Encounters Magazine 08

ENCOUNTERS M A G A Z SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2013

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ISSUE #08

SCIENCE FICTION FANTASY HORROR

Cocktails and Cephalopods Marilyn K. Martin Hives J.B. Christopher The Hell David Neilsen Wrangler Boy David Castlewitz Lai-li Richard J. O'Brien The Slaves of the Egyptian Engineers Lawrence Buentello

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ENCOUNTERS

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SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2013

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ISSUE #08

Table of Contents COCKTAILS AND CEPHALOPODS Marilyn K. Martin ......................................................... 5

HIVES J.B. Christopher ........................................................... 10

THE HELL David Neilsen ............................................................. 30

WRANGLER BOY David Castlewitz ................................................. 47 LAI足LI Richard J. O'Brien ....................................................... 61

THE SLAVES OF THE EGYPTIAN ENGINEERS Lawrence Buentello ................................................... 79

Publisher: Kim Kenyon Editor: Guy Kenyon

This publication copyright 2013 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 bi­monthly by Black Matrix Publishing LLC, 1339 Marcy Loop Rd, Grants Pass, OR 97527. Our Web site: www.blackmatrixpub.com

About our cover artist...

Originating from the UK but now residing in the Canary Islands, freelance artist Teresa Tunaley finds more time to devote to her love of art and painting. For more than 30 years she has been doodling traditionally with pencils and dabbling with watercolours. More recently, she uses a more modern technique… her tablet and pen now re­produce creations formed within her warped mind.

"I like to think that I am very versatile in my choice of subject matter ­ my new surroundings provide the inspiration for me to paint on a daily basis and the fact that others may enjoy my work gives me the confidence to continue."

View her portfolio online at: www.artstopper.com

COCKTAILS AND CEPHALOPODS

by Marilyn K. Martin

S

ally noticed her hand trembling with fatigue, and sat down on the hotel bed with a heavy sigh. Dressed for long­distance travel in a pink bloused jumpsuit, she was a minor heiress with a tired and anxious face beneath her white turban. (Galactic fashion magazines said that most humanoid species are bald, so they advised Earth women to travel in a turban to not shock the sensibilities of other species. Besides, the fashion magazines had also cheer­ fully noted, a turban could also double as a sash, belt, shoulder­wrap, towel, sack to carry purchases, or a hand/arm shield to greet a poisonous species).

"I don't know about this, Pete," Sally said to her hus­ band, who ­ POOF! ­ had just opened his vapor­locked luggage on the other side of the king­sized float­bed.

"You alright?" asked Pete, straightening to look over his jumbled mound of unlocked clothing. Dressed in matching blue knit tunic, pants and socks, his casually lined face focused on his wife. Despite his fatigue, he was energized by the idea of having just landed on their first visit to another planet beyond Earth.

Sally placed a cool hand on her warm, damp forehead.

"Yes, I guess. Just space­lag. God, I hope they sell Cor­ rective Cocktails at this hotel."

"Hey! Mom and Dad?" came Curtis' ten year old voice from the main living room of their suite. "Can we eat the same stuff as a ... cephalopod?"

Sally shook her head and sighed. "They slept the en­ tire last day of our flight here. So of course they're starving, and scouring the room service menu."

"I asked them to look for family dishes for dinner in our suite. I knew we'd be too exhausted to go to a res­ taurant this first evening," Pete answered logically. Then 5

he turned to call out, "Maybe, Curtis! You need to look for notations on the menu of which dishes are for hu­ manoid consumption."

"Yeah," answered May, Curtis' older sister. "There're little stick figures beside the dishes that us people can eat.

But Curtis is looking at Savory Sea Slugs, and I'm NOT gonna eat that!"

"We'd better get out there," Pete warned his exhausted wife in a soft voice. "This is their first trip to an inter­ galactic hotel. And I don't want Room Service to arrive with something chirping, thumping or slithering out from under the dish covers."

Sally rose and faced her husband. "Pete, look: I know how much you wanted to bring the kids on their first bey­ ond­solar vacation, especially since you're a Life Space Technologist. And I'm trying to be a good sport here, really.

"But three months of enduring injections for everything from Tantric Shriveling Disease to Burning Eye Death gave me plenty of time to think that this ... may not have been the best way to spend the summer. Especially with a couple of pre­teens who stare and giggle at every passing alien, and run around stabbing every picture in the spaceports thinking they're touchscreens."

"How about something with only half a stick­figure called Intensely Arachnid?" called out Curtis.

"NO!" answered Pete and Sally in unison.

An hour later, Sally and the kids lingered at their suite dining table, the remnants of ordered dishes before them.

Pete was working the wall­sized computer screen nearby.

The living room was oval shaped with 360­degree light­ ing that could change mood­colors with verbal com­ mands. The sit­down furniture was just what they'd ordered: "mid­height humanoid plush for sitting, in cool blues and greens".

The kids had turned their chairs to watch their father.

Curtis was all boy, shaggy brown hair and darting eyes al­ ways ready for an adventure. He wore expandable black tough­wear, pants and shirt made with extra "repulsive fibers" to help protect his body from piercings and hard 6

landings. May was a year older, studious and infinitely curious about everything, like her father. She wore a pretty pink and blue bloused jumpsuit. Like her mother, she had her light brown hair in a ponytail on top of her head.

Beside the large computer screen in the wall, there was a huge, half­bubble window of thick plastic that showed a beautiful 30th floor vista of a bustling alien city, housing a variety of extra­terrestrial species. The bubble window was slowly darkening to simulate their pro­ grammed­in day/night hours during adjustment, al­ though the afternoon sun shone like a spotlight in one dark upper corner.

The kids and Pete were enthusiastically discussing what to do tomorrow. "Since this planet is near a well traveled commercial corridor," Pete was explaining, "They have the best museums in this quadrant of the galaxy."

He tapped the screen menu to one side labeled Museums of the Good to Best Kind. "Here are the most recommen­ ded," he said, tapping open a sub­screen. "We've got the Pretty Rocks Museum of Rare Minerals and Gemstones."

"Good to Best Kind?" queried Curtis. "Pretty Rocks Museum? Do these aliens really talk like that?"

"They had to pick descriptive words that could be translated into any language, and not lose their mean­ ing," answered May. "Exactly, May. Thanks," Pete stated. He went back to study the screen. "Then there's the Live Air Animal Mu­ seum, which sounds like some kind of zoo." Pete opened the details and scanned them for a few seconds. "Uh, no, never mind," he suddenly added. "That won't work. You kids are too young for the hover­lungs."

"That's 'cause their lungs are too immaturble," piped up Sally at the other end of the table, her turban leaning slightly. "No, I mean immalutionery ..."

"I think you mean immature, darling," answered Pete with a quick frown. "How are you doing over there with your Corrective Cocktails? Which one are you on now?

The Anxiety Eraser or the Golden Calmative?"

May leaned closer to her Dad and said quietly, "She 7

mixed them both in a flower vase she found in a cabinet.

I think she's long past Calm and is now headed straight toward Eraser. She'll be out cold in an hour."

"If she's in bed sick tomorrow," piped up Curtis, also leaning toward his father, "can we go someplace with more to do than just look at stuff in a museum? I saw an ad in the last spaceport for a 'Space Junk Free Range Shootout' in orbit!," he reported excitedly. "No cage or tethers, real weapons, plenty of personal shielding. And each day's winner gets to tour the orbital headquarters for 'Tomorrow's Soldiers Today'."

Pete sighed with annoyance. "You DO want your mother to kill me on this vacation, don't you?" he answered sharply. "No, we're not going to shoot space junk. And 'Tomorrow's Soldiers Today' is always recruit­ ing for mercenaries. So no, I don't want to endure ten years of mercenary recruitment messages, videogames and sample weapons sent to our home!"

"I read that this planet has a flower garden in a tube with a central elevator, called the Flower Tower," chimed in May. "That might be fun to visit."

"Flowers?" said Curtis, making a face of disdain. "We fly a million light­years to look at ... flowers?!"

Pete went back to his touchscreen. "Let me see what else we could do tomorrow." He sorted rapidly through more Tourist Activities sub­screens. "OK, tell you what," said Pete finally, turning to face his children with an en­ thusiastic smile.

"We'll do the Flower Tower in the morning, since Mom may be not, uh, be feeling real well. Then tomorrow af­ ternoon, we'll catch the Beast of Burden Auction. Anim­ als from all over the galaxy will be auctioned off.

Creatures for food, transportation, breeding or pets. Says here that this particular auction is featuring animals with three to seven legs, all with one to three heads, tails and tail­less. That'd be fun to see, huh?"

THUMP! Pfffffffffffffffffffffff.....

Pete and the kids jumped and turned. Sally had a table knife raised, staring down at a unevenly deflating leftover green blob of food. "It was gettin' bigger!" ex­ 8

plained Sally. "Puffin' up like a b'loon! I dinnit want it to get so big it'd 'splode."

"Uh, OK, no problem," answered Pete, quickly stepping away from the touchscreen. "Some species inject gases into their food, so they cook faster or more evenly. May? Call this hotel's health services and ask them to send up some humanoid anti­inflation pills. We all ate that Tur­ bondo vegetable, and we certainly don't want to swell up like that in the middle of the night."

May nodded and headed for the phone. Pete faced his son. "Curtis? Scour this hotel room for any kind of a printed guide to the Spa Services this hotel offers for hu­ manoids. I picked this hotel since I thought they offered an extensive list of massages and beauty treatments. But there's nothing on this computer or the hotel's website. If you can't find a brochure, call and ask for one." He then added urgently, "And then go get the dang thing, if they won't send it to this suite's computer."

As Pete helped his sleepy, unsteady wife to their mas­ ter suite float­bed, he could hear Curtis on their bed­ room's tracking­intercom. "Hey, May! Two to one Mom barfs on the Flower Tower tomorrow!"

Marilyn K. Martin is a freelance writer and humorist. She is currently writing a series of Sci Fi / Horror / Humor / Adventure / Thriller novellas titled "Hunting Monster Aliens" published on Amazon's Kindle. She has had stories appear this year in the "Universe Horribilis" anthology (Third Flatiron), and won first place for her story in the June issue of "Fiction Vortex".

She has accepted stories to appear in the "Lost Worlds" anthology (Third Flatiron) and "Bewildering Stories" sometime this Fall. She also writes weekly articles and humor columns for ComputorEdge.com.

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HIVES

J.B. Christopher A

banker’s box full of evidence stared back at him, Case 6607 written in black marker on all four sides. De­ tective Ford Lawler slowly pulled each item from the box and arrayed it neatly on the conference table with somber diligence. His eyes tallied the inventory: crime report, medical analysis from the hospital, a composition note­ book with diary neatly printed on the front, endless inter­ view transcriptions, a few photos, some newspaper clippings from the summer of 77. His hands, almost if they had a mind of their own, spread the clippings before him. One caught his eye: FAMILY BUTCHERED IN SLEEP. POLICE BAFFLED. Lawler picked up the medical report. It was in a thick folder secured with a drawstring. Inside, detailed write­ ups from the coroner, infectious disease specialist, and pediatrician. He read from the hospital report.

“Is this your idea of late night reading?”

Lawler lifted his head and sighed at the crumpled fig­ ure framed in the doorway that belonged to Detective Charles Kingsley. Lawler had been reading for two hours.

“Do you remember this case? Number 6­6­0­7?”

“Nah. That’s before my time slick. I started that winter though. People were still talking about it when I came on­ board. You know, water cooler chatter.”

Lawler pushed himself back, folded his arms across his chest. Thinking.

“That was some summer though. Star Wars just came out. I took my girl to the drive­in down in Tigard. They never did catch the perp.”

Lawler nodded, not saying anything.

“Why the trip down memory lane? You got a new lead?”

“Nothing like that. Do you remember the little girl in 10

the case?”

Kingsley took a step closer and said, “Oh yeah.” He snapped his fingers and smiled, proud at his powers of recall. “She had cancer or something right? She was kid­ napped and they never found her. Am I close?”

“That’s pretty good. She didn’t have cancer, but you’re right, she’s still missing. She disappeared without a trace.” Lawler continued, “The kid suffered from some unknown respiratory and skin disease.”

“So?” “I think my nephew has the same thing. I’m trying to track down some of the doctors mentioned in the case file.”

Kingsley still looked at him puzzled.

“You know how the Chief has us work cold cases from time to time – well, I read 6607 here about a year ago.

When I saw what my nephew was going through, I im­ mediately thought of this case.”

“The Chief know you doing this?”

“Nope. I’d like to keep it that way.”

“Roger that. I didn’t see a thing.”

Kingsley turned to leave, when Lawler said, “You care to help?”

“I’m sorry brother. But right now, my only career goal is reaching retirement and this doesn’t seem like it is part of the track.”

“D

octor Watson, we spoke on the phone yesterday.

I’m Detective Lawler with Portland PD­“ The door opened a crack. A giant eye bulged from the darkness, surveyed Lawler from head to toe. A gravelly voice from behind the door said, “What d’you want?”

Doctor Watson lived in a cabin near Mt. Hood. It was a desolate area where people valued privacy above all else.

His cabin stood amongst giant pines, two cars on blocks out front, a red pickup in the back.

“This is a case from 1977­“ The door swung open. “My reports and statements are on file. What is it you want?”

Detective Lawler flashed his badge. “I know you don’t 11

know me, but this is related to an old case. The Stevens homicides. Number 6607. I’m just asking for a few minutes of your time and then I’ll be on my way.”

The reed thin man behind the door was Doctor Wat­ son, retired in 1988, divorced, never remarried, no chil­ dren. He was the infectious disease specialist cited repeatedly in medical reports attached to the case 6607 reports. Lawler thought this was the man to help his nephew; clearly, Lawler realized he had made a mistake.

Time had not been kind to Watson. His hair was un­ combed and he wore a flannel shirt that draped over his narrow shoulders and hung over his pants.

Getting dressed and answering the door were both done in haste.

“I’m sorry to bother you. I was just hoping you could refer me to a colleague or maybe you know­“ “Get to it son.”

“My nephew Max, he has the same condition de­ scribed in the medical reports. The symptoms, the traject­ ory of the illness, it all matches. I’m desperate Doc. We need your help. No one knows what’s wrong with him.”

Lawler watched fear crowd the doctor’s face and change its pallor. The doctor in a lower voice, said, “The Stevens family murders. I remember. I can still Jessica.

The one they never found. She was a patient of mine. She had a unknown condition.” He bit his lip, reconsidering his word choice. But what else was it? He had a lifetime to consider it and he still didn’t know how to describe it.

His tone changed and he said, “Good god. I always knew there would be others.” He moved to his sofa, and col­ lapsed into it, his eyes distant. Sitting there, the images from that frightful summer swam before him, and he turned pale as milk, the sudden terror haunting him once again.

Lawler followed and moved to the center of the room.

He dared not sit.

Inside, books, newspapers and magazines were piled wherever there was space.

“You need to talk to Detective Dwight Miles. He was the lead detective on the case.” His small beady eyes wet with tears, looked directly at Lawler. The detective shifted on his feet, for once uncomfortable.

12

“I’ve read most of it. I was trying to get names of the medical staff that treated the child.”

The old man sighed and repeated, “You need to talk to Miles. He knows everything about the case. Don’t waste your time with doctors. Get to Miles. He may know what to do.” The doctor coughed a heavy throaty cough that sounded like he suffered from emphysema.

“Doc, do you think there’s anything science can do? I mean this was almost 40 years ago, surely medicine has advanced. There has to be someone out there who has the answer.”

The doctor continued to cough. He held up his hand, signaling Lawler to wait. After the coughing fit passed, Watson shook his head slightly, gulped and said, “If your nephew truly has the same illness, then there is nothing.

Tell me, how far along is it? The hives right? Thick heavy scabs really. Almost looks like giant fish scales. Rough to the touch. Reptilian looking?”

“Both his feet are covered. It’s moving up his legs.”

“Sometimes science only offers more questions and not the answers we seek. Are you a religious man?”

“In my line of work, that’s a luxury.”

“Then there is nothing left for you to do. Nothing.”

The word reverberated in Lawler’s ears like someone cupped him on the side of the head. Confronted with an answer he didn’t like, Lawler stormed out of the cabin and jumped in his car and sped back toward Portland, kicking up a rooster tail of rocks and pebbles. Lawler and his wife Evangeline could never have children of their own, something he quietly blamed on his wife. He loved Max as if the child was his own.

D

etective Lawler found himself back at the station, going through the case files for 6607 again. During the drive back, there was one item that kept haunting him.

The diary of Mrs. Kim Stevens, mother of Jessica, de­ ceased. He didn’t read it earlier, afraid that he’d seen it before with what his brother’s family was going through.

He didn’t need to read the play by play as he’d experi­ enced it nearly first hand.

13

Detective Dwight Miles, retired in the fall of 1977, still lived in Portland, never married. The department file on him seemed incomplete he thought, absent was any men­ tion about his retirement or record of any accommoda­ tions received in the line of duty. Lawler was surprised that the number on file was current, and left a message on his voice mail The coroner’s report could not accurately list the cause of death for Kim Stevens. The body was greatly mutilated, and was missing the skull. Miles pushed the coroner re­ port to the side and picked up the ageless diary. His eyes lingered a moment as he pictured her sitting down each night to write it in bed, placing it on her bedside table after she had completed her daily entry. In the box he found a picture of her. Yellowed and faded, in the photo she had a perm, wore a white over­sized blouse. She had a big toothy smile. She looked happy. He skimmed several entries until he found the one he was looking for: July 12, 1977 Today we found out that our little baby Jessica is allergic to macadamia nuts. We just got a box of candies and aloha shirts from my parents who spent a week in Hawaii for their thirtieth wedding anniversary. Jake didn’t know it, none of us did, and he gave Jessica a small piece of macad­ amia nut. Almost instantly, she started throwing up viol­ ently and then convulsing. We rushed her to the hospital – thankfully we live close to St. Anthony’s. Jake carried her straight into the ER. She was just this lifeless body. No fath­ er should have to bare witness to that. We were both crying on the ride over, convinced she would not make it. Jake was driving like a mad man. I had to yell at him twice to slow down or else he would get us both killed. I was trembling with fear. I thought my baby was going to die. At the hos­ pital, they took us to a room right away. Everyone was dressed in white; I still remember the panic on their faces when they saw Jessica’s limp form. She was hardly breath­ ing.

