the dragon needed to ignite the gas that his body produced. How was that done? Sterling’s fear and amazement were slowly giving way to his natural scientific curiosity. He wanted to get closer to examine this incredible creature. He was burning to discover what secrets it harbored, but he was less keen on burning in the dragon’s fiery breath. Then the beast let out a bellow and the surrounding buildings shook with its power, but to the professor’s ears this was not an angry sound but the sound of an animal experiencing great pain and suffering. “He’s been doin’ that ever since he flopped over,” Bilgin said. “He’ll flop back down in a moment, just you watch.” Sterling pursed his lips. “It sounds as if the poor beast ate something that didn’t agree with him,” he said. “Oh, aye. That’d be the wife,” Bilgin said. “I beg your pardon?” “My wife is… was… a very contrary person. She didn’t agree wif’ nothin’ less it came outta her own mouth.” Sterling stared at Bilgin. “Do you mean to tell me that this creature ate your wife?” Bilgin shrugged. “I told her to leave it alone, but she would insist. Tried to whack it wif’ her rolling pin, she did.” “My dear chap,” the Professor said, earnestly. “I’m so terribly sorry.” Bilgin just shrugged and wiped his nose. The dragon let out another pained bellow. It tried to raise a clawed foot. Sterling was alarmed at the size and razor sharpness of the thing’s talons, but he was also curious at its resemblance to many species of birds that he had encountered around the world. Could this dragon be related somehow to an avian species? The dragon was trying to claw feebly at its distended belly, a behavior common to canines. Its smaller foreclaws worked feebly as well, trying to drive away some imagined enemy that was causing pain to its midsection, “Poor blighter,” Bilgin said. “”e’s got a devil of a tummy ache, he has.” Professor Sterling regarded Bilgin and wondered at the man’s sympathy for the creature that had so recently devoured his wife and perhaps several of his neighbors. Sterling looked at the beast and reasoned that half a dozen human beings and two horses would have

been an average sized meal for a creature of its size. It would not have been the size of the meal that was causing the creature such distress, unless it had eaten more on its way toward this neighborhood, though that hardly seemed likely or there would have been more of a tumult. No, Sterling concluded, it must have been something particular about this meal that was now causing the creature’s gastronomic distress. He wondered if the dragon ate its victims whole or whether it chewed them up properly before sending them down its gullet. He wanted to ask the only eyewitness, but seeing as how one of the victims was the man’s wife, he hesitated to do so. The sound of a police whistle interrupted the Professor’s thoughts. He turned to see a uniformed bobby making his way toward the decimated domicile. “’ello, ‘ello’ ‘ello,” the bobby was saying, as bobbies are wont to do. “What’s all this, then?” Bilgin looked at the bobby, then looked to the Professor to take control of the situation. Sterling sighed and approached the policeman. “Good afternoon, Constable,” Sterling said in his most professional manner. “It appears we have a dragon on the premises. He is in a lot of pain, having just consumed half a dozen citizens of our fair city.” “And two ‘orses,” Bilgin put in. “’struth,” was all the bobby managed to say.

t was not long before a crowd of curious onlookers had gathered around the downed dragon, though most kept their distance. The bobby had called in reinforcements and they managed to create the appearance of taking charge by blowing their whistles and ordering the wounded conducted to hospital. Sterling persuaded one of the bobbies to go around to his house to inform his wife that he would not be home for supper. The professor’s curiosity had finally overcome his caution and he had moved closer to the beast in order to conduct a more thorough examination. The beast was magnificent even in its current tortured recumbency. It was a marvel of inconsistency. The skin and scales were like many lizards that he had seen but the overall structure of the beast resembled more that of a bird. It seemed to be iguana and chicken in equal measure. Its eyes seemed to have a clear inner membrane like other lizards he had seen, and the appendages on either side of its head swept up majestically. It was much like the frill that he’d seen adorning small lizards in Australia, but it was more rigid and less flexible. Sterling suspected that it might help regulate 88

the creature’s temperature rather than being merely decorative. Sterling’s mind was afire with questions about the beast. How did it produce the bilious and flammable gases within its body? How did it cause those gases to ignite? How did such a massive creature manage to fly? Were its bones hollow, like birds? Or perhaps the gases it produced, being lighter than the surrounding air, helped it stay afloat like an air balloon. Igniting the gases might regulate the height at which the creature flew. The dragon lifted its head and let out another mournful wail. Its claws twitched again, trying to bat away whatever was causing distress to its midsection. Why was the creature in pain? What was the cause of its distress? He needed more information. He would have to ask Bilgin exactly how the dragon consumed its victims. Sterling climbed down over the ruins of the house. Night was falling and it was becoming difficult to see. The bobbies had lit the street lamps and had brought oil lanterns, but the jagged bricks strewn carelessly about the street still made navigation treacherous. Sterling stubbed his toe on a small pile of loose bricks and bit back the curse that came to his lips. Sterling made his way to the bobby who had taken charge of the situation, a sergeant named Flay. “These bricks are a hazard,” Sterling said to him. “Perhaps some of your men could gather them up so that they’re not underfoot?” The bobby nodded respectfully “Rightio, Governor. Good idea. I’ll have some of my boys take care of it.” Sterling thanked the bobby then walked to where Bilgin stood, watching the bobbies pick up the bricks that had once been his house. Sterling felt for this man who had lost everything. “I’m terribly sorry about your house,” Sterling said. “and… well, everything…” Bilgin shrugged. “It weren’t much of a house, really.” Sterling nodded. “Perhaps it can be re-built. You have all the bricks. See the constables piling them up? Mortar is all you’d need.” Bilgin shrugged. “Mortar, yeah. And more bricks.” “More bricks?” “Yeah,” Bilgin said. “To replace the ones what the dragon ate.” “I see. Bilgin I need to ask you some questions about…” Sterling stopped, suddenly realizing what Bilgin had told him. “I’m sorry, did you say the dragon ate bricks?” “Yeah,” Bilgin nodded. “That’s what caused the trouble, see. It started in on the side o’ the house. There’s… there was a wall there what was fallin’

apart. Loose bricks everywhere, right? Anyways, this dragon, ‘e starts wolfin’ down these loose bricks. That’s when my wife goes out wif’ ‘er rollin’ pin and starts shoutin’ at the beastie. That didn’t ‘alf make ‘im mad, I tell you.” “Curious,” the professor said, looking back at the suffering creature. “It ate the bricks?” “Yeah. I dunno what for, but ‘e ate the bricks. An’ when ‘e started knockin’ down me ‘ouse, ‘e ate more.” “Extraordinary!” Sterling murmured. Why would a dragon, who had just eaten half a dozen people (and two horses) want to follow them down with a load of bricks? Sterling stared at the creature and tried to think of a similar behavior that he had observed in the lizard species he had studied. He couldn’t. But this dragon was also partly avian. “Gastroliths!” Sterling declared. “Gastro-whats?” Bilgin asked. “Gizzard stones,” Sterling explained. “Certain species of birds will swallow small stones to aid in the digestion of vegetable matter. Other animals do it as well. Usually it’s a practice associated with herbivores. Perhaps at one time our dragon friend was an herbivore. Perhaps eating people was a necessity forced upon him by circumstances.” “But why’d ‘e eat the bricks?” Bilgin asked. “The dragon must have recognized that the bricks were a sort of stone. Normally a gastrolith would be rounder… smoother. But in the middle of London loose round stones are not convenient to find. Bricks, however, are in plentiful supply. But their irregular shape and hard edges would cause our dragon much distress.” “Blimey,” Bilgin declared. “So what’re you gonna do?” Sterling put a knuckle to his lips. “I think I may have a solution.”

rofessor Sterling explained his plan to Police Sergeant Flay. Sterling was not certain that Flay understood, but the bobby conceded to Sterling’s authority in the matter and ordered his men to rouse the local chemist (It was, at this point, very late at night). The chemist was a thin, reedy fellow of advanced years. He was naturally agitated at having been roused from his slumber by a group of policemen. Professor sterling stepped forward and introduced himself and gave his credentials. Then he showed the old chemist the dragon. As Sterling consulted with the chemist on his needs, the bobbies set to work rounding up the biggest barrel they could find and filling it with water. They 89

then placed the barrel as close to the dragon’s head as they dared. The chemist’s shop was fortunate enough to have a large quantity of the substance the Professor needed. He and the chemist transported it in a wheelbarrow to the waiting barrel of water. Using a shovel the professor carefully measured an amount of the white powder and dropped it into the barrel. He then used the shovel to stir the water vigorously. The Professor stood back, telling all to do the same. Then he waited and hoped that the dragon would cooperate. “Come on, you silly beast,” the Professor exhorted under his breath. “Come on!” The dragon lifted its head and sniffed at the barrel. It had been obtained from a fishmonger’s and had retained a distinct odor of halibut. That was what now attracted the dragon’s attention. The great beast sniffed the barrel a few more times and then set to drinking its contents. Professor Sterling watched in elation as the dragon’s tongue lapped up the treated liquid. He marveled at the precise action that allowed the dragon to retrieve every drop with a minimum of spillage. The dragon drained the barrel then lay back. It let out a groan. Its claws worked feebly at its midsection. Sterling saw the beast’s great, distended belly begin to distend even further. He turned to the bobbies. “Gentlemen,” he said, as he backed away from the dragon. “I think it would behoove us all to take some sort of cover, post haste!” The dragon rose up and let out a deafening bellow. From deep within the beast’s belly a rumbling noise grew louder. Suddenly the bellow turned into a horrendously loud belch. Gas and other detritus began to shoot from the dragon’s mouth. The air was alive with flying bricks and partially digested pieces of people and horses. Sterling ducked behind a wall. Everyone in the surrounding area screamed and tried to duck for cover as best they could. Some ran in sheer terror and Sterling saw a flying brick knock a bobby’s helmet off. Another great rumble sounded from the dragon and a second wave of expelled gas, bricks and body parts was forcibly ejected from the dragon’s great maw. Three more times the dragon’s belly ejected its contents until all that remained to be ejected was gas. Sterling was concerned that the gas would catch alight from the flames burning in the streetlights, but fortunately most of those had been extinguished in the first few volleys. After the fourth forcible ejection of gas the dragon stood up. Professor Sterling stood as well. The great

beast opened up its wings and Sterling’s breath caught in his throat. The sun was down but the moon provided enough illumination to see the magnificence of the dragon with its wings fully unfurled. The wings were like the sails of a great sailing ship. Joy burst through the professor like he’d never felt in his life. The dragon took an experimental flap. The wind produced by the wings rushed at the Professor and nearly knocked him over. Then the dragon began beating its wings fervently and the palpable wind produced was too strong to allow him to stand any longer. He sat down heavily and watched as the dragon lifted off from the ground and soared majestically into the night. Sterling followed the disappearing form of the dragon for as long as he could, but it was soon merely a speck in the night sky and soon after that was lost in the darkness. For a long moment Sterling could only stare at the black space the dragon disappeared into. He slowly became aware of bobbies milling about, trying to bring order to the dragon-wrought chaos. Bilgin appeared in front of the Professor and offered him his hand. Sterling took the proffered hand and stood. “What did you do?” Bilgin asked, surveying the ejected bricks and body parts around him. “What was that stuff you gave to the dragon?” “Bicarbonate of soda,” Sterling admitted. “It usually proves to be quite efficacious in the remedying of stomach ailments” “Oh,” was all Bilgin said as he surveyed the damage that was once his home. “So, my good man,” Sterling said gently. “What will you do now?” Bilgin shrugged. “Dunno. I reckon’ I’ll go see the widow Hammond an’ see if she’ll ‘ave me.” Bilgin turned to the Professor and favored him with a leering smile “She’s devilish saucy, is the widow Hammond.” “Gracious,” was all the Professor could say, then cleared his throat three times. That was when he noticed the rosy haze of sunrise over the buildings. Sterling hastily pulled out his pocket watch. “Good Lord,” he exclaimed. “Her Majesty!” Without a further word of explanation, Professor Sterling ran back to the West End. When he arrived at his house he found a coach and rider waiting in front. The coach bore the Royal seal. The Professor was bundled into the carriage and hastily galloped to Buckingham Palace. As the coach rolled up the Mile toward

Buckingham palace, Professor Sterling found himself scanning the morning sky for another sight of the magnificent beast. As he did so he pondered on the implications of the existence of the dragon. How vulnerable a city like London was to an attack from a maddened dragon! The Professor tried to imagine flames shooting to the ground from above. He imagined whole neighborhoods ablaze with dragon’s fire. He shuddered involuntarily. Something would have to be done to prevent such a scenario. Mankind would have to somehow make peace with the beast. That meant gathering knowledge. That meant trying to eliminate fear and prejudice and replacing them with understanding and respect. He, Professor Archibald Sterling, would have to begin that process. He thought he would start with a monogram on the subject. The coach pulled up then slowly rolled through the iron gates surrounding the palace. He was bundled out of the carriage and escorted up the main steps. He felt excitement grip him anew, but that excitement was tempered when he suddenly noticed the state of his clothes. He’d had no time to change or wash. Professor Archibald Sterling stood in the receiving hall at the palace, dirty, disheveled, covered with brick dust, mortar, blood and dragon spit. He reeked of the East End. The doors to the receiving room opened and Queen Victoria was ushered in. Sterling watched in amazement as the monarch of the world’s most vast and mighty empire came toward him in the form of this plump, pleasant-faced old woman. “Professor Sterling,” Her Majesty said. “We have read with great interest about your research with lizards in New Zealand. Pray, tell us, if you would, what we might expect to see from you next?” Professor Archibald Phillip Sterling blinked twice at the Queen of England. “Your Majesty,” he said, calmly, “I plan to write a treatise on the care and feeding of fire-breathing dragons.” The Queen raised one eyebrow and her mouth drew down, dragging a flotilla of fresh wrinkles with it. “Professor Sterling,” Her Majesty declared. “We are not amused.” It is a recorded fact of history that Professor Archibald Phillip Sterling was never invited back to Buckingham Palace after that day. __________________________________________ Jack McKenzie has had short stories published in several anthologies including Sails and Sorcery from Fantasist Enterprises, as well as in Neo-Opsis Magazine, Dark Worlds Magazine and others. 90

Gator Country by Mel Murphy

It's a moonlit night and something big is crossing the river. ___________________________________________________________

t was north of Hinton when I first saw the monsters. Prior to that, I’d been managing 300 Hereford on a small spread outside of Red Deer. I mostly do calving assists, castrations and vaccinations. What I don’t do is sleep on the ground, ride horses all day and deal with high drama long after sensible folk have gone to bed. But that’s just what I was doing outside of Hinton, tailing my semi driver. A livestock rig I’d rented from a feedlot near Calgary broke down on a steep grade on the Yellowhead Highway. Some chucklehead left a box of scrap sheet metal in the road and off she went, with 36 steers bawling for their mamas, skidding to a halt before an emergency gravel hill made for those kind of stops. I pulled up along the semi and the driver got out to check. I parked my pickup and followed the driver back to look at the livestock trailer where one tire had split completely and was wrapped fully around one of the rear axles. Another was just tattered shreds and the smell of singed rubber rose into the morning air in a tiny, steep mountain valley full of big trees and little else. The driver was a fat, quiet man who played nothing but Christian music in his cab. When I told him he needed to stay with the livestock while I drove my bosses’ Ford F-250 down into the town to try and find some mobile phone service, he looked worried. “Doon’ like this stretch of road,” he muttered to his boots and cast his gaze round at mountains ringing the canyon. “Look, you can stay or I can stay.” Finally, he nodded and asked me to bring back coffee. I waved to him as I pulled back out onto the highway in the pickup, towing a horse trailer with my mule inside, but he didn’t wave back. It took me far too many hours to finally find a hill overlooking Hinton with a cell tower. My employer, Dickson, was not pleased. He treated all acts of nature and other unforeseen events as my fault, if for no other reason than I was the ranch supervisor and he had to blame someone. 91

I grabbed a quick sandwich, re-fueled the Ford, checked my mule, loaded up on coffee and junk food and headed back to the semi and stranded truck driver. Dickson had said he knew someone in that part of Alberta who had a semi truck and spare cattle trailer and could have it up to our breakdown and down the road by sundown. I told him if it was a no show, me and the trucker would be headed down to Hinton for the night. I had no intention of spending the night camped out in the cab of a cattle truck on some mountain pass. Dickson assured me his friend would come and was resolute that I not leave the livestock alone overnight. The young steers were destined for a new stretch of summer pasture Dickson had rented from the government and he was sure

they’d fatten and triple in value by next summer. When I got back to the semi, the driver was anxious and tired. I told him the deal and he grew annoyed. “Why do I have to stay?” I reminded him I hadn’t reckoned how to drive two rigs at the same time yet. Sure as shit, the sun drifted across the sky, the steers lowed in their tilted aluminum crib and the miraculous friend with a spare semi trailer was a no show. The driver spent most of the afternoon in the semi with his whiny religious music blaring while he hung one leg out the cab door and kept an extra cautious eye on a pristine mountain view with nary a cloud in it. At 8pm, with the sun finally easing off on the canyon where the humidity and bugs had been fierce all day, I gave the trucker the keys to the Ford and told him to head into Hinton for the night. I would stay with the steers and – if need be – herd them down into Hinton to wait for the relief trucker there. I unloaded my mule, tacked her up, grabbed my rucksack of emergency camp food (pork-n-beans and granola bars) and had the trucker help me get the calves out of the trailer. Some came willingly, others shot out like rockets and a few with wits sauntered out and stood looking up and down the highway like their mums had told them to look both ways before crossing the street. I was not raised on a ranch but a farm – a wheat operation – by my father, a widower. I could drive a combine by the time I was 10, and by 14, I was coordinating our seasonal help and caring for a dozen hogs that all caught above-market prices at auction. My dad always said I had an eye for animals, telling which dog would herd until it dropped and which dairy cow would cause the most trouble in the feed stall. I picked out three of the calmest steers that seemed the least likely to go dancing off a cliff and strung them together with a couple of lead ropes. North of the highway, I led them slowly down a steep embankment and toward the bottom of the canyon where a very cold river poured out of Jasper National Park and toward the open prairie. I called softly to the other calves as I went and one by one they stood looking down on me from the embankment and, ears flopping and drool flying, they followed. By the time I reached the bottom of the canyon, the trucker was long gone in Dickson’s Ford and the partial moon was just peeking from the ridge line. It was a perfect night – neither too cold or too muggy – with only the slightest breeze ruffling the tops of the giant conifers enclosing us. Owls hooted and foxes 92

began to make that screeching cry as they hunted in the bush for their dinner. The bottom of the canyon evened out a bit and the calves moved quietly through an alpine meadow of willow, skunk cabbage and thigh-high grass; happy to be free of their metal cage. The river, broader and deeper here, drove on beside us in a dark, quiet rush. I heard the ring of a distant collar bell and saw the campfire of a sheepherder half way up the far side of the canyon. He was at least a dozen kilometers away and I saw no other signs of life. We were on the edge of designated wilderness and grazing rights were hard to come by. My mule, Sadie, who I’d had for almost six years was content to do this evening ride. It took a lot to upset her. She had been my wife’s ride and I’d gotten her after the divorce. Sadie was slightly goose necked and typically lean in the shoulder as mules usually are and not very tall either, but she was an excellent animal and had not once let me down. Un-shod, she had feet of iron and had never gone lame unlike a $10,000 prize-winning Quarter horse I’d once owned. That gelding had been gorgeous, with loud paint colors and one blue eye, but tended toward the fat and was lazy and didn’t want to chase or rope calves for more than an hour at a stretch. I’d sold him to a city slicker for one fifth what I bought him for and was happy to be rid of the feed bill. I let Sadie pick her way along the river but noticed that my lead steers were slowing and pulling on the rope more. The cows were tired plus they hadn’t been fed in over a day. It was no use. I was not Super Cowboy and these animals were not going to make it out of this canyon before sunrise. My cheap watch said it was 9:45pm when I pulled up Sadie and dismounted in a nice broad stretch of meadow. I walked back to the stragglers and urged them out of the trees by waving my arms and whistling. The steers moved into the open meadow where half of them dropped their heads to graze and the rest stood nodding, spit dripping from their muzzles, dozing off even before I could get Sadie untacked. One steer in particular with a pie face and an extra sloppy mouth stood bawling intermittently. I couldn’t figure out why. He wasn’t smaller than the others, so I couldn’t say he’d been pulled away from his mum too soon. He was just loud and stupid. His mooing kept punctuating the perfect night, shocking the owls and other wildlife into silence. I roped him and dragged him over to Sadie. He was two hundred and fifty pounds of stupid, foaming hamburger. I’d seen more intelligence in a chicken. I tied him off to one of the

lead steers who was bedding down, munching on sweet grass, and took Sadie’s tack off. I set up a cozy little camp for myself but hesitated on a fire. Fire sometimes draws predators out. I settled in with my back propped against Sadie’s saddle with a rucksack of food and supplies beside me. I tried my mobile phone and wasn’t surprised to see the NO SIGNAL message flashing hotly in its toobright screen. I daubed some bug spray I found in my rucksack on my neck and face, slid a jacket around my shoulders and cracked open my emergency beer. It was tepid, but I was too tired to cool it in the river so I just slammed it. That and a piece of beef jerky sent me off to sleep like a hammer to the side of the head.

dreamed I was back on my Dad’s place, in one of those golden September days, driving our combine through a gorgeous patch of ripe wheat. I looked around for our homestead but couldn’t see it because of the angle of the sun. When I looked back someone was standing in front of the combine. Frantic, I shifted down and tried to disengage the threshers and bring the machine to a stop. A smallish man, of indeterminate age with black hair done in a slicked back way, stood glaring at me as my combine bared down on him. His skin was dead white and he was wearing only pants. I yelled and tried to wave him out of the way but my voice was impossible to hear above the roar of the machine. The first thresher reached him and just parted with a groaning and splintering like the combine was a flimsy soda can and this little man was the thick blade of a stainless steel hunting knife. As the combine continued to split like a melon against the improbable freak, he looked up at me and I noticed his eyes were pure jet, not a spot of color or white in them, but completely obsidian black like the head of an indigenous arrow. The roar of the combine increased … And I woke to the bawling of the stupid calf, the talker who had been mewing and moaning off and on for a couple of hours. My whole body sore from a night that would not end, I rose groaning and fished a granola bar out of my bag. I fed half of it to Sadie and walked over to the bawling calf who was curled up on the ground beside his friends who slept despite his racket. I waited for the little shit to open his pie hole and shoved the granola bar in. He paused, chewed once and grew quiet as he greedily chomped on the sweet treat. I walked the dozen strides to the river bank and stood between shoulder high cattails and looked out at the silent, deep water. The partial moon was high 93

and the slight breeze in the pines had picked up a little, making it almost chilly. I laid on my stomach to reach down and wash the calves’ spit from my hands. The water was tart-smelling and cold. By the light of the partial moon, a couple of black swifts chased bugs in the air above my head. The wind shifted. I gazed across the river and watched the pines dance in their ancient way with the wind. Smaller hardwood trees at their base rustled like a woman’s skirt and one of the calves quietly coughed on its cud. I put my hands under my chin and watched the trees shift, as I lay contentedly on the river bank. The trees shifted again, rustling playfully. They swayed and lurched in unison as if a great hand had just swatted at all their trunks at once. I lurched to my feet and stood stalk still. I heard a distant, quiet splash and an angry hiss. This low ruckus was followed by a long moan. Looking up and down the river, at first, I saw nothing but black water. A faint line emerged, a silvery glimmer to mark the arc of something traveling across the river just upstream from me. At the bank there was wild, deep sputtering, too large for a fox or coyote. I started back toward my saddle where I kept an ancient, barely-working .22 rifle that had spent most of its life flopping around behind the seat in my truck. I had no time to find the stock with my hand before an animal burst soaking wet from the high reeds along the bank. I saw huge furious yellow eyes, bone white teeth and a dapper white muzzle. Hurriedly, it shook itself and took a few quick steps toward me and veered off, realizing I was a detestable human. The wet mountain lion hissed loudly at me, zigzagged past, bounced off one of the sleeping steers and darted across the meadow to the south. “Sonuvabitch.” Heart pounding, I tried to tug the rifle free from its leather ties on the saddle. The cougar, which was not much bigger than a Labrador but had a tail that went on forever, turned and looked back with real fear. I realized it wasn’t actually looking at me but back across the river at the weird shifting trees. The big cat disappeared into the forest beyond the small meadow. I yanked the rifle free, checked that it was loaded and stalked back and forth along the edge of the camp, watching the tree line until I thought I’d go cross eyed. No mountain lion, not a rustle. I circled the calves, half of whom hadn’t bothered to wake up when their most feared predator pogoed through camp like a tennis ball. I looked at the steer it had bounced off of but there wasn’t a mark on him.

