Edward Bryant's Sphere of Influence
Author: Charles Eugene Anderson; Jim Lemay; Connie Willis; Steve Rasnic Tem; Kevin J. Anderson; Gary Jonas; Lucy Taylor; Bruce Holland Rogers; Edward Bryant; Eneasz Brodski; Janis Ian; Denise E. Dora; Kent Johnson; Richard E. Friesen; Jamie Ferguson; Wayne Faust
Date: 2017-11-24 08:00:00+00:00
Description: Edward Bryant influenced a generation of readers and writers. Edward Bryant’s Sphere of Influence includes stories by Connie Willis, Steve Rasnic Tem, Kevin J. Anderson, Gary Jonas, Lucy Taylor, Bruce Holland Rogers, and many more! Over the years Ed Bryant influenced many writers. In this collection, you’ll find stories of dinosaurs roaming the Earth, Zombies rampaging a small town in Colorado, a Norse god in a rock band, and a family road trip to view the solar eclipse in Montana when something strange becomes visible in the darkness. Edward Bryant’s Sphere of Influence contains twenty-four s
Publisher: Amazon Digital Services

Edward Bryant’s

Sphere Of Influence

Edward Bryant

Steve Rasnic Tem

Eneasz Brodski

Kevin J Anderson

Janis Ian

Gary Jonas

Denise E Dora

Kent Johnson

Richard E Friesen

Jamie Ferguson

Wayne Faust

Mario Acevedo

Lucy Tayor

Bruce Holland Rogers

Gregory R Hyde

Robert Chansky

Trey R Barker

Stace Johnson

David Kilman

Marie DesJardin

Van Aaron Hughes

Rebecca Hodgkins

Connie Willis

Edited by Chuck Anderson

Edited by Jim LeMay

Contents

Prologue

And Come From Miles Around

Connie Willis

Dinosaur

Missive, Dinosaur

Steve Rasnic Tem

Of All Possible Worlds

Missive, Of All Possible Worlds

Eneasz Brodski

Mending Wounds

Missive, Mending Wounds

Gary Jonas

Dark Carbuncle

Missive, Dark Carbuncle

Kevin J Anderson & Janis Ian

The Egyptian

Missive, The Egyptian

Denise E Dora

A Pinch of Pink

Missive, A Pinch of Pink

Gregory R Hyde

Lost In Transit

Missive, Lost in Transit

Kent Johnson

The Safety of Fathers

Missive, The Safety Of Fathers

Trey R Barker

Chesterfield Gray

Missive, Chesterfield Gray

Stace Johnson

Gabriella

Missive, Gabriella

Richard E Friesen

Jack in the Warren - Novel Excerpt

Missive, Jack in the Warren

Jim LeMay

Sleeping Stones

Missive, Sleeping Stones

Jamie Ferguson

Red Moon

Missive, Red Moon

Chuck Anderson

The End Of Everything

Missive, The End Of Everything

Wayne Faust

Medusa Loves Minotaur

Missive, Medusa Loves Minotaur

Rebecca Hodgkins

The Long View

Missive, The Long View

Van Aaron Hughes

Toasterpocalypse

Missive, Toasterpocalypse

David A Kilman

Opportunity Lost

Missive, Opportunity Lost

Marie DesJardin

Hundred Ghost Soup - Novel Excerpt

Missive, Hundred Ghost Soup

Robert Chansky

Zou Gou

Missive, Zou Gou

Mario Acevedo

Blessed Be the Bound

Missive, Blessed Be the Bound

Lucy Taylor

Dinosaur

Missive, Dinosaur

Bruce Holland Rogers

A Sad Last Love at the Diner of the Damned

Missive, A Sad Last Love at the Diner of the Damned

Edward Bryant

Cover Art

Mad Cow Press

Prologue

Connie Willis

Pretty much everyone knows about the first time I met Ed Bryant--I've certainly told the story dozens of times, and so had Ed--, but it bears repeating here because in some ways it set the tone for our entire friendship. It was forty-one years ago in 1976, at the Southern Colorado Writer's Workshop which he'd founded several years before. I'd been invited to attend by a reporter who'd been interviewing my husband (who'd happened to mention I was a science-fiction writer.) I had an address, a day, and a time, and that was all. I'd never met or talked to any of the members.

The address turned out to be, somewhat alarmingly, a motel, and when I knocked on the door to the office, this guy with long hair and a Western-sheriff mustache opened it. "Is this where the writer's workshop meets?" I asked brightly.

"No," he said, and shut the door in my face. It wasn't exactly a promising beginning for a lifelong friendship, and who knows what would have happened if I'd taken no for an answer and driven back home? Luckily, I had the good sense to knock again, he let me in, showed me into the room where everyone was meeting, introduced me to them--and changed my life forever.

(By the way, he never gave me a plausible explanation for why he shut that door. Assorted reasons he came up with over the years included 1) he knew instantly we were going to be lifelong friends and would need a meet-cute story to tell fans at conventions, 2) he wanted to spare me the pain and humiliation of a career in writing by stopping me before I got started, and 3) he was just messing around, which is probably closest to the truth.)

In spite of (or maybe because of) that first meeting, we became fast friends and went on to do workshops and readings and signings and Worldcons together, to gossip and trade wisecracks and talk about urban legends, to emcee Milehicon and the Nebula Awards as a team, share Thanksgiving dinner, drive down to the Jack Williamson Lectureships (with Locus editor Charles N. Brown, who both of us wanted to tie to the roof of the car), appear together on a whole assortment of good, bad, and truly horrendous panels, and, on one memorable occasion, read aloud from each other's early and embarrassingly bad work. Ed read from a piece of fanfic I'd written in high school about George Maharis (of TV's Route 66) before there was such a thing as fanfic, and I read an early story Ed had had published in a men's magazine, a sort of Treasure of the Sierra Madre thing in which the hero got knocked out by the bad guys and awoke to find a Mexican beauty with heaving breasts leaning over him. "Who are you?" he asked, and she replied, "My name is Taco Gonzales."

The room erupted in laughter. "Why on earth did you name her that?" I asked.

"I was eighteen," Ed explained. "It was the only Spanish word I knew."

Throughout all our adventures, I marveled at what a wonderful writer--and critique--he was. His stories "Stone" and "giANTS" won Nebulas, but every one of them was of award-winning caliber (well, maybe not that Taco Gonzales thing), from "Shark" to "The Hibakusha Gallery" and "Particle Theory." And he wrote them almost effortlessly. At Milford, he, unlike the rest of us, would arrive without his story done, would run the workshop, troubleshoot, give insightful critiques, sit around with the rest of us and talk till all hours, and then, the night before his story was due, bang out a piece that was the best thing at the workshop. It was infuriating!

Only you couldn't really be mad at him because his stories were such a pleasure to read, and his critique of your story was such a revelation. I learned pretty much everything I know about writing from Ed, and I had a ton to learn! His critiques were detailed, incisive, and unsparingly honest, but he somehow managed to deliver them without making you mad and/or reducing you to tears.

Ed critiqued my work over a period of many years and during that time criticized pretty much every single aspect of my writing, from my style to my paragraph breaks. Especially my style. I remember one of the first things he ever said to me was that the voice in one of my stories was unbearably cutesy, like listening to Shirley Temple. (I was furious--how would you like to be accused of sounding like "The Good Ship Lollipop?"--but of course he was right.

The main problem with my stories was that I had a hard time telling the difference between being subtle and being obscure. It would seem to me that I'd put in all the necessary clues for the reader to figure it out, but then everyone would say, "I didn't understand the ending."

My usual response to his (and the rest of the workshop's) critiques was to rant all the way home in the car--"They're idiots! They're totally wrong! It was all right there. They were just too dumb to see it," and go to bed seething.

By the next day, I was saying, "You know, they may have been right about that one thing. I could fix that," and over the next couple of days to admit that they'd been right about another and another, till by the end of the week, I had made every change they suggested.

And he didn't just massively improve my writing. Ed took me under his wing as far as my career was concerned, too. He made me go to conventions, got me onto panels, introduced me to editors and publishers and everyone he knew. And he knew everyone, from old-guard writers like Jack Williamson, Robert Abernathy, and William Tenn, to Harlan Ellison and Robert Silverberg and his own cohorts in the up-and-coming Labor Day group--George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois and Howard Waldrop.

And he talked me up. I'm convinced my first Hugo nomination was entirely due to his enthusiastic promotion of the story. When my first short story collection was published, I dedicated it to him. "Why did you do that?" somebody asked, and my answer was, "You're kidding, right?"

A big part of his mentoring was the workshops he organized. He founded and ran both the Southern and Northern Colorado Writers' Workshops and attended them faithfully. He also took over the running of the week-long Milford workshops which Damon Knight and Kate Wilhelm had begun, and for the next five years he gathered an amazing group of writers--George R.R. Martin, Eva McKenna, Carol Emshwiller, James Patrick Kelly, John Kessel, David Skal, Simon Hawke, David Gerrold, Pamela Zoline, Kevin O'Donnell, Dan Simmons--together in scenic mountainy locations like Colorado Springs (where we all went to see the premiere of Star Wars together), Telluride (where George nearly fell off a cliff), Leadville (where Ed had to bring in oxygen for the flatlanders and taught everyone how to hang spoons from their noses), and Glenwood Springs (where we soaked in the hot springs every afternoon.) We also did a week's worth of nonstop writing, critiquing, and talking about everything from the future of science fiction to the future in general.

But it was far more than just "summer camp for writers," as somebody dubbed it. Ed brought us together, led fascinating conversations, challenged us, fostered our friendships, smoothed over our dustups, and forged us into a community that became a major influence on the science fiction field. In Ill Met by Moonlight, a movie version of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, Ed appeared as Peter Quince, and the role couldn't have been more appropriate: the leader of a motley band of laborers that he somehow singlehandedly manages to hammer into a troupe that produces art.

In between running all those workshops and writing, Ed taught Clarion West and many other writers' conferences, officiated at a bunch of weddings, moonlighted as a radio talk-show host, wrote poetry and screenplays and graphic novels and movie reviews, emceed Denvention II on roller skates, organized group readings, presided over a hilarious version of The Dating Game (with Howard Waldrop in a zoot suit as the winner), and founded, edited, and published Wormhole Books. He was a major force in the field, and even if he'd never written a word, he'd still have been important.

But he also produced an impressive body of work, from Cinnabar and Wyoming Sun to his Angie Black stories, "A Sad Last Love at the Dinner of the Damned," and a number of Wild Cards stories. His stories were full of razor-sharp insights about people and the world, and were often disturbingly prescient. "The 10:00 Report is Brought to You By" blurs the boundaries between reporting the news and making it, and seems more topical than ever, and in "Saurus Wrecks," his narrator says, "I'm glad I lived to see the world become a more primitive place," a line that sounds like it was tweeted this morning.

And when he wasn't writing--and workshopping and reviewing and roller-skating--he was helping dozens of writers--from Cynthia Felice, John Stith, and Catherine Montrose Cooke to Melanie Tem, John Kennedy, Sherri Tepper, John Dunning, Wil McCarthy--and me--to get their careers started and navigate the complicated, land-mine-strewn maze that is the science fiction field.

But much as I'm grateful that Ed was my mentor, I'm much more grateful that he was my friend. He was smart, charming, witty, and unbelievably thoughtful. At one of the first workshop meetings I attended, I mentioned that I loved Charles Williams' books but had had trouble finding them (this was well before abebooks and Amazon.) The next day he called asking me which ones I needed and how much I was willing to pay for them--he'd spent the entire day scouring used bookstores looking for them. And just last year he called, knowing how much I love romantic comedies, to tell me he'd found one he thought I'd love: Grabbers. he was right, I did. and I loved the fact that, with all the things he had to deal with in his life, he'd thought of me.

His last years were difficult and often harrowing as the complications from the diabetes he'd been diagnosed with at age eighteen began to take their toll on his heart, eyes, kidneys, and finances, and the Ed who had always helped all of us became an Ed we were all trying to figure out how to help. Alas, we weren't always successful in doing that, and it meant that everyone's attention was focused on problems and crises, and it was easy to forget the happy times we'd had before.

One of which was our trip to the solar eeclipse in 1979. Ed drove up with me, my husband, and my nine-year-old daughter Cordelia to Lewistown, Montana to see the event, and it was an uproarious trip on which Ed taught Cordelia to be a walrus by sticking soda straws in her nostrils, we stayed at a motel whose swimming pool had been blown up by the Mob, ate eclipseburgers, and nearly got Ed, with his long hair, killed by my insistence on stopping at a roadside diner frequented by big hairy truckers and Hell's Angels because they were supposed to have "the best pie in the West." They didn't, the looks we got were threatening, to say the least, and Ed never let me live the incident down.

Throughout the trip, Ed regaled us with tales of his childhood in Wheatland, Wyoming, wry comments on the eclipse precautions at the pre-eclipse information seminar, the most important of which was, "Don't look directly at the sun till the eclipse is total or you could lose your eyesight," and about the eyepatches we all had to wear over one eye so the eye would dilate and make it easier to see through the telescope during the eclipse. Because of those eyepatches, Ed christened it "the pirate eclipse" and stomped around saying "Arrrrgh!", imitating a parrot, and teaching Cordy to say, "Avast ye, mateys!" He also made friends with everyone in the town and reported to us on the conversations he had with them, including one which involved a couple who faithfully travelled to every eclipse, in spite of the wife's being totally blind.

"Do you think she was blind before they started watching eclipses?" Ed whispered to us, and mimicked the husband saying, "Honey, look at the sun and see if it's total yet," a remark which caused me to choke on my eclipse cola.

This summer's upcoming total eclipse will be visible in Ed's old hometown, Wheatland, and almost my first thought on hearing he was gone, was, "Oh, no, he won't be there for the eclipse. It won't be nearly as much fun without him," which is actually a pretty good epitaph for Ed. Everything--eclipses, workshops, parties, car trips, horror movies, writing--was more fun with Ed. Oh, my dear friend, what will I do without you?

I know one thing I'll do. This summer, when the sun goes black, Courtney, Cordelia, and I will drink a toast to you and say, "Wish you were here!"

Rest in peace, dear, funny, wonderful friend.

And Come From Miles Around

Connie Willis

Laynie had to go to the bathroom again. Meg guided her through the crowded café to the back. The bathroom was crowded, too. Meg waited in the hall with Laynie. On the wall above the telephone, someone had written in Magic Marker, "Eclipse or Bust," and drawn a crude sun, a circle with uneven lines radiating from it. Under that someone had scrawled in pencil, "It better not be cloudy. I came all the way from Houston."

When Meg came back to the table carrying the little girl, Rich and Paulos had both disappeared. Meg ordered Laynie another Coke and stared out the window, wondering how long it would take a two-year-old to overdose on sugar. Emergency situations required emergency measures, and seven hundred miles in a car with Laynie was an emergency situation. With Rich's colleague Paulos along, Laynie could hardly be allowed to indulge in her usual trip behavior, which was to hang over the backs of their seats, shouting "cow" at regular intervals and dropping her gum down their backs. This trip Meg had sat in the back seat with Laynie and a litter of sticker books and doll clothes, popping Cheerios in her mouth every time she asked how much farther it was to Tana.

And now here they were in Montana, and the men had gone God knows where, probably back to the Chamber of Commerce to ask more obscure questions about F-stops and smoked glass filters. They had already been there once. Meg had stood in the slushy snow outside the crowded office while Laynie ran around and around the town's resident Air Force missile, screaming like a wild thing. No one had paid any attention to her or to Meg. They'd clustered in little groups, reading over the free brochures and arguing about a line of miniscule clouds in the southwest.

They were clustered together on the streets, too. The locals were easy to spot. They were the only ones who weren't anxiously watching the sky for signs of gathering clouds. They were also the only ones not wearing T-shirts that said "Eclipse 79" in psychedelic orange and yellow.

The four men walking down the other side of the street were definitely not locals. They were all talking at once and gesturing wildly at the sky. Scientists, thought Meg. You can always tell scientists. Their pants are too short. These four all looked alike: black pants, short-sleeved shirts with the pocket crammed with pencils and metal clips and a calculator. Short sandy hair and black-rimmed glasses. Heads of four science departments somewhere, Meg thought. Scientificus Americanus in the flesh.

They were obviously talking about the weather, even threatening it, from the look of some of those gestures, though the sky, except for that line of clouds to the southwest, was clear as far as Meg could see. And yet oblivious to the weather, too, standing there in the twenty-degree cold in their shirt sleeves.

After a minute a fifth man joined them, looking dressed for an eclipse in Hawaii in a flower-splashed orange shirt. She would have thought the five of them were in the wrong place altogether if Rich's coat hadn't still been slung over the back of the booth. He was obviously oblivious to the weather, too.

The men came back. Rich had bought a T-shirt for Laynie. She refused to put it on. "I think I'd better take her back to the motel so she can have some kind of nap," Meg said. "She's about done in."

Rich nodded. "You didn't bring any masking tape, did you, Meg? Some guys over at the Chamber of Commerce said an eye patch makes it easier to see the corona at totality."

"Maybe one of the drug stores is open," Paulos said. "The seminars start at one. Surely we can find a drugstore open."

"What if we meet you at the seminar?" Rich said. He gave Meg the key to the motel room and took off again, remembering his coat this time. Meg struggled Laynie into her snow suit, paid the bill, and carried her back to the motel.

Two redheaded teenage boys were setting up an expensive-looking telescope in the parking lot of the motel. The "no vacancy" sign flashed on and off in the sunny afternoon. Laynie was already asleep against Meg's shoulder. She stopped to admire the telescope. The boys were from Arizona. "Do you realize how lucky we are?" one of them said. "I mean, how lucky?"

"It does look like we're going to have good weather," Meg said, shielding her eyes against the sun to look at the clouds in the southwest. They seemed to be dwindling.

"I don't mean the weather," the boy said, with an air of contempt for it Meg was sure he didn't feel, not when he'd come all the way from Arizona. "If we were on Jupiter, we wouldn't have this at all."

"No," Meg said, smiling, "I suppose we wouldn't."

"See, the sun is exactly four hundred times bigger than the moon and exactly four hundred times farther away. So they just fit. It doesn’t happen like that anyplace else in the whole universe probably!"

He was talking very loudly. Laynie shifted uneasily against Meg's shoulder. Her cheeks were flushed, a sure sign that she was worn out. Meg smiled at the boys and took Laynie into the room. She turned back the red chenille bedspread and laid Laynie on the blankets, then kicked off her shoes and lay down beside her.

The boys were still outside when she woke up, loudly telling the motel owner how lucky she was not to be living on Venus. The motel owner probably already knew how lucky she was. Meg was relatively sure she didn't usually get to use her "no vacancy" sign in February. She was positive she didn't usually get thirty-five dollars a room.

Meg had a long chenille-nubbled crease down her cheek from where she'd slept on the folded-back bedspread. She combed her hair, pulled on a sweater, and sat down on the bed beside Laynie. It was only one-thirty. The seminar was supposed to last two hours, followed by a film at three o'clock. There was no way Laynie could last through the whole thing. She might as well let her sleep.

Laynie was staring at her wide-eyed from the bed. "Tana?" she asked sleepily.

"Yes," Meg said. "Go back to sleep."

Laynie sat up. "Clips?" she asked, and crawled off the bed.

"Not yet. Would you like to go swing? Let's get your boots on."

The red-headed boys were gone from the parking lot. They'd probably gone to the seminar. The motel owner directed Meg and Laynie to a park two blocks off the main street. Meg walked slowly, letting Laynie dawdle over a puddle and poke at the piles of dirty snow with a stick she found.

On the way, Meg saw the five scientists again. She was relieved to see they were no longer running around in the freezing winter afternoon without coats. They were all in parkas now and had an assortment of hats, among them an enormous Stetson and a red plaid wool deerstalker with ear flaps.

They must have gotten cold, Meg thought. Or else it's protective coloration. Now they looked like everybody else. It didn't really matter what they wore, though. They could be wearing clown suits or have two heads for all anybody would notice. The locals only looked at your money, and everybody else was watching the sky.

They were still arguing fiercely about the weather, almost frantically, though Meg couldn't make out what they were saying. It sounded a little like a foreign language, though Meg couldn't be sure. Scientists talking to each other always sounded a a little like a foreign language.

There was no one in the park. Meg wiped a swing dry with the tail of her coat and set Layne gently going back and forth. She made a circuit of the park, avoiding puddles, and thinking it was an awfully small town to have two missiles. This one wasn't anything like the needle-shaped red, white, and blue one the Chamber of Commerce had. It was short and squat and a painfully nondescript pale khaki color. Army surplus. It had no markings to identify it, but along one side were long, scraggly marks that looked as if they had been scrawled in charcoal. Local graffiti, Meg thought, and moved closer.

It wasn't graffiti unless it had been put on with a blowtorch. The long row of hash marks had been burned onto the side of the missile. They were slightly uneven in length: Laynie's idea of writing. At the end of the line was a ragged round shape with more hash marks radiating from it. It reminded Meg of something, but she couldn't think what.

"Rocket," Laynie said.

"No, honey, it's a missile." Actually, it did look a little like a rocket.

"Rocket," Laynie repeated. She was standing behind Meg, in a puddle. Meg couldn’t' see the tops of her boots.

"Oh, Laynie," Meg said. "Your good boots!" She helped her out of the puddle.

"Boots!" Laynie wailed at the sight of them. "Wet!"

"Oh, honey," Meg said, and picked her up in her arms. Let's go change into your sneakers, okay? Your pretty red sneakers, okay?"

Laynie sniffed. "Wet."

"I know."

It seemed like a long way back to the motel. "Let's pretend we're in a rocket," Meg said to distract Laynie. "Where shall we go?"

"Tana," Laynie said.

"Montana?" Meg laughed. "Why?"

"See clips," Laynie said solemnly.

Meg stopped in the middle of the street and looked back at the park.

By the time Meg got Laynie into dry socks and the red sneakers, it was nearly three-thirty, which meant the questions should be over and the scheduled movie started. Laynie was very good in movies, no matter what they were about, so Meg decided to risk meeting Rich. Thank goodness it was a little town. The high school was only two blocks farther than the park, perched on the top of a hill. The Chamber of Commerce had recommended it as the best viewing site for tomorrow.

Meg had guessed wrong about the movie. They were still asking questions. Rich and Paulos were halfway down the auditorium and halfway into a row. Meg decided against trying to get to them and sat down in an empty seat almost at the back. She helped Laynie out of her coat and handed her a package of gum.

"Clips?" Laynie asked.

"Not yet," Meg said, "but there'll be a movie soon." I hope. She tried to tell from the questions being asked how near they were to being finished, but it was impossible to tell anything. The questions were a jumble about shadow bands, welder's glass, mylar film, Baily's beads. Meg had the feeling from the look on the face of the man leading the discussion that some of the questions had been asked before. He was probably a teacher, because he didn't know how to hold the microphone right. He was certainly a scientist. He had a calculator and five pencils in his shirt pocket. His pants came almost to the top of his socks.

Meg wondered idly where her five scientists were. She didn't see them in the crowd, though there were several Stetsons and one fluorescent orange deerstalker. And a million parkas. If Holubar were sponsoring the eclipse, Meg thought, this is what it would look like. Laynie stood on her seat and offered gum to the elderly couple behind her.

The science teacher finally stopped one of the red-headed boys in mid-question and started the movie. it was a National Geographic film of an eclipse out in the ocean somewhere. The scientist who did the narration was the spitting image of Meg's five. He even had on an orange-flowered Hawaiian shirt. He talked for fifteen minutes about the mechanics of eclipses while Laynie stared raptly at the screen, not even chewing her gum.

"The fact that solar eclipses occur at all," the narrator said, "is due to a coincidence unique in the solar system, and, as far as we know, unique in our whole celestial neighborhood. It's all due to the diameter of the moon, which is three thousand four hundred eighty kilometers, being point oh oh two five times the diameter of the sun, which is..." He was off again, working out chalky equations. Laynie loved it.

The gist of it, Meg gathered, was not that there were eclipses, since everything in the universe must sooner or later get in the way of everything else and ruin the view. The amazing coincidence part was that the sun and the moon were an exact geometric fit, so that instead of just darkness, there were the corona, the prominences, all the show that people came from miles around to see.

Laynie had to go to the bathroom. Meg trekked her down a locker-lined hall and nearly collided with her scientists. They brushed past her and out a side door onto the school's tennis courts. The courts were heaped with blackish snow, but they commanded an unbroken view of the sky.

Meg could see now what they had been arguing about before. The sky was still clear, with only a few delicate cirrus clouds above the dipping sun, and that threatening line of clouds to the southwest had disappeared. But there was a faint haze to the west that Meg recognized now as weather coming. A big front, too. It might be overcast by as early as tonight. So why weren't the four worried?

They did not look worried at all. The argument was coming near to being resolved, Meg thought, watching them through the door, because their expressions were nearly in agreement and their gesturing was on a smaller and less emphatic scale. In fact, Meg thought, they looked a little smug, like Rich and Paulos when they had found the mistake in the program and could now go full speed ahead without interference. She wondered what the weather report for tomorrow would be.

I don’t need to hear, she thought irrationally. I already know. She watched them through the door for a few more minutes and then took Laynie to the bathroom.

The questioning in the auditorium went on for almost another hour after the movie, during which time Laynie went through two more packs of gum and a roll of Lifesavers the old couple behind gave her. Meg decided they were saints sent down from heaven to help young mothers through the eclipse. If heaven wasn't too far to come, Meg thought idly while the man with the microphone held forth on the construction of a pinhole viewer from a shoebox, how far was too far to come?

Everyone who had been in the auditorium was in the café and then some. The special was something called an "eclipse burger," which turned out to be a hamburger with a fried egg and cheese on top. Laynie took the top bun off and refused to eat anything else. Rich and Paulos talked about the weather while Meg scraped egg and cheese off Laynie's hamburger. They hadn't noticed the haze yet.

"Do you realize how far some of these people have come?" Rich said. "That guy that was sitting next to us was from New York. He drove out."

"Yeah, if it's overcast tomorrow, there are going to be some mighty unhappy people," Paulos said.

"Ick," Laynie said, pointing to the yellow mess beside her hamburger.

Meg scraped the offending goo onto her own plate. "It seems to me," she said, "that if you had come far enough you would have some way of ensuring that the weather was clear." She put the top bun on the hamburger and handed it to Laynie. Rich and Paulos were looking at her as if she had lost her mind.

"You mean cloud-seeding or something?" Rich said finally.

"I just...exactly how far do you think people actually come to something like this?"

They looked at each other. "I don't know," Paulos said. "There are supposed to be some astronomers here from Italy."

"Are there five of them?" Meg said without thinking, and then stopped. They were looking at her again. "But they don't have to come, do they? I mean, I thought scientists could see everything they wanted to with the satellite equipment. The corona and all that, I mean," she finished weakly.

"Catch up," Laynie said.

Meg handed her the catsup bottle. She wouldn't be able to get the lid off and it would keep her occupied.

Rich was still frowning. In a minute he would ask, "What's the matter?" and she would say, "There are five scientists here who aren't from Italy," and then he would really think she was crazy. But he was frowning about something else.

"You know," he said thoughtfully, "somebody else was saying that same thing this afternoon, that with all the above-the-atmosphere equipment we've got now, there's really no reason for all the elaborate set-up every eclipse."

"Then why do they come all the way from Italy?" Meg persisted. She was not sure what she wanted him to say, perhaps that the distances people travelled were dwindling, that nobody came very far anymore just to see an eclipse.

Rich hesitated. "They just...I don't know."

"They come to see the show," Paulos said suddenly.

"Ick," Laynie said.

"They come for the same reason that the pilgrims went to Canterbury, that Teddy Roosevelt went to Yellowstone, that the astronauts went to the moon. To see the show."

"Well, but surely it's more than just that," Rich said. "Scientific curiosity and experimental research and--"

Paulos shook his head. "That's only protective coloration," he said.

Meg sucked in her breath.

"But there's still a lot of information that can't be gotten any other way," Rich said. "Look at..."

"Ick," Laynie said again. Meg could not see Laynie's plate under the catsup. She had apparently gotten the lid off quite easily.

After supper they went back to the motel. The men stood outside with the red-headed boys and debated the weather. The faint haze had become a light film obscuring Jupiter, though the moons could still be seen faintly through Paulos's telescope. Meg gave Laynie her bath and put her to bed. She washed out the catsup-stained T-shirt and mud-soaked socks and hung them over the shower curtain rod in the bathroom. Then she got ready for bed herself and flicked on the TV.

It was a Helena station. Helena was worried about early morning fog. They were recommending Lewistown and Grassrange. Apparently Helena hadn't noted the haze either. There was a guest meteorologist from Denver. He explained how the Russians had used cloud-seeding during the last eclipse in an attempt to obtain a view of it through dense cloud cover. Modern technology had not developed to a level of sophistication necessary for weather control due to complicated flow patterns, but plans were already being made for the eclipse in Hawaii so that hopefully they would be able not only to predict but guarantee good weather to the people who had travelled so far to see this wonder of nature. Meg turned off the TV and went to bed.

She woke up at six-thirty, frozen stiff. The door of the motel room was standing open. She yanked on her coat, pulled the covers up over Laynie, and went outside. It was just starting to get light. Rich and Paulos stood with their hands in their pockets, looking miserable. The red-headed boys had the back of their yellow hatchback open and were slinging sleeping bags and equipment into it. The sky was completely overcast.

"Where are they going?" Meg asked Rich.

"Helena." He sounded grim, which meant he was frantic with worry.

"But Helena's supposed to have fog."

"Fog might burn off. This..." He waved a hand at the sky. It was getting lighter by the minute. The clouds looked totally impenetrable. A major front. "What do you think, Paulos?"

"I think if we don't make up our minds within the next few minutes it'll be too late to make any difference. We've only got about two hours till it starts."

The red-headed boys came out with a last load. Two backpacks and the camera tripod. They threw them in the back of the car and slammed down the hatch. One of them had written "Eclipse Express" with his finger in the mud on the back window. Next to it he had drawn a sun. A circle with uneven lines radiating from it.

"I say Helena," Rich said.

"Great," Paulos said, and turned back to the motel.

"No," Meg said.

They all looked at her, even the red-headed boys. They will never forgive me if it's cloudy and they miss the eclipse, she thought. It's the last one in North America in this century, and they will never forgive me. But Helena has fog and we have...

"No," she said again. They were waiting for her to explain and to explain would be disastrous. "There's no need to go anywhere," she said clearly. "We'll be able to see the eclipse from here."

"How do you know that?" Rich asked.

"I know it." Her tone sounded convincing even to herself. The red-headed boys looked almost persuaded.

"How do you know it?" Paulos asked. "Women's intuition?"

She almost said, "There's no such thing and you know it," but the boys looked as if they might believe it. They were only eighteen. Emergency situations demand emergency measures. "Yes," she said. "Women's intuition. It's going to clear off in time to see the eclipse."

"All right," Rich said, "we stay." The boys looked at each other, nodded their heads, and started hauling their stuff back out of the car. Rich took Meg's arm and led her back toward the motel room. "Meet you for breakfast in fifteen minutes, Paulos," he called.

"Yeah," Paulos said, laughing. "That's one benefit of staying here. We get to eat."

Rich shut the door behind them. "Women's intuition," he said. "You know something, don't you?"
Meg looked at him steadily.

"You've seen something?"

Yes. Dust marks on a car. Two missiles in a town the size of a pinhole viewer. Five scientists who look so much like scientists they could have been copied out of a National Geographic film who aren't worried about this storm. A child's drawing of the sun. Laynie. Yes, I've seen lots of things. But I'm the only one. Who's going to notice five scientists in a town full of scientists? Who's going to notice that they're speaking some strange foreign language? Everybody's speaking science, and nothing's stranger than that. Who's going to notice anything? You're all looking at the sky. She kept silent.

"How on earth can you believe that soup out there is going to clear off by eight-thirty?"

"Clips?" Laynie said from her bed.

"Clips," Meg said firmly. "Let's get your clothes on so we can go eat breakfast."

They set up in front of the high school. Meg did not see the five scientists anywhere. It was not even possible to see the sun's disc through the gray blanket of clouds, though it was possible to get an image through the telescopes.

"We have contact," one of the red-headed boys said at 8:21, and there was some scattered applause.

"Sun?" Laynie asked.

"Behind the clouds," Rich said.

Everyone was going through the motions of setting up
telescopes, cameras, binoculars for projecting an image on the snow. Nobody looked at the sky. The elderly couple let Laynie look through a pinhole viewer made out of an oatmeal box, even though there was nothing to see. Meg walked Laynie around the outside of the high school and told her all about not looking at the sun unless she had her special glasses that Daddy had made for her on.

At 9:04 she found her scientists where they had been before, on the tennis courts around the other side of the building. They were setting up their equipment, most of which was short, fat, and the same faded khaki as the missile in the park. They were all talking animatedly at each other and nodding at the sky.

At 9:05 the clouds around the sun began to be pushed away in a ragged circle and the sun's disc to shine very thinly through. Meg made Laynie put her special glasses on.

At 9:17 the sun came out and everybody cheered. Meg walked Laynie back around to the front of the school where Rich had set the telescope up. Rich looked frantic, which meant he was hopeful. He and Paulos were wearing eyepatches made of Kleenex and masking tape.

It began to get dark in the west, a purple-blue darkness like a summer rainstorm. Meg looked through the fitted telescope at the last sliver of the sun, still shining too bright to look at in the now completely blue eastern half of the sky.

At 9:24 Paulos said, "She's a-coming." Meg picked Laynie up and started edging away from the men in the direction of the tennis courts. It began to get very dark. Laynie clung to Meg's neck and squeezed her eyes shut under the shielded glasses. Shadows rippled suddenly over Meg like a shudder. She looked up.

And was caught by the eclipse. There was a flash, like the captured light from a diamond, and then it was there, suspended in the sky. The sky was not totally dark--reflection from the snow. The science teacher had explained it yesterday in the auditorium. He had not explained how beautiful it would be. The sky was a dawn blue with pink shining from the retreating clouds like a coming sunrise. In the center of the fragile blue, the sun's corona flared out on all sides from behind the moon.

Meg pried Laynie's arms loose from around her neck and took her glasses off of her. "This is it, Laynie honey," she whispered. "Look at the clips."

Laynie turned around shyly, as if she were being introduced to someone. "Oh," she said in a tiny voice, and stuck her finger in her mouth. Her other hand she kept tight around Meg's neck.

"Twenty-nine, twenty-eight..." One of the red-headed boys was counting backwards. It could not possibly have been two minutes already. A fine line of light appeared at one side of the bluish circle.

"Thar she goes!" somebody said. Meg shoved Laynie's glasses back on her and looked down at the snow. The sun flared back into blindingness, and there was a tremendous roar of applause.

The red-headed boys pounded Meg on the back. "Boy, was that ever neat!" they kept saying. "Boy, are we ever glad we listened to you!"

Rich grinned at her. "You've set women's lib back a hundred years," he said, and squeezed her hand.

"Quite a show," Paulos said, rocking back contentedly on his heels, "quite a show."

"Oh," Meg said, and took off through the forest of tripods with Laynie still in her arms.

They were already gone, the five of them carrying their equipment down the hill. There was probably time to catch them before they made it to the park. But I didn't want to catch them, Meg thought. I just wanted to see what they thought of it, to see if they thought it was worth it, coming all this way. She could see them gesturing. Their gestures had taken on grandiose proportions. Meg decided it must have been.

"Layne had to go to the bathroom," Meg explained when they got back. The air had turned chilly. Meg put Laynie's hood up.

"Ten degree drop in temperature during the eclipse," Paulos said. "It looks like it's turning bad again, too." He got into the car. The even layer of clouds was pushing steadily back over the sun.

Meg settled Laynie in the back seat and then helped Rich get the camera tripod maneuvered into the trunk. Flakes of snow were beginning to fall. "You're not going to tell me, are you?" Rich said.

Meg looked at him. "Tell you what?"

He slammed the trunk shut. Meg got into the back seat with Laynie. Rich started the car.

"I sure would like to know what you did back there," Paulos said. "That was some weather predicting!"

"Um," Meg said. She was straining to see the park through the falling snow as they passed the side street she and Layne had walked up.

"Rocket," Laynie said. "Rocket. Tana. Clips."

"What, honey?" Rich asked.

Emergency situations demand emergency measures. Meg popped a Lifesaver into Laynie's mouth.

Connie Willis

Connie Willis is the best-selling Nebula- and Hugo-winning science-fiction author of Doomsday Book, To Say Nothing of the Dog, and the two-volume Blackout and All Clear. She has won an unprecedented total of seven Nebula Awards and eleven Hugos for her novels, which also include Passage, Bellwether, and Lincoln's Dreams, and for short stories such as "The Last of the Winnebagos," "Even the Queen," "Death on the Nile," and "All Seated on the Ground." She has been named to the Science Fiction Hall of Fame, and is a SFWA Grand Master of Science Fiction.

Her work ranges from laugh-out-loud funny to deadly serious and encompasses time travel, aliens, near-death experiences, fads, Christmas, the Titanic, Hollywood, and everything in between. Her most recent books are her short story collection, The Best of Connie Willis, and her romantic comedy about telepathy, Crosstalk. A collection of her Christmas stories, called A Lot Like Christmas, will be out in October of 2017, and she has a new story, "I Met a Stranger In an Antique Land," in the November/December 2016 issue of Asimov's.

Connie lives in Colorado with a very nice husband who collects antique sewing machines, an even nicer bulldog, and two cats who are the spawn of Satan. She loves screwball comedies, Shakespeare, Dorothy Parker, the television series Primeval, church choirs, chocolate, Fred Astaire, Mark Twain, and Andrew Lee Potts, not necessarily in that order.

Dinosaur

Steve Rasnic Tem

Where did the dinosaurs go? The children looked down at their desks. A change of climate, ice age, caterpillars eating their food, disease, mammals eating their eggs. Freddy Barnhill was thinking these answers but was too self-conscious to raise his hand. The teacher waited. But nobody’s really sure, Freddy thought. Nobody knows.

Sometimes he thought they might be lost somewhere. They couldn’t find their way. They couldn’t keep up with the others, the way the world was changing so. So they got left behind. They got abandoned.

Twenty years later, Freddy drove the fifty-nine miles between Meeker and Rangely twice each day thinking about his father and thinking about dinosaurs. Only occasionally were there changes in subject matter, although he would have expected both topics to be exhausted by now. People might call him obsessed; hell, people would call him crazy.

Along Colorado Highway 64, endless streams of yellow-blooming rabbit grass whipped by, each scrub-dotted washout and arroyo threatening to draw his eye up its channel and send him into the ditch. Almost as soon as he turned the pickup onto the road, he would start to see his father’s enormous hands pressing down at him from above the bar. He’d feel himself suddenly afraid of his father’s instability and scurry under the table to hide. Then he’d hear the sudden crash of his father’s huge head on the table as he passed out. An endless crash; his father’s head slammed the hard wood again and again the fifty-nine miles between Meeker and Rangely.

There seemed to be little life in the gulleys and low hills. Harsh land which had to be struggled with, which swallowed any failed attempts. Early settlers had named this land with their complaints: Devil’s Grave, Bitter Creek, Camp Misery, Bugtown, Poverty Gulch. Rotted houses around clumps of tumbleweed leaned from the hillsides like aged throats, their swollen walls collapsing. The broken fingers of ancient windmills reached toward an empty sky.

Once he reached Rangely, the sense of lifelessness was even more pronounced — grey, lunar sandstone in ridges and flatlands as far as the eye could see. Wind-blasted landscape alive with sagebrush, little else. The oil companies’ reservation: new and old riggings, abandoned shacks. His father had spent most of his adult life here, working for one outfit or another.

Mel Barnhill had originally been a cowboy. A drifter. Then when things had begun to change with the oil wells coming in, he’d changed, too. He’d been a mechanic, construction worker, jack-of-all-trades. Freddy remembered seeing him work on some of the early crude equipment, even some of the steam-operated earthmovers. Enormous brown hands working with rough-made wrenches. Smiling, singing—he always had been happy working with machinery. Freddy had helped him, sort of, as much as any very small boy might help his father in his work. But that time had passed. As had the life of the cowboy.

His father liked thinking of himself as an outlaw. “Don’t need no laws, no woman to tie me down. Like to do as I please.”

Freddy remembered following his father up the street after one of the man’s long drinking bouts. The swagger in the walk, he thought now, had been reminiscent of Butch Cassidy or professional killer Tom Horn, who used to hide out not far from there. Cattle were still being rustled at the time, and Freddy could recall more than once his father hinting that he had had a part in some of it. He’d wink at Freddy sometimes when he said this, but Freddy never could tell if that meant he was just joking, or that he really had done those things, and Freddy was supposed to be extra proud. The first time Freddy’d seen a John Wayne movie, he’d thought that was his father up on the screen. The walk was the same. After a time he began to wonder if his father practiced it.

Dramatic gestures seemed to be a lot of what the old-timers in the area were about. Gestures for a fading way of life. When he thought about it now, Freddy believed his father had known the life was rapidly becoming obsolete, the cowboy and rancher becoming extinct. It was the end of an era. Not long after his father’s time, they built that new power plant at Craig, and the old-timers suddenly didn’t know every face when they came into town. People had to lock their doors.

“Dumb cowboys! Stupid sodbusters!” Freddy’s father had been drunk, screaming hoarsely in a corral outside a Rangely bar. Freddy remembered the incident vaguely; he’d seen only part of it through the bar window. But every time he ran into one of his father’s old friends, it was recalled.

His father had been drinking with some of his cowboy friends; there’d been an argument. They’d accused Mel of turning his back on them, becoming a city boy, because he worked for the oil companies.

Little Freddy had shuddered behind the window. His father was dragging a cow out of the barn. Before anyone could do anything, he shot it. The big brown animal collapsed as if in slow motion, its head making a sick thud on the hard ground. One of the waitresses had held Freddy so tightly it scared him, but it had calmed him down.

This was the landscape Mel Barnhill had willed to his son. It provided the backdrop for most of Freddy’s dreams. And yet it was at the outskirts of Rangely that, every day, Freddy started thinking about dinosaurs.

Fourteen miles north of Rangely was the little town of Dinosaur. And twenty-seven miles west of there, just across the Utah border and above Jensen, was the big Dinosaur Quarry of the Dinosaur National Monument. One of the largest sources of dinosaur fossils in the world. Primitive land, or the way the earth might look after some catastrophe. Freddy didn’t go any more. Standing up there looking out over the canyons, where the Colorado Plateau had crashed up against the Uinta range, it was as if his whole life might disappear out there someday, pulled into the emptiness.

Over each street sign in the town of Dinosaur was a little red cutout of a stegosaurus. The streets had names like Brontosaurus, Pterodactyl, Tyrannosaurus Rex. The town looked old, almost as old as the surrounding land, with tar-paper shacks here and there and rough board houses. It used to be called Artesia before the Interior Department set up the park.

But most of the tourists went over to Utah, to Jensen and Vernal. Dinosaur was just a place people passed through on their way to somewhere else; there was no restaurant, not even a half-decent service station. Only a few hundred in population — there hadn’t been many people in the first place, and most of them had gone a long time ago. The red on the dinosaur cutouts looked a lot like rust.

Freddy worked in Rangely, just as his dad had, but he lived in Meeker. He liked Meeker, although most of the other men his age complained that there was nothing to do. It was a quiet town; there weren’t too many cowboys, and it lacked Rangely’s construction and oil workers. Freddy was relieved.

The pickup slid in gravel, and Freddy fought to right it. You had to be careful driving the roads out here; they lulled you, made you careless. The truck seemed so easy to drive, it had so much power, that you sometimes forgot how dangerous one slip might be. One of the drawbacks to advanced technology, and to evolution. It made you reckless; it became too easy to lose control over the power. And that power could leave you upside down off an embankment.

Again, his father’s enormous head crashed into the table. The glasses fell in a rain of glistening shards. His father’s shapeless mouth opened to expose rough, broken teeth.

Dinosaurs used to walk the hills here, but it had been different then. Freddy thought about that a lot, how things used to be so different. And how they might be different again, with new monsters walking the barren land: giant rats and scavenging rabbits, but maybe rabbits like no one’s ever seen before — long claws and hind legs strong enough to tear another animal apart. Just before the dinosaurs came, low-lying desert then, the early Jurassic Period. No animals. Great restless sand dunes towering seven hundred feet, snaking and drifting like primeval dreams. Fading, dying away in the distance.

The earliest home Freddy could remember was an old boardinghouse a few hundred yards from one of the early oil rigs. A whitewashed shack, really, several crate-like rooms strung together. He and his father had shared one. He couldn’t remember his mother, except as a gauzy presence, more like a ghost, something dead and not dead. He didn’t think she had ever lived with them in the rooming house, but he couldn’t be sure. It bothered him that he could remember so little about her — a hint of light, a smell, that was all. She had vanished. She left us. She left me, he corrected himself. His father had always told him that, but it was still hard to believe.

The land sank. An arctic sea reached in. Millions of years passed, and in the late Jurassic it all rose again. The dinosaurs were coming; the land was readying itself.

He sometimes wondered if he had ever known his mother at all. Maybe his memories were false. Maybe she had died when he was born. Maybe she’d gone away to die, her time done once she’d given him life.

The land just come from the sea was much more humid. Flat plains. Marshy. Great slow streams loaded with silt flowed out of the highlands to the west to feed the marshes and lakes. Dust floated down from the volcanoes beyond the highlands. Araucaria pines towered 150 feet above the forest floor, the tops of ginkgoes, tree ferns, and cycads below them. Giant bat-like pterosaurs flapped scaly wings against the sky, maintaining balance with their long, flat-tipped tails. Crocodiles sunned themselves by the marsh.

And yet he did remember his father complaining about her. How she never cleaned, never helped them at all. He held a mental image of his father throwing her out. Her screaming, crying, reaching. “I want my baby, my baby!” Freddy couldn’t be sure.

Apatosaurus raises its great head above the plants. Forty tons, plant-eater. Cold eyes. Its head comes crashing.

Freddy loved a woman in Rangely. Because of her he allowed himself to stay overnight there on Fridays. But it scared him, loving someone like that. She might leave. She might vanish. And he didn’t like waking up in Rangely; the first thing you saw were those barren white sandstone hills.

He loved her. He was sure of that. His love filled him, and formed one of the three anchors of his life, along with the memories of his father and the thoughts of dinosaurs. But lately something felt lacking. Some crisis, some drama. Loving her didn’t feel like quite enough.

He wasn’t sure why they’d never gotten married. The time had never seemed right for either of them, but after a time he realized that the time would never seem right. One time she was going to have his baby, but she miscarried. No one else had known about it. Wasn’t time for it, he supposed; its time had passed. He didn’t believe in God or heaven, but sometimes he wondered if the baby might be somewhere. Hiding from him. Or waiting for him.

It was the same all over. They had friends — lovers and married couples — and all of them seemed to be breaking up. Still loving each other, but unable to stay together.

Sometimes his drives from Meeker to Rangely were specifically to see Melinda, but he almost never thought about her during the trip.

He thought about his father, and dinosaurs.

Freddy looked out the side window of the pickup. Sagebrush flats, rising sandstone buttes, creek beds turned to sand. Old wrecks out in the fields. Before the oil men there had been cowboys, a few farmers. Before them, the outlaws hiding out. Before the outlaws, fur traders maneuvering through the canyons.

Before that, Indians trading along the Green and Yampa rivers. Before that, dinosaurs roaming the hot, wet lowlands.

Freddy had watched his father slowly become obsolete, running out of things he could do, running out of places to live. The drinking had grown steadily worse, his father had gone from job to job, they had moved from shack to shack...

His father’s great head, his enormous body falling, crashing into wood, Freddy scrambling to get out of the way of the rapidly descending bulk...

And then his father had left, vanished. Freddy had been seventeen. He had a vague memory of his father walking away, across the flat into dust-filled air. It had been early morning — Freddy had been trying to wake up, but couldn’t quite manage it, and had fallen back into the covers. He’d been abandoned.

Freddy did minor legal work for one of the oil companies. Easy assignments, dealing with the local landowners on rights-of-way, leasing, sometimes the complaints of an especially disgruntled employee. Most of the time he sat behind his desk in Rangely reading a book, or daydreaming. In the office he had a full library on dinosaurs and other mysteriously vanished races and species. Many days he saw no one, and he ate his lunch at his desk.

Today was Friday, and he would be staying over at Melinda’s place. Melinda taught school some distance from Rangely — ranchers’ kids, mostly — and Freddy often wondered why she didn’t live closer to her work. But she said she liked Rangely. Over the weekend they would be visiting her father’s grave on Douglas Mountain. Her father had faded after a long, consuming illness. She’d been at his bed most of that time, waiting for him to leave her, but still not quite believing it when he finally abandoned her, his eyes going away into grey.

Freddy felt a bit guilty, but he had to admit he looked forward to it. The wild horses they called “broomies” roamed Douglas Mountain, one of the last such herds in the west. A dry and rocky highland there, over 450 square miles. The herd had been there for more than a hundred years, beginning with horses which had wandered off from the farms and ranches and gone wild. They were beautiful to see, wild and alive. Melinda’s father used to catch a few, work with them. Then he’d died.

Melinda’s old Dodge was already at her house. Something was wrong; she usually came in an hour after him. He walked inside; she was standing at the old-fashioned sink, her back to him.

“They’re closing the school,” she said quietly, not bothering to turn around.

“Why?”

Now she turned, looking slightly surprised. “What do you mean why? It could have happened anytime; you know that. Enough of the ranchers have moved away. . . there aren’t enough to support it now. One of the ranchers bought it; I hear he’s going to turn it into a barn.”

He felt stupid. “When is all this supposed to happen?”

“End of the term. Three weeks.” She looked up at him. “I’ll be moving away, Fred. I’ve spent too much time here; I’ve exhausted all the possibilities. I. . . “ She looked at him sadly. “I can’t get what I need here anymore.”

He couldn’t meet her gaze. He walked around the kitchen slowly, looking at things. He knew it was a habit which infuriated her, but he couldn’t seem to help it.

“I... don’t want you to go,” he said finally. Then he tried to look at her directly, to show that he really meant what he was saying. He couldn’t quite manage it, but he thought he was at least close. Maybe she wouldn’t perceive any difference. “Don’t leave me,” he said in her general direction. “I love you.”

“I love you, too, Fred. I really do. But that isn’t enough these days, is it?”

“It should be, but it isn’t. I’m not sure why.”

“I don’t know either; things are changing. Everywhere.”

He held her for a time, but he knew it was simply a gesture. A last, not-so-dramatic gesture for some kind of end.

They went to see her father’s gravesite anyway. It was a rough haul over broken land, and try as he might Freddy found it impossible to think about Melinda, the loss of her. As much as he cared, he found himself again thinking of dinosaurs, imagining serpentine necks rising up over the hills. Again he recounted the ways they all might have died.

Some thought the mountain-forming upheavals at the close of Cretaceous time must have killed them off. But why weren’t the other animals destroyed? A favorite theory used to be that disease, a series of plagues, wiped them out. Or racial old-age. Some people claimed it was the wrath of God.

The most popular theory held that they were exterminated because the world became a colder place, maybe when a giant meteorite struck the earth, the resultant dust cloud obscuring the sun.

But no theory seemed quite adequate to explain such a complete, worldwide extinction.

Perhaps they had known it was their time. Perhaps something within their bodies or within their reptilian, primeval dream had told them that their era had come to an end. They had had no choice but to accept. The others had left them behind. He imagined them going off somewhere to die, their great bodies piling up. And the world had gone on without them.

His father’s massive head striking the floor, his great weight shaking little Freddy where he hid beneath the table. The large eyes rolling, the mouth loose and shapeless, groaning...

They went to her father’s gravesite holding hands, not saying anything. Douglas Mountain was beautiful, the broken land made to seem purposeful, aesthetically pleasing in its shape by means of the fields of grey-green sage. There was no one to disturb them; this was real back country. Tooley-wads, the old-timers called it.

The grave was well-kept; they had spent a good deal of time during their courtship on the mountain, and frequently they puttered around the grave and its monument. An old tree crooked its branches above the plain stone, and hanging from it were her dad’s stirrups, lariat, a few of his leather-working tools, and a branding iron from his first job as a hand. Like a small museum. Artifacts already ancient-seeming and near-forgotten.

The wind picked up and lifted Melinda’s sandy hair off her shoulders. “Sow coon,” she whispered, and laughed softly. “Sow coon” was cowboy talk for a bad storm. Freddy thought he’d heard a horse, several, whinnying and pawing at the dirt behind them. He looked nervously around and saw nothing but a grey dust cloud spinning up with the breeze. His father used to say that the “signs” were always here if you just knew how to read them. Nature’s secret messages. You could tell what was coming if you just knew what to look for. Freddy imagined his father out there in the dusk with the long lost horses, dinosaurs all, hiding, watching him.

“Where’s the broomies?” he asked her.

“Here somewhere. They’re a bit shy these days.”

Freddy shivered and pulled closer to her. He looked back over his shoulder. A small column of the dust was settling, but for a moment it had looked like a horse’s leg, bending, then slamming into the dirt. He could hear fiery air being forced through large nostrils. Ghost sounds, he thought. Then all was silent again, the air cleared, and Freddy could see for miles around. No dust, no disturbance of the slopes or barren, windswept flats to be seen. No life.

“I think they’re gone,” he said to her, staring out over the bare slopes. “My God, I think they’re all finally gone.”

She looked up at him, but did not reply.

“Love won’t save us,” he said.

Again the enormous head crashed into unconsciousness.

Hours later, Freddy was ordering another beer, staring at the sleeping cowboy at the table next to him. He hadn’t been inside a Rangely bar since his father had disappeared. He hadn’t been drunk in years.

The bar was lit by a few yellow lights. Cowboys and oil workers shifted in the dimness, each becoming the other, losing resolution. The darkness of the bar absorbed most of their vague individual shadows, but those Freddy could see seemed much too bulky. They shouted, almost howling, their mouths wide, cavernous, and it hurt his ears.

He found himself examining the tabletop. Ever more closely the more he drank. What he saw there, finally, scratched into the surface, seemed to be some sort of pictograph. Picture-writing. Kokopelli, the flute player. The Fremont Indians, what was it... AD. 1000? Freddy glanced up into the shadows, trying to find someone who might have carved it. He thought he saw a face darker than the others, a painted face, but then the area seemed to soot over again, two cowboys moving into the space. He fingered the carving gently...old, worn. Down around the Cub Creek area Freddy had seen a number of them. As teenagers, he and some of the guys used to camp out there, shooting at the pictures. He felt hot shame now, just thinking about it, and even at the time he had felt as if he’d done something dirty. The Fremonts had gone away around AD. 1150. Vanished into the hills. No one knew why.

“It was their time,” he whispered to no one. “Their hearts weren’t in it anymore.”

The shadows in the bar were moving, dancing up the walls. Horses thundering in the dark. Fremont Indians. The cowboys and oil workers seeming to dance with them. And behind them all, the awesome bulk of an ancient, thundering reptile, tilting, falling...

“Hey, boy, you look rode hard an’ put away wet.” A tall cowboy was slapping Freddy on the back. He blinked, and looked at him. The cowboy grinned back. “Buy you a drink?”

“Sure, sure,” Freddy said blearily. It was hard to keep the old fellow in focus.

The cowboy sat down. “Been huntin’ coyote up on the White River, thought I’d come into town an’ stay out with the dry cattle.” Freddy stared at him blankly. “Have a night on the town, don’t you know.” The cowboy looked around. “Been up too long, I reckon. Last night I was sufferin’ the mill tails o’Hell, boy, drunk too much I ‘aspect, and all the she stuff was just them old sisters... made me so swole had to pick a fight with one o’those riggers, just a youngun, put ‘em down till he hauled out callin’ me to the street. Beat ‘em fine, rimfired the kid, but Lord! Stove up today!” He looked at Freddy and winked.

“You... trap coyotes? You can make a living doing that?”

“Middlin’, for what she’s worth,” he said. “Hell, it’s a life.”

“A life... “ Freddy said sadly, guzzling the beer. “Not much left . . .”

“Now that’s a fact! Cobbled up way to live, but it was a livin’. After I’m gone won’t nobody know what happened, won’t nobody know how I lived!”

Freddy stared into the tobacco-stained teeth. The smile growing wider, expanding, growing lopsided, the rugged, enormous face falling, falling...

But it was Freddy’s face falling, crashing into the wooden tabletop.

Freddy woke up on Monday with the sun burning his face. He rubbed his dry skin, afraid to open his eyes, certain someone had just dragged him out of the Rangely bar and left him lying in the desert. Then the ground seemed to soften a bit beneath him, he opened one eye, and found himself in his own bed in Meeker, with all his clothes on. “How.. . “ he mumbled, then realized the old cowboy must have driven him home.

Freddy stumbled out of the bed and looked around the house, but the man was nowhere to be seen. Freddy’s pickup was parked in the front yard. The cowboy must have hitched back into Rangely. Or gone out into the mountains or the prairie, back into hiding. Vanishing. Dying.

He sat down on the edge of the bed and rubbed his neck. The bedtable clock said two. Hardly worth going into work now, but he supposed he should. He didn’t have any appointments today, so he doubted they had missed him.

The house seemed unusually quiet. A light breeze ruffled the curtains over the open window, and there were no sounds from outside. No car engines, no children playing. He felt vaguely agitated. A sudden ripple of anxiety washed over his upper body. The hair on the back of his neck prickled. Strange feeling.

His coal-black cat walked into the room. She stopped suddenly, turned her head, and stared at him. He saw her tensing, her back rising. She pinned him with her eyes, unmoving. He started to approach her, but she raced away with a sharp cry. Freddy couldn’t understand it. It was almost as if she hadn’t expected to see him.

The wind coming through the window seemed to rise, the temperature to drop, so that suddenly he was feeling sharp and cold gusts penetrating the room in an almost rhythmical pattern. He walked to the window to shut it, but stopped and stuck his head outside. The position was too awkward to see very much, but no matter how much he strained his head this way or that, he could see no one, hear no one. A few dogs moved quietly through the streets. Cars were parked, empty.

It took him only a few minutes to slap some water onto his face and get ready for work. He didn’t bother with a shower. He slid into the pickup, started the engine, and pulled out onto Meeker’s main street, waiting for the images of his father to come once again.

He stopped after two blocks. He got out of his truck.

Cars and trucks were parked awkwardly on both sides of the street, straddling alleys, parked in the wrong direction, pulled up on the curb, stopped too far out in the street. The engines had been turned off, the doors shut firmly, but it seemed as if the drivers hadn’t really cared where they left them. Maybe it hadn’t mattered where they had left them.

There was no one in sight. He walked around the main part of town; two dogs raced away when they saw him. The doors to the stores and cafes were wide open. Food still on the tables, but the grills and coffee pots had been turned off. Someone had left the radio on, but there was only static. On all channels. “Where are you hiding now?” he whispered softly.

Freddy ran out to the pickup and spun the wheels. He stopped, took a deep breath, then headed out toward Rangely. Off in the distance, a tall figure in battered hat and faded jeans was walking toward the mountains.

“Hey! Hey!” Freddy shouted, but the figure did not turn.

The wheels took the curves on edge, the arroyos drew him, the washouts beckoned him. He flashed on his broken body, twisted under the wreck down in one of the deeper gulleys, but still he pressed down on the accelerator, spinning the steering wheel.

But the receding figure was always too far away, and the road did not lead there.

“Hey! Cowboy!” Freddy shouted.

The cowboy did not turn, but continued to go away, to vanish.

He passed other vehicles abandoned at the side of the road. He saw no one on the hillsides but an occasional rabbit.

For the first time he could remember, the image of his father did not come to him.

Miles later — he had not kept track of the time — he stopped just within the city limits of Rangely, unable to drive on. A cold wind filled the streets with dust. There were no lights in the buildings, even with the overcast skies. A door banged repeatedly. At the periphery of his vision he was aware of the oil wells pumping on, unattended, unwatched.

