eFiction Magazine November 2011

Editor Doug Lance Managing Editors Essie Holton, Stasey Norstrom Readers Ryan Dorill, Robert Turner, Megan Schwark, Maggie Duncan

eFiction is a monthly fiction publication. The editors accept manuscripts online. To review our guidelines or submit a manuscript, please visit http://eFictionMag.com/ Submissions. Correspondence may be sent to Editor@eFictionMag.com. eFiction is available for free in PDF or EPUB format. Subscriptions for the Kindle edition are $1.99 / month and individual issues are $3.99. Visit us online at www. efictionmag.com.

ISBN: 978-1-4659-3279-2 ASIN: B004UD88K2 Copyright Š 2011 eFiction Publishing

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Contents Short Stories The Hypnotist Michael Burns 5 Crush Stasey Norstrom 33 Replaced by an Easy Spirit

Helen Hanson 36

Grayson’s Mountain

Kevin Fraleigh 49

Outsourced Saul Tanpepper 87 Incubus Paul Clayton 102 Serial Fiction The Dead Beat

Erica Linquist

& Aron Christensen 114 The Bike Mechanic

Aaron M. Wilson 119

Contributors 135

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Book Reviews Terminal Departure Essie Holton

by Joe Crubaugh

127

Forget the Past Essie Holton

by Claude Nougat

130

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms Josh Johnson

by N.K. Jemisin

133

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The Hypnotist Michael Burns

Zoltan Zarkini stood just off the stage, surrounded by a mass of burgundy curtains. He watched his assistant Frieda with keen interest as she spied through a peep hole at the audience out in the main showroom of The Palace, Las Vegas’ second biggest resort casino.

“Anything interesting?” he asked her, tossing out the question casually.

“I see several women who might be good candidates,” she said in perfect English.

Frieda was German, thirty years old, and drop dead gorgeous.

She was wearing her stage costume, a revealing outfit that showed off her long legs and magnificent breasts in a stunning display of curvaceous femininity. She was a blue-eyed blonde with incredibly wholesome looks, but to Zarkini, it was her intelligence that made her invaluable. Her ability to find suitable subjects made her the perfect assistant.

“Do any of them look like they have money?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said. “There is one, a woman, wearing a very large, pearl necklace. I’d say it’s worth at least thirty thousand dollars.”

“What does she look like?”

“Well dressed, black sleeveless gown. Lots of cleavage. Long

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blond hair. About fifty, maybe fifty-one. Quite striking.”

“Is she with someone?”

“An elderly man. He is at least seventy-five. He carries himself well. He looks like old money.”

“Does she appear extroverted?”

“Yes, I think she’ll make a good subject.”

“Is she in good shape?”

“I would say, judging by her arms, she is in excellent condition. She must work out in a gym.”

Zarkini liked what he had heard. “Let’s do her third, as usual,” he said.

She turned to him and nodded. “Third she is,” she said.

“And now we need to find two suitable male subjects,” he said. “Anyone out there tonight?”

“Yes, Zoltan. I have seen several so far. There won’t be a problem.”

He began to walk away. “I’ll be back,” he said. “I’ve got to finish my makeup.”

Fifteen minutes later, the room lights dimmed. “Ladies and gentlemen,” a deep voice announced, “the moment you’ve all been waiting for. Now appearing in the main showroom, The Crystal Palace is pleased to announce the greatest hypnotist in the world; ladies and gentlemen; the one and only—The Great Zarkini!”

The room exploded in thunderous applause. The curtains opened, a blue spotlight hit the stage and then turned quickly to purple as smoke erupted over the audience. Zarkini came up

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through the floor at center stage on a hydraulic lift as thousands of sparkling pieces of glitter fell from above in the background.

Freida, wearing her skimpy outfit with a push-up bra, made her entrance from stage left, running to Zarkini, and a moment later the two of them stood side by side, now under a bright, white spotlight, smiling out at the six hundred plus people in attendance. Zarkini took Freida’s hand, and both of them bowed graciously to the audience, causing even more applause.

Zarkini wore a tuxedo, a remote radio mic fixed to his lapel.

Freida wore a similar mic attached to her outfit above her left breast, and she carried a hand-held microphone.

“Good evening,” Zarkini’s voice boomed out into the room.

“Thank you all for coming. We have a great show for you tonight.

I believe you’re in for a delightful evening.” He turned to Freida.

“And speaking of delights, this is my assistant, Freida. Isn’t she lovely?” As the audience applauded, he stepped aside and gestured toward her body, smiling at her as she smiled at him.

Then, Zarkini released her hand and turned toward the audience, taking several steps forward.

“As you know,” he said, “I hypnotize people—that is my specialty. I can make you do anything I want. I can turn you into a raving lunatic. I can make you the happiest person in the world.

I can put the power of subconscious suggestion into your mind and make you do things right here on this stage that you never thought possible. And I will!”

He laughed, and the audience went crazy. Zarkini paused,

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waiting for the noise to die down.

“And tonight, a few of you in the audience will be selected to come up on stage and become part of the performance. Are there any brave and intelligent souls out there among you this evening?”

The audience suddenly became quiet. Zarkini stood there in complete command, his eyes scanning the entire room.

“I must forewarn you. Not everybody makes a good subject.

We must look at you, talk to you, and you must agree to come forward and participate. Don’t be disappointed if you are not selected. The timid need not apply.

“Oh, and one more thing—we are authentic. I do not fake it.

I do not use stooges. I rely strictly on my ability and my skill as a professional hypnotist. The people we bring on stage are real people, selected from among you, the audience. Therefore, what you see happen on this stage will be legitimate.”

Zarkini walked over and stood close to Freida.

“Freida, I think it’s time. Let the show begin! Shall we find our first subject?”

Music with a strong, up-tempo beat began to play in the background. Freida stepped to one side, turned, and with great poise walked toward the stairs to the left of the stage. Zarkini went to the stairs to the right, and soon both were walking among the tables and booths in the room. Spotlights shone brightly on both of them, following their every move.

This part of the act was staged. As they wandered innocently

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around the room, examining potential subjects, both of them knew Frieda had already made her selections.

“I see someone,” Frieda announced.

“Who is it?” Zarkini asked.

She walked over and pointed to a man sitting with a woman and another couple. Frieda had spotted him earlier, and her trained eye told her he would make a good subject for hypnosis, though only after speaking to him could she be sure. And Zarkini would have to approve her choice.

Freida turned to the audience. “He’s very handsome,” she said, and everyone laughed. “Is this your wife?” she asked, gesturing, feigning ignorance. The man nodded.

“Sir, please stand so we can all get a good look at you.”

Immediately, another spotlight shone on him.

He was smiling broadly, proudly. He had the face of a natural comedian. He stood up, and Freida took his hand, leading him a short distance away from his table.

“What is your name?”

“Jack,” he said.

“Jack,” she repeated. “And where are you from?”

“St. Louis,” he said.

“And what brings you to Las Vegas, Jack?”

“To have some fun,” he said, grinning. “We’re here to play.”

“Ahhh, I see,” she said, pausing. “Would you like to play with me?” she asked.

The audience exploded into laughter. The man, slightly em-

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barrassed, turned to his wife and shrugged. He turned back to Freida.

“Sure,” he said, grinning once again. “I’ll play.”

She turned to Zarkini who stood some fifty feet away.

“What do you think?” she asked him.

“Take him up on stage,” Zarkini commanded, and he headed back up the stairs he had earlier descended, running and bounding up them in just two giant steps.

Frieda brought Jack up to the stage and led him to a large recliner that had magically appeared at center stage. As Jack sat down, soft music began to play in the background. It was Debussy’s Rêverie.

Zarkini waited, then he turned to the audience, waving his right arm.

“I need your cooperation. Silence, please, while I take him under.”

He moved close to Jack. Zarkini’s microphone remained on.

He wanted the audience to hear what he was about to say.

“Close your eyes, Jack. That’s it. Now, I want you to relax. I want you to completely relax. Your eyelids are becoming heavy.

They are so heavy, you must close them and keep them closed.

You cannot open your eyes.”

Zarkini turned off his mic, leaned forward, and spoke quietly to his subject using an advanced method of induction, talking to Jack in a rhythmic cadence, using his voice like a musical instrument. In two minutes, Jack was hypnotized. The reason he had

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turned his mic off was not because he was trying to secretly gain his subject’s cooperation—it was because his method of induction was secret, and he didn’t want others copying it.

Satisfied his subject was deeply under, Zarkini turned his mic back on and took up a position to the side of the recliner.

“You are like a monkey, Jack,” he said. “You are a monkey.

Monkeys like to climb. You like to climb. Don’t you?”

Jack nodded.

“When you wake up, you will have no memory of being hypnotized. But when I say the words ice cream, you will walk over to the jungle gym and climb to the top, because that’s what monkey’s do. I say ice cream, you climb. But, only if I say it. Do you understand, Jack?”

Jack, his body inert, nodded slightly. The audience was perplexed. There was no jungle gym on stage, but suddenly a curtain backdrop gave way to a shiny, silver jungle gym nearly thirty feet in height. The entire contraption moved silently forward to center stage. A heavily padded series of mats were beneath it, and would protect Jack if he fell.

“On the count of three, you will open your eyes and stand up. One. Two. Three!”

Jack opened his eyes and rose from the recliner. He appeared dazed.

Freida moved close to Jack and put her arm around him, preventing him from looking back toward the jungle gym.

“How do you feel, Jack?” she asked, smiling innocently.

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He nodded and smiled. “I feel alright,” he answered.

“What do you remember?” Zarkini asked.

“Nothing,” he said.

“Nothing?” Zarkini asked.

“No. What happened?” Jack asked.

“Oh, not much. I just hypnotized you and made you take your clothes off!”

Jack quickly looked down at himself, just to check. He smiled, somewhat embarrassed.

Laughter rippled across the room.

“Just kidding,” Zarkini said. “Jack, you have been a good sport. Hasn’t he?” Zarkini turned toward the audience, and they applauded. Then, he said, “I think he deserves some ice cream.”

Zarkini emphasized the words “ice cream”.

Freida spun his shoulders, and Jack spotted the jungle gym.

He ran to it and began to climb. Within seconds he was at the top, hanging upside down from a bar. The audience howled.

Zarkini walked over. “Jack, what are you doing up there?”

Jack didn’t respond.

“What are you doing up there?” Zarkini repeated his question.

“I’m exercising!”

The audience laughed. Jack’s actions were spontaneous and natural. Jack swung to another bar, nearly losing his grip. There were oohs and aahs from the audience.

“Okay, Jack,” Zarkini said soothingly. “Come down, now.

Come down.”

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Jack slowly climbed down, the entire audience wondering if he would lose his balance and fall. Jack made it safely to the bottom, and Freida took his arm and guided him off the mat and onto the stage.

Zarkini snapped his fingers. “Jack, you are fully awake.”

Jack suddenly became alert. His session was over. He shook hands with Zarkini and hugged Freida, and then he waved out toward the audience.

“Let’s hear it for Jack,” Zarkini said. “Wasn’t that exciting?”

As the audience roared its approval, Freida led Jack offstage.

It seemed to be a completely unrehearsed performance.

Zarkini waited until the audience had quieted down. “Ahhh,” he said. “The power of hypnosis. Isn’t it amazing? I must admit, Jack was a very good subject. Now, let’s hope we can find another good subject. Freida, shall we?”

Their second subject was another man Freida had spotted earlier. He was about thirty, seemingly outgoing and athletic.

His name was Bob. He was brought on stage and placed in the recliner. Zarkini realized that Bob would be a little more difficult than Jack. It took an extra two minutes to bring him into a deep state of relaxation, and another two minutes to hypnotize him while Debussy’s music played in the background. Zarkini turned his mic back on, stepping to one side of the recliner and looking out toward the audience. The background music stopped playing.

“Bob, you are a great vocalist. You can sing just like Elvis. In fact, you can sing even better than Elvis. Can’t you?”

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Bob, lying back in the recliner, his eyes closed, nodded.

“I’m going to quickly teach you a song. After you learn this song and wake up, when I say Elvis, you will become Elvis and you will sing. But, only if I say it. Do you understand?”

Bob nodded effortlessly.

Freida produced a pair of large headphones and placed them over Bob’s ears. She used a remote, and Bob began to hear the song Jailhouse Rock. Just to be sure, Freida played the entire song two more times. As this took some time, Zarkini took center stage and told jokes to the audience, the same jokes he used night after night.

Finally, Freida removed the headphones.

“I think he’s ready,” she said.

Zarkini walked over and spoke to Bob, his mic on for the audience to hear.

“Remember, Bob, when you wake up you are going to sing when I say the word Elvis. You will have no control over this.

You will want to sing. You will want to perform. You will even want to move like Elvis. On my command, on the count of three, you will open your eyes and stand up. One. Two. Three!”

Bob was instantly alert and got out of the recliner, standing completely erect.

“How are you feeling, Bob?” Bob smiled and nodded. “I’m okay,” he said.

“Where are you?”

“I’m in Las Vegas.”

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“Do you know who I am?”

“The Great Zarkini,” Bob answered.

“And do you know what just happened?”

Bob shook his head. Under the harsh stage lights, he seemed bewildered.

“Bob, you are in Las Vegas, land of gambling, a place of thrills and excitement.” Zarkini nodded to Freida, and she gave a handheld mic to Bob. Zarkini then leaned forward and said, “Las Vegas. The most famous city in America. A place where legends have been made; a place where we once saw and heard the great Elvis Presley.”

Bob immediately threw his head down and assumed an Elvis stance. As music began to play over the PA system, Bob gyrated his body, and then he sang into the mic. His voice was smooth, almost professional. For an amateur, he gave a remarkable impression of Elvis singing Jailhouse Rock.

Zarkini stood to one side, smiling broadly. When the song was over, the audience erupted into applause.

Freida stepped over and took the microphone, and then she stepped back and applauded Bob. Zarkini applauded him, too.

Bob, still Elvis, stood transfixed, his left knee turned in, his left hip jutting out.

Zarkini came over and put his arm around Bob’s shoulders, looked directly at Bob and snapped his fingers.

“You are fully awake,” he announced dramatically.

Bob stood up straight as the audience applauded his

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performance.

Bob was led off stage, and after Freida took him back to his table, Zarkini spoke to her from the stage.

“Frieda, we have time for one more subject. Let’s have a woman this time.”

Freida began to wander innocently around the room, eventually making her way to the blonde woman in the black sleeveless evening gown.

“I think I have a likely subject,” she said, pointing toward the blonde, who was at once lit with a bright spotlight.

The blonde woman was smiling, her eyes gleaming. She seemed honored to have been selected. Still, she shook her head as if to say, “Oh, no!”

Freida ignored her protestations. She held out her hand-held microphone inches from the woman’s mouth.

“What is your name?”

“Claudette,” the woman answered.

“Claudette! That’s an interesting name. Are you French?”

“I’m French Canadian,” Claudette answered.

“And how are you enjoying your stay in Las Vegas?”

“It’s wonderful. We’re having a wonderful time,” she said, glancing at the elderly man she was sitting with. “Aren’t we, dear?”

The old man nodded perfunctorily, his face moving methodically up and down.

“Well, what a cute couple,” Freida said as sincerely as pos-

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sible. She turned toward Zarkini.

“Any questions for her, Zoltan?”

“Have you ever been hypnotized?” he asked, his voice carrying over the PA system.

Claudette nodded, smiling. “Many times. I use self-hypnosis to relax. It’s better than taking drugs. Why take Valium? Selfhypnosis is so much better. And it works.”

Freida smiled knowingly at Zarkini. She had found the perfect subject.

“Excellent! Freida, ask her if she would like to come up on stage.”

“Well, Claudette,” Freida said, “why don’t we see what The Great Zarkini has in store for you? Want to give it a try?”

The audience broke out into applause, encouraging Claudette to go for it.

Freida stretched out her arm and offered to take Claudette’s hand. Claudette hesitated for a second, looking to her husband for guidance. He nodded his acquiescence and she held out her hand, clasping Freida’s hand. The audience applauded their approval.

When Freida brought her up onstage and she stood before him, Zarkini saw just how beautiful Claudette was. Her features were fine with high cheekbones and a perfectly upturned nose.

She moved lithely and gracefully, her figure nearly perfect, her pearls sparkling under the stage lights.

“So, you say you know something about hypnosis. Well, we’ll see about that,” Zarkini said, and he turned toward the audience

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and smiled conspiratorially.

“Claudette, what brings you and your husband to Las Vegas?” he asked.

She hesitated, momentarily frowning. “I guess you could say we just wanted to get out of the cold, Canadian winter.”

Zarkini looked at Freida and they made direct eye contact, holding the connection for just a few seconds. Claudette, they both realized, was holding something back. Zarkini chose to ignore it.

“Yes, this is a marvelous climate,” Zarkini said. “Las Vegas is warm and sunny year around.”

Claudette nodded in agreement, though her expression indicated a slight reticence.

“Please, right this way,” Zarkini said. “Please, sit over here.”

He took her by the arm and guided her into the recliner. When she was seated he said, “Close your eyes, Claudette. I want you to relax. Completely relax. Your eyelids are so heavy. They are so heavy, you must close them. They are so heavy, you cannot open your eyes.” Zarkini turned off his mic, leaned forward, and spoke quietly to Claudette, again using an advanced method of induction. In the background, Debussy’s Rêverie played softly.

Zarkini was truly surprised when, in just half a minute, Claudette went into a deep trance. Nonetheless, he proceeded to take her even deeper. She was an easy subject, possibly the easiest he had ever seen. Then, he leaned close to her face and whispered into her right ear.

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“You will not remember being hypnotized. At exactly eleven o’clock, you will go to the front lobby of the hotel. A white limousine will be waiting for you. You will get into this limousine alone. You will not tell anyone. Is that understood?”

She nodded almost imperceptibly.

“You will be driven to my estate. When you arrive there, I will be waiting for you. When I say the word drive, you will immediately fall into deep hypnosis. But only when I say it. Remember, Claudette. Eleven o’clock. A white limousine will be waiting for you. Do you understand?”

She nodded, her eyes closed.

Zarkini stood over her, looking for any telltale signs she might be faking it. Satisfied she was really under, he turned his microphone back on.

“Claudette, you will not remember being hypnotized. You are a dancer. You are the greatest dancer in the world. You can do ballet. You can do the Mamba. You can do the shake. You can twist and shout. You can do any dance, depending on the music.

