Encounters Magazine 11

This publication copyright 2014 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 CANDRA HOPE Candra Hope is a freelance illustrator who specialises in fantasy and horror. You can find more of her art here – http://www.ipernity.com/doc/628675/album/617231.

You can also contact her at hopecandra@yahoo.co.uk.

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE Volume 03 July/August 2014 Issue 11 Table of Contents BLOOD SPORT by Diana Corbitt – Page 5 THE BOX by T.J. Koll – Page 36 OUTSIDE THE BOX by Holly Day – Page 54 WATCHING PAINT DRY by Felicia A. Lee – Page 82 THE DEVIL CAME TO ME AND BID ME SERVE HIM

by Douglas Lind – Page 123

PUBLISHER: Kim Kenyon EDITOR: Guy Kenyon

From the Editor's Desk Welcome to issue #11 of Encounters. We have experienced some delays in producing this issue as we made changes in our computer systems and software. We've also been discussing some additional improvements to the magazine in the coming months... more on that next issue. Meanwhile, enjoy the stories we've collected for you this edition.

Issue #12 will be released in about a month. We have already started wotking on it and have accelerated the date of publication to put us back on our regular schedule.

Don't forget to check our Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Encounters­Magazine­S F­Fantasy­and­Horror/580919448622951. We are going to start regularly posting some info on books we receive, some recommended reading and news of use to readers of our favorite genres.

Guy Kenyon Encounters Magazine 07/28/2014

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

BLOOD SPORT

by Diana Corbitt

I slid down into the bubbling hot tub. Like a gator, the only parts above the waterline were my eyes and the top of my head. Finally, a moment to myself.

“Tommy!” The clubhouse manager’s words echoed in the all but empty locker­room. “I’m heading out. Do you need anything fore I go?”

The only thing I wanted was a fifth of Maker’s Mark, but Buck didn’t stock hard liquor. I shouted back, “No thanks, man. I want to spend some time in the whirlpool before I go. To relax, you know?”

“Okay, sure. Maybe that’s the best thing for you. I’ll let the security guard know you’re still in there, ‘night, Tom.” I held my breath and slid all the way under. What a day. I couldn’t have been more embarrassed if I’d stepped out onto the pitcher’s mound and pissed myself in front of thirty thousand people. And you know what? That was pretty much what I’d done.

The Cubs had traded me to New York in one of the biggest deals in major league history. I was supposed to be the next Face of the Mets, their Ace, strong, durable, and consistent. And that’s what I was, too. Especially consistent. I, Tommy Lindstrom, had consistently given up no less than six runs in each of my first five games.

My lungs began to ache. I needed to exhale. This wasn’t how I wanted to die, naked in a hot tub. I could imagine the news report. “Has­been pitcher found dead in Jacuzzi, 5

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

details at eleven.” I pushed myself upwards, gasping and sputtering. My God, I couldn’t even do that right.

I climbed out of the tub. If I slipped and hurt my back, I wouldn’t have to pitch anymore. I gave a halfhearted chuckle, grabbed a towel, and picked my way towards the locker room. No, not today. With the way my luck was going, I’d probably end up paralyzed.

In front of each locker hung a freshly laundered pinstripe jersey with the player’s name and number on its back. Mine too, Lindstrom, number seventeen. I rolled my eyes. Last season when I was with the Cubs, their stores couldn’t keep enough Lindstrom jerseys in stock. The Mets weren’t having that problem.

After a quick towel off, I slipped on some black boxer briefs and looked at myself in a nearby mirror. Sure, I wasn’t one of those big, corn­fed farm boys, but nobody cared if I was skinny when I was striking out a dozen players a game. Should I try to bulk up? Lose weight?

Everyone told me different.

I checked my watch. It was almost midnight, and I wasn’t even dressed yet. I should head home. What I really wanted was to hop a plane back home to Oregon, maybe get a room in Newport and fall asleep listening to the waves. Hell, I wasn’t pitching tomorrow ― thank God. I wondered how many others felt the same way, players as well as fans.

As I pulled on my jeans, I heard the door on the other side of the locker­room groan shut.

“Buck, did you forget something?”

Footsteps echoed against tile, then faded.

“Hey,” I called out. “Who’s in here?” My voice sounded 6

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

smaller than I’d have liked in the huge underground hall, and I was glad Marco wasn’t around to hear me. Marco was my best friend, my catcher, and my roommate when we were on the road, but if he’d heard the way those last words had squeaked out of me, the entire team would be rolling all over the dugout floor tomorrow morning.

I stood still and listened. All I heard was the "drip, drip, drip" of a leaky faucet.

Well, somebody had come in. I padded barefoot around the section of lockers that blocked my view of the door.

Nothing. Just Mets blue walls and a bunch of framed baseball jerseys. Strange, how a place that’s usually fun and full of energy can feel so creepy without people in it. I decided it was probably just the security guard and headed back to my locker. I was wrong.

Somehow he’d gotten past me, this guy, down at the end of the locker room. I couldn’t see his face, just the brown ponytail dangling down the back of one of those tacky Hawaiian shirts all the teams sold. I stared, fascinated, as the guy ran his fingers across the letters of Manny Galzarga’s jersey.

I took a fighting stance, ready to interrupt his fun.

“Hey, man. How’d you get in here?”

The guy squeaked and spun around, a sun grayed Mets hat clutched to his chest. At no more than five­feet, six­inches tall in his blue flip­flops and matching socks, he seemed harmless enough, as well as a lousy dresser.

“Oh, maaah gosh,” he drawled. “Why you’re Tah­son Lindstrom.” Teeth like corn niblets grinned out at me from beneath chubby round cheeks.

I couldn’t help but smile back. The guy was harmless, a 7

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

lump. The only exercise this forty­something­year­old hick ever got was moving between the sofa and the fridge.

Couch potato or not, he had no business in our locker room, so I narrowed my eyes and gave him a steely look.

My pitching face. “Dude, I asked you a question. How’d you get past the security guard?”

“I’m sorry, Mistah Lindstrom. I waited inside a storage closet until the guard left his desk. Please don’t call him.

I’m not dangerous. Why… I’m your biggest fan.”

I never liked southern drawls, and this guy was slower than a stutterer in a spelling bee, so I crossed my arms, hoping to come off tough. “That’s nice, man, but you can’t be in here.”

His brow crinkled. Was he really going to cry?

Seriously?

“Oh, pa­leeez. I’ve come all the way from Mississippi just to show you this.” A smug grin spread across the man’s cheeks as he drew the sleeve of his Hawaiian shirt up, exposing a doughy white bicep and the most amazing tattoo.

It was me. Dressed in Mets whites and poised in my signature windup, you could see every feature, down to the birthmark on my cheek. I let go a soft whistle.

“Ain’t it fine?”

I didn’t know what to say. I mean, it was class work, but that didn’t give him the right to fondle people’s jerseys, and where was that stupid security guard, Willy?

He was supposed to prevent stuff like this.

The guy took a tentative step forward. “Ahh love the Mets, Mr. Lindstrom. Y’all are my favorite team, and you are my favorite player. And don’t you worry about your 8

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

performance no more. I have a strong feeling things are going to change for the better real soon.

My scowl softened. Finally, somebody that appreciated my efforts.

“Please …” The little fellow offered me his Mets hat.

“I’d be honored if you would autograph this.”

Since that was the best thing to happen to me all day, like an idiot, I took it.

“Sure,” I said, completely dropping my guard. Since I didn’t have a pen on me I said, “Why don’t you follow me back to my locker? I’ll autograph your lid and we can get out of here.” It was a decision that would change my life, as well as my career.

“Oh, that would be great, thanks, Mister Lindstrom.”

I grinned. “So, what’s your name, anyway?”

“Orson Robbert Honeywell the third―but most folks call me Obby.”

“Obby…That’s different.” I turned and headed toward my locker. “Well, right this way, Ob―” Before I could even get the guy's name out, Obby had grabbed my wrists and pinned both my arms behind my back. With the other hand, he grabbed hold of my hair and yanked my head backwards, exposing my throat.

Naturally, I panicked. Hell, I let loose a shriek louder than a ten year old girl at a Justin Bieber concert. Anyone would have. The guy had me bent backward, in a “dip,” like we’d been dancing the tango or something. And the weirdest part was… he was smiling. Not an evil smile; a friendly one. The way a guy looks at somebody he really admires.

“I was serious about being your biggest fan, Tommy.

9

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

You don’t mind if I call you that …Tommy?”

My eyes must have been popping out of my head, because Obby’s grip relaxed and he blew a loose strand of hair from my eyes. “You need to calm down, Kid. You could hurt yourself.”

With blood pooling in my head, my temples throbbed.

“Let me go!” I shouted. “Willy! Security!” Of course I tried to break loose, but it was like a gorilla holding a kitten.

My legs were still free, though, and I kicked them out in every direction, but all I managed to do was knock over a couple of folding chairs.

Obby glanced from side to side and shrugged. “Darn, looks like Willy’s not coming.”

Never one to give up, I filled my lungs and screamed with everything I had.

He frowned. “Come on, Tommy, stop it.”

But I wouldn’t give up, at least not until Obby cranked up the pressure on my arms. It felt like hot lead against my skin. My words switched from calls for help to cries for mercy.

Obby loosened his grip, and as I sobbed my thanks, he petted me. “Come on, Tom. If you promise not to fight it anymore I’ll let go of your hands. Would you like that?”

Cow eyed, I nodded.

He smiled, and teeth which moments ago I’d thought were short and stubby, now seemed a tiny bit longer.

I squashed my eyelids together, done with looking.

“Hey,” he joked, "there’s no crying in baseball.” I felt pudgy fingers wipe away my tears. All the while, my brain sparked and sputtered like cheap sparklers on the fourth of July.

10

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

Obby’s words tickled my left ear, “Tommy, for a long time I’ve had this gift that I’ve wanted to offer one of the players on your team and after watching you pitch tonight I’ve decided that you need it more than anyone else.”

I was too freaked out to understand what he was talking about, so when I didn’t jump on his offer, he shook me. “Come on, now. What I’m offering is the solution to all of your pitching problems. Don’t you want that?”

My eyes were still shut, and I forced them open. I don’t know what I expected. Madness? Evil? Except for a couple of slightly long teeth, I saw none of that. In fact, Obby looked like a pretty decent guy.

What could I say, No? I smiled weakly, perspiration beading on my face. “Okay… sure.”

“Well, okay then.” Obby grinned, and the teeth I’d considered a tiny bit long stretched and grew pointed, catlike.

My shrieks echoed throughout the locker room as a combination of searing white heat and ecstasy pierced my throat. Obby pulled my head even further down, arching my back into a position I never would have thought possible. Within seconds, my vision left me, along with my hearing and all sense of pain. The throbbing pulse in my neck became my world, and I felt the blood leave me, draining away to a trickle. This was a gift? A metallic smell overwhelmed me, and I shuddered as I recognized the scent of my own death.

But instead of death, I tasted sweetness. Something more delicious than any food I had ever known dripped onto my tongue, and with every drop of the coppery 11

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

liquid my strength and senses returned.

“Atta boy, drink. It’ll make you strong.”

My eyes blinked open to find Obby smiling down on me as a gaping slash in his throat rained blood into my mouth. Sure, his breath smelled like moldy hotdogs, but I didn’t care. I drank.

With the front of my previously white t­shirt now soaked wine­red, I slumped into the folding chair in front of my locker, not sure of what I’d just experienced. Still dazed, I watched Obby press together the flaps of ragged flesh on his neck. With a few quick touches, the gash he’d torn open with a fingernail vanished before my eyes, leaving only bloody fingerprints, which he wiped away with my bath towel.

“Tommy, do you understand the gift I’ve given you?”

“I’m not sure.” I raised bloody hands to my face, half disgusted, half fascinated. “It feels dumb saying it out loud, but I think you turned me into a vampire.”

“Yup, that’s right. And as a vampire, you will never grow old and never lose your skills. In fact, they’ll be sharpened.”

“Sounds great, Obby…” I cut my eyes at him… “But I wish you would have explained that before you sunk your fangs into my neck.”

Obby shuffled his feet. “You said you wanted it.”

This? I tore my gaze from the stream of blood making its way down my wrist and formed my lips into a bloody slash. “Yeah, well, I wasn’t exactly in any position to argue, Obby. And what the hell happened to that stupid 12

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

southern accent? Was that all a put­on too?”

Obby smiled proudly. “Yeah, did you like it?” Now, he sounded like anybody else in Brooklyn. “Thought it would make me less threatening.”

I chuffed. “Oh, it was awesome, and yeah, you were completely nonthreatening … up until you attacked me.”

“Well, there’s no going back, and although we have eternity to discuss this …” Obby checked his watch. “… right now we’re kind of in a hurry. Lots to do before the sunrise.” He gave his hair a tug and ponytail and all came away in his hand. A wig. When my jaw fell open he gave me an embarrassed shrug and ran a hand through short, black hair.

I shook my head hard. The whole thing was crazy. “Me, a vampire? Will I have to sleep in a coffin?” I sprang from my chair, a blur. “Whoa! That was crazy fast.”

For the next couple of minutes, I zipped from one end of the locker room to the other, practicing my new skill.

Obby didn’t seem to mind, in fact, the look on his face reminded me of my dad right after he taught me how to ride a bike. “Hey, Kid, you asked about the coffin.”

I lasered over to him. “Yeah, that’s right. What about it?”

Obby waved the idea off. “No need for it. I mean some of the elder vampires use them, but it’s more like an old school thing than a necessity. All you really need is a safe place to sleep during the day, someplace dark where nobody will bother you.”

“So, no coffins…no boxes…?”

“No, none of that stuff.”

“Well, that’s good. My apartment should be okay then, 13

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

right?”

“Well, I haven’t checked it out yet, but I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

The implications flooded my mind, and once again, my eyes grew wide. “Holy shit, I have to drink peoples’ blood now, don’t I?” Obby gave my shoulder a reassuring pat. “Yeah, but I’ll coach you on everything. First, we need to clean up this mess, and you need to call your manager.”

I gazed around at the blood spattered tile floor and the chairs and jerseys I’d knocked over with my thrashing. “I get the part about the mess, but if I call Blain Bradshaw at one o’clock in the morning to tell him I’m a vampire, he’ll just think I’m drunk.”

“Tell him you’re a vampire?” Obby chuckled. “Oh, hell no, I just want you to tell him there’s been an emergency and that you aren’t coming in until late, say eight or so?”

Relieved, I pulled out my cell phone. Even without having to tell Brad the truth, the conversation would still be awkward. As I waited for Brad to pick up, I pointed towards a door on the opposite wall. “You should find everything we need to clean this mess inside that room.”

Obby nodded, but made no move toward the storage closet.

After I hung up, I turned to Obby. “Why didn’t you get the stuff?”

“There’s something else we need to take care of first.”

He walked in the direction of the exit door. “Hungry?”

I grinned and slipped the phone back into my pocket.

“Yeah, now that you mention it, I’m starved.”

“Great, let’s go find that security guard.”

14

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

Willy was in the restroom, but not in the way I envisioned him. The lineman­sized guard sat slumped over the toilet in one of the stalls. Unlike the last time I saw him, Willy wasn’t wearing his badge. In fact, he wasn’t even wearing his shirt.

“What the hell, Obby? I’m not gay.”

Obby smirked. “Oh, that. I took it off him. Being that this is your first time, things might get a little messy.”

Hiding my relief, I nodded and turned my attention to my first victim. Barely conscious, a tiny sparkling stream the color of ripe cherries trickled down the side of Willy’s thick, bull neck.

It was beautiful, but the scent was even better. I whispered, “His blood…it kind of smells like… gingerbread.”

“Yeah, isn’t it great?” Obby stepped into the stall, and with little effort, propped Willy into an upright position.

“Smells better than fresh baked cookies.”

I crossed my arms. “So…how do we do this?” Although the scent of blood enticed me, the sight of the guy sitting half naked on a toilet was distracting to say the least.

Willy’s eyes fluttered.

“Oh, man...” I slumped against the orange, metal partition. “This is ridiculous, I can’t do this… and it stinks in here.”

“Yeah, I know. Your sense of smell has intensified too, but this is nothing. I’ve smelled gas station johns that make this one smell like a flower shop.” Obby waved me on. “Don’t worry, Tom. Just step in closer. You’ll figure it out.”

15

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

Willy’s legs stuck out in a “V”. I shuffled in between them and like my first day in the majors, I had no clue what I was doing.

But Obby was right, and as soon as I got close enough something inside my mouth clicked, and two razor­sharp “vampire teeth” extended downward.

“See that?” Obby grinned. “It’s the equivalent to having your mouth water when you see a plate of fried chicken.”

Nodding dreamily, I ran my tongue across their tips, testing their sharpness, and the disgusting reek of the men’s room faded along with the rest of the world. Before I was just hungry. Now I was ravenous.

Obby stood back. “Go ahead, drink. It’s pretty much just like the movies in that respect.”

I widened my stance and leaned in, grasping the man’s shoulders. With only a thin layer of skin to protect it, the artery on Willy’s neck throbbed, hypnotizing me with its constant rhythm. Blood. Blood.

I could hear it, and boy could I smell it. I licked my lips.

You’d think I was looking at T­bone steak. Still, I hesitated.

“I don’t want to kill him, Obby.”

“That’s the difference between reality and movies, Kid. Just get started. We’re in kind of a hurry, so I’ll explain as you go.”

I bent closer, and the succulent aroma drew me in, removing all doubt. Piercing the skin like so many needles, my teeth slipped easily into Willy’s throat, and I gulped his blood, a hungry lion.

It was even better than drinking from Obby. Not so much the taste, but the bond created between me and the 16

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

living being I held in my arms. As the man’s very existence poured into me, Obby’s voice kept me focused.

“Okay, the flow has to be slowing now. Do you feel it?”

I opened my eyes and nodded slightly, careful not to rip the hole in Willy’s throat any larger than I already had.

Obby was right about the mess. Blood covered the entire bottom half of my face, and you could forget about Willy’s chest.

“When you feel it slow, that’s when you need to stop.

Pull out now, Tommy.”

With a sigh, I let go, and my fangs retracted.

Obby nipped the tip of his finger and wiped the blood over the gash I’d made on Willy’s neck, erasing it. “There’s lesson two.”

I nodded. “Handy.”

“Yeah. Oh, here’s an even better trick.” Obby turned back to Willy and patted the man’s cheek. “Willy, wake up.”

Willy’s eyes blinked open and he grinned up at Obby.

“Heeeeeey … how you doing?”

“Pretty good, Willy. Hey, I’ve got something important to tell you, so look at me now, okay?”

“Sure, sure.” The security guard blinked groggily.

“Willy, you aren’t going to remember any of this, okay?”

“Any of what?”

Obby ignored the question. “You fell asleep on the job, Willy. Say it.”

“I fell asleep on the job.”

“And you feel a little bit guilty.”

“Sure. I was bad.” Willy’s brow furrowed.

17

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

“Yeah, but that’s okay, because everything’s going to be great.”

“It’s going to be great?” The big man’s smile returned.

“Yeah, it is, so go back to sleep now, okay?”

“Okay…” With Obby’s comforting words, Willy nodded off immediately, and in a few seconds he was snoring softly against the tile wall.

“Hey look,” I said, amazed at how easily Obby had influenced the big man. “He’s smiling.”

Obby nodded and glanced down at my blood­soaked shirt. “You know, that thing’s already ruined. Why don’t you take it off and wipe up this mess?”

After we’d dressed Willy and placed him back behind his desk, we straightened up the locker­room. Obby threw the bloody towels and clothes in one of the washing machines used for cleaning the team’s uniforms, and we headed out to the field.

I sighed, still dizzy from my new reality. Life is weird.

One minute I’m thinking about killing myself, and the next, I’m a baby vampire carrying a bucket of balls down a tunnel at two o’clock in the morning.

You might not believe it, but I was actually happy about the way things were going. I mean, I didn’t have a girlfriend or any real family. Besides the guys on the team, I had no real friends either. And Obby was a cool guy. I decided to tell him.

“You know, becoming a vampire would have been a drag if I had to kill people every day, but this isn’t so bad.”

18

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

“Vampires are good people, Kid. It’s the media that’s given us such a bad reputation. Folks are raised on all that movie garbage and they think it’s all true. Willy will just wake up sprawled across his desk and think he caught some flu bug. Sure, he’ll feel a little weak for a day or so, but since he wasn’t caught sleeping on the job, he’ll just count his blessings and put it behind him.”

I drew in the night air and smiled. “I can live with that.”

The ramp leading up to the Mets’ dugout came into view at the end of the tunnel, so I stopped. “Dude, I have no idea where the electrical panel is for the field lights.

How are we going to see anything?”

Obby stood aside and waved me through. “Oh, I think you’ll see all right.”