Musta been rabies, I mused. Only a sick animal would do something that weird. But didn’t rabies make dogs or cats afraid of water? Exhaustion buzzing through me, I sat down with my back resting against the saddle. I realized Sadie hadn’t made a sound when the lion had blown by, not a whinny or a single honk of surprise. I looked over my shoulder. Sadie was standing stalk still, long ears canted forward, not watching where the cat had gone but across the river where it had come from. The mule’s ears radared back and forth intently like the satellite dishes on a military ship, pondering the air for any speck of danger. Groaning, I got up and walked to her, she snorted and shied from me. I looked back across the dark water and back at Sadie. She ignored me as she stood gridlocked, staring at the far bank. I’d rarely seen her so quiet. She had a penchant for chasing predators. This was not like her. Sighing, I walked back to my camp and flopped down again with the rifle between my legs and my shoulders propped against the saddle. I fought it, but sleep took me anyway. My last thought was, what are big cats afraid of, bears? Not a black bear then, a brown. One of those mountainous, pig-eyed giants. I should do something. When the moon was all the way up, dusting everything with a faint light, I heard Sadie. I came to with my cheek pressed painfully against the saddle horn and one arm numb. The whole world smelled of leather and animal sweat. Sadie was making a low, weird grunt like she had colic. I sat up, wiping my eyes and shaking my arm to ease the pins and needles. I looked over at her and she had inched her entire body back toward the direction that the mountain lion had gone until her lead line was pulled tight and the willow it was tied to bent flat. She looked like an incorrigible dog that had just spent an hour trying to worm its way out of a collar. Yawning, I walked over to her. Her eyes were wide and rolling and when I reached for the lead just under her chin, she snorted and shifted to the left trying to keep my hand away. I grabbed her halter and gave it a few quick shakes. “What is wrong with you?” I was exhausted and now my favorite animal was pissing me off. “Have you got rabies too?” Sadie looked at me, champing her lips together submissively the way equines do. Please don’t be angry at me, she seemed to say. She eased off on the line a little and I was able to tug her a step closer to me. 94

Those ridiculously long ears laid flat, she dropped her head like a bull readying to charge and made that weird long whining noise only mules can make. I’d rarely heard her do this, she was a happy animal and rarely upset about anything. Bear! The word rushed through my brain like a sudden gust of air. I let go of Sadie and walked stiffly back to the camp, grabbing up the old rifle that was sitting in the grass next to where I’d dozed off. Carefully, I stepped back to the high reeds and squatted down at the river bank studying just upstream where the mountain lion had come from. The water was murky, filled with unknowable things. I looked back across the river at the far bank. That was when it hit me. That smell, that leathery, wet animal smell I’d assumed was from my stinky old saddle. It was stronger at the river bank, wafting across the water like fog. Suddenly, there was a rumbling. A boulder on the slope above the far side of the river came ponderously down the hill, and settled in the river shallows with a subdued splash. I studied the dark trees on the far bank until I thought my eyes would cross, desperate for the glimmer of bear eyes, the deep woof and chuff of a sow moving through the brush, hunting for berries. Silence. A fox gave one of its freaky screams and stopped short. Then more rumbling, so much I glanced to my left and right, sure this was a minor earthquake. I stepped back from the river’s edge. I heard a distinct wailing maw, and I knew there was a brown bear on the far bank. The maw was punctuated by abrupt chuffing, and the bear, not the largest I’d ever seen, appeared as a lighter gray shadow against the black of the trees on the far bank. I stood up, an eager spectator now. I heard all the steers behind me rise to their feet. The bear seemed to be backing into the river, its massive rump aimed my way, it’s attention focused on something still unseen in the trees. The animal woofed and mawwed, slamming its front paws down on the sandy bank. It took another step back and repeated the stomping gesture, this time kicking up river water because it was now standing in the river, it’s bottom slowly slipping toward the central channel. Has to be another bear. Nothing else would cause a big brown to behave this way. Nothing in the woods could threaten the king of the woods except another king. It was mating season. Maybe the bear in the river

was a sow? And she’d lost her cub to a male in rut and now that male bear was gunning for her. Brown bears occasionally resort to cannibalism. Either way, it was time to go. Dickerson’s steers be damned. I wasn’t going to get mauled to death trying to herd someone else’s stock. In two strides I reached my tack and grabbed up Sadie’s bridle and the saddle blanket. Shoving a steer out of the way with my hip, I reached my freaked-out mule and yanked her forward enough to ease the tension on the halter. She didn’t even glance at me as I pushed the bit in her mouth and secured the head stall behind her ears and under her jaw. Sadie jerked back on the reins and started towing me across the meadow toward the pines. “Goddamnit, HOLD,” I growled at her as I tried to fling the blanket up over her withers. Sadie turned on her heels so she was facing the opposite bank again and actually side-stepped and strained to look past me at the bear drama like a driver straining to see the bodies from a car accident on the freeway. Several of the cows who were milling in the tall grass started past me and trotted into the trees where the cougar had vanished earlier. I saw the first monster. On the far bank, the bear was now chest deep in the water, its chuffing urgent as it swung its head toward the open river and back at the bank trying to decide whether to swim or stand its ground. The dark trees parted about eight feet up and I saw a head like no other, looming out of the shadows, it’s mouth partly unhinged. The head was fifteen feet long if it was an inch. The brown bear looked puny below this freakish monster. And that was what it was, with it’s gray-white muzzle and huge coal black eyes – monstrous. The moonlight glinted off hide that clung too tightly to huge bones. Its hide was beaded, definitely reptilian, and judging from the shoulders pushing past the trees, it was slung low like one of those tropical iguanas. The monster snapped at the bear, picked it up in those jaws and flicked it’s head back, letting go. The bear - at least 400 pounds – roared as it flew up into the air like a giant dust bunny and the monster’s jaws caught it again. And with a slushy crunch the bear was gone. The monster smacked its mouth shut and swallowed stiffly, a snake downing a rat. Sadie brayed loudly next to me and started dragging me back into the trees. I dropped the 95

forgotten saddle blanket. The monster paused, the lower lid of one eye swept upwards for a moment and back down. The reptilian monster swallowed one last time and its tongue, towchain length, darted out, sniffing the wind. And that obsidian eye, bigger than a TV screen, settled its glare on me. I saw no wild intelligence in this creature’s eye, only an icy alertness with one thought: how it could get across the river before I got away. “Sadie!” I gasped and, grabbing her thin mane, hopped up and got one ass cheek settled onto her back. I glanced back for a split second as I barely squeezed the mule’s ribs, and she surged toward the imagined safety of the trees beyond the meadow. Glancing back, I saw the pines on the far bank hiccup and part as a second monstrosity shuffled out onto the bank. It was identical to the first monster except that it’s scaly hide was inky black where the other’s was pale ash gray. Both monsters lifted their muzzles to the breeze, and gigantic forked tongues slid out in unison to sniff the air. I turned back to Sadie just in time to lean flat against her neck as the mule caromed through brush and low tree branches. One of the cows broke through the brush on my left and galloped as fast as its short bovine legs would carry it. I heard the most awful noise in the world. There was a loud splash, ten times the sound of the cougar’s. A few moments later one of the steers behind me screamed, its bleating moan echoing off the trees and the canyon walls. A second later another calf’s bawl was cut short. I tried not to imagine a 250-pound cow disappearing between those car-length jaws. I didn’t have to use my heels on Sadie as she lowered her head and found fifth gear. The river on our left and the thick trees on our right were a blur on both sides. My legs clamped like a steel vice over Sadie’s ribs as I held the reins in one hand and as much of her wispy black mane as I could in the other. Sadie’s long mule ears flattened out along her upper neck as she stretched into a gallop, her small hooves doing a wild dance over uneven ground. We must have gone on like this for at least five minutes, until, by the parting light of the moon, I could see the rest of the canyon stretching to the east in a series of tiers, giant stairs cut in granite and timber with a dark river spilling down the middle of the stairs. For a second I thought I saw the distant, almost fairy light of one of the ranch houses on the

edge of Hinton. Above my right shoulder the imposing embankment of the south side of the canyon loomed, somewhere on its crest the highway snaked along. I could see no headlights from that far below despite the fact I had never been so desperate to see traffic in my life. Cars, RVs, even the rude light of high beams would have been so comforting right then. Instead I was alone in a midnight world of deep bush and whatever-in-hell was behind me. Finally, when Sadie’s breathing shifted from a stiff huffing to a wheeze, I pulled just a little on the reins and she slowed to a hurried trot. I halted her on a slight rise, about six feet above the forest and river meadows. It left us exposed but it also gave me a look at the terrain. Behind us was a jumble of conifers and a half dozen meadows set against the south bank of the river. One steer, a half mile back, was trotting through the trees toward me. Worriedly, Sadie tossed her head, eyeing the route we’d just come down, watching for any large movement. She snorted and made a soft whine, a human sound coming from a hoofed animal. She snuffed the air, blowing it in and out quickly trying to catch their filthy scent. Nothing. I nearly forgot the opposite side of the river in the mad dash. Looking over, I saw that it was much like this side, wider and more open, the tree line set farther back where it started at the base of the north slope. Then, I saw the log. At the same time, Sadie snorted and took a step back. She had caught a scent. A massive black log drifted down the river with the current. An obsidian eye the size of a big-screen TV flickered in the water as it again fixed its gaze on me. It was no more than a quarter mile from us. Sadie made a strangled noise and spun quickly like she did when we roped calves. She sprang forward like a round out of a gun. Hanging on to my horrified mule I knew she only had so much gas left in her tank. I started taking half glances up on the right at the embankment that led up to the highway somewhere far above. The road may as well have been in heaven, we were that far below it. I started neck reining her and worked us toward the south slope where drifts of rock scree poured from the timber. A series of deep splashes came from behind us and my heart sank. Terrified, I looked back slowly, sure of what I’d see. The giant lizard was most of the way out, river water streaming off of it as it lumbered lazily toward 96

us. Behind it, I could just see its coal-black partner pushing itself up onto the bank and shouldering toward me, eager for a piece of the action. Sadie bawled like one of the steers and tried to sprint. I yanked viciously back on her reins, doing something a good rider never does, sawing on them to hurt her mouth. She pulled to a stop and stamped her hooves, rolling her eyes back at me as if to say, Are you crazy? Let’s go! I looked up at the rock scree and back at the river with its emerging reptilian monsters lumbering casually toward us. There was no out-running this nightmare. I took three slow breaths and tried to ignore the tow-chain length tongue as it darted out, tasting our scent in anticipation. I un-buttoned my shirt pocket, and with shaking hands, pulled out my cell phone. The sensible light of its screen sadly did not make the nightmare rising before me vanish. Shaking like a leaf, I held the phone at arm’s length and said, “Smile you ugly fucker.” The tiny built-in camera shot a flash into the dark, freezing everything for a second. Still shaking, I folded the phone shut and pitched it hard up into the rock scree above us us. Maybe someone would find it glinting in the sane light of day. Then they would know what happened. The off-white lizard let out a long sigh and ratcheted toward me with eager eyes, its hind quarters and tail snaking behind it like those Komodo dragons on TV. Suddenly, there was a dull thud, like a dozen shotguns going off at once in the next county over. Both the behemoth lizards froze. The black one canted its muzzle skyward and sniffed with that eerie tongue. A light, like a small plane, appeared from over the far canyon edge north of us. The light grew closer and I kept waiting for the drone of a propeller but no sound came. The light drifted — off-yellow and more a glow than a strobe — as it descended fairy-like until it was hovering just above the two monsters. It was a small oval platform lit from beneath and two figures stood on it. One was a little man with jetblack hair and dead-white skin and eyes I simply could not look into. It was the pasty phantom of my dream who stopped the wheat combine. A slightly taller figure behind him made a series of clicking noises and some gestures with his arms like a ref calling a play. First the black lizard, and then the ash-colored behemoth, backed awkwardly into the water and swam off, making hard for the north shore and the bank they’d come from.

I was shaking so hard it felt like I would vibrate right off Sadie. I looked up at the taller figure and faintly I heard him say, “Can he see us?” The smaller one nodded, his gaze gridlocked on me the way the lizard monsters’ had been. “I told you to set the machine for pre 1900,” he said, his voice soft and calm so I knew he was furious. “It’s just a test. They are not here,” tall guy muttered. “He had a device, a recorder. I saw the light,” the smaller one said, holding my terrified gaze with his own. “Are we looking?” “No,” the scary little man said and looked away from me as the glowing platform floated up and away back over the river and disappeared. I kicked Sadie and she swung out away along the river bank, but I knew she was spent this time, her hooves stumbled anxiously over the rocks. We went on this way for almost an hour, until looking over my shoulder I could not see where we’d been nor do I ever want to again. I stopped her just as the sky to the east was turning a dirty pink like a dog’s gums. Thunderheads moved their prows through the sky behind me. Rain was just scenting the air. The odd drop hit my sweaty face. I pulled up Sadie and hurried off her to piss. I pissed, zipped up and half-fell into a sit on a boulder. I stuffed my hand in my mouth so I wouldn’t scream or cry. I toyed with the idea I’d gone mad and imagined the whole thing, but when I looked at my lathered mule with her donkey’s ears still swishing the air in search of any monster noises, I knew I hadn’t. I stood up, climbed back into the saddle and rode Sadie into Hinton.

he buzzing sign at the truck stop said 4:04 a.m. when I reached the parking lot. I must have looked the sight as I parked the mule by the side door and tied her reins to a sapling so she could drink from the sprinkler running on the patch of yellowed turf. I opened the door of the all-night bar, adjacent to the restaurant which wasn’t even open yet, and the bray of a woman’s laugh hit me like a slap. I reached the bar and sat quickly on a stool to save myself the profound humiliation of falling down before I was drunk. The loud laugh had come from the bartender herself who was flirting with a trucker, his cap on backwards, his massive gut giggling under his white tshirt as they finished reveling in some joke. An older man was at the trucker’s elbow, his face beat red with laughter. 97

The bartender disengaged herself from the jolly trucker and, wiping tears from her eyes, she came and stood across from me. “Bonjour, cowboy. You do look like you need a drink! And maybe a smile and -- ” “Draft,” I said as my hand found a small wad of cash in my jeans pocket. I carefully laid some money out, flattening it on the sticky bar. She had it poured and in front of me in mere seconds. Sadly, I noted it was from a Molson tap. Avoiding the pissy flavor, I inhaled it and set the glass down, straining to swallow without coughing. I looked her in the face. She had a kind face and I could see she was starting to wonder about me. “You want some food? The restaurant kitchen doesn’t open for another hour but I could get ya some –” “Whiskey please,” I pulled a ten out and laid it in front of her. She poured and I swallowed. This time I coughed a little. The older guy who had been at the trucker’s elbow was up off his stool at the far end of the bar and standing at the front door looking out. “Hey is that your horse on the lawn?” “A for-real cowboy,” the trucker snickered. “Mule,” I said without turning toward the old tosser, and to the woman, “Another please. Scotch if ya got it.” She nodded, her merry, sweaty face had shifted to real concern and she fished out the good stuff from among the dusty bottles on the top shelf. Then the old drunk was at my side, just close enough to be annoying. “Where’ya from?” he smiled, trying for genuine friendliness. As I finished the second shot, he looked at the barkeep. “Isokay, Marge, I’ll get it. Friend here’s had a bad night.” He put one shoe up on the old brass foot rest that ran along the base of the bar and studied me. “Ever been down south, eh?” I looked at him and shrugged. “Seattle.” “Nooo, I mean south. Not Meh-HEE-ko way, but south, like Louisiana or Texas.” I shook my head ‘no’ and thought hard about what my third shot was going to be, something to ease the fire in the back of my throat. “I been to New Orleans, Atlanta, all over. Used to do Over The Road in the winter down there. Had a missy in Florida. Florida is lovely, lemme tell ya,

gorgeous little Spanish ladies down there.” “Thanks, maybe I’ll check it out some time.” The old drunk had Marge and the fat guy’s undivided attention. “Had this one missy, she lived next to a swamp. Sure as shit, right next to a swamp. Real pretty at night. Lots of fish and birds in that swamp, eh.” I looked at him as the liquor hit my brain like a bear’s paw, and suddenly the room was baking hot. “One thing I never did like about Florida, all them

fuckin’ gators,” he winked at me and patted my shoulder. __________________________________________ Mel Murphy is a transplant to cloudy Seattle from sunny northern Nevada and California. Former day jobs include being a wildland firefighter, a newspaper reporter and webmaster for an environmental group. She likes it when handsome men offer to buy her margaritas. She has never been to Florida.

True Believers

by Clare M. Clerkin-Russell 50 years is a long time to wait for rescue, especially on Mars. ___________________________________________________________

After nearly five decades on Mars we can make

our own air, weave our own plastics, and grow our own flora and fauna. We’ve explored on foot or via trundler tens of thousands of red-desert miles. We’ve weathered quakes, storms, famine, and loneliness. And still we survive. The M1 Colony, we call it. Those few of us who remain from the First Landing may on occasion get a tickle of pride in the back of our heads. I typically scratch at such a sensation. If you start getting full of yourself Mars will end you. That’s why the human population of our thriving colony only amounts to the seven of us. And even that is declining. I attended Rol’s funeral in full surface armor and exploration gear. The bulky frame of my life-pack and suit loomed over the makeshift ceramic shell of his casket. Four of us carried him to the little cemetery on the crater’s slope. Four. Two others were back in Central monitoring the improvised ceremony on the one remaining vid link. They would have attended, but after fifty years we only had two pairs of working suits. Fletcher’s whereabouts were unknown. Nobody had seen him since the morning that Rol was found dead. But, like so many others, Fletcher had gone quiet-crazy. So we never really worried about him. No words were spoken over Rol’s casket. Poma helped me lower the box into the open grave. Under the long slanted light of a Martian dawn the amber discoloration of the old packing crate flared in marked contrast to the dull browns of the dead alien soil. The long, flat box dropped barely a meter before it touched cold gravel. Amazing how thin Rol had become in recent years. I had worried we might not find anything that would properly serve as a cenotaph, however makeshift, for our mission commander. Over the years we had buried the others wrapped in mylar, after all. We stood silently then, looking at our scuffed boots. I think Khai mumbled some sort of prayer. My audio pickups caught the faint clink of her aluminum rosary beads as they slid along their wire. When I looked her way her head was bent beneath the grime that covered the top of her bubble helmet. Rykovich whispered something about his air gauges reading low. As if moving in syrup he turned regretfully and headed back toward our huddle of pressurized 99

quonset huts. I watched his suited figure recede until he had reached the main airlock. Rol and Rykovich had barely been on speaking terms these last ten years. I had been surprised when the old geologist had tearfully requested to carry the commander’s body out to the slope. Poma and I pulled our trenching tools out of the piled dirt and began to cover up the coffin. The sand billowed downward like an upended blossom in the one-third gee. It took us less than ten minutes to fill the hole. Near the end my helmet was fogged with perspiration and a couple of telltales along my neck ring were flickering red. If this had been out in the field and the base wasn’t a half-kilometer away I’d have been fucked. This is the reason we don’t take the suits further than a klick away from home anymore. Poma had made a nice marker and we placed that at the top of the grave. A somberly decorative rectangular post. It had all the information anyone would ever need to know about Commander-Doctor Sir Roland Canterfield. And it might mark that spot for a hundred thousand years. I looked about and saw prior examples of Poma’s art. Our technologist was getting uncomfortably good at this sort of thing. Poma wandered about those graves now. With his trenching tool in hand he looked like some sort of macabre gardener. Eventually he drove the shovel into a loose pile of gravel and growled something about “next time.” Then he followed Rykovich’s boot tracks down the slope and back toward the outpost. The sun rises stubbornly on Mars. Eventually it cleared the tumbled ridge of Gully Crater to shine on the gunmetal gray of Poma’s abandoned shovel. “Khai,” I said over the radio link. “It’s time to head back.” Through the blur beyond my fogged helmet I saw the shape of her bulky Suit move off several meters. Then she paused and seemed to regard me. Without a word she stepped closer and I felt her gloved hand take my own. Silently she led me down the slope. We were halfway back to the outpost when something in the sky flashed. The scrubbers in my suit had been whining petulantly. But they had done enough of a job to clear the helmet of my burdened exhalations. Thus I was able to see the flare as it scintillated in the northwest. It was a brief flicker but was well beyond the

magnitude of the occasional daylight meteor we might see. Man-made, undoubtedly. “That was their ship, I think,” I finally said. “Yes,” Khai replied. It was the barest whisper. “Just like Roland told us it would happen.” “Are they early?” I asked. “No. Late.” The remark was given factually. But within seconds we were both chuckling like kids. In the fifty years since First Landing we had seen only two re-supplies. Both had been delivered by overburdened but quite unmanned cargo vehicles. The third robo-freighter had burned itself up in the thin Martian atmosphere. That had been almost thirtyfive years ago. None of the three re-supply pods had been designed to take any of us off-planet. No complaints, of course. We all knew that abandonment was one of the risks we took upon signing on to the expedition. Among others. I stopped laughing long enough to hear my scrubbers struggling yet again. “That may have been the heat cocoon jettisoning,” I gasped. “I wish the oculars in this suit still worked,” Khai complained. “Mine still do. I keep repairing ‘em,” I said. And cannibalizing parts from other suits. Suits of old friends. Oculars that other eyes had once peered through. Surveying the new land that eventually killed them. But I left that unsaid. “Can you see anything?” I felt her grip tighten on my hand. It was surprisingly strong for an ill, eightysomething woman. I scanned the salmon colored sky up from the horizon where land and thin air seemed one. The drogues on any lander were typically huge. You needed lots of area to compensate for the tiny volumes of Martian atmosphere. I drove the oculars to maximum before I realized that I was now scanning too small a field of view. I stepped them back a bit and reported what I saw: “Big parachute. Ugly green and quicksilver. I can just make out the lander beneath. Bobbing like a pendulum. Must be one crazy ride.” “I remember that ride!” Khai said gleefully. “But they’re marines or something. They can take it, right?” “I suppose so,” I replied. But my thoughts were back five decades to our own first landing. I was in the mission pilot’s seat, staring down at the broken ground of the strange new world. We cleared a precipice where frost clung to shadow when Rol cut our ‘chutes and triggered the kickers. Gambit settled hard and a tad off-axis but we were down. Our exhausted engines whined toward silence. Overhead the sky darkened with the approach of a world-

spanning dust storm. Mars glowered balefully at the twenty of us huddled within our little ship. I watched the new vessel grow as it fell. Someone called to us from Central but I ignored it. The little craft’s rocking motion lurched through a shortening arc. The pendulum swing had barely settled down when the chutes snapped upward and the ship fell like a rock. It was several kilometers distant and a hundred meters above the ground when the rockets kicked in. I lost its shiny hull amid flame and dust. “I think they’re down Khai.” “Thank God,” she answered. When I looked I saw she had crushed the tiny rosaries in her gloved hand. We had been waiting a long time for our mission relief. In the distance the debris cloud of its landing slowly settled around the new ship. I scanned it closely and felt a troubled thought grow in my mind. Least of which was the question of how these newcomers should be greeted. As we reached the stained door of our main air tunnel the answer came direct from Central: “If you think your suits can make it, it might be best if some of us head over to meet them.” Yulia was now mission commander, of course. She had been both Rol’s exec and his wife. It was good to have her sober again. Khai and I looked at one another. The diminutive biologist smiled wanly. “You were a marine or something, once, Andy. I think it best if you go. You can have what’s left in my air tanks.” She let go of my hand and hooked her vent line up to my intake. Turning a valve on each of our suits I heard a slight clang and then the intake hose stiffened. Too many goofy jokes about sex fluttered like moths through my old pilot’s head. “When does a fighter pilot mature?” I asked. My old lover looked up at me. Her hazel eyes were as striking as the first day I had met her back in longlost Toronto. “Three days after he’s dead,” she replied succinctly. She turned the valves and we undocked. I could hear her reserve tank pinging. She only had about ten minutes to get into the air tunnel and cycle into the outpost. Provided the pumps all worked. We had lost Johannsen bare centimeters from safety due to such a mechanical failure. “Aerospace Force,” I reminded her. “Not the Marines. United States of North America’s Aerospace Force.” “Of course, Captain,” she said. She reached up and gave me a clumsy hug through our bulky Suits. I stood there long enough to watch her open the lock and enter the air tunnel. Then I turned and began to walk toward the distant lander. A glint

100

marked its location but the oculars showed me they had extended out some sort of antenna. The area around the colony was tramped flat by boot prints and tread marks that represented thousands of our outings. Both big and small. Today’s outing angled off toward the low slopes on the western edge of Gully Crater. Other tracks, marking happier days and new exploration, spread outward toward various points of interest across Terra Sirenum and beyond. “Any contact?” I asked. There was an embarrassed, albeit brief silence. Rol had been the only one to actually make contact with the newcomers. Indeed, he had only announced their imminent arrival a few weeks earlier. We had not had any communications with Earth for over thirty years. Weird peroxide oxidation – an insidious surface chemistry unique to Mars -- had long ago made hash of delicate components in our radio array. So when Rol announced he was talking with people from Earth we all assumed he was entering into some sort of dementia. Yulia noted the suspicions against her husband. To her great credit she sobered herself up enough and made Rol unveil his secret.

“I

found out about them on one of my explorations,” he told us late one night in our crowded Commons. There were seven of us gathered, Fletcher being off on his own in the grow-tube. I glanced at Khai. She was carefully scrutinizing both the man and the thing he held in his hand. Khai had mentioned to me months before that fateful night that Rol had seemed a tad secretive after one of his solo trips to the base of Gully Crater. She began, in her old obsessive way, to speculate that he had perhaps found something in one of the flow channels. Khai had joined those of us aboard Gambit for one thing: to find evidence of life on Mars. Intermittent and sometimes crippling arthritis had forced her to give up the wonderland that lay so close to the colony. As her ability to travel diminished, her possessiveness over what she considered her area of expertise had paradoxically increased. The thing that Rol placed on the cracked plastic surface of the big dining table that night was quite new to Mars. Indeed, it was a piece of technology none of us had ever seen. The little black object was curved to fit snugly behind the ear. Tiny green OLEDs burned with an energy not seen on any mechanism within our huts for many a year. A pinkish, almost translucent fin rose up from the tiny thing’s curved back. Someone gasped and Khai smiled softly, either in relief or recognition. “A transceiver,” Yulia stated in her clipped tone.

“Tell them Rol.” “I found this near the opening of an old peroxide stream bed,” our commander said in halting tones. “It was -- was sitting in the dish of something that looked like a discus. An aeroshell I’m pretty sure. There was other equipment. Most of it smashed. I recovered what I could -- and buried the rest.” “Why?” I demanded. Rol looked at me shamefacedly. I had stopped being his subordinate years ago. “Mission commander’s prerogative,” he said bluntly. “Bullshit!” Larsen barked. She rested on a nearby cot, still recovering from the bilateral mastectomy that Rol had recently completed to save her life. Khai and Rykovich were responsible for giving her a daily dose of targeted radiation. Her wide eyes and bandages seemed the brightest things in the dingy room. Her anger was visceral: “This is the same crap you two pulled before the radio was damaged. Only the mission commander was allowed to talk to the folks back on Earth. First it was because of our power rationing and then, because of the Plague situation back home, emergency protocols. And now this radio magically falls out of the sky and only Rol gets to talk to Earth? I don’t believe any of this and I think you’re both insane.” Rol raised his hands defensively but Yulia swooped in: “If we had sucked power for everyone to speak with friends and family we would have been dead by the end of our first Martian year. And when the Plague was sweeping across Earth,” she paused, her eyes momentarily looking through the wall behind Larsen, “there was nobody really left to talk to.” Rol quickly added: “And I would remind everyone here that the Founders of Alpha-Omega sent us to establish this colony as a means of ensuring the survival of the human race. And the doom witnessed as a result of that Plague is a complete vindication...” My fist hit the table then. I half rose from my seat. Even emaciated I was still pretty big. “Dammit, Roland,” I bellowed. “Enough of the history lesson! Tell us about that thing.” The thing in question had bounced slightly when I struck the table’s surface. Roland collected it and cradled it in the palms of his wide, bony hands. I would have received no harsher glare if I had assaulted his person. “The discus that I found was a probe. A precursor to a landing. And an attempt to contact us. For whatever reason it lost its bearings and fell just east of where they presumed the colony is located.” He glanced at Yulia who nodded forlornly at him.