When I say the word baby, you will become a dancer and when the music begins, you will dance to the music. But only when I say it. Do you understand?”

Claudette nodded.

“On the count of three, you will open your eyes and stand up. One. Two. Three!”

Claudette opened her eyes, blinked, and she slowly stood up.

“Hello, Claudette,” Zarkini said. “How was your flight?”

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“My flight?”

“Your flight into the deep subconscious realm of the mind.”

“What happened?” she asked.

“You did very well. You fell asleep. In fact, you slept like… a baby.”

In the background, music began to play. It was Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake.

Claudette moved to her right, stood up on her toes, and began to twirl ballet style. The audience laughed at the spectacle of a woman in an evening dress trying to do the ballet. But, suddenly the music changed to a waltz. Immediately, Zarkini stepped forward and took her in his arms. They waltzed around the entire stage. Now, the audience was spellbound. Zarkini was an excellent dancer, and he led Claudette perfectly. The two of them made the perfect couple.

The music changed again, this time to fifties rock, and Zarkini continued to dance with her, holding both her hands in his.

Claudette was thrilled, and she smiled at Zarkini with a girlish grin, as if they had been dancing together all their lives, boyfriend and girlfriend. For the next ten minutes, they danced to various types of music, and it was obvious to all that Claudette was having the time of her life.

When the music stopped playing, Zarkini took her in his arms and hugged her tightly, then took her hand and led her to the edge of the stage.

“Claudette,” he said, “that was fantastic. You do know how

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to dance. Let’s hear it for Claudette.” He took her left hand and raised it high.

The audience began to applaud, and then they began to stand up and applaud. Soon, the entire audience was on its feet, clapping their hands and cheering. Claudette smiled out at them graciously. Freida came over and put her arm around Claudette’s waist. Zarkini did the same, and the three of them bowed. It was a stellar performance.

When the audience quieted down, Zarkini turned to Claudette and snapped his fingers.

“You are fully awake,” he announced.

“Where am I?” she asked.

“Do you remember what just happened?” Zarkini asked.

“I think I was dancing,” she said.

“You certainly were. Thank you, Claudette. You were marvelous!”

Freida led Claudette off stage, and Zarkini bid his audience farewell.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said. “That concludes our show.

I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you’ll come back soon.”

Then, as the audience cheered and applauded, he made a dramatic exit into a cloud of smoke, disappearing as the curtains closed.

Two hours later, Zarkini was standing on the third floor balcony of his mansion, just off his library, sipping an expensive French brandy. It was a clear, winter evening, and from where

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he stood, he could see the lights of Las Vegas to the south. He pulled a cigar from his breast pocket and lit it, inhaling lightly.

I made it, he thought. I’ve done it, and the world is none the wiser. He looked down at the grounds of his estate, thinking about Claudette, the beautiful woman he was soon going to have sex with. He shook his head and smiled. What a lucky man I am! I am the Great Zarkini, and he laughed harshly, sipped his brandy, and inhaled his cigar.

His stage name was Zoltan Zarkini, The Great Zarkini, and he may have been billed as the greatest hypnotist in the world, but what the world didn’t know was that his real name was Alan Parks, and he was from New York, not Europe. If people knew about his background, his high flying career would be ruined; his father had been a notorious thief, his mother a high priced call girl. Parks was an only child.

During most of his childhood, his father was doing time in Sing Sing, and his mother was out working, mostly in Manhattan, sometimes earning five thousand dollars a night, more than enough to keep them living comfortably.

Alan usually spent his evenings alone, entertaining himself by doing magic tricks, card tricks, ventriloquism, and eventually learning how to hypnotize people. But it was hypnosis that fascinated him the most. He wanted to learn to control others, just the way he had seen his mother control men with her looks and her feminine charm. He loved his mother more than anything else in the world. Alan adored her. She was exceptionally beautiful

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and she exuded a sexuality few other women in her profession possessed. She was his best teacher throughout his school years.

His mother taught him that he had to take risks and make bold moves, even if it meant breaking the law. Take the world, she had told him, and bend it to your will.

Sometimes, as she was getting dressed before she went out into the evening, she would sit in front of her well lighted bathroom mirror putting on her makeup, wearing only her bra, panties, and stockings, and lecture him about the ways of the world as he sat nearby. He was fascinated with her preparation for work, fascinated, too, with every feature of her body, every curve, every little move she made as she applied her makeup, did her nails, or styled her hair. He always sat slightly behind her so that when she leaned forward to do her eyelashes, he could view her breasts not only from the side, but also by looking into the mirror directly at their perfect fullness. His mother was a goddess, and he worshipped her, worshipped her femininity and her sexuality.

Before she went out the door, she would hug him and kiss him on his lips, and he would become fully aroused. As soon as she left, he would go to his room and fantasize about the woman in the mirror. Throughout his teen years, he never dated, never went out with a girl his own age.

One morning, he came across an article in the paper about a school for hypnotism in Hungary, The Budapest Institute of Hypnosis. The school guaranteed it could turn out master hypnotists. He immediately told his mother he wanted to enroll. She

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agreed he should go and gave him several thousand dollars in cash and promised to send more. Their farewell at the airport was a tearful one.

“Look at you, so big and strong. So handsome,” she had said.

He was six feet tall, with magnetic good looks, a strong chin, and cobalt blue eyes. His hair was black and thick. He was only eighteen.

They hugged and bid each other farewell. He never saw her again.

He arrived in Hungary, and after two years of intense study under the strict tutelage of his professor, Dr. Viktor Blasko, he learned the art of hypnotism. Parks was Blasko’s prize student.

Blasko taught him induction techniques so advanced that only a few of his students ever were able to utilize them.

When he graduated, he changed his identity. He became Zoltan Zarkini. He stayed in Europe for eight years honing his skills and developing his act. One evening, he hypnotized a woman he found particularly attractive, and when she was completely under, he impulsively suggested to her that they meet later and make love. Not only was she eager to please him, eager to be his lover, but afterward she had no memory of the event. After this revelation, he made love to hundreds of women using the same, simple technique. Occasionally, he would steal jewels from the rich ones, later to be fenced.

Eventually, he grew tired of touring Europe, especially being on the road during the harsh, European winters. And when he

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heard rumors that Interpol had become interested in him, he immediately decided to move back to America, and he chose Las Vegas, where he knew he could earn a fortune while living in a sunny, desert climate. He bought a mansion just outside the city, a three story goliath of just over 8,000 square feet, and within six months, he was headlining at The Palace.

Now, as he looked down at the grounds of his estate, he could only wonder at the circumstances and the course of events that had brought him here. This is mine, he thought. I deserve it all.

As he watched and waited, several more minutes passed before a white limousine pulled slowly into his circular drive and came to a stop in front of the colonnade and entrance to his mansion. His driver and accomplice, Ronald, got out and went to the rear of the limo. He opened the door, and Claudette stepped out.

Ronald led her into the house.

Zarkini went inside and made his grand entrance, descending his gigantic spiral staircase to find Claudette standing in the foyer, Ronald at her side.

“Thank you, Ronald,” Zarkini said. “That will be all for the time being.”

The driver smiled and walked out. He would wait at the car.

“Well, my dear. I’m so glad you could come. Would you like something to drink?”

“Wine would be nice,” Claudette said.

“Please. Right this way.” Zarkini gestured toward an adjoining room.

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He went to his bar and held up a bottle of red wine. “I recommend this. Château LaFite Rothschild. 1971. Very expensive.”

“Yes, that will be fine.”

Zarkini opened the bottle and poured out a glass. Claudette walked over and took it from him, taking a modest sip.

“How is it?” he asked.

“Exquisite,” she said.

“Why don’t we sit over here?” he suggested, pointing to a nearby sofa.

When she was seated, she took another sip, and smiled. She set her purse to her side.

Zarkini sat right next to her. “Did you have a pleasant drive?”

Her head started to fall back, and he had to grab her glass before it spilled. He took it and set it aside. He leaned toward her and whispered into her ear, his lips brushing against her ear and cheek.

“You are in a deep trance,” he said. “You cannot move. You cannot open your eyes. Do you understand?”

She nodded, her lips quivering slightly.

“Now, listen carefully. You are my wife. I am your husband.

You are madly in love with me. You can’t wait to go to bed with me. You can’t wait to tear off my clothes and make love to me.

We are happily married. We have been married for a long, long time. After we make love you will go back to your hotel. You will not remember being hypnotized. When I count to three you will open your eyes. One. Two. Three!”

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26

November 2011

Claudette opened her eyes. She looked at Zarkini, her eyes wide with lust.

“Zoltan, I want to make love to you,” she said. “Right now.”

“Oh, my.” Zarkini smiled. “Seduction is in the air. Well then, right this way!”

He led her upstairs to the master bedroom. As soon as she saw the bed, she began grabbing at this shirt and then at his zipper and belt, while frantically tearing off her own clothes. In just seconds, both of them were naked.

They embraced, and Zarkini began to kiss her, then he licked her cheek, and her neck. Then he put his mouth on her right breast and he sucked hard on her nipple. She began to moan softly.

“Zoltan, Zoltan,” she said. “Make love to me. Please, make love to me.”

He took her by her waist and together they tossed themselves onto the bed. Zarkini, fully erect, thrust himself into her, and they made love with wild passion. She was an expert lover. Zarkini hadn’t seen or felt anything like her in years. They rolled all over the king size bed, him on top, then her on top, and then him on top again. Twice, they almost fell off the bed.

After they were finished, they both lay flat on their backs trying to catch their breath.

“Honey, I love you so much,” Claudette said, placing herself on top of his chest. She smiled contentedly.

“I love you, too, my dear,” Zarkini said.

They kissed for several minutes, and then tiring of this, Zarkini

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27

November 2011

pushed her off, rolled over and got up.

“My dear, I need to put your jewelry in the safe. I’ll be right back.”

He picked up her pearl necklace and walked toward his closet.

Suddenly, she was by his side.

“I want to watch,” she said.

This caught him by surprise. “Okay,” he said smoothly. He went to his safe, hidden behind a secret compartment in the closet and began to open it.

“What’s the combination?” Claudette asked.

This, too, surprised him, but he had to answer. She was his wife, after all. How could he hide this from her?

“Thirty-six, right three times to eighteen, left three times to four.”

“Thirty-six, eighteen, four,” she repeated.

“Yes, that’s very good, dear.”

The safe was filled with precious jewels and stones. Since he had begun his Vegas caper, Zarkini had accumulated a small fortune in jewels, though he didn’t really need the money. He did it for the thrill it gave him. He put the necklace in and closed the safe.

“Mind if I try it?” she asked.

“Try it?” Zarkini was puzzled. No one had ever asked to do this before.

“Yes, I want to see if I can open it as easily as you.” She stepped forward and began to spin the dial. She opened it on the

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28

November 2011

first try.

“Well,” she said, “that was easy enough.”

Zarkini wondered if he should put her back under and make her forget the combination.

“Why don’t we get dressed and finish our drinks,” Claudette suggested.

“That’s an excellent idea, dear,” Zarkini said.

They both got dressed and went back down to the living room where they had left their drinks. Zarkini went to the bar to freshen her glass, and thus, he didn’t see the quick move she made, dropping a tablet into his brandy glass.

He brought her wine over and handed her the glass. She sat down on the sofa, and he sat next to her.

He was already bored, and he was anxious for her to go. He would make small talk, and then send her on her way. He took a long sip of brandy.

“It’s been a wonderful evening,” Claudette said.

“Yes, it certainly has,” he smiled, taking another sip of brandy.

“Drink up, Claudette. And then you must be going.”

“Going? But I live here with you,” she replied. “We’re married.”

“Yes, but you must go back to the hotel for awhile. You understand,” he said calmly, sipping more brandy. Suddenly, he felt an acute pain in his chest. Zarkini grabbed for his heart, dropping his brandy glass, unable to breathe. He realized, too late, she had put something in his glass.

“What have you done?”

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29

November 2011

“I’ve given you something, my love,” she said.

“Why?” he gasped.

“For the insurance money.”

“Insurance money? What insurance money?” He sagged forward, nearly collapsing, trying to hold his head up.

“My love,” she said. “I brought you here to kill you. That was my plan all along. Why, Las Vegas proved to be just too much excitement for your heart. It will make perfectly good sense to my friends back in Canada.”

“But, I’m not your husband.” Zarkini barely got the words out. He began to froth at the mouth.

“Yes, of course you are! And you make husband number six.

How else is a girl to get ahead?”

Zarkini’s face turned red, then he began to turn blue. “Oh, God,” he said, just before he slumped to the floor, seconds away from death. His body jerked twice, and then he lay still.

Claudette stood up and looked down at the body. Zarkini’s blue eyes were wide open in a death stare. She shrugged. Back upstairs, she opened his safe and filled her purse to the brim with the finest diamond rings, pendants, bracelets, and stones she could find. She put her pearl necklace back on, also dropping a few choice pieces into her cleavage.

She went downstairs and out to the waiting limousine. Ronald graciously opened the door, not noticing the extra bracelets and rings she hadn’t been wearing earlier.

“Take me back to my hotel,” she said.

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30

November 2011

“My pleasure, madam,” Ronald said.

She got into the limo, and when the door was closed, she said softly, “The pleasure is all mine.”

#eFiction

31

November 2011

#eFiction

32

November 2011

Crush

Stasey Norstrom

This is how it always ends.

The pit in my stomach opens again, deep and painful. Fetal, my body knows full well of my Just… weakness and how powerless we are to stop it.

I feel it coming: the twitch and the kick and the guilt. I am repulsed by my admonition once more. My fulfillment is gone and it burns, uncontrolled desire leaving me spent. I want to get up and run, run to where my legs can’t take me; to take it all back, to rewind the clock of my …fucking… stupidity and pray that this time, for once, I won’t cave into the need.

Nope.

My body pulls itself up and looks for something it can’t find.

Eyes force themselves closed, unable to witness, unable to take …leave… sight of my naked escape, my latest mistake laidI’ out all over the room. The horizon shifts under my feet and my sight cracks open. Irises constrict, stabbed by the shaft of light slicing its way into the room. That empty pit of my stomach fills full of morality

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33

November 2011

and regret. The contents mix and claw their way past my mouth and into my brain, stripping it of what pleasure remained, snuffing the fire that fueled my mind. I grow cold, and I am dead. …again.

“What’d you say?” I turn away from the voice—all the voices—and go take a piss. Clean myself up. The voice—her voice— continues, ignorant of my silent requests, regardless of what I think.

“C’mere.”

No. “What?” I wipe the leakage away but the dirtiness lingers.

“I said, come here.”

My eyes jerk to the mirror to spy my Medusa: beautiful, wicked, turning me to stone. Her treacherous form is diffused by evening light—golden and amber tones belie her straight-razor brain. She knows I’m watching her, knows I’m powerless to stop her or myself. This little sparrow bites my hand every time.

No. My body moves to her, feeling the itch for a mental hit, and stops at the edge. The urge to touch rises again, to tie it off and push her deviant mercury into my brain, my emotional veins.

Her body stirs and slides an arm across the sheets, 600 count of the hotel’s finest pre-stained cotton. Her fingers—professional unpolished nails covering tainted tips—glide across the bed and up my thigh. The jagged end of a broken-off nail marks my foreign flesh leaving another piece of evidence that I won’t be able

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34

November 2011

to bury or excuse. “Nice” slips from her lips as she reaches for another one, past the mounted remote control, and slips it off the table.

Damn her.

My eyes found hers some time ago, uncertain memory broken down and left for dead. Her mouth and fingers twitched the entire time we talked: nervous, anxious, grammatically incorrect.

Her thumb and forefinger rubbed each other in slow, soft circles.

Her body shivered slightly, and I knew she was already in need of a fix.

It’s easy to spot a junkie when you’re one, too.

My body responds to hers, grabbing her wrist, and applying pressure so my mouth doesn’t have to bother with “not now”.

Her arm locks and pulls her body parallel to mine. A dull heat radiates through my deadened flesh. My hand won’t let go of her wrist, and her eyes flash with anger and delight. My ears put her on mute before “let go” comes out of her mouth; I deny her request. My mouth responds with something, and her hand connects with my face: hot, stinging, I feel it and I am alive again.

I’m on her quick—taking my prey to the savannah floor—my mouth full of hers and we drink each other’s souls, drown in our sin.

And I can’t get enough of this sparrow.

This is how it always begins.

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35

November 2011

Replaced by an Easy Spirit Helen Hanson

While she waited for Melody at the sushi house, Pam peered into the fish tank and examined a jawfish. His mouth formed a circle as he spit rocks her direction. Pam didn’t blame him. She wouldn’t like living in a glass house either.

Melody broke the restaurant’s threshold with a smile that reflected the dazzling rock perched on her finger. Pam’s heart lurched. Melody had been dating Rick only a few months.

“You’re engaged?” Pam asked.

Melody’s arm stiffened like a waking cat’s to let light dance upon the bauble. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

A two carat rock with smaller stones that could fly solo.

Gorgeous. So was Melody, even without the ring. “It’s stunning.

Congratulations.” Pam hugged her dearest friend. “When?”

“Saturday.” Melody pushed away. “I couldn’t wait to tell you.”

But she had waited. Since the era-of-Rick, they didn’t spend time together. Too busy with the new boyfriend for the old best friend. A tired refrain. Pam thought their friendship was immune to the relationship virus.

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36

November 2011

Guilt panged. Did her life alone automatically translate to a pathetic case of jealousy? Before Rick, they’d played tennis every weekend. Pam struggled to free the words. “I’m so happy for you.” She wanted to be.

The hostess escorted them to a booth. Melody’s black hair swished behind her as she scooted in.

Pam forced an encouraging smile. “Details.”

“Rick took me to Chanson d’Amour for our three-month anniversary dinner.”

Pam wanted to say that anniversaries counted years but decided it sounded petty.

“He ordered a bottle of Dom Pérignon with escargot and—” “You don’t like snails. That’s the one squiggly thing you won’t eat.”

Melody’s face flickered. “Rick says it’s an acquired taste.”

Rick was an acquired taste. Not that he’d given Pam a chance.

He didn’t seem interested in knowing her better. Self-pity burrowed. “Sorry, go on—” A waiter brought them tea. “Are you ready to order?”

Savory scents from the grill reassured her. “I’m easy,” Pam said. “You ready?”

“Yes.” Melody browsed the menu. “I want an order of uni, hamachi, and some miso, please.” Melody laid down her menu.

“I’ll have the chicken teriyaki.”