Talk about an understatement. The walk to the pitcher’s mound left me breathless―or at least it would have if I still needed air.

“Whoa. Everything is like high definition … better … like Blu­ray!”

“Hell, Kid, what you are experiencing is just the tip of the iceberg. You’re going to love being a vampire.”

I stared up at the empty seats, amazed at how clearly I could see every scratch and scrape, even up in the nosebleed section. Even though I no longer needed air to survive I still had my sense of smell, and I spun in circles, taking in a thousand scents. “Not only can I smell the grass and the dirt, but other things too, like those giant pretzels they make up on the third deck, and ―ew! The dumpsters out back, and they emptied those hours ago.”

Like an indulgent father, Obby smiled and nodded.

“Yeah, sorry about the garbage. After a while, you’ll learn 19

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

to block that out.”

I stared in the direction of the right field bleachers.

“Look at that, “I said, pointing. “See that red brick building out there across the street? Check out the far left window on the top floor.”

“What about it?”

“The curtains are open. I can see inside.”

“So?” Obby grinned and followed my gaze.

“There, on the far wall, the bookcase with the bowling trophy on the top shelf.”

“Yeah, I see it.” Obby chuckled and squeezed my shoulder. “That trophy has a little plaque at the bottom.

Tell me what it says.”

I squinted and then grinned. “Most Improved Bowler, 2008.”

“That’s my boy.” We high­fived, pleased with our achievements, then Obby headed towards home plate with the radar gun. “Now, let’s see how being a vampire translates into your pitching.”

I stepped onto the mound and adjusted my glove. “Oh, we forgot to bring you a catcher’s mitt.”

Obby aimed the radar gun my way. “That’s okay. Just focus on throwing it into my hand. If you can see the trophy, you can surely see that.”

“Aren’t you afraid you’ll get hurt? I could throw pretty fast before, so now I should―” “Son, I’ll be six hundred and fifty­three years old next month. Nothing you can throw is going to hurt me. But…” He held up his right hand and smiled. “…I can’t say the same for your regular catcher.”

I dug a ball out of the bucket and looked at it with my 20

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

new, vampire eyes. Everything about it mesmerized me: a smudge of dirt, the contrast in texture and color, even the way the red thread snaked its way through the holes, joining those two peanut shaped leather strips together and forming my favorite thing on Earth. A baseball. But this wasn’t just any old ball. The beauty of it was so infinite, you would think I was examining it under a microscope. I held it to my nose, and the images of a dozen players came to me as clearly as if they were standing there in front of me.

“Come on, Tommy. We’re burning moonlight.”

I woke up from my little trance and grinned. “Sorry, it’s just that―” “You don’t have to explain it to me, Kid. After all these years, I still catch myself doing it from time to time, especially in museums. Remind me to tell you about when I looked at one of Van Gogh’s landscapes up close. Guard had to drag me away.” He squatted down behind the plate. “Now put on your game face and let’s see what you’ve got.”

“Okay,” I told him, doing a few stretching exercises.

“I’m going to throw a few easy ones, just to warm up.” As I went into my windup, I worried that Obby might not be able to handle my throws. I mean the guy was a talker, but he’d never caught a fastball from a big leaguer before, and on my best days I’d been known to hit ninety­five.

I threw him an easy lob, seventy tops, and my jaw dropped. Watching Obby catch a ball was like watching a praying mantis snag a mosquito.

Obby ignored me and looked at the radar gun. “Not bad for starters. You hit ninety­six.”

21

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

“Ninety­six? Seriously? I thought I…” This vampire thing was looking better and better.

And forget about pulling a muscle, Kid. You can’t do it, so let’s quit fooling around. As my old friend, Satchel Paige, used to say, put a little mustard on it.”

Okay, if he wanted mustard, I’d give him mustard. I reached back and gave him all I had. The ball surged forward, smacking Obby’s waiting hand into his chest with a crack that echoed across the field and knocked him backward into the dirt, sending the radar gun flying.

Holy shit, had I killed him? Had the ball actually gone into his chest?

I stood there, unsure of what to do. Calling 911 didn’t seem like an option, and I didn’t know any other vampires. I trotted across the grass to find a flat on his back Obby grinning up at the stars. He sat up, flexed his hand, and reached across the dirt for the radar gun. “Now that’s what I’m talking about, one­seventy­four. It put a nice little tingle into my fingers, and I didn’t have to move the glove one inch.”

“One­seventy­four?” I slammed my glove into the dirt.

“Hell, yeah! Let’s go again. I bet I can get it up to one­eighty, or maybe even two hundred.”

Looking half as pleased as I expected him to, Obby dropped the radar gun and walked over to me. “Tommy, you know you can’t throw that way in front of people.”

“Aw, man! I mean, I know you’re right, but―” “―But you can throw a hundred, maybe even a hundred and eight. Aroldis Chapman threw 106 for the Reds not too long ago, so there’s no reason you can’t throw 107. You could have the record, Kid.” 22

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

At the thought of owning the world’s record, I brightened. “Oh, man, that would be so awesome.”

“That’s the attitude I’m looking for.” Obby slapped me on the back. “Now let’s throw a few more, just to get your speed and accuracy down. Then we’ll call it a night.

Dawn’s coming and you need your sleep.”

I’d turned my nose up at Obby’s suggestion that we both sleep under the bed. Big mistake. After eight hours closed up with fifty­odd­pairs of shoes, I threw open the closet door and thrashed my way out into the bedroom, ready to admit my mistake. I bent down beside the bed and found nothing under there but my old glove and some more baseballs.

Where was he? For a few seconds, I panicked. What if Obby had ditched me? Left me to figure out this whole vampire thing by myself? A million thoughts whirled through my mind, but just as I was about to scream, my vampire senses kicked in, and from all the way down the hall and half way across the living room, I heard his footsteps crossing the carpet on his way towards the balcony. Compared to that, the actual sound of the big glass door sliding open was like nails on a chalkboard.

Relieved, I grabbed my cell phone and called my decorator. After a bit of negotiation, she promised I’d have extra thick curtains covering my bedroom windows in less than 48 hours. I smiled. No more closets for me.

Soon I would be sleeping in my bed instead of under it.

I found Obby out on the balcony watching the final rays of sunlight drop behind the concrete horizon of Chicago.

23

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

It was almost eight.

Once all the light had gone, we stepped back inside.

Usually, I reserved the black leather La­Z­Boy for myself, but I decided to leave it for Obby. Instead, I flopped down onto the sofa and searched for the baseball I kept hidden between the cushions. Despite how well the whole vampire pitcher thing was working out, a few things still bothered me.

“Hey,” I said, flipping the baseball back and forth. “Uh, do you mind if I ask you some questions?”

Obby sat forward, elbows on knees, hands clasped. “I’d be surprised if you didn’t. Shoot.”

“First of all, what the hell am I supposed to tell people when they ask me why I can’t come out in the daylight anymore?”

“Tell them you were turned into a vampire.”

Not amused, I tipped my head to the side and waited.

Obby chuckled. “Okay, tell them you’ve come down with a rare skin allergy, and sunlight gives you a rash.

You’ve had it for a while, but it’s gotten worse.”

It was a believable excuse. Hopefully Obby would answer all my questions as easily. “But some of the games are during the day. How am I going to pitch then?”

“You’re not. You’re only pitching night games. You’re on a five­man rotation. They’ll see how phenomenal you pitch now and make concessions. In fact, there’s no reason you can’t pitch every other day, or even two or three games in a row. It’s bizarre, but not illegal. You’ll practice at night too. When a guy throws like you do, they’ll work with him. Believe me.”

“Okay, that’s probably true, but even night games start 24

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

before sunset. What do we do then?”

Obby pursed his lips and looked back out the window.

“Well, I…uh…”

“You didn’t think about that, did you, Obby?” I sprang to my feet, hands clenched. I was screwed. The stupid little man had ruined my life.

“Well, I―” If I had a stake, I would have stabbed it through his chest. Instead, I just yelled, “No, you just thought, ‘Hey, Tommy’s struggling with his pitching. Maybe I’ll run down there and turn him into a vampire. That’ll make things all better.’”

Obby followed me as I paced the room. “Well, didn’t it?

Your contract is up at the end of the season. The way you were throwing, you’d be traded for sure, and who knows if another team would pick you up.”

“Yeah, but who cares if I can pitch better if I can’t go out there to do it! You know, your planning sucks! I’d bet my paycheck you’ve got ADHD!” Obby turned me around to face him. “You’re right. I didn’t think it all through, but don’t worry, I’ll come up with something.” He sat back down on the La­Z­Boy and stared at the blank screen of my sixty inch TV. While he stared at the TV, I stared at Obby.

After five minutes, he jumped up and took off down the hall towards the bedroom, his words floating back to me.

“Don’t worry, Tommy. I’ve got this.”

“Don’t worry?” I looked down at the forgotten baseball in my hand. Without knowing it, I’d squeezed the thing into a clump of leather, yarn and cork. I carried the mess into the kitchen and tossed it in the garbage. It was my 25

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

career we were talking about. How could I not worry?

Out of habit, I opened the door to the refrigerator.

Inside were mostly condiments... mayo, ketchup, along with five eggs, a package of bacon, three beers, and two Styrofoam take­outs. From the bedroom, I could hear the sound of drawers sliding in and out, one after the other.

What the hell was he doing in there?

I was still staring into the refrigerator when Obby returned, all smiles. He peeked over my shoulder at the food. “You should probably clean that stuff out before it goes bad. Keep the beer and mayo for appearances sake.”

I slammed the door shut and the refrigerator banged into the wall behind it. “So what am I going to do in the first innings, Obby―when the sun is still out? Did you find the answer in my sock drawer?”

“Actually, it was in the closet.” Obby grinned and held up a black and green ski mask.

“You’re kidding.” I rolled my eyes.

“Just till the sun goes down, then you can take it off.

This one here is temporary, like a prototype. The team will get one custom made for you, team colors and everything, gloves and sunglasses too.”

“You’re serious? But I’ll look like a Mexican Wrestler.

Everybody will laugh at me.”

“No, they won’t. The fans will love it. In a month they’ll be selling Tommy Lindstrom masks alongside those big foam hands and tee­shirts. Fans will eat it up, you watch.”

I slumped against the refrigerator door. “You’d better be right.”

“I know I am.” Obby tossed the mask onto the counter.

“We have some time before you have to be at the park.

26

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

Anything you want to do?”

“Yeah, eat.”

It took a bit of convincing, but after some instructions and a lot of promises, Obby let me go on my first hunt. I chose the alley behind my apartment. A week ago there was no way I’d have stuck a toe out there, especially after dark. Now I belonged to it. With a black hoodie and dark glasses hiding my face, I lurked in the shadows waiting for the right victim to cross my path. Talk about a change in lifestyles.

After a couple of minutes I heard voices, a group of women out on the town. The smell of pineapple and rum reached my nose long before they passed the alley. I crouched behind a dumpster, checked my watch, and waited.

A few cars drove by. After a bit, the sound of footsteps came to me. I tensed, ready to pounce. It was a woman. I licked my lips. Not only was she alone, she was cute and smelled like peaches. Probably some sort of business woman by the cut of her charcoal blazer and tight, black skirt.

In a flash, I was on her. In less than that, I’d pulled her back into the alley, already drinking her blood. Ah, she was yummy, better than Willy for sure. Did women taste better than men? What if they were good looking? I looked forward to testing my theories.

As this was my first solo flight, I was a little nervous. I’d never killed anyone before and I sure wasn’t going to start now.

27

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

As I drank, I ran my fingers through her long, strawberry blond hair. So pretty.

Obby’s warning came back to me, and I got back to business and focused on her pulse, the power behind each heartbeat. I would have to pull out soon…soon… but not yet.

“Hey! What the hell are you doing to that girl?”

I looked up. The guy was big, at least six foot four, and he was coming right at me. I let the girl’s head drop, and she fell back against my arm, a ragdoll, her eyes closed.

Even to me she looked dead. At least she wasn’t covered in blood. Obby had straightened me out on that.

“Just a second, I’ll be right with you.” I pulled the girl into a seated position against the wall. Her skirt had ridden up high on her thighs, and, nice guy that I am, I pulled it back into position.

Using my super speed, I met him halfway down the alley, and in seconds he was mine. I watched, fascinated as the giant strained against me, a roped calf, eyes like golf balls, veins bulging. I controlled whether he lived or died. The power was intoxicating. Why not drink him too? The girl was small, and anyway, I needed the practice.

As I drank, I considered my theory. Sure, this guy tasted fine, but not nearly as good as the girl, and different from Willy, too. Did cultural background make a difference? How about blood type? Team affiliation? This one wore a blue Mets jersey. Did that matter? I would ask Obby when I got back to the apartment.

Drunk with power and engrossed by all the new questions, I had allowed myself to drink longer than I 28

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

should have. I searched for a pulse. It was weak, but better than none at all.

What the hell was I going to do now?

I reached for my cell, but stopped when I remembered Obby and I hadn’t exchanged numbers. Shit.

A deep, Hispanic voice brought me back to reality.

“Hey, asshole, let go of Ruben!”

Three men had entered the alley. Like Ruben, they were all dressed in Mets gear. One of the reasons I’d picked my apartment was that it was only a few blocks from CitiField. On game days it was common for ticket holders to park their cars in one of the cheaper lots down the street and walk to the park from there.

Handling one guy was easy, maybe even two, but three was another story. I let Ruben slide to the ground and straightened. Since I wasn’t sure what to do, I did nothing.

The new arrivals stepped closer, cornering me against a wall. They must have stopped at more than one bar on their way to the yard, because they reeked of beer, chips, and two kinds of guacamole. If I’d been on my toes, I’d have smelled them from a block away. God, I felt stupid. I prayed the darkness would keep my identity a secret.

Not so.

“Holy shit, it’s Tommy Lindstrom!” Mister Observant was pretty big, but nothing like the one behind him, a beast at least as tall as the first guy and twice as wide.

Things were getting complicated.

Moving on legs the size of telephone poles, The Beast brushed past the other two. “Let’s kick his ass, guys.”

The smallest, still bigger than me, picked up a broken 29

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

two­by­four. “Yeah, then we’ll take his picture and post it on YouTube.”

I readied myself for the fight, hoping my new strength and speed would be enough for them, but just then, a gust of wind blew down the alley, lifting a sheet of old newspaper into the air. As the three men watched the paper flutter to the ground, Obby, moving at a speed that only a vampire could see, slammed one into the wall, knocking him unconscious.

The beast, he popped in the jaw, dropping him to the pavement like a massive sack of laundry. Once I got over my shock, I took hold of the third man and whacked his forehead against the side of the dumpster. Now I had five bodies to deal with.

I looked at the short, ponytailed man in wide wonder.

“Holy shit, Obby, sure glad to see you. You read my mind, right? Knew I needed help?”

Obby smacked me in the back of the head. “Shit, no, that’s another one of those stupid urban legends the humans made up. I followed you. You didn’t really think I’d let a rookie like you hunt all by himself, did you?”

I shrugged, embarrassed at how badly things had worked out.

Obby patted me on the back. “No worries. Just help me get these people out of sight. The last thing we need is another Curious George coming back here to join the party.”

Between the two of us, we soon had all four men, as well as the pretty lady seated side by side against the wall of the building.

“Sorry for being such a pain, Obby. Should I have 30

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

dragged the girl further back into the alley?”

“For starters. Guess you got excited, huh?”

I would have blushed―if I were still alive.

“Oh, it’s my fault. I should have explained to you about not hunting where you live. Jesus, Kid. Your apartment is right there. Couldn’t you have gone a few blocks before you grabbed one?”

“I’m sorry, Obby. I feel like a dope. Now what do we do?” I pointed. “I kind of got carried away with that guy there.”

Obby stepped closer and sniffed. “Well, at least he’s still alive. Open up your arm.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Take your finger nail and open a vein. If he’s going to survive, he needs vampire blood.” Obby glanced down the alley and pushed me aside. “Like this, watch.”

To my surprise, instead of cutting his own arm, Obby grabbed mine, and using his thumbnail, tore a two inch hole in my wrist.

“Hey!” “Oh, stop being a baby.” He held my arm over Hector’s open mouth and we watched as the blood dripped slowly into it. In a few moments, Hector was coughing and sitting up, a dazed toddler woken from his sleep.

I licked my wrist and the gash disappeared. “So what’s next?”

“I’m not going to do anything, but you are. You’re going to convince these people they didn’t see you. You know how to do it. You watched me convince Willy last night.”

He pushed me forward.

I squatted down beside The Beast and whispered in his 31

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

ear. “Wake up.” I patted the man’s stubbly cheek. “Come on man, wake up.” Dark eyes fluttered open, and I held them with my gaze. “What’s your name, big guy?”

“My name?”

His breath stank of Corona and nachos. I blinked and leaned in. “Yeah, tell me your name.”

The man looked up at me with childlike awe. “My name is Chano.”

“Chano, you didn’t see me here tonight.”

“No?” “No, I’m nobody. You didn’t see me. What you did see was a very pretty girl.”

Chano grinned. “I like pretty girls.”

“Yes you do, Chano, and you stopped that pretty girl with strawberry blond hair and pulled her into this alley.

You and your friends said some very inappropriate things to her, didn’t you?”

“Yes, we did.” Chano’s head bowed. “We said bad things.”

Obby squatted down beside me, eyebrows raised.

“Where are you going with this?”

I grinned back and continued. “You touched her too, all of you. You should be ashamed of yourselves.”

Chano’s thick chin lowered. “I am ashamed of myself.”

“And that pretty, little girl beat the crap out of all four of you, didn’t she Chano?”

Chano scowled. “Yes, she did―All four of us.”

“But you don’t blame her for it, right?”

“Hell, no. We were…”

“Inappropriate?”

“Yeah, we were inappropriate.”

32

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

“That’s right. You deserved it.”

Obby stood up and scratched his head. “Well, that’s a new one.”

As it turned out, I was pretty good at this. “Now you just sit there, Chano and think about that while I talk to the others, okay?”

“Okay.”

“And who am I?” “You’re nobody. I don’t see you.”

“That’s right.”

As it turned out, becoming a vampire was the best

thing to happen to my career. And Blain Bradshaw, the Mets Manager, had become my biggest fan.

One night, in New York, I sat slouched in the corner of the dugout, the sun long gone over the horizon. Andy Montoya wasn’t pitching very well, and Bradshaw called me over.

I took the empty spot beside him. “What’s up, Brad?”

“Tommy, I just want to make sure you know how proud I am of all you’ve accomplished here lately, especially with your allergies and all.”

I pulled the hood of my Mets sweatshirt up over my head and shoved my hands into my pockets. The temperature was in the low sixties and breezy, and although the cold no longer affected me, I liked to keep up appearances.

“Thanks, Brad. I really appreciate that. I’ve been working hard.”

“I know you have. Why, in your last five games, you 33

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

pitched four shutouts and only allowed one run.”

I nodded and a smile crept across my lips. On the night I’d allowed the Dodgers to have their one run, I gave it up on purpose. Not that it mattered, since by then the Mets had already scored five of their own. Like Obby said, it wasn’t smart to be perfect all the time.

Bradshaw couldn’t say enough about me, and I let him talk. “And that’s not even counting your record, a hundred and six point three miles per hour―Jesus, no wonder they drug tested you.” Brad shook his head, a wide smile crossing his face. “The way you’re pitching, I wouldn’t mind having a few more just like you. Is that allergy of yours contagious?” He laughed, deep and gravelly.

I smiled. Finding out they were going to drug test me had freaked me, but unlike my little problem with the sun, Obby had actually planned for it.

He’d been right about the mask too. Even back in LA, I spotted at least a dozen. In New York, I would expect fifty times that, easy.

We watched in silence as the ball passed between our first baseman’s legs and the Padres scored their fifth run.

It was only the third inning.

Brad sighed. “You know the Mets have only won the World Series twice.”

“Yup, way back in 69 and 85.”

“That’s right.” Brad leaned over and pulled the blue, white and blue mask from the pocket of my sweatshirt. “It would be nice if these other guys had your problems.”

I stood up. “Well, who knows? Maybe my condition is contagious.” I walked over to the railing and looked into 34

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

the seats behind home plate. There, in the first row, sat Obby. These days, he followed the team to every game since I always set him up with the best tickets. It was the least I could do. Obby still wore the Hawaiian shirt and flip­flops, but at least the stupid ponytail wig was gone.

It took no more than a second before Obby looked my way, waving and smiling.

Since we weren’t allowed cell phones in the dugout, I raised my hand to my ear, miming the sign for “call me.”

Obby nodded and turned his attention back to the game.

Brad was right. The Mets did need more players like me.

Diana Corbitt is a member of SCBWI and Writer’s Village University, and a member of an ongoing writers class at Writers.com. She has also been selected as a runner up in the Writerstype.com short story contest.