101

Rol raised the thing in his hand toward us. “This is a communicator to the Pilgrim.” “Who’s the Pilgrim?” I asked. Rol shook the bald head atop his bony neck. “Not who. What. The Pilgrim is a ship. An Ares Organization ship to be specific. And it should arrive here in a few weeks time.” The Commons fell silent. After a minute Rykovich asked hesitantly: “And you’re -- in communication -with those onboard?” “Yes.” Roland’s eyes fell cold and sharp on the geologist. Poma asked hoarsely: “And these Alpha-Omegans, who are they?” Rol closed his eyes. “Not everyone onboard is a fullfledged member of A-O. Mostly the ship carries...” he paused and looked sternly at Khai and then me. “What?” Khai asked. Rol shook his head as if he had come to a sudden decision. “Marines,” he said suddenly. “They’re sending in the Marines to rescue us.” Yulia was looking at Rol quizzically, her hands on her hips. Rol simply stared down at the thing in his hands. Larsen sat up in her cot with a grunt of pain. She asked, “Can we talk to them, Rol? Can we talk to these Space Marines?” The pain in her voice could not quite mask her derision. Yulia’s head snapped toward her husband’s patient. “No! The transceiver only works for whoever is the first to use it. I can’t explain it. The technology is far too new and unusual.” Larsen fell back onto her cot. She hissed: “Liars! You cobble together some piece of tin and then tell us a fable. Did you find anything else in Gully Crater, Rol? Maybe a burning bush or a genie’s lamp?” Silence fell. I slumped back into my chair and let the tired bungees take my weight. I felt heavy, even in one-third gee. I stared at Rol. Trying to remember the man I once knew. I was never a member of A-O. The globe-spanning organization of Mars colony enthusiasts was decades old by the time I encountered it. The fervor for their endeavor was almost religious and when I was announced as mission pilot I went from being an obscure Aerospace Force engineer to an outright rock star. I for my part had been just delighted to be going to Mars. But the rest of it always made me a tad uncomfortable: the self-proclaimed Alpha-Omegans, the vast sums to get Gambit Mars-bound, and the vigorous cult of personality around the Canterfields that seemed to drive the community of Mars colony supporters. But whatever doubts I might have I was

definitely as fervent as the rest of them on the day that the decision was made that the trip was to be oneway. I swallowed hard and went along. Dammit, we were to be the first on Mars. Roland, with his money, of course, was the driving force behind the journey. The Mars colony was in many ways a culmination of his and Yulia’s dreams. Yet as the years progressed I began to wonder about it all and eventually regretted my decision. Roland’s almost religious zeal wore thin. This recent turn, however, seemed like madness. Yulia noted the looks of disbelief in our eyes and whispered: “Show them Rol. Show them!” Rol blinked once, twice, three times. He tilted his head toward the flicker of the overhead floro and raised the transceiver up toward his head. Tucking it gently in the curve behind the flap of his ear he stroked the thing’s flesh-colored fin and moved his hand away. As we watched several tiny tendrils puckered out from its surface and moved sinuously across the back of his head. Six suckered ends clamped firmly down on various points across the back of his skull. I jumped out of my chair. “Jesu,” I heard Khai whisper. It was not an exclamation but a prayer. Rol smiled softly and looked about the table. For an instant he looked like our old commander again. But only for an instant. In a rapturous voice he exclaimed: “The men and women of the Second Landing tell me to extend kind wishes to you all. They want you to know that they look forward to meeting the brave crew of the historic First Landing.”

thought about this scene as I trudged across our little corner of Terra Sirenum toward the ship from Earth. On that night our reaction went from bafflement to astonishment to fear. The Plague on Earth had wiped out two-thirds of the planet’s population. If the transceiver was made out of some form of organic technology how did we know it wasn’t a Plague carrier? More to the point: what about the Marines in that ship? How could we know that our rescuers might not inadvertently kill us? I supposed in some way that was why this old test pilot was to be the first to meet the newcomers. Something deep inside me made me feel that I was pushing a bigger unknown than any I had experienced during the untested Gambit’s one-way trip to Mars. I was looking into a void wherein there was very little, if any, information. Flying by my ass, as the saying went. Yet the transceiver’s behavior made us accept the fact that it was from Earth and that Rol’s story,

102

however amazing, was true. Our initial reaction made Rol suspicious to the point of paranoia and he closeted himself away. Hell, he only gave us the date of the rescue party’s arrival a mere handful of hours before he took his own life. And everyone, including Yulia, weren’t allowed to know any of our rescuers' names! I paused for breath near the stripped down frame of one of our old trundlers. The compact vehicle had taken me and my friend Yilmaz across a quarter of the planet. Looking at the skeletal frame I caught my own reflection in the convex curve of my bubble helmet. Despite his protests I had put off Rol’s attempts to clear up the half of my face that is scarred by the blue and bronze of ruptured capillaries. Those stand as token to the decompression accident that nearly killed me. They are also a tribute to my friend Yilmaz. He died that day after he locked his own undamaged helmet down over my unconscious head. I came to and found him slumped on the cabin floor of our blown-out vehicle, a patch kit clutched in his hands. My poorly carved Star and Crescent sits atop his grave in the three billion year old regolith of Newton Crater. “Yulia,” I called. “Any word from these guys?” “No,” the recently widowed scientist replied. “Pretty quiet on all radio bands.” I moved my gloved hands from the trundler’s skeleton and clapped them together to remove dust and oxides. “Maybe I should wait to talk with them after another transceiver drops out of the sky,” I grumbled. I received no reply to that. Just that morning before his funeral a few of us had volunteered to place Rol’s transceiver next to our precious heads. The thing sat inert. No pseudotendrils. No voices from beyond Mars’s salmoncolored sky. For whatever reason the device did seem to fix on who ever its original user was. No reset button could be identified, despite our best attempts to find one. I scanned the distant ground. The newly landed ship glowed like a silver and white pinnacle upon the ocher sands. It was much smaller than our old gumdrop-shaped Gambit. But our vessel had been designed to serve both as the command and habitation module for an interplanetary cruise as well as a surface base. It only figured that our older vessel should be bulkier. Like Rol’s transceiver the new ship likely incorporated modern technologies that offered higher efficiencies. I wondered if their propulsion stage was even now circling Mars. I imagined that this sleek ship would take us up to that larger vessel and then back home. Home. I tried not to think of it as I took the last steps of my two kilometer march. My old frame

shuddered to a halt as a tall segment of the ship’s fuselage split from the main hull and levered itself downward. My eyebrows went up and I had to crack a smile. Nice landing ramp. Were these Space Marines stepping down onto Mars or storming Normandy? The ramp’s edge kissed the soil of the Red Planet and I stood and waited. And waited. I was reconsidering the size of the ship -- seemed awfully small and thin -- when a hatch cracked open. What emerged made me jump back several meters. Four pygmies came down the ramp dressed for a day in the park. Eyes glinted excitedly above bright white smiles set within wide, olive-skinned faces. They wore jumpsuits striped with incongruous blues and greens and whites. The smallest of them, who tottered down on the heels of the bigger ones, had a fabric dolphin stitched flat across its chest. It was only at that moment when I realized that they were children! I gawked and must have yelped something for Yulia’s voice was yelling urgently in my earphones. I made a lurching step forward in an effort to try to save at least one of them. It was then that the nearest child reached me and slapped something that looked very much like Rol’s transceiver onto my chest. Someone shouted: “Tag you’re it!” Whatever words were to come after ended in a startled howl as I picked the child up off the ground. I staggered toward the open ship. Perhaps I could get at least one of them through the open hatch before they all died. I was halfway there when the kid’s crying and the startled looks on the faces of the other three made me lurch to a halt. My heart pounding, I let the wailer go and settled down onto one knee. “Yilmazia,” I whispered. “Jonathon, Melodi, Nergal.” My eyes filled with tears. I decided at this point I was likely mad or dead and knew I would prefer the latter. The smallest one with the stitched dolphin across its chest came up to me and patted me on the shoulder. I peered into the chubby kid face and the dark intelligent eyes. The child mouthed something but it was well beyond my ability to hear. The other two moved in closer but the wailer kept his distance. When the tall girl reached out to touch my helmet I noticed that her hand didn’t quite reach the helmet’s plastic faceplate. There was some clear but solid substance between her fingers and my bubble helmet. I looked closer at her and then turned my attention to the small one who was vigorously patting my shoulder. They were all encased in some sort of clear fabric. The fabric matched the contours of their

103

bodies with the exception of the rather elaborate backpacks that each carried. These seemed to exist partly within and partly outside of the clear sheathing that surrounded each child. “I like your spacesuit,” the tiny kid was saying. I gasped and all I could manage was: “And I like yours, too.” “Greetings, Roland,” an adult’s voice suddenly called. My stunned and blurry gaze roved up the rampway to the matte green recess that led into the ship. A figure stood in the opening wrapped in a skin of smoke. No, not smoke. Unlike the others the adult’s suit was the color of steel wool. The man had a wide face surmounted by a lump of dark hair pulled upward into a knot. His eyes were as sharp as the children’s and equally scrutinizing. Something about him was oddly familiar and I realized I was looking at a distant, middle-aged echo of our dead commander. He raised a hand in silent greeting. I rose slowly from my knee and the children stepped backward, their lightly shorn feet sinking into the surrounding sand. The man regarded me and then walked down the ramp. “I’m Yewgrove,” I said. “Commander Canterfield is dead.” The man halted a bare meter from where I stood. As he made this last step his face went from open greeting to a troubled expression. His eyes scanned my face through the scarred helmet of my Suit with all the intensity of someone seeking a familiar face in a crowd. “Oh, I’m very sorry,” he said. “We wondered why we had lost contact. May I ask what happened?” I stared into the other man’s eyes. Then I glanced at the kids who had gathered near the bottom of the ramp. They were talking among themselves. Through the pick-up or whatever that had been slapped on my suit, I heard something about he’s not Roland and he knows our true-names. “You may,” I said. “I’m sad to say he took his own life. But...” and I paused. “Yes?” the man asked. “Are you a Canterfield?” A soft smile touched his lips. “Yes,” he replied. “Lord Elyan Canterfield. President of the Reorganized Ares Organization and owner of the Pilgrim.” “You’re Roland’s son?” I asked stupidly. I knew Roland and Yulia had had children back on Earth. So dedicated were they to the establishment of the M1 Colony that the Canterfields had made the enormous decision to leave their children behind. Even though Mars was a one-way trip I believe the Canterfields felt

that if they made the colony a success then their children might eventually join them. Our struggles to establish the outpost and the eventual Plague on Earth ended that dream. The reported deaths of their children on Earth added guilt to their anguish and loss. “I’m his clone, actually,” Lord Elyan Canterfield said matter-o-factly. “An amalgam duplicate of Roland, Yulia, and a few other Canterfields, to be exact.” I couldn’t reply, but a soft whistle escaped my lips. Back in Central I distinctly heard the ever loquacious Larsen say holy shit. “Well,” I managed awkwardly. “Welcome to Mars.” Canterfield extended his hand and we shook briefly. Even within the thick mitten glove of the suit my grip was loose. Age and astonishment, I supposed. The man from Earth looked around. Behind him, in the airlock, two other adults appeared. They didn’t look anymore like Marines than did the children. The woman was tall, with the depth of the sea behind ocean-colored eyes, and had all the bearing of some distinctly Asian royalty. The man was short, potbellied, and angry-looking. His mouth was moving rapidly but the words were apparently not intended for the pick-up attached to my chest. Canterfield listened to the other man and his face became puzzled. “We had been led to believe that M1, the colony, was much larger.” My eyebrows rose. The slovenly man back on the ramp was gesticulating with all the energy of a pilot who has just realized he is about to make a controlled flight into the terrain. And a look of sudden concern crossed the face of My Lady Asia. She walked hurriedly down the ramp and motioned to the children. “How big?” I asked, feeling both concern and amusement. What, exactly, had Rol been telling our rescuers? There came a click in my ears as perhaps the thing on my chest was re-tuned. “Big enough to house hundreds!” the other man yelled. “An underground city with above ground domes, a main street, and Canterfield Park a green spot amid all this sand.” I blinked. Sounds great, I wanted to answer. The description was exactly like the ones in the old A-O brochures. I kept a begrimed version above the cot in my little cubbyhole back in the outpost. I always assumed I might die looking up at that time-worn propaganda. The techno-bucolic vision of domed parks and wide-ranging tunnel-cities had been the plan. But it was so opposite the actual reality of our outpost that I found myself laughing. In my headphones came another sound: weeping.

104

That was Yulia back in Central. It was then that the angry man rushed down the ramp, and as he pulled closer I could see he was more muscle than fat. The little titan gave me a shove that pushed me several meters in the low Martian gravity. I landed with a bone-wrenching thud onto the awkward bulk of the suit’s life-pack. The angry man loped like a wolf toward the spot where I struggled like a turtle. I managed to pivot on the life-pack just enough to boot him in the shin. Despite my attacker’s apparent strength he was new and awkward in the low gravity. A black flash spread across the fabric of his suit where my big thick boot made contact. He staggered and I caught him in the groin with the heel of my other boot. A black flash marked an even larger compression point than the one that was fading over his shin. He fell over. “Welcome to Mars, jackass,” I hissed. Through my visor I saw Canterfield approach cautiously against the pink-colored sky. Nearby the children were either shouting in fear or chittering in surprise. Canterfield, looking regretful, extended his hand and helped me to my feet. My attacker rested on his hands and knees. Canterfield knelt down beside him and placed something on the back of his shoulder. That something looked like a silver button and as I watched it migrated through the clear fabric of the suit and attached itself to the man’s back. Slowly my attacker rose to his feet. His hand reached up to clutch at a gold medallion that hung from a thin chain around his neck. Alpha-Omega. I couldn’t help but stare. As resource thin as the colony was we had long since melted down any personal adornment. Items like wedding bands or family heirlooms now served as dental fillings or corrosion resistant wiring. “This is Hoffer, our pilot and deacon,” Canterfield introduced. “He’s a third generation member of Alpha Omega and one of the reasons we reached Mars safely.” Hoffer just glowered at me and I returned the favor. Once I get someone in the cross-hairs I don’t let up. It looked like Hoffer felt the same way -- only perhaps more so. Seeing that that was as far as the introductions were to go, Canterfield gestured toward the woman and said: “This is Doctor Azanami, our ship’s commander.” The woman stepped forward, brusquely passed the red-faced Hoffer, and gently clasped my hand. She said no word and her face was very still. Yet her eyes scanned my suit and then my face and in that moment she seemed to both know and accept our condition at the colony. I realized it would likely take the men

more time than even the children to accept such facts as readily as Dr. Azanami did in that one brief moment. I rose to whatever attention my eighty-years-plus frame could muster and said: “Commander.” It was good to say that word again and actually mean it. “I welcome you and the party of the Second Landing to this world.” “Thank you.” She glanced at the faded patch over my chest: “Captain Yewgrove. It’s a delight to meet Gambit’s pilot. You and our Mister Hoffer at least have a mutual profession in common.” I blushed a little bit. Regarding my assailant I said, “Well, it was an okay landing, as those things go.” That was more for Dr. Azanami’s benefit than Hoffer’s. The little pot-bellied titan just continued to glare. The children were named Yilmazia, Jonathon, Melodi, and Nergal. That last threw me as much as the first. Namely because Yilmazia was my daughter’s name. Nergal was what Fletcher had taken to calling himself shortly after we left Earth. The others were the names of our lost comrades, both old and tragically young. A sudden hotness across my throat and eyes left me speechless. Canterfield explained: “They were named in random after the crew of the First Landing: Yılmaz Irdogan, Jonathon Johannsen, Melodi Phelps, and Robert Lee Fletcher. Fletcher, in a letter to his attorney found after your launch, had petitioned that his name be legally changed to Nergal.” “Yilmazia,” I whispered. The tallish girl stepped toward me as if I had called her. She might have looked like my Yilmazia. Only my child would have been in her twenties now had she survived. I remembered awkwardly holding the fragile weighty thing in my arms as Khai rested against me in the sickbay’s lone bed. It had been a long labor and for whatever reason Mars’ gravity had made it longer. The tiny dark-haired thing nesting in the blankets mewled softly as if resistant to breathing the colony’s stagnant air. When she opened her eyes for the first and only time the universe seemed to pause. I hung suspended at the center of All Things, lost in those eyes, held in limbo in a perfect moment of time. Yilmazia. Like the colony’s other three children my daughter lived only a few hours after that. Those moments would be with me forever. “Yilmazia.” I must have whispered the name again. The tall girl near the ramp looked puzzled and stepped closer to the adults. Her eyes were deep and dark and I wondered if on the moment she first

105

opened them some other adult was hung suspended in space and time. I glanced at Hoffer. He could have been her father. Lucky bastard. Canterfield and Azanami and even Hoffer were looking at me expectantly. Within the bulk of my surface armor I shook my bony frame and said: “Well, those are fine names.” My voice sounded as old and worn as the deserts of Mars. We stood in silence. The children milled about unable to contain their pent up energies. There was much to see and do. I noted that their suits had grayed slightly since their emergence from Pilgrim. I wondered how resistant those little bubble suits were to the solar flux that pelted Mars. “How good are those suits against UV?” I asked. The sudden no-nonsense tone of my voice startled the three adults. I pulled a folded mylar poncho from one of my Suit’s pouches and began to offer it. The ponchos were designed to protect the wearer from typical surface radiation. But the damned thing was old and it immediately crumbled to silver dust. I looked at the friable heap in my hands and felt helpless. Before anyone could answer I said: “You should really get those kids back inside the ship.” The trio looked at one another. “The ship’s spent,” Hoffer said gruffly. “It’s got less than a day’s worth of consumables.” I raised my eyebrows. “That’s a pretty thin margin, pilot.” Or deacon or whatever it was Azanami had called him. Hoffer said: “It’s only a taxi. The rest of the ship is on-orbit. And if you’re going to tell us to go back then you should know that Pilgrim Prime is also exhausted. Ours was a one-way trip to Mars.” I was astounded. “But why?” “You reported that the colony was thriving,” Hoffer growled. He peered off in the direction of the outpost. “We came here as emigrants. We expected to find a small city. Instead all we noticed on the way down are an old lander’s hulk and some pressure tents.” I shook my head. “Whatever Rol reported to you was some sort of fabrication. The rest of us had no idea. I’m sorry.” “Sorry? What does that do for us?” Hoffer demanded. “Nothing. But even if true those reports Rol sent were decades old. How could you people risk a oneway trip based on such old information?” I frowned. My back was killing me. I think Hoffer was about to attack me again when Canterfield raised a hand. With a distinct quaver in his voice Roland’s clone said: “That’s why we sent the

precursor probe ahead of us. The engines and fuel on Pilgrim Prime were optimized for two possibilities: a looping fly-by with return to Earth or a hard braking maneuver that would settle us into a low Martian orbit. When we spoke with Roland via the transceiver he told us the colony was intact and thriving. A township of seventy souls. We had faith in what Roland told us. We based our decision on what he described.” “Jesu.” That was Khai’s voice in my earphones. Azanami blinked back tears that were quickly absorbed by the material of her suit. “Roland has been faithless with us,” she breathed. Hoffer scrutinized her. “Patience, priestess,” he said. “The New Home of Mars is not lost.” He glared at me: “Not to the faithful, at least.” I stared. The Ares Organization was certainly known for its fervor. There had been a belief among A-O members that the establishment of a Mars colony would somehow save and eventually transcend humanity. I remembered several starry-eyed supporters who were outright scary. But combine that energy and dedication with backing from the Canterfields and other mega-rich supporters and we had ourselves a privately funded Mars mission. Something which, up to the time, no government agency could boast. But in our time away had A-O morphed into something bigger? A religion? And Roland... well, Sir Canterfield, was certainly the number one believer in the Ares Organization’s vision. I could imagine Roland unwilling to admit failure. The idea of him sending glowing reports back to the faithful on Earth was not that far-fetched. Such reports would certainly ignite a certain vindication among the A-O membership. It might even have given people something to hang on to during the nightmare of the Plague Years. I sighed. Speculation. We had been without communication with Earth for so long it was impossible to say. I looked at Dr. Azanami. She clutched her Alpha-Omega pendant and chanted a soft whisper. I thought of my Khai. Lord Canterfield was looking at me with sudden curiosity. “What did Roland tell you about us?” I smirked. And all the hardship and pain and struggle that the planet had handed us over the years must have burst out from that expression. Surely in that moment I looked like Old Man Mars himself. I said, “Roland told us you were the Space Marines. Coming to rescue us.” It was Hoffer’s turn to laugh. One of the kids walked up to Dr. Azanami. “Mommy,” he said. “Can we go visit the city now?”

106

The woman looked into my eyes. I thought about what those eyes had likely seen back on Earth and had to pose the question: “What about the Plague?” “We brought immunity kits,” Canterfield said. “Although,” Dr. Azanami said as if by reminder, “They take weeks to thoroughly control the virus.” I looked at the children playing at the base of the exhausted spacecraft. “How long can a person last in those suits?” “Those are just basic surface gear,” Hoffer said, no longer laughing. “Ten hours max.” I stared at the children in their colorful clothes. Bright, short-lived midges against the billions-year-old dust of Mars. They wouldn’t last long in the lander. If we took them into M1 and they got out of those suits we would have no immunity to what they likely carried. A voice from Central made the decision for me. “Andy,” Khai called. “Bring them home. I want Yilmazia here. Again.” Silently I turned and led them back across the sands. The adults tramped along but the children either danced or chased one another. They seemed to instinctively know where they were going. When we reached the tattered base’s outskirts they were, unlike the adults, not in the least dismayed by the city’s squalid appearance. I stood and watched them head toward the air tunnel. The hatch opened and there stood my Khai. Yilmazia ran into the bulky arms of my wife’s suit and gave her an embrace that was like a shout. Without a word I turned and walked toward the slope and my own dear daughter’s little grave. My suit hissed and chuffed as only a high tech steam kettle might. Like its wearer the suit was well past its warranty. My cocoon of mechatronics and worn fabric seemed relieved when my lumbering pace ground to a halt. I stood and looked at the neatly arranged markers of friends young and old. My gaze lingered on the one called Yilmazia. I never heard Hoffer come up behind me. But when the suit’s air warning chimed I turned to head back to the outpost and he was standing in my way. His eyes were clouded by the grasp of a sudden and new understanding. Also maybe respect. Those eyes moved to the littlest grave markers. “This child was yours?” he asked. I nodded. My hand swept across the other tiny markers. “Jonathon and Nergal’s parents died shortly after they did. Melodi was the colony’s last infant. Her mom is Dr. Larsen. But Erik Larsen was killed in an extractor accident about ten years ago.” “I’m sorry,” the man from earth whispered. “No one

ever assumed...I mean we believed having families would be the relatively easy part and...” He was clearly trying to align Rol’s lies with the reality of the situation. To expect Paradise and encounter hardship after such a long journey must have been shocking. His voice quavered and he whispered his child’s name: “Yilmazia.” Perhaps in that moment he didn’t need my explanation quite the way I put it but I said to him: “All you true believers had a fire in your bellies. You told the world and any sucker who would donate how much better it would all be if humanity could just get out here. It was experimental but you believed it could be done if the people you sent to Mars just had the right combination of pluck and intelligence. All the literature tried to link the settlement of Mars as being akin to the frontier days of Australia or North America. The Wild West all over again. But not a damned one of you pioneers ever experienced any discomfort in your lives beyond a numbed ass after sitting too long at the annual Ares Organization dinner. And whatever glib know-it-all plans you came up with as to how future colonists would survive in a place like this were just so much smoke after the main course. Until we got here nobody knew what it would be like to dig out a living on a planet that hates life so much it never fostered any of its own.” He turned from the graves and looked at me. I waved toward the battered shells and sagging tents of the outpost. “To plant a thriving colony takes more than a self-assured PhD learning to hoe a garden of dead soil or an unemployed pilot adapting his hardwon training to rig up some low-gee toilet. A colony means people and families. And eventually someone has to get in the sack and make babies. But can this be done on Mars by a species that evolved under the bright sun and gravity of Earth? No one ever answered that question. Except us. We were the part of the experiment that gambled away the lives of our kids!” I shook my head. My air reserve pinged forlornly. But if this was my last breath I might as well say it: “No one ever questioned whether humans could successfully bring a baby to full term in a one-third gee environment. And not a damned one of the illustrious, over-confident backers of this fucked-up colony ever thought about what it would actually mean to those who tried and failed.” Hoffer looked back at the graves. I had never shaken anyone’s faith before and didn’t like how it made me feel. I stormed past him. Dammit, I wanted to see Khai surrounded by those kids. Even if they were not necessarily our kids.

107

After the children arrived many of us old-timers

died. But not from the Plague. Either we were too aged for it to really care or the immunity drugs we were given were more potent than anyone had calculated and managed to kill us instead. My Khai was the first to pass. Just a few weeks after Yilmazia came back to her. That’s how she looked at it, anyway. I placed Khai next to our daughter on the slope of a crater where my wife, the scientist, had once searched for life. Yulia was next, but in a fashion far more peaceful than Roland. Rykovich found Fletcher one night in the garden. For whatever reason, Fletcher’s last act was to chop down the garden’s lone pine tree and the thing somehow managed to crush him. Amazing the accident didn’t puncture and blow out the entire growtube. As if to replace Fletcher, Poma dutifully went quiet-crazy after this and I found him one morning asleep next to a little patch of delicate alpine flowers. Poma never woke up. Rykovich spent his last days carving wood from the downed tree into toys for the kids. And so the surviving crew of the First Landing passed their last days in their own assorted fashions doing things that perhaps they never imagined

themselves someday doing on Mars. I’d like to think one or two of us found some sort of contentment. After all we’d been through that’s the only belief I can fully buy into. Hoffer and I became friends. This eventually happens to old pilots if they don’t kill one another first. We even re-built a trundler and toured what few garden spots this bastard of a planet has to offer. Larsen came along. Like me she’s too ornery to die. But she’s also hopeful. She thinks Melodi and Jonathon and Nergal and Yilmazia will outlive Mars. They’re tough, smart kids from an Earth very different from the one we knew. And who knows, maybe they’ll stop believing and simply figure out what we could not. __________________________________________ Clare M. Clerkin-Russell is a writer and technical researcher for a major university in Rochester, NY. Clare has degrees in chemistry, engineering and astronomy, and has been previously published in Nanobison Magazine and in the Whortleberry Press Science Fiction Christmas Anthology.

108

Holotatoon by David Castlewitz

Never get a tattoo you can't get along with. ___________________________________________________________

Pepperfoot Jack woke with a bristle-haired holotat

skin and danced around a pole. “Get that last night?” Jack asked. “Hundred bucks worth,” Luke said. “Where’s yours?” “Up yours, you say? Up yours!” The holotat strutted up and down Jack’s hairy arm as the two men joined the ragged line outside the work depot. It was noon, so the best jobs were taken. Driver, body guard: those were good. Window washer and street sweeper were hard-labor assignments. Today, Jack and Luke got picked for a street cleaning team. “I can drive a truck,” Luke offered. Being the first to speak up, he got the job. Jack wanted a power broom because it did all the real work, so he raised his hand to get the contractor's attention. “You want to see a truck driver?” The holotat dangled above Jack’s arm. “My man Pepperfoot can out-truck the best of ‘em!” “Put that thing away,” the contractor said. “You want work, you better put your toy away.” “I’m no man’s toy. I’m every woman’s joy.” The holographic tattoo hopped from foot to foot, its hands folded into fists. The contractor turned to the other men in the depot. “I need one more for street-cleaning.” “Hey,” Jack said. “I put him away. He’s put away.” “Don’t shut me up, don’t put me down. Don’t be mean, get out of town.” “You better get that taken care of,” Luke said, and walked to the truck parked by the fence. His four man crew followed. The one who’d taken Jack’s place waved to his friends.

Jack met Luke on the elevated train going into

he thing is,” the artist said, “it’s not one of ours.” He probed Jack’s arm with a stylus, and then sat back on his stool and turned off the lamp he’d used to get a good look at the punctures in Jack’s arm. “You probably got this from an underground shop. You remember where you were?” “I was too drunk.” “Some of those guys don’t really care about art. Or about making money.” The artist’s angular face assumed an aura of sadness. “They just like to hack people’s minds.” “Can’t you dig it out?” “If I cut into the arm, your little buddy’s going to burrow deeper. Hell, one guy had the thing popping

dancing on his shoulder. “Wake up Jack! Rise and shine and we’ll make a dime. Get out of the sack and don’t go back.” Jack clapped a hand over the punctures in his skin where the nano-driven artwork had been embedded. A teardrop shaped head popped up between two knuckles, followed by a white blob that flip-flopped to his shoulder. “What’s got you in a knot- snot?” the teardrop asked, and blinked its beady red eyes until they turned green. Jack stepped up to the sink and splashed water on his face. He rubbed his chin. Any use shaving today? he asked the square-faced man in the mirror. A thick nose and hard gray eyes gazed back at him. Arms crossed, the holotat rested on Jack’s shoulder, using the ridge of a scar for a seat. The telephone whistled. “Whatzzup?” Jack said, recognizing his friend Luke’s ring tone. “Where’d you get to last night?” Luke asked. Jack wondered about that. He and Luke had gotten day work in the morning, so they had enough money to enjoy the night and still pay down their credit lines. They’d planned to get cheap holographic tattoos. They were convivial drinking buddies. Girls loved them. “Didn’t we get holo’d?” Jack asked. “You took off. We thought you’d wussed out on us.” “Hold the phone!” A white cloud erupted from Jack’s arm. “Pepperfoot Jack is a wuss?” Luke laughed. “Wanna look for work? East Sector’s hiring.” downtown Chicago. When they reached the Loop, they took a subway to the new landfill in Lake Michigan. It teemed with tall condos and elegant markets, lush and spacious parks, pebbled lanes and flower gardens. Here, Jack mused, people didn’t live in one-room cubicles, or work merely to pay down their credit lines. And they ate food made from real plants and animals. “Look,” Luke said, showing Jack the underside of his hairy forearm as they walked to the employment exchange. “Come on out, darlin’.” A tiny naked woman emerged from under Luke’s

109

“T

out of his anus.” “They migrate?” Jack asked. “Piss them off and you won’t like where they go.” “So I gotta live with this thing for a week?” The artist snorted. “This kind of nano can last for years.” “It’s a damn machine,” Jack roared. “You can turn off a machine.” “If you know the password. That’s the problem. Without the password, you can’t reprogram them. Most people don’t want to. The up-side is, they’re pretty intelligent. That’s why they pop up with things on their own.” Jack didn’t like the look of admiration on the young man’s face.

inding the underground artist was easier at night than during the day. So Jack waited for evening, and then set off down the street near where he’d been with Luke the night before. A Grabber took hold of him as he passed a legitimate tattoo parlor. Two other men, each as beefy and as tall as Jack, helped the Grabber usher Jack into an alley. “Looking for something special?” the Grabber asked. “Tell me what you want. We got it all.” “It ain’t nothing ‘til you get somethin’,” the holotat crowed, popping up through Jack’s shirtsleeve. “You got one of Rick the Pick’s,” the red-faced Grabber said. “Is that the tattoo artist?” Jack asked. “I want to talk to him. Now!” The Grabber’s companions stepped forward, leather jackets parted to reveal holstered blackjacks. “Hold on, gents,” the holotat sang, raising its whitegloved hands. “You do any punching, I live down there.” He pointed in the general direction of Jack’s upper arm. “What’s it cost to get this thing off me?” Jack asked. A narrow-brimmed plastic hat atop a long suede coat and polished black shoes emerged from the side of a building. Jack recognized him. He was a hip-hophacker, one of those twenty-something entrepreneurs who dominated TV with reality tales of mercantile derring-do. “Two thousand dollars,” the hacker said in a scratchy voice, and rubbed his pointy nose with a finger. “Two? Thousand?” Jack swallowed. His line of credit was less than 500. The hacker waved a hologram etcher in Jack’s face. “The price goes up next week.” “Is that the game?” Jack seethed. “You plant this

thing in me for a hundred bucks, then want ten times as much to get it out?” “Twenty times, if you do the math.” The hacker grinned. “Somebody’s gonna do the math on you,” Jack shouted. The bodyguards sprang forward, one with a blackjack raised. The Grabber pulled a small, silver pistol out of his pocket “Step off, dude,” the holotat sang. “Get out of my face. The way you act, it’s a big disgrace.” It bounced on Jack’s upper arm. “Think you’re tough? Think you’d last? Better watch out, ‘cause I’ll kick your ass.” The Grabber laughed. “You better come up with that two thousand, buddy. He’s gonna drive you nuts.” He and the bodyguards followed the hacker into the alley. The holotat chortled. “Good thing I’m here. Saved you from a super-butt-whopping!” “Can’t you shut up?” Jack asked. “Hey! I’m your little buddy!” “Quiet!” “Face it, you need me. You really need me.” “Will you be quiet, please?” Jack whined. The holotat retreated down into Jack’s arm. Silence followed. Street noise intervened. Wailing siren. A merchant’s call. Grating music from a nearby bar. “You still there?” Jack whispered to his upper arm. Nothing. “Little buddy,” Jack said. “You still there?” “Of course I am!” Jack was surprised by the feeling of relief that swept over him when the tattoo reappeared. “What happened to you?” “You said the magic word. Say the magic word and you can get almost anything.” “Huh?” Jack asked. “Magic word! Didn’t your mama teach you anything?” “Please?” Jack asked, remembering what he had said. “Don’t say it much, do you?” “That’s the password?” Jack asked. “Please? You respond to please?” The holotat put a gloved hand to its forehead. “Who would’ve thunk it!” Jack grinned. “Turn yourself into a naked dancing girl. Please.” “It doesn’t work like that. But I can help you get a real dancing girl.” “You will?” “Absolutely. I’m your little buddy!” It danced in the crook of Jack’s arm. “You ain’t gotta worry. You’ll get friends in a hurry.” Then it sat astride Jack’s ear. “Let’s

110

go!” “Where?” Jack said. “You want a girl? You want her now? Just stick with me and I’ll show you how.” “What about work? I need to find work.” “Yeah, yeah. Toil and labor, if that’s your favor. Gots to make the money if you wants the honey.” Jack beamed, and savored his future prospects. A job, a girl, and his little buddy. __________________________________________ David Castlewitz has previously published fiction in

Beyond Centauri, Aoife's Kiss and has a story scheduled for the Summer 2010 issue of Tales of the Talisman. He has also written a large number of articles on the history of science and technology and military history in publications such as Computer People Monthly, Military History Magazine and Command.