“No sense of adventure.”

“Not when it comes to raw fish,” Pam said.

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37

November 2011

Melody looked relaxed. “I haven’t had sashimi in ages.”

“You own custom mother-of-pearl chopsticks.”

She dropped a shoulder. “Rick doesn’t like sushi.”

What about acquiring tastes? That was snide. Snide never helped. “French restaurant. Flashy ring. Spill, girlfriend.”

Melody’s smile reignited. “Violinists serenaded us while we sipped champagne.” She drifted briefly, as if remembering. “It was perfect. Like out of a movie.”

“What does Rick do again?”

“He’s an orthopedist with a good practice.”

No kidding. “Go on.”

“Then he announced to the whole place–” Melody’s voice broke. “–that I was the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen.”

“Seriously?”

“It was so romantic.” She fanned her mouth.

Or odd. Melody was beautiful, but Rick announcing it to a group of strangers seemed over the top. “What did you do?”

“I was too excited to speak. People gathered around our table, and then I recognized his mother.”

Pam thought she misheard. “He invited his mother?”

“His whole family was there! He knelt down on one knee and asked me to marry him!”

“Wow.” A stupid utterance, but it was all Pam had.

Melody positioned her manicured hand for maximum glinting. “He slipped this on my finger.”

Melody had worked two jobs to put herself through interior

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38

November 2011

design school. Running an upstart company kept her continually behind the money curve. Her ring finger enjoyed greater equity than her fledgling business.

“Was your family there?”

“The restaurant wasn’t big. Rick wanted his family to meet me.” Her voice trailed. “Mom and Dad were excited, later.”

“Wow.” Pam needed to work harder on this conversation. But, even if she wasn’t first-tier with Rick, she was prime bridesmaid material. He must have doctor friends. Meeting a sexy podiatrist could be fun, if that wasn’t an oxymoron.

“How soon?”

“This weekend.” Melody’s sensuous features looked pinched.

“We’re getting married in Bora Bora!”

“Wow.” Pam gave up the search for real words.

“He rented a bungalow overlooking a blue lagoon. His family is flying out for the wedding, but we’re staying two weeks!”

Her feet drummed the floor. “I can’t believe it!”

Reality crept through Pam like barium before an x-ray. “This weekend?”

Melody caught her disappointment. “I wanted to have you as my maid of honor.” She covered Pam’s hand with her own. “I’m sorry, but Rick already made the reservations. I couldn’t have planned anything more spectacular.”

“What about your parents? Your dad? Shouldn’t he walk you down the aisle? Or the sand? Don’t you want them by your side?”

Melody’s lip quivered. “Of course I do.” She snatched the

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39

November 2011

teapot and splashed some into her cup. “Rick went to a lot of trouble—” “Trouble? This is your family. They should be there.”

Her face stilled and then conveyed what she would never say aloud: You’re just jealous.

“Your miso, ma’am,” said the waiter.

Pam’s cup clattered on the table. It wobbled to a stop without spilling.

The waiter slipped the bowl in front of Melody along with the tiny plates of sashimi.

“Your teriyaki, ma’am. Will there be anything else?”

Their silence sent the waiter away.

Melody recovered first. “So what’s new with you?” She held the soup bowl to her bowed lips.

Pam nudged some rice with her fork. Why shouldn’t she be jealous? Prince Rick, the diamond buying, champagne guzzling, snail slurping, orthopedic wonder, whisks Melody off to paradise for a Grimm fairytale wedding while she works a job in a seedy part of town.

But if Melody could make an effort, so could Pam. “I got a promotion.”

“That’s wonderful!”

A little too much effort. “It’s a great opportunity, but the office is in a run-down area.”

“Oh dear. You need a GPS to find your way off an escalator.”

“True,” Pam said. “A little mean. But true.”

#eFiction

40

November 2011

They both giggled.

Melody toasted the air with her tea. “Are you still dating Sam?” “You mean the Sam I caught kissing his next-door neighbor?”

“Ouch.” She bit into a yellow blob of fish.

“No.” And there was nothing on the horizon. Pam had flirted with a guy across the hall, but that slinky redhead held his attention. Jealous. She had a confirmed case of jealous. She stabbed her chicken. “How’s interior designing?”

Melody clamped another fishy roll with her chopsticks.

“Actually, I may sell the company.”

“How come?”

Melody cocked her head. “With Rick’s practice, I won’t have to work. That’s never been an option before.”

“No one can call you lazy.”

She waved off the comment. “I’ve worked since I was twelve.

It’s part of who I am.”

“A part you want to change.”

“A part I can change. Since when do you love working so much?”

“Since I bought my condo and decided to keep my credit intact.” Pam refilled her cup.

Even Melody’s laugh was pretty. It had a lyrical quality that buoyed Pam’s sinking mood. It was the first time today she’d heard it. “I’ve missed you, girlfriend. I hope you’re happy.”

The smile leached from Melody’s face. “What do you mean

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41

November 2011

‘hope’?”

“As in, ‘I hope you’re happy.’ What do you think I mean?”

She put down her chopsticks. “You said it like you doubt it.”

“I haven’t seen you in months.” Pam’s breathing stammered.

“How would I even know?”

“You’re mad because I’ve been busy?”

“What do you want from me?” She glanced around the room and lowered her voice. “I don’t hear from you for three months.

Then you tell me you’re getting married to a man I barely know.”

She threw her napkin on the table. “A man you barely know.”

“I know everything I need to.”

“He’s your soul mate.” Pam pulled back. “Whatever. But you’ve only known him three months.”

“Rick is kind, attentive, thoughtful, and he buys me sweet gifts—like a panda clock radio. He treats me like a queen.” Melody’s voice stiffened with her spine. “I expected you to understand.”

“After twenty years as my doubles partner, map reader, and best friend, you think jealousy is enough to undermine my sincerity? I’m jealous. I admit it. He’s rich, successful, and consumes all your time. I’ve offered to meet you for dinner, drinks, or to get your tires rotated, but you always have an excuse. Or he does.” Pam thought she’d pushed it too far. “I’m concerned. Three months is so short.”

“He’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

“You’re enjoying the queen thing. I get it. As your friend who loves you, I happen to think you deserve it, but leave me out of

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42

November 2011

the equation. What does your family think about him?”

Melody blinked. “They think he’s perfect.”

“Great. What does he think about your family?”

Her father owned a Mexican restaurant and most of the large, loud, loving bunch worked there. Melody was the first one to earn a college degree.

“He admires their work ethic.”

“Does he like the restaurant?” It would have been a great place to propose.

“Mexican food upsets his stomach.”

Another taste acquisition successfully avoided. But Melody did deserve the queen thing. She’d give a kidney to someone she loved and bone marrow to someone she didn’t. If the man made her happy, made her feel like royalty, wanted to sweep her off her exhausted feet, then let her enjoy it.

“BFF, girlfriend.” Pam fisted her hand for a bump. “I’m always here for you.”

“Same here.” Melody’s return fist bump was weak but rebooted the prickly discussion.

“You want to walk the mall?”

“What time is it?” She reached for her phone. The ringtone caused them both to jump. She checked the display. “Can you get our bill? I need to take this.” She walked toward the main entrance, but her voice carried back to Pam. “Hi, honey. I’m with a client right now. Yes, of course. What time? Yes, I’ll wear the red dress. I love you, too.” She closed her phone and stared at a

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43

November 2011

bamboo plant on the floor.

Pam signaled the waiter, and he brought the bill to the table before Melody returned. They laid down enough cash to cover lunch and a generous tip.

Pam looped her arm through Melody’s as they sauntered into the mall. “I’d still be lost in Kansas City if you hadn’t navigated me back to safety.”

“Both times.” The twinkle returned to Melody’s eye. “You worry me, though. You need some protection if you’re going to work in a rough neighborhood.”

“You mean a gun?”

“For you? Hardly. Maybe an alarm to buy some time. Let’s check the mall directory.” She swung Pam by the arm. Melody took the lead. She always had. Maybe that’s what bothered Pam about Rick. And Melody lied to him about being with a client.

Pam was no threat to Rick. He barely knew her.

The mall directory listed a store called Serious Security. It seemed just the place. Wasn’t everyone looking for some of that?

As they walked, memories crowded every shadow of the mall.

Skating in center ice. Cool first job in a hip boutique. Hair coloring gone dreadfully awry in the punk salon now replaced by an Easy Spirit.

They hiked the stairs to the second level and found Serious Security near a golf shop. Electronic devices filled cases, lined walls, and announced their entry to a young man with a soul patch on his chin. He called out, “Be right with you.”

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44

November 2011

Melody stopped to look at a can of shaving cream. “Check it out. You can hide your valuables in here.”

“In shaving cream?”

“It’s fake. The bottom unscrews, so you can stash your jewels and hide it in your medicine cabinet.”

She picked up a box. “Ooh, here. You can use this to look back into a house with a peephole. Kinda creepy.”

Pam struggled to keep a straight face. “It depends.”

“On what?”

“On whether you are the peeper or the peepee.”

Melody collapsed onto the counter. “That is so not a word.”

A blue box with a magnifying glass on the cover caught their attention. “Eeeeewww!”

“You found the semen detection kit. We get that reaction a lot.” The clerk said from behind them.

“That’s disgusting,” said Melody as she turned.

“Agreed.” He tugged an ear. “Unfortunately, it sells. How may I help you ladies?

Pam said, “My new job is in a rough neighborhood. I generally work late. What do you suggest?”

“Personal security.” He led them to a section near the door.

“Whatever you choose, it should give you a sense of control.

Pepper spray?”

“I’d spray myself.”

“She would.” Melody agreed.

“TASER?”

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45

November 2011

The women shook their heads. Melody answered. “Ditto.”

“We have sirens to scare someone off.”

“Let me see those.”

Pam chose a device that emitted a high-decibel screech and was small enough for her key ring.

She followed the clerk back to the register to pay for her bit of security. Melody stared at the wall, her face draining to white.

“Are you all right?”

She ignored Pam and turned to the clerk. Her throat bobbled as she asked, “What does that clock radio do?” With a quivering finger, she pointed to a clock radio fashioned like a panda.

“Plays music. Wakes you up.” He laughed, mostly to himself.

“And it holds a hi-res, motion-activated digital video camera.

With a sixteen-gig memory card, you can record up to thirtyeight hours of video.”

He scanned Pam’s alarm and put it in a small bag. “That will be eleven-fourteen.”

Pam handed him a twenty.

Melody hadn’t moved. “The air purifier?”

“Air purifier and a DVR with camera.”

“The picture frame?”

“Frame and a camera. They put cameras in everything these days.”

Pam didn’t think the clerk heard Melody’s gasp. But she knew what it meant. “My boss said he thought a competitor might have given him something with a spy camera. How do you find them?”

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46

November 2011

The clerk brought out a flashlight from under the glass counter. “Shine this on the right speaker of the radio. Do you see a red reflection?”

Pam found the tiny eye returning her gaze. “Yeah.”

“That’s the camera lens.”

“How much is this thing?”

“A hundred and twenty-nine.”

“What do you think, Mel? Do you think my boss would want to check the office?”

Melody snapped from her gaze. Her lips pursed in a stiff line.

“I’m sure of it.”

Pam gave the clerk a credit card. “I’ll take it.”

The clerk finished the sale, and the women left the store. Pam hugged Melody. “I’m sorry.”

“I need to check all the gifts he’s given me for cameras.”

Melody removed the diamond ring from her finger as she cried.

“I expect to be free this weekend. You up for some tennis?”

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47

November 2011

#eFiction

48

November 2011

Grayson’s Mountain Kevin Fraleigh

“Those damned kids are at it again, sheriff. They’ve been on my property before,” he said. His voice was vitriolic and full of anger.

“And how do you know this? Did you see them?” asked Sheriff Tom Mackelroy.

“I don’t have to. They were in the hen house. They turned over the nests and destroyed at least three dozen eggs. I depend on those eggs for income. You know that.”

“How do you know it wasn’t a fox or one of your own dogs?”

“I lock the gate every night at sundown.” His voice changed from explanatory to demanding. “Are you coming out or not?”

“Alright, Bill. I’ll be out is afternoon.”

“Not till then?”

“I can send a deputy out right now.”

“No, it needs to be you. They wouldn’t understand.”

Tom sighed deeply.

“No, I don’t suppose they would. I’ll see you this afternoon, Bill.”

After he hung up, the sheriff stood for a long moment with his hand on the receiver as if he thought he might still communicate through the closed connection. In a sense he was right. It

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49

November 2011

seemed the connection between the two men had never closed.

Not since childhood. Not since… But that was a long time ago, another life altogether. Still, the two men were somehow linked together by fate and circumstance.

His thoughts were interrupted by Peggy Watson, the dispatcher.

“Sheriff, there’s a big wreck out on the interstate and FHP has requested our assistance.”

“Okay. Please notify the nearest available units to respond.

Thanks, Peggy.”

Tom walked into his office and shut the door. He cupped his face in his hands and sat back in his chair. He had to get his thoughts straight before he went to see Bill Grayson. This was about more than chickens, and he understood that without it being said. This was about something deeper, older, and more serious. Taking his hands from his face, he looked at the glass door that bore his name. The words “Thomas Mackelroy, Sheriff, Henderson County” were painted on the glass in gold leaf. Since they were boys, Bill had always called Tom “Sheriff.” At first, it was because they’d played cops and robbers. Later on, it became apparent that Bill had somehow known his boyhood friend would wind up with the title. He had successfully held the job for eight years and, barring any major screw-ups, planned to serve at least another four. He liked the job, and he was good at it. Still, he wondered how Bill had, all those years ago, known.

Without conscious effort, his mind was suddenly flooded with memories of childhood. He and Bill had always been close. They

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50

November 2011

had to be. Living in rural Henderson County, there hadn’t been other children close enough by to play with. Their parents owned adjacent cattle ranches with a combined acreage that measured in the tens of thousands. During those long summer days, he and Bill would spend hours playing and exploring in the fields and swamps.

Of all the images that formed in his mind—snakes, flowers, cows, sunshine—none had such perfect clarity as the sinkhole. On the far back acreage of the Grayson ranch, beneath a place they called Grayson’s Mountain, was a huge sinkhole. The mountain was really just a rise in the flat landscape with a sinkhole in the center of it. To the boys, this was a volcanic caldera or a massive mountain, something to scale and have great adventures within.

Tom could see the mountain. He could see it plainly. He and Bill were together at the edge of the sinkhole. Bill was peering down into it. He tried to peer into it also, but he couldn’t.

Whenever he tried to see into the sinkhole, he was unable to.

Then, the memory was gone. The thought and all the related trains of thought associated with it vanished. All that was left was today, the desk, the telephone, stacks of papers, and a door with his name on it. That was all. He knew there was a trunk at home that held the artifacts of his youth, his report cards, diplomas, and the like, but of that day and that summer, there was nothing.

By two-thirty, a heavy rain, that turned the sky into a mass of dark, gray cotton, began to fall. As he turned onto the dirt road that led to Bill Grayson’s farm, the clouds, as if weighted down

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51

November 2011

with their heavy load, seemed to surround the sheriff’s cruiser.

They threatened to completely envelop him as the rains fell with large, thrumming droplets on the cruiser’s roof and hood. If he were unfamiliar with the October rains, he might have pulled over and waited for the incessant sheets of rain to lessen before he continued. He couldn’t do that, not here. If he paused for even a moment, he might lose his resolve to see this through.

That thought caught him unprepared. Follow what through? He wasn’t even sure of that, but the need was so essential that he could not deny it. Is it really necessary to fully understand why we do things? Isn’t it sometimes more important to simply do what’s necessary, to follow a thing through to the end?

The sheriff’s cruiser approached Bill’s rough, hewn cabin. To say the cabin was rough was to be generous. The saltbox style cabin was tin roofed with a porch just wide enough for two severe, straight-backed chairs. Beside the chairs, there were piles of trash that included various car parts, tools, and tall stacks of magazines. The windows of the cabin were shuttered, and Tom knew that behind the shutters were bars and screens. Tom had never quite understood the purpose of the bars. He didn’t know whether they were intended to keep some predator out or to keep Bill in. He suspected that, given Bill’s state of mind, the latter might be more likely.

The cabin was situated in a pleasant stand of live oaks, perhaps a half mile west of the house Bill grew up in. His parents had left him the ranch, nearly four thousand acres and the house.

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Instead of running the ranch, though, he chose a life of subsistence. His trust fund paid the property taxes. His chickens and ducks provided him with eggs and meat. The goat provided milk.

His garden provided him with vegetables. There was no electricity, and the nearest phone was more than two miles down the main road at the Stop’n’Go convenience store. This was the phone Bill had used to call the sheriff’s office. With no radio, TV, or phone, Bill was isolated, but Tom often wondered if the decision was his own. His cabin was less than a hundred yards from that ancient spot they called Grayson’s Mountain. Whether Bill lived there of his own volition or performed some caretaker or gatekeeper function, Tom was never quite sure. He was not sure he even wanted to know.

Tom brought his cruiser to a stop in front of the cabin. His hand trembled slightly as he reached for the door handle. The ding-ding-ding of the alarm reminding him to remove his keys from the vehicle startled him. Suddenly, he was himself again but was aggravated that he got so completely involved in his thoughts. As he got out of the cruiser, he cursed and tossed the keys on the seat. There wasn’t anyone to steal it out here. His rain slicker covered his uniform, and a plastic cover protected his “Smokey-the-Bear” hat, but neither protected him from the thick, dampness of the day.

On the porch, the old wood made a rude creaking sound beneath his feet. The water from his slicker poured between the cracks. Again, an unnatural hesitation seized him. He did not

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want to go any farther with this. He wanted to will himself into the car and down the long, narrow road that would take him back to town. Instead, he heard himself speaking.

“Bill? It’s Tom. Are you in there?” He listened intently for a response. Nothing. “Bill? Are you in there?” he repeated.

When there was only silence, Tom tried the door handle and found it opened easily. He pushed the door open, but did not immediately enter. His police training urged caution. He listened, then moved slowly forward, allowing his eyes to adjust to the darkness. The smell that assaulted him caught him unprepared.

Sweat, alcohol, and garbage all mixed with a thick, disturbing odor of dampness. He called out into it.

“Bill? Are you in here?”

“You know I am, Sheriff. Where else would I be?” The voice was low and slightly hoarse.

“It’s been a while, Bill. You okay?” he asked, but did not move farther into the room. Bill noticed his hesitancy.