35

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

THE BOX

by T. J. Koll

Turn the knob.

Gaze into the screen.

Find the answers you seek.

Garrett chuckled as he read the instructions. Surely this little strange whatever­the­hell­it­was now sitting on his kitchen table was a gag, a prank from one of his buddies with too much time and old technology on his hands.

Max, Kenny, Bill­­any one of them could’ve heard about his recent layoff or the latest public blowout with his wife.

This could be some dim­witted attempt at cheering him up. After all, nothing says friendship and support like an ancient computer monitor with no keyboard.

Andrea, Garrett’s wife, hurried into the kitchen seconds later, late for work: heels clomping, plates clanking in the sink, sighs and scoffs and muttered swears. “Can’t even clean a couple dishes, Garrett?” she asked, scouring off that morning’s egg yolk. “It’s not going to be like this. I’m not going to work and clean up your shit.”

“Sorry, babe,” he said, scarcely paying attention, focused instead on figuring out this strange device. “What do you think this could be? Think one of your friends sent it?”

“Like I have time for friends.”

“Your parents maybe? As a joke?”

Andrea growled in frustration and abandoned the dirty dishes. “I’m late. And I don’t care. Seen my keys?”

36

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

He shook his head. “What about Melissa? She might send out weird stuff like this, right?”

“In Alaska. Haven’t talked to her in months,” Andrea said, digging through her purse. “You’d know that if you stopped watching so much goddamn TV and listened to me for a change.”

Garrett grunted and flipped over the device, looking for a price tag or company name, but he found none. There wasn’t even a return address on the box in which it arrived.

Andrea stared at him. He could feel it, that death­ray­beaming­through­his­skull glare of hers. “Any chance of you going down to the temp agency today? Like you promised?” she asked.

“After lunch, maybe.”

“Why not right now?”

“Don’t feel like it.”

She at last found the keys in her purse and let them dangle from her fingers, jingling them like a rattlesnake shaking its tail. “My crappy salary and your little unemployment checks won’t cut it. You need to find something. Soon.”

He nodded, shrugged, and returned his attention to the unusual device, a response that sent Andrea storming out the front door. Garrett groaned, slouching in the chair and rubbing his face. He’d only been out of work for a few weeks, but to hear Andrea you’d think he’d never held down a job in his whole life. A useless, lazy slob. And with every day he spent at home, her already piss­poor opinion of him just got worse.

A moment after she’d left, Garrett began fiddling with 37

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

the device’s single knob, and a robotic voice abruptly buzzed from the back of the machine. “Front porch,” it said, the words flashing in green, blocky letters on the screen.

Stunned, Garrett froze, doubting his eyes and ears. He again searched the odd little box, this time for a power cord, a battery compartment, or anything else he might have missed earlier. Nothing.

“Front porch,” it repeated, the voice more insistent this time.

Incredulous, Garrett stood and looked out the kitchen window just as Andrea was backing their sedan down the driveway. There on the front porch steps sat his wife’s red wallet, apparently dropped in her rush to get on the road.

Scoffing, he hurried outside, grabbed the wallet, and waved Andrea down just in time.

“Forget something?” he asked, handing it to her through the open window.

She took it, but such a small gesture did nothing to improve her mood. She shot him a half­hearted grin, told him she’d be back by six, and drove off.

Garrett stood in the driveway for several moments, hands awkwardly stuffed in his pockets, watching her car disappear down the road. A part of him wondered if she would indeed bother coming home that evening, or if she’d just stay the night at her mother’s house again.

Either way, there was little he could do about it at this point. Even if he did get a position with the temp agency, Andrea wouldn’t be happy. Maybe it wouldn’t pay enough, maybe the hours would be crazy, or maybe she’d simply make up something else to complain about. Of 38

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

course, a lousy job was certainly better than no job at all, at least in her eyes.

An hour later­­showered, dressed in his only suit, and ready to head out to the temp agency­­Garrett stood drinking coffee in the kitchen and again eyeing the device. There was some trick to it, some power source or speaker he’d just overlooked. There must be. What else could he believe: A magic answer box from outer space? A mystical message machine powered by angels and starlight? Nonsense. He smirked and headed for the front door.

“Honesty,” the device droned, green letters again flashing on the screen.

Garrett paused at the door. “That’s it? That’s your great wisdom?” he asked out loud, as if this thing could hear him. “How about something useful like who’ll win tomorrow night’s game or where I can fine some good old fashioned buried treasure.”

“Honesty,” the voice again buzzed. “Blunt.”

He shook his head, now convinced the box was indeed someone’s idea of a bad joke. Blunt honesty. There were a hundred business books and websites out there that spouted the same crap. Interviews were games, performances. Garrett wasn’t certain about much in this world, but he had no doubts about the current economy: the right answers got you the job, and the bluntly honest answers landed you back in the unemployment line.

39

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

Sitting in the temp agency’s waiting room, pretending to enjoy a car magazine from December of 1987, Garrett silently chided himself for taking such an interest in the box at home. Was he thirteen­years­old again? Was he still that hair­down­to­his­butt, pimply­faced kid who believed in such abracadabra bullshit? Not if he actually wanted to stay married to Andrea. Not if he was going to prove her mother wrong and show them both he could be a man and provide a decent living.

An assistant with great legs and too much lipstick soon showed him into the hiring manager’s office, and he sat down. The manager, a bald man with a bowtie who could’ve easily passed for an action­movie hitman, stared at Garrett’s resume and said nothing for several minutes.

“Mr. Lester?” the manager finally asked, not raising his eyes.

Garrett nodded.

“Looking for a clerical position? Something temporary?

Permanent?”

Again, Garrett nodded.

The manager looked up at him. “Temporary or permanent?”

“Either’s fine,” Garrett said at last, knowing he should elaborate further but finding both his brain and tongue unwilling.

“How about industrial work? Machines? Clean­up?”

Garrett chewed his lip and, yet again, nodded. “Fine.

All fine.”

The manager smirked and folded his hands on the desktop. “You sure? Push­brooms, mops, scraping off little 40

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

bits of cow and pig from the machines in a meat packing plant­­you’re okay with all that?”

“Just happy to work for such a great company,” Garrett said, forcing himself to keep his head still, though he was already sure he looked and sounded like an idiot.

The manager’s expression­­the same dull­eyed, condescending look adults often give other people’s kids­­left little doubt: Run along, little Garrett, his eyes said. Run along back to your mommy now. The grownups have to work. He grunted and glanced at the clock on his desk. “Well, we appreciate you coming in, but­­” “I really need a job, sir,” Garrett said, interrupting, realizing the manager was about to give him the boot.

“I understand that, but­­” “With all due respect, if I go home tonight without a job, my wife’s gonna leave me. I’ll lose my house, everything.”

The manager paused, again quiet, and for a moment Garrett thought he might be considering a call to security.

But then a smile appeared on his face, a small but genuine smile. “Wives can be a real pain in the ass, can’t they?” he asked, twisting the gold band on his ring finger.

Garrett nodded.

“Twenty­two years,” the manager said, reclining in his seat. “Married that long and I still never figured out how to make that woman happy.”

Garrett was about to nod but stopped himself. “My wife, sometimes I think she actually likes being miserable.”

“Like if she couldn’t complain about something she’d explode, right?”

41

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

Garrett nodded yet again.

Amazed by the guy’s reaction, he spent the next half­hour trading stories about wives and jobs and women like the one with great legs who worked for him. At the end of their conversation, the manager told him to come in the following morning, promising to “find him something,” even if it might be dull or downright repellant. With no other options and a strange sense of optimism, Garrett agreed.

Argue with his wife for a few hours, get called some choice names, and then sit outside the bathroom door until midnight begging her for another chance­­Garrett’s usual nighttime routine quickly changed upon telling Andrea about his day and his new job prospects. Although she was initially skeptical, probing him with questions like a television detective, she eventually closed her eyes and hugged him and shared her hope that a brighter future now lie before them.

It was a small step, but a much needed one; and Garrett stayed up into the early morning toying with the strange, miraculous device that made it happen. In time, he fell asleep at the kitchen table, but he woke up only an hour or so later.

With eyes still shut, Garrett raised his head­­snorting, coughing, and finding it difficult to breath. Something was clogging his nose, and in his still foggy mind he wondered if he’d caught a cold. As his hands moved to wipe away any drool or snot on his face, however, he discovered something far more horrifying: a cable, 42

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

connected at one end to the box, was protruding from his left nostril.

He jolted fully awake, panicking, and tried to yank it from his nose, but the cable was deep and refused to budge. Grunting, terrified, he tried again to pull it out, but a bolt of pain through his head quickly convinced him to stop.

“Stay with me,” buzzed a voice from the device, though this time it sounded feminine and was almost a whisper.

Frantic, Garrett turned the box over and scrambled to find the cable’s other end, but it was buried and tangled among a throng of other cords.

“Stay with me,” the voice again whispered. “I love you.”

An electrical shock shot through Garrett’s body, and all the pain and fear vanished. As in a wonderful dream, soothing images of peaceful lakes, meadows, and mountaintops floated through his mind. But they seemed like more than just images. He could feel the coolness of the water, smell the grass and daffodils around him, hear his feet crunch upon the snow­covered rocks. A beautiful woman with blue eyes and dark hair held his hand, kissed his lips, pressed against him.

“I love you,” she said, smoothing her fingertips down his cheeks. “You’re mine.”

A moment later, he was back at his kitchen table, terrified and confused. Grunting and with tears forming in the corners of his eyes, Garrett again seized the cord and pulled­­ignoring the pain, ignoring the voice. At last, he yanked it free, and toppled from his chair to the floor, blood trickling from his nose Groaning, he stumbled to his feet, staggered as quickly 43

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

as he could down the hall, and grabbed a baseball bat from the coat closet. With his heart still racing, he hurried back toward the kitchen, but Andrea yelled after him from their bedroom doorway.

“What the hell are you doing?” she shouted.

Garrett halted, trying to catch his breath, stumped as to how he could explain what happened.

“The box,” he managed, stare fixed toward the kitchen.

“You scared the crap out of me,” she said, hands on her hips. “I thought someone was robbing us, for Christ’s sake.”

Garrett glanced down at the bat still in his grip. “I was going into the kitchen.”

“To do what? To start smashing up everything at three­in­the­morning?”

He shrugged, his mind still hazy. “No. I don’t know. The box. Something’s wrong with it.”

Andrea emerged a bit more from the hallway, rubbing her temples and sighing. “Tonight was a good night.

Okay, Garrett? It was finally a good night for us. Don’t ruin it by suddenly freaking out on me.”

He shut his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, an ache blooming in his head. He struggled for something to say, but he felt like a four­year­old who’d woken from a nightmare and was too flustered and fearful to explain it to his parents.

“Get in bed now or you’re sleeping on the fucking couch,” she said, marching back into the bedroom.

Garrett knew she didn’t mean just a single night on the couch either. Her tone made her true meaning obvious: come to bed or sleep alone. Forever. After hesitating a few 44

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

seconds­­glare shifting from the kitchen to the bedroom and back again­­he finally surrendered, returned the bat to the closet, and followed Andrea to bed.

Despite the previous night’s commotion, Garrett awoke at dawn feeling incredibly confident and energetic. In fact, by the time Andrea finally got up, he’d already swept the floor, unloaded the dishwasher, and cooked her poached eggs and cream­cheese­slathered toast.

Confusion? Gone. Fear. What fear? His mind was calm, clear, and focused.

Andrea sat slumped at the kitchen table, still in a bathrobe, and stared at him as if he were glowing and covered in polka­dots. Garrett barely noticed, however, as he was far too busy inventorying the fridge and writing down a shopping list. Mustard. They needed mustard.

Milk, too. There seemed to be a pattern, Garrett thought.

Something to do with the letter “M.” “You’re not like sniffing cocaine at night when I’m asleep, are you?” she asked, her breakfast lying untouched before her. “You can tell me if you are. We can find you some help or something.”

He chuckled. “I just feel good today. Better than in a long time.”

“You sure? You remember Debbie’s husband, the one who used to shoot junk into his arm every day? He went to treatment and has been sober for a whole six­months.”

“I’m fine. Really.”

Andrea gestured to the box across the table. “And what about this thing? About last night?”

45

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

“A misunderstanding.”

“You were wandering the house with a club like a maniac because of a misunderstanding?” She sniffed a piece of egg and then pushed away her plate.

He nodded, scarcely listening, scrawling another item on his list. “Mayonnaise,” he said, now certain the pattern meant something important. “We should really look into this.”

“Into what? Mayonnaise?”

“The missing food. And each starting with the same letter. Can’t be a coincidence.”

Andrea paused and offered a crooked smile. “Okay, mayonnaise man. You look into that, and I’ll get ready for work.” She stood and headed for the hallway. “I’ll take the pickup today, so you can drive the sedan, if you want.”

“I think I’ll walk there instead,” Garrett said, a statement that stopped his wife mid­step.

“But it’s almost five­miles.”

“And a beautiful day out.” Garrett peered out the window for a moment but then returned to his inventorying.

Andrea stammered a bit but then continued into the hall saying nothing else. Garrett paused and glanced at the box still on the kitchen table, a twinge of anxiousness rising in his stomach. The overwhelming sense of optimism and energy within him, however, soon squashed that brief apprehension; and he then decided to bleach the countertops before leaving for work.

46

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

For the first mile of his journey to the temp agency, Garrett strode along like a man who’d just won the lottery: confident, carefree, and in complete control of his life. A hundred different ideas and plans for the future buzzed about in his mind: he’d prove himself an invaluable employee, secure a management position, take Andrea on vacations to Europe or the Caribbean, buy that house she wanted, earn a six­figure salary, and eventually make his mother­in­law apologize for the “I knew you weren’t good enough for my daughter, you gigantic loser” speech she gave every Thanksgiving.

At about the middle of mile two, however, that optimism suddenly collapsed, as did his energy level. As if cold mud were caked upon his body and brain, Garrett’s legs went heavy, his hands trembled, and his mind slowed. Fear overcame him, as it does a man gleefully swimming in the ocean one minute who finds himself caught in a riptide the next. He fell to one knee, and then down on his elbows, the once pleasant sun above now a relentless spotlight that burned his eyes and exposed his every weakness. Exhausted, he crawled a few feet before at last collapsing onto the sidewalk.

Blood dribbled from his nose.

Muttering and swearing, Garrett pulled his cell phone from his pocket and tried calling Andrea, but the battery was strangely dead. He couldn’t call her, couldn’t call the temp agency, couldn’t call anyone.

“Come on, dammit,” he said to himself, his shaking hands struggling to even hold the phone upright.

Certain his new job and future were now in jeopardy, 47

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

he then tried to stand­­grunting and straining and cursing even louder­­but his body refused to cooperate. Despair followed.

Hours passed, as did many drivers who slowed down but never stopped to help. Two pedestrians on the other side of the street ignored him as well. Despite his shouting, both kept their glares glued to their phones, fingers racing across little keyboards as they shuffled ahead.

Finally, well into the afternoon, an elderly couple driving a station wagon saw him and offered assistance.

The old man hurried out of his car and knelt over Garrett.

“You need an ambulance, son?” he asked, as his presumed wife urged him to be careful and avoid getting too close.

Garrett shook his head. “Home.”

The old man struggled to help him up. “Holy hell. You can’t even hardly move,” he said, draping Garrett’s arm across his shoulders and staggering to the car. “Cassie, get on that mobile phone of yours and call ahead to the hospital. Tell them we’re on our way.”

Despite Garrett’s feeble objections, the elderly couple drove him to St. Mary’s Memorial Hospital and checked him in. After a dozen tests and the arrival of his less­than­sympathetic wife, the doctors sent Garrett home with a bottle of pain killers and an official “we can’t find anything wrong with you” diagnosis. By eleven o’clock that night, he was at last slumped on his living room couch and struggling to keep his eyes open.

48

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

Andrea sat beside him, still in her work clothes. She said nothing for several moments, half­heartedly fluffing his pillow and helping him sip water from a cup. “Did you trip?”

“That’s not what happened,” he said, briefly shutting his eyes.

“The doctor said somebody found you lying on the sidewalk.”

Garrett sighed. “I didn’t fall. Okay? I just got really weak. Tired.”

“And you decided the sidewalk was a good place to take a nap?”

Garrett scoffed. “Yep. That’s it. Just curled up there on the concrete.”

“Be serious for two seconds,” Andrea said, snatching the water cup from his lips. “What happened to you?

Why’d you miss your meeting? Why were you­­” “I don’t know,” he said, interrupting. “I think it was the box. I think it did something to me.”

Andrea sneered. “The box?”

“Yeah.”

“That piece of junk on our kitchen table? It did this.

That’s what you’re telling me?”

Garrett nodded. “There was a voice. And a cord.”

“You think I’m an idiot or something? The box? That’s your answer?”

“You don’t understand.”

Andrea stood, marched into the kitchen, and carried the strange device back into the living room. Without a word, she set it down on the floor beside the couch, which terrified Garrett.

49

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

“Show me,” she said, folding her arms. “Show me how this made you miss that meeting. How it made you miss the one opportunity you had to finally take care of this family.”

Garrett began hyperventilating. “Away. Take it away.”

She refused. “I know what it feels like to be tired, Garrett. I’m tired, too. I’m tired of your excuses, of your bull, of waiting for the life you promised me.”

“Sweetie. Please.”

“No more ‘sweetie, please.’ No more ‘honey, I promise I’ll make it better.’ None of it.”

Petrified, Garrett tried to push the box away, but there was still no strength in his arm. He couldn’t even roll off the couch. “I’m sorry,” he said, groaning and grunting as he tried to move.

Andrea pulled the wedding ring from her finger and placed it on top of the box. “I should’ve listened to my mother. She was right about you.”

Saying nothing else, she strolled into the bedroom and didn’t come back. Alone beside the strange device, out of breath and all­but paralyzed, Garrett could do little but vainly call for his wife and offer more apologies.

Green letters soon appeared on the device’s screen, joined again by the feminine voice: “Help you. Love you.

Stay.”

Early the next morning, as orange sunlight glowed behind the window drapes and school buses rumbled down Sunnyside Avenue, Garrett awoke to Andrea whispering in the back bedroom. He lay on the couch a 50

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

moment, listening, stare focused on the ceiling, his hands and feet and face all numb. A soft but steady buzz also droned from deep within his chest and brain, but he tried to concentrate on his wife’s voice.

“Still asleep,” Andrea said, obviously talking on her cell phone, undoubtedly to her mother. “Just need help with my clothes and a few boxes. I’m leaving the rest.”

Garrett was surprised by the clarity of her voice, especially given her distance and hushed tone. Still somewhat weak but hoping he might convince her to stay, even just for one more night, Garrett staggered to his feet.

A sudden and searing pain, however, flashed through his head and nearly forced him to his knees.

He clutched his skull, crying out, and felt thin cords protruding from both of his ears. Shocked, he scoured his body for others: a bundle of wires jutted from his belly button, others from his forearms, and yet another from his right nostril. Just as horrifying, his skin was now utterly gray, and his fingernails and toenails were all white.

“Andrea!” he shouted, hopelessly pulling at the wires crowding his belly button.

He could hear her groan and sigh but she ignored him.

Garrett staggered a few steps forward, clawing at the cords sticking from his arms, the box dragging on the floor behind him. “Please! Andrea! Help!”

“On the phone,” she said before quickly returning to her conversation.

Garrett continued lurching forward. The closet, and within it his baseball bat, was just ten or so feet away. He peered back at the box, blocky green words still flashing 51

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

across its screen.

Another jolt of pain hit him, shooting through his belly and then up his spine. Images of a tropical beach soon replaced his agony. His bare feet were nestled in the sand, toes wiggling; and he could see sailboats drifting in the distant ocean.

The dark haired woman from his earlier experience reappeared beside him. She straddled his lap and caressed his cheeks with both hands. But her eyes were no longer blue and beautiful.

Two black voids replaced them.

Garrett panicked and tried to flee, but he couldn’t move. The woman clenched his face, her nails digging into his skin, and drew even closer.

“Love you,” she said, lips close to his, her voice robotic and androgynous.

The beach and the woman vanished, as if abruptly switched off, and Garrett was again lurching toward the closet in his living room. Andrea was now in front of him, screaming.

“Get the hell away from me,” she shouted, backing away, crying. “ Garrett reached for her. “Stay with me,” he said, his own voice now a mechanical drone.

Andrea grabbed the baseball bat from the closet behind her.

Again, a bolt of energy rushed up Garrett’s spine and he was back on the beach with the terrifying brunette. She forced him down onto the sand, the screech of a fax machine blaring from her mouth.

“Andrea!” he shouted, unable to move and barely able 52

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

to breathe.

