Night Chills 01

NIGHT CHILLS CONTENTS

WINTER 2010

THE FAMILY HOUSE, AFTER DARK by Paul Robinson ...................................................................................... 3 It's only a dream... until something crosses over.

THE THING IN THE MARSH by Jason Muller ...................................................................................................... 11 Deep in a Louisiana swamp after dark, there are some locals you don't want to meet.

STICKMAN by Christopher Green .............................................................................................................................. 22 Evil wants a trade... but for what?

STEP UP TO THE PLATE by Adrian Ludens ........................................................................................................ 26 Sometimes you have to act on the advice you are given.

LEAVE by Christopher Meades ................................................................................................................................... 30 You can run from what lurks in the dark... and run... and run...

NEVER FORGET by Martin Turton .......................................................................................................................... 33 On second thought, maybe there are some things best forgotten.

ALL HANDS by William Wood ................................................................................................................................... 40 Even those who make war on the sea fall prey to what crawls from the depths.

DECISIONS, DECISIONS by Pete Mesling ................................................................................................................ 43 There is some truth to the old adage that looks can be deceiving.

BANE FISH by John P. McCann ................................................................................................................................. 48 Ravenous sea monsters and a lawyer... anyway you look at it, it's going to be a bad day.

DARK SIDE OF THE TOMB by Robert Essig ........................................................................................................ 59 Be careful, there may be more than memories waiting for you in the graveyard.

THE MELLIFIED MAN by John F.D. Taff .............................................................................................................. 64 Satisfying your sweet-tooth can be deadly when taken to the extreme.

THE SERIAL KILLER'S GHOUL by David Bernstein .......................................................................................... 71 When you make a pact with an undead creature, it's a good idea to honor the deal.

GRACE by C.S. Fuqua .................................................................................................................................................. 75 Decisions you make in life will be with you on the day you die.

GROUND ZERO by Jameson T. Caine ..................................................................................................................... 78 Gophers can destroy a neatly kept lawn... even before they mutate. (cont. on next page)

Front Cover by Char Reed, illustrating a scene from "The Thing in the Marsh" This publication copyright 2010 by Black Matrix Publishing LLC and individually copyrighted by artists and individuals who have contributed to this issue. All stories in this magazine are fiction. Names, characters and places are products of the authors' imaginations or are used fictitiously.

Any resemblance of the characters to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Night Chills is published quarterly by Black Matrix Publishing LLC, 1252 Redwood Ave. #52, Grants Pass, OR 97527. Our Web site: www.blackmatrixpub.com Other magazines available from Black Matrix: Encounters Magazine, Outer Reaches and Realms.

GUIDED BY WIRE by Aaron Polson .......................................................................................................................... 87 When traveling, some local foods are best left untouched on your plate.

THAT MATERNAL INSTINCT by Harper Hull ...................................................................................................... 90 What kind of bargain would you make, and how many would you sacrifice to protect your child?

CRAWL SPACE by Jay Lowrey .................................................................................................................................. 95 Silent, cold-blooded, and loaded with venom...

REALITY CHECK by Dev Jarrett .............................................................................................................................. 98 Listen to the voice of experience... some lifestyles just aren't as glamorous as they seem.

NIGHT THIEF by Carolanne Patton ......................................................................................................................... 101 The bark is worse than the bite... but that's before they change.

LONG IN THE TOOTH by David Vahlberg ........................................................................................................... 107 Be careful when you complain to the new neighbor... he might have a wild side.

THE DARK by Bryan Hall .......................................................................................................................................... 109 We all wonder if there is something after death... or nothing.

A note from the editor: Welcome to the first edition of NIGHT CHILLS. This is the first issue of our fourth genre fiction publication after the release of ENCOUNTERS, OUTER REACHES and REALMS in the past couple of months.

We are already at work on the 2nd edition of each magazine, so look for the new ENCOUNTERS in February, OUTER REACHES and REALMS in March and another NIGHT CHILLS in April (seemed a fitting time to release our next horror volume - during tax month).

In the meantime, we hope you enjoy the 21 stories we have collected for you here. You'll find a wide selection of tales that will alternately give you the chills and make you laugh (nervously, we hope).

Guy Kenyon Editor/Black Matrix Publishing LLC Kim Kenyon Publisher/Black Matrix Publishing LLC

The Family House, After Dark

by Paul Robinson

It's only a dream... until something crosses over. ___________________________________________________________

"I can't sleep anymore."

Jake Sutton looked like a man who could use a good night's sleep. With red, haggard eyes and a face as pale as the underbelly of a frog, Jake almost looked like a plague victim. He leaned back in the red vinyl booth at Carolyn's Diner and sipped at his coffee. It tasted like hot water and he set it back down with shaky fingers. Across the table from him, Mike Henrick shook his head.

"I hate to say it, Jake, but...you don't look good."

"Yeah. I don't feel so good, either," Jake said. "For the past couple of weeks, now."

Henrick talked as he ate. "My wife gets insomnia sometimes. Sometimes she'll go a week or two with no more'n a couple hours of sleep a night. Then she wears herself out and she's back to normal." Henrick paused to laugh.

"She looks about as bad as you do, as a matter of fact."

Jake turned his blood-shot gaze on him. "Glad you think it's funny."

"Sorry. Have you tried a little...?" Henrick mimed the act of downing a shot glass.

Jake frowned. "That's a great way to become an alkie."

"Well...what about sleeping pills? Sominex, something like that?"

"I don't know. I don't like messing around with chemicals."

"You ought to see Doc Farrel." Henrick shrugged.

"Might be something medical."

Something medical. In Jake's mind, medical problems always wound up being something like a tumor, or worse. You went in to see the doctor because your stomach hurt, and came out with a month to live.

The sun was just beginning to set, an early November twilight washing across the almost empty streets. The pinewoods of the state forest swept up behind the 2-story buildings as a dark smear. Nothing in little downtown Chisel Creek stayed open past six, except Carolyn's Diner. The empty sidewalks and deepening shadows of the lonely streets didn't do anything for Jake's mood. He glanced out through the grease-streaked glass of the diner windows toward Dr. Farrel's office. It was down the block from the diner, 5

across from the library. Then he turned back to Henrick.

"I just need a good night's sleep and I'll be fine."

J

ake hadn't told the entire truth to Henrick--falling asleep wasn't a problem. The real problem was staying asleep. Because of the nightmares.

At first, it wasn't so bad--he'd simply wake up in the middle of the night with a vague sense of unease, as if he'd heard the soft tread of someone moving across the bedroom floor. Once or twice when it happened, he heard a dry scuttling across the roof - squirrels, or maybe raccoons. It wouldn't take him long to fall asleep again, at any rate.

Then one night he had a dream about the old Massey-Ferguson tractor from his boyhood, the one his father bought for cheap only to discover it wasn't a bargain after all. Half the time the tractor ran poorly, the other half the old man was out in the barn trying to get it to run.

In Jake's dream, the old tractor decided to go out and plow on its own. It belched thin, gray diesel exhaust as it roared away from the barn, driverless.

The tractor didn't seem to be moving that fast but it always managed to keep ahead of Jake as he dogged it through the cornfield. The red and black stripes of the machine were barely visible as it plowed through the green stalks, and he almost caught up to it when it broke through the edge of the field. Jake followed, and came out near the farmhouse. Then he stopped.

The tractor was gone. Everything was silent and still.

Jake found himself standing below the massive old elm tree that had been cut down years earlier, when it died from the blight. He looked up at the elm feeling strange; almost scared. Like the resurrected tree was an omen of bad things, things he didn't want coming back to him.

That was where the nightmares started from then on--Jake standing under the ghost of the ancient tree.

Alone.

And he felt alone. Powerfully alone. The sense of isolation and solitude in his dream filled him like cold well water. Everything beyond the outskirts of the farm seemed to fade into nothingness, as if a deep fog were rolling in all the way from Lake Superior.

Then, for no good reason, Jake felt a powerful urge

to get inside. In that way that dreams have, his intuition told him he wasn't completely alone.

Something was out there with him. But he couldn't make himself move.

To take a step away from the elm tree was more than he could manage. As he tried to get his legs to work, to cross the short distance to the safety of the farmhouse, he heard a rustling in the field behind him. The sound was so faint and low he tried to convince himself it was just the wind. Even though he knew it wasn't.

That was when the dream turned to nightmare.

Something was in the corn stalks, moving towards him. Slowly.

Somehow Jake could see behind himself, as if he were floating in the sky looking down at the cornfield.

With growing horror, he saw the cornstalks wither and curl into pale yellow as something passed among them. In the wake of its path the corn turned dark brown, dying on the stalk. The rustling thing took its time, stealing through the corn like a thief until Jake could tell it was right behind him.

A glistening hand with long blackened fingertips reached out from the ruined field, parting the cornstalks as they withered.

Jake was back on the ground, then. He was running. Trying to make it to the front door.

Typically, for a nightmare, the ground between him and the farmhouse seemed to get further away no matter how hard he tried to close the distance. The dead hand grew ever closer to him, as slowly as he seemed to be running away from it.

Then, suddenly, he was across the porch steps and fumbling with the door. Behind him, blackened fingers curled up like talons, ready to strike.

Jake had never actually smelled anything in a dream before. But at that point in his dream an obscene stench of decay filled the air. The odor was like sulfur and pig shit, mixed with rotting meat--but a thousand times worse. It almost made him sick.

Then the worst part of all. The thing spoke to him.

It was a lifeless voice, the sound of autumn leaves blowing through a gully.

Turn and see my toothsome grin.

Open the door and let me in.

Then Jake woke in pitch darkness. Trying to hold in a scream.

Drenched cold, sweat rolling down his face, he flipped the bedside lamp on and kept it on for the rest of the night. After a long time he closed his eyes and fell into a thin, meager sleep until morning, but it did 6

nothing to give him any rest.

That had been almost three weeks ago. And he'd been having the same dream every night since.

A

fter dinner at Carolyn's, there was nothing to do but go home. For a few minutes, heading west on Ferdman Road, Jake almost convinced himself to turn off and hit The Pines for a few beers. But since his divorce, he didn't like going to bars alone. It was one thing to go out with the guys on a Saturday night, but Jake knew it was too easy to wind up with his name on a barstool.

He'd seen the same thing happen to other divorced men around Chisel Creek. They lost their wives and found a spot in a cinder block bar, and drank the days away; sad, doughy lumps in ill-fitting clothes, installed at the Pines like a busted jukebox that's too much trouble to move. Cans of Keystone or Milwaukee's Best would pile up around them while they bitched about everything--especially women. That was a road Jake didn't want to go down.

So he drove back to the farmhouse. Night was coming across the northern sky, a deep indigo fading into inky black above the pine trees. A few stars glittered in the fringes of the darkness.

Lonely, Jake thought. They look lonely.

He shut the truck off and stared at the house through the windshield.

Mirela, Jake's ex-wife, had gone all the way to Detroit to find a good divorce lawyer while Jake was still trying to figure out how to hold their failed marriage together. The downstate lawyer took him to the cleaners, but failed to get the farm or anything associated with it. Despite advanced emphysema, Jake’s father stubbornly refused to die until after the divorce was final. It was his last gift to Jake.

Promise me you'll hold on to it, Jake. Don't sell it unless there's no other way. His father rasped this out on his hospital bed, hours before he died.

Jake promised. Mirela refused to come to the funeral after she found out there was no way for her to get the property. Instead she flew off in a rage, back to her family in the low-country swamps of South Carolina. What she always called the Gullah region.

He got a few threatening letters from her over the first few months, postmarked from Walterboro. They were mostly unhinged rants about what Jake owed her, even though she had got most of their savings and possessions, as well as alimony. Eventually though, the letters ceased and Mirela began growing quiet in his memory.

Now the family house was his alone. For better or worse. This was Home.

And he dreaded it, now.

He realized he was stalling, so Jake reluctantly got out of the truck and trudged slowly toward the front porch. He tried, and failed, to avoid looking at the stump of the old elm tree--the starting point of his nightmares.

Instead of the brown dirt in the field, he could picture a wall of green stalks. Withering as something unseen passed through them. Something with blackened, grasping fingers and a deadly touch.

At the front door, he felt a chill race down his neck as he fumbled with his keys.

Open the door and let me in.

Jake hurried inside and locked the door behind him. It wouldn’t have been as bad if the nightmares weren’t about the farm. The elm stump, the barren cornfield, the front porch became nagging reminders that in a few hours that rotting, whispering…thing would be coming after him, through the exact same places.

Another thing he'd lied about to Henrick was booze.

Jake found a bottle of Wild Turkey in the tool shed one day while looking for some lock washers. His dad had apparently squirreled it away before he died and forgot about it. At first Jake was shocked, then amused by the find; Mom had passed away years earlier, and Dad could have openly taken a snort without getting in trouble. Maybe it just wasn't any fun for the old man unless he thought he was putting one over on mom.

Over the previous two nights Jake had taken a healthy dose from his father's hidden whiskey to try and knock himself out, but found it didn’t help. All it did was make his head ache after the nightmare woke him up.

Jake fiddled with the almost empty bottle as he watched the tube, pouring himself a shot, then pouring the shot back into the bottle. Over and over.

The later it got, the more anxious he grew. He moved around the living room of the farmhouse from window to window, gazing into the dark while an episode of Cops blared in the background.

Finally he wound up at the back porch. He stepped out and leaned against the rail, looking out at the barn and the shed. A single floodlight angling down from

the barn spilled bright blue light across the farmyard, showing faint outlines of fence posts and stacked wood. He took a deep breath and exhaled. His breath came out frosty in the crisp air.

Through the puff of frozen air, he saw Trinket’s old doghouse in the usual spot between the shed and the barn. But Trinket's doghouse had been gone even longer than the old elm tree.

Jake had been five years old when his dad brought a small, tan-and-black-speckled pup home after deciding it was time Jake had a dog. The first time he picked her up her little pink tongue lapped at his hand and they were instant best friends.

His mother named her Trinket because she was so tiny, but the name became ironic. After Trinket grew up there was no tougher, meaner dog in the whole county. She never got very big, but she had the heart of a wolf. And she was twice as fierce.

After she died, Jake's folks had asked him if he wanted to get another dog.

Jake was in his teens and said he was too old to need another dog. At least, that’s what he told his parents--the truth was he didn’t want to replace Trinket as if she were an old couch or a busted TV. Jake wiped his eyes and looked out into the dark.

The steam from his breath faded, and he could clearly see the doghouse wasn't there. Just a trick of shadow and light on a weary mind.

He stood there for a moment and felt a deep, sudden sadness. If there was one thing he could've used right now, good old Trinket was near the top of the list. She might have been a terror to everything else, but she had been his best friend growing up.

With a heavy sigh, Jake rubbed his eyes. Might as well get this over with, he thought. He went back inside, turned off some of the lights, and trudged upstairs to the bedroom.

Once in bed, Jake was out like a light. The last thing he remembered was noticing the time on the alarm clock, then everything was lost. He tumbled gratefully into the gray blank of his mind and slept.

For a good three hours, nothing disturbed him.

Then Jake found himself under the shadow of the old tree once again, the ghostly horizon tinged with

A glistening hand with long blackened fingertips reached out from the ruined field, parting the cornstalks as they withered.

7

gray. Everything was the same as before: the farmhouse impossibly close and distant at the same time, and Jake frozen in terror.

Waiting for the nightmare to begin only amplified the dread. Eternity seemed to pass before Jake felt that first prick of terror, an invisible signal that the game was about to begin. But this time, something was different.

Jake saw himself standing on the porch at the front door, at the same time he was also standing out by the cornfield.

Looking back at himself.

His double wore a look of bewilderment, standing there foolishly like someone who walked into a funeral by mistake. Jake opened his mouth in astonishment.

On the porch, his twin did the same thing. For a moment Jake was in both places at once, as if looking into an endless series of reflections. Unsure which image was real.

Then, rustling in the cornfield. An overpowering stench of decay invaded his dream. It was coming.

From the front porch Jake felt himself split, like an earthworm cut in two. He watched himself standing out in the yard, unable to move, as something made its way through the cornfield like a tiger stalking through the underbrush. Jake saw the hideous, blackened hand reaching out from the withering corn.

The Jake by the cornfield mouthed silent words as the hand clamped itself over his head.

Help me.

In an instant, the terrified face turned brown and shriveled, like a film of a decomposing apple shown in fast-forward. The teeth seemed to grow long, jutting from the shrinking face like icicles on an abandoned house. The limbs quivered in uncontrollable spasms as they shrank into skeletal appendages, the skin puckering up and drawing tight against the bones. The hair frizzled, growing long and white in seconds as it drifted down the sides of his head.

Wake up.

Jake tried to force his eyes open. To end his nightmare through sheer willpower. No such luck.

The Jake by the cornfield began shrieking, loud and terrified. The sound began to shrink, like water sucked into a deep, powerful drain. It faded into a horrid wheeze. A squeak. Then silence.

The hand was gone. What was left of Cornfield Jake stood there alone at the edge of the dead field of corn, an emaciated corpse.

Then it took a tottering step towards the farmhouse. Then another.

Wake up wake up wake up 8

Cornfield Jake's rotted face split, literally, into a wicked grin.

Jake couldn't move, couldn't think. He could only watch as the corpse advanced across the ground. With each footfall, the grass below its feet faded to yellow, then curled into dead brown.

At the foot of the porch stairs, dried, misshapen eyes rolling in the sockets of a leathery skull turned to meet Jake's horrified gaze. A raspy, hoarse voice echoed in his ears as the thing's jaws opened, mechanically chewing out words: Cornfield Jake.

Cornfield Jake.

He stayed up just a little too late.

A rotted hand grasped the wooden railing as the thing began to haul itself up to the first porch step.

White paint began to peel and curl into flakes under the skeletal fingers. The wood beneath went gray.

Now he ain't in real good shape!

The other hand began to reach out and Jake stumbled backward across the porch as the decayed fingers clawed the air where he had just stood. The creature kept climbing the stairs, hissing laughter at him.

Cornfield Jake already had one hand on the knob, grinning through it's rotted face. The brass handle grew a rich, pale green patina of age as it swung the front door wide open.

Everybody in, brother. What's mine is yours.

There was a rush of foul air past him and something black and terrible flew past Jake. Into the house.

With a cry of terror, Jake half fell, half threw himself over the wooden railing of the porch. He didn't hit the ground, but kept falling instead. The farm shrank away as he plunged into blackness. And still he kept falling.

W

hen Jake opened his eyes he couldn't move. He couldn't breathe. Frozen in terror, he stared up into the darkness in his room. He wanted to scream but he could only gasp for air while his chest heaved.

After a few minutes he was able to reach over and turn on the bedside lamp. Panting, he rested on one elbow. Sweat dripped down his face and into his eyes and he wiped his brow, glancing around the bedroom and trying to let the panic settle.

"God damn it," he said to the empty room. "That's it."

He knew what he was going to do. In the morning he would call Dr. Farrel and make an emergency appointment. Jake didn't give a shit anymore about doping himself up with pills, or finding out something was wrong with his brain. He just wanted the goddamn nightmares to end.

As he leaned there in bed taking deep, shuddery breaths, he heard something skittering across the ceiling.

Fucking squirrels, he thought. He rolled onto his back and looked up.

Something big and dark streaked across the ceiling, clacking against the stucco as it went. It shot away from the small circle of light shining up from the nightstand lamp into a darkened corner.

Jake watched in horror as a small flake of plaster drifted down to light on the covers.

There was a thud as the dark shape dropped to the floor, obscured by the shadows at the foot of Jake's bed. It rose up. Two red, pin-point eyes gleamed at him.

I thank you kindly for the invitation.

It was the same hollow voice from his nightmares, but in his ears now instead of his imagination. A hot stream of urine gushed out across his thighs and soaked into the bedding. Jake barely noticed.

The shape spread its arms in the shadows and the reek of decayed flesh suddenly filled the air. Then it swirled into motion and flew to the bedroom window, pouring itself through the gaps around the frame like black swamp water. It melted into the darkness outside and was gone. Just before the first morning light began to glow above the pine trees.

Jake sat in bed for a long time, feeling his piss turn cold as he stared at the window.

The rational part of his mind tried to tell him that no dark specter had crawled across the ceiling and squirmed away through the cracks in a windowsill.

Jake had simply been half awake, still in the grip of his worst nightmare yet. A dream--nothing more. The rest of his mind --the part that knew what it saw-wanted to run away across the fields, screaming. And never stop. Jake might have done just that, but the thought of turning the knob on the front door filled him with dread.

Cornfield Jake might be out there waiting for him.

And the black thing with the deadly hand might be with him.

After washing himself up and changing the sheets, Jake went to the living room and dropped into his father's old Barcalounger to try and think. Sleep pulled at him, making his eyes grow heavy. If he had floated away or just disappeared, Jake wouldn't have 9

been surprised at that point. He felt as if he were on the verge of non-existence.

As the sun began to filter in through the windows behind him he could feel himself falling asleep. It was exhaustion at that point, not relaxation, but Jake slumped in the recliner. Nothing would make him happier than to shut his brain off for a while.

Unconsciousness was the only thing he wanted.

Just as he was about to go under completely, he heard a voice.

Jake. Listen to me.

The voice seemed to be coming from somewhere outside his own head, as if someone were standing just behind him and shouting. Except it sounded a thousand miles away at the same time. If he wasn't so tired, it would have scared him It broke the rules, Jake.

"Who are you?" Jake murmured.

Don't let it swallow you up.

Jake's eyelids fluttered. Consciousness was fading, but the voice still nagged at him. "I don't care. I just want to sleep."

Promise you'll hold on, Jake. Promise.

"I promise," Jake whispered as he fell asleep.

A

s soon as he closed his eyes Jake found himself once again by the elm tree at the edge of the cornfield. Except this time things were different.

It was summertime, and the sun was the bright, polished bronze of an August afternoon in northern Michigan. He was facing the farmhouse once again, but this time there was no sense of dread. Sparrows flew overhead, chirping as they lit in the top branches of the elm.

He was fourteen years old again. And there were still a few weeks before school started. Everything was the way it used to be. The way it was supposed to be.

Without even thinking about it Jake whistled twice, sharp and quick. It was a long-ago action that Jake hadn't performed in almost twenty years. Calling Trinket.

He started towards her doghouse but realized he had forgotten his pole. It lay on the grass behind him next to the rusted Maxwell House can full of dirt, and worms as thin as onion slices.

Fishing. We were going fishing that day, he remembered.

Dad was in the barn working on the MasseyFerguson; he could hear tools clanking as he passed, and the faint whiff of a Marlboro Light drifting on the breeze. Jake wanted to run in there but found he couldn't. As if he were a train on a track, Jake had to keep moving.

Please stop smoking, Dad, Jake thought as he passed the barn. Before he even rounded the corner he heard the sound of Trinket's chain dragging across the side of the doghouse.

His family had never been able to figure out what kind of dog she was: a brown and black mongrel about the size of a small retriever. She had a beagle's face, but if you squinted at her she almost looked part collie, or maybe German shepherd. In the end, she was just a plain old mutt but she had bright brown eyes that never failed to be pleased when she saw Jake. Just seeing her gave Jake a warm feeling of hope. He dropped his pole and coffee can, kneeling down to scruff up her face.

No dog could ever take your place, girl.

Her tail whapped the ground, sweeping away pebbles and bits of hay. She was 12 years old by then, and her muzzle was graying. Her hips were beginning to stiffen up, too, but she still got around fine.

Jake snapped the chain off her collar and they headed down the old river trail to Chisel Creek, Trinket loping gamely alongside.

Barely a dozen yards past the cornfield Trinket seemed to catch wind of something. She stopped. Her fur went up and her face twisted into a vicious snarl. A sound came rumbling from her chest, deep and menacing as a Harley's engine. The old dog began stalking down the trail, slowly.

Jake's stomach clenched and he felt a pinprick of dread deep inside him. Even though he had nothing to fear from her, Trinket's change from playful friend into vicious animal always frightened Jake. He'd seen it enough growing up to know he didn't like it, because what happened next was always bad.

A huge black shape came shambling up out of the woods running straight for them, and his fear tripled.

He thought at first, Jesus Christ. It's a bear.

Then he remembered: it was their neighbor's massive Newfoundland. He was at least twice as big as Trinket: the Johnsons had actually named him 'Bear' because of his size.

Bear came bounding up the path wagging his tail, somehow oblivious about Trinket. He didn't even slow down. Jake went to grab Trinket's collar but he was too late. Jake knew Bear's size wouldn't matter one bit to Trinket.

Stop. Don't do it, girl.

Trinket sprang at Bear with teeth bared. Straight for the throat.

The big dog yelped in shock, taken by surprise.

Trinket wasted no time, tearing and shaking at Bear like a mongoose. The fury of the attack was too much for him--he fought to get away but Trinket was into 10

him too deeply.

Jake yelled but he could barely hear his own voice over the snarling. He tried to grab Trinket's collar but the dogs were a whirlwind of snapping jaws and teeth.

All he could do was watch and wait for the moment to come. It didn't take long.

The end came when Bear slipped and fell on top of Trinket in a mad effort to free himself from the smaller dog. Her hips gave out, and she collapsed under the bulk of the Newfoundland with a sharp yelp. The Newfoundland went from prey to attacker quicker than throwing a switch. Trinket snapped at him where she could, but she didn't stand a chance.

The huge black head closed over her neck and blood gushed out from her torn throat.

Jake kicked at Bear's head with all his might. It was like kicking a cement block wrapped in wet burlap.

But he did it again. And again. Bear broke off, jumping away as if coming to his senses. For a moment he just stared at Jake, pain and confusion in his eyes. Then he ran off howling.

Trinket lay on the ground, whimpering as her blood soaked the underbrush. In tears, Jake knelt at her side. Her tail wagged feebly, twice, and she tried to lick his hand.

Jake scooped her up and ran back to the farmhouse, calling for his father. But he knew it was too late. Trinket had been in her last fight.

W

hen Jake woke he thought the sun was still rising, and he hadn't slept for more than a few minutes. He turned to look at the sky through the window and stared as the sun began to slip beneath the pine trees behind the barn. It took him a moment to realize he had slept the whole day through.

Now it was almost dark.

Jake sprang up from the recliner with a lurch and almost tripped over the end table by the sofa. He ran to the front door in the hallway and tried to think of what to do as he pulled his coat on. His hand went to the old brass hook by the door but the truck keys weren't there. Panicking, Jake went through his pockets, but they weren't there either.

"God damn it!"

Upstairs. Could he have left them on the dresser in his bedroom?

He glanced up the staircase. Upstairs--where that black thing had crawled across the ceiling of his bedroom. For a moment he hesitated. Then he placed a foot on the first step.

The upstairs lights went out.

No pop, no sizzle; they just snuffed into black. For a long time Jake stood there, looking up at the

darkened staircase. There wasn't a sound anywhere but the soft sweep of branches against the windows.

Just a blown fuse. That's all, Jake told himself. But he couldn't seem to make himself move.

A stench of rot suddenly filled the air, cutting through his terror. Then the voice from his nightmares whispered to him.

You look tired, Jake. Why don't you come to bed?

Jake stared up. Two pinpoints of glowing red looked back down at him. Despite his terror, an image came back to him that stopped him cold.

Mirela. His ex-wife had once stood there at the top of the stairs in their old house. Gazing down at him with teasing eyes, wearing nothing but a pair of panties. He had grinned back at her, despite the fatigue of a twelve-hour day.

And she had said the same words to him.

With a strangled cry of disgust Jake stumbled back against the wall. As he did, the hall lights went out.

And the black creature came for him, gliding down the stairs.

Jake turned and ran, back the way he had come.

Every light in the house flicked off just ahead of him.

The living room, the desk lamp in the office, the kitchen. Rotting stink and dry rustling followed close behind him.

The only light was the moon, shining through the dirty glass of the back door. Jake threw it open and lunged through without stopping, knocking the outside screen door off its hinges.

His shirt collar tugged sharply at his neck, held by powerful, clutching fingers. For a horrifying second it had him, then he tumbled across dead grass and leaves, screaming. He scrabbled away in a panic, then got to his feet.

The swirling black creature had stopped. It hovered there in the darkened doorway of the back porch just a few yards away, eyes blazing red as it hissed at him.

But it made no move to follow him any further.

Jake hadn't pulled out of its grasp as he leapt through the door--the thing had let go of him. For some reason it refused to let even one blackened finger cross the threshold to the outside.

He barely realized he'd escaped when the corpse of Cornfield Jake began creeping towards him from around the barn. It shambled out from the shadows into a patch of moonlight, as the ruined face leered at him. Dead hands made snatching motions as the corpse shuffled closer.

"Get away. Get away from me!" Jake began to back up, to the corner of the barn.

"Back inside, brother. Want you to meet a friend of 11

mine."

From behind him, Jake heard a sound he hadn't heard for almost twenty years. The scrape of Trinket's chain dragging alongside her doghouse.

Cornfield Jake tottered to a sudden halt by the stump of the old elm tree. The leer vanished from its rotten-apple face as Trinket rounded the corner.

She was old and stiff, but her grayed muzzle was twisted into a grimace of utter fury. Streaks of dark blood covered her face. A deep, low snarl rumbled out into the darkness from her torn throat.

Jake was terrified as before. But a deeper fear took hold of him when that snarl cut the night air. He took a step away from his long-dead friend as if she were a ticking bomb.

From the back porch, the nightmare thing with the red glowing eyes began to screech. It raked its black talons across the doorway.

No! No! Trinket began stalking the grotesque figure by the elm tree. As she hit the end of her chain she lunged.

Furious barking drowned out the shrieks of the thing with the glowing red eyes.

She seemed bigger than Jake remembered. Much bigger--maybe the size of a timber wolf. As Trinket twisted and snarled at the end of her lead, dead grass ripped under her claws. Jake realized she wasn't just bigger, she was changing; her fur became coarse and thick, her legs were roped with sinewy muscle. Bared teeth seemed to grow longer. Sharper.

Her eyes began to glow like two white pools of phosphor. Cornfield Jake smoldered like an ant under twin magnifying glasses. Smoke curled up from the white, grizzled hair and it shrieked horribly, flailing its limbs as if hornets were swarming it.

When Trinket finally broke her chain she was barely a dog anymore. Not even a wolf. The creature that fell upon Jake's doppelganger was something primeval, a creature from prehistory.

She ripped Cornfield Jake to pieces in an instant.

Jake watched in disbelief as she tore the doppelganger to scraps of seared, rotting flesh as easily as if he were made out of newspapers. She clawed at the remains furiously, the white-hot glare of her eyes reducing them to smoking ashes.

Jake stood there, too stunned to even think. He could only watch as his old dog satisfied herself there was nothing left to destroy. Then she sniffed the air, and a dark, rumbling growl echoed out of her chest as she turned toward the farmhouse.

The back door was empty. The thing with the red eyes wasn't there. But it wasn't gone--somehow, Jake knew it couldn't leave. It was bound by some cryptic rule of its own devising.

It was trapped inside his family house. And Trinket was a member of the family.

Jake moved cautiously behind her, afraid to get too close. Trinket paused at the doorway, drooling steam.

At the back porch steps, her claws crunched into the wood like steel spikes. Her eyes caught Jake and he felt a blast of penetrating heat, as if a furnace door had been swung open.

She turned back to the doorway and light blazed from her eyes, burning the darkness away. From inside came a black wail of despair and Jake saw his nightmare, writhing in the light.

It was like some abnormal parasite clothed in a mockery of human form, something that couldn't quite take shape in Jake's brain. A living virus with eyes and a face, and dead black hands. It swirled away, down the hallway and Trinket barreled into the house after it with a howl of fury.

Jake could hear her thundering up the stairs and there was silence for a moment. Then everything was crash crash crash.

Through the snarling and roars came the sound of walls being pummeled and the smashing of heavy furniture. A window broke and shards of glass sparkled down through the moonlight. White light flashed wildly through the top of the house as if someone was whirling a spotlight, shaking it back and forth.

An inhuman scream rose and peaked. Then everything went dark and quiet.

For a long time Jake stood there, listening to the wind. A warm breeze from the direction of the barn blew across his face, carrying the faint smell of cigarette smoke. After a while, he understood he was alone. He went inside and closed the door.

J

ake slept on the downstairs couch until the afternoon the next day, and for a change it felt like a deep, real sleep. When he woke, he felt better than he had for weeks.

Upstairs in the bedroom, dark streaks marked the walls and floor like splashes of foul-smelling tar. Most of the furniture was either smashed or damaged; there was nothing to do but haul it out and burn it in the trash heap. Jake tacked some heavy plastic over the smashed window and called it good for the time being. By evening, the stains had faded away until there wasn't a trace left.

When he met Henrick the next day for their weekly 12

dinner at Carolyn's, all Jake told him was he finally got over his insomnia.

"Hell, you look like a new man. Did you go to Doc Farrel after all?"

Jake shook his head and grinned at his friend.

"Problem took care of itself."

Henrick shook his head. "That's good. You were starting to worry me."

About a week later Jake got a letter from Mirela's lawyer. His ex-wife had died from a mysterious seizure at her parent's home down in the Gullah swamplands. Sudden unexpected death syndrome, they called it. Alimony was suspended.

After Jake read the letter, he felt something come over him. A restless feeling, like he had forgotten an appointment. He went out for a drive, not really going anywhere in particular. After a while, he found himself at the Chisel Creek animal shelter.

The young woman working there gave Jake a look of mild surprise when he asked her if any mixed-breed pups were available.

"Funny you should ask. We just got one the other day. Poor little thing was all by herself, down by the creek. Barely a week old. They didn't find the rest of the litter or the mother."

The girl led Jake to a cardboard box lined with an old blanket. Inside was a little tan-and-black pup, with more than a hint of beagle to her. Jake reached his hand in to stroke her as she slept. The small tail wagged a few times and the pup opened her eyes. She struggled to her feet and wobbled over to the edge of the box where Jake picked her up. Gently, he scruffed her head while she licked his hand.

The Thing in the Marsh

by Jason Muller

Deep in a Louisiana swamp after dark, there are some locals you don't want to meet. ___________________________________________________________ Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.

—Matthew 7:15

I

remember it clearly. We were standing beside our bicycles in the vast countryside, watching the sun touch down in the west. The Louisiana landscape was bathed in dusk, and the weeds cast thin shadows which grew against our feet. These were the conditions of the world before we stepped into the marsh.

I am much older now than I was when it happened.

I was only ten years old when my cousin, Ellis Breaux, lured me into that treacherous swamp. Although at the time he was only fourteen, I was intimidated by the small age gap between us. And I suppose this, combined with my adolescent curiosity, is what encouraged me to go with him one evening into the marsh, where deep within existed something that, according to him, was amazing and unbelievable. All I can say now is that he was right. What I’m about to share with you is something I’ve struggled to understand in full, and though my account may be perceived as nothing more than myth or legend, I can at least die knowing that I’ve exposed one of the darker dimensions of this world. This is the story of the Thing in the Marsh.

It was a summer weekend, late July. My mother and I had come down from Houston to visit her sister, Aunt Sarah, and Ellis in south Louisiana. Although we only visited once a year, I loathed going to their old, decrepit house, which stood along an isolated dirt road a few miles past the town of Iberville. Ellis’s dad, my Uncle Louis, had died two summers before. I don’t remember much about him, except that he was a drunken crawfish farmer, and that he’d died one afternoon while harvesting traps from the fields. Two days after he’d been missing, Ellis found his bloated corpse floating in the shallow, stagnant water. The coroner had said Uncle Louis drowned, and a brief investigation concluded that no foul play was involved.

Anyway, I always knew we were close to the town when the roads began to worsen and the green flatland became dotted with ailing houses. When the water tower began to rise above the distant tree line, 13

declaring IBERVILLE in black letters, I’d steel myself for the long weekend ahead. I told myself that on this visit—I would not tolerate any of his antics, and I intended to stand by this.

Though I much preferred the modern conveniences of Houston, the cultural richness ingrained in Iberville was interesting. It possessed the look that all old southern towns have: the haggard townspeople; the quintessential barber’s pole; the old men who sit outside store fronts, smoking and whispering beneath sluggish ceiling fans.

Like the townspeople, the buildings lining the streets possessed an aspect of classic neglect, with their crumbling white brick or weathered cypress, and with their corrugated metal roofs orange with rust. The dialect itself was exclusive to the area.

Many locals spoke a version of French—Cajun French—which, over several centuries, had become influenced by words of the Spanish, the Choctaw Indians, and the slaves. It was a language crafted by the tongues of the Acadians, whose ancestry painted south Louisiana with song and lore and mythical beasts. My mother, a professor of French literature at the University of Houston, had taught me Cajun French, which complemented the French classes I’d been taking in middle school.

When we arrived at their house the afternoon was blue and bright. The yard—as always—was severely overgrown, possessing an Amazonian quality. This jungle of a yard was littered with abandoned appliances and an overturned swing set, and an old aluminum boat which lay upon a pile of rotting timber. There was also Uncle Louis’ rusted-out Chevy that Ellis had rebelliously taken out for a drive one afternoon when he was only twelve. He ended up running it off the road and crashing into the front of an old country store. No one was hurt, but the truck never ran again. When Uncle Louis asked him why he did it, Ellis told him that the voices in his head told him to. That’s the story Ellis gave me, anyway, along with all his other stories of mischievous adventure: stealing cigarettes, torturing and killing small animals… You know the kind of stuff I’m talking about. He was one of those kids who needed severe psychiatric help, though I have to admit I felt sorry for him at times. After all, it wasn’t his fault that he’d been born into poverty, or that his parents lacked the insight or desire to find him the proper help.

Anyway, I got out of the car, stretched my limbs, and noticed him peeking through the stained curtains hanging in the front door window. A moment later he came running out of the house and down the steps, greeting us with wild elation.

And so it began.

“Cousin Wes! How you been, bud?” He patted me on the shoulder, hard, and looked at my mother. Then ran up and hugged her. “Hey, Aunt Meg. Man am I happy to see ya’ll. Here, lemme get your bags.”

His hospitality alarmed me. This was a huge change from the Ellis I knew. Also, his voice had changed since the last time I’d seen him. It was now hoarse and raspy; it was puberty, I’d later learn.

Nevertheless, he looked ridiculous in his black muscle T-shirt, and with his crude mullet hairstyle.

“Aunt Meg,” he continued, “I wanna take Wes down the road to show him somethin’. Sarah’s inside, doin’ nothin’ as usual.”

“Just hold on, Ellis,” my mother said with a taming smile. “Boy, you’re awfully anxious. Just give us a minute to get settled in. Let Wesley say hello to his aunt. By the way, since when do you call your mother by her first name?”

“I don’t know. A while back, I guess.” He leaned and picked up her bags. “Come on, Wes. Let’s get these bags inside so we can go, bud.”

Although his actions had seemingly changed for the better, his eyes still possessed that queer, unsettling glaze. I kept my eye on him.

We went to the side of the house and entered through the kitchen. Dishes were piled in the sink, encrusted with moldy food. The linoleum floor was cracked and curled. The place reeked of sour milk. In the living room, cigarette smoke lingered in the shafts of drab sunlight creeping through the windows. Aunt Sarah was lying on the sofa in a dingy pink robe, watching The Andy Griffith Show; various prescription bottles were strewn on the coffee table beside her. She looked up at our entrance and stood wearily—the typical routine followed: she hugged my mother and kissed my cheek with stale cigarette breath. She then looked at my mother with a confused expression and said, “Well…wait a minute… Meg, somebody’s missing. Where’s Kenneth?”

My aunt was not the brightest crayon in the box.

Kenneth was my father—he and my mother had divorced years earlier.

Watching from the open kitchen door, Ellis called to me. “Okay, Wes, let’s go.” Then said to Aunt Sarah, “Hey, me and Wes are goin’ out for awhile. We’ll be back whenever.”

Aunt Sarah mumbled something and returned to 14

the sofa to resume her state of drug-induced tranquility. My mother meanwhile knelt down to align her face with mine.

“Now, Wesley, I know you don’t care much for Ellis, but he’s a good kid inside. He probably just needs a friend.”

“Mom, I don’t want to go with him. He’s mean and teases me. Can’t I just stay with you…please?”

“I need some time alone with Aunt Sarah so we can talk about some adult things.” She combed her fingers through my hair and smiled. “Why don’t you show Ellis your new telescope, hmm? Maybe you could let him see the moon tonight.”

“I don’t know, I guess. But I’m not going to let him use it because he’ll probably break it.”

She grinned. “Just try to be sweet to him, honey.

Try to be a friend. Now go and have some fun, but be back before dark.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She smiled and kissed my forehead; I wiped away the lipstick smudge and went to the kitchen door. She waved and I waved back. She looked like an angel in her white summer dress.

Outside, Ellis was standing beside two bicycles propped up on the dirt driveway. A canteen was holstered at his side; his black backpack drooped from his shoulders with the weight of unknown things.

“Ready to go, bud?”

Anxious to be done with this weekend which had no end in sight, I plainly said, “Where are we going, Ellis? We have to be back before dark.”

He glanced at his camouflage wristwatch. “It’s only four-thirty. Sun doesn’t go down ‘til almost eight.” He snapped his fingers and suddenly changed subjects.

“Say, Wes, you hungry? I got some beef jerky, made it myself.”

He reached into his back pocket and fished out a clear plastic bag, in which were shriveled strips of meat. He took a piece for himself, and then offered me the bag, smiling and chewing. I had no intention of consuming anything he’d made, not after considering the array of vermin from which he might have acquired the meat. I made a dismissive gesture and his eyes sank, as if hurt that I hadn’t accepted his peace offering.

He withdrew the bag. “Well, your loss. I still need to show you somethin’, though. Somethin’ you won’t believe.”

“Can’t you just tell me?”

“I’d rather show you. Besides, you’d never believe me if I just told you. C’mon”—he mounted his bike—“follow me.”

And with that we rolled out of the driveway and

down the dirt road. The afternoon was stifling hot and already my shirt was sticking to my back. It was nice, however, to stretch my legs after the long trip from Houston, and the Louisiana landscape offered a quaint portrait of distant tree lines and scrubby fields that opened up to the blue dome of sky. I tried to remain optimistic.

A

fter pedaling down one dusty road and then another, we reached an empty byway lined with sugarcane fields and countless telephone poles as far as the eye could see. We crossed the byway, bicycled down a path in the field, and then emerged heading south along yet another dirt road. Before long, we came to a muddy bayou with a little wooden bridge; it was old but passable. Riding over the bridge, I noticed a couple of old pickup trucks parked beneath an oak tree on the far left embankment, where a group of men were loading up black duffle bags into a wooden boat. Ellis skidded to stop.

“Wait here, Wes. I gotta go talk to somebody.”

He laid his bike on the bridge and descended the grassy bank.

I watched from the bridge as he approached a man—a giant man—who stood above everyone else. He disturbed me, this man, with his thick arms and broad torso; he was wearing dark sunglasses, which enhanced his formidable impression. Although the top of his head was bald, the hair growing over his ears was gray and puffed out wildly, like some kind of insane clown.

Though they were beyond earshot, I suspected he and Ellis were talking about me. Why? Well, more than once Ellis pointed at me and the giant man looked up in my direction. And as those mysterious lenses beheld me, as his pudgy mouth smiled oddly, I became mesmerized by his visual grip. Ellis continued talking and gesturing to the giant while the other men loaded up the bags into the boat, but all this seemed to occur in slow motion.

Suddenly, I was broken from my trance by the sound of breaks squeaking to a stop behind me. I turned to see a police car, now parked and idling on the bridge. The driver opened the door and slowly stepped out of the vehicle. His dark mustache was thick and his silver Sheriff’s badge gleamed in the torrid afternoon; his sidearm looked firm and solemn in its holster. After removing his hat and running his fingers through the bristles of his flattop, he just stood there with his elbows resting atop the open door, studying Ellis and the group of men, all of whom in turn studied the Sheriff in a guilt-frozen posture, as if caught in the act of some offense. After a moment of keen observation, the Sheriff rolled his head over to 15

me and spit a stream of tobacco juice which slapped the bridge like a liquid whip. When he spoke, his accent was of a thick Cajun aspect.

“Don’t believe I seen you around here before.” He looked down at my feet and pointed. “Back tire’s a little flat, yeah. Need to air it up so you don’t damage da rim. Dat wouldn’t be good, no.”

I looked down at the tire, then back up at the Sheriff. “It’s for my cousin…Ellis.” I pointed toward the bank to identify him.

“Ellis?” You’re kin to Ellis Breaux?” he said in disbelief.

“Yes,” I said nervously. “He’s my Aunt Sarah’s son.”

Shaking his head, the Sheriff spat again, licked his lips.

“Let me tell you sometin’, boy, you just stay outta trouble, you hear? Dat Ellis ain’t nuttin but a problem child.” His eyes crawled to the embankment. “Yeah…I got my eye on him. I got my eye on all dem fellas widdim, too.”

We both stared below, the men still gazing intently at the Sheriff. Somewhere behind me, a crow cried.

The Sheriff went on: “Say, where you from anyway?

Dallas? Houston?”

“Houston,” I said, impressed with his intuition.

“Houston, eh? What dey call you?”

“Excuse me?”

“Your name, son, your name.”

“Oh…Wesley.”

“Wesley what?”

“Fruge. Wesley Fruge.”

“Hmm, I know me some Fruges,” the Sheriff said reflectively.

Just then static issued from the dispatch radio inside the car, and a voice began dictating police jargon. The Sheriff tilted his head to listen, and then looked up sighing.

“You just stay clear of trouble, Wesley Fruge, and get dat tire aired up.”

“Yes, sir.”

He glanced one last time at Ellis and at the group of men, who were slowly returning to their deed.

Before I could ask his name, the Sheriff got in his car, backed it up to the road, then, sirens blaring, sped off behind clouds of suspended dust. I watched until the siren faded to a dull whisper. And then I heard Ellis’s voice behind me.

“Hey…Wes. What did Sheriff Huval want?”

I couldn’t tell whether he looked frightened or confused. Nevertheless I shrugged and said, “I don’t know. He just asked who I was and where I was from.”

“He didn’t say anythin’ else?”

“No, not really,” I lied.

Ellis narrowed his eyes. “You sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

“Good. Now let’s get movin’.”

While pedaling past the bridge, I asked Ellis about the man with the crazy hair. He chuckled and said he was a Mr. Walter Broussard, and that we might be seeing him later.

W

e bicycled down overgrown trails canopied with trees, down paths flanked by old barbed wire fences entwined with wild flora. We went left and right and then left again, more fields, more open country. But at last we traveled a woody trail which ended at a leaning cattle gate, and on this gate was a faded sign: NO TRESPASSING. Ellis dragged the gate open, scraping the knee-high grass.

And so there we were, standing beside our bikes, nothing before us but a vast meadow and distant tree line, over which the evening sun hovered. Egrets crept among the expanse, their beaks angled down in hunt.

Lonely oak trees, infested with Spanish moss, shaded the ground.

Ellis raised his bony arm and pointed toward the tree line, grinning with uneven rows of yellow teeth.

“There it is,” he said with some perverse pleasure.

“There’s the woods. Inside them woods is the marsh.”

Dusk was gathering quickly, and the clouds looked like red decrepit fingers. I was tired after the long trip from Houston, and from riding around all day with Ellis. I just wanted to go back home to my mother.

“Why do we have to go in the woods this late, Ellis?

My head hurts and I think I need to go back to the house and lay down.”

Ellis raised his chin and stared with contempt.

“Why, Wes—you scared?”

I surveyed the primal land and saw nothing that had been created by the hands of man. No houses. No public roads. There was only wild vegetation depicting the stark mystery of south Louisiana. I realized that I was completely lost, though I was intent on disguising my fear.

“I’m not scared, Ellis.”

“Sure you ain’t, cousin. Surrrre you ain’t.”

“I’m not. I can make it.”

“All right then,” said Ellis, dropping his bike to the ground. “Let’s see if you can keep up.” And with that he darted off, blazing a trail through the uncultivated earth.

“Wait!” I cried, and began sprinting. “Don’t leave me, Ellis!”

Weeds brushed against my bare legs and insects flitted up and away, buzzing.

Before long I was at the fringe of the woods, where 16

Ellis was waiting with arms crossed.

“Took you long enough, slow poke. Come on.”

After using his hands to rip through a curtain of tangled foliage, and his feet to flatten blackberry brambles and other herbaceous growth, Ellis stepped into the woods. Following close behind, I turned to take one last look at the world—then reluctantly entered the woods.

Although I had regarded them with a dark sense of foreboding, I was amazed at the interior beauty of those woods. Sunlight pierced the boughs, spraying bars of light everywhere. Beams fell here upon dangling vines and danced there upon infant oaks sprouting fresh, green growth. Having never seen anything so vivid, I stared in awe.

“Don’t just stand there like a fool,” Ellis said. “We got a ways to go. You’re gonna be more amazed at what I’m about to show you. It’s unbelievable.”

As we trudged along, the woods grew increasingly thick and far less attractive. The sun was dying, and shadows moved swiftly among the towering pines and massive oaks looming over me. Worst of all was the onslaught of mosquitoes—giant ones, too— buzzing and biting me all over. Not long into our expedition, Ellis reached into his backpack, shielding the contents from me, and withdrew a can of insect repellent.

“Can I have some?” I said weakly.

Spraying himself down, Ellis said,” What for?

Skeeters eatin’ you up?”

“Just let me have some, Ellis. They’re biting me all over the place.”

He looked up at me, narrowing his eyes. “Ohhh, I see. Now you want somethin’ of mine, huh. Your big cousin’s jerky wasn’t good enough, but his insect spray sure is.”

“I wasn’t hungry.”

“Quit whinin’, you wimp. You’re nothin’ but a big sissy.”

He marched toward me with dangerous eyes and pushed me; his true colors at last. This was precisely the reason why I hated being with Ellis. His actions were often whimsical and outlandish. I tried to speak bravely, yet had difficulty in concealing the fear that tainted my voice.