“Afraid of the shadows, Sheriff?” he asked. “It was the same way when we were kids. You always stayed back from the shadows.”

Tom ignored the comment.

“Does it have to be so stuffy in here? Why don’t we open some windows and let the air in?”

“Suit yourself.”

Tom pulled back the dark curtains, opened, and unshuttered the windows. The gray light of the rainy mid-day fell thickly into

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the room. Now Tom could see the situation and assess it. At a round, wooden table, behind a bottle of whiskey, was his friend, Bill. His long hair and full beard were heavily streaked with gray, both matted and unkempt. His face was drawn with heavy wrinkles under his eyes. He was tall, thin and appeared to have spent an extended period on a liquid diet. His shirt was stained and wrinkled, his jeans worn thin. This was in stark contrast to Tom with his closely cropped hair, cleanly shaven face, and crisp, starched uniform. Even with the high humidity, the creases in his slacks and shirt were as sharp as the edge of a knife.

Somewhere in the long ago, the two men had undergone a radical change that sometimes happens with maturity. In his childhood, Tom had been the “happy slob”, never a care, C’s in school were good enough. Bill had been the fastidious, serious one. Clothes always clean, room spotless, all A’s in school. But that was a lifetime ago. They had changed. Or something had changed them. That is why Tom was here, facing his old friend.

Their lives were not their own, and as much as the thought terrified him, he wanted to know why.

“Drink?” asked Bill. “It’ll take some of the starch out of you.”

He motioned to a milky glass tumbler that sat before the chair across from Bill.

“I’ll pass for now, Bill. Thanks.” He was still standing, looking down at a man who appeared at least ten years older than his actual age. It was as if Tom thought he might catch whatever had happened to Bill. The good sheriff wondered if that some-

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thing might not be cured by detox. He immediately knew that it could not be. The bottle was a side effect of that something, not the cause.

“So what’s going on, Bill? Who’s bothering you?” Tom desperately wanted this to be just about some kids trespassing and making a nuisance of themselves. That would be easy. He could handle that.

“You know what the problem is, Sheriff.”

“No, Bill, what’s the problem?”

Bill sat up, his back rigid, his face serious, his hand clutching a tumbler half filled with whisky.

“It’s happening again. What happened before is happening again.”

Tom laid his hat on the table next to the empty tumbler meant for him. Absentmindedly, like someone in shock, he pulled off his rain slicker and let it fall to the floor. The premise was over.

There were no trespassing kids. It was time for serious talk. Tom slid easily into the chair across from Bill. He was heavily into his own thoughts, his own fears. Without asking, Bill passed the bottle to him. Tom half filled the tumbler with the amber liquid, reconsidered, then filled it almost to the brim. He sat, staring into the glass, avoiding Bill’s gaze.

“We have to talk about this, Sheriff. It’s been more than twenty years.”

Bill rotated the tumbler, making small circles in the dust on the table top.

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“I don’t remember anything,” he said. “Nothing.”

“That’s why we need to talk,” he said. “There are things you need to know.”

Tom met Bill’s eyes as he took a long draught from the tumbler. The whiskey burned his throat and a flood of memories returned to him. He could almost feel the holes in his mind fill in with their essence.

Once again, it was a summer’s day in 1972. Tommy Mackelroy was, as always, the sheriff. Sweating heavily in the Florida heat, he pursued Billy Grayson with all the ferocity his seventeen year old body could muster. Three years of football at Henderson High had given him stamina, but Billy had the speed. Billy had done track and cross-country and moved with the tireless grace of a gazelle. At seventeen, the pursuit was more about competition and tracking than the good guy-bad guy of childhood. If Tommy had simply made a bee-line to Grayson’s Mountain, he might have saved himself a significant amount of exertion because this was the spot where they always seemed to end up. As children, they played by its edge, building fantasies about the wonders that lay in its depths. Later, they were simply drawn to it, although they didn’t understand why. As adults, they fought to suppress the memory of it, the terror of it.

Now, they were in the drawn to it stage and they arrived at its edge almost simultaneously. They lay on the ground, juxtaposed, breathing heavily, their chins at the edge looking downward.

“How far down do you think that goes?” asked Tommy.

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“I don’t know, but we’re about to find out.”

“Got the rope?”

“Brought it last night.”

“Alright! Let’s do it.”

The plan had been conjured earlier that year. Billy had taken the ropes course in Boy Scouts and planned to rappel as far as he could down the side of the mysterious sinkhole. The boys tied one end of the two hundred foot rope to the base of a sturdy live oak and the other end around Billy. The agreement was that only one of them would go down so that if something happened the other could run and get help. As Billy descended, loose sand streamed into the abyss. Further down, limestone, worn by years of exposure, crumbled under his feet. Tommy heard the crush of loose rock and then silence.

“Billy, are you okay?”

“Fine, I’m at the bottom. At least I think it’s the bottom.”

“Anything interesting?”

“Nah, just some water and rocks.”

Tommy heard splashing as Billy plodded through the water.

“Wait,” he said excitedly, “I see something.”

“What is it, Billy? What do you see?”

Silence. Tommy stretched out over the edge of the sinkhole trying desperately to see Billy, but the contrast between the sun and shadow was too great. He cupped his eyes and strained to peer into the darkness. He couldn’t see Billy, but he could see—or thought he saw—the slightest glint, a shine, not like water, but

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a reflection like that of highly polished metal or glass. As quick as it appeared, it was gone.

“Billy, what did you find?” he shouted into the depths.

“I found something. It looks like metal. It’s shiny. I’m going to try and dig it out.”

“Be careful.”

He said be careful, but he meant get the hell out of there. By the time Tommy realized the difference, it was too late.

“Tommy, this so cool! This is—” Billy was excited. Tommy could hear it in his voice, but suddenly there was only silence.

There was only the whisper of the hot breeze passing over the gaping mouth of the sinkhole.

“Billy?” he questioned the shadows. “Billy? Are you there?”

No response. He jumped up and did the unthinkable. He pulled on the rope that connected his friend to the world. The rope resisted at first, and that gave Tommy hope that he might simply pull Billy to the surface. The rope resisted, then came easily, freely. The harness which held Billy was empty. He screamed for Billy until his voice was hoarse, then he turned and ran. He was going for help. Billy’s parents were more than a mile away, but they were his closest hope. As he ran, he wondered how he was going to tell them that their son was probably dead at the bottom of a sinkhole. He ran full out until he developed a stitch in his side that forced him to double over in pain. Even so, he moved on across the hot, thickly humid pastureland.

Finally, with the adrenaline rush sapping the last of his

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strength, he arrived at the Grayson’s front porch. He fought to force out the words.

“Mrs. Grayson! Mrs. Grayson!” He pounded on the front door. He continued to yell for Billy’s mother. “Help, It’s Billy—” “My goodness, Tommy, why are you so upset? What’s wrong?”

Billy’s mother, in middle age, was still a disarmingly handsome woman. She pulled him inside and placed her arm around him.

“Why are you so upset, Tommy?”

“Mrs. Grayson, I…” he stumbled. He started again. “Billy, he… he…”

There was suddenly a hole where the thought of reporting Billy’s disappearance had been. The fact of the matter was that he couldn’t remember why he had run to the Grayson house at full speed. He couldn’t remember why he had come there at all.

Georgiana Grayson looked at Tommy’s puzzled face.

“Was there something you needed, Tommy?”

Tommy was confused. He wasn’t sure what he wanted or why he was there at all.

“Is Billy here?” he half whispered. He felt it was what he was supposed to ask.

“No, Tommy, Billy has gone away for a while. I’ll ask him to give you a call when he comes back, okay.”

“Yes, ma’am. Thank you.”

“You look awfully hot, Tommy. Would you like something cold to drink before you go?”

Tommy would have enjoyed some cold water or lemonade

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immensely, but he knew that wasn’t what he was supposed to do. He was supposed to leave and not come back. To never come back.

“No, ma’am. Thank you anyway. I need to go now.”

Mrs. Grayson smiled at him and gave him a hug. He couldn’t recall her ever doing that before.

“Good-bye, Tommy,” she said as he walked out of the door onto the front porch. If he had turned around, he might have seen a single tear escape her eye. The tear escaped although she didn’t consciously understand why.

Tommy walked slowly toward home. Despite the exhaustion in his muscles, he went the long way, purposely avoiding any path that might take him near Grayson’s Mountain.

Bill sat thoughtfully across from the man he called Sheriff.

He watched the range of emotions that moved across Tom’s face.

Tom was typically stoic. He prided himself on his self-discipline and control. These emotions circumvented all the prescribed controls, and he appeared visibly shaken by the sudden influx of memories. The logic he understood failed him. His memory of that day, of the sinkhole, of Bill, had been taken from him somehow. What had happened to him had also evidently affected the Grayson’s and anyone associated with Bill or had a memory of him. Although he was gone more than twenty years, there was never any search for him, no missing persons report, and no truancy report for his senior year. He was gone and no one remembered to care. It was as if he, and all thoughts of him, had

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been removed from the world.

It wasn’t until 1992, amid the chaos of Hurricane Andrew, that the telephone on Tom Mackelroy’s desk rang. The phones had been dead for more than twenty-four hours. Tom had, just minutes before the call, returned to his office from the Henderson County Emergency Operations Center. He was surprised to hear the phone ring. Few places in Henderson County had any electricity or phone. The line was heavy with static, but the voice was clear and immediately recognizable.

“Bill?”

“I’m out on River Road. I need you to come and get me.”

“River Road?” Tom hesitated. “I don’t know any Riv…” Peggy Watson, the dispatcher, interrupted him.

“That’s CR 14. No one’s called it River Road since the 70’s,” she said in a stage whisper. “County changed the name.”

Tom nodded his acknowledgement.

“Okay, I’m on my way. Where are you exactly?”

“Don’t worry, Tommy, you’ll find me.” Tom heard an audible ‘click.’

Peggy again appeared in his doorway.

“How come your line is working and the switchboard is dead?”

Tom held the phone up to his ear again. Nothing. Complete silence. Not even a dial tone. Tom shrugged his shoulders.

“I don’t know, Peggy. Must have been a freak thing.” But he did know. He knew that Bill was on the other end of the line

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and that he was fully capable of communicating, even when the lines were dead.

Hurricane Andrew, at category 4, wreaked devastation throughout South Florida and destroyed infrastructure, property, and lives. It shattered Henderson County and the idea of driving off the state roads for any reason other than to save lives was, at best, irrational. Perhaps that’s what Tom thought he was doing when he climbed into his cruiser and headed out into the darkness. It took him over three hours to reach CR14. Between the downed trees and power lines and extensive flooding, Tom had to use several alternate routes to achieve his objective. As he slowly made his way east on CR 14, from the darkness appeared a figure that was welcomed and terrifying, recognized and unrecognizable.

Billy Grayson, the gangly cross county runner, was no longer a child. He was still tall and thin, but his features were worn, his hair was long and unkempt, and he had a full beard that appeared dirty-white in the headlights of the cruiser. Although his shorts had at some point been replaced with tattered, ill-fitting jeans, he still wore the same gray Henderson High Track Team tee shirt he wore on the day he disappeared. The tee shirt was thread bare and ragged and clung to him like an old lover unable to let go. On his feet were ancient canvas Converse sneakers that hobbled him.

Tom stopped the cruiser a dozen yards in front of Bill. He wanted to keep the headlights trained on him in case he turned

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out to be a specter, a ghost of some kind. He opened the door and stood behind it.

“Bill?” he asked.

“I want to go home, Tommy.”

“Bill, is that you?”

“Yes, it’s me. Tommy, will you take me home, please?”

Bill walked with an old man’s shuffle or like someone who has not had cause to use his feet for a very long time and was unsure of his footing. He looked like he was going to stumble, so Tom sprinted toward him. His boots made deep waves in the standing water on the road as he moved to take Bill’s arm.

“Hang on, Bill,” he said. “Let me get you to the car.”

He managed to get Bill into the passenger seat before he completely collapsed.

“What the heck happened to you? You shouldn’t be out in a hurricane,” he said, chastising.

“Please, take me home.” Tom helped Bill with the seat belt, then climbed in on the driver’s side.

“My mom and dad must be awfully worried. I’ve been gone a long time,” Bill continued.

Tom had put the vehicle in Drive, then thought better of it and returned it to Park.

“Your mom and dad?” Tom questioned.

“C’mon, man, take me home will you?” Bill sounded anxious, even annoyed.

Tom felt confused, Twilight Zone confused. He knew what

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the reality was or at least the reality that he knew. The reality was that Bill’s parents had been dead for almost six years. He had given testimony that helped convict the DUI that killed them.

How could Bill not know that? Then again, when was the last time he saw Bill? He couldn’t remember. A heavy band of rain pounded on the hood and roof. It reminded Tom that the wrath of Hurricane Andrew was not fully over. He placed the vehicle in Drive and slowly began to move forward, trying to keep his attention fully on the road and not on Bill.

“Your mom and dad have been gone for a while, Bill. Why don’t you come home with me tonight? Sissy will cook up some bacon and beans if the gas is still working.”

“I want to go home, Sheriff. I want my mom and dad.” Bill’s voice was that of a small child, one lost in an unfriendly world.

“You can go home tomorrow, Bill, after the weather clears.

It’s too dangerous out there by yourself tonight.”

Years later, Tom would look back on this night and realize how risky and foolish it was to drive out into the storm, but he’d had no choice, and he knew it. He couldn’t help himself, and at the time, it seemed a completely natural and normal thing to do.

When they arrived at his house on Pollard Street, the driveway was blocked by a large branch fallen from the nearby live oak.

He parked on the street and helped Bill into a house dark, but for some candles. Sissy Mackelroy met them at the door and took Tom’s slicker and hat. Sissy, Tom’s wife, kissed Tom hello, but as she did so, her eyes were fixed on Bill. The shadows cast by

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the candles gave the tall, thin man an otherworldly appearance.

“Why bless my soul, it’s Billy Grayson. I haven’t seen you in…” The thought flew through her head. She had just seen him, hadn’t she? Not that long ago, but she couldn’t remember exactly where or when. As quick as the thought appeared, it was dismissed.

“Billy, you must be terribly uncomfortable in those wet clothes. Please come on in and we’ll see if we can’t get you dried off.” As she walked down the hallway toward the bathroom, she continued. “Supper is hot on the stove, so the sooner you get cleaned up the better.”

She pulled a towel from the linen closet and handed it to Bill, who had followed her like a confused puppy. Sissy was in the lead, in charge, as she’d always been when they were children, when he knew her as Christina Morrison.

“Go on in and get those wet clothes off. I’ll bring you some dry things to wear. There’s no water to wash with, but at least you can get dried off and warmed up.”

The clothes Sissy provided - overalls and a tee shirt - were ill fitting, but at least they took the chill off. The temperature of the air was warm, but the rain was cold. The rain, even with the slicker and hat, had chilled Tom, but Bill showed no sign of discomfort. He didn’t shiver or shake or, perhaps, even take notice of it. There was something else strange, while Tom dove into the bacon, beans, and cornbread Sissy brought to the table, Bill barely touched his. The sweetness of the beans and the richness of the

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cornbread did not seem to sit well with him. Sweetness seemed to be as vague and pleasant a memory for him as for someone who has given up sweets, then on the spur of the moment decides to eat a bowl of double fudge ice cream. The sweetness of the brown sugar in the beans was almost overpowering.

Conversation at supper was about the storm, about damage, and about the community. Where Bill had been and why he was out on CR 14 in the middle of a hurricane or how he had managed to call Tom at his office was never brought up. Bill simply sat silent and picked at his dinner. In fact, the only intelligible thing that he uttered was that he wanted to go home. His dark, sad eyes told of his longing and separation. He pleaded with Tom to take him home.

“Please, Sheriff, I need to go home,” he said.

“In the morning, Bill. I’ll take you home in the morning after the storm has passed and it’s safe to go.”

“Do you promise, Sheriff?” His eyes were almost to tears, but there was more behind them. There was a need, a purpose for going home.

“I promise, we’ll go in the morning, Bill.” Tom stood and began to walk toward the entryway. Sissy got up and walked to him.

“Bill, you can bunk in the spare room tonight, okay? I’ll take you home in the morning after breakfast.” Bill seemed to nod his agreement. Tom turned to Sissy and spoke in a whisper.

“I need to get back to the office to check on things. They

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should have the generator up and have communications by now.

I’ll be back as soon as I can. Keep an eye on Bill for me, if you would, please.” He kissed her good-bye, grabbed his slicker and hat, and disappeared into the night.

The morning was calm and bright and more clearly showed the tremendous damage caused by Hurricane Andrew. What infrastructure and services Henderson County had were gone. Tom got home late, but was up early, his mind full of the day that lay in store. The farmers and ranchers started their day early, so he had to, also. This wasn’t like Miami-Dade with press conferences and television and the sheriff being the public face of law enforcement in the county. In Henderson County, it would be visits to farms and homeowners, one on one, demonstrating how neighbors care for neighbors. Henderson County was a place where everyone was on a first name basis and there were few secrets.

Tom didn’t realize it at the time, but the key to the largest secret in the county lay asleep in his guest room.

Tom was up and in the kitchen before Sissy opened her eyes.

He ignored her admonition to keep the refrigerator closed to hold in the cold air and removed eggs and leftover ham from a previous meal. By the growing light of dawn, Tom made eggs, ham, grits, and coffee for his wife and best friend. It was an unusual thing for them to be together, and he hoped this morning would bring greater clarity to Bill’s mind and greater reassurance to his own.

Sissy walked slowly into the kitchen wearing only her nightgown and an old flannel bathrobe. Tom kissed her good morning

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and handed her a cup of coffee, which seemed to take immediate effect. Although she chastised him for opening the refrigerator, her expectation of breakfast overwhelmed any anger she might have harbored. Tom told Sissy that if she would dish up the eggs, he would go in and get Bill.

Tom was only gone a moment when Sissy heard him yelling for Bill. His bed was empty and Tom’s clothes, loaned to Bill the previous evening, were in a pile on the floor of the guest bedroom. Bill’s own clothes were gone from the drying rack in the bathroom.

“Bill’s gone,” said Tom frantically.

“He must have gone back to the old Grayson place,” suggested Sissy.

“Probably,” he started to say. “No, I think there’s somewhere else. He kept talking about wanting to go home, but I don’t think the Grayson place is what he meant.”