Instantly, he was back in his living room and standing in front of his wife, just in time to feel the sharp clunk of the baseball bat against his skull. He staggered and then crumpled to the floor, his sight blurry and his ears ringing. Blood poured from his ear.

Though muffled, he could still hear Andrea screaming and crying. He groaned and raised his hand toward her voice. He tried to speak, to comfort her and apologize, but buzzes and pings replaced his voice and words.

Weeping, Andrea threw down the bat and rushed out the front door. Garrett inhaled one raspy, blood­filled breath after another.

“Stay,” he heard the box again drone, more wires rustling and snaking toward him. “Stay.”

T.J. is a writing instructor, a published novelist and non-fiction writer, and the father of a very spirited four-year-old who keeps him on his toes.

53

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

OUTSIDE THE BOX

by Holly Day

The walls flickered to life seconds before the children filed into the large room. The flat white surfaces were replaced by a stand of immense conifers, while the ceiling and floor also changed to complete the scene. Tiny speakers, invisibly set in the high corners of the cubical room, crackled with static before releasing a steady cacophony of buzzing, clicking insect and animal noises.

“Where are the dinosaurs?” asked one boy, hands on his hips in practiced annoyance. He turned around and around in the room, sighing loudly as if already bored of his surroundings.

Bridgett smiled patiently at the little boy and ignored his question. “Welcome to Inner Mongolia, China, 70 million years ago. The trees you see all around you are the ancestors of the same pine trees you might have growing in your own yards at home, or see at the park.”

She paused, smiling brightly at the group of six­ and seven­year olds, eyes scanning the walls behind them for activity. Finding none, she continued, “You see these tiny, knobby little plants growing by your feet? In a few months, they’ll start putting out little yellow flowers that look sort of like tiny dandelions. Does anyone know why these types of plants don’t grow in Mongolia, or much of the world, anymore?” She paused and scanned the room for hands.

“Because the dinosaurs ate them all?” asked one little 54

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

girl.

“Because of pollution?” asked another.

“Those are good guesses,” Bridgett nodded. “But the real answer is that this whole ancient family of plants can’t grow hardly anywhere on the planet because of earthworms. These types of plants have almost no root system and live mostly on the surface of the soil, and depend on the soil to be hard­packed so that their tiny roots don’t get waterlogged. Earthworms make the soil loose and soft like a big sponge, which is great for modern plants with big, long roots, but not so great for these little guys.” She peeked quickly up at the startlingly blue sky.

Still nothing. The speakers continued to hum and throb with invisible insects and far­off animals calls, none of which had the decency to come within the visual range of the audience in the Box. “Does anyone have any questions?”

“Where are the dinosaurs?” asked another little boy. “I wanna see a Gigantoraptor!” He held up a tightly­clutched Gigantoraptor toy, obviously purchased during the group’s stop at the gift shop, and waved it at her.

“I don’t know if we’re going to get to see any dinosaurs today,” she confessed. “We are looking at a real forest in Cretaceous Mongolia, and we just can’t predict what we’ll see when we go back. Just imagine if time travelers from the future went back to look at Chicago in our time, and ended up in your living room while you were at school and your parents were at work. They might be disappointed that they didn’t get to see human beings during their visit, but you know what? They could still look at your furniture, the breakfast dishes in the sink, the 55

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

way our world looked out through the windows—all sorts of things. If you pay attention, there are a lot of things to see here even without dinosaurs.” She looked around again, feeling a familiar sense of panic building. She hated the days where there were no dinosaurs.

“I see a bug!” crowed one little girl in the far corner.

“Ew! It’s really big!”

“Where?” shouted another child, and suddenly, all the children were in the corner of the room, staring at an especially large beetle with brachiated antennae purposefully trundling down the side of a tree. It reached the ground, and thankfully, instead of turning and disappearing in the forest, began to shuffle its way across the room. “I think it touched me!” yelped one of the children, jumping. “Is it poisonous?”

“Nothing in here can touch you,” laughed Bridgett, ridiculously thankful for the strange insect. It came straight toward her, its bright orange mandibles clicking audibly as it wobbled comically across the needle­strewn soil. It disappeared beneath her feet as it passed and emerged out the other side to disappear into the forest.

“It’s only the camera that went back in time.” This was the explanation that Dr. Scheul had given her to use, and it was an answer that worked just fine with most visitors to the museum.

The floor screen began to flicker, then went out, replaced once more by a smooth white panel. The ceiling went out, and then the entire room was just one large, white box. A door panel slid open in one seamless wall and the hall flights came on. “I’m afraid that’s it for our visit to the Cretaceous Period today. I hope you enjoyed 56

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

your visit, and I hope you come back and see us again!”

Bridgett nodded at the schoolteacher in charge of the group, and stayed behind until she was sure that every child had made it out of the room. When the room was finally empty, she stepped out herself, pressing the button that made the door disappear once again.

“How did it go today?” Marty asked as she came into the locker room. “The little brats enjoy the show?” He was already in his street clothes, hair wet and slicked back from the shower.

“No dinosaurs today,” Bridgett sighed. She pulled off her jacket and carefully hung it in her locker. “No dinosaurs, no flying reptiles, no earthquakes, no fires. No cool volcanoes going off in the background. If some weird little bug hadn’t showed up, I would have had to give an actual lecture about the Cretaceous Period, or even worse, try to explain how the Box works to a bunch of first­graders.”

“Brutal,” laughed Marty. “Hey, you staying on or going home?”

“I don’t know. Why?” “My morning group canceled, so we’ve got an extra half­hour of Box time up for grabs. You game? The Doc’s bringing beer—and not that crap he makes at home, either,” he added. “Store­bought. With a label not drawn by his daughter in crayon.”

“Count me in,” grinned Bridgett. She grabbed her street clothes from the locker. “See you at six.”

Bridgett got to the Box about fifteen minutes early to 57

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

find the rest of the staff already waiting in the hall.

Georgia, a short, stocky girl with black hair cropped close to her head, waved at her as she approached. “I brought everyone sandwiches,” she said, handing Bridgett a plastic­wrapped triangle. “Courtesy of Marty’s kindergarten group canceling.”

“Oh, yeah,” grinned Bridgett. “PB&J?” “Nah. Too many kids with peanut allergies in that group,” said Georgia. “It’s soy cheese and butter pickles.

Tastes better than it sounds.”

Bridgett unwrapped the sandwich and ate it quickly.

She had just finished the last bite when the Box’s door suddenly slid open. “Oh, crap,” she whispered to Georgia.

“He better not have used up all our time already.”

“How long you been in here?” asked Marty loudly as he pushed his way past Bridgett and Georgia into the room.

A violent thunderstorm was underway inside the room.

Thick, white sheets of rain fell all around the little group of museum guides, while lightning exploded in fiery sparks far above their heads.

“Come in, come in!” waved the little man sitting in the exact center of the room, a large case of beer on the floor next to him. “For chrissakes, shut the door! You’re spoiling the show!”

“How much time have we got left?” asked Bridgett pointedly, taking a seat on the floor beside Dr. Sheul.

“You been in here long?”

“You kids,” he snorted. He opened the case of beer and handed one to her. It was even cold. “You’ve got about 27 minutes left. Y’all really think I’d use up all this extra time just for myself?”

58

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

Marty grinned. “Nah, not you,” he said. “That’s why you’re our favorite boss.” Behind him, a tree split in half, showering sparks. The room filled with the sound of the massive conifer crashing through the neighboring trees before slamming to the ground. Now the group was sitting cross­legged directly on top of the tree. Frightened bright­colored lizards and insects wriggled out of the wreckage, only to be swept away by the ankle­deep flash floods cutting deep, muddy swaths through the sparse undergrowth. “Anybody got any marshmallows?” joked one of the new guides as the entire wall behind him was engulfed in flame. Bridgett winced as she saw the same copse of primitive plants she had pointed out just a few hours before engulfed in the rising waters.

“I think we’re going to have to change the setting for tomorrow!” shouted Dr. Sheul over the roar of the storm.

“Someplace sunny, not strewn with dead plants and animals!” As he spoke, a pair of Gigantoraptors stumbled through the trees, heads whipping back and forth in terror, screaming horribly every time lightning ripped across the sky. Bridget slapped her hands over her ears to blot out the horrible noise. The rising floodwaters knocked both the clumsy beasts off their feet and dragged them thankfully out of sight.

“I am so glad this storm didn’t happen during my tour,” said Bridgett, suddenly thankful for her boring day of sunshine and interesting bugs and no dead dinosaurs. “Do we have to keep the kids in here if something really terrible happens?”

“Just remind them that this all happened millions of years ago,” said the doctor nonchalantly, finishing his 59

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

beer and opening another one. “Compared to what I’ve seen my daughter watch on TV, this is nothing.”

The floor flickered and glowed white. The speakers filled with static and, one by one, the terrible storm disappeared from the walls and the ceiling. “Guess that means time’s up,” said the doctor, climbing to his feet and finishing off the beer he just opened. “Don’t get to see a show like that every night, do you?”

Bridgett got up, feeling a little shaky. It was so easy to get lost in the Box’s transmissions. After a storm like that, the real world seemed blissfully boring. “You got any plans?” she asked Georgia as they slowly filed out of the room, as quietly and ordered as schoolchildren themselves.

“I think I’m just going to go home and veg out,” answered Georgia. “I think I’ve had enough beer and entertainment for the night.”

“True,” agreed Bridgett, feeling tired herself. She hated to admit how good the thought of curling up in front of the tube and passing out on the couch sounded. Three more weeks, and she’d be back in school. Might as well enjoy the free time while she had it.

“Welcome to Jurassic Colorado,” said Bridgett, glancing down at the note card Dr. Scheul had slipped into her hand just as she and her first group of the day reached the Box. She could barely make out his handwriting. She folded up the card and put it in her pocket. She would have to wing it. “How many of you kids have been to Dinosaur National Park in Colorado?”

60

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

Five or six little hands shot up. Bridgett smiled brightly at the group of kindergartners trailing her, a couple of bedraggled­looking teachers in tow. “I’ve never been there,” she confessed. “Did it look anything like this?” She pushed the button for the door and stepped into the Box, praying there would be a dinosaur waiting for her this time.

There was. A herd of five or six sauropods stood chest­deep in water, bright green strings of pondweed hanging from their mouths. It was incredibly picturesque.

“Thank goodness,” Bridgett muttered to herself as the school group filed in behind her, shrieking and cooing with delight. She would have to stop by the Doc’s office later to compliment him on his selection of the site. The gift shop would be swamped with kids looking for a plastic Barosaurus to take home with them after today.

Dr. Scheul had obviously spent a lot of valuable time tweaking the view from the Box that morning. The bottom half of the Box rested in the shallow end of the lake itself, giving visitors an underwater view of the giant sauropods’ legs and long, elaborately­spiked tails twisting through the crystal­clear water. Ominous­looking fish with heads shaped like bowling balls swam slowly through the water, opening and closing mouths full of jangled teeth to the delight and terror of the children, disappearing as they passed through the area the Box occupied. Crocodilians crawled across the bottom of the lake, and directly underneath a few shrieking children’s feet, snapping up smaller fish and frogs too slow or stupid to escape. The top half of the Box rose above the water, giving viewers a spectacular view of the top halves of the 61

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

sauropods, as well as a couple of brilliant­hued pterosaurs diving for fish and one enormous dragonfly buzzing along the sandy bank. With a view like this, the only talking Bridgett had to do was answer a few random questions about dinosaurs. Mostly, the kids in the Box just wandered around the room, trying to see everything before their time ran out.

“Hey, how come they get to go outside?” shouted one kid angrily, disturbing Bridgett’s reverie. “That’s no fair! I want to go outside, too!”

“You can’t go outside,” said Bridgett calmly, shaking her head and smiling knowingly at the haggard teachers, who just glowered back at her. “There’s not really an Outside.

These are just pictures our vidcams are picking up.”

“Well, then, what are they doing out there?” said the little boy, pointing. About half a mile from the lake, almost completely obscured by a dense grove of pine trees, was a group of five or six kids standing around a man holding a clipboard. The man was pointing as he spoke, obviously giving a lecture of some sort. After a few minutes, the entire group came out from underneath the trees and started walking toward the lake. Bridgett’s heart pounded in her throat. They were not supposed to be there. Their presence outside the Box was impossible.

“I want to go out, too!” the kids inside the Box began shouting in unison, just as the floor flickered and the pictures winked out. Bridgett felt like crying. What should have been a perfect start to the day was turning into a tour guide’s nightmare. She watched helplessly as the group of disappointed children and their grim­faced teachers filed out of the room quietly, not one of them 62

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

returning her cheerful, albeit completely inauthentic smile.

Marty stood outside the Box with his first group of the day. “That bad, eh?” he whispered as she stepped out.

“Whatcha got in there, dinosaur plague?”

“Worse,” she hissed. “We gotta go see the Doc. We can’t take any more people in there until he sees this.”

Marty groaned. “I have to cancel? I gotta tell these kids they can’t go in and see the dinosaurs? That little boy just told me his class has been on the waiting list for this for almost three years!”

“Well, we’ll just postpone it, like we always do with cancellations. They’ll still be the next group in. We’ll make some calls and everyone’ll get pushed back a day or two.

There are people in there,” she finished, voice so low it was almost inaudible. “I mean, people outside the Box. And kids! Like they’re on a flippin’ field trip or something!”

Marty snorted. “You must be high. Time travel’s impossible,” he added, almost too automatically.

“They all saw it!” she hissed, grabbing his arm and pulling him over to where she was sure no one would hear them. “Some kid in my group pointed it out to me!

They almost walked right up to us!”

“All right,” he said, shaking his head. He took a deep, noisy breath, put on his perfect museum guide smile, and went back to his group. “I am so sorry to report this, but we are apparently having technical difficulties with the Box and will have to reschedule your visit. If you guys can stick around for just a little while longer, I’m going to go get Dr. Scheul to look at the machine and see what we 63

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

can do for you. Don’t worry, kids,” he said to the moans and groans of children filling the room. “I promise you will all get to see at least one, if not many, dinosaurs, very soon. Here,” he added, pulling a stack of gift certificates out of his pocket and passing them around. “Go nuts in the gift shop. We’ll have this all straightened out in a jiffy.”

“That’s impossible,” said Dr. Scheul when Bridgett explained why she made Marty cancel his tour. “I hope you’re not coming to the museum high, young lady. There are plenty of other college students who would mail me their mother to get this job.”

“If I was high, then all the kindergartners in my group were, too. And their teachers,” said Bridgett firmly. “Every one of them will tell you they saw a group of kids, with what looked like their teacher, walking around in Cretaceous Colorado. They’re probably still there, if you want to take a look for yourself,” she challenged.

“I’ll fire up the Box,” said the Doc, a tight­lipped smile marring his usually friendly face. The only surprises he liked were the ones he was responsible for. Marty and Bridgett followed Dr. Scheul back to the entrance of the Box, where one of the teachers from Marty’s cancelled group stood, patiently waiting for Marty to return. “I’m going to have to ask you to step way, way back from the door,” ordered Dr. Scheul. “There’s a danger of blindness from looking inside the Box when it’s malfunctioning.”

The teacher scooted away to stand at the far end of the hall, obviously not ready to give up her post altogether.

“Wouldn’t want her looking into the room just in case you’re right,” muttered the doctor. “Even though time 64

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

travel is impossible.”

“I think the window for containing this thing has already passed,” said Bridgett. “By now, my kindergarten group’s probably already told their parents and friends what they saw.”

“Whatever,” said the Doc. The door slid open and the three of them stepped inside the Box. The sauropods were making their way slowly and clumsily out of the lake, their massive bodies looking that much heavier now that they weren’t buoyed by water. Great clouds of swirling mud rose from their footsteps, obscuring most of the submarine view of the room. Fish scurried in haphazard escape routes to get out of the way of the behemoths’ feet, some going so far as to leap out of the water itself and flutter, briefly airborne by modified fins, several feet from where they emerged. Pterosaurs dove after the flying fish, appearing at times as though about to crash right through the screen of the Box. The Doc nodded briefly at the show. “Too bad your kids couldn’t see this,” he said to Marty. “They would have gotten their money’s worth today, that’s for sure.” He turned around and around in the room, scanning the distant hills for signs of human life. “Hmm,” he mused, a little pointedly.

“They really were here,” protested Bridgett. “I’ll bet if you called the teachers from that group up—“ “Oh, Christ,” said the Doc suddenly. “We’ve got to shut down the rest of the tours for the day. Maybe the rest of the week. I’ve got some calls to make.” Without even bothering to tell the machine to shut down, he stormed out of the room, face flushed, worry lines creasing his 65

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

face. There, right at the bottom of the far corner screen, something glinted silver in the bright, primordial sunlight.

Even though she couldn’t identify the brand, Bridgett could tell it was a crumpled­up soda can.

“So if this isn’t some elaborate hoax, why haven’t we seen these…people…on the monitors before?” shouted Dr. Fineas, a short, angry bald man from the University of Chicago. “The science behind the Boxes has been around for over a decade!”

“Well, to be honest, we’ve only been able to see a fraction of about 4 billion years of the planet’s existence even with all the trips we’ve made,” interjected Dr. Li, a quiet woman from the University of Beijing. “It’s entirely plausible that we’ve missed thousands of these people’s physical trips to the different eras by a matter of days, hours, minutes, even. Plus, we only open each Box to the public for one or two months a year, depending on public interest and state or national funding in each region, while the rest of the year is dedicated to researching specific animal groups or civilizations. I myself have spent the better part of the past five years trying to discover exactly when fire came into popular use with pre­sapien hominids. I believe your own university has spent countless months following one Tyrannosaur family unit.”

“It just seems implausible that there are people traipsing around in the past and we haven’t ever seen any evidence of them,” protested Dr. Scheul. “With, of course, the exception of the pop can left in the Cretaceous period.

I guess I’m also disturbed that there are people walking 66

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

around the Cretaceous period littering.”

Dr. Li laughed. “Well, there was a giant comet destined to hit the planet just a few million years later,” she said.

“I’ll bet that a single aluminum can won’t do too much environmental damage in the face of that kind of destruction.”

“So what should we do about this?” interrupted Dr. Wick from the University of Vienna. “Should we start actively looking for these visitors, try to figure out where and why they’re in the past? Or should we just dismiss the whole thing as a possible hoax, since the only ones who saw these people were a bunch of kids and their museum guide? Even with the enormity of time, I find it hard to believe we have never seen or heard any other evidence of—damn it, what should we call these people? Visitors?”

“That makes it sound like they’re from outer space,” muttered Dr. Li. “Well, we can’t rule that out, either, can we?” continued Dr. Wick. “Maybe we’ve just stumbled onto evidence that aliens visited our planet millions of years ago, and on a frikkin’ field trip, from the sound of it.

Honestly, that sounds a lot more plausible to me than the idea that they’re time travelers.”

“Don’t even say ‘time travelers’ when you’re in the same room as me,” grumbled Dr. Scheul. “We all know time travel is impossible.”

Bridgett stared at the museum brochure in her hand, trying for the millionth time to figure out how to explain how the Box worked to someone who wasn’t a 67

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

kindergartner. She had realized a long time ago that the brochure had been written in an intentionally confusing way, using lots of big, scientific terms that, when ran through her thesaurus program, really didn’t mean anything big and scientific at all. After hours and hours of plugging phrases into her laptop, she finally decided that the best explanation was awfully close to what she’d been telling the museum’s younger tourists since she first came on: the scenes in the Box were beamed in from a camera that could film light particles emanating from the past.

Her own Dr. Scheul and his colleagues at the University of Chicago had discovered that light was only not bound by the rules of gravity, but was also not governed by the passage of time. With their device, they could literally pinpoint a period of time that a series of light­based images were being created and capture them on film to be beamed back to any of the twenty­two waiting Boxes around the world.

She read her explanation back to herself and shook her head. Nope, still didn’t make sense. But at least now her explanation was in plain English, something she could rattle back to any quasi­intellectual she might have in her group determined to stump her with a mechanical question. If that answer didn’t work, she could just hand them the brochure.

The thing she didn’t like about the brochure’s explanation was that it made the whole process sound so controlled. The real truth was that the Boxes and the scientists who ran them were more subject to whatever random images the cameras picked up than they’d like to admit. While the cameras could be set to pick up a fairly 68

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

specific location on the planet—that was a point­and­shoot issue—the time frame was less easy to set. The cameras could be set to pick up images from twenty years ago or one billion years ago, but selecting the exact date and time of the images to be watched was, so far, impossible. The further back in time you went, the harder it was to pinpoint the exact date you were seeing.

For example, it had taken weeks of tinkering to finally showcase the death of Abraham Lincoln, even though the exact date and time of that occurrence had been well­known since it had happened.