“Don’t call me that, Ellis.”

“Don’t call you what?”

“You know what you said.”

“Say it then. I wanna hear what I called you?”

He nudged my shoulder, provokingly. I then made the meanest face I could, and surprised myself when I said: “I’m not going to put up with this, Ellis! This is ridiculous. If you touch me again I’ll…I’ll fight you.”

I don’t know where the words came from, but it

sure felt good to say them.

At this he laughed and put his hand across his midsection, exaggerating his glee. “That’s hilarious.

Shut up and follow me.” He began to walk away. I, however, did not move.

Ellis sensed my stillness and turned. “Well, come on.”

Like the trees, I rooted my feet to the ground; I wasn’t going anywhere.

“Now look,” he said, pointing, “don’t make me drag your coward ass. Just remember, these Louisiana woods ain’t got no road signs or street lights like fancy ole Houston does. I can take off runnin’ and leave you here for the bears to feast on. How’d you like that?”

He observed the woods thoughtfully. “Matter of fact, I think I saw some tracks earlier.”

Although Ellis was a compulsive liar, I knew black bears did indeed inhabit the area. While turning this over in my mind, something in Ellis’s demeanor suddenly changed.

He sighed, walked over, and rested his hand on my shoulder. “Aww, come on, cousin. I don’t mean no harm. I’m just anxious, is all.” He took the can from his bag and sprayed me down with the insect repellent. “Here, bud, let’s get taken care of so you don’t get all ate up.”

I must say that this new, sympathetic Ellis surprised me, and I couldn’t help but sense some dark ulterior motive at work. Nevertheless, there would be no story to write had I not then decided to follow Ellis forward.

He packed up the spray and I uprooted my feet, and together we wandered deeper into the marsh.

D

arker and darker the world became, until at last all that illuminated the woods was the blue glow of the moon, which guided us along a path whose texture became sinister underfoot.

Low-hanging branches clawed at my arms and face, and although my eyes had adjusted somewhat to the night, I perceived nothing comforting about the gloom in which I was now imprisoned. Ellis stayed ahead of me, brandishing a stick he’d picked up along the way, his silhouette gliding through the woods like a phantom. Occasionally, he’d glance over his shoulder, making sure I still followed.

When I’d become irritated with the impassable terrain, I’d ask him where we were going and he would assure me that we weren’t very far away. But I began to grow impatient, wondering why he refused to tell me about this “amazing discovery” that he so desperately wanted me to see; however, not long before I was about to question Ellis yet again, he stopped and looked left then right, as if looking for 17

something lost.

“It’s around here somewhere.” Cursing under his breath, he stepped up onto a knobby mass of oak roots, his eyes probing deeper into the woods. “Ah, there it is.”

“There’s what?”

He turned to me and said. “Come and check this out, cousin.

I want you to meet some of my ancestors.”

Ancestors?

Ellis hopped down from the enormous root. Leaves rustled as he got to his feet. “Probably some of your ancestors, too,” he added.

Curiosity began to put my feet one before the other, guiding them across woody debris which snapped and crunched underfoot. A moment later we came to a small clearing where the moon could be seen floating in an aerial sea of stars. But looking below the stars, below the black tree line, I realized we were no longer among the living. No. We were amid jagged rows of brick tombs and stone crosses dark with mildew. Vines crept and twisted like serpents amongst the ghastly real estate. I was perplexed.

“A cemetery? Here in the woods? Who are these people? Where—” “Why don’t you shut up so I can tell you, Wes?” Ellis approached a rectangular brick tomb where a fallen tree lay angled across the top. “Wait here while I check somethin’.” He walked around it and all I could see was his head and long neck. He dropped behind the tomb, disappearing. I, meanwhile, sidled between the weathered headstones, some of which bore French epitaphs, while others bore the faded impression of a rebel flag. I was sure to note the surnames—FRUGE, BERTRAND, BREAUX...—inscribed on several stones. A moment later, Ellis poked his head over the top of the tomb and tossed a small chunk of brick at me.

“Pssst. Wes. Come check this out, bud.”

“What is it?”

“It’s Arnold Bertrand…”

Reluctant though alive with intrigue, I went round the tomb and saw that the tree had caved in almost the entire side wall, exposing a dark hole surrounded by crumbling brick that reminded me of a gaping mouth with stony red teeth. I knelt down beside Ellis, peered into the tomb, and saw shards of moonshine swimming upon mortar and rubble and dead leaves and—a corpse.

“What the…”

Ellis sneered, pushed me aside, and crawled inside the tomb.

“What are you doing?” I said.

“I want you to meet Arnold Bertrand.” He cleared away some rubble, lay beside the body, and propped himself up on his elbow. My uncouth cousin then proceeded to handle the poor soul like a ventriloquist would his puppet.

“Hey, ya’ll. My name’s Mr. Arnold. You boys oughtn’t be travelin’ these parts of the swamp alone, especially you there, Mr. Wesley.”

It was the first time I’d ever seen a dead body, and that ghoulish image is still strong in my imagination. I turned and dashed away from there, stopping about twenty feet away.

“You’re crazy!” I yelled, terrified and damn angry.

“You scared me to death. Why did you have to drag me all the way out here for that?”

He emerged from the tomb, laughing, and languidly tossed another piece of brick at me.

“Oh, lighten up, Wes. Ain’t you ever seen a dead person before?”

Right then I felt the bitter pangs of nostalgia. I felt something very sinister in motion. I, too, felt shadows breathing against my neck, and I heard the wind hissing and whispering my name—Wesssley—slowing at last to a quiet breeze which wafted the moonsilvered coins that were the leaves overhead. I’d had enough. My body and mind had had enough. Feeling nauseous I knelt down, closed my eyes, and covered my ears with trembling hands. Ellis had shown me the horrible thing that he’d dragged me out here to see, and I wanted no longer to be in his presence. I tried to muster the strength to escape him and take my chances with the woods. I would just turn around and run in the direction we came from. I opened my eyes and stood with renewed vigor—then realized I was all alone. Ellis had abandoned me.

“Ellis,” I called. “Ellis!” I cried. “Ellis!” I screamed as loud as I could, looking frantically this way and that, the trees mocking my terror with ancient laughter.

I heard something click behind me and spun to see Ellis holding a flashlight beneath his chin; his face glowed like a malign jack-o-lantern.

“Ain’t no turnin’ back now, little cousin. I still haven’t shown you the real thing I’ve been tellin’ you about. This was just a warm-up.”

I didn’t have the courage to brave the woods alone; this I reluctantly accepted. And though we were already at the ends of the earth, we went deeper still into the marsh.

T

he darkness was everlasting. Unseen choirs of toads droned in the night. More than once I glanced 18

over my shoulder to foreign sounds, which scampered away into obscurity. Ellis led, bathing the trees with the flashlight.

I lagged behind, ignoring him whenever he’d turn to me and smile wickedly into the flashlight. Oh, how I hated him for dragging me into that abysmal marsh. I was even angry with myself for allowing him to do it. Nevertheless there I was, along for the ride, optimism long dead.

Not long after leaving that dreadful cemetery, the texture of the wilderness began to change. My feet sank into spongy carpets of damp leaf and rotting wood. The odor of the place was pungent, like rotten eggs. Before long Ellis stopped and concentrated on something ahead.

“Come here,” he said, motioning me forward.

I walked up beside him—yet again—and traced the object of his gaze down an embankment.

It was a bayou. No more than twenty feet wide.

Ellis lowered himself over the edge. “Down we go, cousin.”

Without a word I followed, grabbing roots and digging my heels into the muddy slope. At the bottom, Ellis surveyed up and down the moon-frosted water. I didn’t say a word.

“There,” he said with discovery in his voice, pointing across the bayou, where a wooden boat (was it the one I’d seen earlier?) was secured by rope to a cluster of cypress knees. “We’re gonna have to cross.

There should be a trail just past that boat. Just be patient, Wes. I promise it’ll all be over soon and then we can go back home.”

I didn’t like the way the bayou looked, and I was afraid that deep below the water’s surface, an alligator might be lying along the sludgy bottom, ready to paddle itself up and snap at my ankles with its powerful jaws, and then bring me down below for a death roll. It felt as if I were about to cross over to a merciless place, but what was I to do? What I did do was sit upon a cypress stump and cross my arms defiantly.

Ellis, meanwhile, slung his backpack over the bayou; it bounced off the boat and landed onshore.

As he began wading into the water, he looked at me and slouched. “What the hell you doin’, Wes?” He waded out of the water. “I know you ain’t poutin’ again.” He walked through the mud and gripped my shoulders and pushed me into the water. My head went under and I emerged gasping and flailing my arms.

“Come on, now, cousin. It ain’t nothin’ but a little water.”

Ellis waded back in and swam past me. I had no choice but to follow him.

The water was warm. Swimming across, I felt something that may have been driftwood graze my leg. After reaching the bank and hoisting himself up beside the boat, Ellis squatted and waited for me to cross, then extended his hand to help me out of the water. He then did something that I never could’ve anticipated.

I reached up and our hands locked—but he didn’t pull me up. Instead, he just smiled and said, “Look…over there.” He thrust his nose up, indicating some place to my left. “You see that?”

I looked and saw nothing but the moon peering though where the trees did not meet. But when I lowered my gaze upon the water, I saw something moving across the surface. Only a few feet away. The shape of an S, slithering toward me. I immediately recognized the creature, and the fear which had been escalating all evening became ever palpable.

“Help me up!” I cried, thrashing in vain to pull myself out of the water. “Ellis, help me up…please!”

Despite my panic, Ellis just smiled, tightened his grip, and calmly said: “Moccasin. Pretty venomous, too. Few months ago, some kid from town was foolin’ around in the pond behind old Mr. Alleman’s gas station. You know what happened to the poor kid, Wes?” Ellis’s grip grew increasingly strong, the snake meanwhile slithering closer and closer, so close that I could see its eyes gleaming like twin diamonds.

“I said do you know what happened to him!” Ellis repeated.

“What? What happened to him? Hurry, Ellis!”

“Well… moccasin sunk its teeth into the poor kid’s wrist. Then his face got all swelled up and he started spittin’ blood and his body started shakin’ all crazy like on the ground. No one really knows what happened to the damn kid after that, and do you know why, Cousin Wes?” “Why, why, why...”

A few inches away...

“Because I made the whole story up.” Ellis jerked me out of the water, laughing as he did. I staggered ashore and fell face down with my cheek pressed against the cool mud. I spun my head and watched the snake swim gracefully downstream. I am not an illtempered person, but there, on the shores of that bayou, I became consumed with purified rage.

I scrambled to my feet and clenched my fists and lurched toward Ellis with a savage roar. We fell to the ground as one and began rolling and writhing among twigs, leaves, and swamp-slop. I managed to free my arms and land a blow to his stomach, whereupon he groaned and I swung again, this time hitting the 19

center of his chest. I went to strike his face, but as I did he parried the blow and wriggled free and my knuckles smacked the earth. He then reached for a downed branch, gripped it like an All-Star, and swung it across my face with merciless intent.

I can’t remember falling, but I do remember lying on my back and staring up at sea of gray haze, in which was my mother’s face and comforting voice. I reached out to her, but when my fingers touched her image, she rippled like a reflection in water…and disappeared. And then I saw Sheriff Huval’s face enter the haze, and he said nothing…and then there was darkness.

When at last I reentered consciousness, my jaw ached and throbbed. I touched my left cheek and winced at the sting, then brought my fingers down to see them laced with congealing blood. I struggled to recall my surroundings, and when the world came into focus, there was Ellis, setting me up against a tree trunk.

“Hey, man, you alright? Jeez you had me scared.

You’ve been out for almost fifteen minutes.”

He blotted my wound with a rag, all the while uttering apologies.

“Man, I’m sorry things got so outta hand. I promise to never hit you again, cousin.”

“Home…,” I muttered. “I want to go back home.”

“I know you do, Wes. We’re headed back home.

We’re not gonna go back through the bayou to get there, either. Your big Cousin Ellis knows another way.”

“No bayou… No snakes…”

He poured water from his canteen over my head and it was cool and dripped over my ears.

“No bayou and no snakes,” he assured. “I’m sorry, Wes. Do you forgive me?”

At this point I was willing to say anything that would expedite my return home. I told him yes, and Ellis said “I forgive you too, cousin.

And remember—we’ll always be cousins, no matter what.”

I wasn’t quite sure what this was supposed to mean. Nevertheless, he sprayed me down with more insect repellent and helped me to my feet, and I felt much better upon standing. Then, with Ellis leading the way, we began trekking through the marsh. More than once along the way, I thought I heard the distant baying of a dog.

T

he path was treacherous. We walked upon a narrow strip of land flanked by a cypress bog, where mist hovered over the water like humble ghosts. The swamp produced new sounds that terrified my imagination—things hopped and skipped here and

there. Although I didn’t have a watch, I relied on the night sky as my timepiece. Based on the position of the full moon, relative to Saturn (which I’d been tracking all month long with my telescope) I figured that it was anywhere between 11:00 p.m. and 12:00 a.m. I also suspected that we were still heading south, still farther away from home.

Just as I was about to confront him about our progress, I heard what sounded like drums beating in the distance, like some tribal tonality. And after stopping and glancing curiously around, I noticed a faint, orange glow breaking the darkness ahead. Ellis gasped at the sight and turned to me quickly.

He said, “You hear that? You see that light ahead, Wes?” “Where are we, Ellis? I thought you said we were going back home.”

“We are, but we can’t go back now. We’re so close.”

He pointed toward the glow, smiling. “This is what I wanted show you, bud.”

The idea of hiking that monstrous terrain all evening, only to turn away when we were so close to this monumental thing he wanted to show me, is what compelled me to follow Ellis toward the enigmatic light. It’s strange, but curiosity can make you do things you typically would not. We meandered stealthily up the trail, the glow growing brighter and the drums becoming louder.

But among the percussions was another sound which made my blood run cold: I heard monotonous chanting rising up from the glow. So ominous were the voices that I stayed close to Ellis.

Just where in the hell were we? I thought, trying to decipher the language.

The trail ended at a cluster of trees so thick that even the moon did not render its luminosity. Weaving through this thicket, we came to the border of a clearing encircled by trees. We stayed low in the shadowy undergrowth and crawled behind a massive log infested with fungus. Here we lay on our bellies and cast our eyes through the outcropping and into the fiery glow. And what I saw there I fear to even recall. But I must—and will.

Lurking in this place aglow were figures cloaked in white gowns adorned with strange symbols embroidered in red (one of these symbols was a fleur de lis). No more than ten of these figures were standing in a circle around a bonfire, their arms stretched to the sky as if in prayer to some cosmic deity. I turned to Ellis, searching his sweat-glistened face for some meaning, but he merely looked on in fascination, his queer eyes intensified by the fire’s reflection. Turning back to the spectacle, I noticed 20

something new among the ceremony.

Staring between the cloaked figures, toward the center of the fire, I noticed a wooden stake protruding from the ground. It was slightly taller than a man, about the thickness of a two-by-four, and looked not unlike a place where sacrifices might be performed.

Disturbed by the suggestion of this stake, as well this entire gathering, I turned to Ellis once more, but once more Ellis had abandoned me. Distraught, reluctant to cry out for fear of being heard, I craned my neck this way and that, desperate to locate my cousin, but like a phantom he had vanished. Moments later, however, I saw his shape tip-toeing out of the darkness behind me—and I knew immediately that I was in danger.

Before I could throw up my arms in defense, Ellis rushed me and slung a noose over my head and tugged the line taught, until I was restrained beyond speech. I fell on my side, barely able to breathe, clawing frantically at the rope digging into my throat.

I then heard the voice of absolute betrayal. Ellis kneeled atop my writhing body, pinning me down, and screamed.

“I have him! Hey, I have him! Here, here, over here!” Upon hearing this, fear and confusion engulfed my body like a ravenous cancer. He looked into my eyes. “I’m sorry, Wes, but this just has to be done.”

I managed to swivel my face up to his, and in his eyes was not sincerity but a world of sheer treachery.

The prospect of death soon relegated my body to a state of docile immobility, and as I lay against the damp earth, Ellis fastened a handkerchief around my head, shrouding my eyes.

In this new darkness, I heard multiple footsteps approaching me; in this new hell, unseen hands began to prod and grope my body like demons fighting for my soul. I was brought to my feet and then dragged away, my legs trailing behind me. I knew that I was being hauled to the clearing, for my skin detected the fire’s growing warmth.

Before long my captors pulled me to my feet, and then I was turned and felt the stake against my back.

My arms were pulled behind me and bound tightly around the stake. My feet were pulled together and they, too, were bound. With the heat of the fire at my back, with fear gripping me like a rusty vise, I tried in vain to wriggle free.

A moment later my blindfold was removed, restoring my vision to a new chapter of horrors. I first saw the black treetops stirring before me in the distance, where above hung a bloated yellow moon.

Gazing below, I noticed that the cloaked figures were lined up on either side of me, their faces covered with

white, conical hoods.

The drums commenced from some place behind me, and the white figures knelt in unison and bowed their heads as if in prayer. But there was one figure that remained standing. A figure cloaked not in white but in black, wearing a headpiece depicting a black wolf, and holding a giant black book of some antiquity. This figure (we will call him Wolfman) then raised his right arm out to his side and pointed at the row of figures on my left. He made a “come here” motion with his finger, and out stepped a shorter figure that I knew was Ellis—I could see the white gown dancing over his black converse sneakers; he looked like a stupid kid dressed in an over-sized Halloween costume. Together they started toward my position.

Now, standing before me, Wolfman signaled to Ellis, who then squatted and began barking wildly and hopping around me like some demonic spawn.

Without touching me, he then began to imitate biting me ravenously, growling like a mad dog. I slammed my eyes shut to avoid this awful sight. I visualized Sheriff Huval’s gun, wishing I had it with me. Though I had no idea how to use it, I would have found a way.

Ellis then completed this…grotesque initiation (which I now believe is what it was) by kneeling before Wolfman, who made some bizarre hand gestures, as if ordaining Ellis into this sacred clan. My Cain of a cousin then returned to the assembled row and slotted himself back in. And this is when it all happened. This is when the true horror manifested itself, and I tremble now as I write this, for this is the closest I’ve come to the Thing in the marsh since that night.

As Wolfman parted the book and selected a page, the drums began to rise in intensity. And when the drums reached a cacophonous roar, he raised a hand and the drums suddenly died. He then began to speak in a tongue with which I was all too familiar; his voice echoed throughout the wilderness as he intoned: Oh, loup puissant, nous appelons le chien antique Oh, loup sombre, se réveille des arbres Loup Garou—Loup Garou l'esprit qui marche pendant la nuit Loup Garou—Loup Garou Boire votre sang précieux But knowing French all too well, I heard this: Oh, mighty wolf, we call the ancient dog Oh, dark wolf, awake from the trees Werewolf—Werewolf The spirit that walks the night 21

Werewolf—Werewolf Drink your precious blood The assembly recited this incantation again and again, louder and faster.

Hearing this, I grew numb—paralyzed. My heart felt like a cold stone knocking against my ribs. The gash on my face throbbed with each relentless pulse. And then something even weirder happened.

When the recitation reached a level of impossible speed and strength, everything became still, as if frozen in time by a spell. The trees stopped stirring.

The shadows cast by the fire ceased to dance upon the ground. All became cold and eerily silent—and then it came. A monstrous howl, thin and shrill, issued from some place deep within the swamp. And then came a series of howls, each one growing in proximity, each one carving the stagnant ambiance with omens of death.

The assembly turned and faced the keening wail.

Wolfman turned, as well, and when he did I could see the back of his mask, which revealed wild gray hair. I then began to vaguely understand, for this was the disturbing man, Walter, I’d seen from the bridge. Oh, Ellis…you poor soul.

Nothing before or since has exceeded the horror of what I saw next. As if spewed forth from the pits of hell, a giant canine beast came scurrying out of the woods beneath the moon, kicking up dead leaves and scrub, racing toward me with some raw and magnetic instinct. The creature then slowed to a trot, stood on his hind legs, and began walking upright, its fists clenched, its teeth barred, its ears pricked hideously atop its head. I was hoping to awake from a nightmare, though even nightmares are never this palpable—and words are simply too primitive a tool in conveying the severity of this moment.

My eyes were incapable of averting, for fear had seized them upon the grotesque Thing before me. I pressed my feet involuntarily into the earth, and with my back struggled to loosen and dislodge the stake—all efforts were in vain. Surrendering to my binds, I watched as the Thing came to within ten feet of me. Unbelievable was the height of this creature.

Unbelievable, too, was the stench—a repulsive animal pungency—exuding from the Thing. Wolfman kneeled like a loyal servant, and bowing his head at the Thing’s feet said, “Monsieur.”

In a somber, inhuman voice the Thing replied, “The mighty wolf has come from shadow. What flesh is offered Me?” Wolfman stood and steered his hand toward me.

“Oh, mighty Wolf. We offer thee this boy.”

The Thing regarded me with a snarl. Panic-stricken, I struggled to free my hands. I wiggled and writhed but couldn’t contrive a means of escape. I closed my eyes and cried out. I cried out not with words but with a scream that penetrated the surrounding trees and darkness therein. I cried out to a wilderness void of hope and humanity. I knew Ellis could hear me, and I hoped a remnant of kinship would inspire my rescue—futile was this. Finally, I cried out to my mother, who was beyond the sound of my voice.

When my voice grew hoarse and subsided, I opened my eyes and witnessed the Thing standing before me, its physique muscular and plagued with coarse black hair, thick as wire. As its yellow eyes, ancient and feral, probed deeply into my soul, I weakly muttered, “Please, Monsieur.”

Ignoring my plea, the Thing leaned and sniffed my legs with its protruding snout, its hot, putrid breath seeping into my pores. Circling me, sniffing my back with unbroken concentration, it licked the nape of my neck with an abrasive tongue. Coming around to my front once more, it observed my face. Suddenly the creature raised a monstrous paw and gripped my jaw, then shifted my face left then right, leaning in farther to inspect my face. I tried to recoil, but its grip was unnaturally strong. At last the Thing released me and stepped back. Something then followed that I still struggle to understand, but it happened, and this is why I am alive to tell this story.

Visibly angered, the beast flexed its brutal muscles, barred its pointed teeth, raised its snout to the sky and roared: “Who offers Me this imperfect sacrifice? What fool has summoned Me from shadow to feast upon the ailing? One shall die in its stead!”

The assembly began shifting their heads to each other, whispering amongst themselves. The beast, turning to Walter, drew back its mighty arm and backhanded the wolf mask, knocking it to the ground, exposing a frightened and bewildered man.

“Monsieur…,” stammered Walter. “Monsieur…I don’t understand.”

The beast whirled on me, grabbed my hair, and pointed at the cut on my face with its leathery clawed finger. “Who offers Me this imperfect sacrifice?” It then scanned the crowd, snarling, waiting for a response.

Trembling was the man in the black gown.

Confused and affright was he at this unforeseen development. With my hair squeezed between the Things inhuman grip, my head tilted slightly up, I could see from the corner of my eye Ellis slowly beginning to walk backwards, secretly trying to flee the scene. And then, from the most unlikely place of 22

rescue, Mr. Water raised his arm and pointed.

“It… it is he who has brought this unclean soul.

Yes…yes, it is Ellis Breaux who offers this imperfect sacrifice.”

The Thing rolled its head to Ellis, released my hair, and just stood there, staring at my cousin. Meanwhile, Walter was exuberantly crying: “Yes…it is him. It his him, Monsieur…” He turned to the assembly. “Seize him. Seize Ellis.”

Like starving cats upon a wounded mouse, the assembly began to encroach upon my cousin, who then took off running but was captured by a web of outstretched arms. He fell to his knees, struggling to free himself, crying out words of resistance. And as he turned and twisted to no avail, the Thing ambled up to him and removed his hood. Although Ellis had betrayed me, I felt a pang of remorse upon seeing his face, which was aghast with supreme terror. The Thing looked at him, then at me, then back at Ellis, and said, “Tie this one instead.”

No one moved. No one said a word.

“Tie this one instead!” commanded the beast angrily. It hurried over and ripped away my binds, pulled me away from the stake, picked me up by the shirt, and tossed me away from the madness. I was too baffled to even comprehend the suggestion of this episode, but as I was scrambling to my feet, one of the white figures came running out of the tumult, seized me and began hustling me back into the madness.

The wolf pushed him aside and pushed me as well, pushed me again and again, toward the woods from which I’d come. “Go!” It said. But I just lay there gazing into its feral eyes. “Go…!” It commanded again, this time with warning in its voice.

And so obeying his command, I ran. I ran so fast that my legs felt like wings lifting me off the soil. I dashed out of the clearing and into the marsh once more.

I tripped over timber and raced through gauntlets of outstretched branches. My feet slapped against earth that was neither land nor water. And as I sprinted through the marsh, I heard the desperate cry of Ellis—my poor cousin—seething in the night behind me. I stopped, feeling a conflict of emotion.

And then I heard the unmistakable cry of death.

I fled down a path leading to the bayou. I swam across. Beyond the bayou I had no idea where to go, but I ran with unwavering stamina, never once looking back. Some time later my chest began to burn and my mind went dizzy. Feeling disoriented, I stopped and looked up at the heavens to try and gain some balance, but as I did the stars began to spin and spiral and the moon faded away—and for the second time that night I fell into darkness.

When

I awoke in the brisk morning, I was greeted with trees, green and grand, standing over me like tender guardians. Above them the sky was blue and the sun flashed in the boughs. Somewhere a woodpecker filled the morning with intermittent bursts of beak on wood. I stood up wearily, unable to recall how I’d fallen asleep. And then the memory of the night entered my mind. Though the day was alive, I wanted out of the woods. Spinning around frantically, I saw a meadow beyond the trees and ran to it. Here, the sky was glorious and the wings of waterfowl muttered in the wind. At first I saw no civilization, but shading my eyes to better scan the horizon, I saw the water tower hovering over a distant tree line like a beacon of hope. I darted through the meadow, morning dew kissing my feet. And after crossing the field and tearing through more trees, I came to a dirt road and crossed that too, the water tower growing larger, tears welling in my eyes at the forethought of my mother’s embrace. But then I heard a familiar sound; the comforting sound of a siren.

I turned to see Sheriff Huval getting out of the car, trotting toward me, yelling my name. I ran to him and threw my arms around his waist and stained his shirt with tears. He knelt down and said, “We been lookin’ all over for ya’ll, Wesley.” He looked curiously over my shoulder. “Where’s Ellis?”

Riding in the car, fighting back tears, I told him what had happened. I told him about Ellis and the Thing in the marsh. And although I didn’t know where exactly in the marsh it had happened, he called and requested a search unit, then said to me: “Werewolf, huh?”

When we pulled into the driveway my mother shot out of the house. I knew she had stayed up all night worrying about me, for her eyes were swollen and she was wearing the same white dress. We ran to each to each other and she lifted me from the ground and wept—and as I absorbed the warm tenor of her beating heart, I felt my fear begin to thaw.

I

’ve never been back to Louisiana and I never will.

My mother went back for Aunt Sarah’s funeral a few months later, and she understood why I refused to go.

They never did find Ellis’s body. In fact, they never found any bodies or blood, but they did find the smoldering ashes of the fire. Not far from this, in the nearby brush, they found Ellis’s backpack, which contained a dirty magazine, a few crumbled-up one dollar bills, and a tin of Skoal. Walter Broussard—if that was his name—was never found, despite the best efforts of Sheriff Huval and the Iberville police to 23

locate him. They also found a series of large footprints which a local hunter claimed were merely those of a wild dog.

Life slowly regained a sense of normalcy in the years following, but a day never passes that I don’t think about that night.

I visited the university archives multiple times, studying every bit of literature that I could pertaining to lycanthropy (the study of werewolves) and French lore, but never found anything of substance that might clarify and possibly repress the torment of my experience.

Following in my mother’s footsteps, I became a professor of French literature, and together we established distinguished teaching positions at the University of Kansas. But I never speak nor hear the language without recalling the memory of that unholy mantra. And often, while gazing through my scope at the moon and the great cosmos beyond, I ponder deeply the concepts of logic, religion, and science, for all these human fundamentals acquired new meaning on that night in the marsh, and still I can only speculate as to what other dimensions dwell beyond our radius of understanding.

Stickman

by Christopher Green Evil wants a trade... but for what? ___________________________________________________________

On my eighth day of paternity leave, I found the

first stickman at the end of our driveway. It was a frog, internally crucified on a pair of sharpened sticks that protruded from its mouth, anus, and shoulders.

The wood made the tight skin bulge.

I picked it up and hid the thing beside the house.

Katherine might check the mail if Oliver ever went to sleep, and I didn’t want her to find the horrible little thing.

When I went back inside to find Jason, he was almost ready for school. "Have you got all your stuff?"

I asked.

My nine year-old nodded. Before I’d found the grotesque little Christ figure he'd left for me, I’d convinced myself he was coping well with a new addition to the family. If this was his outlet, though, it had to stop.

"Grab your lunch and let's go. Don’t forget to run upstairs and kiss your mother." She was in the bedroom, feeding Oliver after a night of interruptions.

I went out and warmed the car up, and a minute or two later he came out the front door, lunch box in hand.

The school was only a couple of blocks away.

Walking distance, really, if it were a summer morning and not a blustery, February one. But my job rarely gave me a chance to drive him, and so I was loathe to turn the drive into an interrogation.

Jason sat beside me, quietly looking out the window, his hands folded neatly in his lap.

"So, what’s it like, being a big brother?" I asked, to break the ice a little.

"It’s good." He was a thoughtful child, normally, and I'd learned that he usually said more if Katherine and I let him sit for a little and didn't presume his silence was the end of his response. "There's a lot more to it than I thought there'd be," he said after a while.

I nodded. "It is a lot of work. Your mother and I really appreciate all of your help, you know."

His turn to nod, a solemn little bounce of his head.

I'd have missed it if I hadn't been looking for it. "I know."

"Just because there's another member of the family, though, doesn't mean we love you any less."

"I'm not worried about that. I know you love me."

24

I drove slower. We were early, and there wasn't any point in rushing to school and missing a chance for him to tell me what was going on. "What are you worried about, then?"

"What if Oliver doesn't love me."

"He will."

"How do you know?"

"Well, you'll be there for his whole life, watching out for him. He'll look up to you. If you're a good big brother, and don't use that power against him, he can't help but love you."

Jason didn't say anything for the rest of the drive. I could see him turning those words over in his head, and when he got out of the car I was certain we'd sorted something out.

When I got home, I went around to the side of the house to better dispose of the frog and couldn't find it anywhere.

K

atherine woke me up that night from a sound sleep. Neither of us had slept very well since we’d brought Oliver home from the hospital. I came out of a deep slumber to find myself already talking. “- no way he needs to eat already, and I changed his diaper an hour ago.”

"I heard a noise." Her breathy whisper against my ear stirred one set of emotions, and her words wound up another.

I rolled out of bed as quietly as I could. Oliver's crib was in the corner of our room, the advice of baby books be damned, and I could hear the light drone of his snores. It was cold, colder than it should have been, and I threw my robe around me.

We leave the bedroom door open a crack, unless it needs to be locked, which hadn't happened for six months or so. I pushed it open wider. By now my eyes were used to the darkness, and I could see the narrow hallway that led past the bathroom, past Jason's room, to the staircase.

It was utterly silent. I heard Katherine stiffen behind me. Whatever she’d heard had spooked her.

The image of the frog, its thin arms dangling, white belly and splayed pelvis bright in my mind. Was Jason at it again? Was he awake, and creeping around the house, or worse? Had he run away?

I closed our bedroom door behind me and took a step toward his room. My foot came down on

something firm and brittle, like a velvet bag full of glass martini stirrers. I felt the dry pop of snapping twigs ride up my leg. I swore under my breath, scared, and turned on the hallway light.

A crow, this time, its open beak stretched wide on the stick that ran through its length. I’d crushed the bird’s left wing, but the right one was still held at full span by the other stick. I saw a few feathers at the other end of the hallway. I turned off the light and opened the bedroom door. "Just the wind, I think, honey."

"Are you sure?"

Oliver's breathing changed, which a few sleepless nights had taught me there was a fifty-fifty chance he'd be screaming in a minute or two. "I'm sure.

Oliver's waking up, sounds like. I'll just go check on Jason and be right back, if he starts crying."

She was already asleep.

I closed the door again and turned the hallway light back on. The crow's dead eyes held the light like milky pearls. I picked the broken body up by the stick that ran through it. It was tacky with blood. I carried the grim totem down the hall to Jason's room.

His door was locked. I stood there, stunned for a moment, the doorknob cool against my hand. The lock had been here when we'd moved in, years ago, and had always been on my list of things to remove. I hadn't, mainly because it had never been an issue.

Jason had never, to my knowledge, locked that door in his life.

I knocked quietly. It was possible, after all, that Jason was asleep. Maybe I’d simply bumped the lock when Katherine and I had kissed him goodnight, or he had when he went to get a drink of water.

There was an answering knock at the front door, down the stairs at my back. I whirled around, but only darkness waited beyond the frosted glass windows at the front of the house.

Jason's door clicked behind me as he unlocked it.

"Dad?" He hadn't opened it yet.

"Stay in there, Jason."

Something scraped at the front door as I descended the stairs and pressed my eye to the peephole. "Who's there?"

Silence.

"I hear you out there."

A pause, then, "I hear you in there, too." The voice was a whisper, rough as the rasp of branch against branch. I had to strain to hear it. If the house hadn't been perfectly still, I would have missed it.

"Get away from here. Get away or I'll call the cops."

"Gifts," the voice said. "Gifts for the boy."

The stairs squeaked behind me. Jason had come 25

out of his room. I must have dropped the bird, because he was holding it by the stick. I could see smears of something dark, blood or bile, on his fingertips.

"Jason," I whispered as forcefully as I could without waking Katherine. "Go back upstairs."

He shook his head. "No way."

My son's never said ‘no’ to me, never disobeyed, so I must have been in shock. It's the only way I can explain the fact that he got past me and unlocked the front door. “You have to give it back,” he said, waving the bird in my face, scolding me with it. “You can’t let him think you kept one.”

I turned on all the outside lights and yanked the front door open. Kittens, this time, three of them, wounds so fresh they hadn’t had time to clot. He’d used branches this time, as thick as my thumb. Some of the ends weren’t sharp enough to get through the skin. These he’d started somewhere easy, a mouth or an eye, and rammed them home until they bulged against the flesh on the other side.

The work looked hurried.

Jason slid past me, and I remembered myself. This guy was still out here, somewhere. The yard was lit up pretty well. It was lawn, mostly, with a couple of rose bushes near the mailbox. Nowhere for someone to hide.

Jason was crying. That is to say, his eyes were leaking, but he didn’t let that stop him from gathering up the splayed kittens and walking them to the rubbish bin I’d put at the curb for collection.

“Don’t throw them out. They’re evidence.”

He looked at me with the same look I’m sure I’d given him a hundred times, whenever he asked something that I found utterly inconsequential, equal parts pity and scorn. “You can’t let him think you’re keeping them, Dad. You can’t let him think you traded, not ever.”

I shuddered. “I’m calling the police.”

That same look again, turned up to eleven. “He was in our house, Dad. Our house. I saw you find the frog this morning, but that’s just because I was eating breakfast when you went outside. I couldn’t go outside and throw it away before you saw it.”

“How long has this been going on?”

“A little while. Ever since you and Mom came home with Oliver.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Jason shrugged, and my heart bled for the boy.

“It’s not an easy thing to tell, I guess.”

“So, how do you know he wants to trade?”

“I just know, is all. If he wanted Oliver he could have just taken him, but he’s got rules he has to

follow.”

I helped him with the kittens, then sent Jason to bed and splashed some water on the front stoop.

When I went upstairs, Katherine and Oliver were still miraculously asleep and my little boy smiled at me when I plucked him from his crib. Oliver slept between us, and eventually I slept too.

T

he next day was Saturday, Soccer Day, as Jason called it. We took Oliver to show him off to the other soccer Moms and Dads and watched Jason score a goal that didn’t seem to mean as much to him as to us.

I scanned the crowds, when the ball went out of bounds, but I didn’t see anyone I didn’t recognize.

It was pizza after the game, then a movie. Jason’s friend Mark wanted Jason to sleep over, and I watched my son lie his way out of it. When Mark changed tact, and asked if he could come over to our house, I jumped in and threw around a few fibs of my own. I don’t know if I was helping Jason or not, but, walking back to the car out of sight of his friends and his mother, he held my hand for the first time in years.

I squeezed, and he squeezed back.

O

n Sunday morning, Jason refused to go to church. He wouldn’t get out of bed for Katherine, and when she dragged the covers off of him he clutched his stomach like he’d been shot and complained of a stomachache. She wasn’t buying. It didn’t help Jason that he’d spent almost every Sunday for the past six months crying wolf, but I knew this time was different.

“Let me talk to him,” I said to her, and she agreed.

I’d gotten pretty good at scanning the ground for stickmen, and she didn’t notice me doing it when I gave her a kiss and guided her to his bedroom door and closed it behind her.

“Jason,” I said once I’d turned around, “Church could be safe.”

“No.” “Oliver will be right there in your mother’s arms, and there will be a lot of people around…”

He yanked open the top drawer of his nightstand and beckoned me over. He had a bible in there, a leather-bound one his grandmother had given him last year. “Look,” he said, his finger tapping the cross on the cover. “No way.”

I nodded. “Okay. Your mom can go on her own.

Do you want Oliver to stay with us, or with her?”

“She needs to stay too.”

“A lot of things might happen here, Jason, but your mother missing Church isn’t going to be one of them.

We can’t tell her too much of this, until we work out what’s going on.”

26

He didn’t say anything.

“Look,” I said, feeling like an attorney, making my case in sound bites. “You hid these stickmen from me, right? Because you thought I wouldn’t understand, or couldn’t help, or whatever. We have to hide them from your Mom for the same reason. Imagine her reaction if she saw those kittens, huh? Or the bird, or God-knows-what you had to clean up before the frog.

She and Oliver will go to Church, and you and I will get through to whoever this guy is that we don’t want to trade. Okay?”

He thought for a minute, and I was sure he could go either way. “All right,” he said at last.

“Fine. I’ll go tell your mother that we aren’t going to church.”

Katherine took it better than I thought. I must have been convincing, though probably the thought of showing Oliver off to our church friends had something to do with it. “I’ll be down in a second,” she said. “I’m just going to check on Jason and bring Oliver down.”

Katherine went upstairs.

It’s funny how the little things are so often the ones that plague our minds. For instance, I cannot decide which sound came first, Katherine’s scream or the Stickman’s voice. He was louder, I am certain of that.

His words filled every room. They crawled along every surface like white ants.

“Gifts,” his voice never rose above a whisper, but it was sibilant. It slid along the banister, out of the grain of the hardwood floor. I was halfway up the stairs before I realized that I’d moved. “Gifts for the boy.”

I slammed my fist into the wall on the way up the stairs, dimly aware of the pain and plaster that dusted my knuckles. “We don’t want your fucking gifts! Get out of our house,” I yelled, spittle flying. I got to Jason’s room and found him on the ground, his hands clapped over his ears, writhing like a fish. “Get up.” I pulled him to his feet. “We’ve got to find it. We’ve got to show him we don’t want his gifts, that we won’t trade anything for Oliver.”

I ducked back into the hallway in time to see Katherine backing out of our bedroom. My first fear was that she’d trip, fall down the stairs, but the look on her face froze my blood.

“Gifts for the boy,” the Stickman’s whisper scritchscratched across my skin. Pushing past Katherine and into the room felt like shoving through briars. Only a year or so ago I remember Jason and I watching Sleeping Beauty, the prince frowning a noble frown and hacking at the offensive thorns that dared to impede his progress.

Oliver, my boy, my bundle, was on the bed, weakly kicking his legs.

He was propped against the headboard. The branch wouldn’t let him scream, but his little fists opened and closed like white roses that couldn’t decide if they should bloom.

“Gifts for the boy,” the Stickman hissed at me from

the corner, and when I turned to him I saw a mass of branches and twine and cast-off rags that had a face of sap and thorn. Jason had come up behind and the thing pointed at him with one of his limbs. “Gifts for the boy.”

Pick up the premiere issue of ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE now at www.blackmatrixpub.com Amazon.com, or ask your local bookseller. An eclectic mix of science fiction, horror, contemporary fantasy and the paranormal packed into 104 pages of new fiction from writers on the rise.

27

Step Up To the Plate

by Adrian Ludens

Sometimes you have to act on the advice you are given. ___________________________________________________________

Joe stood facing the door, quietly gathering the

courage to kill.

He feared that his day, which had started bad, was about to skip ‘worse’ and leap right into nightmare territory.

It started with the cat. Sticks had been acting strange all morning. She would hiss and hump her back whenever Joe or his wife Misty approached, and go streaking away if they got too close. Joe had decided that the cat was either sick or injured, but he didn’t really want to chase her down for a closer look.

Misty- hands on her hips to show she meant businessargued against his decision.

“You need to take Sticks to the vet.”

“I’m sure she’s fine,” Joe said, hoping to appease her. “Besides, it’s a Saturday.”

“You’re the man of the house; why don’t you step up to the plate.”

“Fine.” Joe grunted and tossed his magazine aside.

“But if there’s something really wrong with that cat, we’re putting her down. It’ll be cheaper.”

Misty glared at him as he passed her and plodded toward the stairs. Joe knew he’d hit a nerve; Sticks was the closest they’d gotten to parenthood. As he descended the stairs his wife called after him.

“You’re a heartless bastard, you know that Joe?” “Hey, I’m just frugal,” he retorted. “After all, you wanted me to be the man of the house, right? Well, I made a decision. Sorry you don’t agree with it.”

Joe heard Misty stomping angrily across the floor and wondered what she was so crabby about. He hadn’t done anything -as far as he knew- so he felt justified in sending a little attitude back in her direction.

He got lucky and found the cat almost immediately.

Sticks had taken refuge in a pile of dirty laundry next to the washing machine. She hissed at him as he approached. Joe knelt and spoke softly, trying to soothe the cat. Sticks yowled in reply, but this time made no attempt at flight. He took this as a positive and edged closer. Then Joe saw the cause for all the commotion; the cat was giving birth to a litter of kittens. He could see at least one slimy pink wriggling shape among the folds of clothing. Joe retreated and clambered up the stairs.

Misty had plopped down in his vacant chair and 28

was using the remote to channel surf. Joe fought back a wave of annoyance at her opportunistic claimjumping. Instead he perched on the arm of the chair and placed a conciliatory arm around his wife’s stiff shoulders.

“Sticks is having kittens,” he announced. He didn’t know if she would see this as good news or bad, so he tried to sound as neutral as possible.

Misty swiveled her head and peered suspiciously into his eyes. “Kittens?”

“Yep.” “Joe, we got her fixed, remember?” Misty shrank away from his arm, and he felt as if she were intimating that Stick’s current condition was somehow his fault.

“Well, she’s downstairs right now, giving birth to a litter of kittens, so I don’t know what you want me to do...”

“I want you to go back downstairs and make sure she’s okay!” his wife snapped. “You can’t just leave her alone down in the basement and not deal with this.

Step up to the plate!”

Joe rolled his eyes as he walked silently from the room. He prided himself on being an easy-going guy but his wife’s sudden bout of constant nagging was getting on his nerves. Joe preferred to ‘go along to get along’ but the last couple days had been filled with snide little remarks from her. ‘Make a decision Joe’, ‘You’re the husband, you deal with it’ and his all-time least favorite: the overused little nugget she had just uttered.

“Step up to the plate,” he mimicked sarcastically as he descended the stairs. Sticks and her new litter still appeared to be huddled in the laundry pile. Joe reached up and pulled the string on the naked overhead bulb.

He saw immediately that Sticks was dead.

Her young were swarming over her, feeding. Joe gasped and shrank back a step, appalled. The little bastards weren’t feeding from Sticks, they were feeding on her. Seeing them in the light, Joe realized they didn’t look right. Their mostly hairless bodies were dotted with tufts of wet matted gray fur, like a sweaty old man’s bad comb over. Their narrow heads tapered sharply at their snouts, making them resemble tiny anteaters. Joe noticed that each of the litter appeared to have not one, but three pink rat-like tails

protruding from their hindquarters. As he gaped, one of the litter clambered onto Sticks’ face and began to gnaw. Her left eye popped like a grape. Joe fled from the room, disgusted. He took the stairs two at a time, sped into the kitchen and collided with his wife.

“Damn it Joe! What’s the rush? You nearly bowled me over.”

“Misty, listen...” he found myself at a loss for words. His wife stared at him and shook her head slightly as if already deciding nothing he was about to say would make any sense.

“Something’s wrong with the litter. I think we should call the vet.”

“Oh, so now you’re ready to make a decision.” Misty had folded her arms.

“Just hear me out,” he begged. “Sticks didn’t make it. And the litter, well, they’re pretty messed up.

You should come down and see...”

Misty was now staring at the floor, looking appalled.

Joe thought she was about to blame him for their cat’s passing, as if her death were a direct result of his decisionmaking. Instead she thrust out both arms and pointed both index fingers at the the floor near his feet.

finished. She did not turn to face him. “Get down there and take care of this.”

“Misty, we should call a vet or animal control or something.”

“Get down there and deal with them right now! I don’t care how you do it, but just do it! Step up to the” “All right!” he shouted, cutting her off. Joe hoped his angry tone hid his dismay at having to face the abhorrent litter on his own. He felt afraid, if the truth were told; the little bastards were repulsive.

Joe stalked back down the stairs and edged toward the laundry room. Sticks what little remained- still lay on the pile of clothes, but the litter had scattered across the floor, apparently foraging. From somewhere outside, Joe heard a meadowlark’s song and even more distant, the sound of someone mowing their lawn.

Out there, it was a normal day. But in here...

How many were there in the litter? Joe searched the room, picking out three, four, then five slimy gray aberrations. He shuddered and scanned the room again for a potential weapon. Joe didn’t want to risk ruining his shoes by stomping on all of them. Besides that, he thought they all seemed larger than the one he’d already stepped on. He wondered if that one was the runt of the litter.

The biggest of the ‘kittens’ scampered toward him and he reflexively lifted a foot to kick it. The little beast darted around the foot that had remained planted. That surprised Joe. It looked to him like the creature was trying to make a break for it and had gauged its best chance of escape. But how could a newborn animal have such a keen sense of survival already? He swiveled on his heel and gave the gray thing an awkward backward kick. It squealed and skittered across the floor, landing against a shelving unit. Joe stepped back into the room and quickly closed the door behind him. This, he decided, might prove to be more difficult than he’d first anticipated.

He couldn’t have any of them escaping and wreaking havoc throughout the house. Joe leaned against the

Her young were swarming over her, feeding. Joe gasped and shrank back a step, appalled. The little bastards weren't feeding from Sticks, they were feeding on her.

“WHAT...” she nearly bellowed. “Is stuck to your shoe?”

Joe looked down in surprise. He saw that he had tracked dark red smears across the linoleum and realized the source of the mess was still stuck to the bottom of his left heel. He leaned on the counter and lifted the soiled shoe, crossing it against the opposite knee for a better look. Tufts of gray hair, clots of blood and other smeary remains clung to the heel. Three tails hung limply in different directions, like bloated pink worms.

Joe swiveled and purged his digesting breakfast into the kitchen sink. He realized that he must have inadvertently stepped on one of the ‘kittens’ as he fled the laundry room.

Misty elbowed him aside and he sprawled to the floor.

His wife, finally agreeing with him on something, threw up her breakfast as well.

“Jesus Christ, Joe,” Misty gasped when she had

29

door and realized he was breathing heavily. The one he’d kicked seemed to glower at him with beady black eyes.

Joe scanned the room again and silently rejoiced when he spotted his old baseball bat propped against the wall to his left. It had been hidden from view behind the open door, but now...

“Now you little bastards are gonna get it,” he murmured. Joe realized the derogatory term was actually appropriate; he didn’t think these things had been sired by another cat. What are you? he wondered.

Joe grabbed the handle of the bat and raised it with both hands. Several of the pink and gray abominations regarded him with apparent suspicion. Then one of them squeaked and they scampered forward en masse.

Joe swung at one and missed, the end of the bat hitting the cement floor with a force that stung his palms. Swing again! Quick!

This time his aim was better. The little beast closest to the water heater literally popped under the force of the blow. He raised the bat again but yelped as pain shot through his ankle. Joe realized an attacker had attached itself to his sock and had clawed through it to his flesh. He flailed his leg a few times but it clung fast. God that stings! He swung the bat and dealt the creature a glancing blow. It was enough. The thing tumbled to the cement and landed on its back. It writhed, apparently unable to regain its footing; at least temporarily. Joe drove the bat down and ground it into his attacker until it was a smear of red guts. He felt one of its brothers clambering up the back of his pant leg and swatted at it with the back of his hand.

His flesh crawled where he’d brushed against it.

Another one on my shoe. Get off me, damn it! Joe had to fight to keep from panicking. He kicked hard against the washing machine and sent the one latched onto his foot tumbling away. The other had progressed almost to Joe’s waist by then. He threw all his weight against the laundry room door and was relieved to see a gray and pink form drop to the floor.

Joe laced his fingers around the handle of the bat and drove the barrel down onto the dazed creature. It popped and spurted between the tip of the bat and the cement. Three down and two to go.

Joe wiped away the droplets of cold sweat from his forehead and glanced around the room. The biggest of the litter, the one who’d made the initial escape attempt, glowered at him from a corner. The other survivor -probably the one that had briefly been attached to his ankle, hunkered behind the dryer. Joe could see its three worm-like tails twitching and repressed a shudder.