Ask your local library about carrying Encounters. They can order it from their regular distributor or purchase a 6 issue subscription directly from Black Matrix Publishing LLC.

Contact: publisher@blackmatrixpub.com for more information on our Distribution to Libraries program.

111

Reality House by Jack D. Gibson

Seeking a close encounter with the paranormal can be a bad career move. ___________________________________________________________

In the light of day, the house looked old, crippled.

The paint was cracked and peeling, barely covering the old, weathered wood. The windows were shattered, shards of glass jutting from cracked sills. Steps that led to the once-grand covered porch had collapsed, the porch itself a crooked shadow of its former majesty. The front door hung ajar on a single hinge. The house seemed bent, broken. The sun crawled toward the horizon. The attic windows, what was left of them, gleamed bright and jagged with the waning orb’s last light. A breeze that had rustled leaves in the enclosing trees throughout the day gathered one final gasp and then sighed quietly away. Shadows lengthened, reaching slowly, inexorably, toward the approaching darkness. The house seemed to grow with the shadows. Perhaps it was a trick of the waning light, but, as the darkness deepened, the house appeared almost whole again. Dead and decomposing in the glare of the sun, the house stood tall and proud in the deepening dusk, looming over the trees and weeds that surrounded it. Something was coming its way. It waited.

ays later, as the morning sun sent streamers of light between summer clouds, the roar of a big engine reverberated through the trees and echoed inside the house. Don Peterson pulled the Hummer to a stop and grinned at his partner. “This place is fantastic!” John Davies leaned forward and looked out the windshield. The house rose out of the midst of trees and brush. “Wow. What a mess, eh?” Judith Bentley was already getting out of the big SUV backseat. “Yeah,” she said, “I think if you look up ‘decrepit’ in the dictionary, you might see a picture of this place.” Don stepped out of the Hummer and stood, hands on hips, surveying the house and its grounds. Groves of giant elm trees flanked the structure, overgrown and blighted. What was probably, at one time, a manicured hedge surrounded the grounds, but having been left to its own means for years upon years, it had grown into an angry bramble. Off to each side, and behind the house, beyond the bramble and

the elms, was an old, skeletal orchard, and beyond that, acres and acres of wild wheat and weeds. Don nodded his head and, without looking back, shouted, “This is perfect! We can work with this. I can feel something here.” John sighed. “Yeah, well, a few weeks ago we were doing a location shoot from that fancy old hotel in Colorado. You know – the one with the spa, the bar, the four star restaurant, pretty girls. There, I could feel something. This doesn’t seem quite so perfect.” “Well, this is what we got.” Judith got out of the Hummer and slammed the door. “Our ratings have dropped almost fifteen percent this year. The network isn’t going to foot the bill for any extravagant trips until we get the ratings back up. This will have to do, boys, and it better be scary.” “Yes, John,” said Don, “let’s try for something a little more creepy than you and a hot tub full of underage women.” “They weren’t underage … I’m reasonably sure.” John pulled off his Indiana Jones-style fedora and fanned himself with it. “…and it was all consensual. Whatever may have happened.” “Here’s the deal, boys,” Judith said, “we need a good show or all you’ll have left is your little ghostbuster shtick and whatever part-time handyman jobs you can scramble up. And John, then you’ll have to start paying your hot tub partners to consent to … whatever. Now wake up Lenny and let’s get this thing unloaded.” “Yassa missy producer ma’am.” John bowed his head and shuffled toward the back of the SUV. Judith leaned against the Hummer and surveyed the house and its grounds. The structure was three stories topped off with a large attic. The surrounding elms were blighted, diseased. The wild bramble of old hedge looked like a wall of barbs and prickles. The trees in the old orchard, untended for decades, were bare and gnarled, twisted and misshapen branches reaching out in every direction. As she turned to help unload, Judith hesitated. She could feel someone staring at her. She looked over at the men—they were busy pulling equipment out of the back of the SUV, not paying attention to her. She turned to scan the area behind her, around the house. There was no one. She jumped at the sound of a loud screech and looked up into the trees. A large crow was

112

perched on a branch, head cocked, its black bead of an eye trained on her. As she watched, the crow leapt from the branch and swooped away. It never took its eye off her. She watched until it flew over the trees and disappeared from sight. “OK, that’s creepy. Good start.” She went to help the others unload and set up.

enny yawned. He looked at the equipment scattered on the floor around his feet. “Hey! Anybody gonna help me get set up?” He shouted. He looked around the big room. No answer. They had hauled everything into the house and dumped it onto the floor in the huge living area. Then Judith, John and Don said they had to scout out the big house and scattered. “Typical,” muttered Lenny as he began to sort through the various video cameras, sound equipment and other tools of the ghost hunting trade. In the credits, he was listed as cameraman but, since the “Ghost Catchers” show had its budget cut in half, he was doing the work of the four technical staff that used to accompany each shoot. Dust floated on the sunlight that streamed through the broken windows. The motes gleamed and swirled with the afternoon breeze that wafted through the old house. Lenny was testing the EMF scanner when he stopped suddenly, looked over his shoulder and said, “What?” There was no one there. He thought someone had called his name. “Judith? Is that you?” No answer. The floor above him squeaked. And squeaked again. Lenny looked upward. It must have been one of the others checking out the upstairs rooms. The floor continued to squeak with the cadence of footsteps. He listened closely—it didn’t take much of a stretch of the imagination to turn the squeaks into his name. Squeak-squeak, squeak-squeak. Len-nee, Len-nee. That must have been what he heard. He went back to his work.

ohn kicked at the dust. He leaned against the wall, pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his shirt pocket, shook one loose and pulled it out with his lips. He lit up, took a deep drag and slowly let the smoke float out of his mouth. He watched the tendrils of smoke drift to the ceiling and then looked at the room. This place was full of nooks and crannies. It was creepy enough, that was for sure. “We might just be able to do something here after

all.” The back story was good enough: an old farm family had a long history of fantastic crops but it was learned that they believed a good season needed sacrifice. Human sacrifice. Young women and derelicts had been collected from throughout the northwest for generations. Their deaths were slow and ritualized. Their blood sprayed on the trees, the crops. Each year, the apples were plump and red, the wheat thick and lush. Well, those were the rumors anyway. There was no proof or records to substantiate the story, but that had never stopped them before. The only verified fact was that the family had disappeared and the house and surrounding lands had fallen into ruin. Plenty to work with. He pushed back the fedora and practiced a concerned, near-frightened look. Then he crouched, taking careful steps forward, looking in every direction, and jumped back with feigned shock at an imaginary discovery. He stood up straight and chuckled to himself. Don brought the science, the brains, the enthusiasm to the show—he really believed all this shit, but it was John that brought the charm. He was the heart and soul of “Ghost Catchers”. He would get the ratings back. John took a final puff off the cigarette, threw the butt down, crushed it with his foot and left the room. Smoke drifted from the not-quite-extinguished cigarette and swirled around the room. The thin ribbon of smoke hung in the air and then began to dance and spin and undulate. It followed John down the hall and nearly touched the back of his neck before it dissipated in a shaft of sunlight that streamed through a broken window

he sun was a sliver hanging onto the horizon. Judith watched from the attic window as it finally let go and disappeared. The sky dimmed quickly. The summer breeze died with the light and the hot, thick air draped over her like an unwanted blanket. She wiped the sweat off her forehead with the back of her hand, thankful that she had decided on khaki shorts and a t-shirt this morning. She pulled her long, blonde hair into a ponytail and slipped a band she kept on her wrist over it. As the attic darkened, she clicked on a flashlight and sighed. When “Ghost Catchers” was one of the most watched shows on cable, she was the talk of the town. It was her baby from the beginning. She came up with the idea and had found Don and John and their ghost hunting business, which they were only doing on the side at the time.

113

The show took off faster than she could ever have dreamed, and she had been offered other golden opportunities that she had passed on, deciding instead to ride the wave of success until she could pick and choose from the cream of the crop. She had ridden a little too long, a victim of her own over confidence. Now it seemed to be a sinking ship and if she couldn’t fix the situation she’d be going down with it. Captain shmaptain—if she could jump ship and still float she would in a heartbeat. At least, that’s what she told herself. Judith was attractive, ambitious, and assertive, she had all of the attributes that could lead a woman to success in television, but she also had a fatal flaw—a nasty streak of niceness. She could have bailed on the boys at the first sign of ratings trouble but she stuck it out, hoping to get things stable for them before she moved on. She looked around the attic one more time. Maybe they would start in the big room downstairs and then come up here and work their way to down the basement. She shook her head and sighed again—it was going to be a long night. Maybe she could get herself on the staff of one of those cushy bachelor or bachelorette shows.

on was almost giddy as he walked carefully down the rickety stairs that led to the basement. He had a good feeling about this place. There was a presence here, he could sense it. Dim light from the setting sun dribbled in through a small, dirt-crusted window that was near the ceiling. He turned on the flashlight as he reached the murky depths of the room. A heavy odor of mildew hung in the air and caught in Don’s throat. He choked on it and coughed until tears came to his eyes. After he stopped gasping and found his breath, he shone the light around the underground room. It seemed big enough on its own but there were doorways and hallways that shot off in all directions. The walls were covered with old wooden shelves that were, in turn, covered with bottles and containers of various shapes and sizes. He had an impulse to open each one and scatter the contents on the floor and rummage through them. A sound came from a hallway that was across the room from the stairs. Don turned and shined the light in that direction. The darkness of the hallway seemed to suck the light out of the beam. He could see nothing but spider webs and dust. “Hello? Anyone there?” Another sound. Rats? No, the sound was too big. He took a step toward the hallway.

“Hello? Judith? John?” A shuffle. A whisper? A presence? Don’s heart was pounding with excitement. There was something in the air. His skin tingled. He stared at his arm—the hair was standing on end. “Damn! I wish I had the EMF scanner. Spirit! Make yourself known!” The sound again. Closer now. Footfalls. Don spread his arms and leaned back, closing his eyes, trying to extend his own spirit, trying to reach out. This would be the one—the show that made history! The footsteps were closer. He could hear feet sliding through the dust. He closed his eyes. “Sprit. Show yourself! Are you afraid?” The footsteps stopped. He could feel it. Right in front of him! “Don, what the hell are you doing?” He opened his eyes. It was Judith. “Holy shit, Judith! What are you doing down here.” “Same thing you are, I suppose—scouting out locations for the shoot.” Don huffed. “Crap. I really thought I was on to something here. It was starting to feel like the real thing.” “Don’t get stupid on me, Don. This place is just like all the others. We have to make it look real. But I think I know a way to do that.” Judith turned and headed back down the hallway. “Now come on. I want to show you what I found in this room back here. It should be great on the show,” she said over her shoulder. Don let out a long sigh and followed her down the dark hall. As they walked, the beam of the flashlight made shadows that jumped and twitched. Out of the corner of his eye, Don saw something move again and again. When he played the light in the direction of the movement, there was nothing but walls and corners and cracks. Finally, Judith stopped and motioned toward a doorway. “It’s in here.” Don stepped through into a room that was empty except for a large wooden table that stood in the center. Judith walked in behind him. “Take a look,” she said, nodding at the table. Don approached the table. It was long and narrow, built of thick wooden blocks. “Um, okay, nice woodwork, I guess. It looks very solid. So what?” “Look closer,” Judith said from behind him. Don stepped up to the table. He switched the flashlight to an underhand grip and leaned over to look closely at it. At the top and bottom, there were

114

thick leather straps. He bent over the table and brought the light closer. He slid his hand over the rough wood. “The wood is stained. Dark stains. Old stains.” He looked up at Judith. “This could be blood.” Judith nodded. “It could be. Probably where they butchered their chickens or something, but still, we can use this.” She patted the old table. “I was thinking one of us could lay on this and dramatize a sacrifice or something.” Don continued to run his hand over the table. “Yeah. Good idea.” He felt Judith close behind him, felt her hand on his back. “Isn’t this wonderful, Don? Isn’t it perfect?” He turned to face her. “Yes, I think it is. I can really feel something here.” Judith cocked her head. “Me too, Don.” She put her hand over his chest. “I can feel it too. Isn’t it exciting?” Don was breathing hard. He tried to hide it. Judith was a very attractive woman, he had always had a thing for her, but he had a wife and kids, and, being a good family man he tried to keep things professional. But the thoughts, the fantasies were always at the edge of his mind. He put his hand over hers and tried to pull it away. She pushed hard against his chest and began to slide her hand down. “Judith, we should go upstairs and get things ready.” Her hand slid further down. Don breathed in sharply. “Please Judith, we can’t do this.” But he took his hand off hers. “We both want the same thing, Don.” Her hand slid under his belt. She pulled loose his shirt and slipped her hand under it. “We both want … contact.” Her hand moved up to his chest, running over his skin. His flesh reacted to her touch, tingling, tightening. Don leaned back and let out a little gasp. “Judith please…” But he didn’t stop her. He wanted to, but he didn’t. Her hand moved over his chest. Her touch was electric. She slipped her fingertips down his chest to his stomach and back up again. Her fingertips circled his nipples. Don moaned. “Oh God, Judith, please stop. Please stop. Beth … my kids … please.” She leaned closer. He could feel her hot breath on his neck, in his ear, on his lips. It just felt so good. He let his lips brush against hers. Her hand rubbed against his crotch. He had been faithful through his entire marriage, but just this once, this one time, he had to have this. It

felt too good to stop. He gave in. “Oh God Judith, I want you. I changed my mind. Keep doing that. Don’t stop.” She moved her hand over his stomach, back to his chest. “Ohhh, Don, don’t worry, we can’t stop now,” Judith moaned. “We’re just getting started.” And then she slid her fingers under his skin. Don jerked upright, his eyes flew open as he saw/felt Judith’s fingers slip inside him. He yelped and grabbed at her arm, yanking at it, trying to pull her hand out, but she pushed him back and down, onto the table. Her fingers felt like icicles but moved like snakes. They burrowed even deeper, crawling under his flesh. He tried to scream, but he had no air. His legs jerked and twitched, his mouth frozen in a soundless shriek. His eyes grew even wider with fear and helpless panic. He lay back and shuddered uncontrollably. Judith’s head was tilted back, mouth open, eyes half-closed in ecstasy. Her body moved against his, squirming, humping. She looked down at Don and whispered, “Thanks for coming.” Then she grinned. It was a gleeful grin that grew and grew until her face split wide open and there was nothing but sharp teeth and huge eyes and an impossibly long tongue that flicked out and pushed between his lips. Her fingers dug deeper and deeper. As they touched his heart, Don tried again to scream, but the only sounds he made were a gag and a whimper.

enny wanted a beer. And a joint. He loved his job, but he had been traveling for years and it was getting old. It would be nice to have something close to home. Across the street from his apartment was Mulligan’s—the best damn pub in all of LA. He would love to be able to go home after work each day and head over to Mulligan’s, suck down a beer, eat a cheeseburger, play some darts, flirt with some chicks and smoke a little pot. He wasn’t an ambitious man. Pushing thirty, he thought maybe it was even time to start thinking about looking for a more serious relationship, and maybe even … kids? For the first time in his life he could actually picture himself as a dad. Enough of that. There was not a beer or a joint or a Lenny Junior in sight so he turned back to his work. The floodlights were all in place. The room was bathed in a harsh, white light. That was the lighting that looked best for the show. The bright, white lights made for a good contrast against the shadows. Lenny heard the stairs creak. It was John and

115

Judith. Their shadows, walking behind them, stretched to the ceiling. “Hi guys,” he said. “I’ve checked out the handhelds and the infrared and night vision cameras. All of the equipment looks good. Having some trouble with the satellite uplink though. Getting nothing but static. Doesn’t look like we’ll be able to stream live video to the website. Anybody watching on the site is just going to see snow.” “Damn,” said Judith. “This place is like a black hole. Can’t get any cell phone signal either. Do we have a fan or anything to get the air moving, Lenny? I’m sweating like a pig.” “Sorry, Judy, I got nothing. But I know what you mean, it’s like the air died in here.” John took off his hat and wiped his brow. “Enough chit chat. Let’s get started. Where’s Don?” Lenny shrugged. “I don’t know. He’s not with you guys?” John snorted. “Does it look like he’s with ‘us guys’?” “Jeez. Unwad your shorts, John. I’m not having any more fun here than you are.” “Shut up, Lenny. Remember your place—you’re the hired help.” “You shut up, John. How about I shove this camera up your ass and we get John’s butt’s-eye view of the big, scary house?” “Kids!’ Judith shouted. “Let’s try to be professional, okay?” “Yes. We have lots of work to do,” a voice spoke behind them. They turned toward the voice. It was Don, standing across the room, at the edge of the light. “Goddamn it, Don! Where the hell have you been?” John asked. “We need to get our plan together and start filming. I sure as hell don’t want to have to leave and come back here tomorrow night for more footage.” The upper half of Don’s face was hidden in shadow so that only his mouth and chin were clearly visible. His lips curled into a contented smile. “Oh, I don’t think we’ll have to worry about that, John.”

udith was uncomfortable. They all sat on the floor, huddled under one of the tripod lights that Lenny had set up. In the already heavy air, the heat from the lamp made it difficult to breath. She felt a drop of sweat trickle down the back of her neck. It tickled and made her shiver. “I think we should start with the attic and work our way down to the basement, since that is definitely the creepiest place,” she said, marking notes on the rough outline they always started with.

John had abandoned his Indiana Jones hat. His longish hair, usually well-combed, hung limp over his forehead. “I don’t care where we start. Just set me up somewhere, let me have some face time with the camera and I’ll make this the best damn show we’ve done this season.” Don said very little as they made their plans for the shoot. He stared at each one as they spoke. His smile never wavered. Judith looked at him. “Don, you’ve hardly said two words since we started this meeting. I thought you were all gung ho about this place.” Don smiled at her. “I am Judith. I am very gung ho about this place.” Without another word, he continued to smile at her. His eyes, unblinking, looked into hers. Finally she had to look away. “Christ, Don! You smoke some of Lenny’s weed or something? And this place is like an Indian hothouse and you’re not even sweating. What’s up with that?” “I’m quite comfortable here, Judith.” Judith wiped the sweat from her neck. “Holy crap, you’ve gotten a little too into this whole thing. You’re freaking me out. Do you have any opinions on how we do this shoot or not?” Don nodded his head. “Yes, I think we do a prologue shot in the basement as a teaser and then go to the attic and work our way back down there for a … climax.” Lenny was stretched out on the floor, hands behind his head. He raised his head and looked at the others. “It really doesn’t matter does it? We’re not live on the network website, so we’ll fix it all in editing, right?” Don nodded again. “Yes, but we still have to have a structure. John. Will you go with me to the basement so I can show you what I have in mind? I think you should start the action.” John grinned. “Now that’s what I’m talking about! I think that’s a great idea. Let me set the mood for this puppy and we’ll get the viewers hooked right off the bat. I’m feeling good about this!” Don’s smile grew wider by a fraction of an inch. “Me too, John.” Judith watched as they headed toward the room at the back of the house where the basement entryway was located. They turned on their flashlights as they reached the limit of the tripod lights. Funny, she thought, it seemed as though the big lights should completely brighten up a room, even as large as this one, but the darkness, like the heat, was oppressive and seemed to push back at the light from every direction. She shook her head. I have been doing this way too

116

long. She still watched though, as Don and John disappeared through a doorway. She had an urge to grab Lenny and go with them, an urge to stick together. But there was still prep work to finish and the script needed rewrites. She had to figure out how to throw some real scares into this episode.

he lights were all in place. The EMF scanners were set throughout the house, along with thermal sensors, infrared and night vision cameras, microphones and geophones. Surrounded by the tripod lights, the command center, with its monitors glowing blue and gauges glowing green, was sitting in the middle of the downstairs room, a splash of light in a roomful of darkness. Judith looked over Lenny’s shoulder as he adjusted knobs and checked readouts, both of their faces awash with a greenish-blue glow. “Nothing much so far.” Lenny tapped at a couple of gauges. “A little noise upstairs—probably rats; and in the basement—most likely Don and John. There’s some EMF blips going on all over the place which is a little quirky, but nothing special. And the thermals—well, it’s hotter than hell, so we’re probably not gonna get cold spots, but if we do, they’ll really show up, that’s for sure. Everything is working. I say we get this road on the show.” Judith straightened and plucked at her t-shirt, trying to get some air between her skin and the fabric. “All we need now are our illustrious stars.” She looked toward the room that led to the basement entryway. “I suppose I should go round them up.” She watched the doorway, hoping Don and John would walk through and she wouldn’t have to go get them. She dreaded the thought of going down to the basement. She looked at the doorway for a long time until finally she shook herself. “My God, what is wrong with me?” Lenny looked up. “What?” “Nothing. I’m going to go get them.” She grabbed a flashlight and headed toward the basement. At the top of the stairs, she hesitated, shining the flashlight’s beam down the stairway. “Don? John? You guys still down there?” No answer. She shouted, “Hey! You guys want to come up here and get to work?” No answer. “Shit,” she muttered and began to walk slowly down the steps. Each step creaked louder than the last. At the bottom, she waved the flashlight side to side.

The basement room was large but the darkness made it feel closed in, claustrophobic. She spun slowly in a circle, pointing the flashlight beam in every direction. Her nerves began to get the best of her as she wondered why the two men weren’t answering her calls. It could be a trick. It wouldn’t be the first time one of them had jumped out from the darkness to scare her in an old, creepy house. “If one of you guys jump out at me, I swear I’ll bash you with this flashlight,” she yelled. She walked forward slowly until she noticed footprints in the dust heading down the hallway that was directly ahead. She moved toward the hallway, holding the flashlight in front of her as though it was a shield. About halfway down the hallway, the footprints disappeared into a room off to the right. Judith walked up to the doorway and leaned over to peek in, pointing the flashlight in the room. John was laid out on a table, hands stretched over his head. “Holy Shit, John! What the hell are you doing?” Judith asked, shining the beam around the room, expecting Don to jump out and say “boo”. When John didn’t answer, she shined the light back on him. He was shaking, staring at the ceiling. She stepped closer. “John?” Something wet and dark glistened all over him. “You okay?” Judith didn’t want to take another step. She didn’t want to know what was wrong with John. She wanted to turn around and run up the stairs and run out of the house and jump in the Hummer and drive until she was back home. She wanted to do that more than she had ever wanted anything. “Shit! Shit! Shit!” She walked up to the table and shined the flashlight over John. His wrists were strapped down to the top of the table and his ankles were strapped to the bottom. He was wet, drenched in something. “Oh my god! John is that blood? What happened? Where is Don?” John turned his head to look at her. His eyes were wide. “It was D…Don…” “Don did this? No. No. NO! this can’t be happening.” Judith thought she was going to throw up for a moment, but somehow managed to stop herself. “It’s not … it’s not…” Judith thought she should try to find where the bleeding was coming from, try to stop it, but she couldn’t make herself do that so she started pulling at

117

the thick straps instead. They wouldn’t loosen. “I have to get you loose. What happened, John? What the hell happened?” She couldn’t see how the straps connected or how to loosen them. “… It’s not … Don...” “What do you mean, John? You said it was Don. Did he do this or not?” John shuddered and gasped, and began to spasm uncontrollably. Judith jerked the straps with all of her strength but they still wouldn’t loosen. She stepped back and screamed in frustration. John’s spasms subsided almost as quickly as they started. Even during the worst of it, he didn’t take his eyes off Judith. His expression, which had been one of pleading for help or mercy, changed to resignation. “… It’s the house…” The last word, “house,” ended with an elongated sigh that seemed to go on and on. At the end of it, John had stopped moving, and though his eyes were still locked on Judith, there was no life in them. “This can’t be happening. It can’t be! Please, John, get up. Please let this be a joke. Please. Please. Please.” John didn’t get up or move at all. His eyes were still wide open, still staring at her. She wanted to scream, but Judith put her hand over her mouth and backed away. Noises were coming from the hallway and the basement room. Skittering, shuffling noises. She was afraid to step out into the hallway, but more afraid to stay where she was. She clenched the flashlight. The noises grew closer. She turned and ran down the hallway toward the stairs. The darkness around her pulsated. The stairs seemed so much farther away now. As she ran, Judith waved the flashlight around wildly. No matter where she aimed the beam, something seemed to be moving just at the edge of the light. When she pointed the flashlight in the direction of the movement, it stayed just outside the cone of light. There was a loud crash on her left, and another, and another. And then a crash on her right. She turned the flashlight toward the wall as she ran—the containers on the shelves were falling, one at a time, as though they were being pushed from behind. When they shattered on the floor, it looked as though something was crawling out of them. She didn’t look close enough to find out what it was. She ran faster and leaped onto the stairs, taking them two at a time until she burst from the basement doorway. She ran through the room and toward the

video command center. Lenny was looking at the monitors and gauges, mouth open, backing away. He looked up at Judith as she ran into the room. “What the hell is going on here?” Lenny spread his arms. “Everything just went crazy. Every monitor has movement—infra-red, night vision, thermal—things are … moving, everywhere. And the microphones started hissing, all at once—listen, it’s like they're whispering something. What the hell?” Judith looked at the monitors. Each one was depicting some kind of movement, but it was undefined, just like in the basement when she was seeing things move out of the corner of her eye and just beyond the light. The speakers were producing a sibilant whisper that sounded like words but she couldn’t quite make them out. She grabbed Lenny’s arm. “Lenny, I think John’s dead.” “What? No way!” His face looked thunderstruck. “What are you saying? That can’t be. Where is he? In the basement? We need to get him out of there!” The house began to creak, just like an old house will do in a strong wind. But there was no wind. “What is that?” Jenny pointed the flashlight into the shadows. The creaking became louder and louder and came from every direction. They both looked around, trying to see something, anything. “I don’t know, It’s as though the house is … stretching or something. What about Don?” Lenny had to shout to be heard over the loud creaking. “We have to find him!” he took a step toward the basement. Judith held tightly onto his arm and pulled him back. “Lenny, listen—we are not going into the basement. And, besides, I think John was trying to tell me that it was Don that … hurt him.” “Judith, that’s crazy. We just need to find him. Find them both.” “I don’t think that should be so difficult.” Judith and Lenny both jumped and spun around at the sound of Don’s voice. He was standing behind them. The creaking sounds that had been almost deafening a moment ago had subsided to a constant, more subtle, background noise. Don raised his arms and looked from ceiling to floor and wall to wall, as if to encompass the entire house. Then he looked at Judith and Lenny. “Isn’t this place great?”