The first group filed out of the Box, and Marty pressed a note card into her hand as he passed by. She looked at it quickly—“Devonian period, Baltic Sea.” She groaned inwardly. If there was some underwater scene full of sluggish trilobites and a few angry crabs, she was going to scream. Most of the tour groups hated underwater scenes, almost as much as they hated the early mammal scenes or anything with modern­looking humans that didn’t involve recognizable figures from history. Everyone who came to the Box wanted to see dinosaurs, and the bigger the monster, the better.

She opened the door and stepped inside a noisy forest of gigantic ferns partially unfurled and trees so tall they disappeared into tiny points in the sky. A fly as big as a cat buzzed up to the screen and disappeared, reappearing on the other wall and disappearing into the tree.

“Ohmygod,” she swore to herself softly, shaking her head.

Either Marty was screwing with her, or he had just told a 69

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

bunch of eighth graders that they’d spent half­an­hour in a magical, impossible Devonian­era forest. “Welcome to the Carboniferous Period, somewhere near the coast of the modern­day Baltic Sea,” she said, recovering quickly.

As if on cue, a pair of gigantic dragonflies buzzed through the trees and hovered steadily on one wall, their wings a noisy buzz that filled the speakers for several seconds before they disappeared back into the trees. “This is a world of giant insects and even bigger amphibians, a world where…”

When the lights finally flickered off, Bridgett hung back a couple of minutes after everyone left. “Devonian period?” she hissed as Marty came down the hall to greet his next group. “Please tell me that was a joke.”

“Time snob,” he whispered back. “You’re lucky I gave you anything at all. Dr. Scheul wasn’t even here when I came in. Some other doctor’s running the machines today.

I walked into that room with no clue at all about what I’d find.”

“So we’re guessing about the Baltic Sea part, then?”

“All I know is that it was above water when those big bugs were around. Not my area of expertise.” He winked and ducked into the Box with his group.

When he came out half an hour later, he was shaking his head. “Good luck,” he said, a little angrily. “Fire burnt down the whole forest. Dead animals everywhere. Spent the whole time talking about the high oxygen content of the area and why the dead bugs twitching on the ground were so damned big. I must have some sort of jinx on me or something. Second time this month it’s happened.”

“At least they weren’t kindergartners,” Bridgett 70

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

whispered, nodding at her own trailing group of little kids holding hands with each other. “Thanks for the heads­up.” She steeled herself for a wasteland of smoking corpses and felled trees and entered the Box. Instead, she was greeted by a lush landscape of green, knee­high lycopods and branching ferns. There was evidence that a fire had swept through the forest months before, as none of the trees were over five or six feet tall, but the swift­growing primitive plants had already filled in the burnt areas. A gigantic cockroach scurried through the undergrowth, running in and out of shadows so much like the roaches in Bridgett’s own kitchen. She couldn’t help shivering.

“Ew!” screamed a couple of the girls in unison, giggling as they shrieked. Two little girls threw their arms around one another as the roach ran right at them and straight under their feet. The Box was set up so perfectly today that it seemed as though the group was encased in a glass case suspended about six inches above the ground. As if it knew it was the center of attention, the roach stopped near the middle of the room, turned around and around a couple of times, then ran straight back to where it came from, passing directly under the squealing girls’ feet again.

There was enough activity in the forest that Bridgett only had to answer a few questions for the rest of the day.

Most of the insects of the era so closely resembled their modern counterparts that, with just a few exceptions, the kids could easily identify them. During one nocturnal scene, a pair of amphibious Eogyrini pulled themselves with great effort out of a muggy swamp and sat on the 71

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

bank, breathing heavily, while during the next tour, the sun shone brightly while giant spiders fell out of the trees to pounce on unsuspecting jewel­toned lizards.

As the day progressed, Bridgett noticed more and more adults coming along on her tours. At first, she dismissed their presence as parent chaperones, although most school districts didn’t have the budget to provide for non­teacher chaperones. However, after seeing some of the same adults from her groups coming out of the room with Marty’s groups, she realized that they must be there to either critique their performance or to look for something specific in the Box. “What’s going on?” she hissed at Marty as they traded off for her last tour of the day. “Who are—“ she nodded at the well­dressed dark­haired woman and her spectacled companion that she’d seen several times already that day.

“I heard they saw more people, from the Vienna Box,” whispered Marty, smiling broadly and loudly thanking his dispersing group for visiting the museum. “I’ll bet they’ve sent someone to all the Boxes to see if they can figure out who the Visitors are.”

“So we’re not fired?” Being a museum Box guide was probably the most coveted internship in every science department in every university in the world. The University of Chicago picked two students for a one­time­only Box internship every summer, with another five or six students serving as guides to the regular exhibits. Bridgett herself had interned at the museum— and had even worked briefly at the lunch counter—for almost three years before she was chosen to work as a Box guide.

72

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

“Nah. But I’ll bet you get some sort of prize if you see a pair of time­traveling lovebirds picnicking in the Paleozoic.”

A few weeks later, it was Marty’s group that saw

another group of Visitors­­this time, in Cretaceous South America. Marty broke all protocol and opened the door of the Box while the screens were still running and shouted, “They’re here! We got people in here!”

Bridgett put her hand up at the few people who had gathered early for her tour and said, “Wait here. I’ll be back in just a minute.” Dr. Scheul was already running down the hall towards them, ducking into the Box immediately after her.

“I just wanted to make sure I’ve got an official, museum­sanctioned witness to this,” whispered Marty to the two of them, pointing at the small group of people huddled in the distance, staring at a herd of Therizinosauri swinging wildly at the forest canopy with their freakishly­long claws.

“You really shouldn’t open the door during a Box trip,” Dr. Scheul whispered back, somewhat automatically, eyes fixed on the people on the screen, the ones outside the Box. “It spoils the illusion for our museum guests.”

Bridgett counted twelve Visitors in the group. Even though they appeared to be about half a mile away from the area the Box would psychically be in the scene, she could see this group was either made up of two adults and ten elementary­school­aged children, or two very big individuals and ten very small ones. “It’s a school group,” 73

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

she said out loud, without thinking. Dr. Scheul looked at her with annoyance.

“Really,” he asked dryly. “Alien or human?”

“I don’t know,” she muttered, wishing she hadn’t spoken.

“I’m guessing they’re aliens,” he continued, his demeanor softening a bit. “We may have missed having interplanetary next­door neighbors by a hundred million years. It’s too bad. Can you imagine what our world would have been like if we’d evolved at the same time as these Visitors? The awareness that there was intelligent life on other planets might have been a hugely unifying factor among human beings on Earth. Oh, and can you just imagine the impact on religion?” Dr. Scheul smiled happily to himself, obviously composing some important paper about the Visitors in his head as he mused. Bridgett was used to seeing his bizarre ramblings turn into important scientific papers—it was because of these ramblings that the Boxes existed in the first place.

“Aliens?” snorted a ten­year­old boy standing close by.

“They look pretty human to me!” He laughed derisively, and Bridgett cringed inwardly out of pity for the boy.

The Doc just smiled at the boy and nodded. “They do look pretty human, but they’re not,” he said, surprisingly calm. “However, since time travel is impossible, they can’t be human.”

The boy opened his mouth to ask another question, but just then, the room began to flicker out. Audible groans filled the Box as Marty popped open the door and ushered the kids back out into the hall. “Do you want to stay after and look at the footage of the trip with me?” asked Dr. 74

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

Scheul as Bridgett followed him and Marty out of the room.

“You got it on tape?” grinned Marty. “Awesome!”

“Thanks to you, I did,” nodded Dr. Scheul. “I’ll make sure you get credit for your quick thinking when I present the footage to the International Science Council next week.”

Bridgett watched as the two men walked down the hall towards the lunch area. Her own group was still waiting for her, impatient to begin their tour. Bridgett smiled brightly at them and opened the door once more. Behind her, the lights of the Box flickered on, revealing the scene she had just left seconds before. “Welcome to Cretaceous Baja California,” she began. Two giant Quetzalcoatlus lumbered toward the far screen, lurching across the grassy meadow on the ends of their gigantic folded wings.

She smiled sweetly at one small girl who was obviously too frightened to come into the room with the massive beasts. “It’s okay, sweetheart,” she said, holding her hand out to the child to lead her in. “These big guys died out a long time ago.”

After her last tour of the day, she made her way up to Dr. Scheul’s lab to see what he’d picked up from the footage. Marty was already seated at the Doc’s desk, trying to zoom in on the Visitors close enough to figure out what they were doing. “They do look remarkably human,” Marty was saying to the Doc as Bridgett walked in. “I think that one’s wearing one of my shirts.”

“Ha ha,” said Dr. Scheul dryly. “Grab a chair, Bridgett,” he said, waving at her. “There’s beer in the cooler.” He turned back to the screen. “Wouldn’t it be something if we 75

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

were somehow related to these Visitors? What if somehow, they turned out to be our ancestors, and the whole chain of human evolution started with them and outer space and not from australopithecines after all?

What if we’ve been looking for the origins of our species in the wrong place altogether?”

“Just think of all the books that’d have to be recalled from the libraries!” whistled Bridgett, pulling a chair up to sit next to Marty. “And this footage is from around 68 million years ago, too—just imagine what sort of creatures the Visitors have evolved into by now! If they are still around, that is,” she added, quietly.

“Well, they were obviously advanced enough back then to take recreational field trips to the Earth. Even if they lived as close as, say, Mars, perhaps, I imagine a species that advanced has probably moved on to populate and explore other parts of the Universe by now,” mused the Doc, sipping slowly at his bottle of home­brewed beer.

Marty wiggled the videolab joystick so that the screen jumped a little to the right. “I think there’s some sort of writing on that tall blond guy’s shirt,” he said, scrunching his face up in an effort to cleanly zoom in for a look. The screen blurred in a snowstorm of static dots for a moment, then cleared again. “Damn it!” Marty swore.

“His clipboard’s in the way!” The picture fuzzed in and out of focus once more, then froze square on the chest of the Visitor.

Dr. Scheul reached over Marty’s shoulder and began typing on the keyboard. “Good work,” he muttered as he emailed several copies of the screen shot to his home address for backup. “We are going to be the first human 76

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

beings to present a piece of alien writing to the International Science Academy.”

“We?” gulped Marty. Bridgett’s stomach knotted briefly with envy. Marty was going to the conference with the Doc! “Both of you,” nodded Dr. Scheul. “Bridgett was the first Box guide to report seeing the Visitors, and Marty reacted quick enough the second time around to get them on tape. You will both be coming with me to the conference. You two are going to put our museum on the map. Even more than it already is,” he added, holding his beer up briefly in the air as if making a toast before downing the last bit of liquid from the bottle.

The Conference turned out to be less than a hundred of the most important scientists in the world assembled under one roof. Bridgett felt incredibly insignificant reading the name tags of scientists who had authored many of the books she had read in high school and college. Two seats ahead of her sat Lehigh Arnold, who had written so accurate a description of the life cycles of many of the ancient amphibians and protoreptiles of coastal Devonian­era Gondwana that there had been no need to change most of his text even after the invention of the Box. Right next to him sat Garret Brown, who, because of the Box, had unfortunately had to rewrite the equivalent of decades of study on the migratory flight patterns of the Cretaceous­era Hongshanornis, which turned out to not be migratory at all, but just a very widespread and successful species of bird. There were 77

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

scientists and historians responsible for translating the guttural speech of Neanderthals from the La Quina region, for identifying the small group of territorial dinosaurs that eventually evolved into true birds, for confirming the existence of a single William Shakespeare responsible for the thousands of plays and poems bearing his name. It was a staggering assortment of some of the most brilliant minds on the planet, and Bridgett prayed that none of them would look to the back of the room, to where she cowered in her folding metal chair, and wonder who she was.

Marty patted her knee comfortingly. “You look nervous,” he whispered. “Don’t be. Doc’ll take all the credit for finding the Visitors, for capturing them on film, for noticing and zooming in on the writing on the T­shirt, and probably some other stuff that we didn’t even know we did that was really important.” He grinned. “So relax.

Do you know how many grad students would kill to be in these seats right now?”

Bridgett smiled back at him gratefully. Just then, the lights began to dim and the floor grew quiet. The far wall of the auditorium began to glow with the recorded scenes from Marty’s last Box tour. The scene jerked awkwardly as the view moved from the clumsy foraging of the Therizinosaurus to zoom in with staggered, seasick leaps to the Visitors on the cliff. A low murmur ran through the room as the scene tilted, jerked, disintegrated into static, refocused.

“Jesus, I though he would have edited this a bit,” groaned Marty. “I just hope the credit he gives me isn’t in camera direction.”

78

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

“I think he wanted to make sure people knew the footage was authentic,” Bridgett whispered back. “If it looks too clean, people might think it’s a fake.”

Suddenly, the Visitors were the only thing on the screen, looking for all the world like ten very ordinary elementary school­aged children on a field trip, led by two men in shorts and short­sleeved shirts carrying silver clipboards. The screen wobbled a bit, then zoomed in closer to show the partial writing on the blond man’s red t­shirt.

A dead hush fell over the room. Suddenly, a voice rang out. “Cherry Berry!” the voice said. “It’s for Cherry Berry Sampalok!”

Heads turned to look at Dr. Li. She was grinning from ear to ear. “It’s Thai!” she explained. “The writing on the shirt’s Thai! It’s the logo for the Cherry Berry Sampalok Candy Company! Time travel is possible! Time travel is possible!” she shouted, her face bright and happy, tears running down her cheeks.

“Nonsense!” screamed Dr. Scheul from behind the lecture post at the front of the room, the thick sheaf of papers that made up his presentation clutched in his hand. “You can’t even see the whole shirt!”

“It’s the most popular candy in Asia!” explained Dr. Li, equally impassioned, still grinning. “And perhaps someday, the world, considering that Visitor doesn’t look like any Thai national I’ve ever met. Trust me,” she added, no longer shouting. “It’s the Cherry Berry logo. I’ve seen it on a million billboards back home. I advise all of you to go buy stock in the Cherry Berry Sampalok Candy Company as soon as you can.”

79

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

“This is ridiculous,” snarled Dr. Sheul, trying to regain the floor once more. “This is merely one more coincidence between our world and the world of these ancient travelers. For all we know, the Cherry Berry logo in Thai means ‘Kill Whitey’ in whatever their language is!” A low ripple of laughter ran through the room.

“Too many coincidences,” said Dr. Walter from Johns Hopkins to a smattering of applause. “It’s just too many!

I’m thinking we may have the first real proof that time travel really is possible here.”

“We should get out of here,” Marty whispered to Bridgett just as Dr. Fineas screamed, “Are you insane?” at Dr. Walter from across the room.

“This is going to get ugly.” Marty quietly pulled his jacket off the back of his chair and stood up. Bridgett grabbed her purse and coat and carefully followed him toward the back exit, grateful for the silence when the heavy door to the conference room finally swung closed.

“You want to go get a drink somewhere?” asked Marty, holding Bridgett’s coat up for her while she struggled to get her arms in the bulky sleeves. “Beats sitting in the lobby, waiting for that mess in there to die down.”

“Sounds good to me,” said Bridgett. The two of them made their way out the imposing front doors of the International Science Institute and into the snowy New York City night. Surrounding them, the brightly­lit skyscrapers stretched all the way up to the clouds, as beautiful and imposing as any monster from the past.

Holly Day is a housewife and mother of two living in Minneapolis, Minnesota who teaches needlepoint classes for the Minneapolis school district and writing classes at The Loft Literary Center. Her 80

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

poetry has recently appeared in Hawai’i Pacific Review, Slant, and The Tampa Review, and she is the 2011 recipient of the Sam Ragan Poetry Prize from Barton College. Her most recent published books are "Walking Twin Cities" and "Notenlesen für Dummies Das Pocketbuch."

81

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

WATCHING PAINT DRY

by Felicia A. Lee

Watching Paint Dry Janni’s blog about the lamest summer ever ABOUT ME: Janni W. Hi, I am (or maybe was) a second­year communications major at the University of Central Florida, now trapped in the middle of freaking nowhere for three months. This is my chronicle of survival.

May 30 OK, so here’s the deal. I WAS going to spend most of the summer at my parents’ place in Orlando while working at Hardee’s, then spend a couple of weeks in Mexico with Tracy and Lisa. I managed to convince Mom and Dad that Mexico was some sort of educational eco­tourism thing, which is kind of true – Lisa will be going down a few weeks before us and will actually be getting units for helping with crop irrigation or something. And knowing her, she’s liable to blab on and on about poverty and sustainability and stuff, so it’ll be educational, at least until Tracy and I get a few Margaritas into her.

Well, that was the plan. But just because I missed ONE stupid final and ONE term paper this semester, UCF puts me on academic probation – can you believe it? I mean 82

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

really, if they go around scheduling finals at 8 a.m., what do they expect? Who the hell even gets up that early, let alone thinks about classes?

And don’t even get me started about that term paper.

Sixty freaking percent of my final grade. Seriously?? Have YOU ever tried to write a 24­page paper with perfect APA formatting in one night?

So of course Mom and Dad pitch a fit about this. You think we’re paying all this money for you to party? Dad says. Actions have consequences, young lady. It’s about time you learned a thing or two about personal responsibility.

And his way of showing me that “actions have consequences” (his favorite saying) is to take away my summer vacation and send me to work for “Mom’s people” – her ancient aunt and uncle and my redneck cousin and his wife on their farm near Live Oak. If you haven’t been to Live Oak, don’t bother. It sucks.

Seriously, it’s in a dry county – even if you have a real ID and not a fake one, you still can’t get booze. And there’s nothing to freaking do there.

And now I’m stuck here, in this ancient dump that smells like cows and mothballs. Well, I gotta go – Mom’s people don’t have wifi and Cousin Earl wants to check his e­mail. (Yes, I’m actually writing this on their desktop computer, which looks like it came from the 80s.) Talk to ya later.

June 2 Well, this place sucks even worse than I remember. The water from their well still smells like farts, and they STILL 83

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

don’t have cable. But at least the food’s tasty. Great­Aunt Doris and Cousin Earl’s wife Darlene make biscuits and gravy to die for. And they don’t even have to buy eggs; they get them from the chickens they keep outside – they’re really good.

Speaking of chickens, I dodged a bullet yesterday.

Cousin Earl (he’s technically my cousin but he’s almost as old as my mom ) gave me a choice of summer projects: mucking the horse stalls and maintaining the chicken coops, or re­painting the old wing of the house and looking after his kid.

Hmm, tough choice. Shovel horse shit all day or plant a six­year­old in front of the TV while slapping some paint on the walls?

But here’s the bizarre part. It turns out there’s a whole part of the house I didn’t even know about, and that’s what we’re going to be painting. You can sort of see it from outside, but it’s mostly blocked off by trees – it’s a one­story wing that comes off the living room. But every time I’ve been over with Mom and Dad, they’ve had this big old cabinet full of china and stuff in front of the doorway leading there, so I never noticed it. Great­Uncle Elmer said it had been closed off since before he was born, and since they didn’t want to waste money heating and lighting it, they just left it that way.

And all those billions of times we came over, Mom and Dad and I had to sleep on air mattresses in the sun room.

Did I mention that Uncle Elmer’s the cheapest guy in the world?

June 3 84

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

This is going to be even lamer than I thought.

Yesterday Cousin Earl and his friend Brady moved that big cabinet aside (after me and Darlene took all the china and silverware out) then tried to open the door to the old wing. I swear, they had to squirt oil in the hinges for about 20 minutes before the thing would budge. And when the thing finally opened, it creaked like some sound effect from the Haunted Mansion at Disneyworld. The hallway inside was totally dark, and once Brady pointed his flashlight in, I could see it looked like crap – totally filled with dust and cobwebs, scratches and dents all over the walls.

And guess who gets to spend all summer fixing it?

It’s weird that they’re doing this because Uncle Elmer won’t have anything to do with it. Just asking for trouble, he keeps saying. I asked Cousin Earl why they’re doing this now and he said he and Darlene wanted to rent out the rooms there to local workers. Then I asked why Uncle Elmer hated this idea so much, and he looks all startled then says that old people get stuck in their ways sometimes.

Then Brady gives him this look I couldn’t quite figure out.

Cousin Earl totally ignores him and tells me to put on some goggles and a dust mask and start sweeping up stuff in there while he and Brady go to the hardware store, and Brady goes, Are you sure she’s going to be okay in there by herself? and Earl just shushes him and says to stop acting like the old folk. Whatever that’s supposed to mean.

85

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

June 5 More of the same. I hate this place.

Sorry to be such a bitch, people, but I seriously didn’t get any sleep last night. For one, that stupid air mattress in the sunroom is about a million years old and lumpy as hell. And since the sunroom has just screens and not real windows, I can hear millions of bugs buzzing right outside the house ALL NIGHT LONG. This is the real Florida, Mom always says when we’re in there trying to sleep through that racket. Yeah, if I wanted the real Florida, I’d go to the Keys, where at least there’s beer and people talk normal.