With the larger one out in the open, Joe knew he 30

might not get a better chance. Okay, Boss, you’re dying first. Keeping his eyes on the beast, he moved his hand along the top of the dryer, feeling his way to the box of laundry powder. He flipped the box’s lid and sank his hand into the grainy chemical cleanser. Joe drew out a fistful of the powder and hurled it into the corner. The detergent did exactly what he hoped it would. As the temporarily blinded creature blinked and twitched in what Joe hoped was pain, he padded forward, raised the bat and brought it down in a murderous arc. Bones crunched and blood squirted.

Just one of you little bastards left now. Joe’s face twisted in a malicious grin. He spun around in time to see the last surviving member of the litter scratching at the crack between the laundry room’s door and frame. He leapt and landed on the creature’s tails. It squealed in dismay and Joe kept pounding it with the bat long after the squeals had stopped.

The adrenaline rush left him suddenly and his muscles felt weak and rubbery. He slumped against the door and gazed around the room, panting. The air was thick with a scent similar to ammonia that made his eyes water. What animal smells like that? He waited for any of the litter he may have missed to appear.

A minute. Two. Ten. After fifteen minutes of alternately waiting and searching, he felt satisfied that he’d disposed of them all. Joe kicked off his gorestreaked shoes by the door and trudged up the stairs.

Misty was sitting in the living room, still channelsurfing. “You do what you needed to?” she asked as her husband entered.

“Yeah,” was all he could say. There was more -so much more- that he wanted to talk to his wife about, but she’d been so sarcastic and hot-tempered lately that he decided it wasn’t worth dealing with just then.

“I’m glad to see you finally step up and be a man,” she announced, validating his trepidation.

“I need to take a shower,” he told her. “Wash the blood and stuff off.”

“Fine, but don’t expect me to clean up that mess down there.”

“I’ll take care of it in a few minutes.”

“Well I hope so. Just because you stepped up to the plate for once doesn’t mean you get a pass the rest of the day.”

On the television screen, two grim-faced cops were leading a defiant man away in handcuffs. Joe found himself wondering how much more of his wife’s verbal abuse he could take before he snapped.

“I said I’d take care of it,” he grumbled. “You’re worse than the cat was this morning.” Misty stiffened and he hurried from the room, pleased with his little

victory.

Joe locked the bathroom door behind him and was surprised to find he still had the bat clutched in one hand. He leaned it in one corner and began to disrobe.

The water seemed near scalding and that was all right with him.

Joe’s mind whirled as he worked up a soapy lather.

What caused the mutation in the litter? Radon gas in the basement? Had Sticks ingested a chemical or poisonous compound? And what about the father? Joe wondered if it had been something as nondescript as a stray alley cat or something more... unnatural. A giant rat? A deformed opossum? The spatters of blood were oily and had begun to itch. He scrubbed his arms vigorously. What if there was no scientific explanation?

What, then? Aliens? Demonic forces? Joe shuddered, despite the spray of hot water cascading over his skin.

He had a myriad of questions and not a single answer.

He scrubbed himself from head to foot three times, wincing each time he touched his injured ankle.

Finally he shut the water off and began to dry himself with a towel. Maybe some answers would present themselves during the cleanup. Perhaps he could save one of the specimens in a plastic grocery bag and bring it to the biology department at the community college. A professor there might be able to identify the creature.

Joe grabbed a tube of antibiotic ointment from the medicine cabinet and sat on the toilet seat to examine the damage to his ankle. He felt a distinct sense of relief at the appearance of scratch marks rather that puncture wounds. He wasn’t looking forward to rabies shots. He loosened the cap, smeared the ointment on the wound, then tried to spin the cap back onto the end of the tube.

It spun loose, bounced off his thigh and fell into the small plastic trash bucket nestled between the tub and the toilet. Joe fished around for it, but found something else instead.

Pushed to the bottom, and hidden below wadded up Kleenexes, strands of dental floss and other bathroom folderol, lay a home pregnancy test. Joe lifted it gingerly between his thumb and forefinger and turned it over. A plus sign. Misty had taken many home pregnancy tests over the years, but they’d always yielded negative results. The plus sign seemed so foreign to Joe that he looked again to make sure it wasn’t just his imagination. It wasn’t.

But Joe knew a positive result was impossible. He and his wife were unable to conceive. The ‘blame,’ if one could call it that, fell on Joe. He was sterile.

Perhaps there was an explanation. A medical miracle. Joe hoped fervently that would be the case.

31

He’d already had enough drama to last the rest of the year.

Hell, maybe my wife’s cheating on me, he thought.

She knows the jig is up and that’s why she’s so crabby lately. Snipping at me; so cruel and defensive all of a sudden. Both her and the cat...

Sticks.

A ragged shudder worked its way through his body.

Sticks and her litter of little abominations. The hissing and spitting before they came, because she knew something was wrong.

Misty.

“Honey?” Joe called, face pressed to the door.

Except for the drone of the television, there was no other sound.

“Misty!” He shouted this time. No response.

Joe stood facing the door, quietly gathering the courage to kill.

He clenched his fists and gasped for air. He mouthed a prayer that he was wrong; that it was all just his imagination. He would find out in a few moments if his fears were just a byproduct of the extraordinary stress he’d so recently endured.

Joe leaned over and grabbed the gore-spattered baseball bat. This was a duty that he could not shirk; a decision he had to make. He caught his blurry reflection in the mirror and focused on the bat perched on his shoulder.

Time to step up to the plate.

Leave

by Christopher Meades You can run from what lurks in the dark... and run... and run... ___________________________________________________________

Lauren

awoke with a start. Her husband was standing over her. His hand covered her mouth to stop her screams. "We have to leave the house now.” He glanced back to where the night came in dark through the window. Michael’s face was covered in sweat, panic filled his eyes. "This time it's different," he said.

"We're in danger."

Lauren believed him in spite of everything that had happened. Four times this month, Michael had roused her and the kids out of sleep in the middle of the night. He took the infant Mackenzie and her three year old brother Jessie in his arms and ran with Lauren to the car. Each time Michael peeled out of the driveway and headed to the highway and parked where it was safe, where the semi-trucks passed at all hours of the night and the street-lamps illuminated the black sky. Michael would watch the house for hours through his binoculars. He shushed Lauren when she asked what was wrong, and scanned the fields for whatever it was that frightened him.

Eventually, morning came and Michael drove the family back home. They pulled up to the house and Michael searched the front yard and the adjacent wheat fields before determining it was safe to go inside. He never spoke of what it was that scared him, what it was that drove them from their home. Each consecutive midnight excursion was met with less enthusiasm from Lauren until eventually she stopped being afraid.

This time was different. Lauren sensed it in the force Michael used to cover her screams. She could tell by his trembling fingers and the color drained from his face.

Something was wrong.

They were in danger.

Lauren shot out of bed in her nightgown. She reached for her housecoat. "There's no time," Michael pulled her by the hand towards the doorway. The door creaked loud and slow into the deserted hallway.

Lauren felt a gust of cold air. She could see her breath in front of her face. They took a single step forward and then ran down the hallway. Instinct took over.

Michael opened the door to little Jessie's room and Lauren entered the baby's nursery. Tiny Mackenzie was standing up in her crib, holding onto the bars and staring forward, absolutely silent. Lauren couldn't 32

believe her eyes. Mackenzie had never stood up before.

She cradled the baby in her arms. Quickly, with fear in her every move, Lauren wrapped Mackenzie in a blanket and met up with Michael. They ran together down the wooden staircase, their feet thumping against the creaky boards. Her husband stopped them at the front door. This surprised Lauren. The other four times they fled their house, they'd bolted right out onto the front porch. Now Michael stood motionless in the dark with Jessie on his shoulder. He didn't dare reach for the doorknob.

Lauren looked him in the eye.

"What do we do?" she said.

Michael's eyes darted across the room – at the doorway, at the windows covered in white curtains, at the floor and at his family. His hands shook. He looked like death.

Lauren stepped forward. She hugged the baby in close and put her hand on the doorknob.

"No," Michael said.

Lauren shot him a look. "What other choice do we have?" she said. "Now, when I open the door, we take off running. Do you have the car keys?"

Michael nodded.

"We get to the car and we drive into town, okay?

We can do this."

Little Jessie stirred. Michael held him close. "Shh," he whispered in the child's ear. "Go back to sleep."

Lauren kissed her husband on the lips. She was so afraid. And she still hadn’t heard what was outside.

She didn’t know yet that it sounded like twisted glass.

She hadn’t seen what it looked like. She only knew the thought of it made her blood evaporate in her veins.

"We run to the car and we don't look back."

Michael nodded. Lauren turned the door handle and they ran headfirst into the darkness. They leapt down the front steps and ran around to the side of the house. They couldn’t believe their eyes. Their car was gone. Lauren turned around in a circle. She looked at the barn, at the wheat fields, at the long winding driveway and the road in the distance. The car was nowhere to be found.

A chill shot through her. It started like a hundred needles pressing into her skin and then hit her with the brute force of being blindsided by a truck. In the distance, the wheat field rustled. A strange sound like the echo of a scream faded and then rose again, as

though it was coming closer. Lauren gasped. Michael held their son tight. Then Lauren heard something from the other side of the farm; a second rustling, like a frantic stampede of tiny feet. The sounds drew nearer.

Michael was standing beside Lauren, frozen with fear. She shook his arm. “Michael. What should we do?” she said.

He gave her a desperate look.

“Leave,” he said.

In the distance, the rumblings swelled. Mackenzie started to sob in Lauren’s arms. Lauren hushed the baby and to her surprise, Mackenzie stopped crying.

Silence fell over the farm. This silence, this waiting for what was out there, was even worse than the chaotic clamor of moments ago.

Lauren was considering taking refuge back in the house when she saw the shadows coming through the fields. Black and gray and impossible to discern from one another, there were dozens of them. She grabbed Michael’s arm and pulled him along with her. It was a hundred and fifty feet to the road and as they moved, the light from the house dissipated. The darkness grew so dense that Lauren could feel it in the air.

They ran as fast as they could. Desperation choked Lauren’s lungs. The baby, twelve pounds soaking wet, felt like a hundred pound anchor around her neck. It was when they were at the midway point of the driveway that she realized the shadows had congregated at the edge of the road – more than thirty of them now, silhouetted in the distant streetlights.

The shadows rose and fell like bottles bobbing in boiling water.

Lauren and Michael stopped in the middle of the driveway. The wheat fields on either side were six feet high. From the road, the shadows advanced. Slowly at first and then quickly they drew closer. Lauren turned to go the other way when she realized they were surrounded. The shadows were advancing from the direction of the house. She hugged the baby even tighter.

“Michael,” she whispered.

“Michael!” she whispered harder.

He looked over at her with defeated eyes, as though he was resigned to whatever fate befell them.

“We have to run through the fields,” she said. ‘It’s the only way.”

Michael shook his head. He set little Jessie down on the ground. “We’re going to die,” he said under his breath, his eyes glued to the approaching mass.

“No, we’re not,” Lauren said. “Now pick up Jessie and follow me.” She grabbed Michael by the shoulder and when he wouldn’t look at her, she slapped him 33

hard across the face. It was the only time Lauren had ever hit him, the only time she’d ever had to. “Now!” she said.

Lauren took off into the wheat field with the baby in her arms. As she entered the tall strands, she looked back. Michael had picked up little Jessie but was standing absolutely still. “Run!” she screamed. But Michael didn’t move, and worse, the shadows were streaking towards them now.

Lauren stepped into the field and took one last look at her husband and son. She cradled little Mackenzie in close to where she could feel the soft skin of the baby’s cheek against her own. Lauren knew she could never carry both Jessie and Mackenzie. They wouldn’t make it twenty feet through the field before she collapsed. She didn’t even have time to rationalize that her daughter was smaller and easier to carry. The shadows – the swarming mass of black and grey death – were drawing closer by the moment. Mackenzie was in her arms. And she had to run for their lives.

Lauren took off through the field, batting the tall strands aside. A seasonal overgrowth had made the rows less uniform and it was difficult to traverse. Just thirty feet into the field, Lauren heard an earthshattering scream. It was Michael. They had got him.

She stopped and listened to see if she could hear little Jessie cry out into the night. But the silence hung still in the air. Lauren stood paralyzed, waiting for little Jessie to cry. Even Mackenzie held quiet. Lauren fell to her knees and waited. No scream would ever come.

No absolution for the mother who abandoned her child.

From her knees, Lauren heard the wheat crackle around them. An eerie whistling hovered in the background of the air like a clash of distant cymbals.

She climbed to her feet and ran again. The bush was thick and she didn’t know which direction was which.

Lauren’s eyes had adjusted to the darkness but this only made it worse. She could see too much. Every strand of wheat that moved in the wind, every sliver of moonlight that caught the ground sent an epidemic of terror up her chest to where it caught in her throat.

Lauren resisted the urge to hide. They would find me, she told herself. They would find the baby.

Lauren ran until she saw light peering through the tall fibers. She pressed forward until she was only ten steps away and then five and then three, two, one.

Lauren emerged from the wheat field onto the road.

The light from the street lamp was blinding. She held the baby tight and staggered out to the middle of the road. Later she wouldn’t remember which she felt first – the lights of the oncoming truck, the screech of the tires, or the pain when it slammed into her leg and

toppled her over.

At the moment of impact, Lauren’s only thought was to save the baby. The driver of vehicle had slammed on the brakes and was going less than ten miles an hour when it hit her. As Lauren fell backwards, she cradled the baby in her arms and didn’t let go. Her ribs cracked against the pavement.

A bearded man – the driver no doubt – appeared above her. He had a fat face covered in glasses and a baseball cap. “You ran right out into the road!” he yelled before helping her to her feet, before making sure that the baby was okay. The man piled a delirious and shell-shocked Lauren into the passenger seat of the car. It took her thirty seconds, maybe more before she finally snapped to. The man was holding Mackenzie in his arms. The baby was screaming blue murder.

“My husband,” she said.

“Was he the one chasing you?”

Lauren didn’t have the strength to tell him. About the shadows. About the way they swarmed Michael.

About the child she left behind. She looked in the man’s rearview mirror and realized suddenly this wasn’t over. The shadows were moving toward them en masse from down the street. Lauren peered into the field. She could hear that same rustling, that same eerie whistle that sounded like a scream. Through the tall strands of grass emerged the beginnings of a pair of wide black eyes. The man sat down in the driver’s seat and Lauren pulled the baby away from him. He was talking about his insurance, some nonsense about reporting the accident to the police and whose fault it was. Lauren couldn’t listen to another word of it.

She placed her hand over his mouth. Her fingers trembled. She said, “We’re in danger. We have to leave.”

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34

Never Forget

by Martin Turton

On second thought, maybe there are some things best forgotten. ___________________________________________________________

“You really should eat more, you know. You look

positively ill.” Strawberry juice ran down Auntie Peggy’s chin as she spoke. It made Richard blanch to watch her slobber over the ripe fruit.

“I’m fine. Really, Auntie, I just don’t have much of an appetite.” Not for the first time, Richard questioned his decision to come home. Home. Even after fifteen years he still thought of it as home. A place where time seemed to have come to a standstill; the same tin sink, the same off-white linoleum floor, the same garish red chopping board.

Auntie Peggy herself seemed stuck in the same timewarp as the house. She had reached that indeterminate age when women seem to cease ageing for years on end: her hair remaining a resolute iron grey, her cheeks ruddy and wind-chapped, her bust large and heavy. She pointed at Richard with a fat finger, its tip stained a wet and sticky red. “Well, just remember you’re here to look after your poor mum, not to worry her sick turning up looking like a walking skeleton.”

Richard thought of his mother in the darkened living room, her breath rattling in her throat, the strange sickly-sweet smell seeping out of her wasting flesh. “I think she’s past noticing that I’ve lost a few pounds, Auntie.”

The ruddy face darkened. “Don’t think that scraggly beard means you’re too old to taste the back of my hand, Richard. Your mother still knows what’s going on, have no fear of that.” She took a deep breath.

“What happened, Ricky? You used to be such a nice boy, used to have a nice pair of shoulders on you, then suddenly you stopped eating and before we knew it, you’d moved away. Barely a note at Christmas and birthdays. What happened to you?”

Finally the kettle boiled, plumes of steam writhing and rising and gathering on the cupboard above.

“Nothing happened to me.” Richard poured the steaming water into a chipped mug. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Auntie Peggy pick up another strawberry, her thick fingers bruising the glistening red flesh. Richard coughed to hide a heave in the back of his throat, the rising bile hot and acid. “We all have to make our way in the world.”

“So we do. So we do.” Cold blue eyes didn’t cease their appraisal of Richard. “But some remember their 35

family. Remember their responsibilities.”

Richard sighed. He knew where this conversation was headed.

“Dawn was making a name for herself. Making good money. She came home. Been a godsend for your Mum, that girl has. And she’s settled down and gotten herself married too.”

“Yeah, she’s a real treasure.” Richard tossed the teabag into the bin and opened the fridge.

“There’s a sandwich in there for you. You need to eat more, Richard, you really do.”

The sandwich was on the top shelf, two slices of thick white bread and in between, limp leaves of lettuce and sliced tomatoes, the juice soaking the bread and lettuce and leaking onto the plate. Richard barely noticed this; his eyes irrevocably drawn to the fine slice of flesh in the middle of the sandwich. The meat was a pallid pink, darkening and reddening at the edges as it curled through the lettuce. A gob of clear juice fell from the finely sliced flesh, dripping onto the plate. Richard froze, remembering thicker, redder drops falling from a dark pool on a ceiling, and a spiral staircase leading upwards and Richard hadn’t wanted to see... but he had to go on, had to know what caused that pool on the ceiling, what was making those soft sucking noises...

“It’s tongue.” Auntie Peggy said.

He lifted a hand to his mouth; the skin felt dry and papery. An old man’s hand. He slammed the door shut. “I’m sorry, Auntie, could you finish the drinks?”

He fled into the garden and out through the gate, not stopping to allow himself to retch into a bush until he was halfway down the street. Despite the clenching of his ribs, despite his heaving, all that dribbled from his mouth was saliva, hot and white. His hand shook as he straightened and wiped his mouth.

Heathley town waited at the bottom of the road. It was a small, unprepossessing town, lost and forgotten among the hills of Yorkshire. Small and unprepossessing and yet it was a place that had haunted Richard’s dreams and nightmares every night for the past fifteen years.

Sometimes his dreams began at the school over there beyond the church, others began at the park, and then others began outside the chip shop on Saddler’s Street. Many dreams began in different places, places that each had individual memories

attached to them; a first kiss here, a broken heart there…many began in different places, but they all ended in the same place: the run-down EMD cinema on the top of Blakely Hill.

Was the cinema still there, leering over the town with its brash sign, graffiti-stained plywood covering the once-imperious Georgian windows? He still remembered watching films there as a boy; remembered climbing the spiral staircase, his footsteps soft on the red carpet stained with spilt drinks and foods over the years, the intricately carved banister worn and chipped. But still the young boy Richard had been then, prone to chubby thighs and puffy cheeks, had felt a certain glamour as he climbed the spiral staircase.

Richard knew that he could just walk to the bottom of the road, walk past the Roseby’s shop, past the newsagents and find himself on the precinct and from there he could see if the cinema was still there on Blakely Hill. He didn’t even have to go near it.

He took a couple of steps forward. His legs were shaky and he felt light-headed. He was due his afternoon nap. The dull drone of the passing cars speeding down the hill to the town centre was giving him a headache and he guessed that Auntie Peggy would be needing his help with his mother.

Satisfied that he had gathered enough excuses, he turned his back on Heathley, wiped a hand across his mouth and walked home.

I

t was the smell that bothered him most. As Richard helped his mother into her chair he found his nose wrinkling against the smell of her papery, yellow skin.

She was even thinner than he was, the skin taut around her cheekbones, her eyes too large for her face. The woman who had been so strong when he was a child was being devoured from the inside and Richard daren’t hold her too tightly in case her ribs broke under his hands.

“It’s so good to have you home,” she said, her hand still in his as she lowered into her chair.

“I had to come.”

She sighed and rested back in her chair, her eyes falling closed. “I’ve missed you so much, Ricky. I only wish you could have told me what happened, why you had to leave.”

Richard remained silent, stroking the back of her hand with his thumb. He had never told anybody about what he had seen when he climbed that spiral staircase in the silent cinema, never told anybody about the bloodied corpse or the creature slithering about it, spewing and sucking, its sliming white body 36

pale in the sickly yellow streetlights streaming through the cracks in the boarded windows.

He looked at his mother again, her face dry and parched in the early morning light and he knew even now, when she had only weeks to live, that he couldn’t tell her what he had seen that night, he couldn’t tell her that she was leaving her children and grandchildren in a world where such things existed.

“I’m here for you now, Mum.” “She’s asleep, Richard.” A cold voice from the doorway.

Richard turned, his hand still on his mother’s.

“Dawn.”

His younger sister moved into the room, picking up empty tea cups and crumb-laden plates. “You’re here now, but you’re about fifteen years too late.”

“You don’t know what it’s been like…”

“Being the golden boy? You’re right; I don’t know what it’s like.” She kept her voice quiet as their mother slept between them. “I do know what Mum went through to keep us fed and in nice clothes, though. It’s not easy.”

Richard saw a chance to change the subject. “How’s the kids?”

The pinched look of disapproval didn’t move an inch. “Fine. I’d rather you didn’t come and see them looking like that. The last thing they need is for their Uncle turning up looking like something that’s just crawled out of a grave. What is it, Richard? Drugs?

Can’t afford to eat?”

His younger sister. Dawn used to confide in him about everything. Richard found he couldn’t be so open. “I lost my appetite a long time ago.”

Something in his face must have given her pause for thought. She looked away and there was a brief silence, silence broken only by the rattle of their mother’s breathing. “Oh,” Dawn said, “I saw Fiona.

She was asking about you.”

His mother stirred as Richard’s hand tightened on hers. He released it and rose to his feet trying to look unconcerned. “Fiona?”

Dawn smiled. “Yeah, you know she’s married and has two kids of her own now?”

Richard felt faint. He rested a hand on the sideboard, “She can’t have.”

“Why not? It’s what normal people do, Richard.”

She laughed; a short, cruel laugh. “Remember how sure you were that you were going to marry her? Look at you now, how much do you weigh? Seven, eight stone? You barely have the strength to stand.”

Richard barely heard the bitter words; he well knew where they stemmed from—frustration at having to surrender her career as a barrister in Leeds

to return to this dying town in the hills of Yorkshire.

Fiona couldn’t be married, couldn’t have children in the very town where she had seen…what was it they had seen? A creature? A man or what had once been a man? Hairless and white, white as the moonlight striping the floor of the foyer; but more fluid than the moonlight, its flesh seeping and sliming, its fingers dripping as they ran over the bloodied corpse beneath.

It had no teeth; instead it opened its gaping maw and the fluid which streamed about its body fell from its mouth and burned and stripped away the skin of the corpse and the creature sucked and slurped at the bubbling flesh and blood. And then, after it fed, the creature turned to Richard, and its eyes were bulging and white, clear white pus leaking about them like trails of semen.

And that was when Richard had turned and fled. In dreams, in stories, even in movies, people freeze in fear, or run as though through quicksand. In the movies, the hero waits for the heroine, stands and fights the monsters while she flees for her life. Richard had broken Fiona’s wrist as he dragged her back down the spiral staircase. He had never run so fast in his life.

Since that night Richard had never eaten meat; just the thought of it sliding down his throat, of biting into it and feeling blood pulsing into his mouth was enough to make him run to the bathroom and retch until he fainted. He had even fled to London the next day: the creature had seen them—who knew how its mind worked? Maybe it would search them out deliberately to silence them, to feed on the ones who knew of its existence.

And so Richard had run all the way to London and eked out an existence on a diet of dried foods, biscuits and bread—and even these he had to force down his throat. He was afraid to be close to anybody, but afraid to be alone: once you have seen one bogeyman, who’s to say how many more are out there? Every darkened corner hid another creature waiting to feast on his flesh.

And Fiona still lived in the shadow of the monster?

Had brought two children into a world where such monsters lurked? Richard blinked away the sweat stinging his eyes, vaguely aware that Dawn was looking at him strangely.

“She wants to see you, Richard. She told me to give you this.” She was holding out a piece of paper.

Richard took it. A phone number.

“Hello?” It was another two days before Richard had phoned her. Two days in which he hadn’t eaten a thing. He felt light-headed and weak. Tonight he would have to force something down his throat; the times he ate were when the memories were the 37

strongest.

“Hello?” Fiona again. A voice he remembered so well. Would she look the same as she sounded the same? Short, thick dark hair? Long white neck? He remembered her lips the most, the shape of her mouth. She was married now. Jealousy roiled inside him, bitter as the acid in his stomach.

“Richard?”

He closed his eyes, the phone tight against his cheek. “Yeah it’s me. How did you guess?”

Now it was Fiona’s turn to momentarily fall silent.

“You want to meet?” she finally asked.

No! Richard wanted to scream. No! He had spent the past fifteen years running from the memories, from the horror of that night when two teenagers had sought some time alone together. Fiona had worn a short checked skirt, a red jacket and red lipstick and Richard had thought then that he would never want another woman in his life.

He never had.

But every thought of her now was tarnished by the memory of the creature in the cinema; of the feeling of her wrist breaking beneath his hand as he hurled her down that spiral staircase.

“Sure,” he said.

T

he cinema was still there, a brooding grey presence under the early morning light. New homes had been built below it; leading towards the town.

What was to stop the creature from slithering from its lair and into each of these homes? Richard shivered and stuffed his hands further into his pockets.

The precinct was quiet at this time of day, mainly shopkeepers hurrying to open up or office workers scurrying to McDonald’s for that oh-so important cup of coffee before work.

And then he saw her.

Still the short hair, of course—it highlighted her fragile beauty, still the delicately painted lips which contrasted with the paleness of her face. She was wearing a tan waistcoat over a white shirt and a white scarf tied closely under her chin. Short black skirt and black tights. Richard felt an emptiness deep within his stomach as he watched her walk towards him, an emptiness that for once had nothing to do with a lack of food.

She stopped close enough to look Richard up and down, but not so close that he could reach out and touch her. Her black hair shone in the parched light of the morning. “Christ, Richard.” She shook her head, “Dawn wasn’t exaggerating. What the hell happened to you?”

Richard resisted the urge to touch his own face, to

touch the dry skin stretched so tightly over his cheekbones. If anything, Fiona was stockier than she had been when they were together. But then she had had two kids since then. Resentment flared within him, hot and white, though whether it was because she had found somebody else or because she had conquered her fear of the monster they had seen together, he couldn’t say.

Now he did touch his face. He stroked the beard he had grown in a vain attempt to hide the angular planes of his cheekbones. “I’d have thought you would know that better than anybody,” he said.

Her pale face darkened and she stepped closer. A pigeon flapped its wings and flew away and a couple of office workers hurried past, the woman laughing at some witticism. It was strange how normal everything seemed. “I hope you haven’t forgotten that it was you who left me, Richard. You who left me to go to the hospital on my own in the middle of the night.”

Even now, fifteen years later, Richard wanted to hold her when he saw the hurt in her eyes. “How could I…” He stopped, took a steadying breath. He had to squint against the low sunlight behind Fiona; he thought he must look like some starving ghoul to her. “How could you stay after what we saw? Don’t you think it will come after you?”

“In the cinema?” Fiona frowned, “What? A couple of rats are going to come hunting me down?” She laughed, “Honestly, I knew you were scared going in there that night, but the way you shot back down those stairs…” She shook her head and rubbed her wrist at the memory, still smiling. “You know you broke my wrist that night? Some goodbye present that was.”

A fat white cloud passed before the sun and Richard felt a chill in his stomach. “What, no, you were there with me…you saw it, I know you did.” He felt faint, weak in a way that drained his soul. “You had to have seen it,” this last sounded more like a plea.

Fiona looked at him for a long time, her dark eyes softening in sympathy, sympathy which cut Richard like a knife. “Come on,” she said, “we can’t stand out here all morning talking. I’ll buy you a coffee.”

“I’ve never drunk coffee,” Richard said. Despite everything, despite his confusion, it hurt that she wouldn’t remember that. Still, he hurried after her as she crossed the precinct to McDonald’s.

He chose a stool at the bar facing the window.

More people were spilling out onto the street now, their faces grim as they faced another day’s toil.

Richard watched them, the smell of fat and coffee and bleach assaulting his nostrils. He watched them hurry past; the men freshly shaven, the women with make38

up firmly in place, and he envied them. Envied them that their only worries were whether they would get to work on time, whether the kids had got themselves ready for school, whether they would be able to afford that extra holiday overseas this year.

All lifestyles Richard had laughed at when he had been a confident teenager chasing after Fiona. And now he found he wanted nothing more than the nineto-five grind, the wife and two-point-two children, the Volvo parked in the driveway. He watched Fiona walk over to him; tray precariously held in one hand and mobile phone in the other, it was just the life Fiona had made for herself.

“Here.” She placed a coffee and a paper-wrapped cheeseburger on the bar before him. Blotches of grease darkened the paper and Richard lifted a hand to his mouth as he leaned back in his stool. Fiona watched him, a cheeseburger in one hand, red sauce thick and bright in the sun as the soggy bread flopped open in her hand.

Richard coughed and tried to rise from his stool. A white hand caught his elbow and held him in place.

“What is it?” someone asked. But the voice was far away and Richard saw only the cheeseburger hanging open in her hand. The gherkin was green and putrid, the sauce red and clotted, the cheese rotten as it clung to the bread. “Richard, what’s wrong?”

Richard tried to shake her arm away, but he was too weak and instead he bent over the bar and coughed hot, acidic saliva over his own coffee and burger. There was a scrape of chairs all around the restaurant as people leapt to their feet, shouting out in disgust.

Fiona didn’t leap away; instead she wrapped her arm about his shoulders, her face close to his, murmuring quiet words that didn’t seem to make any sense as she led him to the door.

She still wore white musk perfume just like she did all those years ago.

“S

o, you want to tell me what all that was about?” Fiona’s eyes were fixed on the road ahead as she spoke, both hands tight enough to make her knuckles white on the steering wheel.

Richard looked at her as she drove. She had grown into a strong woman, the excitable carefree young girl he had led up Blakely Hill fifteen years ago had all but disappeared. “You were right there with me. You saw it. I know you did.” His voice sounded weak to his own ears, it took almost too much energy to speak.

“Saw what, Richard?” Fiona looked at him, green fields shooting past her window in a blur. “In the cinema? There was nothing! Nothing but shadows and

rats and maybe a few spiders. I could tell you were scared when we went in—if I knew it’d lead to all this…” she trailed off, shaking her head and fixing her eyes back on the road.

She was so sure, so sure there had been nothing there, and yet she had to have seen it. Fifteen years.

Richard thought of all that he had missed in that time, of his mother now wasting away, of all the years he had missed with her. Of Fiona who he had once wanted to marry; she was now married to another man. Of all the years in London, hiding away and frightened to turn out the lights.

Fifteen wasted years.

There had to have been a creature in the cinema.

Had to have been.

“But the pool on the ceiling. The blood.”

Fiona said nothing. She took a sharp left onto a road leading back into town.

“Where are we going?” Richard sat up in his seat and looked out of the window. He didn’t recognize a single person on the streets.

“I’m going to show you nothing is there. Prove to you that you’re killing yourself for nothing.”

“What? No, we can’t-“ Richard grabbed the dashboard as though he could pull the car to a standstill.

Fiona accelerated. “Look, it’s first thing in the morning, it’s a beautiful day. We’ll see there’s nothing to be afraid of.” She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. “I remember when you pretended you weren’t afraid of anything, always acting the big man, you were.”

“It’s not that I’m afraid-“ “Well then.” A hard right and they were at the bottom of Blakely Hill. New developments were on either side of the road, the red brick of the houses at odds with the grimy stone of the houses further down the road. “That’s where I live,” Fiona nodded to a little cul-de-sac of six houses or so, each one with proud bay windows and a double garage.

Richard nodded in silence, his arms folded tightly across his stomach as the car continued up Blakely Hill.

I’ll show you there is nothing to fear, she had said.

And as the little red Citroen pulled up outside the cinema, Richard could almost believe her. The brash sign still hung next to the central window, proclaiming this to be the property of EMD cinemas, written in eyeshadow blue and lipstick red.

The building lost all sense of menace in the blaring sunlight; it looked more pathetic than anything, with the scrawling graffiti and the shattered windows behind the rotting plywood; even the grey rendering around the arch of the windows was flaking away. The 39

whole folly looked like a gaudy relic from a bygone age best suited to a fading seaside town rather than an old miners’ town in the hills of Yorkshire.

All his dreams and nightmares ended at this building, with what waited within. As in all his dreams, Fiona was by his side—everything was as it should be. But where was the air of dread? Where was the fear that turned his bowels to ice? He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, searching, willing that fear to come to him. But nothing.

“You okay?” Fiona touched his elbow.

“Yeah. Same way?” Richard tried to smile, but knew it must look like a grotesque mask.

She returned the smile all the same. “Sure.” She held out a hand for him to lead the way around to the rear of the building.

The back of the cinema was littered with empty carrier bags and empty lager cans, the path pitted with tyre tracks and patches of tough, wiry grass. This part of the building had nothing like the smooth grey finish of the front; here the brick-work was flaking and crumbling and rusting gas and water pipes clung precariously to the face.

Somebody over the years had taken the time to board the window that they had entered through fifteen years ago. It took only a couple of minutes to pry the plywood away with a length of cracked pipe found lying on the ground.

They stood looking at each other. “Do we really need to do this?” Richard said. “Haven’t we proven enough by coming this far?”

Fiona leaned against a pipe, brown paint showing beneath the black overcoat. “Dawn said that when you got home that night that you screamed enough to wake the neighbours when the dog licked your hand.”

Richard remembered the soft, cloying tongue of the labrador, wet and cold on his hand. He shivered at the memory.

Fiona smiled. “We can turn back if you want, Richard. But I think you have problems. Look at you; you can’t weigh much more than my eldest. You look terrible, you need to see that there is nothing in there, you need to get over this.”

Without another thought, Richard hauled himself through the window, his jeans catching and tearing on a splinter of wood. He landed in the reception area, a shower of dust rising about his feet in the dim light spearing through the window. Two dark, empty stairwells led to the foyer and Richard quickly turned away, the feeling of being watched oscillating all the way down his spine. He hurriedly pulled Fiona through the window after him, more for his own benefit than hers.

Nothing had changed, the ticket counter still stood silent and empty, and nobody had even bothered to remove the scales from the kiosk where the staff had sold exorbitantly priced sweets and drinks. A pile of needles and spoons and tin foil in a corner showed that Richard and Fiona weren’t the only ones to have broken in over the years.

Fiona brushed her hands against her skirt. “That wasn’t very ladylike,” she looked back to the window and then smiled at Richard. A tight, fixed smile and her eyes didn’t crease at the corners. “Shall we?”

Richard sensed they weren’t here for only his benefit. He had spent the past fifteen years of his life running and hiding, it was time he took the lead.

“Sure,” he said. And he led her to the stairs on the right, where the spiral staircase waited.

It was everything he hoped it would be and everything he dreaded. Mirrors were cracked and shattered, lending a skewed view of the darkened halls and stairways, plush red curtains shivered from unfelt draughts, seats stared unseeingly straight ahead and rats scurried away at the sound of Richard and Fiona’s echoing footsteps. Every room, every sudden noise sent a wave of fear surging through Richard from his shoulders to the soles of his feet and still he led Fiona throughout the great building. He opened every door and shifted every curtain, tentatively at first but soon he almost ran through the cinema, making as much noise as he could.

Despite his fear, despite his terror he needed this creature, this ghoul to be real—if only to give meaning to the past fifteen years of his life.

Come out! Come out! He silently shrieked.

But there was no answer.

“Remember we sat in those seats over there when we watched The Shawshank Redemption?” Fiona said.

They were sitting together at the back of screen one, rows and rows of empty seats before them. The red curtains still hung on the stage, ripped and torn though they were.

Richard looked over to the two empty seats, barely visible in the darkness. He could almost see himself and Fiona sitting there; how young they had been.

How happy. “Yeah,” he said.

Fiona smiled. “I loved it when we were leaving and you could barely speak, trying to hold back the tears you were. Always trying to act the hard man.”

“Like your husband? Is he like that?” A subject Richard had been trying to avoid; the thought of her married to another man made him sick.

A sudden silence in the gloomy hall. “He’s a good man, Richard. You’d like him. He calls me Fi-Fi though, I’ve always hated that.”

40

Richard nodded. He couldn’t think of anything to say.

“Come on,” Fiona nudged him with her elbow. “We better go.”

“Okay, Fi-Fi.” Back in the cinema, Fiona by his side and she is bleeding from a fist-sized wound in her neck, the fold of skin hanging from the bloodied hole is white.

She says nothing, her eyes black holes of emptiness.

This time Richard chooses the left-hand stairwell, the one leading downwards into a blackness darker than any night. Soft sucking sounds seep out of the darkness.

Feeding time.

Terror wraps cold hands around Richard’s heart but he walks towards the waiting blackness, as unable to resist as the creature is unable to defy the call of its own hunger.

Fiona, silent and bleeding, follows.

The darkness is cold on his skin. Rows and rows of seats before him, all empty.

Except one.

A woman, her face white, her dark hair cut short sits in a front seat, her head thrown back on the rest as she stares unseeing at the chandelier above. The squelching sound is coming from her lap.

And then it is there, standing and straightening.

Hairless and white with slender arms, its eyes bulging, pale as an egg and lined with pale blue veins.

But those eyes aren’t looking at Richard; they are looking past him. Looking past him as they had been on that night fifteen years ago.

Looking at Fiona.

R

ichard wiped a hand across his still-bleary eyes as he drove down the darkened street.

She had seen it. We’ll see there’s nothing to fear, she had said. But she hadn’t run from her fear, she had faced it. Continued with her life, she even lived in the shadow of the creature’s lair. Had she been waiting all these years for Richard to return so she could finally, once and for all, face the horror completely?

He finally reached the cul-de-sac she had pointed out to him. He parked across the street, not wanting to disturb the quiet. It was two a.m. and the only light in any of the houses was at the furthest one on the left; the one with a red Citroen parked in the driveway.

Richard closed the door of the car as quietly as he could and ran across the deserted main street and into the cul-de-sac. Why was he here? What did he want to say? That he knew she had seen the creature eating another human being? That she was stronger than he could ever be?

Memories of the dream washed a wave of cold fear over him and he saw the flickering lights of a television in the living room of the last house. He kept his hands deep in his pockets, feeling the dark windows on either side of him watching his every move.

She was sitting on the sofa watching an old movie, nobody else with her. How many nights had she sat alone like this, too afraid to sleep? She was wearing a thick red dressing gown, the cold blue light of the television casting dancing shadows across her profile.

Richard sat down on Fiona’s wall. He felt so close to the woman in that unfamiliar house, felt guilt that he had left her alone, had fled so far away when she had stayed to confront her fears through long sleepless nights.

That was when he saw it.

It crouched as it moved. Long, dripping fingers almost brushing the road. A creature from nightmare walking down the middle of a suburban driveway. It looked thinner than Richard remembered, soft white flesh clinging to stark ribs, its manhood was white and shrivelled and dripped gobs of clear juice as it shivered with each step.

“No…” Richard wanted to be sick as he looked at the thing approaching Fiona’s house. Instead he stood and faced the creature which had haunted his dreams for so long.

He had run for nothing. This horror wasn’t tied to any place. When the hunger came, it would search out its feed wherever they were. Or call them to it. “No. I was there, I watched you feed, choose me.” He had no idea if the creature could understand him. It stopped barely twenty feet before him, looking up at him; a thin purple-grey, vein-lined skin flicked once across those bulging eyes.

Still it didn’t move.

Without taking his eyes off it, Richard leaned back behind the wall and closed his fist around a branch the length of his forearm. He straightened again, could the beast actually see with no iris? Hear with no ears? Even as it didn’t move, milky trails leaked from its eyes, from its fingers.

“Choose me,” Richard whispered.

The creature took a single step forward.

Richard lunged at it with his branch, striking with all his force at the thing’s neck. It ducked and raised its bony arm to block the blow, slime spattering across Richard’s face, burning his cheek and ear. He screamed and struck again, the branch striking against its ribs, only to sink into soft, pulpy flesh.

The creature turned its head, its mouth opening wide, lips the colour of rotten fish and it belched hot 41

white bile across Richard’s chest.

His hand slipped from the branch and he looked down in stunned wonder. There was hardly any flesh to burn away before he could see his own ribs poking through the frothing blood.

And then two hands appeared, fingers long and searching, and they pulled those ribs apart and a tongue, wet and white as a garden slug began to lap at the blood steaming in the air.

“I

’m telling you, I heard somebody scream,” Lisa said, increasing her pace.

Chris sighed and hurried to catch up. “It’s probably just some girl had a few too many, best stay out of it.”

“No, it wasn’t a woman, come on Chris.” Her heels were loud in the little cul-de-sac; everything was dark apart from a single light in a house at the end.

“Come on Lisa, I’d better get you…” and then he saw a movement under a tree. Lisa was standing and staring, and then Chris got closer and saw.

Saw a body; impossible to tell if it was man or woman, covered in blood, white bones pale in the night. And a creature bent over the body, long fingers tearing at the bloodied face, its white head almost completely inside the chest of the corpse, sucking and slurping.

And then, most terrifying of all, the noises stopped and the creature raised its head.

Red blood mixed with the white trails streaming down its face; and eyes, white and rotten, fixed on them both, followed them as they fled.

A thin grey-purple skin flicked once across its eyes and the creature paused for a moment before turning back to its food.

All Hands

by William Wood

Even those who make war on the sea fall prey to what crawls from the depths. ___________________________________________________________

Mason

jumped to his feet, pistol drawn, and stumbled in the dark toward the metal ropes ringing the fantail. He let loose two rounds, their reports ringing off the ship’s metal hull, then quickly lost to the silent sea beyond. “Mother of God, did you see that?”

“Have you lost your freaking mind?” Brannigan was moving toward him, his face a set of eerie shadows in the moonless night. Mason whipped the gun around, aiming instinctively at the other man.

Brannigan stopped his advance, hands held wide.

“You were just dreaming, buddy. We’ve been out here in the dark a long time, that’s all.”

“You didn’t see that?” Mason looked down at the gun pointed at his friend and fellow sailor, bit his lip, and lowered the muzzle.

Brannigan shook his head. “See what?”

Mason thought a moment, unsure what to make of the horrible images flitting through his mind, already fading. “Like a twisted…ghost or something…all bones and dripping wet…”

The other man chuckled. “That’s one wicked dream.”

Mason felt his face flush, glad for the darkness.

Starlight allowed them to make out rough shapes and the hard lines of the ship’s aft topside watch position, but nothing more. “That was not a dream—I saw it plain as day.” A glassy ocean stretched around them, the horizon indistinct where the stars above blended perfectly with the reflection in the waters below. He licked his lips, tasting the brine, spitting a glob to the deck. Like tasting every dead thing that had ever swam.

“Think, Mason. It had to be a dream, right?”

Brannigan’s voice was slow, his Southern drawl even, calm and consoling. “We’ve been at general quarters for hours now. You fell asleep. I won’t tell anyone—I got your back.”

“Don’t try that psyche crap on me,” snapped Mason.

“I’m not, buddy. You’ve just got to relax—hell of a day we had there. Explosions, evasive maneuvers, actual real live combat. You may just have a little case of early onset PTSD.” Mason nodded, willing himself to listen to Brannigan, to believe the older man. The sounds of 42

the fighting had been deafening, shockwaves passing through the air, the water, and reverberating through the ship’s hull. He’d never been more scared. “Hell of a day. Loud…crazy.”

“You know it. Loud enough to wake the dead. Or worse.”

Mason squinted in the darkness at his friend, trying to discern the man’s expression. He’d known Brannigan since reporting aboard a year ago.

Brannigan had been his sponsor, showed him the dos and don’ts of shipboard life. He looked back and forth across the open expanse of metal decking, broken only at the edges by bollards and the occasional cleat. His first sea-going duty station—the U.S.S. Mortimer, a Littoral Combat Ship and the Navy’s newest weapon in the war on terrorism. A recently escalated war that rocked the Middle East daily on land and at sea.

Brannigan walked to the edge of the deck and leaned against the steel lifelines strung there to keep wayward sailors from flying overboard in heavy seas or when roaring drunk after too much time ashore.

Mason moved to holster the weapon but his belt was missing, probably snapped free when he leapt to his feet. With a sigh he moved to stand beside his friend, looking over the lifelines, his hands resting on a brass turnbuckle used to tension them. A pale bluegreen phosphorescence danced in the water sloshing around the ship. Just some sort of plankton, he knew.

Eerie just the same. “Any word from the bridge while I was…out?”

“Just to stand by.”

Mason nodded. “How long was I out?”

“Not—“ The sound of something wet flopping on the deck came from behind them. Mason spun to see a dim, wavering mass of bone creeping between the lifelines on the far side of the fantail. His gun was out and firing, bullets ripping the tissue of the spindly body, passing through with dull thunks and ricocheting into the night. Huge hands with long, stretching fingers with too many joints scratched against the nonskid deck, pulling the mass back toward the sea.

Mason darted for the sound powered phone station, flipping the headset on haphazardly and keying the microphone, “Bridge! Fantail reporting we are under attack.” He spun to look at the bare section of deck where the thing had been.

“Mason, calm down.”

He keyed the microphone again. “Bridge. Fantail.

Come in.”

“We’re not under attack.”

Mason laughed, his voice cracking as he waved the weapon in the direction he’d fired seconds before.

“What do you call that thing then?”

Brannigan looked where he indicated and turned back, eyebrows raised. He shrugged. “All I saw was you shooting at the deck.” He placed his hand on Mason’s shoulder but Mason snatched clear.

“You’re…wrong.” He squeezed the microphone hard, feeling the rubber coating give under his grip.

“Bridge, Combat, Repair Five. Anyone, come in, please!”

“Just calm—“ Mason ripped the headset free and let it smack against the bulkhead, hanging from a short coiled cord. He charged across the deck to the port bulwark exit that lead from the fantail to the ship’s interior and the main passageway beyond. He grabbed the dogging bar and wrenched upward, but the bar wouldn’t budge. He grabbed with both hands and pulled, foot braced on the door’s lip. Nothing.

He ran across the deck, colliding with Brannigan and skidding on a slick section of deck plating, but catching himself on the boatswain’s deck locker. He tried the starboard door with the same result. His breathing was fast and shallow and he could feel his skin growing colder.

“Mason.”

He released the clip from the weapon, feeling the rim of the magazine. Only one round left. He looked around but couldn’t see what had become of his belt that held his spare clip. He snapped it back into the butt of the Colt and pointed at the older man’s chest.

“If you keep aiming that at me, I’m going to begin to take it personally.”

Gun trained on his shipmate, Mason moved to the center of the fantail and looked forward at the ship’s superstructure, dark against the wall of shimmering stars. Not a single running light on the mast or yardarms. The phased array radars on modern naval vessels didn’t rotate but the small navigation radar did and he couldn’t see a single thing moving on the mast or on the small signal bridge above the pilot house.

And everything was completely quiet.

No machinery sounds. No exhaust fans venting heat from the ship’s power plant. No whir of electricity passing through the ship’s miles of cable, or RF energy through waveguides. Only the slop of water against the hull and the audible pound of his own pulse.

“DIW,” said Brannigan.

43

The voice sounded far away. “Wh-what?”

“Dead in the Water.” The other man laughed.

“Navy has an acronym for everything.”

“D-dead?” Mason tried to remember what had happened today. They’d gone to general quarters after the electronic warfare guys found the signature of the vessel harassing commercial shipping in the Straits of Hormuz. “We’re dead, aren’t we?”

“What?” Brannigan stepped toward Mason, but stopped when he leveled the weapon at his head. “No, we are most certainly not dead.”

“Then how—“ “It’s been a long general quarters, buddy.” He spread his hands wide again and took another step closer. “That’s why you were taking a nap.”

Mason’s mind raced. “What happened to the terrorist ship?” His gaze darted along the toe boards at the deck’s edge. The blue-green phosphorescence shimmered like an aurora, growing brighter and spreading outward from the sides of the ship.

“What are terrorists doing with a navy, anyway?”

Brannigan laughed, taking another step. “What is the world coming to?”

Mason’s grip worked on the butt of the Colt M1911, loosening and tightening. “Tell me what happened or, God help me, I’ll kill you.”

“Take it easy. We hit her with three Harpoons from twenty-five miles away.” Brannigan took another step.

“Why don’t you give me the gun before someone gets hurt?”

Mason remembered the flashes as the missiles streaked skyward before dropping to just above the water and skimming away on their three-prong attack.

He’d been manning the sound-powered phones when the word came through. Direct hits, all three missiles.

Then came the Captain’s voice booming over the shipwide intercom. “They got off a missile too.”

Brannigan was close enough now, Mason could see his thoughtful expression in the glow from the quiet sea. The man nodded. “But we shot it down.”

Mason’s head throbbed as he strained to remember.

But he only remembered the triple-tone of the collision alarm and the Captain’s voice blasting from the topside speakers. Missile inbound. He didn’t remember anything after until he woke. Shooting at the bones. “We didn’t shoot it down.”

“Sure we did—we must have, moron. How else would we be standing here talking?”

Mason felt his heart skip a beat. He remembered the contrails in the sky, the boiling in the sea. The antimissile system had roared to life, rocking the ship, sending him and Brannigan scrambling for handholds.

Then a wave of nausea had swept over him, a stab of

pain erupting behind his forehead. “We are dead.”

Brannigan shook his head. “That’s just stupid.”

Mason took a step forward and pushed the still warm barrel against the other man’s head. “Tell me the truth.”

“Well, if we are, shooting me in the head isn’t exactly a threat is it?”

Mason pushed the gun forward, forcing Brannigan to take a step backwards. “How do you explain the quiet?”

“I’m not the CO. I don’t know why he ordered us DIW.” “And why aren’t they calling, screaming bloody murder, wondering why I’m discharging my weapon all over the place.” A grin spread across his face. “Not a peep. Explain that.”

