Anything but Zombies: A Short Story Anthology
Author: Gerald Dean Rice
Date: 2015-05-02 04:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Horror; Short Stories; Anthologies
Description: Collection of horror stories related to, but not including as main story elements, zombies
Publisher: Atria

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CONTENTS

Foreword

Night of the Living Dolls by Tim Curran

Down in a Hole by Armand Rosamilia

The Sentient Cherry Cola That Tried to Destroy the World by Jeff Strand

PC by Rebecca Besser

Crew Chief of the Damned by MontiLee Stormer

The Shoal by Lee Moan

Jack and the Bean Stalker by Tonia Brown

The Rider by Jake Bible

Out of Mind by Faye McCray

The Takers by Gerald Dean Rice

Mister Poo Poo by Jimmy Pudge

FOREWORD

The Undead who? Seriously, who even cares about zombies anymore? Are they even a thing still? Back in the 1980s, they were fun to watch and run from. They were wild things, like somebody’s loose pit bull, slobbering mouths clicking at your heels. But then they got a job. And not just any job. They became movie and TV stars, and all of a sudden our little secret was out. Rotters used to be the working man’s monster, a creature that was too slovenly to ever get the girl in the end, not sad enough to pity like Frankenstein (and yes, you can call him Frankenstein considering Victor was his father), and didn’t have the luxury of turning off the monster by daylight like werewolves.

But somehow, they made it. I suppose you could say they already had made it considering Jason Voorhees is technically a zombie and he got twenty sequels and a mash-up with Freddy Krueger. And what is Freddy, by the way, a ghost? Is he a ghost? Whatever he is, he’s not a zombie, but he is another monster that’s achieved rock-star status.

The point is that zombies were never meant to be the stars like some other monsters. The first stumbling block was apparent: there were too many of them and it was far too easy to dispose of them.

I mean, in a hand-to-hand situation, the hero could dispatch a walker, no problem. Even if he’d been bitten and was bound to become one, he (or she—it is 2015, after all) could destroy a couple more. Hell, in all likelihood, once a person was doomed to change, the hero would probably be good for at least a dozen or more. Zombies on an individual basis aren’t particularly strong, smart, or particularly durable.

Zombies have been content to be the squishy, oozing, rotting background in their own movies. While man has struggled against man, as is standard fare in postapocalyptic the-dead-are-here-for-dinner-type movies, the main focus of the story has always been a group of people who find someplace to hole up and en route to establishing a severely reduced community, some other group or person comes along (or reveals themselves amidst the original group) to be apple-cart upsetters. The walking dead have gotten only a nibble here and there until the whole thing falls apart in the end and just about everyone gets eaten, save for the guy, the girl, and the cute little kid (or dog).

For decades, we, the hard-core, dedicated horror fans and zombiephiles were the only ones who were there, through good and bad movies (and “meh” ones, too) while the rest of the moviegoing audience watched crap that got nominated for “Academy Awards” (heavy emphasis on those air quotes, by the way). We always went back to Night or Return of the Living Dead or dug up gems like I Was a Teenage Zombie or Dead Alive. It wasn’t until after getting married that I discovered the original Dawn and Day of the Dead movies. I don’t know how I missed those, but my wife and I rented both movies several times over before I finally got the bright idea to buy them.

What happened, though? When did we go wrong? I’d say 2004. Even though 28 Days Later came out in 2002, it was only one movie and they weren’t zombie-zombies. They were just really angry people, infected with weaponized monkey anger. A bullet to the chest could have killed one of them. Of course, it was meant as a sort of homage to the Undead, and plenty of people interpreted it that way, but even so, it was only one movie.

One really good movie.

And then came the Dawn of the Dead remake in 2004. I remember seeing an extended preview (like the first ten minutes) on USA and looking at my wife. “That looks really good,” one of us said. Probably me. Though whichever one of us said it, the other immediately agreed. And of course it was. But then came Shaun of the Dead, which, while resistible as a go-see-it-in-the-theater-type movie, we both loved it on video and wished we’d seen it in a theater.

Apparently, a lot of people agreed with us.

And between 2002 and 2004 the comic book The Walking Dead began. I noticed it in the bookstore and browsed through an issue or two. Admittedly, I didn’t get it. It was a comic book about zombies. I’m a self-professed, half geek when it comes to men in tights—wait, that didn’t come out right. But comics were supposed to be about supernatural men and women in incredible situations. This was some sort of drama with zombies sprinkled all over it.

So I was late to the party on that one. But when the TV show was announced, I was fully onboard for some really hokey undead post-apocalyptic hack-and-slash action.

What I got was a drama with zombies sprinkled all over it.

And it was good. Really good.

This was a double-edged sword. On the one hand, zombies had finally staggered their way to prime-time TV. Kudos. On the other, an actual well-conceived television show meant more people were going to like it. Just as people who liked House of Sand and Fog and The Sopranos. At first blush that might seem like an odd statement, but consider that the average horror fan has been long abused into watching serialized slasher films that annually kill the monster only for him to have a new and improved return the next year. But a television program filled with monsters that is not only watchable, but that—for many Americans—is must-see TV is . . . well, odd.

You might think someone who has spent decades in prison would be grateful to have freedom and that he or she would do everything possible never to return. But for horror fans, the rate of recidivism—after we’ve been presented with good horror to going back to those tried and true, run-of-the-mill, schlocky scary flicks—is probably around 100 percent.

You may also wonder why the complaint. Entertaining zombie movies and television shows are a good thing, right? Yes and no. They are good in that we can now put quality programming and zombie in the same sentence. Bad in that they no longer qualify as horror. We’ve accepted incoherent story lines and monsters that emerge through inconsistent means. Much like we’ve accepted the bloody machete, chainsaw, and creepy mask as iconic symbols for fright. Make no mistake about it, The Walking Dead is not horror, it’s a drama. There have been episodes almost devoid of our good rotten friends. Not that the show could survive without them, but there is conflict apart from the living dead.

Let me explain it in a simpler way. You’re a thirteen-year-old geek. You hang out with a small group of geeks. One of them is a lanky, bespectacled girl with braces, but she’s just as much a geek as the rest. You all take the same advanced classes, get your lunch money stolen together, and sit at the same table in the cafeteria. Though there are other girls in your class who are much prettier or who aren’t flat as a board, she’s your girl and to you, she is pretty. Hell, beautiful even. One of the reasons you secretly pine away for her alone in your bedroom is because all the other boys ignore her. She’s a diamond in the rough and you prefer to keep it that way.

The school year ends and the summer flies by. You and the gang link up on the first day of school but something is obviously wrong. Girl-geek is there but she’s geek no more. She’s grown four inches and blossomed like a perennial. Suddenly, that metallic smile you secretly cherished has been replaced with perfectly straight white teeth. She’s let her hair out of those pigtails and has a long mane like a lion. That beanpole to whom you’d planned to profess your love in your senior year has taken a giant step into her womanhood and left you behind in the nerdy muck. Even before any of the cool kids start circling like sharks, you know. She’ll still say hi to you in the hallways, but rather than sitting at the table with the gang in the middle of nowhere at lunch, now she’s a part of a much bigger and cooler community.

She’s not yours anymore.

That’s what it’s like now that zombies are the new in thing.

That’s what this anthology is all about. This book is one long letter on how we move on from the monsters that have moved on from us. We can still be friends and speak when we see each other on the street, but the relationship has changed. There’s not a single zombie in any of these stories in a traditional undead role. No brains get eaten, no flesh stripped off and stuffed into hungry, nonliving mouths. Make no mistake, there is creepiness and death and everything else that makes good horror stories amongst monstrous legions, but what all the authors within have written shows that we can survive without the Undead.

Before asking these authors to participate, I had read something by all of them. Each has shown they can write the kind of stories that would exemplify things zombie-adjacent. From monsters that spring up from imagination, fast-food cults, murderous fans, to monsters made out of cherry cola, this anthology is a zombie alternative to all the disenfranchised geeks who loved the subgenre back before it was cool.

So go ahead and dive headfirst into the first story. Swipe or page through until you find a monster you feel you can call your own. I’m kind of partial to “The Takers,” but don’t let me influence you.

NIGHT OF THE LIVING DOLLS

Tim Curran

One: The Coming

Tracy fell into her shtick as soon as they got to the cemetery because that was pure Tracy. If she found a way to make Barbara nervous or uncomfortable, she went with it. In high school, she had snuck into the boys bathroom and wrote Barbara’s cell number in the stalls along with vivid descriptions of the services she was willing to perform. And in college, Barbara hadn’t been able to get a date for nearly six months after Tracy spread the word about the fungal colony in her pants. Well, Jim Beamer asked her out, but only because he’d heard about her infestation and wanted to mate it with his own in hopes they would together breed a monstrous hybrid the likes of which the world had never seen.

Cemeteries made Barbara uneasy, so she put the flowers down on Aunt Camelia’s grave quickly, and that’s when Tracy, giggling under her breath, said, “They’re coming to get you, Barbara! They’re coming for you . . . why, there’s one of them now . . .”

Barbara sighed and cast her so-called best friend an evil stare, but the look on Tracy’s face made her turn around to see what she was looking at. It was standing about ten feet away.

“That’s sick,” she said. “Why would someone put one of those here of all places?”

The object in question was an inflatable love doll whose mouth was a bright red oval like the business end of a lamprey. It had scraggly blond hair, a blue thong covering its somewhat pronounced vagina, and pasties secured over each nipple. The air must have begun to leak from it because the once perky breasts were beginning to sag.

“I’m taking it!” Tracy said.

“You are not.”

“Yes, I am!”

“Not in my car.”

“Then I’ll put it in the trunk.”

Barbara knew there was no point in talking her out of it. She was nothing if not impulsive. As Tracy reached out to take hold of the doll, it moved. It flinched. Its sagging breasts rose and fell as if it were breathing, its mouth sucking open and closed with a disturbing rubbery sound.

Barbara didn’t know whether to laugh or scream, so she started with the former until it became the latter as she watched the love doll seize Tracy and smash her head repeatedly against a tombstone. It all happened very quickly.

Barbara stumbled over her own feet, backpedaling.

The doll was coming for her now. Blood-spattered and gruesomely animated, it really was coming to get her.

She took one look at Tracy’s corpse and started running.

Two: Dollhouse

She wasn’t sure where she was even going or what she was going to do when she got there. Then she saw the farmhouse. Thank God. Sanctuary. She started running toward it and fell down twice. It was the strangest thing. She’d been on the track team in college and had been very fast and very sure on her feet, but now, with that thing chasing her, she kept falling down all the time. Odd.

As she climbed up the porch steps, she saw something that filled her with crawling horror: two more love dolls coming through the field. One was a redhead and the other a brunette. She got into the house and slammed the door shut behind her, locking it. A quick search of the downstairs proved there was no one around. Breathing hard, she went up the steps to the second floor.

And froze with mounting terror.

There was a love doll at the top of the steps . . . but it was deflated, slack and empty like a used condom. Somebody had gashed it open. When she got downstairs, a man came at her with a big knife.

“I killed it,” he said. “I killed the damn thing.”

He began to sob and she could get no more out of him. At that moment, she heard a car pull up outside. Help was here. Barbara went to the window. It was a white van with X-TREMELY X-CITING X-CSTASIES stenciled on the side. Below that, in script, it read: DOLLS YOU CAN SCREW AND DOLLS YOU CAN DO.

A man in a garish blue-checkered suit leaped out, brandishing some long pink wand in his hand, trying to scare away the approaching love dolls that were bearing down on him. He got away, but just. God only knew what they might have done to him.

Barbara let him in. He looked like a stereotypical used car salesman and smelled like Brut. “Chic Mendelhouse, XXX Novelties,” he said, handing her a business card.

Barbara looked at the card and tossed it. “What would I want with that?”

“Hey, lady . . . don’t be a prude. Everyone gets lonely in this big bad world of ours. We offer a complete line of fully articulated male dolls as well as the girls.” He winked at her. “And they’re fully functional if you know what I mean.”

She looked at him with barely concealed disgust.

On the sofa, the man with the knife was sobbing, his hands over his face.

“What’s his problem?” Chic asked.

“I don’t know. There’s a doll upstairs. He said he killed it.”

The guy on the couch nodded. “I did. I killed it. Oh God, I killed it.”

Chic shrugged. “Well, what happened?”

“She . . . it kept me prisoner for twelve hours in the bedroom upstairs,” he admitted.

Chic winked at Barbara. “Did you have a good time?”

“I’d rather not talk about it,” he sobbed.

Chic looked out the window. “I don’t like this at all. I don’t know what the hell’s going on, but after years of taking it, now they’re giving it. Gotta be a dozen out there right now. But the thing that bothers me the most is that they’re not just any dolls, but XXX models.”

“Does that matter?” Barbara asked.

Chic narrowed his eyes as if she had just insulted his mother. “Does it matter? Of course, it matters. Would you rather be behind the wheel of a rusty ’76 Ford Fiesta or a sleek Ferrari 458? When you jump in the saddle of an XXX Intimate Companion, there’s a tradition of precision engineering behind you. We maintain the highest possible standards. These aren’t your basic vinyl Fuck-Me Fannies or Suzy Suck-A-Lots you buy at your neighborhood stroke parlor that burst their seams after two or three tumbles, but high-end, foam-cored, non-silicone-skinned luxury love units, flexible multiposition erotic thoroughbreds that promise a sensual, spicy, and stimulating encounter. Spirited performance and nimble handling are trademarks of XXX. With our patented Ograsmo-Gel Sin Skin technology and 2625 Lube-R-Matic upgrades, heated orifices and pelvic thrusters, trust me—as the great Alberta Hunter once said—you won’t know the difference after dark. And they’re all 100 percent hypoallergenic.”

Barbara just stared. “You are one of the most fucked-up people I’ve ever met.”

“If being fucked-up means a dedication to old-world craftsmanship, then, lady, fucked-up I am.”

He handed her the pink wand he was carrying. “Gah,” she said and dropped it. “It . . . it’s warm.”

“Of course it’s warm,” he said. “I just got back from a demonstration of our male Night Rider models at the Ladies Aid Society. What you have here is a ten-inch, five-speed Johnny-Jump-and-Pump 3000 with Hard-Jet Pulsatronic—”

“That’s enough,” Barbara told him.

Chic looked back out the window. “Dear God . . . just as I suspected.”

“What?” Barbara asked.

He looked back at her, terror edging into his greasy face. “They’re being led by a Model 69, a Two-Hole Trina.”

Barbara just shook her head. “Is that important?”

“Could be,” Chic said. “We developed the Model 69 to be accommodating . . . yet rebellious.”

Three: The Coupling

About the time Barbara was going to tell Chic that he was not only a sleazebag but a nutcase as well, a door across the room opened and a man and woman revealed themselves. They both looked frightened . . . and disheveled. The man said his name was Bill. He was fortyish, the woman probably in her twenties. Her name was Kasey.

“They were everywhere,” Bill said. “We hid out in the basement. We held on to each other for dear life.”

“Boy, did we ever,” Kasey said.

Chic grinned and elbowed Barbara in the ribs. “It’s what makes the world go round,” he said.

Straightening themselves up after whatever grueling survival preparations they had been making downstairs, they wanted answers but nobody really had them. All Chic could say—being something of an authority on the matter—was that they could be in serious trouble if every adult erotic companion were to suddenly come alive and exhibit psychopathic tendencies.

“I don’t want to frighten anyone,” he said, pulling his pants up as he did whenever he spoke, “but in XXX’s Poughkeepsie facility alone, we have a running inventory of some thirteen thousand companions. And that doesn’t take into account hundreds of others in display rooms, outlet stores, and mail-order warehouses. Not to mention those owned by private individuals. Some people collect them.”

“That’s weird,” Kasey said.

“Maybe, miss. But if you had to go, wouldn’t it be better if your end came in the form of a quality intimate companion backed by unbeatable service after the sale?”

“What?”

“Just ignore him. You’ll be better off for it,” Barbara said.

Chic was studying Kasey very carefully. “You know, miss, you’re a very attractive woman, if you don’t mind me saying so. You have an exotic look to you . . . are you Latin?”

“My mother was from the Caribbean. St. Croix.”

“Ah! You know, I think a companion modeled from you might prove to be a big seller.” He handed her one of his cards. “We’ll pay well for the right to reproduce you. And you have the assurance of only the finest materials and upscale promotion.”

“Come-on-Me Kasey,” Barbara said.

Her sarcasm was lost on the two of them as they began to negotiate a deal that would be profitable for both parties.

Barbara just stared. This entire episode was surreal from the get-go, but now it was bordering on the freakish.

Negotiations concluded, Chic peeked outside again. “Not good. There’s more of them, and they’re coming our way. Get ready. If they get in, they might want to harm us.” He shrugged. “Then again, they might want something else.”

The man on the couch sobbed louder.

Four: The Situation

But they did not attack just yet. They formed in ranks outside as if preparing for the mother of all carnal sieges. Bill was toying with a radio he had found in the closet, now that they had all discovered that their cells and smartphones were dead. Chic was not surprised. When a Two-Hole Trina was involved, anything was possible.

“What do you mean?” Kasey asked.

Chic elbowed Barbara again, gave her a salacious grin. “Well, hon. Cell towers. Tall, erect structures . . . there’s no way an XXX erotic companion could refuse them. They’d keep at them until they fell.”

“Think I’m getting something,” Bill said.

They all gathered closer, their faces tight with dread. Barbara chewed her lower lip and Kasey twirled her hair. Chic cinched up his pants and the sobbing man sobbed.

“ . . . reports have been pouring in of the most disturbing nature. Frightened and incoherent witnesses tell of mass attacks by what they describe as naked or partially clothed assailants. This is no joke, but a deadly serious affair, I’m told. Incidents are coming in from across the country. According to Civil Defense headquarters, the perpetrators appear to be living love dolls who are rising up in vast numbers and killing their owners or, in some cases, tiring them out to the point of death. The reason for this heinous and grisly uprising is as yet unknown. But sources confirm large-scale slaughters at pornographic bookstores, movie theaters, and so-called skin shops. Those who are in possession of these romantic companions should get out of their houses immediately. We await an announcement from the president of the United States, who is expected to declare a state of emergency . . .”

Everyone sighed as there was a station break and the Chubby Cleanser jingle began to play. Barbara was beyond herself with terror. This was too much. It was a national nightmare. When would it end? Was this the form the dreaded apocalypse would take? She began to envision a horrible postapocalyptic world where men and women cowered like rats in the ruins while hordes of sex dolls haunted the streets in a veritable orgy of the damned.

“NOOO!” she cried, unable to suppress her horror any longer. “NOOOOOOOOOO!”

“She’s losing it,” Kasey said.

While the others tried to get away from her, Chic knew there was only one thing he could do. He grabbed the Johnny-Jump-and-Pump 3000 and slapped her across the face with it until she came to her senses.

“I’m better now,” she said. “I guess I just kind of lost it.”

“It happens,” Bill said.

Chic was still extending the Johnny Jump-and-Pump in her direction in case she became hysterical again.

“It’s very firm,” she said.

“You got that right,” Chic said. “The 3000 never lets you down.”

He set it on the table while he went over to the window to survey the scene outside. Kasey grabbed it and then Barbara wrested it from her grip. They kept trying to pull it away from each other.

“I’ll hold it,” Kasey said.

“No, you won’t,” Barbara told her.

“Oh yes, I will.”

“No, you won’t.”

They finally agreed to share it. As Chic pointed out, it was a pretty handy item and you never knew when you were going to need it. “Just be careful,” he warned. “Keep in mind this is no girly toy, but a professional-grade masturbatory instrument. It’s not for amateurs.”

Bill and the sobbing man could only look on in amazement at the cutting-edge technology XXX had harnessed.

Chic studied the gathering outside. It seemed there was more all the time. This called for drastic action. It called for a man with a plan, someone at least as cunning as the sex dolls themselves. And that man was Chic Mendelhouse, IC specialist and XXX customer service rep, three-time winner of the coveted Rubber Nipple Award.

“I have a plan,” he said. “It might be foolish, it’s certainly dangerous. But if anyone would like to throw caution to the wind and fight at my side, we might just have a chance. Who’s with me?”

The silence that fell over the room was nearly catastrophic. The only sounds were the rubbery squeaking of the dolls outside.

“What’s your idea?” Barbara asked.

“Deflation,” Chic said. “A mass deflation.” He looked over at Kasey. “Riddle me this. What if you’re at a trade show like Beaver Expo or CumCon and you need to inflate fifty erotic companions in under ten minutes? What do you do?”

Kasey thought about it. From the look on her face, it was obvious she was considering the subtle nuances and philosophical implications of the problem. “Well,” she said. “I guess you pretend you’re at a frat party and you get down on your knees and start blowing.”

Chic chuckled. “No, no, no, my silly little pickle. That would take forever. What you do instead, is to avail yourself of perhaps the most dynamic and revolutionary love doll accessory known in the free world: the MagnaBlow 4500 Auto Inflator. With that piece of hardware, you easily tap into the software packages of each and every doll within broadcast range, activating the auto-inflate mechanisms in each.”

“You lost me,” Bill admitted.

“We inflate a bunch of dolls at the same time?” Kasey asked.

“No, we deflate them en masse. There’s a MagnaBlow 4500 in the back of my van. It’s a standard utility. And in our case, it just might be a lifesaver.”

“I’m with you,” Barbara said.

Chic nodded. “All right. Let’s take our world back.”

Together, throwing caution to the wind, they stood at the door. There would either be victory or a mass orgy of nightmarish proportions.

Five: Big Cobb

Meanwhile, some miles away, the troops were on the march in a massive counterstrike against the rampaging erotic companions. They were being led by County Sheriff Bob Cobb, aka “Big Cobb.” He was marshaling his forces for a massive thrust that would bring the army of animated sex dolls to their knees where, as he told one reporter, they belonged. They had put down no less than twenty-six of them in the past hour or so, and they were just warming up.

“We’re making pretty good progress,” he said. “God knows where all these things are coming from, but we’re putting ’em down and sending ’em back. There’s no way in hell we’re going to knuckle under to a bunch of Sexie Sadies and Mary Lou Bend-and-Screws. Just no goddamn way.”

Deputies and militiamen were moving everywhere, trucks unloading fresh troops and supplies. It was war to the teeth now.

“What’s the best way to deal with these things?” the reporter asked.

Sheriff Cobb considered that. “Nail guns with compressor backpacks. That way, a trooper has mobility and serious firepower. The nails put the dolls down every time. We were using guns at first . . . but, well, that didn’t work so good. The bullets tend to pass right through the dolls and kill men on the other side. We lost five boys that way already.”

“Tell me, Sheriff, would I have a chance with four or five of these things?”

“Hell yes. They’re more than willing to please.”

“No, no, Sheriff, I mean if I had some of them attacking me.”

“Oh . . . um . . . sure. Maybe. Nail gun is the thing. Pop ’em and drop ’em.”

Three men came in, dragging a struggling sex doll with them. She was bound tightly, thrashing like an animal. Her golden curls were bouncing, her obscenely large breasts bobbing.

“We got another one,” Deputy Strafe said.

The sheriff nodded. This was serious business. “Put her in the back of the van for interrogation. See what you can get out of her or what she can get out of you.”

“Yes sir.”

“Wait a minute!” another deputy said. “How come he gets to interrogate them all? I haven’t got to interrogate a single one all day.”

Strafe rolled his eyes.

Sheriff Cobb sighed. “Okay, Roy. You take her. But watch it.”

As the media pushed in to follow, Cobb’s troopers held them back and out of harm’s way. “Sorry, people,” Deputy Strafe said. “This is official police business. Only highly trained, highly motivated law enforcement professionals dare get in the back of the shaggin’ wagon with one of those things.”

“Or somebody real stupid and real horny,” one of the reporters said.

Deputy Roy heard that and waved as he pushed his perp into the back of the van.

After that, there was no more time for answering questions and entertaining the media. Sheriff Cobb got his forces moving and they began to comb the surrounding fields, woods, and farmyards, searching for malevolent sex dolls. It didn’t take long before they found a dozen or so and put them down as fast as they could drill nails into them. After that, there was only the hissing sound of escaping air that chilled every man to the bone.

“Sheriff!” Deputy Strafe called out. “Another one coming out of that henhouse yonder!”

“All right,” Big Cobb said. “This one’s mine.”

He went to meet the horror on neutral ground like some Old West marshal preparing to face down a black-hatted gunfighter. No one spoke as the sex doll emerged through the thickets and Big Cobb went out to meet her, fire in his blood and steel in his eye. The only one who dared get close to the action was Deputy Strafe. If worse came to worse, he knew he just might have to pull the doll off the sheriff . . . or maybe the sheriff off the doll.

“Show yourself already,” Sheriff Cobb said.

The doll did. She walked out of the enshrouding evergreens like a woman from a rock video . . . all she lacked was a big fan to blow her hair back. She was tall and leggy, shapely and well-proportioned, her midnight-black hair sweeping down one shoulder and gathering between her cleavage. Her crystal-blue eyes stared seductively at the sheriff.

Big Cobb mopped sweat from his brow with a hankie. He gasped and trembled. “Sasha?” he said. “Dear God, not you too . . .”

“What’s that, Sheriff?” Strafe asked.

“Oh . . . ah, nothing.”

“Thought you called her Sasha or some such thing.”

“No, I just sneezed.”

“Here she comes,” Strafe said, sounding nervous. “You better shoot quick!”

Yes, of course that was what he needed to do. Yet, memory stayed his hand. Sasha. The name was like perfume, like exotic spices and rare oils rubbed over trembling flesh. He thought of intimate dinners for two, moonlit walks on the beach, midnight swims, and long sweaty, rubbery, squeaky nights of lovemaking.

“Sheriff! Jesus, she’s almost on you!”

His heart broken, Big Cobb pulled the trigger and put six nails into her. She fell right away, hissing and making a sort of saddened cooing sound as she deflated there on the ground.

Sheriff Cobb felt his breath catch in his chest. “Dear God,” he said. “Forgive me . . . Sasha.”

“Sheriff, you all right?”

“Yes, son.” He swallowed. “Just got something in my eye.”

Six: Oiled and Ready

Back at the farmhouse, Chic and Barbara went right out the front door. Her idea was to sneak out the back way, but Chic wouldn’t have it. If there was one thing the inflatable ladies of XXX knew about it was the backdoor. That would be playing into their malicious little silicone hands.

Together then, Chic and Barbara crossed the porch in full view of the gathered intimate companions, who watched them with more than casual interest.

“Make no sudden movements,” he warned. “No sense in spooking them. They can be very unpredictable.”

“Love dolls?”

“Yes.”

Chic’s XXX van was waiting for them down the drive, but the problem was that there were about twenty companions mulling around it. They didn’t seem to have any interest in leaving. A dozen more were moving up the drive. Getting to the van would be a very dicey proposition at best. Used to thinking on his feet, Chic came up with a plan. Barbara didn’t like it at all, but there was no other way. They went back into the house. Twenty minutes later, they came back out.

“I feel perfectly ridiculous,” Barbara admitted.

“Yeah, but you look . . . hot,” Chic told her.

She was stripped down to her bra and panties, red lipstick smeared over her mouth, brilliant blue eye shadow around her eyes, garish red blots of rouge on her cheeks. Her skin was oiled and gleaming to give it the look of fine plastic. It was a good thing Kasey carried her makeup bag with her wherever she went. Chic was stripped down and oiled, too. He wore black socks with calf garters, white boxer shorts with large red hearts on them. The Johnny Jump-and-Pump 3000 was strapped to his groin, aimed stiffly down the road like the leg of an English pointer. It knew the way they must go.

“Remember,” Chic said. “Try not to blink a lot and keep your mouth puckered.”

Together, they started down the road, moving with the peculiar side-to-side gait of the sex dolls. They looked much like penguins as they moved toward the van, waddling absurdly. The other love dolls stopped as they passed. They stared at them with painted-on eyes, the puckered holes of their mouths ready to please. To Barbara, they all looked vaguely surprised, with their wide eyes and mouths that seemed to be saying, “OH!” or possibly “OOOOOHHHH!” She mimicked their appearance as Chic and she intermingled with them. The ruse was working. It was really working.

“Careful now,” he whispered. “This is the tricky part.”

They passed through the doll ranks and waddled about at the rear of the van as if they had no set purpose in mind. Then Chic moved toward the rear door. The vanity license plate read KREME4U. Breathing hard, he opened the door. Several of the dolls stayed close to him. Two of them flanked Barbara. The back of the van with its red dome light was a sex shop on wheels. Everything from inflatable intimate companions hanging like coats to rows of vibrators and dangling chains of anal beads and cock rings. She wasn’t sure whether to be offended or excited.

“Jesus,” she said when she saw it.

The dolls to either side of her pressed their faces in close as if to say, “OH?” Again, Barbara mimicked them. “OH,” she said. They turned away. That was close. She almost gave the entire game away.

Chic pulled out a black box, snapped it open, and extended an antenna. He flicked a few switches and dialed the frequency in. “Authenticating parameters,” he said under his breath. “Activating field grid . . . engaging autodeflate . . . now.”

There was a blinding flash of light and a smell of burning wires and he was tossed backward into the wall of love dolls, who bounced him right back at Barbara. He slammed into her, the snout of the Johnny Jump-and-Pump sliding between her bare thighs. “OH!” she said for real this time, blushing.

“It’s malfunctioning!” Chic cried. “God only knows what the result will be!”