he house glowed in the light of a near-full moon. The only sounds in the night came from the

118

house—creaking that sounded like moans, hissing that sounded like whispers, voices of the people inside. There were no other sounds. No birds twittered. No insects buzzed nor crickets chirped nor frogs bleated. No breeze fluttered through the trees. There was nothing. The air around the house seemed void of all life. Dead. “What’s going on, Don?” Judith asked, taking a small step back. “It’s this house! It is magnificent!” Don took a step toward them, gesturing excitedly. Lenny moved so that he was between Don and Judith. “Judith told me that she thought John was dead. Do you know anything about that? Have you seen john?” “John is dead?” Don’s expression was that of genuine concern. “Lenny, I can positively say that John was not dead when I left him.” Lenny turned to Judith. “See? He doesn’t know what you’re talking about. Let’s go get John.” Don laughed. “Oh, I know exactly what she’s talking about, Lenny. John wasn’t dead when I left him, but he was bleeding profusely, nearly done for. Quite frankly, I expected him to last a little longer. Must be the amount of booze he consumed for all those years—thinned his blood so much that it just poured right out of him, almost like water.” Lenny’s mouth dropped. Judith backed away, looking around for something to use as a weapon. Don took another step forward. Lenny raised his hands and squeezed them into fists. “Stay back Don…” “Lenny, don’t you see? This is what we’ve been looking for. This house has it—a presence, a very strong presence. We’ve made contact!” He turned toward Judith, Lenny blocked his way. “It came to me wearing your face, Judith. It knew. It knew how much I’ve wanted you. It knew, even though I buried it so deep. It knew how to get to me, how to get … into me.” He closed his eyes and lifted his hands. The house moaned and whispered with the gesture. “Now I can have you, Judith. Now it’s okay. You’ll see.” He opened his eyes and moved toward her. Lenny put up a hand to push Don away. Don flicked out his own hand and grabbed Lenny’s fingers. There was an audible snap and Lenny grunted, staggering backward. He held his hand, gaping at it with a shocked expression. His fingers were bent back in a way that fingers aren’t supposed to bend. “Lenny, the house has waited a long time for new guests. Please do not insult its hospitality.” He flicked out a hand again, this time slamming his palm into Lenny’s torso. Lenny flew across the room, hit the

floor and slid several feet. He lay there, curled up, gasping for air. Judith backed up until she bumped up against a table. She kept her eyes on Don as she reached back, trying to find something, anything she could use. Her fingers curled around a folded tripod. Don looked at her, head cocked. “I’m so sorry Judith, I really am, but the house is hungry. It’s been so long.” She grabbed the tripod and swung it with all of her strength. It crashed into the side of Don’s head. He stumbled and she swung it again. The impact drove Don backward. She swung again and he fell to his knees. One more time—she brought it down hard on the top of his head. Through her grip on the tripod she felt a crunch and a give, and Don fell on his side. Judith dropped the tripod and ran over to Lenny. “Lenny, are you okay? Can you get up? We have to get out of here.” Lenny groaned and managed to get to his hands and knees, but, as he tried to stand up, he grabbed his chest and sunk back down to his knees. “I think something is broken inside me, Judy.” She helped him to his feet, slung his arm around her neck and started hauling him to the front door. Then the lights went out. “Shit, Lenny!” Judith flicked on the flashlight. “Don’t yell at me! Sounds like the generator died.” “Did you put gas in it”? “Jeez, Judy! I think I know enough to fill up the frickin’ generator! It’s this house. Let’s just get outta here.” As they got closer to the door, something about it looked wrong. Judith stopped. “Lenny, the door is shut.” They stared at the door. “That door was broken and barely hanging on a hinge when we got here,” said Lenny. “Maybe it’s just propped up.” Judith let go of Lenny and walked up to the door. It was solid oak and bore little resemblance to the door they had seen when they first entered. She pushed on it. It was shut tight. She tried the handle. It was locked. Lenny limped up behind her. He kicked the door. It didn’t budge. But he did—he grabbed his ribs and groaned, sinking to the ground. Judith pounded and kicked the door until she was out of breath. She pulled Lenny from the floor. “The windows,” she said. “Let’s go out though one of the windows.” She half-carried Lenny to the nearest window and stopped. The flashlight beam reflected off of a full pane of glass. The window was whole again.

119

“This can not be happening!” Judith spun around. “Lenny, wait here, I’ll get something to break it.” She swung the flashlight around, looking for the tripod. She spotted it a few feet away and walked toward it carefully, moving the flashlight beam from side to side, looking for Don’s body. It should have been lying nearby. But it wasn’t. There was a pool of blood, smeared on the floor as though something had crawled through it, but Don wasn’t there. “No way. No way!” Judith grabbed up the tripod and ran back to the window and Lenny. Lenny backed out of the way as she swung the tripod, shattering the glass. She swept the tripod around the window casing, breaking loose the remaining shards. “I’ll crawl through first and then help you from the other side, okay?” Judith put her hand on the window casing but drew it back with a yelp. A large sliver of glass protruded from her palm. “Goddamn it!” “What is it? What happened?” Lenny looked over her shoulder. “Holy shit! That’s gotta hurt.” “Ya think?” Judith grabbed the glass and yanked it out with a yell. Blood dripped from her hand onto the floor. They both watched the blood as it ran down her hand and through her fingers, dripping onto the floor. Where it … disappeared. They looked at each other and back at the floor. The blood continued to drip and soak into the floor, disappearing without a trace. “Must be the old, dry wood,” Lenny said. “Yeah,” said Judith, “I bet that’s it.” She ripped off the bottom of her shirt, wrapped it around her hand, and checked the window for any glass pieces she may have missed. Satisfied that she wouldn’t impale her hand again, she crawled through the window and waited on the other side as Lenny began to pull himself through. As Lenny leaned through the window with a painfilled grunt, trying to get his knee on the sill, Judith grabbed onto his hand to give him some leverage and support. As she pulled, her eye caught movement behind Lenny. “Hurry up, Lenny,” she said, “we need to get the hell out of here!” Lenny finally got a knee on the sill. Judith pointed the flashlight over his shoulder. Don’s face glistened wetly in the light, a mask of blood with gleaming eyes and a smile under a misshapen head—it was caved in where Judith had hammered it with the tripod. Judith gasped and jumped back, letting go of Lenny’s hand. His knee slipped off the sill and his body landed on the windowsill. He let out a grunt of pain.

“Damn it, Judith! What the hell?” Judith ran back to the window, grabbed Lenny’s hand and started pulling again. “Oh God, Lenny, hurry up!” “Jeez, Judy! You’re hurting me! Stop—“ Lenny jerked. His eyes went wide. Judith pulled harder. Lenny jerked again, or was jerked. Something was pulling him back into the house. “Judy, something’s got my legs!” “It’s Don, Lenny! You have to get loose. Kick! Squirm!” “I’m trying! Pull, Judy! Pull—“ A final jerk and Lenny was yanked from Judith’s grasp. She grabbed up the flashlight, leaned in the window and watched as Don dragged Lenny—kicking, squirming and yelling—without effort, as though he were a small child, across the floor toward the room that led to the basement. Playing the beam across Don’s back, she watched as they disappeared around a corner. Judith stepped back, panting. She didn’t know what to do. The Hummer was waiting, just beyond the overgrown shrubs. There was a spare key in a magnetic box under the driver side rear wheel well. It would be smart to just run away, get in that Hummer and drive as far away from this house as she could get. She crawled back through the window. Picking up the tripod along the way, she ran to the back of the house and stopped at the top of the stairs that led to the basement. Taking a deep breath, she walked slowly down the stairs. Until the screaming started. It sounded like a grunt at first. Then more grunts. The grunts changed in pitch and became screams. Judith stood on the steps, frozen in place, listening as the screams intensified in frequency and pitch. Tears came to her eyes and she began to sob as the screams became one long undulating sound and reached a near impossible pitch and sustained it for what seemed like minutes. Finally, the scream died with a gurgle. Wanting to do nothing more than collapse in frustration and fear, Judith took another step toward the bottom of the stairs. Maybe it wasn’t too late. Maybe she could still get to Lenny and help him out of the house. Maybe they could make their way to the Hummer and get away from this hell house. Maybe they could come back during the day and burn it to the ground. She took another step and then Don appeared at the bottom of the stairs. “Oh Judith, don’t you think it’s time to come on down here and let us have you? I mean really have

120

you…” Judith stepped back and stumbled, falling backward on the steps. Pain lanced through her spine. Don walked up the steps, slowly, deliberately. His unblinking eyes watching her. “…I want to take you Judith. Oh, the things I can do to you. The ways I can touch you…” Judith tried to stand but stumbled again. Don took another step toward her. She began to scramble backwards, keeping her eyes on Don. “…the things I can do to your skin….under your skin…” Judith turned and ran, tripping and stumbling and crawling up the steps. When she reached the top of the stairs, she picked up speed and ran toward the open window. Stopping at the window to look behind her, she stood there panting until Don came walking slowly around the corner. “… you would not believe the ways I can enter you … penetrate you…” Don closed his eyes and moaned, as though he were in the throes of ecstasy. Judith scrambled out the window and ran across the porch, down the stairs and over the dead grass, toward the opening in the overgrown hedge that led to the parked Hummer. Then she stopped in her tacks. Someone was standing there, blocking her way. She couldn’t make out who it was at first. It seemed to be a man, but something gleamed and glistened all over him. He took a step toward her. “Judith, it’s time to join us … we need you…” The moon slid out from behind a cloud. It was John, naked, glistening wetly in the moonlight. Covered in blood. Turning toward another opening in the hedge, Judith ran, pumping her legs as fast as she could. She slowed down, coming to a stop when she saw Don standing in her way. Realizing she still had the tripod in hand, Judith raised it over her head and threw it at Don with as much strength as she could muster. It struck him in his ruined head and he staggered backward. Judith turned toward the hedge, running headlong into it. At first, the old branches cracked and gave way and she passed through them without much trouble. As she ran further into the bramble, the twigs hung on her clothing, plucking and tearing at the fabric. Her pace slowed as she pulled away branches and thorns that ripped her clothes, her skin. She struggled further, but her feet were tangled in roots and barbs gouged her flesh. The hedge seemed to thicken as she moved deeper into it.

Finally, she could go no further. Pierced with thorns and twisted and tangled in the prickly bramble, she jerked and squirmed. Her clothes were in shreds and she bled from hundreds of cuts and scratches. She could see the Hummer, parked a few feet away. Twisting and turning, she managed to look over her shoulder. Don was there, standing just outside the hedge. With him were John and Lenny, both naked and glistening in the silver moonlight. Don smiled widely and walked into the hedge. He moved through the thorns and brambles smoothly, as though a path was made for him. Judith sobbed. She would have sunk to her knees but the hedge held her in place. She felt his hand caress her neck and shivered at his touch. “Come Judith, we have much to do, you and I, before the sun rises.” He grabbed her by the hair and dragged her through the hedge, toward the house. Judith clutched at the branches of the hedge but they slipped through her fingers and tore at her hands. She dug in her heels and reached up to beat her fists on Don’s arm and legs. His pace never slowed, dragging her relentlessly toward the waiting house. John and Lenny fell in behind them. They smiled down at Judith. She screamed, but there was no one to hear.

s the sun peeked over the horizon, a single crow landed on a nearby tree and cocked a beady eye at the house. It stood tall and majestic, bathed in the golden light of the rising sun. Its walls shimmered vividly, displaying a proud coat of white paint. The morning light glittered brightly on the windows, reflecting the glare of the morning light. The grand porch and entryway beckoned, welcoming all to enter through its ornate doors. The lawn and hedge were green and vibrant, almost pulsing with life. Around and behind the house, the trees in the orchard were full of bright, green leaves that rustled slightly in the fresh morning breeze. Young apples, unripe but vividly red, hung from supple branches. The crow screeched, launched itself from the branch and circled the house, watching it with deadblack eyes before it flew off toward the sun. The house, looming imperiously over its surroundings, sat silent and whole again. It waited. __________________________________________ Reality House is Jack Gibson's first published fiction.

121

Visit us on our Web site at www.blackmatrixpub.com, read our blog at blackmatrixpublishingllc.blogspot.com or join us on Facebook (search for Black Matrix Publishing LLC).

On our Web site you will find everything we have published available in print and PDF format, and you can also read samples from each magazine and book.

122

Old Girl by Alex Sivier

While inside a giant alien lifeform, be careful what you touch. ___________________________________________________________

Damon stood in the cockpit of the small ferry,

bathed in the bright orange glow of the cloudscape through which they were flying. He was staring at a dark line on the horizon that sparkled and flashed violently, the trailing edge of a giant storm that was several times larger than earth and more than a thousand miles away. He contemplated the size and power, and felt a shiver run down his back. Piercing sunlight from the nearby white dwarf filtered through gaps in the clouds above, casting strong beams down onto the ocean of puffy shapes below. The door behind him swished open, followed by the sound of boots clumping on metal. The ferryman came over to the window and stood next to him, breathing nosily through his nose. "They're home to over six thousand separate species and counting. Did you know that?" he said. His voice was husky and rough. Damon grimaced. "So I hear," he said dryly. "Plants and animals, a whole ecosystem. Amazing, eh?" "Yes, impressive indeed," said Damon. He usually avoided small talk altogether, especially with someone like the ferryman, but after a month alone on the fully automated cargo ship with only mute robots for company, his tolerance for inanity had increased. The ferryman pressed a button on the console and a small box with information about distance and ETA popped up on the screen, surrounding a tiny speck. "Looks so small like that, doesn't it?" "How big is it?" "Forty two point something something," said the ferryman with a wide grin. "Big old beauty ain't she?" "It's a she?" "Yeah. Big Bertha, I call her. There are far bigger ones you know? I've seen 'em. They say they can top a hundred." "How old is it... is she?" "Don't rightly know. I often chat with the scientists I ferry about, but they don't seem to know themselves. I think the best guess at the moment is at around five kay. I can zoom in if you like." Without waiting for a reply, he tapped a few more buttons and the box expanded to fill the screen. For a moment the image was blurry, a stretched version of the few pixels around the speck, but then the details increased block

by block as the magnifiers and image filters kicked in. Within a few seconds Damon's destination could be seen in very high detail. He stared at the screen. It showed an animal of immense proportions floating several miles above the lower cloud strata. The first people to see them had understandably dubbed them upside-down castles. They were roughly cone-shaped, with a flat top and an irregular underside that tapered down to a point. Enormous gas bladders grew haphazardly out of the base, like blisters, with the largest growing to over eight miles in diameter and the smallest less than a mile. Strange, twisted root-like protrusions grew out from between them, extending down tens of miles to scrape the surface of the thick clouds below as it drifted along, leaving a seemingly static wake. "So I guess you aren't a scientist," said the ferryman. "If you were, you would know a lot more about the place where you're going." "No, I'm not a scientist," replied Damon, drawing out the last word as if it had a nasty taste. "I'm a governmental official. I'm going there to check that those scientists aren't doing anything... unsavory." "Unsavory? Like what?" Damon didn't reply, he just continued to stare at the screen. The alienness, the sheer grotesqueness of the behemoth made his skin itch and his stomach churn. He tried and failed to grasp its magnitude. And he was going to have to enter it. He wanted to throw up. The ferryman continued. "People come and go so often. I used to try to remember everybody's name, polite like, but after a while you all start to look the same, know what I mean? No offense mate." Damon was about to ignore the ferryman again when the light changed, suddenly growing slightly dimmer. It was a subtle change, and he wondered if it was just a screen readout changing or a cloud rolling overhead. He blinked and the room grew lighter again. He was just about to comment on it when a siren began wailing. The ferryman dived to his chair, spewing profanities and jabbing his fingers at the flashing screen. "Don't just bloody stand there," he shouted. "Strap in. This ain't gonna be no joyride." Damon faltered for a few seconds and then scurried over to one of the eight seats that lined the back of the

123

cabin. He jumped in, hastily pulled the harnesses across his body and secured them tightly. Then he wrapped his fingers around the harness bar. It was not a moment too soon. The ship banked to the left, then straightened out and pitched down. Damon felt his stomach exploring the inside of his body and he didn't like it at all. Through the small port window, he saw the clouds stretching off into the horizon, the parallel planes of the upper and lower cloud layers spinning and rolling as the ship banked violently. He took deep breaths and fixed his eyes on a scuffed rivet in the flooring, trying to will his stomach back down. "What the hell is going on?" he screamed over the wail of the siren and the cursing of the ferryman. The siren stopped abruptly and the sudden lack of noise hit Damon like a slap to the face. "We're being chased." "Chased? By what?" "By that!" screamed the ferryman, pointing to the left. Damon's eyes caught sight of a large dark mass out of the window. It took a while for his eyes to focus on it and even longer for his brain to register its magnitude. It looked like an enormous worm flying through the air. A long brown cylinder, with a flattened tail and several thin fins protruding from various parts of its body. It was turning sharply and heading toward them. As it came closer its enormous mouth opened wide and Damon caught a glimpse of hundreds of rows of teeth lining the inside of the gaping hole. The ship spun wildly. On the screen that showed the rear view he saw the creature snapping its oval mouth shut, just behind the tail of the ship. "Chew on this, bitch," said the ferryman, slamming his hand down on the panel. After a short delay, there was a blinding flash all around the ship, whiting out all the view-screens and view-ports. Damon was dazed. He blinked several times and jammed his knuckles into his eyes, seeing nothing but green and yellow patterns swirling around his retinas. When he opened his eyes and was able to focus again, the ship was flying steady and the ferryman was already unbuckling. "You okay," he grunted, moving across the room to check on his passenger. Damon's eyes were streaming and his stomach was still spinning. "I think I'm going to throw up," he said. The ferryman laughed and said, "Go right ahead. Most do." Damon didn't throw up, but he remained in his seat, trying not to think about the sickening feeling that was creeping up his throat. "That was too close," he said softly and carefully.

"Oh that's nothing. I got swallowed once. Had to blast my way out with nukes and thrusters. Wasn't pretty I can tell you. They couldn't bite through this hull of course, but their stomach acid ain't half strong." "What was it?" "That, my friend, was a shark," said the ferryman. He tapped a few buttons and the main view-screen changed to an image of the creature with half of its head missing. The damaged area was a charred mess, still flaming, and leaving a trail of smoke and sparkling embers as it fell in slow motion towards the clouds below. "That's a pretty big shark." "That's what we call 'em, but there ain't never been no mile-long sharks back home." Damon turned back to the screen and watched as the dead shark fell closer to the clouds. Just before it got to them, they began shifting and swirling in a large vortex just below the creature. He watched in awe as a huge gaping mouth, at least ten miles in diameter, rose up through the clouds, clamped down around the shark and then sunk back down out of sight. The whole episode took more than fifteen minutes.

ell, good luck mate," said the ferryman. "The scientists say they're sorry they can't come to meet you, but apparently they're in the middle of a very important experiment." "It's okay," said Damon insincerely. He exhaled slowly and hid his clenched fists behind his back. These scientists were all the same. Their heads filled with impractical nonsense. Bastards, he thought. "I'm sure I'll be just fine." "It's a two mile hike to base camp," said the ferryman. "Just follow the trail and you'll be all right. It'll take you right to 'em." "I can't wait," said Damon. The ferryman offered his hand. Damon looked down his nose at it for a second but then remembered that he would be relying on the man for a lift back. He slapped a false grin on his face and shook the other man's hand weakly. "Thanks for the ride, my friend," he said through the smile, trying to remember to use his eyes too. The ferryman smiled back, and then slapped the airlock door open. Damon stepped into the tiny room and placed the goldfish bowl-like helmet over his head. "Oh, and remember..." said the ferryman, trailing off, clearly expecting Damon to turn around to listen to whatever it was he wanted to say. Damon couldn't be bothered to move in his bulky suit so he just

124

gripped the handrails and stared at the outer door. The ferryman continued, "I have to take some tourists to the rings from now. So I won't be back for at least a week." "I'm sure I can handle it," said Damon. The airlock door closed with a swish. Then the air hissed around him and he felt his suit tighten and squeak as the air pressure inside the chamber equalized with that outside the ship. The outer door slid open and the bright orange vista was revealed before him. He felt another wave of nausea spread through his body and moisten his mouth. His ears popped. "Never again," he said quietly to himself.

he surface of the creature was shiny and slightly iridescent, shimmering with greens and purples not native to the golden atmosphere. Damon stepped out onto it, expecting it to be soft and squishy, and was therefore surprised when his boot clunked against it like plastic on plastic. He planted both feet firmly on the creature. Then he felt a slight waft of air pulling him backwards as the ship behind him backed off. Slowly, and with tiny cautious steps, he turned around and saw the ship drifting away. His stomach squeezed even tighter. There was a large hummock not far from where he was standing. He followed the crude painted arrows and dotted lines toward it. On the other side he found that it was an opening, rounded like a large cave entrance, with stringy flaps of mucous blowing in the perpetual breeze that blasted out of it. His lips curled back in disgust. He was going to have to enter by way of this giant nostril. He checked his radio. There was no signal at all, not even a beacon. There was only static on all the predefined communications frequencies. He even tried the unofficial and illegal frequencies, but found nothing. Bastards! He began shouting into his microphone, requesting, pleading and then demanding to be acknowledged. He jumped as a nearby flock of creatures took flight. They flew through the air with ungainly, laborious flapping. Each one looked like four turquoise triangles tied together with short wires. How they managed to fly was anyone's guess. The flock wheeled in a wide circle and then landed back where they had originally taken flight. Still cursing, he moved closer to the hole and felt a blast of air. He leaned into it, holding his arms out and controlling his surface area to keep himself steady. With the wind blowing harder and harder, he stepped into the orifice and tried to ignore the flecks

of mucous that splashed on his helmet and dribbled backwards. The tunnel curved downward sharply and the insides were slick with mucous. There was a yellow glow coming from just over the bend. He leaned forward further with the flow of air counteracting his weight, wondering what he would do next. Just then, he noticed a large metal hook set into the skin of the interior wall, and what looked like a rope leading from it down into the tunnel. It was barely visible under a thick coating of slime. He turned his body to move across to it but the sudden change in surface area with respect to the airflow made him stumble forward. The movement jerked his body round sharply and the wind whipped his legs out from under him. He landed hard on the slimy floor and then plummeted down into the slick hole.

e hadn't asked for this assignment. It had been thrust upon him for political reasons. To get him out of the way while the new revolution was still settling. He would make them pay when he returned. His father would not stand for it if he knew. He didn't even know why they kept these scientists. They had no place in the new order. They should have been left to rot on this godforsaken moon. But the powers that be see value in their work. Where there is knowledge, there is power. Resources cannot be wasted, even if they don't quite fit the ideology. This planet could become a goldmine, if only it could be exploited properly. A hub for all traffic out here. A strategic base opening up the whole of the system. And these monsters held the key to that power. Damon ground his teeth at the thought. He tumbled and spun down the vent, fast and slow, crashing against the soft inner surfaces and bouncing from side to side. The only light came from small yellow bulbs, hanging from hooks that pierced the fleshy walls every few dozen feet. Several times he caught the knotted rope, but it was slick with slime and slid through his stiff, gloved fingers. He crashed and bounced for several minutes before landing on a pliant, sticky floor. Looking around, he found himself in a small chamber with twelve tunnels leading out. Air was flowing into the chamber through the eleven small tunnels and leaving through the large one above him, the one he had fallen from. Large black finger-length hairs protruded from the walls, which were bony and ridged and coated in dull waxy grime. He checked his radio again. Nothing. He had been

125

warned that communications were difficult here, but they could at least have set up some relay boxes. Yet another thing to rant about in his damning report. All of the tunnels were dark except one, which was lit by another string of yellow bulbs. He could only see about twenty feet down the tunnel whereupon it turned sharply to the right. Before entering it he checked his internal and external sensors. Everything looked OK so he got on hands and knees and started crawling. The floor of the passage was slimy and slightly inclined so, despite the wind blowing against him, it didn't take much effort to proceed. He half crawled, half slid his way through the twisting tunnel, following it for about fifteen minutes until it dropped down into a larger corridor. He stood up and stretched. The breeze was now barely perceptible, gently swirling some vague wisps of mist that gathered around his feet. He looked down the silent tunnel. Both directions had a string of bulbs and there were no signs or markers. He tried his radio again, not expecting a response. Then he decided to take the path that had the fewest adjoining tunnels, figuring on there being less chance of getting lost. He walked for about ten minutes, trying his radio repeatedly. Despite the corridor being very straight and well lit, it had become difficult to see more than a few dozen feet ahead due to a pale gray fog that was progressively closing in, and which seemed distinctly separate from the thickening layer of mist at his feet. Just as he was thinking about backtracking, a sudden burst of garbled speech crackled in his ear. It was so loud and unexpected that it actually made him fall over. He cursed again and got to his feet, brushing some of the filth off his white suit, before continuing down the tunnel. He checked other frequencies but got just more of the same random bursts. He was getting closer.

fter a few more minutes of walking he began to get anxious about the increasingly thick mist below him. Not only was it growing more opaque, but it was also getting higher, coming almost up to his knees. As he turned the next corner he felt something crunch beneath his boots. He looked down and waved his foot from side to side, wafting the mist around. For a brief moment the cloudy layer parted enough for him to see a ground covered in long shiny black creatures, writhing over each other like eels. Between them, twisted crab-like things snatched them up in oversized claws, crushing them with powerful grips and pulling out the insides with smaller dexterous appendages and stuffing them into their tiny mouths.

Damon held onto the crude hand rail that ran along one side of the chamber and began stepping carefully over the worms. They crunched beneath his boots and flailed over his his toes, feebly slapping against his lower legs. Sometimes they would start to climb up his suit and he hastily slapped them away with a guttural moan and a shiver.

resently he came to a chamber filled with lights, cameras and other scientific equipment. The mist had substantially thinned and the pale pink walls throbbed and hummed. On one side was a small creature, about the size of a soccer ball, with a long tentacle or tail that was coiled up on the floor beneath the body. It's large suction-cup mouth stuck it to the wall, a small trickle of blood bubbling around the seal of the creature's lips. Heading for the tunnel entrance on the other side of the chamber, he edged his way around the wall opposite the parasite. As he stepped over some boxes, his boot hit a camera tripod, sending it toppling into a stack of processor boards. There was a small shower of sparks and a noticeable flicker of the lights. Suddenly the creature's tentacle began flailing in the air. It lashed out at Damon and struck his arm with surprising force, almost breaking his wrist. He grabbed an old air-scrubber rod that had been resting against the soft wall to use as a shield. The tentacle slapped against it, chipping off paint and sending shock waves through the metal up to Damon's arms. Eventually he was able to pin the tentacle on the floor under his boot. He lifted the rod above his head and slammed it down on the parasite. There was a sickening squelchy crack, and the tentacle flailed frantically, escaping from his grasp. Before it could do any more damage, he slammed the rod down onto the creature again and again. Crimson blood spurted and dribbled from the splintered sphere and the tentacle went limp. Damon dropped the rod and wobbled on his feet, then surprised himself by chuckling. He stared at the blood oozing from the wounded creature. It was beautiful and mesmerizing. Then suddenly the creature fell off the wall in a shower of blood and spasmed. Damon shrieked and blundered out of the chamber. For several minutes he lay in the dim corridor, panting hard with eyes clenched tight. Then there was another burst of garbled speech, but this time he was able to make out some words like 'section' and 'doctor'. He pulled himself to his feet and shuffled down the tunnel.