Tom looked at the breakfast he had cooked with longing. He kissed Sissy on the lips, then pulled away like one meant to serve a higher calling.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can. Keep my eggs warm,” he said, and then left.

Tom drove slowly, but purposefully as one remotely guided in his course. He drove through the storm ravaged countryside and after an hour of alternate routes and avoiding downed trees and other obstacles, arrived where it had all begun, the narrow path that led to Grayson’s Mountain. He did not understand his

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sense of urgency other than that which grew out of concern for his friend. That, of course, was the impetus at its basest level, a concern that grew out of Tom’s own humanity and compassion.

But the true driving force, one that Tom could not recognize and would understand only briefly more than ten years later, was much deeper, more complex, and had nothing to do with either humanity or compassion.

Tom bounded out of his cruiser and ran quickly toward the sinkhole, unmindful of the standing water, mud, and downed trees. As he broke through the heavy brush and trees into the opening dominated by the rise that formed Grayson’s Mountain, Tom saw Bill standing at the edge of the sinkhole.

“Bill, you should step back from the edge. With all the rain it’s liable to give way.” Bill didn’t move, but kept staring down into the depths.

“I just had to see. I had to see if they were here. They’ve gone and left me here. I want to go home, but I can’t. I’m not sure what to do now, Sheriff.” Tom didn’t understand, at least not on a conscious level what was happening with Bill. He knew, or at least he hoped, Bill would tell him when the time came for such things. Until then, Tom would help Bill adjust to, to what? Life in the world? But what did that mean? After all, Bill was in the world and of the world and he had been here all these years just like us and… Or had he? There was that gap in Tom’s memory that wasn’t quite clear, not quite accessible. He was aware on some level that there was a mystery, but he couldn’t quite under-

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stand what it was.

“Sissy is waiting breakfast, Bill. Why don’t you come back with me? There are things we need to talk about.”

Bill turned away from the sinkhole and walked toward Tom. His face was no longer confused or tired. He was himself or as close to himself as he would ever be. The two men walked back to the sheriff’s cruiser in silence, then drove back to Tom’s house and breakfast. Over breakfast, Tom explained to Bill about his parents and talk turned to the community and the county. Over the course of the following weeks, issues regarding Bill’s inheritance were resolved and months later he built the cabin in the grove of live oaks near Grayson’s Mountain. He refused to divulge any details about the twenty year period that, for whatever reason, was less than clear in the corporate memory of Henderson County. Over the years, Bill became increasingly reclusive, and the interaction between the two friends became sporadic.

Although Tom and Sissy often talked about Bill, especially the pre-1972 years, they seldom had the actual desire to see him.

It occurred to both of them at various times that it was strange, not wanting to see their childhood friend. That thought always seemed to pass quickly and was never strong enough to be acted on. This is why, ten years later, Tom was surprised to hear Bill’s voice on the phone. He was more surprised when he found himself in his cruiser driving the long driveway to Bill’s farm.

Bill looked at Tom with an interest that bordered, but did not quite achieve, compassion. The glass that stood before him was

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empty and he poured himself another full one. Tom did the same.

“You remember, don’t you?” asked Bill.

“I remember being very confused, but at the same time, I never seemed to be surprised or shocked about anything. Not when it came to you.”

“Look, Sheriff, you know there has always been a connection between us. Something that goes beyond friendship. I don’t know why or how, but it’s been that way since we were kids. It was like we knew each other’s thoughts and motivations. I still don’t understand it all, but I think you need an explanation.”

Tom felt like an explorer about to step over a precipice. He wanted to know the answer, wanted to know what had happened to Bill, but he was also afraid to know the answer. He was afraid the answer might be beyond him, more than he could stand. He tipped back the tumbler of whiskey, drank half, then followed it with the other half. He heard Bill continue talking, trying to explain.

“I don’t have much time. They are coming for me. You won’t remember any of this anyway, but I’ve got to tell you, to explain.

Maybe it will help somehow…” At first the words were just noise, something alien emanating from between his lips, then the words became images and the images took him over.

It was that day in August, 1972. Billy was inside the sinkhole. Tommy called down to him. Billy took the rope harness off and kicked at the wet limestone bed of the sinkhole. There was nothing here but dirt, sand and water. No mystery, no cave, no

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hidden treasure. Or was there? He spied something in the dirt.

There was something shiny, like polished metal. He brushed the dirt away as best he could with his fingers.

“I found something. It looks like metal. It’s shiny. I’m going to try and dig it out,” he yelled up to Tommy. Tommy, ever the responsible one, admonished him to be careful, but there was more fear than concern in his voice.

The dirt around the shiny thing was surprisingly loose. It was as if the dirt wasn’t really touching the thing, but somehow suspended around it. It was as if a force field kept the dirt from compacting and sealing in around it. Billy easily pushed some of the dirt aside, exposing a large area. He placed his hands on thing and, to his surprise, it was not hard or smooth, but permeable. He heard that word in biology class and it was the only one that seemed to fit. He couldn’t press against the thing because when he tried his hands simply went into it. They passed through whatever kind of membrane, that was another one of the biology terms, this was and went inside it. The dirt couldn’t get through the membrane, but he could. As he pushed his hands in for a final time he yelled excitedly to Tommy.

“Tommy, this so cool! This is—” Then he was gone, leaving Tommy alone at the top of the sinkhole. Something had taken hold of Billy’s hands and pulled him into the shiny thing. Now Billy was on the inside and Tommy was on the outside. Once he righted himself, Billy could see with growing terror, the walls of the sinkhole. He could see where he stood just moments before.

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He could hear Tommy calling for him. Finally, he heard Tommy running away for help. Billy could plainly hear the thump, thump, thump of Tommy’s sneakers and feel the their slight vibrations in the earth’s surface.

“No, no, no!” cried Billy as he beat against the interior surface of the thing. The interior surface, unlike the exterior, was as hard as steel. In the almost complete darkness, Billy dropped into a sitting position with his knees up under his chin and his back against the wall. He began to cry.

“I want to go home. Please, let me go home.” He wasn’t praying, not exactly. He hadn’t been brought up to pray. It was more like a plea to the darkness, to the great unknown that lay before him. He shut his eyes and whispered silently for his mother and father to come and save him.

Now there was illumination, soft, even faint at first, then brighter, more crisp, more distinct impressions of light. The images, the literal, experiential images were gone. They transitioned into impressions of power, control, but the superlative was balance. Balance on a larger scale than just the thing itself. Balance on an overwhelming scale. Universal balance. And this thing, this shiny thing with the porous skin that swallowed Billy Grayson, was part of it. There was more, so much more, an entire system balancing the wholeness of creation, of everything.

“And I’m part of it now,” said Bill quietly. “I’m part of it all.”

Tom stared at him blankly.

“Part of what?”

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“Part of the system. Part of the whole. Part of the balancing force of creation. Within the…” Bill paused for a moment, trying to find the right term. Trying to find a concept Tom would be able to grasp.

“The shiny thing I found was a selectively permeable biomembrane that protects an incredibly diverse ecosphere. What I found is a living organism. It’s one of hundreds of millions throughout all of creation. The walls allow only certain things to get in and out. Within the membrane is an entire multidimensional world, an ecosphere of unimaginable breadth. The ecosphere contains millions of living creatures invited in over the eons to participate in the business of maintaining order and balance in our universe.

Within the world there is no aging, no sickness, no disease.”

Tom’s eyes glazed over with disbelief. His mouth was open and he was trying to decide if all this was the whiskey or if Bill was simply mad. He felt like he should say something, just something to acknowledge that he understood what Bill was trying to describe. He couldn’t say anything because he didn’t understand.

He didn’t understand at all. What Bill was saying was simply fantastic, more than that, it was simply insane. Bill was insane, and if he stayed, he would be dragged into the insane fantasy also. That was it. That’s what it had to be.

“I’m not insane, Sheriff. I thought I was when all this started, but I’ve spent twenty years exploring that world and I’ve barely begun.”

“If it’s so wonderful, why are you here? Why did you come

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back?”

“Because I needed to be sure. I was a child when I entered that world. I needed to be sure I was ready to spend the rest of my existence there. It’s an amazing world, Sheriff. There are things in that world that predate even the thought of mankind, that predate the parting of the continents, and the cooling of the earth’s crust.”

Tom looked at the amber liquid that remained in his tumbler and pushed the glass away.

“Okay, so say this is true. What does this have to do with that sinkhole? Why did the thing surface here?”

“It moves within the earth. It periodically surfaces to sample the exterior world and seek candidates to join it. Anyone who joins simply vanishes, not just physically, but from the conscious memory of all those who might know them. That’s why you couldn’t remember what happened that day in 1972. This way both worlds can coexist.”

“I can’t say that I believe all this. It’s too fantastic. You’re telling me that this thing, this living membrane with other living things inside it, came from outer space or another dimension, lodged inside the earth before the world was finished cooling, and has resided there ever since, undetected. More than that, this thing is one of millions that somehow maintain the balance of all the universes throughout creation. Is that the gist of it?”

“Basically.”

“Now answer me this, does that seem the least bit reasonable

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to you?”

“I never said it was reasonable. I simply told you what I experienced, what happened to me. I had another reason for telling you, though.”

“And that was?”

“I want you to come with me, Sheriff. I’m only half of our equation. We’ve been together almost from birth. Our destinies have been entwined throughout our lives. And even before that.”

“You’re insane and you’re trying to pull me into your delusion. You’d expect me to leave everything I’ve built here with Sissy to join you in some fantasy in that sinkhole?”

“Of course not, bring her with us. There’s plenty of room.

You could be together for all eternity in a world you can’t even imagine.”

“This is insane.” Tom stood up quickly, pushing his chair back so forcefully it almost toppled.

“I’m leaving. I can’t listen to any more of this.” Tom grabbed his slicker and hat, walking quickly to the door. He stopped on the porch and stood rigid. His head flushed everything he had heard and seen during the evening. It throbbed with contradictory emotions. It threatened to pull him apart. Bill walked up behind him and stood in the doorway.

“One last favor please, Sheriff. They’re waiting for me. Would you at least spot me as I repel into the sinkhole?” The rain had slowed to a steady drizzle.

“It would be very dangerous with all this rain. The sinkhole

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might be flooded. Can’t you at least wait until morning?” Tom was desperately trying to inject some sanity into the madness.

“It will be okay. I’ll grab the rope.”

Of all the stupid things Tom had ever done, he considered this among the stupidest. In the pitch dark, he was about to help a man, whom he considered insane, repel into a sinkhole with sides unstable from rain. The best outcome of this effort would be that Bill was simply disappointed by the folly of the effort.

The worst out come would be that one or both of them would be hurt or killed after falling in the sinkhole.

Using the flashlight he retrieved from the cruiser, Tom and Bill walked through the wetness toward the edge of Grayson’s Mountain. As they had done thirty years previous, Tom tied off the rappelling line while Bill completed the harness around his abdomen.

Tom stood near the edge as Bill prepared to go over the side.

“I’m sorry you won’t come with me, Sheriff. It’s been wonderful. Give my best to Sissy when you see her.” He grasped Tom’s hand and shook it.

“If you change your mind, we’ll be back in ten years.” With that he disappeared into the sinkhole. Tom moved as close as he dared to the edge. He could not see Bill’s descent, but he listened intently for any signs of complications. After what seemed like an eternity, a familiar voice came from the bottom of the sinkhole.

“Are you watching, Sheriff?” Tom trained his flashlight on the location of the voice. He could see Bill frantically digging

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at the ground trying to expose something. There was the slight glimmer of reflected light.

“Shiny, isn’t it? Now turn your flashlight off.” Tom turned the flashlight off, and after his eyes adjusted, he could plainly see a glowing, pulsing object in the bottom of the sinkhole. The object, the thing, whatever it was, not only appeared to shimmer in the darkness of the sinkhole, but it seemed to glow. Through the darkness, Tom could see Bill outlined against the brightness of the thing. Tom just couldn’t conceptualize it beyond that. Bill waved at Tom. “Good-bye, Sheriff,” he yelled and turned to enter the thing.

“Wait, Bill. Not yet.” Tom reached for the rope and attempted the incredibly foolish act of following him. He half repelled, half fell and slid into the sinkhole. All the time, Bill was yelling for him not to do it. Bruised and covered with mud and sand, somehow he managed to make it to the bottom. Bill greeted him.

“Are you some kind of idiot?” chastised Bill.

“Maybe, but I’ve got to see this.”

“Then you’re coming with me?”

Tom shook his head. “No, Bill. I can’t. I needed to see for myself that you weren’t mad, that this was real.”

“You can see for yourself, my friend,” said Bill as he put his hands on Tom’s shoulders.

Tom walked up to it and brushed his hand against its skin.

He felt his hand enter it, but he quickly withdrew it.

“Sheriff, I’m sorry, but it’s time to go. Please take care.” Bill

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walked towards the thing.

“If you change your mind, we’ll be back in ten years.” Bill turned and slipped into the thing.

“Good-bye, Bill,” whispered Tom. The sheriff stepped back to take in the immensity of the glowing, pulsating thing. He watched as it slowly retracted into the ground until it was completely covered by dirt and darkness. Tom sat for what he thought would be a moment and stared at the place where the thing and Bill disappeared. He felt the night all around him and with it a peace he had not expected.

A severe pain cause by a night spent in the open on uneven terrain shot through Tom like a dagger. He was lying on his back on the floor of the sinkhole and for the life of him he could not remember why he was there. In the end, after much consideration, he rationalized that there was some logical explanation for it.

Whatever it was though, he couldn’t find it, so he rationalized that it need not ever be discussed with anyone. He thought about that most intently as he pulled himself up the side of the sinkhole, clinging for dear life to the rope someone must have left hanging over the side.

He walked by the empty cabin recently occupied by his oldest friend and thought he might have recognized it or known the owner, but now it was obviously abandoned. It was crude and dirty, but he was drawn to it. He stopped, gave the place a closer look, and thought that if the cabin was replaced with a nice house, the location would justify the effort. Sissy had talked about mov-

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ing out of town for the past couple of years. Tom made a mental note to see if the owners might be willing to make a deal.

He drove home listening to the calls coming in on the police radio and knew that, despite low pay and long hours with at short staff in a small, rural Florida county, he was just where he was supposed to be and doing just what he was supposed to do.

It wasn’t as important as, say, balancing the yin and yang of the universe, but he slept well at night, could walk without fear on the street, and he knew most of the residents by their first name.

He was comfortable, if not content.

He and Sissy built a small farm house near the stand of live oaks. They inherited the chickens and dogs. The Grayson Trust had no use for them, neither did they have a use for the rise in the land known locally as Grayson’s Mountain or the big sinkhole that lay in the center of it. For more than six years Sissy and Tom lived happily on the farm, the sheriff position having been turned over to a younger, more ambitious man. In 2002, however, a strange discontent settled over Tom that concerned and frightened Sissy. He took up the habit of long walks around Grayson’s Mountain in the dead of night that reminded her of a sentry patrolling the perimeter of an army base. He stood watch long into the night although neither she nor he knew what for.

Although he continued his watch, he never tried to enter the sinkhole. Despite whatever devilish voices called, he knew that to do so would be suicide. Neither his legs nor his arms would support such an effort.

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For the next twenty years, the ritual continued. Every ten years, the fever, the rush, to watch the sinkhole would return.

Sometimes Sissy joined him on his long vigil. It was something neither Tom nor Sissy could ever understand, but they did understand that it was something that had to be done. It was expected, and they did it with the expectancy that something was there that was worth watching for.

One night, during the ritual walk, Sissy walked with Tom, not because she was driven by the same need, but because she was afraid Tom might stumble and fall. At 78, a stumble could be fatal. Tom, in mid-stride, suddenly stopped and turned to Sissy.

“I love you, Sissy,” he whispered.

“I love you more,” she answered and held her body close to his.

“You’ve followed me through this insanity all these years. I come out here expecting something to happen. I don’t know what I expect, but it never happens.”

“That’s alright, Tom. It doesn’t matter. I love you anyway.”

She turned her face up to his and as their lips met, he could feel her last exhale. She collapsed in his arms.

“Sissy, no!” He gently laid her down and stroked her cheek.

“Oh, Sissy. Please, no.” He felt her pulse. It was faint but still there. He turned his eyes toward heaven and cried out, but it wasn’t for God’s mercy and healing.

“Billy, where are you? You said you’d be back.”

He cradled Sissy’s head in his lap, his ancient arms holding

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her to him. Tears streamed from his eyes and he worked frantically to wipe them from her face for fear that she might drown.

The sight of the tears falling on her face made the situation seem even more imperative. Sissy was dying in his arms and he was powerless to stop it. From somewhere in his mind or soul or the cosmos came the thought that Billy could stop it, that Billy would come back and stop it all. He didn’t understand the thought. He didn’t care to understand the thought. All he knew was that he would sacrifice anything to save Sissy.

He looked into Sissy’s face and brushed away the hair from her eyes. He whispered a silent prayer and thought, just for a moment, that she had transformed from the old woman that she was to the young, beautiful woman he had married. Perhaps it was his mind. Perhaps it was the shadows from the dawn. Perhaps it was salvation. There was no dawn, not now. It was still the middle of a moonless night, yet he could see her face plainly. He turned slowly, cautiously towards the edge of the sinkhole. The interior was glowing with some sort of pulsating light. The light wasn’t strong, not yet at least. It was a sort of luminescence. As Tom watched, the luminescence grew until it rose above and threatened to spill over the edge of the sinkhole.

Within his mind he heard a familiar voice.

“Come on, Sheriff, come join me. Just walk into the light.”

Tom wanted to. He wanted to so badly. He wanted to take Sissy. He knew she’d be safe there, but his weak arms could not lift her. His willowy legs would not support them both. He began

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to cry harder. Beyond all this, the grief and the frustration, was the shame of being old.

“Please, Billy, please help me,” he pleaded to the glowing thing. “I can’t carry her and I won’t leave her.” He heard no reply, but sensed hesitation. He repeated his plea.

“Please help me.”

From the glowing thing appeared a figure at least thirty years younger than Tom. His long hair and beard were wildly free and he wore an ancient gray Henderson High Track Team tee shirt.

As he moved toward Tom, almost instantly he transmogrified into a bent, old man, his hair white and stringy. Tom stared into his watery eyes with astonishment.

“My God, how…”

“We don’t have time now, Sheriff. Can you help me pick Sissy up?”

Between the two men was enough strength for a short carry.

With Sissy safely in their arms, they stood at the edge of the sinkhole and prepared to enter the light.