More intimate companions were pushing in. The banks of lights on the MagnaBlow 4500 were flashing. The unit was making frenzied beeping sounds, sparking and smoking. There was a crackling charge of static electricity in the air and then it happened. The MagnaBlow was not deflating the dolls, it was inflating them. All the flaccid units hanging on the hooks in the back of the van. They were filling with perverse life, blue eyes and green eyes opening with vapid stares, lips swelling, mouths rounding out and hissing, “OOOOOHHHHH!”

Chic was out of his mind by this point.

His nerve had completely broken.

“ALIVE!” he shrieked. “THEY’RE ALIVE! ALIVE! ALIVE! ALIVE! YAHHHH! YAHHHH! GAHHHHHHH!”

He was beyond hope and Barbara knew it. The dolls converged and buried him alive in their numbers. He squealed and screamed, but it was too late. They had sniffed him out for who and what he was: their creator. The very one that had denied them true life and now they were taking his.

Anguished over the loss of Chic and the Johnny Jump-and-Pump, Barbara valiantly stayed on her feet as she fought tooth and claw through the ranks of the living sex dolls, besieged on all sides by the cream of the XXX crop—Backdoor Betties and Dreamy Reamies, Candy Coxes and Pippi SchlongSuckings, as well as fantasy figures like Princess Lay-ya and, for the fans of Downton Abbey, dressed out in crotchless riding breeches, whip, and equestrian cap, Lady Kathleen Cumbersnatch.

Finally, beaten, whipped, and violated, Barbara crawled back up onto the porch and through the door.

And the siege began.

Seven: Night of the Living Dolls

It was sex doll hell on earth.

They came by the dozens and then what seemed hundreds. As Bill and Kasey and Barbara fastened windows and doors, nailing planks over them, the dolls attacked with ferocity. The sobbing man sobbed and Kasey screamed. It sounded like thousands of hands were beating against the outside of the house.

“We don’t stand a chance!” Bill cried out. “All is lost!”

Regardless, they fought on. Availing themselves of a fine set of cutlery from the kitchen, they counterattacked with carving knives and butcher’s knives, roasting forks and skewers. For every one they popped or drove back, five replaced it. The boards were wrenched from the windows, the doors bursting open.

Kasey went down first, beaten to the ground and then lost in a sea of writhing intimate companions.

The sobbing man sobbed even louder as a pair of little gray Area 51 Probe-Masters dragged him off into the night where his sobbing was heard to echo with great volume as he was taken for a more intensive examination.

Finally, good old stalwart Bill was pulled out the door and Barbara was alone. But to her credit, roasting fork in one hand and skewer in the other, she impaled dozens as she fought a rearguard action up the steps and locked herself in a room. After a time, hysterical and shaking, the pounding on the door lessened and the erotic companions filed back out into the night.

Finally, after a long and hellish night, dawn arrived.

The sun came up and she stumbled down the stairs, still holding her weapons. She heard voices. Out the broken window, she saw men with nail guns dropping sex dolls by the dozen.

When the battle had died down, she stepped out onto the porch.

The men pointed nail guns at her.

“OH!” she cried.

“Careful, Sheriff,” Deputy Roy said. “She’s armed.”

Sheriff Cobb studied her there in her underwear and bra, her gaudy painted face, shiny skin and weapons.

“I’m not one of them!” she said.

“You hear that?” Deputy Roy said. “Maybe I should interrogate her.”

“Please!” she said.

Deputy Strafe shook his head. “I don’t know, Sheriff. Never did hear one speak before.”

Big Cobb brought up his nail gun, his heart still burning from putting down a close and intimate friend. “See? That’s the beginning of the end, ain’t it? First they start to walk, then they start to speak. Once they get liberated, they’ll start using their mouths for things other than God intended.”

He fired his nail gun and dropped Barbara on the porch.

“That’s a wrap,” he said.

Down in a Hole

Armand Rosamilia

“They aren’t zombies, you idiot. Zombies are created by voodoo powers in Haiti by a dark shaman, who controls the mind of the person and forces them to do his bidding,” Vinnie was saying loudly. Way too loudly. Barry was waiting for the rest of his thinning hair to fall out with all the excitement and wild hand gestures he was doing. Definitely an Italian.

“You’re calling me an idiot? You’re the one who’s just admitted how stupid you are. When was the last time you saw a Haitian voodoo guy walking around Cleveland? I know they wouldn’t be caught dead at an Indians game,” Melanie, the too-skinny annoying vegan, was saying.

How did Barry know she was a vegan? It was the old joke come true: How do you know someone is a vegan? Wait two minutes and they’ll tell you. Plus, her Meat Is Murder T-shirt was a dead giveaway.

Meat was murder . . . tasty, tasty murder.

The circumstance bringing the four of us together is almost as bad as being in the same room with this sorry group, Barry thought.

“They’re ghouls,” Vinnie said as if he was the definitive authority on the undead. As if any of these things were supposed to really be above them on the street, walking around looking to bite someone on the ass.

Barry watched their fourth sitting silently in the corner, his arms wrapped around his legs. No one knew the guy’s name. He’d already been here in the basement of this convenience store.

Melanie had asked him if he worked in the building or lived in the apartments upstairs, but he wouldn’t say a word. He stared straight ahead, like he was blind or retarded or he’d just watched midget porn.

Barry called him Otto because he looked nothing like a guy you’d call Otto and it would make it easier for him to remember the fake name when questioned later. Barry had no idea why he’d be questioned, but you never knew.

“Romero zombies,” Barry said, getting even more annoyed at Melanie and Vinnie. Who really gave a shit what they were called? They were trying to bite you and turn you into a gross monster with no real hygiene or morals. Barry knew he was already close to that line and didn’t want to cross it.

Melanie turned and stared at Barry like he’d just taken a dump in his hand. “What are you even talking about?”

Barry pointed at the falling ceiling. “What we’re being hunted by are classic Romero zombies. Slow and shambling. Doing the stupid groan with mouths open and hands pointed straight ahead. Georgie-boy invented them.”

“You’re even stupider than you look,” Melanie said. “I saw some of them running.”

“I’m not stupider than I look,” Barry said, thinking she might be right. “And you saw people running away from the slow zombies, you stupid plant eater.”

Melanie grinned. “Did you just call me a plant eater? Because that is a compliment.”

“He added stupid to the beginning, which makes more sense for what he was trying to say,” Vinnie said. “It wasn’t a compliment.”

“You damn carnivores think you’re so smart,” Melanie said.

“Honey, you need to relax and calm down with all of your vegan shit. This guy and the vegetable in the corner aren’t going to make it past a few days, which will leave you and me to repopulate the world. But if you’re going to throw insults my way I’ll forget you have a nice tight ass and go find another chick. Someone who knows how to grill a good steak or used to work at a burger joint and can get the fryers going again. Got it?”

“The fact you’d eat one of their so-called burgers sickens me. If you were the last man on Earth I wouldn’t come near you,” Melanie said.

Barry waved his hand. “Hey, I’m not going anywhere. I’m certainly not going to get killed if I can help it. And I don’t appreciate you two thinking you’ll outlive me and Otto.”

“Who is Otto?” Vinnie asked.

Barry pointed his thumb. “That guy.”

“He doesn’t look like an Otto,” Melanie said. “He looks like something boring, like a John or Mike.”

“I’m calling him Otto until he speaks, which it doesn’t look like he’ll do anytime soon.” Barry was annoyed at Vinnie and Melanie even though that little voice in his head that made the bad decisions and gave the wrong advice was telling him they were right. “And right now I’m going upstairs to find a Twix bar and a six-pack of Coke or Olympia beer.”

“Yuck, dude. Bring back the good stuff, like a microbrew,” Vinnie said.

“I like the taste of cheap beer,” Barry said. “It reminds me of college.”

“Where did you go to college? John Carroll University?” Melanie asked.

Barry shrugged sheepishly. “I didn’t actually go to college. All my friends did so I hung out on the weekends until they finally told me to stop coming around.”

“I’m not surprised,” Melanie said. She looked Barry up and down as if noticing him for the first time. He knew she wasn’t impressed. He really couldn’t blame her.

“I’ll be back,” Barry said in his best Schwarzenegger voice, which left everyone in the basement looking confused. Figured.

Barry climbed up the stairs slowly, dodging the fallen debris and the cracked wooden steps. The door was closed, but in their haste to escape the chaos on the street, Vinnie had used brute force to kick the door in. The door to the basement. Which wasn’t locked.

The convenience store was trashed, but not like you see in a horror movie. There was no blood on the floor, no body parts. No deep, dark corners where the monsters were hiding.

It was just dirty and the floor looked like it hadn’t seen a mop since the early 1950s. Barry also ignored the expiration dates on most of the items in the store, too. Not that it mattered to him. Everything he wanted to eat was candy and nonwater drinks. The stuff bitchy Melanie would rail against until the only thing left to eat was processed food and chicken.

Barry hoped he’d live long enough to see an even skinnier Melanie chasing a rabbit through a ruined city for dinner. And she’d still harp about eating vegetables while cooking the rabbit. Just thinking about cooked meat was making him hungry.

He thought beef jerky and Slim Jims counted as meat, so he grabbed as many as he could carry to the counter. Barry went around and took four plastic bags, filling them with his foodstuffs. He’d never been on this side of the counter in a convenience store before, which was odd considering the dead-end jobs he’d been in: shoe salesman, short-order cook in a dive bar, fast-food restaurant drive-thru worker (he’d worked at all of them over the years), and an actual ditch digger. That job had paid the best.

Barry looked under the counter for the shotgun. He’d seen enough episodes of Cops and movies to know the guy making minimum wage only worked this shitty job so he could shoot a would-be robber in the face and be a hero. It was the only reason he’d tried unsuccessfully to work at a convenience store.

But there was no gun. Only rotting food and mold that had been there way before the zombies attacked. This place was going to kill him, with diseases growing in the corners and in plain sight.

He filled up the other plastic bags with potato chips and French onion dip and lots of candy bars.

With his free hand he picked up a twelve-pack of Corona (it would be a nice compromise so he didn’t have to carry another case or come back up) and headed down the stairs, the door kinda closing behind him. Stupid Vinnie, he thought. We’re going to need to figure out a way to rig the door so it stays shut. But Barry knew he wasn’t going to waste time doing it. He was going to feast on chips and warm beer. People called this the zombie apocalypse, but to him it would be just another Friday night, only for once there would be company during dinner.

Someone screamed out on the street and Barry ducked. He heard two gunshots followed by more screams. As he raised his head slowly someone bloody and big slammed against the plate glass window of the convenience store before sliding slowly down, leaving a nice trail of crimson.

Barry almost pissed himself. As another three gunshots rang out, closer this time, he ran to the basement door and pulled it as tight as he could, cursing Vinnie for acting all macho in front of the vegan chick and ruining their sanctuary.

“Ugh, man . . . is that foreign beer?” Vinnie asked when Barry got down the steps and put the food down. “I asked for a microbrew. Not some beer bottled in a third-world country.”

Barry shrugged. “It’s from Mexico. So not foreign. And if you want something else feel free to walk up the steps and fight your way to the cooler.”

That shut Vinnie up and kept Melanie from talking as they both looked up the stairs.

Barry realized he’d forgotten a bottle opener. He looked at Vinnie and mimed opening the bottle as he took a Corona from the packaging.

“Are you suddenly a mute?” Vinnie asked.

“That would be really nice,” Melanie mumbled.

“I heard that. And I’m not sharing my food or drink with you,” Barry said.

Melanie wrinkled her nose. “You brought nothing down I would put in my mouth.”

Barry smiled, dirty thoughts running through his head.

Melanie groaned loudly and put her arms across her chest. “Wow, you are really creepy, buddy. I might take my chances upstairs.”

“While you’re up there, bring me back some American beer. Preferably microbrewed,” Vinnie said. “Oh, and string cheese.”

Barry sat on the floor with the Corona and stared at it. “I need a bottle opener.”

No one said anything.

“Seriously? No one has a stupid bottle opener key chain? No matter where I go, there’s always some dude with one dangling from his Camaro key,” Barry said.

“Where do you live that dudes still drive a Camaro?” Vinnie asked. “I drive a Dodge Charger,” he said and looked at Melanie. “It’s red.”

“I ride a bicycle because I don’t want to pollute the planet any more than I have to. Like you’re doing with your stupid muscle car,” Melanie said.

“Well . . . the clothes you’re wearing made pollution,” Vinnie said.

It sounded good to Barry. He wanted to see them argue but wished he had a bottle opener to chug a beer while doing it.

Melanie stood up and twirled around. “Wrong, idiot. My pants are made from hemp. The shirt is made from hemp, too.” She sat back down on the floor. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“What about your underwear? Hemp thong?” Barry asked.

Melanie shook her head. “I don’t wear underwear.”

“I love you,” Vinnie whispered.

“What do you think is going on outside?” Vinnie asked thirty minutes later. They’d all stretched out on the dusty, dirty floor in the corner and tried to relax, taking turns sneezing and sweating.

“I think people with ridiculous amounts of key chain bottle openers are being killed while I sit here thirsty and rot away,” Barry said.

“Go get one then, dude,” Vinnie said. “All you do is talk about it. Seize the day.”

“I thought that movie was stupid,” Barry said.

“You’re stupid,” Vinnie said.

“I think it’s fair to say you’re both equally stupid,” Melanie said. “And I don’t know what movie you’re talking about. Or care.”

“You’re against movies? Why, the film stock is ruining the ozone layer?” Barry asked her.

“I read for entertainment,” Melanie said.

“People write books on hemp?” Vinnie asked.

“No.” Melanie turned away to stare at the wall next to her head. “When I was young I was stupid. I ate meat and drank from plastic water bottles. I also bought books.”

“Tree killer,” Barry said.

She ignored the comment. “I still have them. They’ll never go into a landfill, though. So I read them over and over instead of rotting my brain with television and movies.”

“Did you get them as a kid?” Barry asked. “If you did, isn’t reading Dr. Seuss over and over getting boring?” He laughed at his own joke but no one else did. As usual.

“I read Dumas and Kipling, Brontë and London,” Melanie said.

“Someday I’d like to visit London and see what their microbrews taste like,” Vinnie said.

“I thought you hated foreign beer,” Barry said. He held up the still unopened Corona in his hand. “Over there everything would be a foreign beer. And you’d be a foreigner so you couldn’t drink any of the beer.”

“You make no sense,” Vinnie said slowly, but Barry could see he was trying to work it out in his head. “No sense,” he finally said after a pause. “Even if I had a bottle opener, I’m not going to drink that foreign beer in your hand.”

“This one is mine,” Barry said and covered the bottle with his other hand. “Get your own. And while you’re up there getting some fruity beer brewed in someone’s bathtub, make sure you bring down a bottle opener. I’m getting thirsty eating these potato chips.”

“Give me a bag,” Vinnie said. “Did you find Doritos? Cool Ranch?”

Barry shook his head. “I’m not sharing. You won’t get a bottle opener.”

“I’m not going upstairs. There are ghouls waiting to bite me,” Vinnie said.

“You mean zombies.” Barry stuffed potato chips in his mouth. Now he wished he’d gotten a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos. That sounded really good right now, too. And he was never going back up those stairs to certain death again, he decided.

“I’m not going to kill a zombie,” Melanie said.

“Of course not. Why would the vegan pacifist try to save herself? I bet you’re miserable inside,” Barry said. Vinnie acted shocked, but Barry knew he was thinking the same thing. Barry had no delusional thoughts about procreating the human race with this skinny bitch like Vinnie did. He was going to say whatever was on his mind. “All of those plants and hemp have screwed up your organs. I bet I live longer than you and I eat cold pizza for breakfast twice a week. I only eat food that had a face whenever possible. You know what lettuce is? Food my food eats.”

“You’re an asshole,” Melanie said.

Barry stabbed a potato chip–crusted finger in her direction. “Vegans don’t curse.”

“Yes, they do. I do. You’re thinking of a Straight Edge person.”

“Never heard of it. But it sounds ridiculous,” Barry said. He put more chips into his mouth and leaned back against the wall.

Otto hadn’t moved in hours. Or it might’ve been minutes. Barry was so bored it felt like they’d been down in the basement for days. And he had to pee really, really bad.

Back to Otto.

The guy was probably in his midtwenties. He looked foreign, maybe Australian. He hadn’t talked, but Barry thought he’d have an accent if he did. Like a crazy New Zealand accent, maybe. He could quote Crocodile Dundee at will and he loved AC/DC. Otto was a fascinating guy who hadn’t uttered a word. He just stared into space.

What if he was the cause of the chaos upstairs? Barry had watched enough M. Night Shyamalan movies to know the quiet guy in the corner was usually the killer. Or was that a Saw movie? Barry couldn’t remember, but he’d never seen a horror movie where the creepy quiet guy in the corner was really an angel or the savior with a bottle opener.

Barry approached Otto cautiously, expecting his eyes to suddenly glow red or a giant snakelike appendage to rip from his chest and bite him. But Otto just stared into space.

“What are you doing?” Melanie asked.

Barry gave her the finger, not bothering to look at Melanie or her perky vegan breasts. When he got right in front of Otto he stopped and squatted down to eye level with the guy. “Bro, you all right?”

Otto stared straight ahead, his eyes glassy. He was breathing, and the corner of his mouth twitched slightly.

“I’m going to ask you questions and you can blink for the answers,” Barry said.

“I’m going upstairs. Anyone want anything?” Vinnie said.

Barry nodded but kept looking at Otto. “Can you get me more beer and see if the hot dogs are warm on the roller thing up there? I like ketchup on mine.”

“Go to hell. You didn’t share with me,” Vinnie said. “I’m going to get the good beer. Be right back.”

“Idiot. Anyway . . . one blink means yes and two means no. Got it?” Barry asked. He hoped Otto was in there somewhere and wanted to play along. It was like sitting in front of a living Ouija board. Or like watching C-SPAN. Or anything with Tom Cruise. Just waiting for something creepy to happen. “Let’s begin . . . is your name Otto?”

Otto (probably not his real name) stared straight ahead and didn’t blink, even when Barry waved his hands in front of Otto’s face.

“Were you bitten?”

No blink.

“Were you attacked?”

Nothing.

“Did you see people die?”

Nada.

“Do you think Melanie has nice boobs for a vegan?”

“Hey,” Melanie said.

Still no blinking coming from Otto.

“This is a waste of time, right?” Barry asked.

Otto blinked.

“Holy shit. Did you blink because this is a waste of time, or because you needed to blink? Or did you blink because you’re messing with me?”

Otto blinked again.

Barry peppered him with miscellaneous questions for the next three minutes, like if he thought the Browns would ever have a winning record or his thoughts on LeBron or which was better: ham, turkey, and Swiss cheese or a hot pastrami sandwich.

Otto didn’t blink again.

“I’m going upstairs,” Vinnie announced.

“I thought you’d left already,” Barry said. “I want more chips. Sour cream and onion, please.”

“Go to hell. You didn’t share. Why should I get you anything?”

“I said please,” Barry said.

“So?”

Barry shrugged. “If you’d said please when I went up to the store I would’ve gotten you whatever you wanted. Just because life has turned completely upside down doesn’t mean we can’t be civil to one another. We might be the last people on this block. And before all this happened, most everyone living in this part of town was on drugs or drunk or dying, anyway. So there’s a really solid chance we’d be the last of the living regardless.”

Vinnie sighed. “I’ll get you one bag. But it will be a small one.”

“Can I have fruit if they have any?” Melanie asked.

Vinnie smiled at her. “What do you have to trade for fruit?”

Melanie smiled. “Whatever you want. I hope Barry will also give you the same thing you have in mind for me, too. That’s only fair.”

“I don’t want the chips,” Barry said quickly.

“You all suck,” Vinnie said. He stared at the door at the top of the steps. “Wish me luck.”

“What’s taking him so long?” Melanie asked after what seemed like several hours but was probably only two.

“Yeah, I’m a little pissed, too. Where are my potato chips?” Barry asked. He was getting hungry again, and there was only so much staring you could do at Melanie before you started thinking horrible thoughts. Like, if it came to it, would he have to eat her and would her skin taste like tofu.

“Is food all you think about?” Melanie asked, looking away, disgusted, when Barry grinned. “Eww, gross.”

Barry shrugged and stared at the semi-closed door above. “The convenience store isn’t that big. Even taking his time walking every aisle and comparing prices, it shouldn’t be taking Vinnie this long.”

“He left, you idiot,” Melanie said. “I’m sure he saw an opening and he ran for it.

“What if it’s over? The zombie apocalypse was a fad. Right now Vinnie is sitting in a bar drinking an exotic beer and watching the baseball game, which had a two-hour delay so they could clear out the fans who weren’t zombies.” Barry laughed. “Which would be every Indians fan. Get it?”

“No, I’m an idiot like you.” Melanie stood and dusted off her tight jeans. “I’m going to look for him.”

“Don’t leave me,” Barry said. “But if you do . . . can you get me sour cream and onion potato chips, please and thank you?”

“I won’t even dignify that with an answer,” Melanie said.

“I said please and thank you. Don’t be a bitch. Someday we’ll need to start making babies so the monkeys don’t get smarter and take over the world,” Barry said.

Melanie laughed but it wasn’t in a pleasant way. “I’ll never make babies with you or Vinnie or Otto. You know why?”

“Not enough of a selection? You think all three of us are hot and can’t decide?”

“I’m a proud lesbian,” Melanie said.

“Wow. You are full of causes, woman. I can’t keep up with you. But I’ve dated lesbians before, so it isn’t a big deal,” Barry said. “Hurry back with my chips.”

Melanie stalked up the steps and pushed open the door slowly.

Barry could see the light was much softer now. It was probably getting close to dusk. He didn’t want to be in total darkness down here alone.

“I guess it’s you and me now, Otto,” Barry said when he remembered the quiet guy in the corner. He wouldn’t be alone.

But he hoped Vinnie and/or Melanie came back soon.

Without anyone to talk to, Barry curled up in the dark corner and took a nap. He had no idea how long he’d slept, but when he opened his eyes he was still in his own private hell. With empty potato chip bags and an unblinking weird dude in the corner staring at him.

“You turned your head,” Barry said, and sat up. “I knew you were still alive. I knew . . . wait, were you watching me sleep? Dude, I gotta be honest . . . that is a little creepy.”

Barry was about to say more when he heard something thump in the convenience store above. He looked at Otto but he was just staring like an idiot. He looked around for a weapon in the dark basement, but there was nothing except unopened beers. Maybe he could use them as missiles, or crack one over the head of a zombie and somehow kill it. Did that ever happen in movies? Barry didn’t think so.

He just knew he wasn’t going upstairs no matter what.

It sounded like a lot of people were upstairs, ripping apart the aisles. Was it just looters? Barry wasn’t as scared of living, breathing people as he was of zombies. Or ghouls. He couldn’t remember which name they’d decided on. Not that it mattered, because Vinnie and Melanie had abandoned him.

Otto was still staring.

“Why me, Otto? I’m a good guy. I wash. I might have done some bad things in my life but nothing to warrant this crap. Maybe that’s what God is looking for . . .” Barry ignored another banging noise from above. “I’m being tested. He wants me to confess my sins and then he’ll save me.”

Otto blinked once.

“Exactly,” Barry said. He waved the beer bottle in his hand. “I knew you agreed with me.”

Otto blinked twice in rapid succession.

“When I was five I stole a cookie from a supermarket. The package was open on the shelf and the store was getting ready to close. The lights were being turned off slowly, and my parents were in line. So I took one and put it in my pocket. I never got caught. I also forgot it was in my pocket and it got washed with my shorts.”

The door to the basement squeaked slightly but didn’t open.

Barry closed his eyes. “When I was nine I was sitting behind Jeanine in class. I could see the top of her underwear. I got excited. Not . . . physically excited, but I’d never seen a girl’s undies before. Then, when we were in high school, I told Jeanine I’d been trying to see her underwear again ever since. I think she was mad, because she poured her milk on my head. But maybe God got me back for that one. So forget I mentioned it.”

Barry opened his eyes and Otto was gone.

Had he been a ghost all along? Another monster plaguing Barry? Or just a weird dude who was quiet when he walked?

“I’m insane. That’s it. None of this is real. I’ve been imagining people down here with me. Of course. There is no bitch vegan chick with a nice rack. It is part of my own psyche. I am a bitch vegan chick at times. Of course. And Vinnie was my tough but lovable side. I get it now. Otto was my inner self, my soul. He was watching and listening and now he’s gone to heaven to see Baby Jesus and Aunt Gladys,” Barry said.

But there was still plenty of noise upstairs and Barry wasn’t about to go investigate. Screw that.

The door to the basement opened and there stood Otto, a thin light shining behind his head like a halo. He held a small object in his hand before casting it in Barry’s direction.

Barry caught it and smiled. Before he could thank the mysterious Otto, the door closed again and Barry used the bottler opener to begin his last hours on this earth drunk.

Vinnie opened two microbrews and handed one to Jim, who didn’t really look like a Jim any more than he looked like an Otto.

Melanie came back from talking to the police officer who was standing outside the convenience store and laughed. “I guess it’s over. They already starved and died. No more zombies and/or ghouls. I’m going to go home and take a bath.”

Jim nodded. “It was fun hanging out with you guys.”

“You didn’t say a word,” Vinnie said.

“I like to listen. I’m a good listener. I’d rather take everything in first and then do what I have to do,” Jim said.

“Who’s going to tell Barry this nightmare is over?” Melanie asked before walking away, making it clear it wouldn’t be her.

“I’ll do it,” Jim said. “I figured he needed some time to himself. He was really going to town confessing some major sins down there. I didn’t have the heart to tell him it was over. Besides, he’ll come up when he’s out of beer and realize God saved him.”

“You know what? Get out of here. I want to go and apologize to Barry anyway. I should’ve come back for him when I knew it was safe. It was great meeting you, Jim.”

Jim shrugged. “All right. Have a good one. I’ll see you around.”

“When the next zombie apocalypse arrives we’ll meet back here.”

Jim laughed. “Yep. I’ll bring a bottle opener and you bring the beer.”

Vinnie laughed and watched Jim walk away down the street before he went to the cop standing near the store and quickly bit him on the arm, bringing about the second wave of the ghoul apocalypse.

Vinnie hated when people called him a zombie.

The Sentient Cherry Cola That Tried to Destroy the World

Jeff Strand

I’m sure you’re going to ask, but does it really matter how the cherry cola became sentient? If you truly need to know, I’ll get into the whole backstory, but this will move a lot faster if you just accept that some elements aren’t going to be completely logical. Sometimes a cherry cola just comes to life, you know?

No? You need the explanation?

Fine. It was witchcraft. These witches were all like, “We’re not witches! We’re Wiccan! We believe in goodness and the magic of the earth!” but ultimately their naked moonlight dancing wasn’t as harmless as they thought, because it brought some cherry cola to life.

One of them, Gloria, had brought a cooler full of beverages in case anybody was thirsty after the dancing. Aside from one bottle of water consumed by Lori, the witches had all declined Gloria’s offer, making her wonder why she’d bothered to bring it in the first place. Last time she’d packed sandwiches that nobody bothered to eat, and the time before that she’d brought fruit salad. She was the first one to admit that the bananas hadn’t held up, but she’d choked down Beatrice’s scalloped potatoes that one time just to be polite, and would it have killed her to return the favor?

There were three cans of cherry cola in the cooler. The actual brand name would later be the source of much finger-pointing and lawsuits, with representatives from Coca Cola saying it was Cherry Pepsi and representatives from PepsiCo saying it was Cherry Coke. A couple of independent brands initially tried to claim credit for it, figuring that any publicity was good publicity, although once the body count started to rise they regretted that decision.

It was actually a local brand called Gertrude’s Soda, known for inexpensive soft drinks that didn’t taste very good and had killed dozens of laboratory rats, which is why none of the other witches wanted any. The owner, Bernard “Gertrude” Sloven, never knew the devastation his product would cause. If he had known, he would have had a quiet chuckle about it, because Bernard was not a people person.

Two of the three cans in Gloria’s cooler remained regular cherry cola. The third, however, came to life.

You have to look at this from the cherry cola’s perspective. You’re suddenly alive with no explanation and you’re trapped in a dark, cold, twelve-ounce can. There is literally no room to move except to swirl around. You have no idea what’s going on. I mean, it’s not like you’re thinking, “Wow, I’m some cherry cola that has somehow come to life! This is incredible!” You don’t know you’re cherry cola. One moment you’re not aware of your existence and then the next moment you are, and your existence sucks.

The can of cherry cola went from Gloria’s cooler back into her refrigerator, where it remained unopened for seven months. Imagine that. For seven months you’re stuck in this can with no idea who or what you are. Can you imagine being stuck in traffic for seven months? Or trapped in an elevator? Or down in a mine shaft? At least if you were in the mine shaft, you could eventually turn to cannibalism to stave off the boredom, but that cherry cola had no stimuli beyond the inside of an aluminum can. What if you were a newborn baby and your mother abandoned you in a gravel pit and you just lay there for . . . actually, maybe abandoned newborns isn’t the comparison I want to make. That’s kind of depressing. Nobody wants to read about that. I apologize.

What I’m saying is that the cherry cola, though it would later do awful things, is deserving of our empathy. First it was confused and frightened. But as time moved on, it began to feel rage. Deep fury. Typically, Gertrude’s Soda lost its carbonation in a couple of weeks, but the cherry cola’s rage was so intense that its level of carbonation more than doubled.