They gave her a shot, but that didn’t seem to work. Jake was screaming at them as the heart monitor was going all over the place. The orderlies had to come and take Jake 14

away. They said he was disruptive and preventing them from doing their job. And all this time, Jessica was slipping further away. I felt sorry for her. I felt responsible for this.

We should have known better. I just sat there, crying, blub­ bering. I couldn’t do anything.

She flat lined that night. For two minutes, nothing they did could resuscitate her. The ER doctor that night, Doctor Block, he looked at his watch, ready to log the time of death, when she bolted upright, sucking in a big gulp of air, like she was under water for a long time and needed air.

The heart monitor started to beep again. Tonight was a miracle. Jake had to be sedated and was in another room, but when I went to tell him that little Jessica was going to recover, I could tell it registered. I could see it his face. It re­ laxed a bit, and he smiled as much as the sedatives could allow.

July 16, 1977 We are able to go home today. Jessica seems to have re­ turned to normal. The doctor is satisfied with her recovery but she is leaving with a confirmed nut allergy. If she has nuts again, her air passageway will swell up, and she could die. It’s that simple. Jake already has gone through the pantry and has thrown away anything with nuts in it. He didn’t like that one bit, on account of how he doesn’t like to waste money. The next time, the doctors have warned us, she might have a stronger reaction. Jake is in good spirits and has promised he will stop smoking in the house since the Doctor warned it would irritate her throat.

July 17, 1977 Tonight we had our first dinner together. Our family is once again whole. Jake tried to blame the entire episode on my parents, but I didn’t let it bother me. He said none of this would have happened if my parents weren’t sticking their nose where it didn’t belong. I told him it was nothing like that. He was just being­ “Excuse me, Detective Lawler? You have a call on line 3, Mr. Dwight Miles.” It was a blonde haired first year flatfoot. He popped his head into the conference room where Lawler had set up camp. It took Lawler a moment before the name registered.

15

He sprang to his feet. He had written Miles off. He didn’t think he’d call back. He felt hope glimmering in his mind like a dim light in a cave.

He closed the notebook gently, as if it would disinteg­ rate into the air.

He picked up the line from a phone mounted on the wall.

“Is this Dwight Miles?”

“Yes. What’s this about?”

“Doc Watson suggested I contact you. This is a person­ al matter, but I’m researching a possible medical episode that occurred­“ “You’re talking around it. “ He had a rough, beefy voice. Lawler pictured him to be a tall, heavyset man.

“Yes sir. I’ll get to it.”

“Can the sir business.”

“Look, it’s about case 6607. I need to ask you some questions about it.”

Miles didn’t say anything for a long time, but Lawler could hear him breathing in shallow gasps, like he was breathing through a straw.

“Mr. Miles?”

“Get on with it.”

“It’s my nephew. He has the same thing that Jessica Stevens had in the case file. It’s on both his feet.

Everything they’ve tried, has failed.”

Miles was hooked now. “I don’t want to do this over the phone. They could be listening. I want you to see the fear in my eyes, it’s like a sickness. I want you to under­ stand what you are dealing with. How soon can we meet?”

L

awler gave him the name of a bar near the airport.

The Rusty Bucket. It was quiet and out of the way. He used it once before to meet with a confidential informant several years ago in a burglary ring that he busted. Now at 3pm, it was nearly empty. After nine, it was a strip club where the girls had to bring their own music.

Lawler told Miles that he’d be sitting at the bar drink­ 16

ing a coke.

Detective Dwight Miles entered the bar and the first impression Lawler had was that of an ex football jock.

Tall and heavy shouldered, he looked strong despite his age.

“Lawler?” It was that baritone voice from the phone.

Lawler stood and said thanks for coming out to meet him.

“Skip the shit.” He pulled up a stool and sat beside Lawler, and set his great forearms on the counter. He ordered a Bud. “This isn’t a social call. What I’m about to tell you, has taken me thirty years to say. They retired me because of it. I was instructed never to talk about it. Nev­ er. And I’ve remained true to the deal. I’ve never spoken with the papers or the news stations. No, their idea, was given enough time, this would all blow over. And their plan worked. The case is forgotten, buried. A cold case in a room full of cold cases. And the world has moved on.

You’re familiar with the case I take it?”

“Yes.” “They were afraid I would go to the press. So they made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. They retired me when I was just forty­two with full benefits. I’d been on the force since I was twenty­seven. Not a bad deal. But I didn’t want to do anything else. The job was all I knew how to do. My wife didn’t like me around the house much and soon the drinking started. And then the inevitable divorce. But no amount of beer could help me unsee what I saw that summer.”

Miles finished half his beer in a single gulp.

“Watson called me after you drove up to see him. I knew you were coming.”

“Are you two close?”

“I wouldn’t say that. He took an interest in my well being you could say. He looked out for me and helped me.”

Lawler’s face grew waxen.

“I was the first one to the crime scene, which is un­ heard of for a detective. I was in the area when I heard a report of shots fired at a residential house. 134 Mac­ 17

Adam, John’s Landing. There were hardly any houses down there at the time. As dumb luck would have it, I was minutes away. Shots fired. Remember that. Because that does not appear anywhere in the case files.

“I get to the house. The front door is hanging on the hinges. The jamb was splintered. The force came from the inside. It was like a grenade went off and blew the door open. I pulled out my service revolver and entered the residence.

“Now, before I tell you the rest, I want you to think, what would I gain by making this up? Check my records. I was a detective in good standing with the department.

What do I have to gain by this? Every day for the last 30 years, I relive the moment of entering that house. The de­ tails are all still fresh, as if I just had this nightmare. I tried to think what would have I done differently?

“I entered the house. I’m hit with the rush of rot, like something decaying. It was hot that day. So her body was in the heat for hours before Jake Stevens came home and flipped out and pulled out his piece. I climbed the stairs, I covered my nose with my left hand, I moved down the hall leading with my pistol. Just like they teach you in the academy. I’m shaking, the gun trembling before me. And I can’t control it.

“Then I heard it. At first I thought it was static on the TV or radio. I get closer to the master bedroom. The smell is unbearable. Then I see what’s making the noise.

Thousands and thousands of flies. They’re covering the headless body of Mrs. Stevens. Something had popped her head off and disemboweled the body.

“We never found the murder weapon. But whatever severed her head was delivered with such force that it penetrated the wall behind her. It’s an arrowhead type weapon with a three bladed tip. I always imagined it was a spear.

“Jake was taken by surprise in the small hallway lead­ ing upstairs from the bedroom. He was opened up like a gutted fish and was missing both his eyes like they were punched out. I suspect he saw his wife, and then decided to run upstairs. Was he trying to get away? They didn’t 18

have a basement. Maybe he was trying to hide? He was overwhelmed by force and squeezed off two shots into the wall during the struggle. I think he was trying to put the gun to his head but couldn’t act fast enough.

“There was a set of footprints in blood leading from that mess, heading upstairs. They were small, the size of a child. I called out and I could hear laughing. But it wasn’t a child’s giggle. No, this was a throaty cackle. It was the sound of evil. I followed the footsteps, faster now, my heart racing. I remember I was sweating so much like I was in an oven. I’m on the top floor of the house – a converted attic bedroom. And the footsteps lead to an open window. I rush to it, nothing beneath me.

There are no nearby trees for someone to use. I stick my head out the window, towards the roof. I see a small footprint set in the top part of the window. I can see five little toes pressed firmly into the glass. And that’s it. I hear this faint laughter, that cackle. And then I hear movement along the roof and then it’s gone. Forever.”

Lawler made a face like he was sucking on a lemon.

“When I close my eyes at night, I still hear that laugh.

I go to bed with a gun under my pillow every night.”

Lawler looked at him, troubled.

“I know what you’re thinking. There were three people in the house. Two were smeared across it like strawberry jam. The third walked out and disappeared never to be seen again.”

“Are you telling me, you think the kid did it?”

“I have had thirty years to think about this. Every day I relive those frantic five minutes in that house. And my answer is yes.”

Lawler considered what Dwight said, his face set.

“That kid flat lined. She was dead for almost three minutes. I think when she came back, she brought something with her. And she started to transform. Like a larva. We found that heavy skin sloughed off throughout the house. She shed it that day.”

Lawler paid for his soda and the beer.

“You think I’m crazy don’t you?”

“I think you need to see a doctor.”

19

“Look. If your son­“ “Nephew. It’s my brother’s boy. Max.” “If your nephew really has... has this affliction there is only one thing you can do.”

Lawler had heard enough. He had slipped off his stool when Miles grabbed his jacket and pulled him close and said, “You have to put a bullet between that child’s eyes. I am sure of it.”

Lawler pushed him back and was about to counter when he stopped himself and said, “Let me indulge this idea for a moment.

Why would this happen to the Stevens’ family in ’77? Why would this happen to my brother’s family?”

“How long you been a cop?”

“Seven years.”

“Hell and you haven’t figured that out yet? Sometimes bad things just happen to good people. Nobody asks to get raped. Nobody asks to get murdered. But sometimes being at the wrong place at the wrong time hands you a death sentence.”

Lawler gave him a twenty and said to either use it for booze or a cab. He thanked him for his time and left.

In the car in the parking lot, Lawler cursed his luck.

He felt like he had just wasted his time with the doctor, and now Miles. Time was something he did not have.

T

he next morning, he called his brother from his of­ fice with bad news. Dead­ends and crazy talk. He gave his brother a quick run down of accounts skipping over the details that Miles had provided at the bar. His brother said thanks but didn’t expect much, given that everything else resulted in no improvement in little Max. “He’s getting worse. The hives, they’re up to his knees.

And it hurts to move, so Max only stays in bed. The hives, they’re like fish scales. But real sharp. You should see them­“ His brother cut himself off and cried, something he hadn’t done since they were kids and he fell off his bike and his front teeth popped out of his mouth like shiny dice.

His brother hung up the phone and Lawler fought 20

back the tears. Fish scales? Didn’t Watson say that too?

Allison Haan, the curly­haired secretary to Chief Ed­ monds, appeared at his desk and said his presence was requested immediately.

Edmonds told Lawler to take a seat. He watched Allis­ on close the office door and said, “Detective Dwight Miles took his own life early this morning.” Edmonds watched that news sink in across Lawler’s face.

Sitting beside Edmonds, waiting his turn to speak was Oliver Phillips. Once a seasoned detective, he worked in Internal Affairs. A white wreath of hair crowned his nearly bald head. He had a reputation as a no­nonsense investigator.

Lawler didn’t say anything. Suddenly, he felt like he was on trial. He recalled giving Miles twenty bucks and some line about using it for booze or cab fare.

Edmonds eyed Lawler, and said, “In his suicide note, he mentioned you.” Edmonds took pleasure in that, watching Lawler shift his weight in his seat.

Phillips handed a photocopied document to Lawler and said, “Do you think it’s odd that he mentions your name?”

The suicide note read: For 30 years I’ve lived with it.

I’ve slept with it. I’ve carried this weight with me where ever I go. I can’t any more. Det. Lawler you know the truth.

But before Lawler could even stammer or begin to think of an answer, Phillips continued and said, “I think Internal Affairs would be very interested to know about your relationship with this individual and the context of this note.”

“It’s related to case 6607.”

“You have a new lead?” Lawler was impressed at this knowledge of the case. 6607 was still fresh for the older police administrators.

Lawler shook his head no and recounted why he had been reading the case files.

Edmonds, tenting his fingers before his chest, sighed and said, “You’re a good a cop but you’ve broken protocol and then this business with Miles. You’ve really forced my hand here. You’re suspended until an internal invest­ 21

igation can ascertain the specifics of your relationship with the deceased.”

“What? Are you kidding me? First of all, my investiga­ tion, if you want to call it that, has been occurring when I’m off the clock. My daily case load has been uninterrup­ ted.”

Phillips pulled out a notepad and read, “Miles called you yesterday at 1:30 pm and you left shortly thereafter ostensibly to meet him?”

Edmonds said in a dull voice, “Just serve the suspen­ sion and be done with it. You were using your access to the case files for personal gain. It’s a direct violation.”

Lawler, almost unmoved, said, “Did you know Miles?”

It didn’t bother Lawler that he had been under the watch­ ful eye of Phillips, what he wanted to know was the truth regarding case 6607.

Both men glanced at each other, unsure of how they should answer.

Phillips spoke first and said, “He was a drunk. That’s why he left the force.”

“From the case file, there was no record of that. In fact, there was a copy of his personal file in there. Most of the history, his accommodations, reviews, are all missing.”

“Must be some type of clerical error.” Phillips didn’t break stride. “He was a drunk.” Edmonds seemed unwill­ ing to go along with the charade and remained tight lipped.

“Who was the chief back then? Did you two work on the case?”

Edmonds appeared rattled. “That was a long time ago. Most of the people that worked that case are dead.”

Lawler bit his lip.

“If you have nothing else, you may go.”

With Lawler’s hand on the doorknob, Phillips called out, “We’ll be contacting you shortly about Miles.”

That was the warning shot over the bow, he surmised walking down the stairs.

In the parking lot, Lawler sat in his car and punched the dashboard. What did they know? What were they hiding? This was clearly a case of Lawler getting his hand 22

slapped. He knew now that they were watching and case 6607 for whatever reason, was taboo. Maybe it represen­ ted a black eye in the department’s history? A period in its history when the Portland PD was powerless to do anything? Lawler didn’t know. He turned as he pulled out of the parking spot when he noticed the Steven’s di­ ary in the backseat.

H

e phoned his brother Charles, and didn’t tell him about the suspension. All Ford did was sleep now. He barely ate, seemed lethargic. Their pediatrician said it was premature to send him to the hospital. They would wait a couple of more days. A day of bad news all around, thought Lawler. He told his brother he would be by in the morning to help out.

He fetched a beer from the fridge and took a familiar place on the sofa with the Steven’s diary on his lap.

July 20, 1977 Jake is smoking in the house again, after he promised he wouldn’t do it. But in a way, I can’t blame him. The hives, thick in some places like armor, has crept up Jessica’s left arm, right calf, and now her left foot is showing signs of it.

All she does is moan in pain. I massage it with Vaseline, keeping the skin moist. She seems to like that. The skin is very rough, like sandpaper in some spots. Jake is very nervous and paces around the house all the time.

I’d rather he was smoking than drinking. I don’t want him near us when he’s drunk. He came home last night with a few beers in him, and he called Jessica a monster. He called our own child a monster.

I moved Jessica into our bed now. He can sleep on the sofa or in the garage. I don’t care at this point. I want to keep Jessica near me. There are times that I think I see the old Jessica in there. A flicker or a flash, her lips pull up into a smile, and I think it’s all going to be good again. Then the smile erodes back into that lifeless face.

July 21, 1977 The hives are past both her knees and up to her shoulders. I’m not even sure what to call them anymore.

They’re starting to form and take shape on her lower back.

23

She seems to be in a constant state of pain. Doc Watson came by yesterday. He is a kind man and is generally re­ garded as the best in his profession. He came by the house and took a sample of one of the hives. He had to remove it with a scalpel. Jessica cried when he removed it and a thick puss ran from the incision.

He said he was personally going to drive the sample to the lab. He would call as soon as he had any information.

We drank tea and he asked how Jake and I were doing. He gave me his number and said to call him if we ever needed anything.

Strangely, when I returned an hour later, the section that Doc Watson had removed was replaced with new tissue. A new scale had emerged and you could never tell one was re­ moved.

Jake said­ Lawler fell asleep with the diary opened on his chest.

He had finished a six­pack and had been alternating between reading the diary and wondering what Miles had been living with all these years that drove him to suicide.

Was the meeting with Edmonds and Phillips a coincid­ ence? Or were they related?

He awoke the next morning at almost eleven, and found the diary had slid off his chest onto the floor. Pick­ ing it up, a piece of paper slipped from the book, hung in the air a moment like a falling leaf and pin wheeled to the ground.

Lawler reached over, picked it up. It wasn’t just a piece of paper. It was a photograph, a Polaroid with the date written on the back. July 23, 1977. He flipped it over and instantly felt his stomach tighten. The photo was of little Jessica with hives covering nearly all of her body.

Her skin looked ruptured and loose in parts. She did not look human. He was reminded of pictures of lizards he’d watched late on TV on the Discovery Channel, when they were about to shed their skin. Although the hives covered her entire body, the color had faded, and it ap­ peared as a lifeless sack.

He recalled the words of the late Dwight Miles. He used the word sloughed off. Shedded like an animal peel­ 24

ing its previous coat because it was too small. But what was underneath?

July 22, 1977 Doctor Watson doesn’t know what to do. I’ve called him repeatedly and although he tries to calm me down, he isn’t much help. The lab results were inconclusive. He needed to send it to the university where they had better equipment, which will take days. Like the others, they just don’t know what to do. The hives now cover from the waist down and have joined with the patchwork along her back. Both arms are also covered and they appear to be racing to join at her chest or neck. Jake is of no help. Last night he said this was all my fault from the LSD I did in college. He didn’t go to college so any chance he gets he sticks it in my face.

Against Jake’s wishes, I spoke to a priest yesterday.

When I said my daughter needed last rites soon, he agreed to come by. But when I showed him the Polaroid, he nearly threw up. After that he didn’t offer much advice and basic­ ally said to call his office and arrange an appointment. He crossed himself and said he would pray for Jessica and me.

Her breathing has returned to normal. I guess that’s an improvement.

July 23, 1977 I awoke and found Jessica totally encased in those dis­ gusting hives. In some places the skin was loose. I screamed when I saw it covered her face. Jake ran into the room. But we found it was no longer fused to her skin, but loose. Real gentle like, we removed it first from her face, then we pealed it off the rest of her body, slowly, limb by limb. I thought about calling the doctor but there was no time. Jake was crying.

Beneath, her skin was as smooth as fine china. She was our little girl again.

We both jumped back when her eyes flashed open. She did not speak, and she remained still. We were able to sit her up. Her eyes had changed color to a dull yellow. Almost amber. But she was breathing normally.

She’s resting in the bed beside me. Jake went to the store to get some cigarettes. But I know he went to go get some more beer. That’s ok. I think things are going to get better.

25

This was the last entry in the diary. Lawler’s heart was sent racing when he glanced at the bottom of the last entry. It wasn’t the text that got to him, but something else that was on the last page of the diary... a small droplet of blood.

H

e had talked to his brother James on the phone. His brother said it was a bad time, Max was screaming and Janice was hysterical. Max was completely covered in thick hives. Lawler said he didn’t care, he was on his way and there was something he had to do.