126

He soon came to a junction, where five tunnels

met. The string of lights divided and continued down two of them. He cursed and was wondering which one to follow when he heard a loud hiss from one of the unlit tunnels. Four shiny green eyes appeared above a snarling, toothed mouth. As Damon backed away slowly, the creature skulked forward, emerging into the light. It was about the size of a large dog, but half of its body was mouth. It rose up on four muscular legs and hissed again, its jaw swinging open from somewhere down in the belly to reveal a gaping maw comparable to that of a twenty foot crocodile, with teeth as long and thick as human fingers. As it advanced, its veined semi-translucent gray skin slid over bulging sinuous muscle. Damon moved away with greater urgency until his heel caught on a bony ridge and he fell backward, landing hard. He heard the worrying sound of smashing glass. The creature pounced, mouth wide open. Damon's feet flailed in the air, and a lucky thrash of his foot collided with the creature's nose, giving it just enough push to send it flying past him, into the wall. It bounced off and sprang to its feet, ready to pounce again. By this time Damon was already stumbling blindly through the tunnels screaming for help. When he wasn't shouting, his heavy breathing was picked up by his microphone and fed back into his ears like pulsing static. Behind him he heard the snarl of the creature as it lunged out of the chamber into the tunnel. He could also feel its heavy footfalls on the soft tissue beneath his feet. The creature sprang at him and landed on his back, biting into the backup life support system and pushing him forward. His foot slipped on something wet and he fell flat onto his face, bouncing and spinning on the spongy, angled floor. The downward curve of the tunnel grew steeper and his bounces gained energy as he tumbled like a rag doll. He bounced several more times, sometimes landing on bouncy, springy material and other times colliding with hard ridges of bone and cartilage. Finally, he crashed down on a solid horizontal surface and stopped. Battered and shaken, he lay on the ground, too exhausted to be scared any more. Something tapped on his helmet. Slowly he opened his eyes and looked up. In front of his faceplate was a large white boot, splattered and caked with dark brown stains. Then he felt a strong hand grabbing his elbow and pulling him to his feet. "There you are, we were beginning to get worried," said a voice, soft and deep. "You can take your helmet off now."

Damon stood up and looked at the scientist. The large man was wearing a white tight-fitting jumpsuit and a wide smile. He had a couple of days worth of gray stubble on his chin and head, and unnaturally gleaming eyes. "Where the hell were you?" screamed Damon. "I almost died!" "Calm down," said the scientist without losing his smile. "Yeah, sorry. Our communicators don't work too well down here, we have to use much lower frequencies. Didn't they tell you about that?" "No, they didn't," said Damon through clenched teeth. His eyes narrowed as he glared at the scientist. The man's face was pock-marked and greasy, with sweat pouring down his temples. "Oh well, you're here now. No harm done." Damon's face turned bright red and he was about to let loose, when he checked himself and consciously relaxed his body. He paused, closed his eyes and took several deep breaths. "Can we get on with it?" he said finally, softly and calmly. "Don't you want to rest first?" "I need a shower," he said. Then he sighed and leaned against the waxy wall. "Just give me a minute."

he two men were standing in a large chamber filled with science terminals and data screens. It was the main control center of the operation and housed most of the computer banks needed to monitor and process all aspects of the creature. On one side of the room there was an enormous valve, which opened and closed every few seconds, sending annoyingly powerful puffs of air through. It was making Damon feel even more queasy. The scientist had assured him that people became accustomed to it very quickly and that he hardly even noticed it any more. However, Damon had no intention of being around long enough for that. "So, how exactly do I get to the section of living quarters from here? Isn't there someone who can guide me?" "It's okay. You can follow another of the exhaust vents, one that leads down. But make sure you stick to the path. There are tubes that lead to the exterior and you sure don't want to fall from this Old Girl. We lost someone once. A member of the original exploration party. Poor woman. It's a long way down you know. She fell for a terrifying twelve hours before the increasingly painful pressure overcame her suit. I was one of the ones who talked to her until she was out of range. It will haunt me until I die." "Why are you telling me this?"

127

"I'm just saying, be careful you don't go wandering off on your own while you're here. Stick to the areas with lights. This is a very dangerous place, both the ship itself as well as some of the indigenous parasites that live in her." Damon thought back to the creatures he had encountered. He really didn't want to see any more of the fauna in this place. He just wanted to finish his report and get the hell back home. "You really don't need to tell me that," he said. The scientist smiled and laid a gloved hand on Damon's back. "I'm sure I don't." Damon moved to the other side of the chamber and studied a holographic schematic of the creature he was in. The creature's form was represented by a thin pink translucent shell. Inside it was a complex branching structure in blue, like veins, that he discovered was a map of the internal ducts and tunnels. The green hot-spots were organs with their functions being displayed alongside arrows and graphs. "Amazing creatures, aren't they?" said the scientist, coming over to stand beside him. "Did you know they mate for life? We have a joke that females are the biggest romantics in the universe." "Just the females? What, are the males unfaithful or something?" asked Damon, not really caring but feeling like he had to say something. "Oh no, the males are just as faithful," said the scientist with a smirk. "It's just that they're not quite as big. They mate for life you see; can't live without each other. It's all terribly romantic." "Yes, yes. I'm sure it is," said Damon, managing to sound as bored as possible without actually yawning. "Have you ever heard of a thing called 'sexual parasitism'?" Damon shook his head. "It's quite common among deep sea fishes. It's also found in butterflies, frogs and a few other species. It's where the male exists as a tiny parasite, attached to the female for the rest of its life, feeding from her blood and in return providing her with stuff she needs." The man paused to tap the data screen a few times, bringing up various schematics, graphs and information boxes regarding the floating island.

"You see, it's a very lonely, solitary life for these behemoths," he continued. "They soar through the sky, sifting the atmosphere for microscopic organisms to feed on, much like the blue whales that once graced earth's oceans. They can go for decades or even centuries without meeting another of their species. When they do, they exchange sons, male larvae. These are then fed into the wombs, where they make their way inside the developing daughters. So, the infants are born already mated you see. They really do mate for life. It's a brilliant strategy." The scientist's face was bright and his eyes were wide. "What do you mean 'parasite'? What exactly does the male look like?" asked Damon, suddenly interested, his voice weak and unsteady. "Come on, I'll show you. It's just back this way. You probably missed it on your way in, it's only the size of a football." He tapped the screen on his wrist a few times and brought up a picture of the male. Damon's legs grew numb and he quickly sat down. He fumbled with the suit-controls on his wrist. His face was hot and sweat poured into his eyes. "And what would happen if the male died?" he asked nervously. "That would be a very bad thing. You see, the female relies on the male for much more than sperm. The little guy also produces necessary enzymes and acids. He is an essential organ, like a gland. Without him, the female would die within hours." The scientist gave a little giggle. "The female's gas sacs are continually inflated. If the Old Girl died, she'd take us all to hell with her. There wouldn't even be time for an evac." Just then there was a slight tremor and somewhere in the distance an alarm began wailing. The lights flickered and changed to dim red. Damon stared at the other man, lip trembling, and shook his head solemnly. The blood and smile drained from the scientist's face. He glared at Damon. "What did you do?" he hissed. __________________________________________ Alex Sivier has previously sold stories to Continuum SF magazine and Arkham Tales.

128

Leviathan

by Lawrence Buentello Sometimes it takes a good push from the dark side to commit an act of revenge. ___________________________________________________________

Koestler

stepped from the bus and found his luggage. He stared for a moment at the other passengers as they struggled with their bags, lost in thought. He had come a long way to Seattle and a peculiar weariness had settled in his muscles; beyond the depot a light rain fell, obscuring the buildings of the city, but Koestler had been there before and had no need to see the architecture. When he turned into the terminal he found the dark man waiting for him. “Did you have a pleasant journey?” the man asked. “No, not really,” Koestler said, lifting his suitcase. He turned again and stared from the large windows. The dreary sky threw drops on the glass, and he stared at the runnels with interest. He knew the scientific theory behind their mechanics, but thought the experience more esthetically pleasing without the burden of certain knowledge. “I had too much time to think about things.” “Action is eloquence,” the dark man said. “At least, for your present business.” The man was dressed in a heavy black coat and boots, his face obscured by a dense black beard. His skin was pale, but the deep black of his hair and beard darkened his expression. Still, Koestler thought he was a beautiful man; his eyes were almost silver, though perhaps they were only a deeper shade of gray; his nose was a perfect right angle, and his teeth were of one perfect white carving. He was as beautiful a man as could be created by something that was not a man, but understood the mechanics of human beings almost as much as God. And his hands were as graceful and delicate as the finest musician’s, a trait Koestler found himself admiring in spite of his envy. Such hands could create beautiful things. Such hands should create beautiful things, if they were not corrupted in their spirit by the heart that gave them life. “I haven’t decided yet,” Koestler said abruptly. The dark man stared at him for a moment, perhaps assessing his seriousness, before breaking out into amused laughter. Koestler ignored him and studied the rain. “Your body knows more than your mind,” he said as his laughter subsided. “It’s taken you from one city to another because it knows that proximity is the key. You are here because she is here.” “You must help me,” Koestler said as he turned

from the window. “Haven’t I been a friend to you?” That much was true; since he had first met the dark man in a bar in Oakland he was never at a loss for company. Sometimes the man would stay by his side for days at a time, and other times he would appear for a moment and then vanish. It was an unnerving experience, but Koestler could expect nothing different. He had no control over the man, after all, and couldn’t hope to understand his methods. But he was Koestler’s companion, and when he did appear Koestler felt less alone in the world, and far more fulfilled. The paradox of the effect was obvious to him, but it was a real phenomenon. Koestler nodded and stared away. He could never hold the vision of that beautiful face for long. It was as if he was looking into another reality— “What will you do?” the dark man asked. “I’ll find a room,” Koestler said. “Then I’ll find her.” “And then?” “And then you’ll help me.” “In what way?” “You know what I intend to do,” Koestler said. His hands closed into fists. “It’s just a matter of how to do it.” “You know the limitations of our relationship,” the dark man said. “I can only help you see clearly enough within yourself to understand the reasons why you must act.” “I know.” “Ad hominem, my friend. Amor caecus est.” “I don’t understand.” “What a piece of work is man, in action, how like an angel!” “You only confuse me when you speak that way.” The dark man smiled grimly, perhaps the victim of his own sardonic estimation of humanity, though Koestler wondered if he wasn’t the object of derision. So many times the man’s words reverberated from history, once Plato, then Nietzsche, then Shakespeare, but always in a manner that perplexed Koestler and caused him to wonder if he was only playing the fool. He wasn’t a man of letters, he was a scientist. Perhaps the dark man knew this and couldn’t help amusing himself at Koestler’s expense. But these references gave a strange authority to his speech, a circumstance Koestler found paradoxically reassuring.

129

“There will be time for further discussion,” the dark man said. “We’ve only begun to explore the parameters of this particular truth.” Then the man turned, walked slowly from the depot and into the street. He vanished strangely within Koestler’s field of vision, first transforming into a light pole, then a thin tree struggling to rise from the cement, then a pigeon moving fearlessly through the crowd; he may have even become the rain. Koestler turned away from these intimations of mysticism and studied the city beyond the terminal. Yes, he would find a room. Then he would find her. And only then would he know if the dark man’s friendship was as true and perfect as the hatred in his heart.

rom the window of his hotel room he could easily see the Space Needle standing tall against the sky. He and Alaina had dined in the restaurant high above the city years ago when they were first seeing each other. Those were much happier times. Those were times of love, and sharing, and sensual pleasures made unique by the way they felt about each other. In those days he knew the entire map of his life, the paths they would travel together, the experiences they would share. But she had burned that map to ashes when she left him. And was it because he neglected her? Abused her? Ignored her needs? No, it was as simple as adultery. Perhaps there was just too much temptation at the university for her to resist the experience. She had laughed off the ethical implications of having a relationship with a student and kept her secret from Koestler until the day she moved in with her youthful lover. Though that infatuation didn’t last, she apparently never once thought of returning to him. She’d had a taste of new passion and knew where to feed her hunger for it. In his humiliation—a humiliation made profound by the endless gossiping of the faculty and staff at the university—he found a renewed love for alcohol and an abiding hatred for the woman he once loved without condition. Koestler sat on the edge of the bed counting the money in his wallet—a thousand dollars in one hundred dollar bills. Certainly enough to pay for a lengthy visit, but that wasn’t his intention. The money was to buy a weapon, a gun or knife. He knew where the right pawnshops were located; he had lived in the city for twenty years before leaving for Oakland. He couldn’t remain in Seattle, after all; she had stolen the city from him, too. She had stolen his life. Now all he had in his life was a mediocre position at a secondrate school and a continuing series of solitary nights

spent drinking his anger into a dormant state. Unfortunately, his anger returned every morning to begin the cycle anew. He closed the wallet and wondered if he should have entertained the idea of killing her at all. What would it accomplish but providing him with a momentary sensation of retribution? Certainly the police would know who killed her. Wouldn’t the loss of his personal liberty simply be the last thing she would take from him? “Nihil ad rem,” the dark man said. Koestler stared up from his hands. The man sat in the chair by the balcony, one leg crossed over the other, his perfectly manicured hands folded together. In the lamplight his hands shone like pearl. “I don’t want to go to prison,” Koestler said. “I’d want to enjoy my life after she was gone. How could I possibly do that from a prison cell?” “My friend, sometimes you amaze me. You’re an educated man and possess a fine scientific mind. Prisons are built for thugs who cannot think beyond their animal desires and needs, who have no intellectual resources to guide them through their peregrinations. But you have the ability to avoid such institutions if you plan properly.” “How so?” “She will die at the hands of a common thief. At least, you will carefully arrange her death to appear as if that is the case.” “My involvement will seem obvious.” “No weapon will be found, no evidence other than what a common thief would leave behind. You’ve traveled here using false identification, you’ve altered your appearance, you’ve done everything an intelligent man would think to do. The authorities would have no reason to suspect your involvement.” Koestler laughed. “They’ll lock me away.” The dark man grinned. He spread his hands in the air. “Every evil has its good.” Koestler wondered what good had come of Alaina’s sin. Certainly nothing good had happened to him as a result. “What good will come of my evil?” he said. “At the very least you’ll know that the woman who ruined your life has had her life ruined in kind.” “There’s a difference between being miserable and being dead.” “Is there really?” At this the dark man couldn’t help but laugh, a raucous laughter that froze every nerve in Koestler’s body until it subsided.

130

“How did it feel knowing your wife was having another man while you believed she was still your loving companion? How did it feel when you finally realized that your entire life together was a ridiculous lie? That she’d used your naiveté against you? How much hatred did you feel in that moment? Was it enough to kill the woman a thousand times over? I’m willing to wager that hatred still lives in your thoughts every day of every week of every year of your life.” Koestler lowered his head and breathed deeply against the pain of his memories. He had been obsessed with revenge, and now that the moment was near he was proving himself a coward. “Quaere verum,” the man said. “You don’t fear prison, my friend.” “No?” Koestler said without looking up. “Then why am I afraid?” “You hold the hope in your heart that she still loves you and will take you back into her life.” Koestler, startled by the accusation, lifted his head. “That’s not true.” “Isn’t it?” Koestler closed his eyes. That the dark man knew his secret desire was too embarrassing for him to face. “It’s possible,” he said. “Her feelings may have changed over time.” “You’ll never know that victory. Even though she left you she still controls the little life that remains in you. Your delusions are typical, but with foundation. But she doesn’t love you and never will. Could she have loved you and still hurt you so deeply? That’s the only reality you have to base your actions on. Yes?” Koestler nodded without opening his eyes. “It’s good to talk these things over,” the dark man said. “Whoever strives for clarity is the master of his destiny.” Then it was done—the last hope he had embraced to have her back in his life was only a foolish daydream, a vestige of the blind devotion she used to deliver so much pain to him in the first place. The veil against killing her was drawn by his weakness, his own irrational hope. But the rational argument had been made in his mind long ago, despite his intrusive feelings. At least the dark man had helped him to see this before he lost any more time to self-indulgent fantasies. When he opened his eyes again the man was gone. After a moment Koestler removed the folder of papers from his bag and began organizing his notes.

he lived in an apartment building off TwentyFifth Avenue, closer to the university than the downtown area, but she made frequent trips to the

coffee shops and boutiques. Koestler followed her around the city for a couple of days, noting her habits, her contacts, her preferences when she wasn’t working. He hesitated following her onto the university grounds. Though he dressed casually and had grown a beard, he feared someone on campus might recognize him. Only after buying a pair of sunglasses and a cap did his reflection seem anonymous enough to him to allow him to walk across the campus with impunity. He sat in the misting rain watching the building where she held her classes. Then he followed her to her car and watched her drive away. Later, after arriving at her apartment building, he stood across the street staring up at her window. He thought that seeing her again would intensify his anger, but being so close to her seemed to have the opposite effect. Instead of stoking his hatred, the sight of her only reminded him of the love he felt for her all those years ago. She was still beautiful; she still wore her hair in long blonde waves that fell over her shoulders, possessed the same disarming smile, and moved through the world as if the world could do nothing but respond to her most intimate expectations. This was the woman with whom he had shared his home, his bed, his life, and she still radiated an aura that shone through him and innervated his heart. On his third day in the city Koestler sat in the coffee house across from his hotel. He watched the pedestrians passing by in front of the bay window, dressed in light jackets and coats, and wondered why he ever thought he had the resolve to kill his ex-wife. His nights in the hotel room were spent remembering his marriage—their wedding, their daily rituals, their sensual play, all the things about their relationship that made him feel so positive about life. He had certainly known the pleasures of paradise before being cast out of the garden. And there was something else he had recently realized—that he had known her predilections the entire time, her spontaneity, her capricious personality. He had accepted these qualities, as difficult as they were to accept at times, as the price of having her love. He picked up his coffee cup and stared pensively into the black liquid. His anger had faded into selfpity, or at the very least a painful sensation accompanying the knowledge that he had been his own worst enemy. “You’re acquiring an appetite for being alone.” Koestler stared up from his coffee and saw the dark man sitting on the opposite side of the table. “I don’t understand.” “Alone with your thoughts,” the man said. “But in

131

solitude we are least alone.” “You’re quoting someone again. I wish you’d cite your sources.” “Humanity is my only source. The rest is animal nature and the slow erosion of the mantle.” Koestler smiled at the remark. It appealed to his concept of creation. “Solitude allows me to think more clearly.” “Second thoughts too often find a place in solitude.” “It’s just the opposite,” he said. “When I’m alone I can’t help fostering my hatred for her. But when I’m near her, near enough to see her, to almost touch her, I feel only the loss of our love.” “You’re assuming that she actually loved you at one time.” He closed his mouth and ground his teeth. “Res ipsa loquitur,” the dark man said. He touched his beard thoughtfully, then bowed his head. “Love is pure and impure, my friend. What was pure for you was only a masquerade for her.” “How can you be so sure?” “How can you not be? The evidence leaves no doubt for argument.” “It’s a matter of interpretation.” “It was your own interpretation.” “I may have been mistaken.” “After all these years she still has the power to turn you into an apologetic coward. And with only a glance?” Koestler shook his head and stared down at his cup. He was an objectively thinking man wrestling with emotional angels. If only the world functioned according to precise equations— “The same power that she used to humiliate you is now causing you to turn away from the thing you’ve come to do.” “A man just can’t turn off his feelings.” “Where has your righteous anger gone?” “I don’t know,” he said. He set the cup down when he noticed his hand trembling. “How can I know which emotions are the ones I really feel? Is it love or hate?” “Don’t torture yourself. It’s not your emotions that must be judged. You gave her your love unconditionally and she gave you her spite. You supported her and she let you fall. You gave her your life and she burned it on a pyre of deceit. Her emotions are the ones you need to judge, not your own.” “I was as much to blame for our relationship. I had my eyes closed to her flirtations. I rationalized away her sudden trips. I did everything a man would do who was desperate to preserve his pleasures.”

“I will agree that you were a fool to close your eyes to her conduct, but it wasn’t all your own decision.” Koestler shook his head. “Of course it was.” “No,” the dark man said. “You’re an educated man and yet you’re behaving like a schoolboy. Supposition is fleeting, but equations are for eternity. Women have been playing the same game against men since the first humans rose in this world. She used her sex against you.” “That’s a pretty simplistic equation. Our marriage was about more than just sex.” The man laughed musically. It was a pretty sound in the midst of the city noise. The sarcasm behind it raised Koestler’s eyebrows in interest. “For a man of science you know little about the human condition. Every religious text speaks of a woman’s power to deceive. And why? Because of the sexual equation. It’s the only natural weapon human beings possess. Of course, the tragedy is that only half the species possesses it. Men may control through violence, but women control through sex. The social implications should be obvious to you. A man’s desire leads him to covet the fulfillment of that desire, and a woman inevitably holds the key to that fulfillment.” “That’s a generalization.” “Is it really? Tell me, what first motivated you to pursue your ex-wife? Was it love or lust?” “That’s not a fair question.” “Only because the answer is obvious. You desired to possess her first, and then you began to love her. But it was your desire for her, for her body, for her acquiescence that motivated you to pursue her.” Koestler said nothing. “And once you had what you desired you would do anything to keep what you possessed.” “I would have done anything to keep her love.” “The terminology is unimportant. Only the equation is constant. Tell me, how long after acquiring tenure did she wait before having an affair? A month? Perhaps less?” “That was incidental,” he said. But of course he didn’t believe it. No, after he had called in every favor he owned to have the Board of Regents grant her permanent status she repaid his efforts by celebrating with the first undergraduate who responded to her invitation. He submitted his letter of resignation shortly after the divorce became final. He just couldn’t teach in the same institution where she would be; seeing her every day would have been unbearable. “Quod vide. Our bliss depends on what we blame. So, too, our misery. But the blame is hers, surely you’re not blind enough to the circumstances of your relationship to deny the facts.”

132

“The facts?” “That she is a sexual being, so sexual that even now when you close your eyes you think of her touch, her body moving over yours, her hair brushing your face as she moved over you. These were the rewards she gave you when you did as she asked, these were the pleasures that motivated you to fulfill her every wish. The new clothes, the jewelry, the new car. A tenured position in the university from which you should have retired. But when she didn’t need you anymore the rewards ceased, the pleasure vanished from you like rain in a desert. And now you’re sitting in the wreckage of your life excusing her conduct because you desperately want to hold on to the belief that in some way she really loved you, when all she really wanted was to take as much of your life from you as possible before leaving you.” Koestler closed his eyes to the vision of the dark man. He didn’t want to hear any more about his own stupidity. The man’s words brought back the anger in his heart, the fury at having been played for a monumental fool. He ground his teeth again, his hands closing tightly around the coffee cup. “Marriage is a tomb for love,” the dark man said. “Especially when a woman is digging the grave. She calculated every seduction for its return and nothing more. The evil of women is legendary, my friend, and greater men than you have fallen by the way. Those too weak to do anything but beweep their outcast state die meekly. But those strong enough to take back the dignity stolen from them are the men who triumph over the evil committed against them.” “Am I a strong man?” Koestler asked. “If you show yourself to be.” When Koestler opened his eyes the dark man was gone again. He spent the rest of the afternoon studying the rain and analyzing the many deceptions within his marriage to Alaina. By nightfall he had surrendered every desire to rewrite the history of their love.

oestler sat in the shadows of the alley with his knees drawn up to his chest, the canvas bag at his side, his gloved hands holding his legs against himself. A foul smelling dumpster hid him from the few people passing by the building; he was surrounded by garbage and filth, but he felt paralyzed, unable to move away, unable to move up to her apartment or run back to his hotel room in disgrace. He had spent the previous day timing her schedule, studying her habits before waiting by her apartment building to make certain she went home alone. He

was certain that she did live alone, though he had to make certain her current lover, if she possessed one, wasn’t meeting her unexpectedly. The knife lay in the canvas bag, the cord, the plastic bags to carry everything out cleanly. He would take her money, credit cards and jewelry before leaving, discarding most of these items at various locations along his route to the hotel. The credit cards he would melt with a disposable lighter in an ashtray in his room before dropping them in the sewer. He had planned every detail of the crime, every aspect of his attack, how he would silence her before she could scream, the precise manner in which he would employ the knife; he would act as expeditiously as possible to avoid complications. Five minutes was all the time he would need to end her life, and leave the police with the impression that some local thief had killed her in the process of robbing her apartment. But when the time came to cross the street and execute his plan he found himself incapable of doing so. He simply couldn’t walk up the steps to her door. His hesitation brought on a terrible anxiety, so he left the front of the building and hurried into the alley. Now he sat cowering in the shadows with his plans rising away from him like so much smoke. “Nil desperandum.” Koestler turned to see from where the voice had come. In the dim light at the back of the alley he saw the silhouette of a tall, dark figure. So now he comes, Koestler thought, and not before. Where was he when Koestler was watching her enter the building? Where was he when Koestler stood unmoving on the street? Now, as he sat with his humiliation, the dark man had come. Was this a friend? “Leave me alone,” Koestler said, turning his head. “It’s too late.” “It’s never too late to close the circle of life,” the dark man said. Koestler heard the man’s footsteps ring steadily on the asphalt. When the steps stopped near to him he looked up again and the dark man knelt beside him. The man’s smile was so arresting, so calm, so certain. But Koestler was certain no words that came from those lips could change his mind. “I thought we had resolved all the issues of your conscience,” the man said. “You were making such beautiful progress, too.” Koestler said, “I have my reasons.” “Perfectly fine reasons, I’m sure. Begin with certainty and end with doubt. Begin with doubt and end with certainty. Your only hope is to begin again. What are your doubts, my friend?” “You’ll only laugh.”

133

“If I promise not to?” “What does it matter, if I can’t go through with it?” “We found the answers to all your previous objections. Why should this one be different?” “Because it’s not a matter of earthly acts.” The dark man nodded his head slowly. His voice, when he responded, was deeper, affected. It wasn’t filled with anger—Koestler wasn’t certain what emotion it held. Resignation, perhaps. “You don’t fear the loss of love, and you don’t fear the loss of personal liberty. What do you fear?” Koestler closed his eyes against the sight of the alley. It hurt him to see the impurity of the place. “Losing my soul,” he said. “It sounds foolish.” “Foolish? For a man of science who’s dismissed the concept of God? For a man who’s professed a belief in naturalism his entire academic career? For a man who’s published philosophical papers on the separation of religious and scientific knowledge? Does that sound foolish to you?” “I know my own history. I know what I’ve professed to believe. But what if I’m wrong?” “Do you hear the sermons of your childhood reverberating in your memory? Do you recall the superstitious screeds of your youth? What is it that gives you doubt? What do you fear?” “You don’t understand. I haven’t committed any crimes. I haven’t committed any grievous sins. I can be forgiven for being bitter, for killing Alaina in my imagination. But once I actually act to fulfill that vision I’ll be damned for it. At this moment I’m only delusional, pathetic. But once I kill her —” “I wouldn’t laugh at you, my friend, but I would laugh at your mistaken beliefs. A scientist’s theology is an obvious oxymoron. You believe morality is a machine that can be calibrated for effect. You believe your soul’s quality is mutable. But it isn’t. What is it about this animal life that makes you doubt the impartiality of all things?” “Impartiality?” Koestler opened his eyes and regarded the dark man. “Human beings are nothing if not biased in everything they do and everything they believe. How can the disposition of the human soul be any different? A man’s soul reflects his character, whether that character is good or bad. What will I say to God when he sees the disposition of my soul?” “Do you really believe that God would examine the quality of something that doesn’t exist?” “How do I know it doesn’t exist?” “Would you have me prove a negative?” “If I knew for certain then I would know there’s no difference between good and evil acts, but their interpretation.”

“By fallible human beings, no less.” “Or by God.” Then the dark man did something he had never done in all the time Koestler had known him—he laid his hand on Koestler’s shoulder, made very real contact with Koestler’s flesh. His touch was profoundly gentle, and filled Koestler with a fatherly reassurance. When the dark man removed his hand he felt as if some spiritual pain had been lifted from him, as if his conscience had been healed of the pain of selfreproach. “I’ll tell you a secret only a very few people know,” the dark man said, his voice entirely humorless. “This world created, by the God in which you believe or don’t believe, is only an artifact of an egotistical whim. To create the potential for purity is only to create the absence of it in the mind that could perceive it. Liturgists and philosophers discuss the qualities of the soul as if they were selecting ripe fruit from the rotten, but this is only the semantic posturing of those deeply desiring to be pure. This creation is only a natural world, and you know this to be true. Human beings have an awareness of life, and yet so do other animals, primates, cetaceans in the sea, perhaps even the flora of the fields. Human beings have a desire for some aspect of divinity to exist within them, and they call it the soul. But it’s only a fiction. God’s great secret is that humanity is only another species in this world and nothing more. You may desire the divine spark to be within you, but all you have is a temporary consciousness that leaves you when you die. All you know of creation is right here on earth, the here and now. Science has proven this to you over and over again. It’s only your wish to be divine that keeps you from accepting the truth.” “What is the truth?” “That this is the only existence you’ll ever know. That this is the only life you’ll ever have. And once it’s gone you’ll never be able to experience existence again. That’s the terrible secret God would never have you know because you’d realize there is no difference between the moral and immoral, or good and evil. They are only acts that have been qualified by delusional minds. God would have you live for an illusion.” “If all that’s true,” Koestler said, “then killing Alaina would be pointless, wouldn’t it? My life is already ruined.” “You’re right to say your life was ruined. The only life you’ll ever have was deconstructed by a woman who already knew that good and evil were only instruments of self-aggrandizement. That love was a tool, that sex was a machine for controlling minds.