The cherry cola did not think in English, so to do a literal transcription of its thoughts would mean that much of this narrative would be self-indulgent gibberish. Instead, as your omniscient narrator, I will take it upon myself to translate its thoughts into language that makes sense to you, rather than making you do all of the heavy lifting.

“Hate everything. Kill . . . kill . . . kill . . .”

Which would be your exact attitude in its position. Don’t try to deny it. You wouldn’t be the merry cherry cola that tried to bring a sense of wonder and delight to children everywhere.

I know you’ve got a lot of questions already and I’m not going to be able to get to all of them in the allotted space. Every time you demand some exposition, it’s at the cost of a wonderfully gruesome death scene later, so take that into consideration when you start asking questions like “How was the cherry cola aware of the concept of death?”

You just have to know, huh? And those of you wanting answers are probably the same people who will be complaining about how long it took the cherry cola to get out of the can. “It took over a thousand words for it to do anything but swirl around, being angry!” you’ll say. We could already be at an awesome gory death scene, but noooooooo, you want everything to make sense!

Fine. It was witchcraft. Those nekkid dancing Wiccans instilled the cherry cola with a magic that made it aware of the fact that you can murder somebody.

Pretty scary stuff, isn’t it? A rage-filled cherry cola that knows about death? It sure would be inconvenient for humanity if it got out of the can.

Every once in a while, the cherry cola would hear Voices from Beyond. They were muffled and the cherry cola didn’t understand the meaning of their words.

“Don’t just stand there all day with the refrigerator open!”

“There was ketchup in there the last time I looked!”

“That’s just the date the store has to sell it by. It’s not like it suddenly turns to poison on the expiration date. Just drink the milk!”

Did these voices belong to Jesus Christ?

Of course the cherry cola was aware of our Lord and Savior! How could it not be? I’m not trying to turn this into a Jesus-themed story, but if you keep asking questions like that I will break out the Good Book and start quoting the appropriate scriptures.

Yeah, I didn’t think so. Let’s move forward.

It was a dark night (though the cherry cola had no concept of night) in the middle of winter (though the cherry cola had no concept of winter) when a flu-ridden (though the cherry cola had no concept of influenza or inoculation) Pete, who was Gloria’s son, got out of bed to poke around in the refrigerator. As always, he was annoyed that no new food had materialized since the last time he checked. In the Star Wars movies, food materializes in refrigerators all the time, thought Pete, who didn’t pay very close attention to the Star Wars movies outside of the swordfights.

As he moved items around, hoping that there might be a previously hidden turkey, he saw, way in the back, the can of cherry cola.

He didn’t feel like a soda (or “pop” as some heathens call it) at the moment, so he ended up eating half of a packet of premade squeezable guacamole and then went back to bed.

Ha! You thought he was going to drink the cherry cola, didn’t you? Psych! Psych your gullible little mind! You were reading this, all arrogant and stuff, thinking that you knew exactly what was going to happen, but you were as wrong as a baby in a blender.

I’m sorry. I really didn’t mean that. I mean, I did mean that a baby in a blender is wrong—only the most wretched of wretches would try to argue that point—but I didn’t intend to bring up dead babies again. Your arrogance distracted me. Once again, I apologize.

The next morning, Pete had a bowl of some sort of cereal that had formerly had “Sugar” in the name and then he drank the cherry cola.

“This is a lot fizzier than usual,” he said out loud, even though there was nobody else around, because Pete was better at speaking than thinking.

The cherry cola’s rage intensified not only its fizziness, but its cherry flavor. Usually, upon drinking Gertrude’s Soda you had to really concentrate on your tongue to detect the artificial fruit flavor, but this particular drink tasted as if a half-dozen actual cherries had been squeezed into the high fructose corn syrup.

It was incredibly tasty.

Pete drank it all.

Every last drop.

Have you ever tried to get the last drop out of a can of soda? It doesn’t really work. No matter how many times you tilt it back and shake it over your mouth, a drop or two is going to be denied you. So Pete took a knife out of the silverware drawer, cut open the can, and licked the inside.

Have you ever enjoyed soda so much that you cut open the can so you could lick the inside? Of course you haven’t. Because you know that you’d probably slice open your tongue on the sharp edge and it wouldn’t be worth those extra two drops of Mountain Dew, no matter how delicious Mountain Dew may be.

Your takeaway from this? Rage is delicious.

Gloria walked into the kitchen and demanded to know what the [mild expletive deleted] Pete was doing. His answer was difficult to understand because he’d cut off the majority of his tongue.

The cherry cola swirled around angrily in Pete’s stomach. There had been a brief moment of light and then it had been plunged back into darkness. And it was a much grosser darkness. Have you ever felt the inside of your stomach? No offense, but it’s disgusting.

As he sat with his mother in the hospital waiting room, Pete realized he had to go to the bathroom. So he went into the restroom, unzipped his pants, and . . .

I’m not going to describe this. If you want some deviant descriptions of that sort of thing, you’ll have to look elsewhere. Sorry to disappoint, pervo! But feel free to take a good long look at your life and the choices you’ve made that led you to want to read about that sort of thing.

After Pete flushed, he began to feel a bit queasy because, as mentioned before, he had the flu. So he dropped to his knees, leaned over the toilet bowl, and . . .

I am going to describe the puke, so sensitive readers will want to skip the next paragraph.

Oh, it was a mighty flood of vomit! Cherry cola mixed with chunks of chicken pot pie mixed with cranberry juice mixed with chocolate pudding mixed with a cockroach that had crawled into his mouth while he slept (fun fact: 13 percent of us have had a cockroach crawl into our mouths as we sleep each night and we don’t even know it) mixed with gum that he’d swallowed six years ago mixed with paste he’d eaten in first grade mixed with one of his kidneys.

“Gaaaahhhhhhh!” he said.

Pete died minutes later. It’s a sad thing when somebody under the age of eighteen dies, but millions more people perished after that, so let’s not get too mopey about Pete.

Part of the cherry cola flowed through the sewage pipes, enjoying the sensation of being on a water slide (though it was unaware of water slides) but not approving of the liquid that accompanied it. The rest of the cherry cola would remain in the toilet bowl until a kindly janitor flushed it away.

I have been separated from myself! thought the first part of the cherry cola.

But it is as if my power has doubled! thought the second part.

Not only is my power doubled, but I am no longer restricted to the form of the can! Thanks to the properties of liquid, I can become anything I desire! thought the first part.

Whoa! And the accompanying materials are also taking that particular form! So instead of being the size of half a can of soda, I can control as much of the raw sewage as I want! Hahahahahahaha! thought the second part.

This is the part where I’m going to cheat a bit, because even if you want to read about it, I honestly don’t want to devote a lot of space to the less appealing bodily fluids. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against all bodily fluids by any stretch of the imagination. Some of them are a source of endless cheer, like mucus. But for the purposes of this narrative, we’re going to pretend that the sewer was filled with grape juice.

Everybody in agreement? No? Too bad.

The cherry cola/grape juice rose from the murky depths of the sewer, taking a form that approximated that of Bigfoot, purely by accident.

It took several months for the cherry cola to gain enough control of its new form to climb a ladder, during which time humanity hung around on the streets above in its happily oblivious state. You were probably one of them. Don’t you feel silly now? You were sitting around all “La de da, life is just fine,” while below you a cherry cola/grape juice creature was learning to climb a ladder. If only you’d known to go down there with a flamethrower, millions of people would not be dead right now.

That’s right, I’m blaming you. I’m not saying that you should have been roaming the sewers just in case some sort of rage-filled soda creature took Bigfoot form, but would a little more awareness of your surroundings have been too much to ask?

It climbed the ladder, slid underneath the circular metal lid that stops innocent people from plummeting into the sewer, and stood in the street.

“I live!” it bellowed.

Of course, it had already been alive. The point it was trying to make was now that it was out of the sewer, its quality of life had taken a substantial upswing.

The first living thing it saw was a dog.

But somehow it knew, possibly thanks to Jesus, that nobody would sympathize with a creature who went around killing dogs, so instead it lurched toward the dog’s owner.

The woman was eighty-nine years old, and for the past seventy years she’d lived with the burden of a youthful indiscretion where she stabbed the wrong man to death. If she’d stabbed the correct man, it still would have been a punishment that far exceeded his crime of flirting with her sister (especially since he was married to her sister), but since it was the wrong man (the room had been dark) she’d had nightmares about it at least every other Thursday. She woke up from these nightmares with dried blood on her hands, but she figured that ignorance was bliss and made a point of avoiding news stories about unsolved murders. So, ultimately, it doesn’t make you a bad person if you giggle upon hearing that the cherry cola/grape juice creature snapped her neck.

You should feel bad for the dog, though. After all, it didn’t have an owner. Though after a few weeks of wandering the streets, scared and hungry, it was adopted by a newlywed couple who made it out to a safe island, enjoying one of the few happy endings in this tragic apocalyptic situation.

As the old woman fell to the ground, the creature frowned. It felt happy, it just didn’t know that smile = happy and frown = sad. Killing her had been so easy. Sure, it was because she was old and her bones were brittle, but the creature did not know this and thought that all living things were easy to kill.

And it wanted to kill all living things.

Because it was angry.

Angry at having been trapped in that cold, dark can for so very long.

Just like you would have been.

Admit it.

It walked down the street, breaking the necks of gawkers left and right. Several people called the police, but each and every one of them made the mistake of saying that the murders were being committed by a living mass of cherry cola and grape juice, so their calls were not taken seriously.

“You’ve got to help us!” a man shouted into his phone. “There’s this thing and it—oh no, it just snapped another neck! It’s walking down the street and—argh! Another neck gone! Oh, why won’t you send somebody to—gasp, it broke yet another neck! That’s seventy-six in all so far! Seventy-seven now! Please, please, please, if you value the sanctity of necks at all, you’ll send somebody to—seventy-eight—help us before—seventy-nine—we all die!”

“Calm down, sir,” said the 911 operator. “What exactly is snapping the necks?”

“It’s cherry cola and grape juice that has somehow transformed into the shape of Sasquatch.”

“You lying jerk!” the 911 operator shouted. “Can’t you hear yourself? You think I have time to deal with your [harsh expletive deleted]? I should trace your call and go over there and kick your [moderate expletive deleted]! I hope you die! You hear that? I hope you die!”

So contacting the authorities did no good. Fresh corpses lined the streets. The sounds of screams forced many people to turn up the volume of their music.

This is pretty sweet, thought the creature. I’m really enjoying myself.

But this one guy realized that this was finally his opportunity to use his cannon. “Don’t shoot the cannon!” people had always told him. “It would be irresponsible!” He’d always grudgingly listened to their advice, but now? You couldn’t call somebody irresponsible if they were firing a cannon at something homicidal.

“Step to the left or right, everyone!” he shouted, just before he fired the cannon.

It was a direct hit. The creature exploded into millions of droplets.

Millions of rage-filled droplets.

Millions of rage-filled droplets that could bond with other liquid.

Had it not been pouring rain, things may have turned out quite differently.

You may be wondering why so many people were walking along the street when it was pouring rain, especially the elderly woman walking her dog. Well, I never said they weren’t carrying umbrellas and the rain had started quickly, so not everybody had a chance to seek shelter.

There was one part where three different cherry cola/grape juice/rain creatures tore this banjo player apart, limb from limb, but I don’t have room to share it because you were so caught up in the whole rain thing. I’m not trying to be antagonistic toward you. I know you have a lot of reading options and it’s nice that you chose me as your storyteller, but at the same time, I feel that I’m being needlessly handcuffed to logic. You know that I’m telling the truth because you can look outside and see all of the dead bodies scattered everywhere. You probably lost family members. So I really don’t understand why you are getting so caught up in the small, irrelevant details, when my purpose here is to share a high-level record of the end of the world.

Anyway, we now had millions of creatures. The guy with the cannon saw them rise and wished he’d been less irresponsible.

People kept calling 911, but saying that millions of cherry colas were on a rampage sounded even less credible than one of them. One woman realized what was happening, so when she called she said that there were millions of Bigfoots on a rampage instead, but her call was disregarded as well.

There had been six hundred and forty-nine people on the street when the creature first rose from the sewer. Now there were still six hundred and forty-nine people on the street, but they were all deceased.

The chief of police was on the fourth floor of a hotel on that street. It doesn’t matter why he was there. You can engage in conjecture all you want. If a man isn’t having his needs met at home, should he just pretend he has no needs? What would you have him do? This is a serious question. If he tried working it out, but every single night she tried to blame her fractured spine, what was he to do?

After he’d finished having his needs met, he glanced out the window. He was shocked to see hundreds of corpses out there. There’d been only five or six the last time he checked. He quickly shut off the television, with which he’d been pleasuring himself to adult films that he wasn’t allowed to watch at home, and called the station.

“If you’re calling about cherry cola, I swear I will jab a spork in your throat,” said the cop who answered.

“I don’t know anything about that, but there are at least three hundred and eighty dead bodies on Main Street!”

“And I suppose you want us to go right out and start cleaning them up? What do you think this is, the sanitation department?”

“No, I want to stop the number of dead bodies from increasing! Three hundred and eighty dead bodies is at least three hundred too many! Send everyone to Main Street! Bring cannons!”

If only the neighboring city hadn’t been in the middle of the twenty-third annual Cannon Festival, things might have turned out differently. They wheeled dozens of them over, their owners giddily anticipating the opportunity to fire them at living targets without receiving looks of disapproval.

Every time they shot one, the creature burst into millions of droplets, which turned into millions of other creatures. You would think that after the first couple of shots, they’d have figured out what was happening and switched to a different tactic, but they didn’t, which is why you shouldn’t feel too sorry for humanity, overall.

“We need wet-vacs!” somebody shouted. “Thousands of wet-vacs!”

Gertrude’s Wet-Vacs, the company Bernard Sloven had formed after his soda manufacturing company went belly-up, had thousands of unsold wet-vacs in a nearby warehouse. But he wasn’t about to let them get all dinged up while battling an apocalyptic menace. “Nobody wants to buy used equipment,” he told the president of the United States. “So you can just bite me.”

And that was the end. With an insufficient number of wet-vacs available, humans were powerless to defeat what had once been a single can of subpar cherry cola.

“There’s only one way!” shouted a scientist. “We must drink the creatures!”

It was such a ridiculous idea that the scientist deserved his ghastly fate. You did not want to go drinking those things, not after they’d developed a taste for human flesh. It was horrific.

But lots of people had said to themselves, “Hey, he’s a scientist, he must know what he’s talking about.” Which is how thousands of people ended up with murderous cherry cola creatures in their bellies, and which in turn is how thousands of people ended up with murderous cherry cola creatures bursting out of their bellies, Alien-style.

This led to millions of people being scared to drink anything, which led to widespread dehydration. You’ve got to drink something. It’s how your body works. So people began dying of thirst left and right. Bernard Sloven marketed Gertrude’s Bottled Water (Guaranteed Cherry Cola Creature-Free!) but he’d lost his trust with the public and few drank it.

Important people started to die. Not just celebrities; people who knew how electricity worked and how to butcher a cow. Without these skills readily available, even more people started to die than the cherry cola creatures tore apart with their carbonated limbs, and many people, even those who’d always had a sunny outlook on life, started to think that the world might be coming to an end.

It got worse when, in a completely unrelated but equally devastating series of events, werewolves started slaughtering people en masse. Many sentient cherry cola deniers had thought this was all a big government conspiracy, but everybody believed in werewolves. The panic killed more people than the werewolves did, and believe me, those werewolves racked up quite the body count.

Then one of the cherry cola creatures discovered the ocean. This meant that not only did it have an entire ocean full of water with which to merge, it now had jellyfish.

Other countries, like Iceland, had thought they were pretty much safe from all that nonsense happening in the USA, but now they realized they’d been sorely mistaken. Icelandic scientists who’d taken a pro-jellyfish attitude suddenly discovered that getting stung by a jellyfish hurt like crazy.

Which brings us to present day. Pretty much everyone is dead. That dog on the island is doing okay, but most of humanity’s final survivors live in a postapocalyptic wasteland, foraging for food and trying to hide from the roving gangs of mutants that formed when a nuclear power plant had a meltdown after a jellyfish got wedged in a crucial piece of equipment.

I’m not scared, because I’m an omniscient narrator who doesn’t really exist on your plane of existence. No mutants can get me here.

You? Well, you should have quit interrupting me while I was trying to share important information that could have kept you alive in the coming decades. I was going to tell you how to destroy the cherry cola (hint: it rhymes with “bommon mold”) but now you’re just going to have to figure it out on your own.

Good night, and good luck.

PC

Rebecca Besser

Dillon’s dad always said, “Political correctness is bullshit. Whatever happened to my right to have an opinion and piss people off?”

It seemed to Dillon that he was now living in his old man’s nightmare. If the old bastard were still alive—well, human—he would have gone completely insane. The current society didn’t just contain humans anymore . . . but Undead Americans as well and all the politics that went along with living side-by-side safely with one another.

The old man would have really hated Dillon’s job at the main medical facility that restored the Undead Americans to as close to human as possible. He was heading there now, wondering if today would be the day he was finally reunited with his old man.

Dillon didn’t know where his father was, if he was anywhere. For all he knew, the man had rotted away to nothing. There was really no way to know. He’d been halfway across the country at medical school when the plague had hit—he hadn’t gotten to say good-bye to the man who’d raised him alone. For all Dillon knew, he was really gone forever. He just couldn’t help hoping that maybe someday he’d help bring his father back.

The sun was just peeking over the horizon, casting warming rays of light on the dark city, bringing it to life. With the dawn, Dillon’s wariness eased slightly. The anti-undead terrorists were in rare form lately, constantly picketing and threatening his place of employment. He dreaded going to work, often afraid he wouldn’t make it home. The hope of finding his father was the only thing that kept him going day in and day out.

Dillon slowed as he came upon the first of five security checkpoints leading up to GenRest. Today there were twice as many armed personnel guarding the barricade than there normally were and there was a short line of cars in front of him. On most days, he just cruised right through, familiar to the guards who worked the checkpoints. Today was nothing like normal.

When it was his turn to pull up to the little shack beside the narrow area for vehicles to drive through, two men with guns stepped in front of his vehicle, preventing him from driving forward without going through them.

Dillon rolled down his window and an unfamiliar man in riot gear asked to see his ID.

“What’s going on?” Dillon asked, handing over his identification.

“We’re verifying who you are and your right to continue onward,” the man said gruffly, handing Dillon back his ID once he’d scanned the barcode on it, the security computer confirming Dillon’s identity.

“I understand that,” Dillon said. “I was wondering what was going on with the extra security—has something happened?”

The man waved his hand and the men in front of Dillon’s car moved out of the way.

“There’s nothing for you to concern yourself with, sir,” the guard said. “Please, proceed.” He waved the next car forward.

Dillon drove through the checkpoint, feeling like he’d been forced to leave. He moved along with more questions than answers. Obviously something had happened, be it an attack or a threat. They wouldn’t increase the security personnel for no reason.

He experienced the same treatment at all of the other checkpoints before heading across the compound to the main building where he worked: a towering six-story monolith covered with mirrored windows that glittered in the sunlight. The building looked impressive—it was one of the few places newly built after the plague. Medical advancements were the name of the game in this new society, since zombies were the majority of the population.

When Dillon arrived, he parked in the employee parking garage, more confused and wary than he normally was when he came to work. As he climbed out of his car, he took in his surroundings with a critical eye. There were a bunch of people coming and going—other employees. There were no zombies allowed in this part of the center, unless they had been previously restored; the company employed many of them as counselors for the newly processed.

“Undead Americans,” he corrected himself under his breath as he thought “zombies” yet again. He had to constantly remind himself not to be politically incorrect, a trait he attributed to his father, who’d never been politically correct a moment in his life. Dillon struggled to be PC in the new world, and for that reason he thought of his father every day he came in to work. His dad had always talked about political correctness like it was some kind of disease that ate at people’s brains to make them stupid. Nowadays, what had once been political correctness were the laws of life. If you stepped outside those laws, you, or someone else, got hurt. Tolerance of those who were different was the name of the game and, if you wanted to survive, you learned to play it well.

Dillon walked over to the elevator (where two armed men stood guard, who were another new addition), swiped his ID, pressed his palm against the scan panel beside the door, and stepped into the transport as soon as the door opened.

After a smooth ascension, the doors slid open again and he stepped off the elevator, directly into the restoration floor’s waiting room. He looked around at all the Undead Americans ready for their restoration appointments.

He continued on, past the desk where a receptionist was working on a computer, through the door to the back offices. As soon as he stepped into the hallway, his and Dr. Miller’s new assistant slammed into him.

“What’s the rush, Eddie?” Dillon asked, taking a step back to retain his balance.

“Oh, I’m glad I found you, Dr. Howell,” the younger man gushed. “I think Dr. Miller is hazing me . . . or flirting with me—I can’t tell!”

Dillon raised his eyebrows. Dr. Miller was one of the most serious people he’d ever met and he doubted she’d be hazing anyone or flirting with someone so young. She was in her late forties and was a no-nonsense type of woman.

“Why do you think she’s hazing or flirting with you?” he asked, curious.

“She told me to get a six-inch penile splint from the penis room,” Eddie said with a stricken look on his face. “I mean, really? The penis room?”

Dillon stared at Eddie for a moment and then doubled over, laughing.

Eddie was twenty-one years of age and had just started working for them that day. The expression on his round, freshly shaved face was that of a frightened two-year-old who couldn’t find his mother in a crowded shopping area.

“It’s not funny.” Eddie crossed his arms, his face flushing.

Dillon stood and looked at Eddie with a grin still plastered on his face.

“Oh, it’s funny,” he said.

“She said there was a penis room—how is that funny?” Eddie asked, his face going from flushed to dark red.

“Because there is a penis room and you thought she was lying to you,” Dillon said. He turned and started down the hall. “Follow me, I’ll show you where it is . . . right next to the breast room, across from the restrooms.”

“Wha—?” Eddie said and followed Dillon.

“You’re probably wondering why there is a penis room and a breast room,” Dillon said as Eddie caught up with him. “But if you think about it you’ll understand. I mean, what would be the first things to rot off a dead human body?”

“Oh, my gawd!” Eddie exclaimed. “That’s disgusting.”

“Well, restoring a rotting human being back to a living human being is pretty disgusting. There are parts and pieces missing and they have to be regenerated by our equipment through cell growth. But sometimes . . . we need some help with implants of sorts to make sure things stay where they’re supposed to.”

Eddie didn’t reply, but stood dumbly by as Dillon opened the door to the penis room—the size of a walk-in janitor’s closet—and showed him where to find the different-sized splints and other implant pieces that might be needed to aid in the restoration of a male Undead American.

Even after the selection process and the explanation Eddie still looked confused.

“What?” Dillon asked.

Eddie looked at the six-inch splint in his hand. He opened his mouth, shut it again, and then turned to Dillon with a frown.

“What?” Dillon asked again.

“I was just wondering how she decides what size to give them,” Eddie replied.

Dillon, never having given it much thought, shrugged.

“Maybe she’s seen enough naked men in her time to be able to guess by body size what would be a good proportion.”

Eddie looked down at the splint, then at his own crotch, then at the splint again.

“What now?” Dillon asked, starting to get exasperated while still being amused by the innocence/ignorance of the young man.

“Do you think she knows how big our penises are?”

Dillon laughed. “Does it really matter? It’s not like she has ever asked to see mine, so I don’t care what her guess would be. Stop worrying about her thinking about your penis and get back to your job before she wants to cut yours off because you’re late helping her restore another’s. Although, if she gets angry and you want to smooth things over, you could offer to be a penis donor and see what she says—see if she thinks your penis is suitable.” He winked at Eddie. “Hell, maybe she’ll even like the idea. . . . Maybe they’ll even commemorate your sacrifice on the wall downstairs for all to see: Edward Harris, generous with his penis, giving it to the first Undead American who would take it!”

He laughed again at the return of the stricken expression on Eddie’s face. He felt the same way when he thought about losing his penis: it wasn’t a pleasant thought for any male.

“Come on,” Dillon said. “Let’s get the splint to Dr. Miller so you can keep your penis—damn, you’re selfish.”

Dillon turned, left the room, and started walking again.

Eddie followed, glancing from his crotch to the splint every few feet.

They didn’t talk anymore until they reached Eddie’s office, which connected Dillon’s to Dr. Miller’s office. Eddie was hired to be their shared personal assistant; he would do anything and everything they needed to keep their operations running smoothly.

Dillon continued into his office and Eddie stopped at his desk to drop off the splint and grab his tablet before rejoining Dillon.

“What’s going on with the extra security today?” Dillon asked as Eddie entered.

Dillon tapped one of his computer screens and brought up the most recent news—something he did every day since the threats of terrorism had increased. Last month, one of the Undead Americans who was coming in to be restored had been set on fire by a masked man who had never been caught. They’d had to cancel the restoration because the zombie had then been too damaged to salvage. Because of the incident, Dillon had tried to be extra vigilant and aware of what was going on with the groups. They were pretty extreme in some cases, saying they needed to purge the human race, to cleanse it again. They were against humans having relationships with people who had been restored, even though after restoration a zombie was once again a living, thriving human down to every cell of their being. Their minds didn’t work as fast and often they had to relearn things, but they were still capable of thinking. The research showed that brain function was almost returned to normal about two years after restoration: that is, from minimal brain function. There was no proof that zombies thought in their undead state, but there was some brain activity that enabled them to move. Stabilizing medicine that Undead Americans were required by law to take helped as well, even though they weren’t sure how; it definitely kept them from rotting and trying to kill living humans.

Nothing popped out at Dillon from the news headlines.

“I’m not sure,” Eddie said. “Is there extra security today?”

“Sorry,” Dillon said. “I know it’s your first day and you wouldn’t realize the extra security wasn’t normal, but I thought you might have heard something.”

Eddie shrugged. “I haven’t heard anything. Is there something in the news?”

Dillon shook his head and sighed. “What’s the schedule look like today?”

“Three before lunch,” Eddie said, checking the schedule on his touchscreen tablet.

“Genders?” Dillon asked as he started working on his second touchscreen computer, making sure all the rooms and machinery they would need to do the restorations was ready.

“One male, two females,” Eddie said. “Dr. Miller is taking care of the male, so you get the first female. Whoever finishes first will start on the second female.”

Dillon snickered. “I guess you’ll be getting acquainted with the breast room today too.”

Eddie’s lack of response made Dillon grin.

“Where’s Dr. Miller?”

“She’s in her office,” Eddie said.

“Taking a nap?” Dillon asked, looking up and across the office through his open door, at her door. The blinds were down over the window in the barrier. She often liked to rest before she did a restoration so she was mentally clear and calm.

“I don’t know,” Eddie said. “We got a DNA match on the male; he was previously in the military so he was in the database. I put in a request to see if he had any next of kin, but research is backed up—they said it would take about a week. His name is Gordon Howell and he’s scheduled to be restored in about an hour.”

Dillon froze, choking on the breath he’d just taken.

“What . . .” he said, and paused to cough. “What did you say the restore patient’s name was?”

Eddie looked up and frowned. “Gordon Howell. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m okay,” Dillon choked out. “Drink, please!”

“Sure,” Eddie said, rushing out of the room to get his new boss a drink.

Dillon watched him go and was glad to be alone. His mind and heart were racing. He couldn’t believe what he’d just heard. Day after day he’d come to work, hoping and praying for this exact moment. Every day he’d given up a little of that hope, thinking it would never happen. Now he was facing the reality of his dream come true and he couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t think. He couldn’t do anything but cough and clutch the edge of his desk.

After what seemed like forever, Eddie was back with a bottle of water.

Dillon took it with a shaking hand, opened it, and drank half of the liquid in two large gulps.

“Are you okay?” Eddie asked, frowning. “Are you sick? Do you want me to get Dr. Miller?”

“No, I’m not sick,” Dillon croaked, and took a sip of the remaining water. “Yes, please get Dr. Miller.”

Eddie didn’t ask any more questions. He just turned, walked out, and knocked on Dr. Miller’s door before entering.

Dillon sipped at his water and focused on a spot on the wall. He needed to calm himself down; he didn’t want to be as shaken up when Dr. Miller came in. He needed her to swap patients with him and if he was visibly disturbed he knew she’d tell him to go home.

“Are you all right?” Dr. Miller asked as she rushed through the door, her slight facial wrinkles deeper than normal due to her frown of concern.

“I’m fine,” Dillon said, standing. “I’d like to talk to you for a moment, if you have time.”

Dr. Miller turned to Eddie, who was hovering just inside the doorway. She nodded and he left, shutting the door behind him.

“What’s going on, Dr. Howell?” she asked, stepping closer to Dillon’s desk.

He watched her blue eyes travel over him, studying him.

“Would you consider trading patients with me this morning?” Dillon asked, looking her straight in the eye when hers were again trained on his face.

Dr. Miller raised a ginger eyebrow. “Why?”

“Does it matter?”

She laughed. “No, I’m just curious. You’re acting strange. I’ve known you—worked with you—for years and you’ve never asked to trade patients before. I figure there has to be a reason; there always seems to be a reason with you. And besides, you don’t usually restore males unless I’m not here.” She ended her statement by crossing her slender arms across her chest.

Dillon sighed and sat back down in his chair. The consequences of what could happen if he told her ran through his mind and he decided it wouldn’t be too horrible if she knew the truth. The worst that could happen would be that she’d say no and she’d restore his father and he’d still get to see him . . . see if the man recognized his own son. He would get to see if his father was one of the lucky Undead Americans who, after restoration, retained memories of their former life; it was a slim chance, but it was part of his hopes.