He parked, and jumped out of the car. His pistol was in his shoulder holster, beneath his jacket. On the way over he remembered what Miles had said. He tried to push the thought out of his mind, but he wanted to be prepared. That’s what he told himself. Something was wrong. He had been suspended for it, Miles killed himself over it, and Doctor Watson was hiding from it. He was determined to get to the bottom of this.

Lawler knocked on the front door.

From inside the foursquare house, he could hear cry­ ing, sobbing. It was his sister­in­law, Janice.

The door opened, revealing his brother. James looked like he hadn’t slept for days, and had been crying.

Lawler tried not to look his brother in the eyes. He had thought about going in there, pistol drawn, but he didn’t want to do that. Then he was buying into what Miles was selling and he didn’t want to do that. He needed to judge for himself. He couldn’t look his brother in the eye, not with his 9mm pressed against his chest with the safety off and chambered for battle, and share what was running across his mind.

“What is this about? This is a bad time. Janice is a mess upstairs.”

“Where is she?” Lawler said, almost pushing past his brother. Lawler and James were in the foyer, the stairs at the other end. The crying, somewhere at the top.

His brother said, “She’s with Max. What’s wrong? You seem antsy.”

Lawler’s eyes cycled through the downstairs, as if in 26

crime fighting mode. But was that something you turned off? He hadn’t really thought about it.

“I want to see my nephew. I want to see Max.” He cursed himself for not bringing a toy or a stuffed animal.

How could he forget?

His brother didn’t say anything for a long time. He said, “Why are you here? It’s late. You found something out didn’t you?”

Lawler hesitated, wondering what tipped James off.

He flirted with the idea of telling him about Watson, about Miles, and his suspension, but before he could ar­ rive at a decision, they heard a brief scream, followed by the sound of something hitting the floor.

That was a body, thought Lawler. Automatically, his hand hauled out his 9mm. But his brother seized his wrist.

“What the hell? You’re not going in there like this.

You’ll scare everyone.”

“You have to trust me on this.”

James refused to lessen his grip.

“Don’t make me.”

With his free hand, Lawler landed a punch in his brother’s soft belly, knocking the wind out of him. “I’m sorry.”

Lawler took the first step; suddenly James tackled him from behind, overcoming the pain in his side. The pistol clattered down the stairs, and skidded to a rest in the middle of the foyer. Both men exchanged punches at the bottom of the stairs. When Lawler stopped, his attention shifted to the top of the stairs.

Shirtless and dressed only in his pajama pants, stood Max at the top of the dimly lit stairs.

James, overcome with joy, was about to say something when he stopped. Something didn’t look right.

“Max, you alright?” Tears welled up in his father’s eyes.

Max responded with a predatory glance like a great cat, sizing them up, before he decided what to do next.

Lawler had seen this before when he cornered a perp and they took a moment to inventory their options.

27

Lawler said, “Max, it’s your uncle Ford. You ok?” His voice sounded weak, scared.

Max took a step.

Now bathed in the yellow light from the foyer, both men gasped. Blood draped over Max’s chin and smeared his torso. He continued to descend down the stairs.

As Max walked, there was a noise of something clat­ tering behind him. It skipped down each step, and banged against the walls. Ford was in the middle of the staircase, and Lawler could see it clearly now. A thin hair­ less tail followed Max as he walked. It was about as thick as broomstick.

Max pulled up short of the middle of the staircase, a trail of bloody footprints behind him. His eyes were a life­ less yellow, nearly neon. The boy had the face of a hunter, now free to roam and do what nature had designed it for.

Watson was right. The girl died on the ER table and in her place, was something else. Lawler’s eyes saucered wide: this was not Max. This was not the nephew he loved and spoiled. This was somebody entirely different. He felt his throat tighten, as if pinched shut.

Lawler dove for his gun.

Max leapt off the staircase and landed with the soft thud of a cat.

Lawler was inches from his pistol, but could feel him­ self getting pulled backwards. His hands frantically paw­ ing at the wood floor provided no purchase. The gun continued to recede from his grip. He looked over his shoulder and saw young Max pulling him backwards, his small hands gripping Lawler’s feet and pant cuffs. Above Max’s right shoulder hung what looked like a scorpion's tail, ready to strike with its speared tip.

He screamed.

The author of "Hives" has appeared in several online magazines (Shotgun Honey, Flash Fiction Offensive, Darkest Before the Dawn, A Twist of Noir, 69 Flavors of Paranoia) under the pseudonym J.B. Christopher (www.jb­christopher.com).

28

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Issues are available from #05... and just like the copy you're reading now, they're FREE! 29

THE HELL

David Neilsen W

e was sitting for supper and Pa was just saying grace when they crashed.

One second we was a family of four gathered for meatloaf and potatoes and the next a fireball exploded outside, turning night into day and bathing our whole farm in Hellfire and damnation. The blast rocked the walls and shattered the windows, including the big double­pane over the sink. Shards of glass attacked our meal, driving themselves into the table and potatoes and green beans and everything else. It happened so quick none of us had time to blink before the glass washed us over.

I woke up on the floor. I don’t think I was out long be­ cause there was glass everywhere and I could hear Jared screaming and outside the barn was burning up something fierce. I was in a butt­load of pain but couldn’t figure where from, it just sort of hurt all over. My hands were sliced up all nasty and I figured the rest of me looked the same.

Brushing glass out of the way, I pushed myself up, rip­ ping my sticky cheek off the floor. There was a ton of blood under me, whether mine or not I didn’t know.

Jared was screaming. Pa was screaming, too, but Jared was louder. He was hunched over Ma, who’d had her back to the window, and was just screaming up a storm.

I got to my feet and Pa looked over, his eyes a blank stare. “Ben? You alright?”

“I’m good, Pa, I’m good.” It was a lie, but it was all I could say because I wasn’t looking at Pa, I was looking down at Jared and Ma. She was face down on the re­ mains of the table, her back punctured with so much glass she looked like a pissed­off porcupine.

“Mom!” screamed Jared. “Mom! Mom!” Ma was dead. I knew that. I could tell Pa knew that, 30

too. Jared didn’t know, couldn’t know. He’s only ten, and when you’re ten your Ma never dies.

“You alright Ben? You alright?” continued Pa. I could see his face fidget and fight like it didn’t want to start feeling no emotion right then. Pa didn’t have no use for emotion, he was a doer.

“Is Ma­?” I started, but he cut me off.

“The Hell was that? The Hell just happened?”

Jared just kept screaming out for Ma over and over, but I could already see Pa tuning him out. Tuning her out.

“Barn’s on fire,” I said, pretty much doing the same as Pa. I always did take after him more.

He turned around and we stared out the window at the blaze. We hadn’t used the barn for nothing but storing tools and hay for years. Now all that hay was crackling up good and hot and there weren’t no way that barn weren’t gonna burn to cinders. But that ain’t what we were star­ ing at.

We were staring at the spaceship.

Near as I could tell from the window, it had crashed right through the barn, in one side and out the other.

Now it lay a bit aways, half­buried in mud.

“The Hell is that?” asked Pa. I didn’t say nothing, because I sure as Hell weren’t gonna say it was a spaceship but damn if I couldn’t think of anything else it were.

Ignored by us both, Jared rocked back and forth, screaming over Ma’s dead body.

“Come on Ben,” said Pa. He marched to the front door, grabbing one of the shotguns out of the umbrella rack. He had something to do. He was going hunting. I marched right past Jared and Ma, grabbed the other shotgun, and followed Pa outside.

“I

s Ma dead?” I asked as Pa and me approached the wreckage of the spaceship.

He grunted, which was all the acknowledgment he was gonna give. Ma being dead he couldn’t do nothing about, but this thing that done crashed through our barn?

That might be something he could shoot.

31

I followed in his footsteps, my hands clenching the shotgun tight. Whatever we found in that smoldering wreckage, I was gonna be ready. I’d shot stuff before, Pa’s been taking me and Jared hunting since we could stand up, and I wasn’t afraid. With a gun in my hands, I was a total bad ass.

Pa slowed as we got closer, and I came up behind him, ducking into his shadow. Off to our left, the barn burned bright, flames tickling the sky. I was sad to see it go, re­ membering all the times me and Jared played in there, jumping from the loft into piles of hay or bouncing tennis balls off the propane tank or pretending we was super­ heroes and the barn our secret fortress. But I shoved all that out of my mind and concentrated on the huge gash in the ground that ran from just past the barn to the mound of mud and debris piled up on top of whatever had just killed my Ma. “The Hell?” mumbled Pa. The closer we got, the weirder it all was. It was like a big giant had dragged his toe along the ground, clearing out an irrigation ditch or something. All along the ditch were broken bits of our barn, each one burning into ash.

The heat was nasty. We could feel it all around us, a dry, desperate heat. Like the air was on fire. I was sweating bullets as we got within a few feet of the crash, but I couldn’t tell you if that was from the heat or my nerves.

A few feet away we got close enough to get our first good look at the spaceship. Because that’s what it was, no mistake. A goddamned spaceship, just like in the movies.

Big old ball of shiny silver metal. Except it weren’t big. It was maybe the size of my bike if you wrapped it in plastic. There weren’t no way a person could fit in there and travel through space.

I was just about to tell Pa it must be some kind of ro­ bot machine when we heard a pitiful wailing. It reminded me of the sound our dog Magnet made that one time I ac­ cidentally shot him with a BB gun, which weren’t my fault because I didn’t know he was sleeping behind the target.

“Something’s back there, Pa,” I said like an idiot.

He grunted again. “Stay behind me.”

32

Shotgun out in front, he stepped down into the gash, ready to fire. I got mine ready, too. I’d seen enough movies to know if there were a real live alien back there I should shoot first and worry about being nice later.

The whining continued, soft but persistent. The only other sound right then was the angry snapping of the dy­ ing embers all round us, so the high­pitched whine stood out.

“Maybe it’s hurt?” I asked.

“Then we put it out of its misery,” said Pa through the side of his mouth.

Slowly, eyes on the prize, Pa stepped up the side of the gash and swung his aim around. From down below in the gash, I couldn’t see what he saw. Instead, I saw his jaw drop, his eyes bug out, and his shotgun droop down til it was pointing at his shoes.

“Pa! What is it! Whaddya see?”

“The Hell? The Hell is that?”

“Pa? Pa!” But he weren’t paying no attention to me. He was just gawking at whatever was back there, totally stupefied.

“Hold on Pa, let me see!”

He snapped his mouth shut and waved a hand at me.

“Stay down, Ben! You stay down!”

But I sure as Hell weren’t gonna stay down. Pa was looking at a space alien, and I wanted to see it, too. I scrambled up the side and peered around the corner.

And I saw it.

It was a little feller, not quite knee high on me, and I ain’t all that tall. In some ways it kinda looked like a per­ son, with two arms, two legs and a head. And it was wearing clothes and all. But in other ways it didn’t look like no person I ever seen. The head was way too big, for one. At least compared to the body. And the arms and legs both ended in equally­big hands and feet. It didn’t seem to have no fingers. Instead, the arms ended in what looked like big catcher’s mitts, all webbing and knuckles.

“What is it, Pa?” “Get the Hell out of here, Ben. Run. Run!” I pointed my shotgun. “Should I shoot it? Should I 33

shoot it, Pa?” “Run home, Ben!” But I wasn’t running home. And I wasn’t shooting it. It looked at me with eyes way back on its forehead and I knew, just like I knew with Ma, that this thing, whatever it was, I didn’t need to shoot it. The whining sound was it trying to breathe. Trying and failing. Shattered pieces of a glass helmet lay all around it. It couldn’t breath our air. It was gonna be dead in a couple of minutes without me lifting a finger.

“Jesus, Pa.” “God damn you, Ben. You get back in the house right now! I don’t know what this devil thing is, but it ain’t no good.”

“The Hell, Pa? The Hell?”

Pa sighed, giving up, and turned to look back at the space alien. “The Hell, Ben,” he said. “The Hell.”

Then the space alien raised up and shot its arm at us.

I mean shot the whole damn arm off, like the arm it­ self were the bullet. It screamed something unholy as it did this and then I screamed and Pa screamed and there was an explosion and next thing I know I’m back down in the gash, lying on my back.

It took me a good five seconds to figure out the explo­ sion I heard was me firing off my shotgun. Another couple of seconds after that and I realized I didn’t hear nobody screaming up there.

I dropped the gun and climbed back out, all the time yelling “Pa! Pa!” and not hearing no reply. Getting to the top, I looked all around for Pa, but didn’t see him nowhere. I turned in circles, yelling at the top of my lungs, eyes blurry with tears. What stopped me wasn’t catching sight of Pa, it was catching sight of the alien.

Or what was left of it.

The thing was sprawled out on the ground in a big pool of bright green gunk that I figured must be its blood.

The stuff was everywhere and there was a whole lot of it, way more than there had any right to be. What wasn’t there was the thing’s head.

Near as I could tell, when I fired my shotgun, I’d 34

popped the damn thing’s head open and it had just burst all to high Heaven like a nasty zit. But instead of seeing skull and brains and teeth, there was just this green gunk oozing everywhere.

Even weirder, it was still oozing. Pouring out of the thing’s neck right there in front of me. Now it was my turn to drop my jaw because as I watched, the headless body of the alien sorta deflated until it weren’t no more than an empty sack of skin. Which made no sense what­ soever.

But there weren’t no arguing with what I was seeing.

The thing’s insides were nothing but goop. And the goop, now a big puddle in front of me, bubbled and gurgled and just freaked me the Hell out.

I probably woulda stood there staring and pissing my pants if I hadn’t heard someone mutter something behind me.

“Pa? That you?” I turned around but still didn’t see him. Then I heard him again. He was… he was crying.

Finally I saw him. And, oh Holy crap, he was pinned to the wall of the barn fifty feet away!

“Pa!” I ran over to him, the heat of the fire burning my skin the closer I got. “Pa!” He hung maybe two, maybe three feet off the ground on one of the few walls still standing, the alien arm stick­ ing out of his gut, impaling him to the wall.

“Ben… Ben…” “Pa, I’ll get you down! I’ll get you down from there!”

Though I didn’t have no idea how I was supposed to do that. There was smoke everywhere, we were both cough­ ing up a lung, and the fire was eating away at the barn.

Pa wasn’t on fire yet, but he didn’t have a whole lot of time.

“It’s… in me,” mumbled Pa. “It’s in me!”

I tried to jump up and pull that alien arm out of him, but it was too high for me to reach. I had to act quickly, because the fire was spreading. I needed help.

“I’m gonna go get Jared!” I told him. “We’ll get you down!”

“I can feel it!” He coughed a couple of times and some 35

spittle flew out of his mouth. “It’s eating me!”

“You’ll be OK, Pa! I’ll be right back! I’ll be right back!”

I ran. Oh sure, I ran to get Jared, but also I ran be­ cause I was so scared I was gonna throw up. What Pa was saying, something inside of him, eating him, that was nuts. But so was an alien crashing through our barn and shooting its arm off. So I was running, more on automatic than anything else. Just like Pa, I had to be active.

Cause if I stopped to think, I’d curl into a ball and scream.

“J

ared! Jared!” I was yelling even before I threw the door open and ran into the room.

The place was a mess. I hadn’t really noticed earlier, being in shock and all, but there weren’t a piece of fur­ niture standing or an inch of floor not covered in glass.

“Jared?” I tore into the middle of the room, feet crunching glass with every step. “Jared, where are you!”

“Hi Ben,” came the way­too­calm voice of my little brother. “Sit down, your dinner’s getting cold.”

He was sitting cross­legged in the corner in front of a plate of food. He’d actually dug out all our plates and had them on the floor in front of him, each one some combin­ ation of meatloaf, potatoes, and glass. Propped up against the wall next to him was our mother.

Our dead mother.

“It’s dinnertime,” he said, chewing and talking at the same time. Little driblets of blood flew out of his mouth and he stopped to pick some glass out of his gums. “Not one of Mom’s best.”

His hands were cut up something awful and there was blood everywhere, but he didn’t seem to notice. He just picked up his knife and fork, cut a slice of meatloaf, ab­ sently wiping glass off the top, and popped it into his mouth.

For a moment, I forgot all the horrors going on out­ side, overwhelmed by the horror staring me in the face.

Ma leaned against the wall, mouth slack, eyes open and vacant. And way dead. With my little brother chowing down next to her corpse.

36

He swallowed and looked up at me. “Ain’t you gonna eat?”

Shaking, I put my hands out and stepped towards him. “Jared. Man. Oh, man. Just stop. OK?” He coughed, squirting a spray of blood onto his plate, before answering. “You should eat, Ben. Mom went and made us dinner.” He started cutting himself another slice.

“Ben, please. Oh, Christ, Ben.” I had to blink away some tears. I knelt in front of him and reached for his slice of glass­covered meatloaf. “Let me have that.”

“I made you a plate,” he said, lifting his fork to his mouth.

I grabbed the fork, pissing him off big time. He slammed his elbow into my face then slashed at me with the fork, sending meatloaf flying across the room. “Eat your own dinner, Ben!” There were a wild look in his eyes, like maybe he was about to totally lose it, so I did the only thing I could think of and punched him straight in the nose, wincing at the loud crunching sound and getting a spray of blood across my face for my troubles.

But it did the trick.

Jared dropped the fork and wailed, burying his face in his hands.

“I’m sorry, Jared. I’m so sorry.”

“SHE’S DEAD!” “I know, I know. But Pa ain’t, and he needs us. He needs us, Jared. There’s something out there… it done crashed through our barn and it’s got Pa all trussed up and we need to save him and­“ “I don’t need to be saved, Ben.” I turned and shivered. Pa was standing right there in the room, but he didn’t look like no Pa I’d ever seen. He looked puffy. He looked wrinkled. He looked… wrong.

“Pa? What happened?” I asked. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t need to be saved.” He walked over as best he could, as if he didn’t quite understand how to work his body. “I’ve already been saved.”

“You got down? You pulled that arm outa you?”

He smiled and placed a hand on my shoulder, just like 37

Pa would’ve done an hour ago. Except this time it made my flesh crawl. It was Pa’s hand, but it felt like I was be­ ing comforted by a lump of jelly.

“Daddy?” Jared fought to get his words out. “I think Mommy’s dead.”

And Pa smiled. Not a mean smile, more like an under­ standing smile. Still, it creeped me the Hell out.