134

Her life is her testament to her complete disregard of your imaginary soul. And what do you have left in this life to live for?” Koestler began to cry. Softly at first, then shaking uncontrollably. He held his hands to his head and wept with fury and pain. What did he have left of his life anymore? He had lost everything of value in it, his career, his wife, his dignity. He raised his head and cursed his own stupidity. Even now she controlled his life, even now she made him sit in a filthy alley, the scent of garbage bathing his senses. This was the end of the only life he would ever have— “A soul can only rest when all wrongs have been avenged,” the dark man said. “Ipsa scientia potestas est. My friend, you came here to avenge the loss of your soul. Not the imaginary soul given by an indifferent God, but the only soul that will ever matter to you in life. All that was your life on earth was the only soul you’ll ever have. That’s what she stole from you. And that’s what you must take back.” Koestler wiped the tears from his face, inhaled deeply and rose from the ground. He reached down and picked up the canvas bag, then turned toward the mouth of the alley. “Will you still be my friend when this is done?” “Bis repetita placent,” the man said, and smiled. “This thing of darkness I acknowledge mine.” Koestler walked out of the alley and into the building.

he Oregon landscape moved by the window as the bus continued down the interstate. Koestler sat back in his seat, occasionally glancing at the trees and buildings, all the emotion drained from him by one violent act. At first he thought the feeling was shock, but then he realized all the angst had seeped from his body and left him in a quiescent state. All the pain he had accumulated over the last few years had been discharged from his mind. The emotional state that replaced it was still lurking in the shadows of his thoughts, defying analysis so soon after the act was complete. He had distributed the stolen items as he had planned, had destroyed the credit cards, had washed away the blood and discarded the knife. In a city so large these items would never be found, or if they were they would never be connected to the crime. Seattle was now a memory. And so was she. He had very little doubt of eluding suspicion, and when it came he wondered if he would be able to sustain the charade. He wondered, too, if he shouldn’t just acquiesce to the inevitable and confess his actions.

Sometime while he was deep in thought the dark man appeared in the seat next to him. His beautiful silver eyes caught the daylight flashing through the window, and his smile was radiant. He sat with his elegant hands folded over his knee and watched Koestler quietly. “They’ll find me eventually, won’t they?” Koestler asked. “Perhaps.” “My motivation is obvious. If they don’t accept the idea that it was a random killing—” “Why shouldn’t they? Random crimes happen all the time. Such is the world.” “If they question me about it I’ll never be able to fool them.” “Do you want to confess?” “Why delay the inevitable?” “Do you regret your sins?” “I don’t know.” “Non placet. You don’t want to suffer the pain of confession, my friend. You only want the world to know that it was you who killed her, that it was you who exacted his revenge for what she did. You want the world to see that you’re a strong man, a man who won’t let his life be harmed without taking action against those who would harm it. It’s a natural desire, I assure you, but irrational. You’re a man of science, an objective thinker after all. This desire will pass and you’ll survive the psychic trauma of your acts.” “Maybe so,” Koestler said, staring from the window, “but what do I really have to live for anymore?” “You couldn’t have a meaningful life while she was still alive, while she still held that power over you. But now that she’s gone the power is gone as well. Now you have a chance to live your life again.” “I wish I could believe that.” “You will, in time. I’ll help you believe in yourself again.” He turned to the dark man and stared into his dazzling silver eyes. He forced himself to hold his gaze despite an urgent desire to look away. “Are you saying you’ll still be with me, even though it’s done?” The dark man laughed softly, then nodded almost imperceptibly. “I’ll always be with you,” he said. “Whenever you need me. I’ll always be with you, until the end of time.” Koestler turned again to stare from the window. The bus drove down the highway toward Eugene, passing low hills and green fields. He still had a few hours to decide what he would do with his life, or if

135

he would do anything at all. Perhaps all he had to do was to let life unfold naturally. He became aware of the reflection of two bright eyes in the window glass, eyes that might have been his own, but when he turned the seat beside him was empty. Whenever I need you, he thought. Until the end of

timeâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; __________________________________________ Lawrence Buentello has previously appeared in a number of publications, including Andromeda Spaceways In-Flight Magazine, Zahir, The Abacot Journal, Afterburn SF, Murky Depths and others.

136

Trouble In the Red Nebula by Mark DiAntonio

The worst part of a suicide mission is not being told you're on one. ___________________________________________________________

“R

avagers, man,” grumbled Sid with a shake of his head as he clutched the grips attached to his over-shoulder seat harness. The drop-ship rocked violently as it plunged deeper into the atmosphere of Terra Novus. “Of all the drops onto this dead planet, we had to get stuck with the Ravagers.” “Lucky us,” answered Tarn, his head tilted toward his right shoulder to try and make his conversation with Sid as discrete as it could be. Both of the marines had retracted the translucent domed visors on their battle suits to make talking over the engine noise a bit more bearable. The Ravager in the harness directly across the ship from Tarn drew an imaginary side arm, aimed it at his chest, and pulled the trigger shaking the crisscrossed black hoses that hung down from his mask’s respirator. Tarn’s warped reflection stared back at him in the mask’s orange hard coat lens. “I find their presence to be quite fitting to this particular mission, officer,” stated Quillan, their Sauri science specialist in the yoke to Tarn’s left. Quillan’s long, green scaled neck protruded several feet from his lightly armored combat suit allowing him to join the conversation easily from his harness. “I think you’ll be quite pleased with their combat prowess, sir.” He wore a helmet that had been uniquely designed for his race’s high crested skull that allowed for breathing through special respirators at the top. The Sauris’ nostrils were placed high on his head above his eyes at the base of a vertical bone plate that ran from his forehead, rounding back to the base of his skull. Having said his peace he crossed his thick arms in front of him, unimpressed with the row of masked soldiers staring back at him across the ship. The Ravagers waited restlessly, united in their anonymity behind their masks and the orange and black battle suits they wore, their jetpacks flaring out

from behind their shoulders. Each and every one of them had been recruited from the ranks of the vilest criminal populations from the prisons in the Red Nebula and subjected to torturous reconditioning. After their reconditioning had been survived, if it had been survived, high impact explosive mesh had been grafted into their skin at their temples and around their necks so they could be detonated at will by Command if the unit fell out of line. “These guys aren’t fresh off the line either,” added Sid through another jolt of turbulence as the ship continued its plunge. “Did you see the decals for their unit? No Quarter. They’re the guys that nuked all of

137

Grant Station, civilians included, to kill a few suspected rebels. Just a rumor of Jaivian being on board brought that place down.” “Keep it down,” commanded Tarn with a stern look at his fellow marine. “Orders are orders. Jaivian is the most wanted fugitive in the Nebula. You have to expect some collateral damage hunting him. If I caught him he’d wish the Klax found him first.” One of the Ravagers patted the two Alaric Gauss Pistols holstered at his side and methodically checked each item on his bandoleer lined with powerful concussive and incendiary grenades. He showed no indication he had been paying attention to their conversation, but Tarn motioned for Sid to lower his voice anyway. “There were five hundred civilians and about seventy scientists up there,” whispered Sid in a harsh tone. “It was a particularly high death toll for a mission that did not prove any quantifiable result,” added Quillan matter-of-factly, swinging his long neck closer and blinking his large black eyes. “In hindsight, most certainly an error in judgment.” “War is war,” stated Tarn with a resigned shrug. “We’re all fighting for humanity. We’re all fighting for the Red Nebula, for the Federation here. I have to believe the high-ups know better than us what needs to be done to win this thing.” “Heh,” snickered Sid, shaking his head slightly. “I wish I had your confidence, man. I mean, what is winning for us, right? How do ground pounders win? We’ll just be shuffled off to another boarding on some other infested vessel or dropped on another rock in deep space.” “Really profound for a grunt, Sid,” said Tarn, adjusting his feet for better support. “Anyway, what was that? Six months ago? Most of No Quarter squad would have turned over by now.” “The average length of survival of an activated Ravager combat unit is about ten and half months, Sergeant,” defined Quillan. “There is a decent chance that some of these men may have been active during the Grant Station mission.” “Turned over,” laughed Sid, cracking his knuckles and gripping his harness handles again. “Is that the proper way of saying killed off in suicide missions?” “Better them than us, marine,” stated Tarn with a glare that could have bored a hole through the side of the ship. “What is the story with the empty spot anyway?” asked Sid, gesturing toward an empty harness at the back of the ship behind the Ravagers. “Don’t know,” answered Tarn, craning his neck

around Quillan to get a better view. “How many drops have you been on again, man?” “Thirty nine,” answered Tarn. “I’ve been on twenty seven of them with you, right?” asked Sid, counting in his head as he spoke. “In all that time I’ve never seen an empty yoke for a drop.” “We also usually drop with other marines. Who knows,” said Tarn, shrugging his shoulders. “These guys are unstable at best. You know that.” “It’s a bad omen, man,” said Sid. “You and me… We’ve got to look out for each other.” “We are with the Ravagers after all,” replied Tarn with a wink. The ship’s engines whined as they accelerated violently forward breaking their free-fall and snapping the soldiers back in their yokes. A monotone bell rung out twice indicating they had begun their final decent to the planet’s surface. Tarn pressed a button on his helm and his visor slid down over his face and locked shut with a click and a hiss. He steadied himself and closed his eyes enjoying the rush of a tumultuous landing mixed with adrenaline. No matter how many drops you’d done you never got used to it and it never got old. A few moments later the ship came to an abrupt stop. One by one the soldiers on Tarn’s sides vanished and sank from their harnesses into the Channel, a tractor beam that unloaded them each in turn rapidly onto the planet’s surface. After Quillan disappeared beside him, Tarn gave Sid a thumbs-up, mocking his disdain for this last leg of the drop process. The airlock underneath him twisted open and he fell into a blurring light. Tarn allowed himself to relax as he descended rapidly and submitted himself to the force of the Channel. After all, there was no point in fighting it. His drop had been calculated perfectly by the ship’s computer system. He had built up his trust in that fact over the last four years. He reminded himself not to lock his knees and readied himself for contact with the surface. By the time his eyes could adjust to the daylight that bombarded his senses, his feet were almost on the ruddy, hard baked rock and sand surface of Terra Novus. “Good to see you planet side, sir,” stated Quillan, unpacking and assembling a piece of equipment from a pack he had laid out on the ground before him. “Good drop?” “Every one I land on my feet is a good one, Quillan.” “Yes,” said the Sauri, looking up from his work and nodding. His reptilian mouth pulled back, revealing

138

broad flat teeth. “In a nonsensical human way that is very true. Quite entertaining, sir.” The squad assembled near a deserted highway that was only partially visible under the shifting red sand. The road wound its way through the barren waste by the metal husk of an abandoned building and down over a hill on the horizon. A few scrub bushes struggled to survive around the base of a charred post and frame of a dilapidated route marker that stood ominously overhead, long bereft of any signage. The pale green top of Narul, one of Terra Novus’s two moons, crested the horizon, dominating the daytime skyline obscured slightly by streaks of drab clouds. “God, I hate that,” complained Sid as he landed efficiently behind Tarn, kicking up a cloud of redbrown dust around them. His voice was muffled by the speaker of his communication device. He didn’t waste any time snapping a cartridge of V-99 uranium rounds into his Impaler Rifle as the drop-ship overhead kicked its thrusters back on and departed back into the atmosphere. “Locked and loaded, sir,” confirmed Sid, leveling his weapon at his eye for a moment before bringing it into marching position. “Here we go,” answered Tarn as he loaded his own weapon seconds apart from Sid and hefted the massive sidearm’s belly into his left hand and its neck in his right. “We’re here for suppression fire and ranged support. Let the Ravagers hit and run.” “Let the maniacs get close enough to see the whites of their eye stalks, right?” laughed Sid. “There is a colonist mining installation over the hill about a half click that has been overrun by pirates and, potentially, Klax,” explained Tarn, pointing south as he started in behind the Ravagers that had already formed up and started out. “Signs point to the rebels taking colonist hostages inside the structure. Secondary objective is to check out rumors of bug activity in the mine. “We’re going to put them down and clean up the facility. The command center for the colony, Ridley, is about 6 clicks east of us. Our intelligence suggests they’re at high alarm but holding fast, but we can’t expect help from them.” “Isn’t that Resource Union territory?” asked Sid, in step with Tarn. “Orders are orders, marine,” answered Tarn. “I’ll waste a Klax or a pirate for any human any day of the week. That’s what I signed on for.” “God, this place is a wasteland,” noted Sid, stepping into formation to Tarn’s right. “The Selendri worked this place, huh? Relatives of yours, Quillan?” “I am Sauri not Selendri,” answered Quillan as if he

were telling the marine that water was wet. “I can’t believe there are still Klax nests here,” said Sid, scanning the horizon. “Klax can survive in extremely hostile conditions quite easily,” said Quillan with a wave of his hands. “I believe the Selendri were trying to set the Klax back and destroy the human surface settlements here; not eliminate them. A tactical assault to aid both humanity and themselves at the lowest cost of resource and Selendri life.” “Now we get to finish the job,” grunted Sid. “The chances were extremely high that the allied forces would do so,” confirmed Quillan. “Our need is much greater.” A massive explosion roared behind them. Tarn turned to watch the drop ship tear into thirds as it fell from the clouds amid a glittering debris field, smoke billowing from the inside of the transport as it spun apart. Two loud squelching red blasts illuminated the clouds on the far side of the ship and the largest of the remaining portions of the vessel burst into flame. Seconds later a scout ship tore through the thick, dark smoke and screamed by into the east. “Oh no,” moaned Sid as he watched the ship shrink in the distance. “There goes our ride home. I told you! Remember, the bad omen.” “We may be here a while,” said Tarn, nodding. “I need you to focus.” “That was a human planet-side fighter,” muttered Quillan, seemingly searching his feet for more information. “A popular choice of the Resource Union on the far side of the Red Nebula. Expensive for pirates.” Tarn pressed a green button on the left arm band of his battle suit and talked into the communication device. “We are dealing with well armed pirates. Proceed with caution, No Quarter.” Tarn waited for a moment and listened to the static answering him over the communication device. Sid shook his head in disgust. “Permission to shed my diagnostic equipment for a side arm, sir,” asked Quillan, bending his neck down to gaze at the long shafted scanner that he had assembled. “Permission granted… and advised,” answered Tarn, turning away from the scene of the wreck.

orkers dressed in thick, white hazardous material suits labored behind self propelled carts bringing irradiated ore from the shaft entrance to a processing building built into the side of the cliff. Another team wheeled the carts into a large hanger style building to unload their crystals and then lined

139

up the empty carts back by the shaft entrance. It was difficult to tell how many drones there were toiling away in the mines, but they estimated about two dozen in the processing hanger. “Rock and roll,” stated one of the forward Ravagers as soon as visual contact had been made. He blasted off the ground in a serious of controlled bursts from his jetpack and hurtled toward a tall, bulbous water reservoir tower positioned near the camp. He looked down for a moment and waved as he easily cleared the chain link fence, topped with barbed wire surrounding the camp. Three others followed his lead, taking off and landing in rapid succession on the tower after him. The rest of the Ravager squad filed over the steep side of the hill using their packs to soften their landing and separated into two groups of four soldiers flanking their position. “They don’t waste much time,” noted Sid whimsically as he hustled down the hillside using the more gradual path. “I hope they save some pirates for us.” “I don’t see any sign of Klax out there,” stated Tarn, keeping pace with his fellow marines. “Not so much as sentry zurrok overhead. If there are Klax in that mine, they’re deep.” “I hate those things,” said Sid, looking to the sky to confirm his peer’s observation. “They look like overgrown flying ticks. The buzzing gives me the creeps.” “Natural cover at eleven o’clock,” noted Quillan, holding up his fist to signal stop. He kept a small carbine rifle tight to his side. “Do you have eyes on this, Sid?” asked Tarn. “We’re in position,” announced a raspy voice over some static on the communication channel. “You have our backs, Sergeant?” Tarn and Sid exchanged unsavory glances. This was happening too fast; too recklessly. Tarn put his index and middle fingers up to his eyes and pointed to the work-site. Sid focused on a view panel on the heads-up display projected before him and it zoomed out giving a clearer picture of the facility. A side panel docked next to the facility indicating their location on a top-down terrain map of the surrounding area on a larger scale. “Sergeant, come back,” ordered the forward commander. “Roger that,” answered Tarn, holding the button on his forearm comm-device. He could hear his own voice repeat softly in Sid’s transponder. “We’ll be in position shortly outside the main gates. You guys move a little quicker than we do.” “Fire it up,” answered a different gruff voice in

response. “We are green to engage, No Quarter,” said their commanders voice. “Blow the tunnel immediately. Take down anything that moves by any means necessary.” “It’s about time,” stated another impatiently. The mouth of the mine shaft erupted in a shower of flames and falling rock as three explosives detonated simultaneously. The Ravagers on the tower dropped to the ground amidst the chaos of the blast and immediately opened fire on five workers by the shaft entrance that had been tossed helplessly from the violent force of the explosion. They finished them off with ruthless precision. Suddenly the site erupted into fire from dualwielded pistols and blasts from every direction. Bursts of gun fire and frantic shouting from the hanger sent the exposed Ravagers rocket-leaping into the air for cover. A heavy mounted chain gun on the roof and a second behind a nest of sandbags in the hangar doors pounded the water tower with a vengeful fury, tearing holes through the metal tank and littering the ground by the doors with spent shells. Tarn, Sid, and Quillan hustled into position behind four boulders just off the road leading up to the main gates and laid down a steady stream of cover fire on the entrance of the hangar before they hit the deck. A Ravager that had been heavily wounded in the initial exchange lifted off and landed beside the rotary cannon on the ground level. He was battered and tossed by a barrage of fire from the pirates inside, but in his death throes the Ravager ripped a cord on his bandolier, destroying himself and the massive artillery weapon in one massive final blast. “Crazy bastard,” hollered Sid between blasts. “That leaves one heavy on the roof.” “I don’t like this. See if you can get a better look now,” ordered Tarn before he unleashed another volley of cover fire. Several shots from the hangar ricocheted off the rocks that they used for cover in response, sending dust and chips flying in the air. “Let’s have a look see, shall we?” said Sid as he scanned the mining camp. His display drew red outlines around unknown or hostile units.. “There are a bunch of them buzzing around down there. You’ve already noticed our friend with the other G-09. We have another three on a catwalk on the roof trained on us with old model C-6’s from the War of Introduction. Down below they’re turtling up tight inside, now that their thunder is gone. It looks like they’re using parts of an old tank as a barricade.” “Good work,” commended Tarn, pulling his weapon down and crouching behind the boulder for

140

cover. “There are signs of Klax inside the hanger,” noted Quillan, his large eyes wide focused on his scanning device. Tarn waited for a lull in the din and squeezed off several bursts at the enemies on the roof. Quillan and Sid popped from behind the cover and added to the volley. One of the pirates fell forward, clutching wildly at his abdomen, and slid limply off the roof and plummeted to the ground below. “One down. Two to go,” said Sid, following up the barrage with another one of his own, unsuccessfully. “This is Sergeant Kall,” stated Tarn, looking diagonally down at the ground as he spoke. “They’ve fortified the front door heavily. We’re clearing the roof now. Any signs of the hostages up front?” “No quarter, marine,” answered the Ravager commander after several seconds of communication silence. “Can you confirm that there are hostages inside?” requested Tarn, shaking his head at Sid. “Confirmation is optional. Elimination of target facility and establishment of a dead spot are our primary objectives. Epsilon team and Gamma team, prepare to blow your respective sides and file into the breach.” “Did you hear us? Those are colonists in there!” shouted Sid. “Fire it up on my command, Ravagers,” ordered the commander over the communication channel, ignoring Sid’s outburst. Sid rested his gun on his knees and thrust his hands out in front on him. He was silent for a moment, shaking his head quickly while Quillan eyed him with intense curiosity. “What is it, Sid?” asked Tarn. “They’re going to butcher them in there. I’m not letting this go down like Grant Station,” said Sid, pointing vehemently to the hangar. “What are you going to do, Sid?” argued Tarn. “That’s a whole squad of Ravagers right there.” “And they’re on our side,” add Quillan. “What you’re suggesting is a detainable offense.” “I can’t sit back and watch them do this,” refuted Sid, sliding a fresh clip of rounds into his Impaler. “They could extract the innocents if they wanted to. They’d rather just nuke everything that moves.” “We don’t even know if there are innocents,” offered Tarn, holding his rifle over head and squeezing off a few rounds. “We do know that there are Klax inside,” said Quillan, holding up his hand-held scanning device. “We’ll never know once the Ravagers tear

everything apart,” answered Sid. “They’re on our side!” implored Tarn. “Whose side is that, huh?” asked Sid, shrugging his shoulders. “The side that kills scientists in a witch hunt for Sympathists? The side that dropped a squad of highly trained and heavily armed mass murderers planet-side to wipe out some radiation crystal pirates while the colonies on the Fringe are under attack from the Klax and the Rim World Collective? We’re not exactly slugging it out with the Overlord here. Do you see the Selendri fleet overhead?” “Stand down, marine. That’s an...,” commanded Tarn before he bellowed out a guttural scream and the communication device whined loudly from the pitch. He grasped at his side, blood spilling through his fingers down his battle suit. “Tarn,” said Sid, kneeling beside him. “Please hold still,” requested Quillan, retrieving a medical kit clipped onto his belt. “You’ve been hit, sir. It’s bad.” “You’re alright,” said Sid, looking Tarn in the eye. “You’re alright, man. Looks worse than it feels right?” Tarn’s body was racked with pain. He fell backward and watched the three remaining Ravagers using the water tower as cover as they continued exchanging fire with the guards at the hangar door and the roof. They leapt up to the tower and back down to the ground as a team in a wild, confusing pattern using their speed and mobility to make up for their lack of armor and more functional cover. Tarn wondered if the pirates had any idea that they were only using the light-show ruse as distraction for the strike teams now assembling in place on the sides of the building. “Every gambit sacrifices a few pawns,” thought Tarn, watching the Ravager’s dance of diversion. He coughed and his side flared with pain that made his vision blur. “These guys are crazy enough to enjoy it.” “You’re going to feel a pinch, sir” said Quillan, leaning his long neck in front of his domed visor. Pain shot through Tarn’s body again and then retreated in waves of frayed nervousness that turned into excitement. Tarn gritted his teeth. “And one more here, bear with me. One more pinch.”

“P

repare to breach in three, two…” the Ravager commander counted down in a brisk cadence over the transponder. “This is our chance,” pleaded Sid. “Are you well enough? C’mon. Enlist today. Save humanity, right?” Two simultaneous explosions spewed plumes of fire on either side of the hangar, sending a panicked insurrectionist rushing out toward the tower spraying

141

his gun awkwardly at his agile assailants. One of the forward Ravagers crunched to the ground flanking him, his jets still smoking, and dropped him with a left, right, left exchange from his gauss pistols. The ravager tried to take off again quickly but the chaingun on the roof turned and pounded the entire area around him, sawing him down next to the fallen miner more by brute force than by accuracy. Sid peered through the smoke from the nearside blast, carefully acquiring a shaken pirate on the catwalk in his sights, and hammered on the trigger. Every round in Sid’s heavy handed burst hit home and tore through the brigand’s light armor easily, leaving little more than a mess of gore and armor near where he had been defensively crouched. “If we’re going to do this, we do this right,” shouted Tarn through grit teeth. Every step was torture. The three of them peppered the final pirate on the catwalk until he abandoned the fight for a safer position in a series of awkward rolls and a belly crawl through the door inside. “Find them and get out.” “If we hold here much longer we may all sustain injuries such as the sergeant’s,” agreed Quillan, hoisting his carbine in support. “I would prefer to keep myself fully intact.” “Lets move,” shouted Sid, breaking from the cover toward the gate. He pointed up to the sky toward Ridley. “Just in time too. Look’s like there are reinforcements on the way.” A large yellow airship with a bevy of belly mounted, crisscrossing search lights and a flashing red light-box was cutting across the sky slowly toward the mining camp. It did not have the look of a warship, but more of one of the colonist’s utility construction vehicles. It had a pair of independently moving robotic towing arms mounted on the back of the ship that only added to the clumsy shape of the vehicle that seemingly defied physics to stay airborne. “That’s another Resource Union ship,” contested Tarn. His voice popped and cracked momentarily in the communication device as he spoke. “An Oxen 950. See the green badge on the hull?” “Maybe they’re checking in on us?” pondered Sid as he sprinted forward and kicked the gate open. The lock blew apart easily from the strength of his power armor. “They’re definitely looking for something,” confirmed Tarn, running through the gate toward the side of the hangar.

arn and Sid moved cautiously through the blasted opening in the side of the wall, keeping their backs to each other and pivoting to cover themselves

as they scrutinized the area for potential threats. Quillan stepped in behind them, laying down a persistent cover of green-streaking cover fire. The din of the intense firefight surrounded them, amplified by the sheet metal walls. Nearby a man cried a brief, throaty scream that started off as a stammered “no” and trailed off from there to silence. The haze from where the Ravagers had used smoke grenades to cover their movements after the initial infiltration still lingered heavy in the air. They moved cautiously across the voluminous bottom floor that was clogged with stacks of crates and heavy industrial machinery. Two layers of walkways with black, twisted metal balusters and railings encircled the higher floors of the facility leading to offices and rooms off of the main bay. Without a doubt several of the Ravagers corps had already taken advantage of the higher positioning by jumping to one or both of those walkways though, it was difficult to see them now. “We need to find our way up there,” directed Tarn, pointing up to the higher level walkways. “A ladder maybe?” offered Quillan. “There must be a series of access ways here.” “How about a freight elevator?” suggested Sid, pointing across an expanse of floor blocked off by a series of broken down carts and a massive metal collection drum filled with irradiated crystal from the mines below. A yellow back-lit sign with diagonal black stripes and pronounced up and down arrows flickered on the wall, struggling to fully illuminate. “That’ll do,” said Tarn, patting Sid on the back before he swiveled around and covered the open floor between them and the carts. He leveled his Impaler, its stock solidly against his shoulder, and looked down its barrel as he ran. The solitary control for the lift device, a halved round button on the panel on the wall next to the caged door, flashed a faint red light. Sid shifted his rifle into his left arm and punched the button with his right. The door swished open; its first layer opening right to left and the second bottom to top. “Sid, you first,” said Tarn after judging the size of the lift to be just big enough for one of the marines in their battle suits. He doubted that Quillan would fit at all without a good amount of trouble. “If this attracts any attention, we’ll take the heat.” “I won’t argue with you over that,” laughed Sid with a wink of appreciation as he stepped into the small confines. He punched the highest button of the three available inside and the door swished shut again. “See you at the top.” Tarn shifted nervously as the elevator whirred,