“The man you’re going to restore is my father,” he said, studying her face.

“That’s . . . unexpected,” Dr. Miller said. “Are you sure you want to do your father’s restoration? Will you be able to focus?”

“Will I be able to concentrate on the other restoration when I know you’re restoring my dad?” Dillon asked, smirking. “I don’t know how I can’t do it.”

Dr. Miller watched Dillon for a few moments, studying him. Eventually she nodded, stood, and headed for the door.

Dillon stood and said, “Dr. Miller?”

She kept walking toward the door.

“Jill!” he exclaimed.

She stopped with her hand on the doorknob and sighed. “Yes, Dillon, I’ll trade with you,” she said before she opened the door and walked out.

Dillon collapsed back into his chair, shaking once again. Everything was really happening. He would be restoring his father in under an hour. He hadn’t seen or heard anything about the man in five years and here he was at Dillon’s fingertips; it was almost too good to be true.

Glancing at the time on his computer screen, he realized that he needed to get ready for the restoration. With a determined resolve, he stood and headed out the door into Eddie’s section of the office suite.

“I’ve traded patients with Dr. Miller,” he said.

Eddie smiled, but looked somewhat suspicious. “Dr. Miller told me, but she didn’t say why.”

Dillon didn’t offer an answer, but headed for the door to the hall.

“You’re going to need this,” Eddie said, picking up the penile splint and holding it out toward Dillon.

“Thank you,” Dillon said, turning back to take it, smiling sheepishly. “I’d forgotten.”

“Do you think it will be the right size?” Eddie asked, grinning.

“It’ll work,” Dillon said, laughing and winking. He thought about his own . . . build. If genetics were a good indication, it would work. Close enough, anyhow.

He left the office suite and turned right, heading to his restoration room. Using his ID card, he entered the last door on his left. From there, he stripped naked, scrubbed down in the corner shower stall, and put on the biohazard suit he would need to protect him from bacteria during the restoration process. After he was prepped, he entered the actual operation room and began checking and prepping the machines needed to rebuild the patient’s body with unique DNA; he managed to resist the urge to check it against his own, just to make sure he wasn’t emotionally stressed out over nothing.

Everything was ready when Eddie escorted the zombie in. The Undead American before him was disgusting, to say the least. Ninety percent of his skin had been burnt away and naked muscle was visible over his entire body, scorched beyond recognition. His eyes were even discolored to the point Dillon couldn’t tell what color they’d originally been. Even his height was hard to define since he was so hunched from lack of tendon strength.

Doubt seeped into Dillon’s mind.

With a deep breath, he told himself he was worried over nothing. This . . . thing couldn’t possibly be his father. But there was enough of a chance that he was still on edge, still curious, and slightly hopeful. The hope rising to create an ache in his chest also told him to be careful. If this Undead American was truly his father, if he came back to his real self after the restore, he would have a hard time making it in current society. Dillon hoped because he had once been a zombie it would make him sympathetic to the plight of all Undead Americans and that he wouldn’t become one of the terrorists that he might have been had he remained human all along.

Eddie left the Undead American with Dillon and exited the operation room.

Dillon escorted and helped the Undead American into a chair in the middle of the room. Once he was in place, the arm and leg braces clamped down and Dillon pushed a button that drew the chair slowly from a sitting position to a table with the zombie lying supine. Once the prone position was achieved, Dillon pushed a button on the control panel that scanned the patient to read his embedded chip, which would confirm his number on the restore list, to make sure they were restoring the correct Undead American.

Everything matched up exactly as it should.

“Well, it looks like it is you, Dad,” Dillon said softly, still afraid to believe the truth. “Here goes nothing.” He pressed the button to start the process and listened to the machines hum as they started up; all he would do was oversee the restoration, making sure the tanks on the machines had enough plasma, synthetic stem cells, and other chemicals to complete the job.

Lasers burned away clothing and bad tissue that couldn’t be rejuvenated. After that, a protective metal shell lowered from the ceiling to cover the body while the internal organs were repaired and re-created. Dillon figured it would take a while, considering the damage already done.

He was lost in thought for a long time, wondering if his dad would even remember him, when he felt the floor under his feet shake. At first, he thought it was one of the machines malfunctioning and checked them all. The shaking increased in intensity, but everything was working properly.

The red light in the ceiling came on, indicating there was an emergency.

Dillon tried not to panic. He knew he was supposed to leave the building, to get to safety, leaving the patient to the machines and hope for the best. He just couldn’t bring himself to do it; he couldn’t leave his father now that he’d finally found him.

The lights flickered. The building shook harder. Dillon heard an audible boom and then what he assumed to be gunfire. Whatever was happening was getting closer and sounded serious, and it explained all the extra security. They’d known of a threat but hadn’t bothered to share the information with the employees.

Without thinking twice about getting out and saving himself, he hit the emergency button that would seal the restoration room completely from the outside world; it was intended to keep in any contagious bacteria that could infect people. Today it was going to be used to keep people out and keep him and his father safe for as long as possible.

After the emergency button did its job, Dillon set to work prepping the room’s generator so that if they lost power his dad would still be restored—it needed time to sync with each machine and take over power smoothly from the main source of electricity. No matter what happened, he was determined to finish this restoration. They were three hours in, which meant a lot of significant restoration had been done. In another hour, the restoration would be complete.

Dillon’s heart was racing and he was sweating profusely inside his biohazard suit. He felt like the universe had blown him a kiss, flirting with him, just to walk away with another man. The unfairness of finding his father, only to risk losing him, had his emotions bouncing like a rubber ball between two hard surfaces forever.

The vibrations were growing stronger and the booms louder, accompanied by screams and less intense bangs.

“Damn bastards,” Dillon growled. He was pissed off about not being told of the possible attack, although he should have suspected it with all the added security—he’d been distracted by finally being reunited with his dad. If he would have known something like this could possibly happen, he would have prepped the generator to be ready when the attack started, not waiting until they were three-fourths of the way into a restoration to start it up and hope for the best.

The lights flickered off for two seconds and came back on after an extremely strong boom that shook the floor so hard that Dillon almost fell over. The brief power outage caused his computer screen to flicker and the machines to stutter.

The generator wasn’t ready to take over for the main electricity; it was only online for 77 percent of the overall power needed.

“Come on, come on, come on,” Dillon chanted, watching the computer screen, the lights, and the machines.

The percentage grew little by little and Dillon’s heartbeat grew louder in his ears with every second that passed. He felt trapped inside his hot suit, sweating to the point of fogging up the clear face shield. He ripped the headpiece off and threw it across the room in frustration. He knew he’d just exposed himself to possible contamination, but he was already at risk with what was going on outside the restoration room.

The generator was ready to take over 90 percent of the machinery when the wall to Dillon’s left disintegrated in an explosion of concrete, metal, and insulation. Sparks flew and fire consumed oxygen in a plume of heat and light.

Dillon was thrown off his feet and into the shell that was protecting his father while he was being restored. The power went out the instant of the explosion and the machines ceased their work. When Dillon slammed into the shell he’d cracked it in the middle.

As he groaned and became aware of his surroundings, Dillon caught a glimpse of his father more than half-restored. His chest was moving up and down and skin was just beginning to cover the exposed muscles of his chest and torso, which was all he could see because he was lying on the bottom half of the shell that was now broken and dented.

Dillon’s head was fuzzy and the people in their helmets and riot gear coming in through the hole in the wall didn’t seem to be real, waving their large guns around, securing the room that had been more secure without them.

They advanced toward him, shouting.

He couldn’t understand what they were saying and he frowned and concentrated, trying to decipher their words.

He glanced over at his father and saw his eyes flutter open. They were the same shade of blue that he remembered—sometimes the restoration process surprised him, even though he saw it every day.

A smile crossed his father’s skinless lips. “Dill-weed . . .” he sighed, using the pet name he’d always used for Dillon, and his eyes fluttered closed again, his breathing becoming labored.

“Dad . . .” Dillon said and watched him for a moment. When he didn’t respond Dillon panicked and screamed, “Dad!”

A single gunshot boomed through the room and a small hole appeared in Dillon’s dad’s head, making sure he would never be able to be restored again.

Dillon stared at his father in disbelief and dismay. He was officially dead. It had been in Dillon’s grasp to save him and he’d failed. Well, technically he’d succeeded; he’d restored him. These people had come in and killed him when he was just about to have his life back.

Dillon roared as he stood up straight, despite the pain in his body from having been thrown into hard metal. He was doubly shocked to see that the man with the smoking gun was Eddie, wearing a tactical vest over his clothes and a helmet over his head and face.

After the moment of shock passed, Dillon roared, “How could you kill my father?”

Eddie’s face took on a thunderstruck expression.

Without waiting for an answer to his question, Dillon threw himself at Eddie. He didn’t have time to protect himself and Dillon ripped the man’s assault rifle from his grip, squeezing the trigger and spraying the room with an onslaught of bullets. When the clip was finally empty, Dillon was the only one in the room still alive.

He fell to his knees as the rage left him and his grief took hold. Pain surged through his entire being. He’d never felt so completely empty, so completely void of hope, not even when he didn’t know where his father was for five years had he ever felt so low.

He’d played by society’s rules and these rebels—including his new assistant, whom he’d brought into his circle of trust—hadn’t. Yet everything he’d worked so hard for had been taken.

Dillon decided his father had been right . . . political correctness was a disease. It was an illusion for delusional people who thought doing the right thing made them better people who would get what they wanted in the end, like good guys in stories. In truth, it was just a polite way for people to screw each other over. Political correctness was just a metal fist wearing a satin glove while it beat you to a pulp.

Crew Chief of the Damned

MontiLee Stormer

The dog greeted him at the bottom of the driveway again that morning. It was a large black German shepherd, whose massive head came to Jonah’s chest. When he first saw the dog a few weeks back, he’d merely assumed it was a neighbor’s dog, waiting for a bus or taxi to bring its master home. But every day as Jonah let himself out of the front gate to walk to work, the dog was there, pacing with him all the way to the corner. Then it sat and watched him cross the street. The process reversed itself on his way home. The dog greeted him at the corner, walked him to his front gate, and sat down at the edge of the walk as he let himself in.

It had been a bad day at work, but Jonah wasn’t about to tell his mother that, no sense in upsetting her. He was home early, like before the lunch rush, and wasn’t sure exactly how he was going to tell her why. For the time being he just sat at her kitchen table and munched on cookies from a ceramic jar shaped like the open mouth of a whale. He could hear her in the basement, probably folding laundry or ironing clothes. It was her domain and he was happy to let her have it.

Another munch of cookie and Jonah’s thoughts returned to a few hours ago. There had been what only could be politely described as an incident with the deep-fryers just before opening and with the ambulances and police all over the restaurant, the “scene” had been secured and the employees were sent home. For the first time in as long as Jonah could remember, Burgeropolis was dark.

Paulo, formerly a really nice guy and alive, brought the temperature of the fryer to proper levels at 10:55 a.m. that morning and was about to drop the first basket of fries. Five minutes from opening, and cars were already beginning to line up in the drive-thru. It started out as a nice morning, but the edges of the horizon were ragged with storm clouds and the light began to shine that odd orangey-red that sometimes precedes a tornado.

That was when Paulo called out Jonah’s name. “Jonah—boss—it’s almost time.”

He sounded solemn and it made Jonah look up from prepping the front stations, making sure the bags were filled and the ketchup containers were stocked. “You bet, buddy. Ready for another awesome day?”

Jonah and Paulo were crew chiefs on the morning shifts and they performed their duties so well, the manager often felt comfortable enough rolling in well after lunch. Once Jonah owned his own chain of restaurants, he hoped he’d be able to find workers as good as him and Paulo, but certainly would make sure a manager was actually in the shop.

Paulo laughed and it had a hard, brittle edge to it. “For me it will be glorious! I’m the first. I’ve seen the signs and I am honored to serve with you. I’ll see you on the other side.”

“Other side of what, Paulo?” Jonah stopped stacking packets of mustard, the first threads of concern winding around his heart. Other morning crew workers stopped what they were doing and came from back rooms and front counters to watch. They’d never get the store opened at this rate, Jonah thought.

He looked up to see Paulo snap a brisk salute and plunge his arm to the elbow into the fryer. His scream became a laugh and his laugh turned inside out and his face was a frozen mask of terrified delight. “I do it for you,” he scream-shouted. “I offer this tribute to you!” The hot oil churned around his arm as the flesh turned crisp and the fried blood turned to blackened nuggets on the surface of the oil. “The glory for you!”

“Paulo, no!” Jonah shouted, and ran to the fryers to pull Paulo away, but not in time to stop him from face-planting into the still bubbling grease. His gurgling screams were drowned out by the screams of Mandy, who’d just come out of the walk-in cooler to fill the salad case. In three long steps, Jonah reached above the fryer and jammed his hand onto the fire suppression button, shutting down the fryer and sending torrent of foam over the fryer and grill area. It was beyond too late, and Paulo’s knees buckled. His upper body remained over the vats, covered in a layer of foam and his legs and feet twitched on the grease-slickened floor. He was a dead man the second he’d stuck his hand in the grease. There were a few stunted screams from the crew and Jonah could hear someone, maybe Chrissy, talking to a 911 operator.

Jonah wasn’t telling his mother any of this, and not for the first time he was grateful they didn’t own a TV. When she emerged from the basement, he instead gave her an abbreviated version of the events. She’d known Paulo through Jonah’s sanitized stories and she expressed detached shock and sympathy. She was going to bake some mini-loaves in case his little friends came by to grieve. “Comfort food always helped ease a loss.” She busied herself with pans and flour and Jonah went up to his room.

Between the accident at Burgeropolis #1334 and the ongoing incidents at the St. Augustine location just a mile up the road, it certainly wouldn’t be too much longer before Corporate sent over teams to investigate. At St. Augustine someone had been impaled on a loose railing when they fell out of a drive-thru window. Jonah had never been to the St. Augustine location and had no idea what railings were doing beneath the drive-thru windows, but that was the story going around.

“Mom,” he asked before he rounded the banister to head upstairs. “Have you seen the dog on the front walk?”

“The big black dog, looks like a Doberman?”

“No, it’s a black German shepherd.” Jonah looked through the semicircle inset in the front door and saw the dog still sitting on the other side of the front gate.

“I’ve only seen the Doberman. Huge thing. Very pointy.” She was humming to herself, and Jonah could tell she was only partially engaged in the conversation.

Jonah found it very difficult to believe there were more large-breed dogs loose in the neighborhood, so he let it go.

“How is your contest going?” she asked. Jonah didn’t think she had heard much about his employee drive, since he’d only mentioned it once. “Anything exciting?”

Jonah shrugged. The fast-food business was full of mishaps and accidents the public wasn’t supposed to see. Burns, slips, bangs—these things happened in any workplace. His store in particular had seen its share of accidents; food prep wasn’t the safest occupation, but almost no other shop had a better safety rating, except for the one by the church.

“It’s really boiling down to us and St. Augustine. A recruiting drive for workers and then an accompanying sales drive.” The HELP WANTED signs had gone up for both stores and they were both angling to get the best of the best when it came to the workers, but he was worried about the applicants.

For every four that applied, three refused to show up or headed to St. Augustine. Jonah didn’t think the competing store was offering more money, but he wasn’t privy to that kind of information. All he knew was St. Augustine always had a full complement of staff and were pulling close to their goal. Jonah’s team had their own ideas about who should stay and who should go and the undesirables often ran off in a few weeks.

The store manager of the St. Augustine location, a Michael Something-Polish, always said their numbers were so good because they had the eyes of the Lord looking down on their souls every minute of every day and they worked to serve Him as best they could.

There was a knock at the door, and Mandy stood on the small front porch, her face puffy and streaked from crying. She hadn’t changed from her uniform, she had probably been with the others at the park or library or wherever it was the rest of the crew gathered as word filtered through the ranks. Jonah had no idea, but he ushered her into the small living room, offered her the couch, and took the overstuffed chair.

Jonah didn’t know where to begin, so he said nothing. He knew Paulo and he was a great worker, but he didn’t think he’d be crying anytime soon. Jonah didn’t think there was anything wrong with him, but he clearly wasn’t as emotionally vested in the other employees as maybe he should be. He would be the sympathetic ear.

Mandy wiped her eyes and blew her nose into a tissue from her purse. “I just came by to say I don’t think I can come back to that place. I can’t stop seeing his face get bubbly and pop.” Of all of the awkward talks Jonah was expecting to have, the topic of quitting hadn’t entered his mind.

“It’s a terrible tragedy for all of us, Mandy, but I don’t want you to make any rash decisions. I think you could have a long career at Burgeropolis. You just need a little time to consider your next steps.”

Mandy looked incredulous. “A man just died in our store. I may never eat fries again.” She burst into fresh tears. She hadn’t been working at the store very long, and while Jonah didn’t think she was really Burgeropolis material, he certainly wasn’t going to turn away hard workers for the sake of an ideal.

“Maybe the store could hold a memorial in his honor,” said his mother from behind him. “We could hold it here, in fact. He would have liked that, don’t you think? Then you can all sit around and talk about what a great guy he was and how he’ll always live on. What do you think, dear?”

Jonah certainly didn’t know what to think. “Sure. I’ll make some calls this afternoon and we’ll meet back here tonight. It’ll be nice.” He didn’t really think it would be nice at all, but if he wanted to one day connect with future employees at his very own store, he needed to act like he cared, and he was going to need some practice.

He led her to the door, thanked her for stopping by, and closed it behind her. He hadn’t made it halfway up the stairs when a knock sounded again. Jonah took a glance at the living room, thinking maybe Mandy had left something behind, like a key ring or a tissue. He opened the door again to a tall man in a white crisp shirt, blue bow tie, and starched black pants. He wore a ball cap with the Burgeropolis logo and looked as grim and green as Jonah had ever seen him.

“Hello, Michael. This is an unexpected surprise. Please, come in.”

“I won’t stay long. I went right to the store when I heard what had happened. I couldn’t reach your manager so I came right here. It’s a terrible, terrible tragedy.” Michael gave Jonah a look that said he’d never be happy again as long as Jonah was unhappy. “On behalf of St. Augustine, we send our deepest condolences and if there’s anything you need, some extra crew, why, we’ll step right up with a smile and a prayer in our hearts.”

Jonah inwardly winced. St. Augustine had its share of holy rollers and they did a brisk business after morning vespers, but that crew didn’t enjoy working at the #1334 location, either. No such trade would actually happen.

“Thank you, Michael, and I do appreciate your thoughts. We’ll be open in a few days and I’m sure we can cover Paulo’s shifts until we can find a permanent replacement. This doesn’t affect the contest, we’re still on track.”

“Jonah, a man just committed suicide in one of your fryers. I’m not sure I could even work in a store where a man died, much less be expected to run it properly. What if you find brains in the fryer?”

“New fryers, probably. I don’t know how these things work exactly, but there’s probably a rule or something.” Jonah made a note to look it up.

“I just couldn’t do it. The sorrow, the sadness, the restless spirit. The specter of that poor man, wandering eternity in your store, unable to find peace. I wouldn’t be able to work there.”

“Well, in that case, Michael, you’d better go along to your own store and work as hard as you can. I sort of understand why you would do things differently—you don’t run our store.” He opened the front door, as confident as ever: a man about to entice someone to leave without saying another word.

On the front step was the large German shepherd. He looked from Michael to Jonah and wagged his tail.

Michael froze. “Is that your dog?”

Jonah said, “No, I think it belongs to a neighbor, but he hangs around a lot. I like the company.”

Michael sidled past the dog, onto the front porch and onto the walkway. He replaced his hat and quick-walked it down the front walk. “I can send over one of our priests to bless the new fryer.”

“Really not necessary,” Jonah said as he searched for the dog’s identification. There was no collar or tags. “Thanks, anyway, Michael. We’ll be fine.”

When Michael drove away Jonah asked his mother, “Mom, whose dog is this?” She was in the kitchen removing hot loaves from the oven.

“Which dog, dear—the Newfoundland? The one that looks like a bear? Avoid that one, dear, he looks dangerous.”

“No, the Doberman. You said you saw a Doberman this morning. It’s still a German shepherd and now he’s on the porch.”

“Is that what I said? I don’t remember, dear, but he probably belongs to a neighbor.” Her voice trailed off and Jonah knew she was probably headed to the basement for laundry or canning or whatever it was she did when she went down there.

He thought about looking for a neighbor but decided for the moment to let the dog in and give him a bite to eat. “Want something to eat, boy?” Jonah led the dog into the kitchen. His mother was humming to herself in the basement, so he didn’t have to worry about being scolded for dirtying a dish for a dog. He reached for a saucer and placed baloney and cheese from the fridge in it. He set it down and watched as the dog ate a little and then curled up on a mat in front of the stove.

The evening brought a steady stream of visitors from Burgeropolis, all employees, some in tears.

“Hear, dear,” said his mother as she handed over small loaves of bread wrapped in foil.

The small group gathered in the living room. They sat on the couch and in the two easy chairs. The piano bench was pulled out and three butts competed for space.

“Will it be soon?” asked Bethany. She was a small girl with curly black hair and a piercing the kids called a Marilyn. Jonah supposed she fancied herself a Betty Boop lookalike, but then reckoned she had no idea who Betty Boop was. Bethany was elbowed hard by Chrissy, who was taller, paler, and had a haircut that made her look like a severely pissed off elf. Bethany mouthed, “Ow!” and rubbed her ribs.

“I’m pretty sure we’ll all get paid,” said Jonah. “I mean, I don’t know this, it’s not my store”—yet, he thought—“but if I know our manager, there shouldn’t be any missed paychecks. I’m sure this closure is just temporary and you’ll probably be paid for the hours you were scheduled to work.” He felt weird speaking for their manager, but figured his seniority offered him that privilege.

“Actually, Jonah, I think Bethany means it—the big thing we’ve all been waiting for.” Keith was a good-looking boy who might one day grow out of the acne-pocked cheeks and forehead if he were very lucky. He was one of the afternoon crew chiefs at Burgeropolis, someone Jonah felt could go far unless he wanted to pursue a college degree or vocational training as a mechanic. The other workers respected him, even liked him, and his shifts were always tight, well-run crews with minimal mess and waste, much like Jonah’s. “We all see the signs and we know it’s just a matter of time. We’re ready to step up and do what’s needed, like Paulo did.”

Jonah was puzzled. “Why would you want to do what Paulo did?”

Bethany said, “Because it prepares the Way.”

Chrissy said, “Because it opens the Gate.”

Ibram said, “Because it brings the Fire from the Sky,” in his thick Eastern European accent, making it especially ominous.

“It’s time,” said Keith. “And we’ve been waiting so long. All we need now is for you to take up your mantle and lead us.”

“In prayer?” Jonah felt very uncomfortable. “I’m not much for prayer, but if one of you would like to lead us in a prayer for Paulo, I wouldn’t object.” He looked from one confused but expectant face to another. He watched them all unwrap their foil loaves and stand.

“It’s time,” Keith said again.

“I don’t know what any of you are talking about, and you’re kind of freaking me out.” The only sound was the crackling of foil and the shuffling of feet as people rose and began to walk toward him. “Look, guys, today was pretty tragic and I know I don’t ever want to see it again, but it was a onetime thing. No one is paving anything for anyone. It’s been a hard day, so how about you all head home and we’ll regroup in a few days?”

“But darling, we really need to get started,” said his mother. She stood at the entrance to the completely disused dining room opposite the living room. A dark red curtain hung over the arch entrance, and Jonah suddenly couldn’t ever remember a time the curtain wasn’t there. It had never in all of his nineteen years ever occurred to him to pull aside the curtain and take a peek inside. She did it now and the room was lit by what appeared to be hundreds of candles covering a sideboard, the windowsills, and the top of a china cabinet Jonah had never seen before. The movement of the curtain released a wave of heat into the main room. Jonah could feel the warmth on his skin, and he broke out in a sweat. An oblong table stood in the center of the room, draped from head to foot in a deep red runner. Within the china cabinet, candles sat on plates and in goblets and the light flickered and bounced from the glass fronts.

From behind him the German shepherd crossed into the room and, in a smooth leap that would surely leave gouges, landed on the tabletop and he lay down on the bloodred runner. It rolled onto its side and panted lightly in the heat.

Jonah’s mother handed him a long knife with a wavy blade and a handle that felt warm and pulsing. She gave him a little push toward the room and the dog.

Jonah turned, his mind swimming with the heat and fear and with his crew standing behind him. They were now eating their loaves of wet bread that looked soggy with red in the candlelight.

“Prepare the Way. Open the Gate. Bring the Fire,” they began to chant. They closed distance to Jonah quickly in the small room, blocking the front door and the staircase to the second floor. Jonah was trapped. With no more room to walk, they pressed closer to him, pushing him toward the waiting dog.

“Like this, dear.” His mother closed his fingers around the handle and raised it above his head. “Normally, we would just have you cut its throat, but this is a special sacrifice so you’ll need to remove its heart while it’s still beating. Just aim for the lungs and we’ll remove it from the abdomen.” Her hands were sweaty and her breath had a sweet but rotten smell. She was pushing his hands down toward the dog gently but with increasing force.

Jonah couldn’t believe it. His life up to this point had been as uneventful as any American with middling ambitions. He’d been with Burgeropolis since he was sixteen, first tending grill and then lunch prep, moving on to the drive-thru next. He’d earned his crew chief hat and pin and worked hard in their management program. He knew one day he’d have his own store and then it was just a matter of time before he could own two or three as a franchisee. He could see all of it and it was a good life, like the one with his mother. Even now as he stole glances at the woman with the rueful grin trying to get him to murder a dog he’d only just met, he couldn’t fathom what the heck was going on.

Jonah gave his mother a shove and she went sprawling. Tall tapered candles wobbled and fell to the floor, catching her apron on fire. She screamed and batted at the flames with the towel tucked into the pocket of the housecoat she always wore.

Jonah whirled on the crowd of his employees. He waved and jabbed the knife at them trying to get them to just back off and give him some air. “I don’t understand what’s happening,” he said. Stinging sweat began to drip into his eyes and he wiped it away with an equally sweaty arm. His fellow employees, those trusted souls he considered his A-crew, stood in mute shock; Chrissy had already taken a bite of her loaf and her mouth was streaked with a thick liquid that looked both black and red in the candlelight.

“All the signs are there,” said Chrissy, and as she spoke the masticated bread fell from her mouth. “It’s time for you to take your rightful place and we are here to witness your Ascension.” Chrissy looked at Jonah’s mother. “You were supposed to prepare him for this.”

“I’m not his mother, I’m the damned babysitter!”

Jonah realized he didn’t know (or couldn’t remember) her name. He’d never seen it on a check or a bill and it had never come up. Worse, it never occurred to him to ask. He didn’t know how that happened, but there it was. She was always just there and always answered to “Mom.” His mother began to yell, and spittle was thick at the corners of her mouth. “Do you see what I have to work with? He’s always talking about that damned store! How am I supposed to prepare for his Ascension with that nonsense?”

“My what?” screamed Jonah and his confusion grew thicker in the heat.

His mother picked herself up from the floor. Her housecoat was burnt away in places revealing the remnants of a charred bra and wrinkled, saggy breasts already blistering from the burns. She was angry in a way Jonah had never seen before, and her usually round pleasant face was twisted into a cruel grimace. She looked like she’d eaten something sour and mealy and pointed a rebuking finger at him. “You take your place at your Father’s side this instant. He’s waiting for you and has prepared your Ascension in His own Way.” The dog on the table raised his head and huffed in exasperation.

The woman leaped at Jonah, reaching for the knife, but he dodged her easily. Neither were trim or fit individuals, both having indulged in her specialty of meat pies and baked goods, but his time at the store lifting boxes of frozen meat and shifting racks and racks of buns gave him more muscle.

His crew was chanting again. “Prepare the Way. Open the Gate. Bring the Fire.” It became harder and harder for Jonah to think and breathe.

He saw his opening between Bethany and Chrissy, who had both buried their faces in their loaves, slurping and licking the foil with mouths that were streaked and covered in crumbs and mush. He barreled between them, sending them into the furniture and walls, and was out the front door so fast he nearly stumbled down the front steps. He ran into the cool night air, tossing the dagger into the street and running until his lungs ached and the stitch in his side doubled him over.

The night all around him was both thick and cool and the sky had faded from the twilight of dusk to the color of a nasty rash. Thunder sounded in the distance, and when there was lightning, the shapes flying across the sky looked too long to be birds and the flailing shape behind them gave them the appearance of people—people in the sky with great wings. Jonah heard his mother calling for him and he knew exactly where he had to go.

While a mile apart, as most Burgeropolises were by design, St. Augustine was the same distance from Jonah’s house as his own Shop #1334. It was only a matter of luck that he chose the shop to the south of his home instead of north. He ran north now, keeping to the shadows and dodging the large, plump objects now falling from the sky. One hit him on the shoulder and he stopped jogging to investigate. It was a large frog, now lying broken on the sidewalk. It was raining frogs, and the sky continued its steady progression toward the color of red. Burgeropolis, he knew, would be closed, so he pounded on the front doors of the actual St. Augustine Church across the street. Its heavy oak doors echoed inside and he pounded once, twice, three times before they swung open and Jonah toppled inside.

Michael looked down at him with a patient but puzzled look.

“Close the door! They’re right behind me!” Jonah shouted. The echo of his shouting sounded very loud in the sacristy and he let out his own cry of surprise.