Brannigan shook his head, greenish-blue light suddenly brighter on his face. Mason glanced over his shoulder and gasped as Brannigan seized the opportunity to grab his gun arm, spin him around and lock a heavily muscled arm across his throat.

Mason struggled, feet barely touching the deck, eyes bulging as a dozen bony heaps, seaweed and gelatinous tissue trailing, hauled themselves aboard.

He fought to move his arm, still held firm at the wrist

by Brannigan—to aim the weapon at this man he’d mistaken as his friend.

“You know,” said Brannigan, his words coming out in huffs. “I don’t know why they…chose me exactly…they get in your head, I guess…saw my

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potential.”

The things moved closer, glowing trails of slime spreading across the rough surface like ink in water.

Long, skeletal limbs, human-like but too numerous to match anything God intentionally wrought, clawed their way toward his kicking legs.

“Not…even sure…what they are.” The gun’s barrel inched downward toward Brannigan’s face, Mason’s arm quivering. “You’re actually the…last one left alive. After you…they’ll let me go.”

A boney finger tapped tentatively against Mason’s boot and he thrashed with renewed vigor in Brannigan’s hold, gagging and straining to line up the pistol with jerky movements.

“Told me in a dream...creepy, huh?” Brannigan forced a laugh. “They’re weak now after taking on both crews. One more, though…they get to breed…and I go free.”

Mason’s muscles weakened, consciousness ebbing.

“They like their food…live, too.”

Multiple pokes and prods traced lines along his legs and thighs, working upward to his abdomen. The haze of the coming sunrise, highlighted in flashes of blue and green, darkened in Mason’s eyes, flickered in his mind like a candle flame. His right arm immobilized awkwardly over his shoulder, he bent his wrist in an unrestrained direction. The muzzle of the gun rested against his own temple and he pulled the trigger.

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44

Decisions, Decisions

by Pete Mesling

There is some truth to the old adage that looks can be deceiving. ___________________________________________________________

A

minute sooner or later and the thing might have spotted Simon Jesbarth, who was making water behind a nearby oak. He heard what sounded like the whipping of canvas sails in high wind, so he cut the flow of his piddling and took a peek around the tree.

It came fluttering down out of the sky like a shot bird, its wings several shades darker than the night surrounding it. Dust, barely visible in the dark, whirled up as the creature landed in a crouch and inspected its new surroundings with all the suspicion of a seasoned culprit. Simon watched as it fanned its leathery wings to its sides, raising another cloud of dust.

As it slunk over the hill that separated the village of Blysedale from the river, there was something uneven in its gait, something forced about its posture. Instead of arms, Simon noticed with a gasp, it had two clusters of writhing tentacles protruding from bulbous sockets. By the time it crested the hill, its shape and height seemed to have shifted several times, as though it were trying on different appearances.

After a moment, Simon released the breath he’d been holding in without realizing it. He was about to step away from the tree and return to the relative safety of the Dancing Bishop when he remembered he wasn’t quite finished with the business he’d come out to do. Wrapping up as quickly as possible, he walked a circuitous loop to the main door of the tavern to avoid being caught out in the open.

Liberty Jim’s fiddle music was running high when Simon stepped inside. He went straight for his regular table near the back of the crowded and noisy room, where he’d left a mug of ale. He downed what remained. Margie, the barmaid, was quick to offer a refill, and he was just as quick to take her up on it. He welcomed the warmth from the fire that blazed in a nearby hearth, but it proved to be precious little comfort.

The townspeople of Blysedale didn’t give old Simon Jesbarth much credence on a good day. No one was likely to believe a word of what he’d just seen, but his heart pounded with the desire to unburden himself of the secret. Scanning the room for a trustworthy face, he came up empty. Half the patrons were too far into their cups to hear a man out, and the others were trying like hell to catch up. He’d only be a nuisance if 45

he tried to bend an ear in this place. A superstitious old man is what they’d call him, and it wouldn’t be the first time.

But he ached to tell someone. Maybe with the right person by his side he’d find the courage to go after the thing that had landed in the road and find out what it was after. There wasn’t anything special about Blysedale in the way of attracting demonic attention, but unless Simon Jesbarth’s eyes had been lying to him all his life, Blysedale’s newest inhabitant wasn’t cut from natural cloth. And having gone that far, it wasn’t a stretch to surmise that the creature was on the side of evil.

Not wanting to pour fuel on the fire of people’s opinions of him, he kept what he’d seen to himself, deciding it was best to wait for something to happen that would make his story easier for people to swallow. The better part of a week passed without incident, but then two more strangers appeared in town.

The sound of an equipage pulling up outside the tavern was enough to make most of the patrons turn their attention to the windows. The tired whickering of the horses at rest was a call to some folks to press up against the glass and be among the first to see who would emerge from the dark interior of the carriage.

Others contented themselves with idle speculation, knowing that any newcomer to Blysedale was likely to take a meal at the Bishop before doing much else, since the next coach stop in any direction was a long way off. It was also the only place in town for a traveler to bed down. Just a few modest rooms upstairs, but Mrs. Tupper knew how to keep a house, and she made the best rural breakfast in northern England.

Well, someone didn’t just step through that door.

He might as well have owned the place. Dressed in the finest clothes the streets of Blysedale had boasted in a good long while, this gallant figure paused in the doorway to remove his gloves and inspect the rabble.

A short black cape hung to the middle of his back and he wore a silken top hat. He ordered an ale at the bar, and behind him a much more timid specimen appeared. She was a young thing. Cute as a magpie and also done up in every manner of finery. Only she didn’t fill it so comfortably. The way she pulled at the ruffled trim here and there, you’d think she hadn’t

worn anything frillier than a country smock until that very morning.

This is exactly the kind of thinking that often got Simon in trouble with Jack Rapp, the miller, who was fond of accusing him of taking as fact what lay beyond the evidence of the eyes. Maybe so, but Simon had more than a few years on that cock-sure bully, and his ideas had held up to scrutiny just as often as not.

The girl glanced in his direction but quickly shot her gaze down to where her two pointing fingers appeared to be grinding a speck of dust into still smaller pieces. It was about then he got the sense that other eyes were on him. He looked over to the bar and sure enough, the stranger was staring right into him, one hand on a foam-topped tankard and one foot cocked on the brass rail below. Here was a man who’d seen enough of the world to know what danger was, maybe too much to care anymore. The room was a cathedral of anticipation. Even Jack Rapp was silent.

When the stranger picked up his ale and headed towards Simon, the murmur of gossip, bragging and outright lies wound itself back up. By the time Liberty Jim picked up where he’d left off with his fiddle playing, the Dancing Bishop was back to its normal buzz. Simon, however, did not share the other regulars’ relaxed acceptance of the man who bore down on him like a riled horse.

A log-like arm swung over his head, and for a second he thought the man might just knock him a good one and that would be the end of it. It turned out to be a gesture for the girl to join them.

“The name’s Medlar,” the man said once he and his charge, or whatever she was, were seated. His voice was high and clipped. He placed his hat near the center of the table. “This is Idaleen. We’re traveling together.”

She’d been staring at the surface of the table, but at the mention of her name she flashed Simon the greenest eyes in the world. No painter could have come up with a sharper match than those eyes to that flowing auburn hair, or that hair to her plump, white arms. She was a beauty, all right.

“Nice to meet you.” He tried to focus on the man but his eyes kept being drawn back to Idaleen. “I’m Simon Jesbarth. Most folks around here will tell you I’ve been borrowing time for as long as they can remember. They may be right. You folks plan on staying long in Blysedale?” Behind the question was the hope that there would be plenty more opportunity to see Idaleen, mixed with the knowledge that the longer a pretty girl like that stayed in town, the more chance there was of trouble.

“I hope not too long.” Medlar took a long draught 46

of ale. “We’ll need a room, though. Are we in the right place?”

“There are a few rooms upstairs. Weber’s the man you want to be talking to. He’s the big chap with the towel on his shoulder, idling behind the bar.”

“Are you a bit of a loner, Mr. Jesbarth?”

Simon bristled a little at that. It seemed a bold kind of thing to ask out of the blue. But Blysedale folk were pretty well practiced at swallowing their pride. Most of them, anyway.

“I suppose you might say I enjoy my own company about as well as anyone else’s. Why do you ask?”

“You strike me as the kind of man who might know of things that go on around these parts before anyone else does. Has anything … gone on recently?”

As much as Simon wanted to tell someone about the figure he watched fall out of the sky, this gentleman with only the one name had a long way to go to earn his confidence. “No, sir. Nothing you’d call out of the ordinary. You the law? Is there a convict on the loose or something?”

“Nothing of the kind. Forget I asked. Well, I better see Mr. Weber about a room.”

He anchored his large hands on the edge of the table to push himself up, but his prying had emboldened Simon, who now laid a hand on Medlar’s forearm and leaned in. “If you don’t mind my asking, Mr. Medlar, what’s the story on your friend here?

People’ll want to know, and I’m not without curiosity myself.”

“Idaleen is my niece. She’s mute.”

“That’s a mighty brief story.”

Medlar rose, and Idaleen quickly did the same. Her uneasy, darting looks gave her a captured quality, but also a charming one.

“I trust we’ll have further opportunity to talk, Mr. Jesbarth,” Medlar said. He held out his hand and Simon took it. Cold as a perch breathing its last on a wet rock in the middle of the night.

“You can feel free to call me Simon.” He was hoping to coax a Christian name out of the man, but Medlar only walked away, Idaleen in tow.

T

wo days after Medlar and Idaleen’s arrival in Blysedale, people stopped seeing them together. It took another day for them to figure out that the girl was never seen coming or going anymore at all—with or without her escort. Only Medlar stepped out occasionally for a stroll through town or out into the country.

It got Simon curious, this sudden disappearance of Idaleen, and curiosity carried a good amount of weight in Blysedale. It was the kind of place where

any alternative to boredom was quickly embraced because it was impossible to know who might beat you to it or when the next one might come along. So, one evening when Medlar left the tavern without a word to anyone, Simon took it upon himself to follow.

He wasn’t all that surprised to see Medlar heading in the direction the thing with wings and tentacles had fled in all those nights ago, but there can be a sort of jolt to discovering you’re right about a thing, and that he did feel. He wouldn’t have minded having his suspicions about Medlar disproved right about then.

Instead they were strengthened. At least that’s how he saw it. Medlar must have found a cave down by the water and made a den of it.

There were several to choose from amid the rocky terrain that sloped down to the riverbank. Maybe that was where he’d gone to change into Medlar. And maybe it was where he went every now and then to enjoy his inhuman form for a spell, like a city gentleman who likes to enjoy the comforts of home in slippers and a bathrobe. Perhaps it was even where Idaleen was being held against her will.

Simon chided himself for jumping to conclusions. He’d have answers soon enough.

No reason to let his mind wander off into a tangle of dark weeds.

He heard the distinctive snapping of a dry twig, somewhere off to his left. He froze, almost at the top of the hill. It couldn’t have been Medlar. Maybe a wild animal. He took several wary steps up the hill, afraid of losing sight of his quarry. But again he heard movement among the trees, farther ahead this time, and closer. As if someone—or something—was beginning to circle him.

Before his imagination could get the better of him he made a run for it. He was too old for the exertion, and the gathering darkness made it almost suicidally dangerous, but run he did, aided by the light of the rising moon. It must have awakened an ancient memory in his bones, of a nimbler youth, for he darted between rocks and leapt over fallen limbs with an agility—hell, a grace—that he feared he would pay dearly for come morning.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough. He gripped a low-

hanging branch and swung himself around the base of a jutting evergreen to avoid having to slow his pace and negotiate a patch of granite boulders. In doing so he delivered himself into the iron arms of Jack Rapp, who rocked him like a babe and howled with laughter before setting him down.

“And what’s so bloomin’ hilarious, Jack Rapp?”

Simon did his best to restore dignity to his ruffled hair and clothing by swatting at every inch of himself.

“Why, you are, Old Simon. You’re just about the funniest sight I’ve laid eyes on this month. What are you doing bounding through these woods like a schoolboy? People might start thinking you’re a bit balmy.” He expelled another hoarse laugh and slapped Simon on the shoulder, as if to emphasize the fact that people already thought Old Simon was a bit balmy.

“I might ask you the same question. Besides, I wasn’t aware that you owned these woods.”

“You were following Mr. Medlar, weren’t you?”

“Why don’t you just leave me be.”

“Mr. Medlar’s got two things that make him a right welcome guest in our town, as far as I’m concerned. He’s got money, and he’s got a niece. Maybe you haven’t noticed, but there isn’t what you’d call an abundance of eligible females in Blysedale.

You may be out to pasture, Granddad, but I still have a wild oat or two needs sowing.”

“Are you asking me to keep out of your way?”

Simon couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “I’m genuinely touched that you view me as such an obstacle to your happiness. For your information, I have my suspicions about their relationship to one another. I’d figure that even a damn fool like you might wonder why he never lets the girl put a word in. If you’re so interested in her affections maybe you ought to be a little more curious about what kind of hold he has over her.”

“Simon, sometimes I wonder what it’s like being your brain. I pity that organ. I truly do. The fantasies you put that thing through, I swear. No wonder it’s starting to show signs of wear.”

Simon took several determined steps towards the

Something pushed through the flesh that covered her left shoulder blade,

sending a splash of dark

blood into the moonlight.

She screamed as the same thing happened on her right side.

47

river, away from Jack. Then he came back and pointed a shaky finger at him.

“That’s it,” he said. “I’ve had it with your insults, Jack. I came out here tonight to see where in hell Mr. Medlar goes almost every evening, and that’s just what I’m going to do. You can join me if you like. I could use the company, to be honest, but I won’t beg you.

And I won’t put up with any interference.”

This time he walked away and didn’t look back.

Before long he heard Jack’s heavy boots thrashing through the underbrush several yards behind him. A grin sprang up on his face and he let it grow to the biggest, stupidest smile he’d ever worn. If Jack Rapp could be put in his place, the Devil himself might be bested.

Firelight flickered from a cave several dozen yards away. Simon waited for Jack to catch him up.

“See that?” Simon asked. “I was right. The dandy holes up in a cave, like an animal.”

By the moonlight he could see that Jack found little comfort in the thought. Good, maybe he was starting to get some sense.

“What do you plan to do, charge in there like the law?” Jack wanted to know.

“I think he’s keeping the girl in there. If it wasn’t for that, maybe I could let it go, but I can’t stomach the thought of Idaleen being held prisoner by that maggot.”

“I think maybe your theory has a hole or two.”

“Why’s that?”

Jack pointed towards the cave. “He’s not much of a gaoler if that’s his idea of keeping someone captive.”

Simon looked back to the cave and saw Idaleen walking freely to a stand of birch that stood between her and the water’s edge. A moment later Medlar’s sleek form appeared at the cave’s entrance. He leaned against a rock wall, and the fire within made his shadow dance. He looked after the girl with something like chagrin and eventually returned to the comforts of the cave.

Without a word, Simon and Jack proceeded through the crooked rows of trees Idaleen had entered farther downstream. They emerged onto a lush bank.

The girl sat on a log near the river, facing the waters that were louder in their ancient mumblings than they were visible in the moon-tinted air.

“What do you think?” asked Jack. “Should we just go up to her and ask if she’s being held against her will? What if you’re wrong about this?”

Simon wasn’t sure how to proceed. He wasn’t even sure he was right anymore. He was about to give the miller some kind of answer when Idaleen rose again.

Her red silken dress began to undulate and bulge. The 48

slimy grey tips of flabby tentacles licked at the hem before lifting it up over her head, and fairly shredding the fabric in the process. Something pushed through the flesh that covered her left shoulder blade, sending a splash of dark blood into the moonlight. She screamed as the same thing happened on her right side. Soon the protruding joints unfolded, revealing themselves to be great wings, which she twisted and stretched high above her still-hunched frame as the tentacles wriggled and danced. The moon captured the display in its chilly blue light.

He was wrong. He watched until Idaleen stood to full height—a much fuller height than before—then turned to ask Jack what he wanted to do, but Jack was gone. Simon could hear him crashing through the thicker brush up above. When he looked at Idaleen again, her head was turned in his direction—only it was no longer Idaleen at all. It gave the impression of human form and features but was far more vague.

Where there should have been eyes there were only depressions. Where Simon expected a nose and mouth there were two holes and a slit instead. The torso looked fit but wasn’t defined with hard lines. The creature looked more male than female but there was no sexual apparatus to confirm the suspicion, only a bulbous curve of flesh where the legs came together at the hips. It brought its wings down slowly and took several steps towards Simon.

He was scared, but if he was going to flee he would have done it by now. The vision before him was at least as intriguing as it was frightening. He closed the gap by approaching what had been Idaleen—the green eyes and fiery hair clearly nothing more than one of the demon’s disguises, though a creamy hue still colored its flesh.

Demon? Did he really believe that? Would he allow himself to get within strangling distance of something he thought to be sent from Hell? Besides, since when did demons fall from the sky?

“Mr. Jesbarth,” it sputtered through the wound-like slit, “you weren’t meant to see this.”

“I don’t doubt it. I probably wasn’t meant to see you land recently, either.”

It cocked its head, considering a response. “No, I didn’t realize I’d been witnessed. What are we going to do about this?”

“I suppose that’s up to you. Where do you come from? Are you an agent of good, or evil?” It felt strange to invoke the terms, but there was no other way of putting it that he could think of.

“It would be—” “Well, if this isn’t a cozy little assignation.” The intruding voice was Medlar’s, and they turned their

attention to him instantly. He stood higher up, near the trees.

Idaleen let out something like a hiss and backed away from the man, her tentacles alive with motion.

Simon stood his ground. “What do you want, Medlar?”

“What I want, Simon Jesbarth, is of no concern to you. My business is with the fallen one. Do you care to intercede? We could possibly work something out.”

“Ignore him,” Idaleen said to me. “He’s a forktongued scoundrel.”

“Am I?” was Medlar’s theatrical response. He laid a hand on his chest as he spoke. “Well, let me try to be a bit more plain. This thing that you know as Idaleen is nothing less than a fallen angel. A lot of folks think God finished kicking out the rebellious long ago. Not so. New ones are discovered every now and then, and God casts them out with terrific vengeance.

“Their destination, of course, is meant to be …” He pointed a long, bony finger at the ground and moved his wrist up and down to emphasize the gesture.

Simon didn’t like being told all of this. It was the kind of thing you were only made privy to if the teller didn’t plan on keeping you around very long. Still, he couldn’t help himself. “You know an awful lot about this business,” he blurted out.

“Oh, I ought to. My employer—not God—has a vested interest in seeing to it that Idaleen here makes it to where she was headed.”

“Yes,” Idaleen interrupted, “for some reason I stalled in the earthly realm, and soon after, Mr. Medlar appeared in the vicinity of Blysedale, his only passion to convince me to join him and his ilk.”

“So you have a choice,” Simon put in. “You can remain here. You don’t have to go with him.”

Idaleen nodded.

“Then the solution is simple. Tell him to go to Hell.

You stay here and learn our ways. Can’t you see? It was no accident that you were barred from falling any further. Earth is a testing ground, for all of us. It’s always been a place of contests. You’ve arrived here to earn your way back into the Kingdom of Heaven. Or fail in the attempt. By God, I’m sure of it!”

“Don’t listen to him,” Medlar spat. “What can he possibly know of such things? Here you will suffer for no reason. In my world your suffering will be repaid with your heart’s desire. Think of how much it hurts to be shut out from God’s glory. What kind of god would show you the riches of Heaven only to rip it all away again, hmmm?”

“Be of your own mind in this,” Simon said to the fallen one. “You’ll know the right answer when you’ve asked yourself the right question.” There was nothing more to say for the time being. He made it about ten 49

steps in the direction of the village when Medlar’s voice cut across the cool night air.

“Leaving so soon, Simon? Not without a parting gift.”

He kicked something that began rolling down the bank towards Simon. As it slowed to a stop several yards away, Simon recognized it as the head of Jack Rapp. He wanted to scream, wanted to cry and tear his hair out. But that was exactly what Medlar wanted him to do, and he wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction. Instead he walked over to the head, bent down, and lifted it up by the hair, which was greasy with blood.

“Just my way of showing what I think of interference from your kind,” Medlar added, but it lacked power. Simon shook his head in disgust and walked away, carrying the miller’s head under his arm all the way back to the Dancing Bishop. He stepped inside, and though he was aware of the crowd parting before him, and of their stares, he made no eye contact as he moved to the huge fireplace in the back of the room and hurled Jack’s head into the flames. In the same manner, he left again and found his way home through a fog of mental strain and mounting terror.

S

omehow, he found sleep, and the next morning began with a knock at the door. Simon crawled out of bed and forced his throbbing body to answer it.

Standing under the thatch overhang of his roof was Idaleen, devoid of the wings and tentacles and sexless physique from the previous night. Just a shy, greeneyed girl in a simple country dress. She looked at him and smiled, and he invited her in for coffee and palaver.

Bane Fish

by John P. McCann Ravenous sea monsters and a lawyer... anyway you look at it, it's going to be a bad day. ___________________________________________________________

Something moved beneath the surface. Curious,

Justin leaned over the port side of the Sea Plus, but his life jacket made him top-heavy. The last thing he wanted was a short tumble into a cold ocean. He stepped away while the teenage girls peered over the side.

“It’s not fair. There’s nothing to see,” moaned a gangly fifteen-year-old. Her tangled blonde hair drooped from under a floppy sun hat. “We should’ve gone to Santa Rosa and bought earrings.”

“It’s not supposed to be fair,” replied her roundfaced, know-it-all girlfriend. Under her life jacket, the teenager wore a Sonoma State hoodie. “It’s supposed to be an assignment for Mrs. Goodwin. There! See? A bottle-nosed dolphin. Write it down, silly.”

“I won’t. You’re a brat.”

He listened to the teenagers bicker: vapid, insecure, dull. Justin sketched their portraits with skulls open on hinges, moths flying out. He considered moving away, but there wasn’t much space aboard the Sea Plus. Only 35 feet long, the boat boasted twin diesel, outboard engines, a small pilothouse, a heated cabin below, and free coffee. From the radio mast, a triangular pennant flapped - a goofy-looking sperm whale peering through an old-fashioned spyglass.

Yeah.

Justin stayed put, seated on an orange gear locker bolted to the deck. If he’d been rich instead of a graduate student, he could’ve booked a boat by himself. No whale watchers, just sea and light and drawing. Blissful solitude.

Opening his sketchpad, he glanced at the early afternoon sky: low ceiling, gray, disappointing. Maybe later the cloud cover would break, letting sunlight show, altering the atmosphere in subtle dramatic ways. Glancing at the Pacific, Justin sketched a kelp patch, floating on the sea like a ragged green shroud.

Probably torn up by last week’s storm. He’d seen TV footage of towering waves and crashing surf. A twentyminute drive from the ocean, Justin’s apartment was lashed with horizontal rain as howling winds cracked tree branches and turned trash cans into missiles.

Justin thought of Ludwig Backhuysen, who’d row out into the North Sea whenever a storm brewed, sketching the shifting atmospherics for his paintings.

He smiled, wondering what Mrs. Backhuysen thought 50

about the artist’s passion for realism.

Backhuysen reminded him of “Ships in Distress in a Storm.” Flipping a page, Justin sketched from memory: drawing a mast, then another tilted wildly on an embattled sailing ship, adrift in a sea pitching like a titanic washing machine. One ship, two, five—close together, but separated by storm waves, isolated in their fight for survival. From background to upper foreground, Justin sketched advancing storm clouds: shades of gray terminating in a black tumor of a thunderhead, looming above the ships. Sunlight poured through a crack in the storm front, lighting up a ship, casting another in shadow.

His drawing hand tingled. Placing the pencil back in his parka, Justin closed the sketchbook. No storm light today. Time for free coffee.

Entering the pilothouse, he stepped around Captain Javier. Middle-aged and calm, the Captain sported remnants of brown hair that rose around his bald scalp as if electrified. His weather-beaten face featured interesting qualities of stubbornness, worry and resolve.

The Captain worked the wheel, joking over the marine radio with another skipper. On the radio cabinet’s side was a color photo showing Captain Javier and a 12-year-old boy holding up a string of rockfish.

To the Captain’s left, three steps led down into the cabin. As Justin descended, the Captain said, “Should be spotting whales soon; at least according to the lying skipper of the Emily B. If you would, let the others know.”

Justin nodded, stepping down into the cabin. When he was paid as a crew member, he’d pass on messages.

A padded bench, three tables and a door leading into a complicated nautical toilet took up most of the cabin. Three stainless steel poles rose from deck to ceiling, providing a handhold in rough seas. A window looked out on the bow. On one bulkhead, a clock shaped liked an old-time sailing ship wheel ticked quietly away. Pretty lame, thought Justin. They should sell it back to whatever seafood restaurant they stole it from. One table served as a coffee mess. From a carafe, Justin poured coffee into a Styrofoam cup, dropped behind a table, and flipped open his sketchbook. He considered the remaining passengers: an older couple and a girl, mid-20s, around his age.

Hanging on a pole, the girl, Ashley, chatted with the couple about her girlfriend who’d flaked on today’s whale watching, her cool fiancé and something called, ‘bane fish.’ She struck Justin as coy, a bit uncertain, maybe needy. Still, even in a life jacket, Ashley was pretty cute: little freckles around her nose, reddish blonde hair tucked under a teal watch cap.

She might be fun if you were loaded, but then you’d have to talk to her afterwards.

In their mid-60s, the couple sat on the padded bench, wrapped in expensive outdoor clothes.

Husband Barry Croon had been some kind of big shot Bay Area attorney. Wife Nan had been a Teacher’s Union bureaucrat. Both retired; Justin recalled them boasting back at the dock how they’d cashed out their San Francisco home before the market dropped. Now they lived like squires in Sonoma County. The Croons reminded Justin of 17th century Dutch merchants posing for a portrait: imperious and smug. Big and hulking, Barry sat with arms folded across his chest like Sitting Bull at a tribal counsel. Alert and poised, Nan seemed like a raven perched on a picnic table, bright blue eyes glancing at Justin.

“Ah, our solitary artist in residence. Draw anything good?”

Justin simmered at the implication that he drew anything bad. He did, but having a stranger imply it pissed him off. “A few things.” He sipped his coffee, then picked up a pencil.

“Art can be a dead end,” said Barry. “You need a back-up skill.”

Justin wondered how Barry managed to channel his parents.

“Oh, really? What would you suggest? Law?” “Nothing wrong with the law: earn a good living, build a better society.” He paused a moment. “Beats being selfish.”

Fatuous old dork. Justin considered letting it pass, but blurted out, “I guess that’s true if you define ‘unselfish’ as people who game the system, then toss in a few hours of pro bono work to justify their money.”

Barry scowled and uncrossed his arms. Justin got the impression people didn’t talk to him like that. Nan touched her husband’s forearm.

“Dear, let Justin be young.”

“At his age, we were changing the world.”

“That was long ago. I’m sure Justin’s little pictures have a relevance to him that might escape us. Let’s be broad-minded.”

Justin tapped his pencil on the sketchpad, considering a measured response to Nan such as, ‘Go suck piss through a straw.’ However, Ashley, who’d been following the exchange, burst in between the 51

Croons and Justin.

“Would anyone else like coffee while I’m up?

Anyway, like I was saying about Bane Fish, Mrs. Croon, our professor was telling us that the Chumash Indians believed every bad storm roiled the ocean, releasing monsters from the sea bottom.”

Justin sketched fast thumbnails of Nan Croon as a braying jackass, and Barry as a senile, drooling ape playing with himself. Still angry, he sketched Ashley as a happy worm with freckles.

Barry scratched his nose; “I find it hard to believe Native Americans would call your sea monsters ‘Bane Fish.’ Doesn’t sound right.”

Justin glanced at the clunky wall clock and drew a circle.

Ashley brought the Croons coffee. “Thank you, Ashley. Nice to see courteous young people.”

Justin added spittle flying from the mouth of the jackass.

Nan sipped her coffee, “Barry’s issued a challenge, dear. Do you disagree?”

Ashley grabbed onto a pole, cast a sly glance at Justin to see if he was listening, then said, “The word came from the log of the frigate U.S.S. Galena. In 1869, following a terrible storm in these waters, the ship was attacked by sea monsters that the captain called ‘Bane Fish.’”

“They drank aboard ships back then,” quipped Barry. Nan slapped him on the shoulder. “You’re terrible. Let the poor girl finish.”

Ashley smiled as she continued, “Bane Fish were colorfully described as ‘great, devilish perversions of sea creatures, finding their way by the light of the damned.’ I always remember that line from class. One guy even had it printed on a tee-shirt.”

The Croons chuckled.

“Anyway, nine men died. The Galena fired its cannons, killing several Bane Fish before finally battling free.”

Justin drew one of the clock spokes as a tentacle, coiled menacingly.

“I’m sure it was just the Navy blowing up whales,” said Barry. “They probably gave the captain a medal.”

Ashley spotted something outside the bow window, swung around on the pole to look, then swung back toward the Croons.

“When the captain reached Monterey, he told his story and was mocked by the press.”

Justin cocked his head, trying to identify a faint sound over the Sea Plus engines. Birds?

Barry barked, “Now that I can believe. The press loves a good narrative. Heroes and villains.”

Nan nodded, “I’m sure there was a reason the

captain lied on such a grand scale. Perhaps the dead were due to his negligence?”

Ashley shrugged, “Maybe. But the crew backed up his story.”

Running across deck; an excited squeal. “Look at them all!” The Sea Plus slowed, engines growling, then stopped. In the absence of twin 250-hp diesel engines, bird sounds filled the cabin: screeching, cawing, trilling.

Joining the teenagers on deck, the other passengers marveled at all the birds. Under a sky grown darker and gloomier, the creatures swooped around the Sea Plus— darting into the calm waters, fluttering, hovering, diving, gulping; their activity centered on a long gray mass off the starboard side. Whatever it was, the bird-filled mass was big, slightly larger than the boat.

Justin flipped open his sketchbook, holding it in the crook of his arm as he searched for a pencil. To the west, away from the gray mass and birds, a powder blue light slowly pulsed: brighter, dimmer, brighter——an advertisement for an unknown product. Bulb-shaped, the light descended like a submarine periscope, then vanished. Justin shrugged; a buoy or something.

Ashley stood nearby, observing the bird frenzy with the round-faced teen whose name was Marisol.

Marisol pointed to a large black bird. “The big one there is an albatross and there’s a jager and that one is…uh….”

“Shearwater,” said Ashley. “Then you have some terns, and that gull with the yellow-tipped black bill is a Sabine’s Gull.”

“I thought I knew all about sea birds,” said Marisol, impressed.

Ashley grinned, “I grew up on the sea. My dad ran a charter fishing boat. While all my friends played with dolls, I learned abandon ship drills.”

“I saw a big worm,” yelled the scraggly-haired teen.

She leaned over the bow, gazing at the water around the bird-infested, gray mass.

Marisol rolled her eyes. “It’s probably an eel, Tiffani.”

“How big are eels?”

Marisol sighed loudly, notifying all what a burdensome friend this Tiffani was. “She’s always getting into something.” Stomping up the deck, Marisol called, “Okay, show me, silly.”

“No. You’re being a witch.”

Ashley noticed Justin. “Oh, hi. I see you came up for air. Did you draw anything good?”

Justin bristled, but then Ashley laughed. He’d been got. Good one.

52

“I couldn’t believe she asked you that.”

“I was gonna say, ‘No, I’m concentrating on my crap work today.’”

Justin pointed at the gray mass as birds landed, pecked, swam, nabbing pieces of floating pink material. ”What am I looking at? A corpse?”

“Carcass, actually. It’s a gray whale, adult; maybe forty feet and thirty tons. That’s the head over there, closest to us.”

The Sea Plus bow nudged the whale carcass, creating a watery triangle composed of one side ship, one side whale and one side open ocean.

Justin stared at the whale side of the triangle. He could make out a thick lip, a fin.

“And what are those big pink sections the birds keep landing in?”

“Bite marks.”

Justin’s cool reserve dropped. “What bit a whale to death?”

Ashley chewed her lower lip. “Normally, I’d say another whale. Down around Monterey, orcas have attacked and killed adult sperm whales. But those bite sections look too hardy for a killer whale. Would you excuse me? I want to get my camera.”

Ashley darted below. Justin thought he might have misjudged her. She seemed okay. At the stern, the Croons double-teamed the Captain. Justin drifted closer.

“We didn’t pay forty-five dollars to see a dead, chewed-up whale,” Barry insisted. “Get us a live whale, or a refund.”

“You did sign a release, Mr. Croon. Nature has its own rules and sometimes you don’t get what you expect.”

Nan smiled sweetly, “As my husband could tell you, any release can be contested.”

The radio blared, “Sea Plus, Emily B., come in, Javier, over.”

The Captain stepped past Justin into the pilothouse, grabbing the radio mike.

Not craving any more Croon interaction, Justin walked forward, even with the pilothouse. At the bow, the girls leaned over the side, photographing big eels with their cell phones.

“What are they even doing there?”

“Eating the dead whale, silly.”

“That’s so disgusting,” Tiffani moved left to the port side, where storm petrels skimmed across the water like torpedo bombers.

The Captain joked on the radio. Ashley was below.

The Croons snapped bird pictures. The teenagers needled each other. The whale remained dead, and the birds dined al fresco. Alone, a condition he

normally sought, Justin watched a gull swoop on the whale. An unpleasant tingling sensation arose, a feeling of being measured; observed by something alien, cunning, malicious.

“Barry, look at that odd light.”

Justin turned, seeing the blue bulb from before, rising from the ocean a dozen yards astern of the Sea Plus. About the size of a gymnasium floor exercise ball, the bulb rested on a curved, stem-like shaft perhaps seven feet tall that looked like a street lamp.

Outré, surrealistic, the pulsing object seemed an element from a Dali painting.

“What on earth is it?” said Nan. Barry rumbled, “Sure isn’t a whale. Maybe some kind of buoy.”

With stately dignity, the bulb descended, vanishing in a swirl of water.

Justin felt relieved. The creepy sensation seemed more powerful while the bulb was visible. He felt around his parka, searching for a pencil, determined to render it while the impression was still fresh.

Ashley arrived holding a digital camera. Playfully, she asked, “Did everyone miss me?”

Planks creaked.

Justin lost balance, feeling as if the ship were being lifted up from underneath. The stern rose rapidly and then amidships as the Croons, Justin and Ashley, the Captain toppled to the deck. As the bow rose, Justin heard high-pitched screams. A moment later, the Sea Plus settled. Sprawled on deck, Justin glanced forward.

No teenagers.

Amid shouts of “Everyone Okay?” Justin scrambled forward, leaving his sketchbook on deck, joining in the search for the idiot teens.

“Tiffani, Marisol!”

“Here’s one,” called Barry. He pointed over the starboard side into the triangle of water. Marisol floundered near the carcass——shocked, embarrassed, but otherwise unhurt.

“I dropped my stupid cell phone.”

“Paddle toward us,” said the Captain. Barry and Nan knelt on deck, dangling their arms over the side.

“We’ll pull you up.”

“There’s something slimy swimming around my butt and legs.”

Justin angled left toward the port side where Ashley waved to Tiffani, splashing fifteen yards away.

Ashley cupped her hands, “Can you swim toward us?”

“I’ll try.”

Tiffani swam like someone fighting bees, flailing and kicking as the life jacket kept her afloat.

53

“How’d she get all the way out there?” asked Justin.

“Current.” Ashley grabbed a life preserver from the pilothouse and hurled the cork ring. A rope trailed behind as the life preserver smacked the water with a WHAP! Tiffani splashed toward it, grabbing the ring with both hands.

“The way she swims, we could be here all afternoon,” said Ashley. “Could you help haul her in?”

“Oh, yeah.” Justin grabbed onto the rope. “I thought these life preserver things were decorations.

Like in a seafood restaurant. Hey, what the hell happened to the ship? Earthquake?”

“Maybe a whale swam under us. I don’t know.”

Together, they pulled the blonde teen toward the Sea Plus.

Justin tensed. On the starboard side, to his right, Marisol unleashed a powerful scream, a painful agonizing bawl.

“They’re biting me!”

Ashley and Justin turned as the Captain, Barry and Nan wrestled a screaming Marisol onto deck.

Four, yard-long black ribbons hung from the back of her thighs.

Wherever the ribbons attached, blood flowed, mingling with seawater dripping off Marisol’s life jacket and clothes.

Justin grimaced, watching Barry and the Captain lay the thrashing girl face down. Nan grabbed a black eel with both hands and tugged. But the eel thrashed, seeming to grip tighter, secreting a thick, translucent, mucous-like substance that gummed Nan’s hands.

“Oh, God, it’s fish snot.” Nan jerked her hands away, trailing translucent gloop.

Distracted by the disgusting scene, Justin felt Ashley power hauling the rope.

“Justin, pull as hard as you can.”

Looking out toward Tiffani, he felt an icy bolt in his chest. Behind the unsuspecting teenager, the blue bulb emerged and kept rising as an enormous fish surfaced.

Bulging pop eyes, a wide A-shaped mouth, a thicket of sharp-looking teeth, and the strange object attached to its head. The bulb made the fish appear horrific and silly, like a flowered bathing cap on the head of a tiger.

Ashley cried, “Tiffani, hold on.”

Her last expression was an exasperated grimace (“Of course I’m going to hold on.”) as the monster fish lunged, swallowing Tiffani and the life preserver like a crocodile snapping up a hen.

Ashley dropped the rope and screamed, hands flying to her face.

Justin’s hands covered the top of his head as he whispered, “holy shit.”

An instant later, the great fish dove, bulb pulsing

below the surface.

Birds screeched, cawed; fluttered and swooped.

Ashley threw up in a fine spray. A moment later, she melted to the deck, sobbing and shuddering.

Justin felt oddly detached, thoughts cloying and thick, as if he’d overdosed on Vicodin. Numbly, he placed his left hand atop Ashley’s teal watch cap.

There his hand remained, like the statue of a bishop bestowing a blessing.

Eight feet away, the Captain, Barry and Nan battled for Marisol’s life. As if watching some exotic sporting event, Justin observed Barry rush up with rags and a First Aid kit, while the Captain carried a propane torch and a hatchet. Frenzied shouts and Marisol’s screams competed with the birds as Nan, hands slimed together, sat on the teenager’s kicking legs.

Brandishing the propane torch, the Captain applied flame directly onto an eel’s head, sizzling through “fish snot” and blood. When the eel released, he flipped it onto the deck, where Barry killed it with a hatchet.

The first one was the easiest.

Defending themselves, the eels secreted a seemingly endless river of translucent, sticky fish snot that mingled with blood and seawater, turning the deck into a grisly ice rink. Barry’s footing suffered, damaging his aim as he splintered the deck, attempting to kill eels. At one point, Barry accidentally struck Marisol’s calf, leaving a deep diagonal slash.

A ghastly, sloppy, gruesome affair.

As Barry hacked the last eel, the Captain checked the teenager’s vital signs. Marisol’s face, white and waxy, lay on the deck, mouth open as if sleeping late on a Saturday morning.

Clothes splashed in blood, water and fish snot, the Captain, Barry and Nan exchanged weary looks. “Bled out,” murmured the Captain. “One of ‘em must’ve cut an artery.”

Barry helped a sobbing Nan clean up, while the Captain crossed over to Justin and Ashley.

“You two Okay?”

“No, not particularly,” said Justin.

The Captain eyed him closely, glanced down at Ashley, but said nothing. Justin gestured to the sea with his right hand.

“Some strange-ass fish with a blue light on its head got Tiffani. She’s gone.”

Ashley made little spitting sounds, “It looked like a Deep-Sea Angler, but some giant version.”

Clutching Justin’s arm, Ashley used it to pull herself up. “The blue light is called bioluminescence. It’s bacteria that fish from the ocean bottom use to attract prey in the dark.”

54

“So what it’s doing here?” said Justin.

Ashley wiped her nose on her sleeve. “Visiting.”

She grabbed the life preserver rope off the deck and hauled in the rest of the line. “I’d guess that’s what tipped the boat. Maybe hunting is easier up here.”

“Is the other girl gone too? How terrible.” Nan stood nearby, legs and arms looking as if she’d rolled in a large, plastic glue trap.

“They say a fish got her,” said Barry. “Probably a shark.”

Justin looked grim. “Something worse.”

“You’re certain Tiffani is gone?” asked the Captain.

“She didn’t swim off?”

Ashley held up the line, end frayed, and snapped, “We threw her a life preserver. Here’s what we got back.”

Like a fatigued man with more tasks than time, the Captain glanced at the Croons, Ashley and Justin, “You all did your best. Now let’s call for help.”

Nan dabbed at her clothes with a red shop rag, “Tell them we’re suffering a seasonal outbreak of Bane Fish.”

In the orange locker, Ashley and Justin discovered a canvas tarp covering a bucket and a life raft. As Captain Javier radioed the Coast Guard, they placed the tarp over Marisol. Fish snot gripped the canvas, keeping it from flapping in the wind. Using shop rags, they gathered eel pieces and flipped them overboard.

A gull grabbed an eel body, then shook its beak in a frenzy, finally dislodging the mucus-coated part.

Justin smirked. “Not too tasty, huh bird?”

“It’s a defense,” said Ashley quietly. “Hag Fish vent the same kind of sticky gloop. It’s the difference between eating a French Fry, or a French Fry drenched in glue” “Nan called it ‘fish snot.’”

“Nice.” Ashley seemed remote, taking refuge in marine knowledge. “Though technically snot dries, and this stuff may stay wet and sticky for awhile.”

Justin pried up an eel body heavy with fish snot and tossed it overboard, rag and all. “Do Hag Fish attack people?”

Ashley shook her head, “No, they’re scavengers and small. I think these were some kind of Bane Fish.”

A

few minutes later, the passengers gathered in the pilothouse, watching the sea for any return of the blue bulb. They listened as the Captain pleaded with the Coast Guard. But there was no help. All units were committed to emergencies caused by an “unexpected marine infestation.” A Mayday broadcast to any ship in the vicinity brought condolences, but no assistance.

The closest vessels were either damaged, searching for

missing passengers, or speeding back to harbor with injured. Other ships broadcast warnings about “blue pulsing lights,” “bluish green lights,” and “a field of white lights.” Only the skipper of the Emily B. spoke bluntly, stating “a sea monster lit up like a Christmas tree” had snatched two passengers from his vessel.

Barry was subdued, “Whatever is happening seems widespread.”

Captain Javier fired up the engines. The twin diesel chug masked the constant bird chatter as the Sea Plus slowly searched for Tiffani in the waters around the whale. Picking his sketchbook off the deck, Justin thought the search was like kicking tires on a used car; more traditional than useful.

Or maybe it was the boat’s farewell to Tiffani.

The passengers stayed clustered around the pilothouse, anxious to hear any communications.

Ashley went below, returning with coffee cups and the carafe. Justin set his sketchbook on the radio and held a cup as Ashley poured. The coffee tasted old and bitter, but he drank it anyway.

Nan turned to Ashley, “Dear, all these lights the other ships report, are they Bane Fish?”

Ashley stared out at the water, “I think so. If they’re from the abyss, many would have bioluminescene.

Chumash legends and the Galena log mention types we haven’t seen. Bane Fish could be like dinosaurs and come in all shapes and sizes. So whatever happens, we won’t be bored.”

Dry and bitter. Justin liked it. But Barry didn’t.

“Let’s not start seeing Bane Fish everywhere. These lights could be buoys, aircraft, ships. And these other emergencies may have mundane causes. Isn’t that more plausible than an attack by fish no one has reported seeing since the 19th century?”

Justin recalled Tiffani, who wanted to buy earrings in Santa Rosa.

“Tiffani saw one.”

Barry looked away.

Ashley seemed exhausted. She leaned against the pilothouse wall, “More people have walked on the moon than have explored the sea bottom. In fact, over the last thirty years only one percent of the deep ocean floor has ever been explored. Who knows what’s down there? But here’s a suggestion: the next blue light that comes along, take the life raft out and prove it isn’t a Bane Fish.”

“Let’s stay calm,” said Barry “I’m only pointing out alternate possibilities.”

Sonoma County Sheriff’s Marine Unit responded to Captain Javier’s call. Of its three boats, two were responding to “aquatic biohazards,” while the third hadn’t answered its radio in some time.

55

Spinning the wheel, Captain Javier finally ended the search, turning the Sea Plus east, speeding back toward Bodega Bay. Birds soared and glided and flapped and floated, keeners at the gravesite. Glancing back, Justin glimpsed the blue light surfacing near the whale carcass. He wished the Sea Plus carried cannon.

Needing to alert the Bodega Bay Police Department that they’d be returning with a body, the Captain pulled out his cell phone. The central coast was notorious for spotty communication, but he punched in a police contact number. Barry Croon placed a hand gently over the phone.

“Could we talk about today?”

Terminating the call, the Captain and passengers watched Barry.

“Who is familiar with California’s Good Samaritan Law?” The Captain shrugged, “You can’t be sued for rendering assistance in an emergency situation.

Right?”

“Roughly correct,” said Barry. “However, the law changed in 2008. Now you are only protected for rendering medical assistance. In other words, if a man is drowning and you swim out, pull him ashore, and then administer first aid, you’d be legally safe.

However, you would be liable for anything that occurred while swimming and pulling him in.”

Justin was stunned. “That’s so stupid, it’s scary.”

Barry admonished, “Let’s show a little respect for the California Supreme Court.”

“Interesting stuff,” said Captain Javier. “But lawsuits are a quality problem. Let’s get home first.”

But the word ‘lawsuit’ deflated Ashley. She sagged.

“Now we’ve got a lawsuit to sweat? I’m getting married. My fiancé and I just bought a house. I don’t want to spend my life telling strangers in a courtroom what happened today. I’ll never forget it as it is.”

Justin snorted, “Me neither. But let ‘em sue. I’ve got student loans, and two boxes of pencils. They can have it all.”

Nan put an arm around Ashley, “I understand how you feel. Barry and I could lose our home, our retirement money, have nothing left for our grandchildren.

The Captain waved a hand impatiently, “Okay, and I could lose the boat and that’s what feeds my family.

But think a minute: there’s an emergency spread all over the central coast. Who knows how many people have died? It’s like a typhoon. Can you sue the ocean if you’re killed by a storm surge?”

Everyone held on as the Captain swerved to avoid a patch of kelp.

Barry raised a finger. “In general, you’re correct.

But imagine we dock in Bodega Bay and discover TV “Of course,” said Barry. “But what would be wrong cameras and police and sobbing parents on one side. with reviewing our actions and mental states before, On the other side are five uninjured adults with the during, and immediately after the incident? Think of it body of a teenage girl who bled to death because as decompressing after a traumatic experience.” these adults couldn’t remove a few eels.”

Something more was implied. Justin didn’t like it.

“That’s such total crap,” said Justin. “You know Ashley seemed lukewarm. The Captain and Nan were what happened. How would more injured people thinking. help?”

Justin eyed Croon. The man was a sharpie. Was he The Captain’s face grew solemn. “Let him finish.” trustworthy? A moment later, Justin said, “Today Barry nodded as if thanking a bailiff for quelling an sucked, no bueno, but we did what we could. Now outbreak. “It might go a long way toward mitigating we’re talking about outsmarting something that hasn’t charges of negligence, since clearly danger existed for happened. Let’s tell the cops the truth, keep it simple. all.”

That’s what I’m doing. You guys do whatever.”

“It did,” muttered Ashley.

Stepping from the pilothouse, Justin walked to the “Of course,” said Barry soothingly. “I’m only bow. Though chilly, the wind seemed clean and fresh. thinking legally. Now consider the second teenager. Carefully, he stepped around Marisol’s body and felt a Tiffani’s family has no body to bury. No closure. Their wrenching sadness. Poor kid; rotten death; all for Mrs. grief could be shaped and focused by the media onto a Goodwin’s assignment. Sitting at the bow, Justin convenient target: us.” watched white caps bob in the breeze. He inhaled the Justin shook his head, ”You’re picking it apart, fishy scent of the sea. Far ahead to starboard, a bluish dude. The Captain’s right. Who says we’re the big green light flared, faded, glowed, then vanished. story? This is happening to a lot of people.”

Justin’s heart sped up. Bane Fish. Turning he caught Barry sighed like a doctor telling a smoker his lung the Captain’s eye and pointed. Javier flashed him a X-rays weren’t promising. “Nine-eleven lawsuits for “thumb’s up.” negligence continue today against airlines and security Croon, what a dude. Justin didn’t blame him for companies, the FAA, and the government of Saudi wanting to rig the deck. A lawyer could take Barry’s Arabia. All those entities have legal counsel. How hatchet work and make him out to be an oafish about you? Now it’s possible you’re right and our menace. Nan had sticky hands, sitting on Marisol’s incident will be lost in a major event.” legs. Ashley tossed out a life preserver, then threw up Croon paused, finished his coffee in a gulp. and broke down. The Captain was screwed any way “But families never forget. And chances are that he turned: his boat; his calls. And Justin? Not bad, but after the story cools and people have accepted the idea not too good. He’d helped Ashley with the rope, of sea monsters, Captain Javier, and probably all of us, watched the Croons and Captain Javier. Mostly, he’d will be sued by both families for negligence.” watched——the story of his life. Would that make him “That’s whack,” said Justin. No one else spoke. negligent? Croon could be right about one thing: what if the families demanded “justice” and set up a website or a time, the only sounds were the diesel with the girl’s junior high graduation photos, Marisol engines and the boat slapping against the water. opening Christmas presents, Tiffani’s first date? Would Justin remembered a documentary on child-abuse a jury agree that Justin Robinson had done well? He cases of the 80s: media witch hunt, prosecutors spat over the side. He’d have to ask his parents for crafting phantom abuse cases, innocent people help on this legal stuff. They’d dig that: Mr. Artist convicted wholesale. Families were destroyed. People couldn’t hack it in the real world. Sweet. lost everything defending themselves. Some went to CLUNK! prison.