“Welcome home, Sheriff,” said Bill as the crossed into the light.

The well kept farmhouse near the stand of live oaks on the old Grayson place was a popular matter for discussion among the residents of Henderson County for several years. What a shame that someone had simply abandoned it. Eventually it was seized by the county for unpaid taxes and a nice young couple with

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small children, who were regularly admonished never to go near the sinkhole, bought it and cared for it. They raised chickens, ducks, and rabbits.

There was never again a mention of man who was once the sheriff or his pretty wife. All that remained were the official records that someone named Tom Mackelroy had once served as sheriff and that he and Sissy had belonged to the local church and served in civic groups, but no one was actually able to recall even what they looked like or anything about them. “Just the strangers among us” they would say.

What the residents thought or didn’t think, cared or didn’t care, no longer mattered to Bill and Tom and Sissy as they sat by a quiet river and considered the vastness of their new world.

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November 2011

Outsourced Saul Tanpepper

“Remember when outsourcing meant hiring cheap labor someplace faraway, like Asia or South America?”

Nobody answers. The sun beats down on us and we all just shuffle forward and keep our thoughts to ourselves. Except him.

He just won’t shut up. I swear I’m going to murder him if he doesn’t shut up.

“Those were the days,” he finishes.

I roll my eyes and pray he doesn’t remember me from yesterday. What was his name again? Bill something or other. I forget.

Smith, I think. Or Brown. Something obnoxiously vanilla and utterly forgettable. Not that it matters. He could be named Jesus H. Christ for all it matters. Won’t change how I feel about the guy. I hate his freaking guts, and he only just started coming here this week.

“I used to write books,” he says.

I’ve heard this story before, three or four times. I could practically recite it by memory.

Now I can’t even get a job flipping burgers.

“Now look at me. I can’t even get a goddamn job flipping burgers anymore. It’s just wrong.”

“No shit, Sherlock,” someone with about a month’s worth of

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facial hair shouts. He sounds pissed. I’m not the only one. “Those were the first jobs to go, idiot. After the politicians, that is.”

Nobody bothers to laugh at the joke. So what if we all used to joke how the pols were just a bunch of brainless idiots. It didn’t help that we now knew it to be true.

I pinch the bridge of my nose—hard—and squeeze my eyes shut until I start to see stars. I actually have to concentrate on not screaming out in frustration. Even my worst days at the lab had never been this bad. And believe me, code monkeys and double-Es are the whiniest bunch of assholes I’ve ever met. I should know: I used to be one myself.

Now I’m just another useless body in a soup line.

“Christ,” Bill says, muttering. He raises his voice, “Does anyone know how long we’ll be standing here? What’s the hell’s the hold up?”

I can feel my blood pressure skyrocketing now. My pulse is racing; my head’s pounding. I’m a complete wreck, a coronary just waiting to happen. My own fault. All those years spent sitting on my fat ass at a computer terminal, tucked obliviously away in my silicon tower, as if the meaning of life actually existed in a bunch of pixels. As if we could actually reconfigure them into a magical pattern and create something divine. All those lost years finally catching up with me.

Lot of good my mid-six-figure salary is doing me now.

God, what were we thinking? We were so fucking busy trying to find the secret to nascent intelligence, thinking we could actu-

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ally improve upon ourselves. What a crock. Now I’m standing in a fucking soup line with the rest of humanity, and it just proves that intelligence is an illusion. Or at least not as big a deal as we thought it was. They proved it. Not us.

Now that I’m thinking of it, maybe a stroke wouldn’t be so bad after all.

I smile, despite knowing it’s wishful thinking. God, wouldn’t that be a sweet way to go? Snap of the fingers, maybe a moment of pain, then it’s over.

Shut the fuck up! my mind screams at me.

Hey, if I died, at least it would put me out of this misery.

Except it would also give that jerkoff Bill-what’s-his-face one more thing to complain about. “Another job lost,” I can imagine him saying. Stupid, I already lost the job.

No, I wouldn’t wish that on any of the other guys here.

They’re a decent bunch, for the most part. We’re all just trying to muddle through.

Still, I want to scream at him. I want to remind him where he can take his complaints. He knows what his options are, just like the rest of us. He can either stand here and suck it up, or he can sell out and join them, cross the picket line, so to speak.

Actually, I wouldn’t put it past him. He’s a scabby kind of guy.

You don’t know that.

Sucks when your subconscious mind is more reasonable than your conscious mind.

Anyway, he better just shut the hell up, or I really do swear

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I’ll shut him up myself.

Calm down.

So I don’t say anything. I stand there and every couple minutes I shuffle my feet a few inches closer to the big boiling vats of watery, gray, tasteless soup, my bowl in one hand and my spoon in the other and my stomach growling. Where’s a good cook when you need one? Oh, that’s right, they’re out of work, too.

Fuck, what I’d give for one of those burgers Bill was just talking about.

I rub my knuckles on my beard. I haven’t shaved since I started coming here three weeks ago when the money ran out and the food I’d squirreled away either molded or got too contaminated with rat shit that even I wouldn’t touch it. Haven’t showered in twice as long.

The water went out in the city a few months ago, not long after the Uprising. After it did, I’d gone out and rigged up a storage tank on the roof of my apartment. The Army Corp of Engineers had said it would be a week or two before they could get the treatment facility up and running again, but I didn’t believe them. The thought of going even a single day without showering had utterly disgusted me—I used to have this thing about smelling my own funk—so I arranged with this guy I knew to start trucking water in straight from the reservoir and pumping it up to my tank. Got expensive real quick, especially when the army mutinied and everyone started demanding water. Nobody picked up the slack left by the then-defunct engineering corps.

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There was no one to do it.

Now there’s a job for you.

Right. Never in a million years.

Anyway, I had a ton of money stashed away. I could afford to buy water, even at a hundred dollars or two hundred a gallon.

But then the truck driver lost his job and the replacement was goddamn useless. You can’t reason with them. It was all for the best, I guess. Otherwise, I’d have wasted all the rest of my money on showers. I had a heap of it in my living room, since the banks all closed down, and so I ended up using it for more important things than keeping myself clean. I must’ve burnt about a million bucks in tens and twenties just to keep warm. Something about that cotton fiber, it doesn’t put out much heat.

A breeze kicks up and I get a whiff of myself, lower my arm again to my side.

A lot of the guys here are a hell of a lot riper than me. So what? You get used to it. Funny, how the stink doesn’t even bother me anymore.

“What’s taking so long?” Bill shouts toward the front of the line.

“They’re out of soup,” I hear a guy near the front yell. “They’re making some more.”

“Can’t they work any faster?” Bill shouts back. “We’re starving back here. What are they trying to do, kill us?”

A hush passes over the crowd and heads turn to look at him.

Could he really be that clueless?

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He raises his shoulders. “What?”

I really, really want to tell him to shut up, but if yesterday is any indication, even that will only encourage him to talk more, and right now he just needs to keep his yapper shut. Fucking catch twenty-two.

“You’d think they’d have figured out how to run a stinking soup line by now.”

A few people chuckle. Out of discomfort is my guess. Others just shake their heads. Most of us don’t even bother grumbling.

What, did he think that we’d all somehow slept through the Uprising? Yeah, Bill, we’ve all been away on vacation for the past six months. It was driving me fucking mad all his hurry up and what’s their problem, like he actually needed it all explained to him. Besides, none of us really wanted to talk about it. We’d all been there when it happened—him included. We’d all watched as the economy tanked; we’d all lost our jobs. Last thing we wanted was to be reminded of what we’d brought down on ourselves.

We’d lived it, for god’s sake.

Don’t waste your energy.

Fuck that.

My head was really pounding by then. If I had a gun, I’d— Calm down.

Right. Better to focus on the real problems. I should be angry at them, the ones who took our jobs away from us. The ones ladling out the soup, for example.

If only we’d prepared more than we had. If only we’d resisted

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harder instead of just sitting back and letting them roll over us.

The Uprising had lasted barely a week—actually, back up a little. That makes it sound like it came out of nowhere, and that’s just not true. It was at least six years in the making. That’s what pisses me off so much, that we had ample warning and yet we did nothing to avert it. Of course, nobody was paying attention. Even when that book came out, followed by that flick that won the Nobel Freaking Peace Prize that everyone thought was a crock of shit. What was it called? “A Gruesome Truth,” or something idiotic like that. Traced the whole thing back to that volcano in Iceland that blew its freaking top a half dozen years ago and blanketed everyone from here to bum-fuck Egypt in ash.

The world really started heating up then.

The polar ice caps melted. Antarctica would’ve been a tropical paradise except for the fact that it was so barren, all rocks and shit. Polar bears went extinct in a couple years, most of them by drowning on melting ice floes out in the middle of the ocean. Ice, now there’s something I haven’t seen in a while.

Everyone thought the ocean levels would rise, but they didn’t.

Not right away, anyway. It was so hot that all the melted ice evaporated. The air got all hazy. Seeded by all the volcanic ash, it started raining. Three years it rained. Three straight fucking years, falling like some goddamn freaking prophecy. That’s when the oceans rose. That’s when people really started to think we were screwed. Oh, how we were screwed, just not the way we thought we were.

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Of course, by then it was too late.

Nobody had believed the Gruesome Truth guy back then.

What the hell was his name again? Moore? Something like that.

Another vanilla name. I swear I’m losing it, losing my mind.

He had tried to warn us. He said we should be focusing on what was really happening, but we were all griping about the rain and our four-oh-one-k’s. We were all, like, “Oh, the rain’s washing away our precious shorelines.” None of us worried about our jobs. We were all pretty stupid. I was, anyway, thinking a supercomputer could somehow fix things.

To be honest, I was pretty sick of all the naysayers by then, anyway.

And then it finally did stop raining. But did we wake up then?

No, because then it was like we were finally saved, god almighty.

How we did celebrate.

We didn’t care that it stayed hot.

We didn’t care that it was ninety percent humidity all the time.

They were growing watermelons in Alaska, for Christ’s sake.

But when you mix one part freaking volcano and a hundred parts of rain, you apparently get a lethal concoction that did what all our pixels and terabytes couldn’t do: create intelligence. Well, first it activated the mold spores. That’s what I think, anyway.

Freaking mold spores growing into a shit load of black fucking mold from hell, just like they had in New Orleans after that big hurricane twenty years ago. And the mold took over everything.

It just kept growing and growing.

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Then came the Zombie Uprising. Six years after the volcano.

See what I mean about ample warning?

The actual revolt took only six days to carry out. Scary how quickly it happened, actually. Not that we had any way of stopping it once we realized what was happening. We just had to sit back and watch. After the initial panic, that is, when a lot of us died and a lot of them got— Well, let’s just say it was a hell of a…a misunderstanding.

Ha ha.

Six years of crap weather. Six days of head-ripping hell. Six months to eviscerate the fucking guts out of the whole living free world.

I pull out a fifty, fold it into fourths until it’s got a nice sharp corner and use it to clean my teeth. God, how I miss toothpaste.

Moore—or Gore; what the fuck was his name?—had a field day, global warming and all that, telling everyone that he told us so. He was the first to go. Someone lopped his head off. Oops.

Sometimes irony can be a good thing.

Black mold. Even he couldn’t have predicted it would raise the dead. No, don’t try convincing me it was anything else, some government conspiracy or something. That mold’s some powerful shit, that’s all I know.

I was one of the lucky ones, actually. Me in my ivory silicon tower with my armor of binary code. Takes a lot of brain power to do what I did for a living, which was run FaceBook’s AI division. Remember FaceBook? Yeah, it was top secret, but now, who

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the fuck cares? We’d been trying to develop true intelligence for years, a computer that could not just problem solve, but learn and adapt and then even create new information. Top secret because we were always afraid of the whack jobs who thought AI would spell the end of mankind. Turns out just the opposite did it to us. I guess we should’ve been worrying about mold instead.

You’d have thought the zoms, when they first started popping up, would go after those with the biggest brains first, but it was the dumb ones they took out first. We would’ve figured things out sooner if we hadn’t been hacking them up as soon as they started appearing. How were we to know they really wanted our jobs?

Once we figured that out, somebody had the great idea of actually putting them to work. Hell, they were willing enough.

Cheap labor. They didn’t need to rest. Big mistake. What ended up happening is a crap-load worse than getting your gray matter slurped.

Living unemployment hovering at ninety-five percent. And you can bet the turnover rate for zombies is pretty much nil.

Anyway, I was a coder. There was that computer on Jeopardy, Watson. Remember? Spanked those two human champions and then went on to replace medical doctors and then accountants and such. Well, the one my team built wasn’t just next-gen, it was a quantum leap forward on AI. The government sponsored her.

For kicks we called her Alex, short for ALEXA, though some of the guys joked it was for Alex Trebeck. They didn’t really like the guy. Anyway, that’s why I got bumped only just a few weeks ago.

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The zoms may not have been all that smart in the beginning, but they learned and adapted. It was only a matter of time before I became expendable.

Now I totally understand why people were so afraid of the AI program. Talk about ironic, huh?

So, that’s why I’m here now, waiting in line for my next meal.

Jobless. Homeless. Showerless. A wad of useless greenbacks in my pocket.

Zombies don’t work for money.

Bill showed up about a week ago. He was a fiction writer. How the fuck does a writer lose his job to a zombie? I don’t understand that. What, they got zoms writing stories now? Somebody please explain that to me.

Writer or not, the guy’s a prick. Obnoxious. A prickless whiner who expects to have his every whim catered to. Are all writers like that?

I’ve tried coming here at different times during the day to avoid him, but he somehow always seems to be right behind me in line, always complaining. Like now.

I try not to make eye contact, but I have to see who he’s trapped this time. Some old dude. Poor shmuck. And he looks about ready to keel over at any moment. I almost wish he would.

More soup for the rest of us.

Is that selfish?

On the other hand, if he did die, then there’d be one more zombie looking to take another job away from someone living.

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November 2011

Fuck, fuck, fuck. Why do they need to work anyway?

“You’re lucky,” Bill’s telling him. “At least you’ll be back to work again soon.”

Really? The guy truly has no tact.

“Me?” Bill goes on, clueless. “The way things are going, I’ll probably be standing in this line for the next sixty years.”

I groan. Not unless I kill him first.

“I mean, I’m still a young guy. I don’t think I could face so much unemployment. I’ll go crazy first.”

“Hey,” I say, drawing his attention, “if you’re really so upset about it, if you really want to work that badly, then why don’t you go do something about it instead of just standing here bitching and moaning about it! Hell, you’re pretty damn good at that, I bet you’d find something right away that suits those motormouth skills of yours. You could be a translator to the Undead.”

He gives me this stupid stare and—I swear—he looks just like one of them for a second, like the zoms spooning out our daily ration of soup. But then he closes his mouth. At least he shuts up, and I’m glad for it. At least then I could look forward to eating my lunch in relative peace. Well, if you ignore all the other moaning going on around us. Nothing we can do about that.

Ignore him.

I try. I really do.

The next day Bill isn’t in line. He’s nowhere in sight, in fact, and I breathe a massive sigh of relief. But then he doesn’t come back the day after that either. By the third day, I can’t help won-

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dering what has happened to him. I actually feel a little bad about yelling at him. I wonder if he’s gone over to the Fifth Street soup kitchen instead. The soup there is even worse than it is here, if that’s even possible. Apparently, the zombies they got working there are idiots.

I finally find out what happened to him from an old friend of his, his former agent, as it turns out. He tells me Bill took what I’d said to heart.

“Really?”

He nods. “Bill went home the other night and killed himself.”

I can’t help but be surprised. And, to be perfectly honest, a little jealous, too. I’d always just thought the guy was a talker and not a doer, but I guess it’s not the first time I’d ever been wrong. “How?” I ask.

“Bullet to the head. Two, actually. The first one ripped off the top of his skull but didn’t finish the job.”

“Ouch,” I say, cringing. “Sounds messy.”

The friend shrugs. “Yeah, but he’s doing okay now. I made sure of that.”

I chuckle. Once an agent, always an agent, I guess.

He goes on. “Where Bill is now, I doubt if he misses the half of his brain he shot off.”

“What do you mean?” I ask. “Where is he?”

“DMV,” he tells me. “License renewal. He’s working the counter.”

Yeah, even with half a brain—a dead brain, much less—he’s

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still overqualified.

Then I wince and groan.

“Something wrong?” the man asks.

“Looks like I’ll be seeing him soon,” I say. God, will this hell never end?

“Why?” I pull out my wallet and flip it open. “My license expires next month.”

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Incubus Paul Clayton

Ray Bachman stayed half a block behind her. He wasn’t afraid of losing her since he’d followed her twice before and he knew the route she’d take. What was her name, he thought, Carmella, Carmalita? Something like that... He’d been hanging outside the pool hall, smoking and talking with Jonesy, when he’d first seen her. Jonesy knew her and she’d stopped to say hello to him. She was wearing that tight little nurse outfit. Nice. She wore a lot of make-up, though. And had an odd accent, Middle Eastern or central European, maybe. He couldn’t tell, but it was as thick as forty weight motor oil.

But what a body! Bachman quickened his pace. After she’d left that night, Jonesy had said that he’d already asked her out, without success. “I see you lookin’, man,” Jonesy had said. “Forget it. You’d have a better chance with a nun.”

Bachman remembered the two of them watching her walk away, her bottom swaying invitingly. Jonesy had run his shabby toothpick between his teeth as he gave Bachman the story, “She’s cold as ice, man, and crazy as a loon.”

“What do you mean?” Bachman had asked.

“She thinks she’s a witch or something, man. Dig. I was rapping with her, right, and all she wants to talk about is polterg-

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housts and stuff, you know, spells, black magic, all that jive!”

Bachman saw her turn the corner. He remembered the sight of her shapely thighs, visible under her white uniform. The hell with you, Jonesy, he thought as he turned the corner and caught sight of her. I liked what I saw that night, and I take what I like!

Bachman went around to the parking lot. Taking the fire escape steps two at a time, he carefully closed the fire escape door, staying concealed around the hallway corner. The carpeting was lush, muffling her footsteps, but he could hear the swish of her stockings against her skirt. He held his breath. When her lock clicked open, he moved, coming silently around the corner. He placed his hand over her mouth and pushed her into the apartment. She fought wildly as he shoved balled-up pantyhose into her mouth and pushed the door shut.