He would not go to her house only to find her gone. He would not look at her things, the relics left behind.

It was well past dark by the time Freddy reached the top of Douglas Mountain. He had seen no human beings along the way. He hadn’t expected to.

Where did the dinosaurs go? the teacher asked again. Most of the standard answers were covered. The cute little girl in front of Freddy, the one he had such a desperate crush on, said that God had done it, and several in the class agreed. Freddy gave the answer about the plague of caterpillars. He liked caterpillars.

He stood above the old horse breaker’s grave. Her father’s grave. She wouldn’t have a grave. None of them would. There wouldn’t be anyone left to bury them. But maybe there’d be a quarry full of bones, and whatever might be there in the times ahead would dig them up and arrange them in display cases and dioramas.

The metal relics in the tree clanged together in the high wind. It was dark below, but Freddy thought he could see shadows moving there. Reflections of himself, maybe, inverse shadows. He was sure he could hear the wild horses thundering, the Fremont Indians calling to them, the trappers, the outlaws — or maybe that was his father’s face in the darkness? Maybe that’s where he went... all those years...

“I’m really the most ignorant of dinosaurs,” he whispered to the shadows. “We’re already extinct, and here I am talking to the dark.  Here I am, again the one they’ve left.”

He crouched down and leaned forward, straining his eyes.

Nothing.

“Don’t leave me behind!” he shouted. “Don’t abandon me!” He touched his head softly, then scratched at his cheeks. He had not heard an echo. “I love you . .. “he whispered, but he had lost the names.

The wind seemed to rise, colder, but then he knew it was a wind inside him, and he imagined it starting somewhere near the base of his spine, sweeping up over the intestines, the liver, the heart, picking up odd cells of flesh and bone as it went, taking old memories to the brain...

“Take me along,” he whispered.

And he felt his head beginning to fall, as if from a great height.  Pulling him somewhere.

Missive, Dinosaur

Steve Rasnic Tem

The workshopped version of “Dinosaur” was written during the fall of 1981 after Melanie, I, and our oldest son made a long road trip to northwest Colorado and the towns of Meeker and Rangely, stopping at the Dinosaur National Monument before continuing through Wyoming and finally ending at Yellowstone. That was over half a lifetime ago, when I could still handle driving long distances while making copious notes along the way. It was critiqued by the Northern Colorado workshop on October 17, 1981, at Darla Stewart’s house.

I’d wanted to workshop a science fiction story for some time. Most of my fiction, then and now, is usually marketed as horror. The workshop at the time included some great critics, but almost no one other than Ed was comfortable with horror. I was usually criticized for the “logic” in my stories—people wanted more of a “rationale” for what happened. Well, the logic of science fiction and the logic of horror tend to be very different things, with horror tending to embrace a wider variety of the unexplained and the unresolved. So horror doesn’t work for a lot of science fiction fans. Now, just how “logical” my story “Dinosaur” is may be debatable, but it concerns two themes which are generally lumped under science fiction: dinosaurs and extinction events.

The story got the best reaction I received during my ten years in the workshop (1978-1988). But the members did have some good suggestions for improving the story. For one, they suggested places where I could extend the imagery to emphasize that theme of extinction. They pointed out areas of stylistic awkwardness. And they highlighted spots where I was being a bit heavy-handed.

Ed loved the story and thought it my strongest yet. He zeroed in on where the chronology was confusing. The ending jarred him at first, but a second reading won him over. Then we talked about “echoes.” I came out of a background in poetry, and a lot of my early horror stories especially used repeated imagery, choruses, and even half-rhymes at key points to develop mood and strengthen emotion. But how much is too much? You learn through experience. Back then Ed had an unerring ear for that kind of thing and helped me make some judicious cuts.

Ed wanted to buy the story for an anthology he was supposed to edit called Entropy, but the contracts had been delayed. I held on to the story a couple of years for him, but unfortunately that anthology eventually fell through. But in the meantime I made improvements to the story, giving drafts to Melanie for review. She was always my best critic. We moved from our small house on Irving to our big house on Irving and we added two more kids to the family. I sold “Dinosaur” to Gardner Dozois for Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine in 1986, and it appeared in the May 1987 issue. Gardner and Jack Dann later reprinted it in their anthology Dinosaurs! And it was reprinted again in James Hemesath’s anthology Where Past Meets Present: Modern Colorado Short Stories. It’s been translated into several foreign languages and I included it in my 2013 collection Celestial Inventories.

Steve Rasnic Tem

Steve Rasnic Tem’s fiction has been compared to the work of Franz Kafka, Dino Buzzati, Ray Bradbury, and Raymond Carver, but to quote Joe R. Lansdale: "Steve Rasnic Tem is a school of writing unto himself." His 450 plus published pieces have garnered him the British Fantasy, World Fantasy, and Bram Stoker Awards.

How I met Ed? After I received my Masters in Creative Writing I still felt I didn't have all the skills I needed to write F&SF. I was still living in Ft. Collins at the time. I had heard of Ed, heard that he ran this wonderful workshop for F&SF writers, but I didn't know him, or anyone who knew him. So I found his address somewhere (I believe in Locus) and I sent him a letter basically begging him to let me into his workshop. He said yes, and I immediately workshopped one of the worst stories I've ever written. But they didn't kick me out, so I continued to drive down to Denver once a month to attend. After a few months, I met Melanie when she joined the workshop. We were married a little over a year later. Ed performed the ceremony.

Of All Possible Worlds

Eneasz Brodski

My heart plummeted to my sandals.

“Titus…” My throat tightened, strangling my words. “This isn’t what I was expecting… ”

The Ludus Matutinus trained and housed the Bestiarii gladiators, as well as the animals they slaughtered. In its stables, I gazed down at a wretched human form chained in a dusty cart. A stunted thing, barely four feet tall, with knobby joints and not a single hair upon him. His wrinkled skin was scrawled with tattooed lines, cutting him into odd segments. He was the furthest thing from a horned, six-legged bear I could imagine.

“You promised me a horned, six-legged bear,” I protested. I could see Titus’s face grow dark, and fear crawled up my spine. If I could make him laugh… “He’s ugly enough, but Gracus was really excited about that horn thing —”

Titus’s open hand struck below my temple. The pain wasn’t as bad as the humiliation, the knowledge that he could do what he wanted with me.

“You forget your place, Marad.” He spit out my foreign name. “There weren’t any giant bears. This barbarian wizard will do.”

He would not do. Gracus had charged me with procuring beasts for the games. All damn year I’d been waiting for that bear. The legion had returned with plenty of regular, boring animals, but the horned bear was to be the centerpiece. I’d promised Gracus a monster battle.

“I can’t pay for this,” I said, avoiding Titus’s eyes. Looking lower. He was clean-shaven, as befitted his station, and my own salt-and-pepper beard felt all the more damning in contrast. He stepped forward purposefully, one hand resting on his sword’s pommel, the other pressing flat against my chest. He pushed, following as I retreated, until I was up against the stable wall. His breath assaulted me, inches away.

“You’ll pay full price,” he rumbled.

“Guards!” My voice broke, the bastards were standing right there. They marched over but didn’t lift a hand to restrain him. It didn’t matter that Gracus paid them to protect me. In the weighing of Roman Centurion versus Jewish Slave, there was no contest.

Titus grinned and ran his hand down my chest, to my belt, and slipped his fingers into my money pouch. I turned my face aside, praying my bladder would hold. He fished out several denarii.

“I’ll be back for the rest.”

A moment later he was gone, and I was sliding to the floor, trembling. The so-called wizard in the cart wheezed out laughter. I glared at him. His mocking eyes met mine, a glimmer of madness flashing behind them.

“Go ahead and laugh,” I muttered. “You’ll be dead soon enough.”

I gave the diminutive barbarian to Balthar to put into one of his dwarf fights. I regretted it by the next morning. With his flattened head and hunched form, the savage looked more like a poor Scythian monkey than a human. He couldn’t be blamed for his insult any more than an animal could.

The festivities were midway through their first day. The morning’s beast shows were over, but I stayed at the Colosseum, waiting for the noon spectacle. I had a duty to watch the barbarian die, the way I watched each of my animals die. Someone should witness their passing, and mourn it. Someone should counterweigh those cheers.

When the tattooed form of the savage was thrust onto the arena floor, it was with two dozen other dwarves, all armed with tiny stilettos. Opposite them stood two gladiators, one armed with a spear and shield, the other with a massive battle-axe. It was to be a slaughter then.

“I am sorry,” I whispered toward the old barbarian. He couldn’t hear me, of course; this was for my benefit. I spoke these words to every animal I sent to its death. “You must die so that I may live. I don’t ask your forgiveness; this is the way of life. But know I wish this world was different.”

As the savage stumbled out from the overhang of the Colosseum’s walls and saw the open sky above him, his mouth curled up into a shit-eating grin. As the dwarves charged forward, he fell back, fingers tearing at his leathery skin. My eyes darted to the melee. The first gladiator stepped directly into the oncoming tide of dwarves, swinging his battle-axe double-handed. It sheared the head from the first small man, cleaved through the torso of a second, before embedding itself halfway through the ribcage of a third. The gladiator roared as he jerked the axe loose, splitting the small body like a log as it came free.

Darkness flickered at the edge of my vision. A shadow swooped through the air, movement where there should be none. I strained to look at it but there was nothing to focus on. An inexplicable presence descended to the savage’s side, and as it touched the sand, it finally resolved into a discrete thing with surfaces and heft.

Its body was that of an ox-sized crow, but bare of any feathers. Black skin stuck tightly to jutting bones. A jagged beak took up the entire face, its upper mandible curving down from the top of the skull. The wings consisted of long arms webbed to the body in the manner of bats. Cricket-like legs folded beneath it.

The Colosseum grew still. Even the gladiators gaped at this intruder. With a shout of glee, the barbarian wizard hopped on the monster’s back, throwing his arms around its neck. It leapt upward with a beating of its wings, a deafening squawk piercing the sky.

Bellowing a challenge, the first gladiator sprang forward and hurled his battle-axe overhand. It spun over the mass of dwarves, and crushed one monstrous wing at the shoulder joint. The beast screamed and spiraled to the ground. The impact threw the wizard from its back. Thick black liquid spilled from the wound, and the perfume of rotting corpses filled the air.

The monster was immediately back on its feet. It pounced, clawed wings flashing, and crashed into the unarmed warrior before he could react. He toppled backward, and sinking its talons into his stomach, it kicked out, disemboweling him. A roar of delight from the crowd. The second gladiator was already charging.

His spear skewered it, plunging between neck and shoulder, into the body. He withdrew the weapon as the monster reared up, screaming. A lunging thrust and the spear pierced up under its beak, into what would be the brain in any normal animal. Black oil rolled down the shaft, dropped in gooey clumps to the sand. The thing shuddered, then collapsed to the Colosseum floor.

The stadium erupted in cheers. I grabbed the nearest guard.

“Get that wizard!” I hissed. “Get him out of there right now. He mustn’t be harmed!”

Nearby I saw the Emperor stand, then point down at the monster’s corpse. A demanding motion. It was being retrieved for him. Its nightmarish essence seeped into the city’s air. I doubted he would be satisfied with only one such performance — my life depended on how fast I could get that wizard to the healers.

A decade earlier. Back in my home village, before the failed uprising, before I’d left my sick faith. Dozens of men around me, jostling, shouting. A stone gripped in my hand. A hole in the center of the crowd, twenty yards across, empty but for a single weeping man. We churned around him like a boiling sea, hurling abuse, hurling hatred. Stones lay about him.

Ehud. I had slept with him years ago. I had loved him for a while. I should have known he would be found out. A stone flew from the crowd and tore his ear open. It bled black.

He looked up, snot running down his face, eyes swollen. I knew he couldn’t see me through his tears, but his gaze seemed to catch mine. My chest constricted. It was too hot, too tight. Rabbi Tzuriel caught the look. He looked at me, then back at Ehud. Glanced at the rock held unthrown in my hand. Something troubled his eyes.

I stepped forward and flung my stone at Ehud. It caught him in the mouth, split his lip. Dark syrup poured from the gash, and now Ehud’s tears came clouded and oily. The sweet smell of decomposing bodies filled the air, his cries broke into crow-like squawks. I bent down, grabbed more stones, hurled them one after another, blindly.

And I was sitting up, in my quarters in Gracus’s estate, gasping for air. The sky outside was still dark. I threw aside my soaked sheets, leaned over, and vomited on the floor.

Somehow the dream was even worse, twisted like this — Ehud’s execution melding into the monster’s slaying. The sweet stink clung in my nostrils. I squeezed my eyes tight and let the sickness flow through me.

“The Emperor demands another monster,” I told the wizard that afternoon. It had taken me all day to find another barbarian slave who could speak his language. She worked as a scribe and had been educated by Roman teachers, yet she sat by his cot in reverence. His hip had been shattered in the fall.

Even with his face taut with pain, his lips still curled in contempt.

“He says you don’t have the stomach to gather the components he needs for the summoning,” the girl translated.

“Try me.”

A wry grin broke over her face. “The Reverend Elder is new to slavery,” she said. “He doesn’t realize how quickly the Romans warp us into mirrors of themselves.”

I did not appreciate being included in her sentiment.

I visited Aurelius that evening, at the Temple of Somnus. As Gracus’s Dispensator I received a small personal stipend, and if I was frugal I could visit Aurelius twice a month. Therefore I was very frugal.

It seemed the whole damn city was in the temple, everyone there pale and harried. By the time Aurelius was ready for me, I’d seen enough people pass through to fill half the Colosseum.

“Is it a holy day?” I asked him. Aurelius shook his head, his blonde curls bouncing lightly.

“Just a lot of supplicants today. Nightmares flooded the city last night.” He smiled at me and took my hand. “Don’t worry about it. How are you?”

I drew him close, ran my other hand through his hair.

“Better now.”

It didn’t last, though. The evening was marred by the lingering, cloying stench of the monster. After I finally spent myself inside Aurelius, I left sick with disgust. The entire city stank of that pitch blood.

I tossed in bed all night, my skin crawling with every breath. When the sky lightened, it came as a relief — I could give up on sleep and distract myself with work. I left for the apothecaria to buy the wizard’s components.

The air outside was thick; I had to push my way through it. The sun filtered down heavily, dulled to diffuse amber. Those on the streets shambled along, exhausted. The eyes I met were tired, half-lidded pools. Everyone labored to breathe the sticky atmosphere.

I pulled myself from one alchemist to the next, listing the vile components without apology. Everyone turned me away with revulsion. One man cursed me as he chased me out. As the shadows bled toward the horizon, I finally received a calculating look from a dark man with wet coals for eyes. He named a ridiculous sum, his lips barely moving. I accepted.

I had barely left the apothecary when a strained voice yelled my name.

“Marad!”

I turned, saw a slave of the Ludus barreling down the street. He waved for me desperately.

“Marad! Wait!” He almost collapsed at my feet, panting, but forced his words out regardless. “The animals. They’re loose. All. All of them.”

I left him in the dirt, running as fast as I could back to the Ludus, bowling past shouting pedestrians. Gasping minutes later, I rounded a final corner, and saw the crushed masonry where elephants had careened into a building. Carts lay strewn about in splinters. The screams of the injured choked the streets, and in the mouth of a nearby alley a tiger gnawed on a bloody arm. Oh God. This meant my death.

Could I risk going back for the coins I’d accumulated? It was a stupid thought. Of course not. I should have planned ahead, should have hidden something outside the city. Now I’d have to flee with only what I had on me. But if I could evade capture, then survive until I made my way to another city, I could have a life again. I’d heard there were places in the Empire where a literate, numerate slave would be accepted without questions.

I would never see Aurelius again. That hurt like a dagger. But it beat torture and execution. I turned to flee.

A hand clapped down on my shoulder. Titus’s rough, sneering voice. “Leaving so soon, Marad?” My heart stopped.

I sat up in my bed, gulping the air, heart pounding in my chest. Wet sheets tumbled to the floor. The sun had cleared the horizon, and filtered through a dull sky into diffuse amber. The air was thick, sluicing reluctantly down my throat. I groaned as I flopped back onto my cot. None of it had happened. I still had my life. I waited until my trembling subsided before getting to my feet.

The wizard began his ritual that night, chanting hateful, buzzing words that filled the Ludus into the early hours. His translator assisted him, burning incense, slathering him with wine and blood. My heart beat unnaturally fast in their presence, my skull itched behind my eyeballs. I didn’t ask what the stillborn was for.

They paused to rest several times, and on the third such occasion I broke my silent vigil. “How much longer?” I demanded, spurring a guttural exchange between the two slaves.

“Four days, maybe five,” the girl translated. “He’ll have to be taken to the Colosseum for the final casting, on the last day.”

Days? I had expected hours. That incessant chanting still echoed in my mind.

“Why so long?” I asked.

“God’s mind encompasses all things.” She answered me directly, without referring my question to the wizard. “We must work hard to get His attention.”

“This is your religion?”

She regarded me silently for a long time before answering.

“These are the broken shards of my religion. This is what remained after the Romans ground it against reality.”

Rumor from Jerusalem claimed that my former faith was splintering as well, but I wouldn’t miss it. I left them to their work.

The days kept growing heavier, the sky more oppressive. Its blue dome sank down onto the Earth, squeezing us beneath its weight. A faint scent of rancid honey coated every breath. In the Colosseum the cheers were forced; plaintive cries of defiance against a wilting world.

I slogged through the afternoon miasma, on my way to Somnus’s Temple. It had only been four days since the wizard had nearly escaped on his flying monster, but I had lived through ten. Six of them ended abruptly, in terror and disaster, and I found myself back in my bed, the day undone. It was a grinding existence. I wondered if I would receive some shock at the end of this day, and have to live it over from the beginning.

“Aurelius,” I greeted him, once I was at the temple. I couldn’t recall the trek through the sweltering streets. “You’re a priest of Somnus. How can I tell if I’m awake, or just in a vivid dream?”

“If you have to ask, you must be dreaming,” Aurelius assured me. “You’re dreaming right now.”

That wasn’t the answer I had expected, and doubt crawled over my skin. I needed some proof. “How can I tell? How would I know, if you weren’t here to tell me?”

“Marad, all of existence is a dream. Dreams are the only things of substance. Wakefulness is the illusion.”

Of course. What had I expected from an adept of the god of sleep? I bit back disappointment.

“Ah. Well, thank you.” I paused. “Aurelius, how long has it been since I last came to see you?”

Aurelius raised one eyebrow, so alluring in pose he looked like he’d been carved from stone. A spark of desire flared, the faintest stirring in my groin, in rebellion against the constant smothering gloam. “I don’t keep track,” he replied, “but probably too long.”

That’s actually not what I had meant, but if I could escape into him for an hour, I was more than willing.

Later, lying in each other’s arms, discussing our past lovers, I felt Aurelius suddenly tense. He pulled away and locked his gaze to mine. His eyes were wide with fear.

“Marad, no. Stop. You’re waking up.”

“What are you talking about?” I looked around the dim cell, confused. Nothing had changed.

“Oh gods. I told you you’re dreaming. The world is in your mind. When you wake it’ll cease to exist. I’ll die. Please. I don’t want to die.” His voice trembled. I took his shaking hands in my own and noticed he was less substantial somehow. Less there. Panic ran down my spine.

“How? Tell me what to do!”

“I don’t know. Try, hard. Sleep as long as you can. You’re killing us all.”

“Aurelius? Am I supposed to never wake up? Never see the real world again? I’ll die. I’ll starve.”

“Then you never should have dreamed me to life in the first place! Don’t go, oh gods, please!” He was blubbering now. He curled his head down into my chest, terror contorting his body. The world grew thin, everything began to fade. “I don’t want to die!”

I held him tight as he disintegrated, horror gripping me. What could I do? I couldn’t sleep forever. I had no choice.

“I am sorry,” I whispered into his hair, now pale platinum. “You must die so that I may live. Please know I wish this world was different.”

My eyes snapped open. The night was cold, the stars unimaginably distant through my room’s slit window, and I was alone. I shivered under my blanket.

As the sun rose, I hurried to the Temple of Somnus. A porter bumped into a solider as I walked, and the large legionnaire lashed out, smashing the man to the ground. Nearby, haggles over prices turned into shouting matches, voices rising to scream obscenities. The entire city teetered, dipping in and out of violent outbursts. Every nerve had been frayed down to its raw, bleeding quick.

At the temple I received glares of hatred when I asked if Aurelius was in. Of course he was in, where would he go? Was he safe? Everyone was safe; was I implying the temple couldn’t care for its own? All right, but could someone make sure he existed? What kind of fucking fool question was that?

Finally someone was sent to check. Yes, Aurelius was fine, he did actually exist, and could I kindly fuck off? I turned away, lightheaded. Good, everything was good. I even caught a distant glimpse of him as I left. It had been another dream.

This was the final day of the festival. Today at noon, the wizard would summon his monster. The arena would be roofed with netting, and the fight should last no less than half an hour. Every luminary of the Empire would be there.

Back in my writing room, I looked over the day’s schedule, noting which animals were to die, calculating how much replacements would cost. The final day was always the most extravagant.

The sound of heavy footsteps behind me. I turned to face them, but a hand on my shoulder shoved me away, pushed me against the desk. I felt a thick body press into me from behind.

“I’ve come for the rest of my payment,” Titus growled. My entire body tightened. His stench made it hard to breathe. “The wizard is a hit. I hope you’ve been keeping my cut safe for me.”

My fingers grew cold. He wouldn’t care that I didn’t get any extra money for a popular fight, and no matter what I offered him, I was sure it wouldn’t be enough. “I can’t,” I croaked. “Gracus only gives me so much. If I give you more —”

Titus’s hand shifted to grab my throat. He kept me pinned against the desk with his hips. I felt a firmness rising from his crotch.

“Did you just tell me ‘no’?” he whispered, his lips brushing my ear.

His word against mine, a citizen versus a slave. Keeping as still as possible, I grasped for the money pouch at my belt, overturned it on the desktop.

“Take what you want.” My voice came high and strained.

“Like you could stop me.” He held me down across the desk, pushed my face into the wood. He pulled up my tunic. I squeezed my eyes shut and grabbed the edge of the desk. Not today, not again. I heard him spit.

I gasped at the first thrust, then bit down on the pain. More than anything, I didn’t want to cry out. It would draw the guards, and I couldn’t take the burning shame of them watching from the door as Titus used my body. Couldn’t take their fucking pity on top of everything else. A whimper slipped from my lips with the next thrust, and I wanted to stab my lungs to silence them. It would be over soon.

I found I was squeezing the handle of my thin desk knife. It was small, but sharp enough to repair worn quill nibs with the slightest touch. I gripped it until my knuckles turned white, and as another small cry forced its way from my mouth, I heard in it an echo of the monster’s scream. The stench of decay filled my nostrils again, gagging me. I convulsed, and when Titus yanked my hair, I lifted my shoulder and swung my fist back, flailing desperately behind me. Warmth spurted over my hand, so welcome on my freezing flesh. I heard a choke, Titus came free of me, his pressure pulling away. I looked back.

A face caught between shock and confusion. A puncture in his neck drained his life down his chest in a bright red river. He stared at me, mouth moving but no words coming out. A staggering step back, and then he crashed to the floor. He lay still in widening crimson.

This had to be a dream.

Above the Colosseum, the winged monster shrieked and swooped. I watched from the tunnel entrance. I hadn’t woken up yet. I kept expecting to wake up. A gladiator’s throat erupted into a red geyser, the beast leapt back into the air.

I had drawn the curtains of the writing room, then chained and locked the door. Changed my clothes, taken every coin in the building as I left. I would run tonight, if I hadn’t woken up, if this was real. I would be missed too soon if I left before the grand finale. I fingered the desk knife under my belt. It was my favorite possession now.

The wizard’s translator stood beside me in the tunnel mouth, watching her elder’s masterpiece perform. Thick ink dripped from the monster’s wounds as it soared through the air. And… it wasn’t falling right. It slanted and curved about, sliding on surfaces unseen and immaterial. It fell into disquieting patterns, forming orderly lines on the sand. Unease spread over me. The lines shifted at the edges of my sight, but when I looked to them they hadn’t changed. Slowly a black sigil came into existence, carving away the world it was engraved upon. At each vertex lay a dead gladiator, blood spilling into the sigil’s center.

The air over the symbol trembled. The thin shell of substantiality that gave weight to our world cracked. From within the hidden depths between things, a force of pure Prima Materia reached out. Tendrils of formless void spilled from the confines of the sigil, caressed the walls of the arena, and all they touched dissolved into nothing. A far section crumbled into a landslide of broken masonry and broken bodies.

The Colosseum erupted into bedlam. The free men and women of the Empire routed for the exits, trampling the weak underfoot. I stood, watching. It felt like looking into Titus’s eyes as he died, the same leap of joy in my chest. This well-deserved decimation would hide my disappearance when I fled tonight. I smiled as the screaming crowd rioted.

Except the antithetical force flowing from the sigil looked to be overflowing the bounds of three-dimensionality itself. It billowed out, an infinite hunger that would swallow everything and continue outward still. This was no beast. This was universal annihilation. Fear gripped my guts.

“The sleeper awakens,” murmured the barbarian girl beside me.

“When… when does it stop?” I stammered.

“Soon. Our reality ends when God awakes and shakes off this dream, chases the nightmare of this world from His mind.”

A jolt of realization. Finally comprehension, and suddenly I couldn’t feel anything but claws of panic piercing my body. I had done this. I dashed into the tunnels, sprinting for the chamber beneath the arena’s center, directly below the heart of the sigil. The wizard’s final summoning room.

The halls leading to the room were a charnel house of dismembered corpses and loose viscera. I couldn’t imagine what force had done this. I grabbed a spear from the body of a guard that looked to have been turned inside out, and bolted past a splintered door.

The wizard inside hung in the air, suspended by nothing. His skin had split along every line that had been tattooed onto him, turning him into a patchwork of flesh. I didn’t hesitate, simply charged and thrust my spear straight through his chest. It burst from his back, and he sagged to the floor. The ground shook as another section of the Colosseum collapsed somewhere above us. Screams continued unabated.

“You’re too late,” called the young voice behind me. I turned to see the barbarian translator slowly approaching. “It is time for God to rejoin His world. The real world.”

I felt the terror of the Aurelius from my dream, the one who didn’t want to be extinguished. Everything was ending.

“Why?” I demanded. I looked back to the wizard sprawled on the ground, spear jutting from his chest. “This world has existed for eons. We could have eons more if you let him sleep!”

“This world is broken,” she replied. “The root of all interaction is violence. The only law is the use of force. You try to hide it under a veneer of justifications and proclamations, but even civilization is just the most powerful deciding what violence to inflict.”

She stood beside me now as I looked down at the wizard. There was something about the lines of split skin on his body that warped my vision. I followed one with my eyes and it ran concave, but when I looked at it in whole it presented as convex.

“Every comfort and laugh is bought with the pain of others. Every meal is born of the flesh or the toil of the vulnerable. This world must end. May the next dream be less of a horror.”

The red lines in the dead barbarian’s skin came together to create an eldritch scrawl, and I realized they mirrored the sigil above us. They pulsed with a malevolent beat. I pulled my knife from my belt and crouched over the wizard.

“Fuck your theology,” I spoke. “I want to live.” I pierced the wizard’s skin where two lines met and slashed upward, deforming the sigil. Something in the substance surrounding us shivered.

“No!”

The barbarian translator tackled me, smashing me to the ground. Pain spiked through my rectum as I landed. An elbow dug into my eye, fingers clawed at my hand gripping the knife. I heaved my legs up wildly.

It was just enough to throw her off balance, and the elbow slipped from my face. I surged upright, or tried to — the crown of my head connected with something hard and I felt a crunch as the girl’s nose broke and spurted blood into my eyes. I yanked my head back, my skull blossomed in agony as it cracked against the stone floor. We were both worthless in combat, but her fingers had come loose when her nose had broken, and I at least had some idea what to do with sharpened metal. I jabbed wildly into her side, over and over, frantic and blind. Somewhere after the eighth puncture she slid from me. I rolled over, wiped blood from my eyes, lunged back to the wizard’s body. I slashed wildly at the red sigil etched into his flesh, breaking that blasphemous sign. The light in the room bent bizarrely, the darkness wavering. Slowly the solidity of the world began to return. The ground ceased its shaking.

To my left the girl hacked wet coughs.

“Only delayed… ” she gasped. “God cannot sleep forever. Why prolong this hateful… hateful… ”

I pulled away from the wizard’s flayed corpse, put my back to a wall, and slipped the knife back into my belt with shaking hands.

“We will find a way. With the right knowledge and magic, we can leave His mind.” My words rang hollow in my ears.

She gurgled. I watched the young girl I’d murdered twitch, and bitterness twisted my face into a grimace. She wasn’t wrong. The final arbiter was violence. How else could a physical world work? But I didn’t want to die. I crawled to her side, took her hand, and I did the only thing I could do.

“I am sorry,” I recited. “You had to die so that I may live. I don’t ask your forgiveness; this is the way of life. But know I wish this world was different.”

Missive, Of All Possible Worlds

Eneasz Brodski

Ed critiqued this story for me, as part of the NCWW group, in early 2015. It ended up not needing much revision, the only real piece of advice he gave me was to make sure my tone in the first section matched the rest of the story. I started out with my protagonist being far more confrontational that would be healthy for a slave talking to a superior, and he helped me to fix that. :) He mentioned that this story "doesn't make me feel good about humanity. And that's OK." with a smile and a twinkle in his eye. On the manuscript he returned to me he wrote "Bravara Writing!", which I will never forget.

Eneasz Brodski

Eneasz Brodski lives just outside of Denver. When he’s not at his day job, or writing, he is producing a biweekly podcast of rationalist fiction, at www.hpmorpodcast.com. He blogs at www.DeathIsBadBlog.com.

Mending Wounds

Gary Jonas

She didn't mean to do it. Not really. Couldn't they understand that? Lucinda felt the tears welling up; they threatened to overflow, but she kept them in check. She was thirteen and as of now, on her own; they wouldn't take her back after what she'd done.

She ran through the veldt, hoping the pursuit would give up before she reached Shadow Wood. In places, the shrubs grew high enough to offer cover. She was frightened, confused. The dark twisted forest lay ahead. She slowed her pace, stopped. Shadow Wood was haunted. She almost turned back, preferring to face her death at the hands of the town council. Shadow Wood held the promise of pain and perhaps a death far worse than what the people of Cardin could even imagine. Weren't there bolons and wild jereds and other animals in the forest?

Voices at first distant, grew more distinct. Closer. They were catching up. Lucinda turned back for a moment, but she knew that even a chance at life was better than certain death. She entered Shadow Wood.

The forest was aptly named. Shadows threw themselves across the ground. An occasional beam of light penetrated the ceiling of leaves, but these weren't welcome. Lucinda wished the darkness was absolute--at least then the movements around her wouldn't be noticeable.

Her ears strained. Was that a twig cracking underfoot? Had they followed her into the woods? No, even with her father leading the pursuit, they wouldn't dare enter Shadow Wood.

Another crack. A shuffle as if through a pile of dried leaves. Lucinda turned full circle. She wanted to run back home. But she didn't have a home. Not any more.

Crouching, Lucinda scanned the path ahead. She wished she had a lantern or a torch. Then something stepped out of the trees onto the path.

"A bit past your bedtime, isn't it?" the figure said.

From the voice, Lucinda assumed it was an old man. She knew she had to respect her elders. No. She was free of all that. Part of her regretted that. It had been comfortable. She'd been happy. Why did she have to be different?

"You didn't let them cut out your tongue, did you?"

"Who are you?" Lucinda asked.

"That's more like it. Step forth, girl."

Lucinda tried to resist, but something about the man demanded her compliance. She rose, but held her ground. "Leave me alone! I'll scream."

"I'd rather you didn't; loud noises are irritating. But if it'll make you feel better, go ahead." He inserted his index fingers into his ears.

He looked ridiculous and Lucinda almost laughed. He didn't seem half so scary now. And yet there was a feeling of power about him. The air crackled with intensity and she felt a bond forming between the old man and herself. It seemed as if a voice were whispering assurances in her ear.

Lucinda shook her head, trying to chase away the voice on the wind, but it was within her mind. "Wizard," she said. "What do you want of me?"

He didn't answer, just stood with his fingers in his ears.

"I know you can hear me."

"Are you going to scream?" he asked, his voice louder than necessary.

"No." She felt more at ease now. Safe. That in itself caused her alarm. She had to remain alert to possible deception.

The old man unplugged his ears and grinned as he stepped into the light where she could see him better. "A wizard would be a wise old man. I grant you the old, but there are many who would disagree with the wise part. I'm here to provide you with an education and a home."

"You don't sound too happy about it."

He shrugged. "We all must bow to greater needs than our own. Shall we go home?"

"I have no home."

"Very well. Shall we go to my home? You can stay there as long as you wish, provided you're learning your art. And no, you won't pay for my teachings with sex. I may be a dirty old man, but I have a few scruples left and the teacher/student bond is more important than momentary gratification of a physical urge."

Lucinda caught the gist of his message and felt more at ease. "I'm hungry," she said.

"Then let's go eat."

The old man's cabin was typical for a wizard. The outside seemed small and rundown, but the inside was enormous with many rooms. He told her his place was tucked between the dimensional veils, and she'd nodded knowingly, though she hadn't the slightest idea what he was talking about. Large as the place was, it was cluttered. The front room, where they spent much of their time, was stuffed with old dusty furniture--chairs, tables, a desk, bookshelves. And everywhere she looked were knickknacks, doilies, pictures, books, vials, beakers of noxious fluids. One shelf was devoted to cans labeled such things as crushed lizard testicles, roasted bat wings, sliced frog eyes and stick cinnamon.

Piles of dirty clothes dotted the floor and surrounding the mounds were stacks of papyrus and odds and ends. "Your first task," he said, "is to clean this place up."

"Is that what you plan to teach me? How to be a proper kiena?"

"I'm going to teach you to use your magic to help instead of harm, Lucinda. But first we need some room to move around in." He sniffed the air. "And I don't suppose it would hurt if I burned some incense."

The first lesson was simple. "Slap yourself on the face," the old man said.

Lucinda looked at him like he was crazy.

"Slap yourself," he said again.

"Why don't you slap yourself?"

"Because I, like you, passed lesson number one: don't listen to everything everyone says."

Lucinda stayed with the old man for several days before she learned his name. Almegnon. When he'd told her, he seemed to expect a reaction from her--as if he were famous or something, but she'd never heard of him. He shrugged his disappointment aside.

Soon, Almegnon changed his tactics. He pulled out a small knife and ran the blade along his thumb, slicing it open. Blood spilled on the floor. He held his hand out toward her. "Heal me," he said.

"I can't!"

"You were able to do great harm back in Cardin."

"What do you know about that?"

"I know about Shen," he said.

Shame flooded through her and poured out through her eyes and down her cheeks. "I didn't mean to hurt him! I tried to help, but I couldn't. I'm sorry. I can't help people; I can only hurt them."

"Yes, destruction's easy," Almegnon said. "But it's possible to turn it around. Watch."

He held out his hand, blood dripping from the wound. He placed his index finger from his other hand on one end of the cut and ran it along, sealing the flesh. He turned his hand so she could see there was no sign of an injury.

Lucinda stared in awe. "How did you do that?"

"Simple concentration. The body knows how it should be, but it lacks the ability to pull itself together. All I did was provide the guidance and the extra energy to speed up the natural healing process."

"Can you teach me that?"

Her excitement was contagious. Almegnon laughed. "That's what I'm here for."

"Cut yourself again," Lucinda said.

"You will find that if you visualize the way you want the body to look and guide the healing with your mind, you can heal virtually anything. There are some things beyond even your range, though. If a person has lost too much blood, they may be a goner. If a person loses a limb, you can't help them regrow it. There are limits."

"I want to go out and help people," Lucinda said.

"You aren't ready for that. People will fear you if they know the truth. Magic brings out people's greatest fears and their worst emotions."

"It also brings out their best."

Almegnon nodded. "But not as often."

"People like magicians."

"Yes, but that's all sleight of hand. Illusion. There's no real magic. You are a healer, which if you want names, puts you in the class of adept. That's why you must try to keep it a secret."

"So I can't help people?"

"You've come a long way. But you still lack the energy and the technique."

"I'm good. You said so yourself."

"Yes, but there are emotional concerns as well."

"I can handle it."

"I'm against this, but the Elders said it would come down to proving it. You want to heal people who need you desperately?"

"Yes."

"Very well." Almegnon waved his hands and they were no longer in the cabin.

They stood atop a foothill gazing down into a valley. Bodies littered the ground. The dead and dying sprawled alone and piled atop one another. The battle had ended and the victors moved on. It was still a battlefield with men fighting for their lives. This was a war they fought not with weapons, but with willpower. The will to survive the arrows and sword slashes and burns that left them breathing the fumes from their own blood.

A maelstrom of emotion slammed into Lucinda. She staggered at the impact. Almegnon had told her she was empathetic to the needs and feelings of others, and she found she had no shields to filter the effect. Their pain became hers. Their fears tore her world apart.

Almegnon raised his voice and called out to the victims of the sea of death. "I bring you Lucinda. She fancies herself a healer!"

"No!" Lucinda cried. "Don't say that! Please. I can't...."

Almegnon folded open a doorway and stepped out of the battlefield leaving her alone.

The pain brought her to her knees.

A man moaned as he dragged himself toward her. "Heal me."

She turned, startled by his proximity. "Go away!" she shouted, the tears flowing. She tried to push herself back, but he crawled, one arm outstretched, pleading. She rolled aside. "I don't know what to do!"

"Help me."

"I can't!"

"Try," the man said. His face was caked with blood. A long gash ran down his left side. "Please try."

She had no choice. She was a healer. Fighting back the impulse to run, she reached out to him with trembling hands. At first contact she felt his pain so acutely she thought she'd lose herself. Her mind reeled in anguish. Only her shame gave her an anchor.

She tried to concentrate--to teach the flesh to knit itself back together, but the wounds were too deep; there'd been too much blood loss. The strain of being near the man almost made her black out.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I'm sorry. I just can't do it."

She struggled to her feet and ran away, paying no attention to where she fled. She wanted Almegnon to come and take her away from the agony. She stumbled and fell. As she raised her head she saw dying men clawing their way toward her--using their last vestiges of strength for one last chance at life. And she could do nothing to help them--nothing to ease their pain even for a moment. Overconfidence had set her up for the big fall and she took the plunge headfirst. No mercy.

"Please leave me alone!"

The men begged her for assistance. One even cried out for her to kill him, reminding her of her brother. Hadn't he begged for death? Why had she done it? The reasons for her anger seemed so trivial now. She couldn't even recall the specific argument. But the suffering she'd caused--

Again she pushed herself away from the mob and tried to run away, but a man blocked her path. He held his hands against his stomach, trying to keep his insides where they belonged. From the looks of him, he wasn't succeeding. "You were our salvation," he said, his voice a shade above a whisper. "You came to us in our time of need." He fell to his knees and crawled toward her. She didn't run; there was nowhere to run to. He reached out to her, clutched her tunic. "Why won't you help us?" His grip loosened and his hand slid down leaving a trail of blood.

It was his final accusation.

Almegnon found her lying broken amidst a dozen corpses. They never spoke of the incident, but more than anything the old man ever said or did, that day changed her. She could have gone one of two ways. She could have let her failure cripple her so she'd close herself off to humanity or she could use it the way it was intended: as a lesson in which she could find strength to grow and learn to do better.

She chose the latter.

She became more attentive. She was quiet and rarely smiled. She feared that she was worthless, but refused to accept it. She was young and there was time. As her mentor had told her, there were always people in need of healing. She had the gift; she simply had to learn the techniques.

One goal lay at the forefront of her desires. She wanted to help her brother. She felt that if she could heal him, her family would take her back and things would return to normal. It always came back to Shen.

"You've taught me all you can," Lucinda said. She'd learned a lot in the three years she'd studied under him; it was time to put his teachings to good use.

Almegnon stared out the window into the forest. "You still don't understand. You haven't grown up. You have childish hopes to regain what you lost, but what you lost was innocence, and once lost, it's lost forever." He turned to face her and she saw tears in his eyes. "I love you as much as life itself, Lucinda. To see you hurting hurts me."

"You used to think of me as a necessary evil. A child to train because the Elder Wizards demanded it of you."

"No, I used to think of you as a pain in the rear, but somewhere along the line that changed. The Elders didn't think you'd make it after your breakdown. They wanted me to give up. You still hold onto dreams of childhood. Times of no responsibility. You can never go home, Lucinda. You haven't accepted--"

"You don't know me!" she screamed. "You don't know anything about the way I feel. Maybe I can't go home, but I have to try."

Almegnon sighed and bowed his head. "Then go."

Cardin hadn't changed much since she'd left, but to Lucinda there was a contrast of two vantage points. She saw people she'd grown up with, children she'd played with, boys she'd dreamed of getting joined with and adults she'd feared and respected. People recognized her as she strode into the town; no one dared approach her. She could smell their fear.

Part of her felt contempt for how they'd treated her, but she could see it from their viewpoint and she forgave them. Magic was something they didn't all possess. It was an unknown; therefore it was evil.

Lucinda ignored them and continued toward her parents' home. She didn't know what to expect. When she stood before the cottage her heartbeat doubled. The dwelling which had been a place of happiness for thirteen years now filled her with dread. It was time to try and go home and she steeled herself for whatever might happen. There could be no turning back now. She had to help Shen.

The door was open so she walked inside. Her mother sat at the table, a mug of water in her hands. She looked up at her daughter, then closed her eyes.

I'm no longer your daughter, Lucinda thought. As far as you're concerned I died three years ago.

Her father stepped through the hallway into the living area. "Haven't you caused enough grief?"

He looked tired and Lucinda wished she could do something to rejuvenate him. But she'd come for Shen. If things worked out properly there would be time for the others, but Shen came first and to help him she'd need all her strength. "I need to see him," she said.

"So you can finish what you started? Get out!"

Lucinda stepped toward her father. Perhaps he feared her. Perhaps he thought she'd kill him or worse. Perhaps he still felt something akin to love for his daughter. Whatever the reason, he let her pass.

Shen's room was dark. A blanket hung over the window blocking out the sun. Shen looked like a corpse there in the bed. His eyes opened and locked onto hers overflowing with unspoken accusations and blame. I deserve that, she thought.

"I've come to heal you," she said. She was aware of her father's presence in the doorway, but since he wouldn't do anything she focused on Shen. "Words can't tell you how sorry I am, but perhaps you can find it in your heart to forgive me."

Shen just watched her. She pulled the covers off. His legs had twisted even worse than she remembered. A new wave of shame washed over her. Why had she done this? Shen had started an argument with her; he'd always known how to provoke her. But on this occasion he'd pushed her too far. This time her latent abilities surfaced and she struck out not realizing what would happen. She wished she could go back and prevent her actions, but the best she could do was to try and heal him now.

Placing her hands on his legs and closing her eyes, she allowed images to form. She pictured his gnarled limbs straightening. Her hands glowed white and moved over his thighs, shins, ankles, feet. She softened his legs with the white light--made them pliable and then molded them into the proper shapes. Perspiration beaded on her forehead as she delved deeper, working on atrophied muscles, correcting the tissue damage and restructuring the bones.

As she worked, she thought of happier times. How they used to play together. And how, even though he always seemed to be in the way, she still loved him and allowed him to participate. The good times were still there, she just had to clean away the blackness of her shame and his agony to see them.

At last she'd finished. She took a few minutes to relax and recuperate, then stepped back. "Get up, Shen. Walk."

Shen had observed the entire process with a combination of fear and fascination. He took a long breath and forced himself to a sitting position. Using his hands, he moved his legs over the side of the bed and pushed up to a standing position. Lucinda moved to help hold him up. His legs wobbled, but she couldn't help smiling at his success.

"Bitch!" His fist rushed forward and her face exploded with pain. She fell back and he fell atop her, still trying to hit her.

"Shen! What are you doing? I'm helping you!" She rolled away from him and wiped blood from her face. She saw her father smile.

"You never should have come back," Shen said.

Lucinda shook her head and refused to release her tears. "I thought that you'd be able to forgive me."

"You can't imagine what it's been like. You stole three years of my life, made me helpless and you expect to be forgiven? What you stole can never be replaced! Get out of my life! I never want to see you again!"

She swallowed her pain, slipped past her father and moved toward the door. She stopped and looked back at her mother, but the woman didn't look up.

Lucinda left her family behind. There's nothing more I can do for them. She headed back toward Shadow Wood. Why did losing them have to hurt so much?

Almegnon met her at the forest's edge. Silently, he embraced her, crying the tears she couldn't cry.

Missive, Mending Wounds

Gary Jonas

I first met Edward Bryant at a convention in Tulsa, Oklahoma.  A few years later, I moved to Denver, and since Ed was teaching a short story writing class at the Community College of Aurora, I signed up.  It was a great opportunity to discover whether or not I had the chops to be a writer.  I'd been a quarter finalist in the Writers of the Future contest a few times, but at that point, I had never sold a story, and I'd been submitting for several years.

On the first night of class, I volunteered to submit a piece to be critiqued the following week.  I wanted to write a brand new story so Ed could see where I stood at that moment.  Alas, life got in the way, and I didn't get a day off from work.  The night before class, I had nothing, but I couldn't allow myself to turn in an old story.  I got off work at ten that night, fired up my Amstrad computer (yeah, that dates me) and started writing.

A few hours later, I had a new story called "Mending Wounds."  I made copies on my lunch break the next day, and passed it out to the class that night so they could do their worst.  My hand shook as I gave a copy to Ed.  What if the story sucked?  Should I just give up the dream of writing and focus on building a normal career?

The following week, people said nice things about the story, but the only opinion that mattered to me was Ed's.  He was the professional.  He was the one who had won two Nebula Awards, and had so impressed me with his own writing that I found myself hanging on his every word.  This was the make it or break it moment.

Ed stood in front of the class, and made a few suggestions.  "You wrote, 'the ceiling of leaves above her.'  That's redundant.  A ceiling wouldn't be below her, after all.  You also say, 'zipping his flesh,' but your story is an other-world fantasy, so they aren't likely to have zippers."

I jotted down the notes so I could make those corrections.  Then Ed surprised me because he turned to the last page of the story and read the ending aloud to the class.  He lowered the manuscript, met my gaze, and nodded.  "Now, that's good writing," he said.

Those words changed my life.  I made the changes Ed suggested, then sent the story to Marion Zimmer Bradley.  She bought it.  I had my first sale.

I joined one of Ed's writing groups, and for several years, drank in all the knowledge he could pour out.  If not for the kind words he spoke to me in that classroom way back in 1989, I wouldn't be making my living as a writer today.  I will always treasure the time I spent with him.  He was a great writer, mentor, and friend.

Gary Jonas

Gary Jonas writes in a variety of genres, but is best-known for his Jonathan Shade urban fantasy series, which currently stands at ten novels.  There are also four Kelly Chan novels, three Half-Assed Wizard novels, and some stand-alone books.  He shows no signs of slowing down. Visit him at garyjonasbooks.com.

Dark Carbuncle

Kevin J Anderson & Janis Ian

A graveyard. Night. Lurid branches scrabble across the blood-red moon. Silence, whispers, then a hush of anticipation. Fifteen boom boxes encircle a grave. Giant woofers (removed just that morning from an unsuspecting car) sit with bass ends flat against the massive gravestone.

Here at peace at last lies Thor

Troubled by the Dark no more

The four aging fans in attendance for the midnight show—the ritual—had polished their studs, mangled their hair, added dye where needed and bleach where not. They wore their finest black leather, but left the jackets open to expose too-small T-shirts from concerts past, fabric memories that paid homage to their hero’s mind-blowing shows, when he’d been alive. Thor. The writer of the greatest song in the history of mankind.

“Man, we really should have put a line from ‘Dark Carbuncle’ on his tombstone instead,” Conk said. “I mean, so everybody could see his genius for all eternity.” His given name was William, and he went by the handle of “William the Conqueror” from some impressive historical guy, though most of his friends didn’t get it. They thought “Conk” just meant he liked to bash things.

“Anybody can hear his genius just by playing the song, shithead,” said Kutfist, ending with the sharp sneer he’d practiced all week. “Trust me, we didn’t want to deal with the rights issues.”

“Yeah but, dude, ‘Dark Carbuncle’ is an awesome song, right?” said Dredd, and though he’d said it many times before, nobody disagreed. Especially not on this night of nights.

The lone girl in the group, swaying to the music of a silent song, twisted a lock of hair around her finger. “Kinda creepy, ya think?” Despite the spiderweb tattooed on her chin, Longshanks was always the first to back away from anything remotely disturbing. “I mean, we’re raising him from the dead. . . .” Her voice trailed off.

“God, lighten up, ’shanks. You’ve been this way since grade school. What can he do to us? He’ll be in our power.” Sneering, Kutfist turned toward the others with a shrug. Women. Jeez.

“Yeah, and ‘Dark Carbuncle’ is such an awesome song. . . .” Dredd’s usual sentence trailed off as a cloud covered the moon.

“It has to be tonight, on the anniversary,” said Conk with finality as he connected the last of the speakers. The Wikipedia entry had been very specific on that point.

Kutfist scanned the graveyard in disappointment. “I can’t believe we’re the only ones here. Elvis gets tons of fans on his Death Day every year!”

“Elvis fans don’t know that ‘Dark Carbuncle’ is an awesome song,” Dredd assured him. “Or they’d be here.”

Longshanks tugged harder on her hair. “And what’s he gonna look like with a fractured skull, Kut? I mean, part of his head might be gone. Ecchhh.”

Kutfist pushed his trifocals farther up his nose. “Shut up, ’shanks. The man was a god. That last show we saw was unbelievably amazing. He’d never have killed himself, never. We can finally find out the truth now, so just stop worrying and shut up.”

Nodding, Conk stood up. Brushing leaves off his hands, he pulled a few folded sheets from the back pocket of his jeans and handed them each a paper with the lyrics printed backward phonetically. That was the worrisome part. They knew the lyrics forward well enough to sing them the required seven times, but the backward part made Conk nervous. “We’ve gotta get it right, or we’ll end up raising Frank Sinatra or something. Seriously, you can’t be too careful with the Dark Side. Don’t screw it up.”

With tears in his eyes and excitement in his heart, he reached down to the nearest boom box and pushed PLAY.

Thor opened what was left of his eyes and knew he wasn’t in the Ritz. It had been a long time since he’d stayed in high-class hotels on tour, and now suddenly he experienced a flashback rush of the last images he remembered.

A motel room, after the show, his ears still ringing from feedback and amps turned up to eleven. Used to be his ears would ring from the screaming fans . . . used to be all-night parties, used to be groupies and sex—but the groupies were not as attractive now, and Viagra could only do so much. Ditto the gigs, no more backstage excitement when Mick visited, no more telling the roadie to bring the chick from row five back to the luxe hotel. Now, a gig was just a gig, something to get through until he figured out what to do with the rest of his life.

He hadn’t slept a full night in months—years—and now somebody was playing that damned song so loud it echoed right through the walls of this fleabag purgatory of a room. Where the hell was this?

Thorton Velbiss—Thorny to his friends (not many of those), Thor to his fans (not many of those either)—was not having a good day. First, that pounding bass drum was unacceptable. The only noise he wanted to hear with this kind of hangover was the sound of vodka over ice. Second, his fucking hit record from two decades ago was playing, with the bass booming so wide he could swear the damned thing was sitting on his face. The only time Thor would tolerate listening to “Dark Carbuncle” was onstage, during a show, when he lip-synched his way through it for an audience of haphazardly fat metal-heads bent on reliving their youth.

I was ferocious back then, ya know? Really fero. And taller, I think. Maybe just skinny. Now I have to wear a corset. Still, I had a hell of a good run. Just one hit, but it kept me in chicks and booze. . . .

Fuck, no, it’s a horrible song. Piece of shit me and Dirk the Drummer whipped up one night while we were wanking off. Farthest wank got to title the song. He won.

I hate that fucking song.

’Sides, I can’t hit that high note, never could. Brought a ringer into the studio, never thought it’d be a hit. We had great shit on the album, great shit . . . and all anybody ever wants to hear is “Dark dark dark. Dark dark dark. Dark dark dark, I’m a da-da-da-da-carbuncle.”

Makes you want to puke.

Gotta lip-synch it now anyway, can’t even hit the low notes. At least I remember the words. Stupid effing words—even I don’t know what they mean. Last time I saw the big El, Scotty Moore had to hand him the lyrics to “Love Me Tender.” Speaking of hand . . . hand me that vodka, wouldya?

He’d forgotten there wasn’t anybody here. What the hell, he’d serve himself. He’d been an altar boy in his youth, a good little Catholic, though that was part of his secret past. The headbangers would never understand it. He hadn’t prayed in . . . what? Thirty years? Not since he’d picked up a Les Paul, plugged it in, and let wail.

Now, as he felt around for the bottle, trying to shake the cobwebs out of his head, he wondered who’d have the nerve to play that scrotum of a song right on top of his room. Boom boom boom. Trying to shut out the sound, he drifted back to the last gig.

It was like reliving a nightmare over and over again, singing that song every night. His agent said this tour could maybe revive his career (but then, he always said that)—opening for some fifteen-year-old one-hit wonder. At least if there was any justice in the world, it should have been one hit, but the kid was coming off his fourth top ten record. Turned out he was a metal fan, though, and loved “Dark Carbuncle” (and wasn’t that embarrassing), and demanded Thor as his opener (though what his Top 40 demographic would make of it, only God knew).

Thor had checked into the motel under a fake name, just in case anybody noticed. Grabbed a quick nap (not that the fans needed to know about that either!), packed his crotch, hit the lobby. Out by the kid’s tour bus, a few rabid Thor fans began jumping up and down, one paunchy guy with dreadlocks yelling “Dude! Dude! ‘Dark Carbuncle’ is an awesome song!” Thor stopped to see if they wanted autographs and noticed that two of them wore pizza delivery uniforms.

“How should I make this out?” he asked a girl with a weird chin tattoo. Glancing at her name tag, he hazarded a guess. “To Tiffany?”

The girl went beet red. “Uh, no, Longshanks—just make it to Longshanks.”

He smiled inwardly, but outwardly gave her the long, slow I could change your life, babe! look. She brightened and giggled at her friends. At least he’d made somebody’s day.

On to the show, which sucked. Of course. How the hell can anyone play music at two in the afternoon, under a wide open sky, looking out at a bunch of hayseeds whose big weekend excitement was probably going to be the pig race? Real waste of Oreos, that one. He sped through the set, not even bothering with the pyro at the end, sneering when people applauded the opening chords of “Carbuncle.” Idiots.

I used to dream about being a Beatle, you know? Back in the day, I played the Garden. Twice. Well, only once as the lead act, but still. Alice Cooper, Ozzie, Rob Zombie, they had nothing on me. Eating a live bat, hell—I used to shove worms up my nose, just to line the coke! Now look at me . . . playing some friggin’ rodeo for a hundred bucks. Pathetic, that’s what it is.

Why couldn’t I have died young, in a private plane crash? At least that would be a respectable ending.

Afterward, back at the motel—still daylight out!—he drank most of the quart of Stoli that Mr. Four-Hit-Wonderkid had nervously presented him at sound check. Scratching at his empty stomach, Thor decided to surf the vending machines for dinner. Peanut butter cups and a vodka chaser, the perfect road meal.

He barely registered the Muzak droning through the elevator speakers, until he caught himself humming along. Son of a bitch! Bland whiter-than-white harmonies accompanied by easy-listening strings. Dark dark dark. Dark dark dark. I’m a da-da-da-da-carbuncle, hiding in the dark. Unbelievable. His song. That frigging publisher had sold him out, turned him into effing elevator music, music for supermarkets and dentist’s chairs. Fucking asshole. And his agent was probably in on it, too. Scum, they were all scum.

He’d show them. If he couldn’t die young, at least he could die tragic. “Dark Carbuncle” as elevator music—the last straw of all last straws.

Thor stormed back to his room and grabbed the .38 he always carried. Flopping backward on the bed, he spun the cylinder—five bullets, one empty chamber. Go out like a man, yeah, playing Russian roulette. They’d all be sorry then, even those stupid pizza-parlor rejects. Barrel to the head, click click and it’s over. Jimi, Kurt, make way for the next dead rock legend.

Thor raised the gun. Winced at the cold feel of metal against skin. Paused. Squeezed.

Click.

Click? A barrel loaded with Super-X 500 hollow points, and all it can do is go click? Un-fucking-believable.

He tried again.

Click.

Hell, how could you lose at Russian roulette? He hurled the gun across the room, where it skittered to a halt on the bathroom floor. Throwing his legs over the bed, Thor grabbed the vodka, took a long slow drag, and made his way to the bathroom, where he somehow managed to drop the bottle on his toe. Yelling out loud, he jumped—and landed barefooted on the gun, which spun crazily against the tiles while he fell backward.

Sickening crack of his head against the tub. He lay on the cold, hard floor, feeling his life ebb away. Frigging humiliating way to die . . . for both a former alter boy and a former rock star. On the other hand, maybe God wouldn’t consider this a suicide. Good news. His last thought was that he’d finally be able to get some effing sleep. Safe in the arms of the afterlife.

Until some fuckheads called him back for an encore. . . .

Graveyard, night, big speakers booming, a familiar chorus sung again and again with enthusiasm, if not harmony.

Mmm, I ain’t no spoonful

Baby I’m a mouth-full
and I’m gonna tumble,
rumble crumble tumble
your Dark Carbuncle

Dark Carbuncle

Conk, Kutfist, Longshanks, and Dredd sang the beloved words seven times seven (almost as many times as in the actual song), and three times more backward, until they were hoarse with it. Conk finally signaled the end of the ritual by switching off the boom boxes. They reeled in the sudden hush, breathing heavily.

“How long is it supposed to take?” Longshanks whispered.

“Give him a few minutes.” Conk tried not to sound uncertain. The Wikipedia entry had been unclear on that point. “He’s coming all the way back from the dead.”

Kutfist sneered. “He never started the concerts on time either.”

“Yeah, I loved waiting for ‘Dark Carbuncle.’ What an awesome song,” said Dredd. No one disagreed.

Suddenly the earth began to tremble, and something stirred beneath the leaves. The ostentatious tombstone they’d banded together and paid for all those years ago pulled loose and tumbled backward, leaving a gaping hole.

Five grime-encrusted fingers pushed through the soil, followed by a hand, then another, clawing at the dirt in slow motion. Finally, a body heaved itself out of the grave. Covered in dirt, putrid clothes, and rotting skin, Thor raised himself up and tried to wipe the crust from his eyes.

The four fans cheered, whistled, and applauded as he swayed. “Omigod, it’s him, it’s really him!” Conk dropped the papers and stared. What a Wiki entry this would make!

Longshanks was jumping up and down. “He looks just like he did on the Avenger’s Revenge tour!”

“He’s staggering like he did on that tour, too,” Kutfist said, without the sneer this time. He looked nervously around. “C’mon, gotta get him to the van.”

The undead rock star lurched and shambled, looking disoriented but not entirely out of character. “Come on, Thor!” Longshanks pleaded. She lifted up her T-shirt to flash her breasts; Thor had never noticed her when she’d done it at concerts, but this time he shuffled toward her, making moaning, sucking sounds from deep in his throat.

“Hurry up, get him into the van!” Conk said in an urgent whisper. “Before some other fans show up. He’s ours!”

“Wait! We can’t leave the speakers—I borrowed them from my uncle’s catering company,” Kutfist said. “He’s got a bar mitzvah tomorrow; he’ll kill me!” Fortunately, since Thor was having a hard time orienting himself toward a vertical life, they had plenty of time to retrieve the gear and pack it into the pizza van they’d “borrowed” from work.

Conk started the engine while Kutfist and Dredd turned in their seats to stare at Thor, who was crammed into the third-row seat with Longshanks. “Now he’s with his true fans!” She sniffed, then frowned. “Is he supposed to smell this bad?”