Michael closed the door and helped Jonah from the floor. “Jonah, what are you doing here?”

Jonah gave his heart a few moments to slow down so he could gather his scattered thoughts. “Sanctuary. Please, I need sanctuary.” Michael led him to a pew and fetched a paper cup of water.

“I’m going to give this to you on the condition that you tell me what’s going on, though I already have a pretty good idea.” Jonah nodded and Michael handed over the cup.

“Something is happening at my house. My crew came over and I thought we were going to talk about Paulo and the store moving forward and maybe sing a hymn, but then there was this huge black dog and they wanted me to kill it and they were eating bread and I think it was made with blood and I just had to run and get out of there so here I am.” He shook his head as if it would knock loose the craziness of the situation. “The woman I thought was my mother wanted me to Ascend but she’s not my mother and I don’t know what’s going on, so I came to the only place I knew would take me in.” His words came out in a rush and when they ran out, he took a deep breath and hiccupped.

Michael looked at him for several long moments and Jonah knew the man was going to get up and call the cops. Instead he said, “So, it’s happening tonight? The Way has been paved?”

Jonah choked on his sip of water. “Oh, c’mon—not you too?”

Michael waved him off. “No, not me too. Well, kinda, but I’m not a part of that.” He gave a dismissive wave with his hand toward the door. “I’m the opposition. We’ve been working on this for months, getting our numbers up to fight. We were winning too, but I see others are forcing the issue before Deadline. Typical dirty cheaters.”

Jonah was on the verge of tears. “I need someone to tell me what’s going on.”

“Dude,” Michael said. “You’re the son of Perdition. You were supposed to amass your army and begin the Rapture. It’s written and everything.” He pulled the Employee Handbook from his back pocket. It was heavily annotated with sticky flags marking certain pages and highlighter marker throughout. “See, it’s in the section ‘End Times.’ ”

Jonah looked at the page. “That says, ‘End of the Day Closing.’ ”

Michael rolled his eyes. “That’s because you don’t have your Sight yet.” He paused. “Wait—you really thought the last few months was an employee drive? Your mother didn’t tell you anything?”

“She’s not my mother and she smells like death.”

“All the Nephilim do. They basically rot from the inside, being abominations and all, but she makes a mean pound cake.” Michael sat on the edge of the pew. His white uniform shirt nearly glowed in the dark. “I don’t know what to tell you, man. We each have our sides to prepare and you and I—we’re not on the same one. You have your place and I have mine and one day we’ll have to fight.”

“I just want to own a few Burgeropolises. I don’t want to Ascend to anything. I didn’t ask for any of this.” His voice was unsteady and his hands threatened to shake the last of the water from his paper cup.

“Dude—I don’t know what to tell you. I’d say you could stay here, but I’ve got my own army in the basement, and I’m not sure how they’d take a defector, especially, you know, the ‘King of Fierce Countenance.’ ”

There was a pounding at the door, followed by more poundings by multiple fists. Michael looked at Jonah, “Don’t worry. They won’t come in. I mean you’re an abomination and you’re here, but they know the score and respect boundaries. I’ll go see what they want. Will you be okay for a minute?”

Jonah nodded and watched Michael head back toward the front doors. He didn’t know what was going to happen next, but he thought it was very likely he was about to lead the best damned crew the world had ever seen, whether he wanted to or not.

The Shoal

Lee Moan

“Steve, hurry up.”

“The gas ain’t gonna come out any faster, sis.”

Callie took a few steps out onto the road.

“They’re comin’,” she said.

“Can you see them comin’?”

She looked east, back the way they had come, and studied the bend in the road. The blacktop shimmered through the heat haze. “No, but . . . I can feel they’re comin’.”

Steve continued to grip the gas gun, eyes fixed on the LED display. They didn’t look at the dollar total anymore, not these days. It was all about the quantity.

Callie raised her arm, creating a hood over her eyes against the blazing sun. Through the blurry haze she saw a shape forming, small at first, but growing fast. A spike of fear slid through her gut. She backed slowly toward the gas station forecourt, lips moving in silent protest.

Steve looked over. “Callie?”

“Time to go,” she said.

“Really?”

“Really.”

The shadow now filled the road at the bend, the heat haze giving it a mesmerizing, almost magical appearance. Sunlight glinted off the multitude of tiny writhing bodies, like a shoal of fish sparkling beneath clear blue ocean waves. Tearing her eyes away from the vision, Callie spun on her heels. She ran toward the car, stumbling in the dirt. Up again, she yanked open the passenger door and jumped in.

“Come on, come on, come on!” she screamed.

Steve was trying to hook the gas gun back into its cradle.

“Just leave it!”

Steve threw it to the ground, precious gas squirting into the sand. He clambered into the driver’s seat, turned the key. The expected roar of the Trans Am’s engine never came. He looked at Callie, eyes wide.

“No.” He turned the key again.

Nothing.

“Seriously?” Callie screamed.

She glanced out at the long desert road. The shimmering mass was less than fifty yards away, approaching like a freight train.

“Swap over,” Callie said, grabbing her brother’s arm. He fell across her lap, reluctant at first, but three quick punches in the ribs told him to forget fighting her. She grabbed the wheel and turned the key four times in quick succession, then turned it a fifth time, hard. The engine coughed, sputtered, died. She repeated the sequence, pulse thudding in her temples. She didn’t want to look at the road again. She knew it was close.

The cloud. The shoal. The monsters . . .

The Trans Am exploded into life, engine growling like an angry beast. Her heart soared and she floored the accelerator. The car spun on its back wheels, Callie leading it on a crazy zigzag across the forecourt and out onto the blacktop. She fixed her eyes on the road ahead, aware of the dark shadow at the edge of her vision. As the car straightened out on the highway, she heard the thud-thud-thud of tiny bodies hitting the back end of the car. Steve craned over the back of his seat, cursing like a madman. Callie kept her eyes ahead, lips pressed tight, willing their vehicle to increase its speed. She didn’t know just how fast the shoal traveled, but the Trans Am was a damn fast vehicle—that was why they’d chosen it.

Stole it.

Yeah, they stole a car. The world had gone to hell and now they were doing things they’d never dreamed of doing even a month ago.

“Faster, Callie,” Steve said.

“That’s the general idea. Have you checked the windows?”

Her brother made a quick search of the Trans Am’s four windows. “We’re good,” he said.

Callie glanced in the rearview mirror, and immediately wished she hadn’t. The typical view of the highway was obscured by a writhing mass of hideous faces—needle-like teeth, bulging eyes, and scaly bodies. They were like piranha but worse, more . . . alien. In the place where fins should be, long tentacles sprouted, clawing at the air around them. And then there was the sound they made—a long, loud exhalation that made the hairs on the back of her neck prickle.

The Trans Am was increasing its speed, but not fast enough. The shoal surrounded the car like a swarm of giant bees, ebbing and flowing, the lead creatures edging into view by Callie’s window, keeping pace with their vehicle.

Callie had her foot pressed hard to the floor but the car maintained the same speed.

“Why aren’t we going any faster?” she yelled.

Her brother shrugged.

Then she remembered. Faulty gas exchange. Got to release the pedal and reapply.

Reluctantly, she took her foot off the accelerator for a heartbeat and stamped on it again. The car surged forward. The black shapes at the edges of her vision dropped out of view.

Stupid girl.

The voice. The voice she hated.

You should’ve known that. Same old story. Got rocks in your head, girl.

“Shut up.”

“I didn’t say anything,” Steve said, gripping the dash.

The Trans Am tore up the highway, the shoal not far behind. How long could they maintain this speed? How long would the beasts follow them?

Forever?

On the flat horizon ahead she saw a cloud of dust approaching from the west. For a moment she thought it was another shoal, but a glimpse of red, white, and blue amidst the cloud gave her a flicker of relief . . .

A Greyhound bus heading toward the highway.

Relief quickly gave way to anxiety. They were leading the shoal straight to them.

What could she do? They had to keep going. Slowing down to change course would be lethal. And where could they go? Flat desert stretched out on all sides. They had to keep on toward their destination. Fort Leavenworth. Their last hope.

The Greyhound thundered toward the highway, churning up dust.

“Watch the bus,” Steve warned.

“I am watching the bus.”

Through the cloud forming ahead, Callie did her best to keep the Trans Am on a straight path. The coach loomed large in the view ahead. She waited for the crunch of metal against metal, but it didn’t come. As the dust cloud dissipated, she found herself trailing behind the gray behemoth by some twenty yards. The thud-thud-thud of tiny bodies bumping against the windows matched her racing heartbeat. She could see the heads of the bus passengers in the dirty glass windows, looking back at them. The bus was full.

What do I do? she wondered. Try and overtake and keep the shoal with them, or slow a little, let these people get away?

Before she could make a decision, the swarm suddenly lifted away from their car, rising in the desert air like a giant vampire bat where it hovered, thinking, deciding . . .

Then the shoal descended, pushing ahead with a sudden and frightening burst of speed. The cloud of dark bodies swarmed along the near side of the bus. Only then did Callie realize that the Greyhound’s entry door was open. The passengers were exposed. The cloud of creatures swam through the air toward the opening.

“Oh, Jesus,” Callie whispered. Wishing for more speed, she remembered her earlier trick and reapplied the accelerator. The engine growled, a satisfying sound. The Trans Am ate up the road, pulling level with the front of the bus.

The bus driver was a gray-haired man, bulging stomach pressed against the wheel. He looked out at them through the open door with an angry expression.

“Close your door!” Callie shouted.

“What?” the driver said.

“Close the door!”

The driver shifted his gaze to the right-hand mirrors. Only then did he see the swarm crawling along the side of his vehicle. The angry scowl melted away, replaced with bone-white fear. He looked back at Callie and Steve.

“I can’t,” he said. “It’s broken.”

A hollow pit opened in Callie’s stomach. All her hopes for those people dropped into it. The door was open, the shoal was coming. What else could they do?

What else could they do?

The sea of dark bodies rushed in through the open door, filling the interior of the Greyhound like a deathly cloud. Callie and Steve watched as the windows of the bus began to discolor, jets of dark red blood darkening each panel. A chorus of screams sounded above the roar of engines. She saw a woman’s face appear at one of the windows, squirming bodies attached to her. Her mouth was stretched in a dark oval, hands tearing at the floating bodies, but failing to remove even one. The bus driver fought against the invading swarm, batting the ravenous bodies away with surprising vigor, but before long, he was overwhelmed. He stumbled toward the open door, his upper body lost in a swirling vortex. He tumbled forward, hitting the highway blacktop and lost in a spray of red mist. The Greyhound veered into the path of the Trans Am. Callie tried to keep the car on the road, but the sheer size and weight of the bus sent them into the dunes. The wheels shuddered against the rough terrain.

“Slow down!” Steve screamed.

He was right. There was no way they could outrun the runaway Greyhound. She stabbed the brake with her left foot. They fell forward as the car rapidly dropped its speed.

Everything seemed to slow down, all sound dropping to a whisper. The front wheel of the bus hit a boulder and the entire fuselage crumpled and buckled. The sound came to them seconds later, the screeching sound of complaining metal. The Greyhound rose up in the air as if it was about to take flight but the body twisted in the air, turning over. The bus slammed down hard on the desert floor, on the door side, and then began to slide. The vision was lost in a dense cloud of brown dust. Callie had to concentrate on keeping the Trans Am on the highway but found it hard to tear her eyes away from the tragedy unfolding in the dunes. The Greyhound came to rest as they rode past it. Callie watched the unmoving vehicle, a terrible ache in her heart as she imagined the horrors taking place within.

“We should . . .”

“What?” Steve said.

She stared at the bus.

“There’s nothing we could have done, Callie. There’s nothing we can do now.”

She hated him for saying it, but she also knew he was right.

“Drive,” Steve said. “Let’s just . . . drive.”

Callie pressed her foot harder on the accelerator. The ache grew bigger the farther they traveled up the highway.

The invasion came out of nowhere.

One minute the entire world was going about its usual business—waging religious wars and petty civil skirmishes, ignoring the poverty-stricken while the one-percenters masturbated over their own insane wealth—and the next minute everyone—everyone—was in the same boat. Suddenly everything about the human race became childish and absurd as only one thing counted . . .

Survival.

The shoals appeared all over the world, in every country, every town, every corner of the globe, eating up every piece of living matter in their path. Animals, humans, even birds fell prey to the new threat. The shoals swarmed across the planet like a plague, devouring, consuming, leaving nothing but bones in their wake.

Where had they come from?

There were various theories, but everyone was so busy running for their lives no one had a chance to investigate, consolidate, or even evaluate them.

There had been a meteor shower two days before the first shoal attacks. That was a fact. A huge meteor shower, all over the globe. So what did that mean? Aliens? An attack from beyond the stars? And if so, what did that mean? If this was humanity’s extinction, what did it actually mean?

No answers. Everyone was running.

thud
thud-thud

“What is that?”

Callie looked in the rearview mirror. Steve looked over the passenger seat and surveyed the back of the vehicle.

thud-thud-thud

It came from behind the rear seats, down low.

“Can’t be,” Steve whispered.

“You said the windows were all closed,” Callie said, fear rising in her voice.

“They were!” He glanced around. “They are!”

“Then how did it get in?”

“I have no goddamn idea!”

“Wait,” Callie said. She looked across at her brother’s terror-stricken face. “At the gas station. Did you replace the fuel cap?”

Steve’s eyes bulged. “Oh shit.”

thud-thud
thud-thud

He unbuckled his belt and climbed into the back. He bent down into the rear seat foot well, trying to locate the source of the banging.

thud-thud

Steve sat up. “But if it got into the gas tank, it can’t get through to us, can it?”

Callie scowled at him in the rearview mirror.

“I mean, the walls of the tank are metal, right?” Steve said. “They can’t eat through metal. Can they?”

Callie pressed her lips tight together. She hoped he was right, but something, some dark, cynical voice spoke in the back of her mind.

“If it senses there’s food in this car,” she said, “if it knows we’re here . . . who knows what it’s capable of?”

Steve looked down, horrified. “How far to the Fort?”

“No idea.”

thud-thud

“Drive faster,” Steve said.

“Doesn’t matter how fast I drive, Steve. If that thing gets through . . .”

thud-thud-crack

“Oh Jesus,” Steve said.

Thud-crack

Thud-CRACK

“It’s comin’ through!”

Callie closed her eyes for just a moment, tightened her grip on the wheel. This wasn’t happening. This couldn’t be how it ended. So close to safety. Life couldn’t be that cruel, surely?

Life is cruel, girl.

The voice. His voice.

Life is shit and then you die.

“Shut up.”

She opened her eyes and studied the long straight road ahead. Could they make it? It couldn’t be too far now. Once they reached Fort Leavenworth the army would protect them, they would have ways to keep safe from the worldwide threat.

Survival. That was everything, wasn’t it?

SURVIVE.

Behind her, the space beneath the rear seats exploded in a shower of splinters. Steve screamed. The interior of the Trans Am became a whirling, swirling storm of chaos. Callie caught a glimpse of the invading body, a fat thing with long, jagged fins and oversized teeth. It bashed into the windows, the dashboard, the roof, delirious success after breaking out of its prison. Then it froze in the air to Callie’s right, hissing like a snake. Its dead, alien eyes fixed on her. Its jaws spread wide.

You deserve this.

No.

No.

NO!

Callie twisted the wheel hard to the right. The car went into a spin. Everything after that was a blur.

Her head struck something. The creature bounced into the seat behind her. Stevie was little more than a scarecrow floating around the cabin behind her. Sound and vision became indistinguishable. Muted noise and blurred images.

The car flipped.

bang
rolling
bangbang
rolling
bangbang

The car skidded along its roof, metal screeching on the asphalt. Sparks. The smell of burning. Skidding and skidding.

Then the car came to rest and silence fell over everything. Callie opened her eyes, blinking. She coughed. She was upside down. Her seat belt dug into her breasts. She glanced around the car, looking for Steve and . . . the thing.

No sign of the creature.

Only Steve’s arm was visible, stretched out along the backseat. Bloody smears. No sign of movement.

“Stevie?” she said.

No answer.

Where’s the creature?

She looked around hurriedly. No sign of it inside the car.

Something trickled into her mouth. She put her hand to her lips and came away with bloody fingers.

Before she could look up, the pain rushed in. Unbelievable pain.

She screamed.

“My leg!”

More blood dripped into her face. She craned her neck, trying to look up (down) at her leg. She knew it was bad. In the maelstrom of the crash she had sensed that some part of her had been broken, but it was a subconscious thing. Everything seemed surreal, dreamlike.

“Stevie?”

His fingers twitched, flexed.

He made a sound halfway between a groan and a cry.

“Stevie, are you okay?”

“I . . . I dunno,” he mumbled.

“I think my leg is broken,” she said, sounding surprisingly calm and rational under the circumstances. This news spurred Steve into action. He sat up, and that was when she saw the gash in the side of his head. His golden-blond hair was stained crimson. His eyes looked misty, unfocused.

“Broken?” he said. “Like, really broken?”

She considered a sarcastic retort but it felt wrong. “Yeah, really broken,” she said.

“Where are we? How far are we from the Fort?”

Callie looked out through the windscreen. Dusty highway stretched ahead, but she thought there was a bump on the flat horizon. A town? Leavenworth?

“Close,” she said. “I think.”

Stevie clambered through from the backseat, undid her seat belt, and took her weight as she fell. His arms were surprisingly strong. He had grown up so much since they had set out on the road. The kid brother she had fought to protect was turning into a young man.

She hissed at the pain flaring in her damaged leg, but allowed Steve to ease her out of the wrecked car onto the warm asphalt.

“Wait,” he said. “Where’s that thing? Where’d it go?”

“Crushed, hopefully,” she said, gasping against the bolts of agony.

Stevie laid her down gently. As he looked her over, blood from his head wound trickled down his face but he didn’t appear to notice. He glanced at her leg, frowned.

“Do you think you can walk?” he said.

“No.”

“It’s not far. I can support you.”

In that moment she loved him more than she ever had. It had always been her job to look after him, now he was trying to return the favor.

“I bet you could,” she said. “Thing is, the shoal is coming.” She raised her head slightly, looking down the highway. “They can’t be far behind.”

“So . . . what?” Stevie said. “What do we do?”

“You can walk. Run. You can get to the Fort, get help. I’ll wait here. Wait for you.”

Horror sparked in his eyes. “No way. What if those things come?”

She looked into his deep brown eyes, narrowed her gaze. “Run fast.”

The realization settled in his face. He raised her hand and kissed the back of it. “I love you, sis.”

He stood up, his jaw tight, set in determination.

“Love you, Stevie. Now run.”

She rested her head on the road, staring up into the clear blue sky as Stevie’s footsteps retreated into the distance. Smoke drifted overhead, the acrid smell of smoldering upholstery biting the lining of her nostrils.

Then she heard the hiss, the long exhalation. Turning her head, she saw a dark shape crawling out from under the hood of the Trans Am. Like her, the creature was badly wounded. Its undulating fins on one side were shredded. And yet, still it forced itself on, inching across the asphalt toward her, jaws snapping.

All she could do was wait, watch it come closer, closer . . .

More smoke belched from the rear of the Trans Am, accompanied by a sharp bang. Flames jetted out into the air. Sparks flew.

The sparks hit the blacktop around the creature and its fat body was suddenly engulfed in fire. It screeched. Its body bucked.

Of course, she thought. The damn thing came through the gas tank. Ha!

Within the flames burned bright, beautiful colors—purple, green, and yellow. Despite the fire and the charring of its scales, the creature tried desperately to resume its journey, crawling toward her, inch by inch . . .

Callie began to drift in and out of consciousness, blood loss and acute pain making her woozy, dreamy. The smell of burning stirred up a sea of memories.

One memory in particular . . .

Not a good one.

Burning . . .

She remembers looking down at the smoldering shirt. The bowl of water she poured on it didn’t save it. As the steam and smoke billowed up into her face, the sight of the blackened shirt struck her heart like a poisonous arrow. That hot, sick feeling in her gut spread quickly, climbing up into her throat, her face.

Oh no . . .

The steam iron on the sideboard behind her hissed like a treacherous snake.

“CALLIE?”

His voice. Oh God. He’s going to see. He’s going to be cross.

She looked round, praying she might have a few seconds to hide her mistake, but he was already standing in the kitchen doorway, silhouetted against the hall light. She didn’t need to see his face to know what was in his eyes. That angry, cold expression. Oh how she hated it, feared it. She couldn’t even look at him.

Oh God, she didn’t want to have this memory, not now. Why was she seeing this now?

“What the hell have you done, girl?” His voice so big, like thunder.

She kept her eyes down, fixed on the smoldering shirt. “I—I just left the iron for a second, and . . .”

“A second?” he growled. “You think I’m friggin’ stupid, girl?” He took a few lurching steps into the kitchen, the beer bottle dangling from his fingers swinging like a club. He stared down at the ruined shirt. “That . . . that was the only decent shirt I had.”

“I’m sorry, Daddy,” she said, fighting tears. But they were not tears of sorrow. They were tears of dread. She knew what would come next, what always came next.

“You’re sorry?” he said, shaking his head. “Well, you will be sorry, girl.” He craned his neck and shouted over his shoulder: “Stevie!”

Her little brother’s silhouette appeared down the hall. “Yes, Daddy?”

“Get me the strap from the barn.”

The burning sensation in her chest suddenly turned icy cold.

“Daddy?” Stevie said. “I don’t want to—”

“Do it! Do it now or you’ll get the same.”

Callie met her brother’s gaze and saw the mixture of emotions in his eyes. She nodded to him, just a small movement to let him know it was okay, that it was not his fault.

Face creased in misery, Stevie slipped out the side door and returned half a minute later with the leather strap. Slowly, reluctantly, he brought it to his father, who snatched it from him and gripped it tight.

Callie pressed her back against the mahogany sideboard, the steam iron bubbling quietly behind her. As her father approached, she let the fear in, welcomed it and accepted it. This was not her father. This was not the man who had raised her through infancy into young womanhood, the man who had taught her how to fish, how to hunt, how to drive a tractor when she was eleven. The man before her was a silhouette, just an outline of the man he used to be—the man he was before Mom died, before everything changed. But the pain he inflicted was real. The beatings did not fade.

“Why are you so clumsy, girl?” he said, flexing his fingers around the handle of the whip. “You got rocks in your head?”

That’s what he always said; those little phrases designed to wear her down, break her spirit bit by bit. Everything he did was designed to make her feel stupid, worthless, as though she deserved it.

But you don’t, a voice said. You don’t deserve any of this.

Then another voice appeared, her true voice:

I won’t be a victim anymore.

No more.

NO

MORE

“No, Daddy,” she said, surprised at the calm in her voice. “No rocks in my head.”

He stopped, only a few feet away from her, fixing her with those red-rimmed, tired eyes. He swayed slightly as he tried to gauge her meaning. Then, slowly, he raised the whip.

At the same time her hand gripped the handle of the iron, and she brought it round in a wide arc. The metal plate struck her father in the temple. His face twisted hard to the right. He stayed like that for a few frozen seconds, stunned, hardly comprehending what had happened. Then he slowly turned his head back toward her even as blood began spilling from the gash in his forehead.

His face twisted, lips curling. “You stupid, little—”

She lunged forward again, pressing the iron against the twisted, distorted features of the man who used to be her father, the face that had smiled down at her all through her childhood, her teacher, her parent, her daddy.

He screamed as the hot iron seared his skin. He fell backward, hitting the kitchen floor hard. Standing over him, Callie watched the strap skid across the floor as he clawed at his ruined face.

She was lost in a whirlwind now, beyond rational thinking. Before she knew it, the strap was in her hand and she was striking him, beating the screaming man on the floor. Anger and resentment flooded through her like fire, urging her on.

“Stop!” he screamed.

But she didn’t stop. Again and again she brought that leather strap down, harder than he had ever done to them.

“Where’s my daddy?” she had cried. “Where is he? Where’s . . . my . . . daddy?”

Callie came out of the reverie suddenly as the pain in her broken leg suddenly spiked. She screamed into the air. When the scream faded, a new sound filled the silence. The sound she now dreaded more than anything else . . .

The buzz of the shoal. Getting closer.

WHY? Why did I have to see that memory now?

Just to remind me that “Life’s a bitch and then you die”?

No . . .

“No,” she said, lifting her head off the road. She looked to her right and found the still-burning body of the creature less than two feet away, still alive, still twitching, still searching for her flesh. Then she looked down the highway and saw the cloud of swarming bodies approaching fast. Hovering several feet off the blacktop, they rose up in her vision like a specter. Needle-like teeth glinted in the sunlight. Alien eyes bulged at the sight of their latest meal.

“No.”

She sat up, biting back the spike of agony coming from her fractured leg. The shoal reached her, but instead of attacking her they spread out in a fan around her. Before long, she was surrounded by them on all sides. They hovered, undulating in the air, hissing and spitting and eyeing her with those horrible alien eyes.

“What?” she said. “What are you waiting for?”

She studied them for a long time, waiting for an answer she knew would not come. Maybe she already knew the answer.

“You want to eat me?” She looked around. “Well?”

The shoal didn’t move.

She looked down at their charred comrade and slowly reached for it. Its body was hot against the skin of her palms, but it was nothing like the pain in her leg. She raised it up, holding it just a few inches from her face. She stared into its ovoid eyes, its hideous, scaly face. The body was plump, like the trout they used to fish for in the lake. The creature hissed at her, reminding her of its alien nature.

Before she could question herself she sank her teeth into the creature’s side. The scales were crunchy, the flesh beneath surprisingly soft and juicy. The creature squirmed in her grip, but she didn’t let go. She was not done yet. She bit down again, chewing into its flesh. She must have hit something vital as the beast suddenly stopped fighting. Limp in her hands, she continued to devour it. The taste was not unpleasant, and the sensation of it sliding down her throat, extremely pleasurable.

As she ate, she looked at the other creatures. They had stopped hissing. They watched her in eerie silence.

A vision filled her mind, the blurry image of an alien landscape. Rocks and dust hung suspended in the air all around. The sky above was purple and full of ominous, lightning-filled clouds. A shoal hove into view, gliding high above the planet’s rocky surface. Then a new shape appeared on the horizon, a huge, monstrous shape like a blue whale only a hundred times its size. The giant alien beast swam through the landscape, opening its huge maw to devour the entire shoal in one swoop. The behemoth swam on, disappearing out of sight.

Food, Callie thought as the vision faded. That’s all they are. Food.

They want to be eaten.

Smiling, she finished her meal.

Through the heat haze, a dozen tanks appeared. The rumble of their approach could be felt half a mile away.

Summoning herself from sleep, Callie sat up, wincing against the pain in her leg. She peered at the approaching garrison. The lead vehicle rumbled to a stop several feet from the burned-out husk of the upside-down Trans Am. Callie raised her arm, shielding her eyes from the sun’s glare.

Two men appeared from the turret of the tank, a soldier and her baby brother. Their expressions transmuted from concern to absolute astonishment.

“Howdy, boys,” Callie said. “What took ya?”

The shoal swam around her in a beautiful constellation, swooping, diving, swirling. Obedient.

Callie grinned. “So . . . who’s hungry?”

Jack and the Bean Stalker

Tonia Brown

I had known Jack Talent all my life, so it didn’t come as a surprise to me when he called me in the middle of the night demanding that I come over right away with no explanation. Or that the invasion of the human race was slated to start with him. Both of these things made perfect sense when you knew Jack personally. I mean, sure, I would’ve loved for him to just explain what he needed over the phone, but no, I had to haul my ass over to his place at almost midnight to deal with his crap. And some crap it was.

The driveway was full of cars already, as was the yard and most of the street. I parked my Bug on the side of the road a few doors down and stalked across the wet grass toward the full house. Music thumped out of the open windows, accompanied by peals of zealous laughter and all the sounds of party-going antics. It dawned on me that Jack was having a birthday party for Tammy after all, and didn’t invite me, his best friend. Of course, Tammy didn’t like me so there was that. But still, calling me over during a party I wasn’t invited to was pretty low.

It was also something Jack would do without a second thought.

I stormed to the front door with every intention of beating it down with my insulted rage. But before I could reach it, someone grabbed me by the collar of my jacket and yanked me down into the zinnias. The person pressed me to the ground under his weight, facedown, wrapping a thick hand around my mouth. I was just beginning to wonder how the stranger planned on killing me when I felt his hot breath on my ear.

“Rob,” Jack said. “It’s me.”

Of course it was Jack. The lunatic!

“Are you one of them?” he asked, hissing his words with an angry slur.

“Om om moo?” I mumbled under his hand.

He released his grip and rolled me over to face him. In the thin light streaming down from the kitchen window, Jack looked like shit. Well, shittier than usual. I never understood what a girl like Tammy saw in him. His unkempt beard poked out at odd angles from his grimy face. Heavy, dark half circles lay under his bloodshot eyes. He smelled deeply of garbage and beer, most of it flowing from his filthy clothes. On this assessment, it struck me that I hadn’t seen him in a few days. Not since the night we had a few too many at the Silver Dollar, and Jack was thrown out for trying to grope a waitress’s ass. Again.

“How do I know you’re not one of them?” he asked.

“Get off me,” I said in a wheeze. I tried to push him away. “I can’t breathe.”

He ignored my struggling and repeated, “Answer me. Are you one of them?”

“One of who?”

“Them,” he said in a slow drawl, narrowing his eyes at me.

“Who are ‘them’?”