“She just needs to be saved is all, Son.” He bent down and gently picked up Ma’s broken, bleeding body, cradling her in his arms.

“Let’s go save her.”

He started back out. Jared threw me a quick look then jumped after him like a lost puppy. I didn’t know what to do. Something was seriously wrong with Pa. I thought about what I’d seen outside. The way the goop bubbled.

The way the alien had been in pain. The way Pa’d said something was inside him, eating him up.

And I figured it out.

“Jared! No!” But they was already out the door. I raced after, hop­ ing I could save my little brother’s life.

P

a and Jared were almost back at the spaceship by the time I caught up to them. Right away, I grabbed Jared and tried to pull him back to the house.

“Get away from him, Jared! That ain’t Pa!” But Jared weren’t having none of it. “Leave off, Ben!” he said, yanking his arm outa my grasp and running back to Pa’s side.

“Jared, wait!”

But he weren’t waiting for nobody. His Ma done died, so he was latching onto his Pa. End of story.

Except I was pretty sure it weren’t Pa. A look over at the barn confirmed what I’d been fear­ ing. Pa, my Pa, the real Pa, was still hanging from the wall of the barn. He weren’t moving. He was dead. My Pa was dead.

“Jared! Look at the Barn! Look at the god damned barn!”

Maybe he heard me, maybe he didn’t. Turned out it 38

didn’t matter cause right then the flames caught up with that side of the barn and it went up like it was made of Match Light Charcoal. For a brief second, Pa’s body erup­ ted in a final blaze of glory, then it was cinders and ashes.

Weirdest thing was, just before it done burned up, I swear Pa looked flat. A limp bag of skin flapping against the wood.

“Daddy? What’s happening? Daddy!”

Jared’s cry shook me outa my head. He stood next to the spaceship staring down into the gully and I had a sick feeling I knew what he was seeing. That Pa thing must’ve set Ma’s body down in that goop to ‘save’ her and Jared didn’t like what the goop was doing to his dead mother.

I cussed myself out for dropping my shotgun like a baby earlier after I blew the damn alien’s head off. I don’t know what happened to Pa’s gun, and I didn’t have time to run back to the house and get one of the hunting rifles out of my folks’ closet. I had to get Jared out of there be­ fore he done got ‘saved’ too.

“Jared!” I screamed, kicking myself into overdrive.

“Jared, get the Hell away! It ain’t Pa! Jared!”

But he was staring at something in the gully like his world was being rocked. I finally reached him and grabbed his arm, but before I could pull him away I made the mistake of looking down, too.

The Pa Thing stood in the middle of a big puddle of green goop. At his feet lay Ma’s body, or what was left of it. She was floppy and all elastic­looking. Ma’d had huge breasts, we’d always snickered at that, but now they was flat as pancakes, just like the rest of her. Just like Pa’s body before it burned up. Just like the space alien’s body.

Next to it rose something straight outa my nightmares.

It was a goop­covered figure that was taking Ma’s shape right in front of our eyes.

“Holy Mother of God,” I whispered.

“She’s being saved, Ben. We’re saving your mother.”

I may not always’ve paid attention in church, but I’m pretty sure Preacher ain’t never said God saves you by turning you into a goop monster.

“The Hell, Pa?” I said automatically, forgetting it wer­ 39

en’t Pa standing in front of me.

By now, Ma­ or Goop Ma­ was almost fully­formed.

Hell, she, it, even had clothes on just like the ones Ma’d worn to dinner.

“Mommy?” asked Jared, all desperate like.

“I’m here, baby,” the thing said through its fat lips.

“I’m right here.”

One thing I’ll say for my folks, they didn’t raise no dummies. Jared may have been ten and totally Mommy­ obsessed, but he weren’t buying it.

“You’re not my mother!” he screamed, pointing a fin­ ger at her like he was accusing her in a court of law.

“You’re an abomination!”

“Don’t say that, honey,” said Goop Ma, actually sound­ ing hurt.

Pa, or whatever it was, nodded. “You just need to be saved, son. That’s all.”

Ah, Hell no. I grabbed Jared for the third time and this time he didn’t put up no fuss. We turned tail and ran back to the house. Jared to get away, me to grab another gun.

But two steps was all we got before Pa landed in front of us. He must have jumped from the gully and damn if he didn’t leap like a gazelle. I skidded to a stop and lost my footing, falling on my ass. Jared remained standing.

“Run, Jared!” I called out.

“There’s no need to be afraid, Son,” said the Pa Thing.

“We’re gonna be a family again.” Then he turned his wobbly face to me and smiled. “All of us.”

Jared was having none of it. “You’re not my family!” he yelled, his face all red and puffy with rage. “You killed my family!”

“I improved your family,” answered the thing pretend­ ing to be Pa. “I can improve you, too. All of you. Every­ where.”

The color drained from my face. Everywhere? Like more than just our farm? The Hell? Was this a damn inva­ sion?

I scrambled to my feet. “Screw you.”

He frowned at me, like somehow my language was more disturbing than how he’d done killed my folks. “You 40

need to show some respect for your elders, young man.”

He took a step towards me, clenching his fists. I was ready to fight him, if only to give Jared a chance to run, but my brother had other ideas. He pulled a small shard of blood­stained glass out of his pocket and ran at the Pa Thing.

“Die, you god damned­“ He didn’t get any farther. Pa whipped around, bashed Jared in the gut with the back of his arm, and sent him flying through the air towards the burning barn.

“Jared!”

He landed in a crumpled heap at the edge of the flames and didn’t get up.

“The Hell!” I couldn’t believe anything could toss him that far like that. Whatever this thing was, it was stupid strong.

“He will be saved,” said Pa. “We will all be saved.”

Something got in me. Not the goop, I just mean, like, an anger I ain’t never known before. I didn’t have no weapon, no gun, and this thing had just flicked the back of its hand and knocked Jared eighty feet into the air, but I didn’t care.

I jumped him.

We went down together. I think he was as surprised as I was or I never would’ve got him to the ground. But there I was on top of him punching and punching with everything I had.

It was like I was punching sand.

I landed solid blows, but his body just sort of took it. I smashed him squarely on the nose with my right fist and it kinda sunk in a little while his cheeks bulged for a bit.

By the time I was coming back with my left, his face’d shifted back into place.

“The Hell are you?” I screamed into his face while my fists kept up their pointless pounding.

He smiled beneath my blows, lips puffing out and get­ ting smushed around all the while. “I’m your destiny, Ben.” Next thing I knew I was flying through the air. In the instant I was airborne, I realized it weren’t Pa had flung 41

me, it’d been a fully­formed Goop Ma. She’d come up be­ hind and yanked me off her Hubby.

I crashed against the wreckage of the spaceship and fell face­first into the puddle of goop.

Instantly I could feel it seeping into my ears and up my nose and trying to shove its way into my mouth. I shot out of there and slapped the junk off of my face, spitting and pulling the junk out of my hair and eyes. It kinda sorta tried to hold on, suctioning onto my skin, but it was a weak hold and I was able to get it off me but now I was feeling dizzy and I totally freaked out. Had the stuff got­ ten inside me already? Was I being ‘saved’ right then and there? I jerked back and tripped over something, falling on my butt. Again the goop came at me, but this time I was ready and I scrambled up the side of gully and out of its reach.

Only then did I notice what I’d tripped over.

My shotgun.

It lay there, covered in goop, right were I’d dropped it way back when this all started. In the back of my mind, some part of my brain figured out that it was still loaded.

We kept two shells in them at all times and I’d only shot once.

There was a shot left.

“You don’t get it, do you Ben?” Pa was right there again. Standing on the other side of the gully.

“I’m still your father. I’m just better. New and im­ proved.”

“The Hell, Pa? You’re a damn alien!”

“Do I look like an alien to you?”

“You ain’t right! Ma ain’t right!”

“Your mother’s alive, Ben! She weren’t alive ten minutes ago but now she’s back! You got your Ma back!

You got your Pa back! If Jared’s hurt, Ma’ll save him and we’ll get him back, too.”

It was Pa’s voice, using Pa’s words. I could close my eyes and believe, if I wanted. But looking at him, seeing his body jiggle when he moved. Maybe he was my Pa. But he weren’t human.

42

“You’re the Devil,” I said.

And then he sighed. Like maybe he’d been hoping I was gonna agree with him and just step down into the goop. But now he knew that wasn’t happening. I had, maybe, two seconds before he plum killed my ass. I knew what I had to do.

“But maybe…” I continued. “Maybe…”

He stiffened and looked at me, hope in his eyes.

I took a step towards the edge of the gully. “Maybe you.. and Ma.. I mean…”

I took another step. I swear he held his breath, though I wasn’t sure if he was even breathing. “Maybe what, Son?” I was at the edge of the gully and I stared down at the goop spread out before me. “Maybe you’re right.”

I dropped myself down into the goop, splashing a little in my wake. Right away it sort of sucked its way up my shins, making my skin shiver. But I held steady and looked into Pa’s eyes. Cause they were his eyes.

“Does it hurt? Getting saved?”

He let out that breath and shook his head. “Not at all, Son. It don’t hurt at all.”

He beamed at me, and right then he was my Pa again and it felt great. Pa was proud of me. The green goop was crawling up my hips and my Pa was proud. “I love you, Pa,” I said.

“I love you too, Ben.” Then I bent down, grabbed the shotgun, and blasted a hole in his chest.

He screamed like a wounded coyote and shoved his hands into the wound, but the goop was all draining out of him and it wasn’t pretty. I dropped the gun and leaped away from the gully, pulling myself out of the goop before it had a chance to get inside me. When I turned back, Pa’s head had pretty much deflated, as had his shoulders. His arms hung limp and flabby and his knees buckled and he finally fell over, green goop pouring out of the hole I’d just made in him.

My first thought was wondering if he was just gonna form back up, but something told me that weren’t how it 43

worked. The goop­filled alien hadn’t come back. Maybe the stuff needed to eat up a real person and then use what it ate to come alive. But shoot a gooper and there was nothing but goop.

At least that’s what I prayed.

“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE, BEN!” Goop Ma was furious. Truth be told, I’d done forgotten all about her. She stood in front of what was left of the barn, holding a twitching Jared in her arms, the fire be­ hind her making her look like she’d just stepped straight out of Hell.

I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t have my gun any­ more, and it was empty anyways. Pa’s gun would’ve had a couple of shots in it, but Hell if I knew where that was.

So I just stood there like an idiot, staring at the mon­ ster pretending to be my mother.

“You murdered your father! You’re going to burn in Hell for that, Ben! In Hell!”

I was gonna tell her he weren’t my father. I was gonna tell her she weren’t my mother. I was gonna tell her that maybe we was already in Hell.

But that’s when the propane tank exploded.

Standing right in front of the barn, Ma never stood a chance. In fact, she was sort of a second explosion. The propane blast pulverized her and sent that damned green goop out in all directions.

I saw the first explosion, saw the second, and then the blast hit me and I didn’t see nothing no more.

I

woke up for the second time in, what, an hour? My head hurt like nobody’s business, but I figured that was a good thing because it meant I was alive. And probably still human.

Something was jamming into my back and when I reached behind me, I was stunned to find Pa’s shotgun.

That made me think of Pa, who I’d shot. Which made me think of Ma, who’d gotten blown up. Which made me think of Jared.

Dear God, Jared.

Ma’d been holding him when she exploded. There was 44

no way he’d survived that, even if he hadn’t already been dead. My family was dead. Every last one of them.

I waited for tears to come, but they didn’t. Instead I stood up, cradling Pa’s gun in my hands. Eyes empty.

Heart dead to the world.

Then I saw movement.

“Jared? Jared, that you?” I ran forward, expecting... I don’t know. A response. Something. Anything.

Something shambled out in the fields, moving slowly but steadily away from the spaceship, the barn, the house, all of it. Something not quite right.

I ran, shotgun out. No way was I gonna let anything get away from all this.

It weren’t hard to catch up to whatever was out in the field. It lurched forward in spurts, as if injured. Truth told, I pretty much knew what I was gonna find before I got there but even so, the sight plum beat me all to heck.

“Jared.”

He stopped, his body jiggling and settling as it stood in the grass.

“Turn around. Do it.”

I raised my gun up as Jared­ I couldn’t stop thinking about it as Jared­ turned to face me. His face was half­ formed, with the left side all droopy like a slightly­melted candle. His right leg started normal­like at his hip but slimmed down to into some kinda demented toothpick­ like thing at the ankle. It didn’t have a foot attached. I could see he didn’t have no fingers on his hands, neither. I guess there hadn’t been enough of him left after the pro­ pane tank blew to build a complete Jared out of goop.

“Are you going to kill me, too, Ben?” I stared at that face. That disfigured, horrific face mocking the memory of my little brother. The right side of it was sad, expecting the worst. The left side was, well Hell, it was a nightmare.

“Like you killed Ma and Pa?” he went on.

“I didn’t have nothing to do with that tank exploding!

That was your damn ship crashing through our barn!”

Kinda silly to be arguing that it weren’t my fault Goop Ma had gotten blown to bits, but Jared had me all con­ 45

fused.

“I don’t want to die, Ben.” Damn it if the thing didn’t start to cry. The Hell? Did goop have feelings? I lifted the shotgun and took aim.

“You’re already dead, Jared.”

“Please Ben,” it sniffed. “Please don’t kill me. I’m your little brother. You’re supposed to protect me, not shoot me!”

“You’re not Jared!” My hands were shaking almost as much as my voice.

He just stared at me through his one good eye, wait­ ing. It was Jared’s face, Jared’s voice. Hell, it was sorta wearing Jared’s clothes. But I knew it wasn’t him. I knew it was something alien. Something evil. Something that, if I didn’t stop it, was gonna go somewhere else and spread out into the world. This shell of my little brother was the front line in an invasion. And I was the only thing stand­ ing in its way.

My finger tensed on the trigger. One pull and I’d pop its bubblehead and be done with it all. One pull and the abomination that’d killed my entire family would be gone.

“Please, Ben.” God help me, but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t shoot my little brother.

God help me.

God help us all.

David Neilsen describes himself as a moderately­successful screenwriter who had one feature produced straight­to­DVD and also optioned a TV pilot to 20th Century FOX. He tends to write either dark, sci­fi/horror or happy YA fantasy. Sometimes both. Visit David on the web at : http://neilsenparty.com

46

WRANGLER BOY David Castlewitz

P

ickles Cane was a skinner, the lowest of the low. His partner, Babes Bullock, was born into the gang, so he was a knocker, one notch up the ladder.

“You see them?” Babes asked and went to work with his hammer and chisel to loosen a fender, which Pickles yanked off. Together, they skinned the robot truck the sal­ vage gang had chased down and disabled. Rods, gears, belts, the all­important batteries: everything was taken, even the metal panels that the crew called “skin.”

“People,” Babes said. “With the trucks.”

Pickles had never seen anything but semi­tractors, pickups, and other smart wheelies, but Babes claimed he saw people living with the robot herds. When Pickles once asked the crew chief if Babes was right, he was beaten with a strip of rubber until he was a blubbering muddle in the dirt.

“Nobody talks about that, kid!” the wrangler chief told him. “Especially not some 14 year old. You got sold to us to work. That’s all y’gotta know.”

After that, Pickles let Babes talk and never paid atten­ tion, tried not to ask questions.

D

ilapidated buses with concrete blocks for wheels ringed Bug City, protecting it from the truck herds that ruled the plains. At the city gate, the crew registered their buggies and bikes with the Chamber of Commerce and left two men behind to guard their vehicles.

“You’re all haulers now,” the chief shouted, pushing and punching his crewmen. Even Moms were drafted to cart salvage, and everyone sang as they marched into Bug City, where craftsman, tavern keepers, and gambling den owners awaited them.

“This is your share.” The paymaster gave Pickles sev­ eral pennies while Babes counted his steel coins and 47

bounced up and down on the balls of his feet.

“Let’s buy new shoes,” Pickles suggested, pointing at his worn tire­rubber footwear.

Babes tossed an arm across Pickles’ thin shoulders.

“Let’s enjoy ourselves,” he said, and steered for a tin­ roofed building.

T

wo beers were all that Pickles could buy. One for himself and one for Babes, who claimed it was traditional for the younger partner to treat the older. When those beers had been consumed, Babes slid off his barstool and wandered among the tables where crewmates and strangers sang and drank and told tales of pursuit and capture.

“You drinkin’ or watchin’ or whatin’?” the bartender asked Pickles.

“Order another or get off the stool.”

Pickles moved away from the bar and several boys rushed in to take the narrow space he’d occupied. They, too, spent their pennies. Catching up to Babes, Pickles overheard him talking about humans among the wild trucks, tending to them, sleeping in their cabs and helping with repairs.

“He your friend?” a man asked Pickles, the question borne on waves of sour breath. “You best shut ‘im up.

Nobody wants to hear them tales.”

Pickles stood on his toes to look for Babes’ curly head of hair bobbing up and down.

“You need to stop telling those stories,” Pickles said when he found him.

“They gots to know,” Babes said.

“Let’s get out of here. You’re pissing people off.”

T

hey feasted on meat, eggs and bread the next morn­ ing, courtesy of the common fund. It was a breakfast Pickles hadn’t enjoyed since his father sold him that sum­ mer. Growing up, he’d savored sumptuous morning feasts twice a week. Like his brothers and sisters, he assumed his father was a rich man who cared about him. New sib­ lings, some of whom were brought by their mothers who then stayed with dad, arrived on a regular basis. It was a 48

happy home, Pickles remembered, with lots of toys, a minimum of chores, and dozens of brothers and sisters for playmates.

After breakfast, the crew marched out of Bug City and reclaimed their vehicles, paying a storage fee and a tax to cover damages from the brawls.

Pickles saw a few new faces, mostly youngsters like him, but also some men with leathery skin and scars from old wounds. Some of the crew, he realized, were missing.

“Probably stayin’ back to take up the city life,” Babes told him.

“You can do that?”

“After twenty years? Sure. Get old enough, you can do what you want.”

Pickles pictured a new ambition. Put in his twenty years, find a town like Bug City, and retire. Become a middleman dealing in car parts. Or open a tavern. Or learn how to gamble.

A section chief slapped Pickles across the side of his head, admonishing him. “Sharpen up! Stop smilin’.”

“Move out,” the crew chief bellowed. Assistants echoed the call. Motorbikes rumbled to life. Buggies sputtered and rolled forward.

“Stop!”