He threw the light switch and something startled him. On the wall opposite him, across from the bed, a squat ugly creature stared at him through beady eyes framed under huge bushy brows. Ape-like and naked, its skin was a mottled purple-pink from the top of its bullet head down to its hooves, its maleness grotesquely exaggerated. By the time he realized it was only a painting, she’d pulled away from him and was racing for the phone, trying to pull the gag from her mouth. He reached her in four steps, throwing her onto the bed. He stood before her and studied her face, waiting for the tears to start. They always do, he thought. They strut and tease... They may as well hang a sign that says “I want it”. But when it’s time, then they act so

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innocent and pure.

He waited, but instead of fear, her eyes radiated anger and hate. Infuriated, he kicked the little table at the foot of the painting, sending the black candles and brass incense dishes clattering across the room. Still, her eyes burned with defiance.

Later, Bachman quietly opened the apartment door and poked his head out. Closed, anonymous apartment doors stretched in either direction for the length of the corridor. Out on the street, he smoothed the torn patch of skin back over his knuckle. “Damn Gypsy bitch,” he said to no one as he hurried through the dark streets. “What the hell was she babbling about, the inker bus, omnibus? Crazy Gypsy broad!”

The following week, Bachman only ventured out during the evenings. He was almost ready to come out of hiding when the letter came. He woke up one morning and found it slid under the door, no stamp on it. His name was written in a feminine hand and the faint smell of perfume came from it. Puzzled, he opened it and took out a folded card. Fear stabbed though his bowels.

The gross creature in the woman’s painting glared up at him from the card. Underneath was written: Dream is the door through which he enters…

No one has ever denied him pleasure.

Panicking, he balled it up and threw it on the floor. How the hell did she find me, he thought to himself as he shoved some

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clothes into an old airline bag. How? His mind was a jumble of worries and wants. Think! Focus... focus. Yeah! That’s it. Better living through chemistry. He took a small plastic vial out of his pocket. Tapping out two of the little yellow amphetamine tablets, he placed them on the back of his tongue and swallowed.

Bachman walked swiftly down the city streets, casting wary glances behind him. He went into the bus terminal and sat in one of the black chairs. On a big screen overhead, he watched an orchestra playing, the music rising and falling to the conductor’s waving arms. His eyes darted left and right. Someone sat down three or four rows behind him. Turning slightly, he saw the side of a woman’s head. The hair was jet black. Long, curly locks fell over the white of a hospital smock. His stomach started bubbling. Could it be? Nah. Coincidence. How could she find me?

Remembering the letter, he got up from the chair and hurried outside.

Blinded by the slanting rays of the afternoon sun, Bachman tripped over a bundle of dirty clothes and fell. He landed face to face with one of the many transients who camped out on the sidewalks of the inner city.

The man’s rat-bitten, bearded face looked into his. “See the incubus?”

Bachman recoiled from the man’s foul breath. “What?” he asked.

The man frowned and pointed a blackened, bony finger toward the metal grate. “Down there.”

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“What’re you talkin’ about?” asked Bachman, but he felt compelled to look into the dark hole. There was something down there, and it was moving, something big. It was coming up the metal ladder.

“Shit!” said Bachman, getting quickly to his feet. He ran, pushing startled pedestrians out of his way, until he saw the brightly lit dining hall of a restaurant. Go in, his mind told him.

What could be safer than a restaurant during lunch hour? He pushed hurriedly through the glass door. A few minutes later, he carried a steaming cup of coffee to a table in the center of the dining room and sat. He sipped the scalding liquid appreciatively, enjoying the respite it gave him from his fear. Someone placed their hand on his shoulder and he jumped. It was Jonesy.

“Hey, dude,” Jonesy said, “you look like you just shook hands with the devil.”

Bachman looked cautiously around him. “Listen, man, you gotta do me a favor.”

“Dig, what’s that?”

“I gotta lay low for a while, man... just a couple of days. I need a place to crash. Can you help me out?”

“Sure, dude.” Jonesy leaned closer and smiled. “Dig. I just got hold of some good stuff, man and I’ll give you a taste.”

They left the restaurant and stood on the curb. “Here comes the bus,” said Jonesy. “My place ain’t too far.”

Almost an hour later they got off on the other side of town.

Jonesy led the way past the dilapidated houses and boarded-up

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store fronts. “Here we are,” he said, putting his key in the door of an old building, “I have the whole first floor.”

It was dark and damp inside. Jonesy shut the door on the fading light of day and the rush-hour traffic noise. He threw the light switch and a low-wattage, bare bulb, dangling from the ceiling, illuminated the room. A tired old couch sat against one wall, its stuffing exposed. A cloth-covered coil spring dangled at an obscene angle out of the seat. In front of the couch, a wooden plank lay across two milk crates, forming a crude coffee table.

It was covered with cigarette butts, candy wrappers, and empty Pepsi cans. In the corner sat a dirty, leopard skin bucket seat from a car. Bachman sat on the car seat.

“The Taj Mahal it ain’t, I know,” said Jonesy philosophically with a sweep of his hand, “but it’s better than the street.”

“It’s a fuckin’ dump,” said Bachman tiredly.

“Hey, dude,” said Jonesy, hurt in his voice, “if you don’t like it, go somewhere else!”

“Sorry, man,” said Bachman, “I’m just tired, that’s all, a little uptight.” He lit a cigarette. “Listen, you ever hear of something called an inkerbus, inkybus, somethin’ like that?”

“Yeah, dig,” said Jonesy, warming. “Back in the dark ages, you know, they used to believe in that shit. It was supposed to be something that crawled into the beds of sleeping chicks and screwed them. Dig? They were really only havin’ a wet dream, but they didn’t know about that shit back then. I think it’s a bunch of bullshit, but you know what, man?”

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“What?”

“Those flying saucers, man. Now there’s something that I believe in. A cat upstairs says he went for a ride in one, went to Pluto, and they say there’s supposed to be a secret base on—” “Aw, shut up!” Bachman rose from the car seat. He looked nervously around the room. “How about some of that meth you were tellin’ me about, man? I need something for my head. I can’t be listening to all this bullshit!”

“Okay, man. Be cool, be cool.” Jonesy reached under the fabric of the couch and pulled out a small glassine envelope. He tapped out some white powder onto a smudged mirror on the coffee table, then, using a rusty, single edged razor blade, scraped it into six orderly lines. Bachman watched hungrily.

“Now, dig, man,” said Jonesy, rising, “I suggest you start with one line, man. This is powerful juju. You do too much and your head spins off into never-never land.”

“Shit, man,” said Bachman angrily. “Don’t tell me how to do dope. I been around.” Bachman took a deep breath and snorted four lines, his nose moving across the mirror like a Hoover vacuum cleaner wielded by an Irish cleaning lady.

Jonesy shook his head angrily. “Damn, man. You don’t listen to nobody, do you?”

“Get off my case,” said Bachman, sniffling.

Jonesy knelt and snorted the remaining two lines. He stood.

“Listen, man. I’m gonna run down to the store for some chips and Pepsi. You want anything?”

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“Yeah, get me a pack of Kools, will ya?”

“Dig. I’ll be back in an hour.”

Bachman locked the door after Jonesy left. He sat back down in the car seat. Finally he could relax, without worrying about that crazy broad following him around. She’d never find him here, though. He closed his eyes. Somewhere in the building a faucet leaked, the drops reverberating steadily. The sound began to build in volume until it seemed a drum beating out a cadence.

Bachman felt as if the room had become an elevator. He was descending at a thousand miles an hour. He forced his eyes open and the elevator stopped with a sickening lurch. He fell out of the seat.

Bachman lay on the floor in a dizzy stupor. His nostrils picked up the scent of incense. The scent grew stronger as the room began to turn. Panicking, he forced himself up off the floor and reeled drunkenly down the corridor in search of the bathroom.

He found a door and pulled it open. Dying light drifted down from a window set high in the wall, iron bars bolted to it from the outside. Bachman barely made it to the commode before his stomach erupted. When the spasms subsided, he washed his face.

As he stood over the sink, the incense smell grew stronger. The soap and water in the sink went down the drain slowly, swirling. As he stared into it, a scene took shape. He wanted to run, but he was paralyzed with weakness and fear. There, framed in the white porcelain, was the chick’s apartment, the painting, and under it the little altar, black candles burning, the little wisp of

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incense smoke curling up into his nose. And… he couldn’t move!

She entered the scene. She looked up at him briefly and sat cross-legged in front of the altar. Her head shaking slightly, she sang incantations in her heavy accent, while from somewhere, drums throbbed. Bachman tried to scream, but nothing would come out. The creature moved one of its hooves, then stepped out of the painting. Shaking with fear, Bachman managed to push away and fell back onto the floor, blacking out. A moment later, an hour later, he couldn’t tell, he heard the sound of breaking glass. He looked up. A simian face pressed against the dirty, broken window. A large purple hand reached for him but he was too far away. Then, both large hands gripped the bars. Wood splintered as glass shattered and fell downward. Screaming and summoning every ounce of his strength, Bachman pushed himself to his feet and staggered toward the door. “No, no, no,” he cried as he ran out onto the street. Tires squealed. Bright lights assailed him. Something knocked into him. Faces hovered over him. “It’s trying to get me,” he told them tearfully. “The inkerbus is in there!”

Bachman awoke in a hospital bed. An old woman in a striped dress was wrapping something around his arm.

“Am I hurt bad?” he asked her.

“No, you’ll be fine in a couple of weeks, Mister Bachman. You have three fractured ribs and six sutures in the side of your head.

Not bad considering you jumped twenty feet out of a window.”

“Thank you, thank you,” he said, feeling warm and safe and

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cared-for for the first time in a long time.

“It’s all right now,” said the woman, patting his hand. “I want you to take this.” She handed him a little white paper cup with a pill in it. “It’ll help you sleep tonight.”

“Thank you, thanks a lot.” Bachman gulped the pill down hungrily. When the woman left, he got painfully out of bed and stared out the window. He was on the second floor. Below, a park-like setting of trees and benches stretched out to the distant highway. It was very peaceful. Beneath his window, ivy curled around a wrought iron trellis bolted to the bricks of the wall.

He figured he must be somewhere on the edge of the city. The quiet and greenery made him feel calm and secure. He closed the window and lay back down on the bed.

Bachman breathed deeply, feeling the pill’s sedative effect come over him. As the last red rays of sunshine disappeared, he fell into a deep, coma-like sleep.

Consciousness seeped into Ray Bachman’s mind like water into a leaky rowboat. He became aware of a pressure on his chest.

He could hardly breathe. The room was black fuzz. He tried to make out the time on the digital clock, but sleep still clogged his eyes and all he saw was a pink blur. Cold air washed over his head. The window was open. He wondered vaguely who had opened it. Slowly his tactile senses came awake and the vague pressure that seemingly pushed him into the bed and constricted his breathing became more distinct. There was a weight on him; it had form and it seemed to extend from his buttocks all the

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way up to his neck. Almost fully awake now, he could read the clock. Four AM. Then he heard the voice of the old woman who had taken his blood pressure before he’d fallen asleep. She was on the other side of his door. “I was just going in to check on him,” she said.

Another voice answered, a voice with a familiar, thick, foreign accent. “That won’t be necessary. I have already taken care of Mister Bachman.”

Bachman’s heart started pounding. What the hell? He again became aware of the pressure, the thing on him. It moved slightly.

Like a small animal confronted suddenly by a large predator, Bachman froze. His brain received a new batch of signals from the skin of his back. Whatever it was that was on him, it had skin too, a slightly lower body temperature than his, and it was… breathing. He suddenly panicked, trying to scream, to get up and run. But he couldn’t move or get his breath. Then it tightened its grip, and he realized that his arms were tightly pinned to his sides. He lay there with it squeezing him tightly, his mind racing a million miles an hour wondering what in the world it wanted, and then, in one penetrating instant, he knew.

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The Dead Beat

Erica Lindquist & Aron Christenson Episode 3—Dressing Down

The door before them was once a bright, jolly red, but years of pollution and spray-painted gang tags had turned it into a muddy mess of mixing, running colors. The paint peeled up in flaking ribbons around a pitted brass knocker. Arphallo grimaced.

“How did you even find this guy?” he asked.

“If I told you, he’d never talk to me again,” Sam said. “Bob hasn’t stuck around this long by being trusting. The mob killed him once. He’s not in a big hurry to go through it again.”

“Fine.”

Arphallo was getting tired of being treated like a dumb kid, one not be trusted with important secrets. And Sam was certainly being secretive… The collar of his trench coat was turned up against the back of his neck and the dead man kept his eyes discretely downcast, half hidden by a fall of pale white-blond hair. Arphallo grabbed the knocker, but Sam put a hand over his.

“No,” said Sam with a shake of his head. “You use that and he’ll run.”

Instead, Sam knocked four times against the ugly door and waited. A moment later, Arphallo heard the deadbolt rattle. A second deadbolt scraped loudly, then a third, and finally the door

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peeled open a crack. There was still a steel chain holding the door shut. Arphallo could see nothing on the other side.

“It’s Sam, Bob. We need to talk to you,” Sam said into the darkened crevice.

The door closed and then opened again, minus the chain.

Inside stood a young woman, a girl that could not have been a day over seventeen. Her golden-blonde hair was tied up in a pair of pigtails, her lithe body only barely covered in a tiny plaid skirt and white blouse. Arphallo felt his face go hot.

Beside him, Sam started. “Bob?” The girl winked and nodded. “Get your fat ass inside, Sam. I don’t want anyone to see you hanging out on my doorstep.”

Sam and Arphallo stepped through the door. Bob closed and bolted the door closed behind them. Inside, the apartment was filthy. There were pizza boxes and empty beer bottles on every table, every counter. A gauzy red thong hung from the ceiling fan and Arphallo averted his eyes from an extensive collection of pornography that overflowed a large book case in one grubby corner.

“What do you want, Sam?” Bob asked. “Is this your new partner?”

Sam looked up and down the barely dressed young girl.

“Christ, Bob. What the fuck is this?”

Bob laughed. “The body? I figured I was inside enough girls back when I was alive. No reason to change that.”

“You’re a disgusting old bastard, Bob.”

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Bob offered no argument to that. He sat on the back of the couch and cocked his pigtailed head at the cops. “Okay, make it quick. What do you want?”

“The boys from organized crime came to see us the other day.

They’ve been after one of the families, but three of their witnesses have died in two weeks,” Sam said.

Bob shrugged his slender shoulders. “So? You’re dealing with the mob. You know what to expect.”

“They’re being killed in soul traps,” Arphallo said. “Every single time. They’re good traps, too. Someone knows what he’s doing. There’s no way any of the ghosts will ever find their way back.”

Bob flopped back over the couch, showing both cops an unnerving flash of panties. “Tough break,” he said in a sultry, breathy voice.

“Do you know who’s doing it, Bob?” Sam asked. “No legitimate exorcist would do it, not on the books. Someone is moonlighting.”

“A soul trap isn’t easy to make,” said Arphallo. “This wouldn’t be a hobbyist.”

“I’ve got a grandson retiring from the family business next month. I don’t want my name on anything for a while,” Bob told them. He spread his hands. The nails were painted bright red, just like the door used to be. “Sorry, I can’t help you.”

“You’ll stay anonymous, Bob. You know that,” Sam said.

“Come on, don’t fuck with us. You’ve got to know something.

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You worked for the mob since the goddamn Prohibition. You have dirt on everyone in the city.”

“Sorry, Sammy boy.”

Sam put his hands in the pockets of his trench coat. “You sure about that, Bob? You’ve been a great help in the past. If you know anything, don’t you think someone’s going to realize that?

Sure would be a pity if they sent their pet exorcist after you with one of those traps before we could catch the guy.”

Bob sat up. He narrowed his eyes at Sam. His lashes were caked in black mascara. “Don’t try to play hardball with me. I remember you when you were still alive. I remember your wife.”

“I remember yours.”

Bob glared at Sam. Arphallo found himself holding his breath.

Finally, Bob stuck his lower lip out, pouting.

“Fuck you, Sam,” he whined.

“Fuck you, too, Bob.” “Who are your boys going after? The Russians? The Italians?”

“Neither. They’re after one of the Irish families, the Reids,” said Sam. “They’re moving in on the Flynns’ operations…”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” Bob thought for a moment. “I think I know who you want. Alexandria Kerry is your girl. She’s a junior lawyer and she’s on the Reid payroll.”

“A lawyer?” Sam asked skeptically.

“What, all that bullshit and now you don’t believe me? Sure she went to law school, but her old man was an exorcist in Chicago. He’s the one who taught her the trade, so there’s no

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school records. Keeps the police from sniffing around when they find a soul trap.”

Sam turned away from Bob. His phone was already in his hand. “I need to talk to Judge Moss. I need a warrant for the office and home of Alexandria Kerry,” he said.

Bob rolled his eyes. “Wham, bam. Thank you, ma’am,” he sighed. “It’s always like that with Sam.” “Thank you for your help,” Arphallo said. “We should have Alexandria in custody within the hour.”

“Good. You keep her the fuck away from me.”

Bob stretched his arms up over his head, soft and supple breasts very nearly popping out of his blouse. Arphallo swallowed hard and tried to remind himself of the greasy old bastard inhabiting that curving, nubile young body…

Sam snapped his phone closed. “We’ve got the warrant.

Uniforms will meet us at the office. Bob?” “Yeah?” the blonde mobster asked.

“That body better be legal, or I’m coming back.”

“I won’t be here, Sam.”

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The Bike Mechanic Aaron Wilson Episode 3

Seward’s search results generated hundreds of entries for emergency plumbers, and only three for Jed’s. Each of those entries was for speculative websites that claimed to monitor the movements of several Federal agencies. Before Seward panicked, he refined his search to include Minnesota. Again, his results only generated speculative websites. Now, Seward thought it was likely that his internet searches were being monitored, and whoever was in the van knew that he had discovered that Jed’s Emergency Plumbing was a front.

Instead of panicking, which was what he really wanted to do right then, he pulled out a blank work order, and started making two lists: 1) Pros, 2) Cons, for helping Inez. It was soon obvious what his next course of action should require of him. He should walk outside, cross the street, and knock on the side of the van.

He should give Inez up. His work in the community was worth more than the affections of a beautiful woman.

What the hell am I doing, Seward thought as he crumpled up the work order. She needs my help. If he’d allow himself a bit of honesty, he could have saved himself some time. He’d grown tired of the shop and the customers with their overly basic ques-

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tions about brakes, flat tires, and derailed chains. He was ready for something else, preferably somewhere else too – somewhere warmer.