Justin spotted a white cooler flowing behind the Some were still there. boat. Peaking over the bow, he observed deck chairs, And it was all legal. floating cushions, a white-and-red Stanford Cardinal Spray dotted the pilothouse glass. cap adrift in the water ahead. In the pilothouse, the Ashley scowled, “What’s the point, other than Captain and Nan listened as Barry explained making us feel worse? You want us to make something to Ashley, involving intricate hand something up?” movements, like a football coach making up a play.

Nan said, “Barry hasn’t suggested that.”

Justin waved. No one noticed. Irritated, he ran “I know that’s collusion,” said the Captain. “A forward and rapped on the pilothouse glass, smiling as criminal offense.” all four jumped. Probably thought he was a Bane Fish.

F

56

“We’re in some kind of debris field.”

The Captain powered down the boat as Ashley and the Croons spilled onto the deck. Slowly, they glided past some rope, a Star Trek lunch box and Styrofoam popcorn scattered like breadcrumbs in a park.

Cutting the engine, the Captain grabbed a boat hook and poled in a soggy yellow pennant with the image of an albacore. He seemed despondent. “This pennant is from the Talley Ho, an albacore charter; Captain Dale Wattney, a good guy. We’re gonna search for survivors, so keep a sharp watch. And let me know if you see any Bane Fish lights.”

Nan snapped, “Goodness, Captain, who is coming to our rescue? We’ve been through enough. Plus we have a dead child on board.”

The Captain frowned. “Mrs. Croon, no one can make you watch. But if I were in the water today, I’d really want someone looking for me.”

Nan rejoined her husband at the stern while he spoke with Ashley. Justin felt disappointed. He’d hoped Ashley would join him, but it appeared she was becoming the Croons’ adopted daughter. Staying at the bow, he scanned the choppy sea as the Sea Plus turned north.

Justin didn’t like seeing Talley Ho planks. They passed several that were snapped, and one that was bitten through. What if Ashley was right? What if there were varieties of Bane Fish that included big-ass ship takers? Justin grew queasy. Maybe they wouldn’t make it back.

Thirty minutes passed. Justin grew chilly. No sign of survivors. Judging by the waning daylight, he figured it was late afternoon. Had today gone smoothly, they’d be docking now. Suddenly, the Croons called out: three glowing, pale blue lamps were passing far astern, heading east toward the mainland. A school of Bane Fish. Super.

Justin breathed easier as the Captain cut the wheel, veering east toward land, picking up speed, bouncing on choppy waves. Justin headed for the cabin, intent on warming up. Maybe he could pry Ashley free and swap ironic remarks.

Something was wrong. The engine sputtered, revved. The Captain slowed the ship, then shut the engine down completely. The Sea Plus drifted with the current. Justin’s heart sank: he couldn’t imagine anything worse then being adrift around Bane Fish.

“Are we out of gas?” asked a worried Nan. Justin joined the others at the stern as the Captain removed his life jacket and parka, leaned over the side, and reached around the engine underwater.

Justin grew tense, waiting for something sudden, frightening, irrevocable.

57

But the Captain sat up, shaking water off his hands.

“Something fouled the propeller. It felt like rope.”

“We passed some earlier,” said Justin.

Wiping hands on his trousers, the Captain said, “I’ll clear it away, but everyone needs to keep watch.”

“How long will this take?” huffed Barry. “Whatever sank that fishing boat could still be around.”

“That’s true, Mr. Croon. There might even be something worse. So you better keep a sharp watch.”

Nan rubbed her hands nervously, “Captain, are you entering the water?”

Crossing to the orange locker where Justin and Ashley had found the tarp, the Captain removed the bucket, then wrestled out a large, rubber package. “I’ll use the life raft as a platform. It’ll be easier to work that way. Stand clear.”

Pulling a release knob, the Captain inflated the raft.

Canary yellow, six-sided, encircled by a wide, tubular border, the raft unfolded with a large hiss, occupying most of the aft section. Barry and Justin helped the Captain set it in the water next to the engine. As they worked, Nan asked, “What if something happened to Javier? Who would operate the boat?”

Justin glanced at Ashley, “Wasn’t your dad a fisherman?”

She wouldn’t meet his eyes, “Yeah, but he never let me drive. Look, Nan has a point. We need the Captain to pilot. I’m really scared, but I’ll go untangle the propeller. That is, if no one else will.”

A thought occurred to Justin: some additional action today couldn’t hurt. “Hey, what’s it take? You cut away some rope, right? I’ll do it.”

This seemed to please everyone, especially Ashley, who offered to fetch a knife. Throwing on his parka and life jacket, the Captain flashed Justin a “thumb’s up” and returned to the pilothouse. Barry Croon held the life raft in place with a boat hook, while Nan spoke in low tones with Ashley.

Wishing now he hadn’t volunteered, Justin stepped into the raft. Kneeling, facing the engine, hands on the raft’s rounded border for support, he felt uneasy with his back to the sea. Justin mentally prepared to clear the propeller in record time.

“Ashley, a knife? I’m ready to roll.”

Removing his life jacket and parka, Justin noticed Ashley cross to the pilothouse, grab something, then pick up the bucket and walk to the bow. Whatever.

Justin slid up his sweater sleeves and leaned close to the engine, looking at the propellers. Diesel oil overpowered the sea scent. He didn’t relish dipping his hands in the cold February water.

“Ashley, may I ask what you’re doing?” called Barry.

Justin saw Ashley carrying the bucket filled with

something heavy, grasping the handle in both hands.

Nan blocked her way. “Dear, please tell me the point of this?”

Ashley brushed Nan aside. Nan turned to the Captain, as if appealing to a referee.

The Captain, however, was busy with the radio.

“Justin, help. I’m about to drop this thing.”

Standing, Justin took possession of the bucket, almost dropping it. Heavy sucker. Peering inside, he saw a piece of cardboard covering fish snot.

“Thanks, I was running low. Does this mean I don’t get a knife?”

Ashley wiped her eyes and turned away.

Barry pressed the boat hook against the raft’s side, shoving it away from the engines.

“Barry, are you large and also stupid? Hook me back.”

Nan and Barry scolded Ashley in harsh whispers as they walked toward the pilothouse. Still baffled over the bucket, Justin noticed a three-yard gap between raft and boat.

“Hey, I’m drifting off.”

A voice screamed in Justin’s head—swim back to the ship…NOW. Justin hesitated. The water was cold and he wasn’t wearing his life jacket. Still, he half rose to dive in, when the Sea Plus engines roared to life, churning water. A shocked Justin watched the boat motor east, waiting for it to reverse. Super laughs as they brought him back aboard. Bad taste in humor, but it was a joke Justin would welcome.

The Sea Plus grew smaller, the diesel engine fainter.

Finally, it struck Justin with the brutal impact of a face plant on cement: they’d abandoned him; cast him adrift. Terrified, furious, outraged, he screamed at the retreating ship, “You can’t leave me! This is murder!”

A light flipped on in the pilothouse. For a fantastic moment, Justin thought they’d heard him and were returning.

But the Sea Plus receded.

Justin never stopped watching, hoping to draw the ship back by the sheer force of his stare. But little by little it disappeared. Justin felt the raft sliding around, pushed by wind and white caps. Seawater sloshing over the side soaked his knees and calves.

So cold.

In a fury, Justin rolled down his sleeves and wriggled back into his parka. He cursed, calling those aboard the Sea Plus a torrent of caustic, savage names.

They didn’t even have to sucker him. He’d volunteered to get in the raft. As he pulled on the heavy life jacket, securing the cinches tightly, Justin alternated between thoughts of violent revenge, self-pity, and the fear he would drown any second. Finally getting a grip, he 58

checked the raft’s pouches, discovering food and drink in waterproof containers, as well as a collapsible paddle. Kneeling in the wet raft, he unfolded the paddle. Lacking any other plan, Justin rowed after the Sea Plus—hopefully toward shore.

Thinking of why he was cast adrift kept Justin from pondering possible fates awaiting a man on Bane Fish Lake. How did ditching him make anyone safer from a lawsuit? Wasn’t his being marooned a secret the others must now keep? There was a panic-stricken sloppiness about the whole thing. Perhaps Barry had tried to cram fantastic, awful events into a legal paradigm he could master and control?

Perhaps a dark atavism was at work.

Unconsciously, they’d thought to ensure a safe return by offering the sea a sacrifice.

Justin chuckled grimly. Somehow, that was less scary than the legal system.

Pausing to rest, he tapped the bucket with the paddle. Something kept him from rolling it overboard.

What was Ashley’s message? Taunting? ‘We stuck you.’ No. She’d seemed sad. Justin grabbed the cardboard, hoping it would keep his knees dry while rowing. He yanked it free from the fish snot.

In the early evening gloom, Justin recognized the cover of his sketchbook.

Left on top of the radio.

In the pilothouse, where they’d had their little meeting.

Braying jackass.

Senile ape.

Happy worm.

Two dead teenagers.

Oh, piss.

Okay, the drawings were snarky and rude. He’d have tossed them at home, except maybe “Ships in Distress.” Now Croon could smear him. Every negligence charge would be watered down, deflected, or blamed on the nasty, weirdo artist. They could say he cracked up, swiped the raft and paddled off to Atlantis with a bucket of fish snot.

The Croons didn’t like the bucket. What was Ashley saying? He examined the bucket the way he’d peer at a painting. Open, letting go of prejudice, trying to see only what was present, blocking out as best he could thoughts of drowning every other minute or worse.

He resumed rowing.

Reddish beams pierced the clouds to the west.

Glowing fiery red, the sun dipped into the Pacific.

Overhead, clouds were breaking up. Far, far above, the first evening stars glittered in the blackness.

Several hundred yards to the north, a blue bulb pulsed, extra bright at dusk, moving toward the last

light in the west. Justin’s heart thudded erratically.

Fish snot came from black eels. Black eels were Bane Fish. They defended themselves by pumping out cloying mucous.

French Fry. French Fry with glue.

Defend yourself.

What if a Bane Fish ate the whole raft?

Justin stopped rowing. If that happened, his worries would be over. Using cardboard and paddle like trowels, he slopped fish snot around the raft’s tubular, top edge. Thick and gloopy, it was like spreading taffy on a truck tire. His life jacket and pants were coated; parka a sticky mess. Finishing, he felt gluey, pathetic and stupid. Keeping the bucket, Justin rowed, finding it harder because he couldn’t rest his body against the top edge of the raft without sticking.

Eventually, he found a rhythm: stroke, pull back, stroke. Did rowing help or was he lost in some current? He knew physical activity warded off the chill and numbed his thoughts. Long hours passed, distant Bane Fish lights pulsing here and there across the sea like horrid fireflies. Once, far south, Justin heard the whack of helicopter blades, followed by the stutter of a machine gun. He spotted faint ‘copter lights and a line of orange tracer bullets zipping down toward something in the water. Good. Pop ‘em.

After a rest, water and a power bar, Justin put in a long stretch of rowing. He now felt he would drown every fifteen to twenty minutes.

Something dark loomed on the water ahead. Bane Fish? But there was something familiar about the shape. Minutes passed as he rowed closer.

It was a boat.

Battered, smashed, radio mast down, pilothouse collapsed, slanted severely to port. And like a mourner at a wake, a Bane Fish lurked off the stern, soft white bacterial glow lighting the sea from beneath.

Justin nervously wondered if Bane Fish could hear?

He didn’t think so, croaking out, “Hey, anyone aboard?”

A flashlight beam snapped on from the ship, sweeping desperately back and forth, finally landing on the raft.

“My God, Nan, it’s Justin. He’s Okay.” To Justin, he called, “Careful of the Bane Fish.”

Barry Croon. Justin was stunned. The flashlight glare annoyed him. “Kill the light.”

Darkness again, lit only by starlight above and Bane Fish below. “Oh, Justin, it’s been terrible,” cried Nan from the darkness. “We hit a patch of kelp and had to stop to clear the propellers. This huge Bane Fish with 59

tentacles crushed the ship and took the Captain. Later, another shiny Bane Fish attacked and hit Ashley with some kind of toxic tendril. She stiffened up and died.”

Screw the Captain and his “thumb’s up.” Ashley was OK. Certainly not a happy worm. That must’ve hurt her.

From the water off the stern, the Bane Fish moved on the raft, white light shining from below, marking its progress. Just below the surface, a petrified Justin spotted silly Dumbo fins flapping from the side of a great bulbous head that held obsidian eyes the size of a catcher’s mitt.

Sphincter tightening, Justin heard a gentle splash as a huge, pale tentacle rose from the water and touched the raft. Landing on the tubular edge smeared with fish snot, the tentacle felt around, then wrenched free, a suction cup smeared in sticky mucus. Touching the edge in another spot, the tentacle recoiled again from fish snot. At last, the Bane Fish curtly withdrew its tentacle back into the sea.

Too terrified to rejoice, Justin sat still, system tingling with adrenalin, watching the white light return to its post off the boat’s stern.

“Justin, how are you?” said Nan. Barry called, “Rest. Recover your strength before you paddle over here.”

Barry was a trip.

“We’ve sustained major leaks,” said Nan. “We’re sinking fast.”

Justin silently thanked Ashley, wherever she was that night and forever more. Fatigued, he dipped the paddle and rowed.

“The Captain threatened us with physical violence if we didn’t ditch you. Nan and I protested, but we’re just frightened old people.”

A minute passed, then two. The flashlight beam cut the night, sweeping a wide arc, finally locating the raft.

“Over here,” called Barry. “We’re in this direction.”

“I know,” yelled Justin.

Passing the bow, Justin turned east. “This is callous and irresponsible,” called Barry, a note of fright in his voice. “You can’t live with this.”

A moment later, he added, “Justin, we can offer you a great deal of money. Plus we have connections at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. You can have a career.”

A minute passed.

Nan’s voice was shaky, “We’re sorry. Is that what you want? Now please come back at once.”

“Justin?”

“Justin, can you hear?”

He paddled on. Peering back once, Justin saw the flashlight beam low to the water, wildly sweeping the

sky like a searchlight.

Not long after, a horrible warbling scream sounded over the slop of waves.

Minutes later, a man’s voice screamed, raspy with terror. A second scream ended abruptly.

Justin thought Barry had been wrong. He wasn’t

callous and irresponsible. If someone kicked you out of a boat, and you let them into a second boat, you weren’t callous.

You were negligent.

Pick up the premiere issue of REALMS from www.blackmatrixpub.com and Amazon.com, or check with your local bookseller to order a copy. Every issue is packed with over 80,000 words of traditional fantasy fiction and high adventure.

60

Dark Side of the Tomb

by Robert Essig

Be careful, there may be more than memories waiting for you in the graveyard. ___________________________________________________________

She hadn’t been to the cemetery in a dog’s age

and Mother wouldn’t be too happy about that, now would she? Only five years under the sod and already her only daughter has forgotten about her.

“I haven’t forgotten about you, mother,” Sue said as she stood over the plot holding roses she bought from some aging ex-hippy on the side of the road.

Mother didn’t talk back, and that was a surprise.

Sue thought even death wouldn’t shut her up.

That was several hours ago. That was before the dark cloak of night draped the sky blotting out the comforts of the sun. That was before Sue fell asleep, in a graveyard of all places.

Night seemed just a little bit darker from eyes that wandered the perimeter of the cemetery, eyes that scaled the headstones in search for a creeping lunatic or perhaps a zombie.

Fear began to rear its ugly head. Running out of the cemetery occurred to Sue, but would be nothing more than an overreaction. What was there to be afraid of anyway? Aren’t cemeteries supposed to be the safest places on earth?

Supposed to be.

Sue’s heart began to beat a rock n’ roll tempo as she took deep anxiety riddled breaths. She was seriously freaking out, but what was there to be afraid of?

Okay, Sue, you lay down for a minute to rest and accidentally fell asleep. It’s now dark, but that’s not a problem. Just get up and walk out to your car.

Everything’s going to be all right. There’s nothing to fear... ...But fear itself.

And there was nothing to fear, that is, until she stood and heard voices drifting into her ears with the gentle breeze.

She froze like a deer in a pair of headlights. Her heart went from rock n’ roll to speed metal, pumping blood at such a rate she was feeling it in waves.

It was one of those terribly dark no-moon nights.

She would feel better (safer) under a tree or behind a shrub, but there was no foliage in the cemetery.

As quietly as possible, Sue crept backward, keeping her eyes wide in the direction of the voices. Just beyond her mother’s plot was a large sepulcher; old and crumbling like the pillars of ancient Rome.

61

It was a very old graveyard, perhaps one of the first in the USA. The only reason her mother was buried there was because of the family plot purchased two generations ago by her great grandparents.

Her mother was the last to go, and after a mistake in the plot books her mother ended up on the other end of the cemetery.

This end: the old decrepit end.

On the side of the mausoleum Sue waited, her back against the chalky stone wall, trembling. Her ears were perked up in anticipation of voices, listening to every sound in the still night.

She didn’t like being in the cemetery after dark.

Even in broad daylight there was an atmosphere of dread that hung like a shroud. The idea of walking above so many buried dead could be maddening to those who feel uncomfortable in a cemetery, and Sue, by all means, was one of those people.

The palpitations of her heart throbbed a wicked pulse in her ears. She knew she had to calm down and breath regularly for fear that they might hear her, whoever they were.

Probably just a groundskeeper.

But she heard two voices.

A faint cackle erupted in the humid summer breeze. Following the cackle were the voices again.

“We’ll make it fast,” one of them said.

Sue was deathly scared, though very interested in what was playing out before her.

Slow and soundlessly she crept her head around the crumbling wall of the tomb, just enough to get a glimpse of the men. There were two of them, dressed similarly in black, one wielding a shovel, the other holding a large black bag over his shoulder, a bag that hung in a way only a human body could.

Sue gasped, slapping her hand over her mouth to stifle an unexpected scream. The men didn’t seem to notice her.

“I don’t remember which one it is,” said the shorter of the two men.

The tall one, the one with the body over his shoulder, said, mechanically: “Gladys Talbot.”

Sue gasped. That was her mother’s name!

“Looks like she had a visitor today,” said the short man.

“If only that visitor knew.” Sue could hear a grin in the tall man’s voice.

The tall man heaved the body bag onto the ground.

It made a thud Sue could feel in her bones. The other man stabbed the soft earth with the spade and began to dig. The way these men operated told Sue they had done this before.

“You sure she’s ripe,” said the digging man.

“It’s been three weeks. That’s how long it takes.”

Sue watched the men silently, her knuckles between her vice-like teeth. What else could she do?

The two men would surely rape and murder her if they weren’t above digging old corpses up, and then what would they do? Maybe put her back in there with her mother never to be heard from again.

The tall man walked to the very mausoleum Sue was hiding behind. With great force he opened the stone door. It made a grudging screech as the stone scraped together.

“Be careful!” said the man digging the grave. “You remember last week, they tried to get out.”

“They’re still weak,” responded the tall man in a deep voice Christopher Lee would be jealous of.

“They won’t hurt us anyhow.”

“That’s what you think. Just watch it. They’re very...active lately.”

There was no response from the tall man entering the vault. Sue could hear echoing from his shoes as he walked into the crypt, the echoing fading away the deeper he walked in.

The short, chubby man remained outside hard at work shoveling small mounds of dirt from Gladys’ grave, the rose Sue placed there mere hours ago cast aside like a piece of garbage.

If there was any better chance of getting away, Sue wasn’t going to wait for it. Slow and silently she took a few steps backward. Behind the graveyard was an expanse of trees. If she could get there, she would be able to find the highway and maybe get back to her car.

Sue heard the sound of a shovel biting the soil. It made her realize she had to get out or she would end up as maggot fodder.

She had half a mind to leap on top of the short, fat man with the spade, grab it and beat him senseless, but she just didn’t have it in her to elicit such violence, even if someone was digging up her mother’s corpse.

Sue was nearing the rear of the tomb, keeping her eyes toward the fading sounds of the shovel digging closer to her mother when she bumped up against something.

Fear hit her like a sledge. Her knees went weak and buckled beneath her for she knew what she had run into, could tell first by the feeling of him, secondly by his raspy breathing.

62

As she submitted to the man, now fallen to the ground like a useless hulk, she looked up at his girth.

It was the tall man. He held his flashlight, pointing it straight up to his face illuminating his maniacal grin.

“I knew you had to be somewhere out here,” his voice boomed. “Had I known someone would be here, I wouldn’t have had to kill the other woman.” His smile widened unnaturally. “I suppose we’ll just have to dig two graves tonight.”

Now in tears, sobbing uncontrollably, Sue screamed, her mind finally breaking from the realization of what awaits her: a grave, perhaps her mother’s.

She tried to run but was knocked to the ground as the tall man’s hand cracked her face like a whip, knocking her unconscious. He grabbed her arm and dragged her back around the crypt to his digging counterpart.

“I found her,” said the tall man.

“Wasn’t a groundskeeper after all,” commented the digging man.

“I told you there was no groundskeeper. This is better, but now you’re going to have to dig another grave.”

“What if she’s not ready, you know, the one in here.”

“They’re always ready after three weeks. Don’t worry about that.”

That said, the tall man dragged Sue and plopped her down next to the dead woman wrapped in black garbage bags.

They had only intended to begin incubating one egg tonight, but with this surprise, they would be able to begin incubation on two.

S

ue woke with a crust of dried blood on her lip; head nestled into the stomach of the dead woman in the black bag.

Before her was a large hole in the ground. Inside the hole were the grave robbers. From Sue’s vantage, she couldn’t see the two men, but only hear them.

Then, to her surprise, a casket emerged from the cavity. Her mother’s casket!

“On three,” boomed the tall man.

“One...two...THREE!” On three, the casket was heaved out of the hole and into the silent moonless night. Sue screamed as the box hit the ground heavily. She was amazed that the wooden box held up to the abuse.

“She’s awake!” said the tall man. “I don’t want her to get away.”

The two men struggled to climb out of the six-foot hole, Sue still too dazed to realize her opportunity.

The tall man was out first.

With the sudden realization of what was going on, Sue was on her feet making a dash toward the mausoleum.

Everything was so sudden that she made the mistake of running into the crypt, screaming bloodyhell as she did so.

The inside was illuminated with candlelight and smelt terribly of decomposition. Littering the corners and piled against the walls were what appeared to be human remains.

“You’re trapped now,” chuckled the tall man.

Sue stopped running as she neared the rear of the tomb. The candlelight subsided, leaving the depth of the crypt and its contents a mystery. At that point, her mind had undergone a cruel transgression into something close to madness. The dark began to enfold her, began to swallow her up from the depths of the ancient crypt, the rotting bodies that adorned the walls calling to her, reaching for her with bony hands until she fainted away into her own darkness.

W

hen she woke again, she was crudely attached to the wall of the crypt, tied to a couple of rotten specimens from the graveyard. Her eyes went wide as she took in the whole of what was taking place around her and the fact that it wasn’t all a bad dream but a cruel reality. She choked as she breathed in the awful rank of her dead comrades.

Her mother’s coffin was in the center of the mausoleum, ceremoniously surrounded with black candles better illuminating the desolate décor.

“Ah, sleeping beauty is awake once again.” It was the tall man. He was partially concealed in a dark corner of the tomb, his eyes glinting, smile perpetually sinister.

“I’ve decided to let you see what you shall bear, what shall become of you in one month. You will be the first to actually know what your contribution to our cause is; to know what your death will become.”

His words fell on deaf ears, her mind raving wild behind a calm façade.

A noise echoed from the rear of the crypt, a sound like rattling chains.

Sue gasped, directing her attention toward the rattling.

“They know,” said the tall man. “They’re restless.”

From the entrance of the crypt came the other man, dragging the black body bag behind him, clearly not as fit or strong as the tall man who had made his entrance to the cemetery with the body dangling over his shoulder.

“We don’t have time to dig the other grave tonight,” the short man said as he plopped the body next to Gladys’ coffin. “We’ll have to wait until 63

tomorrow.”

The tall man nodded in agreement. “Yes, I figured as much.” He looked at Sue, speaking to the other man as he watched her fearful expression. “She’ll get to see what is going to happen to her, and have the whole day to think about it.” The tall man smiled.

“I’m not usually this sadistic, but I’m going to enjoy your screams, my dear.”

The tall man walked, his footsteps echoing through the cold dim lit crypt, toward the coffin encircled in black candles.

“Lets see what we have here,” said the tall man.

“Give me a hand with the lid.”

The short man grabbed a hammer and a pry bar, loosening the lid all the way around with experienced precision.

Sue watched in horror, no longer concerned about decomposed bodies to either side of her. At least they were nothing to fear, at least they couldn’t harm her; at least she didn’t think so.

After the lid was loosened, both men yanked it away from the coffin, nails lining the perimeter like a perfect set of thin, sharp teeth.

Sue squirmed, whimpering. Not because the body in the coffin was her mother, it was not, but because the body in the coffin wasn’t as decomposed as she would have thought. In an old cemetery such as this one, all of the bodies would have to be very old and this one looked so fresh.

“Is it ready?” asked the short man.

It was the body of a woman, dark bruising around her neck the sign that she had been strangled to death. Her body remained well preserved for the month she had been under the sod, the only sign of decomposition aside from the purple veins beneath her pale flesh being the bloating of her stomach. And, oddly, there seemed to be bloating in her head!

“The head looks fine to me,” said the tall man.

“Though I hoped it would be just a little riper so she could see what we have incubated in this woman.”

He contemplated what to do.

The silence in the tomb was like being in a hole deep in the ground. Time seemed nonexistent to Sue, her perceptions having been fried to a crisp, her ability to struggle free deteriorating with every minute.

“Very well,” said the tall man. He pulled a knife from the inside of his trench coat. “The head will have to come off, then it can finish incubation in the cages with the others.”

“They won’t eat it, will they?” asked the short man.

“They never have before.”

“But they’ve been so restless lately, so vicious.”

The tall man looked at his servant like a father scolding a child. “Time is short, and they’re going to

get worse before they get better, but they will not harm their own kind, and they will not harm me.”

The tall man stepped inside the candle lit circle, reached down, grabbing the hair of the bloated corpse in the coffin then swiped his knife across the neck in several swift chops releasing putrid gasses. The tall man seemed not to mind, his counterpart covering his own face. A few slashes later and the head was liberated from the body. The tall man held it high like a prize.

Sue was shocked at how large it really was, the face appearing to be stretched tight like a drum skin.

She had kept her calm as she watched the decapitation and even now, as the head began to wobble and writhe, she seemed to be in control of her facilities.

The tall man smiled like a jack o’ lantern as the head came to life in his hands. “Looks like we’re in luck!”

He placed the head back in the coffin with its body.

The animated head rolled and wriggled around crazily. Sue’s eyes were wide, her breathing heavy.

She thought of her mother and wondered if her body was somewhere in this tomb, thrown aside so they could bury someone else in her place. She knew if she didn’t escape, she would end up like the woman in her mother’s grave.

The head jumped and rolled, the flesh undulating as if something were pushing to be free. Both men were all smiles watching the horror show take place.

Then, the rotten flesh began to crack and split, tiny claws breaking through the skull as the infant creature broke free from its incubation cell.

Sue was concentrating on freeing her hands from their wire bindings. She decided to take a glance at the thing in the coffin just in time to see it burst from the head. She inadvertently screamed as the little gray skinned demon emerged.

It was bald with several small horns adorning its head, the arms, four of them, lined with small bonelike protrusions, fingers and toes ending in claws. It was colored gray like the rotten brains it had fed upon as it grew.

The little beast directed its attention to the corpse in the coffin, beginning to devour it.

The short man walked to the dark side of the tomb where unearthly grunts and chain rattling had been escalating ever since the little beast emerged from the severed head. His flashlight slightly illuminated the back of the tomb, the row of cages holding strange creatures captive. Sue could hardly make out what was grunting and screaming in the cages and figured it was probably an older, larger version of the thing 64

that was eating the corpse.

The tall man reached into the coffin and scooped up the headless body, the demon hanging with its claws sunk in deep, feeding its birth hunger.

He took the body to the rear of the crypt where his counterpart waited for him, the door to one of the cages open. “Stay back! Stay back!” the short man said trying to keep the creatures at bay. The tall man pushed the body into the cage, closing the door behind it.

Sue scrambled to free her hands, the wire cutting into them as she did so. After freeing herself, she kept her hands above her head so the men would think she was still bound. She would have made a run for it, but they were already returning with a mystery box.

The tall man held the box while the other unwrapped the dead woman from the black garbage bags and placed her into the coffin.

“Watch,” said the tall man. “For this is your fate, my darling.” He removed the lid to the box and pulled out a small, slimy orb the size of a golf ball.

The short man pried the dead woman’s mouth open as the tall man dropped the fleshy orb inside.

“Now,” said the tall man, “we lid her up and bury her and after three or four weeks, well, you’ve seen what happened here tonight.”

Sue could get sick from his smile, his blatant disrespect for human life and death.

“Not too many left,” mused the tall man. “Only nine or ten.”

“Then what?” asked the diminutive servant.

“Then we let them loose into society to find their own victims for breeding and we’ll be the only humans they won’t harm. To them, we are God, and with them at our beck and call we will live like gods.”

The short man put the lid back on the coffin and began to nail it down. The tall man was pondering the world under his rule as the demon race he had created was freed to pillage and breed.

Sue was mustering up enough courage to escape, her plan already mapped out in her head. The men were far too close for her to escape through the front, and though she was reluctant about the rear of the tomb, it seemed to be the only way.

Sue pulled her arms down unbeknownst to the grave robbing duo and slowly tiptoed to the back.

The tall man glanced toward the wall where she had been at which instant Sue went into a blind run.

She ran into the cages, pain racking her body, the creatures now in a frenzy. She wasn’t sure which way to run, but knew there was a way out in the back, a passage that the tall man had used earlier when he captured her.

Sue risked a look behind her at both men running.

She decided there would be no way to get out unless she took drastic measures, so she unlatched all three cages as fast as possible hoping the monsters would attack the first thing they saw: the two men running after her. She then ran to the back of the tomb where the light was scarce, scaling the walls with her hands for an opening. From behind her shrieks and roars were echoing through the vault. Finally, she came across a hole busted into the wall. She couldn’t see what was in the hole and for an instant there she feared spiders and rats, but the fear quickly subsided as she thought about the two men and the monsters that were, hopefully, tearing them apart.

She ducked and crawled through until she emerged

into the darkness of night. Survival instinct in full control, she ran around the mausoleum, through the graveyard toward her car.

She wasn’t surprised to see that the two men drove there in an old hearse, probably trying not to rouse suspicion.

Jumping into her car, she put it in gear without allowing it to warm up and drove away like a bat out of hell.

S

ue called the police anonymously. It was never reported in the papers, not the truth, and to this day she wonders if there were any other demons incubating elsewhere in that cemetery.

Did the police check all the graves?

In the Winter 2009 issue of ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE, look for...

I noticed her when I went to the bar to refresh my Manhattan. She stared at me. Her eyes were piercing. They were green, I think. If not green, then yellow. Lupine. She didn’t say a word, and when I turned to introduce myself to her, she’d disappeared into the crowd. Not that she was easy to lose. She was much taller than me, six feet at least, with a model’s long legs and thin build. She wore a silvery gray dress with black spots. It must have been an animal print, because I could not (indeed, still cannot) shake the impression that she was covered in a silvery gray fur.

... excerpt from Animal Appetites

by Erin O'Riordan

Available now from Black Matrix Publishing at www.blackmatrixpub.com and Amazon.com, or request it through your local bookseller.

65

The Mellified Man

by John F.D. Taff

Satisfying your sweet-tooth can be deadly when taken to the extreme. ___________________________________________________________ What is the sweetest thing you’ve ever eaten?

I won’t tell you that, but I’ll tell you the sweetest thing that I ever made…the most dreadful thing…

It was Bobby’s sweet tooth that did him in.

A common lament, the mumbled apology of every diabetic, every cavity sufferer, every overweight, badcomplexioned kid who stashed candy at the back of his underwear drawer.

Sweets were his bread, his staff of life. It wasn’t unusual for him to have an ice cream at lunch…instead of lunch; a piece of cake for dinner.

But he wasn’t fat, wasn’t even pleasantly plump or husky, as his mother called his brother. He wasn’t diabetic, and his teeth were in fantastic shape for a 31year-old. Bobby Jenkins was, in fact, as close to a perfect specimen as was possible for a man of his age.

Except, of course, for his sweet tooth…and the fact that he liked guys instead of girls; that, at least according to his mother, was a mark against him.

He swam, he lifted, he played competitive handball and racquetball at the club, he walked on a treadmill.

He neither smoked nor drank nor even imbibed in red meat or carbs of most varieties.

Ahh, but sugar, refined, white sugar was his heroin, his crack, his meth, all rolled into one.

And like any addict of any substance, he was loath to give it up.

And like any addict of any substance, it dominated his life.

And like any addict of any substance, it would end his life…

B

obby was at lunch, poring over papers for a business merger he was shepherding, when he heard of The Alhambra, a new candy store in town. Two days later, he was dropping those same papers at a law firm, when he remembered. Nearby, he decided to swing over and have a look.

The Alhambra was a massive red brick structure, three stories tall and encompassing an entire block.

The front of its first floor was lined with tall plate glass windows opening onto the displays inside. A simple, tasteful awning jutted from the entrance, The Alhambra stenciled in flowing, Moorish-looking letters.

Bobby parked his car, fed the meter and walked through the door. Outside, the air was hot, St. Louis 66

summer hot; inside the air was cool, bursting from an overhead vent directly above the inside of the door, shocking in intensity.

Two steps in, and he stopped, stunned. He would not have been shocked to learn that his mouth hung open, that his breathing had stopped.

He had found his heaven, his paradise, his nirvana…

The inside of the store was done in dark, wainscoted paneling that covered the walls to about waist height; textured wallpaper with Moorish designs in reds and golds covered from there to the ceiling.

Displays and cases were discretely lit by hanging lamps. Silk bunting covered the ceiling; reds and golds again, but also rich blues and vibrant greens and dark violets.

But the candy…the candy was what caught his eyes…

On one side of the long, narrow room were what you’d expect—jawbreakers and gumballs of all kinds; licorice whips and lollipops, gummies and stick candy in tall apothecary jars; popcorn balls and candy apples, jelly beans and penny candy of every variety, from root beer barrels to lemon drops. There was even a section with the kind of candy you’d find at any convenience store or gas station.

In the middle of the room, where Bobby stood agog, there were chocolates of all kinds and shapes and darkness. Here, chocolate bars, unwrapped, bare and stacked like bullion. Here, ribbons of chocolate so dark it seemed as if they were curled from the very stuff of night.

Bon-bons and truffles, chocolatecovered fruit and nuts of every kind, white chocolate, dark chocolate, milk chocolate. The smell of the chocolate alone was intoxicating, heady.

On the other side were items that were less common. Here, there were pastilles from France, Botan rice candy from Japan, marzipan in a host of shapes, maple candies from Canada, even a case with chocolate-covered mealworms and crickets, sugared ant eggs from Mexico, some kind of candied, dried fish from Norway.

“Ahhh, overwhelmed, are you, sir?” came a voice, rich and baritone, with a blur of an accent. “I am overwhelmed myself…and I own the place.”

Bobby turned and saw a man who was perhaps Spanish, perhaps Arabic. He was a bit shorter than

Bobby, spare and lean, with a swarthy, attractive face that looked as though it been carved from the room’s dark wood. He was perhaps 45, perhaps 55; it was hard to tell. A magnificent black mustache draped his upper lip, and his hair was a dense mop of the same stuff, only a few stray streaks of gray here and there.

“You’re like…the luckiest kid in town,” Bobby said, still somewhat dazed.

At that, the man laughed, a booming sound that echoed through the store, drawing looks from other patrons.

“I knew we were of a kind when you walked in,” he chuckled, and those words, his polite, interested laughter sent a tingle up Bobby’s back.

Was he…did he just…nah...

“My name is Afaz Aziz. The Alhambra is mine.

Come, what can I show you?” he asked. “More important, what can I get you?”

Mr. Aziz said this with all of the tremulous avidity of any drug dealer; and like any drug taker, Bobby followed him.

T

he bag of sweets he’d bought at The Alhambra that afternoon didn’t last long. Within four days, Bobby was visiting again, leaving with another bag filled with candy. He didn’t want to admit it, but it was at least as much to see Mr. Aziz as it was to satisfy his sweet tooth.

Week after week, Bobby visited The Alhambra; sometimes twice, sometimes three times a week.

Each time, Aziz greeted him warmly, effusively, as if waiting specifically for him.

But Bobby couldn’t tell…couldn’t confirm that Aziz was interested in him…at least not like that. The man was handsy, always touching him, his arm, his shoulder, patting his face, sometimes even taking his hand like a child.

Nothing came from any of this, though, unless you counted the pounds that Bobby was putting on from the rich, exotic sweets he left with. And he always left with a bag stuffed to breaking.

“S

o, what are you looking for today, eh?” Aziz asked on a visit a few weeks later. “Chocolate truffles from Madagascar? Hmmm, macadamia brittle from Hawaii? No, hmmm…let me see…”

“I want something different,” Bobby blurted, trying hard not to make it sound like a line.

Aziz narrowed his eyes, and for a moment, Bobby felt as if he blundered, misread the situation, the man.

But Aziz nodded, pursed his lips. “Yes, perhaps we have just the thing for you.”

Then, taking his hand, he led him through a thick, 67

velvet curtain the color of a dark sea. Behind the curtain, down a short hallway cluttered with empty boxes and cartons, they came to a door. Aziz, still gripping Bobby’s hand (which he was beginning to worry was a little too sweaty), produced an ornate brass skeleton key from a vest pocket, slid it into the lock, turned it.

Aziz pulled him through a bewildering maze of dark corridors. The air had a close, humid feel to it, like warm breath exhaled from a mouth that had been too long closed.

Just as Bobby was about to ask where they were going, they came to an iron staircase that zigzagged up the rear wall. They mounted the rickety thing, which squeaked and swayed under their feet, ascended one flight, crossed a short landing, then up another…

At the top, Aziz opened a door onto blinding sunlight.

Bobby shielded his eyes with his free hand as Aziz drew him through the doorway…

He had nearly gasped the first time he’d walked into The Alhambra; he did gasp now.

They were on the roof of the building, but you’d never know it.

A magnificent garden spread before them, trees large enough to block the skyline and provide shade from the sun. And even though it was in the high 90s, here, within this lush, unexpected garden, with its shaded paths and its air filled with mist from a fountain, it was at least 15 degrees cooler.

Aziz crossed to a path made from paving stones set in the springy grass, to a table set near the fountain.

The table was under a small structure like a gazebo, made of alternating tan and red stone blocks forming Moorish arches, a dome overhead.

“Drinks!” announced Aziz, clapping his hands as they sat. A young man, dark skinned and wearing white robes, appeared from some hidden door, stopped at Aziz’s side. “Haran, we require something to drink as we discuss business. Coffee perhaps? A soda?”

Bobby answered slowly, still a little overwhelmed.

“Do you have Coke?”

Aziz laughed. “Do we have Coke? Hah! Coke for Mr. Jenkins and coffee for me.”

The young man disappeared, and Aziz watched Bobby gape at his surroundings.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?”

“I’ve heard of rooftop gardens, but this is like a rooftop park. How’d you get all this up here?”

Aziz waved a hand negligently. “Isn’t it enough that it’s here, that you’re here?”

“Of course.”

“Then relish it, Mr. Jenkins.

Relish the opportunities that life brings you, as I do.”

Haran returned with a silver tray bearing a complete coffee service and a glass filled with ice between two bottles. The boy set everything onto the table, hovered for a moment until Aziz waved him away with a negligent flip of his hand.

“Coke,” said Aziz, as Bobby studied the bottles.

“Imported from Mexico, where they still make it with real cane sugar, not corn syrup.”

Bobby decanted half of one bottle into the glass, where it fizzed and foamed familiarly. One swallow and Bobby knew that he’d never drink another Coke that wasn’t made in Mexico. The taste was crisp and glassy, with a sparkling, deep sweetness.

“It’s delicious.”

Aziz smiled as he put teaspoon after teaspoon of sugar into his small cup of dark, frothy coffee. “I’ll have a case waiting at the door. My gift to you.”

Bobby sipped at the soda.

“So, what kinds of sweets are you looking for today?” Aziz asked him, his look again becoming serious, measuring.

“Something different, unique...that you can’t find anywhere.”

Aziz wiped foam from his mustache with a linen napkin.

“What would you recommend? What was the sweetest thing you’ve ever eaten?”

The Alhambra’s owner considered this, poured another cup of coffee. “I won’t tell you that, but I’ll tell you the sweetest thing that I ever made…the most dreadful thing…”

“The most dreadful?”

“Yes. Have you heard of…a mellified man?” Aziz asked, finishing the sugaring of his second cup of coffee.

“No.” “Ahh,” breathed Aziz. “It is the body of a dead man macerated in honey. Arab, Chinese, even Egyptian physicians have used them for centuries to treat certain illnesses, depending on what part is ingested, of course.”

“A dead man?” Bobby frowned. “People…eat it?”

“Yes, but only the purest of men can be mellified, only those who have lived clean, healthy lives. It is the rarest, the purest, most spiritual of sweets. And valuable, incalculably valuable.”

“Have you…ever…?”

Aziz’s eyebrows rose and his face became somber.

“If I say no, you think I am…pulling your leg. If I say yes, you recoil in horror.”

68

“But you said…you said the story was about the sweetest thing you’d ever made.”

Aziz poured more coffee, shoveled more sugar into it. He stirred the resulting slurry, downed it in one swallow. “When I was younger, I helped my father and uncles make a mellified man. It was a…unique experience, one that has stayed with me.”

“What did you do with it…him?”

“Why, what we made it for, of course,” Aziz said.

“For doctors to prescribe to their patients…well, the wealthy ones at least. And to allow epicures like yourself the opportunity to taste a most sublime sweet.”

Bobby swallowed. “So, have you…did you…”

“There is only a single piece left of that mellified man,” said Aziz, ignoring the question. “The last piece after 45 years. Just the tip of a finger, no larger than a thimble. I have been saving it for the last five years.

I think I have been saving it for you, Mr. Jenkins. I think you are the right person.”

“Me? What would make you think that I’d want to…eat part of a dead body?”

Aziz smiled. “Is cheese just spoiled milk? Is an aged bottle of wine just grapes that have gone bad?

No, the process they go through makes them more than just that, just as the mellification makes the flesh more than just flesh.”

“Neither one was ever a dead guy, either. No, thank you.”

He rose from the table, turned to find the way they’d come in.

Aziz remained seated, poured more coffee. “And here I thought we were of a kind.”

“Me, too,” Bobby answered. “Just not that kind.”

“I thought you were an epicure of sweets, perhaps the one man who could appreciate the last remaining bite of something rare…something sacred.”

Bobby stared at him, said nothing.

“You said you wanted something new, something you couldn’t get anywhere. Did you not?”

“I was talking about an everlasting gobstopper or gum that tastes like a four-course meal. Not a chunk of sweetened corpse. Thank you, Mr. Aziz. But no thanks, not for me.”

Mr. Aziz still didn’t move, and for a crazy, sweating minute Bobby thought that there might be repercussions for saying no.

But Aziz merely motioned with his hand. Instantly, Haran appeared.

“Take Mr. Jenkins to the front.”

Haran bowed, motioned for Bobby to follow.

They went several steps down the stone path, and Mr. Aziz called to him.

“Mr. Jenkins…think about it…think long and hard.

It is a singular honor I offer you,” he said. “Oh, and don’t forget your case of Coke. Haran will help you to your car with it.”

Two weeks went by.

Bobby buried himself in his work, stayed long hours at the office, put off going back to The Alhambra as long as he could.

But he knew he had to go back…because he had been dreaming about it.

In his dreams, he is at the table in the garden, Mr. Aziz by his side, smiling…smiling…

Before him, on a golden plate is a hand, an entire human hand, severed at the wrist, laying palm up, the fingers curled slightly inward. The hand is a curious deep amber color and sits in a pool of thick liquid the same shade.

In his dreams, he pins the hand to the plate with his fork and slices a thin piece from the mound of flesh under the thumb. It carves like cold butter, the meat draping over onto itself as if carved from a turkey breast. The flesh is golden underneath, dense, almost creamy.

In his dreams, he lifts his fork, golden fluid dripping to the plate, dripping like sparks in the sun, lifts it to his mouth, slides it in…

Just as he begins chewing, the dream ends.

He is left with the ghost memory of its texture, firm like meat, yielding to the gentle pressure of his teeth, liquefying in his mouth…

He is left with a strange taste in his mouth, haunting, evocative, sweet and thick and… …but it fades…fades…

He had this dream three times before he returned to The Alhambra.

“A

hh, Mr. Jenkins,” Aziz greeted him as he walked into the store. “How nice to see you again. It has been too long. Did you enjoy the Coke?”

Bobby nodded, sweating even though the air inside was, as usual, frigid. “Yes, it was great…delicious.

But that’s not…I mean…it isn’t why…”

Aziz turns to him, and Bobby sees the sparkle in his eye, a slight twitch of his upper lip beneath the fringe of his mustache.

“Of course not. You are here for the mellified man, as I knew you would,” Aziz said, smiling.

“Look,” Bobby said, making sure they weren’t overheard. “I have questions. I mean…is it…legal?

Dangerous? Can I afford it?”

Mr. Aziz’s smile grew wide, and he threw back his head and roared in laughter. “Yes, yes and yes. All yes. Now, come, upstairs. We make arrangements.”

69

M

ellified Man was perhaps the only candy Bobby had ever heard of that required a course of preparation to eat.

It wasn’t a rigorous course really…strange, but not rigorous.

“You must take care of your body, keep it in shape,” Aziz had said, patting Bobby’s gut, which jiggled with the 15 or so pounds he’d put on since discovering The Alhambra. “Especially over the next 27 days.”

“The next 27 days,” Bobby had asked. “Why?” “Because for the next 27 days, you will eat nothing but honey and water. No bread, no meat, no alcohol.

Only honey. I will provide all you require.”

“That can’t be healthy.”

“Bees do it,” Aziz had answered. “Honey is the perfect food, perfect. That is why your body must be full of it, saturated with it before you can ingest the mellified man.”

“And how much is this going to cost me?” he’d asked, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Aziz blinked, frowned, as if he had not considered this.

“Let’s say…a thousand dollars.”

“A grand? That’s it? For something so rare, so unusual? And the last piece of it?”

Aziz had smiled, avidly, like a drug dealer.

“Only because I know you will bring me much business in the future.”

D

ay 10 came and went, and he felt great, better than he’d have thought; better than he’d ever felt, for that matter. Initially, he’d been worried about getting enough to eat, keeping his energy up, but that seemed to be no problem. He carried a jar of honey in his briefcase, a new one each day, spooned some out each time he felt hungry.

He went to the gym now every day, worked out for at least two hours. In a week, most of the candy weight he’d put on since The Alhambra had come off.

Another week, and he was in the best shape of his life.

Where his muscles were noticeable before, now they were prominent, even through clothing.

Everything on his body was chiseled, sculpted, from his pecs to the deep ridge of his abdominal shelf, flaring across his lower stomach from his hips, dipping below his navel.

His boss called him into his office to tell him that several people noticed him working through lunch, eating nothing but spoonfuls of honey and a bottle of water. Everyone knew of his sweet tooth, but he thought there might be something seriously wrong.

But Bobby assured him, assured them all (his

mother, included) that he was fine…better than fine.

He was great. He was in fantastic shape, feeling spectacularly healthy.

“Just a diet, then?” his boss had asked.

“Yeah, just a diet,” he said, smiling.

“OK, well take care of yourself.

You’re too valuable.”

Neither he nor Bobby had any idea how true that was…

B

obby was shaking so badly by the time he arrived, he couldn’t tell if it was anticipation or the fact that every molecule in his body felt like it was vibrating at high frequency.

Haran was there to open the door for him, lead him to the garden on the roof. It was a cool night, summer starting to give way to early fall. Already the sun was low in the sky, painting it roses and blues and dark, bruised violets. Just as in his dream, Mr. Aziz sat at the table under the stone gazebo.

“I am so glad you are here,” he said, pulling him into an embrace. Bobby took the man’s hug, confused all over again, hugged back.

He smelled his aftershave, redolent of sandalwood and leather; his breath of cloves and mace.

Aziz waved him to a seat, sent Haran away, and they were alone.

“So, you are ready for this?”

“Yes, I feel great.”

“Excellent. Well, then let us begin…”

“Do you want me to pay you now? I brought cash.”

Bobby produced a plain envelope.

Again, Aziz seemed surprised. “Of course, that’s fine.” He took the envelope and secreted it deft as a magician in some pocket within his dark suit. He produced a small box from the same pocket, set it onto the table.

“The last remaining piece of the mellified man.”

The box was simple, unadorned brass, hinged on one side, about the size of a matchbox. Bobby touched the smooth metal of the box, placed it in the palm of his hand, lifted it. He opened the lid. It took him a second to figure out what he was looking at.

Nestled in crushed velvet was a small, wrinkled thing about the size of a gumdrop.

The intact nail gave it away…

It was the tip, the very tip of a human finger.

It was golden-brown, the color of a well-cooked French fry, moist looking, gelid. The nail was a bit longer than the finger, but it had softened, drooped over its tip.

The smell was larger than the box; rich and aromatic, flowery and almost resinous, sharp.

70

Bobby was shocked that it made him salivate.

Reaching in, he touched the thing tentatively. It was soft, but not jellied; moist but not wet, sticky but not adhesive.

He lifted it from its velvet nest, brought it to his nose.

It was intoxicating, the aroma of every sweet he’d ever smelled—chocolates and licorice and almonds and caramel.

Almost without volition, he opened his mouth, placed it on his tongue, closed his lips, his eyes.