An armored jeep with treads for rear wheels clattered from the city gate. Its roof­mounted guards wielded rifles, and out­riders on the running boards carried clubs. A mo­ torbike with a sidecar followed, with a jump­suited man holding a round black hat firm on his head, his silvery hair whipping his shoulder epaulets.

When the sidecar stopped, the guards fanned out on either side of the man in the jump suit. “President Ticks,” the crew chief said, doffing his peaked cap.

“You got a kid named Babes?” Ticks asked.

“Whatcha want with one of mine?”

“I want to see him. And his buddy.”

Pickles shuddered. Someone pushed him out of form­ ation. A hand gripped his wrist. A wrangler dragged him to the city president. Babes joined him.

“You the boys that saw the people?” President Ticks 49

asked.

“We saw them,” Babes said.

“Not me,” Pickles objected.

“Where?” Ticks demanded. “When?”

Babes pointed a thumb back over one shoulder. “Out there.”

“I know it’s out there,” Ticks fumed. “Where exactly?”

Pickles looked around at the crewmen, the chief and his subalterns. The chief pressed his pale lips tight togeth­ er, his small eyes steady on either side of his lopsided nose. Babes beamed, quickly answering the questions put to him, pointing with delight at the unseen herds in the distance.

“Here’s what you’re gonna do,” Ticks said. “You find those people and bring them here.” Ticks gripped Babes’ round chin. The boy’s laughing eyes dimmed. “This one stays.” Ticks looked at Pickles. “You find the people and I’ll let him go.”

“Me?” Pickles said.

“Find them,” Ticks said. “Or your buddy dies.”

Babes joked with the men taking him away, but Pickles detected uncertainty in the boy’s big gray eyes. A woman in the Mom’s Circle broke free of those holding her back.

Babbling, she dropped to her knees when the jeep holding Babes jerked to a start and returned to Bug City.

“Idiot,” the crew chief said, spitting. He raged at Pickles. “Idiot! For letting him talk like that.”

“Me? I never saw any people out there.”

“You better remember what Babes told you. I ain’t los­ ing him because you’re an idiot.”

T

hat first night after leaving Bug City Pickles reported to the Leaders Tent to answer questions. When did Babes first talk of seeing people mingling with the trucks? What did you see. Where did you see it?

“I didn’t see anything,” was Pickles’ constant reply. “I don’t remember where we were that first time.”

“You farm kids,” the crew chief complained.

“He never showed them to me,” Pickles clarified, and prepared for a punch in the gut.

50

Crumbles, the head plug puller, stayed the chief’s hand. “He won’t remember nothing if you hit him all the time.”

The chief spat into the fire.

Crumbles drew a map in the tent’s dirt floor. Fluid bubbled at a corner of his mouth and dribbled from the insect bites around his ears.

“This is where we are,” Crumbles said. “This is where we got you.” He tapped a part of the map to indicate Hubs, the town where Pickles was raised. “And we went this way afterwards.” He drew a line that zigzagged from the top of the map to the bottom.

Pickles touched the top of the map. “I think we were here when Babes told me about the people.”

“North?” Crumbles studied his map. “Kip’s Place is here.” He smiled, his small teeth making him look like an ogre but his weepy eyes casting him as a harmless old man. “You need to just listen up, Pickles. Listen and learn.”

T

he chief pointed the crew north and dispatched scouts to search ahead. Soon, reports came in that anoth­ er crew had been spotted, so clubs and pointed steel rods were distributed. That night, extra guards were posted.

The next day two scouts escorted a representative of the foreign crew into camp and he was invited to stay as a dinner guest of the Leader’s Circle. Pickles, relegated to a corner of the tent where attendants and Moms ate, listened closely to the crew leaders’ conversation. He wanted to follow Crumbles’ advice: listen and learn.

“Spotted bandits,” the foreigner explained. Hunched over the communal plate, he dipped hairy hands into a bowl of peppered meat.

“How big?” the chief asked.

Stripped and searched before dinner, the stranger had joked while they probed his clothing and his body. His good humor prevailed through dinner as well.

“How big?” he asked, rhetorically. “Two hundred men and women, not counting any kids. They’re preying on smaller crews. So we’re putting together a posse. You in 51

with us?”

“Can’t,” the chief said. “We got a mission. President Ticks has one of my boys.”

“One of your boys?” The stranger’s long face paled.

“A couple of kids saw people with the trucks.”

The stranger nodded several times. “Ticks lost his fam­ ily when his wife went to visit her brother at Kip’s Place a year ago. Wife was a one­and­only. Real special. Two daughters and a son. Got rampaged by the trucks.”

“Killed?”

“Missing,” the stranger said, and resumed eating.

C

rumbles handed Pickles a rag. “Wrap your feet.

We’re going on a creep.” A herd had been spotted on the other side of a sharp rise. A fast walk would get them there before dark and then, in the middle of the night, during the trucks’ quiet time, they’d walk in to inspect the pack.

“If they’re so quiet at night,” Pickles asked as he hur­ ried to keep up with Crumbles, “why don’t we just round ‘em up at night?”

“You farm kids,” Crumbles complained, and Pickles blushed. It was times like these when he missed Babes, who readily explained the crew’s secrets and practices.

Like, water boys who carried no water. Or why farm kids existed. And did any of the women in the Mom’s Circle know which child was theirs?

They reached the top of the rise and lay prone on their stomachs. In the dip on the other side, between stands of tall grass and prairie flowers, the trucks stood in quies­ cence.

“What you want to look for,” Crumbles elucidated as they crept, “are people signs. Garbage. Empty jars. Shit.

Things that don’t belong to mechanicals.”

A jeep purred. A panel truck emblazoned with a green cross rumbled to life and then fell silent. Tractor­trailers in a circle processed the day’s information and conveyed reports to a central station that no longer existed. Built during the Great Automation, the smart vehicles had been left to rust when floods, earthquakes, and economic col­ 52

lapse plunged the world into a morass of despair and grim survival more than a century earlier.

“I can hardly see,” Pickles commented.

“That’s why we don’t hit ‘em at night.” Crumbles chuckled. “Feel around. For campfires, burnt sticks. Mechs don’t build fires. People do.”

On his hands and knees Pickles felt for containers of old food or human waste. He crawled, stood, and crawled again.

A light beam raked them. “We’re spotted,” Crumbles warned. A motor whined and the trucks perked up, like bears awakened from slumber. Rays of light danced across Pickles back. Purring sleepers turned into screech­ ing demons.

“Run, kid, run!” Crumbles pushed Pickles up the slope.

Together, they staggered over the rise and down the other side. Behind them, cars and trucks sounded their horns and revved their engines.

“What was that light?” Pickles asked.

“Lamps. They have lamps.”

“Where’d they get the oil? How did they light them?”

“They use electrics. Ain’t you ever heard of ‘lectrics?”

I

n the daytime, Pickles sometimes rode in the crew chief’s buggy at the head of the procession. Sometimes, he spent the daylight hours walking with Crumbles, who asked questions, always seeking clues to what Babes had seen and where he’d seen it.

“Blue,” Pickles said one day. “The truck was blue.” The thought came as a flash, accompanied by a vision: a gleaming blue tractor­trailer truck, its cowl lined with solar panels and whip­antennae on its front fenders wav­ ing in the breeze.

That night, Crumbles reported what he’d learned. “Get over here,” the chief called, waving Pickles out of his ac­ customed corner of the tent. “Tell me what you saw,” he ordered.

Pickles held his hands behind his back, his scrawny legs quivering, his body tensing for the inevitable kick or slap. Struggling to be coherent, he repeated what he’d 53

told Crumbles.

“And you just today remembered all this?” the chief demanded.

“It came back to me.”

“He’s making it up,” someone said.

“No,” Pickles said, and waited for the chief’s reaction.

But instead of a hand coming towards him he saw the elderly leader nod thoughtfully.

“We best find Big Blue’s Flock,” the chief mumbled.

The herd’s got a name? Pickles thought.

As though picking up on Pickles’ confusion, Crumbles explained: “It’s an old herd. Been around. That big blue truck you saw? He’s a wily one. If there’s a rampage, it’s likely Big Blue’s doing.”

Days later, scouts reported seeing Big Blue’s herd and when they camped for the night, they outfitted their oil lamps with polished tin reflectors to amplify the light. A half­moon clung to the sky, amid bright pinpoints which intensified as the night darkened. In the Leaders’ Tent, the crew chief discussed his plans. They’d attack the herd on its flanks and send a party down the middle to grab any people that were there.

“The kid goes with me,” Crumbles said. “Keep him safe.”

The chief grunted. “Good. Let’s not waste what we got invested.”

Pickles sighed with relief, feeling valuable and wanted for the first time since joining this crew.

“S

tick with me,” Crumbles said, and indicated the sidecar attached to his motorbike. Pickles got in.

Crumbles sat astride the saddle. Other bikes whined to life and snaked towards the herd’s flanks. On the hill, Big Blue rocked back and forth.

Pickles gripped the sidecar’s rims as they careened across prairie grass and then up a slope. At the knoll’s crest Pickles saw the herd. Jeeps stood alongside other jeeps. Panel trucks formed an oval ring inside a circle of pick­ups. Tractor trailers like Big Blue held strategic posts.

54

Cheering and screaming, the flankers poured down at the herd, and suddenly the trucks began to roll.

A circle of SUVs re­arranged itself into a wall and Crumbles drove directly towards the obstruction. The sidecar bounced and the motorbike’s wheels lobbed dirt and stones at the trucks when Crumbles veered away from a collision.

Big Blue rumbled down the side of the hill. The other tractor­trailers slowed, allowing Blue to take the lead.

And then, like the arms of some multi­limbed monster, several trucks broke away, heading for the hilltop and, Pickles realized, the crew’s encampment.

“They’re rampaging!”

“The camp’s ready,” Crumbles said. “Our job’s to find the people.” As they zigzagged across the field, Pickles spied a red shirt inside a panel truck. He yelled at Crumbles to stop, but his voice was lost inside the bike’s squeals.

The red­shirted figure put an arm out the window, pumped the air with a clenched fist and flashed a smile of defiance.

“I

saw a boy,” Pickles insisted when he and Crumbles reported to the crew chief. “In a panel truck.”

The chief looked to Crumbles, who shrugged, his wa­ tery eyes enhancing his look of exhaustion. Many of the crew sprawled on the ground, spent from the afternoon’s pursuit.

“If you saw someone, why didn’t you tell Crumbles?” the chief snapped.

“I kept yelling.”

“You’re making it up,” the chief growled. “To save yourself from a beating. Not going to happen. Big Blue ain’t the truck you saw when Babes started talkin’ about those people, is it?”

“It was. Yes. It is,” Pickles cried. “I’m telling ya, Boss!”

The chief narrowed his dark eyes. Broken teeth ap­ peared between his parted lips, softening his whisker­ studded face. “So you finally learned to call me boss.

Good for you.”

55

“There’s something over here,” someone yelled from the field where the herd had been.

A burnt circle marred the coarse ground. Tiny bones and rabbit fur littered the dirt, along with a tin cup and a plastic plate.

“Guess you did see something,” the chief admitted to Pickles.

Pickles gathered his courage. “Can I make a sugges­ tion?”

Crumbles nodded assent, as did the chief.

“We go in at night. We find the people, disable a truck –“ “And attack them in the morning?” the chief asked.

“When the herd flees, we’ve got the people in the dis­ abled truck, safe and sound.”

The chief shook his head. “Full moon’s up. Not dark enough.”

“We crawl on our bellies,” Pickles offered.

“You wanna go crawlin’ like a worm?” the chief asked.

Pickles answered. “If that’s what it takes.”

Crumbles grinned. “Spoken like a true crewman.”

T

here was no discernible campfire, but the smell of cooked meat hung in the air. Pickles crawled ahead of Crumbles and the other six crewmen who’d volunteered to join them.

“Split up now,” Crumbles ordered when they reached the herd’s outer ring. “See a campfire, a pile of shit, or something, and we’ll know there’s people here.”

The six volunteers went off in pairs, hunkering down as they ran. Pickles stayed at Crumbles’ side, still on his belly. They crawled slowly, and then, up ahead, around a circle of glowing embers, sat a group of disheveled men, women, and children.

“Hello, the fire,” Crumbles called. “We’re here to res­ cue you.”

One of the women laughed. One of the men bran­ dished a fork as though it were a weapon.

“Had to happen eventually,” a woman said, tugging at the bearded man with the fork. “Sit down, Jonno.”

56

Two children were brought over by a pair of other crewmen.

“Are there more?” Crumbles asked.

A chorus answered, “No.” A few of the people, eyes downcast, shook their heads. Pickles looked around, counting. Four men, six women, four children.

Pickles turned to a red­shirted boy. “You were in that panel truck.”

A woman leaned towards the boy, her tangled hair hiding her face. “He can’t talk.”

“Just what’re you people doing here?” Crumbles asked, consternation and confusion dueling in his moist eyes.

“Me and my kids,” the tangled­haired woman whispered, “got taken when they attacked our caravan.”

“You related to a President Ticks?” Crumbles asked.

She nodded, and swept hair away from her high, sharp cheekbones, revealing a jawbone that threatened to push through her skin. Her arms were like sticks, as were her boney legs.

One of the other boys stepped in front of her. “We ain’t going back, mister.”

Jonno turned to him. “It may be time.” Then, to Crumbles. “I never intended to stay with these mechs so long. I just had no way back. None of us did.”

“They make us do repairs,” someone explained.

Crumbles snorted. “How can mechs make you do any­ thing?”

Another said, “They ran down two guys who tried to escape.”

Jonno led Crumbles and Pickles to the truck’s cab and pointed out the display panel on the dashboard. “That’s how they give us orders.”

“Don’t you get enough to eat?” Pickles asked, stepping towards the skinny woman shielding the red­shirted boy.

Then he looked at Jonno. The bearded man was robust and fit. As were the other three men. Most likely, they took the bulk of the food for themselves, leaving the wo­ men and children to fight for leftovers.

“Everybody get into this pickup,” Crumbles ordered.

“In the truck bed. Come morning, we escape.”

57

“I don’t want to,” a boy said, his thick chest thrust out.

The ragged woman hissed at him. “Don’t be stupid, Bartel. This ain’t no life.”

“I like it,” Bartel said. “Trucks don’t whop me like dad did.”

“Why don’t you help these women get their fair share of food?” Pickles asked when he realized Bartel was as physically fit as Jonno.

“Who’re you?” Bartel asked. “Some crew’s bastard?”

He looked at the other crewmen. “Weren’t for your kind, we wouldn’t have these troubles.”

“Weren’t for us?” Crumbles asked. “What’s that mean?” He raised his hand, but Jonno stepped towards him and Crumbles relented. “Get in the truck. We’re tak­ ing ya back to Ticks.”

“You’re fools to go back to that life,” Bartel grumbled, and stomped off. Crumbles barked an order and two crewmen tackled the boy and dragged him back.

“Don’t know if you can warn ‘em or what, but I ain’t takin’ no chances.” Crumbles whipped off his belt and bound Bartel’s arms behind his back.

“I don’t wanna go,” Bartel whinned when he was forced underneath the pickup. Two crewmen guarded him.

Now and then, throughout the night, Bartel whimpered or hissed or shouted. “This is the future. But you’re too stupid to know it. These herds will save the Earth. They’ll bring back civilization if we help them.”

Pickles shut his ears to the boy’s nonsense and slept fitfully, waiting for morning. And then, with the sunrise, the crew attacked.

The trucks rumbled past the disabled vehicle where they hid. Peering through a side window, Pickles watched Bartel roll out from underneath the pickup. He hobbled towards the passing trucks, screaming. When one came too close, the spew of wind and earth slammed him back­ wards. He fell, struggled to his knees.

Shouts exploded from the pickup’s crowded bed. The ragged woman ran to Bartel, arms outstretched. Crumbles and two other crewmen started after her, but fell back 58

when a line of trucks rushed by. The red­shirted boy dar­ ted to the woman, clung to her waist, pulled her down to the ground.

“Momma,” one of the girls screamed.

Pickles pushed open the door and jumped out. A passing panel truck forced him against the cab’s door.

Then he sprang for the woman.

“Help him,” she cried, her skeletal face full of agony, her tiny eyes red with blood. Pickles grabbed at Bartel.

“Stop fighting me,” Pickles barked, and loosened the strap holding the boy’s arms behind his back. Turning to the woman, Pickles took her by the hand and, avoiding an oncoming truck, lurched to the safety of the pickup’s cab.

Bartel and the red­shirted mute, hand in hand, ran to a stopped SUV. They jumped onto its running board and held onto the door handles. The truck’s engine whined as it joined the escaping herd with the runaways clinging to the doors.

A

lthough Jonno claimed that he and the other three men had tried to help the women and children, Tick’s wife told her husband the truth. As Pickles had suspected, the men kept the choicest meats for themselves, leaving the women and children the dregs of what greens they managed to find on the plains.

“I oughta starve you like you starved my Flora,” Ticks scowled at Jonno.

“What about my Babes?” the crew chief asked.

The crew milled outside the city gate where Ticks and his guards had come to greet them.

“You didn’t rescue my Bartel!” Ticks snapped. “You don’t get your boy until I get mine.”

“He didn’t want to be rescued,” Ticks’ wife said.

“You should’ve dragged him here.” Ticks turned on Pickles. “That was your responsibility!”

Pickles blanched. But then he glared at the town pres­ ident and said, “I got your wife and daughter back for you. That was my responsibility.”

“Bartel couldn’t be saved,” Flora whispered. She put her skinny arms around her husband’s waist, her boney 59

hands unable to meet to complete the gesture. Ticks shook his head, a veil of sadness falling over his tired gray eyes. A signal to his guards resulted in Babes being brought through the gate in a cage mounted on a wheeled cart pulled by several prisoners.

Babes clutched the bars, his round face a massive grin.

When the cage door was unlocked, he sprang from the cart. One of the Moms ran to him, as did Crumbles, and the three hugged one another, the Mom crying and slath­ ering Babes with kisses.

The four rescued men, prodded by whacks from metal clubs, were shoved into the cage. All the while, Pickles noticed, Flora glared at her husband, tears trickling from her eyes.

“Bartel’s right,” she said.

“Right about what?” Pickles asked. Everyone’s eyes turned to him. He disregarded the confusion he saw in their faces. He ignored the guards who frowned. He even discounted Crumbles’ warning glance and the surprised look on the crew chief’s wizened face.