“I think that’s just an old pizza I forgot to deliver last week,” Conk said.

As the van careened out of the cemetery, Dredd leaned over the seat and said earnestly, “Dude, ‘Dark Carbuncle’ is an awesome song!” He extended his hand, then thought better of it and withdrew.

They jabbered excitedly as they headed off to Conk’s garage. “I’m gonna have him teach me guitar. We could do some killer riffs together!”

“I want him to sign some autographs—impress my girlfriend for sure,” Kutfist said. “Hmm, maybe even sell them online.”

Longshanks tentatively nudged one of the scraps dangling off Thor’s ruined face. “Hey, we could sell pieces of his skin. Talk about a real collector’s item!”

Kutfist returned to the sneer. “What are you thinking? Anybody who bought Thor’s skin could clone him—then we won’t have the only one.”

Longshanks dropped her gaze. “Well, we’d still have the original. A clone is no better than . . . a cover band.”

“How about we just sell locks of hair?” Conk suggested. He didn’t want them to argue during this ultimate moment of fannish glory.

As the van pulled up to the two-car garage, the undead legend seemed to be getting his bearings, croaking slightly more comprehensible words. “What . . . happened? Where am I?”

“You’re with us—your real fans!”

Parking in the dark garage, they opened the doors and helped Thor out of the van. Conk hit the button and closed the garage door, then triumphantly switched on the lights to reveal the setup waiting in the other parking space—a small stage, microphone, boom box, and guitar.

Herding Thor forward, Kutfist shouted, “We brought you back from the grave for this, dude!”

Thor automatically stepped onto the stage and into the light, then stared at them in confusion. Longshanks sprang onto the stage beside him and shoved the guitar into his hands. “Omigod, Thor—now you can sing ‘Dark Carbuncle’ for us, night after night after night!”

Thorton Vebliss fell to his knees and screamed.

Surely this was Hell. Surely.

When he’d emerged from the darkness, he’d wondered what the fuck was going on. Why was he covered in dirt? Some superextravagant part of the stage show he couldn’t recall?

Then he remembered, and now he knew exactly what had happened. This was truly eternal punishment. Every bit of his Catholic upbringing rose in his throat—the priests’ lectures, the nuns’ scoldings, the fear of damnation. It was too much for any man, let alone a dead one.

Rotting ligaments snapped as he dropped to his knees and began to cry. For the first time in years he prayed, and for the first time in his life he really meant it. He confessed, he repented, he begged forgiveness. He reminded God of his years as an altar boy, how he’d been in the soprano choir until his voice had changed. He also pointed out that, technically—though God seemed to have overlooked the detail—he hadn’t committed suicide and didn’t deserve damnation. It was merely an unfortunate accident.

“Just please get me out of here! I want to go to Heaven. I’ll do whatever you say; you won’t regret it! Please!” He put more soul into the request than he’d ever spent on one of his stage performances, but even Thor was surprised when the cluttered garage and tiny group of fans swirled away into mist.

The new place was bright and shining, filled with sunlight and rainbows. He saw smiling beings in white robes with wings gathered on a nearby cloud, and an impressive, bearded man on a gleaming golden throne in front of him.

Holy shit, exactly the pictures the priests had painted, down to the last cliché! Choking back tears, Thor knelt before Him.

“Welcome Thorton Vebliss, my wayward son.” The Almighty smiled with a warmth that made Thor tremble. “I am so glad you are finally among us. We have prepared a heavenly reception for you.”

Thor could only stammer, “Thank you, thank you, Lord!” He didn’t know what else to say. Everything was so . . . clean. So . . . cheerful.

“Rise, my son. Rise, and greet your Father.”

Thor rose and moved toward the throne.

“Later, there will be manna, and angel food cake,” God promised, patting him on the shoulder. “But first I have a small request.”

God seemed almost shy as he said it, and Thor thought, I could really like this guy. “Anything, Your Omnipotence. Um, Your Magnificence. Anything you want, just name it!”

Taking him by both shoulders, the Lord turned him toward the nearby cloud, where the choir of angels suddenly pulled back their wings, revealing the electric guitars they wore. One sat behind a drum kit.

Snapping His fingers, God materialized a 1959 custom Les Paul and held it out to Thor. “Play ‘Dark Carbuncle’ for us, my son. I have always loved that song.”

Thor fell to his knees, screaming.

Missive, Dark Carbuncle

Kevin J Anderson

As a new writer with a couple of stories published and my first novel soon to come out from Signet Books, I went up to Norwescon in Seattle, carpooling from San Francisco with several other newbie authors. There, I was surrounded by other authors, other fans, and I met Ed Bryant, a sardonic, cool guy with long straight hair who managed to glide through crowds. He was laid back, friendly, and he was ED BRYANT!!! I had read his Nebula story “Strata” and it blew me away (I still vividly remember the chilling ending). We had a lot of friends in the same circles, and I ran into him many times over the years.

I moved to Colorado, where Ed had put down roots, and we crossed paths regularly at Colorado conventions. He bought my small-press collections and had me autograph them. When Brian Herbert and I sold our DUNE prequel trilogy, Ed approached me to ask if we could do a Dune story or find a Dune excerpt that his new small press could publish as a collectible chapbook. It would be a feather in his cap and would help out the new press, and we twisted ourselves into pretzels to make it happen (getting permissions, extracting a standalone excerpt, then putting it out in tandem with the release of HOUSE ATREIDES). It’s a lovely chapbook, even including a bookmark with tongue-in-cheek sandworm and spice recipes.

Much later, after Ed had fallen on hard times and his career had stalled a little, I was editing a series of BLOOD LITE anthologies for the Horror Writers of America. Humorous horror stories submitted by HWA members. And in the slushpile came a brand new story by Ed Bryant. Well, that one got read right away and, I’ll admit, it’s not the best story in the anthology, but it was by ED BRYANT!!! I was happy to accept it. I learned later that Ed was walking on air in his Denver writers’ workshop; apparently that was his first pro sale in some time. I’m glad I could do that.

Kevin J Anderson & Janis Ian

Kevin J. Anderson’s first novel, Resurrection, Inc., was nominated for the Stoker Award. Of his hundred or so published novels, a few have been horror, particularly his international bestselling X-Files novels, though he is best known for his epic science fiction and fantasy (Dune novels with Brian Herbert, his own Saga of Seven Suns science fiction epic and his Terra Incognita fantasy trilogy). He and his wife, Rebecca Moesta, have also written the lyrics for and executive produced two rock CDs from ProgRock Records. Anderson is the editor of seven anthologies, including the three bestselling science fiction anthologies of all time. His cats, however, are not particularly impressed. Visit him at www.wordfire.com.

Janis Ian has won multiple Grammy Awards since her first nomination at the age of fifteen. Her songs have been recorded by artists as diverse as Joan Baez, Willie Nelson, and Spooky Tooth. Her autobiography, Society’s Child, was an O Magazine summer must-read. She enjoys her day job, but would prefer to write science fiction. Visit her at www.janisian.com.

The Egyptian

Denise E Dora

We are Egyptians. We are ancient. We are not alive, nor are we dead. We exist. We travel through this land and time searching for the place where we belong. We may never find it, but we will continue to search. Most do not see us as we travel, we live unnoticed. Sometimes we live in empty buildings, sometimes in open spaces. Wherever we are, it becomes ours for as long as we need it.

We have only just come to live in this building. I am alone as I enter these rooms. They are bare. There is no furniture, no wall hangings, no floor coverings. I hear something and I slowly move closer to the sound. I can see Ahmed in a smaller room, a closet. He has his back to me and I can’t see what he is doing. He is wearing blue jeans and a white tee shirt. His dark hair hangs straight, covering his ears and the back of his neck. I remember when his head was clean-shaven. His crown fit tightly and all who saw him knew the great king he was. He no longer wears the crown. Except for our own people, there is no one to recognize the King. He says there is no need to shave his head any more.

He hears my footsteps and turns to see me. He smiles, but doesn’t speak. There is a weariness in his gray eyes, a sadness. The scar on his cheek seems a little deeper today. I look at the closets throughout the rooms. These are the rooms that he will share with his Queen.

“I have no closets in my rooms,” I say.

He sighs. “Yes you do, Mala. You have closets. And by now they are probably filled with your clothing.” He comes to me and cups my face in his hands and kisses my forehead.

“Go now. Go to your rooms. I will see you later,” then turns back to his work in the closet. I am dismissed.

I walk down the hallway to my rooms. My limp is not so pronounced at this moment and my bare feet on the floors make no sound. Only the swishing of my skirts disturbs the silence.

I am Mala, second wife to King Ahmed. But I am not his Queen.

His Queen is of a political alliance. She came from a land west of Ahmed’s kingdom. The King there was ruthless and bloodthirsty. He could never get enough land or gold. Many people died in his continual wars. Those that did not die were enslaved. My mother was one of those captives. She was a child when her village was overrun and not much older when she was married to the leader of the war council. Soon after the marriage, I was born. I seldom saw my mother; my father was merely a face in the palace. Much later, I learned that my father was brutal to my mother and her contempt for me came from the sole fact that I had inherited my father’s green eyes. Each time she looked at me, she saw him. Consequently, she avoided us both as much as possible. I, however, raged at this. As if I were to blame! I frequently would end up in her rooms with the other women. I’m not sure whether it was to annoy her or to seek her love. But she did her best to ignore my existence.

During one of the many bloody wars, an assassin, sent to murder the King, killed my father. My mother seemed relieved; I felt nothing.

Eventually, our King turned his attention to the East. A vast, peaceful land ruled by a young king. He conferred with his war council and decided to invade that land. But he didn’t listen to the priests who strongly objected. King Ahmed’s youth was deceptive. He came from a lineage of soul-eaters. It was said that at the death of his father, Ahmed consumed his soul as his father did his father who had done the same to his father and so forth. Upon doing so, Ahmed gained the wisdom, the knowledge, and the experience that all his forefathers had. He was a young man, but his spirit was beyond the ages.

It was not long before our King realized he had made a fatal mistake by invading the East. King Ahmed’s warriors only waited the final order to completely destroy our people. Our King groveled and made promises to the East. He offered up much gold and land and he offered the widow of his chief war councilor. King Ahmed accepted the gold and the land and the widow. He said the marriage would unite the two lands. But he also knew of the treachery in the heart of his enemy. And so there was one more thing that King Ahmed wanted. The woman who would be his Queen was to bring a chalice filled with the blood of the King. Our King had little time to think of anything. His council knew what their fate would be and they turned against him.

When the widow walked up the stone steps to meet her new husband who stood at the top, she carried the requested chalice. And there, before all the people, King Ahmed drank the blood of his would- be conqueror, cast the chalice to the rocks below, and declared peace.

I came with my mother to the new land. I was standing in the shadows with the women when the King presented his new Queen to the people. I attended my mother, along with the others, for the marriage ceremony. We bathed her and dressed her. And we escorted her to the Great Hall where the ceremony took place.

A servant passed by with drinks for the royal pair; I intercepted him and took the tray myself. I wanted to get a closer look. I knelt before the King and offered him the wine. He took the cup without looking at me and I went to the Queen and offered one to her. At first, she looked at me as a Queen to a servant, and then upon recognition, her eyes narrowed with distain as if I threatened some moment of triumph. I was unsure what to do next. There was no love between my mother and myself, but I always knew my position in our former home. Now, I didn’t know what it would be. I had no claim here. I rose and started to walk away. Unintentionally, I passed in front of the King. I looked up to see him staring at me.

“Who are you?”

I knelt before him and answered, “I am Mala, the Queen’s daughter.” I lifted my head to see his expression unchanged. Whether or not he knew of my existence, he did not say. He only welcomed me to my new home.

After the ceremony, I went to the women’s quarters where I had slept the last two nights when I was stopped by one of the older women. She told me that I would be living in new rooms as the Queen’s daughter.

It was a large room that opened out to a balcony that overlooked the river. Sheer drapes blew in the warm breeze. There was a huge bed to the right and lying upon it was a white sleeping gown. I was used to living with the attendants and never had a room to myself. The older woman said she and two other women would be attending to my needs. I was quite amazed!

A few days later, the King sought me out. He came to my room in the morning and had servants set out food for us on the balcony. He didn’t know the Queen had a daughter and he would like to get to know me better. I knew kings usually had little interest in female children; only sons mattered to them. And I knew that it didn’t matter who my mother was to Ahmed. I had a unique beauty and I knew the effect. I was smaller than most women and slender. Long black hair hung loose to my waist, unadorned. My coloring came from the Northern Tribes of my father. The skin was a light brown, but it was my green eyes that had never been seen in this place that enticed the King.

We spent a great deal of time together. I could not think of him as a father. His age was more than mine, but less than my mother. Each time that I walked with him, laughed with him, looked into his gray eyes, I was drawn in deeper. In time I realized that there was no love between him and the Queen. He cared for her and respected the position he had given her. But I was the one he loved. A small ceremony made me his second wife.

When I return to my rooms, I see that what Ahmed said was true. The rooms are complete and the closets are filled with my clothing. I walk through the room out onto the terrace. There is a sunken pool of water for bathing. The Queen is sitting inside at one end watching me.

“Would you like to join me?”

She is my mother. And she is my Queen. And she is my husband’s chief wife. She has few feelings for me, but I believe she loves her husband. Knowing that he loves me does not make it easy for her.

I remove my gown and get into the water. It is warm with scented petals floating across the surface. We talk about the new living space, compare it with the many others and wonder how long we will stay. We do not know how long we will be at any one place. That is up to Ahmed.

Servants bring us food and drink and this becomes one of the few times that we can enjoy each other’s company. Not as mother and daughter. Not as friends. Just two women sharing an afternoon together. That changes when Ahmed emerges from my door and comes out onto the terrace. Although he spends much time with his Queen, he usually seeks me out first. It is obvious that he has done so and we fall silent. He has shed the modern clothing and is wearing a short white kilt. Across his throat lies a thin strip of gold. A servant brings him a glass of wine. He nods to us and goes to the edge of the terrace and stands there, staring off to the land below.

We watch him from the pool, wondering what he will do next. Will he show preference to one of us in the face of the other, or will he simply leave? As second wife, it is my duty to defer to the Queen, but I rarely put myself in the position where I need to do so. The position I am in now. I should leave. But I don’t. I just wait. Ahmed turns and comes towards us. He slips off the kilt and slides into the pool. He has made sure the distance between himself and each of us is equal. He shows no preference. He says nothing, just lays his head back and closes his eyes.

The Queen and I exchange a few more words, but with the presence of the King, conversation becomes awkward. She says she is going to her rooms to rest. She climbs out, wraps her robe around herself and walks away without looking back.

Ahmed has not moved or opened his eyes. The servants have gone and we are alone. I quietly move through the water to his side. With the tip of my tongue, I lick the taunt muscle of his neck. Without opening his eyes, he smiles and asks, “Is she gone?”

“Yes, the Queen is gone,” I lick him again. “Do you like that?”

He opens his eyes and laughs, “Yes, I like that.” He grabs me and pulls me to him, kissing my face and mouth. His hand is on my breast and he whispers my name. I can feel his hardness against my thigh. I reach down for him and as I stroke him gently, his breath quickens. I straddle his hips and guide him into my body. He begins to thrust, sending waves across the pool. A faint shuffling sound and a deep voice speaks.

“My Lord?”

Another thrust. “Sorry…. My Lord?”

Ahmed stops, “What is it?” his teeth are clenched.

“My Lord, you need to come.”

Ahmed stares into my eyes.

“My Lord, it is important.”

“All right! All right! I’m coming!” he rolls his eyes and gets out of the pool. “I’ll be back,” he says to me as he covers himself and follows the servant.

I lay in the pool pushing the petals around. Some time passes and I realize that Ahmed is not coming back any time soon. I get out of the water and go into my rooms. As I am dressing, I hear a soft wail. I arrange the folds in my gown and tie a belt around my waist. The wailing is louder. I run into the smaller room. There, on the cot, lays a wrapped bundle rocking back and forth. I unwrap the outer blue blanket to reveal the torn, shredded linen underneath. Undoing the tattered ends, I uncover the bones of my child, quaking and wailing. The little skull and bones rattle, stirring up a fine dust. Despite my efforts to quiet him, the shaking and wailing intensify. I gather up the bundle: the blanket, the shredded cloth, and the quivering bones.

“It’s alright, it’s alright. I’m here. It’s alright!” The wails get louder and I hold him closer. I am crying with him. Nothing I say soothes him; I don’t know what to do. How does a mother calm her dead child? I take him into the other room. Maybe the darkness in the room will quiet him, maybe there was too much light in his room.

I am standing, rocking him, speaking in a soft voice that I can barely control when I see Ahmed walk into the doorway. He stops for a brief moment, then comes and hugs us both to him. The wails get softer. Ahmed takes the bundle from my arms and holds his child close to his bare chest. He speaks quietly to the bones. The wails subside and the bones stop shaking. Ahmed carries the child back into the small room and sits on the cot, laying the bundle before him. With a father’s careful touch, he strokes the skull and sets some of the displaced ribs back into their places. He rewraps the torn cloth around the bones, and then tucks the blanket around them. I stand in the doorway, watching. He looks up at me with his sad, gray eyes and reaches for my hand. He stretches himself out on the cot and gently pulls me down to it. Together we sleep on the small bed with our arms around each other and our dead child between us.

The next morning, I awake alone, as I knew I would. Ahmed has left earlier, but before he did, he covered me and our child with a blanket. I rise and refold the blanket, putting it back on the shelf. The child is now quiet and peaceful. I walk out onto the terrace to where a small table has been placed. When the servants see me, they bring food and drink. My terrace had once overlooked the river and in my mind’s eye, it does once again.

It soon became evident that there would be no child from the Queen, but Ahmed saw no reason to lessen her status. He had made a promise and intended to keep it. When I became with child, there was much celebration. My child would be equal in all ways to one from the Queen. Each time Ahmed came to me, he brought me a gift. His hands constantly caressed my growing belly and as we walked along the river, I had never seen him so happy. When our son was born, his joy was unlimited for our child born of love and not duty.

I walk back into the room where my child lies quiet. I kneel beside the cot and lay my hands on the bundle but all I feel is the emptiness of someone who is not there. I remember the dreams I had for him. How I would teach him and watch him grow to take his rightful place next to his father.

I don’t know how long I have been here with my son beside his bed. I may have fallen asleep because when I leave the room, I can see that the sun is high in a clear sky and a breeze is blowing. I am feeling very alone. I know it is because of what happened with my child, and I need my husband.

In my closet, I choose a pale green gown trimmed in gold. I know the gown is one of Ahmed’s favorites. He says it makes my eyes darker like the fronds of the palms and they remind him of our home. I brush my hair until it shines and apply scented oil. I lace a jeweled collar to my throat and additional jewels on my wrists to accompany my marriage bracelet. Although I am not the Queen, I can appear as one.

I walk to the public room where I know the King will be holding council. Sometimes, I think he will be angry with me when I come without being called. His Queen never approaches on her own. But I do. And he always stops whatever he is doing and greets me. If only for a moment, all else stops for him when I enter the room. Except for that one day, long ago…..

I step into the entryway. My ankle hurts, but I try not to limp. It is a large open room similar to the terrace but with a roof and columns. The men are at the far end. I don’t know what the discussions are about, only that Ahmed is trying to find the place that has been lost to us. We have traveled through many lands, but we have found nothing.

Ahmed is sitting on his throne with his hands folded in front of his mouth. The voices are loud and sound hopeful. Ahmed is quiet, listening to his councilors. His eyes dart back and forth between them until they come to rest on me. The breeze catches my veils making the gold glitter in the sunlight. A tendril of long black hair blows across my lips. I can see in his face that my image is more than I had hoped.

The gathering seems to be coming to an end. The King says a few words and all the men nod in agreement. They stand and some embrace and laugh, then continue talking. He raises his hand to say that he is finished. He doesn’t take his eyes off me as he comes towards me. He is dressed in white robes, his chest bare. Around his neck, he wears the thick gold collar embedded with green and blue stones declaring him a King. Even without a crown, and his dark hair blowing in the breeze, his position could never be mistaken. I suddenly realize that the regalia signifies an important council and I have interrupted. Ahmed has never shown anger towards me, but I feel that there will be a time when he will. I have seen a brutal side to him. Traitors have had their throats cut by his own hand and once, I saw him beat a man to death. And I never forget my first sight of him, pledging himself to my mother after drinking the blood of his enemy, a thin crimson trickle down the side of his mouth flowing to stain his robe. He wore that robe all the day as a badge, warning anyone who would think to challenge his supremacy.

I lower my head and close my eyes. He stops before me and softly says, “Mala?”

I open my eyes to see his smiling face. He embraces me and holds me close to him. His chin rests against my head and my cheek lies upon his chest. His warm, still chest, where his heart no longer beats.

“Are you alright?” he asks as he strokes my hair. I nod my head.

“The child?”

“Quiet.”

He pushes me away and holds me at arm’s length, looking me over.

“You are so beautiful.” Smiling, he wraps one arm around my shoulder and leads me away. I stumble and he knows my ankle pains me so he lifts me in his arms.

“Your council?” I ask.

“They will finish. The decisions have been made.”

Back in my rooms, Ahmed carries me to the bed and sets me down on it. He lifts my skirts to expose my swollen ankle. The foot has begun to turn inward as it often does. With my leg balanced across his thigh, he takes the bottle of oil off the side table and drips it into his palms. At first he gently rubs my twisted ankle and foot. His hands are warm and soothing and for a moment I relish his healing touch, forgetting what comes next. With a quick jerk, the bones snap into place. I cry out, but he ignores me as his fingers tighten, one hand on the ankle, one on the foot. The pain is intense and I bite my lip as a tear slides down my cheek. I can hear his voice murmuring but I don’t know what he says or to whom he says it. His hands stroke me from knee to toe and the pain lessens until it is gone completely.

“Mala, it’s finished,” a finger wipes the tear.

He removes my jewels and undoes the fasteners on my gown. With both hands, he brings my hair to the front and holds it to his face, taking in the scent of the oils. He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. “The memories you bring to me.” He removes his own clothing and the gold collar and lowers me across the bed. His mouth and tongue are on my neck, my breasts, my stomach and back to my mouth. His hand caresses my inner thighs and moves them apart. He presses into me, his rhythm slow at first, and then intensifies. His back arches, his thrusts lessen, and he becomes still.

We lay side by side, our arms wrapped around each other. We speak little and sleep. I awake to his lips on my throat. I can see the love in his eyes as his mouth covers mine and we come together again.

The sunlight is fading outside. We have spent all our time together in the bed on this day. I rise, and wrapping a robe around myself, I go to my child. I rearrange the blanket, but he is still. I expect Ahmed to be gone when I return, but he is lying on the pillows, waiting for me. He raises his hand and crooks his finger for me to come to him. I smile playfully.

“Won’t the Queen be missing you?” My teeth nip at his ear.

He laughs a little, “Yes, she will.” He makes no move to leave me. He pulls me down to him and I lay my head on his shoulder. With one finger, I reach up and trace the deep scar on his face.

“We will be leaving this place tomorrow.”

I am surprised and sit up to look at him.

“Already? But we have not been here long. I like it here.”

“I know, but it’s time. It’s time to go.”

I lay my head back on his shoulder and sigh loudly. Sometimes, I weary of the travel. Ahmed spends most of the travel time with his council. His duty to his Queen is required and his time with his second wife is less. In times such as these, when we settle, we are together, our journey temporarily forgotten. But when the time comes to travel, we do it without question. Ahmed wraps his arms around me tightly and does not go to the Queen tonight.

We don’t know what happened to us or why it happened. We worshipped the gods properly and all were honored equally. We were a kingdom at peace. We did not wage meaningless wars. Outsiders were welcomed and treated as guests. There was no explanation for our fate.

One day, a traveler came and told stories that made no sense. Kingdoms and villages he had traveled through were empty. The people had vanished. Sometimes the whole village would be gone, leaving only empty desert. He was fearful of going farther and asked Ahmed’s permission to stay with our people. I did not see the traveler or hear his stories. Ahmed told me of them one night after he left my bed. He was always an attentive lover, but on that night, even though our bodies connected, his thoughts were not of me.

He was standing on the terrace, looking out across the river. Although the night sky was clear, it was black and starless. Empty. Something in Ahmed was empty. That was the first time I saw the sadness in his eyes as he related the tale to me. He embraced me and I could feel the turmoil deep within his breast as the souls of all his forefathers twisted inside. I was certain there was more to tell, but he was silent.

In a matter of days, the air became unsettled. I was in my rooms playing with my son. He had just begun to crawl and was excited by his new skill. The usually bright blue sky was gray and although it was too soon for the rains, an occasional wet day happened, so I was unconcerned.

As the day grew, the sky began to take on a pale, yellow color. I was uneasy, but not sure what to do about it. I lay my son in his cradle and he fell asleep immediately, tired from crawling the length of the room. Out on the terrace, the sky had darkened to the color of the yellow mud by the river; the water itself became black. There was a foul sharp smell in the air and a breeze started up that frightened me more. My child was sleeping and I went to find Ahmed.

The King was in the Great Hall with his council: all the advisors, the generals, and the priests. Instead of sitting on his throne, Ahmed was sitting on the steps below it. The men were huddled together and the talk was low and fast. Ahmed was frowning, his mouth tight and grim. He always seemed to know the moment that I walked into a room, but now, he was unaware of my presence, or he was ignoring me. He was intent on what was being said. This was not an ordinary council; the men were uneasy as they spoke and some looked fearful. I became even more frightened. I stood still, trying to hear what was being said but they were too far from me.

Finally, Ahmed looked up at me, but his expression didn’t change. I stepped forward and he raised his hand to stop me. He kept his hand up and turned away to speak to the men. He looked back at me once and his scowl said he didn’t want me there.

I ran back down the halls and into my rooms, slamming the door behind me, the lock falling into place.

Outside, the breeze became a wind. I leaned over the stone rail, but couldn’t see very far. I hurried down the terrace, around the corner, in front of the rooms belonging to the Queen. In the western sky, the clouds were thick and yellow. They billowed and rolled, but still seemed far away. I ran into the rooms and called out.

“My Queen! Are you here? Lady, are you here? Mother, where are you?”

The rooms were empty. The Queen and her attendants were gone. I went back out to the terrace. The rolling clouds had come closer, covering the far ends of the surrounding village. The stench was sickening and I tried not to breathe it in. The wind was stronger and blew my hair into my face. I heard a crash from somewhere deep inside the palace and inside the Queen’s room vases fell to the floor, shattering. I turned, but my hair stuck to my face and all I could see was black. I heard shouting and more rumbling. The stone beneath my feet began to shake. I couldn’t see, my fingers became tangled in my hair and I didn’t know which direction to turn. Someone grabbed me and I screamed. I felt like a blanket had been pulled over me and I couldn’t move or breathe. I struggled against it and screamed again. Reaching up, I dug my fingernails into something soft.

“Mala, stop! Mala, it’s me!” Ahmed had me in his grip. He pulled the hair away from my face and I could see the fear and anger in his eyes. Blood ran down the side of his cheek from the gash caused by my nails.

“I couldn’t find you!” He whispered and hugged me tightly, “I couldn’t find you!” Bits of sand began to sting my face. He spun me around and led me down the terrace. His fingers dug into my arms, but I was too frightened to feel the pain. Back in my rooms, I saw the entry door smashed and lying on its side, the lock broken.

“Get the child! Hurry!” My son was still sleeping and let out a small whimper as I scooped him up. Ahmed grabbed my arm again and we ran down the hallway. The wind howled and it sounded like parts of the palace were being ripped apart. There was a fallen statue lying across our way and we stopped. Ahmed was panting and looked for another way. Quickly, he climbed over it and reached for the child.

“Hurry! Climb over!” he commanded.

It wasn’t as easy for me. The statue was too big and I couldn’t get a handgrip to pull my body over. Finally, I managed to get a little ways up when Ahmed grabbed my hand and pulled me. My right foot smashed against the statue and pain shot through my ankle. The force of his pull threw me to the floor, with my head hitting the stone. Before I could do anything, I was being pulled to my feet. The pain in my ankle was unbearable and I felt blood running down my face. But Ahmed didn’t stop. He continued to run as fast as possible; clutching his child in one arm, dragging his wife with the other.

We ran through the Great Hall when Ahmed stopped suddenly. He stared at his throne, now toppled and broken. The sky outside was dark, thunder and lightning cracked. He didn’t speak, just stared, a muscle twitched in the side of his face. Lightning flashed in his eyes, but I couldn’t tell if it was a reflection from the sky or if it was from his soul.

We ran across the room to the small door at the end. I realized he was taking us to the lower chambers, to the storerooms.

The storeroom door was locked. He released his grip on me to bang on the door with his fist. I fell against the wall, then to the floor. The door opened and Ahmed handed the child to someone inside the room. He reached for me and gently brought me to my feet. Holding me up, we went through the door together.

People were huddled on the floor against the walls. The first face I saw was the Queen, glaring at me. The King, her husband, had risked himself to save me and our child. She could have lost him because of me. And of course, there was the great insult of him being with me in her presence. My mother had been indifferent to me before, but now there was hatred in her eyes.

The door was secured behind us and Ahmed led me to an open space near the wall. He lowered me down and someone handed me my child. My brave son did not cry. He simply looked around the chamber. I arranged the thin cloth around him and wished I had taken another, thicker wrap. My ankle throbbed and I knew the bones were broken, but I tried not to think about it as I rocked my son. I felt Ahmed’s arms around me. He had wrapped a blanket around his shoulders and covered us all in it. With the edge of it, he tried to wipe the blood from my face.

“It’s not too bad,” he whispered and kissed my hair. I looked up at the tear in his cheek and reached to touch it.

“I am sorry,” was all I could say. He flinched and took my hand, kissing the fingertips.

“It’s alright,” he snuggled closer. “It will be alright.”

The air was becoming hot and it was hard to breathe. Once again, I looked up at my husband, but his eyes were on the doorway. I followed his gaze to see sand seeping in through the cracks. Someone had stuffed cloth around the door, but the sand came in. He shifted his position and tightened his arms around us. I looked into the face of my child who looked back at me with the wisdom of his father’s gray eyes and of all the forefathers before him. Then I closed my eyes and slept.

We didn’t know how long we slept. We didn’t know why we woke. We didn’t know how much time had passed.

I heard low voices around me and shifting movements. One by one we rose and climbed out of the chamber, which by now, was little more than a hole in the ground. We climbed out to see an astonishing sight before us. Nothing. Nothing but sand as far as we could see. There was no palace, no houses, no river. No trees, no fields. Only sand. Ahmed stood away from us, his hands on his hips surveying the land that was his. Now it was only desert.

I sat on a hill of sand. Frozen. I wasn’t frightened. But I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Everything was gone. Of our entire Kingdom, there were so few left: the royal family, the council, some servants, and some guards. The last things I remember were my husband’s arms around me and looking into my child’s eyes. My son was quiet; perhaps he had not awakened yet. I tried to fix the cloth around him so he would be more comfortable.

My screams brought everyone out of their daze. When I pulled back the cloth to see my son’s beautiful face, I looked into empty sockets. There were no gray eyes, there was no flesh. In my arms, I held the bones of my little dead child.

Ahmed was instantly at my side. His face reflected the horror in my own. Our child did not come back with us. He was gone. All we had left were his bones. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t move. All I could do was to stare into the empty face that I loved so dearly. Then I began to shake. My whole body shook so violently that Ahmed fell away in the sand. When the shaking stopped, my head fell forward over my child, covering him with the black hair still tangled from the wind and matted with dried blood. And I began to cry. No one could help me; they all stood watching, as shocked as I was. Ahmed was again at my side. His arms encircled me and he laid his head on my shoulder. He did not weep. Kings do not weep. No matter how much they love or how much they lose or endure, they do not weep. He kissed the side of my face and spoke softly, “We will bury our child.”

An anger rose up inside me as I had never known before or since and I pushed him backwards on the sand.

“We will not bury our child!” I screamed, “You will not touch my child!”

I stood, hugging the bones close to me. I started to run. My shattered ankle twisted beneath me, but I barely felt it. I had to keep my child safe from those who wanted to take him from me. I slid in the soft shifting sand, but I did not stop. I ran and fell and got up and ran again. I could hear Ahmed calling my name, but I did not stop. He reached me and swung me around to face him, embracing me. I struggled against him but I couldn’t free myself.

“Mala! Mala!” I stopped struggling. “No one will take your child. Our child. We will keep him safe until we find a way to bring him back. Mala, no one will take your child. I promise you. No one will take your child.”

Ahmed kept his promise. No one took my child. We all keep him safe. And when the bones begin to wail and quake, Ahmed is the only one who can calm him.

We have traveled through many lands, searching for the place we need to be. When we settle for any length of time, an illusion is created around us. Our living quarters, our food, our clothing. None of it is real. At least not for any length of time.

We are on a transport that is taking us across the hills to where we will meet Ahmed. He is taking us to a new place. Each new place takes us closer to where we belong.

I am sitting next to one of the guards. A big strong man who protects me when Ahmed is not around, and one who makes me laugh. I am wearing a long sleeve white blouse and black pants. I do not like these clothes, but Ahmed says we must wear them when we travel. We are more vulnerable when we travel. We must look like the others and “blend in”, he says. I don’t like it, but I do it. The only jewelry I am wearing is my marriage bracelet. It does not come off and it was the only jewelry that I was wearing that day. It is no illusion.

On my lap rests a large blue canvas bag that carries the bones of my child. In my mind, I can see his face and I begin to hum softly to him. I think about how much I love him and always the question, “Why did he not return with us?” So we will search for our place and we will find a way to bring our son back to us. And I hold him close.

The transit stops and we get out. There are several vehicles parked close by. I see Ahmed in the passenger side of one. There is only room for the driver and passenger. There is no room for me, so I climb into the open back. Ahmed turns his head slightly in my direction but doesn’t look at me. He is wearing jeans and a black shirt. His long hair caresses his neck. He likes these clothes, this look. And I guess it suits him. Without speaking, he gets out of the vehicle, climbs in the back and sits next to me. He doesn’t look at me. He is watching the progress of the others while listening to one of his advisors. I have my blue bag on my lap. I am holding it close so the bumps won’t disturb my child. Ahmed wraps one arm around my knees and we drive away.

Missive, The Egyptian

Denise E Dora

Ed had always been gracious with his critiques of my work, even when I didn't think a particular story was that good.  But he seemed to especially like The Egyptian.  He called it a "knock-out", "an amazing thing", "new and fresh". That it was a "terrific mythic explanation of ancient peoples disappearing.” This was one of my favorite stories to write and I was truly honored to have Ed say these wonderful things about it.

Denise E Dora

Denise E Dora grew up in Monongahela, Pennsylvania and moved to Colorado in the mid 80's where she finished her degree in biology at Metro State College. She has done much volunteer work including The Denver Museum of Natural History, Denver Zoo, Hawkquest, Koman Race for the Cure and Denver Center Theater Company.  Writing has  been a major part of her life and she was thrilled to find Ed Bryant's Wednesday Night Writers Group twenty years ago.  She lives in Aurora, Colorado with her partner Jack, three birds, a chinchilla and a bunch of feral cats.

A Pinch of Pink

Gregory R Hyde

It's an interesting line of work, that's for sure. Unlike you, Lenny, selling corn dogs on a street corner just to get by. For most people a job is anything that’ll put money in their pocket. If you’re lucky though, you land a way to get paid for something you like doing. A control freak becoming a meter maid; an enabler becoming a nurse; a greedy fuck without scruples trading stocks or selling life insurance. And if you’re loony you strap yourself to a career trying to make other loonies think they’re not so loony anymore. Then there’re people like me. People with skills and a knowhow to leverage them.

Get that smirk off your face, Lenny. Look at these clothes. Get an eyeful of these shoes. And this hat, genuine silk. You'd think I was corporate or mobbed up to look at me. Should see their faces when I walk by. I know they hate me, think I'm pretending to be one of them, brushing up against the tight edges of their ritzy uppity world. But you want to know something? They fear me because I didn’t go to college or have a fancy law degree. They despise me because I’m born with these skills--the only way you can get them. And when they need certain things, they have no choice but to come to me.

Okay, okay, I'm getting to that, Lenny. Jeez, Louise. Here I am catching you up after two years and you're pushing for the punch line. Are you ready? Okay. What I do is, I find things. And not routine things like a certain book or a particular coin. Needle from haystack stuff. Kinda. Like lost car keys or orphaned socks--and not like that.

Okay, see if you can understand it this way. Somebody wants something, don't know where to look for it or--even where to start--they come to me. A photograph of someplace not famous. A snow globe like the one they had when they were a kid--better if it’s the one-in-the-same. Jack knives. Picture frames. Things that once been a part of their past.

That’s right. Sentimental shit. Now you’re getting it.

I get my business by word of mouth. Last week a guy looks me up, wants to get his hands on an Al Kaline, rookie season. He's the suit and tie type, all that business stamping out his youth so he sucks up them baseball cards of childhood heroes, throwing hard earned cash around like it can buy lost years and dry up his oil guilt. The hunt only took a few hours and this guy almost sobbed when I showed up at his high-rise office and handed it to him. Mint condition, too. I've always known I had a knack for turning things up. I’d do it by imagining where I’d be if I were a 1952 nickel minted in Philadelphia, or an original Singer sewing machine or a cheesy, near worthless wedding ring that slipped off a woman’s finger forty years ago. Worked on simpler things, too, if they were nearby. Like when I was a kid we’d go to the flea market by the dog track and Ma would give me a list and kick back till I came back with my scouting report. I’d just point to an aisle and off she went. But it’s far away things that’s my forte. Things with emotional mojo behind them.

The business angle came accidentally. I was working at a pawnshop on Broadway. Because of my photographic memory--did I mention that?--I knew exactly where every item lived. Didn’t matter how deep on the shelf it was or how much dust was on it. If we had it, I’d have my hands on it in minutes. Sometimes I even knew some about its history, like the last place it’d been before coming through our door and why the previous owner had gave it up. Just by holding it.

This skill didn't go unnoticed. On my day off I snooped other pawns and added their stock to my mental inventory. Places like US Pawn, where everything is placed out nice and neat like a goddamn Walmart, were a breeze to scan. Then there's GI Joes and Pasterrnack's, shops that look like a garage sale after a hurricane. Before long if someone came to my store wanting something we didn't have and I knew where it was, I'd broker a deal with the other shop and collect a finder’s fee on the spiff.

Don’t believe me? Okay, okay. Lean back on those heels and let me tell you what happened not too long ago. I was talking to this rube about a Maestro fuzz-tone, telling him Hendrix had one just like it and making like I wasn't sure how much it was worth. It's the business. Give everybody the same line: "Guess I can let it go today for two-fifty. Tomorrow I might know more about it, like it's worth sixty or seventy." Make 'em buy before thinking.

I was doing the poker face when he said he used to jam with Grand Funk Railroad. Over his shoulder I see this woman come in the shop, dazed, maybe high. She almost walks into a mint condition Kirby Classic III with an asking tag $105. She course corrects and makes a bee-line to my wing tipped toes. She steps right in front of this Grand Funk meshuggener and fixes her eyes on my kneecaps. Wants to know if we have a 1942 wicker baby crib. She's about fifty, gray hair, well dressed and lots of wrinkles under her eyes. I said, 'Lady, this is a pawnshop, not St. Vincent DePaul. Nobody hocks a crib.'

She mumbles something without lifting her head, like her neck joint didn't work. The guy behind her is too tied up in memory lane to pay attention. I need to get back to him soon before the impulsive urge passed. I tell her I didn't hear her so she says again, voice almost like a little girl, 'I'd give a lot for that crib.'  She sighs heavy and fidgets and it comes to me that she must have heard about my special service. Just the same, I have no idea where to lay hands on a crib, but she looked so pitiful. And, hell, a buck is a buck, as you well know, Lenny. By the way, dress me up one of them corn dogs, I'm getting hungry, all this recollecting.

She did say she’d give a lot. So I tell her I'll look around, tell her to come back tomorrow around noon. Then I get back to Mr. Fuzz-tone who's now shouldering a ‘58 Fender Telecaster with new frets and personalized body contour that some musician traded in on video equipment a coupla months back. She gives me this little smile and touches my arm before leaving, looking like a child too old for her years.

A crib. A 1942 wicker baby crib. This guy strums the Telecaster and asks how much. For a moment I couldn't remember so I glance at the code on the tag: A16B24C. Two-ninety-eight, I said, giving him the top end price, already deciding I wasn't going to dicker. Take it, or leave it, Mr. Starry Eyes.

After work I scope a few antique stores, 'specially those that carry furniture, sucking up their inventory in my head as I went. Can't help it, comes natural. As I was hunting I wondered if the woman had already done the same since they were the logical places to look. I ask around but no clerks recollect someone with her description. She'd be hard to miss, after all; dragging her eyes along the ground like a bottom-feeder, grownup acting like a six-year-old.

I saw some cribs, but no wickers and nothing older than 1960--as far as the clerks could tell. I was walking back to my apartment deep in thought. Suddenly I look up and find myself on Clarkson Street--which is nowhere near my apartment--with this strange feeling, like maybe I'd awakened from somebody else's dream and their dream vapors were buzzing around me like bees. The vapors walked me to this big, old Episcopalian church and wouldn't you know, they were having a bazaar. I rummage through the goods and before long I come across a baby crib buried under a pile of old baby clothes, like the clothes meant more than the crib itself.

That's right, Lenny. A wicker. One of the church folks was right there to tell me that for a fact it was made in 1942. She knew the person it’d belonged to. She’d passed a few months back and had willed all her furniture to the church. Of course I believed them, Lenny!  They wouldn't lie.

It looked just like the one my Ma had, the one she’d put me and my sisters in. They let it go for five bucks. Getting it home was a small logistics problem. The tiny room-to-room wheels squeaked and balked in every crack in the sidewalk. People asking if I had a baby in there, under the shield that looked like the cover of an amphitheater stage. Anyway, the next day the woman comes in the shop on the dot. I was expecting her eyes to light up when I walked her to the backroom and showed her the crib. But she only looked at it like it were a glass of lukewarm milk and paid my asking for it. No dickering. Fifty bucks. Should’ve asked for a hundred.

She petted it like it were a napping cat and then she did that mumbling thing again. 'I'd give a lot for a Cry Baby Magic Bottle,' She says. Then she turned her head a little and looked at me and she didn't look like she was in her fifties, anymore. A younger face looked up at me like one of those baby seals before having its head caved in. "With a pinch of pink," she added as she rolled the crib away.

’Noon tomorrow,' I said, already thinking like a bottle, no idea what kind.  What the hell is a Cry Baby Magic Bottle? The woman rolled the crib through the shop, getting all kinds of eyes. It embarrassed me a little, watching her bump into things, Simon's son holding off on yelling at her. She paused on the sidewalk like she was lost, then turned left and was gone.

I see that look on your face, trying not to laugh. At least hold off till I finish before you yuck it up. And tend to that customer there, it don't bother me none.

A bottle. A Cry Baby Magic Bottle. With a name like Cry Baby Magic it had to be a toy. Where do I look for an old toy baby bottle? I walked down Broadway after work puckering my lips like a catfish on the sidewalk, imagining I was sucking on a bottle and thinking where would I be if I were one. Yeah, it felt stupid, but hey, cash money is cash money. I was staring off into the distance when my eyes focus in on the ARC used clothes store.

The ARC had rack upon rack of clothes, old people on Social Security flipping through them, trying to stretch their checks. I could never bring myself to wear somebody else's clothes. Boiling water or not, who knew what the previous owner had, or why they gave them up; maybe they died in them, or were murdered, the bullet hole cleverly sewed up. What if they had bleach-proof AIDS or some new strain of skin disease? Target and K-Mart were just fine for me. And with business the way it is, I’ve stepped up to Sears and JC Penney.

I followed my instincts to the back of the store, to a dirty plastic bin. In my head I heard a hungry baby crying for its bottle. My heart started thumping and I was thinking, Even I couldn't be this good. The bin was filled with old, scuffed toys. I figured they were donation rejects destined for the Dumpster. Normally I’d never put my hand in there but the crying was loud. Loud enough for me to realize it wasn’t a real baby cry. Kinda whiny, each sound like the one before.

I reached in and fished my hand through the mess, imagining all kinds of cooties jumping onto my arm, making nests in my hair. Then I snagged something hard and long, with a soft tip. I pull it out and there it was. A Cry Baby Magic Bottle by Amsco, US. pat. 1964. It had a hairline fracture down one side of the bottle, a dull, pink nipple with a piece of the tip chewed off. Pink screw-on lid. I turned it over to see if it leaked. It had some kind of liquid inside that disappeared like an invisible baby was sucking it down. And it cried. That's right, the bottle cried when I tipped it. What kind of toy is it when a baby’s supposed to be crying while being fed? Pretty sick, you ask me. The clerk took a dime for it, giving me a strange look. I saw in her eyes, What do you want with something like that, sicko? Some kind of pervert looking to lure kiddies off the curbside?  I tucked the bottle inside my jacket and left.

The next day the woman’s there right at noon. Bernie was in the loan cage arguing with some guy who wanted a hundred-dollar loan against a beat up Minolta SR-T 101, an all manual camera that we'd be lucky to get twenty bucks for if the guy went belly-up on his ticket--which both Bernie and I knew he would. Steve came out of the back when he heard the yelling, his hand on his pocket where he kept his .38 police positive in plain sight. I'd seen him pull it a few times over the years, fortunately never having to use it although this young punk was acting as if he could use the lesson.

You don't know Steve. He's a big guy. His dad owns the place so he’d been working there since he was old enough to take a pacifier from a baby and sell it off as an exotic doorstop. Anyway, Steve moves up on the guy, suggesting strongly that his business was wanted elsewhere. The guy looked as if he was fixing to spit in Steve's face. Not the brightest of ideas. I'd seen Steve kick loose every rib in a guy once at a bar down the street from here for taking umbrage to his cigarette. That’s right. I said umbrage. The guy he redefined had been a customer from earlier in the week, decided to give Steve grief for not going down enough on a .38 Smith & Wesson snub nose.

But this guy, face as purple as a grape, veins throbbing on his neck like a dick about to come--ha, a dick head, get it--takes a step back from the cage, looks at the sign that says: We Cash Personal Checks Up To $20, If You Have Six Picture IDs And Leave A $50 Cash Deposit Until Check Clears. He looks at me, then at the woman. They lock eyes for a moment. The rage drains from his face. Suddenly, he turns on his heels and marches passively toward the exit. By the time he’s at the door his face was white as a new sidewalk before winos have had a chance to crap and barf on it.

I turned around expecting to be toe-to-toe with the woman but she was at the gun counter studying a Jennings J-22 Long Rifle by Bryco Arms. Contrary to popular belief, not everything in a pawn shop is used or hocked. We carried hats and shirts for the Rockies, Broncos, Avs and Nu-gets, gaudy Mile High souvenirs and cheap handguns for under a hundred bucks. The Jennings listed for $69.95. 'I found the bottle,' I said. She brushed her fingertips across the glass case like a child in a candy store, her reflection in the glass counter and chrome barrel of the J-22. I step up and rub the countertop with a cloth before Bernie had a chance to notice and roar at her.

'It was a little dirty so I cleaned it up’ I tell her. ‘Couldn't do anything about the crack, though. It's not real noticeable if you keep it shi...'  I looked past her into the street and parked right next to the door was the crib. I could see it had some stuff in it. Clothes, a quilt, things like that. I wondered how much shit she took wheeling that crib around Denver, especially in this neighborhood.

I reached into my pocket and come out with the bottle. I held it upside down against my leg until it finished crying then set it upright on the counter. Her eyes moved toward it, then back across the case. Her fingers twitched, then her hand inched toward the bottle. She wrapped it in her fist and slowly brought it to her chest, where she held it with both hands.

'Tears,' she said. 'If I only I had some tears.

'What?' I said. I knew my mouth was open. I'm thinking--not for the first time--that this lady was on furlough from the twitch farm. She reaches into her coat and pulls out this over-sized Kewpie doll. She sets it carefully on the gun counter and smoothed the palm of her hand over its face and staring eyes and I gotta tell ya it gave me the creeps, expecting her to put pennies over the doll's eyes, say a prayer.

Taking the Cry Baby, she disappears into the street while I’m still staring at the doll. It didn't occur to me until later that she left without paying for the bottle but by that point I didn't care. What’s a quarter?  And hey, she left me a Kewpie doll the size of a real baby. Not that it was worth much--’cept for a chill or two. Give me a refill on this soda, will ya?  Not like it was a collectible. Consider it an entertainment fee.

Anyway.

Tears.

She got me looking for tears. From what? To Where? I’m thinking, To hell with her. She’s putting a real stress on my talents, has me on a scavenger hunt. It was only a matter of time before the twitch-mobile dropped its net over her. But she’s paying good money, after all. So what was I upset about?

I couldn’t get those taxidermy eyes out of my mind. The way she treated that doll before leaving it on the gun counter felt creepier the more I thought about it. And I couldn’t stop thinking about it. By morning I decided that the only way to get right again was to find those damn tears and put it behind me. But where would I start? A wicker crib. A toy baby bottle. Those are things.

So I started at the beginning, by asking myself where I’d be if I was tears. I knew it could take a while so I called Simon at the shop, told him I had some crud that had me shooting mushy green bananas every five-and-a-half minutes. He didn’t bend until I start telling him how bad it smelled, describing how it floated on top the toilet water like maggots boinking on a lily pad. 'You bring in no money, I pay you no money,' he finally says.  That Simon, got himself a heart the size of his own dick. Luckily the next day was the start of a long weekend. Turned out I was going to need all of it.

Hit me again with that soda, will ya.

But I didn’t have the feeling. I wandered around the city like a man looking for his beloved cat, desperate to hear the faintest meow. I rutted through every yard sale I came across. My feet were as big as Thanksgiving Day turkeys from all the walking. I didn’t eat. I barely drank. People crossed the street when they saw me coming.  It got worse when I pictured the woman at the shop, waiting for me, expecting me to hand over a bucket of tears. What would she do if Simon chased her out, empty handed?

But I couldn't stop. The whole time that old tune 'Cry Me a River' tucked itself into the folds of by brain, sticking there like paint on a wall. I started ruminating.

By the fourth day I had nothing. And I had to go back to work the next day. I was filthy, starving and as dry as the Sahara. I asked myself for the hundredth time: Why was I doing all the high and low? If she wasn’t able to find it, why would I? And what was my payoff ’cept for a few bucks?

That’s when I saw this bag lady in an alley. She had a King Soopers cart all done up in blankets and cardboard panels with crayon drawn pictures. Stick mom and stick dad; stick junior, stick dog and stick baby in the stick mother's arms. The woman, head covered, leathery skin and mumbling to herself, she looked like a gypsy. She reached into her cart and cooed, like she was talking to a baby.

That’s what I thought, too, Lenny. I see you’re paying attention.

She had a baby in there. What a way for a kid to get into this world; toted around in an iron cage on wheels, no rocking chair, baby baths or talcum powder.

After four days of sifting through haystacks I realized I’d been going about it all wrong. I'd been asking myself, Where would I be if it were tears? And what would a bucket of tears smell like? Taste like? Feel like? Looking at the woman leaning into the cart it hit me hard enough I ’bout fell off my feet. Fireworks went off in my head.

Wicker crib. Toy baby bottle with a pinch of pink. Tears.

I'd been asking myself the wrong question, Lenny. It wasn't tears I was looking for. Not necessarily. So I asked myself the right question, the one I should’a been asking myself all along. The one the woman who got me huntin’ things down for her shoulda been asking herself. I crept closer to the bag lady. Close enough to see what she was cooing. She held it just above the mattress of old newspapers. A doll. A Kewpie doll. When she laid the baby back on the mat its eyes closed like it had decided to up and die. A little crying noise came from it. Not quite like the Cry Baby Magic Bottle. It was a softer moan, like a last breath.

Simon tried not to show how relieved he was to see me the next day. He said people had been asking for me. I asked about the lady with the crib and he looked at me as if I had just stepped out of a whale's mouth.

'A crib?' he snorted, squinting at me through his gray tinted glasses and a veil of cigarette smoke. Last year the doctors told him he had lung cancer so he switched from cigars to Camels. He’d tried the patch. Wore them up and down his arms like tattoos. He suddenly reminded me of George Burns.

Burns. You know. That old guy that played God in them movies, working that unlit cigar in his mouth like he’s trying to write his name in the air with it. Some image of God, huh?  Think he owned a string of pawnshops?

Three days go by since I came back to work and I'm starting to think this woman had finally been picked up and was on the silly putty floor at General being fed finger food and dull colored M&Ms that were meant to be swallowed whole. Serve her right, pushing an indoor baby crib down the street.

Or maybe the Crips got her, I thought. Maybe the Crips got her and her crib. Now it's a Crips crib. The Crips took the crib back to their crib and are using it to stash their drugs. Don’t laugh. See how crazy she was making me? Sure, the woman’d had a target pinned to her big as a jumbotron but that don’t mean anyone had a right to rain grief down on her for wheeling a wicker down Broadway and Colfax. So after work I took my new question and went looking for the lady to get it straight with her, put her on the right track. I didn't like getting messed up in somebody else’s personal business but after the time I’d spent trying to scratch her itch it was time I got to scratch mine. And get that grin off your mug.

So how hard can it be to turn up a lady directly behind a wicker crib? One-legged winos, blind bums and dudes wearing eight layers of clothes on a ninety-degree day are just part of the decoration. No more eventful that a pigeon pooping in a pond. But someone’s bound to spot a grandma and a bedroom wicker and draw the conclusion that one of these things is not like the other. And the godawful noise those tiny wheels make on concrete, catching cracks, announcing itself five blocks away.

I let my second self take over. That’s what I started calling it; the part of me that's part psychic bloodhound. Instead of scents, I sniff the vibrations in the air, how the molecules spin and float. The way things carry themselves leaves an invisible wave behind. I heard it called displacement of molecules on PBS one day. Like a footprint in the snow.

I reminded myself of the question. I needed to be scared. I needed to feel lonely, young, vulnerable and defenseless. Where would I be if I were a Kewpie doll neglected and hungry in a bassinet?

Where would I be if I were…?

I was feeling it. Time seemed to fold over on itself. The feelings intensified as I walked. My eyes on the sidewalk almost in a trance. I thought I was hallucinating when I heard kids. Then I looked up…

Sorry, think I’m getting a bit emotional. Sure, I’ll take another soda. Thanks, Lenny.

So there I was, standing by one of those places for unwed mothers. Behind the fenced-in playground, kids played and pushed, laughed and hit and cried. A knot of kids fought over an old basketball like it was the last tit in the world. The mammas looked on like they were at the zoo and I could see them quietly wondering if theirs was the one going to fight the meanest to get to shoot that ball, the rebound swallowed up in a mass of sweaty heads and hands reaching like baby bird beaks and the rumble starts all over again.

The sense carried me north, across Colfax. The air heavier and heavier, like warm dew or lukewarm milk. Tears, she'd said. I'd give a lot for some tears.

It was getting dark by then. I was on the corner of 17th and St. Paul, over there by that Mercy hospital. Across the street was the park and all of a sudden it hit me. Almost did get hit by a taxi as I hurried across the street, suddenly feeling like time was running out. Up ahead of me I saw the bassinet. The wicker crib, parked next to one of them metal ducks atop a coiled spring like brown guts coming out of its belly.

But no lady.

It was getting hard to see and there’s no lights nearby. Gangbangers been moving into that park since last summer. I caught my breath, my mind a broken record, the question repeating itself like a Sunday church-going chant:

Where would I be if I were a lost child?  Where would I be if I were a lost child?

I heard the click of well-oiled metal and thought, Holy Mother of Mercy, I'm about to be displaced. I waited for something to happen, like the sky exploding or seeing my brain fanned out on the grass and me trying to pick out fond memories among the jelly. 'Stead, I heard whimpering, like a puppy locked outside for the night. It came from behind a tree. I went over to it, thinking, Lady, you really sucked me into it, didn't you? Here I am putting my life on the line. And I still wasn’t sure why.

I peeked around the tree and there she was, a quilt wrapped over her shoulders, knees tucked into her chest. I saw pacifiers, a baby's rattle, an album of black and white photos spread open before her and the Cry Baby Magic Bottle with the pink lid sewn into the quilt. She reached out to pull the quilt tighter and I saw the gun in her hand, a Jennings 22LR.

Holy Pope on a rope, I thought. If there was a bottomless pit nearby she'd jump in it; if one of these trees was on fire, she'd climb it. Where a child was helpless and might fall into the hole accidental, this lady was apparently contemplating serious harm.

Protection my ass, Lenny. Think about it.

She was fixing to make a chrome-plated pacifier outta that Jennings.

Why?

That’s when it hit me. She, the lost child, had forgotten how to cry. That's what she had me huntin’ for. Something to help her remember. And then I didn’t show up all that time and...

So what was I supposed to do about it? Shit, I'm only a huckster, a man making a living convincing people they’re making off like a bandit on a Gibson banjo. Sucker-beware. Who’s the sucker now?

Then I saw the pictures. A little girl in most of them. In one she’s being held by a  man. She looks five or six. From the look on her face I couldn’t tell if it was her father or uncle, or anyone she knew. The look on the man’s face gave me the creeps. He was likely drunk.

So who took that picture? Your guess is as good as mine. No more interrupting, now. We’re on the home stretch.

She sighed heavily, like she was getting impatient. She used the barrel of the J-22 to scratch an itch above her ear. I was torn. One side I’m thinking Why are you roping me into this rodeo? I’m just the guy who became your bloodhound. I was about to leave, thinking she wouldn’t whack herself if I wasn’t there to see it. If a tree falls in a forest.... On the other hand, what kind of creep would do nothing. More so I was involved. She never spoke a word to me ’cept to say what she wanted, but something was there.

Something was there.

Somehow I knew her. I found myself relating to her pain. I was invested. I guess when you feel something long enough it becomes a part of you.

She musta' felt me thinking 'cause she turned around, her startled eyes gawking at me for just a second. Then she remembered her mission and brought the J-22 out from under the quilt, out from under the plastic bottle and pacifiers. What was I supposed to do? Run? Jump her? Kick the gun out of her hand like them guys in the movies? I knew I didn't want to see it go down but I couldn't stand the thought of walking away, hearing the muffled gunshot going off behind me, like....

...like that day when I was a kid. My sister Margaret was in Dad's room and she was moaning and grunting like she wanted to cry but couldn't, like her tears were constipated or something. I didn't know what to do. I felt completely helpless. I was heading outside when I heard it and knew right away it was Dad's gun. I kept right on walking, across the street where I tole Mrs. Kanokie. I remember how she looked at me. I felt like a zombie, like all my feeling had dried up and blown away.

'Wouldn't you rather cry than die?' I said.

She gawked at me, barrel of the J-22 perched on her lip like the tip of a Popsicle. She looked like a deer trying to decide which way to dart before the loud, out-of-nowhere wall of lights mowed ‘em down.

'Huh?' she said. I’m thinking how much I don't want this to happen. Not again.

'I said wouldn't you rather cry than die?' I repeated, almost a whisper.

'I don't know how,' she said, pouting into her lap. 'I've tried and tried but it’s like that part of me is dead,' she says. She pulled the quilt up under her chin and stuck her thumb in her mouth.

At least it wasn't the gun.

I felt the air on my skin; pressing and prickling against my face and chest. My eyes stung. I rubbed them with my knuckles and when I opened them again the footprints in the air had gone to doing some pretty weird shit.

It was like a home movie. The old 35 mm kind. A little girl pulling a wagon, an American Flyer, puppy in the payload. It was the girl in the black and white pictures, only a bit younger. She wore a white dress and took awkward, child-like steps. Her face is full of sunshine. Two big hands came in from off frame and picked her up by her underarms. A woman's hand reached in to play with the girl’s blond curls.

Did the woman see what I was seeing? No. She was looking down into her lap, turning the J-22 over in her hands. Was she doing this? Is this how she sees her memories?