All this stress might be giving me weird dreams, too, because last night I swear I heard noises coming from the old wing. Like bumps and creaks, then STOMP STOMP STOMP like someone walking real slowly. I figured Earl was in there plotting more annoying chores, but then I realized I could still hear him snoring down the hall. (The walls are REALLY thin here.)

I must have fallen asleep (okay, so I did get SOME sleep) because the next thing I remembered was waking up and seeing that it was already light out. So I figured it had to be a dream or something. Darlene, who always tries to be nice to me, asked at breakfast how I slept and I told her I dreamt of hearing someone walking in the corridor and she looked kind of startled. Then Earl cuts in and says it must have been mice or rats – we’d disturbed a lot of critters in there, he says, so some of them might be moving around. Darlene kind of nods.

Great. So it wasn’t a dream. The house is infested with rats. And they sound like ginormous rats too. And I get to 86

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

sleep like six inches off the floor just a few yards from them. Could things possibly suck any worse?

June 6 I think my hair has gone permanently gray from all the old plaster and stuff in that dumb corridor and I’ve got so much of it up my nose that everything I eat smells like chalk.

This morning, I was helping Cousin Earl and Brady peel off the old wallpaper, which looked like some crazed cat had attacked it, and when they shined their light on the wall, I could see someone had written stuff on it – real old­fashioned handwriting, but big and messy. That, and the number 4 all over the place, which was kind of creepy. Definitely made by a grownup, because it was too high up to be a little kid. I couldn’t make out any of it.

Cousin Earl caught me trying and told me to stop goofing off and get back to work. Then Brady gave him that look again.

I could tell he didn’t much like it in there, either.

Me, I seriously hate everything about that old hallway.

How dark it is, even with Cousin Earl’s big trouble lamp.

The way the air in there smells and doesn’t move, ever.

Kind of like a funeral home, only worse.

Oh, and speaking of dead things, I forgot to mention that this whole freaking neighborhood is one big dead zone – like in zero bars on my phone. I haven’t been able to check my texts since I got here. So no, people, I’m not dead! You’re just going to have to go old­school and shoot me an e­mail. PLEASE. I’m bored out of my skull.

87

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

June 7 So the local grade school is officially out and now I have another tedious task – looking after Earl and Darlene’s brat Skeeter.

Honest to God, that’s what they call him. His official name is something like Stephen Foster J., III, but no one ever calls him that. Anyhow, Skeeter’s six with muddy blond hair, tons of freckles, grimy fingers, and a nose full of snot. Even though he’s just six, he already talks in that same annoying rednecky way as everyone else in Live Oak, and he’s even harder to understand than the rest of them because he just lost his front teeth.

So now I’m supposed to be looking after that ugly kid at the same time I’m working in this disaster zone filled with bugs and power tools and paint thinner and stuff.

Darlene, who used to be a teacher, doesn’t let him watch TV more than an hour a day, so there goes that plan. She wants me to “engage” him. In other words, have happy meaningful conversations with him. While working in a place that looks like a nuclear bomb hit it. WTF? Oh, yeah, on top of all this, Darlene says that Skeeter has a tendency to tell tall tales. So I guess this means I don’t really have to worry about not understanding anything he says. He’ll probably be lying anyhow.

June 8 Day 1 of Skeetercare. At breakfast, Darlene tells Skeeter that I’d be looking after him and to mind his manners. Mom says she does all the bookkeeping for the farm, so I could see why she’d want him out of her hair.

88

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

So after breakfast I drag my ass back to that ugly old part of the house, with Skeeter close behind. Darlene gave me a big pile of workbooks and paper and markers for him, and told me to have him draw and do “enrichment” activities in the living room from these workbooks while I worked. I figured he’d wander either all over the house or run straight into Brady’s chainsaw while I wasn’t looking, but miraculously he didn’t.

But he still drove me nuts.

First, he never stops talking. True, most of the time, I can’t understand what he’s saying but it’s still annoying.

But it’s even worse when I do understand him. It’s like he’s having a really annoying conversation with someone who’s not there. Actually, several people.

Around 10:00 – which is when Darlene says he’s supposed to have his healthy mid­morning snack – I came out of the corridor to find him on the living room couch, staring into space and waving his hands around, going Eeny, meeny, miny mo, catch a tiger by the toe…

Except he didn’t say tiger. He said the N­word. Honest to God, I knew Mom’s people were a bit, as Dad would say, “country,” but seriously? Every time we came up here, Mom and Dad would remind me that Live Oak isn’t like Orlando and I shouldn’t expect people here to act the same, but this totally crossed the line. Mom’s from here and she’d have me grounded me for life if she heard me saying that.

So I grab him by the arm and say Skeeter, don’t say that word – it’s not cool, and he just shrugs and goes What word? And I say You know what word – it’s okay to use that rhyme but from now on you catch a TIGER by the 89

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

toe, okay?

And then he goes But that’s how Missy and Aaron do it and I figured they were just some brats from school and I say I don’t care – nice people don’t use words like that.

And he goes But Missy and Aaron are nice and you’re hurting their feelings. Then I tell him that they’re not nice if they talk like that and besides, how can I hurt their feelings if they’re not here and he goes But they are and looks like he’s about to start crying.

Brat.

A few minutes later Darlene came out with a plate of grapes and crackers for us – she was nice enough to bring enough for everyone, not just Skeeter – I pulled her aside and told her about what he said. She looked kind of startled but thanked me for telling him the N­word was bad and told me to let her know if he used it again. But she also said that it was normal for kids his age to have imaginary friends so not to worry.

Uh, HELLO, your kid’s imaginary friends are flaming racists, and you don’t think that’s a problem?

June 9 So Skeeter’s turning out to be even weirder than I thought. I gave him a bunch of exercises to do from one of his workbooks while I helped Earl and Brady get rid of the grotty old carpet in there. After that, Earl wants to get started on the three bedrooms, provided we can get the doors open. They all seem to be rusted shut, and no one has the keys anymore.

Anyhow, back to Skeeter. He’s still having his fake conversations with Missy and Aaron, who seem to be little 90

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

kids like him rather than dinosaurs or other things I’d think little kids would want to talk to. And he’s going Don’t cry Missy, Don’t cry, you can go outside whenever you want. I don’t know where he gets this stuff.

To add to the weirdness, he’s picked up another imaginary friend today: some lady he calls Miz Ellen.

Well, she’s not really a friend – he’s totally terrified of her.

Like this afternoon he was all whiny and crying and going NO! DON’T TOUCH ME! And DON’T STICK HIM WITH THAT DON’T STICK HIM WITH THAT! And I ran back out into the living room and there’s nobody there but him.

Then he runs up to me and slams his snot­covered face right against my gut and starts squeezing me with his sticky fingers and blubbering about how Miz Ellen was being mean to Missy and Aaron and making them cry.

Darlene says imaginary friends are a normal way for little kids to sort out personal identity issues. This kid’s got issues, all right.

And it turns out I’m not the only one who thinks Skeeter’s strange. This afternoon, Brady and I were on our way to get some supplies from the storage shed, and we saw him sitting on the couch with his drawing pad and markers, scribbling madly. What are you drawing there?

Brady says to Skeeter and he goes This is how Miz Ellen hurt Missy.

From where I was, all I could see were two bad stick figures and the smaller one had a bunch of red crayon lines coming out of its eyes and its mouth open like it was screaming. Nice.

Then Brady shakes his head and looks kind of messed up. That ain’t right, he said to me as we left the living 91

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

room. Old man’s right – we’re just asking for trouble.

I wished I’d asked him what he meant by this.

June 14 Sorry I haven’t posted in a few days. I’ve been working my ass off because Brady’s bailed on us – Earl wouldn’t say why, but he’s really pissed about it. And whatever it was, Brady was pissed at him too – the last I saw of Brady was right before he left, with Earl chasing him down the driveway yelling about him being a baby or something.

Then Brady yells a bunch of stuff back I couldn’t hear then goes really loud Well if you don’t tell her, I will! Tell who what??

So now Earl says we have to work a couple of hours after dinner too, at least until he hires someone else to help us. He said that might not be as easy as it sounds.

Well, Skeeter’s in bed, so now it’s time to get back to work – AGAIN. Catch ya later.

June 16 Another stressful day. We finally managed to get one of the bedroom doors open – it took forever. There was an old bed in there with messed­up sheets and blankets and pillows still on it, as if someone had just gotten up after a really bad night. There was more shredded­up wallpaper with yet more 4s written on it, and an old chest of drawers with a broken mirror and a bunch of broken crap– little porcelain dolls and stuff – on top. More was on the floor.

I almost wanted to gag from all the spider webs and mouse poop in there, but then Earl goes Okay put on a 92

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

mask and goggles and let’s start moving this crap out.

But of course, Skeeter managed to screw things up.

We were carrying out our third load of stuff when I looked down the corridor and noticed some white blotches on the walls, about three feet off the ground.

Earl noticed them too, so after we dumped the stuff outside, we went back to look closer. They were kid­sized handprints, made in white paint. And the paint was still wet.

There’s only one person around here with hands that size. And Earl was pissed.

SKEETER! He yells, running back into the living room.

What have you been doing, boy? Have you lost your mind?

Of course, I just had to check this out, so I went into the living room too. Skeeter was standing there, looking all worried. He had white paint on his fingertips and on his pants. SO busted.

Skeeter starts blubbering It wasn’t me Daddy – it was Missy and Aaron and Earl goes Don’t lie to me son do you think I’m stupid and Skeeter goes I’m not lying –I helped them open the paint, that’s all and Earl goes You asked for it, son and starts unbuckling his belt and pulling it out.

Then Darlene comes in and goes What’s going on here, Earl? And he waves at the corridor and goes Look at what Skeeter did. Darlene walks over to the corridor, looks at the wall and goes Skeeter what happened? And Skeeter starts crying about Missy and Aaron again while Earl starts yelling You see what he’s been doing? We have to nip this in the bud, and Darlene goes kind of pale, grabs Skeeter by the arm and goes I think it’s time for a 93

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

time­out, young man, and Earl goes Let me handle this, Darlene, and she just glares at him. And she’s still holding Skeeter’s arm and he’s got his belt folded over in his hand and they’re just glaring at each other. And I’m just standing there in the middle of all this. AWK­WARD. June 17 So the weird thing is that after Earl made such a big deal about how we had to work after dinner every night to get the rooms fixed for harvest season, he suddenly changes his mind. Actually, I think Darlene and Uncle Elmer and Aunt Doris changed his mind for him. They all made a big deal about how we shouldn’t go in there after dark anymore. Earl told me it’s because they’re worried the noise will keep Skeeter from sleeping.

And it turns out that Darlene’s REALLY mad at Earl.

He’s more of a tan­your­hide kind of parent, and she’s more a time­out­actions­have­consequences parent.

What’s weirder, Darlene totally sided with Skeeter. I overheard her and Earl arguing about it last night – I was in the den, checking my e­mail and they were in the kitchen with the door closed, but I could still hear them.

Darlene goes But there’s no way a child that small could’ve gotten a new can of paint open by himself and Earl goes Stop indulging him, Darlene. Then she says How could he have made all those handprints? He only had a little paint on the tips of his fingers, not all over his hands and Earl goes You underestimate him – he could have washed it off and Darlene goes But his hands were completely dry and I would have seen him if he tried to go to the bathroom or into the kitchen, besides the prints 94

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

in the corridor weren’t the same size as his hands, they were smaller, and Earl goes Well, who else could have made them, then?

Then she starts to cry. Maybe Earl felt bad about this, so he decided to stop working at night so she’d calm down again.

This morning, Darlene announced that she was taking Skeeter to the library and then to the public pool, so I wouldn’t have to worry about him. Then Earl goes But what about this week’s payroll? And she goes Isn’t your son’s safety more important? And he kind of groans and rolls his eyes.

So it’s just me and Earl in the construction zone today, thank God. We were hauling stuff out from the other bedrooms – more broken crap, like really old wooden toys and moldy bedding and old furniture – when Earl suddenly stops and goes Hey, I’d like to have a word with you. And this was bizarre because usually when he wants to tell me something he just says it.

But then he looks at me all serious and says I suppose you’ve been wondering why everyone’s so skittish about this part of the house, and I go well, yeah. And he says, Okay, you’re an adult so I’ll tell you the straight story: After the rebellion, one of the ladies who lived here – actually, your and my great­great well I forgot how many greats grand­aunt – had a breakdown and locked herself into that wing with her two kids – she went nuts after her husband went missing in the war. Long story short – she poisoned herself because she was nuts, and the kids died too – there was a smallpox outbreak at the time. And I said Missy and Aaron? And he nods and says everyone 95

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

around here knows the story – that’s how Skeeter knows and that’s why he thinks he can use them as an excuse for his orneriness. Yeah, it’s an ugly story but there’s nothing going on, no matter what you might hear folks around town saying.

And I just nodded to be polite and he goes Well, the family just blocked off the wing after that and acted like it wasn’t there. That’s close to twelve hundred square feet of good space in there – and I think 150 years is long enough for respectful mourning, don’t you?

Then I asked how he planned to rent out the rooms if everyone in town was spooked of them and he said he’d get Mexicans – they don’t know the story and they know good value when they see it.

Yeah, good luck with THAT, dude. Not that I believe in ghosts or anything, but really?

June 20 Darlene and Skeeter went to the library three days in a row –but yesterday when they got home, Earl nearly bit her head off. How much longer do you think you can keep doing this? he asks and she goes All summer if necessary – it’s not safe for him in there. Actually it’s not safe for you or Janni either, and then Earl loses it and tells her she’s just as bad as the rest of them and to grow up and face reality. Then he says he’s laying down the law and tomorrow both she and Skeeter will stay home. Darlene looks like she’s about to cry, then Earl looks kind of guilty and promises her we’d keep a close eye on Skeeter and keep him out of the corridor. Earl’s kind of a hardass but I can tell he really likes her.

96

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

You’d think all this would make Skeeter finally behave.

Well, you’d be wrong. He was still having his dumb fake conversations with Missy and Aaron and he even did the exact same dumb thing that caused all this trouble in the first place. And this time it caused even more trouble than before.

Let me explain. Earl said all the electricians in town were either too expensive or not interested in working here, so he’d do the wiring himself. This means my main duty as of late has been holding rolls of wiring and spooling them out as Earl moved the wires around behind the walls. This also means listening to Earl swear a lot. It’s pretty obvious he has no clue about wiring.

Anyhow, so this morning we were doing this and I look down the corridor, and there’s Skeeter, talking to himself while running a crayon over the page of some workbook.

Then Earl yells at me – he was up on the roof, moving the wires around through a hole up there – and I unspool some more wire for him. Then I look down the hall again.

Skeeter’s still sitting there on the floor, but now I notice more white blotches on the walls. Kid­sized handprints.

Again.

That was freaky. Skeeter moves pretty fast, but there’s no way even he could have done this so fast – I was only looking away a minute or so and I’m positive I would have heard him come in. I’m also positive I would have noticed those handprints if they’d been there already. But nobody else could have done it, either. At least nobody I want to think about.

So I call up through the hole in the wall for Earl to 97

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

come down and see something and he goes What? And I said Skeeter’s been messing with the paint again. I felt bad about starting another big scene with him and Darlene and getting Skeeter into more trouble, but it was going to happen as soon as Earl saw that wall anyhow.

I hear Earl climbing down from the roof and I go into the living room and grab Skeeter by the arm. I don’t like ratting on you but you should have known better, I told him. And he acts all surprised and goes What? And I said You know – you were finger­painting in the hall again.

And of course he goes No I wasn’t! I just opened the can for Miz Ellen – she made me.

Now Earl was in the living room too and he was glaring at Skeeter. So you think this is a nice way to get attention? He says and Skeeter goes No sir. And he says, I’ll give you some attention you won’t soon forget and starts taking off his belt again. Darlene must have some kind of radar for that because just then she comes in and goes What’s going on here? And Skeeter starts crying and Earl starts yelling and that whole dumb thing from the other day just replayed itself.

Except for one thing. This time, Darlene pointed out right then and there that Skeeter had only a little bit of paint on him, on his right hand and Earl says See? And Darlene says His left hand is completely clean, Earl – you know Skeeter can’t wash his hands that well. And there are both left and right handprints on the wall and Earl says What are you getting at? And she says What do you think I’m getting at? Maybe it’s time YOU faced reality.

Ooh, harsh.

Weirdly Earl just stands there and doesn’t say anything.

98

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

Then Darlene looks like she’s about to lose it, grabs Skeeter by the arm and pulls him away, and we hear the back door slam a little after that.

And now I kind of feel freaked out too.

June 21 I’m writing this from my very own laptop, in the middle of a civilized place – Starbucks! What a concept.

I get to be here because of all that strange crap yesterday. Darlene and Skeeter never came home after that bizarre fight. Aunt Doris said they were visiting Darlene’s parents in Valdosta.

Actually, everyone’s been acting real awkward since they left. I could tell that both Uncle Elmer and Aunt Doris were mad at Earl, and he was mad at them and Darlene. At dinner last night, Aunt Doris kept trying to smile at me and be all friendly, but this just made me feel worse – she and Darlene and I guess Uncle Elmer had all been pretty nice to me, and now I felt like I’d walked in on something totally embarrassing. And it’s not like I can just get up and go somewhere else.

But this morning, I got a lucky break. When I saw Earl, I was surprised to see him looking kind of happy. At first I thought it was because now we’d be able to work in peace without Skeeter underfoot, but instead he says to me Sorry about all the crap you’ve had to put up with – I think you deserve a day off. And he gives me the car keys and forty bucks and says Go to town and enjoy yourself.

I guess Earl’s not so bad either, except when he’s trying to whup the bejesus out of Skeeter. So I thanked him and took off before he could change his mind. I remembered 99

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

this good breakfast place where Mom and Dad used to take me so I decided to go there first. I brought my laptop along too in case I found a place with free wifi afterwards.

So I get there, order a bunch of blueberry pancakes with whipped cream on them, and who should walk in but Brady. He looks all surprised when I wave at him and he slides in across from me in my booth and tells the waitress he’s picking up my check. He asked how everything was going at the house and I go Fine and he said Did they tell you why I left? And I said No and he tells me what I’ve already sort of figured out – that Skeeter was freaking him out with that Missy and Aaron stuff.

Then I tell him Earl told me the whole story, and after that I told him about Skeeter and his finger painting and he starts looking all panicked and I say You don’t really believe that ghost stuff and he says How can I not, knowing the story of that house and I go Just because people died there doesn’t mean they’re ghosts and he says So what did Earl tell you about Miz Ellen?

So I tell him what Earl told me and he starts shaking his head. He told you a cleaned­up version of the story, he says. The black lady who cleans up my mama’s place? She told me her great­great­something grandmother worked at your great­uncle’s place during the war. What really happened was this: Crazy Miz Ellen locked herself in there, like Earl told you. She starts screaming and yelling all sorts of stuff about hell and the devil and stuff, and her kids were still in the main part of the house with Miz Ellen’s brother – your great­great­something­uncle. Earl didn’t tell you that part?

100

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

I shook my head. Maybe Earl didn’t know this version.

Anyhow, Brady goes, Miz Ellen goes on screaming and yelling for about a week –it’s a wonder she kept her strength. Then finally she starts screaming she wants to see her kids, but she still won’t come out or let anyone else in but the kids. So they send the kids in – don’t know what they were thinking. Maybe they thought it would calm her down. Well, it didn’t. Soon after they get in there, she locks the door behind them and soon they’re screaming and yelling Stop hurting me Mamma, stop hurting me Mamma and stuff. Then it was all silent. Like scary silent.

So they break down the door, Brady says, and sure enough, find the poor kids dead – tortured then strangled.

It was pretty ugly – among other things, she’d poked their eyes out.

Then I remembered Skeeter’s drawing. Holy crap.

Yeah, and ol’ Miz Ellen poisoned herself too, Brady goes. But here’s the worst part – wait, no, if I told you Earl would kill me. And trust, me, you’d rather not know.

Then the waitress puts my pancakes in front of me.

They looked really good but now I didn’t feel like eating.

God, how could that story possibly get WORSE? You’re fucking kidding, I say, even though Mom and Dad warned me that people in Live Oak don’t like women to swear.

Come on, just tell me already. Please?

Sorry, no can do, Brady says. But seriously, I think you needed to know what I just told you. Now your family, they always held to the cleaned­up version Earl told you – um, smallpox and all. I think it’s just because it makes 101

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

them feel safer. But I’d swear on my grave that what I told you is true – ask anyone around here. One thing’s for sure, I’m not going back in there for all the tea in China.

Then why were you helping us in the first place? I said.

Then he says he and Earl went back a long ways and he owed him a big favor from the time they served together in Iraq, yadda yadda. At first he was trying hard to believe Earl, that it was nothing but an old story, but after Skeeter started acting weird, he changed his mind.