“Thank you for helping us,” Flora said. “Boys like you and my Bartel may be our salvation yet.”

Behind him, Babes babbled to the crew chief. “I was getting’ ready to escape. Another day or two and I would’ve run off with another twenty prisoners joining up with me. I’d be bringing 20 of them to the crew, Boss.”

Crumbles slapped Babes. “You talk too much!” Turning to the chief, he put an arm across Pickles’ shoulders and said, “Babes talks too much!”

The chief mumbled, “But he’s one of us.”

“So’s this kid.” Crumbles gave Pickles an avuncular hug.

Pickles beamed when he saw the chief nod in agree­ ment. He was finally one of the crew.

David Castlewitz has published numerous stories over the years as well as longer works, which can be found as Kindle Editions on Amazon. He has written non­fiction, including technical books and military history articles written before he returned to his first love, SF, a genre he discovered as a boy and has loved forever.

60

LAI­LI

Richard J. O'Brien “Say that again?”

“Vanished.”

“You sure? How long has it been?”

“Three days ago,” said Turner. “The car was running in the driveway. The driver’s side door wide open. The house locked up tighter than a drum. Gone.”

“Did you call the police?” I asked.

“No,” my client said. “I would have, but I shut the car off and locked the door. Tampering with evidence and all that.”

Fred Turner was a fat man. He wore his thinning red hair in a ponytail. When I spoke to him on the phone the day before he sounded calm; as if he hadn’t lost his wife but a piece of luggage. That wasn’t enough to raise suspi­ cion. Some people had that—a built­in mechanism that turns their emotions off in order to deal with grief, but when Turner visited my office that morning I knew there was something else. He appeared to be in poor health, aside from his obesity, and I began to wonder if his wife simply hadn’t run off with her Zumba instructor. I didn't rule out any foul play on his part. It was the cop in me; though it had been years since I served in uniform. And even then I wasn’t very good at paperwork. The street was a different story. I knew Philadelphia. I grew up there near 9th Street and Passyunk Avenue. There was a pulse to the city I felt at a very young age. Whenever I was forced to sit behind a desk I lost touch. So, I decided to become a private detective.

If Turner had called the police first his wife might have been found within the time he worked up the nerve to come see me. Instead, he sat across from me, dressed in khaki shorts, Birkenstock sandals, and a black t­shirt sporting an image of a UFO with the phrase ‘They Want Us To Believe’ stretched across his protruding gut. I made 61

a mental note to gain access to his home, preferably when he wasn’t there, and check out his basement and his gar­ age. Turner looked like the type who was not above pour­ ing concrete over a shallow fresh grave. He would not have been the first guy who killed his wife and disposed of her body in that fashion. I knew his kind well. The problem with pervious concrete was that it was porous. It breathed when it dried, drawing moisture down and let­ ting minute traces of what lie beneath escape. A body never stayed hidden for long; nature, no matter how thick a slab was poured, had a way of giving up the dead thanks to concrete's porosity.

“What can you tell me about her?” I asked.

“Why?” he countered. “You think I did it? You think I am that stupid?”

“No one thinks you're stupid, Mr. Turner,” I assured him. A little too smart for his own good, in an egghead, intellectual, and condescending way, but not stupid. “I just need some basic information.”

“She didn’t like the color blue,” Turner blurted out. “I always did. She didn’t. It drove me crazy the way she hated everything I liked. But I didn’t kill her. I loved her.”

“How tall was she?”

“I don’t know.”

“How long were you married?”

“Ten years.”

“And you don’t know how tall your wife is?”

“I never measured her if that’s what you mean.”

“How tall are you?”

“I don’t see how that’s relevant.”

“Stand up, Mr. Turner.”

He sighed, as if I were wasting his time, and rose to his feet. Turner stood maybe six feet tall.

“Was your wife taller than you?” I asked. “Or shorter?”

“About here,” he said, bouncing his thick index finger against his fat neck.

Five feet four inches tall, I scribbled in my pad.

“How much did she weigh?” I inquired.

“Look, we’re wasting valuable time,” he said as he sat back down. Then he produced a photograph and handed 62

it to me. “That’s her.”

Turner’s wife was dressed in some weird sci­fi costume as she stood in front of a booth promoting a book. The bodice she wore did little to hide her attributes. She had dark hair, Asian features.

“Where was this?” I asked.

“Are you serious?”

I lowered the picture and placed it on my desk. “I am afraid so,” I told him.

“That was taken last month at SEPSCIFIC in Bal­ timore,” Turner informed me. “The Southeastern Pennsylvania Science Fiction Convention.”

“Why would the Southeastern Pennsylvania Science Fiction Convention be held in Baltimore?”

“Too much overhead,” he said, dismissively.

“Is your wife an author?” I asked.

Turner laughed. “No,” he said. “She never really bothered to learn much English when she…arrived.”

“Where did she come from?”

“We met in Singapore,” he said.

“She’s Malaysian?”

“No.” I didn’t press the issue.

“What was your wife’s name?”

“Lai­li.”

“Family?”

“None.”

“Friends?”

“If you are implying that my wife was somehow kept from associating with others,” Turner said, “then I must stop you right there. She was very popular—” “Was?” “Is very popular,” he corrected himself. Beads of sweat broke out on his brow. “I shared her with everyone.”

“That’s not my business, Mr. Turner,” I said. “But if you and Mrs. Turner shared some sort of alternative lifestyle with multiple partners involved I will need to know more.

Names, addresses. Those sorts of things.”

“That’s disgusting,” said Turner. “It wasn’t like that.”

“Did Lai­li belong to a church?”

63

“No.” “Any other organization? Something I can look into?”

“There was this,” he dug into his pocket and produced a wrinkled, folded sheet of paper made heavy with his sweat.

Venlander was written on the paper. The penmanship was neat, elegant; a woman's cursive style that revealed precision and grace.

“What’s this?” I asked.

My client's overall lack of general hygiene left a faint odor in my office. It smacked of bratwurst and cat shit.

“Beats me,” he said. “I found it in her jewelry box.”

“Mr. Turner,” I said, “I’d like to come visit your home.

Perhaps—” “Whatever for?” he said. Then, he added, “It makes no difference. I have nothing to hide. Bring the police if you want.”

T

he following day I showed up at Turner’s house with four uniforms and a homicide detective I worked with be­ fore city politics had changed my career. When Turner opened the door he appeared more relaxed; so much so that he was still dressed in the same outfit from the pre­ vious day. The bratwurst and cat shit smell I detected in my office permeated his small row home.

Hal Berendt was the detective I had asked to tag along. We went way back, all the way to the police academy. He asked Turner some questions, not leading in anyway, the regular stuff about sports. Turner, it turned out, was not a big sports fan.

“Read any good books lately?” Berendt asked.

“Do I look like I work for the Times Book Review?”

Turner asked. “Go visit a library. My wife, as Mr. Clay may have told you, is missing.”

“Mr. Turner,” I spoke up now, “detective Berendt is only trying to help.”

“I am sorry,” he said, not as an apology, but as if we were inconveniencing him. “I don’t like cops. It’s nothing personal. No offense.”

“None taken,” said Berendt.

64

One thing I noticed about Turner’s home was that he kept a multitude of pictures of his wife Lai­li; some were framed, others were not. Besides those photographs there were a few errant pictures of what I presumed were Turn­ er’s siblings, taken once upon a time back in the 1970s when he was still a boy. In one family photograph the whole Turner clan stood before a ditch. That was it. Just a ditch with a wall of cat­o­nine tails behind them. There were six kids in all; each one of them as rotund as the next. Oddly enough, Turner’s parents were thin. As for Lai­li’s pictures, they all appeared to be taken around the same period. In each she looked the same except for her clothes. One that caught my eye was Lai­li standing along blue waters that met white sands. She wore a white bikini and smiled with her eyes closed.

“Matt,” Berendt said to me, “let’s talk before I hit the road.”

I followed the detective out t of the house. The uni­ forms exited the home moments later, looking relieved to be free from the confines of the odoriferous Turner home.

“What’s up, Hal?” I asked.

“You notice anything strange about those photo­ graphs?”

“That one with the ditch?” I asked. “What was all that about?”

“Not that one,” Berendt said. “The others. The photo­ graphs of his wife. There must be a hundred on the first floor. And she looks the same in each.”

“She has different clothes on,” I reminded him.

“But her face looks the same.”

“So she’s a lucky woman. Maybe she takes care of her­ self. Maybe she knows a good plastic surgeon.”

“The photos are just weird,” he admitted. “They’re just…off. They just seem off to me.”

“How so?”

“Like they are faked.”

“You think this guy’s off his rocker?”

“No,” Berendt said. “That’s the scary part. I think he’s telling the truth. Or maybe he is off his rocker because he thinks he’s telling is the truth. But I don’t think the wo­ 65

man is a fake. I think she’s real.”

“I looked into the convention thing this morning,” I said. “There’s no such thing as the Southeastern Pennsylvania Science Fiction Convention. At least none that I found.”

“Keep at him,” he told me. “See if there’s a chink in his armor. If there is give me a call. And call me even if there isn’t.”

“You really think those photos are faked?”

“Matt,” said Berendt, “I think the photographs were shopped. And I would go so far as to say they were all taken on the same day. Or at most within the same week.

Like I said. Keep at him. Let me know how you do.”

Berendt and the uniforms went on their way. I made as if to go back into Turner’s house when I stopped.

Through the front door I saw him arguing with a short, dark­haired man wearing a gray suit. By the time I made it back into the house the short man was gone.

“Who was that?” I asked.

“Who was who,” said Turner.

“I am asking you that,” I said. “Was he a friend of yours?”

“No,” he answered. “He’s an…acquaintance of Lai­li’s.”

Turner allowed me access to the second floor, the basement, and the garage. I found nothing to implicate him, but that meant nothing. Guys like Turner slipped sooner or later. It was only a matter of time.

T

he following day I got an early start; only, instead of focusing my energy on the missing Lai­li, I decided to dig into Turner's background. I found out he was a self­em­ ployed information technology consultant. He freelanced these days, trouble­shooting software for large corpora­ tions. Before that, he was employed by a big defense firm, Simon and McGraw, who built ‘research’ satellites. Turn­ er’s whole life was one big binary code. I imagined him as one of those eggheads who talked to a computer like it was a living thing capable of sustaining thoughts, dreams, emotions, and fears.

My next step was finding a record of his marriage to 66

Lai­li. The county courthouse provided me with a copy of Turner’s marriage certificate from 2002. His wife’s maiden name was listed as ‘Venlander.’ There was that damn name again. What compelled Lai­li to write down her own maiden name on a piece of scrap paper? Had she suffered a concussion? Memory loss? For all I knew she could be out there in the streets, wandering around with no recollection of her husband or her home.

The country of Lai­li’s birth on record at the county courthouse was Malaysia. Turner had told me the truth.

Maybe, I thought, there was something to his story after all. I wondered how many families in the greater Singa­ pore metropolitan area that shared Lai­li's last name.

There were none. Zero. So, my next search was busi­ nesses named Venlander in Singapore. There was only one: Venlander Cybernetics. Maybe Turner’s wife was the long lost daughter of some tycoon. Or maybe, worse yet, the estranged wife of the same tycoon.

There was the possibility that Turner may have done some work for Venlander Cybernetics, and somehow had gotten into trouble. Still, even if he had I had serious doubts about the big evil corporation using hired muscle to intimidate Turner. There were two reasons why that scenario didn’t hold water for me: first, the company was located on the other side of the planet, and secondly, what could have Turner have done to warrant someone making his wife disappear? In my work I discovered early on that if a man or woman said his or her spouse had vanished then it was a sure bet to pin it on the person re­ porting it. There was no great mystery to it, no enigma wrapped up in a riddle cloaked in a koan. Spouses were almost always responsible for their better half's disap­ pearance. Ever since men and women had taken one an­ other as husbands and wives they had also found ways to kill one another. Matricide and uxoricide were two of the oldest crimes in the world. No, I needed to know more about Turner’s connection with Venlander Cybernetics.

“H

onestly, Mr. Clay,” Turner said as he entered my office. “I have better—” 67

“Call me Matt.”

“—things to do with my time.”

“Better things than finding your wife?” I asked.

Turner slid into a chair in front of my desk. He wore khaki pants, a white cotton shirt and a thin tie that screamed 1980s. By the time he settled into his seat beads of perspiration dotted his forehead.

“Tell me about Venlander Cybernetics,” I said.

“What about them?”

“Your wife came from Singapore,” I refreshed his memory. “Venlander Cybernetics is there too. Did you two work together?”

“No,” he said, sighing. “It was nothing like that.”

“So you worked for Venlander?”

“Six months,” he said. “I was contracted to help devel­ op some recognition software.”

“What kind of software?”

“Recognition software. Look,” Turner rubbed his hands over his face. “I am guessing you don’t know anything about cybernetics?”

“Enlighten me.”

“Oh God,” he muttered.

“Mr. Turner,” I said. “May I call you Fred?”

“No, you may not,” he replied. “Cybernetics is a sci­ ence of communication and control theory. That you could have looked up in the dictionary. Its scope is broad, Mr. Clay. It is basically a study of systems. Sometimes physical, sometimes biological, but often times not. At its core, cybernetics applies to a system in a closed signal loop. A system causes change in an environment and then the system receives information on that change. The in­ formation then feeds back into the system and changes its behavior.”

“Like when artificial intelligence becomes self­aware?”

“Mr. Clay. You’ve watched too many science fiction movies.”

“That hasn’t happened yet?”

“To my knowledge,” he said, “no.”

“So what was your deal with Venlander?”

“I am not at liberty to say.”

68

“Top secret stuff?”

“A gag order, if you must know.”

“Trouble?”

“The courts are deciding.”

“Can you give me a hint about your suit?”

“It’s a question of proprietary matters.”

“Venlander took a program that you invented?”

“It’s slightly more complicated than that.”

“Did you piss someone off in that company?” I asked.

“Maybe make them angry enough to take the law into their own hands?”

“Mr. Clay,” Turner said, “did you ever see a prospectus from Venlander?”

“Should I?” “If you are thinking that my wife somehow ran afoul with cronies from a cybernetics company,” he said, smil­ ing, “then I think you should reconsider your career.”

“I am just trying to rule out as many possibilities as I can,” I told him. “You see private detective work is no dif­ ferent than cybernetics in that respect. There’s a closed loop signal. I try to garner new information that will change the behavior of the system. Or is that too difficult a definition for you, Fred?”

Turner stood up. He smoothed his pant legs and stuck out his meaty right hand. I took it in mine and shook it.

“Call me, Mr. Clay, when you find something,” Turner said. “I am due at the airport soon.”

“Going out of the country?”

“Idaho.”

“Close enough.”

Turner grinned.

T

hree nights later, an attorney from Venlander’s legal team called me. It was after nine at night in Philadelphia.

His name was Padawan. While not divulging too much information about the ongoing case of Turner vs. Ven­ lander Cybernetics, Padawan explained to me that Turner had signed a release contract for his work with the com­ pany.

“Any programs, data and/or protocols developed while 69

in the employ of Venlander Cybernetics,” Padawan ex­ plained, “become property of the company. It’s all there in plain English.”

“Could I get a copy of that?” I asked.

“I could send you a blank one.”

“What about a copy of the release agreement Turner signed?”

“Of course.”

I gave Padawan my fax number.

“I do appreciate your time,” I said.

“My pleasure,” he replied. “Is there anything else?”

“Did Turner’s spouse work there at Venlander?”

“Oh no,” said Padawan. “Mr. Turner, to my knowledge, was not married.”

“Well, doesn’t that beat all?”

“Are you saying that Mr. Turner is married?”

“Is that against the rules?”

“Why no, Mr. Clay,” the attorney replied. “Marriage is a good thing, I suppose.”

“I'm guessing you’re not married?”

“I have a life partner,” Padawan said.

“How’s he treating you?”

“She, Mr. Clay.”

“How stupid of me. I'm sorry,” I offered. “What’s her name?”

“Lai­li.”

“You don’t say. How long have you been together?”

“Almost ten years.”

“That’s awesome,” I said. “Good for you. I wish you both luck and happiness.”

“You are very kind, Mr. Clay,” Padawan said. “And you?

Are you married?”

“Divorced. Going on twenty years now.”

“Children?”

“No.” “Well,” Padawan said. “You should come visit Singa­ pore. There are many beautiful women here. Good day, Mr. Clay.”

He hung up first. Seconds later, the fax machine came to life. The release agreement had Turner’s signature on 70

it, just like the one on the check he wrote to employ my services. His file sat on my desk. I took out the photo of Lai­li Turner had given me, photocopied it, and attached a note to it. Then I sent the photograph via fax to the num­ ber from where the release agreement originated. I didn’t have to wait for long for the phone on my desk to ring.

“Mr. Clay?”

“Padawan, how are you? It’s been what? Two minutes since I talked to you last?”

“Where did you get the photograph you just faxed me?”

“From Fred Turner,” I said. “It’s his wife.”

“Are you certain?”

“That’s what he tells me.”

Silence.

“Something wrong, Mr. Padawan?” I asked.

“What? No,” he said. “I am sorry have disturbed you.”

The line went dead.

I

spent the next week dividing my time between searching for Lai­li Turner and skimming the news over­ seas. I had little luck with finding anyone who may have seen my client’s wife. News came from Singapore by week’s end. An employee of Venlander Cybernetics plunged to his death after jumping out of a thirtieth­story window in downtown Singapore. The name of the de­ ceased was Raveesh Padawan.

When I showed Turner the article I had found online he grimaced.

“That son of a bitch,” he said. “I am glad he’s dead.”

“Did you really go to Idaho?”

“Are you suggesting that I flew all the way to Singa­ pore, gained access to a building owned by a company I am suing, and pushed Padawan out of a window from the thirtieth floor?”

“You have motive,” I said. “Maybe you thought if he vanished then—” “Are we really going to do this now? Or do you have some news about my wife?”

“Other than the fact that she shares the same first 71

name as Padawan’s widow?”

“She won’t grieve.”

“Why not?”

“Because she’s soulless, Mr. Clay,” he said. “She doesn’t possess the capacity for it. Just like her late husband.”

“That’s harsh, Mr. Turner,” I said.

“You would have to know them,” he replied. “If you did then you would understand. Now, are you going to call the police? Have them extradite me to Singapore?”

“You’re free to go,” I said. Then, “I’ll call you when I find out more.”