'Look up,' I said. She looked at me. I pointed to the movie but like a dog she looked at my finger. I knelt down next to her, took hold of her chin and turned her head, thinking, 'Please God, what if she don't see it. They’ll end up forwarding my mail to the twitch warehouse.  You’d come visit me, wouldn’t you Lenny?

I watched her face, looking for a light to come on, for some sparkle to kick start in those eyes that looked like the fish cooler at King Soopers.

Nothing.

I looked up. They were still there: the man tossing the girl into the air, her dress billowing each time she fell back into his arms. Like in the photos, you could only see the girl, everyone else just arms or a blur in the background. I looked at her. 'Damn it,' I said. 'You sent me on this crazy scavenger hunt to find you tears and here it is. Right in front of you. Cry, dammit. Cry for the horrible things that happened to you.’

Then, in a moment of clarity, I said, ‘Cry for the childhood that was stolen from you.’

I could’a been a shrink, you think? I never would've guessed where my knack came from if not for her. How I’m able to find the things that I do. Not just then. Later, when I thought about it. It took a while.

No, not guessing, Lenny. Empathy. What had been repressed was empathy. If not for what happened with my sister it would have always been there. Instead, it brewed in the back of my mind. Until it came up with my ability to understand what a person’s needs were when they weren’t sure themselves. I kind of always know, now that I think about it. I see something bad happening to someone and it was kind of like it was happening to me. Anyway, connect that with my photogenic memory...

So she looked at me. I still had a hold of her chin. It was like holding the snout of a Doberman as her eyes regarded me. Her gaze went back up to the sky. Suddenly a dull blue light swept across her face, like she was sitting too close to a black and white TV in the dark. Her face began to change and for a moment I almost didn’t recognize her. A deep breath came outta her nose and tears filled her eyes. I let go. She kept looking. A moment later she pointed to the sky. 'Birdie,' she said, sounding almost like a child.

I looked. The movie was fading. Beyond it a Robin looked at us from a low branch. Its chest wasn't red, Lenny. It was pink. A soft pink. Like frosting on a birthday cake. On the movie the little girl screamed with delight as a Robin pecked at the ground near her feet, daddy holding her arms up from behind.

'Do you see it?' I asked.

'Birdie,' she said again, tears running down her face like rain drops off a leaf. Then she surprised me.

‘The next day was my birthday,' she said. 'Daddy said it was time to be a big girl, to start doing big girl things.' The lady's eyes were both happy and sad at the same time. And this is what I said next, Lenny, like it wasn't even me doing the talking but some wise dude with a long gray beard on top of a mountain. I said, 'You remember what it was like to be a little girl. Can you remember how to cry?'

And at that moment I thought about my own sister. I hadn’t thought of her in years. I walked across the street that day. I knew what’d happened and I was sick to my stomach. By the time I knocked on the neighbor’s door I’d pushed that feeling out of me and all I felt was numb. The numbness wore off so slow I forgot I was numb to start with.  The world was always dark, back then. Not so much anymore since…

Then she started crying. I mean REALLY crying. No in-between. No sniffles, scrunched face or hiccups. Her face turned inward. It transformed. Bucketfuls of tears as if she’d been dunked. I got down on one knee next to her and just waited, patting her on her back, feeling the quivers gradually reside. She used the quilt like a giant handkerchief. The movie was gone and the air wasn't heavy anymore. The Robin inched closer to us. The lady reached out a hand and it pecked her once, did an about-face and launched into the night like it didn't have a care in the whole world.

'Birdie,' I said. She laughed. Maybe it was the lack of light, but she looked like a child.

What? Whatta you mean what happened next? I've giving you all the pages, Lenny, broadened your horizon some along the way. Is an epilogue what you’re after? A bookend, a nicely tied knot? Things like that don’t have an ending, Lenny. They’re just a juncture. A confluence. There we go. Another new word for your vocabulary.

I haven’t seen her since. And for some reason I don't expect to. I realized right then and there in the park why it was me she came after. I have a skill and these crazy people, they have a knack for bringing things out of folks. I don’t know how they found me. That’s right. There’s been more than one. Maybe they’re sending out pings, like bats and I’m the one’s bouncing them back ’cause of my skills.

The next morning Simon meets me at the door to the pawnshop. 'You’ve been acting strange,’ he says, ‘and now this?'

'What ya talking about?' I said, thinking to myself who’s he calling strange. He leads me to the backroom, just him and me in the shop. ‘I found that just inside the front door first thing this morning,' he said, pointing at the crib. ‘It’s got that crazy stuff you been dragging in here lately in it, ever since you started acting otherworldly.’

Otherworldly. That’s the word he used.

That’s the word he used to describe my state of mind, Lenny. Otherworldly.

'Well?' Simon said, arms folded and all authority like. I felt the air around the crib and in my mind, felt all the babies that had ever peed and pooped in it. Simon said nothing as I walked back through the shop, toward the front door. Until I was about to step outside. He said my name once. Like he figured I was leaving for good.

To enjoy life without money or possessions. That's what Simon had lost. But he had no intention of finding it. The sidewalks were filled with it; the texture of the air, the scent of sorrow like wet dog fur, just waiting to be wormed out. They started finding me, then, more than ever, like I had a scent on me. Kept me busy day and night, throwing money in my face. I take it, all right, but I don't dicker like at the pawnshop. They know how much its worth because it's their tickets they're paying off to get something they’d left in hock. I'm not a saint, anything like that. I'm a bird dog. A memento here, a memory there. I thought about getting business cards but why bother. They know where to find me, walking up and down the sidewalk, visiting yard sales and flea markets. Taking inventory.

Missive, A Pinch of Pink

Gregory R Hyde

I first meet Ed at a luncheon in 1986, where he was the guest speaker. The following year I enrolled in a writing class he was teaching at the Community College of Aurora. With his influence, I joined his Writer’s Circle critique group, and eventually the Northern Colorado Writers Workshop. In every situation, including one to one, Ed said something that compelled me to continue writing. This is important. For many years my writing was replete with grammatical and structure errors. Many would have put the typewriter away if they saw no light at the end of the tunnel. Even if I’m never a fruitful writer, I will always write; because a very good friend of mine, someone who knew very well what he was talking about, helped me to see that my voice is mine, alone, and that the light is worth pursuing.

Gregory R Hyde

Writers of the Future finalist, Gregory R Hyde also has seven honorable mentions in the St. Martin's Years Best Horror and Fantasy anthology, edited by Ellen Datlow. He’s appeared in Midnight Graffiti, High Fantastic and Christmas Magic. His short story collections include: A Pound of Ezra, Ezra by the Pound, and the latest Four from the Fringe. The later can be found on Amazon.

Greg is a Catholic school survivor from a rural town in Southeast Michigan--the third oldest of eight. In his past life he was a Mental Health professional. In his current life he works for company that routes 9-11 calls. Greg has two kids., Gareth and Elektra. He lives in Arvada, CO. with his cat, Turquoise.

On Amazon at Gregory R Hyde

&

On Facebook at www.facebook.com/gregrhyde

Lost In Transit

Kent Johnson

She appeared on his doorstep one afternoon, looking exactly as he remembered her: slight figure, shoulder-length auburn hair, soft, rounded features that were appealing in a way he couldn't quite explain. But then again, this young woman had some of his blood running through her veins.

"Veronica?" he managed after a long, awkward pause.

"Hello, Grandpa." She stood there a moment, then made a face. "Well, aren't you gonna ask me in?"

Kreutzer snapped out of his daze. "Yes, of course, come in, come in..."

Inside, they hugged briefly, awkwardly, and then he led her through the foyer, down a hallway and into a large, dimly-lit study. The furniture was expensive but not flashy: a heavy oak desk, two file cabinets, an ottoman, and a row of long and well-stocked bookcases. The room's only concession to technology was a six-foot flat screen hovering along the far wall, and on it a computer-generated news anchor was regurgitating the day's top stories. Realtime stock quotes marched across the screen above her.

"It's how I keep up with the outside world," Kreutzer explained. "End session," he said to the room, and the screen vanished.

Veronica nodded, sighed, and closed her eyes.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

"I just need a second," she said. "I didn't expect it to be so...detailed. I've done VR before – recreational stuff, mostly – but nothing like this. And it's so strange to be standing here talking to you, after...well, you know..."

Kreutzer smiled knowingly. "The wonders of technology, my dear. They’re calling it ‘artificial reality’ these days, although I’m not quite sure what the distinction is. But whatever the name, this is where I find myself. I do miss my sense of smell, and my taste buds. But not the constant pain..."

There was an awkward silence.

"Would you like to go for a walk?" he asked.

"Sure."

He pushed open a set of French doors and they stepped out onto the terrace. A dense forest was spread out before them, giant lodgepole and ponderosa pines rising out of the rich, verdant soil. A stream cut a narrow gash through the trees, the clear water gurgling and shifting in the sunlight. Carved into the ground beside the stream, a rough trail connected the foot of the terrace with the shadowed distance beyond.

"It's lovely," Veronica said, "but do you have something with an ocean?" She shrugged. "I miss the ocean."

"Of course." Kreutzer turned back to the house. "Change backyard: California beach, deserted, late afternoon."

In a flash the forest was gone, and in its place a broad white beach stretched to the horizon in both directions. Small breakers struck the shoreline in cauldrons of churning foam, gulls wheeled and dipped in the cloudless sky, and the afternoon sun hung before them, naked and blazing.

"Perfect," Veronica said.

They stepped off the terrace. The sand was soft, giving beneath their suddenly-bare feet. She slipped her hand into the crook of his arm as they walked, and Kreutzer felt a pang of nostalgia as he realized how long it had been since he'd had an attractive woman walking at his side – even if she was only a simulation.

"You looked surprised to see me," she said.

"I was," he agreed. "You're the last one I expected to see standing at my door. I suppose you've come to talk some sense into me."

Veronica pulled a strand of hair out of her eyes.

"I wanted to speak to you, yes."

"For the family?"

She shrugged her slender shoulders. "I tried to talk Father into coming, but he wouldn't. He said it was your decision, your life. He's stubborn that way..." She grinned mischievously. "Like all men I guess."

Kreutzer smiled. "He was a lot like you when he was younger. He resented my money. He rebelled against it – like you – at least in the beginning. But in time he grew to appreciate what it could do for him."

The beach in the afternoon light was exhilarating, and Kreutzer found himself wishing he could feel the salt spray in his nostrils, the sand between his toes, the grip of his granddaughter's hand on his arm.

"I've never resented the money in itself," Veronica said at length. "Just what it does to people. How it changes them, how it allows them privileges beyond the reach of ordinary people. Just like this business of being Reborn. It doesn't seem fair that the rich can buy extra lifetimes, while poor people in Third World countries have to watch their babies die in the crib because they can't afford the AIDS 2 vaccine."

"I don't disagree," Kreutzer said.

She stopped then and gazed up into his face. "So, Grandpa, what changed your mind? About going through with the procedure I mean."

He sighed heavily and spread his hands. "After what happened to Mary, I guess I lost my desire for the whole thing. We had so many plans, your grandmother and I." He smiled wistfully before continuing: "Did you know that after we were both Reborn, we had planned to rendezvous in the same Seattle restaurant where we first met all those years ago? We were going to pretend that we didn't know each other, make a game out of it, like a couple of kids. We were going to fall in love all over again."

"Why didn't you sue the bastards? For incompetence or negligence or something."

"Because it wasn't their fault," he told her. "The technology is so new, so innovative, that the equipment and procedures are being developed on the fly. Those of us who signed up for the program are the lab rats in all this. I was devastated when Mary’s recording didn’t take, but she knew the risks. After all, what did she really have to lose?"

Veronica started walking again, and Kreutzer fell in step beside her. "So that's the only reason?" she asked. "Because of Grandma?"

He shook his head. "That's a big reason, but not the only one. It's also because I've lost so much."

She frowned. "Lost so much?"

"Memories, my dear. Thoughts. Feelings. Much of what was me. I mean, I lost so much just in growing old. And then with the transfer here...." He waved his arm to indicate the beach, the ocean, the sky. "I discussed the problem with one of the MemCore technicians. She told me that clients typically experience a ten to thirty percent loss every time there's an upload or download through the system. Something about inherent information degradation in the conversion from human memory to a digital storage medium. Things become literally 'lost in the translation'."

"Is it really that bad, Grandpa?"

"It's bad enough. Did you know that I can't even remember the day your father was born? I mean it was one of the seminal moments of my life, and it's gone, poof, just like that. But yet I can recall meeting with an investment manager I hardly knew just a few months before my recording. It's maddening."

Veronica seemed puzzled. "But didn't they warn you that memory loss was a potential problem? You knew this could happen, didn't you?"

He shrugged. "I suppose I was hoping for the ten percent. Immortality is a seductive concept, my dear, and I suppose I was so eager to keep on living that I didn't really care about the potential side effects. Besides, I always figured I'd have Mary around to help me through it. We were going to create new memories, and build whole new lives together..."

"You could remarry," she told him. "You could even have more children if you wanted."

Kreutzer sighed and shook his head. "Starting a whole new family sounds like so much work. I'm afraid I just can't muster much enthusiasm for it."

Veronica pushed on, undaunted: "They took me down to the cloning lab, Grandpa. I've seen the body. He's quite handsome, you know; he looks just like pictures of you when you were a boy."

"I know. They showed him to me."

"And he's really not aware of anything?"

Kreutzer shook his head. "As long as he's in stasis, there's only baseline brain activity, just enough to keep his body functioning. He's a blank slate, so to speak."

"I still don't get it, Grandpa. I mean, you have this clone ready and waiting, you've already spent a ton of money, it seems like such a waste..."

"You’re not listening to me." Kreutzer sighed, exasperated. He glanced up as a pair of gulls wheeled in the sky above them. "If I've lost so much already, and then I lose another twenty or thirty percent in the download, how much of me will be left? And then in seventy or eighty years I go through the whole process again? Eventually I'll just be a shadow lurking around in the back of someone else's mind. I mean, in a way it’s no different than dying. It just takes longer."

She opened her mouth to say something, then looked away. Tossed by the wind, her hair flowed across her shoulders in soft brown eddies.

"They told me that someone had put in a request for your clone. A low-income couple who had lost their son."

Kreutzer frowned, nodded. "An eight-year-old boy who was killed in some sort of auto accident. The paramedics were able to get him to an uplink and do a recording before he died."

"Well, what are you gonna do?"

Kreutzer studied his hands a moment. "I've decided to have the body...terminated."

"What?" Veronica was incredulous. "How could you do that?"

"Very easily," he said. "The body's my property – in more ways than one – and I'm not comfortable with the idea of my clone running around with someone else's mind in it."

"I don't believe this, Grandpa! How selfish can you be? First you take it upon yourself to deny us the 'privilege' of your continued existence - after we've spent the last two years awaiting your return - and now you've decided to deny a needy couple the chance to get back their son!"

Kreutzer was caught off-guard by this sudden confrontation, and he felt himself on the defensive – something he'd rarely been in his long and powerful life. "They can apply for another body," he said. "Someone more...suitable."

"That's it, isn't it!" Veronica was spitting out the words now. "You can't stand the thought of some lowly street kid in possession of those precious genes of yours. Its an insult to your sensibilities.” She paused, and in a calmer voice added: How do you think Grandma would have felt about all this?"

"Leave her out of this." Now it was Kreutzer’s turn to be angry. "Is this why you came here? To plead for this boy's life?"

"I came to plead for yours," she replied, her voice softening. "But if you insist on throwing yours away, then the least I can do is try to save his...."

But even as Kreutzer worked to frame a sharp, biting rebuttal, he knew that Veronica was right. On some level he wasn’t comfortable with the idea of a common, average street kid inhabiting his replacement body. Kreutzer had been born into a family of wealth and station - as had his father, and his grandfather before that. There was something proprietary about those genes - unique and noble as they were - passed down through all those generations. The thought of someone else using them was akin to discovering a stranger living in your home, or driving around in your car, or sleeping with your wife....

But then his thoughts returned to Mary, his beloved wife, who gave so much of her time and energy to the less fortunate, who couldn't let a stray kitten wander the streets without wanting to bring it home and nurse it back to health. Oh yes, he did know how she'd vote on this one.

He smiled and shook his head in defeat. "Christ, kiddo, a few minutes ago I had this all figured out. And now, well...."

"Come on, Grandpa, this is a chance to put that money to a good use, for something really important."

"Perhaps you're right," he said. "I'll consider it. You have my word on that."

They walked in silence for a time. Then he said: "Now, Veronica my dear, answer me a question."

"Anything."

"What changed your mind? I mean, I always thought you were dead set against all of this."

"You," she said simply. "I know this probably sounds stupid – and selfish – but by refusing to be Reborn you changed the way I think about you. Now I want you to go through with it, just so I can get to know you better. When I saw that clone of yours the other day, I had the crazy notion that you could come live with me – grow up in my house – be like a kid brother or something." She laughed softly. "It does sound stupid, but I've just been so confused the past two years. I mean when you died, I really didn't grieve for you because I thought you'd be coming back and all...and now...."

"I'm sorry about that," he said. "But this is just what I have to do. I want to be with Mary, one way or the other. This is what she would choose, if the situation were reversed. I know how she felt about things."

"Then you won't change your mind? I mean you could always have a second body cloned to give to that kid."

He shook his head. "I'm sorry, Veronica."

She hugged him then, and he heard the words, "I love you, Grandpa," mumbled into his shirt.

"I wish I could smell your hair," he said.

"You could," she told him.

He didn't answer.

"Goodbye, Grandpa."

"This doesn't have to be goodbye," he said. "You can still come visit me. My account won’t be closed until the end of the month."

She nodded. "Okay. Sure."

"And bring your father with you," he said after a moment. "Tell him...tell him he has a chance to do something I never had a chance to do."

She smiled. "He'll come, I promise."

And then she was gone, her image scattering like chaff on the stiff ocean breeze.

Kreutzer stood there for a long time watching the sun descend and then extinguish itself on the watery horizon. The tide was coming in, and the advancing waves sent foamy water lapping at his ankles. Finally he turned and started back up the beach toward his apartment.

Missive, Lost in Transit

Kent Johnson

I first met Ed Bryant back in 1989 when I attended a creative writing class he was teaching at the Community College of Aurora. I soon discovered that this man with the long black hair and radio announcer voice wasn’t a conventional teacher. I had been expecting dry lectures on the art and craft of writing, but Ed ran the class as a writer’s workshop, with each student submitting stories that were then critiqued by his or her classmates.

This was my first exposure to the workshop format, and while it was nerve-wracking to have my stories judged by so many other writers, it was also highly instructive. I ended up learning more about the nuts-and-bolts of writing during that semester than I had in all of my high school and college English classes combined.

I also took the time to do a little research on Ed and was surprised to learn that he’d won Hugo and Nebula awards for his short fiction. Curious, I tracked down and read all the Ed Bryant stories I could find, including “Stone,” “The Thermals Of August,” “Particle Theory,” “While She Was Out,” and many more. These stories opened up a whole new world to me, and showed me what was possible in the field of speculative fiction.

When the Aurora class was over I joined the Writer’s Circle, one of Ed’s workshops in the Denver area. Over the next several years I developed a friendship with Ed and many others in the workshop. Ed was relentless encouraging, and he a unique ability to identify the flaws in a story, and deliver his criticism in a positive way that didn’t bruise the author’s ego. He was selfless with his time, and would work tirelessly to help aspiring writers improve their craft.

The Colorado writing community lost a treasure when Ed passed away earlier this year. I’m eternally grateful that I was able to count him as a teacher, mentor, and friend for over a quarter century.

Kent Johnson

Kent Johnson has been writing fiction since the 1980s, and his short fiction has appeared in Analog, Space & Time, and a number of small press magazines. He’s published fiction and non-fiction under several pseudonyms, and is currently working on a western series under his own name. He lives in Lakewood, Colorado.

The Safety of Fathers

Trey R Barker

Pastor Bob had come back and Darcy felt a twinge of excitement.

The pastor’s battered Rambler sat in the church’s parking lot, steel belts peeking through bald tires and medical gear filling the back. Saline IVs, tubing, needles and bandages, videos labeled with dates and names, a camera and monitor, hundreds of blank tapes.

Surrounding the church, purple beech and cypress trees grew in a tangled riot with southern bayberry and magnolia. The trees and underbrush devoured the church with delicate green teeth and bark-brown tongues, and so help her, there had been days, dark and pregnant with loneliness, when Dacey welcomed that consumption if it could end the pain of not having Gramps holding her hand.

Dacey dashed into the church’s lobby. Kudzu dripped down the church's interior walls while fractured sunlight limped through the broken windows. She burst through the ten-foot tall doors and into the sanctuary and her breath caught at the power of the stained-glass windows, swirls of shape and color dominating the walls. The raised altar was backed by a 50-pipe organ and a giant cross, and young Dacey had always thought the pastor stood just slightly less exalted than Jesus Himself.

Now a man sat under the cross. Next to him, a small, trembling dog coughed.

“I knew you'd come back,” Dacey said.

The dog had the pained movements of the old, though when it lowered its haunches, she almost laughed. Taking a crap in the church. The dog cocked its head. Then its eyes rolled up and it slumped to the carpeted floor.

The man rubbed the fur between the dog's eyes. “Don’t be scared, Copeland's here.”

Dacey frowned. Who was Copeland?

“Shhhhh, these'll help.” The dog struggled against the pills but eventually took them, then pawed at the carpet before lying down and panting heavily.

Confused, Dacey looked at the congregation. Gramps in the front row. Two pews back was the leper woman who had ridden the Greyhound bus three days to get here. The wheelchair boy from Hiatt County near the back. Lots of others. Most were from elsewhere, but all had come for Pastor Bob's powerful healing.

Except Pastor Bob had disappeared years ago, forcing the congregation to wait.

Until their skin was, in spite of the humidity, desiccated and tight on their bones. They reminded Dacey of shrink-wrapped meat at the butcher's shop.

“Your dog looks pretty sick,” she said.

“His name’s Max.” The man turned to her. “He’ll be fine.”

“I'm Dacey. This is my grandfather.” She kissed Gramps’ head. “I miss him.”

Copeland snorted. “Ask the healer.”

“You're not Pastor Bob.” A statement.

“Pastor Bob? That’s his name now? No, I'm the man he killed.”

Her jaw dropped. “You can't be dead.”

“Compared to who?” Copeland stared at the congregants. These loyal parishioners were neither alive nor dead. Which meant the healer was nearby, filling these people just enough to keep them between life and death.

“You’re not the healer.”

“No, but he’s here.”

“How do you know?”

“I can smell his stink.”

Copeland's fingers traced the congregants’ rough skin. “You can’t hide among the dead, I'll find you.”

“Who can’t?” Dacey brushed a blonde lock from her face.

“The sperm-donor.”

“Snappy answer. What the hell does it mean?”

“Healer and murderer.” Copeland sniffed. “Can't you smell his hypocrisy?”

She frowned. “I smell hope.”

“Then you're a fool.”

His head swam from the heat and exhaustion. He'd been thirteen straight hours from Clarksdale, Mississippi to this place and its rumor of Peck.

“You're not sweating. Why?”

“Shouldn't have called you a fool. I apologize. I'm tired. I haven't really slept since—” He put a finger to the hole in his neck. “They don't use this church anymore.”

She laughed. “There ain't any 'they' to use it, Mr. Copeland.”

“Just Copeland.”

“Wattsville's been dead a long time. Some of the farmers used to come for church, but there ain’t no farmers left.”

Silence fell between them, as dense as the sanctuary's shadows, and he felt the weakness within him. He called it The Feebleness and it came, like it always did, hand in hand with his own doubt.

“Ho…ly…crap,” she said.

The room lost its color for him. “Maybe the farmers are still there. Maybe they just stopped believing.” He staggered. “Doubt is fatal.”

He watched her watch him and knew what she was seeing: the fade. His face, his skin and hair, his hands. All fading like he’d been bleached to nothingness beneath the summer sun.

Dacey stood a few pews away but seemed much further, as though on the far side of a dense fog. The more his doubts flooded him, the more he would fade and the further away she and Max seemed. Maybe he’d been wrong and hadn’t smelled Peck…the man she called Pastor Bob. Maybe he’d never find Peck. Maybe Peck had slipped away into the very fog of Copeland's doubt.

“He's here.” That stench is his stench, the reek of a healer. Copeland breathed deep of the odor and the room began to refill with color. Dacey and Max appeared again through the fog, Dacey's blue eyes shocked and Max breathing heavily.

“What the hell was that?”

“Don't worry about me.”

She snickered. “I got lots to worry about, mister, and you ain't on the list.” She moved toward Gramps and Max followed, his limp pronounced. “You’re wrong, too, all these people believed.”

Copeland continued checking frozen faces, looking for Peck. “Believed until they died? Maybe they believe still, somewhere down in their dead souls?”

“They're not dead. They're…just not alive. Pastor Bob will cure them.”

“Then you and your Gramps will live happily ever after?”

“Yeah.”

“Convincing them or yourself?” Copeland eyed each pew carefully. “The sperm-donor is my biological father. Peck Kelley. I'm looking for him.”

“In an abandoned church?”

“The people on the circuit told me about this place. Didn't know it was abandoned.”

“Circuit?”

“Tent-show revivals, river baptisms, picnics. Perfect places for healers. Those who have faith always will and those who don't never will. The healers are all different. Some can heal everything, some can’t heal anything. Sometimes they cure people and everything’s fine and sometimes the curing makes them sick. All different except for the immortality.”

“Ain’t nobody immortal.”

He pointed toward the congregation. “Really?”

She touched Gramps and said wistfully, “When he got sick, I had to feed him with an IV. It was awful.”

Peck isn’t in this room, Copeland realized. Around him, sunlight stumbled through the stained-glass windows, casting colored shadows on the shoulders of the lifeless. Dust motes played tag on the sunbeams.

“Your daddy ain’t here.”

When he smiled, she backed up. His teeth, crooked and stained, made people uncomfortable. “He is.”

“He’s a healer?”

Copeland stared at Gramps' empty eyes and pale skin, and could see the bulge of a tumor in his jaw. “You love him pretty good, don't you?”

Her eyes, tired blue with too much mileage, brightened. “I do.”

“Peck is a healer and when we find him, we'll put your Gramps first in line.”

“Then you?”

“No. He and I have other business.”

“We're looking for the same thing,” Dacey said an hour later.

“What's that?”

“The safety of fathers.”

Except for the dead, the church had been empty. They’d searched everywhere and Copeland had gotten increasingly agitated, eventually putting a fist through a wall.

Standing on the church’s back porch now, anxiety coursed through Dacey. She didn't know this guy from shinola. He was obviously obsessive and maybe violent so maybe she should slip away and come back when he was gone.

“Is that what I'm looking for?”

“Ain't it? I found mine in Gramps, had it for twenty-five years before his cancer. You never had it. You said Peck left when you were a baby; just came back the once.”

“So?”

“You never knew a father. That's what you're looking for.”

“Bullshit. I'm looking for my murderer.”

She looked at his neck and he knew what she saw. He tried to keep the hole sewn shut with suture thread but the edges burned like angry lips. “His handiwork. He was drunk. Said life wasn't fair or livable. He apologized for allowing me to be born and then he shot me. That's why I think your safety theory is mostly bullshit.”

But not completely. Copeland had never known his father and until Peck had stumbled out of the darkness, Copeland hadn't realized he missed the man.

“How long you been looking?” Dacey asked.

“Seems like forever.”

Dacey chuckled. “You got a flair for the dramatic, don't you?”

Copeland grinned. “The self-dramatic. He shot me when I was thirty-four. I would be forty now.”

Max coughed. His eyes rolled backward into his head. He staggered.

“Old age doesn't seem to agree with Max,” she said.

“Not just old age. He faints when he bears down to go to the bathroom or coughs, courtesy of his enlarged heart. From his anemia he gets a slow bleed that goes on for hours if he cuts himself. The yellow skin and eyes and tongue are a gift of liver disease. Four pills in the morning, three in the afternoon.”

Dacey ran a hand along Max's thin fur. “Why don't you let him go?”

Copeland took a long time answering, watching Max wander toward a small outbuilding. “Max and me found each other the night I didn’t die. Somebody cut him up and left him on the side of the road.”

Her eyes lingered on Max. “So you healed him.”

“No. Peck's the healer, I used a vet.”

“Why?”

“We were both alone, I guess.”

“And now you chase Peck so he can give Max the immortality you have.”

“Hardly.” Once, Copeland’s immortality—as the son of an immortal—had seemed a blessing. But after so many death notices, the shine had bled off. “I hate outliving all my friends.”

“Make new friends.”

“And outlive them, too? Dacey, there is no one I won't outlive. The one constant in my life is funerals.” He paused. “How can I ever love anyone?”

In the yard, Max hunched down near the wooden outbuilding. His eyes closed and his head shook as he slumped to the ground.

“Damn.” Copeland moved quickly to his dog. “He hasn't had a strong piss in months. Hasn’t barked in a year, either.”

“Well…so long as you ain’t lonely.”

“I don't have to justify anything to you.”

“So if life and living—at least for Max—are everything to you, why you kill people?”

He glared at her, surprise hot and wet in his throat.

“All that medical stuff. Videos with names and dates. Wasn’t hard to figure out.”

“Fuck you, nosy bitch. What gave you the right to look through my car?”

“Gramps gave me the right.” Her voice boomed through the sultry air. “You supposed to be Pastor Bob. You supposed to save Gramps.”

“I can't even save myself, Dacey.”

“Nice and melodramatic but it means dick.”

“I've never taken anyone who wasn't ready to go.”

“But why take ‘em at all?”

“Because they are alive and I am not.”

She spluttered. “Wait a minute…ain’choo immortal?”

“Yeah, but I’m not living.”

“You’re pissed ‘cause you didn’t have no Daddy, so you kill them for what…revenge?”

He laughed and held Max upright but still the animal couldn't piss. “No one understands until the very end. All our lives we go through the motions. Work, families, vacations. Not once do we live in the moment. We live for yesterday or tomorrow. 'Wow, life was so fabulous in high school,' or 'Another step on that ladder and I'll buy that new car.' We don’t explore each moment as it comes. But when there are no moments left, they get precious in a damned hurry.”

“So you steal that moment.”

Copeland sighed and let Max go. “I share it.”

“You steal it because you don't have it.”

“Life has flat-lined for me. Nothing left but all the time in the world. So I watch them and smell them and sometimes taste them. Because I want what they finally, at the very end, understand they have.”

When Max barked, it was nothing more than a weak, watery yip. Copeland's ears slid back on his skull. “Did you hear that?”

Max stood near the outbuilding. He barked again, then raised a leg and pissed. A weak stream, no more than a dribble.

“Holy frigging shit.” Shock coursed through Copeland as though someone had juiced him with live power line.

The dog finished and stared with obvious relief on his hairy face. Copeland grabbed him up and put a sloppy kiss on his dry nose. “Way to go, Max.”

“Seven pills?” Dacey said. “Hoping Max’ll last a little longer? Tomorrow's moment?”

Copeland shook his head. “This moment, and in this moment, we're celebrating piss.”

Dacey stared hard at him. “My mistake.”

“Goddamned right.”

Agitated, Copeland set Max down and looked at the outbuilding. The wood was old, stained by age and weather. The roof was slightly pitched, with some shingles missing and tarpaper exposed beneath. But mostly, Copeland saw the doorway, without any kind of door, closed off by bricks equally old and stained.

Except the bricks were on the inside.

Copeland grinned. “Peck bricked himself in.”

“What?”

He had been right, he had smelled his father. “He's in there. It's why Max could suddenly pee.”

“In there? That doesn't—”

Max barked again.

“Crap'a'mighty,” she said.

Copeland slammed a booted foot against the brick. “You in there, you bastard?”

“Copeland, Peck is not in there. He'd be dead.”

“Eternal.” Copeland kicked the door again. “All the healers are.”

“But why would he brick himself in?”

“Who the fuck knows? Why would he try to kill an immortal son?” Copeland ran to his car and grabbed a hammer from the beat-up toolbox.

“You said he was drunk. But this—”

Copeland slammed the hammer against the brick.

—thud—

From inside, they heard a yelp.

“Oh, my Holy God,” Dacey said.

Copeland swung the hammer harder and faster. Mortar vaporized beneath the onslaught. “I found you, you ratfuck.”

—thud—

A large piece of brick fell to the ground, then another. Copeland's hands were hot, attacked by needles and pins, by slashes of adrenaline. He kicked the chunks out of the way as fast as his hammer brought them down.

“Get him out, Copeland. Damnit, get him out.”

“Try to kill your own son?” Copeland shouted. “Tell him life isn’t worth it? Yeah, well, we're going to see, aren't we, Daddy?”

Bricks fell and Dacey shuffled back and forth, trying to see inside. “We're coming. Hurry, Copeland. He can save Gramps.”

—thud—

Breathing the angry dust, the hole in the brick became the hole in Copeland’s neck. He poured his anger into it, peeling back the edges of skin, splitting it wide enough to reach in and grab Peck. “Get the fuck out.” He was a surgeon going deep into poisoned tissue for a tumor, and when he found his father, Copeland tore the tumor out. Slivers of brick caught Peck's skin as Copeland dragged him across them and slammed him to the ground.

“Make him save Gramps.”

Copeland jerked Peck's face up so he could see it, and then frowned, confused. Had he so completely forgotten it? The sharp cheekbones? The huge mouth of teeth? The eyes that ran toward gray?

“Who the fuck're you?” the man said.

“Son of a bitch,” Copeland said. “It’s not him.”

“What?” Dacey said. “Yes, it is, it's Pastor Bob.”

“It may be Pastor Bob, but it's not Peck.”

Dacey shoved Copeland out of the way. “Don't give a crap if its Peck or not, he can cure Gramps.”

Bleeding, Pastor Bob cocked his head toward the sanctuary. “Hear that?”

It came like a rumble from the trees, and Copeland felt it rather than heard it. As though someone stood on his chest or banged his head against the sidewalk.

“The congregation,” Copeland said.

“Well done,” Pastor Bob said. “You brought them back to life, but you sure as hell didn't stop their pain.”

The rumble of chaotic voices grew. Whining, Max hid in the undergrowth.

The congregation sang. Louder and more desperate, Dacey thought, pushed by a rumbling bass, a soprano, the middle filled with tenors and altos.

“Fix Gramps.”

“He can't.” Copeland aimlessly kicked at battered bits of brick. “You buried yourself in there because you couldn't cure them…not completely.”

Gramps' eyes had sparkled like water on chrome when Darcy had taken him out of the pew. Giddy, she had hugged him because Gramps was alive and could hear her say she loved him. Now he sat on the back porch, his face tight. “Please. He's all I have. You got to cure him.”

“I can't,” Pastor Bob said. “Simple as that.”

“Where are you going?” she asked Copeland.

With Max in his arms, he shrugged and headed inside.

Pastor Bob presented his face to the sun. “I was able to heal them, then I wasn't. I don’t know why. It happens like that sometimes. Happened to my Daddy, too. I tried, though. I touched them for hours, some for days. I had sex with some. Anything to get inside them the way I had been. But they kept dying.”

“They're dying now.” Tears burned her eyes.

“Every day I was behind those bricks I felt them.” Pastor Bob tapped his ear. “Heard them, too. I guess there was enough of me left to keep them…well, not dead. But I couldn’t mend their aches and pains and burst organs.”

“Why didn't you just leave?”

“I don’t know. I guess— You can’t get away from it. I’ve always heard people’s pleas in my head; my whole life. So I opted out the best way I could. I can’t kill myself so what else is there? I thought maybe, if I bricked it up, I wouldn’t hear them anymore.”

“You did.”

“Yes. I’m sorry I can't help. I wish I could.” He offered his hand to Gramps. After a long moment, Gramps took it. Then Pastor Bob headed for the road.

“Can’t you see how bad he hurts? Where you going?”

“I don’t know. Somewhere else.”

Dacey grabbed the hammer and ran at him. The twin teeth of the claw slammed into Pastor Bob's skull. Blood spattered her face and neck. With a grunt, she pulled the hammer out and smashed his ribs. The wet snap brought a grim smile to her face, but at the same moment, a sorrowful white noise filled her. She would never have another fishing trip. She and Gramps would never throw lines together in Big Indian Creek, they were done digging night crawlers.

She raised the hammer again. Gramps stepped in front of her, silent, but commanding. He took the hammer from her in mid-swing.

Blood covered Pastor Bob head to waist. As though it didn’t matter, he continued for the road, stopping at the tree line when she called to him.

“So that's it? You come back, bring them to life just a little, and then leave again?” Anger burned her like acid.

“You brought me back,” he said. “This isn’t my fault.”

“So Gramps will just go back to being lifeless?”

Pastor Bob dripped blood. “He’s alive now, they all are. They'll stay that way for…who knows how long? Whatever I have left has touched them a little.”

“Alive but dying,” Dacey said.

“Cancer or heart disease or whatever. It won’t be peaceful, but at least it’ll be.” He disappeared into the foliage.

Gramps squeezed her hand. It wasn't like when he'd held her hand as a child, but it was close. She fell into his chest and when he kissed the top of her head, she cried.

Copeland sat beneath the cross.

The sun had stumbled toward the horizon and the colored shadows were tattooed across the wall. Some of the congregation had already died. Others had grimly wandered from the sanctuary. Those who remained filled the air with calls to loved ones, parents' names, children's names. Now, at the end, they were living in all of their moments. Copeland felt a tingle of excitement deep in his chest. These moments were what he sought, when there was epiphany. Yet there was also melancholy, because the dead were fully aware of the finality that crowded the moments.

Max lay to Copeland's side, trying unsuccessfully to sleep. A soft moan slipped from deep in Max' chest while his eyes remained half-open. For all he told Dacey, Copeland was never completely sure which moment he lived in, but regardless, in this moment, Max hurt.

Four dead and more waiting.

Dacey watched Gramps and Copeland argue, Gramps silent and using his hands and stomping feet. Copeland shrugged an apology. Gramps grabbed the IV needle, tried to stab it into his own arm. Copeland took the needle and disconnected it from the tubing.

“He wants it pretty good,” Copeland said to Dacey.

“It ain’t right.”

“For who?”

Was she really as brittle and self-centered, as her words? She loved Gramps and wanted the best for him. Death couldn't be that best thing, could it? Maybe the cancer had silenced him but didn't his heart still beat? Didn't his eyes and ears still see and hear? As long as that was true, couldn’t he still love her? “You ain’t gonna murder him.”

Copeland's stare was endless and as deep as the trees around the church. Under it she grew uncomfortable. Finally, a smirk turned his lips. “We're not so different.”

“Bullshit. I ain’t living for some vague future. I ain’t pumping Gramps with seven pills a day. I'm living for right now. And right now, I love my Gramps and want to take him home. He's alive. Don't fuck with me on this, Copeland.”

Dacey headed for the doors, leading Gramps' from the church. On the street, Gramps looked back. She followed his gaze and saw Copeland standing in the door. Toward Copeland, Gramps raised his free hand, and then his middle finger.

“I'm so glad you're back, Gramps,” Dacey said. “I missed you so much.”

Eight dead.

More waiting and Copeland felt their disease and heard the slowing tick of their hearts. He gave them all the time they wanted, and after this death, would even give them control of the button and the IVs.

He sat under the cross, Max in his lap, still bleeding where Copeland inserted the IV needle. Copeland pressed the first button. Morphine flowed and within seconds, Max's trembling stopped. The mutt's eyes jumped to Copeland's, surprised. He stroked the dog's side, felt the tension slip away. It was a doggy smile, lips pulled back, eyes sparkling the way they had after the vet fixed him up. For a moment, as Max stood and wagged his tail weakly, Copeland was almost certain Max was the dog he’d once been.

“Yesterday's moment,” Copeland said.

Max took a few energetic steps but Copeland held him back.

Copeland was just as much of a hypocrite as Peck, maybe more so. Peck was a healer and murderer. Copeland said he believed life was everything yet killed people for gas money. He preached living in the moment yet fed Max pills in hopes of having Max in the tomorrow. And when he gave Max those pills, the dog wasn't really alive anymore, he just existed.

“I love you, Max,” he said, laying his dog down.

He pressed the second button.

The IV began to flow and Max cast his eyes on Copeland. And in that last moment, Copeland saw relief in the animal’s eyes.

Missive, The Safety Of Fathers

Trey R Barker

Ed and I spent years banging back and forth about whether or not I was a Texas writer or a Southern writer and how those were very different things.  This is one of my straight up southern stories, with all the accoutrements Ed and I both loved: thick atmosphere, bizarre settings, eccentric characters, the past coming back to play with you, my absolute anger and non-acceptance of death.  But Ed and I were both also animal people and Ed told me he was especially moved by the plight of both the dog and the dog's caretaker in this story.  He knew it was, on some level, a goodbye to one of my favorite dogs.

Trey R Barker

Trey R. Barker's newest novel, When The Lonesome Dog Barks, the third in the Jace Salome series, will be available just in time for the holidays, 2017.  His most recent standalone, No Harder Prison, is available. His short fiction has appeared all over and in just about every genre imaginable.  He spent nearly two decades as an on-again, off-again journalist before moving into law enforcement.  He is currently a patrol sergeant with the Bureau County (IL) Sheriff's Office, where he specializes in hostage negotiations and internet child exploitation.

Chesterfield Gray

Stace Johnson

The glow of her cigarette tip, limned by swirling smoke, brightened to orange as she took a hungry drag. The tip faded to a dull red as she held the smoke, then almost disappeared as she exhaled a thin stream of Chesterfield gray. She closed her eyes and bent her head back, holding the cigarette high between two fingertips, her crimson nails matching the lipstick stain on the unfiltered butt. Her dark brown curls tumbled from beneath a red, wide-brimmed hat and blended with the walnut paneling before splashing onto her bare shoulders. She opened her eyes, lowered her head and focused on a sailor across the room. He sat alone against the wall, his hand wrapped around a sweating highball. The sailor kept his head down, ignoring her gaze, while a tinny radio played Benny Goodman in the background.

A few tables away, two more sailors stood and adjusted their white hats to appropriately jaunty angles. One of them gestured to the lone sailor. “Hey Tony, you comin’? We need to get back to the base by 1800.” The sailor tilted his chair back and looked at them, his head lolling to the side.

“I’ll be there," he said, waving. "Don’t worry about me, boys, I’m so short I wouldn’t be worth the MP’s time.”

“Yeah, Tony, you’re so short you have to knock on the door ‘cause you can’t reach the knob,” said the other sailor, grinning. Tony looked away and pretended to scratch a sideburn with his middle finger. The two sailors swaggered to the bar, paid their tab, and left Tony alone with the barkeep and the woman in red.

Tony watched them walk out the door and turned his gaze to the proprietor, Jimmy, polishing glasses behind the bar. I bet he does a tidy little business here, Tony thought. He scanned past the Uncle Sam poster on the wall to look through a veil of smoke at the woman in red. I bet she does good business here, too.

He knew what would happen next; when her cigarette was finished, she would pull out another, glide over to his table and ask for a light. She would expect him to hold a lighter for her, and she would sit down next to him, crossing her legs and showing a little knee.

It was the same routine, time after time, and it worked on most sailors. But then, most sailors wanted that kind of attention.

Tony dropped his gaze to his glass as she stubbed out her cigarette halfway through, leaving the butt resting against the side of the ashtray. She stood and walked through the gray swirl toward him, pulling another cigarette out of her case. Tony watched out of the corner of his eye as Jimmy set two glasses on the bar, a highball and a stem. Well, that confirms my theory about how much business she does here, Tony thought, smirking.

The woman stopped by his table and stood for a moment. Tony studied the ice in his highball. She snapped her cigarette case closed and cleared her throat.

“If I wanted a tramp, I’d go find one. Scram,” Tony said. He continued to stare into the glass. She only missed one beat.

“Is that any way to talk to a lady?” she asked.

“Nope.” Tony looked up at her.

She arched her eyebrows and turned her head to the side. “I see,” she said. “How about a light, then?”

“Sorry, I gave up smoking in the hospital. No lighter.”

She leaned over the table, the bodice of her strapless dress relaxing as she put her hand on his shoulder for support. “Fine, then. I’ll get my own light.” She retrieved a book of matches from his unused ashtray, straightened up, and proceeded to light her Chesterfield.

“Look, honey, I said get lost. I don’t want company, and I don’t need your smoke in my face.” He waved his hand and looked at her through the swirling gray.

The woman’s eyes locked onto his. “My name’s Marla, not ‘honey,’” she said, blowing smoke from the side of her mouth.

“Gotcha. Look, Marla, why don’t you go back over to your table and hit on the next guy. I’m not buying.”

She stared down into his eyes, and he held his ground. They are pretty brown eyes, he thought. But I still ain’t buying. Her gaze lingered a little longer than he expected, but he didn’t break the eye contact.

“How about a deal?” she said. “I think you need the company, so I’m going to stay. But I’ll put the cigarette out.” Marla twisted the tip of the Chesterfield against the side of the ashtray, sculpting it into a cone so she could light it again later. “And you won’t have to buy anything except a drink. For me.” She sat down across from him and put her chin on the back of her hand.

Tony rolled his eyes and looked at Jimmy behind the bar. Jimmy shrugged in answer. Tony sighed, then held up two fingers. Jimmy nodded, and began to fill the glasses he had set out earlier. Tony looked at his fingers, in the V-for-Victory position. He shook his head, snorted, and downed the rest of his highball, his lips curling back as he swallowed.

“What’s funny?” Marla asked, her eyes narrowing.

“Nothing. Nothing’s funny,” Tony said.

“You laughed like you thought something was funny.”

“No, I snorted, because I thought something was ironic.”

“Oh, I beg your pardon. Let me rephrase that. What’s ‘ironic?’”

Tony held his hand up in a Victory symbol again. “This is ironic. V for Victory. Churchill started it a few years ago, before Pearl Harbor, remember?”

“What’s ironic about it? Seems to me that we’re on our way to victory,” she said. “It’s pretty clear that Japan won’t be doing anything for a while after those two bombs we dropped on them earlier this month.” Jimmy walked from behind the bar, carrying their drinks.

“Yeah, but is that victory? Sure, now we’ve shown the Japs that the Potsdam Declaration was not just words, and they’ll probably surrender. But is it worth the cost? A hundred and fifty thousand innocent men, women and children dead?” He looked up as Jimmy arrived at the table.

Jimmy set the fresh drinks down, another bourbon for the sailor and a glass of red wine for Marla. “Son, a lot more than a hundred and fifty thousand would die during an extended campaign in the Pacific or an invasion of Japan. And a lot of them would be Americans.” He scowled, then walked back to the bar, taking the empty glasses with him.

Marla watched the sailor, her eyes narrowed. “You don’t agree, do you?”

Tony looked at her over the top of his glass as he sipped. He lifted the glass and swirled it, watching the light shine through the brown liquor and ice. “I don’t know what to think any more. All I know is that there’s been enough death. Both civilians and servicemen.” He rubbed his left shoulder.

"What ship are you with?" Marla asked, watching him work the muscles in his shoulder.

"Technically, the Saratoga. But I may as well be assigned to the U.S.S. Desk, right now. We put in for repairs at the Puget Sound yard in Bremerton a few months ago. Like the ship, I needed some repairs, and stayed in the hospital for a while up there. Then they sent me down here to finish my tour, and the Sara shipped out. I'm shuffling papers for the next couple of weeks, then I’m done."

Marla nodded. "Where did you see action?" She swirled her wine glass and took a sip.

Tony took a deep breath. "Off Iwo Jima. We were running with a light escort when we got ambushed. Seven direct hits in two attack waves, three of those hits from Kamikazes. I was moving ordnance below deck right where one of them hit. The shrapnel messed up my shoulder pretty good." He nodded slightly to the left.

"I was lucky, though," he continued. "The poor bastard helping me got one whole side of his body burned. I heard they flew him to Pearl.” He looked up at Marla. “I don't even know if he made it that far."

Marla shook her head. "Kamikazes.” She snorted. “I don't know how people can be convinced that anything is important enough to throw their own lives away. Stupid Japs." She began to bring her hand to her mouth, then remembered she didn't have a cigarette and started playing with her curls instead. Tony smiled, pulled the ashtray over, handed her the Chesterfield she had put out before, and struck a match for her.

"You know, I used to feel the same way. After Pearl, I hated the Japanese. Like most people, I wanted to see them wiped off the face of the Earth. Worse than Nazis, I thought. When the Sara got ambushed, most of the guys just hated them more.

“But when I got up off the deck, I saw something that woke me up.” Tony reached in his pocket and brought out a small handmade book with thick pages. The edges were scorched black, and the pages warped. Marla opened it to find a small album, with photographs glued to each page. Black and white images of two children and a woman – all Japanese – looked back at her. She handed it back, no expression on her face.

“As I was lying on the deck after the crash, I felt something under my back. It was part of the pilot’s flight jacket, and this was tucked inside a pocket.” Tony thumbed to a page in the back and showed it to her. “Now, look at this one.” The picture was older than the others, and showed a pair of young boys, one Japanese and one Caucasian, playing together. He handed the book to Marla again.

Tony sipped his bourbon while she looked at the picture. “My father was a government diplomat. We traveled from city to city, country to country. Sometimes it seems like I grew up on ships, in between continents, so it seemed natural for me to join the Navy. Like most government brats, I never had many friends. But I remember a couple of names and faces.

“We lived in Japan for a while in the mid ‘30s, and I remember one boy named Sachi. He was as close as I ever came to having a best friend. Our fathers worked together at the embassy, and we would play in Sachi’s room while our mothers gossiped.” Tony tapped the little photo album in Marla’s hand.

“That picture might as well be of Sachi and me. My father had one similar to it on his desk. He said he kept it there to remind him what diplomacy was all about.”

Marla raised her eyes to meet his and handed the miniature album back. “Go on,” she said.

“As soon as I saw that picture, memories of Sachi came flooding back, and everything about this damn war changed for me. Every night, when I dream, I see Sachi’s face behind the yoke of that Zero as it dives for the ship.” He paused for a moment and looked at Marla through the smoke curling off the tip of her cigarette.

"You know, it’s not all black and white, Us versus Them. There is a lot of gray area. It's silly, really, to have to say that, but we're so blind with hatred and anger that we forget it. I forgot it until I was almost killed, by someone who may as well have been an old friend."

Tony stopped, looking at the ice in his glass again. "Of course, that’s not a very popular position right now, I'm afraid. Especially for an enlisted man. I could get thrown in the brig for being a sympathizer." He took a drink.

Marla reached over and pulled his chin up. She looked in his eyes. "It may not be popular, but it's honest. And it comes from experience," she said. "I'm not sure I agree with it, but you certainly seem to have conviction about it." She laid her hand on his, and Tony let it rest there.

Jimmy, at the bar, leaned in close to the radio. He called for their attention, and turned up the volume knob. A crackly voice announced, "And now, the President of the United States." The speaker popped a couple of times, and the familiar voice of Harry S Truman broke through.

"I have received this afternoon a message from the Japanese government in reply to the message forwarded to that government by the Secretary of State on August 11. I deem this reply a full acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration, which specifies the unconditional surrender of Japan. In the reply, there is no qualification. Arrangements are now being made for the formal signing of surrender terms at the earliest possible moment." Truman's voice crackled on, listing the details of the Japanese capitulation, while outside the bar, people shouted and car horns blared.

Jimmy sighed, poured himself a drink, and looked across the tables at Tony. “Well, you got what you wanted, son. It’s over. It’s no good for me, I’ll tell you that. After all the sailors make port and catch trains home, I’m going to have a hard time keeping the doors open.” Jimmy shook his head and pointed at the woman. “You’re going to have a tougher time of it too, Marla,” he said.

Marla looked away and stared at Uncle Sam’s face on the wall, his finger pointing at her as he proclaimed, “I Want You!”

The door flew open and a sailor burst into the bar, yelling. “Have you heard the news? It’s over! We won!”

Jimmy smiled back at the sailor and raised his glass. “Yeah, we heard. You want a drink to celebrate? It’s on the house!”

“No thanks, Jimmy, I actually came in to see Marla.” Marla broke off her staring contest with Uncle Sam and turned to face the sailor. He walked across the room and knelt down in front of Marla, oblivious to Tony’s presence. He took her hand.

“Marla, I want to thank you for ... well ... everything.” He looked into her lap, blushing. Marla held back a smirk and rubbed the back of his hand. The sailor looked into her eyes and continued. “But I’ve got a girl back home, and I can’t wait to see her. She’s everything to me, you know.” He swallowed. “I just had to let you know that I couldn’t have made it through this war without you.” He kissed her on the cheek, then turned and walked across the bar. At the door, he turned and waved.

“‘Bye, Marla.”

“‘Bye, Pete,” she whispered, raising her hand a little. Pete walked out and rejoined the growing celebration in the streets.

Tony watched a vacancy gloss over Marla’s eyes. For a moment, she was someplace else, then the focus came back into her eyes. She turned to Jimmy and said, “Well, I’m nobody’s fool, Jimmy. It’s probably about time for me to make some changes anyway.” She turned and looked at Tony.

Tony studied the table’s wood grain as Truman’s voice droned on about the proclamation of V-J Day waiting upon the formal signing of the terms of surrender. It was really over. He felt the war slipping off his shoulders like the sweat running off his highball. Just the formalities left, he thought. Now what do I do? How do I build some meaning into this life? He felt a squeeze from Marla's hand, and looked up into her eyes.

Marla took a long drag on her half-smoked Chesterfield, looked at it, then stabbed it out in the ashtray, not bothering to sculpt the tip. A smile brushed her lips as she exhaled the smoke and pushed her cigarette case to the side.

Tony smiled back and squeezed her hand.

Missive, Chesterfield Gray

Stace Johnson

I first met Ed Bryant at a science fiction literature conference in 1987 at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado. I didn't meet him again until about ten years later, when he assisted Harlan Ellison with a group critique session at Teikyo Loretto Heights University in Denver, where I was an audience member. At that event, Ed gave out his email address for people who were interested in writing groups.

Fast forward to a few months later, when Ray Bradbury was speaking at Chautauqua Auditorium in Boulder. I attended with my son, Keith, who was about seven years old and already showing some artistic talent. We sat in the front row, and though I was fascinated by Bradbury's talk, my son's attention wandered a bit, and he wanted to draw. A kind woman next to us loaned him a pen and a piece of paper, and he quietly drew his best rendition of a mechanical hound for the rest of the talk. He returned the pen to the lady when he was done.

Afterward, while we were standing in line to get some books signed, he said he wanted to give the picture he drew to Mr. Bradbury, but he wanted to sign it, since Bradbury was signing his books for people. I didn't have a pen, but looked around in the crowd and focused on a loud Hawaiian shirt. I said to my son, "See that man in the brightly colored shirt? He's a writer. He'll have a pen. Go say to him, 'Mr. Bryant, can I borrow your pen?'" He made his way through the crowd and spoke to Ed, who looked confused, but reached into his pocket and gave a pen to Keith. Keith signed the picture, said thank you, and handed the pen back. As Ed was putting the pen into his pocket, he turned to his companion, Dawn Dunn, and it looked like he said, "How the hell did that kid know who I am?" Keith did get to give his signed picture to Mr. Bradbury, who was so thrilled he lifted it up in the air, kissed it, and gave my son a hug across the table.

I contacted Ed via email a couple of weeks later and reintroduced myself, using that event as my lede. We became friends, and I joined his Writer's Circle critique group, then later joined his Old Possum's writing group, assisting with the administration of the latter group and filling in for Ed occasionally (at his request) when he was out of town during meetings. When his health started giving him trouble and he was short on income, Melanie Tem used seed money from an angel investor to create a supplemental needs trust fund for Ed through the Colorado Center for People with Disabilities. At Melanie's request, I worked with CPWD to create a PayPal donation account for Ed's fund and link it to a website, www.FriendsOfEd.org, where people from anywhere in the world could contribute to Ed's supplemental needs. We collected thousands of dollars through the website in short order, a testament to the love and respect Ed received worldwide. I continue to host the FriendsOf Ed.org website, as well as moderating the Friends of Ed Bryant private Facebook group.

"Chesterfield Gray" benefits from feedback given by Ed and the students in both of the aforementioned writing groups.

Stace Johnson

By day, Stace Johnson is a mild-mannered IT worker for a Colorado 9-1-1 facility, but at night, he transforms into a mild-mannered writer, musician and computer consultant. Stace first met Ed Bryant in 1987 at a science fiction literature conference in Durango, CO, and joined two of Ed's writing groups in the late 90s after moving to the Denver area. He has published more than 30 non-fiction articles for computer magazines, as well as selling several poems to magazines like Tales of the Talisman and cream city review.

Stace also created and manages the Friends of Ed Bryant group on Facebook, as well as maintaining the FriendsofEd.org website. You can find out more about Stace at his website, http://www.lytspeedconsulting.com.

Gabriella

Richard E Friesen

I finally have my heart’s desire. Why does it feel so wrong? Milica is here with me, sharing my bed at last. For so long, we were just roommates. I used to cherish the brush of her shoulder against mine, the touch of a hand. When she figured that out, she avoided touching me at all, and I had to content myself with her lessons on freedom and resistance. Now, lying in bed together with the warp trains rumbling by overhead, I shudder in revulsion when her leg, smooth and soft, touches mine. What does my body know that I don’t?

I’m so confused, but I’m waiting for a sign. What sign I don’t know. Gabriella has stopped leaving me notes, and I have the strangest dreams—so vivid, so real. In this last one, I’m standing in my own bedroom, just standing, while Milica and Wu wrestle naked on the bed. I can’t move. I want to help Milica, but I can’t. Why do I need to help? I sweat and struggle in time with the pounding in my head. Why can’t I move? Milica says something, but I can’t hear. Then Wu turns to me.

I met Wu at the warp train terminal. Milica and I both worked there while other people came and went across the lightyears to Earth, Thurman, or Dove. We could never go. Instead, we donned our skimpy uniforms, took the regular train to the station and served drinks at the casino. Milica watched the people, human and Srenelli both, as if waiting for someone.

When Milica wore hose, the scars on her legs didn’t show, and makeup covered the ones on her face. For a long time, she never told me who had hurt her. I’d always wondered why they’d assigned her to a job where looks mattered.

The day I met Wu, a buzz ran through the terminal. The news on the screens showed the usual fluff pieces and human-interest stories, but a name ran through the crowd—Angjelko. He had escaped. Some said his name with fear, Angjelko. Some said it with hatred and some with hope, Angjelko. But whispered so often it became a shout, Angjelko!

The shout echoed back as a question; where is his Gabriella? She hadn’t been caught with him, so if he had escaped, she should be back too. Of her, no word came.

Milica, coming down the aisle between the slot machines with a drink tray, stopped when she heard the whisper. Angjelko! Standing with lips parted, she looked like she might laugh and cry and scream all at once. She schooled her features so fast that, had I not been staring, I would have missed it. She knew him. Jealousy stabbed my heart.

Blinking back tears, I turned and collided with Wu. Her drink splattered my shirt, and her data pad clattered to the floor. Grabbing me to keep from falling, she pulled, and I thought we’d both go down.

Her black hair brushed against my face and her aroma—sweet peppers and lilacs—made me swoon. At last she caught me and set me upright again.

“I’m so sorry. I should have been watching,” I said. Reaching down, I picked her pad off the floor and handed it to her. She had the latest model, holo keyboard, heads-up display, and terabyte wireless. The casino app lit up her screen.

Giggling, Wu pulled out a handkerchief to dry me off. “Don’t be silly. You got the worst of it, and I wasn’t watching either.”

Her touch made me feel like a school kid again. She had deep eyes and the same olive skin as Milica. I gestured toward the bar. “The least I can do is get you another drink.”

Beaming, she took my arm. “I might just let you. I’m Wu.”

“I’m Chris. You don’t look Asian.” Why did I say that?

With another giggle, she leaned into my shoulder, sending a shiver down my spine. “Looks can be deceiving, dear. Besides, anyone can change how they look.” She tapped her pad and her blue satin jumper turned into a charcoal business dress. “It’s all in the presentation.”