He didn’t move, didn’t chew, simply let it sit on his tongue and melt…

The taste was indescribable. It warmed in his mouth, sending delicious trickles over his tongue, trickles that tasted of honey, yes, but also of something earthier, something more substantial.

Meat…that was it…meat…

His stomach might have forced him to spit the fingertip onto the table, but he didn’t…he didn’t because it was so damned delicious.

It tasted of everything, everything sweet, everything salty, everything savory… …and nothing…like nothing he’d ever tasted before.

Then he bit down, and the mellified flesh gave way, parted under his teeth with something like the texture of a caramel, dense, resistant at first, but softening.

His eyes still closed, he chewed. His mouth filled with saliva, and he had to force himself not to swallow, lest he swallow the remaining piece of the fingertip and then this would be over too soon.

Then, it was over as the last sliver of it trickled down his throat. There was an aftertaste, musky, spoiled meat that lasted for just a moment. But it was overshadowed by a last, brief explosion of sweet flowers—tasting of sugared violets.

And he thought, thought in that last moment, that this is what flowers tasted like to the bees that made the honey; the essence of the flower, pure and bright and sugary with its perfume.

He swallowed the last of it, looked at Mr. Aziz.

There were tears in his eyes.

“Thank you…good lord…thank you.”

“Thank you,” Aziz smiled back. “You have no idea the joy this gives me.”

Bobby had lost all track of time, had no idea how long he’d sat at the table.

“I feel like… nothing can top this experience. Like this might be it for me and sweets.”

“Oh,” Aziz smiled, taking the brass box, closing its lid and secreting it back into his jacket. “I wouldn’t say that…”

The

How he’d thought that was too small a price… next morning, Bobby woke up, feeling

strange.

He sat in bed for a few moments, trying to figure out what it was, what didn’t feel right.

Then, it dawned on him; the strange, exciting, buzzing energy that had filled him for the last month was gone. It was replaced by a thickness, a kind of turgidity inside him, as if his blood were sluggish, too substantial for his veins.

There was also the taste in his mouth, an unpleasant taste; rotten and carious, as if he had an infected tooth.

It tasted of sweet, dead flesh.

Throwing the covers off, he rose, went to the bathroom, looked in the mirror over the sink. His face looked puffy, his eyes bleary, hung over.

There was something wrong, though…some problem with the bathroom lights.

His skin was a deep, amber yellow. Even the whites of his eyes looked golden, his palms, his finger nails…

Shaking his head, he stepped to the toilet and tried to pee.

Nearly a minute passed. He opened his eyes, looked down. He was not, had not been peeing.

He felt something in his bladder uncoil, and there was a rush of fluid.

Then pain, pain so instant, so powerful that his legs swayed, his knees buckled. His guts cramped, and he felt as if he was passing a rope of fire.

He expected to see blood in the toilet, but what he saw was worse…

Peeing, yes, finally, but it was not the thin, arcing, rushing stream of urine he was accustomed to.

It was a thick, slow-moving, golden stream that didn’t so much jet from him as pour like syrup.

And it hurt, dear God, it hurt…too thick, to substantial to pass…

It plopped into the toilet, hit the water and congealed there, forming a golden squiggle that twisted to the bottom of the bowl, curling on itself like piped icing.

As sweat beaded on his forehead, the odor hit him; musky and heavy and sweet…

Shaking as much in agony as in fear, he put a finger in the flow, brought it to his mouth.

Honey…he was pissing honey.

Just as this realization hit, another shock wave of pain rippled through his guts, crumpled him to the cold tile floor.

As he faded into unconsciousness, he thought of the thousand dollars he’d given Aziz.

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T

he candy store wasn’t open yet, but he didn’t care. He jerked his car to a stop in front of the awning, climbed out slowly, lurched to the glass door.

Peering through the bars over the windows, he could see that it was empty, the lights off.

“Aziz!” he shouted, pounding on the steel bars and rattling them. “Aziz! Open up!”

People passed on the street, stared. He’d been unable to dress himself, so he still wore the loose shorts and t-shirt he’d worn to bed.

Haran, his eyes wide, unbolted the lock, threw open the bars.

“Mr. Jenkins?” he asked in alarm. “How can I…?”

“Aziz,” mumbled Bobby past a bloated and uncooperative tongue. “Must see him.”

He pushed past Haran, who drew down the bars, closed and locked the door.

Bobby stumbled through the dark store, bumping into displays, knocking pieces of candy and entire displays over.

“Here,” Haran said, taking his arm. “Let me help.”

I

n the garden, now, Bobby moved as quickly as his stiffening legs would take him. Toward Aziz, there under the stone gazebo drinking coffee.

As Bobby approached, Aziz looked up, not surprised at all to see him.

“Atheeth,” Bobby yelled, through a hoarse and constricted throat. “Wha ha you done oo mee?”

Mr. Aziz regarded him with delight, his eyes twinkling as they had when he’d first met Bobby.

“Why you truly were the right person, weren’t you, Mr. Jenkins,” he said. “We are of a kind.”

Bobby found breathing difficult now, his lungs felt as if they were filling with thick fluid.

“Wha?” “The candy maker and the candy. What…you mean you never knew…never suspected?”

“Den your not…not…?”

“No. I’m flattered, but no…”

Bobby felt syrupy tears squeeze from his eyes, dribble down his cheeks. When they touched his mouth, he was not surprised that they were sweet.

“The last piece of a mellified man is used to make a new mellified man,” Aziz explained, rising and approaching him. He took Bobby’s hand. It was puffy and golden-brown, so engorged with honey that drops of it dewed atop the pores of his skin.

Bobby saw Aziz take a long, wickedly curved dagger from his jacket, hold it to the light.

“This will not hurt…not a bit, you will see.”

The knife slipped into his chest slowly, deliberately, and while Bobby could feel it penetrate him, he felt no pain, as Aziz had promised. And from the wound honey seeped, like amber treacle.

Vaguely, he saw Haran wheel a wooden box close by, felt Aziz’s hands on him, Haran’s hands as they eased him down, eased him into it.

“Excuse me, but the wooden casket is temporary only,” Aziz apologized.

“A few days, after the transformation is complete and you are dead, we will place you in a stone sarcophagus, cover you completely with honey. There, you will steep for an entire year before…”

Aziz reached out, stroked his cheek.

72

Bobby felt tears track down the sides of his face, pool near his ears.

“You will help so many, so very many other people,” he said, his eyes large and moist and almost loving, almost sympathetic.

Bobby tried to say something, to plead, but nothing came out of his mouth now; not words, at least, but a gout of honey that poured over his chin.

Aziz managed a final smile. “You were a sweet customer, Mr. Jenkins…perhaps the sweetest. Now, you are to become the sweetest thing that I make…the most dreadful thing.”

The lid fell over Bobby’s face, and darkness enclosed him, darkness thick as honey…

The Serial Killer's Ghoul

by David Bernstein

When you make a pact with an undead creature, it's a good idea to honor the deal. ___________________________________________________________

The

graveyard was at rest, a low hanging fog hugged the ground, tombstones showing through like frozen ghosts. It was an old cemetery, dating back to the mid 1800’s, named after the family that started it, the Grending’s. No new graves had been dug for years, the weeds and tall grass flourishing. With no relatives left alive to visit, the graveyard had begun melding into its surroundings, becoming a part of the landscape.

It was the reason Brian, a dentist, had bound the ghoul there. The place was miles from town and off of the main roads. The wild vegetation and rancid odor from the nearby bog kept people away, the town forgetting the long dead.

Brian parked his truck behind a blossoming lilac tree, hiding it from the dirt road. The nearest residence was a good three miles away, but he had to be vigilant. If a body was ever discovered, the ghoul unable for whatever reason to finish its meal, Brian wanted no one to be able to identify him. As desolate an area as Grending Cemetery was, there was always the chance someone could wander into it. In today’s world no place was too remote or unreachable.

The young woman lay in the rear compartment of the SUV. Brian opened the rear hatch. He grabbed a lantern, slinging the strap over his shoulder. He would need two hands. The woman was beginning to stir. He grabbed her ankles and yanked her out of the truck.

She landed hard on the muddy ground, splattering Brian’s plastic covered shoes with muck. Her feet and wrists were bound with barbed wire, duct tape covered her mouth. A line of mucus was trailing from her left nostril like an alien worm.

Brian shut the hatch, locked the car and grabbed the woman’s ankles before he started dragging her. He needed to keep in shape and lugging his victim helped with that. The woman shook her head back and forth, her long blonde hair wild and picking up twigs and leaves. She started screaming, but the duct tape over her mouth kept her quiet. He laughed through all her writhing and inaudible pleading, dragging her up the inclined rocky path to the graveyard.

He stopped outside of the cemetery gates. They were wrought iron, made from fine craftsmanship, with two gargoyles perched atop. Years of rain, wind, and snow, rusted the iron work, making them appear 73

ancient.

He always kept the gate partially open, enough to fit himself through. If anyone came along, he wanted it to look as if no one had visited the place.

He brought the woman through, pulling her a few feet inside the yard before letting go of her ankles. He was breathing hard, the day hot and humid. The woman continued to struggle, her back bruised from having been hauled over jagged rocks.

Brian pulled a small gutting knife from his pocket.

Easily concealed, it was his favorite weapon of choice for small, deep incisions. He bent down next to the whining female and sliced a one inch line down the inside of her right wrist. Then he did the same to her left wrist. The blood flowed from the wound, darkening the bottom of the tall grass. It kept coming, as if she was overfilled, the heart pumping faster to counteract the loss of pressure. Brian watched, feeling a rush of pleasure. He supposed it was what normal people got out of great sex. He found sex unfulfilling.

A slow, agonizing kill is what got him off.

“Yes,” he said to the woman as she stared, horrified, at him. “This is really happening. That water I offered you earlier had an anti-coagulant in it. Don’t want you clotting now, do we?” The woman’s eyes went wide, she began to shake, tears flowing from the corners of her eyes. Brian watched as the minutes turned to hours, transfixed by the gruesome scene.

Her fear filled him with power as if he were taking a piece of her soul. The woman had gone from screaming and crying to docile and sleepy. She had a couple of inaudible pleadings, her strength fading. Her eyelids slowly began to lower, death seeping in. He loved to watch his victims fight, but it was useless.

Death always came. He knew when it was time, leaning in and lowering his ear to her mouth, waiting for it. It came, the last breath. He shuddered, moaning in ecstasy.

The sun had dipped below the horizon just after the woman passed. He took hold of the lantern and using a lighter, ignited the wick. It had four glass sides, three covered with black paint to cut down on the glow. It was unlikely he’d be seen, but he took precautions anyway.

With dead flesh lying about, it wouldn’t be long before the ghoul came out of the bog, the place it slept. The creature needed a constant supply of dead

meat and lived off the swamp’s critters when human flesh wasn’t available.

He heard its moan before seeing it emerge out of the gloom from across the way. It ambled over, almost limping. Its skin held an olive tint, its flesh covered in rot and littered with sores. Its eyes were sunken in, its skull revealed and the pupils nothing more than tiny specs of black. The ghoul was hungry for dead human flesh, the bodies in the yard all but decaying skeletons with no flesh left. Brian marveled at the creature, something dead, yet alive somehow. He offered it living flesh once, but the thing refused. Instead it tore the woman’s throat out and waited for her to die before eating.

The ghoul had been resurrected from Brian’s first victim, a woman he’d picked up hitchhiking. He brought her to his house where he killed her by slashing her throat. Her tremendous loss of blood was euphoric, but hadn’t lasted long enough. It took him until the fifth kill to find his ultimate pleasure, the slow bleed-outs. He’d buried the woman in his backyard, afraid to dump her body elsewhere for fear of getting pulled over. It was, he’d imagined, how a lot of criminals were caught.

After his sixth kill, he realized he was a novice serial killer and would need guidance. Using the Internet he researched thousands of Web sites and articles about serial killers. Since he was one, he needed to study them, learn their ways and mistakes.

One day while searching the web, he came upon a link leading him to a Web site called, Raising of the Dead for Personal Gain. It had a site counter at the bottom.

He was visitor four since the site’s inception ten years ago. Strange, he had thought at the time. On the Web site he learned about zombies and ghouls. Zombies ate the living and ghouls ate the dead, often roaming graveyards at night and feeding off of the corpses. At first Brian had thought the whole thing a joke, not taking it seriously. He sent the Web site’s owner an email, asking what he needed to bring back a dead person to serve his needs. He received a two word reply: The Undeath.

After researching The Undeath, he found out it was a very old book, dating back to the Salem witch trial days. He emailed the Web site’s owner again asking where he could buy the book, having found it nowhere for sale. A week later he got a reply asking for his address. He gave a P.O. Box number, registered under a false name, finding it odd that the person hadn’t asked for money. The next day the book was in his P.O. Box. It was bound in leather, worn from old age. It stunk like moth balls and decay. Dust layered the outside, 74

filling cracks in the leather like spackle. Brian was unnerved by the speediness of the arrival, but felt safe knowing the sender didn’t know his real name. He sent a thank you email asking if the person wanted the book returned at some point, but received no reply.

The ancient text made him feel powerful as he read from it. While at work, he often found his mind wandering, thinking about the book as if it were calling out to him. Each page was filled with fascinating entries from witches’ trials. Many of the pages consisted of the numerous and different ways a witch was put to death. Finally, at the end of the book were spells. He’d found the one for creating a ghoul, an undead creature that would help serve his purpose.

In effect, an undead DNA disposal unit.

He would need a place to keep the creature. After researching the town’s history, he came upon the old, forgotten graveyard. It was exactly what he needed; a desolate place where he could bring his captives and a home for the ghoul.

Following the instructions with meticulous resolve, he began by digging up the woman in his backyard, her flesh intact and ripe. He read from The Undeath book, slicing his finger, leaving a smudge of his blood in the book next to a number of previous entries before letting the blood fall into the corpse’s mouth.

The spell, when combined with his blood, would bring the corpse back as a member of the undead.

Later, that same evening, Brian was awakened, the ghoul standing at the foot of his bed. The Undeath stated that the ghoul was tied spiritually to him and would understand his needs, do his bidding without question. He wanted the monster for disposing of his kills. In order to maintain the spell, every victim had to be fed to the ghoul.

He drove with it to the graveyard that early morning and using the spell book, bound it to the property and surrounding bog. Since the graveyard was old, the corpses all but decaying skeletons, the creature would need things to eat while waiting for Brian to bring it dead human flesh. It could survive on toads and turtles as long it received dead human flesh once a month. People using ghouls to outright kill or perform difficult tasks needed to supply them with fresh kills on a regular basis. Brian was only using his to clean up.

The ghoul leaned over the dead corpse as if searching for the best area to begin its feast. It took hold of the dead female, ripped apart the skin and began devouring the intestines. It ate fast as if starved.

The scene was gruesome, the woman’s stomach an empty cavity within minutes as it moved to her chest.

It broke the ribs and sternum to get at the heart and lungs, the snapping sounds striking the silent air like a whip. The monster would eat every part of the woman, taking the bones back to the swamp with it, burying them in the marsh. The evidence gone.

Two months had gone by, Brian supplying the ghoul with two more bodies. Summer had come and gone and it was time for Brian’s vacation. He always closed his dental practice for a week, heading south to warmer lands.

He booked a flight to the Cayman Islands where he lounged around on the beaches and drank margaritas poolside. He’d met quite a few women, finding it hard to control his urges. How wonderful it would be to kill a woman abroad. He’d have to settle for sex though, not wanting to break the rules of the ghoul spell.

Intercourse was a terrible substitute for killing, but it would hold him over until he arrived home.

He’d met a young woman from South Carolina, vacationing with three of her girlfriends. She had a southern accent he found appealing, different. They went out to a candlelight dinner, taking a moonlit walk on the beach afterward. He dazzled her with words and body movements as slight as they were, making her fall for him almost immediately. He’d always had the ability to find the right woman, gullible and trusting. She was perfect, like all of his victims. He invited her up to his room for a nightcap.

They ordered champagne and oysters, sitting on the balcony enjoying the pleasant tropical air. He wanted to kill her, badly, having to sink his nails into his leg to keep himself centered.

After a couple of glasses of wine, they were on the hotel bed, going at it. He’d gotten her clothes off and was caressing her hair when he began strangling her, not something he usually did. He liked his females to bleed. It must have been the need to kill combined with the wine. The girl wasn’t enjoying it. Her face went red, her eyes bulging out of their sockets. He released her. She inhaled, wheezing, choking. She shoved him off and began running to the door. He couldn’t let her leave, she’d inform the authorities. She was at the door fumbling with the lock when Brian crept up behind her and bashed her over the head with a lamp. She fell unconscious to the carpet.

He dragged her to the bathtub, shoving her in.

Excitement filled his body, there was no turning back.

The ghoul would understand. He’d give it two bodies when he came back, making up for the lost kill.

He ordered a steak dinner to the room. He wasn’t hungry, but he needed a sharp knife since he didn’t bring his with him. Making sure the woman wouldn’t wake, he bashed her head against the tub a few times, 75

drawing blood and splattering the tiles. He felt for a pulse, she was still alive. Good. Using the steak knife he slit her wrists. He cut deep, and using his fingers, ripped the skin further, not wanting the wounds to stop bleeding. As the blood poured from her lacerations, he watched a river of crimson run down the tub and disappear into the drain. His vacation was complete.

The following morning, after purchasing new luggage, garbage bags, and a hacksaw, he left the hotel. The woman he killed, cut up and stuffed into the suitcases. He drove his rental car until he found a deserted back road and dumped the luggage in the bushes along with the extra garbage bags and hacksaw. He proceeded to the airport, dropped off the rental and boarded his flight.

Brian took a cab home from the airport arriving just after nine p.m. Exhausted from the long flight and the layovers, he went right to bed after setting his alarm clock. He had work the next day.

The alarm clock buzzed at six a.m. waking Brian from a sound and peaceful sleep. He sat up, rubbed his eyes and yawned. Sniffing the air, his nose scrunched up at the repugnant odor assaulting his nostrils. He opened his eyes, jumping back.

The ghoul was standing at the end of the bed. It had moss covering its head and skin. Pieces of bone showed through the chalky colored flesh. It appeared to be in horrendous condition as if it were rotting away.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Brian asked it.

The corpse swayed as if on weary legs.

“Dying,” the ghoul said, its voice scratchy and garbled. Brian had jumped again, bouncing in his bed.

The thing had never talked before. “You,” it said, pointing a decaying bony finger at Brian.

“Me?” he asked. “Are you hungry? Do you need to eat?”

“You. Kill. Alone. Break. Deal,” it said, coming around to the side of the bed. Brian cringed, leaning away from it.

“Stop,” he said. “I command you.” The creature slumped forward, reaching for him. “I order you to stop.”

“You. Kill. Break. Pact. No. Feed. Me. I. Die.” “What?” Brian said, frantically. Everyone he killed he’d fed to the ghoul except for the one in the Cayman Islands. How did it know about her? “It was only one time,” Brian explained. “I won’t do it again. I promise.

I’ll bring you two bodies tomorrow.” He kicked at the sheets, trying to get his legs out from under them and get away. The ghoul grabbed his leg as it came out from the covers, its grip vice-like. Brian felt his skin

grow icy, panic seizing his chest.

He cried out, pleaded, begged, but the ghoul didn’t care. Its other hand gripped his other ankle and squeezed, crushing it to a pulp of mangled flesh and splintered bone. It released its hold and Brian’s ankles flopped painfully and uselessly to the ground. He screamed in agony, but sat up and began punching the ghoul in the head. A piece of rotten skin flaked off, stuck to his knuckles. The ghoul shot an arm out, seizing Brian by the neck. With a flick, the monster snapped it. Brian’s eyes rolled up, he stopped crying

out and fell to the mattress, still alive. His spinal column had been severed, paralyzing him from the neck down.

Starting at his feet, with the toes, the ghoul began taking large bites and chewing, swallowing. Tears streaked Brian’s face as he could only watch and listen to the ghoul eat him alive. He lay with dread upon his bones, his last thought, whether or not he was truly alive because ghouls were only supposed to eat dead things.

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76

Grace

by C.S. Fuqua Decisions you make in life will be with you on the day you die. ___________________________________________________________

The line blipped.

One down...

He waited for the next, and the next.

Machines at the bedside hummed and gurgled, each with tubes leading into his body to clean, to nourish, to medicate, to keep him going to the final blip -- not exactly what a warrior had in mind for the end.

The General sighed and pushed himself up onto knobby elbows, his sallow face wincing. He kicked weakly at the sheet until it finally slipped off. He twisted slowly around, feet and legs sliding over the bedside. He sat up, panting with the effort, and felt disgust for the tubes dangling from his nose, arms, and abdomen. His thin, yellow-gray hair, despite the nurse’s efforts, shone oily and snarled in the muted light. He felt a groan building in his gut, but he forced it down, grimacing as one of the machines kicked in.

Did the biographer note how I swallow pain? He would have pointed out that ability to the biographer himself, but he wanted to exhibit a certain distance and humility, adorn the appearance of a man who’d risen without complaint above the turmoil of his time to do what had to be done, serving his country and the world with dignity and determination while subjugating his own politics and desires to those of his superiors. He tried to paint himself as a man whose dignity withstood even the ravages of coming death.

He brought a hand to his mouth, wiped, and grimaced as he nudged the oxygen catheter in his nose. He took the tube between finger and thumb, pulled it out slowly, fighting the reflex to gag, and dropped it to the floor. He drew a deep breath and coughed lightly.

A yank brought the needle from his arm. A trace of watery blood ran down and around his wrist, dripping to stain the bed. The belch of a machine brought another grimace of pain. He wrapped fragile fingers around the tube into his abdomen and thought about pulling it out, but something within that still clung to life made him let go.

“Peggy?” he muttered. Louder: “Peg?” Nothing. He drew a breath, would mention his dissatisfaction with the nurse later. What if it had been an emergency, my heart maybe. Then he remembered. He’d directed all alarms switched off except the cardiac monitor, which 77

remained activated at Peggy’s desk to let her know when the time had come.

“I could do with some water,” he muttered.

“I can get it for you.”

He straightened, startled by the voice, but pain drew him immediately back into that pinched posture.

“Or I, sir,” said a strong, commanding voice.

He brought his eyes up under heavy lids.

Two figures stepped closer from the shadows into the blush of soft light -- a girl, gingerly, and a young man with stiff precision.

The General squinted. “Who the hell are you?” he demanded, his voice hoarse and weak.

The dark-skinned girl looked eleven or twelve, dressed in teal colored slacks, sandals, a white pullover blouse, and a purple jacket of shag type material that fell to her hips. Her eyes appeared halfopen. The man beside her wore a standard-issue army uniform, boots shined, his body rigid, ready.

The girl glanced away, but the soldier, eyes ahead, snapped, “Parker, sir.”

The name wasn’t familiar. The General sat straighter. “Peggy let you in?”

The girl met his gaze now, lips pursing. “You’re the General,” she said, barely loud enough for the old man.

“Was the General,” he corrected. “Long time ago.”

He knew they still talked about him in the service, said he’d done a lot of good for the country, for the world. God knows, he’d tried, leading with determination, conviction, and love for country, if not for politicians. His eyes sparkled with memories. A soldier does what a soldier must. But he hadn’t been a soldier for a long, long time.

“You got old,” the girl said.

“Yes,” he wheezed. “We all do.”

“Not everyone,” she whispered.

The General glanced at the soldier beside the girl and then toward the door. He called, his voice a little stronger than before, “Peggy?”

The girl stepped up to the foot of his bed. The soldier maintained his place, eyes transfixed ahead, hands clasped behind himself.

“It’s hard, isn’t it?” the girl asked The General tried to straighten, to take the weight off his hands and arms, but the pain in his gut forced him forward even more. “What do you mean, it’s

hard?” he wheezed.

“Dying,” she said.

The old man glanced up and smiled at her candor.

If only the adults would talk as plainly as this little girl. They’d come in, maintain a few minutes’ vigil at his bedside, talk about all that he’d done for the country and all he could and would still do, “just as soon as you get your lazy ass well, up, and out of here.” The last time he’d countered with the obvious, Nurse Peggy had snapped, “Well, General, if that’s what you’ve decided, then nothing’s going to change it. You always get your way.”

Not always.

“You went to war,” the girl said.

“Yes,” the General replied.

“And you liked it.” He noted a slight hardening in her eyes that nearly took his breath.

“No one likes war,” he sighed. “People are people.

Good and bad. War is sometimes unavoidable.”

The girl came around the bed and, to the General’s surprise, placed her palm against his forehead, his eyes closing automatically to her touch, warm and damp.

“It was a long time ago,” she said. She pulled her hand away, and the General opened his eyes to find that the room had vanished. His heart thrummed.

“What the hell...,” he began, but then he realized that he was no longer sitting on his bedside. Instead, he was perched on the edge of a shaky section of a demolished wall in a compound of battered, gutted buildings. In the distance, the rat-ta-tat of gunfire sounded. The girl backed a few slow steps away.

The machine at his feet gurgled, and dull pain rumbled in his abdomen. The soldier stepped up beside the girl, his gaze never meeting the General’s.

He now carried a weapon, front and ready, and he was dressed in full battle gear. Forty meters away, a haggard dog tore at a man’s bloated body, teeth ripping into the belly, hungrily devouring. It raised its head, eyes locking with those of the General, and memory jolted the man.

The soldier abruptly dropped to one knee, swung his weapon up, leveled, fired, and the dog began a bizarre, yelping dance, bloody tufts of hair spraying into the surrounding air. The firing stopped, and the dog flopped to the ground and lay in silence.

The General looked with stunned eyes at the soldier. “I killed that dog,” the General whispered. “A long time ago.” And now recognition jolted him.

“You,” he rasped, “and the dog...”

A man, cameras dangling around his neck, psychotic grin etched on his wind-burned face, emerged from one of the gutted buildings and circled 78

around the bodies of the dog and the man it had been eating, shooting images that would enrage front pages and sicken television screens across the world.

Pictures, the General once said, are not worth the thousand words they misrepresent. Liberation of a people exacts a price.

“Was it worth so many?” asked the girl.

The photographer pointed his camera toward a group of soldiers, moving meticulously down the abandoned street. The commanding soldier squatted abruptly, radioing instructions to some unseen backup. A moment later, a missile shrieked down and exploded two hundred meters away. Mortar and stone rose in tiny pieces, wood splintered and burned, and body parts spun through the air like toys. The girl began to run toward the smoking ruins. Then came another explosion, deafening, and the girl reeled, a foot flying in one direction, her body in the other, and the photographer’s camera clicked and whirred crazily.

The General screamed, but the constant beep, beep, beep of the heart monitor swallowed his voice, and he found himself back in his room, dim light casting dimmer shadows against the wall, the outer office silent. He drew a trembling breath in an attempt to steady himself.

“Do you believe in heaven?” the girl asked from the corner where she’d first appeared. Her voice startled him.

The General squinted into the shadows, forcing his eyes to adjust, to take the girl in fully. His eyes burned with the sight of her bloody body.

“Do you believe in heaven?” she asked again.

His lips trembled, and he closed his eyes. “I believe in hell,” he whispered. Images welled in his mind. The battlefield’s acrid sweetness bit at his nostrils. Memory plagued his conscience -- soldiers bursting into pieces, children cut in two by gunfire, dogs feasting on bodies, the enemy tortured and torturing, beheading, burning...

The few drops of saliva in his mouth felt like grains of sand. “I had no choice.”

When he opened his eyes again, his heart raced with fright and pity. The young soldier, his chest a mat of shredded uniform and charred flesh, came through the doorway from the outer office, stood sharply to one side, and saluted as dozens of men, women, children, and soldiers flooded in past him.

Some walked. Some crawled. Some came with faces missing, legs or arms gone, with limbs hanging by mere strands of flesh -- soldiers he had commanded side-by-side with enemy soldiers and civilians.

The crowd surged inward, their images fading, redefining, flickering with the rhythm of the General’s

machines. He gasped for breath, caught glimpses of the door leading to the office where Peggy should have been. One old man, his left shoulder a crater where his arm had once been attached, reached his remaining hand toward the General. The others surrounded the General’s bed and grasped for him, their fingers prodding, prying.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. As the words passed from his lips, the old man faded and the hands of the others pulled away. The General’s eyes locked with the young soldier’s. “Please forgive me.”

The young man saluted, faded.

One after another -- soldiers, civilian men, women, children -- faded to nothingness until only the girl was left.

She hovered at the end of his bed. “Would you do it again?” she asked.

He blinked back tears. “I am a soldier.”

As he spoke, the curly black hair that hung in ringlets to the girl’s shoulders matted more thickly with blood and soaked the purple coat. A bloody stump of a leg protruded from the pant leg, and she floated up toward the ceiling, a mirage of death and beauty.

“Please for--,” he began.

“No!” she wailed. Her body thrust forward, healing itself and fading as she hit the General in the chest, vanishing within.

The monitor on Peggy’s desk beeped. She waited a moment, expecting the blips to return as they had countless times before, but, this time, the line remained flat.

The nurse entered the General’s room, her expression hardening to find him half out of bed, slumped to one side. She grasped his ankles and lifted his legs back onto the bed. She placed her fingers against his neck, checking for a pulse she didn’t find.

She retrieved the oxygen catheter from the floor, shaking her head at the old coot’s obstinance, and placed it on the stand beside the bed. She closed the old man’s eyes, unimpressed by how a face reveals nothing in death. She lifted the sheet to pull over his face but paused. She hadn’t noticed the sharp indentation in his chest before. She sighed, lowered the sheet, and entered the time on the chart.

In the Winter 2010 issue of OUTER REACHES, look for...

EVA equipment floated among a cloud of blood. She pressed herself against the wall behind her and tried again to calm down. Without moving the flashlight, she shut her eyes and focused on her breathing.

When it had slowed, she opened her eyes again and continued scanning the dark room. When the light reached the far end of the room, two bulbous alien eyes reflected it back at her. The sprawling shadowy figure was still as a statue. Flesh protruded from its mouth and bloody human limbs floated around it.

For a split second the two of them stared at each other.

...excerpt from Heresy

by Mark Mattison

Available now from Black Matrix Publishing at www.blackmatrixpub.com, and Amazon.com or request it through your local bookseller.

79

Ground Zero

by Jameson T. Caine

Gophers can destroy a neatly kept lawn... even before they mutate. ___________________________________________________________

The scream was unexpected and loud, catching

Tom just as he was pulling the start cord on the lawnmower. Allowing the engine to sputter and die, he spun and saw Sandy standing at the corner of the front walkway, staring aghast at the small strip of dirt that ran along the side of the garage.

“What?! What is it?” he asked, hurrying to her.

“It almost got me,” she said. She nodded at the ground and stepped back, fear on her face. She clutched the bag with her recent purchase closer to her, as if someone was threatening to take it away.

Thinking a snake had somehow gotten loose in their front yard, he snatched up the rake as he crossed the lawn, preparing to confront the intruder. Reaching his wife, he planted his feet and thrust the rake toward the patch of dirt.

There was no snake. In fact, there was nothing except for a small hole in the soil. He let the rake drop. “I thought you saw a snake,” he said. “That’s a gopher hole.”

She shook her head. “No, it was big and hairy and it leapt out at me.”

He regarded her in disbelief. “A gopher? Leapt out at you?”

“Yes, I thought it was going to bite me, crawl up my leg or jump into one of my bags. It could have torn up my new outfit.

He rolled his eyes, taking care to not let her see him do so. “Honey, a gopher isn’t going to attack you like that. In fact, you probably scared it more than it frightened you.”

She refused to take her eyes off the hole. “I seriously doubt that,” she said. “You need to kill it.”

She examined the rake in his hand. “And use something a bit more lethal than a plastic rake. I’d like to think you could handle that without help.”

“I’ll take care of it,” he said, trying to keep the weariness from his voice.

“Right now.”

“Right now?” Tom asked. “I’ve got a million things to do. The lawn, the bushes, the...”

“Now! This minute,” she said, iron in her voice, “Before you do anything else. I will not have some filthy vermin lurking about the front yard, waiting for its chance to bite me. It’s bad enough that we’re forced to live in this neighborhood. I sure as hell am not 80

putting up with pests on our property. The locals are bad enough as it is.”

“There’s nothing wrong with this neighborhood,” he began, but she quickly cut him off.

“No, of course not,” she hissed, her words dripping with sarcasm. “Not if you like living in the barrio.”

The argument was an old one and Tom had no desire to resurrect it again. “Fine. I’ll handle it immediately.”

“Good,” she said, heading for the front door. “It’s too hot out here for me. I’m going inside before that beast tries to get me again. Bring my other bags inside when you’ve killed that thing.” Stomping her feet in indignation, she vanished through the front door.

Tom let her go, caught between amusement at her overreaction and irritation at her insistence that the gopher be dealt with immediately, not to mention her relentless negativity over the area in which they lived.

Raised in working class suburbia, Tom saw nothing wrong with the multicultural diversity present in the people who lived nearby.

Sandy, on the other hand, had come from a more privileged upbringing, at least until her father squandered her family’s wealth. Despite having to lower her expectations in life, she continued to flaunt an attitude of superiority that Tom found unwarranted. He’d hoped she’d lose it over time, but had yet to do so.

Regardless of her steely insistence that he remove the pest, the truth was that he did want to deal with the gopher before it marred his beautiful lawn with a dozen more unsightly holes. He just wanted to put off a trip to the hardware store until another day.

Spying the garden hose rolled up by the garage door, inspiration struck him. Uncoiling it, he pushed the end as deep as it would go into the gopher hole and then turned the handle on the faucet. “Time for swimming lessons,” he said as water filled the subterranean lair. Smiling, he returned to his lawnmower.

T

he early morning sun had not yet crested the Eastern rooftops to spread warmth and light over the neighborhood when Tom emerged from the house on his way to work. He took a moment to appreciate the subtle glint of dew on his lawn in the predawn light.

Two days had passed since he’d flooded the gopher

lair and not a single ugly hole had appeared to ruin his beautiful grass.

Sipping his coffee, he followed the walkway towards the driveway and his car.

Something small and dark darted out from under the vehicle as he approached, surprising him. He turned to look at it when something else emerged from the darkness and ran in the same direction, brushing his pants leg as it went.

“Gah!” he spat in startled fright, spilling his coffee over his shirt. The heat only burned for an instant, but long enough to jolt him into dropping his briefcase, which promptly popped open and disgorged papers across the walkway. “Damn it!”

He saw that it was the cat that belonged to his neighbor, Mrs. Kwong, which had pushed past him while in pursuit of prey. Whatever the cat had been chasing must have ducked under a pickup truck parked along the street, for that’s exactly where the feline now headed, disappearing beneath it.

“You little bastard,” Tom said, muttering more to himself than the feline. He bent over and began scooping up his wayward documents before they could blow away. As he collected the last stragglers and pushed them haphazardly back into his briefcase, he heard a loud hiss from under the truck. An instant later an angry mewling followed, accompanied by thrashing sounds. The cat had apparently cornered its victim.

Tom straightened and placed his briefcase on the hood of his car before peering down at his soaked shirt. He’d have to go back inside and change.

He headed for the front door and was just feet away when a new sound arose from beneath the pickup truck. The cat was obviously still the source, but its mewling had taken on a different tone. If Tom had to describe it, he’d have to say that it sounded scared. More hissing followed and Tom heard the unmistakable sound of fighting.

He faced the street and looked at the vehicle in question. From this angle he could only see some vague, shadowy movements beneath the truck, but in tandem with the horrible sounds, it was enough to tell

him that the cat was in trouble. The uncanny mewling now became a howl of pain and fear, sending a slight chill down Tom’s spine. Mrs. Kwong’s prized feline had encountered more than it bargained for under that truck.

As quickly as the ruckus began, it ended, with silence settling over the area once more. A quick gaze up and down the street revealed no one coming to investigate. Tom was about to turn back towards the house when a strange noise drifted to him across the lawn. He cocked his head and listened, detecting a soft, wet sound like someone stepping into mud. It, too was coming from under the truck.

Tom was suddenly aware of how alone he was. Even on his front porch he felt vulnerable, the semi-darkness giving rise to shadows and hiding places he had ignored until now. He was feeling the instinctive notion to remove himself from the situation and go inside, but somewhere deep down, he knew that he had to learn what became of that cat. The old saying about curiosity and cats didn’t seem as funny at that moment.

Now cautious, Tom crossed his lawn toward the pickup on the street. As he approached he half expected to see the cat racing out from underneath, but all was still and quiet. The wet, squishing sound had ceased, to be replaced by a low chattering.

Movement caught his eye. Several small shapes ran out from the far side of the truck, crossing the street and vanishing into Mr. Ramirez’ bushes. Being so close to the vehicle, Tom didn’t see them until they were disappearing into the foliage and caught nothing more than a blur of motion.

What were they? From this distance they resembled large rats, but Tom had never seen rats in this neighborhood before. Good thing Sandy hadn’t seen them or else she’d be launching into another tirade about how distasteful she found the area.

Bending down, he peered under the pickup and located the cat.

At least, what was left of it.

He coughed and choked back the surge of bile that threatened to overtake him. Covering his mouth and nose, he examined the torn and ruined body of the

Various chunks of flesh

sported different colored

fur, so he estimated that at least four different animals were represented by the

scattered body parts that

lay across the driveway...

81

cat, now strewn about the pavement under the car.

Something had literally torn the animal into pieces.

Several somethings, if those dark shapes he’d spotted were any indication.

What had done this? Tom hadn’t gotten a good look at what the cat had been chasing, but just assumed it was a big mouse. Where had the others come from? Had they already been hiding under the car when the cat came barreling into their midst? Had half a dozen large rats actually been able to take out a natural predator so quickly and easily?

The sun was now rising, forcing the shadows into retreat. Tom picked himself up and stared across the street at Mr. Ramirez’s yard. He shrugged it off as his imagination, but for an instant he thought he saw the twinkle of light reflected in several pairs of eyes that regarded him from the bushes.

S

aturday morning arrived after a hellish week dealing with irate clients at work. Home life had not been much of a respite, either. Tom spent several tense evenings trying to placate Sandy’s ever increasing dissatisfaction with life, not to mention being haunted by the guilt stemming from the incident on Tuesday with Mrs. Kwong’s cat. Tom had quietly disposed of the animal’s remains in the trash, telling no one about it. Part of him knew he should inform Mrs. Kwong about the cat’s messy demise, but he didn’t want to explain how the animal had ended up in several pieces.

Finally, the weekend arrived and Tom had the chance to just relax, choosing to sleep in and be lazy for one morning out of the week.

“Tom!” Or not.

He slid off the bed and stumbled to the bedroom door. “Yes?” he called out.

“Get down here, now!”

“Why? What is it?”

“Just do it!” The anger in Sandy’s voice made it clear that she was on the verge of an apoplectic fit.

Trying his best not to sigh, Tom trudged down the stairs to find the front door wide open. Approaching, he saw his wife standing on the porch, hands on hips and staring at something in the yard. Tom was suddenly filled with a powerful urge to return to bed.

Just crawl back in, pull the blankets over his head and shut out the world. Alas, that would only make things worse with Sandy, who’d call him lazy and accuse him of avoiding responsibility, so he walked outside dutifully to stand by her side. “What’s up?” he asked.

She jerked her head in his direction. He saw not just anger and annoyance in those blue eyes, but 82

something approaching utter disdain. “Can’t you see it for yourself? Are you that blind to what’s going on around you?”

Tom ignored the venom in her voice and looked out at the front yard. Seeing what it was that had set his wife off once again, he blinked his tired eyes, hoping the image would go away. No such luck.

The front lawn was littered with gopher holes. Big ones.

“Shit!” he said, hissing under his breath.

“Shit is right!” Sandy said. “In this case, one dumb shit, and that’s you! Just what did you do to kill that filthy little beast?”

Tom didn’t shrink away from the tongue-lashing he knew was coming. Experience told him that there was no way to avoid it. Better to appear confident in his actions rather than come off as indecisive and weak. “I flooded the lair with water,” he said.

“You did what?” Her eyes were bigger than silver dollars at this point. He opened his mouth to explain, but she cut him off. “I thought you killed it! Now I find out that all you did was give it a bath. Seriously, did you really think that was going to work?”

Having never dealt with gophers before, Tom could honestly answer in the affirmative. “Yes,” was all he said.

She looked from him to the lawn again. “Well it obviously didn’t. Now the lawn looks like a freakin’ minefield.”

Tom agreed, but kept silent. As outraged as he was over the sight of all those holes, he knew that it was best to let Sandy vent her frustrations. If he even attempted to appear as upset as she was, it would only spur her into more lecturing on his perceived weaknesses.

“I want you to go inside,” she was saying, “and I want you to call the exterminators.”

“That won’t be necessary,” he said.

“Why?” “They’ll cost too much. I’ll just run to the hardware store for some poison. That will kill gophers just as easily.”

She didn’t seem too convinced. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah,” he said shrugging his shoulders, “We can use the money we save to have a nice dinner somewhere.”

He saw her eyes light up at the idea of a fancy meal out on the town. It was just the sort of excuse she’d need to put on her best clothes and act all snooty, probably reliving the good old days in her mind.

“Okay,” she said, “but go to the store now. I want you to get this taken care of and the lawn looking back to normal again before too many people see what a

deplorable mess you’ve let our property become.”

“Yes, dear.”

S

everal days passed without any further holes appearing in the lawn. Each morning when leaving for work, Tom was sure he’d open the door to a sight like that from the weekend, but the lawn remained untouched. Aside from the random patches where he’d filled in the gopher holes after depositing the poison within them, everything looked normal. Tom was just beginning to think that the problem was behind him.

He emerged from the house Thursday morning as he usually did, coffee in one hand, briefcase in the other. He glanced briefly at the lawn, saw that it was the same as the night before, and headed for his Acura. Rounding the corner of the garage and lost in thought, he was within feet of the car when something in the driveway caught his eye. He focused on it and came to an abrupt halt, his lawn forgotten.

“Holy shit.”

All four tires on his car were flat, someone having slashed them during the night. As maddening as that was, it paled in comparison to what had been used to decorate both the vehicle and the driveway itself.

There were so many bloodied bits and pieces, Tom wasn’t sure how many dead cats he was looking at.

Various chunks of flesh sported different colored fur, so he estimated that at least four different animals were represented by the scattered body parts that lay across the driveway as well as on his car. Judging from the dearth of blood, it looked as if the animals had been killed and dismembered elsewhere before being deposited here.

He stared long and hard at the sight in something approaching utter disbelief. Who would have done this and why? His mind returned to Mrs. Kwong’s dead kitty from the previous week. Had someone seen him dispose of the cat? Was this some sort of twisted way to implicate him? Blame him for the cat’s death?

Stealing a quick glance up and down the street, he saw that no one was watching him.

Tom couldn’t see how anyone would think he had anything to do with the deaths. He certainly wasn’t going to massacre a bunch of cats and then adorn his own car with their hacked up remains.

The minutes ticked by as he stood there, staring at the ghastly scene. Finally he concluded that he had to call the police this time. There was no way he could sweep this one under the rug. Sandy was sure to drop dead from the sheer embarrassment of it all.

Looking at one of the tires, he noticed something odd. There were small bits of rubber on the ground nearby. Bending to get a better view, he saw that the 83

tire had not been slashed with a blade, but rather, appeared as if it had been gnawed on until it had deflated. Were they all like that? Best to check them all before calling the authorities.

A chattering sound arose, like someone gnashing his or her teeth together. No, like someone on crack gnashing his or her teeth together. tick-tick-tick-tick-tick Like a rapid-fire machine gun, the sound was steady and fast. He looked around for the source of the noise, but saw nothing. There was a brief pause and then the sound began again, only louder.

TICK-TICK-TICK-TICK-TICK Where was it coming from? The rise in volume, coupled with his inability to determine its point of origin, was beginning to unnerve him. The slaughtered cats only made it worse.

The cats!

Tom remembered the fate of Mrs. Kwong’s cat.

Listening intently, he realized the eerie staccato rhythm was coming from under his car. Maybe whatever had killed Mrs. Kwong’s cat had done the same to these. He wasn’t sure he was ready to face a pissed off rat at the moment, or even worse, several pissed off rats. He began backing away from the car, keeping his eye on the gap between the front fender and the driveway, ready to hurl his coffee and briefcase at anything that might materialize.

He was almost to the point where he could see more easily under the car when the chattering suddenly ceased. He took another couple steps backwards and began bending down, his eyes never wavering from the space under the vehicle.

There!

Something large was in motion, scampering out from under the car and across the driveway. The vehicle prevented him from seeing it directly, but the glimpse he got was enough to make him jump.

Whatever it was, it was big, much larger than Tom imagined rats to be. This thing was more like the size of one of those wiener dogs. Tom couldn’t be sure exactly what he’d seen because of how fast it moved, but he was sure of one detail: its tail had been short and stubby, completely unlike that of a rat.

Remembering that only a small patch of grass lay on the far side of the driveway between his yard and Mrs. Kwong’s, Tom launched himself into motion. The mysterious animal would have no place to hide and he’d be able to get a clear view of it.

He bolted for the street, moving past the car, but keeping a good distance between himself and...whatever that thing was. He jumped over the sidewalk and landed on the asphalt, his eyes trained

on the far side of the driveway, but there was nothing there. Ever so gradually, he walked down the street toward Mrs. Kwong’s house, unwilling to get any closer than the blacktop. To his surprise, there wasn’t a single living thing to be seen.

Where had it gone? It couldn’t have run away that fast. He’d have seen it. Looking over the patch of grass, he spotted some upturned soil.

“Shit,” he spat.

He carefully approached and was rewarded with the very last thing he wanted to find. It was the biggest gopher hole yet, right there in the middle of his side lawn. That’s how it got away, he thought.

Down the hole like Alice on her way to freakin’ Wonderland.

Were his own efforts at killing gophers doing nothing more than pissing this one off? As big as it appeared to be, Tom was still sure of his place atop the food chain. Regarding the hole, he addressed the foe he knew was hiding deep within. “I am so going to nail your hairy ass.”

He turned to go, seeing the car and dead cats once again.

After I call the cops and report this mess, he mused.

S

andy had quite naturally gone ballistic when she learned of the murdered cats and where they’d been left. Not a hint of empathy for how the poor animals had died, but plenty of scorn for their rudeness in sullying her and Tom’s property with their ugly remains.

As expected, the police didn’t suspect Tom of any wrongdoing, especially after they were shown the mauled tires on his car. They were more than happy to chalk it up to some vicious animal, though they were not quite ready to believe Tom’s tale of an over-sized gopher and its minions as the culprits despite his showing them the large hole in his lawn. They assumed it was a mountain lion on the loose, but when Tom asked how one managed to get this far from the foothills they had no good answer for him. In the end, they told him to keep an eye out and to be careful.

A few more holes popped up as the weekend approached. Thankfully, not nearly as many as the previous week. Tom counted three in the front yard in addition to the one in the side lawn. Even worse, he located five holes in the back yard.

Sandy’s stance was firm, but utterly predictable.

Early Saturday she woke and announced she was going to spend the day with some of her girl friends.

Tom figured they’d hit all their favorite boutiques before winding up at the day spa, their noses high in 84

the air the entire time. Before leaving she made it clear that he was to deal with the gophers once and for all. If subsequent holes were to appear in the following days, she intended to call the exterminators.

Once she was gone, he made a quick trip to the hardware store and procured a large supply of smoke bombs.

He returned home and wasted no time in setting off multiple bombs in each hole before quickly covering them with dirt. Apparently, the underground warrens were designed to withstand flooding and while dropping poison in their holes was no guarantee that the gophers would eat it, there wasn’t any way that they could avoid the poisonous fumes now wafting through their tunnels.

For several minutes afterwards, Tom patrolled his yard with a baseball bat, ready to smite any gopher that tried to tunnel out, but there wasn’t the slightest movement in the soil. After two hours, he claimed victory and went inside to enjoy a beer.

T

here were no further surprises the following week, either in the form of new holes or mutilated neighborhood pets. Tom’s efforts had appeased Sandy, who returned to her usual topic of complaint: the neighborhood in general and those who lived there.

Figuring that one way to help his wife come to terms with their situation and realize that the neighbors were good people, Tom decided to hold a backyard barbecue the weekend following his epic gopher smackdown and invited several folks from their block. Sandy was reluctant at first, eventually relenting and agreeing to it, but only if she could invite some of her own friends to help “keep an eye on them.” Tom consented, deciding to claim a small victory any way he could.

Saturday dawned nice and warm, perfect weather for a barbecue. By noon, only three people had arrived and Tom couldn’t delay things any longer, so he fired up his grill. It seemed he and Sandy weren’t too popular on their block.

“You’re lawn is looking a little overgrown,” Mr. Haskel - who was his other immediate neighbor - told Tom, sidling up to him at the grill. “It needs to be cut.”

Tom nodded, knowing where this was going.

“Yeah, I’ve been meaning to get to it, but this past week has been pretty hectic at work. By the time I get home, I have little time to do anything.” He faced the grill and flipped a series of burger patties laid out in a row.

“All you gotta do is ask, and I’d be more than happy to come mow it for you.”

“You don’t have to do that. I’d feel bad if you did.”

“I don’t mind,” Haskel told him. “After all, it helps keep things looking nice around here so our property values won’t plummet.”

Tom did his best to focus on the meat. At least once a month Haskel pointed out something about Tom’s yard that he deemed to be unsightly and was in danger of affecting the value of his own home. Tom was on the verge of telling him to take a flying leap, but he knew that would only provide Sandy with ammunition for her relentless belittling of the neighbors.

Piling the burger patties on a plate, he thrust the spatula at Haskel. “Can you watch the chicken while I take these inside?”

Haskel stared at it for a second before taking it.

“Sure, no problem. Hey, when you come back, I have some suggestions on how to set the timers on your sprinklers so you don’t waste so much water.”

“Great,” Tom said, turning toward the house. At the patio table, Mrs. Kwong and Mr. Ramirez were sipping punch and eating corn chips. “Everything okay here?”