B

erendt called me in the middle of the night a few days later. He sounded way too excited for the predawn hour he decided to ring me at home.

“Did you hit the lottery?” I asked.

“Something like that,” he said.

“This better be good.”

“Too good to be true, old friend.”

“I’m listening.”

“Did you know that Turner’s wife has a twin?”

“No, I did not.”

“I have a friend at Customs,” Berendt explained. “She’s crazy about me.”

“Is she retarded?”

“Very funny,” he said. “Anyway, I must have been talk­ ing in my sleep one night because she suddenly got inter­ ested in this side work I am doing. So, my lady friend just called me. Customs is holding these two women, these twins from Singapore.”

“You talk too much, Hal.” “Oh, and I may have shown my lady friend the picture you gave me,” Berendt went on. “Anyway, the twins are in holding awaiting extradition.”

“For what?”

“It’s all beyond me,” he said. “Come downtown. I’ll take you to them.”

“Have they said anything? I mean either woman?”

“Well, yes. Both of them asked to speak to Frederick Turner.”

72

“I am on my way,” I told him.

It was after four in the morning when I left my house.

I thought about telephoning Turner and telling him the news. Then I thought what if Berendt had been wrong, and the two Malaysian women being held were not Lai­li.

I made it into Philadelphia in no time at all. When I ar­ rived at the federal court building near Market Street I found Hal Berendt standing on the steps between a statue of blind Justice and a homeless guy snoring away as he lay on a piece of cardboard.

“Do you have any twins in your family?” asked Ber­ endt as we walked down a basement hallway toward the holding cell area.

“No,” I told him. “Why?” “It’s remarkable,” he said. “My cousins are twins.

Growing up I used to visit them at the Jersey shore where they lived. They were identical twins. But I could always tell them apart by their voices. But these two are differ­ ent.”

We reached a metal door where a customs officer waited for us. His name was Rankin. A young guy, maybe twenty­six years old, built like a linebacker. After Berendt introduced me to him Rankin escorted us through the metal door.

There were several cells along that corridor. They were all empty except for the one at the end where Lai­li and her twin were being held. Turner’s wife was dressed dif­ ferently than her sister, or maybe it was the other way around, but each woman wore a pale blue ribbon in their hair. Lai­li was much prettier in person than her photo­ graph had revealed.

Rankin stood at attention beside the cell entrance.

I stepped up to the bars. Lai­li and her twin sat on a bunk, their backs straight with their hands in their laps.

Lai­li blinked. Then her sister did. If I didn’t know any better I’d say they were imitating each other.

“Good morning, Lai­li,” I said.

“Hello,” they answered in unison.

“Your husband hired me to find you,” I said. “I am a private—” 73

“My husband is dead,” the one on the right said.

“My husband is here,” the other announced.

Rankin’s radio squelched to life. He twisted his head to speak into the microphone.

“Ten­four, bring him down,” he said. Then, “Mr. Turner is here to see his wife.”

“Well,” said Berendt, “this should be interesting.”

Turner came through the metal door escorted by an­ other guard. He wore a tan windbreaker and matching khakis. Berendt straightened up when he noticed that Turner kept his hands jammed into his jacket pockets.

“Open the cell, guard,” Turner said to Rankin. “If you don’t mind.”

“That’s not how it works,” said Rankin.

“I want to talk to her,” he told him. “And I cannot have interference.”

“Look, Mr. Turner,” Berendt began.

“Just open the cell door,” he said. “And I will take care of everything.”

Berendt reached for his service pistol. Turner moved swiftly for a big fat man. He slid behind Rankin and poin­ ted something dark at the guard’s head. Rankin’s hands went up. He waved his left hand at the other guard who stood next to Berendt, his own Glock pistol drawn, ready to shoot.

“How the fuck did he get a weapon in here?” Rankin asked.

“Nothing went off in the metal detector,” the other guard replied.

The twins inside the cell never flinched, but when they turned their heads to look at each other I flinched.

“Lai­li,” Turner said.

“Yes?” they answered together.

Turner turned to looked back at them. That’s all Ber­ endt needed. He fired a single shot, hitting Turner in the leg. As soon as the shot sounded, Rankin grabbed Turner’s hand holding the weapon, punched him in the neck, and disarmed him.

“It’s not even a gun,” said Rankin.

“What is it?” I asked.

74

“Looks like some kind of detonator.”

Turner wasn’t moving. Berendt stepped closer, his pis­ tol at the ready. The other guard circled around to cover the detective.

“Nothing,” Berendt said after he padded down Turner.

Then, “Shit.”

“What?” Rankin asked.

“I think you killed him,” he told him. “Wait.”

Berendt reached beneath the still man on the floor. He waved the two guards back.

“You,” he pointed at the young guard who had escor­ ted Turner. “Call the police. Tell them an explosive device has been found.”

“Is it a bomb?” Rankin asked.

“You need to move your detainees,” he said. “Do you have another cell or holding area?”

“Yeah, sure,” he said. “Upstairs.”

“Then move them,” Berendt ordered. “Everyone out.

Come on, Matt. That means you too.”

I was the first one out. Berendt followed me. After I opened a fire exit door that led to a stairwell I looked back. Rankin had his prisoners handcuffed and walking in front of him. He turned down another corridor. Berendt and I let the door close behind us.

Confusion followed. The bomb squad showed up and removed the device from Turner’s belt. The building was placed on lockdown. Then the cavalry arrived. A dozen or more US Marshalls entered the federal courthouse build­ ing.

“Come on,” Berendt said. “There’s nothing more we can do.”

I

t wasn’t until a few weeks later that I heard from my old friend again. I was sitting in my office, contemplating taking a vacation, when my telephone rang.

“How’s the dick business?” Berendt asked when I picked up the call.

“Why? Does the Philadelphia PD need help?”

“More than you know, brother,” he said. Then, “So, I thought you might want an update on the Turner thing.”

75

“I thought it was a done deal?”

“So did your friendly neighborhood police depart­ ment,” Berendt said. “It turns out the device on Turner’s belt wasn’t an explosive.”

“That’s good, right?”

“It was some kind of sophisticated jamming device,” he said. “Our guys had never seen anything like it so they called in a local FBI analyst. She made a phone a call and within the hour seven agents from the NSA showed up at headquarters. It was a clusterfuck of the highest order.”

“What happened to the device?”

“Taken by the men in black never to be seen again is my guess,” Berendt said.

“Did anyone try it before it was confiscated?”

“I like how you think, Matt,” he said. “Our lady of forensics did.”

“And what happened?”

“It shut down every computer on her floor,” he said.

“Damned thing even wiped the hard drives clean.”

“Hey, did you ever follow up with the big guy?” I asked. “Rankin?”

“Yeah, he’s fine,” he told me. “Can’t say the same for the young Turk he worked with that night.”

“What do you mean? Did he get fired?”

“No, he vanished.”

“Maybe he quit.”

“I talked to Rankin a lot lately,” Berendt said. “He thinks the new guy was a spook. Just waiting for the twins to come into custody. I don’t buy it. But Rankin’s looking for a new line of work.”

“That’s just paranoia,” I said. “Or do you think other­ wise?”

“The feds are all over this one. It gets weird. I should probably tell you in person.”

“How weird?”

“I’ll tell you over coffee at Terminal D at Philly Inter­ national.”

“When?”

“Can you be there in an hour?”

76

B

erendt stood with a group of TSA officers near Singapore Airlines check­in area. As I approached, I saw Lai­li and her twin sister going through customs. One of them waved to me.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Just seeing our friends off,” said Berendt.

Three tall men in expensive dark suits escorted the two women toward the boarding gate. As the Malaysian entourage moved away they fell into step with one an­ other like soldiers.

“NSA?” I asked.

“You wish,” he said.

Berendt lead me to the sliding glass doors. He didn’t speak again until we were outside the terminal.

“Those guys were from Venlander Cybernetics,” he told me. “Or at least I think they were.”

“From Venlander?”

“No,” he said. “Guys. You know, like you and me.”

“What are getting at?” I asked.

“I know a guy in DAARPA. He went to school with my sister. He’s sort of monitoring this whole thing. But the real ones in charge are way up high on the food chain.”

“I think maybe I need that coffee.”

“They were invented,” Berendt said.

“Who? Lai­li and her twin sister?”

“They’re not twins, Matt,” he said. “They’re clones.

Hell, that’s not even right. They are identical models.

Some sort of prototypes, if you will. Venlander Cybernet­ ics newest contribution to science.”

“Like robots?”

“Nothing gets past you,” said Berendt. “He invented them.”

“Turner did,” I said. “That’s why there was that legal mess.”

“He wasn’t married to her. He thought he owned her, but he signed his name on the dotted line. He gave up all rights to Venlander Cybernetics. So, in essence, he stole company property.”

“And they wanted Lai­li back.”

“My man on the inside said this sort of thing was only 77

supposed to be theoretical,” he said. “I looked it up on­ line. Sony made a robot with a woman’s face. It’s a recep­ tionist in their corporate office in Tokyo. That’s like an abacus compared to a computer when you consider those two. Ever since I found out I can’t get my head around it.”

“You think they’re the only ones?” I asked.

A PA announcement could be heard from inside the terminal. Flight 752 from Singapore now arriving at gate 22A. That announcement was followed by another one.

Flight 459 at gate 28B from Philadelphia to Singapore now boarding.

“That’s them. Flight 459,” Berendt said. His voice was nearly a whisper when he added, “I wonder who’s in­ bound?”

A line of taxis sat idling at the island not far from where we stood. A jet flew overhead, drowning out the noise around us.

Berendt just stood there, studying the faces of all the people who approached the entrance. He pursed his lips and spat.

Richard J. O'Brien's short stories have appeared in the following magazines over the years: Parabnormal Digest, Sex And Murder Magazine, Demensionszine, Frontiers­Waterstone’s­UK, Ideomancer, 13 Stories, Worlds of Wonder, Alternate Realities, and Aphelion­webzine. His work has also been published in the anthology Ghostbreakers: Sinister Sleuths by Rage Machine Books.

78

SLAVES OF THE EGYPTIAN ENGINEERS Lawrence Buentello

E

ldon Hamilton’s story was pieced together through a series of bizarre journal entries, the memories of his col­ leagues, and the prolix conversations held with the in­ habitants of the small New Mexico town wherein he procured his supplies. In saner days, he was a well­re­ garded professor of engineering at a large Eastern uni­ versity, which has since disinvested all the notoriety his tenor gave his department; only after an extended jour­ ney to Cairo, then to Central America, and then a much briefer journey to southern Florida, did his personality undergo a drastic change of professional focus. But des­ pite his growing eccentricities, he succeeded in building a lasting monument to his fascinations, which stands today in the Southwestern desert, though the unceasing move­ ment of the undulating sands threaten to erase it from human history.

Hamilton had always been fascinated by ancient struc­ tures, or so his fellow university professors recalled, often recounting his childhood studies of the Egyptian pyramids to them, the wonders of the ancient world, the mysterious and unfathomably massive architecture of the Aztecs, Maya and Inca. He’d become a civil engineer simply to explore the dynamics of these ancient structures, and when, like so many others before him, he fell confounded before the unknown genius of their archaic masters he expanded his studies into academic areas, using his scholarly platform as a means of exploring every possibil­ ity.

But unlike his contemporaries, who acknowledged these ancient accomplishments but ascribed them to methods of brute force and lost technologies, Hamilton 79

suspected otherwise, and followed his suspicions into de­ cidedly non­scientific avenues. He believed the ancients possessed something more than physical labor and hu­ man ingenuity; something beyond normal physics, assist­ ance provided by, perhaps, supra­natural agents.

“I’ve studied every textbook available on the Egyptian architects,” Hamilton wrote in his journal, “and have come to the conclusion that ordinary engineering meth­ ods can only partially account for the creation of their gi­ gantic edifices. The quarries tell us of their excavations; the ruins tell us of their organization and technical skill.

But we are completely lost when it comes to answering the question of those structures’ assemblage. How did these people, with only bronze tools, ramps and simple pulleys construct monuments with blocks of stone weigh­ ing several tons? The Great Pyramid of Giza was com­ pleted in only twenty years, or less, a seemingly impossible feat. No, something else was involved in the creation of these structures, some component as yet un­ known.”

Hamilton extended his studies to the ruins of Central America, traveling to Chichen Itza, Tikal, Palenque, and several other sites of New World monuments. Again he found dazzling stone structures rising impossibly high in the jungle, pyramids composed of hundreds and thou­ sands of massive blocks, some weighing untold tons and having been inexplicably transported from the quarry from which they were cut miles away, to where they would be assembled into the Pyramid of the Sun of Teoti­ huacan, the Tikal Temple, Tiwanaku, the Ciudad Perdida in Columbia, and even the great mountain city of Machu Picchu.

The element that all these civilizations had in common was a lack of modern technology with which to build im­ possibly massive complexes. Was brute force enough to achieve these seemingly unattainable feats?

Hamilton didn’t believe it was, or so he let his col­ leagues know.

At first he considered a supra­natural force: “Perhaps these olden peoples discovered a natural 80

technology that we simply don’t recognize today,” he wrote in his journal, “a use of gravity, or magnetism that allowed them to cut and then move impressive blocks of stone, and then set these stones in phenomenally accur­ ate arrangements, so solidly grounded, in fact, that they’ve withstood the influence of thousands of years of geologic activity.”

He evidently searched for this lost technology in co­ dices and hieroglyphs, but came nowhere nearer to solv­ ing the mystery. Before long he abandoned this concept of supra­natural knowledge and began searching the literat­ ure for something more than a greater understanding of natural phenomena—his studies carried his interest dir­ ectly into the realm of the supernatural.

For in the supernatural he met the perspective of the ancients themselves, they who believed in gods and spir­ its, the powers of true elementals; if the ancient peoples responsible for such grand feats of construction had only primitive tools to assist them, what else might they have in common? Primitive beliefs, of course, in supernatural agents called Ra, Quetzalcoatl, and Horus. But these deif­ ic names didn’t matter as much as the concept they sug­ gested.

Thereafter he begun collecting manuscripts and books of religious practices, the Egyptian Book of the Dead, and several discredited, salacious volumes of supernatural lit­ erature, books filled with spells and incantations, pagan rites to gods beyond the Judeo­Christian tradition. He studied these texts fervently, poring over their contents as if he might find the key to the building of the pyramids themselves if only he searched thoroughly enough. But his studies were always stalled by imperfect translations and incomplete renderings of the ancient knowledge.

“There is something missing in my research,” he de­ clared in his writings, “some mystical key that would solve the technical problem on Earth. I believe the an­ cients in both the Old and New Worlds had the ability to call on the services of supernatural agents to assist them in their projects, creating a collaboration of human and inhuman efforts. I have found in all early religious texts 81

some mention of giants in the earth, a race of profoundly apportioned beings who dwarfed human beings and wiel­ ded great power. Now I believe they were actually the spirits of these giants called into servitude by the Egyp­ tians, the Maya, the Aztecs and the Inca, perhaps even the builders of the Stonehenge monoliths; or perhaps not spirits, but other­beings of another dimension, invited in­ to this world to bear the labor of those undying artifacts of the ancients.”

A solitary man, without wife or family, he brooded in his office, haunted the library and sulked over reams of unhelpful notes, passing weeks and months as his fellow professors cast wary glances and whispered observations on his sanity. He might have remained in this academic stasis, ruminating over unknown spells and incantations, if he hadn’t by chance overheard one of his colleagues discussing her trip to the Florida coast. Thereafter his in­ terest reignited, and he acted on his enthusiasm.

He abruptly left his classes to a long­suffering teaching assistant and drove the long way to the southernmost tip of Florida where his colleague had earlier vacationed.

There he continued his examination of impossible stone structures on a modern creation, also rumored to have been constructed by the use of some unknown force, a seeming tourist attraction that was actually a small ‘castle’ built of massive blocks of cut ‘coral’ in the 1920s. Built by one man (in absolute secrecy), a Latvian immigrant, the collection of massive structures had baffled engineers since its construction, and continues to stand to this day as a monument to his mysterious ‘technique’.

“The authorship of the Latvian’s handiwork is identic­ al, if not in substance, at least in scope to any massive ru­ ins I’ve examined in the world,” he noted. “They called him mad, or at least eccentric, for building a massive fairyland of structures from blocks of limestone weighing several tons, and doing so alone. His skills supposedly ori­ ginated in the Old World, and I wonder if this is central to his methodology. Skeptics claimed he achieved his Brobd­ ingnagian attraction through the use of A­frames and chains, which seems patently ridiculous when one stands 82

next to these incredible structures. He never disclosed his working methods, yet claimed that the source behind his manipulations was electro­magnetic in nature. Since none of the engineering literature I’ve read even remotely hints at the ability of magnetism to move such enormous non­ferrous weights, save for superconductivity (techno­ logy to which the man certainly had no access at the time of the ‘castle’s’ construction), I suspect his disclosures were either disingenuous or only partially illustrative. If one bore a secret so revolutionary and useful to human­ ity, why would one keep it a secret even unto the grave? I believe something more is involved, some aspect of this practice that requires absolute secrecy. But since human beings are incapable of keeping their secrets absolute, I have to believe the answer lies in some lost volume, some undiscovered scroll of ancient invention.”

Hamilton’s concentration now was keen, and he re­ examined every volume on Egyptian lore he owned to di­ vine the hidden meaning of the Latvian’s ‘rediscovery’ of ancient methods. His readings were in vain, and he knew now that he must travel to the source of those antiquari­ ans who might harbor the proper texts. Abruptly he left for Egypt, haunting the museums and black market shops, until he found the object of his search: a French translation of a lost Greek text, which in turn was a translation of an earlier Egyptian book, hidden from the Christian and Muslem scholars who would have surely burned it had they accurately interpreted its contents.

But Hamilton recognized it immediately as a spiritual codex unexplained by the French linguists who rendered it in their native language. Perhaps they thought it only a metaphorical examination of the peregrinations of the lives of the gods, but he knew it was something more, something literal hidden in a lyrical text—the book, Le Livre de Transformations, described exactly what Hamilton believed to be the key to the powers of the an­ cient engineers, a ceremony thought by the French schol­ ars to be a poetic rendition of a prayer to Ra, but which, on further examination, he concluded was a raising of the spirits of those giants in the world that had perished long 83

before the Egyptians came to prominence. The metaphor was clearly based on an actual ceremony, perhaps assisted by some magnetic lens as claimed by the Latvian. On his return to the United States, Hamilton once again visited the grounds in Florida in which resided the rusted imple­ ments thought to be used by the man in his construction.