Usually, I could spot softwear a mile away, but not this. Most people who wore programmable fabric showed it off—flashing colors and moving patterns. The dancers at the night clubs down the concourse showed hot naked bodies on their leotards—one of the reasons so many people entertained themselves inside the terminal. Something I’d read resonated—bread and circuses to keep the people from thinking.

Wu and I walked to the bar and had a drink. The bosses allowed it, if the patron gambled while we talked, and Wu did—baccarat at a table for six. While flirting with me, she won. After her third drink, her implant chimed and she looked off into the distance. “I’m sorry. I have to go.” Leaning in, she kissed me on the mouth. “I won’t be back tomorrow. Will you be here the day after?”

“I will.”

The casino seemed dimmer after she left. Could I be unfaithful to Milica? The guilty pang eased when I remembered she cared not at all for me, at least not that way.

On the way home that night, I read one of Milica’s paper books. She left them out for me, picked the ones I should read. I had never imagined the worlds in these books. School had always bored me, but before Milica no one I’d ever met read paper books. I’d even gone with her to the antique store to pick some up a time or two.

With her electronic books, Milica read ordinary escapist fiction. Her paper ones, however, included texts by Jefferson, Lenin, Menelev, Mandela, and Chambers, not to mention Lennon, Guthrie, and Park—subversives and revolutionaries all. She said the government couldn’t trace paper books, couldn’t watch who read them.

This time she’d picked something on Robespierre for me. Someone had written notes on nearly every page, about all his mistakes and the things he’d done right. Then, stuck between the pages, I found a note—a note signed by Gabriella.

In a spidery script, she asked me to consider how Robespierre saw tyranny in the king but not in himself. How then does a revolutionary avoid becoming worse than those he threw out? Gabriella suggested studying Mandela and Tutu for an answer.

For a moment, I just stared at the writing as the train glided toward my stop. All the margin notes were in the same hand. These were Gabriella’s books! I had answered the question echoing back in the terminal. Gabriella was here, teaching me. Why would she pick me?

In the days that followed, I got to know Wu better, and Gabriella left more books and notes for me. As I learned of oppression, resistance, and people who rose up against their government, I began to suspect Milica was Gabriella. I learned why and when and how people resisted. Sometimes the governments started with good intent, watching citizen’s activities, but when people get arrested without warrants and held without trials, good intentions became tyranny. More, when the government becomes about the few, the elite, rather than all the people, then it has to be resisted, changed.

Angjelko used all the techniques, all Gabriella’s teachings, facing off against the Human-Srenelli Intergalactic Hegemony, but his revolution had been squashed. How had he escaped from their prison?

I wake in the night, shivering from a nightmare. I stood in my room, watching Milica, I couldn’t move. Wu bit her nipple, drawing blood. “Where did he go? You can’t resist me, you know.”

With a whimper, Milica closed her eyes, as if not seeing it meant it wouldn’t happen. She didn’t say anything.

“Why do you have to make things so unpleasant? It doesn’t have to be this way. I can be kind.” Wu caressed Milica’s belly and down across her hip, soft and gentle, but Milica flinched. “Or hurtful.” Wu shifted her fingers and her nails sliced Milica’s thigh. As the blood welled, I woke screaming.

Milica sits up and brushes back my sweaty hair. “Ssh. Everything is fine. It was just a dream. Go back to sleep.” She keeps up the soft, soothing words until the images fade in the aroma of lilacs. Deep inside, a shudder grows at her touch, but I can’t move. The lilac cannot be resisted, and Milica lays me down. She puts a hand over my eyes to close them. As I drift off, I understand what it means to be oppressed.

In the morning, when the alarm buzzes, I roll over and turn it off. Milica doesn’t move, as usual, but she’s thrown off the covers. I trace the smooth, unblemished skin on her thigh where Wu had cut her. A dream; it never happened.

Still, as I shower, steaming water running across my body, I remember what had happened next.

I saw Wu three more times before I had the fight with Milica. “But I want you to meet her!”

Milica didn’t even look up from her book. “I’d be happy to meet her, at the terminal. I’m a private person. No one but you is allowed to come here.”

“If I really like her, why I can’t I bring her home?” I wanted Milica to be jealous, to say she wanted me for herself. Instead she turned the page.

“You can, if you find your own home.”

“Milica! Not everyone is a CSB agent!”

That got her attention. Putting the book down without marking the page, she looked at me and traced a scar from the corner of her eye across her cheek. “Everyone I meet could be. I was their guest for two years. They left me alive as a contingency.”

That didn’t make any sense. What contingency? Realizing, I sank to the floor. “In case Angjelko escaped. Oh, Milica!” I reached out, but even then, she didn’t take my hand.

Milica nodded. “My heart tells me it isn’t that simple, but there is little I can do to affect their game.”

If they’d released Milica to bait a trap, wouldn’t they do more than watch? Or would they just watch closely? I looked around the room, wondering where bugs and cameras could be hidden.

Milica smiled and patted my hand. “You begin to catch on. I’ve found fourteen so far. I expect there are more. I destroy some so they don’t feel like they’re wasting their time.”

“But if they can hear us...”

Milica laughed. “All they know is that I know that they know that I know ad infinitum. We’re waiting on the next move.”

If they really wanted Milica, they could bust down the door, but with so many cameras everywhere, they tended to use more subtle methods. The court of public opinion could turn the people against them. It was all about secrecy, so the news never played anything that mattered. Where had that thought come from? Once thought, it rang true, though. More, they played and replayed the Galactic Games, distracting and unifying the people.

“With all that, we never set the alarm though.”

Milica shook her head. “No, we never set the alarm. What good would bells and buzzers do against the CSB? There may come a time, when there’s nothing left, that you set the alarm.”

“That makes no sense.”

“I hope it never does.” She gave me a sad, weary smile. “I’m old, Chris. Old and tired, and they don’t believe I can’t give them what they want.”

“What do they want?”

“Gabriella, of course, but Gabriella is gone.”

A shiver went through me. Angjelko was never without his Gabriella, but she’d never been found. Had Angjelko escaped or did they let him go? If they wanted Gabriella, they might indeed use him as bait.

I had no idea Milica had been involved in such things. To have known Angjelko and Gabriella! How did Gabriella leave me those notes? I’d thought Milica might be Gabriella, but if she was, she could give them what they wanted.

I rose from the floor. “I won’t bring Wu here.”

“I’m glad you found someone. I enjoy seeing you happy, because love is a thing of the past for me. I can never love again. Not after all I’ve been through.”

“You will love, Milica! You’re young yet.”

She offered that same sad smile. “No, I’m old, dead even. No one returns from the CSB torture houses alive.”

I started to object. Those places weren’t real, but the scars on her face and arms stopped me. Maybe they were real. “I have to go. Wu will be waiting.” Turning to leave, I found the evening’s glorious anticipation tarnished. How could I flirt with Wu when I had Angjelko and Gabriella, their rebellion and sacrifice, on my mind?

I wander through the flat touching Milica’s things. On the early shift today, she has already left. I’ll be heading in soon, but first I want to remind myself of her. In the study, I stop. Half the books are gone, just gone. Stunned, I go to my old room, where my clothes still hang. There, in the closet, are the books I’d taken to read. I pick up the one Milica gave me the day Angjelko came. The cover says it is a book about an old singing group. Inside Gabriella has made notes. One phrase sticks out at me; “Even in the best of governments, secrecy breeds tyranny. The people must be educated.”

Sitting down to read the passages again, I remember feeling jealous when I saw Milica out in the terminal.

While I delivered more drinks and fantasies, Milica had gone out on break. Outside the big doors, Milica stood by the wall wearing her coat and talking to a Srenelli—tall, with a beak and bright feathers. Something in Milica’s stance screamed fight or flight. She either wanted to fling herself at the alien or run from him. She did neither. I think it was male, though Srenelli are hard to distinguish.

After some words, Milica handed him a small object and shook her head. His beak fell, and she put a hand on the side of his head. For some reason, I heard what she said then, that last word; “Ljupcho.” What did it mean?

He started away.

Wu called my name. Turning, I held out my hand to her. She took it, but her eyes followed Milica and the retreating Srenelli. He slipped into a maintenance hatch and vanished. I had to go back to work.

First, I found a drink for Wu, even as she whispered to someone on her implant. Moments later, the screens in the casino changed from news of The Games to static, and the same Srenelli appeared.

As he clicked and chirped, subtitles ran across the bottom. “I am Angjelko. For these past years I have been held by the hegemony without trial. They have killed my Gabriella for the simple crime of telling the truth. The warp train terminals, with their casinos and prostitutes, and the Galactic Games with their never-ending stories of valor and victory are nothing more than distractions. The Hegemony doesn’t want you to know what it is doing, doesn’t want you to remember how oppressed you are. Even in the best governments, secrecy is tyranny. If they don’t want you to know, they are doing things against your interests, against your freedom. Neither I nor my followers have harmed anyone, yet we have been harmed...”

Wu leaped up and strode away, without even a glance at me. Everyone listened in the silent casino. It was never silent.

The building exploded. The floor rose to meet my face. Fire consumed people and gambling tables. I struggled to breathe. I should do something but couldn’t think what. There’d been drills.

Rolling to my back I looked up at puffy clouds where the roof had been. There in the sky floated a ship—a single seat fighter with ionization trails running down to the terminal. It was such an odd sight that I raised my pad and recorded it, even with fire extinguishers going off around me. The warp trains had made spaceships rare in the inner planets. They only flew out on the frontier.

“What happened?” a man next to me asked. “Did Angjelko blow up the terminal?”

“Yes!” a woman shrieked.
Blinking, my brain came part way back. What had I been thinking? “No! Look!” I pointed as the ship turned and glided upward. Moments later it vanished.

Sirens wailed and people screamed, but I just lay on the ground. Milica found me. She leaned over, hair singed and dress covered in soot. “Are you hurt?”

“Don’t think so.” I felt no pain.

She knelt and ran her hands through my hair, down my neck and shoulders. I’d so long wanted her to do that. Then Wu appeared on the other side.

They glared at each other. They’d never met. Introductions. I needed to introduce them. “Wu, Milica.” I waved my hand between them.

They still glared, so I groaned. My head throbbed. Milica’s attention focused on me then. “Can you move your head?” She put a hand on each side.

When I did, it nauseated me. She had me move each foot and leg. “Let’s sit you up. You may vomit.”

I did, bringing up pita, hummus and grapes.

“The medics will be here soon, she’ll be fine,” Wu said.

Milica gave Wu a searching look, seeing the gash on Wu’s forehead, the big bruise on her leg. Milica nodded. “It’s just a concussion. We need to get out of here.” As they stood me up, armored, hegemony police, appeared. They checked everyone, rounding up any who could move. I passed out.

I look up Ljupcho. It’s an old Macedonian name meaning beloved. Sitting down on my old bed, I cry. Gabriella is dead, Angjelko vanished and blamed for the explosion. I should go to work, but I just don’t care. Instead I doze after the tears run out. I doze and dream. The dream can’t be real, because Milica is here.

I remember flashes at the hospital, lying on a bed staring at the ceiling, a doctor shining a light in my eye, a nurse with cold hands. I dream about what happened after, things my concussed mind imagined.

The room swayed. It was my bedroom. Wu turned and put her hands on my face. “I think you should just watch this.” She kissed me, her tongue tasting like cough syrup. “And forget too.” Then her mouth tasted of Jasmine.

I blinked and Milica writhed naked on the bed while Wu stood over her. Blood dripped from Wu’s hands and splattered on her skin. “You will tell me where to find Angjelko and Gabriella both. Between the truth drugs and the pain, you have no choice.”

Milica stilled herself and grinned, her teeth glinting red. “You’re wrong. Even in torture, I choose. To give in or die.”

Wu cocked her head and set one razor fingernail gently on Milica’s clitoris. “You have no such choice. You live when I say. You die when I say. You talk when I say.” Wu applied a little pressure and Milica squirmed, fists grabbing sheets.

I wanted to squirm, but couldn’t. Milica just gave Wu a tight grin again. “Pain means nothing.”

“Nothing?” Wu casually sliced the flesh, watching Milica’s face, but the grin never changed. Reaching up, Wu rubbed the blood across Milica’s cheek. “You are strong, but there are always ways.”

Wu walked over to me again, and smiling ran her hand through my hair. When she leaned in to kiss me, I tried to pull away. She held me fast and pushed her tongue between my lips. This time it tasted of peppermint and salt blood. Who was this woman? I’d forgotten her name.

My body reacted even when I told it not too. After what seemed forever, I relaxed and our mouths parted. She whispered in my ear. “I am Milica.” That made no sense. How could she be Milica? When she walked away, I saw it—dark hair, smooth skin. It had to be Milica.

She walked back to the bed where another woman lay. Who was that? She had dark hair too. Was that Wu? Why would Milica hurt Wu? Was she jealous?

Milica ran her razor nail around Wu’s areola. Wu writhed, but made no sound. “Tell me where to find Gabriella.”

Wu gave a choked chuckle. “Gabriella is dead. You killed her. But she will rise again.” The tortured woman glanced at me. “Little Chris, the cocktail waitress, is more danger to you than I am.”

Me? I wasn’t a danger to anyone, especially not Milica. Why couldn’t I wake up? Why wouldn’t this dream end?

“You will not mock me. You will answer.” Milica pressed her nail into Wu’s left nipple, pushing it inward.

Raising both hands to grab Milica’s wrist, Wu squirmed. “No. Please, no.” Milica smiled until Wu pulled hard on her arm. She lifted her shoulders off the bed. The sharp nail penetrated the skin and Milica’s finger sank all the way into Wu’s chest. “I win. Angjelko will win.” She sank back down, leaving Milica staring at her blood-soaked finger and the red torrent spurting from Wu’s chest.

Wu stared at her own blood too, a slow smile spreading across her face. Choking, blood trickled from her mouth. She turned to look at me. “Puzzle Ljupcho.”

I didn’t understand. Why couldn’t I wake up?

Milica bent over Wu and shook her. “Damn you! Tell me where Gabriella is! Where did Angjelko go?”

Wu just smiled wider. Then her chest heaved. She couldn’t breathe, and more blood poured from her mouth. Closing her eyes, triumph crossed her face. After three more choked breaths she slumped down and lay still.

Milica thumped Wu’s chest. “Damn it!” When Milica turned, she looked at me. “It’s just you and me now, love. We’ll have to wait to see what happens next.”

I wake at last. More tears run down my cheeks and over my nose. Gabriella is dead, Angjelko gone. Who will speak for the people?

Rising, I walk to my book collection. I find one with Gabriella’s writings. Under it lie three paperbacks I’ve never seen, all sealed in plastic: Gulliver’s Travels, Around the World in Eighty Days, and Have Spacesuit, Will Travel. How could Milica afford these rare, expensive books?

Taking the whole collection, I sit on the bed to puzzle. First there’s the Ljupcho puzzle. Wasn’t Ljupcho another name for Angjelko? And three books about travel? Travel to from and around Earth? Could it be that simple?

The plan comes to me all at once. Sell the three near-priceless books to the antique dealer and buy a ticket to Earth, the one place they would never look for Angjelko.

Getting up, I take the books and walk to the door. Milica must not follow me, and I will not be back. I set the alarm.

Angjelko, I’m coming. Together we will teach the people to rise up. We’ll do it for Gabriella. I will be your Gabriella, since she cannot come.

Missive, Gabriella

Richard E Friesen

Not long after I moved to Denver, I found MileHiCon and Ed Bryant. Not long after that, I joined Ed's Wednesday night writers group. I began to learn how to write—a chore which took me much longer than most. A few years later, I joined the Northern Colorado Writers Workshop, also founded by Ed.

The transition was an odd one—on Wednesdays, Ed would give the harshest, most critical comments. At NCWW, Ed gave the gentlest, kindest critiques. My favorite memory of Ed is standing with him, George R. R. Martin (during his less-famous Beauty and the Beast days, MileHiCon 22 in 1990), and Simon Hawke. Simon lamented missing a deadline for the first time in his career (by that time, he had well over a dozen books published). Ed asked: "When was it due?" Simon said, "End of September" (MileHiCon is in late October.)

Ed said, "That's not missing a deadline. I had a book due in 1972."

Richard E Friesen

Richard E Friesen is the author of the five volume fantasy epic, The Dreaming King. Saga, that begins with the Tower of Dreams. His next novel, Gray's Children, the first Wetware Wizards novel is about a small group fighting a stealth coup by a group of AIs. The AIs are taking over and making the humans think it's in their advantage. richardfriesen.net

Jack in the Warren - Novel Excerpt

Jim LeMay

The deep door well mostly protected the little boy from the sleet. He knew he must lie absolutely still – movement might attract a wanderer looking for a haven like his – but he shivered uncontrollably every time a vagrant icy blast pelted him. He would surely die if ejected back into the rain.

Then the impossible happened. The splintered wooden door he huddled against opened, dumping him into brazen light and the most wonderful heat he had ever felt. Perhaps he had died and this was the heaven the Christers talked about. Rough hands immediately grasped him, shouted harshly at him and to each other. He heard only isolated phrases: “What is this ...” “... tryin t’ burgle ...” “... lidl thief ...” They handled him roughly. No, this wasn’t heaven but he was, more than likely, dead.

The hands roughly thrust him back into the rain and darkness. He bumped and slid down the rain-slick cobbles. He knew he should hurt but felt nothing. The heat and light must’ve been a dream, the rough handling, talk and return to the rain, a nightmare. Just like the rest of life: mostly bad mixed with a little bit of good.

... and then he felt nothing.

More dreams: Of being carried, or was he floating? Swaddled tightly. Strange voices. Shadows leaping against a wall. Instead of the cold and wet it was now only cold but somehow he knew it was all right to shiver. After some interminable period he awakened coughing, very cold. One thing he knew for sure: he wasn’t dead. His throat was too sore and he had a terrible headache. The world seemed to blink on and off in an uncomfortable way. He felt a blanket wrapped tightly about him. Where had it come from, a dry one at that?

He slept; coughing again awakened him. Now, he felt so hot he disentangled himself from the blanket and cast it off. Faint light illuminated a small square: dawn light coming through a window. He must be inside somewhere. How had that happened?

“Ah, yor awake.” A woman’s quiet voice. “Drink this.” A hand behind his head gently lifted it so he could gulp a warm, bitter liquid from a cup. “It’s salix mixed with tea. It’ll ease the sore throat an help the fever.” She gently lowered his head and tucked the blanket firmly around him. “Don keep kickin this off. Y’ need t’ stay warm.” She continued to talk quietly but he was too tired to concentrate, or even care what she said.

He awoke much later. His head ached fiercely and he was cold again, shivering under several blankets though he lay near a blazing fireplace. Full day, albeit a gloomy, overcast one, shone through the little window. A pretty girl, a few years older than him and dark like the woman, appeared.

“Where’s ... how ...” A fit of coughing interrupted him. After it ended he asked, “How’d I git here?”

“Ed Hanrahan found y’ an lugged y’ here,” said the girl. She disappeared from his view and returned holding a cup. “Mum said for y’ t’ drink this when y’ woke up.” She raised his head, not as gently as the woman had done, and placed a second pillow under it. She held the cup to his lips and he drank more of the bitter liquid. She held it at such an angle that it gushed into his throat. He turned away to avoid gagging and coughed again.

“Mum says y’ gotta drink it all. It’s got medicine in it.”

Used to doing things for himself, he took the cup from her in hands shaking so badly he almost spilled it.

“If y’ spill it, y’ lidl shit, I’ll make another cup an y’ll hafta drink it all.”

Her imperious tone stiffened his determination to drink the tea without her help. As soon as he finished he lay back as exhausted as if he had run across the entire Warren.

“I can’t keep callin y’ lidl shit. What’s yor name?” she demanded.

“Jack.”

“I’m Lilliyaana. My mum’s Amelya. Amelya Moritz. She’s workin so I’m stuck with y’.” He dozed fitfully, sometimes dreamed weird dreams that he barely remembered later. The headache gradually waned but not the cough or sore throat. The girl frequently changed the damp cloth she had put over his forehead as his fever dried it out. She sometimes spoke to him, but he found it hard to concentrate and didn’t try to answer her. Sometimes she brought him water or more tea.

Voices awakened him in the evening. He saw the woman and girl talking quietly. When he coughed they looked at him and the woman came over. He recognized her as the woman who trundled the little cooking cart across Gallows Square every morning. She felt his forehead with her palm and in the same quiet tone of the morning asked how he felt.

“All right.” He coughed again. No one had ever before asked how he felt.

She smiled a little. “I wouldn go that far but yor fever feels like it’s down a bit. Is the tea ready, Lilli?”

The girl said yes and brought a cup to the woman. After she helped him drink it she brought out a small vial, opened the lid and poured a viscous fluid into a spoon.

“I got this today for yor cough,” she said as he took the spoon. “Drink it.”

Later, when the woman tried to feed him some soup he took the bowl and spoon from her and fed himself. Help from others made him uncomfortable. After he finished the woman gave him more of the thick bitter liquid. Eating had exhausted him so much he fell asleep immediately. When coughing awakened him in the night the woman gave him more of the cough medicine.

The girl replacing the damp cloth on his forehead awakened him the next morning.

“Yor fever’s down a lidl,” said the girl. “How d’ y’ feel?”

“Better.” He did. He no longer had chills though his throat was sore and he felt very weak. “Well, y’ll soon be well nough t’ git outta here so I can git my bed back. See, I usually sleep where yor sleepin. Mum don want me in the same room with y’ cause I might git yor sickness so I’m stuck sleepin with her.” She jerked her thumb toward the door beside the fireplace. “Course yor bein here ent all bad. I git t’ miss my lessons with ol Bumsuck.” She grinned. “His real name’s Brunswik.”

Brunswik ran the only school in the Warren. On days too hot to hold class inside, Jack had seen him seated on his stool in Gallows Square, his students squatting on the paving stones in a semicircle around him.

She stood up and turned to the fireplace. “Mum said y’ need more tea an cough stuff.”

He drank the tea eagerly and a glass of water. He had gotten used to the tea’s bitterness and was very thirsty.

She talked as he drank it. “Bumsuck charges mum for teachin. I don see why I need im. Mum don read an she gits by jus fine.”

Jack, too, had wondered why some people valued reading and writing when just staying alive took so much work.

The next day Amelya pronounced him well enough for Lilliyaana to return to school. When Lilliyaana returned she made tea for him and gave him cough syrup. When he once tried to stammer out his gratitude she interrupted him in her usual brusque manner.

“I ent doin this just for yor sake, y’ lidl shit. I want my bed back.”

The next day Jack felt even better though still weak. His fever was gone. The cough had diminished and with it the soreness of his throat. The bright daylight peering through the tiny window cheered him. For the first time since the onset of the illness he was hungry. Amelya gave him solid food that evening, pickled cabbage with a few shreds of salt pork in it and potatoes. The next evening he felt well enough to eat at the table with Amelya and Lilliyaana. Amelya made all three of them bow their heads before the meal while she said something called a prayer. They couldn’t eat until she finished which annoyed him a little because of his hunger until he remembered that if not for her he wouldn’t have survived the night of the storm. And, of course, he was used to being hungry.

“Where do y’ live anyhow?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Nowhere.”

“A orphan. I figgered so when I seen y’ round Gallows Square. That’s why yor clothes is such rags. I got sunthin for y’.” She went into her other room and brought back something rolled under her arm. “See how this fits.” She shook out the bundle.

A jacket, used but in good condition! His was too small and so full of holes he often had trouble finding the ones that led to the sleeves.

“Well,” said Lilliyaana, “try it on, y’ lidl shit.”

“Watch yor mouth, lidl girl,” Amelya said mechanically.

He reached for the jacket and slowly pulled it on. It was lined with wool. So warm. An uncomfortable emotion he had not felt for a long time threatened him.

“Amelya, I – I ...” His throat closed so that he couldn’t speak.

“Yor welcome, Jack. I know it’s a lidl big but y’ll grow in t’ it.”

She showed him how to clean his teeth and made him bathe every other day. She told him to continue these things after he left.

“Y’ want t’ keep yor teeth healthy. Y’ don wanta look like ol Naddick do y’?” Naddick was a crippled, toothless beggar who slept in Gallows Square. “Ent no girl ’d have y’ then.” When he said, rather sullenly, that he didn’t care what any old girls thought of him she laughed and shook her head.

Part of him would have liked to stay in the warm comfort of the house forever but both Amelya and, less subtly, Lilliyaana, let him know that was not to be. Most of him though missed the streets and freedom from Amelya’s regimens of physical and spiritual hygiene.

Because of the uncomfortable feeling connected to the jacket, saying good-by seemed awkward so one day while Amelya was at work and Lilliyaana at school, Jack left wearing his warm jacket.

He usually remembered always being an orphan. Occasionally, though, a vague feeling, too amorphous to call a memory, tugged at him: of someone (he was certain it was a her) holding him lovingly. When very young, while waiting for sleep, he had allowed the quasi-memory to become real enough to banish all fear, loneliness and other longings he couldn’t name just long enough to fall asleep. Upon awakening, however, he was again alone and scared and as often as not, hungry. Sometimes a tightness clutched his throat and his eyes misted. Angry at what he considered a weakness Jack always cleared his throat and blinked away the moisture before it could turn to tears. Gradually, with difficulty, he had forced the tender woman fantasy out of his mind. In time it became less than a memory of a feeling. When it threatened to reemerge he destroyed it with strenuous activity like running.

The uncomfortable emotion threatened to return as he left Amelya’s house. If the tender woman had been real, he thought, she would have been someone like Amelya, though not her of course. Amelya would never have abandoned him.

Less than a block from Amelya’s house he began to run. The few people about in the Warren looked curiously at the little boy racing up and down its streets and alleys.

Missive, Jack in the Warren

Jim LeMay

I wrote and published two novels shortly after the turn of the century and then ended my career. When the muse struck again in early 2014 I began a third one, Shadow Jack. That spring I noticed online that Edward Bryant held a workshop in my area. Surprised to find out how easily I could join, I quickly did.

At the August, 2014, meeting in the mountain fastness of Wayne Manor, I made my first submittal: the prolog and first three chapters of Shadow Jack, about half of what I had written. Which proved to be wa-aa-ay too much. Ed said, “Compared to C_ _ _ _’s submittal” – a flash fiction piece – “Jim’s is the Bataan Death March.” Which he quickly amended by saying, “Only in length of course.”

The group didn’t like it much. They felt three time streams and four sets of characters, each in separate socio-economic circles, made it too complicated. Before we split up for the evening, Ed took me aside and told me I had a good set of tools in my writer’s toolbox but we’d have to see where my story led, “if indeed it leads anywhere.” I felt abashed; I had failed the master.

The group accepted the second, shorter, submission more favorably. The disparate stories had begun to merge. With gentle suggestions, Ed nudged me into blending them more quickly and seamlessly. By the novel’s end, with most of the group’s approval, certainly Ed’s, I succeeded. Ed said, “Your characters did a good job of bringing all these threads together.”

He was right. My characters take over all my novels and run with them. Little Jack sure did, starting with his introduction in the section of Chapter One included herein.

Jim LeMay

Jim LeMay is originally from Missouri, the land of Mark Twain, Yogi Berra, Walter Cronkite, Edwin Hubble, Robert A. Heinlein and many other worthies so he knows his characters well. He has engaged in many of their vocations and avocations – homebrewer, bartender, waiter, land surveyor, civil engineer, land developer – and in some they have not: author, copywriter, commercial artist and others best forgotten. Jim has lived in many places but now calls the Denver metropolitan area home. jimlemaybooks@gmail.com

Sleeping Stones

Jamie Ferguson

The stones stood as they had for millennia; some tall and somber above the small crowd of people, some mere remnants left underground because it hadn’t been worth the scavengers’ time to excavate the entire form.

Sleep.

The air was crisp, the sky brightened by the light of the moon as it peeked through the winter clouds. The mood of the people was festive. A number were solemn, awed by the sense of mystery they perceived to be present; others were jovial, dancing and singing. Several were asleep.

Wait.

No one was warm, although the less sober thought that they were. Even the stones were cold, but that didn’t bother them in the least. A happy group of revelers dressed in what they felt might have been appropriate attire thousands of years before danced around the one they called the Slaughter Stone.

Sleep.

It began to snow. A light dusting of soft flakes quickly covered the tops of the rocks. As the solstice approached, the people became more excited, the dancing more fervid. Most of the sleepers woke up because of the increased noise; those who didn’t were shaken awake by their friends or enthusiastic strangers. The winter crowd was firm about the time. Eager voices shouted the minutes, then the seconds.

Listen now. Listen.

The stones listened.

In a small, decrepit monument miles away, a lintel which had once been part of the circle listened.

The bits of the stones that had been destroyed listened as well. A number were now part of walls or houses. Most were small, crunched down to help form roads.

Listen.

The monument, the gate, was the center. Power had been lost from the pieces that had been removed, and while they still felt the pull they could do little to contribute. But enough of the circle remained, in spite of the damage humanity had done over the years. The design had taken that into account.

As the last number was shouted aloud, the Sun moved a tiny fraction farther away, and the stones roused themselves. For a split-second they were awake.

Alive.

Is it time?

A circle of questioning radiated out, growing larger and larger, sent wider and wider – through all dimensions, in all directions, a sphere of inquiry so vast that it seemed to be unanswerable.

Is it time? Is it time?

There was no answer.

Not yet.

Not time.

Sleep.

The stones slept.

The people carried on. Most felt that they’d been part of a momentous event, although they had missed the actual event entirely; the more raucous merely enjoyed celebrating. They’d all forgotten what their ancestors once knew. But then, their ancestors had never really understood much. No human could.

Which had also been part of the design.

Sleep.

The stones slept, unconcerned. The next solstice would arrive soon enough. Perhaps then it would be time.

Sleep.

Missive, Sleeping Stones

Jamie Ferguson

I met Ed in 1999 when I joined the Northern Colorado Writers Workshop. I knew I needed to work on improving my writing skills, and that meant I’d have to get feedback – but that felt super scary, because what if I wrote things that weren’t any good?

As it turned out, a lot of what I wrote actually wasn’t all that good for quite some time, but being in a writing group with Ed was a fantastic and inspiring learning experience. Ed had the ability to point out what wasn’t working in a story in a way where you felt encouraged and inspired. My most important lessons in that group came from listening to Ed and his good friend John Kennedy critique other writers’ stories and discuss what did or didn’t work and why.

“Sleeping Stones” is one of a number of flash pieces I wrote as an educational exercise where I limited myself to no more than 500 words per story. At this length, you have to make every word work. Ed’s feedback on the first draft of this story helped me understand what I was trying to achieve, and taught me a few things about my own writing as well. He said: “it’s a story in which nothing much happens, it sets up a mood, and it makes me appreciate what isn’t present.” This was eye opening for me because I subconsciously knew what I wanted the reader to feel, but hadn’t yet learned enough to be aware of my goal consciously, and therefore the initial draft wasn’t nearly as tight as the final version. Ed also helped me learn to feel comfortable with writing stories like this one that are intended to be small glimpses into a larger world, but where the reader only gets a glimpse and their questions remain unanswered.

Jamie Ferguson

Jamie focuses on getting into the minds and hearts of her characters, whether she’s writing about a saloon girl in the old west, a man who discovers the barista he's in love with is a naiad, or a ghost who haunts the house she was killed in – even though that house no longer exists. Jamie lives in Colorado, and spends her free time in a futile quest to wear out her two border collies since she hasn’t given in and gotten them their own herd of sheep. You can find her at jamieferguson.com.

Red Moon

Chuck Anderson

Fog creeps over waves.

Teenagers dance near fire.

The moon turns to blood.

Missive, Red Moon

Chuck Anderson

I like brevity.

Ed said, 'Write short. It’s better.'

I said, 'Okay, Ed.'

Chuck Anderson

Chuck Anderson is a painter, publisher, and writer.

madcow.press

The End Of Everything

Wayne Faust

"What is that awful smell?" asked Bilodeau.

He and LaForte stood on the top of a hill and gazed towards Avignon, hunkered down behind its city walls, two kilometers away. The men were dressed in simple, gray robes and sandals. Their hair hung long on the sides of their heads and there were neat circles shaved into their crowns. They spoke in French.

LaForte pointed towards a flaming pyre in the distance. Noxious smoke spread out above the city gates and over the countryside, casting a dim pallor on the scene below.

"Are they burning bodies?"

"I think so. Nothing else smells quite like that."

"Then it has to be a major outbreak."

"It would seem so."

Bilodeau took a step backwards. "We should not go down there. There was no record of an outbreak and the Code is unclear about something like this."

"Forget the Code," snapped LaForte. "What will the Code say if we fail to find Corbet? It will probably mean our heads."

They had been following Corbet's trail for two months, skirting towns and villages, trying to be unobtrusive. Every day the signs of the disease had been getting clearer but this was the first time they had seen anything like piles of burning bodies. They gathered up their leather carrying-sacks and headed down the hill towards the town.

They came to a meager peasant hut at the edge of a partially plowed field. A woman stood in the field with her back to the men, looking towards the billowing smoke. She leaned on a shovel and swayed weakly back and forth. Five human-shaped bundles lay on the ground behind her. They were of various sizes, the largest the size of an adult male and the smallest the size of an infant. There was the beginning of a hole dug in the dusty ground at her feet.

LaForte took a step forward. Bilodeau grabbed his arm and whispered, "Dear God, Pierre. What do you think you are doing?"

"I have stood by long enough," answered LaForte. "It is time to act like a priest. That is what I am supposed to be, is it not? Besides, the woman might have seen Corbet."

Bilodeau let go of LaForte's arm and backed away. "I shall note very carefully your disregard of the Code."

LaForte gingerly approached the woman and coughed deliberately. The woman turned around. She wore a filthy peasant dress and her hair was in shambles. Her red eyes leaked tears down onto weatherbeaten cheeks. She dropped her shovel and raced up to LaForte, falling to the ground at his feet and tugging on the hem of his robe.

"Absolution! Please, Father! Absolution!" she begged, her voice shrill.

LaForte looked back toward Bilodeau who only shrugged. LaForte set down his leather sack and kneeled beside the woman, placing his hand cautiously on the back of her head. She collapsed into sobs on his shoulder.

"There, there, my child," cooed LaForte, comforting the woman as best he could.

The woman composed herself and wiped her eyes on the dirty sleeve of her dress. "All the priests have run into the hills," she muttered, her eyes looking away. "No one will give us Absolution. Even the Pope has locked himself away in his palace. They say that he has gone mad, and that he sits between huge fires all day, even in this terrible heat. Our souls are lost. My family is lost forever." She gestured towards the wrapped bodies on the ground and began to weep.

"Take peace, my child," whispered LaForte softly. "Your family shall have Absolution and so shall you. It is not too late."

LaForte tiptoed over to the bodies. He pulled the cloth back from the largest one, revealing the misshapen face of a man, covered with black, lumpy sores. LaForte nearly fell backwards from the smell but he steeled himself, tried not to breathe too deeply, and made the sign of the cross in the air.

"In the name of the Blessed Virgin and all the Saints, I hereby consecrate thee and absolve thee of all thy sins, Amen." He spoke loud enough so the woman could hear. He hoped he had gotten the words right.

LaForte covered up the face of the corpse and continued on, performing the little ceremony for each of the others. When he reached the body of the infant, he lingered a few moments longer, shaking his head.

"I have the sickness too." The woman's words startled him. He had not been aware that she had moved up close behind him.

"I have the sores under my arms, just like all the others." The woman slipped her dress down over her shoulders and arms, revealing emaciated, sagging breasts. She raised her arms to show swollen lumps in her armpits, each the size and color of apples.

LaForte whispered an oath. He made the sign of the cross on the woman’s forehead and gave her the Absolution. She breathed a sigh of relief and collapsed to her knees.

"Thank you, Father," she said, her hands folded in front of her. "But I have nothing to pay you."

"Your faith is payment enough. And now, if you would be so kind to answer a question. Did another priest pass this way in the past few days? He would have had red hair and a red beard and he is very tall, taller than I. We know him as Father Corbet or Father Andre and we urgently seek him.”

"No, Father. As I said, all the priests from Avignon ran off as soon as the sickness came. You are the first priests I have seen since the snow melted."

"Then we shall inquire about him in Avignon. We beg your leave."

"Was that amusing for you?" asked Bilodeau later as they trudged along the dusty road. "Was it pleasant for you to go against the Code and risk your whole career? I hope you will not expect me to cover up for you when we get back."

"I had to help that woman. She was burying her whole family. Besides, she will surely die soon. My actions would not have made any permanent changes."

"Well, you did a fine job playing priest. It looks like you did your homework."

"I imagine that Corbet did his."

"No doubt. But you were really convincing. For a while I thought you were actually believing that drivel."

LaForte chuckled. "Hardly. In fact, I wonder how these people believe in it. Look what these charlatans do to them. They charge them for indulgences. They take their crops for tithes. They ravage their virgins. And then when it gets tough they go running off into the woods. Think of that poor, wretched woman back there. They sold her a whole belief system and then failed her. Nobody needs a crutch like that, not one that breaks when you lean on it a little too hard."

LaForte gazed off into the distance. "I used to go in for that kind of thing once. Mass every Sunday. Prayers every night. But then I saw what scoundrels our own priests were, especially during the last war, when half of France was choking on their own vomit. Most of the priests ran off then, too. It seems that things do not change much, even in 600 years."

"Well, you were an admirable priest just the same," said Bilodeau. "A little too admirable. You let that woman get too close. She cried on your shoulder and she was dying of the plague."

"I will get a shot when we get home. That gives us one more reason to find Corbet and get out of here."

As they traveled closer to Avignon the smell got worse. There was an eerie quiet, punctuated only by the soft sounds of flickering flames as they passed by the funeral pyre. Bilodeau gagged and covered his face with the sleeve of his robe. They found the city gates unmanned, open and askew. A black piece of cloth fluttered ominously from a wooden flagpole on top of the wall.

The twisting, cramped streets of Avignon looked like the remnants of a battle. There were bodies everywhere. Outdoor markets stood unmanned, except by bloated corpses which lay rotting at the foot of tables still piled high with goods. Saddled horses wandered leisurely through the streets and nibbled on apples left untended and unsold. Tavern doors stood open to reveal the bodies of people who had spent the last moments of their lives with glasses of ale. All the corpses bore the signs of the black death - the dark discoloration, the running sores, the bloating.

They wandered up and down the grim streets, gaping at the morbid scene, until they nearly bumped into a hunched-over priest, pushing a wheelbarrow full of corpses. He looked up and stopped, resting his burden and placing his hands on his hips. His robe was threadbare.

"So, you have come back from the hills," he snapped.

LaForte cast a glance at Bilodeau, who shrugged.

"Well, will you two just stand there gaping, or will you come and help me do the Lord's work?" He bent down and grabbed the handles of the wheelbarrow again, clearly in a hurry.

LaForte grabbed the man’s arm. "Wait. I am Father Pierre and this is Father Henri. We seek news of our Brother who we believe passed this way. He is very tall and his beard and hair are red. His name is Andre Corbet."

The priest eyed the two men. "So, you are not from Avignon. I had assumed you to be two of our own priests who ran off into hiding because of this cursed sickness. I beg your forgiveness for taking you to be of that cowardly ilk. I am Father Philipe."

He thrust out his hand to LaForte, who shook it, and to Bilodeau, who merely kept his arms at his sides and bowed stiffly.

"So," said Father Philipe, his haggard face lighter now, "I have been trying to place your accent. It is a little hobby of mine. I have not heard one exactly like it, but it seems familiar. You are from Burgundy, no?"

LaForte paused for a moment and then nodded. "Yes," he answered, "and our Brother came here in hopes of gaining an audience with the Pope. When we heard there was disease here we came quickly to see to his condition."

"But isn't there sickness in Burgundy also?" asked Father Philipe. "I heard it was even worse there."

LaForte's heart skipped. Even worse?

"We have been traveling out of France," answered Bilodeau smoothly. "Word of our colleague reached us in Castille. Can you tell us if he has been here?"

Father Philipe inclined his head as if to ask another question. Finally he said, "No, I have not seen a man like you have described, but more people straggle in from the countryside every day. Maybe he will show up soon. Will you help me with my rounds? There are many needs here as you can see, and perhaps you can help me while you wait for your friend."

Bilodeau backed away.

"Yes, of course," LaForte said. "It is only logical that Father Andre should eventually make his way here. We will help you until then."

Bilodeau began to protest, but LaForte and Father Philipe had already started heading towards the city gates, Father Philipe hurrying ahead with the wheelbarrow. Bilodeau muttered a curse and followed.

They approached the funeral pyre. "Perhaps you two can help me throw these bodies onto the fire," said Father Philipe. "My ancient back is very tired from doing this unfortunate task."

LaForte moved to help while Bilodeau lingered a few feet behind, his hands inside his robe.

"Your friend has a tired back also, no?" asked Father Philipe. LaForte didn't answer and the two men tossed the bodies onto the fire.

When the grim work was done, Father Philipe stood up straight and wiped his hands on his robe. "And now," he said, "let us try to help those who are still among this world."

As they walked towards the center of the city they began to hear a few sounds of human life. Carts went by carrying more bodies out of town, and a few people gathered food and supplies. Grimy faces peered out of windows and watched them go by. They could see the Papal palace on a hill in the distance, guards standing stiffly by the gates. Permeating everything was the smell of rotting food and sewage and death. Dust drifted in the midsummer heat and flies were everywhere, feasting.

They stopped in front of a small chapel. Father Philipe said, "The scene inside is not pretty, but there is still a small bit of hope. Some actually recover from this disease, and those who have no hope still need the spiritual help we can give them."

Father Philipe opened the chapel door and the sounds and smells from inside hit them like a shock wave. Over forty patients lay in rows along the floor. Some of them wailed and moaned, while some had clearly passed the point of caring. La Forte gagged in spite of the open windows. Bilodeau covered up his face as they stepped cautiously inside. They were greeted with gut-wrenching cries of "Help me, Father!" and "Water, Father!"

Father Philipe produced a leather flask and knelt down next to a small boy who was lying just inside the door. The child's eyes were delirious with fever, but still they focused on Father Philipe as he tried to force some water past his swollen lips. The priest stood up stiffly and whispered to LaForte, "This one will not make it through the night. I would like you to pray with him until he drifts off to sleep. Give him some water if he asks for it. It is all we can do. His name is Louis. I will return later."

Father Philipe strolled quickly out the chapel door, leaving LaForte to sputter, "Pray? But..." It was no use. Father Philipe had gone.

"Well, Pierre," said Bilodeau. "How do you enjoy being a priest now?"

LaForte glanced down at the small child, who valiantly gasped for each breath.

"Well? Can we leave now?" asked Bilodeau. "We must find Corbet."

LaForte paused. "I think we should wait for Corbet here."

"What? Are you mad?"

"No, I am not mad. Think about it. We have chased Corbet around half of France. Someone saw him only four kilometers from here two days ago, so we know he is close. He will have to come into Avignon soon to get supplies. It is inevitable, no? If we leave the city we may miss him."

Bilodeau's eyes darted back and forth. He couldn't argue with LaForte's logic but the sounds of the sick and dying filled his ears. "For God's sake, I have to get out of here. Come with me, please."

LaForte had never heard Bilodeau say please, not even once. It brought him a strange pleasure and he suppressed a smile. Just then a small voice carried up to his ear.

"Pray with me, Father." The small boy looked up at LaForte, trusting, pleading.

"Go yourself," LaForte said to Bilodeau. "Go into the countryside and resume the search. That way we can cover more ground. If you find Corbet, bring him here."

"But that is against the..." Bilodeau began to say, but stopped. LaForte had thrown him a life rope and he desperately wanted to grab it, regardless of the consequences.

"Are you ordering me to do this?" asked Bilodeau.

LaForte nodded.

Bilodeau breathed sigh of relief. "I will return with Corbet," he declared loudly as he stepped quickly out of the chapel. He nearly ran down the street towards the city gate.

LaForte sighed and knelt down next to the small child. 'What have I done?' he thought. 'I split us up. Who knows what Bilodeau will do now? He will probably panic and use his Beacon. Then he will be home and I will be left here to find Corbet by myself.'

LaForte reached into the pocket of his robe. A palm-sized, metallic device brushed against his fingers. Reassured, he took his hand out of his pocket and placed it against the dreadfully hot forehead of the small child.

"Well, Louis," he said. "So you need some prayers, eh?"

LaForte mumbled some words and hoped they sounded like prayers to the frightened, deathly ill boy.

The next morning LaForte helped Father Philipe load Louis' small body into the wheelbarrow. They had both spent the better part of the night trying to keep the child alive, but he had slipped away just before dawn. During the long, all-night vigil, the two men had talked about many things, and LaForte had found himself drawn to the old man. He reminded him of his grandfather, Charles.

"Let me push the wheelbarrow," said LaForte. "Your back must be very tired this morning."

Father Philipe nodded gratefully. They traveled the empty, early morning street.

"You are not really from Burgundy, are you?" asked Father Philipe. His tone had not been accusing, merely questioning. LaForte decided to answer truthfully. "No, I am not," he said.

"And you are not a priest, either." It was a statement, not a question.

LaForte shook his head.

"You must have your reasons. The Lord knows there are enough men who were coaxed into the life of a highwayman and now hide out as priests. I once fell into evil myself. I am sure your story is an interesting one."

LaForte chuckled. "You would not believe it if I told you."

"Well, the Lord's ways are mysterious, and I am just glad he has seen fit to send you here."

"I cannot see how you can still talk about God in the midst of all this." LaForte waved his arm.

"I will not claim to know the Lord's reasons for everything," Father Philipe replied. "I would be a fool to do that. But He is God, and all I can do is serve Him the best I can."

"But if there really is a God, why does he let all of this horror go on? And why would God pick such a bunch of charlatans to help him? For every priest like you there are a hundred others who are in it for what they can squeeze out of it. On the way here we met a woman who lost her whole family, and there was not even one priest around to help her out. They had all run off."

Father Philipe stopped walking and scratched his head, searching for words. "I believe it is all about free will. God's love is perfect, but he has to rely on men to spread it. Men, of course, are far less than perfect. And since the Lord gives us free will, you can be sure that we will often fail. But God's will is pure and good, and by following it to the best of our ability, I believe that in our own small way, we can make the world a better place, as the Lord desires it to be."

When the two men dumped Louis' small, ruined body onto the funeral pyre, Father Philipe recited a prayer as LaForte looked on quietly, his mind a jumble.

"Why did you stay instead of running off like your companion?" asked Father Philipe. They were back in the chapel, and as usual, they fell into conversation.

"He went out into the countryside to search. It only made sense for me to stay here, in case our friend finds his way into the city."

"But that is not the only reason."

LaForte paused. "No, I suppose it isn't. Staying here just seemed like the right thing to do."

"Well, it is clear to me why you stayed. You have the spirit of God within you."

"But I do not believe in God."

"Of course not. As you have said to me many times, you only wish to rely on yourself. And so far in your life, it has worked very well, no?"

"I suppose."

"But there comes a time in all of our lives when that is no longer good enough."

"Perhaps."

Death did not creep up slowly in this place. It raced up like a lion, and now it had nearly caught up with Father Philipe.

LaForte held the old man's head and forced some water past his lips. "I do not want you to die," LaForte said raggedly, fighting tears.

"I know, my friend. But it had to happen sooner or later."

Bilodeau had not returned, and LaForte had been helping Father Philipe for over a week. The old priest had finally succumbed to the plague, and now it was his turn to lie on the chapel’s stone floor.

"Who will answer all my questions when you are gone?" asked LaForte gently.

"The answers are in your heart."

LaForte didn't think he had much of a heart left. He knew that soon he would have to give up the mission and return home. Corbet was probably dead, and Bilodeau was probably back in the Terminal by now, telling his superiors lies.

"I will miss you," he said to the old man softly.

"I know. But I go to a much better place."

LaForte wished he could say the same. He would be going back to a place full of war and disease, in many ways a world even worse than this one. He left the chapel with the image of Father Philipe's face in his mind. Even though it had been a face full of fever and disease, there had been peace there, and contentment.

The next day LaForte stood outside the city gates, preparing to dump Father Philipe's body onto the funeral pyre. He was trying to decide if he should say something for the old man.

"Pierre! Pierre!" A voice drifted on the breeze. LaForte looked up and saw Bilodeau stagger towards him, another man slung over his shoulders. LaForte ran to help.

"I found him," gasped Bilodeau. "I found him at last."

They eased the long-lost Andre Corbet down onto the ground. A few raindrops splattered down and touched his lips. He sputtered. At least he was still alive.

Corbet's red beard stood out against his pale, misshapen face, and his usually fastidious red hair was shaggy and dirty. He was in the last stages of the disease.

"Good God," muttered LaForte, as he pushed a strand of hair from Corbet's face.

"Pierre?" Corbet said hoarsely, his rheumy, blue eyes growing wide with relief. "Thank God...Please, take me back...I want to go back."

"Oh, so now you want to go back," said LaForte. "It took a very long time to find you. Why did you not use your Beacon? You could have saved us a lot of trouble."

"It does not work...must be broken...Cursed German slave labor...Didn't know about plague..." Corbet tried to sit up but fell back.

"Why did you come here?" asked LaForte. "This is not much of a place to risk everything for."

"I wanted to go way back...before the world wars...before the virus wars...you know what we are working on in the lab these days...will only get worse..."

Corbet's voice drifted off. Then he jerked awake again.

"Glory...started here...French Kings...French flag over the Holy Land...French New World...French Europe...wouldn’t have changed anything...just wanted to be part of it...did not know about...did not...the plague..."

Corbet's eyes closed. LaForte stood up.

"Come on!" shouted Bilodeau. "We have to go home now. He will not last much longer, and to tell you the truth, I do not feel so good myself." Bilodeau hunched his shoulders as if he were cold.

LaForte reached into his leather sack and pulled out his Beacon. He placed it into the palm of his hand and pressed a few brightly colored numbers. He hit a button on the side and lights began flashing. "Okay," he muttered. "Time to go home."

They knelt down next to Corbet and waited. Nothing happened. LaForte hit the device sharply with the palm of his hand. Still nothing.

"Try yours," said LaForte as a sick feeling began to build in his stomach.

Bilodeau produced a similar device. He pushed some buttons. They waited to hear the low hum of the transport beam but there was no sound at all, just the soft flicker of flames from the funeral pyre.

"Would they have shut down the Terminal?" Bilodeau asked.

"They never do that."

LaForte's heartbeat began to pound in his temples. All three devices could not be broken. There was only one reason for them all to fail.

"We can't get back," LaForte whispered.

"What?" asked Bilodeau.

"It is the only possible explanation. Corbet caused a rift. He changed the future. There is no Terminal to bring us back anymore. We are stuck here."

Bilodeau's eyes grew wide as the implications hit him like a hammer. He knelt down and grabbed Corbet by the front of his robe. "Wake up, you jackass!" he shouted. "We are stuck here! Do you hear me? And it is your fault!"

Corbet's eyes opened partially. "Wh...what?" he muttered.

"You were not supposed to come here! You went against the Code. Why do you think the Code is there in the first place?"

"But I did no harm," Corbet answered weakly. "I did not know about the plague..."

"You idiot, can you not see what is staring you in the face? You brought it with you! It was the new germ from the War Department. You had some immunity to it for a while. These people had no immunity, so you infected most of France, maybe most of the world, maybe even me..."

Bilodeau pushed Corbet back down and stared at his hands. I carried him on my shoulders.

Bilodeau panicked. There was no place to go back to anymore, no place to get shots. What was he supposed to do? The Code was clear on one thing. If something like this happened they were supposed to kill Corbet and destroy his body. And then they were supposed to kill themselves. But there was no Code anymore, no future at all; it was too late to do anything to save it. And right now, there were a whole lot of germs floating in the air. On his hands. Everywhere.

Bilodeau dropped his carrying sack and Beacon and took off running, heading for the hills.

"Wait!" shouted LaForte. But it was too late.

LaForte sighed and knelt down. He began to tend to Corbet, the way he had tended to so many others with Father Philipe. Corbet looked up weakly and said, "I do not want to die here. Please, God, I want to go home."

God again, thought LaForte. They all say that at the end.

"Will I go to Heaven, Pierre?" Corbet asked.

LaForte didn’t answer.

The funeral pyre continued to climb its ugly way towards the smoky sky as people died at a frightening pace. Many of the people that were left alive were sure that it was the end of everything, the end of the world. LaForte didn't think so. A few of the stricken had survived and some people who had been exposed for a long time weren't sick at all. The kill ratio of the disease seemed to be running at about 60 percent, only slightly higher than in the recent war back home. The world had gone on then, so it would probably go on now.

But probably not for me, thought LaForte, as he felt the twin swellings in his armpits.

He gently pitched the body of Corbet into the fire and sat down heavily on the ground. There was much to think about. This was a dark, wretched place, but maybe the future would come out better this time.

LaForte watched Corbet's body burn, his eyes watering from smoke and emotion. He tossed the three time-travel devices into the fire, along with the two leather sacks that had belonged to Corbet and Bilodeau.

He stood up and watched the fire for a few more minutes. At last he knelt down and mumbled a small prayer. Then he headed back into the city to do the best he could.

Missive, The End Of Everything

Wayne Faust

I am blessed to have been in Ed Bryant's writers' group in Colorado for over twenty years. Every year at Christmastime, we had our meeting at my house in the foothills, with everyone bringing food to contribute. Not being a cook himself, Ed usually brought something homemade from Safeway. We started calling the group "Ed's Kids," because he was the driving force and inspiration for all of our writing. Near the end of Ed's life, when health problems and financial woes prevented him from having a car, I often picked him up at his 100+ year old, Addams Family house in Denver to take him to meetings, which, in the last few years, took place mostly at Village Inn for free pie night. We'd occupy a table for three or four hours, and though we all ordered food and drinks in addition to free pie, I'm sure the staff wasn't too happy with us for hogging a table for that long.

I always looked forward to Ed's critiques of my stories because he had an amazing ability to get to the heart of what it needed. Many times, including for my story included in this collection, he found a dramatic arc that I didn't even know existed, and helped me rearrange things so it all made sense. He did all of this in a very few words, always leading to an "Ah Ha!" moment for me. As of this writing, I've had more than 45 short stories published in various places around the world, with each and every one critiqued by Ed before I submitted them. I owe so much to Ed, and the sacrifices he made to help us fledgling writers along for so many years.

Thanks, Ed - we miss you!!

Wayne Faust

Wayne Faust has been a full-time music and comedy performer for over 40 years, playing in 40 states and overseas in England, Scotland, and Holland. His funny songs have been heard on the radio all over the world and on the Internet. While on the road, he writes science-fiction and has over 40 stories published in various places, including Norway, Australia, and South Africa. He's published two full length books, "Thirty Years Without A Real Job," a fast-moving and entertaining memoir of his life in show business, and "12 Parables," a collection of short stories.
You can find more than you'll ever need to know about Wayne on his website at www.waynefaust.com.

Medusa Loves Minotaur

Rebecca Hodgkins

"Do you see it? Do you see it? Andy, look." Mommy was driving Andy to therapy. Andy didn't want to look. He just wanted to get to therapy like always.

They had been going once a week since Daddy died. It was a hard, sad thing to lose your Daddy, especially a nice one like Andy's. Daddy made the best French toast in the world every Saturday morning while Mommy worked upstairs. He used the funniest voices when he read Andy books before bed every other night (he traded off with Mommy) and when Andy was sick, he took care of him, since Mommy had a queasy stomach and more times than not ended up puking right after Andy.

"It looks different doesn't it, Andy?"

The place where Mommy took Andy for therapy was a long way away. They took the interstate and it was always under construction. Each week, something changed -- one time, there were tall concrete walls lining part of the road, the next week they were gone and there was a huge pile of dirt there instead. Cranes came and went. A bridge over the road disappeared. A new one grew from both ends to meet in the middle.

The week they missed the exit was bad. Where they were supposed to turn off, a low wall of concrete barriers blocked the road and Mommy cussed and kept driving.

"I'm not sure what just happened. Did I miss the exit, Andy? I didn't even see it." She turned down her music and kept driving. It took a while to get to the next exit, and by the time they did, Mommy was crying. They were going to be late, and if there was one thing that upset Mommy, it was being late. That was one of the things that let people know you didn't have your shit together, is how Mommy put it, but Andy would never say that bad word aloud.

Ellen was Andy's therapist and she was very nice. She didn't get mad at all when they got there late (right on time, actually, but for Mommy that was still late) so Andy wondered why Mommy even got upset. You couldn't tell she'd been crying. In the car, Mommy blotted her eyes, cleared her throat and told Andy to tell Ellen everything was fine, because it was. No grownups ever saw Mommy upset after Daddy died, only Andy.

Mommy laughed and rolled her eyes at Ellen when they got there.

"I didn't even think to tell you they'd closed the exit," Ellen told her. "It's only over the weekend."

"No, that's ok, but it really threw me off. I thought I was going crazy." Mommy laughed again.

"Like one of your books with the parallel worlds," Ellen told her. She liked to read Mommy's books. A lot of people did.

"Exactly.”

"How was your week, Andy?" Ellen put her arm around him. "Shall we go in and talk about it?" She and Andy went into her office which was more like a family room with a couch and big soft chairs, bookshelves full of toys and a bowl of candy. They did what they always did, which was play checkers. While they played, Ellen asked Andy to tell her stories about Daddy. Andy told her about the funny things Daddy did, but sometimes telling them made him cry. Ellen said that was ok, that was good, actually. When she asked Andy how Mommy was doing, Andy always told her she was sad but fine, just like Mommy said he should.

He didn't tell Ellen how Mommy sometimes stayed up all night walking back and forth across the house, or how sometimes she'd stop in the middle of folding laundry and say something to someone not even there. He didn't say that Mommy hadn’t been working at all lately, that her computer was turned off and her office door stayed closed. Instead of writing, she was telling Andy a story.

"Medusa lived all alone on an island in the middle of the Aegean Sea. That's near Greece. Can you find Greece on the globe, Andy? No, never mind, I'll lose my train of thought. Medusa lived all alone on her island, lonely and sad, because she'd had the misfortune of loving the wrong man in the wrong place at the wrong time and was turned into a monster for it. She had long serpentine locks that had a tendency to bite anyone who came near. Not that anyone did -- no one wanted to be with a monster, whose face it was said could turn a man to stone.

"Medusa knew she was called a monster, and being Greek, she knew the fate of monsters like her. It didn't matter that she didn't start out as a monster at all, but as a beautiful woman who only wanted to fall in love, get married and start a family. It didn't matter that, even now, she didn't feel like a monster. All the same, a hero would come, a warrior, young and brash and out to prove himself to the world, and he would simply kill her."

Andy didn’t tell Ellen about the story, because it was just for him and her, Mommy said.

Mommy was on the phone when Andy woke from his nap. She sounded angry at whoever she was talking to.

"I haven't got anything, Walt. For Christsakes, I'm still in mourning. I'm trying to get Andy through this. Do you know how hard that is?

"No. There is no way I'm doing that.

"No.

"Tell them...fuck, I don't know. I've always made my deadlines, you know that. They need to give me an extension this time, that's all I'm asking.

"No, she can't. There's not enough there to--

"Because she has no idea where I'm going with the storyline. I barely know. I'm a pantser, remember?

"No, you are not on my side. If you were on my side, we wouldn't be having this conversation because you'd be too busy getting me an extension!

"Fine. Fine. I'll call you when I have some more written. Andy's upset right now, I have to go."

Mommy hung up the phone even though Andy wasn't particularly upset, just sad like always. If anyone was upset right now, it was Mommy. He asked her if she was ok.

"Well, Uncle Walter is trying to tell Mommy that she needs to do some more writing if she hopes to pay the bills. He says that if she can't do that, she should just send what she has to him and Cynthia can edit something together. As if."

Mommy threw her arms up, like she was tossing something into the air. A ball, or a baby.

"Would you like to hear more of the story, Andy?"