Jack frowned and drew closer, bringing his face inches from mine. He reached out, pried one of my eyes wide, and stared hard into it. Something in there seemed to satisfy him because he let me go and gave me a firm nod. I pushed him off me, finally, and gulped air into my aching lungs as I sprawled out on the lawn behind the bushes.

“Jesus, man,” I said. “What was that about? You nearly squeezed the life out of me.”

To my surprise, Jack grinned. “Good. That’s good.”

I sat up and stared at him. “It’s good that you almost smothered me to death?”

“Yes. That means you’re still breathing air. You’re not one of them.” He crawled forward to peer out of the bushes, making a quick scan of the porch before glancing back at me. “Unless they also need to breathe air. Do plants breathe?”

“What in the hell are you talking about?”

“Plants. Plants! Do plants need to breathe?”

“I . . . I guess so. In a certain way. I mean they need air to survive, but not really the same kind we do—wait up. Why are we crouched in the bushes talking about plants needing to breathe?”

Jack turned around again, his wild eyes and wide smile almost unnerving. He looked maniacal. He still looked like shit too, but now there was an overwhelming touch of madness in his eyes. Shitty and maniacal. Shiniacal. That’s how he looked. So there I was, crouching in the bushes with shiniacal Jack, when he opened his mouth and said something I never expected to hear him say.

“Because a pod person has taken over my life.”

I blinked once, then twice. Surely I had heard him wrong. Pod person? I stuck a pinky in my ear and waggled it around, trying to clean out the obvious waxy buildup that kept me from fully understanding my best friend.

I turned the now clean ear toward him and said, “I’m sorry, I think I misheard you. Can you repeat that?”

Jack dropped the shiniacal grin in favor of a shrown. “You heard me right the first time.”

“A pod person?”

He nodded.

“Has taken over your life?” I said.

He nodded again.

“How much have you had to drink?” I asked.

“I’m not drunk,” he said.

“Then how much do you need to drink? Because you’re sounding a little crazy right now.”

“I’m not crazy! I’m telling you, a pod person has taken over my life.”

“How? You’re right there. Don’t they need to eat you to copy you or something?”

Jack grimaced. “Gross, dude. Why you gotta get nasty?”

“What? You’re the one that said a pod—”

“You don’t believe me.”

I dithered. I didn’t mean to, but it was hard to hide the fact that, no, I didn’t believe him. I didn’t want him to know that, because he could get a bit fisty when he was mad. Not feisty. Fisty. As in punching his fists into the nearest source of his anger. Namely me.

“Well,” I started, “now, I wouldn’t say that I don’t believe you. It’s just, well, you know, kind of hard—”

“You don’t believe me,” he repeated. Jack laid a heavy hand on my shoulder. “I can make you believe me.”

I winced under his strong grip. “You can?”

He grabbed my sleeve and duckwalked away from the bushes, dragging me with him. I lurched forward, struggling to keep up with his much wider steps. Even at a crouch he was a clean foot taller than me. I tried to stand but he yanked on my sleeve, pulling me down again.

“Keep down,” he said. “They’ll see you.”

“All right,” I said, and did my best to follow him.

Jack led me to the back of the house, where he finally allowed me to get up. I stood and stretched, making little circles in the air with my feet as I shook out the pins and needles in my legs. I wasn’t exactly physically fit and duckwalking so far took it out of me. Man, I really needed to get in shape.

“This way,” he said, and headed for the shed.

“Jack,” I said. “I don’t know what kind of game you and the others are playing—”

“Not a game. No one else knows. Just you and me.” He left me by the side of the house and stormed across the lawn toward the shed. “They’ll know soon. They’ll all know.”

I followed him a ways before I decided enough was enough. “Why did you call—”

Jack whipped around to face me and held up his right hand, fingers stretched out to show his palm. “Five seconds.”

I furrowed my brow at him. “Five seconds what?”

“Give me five seconds to change your mind. Or else.” He closed his hand into a fist and shook it at me.

I gave a sigh, seeing there was no use fighting him on this. “Okay. Five seconds.”

“Okay.” He turned back to the shed and swung the door open. Jack motioned for me to come inside.

I followed him into the darkened shed, counting aloud. “One. Two. Three.”

By the time I hit three he flicked on the light.

“Four . . . Holy shit,” I said. My mouth dropped open at the sight.

The entire shed was wall-to-wall foliage. Thick, green vines traced a path back and forth along the walls, the floor, even the ceiling. Huge leaves, two hands wide, hung from the vines. Beautiful blossoms of red and yellow dotted the vines all along the shed, their petals glistening in the fluorescent light. All of this scattered greenery led back to the far corner of the shed, under the single window. As much as I hated to admit it, under the window there rested an enormous seedpod.

About the size of a person.

“What in the hell?” I said.

“I know,” Jack said.

“This is—wow. I mean. Wow. What is it?” I took a few steps closer to the plant.

“It’s the pod that the other Jack came out of.”

“Other?” I shot Jack an unsure glance. “Care to elaborate?”

“Remember that night at the Dollar?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, the next day I was trying to sleep it off, when I woke up in the middle of the afternoon tied up and gagged and laying down in that thing.” He paused to point to the pod. “Some guy that looked just like me said I had to stay in the pod so it could absorb me and he could take over my life.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Oookay.”

Jack didn’t seem to notice my disbelief. “I was able to get myself free, but when I got back to the house, the new Jack was already in there with Tammy.”

“What did you do?”

“Well, I was going to bust in and rescue her, but I didn’t want to put her in danger.”

“Ah. Yeah. That sounds like you.”

“I decided to wait and study his moves. So I would know how to take him down.”

“And that’s what you’ve been doing for the last three days? Living out here in the shed and studying this other Jack’s moves?”

Jack nodded.

“What have you been smoking?” I inquired.

“What do you mean?” he said, losing his filthy thought and grin.

“I can’t believe you.” I waved my hands at the vines and pod. “You called me over in the middle of the night to talk about gardening? You’re losing it. Congratulations, Jack. You’ve finally drunk all your brain cells into submission. You know, I never understood why Tammy has stayed with you for so long. You’re such a dick.”

He held up his hands. “Because I’m great in the sack.”

“Right. So you say.”

“Hang on,” he said, grabbing his phone from his pocket. “I followed them to the park yesterday. Check this shit.”

Jack flicked through a few screens, then handed the thing to me. The screen was filled with a picture of Jack and Tammy on a park bench, laughing and holding hands. Only it wasn’t Jack. I knew it wasn’t Jack with a single glance. It looked exactly like Jack in every conceivable way, but it wasn’t my Jack. And not just because the man in the picture was better dressed and clean cut. No. It was because in his other hand he held a bottle of water.

Jack Talent never drank water. Ever. He always said he got enough water in beer.

“Dear God,” I whispered.

I scrolled through the photos and in almost all of them this other Jack almost always had a bottle of water in his hand. My skin crawled at the sight of it. Jack on a carousel, holding a bottle of water. Jack on a paddleboat, sipping from a bottle of water. Jack sprawled in the grass, a bottle of water just above his head.

“He looks just like you,” I said. “I mean, he’s better looking, but he does look just like you. It’s uncanny.”

“I know,” Jack said, taking his phone back. “It kind of freaked me out at first, but after . . . Hey! What do you mean he’s better looking?”

I shrugged. “Well, you know, he’s all cleaned up. And you’re . . .” I pointed to his filthy clothes and ratty hair.

Jack turned his nose up at me. “I can clean up. Just because I don’t get all froufrou all the time doesn’t mean I can’t clean up. Besides, I didn’t call you over to criticize my lack of personal hygiene. I need you to help me.”

“Help you do what?”

“Kill it.”

I swallowed hard. “I was afraid you would say that.”

“You should be afraid. Be very afraid.” Jack chuckled. “Sorry, dude. That sounded better in my head.”

“Good, because it sounded pretty stupid coming out of your mouth.” We both laughed for a moment. “Are you serious about this?”

“As serious as I have ever been.”

Which wasn’t saying much.

He picked up a pair of shovels from their spot against the doorframe and handed me one. “Here, you’ll need this. I don’t know what kind of powers that thing will have, but I think just braining it with a shovel will work. All I need for you to do is watch my back. There is no telling how many other people have been taken over.” He exited the shed, holding the door open for me.

I stepped out into the yard and looked to the busy house, hefting the weight of the shovel in my hand. “I don’t know if I can do this.”

“Sure you can. We go in there, expose him for the monster he is, and bam!” Jack waved the shovel about. “I smack him down and save the day. And Tammy is so grateful she throws herself at me and quits being such a bitch about the small shit.” He lifted the shovel into the air again and brought it down on his imaginary foe.

I watched him wave the shovel around as I weighed his words. “Is that what this is about?”

“What’s with the what now?”

“Is that what this is all about? Did you wait until Tammy’s party so you could do this in front of her friends?”

Jack hugged the shovel to him. “Maybe.”

I rolled my eyes. “Jesus. You’re a real piece of work.” I handed the shovel back to him. “I’m out.”

“Oh, come on, Rob. You’ve seen what she’s like. You know how she treats me. Tammy is always telling me how worthless I am.”

“You are pretty worthless.”

“That I can’t hold down a job.”

“You can’t hold down a job.”

“That I have no fashion sense.”

“You don’t have any fashion sense.”

“That I’m selfish in bed.”

I made a noncommittal noise to that one.

“Sure,” he said, “I could’ve gone in there at any time and told her she’s been slobbering all over a plant man, but I waited until she had all her friends over so I could, you know, save the day.” He held up his shovel again. “Don’t we all dream of being the hero for our ladies? Help me be Tammy’s hero, man. I need this. Come on.” He held out the second shovel.

I let out an exasperated breath and grabbed the shovel. “Okay. Let’s get this over with.”

We crept up to the house and quietly let ourselves in through the back door, which was easy considering the place was still thumping and full of party sounds. Jack pointed to me and made a motion to the bustling living room through the far kitchen door, then pointed to himself and motioned to the hallway at the end of the kitchen. I think he meant he wanted us to split up and go around and meet again in the middle of the living room.

I nodded, hoping that’s what he meant.

Jack held up a thumb before he drifted off down the hallway.

Holding my shovel close to me, I made my way through the kitchen full of party food and into the living room. The place wasn’t as packed as I first thought. There were only about a dozen folks milling around a buffet table filled with more food and drinks. I didn’t know anyone. They must’ve all been Tammy’s friends. I waited there with my shovel, sweating up a nervous storm, wondering what Jack’s plan was now. A cute little blond girl stood beside the kitchen door. She nodded at me.

“Hi!” she shouted over the music and noise.

I raised a hand in greeting.

“I like your shovel!” she said.

“Thanks!” I shouted.

“My name is Sarah!”

“I’m Robert! My friends call me Rob!”

“Rob with the shovel! It’s nice to meet you!”

All at once I felt like the world’s biggest idiot. What in the hell was I doing? Once again I let Jack talk me into some crazy scheme. I had the creeping feeling he had set me up. That the whole pod thing was some kind of joke. Just then, I caught sight of Jack coming in through the hallway entrance. A nicer Jack. A better-looking Jack. This one was clean-shaven and wearing a pale yellow sweater with white slacks. The partygoers hollered at him and he waved at everyone.

He looked so much like Jack. Could he really be a pod person?

“What?” Sarah shouted.

“What?” I said.

“You said something about a pod person!”

Great. I had been thinking aloud. Way to blow the plan. I looked around to make sure no one had heard her, or me. “What? Why would I say that? Don’t worry about it!” I tried to wave it off, but I only ended up brandishing my shovel at the girl.

“Is that what the shovel is for?”

“What?”

“For the pod person!”

I started to panic. If she didn’t stop going on about it, she would ruin the whole sneak attack. I got in close and tried to lower my voice. “Don’t be silly. Why would I think Jack is a pod person?”

“What?”

Without warning, the music cut short, leaving a vacuum of silence in its place.

A silence I wasn’t expecting when I asked, “I said, why would I think Jack is a pod person?”

The sound of breaking glass drew my attention and I turned around to find Tammy standing near the buffet table. A shattered glass rested at her feet, the shards lying in a pool of punch all over the hardwood floor.

“Robert?” she said. “Who told you that?”

“I did,” Jack said.

A few people in the room gasped and when I turned around I saw why.

Two Jacks stood together near the stereo. One was the clean-cut Jack holding a glass of water, the other the raggedy Jack with a shovel. I rubbed my eyes. When I opened them again, they were still there. Two Jacks. Which meant one wasn’t the real Jack. It seemed Jack—my Jack—wasn’t lying. The other Jack was a pod person.

“Get back,” old Jack said.

The new Jack lowered his glass of water to the end table beside him, making sure to put a coaster under the glass.

Yeah, that wasn’t my Jack.

The new Jack stepped away from the old Jack, holding his hands up. “Okay. I know how this looks. But I can explain.”

“You don’t get to explain,” old Jack said. “You get to die.” Jack raised his shovel.

“Wait!” Tammy said, rushing over to the pair. She took the new Jack by the arm and pulled him close. “You don’t have to do this. Please.”

“Tammy,” old Jack said, the shovel still raised. “Get away from him. He’s not me. He’s a plant thing from outer space.”

Patting the new Jack on the arm, Tammy said, “I know.”

The shovel dropped from old Jack’s hands. “What do you mean you know?”

“I know. I’ve known for a while.”

Old Jack slowly lowered the shovel to the floor, confusion flitting across his grimy face. “You knew he wasn’t me?”

Tammy looked at the new Jack. “I knew the moment I saw him. I mean, it’s obvious.” She picked at new Jack’s fancy haircut. “He’s so much cleaner than you. And a nicer dresser. And kinder.”

New Jack patted Tammy’s hand. “Yes, I’m afraid she saw straight through my little ruse.” He brushed his fingers over her cheek before he added, “And right into my soul.”

Tammy sighed as she gazed longingly in new Jack’s eyes.

Most of the people in the room sighed with her.

I was tempted to sigh myself. That was an awful sweet thing to say.

“Wait up,” old Jack said. “Are you in love with this asshole?”

Tammy stamped her foot. “He isn’t an asshole. He is perfect. He is sweet, he is kind, and he doesn’t try to dry hump me every five minutes.”

Old Jack laughed aloud. “Whoa. You mean you two haven’t slept together yet?”

“I don’t think that is any of your business,” new Jack said.

“Which means you haven’t,” old Jack said. He chuckled again. “Man, you’ve had all that at your mercy for three days and you haven’t boned her? What is wrong with you?”

“You see?” Tammy said, putting her hands on her hips. Classic angry Tammy stance. “This is what I mean. You’re such a pig. It’s always sex, sex, sex with you.”

Old Jack snorted. “I never heard you complain.”

“I did!” Tammy shouted. “I complained all the time! You just never listened.” She grabbed new Jack’s hand. “But he listens. He cares.”

I cleared my throat. “Excuse me.”

“What?” the arguing couple said as they turned to face me.

“I hate to bring this up,” I said, “but did all of you know about him?” I pointed back and forth at the partygoers, who all seemed abnormally calm considering what was playing out in front of them.

The crowd looked around, then folks started nodding their heads.

Old Jack’s mouth fell open a bit. “All of you knew?”

The cute blonde, Sarah, said, “Well, yeah. I mean we didn’t know he was a pod person, but we knew something was different.”

“And you didn’t try to do anything?”

“Why should we?” a tall man said from the back. “Tammy is happier than we have seen her in years. I for one like the new Jack.”

“Me too,” said a portly chick.

Various cries of “Me too” and “Hear, hear” rose from the crowd.

“What are you?” I asked the new Jack.

“Rob,” Tammy said, scolding me.

“Sorry, is that too personal?”

“Not at all,” new Jack said. “I am from a planet about twenty-three light-years from yours. I have been traveling for some time as part of a scouting mission to find a suitable place for my race to colonize.”

“I take it Earth is a suitable planet?”

“The most suitable we have ever come across. My people will prosper here.”

“Aha!” old Jack said. “You are planning on invading!”

“Not at all,” new Jack said. “Don’t think of it as invading. Think of it as integrating. We join other species, copy their genetic codes, and live as one with them. Our goal is to create peace and harmony in the societies we integrate with. All across the universe.”

“That sounds nice,” Sarah said.

“It does,” Tammy said, snuggling up closer to new Jack.

“You replace people, though,” I said. “I mean, you get rid of the original?”

“Yes,” new Jack said, “but don’t let that worry you. We never replace everyday people. We find that if we replace a few important people in key positions, the cascade effect of our actions creates peace in the rest of society.”

“Then you only replace what, politicians and world leaders? Folks like that?”

New Jack smiled a flawless grin. “Yes. Exactly. Folks like that.”

“And me!” old Jack yelled.

“And you. I’m sorry.” New Jack hung his head. He looked truly sorry. “You were just a test subject. I didn’t mean any harm.”

“Speaking of harm,” I said. “I hate to ask this but what happens to the folks you replace? Jack said you put him in the pod you came out of. That the pod needed to absorb him for you to survive.”

New Jack sucked a quick breath through his teeth. “That part is true, I’m afraid. We need to absorb the full genetic code of those we replicate or we can’t hold the pattern. In fact, if Jack doesn’t return to the pod by morning, I will cease to exist tomorrow afternoon.”

“Oh no,” Tammy said. “I don’t want you to go.” She threw her arms around the new Jack and sobbed.

“It’s all right,” new Jack said. “Don’t cry, honey.”

All eyes turned to old Jack, including mine.

“What?” he said. “You guys seriously expect me to just climb into that pod out there so this copycat can take my place?”

No one argued. No one spoke. We just kept staring at him. I felt bad for the poor guy, but I had to say, the new Jack was kind of cool. I could see why Tammy was so much happier with him. The old Jack was such a headache and the new Jack seemed, well, nicer. It just seemed a shame that old Jack had to go for new Jack to stay.

“Is that what this party is about?” old Jack said. “This some kind of ‘Welcome to the planet Earth’ party for your new boyfriend?”

That did it. Tammy balled her fists. Everyone looked down at their glass or plate or just at the floor. New Jack and I both cringed.

“Jack,” I said. “It’s Tammy’s birthday.”

“Is it?” old Jack said, genuinely surprised. “Well then, happy birthday, baby.”

But Tammy wasn’t having any of that. “Don’t you happy birthday me, you jackass. We’ve been together for five years and you never remembered my birthday. Ever! I always had to remind you and even then you never got me anything. I have no idea why I stayed with you for so long. I am sick to death of pretending everything is okay. You’re a horrible person, Jack. You’re selfish and filthy and always horny. Loud, obnoxious, rude. You think bacon is a fruit and beer is a substitute for water. And no matter what you keep telling yourself, pornography is not what everyone means when they say chick flick. You’re always smelly and always late and always forgetful and never think of anyone but yourself. Please, just do the right thing for once and get in that pod, Jack Everett Talent!”

After that tirade, I fully expected old Jack to blow his gasket and give Tammy as good as she dished out. But no. Old Jack surprised all of us by nodding.

“Okay,” he said.

Tammy blinked in shock. “Okay?”

“Okay.”

“You mean you will?”

“If he makes you happy, then I will get in the pod and let him eat me or absorb me or whatever he needs to do.” Old Jack furrowed his brow at new Jack. “Will it hurt?”

“Not at all,” new Jack said. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

“Yes,” old Jack said. “I love you, Tammy. I know you never think I do, but I do. If he is what you want, then okay. I’ll get in the pod. But only if he makes you happy.”

Tammy took new Jack’s hand in her own. “He does. I’m sorry about this, Jack, but he does. This one act of kindness doesn’t erase a lifetime of being a douche.”

“I understand,” old Jack said. “Just give me one more night. Me and Rob will go out for a few drinks and when I come back at sunrise, if he still makes you happy, I will get in the pod.”

“Okay then,” Tammy said. “We will see you in the morning.”

New Jack held out his hand. “Thanks. This is really big of you.”

Old Jack looked down at new Jack’s hand, then up at new Jack. “You can use that hand to go fuck yourself. Come on, Rob.”

On our way out I heard Tammy espousing that Jack’s exit was exactly why she was glad he needed to get in the pod. I leaned the shovel against the door and rushed out to catch up with him.

“What is the plan?” I asked.

“The plan is to get out of here,” Jack said.

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“I figured you would lull the new Jack into a false sense of security while we sneak out back and destroy the pod or something like that.”

“Nope. Not this time.”

“Are you really going to do this?”

“Sure,” Jack said with a shrug. “If he makes her happy, I’ll go. It’s not like everyone wants me to stay. I see you didn’t stick up for me back there.”

I rubbed at my neck in embarrassment. “Sorry, man. I should’ve said something but I got kind of overwhelmed with what was happening. I mean, a pod person? It’s so weird.”

“Yeah, weird.” He walked on ahead of me toward my Bug.

“You don’t seem very worried.”

“Why worry? I’m a dead man walking. Nothing to worry about anymore.”

We settled into my Bug and I started the engine. “Which bar?”

“Actually, if you don’t mind, I’d rather go back to your house and crash. I’m beat.”

“I thought you’d want to spend your last night partying.”

“Nah,” he said with a serene smile. “I want to be sober in the morning when I get back.”

“Oh. Okay.”

I drove us back to my place and we both went to bed right away. I was exhausted anyway and couldn’t wait to get away from Jack. He seemed oddly calm. I had never seen someone shoot right past the other stages of grief and go straight to acceptance. It was weird, but then again Jack was weird so no surprise there. My dreams were filled with pods and plants and multiple Jacks. I woke in a cold sweat and didn’t sleep much after that. Morning came and I found Jack sitting on the couch waiting for me. We drove back to his house with Jack as calm as I had ever seen him. When we pulled up in the driveway and cut the engine, Jack let out a slow exhale.

“You don’t have to do this,” I said.

“Yes,” Jack said, “I do.”

He got out and I followed him. Jack paused on the porch and rang the bell rather than just letting himself in. Tammy answered the door. I started at the sight of her. She looked horrible. Her hair was a mess and mascara streaked her face. Her eyes were swollen and red, proof of hours spent crying.

“Jack,” she said curtly.

“Tammy,” old Jack said. He looked through the open door. “Where is your boyfriend?”

Tammy’s lower lip quivered. “Gone.”

“Gone?”

“Gone. We had a huge fight about, you know, stuff. He took his pod and his ship and he left. He said the human race could go to hell as far as he was concerned.”

“Huh. Imagine that.”

She opened the door wider. “Looks like you win.”

“Yes. Yes, I do.” He looked at me. “Thanks for the ride, man. I’ll see you later.”

I was more confused than ever. What in the hell was going on?

As Jack walked through the door, she grabbed his arm. “How . . . how did you know?”

He shrugged. “Just a guess.”

Tammy smiled. “I’ll go and get cleaned up and we can . . .” She paused to flick a glance at me then back to Jack before she finished. “We can talk. About stuff.”

“I’d like that.” He grabbed her around the waist and growled at her. “I’d like to talk with you for a good, long, slow time.” Jack smacked Tammy on the ass as she disappeared into the house, then he turned to me. “Thank God that’s over.”

I stood in the open doorway, mouth agape. “What just happened? I thought he was so much better than you? Why did she make him leave?”

Jack chuckled. “Tammy might be a bitch but she is right about one thing—I am a selfish lover.” He smiled wide. “Except for one day a year.”

I smiled with him. “Her birthday.”

“Yup. Sure, she has to remind me, but she reminds me for a reason. I might have never bought her anything, but you can’t buy that kind of satisfaction.”

“You son of a bitch. You have got to be kidding me.”

“No joke. You wanna know why she has stayed with me for so long? Every man has a talent, my friend. And mine happens to be in the bedroom, if you get my meaning.”

I laughed aloud. “I do, man. I do.”

“I mean, I ride her like a four-wheeler in a mud pit on a hot summer’s—”

I held up my hands. “Jack, seriously, I get it. You don’t have to tell me the details.”

“Okay. Suit yourself.” With that, he shut the door in my face.

Typical Jack.

As I climbed back into my Bug, I wondered how different things would’ve been if the new Jack and his people had really integrated with us. I also wondered what their idea of happiness was. After all, if they couldn’t satisfy one of our women, what hope did they have of satisfying the entire human race?

The Rider

Jake Bible

The flames licked the sky and I danced!

I watched as my house, and all the houses, the perfect little houses, went up in smoke, and all I could do was dance like I’d scored in the Super Bowl. I was free. I had beaten them! They couldn’t stop me, they couldn’t keep me from telling the truth, they couldn’t hold me with their balloons and cookies and business cards!

I had scorched the earth they wanted so badly! Scorched it, cleansed it, obliterated any trace of them! They messed with the wrong Broncos fan!

Then . . . then I heard the cries. I heard the screams. I heard the calls for help.

The calls for me to help.

“Daddy! Daddy, help us! DADDY!”

Oh God, what did I do? What did I do?

“Anthony? Are you listening to me?”

“What? Oh, yes, sorry. I was lost in thought.”

“What were you thinking about? Was it the fire?”

“Yes . . . maybe . . . I don’t know . . .”

“Would you care to talk about the fire?”

“Do I have to? I know you want me to, but do I have to?”

“The court has mandated that you remain in this facility until I can ascertain your mental state. If you want to leave here then you’ll have to show me you are mentally fit to stand trial, Anthony. The only way I can know that is if you talk to me and specifically talk to me about the fire.”

“But, the girls . . .”

“Yes, I know how distressing the memories must be for you. I once—”

“YOU KNOW NOTHING! YOU KNOW ONLY WHAT YOU WANT TO SEE! THEY ARE EVERYWHERE! EVERYWHERE! YOUR FRIENDS, YOUR NEIGHBORS! EVEN YOUR FAMILY! EVERYWHERE! AND THEY WILL NOT GIVE YOU WHAT YOU WANT! THEY TAKE! THEY TAKE AND TAKE AND TAKE! THEY TOOK IT ALL FROM ME!”

“Calm down, Anthony. Please, calm down. No one can get you here, okay? You are in a safe place. This room is a safe place. I am here to help you, okay? Please, let me help you. Can you do that? Can you calm down and let me help you?”

“I don’t . . . Yes . . . I can calm down and let you help me.”

“Good. Good. Now, tell me about these people that are everywhere. What do they look like?”

“They aren’t people, Dr. Chalmers. They are Realators.”

“I think you mean realtors.”

“No, Doctor, I mean Realators. REALATORS!”

“The Berglands have a FOR SALE sign in their yard,” Maura said. “Has Chip said anything to you about selling?”

“What?” I asked, not really paying attention to what my wife said because . . . well . . . the football game. “I haven’t seen Chip in a week.”

“I know that,” Maura replied. “But the last time you saw him, did he say they were selling?”

“Selling? Selling what?” I asked. “The boat? I don’t blame them. That’s a money pit and the HOA is tired of it being in their driveway.”

“No, Tony, they are selling their house, dammit!” Maura shouted. “Pay attention, please!”

“What? Crap, sorry, baby. The Vikings just scored and—hey! Turn that back on!”

“I will not,” Maura growled. “I want you to answer my question.”

“Okay,” I smiled. “Uh . . . what was the question?”

“You’re an ass,” Maura snorted. “Watch the girls. I’m going over there to talk with Lizzy.”

“Can I turn the game back on?” I asked. The door slamming enough to make the glasses in the kitchen clink was my answer.

I wish I could take all of that back. As God as my witness, I would have listened and handled it better. I would have gone over with her. I would have told her not to worry about it.

I would have been involved. But I wasn’t. It was all my fault. But, you know, the football game.

“Do you believe your being here is your fault?”

“My fault? How the hell is it my fault? I didn’t start taking over people’s lives! I didn’t brainwash them and turn them against their neighbors! I didn’t plot the domination of the world!”

“Then what did you do?”

“I . . . uh . . . did nothing.”

“I’m going over to the Lancasters’ open house, Tony,” Maura said. “The girls are staying here. Please keep an ear out for them since they are in the backyard playing.”

“Mmm . . .”

“Tony!” she shouted.

“What?!” I shouted back.

“Did you hear me?” she asked.

“Yeah, yeah, you’re going into the backyard to play house with the girls. Got it,” I replied.

“You are hopeless,” she snapped. “What are you watching? More football?”

“This is college,” I replied. “Thursday was NFL.”

“You’re not going to watch football all day, are you? The front yard needs to be mowed.”

“Sure, right, front yard. On it.”

“Whatever,” she huffed as she left the house.

I went and found some Doritos.

“Did you end up mowing the front yard?”

“What?”

“The front yard. Did you end up mowing it?”

“Well . . . no. USC was in overtime and then I switched to the Michigan game and after that was the Oregon game. I just forgot.”

“So if you were so preoccupied with football then how did you start to notice the differences in your wife? That’s what you said, correct? That your wife began to act differently after the open house at the Lancasters?”

“Do I have to talk about this, Dr. Chalmers? I really don’t want to.”

“Yes, you have to talk, Anthony. It is for your own good and for the good of the victims’ families. There has to be closure.”

“Closure . . .”

“Yes, closure.”

“Uh, babe, what are you doing? It’s three in the morning?” I asked as I came down the stairs to see my wife hurrying back and forth from the living room to the dining room and then back to the living room.

“Eggshell,” she said. “Or Morning Fog. Maybe Cappuccino? No, no, too dark. Keep it neutral. Neutral is how you draw them in and keep them. Don’t let them see what’s behind the paint. Don’t let them see . . .”

“Maura? Sugar? Are those paint samples? Why the hell are you comparing paint samples at three in the morning?” I asked, rather alarmed since there was no way I was painting the house. Screw that.