142

clanked, and jolted upward towards the next floor. It moved slowly, too slowly for Tarn’s tastes, with little but a wire cage between Sid and any trouble, but it continued to climb up away from him. Quillan twisted his neck to watch the car travel upward and returned to watching behind them. He pulled a gadget from his belt and scanned the area in front of him. “The Klax are definitely close, sir,” noted Quillan, reattaching the device to his belt. “As are our Ravager companions. They have tactical positions all around this hanger.” “Hiding?” Tarn asked rhetorically. After several long minutes, the lift returned back into sight and then stopped with a thud in front of him. Quillan went next. When it finally returned, Tarn stepped in, pressed the button for the top floor. He held his breath as it lurched upward again with a loud mechanical groan. Kneeling down with his rifle ready, he studied the bay below him as he rose up toward the first walkway. His hand went to his aching side as if holding it would make the agony fade. At least Quillan had stopped the bleeding. Row after row of uniformed Resource Union soldiers filed through the entrance, setting an offensive formation to clear the hangar. The men that were left amongst the pirates raced out to meet them and stood in firm salute. Tarn's heart raced and he could feel sweat trickling down the inside of his body armor. He prayed that they didn’t notice him, a sitting duck, and cursed the slow, loud lift. This was not what they had been briefed at all. These were not pirates. They were colonist security forces. Gunshots rang out from the walkways and several of the peace-keepers fell. The others returned fire, savagely making up for what they couldn’t aim for in sheer volume of rounds. One of the Ravagers jumped down from the second railing nearby, landed with a series of blasts, and tossed an explosive into their ranks. As the grenade detonated and the security forces scrambled away, the Ravager jet-leaped again up into the catwalks on the far side, drawing a majority of the fire away from where the others must have been. Bullets rattled off the wall and the cage around Tarn. Three reflected off of his armor plating, but one ripped through his thigh like a knife of fire. Cursing again, Tarn pulled a long syringe from his belt pack and injected himself through the damage in his plating, just above the wound. He couldn’t wait any longer. He was already getting dizzy because he had lost too much blood.. “Are you alright, Sergeant?” asked Quillan’s voice

over the echo of the communication channel. “You’ve been hit again.” First there was burning, like a trail of flame spreading down his leg and then the war perfected cocktail of chemicals in the stim-pack surged through his veins, pushing back any pain and filling him with battle lust. His vision dimmed as red bled down over his eyesight until everything had a crimson hue. His muscles tensed with anger and adrenaline as bullets continued to rebound off the walls nearby until he felt like he was going to tear out of his armor. “Oh God,” Tarn roared out, shifting his rifle in his hands. “Oh my God! Yeah!” With a howl, Tarn emptied his clip on the closest group of Resource Union men hoping to keep them at bay long enough for the small lift to reach the top walkway. The kicking of the gun and the flash of the muzzle helped sooth the feeling welling inside him. One fell instantly, a second a moment later heaping over the first soldier. He jettisoned the empty clip and slammed in a new one without losing rhythm. Three, four, five down as they continued to try and advance despite his superior positioning. Another clip. There wasn’t anyone left to aim for but he unloaded it anyway. “That’s what I’m talking about, marine,” cheered a gruff voice over the communication channel. He knew it was one of the Ravagers. “Oh yeah! You want a piece of me?” hollered another over the blasts from his pistols repeating over the speaker. “You want a piece of me?” The lift shook forcefully amidst a series of bangs before it came to a stop and the doors whisked open. Sid rushed forward, grabbing Tarn, arm over his shoulder and fell back again quickly pointing to an open door on the wall behind them. Tarn thrashed in resistance, but Sid muscled him into backpedaling into a small room with a desk in the middle and two tables lined with computer equipment, glass beakers, and an assortment of tools spread out across them. A large window overlooked the red planet surface below with the distant silhouette of the buildings of Ridley’s skyline beyond. Two Klax were held in lucent blue containment cubes against the wall. Their four arms were crossed in pairs across their bodies in defiance, their mandibles twitching at the newcomers. Taller than even the Sauri, they had the appearance of a mix of giant man and spider. Four dark black eyes, the two in the middle larger than the two on the outside, watched them with emotionless, unblinking stares. The tops of their heads were streaked straight back in thicker silver fur that contrasted with the mouse

143

brown of the hair that covered them on rest of their bodies. “You’re not going to believe this,” said Sid, pointing to a man in a lab coat cowering behind the desk before he noticed blood leaking out onto Tarn’s armor from his wound. “Are you hit? Are you ok?” “I’ll rub some dirt on it later,” choked Tarn, waving off concern. The pupils of his eyes were wide black saucers and his heart pounded from the stim-pak. “I’ve gotten through worse. I have enough juice to make it out of this.” “Let me see that,” said Quillan, rushing over to investigate the wound. “You’re not going to have much of your power armor left if you don’t stop taking hits, sir.” Tarn formed a half smile. Sauri rarely joked. “I know you do, sir,” nodded Sid. “So, you’re not going to believe this. It didn’t take much convincing to have this guy sing. There never were any hostages. There never was a revolt here either. This guy is a scientist from Ridley. They’ve found something in the mine.” “Scientists?” asked Tarn, shaking his head. “That explains the peace-keepers downstairs.” “Some kind of alien artifact,” continued Sid. “They’ve been looking for more of them since they found the first. What ever it is it has a profound effect on the Klax. Apparently the Klax warned them against continuing, but they ignored it. They sent the one they found into… Tarn, look! Look!” The marines stood and watched in disbelief as an enormous column of fire encompassed the outlying town of Ridley through the window. A vast cloud ring billowed forth from the center of the column as the flames at the top fell and circulated back into an expanding mushroom inferno. The devastating blast shot outward from the column, flattening the structures of Ridley first and racing out along the planet surface toward them, bringing a growing veil of dirt and debris in its wake. They dove behind the desk as the glass from the window imploded and the entire hangar trembled. The room was consumed by brownish red fog instantly. Tarn knocked on the dome of his battle suit as the marine’s wheezing respirators kicked on automatically along with the suits forward lamps. Sid gave a thumbs-up back. The gunfire in the hangar had ceased, at least temporarily, as the shock and awe of the moment passed through the unsuspecting combatants below. “Command, this is Hydrus,” announced a new, bitter voice, over the communication channel that sounded like he had to put forth conscious effort not

to slip back into whispering. “We read you phantom operative 24823,” replied a cool, smooth sounding feminine voice. “Report in.” “Requested tactical warhead detonated on the painted target. Colonist center has been completely eliminated. Primary objective achieved.” “Good work, Phantom,” commended the womanly voice. “New transportation back to Core Federation Space on Terra Novus is on its way. Rendezvous point is 8 clicks south of your position now. We’ll upload the spot to your navimap.” “Secondary objective accomplished as well,” said Hydrus in his biting tone. “Repeat, suspected artifact is in tow.” “We’ll look forward to debriefing you on your return, agent. Eliminate mining compound outside of the dead spot prior to rendezvous. Command out.” “Target will be lit up in fifteen minutes.” Tarn’s shoulders slumped. He looked at Sid who was exchanging horrified glances with Quillan. Hydrus was a legend - a story told on base to raise morale about a one man army. If they had sent Hydrus on this mission, then the Core Federation wanted this place obliterated and for some reason that knowledge went way above their rank.. Phantom’s were the highest echelon of elite soldier; the pinnacle of Core Federation technology and training. They had personal cloaking devices and control of enough fire power to level a space station complete with android piloted air support called Manticore Drones. “We were a diversion,” muttered Tarn, trying to make out Sid’s outline through the shifting dirt cloud. “After all of that, we were just a diversion.” “It was the phantom in that empty seat. He was cloaked in the drop-ship so we couldn’t tell who he was. I had no idea they’d send a phantom with marines,” explained Sid, extending a hand to help Tarn up. “There are no empty seats on drops, remember. I knew it.” “We were the pawns,” stated Tarn, accepting his help and getting to his feet. “Decoys.” “Well then checkmate, sir,” replied Sid with a half hearted smile. “We’re not going to make that pickup you know. Not in the shape you’re in. You heard him. They’re going to level this place in minutes. Hydrus must have a hover-bike or something. You have a stim-pak left? We may need it.” “I do not think that they intended for us to make it, Sid. But we are still alive,” stated Quillan, holding his neck high. Particles of dirt rained through the lamps light at the front of his Sauri helm. “And I propose we keep that way. There is another possible colonist

144

settlement on the far side of this mine. More of a refueling station than anything else, but it is better than nothing.” “That is correct, Quillan,” answered Tarn, reloading his Impaler and patting his belt pack. “I can make it. This big old dust ball will be good cover.” “Let us out, please!” exclaimed a resounding voice from the containment cells holding the Klax. “You are not with them. We can see from your human armorshells. Please let us out.” The soldiers walked closer to the cells and the Klax came into focus through the dust cloud. Their front two hands were clasped in front of them with their back hands held straight up. They came forward in their cells and met the soldiers on the other side. “You are our enemy,” said Tarn. “I’ve watched your kind destroy colonies on the edge of Federation Core space for years now. Klax destroyed the station I grew up in. Why would we free you?” “For many cycles your alliance races have pushed us out of our homes in search for fuel and metal,” argued one, but the other turned to it and he stopped. “Let us start over. I am Omtom and this is my hivebrother, Ehtang,” greeted the Klax. He made a weak bow. “We are not warrior caste. We are just drones – workers. This mine used to be our home. We survived the Great Fire Storm only to succumb in our weakened state to these new settlers. They have captured us like many of our kind before us and have been experimenting on us. Vile, painful tests.” “The Fire Storm must have been the bombing from the Selendri,” noted Quillan. “I don’t like this,” said Sid, shaking his head. “I don’t trust them.” “Give us a chance to fight for our freedom,” pleaded the one identified as Ehtang. “I do not want to die waiting in this cell.” “Sir, they could help us. They would know the mines,” said Quillan, waving his free hand in front of him. “And, for what it is worth, I don’t think that it is right to let another life form die trapped in a cage. Even if they can’t help us they could distract those soldiers downstairs.” “Don’t do it,” urged the scientist in the corner. He had gotten to his feet and was standing behind the group at the desk now. “They’re Klax. They’re savages. They deserve to die in their cells.” “I think I agree with the doctor,” offered Sid. “If we do this we’re no better than Jaivien. We’ll be Sympathists, Kaal, rebels.” “Quillan, can you disable our positioning systems and our communicators?” asked Tarn, arching his brow.

“Of course I can, sir,” answered the Sauri in a near insulted tone that sounded like the sergeant assigned him some remedial duty. “Though I must warn you that I believe what you’re thinking of doing is considered treason and is an offense punishable by death.” “What I’m thinking of doing is surviving, Quillan.” “Under the current circumstances, I see your point,” replied the Sauri, nodding his long neck. “Command has already counted us killed in action. It would be an opportunity to make a clean break. It will only take me a few moments to disable the equipment.” “What are you thinking, Tarn?” asked Sid. “I don’t like this. We need to get out of here. Fast!” “I’m not going to be a pawn again, Sid. Omtom. Ehtang. If we release you will you help us get through the mines to the other side?” asked Tarn. “Honor would bind us to doing so, human,” stated Omtom reassuringly. “There is an access route that leads from this hanger to a passage into the mines. That vile tormentor can show us. After which we can not promise him safety.” “Fair enough. Sid, blow the containment cells,” ordered Tarn. “Quillan, get the good doctor will you. Once we’re down in the mines I’ll have you disable our equipment.” “No!” shouted the doctor, rummaging through the broken glass for something to defend himself with. “You can’t do this.” “I’d recommend that you do as the Sergeant says,” stated Quillan, accenting his point with a thrust of his carbine. Sid looked at the control mechanisms for a few moments, punching a few buttons, and then stepped back and unloaded three quick bursts into them. The blue-lit transparent cells vanished in a crackle of released energy and the two large Klax tested the boundaries that had held them intact. Feeling nothing, they leapt with incredible quickness down to the floor in front of Tarn and the others, their mandibles twitching and arms wide. Tarn could see himself mirrored hundreds of times in those four dark eyes. His side began to ache again as he fingered his Impaler’s trigger; waiting. Waiting. “We are in your debt, honorable one,” said Ehtang with a deep bow, raising his arms out from his side as he bent. “It is good to know that you are not all monsters.” “Funny,” laughed Sid nervously. “I was thinking the same thing.” “Doctor,” asked Tarn, turning to the scientist who

145

was now walking in front of Quillan with his hands up. “Bring us to the mines. From now on we’ll need to look out for ourselves. The Core Federation isn’t going to welcome us back.” “Sympathists,” moaned Sid, his head down. “No, Sid. Survivors. Let’s go.” __________________________________________ Mark DiAntonio won an academic award back in Amherst for best new author for the short story "Self

Service," published in a local anthology put out by the 5 colleges. He's been working on his first fantasy novel the last three years and currently supports his writing habits (and family) as a software engineer.

146

In Through the Out Door by Michael W. Garza

Standing too close to the particle accelerator can be a life-changing experience. ___________________________________________________________

Greg tossed his legs off the side of the bed and

tried to focus. He was sweating; his thick, brown hair matted to his face. He had the dream again and was determined to write down what he could remember. He was sure there were some extraordinary things happening, but he couldn't shake the intense feeling of déjà vu. He grabbed his glasses off the nightstand and fumbled for the lamp switch. Tin foil covered the lone window in the room, blocking out the afternoon light. Greg's hands shook and it was difficult to breathe. He wiped his hand across his face and felt warm blood trickle from his nose. The note pad was where he left it. A glass of water rocked slightly from the weight of his arm as he grabbed his pen. Greg scribbled away on the small piece of paper with fury. The dreams started six months ago. The first simple symbols grew more intense over a short period of time and now they were connecting from one dream to the next. Once he could handle the images, his dreams shifted to complex algorithms far beyond anything he'd ever seen. For most people math was a lifelong struggle, Greg was no exception; his check book made a worthy advisory. The dreams didn't contain simple every day math, it was the complicated problems most people never intend to have anything to do with. This was the kind of math two and a half semesters of community college didn't prepare you for. "Damn it." There was a pattern forming with each dream. He wrote down everything he could remember as soon as he woke. The memories lasted for a few minutes then everything went blank. Greg didn't bother looking over what he wrote. The room was quiet and he didn't want to know how long it was before he had to get up for work. He tossed the pen down and finished off the water. Not bothering to turn off the lamp, Greg slid his legs back under the sheet and tried to go back to sleep.

he alarm came early and Greg had to drag his short, overweight frame out of bed. He combed his hair, brushed his teeth, and squeezed his pot belly into the mandatory Philmore Security, standard issue

uniform. The matching dark blue pants and coat did little to hide his growing waistline. He tossed the notebook by his bed into his backpack and headed out. The Cyclotron particle accelerator facility was in the northeast area on the campus of the University of California at Berkeley. Greg knew the campus traffic was light because of the upcoming winter break. He pulled off Centennial Drive and on to Cyclotron Road, flashed his badge at the gate and pulled into the parking lot. It was eight o'clock by the time he finished his rounds. Greg found his way to the employee lounge. There was only one other person in the lounge. He smiled, tossed his bag down and pulled out the notebook. "I had another one," Greg said. Marcus smiled and motioned for Greg to let him see it. Marcus' afro was particularly big tonight. Marcus was a second year grad student who was helping with an on going high-energy beam experiment at the Cyclotron facility. His afro was a self proclaimed show of respect to his idol, Dr. J. Marcus and Greg met a little over a year ago; the two formed an unlikely friendship. In truth, Greg was just about the only other person within the facility after six o'clock, which left Marcus' options for conversation limited. Greg opened the notepad to last night's page and tossed it on the table. Marcus looked over the algorithms like he was trying to memorize them. "What do you think it means?" Marcus asked. Greg shrugged. "Are you going to work on it tonight?" Marcus asked. "Sure am." Marcus smiled and stood up. He pulled his lab coat around his thin frame. "I have some of the new data from the linear accelerator to work on. I want to see something from you when I get back." Greg nodded and smiled. He pulled the notepad back over to his side of the table as Marcus strolled out of the lounge. Marcus still felt responsible for Greg’s sleeping problems. The dreams started after an unfortunate accident in the vacuum chamber in Vault Three. Greg couldn't remember much of it. He knew he was in the main vault area when it happened, in between Cave

147

Five and the Isotope Production Lab. Marcus was supposed to start up the cyclotron just high enough to push the high-frequency, alternating voltage across the electrodes. Greg had a bruise on both of his temples for two weeks. The first dream came the day after the accident. At the beginning they were too abstract for him to understand and write down. When Greg woke he couldn't find the words to describe any of it before the memory faded. Eventually, he found that as he concentrated on the dreams, gradually they would take shape. The fire at the church on 16th street was the first he figured out. The images in the dreams were only of a building and fire but it was the algorithms that pulled it all together. Greg wrote them down though they didn't mean anything to him at first. He went with Marcus over to the Berkeley library to find out what any of it meant. It was obvious to Marcus from the beginning that the complexities of the algorithms were far beyond his capability. It was dreams that followed that showed Greg how to apply the algorithms. Greg was able to take the long lines of numbers and attach alphabetical meanings. 16th, holy, fire. That first message didn't make much sense until he read in the paper a day later that the Baptist church on 16th street burned to the ground. That was the church he attended whenever he woke up early enough on Sundays. Marcus was terrified that Greg was going to fall over dead one day and it would be all his fault. "Maybe you're possessed?" That was Marcus's first response when Greg told him about it. Greg still wasn't sure.

he second message was more confusing than the first. After Greg managed to piece it all together he was left with three new words, Work, fall, cream. Both Greg and Marcus were convinced that the message pointed at the accident that took place two days later. A few kids made their way on to the facility compound and Greg was chasing after them. They managed to spray paint along the south side of the main building before he found them. Greg knew he didn't stand a chance at catching them but he had to give chase. One of them, barely a teenager, got into the lobby of the main building trying to hide. Just as Greg found him, the kid slipped on a spilt jar of sanitizer hand cream and cracked his head open on the hard floor. Greg didn't understand how he was supposed to

have put those pieces together. He wasn't sure if he was missing something or not. A full month passed and neither the images nor the algorithms returned.

reg removed a larger notebook from his bag and laid it on the table by the notepad. As he'd done the last few times he'd had one of his dreams, Greg focused on the numbers he wrote down. With his hand gripped tight around his pen, Greg allowed himself to write. His mind got lost on the numbers from his dream and his hand wrote as though it had a mind of its own. He didn't notice Marcus coming back into the lounge and taking the chair across from him. By the time Greg snapped back to his surroundings, two and a half hours passed. "That freaks me out," Marcus said. "It's like youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re stoned or something, just staring at that paper." They both looked over at the larger notebook. U = e(w' + a2d)(9 + x' + ad)[x + y' + 6v(t - s)][y + bv(t - s)]U + h' + z' Fish "It looks like Riemann's, maybe Collatz," Greg said. "Maybe," Marcus said. "Why don't you check it out in that book you asked for?" Greg looked up, perplexed. Marcus opened up his locker and tossed a thick textbook across the table. "Collatz right?â&#x20AC;? Marcus asked. "Functional Analysis and Numerical Mathematics by Lothar Collatz," Greg read. "How did you know I would need this?" Marcus shook his head and laughed. "I don't know what it is you do at home, but it's killing your brain cells," Marcus said. "You asked me to pick that book up from the library yesterday." Greg couldn't remember asking for the book. It was becoming a peculiar pattern as of late. Several times over the last few months Greg decided he needed something only to find he already had it or in this case asked Marcus to get it for him. Greg looked back over at his notebook. "Fish," he said. The one word was the result Greg was looking for. If the pattern held true, each time he studied what he'd written down from his dream, he would be able to produce a one word answer. Each time Greg and Marcus tried to guess what a message meant. The process was long and had yet to result in any real answers. Even with all three words, they still hadn't been able to predict what was going to happen. More important, neither of them could figure out how this

148

gift was going to help them make money. There were more pictures in his dreams now but he didn't know where the word Fish fit. Greg dreamed of a falling building or wall. He saw someone getting crushed. He didn't see the person but somehow Greg knew him. There was an impending feeling of doom that came with this dream, which Greg didn't care for one bit. "Maybe we should go fishing?" Marcus suggested. Greg shook his head and rolled his eyes.

he mall was a five minute drive from the Cyclotron facility. It stayed open late during the holiday season and allowed Greg a warm meal. As he stood in line at Boardwalk Dogs he did his best to forget about the dreams and the numbers, however, something always reminded him. Greg found himself staring at the fish emblem over the seafood stand next door. He looked back down toward the glass safety barricade close beside the stand and he could see down to the first floor of the mall. Fish, he thought. Somehow he knew he couldn't escape the messages. More and more Greg was beginning to think they were not random at all. The images in his head felt forced, like someone was trying to tell him something and for some reason they couldn't just come out and say it. Greg finished up his shift around six in the morning and drove home. He ate his breakfast by the television and tucked himself in early. He felt the calling coming to him and he knew the only way to appease it was to sleep.

ver the next few days the dreams returned. Greg completed the algorithms in order to reveal the completed three word message. He had some help from a copy of An Introduction to the Theory of the Riemann Zeta-Function, which he found on the edge of his coffee table. The receipt for the book was wedged in between pages 109 and 110. Though he was glad to find it, he couldn't remember buying it a week before as the receipt indicated. Fish, Dragon, Cadent. Greg and Marcus looked over the words under the poorly lit bulbs of the employee lounge. "Cadent?" Marcus asked. "It's Latin for, they fall," Greg said. "You speak Latin?" "Nope." Marcus didn't ask. "So what does it mean?" Marcus asked instead. Greg shook his head.

After a few hours of going back and forth over possibilities, Marcus and Greg decided to make their way over to the mall's food court. The crowds were large; something closer to what Greg would expect for the holiday season. He stood in line for his usual New York style big dog and large fry. Marcus was waiting in a longer line at the seafood shop; Friday was shrimp special day. Greg stared back at the fish emblem above the seafood stand. "Get me some extra packages of ketchup." Marcus was trying to get his attention. "You don't need anything else on that breath. The shrimp will be enough," Greg replied with a grin. "Damn man," Marcus said. "Dragon breath," Greg said. Greg froze in place. His brow furrowed and his head tilted slightly to one side like a dog just recognizing some obscure sound. "Fish, dragon, they fall," Greg said in a whisper. A loud wrenching sound brought Greg back to the moment. The long overhang above the sea food stand suddenly gave way and fell down on two tables sitting underneath. People dove out of the way as one table flipped over and rolled to the left. The second table hit on its edge, the impact sending it high into the air. Greg broke into a sprint as the couple in front of Marcus fell backwards. Marcus tripped over his feet and fell back toward the glass barricade as he tried to get out of the way. The table flipped over and over as it came back down. Greg dove, his walky-talky and flashlight falling to the floor. The table came down with a terrible crash, slamming into the glass. Greg looked over from the spot he'd landed on the floor and was sure the table would have taken Marcus over the edge with it. That was of course if Greg hadn't knocked him out of the way. "Oh my God!" Marcus exclaimed. "I figured it out," Greg said. "I figured it out before it happened." He sat up and made sure he was still in one piece. "Dragon breath," Greg said. "Damn, I almost died. This isn't the time for jokes." "No," Greg said. "Remember; fish, dragon, they fall." Marcus looked back at him with a blank expression. A few moments later his eyes widened like he'd seen a ghost. "You're a super hero," Marcus exclaimed. He had several pieces of glass stuck in his afro. "I don't know about that," Greg said. Marcus thought about it for a moment. "At least a super security guard."

149

Greg was excited. It was a week since he'd saved

Marcus and now he couldn't wait for the next dream. He found himself going to bed earlier each day. He did anything he could think of to increase his chances of having another algorithm revealed. As the weeks went by Greg grew nervous. He feared that figuring out one of the messages ahead of time might have caused them to stop altogether. Even Marcus was worried. Since his near death experience, Greg's dreams took on a new meaning for him. Marcus wasn't in it for the money anymore. He was convinced Greg was destined to become some kind of super hero. It was a full month before the dreams returned. When Greg awoke, he found he couldn't stop himself from shaking. His fingers trembled, he was unable to turn on the lamp by his bed or pick up the pen off the nightstand. All of the dreams had been detailed and vibrant but none of them were like this. When he calmed himself enough to turn on the light, he tried to push his thoughts aside and write. The numbers and symbols flowed from the tip of the pen like a symphony. Greg was amazed at how the algorithm flowed. He was falling in the dream. There were points of light around him, stars he guessed. The speed increased as he fell; the stars rushed by, streaking against the black canvas of space. There was no fear in his dream; he'd known he would be alright. Something amazing was going to happen and it was going to happen to him. He felt it would be wonderful and terrible at the same time. Once finished, Greg stumbled to the bathroom and stood over the sink, looking at himself in the mirror. He could see the images of his dream silhouetted within the mirror. Greg turned on the cold water and cupped his hands, burying his face in the water. His nerves returned to normal though he couldn't imagine how he was going to get back to sleep. Excited and nervous, Greg arrived at the Cyclotron facility a full hour before his shift. He wanted to get started on the algorithm before Marcus came in. Greg stepped into the employee lounge, tossed his notebook, pen, and notepad on the table and plopped down. By the time Marcus arrived Greg was lost somewhere deep between the numbers. Marcus didn't want to interrupt so instead he focused on his rounds. When Marcus was done, he waited across the room for Greg to finish. "There it is," Greg said. He looked up from his trance and turned the notebook around on the table.

"Il tempo," Marcus read. "It's Spanish. It means time," Greg said. "Time," Marcus repeated. He'd known that. Greg nodded. "Does that mean anything to you?" Marcus asked. Greg thought about it. He thought back to the dream and all of its intensity. He was surprised he could still remember it at all. The sense of falling returned to him. The streaking stars were so real. "Not completely."

hen Greg pulled into his apartment complex parking lot he knew he was going to have another dream. He couldn't shake the feeling that someone was trying to tell him something. He wasn't sure what it was, but he knew it was important. Greg tossed his keys on the kitchen counter and sat down in the over-sized chair in front of the television. He kept going back over his dream. Greg found he could recall the images at will. He seemed to have the ability to stop the scene in his mind and look around at the stars. He was beginning to believe the books, magazines, and random pictures that caught his eye or appeared where they hadn't been before were not random at all. Greg didn't have the answer but he was sure he was close. Greg was in bed by seven. He took an over the counter sleeping pill just to make sure he would pass out quick. The pill did its job. He awoke drenched in sweat. His body shook with convulsion like trembles. It was difficult for his mind to break from his dream state. Flashes of bright lights raced through his mind and he struggled to sit up. He tried to get to his feet but fell flat on the floor. The strength in his legs was stripped. His muscles ached as though he just finished a marathon. His mouth was dry and his throat burnt. It was another hour before he could move again. After getting to his feet, he scribbled the algorithm down on the notepad. With more of a fall then a roll, Greg managed to get back on his bed. In his dream, Greg found himself moving through space and time, the stars racing past him. The immense weight of the entire universe was on him and he could feel himself being drawn inward. There was a vision of an opening in space. Greg knew it was an open way through which he had to go. Somehow the algorithms would help him find this opening. He didn't know how, but he was surer than ever before.

150

Greg stepped into his apartment on the

following morning, he was nervous. He had worked through the algorithm the night before. "Door," Greg said the word over and over. "Time and door," he said. Greg had been short with Marcus and felt bad about it. For some reason Marcus’ questions felt intolerable. Greg told himself that he would have to apologize for his attitude when he got back to work. Today there wasn't time for anything but sleep. Greg had little interest in eating and even less in the television. He slipped into the shower, cleaned off and got into bed. He poured out a handful of sleeping pills and washed them down quickly. He stared up at the ceiling with his hands resting behind his head. He knew tonight would be the night. The answers to the questions in his mind would be found. He still didn't understand everything happening to him, but he knew that was all about to change. He could feel the drugs at work in his system. His eyes were heavy and he had difficulty focusing on one train of thought for any length of time. As he slipped away he did so with a smile on his face.

he dark bedroom filled with a blood curdling scream. Greg's eyes opened wide with the look of death all about his face. The sound of his heart pounding in his ears as every fiber of his being was excited at once. His mind was unable to translate to words what he had witnessed. Greg reached over and pulled the notepad and pen toward him. The glass on the nightstand fell to the floor and shattered. Greg felt as though his head was going to tear apart. He could sense each piece of the glass as it flung across the bedroom floor. In a maddened state Greg scribbled violently on the pad. The algorithm was long and difficult. It would take some of the greatest minds on earth a lifetime to find its solutions; it took Greg seconds. He wrote out the final word though he knew it already. In a dry whisper he said the words. All three algorithms passed through his mind at once.

"Time." Greg saw the numbers race across the infinity of space. "Door." His eyes rolled back as his body convulsed. "Travel." The bed shifted underneath him. The lamp rolled onto the mattress, then fell down onto the floor. There was a ripple in the air above Greg's body like small waves in a pond. Blackness swept over the room as the light from the clock bent outward. The light struggled against the black recesses; pulling at the fabric of time, reality began to fail. The contents of the room warped like pouring water into the growing blackness centered underneath his body. The bed pulled away, down into the dark. Greg shook, then the center of him tugged away from the rest. Like warm candle wax his body drooped down, pulling first from his waist. Stretched at and impossible length, his arms and legs struggled to remain in this reality until they could hold on no longer. With his figure pulled down into oblivion, the fabric of time returned, and the bedroom; the bed, the nightstand, and the lamp lay still. Greg was gone.

reg tossed his legs off the side of the bed and tried to focus. He was sweating; his thick, brown hair matted to his face. He had the dream again and was determined to write down what he could remember. He was sure there were some extraordinary things happening, but he couldn't shake the intense feeling of déjà vu. __________________________________________ Michael W. Garza lives and works in southern California with his wife and two children. He has had work published or accepted by the Absent Willow Review, Residential Aliens, Morpheus Tales, The Horror Zine, Sounds of the Night, Blood Moon Rising, Living Dead Press, Dark Gothic Resurrection Magazine and Deadman's Tome. He has published three novels.

151

200 page trade paperback New low price on our Web site

$10.95

152

$7.95