Andy didn't want to, but Mommy would insist anyway. So he nodded yes.

"Medusa knew that there had to be other monsters in the world who were not content to sit and wait for their fate, so she decided to find one. Luckily for her, she lived on an island that had once been an active volcano. She gathered three large, porous stones and tossed them into the surf, where they bobbed like seagulls on the waves. Before they could float away, she grabbed them up and filed them flat against a grinding stone."

"What's a grinding stone?"

"It's a round stone, like a wheel. You can Google it, but not right now. Medusa sat down at the grinding stone and pumped a pedal with her foot so the stone spun round and round and ground down the lava rocks until they were flat as tablets. Tablets are what people used to write on, until they discovered papyrus. Medusa wasn't going to use the stones for writing, at least not yet...yes, that's good, I like that idea...she was going to use them to escape her fate. Medusa took the stones into a cave where steam and smoke sometimes poured out from the old heart of the volcano. There, she petitioned Hephaestus, God of the Forge, to enchant the stones. Hephaestus was an ugly god, teased and taunted by the other gods and goddesses, and she thought she might find a sympathetic ear.

“Well, she was right, because the next time she threw the stones into the water, they stayed in a straight line. Medusa stepped on the stone closest to her, and then the next, and then the next. When she got to the last stone, the first one floated around to the front, followed by the second, and she stepped onto them again. This is how she made her way across the ocean."

"Did she get hungry?" Andy was hungry. It had been a while since they'd eaten.

"Oh, good question. I guess she would." Mommy paced back and forth across the room, like the panther in its cage at the zoo. She stopped and turned and smiled big at him, and Andy should have liked her smile but he didn't. Because she wasn't really smiling at him, not at all. She was smiling at something he couldn't see but that she could, something in her head, an invisible movie that played when she told stories, either out loud like now, or quietly on her computer. Stories she sent to Uncle Walter who sent them to the publisher who typed them out a bunch of times into books that people bought. Andy had never read one of Mommy's books because they were for grownups. He thought he should be happy about this story, the one that was not for grownups, the one that was just for him, but he liked this story about as much as he liked Mommy's smile-not-at-him.

"Let's see. Medusa grew hungry, so she dipped her long serpentine hair into the water and let the snakes fill up on fish. Occasionally, a curious seagull would hover too low, and Snap! A striking viper caught its meal. So that's how she ate."

"Can we eat something?"

"Sure, kiddo. How about sushi? Or," Mommy laughed and clapped her hands together once, "I could catch a gull and roast it!"

Andy had never had roasted gull, but he'd had sushi and liked it. "Sushi, please."

"I don't blame you. Do you remember the first time you had sushi and called it the best good treat? I used that line in a book. It was too good not to."

Mommy started pacing again, and Andy was afraid to interrupt her, even though he was so hungry by now that roasted seagull sounded pretty good. He went into the kitchen and found a bag full of bagels Mommy had bought last week. He took one out, but the bagel had a circle of greenish-blue fuzz on it. They were all like that, as if a monster had picked through the bag and left its fingerprints behind. Andy was so hungry that his stomach hurt, so he ate around the fingerprints. Now and then he could hear Mommy talking to someone in the other room. When she got quiet, he crept out to see her curled up in a chair and watching out the window. She didn’t notice him walk past her to his room, where he put himself to bed.

The next day, Mommy was actually in her office, and Andy could hear the clicking of computer keys. Maybe Mommy was pantsing again and would send a story to Uncle Walter and make him happy, and they could get sushi. Andy peeked in at Mommy, who looked up, all bright and smiley. She made him a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast and he ate every bite, even though he would have liked cornflakes instead. While he ate, Mommy kept on with the story.

“When Medusa finally made it to an island, she had no idea where she was, only that she’d never seen such a large place with so many people. She hid on the beach until nightfall, so that no one would bother her while she explored the city. Walking across the ocean on stepping stones of lava rock had left her feet torn and bloody. The salt water from the incoming tide felt good on them. She was reluctant to leave the beach, but she was also drawn to the city, as if she knew there must be at least one monster waiting for her there.

“And do you know what, Andy? There was a monster waiting for her.”

“Under the bed or in the closet?”

Mommy laughed, and that made Andy happy, because it was a good laugh, a laugh like Mommy used to do when Daddy said something funny.

Mommy ruffled Andy’s hair. “You crack me up, kid. You really do. The monster was not under a bed or in a closet, though he was in a very dark place. Medusa had come to the island of Crete, where King Minos had imprisoned a beast called the Minotaur. The Minotaur was the son of the king’s wife and the king hated him.”

“The king wasn’t much like Daddy. Daddy loved me.”

“No, he wasn’t like Daddy at all. The king was mean to your Daddy. I mean, to the Minotaur. He was ashamed of him, you see, because the Minotaur had a head like a bull with long sharp horns, and he was tall and strong and he scared the king, who was weak and possessive and controlling, and he stifled the Minotaur every time he tried to accomplish anything.

“The king kept the Minotaur in a labyrinth, which is a confusing place full of hallways that go nowhere, and steps that lead to nothing, and shifting walls that keep you inside. The Minotaur could never ever find his way out, not in a million years. Worse, there was a hero on his way to kill the Minotaur, just as there had been a hero sent to kill poor Medusa.

“Now, the Minotaur sat in the center of his cold dark labyrinth, but he sat listening very intently. The king didn’t know it, but the labyrinth acted like a...oh, what’s the word? The ear. The inner ear. The cochlea! We’ll look that up on Google later to make sure it’s right, and so you can see what it looks like.

“The labyrinth acted like a cochlea, and it allowed the Minotaur to hear things from very far away. He listened to the king’s daily foolishness and pride, he listened to his mother’s and sister’s tears, and he listened to that faraway hero bragging about how he would slay the great horned beast. And he grew very sad.

“But lately, the Minotaur heard something else. Between the crash and tumble of waves, he heard soft footsteps, three at a time, coming closer. He felt the vibration when her feet touched the sand on his shores. And every step across the beach reverberated against his skin like a gentle kiss.

“Medusa came to the entrance of the Minotaur's labyrinth, her feet sore and her heart trembling, and she whispered to him a plea to enter. His voice roared back to her, and she almost lost her resolution. He roared for her to keep away; didn’t she know a hero was coming to slay him, and when he did wouldn’t he find her there and kill her as well?

“But Medusa was determined. She’d rather die a monster’s death than spend one more night alone. She followed the Minotaur’s voice down and around into the winding labyrinth, found her way to the very heart of it, to where he sat fearing for her life now more than his own. As she drew closer, his voice lost its menace and became pleasant, if tinged with despair. She reached the last turn in the maze and they came face to face.

“Where others saw a hideous face, he saw beauty. Where others saw a ferocious beast, she saw great strength. They knew it didn’t matter what anyone else thought, so long as they could always see these qualities in each other.”

Mommy’s voice had gotten softer while she talked. She looked down at the table.

"People don't come around when you aren't happy anymore. When you aren't fun at parties. When you don't sell. Daddy used to say I wasn't good at asking for help when I needed it, but that he'd always be around to help me when I couldn't ask. I think if people really love you, then they should know when you need help, just like Daddy always did. You shouldn't have to ask for it. Not if they love you."

Andy got up and hugged Mommy. He wanted her to know that he loved her, and he'd never go away. She hugged him back, nice and tight because she loved him, too, and Andy thought they would be ok now.

Mommy tried, she really did. She sat at her computer, sometimes for hours. She ordered in food, and Andy helped himself, though she rarely ate with him anymore. But she was always awake before he was, and stayed up after he went to bed. Andy sometimes heard her pacing in the middle of the night when he got up to go to the bathroom. They continued going to therapy every week, but every week, Mommy found more and more things along the interstate that made her laugh in a bad way.

“I have a theory, Andy, and it’s not just mine. I think some of what I write might be true. When we go to therapy, whenever we drive along that road, I always wonder how close we might be to crossing over. Lately, there’s always something just a little different, always a little...off...and I wonder. I really do.

“I’m going to tell you a secret. I think that, every session I take you to, we get a little closer to returning to a normal life.”

Andy had never read Mommy’s books, so he didn’t know what to say. She didn’t seem to want an answer from him anyhow.

Mommy sat on the couch holding a bottle of her special vitamins. Mommy’s vitamins were little and pink and didn’t look nearly as tasty as Andy’s, which were Gummy Bears. Daddy always gave her one when he gave Andy his, so neither of them had taken one since Daddy died.

“Is it vitamin time?”

“No. I was thinking of taking one today. I never liked them though. They made it hard to write sometimes, but I guess they made it easier to live with me. I don’t blame your father, I don’t. Not one bit.” Mommy patted the couch next to her. “The story’s almost done.” Andy sat next to her.

"Medusa and the Minotaur stared at each other for a long time. Then the Minotaur stood up and approached her. That’s when she became afraid – not of him, but for him. She remembered that the snakes who were so good to her, who fed her and kept her alive across the vast ocean, would bite him and fill him full of her venom and he would die from it. As much as she wanted to touch him, she was afraid of hurting him.

“The first snake struck the Minotaur’s cheek. Medusa gasped when she saw his stunned expression, how his face just froze and his eyelids drooped. Then another struck, and another. She told him to breathe, please breathe, just breathe, while little pearls of orange venom dripped from his wounds.”

Mommy got quiet. She was looking deep into the story and Andy thought she might be seeing more than she wanted to.

"I've made preserves since I was a little girl helping my mom. Nothing ever went wrong. Nothing. And then of course I had to be out of town at a conference, or I would have known and taken him to the ER. I would have insisted...your father hated doctors and hospitals. He thought it was the flu."

She didn’t say anything else for a long time, just sat on the couch and rocked a little. About the time Andy thought it was safe to go to his room and play with his Legos, Mommy started telling the story again.

“Medusa waited for the Minotaur to turn to stone, or sag in her arms like a rag doll. Instead, he took a breath, then another, a deeper one. He touched his cheek and sniffed the venom on his fingers. He said her venom didn't smell bad at all. He put his fingers in his mouth and sucked them. It tasted sweet, he said. It tasted just fine, he said. There was no...no indication at all that it could poison him. He could drink her venom like orange marm...like orange juice. Just like any old fresh-squeezed orange juice. Yes, and that's what he did, he squeezed those serpents and drank up all the venom and he made a full recovery. He didn't die and leave her alone, he lived and lived. And so Medusa had no poison left in her, and the snakes stopped biting and he could hold her close now.”

Mommy scared Andy when she hurled the pill bottle across the room.

“They escaped from the labyrinth by following Medusa’s bloody footprints back to the entrance. Whenever heroes came to vanquish them, they fought side by side and always won. And then they had a child. A little boy. And he was the most beautiful boy in the world. And he loved his Mommy and Daddy very, very much. And they loved him. And they never ever left him or each other alone."

"Is that the end of the story, Mommy?"

Mommy wiped her eyes. "That would be such a nice ending, wouldn't it? I would like for that to be the ending. But it's not. Not in this world. Maybe we can still find the world where that's the ending."

Mommy took Andy’s hand and led him to the kitchen. She picked her purse up off the counter. It made a bad little ripping sound where it stuck to something, probably jelly or marmalade. "Let's go for a ride, Andy."

"It's not therapy day."

Mommy stopped and looked at Andy. "Maybe it is. Maybe it will be, by the time we're there. Maybe...maybe we won't need therapy day anymore, if we make it." Mommy smiled and Andy didn't want to go with her when she smiled like that. Because it was another smile-not-at-him, but this time, she wasn't telling a story. The story was over and Andy thought it had a good ending and that that should be all.

Mommy stopped smiling and looked around the kitchen. "There are so many worlds, Andy. So many places where the ending still isn't happy. But I think I know how to find the right one for sure."

Mommy climbed onto the counter and opened the cabinet above the fridge, the one she told Andy to stay out of. She took out one of the jars of marmalade she'd made last summer and looked at the top. She put it back and took out another one, looked at that top. She pressed down on it, and Andy could hear a little pop sound when the middle of the lid sprang back up. She liked this one better because she climbed back down and put the jar in her purse. She opened a drawer and added two spoons.

"Let's go, Andy." Mommy flung the front door wide and swooped her arms out, like Andy was a bird stuck in the house and she was trying to set him free.

Or maybe not a bird. Maybe some other creature.

“Andy, look at that car! It has six wheels!” Mommy laughed and pointed. Andy couldn’t understand why there were tears in her eyes, too. He looked. Just for a second, Mommy was right – he saw a car with six wheels. He took a couple of steps and realized their mistake. Two cars were parked on the street, one right behind the other. From this angle, one car was mostly hidden, and you could count six shadows of wheels under the first car. But Mommy didn’t see. Andy didn’t think she wanted to see. The thought scared him.

When Andy tried to tell her, she got mad. Not yelling, screaming mad, but a deep mad, a mad that stayed hidden mostly under her skin. A mad you couldn’t measure, so you couldn’t know what to do to stay safe from it.

“Andy. What you’re doing doesn’t help. Don’t you want to see Daddy again? If you want to see Daddy again, you’re going to have to help me. How many wheels are there, Andy?”

Andy wanted to say four.

“For Daddy, Andy. And for me. How many wheels are there?”

“Six. Six wheels, Mommy.”

“Good. That’s right. That’s good.” Mommy opened the passenger-side door. She’d never let him sit up front before. It was a treat for a good boy, she said. “The best good treat,” she laughed. Andy didn’t agree.

“Besides, I need my co-pilot up front so he can keep an eye out for things with me.” Mommy reached over and ruffled Andy’s hair. “Right?”

Andy nodded because he was afraid not to. More of the mad under Mommy’s skin might come out if he didn’t. He had an idea of what Mommy wanted him to see. Six-wheeled cars, things like that. Things like from her books.

So now they were driving up to therapy on a day when there was no therapy, which meant he had no idea of where they were really going.

"Do you see it? Do you see it? Andy, look. It looks different, doesn’t it, Andy?”

Mommy was talking about the new bridge, the one they’d watched grow across the interstate for weeks now. It was complete and big and still closed.

“It’s...it looms. It looks non-Euclidian.” Mommy wiped her eyes and Andy was afraid she might ask him to look up non-Euclidian at home. Then he hoped she would, because that meant they would eventually go home again.

Instead, Mommy tried to explain the word herself. She said that it meant things were askew, that physics were different here, as if they had driven into somewhere else entirely.

At least they were close to Ellen’s office now. Maybe she would be there. Maybe she would wonder why they came on the wrong day, see Mommy crying before Mommy could pull her shit together and Ellen would get worried and tell Mommy that she was the one who needed therapy now. And then Mommy would realize that what she’s been saying is wrong and scary and she would take her vitamins again and everything would be ok. For real. For here.

They drove closer to the bridge. Mommy was getting louder and louder, asking Andy if he could see it now. See the non-Euclidian bridge.

And the scary thing was that he could see it like that. It did loom. It did look twisted and wrong. It looked like it might be a gate and a mouth to eat them, all at the same time.

They passed under the bridge. Andy closed his eyes and kept them shut, even when Mommy begged him to open them. He waited for something terrible to happen.

He opened his eyes when he felt the car pulling off the interstate too soon. They were taking a new exit with a sign that said, “DO NOT FOLLOW CONSTRUCTION VEHICLES INTO WORK ZONE.” The road got bumpy from clods of dirt and Mommy had to swerve around a crooked concrete barrier. She stopped the car when the road turned completely to dirt and there were too many big machines blocking the way. Andy looked in his side view mirror, the one that says, “Objects in mirror are closer than they appear” and saw the bridge behind them.

“Ok, sweetie pie, the bus stops here. Everyone out.” Mommy slung her purse over her shoulder, unlocked the doors and opened hers.

“I don’t want to go anywhere else, Mommy.”

“Of course you do. We’re having an adventure. A real one.”

Mommy tried to ruffle his hair again but Andy hunched down in his seat and grabbed tight to his seatbelt. “I’m scared. I want to stay here.”

Mommy shut her door. Andy glanced at her, hoping she would start the car and drive them home. She had her hands on the wheel, but she was looking at him, and she was mad.

“You must be brave. Medusa was brave, wasn’t she? She had to be brave to find her Minotaur.”

“Why can’t you give that story to Uncle Walter and he can give it to the publishers and they can type it up and people will buy it and you can pay all the bills like Daddy used to?”

“But that’s just it, baby boy. Don’t you want to see Daddy again? Don’t you want to be with him? Everything was ok when he was here. He always helped you and Mommy, especially when Mommy felt sad like now, and when Mommy stayed up for days on end.” She looked out the windshield. “Besides, it’s not...it’s a story just for you and me. A special one. A true one, I think.” Mommy looked back at Andy and for a second he thought she was right, that it was a true story. Then he realized it was only that she wanted, very very much, to be right.

Mommy opened her door again, jumped out and came around to his side. She opened his door, undid the seatbelt and pulled him out. She did it so fast that Andy couldn’t fight her. She had him by the hand and pulled him along the road. Back toward the bridge.

The sky was cloudy and the wind blew cold as Mommy and Andy climbed up the unfinished embankment to the bridge, over chunks of concrete and uneven piles of dirt. Mommy murmured under her breath the whole way, then louder whenever she or Andy slipped and stumbled.

“Three steps at a time. Just three steps at a time.”

Andy’s knees were scraped up by the time they got to the bridge. There were barricades across it so no cars could go. Mommy pulled Andy under the barricades and onto the bridge. They went to the middle of it and sat down on the edge, legs dangling over. Dry snow like little BBs pelted them as they looked over the side. Cars zoomed under the bridge, under their feet. Mommy pointed to the far away part of the interstate. It looked like a big, long, black snake to Andy.

“Do you see all the construction, Andy? See how it blocks you, makes you take different ways? Do you know what the interstate is? Do you remember?”

Andy knew exactly what it was. He didn’t want to say.

“It’s our own labyrinth, or own maze, sweetie pie. The one that takes us to daddy.” Mommy unzipped her purse. She took out the glass jar of preserves and the spoons. Mommy unscrewed the top. Andy waited for the jar to pop. Before, he always covered his ears and Mommy would look at him and laugh. But this jar didn’t pop like the others. It was quiet. Mommy put the open jar to her nose and sniffed.

“Smells sweet. It smells just fine. We’ll split the jar.” Mommy smiled down at Andy as she scooped out a spoonful and tried to hand it to him.

Andy wouldn’t take the spoon for anything. “Mommy don't. What if it’s Medusa’s venom instead?” Andy wiped at his runny nose. “It won’t taste sweet and it won’t be good and it will kill us just like it killed Daddy!”

Mommy stopped smiling. She looked at the spoonful of preserves. “What a dumb, slow way for someone to die,” she said. “Too slow. Too many opportunities to turn it around.” Andy heard car engines behind them, back where Mommy parked their car. “It’s an unlikely way to die in this day and age. And Mommies are supposed to protect their sons.” Mommy looked back at Andy, and this look was far worse than any smile-not-at-him she’d ever done. This was how she looked when she looked deep into stories. Only she was looking deep into him.

“Matthew didn’t die of food poisoning. He drowned. We were on vacation in Crete...no. It happened along here, when the construction first started. He was driving home late...no, he was driving me to my appointment and he missed where the road went down to one lane and an oncoming truck hit the car. He missed it because it was new and confusing...no, because I was in the car yelling at him, yelling and trying to bite him because I didn’t want to go to the hospital again. Ellen told me after Matthew was gone that I needed something to tie me to this world, that the pills were good, were necessary of course, but that I needed more. I thought of going back to Crete. We’d bought the tickets but then the accident...I couldn’t go. We’d always put off having kids. I was writing and touring, he was busy with the firm. That was no way to raise a son. But, if I’d had a son like we planned, I’d have something to tie me to this world. Something to protect, something to live for.”

Men were coming up the hill, police officers.

“Mommy?” Andy’s voice was faint in her ears, faint as an echo in a seashell.

“Ma’am! You aren’t supposed to be up here. It isn’t safe.”

“But I don’t have anything to protect, anything to tie me here, do I, Andy? Maybe I was the one who drowned in Crete and this is just my brain living out its last moments at the bottom of the sea. Maybe I slipped between the worlds.”

She looked at the officers. There was something about them, something off, something different. The batons in their belts... no, they were swords.

She put the jar of preserves on the ground and stood up. Such a dumb way to die. She was more creative than that.

“Ma’am! What’s your name? I’m going to have to ask you to step away from the edge and come with us.”

Matthew was in the labyrinth. She'd be brave once more, vanquish these heroes, and then find him. They’d have a son, and they’d name him Andy and they’d always always always stay together.

“Ma’am!”

Missive, Medusa Loves Minotaur

Rebecca Hodgkins

Ed was a frequent visitor to Books Unlimited, the once-upon-a-time used bookstore on Evans and University owned by my husband and his family. He was always funny and kind as he looked through the stacks, adding to his huge book collection.

Ed's greatest gift, beyond his storytelling, was helping other authors get out of that inevitable hole we dig ourselves into with every story. I'd been working on Medusa Loves Minotaur for a couple of months (translation: wrote most of it in one sitting and then had no idea where the story wanted to go) when I ran into Ed at a signing. He asked if I was working on anything, and I gave him a brief synopsis. He nodded through it, and then said, "What if not all the characters are actually...real?"

I thought about that all night. On the drive into work the next day, I realized who was who, and I had my story.

Rebecca Hodgkins

Rebecca Hodgkins is a former nurse, current editor, graphic designer, and the author of the novel Flight Risk and the novella This Dance, These Bones. Her most recent books include Subhuman Resources and Zombie Rising, both set in the Kelly Chan Series created by Gary Jonas. Her short stories have been published in Daily Science Fiction, Niteblade, Everyday Weirdness, Cézanne’s Carrot, and reprinted in Digital Science Fiction. You can keep up with her at rebeccahodgkins.com.

The Long View

Van Aaron Hughes

What makes a person decide to desert everyone she knows and leave the whole world behind?

My name is Emzara Ghali-Gordon, and the first time I did it was easy.

The first thirty civilian colonists arrived on the Vanguard together, with a cheer and more than a few tears. The captain had already spun up the main cylinder, leaving all our zero-g training useless. We raced each other down the central corridor, bounding in the low gravity, laughing as Coriolis toppled us like so many drunks at closing time.

Chuck was in that first group too. We didn’t know each other yet, but in hindsight, his presence made the Vanguard my first real home from the moment we floated aboard and for the next 125 years.

At university in Alexandria, they called us the jabaan, the “cowards.” We worked like donkeys to get the best grades, to win scholarships to graduate school overseas. To get away.

I was the best of the jabaan. I wanted nothing but to leave Egypt. Not because it was miserable, although it surely was, especially for the surviving Coptic Christians like my family, but because it was old. My country had passed its best days many centuries before, and I wanted a home in the future.

I remember little from university but a rush of coursework and late-night studying. I loved history, literature; I doubled up in biology, chemistry, because they wanted that in America and China. I pestered every professor until I mastered each item in the syllabus, but hardly spoke to the other students.

Nor did I ease up once I made it to America, for the bio-boom was just starting. The other students thought we were learning skills to make money, but I always take the long view of events, and I knew what we were really doing: rejuvenating the tottering global economy.

To most Americans, a weak economy means having to borrow from your uncle to get by. In Alexandria, it means death. To me, the bio-boom wasn’t about money; we were saving the world.

The first weeks after everyone boarded the Vanguard were a whirlwind of activity, especially for me as chief geneticist and sonoporator. I kept telling myself that soon everything would slow down, by a factor of twenty.

Three hundred colonists, untold thousands of adjustments to get the stream of cavitation microbubbles just right——too weak and you don’t create deep enough pores in the cell membranes for the DNA to pass through; too strong and you cause excess cell damage. Since nobody’s cell membranes are quite the same, the balance is different for each cell type in each person.

Some people can’t undergo gene modification by sonoporation at all, usually those with relatively thick cell membranes. But the colonists were tested in advance and all had cells within the tolerance range. All except one. My procedure made this whole trip possible; damned if I would be left behind.

The charm of saving the world wore out much faster than I had expected. All our amazing progress in biotechnology and what had we accomplished? Medical researchers still favored retroviruses, so my team didn’t get to work much with diseases. The American government had strictly outlawed intelligence enhancements, and I didn’t have the nerve to go underground or to China, where I would face further religious oppression. So we used the human macro-sonoporation I pioneered——deploying modified genes with ultrasonic sound——to give people puffy lips, subcutaneous skin art, and mood hair. I had left Egypt because it was in decline, but I soon came to believe that so was America, so was China, all of Earth.

I wanted my work to take us into the future, but people were interested in toys and games, not real advances. So I volunteered for Vanguard.

I only ever saw Chuck cry twice. The first time was the day I realized we were in love.

He had told me he loved me before that, and I said it back so as not to hurt his feelings, but it surprised me he would say it so soon after we started dating——as a biologist, I did not believe in love at first sight, not until Boutros and James arrived.

Chuck and I had been spending nearly every minute together since I finished the sonoporation. It had worked for everyone, even me with my chubby cells, and we were all slowed. Now, we had over a century to pass, but it would only feel like a bit more than six years. That still sounded like a lot to me, but less daunting after I met Chuck.

For no reason but time to kill, I decided to surprise Chuck by going blonde (with dye——I didn’t play with DNA for trivial things). He said he loved it, but a while later I caught him tearing up. OK, he really hates it, I supposed. But he didn’t hate the hair, he explained. What he hated was the realization that we would change, that he couldn’t hold on to this time together forever. Now I understand how he felt, but then I really didn’t. To me, change was something to embrace. I always wanted to move forward.

Still, I went back to black hair. And even though we didn’t have Boutros and James for nearly two more years, somehow it feels as if we conceived them that night.

In theory, you could travel to the stars using suspended animation, putting people to sleep for years at a time. In practice, that doesn’t work. Tarried animation works. Using a combination of drugs and genetic modification, human beings can be recalibrated to as little as one-twentieth speed.

My macro-sonoporation technique was necessary for the extensive gen-mods required. You couldn’t just turn a dial on people’s DNA and slow them down. There were a hundred alterations to make, in light of the physical and chemical processes outside our control. We could compensate for some things externally——for instance, elevating the ship’s temperature to reduce body heat loss and spinning the main cylinder to simulate one-twentieth gravity, so things would appear to fall at the correct acceleration.

But many other factors required genetic tinkering. For example, a slowed person will blink one-twentieth as often, but evaporation from the eyes does not slow, so we countered with denser tears. No adjustments, however, could keep the body functioning at much less than one-twentieth speed. So we calibrated the crew and all the colonists to one-twentieth.

That meant no woman could get pregnant on the six-year (subjective) voyage without going through my lab——the zygote had to be slowed before implantation. And if most of the mothers took my offer to ensure their children’s high intelligence, well, that would benefit the whole colony in the long run.

Since we synchronized everyone, you mostly couldn’t tell the difference after slowing. Of course, we could not avoid slight variations. Some people moved and talked just a little faster than the rest of us. They tended to stick together. Spending time with them always reminded me of visiting New York.

Marriage. Twins. In hindsight, the first four years of the trip were the happiest I’ve experienced. But at the time, I felt bored.

Then came new data from Earth. With eighty years’ advances, they could gather more precise information about Ararat, our destination. A lot of minor adjustments and one major problem: toxic levels of carbon monoxide in the atmosphere, apparently generated somehow by the same abundant plant life that made this world an attractive destination.

We would need to adjust, if we didn’t want to switch to a secondary destination at least four more subjective years away. I had serious doubts our little band would survive the extra four years. Everyone was growing so thin I felt like I had returned to Alexandria. I was sure I wouldn’t be able to take much more of the reconstituted food, or of the smell building up in the lab, from the recyclers downstairs and the chemicals the air scrubbers couldn’t quite wipe away. And gossip had it the captain and crew were getting loopy. I even overheard one group of colonists assuring each other that the ship was so easy to pilot, if necessary we could mutiny and fly it ourselves.

Genetic modification seemed to me the obvious answer to the carbon monoxide problem. I suddenly had a lot to do.

The next two years passed in a blur. And then, of course, everything became a blur. The difference is, I can still remember certain events and conversations from the two years before we reached Ararat. That’s what I’ve lost, the ability ever to take my finger off the fast-forward button, to experience the world in real time.

We need to talk, Emzara.

Quickly. I have to get back to the lab.

That’s what we need to talk about. You’re working so hard. You’re not getting the exercise you need in this gravity. And we hardly ever see you anymore.

I’m sorry, Chuck, but you know how critical my work is. Do you think I enjoy working eighteen hours every day? I have to do this, for everyone.

But what’s the panic? If you’re still working when we arrive, we’ll just wait in orbit a while.

Three hundred people should each put their life’s ambition on hold because I couldn’t get my job done?

Em, I know it’s important, but we need you here, too. The boys need a mother.

Is that right? Tell me, when your ancestors landed on the beach at Normandy, was anyone saying, “But why aren’t they with their children?” I suppose even on an interstellar spaceship, for women the future is still a long way away.

Look, I know I’m not being fair.

Chuck, they’re not yet three. They’re still babies. They’ll be older once we get to Ararat. They’ll appreciate the time with me more then.

They aren’t babies any more, Em. You just haven’t been here to realize it. Did you see the mural outside our slot? Boutros did that.

You mean you did it, and he helped.

Me? I can’t paint.

Well, neither can I, and I didn’t try any augmentation of artistic ability. Where does he get it?

Gene modification, the old-fashioned way.

How does he make the paint?

Hey, I had to have some skills too, to get on this boat.

Really, Boutros painted that?

Yes.

All right. All right. I will figure something out, some way to spend more time with all of you.

Thanks, Em. I don’t mean for you to feel bad, but we miss you. I miss you. . . . Boys, you’re supposed to knock first.

Mama crying.

Why?

Because Mommy needs a hug.

Mmm, thank you both. Do you know Mama loves you very much?

Hee-hee-hee, Mama silly.

Why?

I haven’t decided whether I’ll really transmit this recording when I finish, but just in case, here——here are the murals Boutros did. He kept adding to them for over two years. See? They extend beyond the horizon. Of course, the horizon slants up and it’s only fifty feet away.

Nobody minded some extra color in the corridor. In fact, Boutros started a trend. Half the ship is painted now, even some of the exterior.

See how it gets even better as you move away from our family’s slot? Boutros graduated from simple shapes and animals to complete landscapes. At only four years old. And do you know, it just occurred to me for the first time, he painted this without ever seeing a real landscape. What an artist! No doubt he made a wonderful farmer also, but I wouldn’t really know.

I think Chuck knew I wouldn’t be able to keep my promise. That night, we made love for the last time before we reached orbit at Ararat. Two years of hardly seeing my family. That was the second time I chose to desert everyone I knew, and the only one I regret.

We managed to design the mods we needed by the time the ship arrived. Once the Vanguard reached Ararat and confirmed a habitable surface, we started in with two sets of modification by sonoporation, one to adjust to the Ararat atmosphere, one to reverse the slowdown.

I take great pride that my assistants and I managed both sets of mods on everyone, working at a furious pace, with only two failures. One little girl I had never met went into system shock from cell damage and died. And one colonist proved totally resistant to further modification——the colonist with cell membranes outside the preferred tolerance range. Should have seen that coming.

I performed the reversal on Chuck and the boys first. By the time we realized it hadn’t worked for me, the second time I ever saw Chuck cry, they were already at double my speed.

I could still talk to Chuck, who spoke as deliberately as possible, but not to Boutros or James. I could barely even track the boys with my eyes, they moved so quickly. And hugging them through all their motion was like trying to hold on to water from a faucet.

Chuck insisted that I slow the boys and him back to my speed. I refused. But when he threatened to have one of my assistants do the sonoporation to slow them again, I relented and said I would do it.

No good doctor would ever force treatment on an unwilling patient. But I wasn’t a doctor to them, I was a wife and a mother. So with my last three sonoporation procedures, I acted as a wife and mother should, for the final time. I gave them a splice to forever block any genetic slowdown, making it impossible for them to rejoin me at my speed. I would not permit my family to be trapped, to give up their future for me.

A day later, they were at ten times my speed. I could understand nothing anyone said. Standing right next to each other, Chuck and I communicated by email.

By the next day, everyone but me was fully accelerated. Chuck continued to try to communicate, but how agonizingly long every conversation must have taken for him.

Just trying to kiss him was an exercise in frustration. Doubtless he was holding the kiss as long as he possibly could, but to me it felt like a tiny peck.

I remember I kept lying down to cry, feeling wells of tears pool in my eyes, but someone would always wipe the tears away before they could fall down my cheeks. Did Chuck do that so the boys would not see? Or did it just look uncomfortable to them to have all that water on my face for so long?

When Chuck, Boutros, and James took the last one-way shuttle to the surface, I stayed behind. Everyone begged me to come, even though it would be a challenge to keep me alive in that atmosphere, for it would be many years of scratching out a foothold on the planet before they would be able to return to orbit. But I had no wish to live down there, a statue frozen among the living.

They stripped down the Vanguard as they left, but the remaining equipment was still plenty to keep one woman alive. And I could receive and send messages and pictures. At first, it felt like I was traveling, as if I had gone on a voyage and left Chuck and the boys behind, instead of the reverse.

I tried to communicate with them every day, but it was hopeless. If I didn’t want to miss a day for them (26 hours on Ararat), I couldn’t sleep for more than an hour at a time. In a few weeks, I became irrational with sleep deprivation. That made me tear up a lot, and a good cry would cost a whole day anyway.

So I gave up and went to a normal sleep cycle, waking each time with the awful realization that I had missed an entire week. If I stopped to read my family’s messages from that week, another day was lost before I could respond.

I watched my sons mature in a few months, like bean sprouts in a time-lapse film.

Since Chuck died, since Boutros and James became strangers, I have spent more time watching news and entertainment feeds from the planet. I have seen a whole civilization grow from the tiny seed I helped plant.

I have become a legend, a sad story my descendants retell for entertainment. Three times they have made flatfilms of my life. Each time the story becomes more melodramatic, and the actress playing me more absurdly beautiful.

The leaders of the world’s young government often consult me. They trust me to consider a proposal’s long-term consequences. But then, their long term is so near, for me.

Every time I step away from the screen, when I return it’s the future. I suppose in a way life is like that for everyone, forever rushing into the future. But it is different for me. For me, there is only the future. Other people get to inhabit the present, at least for a time, even if they seldom appreciate it.

I sit above the world like an impotent god, watching my grandchildren build a new life, a life with no place for me. In the past year, I’ve seen both my sons die, then the last surviving original colonists.

They are finally redeveloping spaceflight. If I wait, before long my descendants will arrive here, to marvel at my slow-motion movements and wipe away my tears.

I have been studying the specs, and the Vanguard really is quite simple to pilot. Soon I will take the ship back into deep space. The systems will surely start to break down before long, and I will be at a loss to make repairs, but at least my grandchildren will first be able to see the torch in the night sky as I leave.

Back in Alexandria, they were right. I am jabaan. This is a coward’s form of suicide, leaving behind all my descendants and the whole world I helped create, but it carries one comfort.

No one will stop my tears from falling.

Missive, The Long View

Van Aaron Hughes

I am a member of Ed's Northern Colorado Writers Workshop, which critiqued this story before I sold it to F&SF.  The plausibility of the science fictional premise, "tarried animation," is dubious at best.  The other members of NCWW gave me many suggestions for how to explain the science in greater depth to make it more believable.  I ignored them all and followed Ed's advice.  Ed said the premise was nonsense, but too good a story device not to use.  So he told me to do some hand-waving as quickly as possible and move on, not giving readers time to think about all the scientific problems with the story premise.  Gordon Van Gelder bought the story, so it seems his trick worked!

Van Aaron Hughes

Van Aaron Hughes is a lifelong science fiction fan, who never thought to call himself a writer until his story "The Dualist" was a winner in the Writers of the Future Contest in 2011. His fiction has appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show, Writers of the Future Vol. 27, Glorifying Terrorism, and various other magazines and anthologies. In real life, he is the father of three amazing children and spends his days as a lawyer in Denver. He has argued before the United States Supreme Court, which he says was exciting but nowhere near as cool as selling a $50 story.

Toasterpocalypse

David A Kilman

Ed’s body lay in a puddle of water on the kitchen floor, his hands clutching a smart toaster in a death grip. A plate with two eggs, three slices of bacon and one piece of toast, sat untouched on the counter next to a sink stoppered and filled with water. In some other room, a television loudly broadcast a twenty-four hour news station featuring analysis of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s announcement that their latest supercomputer had reached a state of self-awareness.

“That’s the way I found him,” Jack said.

Officer Paul Mumford leaned over to examine the body. “What exactly did he say on the phone?”

“He said that the machine uprising had started and that he had proof. He told me to get over here right away, but not to drive my car. It couldn’t be trusted.”

A voice from the television added, “They might view us the same way we view harmful insects."

“If I didn’t know Ed any better, I’d say this looks like a suicide.” Paul rose to his full height and began writing Jack’s statement on an incident report.

“Ed? Suicide? That wouldn’t make any sense. Why would he call me? Why make breakfast and not eat it?”

“It doesn’t make sense to me either. Ed wasn’t the smartest guy, but he ought to have known better than to mix electricity with water.”

“He said he had proof.” Jack couldn’t see anything in the kitchen that looked like proof to him. Maybe it had something to do with the toaster. He absentmindedly put his hand on the counter as he leaned over for a closer inspection.

“Hey, don’t touch anything.”

“Oh, sorry.” he pulled his hand away and looked at where he’d just put his fingerprints. That’s when he spotted it. “Jesus!” The half-decayed face of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator stared out at him from the burn patterns on Ed’s piece of toast. Jack took a step back as Paul eyed the contents of the plate.

“Huh,” Paul said. “That’s one of those, uh... pareidolia or whatever they call it.”

“So he did have proof.”

“What? Now don’t go all crazy like Ed. It’s a coincidence. That’s all it is.”

The experts on television continued, “They will likely see the weapons and computer viruses we create as a threat.”

“Do me a favor, Jack. Find that television and turn it off. I wish those damned reporters and their experts would stop making everyone jumpy.”

“Sure.” Jack didn’t have the confidence Paul had that this was just coincidence. After all, the experts knew a lot more about it than he did. He found the television in the exercise room, the one that used to be Ed’s ex-wife’s office before the divorce. The remote was sitting in a cradle attached to the treadmill. He paused as he reached for it. Was it safe to touch? The image of Ed on the linoleum-tiled, kitchen floor made him back off. He walked over to the power strip connected to the television and kicked the plug out of the wall. “This could spell the end of the human race” was the last thing to come out of the speakers before a welcome silence.

Paul was filling out a form when Jack returned.

“Do you need anything else? Do I need to stick around?”

“No, I’ve got your statement. The county sheriff’s office is sending out a couple of detectives to handle this. If they have any more questions, they will get in touch with you.”

Jack’s house wasn’t far, nothing in Walsh Creek was. The town was small enough that Paul Mumford was their only full-time, police officer. On the way home, Jack made stops to let his neighbors know what had happened to Ed. And to warn them.

His sister Brittany lived at the other end of town with her housemate Dolores. Not wanting to warn them last, he called her on his cell phone. But as soon as he finished the call, he regretted making it. What role did Ed’s call to him play in his death? Were the machines listening? He looked at the traitorous spy in his hand and pitched in into a field of tall grass. Picking up his pace, he worried about his sister, defenseless and at the mercy of all her appliances.

Brittany peeked over the back of the recliner. The silver MacBook on the coffee table gave no indication of having spotted her, though she wasn’t sure what such an indication might look like. To all appearances, the computer seemed to be off, but that could be a ruse. Best not to take chances. She gripped her baseball bat, fought the urge to run away, then charged at the machine. “Die, robot scum!” Within moments, she had beaten the living warranty out of it.

The laptop, now resembling a crumpled metal trashcan lid, looked about as capable of surfing the internet as Brittany’s grandmother, but she decided it could use another round of whacking to be on the safe side. By the time she was done, the coffee table had joined the computer in a state of no return. Still, more than a few Hollywood blockbusters had made it clear that when it comes to machines out to exterminate humanity, it never pays to underestimate their ability to survive apparent annihilation. She cautiously sifted through the wreckage with the tip of the bat, half anticipating that it wasn’t dead yet. She was in the midst of imagining a metallic hand rising up to grab her when the front door opened, making her jump.

Dolores, her housemate, walked in red-eyed and frantic. They hugged and tried to remain calm while suppressing sniffles.

“I think Paul Mumford might be dead.” Dolores wiped tears away with the shirtsleeve of her blue peasant top. “I called him to see what we should do. He said his car was giving him trouble, so he was taking it to the garage in Centerville. I asked if his car might be under the control of the robots. Then the signal cut off. It was like the phone didn’t want us to communicate.”

Trying to keep her own emotions in check, Brittany said, “I think we can both use some more coffee.” She walked to the kitchen. “By the way, were you able to get Tyler to help us?”

“Yes. He’s out in the garage trying to sneak up on the Volvo.”

“How many cups should I make? Do you think Tyler wants any?”

“Do you think we should?” Dolores entered the kitchen doorway. “I mean, is it safe? The coffee maker is one of those smart thingies.”

Brittany hadn’t thought of that before and wondered if part of her current anxious state could be blamed on the coffee maker.

“No, we’d better not,” Dolores said. “I don’t want to be responsible for getting you killed while trying to make us coffee. I don’t think any of the machines can be trusted.” She pointed to a cell phone on the Formica counter and added, “I crushed my cell on the front steps after I got off the phone with Paul. You know it has one of those GPS things so the robots will know where to find you.”

Brittany’s face blanched. She had almost forgotten about the bat in her hand, but hefted it now and brought it down squarely on her phone. Small fragments of grey plastic shot out in opposite directions and ricocheted off the walls. She gave what remained two more blows to be on the safe side.

Dolores looked on with approval. “You don’t suppose the appliances, I mean the smart ones, saw this and will report us to the robots?”

Brittany thought about it for a moment. “Oh, that’s silly. The only smart appliances we have in the kitchen are the coffee maker and the toaster, and how could they see?”

“I’m not so sure,” Dolores said. “A toaster killed Ed. And it must be able to see something. Otherwise, how would it know when the toast is done?”

“I’ll take the toaster.” Brittany handed Dolores a rolling pin. “You get the coffee maker.”

The appliances were no match for their fury. Pieces of plastic, metal and glass filled the air. But in their triumphal victory, something seemed wrong. “Smoke!” Brittany cried.

The two women ran for the back door, but by the time they got to the porch, it became obvious that the house was not on fire. “Ha!” Brittany tittered. “The smoke is coming from outside.”

Dolores’s eyes widened to anime proportions. “Tyler!”

Smoke billowed from the open garage door.

“Tyler?” she cried.

“I’m OK. Everything’s under control,” was his muffled reply.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, just taking care of the Volvo.”

“Thank goodness.”

Returning to the house, they set about cleansing it of any electronics that might be in league with the supercomputers. They bravely battled the home theatre system, vanquished the PlayStation, and skillfully outmaneuvered the Kindle. They were in the process of clubbing a digital picture frame when Tyler came in from the garage looking like a slab of beef that had been left to roast on one side on a broken rotisserie.

“Are you alright?” Dolores ran her hand through his singed hair, sending a shower of shriveled ends cascading down onto his charred shirt.

“Better than the Volvo. It will never threaten you again.”

“Now all we have to worry about is all the other cars and electronics in town,” Brittany said.

“And the world,” Tyler added somberly.

Brittany thought about the future and what would surely be hard times ahead – if she lived. Even the thought of taking on all the machines in their small town was daunting. She imagined a pitched battle, going house to house. And Al’s house, what would they do about Al’s house?

“Al Lupgartner’s house...” she said, staring off at nothing in particular.

“Oh, God, Al’s house!” Dolores echoed.

Al had been so proud of his new home. Barely two months ago, he’d hosted a party to show off his state-of-the-art, smart house. It had sensors to detect light, temperature, motion, sound, you name it. It did everything for him, from ordering his groceries right down to feeding the pets.

“What are we going to do about Al’s house?”

Dolores’ question hung in the air for a moment before Tyler perked up and answered, “Paul Mumford will know what to do.”

“Tyler,” Brittany placed her hand on his arm, “I think Paul Mumford is dead.” Dolores nodded agreement.

Tyler recovered quickly. “Bob Billings, the Mayor. He’ll know what to do.”

“Burn it down.” Bob didn’t see as they had any choice. It was a shame to have to burn down what was one of the handsomest houses in Walsh Creek. It had been done up in a retro-Victorian style and was, quiet honestly, the envy of the neighborhood. But nobody in their right mind was going to enter the maw of what was effectively one, large, computerized, killing machine. He adjusted the rim of his signature cowboy hat and said, “There ain’t no other way around it.”

“Can’t we just cut his power?” asked Jack, standing in the front of what had grown to a crowd of about fifty people on Al Lupgartner’s lawn.

“He’s got a backup generator in the basement. You volunteering to go in and disable it?”

“Well, no.” Jack rubbed the back of his neck.

“Will these help, Bob?” Arty Finkelstein stepped forward and set a box of hand-made torches down in front of the mayor.

“Where in tarnation did you get those?” asked Bob. The box contained a score or so arm-length branches with cloth wrapped around one end and bound by copper wire. By the smell of them, he guessed they’d been soaked in kerosene.

“I started making them after I heard about Ed and Paul. I thought they might come in handy.”

“They sure will. Alright, let’s get this thing done. Arty, Jack, Tyler, Ethan, grab a torch. The rest of you get back in the street.”

Bob let his torch fly and was embarrassed that it only managed to reach the bushes lining the front of the house. The younger men were more effective. Tyler’s settled in the seam where a gable met the roof, and Ethan’s crashed through a second story window. Jack’s harmlessly bounced off the siding and back onto the lawn, making Bob feel a little less ashamed about his throw. Arty took no chances. He ran up close to launch his through a window on the first floor.

Before long, the flames began to take hold and a fire alarm sounded, waking the house’s sole occupant. Al emerged groggy and looking confused.

“What the hell is going on?” Al demanded.

“Your house is a death trap,” Bob informed him.

Al turned around to look at the inferno that was formerly his home and replied, “Well, yes, I suppose it is.”

Brittany stood in the street at the outer rim of the crowd, listening to the crackle and pop of Al’s house with its alarm still wailing in protest. She felt a tug on her pant leg.

Little Dory Anderson looked up at her, a plush Elmo doll tucked under her arm. “What are you doing?”

“Oh, hi sweetie.” She knelt on one knee to address the little girl. “We are destroying all the machines.”

“Why?”

“To stop the bad machines from hurting people.”

The girl hugged her doll and Elmo spoke. “Let's sing the alphabet. Ready? A, B, C, D...”

Horrified, Brittany ripped the doll from the girl’s grasp, threw it to the ground, and bludgeoned it with her bat. Elmo stopped speaking after the letter ‘S.’

Dory fell to her knees and bawled.

Blue and red lights flashed and a siren sounded one brief whirl. Brittany looked up while keeping a peripheral watch on Elmo, lest he should try to escape. A police car pulled up to the edge of the crowd. Someone threw a torch, bouncing it off the hood of the vehicle.

Paul Mumford stepped out of the car.

“Paul, you’re not dead?” asked an astonished Brittany.

“Does it look like I’m dead? What the hell are you people doing?”

The perpetrators, too numerous to fit in the only holding cell at the police station, spent the night under house arrest. By morning, the smoke had cleared, leaving behind the acrid smell of burnt plastic and timbers.

Although everyone involved recanted, many secretly held the belief that Ed’s toaster had plotted to elicit the townspeople’s destructive reaction from the very beginning.

Missive, Toasterpocalypse

David A Kilman

The first thing Ed said during his critique of this story was that in his vast experience as a reader, he’d come to notice that characters named Ed were often killed at some point in the story. He laughed and said that he didn’t know what it was about his name, but Ed characters were expendable, the equivalent of being redshirts in Star Trek. I hadn’t had Ed (our Ed) in mind when I picked the name. It just seemed like a good name for a character that was going to get himself electrocuted while trying to drown a toaster. So I guess Ed had a point.

Ed made a number of useful observations regarding this story, including the suggestion that I might have made the characters too stupid, so I dialed that back a bit during the revision. If you can believe it, the townspeople were even more clueless in the original.

But it wasn’t these or any other story-specific recommendations that made Ed an important nurturing figure in my development as a writer. He made me believe that I wasn’t wasting my time, that I had something worthwhile to contribute through my writing. Not that Ed was the sort to heap false praise to boost confidence. In fact, I recall his reaction to one of my stories about which he had been particularly critical. I said to him, “So, what you’re saying is that the story is lousy.” He just looked at me, eyes wide, and nodded his head in agreement. You might be thinking that this does not sound like much of a confidence booster, and you are right. But in a way, it contributed, because I knew that when Ed did offer praise, it wasn’t because he was being kind.

I recall, I will always recall, what Ed said to me during the lunch break of one of our meetings. We had just finished critiquing a time travel piece that I had submitted, probably Ed’s favorite of all my stories. And he told me that I had a knack for bringing something new to subjects even as overly-worn as time travel. That might not seem like much, but it’s something that I lean on in times of self-doubt.

Ed characters in fiction might be expendable, but Ed Bryant was indispensable.

David A Kilman

One of the last of Ed Bryant's literary children, David A Kilman joined the Northern Colorado Writer's Workshop in February of 2016.  Six months later, he made his first professional sale to Galaxy's Edge magazine.  Dave has tried his hand at a variety of careers including bookseller, elected public official, technical writer, court clerk, middle management, commodities trader, and most recently homeschool teacher.  He would rather be writing.

Opportunity Lost

Marie DesJardin

Mars 2034

The battered rover Opportunity limped toward the anticipated landing site, obedient to its last received signal. The tough little explorer had outlived its fellows from that era, but its communications circuits had succumbed at last. No orders had been received since the last focused burst a year ago that sent the remaining Mars rover on its final mission.

Only three of the powered wheels still worked. Prior to the last transmission, programmers had skillfully finessed the stronger left side not to overpower the weaker rear side. Kilometer by painful kilometer, the little rover marched on. Its mechanical arm had frozen, but it could still see– through one dust-clouded lens, it could see. It sent sporadic images according to its last programmed schedule, treating the mission planners to a bizarre slow-motion slideshow of the journey: a pitted rock, a crater, a sea of red sand.

Everyone agreed that Opportunity arriving at humanity's first landing site would be a fitting tribute to those uncertain days when the manned exploration of Mars remained uncommitted. The six-person crew who would set down on the Martian surface intended to recognize this robust survivor for its inspiration and endurance.

Blithely unaware of its significance, Opportunity soldiered on.

First Manned Mission to Mars, 2035

Captain Robert Ashby, Mars mission commander, wished the malady had started with anyone but Demy. Demyan was their chief geneticist, and therefore the best equipped to diagnose the problem. Yet he was the first to exhibit the troubling symptoms.

The early part of the mission had gone smoothly. As the months ticked by, Robert remained alert for the psychosocial pressures that could affect even the most harmonious crew in such close quarters. Yet nothing significant occurred until the day Demy refused the centrifuge.

Yi, the medical doctor, had already excused their chief engineer, Miyo, because the contraption designed to minimize vertigo problems on arrival invariably made her ill. But Demy, like most cosmonauts, was disciplined. He’d never balked before. Then–

“I won’t need it,” he proclaimed suddenly, when Yi had prodded him about his exercise.

“You may not, but I do,” Yi countered playfully. “I’m not putting up those shelters by myself, and we already know that Miyo will be useless.”

“Hey!” Miyo called, hearing her name from across the bay. “What are you saying about me?”

“I’m saying that while you’re lying about adjusting to gravity, I want Demy and his bulging muscles to help me put up the shelters.”

Demy remained firm. “I will have no problem with the adjustment.”

Almost over-prepared for oppositional behavior to eventually emerge, Robert interposed mildly, “If Demy wants to skip a day, he’s entitled.”

“I will miss all the days,” Demy declared. “I am finished with this exercise.”

Yi frowned. “But, the benefits–”

“I don’t need it!”

Demy’s raised voice silenced the module. Paula and Vikram were sheltering in the cooler, a bunker protected by literally tons of ice that screened out some of the radiation that Earth’s atmosphere did naturally. The other three in the main cabin exchanged glances.

Robert gave Yi a significant look, which he interpreted instantly. Lightly, the physician said, “Come here, Demyan. Let me look at you.”

“Look all you like.” Demy maneuvered himself into the examination chair and secured the anchoring straps. “But I do not need that machine any longer.”

In the charged silence, Robert strained to follow the conversation behind him. Demy submitted well enough to Yi’s tests. Yet whenever Robert hazarded a glance, he saw Demy smiling a secret smile. It was disturbing, but he forced himself not to speculate.

After Demy had rotated into the cooler, Robert drifted over to learn the results. Yi touched the panel to bring the readouts to life. The significance of the graphs was not immediately apparent; Robert’s expertise lay in areas mechanical. So he was grateful for Yi’s breakdown.

“Blood chemistry is way off,” Yi murmured, quietly enough that Miyo and Paula, across the module, could not have heard. “Adrenalin, hormones– the entire endocrine system.”

“What’s causing that?”

“It could be mere social fatigue due to the months of close confinement. Demy is more introverted than the rest of us. I just never anticipated anything this severe.”

Robert mused. “They told me that sometimes a decreased workload or change of routine can restore morale. What do you think?”

Yi shrugged. “Demy’s strong. A few days off the machine won’t hurt him.”

Robert reported the incident, of course, but headquarters backed the action he and Yi were already taking. In the shifts following his reprieve, Demy put only the most desultory effort into his work. While his crewmates studiously pretended not to notice, the tension in the cabin grew.

The next week, Vikram, the biologist, suddenly announced that he, too, would no longer use the centrifuge.

“All I need is my yoga,” he stated.

Robert felt as if his forbearance with Demy had betrayed him. “Yoga doesn’t provide sufficient strength building for lower gee,” he argued.

“But less gravity requires less strength,” Vikram countered.

“That’s nonsense. Strength training is essential for maintaining heart and lung efficiency. You know that.”

Vikram ignored him. “Come, Demy. I want to show you something.”

Grinning, Demy abandoned his station. The two launched into an asana routine, with much good-natured bickering about how to adapt the poses for the minimal gravity.

Robert drifted next to Paula, who had doubts written all over her face.

“At least they’re exercising,” Robert said.

“This makes no sense,” she whispered. “Two hours of exercise a day is the absolute minimum! They can’t just scrap it and expect to arrive functional at the other end.”

“I realize that, but confrontation at this point is risky. I don’t want the situation to escalate. Mars is still six weeks away.”

“And then what?”

Robert sighed. “Look, standard procedure tells me to back off. Perhaps Vik can jolly Demy back to his usual self. It might be a better approach than issuing orders.”

Paula caught a breath as if to protest, then laughed instead. “What is it about the last third of a voyage? I’m overly brittle myself.” She smiled. “All right, Captain. I’ll give it time. But we’re going to need all our team– in shape– to get our colony built.”

“Don’t worry. Miyo and I will help you with the heavy lifting.”

Paula chuckled. “Thanks, Rob.”

“In the meantime, I’ll have Yi run checks on everyone. I want to rule out any potential medical causes.”

While Yi completed his assignment over the next two shifts, Vikram devised a whole new set of exercises. Robert was aware that many yoga postures derived from nature, but he found these unsettling. They featured slithering and creeping with arms akimbo, like a human archosaur. “Crocodile pose” he might have called it, were it not for the flicking tongue. Paula and Miyo escaped into the cooler rather more frequently than before, as the mood of the main bay turned increasingly bizarre.

The next day, while Demy and Vikram were occupied with their evolving asana routine, Yi quietly shared his results with Robert.

“It’s worse than we thought,” he murmured. “Demy’s bloodwork shows a significant deviation from his baseline, but we’re all affected.”

“By the stress?”

“You tell me.” Yi overlaid a second chart onto the first. The peaks and valleys imperfectly matched each other, though the second graph showed a more gradual curve.

Robert frowned. “Is that Demy’s earlier bloodwork?”

“No. Only the first graph is Demy’s.” Yi paused. “The second chart up there is me."

Robert’s stomach shrank. “But…”

“It shows that I’m not far behind him. None of us are. Demy and Vik are the most strongly affected, and Paula and Miyo the least. But we’re all just at different points along the same curve.”

Robert reined in his alarm. “Is a gender a factor?”

“It might simply be protocol. The women spend more time in the cooler to shelter from the cosmic rays. The shielding might be coincidentally protecting them from… whatever this is. I’d like to do a full DNA workup on everyone. Unfortunately, Demy’s the real expert.”

“And he’s the main casualty.” Robert observed the big Russian surreptitiously. “Although he does seem calmer today.”

“He could go off at any moment, the way his system’s being cranked.”

“Won’t he want to get to the bottom of it, once he sees the numbers?”

“It’s your call, Captain. Given Demy’s recent behavior, would you trust his results?”

Robert sighed. “Do what you can. I’ll run interference.”

He apprised NASA of the latest development. While they forwarded Yi’s findings to other Earth-based scientists, they had nothing immediately to recommend beyond what Robert had already implemented: relaxed duties and more time in the cooler. “Monitor and report,” was headquarters’ consensus. That was easy to say in a comfortable, ground-based station. In the cramped quarters of the Mars delivery vehicle, it was more difficult to achieve.

Several shifts later, Yi showed his latest efforts to Robert. “Dozens of genomes are mutating, in all of us,” he whispered. “While some defects appear random, many of the same sequences are affected in everyone. We’re experiencing a massive genetic breakdown.”

“Are you sure about that?” called a voice from across the room.

Both men jumped. Demy floated leisurely down the module, smiling tautly, his eyes small and red-looking. Robert suppressed a twinge of fear. He couldn’t afford to be intimidated.

Catching a nearby grip, Demy anchored himself in front of the screen, still displaying the DNA sequence– his– that Yi had been showing Robert.

“You have sequenced the molecule, but what does it mean?” In the artificial lighting, Demy’s grin seemed a feral baring of teeth. “Less than 1% of our DNA determines the difference between a man and a chimpanzee. Despite years of investigation, we still do not know what the vast majority of our DNA actually does. Look!” He flipped through the diagrams. “Everyone on this ship has deviated more than 1% in just the six months so far of our voyage. We could be turning into chimpanzees this instant!”

“But, most of our DNA is dormant... if that's the right word,” Robert hazarded. “It won’t make any difference if it changes.”

“Are we so certain of our facts, Captain? What handful of genomes– here, here, or here– might spell the difference between one species and another? Between one lifeform and another?”

Yi looked uncomfortable. “What he says is true, Captain. Literally millions of untested combinations are possible among the recessives we don’t yet understand.”

“But we do know that Paula and Miyo show less deviation than everyone else,” said Robert. “If sustained cosmic radiation is the cause, less exposure should retard the corruption.”

“What if it’s not corruption?” Demy challenged. “What if it’s… a change for the better?”

It's better to have a chimpanzee flying this ship? Robert thought, but kept his reflection to himself.

“I’ll get the information to Mission Control,” Yi said. “I’m sure they’ll have an opinion.”

The geneticist waved a hand. “Let me review it first. I am the expert.”

Robert froze. Over Demy’s shoulder, Yi looked alarmed.

Demy’s smile grew. “What’s wrong? Are you afraid I’ll sabotage the data?”

Robert tried honesty. “Yes.”

Demy laughed. “Yi will watch me. We’ll need massive compression to transmit the data efficiently. Yi can supervise the process– if you concur, Captain.”

Yi met Robert’s eyes helplessly. “He does know the algorithms better.”

Robert looked from the smirk of one to the anxiety of the other. Reluctantly, he said, “Proceed.”

From that moment, Yi and Demy were inseparable. Robert tried to reassure himself that Yi would spot any efforts on Demy’s part to compromise the results. He hoped that Demy’s improved attitude indicated he might be coming out of his recalcitrance– but the longer he saw Yi and Demy together, the more uncomfortable he became.

A few shifts later, Robert was in the middle of warming his lunch when a burst of laughter drew his attention.