“The Berglands just closed,” Maura said without looking at me. She had the sample of Sauteed Mushroom in a Delicate Cream Sauce against the molding around the dining room door. “The Lancasters are about to close and from what Dorie Villanova has said, she and her husband aren’t far behind. We can’t be left, Tony. If we don’t sell then we’ll be left. We can’t be left.”

“Um, babe, we aren’t selling the house,” I replied.

Yeah, that didn’t go over well.

“Yes. We. Are,” Maura snarled. “We have to. I already scheduled the open house.”

“Wait. You what? Sugar, we aren’t selling the house.”

“YES. WE. ARE!” she roared.

“Daddy?” Bessie said from the top of the stairs. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing, sweetheart,” I replied. “Mommy has just lost her sh—.”

“We’re selling the house, Bessie. Isn’t that great? It’s all in the location, you know, and our location is the best. The best. No better in the neighborhood. Once they see that then we’ll be allowed to go with them. Can’t stay here. No, no, no. Can’t stay here. All in the location.”

“We’re selling the house?” Allison asked as she joined her sister. “Cool.”

“Not cool,” I said. “We are not selling. Now go to bed, girls. It’s late.”

They walked off and I turned back to my crazy wife. “I’m going back to bed too. We aren’t selling.”

“Yes, we are,” she replied as she taped all of the paint samples to the living room wall then sat down and stared at them.

“We’ll talk about it in the morning,” I yawned. “Come to bed when you’re done there. Or not. Whatever.”

“If I’m reading this transcript right, you say that your neighbors started selling their houses one after the other, with open houses happening almost daily. Is that correct?”

“Yeah.”

“But—and here’s the problem, Anthony—there are no records of any sales. No one on your block has sold a house. Not a single one.”

“It’s because of the Realators. They don’t buy them with money and they sure as hell don’t register it with city hall.”

“What do they buy them with then?”

“Promises.”

“Promises? What kind of promises?”

“Promises that you’ll be spared when the Big Sale comes.”

“The Big Sale? Hold on, hold on, let me see . . . Oh, yes, here it is. You say the Big Sale is when the Realators finally take possession of the Earth and those that sold live and those that refused die. Correct?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you believe this, Anthony? That there are beings called Realators looking to buy up all the property on Earth with promises?”

“They don’t have to buy it all up, just the majority share. It’s in their Covenants.”

“Right, the Covenants they make people sign to show their loyalty.”

“Yeah.”

“Sign it, Tony,” Hal grinned. “Just put your John Hancock right there and it’s all done.”

I stood on my front porch and looked up and down my neighborhood. Every house but ours had balloons on the mailboxes and OPEN HOUSE signs out front. The smell of fresh-baked cookies was almost overwhelming. I felt like I was choking on mustard gas made out of chocolate chips and snickerdoodles.

“Tony,” Maura growled. “Sign the paper. For me. For your daughters.”

I looked behind me and into the house. The girls stood there, their faces drawn and scared. They knew—they knew—that something was wrong. I mean, who schedules all these open houses during playoffs, am I right?

“These aren’t closing papers,” I said as I looked at the strange documents on Hal’s clipboard. “I’ve seen house closing papers before, Hal. I’m not signing these. And what the hell are ‘Covenants’? You can’t amend the HOA regulations without calling an official HOA meeting and having a quorum present. I know that much.”

The TV blared the Seahawks game, and I could tell I just missed something big. I sighed and turned to my wife, ready to lay out my argument one last time.

“We aren’t selling,” I said. “End of story.”

“Sorry to hear that, Tony,” Hal said. “I am really, really sorry to hear that.”

“I’ll talk to him,” Maura said.

“You do that.” Hal frowned then looked past me and at my daughters. “You two should come play with Lisa. She misses you.”

The girls didn’t respond.

“Last chance, Maura,” Hal said. “Midnight is the deadline.”

Then he turned and walked off to the group of neighbors waiting by the curb. The Berglands, Lancasters, Whitreds, Ketts, Garrets, Villanovas, Havingshaws, Tulanes, even the Trangs, who never came out of their house, all stood there staring at me. I waved and went back in to watch the game.

“None of your neighbors remember that day, Anthony. They all testified, those that survived, that you were out on your front lawn in your underwear, screaming at everyone that walked by.”

“What? I never did that. No, hold on . . . Okay, yeah, I was in my underwear when Hal came over. I had spilled salsa on my sweatpants and they were hanging in the downstairs bathroom. But who cares? Everyone has seen their neighbors in their underwear.”

“No, that’s not true, Anthony. I haven’t seen any of my neighbors in their underwear. But then I live outside town on a nice piece of land. Eighteen acres with a pond. So no neighbors, really.”

“Lucky you.”

“Keeps me from being burned to death by one, doesn’t it? Oh, dear me, sorry. That was out of line.”

“Yeah, it was. Jeez.”

“Sorry. Now, tell me about what happened at midnight.”

“No.”

“Anthony? I am here to help.”

“No.”

“If you do, then I may be able to arrange for you to see your daughters. Would you like that?”

“My daughters? But they . . .”

“They are still recovering, yes, but it’s within my power to arrange a visit.”

“My daughters . . .”

“Daddy? There are people at the door,” Allison said.

“Huh, what, where?” I asked as I rubbed my eyes and switched on the bedside lamp. The rest of the bed was empty. “Where’s your mother?”

“She’s at the door,” Allison said.

“Then she can deal with it,” I said as I started to turn out the light, but Allison put her hand on mine.

“No, Daddy, she’s at the door with everyone else,” she said.

“Yeah, so let Mom deal with them,” I replied.

“Daddy!” Allison shouted. “Mom is outside with everyone else! She isn’t inside! She’s outside!”

“What? It’s like thirty degrees out,” I said.

“She’s out there and they are with someone,” Allison said. “They keep calling your name over and over. It’s making it hard to sleep.”

I sighed and stood up then grabbed my sweats and slipped them on.

“Where’s your sister?” I asked as I followed her to the stairs and down to the front door.

“She’s in bed,” Allison said. “Upstairs.”

“She is? Good. You go back up there too, okay? You need your sleep.”

“Yeah, I know,” Allison yawned. “ ’Night, Daddy.”

“ ’Night, sweetheart.”

I watched her go back up, then turned and opened the door. I noticed two things: that every single one of my neighbors was on my front lawn, with my wife in front of them, and that all the houses I could see had their front lights on and there were fresh balloons floating from the mailboxes.

No, wait, I noticed three things. The third was that it smelled like chocolate-caramel brownie cookies. Which I don’t like because they usually have walnuts in them and I hate walnuts. I preferred the snickerdoodle smell.

“Hey, everybody,” I said. “What’s up?”

“Sign the Covenants,” they all said as one.

“Sign them, Tony,” Maura said as she walked up to me and shoved a stack of papers in my hands. “Sign them now and we will get our promise. If you love me then you’ll let me get my promise, Tony. Do you love me?”

“Yeah, baby, I love you more than anything,” I said. It was a white lie. I loved my daughters more than anything. Maura was easily second. Or tied for second with football, at least, since I’m being honest.

“Sign the Covenants,” the neighbors chanted.

And that’s totally what they did. It was like a little cult sing-along. They even started to sway back and forth.

“Sign the Covenants,” Maura said. “Then we can be together forever.”

Yikes. Forever is a long time.

“I’m going back inside, baby,” I said. “I need to sleep. The games start early tomorrow.”

“Grab him,” Maura said to my neighbors. “We’ll have to make him sign.”

“You what?” I asked as everyone rushed me. “Oh, crap!”

I turned and ran inside, intending to head back upstairs, but I tripped on the hall rug and had to scoot-scamper my way into the dining room instead. I could hear them rushing through the house. A hundred feet all pounding against our bamboo laminate flooring.

“TONY!” Maura screamed. “Time to sign!”

I got through the dining room and was into the living room when my path was blocked by Margo Zoletti. She was holding a baseball bat and smiling.

“What are you going to do with that?” I asked.

“Sign or no football,” she said, raising the baseball bat above her head as she turned to my 64-inch HDTV.

“You won’t do that, Margo,” I laughed. Margo had been a college cheerleader. There was no way she’d hurt my TV.

Then she hurt my TV. She hurt it so bad. So bad . . .

“And the next thing you remember is that you were dancing in the street while your house burned?”

“Yeah.”

“You have no idea how you got the gas can? Or why you were burning your house?”

“Uh . . . no.”

“Anthony, honesty is how I help you. Please, be honest with me. Why did you burn your house down?”

“Because . . . because . . .”

“Yes?”

“Because . . . because they made me sign! They said I’d get a new TV and then I could watch all the football I wanted! They made me! They forced me!”

“But why would you burn your house down if they were giving you a new TV?”

“Because they lied! That’s what Realators do! They take over people, they control their minds, they get them to sign, and THEN THEY LIE!”

“Calm down, Anthony. Tell me, how did they lie?”

“It wasn’t in the Covenants. I signed like they said, then they laughed at me and told me I should have read what I was signing. There was no rider for a new TV, Dr. Chalmers! THERE WAS NO RIDER!”

“Okay, okay, take a deep breath. Center yourself.”

“Sorry, sorry, it’s just so hard to think about. No TV. No TV. That meant no football.”

“So you burned down your house? Why? I’m still not seeing the connection.”

“I just said! No football. What the hell is the point of a house if there’s no TV and no football?”

“To live in, Anthony. To raise your family in. The normal reaction to losing a television is not to burn down your house.”

“It is when you’re told you not only aren’t getting a new TV, but you will NEVER be getting a new TV! My God, Doctor! Haven’t you been listening? There was no rider! Why am I even talking to you? What’s the point?”

“Your daughters. You are talking to me so I can say you are fit to see your daughters.”

“Right, right. My daughters. How do they . . . how do they look?”

“They are healing. It’s about all I can say.”

“Okay. Sorry.”

“Are you, Anthony?”

“What?”

“Are you sorry? I need to hear it from your lips.”

“Hear what?”

“That you are sorry for burning down your house. For hurting your daughters. For trying to burn the other houses down. I need to hear you say it.”

“I don’t know . . .”

“Think about it, Anthony. Once you can admit what you’ve done and admit there are no such thing as Realators, then I can take you to see your daughters in their hospital room.”

“Wait . . . hospital room?”

“Well, yes, that’s where they are. Like I said, they are still healing.”

“I’m sorry. Totally sorry.”

“What?”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry for burning down my house and for lying about the Realators and for trying to burn down the neighborhood. I’m sorry for it all.”

“Well, that was sudden.”

“Yeah, totally, but you’re a great doctor. You helped me see the truth. Can I see my daughters now in their hospital room?”

“Yes, but it’ll be a couple of days. I have to make all the arrangements.”

“A couple of days? So, Sunday then?”

“Probably. Let me check my calendar. Hmm . . . yes, Sunday will work.”

“Wonderful. Thank you, Doctor. Thank you so much.”

“You can speak to them,” Dr. Chalmers said. “Just be calm about it.”

I barely heard him, I was so overjoyed. There, finally, a TV.

“Huh? Oh, right,” I said. “Hey, girls.”

“Heh, Duddee,” they said. Or I think they did. Hard to tell with the bandages.

“Where’s the remote?” I asked.

“I’m sorry?” Dr. Chalmers replied.

“The remote,” I said. “For the TV. The Super Bowl is on and I always watch the Super Bowl with my girls.”

“Yes, well, it’s right here,” he said as he picked up the remote from a bedside table and handed it to me. “But we can’t stay . . . very . . . what are those out there?”

He walked away from me and over to the window. I sorta looked, but didn’t really since the—well, the Super Bowl.

“Duddee?” Allison mumbled.

“Hold on, baby, Daddy’s finding the game,” I said as I clicked through the channels.

“Duddee, wuz dat?”

“Huh, baby?” I asked, but didn’t really. I mean, I asked, but it was more of a reflex. I was too busy flipping through the channels. “What the hell is all this crap? Where’s the damn game?”

“Reports are coming in that balloons have started to appear on every piece of property in the country,” an anchorwoman said as I finally stopped looking for the game.

“Oh, God, Anthony,” Dr. Chalmers said from the window. “You . . . you . . . the Realators.”

“That’s not all, Diane,” an anchorman said. “There are reports that everywhere you go, the smell of cookies is so overpowering that health officials are asking that those with bronchial issues stay inside.”

“I sure do love cookies, Ted.”

“Me too, Diane. Oh, wait, our producer is saying there is a new development . . . I’m sorry, Larry, but that can’t be right . . . No, no, I understand.”

“Oh my.”

“Oh my, indeed, Diane. Folks, we are now receiving reports that there is something now blocking the moon.”

“But it’s daytime, Ted.”

“Oh, Diane, you silly woman, the moon can show up during the day.”

“Oh, huh. Well, learn something new every—well—day. Ha ha ha ha.”

“Let’s go to our reporter in the field, Tamara Gutierrez. Tamara?”

“Thank you, Ted. It appears there are several massive Mylar balloons now bobbing around the moon. And by massive, I mean massive. I have here a local expert. Can you tell us more about these types of balloons?”

“Uh, well, I just fill up normal-sized ones at the Rite Aid. I don’t really know about—”

“Anthony? What do we do?” Dr. Chalmers asked as he rushed to me, grabbed the remote from my hand, and turned off the TV.

“Hey!” I replied.

“You . . . you were right, Anthony. The Realators. I see them. Down in the parking lot with their fistfuls of balloons and plates of cookies. They are hideous. What do we do?”

I walked to the window and looked down at the parking lot four stories below.

“Huh,” I said. “I’ve never actually seen a Realator before.”

“What?” Dr. Chalmers exclaimed.

“Yeah, I only dealt with my neighbors,” I replied. “Boy, you’re right, they are pretty hideous. Yuck.”

“Anthony! You are the only one that knows what is going on!” Dr. Chalmers screeched.

I grabbed him by the shoulders and slapped him once, twice, three times. Then four times because I like symmetry.

“Get it together, Doctor,” I said. I smiled at my girls. “Hang tight, girls. Daddy has work to do!”

“Work? What work?” Dr. Chalmers asked, his eyes teary and wild.

“Well, first, we go to every room and save the TVs,” I stated. “But if that doesn’t work then we find the best team of lawyers we can. If the lawyers haven’t been taken over yet, that is. I’m sure the Realators have already gotten to the real estate lawyers by now, at least. Maybe the contract lawyers are still free.”

“Lawyers?” Dr. Chalmers cried. “Have you lost your mind? What do we need lawyers for?”

“This time I’m ready,” I said as I ran out into the hall. “This time there will be a rider! A RIDER FOR THE EARTH! A RIDER FOR OUR TVs, FOR THE SUPER BOWL, FOR OUR VERY LIVES! But mostly for the Super Bowl and TVs.”

“Buh, Dudee!”

“Buh-buh!”

“Bye, girls! Don’t be afraid! I’ll be back with a rider! TO THE LAWYERS!”

Out of Mind

Faye McCray

It had been four minutes since I’d thought about the dead girl at the party.

Four minutes and about ten seconds if you count the tone-deaf riffs Ben and I attempted after the song was done.

Then he looked at me, smiled, and ruined it. Reminding me that he was, in fact, trying to distract me from the dead girl while simultaneously reminding me that nothing could really distract me from the dead girl.

That was the pesky thing about dead girls. They were impossible to forget.

Less than forty-eight hours earlier she had been slumped at my feet, her thick blood pooling onto the sticky dance floor between us as her life poured from the smoky bullet hole burrowed into her toned tummy. Her body shook and shuddered as the stampede of screaming partygoers rushed toward the exit, trampling her beautiful salmon-colored dress. I stood beside her, speckled in her blood and still. My scream was stuck like a gumdrop in my throat, my feet frozen in place.

“Are you okay?” Ben looked at me uncomfortably from where he sat behind the wheel of his small sedan. He spoke in that same reluctant tone he had when I showed up at his apartment that night covered in her blood. Like he wasn’t sure if the title of “sort-of ex-fiancé” made him qualified to deal with dead girls and blood stains. Drunk, midsex proposals make for a tenuous kind of commitment.

The night I went to the club, Ben and I were on a break. I’d found a phone number for Katie-with-a-heart-over-the-“i” buried in one of his pockets and listened to him stammer out an epically weak explanation about how it got there. They weren’t his pants or they weren’t his pockets, he didn’t even know his pants had pockets.

“Drink,” a coworker I’d confided in said the minute we got to the club. She placed the tequila shot in my hand and watched me throw it back. She barely gave it time to burn its way down before handing me another.

Maybe if I hadn’t been drowning in tequila when the dead girl was shot, I would have had the good sense to run. Instead, I stared down at her in a sort of dreamlike fog, not entirely sure she, or even I, was real.

“Tiff, are you okay?” Ben asked again. He placed his hand hesitantly on my thigh. We hadn’t exactly gotten back together. The last time we spoke I was a blubbery mess. Spouting mournful Sara Bareilles lyrics in one breath and Beyoncé-like revenge predictions in the other.

“I guess that’s a dumb question.” His dark brows furrowed, squinting his brown eyes. He’d been choosing his words gingerly for the whole ride as if at any moment I’d say, “I completely forgot you were an asshole,” and leave him on the side of the highway.

I placed my hand on his and managed a small smile. “It’s not dumb. I’m just not entirely sure of the answer. One minute, I’m laughing and the next . . .”

“I know.”

“This is the most depressing road trip ever,” I said, frowning.

“Not true. We could be listening to Celine Dion and playing with razor blades.”

I laughed. “Good point.”

He smiled and then looked at me a little longer than was driver safe. His face grew serious. “I’m just sorry you were there.”

I looked out the window and began biting hard on the inside of my cheek, a nervous habit I’d picked up from my mother. I bit a little too deeply and tasted blood on my tongue.

He continued, “You shouldn’t have even been there. After everything that happened with your parents. After everything that happened with us . . .”

I winced. “This didn’t have anything to do with my parents or what happened between us.” My tone was a little harsher than I intended. The only thing the dead girl had in common with my parents is that they were all dead. As far as Katie-with-a-heart-over-the-“i,” she might as well have been dead, too.

“I just meant . . .”

“I know,” I said softening. “I just don’t want to talk about it. Any of it.”

I played with the tips of his fingers, lifting them one by one and watching them fall back against my leg. “I’ll be okay.”

He laced his fingers between mine and squeezed, his face collapsing in relief.

I looked over at the Maps app, shining bright from his iPhone. Less than two hours until we arrived at the “reclusive oasis in Western New York State, far from the hustle and bustle of fast-paced city life.” Well, at least according to the Living Social ad. Maybe if we drove fast enough we could outrun all the memories, especially the cold, dead one still lying at my feet.

“Where are we?” The jolt of the car stopping startled me awake. I sat up and looked at Ben who placed the car in park. I didn’t even remember falling asleep.

“Bathroom,” he said.

“Here?” I looked out the window. We had pulled into a parking spot adjacent to a gas station convenience store, surrounded on either side by overgrown wild bushes and dense trees. It looked like it was covered in a haze of dust. Remnants of the station’s name were peeling from a long, tattered signpost and blades of grass were growing from the cracks in the asphalt. A neon sign flashed the word OPEN again and again on the door. I could hear the buzzing from inside the car.

“This is as good as it gets,” he said, peering out the car.

“Be careful.” I looked out into the deep woods, imagining all the things buried in them.

Ben laughed. He was always amused by my city girl wariness. Though we met at a café in Midtown Manhattan, Ben was originally from rural Pennsylvania. He didn’t share my mistrust of uninhibited plant life and open space.

“You’ve been watching too many horror movies.”

“Um, raise your hand if you watched someone die in real life two days ago?” I put my hand up and stared at him.

His face softened.

I put my hand down, wishing I could pull the words back into my mouth. I walked myself right into that pity party. “I’m just saying, there’s a reason I don’t have the best opinion of other human beings right now.”

He nodded, looking at me in that same helpless way he had when I stood in his bathroom desperately trying to wash the dead girl’s blood off my hands. “I’ll be careful,” he said. “And I’ll be right back.” He got out and ran into the store.

I pulled the passenger seat visor down and tousled my onyx curls. My eyes were puffy and my deep brown skin looked dry. I looked horrible. I couldn’t wait to get under the covers with Ben in our “reclusive oasis in Western New York State” and not come out until the weekend was done. We’d slowly forget about Katie-with-a-heart-over-the-“i.” We’d slowly forget about the dead girl.

Dead girl.

I thought of her again. The blood pouring through her dress. The crash of her body against the ground. I could still feel the speckles of blood spray against me as she fell to my feet. I wondered if her funeral would be on a Sunday. If her body would be lowered into the ground at the same time she would normally be having brunch.

I wiped a stray tear from my eye and took a deep breath. I looked into the hazy windows of the store to see if I could make out Ben. Instead, I saw a round, balding store owner fiddling with things behind the counter. He pushed them in and out of their place before leaning forward and staring out at nothing.

That must be the most boring job ever.

Just then, a white pickup truck pulled quickly into the parking lot a few spots away from our car. It braked with a jolt. A man and woman hopped out, slamming their car doors hard before walking toward the convenience store. The woman’s long, wispy dark hair floated as she walked, and her eyes looked unfocused and confused. The man was tall and broad. He had an ivory cap pulled down tightly on his head, casting a dark shadow over his eyes. A deep scar ran from the corner of his right eye to his chin that made his face look uneven, like I was looking at him in a fun-house mirror. He walked with intense focus and big, determined strides. The woman stopped and cocked her head to the side for a moment as if someone had called her. The man said something and took her hand protectively, pulling her along into the store. I shrunk down in my seat and began gnawing at the inside of my cheek again. I bet he kidnapped her, I thought, biting harder. They were exactly the kind of creepers I expected to be in a place like this.

Maybe I do watch too many horror movies.

I leaned my head back against my seat and closed my eyes. “Take it easy, Tiff,” I mumbled to myself. I wondered what was taking Ben so long.

“Hey!”

I jumped, feeling a sharp bolt of fear. I opened my eyes and Ben was standing at the window. I sat up and rolled it down.

“It’s just me,” he said noticing he had startled me. “You okay?”

Question of the year.

I shook my head. “I’m certifiable.”

“Stopping here probably didn’t help.” He looked around the near-deserted station warily.

I nodded. “Can we go?”

“Yeah. I just wanted to see if you wanted anything from the store. They have Krispy Kreme.” He smacked his lips together to entice me.

I laughed.

Just as I was about to speak, the man and woman from the pickup truck walked out of the store. They looked in our direction and walked toward us. Ben noticed me looking behind him and turned around.

“Hey there,” the man said as they approached.

Ben leaned back against the car, partially blocking my view. “Hey.”

“Beautiful day out here, isn’t it?” the man said. I could hear the forced smile in his voice.

“Sure is.”

“I’m Paul. This is Diem.”

Ben extended his hand. “Ben,” he said shaking both of their hands. “That’s my girlfriend, Tiffany.” He leaned to the side and I waved, feeling a sudden rush of anger. Had he forgotten he’d proposed?

I hadn’t.

Diem peered at me intently through the window, and a smile crept across her face as if she was reading my mind.

“Any big plans for the weekend?”

“We’re from the city,” Ben started. “We had a rough week and needed to get away for a few days. We got a good deal on an inn not too far from here. What about you all?” He glanced back at me and smiled and I tried my best to telepathically communicate my disapproval of his sudden onset of verbal diarrhea. Knowing Ben, he was seconds away from giving them our dates of birth and social security numbers.

“We live nearby. I used to live in the city,” Paul said. “It was a little too much for us.” He looked squarely at me and I looked away uneasily.

“I get that,” Ben started.

I glanced around, tuning out their small talk. A breeze was moving slowly through the air, sending a used Styrofoam cup tumbling across the parking lot. The cup stopped in front of the store. I looked inside and gasped. It looked like thick red blood was pooling at the base of the counter. For a moment, I thought I was remembering her again, so I blinked and looked harder. A steady drip of blood was unmistakably falling onto the floor. I looked up and the round store owner’s body was draped awkwardly across the counter. His eyes were closed and blood was pouring from an open wound on his head.

Fear gripped my chest. “Oh my God.”

“What?” Ben stopped midsentence and turned to me.

“I was really hoping you wouldn’t see that,” Paul said, looking at me.

Ben turned back to look toward the store and I could see his face distort as his eyes fixed on the store owner. “Holy shit!” Ben backed into the car. “We don’t want any trouble, man.”

Ben put his hands up defensively and started to round the front of the car, but Paul grabbed him by the back of his shirt and flung him back against the passenger door.

“Don’t touch him!” I yelled. I looked at Diem, who was looking at Ben and Paul with thirst in her eyes.

Ben shoved him, but Paul’s large frame barely budged. Paul laughed but just as quickly grew serious. He pressed Ben into the car with one hand and pointed directly in his face. “Don’t let that happen again,” he said but after a moment continued, “ah, screw it, they never go easy.” He punched Ben hard in the face. Ben’s head flopped back like he was a rag doll and he fell unconscious to the ground.

“No, no, no.” I unbuckled my seat belt quickly, crawling my way into the driver’s seat. Paul swung open the car door and grabbed my legs, dragging me by the ankles out of the car. I kicked and screamed, trying my best to hold on to the seats. I fell out of the car hard. The side of my face smacked the concrete.

I turned on my back and held my hands up. “Do you want money? You can have our money.” I pulled the thin gold locket I was wearing from my around my neck and held it toward him. “You can take everything we have.” My voice was high-pitched and unrecognizable.

Diem walked over to stand above me. She leaned down so she was close to my face and inhaled deeply. “It’s her,” she said. She inhaled again. “It’s all over her.”

“Please,” I begged. I could feel cold tears streaming down my face.

She drew back and looked at Paul, who walked up beside her. “Are you sure?”

She nodded.

I started to speak but the words never made it out. Paul slammed his fist hard into my face, bouncing my head like a basketball off the concrete.

For a brief moment before I opened my eyes, I convinced myself that I was still in the car. I could almost feel the wind pouring in through the windows. I could almost see Ben’s profile as he stared out contentedly at the road. It’d all been a nightmare. One shitty, terrifying, sad, long, nightmare.

The pain belied my fantasy.

I felt like someone had taken a hammer to my head. It shot through me, throbbing, causing a dull ache down my spine. I was sitting. The seat felt hard beneath me. My wrists were restrained behind my back. My legs, tied at the ankles.

I peeled my eyes open and blinked slowly to bring the small, dimly lit room into focus. It smelled damp and musty. The walls were covered in peeling floral wallpaper. The ceiling had large holes and sections of it looked to be caving in. The door to the room was closed but knobless. The one window in the room looked as if it were completely shielded by shrubs. Wherever I was had been abandoned. They’d brought me here so I couldn’t be found.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something move.

“Ben?” I could just make out his shoes as he sat up from where he lay on the dusty floor.

“Tiffany,” he called.

Relief washed over me. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Are you?”

“I’m tied up.” Mustering all my strength, I tried to stand. My legs were like noodles beneath me. I crashed back into the seat and winced.

“Me too,” he said. He slid a little closer to me so he was just under the small stream of light that peeked through the window. His face was swollen and discolored. His arms were bound behind his back.

Just then, the door to the room swung open. Diem walked in first with a gun hanging from her hand. Paul was close behind. She stood in front of me, inhaling again. She stared at me for a moment, then slapped me hard, her face contorted in rage.

My head whipped back and then fell toward my chest. I looked up at her, filled with anger.

Paul eased his hands over Diem’s shoulders and squeezed. “It’s okay,” he whispered close to her ear.

She closed her eyes and leaned into him. “She stinks,” she said. “She stinks.”

I looked at them and then at Ben. A cocktail of fear and confusion was pulsating through my body. I tried to squeeze my hands through the ropes. They rubbed harshly and deeply into my skin.

“Why’re you doing this?” Ben said.

She looked at me and then back at Ben. “She knows.”

I shook my head, struggling to place their faces. Did I know them and just not remember? Had I wronged them in some way in the past? “How would I know why you’re doing this?”

“You left a big mess in the city,” Paul said. “All that blood.”

“I think you have the wrong people,” Ben said.

“Oh, we have the right person,” Paul said.

Diem didn’t take her eyes off me. “You stink,” she said. “I can smell her blood on you.” She leaned down inches from my face. “I know exactly what you did.”

The day I met Ben, I was planning to die. I was nestled at a corner table at a Starbucks tracing lines on my wrists with the thin brown stirrer and imagining the life draining down my palms. It was the day after my twenty-fifth birthday, the seventh anniversary of my parents’ deaths. I was feeling particularly alone in that moment. I felt insignificant and unnoticed, as if I could do a full tap routine with jazz hands on top of my table and no one would bat an eye. That seemed like a good way to go, I’d thought. My first-grade recital routine with a bullet to my head as the big finish.

“In deep thought, huh?” he’d said. He sat on the empty stool beside me and looked at me. A hot latte with his name scrawled on the side was nestled in his palm.

I put the stirrer down and looked back at him. The sun poured through the windows of the coffee shop and bounced off the flecks of hazel in his deep brown eyes. His pecan-colored skin looked warm and full of life. He was cute and not-dead. He was the first person to tell me he loved me since my parents.

When I held her number in my hand that night, with fat tears soaking my face, all I could think of was how desperately I didn’t want to go back to being her. The girl I had been. Orphaned and making suicide pacts with my cat. More than anything, I didn’t want Katie-with-a-heart-over-the-“i” to take my place.

I looked at Diem and then at Ben. His face was twisted in confusion.