So what should I do? I asked. I don’t know why I bothered – it’s not like Brady’s some magical fairy who can fix everything. And he says, Well you know what I’m doing – staying the hell away from there. But you’re kin, so that makes it different. Just be careful.

That was totally unhelpful.

June 21, part 2 So after that totally creepy breakfast, I escaped here to Starbucks, so now I can finally check all my texts. No people, I’m NOT making this stuff up. That place really is this crazy. And no, I didn’t know I’d locked the comment function on this blog. Honest to god, I was wondering why nobody was leaving any comments. I’ll fix it once I figure out how, promise – I’m WAY too stressed to do that now. Brady’s story is totally freak­ass scary. He swears that’s the version everyone in town believes except my dumbass relatives.

Oh, I forgot to mention that Brady told me some other really awful stuff too: That crazy Ellen not only killed herself with rat poison, she’d cut off one of her fingers – her left ring finger. Apparently she had a real bug up her 102

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

ass about her husband cheating on her – she kept going on and on about 4 demon women seducing him, even though the guy was probably just dead in the war. And one of the other things Brady said was that Ellen kept yelling that if anyone went in there to get her out or touched any of her stuff, she’d follow them to hell. And that Ellen’s brother, who went in there and found her, went crazy and died a few years later, screaming her name. And so did the one and only person besides Earl and Brady and me to ever go in there later – some hired guy my great­grandpa told to go in there and clean things up, back before Uncle Elmer was born. And he worked in there only one day before he quit.

Brady swears it’s true, and Earl keeps going on and on about what a stand­up guy Brady is. (At least he did, until Brady bailed on us.)

And there’s all those 4s on the wallpaper back there…

OMFG. God, now my brain’s totally messed up. Maybe now I’m starting to go crazy too. But seriously – ghosts and curses?? I don’t know who to believe anymore.

That, and I really need to pee. (Yeah, I know – TMI!!)

And I need food, since I hardly touched those pancakes Earl bought for me – all his stupid fault. Maybe I’ll get a couple of those scones before that fat mom up front and her kids take them all. And a caramel frappucino – hey, I’ve still got Earl’s forty bucks.

Oh, I just thought of something else too…hang on, more on that in a bit.

June 21, part 3 103

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

Okay, now I’m OFFICIALLY FREAKED OUT. So when I was typing at you in my last post, it occurred to me: Hey, I’m on the effing INTERNET, I can look for stuff! So I started Googling ghosts in Live Oak – I figured that if Brady’s story didn’t show up, he was just pulling my leg.

I totally wasn’t expecting to find anything – okay, I was HOPING not to find anything – but OMFG, there are TONS of stories on a bunch of sites about Miz Ellen and Missy and Aaron. One of the sites even has a couple of old­timey brownish photos of the house and Miz Ellen – she still had all her fingers in those shots. And ALL those stories match Brady’s, except for one part.

The part Brady wouldn’t tell me.

He wasn’t kidding when he said it was the worst part.

Hang on to your seats, people: Okay, so after Miz Ellen went crazy and the kids went in there and started then suddenly stopped screaming and crying, the rest of the family broke down the door to find out what the deal was. Just like Brady told me, they found the kids dead and Miz Ellen dead too, holding an empty bottle of rat poison.

But that’s not the scary part. Crazy people offing themselves isn’t scary, it’s kind of normal.

What’s not normal was that Miz Ellen was not only dead, she was already stiff and rotting with bugs and stuff on her. So she’d already been dead for about a week when the kids were sent in there. And all those sites said it had to be her screaming and murdering her kids because all these witnesses – MY relatives – recognized her voice and heard the kids screaming DON’T HURT ME 104

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

MOMMA and stuff like that, and from the way the house is set up, nobody else could have gotten in there.

And as some psychic guy who was quoted on a bunch of those sites said This suggests an unusually powerful and diabolical spirit at work – one the cursed family (a.k.a. MY family) has been wise not to reckon with.

Until now. Thanks a bunch, Earl.

Well, then there was that one big long article by some shrinks and a history guy at the University of Florida who said everyone fell for the story because of wartime psychological stress and mass hysteria and Miz Ellen probably looked that way when they found her because she had leprosy or something. It was really boring with tons of footnotes, which means my profs at UCF probably would have loved it and said it was all true. I swear to God, I’m really hoping it is.

So I tried to call Mom to find out if she knew about this – and if she did, why she never told me. Crap, how could she NOT?? And she kept dragging us up here every freaking summer?? I was hoping maybe it was because she figured it was a bunch of bull. But what if it wasn’t???

But she wasn’t home. And she wasn’t answering her cell either. Neither was Dad, and I forgot to program in his work number. SHIT. I seriously don’t want to go back there. I’m so tempted right now to blow the rest of Earl’s cash on gas and drive all the way back to Orlando. But if I go back now, Dad will kill me for sure.

What do you guys think?

June 22 105

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

I thought things couldn’t possibly get any worse. Well, they did. When I got back to the farm yesterday afternoon, there were a couple of cop cars in the yard.

There wasn’t any police tape up or anything, so I went in. No, officer, like I said there was nobody else in there but me, Earl was saying. He sounded really annoyed.

Then I heard one of the cops ask Who else was in the house and Earl said Everyone else was out – Mom and Dad went shopping in town, my wife and kid are visiting her folks and my cousin Janni, she’s up from Orlando for the summer, well she’s gone for the day too.

Since they didn’t hear me come in and I didn’t want the cops to get surprised and shoot me or something, I said Cousin Earl, I’m home and he kind of nods at me while the cops look me over then they nod, kind of polite like.

Then I look behind them and see why they’re here. Holy shit.

The walls in the living room were covered with handprints. Not the corridor, where all the paint and stuff was, the WHOLE FREAKING LIVING ROOM. Like, where Uncle Elmer and Aunt Doris like to sit and watch TV after dinner. And these weren’t little kid handprints, but big ones. Skinny fingers but long ones – longer than mine.

And guess what? One of the fingers was missing from the prints. The left ring finger.

But that wasn’t the weirdest part. The handprints weren’t made of paint like the other ones. They were this gross shade of dark red. Like blood.

Obviously, someone came in here when I wasn’t looking and did this – some practical joker, Earl was saying to the cops. And why would anyone want to do 106

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

that? one of them goes, and Earl says, To yank my chain – folks in town know I’m fixing up that old wing and some don’t approve and one of the cops goes For good reason.

And Earl just glares at him and goes So what do you boys intend to do? Someone’s been vandalizing my property.

But he sounds like he doesn’t quite believe this himself.

Well, Mr. J., one of them goes, it’s hard to see how anyone could’ve gotten in here without you hearing. All the doors were locked, so nobody can get in without a key. Your cousin was a remote possibility, but her hands are the wrong size. And clearly, she wasn’t here when this happened.

Now Earl’s pissed. So how else do you intend to explain this? he yells. I can’t believe he actually yelled at a bunch of cops. They don’t get mad or anything, thank God. They just stared at each other and one goes You tell me.

Then they turn around and leave.

Can you believe those clowns? My taxes at work, Earl goes. Well, let’s get scrubbing. I don’t want to have to explain this to Mom and Dad. Hey and do me a favor and don’t mention this to Darlene, okay? There’s another forty – no fifty – bucks in it for you.

Of course I nod. I can use the cash. But I was almost too freaked out to get anywhere near that wall, even with Earl right next to me. And now I’m having a hard time deciding whose ideas about this place are crazier – his or Brady’s.

June 23 Well, Earl’s brilliant plan to clean the walls before everyone got back yesterday totally failed – whatever that 107

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

stuff was, it wasn’t coming out. Once we got close up and started trying to clean it, we could see it wasn’t blood. It was more like reddish smoke, burnt into the walls. We scrubbed like crazy and Earl was swearing swear words that even I hadn’t heard before.

Let’s give this one more shot, Earl says, but be careful not to damage the paint. Uh, too late dude – all our scrubbing’s already done a number of the paint – it was already dull and scratchy in the places where we’d been cleaning. Earl finally notices this and starts swearing again, just as Uncle Elmer and Aunt Doris open the front door.

I can’t even begin to describe what happened next. Let’s just say Uncle Elmer knows even more swear words than Earl does and they were yelling while Aunt Doris was screaming CALL THE POLICE and Earl was yelling THEY WERE JUST HERE MOMMA and then they all started yelling at ME. Good God, WHY? June 25 Sorry I haven’t been around in a while. Stuff has gotten totally out of control.

The other night, after I got back from Live Oak and those handprints showed up in the living room, I was totally freaked out. I kept thinking of Brady’s stories. That one guy he mentioned lost his mind and got locked away after working just one day in that corridor. And Earl and me, we’d been in there how many times now?

Before I came back here from town, I tried texting Mom a few more times, but NOTHING. She’s usually obsessive about answering my texts. Just figures she’d just have to 108

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

go on one of her “unplugged vacation days” right then.

God, I hate it when she does that.

So I tried calling her from Uncle Elmer’s landline after dinner. Landlines don’t count for Mom’s unplugged vacation days.

But Uncle Elmer saw me and told me not to bother. The line had been down since dinnertime. Great.

And as if I didn’t have enough to stress me out, last night there was all this extra noise just outside the sunroom where I sleep. Earl and Uncle Elmer spent the whole night stomping around, back and forth, around the house, each with a loaded shotgun. Like that’s going to help. So no, I didn’t manage to get any sleep at all. So the next day, I got up feeling even crappier than I did when I pulled that all­nighter at UCF to try to finish that stupid paper.

I dragged myself to the breakfast room the next day and Earl takes one look at me and says Take another day off, kid, you look like crap. So I go back to the sunroom – it was already light out – and collapse on the air mattress.

I can smell coffee and hear the roosters going off outside, but I conk out and fall asleep anyhow.

So I felt better by afternoon, and it turns out Earl had taken the day off too, so I didn’t feel too guilty. Nothing else happened that day, thank God. But that night, he and Uncle Elmer start stomping around with their shotguns again, and since I’d slept all day, I couldn’t sleep normally and just kept stressing out about whether I’d go crazy.

When it started getting light again, I felt better and went to sleep for real.

Big mistake. Soon after (okay, maybe it just felt like it 109

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

was soon), I feel and hear this big BOOM and Earl starts screaming CALL THE FIRE DEPARTMENT! and Aunt Doris starts screaming EARL! WHAT DID YOU DO?? and then Uncle Elmer screams WHERE’S JANNI AT? and by then I’m already up but Earl comes and bangs on the sunroom door screaming GET UP! WE’RE GITTING OUTTA HERE! at the top of his lungs. I’m already standing, but he picks me up and throws me over his shoulder like a bag of chicken feed and hauls ass out the back door.

I look up as Earl steps outside and hear another BOOM and see a bunch of smoke and flames coming from the old wing and hear more screaming from inside the house. But it wasn’t Aunt Doris’ screaming, because I know what Aunt Doris’ screaming sounds like, and it wasn’t like that.

It wasn’t like anyone or anything I’d ever heard before.

And Aunt Doris was already outside and wouldn’t be screaming that she’d drive all to the fires of Hell.

I knew Aunt Doris heard it too because when it started, she started screaming again, and I could totally hear two different voices screaming. Then Earl sets me down and brings the car around and we all climb in and high­tail it out of there.

So now we’re at a Motel 6 in Live Oak. Uncle Elmer and Aunt Doris have pretty much stopped talking to Earl, who spent the whole drive telling them it was his fault for not hiring a proper electrician. They just glared at him.

Maybe a few weeks ago, I would have thought this was possible. But now I really doubt it. Aunt Doris and I totally heard that horrible woman screaming in there. But neither of us felt like arguing with Earl about it.

110

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

June 27 Well, I’m now back in civilization, aka Orlando. When I got up yesterday and met Earl and the others for breakfast, Uncle Elmer said he’d phoned my parents and they’d be here to get me by noon. This was weird – I thought they’d just have me take a bus back.

It’s kind of embarrassing to say this, but when I saw Mom’s dorky brown Volvo pull into the Motel 6 parking lot, it made me totally happy. I honest to God never realized how much I wanted to see Mom and Dad and go home. And they must have felt the same way, because Mom was crying when she got out of the car and squeezed me like a boa constrictor the moment she saw me. Then Dad gives me a big hug and says Time to go home, kiddo. He hasn’t called me kiddo in ages. I used to hate it, but this time, I didn’t mind at all.

As Dad opens the door for me and I get in, I hear Mom ripping Earl a new one. Wow, I’d forgotten how Live Oaky she can sound when she’s pissed off, and I’d never heard her this pissed off before. I actually felt kind of sorry for Earl. YOU DIDN’T TELL ME YOU WERE PLANNING TO GO IN THERE, EARL! WHAT IN THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU WERE DOING? she screams. Merri, I didn’t mean no harm, Earl says, raising his hands like he thinks Mom’s going to hit him. HOW COULD YOU THINK THIS WOULDN’T LEAD TO NO HARM, EARL? Now she’s totally screaming at him. HOW COULD YOU EVEN THINK OF SENDING MY BABY IN THERE? HOW COULD YOU GO IN THERE? DON’T YOU HAVE A STITCH OF COMMON SENSE? 111

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

Then Dad goes and wraps his arm around her. Come on Merri, he goes, let’s try to get back to Orlando before rush hour, okay?

I slept all the way home. Then I crawled back into my bed – my real bed, in my own room – and slept some more.

June 28 When I woke up today, everything was normal again, thank God. Actually, it was better than normal.

I didn’t get up until nearly 10, but for once, Mom didn’t give me a hard time about it. Since I’d left my suitcase and all my clothes back at the farm (which she told me burned to the ground), she took me out to get more and didn’t even lecture me about how trampy­looking the stuff I liked was. Okay, I only got stuff I thought she’d be okay with – I figured I’d need it to get another summer job, which I should probably look into soon.

But it turns out I didn’t even need to do that. When Dad came home from work, he said Honey, one of my clients is a manager at Cory Shearwater and Associates and said he needs someone to help with data entry for the summer – you interested? I figured there wouldn’t be a whole lot of angry ghosts hanging around a boring accounting office, so I said Sure and he says Great – he says you can start July 15 – I think you’ve earned a few weeks’ vacation.

This was cool. What can I say, this was the BEST DAY EVER. I’m totally serious. Yeah, I know it sounds totally lame, but seriously? It was AWESOME. Honest to god, if you had the last few weeks I did, you’d understand.

112

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

Oh yeah, since I wasn’t being pursued by pissed­off dead relatives today, I actually had time to figure out how to open the comments on this thing. So fire away!

COMMENTS: lisa4justice@yahoo.com said on June 28, 10:45 p.m.: OMG Janni that’s so powerful we really should be grateful for all we have shouldn’t we? 2bad you’re not in Mexico you could do SO much to help all the poor farmers down here (like painting lol).let’s get together for margaritas when I get back, okay? crazzytracy@gmail.com said on June 29, 1:04 a.m.: lol u and lisa should go join a convent your seriously nuts girl! U and your ghost shit – I don’t believe for a second live oak’s in a dry county bet you were drunk off your ass on moonshine the whole time J lisa4justice@yahoo.com said on July 1, 9:14pm Okay girl, you opened the comments on this thing and then you don’t post anything new? Come on! Call me, okay?

Jannigrrl said on July 1, 11:20pm Yeah, I’m an awful friend – decided to pick up some extra cash sitting this kid down the street. Well, your not answering your phone now – having fun with that hot Mexican dude J ?? crazzytracy@gmail.com said on July 2, 3:05pm well, its probably a good thing ur not blogging since 113

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

now everyone who reads this will die of boredom, ha ha!

Hey Steve’s having a big blowout @ his place on the 4 th – U in?

Jannigrrl said on July 3, 3:54pm Ok, U twisted my arm!

July 3 dont know where i am exactly right now. in the Volvo on i­95 i think– don’t know which way were going, dad’s driving. Not sure why im writing. Sorry so messy im writing on my phone & its like 3am or something.

U know how i posted bout how great stuff was? well it was tru til i fell asleep 2nite. then i had this awful dream about that farm & saw all those flames & heard that screaming I’LL FOLLOW YOU TO HELL! I’LL PLAGUE YOU FOREVER! all over again. in my dream i even saw her face. it was awful –i don’t want to say how. all i can say is it was the ugliest, scariest thing I’d ever seen. that face kept coming closer & closer & felt mean & hot & stank like rotten meat & i started screaming & screaming. i thought i was screaming in my dream but then i woke up & i was still screaming. my eyes were stinging & i felt wet stuff on my face & in my eyes & thought maybe i’d gotten stuff in my eyes. then i remembered i wasn’t on the farm anymore but back in orlando, so i got up & reached for the light by my bed. then i screamed some more. god, it was awful. mom came running down the hall into my room, & 114

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

immediately started screaming. then i knew i wasn’t dreaming. i started wiping my face, & when i looked down at my hands, i knew why mom was screaming: it wasn’t tears. it was blood. now mom was staring up at the ceiling & screaming, sounding totally live oak­y COLIN! I’S A’HAPPENIN! IT’S A’HAPPENIN! then the light comes on in the hall & dad comes running into my room tying the belt on his bathrobe. when he comes in, he stares at me & mom, then up at the ceiling too. i look at them & they both look all weird & pale. holy mother of god, dad says, all quivery. i didn’t want to look, but i couldn’t stop. on the ceiling, way too high for me to reach, are a bunch of handprints. all in dark red, like the ones in the living room on the farm. with missing left ring finger prints. now all three of us are holding each other & mom’s screaming & i’m crying & i look at dad & hope –he makes me crazy sometimes, but he always finds a way out of stuff. always. like the time last year when my laptop totally crashed & ate all the stuff i’d done all semester? he just pushed me aside & said let me do this – & like five minutes later, it was all fixed. but 2night? well, i looked at him & it made me scream again. i’d never seen him look so scared before. that’s when i realized dad couldn’t get us out of this. which meant no one could. he thought he could fix things by putting us in the car in our pajamas & driving to god knows where. but when mom gets in the car her cel rings 115

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

& its darlene in freakout mode – the florida state troopers had just called her in valdosta & said they found sm burned up bodies they thought might be her husband & parents in law could she come back & id them? and mom starts screaming & dad keeps driving even tho i can tell he’s freaking too & that’s why i’m writing – i got to tell some1. Not that u can help just so u know. god i don’t think even dad can fix 44444444444444444444444444444444444444444444 444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444 44444444444444444444444444444444444444444 COMMENTS: crazzytracy@gmail.com said on June 29 at 3:15 a.m.: Janni? WTF happened? Srsly, write back soon ok? Or call?? I’m thinking of U! lisa4justice@yahoo.com said on June 29 at 7:20 a.m..: OMG Janni! I just manage to get online now, hard to get internet here – so what happened to you?? PLEASE fill us in, I’m freaking out now too. Even if you’re doing something really dumb and boring just SAY SOMETHING – please!! crazzytracy@gmail.com said on June 29 at 8:45 a.m.: JANNI?? WTF? So my mom calls me & says 2 turn on the news & this Volvo crashed & burned on I­95 last nite & some whacked­out story about how these tourists driving from Titusville saw this crazy lady in a long dress on top of it hitting the windshield & it catches fire and crashes in the middle of freaking I­95 & mom swears she 116

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

heard your name & your dads. IT CAN’T BE ITS CRAZY! WHERE ARE YOU?? ANSWER YOUR PHONE DAMMIT!!!!! lisa4justice@yahoo.com said on June 29 at 9:02 a.m.: NOOO!! Tracy just called, it can’t be true – PLEASE SAY IT’S NOT!!!! CALL ME!!! Please…?

Felicia A. Lee is a Florida-based writer and editor. She holds a BA and MA in English from Stanford and a Ph.D. in linguistics from UCLA, and has worked as a video-game tester, promotional writer for the Space Shuttle program, baker and dessert cook, and, for almost ten years, a professor of linguistics. Her passions (besides reading and writing) include birding, cooking, and wondering if ghosts exist. Her non-fiction essays have been published in the Los Angeles Times and in Salon.com.

117

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

THE DEVIL CAME TO ME AND BID ME SERVE HIM

by Douglas Lind

It was always at that in­between time; that time just before sleep settles over the weary, and suspicion of the unknown sows its seeds. Muffled and low, it reverberated through the hills, silencing the traditional nightly chorus of insects. Dismissed by the local paper as nothing more than a “swarm of tremors,” this proclamation was not so much a scientific determination as an editorial statement intended to quell the growing anxieties.

And it was on one of these tremulous evenings on the overgrown outskirts of Ziondale that Wilbur Dare received the calling. And it was also quite unfortunate for the town that when the boy was found raving in the middle of Temperance Street about the need to close the fissure he was neither believed nor heeded.