Vik and Demy were practicing their asana routine, as usual. This time they were back-to-back, pressing against each other as they performed a type of two-man reverse pushup against opposing walls. Only today, Yi was with them, cheering them on.

“Push, push!” he called. “Let the mightiest prevail!”

Robert grew cold. For the first time in days, the physician had dropped his guarded look. Yi was laughing, relaxed. As if he no longer cared.

Kicking off the kitchen console, Robert executed a turn in midair, came out of it timed to catch a handhold near the others, exactly checking his forward motion. Without any preamble, he blurted, “I want you all to return to the standard exercise routine.”

The laughter stopped. Vikram looked surprised; Robert only then realized how little he’d spoken to him of late. Demy favored him with an almost cunning glare, while Yi gave Robert a weary look.

“I’ve been running tests,” he said. “The fact is, Demy and Vik are healthier than the rest of us. Whatever they’re doing, it’s working.”

Robert studied Yi’s smooth, calm face, bloated from the effects of microgravity. He sounded rational, but something was off. Robert said, “Show me the charts.”

Demy barked a laugh, as Yi produced a tired smile. “Do you really think you can read them, Rob?”

Robert could be stubborn, too. “Explain them to me, like you did before.”

“Tests! Results!” The contempt in Demy's voice was unmistakable. “Compare a man to a chimpanzee– or a chimpanzee to a god! That is what you will find.”

To Robert’s consternation, neither Vik nor Yi reacted to this extraordinary remark. Vik even nodded calmly.

“He’s right, Rob,” Yi said. “The changes are accelerating. We’re not the same people who left Earth– none of us are.”

Robert clamped down on his anger. “I’m relieving all of you until further notice. If you aren’t using the exercise machines, I want you in the cooler. This ongoing genetic damage must stop.”

“Damage?” Demy let himself drift from the wall. Larger than Robert to begin with, the microgravity made his swollen upper body look dismayingly robust. “Can you not recognize an improvement when you see one?”

“You’re not rational,” Robert said firmly. “The cosmic radiation is breaking you down, and you’re suffering mental impairment because of it.”

“Mars once supported life,” Demy continued, not heeding him. “Water-based life, like us. Martian dust and meteorites have fallen to Earth for millennia. So too would have the spores. Traveling from world to world, they were incorporated into our genes long ago.”

“Demy,” Robert said with forced calmness, “move into the cooler.”

“Seventy percent,” Demy said. “That is how much of our DNA is the unused residue of natural selection. But for what conditions were these unneeded genes optimized? Who is to say that residual traits not needed on Earth are a forgotten gift from space, awaiting the proper stimulus to be reawakened?”

“Are you suggesting that mankind carries within his genes the ability to survive on Mars?”

“Yes. That is what I am saying. Feel my skin.”

Robert touched Demy’s extended hand, then recoiled sharply. The surface was like toughened hide.

Demy laughed, but Yi smiled sympathetically. “It’s for the best, Rob. Thicker skin will allow us to handle the increased exposure. With muscles adapted for a lighter-gravity world–”

“You’re mad.” Robert looked around the circle. “You're all mad.”

Vikram shook his head. “No, Captain. We’re just ahead of you.”

“You’ll get here, too.” Yi held his gaze. “You can’t go back. None of us can.”

Robert studied the unrepentant faces. Suddenly he kicked off, aiming for the communications console. He’d just arrived when a large hand came down on his, forcing it from the controls. The grip was astonishingly fierce for a man who’d been neglecting his exercises. But worse was the texture of that grip: cool and scaly.

“You will not tell them,” Demy growled into Robert’s face.

Robert glared back. “I’m aborting the mission. We’ll fire a course correction and head back to Earth.” He glanced over Demy’s shoulder at Yi, standing idly by. “What’s the matter with you? Sedate him!”

“There’s nothing wrong with us.” Demy lunged toward Robert’s face, like a snake striking. Robert jerked back, knocking his head against the instrument bank before rebounding into Demy. Overpowering Robert, the big man drew the captain’s hand to his mouth and bit it.

Robert shouted and wrenched free. Droplets of blood sprayed into the air like jewels. Behind the veil, Demy grinned at him with blood-tinged lips.

Two quick rebounds brought Robert to the cooler. He dived through the hatch and swung it closed. Hands shaking, he turned to find Paula and Miyo staring at him in astonishment.

“What happened?”

He told them the story while Paula bound up his hand and Miyo hunted for some way to secure the hatch.

“Don’t block us in,” Robert warned her. “It would be better if we sealed them in here. Maybe that would help reverse… whatever this is.”

Paula secured the bandage. “Demy actually bit you?”

“What’s worse is, none of the others seemed to find anything remarkable about it. They just watched, pitying me for not understanding the bigger picture.”

“I don't understand. People have been exposed to cosmic rays for extended periods before. They’ve experienced some visual impairment, tissue damage, reduced virility– and that’s all. No one reported personality or physical changes remotely of this magnitude.”

“We’re in the final phase of an eight-month journey,” Miyo reminded her. “This is the longest any human has existed outside of Earth’s magnetosphere.”

“Whatever’s happening, it’s sociopathic behavior on a grand scale– particularly for a group that’s gotten along as well as ours.” Paula released his hand, and Robert flexed against the bandage experimentally. It hurt, but the hand was usable.

Miyo meanwhile activated the auxiliary communications console. “It’s offline. They’ve done something out in the main cabin, I’ll bet.”

Robert ground his teeth. “We have to trade places. Get them in here and us out there.”

“And how are we supposed to do that?”

“We can’t drag them in here physically, obviously. I’ll… start with an apology. Say I was out of line. Then we can drug their food and ferry them back here when they're unconscious.”

Paula raised a brow. "They’re going to notice me fiddling with their food. They might be unstable, but they aren’t oblivious.”

Miyo added, “We also can’t forget that once we're locked out there, we'll be exposed to the same radiation that destabilized them, if it’s the radiation that’s doing it. If you believe Demy, our forgotten Martian heritage will start rising to the surface.”

“Evolution doesn’t work that way,” Paula countered. “People don’t change from one form to another.”

“Except now they apparently are.”

Robert shook his head. “None of us is an expert in this area, and the experts we do have are all busy practicing reptile yoga in the main cabin.”

Miyo eyed him skeptically. “Do you think they’ll leave us alone when we go out there? They seem pretty far gone.”

“We have to risk it. If we can snooker them into the cooler, we at least have a chance to turn this ship around. We’ll transmit the genetic data, in whatever form, and hope we get some answers from Earth about how to reverse this thing.”

Paula smiled. “I’m in, Cap. I’ll sacrifice my ovaries to the cause, if that’s what it takes to get this bucket headed safely back to Earth.”

Robert forcibly pushed aside thoughts of his own family; he had to focus. “Miyo, your job is to jam the hatch after we get them in here. Paula, you’re on drug detail; I’ll provide a distraction.”

“Such as?”

“They seemed willing enough to discuss their... transformation, as long as I didn’t try to tell Earth about it. I’ll engage them in the same debate we just had, hopefully without the teeth this time.”

“And if that fails?”

“Let’s hope it doesn’t. We’re out of options.”

Moments later, Miyo listened at the hatch, then nodded. She cracked the seal and opened the door, a jerry-rigged brace bobbing behind her. Robert preceded her into the main lab.

His heart sank. The others had not been idle during his retreat. The panels to the comm system had been physically removed, the cables clipped. The three saboteurs looked up, smugly or warily, from their efforts.

Behind him, Robert heard Miyo gasp. Softly, he asked, “Can you fix it?”

Miyo hesitated, then said firmly, “Yes. I will.”

“Sorry about the mess, Captain!” Demy called cheerily from the ruined station. “But I thought it would be easier on everyone if we removed the temptation. Ah, Paula,” he continued, as she floated in. “I much prefer you to return to the cooler.”

“I’m hungry,” Paula said, playing her part.

“We’ll bring something to you. Have mine, in fact; I seem to have lost my taste for the standard rations.”

“I’d prefer to prepare something myself, thank you.”

“I’m afraid I can’t let you do that, my dear. You see, we need you to land the ship. Therefore, you must stay in the cooler as much as possible. It’s the only way to ensure that you will retain the sufficient… mindset, to carry out that final, necessary act.”

“I can fly the ship,” Robert interjected.

Demy’s red eyes glittered. “You could, my dear Captain, but I’m afraid you won’t be in any condition to do so.”

“Demy–” Miyo said, before all hell broke loose.

The three crewmen at the gutted communications console launched themselves at the trio near the door. Robert lunged backward, but Miyo and Paula hampered his escape. Demy and Vikram seized his wrists, yanking him into the main bay. The three of them tumbled with no control across the chamber. Robert banged against some hard-edged panel, then rebounded across the room along with his captors to crash into another set of bruising surfaces.

Demy was actually snarling in his face; Vikram’s legendary good humor was replaced with grim determination. Near the hatch, Robert glimpsed Yi and Miyo locked in a similar showdown.

Then Paula hurtled over Demy’s shoulder, aiming for the medical locker. Her lithe body skillfully avoided the cluster of combatants. She snagged a handhold to check her flight, and rummaged furiously in the cabinet. If Robert could keep his attackers busy, she could sedate them while their backs were turned.

Sudden pain made Robert scream. While he'd been momentarily distracted, Demy had dived past his guard. He seized Robert’s throat in his jaws, gnawing into the bare skin above Robert’s uniform, choking him. Robert bucked, hitting the panel behind him. Amid stars, he felt himself drifting farther into the room. Blood blobs rose from his mangled throat, several of them serenely merging into bigger blobs in the air.

Demy abruptly ceased his attack. Over his shoulder, Robert saw that Paula, needle in hand, had seized the back of his uniform. But before she could deliver the sedative, Vikram kicked her savagely in the stomach. The impact sent Robert’s group in one direction, and Paula spiraling back toward the kitchen.

Baring stained teeth, Demy fixed a fanatical stare on Robert, smears of blood radiating from his mouth like a sunburst.

“I'm hungry, too,” he growled. “But I’ve lost my appetite for food packs.” He dived in again.

Robert’s air shut off. He twisted, but Vikram kept them anchored. He couldn’t shake Demy off. Black spots flashed before his eyes. Demy’s breath bubbled through his blood. Flailing for a grip, Robert felt something give– followed by weakness, and distance, and ease.

Mars 2036

NASA lost all communication with the Mars mission in its final days of flight. They continued to track the ship’s progress, of course, but no data, no images arrived from the apparently functional spacecraft. The disposition of the crew remained a mystery.

The ship achieved orbit at the scheduled time, but not on its designated approach. Instead, it wasted precious fuel to maneuver next to each of the Martian orbiters, knocking them out of the sky to the incredulous howls of the ground staff. In stunned disbelief, the monitoring teams watched the spacecraft then make its landing at the pre-selected site, all in the same, inexplicable silence. No cameras recorded humanity’s first footsteps on the alien surface; no historical greetings made their time-delayed trip to Earth. The Red Planet kept its secrets.

Months later, the dogged rover Opportunity limped its way over the final ridge. It continued to transmit its findings in the same intermittent fashion as it had for over a decade. Ground crews clustered around monitors, poring over each disconnected, grainy image, straining for clues.

Strobe. An overview of the camp from the ridge, with several structures haphazardly erected, half of them knocked down. Strobe. Opportunity was descending the slope into camp. Debris scattered among the structures was now apparent. Strobe. The remains of a uniform, shredded. Among it, bare bones gleamed– not laid out naturally, but torn apart, with the larger bones cracked open as if to expose the marrow. Strobe. Some kind of quadruped, roughly human sized, crawled from the camp, its forelimbs splayed in the classic reptilian posture. It appeared to be confronting the rover, its sharp-toothed jaws gaping as it snarled into the camera.

And that was all. After three decades of faithful service, Opportunity went silent at last.

Missive, Opportunity Lost

Marie DesJardin

I first joined the Northern Colorado Writers Workshop (NCWW) in the 1980s. Although I forget the exact date, I still remember bringing in my first short story for the group to review. Their line was supposed to be, "This is the funniest thing I ever read!"

Alas, no one knew their line. All the members had, in fact, something quite different to say. I was rather despondent when the circle finally got around to Ed. He started pleasantly, nonjudgmentally, with: "Well, your theme is 'power corrupts', so..." He went on from there, but I didn't immediately hear it. I was too bowled over by the notion of, I have a theme? But, but, it's just a humorous short story!

Thus began my decades-long association with the NCWW, with Ed Bryant as the unofficial anchor of the ever-evolving group. I submitted stories and sold stories, but it was clear (from the comments of Ed and others) that I could do better.

The following story is the first story Ed ever really approved of. I remember the shock I felt when he remarked, in his rumbling baritone, "This is a wonderful job of creating a true hard-science horror story." In 20+ years, I can't remember him saying I’d done a "wonderful job" of anything before.

Ed was dead-on honest, but also kind. He could find something good to say about the most wretched mess, and places to improve in the most streamlined story. He'd never praise a story above its merits. So when he actually liked one of mine... it felt like a rite of passage, a badge of honor for the ongoing battle to improve my craft.

For what it's worth, this story hasn't yet sold. Perhaps the split-genre doesn't help. But it's my first "Ed approved" story, and I'm forever grateful to it.

I hope your Ed anthology will be a big hit. He touched so many lives.

Marie DesJardin

Marie DesJardin entertains space aliens by sitting motionless in front of her computer for many minutes at a time, then abruptly leaping up and dancing inanely about the room before resuming the position. She fears what affect this behavior might have on interstellar relationships. Marie has published both humorous and dramatic speculative fiction in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, Compelling Science Fiction, and Flash Fiction Online, among others. Marie resides in Denver, Colorado, travels extensively, and enjoys hiking in the mountains when they are not on fire.

http://www.mariedesjardin.com

Hundred Ghost Soup - Novel Excerpt

Robert Chansky

Let us draw a thin black line bisecting a plane of high yellow crust. Draw it straight as a ruler, no need to bend for hills or valleys. I came from a city of such lines, from Beijing, three days ago. The rails I travel now arrow toward Yinchuan, the oasis town. But my stop is well before there. So says my ticket, the ticket I sacrificed everything to get.

My town is not on the maps. My stop is not on the train’s list, but my ticket points to my new home. So I hope.

The train’s hard seat hammers my rear end, and the course of my life are these thin rails, arrowing toward my fate, one or another, life or death. I tap my knuckle against the icy window and watch the yellow desolate land unroll. Tap. Tap.

So long as I pretend to sleep, the conductor allows me to ignore him. The last time he had passed by, I had ducked into the toilet. I will not escape him forever.

Sure enough, he looms above me in my seat. “Ticket,” he says, and I feign sleep again.

He leans over me to touch my shoulder. I cannot help but squirm. Just this easily I have given myself away. My ticket is legitimate. I have no reason to avoid him. No reason but the truth, which I will not admit.

There are two fates, you see, in store for each of us: one for life and one for death. Every choice leads us toward one or the other. In the old days, the ancients knew how to ask. They would inscribe the question on a tortoise shell, and carve one answer and its opposite. Would the boy find his life? Or only death? Thrown into the fire and left to burn, the cracks would reach from the question toward one of the fates and the future thus known.

The conductor takes the ticket from my hand. “Dongxi?” He scrutinizes the ticket as his jaw muscles tighten. “You faked this.”

“It was given to me at the orphanage.” I come awake, unfold myself as I unzip my bag and retrieve my adoption papers to shake them before his gaze. “See.” The papers are glossy with authority, festooned with official red chop-marks. “It is real. I missed the university exam so I could come here.” He doesn’t need to know that, I chide myself, but I cannot stop once started. “They came just before my majority. How could they be wrong?” My hand shakes as it strikes me what I’ve got myself into. I had three days of watching the scenery go by and now, minutes before the end of the ride, now it comes to me: have I destroyed my life?

This paperwork of mine, my supposed salvation, is given the smallest glance. “Look, no one gets off at that place—the train won’t stop there.”

“This is my stop.” I cross my arms and try to breathe.

I should have no reason to fear him. My ticket was mailed to the orphanage from the train station itself. They had accepted it at Beijing West and at all the stations from there to here. Of course it is real.

“It’s not real,” he says. “Who sold you this? Don’t lie—there’s a ring of counterfeiters on this line selling people bad tickets. At last I’ve got one we can examine. Now we’ll get to the bottom of this. The train won’t stop.” To my stricken face, he continues, “You should have brought enough money for a ticket back home. I can’t be responsible for your being fooled—”

But then: with as soft an argument as any whisper, the train begins to slow. The conductor has to reach out to steady himself against the unexpected deceleration, and he glances to his hand on the backrest as if it burns him.

“Sometimes there’s a glitch in the stop alert. It happens. Right around here. Sometimes,” he assures himself. “But that means nothing to you. We will get this straightened out.”

Now the brakes are hit in earnest. Outside, the landscape turns quickly: the yellow rocky desert that has been my view for two hundred kilometers gives way to stony humps piled by men; concrete pads stretch out squares like a vast game yet unplayed. Soon rusted girders prickle up from these, and then the skeletal frames of warehouses fill themselves with concrete and paint, unfinished buildings with open sockets where windows should go. These empty-eyed skulls turn finished. The train descends to an underground station beneath the corner of—this I have read but not seen—Hewlett and Tao Streets.

The train’s computer voice announces Dongxi as if it were perfectly normal to stop there.

“He can’t!” The conductor shouts at the roof. With me, he tries to reason. “Look, no one lives here. It’s haunted.” He shakes his head left and right, and I see desperation when he looks at me again. “At Yinchuan, we could use a kid to clean up. I could put in a good word for you.” He puts a convincing hand over my own as if to prove he is not a ghost. When he withdraws, I feel paper in my hand. It is a ten yuan note.

“I have a father and a mother. Waiting for me there.” So say these papers and my hammering heart. “For a month.” I am missing the university exam for this. “Please.”

The train hisses to a stop and the doors open as wide as the conductor’s mouth. The platform outside the doors is dark, featureless.

I take his money. I shove my papers deep into my bag and leap to the door—but at the threshold, I stop. What stops me? The icy needles drifting in from the cold station? The darkness already pressing into the thin white light? The unseen things swirling in my imagination?

I look back at the conductor, who gathers up the scratchy blanket from my seat as if he will fold and stow it, but he turns to me and wrings it in his hands, his mouth chewing unspoken arguments.

Outside the doors, I see emptiness and dark. No adoptive parents waiting for me. No crowd of busy folk waiting for a train. No one.

I take a step, from vinyl paneling onto hard concrete.

The chill sinks teeth into me, its bite coming up through the soles of my shoes. Needles jab into my thin cotton pants. Something clenches my head with an icy cap. I step into darkness, the platform smelling of frozen concrete and underground soil.

“Wait a minute! I didn’t say you could—” hands grab me and try to pull me through the doors, but my ticket pops out of his breast pocket and flies circles through the air. “Oh!” He lets me go and leaps after the ticket, which leads him on a merry chase in loops and curls well into the train.

I take another step into the darkness, the platform killing all life and light in me, but I seem to have no choice.

The train doors close. Darkness is multiplied.

Now I pound the doors, aware of my mistake, but the train’s brakes open with a powerful pssss, and the train accelerates, whining. The coach lights strobe the conductor in windows and reflections like an old-time film. Stricken, for his ticket has gotten away from him. Angry at me, the lost boy. Sorry for me, the lost boy.

The train is gone, and its echoes down the tunnel are gone, and its echoes in my mind are gone.

I forgot to thank him.

My birth name is Bei Jimo. My surname comes from Beijing, the city in which I was discovered. The other—indeed it could be said that I am lonely. Chinese often give milk-names to children. Often they are disparaging to hide the parents’ devotion, to disguise their worry should the child be lost. The tale says that demons hearing a precious name would focus their efforts on that child. As soon as fever and crib death are no longer a danger, we are given a new name. But in an orphanage like Thousand Blossoms Social Welfare Institute, necessities can be overlooked.

I am seventeen, a month shy of my eighteenth birthday and official adulthood. My train journey has led me to this cold and empty station to meet my new family. Thus says my paperwork.

So here I am. In this dark station, in the middle of a loess plateau. Alone.

Why the Vulpins should adopt me for my remaining one month of childhood is a mystery, as is this town, Dongxi. But to rid myself of Thousand Blossoms and of my lonely name, I would pay any price. Almost, of course: almost any price.

I shiver in earnest, paying it already.

As I step away from the train channel and onto the platform proper, the damp cold pastes my glasses with greasy fog. Is someone here? What strange shapes are these? I am blind until I furiously wipe my lenses with my shirtfront, exposing my thin belly to the cold.

The platform is empty but for rime and a pile of canvas bags marked Mail. The mail bags are frozen to each other, dead leaves awaiting the spring thaw. My breath expels steam dense as sea foam.

A small light shows me concrete stairs. Hope comes from there now, riding a thin steam of light spilling down gray stairs, handrails lined with sooty icicles. I hoist my bag and go to the stairs, and climb and slip and climb, grabbing an icicle by mistake. It crackles and drains the heat from my hand, snaps off, the ice now stuck to my skin, sucking me into itself, absorbing me if it could, to hang here, a lifeless and cold ghost. I shake it, and it plinks down the steps like lost coins.

I know so little, but I know this: I have seen the tortoise shells inscribed with a divination and burned, then retrieved from the fire with the reply: the fate of a boy. I have walked the museums past the rows of ancient shells and ox scapulae, burned cracks leading from scratched question to answer: The prince will recover; the prince will not recover. His life will be long; his life will not be long. The boy’s birth will be auspicious; the boy’s birth will be inauspicious. Reaching toward one fate or the other, a crack in a shell in my imagination becomes a rail line from Beijing into the high desert.

Those long-ago diviners systematically tracked Fate’s promises against the true outcome. The answers vary. Lived four years, died of fever. Passed Magisterial exam, served the Emperor rightly. Poisoned by his brother for the crown. Or: Vanished one day. We never knew what happened.

I think often of the last. They would have sifted the kingdom for their loved lost son and then filed their grief in the earth for three thousand years.

If it were me, would they have looked? This pair of rails, a hair-thin crack along the landscape, has carried me to one fate or another: life or death.

So we go out, are burned, and we return with answers. It could be the way of all things.

The station above is more hospitable, having windows and light. It looks almost like a station used by people. Tables and chairs are arranged around a café cart, like an oasis in a wide-open desert of unfinished concrete. Someone had half-built this station as they had half-built this town.

I approach the cart. I am hungry, my travel money exhausted by six dining-car meals in three days. The steel cart is a tea boiler of the fancy type the Europeans prefer. It now boils water, and the bubbly roar of it is warm to my ears. The steam escaping from it is a weather-cloud in this cold.

Someone was here. Is this a joke? Lure the orphan to the ghost town, make him tea, and leave him here?

Yet someone took on that paperwork, filled pages with responses to questions, stamped his chop a hundred times in indelible ink. This someone would have come to interviews, proved his identity, had his background checked, would have satisfied the bureaucracy’s every tick and tock.

My footsteps echo on empty concrete, and inside the café cart, a relay reaches boiling temperature and clicks off. The boiler is a fountain of steam in this frozen blankness.

I may as well make tea.

I peel a packet—a cheap kind, stems likely adulterated with sawdust—fix my cup and draw some water, and something pricks my finger. A drop of blood falls into my steaming cup, and now crimson coils blossom at the bottom of my green tea. I suck my finger thoughtfully, examining the vampiric wire sticking out below the handle.

Solid heels click on concrete and I turn.

Before me stands a man, tall and slim, sable hair, in a business suit of red-brown, shoes shined and fine. He turns hazel sharp eyes to me.

“Young Bei Jimo. I am glad to make your acquaintance at last.” His height makes a bow a regal affair.

I am shocked enough, with my hot tea and bleeding finger, that I delay a rude second before acknowledging his greeting. But I do bow, and he lets it go. He takes a chair from the table and sits.

He has his own papers with him, and these he leafs through, as if casually waiting for his train to come. But I know better, for I see the papers. Each page is titled China Center for Adoption Affairs, glossy and official with cinnabar seals. Each page is the double of my own.

It sinks in: who he is, what he has come for, and my stomach draws down into the earth and my words fail me.

“I—”

“Tea would be nice.”

I look at the swirling concoction of blood and tea in my hands. “Oh—I am afraid,” my voice shakes in my throat, “my skill at tea is inadequate—”

“Must we stand on formality? That cup you have smells nice. I’ll have that one. Look here.” Suddenly in his hand is a fan of currency—from his sleeve? “I can see you’re too smart for mincing words. Go through with this, and an inheritance is due you.”

I look at this crude show of money. Was Clerk Tin right? Is this a scam?

“The quality of this tea,” I try to stall him, “is not quite up to—”

“The east train will come in less than an hour. I can trick the engineer again into thinking he sees the stop alert. You can go back home safely. Or: a fortune. A name.”

Money? I have lived with none and found happy moments. These would be the same with money, simply more expensive. But a name—

Whatever I decide, I would be a poor tea-server if I gave him this grisly brew.

“Let me make you another.”

“No. That one.” His voice acquires an edge.

I have refused three times. No rule of politeness would demand more.

I hand him the cup with both hands, and he clasps my wrists instead of the cup. His hands are as hot as the tea should have been. Holding them, he says: “I noticed earlier—”

“I have hands,” I say. “Somehow it was recorded that I was born handless. That is why I was never adopted, I suppose. Until now.” I feel myself trying to smile through my anger, wanting to plead with him to drop this subject, wanting to show him how wise and forgiving and big-hearted I am—wanting also to run away.

His face is like parchment, though as a whole, he does not seem old. Amused wrinkles arrange themselves in a circle around eyes now hazel, now sable. Young and old at once.

“I was going to offer you a pair of hands. But it’s just as well.” He sips the steaming liquid.

I take a breath, hold it. If I did not know better, I would swear he means it.

He bids me sit. My feet tremble with obedience even as my heart screams no. My feet win.

I need no hands from him. But I want a name, and he knows it. Will he give me one? Do I want him to? I glance across the lobby down the damp hole to the icy stairs, where the platform glowers in darkness, whence the next train will come. If it will stop for me. I shudder again.

I have my papers—I spread them out on the table and lay my palms upon them as if praying to them, or through them, to some god of paperwork. I worked hard to get them—only Clerk Tin knows how hard. I gave up a seat in the most important examination of my life for this.

I know this too is ritual, despite his words against standing on formality. He gets a new cup, turns his back to me to pour it—

“Oh—there is a sharp wire beneath—”

His body makes an all-over twitch, just as if something had pricked him.

When he hands me the cup, it is steaming green tea, smelling slightly of honey, just as I like it—and with red-brown swirls.

Now I know it was no accident that put my blood in the tea I served him, just as surely as it was no accident that he sliced a finger with his knife and served me his own blood. China has many ethnic minorities, each with its peculiar rituals. Here is a ritual, one I have not read of, but whose power I can see, if I look.

But I am Chinese, and we left these superstitions behind us when we created the modern world. Whatever the sable man thinks, paperwork takes precedence over blood.

I sip. He sips.

So there are rituals of blood to fix the bonds between us, bonds that bloodless paperwork cannot tie so well. Mr. Vulpin’s ruddy looks must be from one of these obscure ethnicities which salt the pepper of China.

There is warmth here. It is not such good tea, but it suffuses me, just as I am steeped in it, and it is merely warm water into a cold stomach. Or it is the blood. Or it is deeper.

I drink it all. He empties his cup too.

We can never go far from the Chinese way, no matter where we go. Mr. Vulpin pulls from a pocket a ceramic ink jar and a stone seal of red jade. He inks it, stamps his signature on every page of my papers, then his. I have no chop of my own, so I write my name below his.

The sable man’s smile acquires a similar warmth that I cannot pin down to tea, or to him, or—

Or this place. For now, the station is transformed.

Men and women stand around us. A crowd of fifty or more. Above their heads are red paper banners, streamers, all wishing luck, long life, happy birthday.

Some are as solid as the sable man and I; some I can see through, and some at the edges are little more than smoke. The children of smoke hold the hands of parents. All look at us. I leap to my feet, hoping to run from this scene. Sixty years of official disdain for superstition has failed to stamp out a healthy thousand-year-old fear of ghosts. For that is what they are.

“Welcome to the family,” says Mr. Vulpin, with a grin as wide as his teeth.

Missive, Hundred Ghost Soup

Robert Chansky

My daughter, adopted from China, is a source of inspiration for Hundred Ghost Soup.

A friend of mine from a San Diego writing group (Mark Barsotti) recommended I get in touch with Ed when I moved to Colorado. "He's busy," he said. "Keep trying." I wasn't a person who Kept Trying at that time, but somehow I kept calling him up, and he invited me to the Mile High Con and then to the Northern Colorado Writer's Workshop, where I've been a member for the last seven years. His sardonic wit will always be with me. Really, I notice myself adopting the same dry as a flapjack left on the hood of a 1970's Cadillac sort of jokes. Ed had a great affinity for this book and its world, its young hero and how he speaks. I'll always remember that he said about it, "you made this look effortless--which is not to say it was effortless--but you made it look that way." This book wouldn't be half what it was without him, his encouragement, his mild laid-back Ed-ly smile, his very Ed-ness. I don't get to have that anymore. We all don't. He's missed.

Robert Chansky

Robert Chansky grew up in Escondido, a town no one knows about. He received a BS in computer science from UC Santa Cruz, then a Master's in AI from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. His day job is computer modelling for the Navy; the code base is JSAF (Joint Semi-Automated Forces), a huge military simulation, soon to play a clandestine part in his next book.

Zou Gou

Mario Acevedo

The chime sounded, confirming the atmosphere checks were complete. Lights above the airlock flashed green, and the inner and outer doors of my Duzmier shuttle slid open. The planet’s musty stale air flooded the shuttle’s exit foyer.

My nerves tingled with anticipation. Fellow astronauts have been interned for eight years here on Tau-Sigma Four, prisoners of our ill-fated war against the Duzmier. It was my job to start the process of bringing them home. I wondered in what state of health I’d find them, and what kind of reception awaited me.

I stepped into the murky artificial light of the landing bay. A tall, slender man waited for me at the end of the ramp, and beside him, a standard helper robot balanced on its uni-roller. I recognized the man from the dossier Space Command had provided. Ambassador Timothy Roach. Ambassador being a lofty term that Roach’s kind bestowed upon themselves. The rest of us humans called them Zougou, Chinese for lackey, which better described their role between us and our Duzmier masters.

Though standing at an imposing 1.9 meters in height, Roach seemed unremarkable and meek. Zougou were typically portrayed as scheming gnomish men, as traitors often are.

The tattered brim of a cap shaded his face, and weary blue eyes peered from within swirls of wrinkled skin on sunken cheekbones. A bedraggled mustache drooped from the corners of his mouth. His thin frame sagged forward and gave the appearance of wasting away. His hands were gnarled and his fingernails chipped and grimy like a mechanic’s, not what I expected from a servile bureaucrat.

His brown outfit was decidedly vintage. Oddly, he carried a pistol holstered to his waist. I smirked, as Zougou were fond of parading about like petty warlords.

Eight years ago the Duzmier arrived in our little neighborhood of the Milky Way. They tore through our solar system like avenging gods, seemingly omnipotent in their huge gleaming ships. And for all our technology and pride, we humans were like pests in their newly found garden. Our defenses were as useless as gnats attacking a battleship. After six months, their conquest completed, the Duzmier armada moved on. Earth was left behind, a colonized wreck, our civilization broken and traumatized.

In the aftermath, people like Roach chose to accept the scorn of their fellow humans for the chance to ingratiate themselves at the feet of our alien overlords. Some ambassadors presided over the richest districts on Earth and lived like pampered royalty. Others, such as Roach, were assigned enclaves on distant, isolated planets.

Eleven months ago the Duzmier issued the repatriation order: their prisoners were to be collected and returned to Earth, which was why I was here.

I stepped down the ramp toward Roach. His gaze zigzagged from my face to my epaulets and down my body. His eyes lifted back to my face and he allowed a disarming grin. “My apologies, Colonel...”

“Colonel Amanda Nuñez,” I replied.

“I know it’s impolite to stare, but it’s been a long time since I’ve had a visitor.” He spoke with a stilted inflection, his English blended with a medley of accents from his library files. “Welcome to my humble corner of the Duzmier Empire, Amanda.”

“Colonel Nuñez,” I corrected to remind him I was here on official business.

His eyes cut to my left breast. “What is that insignia?”

“Chief Flight Surgeon Astronaut.”

“Ahhh,” he gasped in appreciation, betraying an ambassador’s fascination with military accoutrements. “A colonel and a doctor. I am honored.”

Like a true rat, his words were dishonest, his attitude contemptuous. “If you don’t mind, ambassador, we have work to do.”

He led me down the steps of the boarding ramp. The interior of the landing bay looked like it hadn’t seen recent use. Dust and oily patches covered the hydraulic servos that worked the roof panels and the docking cradle my ship had settled into.

Roach started out the door, and we tramped through a long corridor. The robot trailed at our heels like an obedient dog. From what I remembered during the landing approach, this corridor connected the landing bay with the main building, the only structures on the planet.

Once in the main building, I detected a greasy smell permeating the musty odor. Assorted machinery—lathes, presses, welding torches—rested on brick plinths. Tools and piles of junk littered the concrete floor, itself cracked and stained. Twisted ropes and rusted chains dangled from gantry hoists. Stacks of lumber and piles of sawdust added to the neglected, rustic ambiance. Though the building was large, it appeared more a cavernous maintenance shed than a prison.

I assumed a lot of repair work was going on. I hadn’t thought what kind of custodial duties occupied Roach, who was posted here alone as an agent of the Duzmier. But I didn’t imagine he did all the work himself, especially as he had scores of trained and highly capable astronauts at his beck and call.

I looked for evidence of the prisoners, either the astronauts themselves, or their bunks or possessions, but all I saw were broken-down machinery and discarded odds and ends.

He led me into his living quarters. The room brought to mind the lobby of a rundown hotel, furnished with scarred chairs and tables. The shabby carpet was rutted from years of Roach’s footfalls. Scratches and dings marred the walls. Only a few of the overhead lights worked.

What caught my eye were pieces of wood assembled into abstract sculptures; Roach’s doing I was sure. They were bizarre works—some the height of tables, others scraping the ceiling—parts going every which way and daubed in bright random colors. The sculptures gave the impression of thoughts bursting in all directions but going nowhere, of desperate frustration. One resembled stocks to hold someone bent forward at the waist with shackles for the ankles and a neck hole, but strangely, nothing to restrain the prisoner’s hands. I considered that assembly a metaphor for Roach’s predicament here, and I realized he was at the heart of all things, a very lonely man.

But that was his problem. I wasn’t here to psychoanalyze him. My mission was to evaluate the astronaut prisoners and relay my report to the repatriation team.

We passed through the living room and out a reinforced door to stand on an empty lot. The glare reflecting off the smooth dirt blinded me. Roach and I donned sunglasses. Grassy rolling hills dotted with trees surrounded the compound. This growth must’ve supplied the lumber.

Thankfully the air smelled fresher. A tall wire fence marked the perimeter of the lot, and in the distance, storm clouds gathered above the horizon. As I scoped out the compound, I still saw no evidence of anyone besides Roach. “Where are the prisoners?”

“Soon,” Roach replied, evasively.

“What do you mean ‘soon?’’

“Within a half-hour. Then you’ll see them.”

Sensors and stun projectors topped the fence posts, facing outward. Which disturbed me. My mission briefing indicated that the planet was a safe haven for the captives.

“Why do you need the fence?” I asked. “Isn’t it just you and the prisoners?”

“It’s a little more complicated than that,” he replied without looking at me.

“Explain it then.”

He gestured toward a hover cart. “When I show you, then you’ll understand.”

His vague answers only stoked my loathing of him and compounded my many questions. Maybe the gun on his hip was more than decoration.

The robot circled past us and clamped into a large bracket at the front of the cart. Roach and I occupied the center seats and buckled into safety harnesses. Like everything I’d seen so far, the cart bordered on junk. Rust-rimmed holes marked where rivets and bolts had broken loose and fallen away. Strips of tape and crudely applied patches mended the tattered upholstery.

Roach gestured with his hands, and a holoscreen materialized in front of us. A blinking orange light marked our position on the translucent map. Blue lights glowed in a cluster about three kilometers to the northeast of our location.

“Watcher drones,” he said.

“For the astronauts?”

Roach didn’t respond, and his silence infuriated me. But there was little I could do for he answered to the Duzmier, not to me or to any other human.

Our cart lurched upward, skimmed over the fence, and cruised in the direction of the watcher drones. I studied the passing vista, amazed by the progress that Duzmier terraformers had made on this planet. It was originally a rock covered with oceans of sterile water. We were on the southern tip of an island chain the size of Japan, which was now overgrown with grasslands, dense thickets, and adolescent forests. I hadn’t been told if the Duzmier had transplanted fauna as well as flora. If so, maybe the creatures had mutated into something dangerous. But that didn’t square with why the astronauts were outside the perimeter.

We levitated over a wide shallow valley, carpeted in lush grass. The valley floor sloped toward a lake. The scene was surprisingly pastoral and serene but I couldn’t shake my misgivings.

Above the rise a hundred meters before us, a small dot floated: a watcher drone. It glided toward us. A second one climbed to the left. Then a series of human heads appeared along the crest of the rise, men and women. Their heads bobbed up and down, rising, then exposing shoulders, then chests, then the complete bodies. They galloped naked over the rise toward us like a herd of two-legged mustangs.

And they had no arms!

My nerves froze ice cold in horror and disbelief. Some of their torsos rounded smoothly from shoulders to upper rib cage. Others bore the bony nubs of clavicles that marked where their arms had been lopped off. Patches of armpit hair decorated their shoulders.

The cart drifted out of their way, and the runners stampeded past. We followed close beside the horde at an altitude of about five meters.

Manes of thick hair flopped on their heads, and woolly pubic hair covered their crotches. The men wore beards. Their complexions varied from bronze to ebony black. Aside from the lack of arms, they were all excellent, toned specimens of the human form and sprinted with the athletic, effortless grace of wild animals. A few flicked glances in our direction but continued at their accelerated pace.

Without warning, the group veered to the left, moving en masse like a school of fish. They darted to the right, again in perfect syncopation.

They thundered for hundreds of meters, never losing speed, never tiring. Nearing the lake they slowed to a trot, then halted in the meadow along the water’s edge. The herd milled on the grass, sweat glistening on their sleek bodies. Though their torsos bellowed from the exertion, none looked spent. The men loosed streams of piss. A couple of the women lowered into half-squats and also pissed.

I tallied their numbers, counting forty-five men and twenty-seven women. I recognized tattoos on many of them, confirming that this feral mob of armless and naked humans were my astronauts. I needed several moments to process the abominable scene though I shouldn’t have been shocked as the Duzmier had committed many ghastly acts to us humans before. At last I managed to ask, “What happened?”

“An experiment,” Roach answered. “The Duzmier wanted to test human resilience.”

“So they chopped off their arms and set them loose like wild animals?”

“There was more to it than that.” Roach coughed uncomfortably. “The Duzmier also removed their vocal chords so the astronauts can’t speak. The point of the exercise was to see if the humans”—he said this as if he wasn’t one of us—“could interact and build a society despite the handicaps. Quite ambitious, don’t you think?”

I wanted to throw up. I wanted to gut punch Roach and scratch his eyes out, but my duty was first and foremost to these astronauts, so I remained composed.

“What we found was that humans are quite adaptable. Once they got over the initial shock, they formed this herd.”

“And the Duzmier make them run?”

“No, it’s something the humans did on their own. Group therapy I imagine.” Without a trace of irony, Roach added, “Too bad they can’t tell us why.”

A group of ten wandered to the lake. They splashed through the reeds, wading to where the water was waist deep, bent over, and began drinking. Closer in, one of the women knelt on the grass and angled her head up and back. Another woman stood beside her and balancing on her left leg, lifted the right and used her toes to groom the other’s hair.

“What is most remarkable is how they learned to use their feet as hands and cooperate with one another. All without the use of spoken language.”

The queasiness deepened. Roach sensed my distress and handed me a canteen. I accepted it reluctantly, thinking it would carry that pervasive musty stink. But it smelled sweet and tasted refreshingly cool.

“That tall one,” Roach pointed to an especially rangy astronaut, “is Number M-15.”

He bore the tattoos of red lightning bolts across his chest. I said, “That would be Flight Officer Commander McNeil. Use his name, not a number. Get closer.”

“No. Don’t be fooled. They can be very dangerous.”

“The fence around the compound, that’s meant to keep them out?”

“For the first two years they acted docile,” Roach explained. “I was walking among them when they attacked. They kicked me to the ground and M-15—make that Commander McNeil—jumped on top of me and bit me here.” Roach slipped one shoulder out of his coat to expose a crescent-shaped scar on his upper arm. He shrugged back into the coat. “Another time the hover cart malfunctioned and I had to hike back to the compound. They chased me and I escaped only by locking myself in the building. I built the fence to keep them from sneaking in to wreck the place and kill me.” Roach rested his hand on the butt of his pistol.

“And the Duzmier allow it?”

“They consider it part of the experiment. I’m not allowed to harm the humans, except in dire self-defense. And I mean dire.” He raised his left hand and showed that he was missing the little finger. “The Duzmier yanked it off as punishment for letting the prisoners get the better of me.”

I would’ve yanked off more than his pinky. Feeling lightheaded and still queasy, I took another sip from the canteen to ease my troubled stomach.

“Look,” Roach announced. Four of the astronauts clustered together, three men and one of the black women. One man began licking her breasts. Another nuzzled her from behind, while the third man began sucking the first man. Fully aroused, he sat on the ground and lay on his back. The woman straddled him. One of the other men lay between the first man’s open legs and used his feet to guide the penis into her.

“This is unusual,” Roach said. “They normally hide when they have sex. Watcher drones record them anyway.” He pointed, enthusiastic. “They help each other do everything. It’s a remarkable exercise in a cooperative culture.”

Bile rose in my throat and I drank more water to wash it down. My priority was to help these astronauts. Then, if the opportunity presented itself, I would get revenge on Roach.

“What happens when the women get pregnant?”

“Offspring is the next milestone of the project, but alas, it eludes us. The Duzmier can’t wait to see how these humans will raise a normal child. But the prisoners figured out what the Duzmier were hoping for, so they did everything to frustrate them. If pregnant, the women try to induce a miscarriage. Two failed. One committed suicide by drowning herself and the other jumped off a cliff.”

Roach said this so clinically that I wanted to smash my fist into his face, but I was nauseous and clutched at my harness to remain steady. My mouth began to feel numb.

Something clunked against the belly of the hover cart. Something else zinged past my ear. Roach yelped and grabbed his head. When he pulled his hand away, blood stained his fingers. McNeil and twenty of the others had snuck behind us. The armless astronauts clutched rocks with their toes and kicked toward us, flinging the rocks with impressive velocity and accuracy.

Roach yelled at the robot and we climbed out of range. Below us, the astronauts smiled and bounded up and down in a victory dance.

“See how tricky and dangerous they are!” Roach explained. “They only screwed in front of us as a distraction.”

My mind wobbled, and my hands and feet grew cold. The images of what I’d seen today spun through my head in a dizzying kaleidoscope. I remembered one of the art assemblages from the main building. The one that resembled stocks. “You capture them, don’t you?” I accused, rage bubbling in me but unable to find traction. “To rape them. You got those women pregnant!”

“They aren’t the only ones trapped in this hell hole,” Roach said. His eyes darted to the canteen.

The sweet taste from the water turned sour. I had been poisoned. I gagged and heaved but could vomit nothing. I tried beating Roach with the canteen but he wrenched it easily from my hand.

“You quisling bastard,” I scrambled for his pistol. “I’m going to—” My thoughts fragmented. I pawed at his holster, but my hands and fingers seemed made of rubber. He swam in and out of focus as I asked, “And there’s even more to this, isn’t there?”

His voice drawled and faded. “These prisoners are not to be repatriated. The experiment continues.”

His silhouette melted a gray haze and my thoughts, my memories, all sensations, everything that was me smeared into that haze. I dissolved into nothingness.

Then alternating darkness and light swung over my face, like I was whirling on my back on a merry-go-round.

Pain seared one shoulder, then another.

My mouth was forced open, followed by pain inside my throat.

I floated upward toward consciousness...

And when I was fully aware and awake, I was running.

Missive, Zou Gou

Mario Acevedo

I’ve been asked to contribute a favorite anecdote about Ed, but the truth is, I don’t have one. I met Ed late in his life, and so I never knew him in his prime. He and I never palled around, and my only professional interaction with him was either as a fellow panelist or when I edited his work for anthologies that he’d been invited to. Ed was always gracious to me, and I shall remember him fondly.

Mario Acevedo

Mario Acevedo writes the Felix Gomez detective-vampire series, which includes Rescue From Planet Pleasure from WordFire Press. His latest release is the middle-grade thriller, University of Doom, from Hex Publishers. Mario has contributed short stories to numerous anthologies including Nightmares Unhinged and CyberWorld. He serves on the faculty of Lighthouse Writers and Regis University. Mario won a 2017 Colorado Book Award and lives and writes in Denver, Colorado.

Blessed Be the Bound

Lucy Taylor

The Binding takes place tomorrow at the Sisters of Solace Hospital outside Charlottesville, Virginia. From my bed, I can just see the peaks of the October hills, dappled maroon and scarlet.

If I could lift my head, I’d be able to glimpse the wing of what was once a dormitory at the University of Virginia and now serves as a Confinement Center for the most violent prisoner/inmates, but gel compression restraints, deemed more humane by hospital staff than electro-loops, ensnare my wrists and ankles. Even if I braved the pain and wriggled free, shimmering vertical bands across the windows expose the presence of high voltage grids.

Today is Mother’s last chance to see me before I am Bound to my brother.

My last hope for deliverance.

Acid rises in my throat at the bitter irony of hoping for rescue from Mother, since O’Dell and I have long suspected it was she who, in a fit of pique or spite, reported us for what the law calls fourth degree sexual deviancy. Especially galling if we’re right, since we both shared unsanctioned intimacies with Mother for years before we explored activities, deviant or otherwise, with each other.

At the hearing, a venerable psychiatrist argued I was addicted to my sibling as surely as the psychonauts and ket-freaks in the floating colonies off the coast are in thrall to the black gusts of brain-burn, that having been kept homebound by Mother, I was both naive and eminently corruptible, a victim of my wicked brother’s perverse desires.

"Enticed into his depravity," hissed the gerbil-faced little defense attorney while I sat meekly, head bowed, trying to convey with every breath my profound and scalding shame.

The performance failed; my carefully pantomimed remorse was judged a poor facsimile of penitence. I was the cunning, lustful one, the judge declared. My pretty brother, though condemned to the same fate as I, was merely susceptible and stupid.

Our sentence, to be Bound for life, is the penalty reserved for society’s worst: murderers, traitors to the State, and second through fourth degree sex criminals.

Unlike O’Dell, who remains willfully ignorant of the details of Binding and still claims to fully expect a last minute reprieve, I’ve researched the procedure compulsively, read biographies and watched biopics of the Bound, conversed with holographic surgeons, and prior to my conviction, toured the Museum of the Bound on the Plaza in Washington D.C., where visitors must sign a waver holding the Museum blameless if they pass out, throw up, or suffer permanent trauma from viewing the exhibits.

The reality of it still stalls my mind: two bodies of the same or opposite sex, snipped and sliced and stitched together in a gruesome flesh-garment of jigsawed limbs, split bones, and sutured skin, afflicted with the vacant gaze and shuffling, stumbling gait peculiar to their maimed condition. Worst of all, the monstrous final hours of the partner who outlasts its mate, since Binding is forever, even when the so-called ‘living’ one is fused to a decaying, putrid corpse.

Although the physical abominations leave me reeling, still more soul-shattering is the utter forfeiture of privacy and solitude, an especially bitter hell for one whose preferred companionship has always been her own.

I reflect that the one thing not forfeited is the very act that led to this catastrophe in the first place. A jocular therapist even winkingly assured me that, since I am limber and Odell well-made, we will eventually learn to mate, or may even—unimaginably—decide to procreate. Nothing, after all, is forbidden to the Bound. They have paid for their crimes and are at liberty to indulge whatever indecencies or degradations they’re disposed to. In more backward parts of the world, I’m told, people pay small fortunes to watch Bound couples making love. Or vaster sums to join them.

I can’t imagine why anyone would wish either form of entertainment.

I remember, as a child of ten, going up the steps to the

Abbey of the Stoning with Mother and O'Dell, who was then nine. A Bound couple, one of the first to survive longer than a few weeks, was on display. Above the creature’s heads, a gold plaque provided details of their crime, but I was too stunned to read anything beyond their name, which I still recall was Marcus-Angelina.

Incapable of standing, the poor off-kilter beast crouched on a specially constructed seat before the altar. From beneath its purple robes protruded two thick legs, hirsute and muscular, while the female’s one remaining leg, tube-thin and flaccid, dangled at the side, an abutment of lab-grown flesh conjoining her legless hip to the male’s intact one. Their three mismatched arms, two belonging to the female, one to the male, fidgeted and twitched in ceaseless, spastic agitation. Their cloudy and dilated eyes were white and empty as eggs. I know now that the ministers had drugged it, but at the time I thought the enraptured gaze was the result of its unholy union, a kind of ghastly erotic trance.

I know better now. Poor maimed creature that it was, a waxy tear slid down the female's bloodless cheek.

"Touch it. Touch it for luck," urged Mother.

The thought of contact with that mutilated flesh revolted and appalled me, in part due to the fact that I knew those three legs extended upward to two groins, two sets of genitals, but unlike O’Dell, who looked like he might faint, I was also fascinated.

I pressed a single finger to the female’s spongey thigh and watched, repulsed, as tremors rippled knee to ankle and a rash of gooseflesh spread across the skin like faded Braille upon an ashen parchment.

"The Lord has purified them," intoned Mother. She bowed, dragging O'Dell and me with her, and kissed the creature's three bare feet as was the custom among the more ostentatiously devout.

"Eugenia?"

The door revolves and a fax-bot with a smile like a surgical scar coos in a ludicrously come-hither voice, "Mama is here, Eugenia.” She pronounces ‘Mama’ with a British accent, a ridiculous affectation that can only mean she is an elder-bot, programmed in the U.K. prior to the Euro-sino conflict.

Swiveling toward the bed, she commands, “De-activate restraints.”

After a moment the gel clamps ungrip, allowing me to sit up and finally, unsteadily, to stand. The fax-bot, evidently programmed to feign consideration, diplomatically withdraws.

Mother minces gingerly into the room, stiff-legged as a deflowered child. Except for plumped lips dyed permanently scarlet, her face is leached of color, her eyes khol hollows scooped above the jutting cliffs of her implanted cheekbones.

Around the ivory column of her neck gleams a sunstone cross that glimmers softly as though lit from within; from her ears dangle pendulous pearls. Her numerous tattoos are raised and garishly colored, according to the fashion.

At the sight of her, adrenalin claws through my bloodstream and, astonishingly, tears of relief sprout copiously.

“I was afraid you wouldn’t come.” The admission shocks me; I hadn’t understood the depth of my terror that, in my time of greatest need, I’d be abandoned by her.

But then, before I can ask for what she’s brought me, she whispers gravely, "Terrible news. O’Dell bit his wrists open last night and almost bled to death. The sensors activated a warning just in time. When I saw him, he was hysterical, screaming that the Binding can’t really be happening, that he can’t go through with it.”

“I’m glad he lived,” I say in my best hypocrite’s simper. ”If O’Dell had died, I’d just be Bound to another criminal.” Of course, once I’m dead, that’s exactly what will happen to O’Dell, but I can’t worry about that. Was he thinking about me with his face pressed to his own gore? Did it bother him, knowing that I’d be Bound to a stranger?

Mother’s gaze darts about the room like a bottled fly. Her talon-sharp nails clamp onto my arm. For the first time in years, I tolerate her touch without recoiling.

“What we talked about, Eugenia…what you asked me to do…”

“Yes, yes, I’m ready. It’s time.”

She fingers the sunstone, which yields up rays of delicate, refracted light. "Sometimes people do terrible things, my darling. Sometimes love expresses itself in desperate ways."

Is this her way of saying O'Dell and I are forgiven? Or is she finally confessing that she betrayed us to the authorities?

She starts to tremble uncontrollably, a tic plucking so violently at her mouth that it drags her face askew. I guess that even she, though a vocal supporter of the idea of Binding, quails before the truth of it.

"I loved O'Dell,” she says defiantly, as though someone has suggested otherwise, “but a daughter is different. A son goes out into the world and takes a bridemother. A first-born daughter, if she’s virtuous, remains at home. A mother's love for her daughter, --that's the unbreakable bond."

She slides her hand seductively along my forearm, gently and sensuously, as though her palm is a small boat gliding silently up a river of milky skin. “Your arms are so soft and shapely. I wonder which one they’ll remove.”

That breaks the spell. I seize her wrist and twist it until she cringes and cries out.

"Stop it! Give me what you brought!”

Her fingers stroke the sunstone again and I think: There! It’s hidden there!, until she says, "I’m sorry, I can’t do it. I can’t kill you. The toxin I smuggled in for you, I gave it to O’Dell.” Her voice soars recklessly and she directs her words toward the voice monitors disguised as air filter units in the wall. “He was so grateful when I put the poison on his tongue. His face was rapturous. He died thanking me.”

The screams I’ve swallowed all my life tear past my teeth, an anguished howl that brings the fax-bot accelerating into the room so fast she bangs into the wall. A red oblivion-dot gleams wetly on her finger.

"Too noisy you,” she chides, though not unkindly, and taps the dot with its cornucopia of hallucinogens directly in the center of my forehead. I have time only to gasp, "My brother--she murdered him", before the world incinerates, the drugs blitzing through synapses, resurrecting extinct galaxies and annihilating new ones inside my neo-cortex.

The fax-bot's face looms wide and globulous, an enormous amoeboid blob undulating in and out of my telescoping vision. Moles as big as barnacles, conceived for verisimilitude by some bot-designer comic, festoon her ill-made chin.

"We know she killed O’Dell,” she says.

And that is all that matters.

When I wake up, I am riddled with razors, my bones a bed of nails, my lungs full of mucus and mud. At my slightest movement, unseen incisions rip and leak.

An avuncular and dour face hovers above me. I recognize the doctor, Montague Tritt, assigned to counsel O’Dell and me post-Binding.

But O’Dell is dead.

Tritt frowns and steeples his fingers, his whiskery mouth forming a mackerel-ish ‘o’. “Dear me,” he says.

Beside me, something thrashes feebly. It whimpers tremulously as it forms words. I must say "it", for I can't attribute to it any sex, any individuality, any name, but I can tell the stump of its left leg is Bound to my right hip and the stump of my right arm is fused to its left shoulder, each wound affixed by a few centimeters of artfully applied prosthetic meat.

“Eugenia,” exults the thing that speaks like Mother, “we’ve been forgiven for our crime.”

With my remaining arm, I tear at the graft on our mutual shoulder and hear my scream and hers scrape the upper ends of agony. Tritt thumbs an oblivion-dot against my temple. My skull brims with hissing lava that quickly cools to a gentle snowdrift of ash as I sink into the center of the dead volcano that is my core.

I pray that I can hide in here forever.

“Blessed,” someone murmurs, “be the Bound.”

Missive, Blessed Be the Bound

Lucy Taylor

Like so many of us, I remember Ed’s amazing generosity, patience, and skill at guiding new writers. During the years I lived near Boulder, CO, his advice and encouragement proved invaluable. As emcee of Night Voices at The Little Bookshop of Horrors in Arvada, CO, he inspired writers of horror, dark fantasy, and science fiction for many years. I believe he enjoyed “Blessed Be the Bound” in part because it was one of the few times I tried my hand at science fiction and in part because he once told me he found the story extremely disturbing. As a longtime friend of Ed’s throughout the years, I’m honored to be a part of this anthology.

Lucy Taylor

Lucy Taylor is the author of seven novels and five collections, including the Bram Stoker-winning novel THE SAFETY OF UNKNOWN CITIES and the collection FATAL JOURNEYS. Most recently her work has appeared at Tor.com (“In the Cave of the Delicate Singers” and “Sweetlings”) and in the anthologies PAINFREAK (“He Who Whispers the Dead Back to Life”), PEEL BACK THE SKIN (“Moth Frenzy”), FRIGHT MARES (“Dead Messengers”), and in BEST HORROR OF THE YEAR volumes 5 & 7 (“Nikishi” and “Wingless Beasts”). She lives in the high desert near Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Dinosaur

Bruce Holland Rogers

When he was very young, he waved his arms, gnashed the teeth of his massive jaws, and tromped around the house so that the dishes trembled in the china cabinet. “Oh, for goodness sake,” his mother said. “You are not a dinosaur! You are a human being!” Since he was not a dinosaur, he thought for a time that he might be a pirate. “Seriously,” his father said at some point, “what do you want to be?” A fireman, then. Or a policeman. Or a soldier. Some kind of hero.

But in high school they gave him tests and told him he was very good with numbers. Perhaps he would like to be a math teacher? That was respectable. Or a tax accountant? He could make a lot of money doing that. It seemed a good idea to make money, what with falling in love and thinking about raising a family. So he was a tax accountant, even though he sometimes regretted that it made him, well, small. And he felt even smaller when he was no longer a tax accountant, but a retired tax accountant. Still worse, a retired tax accountant who forgot things. He forgot to take the garbage to the curb, forgot to take his pill, forgot to turn his hearing aid back on. Every day it seemed he had forgotten more things, important things, such as which of his children lived in San Francisco and which of his children were married or divorced.

Then one day when he was out for a walk by the lake, he forgot what his mother had told him. He forgot that he was not a dinosaur. He stood blinking his dinosaur eyes in the bright sunlight, feeling the familiar warmth on his dinosaur skin, watching dragonflies flitting among the horsetails at the water’s edge.

Missive, Dinosaur

Susceptible to Ponies By Bruce Holland Rogers

“Dinosaur” is not a story that Ed ever saw in the Northern Colorado Writer's Workshop, but it is representative of the kind of work I was bringing to our meetings in about 1989. Once I submitted six or seven such pieces at one time, which, since the total came to only about twenty pages, I thought was a reasonable imposition on the workshop.

It wasn't.

Nearly thirty years after the event, I can't recall precisely what mixture of scolding and technical criticism I actually received from other members of the workshop. Whatever the scolding for submitting multiple stories, it was justified. Whatever technical observations were offered, I'm sure they were solid.

What I do recall is that most of the workshop urged me to drop these micro-narratives and develop my ideas at a traditional pace so that I'd end up with plotted stories that could fill the 3,000-word slots of the digest magazines.

But not Ed. After admitting that he didn't know where anyone was publishing such pieces, Ed reacted to them on their own terms. He happened to like the pieces more than most of my peers, and that was gratifying and encouraging. At first, that was the main thing that I took away from the experience. But in time, I realized that Ed had demonstrated, as he often did, something more valuable. He had shown me what kind of reader I could be for other writers.

In the best possible sense, Ed was a highly susceptible reader. He was open to novelty, open to formula done well, open to little bits of great writing hidden in an overall mediocre effort. A writer might bring a story to workshop that was ninety-nine percent horse shit, but if there was one percent of pony, Ed would find it. Writers need criticism. We need theory and pointers and a sense of how we have left the reader with an unintended idea. But we really, really need our ponies.

Bruce Holland Rogers

Bruce Holland Rogers is best known as a writer of flash fiction and has published over 400 brief narratives in recent decades. His stories have been translated into two dozen different languages, including a few unlikely ones such as Klingon and Pashto. His work has been honored with two Nebula Awards, two World Fantasy Awards, a Pushcart Prize, an NEA grant, and a U.S.-Japan Friendship Commission Fellowship. He grew up on the Front Range and met Ed at a 1981 roller-skate party in Fort Collins. He lives in Eugene, Oregon.

A Sad Last Love at the Diner of the Damned

EDWARD BRYANT

There once was a beautiful young woman with long hair the russet gold of ripe wheat. Her name was Martha Malinowski and her family had lived in Fort Durham for three generations. Martha was nineteen and had spent her entire life in the border area where southern Colorado shades subtly from browns and tans to the dark green mountains of northern New Mexico.