Seward walked back to the spare room. Before he knocked, his imagination got away from him. He saw her naked on a sandy beach somewhere south, but before he could fully explore the scenario, the door opened.

Inez stood in the doorway. She was wearing one of his blue work shirts. The shop’s crank-and-gear logo rested above her left breast. She had left the top four buttons unfastened, and her tan legs were bare. She rubbed sleep from her eyes and ran her fingers through her hair.

Seeing Inez in one of his work shirts was better than anything he had started to imagine. Struggling to keep his composure, he asked, “Umm…yeah. Do you know by chance if you were followed?” He lifted his arm to point to the front of the store.

“Because I’m fairly certain that the Feds are parked out front.”

Inez’s eyes popped open. She looked a like deer caught in headlights, panicked, defenseless, and unable to move. She managed to squeak out, “Help me.”

The agents looked at each other and shook their heads. Agent Gaines took off his sunglasses. His eyes were light blue rimed in an amber circle of golden yellow, giving him a strange Siberian husky look.

“Have you been contacted by this woman?” Agent Gaines

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held out a picture of woman with long chestnut hair and pale skin. “Her name is Inez Wick.”

Seward took the picture from Agent Gaines and stared at it for a few minutes. He was sure it was Inez, but damn. She didn’t look anything like this photo now. “She’s a looker. I’d remember her if she’d stopped in for anything.”

Seward decided to push them. He wanted to know just how deep the shit ran. “Why do you think she’d stop here?”

Agent Farth answered, “She has connections to an activist group that you started at the University of Michigan.” Agent Farth kept his cool, but he looked like he was holding back a caged tiger.

“You say activist like it’s a dirty word or something.” Seward took a step back. “But the only kind of activism I’m engaged in these days is organizing rides to keep The Greenway safe in the early morning and late evenings for bicycle commuters.”

There was an awkward silence as Inez walked out from the backroom. She’d found a cap and wore it low. She was also carrying a couple of boxes new tubes. “You want me to put these on the shelves?”

“Yeah, but this time make sure that you watch the sizes. Some guy bought a sixteen inch when he needed a twenty-six inch.”

Seward turned back to the agents. “I help out the community by taking in troubled teens and teaching them a skill they can use.” Seward puffed up his chest a little and said, “Just last week I helped a young man, who didn’t even have his G.E.D., get a

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paying job down the street fixing bikes for The Alt.” Agent Gaines suddenly looked tired. His smile drooped, and lines appeared in his forehead and around his eyes. “If she does stop by, please let us know.” He held out his card.

Seward took the card. “Homeland Security?”

Agent Farth took a few quick steps forward so that he was almost touching Seward’s chest with his own. “If Homeland Security would have existed while you and your…” He paused and broke a toothy grin. “We would have rounded up your domestic terrorist cell, I mean activists, and that would have been that.”

“Farth!” Agent Gaines commanded. “We’re leaving.” Agent Gaines then turned to look at Seward one last time before putting his sunglasses back on, “We are watching you. We have good intelligence that suggests that Inez Wick will try to make contact.”

Seward held Agent Gaines’ card with both hands as he watched them exit and close the shop door behind them.

Seward took a long deep breath in through his nose, and pushed out his upper lip so that the gray whiskers in his mustache tickled the tip of his nose. It wasn’t a good look. He looked as if he’d just smelled something foul or tasted something bitter.

Either way, it made him look more his age.

Seward got out his wallet, a floppy thing he’d hand stitched out of a used bike inner tube, and he flopped it open. Besides a few singles, his wallet contained his debit card and credit card,

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his driver’s license, and his expired memberships to The Sierra Club, Green Peace, and EarthFirst! He slid Agent Gaines’ card in over his driver’s license.

“How can I thank you?” Inez had stopped working and turned around. She had chain grease on her arm and was holding a 3/8” wrench. She’d still left too many buttons unfastened, and she was smiling.

Seward had a couple inappropriate thoughts, but he remembered that she was young enough to be his daughter, so instead he said, “You can finish tuning up that rock-jumper and watch the store. I’ve got to make a couple of calls.” Without saying anything else or holding eye contact, he made his way though the hall and out the back door.

He pulled his cell out of his pocket and looked up a number of an old friend, and he was about to press the number when he remembered that the agents were still parked out front. He reasoned that they had likely found his cell phone number already and tapped it, so his phone was useless. He looked around the alley behind his shop. It didn’t look like anyone was watching, so he put his phone away and waked the two blocks through the back alleyway to Verizon.

As soon as he walked in, he was accosted by an over-caffeinated salesman who smelled like he bathed in spice and lavender.

The salesman said, “Welcome to Verizon Wireless. Can I help you?”

“Yes.” Seward wasted no time. “I need a prepay. I’m thinking

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a thousand minutes.”

“Sir,” the salesman took a step back and turned up his nose.

“We don’t sell prepays. Try across the street at CVS.” And without missing a beat, he moved past Seward to greet a woman in heels carrying a small, tired looking dog under her arm. “Welcome to Version. Can I help you?”

Seward shook his head. Okay, he thought, CVS. After selecting a bar-phone that looked like it was at least ten years old, Seward sat on the curb outside CVS. He found his friend’s number on his cell and called it on the prepay. After a few rings, Seward’s call went to voice mail.

“Cooper, it’s Seward. I’m using a prepay. Don’t call me on a line in your name.” Seward left his prepay’s number and got up.

He walked back across Lake Street and down Dupont Avenue to the alleyway and headed back to his shop.

Okay, Seward thought, I made the call.

Back in the shop, Inez was still busy, playing the dutiful clerk. It looked like she was done with the bike, and she was now cleaning and detailing it. It was warm in the shop, and Inez had rolled up her sleeves and fanned herself with an old newspaper with greasy chain marks all over it.

Fine job, Seward thought as he watched her pull the bike down off the stand. If only she were a few years older and not in so fucking deep. He left that thought unfinished and chastised himself, he wasn’t that old yet, and if she made the first move,

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they were both consenting adults. Who was he to place limits on these things?

“I made a call.”

Inez looked up from her work. “I could almost forget why I was here.” She wiped her forehead with the back of her arm exposing yet another tattoo on the underside of bicep near her armpit: green lettering, which said, ‘All Natural Woman.’ “I can see why you like this work.”

Seward puzzled over this tattoo for a second. She had shaved pits, legs, and sculpted eyebrows, which made the tattoo seem out of place. Seward let it go with a sigh. Who was he to make assumptions about what an ‘All Natural Woman’ should look like? Just because the women he’d known who’d used that slogan didn’t shave, trim, or wax anything in his day, didn’t mean a new generation couldn’t adopt and redefine the slogan. Seward compared her tattoo to the movement he’d tried to start, and he could see that Inez’s generation had kept what they liked and discarded what they didn’t. A Bob Dylan song popped into Seward’s head that colored the room and his opinion of Inez in a deep shade of amber, which Seward thought to be lovely and made Inez that much more beautiful.

“It looks like the work suits you.” Lame, Seward thought, very lame. “I’m waiting for a phone call, but here’s what I need you to do.” Seward fell in to his role of helpful store manager who shows at-risk youth around the store, giving directions and orders. Giving directions calmed his nerves a little and allowed

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him to see Inez as labor instead of as a sexy tree-hugging damsel in distress. He told himself that was where their relationship needed to start and end: he was in charge and she would do what he said.

Within a few minutes, Seward’s van was loaded with several bikes that he needed to deliver today, along with Inez’s Big Dummy and the rest of her things. He’d tossed his Long Hall, along with some gear, into the van. Once a month, Seward would take a group of local Scouts on a bike-and-camp trip that started at the shop ended just north of Maple Grove. The ride took about six hours one way with some of the younger Scouts in tow, but everyone had a good time, and no one complained or asked “Are we there yet?” so Seward thought the experience blissful.

“Where are we going with all of these bikes?”

“We’re going to deliver them.”

“But I thought…”

Seward’s prepay phone rang twice. Seward held up his hand and walked a short distance down the alley before answering.

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Terminal Departure

by Joe Crubaugh reviewed by Essie Holton

I love when authors write series books. Especially anything Jason Bourne-esque or hard-boiled. I love it until I realize that, to-date, there is only one novel or that I’ve come to the end of the written, published books. I freely admit it: I get stuck on good series, read until there is no more to read, and then pine for a new installment, another fix.

Cleo Matts did this to me.

Cleo is a secret agent who opposes the clandestine operations of the US government. The book begins on a plane where Cleo is on a mission to keep a man alive. A man that the US government wants dead. When things begin to go wrong, Cleo finds himself saved by the watchers and his mission completely changed.

The watchers are alien life forces who abduct humans, but the humans have no recollection of the encounter when all is said and done. Cleo only knows that they have been abducted because he is familiar with the signs and symptoms. After the abduction and plane crash, Cleo teams up with movie star and scorned woman Julia McMichaels. From there, they are on a mission to save themselves and the world.

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The plot sounds a little silly after getting to the alien encounter part, but it works, I promise. I had forgotten that aliens were involved when I sat down to read Terminal Departure, and I was a little leery when I came to the abduction scene.

The story has a few plot holes, one of which seemed like it was going to be a big deal, but then didn’t materialize into anything later in the story. After the abduction and tragedy that the characters survived, Cleo and Julia were both seemingly invisible to other people for a short time. It wasn’t enough time to help them escape, but enough to cause some confusion. I’m not sure what the author was going for, but it could have turned into something neat.

I am always a fan of action, deceit, and conspiracy, and Cleo didn’t disappoint. He was mostly emotionally detached but able to feel emotions if he let his shield down. He realized this about himself and used it to his advantage. Sometimes these types of characters end up being complete sociopaths. Sometimes this works, but more often than not, it leaves the reader wanting more; we want a human, emotional connection.

As I write this, the details of the book and writing style aren’t fresh in my mind, but I think it is safe to say that there weren’t any glaring grammatical errors that made the book unreadable.

This I would surely have taken notice of.

Sometimes when you read a novel, chapter endings are cliff hangers, and other times they seem to end a portion of the story.

Terminal Departure seemed to do neither. While I was involved in

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the story, the chapter endings did nothing to pique my interest in reading the rest of the story. Luckily, I quickly became vested in the outcomes of the characters. Portions of the story didn’t end with the chapters, but there were no real cliff hangers. This was good for my sleeping habit since I could put the book down, go to sleep, and continue reading the next day.

The story ended with, not a cliff hanger, but an opening for another Cleo Matts novel, and I’ll be honest, I’ve already looked into it, and there aren’t anymore...yet. According to and email from Joe, he is working on the second novel as we speak.

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Forget the Past

by Claude Nougat reviewed by Essie Holton

In Forget the Past, a young, child genius turns seventeen and suffers burnout from the world that he knows. The once video game programmer leaves his home in search of his roots in Italy.

While meandering through the streets of an Italian city where his ancestors originated, Tony comes across a Circolo di Conversazione. Tony isn’t quite sure what he is expecting, but what he encounters changes his world forever.

Inside of the Circolo di Conversazione, he meets an odd group of people, thousands of people, milling about and talking loudly.

These people all claim to be members of the Bellomo family.

Tony’s ancestors. The family origin goes back 900 years. The leader of the family, Don Ugone, commands Tony to stay, allow them to use his “life energy”, and watch the plays that the family members put on.

These plays are not merely the family members acting out their stories; they somehow relive their experiences for the entire Circolo to see. All of the members then gather in another room and discuss the choices of that family member. The point of the Circolo, it seems, is talking about and understanding the turning

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points of each other’s lives.

Tony meets many people from his family, but of course, he doesn’t believe that they really are who they claim to be. He spends almost the entire book assuming that they are actors in an elaborate play.

Tony meets many family members while he is in the Circolo, and I’m not sure what purpose many of them serve. He simply watches play after play and is introduced to many different family members whose lives span hundreds of years.

I’m sure Tony was supposed to learn something about himself while in the Circolo, but I wasn’t very clear on what it was that he learned. There were a few ‘ah ha’ moments where you could see the light bulb go off in Tony’s mind, but most of the story was spent getting to know bits and pieces his family’s history.

The dialogue of the story was a bit overdone. Characters talked and then continued to explain what they meant. Authors need to learn to give their readers credit and allow them to come to their own conclusions, especially when the point is crystal clear. Another point on the dialogue: characters conversations didn’t seem to fit with the situation. In one instance, a character is sitting on a fishing boat when her lover enters the scene. He approaches her, and she doesn’t want anyone to know of their relationship. Instead of a short, terse conversation with the man, she engages him in a conversation about how they know the same people and where they are from. If I were in that situation, my mind wouldn’t be on similar acquaintances but on getting him

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to leave me alone.

The story lines of the different characters were often twisted and in-depth, and I was often left wondering about certain characters’ stories. I don’t feel I learned anything about the main character, but many bits and pieces of the family history. This makes me wonder what the second and third books in the trilogy are going to bring. Will what he learned about his family somehow help him in his struggle to find happiness and peace?

Will this new found knowledge prevent him from moving on?

Will new demons find him after uncovering so many old, hidden, family secrets?

The book was well written, and the premise was intriguing.

I do wish the story line had moved on a little faster, but we will have to wait and see what book two brings.

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The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin reviewed by Josh Johnson

N.K. Jemisin’s debut novel is a breath of fresh air in the fantasy genre. The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms tells the story of Yeine Darr, a woman mourning the loss (potentialy murder) of her mother. Yeine is summoned to the capital of the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, an enormous, magically-supported palace called Sky, and there she meets her grandfather, Dekarta, ruler of the Kingdoms, and learns of her status as one of three contenders for the inheritance of her grandfather’s title. Told through the broken and disjointed narrative lens of Yeine, Jemisin’s story blends elements of pastoral and epic fantasy with the intrigue and mystery of any good “who dunnit” story.

One of the best things about the book is the fractured structure of the narrative. While the content of the story is continually asking the reader who might be behind Yeine’s mother’s murder, and who, if anyone, she can trust, Yeine’s narrative voice is often superseded by another narrator, disembodied, but present. This narration, a mystery to both the reader and Yeine, parallels the mysteries of the story, and makes for a really fun read. It’s a bit like fumbling about in the dark for your glasses in the morning;

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you’ll find them eventually, but you might need to spend a bit of time knocking things over and getting frustrated before you do.

Given that this is Jemisin’s first foray into fantasy, and especially given her willingness to play around with point of view and narrative, I’m willing to overlook a lot of the complaints I’ve seen in other reviews. However, where Jemisin’s novel falls short is in the development of her world. She does a beautiful job of illuminating the mythology of the world and of giving us a clear sense of her characters — the gods in particular were really fantastically done — but, in a world where culture and land are of the utmost importance to many characters, especially Yeine, the development of the setting, both physical and cultural, is sadly lacking. This seems like it might be one place where she might have wanted to take a leaf from the traditional fantasy novel.

Although her dynamic push at the borders of the genre is wonderful and refreshing, one thing fantasy novels almost always have going for them is full explanation and description of place.

On the whole, I had a fun time reading this book. As you can see on the cover, this is the first of a trilogy, and I’m looking forward to reading the second installment, The Broken Kingdoms.

As for The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, I happily give it 4 out of 5 helpings of lasagna!

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Contributors Michael Burns is currently an English teacher, working at a remote location in Arizona. He has four ebooks available on Kindle: The Horn, Hot Planet, Summer of the Beast, and The First Miracle. He likes to experiment with different genres, and this is very challenging because it forces him to do lots of research.

Stasey Norstrom is a Managing Editor for eFiction. He is a writer, husband, and father to three beautiful children with one on the way. He has three published stories: The Golden Age, The Dreaming, and The Forgotten Hall Paul Clayton is the author of a three-book historical series on the Spanish Conquest of the Floridas ? Calling Crow, Flight of the Crow, and Calling Crow Nation (Putnam/Berkley), and a novel, Carl Melcher Goes to Vietnam (St. Martin’s Press), based on his own experiences. Carl Melcher Goes to Vietnam was a finalist at the Frankfurt eBook Awards, along with works by Joyce Carol Oates (Faithless) and David McCullough (John Adams). Paul’s latest novel, White Seed: The Untold Story of the Lost Colony of Roanoke was a semifinalist in the Amazon ABNA awards, a Readers Choice Bronze Medalist, an Honorable Mention at the San Francisco Book Festival, and a Finalist at the International

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Book Awards. Paul Clayton’s sci-fi and fantasy collection, The Blue World and Other Amazing Stories will be published in December of 2011.

Saul Tanpepper grew up in Upstate New York and has always been fascinated in the macabre and the arcane. Armed with a whacked out sense of humor and a PhD in molecular genetics, he now writes speculative fiction full time from his home in California›s Silicon Valley. His ebooks for teens and adults are available for all varieties of ereaders, computers, tablets and smart phones. For more information, and to find his titles, including free samples, please visit him on the web at http://www. tanpepperwrites.com or follow him at http://www.twitter.com/ saultanpepper.

Helen Hanson writes thrillers about desperate people with a high-tech bent. Hackers. The CIA. Industry titans. Guys on sailboats. Mobsters. Their personal maelstroms pit them against unrelenting forces willing to kill. Throughout the journey, they try to find some truth, a little humor, and their humanity — from either end of the trigger. She is a licensed private pilot with a ticket for single-engine aircraft. Born in fly-over country, Helen has lived on both coasts, near both borders, and at several locations in between. She lettered in tennis, worked as a machinist, and saw the Clash at the San Francisco Civic Auditorium sometime in the eighties. She currently lives amid the bricks of Texas with

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her husband, son, and a dog that composes music with squeaky toys. Her first novel, 3 LIES, is now available on iBooks, Kindle, Pubit, and Smashwords. Her second novel, DARK POOL, is due for release in 2011.

Kevin Fraleigh, author of Any Tomorrow: The Calling, draws on his experiences as an intelligence analyst, geographer, and technical writer to hone his indie fiction into an form that reflects his deep interest in religion, physics, psychology, and history. Kevin writes primarily in the horror-fantasy genre. Any Tomorrow: The Calling, his first indie eBook, is the cornerstone of a trilogy of eBooks and several short stories that feature the exploits of a reticent fellowship who must assume the mantle of hero in worlds that are all but lost to an ancient and terrible evil.

Kevin blogs about the self-publishing experience at http://anytomorrow.wordpress.com/. After retiring from the United States Air Force in 1996, Kevin earned his B.A. from the University of South Carolina and an M.S. in Technical Management from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. He lives with his wife, Malette, in Cocoa, Florida.

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