This public response was not wholly unexpected given the reputations around town of both Wilbur and his mother. Sixteen years prior, Wilma Dare appeared on the steps of the general store, penniless, shoeless and haggard. If she had stopped with a simple appeal for assistance things might have turned out differently for everyone. But because of the judgmental silence and hardened stares, Wilma felt obliged to explain her appearance ­ how she wasn’t always like this, how she used to live in a city, a city underground, but was forced 118

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

to run. And run. And run.

When this revelation changed the stares to sniggers and smirking, she further explained that after what seemed like several weeks of wandering through tunnels and narrow crevices she had finally, just that morning in fact, discovered the fissure and was able to escape the Pestilence.

When Wilbur was born six months later with black eyes and translucent skin just like his mamma, everyone in town thought they knew the true reason for her sudden appearance. Ziondale, being the set­aside and forgotten community it was, didn’t care much for those who, though blessed with the miracle of life, hadn’t had the siring sanctified through a sacramental ceremony.

Relocating with the hope for some sort of scripture­based forgiveness was the most that those in her situation could ever expect. But unfortunately for the town, not only had Wilma told the truth, so too had her son. Something was lurking beyond that rocky maw.

Indeed, Wilbur had now gone missing, but his mother’s fears were somewhat assuaged when she discovered that so too was the pistol that was kept in the bedstand drawer. There was nothing to do now but wait. Wait and hope that it was the Ceremony which had called for him and not the Pestilence. And though Wilma’s heart ached mightily for her only child, she remained silent.

For the most part, Wilbur’s absence among the townsfolk went unnoticed as they went about their daily routines. And so too did Wilma go about town on her daily routines ­ scavenging for those things needed to prolong her meager existence. She did not take up her 119

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

son’s plea for closing the fissure so much as mumblingly repeat his admonitions in a resigned “don’t say you weren’t warned” manner. She even yelled at the town hall windows to inform the mayor and his staff that because the Pestilence seemed to have found the opening it was only a matter of time. But like her son, the woman was summarily ignored with thinly veiled derision as a gibbering lunatic and the sooner she followed Wilbur to wherever he went the better.

Opinions, however, began to change as those things which are important to the livelihood of the citizens of Ziondale (hunting dogs and livestock and such) began disappearing sometime between when the sun went down and when it rose. And the townsfolk began to heed Wilma’s revelatory preaching when six year old Angus Mitchell got up during evening Bible study, informed his classmates that he had been summoned, and without looking back bid them all farewell and walked into the evening shrouded woods. Neither his parents nor anyone else ever saw little Angus again.

The litany of those missing grew over the next few days. Some, like Edward Jessup, were seen on the path out of town as if merely taking his evening sojourn.

Others seemed to simply disappear. The numbers only increased as folks began checking on the well­being of their neighbors. And when they broke down the front door of old Mary Plummer’s house, all that remained of her once familiar presence was her carefully coiffed decorative hair next to an open bottle of bourbon and a bible.

As fear bubbled and roiled, now unregulated, 120

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

throughout the community Wilma quickly rose through the ranks, passing the powerful few that set the town mores, as the person whose opinion was most sought. So it was on a crisp autumn Sunday morning that she found herself in the somewhat enviable position of addressing the entire populace of Ziondale which had crammed themselves into the pews of the only building that would contain them all.

Scanning the crowd, Wilma slowly puffed on her pipe until they all realized they were being watched from the pulpit and had the good manners to silence themselves.

Having their attention, she began. “Don’t know why you all decided to meet here. It’s not as if God’s gonna save you.”

When the collective gasp and subsequent silence gave way to cursing and shouting, the mayor (whose wife, Milly wasn’t lying next to him one morning when he awoke) stepped up and restored order with placating hands, saying they ought to all just settle down a while and let Wilma speak.

Gripping the sides of the lectern, she spoke. And she didn’t mince words. “You ain’t getting your loved ones back. They’re gone. It takes what it wants and it never gives back.”

With this, Lizabeth Prue who had been quietly sobbing could no longer restrain herself. Rising and clutching the back of the pew before her she wailed, “Who? Who took my boy? My only baby!”

With a self­righteous stare that can only be learned from being on the receiving end so many times, Wilma corrected the bereaved woman, “What, not Who.” 121

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

Turning her attention to the congregation at large she drew deeply on her pipe, exhaled and began speaking low and clear. “I’m gonna tell you something my mamma told me. Something her mamma told her. A story going so far back nobody knows when it began. None of you are native to these parts. None of you. Long before you all were ever thought about, this land carried a horror you never dreamed of. The Pestilence, as the savages came to call it, raged for years and years. As the weekly toll of the dead rose, parents implored their children to scatter throughout the hills in the hope that some would be spared.” Pausing to take another drag she shrugged her shoulders and continued, “But there was no place for them to go. You can ignore the summons, but you’ll just get marked. And in Its pursuit, the Pestilence knows no boundaries.”

Having their undivided attention, Wilma continued her sermon, piercing them all with her black eyes. “The only apparent alternative to answering the summons was asking others to help with a more humane departure. And it was the family members who were faced with the gruesome task of not only putting down but also burying their own.” The congregation sat in silence; spellbound, hoping hers was simply an allegorical tale that would soon end with the familiar account of a trial of faith followed by revelation and redemption.

They were to be disappointed.

Wilma continued, “But the land wouldn’t have them ­ days after burial, the bodies were back, as if the ground had swelled and purged itself of the offal. Eventually the corpses were left to putrefy where they fell. With nowhere 122

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

else to go, the people sought shelter in the fissures and caves, hoping to escape underground.” With a whisper that was heard by all, she finished, “But the Pestilence followed.”

Amid the tense silence that anticipated the conclusion, Wilma proceeded, “There it sated its appetite and there it stayed. For years it lay dormant. But then something woke it, the savages above ground had the sense to avoid the region – ever notice that there’s no records of Injuns ever settling or even hunting in these parts? Didn’t you ever wonder why?”

Her audience sat agape, each silently hoping that a solution would soon be forthcoming.

“Well, with nobody left underground or immediately above, the Pestilence reached out further and further.

Across the land it called ­ and finally it found an entire colony. Having just arrived to the New World, and not knowing any better, they came. Over a long, long distance they came. Some didn’t go all the ways in, fighting the call they lurked in the tunnels until the Pestilence was again sated.”

Shaking her head as in disappointment with a small child’s impudence, Wilma scanned the crowed, “I tried to tell you all so many years ago, but you wouldn’t have any of it! Calling names was all you were interested in. Well, those were my people. We lived underground, lost for generations. We lived like livestock, drinking from underground rivers, eating fungus and fish when we could find it and sometimes even feeding on those unfortunates sentenced to the custodial pits. We were prisoners, unable to leave because we were tethered.

123

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

Invisibly tethered by the summons ­ waiting for our inevitable turn to be called to the depths.”

After a long pause, she finished, “And now the calling’s starting again.”

For a time, the only movements were dust motes as they floated through the glass stained sunshine Melton Jones, the town’s resident bully and loudmouth, broke the silence. “Horse apples! You want us to believe all that? Ha! You telling us that a town full of folks, as much as a hundred maybe, lived down there and…”

Wilma interrupted the diatribe, “There were hundreds and hundreds of us. Eventually we were all called. But I made it out. I don’t know how, but I did. Now it seems there’s no one left down there for it.” Her voice was low but it carried across the vaulted room and caused the glass in the windows to vibrate.

As the significance of the old woman’s words penetrated his tiny brain, Melton became silent and returned to his seat, trying to comprehend the enormity of the horror that was now at Ziondale’s doorstep.

Accusingly, Wilma slowly moved her twisted finger over the crowd, “Something going on here ­ the mining, or your damned preaching, or just the act of you all living here has awakened it. It’s called for some already, soon though it’ll be strong, and it will get tired of calling and it’ll just come on out. And when it does, well…” she shrugged her shoulders and stared at a hundred and twenty three open mouths.

Savoring the long silent moment she finally smiled and said, “But I might just be able to do something to hasten an end to all this.”

124

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

Unbeknownst to all in that room, Wilbur hadn’t been summoned by the Pestilence. He had run just like his mamma had hoped he would.

At first his only direction was away, but soon some inner compass, a different sort of calling than what lurked behind, led him out of the valley and to a nearby town.

Stopping only long enough to hitch a ride, he continued on to the college; a place to which he had never been but had often heard described by his townsfolk in tones of scorn and disdain.

As the setting sun cast long shadows on the marble steps of the building that housed the library, Wilbur slipped unnoticed through the enormous carved oaken doors and began ascending stairs. The public display area of the Special Collections Room had not yet been locked and there he now stood, transfixed by the object before him ­ the object which had called to him all the way from Ziondale.

As if to confirm that what he was looking at was not imagined Wilbur cupped the sides of his eyes against the glass and read the small display card again.

Daufuskee Manuscript, 16th­18th C. Vellum(?)

Found in an area of southern West Virginia historically described in Native American narratives as the “Daufuskee Region.”

The origins and context of this manuscript remain a mystery. It may have been used by early inhabitants of the Appalachian region as part of a funeral ceremony. The 125

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

symbolic writing system is unknown, but chemical tests indicate that the ink used is likely human blood.

It had been such a long journey, and now only a pane of glass stood between Wilbur and the siren that had been singing for him. The need to touch it, to hold it, was overwhelming but his rising hand was frozen by a movement behind him.

“It means Place of Blood.” A deep voice boomed through the otherwise vacant room.

Dropping his hand Wilbur’s head jerked in the direction of the speaker who was now walking briskly toward the cabinet. Reminding himself that he hadn’t actually done anything wrong – yet ­ Wilbur composed himself as much as he could and mumbled, “Excuse me, sir?”

“Daufuskee. It’s an Algonquin word. It means Place of Blood.”

Wilbur stared back in amazement as if this newcomer had been reading his mind.

“Didn’t mean to startle you, I was just heading toward my office. We get so few visitors; I hadn’t realized anyone was in the exhibit area. Heard you saying that word over and over, thought I’d pop in and show off a little.”

As the man smiled, Wilbur fought for something to say, finally settling on, “Umm, do you work here?”

Clearly pleased to be asked and thereby continue the impromptu lecture, the man smiled again and said, in an official tone, “I’m the Archivist and Special Collections Librarian.” Relaxing, he continued in a confidential voice, “Mostly I deal with those things in the library that aren’t allowed to be touched by the unwashed. I’m more of a gatekeeper really. Don’t get many visitors up here.”

126

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

Extending his hand he continued, “Professor Charles Bedard. You might say this is MY exhibit. So…are you in the history program or anthropology?”

Ignoring the question and pointing a reproving finger at the display case, Wilbur said, “Does that belong to you?”

Cocking his head and looking at Wilbur, the professor cautiously replied, “Well, I guess that’s one way to put it. I found it in an abandoned shack while on research sabbatical out in the hill country. Haven’t seemed to want to let it out of my sight since then. I even come by here occasionally to check on it, make sure it’s ok. So yes, in an odd sort of way, I guess the Dafuskee manuscript does belong to me.”

Not taking his eyes off the document, the boy continued his line of questioning, “Why do you call it that? That’s not what the words on it say.”

The professor chuckled, “Well, since it’s written in some sort of lost language, nobody’s really sure what exactly it does say, but that’s the name the Indians gave to the taboo place where I found it. Not too far from here, actually. Now it’s just a hollow full of inbreds ­ religious zealots out in the middle of nowhere.” He shook his head as if to dislodge the memory of it. “My area of research is the native cultures of pre­Colonial America.” Nodding to the manuscript he continued, “I’m working on a scholarly piece about that. As an object, I suppose it could be classed as funerary art, but in its time, it was probably more than that; not just decorative, it probably served a valuable ceremonial purpose to those superstitious people.” Smiling he winked and added, “Maybe it was read aloud to ward off evil.”

127

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

Pursing his lips, the professor continued in a serious manner, “An interesting thing that turned up in my research is there’s an old Indian legend that some early colonists pulled up stakes, lock stock and barrel, and made their way far inland to this same Dafuskee area and for whatever reason disappeared – like they were called all the way from the coast. Some say they could even be the lost colonists of Roanoke. Crazy, huh?”

Lost in thought, staring at the rust colored symbols, Wilbur pointed to the document, “I know what some of those are, they’re called crucifixes. The people where I live really like them.” Turning to face the man, feeling the need to fill the silence and explain the statement further, he quietly added, “They like to pray a lot.”

Furrowing his brow as if debating whether to waste any more time with this boy, the professor took a deep breath and finally said, “Well, Wilbur, those symbols are actually crosses, not crucifixes. Quick history lesson for you: when religious missionaries managed to make their way to this area, they tried to convert the Indians to their ways of thinking. The natives around here never bought into the Christian message the white man was selling, but they did take all the crucifixes they were given. According to the cosmology of some isolated indigenous groups in these parts, groups which are now long dead, the cross symbol represented the meeting or the intersection of this world and another one ­ the spirit world if you will. For some reason those natives were very, very interested in that.”

Fixed on the manuscript, Wilber let the subject of crosses drop and softly said, “I remember mama used to have one just like that with all the fancy writing but she 128

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

lost it.” He turned toward Professor Bedard, who was taking pains to not make eye contact, and in an accusatory tone asked, “Why do you have it out in the open? Mamma says things like that need to be kept hidden so’s folks don’t know you got it.”

Smirking, the man said, “Ahhh, well, I didn’t know those were the rules. It didn’t come with instructions you see.” In a teasing manner designed to elicit the truth about the boy he continued, “Are you a collector or an academic? I don’t believe I’ve seen you at any of the conferences or auctions.”

Oblivious to the fact that the professor was poking fun at him, Wilbur replied, “I don’t collect nothing. I just live with my mamma in the woods outside of Ziondale.”

Both were silent for a moment, each transfixed by the manuscript in the case before them. Suddenly, in a motion so swift and fluid for one whose mental abilities seemed so sluggish, a pistol emerged from Wilbur’s pocket and became a blur as it smashed through the cabinet’s glass.

Grabbing the document and turning the gun on Professor Bedard, Wilbur said, “Mister, you know a lot and we need to show this to Mama. And since this belongs to you, you need to come with me.”

Throughout the journey from the college through the winding roads that led to Ziondale, with Wilbur and the gun at his side, the professor willingly drove on. In fact, he was quite excited by the possibility of soon having the key to that enigmatic manuscript, a living, breathing Rosetta Stone.

Genuinely intrigued, the professor broke the silence, 129

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

“Tell me more about the ceremony Wilbur.”

Rubbing his forehead as if to coax the answer out of the recesses of his brain, Wilbur began slowly, “Well, I ain’t never seen it done, and I can’t tell the story as good as Mama, but a long, long time ago a bunch of Injuns were beset upon by this thing – it was taking their people you see – and then someone did this ceremony and then it was all over. Now the ground is shaking and noises are coming from the fissure and I think the time’s come that we hafta do the ceremony again.”

The professor stared ahead, lost in the thought of actually witnessing a genuine closed­community ceremonial ritual, one that probably existed unchanged for hundreds of years, unknown to all but a handful. True, Wilbur had the gun but the professor was quite a willing captive. He wasn’t about to miss this for the world.

As they arrived, the parade of townsfolk had begun to anxiously gather in front of the crevice, with Wilma looking on, wringing her hands with a determined look on her face. Spying the two as they approached, she marched up and snatched the manuscript from Wilbur’s hand. Waving it in front of the professor’s face she snarled, “Looks like you ain’t as clever as you thought you was. Stealing from a woman when her back was turned!

Shameful. But, you didn’t know that this has a way of calling folks, did ya? Folks like Wilbur here who’s got the gift.”

The professor’s faced flushed with embarrassment as he was dressed down by the old woman. “Nice to see you 130

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

again ma’am,” he replied meekly.

Smiling smugly at the man she said, “Suppose I ought to thank you for keeping this safe for me all these years.”

Trying to get her to stop grinning at him he finally said, “So when can we start the ceremony?”

Suddenly reminded of her higher purpose she replied, “Now that we’re all here, the sooner the better.”

Mother and son stood in front the crevice, the rest of the town gathered in a semi­circle about twenty feet back.

After some preliminary instructions from Wilma, they began.

Although the language was unlike anything they had ever heard, they quickly caught on. It was simply a call and response ­ a ritual they knew well, something learned and passed down for generations. A ritual often practiced in that stain glassed, white­washed building ­ the same building where they had just learned that the universe as they understood it had a few extra footnotes never mentioned in their spiritual guidebook.

It began with a Call by mother and son.

“Aiyee Quyagen Aiyee!”

A Response by the townsfolk.

“Subbora xi thotac, thotac quavilac!”

A call.

A response.

A call.

A response Occasionally, Wilma would interrupt the process to chant on her own and make cryptic movements with her hands, but soon again she would call and the congregation behind would respond.

131

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

After almost an hour of chanting, there began subtle vibrations and a humming that quickly became louder as if heralding the arrival of something of great power. As the earth trembled, a rumbling welled up from deep beneath their feet and without warning, an enormous gust of putrid air spewed forth from the gloom.

Gagging, the townsfolk stopped their calling, many of them falling to their knees, retching. But urged on by Wilma they continued the ceremony with both mother and son calling.

And then the Pestilence came.

And the sucking began.

The townsfolk felt, rather than saw, a torrent of ferocious wind with invisible teeth and claws that had come with one purpose.

One by one they fell. With a sniper’s military precision it chose among the congregation. Some ran, but not far – being clustered so close together during the ceremony they found it difficult to escape.

Melton Jones was one of the first to flee, but was pulled off his feet, screaming as he was quickly pulled into the cavern. As realization dawned upon the others what was happening they too tried to run but soon found that the runners were quickly identified by the unseen force and sucked into the blackness. The only solution they could possibly see, the only one they were ever really trained for, was to simply drop to their knees; to kneel with bowed heads and chant. And wait.

To many, the tableau before them seemed eerily similar to the rapture they had so often been promised, but instead of floating up to the heavens their course was 132

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

more of a horizontal one. Sadly, for these folks there was to be no fluffy white clouds, no pearly white gates, no harps, no angels – just a big black sucking maw and whatever lay beyond.

Throughout all of this, Wilma and Wilbur continued shouting into the cavern, occasionally turning back to the townsfolk to encourage the remaining ones on so that the responsorial chant could be heard over the din of the sucking.

And chant they did. In their minds it was their only hope for salvation.

Unfortunately they were as wrong as they could be, and it was Professor Bedard who eventually had the epiphany.

The manuscript, the ceremony, the gathering of the townsfolk, and the call and response, it wasn’t intended to purge the land of the Pestilence. Replaying the conversation he had with the boy he realized now that they were all unwitting participants in an ancient ritual intended not to ward off evil, but rather to call it forth.

He watched as mother and son raised their arms in exaltation, screaming joyfully as they shouted their call and urged the townsfolk to continue. Grabbing the old woman by the shoulders and turning her away from the opening, the professor screamed into her face “What… what are you having them chant!?”

With foam flecked lips the woman translated as Wilbur screamed the call, “Come, Quyagen, Forgotten One who dwells beneath our feet, Come!” And when the remaining townsfolk chanted in reply, she could not contain her smile as she yelled the response back at Bedard, “Mingle our blood with the blood of those before us!”

133

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

With paralyzing horror the professor now understood that they were all participating in some sort of feeding ceremony, one that had been used for generations by those sent to the surface with a promise ­ in exchange for their release to bring the food needed to satisfy the hunger of their deity. As Bedard worked it all out in his mind he comprehended, now too late, that his scholarly curiosity and investigations into esoteric knowledge could provide no defense when confronted with the factual basis of a ghoulish legend.

And as the howling wind swirled around him, he could only hope that the end would come quickly. Standing before the fissure and bowing his head, he raised his right hand to his forehead and slowly began forming the figure of a cross.

Douglas Lind’s fiction can also be found at Dark Fire and Cemetery Moon. He can be reached at: lind.dougas@gmail.com

134

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

Recommended Reading PINES (Book 1 of the Wayward Pines trilogy)

by Blake Crouch Ethan Burke, a member of the Secret Service, is tasked with finding two missing agents who went to the small town of Wayward Pines, Idaho, and simply vanished.

Shortly after arriving in the remote mountain location, he wakes up next to a woodland stream on the outskirts of the town. At first he has no memory of who or where he is, and to make matters worse, he has no wallet, no ID and no money.

As his memories return (a violent traffic accident, a partner who didn't survive, his original mission to find the two missing agents) he begins to realize that once you enter the town of Wayward Pines, you never leave.

Meanwhile, in the outside world, his wife and superiors at the Secret Service are left seaching for another person who has vanished without a trace.

135

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

Issue #11

The book has inspired a 10 episode series on FOX network this coming fall starring Matt Dillon, Carla Gugino, Terrence Howard and Juliette Lewis.

The second and third books in the trilogy are: Wayward The Last Town

136