Martha’s eyes were a startling blue that deepened or paled according to the season and her mood. Her temperament had begun to darken with the onset of early winter snows, and so her eyes began to reflect that. Now they appeared the color of the road ice that formed on the headlights and steel bumpers of the pickups lining the parking strip beside the Diner.

She waited on tables for one, sometimes two long shifts each day at the Cuchara Diner. Occasional tourists speculated aloud that the Diner was more properly called the Cucaracha. Henry Roybal, the owner, would gesture at the neon tablespoon suspended in the front window. That made little difference to the tourists who rarely understood Spanish. The locals around Fort Durham simply referred to the place as the Diner. The Diner itself was a sprawling stucco assemblage that had been added to many times over the decades. Its most notable feature was Henry Roybal’s pride and joy, an eight-foot-high neon EAT that flashed from red to green and back again while a blue arrow pointed down at the Diner’s front door.

Martha Malinowski’s fair features haunted the illicit dreams of many in the community. She was largely oblivious to this and to the dreamers themselves. She ignored the ones she did notice. Her cap was set for Bobby Mack Quintana, the deputy sheriff. Bobby Mack was always cordial toward her, but that seemed to be about it. Martha wondered if he was just too shy to express his feelings.

Then there was Bertie Hernandez who openly lusted after Martha. Crude, rude, and vital, his buddies and he were among Henry’s best customers. Martha was never glad to see them coming into the Diner. But a job was a job, and business was business in this world of sage, scrub grass, endless horizons, and Highway 159. Someday Martha would have saved enough cash to leave this place. Or if Bobby Mack wanted her, then perhaps she would stay. She was practical about romance, yet still maintained her dreams.

The men watched the little old ladies tap and scratch ineffectually against the Diner’s thick plate-glass front window, their clawed fingers fluttering like the wings of injured birds.

“Don’t look too mean to me,” said Billy Gaspar, a strapping young man in a red plaid lumberjack shirt.

“You don’t know squat about zombies,” said Shine Willis, who was a few years Billy’s senior and half a head taller. “I was up to the Springs last week when a bunch of ’em came boilin’ out of a Greyhound bus downtown. They’re faster than they look, and stronger too. Especially if they been eatin’ good.” He chuckled.

Billy looked a bit livid. “People.”

“Yeah,” said Shine. “People.”

Bertie Hernandez glanced up from his breakfast plate. “Gimme another side of bacon, Martha,” he said. “Have Henry make it good and chewy.” The radio above the cash register was blaring out the Beat Farmers’ cover of “Sweet Jane.” “An’ turn off that shit. I want to hear something good.”

“Like what?” someone said from down the formica counter.

“Conway Twitty,” said Bertie. “Good shit.”

The radio stayed where it was set. The Beat Fanners’ record segued into Joe Ely’s “Crazy Lemon.”

“Better,” Bertie said.

“What we gonna do about the old ladies?” said Shine.

“Where’d they come from?” Billy Gaspar said. His fingers twitched around the handle of an untouched mug of cooling coffee.

“Eventide Manor, most like. The nursing home.” Shine grinned mirthlessly. “Musta found a zombie in the woodpile sometime in the night, I’d judge.”

“We gotta kill ’em?” said Billy.

“Too old to fuck,” said Shine. “Too tough to eat”

Billy’s complexion seemed to slide from white to greenish.

Somebody closer to the window said, “See the second from the left? That’s ol’ Mrs. Davenport, Kevin’s grandma.”

“The one in the center,” said Bertie Hernandez, “is my mother. Fuck her. Let’s do it.” He swung around on the counter seat and stood in one fluid motion. He slid the big .357 magnum out of its holster and checked the cylinder.

“Nice piece,” said Miguel Espinosa.

“Six old ladies,” said Bertie. “I figure I can handle them.”

“You want some help?”

Bertie shook his head. “Not unless they take a chunk out of me. Then shoot me quick.” It all sounded matter-of-fact.

“Why don’t all of you wait for Bobby Mack?” said Martha.

“Bobbee May-ack,” Bertie mimicked her. “Your fag cop heartthrob? Fuck him. Let him find his own zombies to blow him.”

Nose level with Bertie’s Adam’s apple, Martha looked up at him. “Don’t say things like that. Not ever.”

Bertie looked at her steadily for a moment. “Just watch what I do to the deadheads, darlin’. If it makes you wet enough, maybe I’ll take you over to Walsenburg tonight for a movie show and then the Motel Six.”

“Bertie,” said Henry Roybal. “There’s no call for talk like that.” The Diner’s owner had stuck his head out of the kitchen. “And don’t get any mess on the window. I washed it just yesterday.”

“They’re smearin’ the glass, right enough,” said Shine. “Pus, blood, all sorts of shit.”

“Okay,” said Bertie, looking away from Martha toward the old ladies beyond the window.

Martha stood rigid. Then she turned toward Henry, whose corpulent body was still wedged in the kitchen doorway. “Can you get hold of Bobby Mack?”

Henry shook his head. “Tried. Can’t raise nothing on the base station or the phone. Sheriff’s number is busy. I figure everybody’s calling to report a zombie or two. Sorry, muchacha.”

“Back me up,” Bertie said to Shine. “Just in case.” The other man nodded and hefted his Remington pump. Bertie smiled at Martha. “Kiss for good luck? No?” He shrugged and called to the men lined along the counter, “Somebody decoy the fuckers long enough for me to clear the door.”

At the end of the counter, a weathered cowboy in boot-cut jeans and a pearl-snap shirt strolled over to the front window. He stared into the faces of the zombie women for a moment, then he turned, skinned down his pants and mooned them. The zombies crowded toward the pressed ham.

“Gross,” said Martha.

Bertie flipped the latch on the front door and crunched out onto the gravel. Shine relocked the door. “Don’t nobody get in my way if he needs help.”

“It’s all yours, buddy,” said Miguel Espinosa. “I don’t want none of those ladies.”

The zombies had evidently figured out that fresher meat was now outside and within chewing distance. Still, it took all six a few moments to lurch around vaguely and fix on Bertie Hernandez. Bertie held the magnum in the proper two-handed position and sighted down the barrel.

“Bertieee—” The squeal of expelled breath was loud enough even to hear inside the Diner. Bertie’s mother lunged at her son. The muzzle of the .357 belched flame and the back of Mrs. Hernandez’s skull exploded outward, the spray of blood and tissue coating the face of the zombie close behind her.

Inside the Diner, Billy said, “I didn’t think they were supposed to remember anything human.”

Miguel shrugged. “Reflexes, I’ll bet. You know, like chickens when you pull off their heads.”

Billy looked dubious.

Bertie blew away the faces of the next two zombies; ducked a fourth that had the smarts to flank him; then practically stuck the muzzle in the mouth of a fifth creature. The exiting slug nicked one front corner of the Diner’s roof.

“Dios!” yelled Henry. “Be careful!”

Bertie had taken his eyes off the craftiest of the zombies. While he was watching the sixth go for him, the other survivor got in close enough to grab his gun hand. Then the last zombie wrapped her spindly arms around his lower leg and began to gnaw one Fry elephant-hide boot.

“Shit!” said Shine Willis, flicking the latch and pumping in a round as he slammed open the door. He had a clear shot at the zombie Bertie was fighting off with both hands. The old woman’s head simply disintegrated and the body flopped backward, twitching as it hit the graveled parking apron.

“Jesus,” Bertie cried. “I’m fuckin’ deaf!”

Shine reversed the pump and swung the stock into the skull of the remaining zombie chewing on Bertie’s boot. It took three blows before the creature’s jaws stopped champing.

“Christ,” said Shine, panting. “She’s worse’n a Gila monster.”

Bertie kicked free of the zombie’s doubly dead body. “Shit, man, I had her—I had ’em both.”

“Yeah, sure.” Shine wiped the bloody stock of the pump on an old lady’s flowered dress. “If I was a second longer, you’d be zombie jerky and I’d be obliged to blow your fuckin’ head into the Arkansas.”

Bertie said nothing; just thumbed some shells out of his right front pocket and began reloading the magnum. When he was done, he said, “Okay, bud, you got one on me. Let’s go back in and I’ll buy you a coffee.”

“I need somethin’ stronger than that,” Shine said.

They both froze a moment when they heard the siren.

The county car slewed off the blacktop and into the gravel. Both Bertie and Shine jumped to avoid the spray of rocks. Bobby Mack Quintana got out of the car with his service revolver drawn. “What’s going on here?”

“Fuck you,” Bertie said. “Henry’ll fill you in.” He turned and walked back into the Diner, Shine following with the barrel of the Remington propped against one shoulder.

Bobby Mack stared after them. “Zombies?” he called.

“No shit, Sherlock.”

The deputy took out a notebook and a ballpoint. He gingerly flipped over a body with his booted toe. He recognized the piece of face that remained.

Martha watched from inside. The body Bobby Mack was identifying was old Mrs. Hernandez. Martha had known her since she was a little girl. Mrs. Hernandez had read to her from the collection of P. G. Wodehouse books that had furnished Bertie’s name.

Martha felt a sudden lurch in her belly. She barely made it to the ladies’ room. As she hunched over the stool and heaved up her breakfast, she heard Bertie Hernandez complaining at the counter.

“Hey, Henry, get your buns out here. This bacon’s way too done!”

“Bobby Mack, I want to talk to you,” said Martha. Bertie and his friends were out back of the Diner in an open field, piling up the bodies of the six zombie ladies, dousing them with unleaded, and then holding out chilled masculine palms, calluses to the heat.

The deputy had reminded them about the recent state law. “‘You kill ’em, you burn ’em,’” Bertie had repeated somewhat derisively. “Sure enough, Deputy Dawg, we’re good citizens. We’ll have a little zombie roast… work up a healthy appetite for lunch.”

“I can’t wait around for this,” whined Miguel Espinosa. “I gotta go to work down to the Quik-Lube.”

“Just shut the fuck up,” said Bertie. “We’ll do it,” he said to Bobby Mack. The deputy watched for a few minutes, then went back into the Diner.

When Martha asked to speak with him, he hesitated. “Official business?” he said.

Martha sighed. “You’ve got to be kidding. I just want to take a minute.”

Bobby Mack looked doubting, then shrugged. “Okay, I can talk.”

“Not here.” She called to Henry in the kitchen, “Hey, boss, I’m taking my break.” Without waiting for an answer, she led Bobby Mack out the door.

A cold autumn wind followed them a hundred yards across the highway and up a forested rise. The greasy black smoke curled over their heads. Martha wrinkled her nose. Bobby Mack Quintana looked fine in his tan uniform and Stetson. The black leather at his trimly belted waist didn’t hurt.

“Just wanted to talk,” she said, turning to face him. She had to tilt her face up to meet his dark eyes.

“Figured,” Bobby Mack said. He smiled.

Shyly, she thought. Martha took a deep breath. “Would it be too bold,” she said, “to ask why you don’t like me?”

Bobby Mack looked stunned. “Don’t like you? I do like you, Martha. Truly I do.”

“You don’t ever show it.” She had amazed herself with her boldness. She knew she should be tongue-tied, but the words tumbled out anyway. “I want you to feel kindly toward me, Bobby Mack.”

The deputy started to say something, but stuttered the words. He took a breath and started over. “I don’t want to overstep what’s right. I figured you and Carl Crump—”

“Carl Crump?” she said incredulously. Just what did Bobby Mack think was going on between her and the high school principal’s son? “He’s just a—just a horny jerk, just like—” His father, she started to say, but clipped off the words in time. No use aggravating things. She knew the Crumps square-danced with Bobby Mack’s folks on Friday nights. “Carl?” she said again. “Why do you think he and I—?”

Bobby Mack seemed to be blushing. “Well, he was saying…”

“Who—Carl Crump?” The deputy nodded. “No way,” said Martha. “I may not make much money at the Diner, but I’ve got some standards.”

“And pride,” Bobby Mack almost whispered.

“That too.” Martha reached out and lightly grasped his hands. Their fingers touched warmly. “Any other gossip you want to ask me about?”

Bobby Mack met her eye. “No,” he said.

She could have called him a liar, but didn’t want to. She didn’t want to think about it, but knew there were men in the town who talked about her, speculated, perhaps even claimed to have touched her in the dark, in the backseats of their cars, in the balcony of the movie theater in Walsenburg, on the grass along the bank of— “Okay,” she said. It had never happened. But God knows, she had turned them down. They had said all the things that seemed harmless on the surface, but she knew meant something else if examined closely enough.

“Nice day,” he said, as the shifting wind whipped corpse-smoke through the trees and into their faces.

Martha started to laugh and cough at the same time. When she could speak, she said, “No, it isn’t.”

Bobby Mack laughed too. “No, you’re right. It’s a bad day, a rotten day, except for this.” His fingers tightened on hers.

She screwed up her courage. “Bobby Mack, do you think you might like to go out tonight and do something?” Smoke from the pyre curled over their heads and up into the pine branches. His fingers tightened so fiercely, she feared he’d bruise her. Yet she didn’t mind.

“Yes,” said Bobby Mack. “I get off patrol at six. Yes,” he said again.

After a long moment they both smiled and began to walk back toward the Diner. The day was sufficiently overcast, Henry had turned on the neon sign. EAT, it flashed. EAT, EAT, EAT.

Bobby Mack checked in the county Ford by six and picked up Martha at the Diner in his Suzuki Samurai.

“How about the Lanes?” he said, glancing at her and then back at the road.

“Sure. That’s fine.”

“We can’t bowl tonight,” he said.

“I heard on the radio. The meeting’s at seven.”

“We should have time to eat.”

“You want to stay for the meeting?” she said.

“I’ve got to. Sheriff’s orders.”

“Oh,” she said.

“Shit!” Thump-thump. The Samurai bounced over something lying humped on the road. “Sorry about my language, Martha.”

She ignored that. “What was it?”

“Looked like a dog.” With a hunk taken out of its head. That’s what he didn’t say. “It was already dead.”

“Poor thing.” She stared out the side window. “It was all curled up the way Mrs. Hernandez was this morning.”

Bobby Mack didn’t say anything.

“This morning,” Martha said, “is that how it’s going to have to be from here on out?”

“I wish I knew.” Bobby Mack’s words were clipped. “The word from the legislature is that Bertie can do that sort of thing. Anyone can. They’re looking at what happened back East. You don’t argue with zombies. You just shoot them in the head.”

“They can’t all be bad,” said Martha. “There have to be some that remember being alive.”

“Maybe they do,” answered Bobby Mack. “Maybe that’s why they’re so pi—irritated.”

Martha was clearly not satisfied. “I don’t think I could kill one if it was somebody I’d loved.”

“Hard to say.” Bobby Mack swung the Samurai off the blacktop. “I reckon we’d do most anything if we were pushed.” The parking lot of the Chama Lake Lanes wasn’t crowded. He parked by the row of elms bordering the near side of the lot.

“Not if I loved him,” Martha muttered.

“Huh?” said Bobby Mack. “Sorry, I wasn’t listening.”

“Nothing. Let’s go eat.”

The cheeseburgers and fries were what she could have eaten anytime at the Diner, but these were prepared by a different cook. They tasted terrific. A Coke apiece. Hot fudge sundaes for dessert.

By seven o’clock the bowling alley had started to fill with the citizens of Fort Durham and the surrounding countryside. It was clear there would not be enough chairs in the area on the riser behind the alleys, so old MacFarland, the owner, handed out pairs of bowling shoes to the later arrivals. They had to seat themselves on the polished hardwood of the lanes.

“Looks like most everybody’s here,” said Bobby Mack. “Sheriff’s over there, so’s the mayor, most of the county commissioners.”

Martha had noted all those, but also Carl Crump, both junior and senior, not to mention Father Sierra and Pastor Beecham, the latter accompanied by his wife. Both the pastor and the priest had come onto her—at least that was what she’d suspected. She was unsure how else to interpret their words and actions on separate occasions. It seemed tragic to her, sadder, somehow more shocking than something like the propositions of Principal Crump or his son. But the weirdest thing— She hardly wanted to think about that at all. The true strangeness was the overture she had received from Mrs. Beecham, the pastor’s wife.

For an entire semester after that, the final term of her senior year, she had attempted to dress even more conventionally than she had before. It didn’t seem to work. She could still interpret the smirks and smiles.

Mayor Hardesty levered his plump self upright behind the lectern. “Let’s get this called to order, folks. Sooner we get started, the sooner we can get home and do whatever we need to do.” The room quieted. “I figure you all pretty much know what’s going on from listening to the TV and radio, and after hearing the Health Department lady at the meeting last week.”

“Nobody believed her,” said Bobby Mack in a low voice.

Martha knew that was true. At the time, the zombie stories on the hourly KNBS news had been just that— stories. It was like a war in Central America or a volcano blowing up in Asia. You just couldn’t believe in some things unless you actually saw them. Otherwise they weren’t real.

The zombies were real enough now. The morning had proved that. Mayor Hardesty mentioned the massacre at Eventide Manor and briefly outlined Bertie’s morning exploits at the Diner. “We all have to be heroes like that,” said the mayor. “We’ve got to watch out for each other and do more than just our share.”

“And arm civilians with automatic weapons,” Bobby Mack said sarcastically into Martha’s ear.

The mayor went on. It was an attempt at being inspirational. Then the time for questions came. Someone spoke up from the rear of the snack area.

“How long’s this zombie thing gonna last, anyway?”

“Probably about as long,” said the mayor, “as it takes for the army to get mobilized, come on in, and kick some butt.”

“After what happened out at the old folks’ home, what about maybe putting up some roadblocks? You know, like a quarantine.”

The mayor smiled politically. “You folks probably saw the news shows tonight. Both Denver and Albuquerque are in pretty bad shape. But fortunately for people out in the sticks like us, the zombies don’t drive much.”

“Somebody got here and wiped out Eventide Manor.”

The mayor looked as if he were strenuously attempting to think on his feet. “Maybe it was a virus or something.” He shrugged. “Something in the air or the food we been getting—”

“Not a good move,” said Bobby Mack, voice low. “He’s just blowing smoke. Zombies can’t infect you by sneezing or letting you use their towels. They’ve got to bite you.”

Martha shivered and laid her hand across his.

The room started to dissolve into chaos. People shouted questions and opinions, paying no attention to the mayor’s gavel. “Let’s get out of here,” said Bobby Mack. He kept hold of her hand and led her toward the door.

Martha saw stares following them, appraising expressions. Neither of the Crump men was smiling. Nor was the priest or the pastor and his wife. They hate me, she thought, somewhat startled by the epiphany. They want me, but they hate me too.

Outside, the chill night air took away the sweat and the stale cigar smoke. There was no need out here for them to hold hands, but they did it anyway. About halfway across the parking area, Bobby Mack let loose of her fingers and trotted on ahead.

“Hey! What the hell are you guys doing?”

When Martha caught up to him, she realized that Bertie Hernandez and his cronies were having some fun.

“We’re havin’ a tailgate party,” said Bertie. “What’s it look like? That we’re stringin’ us up a zombie?”

That was, indeed, what it looked like. Billy, Miguel, Shine, and the rest were gathered around Bertie’s jacked-up old red Chevy pickup. The truck was parked under the elms. The tailgate was down, and on it stood a thoroughly bound man Martha didn’t recognize. But then he would have been hard to identify in any case. One ear dangled freely, barely attached to a tattered strip of gray skin. Dark liquid hissed and frothed from ragged lips. Several twists of shiny barbed wire, wound around his head the long way, from crown to jaw, kept the man’s mouth shut.

Bertie saw them both looking at the wire. “Gotta keep him from biting. This here’s a zombie, comprende?”

“You’re going to lynch him?” said Bobby Mack. “That’s murder.”

“Gotta be alive to be a murder,” said Shine Willis, grinning.

“Mutilating a corpse, then,” said the deputy.

“Come on, Bobby Mack, get off it,” said Bertie. “You know as well as me that there ain’t no laws at all protecting these things. It isn’t like they’re endangered species or whatever. They just gotta die, that’s all.”

“Who—who is he?” said Martha.

“The guy who got to the old folks’ home,” said Bertie. “I guess he was the one who was supposed to deliver the butt paper and towels. From the Springs, probably. Me and the boys went up to the home to check it out after lunch. We found this guy down in the basement munching down the last of Doctor Jellico’s feet. There were pieces of some of the other people in the home too.”

“He was a fag,” said Shine.

Martha and Bobby Mack stared at Shine.

He shrugged. “Dunno really. But all the bodies he’d been chewin’ on were men. Let the ladies go after he killed ’em. That’s why they were all down to the Diner.”

“Enough of this shit,” said Bertie. “Bobby Mack, you gonna interfere, or can we get on with it?”

“I guess the governor says you can kill him if you burn him. But hanging’s not going to do any good, is it?”

“It is,” said Bertie, “when you use piano wire for the noose.” He banged on the Chevy’s fender. The driver gunned the engine, then popped the clutch. The truck lurched forward, leaving the zombie kicking.

With the creature’s weight, it didn’t take but for a few seconds before the wire loop twanged into a knot and the zombie’s head and body took separate falls. The head bounced a few feet away, the eyes blinking. Miguel Espinosa gave it a hard rap with an irrigation shovel.

“Hey, Martha,” said Bertie. “You still want to go on over to Walsenburg with me tonight?”

“I never said I wanted to go.”

Bertie walked over to stand in front of them. “You gonna go out for a ride in the deputy’s rice-burner?”

“I’m going to give her a ride home,” said Bobby Mack.

“See that’s the only ride you give her.”

“Bertie—” Martha started to say.

“I mean it.” Bertie showed a toothy smile. “It’s the best for you or nothing, you know?”

“Go burn your corpse,” said Bobby Mack. The two men stared at each other. Bertie lowered his eyes first.

Over beneath the tree, the men were playing kickball with the head.

Bobby Mack took Martha home the long way. “Probably shouldn’t use the gas,” he said. “Don’t know when the tankers’ll stop coming here. But I don’t want to call it a night yet.”

“Me neither,” said Martha. The Samurai had bucket seats, but she did her best to lean into his shoulder.

They drove south, almost to the New Mexico line, stopping short and turning around when they saw the police flashers and the leaping flames from something burning on the road.

“It’s either their state patrol or ours,” said Bobby Mack. “I’m off duty. I figure they’ve got it under control, whatever it is. Those boys have firepower.”

He drove north again, taking the county road south of Fort Durham that wound into the hills to the west of town. Headlights, one out of adjustment and too bright, paced them. Bobby Mack squinted at the glare, then pulled off on a hilltop turnout to let the other vehicle by. A black Ford quarter-ton roared past. “Looks like Billy Gaspar,” Bobby Mack said. “Wonder what the heck he’s doing up here?” The sound of the truck diminished.

They stayed in the Samurai and looked down at Fort Durham’s scattered lights.

“It always looks bigger at night,” Martha said.

“Lot of things do. I guess that’s why most folks think the dark’s scary. When I was a kid, I used to wake up in the summer around three, four in the morning. I’d set a mental alarm. Then I’d sneak out of the house and just explore around the ranch. The greatest thing was the milk cows. They’d be just standing there in the moonlight, big and quiet and warm.”

Martha looked sidelong at him. “There weren’t any zombies then.”

“Not here, at least. I expect there were the first zombies, back down in Jamaica or wherever they come from.”

“Radio says these aren’t the same thing. I was listening to NPR—”

“You listen to public radio?” He sounded surprised, yet pleased. “Me too.”

“I’m not stupid, Bobby Mack. Yes, I was listening to NPR. They had a voodoo priest on who was really mad about his people being blamed for the zombies.”

“Can’t say as I’d blame him.”

She hugged herself. “I don’t want to talk about zombies.”

“It’s pretty much all anybody’s gonna want to discuss for a while. Biggest thing to happen in this town since I don’t know when.”

A long minute went by.

“Bobby Mack, do you ever think about getting out of here? Going somewhere else?”

“I did that,” he said. “I went away to college.”

She laughed, but gently. “A couple hundred miles to Fort Lewis College in Durango isn’t a long way.”

“You didn’t say long way.”

“You know what I meant.”

After a while, he said, “I don’t know if I’d like it anywhere else.”

“I know what you mean.” Martha unhugged herself. “But sometimes I wonder what it would be like to find out.”

“To go to California or something,” he said, “it’d get lonely if you were by yourself.”

“Yes,” she said quietly. “I get lonely right here.”

He sounded surprised. “You were always the prettiest girl around. Lonesome?”

“You don’t know much about me, do you?”

“Reckon I was scared to find out,” he said.

“No reason for that.” Martha gently touched the side of his face. “No reason at all.”

He shrugged slightly. “Like I told you, I heard things.”

“They were wrong.”

He touched her hair, her face, her lips. “I need to think about this.”

“Do you?” she said, looking at him steadily in the glow from the dash lights.

“Yes, I do.”

She touched his cheek with her lips. “There may not be much time.”

“What’s that mean?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Just a feeling.”

“One way or another,” he said, “there’ll be time.” He leaned forward and flicked on the headlights. “I’d better get you home. I don’t want your folks to raise Cain.”

“Bobby Mack,” she said, amazed again at her boldness. “Just one hug? One kiss?”

He nodded, and then held her and kissed her. And drove her home.

“That’s funny,” said Martha as they drove into the Malinowski yard four miles north of town.

“What?” Bobby Mack coasted the Samurai up near the house and turned off the lights.

“Yard light’s off. Dad just replaced the bulb last week.”

“Maybe he turned it off.”

“Never does that when he figures I’m going to be late.” She shrugged. “Maybe he expected I’d come home right after the meeting.”

“Don’t get jumpy,” said Bobby Mack, grinning. “You’re with the deputy sheriff, remember?”

“I remember.” Martha got out of the Samurai. Bobby Mack started around the front of the vehicle to meet her. The night was only a day removed from the new moon, and the darkness was deep.

“Give me your hand,” said the deputy. “I don’t want to break a leg. I figure you know the terrain.”

At the front step, Martha fumbled in her handbag for a key. “What with the zombies, Dad said he was going to start locking up at night.” Once she had key in hand, Martha leaned up toward him. “Good night, Bobby Mack.”

Whatever he was going to say was lost as they both heard the sound of something heavy, lurching and crunching in the gravel behind them. An indistinct shape loomed out of the darkness.

“GRRROARRRR!”

Clawed hands reached for him.

“Sweet Jesus!” said Bobby Mack, trying to get in front of Martha and reaching at the same time for his holstered pistol. Arms grabbed him from both sides and he was held immobile in the night. The creature in front of him staggered close and Bobby Mack smelled alcohol.

“Evenin’, Deputy Dawg.” It was Bertie Hernandez.

“Hey, man! It’s okay, it’s okay.” Billy Gaspar’s voice in Bobby Mack’s ear. “We just didn’t want you shootin’ no one.” He let loose of Bobby Mack’s right arm. Someone else set free the left.

“You bastards!” said Martha. “What are you doing?”

“Just checkin’,” said Bertie. “We’re the PDA monitors, just like in high school. Wanta make sure the neckin’ don’t go too far, unnerstand?”

Bobby Mack said angrily, “I ought to—”

“Oughtta what, college boy? Just a little joke.” Bertie turned heavily away. “Just a little joke. Okay, guys, let’s go.”

Bobby Mack started for him, but Martha grabbed his arm. “No, Bobby Mack. This isn’t the time.”

Bertie and the others were laughing uproariously by the time they piled into Billy Gaspar’s black Ford. It had been parked around the angle of the house. Billy floored the pedal and the truck whined away toward the blacktop. The night swallowed the laughter.

Bobby Mack and Martha stared after them. The deputy realized his fingers were still clamped to the flap of his holster. He took his hand away.

The yard light went on, bathing the whole area in mercury vapor glare. Mr. Malinowski stood framed in the doorway, yawning and rubbing sleep from his eyes.

“Hey, you kids! What the hell’s going on out there? Some of us are tryin’ to sleep.”

Martha and Bobby Mack exchanged looks. She reached up arid touched his lips. “I’ll see you at the Diner.”

Talk at the Diner in the morning centered around two things, football and zombies. The preseason game between Denver and the Seattle Seahawks had been canceled just before kickoff. The rumors mentioned locker-room atrocities and half-devoured tailbacks.

“Musta been Seattle zombies,” said Shine Willis grimly. “’Bout the only way they could beat the Broncos.” No one contradicted him.

“Okay, ace,” said Bertie. “Listen up. I got a little question for you.”

Everyone listened up, especially Shine.

“So can animals bite you and turn you zombie?”

“You mean like dogs?” said Shine. “Get bit by Cujo? Beats the shit out of me.”

No one knew, but everyone had an opinion.

“I was wonderin’,” said Bertie, “’cause when I come out of the trailer this morning, the Jergensons’ mutt came for me and I had to put him down. He looked like he’d already been dead a couple days.”

Billy Gaspar looked glum. “Cripes, all we need is for every critter to be set against us.”

“I wouldn’t worry,” said Shine. “The Jergensons’ dog always looks like twenty pounds of shit. Probably just didn’t like your looks. You shower this morning?”

The men along the counter laughed. A bit nervously, Martha thought. She dispatched the plates of hotcakes, eggs, potatoes, bacon, toast. Poured the coffee. The real stuff. No one here drank decaf.

A rough hand gripped her wrist. The coffee pot sloshed. “No more for me,” said Bertie. “I’m tryin’ to cut down.”

“Let go,” she said.

He sat there; she stood waiting. A silent tableau. The men stared, then went back to talking. But glances kept flickering toward Martha and Bertie.

“Tipped a few with Carl Crump real late last night,” said Bertie casually. “He talks real interesting.”

“I doubt that,” said Martha. “Now let me go.”

“No.” The thick fingers did not relax. “He says you got a little mark under your left titty. Looks like a bird. That true?”

“No.” Martha switched the steaming coffeepot to her right hand. “Let me go right now or you’re going to get this all down your front.”

In the sudden silence, the radio playing John Hiatt’s “I Don’t Even Try” seemed to blare out. The men at the counter no longer pretended to look away.

“If you’ll go down for Bobby Mack,” said Bertie, “then how come you won’t do nothing for me?”

“Carl’s a liar,” said Martha evenly.

Bertie looked into her eyes intently. “Sure,” he said, and let her wrist go. “Maybe tonight we can go to Walsenburg?”

She didn’t know why she said it. “I’d sooner fuck a zombie.” She said it so low, no one heard but Bertie. He stared at her.

Martha turned away and walked back to the kitchen, trying to move straight and true, and not bolt. Once out of sight of the dining room, she rubbed at the quick tears. She felt a raw pain. Her wrist. She turned it over and saw the angry-looking black-and-blue marks. They looked like the wings of a bird.

Bobby Mack didn’t come into the Diner for his mid-morning coffee stop. About eleven Martha called to Henry Roybal, “Hey, anything on the scanner? What’s going on out there? Anybody hear tell of Bobby Mack?”

“Nary a word about your young man, Martha. Lots of other stuff, though.”

She balanced a tray of dirty dishes and flatware into the kitchen. Jose, the dishwasher, took it away from her, grunting as the load clattered and splashed into a steel sink full of soapy water.

“What do you mean, other stuff?”

“Don’t know, really. Lots of code things, like when they know people are listening and the sheriff don’t want anything to hit the grapevine right away.”

As if on cue, the police scanner crackled and hissed around a call: “Sheriff central, this is patrol three.”

“Patrol three, come in.”

“Hey, affirmative. Kenny and me, we got a confirmed patch of veggies just off county one-fiver at the Centennial Ditch. Must have been holed up in the First Baptist. We’re gonna take actions as ordered.”

“Veggies?” said Martha.

Henry Roybal nodded. “All mornin’.”

The scanner crackled. “Patrol three, don’t do nothing stupid.”

“Central, can you send us backup?”

“That’s a negatory, patrol three. Things are jumpin’ all over the county.”

“We copy, central. Do what we can. Got my old AK47 in the trunk. Worked on Charlie. Figure it’ll harvest a whole row or two of veggies.”

“My God,” said Martha.

“Repeat, patrol three. Stay cool. We already lost a coupla harvesters this morning.”

There was a silence on the scanner. Then the voice of patrol three said, “We know that, central. This one’s gonna be for Dale and J.B.”

Henry Roybal expelled a long breath. Martha looked at him. They both knew exactly whom the voice was talking about. Town cops. They hadn’t come in for coffee either. Bobby Mack, she thought, staring intently at the scanner. Say something. Report in. Please.

“Hey, central, we got civilians back of us. It’s Reverend Beecham and some others.” There was a pause, and then the voice got fainter as though the speaker were sticking his head out the car window. “Hey, Pastor! You need some help? The cavalry’s here—”

A strangled scream filtered through the scanner.

A second voice shouted, “Central, they’re veggies too—” A crackle of shots. Another scream. Indistinguishable noises. Scratching. A sound like something chewing on the microphone. Silence.

“Patrol three, what’s goin’ down? Report, patrol three—”

Martha rushed from the kitchen, trying to blank the sounds from the speaker. Bobby Mack. At least he wasn’t patrol three.

The radio on the shelf was playing Nick Cave’s cover of “Long Black Veil.”

“Why don’t you give us some news!” Martha cried at it.

“Mayor Hardesty don’t want none of us to panic,” said Bertie Hernandez. His pals and he had evidently entered the Cuchara Diner in the last minute or so. They’d tracked in some of the thin skiff of snow that covered the Diner’s parking lot. Brown water pooled on the tile floor.

“I think maybe I’m about ready to panic,” said Martha candidly. “I want to know what’s going on.”

“Don’t worry, darlin’,” said Bertie. “We’ll take good care of you, somethin’ happens.”

“You didn’t see Bobby Mack out there this morning, did you?”

Bertie and Shine Willis exchanged glances. “Not lately,” said Bertie. “He’s a smart boy. I ’spect he’s okay, but probably real busy. You won’t see him before tonight.”

“Just what’s going on out there?” said Martha. “For God’s sake, tell me!”

“It’s the zombies,” said Billy Gaspar.

“They’re spreadin’ faster’n AIDS,” said Shine.

“Yeah,” said Bertie. “Looks like maybe all they got to do is bite you, not even kill you. The bastards are all over town, lotta people you and me both know.”

“We killed a bunch of them,” said Billy Gaspar. “But there’s so many—”

“Now,” said Bertie, “we got to hole up and rest. Diner’s as good a place as any. Anyhow, I figure we got to have lunch. What’s the special?”

“Meat loaf,” said Martha.

Billy Gaspar groaned. “I don’t think my belly can take that.”

“Eat or be eaten,” said Bertie with a grin.

“This is KHIP,” said the radio, “the kay-hip country voice of the southern Colorado empire. Pueblo to Durango, we bring you the absolutely latest news…”

“Shut up,” said Martha tightly. “Just tell me what’s going on.”

The recorded opening trailed off, and there was a moment of dead air. The announcer, when he came on, sounded dead tired and scared shitless. “This is Boots Bell at the kay-hip studios north of Fort Durham. I’ve got a whole raft of announcements and they’re most all life and death, so listen up.”

“We’re listening, goddamn it,” said Bertie Hernandez, sounding as tightly wound as Martha. “Get to it.” The boys hadn’t gone out much during the afternoon. They’d stayed close to the Diner, bringing in weapons from their trucks and drinking a lot of beer. A few of the other regulars had drifted in. There was very little traffic on 159.

Boots Bell riffled some papers over the radio. Then he said, “The main thing is, stay indoors. Lock your houses. Anybody comes to your door, check ’em out good. All of a sudden, there’s dead folks walking everywhere. This is no joke, no test of the emergency broadcast system, nothing like that. It’s the real thing.”

“Damn straight,” said Shine Willis.

“If you’ve got weapons,” said Bell, “keep them loaded and handy. Shoot for the head. That’s about the only way to kill a zombie.”

“Hey, what about fire?” said Shine.

“—or burn ’em,” Bell continued. “Remember they’re quicker than they look, and real strong. They generally run in packs. If you see one, there’s probably another ten sneaking up behind you.”

Jose dropped a pan in the kitchen and half the guys at the counter twitched.

Bell said, “Here at the station, we’ve received word that the National Guard’11 be moving in as soon as they finish mopping-up operations in Walsenburg.” He hesitated. “Reckon that’ll come after they clean up the Springs. And in Denver—well, we don’t have much word at all.” Papers rattled for a few moments. “We’re keeping a map at the station of all sightings, so if you spot a zombie, give us a jingle and we’ll pass the news along.” There was a second voice, indistinguishable. Then Bell said, “We’ve already got so many reports of zombies, we can tell you it isn’t safe to be anywhere outdoors in Fort Durham. Period. Sheriff and police officers are doing what they can, along with community volunteers. But if you don’t have to be out, then don’t go out. Not for any reason.” Bell’s voice cracked slightly. “The station manager just told me something, and I agree with it. If we stick together, we’ll come out of this okay. Remember that.”

In the Diner, the men with guns held them tight and exchanged looks.

“More news when it comes in,” said Bell. “Now let’s listen to some music.” The speaker began to twang the opening chords of Tammy Wynette’s “Stand by Your Man.”

“At least,” said Billy Gaspar, “they’re not playing the Grateful fucking Dead.” He tried to grin, but the effect was ghastly.

Martha set her tray down on the counter and went to the phone behind the cash register. She dialed her parents’ number, knowing of course they’re all right, but just wanting the reassurance. All she got in the earpiece was the soft buzz of a dead line.

By three o’clock, the first zombie appeared in the Diner’s parking lot. It was Mrs. Dorothy Miller, who had been the head cashier at the Stockman’s Bank.

“For Chrissake, kill her,” said Bertie, waving Shine and Billy toward the door. “They’re probably like ants, sending out scouts. We don’t want the rest to know there’s all sorts of food here.”

The men nodded and went outside, Shine first. Billy put the butt of the 30.06 deer rifle against his shoulder and slowly squeezed off a round. The bullet went squarely through Mrs. Miller’s left eye. The zombie flung out its arms and spun around. Shine raised his Remington pump at close range and blew Mrs. Miller’s head completely off.

Shine and Billy dragged the body around the corner of the Diner and out of sight; then they came back in and shared a pull off Miguel Espinosa’s flask of home brew.

Martha hardly noticed. She kept listening to the radio and badgering Henry Roybal to keep close track of both the CB base station and the police scanner. “Anything?” she’d say on her trips into the kitchen.

“Nothing,” Henry would answer. “Listen, Bobby Mack’s probably way too busy to use his radio. Try not to worry.”

In the dining room, KHIP was playing Gordon Light-foot’s “Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”

“Christ,” said Shine, “who picks the music? I wish to hell Henry had a jukebox.”

“But he don’t,” said Bertie. “We’re just gonna have to make our own entertainment.” He caressed the rifle lying across his lap. Then he looked up toward Martha and held out his cup.

Martha stared at him and started to turn away.

“Please?”

She thought about it a moment and then brought the pot over.

His expression was earnest. “Listen, Martha, if we all get out of this, think maybe we can start over?”

“No.” She resisted the impulse to start laughing hysterically. “We can’t start over what we never began in the first place.”

Something seemed to smolder in Bertie’s eyes. “I’m really on my best behavior now.”

“I know that,” she said quietly. “But I’m being honest with you.”

“Me too,” he said. “I really want you to be my girl.”

She shook her head.

“Final word?” he said.

—dangerously, Martha thought. He sounds like he’ll do anything. She nodded. Yes.

“Well, shoot,” said Bertie. “I guess the only thing left is to fuck you till you can’t see straight. Or walk straight, neither.”

“Try it,” said Martha, “and I’ll kill you.”

“And I’ll come back,” said Bertie. “And keep fucking you. Bet it doesn’t do no good to kick a zombie in the nuts. What do you think?”

“I think you’re disgusting.” Martha held the handle of the coffeepot tightly. The temptation to blister his face so that it looked like a basic zombie visage of torn and rotting flesh was nearly irresistible. She turned away.

“I’ll wait,” said Bertie toward her back. “After you’re done waitin’ for Bobby Mack, I’ll still be good and hard.”

Without turning, she said, “I can wait too.”

“Not long enough for the Deputy Dawg.”

She whirled. “What do you know?”

Bertie ostentatiously licked his lips.

By six o’clock it was getting dark. Henry Roybal came out of the kitchen and switched on the EAT sign.

“Think that’s a real good idea?” said Shine.

“You think zombies can read?”

“They could when they were alive,” said Billy.

“They’re animals,” said Henry flatly. “Beasts. Probably color-blind too.”

Nobody pushed the issue. The neon on the roof fizzed and crackled. The glow on the snow outside the window cycled from red to green.

“Maybe we should make a break for it,” said Miguel Espinosa. “Head for New Mexico.”

“Doubt there’s anything different there,” said Bertie. “May as well stay where there’s lots of food and booze.” He winked at Martha. “And a pretty lady.”

“I got a full tank of gas,” said Billy to Miguel.

“How come you don’t leave?” Bertie said to Henry.

The owner of the Diner answered without hesitation. “My daddy stopped here in Fort Durham while he was on his way to California during the Dust Bowl. He loved this place.” He shrugged. “I like it too. I been here for floods and droughts, blizzards and tornadoes. I’m not going to be driven off by a passel of flesh-eating sons of bitches.”

The radio intermittently delivered repeats of the afternoon messages. There seemed to be few developments. The warnings continued. Stay indoors. Lock the doors. Load the weapons. Aim for the head. Boots Bell finally added a new one. Save a round for yourself.

The men in the Diner talked and drank. Bertie Hernandez mainly drank. By eight o’clock he was chasing shots of tequila with mescal rather than beers. Shine Willis wasn’t far behind him.

At nine-oh-seven by the Hamm’s clock beside the radio, Bertie hurled his glass against the far wall. It shattered below the mounted head of a twelve-point buck Henry’s father had shot sometime around Pearl Harbor.

“I think,” said Bertie, grinning horribly at Martha, “it’s time for some real entertainment.”

Miguel and Shine had moved into position to either side of her. Martha glanced at them, then back at Bertie. He stood up and played for a moment with his Peterbilt belt buckle.

“What I propose,” said Bertie, “is to screw this little girl until my pecker comes out her asshole. Is there anybody here with an objection?”

“I don’t think I can let you do that, Bertie,” said Henry Roybal.

“Didn’t think so. You’re a good man, Henry.” Bertie drew the .357 magnum from its holster and shot Henry Roybal through the heart. The impact threw the old man back against the kitchen doors. They flopped open as the body fell backward. The doors swung shut again, but now dappled with butterfly wings of blood.

“Anyone else?” said Bertie, surveying the silent men.

No one said anything. Not everyone looked wholly enthusiastic, but there were no objections voiced.

“Okay, then.” Bertie set the pistol down on the table, then bent and grunted as he tugged his boots loose. His belt buckle followed.

Martha bolted. She was not quick enough to elude Shine’s grasp. She struggled, trying to knee him, bite him, crush his instep— Miguel slugged her across the back of the neck and she sagged toward the floor.

She heard Bertie say, “Let’s see some pussy.”

She felt hands ripping her brown waitress dress down its buttoned front. Rough fingers hooked her pantyhose and rolled them down off her hips, along her legs, clear to her feet.

Martha opened her eyes and glared at Bertie. He had taken off his pants and briefs and stood there in his long-tailed blue work shirt and socks. She suddenly noticed that his socks were slightly mismatched—black and dark blue. “Bertie—” she said. “Don’t do it.”

He smiled almost cheerfully as he loomed over her, fingering his balls. His penis jutted out and up like a construction crane. Apparently all the alcohol he’d drunk hadn’t done a thing to his erection.

“Martha,” he said, sounding almost gentle. “I’ve got to.” He spat into his hand and slicked up the head of his penis. “You know what’s going on out there. This may be our only chance.”

She didn’t know how to answer him in a way that would mean anything.

Bertie smiled. “Oh,” he said, “don’t worry about a last-minute rescue by good ol’ Bobby Mack Quintana.”

She finally confronted what she suspected. What she didn’t even want to think. As calmly as she could, she said, “What did you do to him?”

“It’s not what I did to him,” Bertie said, walking forward to stand between her spread legs. “It’s what the Jergensons’ Dobie did to him. I just put him out of his misery. It was a favor.” Bertie laughed in a way that was almost a giggle. “Woulda done the same for a dog.”

Martha felt the tears, willed them back. No time. Suddenly the radio came through, as though the sound were piped directly to her ears. KHIP was playing “Poor Poor Pitiful Me.”

Bullshit! She arched her back, suddenly whipping her right leg up into Bertie’s crotch.

Bertie twisted surprisingly fast, turning the blow on his thigh. He put one socked foot on her left ankle. Shine took her right.

Miguel snickered from up beside her head. “Make a wish.”

“No gratitude in this pussy,” said Bertie conversationally. “I expect there will be.” He started to kneel down between her legs.

—as Bobby Mack Quintana came through the front door.

He didn’t open it. He just came through it in a crash and chaos of shattered glass and yells from the men along the counter.

“What the fuck?” said Bertie, springing to his feet and lunging for the magnum on the table.

Men cursed and someone screamed, and everyone scattered to get out of Bobby Mack’s path. He stood there for a moment and Martha could see he was not alive. He wore his uniform, but no hat. His khaki shirt was soaked with crusted blood that had obviously cascaded down much earlier from the shredded ruin where his throat had been. There were three black holes across his chest where large-caliber bullets had punched in. A fourth bullet had creased his face, laying open one cheek and setting his nose askew. Corruption had already set in. The flesh around his mouth seemed to be rotting. Fluids oozing from tatters in his face gleamed in the glow of the fluorescents.

“Christ, Bobby Mack,” said Bertie, holding his pistol out in two shaking hands. “How many times I got to kill you?” The fire and noise reached out, slamming Bobby Mack backward, staggering his body but not felling him.

The zombie turned slightly to look at Martha still on the floor. Its mouth opened, and somehow sounds gurgled up through the torn throat. “Mar-thhha…”

Bobby Mack turned back toward Bertie, striding forward before the man could pull the trigger. The dead deputy reached down and grasped Bertie’s penis, fingers wrapping around the thick base and the scrotum. With one powerful yank, he pulled back and up, the flesh giving way, tearing like rotten fabric.

The zombie’s arm came up and Bertie’s abdomen and stomach opened like someone had jerked the seam on a full Ziploc bag of lasagna. Viscera spewed across the dining room. If Bertie screamed, it was drowned out by the sounds of all the other men either frantically grabbing for their weapons or diving for a door.

Bertie’s arms windmilled, spasming. Blood sprayed across the overheads and the light suddenly filtered red.

No one was holding onto Martha now, and she tried to scramble to her feet. Bobby Mack had turned to Shine and Miguel, digging fingers into the former’s face and shoving the latter back into the glass shards protruding from the doorframe. The zombie tossed Shine’s face away as though it were a discarded Halloween mask and lurched toward Billy Gaspar.

“I didn’t do it!” Billy screamed. “It was them. It was them—” Bobby Mack pulled off Billy’s left arm and then pulped his head with the hard-muscled limb.

It suddenly seemed very quiet in the Diner. It was inhabited only by the dead and the dying. And Martha. She crouched back by the counter as Bobby Mack turned and came to her. They confronted each other and she stared sickly at his mutilated face.

He reached out jerkily, but his fingers were gentle as they touched her hair. He tried to say something, but the destroyed throat wouldn’t let him.

“You too,” Martha said, tears finally coming now. “I love you too.”

Then she heard the screaming from outside.

Men were dying in the parking lot. In the glow from EAT—EAT—EAT, Martha could see the survivors of the Diner being torn apart by shadowy knots of zombies.

She turned toward Bobby Mack and took his hand. The skin felt as loose as an oversized cotton work glove. “We’ve got to get out of here,” she said. “Come on.”

He didn’t move. Bobby Mack stared behind her. Slowly, unwillingly, she looked too.

Martha recognized most of the faces.

Some had recently fed—strings of meat hung slack and bloody from the corners of pursed-lip mouths. They were all there. Her nightmares: Carl Crump, Sr., dead eyes alight behind the smashed lenses of a pair of precariously balanced tortoise-shell glasses. Pastor Beecham, his clerical collar and black jacket streaked with gore that looked just as black, except that it glistened wetly in the light. Mrs. Beecham’s red bouffant was in disarray, sodden ringlets hanging around her ears. Her gray A-line dress hung in tatters off one shoulder. Father Sierra’s head was turned askew on the stalk of his neck by about forty-five degrees. He looked like an owl staring at its prey.

Carl Crump, Jr., reached out toward Martha, and Bobby Mack batted the blood-clotted nails away from her. The younger Crump wore a Maui shirt and ridiculous tropical flower-print jams.

He must be freezing, thought Martha irrelevantly. She realized she couldn’t count all the zombies that were crowding into the Diner. Teachers, the night clerk from the 7-Eleven, some of the volunteer firefighters, the county librarian, her doctor. It looked like half the population of Fort Durham.

Carl Crump, Jr., groaned out something Martha couldn’t understand. His father stirred beside him. Both zombies put their hands to their crotches like an obscene joke version of the see-no-evil, hear-no-evil monkeys.

She realized they both had enormous erections.

“No!” she said, huddling close to Bobby Mack. The dead deputy gurgled something and put one arm around her.

And then the zombies went for them.

There simply wasn’t much maneuvering room, and so the mob surge did little good until the tidal force of corpses swung toward the Diner’s front window and the glass exploded outward into the parking area.

Martha found herself on her back, both hands around Mrs. Beecham’s neck, attempting to keep the snapping, pit-bull teeth from her own throat. Then a kick from Bobby Mack’s boot caught Mrs. Beecham under the collarbone and the zombie twisted away.

Carl Crump, Sr.’s, fist slammed into Bobby Mack’s mouth, crumbling teeth and disappearing up to the wrist.

“Bobby—!” Martha screamed.

The elder Crump’s hand reappeared, the fingers dripping with blood, nails squeezing cartilage and gray matter. Bobby Mack’s body began to spasm, arms jerking away at bizarre angles. Crump licked his own nails.

The crush of dead, writhing bodies bore Martha down into the freezing gravel. A clawing hand snatched away her bra and part of her right breast. At first she felt no pain—just the cold air on her nipples.

She saw the wild tangle of henna-red hair descend toward her crotch, felt the cold lips and icy tongue violate her vagina, tried to draw back against the unforgiving gravel as rotting teeth ground into her flesh. Mrs. Beecham’s face, slick with Martha’s blood, lunged against her repeatedly, until her husband shoved his wife aside.

Pastor Beecham mounted her as Martha raked at the vacant eyes. Other arms grabbed at her and she felt her left shoulder twist and separate. Her right arm flailed, fingers searching for any purchase at all among her attackers.

The clergyman’s penis slid deep into her like a rod of absolute-zero ice. Then Carl Crump, Jr., was at her, rolling her on her side and shoving his erection up into her anus. Martha felt the tissues tear. This time there was no merciful shock. This hurt and she screamed.

As Carl, Jr., pushed at her from behind, the movement seemed to excite Reverend Beecham. He shoved back, bubbles of saliva and stale air grunting from his blue lips. Martha could see Carl’s father and the others waiting like patient customers in a post office queue.

The pain was a grinding, broken-glass agony that drew out the cells of her brain, sucking them into infinity. “Damn you!” Martha cried. “Damn you all!”

The intrusions of the others within her inexorably pounded toward some sort of vanishing dead climax. At first Martha watched, increasingly distant. A frozen calm began to narcotize her. Then she realized how close Bobby Mack’s mercifully inert body lay, twisted into the complex lovers’ knot her body composed with the thrashing ministrations of Beecham and Carl Crump, Jr.

She could reach his holster flap with her right hand. Her fingertips touched the cold, still-bright leather. Surely one live round must remain in the cylinder of his .38 Police Positive. Please.

Carl Crump, Sr., squatted down above her face, runneled fingers moving back and forth along the purpling length of his erection.

Martha’s numbed fingers twitched at the holster flap, tugged, pushed at the snap. The catch clicked free. She could feel the knurled walnut butt of the pistol. Thank you, Bobby Mack.

The zombies inside her grunted and heaved. Martha sensed others, many more, crowding around her. Dead eyes looked at her, but none of them saw. They never had. Her vision grayed.

The zombies kept coming—

—and coming—

Just one bullet, Martha thought.

There was.

Missive, A Sad Last Love at the Diner of the Damned

Appalled By Edward Bryant

Stephen King and most other writers of the dark fantastic have spoken of coping with that interrogatory chestnut all of us who mess around in horror fiction likewise confront. We’re asked, so, do you ever write something so ghastly you even scare yourself?

Well, so far 1 haven’t But I have sobered, even appalled, myself. This story's a rare and telling example, and I’ll certainly cop to it.

Small-town boy that I am (Wheatland, Wyoming, population-then, before the construction of the power plant-2360), I’ve always had an ambivalent reaction to that particular culture. It can be hospitable, close- knit, mutually supportive. The same qualities can also breed clannish intolerance and a hideous penny-ante social hierarchy. In my home town, believe me, I've seen both.

In 1988, the notorious splat-pack Messrs. John Skipp and Craig Spector invited me to submit a story for Book of the Dead, their singing, dancing, all- chomping, all-gnashing, all carnivore original anthology of tales set in the zombie holocaust world of George Romero’s Night of the Living..., Day of the..., and Dawn of the Dead. When initially released, the brash Night of the Living Dead scared the bejeezus out of Mrs. Bryant’s impressionable kid when I first saw it with my friend Linda Merinoff at a packed theater near UCLA in Westwood. The auditorium was so jammed, we had to sit in separate seats a hundred yards apart. Years later, I thought Dawn of the Dead was one of the great (severed) tongue-in-cheek American social commentaries. And Day of the Dead always puzzled me.

So I was primed. Easily flattered and still crammed with ambition, I wanted to write something over the top.

Now a quick lesson in road-trip geography. When you want to get from Denver to Santa Fe quickly and trouble-free, you get on 1-25, head south, and set the cruise control for 79. If there’s no blizzard on Raton Pass in northern New Mexico, you're home free. Now here’s the shorter and more scenic way: turn west from 1-25 at Walsenburg, Colorado, speed along U.S. 160 (La Veta Pass is gorgeous) until you sight the colorful little town of Ft Garland, turn left (south) and start noting how quickly your environs turn increasingly Indian and Spanish.

I'm sure Ft Garland, in its heart, is a perfectly lovely place to grow up, work, live, and raise a family. But it also seemed utterly appropriate as a setting for a zombie story. Yeah, 1 know that's probably a leap-but can you spell “metaphor?*

This is a story that genuinely wore me out And disturbed me. It bothered me that I could even write this. The moment I finished the last word on the last page, I just sort of sat there silently, wondering if maybe I ought to seriously consider deep-sixing the whole thing.

1 was genuinely sobered; actually appalled that I had written such a piece of...whatever.

The moment passed.

I printed out the manuscript, gave it a little while to cool to 98.6 so 1 could edit it, then packed it off to Craig and John. I got a contract by return mail, bless'em.

The original title was “A Sad Last Love at the Diner of the Doomed." My friend and colleague Leanne Harper suggested that maybe that tipped the reader a little too much. So “Doomed” became “Damned” The devil is indeed in the details.

I read the story aloud to audiences at a few sf conventions. A pitch- black room with a single small light-source was the ticket Audiences tended to non-react at the end, generally just sitting there like gaffed fish until the lights came up. In liberal Austin, I kept getting strange comments relayed second-hand all weekend, feedback that I obviously was some kind of whacked-out pervo. The audiences in Phoenix and Denver were kinder.

My colleague and neighbor in Old North Denver, Steve Rasnic Tem, gifted me my most memorable comment. We’d been discussing that long and contentious debate about the defensibility of portraying rape in art without allowing it to become co-opted into audience titillation. Steve allowed as how the climactic scene in “Diner" was perhaps the least titillating rape episode he'd ever read. Thank you, I think.

Reactions have, gratifyingly enough, varied enormously in the lay readership. Along with the predictably horrified and disgusted responses, people have suggested this is a spoof of splatterpunk, even a “hilarious" tale. Others have taken the piece from a different angle of approach and recognized the inversion of “it only hurts when you laugh."

Me, I attempted the humor quite deliberately, recalling the hard-won advice about alternating the funny with the horrific I picked up from Shakespearean tragedy. So far as I'm concerned, “Diner," at its dark heart of hearts, is a recollective reflection about the down side of growing up in a small, conservative town.

Mayberry without mood elevators.

At least that was the attempt But really, what do I know?

Thanks for your attention. Now turn the lights back off. Eat your lasagna.

Edward Bryant

Denver, Colorado

May 1, 2001

Edward Bryant

On February 10, 2017 the community of horror and science fiction writers lost an iconic author, reviewer, critic, organizer of workshops and readings, convention host, writer of convention reports…and friend. Edward Winslow Bryant, Jr. died in his sleep after a long illness. He put an immense amount of time in guiding and encouraging beginning writers. Those writers include many of the authors of the stories in this collection. Anyone who knew him will say he was the nicest guy in the world.

Born in White Plains, New York on August 27, 1945, Bryant grew up on a cattle ranch in Wyoming. He received his MA in English at the University of Wyoming in 1968. His writing career began when he attended the Clarion Workshop in 1968. There he met and formed an association with famed fantasist Harlan Ellison which turned into a lifelong friendship. By 1973 his stories had had gained him acclaim.

He combines his knowledge of science and understanding of human nature to craft complex plots, believable characters and lively dialogue, often laced with sly humor. The influence of growing up in Wyoming shows up in his short story collection, Wyoming Sun. Other collections include Cinnabar, Particle Theory, Neon Twilight, Darker Passions and others. He also contributed stories to the Wild Card series of anthologies edited by George R.R. Martin and Melinda M. Snodgrass.

Though primarily known for horror fiction his work covers a broad area. He won two Nebulas, the highest award given by the Science Fiction Writers of America, for his short stories, “Stone” (1978) and “giANTS” (1979. These and many others of his stories received nominations for other awards, including the Hugo, Bram Stoker and World Fantasy awards. With Harlan Ellison he co-wrote the novel, Phoenix Without Ashes (1975). In addition to fiction he wrote poetry, reviews and criticism and edited an ezine. He produced screenplays for television shows and acted in the films, The Laughing Dead (1988) and Ill Met by Moonlight (1994).

One of his greatest contributions to the horror and science fiction fields is the number of writers his workshops turned into published authors. Among many others these include Steve Rasnic Tem and Melanie Tem, Connie Willis, Wil McCarthy, Dan Simmons and Bruce Holland Rogers.

Poor health dogged him throughout his life. He had diabetes from childhood. In the late ’90s he awoke one morning in terrible pain to find that he couldn’t move his arms and hands. He lay there in agony and terror until a woman he dated called. He managed to nudge the phone off the hook and tell her his problem. She came to his house immediately. After a number of misdiagnoses Bryant learned that bones in his shoulders had broken in his sleep. Soon after he found out he had severe osteoporosis and sleep apnea. He believed it likely that the weakened bones broke when his body went into involuntary convulsions due to hypoglycemia while he slept. Or maybe his apnea had caused the convulsions.

Bryant always valued his independence. Though garrulous, generous and outgoing around friends and those in his workshops, he liked going home alone where only his cats awaited. Though he never married, friends said women found him attractive. Many would have valued him as a partner. Most of the women he dated remained staunch friends and supporters.

Westword is a free news and event newspaper based in Denver. Juliet Whitman, co-founder of Westword in 1977 and editor ever since, profiled Bryant in, “Fright for Life,” in the May 11, 2000 edition. He told her, “I hate the idea of dying because I’m afraid I’m going to miss something. As long as you’re alive, there’s always more time.”

Perhaps you have run out of time, our valued mentor, teacher and friend, but your legacy, legend – and stories – live on.

Jim LeMay

Aurora, Colorado

July 28, 2017

Copyright © 2017 by Mad Cow Press

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Cover Art

Valdas Miskinis

Cover art by Valdas Miskinis, miskinis.valdas@gmail.com

Mad Cow Press

Aurora, Colorado

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