Tom asked as he approached.

Mrs. Kwong nodded. “Food almost ready?”

“Almost,” Tom told her. That was the fifth time she’d asked that question in the last ten minutes. In fact, it had been the very first thing out of her mouth upon arriving earlier. No hello or how are you, but food almost ready? When she realized she was in for a wait, she had rather loudly inquired into the status of snack items. The chips were produced and quickly snatched up by the diminutive woman, who in spite of consuming a near constant flow of chips and punch, had still found enough breath to ask about the food several times.

Tom looked at Mr. Ramirez. “Sorry your wife couldn’t make it.”

“She’s very sensitive to the heat. It’s just too hot today for her to be outside,” Ramirez said, stealing a glance at the kitchen window. “Plus, the insects and other pests on days like this tend to get her pretty irate.”

“Perfectly understandable,” Tom said. “Tell her we missed her today.” He resumed course for the house.

He knew exactly what “pests” Ramirez was referring to, and he could see their ringleader even now through the sliding glass door. It was no secret that Mrs. Ramirez despised Sandy, though Tom could never figure out why. She and Sandy had hardly spoken and he was on good terms with Mr. Ramirez.

Had word gotten around that Tom’s wife was more than just a little snooty?

He opened the door and entered the kitchen, where Sandy was chatting away with her friends Rachelle 85

and Collette, each one clutching a glass of wine like it was their tether to sanity.

The trio looked up at the new arrival. “Yes, dear?”

Sandy said, somehow instilling those two words with condescension. “What do you need?” Rachelle and Collette - or as Tom liked to think of them, Bitchy and Snappy, for their usual manner of interacting with people – glared at him like he’d just tracked shit all over the floor.

“I have the burger patties,” he said.

“And?” Sandy drew the word out, eyebrows raised, as if she was dealing with an idiot. Bitchy and Snappy just smirked and rolled their eyes.

“And you said that you’d put the plates together since the buns and fixings for the burgers are in here along with the other food dishes.”

Sandy grimaced, a look of distaste on her features.

“I did say that, didn’t I?” “You’re not actually going to prepare food for those people, are you?” Collette said, sounding aghast.

“Yeah, let them fix their own food,” Rachelle added. “The last thing you need is being the servant in your own home.” She conveyed enough contempt with the word servant that Tom knew this woman had never worked for anything in her entire life.

“Whatever you do,” Collette said, chiming back in, “don’t sit at the same table and eat with them. I doubt they know the first thing about proper manners.

Besides, a couple of them don’t look too clean.”

As much as his neighbors were annoying him today, he still wanted to reach out and whack these two snobs with the plate he was carrying. The only problem was, that would be a waste of good burgers.

Sandy nodded at the counter top. “Go ahead and leave it here. I’ll take care of it. Just get back out there and tend to things. I’d rather minimize the time anyone is inside, so I’ll be right out.”

Tom nodded. He could tell that the presence of her friends had put her into an extra uppity mood today.

Liberal amounts of wine had only made it worse.

“You’d better get moving,” Sandy added. “Looks like Mr. Haskel has a problem.”

Leaving the plate on the counter top, Tom turned and looked back outside. Haskel was walking back and forth along the patio, head down. Ramirez and Mrs. Kwong were on their feet as well, also looking at their feet.

“Don’t tell me Mr. Haskel lost one of his contact lenses,” Tom said. He walked to the sliding glass door and opened it. “Is there a problem, Mr. Haskel?”

His neighbor looked up at him in bewilderment.

“You’re damn right there’s a problem. Your patio is coming apart at the seams! There are cracks

everywhere and they just keep getting bigger!”

“What?!”

Haskel pointed at the ground. “See for yourself.”

Tom looked at the concrete and swore. Haskel was right. The patio was littered with cracks. Why had he not noticed earlier?

“This not good,” Mrs. Kwong said, shaking her head. “Poor workmanship. You should get money back.”

As Tom stood in the doorway, staring at all the cracks, he saw several of them grow longer before his eyes. Tilting his head, he detected the faintest crackling sound, like a tree branch about to snap, held down by too much weight. The thought stirred a sense of unease. Quite suddenly he had no desire to step further outside. “Maybe you guys should come off the patio,” he said.

“Why?” asked Ramirez.

“Yeah, why?” Haskel echoed.

Tom shook his head. “I just think it might be good to come inside right now.”

Mrs. Kwong perked up. “Food ready?” she asked.

A deafening clap of thunder split the air before Tom could respond. As he watched Mr. Haskel, Mrs. Kwong and Mr. Ramirez sink from view as if on an elevator, he realized the sound had not come from any weather phenomena, but was caused by the patio buckling and splitting in two before collapsing into the earth.

One second he had been conversing with the trio and the next he found himself staring into the abyss...literally. A giant hole had opened up under the concrete, swallowing patio and annoying neighbors alike.

As the dust settled, he heard a chorus of screams from the pit at his feet. Sandy and her two friends appeared at his shoulder.

“What the hell is going on out there?” his wife asked him.

Tom just stared into the pit, seeing his three neighbors writhing around at the bottom, ten feet below. Each had landed hard and was trying to pick themselves up. Both Mr. Ramirez and Mrs. Kwong showed signs of broken legs, the latter shrieking nonstop as she wallowed in the soil. The patio had split evenly in two pieces, which had then dropped down like a trap door and now lay vertical along the sides of the pit.

“Is it a sinkhole?” Collette asked behind him.

Tom shrugged, baffled. He wasn’t sure what just happened, but he knew the soil that had been under his patio had to have gone somewhere. He turned to Sandy. “I’ll help them out, you go call 911.” For once, 86

she only nodded and made for the phone.

Looking around for something to help pull the trio from the hole, Tom remembered his ladder in the garage. He was about to race to retrieve it when he heard it.

TICK-TICK-TICK-TICK-TICK The same noise he heard from under his car, only now it was a veritable symphony of clickings, multiplied several times from what he had heard in the driveway.

He gazed back into the hole and saw that the others had heard it as well. Even Mrs. Kwong had grown silent. Tom noticed that all three were staring at the dirt walls of their makeshift prison. Tom looked closer and that’s when he realized that there were small tunnels leading off away from the floor of the pit. The chilling sound was coming from those spaces.

Without warning, Ramirez let out a startled cry.

Tom saw that his legs were pointed into one of the passages and slowly but surely, Ramirez was vanishing into that darkness. Something was pulling at him! “¡Ayúdeme! ¡Ayúdeme!” he yelled.

There was a violent tug and then Ramirez disappeared from view, an agonized scream rapidly fading away in the gloom.

Mrs. Kwong let out a horrid scream of her own as something big and dark hurtled from one of those tunnels to bowl her over. Tom blinked and saw that it was an enormous gopher. The thing had to be the size of a small dog. In horror, he watched as it landed atop Mrs. Kwong, pushing her onto her back. Then leaping forward, it sank its sizable teeth into her throat. A shrill cry far surpassing her earlier screams issued forth, but soon dissolved into a wet gurgle as the monstrous rodent began shaking her violently. Her struggles intensified before ceasing altogether.

A second gopher of equal size appeared from another tunnel, cornering Haskel. Without so much as a cry, he turned and tried clawing his way up one of the patio slabs, but to no avail. Tom reached down for his outstretched hand, but could do nothing as more huge gophers arrived on scene and began tearing at Haskel’s legs. Finally, the older man screamed and collapsed under the weight of the monsters. Tom tried to shut out the terrible cries that drifted up to him.

Mercifully, they did not last very long.

New screams assaulted Tom’s ears and he realized they were coming from Collette and Rachelle, who were both standing behind him and had witnessed the slaughter. Ignoring them, he looked back into the hole and saw more large gophers converge on the scene, joining in the makeshift feast. Noticing the way the

patio had collapsed into the pit, he wondered if it had truly been an accident. Had those beastly things actually hollowed out the area under the concrete?

Was this an organized attack rather than just sheer bad luck?

TICK-TICK-TICK-TICK-TICK The sound came again and Tom saw several of the huge rodents returning his stare, blood dripping from their jaws as they clicked their huge teeth together.

Then one leapt for the side of the pit and began to climb.

Tom slammed the sliding glass door shut, backpedaling into Collette and Rachelle, the three of them nearly falling. “The cops are on the way!” Sandy called. A loud tap at the glass door drew her attention.

Looking towards the back yard, she screamed.

Outside the door, a giant gopher sat, staring at them and pawing at the glass, its eyes dark and filled with what Tom could only describe as malevolence.

Another of the frightening things climbed out of the hole and took up position alongside the first.

“What are they?!” Sandy screamed.

“They killed the neighbors!” Collette said.

“They’re monsters!” said Rachelle at the same time.

Several seconds of inane babbling ensued before Tom could take no more. “Shut up!” he yelled. The three of them had the decency to quiet down.

“We’ll be safe as long as we stay inside. The cops will be here soon, so we should just sit tight.”

“Fuck that!” Collette said. “Those things are just in the back yard. There ain’t nothin’ standing between me and my car. C’mon, Rachelle.” She swept up her purse and made for the front door, her friend at her heels. “Bye, Sandy.”

Tom felt Sandy’s hand slip into his own. He stole a glance and saw disappointment on her face. She’s probably pissed that those snobs were more concerned about saving their own over privileged asses than hers, he thought.

The house began to shake, causing Collette and Rachelle to pause on their way to the front door.

“What’s that?” the latter asked.

Instantly the shaking became a violent wave of motion. A roar filled Tom’s ears, accompanied by the sound of splintering wood. He fell to the floor beside Sandy, who was wailing like a banshee. Darkness dropped over them like a cloak and Tom saw that the entire house had been plunged into shadows. Deep in his gut, he knew exactly what had happened.

Jumping to his feet, he yanked his wife from the floor. “C’mon.” He looked for her two friends and saw them huddled in the middle of the living room floor.

All around, the house was dark. The only thing to be 87

seen through the windows was stygian blackness.

And something else.

Something moved in that obsidian dark and Tom knew exactly what it was. “Upstairs!” he shouted.

“Everyone get upstairs!”

“Are you mad?” Collette said, countering him. “We have to get to the car, not trap ourselves up there.”

“Don’t you see?” he asked. “Look out the windows.

That’s not darkness out there, it’s dirt.”

“What are you talking about?” Rachelle asked.

“The house has sunk,” he explained. “The gophers have hollowed out an area under the house and it sank into the earth. The only way out is from the upstairs balcony or through the attic window.”

Collette shook her head. “You’ve got to be freakin’ kidding me!” Even Sandy was looking at him as if he’d sprouted a third eye.

Rachelle stomped past Collette towards the front door. “I don’t have time for this,” she said and grasped the knob. Pulling hard, she swung the door open in a wide arc. There was only darkness beyond.

“What the fu...,” she began.

A gigantic piece of darkness detached itself from the rest and sprang through the opening to envelope her in its embrace. She screamed as she fell to the floor.

More screams filled the air as the others saw what had attacked her: a gopher the size of a large hog that was even now tearing into the struggling woman with its colossal teeth.

“Move!” Tom roared, knowing it was too late for Rachelle. He steered Sandy towards the stairs and saw Collette out of the corner of his eye, scrambling in their direction.

They hit the stairs hard and fast, and as he pushed Sandy upwards, he saw more giant shapes entering the house through the front door. Windows began shattering all along the bottom floor and without looking, he knew more mammoth gophers were clamoring their way into the house.

At the top of the stairs he halted, glancing back down. Collette was just a few feet below, the darkness behind her alive with something big and terrible. She tripped and fell, something latching onto her foot.

With horrible cries for help, she was dragged downwards to vanish amongst a throng of giant bodies and slavering jaws.

“Go!” Tom said, shoving his wife down the hall. He heard the loud thumping that denoted heavy feet ascending the stairs. Never had the upper hallway seemed so long before now.

Careening through the door to their bedroom, Tom spun and slammed it shut, seeing a large dark shape

in the hall as he did so. Without hesitation, he grabbed the nightstand and tossed it in front of the door. It wasn’t likely to be any help, but he was going to take what he could get right now.

“Outside!” Sandy said. Looking, he noticed that even on the upper level, the outside was surrounded by dirt. There was only one option left.

“The attic,” was all he said. The pair launched into motion, heading for their large walk in closet, which also contained the ladder leading to the attic. As they entered, Tom heard windows breaking behind them.

He jumped for the ladder and climbed. He had to go first, as Sandy always had trouble pushing open the heavy door in the ceiling. He scrambled into the attic and was elated to see light pouring through the lone window. He reached down and grabbed Sandy’s arm, pulling her up.

Dropping her unceremoniously to the side, he returned the door to its place and then pushed a few nearby boxes over it. Knowing he’d never pile enough weight on it to keep the vermin at bay, he gave up and ran for the window.

Sandy was already there, smashing it open with an old clock radio he’d been reluctant to give up. Looking through the opening, Tom saw grass just feet below.

The house had not yet sunk entirely into the earth and was still jutting out far enough for them to escape. As he watched, the lawn inched its way higher as the earth continued to swallow their home. Within seconds the ground was even with the windowsill and beginning to pass it.

Sandy pushed him forwards. “You go first and then pull me out.”

He looked at her in confusion.

“I can’t pull you out as easily as you could me,” she explained before he could ask her reasoning.

“Okay,” he said, and then climbed through the window. When his feet were clear, he turned and braced them against the wall. With only a couple feet of clearance before the open window slipped into the earth, he reached for Sandy and grabbed her hand.

Straining, he pulled with his arms while pushing with his feet.

Then something pulled back.

Sandy let loose a terrible scream as her body was jerked away from him. He tightened his grip, refusing to let go. She hung there, suspended between two opponents, a painful cry rising up into the afternoon air.

“Pull!” she screamed. “Pull me out, you bastard!”

A flood of images overran Tom’s mind. A hundred moments of snobbery and a thousand words spoken in contempt. Was he really that happy with Sandy? He’d 88

tried so hard to please her, hoping it would soften her attitude, but he was coming to the realization that maybe it was all for naught. Perhaps it would just be easier to let go, both proverbially and physically.

The thought lingered for an eternity of a nanosecond before he discarded it and yanked even harder. Firm hands gripped him by the shoulders and pulled. He turned his head and saw a police officer.

“I’ve got you,” he told Tom. “Just keep pulling.”

Tom nodded and renewed his efforts. Gradually, Sandy emerged from the attic window. With a final pull, she cleared the house and landed atop him. He quickly rolled her over onto her back and examined her. One foot was bleeding badly from a bite mark, but he saw that her footwear had taken the brunt of the damage. Thank goodness for Prada shoes.

A high-pitched shriek rent the air. Everyone looked at the house, which was now sinking faster into the earth. Tom spotted movement through the attic window. A flash of giant teeth and crimson eyes was all he saw before the window was engulfed by the dirt.

“What happened?” the officer asked. “And what the hell was that thing?”

“You don’t wanna know,” Tom said.

A hand reached out and slapped him across the back of the head. He looked at Sandy, who was regarding him with smoldering eyes. “Look at our house!” she screamed. “Now can we call the goddamn exterminator?”

Tom buried his face in his hands and shook his head.

Guided By Wire

by Aaron Polson

When traveling, some local foods are best left untouched on your plate. ___________________________________________________________

Anne poked the grayish thing on her plate with a

fork. The taint of fear tickled her neck, and she focused on the plate, hoping somehow to avoid the gaze of the stranger with the glue-tinted skin in the corner booth. The grayish thing was his gift, sent with a simple note—for our lovely guest…and a special night. Even from a distance, his eyes were the worst—yellowed with jaundice and cracked with tiny veins. Anne’s mouth puckered with a question.

“What is it?”

Jerry leaned closer and whispered, “Some kind of snail I think. Escargot.”

She pushed a knife under two fat antennas at one end, lifting them slightly to peer underneath. The skin glistened in the dim restaurant light. A chill shook through Anne’s body, and she dropped the knife to her plate with a clatter.

“I’m not eating that.”

Jerry frowned. “You love escargot. At least you did in France.” He looked at the booth, nodded slightly to the thin man, and slid a hand across the table, reaching for hers. “Besides. It was a gift. You can’t refuse a gift.” When she pulled away her hand, he made a circle in the air with his finger. “I’m sure it’s a delicacy.”

“This? You’re so…”

“I’m so what?”

“I don’t know. Gullible.” Anne’s attention traveled from the gentlemen who had gifted her with this local delicacy to the skeletal waiter standing by the door.

His bulbous, watery eyes shifted to hers. Cupping a hand to her mouth, she said, “And we aren’t in France anymore, Jerry.”

“I’m not…gullible.” His face flushed as he reached across the table and took her plate. “Here. I’ll eat it.

It’d be rude not to.”

The entrée slid off onto his own empty dish with a wet plop. Anne frowned. Jerry’s face washed a shade lighter than usual—almost unnoticeable in the dim light. He pierced the thing’s side with his fork and sawed off the end with the antennas. “To your health,” he said with a forced smile. Jerry didn’t exactly chew the thing, but his face contorted and throat bulged as it went down.

Anne couldn’t help but think of her cousin Tim’s double-dog-dare to eat an earthworm back in second 89

grade. She’d done the deed, dropped the wriggling thing into her mouth and sucked it down before gagging on the earthen slime, but imagined her face matched the look pasted on Jerry’s face. That was the last time she let a dare—or even a strange gift—make her act against her will.

But Jerry…

He gulped half a glass of red wine and dabbed his mouth with the napkin.

“Not bad.”

A shadow blotted out the already dim light. Anne flinched at the emaciated face of the waiter. He held out a hand full of thin, pale fingers. “Is everything satisfactory?” His voice, tainted with a thick accent, echoed deep enough for Anne to feel it in her chest.

The waiter transferred his weight from one foot to the other. She noticed a few beads of sweat lurking on his forehead.

“Fine.” Jerry draped his napkin over the remainder of the gray mystery dish. “I think we’re finished here.”

The waiter’s big eyes shifted to the shadowed man in the booth. A moment passed, and Anne was sure the stranger nodded slightly before the waiter said, “Very well.”

L

ater, in their third floor room, Anne leaned on the ledge of a window. Her eyes circled the hotel courtyard first, roving past the gnarled hedges, crooked dirt paths, and patchy lawn.

A black shape—surely a cat—skirted the edge of the buildings shadow and vanished like a dart into the bushes. She allowed her gaze to drift up, past the scattered rooftops of the village. In the distance, a craggy mountain range marked the border between earth and stars. A winged figure spun a lazy circle in front of the moon.

“That’s too big for an owl…”

Jerry leaned up from his pillow with one hand clutched against his stomach.

“What…what are talking about?”

Anne turned from the window. “Nothing. Nothing really. It’s just that this place is so beautiful during the day…and now.”

He plopped back to the bed, groaning slightly.

“Are you all right, babe?” Anne asked as she pulled the curtain shut.

“Just my head. I’ll be fine in the morning.”

Anne opened her mouth, wanting to ask why, if only his head hurt, he clutched his stomach. Instead, she slipped out of her slacks and blouse, tossed on an old t-shirt from the open suitcase on the bureau, and slipped under the covers next to him.

“Babe, you’re cold.”

He mumbled.

“I wish you wouldn’t have eaten that thing.” Anne squeezed his forearm, but Jerry didn’t move. She rolled on her side away from him, pulled a spare pillow against her chest, and tried to close her eyes.

Moonlight intruded through the sparse curtains and tossed odd, shadowy shapes around the room. Tree branches scraped against the outer walls of the hotel in a broken rhythm. She peeked over her shoulder.

Had Jerry’s neck swelled?

No. Couldn’t have.

Anne forced the pillow over her head, shut out the excess moonlight, and began counting backwards from one hundred.

T

he slam of a door jolted Anne from sleep. She lurched upright, momentarily blinded.

A pillow dropped to the floor with a muted plop. Her hands searched the bed as her eyes began to focus. No Jerry.

The hallway door stood open.

“Jerry?”

The lack of response forced Anne’s feet from under the blankets. They struck the cold, wooden floor and she flinched.

“Jerry?” She asked again, not too loud so as not to disturb the other guests. Anne took a few tentative steps toward the hall. Her hand reached the doorknob and found the metal cold to the touch. A deep, shuddering breath entered her lungs as a shape—a tall, Jerry-sized shadow—moved through the faint light.

“Shit.”

Anne scurried into the corridor after her husband.

Sleepwalking, again. She’d caught him one other time, just after they were married and before they left of the delayed honeymoon. That night, he merely walked out of their bedroom and woke himself upon stumbling into the couch in their living room. In the hotel, in a foreign country, she feared he could do a lot more damage.

He vanished around a bend in the hall, but Anne hurried to catch him. Upon making the proper turn, Anne found herself momentarily disoriented.

Darkness cloaked this second hallway completely, and her poor eyes hadn’t had the opportunity to adjust. If Jerry stood directly in front of her, she might miss him. He walked with such purpose, almost as though 90

something guided him…

“Jerry, babe?” she asked.

A muted sound, quick like the opening of a door, echoed down the hall. Anne followed her ears, bypassing a few closed rooms until she came to an unlatched door. She fought the urge to call out, fearing who or what might answer her summons. Her fingers pressed against the panel, and the hinges gave a slight squeak as the door swung inward.

Shadows shifted and blurred. After a moment, her eyes adjusted.

“A janitor’s closet?” She whispered the question aloud to ignite her flagging courage. In the back of the small room, a narrow space littered with a broom, mop bucket, and various worn cardboard boxes, a light shone from above, illuminating iron rungs of a ladder sunk into the brick wall.

“Damn.”

Anne hesitated. She considered a trip back to their room for a pair of pants, maybe her shoes. Their room was on the third floor, the top floor, and the ladder most likely led to the roof. She shivered at the thought of cold night air against her naked legs.

Pulling at the bottom of the old t-shirt, she shook her head and picked her way over the icy floor to the ladder. Her eyes traced the climb, just making out one of Jerry’s feet through a square opening above.

“Jerry!”

Anne grabbed a rung and began climbing. The metal chilled her fingers, and each step brought her closer to a faint howling sound—wind whipping across the roof of the building. Chilly air circled into the shaft as she climbed the final ten feet. Rigid gooseflesh popped on her arms and legs. She gritted her teeth and pulled herself above the trapdoor onto the roof.

Jerry was only a few feet away.

His open eyes shone with moonlight, a chilling effect not unlike the bulging gaze of the waiter from dinner in the restaurant below. He watched something on the horizon, something which drew him like a puppet on a string. Anne bent over to fight the wind and her vertigo and moved toward him in a half-crouch. Her hand reached out, touched his, and recoiled with the damp coolness of his flesh.

“C’mon, babe.”

She tugged at his hand, but he pulled away. His mouth wagged open and shut, but no sound came out.

Jerry’s feet scraped across the sloped roof as he staggered to the peak.

Higher ground.

A call drew Anne’s eyes away from Jerry. In the distance, just over the horizon, something black

blotted a section of stars. Instinctively, she dropped even closer to the rooftop. The thing rose and grew larger, heading toward the hotel. It passed across the bottom of the moon, and Anne saw wings like those of a great bird. Its neck stretched out like a vulture, but its size dizzied her brain. A different kind of cold shot through her arms and legs, this chill coming from inside her stomach. The thing flapped closer at terrifying speed, revealing a pair of yellow eyes shot through with tiny veins.

Jerry wasn’t sleepwalking…he’d been drawn there by something. She thought of the note: for our lovely guest…and a special night.

The stranger—that thing—had wanted her.

“Jerry!” She cried out.

He spread his arms toward the moon as the creature swooped in to snatch him from the roof.

There was a massive flapping noise, a blur of darkness, and then her husband was gone.

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91

That Maternal Instinct

by Harper Hull

What kind of bargain would you make, and how many would you sacrifice to protect your child? ___________________________________________________________

By the time the baby made an appearance it was

already dark. Nurse Juliet Kensey oversaw the birth, with Nurse Anna Kelly assisting. There were no complications, no dramas; before long Kensey was placing the newborn into the weary mother’s arms and congratulating her on her ten-fingered, ten-toed healthy baby girl. Kelly had left the room for some reason, leaving Kensey to start post-birth clean up herself. She pushed a loose strand of red hair away from her face and beamed at the baby.

“Could I have the blinds up, maybe a bit of air too?” asked the mother, still pink-faced and drenched in sweat, but obviously delighted.

Kensey nodded and stepped over to the window of the hospital room. She heard Kelly come back in behind her. As she opened the curtains and slid the window open just a touch she was surprised to see the old lighthouse up on the cliffs was shining its beam across the ocean. With the salt-soaked air in her nostrils and the gentle sea breeze stroking her face, Kensey turned around and questioned her assistant.

“Nurse Kelly, isn’t that old lighthouse out of commission these days?”

“It is, Nurse Kensey. Has been for years. Since before my own daughter was born, and she is ten now.”

Kensey looked back out toward the distant lighthouse, a relic of by-gone days that now stood like a final sentry that didn’t know the war was over.

W

ith the mother resting and the baby (named Hannah) safely moved to the tiny, empty nursery room, Juliet Kensey finished her shift and left the hospital to go home for what remained of the night.

Nurse Kelly was on graveyard shift tonight and would be watching over little Hannah and the mother until the next morning. It was just a small hospital in a small town they worked in – more like a glorified clinic, really – and births were not that frequent. It made a nice change from looking after old people, that was for sure. Kensey almost wished she had nightshift today. Carson Cape was so full of the elderly and the services that catered to them it was practically one large assisted living resort.

As she drove the short ride home she saw that the lighthouse was still shining its beam of light out across 92

the ocean, a slowly widening triangle of white that swooped lazily back and forth. Teenagers maybe, she thought. There were a few in town, after all. Or perhaps they plan on reopening it and this is a test. It still seemed strange, though. She yawned, thought of warm beds and cute babies, and drove the rest of her journey with a slightly dopey grin on her face.

T

he morning started far too early with the telephone ringer violently shaking Kensey from her deep sleep. Annoyed, she walked out into the hallway and answered the thing with a heavy hand.

“Yes, hello?”

Her mouth dropped as she listened to the voice on the other end.

“What, how? Oh God, I’ll be right there. I’m leaving now!”

Without showering, Kensey got into a fresh set of mint-green scrubs, ran out to her car and drove as fast as she could to the hospital.

The police were already there. Nurse Kelly looked forlorn and teary-eyed, sitting in the small nurse’s station outside the nursery. As Kensey strode down the hall, her long legs eating up the linoleum, she glanced in at the empty cribs and felt her heart drop.

It was true, then. The two policemen turned as she approached, Kelly holding her head down and just looking at the floor.

“Juliet Kensey, yes?” asked the taller and older of the men.

“Yes, yes – what happened?” Kensey practically shouted.

Kelly kept looking at the floor.

“Well Ma’am, last night around an hour after you left at 1 a.m. – is that correct? – OK, about an hour later Nurse Kelly here dozed off in her chair. She woke up around 2:30 a.m. and saw that the baby, Hannah Bradley, was no longer in her cot. She checked with the mother, Ellen Bradley, but she was asleep and when woken knew nothing. We believe someone came in and took the baby.”

Kensey covered her mouth with her hand and took a step back.

“Ma’am,” said the police officer, whose badge identified him as S. Lee, “can I talk to you alone?”

Stephen Lee left his partner with Anna Kelly and escorted Kensey out past reception, where another

officer was questioning the women at the front desk, through the main doors and over to a bench against the hospital wall where an overflowing pedestal ashtray stood. They sat down and Lee put his hands together and leaned forward onto his knees.

“How long have you worked here, Mrs. Kensey?”

“Miss Kensey. Just a few weeks. I grew up here but went away to nursing college and ended up living and working in Boston for a while. I came back last month because my father died and left me the family home.”

“I thought your name sounded familiar. Sorry for your loss, by the way.” Lee sat back and scratched his chin. “Did your father keep you up to date with news from home when you were gone?”

Kensey pulled her eyebrows together and looked at the policeman.

“Not really, no. He wasn’t much for gossip. Or talking much about anything at all, for that matter.”

“Well, Miss Kensey, this is not the first time a baby has been taken from this facility. In fact, for what is basically a retirement town, we’ve had a whole lot of action over here.”

“How many, Officer?”

“Almost all of them. Well, almost all of the baby girls. The boys seem to be just fine, and one girl was all right too, but in the last decade we have had nine baby girls disappear in the middle of the night. You know as well as I do that there’s not a whole lot of young couples here looking to start families, and most of the ones that do end up doing their maternity procedures in the big hospital up in Wilmington. But the rare cases that have had to use the Conway Cape clinic due to unforeseen circumstances – no offense to you – none of the little girls, bar that one, have made it through the night.”

Kensey and Lee talked for a while longer about the string of apparent abductions; there was no single nurse on duty for every incident, there was no evidence left behind of anyone being in the nursery, and there were, in fact, zero leads on any of the cases.

All the mothers who had lost children had ended up moving away, heartbroken, so it was difficult to do follow-ups, not that there was anything to follow up on, sadly.

Officer Lee excused himself, saying he had to gather his small band of men and get back to the station. Kensey grabbed his arm as he stood up.

“One more question, Officer – random, I know, but is the lighthouse overlooking the beach active again these days?”

Lee rolled his eyes.

“They closed that beast down ten years ago now!

The old lighthouse keeper though, Lovejoy, he stayed 93

on and staged his own protest against the closing. He caused such a stink they eventually let him stay on there, live there for a nominal rent, but he has no position or duties or anything like that anymore. Why do you ask?”

Kensey shrugged and stood up, straightened her top.

“I saw the light on up there last night and thought it strange, that’s all.”

“Not the first time, Nurse, we’ve had several reports over the years of him doing that. Not often though, not often at all. Probably ten times at most. Good day, Miss. Call me at the station for any reason.”

J

uliet Kensey drove into town, picked up a large coffee at a small diner full of old people eating breakfast, then made her way down to the beach below the Cape cliffs to clear her mind. The late morning was bright but chilly; Kensey held her hot polystyrene cup tight in her hands as she stepped across pebbles and scree towards the water of the ocean. The waves were slight and small, washing over the shore with a sigh before fizzing back out, leaving glistening stones and the occasional ivory shell.

Kensey just stood and looked out across the ocean, was transported back to a crazy daydream she had often had as a child standing on this very beach. She had imagined how wonderful it would be if they could build a bridge all the way to England. Not just any bridge, but a footbridge. No traffic. Imagine being able to walk all the way across the mighty Atlantic – it would be a vacation, you’d need to pack well, plenty of food and water. Sleep above the raging sea and huge ships passing below when you got tired. Stick your hands up and scrape clouds, tap the fuselage of an airplane, tickle a gull as it flew by. Wake in the morning and keep on walking over the mystical depths.

She both loved and feared the sea, always had. So huge, so powerful, so mysterious even in this day of ultra technology and massive exploration. She visualized her childhood footbridge arcing out into the blue and the gray, slicing the clouds, and shivered.

The idea seemed absolutely terrifying now, not fun or exciting at all. She suddenly wanted to be away from here, quickly, and turned on her heel toward the mainland. Up and to her right stood the lighthouse on the cliffs; black and white circles alternated up the tower, although the white was looking dirty, unpainted in years. At the top, on the outer walkway, she spotted a figure looking out across the ocean.

Long dark coat, a dark hat. She shivered again, pulled her stare away from whom she assumed was the crazy

old keeper just in case he returned it. That thought scared her almost as much as the water behind her.

The next time she slept, Kensey had nightmares.

She dreamt of tiny babies tied in pink bows crying and screaming as they floated in a black ocean, alone in the night. In the distance a lighthouse beam blinked on and swept across them. She woke up soaking in sweat and could smell the warm salt on her skin.

K

ensey was unable to get hold of Officer Lee by telephone all the next day; she decided to drop by the police station after work and see if there was any news on the Bradley baby. She’d asked at the hospital and no-one had heard anything, not even poor, distraught Nurse Kelly who was back in after a day off to compose herself.

The police station was, of course, quiet. Nothing really happened here, which made the baby-nappings all the more freakish and disturbing. Kensey introduced herself to the desk Sergeant and asked to speak with Officer S. Lee. A quick phone-call to the back and Lee came striding to the front, a big grin on his round face. He escorted Kensey to an office in the back of the building, offered her coffee, and sat down across a desk from her.

“I’m actually glad you stopped by,” he said, pulling a beige file in front of him, “I came across something I thought might interest you.”

“Really? What is it?” she said, leaning in and trying to see the file.

“Well, you mentioning the old lighthouse the other day, seeing the light come on and all, it got me thinking. I did a bit of backtracking through some old reports and complaints – took me all damn day, the filing system here could use a bit of streamlining – but I logged all the occasions people reported the lighthouse lighting up over the years since it was closed down. Guess what?”

Kensey sank into her hard chair, knowing what was coming.

“I’m going to guess that they matched up with the baby snatchings?”

“Bingo!” said Lee. “Now, I don’t see how there can possibly be any connection, unless the lighthouse is calling in some international ship of baby traders that is unknown to coastguards and able to make it to shore in the shallows off the beach, which is nonsense, but I figured you’d like to know.” Lee sat back, still with a big grin on his face.

Kensey attempted a smile, barely succeeded; the information didn’t really surprise her, for some reason, but it still sent shudders through her stomach muscles.

She took a deep breath and looked Lee in the eyes.

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“Will you go and talk to the….Lovejoy, wasn’t it?

The lighthouse keeper? Just see why he is using the light when he shouldn’t be. Remove him from the list of suspects, isn’t that how you say it?”

Lee laughed, pushed the file away.

“Close enough, yeah. I don’t see any reason to actually go see the old coot, it’s just a silly coincidence, but I will report him to the coastguard for shining that beam illegally, maybe they’ll finally evict the fool like they should have done years ago.”

Kensey frowned, knowing something was odd about all of this. She made her excuses and left, worried that Officer Lee was on the verge of asking her out to dinner or for a drink. Something in the way he looked at her. He was a nice enough man, maybe a bit old for her, but she was in no mood for romance right now. The baby was still missing and, incredibly, it didn’t seem like anyone else was going to make any kind of great effort toward finding her.

This town, she thought, why did I come back?

Should have just put the stupid house on the market and waited for the check to arrive.

T

hat night Kensey couldn’t sleep. She could feel the lighthouse on the cliffs pulling at her, guiding her in with its glare, offering answers to her questions.

She was trying to make connections that weren’t there. Something was stuck in the side of her mind like a sliver of glass and she kept trying to reach it, pull it out, only for it to slip from her ethereal fingers.

She wandered outside, breathed in the salty air and tried to let her imagination deflate so her logic could take control of her thoughts. After a while of deep breathing and empty thoughts the imaginary sliver of glass slipped out and Kensey ran inside, picked up the telephone and dialed the Conway Cape hospital, breathing hard.

“Yes, this is Juliet Kensey; could you page Anna Kelly for me? Thank you.”

Kensey waited for Nurse Kelly to get on the line, rolling things over in her head.

“Anna? Hey, it’s Juliet, sorry to bother you at work.

I was just wondering something; it may sound a bit odd. When you had your daughter, was it there at Conway Cape?”

Kensey nodded to herself as she listened to Kelly reply; there was something to this after all!

“Let me ask you this – did you do anything special with your daughter that night, was she in a different room than where the nursery is now, anything like that at all?”

This time her face tightened as Kelly answered her.

“OK…well, I was hoping to find an answer,

something special you did or didn’t do. I’m thinking of going up to the lighthouse and talking to the old man.

I know, it is silly, but I can’t stop connecting the two things. Yes, I’ll be careful. OK, see you tomorrow.”

Kensey hung up and, mind set, headed for the door. As she turned the handle she had a moment of fear and turned back, picked up the phone and called Officer Lee’s direct line at the police station. When noone picked up, she left a brief message on his answering machine and hung up, headed out into the night.

T

he dark, dirty lighthouse loomed on the cliff; it looked huge close-up, a black tower stretching to the sky, and as Kensey stepped from her car and approached the tower she took a second to stare up toward the top. Instant nausea and dizziness consumed her. It was the same feeling she had suffered looking up at skyscrapers from the street in New York years ago. After taking a second to reset her balance, she approached the surprisingly small door at the base of the lighthouse and rapped on it loudly.

Nothing. Taking a step back and a deep breath she risked looking up the wall of the tower again and gasped as she saw a dark figure high on the walkway leaning over and looking back down at her.

“Mr. Lovejoy!” she shouted, “could I talk to you for a moment!”

The figure was pitch black against the dark gray skies above and seemed to gesture with a hand and then disappear from view. Kensey waited a little longer, and still there was no sound from inside the door. She tried the handle and pushed; the door opened slowly inwards on tight hinges. Kensey stepped inside and paused. It was dark and quiet.

Well, I’ve come this far, she reasoned, and began walking up the spiraling stairs.

With her footsteps echoing loudly on the stone steps, Kensey checked each room she passed on her ascent. All had closed doors and no light showed through the cracks. As she moved upwards she glanced out of the small windows in the side of the tower; the sea was rough tonight, large waves crashing against the cliffs below and onto the stony beach to the side. Nearer the top she heard coughing, the hacking, wet cough of a sick man. Lovejoy was up in the light room. She called out a greeting and climbed the final metal steps to the top of the tower where the huge light was dark and the small figure of Mr. Lovejoy stood on the far side of the room.

“It wasn’t my fault,” said the old man, sadly, and opening a glass door stepped out onto the walkway that circled the light room. Knowing she had been 95

right, Kensey followed him determined to get answers.

He was small and frail, close to death maybe, and she believed she could easily overpower him if need be.

Lovejoy leaned against the metal railing, staring out across the ocean. He pulled a pipe from his thick pea coat, tapped in tobacco from a pouch in another pocket and shielded a flame from the brisk wind as he lit up. On the first puff he started coughing for what seemed like minutes, finally regaining his breathing and turning to look at Kensey with wet, rheumy eyes.

“I knew someone would come eventually,” he sighed, “and rightly so. Terrible, terrible business, this is. It needs to end.”

Kensey kept as far from the railing as she could, pressed against the glass of the light room. It was a long drop down into an angry sea and she didn’t want to feel nauseous again. Not now.

“Mr. Lovejoy,” she started, “please, what happened to all those baby girls?”

The old man rubbed his chin and turned around; back to the railing now, looked her in the eyes.

“Someone needs to know, and from what I’ve heard it may as well be you, Miss. It started a long time ago with my own daughter. It was the last night that we were still officially a working lighthouse. I’d fired up the lamp as usual, and after it was done I went down to that beach –“ he gestured over his shoulder to the pebble-covered cove below “ – and took a walk, my daughter by my side. She was just nineteen back then, a baby herself. We walked down to the far end, arm in arm, her consoling me as best she could in her state, and I decided I’d stay put a while, smoke my pipe and ponder a little. When you see the water from up here all the time it can make a world of difference seeing it straight on. Anyway, she headed back towards home, I started packing my pipe, and after a few moments I heard her scream out like she’d fallen and twisted something.”

Lovejoy suffered another coughing fit before he could continue. He shook his head.

“It had her by the hair. Awful thing it was, most awful thing I have ever seen before or since. You know what a mermaid is, Miss?”

Kensey, startled at this, just nodded.

“Yeah, you think you do. They’re nothing like you see in those cartoons or in kiddie’s books. No longhaired, beautiful blonde Princesses with big shellcovered titties and sparkly fishtails. A true mermaid is a vile, devilish creature. Ugly, fishy faces with dead looking shark eyes, with big rolled back lips and long, fanged teeth. Huge gills on their necks, when they open up sucking for air they look like ears gone wrong. Long, scaly arms that look like skinny flippers

with tiny claw hands on the end. They have tails, that much is true, but leathery, scabby, hard tails like a diseased dolphin. Awful things, just awful. Like God made the seas and the oceans and had some parts from other creatures left and just threw them all together for the sake of using them up. And the smell!

Lordy, as I ran across, the stench about knocked me over. And there was this thing, holding my only daughter by the hair, face to face with her, those big teeth just a snappin’.”

He shook a little, whether from illness, cold or memory Kensey couldn’t tell.

“So I’m looking at this real life mermaid and my daughter is screaming and it starts snapping at her belly. She was pregnant at the time; some filthy middle-aged man from town had gotten to her, the bastard. It looked to me like this mermaid was trying to get at her baby; the sniffing and snapping; it was all around the belly. I fell to my knees right there in the rocks and said to this monster, not even knowing if it would understand me, I swore I would bring it every baby girl born in this cursed town if it would just let my daughter and granddaughter be. I was shocked when it let go of Kelly and looked at me, those terrible black eyes showing something akin to understanding it seemed. It turned its head and looked to the lighthouse, then back at me, snapped its teeth together one more time and then slapped its way back into the sea and disappeared below the waves. I knew what it had meant, and I knew I had to keep my deal with it or it would be back.”

Down below behind the lighthouse Kensey spotted headlights approaching across the cliffs. Good old Officer Lee! Perfect timing, maybe he’d get a date after all, she thought. Company sounded good tonight, the old man’s story had turned her heart into a burning pit. She wanted to be sick but knew she had to finish this. She turned back to Lovejoy and looked the sad old man up and down.

“So how did you do it?” she asked him. “The babies?”

He furrowed his brow at her.

“After my daughter had her child – safe and sound, by the way – she started working at that clinic up in town. My idea, not hers. Started out making appointments but went through training and became a nurse. Close to the babies, see.”

A cold chill went down Kensey’s back and her legs shook a little.

“Good girl is Kelly. There aren’t that many babies born there, but when there is, and it’s a girl, she swipes it. Calls me up and lets me know so I can turn the light on. Summon the thing.”

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The car had parked outside the lighthouse and the headlights were out. Kensey was glad she had left the bottom door unlocked.

“Kelly would bring the poor babies down to the cove and place ‘em on the rocks, run for it. Then I’d watch from up here, see that mermaid come out of the surf like a nightmare and take it. Then off into the sea they’d go.” He paused and a strange smile formed on his papery face.

“You know what was strange, Miss? The gentle nature of it. It took those babies so carefully, so loving almost. As if it wanted to raise ‘em. Maybe the thing just didn’t understand drowning. I don’t know.”

Kensey was appalled and sickened. She looked out to the sea, then the beach, half expecting to see the mermaid creature Lovejoy had described come clawing up the pebbles. Was he nuts and just telling a story? She saw his eyes widen and followed his stare to where he was looking, over her shoulder. In the light room a figure had appeared – thank God, she thought, let Lee make sense of this. She went to open the glass door and gasped as Nurse Anna Kelly, once known as Kelly Lovejoy, came toward her.

“Leave my dad alone!” she shouted, shoving Kensey hard in the chest. Kensey stumbled backwards, her lower spine hitting the railing. The old man shouted for his daughter to stop. Kelly screamed, lunged and pushed her again; Kensey toppled over the railing with a gasp and fell down the sheer cliff into the furious waters below. The last thing she thought of was that magical footbridge across the ocean.

A second pair of headlights appeared on the cliff top, approaching the lighthouse.

Crawl Space

by Jay Lowrey

Silent, cold-blooded, and loaded with venom... ___________________________________________________________

The snake moved boldly across the yard.

That bothered Jim, the brazen way the thing slithered through grass he had mowed two days ago, its head raised without fear. He watched it through the living room window. He thought it was just a black racer, but with a six-year-old daughter (currently spending the night with her mother) who liked to romp outside he needed to be sure. He left the house and grabbed the shovel from the garage on his way into the early evening.

Halfway to the snake, Jim’s feet began to sink into the ground. What the hell? It had been several days since the last rain. He stopped walking and then he turned and traced the water back to the far end of the house and the access door to the crawl space. It was either a massive leak or, worse, a burst pipe or hose.

Great. But first…

When he got close enough to see the snake’s markings, Jim’s uneasiness slid into fear. The solid black he had seen from afar became lighter in places, and the pattern of the cottonmouth was clear: ragged black splotches beneath a sheen of gray, like longdead leaves in ditch water. This ditch would be more than four feet long if stretched to its full length. The thick sinew stopped partway into the taller grass cresting the hillock Jim mowed sparingly to combat erosion. Now Jim took a small step forward, and the cottonmouth pricked its head up like a push-tab on a beer can and froze.

Looking down at the cottonmouth, Jim realized what had really shriveled his insides, even as he had watched from the safety of his home: the thing had been moving. Most of the snakes he had seen had been still – coiled and frozen or flattened and dead on a road. He had seen this one in action, and knowing it was perfectly healthy and alert as he looked into its eyes made his balls ride up to his navel.

It’s more afraid of you than you are of – yeah, right.

Jim raised the shovel above his head. The snake opened its mouth, showing some attitude and some fang. Here’s what I got, motherfucker. Suddenly the shovel’s handle seemed mighty short.

Jim lowered the shovel. The kaiser blade had a longer handle and was sharper. Yeah, the kaiser blade was the way to go. He retreated a couple of steps; the snake closed its mouth. Jim turned and walked back 97

to the garage.

When he returned, the cottonmouth was (unfortunately) where he had left it. He thumbed the curve of the kaiser blade; it felt duller than it had in the garage and the handle, though two feet longer than the shovel’s, seemed to have shrunk now that he was in front of the snake again. The cottonmouth watched him. He shifted the kaiser blade and the jaws opened. Jim noted the blade’s shape, a bit like a fang.

The creature was scared. Jim could understand that. Nobody and nothing wants to die. The snake had merely been crawling along, minding its own business, probably trying to get to the ditch at the base of the little hill. It would strike only for food, such as a field mouse making its way through the grass, or if it felt threatened. Jim really didn’t want to kill it; that was just how it was made.

Then he remembered Brandi picking her way down the hill to retrieve a ball that had rolled into the ditch.

Judas jumpin’ priest, that had been this past Saturday.

He gripped the kaiser blade’s handle, raised it above his head, and struck.

The snake didn’t die immediately; he should have hit it farther up the body, closer to its head. The blade was sharp enough, though.

Jim’s blow cut the cottonmouth in half. The upper half turned and twisted back into the flat part of the yard. It nestled into a small puddle of water between two tufts of grass, raised itself as high as it could and, white mouth opened wide and fangs bared, swayed in a dance of anger, fear, and pain.

Jim struck with the blade again and again, splashing water and mud all over himself. His hands became numb, but he couldn’t stop and didn’t want to stop. He quit only when his upper body was fatigued, his legs were stiff, and he was out of breath. What remained of that half of the snake looked like a bloody pulpy cowboy belt.

Whose yard is it now, motherfucker?

Jim stepped back to the lower half of the cottonmouth. He chopped it into thirds, quarters, fifths. He considered raking the snake together and pushing it into the stand of trees just off the yard but decided to leave it where it was. The possums and coons would find it tonight; besides, he still had the water. He turned toward the house.

He put the kaiser blade back in the garage and grabbed the flashlight from the utility closet and slid the switch forward.

A thin weak beam barely illuminated the darkest corner of the closet. He had not gotten around to replacing the batteries.

Jim knew the crawl space under the house would be dark; the sun had sunk below the tree line. He did not want to do this now; he wanted to go back in the house and crack open a beer and wait until tomorrow after work, or until Saturday morning, but he also didn’t want a three-hundred-dollar water bill. He walked around the house, squishing through the yard again. He knelt at the crawl space access door, opened it, and shined the flashlight into the darkness.

The aluminum flashing termite and moisture barrier between the block foundation and the sill plate hung down a bit and was jagged and sharp. He had meant to clip it when he had crawled under the house to spread the clear plastic tarp not long after they had moved. Oh well, he would get to it later. Like he did the day he spread the tarp, he bent the thin sheet up enough so that he could crawl through the access door without slicing his head. To be so thin, the aluminum was sturdy; Jim had to use both hands to bend it.

The weak beam of the flashlight bounced off the crinkles and dimples in the tarp and made lumpy shadows across the dim cone of its limited scope. Jim sighed.

Water reflected back to him from every spot where the tarp was smoothed into the ground. He shined the light along the base of the nearest row of gray concrete blocks that supported the house. Water was there, too. Great. He would have to crawl through water before he even reached the leak. He took a breath and crawled underneath the aluminum.

Even without the mini pond under the house, the crawl space Jim now sloshed through would have been a cool dark haven for cottonmouths during the hot dry summer. Creeping forward on his hands and knees, he shined his flashlight on every spot he touched before shining it all around and above himself. He wanted to be sure every shadow around every joist was just a shadow.

He stopped beneath the dishwasher and wiped his free hand on his shirt before reaching up and feeling the underside of the kitchen floor. It was as dry as his mouth.

I got the cottonmouth, he snorted to himself.

All the house’s other pipes and hoses were farther back, and any one of them (or worse, more than one) could have the leak: washing machine hose, toilet pipes, bathtub, shower, sinks. Jim shined the light as far as he could. What he saw made him sick.

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Water stood at the base of the back wall, several inches deep. The ground under the house sloped down from the center, and the water had pooled in the low places along the base of the walls. This was more than a few hours’ dripping; it could have been days since the first drop had fallen.

A noise to his left caused Jim to swing the flashlight’s beam to the center of the crawl space. He held his breath and listened.

A trickle and drip came from the sanitary sewer trunk line, the pipe that caught the runoff from all the drains in the house and was connected to the treatment plant in the side yard. Jim crawled to the pipe, dried his hand on his shirt, and felt the pipe’s underside. The pipe was smooth and cool, probably a lot like touching a...

Stop. Just find the leak.

After a couple moments’ searching, he found a button-sized hole and felt better. This wasn’t so bad; some plumber’s tape would stop the leak till he got somebody to fix it. This was nowhere near as bad as a burst pipe going into the house.

When Jim turned to start crawling back to the access door, the flashlight’s beam caught a pale spot a couple yards away that was too opaque to be part of the tarp. At first he thought it was a shard of PVC pipe left when the plumbing had been put in, but it looked malleable and would certainly not be cool. He had no intention of finding out.