No longer a means of raising dead weight, Hamilton be­ lieved it to be a means of assisting in the raising of the dead giants themselves, a lens of force through which those ancient ghosts might pass when they were called.

The Latvian himself had left diagrams of the magnetic device in question, information thought nonsensical by most scholars. But Hamilton recognized the true import­ ance of these ‘dynamos’ and painstakingly translated these diagrams into working blueprints.

The professor liquidated his savings, enforced the dean of his college to allow him an impromptu sabbatical, and just as quickly purchased a small ranch in an isolated part of New Mexico, a location chosen ostensibly for the sole reason of the massive outcroppings of limestone available. The purchasing of a strange array of tools and equipment followed, and then a period of solitude un­ broken until a late inquiry into the professor’s where­ abouts led to that forsaken discovery in the desert.

Nothing of Eldon Hamilton remained, save that pro­ fane monument of impossible mass, and the manic writ­ ing in the half­burnt journal he’d left behind. Only a few pages from that journal of his time in the desert survived, filled with a queer narrative of achievement which could not possibly have occurred. And yet, there was nothing else left to explain how he could have possibly created the only artifact of his presence in the world. These last few pages described his success, or imagined success, in words that could only be ascribed to a madman.

March 15 The formations are perfect for my intentions, though one man alone would never be able to hew and build the structure I intend by himself. All I have in my power are picks, shovels, adzes, hammers, my drafting equipment, a 84

beautifully precise set of blueprints and the engine that will make all of it meaningful. I’ve sat at this very table day and night, the tent shielding me from the sun and a portable cistern attending my thirst, but I’ve yet to be able to piece together the bizarre dynamo I sketched in Florida. I don’t believe the power of the magnetic field to be an issue—the field itself is only a means of opening a door through which the proper incantation may be heard.

I worry that the French interpretation is not accurate enough for those who would hear my call, but if the Latvian could find the right words, certainly I should be able to. Why I feel so compelled to find the answer to this riddle I don’t know; but I must. For some reason deep in­ side myself I must find the answer, and give that answer, finally, to the world.

March 18 The dynamo works; the iron tools I set nearby were immediately drawn toward its field as I cranked the gears. I’m almost certain this was the method used by the Latvian, though nowhere in the literature or in my travels did I see reference to such a device used to build those monuments ascribed to the ancients. If I’m correct, though, the very knowledge was held in utmost secrecy by those priests that wielded it, and for some as yet un­ known reason undisclosed in hieroglyphs and codices.

Did the Egyptians have their own magnetic devices? The Maya? Or some natural magnetic substance? If so, that technology vanished with their priests. I have read of iron meteorites being kept as religious artifacts by priests throughout history—perhaps these were utilized in secret rites.

I should proceed with the ceremony, but something is keeping me from doing so, some unconscious fear. It’s probably just superstition, but I keep thinking of all those monstrous chimeras of the Egyptian pantheon, of Quet­ zalcoatl flying through the sky devouring its en­ emies—perhaps these cultures could bear the sight of such monsters in their midst, but what will they appear to me to be? If they truly appear, will I be able to control my 85

fears and exploit their abilities, even as the Egyptians did so thousands of years ago?

A long drive into the town for supplies allowed me to check the weather report for the next few days. The skies will be clear, the winds calm. I must force myself to follow through on my plans. If I don’t, all my efforts, studies and travels will be for nothing. I can’t let a foolish aversion to ‘evil’ spirits defeat me.

March 20 I’m sitting in the tent as I write this, my nerves badly shaken, though exhilarated by the results of my efforts. I broke through all reservations and set up the dynamo by the stockpile of tools. I then held the pages of the trans­ lated incantation in my left hand as I turned the dynamo with my right, repeating the same words over and over again, though only after I offered these slight variations in the syntax (here the lines on the page are seared beyond recognition, as if intentionally defaced; the entries con­ tinue a few lines later).

—with the effect of the dynamo, perhaps as some sort of field­distortion necessary for the incantation to be heard across the void. But it was only a moment before something seemed to glimmer in the field beyond the dy­ namo, and I almost stopped turning the crank in my amazement. Something materialized beyond the field, at first as insubstantial as a mist, but then rotating within it­ self like a vortex, and finally assuming a tangible shape in the sands before me.

I say tangible, but I'm not really certain what form the entity achieved. If ghosts are a vapor and monsters a dream, then the colossus stood before me in the sub­ stance of both, glowing a translucent green color in the desert, three times the height of a man and five times the mass. Once fixed in the desert air, the creature, or whatever it might be, proved to be absolutely animate, turning its immense head from side to side before regard­ ing me with sloping, dropsied eyes glowing white and pu­ pilless. Its head, like the corporation of its massive torso, seemed hewn of pale stone instead of flesh, flat nostrils 86

below the soulless eyes, and a thin, crooked mouth that opened irregularly to utter a strange, rolling growl. Na­ ked, it stood clenching hands as large as boulders, its legs corrugated pillars, its feet splayed like an ungulate be­ traying its human likeness. But its similarity to a human being was only cursory; it bore no genitals, or any sug­ gestion that it functioned as an organic being.

I confess that its appearance terrified me. When it took a step and raised a hollow thunder with the planting of its foot toward me I ceased turning the handle of the dynamo, hoping the apparition would simply vanish. But it didn't vanish. I had called it, and it had come, from across thousands of years and through the barrier of an unknown dimensional void. It studied me with those empty, glowing eyes and opened its mouth again, moan­ ing like an elephant across the grasslands of another country. I had to remind myself that those ancient build­ ers had also summoned creatures just like this, and per­ haps even the Floridian in modern times. In some way these engineers communicated their needs, and these creatures interpreted them, and even executed their plans. I, too, had to follow this paradigm, as disconcerted as I felt.

So I removed the folded pages from my pocket and opened them before the creature, a large sheet on which I'd drafted the plans for the structure I intended to raise in the New Mexico sands. My arms shaking and my legs without strength, I stepped toward the beast with the plans held out before me like a paper shield and raised them up for the creature to see. Only after I lowered the plans enough to see its expression did I note a studious attitude in the tilt of its head. Then it met my gaze and growled menacingly, though I held my stance and prayed it understood. In a moment I felt a strange lightness come to my mind, as if I were growing dizzy, but then I realized it was some sort of psychic hand passing through my senses, as if the creature were attempting to communic­ ate through some lost means of expression. I fell on this chance, concentrating on a singular thought, and perhaps that was enough to move it to action, because it stepped 87

away from me and stared down at the pile of tools at its feet. Then it bent to pick up one of the axes, which fit in its hand like a geologist's hammer in scale, before snap­ ping its head back toward me and belching frighteningly.

I felt the odd sensation again, and thought I understood some definitive meaning, an acknowledgment cloaked in black tremulations of warning, but of what nature I couldn’t divine. And then all at once I seemed to receive some communication, as if it left the idea of a thought in my mind without decorating it with words or symbols. I knew it would return the following day on my command, and bring with it more of its own, in order to begin the work of which my plans had availed it. Then its warm translucence seemed to fade, and the monstrous creature vanished from the desert like a dissipating drift of smoke.

I stood staring into the shimmering convection of the desert, having been returned to the prosaic world from a visit, albeit brief, with an unnamable phenomenon unre­ lated to our modern concepts of science and technology.

Shaking uncontrollably, I collected my books and papers and returned to my tent, determined to prepare my strategy for the coming day.

March 27 It’s been a week since their work began, and I am only now coming to understand the powers they possess to manipulate immense objects. They are extremely strong creatures, some fantastically so, and all, it seems, inclined to follow my instructions, and the instructions given by the first creature which appeared before me that first day.

After adjusting to the creature’s unique form of com­ munication, if I can refer to it as such, I began interpret­ ing the nuances of the exchanges we shared and realized that they are singularly minded entities, beings, perhaps, of some lost species, some interdimensional creations capable of straddling the gulf between physical and spir­ itual matter. Or perhaps they are truly the ghosts of a for­ gotten race, recalled by spells lost to contemporary civilization, until now. Today, for the first time, I was able to walk among them issuing commands through this un­ 88

derstated mental suggestion, and they seemed to obey in­ telligently. Make no mistake, the variety of creatures in­ volved is harrowing, and I live with the constant fear that one will take offense at my presence and strike me down with an immense fist. But I must persevere; the base of the structure is almost complete, which promises eventual success when the edifice is raised.

But the daily work is difficult to withstand. My heart beats constantly as a drum, palpably echoing the terror that rests just beneath my exterior composure. It is the manifestation of the entities themselves that frightens me, the monstrosities that seem more abomination than animal. The main work crew is composed of a legion of bipedal troglodytes of the general dimensions of the first entity, though seemingly of much lower psychic ability.

They work fantastically quickly, carving huge blocks from the sandstone outcroppings and shaping them in a frac­ tion of the time a human artisan would require. Once separated from the ground, they lift these immense blocks onto the wide, flat backs of huge insectoid creatures, as large as whales in some instances, equipped with hundreds of legs that shift along the desert sands like animate treadmills bearing the stones to their new location at the site of the structure. These monsters are not sentient in the least, and roar hideously as they carry their loads from the quarry. Yesterday I committed the egregious error of standing too near to one of these beasts as it shambled past me; the merest brushing of one of its legs swept me upward and then down into the sand, and with this unfortunate accident an appalling outcry began, a chittering, moaning, screeching imprecation of what nature I had no concept. When I rose, unharmed, I tried my best to quell this psychic disturbance, and the normal cacophony resumed, though I made a mental note to never again lose the semblance of my authority.

Once delivered to the construction site, the blocks are hewn into place by things I have great difficulty describ­ ing, as they seem to have no comparison in nature. They are beings of many limbs, articulated limbs bearing multi­ fingered hands, and yet they take their instruction from 89

no brain; headless, with spider­like bodies of twisted sinew, they crawl over the edifice like grotesque taxi­ dermist creations, wielding their tools with ease. They have perfect balance, and move as pinions across the stones; I might consider them elegant creatures, were they not so hideously apportioned.

The beasts neither eat nor drink; they seem em­ powered by an unknown spiritual energy. I may work them day and night if I so choose, though I am only mor­ tal, and must myself have rest. But their industry is ad­ dictive. Soon, very soon they’ll begin raising these sandstone blocks to the sky.

These are the slaves of the Egyptian engineers, these monsters raised by primitive incantations to perform labor necessary for all the ancient monoliths of the world to exist. Did the Druid priests of Stonehenge call upon these entities? The Maya? The builders of Teotihuacan?

Now they list to the commands of Eldon Hamilton, and I won’t release them until I’ve completed the project and proved to the world how the ancients actually achieved their impossible artifacts.

April 20 The days have passed quickly, and my drafted plans materialize by the moment. The sides of the structure are now nearly two hundred feet high, and I fear it may be seen from the distant road leading to the town, but I’ve had no visitors. As the days passed, a strange mania seemed to embrace me, a vain energy unleashed as I watched the massive blocks drop one by one into place, a driving need to see the work complete, an obsessive de­ sire. As my obsession blossomed within me, I first im­ plored, then chided, then brutally commanded my ethereal work force to hasten its progress. I slept as little as possible, forcing them to continue their efforts into the small hours of the morning. When they first protested, I cringed against their guttural effusions, but as my mania burned I began returning their wrath with my own, curs­ ing their importune habits and demanding they press harder to their tasks.

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I cannot help but feel akin to those Egyptian masters of old; certainly they could have only achieved their in­ credible structures through a similar rigorous manage­ ment. These creatures growl, spit and shout at my insistence, but they are only brutes of labor, and they must be managed as brutes. When they feint at retribu­ tion I simply utter the words again, (here the lines are once more removed, scorched from the page and only continuing after another few lines).

—the face of it, which is not mercy but the pressing of their servitude to my will. An ox will only stand and graze if not yoked and whipped into the farmer’s labor.

So, too, these things risen from the ether. I will press them harder and harder until the structure is complete.

Then I will bring my colleagues into the desert to see my handiwork—the people of the modern world will never see the universe in the same way again.

April 26 When evening fell today, and the dark night lit with the luminescent bodies of those impossible creatures working through the close of day, I sat in my tent watch­ ing them and felt the surety of my command suffer the first cracks of a weathered foundation. I’d been function­ ing under the impression that, because I had called these beings to their labors, I was their indisputable master. But today they seemed to rebel against me, at least in a minor way, harshly rebuking one of my commands to address what I believed to be incorrectly applied technique to one of the structure’s many decorative reliefs. Two of the monstrous humanoids rose up and bellowed at me men­ acingly, waving their arms in apparent disgust as I held the draft of the plans in my hand for them to see. One of them lashed out and swept the paper from my grip, caus­ ing me to stumble backward. With this assault arose a thunder of bellowing, screeching voices from the other creatures, and for a moment I thought they all might rebel, cast their stones on me and crush me into the sand.

I remained composed, however, rescued the drawing from the ground and waited, sweat draining from me 91

profusely. After a moment the two beings ceased their in­ fectious belching and turned back to their work, and the other voices subsided. They ignored my demands and completed the work in their own fashion, leaving some hideous carving of an unknown chimera in place of the floral basso rilievo I had previously drawn.

Afterward I remained aloof, walking among them but fearing to expose my trepidation.

Now I’m uncertain as to their true nature again; where once I believed them to be spirits called from another di­ mensional realm to accomplish the labor their human counterparts would demand of them, I’m no longer cer­ tain that’s the case. Despite their monstrous dimensions, they display all the intemperment of any normal over­ worked labor force. Was I wrong to believe them to be motivated by my needs? And if that’s the case, what, pre­ cisely, does motivate their actions?

But I can’t let my incomplete knowledge of their un­ earthly nature interrupt the progress I’ve achieved. The shadow of the edifice rises high before me in the night, beautifully scaled and impossibly precise. I must see this project through to completion, despite the fear I hold of my inexplicable work force.

May 10 The moon is low on the horizon and casts a silver light across the desert. My tent stands in the shadow of the structure, which is now nearly three hundred feet tall.

Surely someone will see it from the town, or from the air, some passenger plane flying over the country. But something is not right; the entity of my initial incantation broke its silence today, and, as the creatures vanished into their ancestral realm, informed me through suggestion that the structure would be completed tomorrow. Tomor­ row—but I cannot decide whether to feel exhilarated or dismayed, because the creature also left a strange impres­ sion in my mind, one I simply don’t understand. I’ve stud­ ied the French volume assiduously, but I’ve found no reference to it. Perhaps I was foolish to have summoned their forces with incomplete knowledge. Of late I’ve de­ 92

cided that I’m afraid, because in that late communication was passed to me an unmistakable impression—of re­ ciprocity.

What was it that the ancient engineers provided these creatures? What payment was made for their Herculean services? I simply have no idea, the texts offer me nothing in the way of an explanation. What could they want in exchange? And what will happen if they don’t receive proper recompense?

In my excitement at discovering the means for calling these creatures to their ancient tasks, I neglected to con­ sider their social hierarchy; despite being unearthly, there must be some order to their ranks, some purpose to their existence that is akin to human survival, or the survival of living things. Perhaps, too, a cultural significance to their machinations exists, though it might be entirely alien to human understanding.

As I sit gazing out over the silvery lines of the desert and the grand structure beyond my tent, I can’t help but wonder where the details of this knowledge rest, or if it may be completely lost. My great failing was in not con­ sidering the ramifications of employing entities possess­ ing unknowable requirements for payment of their services. But what am I to do? The structure is almost finished, and my own work nearly complete. Damn it all, what did the Egyptians offer in payment? Or the Maya, or the Inca, or even the mysterious Latvian? Did they re­ quire gold, silver, or a blood sacrifice? Did they require the pledging of one’s very soul?

I’m certain to discover the answer to this question to­ morrow, should I call on them to complete their labors.

If I call them— May 11 It is morning, and I’ve decided not to call them. My fear is great, and my hands are shaking at the thought of their arrival. I sit in my tent writing these words, knowing that only a day’s work stands between an incomplete edi­ fice and the Great Pyramid of Eldon Hamilton.

But if I call them to complete their task, what will 93

happen when they’re finished?

I won’t call them, I won’t. My pride is not worth the threat of some supernatural conflict. But what of my achievements? Can I stand to live with such a monument unfinished before the world?

But what could they possibly want in return? I have called them slaves, but what if they’re not slaves at all?

(The following entry seems to have been written later the same day, though rendered in an unsteady hand sug­ gesting great distress).

Dusk falls on the New Mexico desert. As I sit and write these words I can see the rising artifice of their construc­ tion, of our construction, a pyramid so beautiful and per­ fectly sculpted as to be able to stand alongside the monuments of Giza, or the temples of the Mayan priests.

It is my pyramid, towering more than a hundred feet above the desert floor, built of massive stone blocks, some of which must weigh twenty tons. They will wonder how such a structure could be built, and they will know by these words that Eldon Hamilton discovered the way.

But now I see them walking toward me, loping, sham­ bling, scrambling on multi­segmented legs, the same tools held in their appendages they used to build my monu­ ment. I was in error; it seems I didn’t have to call them at all. They came of their own accord, materializing by the hundreds in the shimmering desert, unrestrained by my fear, intent on completing their task. I suspect that once the project began, my involvement was only honorary.

Once called, they would not relent, until their labors were finished and payment received.

And now they’ve come for that payment, their misty eyes gleaming, their poisonous maws agape and chant­ ing— I don’t know what they’ll ask of me. These may be my last—

T

hereafter Professor Hamilton’s journal remained un­ marked. His tent was found at his campsite, next to a 94

makeshift quarry from which tons of material had been removed. Hamilton himself was never found, nor any trace of the French volume of forbidden knowledge men足 tioned in his writing. Except for the fantastical notes in his journals, which excluded the incantations he claimed raised the spirits of the Egyptian slaves, nothing else re足 mained but the worn and broken tools which had seen endless days of use, and a huge, ugly pile of sandstone debris, nearly three hundred feet high, broken fragments and dusty remains, though no stone larger than a human hand, piled high in a parody of the glorious pyramids of old.

Lawrence Buentello has published over 70 short stories in a variety of genres. He lives in San Antonio, Texas.

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We hope you enjoyed this issue of Encounters Magazine.

Look for some new additons beginning next issue including our review column where we take a look at new books from independent authors and small presses.

Issue #09 scheduled for release on October 20th, 2013.