He moved his feet slowly, slowly, slowly, maybe an inch. His mind knew he was (probably) out of range of the cottonmouth’s strike, but the primal part of him said move easy man, easy. He kept the beam on the snake’s open maw and slid a few more inches. Even accounting for Jim’s ground-level position, the cottonmouth seemed bigger than the one he had chopped up in the yard. He remembered the old wives’ tale of how a snake’s mate would find it no matter where it was and curl around it to keep it company the first night after its death. A stab of loneliness lanced his fear. The three-by-two opening was far away and getting darker.

A shadow twisted to the left of the cottonmouth.

This can’t be happenin.’

This snake was even bigger than the one he was scooting away from, and it was within striking distance. When Jim shined the light on it, it stopped and showed its mouth.

He saw the fang tips in the flashlight’s beam and was very still.

This ain’t happenin.’

Keeping the flashlight on the second snake, he dragged his feet by increments until his legs were

under him. Now, to edge closer to the door, he would have to move his arms and torso.

He sighed. An hour ago he had been in his home; now he just wanted to get out from under it, stand up, move without provoking the creatures that could kill him. He longed for the good old days when he had faced a single snake in the open, standing, with a kaiser blade in his hands.

A scrapeslithersplash along the closest wall caused him to turn his head.

That’s somethin’ y’all can’t do.

Two cottonmouths were making their way toward him, and they weren’t being sneaky; they moved steadily, boldly, toward him.

Jim scooted quickly toward the access door and the salvation of the yard, which was brighter now because the yard light had kicked on.

One of the first snakes struck the sole of his shoe.

Jim scrabbled onto his hands and knees and crawled.

Fast.

One of the pair from the wall sank its fangs into the wrist of Jim’s flashlight hand. He screamed and jumped up to bang his head against a joist. The flashlight flew from his hand and smashed against the blocks. He flung the snake off his hand and lunged toward the access door. He felt a sting in his calf.

He was just a few feet from the door. He could make out individual blades of grass by the yard light.

The tips looked a bit rough; he would have to sharpen the mower’s blade when he had time.

He could smell the outside air. Another strike caught him in the thigh, and he shot forward and spiked his neck on the aluminum flashing above the access door.

He didn’t die immediately; the sharp edge had caught him an inch from his jugular, but two more bites made him jerk that big vein into the metal. One of the cottonmouths sank its fangs into Jim’s side and twisted its upper body, pumping venom. Another rested its head on the threshold of the access door and stared out at the yard with unblinking eyes.

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Reality Check

by Dev Jarrett

Listen to the voice of experience... some lifestyles just aren't as glamorous as they seem. ___________________________________________________________

Turn you?

No, I’m not going to turn you. Are you out of your goddamn mind? You have no fucking idea what you’re asking. Whatever the hell you think it means, you’re wrong. You want me to make you into...what?

A creature like me?

You poor, dumb son of a bitch.

Listen. A few years ago, I was just like you. I was an aspirant to immortality, caught up in the popular image and seduced by the romance. But guess what?

The romance of this is just like the romance of love...it all boils down to a few biological imperatives and a fluid exchange. And yes, just like any hopeless addict, I’ll do anything to get my nightly fix. Dress it up however you like, but it’s a goat rope: all fucking chewed up. And the name of this little goat rope is survival.

You don’t really want to know. Trust me.

When I was in high school, I was you. Yeah, keep telling yourself you’re unique. You’re unique, you bet, just like everyone else. Convinced that no one knows how you feel. I know. The brooding outcast, the antihero, the goth freak-boy who writes tortured, suicide-inspired poems just so his dutiful teachers will take him aside and ask if there’s “anything we need to talk about.” Just like you, I was the black-clad nonconformist, wrapped in a leather duster and wraparound shades. I was the guy who used a black Sharpie to color my fingernails during study hall, the one who wanted to be Lord Byron dressed by Hot Topic, and the one who wore crosses, ankhs, and skulls dangling from multiple body-piercings. But if that’s all there is to you, forget it. You’re better off dragging your sad ass back home, locking yourself in the linen closet, and trying to suck-start your Dad’s nine mil.

When it was my turn, back in the eighties, I fell under the spell of Anne Rice’s creations. Yeah, laugh it up. I was one of those. What a jackass, right? It’s almost funny how wrong she was. I heard she found God sometime recently, and that’s pretty fucking funny, too.

“Did you bring the God?” “Well, shit, I thought you had Him.” “Dammitall, let’s go back and find God.” Hilarious. Not just the idea of finding God, but the

idea of salvation. Forgiveness bestowed by some invisible guy that lives up in the clouds. Uh-huh.

Sure. Tell me another.

What are you dumb asses reading this time around, or is the mystique only being perpetuated through movies? I bet you idiots sit around boxing the clown while you watch Blade and read that Stephanie Meyer crap. Yeah, whatever. It doesn’t matter. It’s always the same song, isn’t it? Different singer, different beat, but the lyrics that seduce us are practically a verbatim repetition.

I’ve seen these ass-clowns with their little fanboy websites, claiming to be something they aren’t. If they were what they say they are, they for damn sure wouldn’t want to advertise it.

Let me give you a little education, dorkboy.

Hematophagy is the real name for the consumption of blood, in general. Whether it’s me coming up behind someone and biting his neck in order to live, or some tribesman drinking an enemy’s blood in order to take on the enemy’s strength, it’s all the same.

Hematophagy. Some animals subsist on nothing but blood, but most of them can’t. I mean, blood as a diet staple works pretty well for a leech, but what do they do except lay around, suck, and make baby leeches?

Drinking blood is not a healthy thing to do. Oh sure, in my case the trade off for blood drinking is immortality, but that’s just as mechanical as any other biological process. It’s like this: once upon a time I had a dog. My dad was an asshole and didn’t let me have a pet, and maybe that’s part of the reason I became who I am. So, anyway, I found this stray mutt and kept him tied to a tree in the woods behind the house. A few weeks went by and I got into trouble for bringing home shitty grades or something, and I got grounded. For days I didn’t get to go feed the dog.

When I finally did get out there, I was terrified. It had been nearly a week, and I was afraid he might’ve died.

But no. He was still alive, curled up at the base of the tree. I was so happy I ran to him and threw my arms around him.

You know what happened next, right? Damn dog bit the shit out of me. I screamed. I bled. It hurt like a mad bitch, and I’m still carrying the scar. More important than that, I felt betrayed, I guess. I picked up the biggest goddamn rock I could find and I brained that stupid little flea bag. I had to hit him

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four times before he quit wiggling. So fucking much for the loyalty of a dog. I left his carcass tied to the tree and I never went back.

What I’m trying to say is that you can live forever, but you have to feed every night. Every night, or your hunger will start to fuck you up. Do you get it? If you don’t feed, all bets are off. No blood, no immortality.

The idea of actually drinking human blood sickened me the first time, I shit you not. But you’d be surprised how much your values change when those hunger pangs really hit you.

It’s funny, in a sad way. When I was your age I even played that role playing game, pretending to be one of these bloodsuckers. All of us prancing around with black capes lined with red satin, spazzing around worse than a pack of weasels loose in a meth lab. The game was more like acting out a goddamn soap opera than playing anything.

Anyway, after all the posturing and effort to act like I was one, actually puncturing someone’s neck and drinking their blood really fucking grossed me out. By then, though, it was too late for me. That first time was a big gory mess. I think I wasted more than I actually ingested.

I guess I’ve gotten used to it, but what do you really think you get out of it? Have you ever checked what’s in this stuff? Red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets, and water. That’s about it, except for the bad shit that no one wants. HIV, Ebola, every flavor of hepatitis, and a metric fuck-ton of other bloodborne diseases. Good luck finding a decent meal anywhere, these days. If you do find someone with good blood, don’t drink them dry in one night. You can let them live, let them recover a little of their lost blood, and stretch out actually killing them over several days. But even with clean blood, do you know how much you’d have to drink to get any real sustenance?

A lot. You don’t think I’m this pale just because I don’t go out in the sun, do you? My graveyard tan is the glorious result of malnutrition. The sun sensitivity is part and parcel of the same problem. It doesn’t kill anybody, but it’ll sure as fuck give me a headache.

The other stuff you’ve heard about us is just dumb.

It was probably a list of Stoker’s own neurotic fears.

Go figure.

Aversion to garlic? Horseshit.

Unable to cast a reflection? Complete horseshit.

Forced to sleep in a coffin? Get real.

Vulnerable to trinkets of any faith? Please.

Able to turn into a bat on cue? That’d be a good trick, but what would be the point? Bats are gross.

Come at me with a wooden stake, though, and I’ll

use your head as a fucking bowling ball. I don’t feel too bad about that one. A wooden stake through the heart will pretty much punch anyone’s ticket.

I guess I’m the last good reason not to go through with it. I’m not exactly the suave, cosmopolitan Transylvanian Count, am I? No one really is. The asshole that made me what I am today was some crazy old homeless guy who tapped out all his front teeth except for the fangs. His breath smelled like week-old roadkill and moldy pennies. He apparently got lonely after so many years of going it alone, and decided to foster my evolution. Bad fucking move on his part. I woke up early, and I woke up pissed. After his body burned away to ash, I retrieved the stake. I keep it, hung over the front door, as a reminder that death waits for everyone, even the undead.

So, no, dude, it’s not gonna happen. Be glad. Your best bet is to forget about this whole seamy underside of life. Go grow up. Enjoy what years you do have.

Immortality for mortals is achieved easily enough.

Just go and live an unforgettable life. The ones you leave behind when you die will still tell stories of you, long after you’ve passed.

What? Did I hear you correctly? A familiar? Are you kidding? What the fuck, man. That’s begging for the short end of the stick. Aspiring to be who?

Renfield? Creeping around, fawning all over me, eating bugs and just acting batfuck crazy in general?

Why would anyone want that? It’s weird that you’d even ask.

First of all, most of us don’t need a familiar. Why would we? A cheetah doesn’t need another animal to go chase down his food for him. He can do it just fine on his own. I don’t want or need a keeper, and I wouldn’t give you that kind of power over me, anyway. I could go to sleep and wake up with a stake in my chest.

Second, you’d get no benefits. No blood, no immortality, right?

The familiar serves as a bodyguard during the day, taking care of the mundane, tedious bullshit that can’t be completed in the dark. A thankless job, pretty much. You don’t want that.

Trust me.

But enough of this bitchfest. I’m just venting, I guess. Am I disillusioned? Of course. Am I bitter?

Maybe a little of that, too. On the other hand, there’s always something to be said for feeling someone die in your arms. Still, does the pleasure outweigh the limits imposed? Not really.

I can see from the shine in your eyes that all this has gone in one ear and out the other. You still want to be like me. Well, fuck. I’m not going to convince

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you of anything, am I? Your mind is made up, and has been from the start.

You poor, dumb son of a bitch. Don’t get pissed at me when it’s not all it’s been hyped to be. I warned you. I gave you the truth.

All right, then. Tip your head back. Good. Show me your neck. Yeah, that’s it. I can see your pulse beating. Now just hold still. Don’t struggle. I know it hurts, but if you yank away, it’ll be worse. It’ll hurt more and it’ll leave you with a shredded throat.

Goodbye, kid. You’re about to die. Whatever that means in this context.

You can thank me later.

In the Winter 2009 issue of REALMS, look for...

Watching his friends die below, listening to the sounds of murder echoing through every corridor, Mathis could see all was lost. There would be more Eshotari here in the months and years to come, and the jungles of Kaldun would be annexed, the Juhar wiped from the face of the world. But that would be another day. Another day that he would never see. He had no wish to be left alone in a cold castle retaken by the Juhar. Instead he would die with his friends.

He drew his sword. The feel of the weight in his hands lent him strength and he turned back to the flight of winding stairs he had run past moments before.

...excerpt from Hearts of Kaldun

by Martin Turton

Available now from Black Matrix Publishing at www.blackmatrixpub.com and Amazon.com, or request it through your local bookseller.

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Night Thief

by Carolanne Patton

The bark is worse than the bite... but that's before they change. ___________________________________________________________

Dusk settles like a blanket over the squat cinder

block building of the Putnam County Animal Shelter.

Leaves fall gently to the ground in the breeze of early autumn as crickets sound their last symphonies. In the distance, an almost full reddish moon is seen rising over the trees. A lone light shines from within the window on the right side of the building.

Inside, Alan Mercer, 35, sits at a dingy gray metal desk in a dingy old metal and vinyl chair. The office is furnished sparsely; aside from the desk and chair there is only a trash can and some built in cupboards of white laminate. A utilitarian clock hangs over the cupboards. A phone hangs on the wall with a list of phone numbers taped next to it. There are two doors out of the room, one behind Alan and one beside the phone. On the desk is a single photo which shows Alan standing with an older woman who has vaguely similar features. Both of them have brown straight hair and tall, lanky frames. The woman wears a simple dress and has the kind and weathered face of someone who is not afraid of hard work.

Alan is wearing his usual flannel shirt and well worn jeans with work boots. Behind them is a white farm house with well tended rose bushes flanking the steps to the front porch.

Alan glances at the picture as he is finishing up some paperwork and smiles. He looks up at the clock on the wall and sighs, thinking he had better hurry up or he will be late for his weekly dinner with his mother. He signs his name to the bottom of the page he was working on, places it in a file folder that was laying open on the desk beside him, then places the folder aside. He stands up and stretches, then grabs his jacket from the back of the chair and puts it on.

Alan grabs a jar of dog treats from a cupboard, and takes one last look around the room before turning out the light and walking through the doorway beside the phone. He now stands in a large room lined with dog kennels. Each one holds a dog, most of which are standing at their gates waiting patiently for what they know is about to come. The back door to the parking lot is at the other end of the room. Alan walks to the far end first, and starts heading back down the left side of the room, stopping at each kennel to give a dog treat and a pat on the head to each inhabitant. He gets back to the office doorway and starts up the other

side, finally pausing at the last kennel, which holds his favorite dog, Cooter, a yellow lab. Alan puts the treat jar on the floor and beckons to him.

“Come ’ere Cooter! Yeah, that’s a good boy!”

Cooter jumps up on the gate to give Alan a lick and a cuddle. Alan puts his hands on either side of his head and scratches his floppy ears.

“You have a good night boy. I’ll be back in the morning.”

Alan walks over to the door at the end of the room, then turns around and looks over the kennels one last time before turning out the overhead lights, leaving only the dim sconce lights at either end of the room casting a soft glow. He walks out the back door, and a click is heard as the deadbolt hits home.

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he next morning dawns cool and crisp as Alan pulls his pick up truck back into the drive and parks behind the building. From inside the kennel room, the deadbolt clicks back and the door opens to reveal Alan, along with a gust of cool air and some errant leaves in autumn colors. He turns on the overhead lights and looks over all the kennels, finally resting on the last one, which holds Cooter. He frowns and walks up to the gate. Cooter is curled up lying listlessly in the corner, unlike his usual self, which would be jumping at the gate for his morning ear scratch. Alan tries calling to him.

“What’s wrong boy? Come ’ere Cooter!”

Cooter lifts his head weakly and looks at Alan, but doesn’t try to get up. Alan opens the gate to the kennel and walks in. He squats down and pets Cooter and gets a handful of hair, which he stares at for a moment with dismay. He lifts up the dogs lip and notices that his gums are pale. Cooter whines and puts his head back down on his paws. Alan stands up and looks at him, worried.

“I’m gonna get you some help boy.”

Alan leaves the kennel and latches the gate. He walks to the other end of the room and into the office, turning on the light as he enters. He stops in front of the list of phone numbers taped to the wall. He puts his finger under “Veterinarian”, then moves it across to “Molly Smith” and on to the phone number. He picks up the phone and dials the number.

Molly Smith answers. “Hello?”

“Dr. Smith?” Alan asks.

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“Yes,” she answers.

“This is Alan at the animal shelter, I need your help.”

“What’s wrong?” she asks.

“One of my dogs was fine last night when I locked up, but now he’s lethargic and sick looking and I don’t know what’s wrong.”

“Oh, that’s not good,” she says. “I have some time right now, I can come over and take a look at him.”

“That would be great!” he says with a sigh of relief.

“I really appreciate it, I’ll be waiting. You can come in the back door.”

Alan hangs up the phone.

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hirty minutes later, the back door opens and Molly Smith enters. She carries a black bag, which she sets on the floor and then straightens up and pushes her long brown hair back over her shoulders.

Alan approaches her with his hand out.

“Dr. Smith. Good to see you!” He shakes her soft hand with his calloused one, noting that she has a firm grip.

“You can call me Molly,” she says. “Alan is it?”

Alan nods.

“So where’s the patient?” Molly inquires.

Alan gestures toward Cooter’s kennel.

“Over here.”

They both walk up to the gate and look over.

Cooter still lies curled up in the corner, the only part of him that moves as they approach are his eyes.

Alan sighs “He’s been like that since I got here this morning.”

“Hmm,” Molly says. “Can you carry him to an exam room so I can get a closer look?”

Alan nods “Sure, no problem, go on in there and I’ll grab him and follow.”

Molly picks up her bag and walks to the end of the room and into the office, then to the hallway beyond.

She walks across to an exam room, turns on the light and places her bag on the counter and waits. A minute later, Alan walks in the door, Cooter in his arms. He places him gingerly on the examination table, then steps back so Molly can do her work.

Molly talks to the dog as she runs her hands gently over his back. “Hey there Cooter!” “Lets see what’s up with you sweetie.” Molly notices the hair loss, and looks at his gums, noting how pale they are. She looks him over closely, then frowns when she notices something on his neck just above his collar. “Alan, did you notice this?” she asks. She points to his neck where there appears to be a spot of blood on his fur.

She parts the fur and reveals what looks like two puncture marks in his skin.

Alan looks at the spot she’s indicating and his face takes on a shocked expression. “No! I didn’t see that!

What the heck?”

She replies “I really don’t know, but it looks like at least part of his problem is blood loss. I’m not sure what’s up with the fur. I’m gonna give him a shot to help increase his hemoglobin levels and rehydrate him a little before I put him back in his kennel, hopefully that will help.”

"Thank you Molly. I hope it works," Alan says.

L

ater that evening, Alan is in his office rummaging in the top desk drawer. He picks up some paper clips, shakes his head and puts them back. He sifts through the drawer some more and finds some dental floss and looks at it thoughtfully. He grabs it out of the drawer along with a tape dispenser from the top of the desk.

He walks over to the window and shuts it, then pulls off a piece of the dental floss and tapes it across the gap from the window to the sill. Then he walks over to the door to the hallway and shuts it, and tapes a piece from the door to the jamb. He frowns at his handiwork for a moment then walks into the kennel room and shuts that door before doing the same thing on the kennel side. He nods and makes his rounds of the kennels giving each dog a treat before locking up and leaving for the night.

T

he next morning when Alan comes in he immediately walks to the office door to examine the dental floss he taped across it the night before. It’s loose on one side. “Damn!” he exclaims.

He opens the door and moves to the hallway door, and sees that piece is still intact. The window, however, is a different story. The floss is on the floor, and the window is open a crack. Alan purses his lips.

He turns around and walks back to the kennel room and up to Cooter's kennel. He finds him sitting up now but he has bald patches on his back and he looks odd, almost skinnier, and there is something about his ears that isn't quite right. He looks around at the other kennels and notices that Lucy, a black cocker spaniel, is now lying listlessly in a corner of her cage.

Alan looks pensive.

M

olly Smith sits in her office drinking a cup of coffee, her hands wrapped around the mug for warmth as she looks out the window daydreaming. An article lies open on her antique desk, having lost her interest. She wears casual slacks and a white blouse with a lab coat over them. Her office is lined with cherry bookshelves. On one wall are several pictures of her standing next to a handsome looking horse with

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various colored ribbons beside them.

“Dr. Smith?” the voice of Cara, her receptionist, floats out of the intercom on the desk. “There’s a guy named Alan here from the animal shelter. He’s got a sick dog with him, do you have time to take a look?”

“Yes, please show him to exam room two for me.

Thanks, Cara,” Molly answers.

She turns her attention back to her article and takes a few minutes to finish reading, then closes the magazine and stands up. She walks to the door, down the hallway, and in through the door labeled “2”. She finds Alan standing beside the examination table with a listless looking Lucy sprawled out in front of him.

Molly frowns.

“Oh no! Another one?”

“I think so.” Alan nods, looking grim.

Molly looks over the dog and finds the same signs that were recently exhibited by Cooter, including the puncture marks in the neck. She gestures silently to Alan, showing him. He nods, his eyes downcast.

“How’s Cooter doing now?” she asks.

“He seems better, but he’s still losing fur,” he replies. “He looks like he may have lost some weight, but I’m not sure.”

“Well, I’m gonna try the same treatment on Lucy and see what happens,” she says. “But if you don’t mind I’ll keep her here so I can keep an eye on her.”

Alan nods. “Whatever you think is best.”

L

ater that night, Alan enters the back door of the Animal Shelter quietly, the barrel of a shotgun gleaming under one arm and a small cooler holding a six pack of his favorite cola in the other. He creeps past the sleeping dogs to his office. He checks the window, it's closed. He moves his desk chair over to the corner, facing the window. He sits his cooler on the floor next to the chair and pulls a box of shotgun shells out of his jacket pocket and places those on the floor next to it. He removes his jacket and baseball cap and places them on the desk. He turns off the light, grabs a cola and settles into the chair for a long night, the shotgun lying across his lap.

H

ours later, the moonlight shining in the window illuminates Alan dozing in his chair, his head resting against the wall. A sudden scraping noise jerks him awake and he sits up straight, grabbing his shotgun.

He leans over to the light switch and turns it on.

What he sees shocks him to his core.

Standing in the partly open window is a creature unlike any he has ever seen, save in nightmares. It is about three feet tall, flesh colored, with large upright ears and vampire-like fangs. It stands on its rear legs

and has a long rat-like tail. It’s eyes flash red in the bright light, and it covers them with the back of it’s clawed hand as it lets out an unholy shriek. Alan recovers himself long enough to raise his gun and aim at the creature. He pulls the trigger. Glass shatters as the creature is thrown back against the window, breaking through and falling backwards outside. Alan walks over to the window and looks through the shards of broken and bloodied glass to the ground outside. There the creature lies, apparently dead, it’s chest a bloody pulp, it’s eyes glassy.

He watches for a moment to make sure, then lets out a sigh and wipes the sweat from his brow with his sleeve. He turns around and lays the gun down on the desk, then walks over and grabs another cola with a shaking hand, suddenly thirsty. He hears a whine from one of the dogs in the kennel, followed by the creak of one of the gates opening. He stands still for a moment, the hair standing up on the back of his neck, then he gets a grip on himself and shakes it off.

“Now what?” he says to the still air in the room.

“Did somebody leave a gate unlatched?”

Alan walks into the kennel room and looks around.

He notices the last gate is hanging open, the one to Cooter’s kennel. He walks over to it and looks in. The kennel is empty.

“What the hell?” he says out loud. “Cooter! Here boy! Where are you?”

He gets no response. He looks around the room, checks all the corners and possible hiding places and still no Cooter. He puts the cool cola can up against his forehead and leans against the wall for a moment, thinking this can’t be happening. He sighs and walks back to the office. As he enters the doorway, he stops in his tracks. Standing in the office is a creature almost identical to the one he just killed, except this one has tufts of yellow fur sticking out randomly, and this one is aiming his shotgun right at him, a grin on it’s demonic face.

Alan freezes in place. Suddenly the identity of this creature dawns on him with mounting horror.

“Cooter?” he whispers.

The creature perks it's ears at the name, and confusion alights on it's face for a moment, just long enough for Alan to act. He throws the can of cola right at the creatures face. It's a dead hit, and cola splashes into its eyes. It reacts as if in pain, and lowers the gun just long enough to give Alan the opening he needs. He lunges for the shotgun and wrenches it out of the creatures grasp. The creature recovers it's senses and crouches down in front of Alan, and for a moment he can see the soft gaze of Cooter in it's eyes. Suddenly it springs up and jumps

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through the window. Alan starts to aim his gun, but not having the heart to shoot his former friend, he lowers it to the floor and watches him scamper off into the woods in the growing light of dawn.

A

lan suddenly stands up straight, his eyes open wide in fear, remembering that Lucy is still at Molly’s office.

“Molly!”

He slaps his hat on his head and grabs his jacket and his shotgun as he runs for the door. He stops suddenly for a moment and runs back to retrieve the shotgun shells from the floor. He tears out the back door and into his pickup truck. He fumbles around his jacket pockets looking for keys. Finally he finds them and tosses the jacket on the passenger seat along with the shotgun and shells. He skids out of the parking lot, driving as fast as he can for Molly’s office.

He reaches the familiar low colonial brick building, painted white with black shutters. A sign out front announces “Molly Smith, DVM”.

He pulls into the parking lot and skids to a stop.

He grabs his shotgun and shells and runs to the front door. It’s unlocked. He pushes the door open with the barrel of his gun and looks around, seeing nothing. He steps in cautiously, finding himself in the familiar waiting room, alone. The floor is laminate made to look like light wood. The room is lined with comfortable traditional styled chairs. In front of him is the reception desk where a young woman with spiky blond hair and a stud in her nose greeted him yesterday. He sees that there is a light on in the hallway to the left of the desk. He moves toward it.

“Molly?” He calls out.

“Shhh, over here” she replies from a location down the hallway.

Alan moves toward her voice, and peers around the doorway. She is crouched in a corner brandishing a broom handle. She looks the worse for wear and appears to have some scratches on her arms and face.

He cautiously walks to her, looking around as he goes.

He crouches beside her.

“What happened?” he whispers.

“I came in early like I always do to check on animals that have spent the night here,” she answers.

“I went to the infirmary and found Lucy’s cage empty.

Before I could do anything else I was attacked by some kind of horrible creature. I managed to fling it off and run, but now I don’t know where it is.”

Alan purses his lips for a moment, thinking. “I think that creature is Lucy,” he says. “The same thing happened to Cooter. I think I killed the thing that bit them.” He has a chilling thought. “Wait. Did that

thing bite you?” he asks, shrinking away from her slightly.

“N...no I don’t think so,” she says as she looks over herself, finding nothing obvious other than scratches.

“Okay. Good,” he says. “I think I’d better look around and see if I can find it, we can’t sit here all day, and other people could show up soon.”

“I’m coming with you. I’m not running into that thing alone again!” she replies.

Alan stands up quietly and gives Molly his hand to help her up. He makes sure the shotgun is loaded and ready. He looks at Molly questioningly. She nods to signify her readiness. They slide along with their backs against the wall until they come to the room that houses the infirmary. Alan peers around the corner.

He hears something small and metallic bounce on the floor. He jumps back, breathing hard.

He steels himself and looks in again. He sees nothing.

He eases into the room for a better look. Still nothing.

He motions for Molly to follow. Now they are both in the room and from what they can see no creature is here. There is a window in the room which is open and the screen has been knocked out. Alan peers through it and sees the screen lying on the ground outside, but still no sign of the creature. Alan lets out his breath with a sigh, realizing he had been holding it.

“Looks like she left through this window,” he says.

“Are you sure?” Molly asks.

“No...yeah, I don’t know, that’s what it looks like,” he answers. “I really need to sit down, can we go to your office?”

“Yes, of course,” she says.

They move back out to the hall and into Molly’s office. She looks around for a minute, then sits down at her desk with her head in her hands. Alan sits on one of the chairs in front of her desk, resting the shotgun against the side. He sighs, the weight of everything that has happened in the last few hours suddenly hitting him.

“This is unbelievable!” he says.

“There’s an understatement,” Molly replies through her hands.

“Hey, you’re a Vet, what was that thing?” he asks.

“I have no freakin idea,” Molly says. “I can’t even guess, I’ve never seen anything like that.”

From outside they hear the drone of a car engine pulling into the parking lot. Molly sits up straight, her eyes wide.

“Oh no, Cara!” she says. “We have to warn her!”

She stands up and starts to run to the doorway.

Alan puts out a hand to stop her. “Not so fast!” he says. “We’ll go together, but carefully.”

She nods. Alan picks up his shotgun and leaves the

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room in front of her. They creep down the hall to the entry area, where Cara is seen through the door just coming up the walkway. It’s the same girl Alan remembers from yesterday; blond spiky hair, a diamond stud in her nose, wearing light blue scrubs and tennis shoes. They meet her at the door.

“Hey...” Cara starts, then trails off as she takes in Molly’s appearance and Alan’s shotgun. She freezes in place, not sure if she should run.

“Shh, it’s okay,” Molly says “Well, it’s not okay but it’s not what you’re thinking either.”

“What happened?” Cara asks as she enters the building, looking around as if the walls have the answer.

“It’s kinda hard to explain,” Alan starts.

“There’s some kind of dangerous creature on the loose,” Molly continues “It was in the infirmary and it attacked me, but it looks like it escaped out the window.”

Cara looks at them with disbelief. “What kind of creature?” she asks.

Molly freezes, her eyes wide and directed behind Cara and Alan. “That kind of creature,” she says quietly, pointing toward the reception desk with a shaking hand.

Alan stiffens, then shoves Cara toward Molly and turns around, his body in front of them, the shotgun brought up before him. Standing on the reception desk are two gargoyle-like creatures with large erect ears and flesh colored skin. One with a few tufts of yellow fur still clinging to its body, and one with a few black curly hairs. The yellow haired one seems to be protective of the other one, which is slightly smaller and more delicate looking.

Suddenly, the larger one opens its jaws, revealing long sharp fangs. It crouches and lets out a hiss as it leaps off of the desk toward Alan. Alan deflects it with the barrel of his gun and it slides across the floor.

Meanwhile the smaller one has taken a leap from the desk and flown through the air beside Alans left shoulder, landing squarely on Cara’s spiky blond head.

Cara shrieks and tries to throw the creature off, but it is all claws and fangs and she can’t get a good hold on anything. She shakes and runs and knocks her head against the wall as a last resort. Molly stands frozen in fear. Alan, not sure what to do first, makes up his mind when he sees the larger creature get up and move toward Molly. He takes aim and fires. It’s a direct hit to the head that throws the creature back against the wall, leaving a trail of blood and gore as it slides down to the floor.

Alan takes no time to react before he swings around to Cara who is still battling the smaller creature. He

can’t risk shooting it so close to her so he turns the gun around and uses the butt to swing at it. He knocks it off balance for a moment, giving Cara the opportunity to fling it loose. He immediately turns the gun around, following the creature as it slides across the floor. As soon as it stops, he fires. The creature lets out a unholy shriek as it dies on the floor with a mortal wound to the chest. Stunned, Molly starts sobbing in relief. Alan moves to the larger creature up against the wall and looks at it sadly, remembering his lost friend.

He leans his gun against the wall and turns around to look at Cara, who has slid down to sit on the floor, her face in her hands, shaking. “Are you okay?” he asks. “Let me look at you,” he says as he walks over to her and crouches down.

Cara takes her hands from her face. She is covered in scratches all over her face and head. Her blond hair makes a striking contrast to the blood running down her scalp in rivulets.

Seeing this, Molly’s eyes open wide in shock. “ Oh my god!” she says. “I need to take a closer look at you.” She looks at Alan. “Could you help her into one of the exam rooms so I can clean her wounds?”

Alan nods. “Come on Cara.” He gently grasps her right arm to help her to her feet before guiding her down the hallway and into the exam room marked “1”. He sits her down on one of the two chairs in the room, then stands there awkwardly, not knowing what else to do.

Molly, having gone to the infirmary for supplies, comes in carrying gauze, tape, and bottles of sterile saline and betadine. She sets these things on the counter and sits down on a stool and rolls over to where Cara sits. She wets a wad of gauze with the saline and methodically cleans Cara’s wounds. As she does so, she examines them carefully and notes that some of the wounds on her scalp appear to be bite marks. She shoots a sidelong glance at Alan over Cara’s bowed head. Alan reads the message in her eyes and winces.

Molly finishes cleaning the wounds, then methodically swabs them with betadine and bandages the deepest ones. “Okay, I think that’s all of them,” she says as she finishes then rolls back away from Cara, doing her best to paste a reassuring smile on her face.

She looks at Alan. “What should we do with those things?” she asks as she motions toward the waiting room with her head.

Alan thinks for a moment. “I have an incinerator at the shelter, for when we have to euthanize. Do you have some large trash bags or something I could wrap

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’em in so they don’t get blood all over my truck?”

“Yeah, I’ll get them for you,” she says. Then “Cara, you stay here a bit and rest. I’ll be back to check on you after we clean up the mess in the waiting room.”

Cara nods weakly, and leans her head back against the wall.

Molly leaves the room, Alan following closely behind her. On the way to the waiting room, she opens a supply closet and grabs a box of trash bags, which she tosses to Alan. “Here you go,” she says. “I’m gonna get a bucket of water and try to clean up the blood an’ stuff.” She winces at the “an’ stuff”.

Alan nods. While Alan gets to work on the bodies, Molly enters the nearby bathroom and emerges with a bucket full of water and a sponge. She does her best to clean up the remaining gore in the waiting room, a look of disgust on her delicate face. Alan takes the last body out to his truck while she finishes this task.

He walks back in just as she stands up and tosses her long hair over her shoulders.

“I think I got all of it,” she says.

Alan looks around. “Good job,” he says with a nervous chuckle. “You’d never know there were two dead monsters in here just a little bit ago.”

She nods. “We should check on Cara” “Good idea.” He motions her in front of him.

“Ladies first.” He gives her a polite nod.

Molly leaves her bucket, which is now full of frothy dark red liquid, inside the bathroom door on the way.

Alan hesitates, then grabs his gun and follows. When Molly reaches the door to the exam room she lets out a gasp and stops.

“What’s wrong?” Alan asks behind her.

Molly, white-lipped, points to the chair that was previously occupied by Cara. Alan follows her gaze and sees what caused her shocked expression. The chair is now empty, except for a few chunks of blond hair. More hair trails across the floor to the open window, where a cool breeze blows the curtains gently. The screen is missing. Alan pushes past Molly to look out the window. Outside on the ground the screen lies mangled, along with a trail of shoes and clothing that leads to the nearby woods. Alan turns around and looks back at Molly, their abject horror mirrored in each other’s eyes.

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Publication schedule for Spring 2010 Februrary

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE #2

March

OUTER REACHES #2

March

REALMS #2

April

NIGHT CHILLS #2 ...plus new book-length projects now in development.

Publication schedule for Summer 2010 May

ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE #3

June

OUTER REACHES #3

June

REALMS #3

July

NIGHT CHILLS #3 ...plus book-length projects to be announced.

Long in the Tooth

by David Vahlberg

Be careful when you complain to the new neighbor... he might have a wild side. ___________________________________________________________

Jake awoke with his temper already lost.

His first thought was to go next door and meet his new neighbor with a club in his hand. A weird droning wail had awakened him, and now he heard a low moaning accompaniment. If this was music, it must be for damned souls, he fumed.

Dressing quickly, he noticed the mellow orange of twilight sifting through his bedroom window. Out of habit he glared at the alarm clock on the rickety stand next to his bed. His jaw clenched.

One hours sleep, maybe, this crap’s got to cease. His anger was fueled nearly to rage when the tempo of the ungodly music increased.

The new neighbor had moved in less than a month ago and Jake had yet to meet or see him (he assumed it was a him, no woman would listen to that racket, surely). Working two full time jobs, just to make ends meet, had taken their toll.

The liquor store job wasn’t half bad, though. He grinned. He’d seen some mighty fine women out shopping for booze, often half-crocked, and figured he would score big-time soon. Then there was the second job.

Damn grunt work, cleaning a woodremanufacturing plant. Sweeping endlessly, sawdust everywhere; stinking, diesel-fume filled air. Numbing cold in the winter, brand-your-ass hot in the summer.

Well, dammit, that job cut into his babe-time and made him tired and cranky as hell, and. What was worse, it was the higher paying of the two jobs, so he knew he had to keep working there just to survive.

Enter the new neighbor.

Jake hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in nearly three weeks. And it wasn’t just the music from hell, either.

His dreams (yeah, he was dreamin’ now) took on the character of a gothic novel. Or he supposed. Not that he had ever read one.

They were dark, out-of-joint, demented things. He never remembered any details upon waking. Just felt unclean thoughts invading his space. Jake was no saint, but other than the occasional booze binge, he thought he was a pretty all right guy. These damn nightmares were something else. Like not his own thinking, something so different it was alien. But he was too flippin’ scared anymore to even go there.

Yeah, Jake Rimes' thoughts were never the most pure,

but damn, these were plain scary. And troubling.

Lately at work he would catch himself saying nonsense syllables over and over, out loud, like he was trying to learn a foreign language. Jake didn’t know any language but English, and spoke it poorly at best.

This was why he worried.

A man in his mid-twenties, never married and never troubled by a lack of imagination- TV, radio (none of that New Age crap, thank you), the occasional football game at the nearby stadium--these were his Gods. He didn’t even own a CD. A simple man with a simple plan. Until the new neighbor.

I’ll just go over there and tell the bastard to turn it down, or I’m calling the cops. Enough of this bull-flop.

Eyes flashing, nostrils flaring, he stomped out his back door. Outside, the God-awful sounds were surreal. He couldn’t believe that no one else had complained in all this time. This was it.

He was on a mission.

The old house next door had been vacated for the nearly two years that Jake had lived in his three and a half-room rat-hole.

Damn eerie lookin’ thing, he thought, but walked on still pissed, not willing to stop now.

The door knocker looks like a skeleton in armor... could be the light.

He rapped it damn hard, and whoa, the music stopped.

Jake wasn't sure how to act now.

The door swung open (just like in the movies), and like a puppet he was pulled inside. God, the smell, yet not a stench, sweet and cloying, took him by surprise.

He was so disoriented by the smell that he didn’t focus on the white-haired old man for God knew how long.

His rage had bled away.

Jesus, Joseph, and Mary, his new neighbor looked like no one he had ever known, or even heard of.

White tufts of hair seemed to sprout from every area of his head and face. And his ears and nose, My God, this man is a white fur-ball. I bet hair grows on his eyelids.

“Be welcome, young Sir,” the Hair-Ball simpered.

Jake gathered his wherewithal and said, albeit quietly, “Your music is too loud, I can’t sleep.”

“Oh! So sorry. I will be glad to turn it down,” lamented the strange hair-ball.

Jake, feeling better, forcefully took the upper hand.

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“I work for a living, you know, or are you too long in the tooth to remember hard work?”

The long-faced-stooped-strange-old-hair-ball with the piercing blue eyes, laughed softly and whispered, “Please find comfort here.”

The oddly sweet, pungent odor that Jake was obsessing on, suddenly was like incense.

The music started again. The strident, eerie cacophony now sounded like the surf on a shore.

Lulling.

Time tilted. He suddenly was watching the full Moon rising in an entry window, and not sure how.

Feeling hot, fetid breath on his neck, he turned in horror to find a large white-haired lupine face leering near his own.

Paralyzed, frozen in fear, Jake heard a horrible, low, distorted voice, “Yez, I am ol’ but hunga’ still. So ol’ I forga ma time of da monf.”

The old were-wolf then proceeded to demonstrate to Jake just how long his teeth really were.

Pick up the premiere issue of OUTER REACHES from www.blackmatrixpub.com and Amazon.com, or check with your local bookseller to order a copy. Every issue is packed with over 80,000 words of science fiction adenture.

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The Dark

by Bryan Hall

We all wonder if there is something after death... or nothing. ___________________________________________________________

“You don’t care at all if there’s nothing after we

die?” Bill asked the question with disbelief.

Robert shrugged. “Not worth thinking about.” He cracked open another beer, his tenth of the evening.

His words were starting to slur somewhat.

“I mean like it was before you were born.

Nothingness. Thinking about that doesn’t bother you at all?”

“I don’t think about it. It’s easier that way.”

“You’re a lucky fucker, then.”

“I think most people don’t think about it, man.

Hell, you just started worrying about it so much since…” Robert’s voice trailed off.

“Since my Mom died,” Bill finished for him, nodding. “I know.”

It was true. One week after his mother died of cancer it had started. He’d been watching an old horror movie and started imagining himself as the teenager who was being murdered. Religion had always been hard for him to swallow; heaven and hell and reincarnation all seemed like wishful thinking.

It was far more likely that there was nothing. Pure darkness; no consciousness or awareness. Trying to wrap his mind around what that would be like, Bill had thrown himself into the grip of one hell of a panic attack.

“Maybe that’s why you don’t give a shit,” Bill said.

“You’ve never lost anybody.”

Robert shook his head. “Nope. I’m just more concerned with living my life than I am with dying.”

“Afterlife or no?”

“Look: It’s fifty-fifty. It’ll be great if there is something. I hope there is, for that matter,” Robert said.

“And if there isn’t?

If it’s just blackness…nothingness?” Bill queried.

Robert took a long pull of his beer and turned the question around in his mind for a moment before answering. “It won’t matter. I mean… if it’s nothing, we won’t know. Hell, it’s probably not that bad once you’re in it. Darkness, I mean. At least we don’t have to work and pay taxes.”

Bill rose from his seat, shaking his head. “I wish it was that easy for me. I gotta piss, then we’re gonna finish this conversation.” He made his way down the hallway and into the bathroom.

As he stood over the toilet Bill fought hard to push the thoughts of death from his mind. Talking about it was fine, but whenever he was alone he inevitably ended up trying to envision what it would be like to vanish into nothingness. He turned his attention to the Rolling Stone cover on the floor, reading the headlines to occupy his mind until he was finished.

He returned to the room to find Robert slumped over on the arm of the sofa, a thin ribbon of drool glistening in the corner of his mouth and his beer still in his hand.

Bill shook his head and chuckled. “So much for finishing the goddamn conversation.”

Grabbing another beer from the fridge, Bill switched off the overhead lights and sat down behind the computer in the corner of the living area of his small rental house.

He began to mindlessly surf through news sites, eyes flittering across the various bad news headlines and celebrity gossip stories before settling on a fluff piece about a beagle named Ringo who had woken up its owners in time for them to escape the fire that had engulfed their home.

“Ringo was his name-o,” Bill whispered.

Behind him, Robert started to snore softly.

Bill started scanning the headlines again when an instant messaging window popped up onto the computer screen, the dinging sound that accompanied it startling him. hello Was the only word in the window. No screen name in front of it, no title at the top, nothing. Just hello Bill stared at the word for a moment. There were only a few people who had his screen name, and all of them opened their conversations with more than just a simple hello.

On screen three question marks appeared underneath the single word.

Curiosity claimed Bill as a casualty, and he typed: hi Almost immediately, a response came. how’s it going? who is this? Bill typed. how’s it going? fine, I guess…who do you think I am? been watching you a while.

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what? i like you. you’re…interesting. what? who is this? nobody Bill sighed and closed the window. “Modern day prank calling,” he whispered as he took a swig from his beer.

The window appeared again on the screen along with a new message. don’t do that again, bill Bill’s heart fluttered at the sight of his name on the computer monitor. Whoever it was knew his name.

His first thought was Tori. She’d spent the last couple of weeks flirting with him in their advanced biology class, neither of them mustering enough courage to ask the other out. Maybe she’d gotten his screen name from one of their mutual friends and was now setting out to woo him in cyberspace.

Bill smiled at the thought. He’d had enough alcohol tonight to take the simple flirting to the next level and perhaps ask her on a date. He set the beer down and began to type a reply, doing his best to remain coy. how do you know my name? i know a lot did you hack my pc? no you said you’ve been watching me. yes where? everywhere school? everywhere Everywhere?

Something about that caused a disconcerting feeling to settle over Bill. He wrote: who are you? nobody everybody I AM “I am.”

Bill heard the last two words come from behind him, a barely audible whisper creeping across the room at the exact same moment the words materialized on screen. He looked quickly over his shoulder and checked the room. Other than him and Robert, it was empty.

He looked back to the computer, unease creeping through him. Another quick glance over his shoulder reaffirmed his safety. He was hearing things, thanks to the beer and the uneasy conversation he‘d just had with Robert.

He was no longer so certain it was Tori. She didn’t seem the type to spend her evenings behind a computer playing strange and slightly creepy games.

Nevertheless, Bill was still curious. It could be her;

he didn’t know her all that well yet. And it was someone he knew, obviously. At any rate, whoever it was was managing to keep him entertained, if not a little uncomfortable.

“All right. I’ll play along for a minute,” he said quietly. you know me. He typed yes how? i know all how? i am all. soon you’ll join me Join me? Bill thought. It had to be Tori. Maybe she was drunk, having a laugh with her friends at his expense.

The nape of his neck tingled as the unmistakable feeling that someone was watching him crept into his mind.

He cast a nervous glance over his shoulder and scanned the room again.

Satisfied that he and Robert were alone in the room, Bill wrote: join you where? here where? in the dark Bill frowned at the statement. The dark. Blackness.

The thought of pure nothingness crept into his gut again, sending a chill through Bill's body. He shook off the oncoming panic. He wasn’t going to be unnerved by some jackass with too much time on their hands.

He leaned back in his chair and took a sip of his beer, staring at the screen and wondering whether or not he should continue this or just give it up, turn off the computer, and go to bed. ringo was his name-o.

Bill froze, can still pressed against his lips, beer growing warm in his mouth. He swallowed hard, nearly choking on the beer.

They had heard him. Somehow, they had heard him.

No, he told himself. They may have hacked his computer, seen what sites he had visited and made an offhanded reference about it. Coincidence, plain and simple.

But still…this wasn’t right.

He’d known it in the back of his mind from the moment the first word popped onto his computer monitor.

But now, after indulging whoever was toying with him and his own curiosity, the fact was front and center in his mind. The past few minutes had been filled with a growing sensation of dread and a strong feeling that someone was watching him.

This wasn’t right.

“Fucking hell,” he said to himself.

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you know nothing of hell. Materialized in the chat window.

The breath caught in Bill’s throat as he sat staring at the words.

There was no question about it now. Whoever it was could hear him.

“Jesus Christ.” He whispered so quietly he could barley hear the words himself. died screaming for his daddy appeared on screen immediately.

He hardly had time to read the words when the hairs just below his scalp tingled as he felt someone breathing lightly on his neck.

Leaping from his chair with a scream Bill whirled violently, swinging a fist behind him but connecting with nothing. There was no one in the room with him.

Not even Robert.

Bill looked around frantically. He was alone. But he still felt like he was being watched. He stood, rooted to the floor, for what seemed like an hour.

Silence hung heavy in the air, broken only by the faint chirping of crickets and frogs outside.

Finally, he began to make his way toward the bathroom, craning his neck to try and peer around the corner and down the hallway while staying as far away from it as possible. His heartbeat kicked a quick steady pace in his head.

“Robert?” His voice was strained, quivering with fear. “You taking a piss?”

Hopeful as he was, Bill wasn’t surprised that no response came.

A few hesitant steps and he was able to see down the hall and into the dark, empty bathroom beyond.

Behind him, the computer speakers crackled lightly with static. Bill froze. Through the hissing came what sounded like a voice, nearly inaudible beneath the white noise. Bill couldn’t make out what it was saying, or even if it was male or female, but it was definitely a voice.

Frozen in place, Bill stared at the speakers as the voice escaped from them. It was almost hypnotic, rhythmically rising and falling in tone in an eerie pattern. It sounded like it was singing to some unheard music.

No, Bill thought to himself. It wasn’t singing.

It was chanting.

As soon as Bill realized it, the static fell away and the voice became clearer and louder. It was male and female, both speaking at the same time in a language Bill couldn’t identify. Their tone was growing more intense by the minute, like a southern preacher gaining more and more momentum as he whipped his congregation into a frenzy.

Bill ran across the room and switched the speakers off so frantically that he knocked one off the desk.

The house plunged back into silence as he stood over the computer, staring at the monitor. His mind raced, trying to figure out both what was happening and what to do about it.

More words appeared on the computer monitor, sending a fear coursing through Bill’s veins so powerful that his body began to tremble. coming for you, bill. got your mommy and daddy got your buddy robert now it’s your turn.

Panic overcame him and he began to scream.

“Who are you? What the fuck do you want from me?

What did I do?” Tears began to stream from his face.

And then he heard the child. A young child‘s voice, vaguely feminine, slowly becoming louder.

The voice was coming from his bedroom, echoing through the house as it sang in a nursery rhyme rhythm. “R-I-N-G-O, and Ringo was his name-o!”

Staring down the dim hallway leading to the source of the voice, Bill began to slowly back up, glancing over his shoulder every few steps as he made his way toward the front door.

After a moment the child was joined by another voice, then another and another. Men and women, young and old, some that hardly sounded human with their low gravely voices; all joined together and formed a bloodcurdling choir so hellish it made his ears hurt.

The moment he was within reach, Bill grabbed the doorknob frantically, flinging the door open and whirling around to make his escape and-There was nothing outside.

Nothing at all. The singing behind him stopped and silence reigned supreme yet again as Bill stood at his doorway staring out into what had once been his driveway.

His front porch was still there, extending eight or nine feet out from the door before reaching the point where the steps should be.

But the steps were gone. Along with everything else.

It was as if outer space had devoured all the stars and planets and was working on finishing off the Earth. Where the world had been was now only a void colder and blacker and emptier than he could have ever imagined anything could be.

And it was growing. The front porch was slowly joining the darkness, the void washing over it like some hellish liquid.

He slammed the door shut, tripping over his own feet and falling backwards into the living room, a horrendous flash of pain cutting through his brain as

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the back of his head connected with the edge of the coffee table .

Rolling to his stomach, Bill tried to rise and run but only made it to his knees before collapsing again.

Nausea engulfed him and his vision narrowed as he felt the warm stream of blood ooze from his head and coat his neck.

Laughter erupted from somewhere in the house as he turned to look behind him, watching in horror as the entire front wall of his home was swallowed up by the blackness. It was approaching him quickly now, but he knew that even if he was able to stand it would be pointless to run.

Slowly, he rolled himself over to his back and stared up at his ceiling just in time to watch it disappear into the void. He felt a cold unlike any that nature could muster consume his legs.

As the black swept over him, Bill smiled with the realization that it really wasn’t so bad after all, once you were in it.

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