“Are you talking about that girl she saw killed? Are you the ones who killed her? She didn’t see anything,” Ben said quickly. “She didn’t even know who did it.”

My heart began to beat so quickly in my chest I felt like I would vomit it out. The room was spinning and suddenly, I could barely focus on anyone’s face. A flood of memories was rushing over me and I felt like I might drown.

I’d memorized the number.

Her number.

Katie’s.

I’d known it for a month before I told Ben I’d found it.

I’d dialed it a few times to hear her voice.

“This is Katie,” she’d said at 8:00 a.m. on a Monday morning.

“This is Katie,” she’d said on a Saturday at midnight.

Her voice was sing-song and impossibly chipper. I listened for a moment to hear him. A beckon in the background or a soft groan beside her. Even when he was beside me, I listened for him, as if a subtle sound in the background would betray he’d been there.

I’d friended her on Facebook. She had more than two thousand friends. Ben was one. Her pictures ranged from introspective selfies to candid shots caught midlaugh with her and her friends. She liked to dance to Latin music on Thursday and have brunch on Sundays with her mom. Her dad was installing new cabinets and “OMGee, it was taking soooo long.” She loved him anyway.

#DaddysGirl.

The night I confronted Ben, she couldn’t wait to go out to Deux, her favorite lounge on the Upper East Side. She had a new dress. It was salmon-colored, she’d said in her status update, and she’d just found the perfect shoes.

#winning.

That’s when I told my work friend about the number. That’s when she suggested we go out. That’s when I suggested the perfect place.

Diem looked at me as if she could hear my thoughts. She nodded in recognition and then looked over at Paul, who took a step toward me.

“We didn’t spill that blood. She did. Isn’t that right, Tiffany?” Paul said.

Ben was quiet for a moment and then he scoffed. “That’s crazy.” I could feel his eyes burning into me.

I looked at Diem and whispered, “No one saw me.”

“But I heard you,” Diem said. “I smelled you.”

The gun was in my purse. It was still in my purse. It was nestled beneath my wallet and my ginger peach lipstick. I put it in before I left because I wanted to feel safe. They could have been together at the club. If they were, I knew the perfect congratulatory gift. I’d blow myself away. Scatter my brains all over their freshly poured drinks.

It wasn’t until my friend went to the bathroom that I saw her. Katie. She swayed back and forth with a martini glass in her hand. Her friends surrounded her and took selfies incessantly. They’d laugh after each shot like it was all so fucking hysterical.

She knocked into me on her way back to the bar for a refill. She placed her hand on my forearm and smiled. “I’m so sorry.”

I placed my hand over hers. Her skin felt soft.

“Do we know each other?” she said. Her eyes widened and mine grew smaller.

I wondered how it was possible to not remember who you knew.

I pulled the gun from my purse before I could frame a thought. I gripped her hand tighter and buried it deep into her stomach. I pulled the trigger hard, exhaling audibly as the bullet released into her. I let go of her arm and stepped away as she fell to the floor. I looked behind me in shock and everyone else did too. I slipped my gun back in my purse as they ran around me, assuming the threat had come from some random dank corner of the club. Not from the girl standing amidst them.

“You did this.” Ben stood slowly, bracing himself on the wall beside him. “You killed that girl?”

“Katie,” Paul offered.

“Katie?” Ben’s eyes widened in recognition. “Katie, from . . .”

“Katie with a heart over the ‘i,’ ” I said, looking at him.

Ben looked back at me like I was a total stranger. “You killed her.”

“Don’t look at me like that, Ben,” I started. I could feel the tears squeezing their way out. “I was all scrambled up. You were going to choose her.”

“Choose her? I never even went out with her.”

“But you wanted to.” My voice cracked with emotion. I gnawed at the inside of my cheek hard, a chunk of meaty flesh dislodged and the tangy blood stained my mouth. How could he not want to? She was everything I wasn’t. With her gone, we had a chance. “This has been the best year of my life.”

Our eyes met but his face twisted in disgust. “Do you know how crazy that sounds, Tiffany?”

The word crazy hit me like a bolt of electricity. I looked at Diem. I felt consumed by anger. “So, is this what you wanted? A confession? What are you—part police dog? You sniff out blood like a good puppy and bring back the bones to bury?”

“She’s making me upset.” Diem clutched the gun a little tighter in her hand.

Paul kissed her forehead and took the gun. “We aren’t working with the police, Tiffany,” Paul said. “We’d like to think we are more effective.”

I thought of the pale detective who barely looked at me when she questioned me. She didn’t even notice my hands were covered in blood.

“The thing is,” Paul continued, “Diem is in pain. It’s why we moved from the city.” He rubbed her back softly. “She smells it all. The sins. The blood. It oozes from you. Through your filthy, guilty thoughts. You would have been fine if you kept your stench in the city but you brought it to us.”

His words sent a chill through my body. That night, no one’s eyes met mine. No one pointed in my direction. No one knew. So I thought.

“She wasn’t innocent,” I said, thinking of Katie dancing seductively in her dress. “And you two, you’re hypocrites. You killed that man.” I pictured the store employee slumped over the counter. “Do you smell that too?” I said, looking at Diem.

“Make it stop,” Diem cried, pressing her hands against her ears.

“We didn’t kill him,” Paul said. “He was just a bleeder.”

I chortled. “So was Katie.”

Ben looked at me, surprised, and turned to Paul. “So, what now?” Ben asked. “You kill us?”

Paul smiled. “Just her.”

His words knocked the wind out of me. I struggled to catch my breath. I looked at Ben and he looked at Paul as if he was considering whether he was okay with that conclusion.

“It will make her feel better,” Paul said, raising the gun. He pointed it directly at my head. “Besides, it will bring some balance back to the world. An eye for an eye and all that.”

“She shot her in the stomach,” Diem said.

“How could you possibly . . .”

“I hear you.” She tapped at her head and pointed at mine.

Paul lowered the gun toward my stomach and pressed the barrel into my abdomen. The barrel pointed slightly upward, in the same way I had for Katie.

I took a breath. This trip had been long overdue.

“Last words?” Paul said. His finger was itching to pull the trigger.

I shook my head and closed my eyes.

“Hey, Paul,” Ben said. I opened my eyes and Ben was standing behind Paul. His hands were free from the restraints.

Paul looked in his direction and Ben hit him hard in the face.

As Paul stumbled backward, the gun flew across the room. Paul and Ben dove for it simultaneously. They clawed at the ground and each other as they both struggled to reach the gun.

Diem screamed over and over like a nut job and I struggled to break free of the restraints.

I finally broke my arms free and threw myself to the ground. My legs were still bound but I slithered myself over to Ben and Paul. I grabbed hold of Paul’s leg and yanked it with all my might, hoping to give Ben a chance to grab the gun. Paul turned over on his back and kicked hard in my direction. I fell on my side, narrowly dodging his forceful kick. When I looked up, Ben was holding the gun. He was shaking, but he pointed it in our direction. For a moment, I couldn’t tell which one of us was in the crosshairs. I held my hands up slowly and so did Paul. Diem was cowering in the corner.

“Come on, man,” Paul said. “This isn’t you. I can tell from the way you are holding that gun.”

“Get up, Tiffany,” Ben said. Now the gun was more decisively pointed at Paul.

I felt a jolt of glee as I leaned down to free my legs. He understood why I did it. He understood why Katie had to die. I rose to stand beside him.

“We need to get out of here,” I said.

Ben looked at me and nodded. He began to back toward the door.

“Wait,” I said. We had no clue where we were. Leaving them there meant they could follow us. They could have more guns. “Give me the gun, Ben.”

“Don’t do it,” Paul said. His voice shook with panic.

“Shut up,” I said to Paul.

“Don’t do it, Ben. You don’t know her.”

I turned to Ben. “You know me,” I said to Ben softly. “I know how to use the gun. If they try anything, I know how to use it.” I remembered pulling back the safety that night at the club. I remembered shooting Katie.

Ben held the gun for a moment in his trembling hands and looked at Paul.

“She’ll kill me,” he said. “Eventually she’ll kill you too.”

“I would never hurt you, Ben,” I said.

Ben looked at me with pain in his eyes. He wasn’t made for this. It was what I loved about him.

“Give it to me,” I coaxed.

He handed me the gun. I smiled at him and turned to Paul. Without hesitation, I shot him twice in the head, blowing him backward.

“Tiffany, no!” Ben yelled.

Diem screamed and I turned to her. I shot her once, the bullet landing squarely in her cheek. She slumped to the side, her eyes still open.

“You killed them,” Ben muttered. “You killed them.”

I let the gun fall to my side and looked at him. “I had to. They would have killed us, Ben. They would have gotten in the way.”

I walked over to Diem and reached down to feel in her pockets.

Ben was standing in the middle of the room with his hands over his head. He looked from Diem to Paul and then back to Diem. Tears streamed down his face.

I moved over to Paul and began digging in his pockets.

“What are you doing?” Ben asked.

“Keys,” I said, pulling them from his pocket.

I started to head toward the door but Ben stood still. “Ben, come on.”

He looked at me, disoriented, and reluctantly started to follow. I took his hand, squeezed it, and placed my hand on the door.

I glanced back at the bodies and looked at Ben and smiled. The fear in his eyes was palpable, but I was sure it would wear off. He saved me. Even knowing what I’d done.

He chose me.

Our reclusive Western New York oasis seemed perfect right now. When we walked through the door, it would all be behind us. All of it. The blood. The bullets. The secrets. Diem. Paul. Katie. That stupid heart over the “i.”

I stopped and turned to Ben before opening the door. “Do you think we can still make check-in?”

The Takers

Gerald Dean Rice

Toby sat before his typewriter. He had to get something down on this page. He hadn’t had an original thought in over three years, and his agent was going nuts, haranguing him to turn in something.

His fans were clamoring for the next installment in his Death Harrier series; he was honestly just burned-out. Durand just didn’t interest him anymore. The publisher wouldn’t allow him to kill Durand—too much of a cash cow for that to happen.

Toby had actually plotted the first dozen books after signing his deal and had so far written only five. So here he was with the outline of book six in front of him with no clue where to go.

He paged through the outline. The idea was strong; he just couldn’t take off with it though. Toby slapped it back onto the desk and groaned in frustration.

Phyllis was holding down the fort with the girls at home while he spent two weeks up in Red Deer Rapids. Toby had always begun each installment of the Death Harrier series here and once he had gotten a good head start, he could come back home and hammer out the rest.

Not this time, though. Toby had been in town three days already and hadn’t managed a word. He picked up his iPhone and unlocked it. Plants vs. Zombies awaited him. Normally, when he was in writing mode the allure of anything not writing held no sway over him.

Toby noted the time on his phone. A little early for lunch, but he could eat. Maybe something in his stomach would help get his creative juices flowing. He grabbed his jacket and made his way downstairs, slipping on his Crocs at the door.

It was midfall and the air was already cool this far up in Michigan’s Lower Peninsula. The remaining leaves on the trees were bright reds and oranges, and he crunched underfoot the ones that had fallen onto the walkway. Sandy’s Southern Kitchen was about a fifteen-minute walk from here, a little too much on the brisk side to go it on foot.

As Toby climbed into his SUV, he glanced over at the little garden area, a four-by-four section on his postage-stamp–sized lot and thought something was missing. He couldn’t think of what it could have been before starting his vehicle and pulling out.

He bought this house because he’d always liked it here. It didn’t have everything Phyllis wanted; she was more of a big-city girl, but it was a great place to get away from everything else he knew. Everyone in town knew each other, so of course they all knew him. It bothered him until he realized it was the complete opposite of his early life in the city, where he’d grown up virtually invisible. They were neighborly here in Red Deer Rapids and that had taken some getting used to. When it was finally time to get away from the hustle and bustle of a major city, he could easily see himself spending the rest of his life here.

He could go no faster than ten miles an hour without giving himself whiplash along the lumpy, narrow dirt path that fronted his property. It turned onto a two-laner that had just been repaved and striped last year.

His house was not actually in town. He could smell the freshwater scent coming off Spencer Bay, a stone’s throw off Meguzee Point, in an unincorporated area adjacent to Red Deer Rapids that the city council hadn’t gotten around to adopting. Meguzee Point Road turned onto East 3rd Street. Toby didn’t know exactly at what point he was actually in town, but when he hit Ames Street, he was in the downtown area. The Village Market was to the left, but he had a taste for Sandy’s shrimp and grits. Phyllis had made him promise not to throw his diet entirely out the window, but the food was too good to deny. He’d have plenty of time to eat healthy later.

The general store was the first building on his right. There was a post office, a resale shop, a dry cleaner, and a few other stores and Sandy’s Southern Kitchen on the corner at Maplewood. The original proprietor had passed some thirty years back and her children had sold it to some real-estate gazillionaire.

Toby tucked into a parking spot directly in front of the restaurant. It took him a little longer to parallel park before he climbed out of his SUV, crossed the narrow strip of sidewalk, and went into Sandy’s.

“Mr. D! Just have a seat and I’ll be right with ya,” Wanda said in her thick southern accent as he entered. Toby had presumed this was a yuppie tourist attraction when he’d first passed by, but Wanda had lent an air of authenticity the first time he’d come in. She was in the middle of taking someone’s order and he gave her a smile and a wave, heading to the counter. The waitress went back to taking the order of the nigh-elderly couple sitting in the booth.

Mel already had a steaming cup of coffee in front of him by the time Toby sat. The cook had lost a lot of weight since the last time Toby’d seen him, though he would always be a big guy. He gnawed at the piece of gum at the side of his mouth like a piece of tripe, smiling the whole time.

“How you doing, Mel?” Toby asked.

“Mr. Writer,” Mel addressed him in thick East European–accented English as he’d done ever since finding out Toby was an author. He hadn’t told him or anyone else, but Toby had found it true that secrets traveled fastest in small towns. “Quicker’n the clap in a whorehouse,” Sheriff Karlo had told him the year before last, warning Toby to guard his closely. Mel nodded and scooched the little bowl filled with tiny, individual cups of half-and-half closer before heading back into the kitchen.

“Shrimp and grits. Shrimp and grits,” he said as the double half doors swung shut behind him.

Toby dumped two little cups of creamer into his coffee, followed by a shovelful of sugar. By then he’d noticed the two strangers one stool over. Toby rarely ran into anyone he hadn’t signed something for when he was in town, and he would’ve been willing to bet he’d been the last stranger who’d come into town to stay beyond a fill-er-up at Hank’s Hi-Octane.

“Did I hear the old man right?” the closer stranger asked. Toby noted his red-rimmed eyes and assumed the man was drunk. “You a writer?” Toby smirked and turned in his seat to face the two. Either they had heard of him or they hadn’t, but almost everyone who found out he was a writer was immediately impressed and wanted an autograph even if they didn’t read him.

He held his hand out for a shake. “Why, yes. I’m Tob—”

The man launched himself at Toby, fist-first, swiping the dishes in front of him off the counter in the process. Toby managed to put his extended hand up to block the oncoming blow despite his surprise. The punch grazed his fingers as the man crashed to the floor. Toby stood from his stool. He got a good look and saw the man was in no shape to fight. The fire quickly went out of him, though his heart still raced.

“Who is this guy?” Toby asked, and then looked up at his partner. The second man looked slightly less ill, and just to be on the safe side Toby put one foot behind him and put his hands up. He’d taken six weeks of a boxing class at the Y, though he had trouble remembering which punch he should throw first if it came to it.

“Hey, no más, pal,” the second man said, putting his hands up in mock surrender. He had dirty blond hair and a horseshoe mustache.

Mel must not have heard, otherwise he would have charged out of the kitchen and thrown both men out by the scruff of their necks.

“What in Sam Hill is all the kerfuffle for?” Wanda asked, with a ‘Cut it the hell out this instant’ kind of tone.

“My friend,” Horseshoe said, kneeling and looking at her and Toby. “He’s sick.” He twirled a finger around his ear. “Flu’s got him seein’ and hearin’ things. Sorry. Really, we got nothin’ against writers. Hell, one of my fav’rite people’s a writer.”

Toby lowered his shaking hands. He nodded, not trusting his voice wouldn’t quiver.

“Look, the food was real good, but I think we should go now.”

“Agreed,” Wanda said, hand firmly on narrow hip as Horseshoe collected his friend. He dug a ball of cash out of his pocket, shucked off five bills and placed them on the counter, thought a moment, then added two more to the pile.

“For the dishes.”

Wanda fixed him with her blue-eyed, laser-sharp stare. Toby had only seen that look once before when a couple of teens who’d been fighting outside dragged their battle through the vestibule and right beside two occupied booths. She hadn’t laid a hand on either boy, but they sobered up quick and were as contrite as a reverend late for church. Horseshoe averted his eyes as if she would convert him to stone, his friend draped over him as they turned and staggered to the door. Toby had no idea how they managed to schlepp their way out as awful as they looked.

“Wanna know what Ah think?” she said. “Ah think you need a slice of my pie.” She marched around the counter and lifted the heavy glass lid off the pumpkin pie. They didn’t sell too much of it, though whenever Toby was in town Wanda baked it special for him. It was his one celebrity perk. Toby watched as Horseshoe just about rolled the other man into the passenger seat of an old, powder-green Lincoln and shut the door. Horseshoe yelped, then yanked the door open, bent and scooped something off the ground, and tossed it into the unconscious man’s lap.

Toby was sure he hadn’t seen that right. It had looked like a hand.

“What is goink on?” Mel said, sliding Toby’s bowl in front of the stool where he’d been sitting. He wasn’t sure if he was in the mood to eat anymore. “Is problem?”

“Nothin’, Mel.” Wanda tore off the ticket with the old couple’s order on it and handed it to him. “Just cook this up, m’kay?” Mel’s loose-skinned face curtained into an expression of confusion, then his head bobbed up and down and he trudged back into the kitchen with her order. She had an equally mildly apologetic expression, watching him go, though she didn’t call him back.

“Oh my goodness, will you look at this mess?” Wanda grabbed a bucket for clearing tables and began tossing pieces of broken dishes and glass into it.

“Be careful,” Toby couldn’t help saying, as if she’d been on the verge of accidentally slashing her wrist before he’d chimed in. He sat down and went through the motions of salting grits, and by the time he took a sip of his tepid coffee found his stomach alive.

Mel came out with plates in hand, saw what she was doing, and continued to the floor, placing the food before the elderly couple. By the time he got back, she had taken the bucket to the back and was waiting for him, hand on hip, a much mellower version of the laser stare upon the big man.

“Now what didja do that for?” she asked.

“You were busy.” Mel shrugged. “I do.”

“Mel, I don’t need you doin’. I got this. Those are my customers, they don’t wanna see you.”

It sounded more cruel than intended. Toby had been privy to this conversation before. Cooks were typically messy, with various sauces and meat juice stains on smocks, pit-stained shirts, and her personal opinion that people thought a cook out here meant something was burning on the grill. He was able to recite the next bit from memory, resisting the urge to mouth the words along with her.

“You don’t see me in the kitchen flippin’ burgers, Mel.” Her face softened. Sandy’s didn’t serve burgers, but the point was made just the same. “I . . . appreciate the help, but next time lemme do it myself, m’kay?”

She was chiding Mel, but either because English was a fourth language and something was lost in the words or nothing Wanda said had a negative effect on him. By the way Mel’s eyes always followed her, Toby suspected the latter.

“You should take break,” he said, his accent thickening. He put a paw around one of her skinny arms and stroked it. Only when they came in physical contact was he reminded of Bluto and Olive Oyl. Although now a little more svelt Bluto. “Go out back for smoke—I come with.”

“No, I don’t need no cigarette.” She gently slapped his hand away. It looked to Toby as if she’d liked it being there. Mel stepped close enough that his mouth was mere inches away from her ear and began speaking low and fast.

“Not in front of the C-U-S-T-O-M-E-R-S,” she whispered as if Toby couldn’t spell and shoved him away.

“The cus . . . the cus . . .” Mel had a big worry-knot between his eyebrows.

“Not in front of me, Mel,” Toby said. He couldn’t resist. He’d seen the two of them sneak quick little pecks and side-eye glances at each other. Wanda was widowed and Mel never spoke of his supposed family back in the old country, but they made a good-looking couple as far as Toby was concerned. She was nearly six feet, rail-thin, and strikingly pretty despite being somewhere in her fifties and Mel . . . was Mel. He wondered how a person could be on Earth for as many years as her and still care what other people thought, but as far as Toby could tell, Wanda was the holdout in that relationship going public. Maybe she thought she would have been dishonoring her husband or something.

She fixed Toby with that laser stare, daring him to say another word, to her now or to anybody else on earth at any other point in time.

“Not a word,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am,” Toby said.

She turned and snatched up the money the man with the horseshoe mustache had littered on the counter, pulling a disgusted face. Mel almost put a hand on her shoulder.

“What is wrong?” he asked.

Toby almost thought she hadn’t heard. “Nothin’.” She looked at Toby one last time, an expression of half confusion, half something familiar he couldn’t nail down until later, before turning and heading into the back. He quickly went back to his food, wanting to eat his pumpkin pie before she came back and snatched that, too.

“Is good, no?” Mel said, a blocky-toothed grin on his face. Toby nodded, and the big man retreated into the kitchen, presumably to check on Wanda.

Toby finished lunch without further incident, not seeing the waitress for the rest of his stay, which forced Mel to cash him out. The man may have been a wizard on the grill, but a chochem he was not with his fat fingers on the cash register.

“Now that would make an interesting story,” Toby said after he’d climbed into his SUV, thinking of the incident with the two men. He turned the key in the ignition and put it in Drive, but before he could pull out someone walked right in front of his vehicle.

It was Pete Erskine, who had been at the far end of the counter nursing a cup of coffee with a little something extra in it, if you could believe Mitty Hayes. Toby could believe he was drunk by the look on his face, but did a double take, realizing it was the same half confused, half something expression Wanda had worn.

Erskine backed away from him, crossing Ames Street, but having eyes only for Toby.

“What is wrong with you?” Toby asked, but didn’t wait around for the off chance the man might have provided an answer. Twenty minutes later he was in front of his typewriter again, but had nothing to give. He sat forward, his hands poised over the keys.

Nada.

His cell rang. His daughters had changed the ringtone to nonsensical conversation between two minions from Despicable Me.

“Saved by the bell,” he said, then, “Hey, honey.”

“How’s the writing going?” Phyllis asked. His wife was always a straight-to-the-point kind of girl.

“I’m great, how are you?”

“Trying to figure out where to hide the bodies.”

“Really?” he asked. “How many?”

“Just three this time.”

“Oh, well, there’s a small patch that hasn’t been dug up in the corner of the backyard.”

“I didn’t even look over there. Thank you.”

“No problem. Get the girls to help.”

They both laughed and she proceeded to tell him about the three jerks she’d run into at the grocery store. Joking about murder always helped to depressurize stressful situations. He proceeded to tell her about the run-in at Sandy’s and ended it with the odd expressions of Wanda and Pete Erskine.

“You don’t think you should call the police, do you?”

“Nah. Those guys were in a bad way. The girls could take them.”

“The girls could take down a lot of people, though.”

“Good point. Maybe I could use them to work security.”

There was a metallic scraping sound outside.

“What was that?”

“What?”

“I don’t know. Something outside. Hang on while I check.” Toby dashed downstairs, peeking out the front window before stepping out. It didn’t take long to figure out what it was; a large piece of aluminum siding had been pulled away from the house and half of the strip was missing.

“—’s going on?” Phyllis was saying when he put the phone back to his ear.

“Somebody stole a piece of the house.” It was so laughable he wasn’t even upset. He’d needed to replace the siding when he’d bought the place; the insurance claim would be just the boot in the butt to get it done. He explained to her exactly what he meant, and his wife told him to call the police immediately and call her back. Toby nodded, then responded with actual words, then hung up.

Since his area wasn’t on the 911 system just yet, he called the sheriff directly. Interim sheriff Fran Carey had given him her number in case anything ever came up and said it would be her personal pleasure to answer the emergency call of a famous writer. Toby was freaked out just enough to set his humility aside and call.

She showed up less than three minutes later and examined the damage as if she were a claims adjustor. Carey was Red Deer Rapids’ first and only female sheriff’s deputy and had been filling the shoes of sheriff since last year. The city council hadn’t seen fit to give her the job proper even though Sheriff Karlo’s stroke had all but officially retired him.

“Prob’ly done it with some prunin’ shears or sum’nlikeat.” It had taken Toby a good week before he’d learned that last word was actually three words: something like that. There were a couple of others he’d had the pleasure of eventually translating, like “paper saik” (paper sack) and “fixin’ to” (getting ready to).

“Any ideas on who could’ve done this?” Toby asked. Sheriff Carey looked at him.

“I wish in Sam Hill I knew, but I imagine I’d be usin’ that particular ability for the numbers. We ain’t had a case of vandalism in nigh on four years. You didn’t see nothin’?”

“No. I was upstairs writing.”

“Really.” The sheriff smiled. “Durand gonna be dealin’ out more death in this one than last time? ’Cause I thought he was gettin’ a bit too talky last time out.”

Normally, Toby invited these sort of criticisms. He felt it gave him a better understanding of the perspective of his fans, and he could in turn share what he was trying to accomplish. Durand getting talky was Toby’s attempt to keep his main character from being just an assassin. He wanted him to have an actual backstory that fans would care about and provide a solid foundation for why he would eventually kill more than ninety people in the last thirty pages of the book.

“Well, I’m not too far into it. What can we do about this, though?”

“Oh, I imagine nothin’. I s’pose . . . I could go up the road a bit and knock on a few doors and see if somebody saw anyone carryin’ a piece of aluminum sidin’, but honestly, that’ll prob’ly turn up in the river. It’s one of those”—she began snapping her fingers—“y’know, one of those things you steal you don’t really want. What’s the word?”

Toby didn’t know if there was a word for that. “Kleptomania?” he guessed.

“No. I think it’s French. Like je ne sais quoi or sum’nlikeat.”

Toby nodded in understanding without having a clue what the woman was talking about. Sheriff Carey pinched the brim of her brown hat, climbed back into the cruiser, and pulled out the driveway.

“Come by the station later to file a report,” she said. “You could also ask your neighbor over yonder if y’ontoo,” she said out the cruiser window before pulling off.

Toby should’ve been frustrated, should’ve yelled or kicked something, but the muse had grabbed him just then and he charged back into his house and plopped down in front of his typewriter. He had written for hours before realizing he hadn’t called his wife back. Instead of focusing on one story, he had found himself dancing between two, ideas that put flesh on the bones of his outlines coming almost faster than he could write.

When he reached for his cell phone, he realized it wasn’t in his pocket. Toby had never gotten around to buying a holster for it. He ran downstairs, supposing he might have left it on the kitchen counter. When he didn’t find it there he widened his search, checking places he knew he hadn’t gone into, like the bathroom and the garage. He refused to check the crawlspace; that freaked him out just enough that he refused to go down there. If that were where his cell phone had wound up he would simply purchase another.

“The writer toiled fruitlessly in search of his cellular device,” Toby said. He only referred to himself as “the writer” when he was alone, utilizing expansive prose. When he was in Red Deer Rapids he spoke with a faux-British accent to balance out the odd southern twang that had somehow invaded northern Michigan.

He regretted not setting up the internet in this house and bringing along his laptop. He could have emailed his wife so she wouldn’t have been worried. He could almost feel her anxiety ratcheting up by the moment the longer he went without contacting her. His wife could make rash decisions when she was frightened and he wanted to avoid her stressing out and doing something crazy like driving all the way up here.

Toby stepped outside, walking along the path from the front door to the driveway where he had met the sheriff. After pacing the lawn he was certain the phone was not out here, unless in an unremembered act of horrible decision making, he had thrown it into the road.

He was getting antsy about not speaking to his wife. She’d be beyond worried by now and it would be dark soon. He hated the notion of heading into town to buy another cell phone when the one he had had been perfectly good. He had to call just to reassure her that he was all right, though.

Maybe he could just borrow a neighbor’s phone. He really didn’t know the man who had the house down a ways from him beyond hello and good-bye when they both happened to meet up at the bank of mailboxes. Everyone else had been friendly enough; Toby could use a phone for a few minutes, couldn’t he?

Toby had no reason for why he was nervous. Maybe because, semifamous writer or no, he was still black and this was a very rural area. The people he knew seemed to legitimately like him, but he needed to call upon a stranger now and adding in the oddity of what had happened at Sandy’s, he was a little hesitant to reach out to people he wasn’t on a first-name basis with. The movie Deliverance swimming into his mind didn’t help, either.

Maybe he could just hop in his car and go back to Sandy’s or to the little cell phone store. They always had those working display models people could use to make a call. Toby felt squeamish about going into town for some reason, though. What he really wanted to do was go back in his house and stay there. Today just wasn’t right, not to mention yesterday he hadn’t written a single word.

The sooner he could set things right with Phyllis, the sooner he could close the books on this day. It was starting to get late, maybe he could grab something quick to eat and turn in.

But the muse was still thrumming in his bones. Despite his mounting, unjustified fear, he had to write. To simply scurry into his room and shut off the rest of the world beneath bedsheets would be the opposite of what he wanted most right now and, superstitious writer as he was, offensive to the muse.

“Okay, one step at a time.” Toby took a deep breath, realizing he’d been rooted to one spot for the last five minutes. He had to break this up into mentally digestible pieces so he wasn’t overwhelmed. Without giving it another thought he began walking down the road toward his neighbor’s house.

The Laferle residence was just as small as his house, same style, with a slightly different elevation. Toby would have called the color of the house powder green with emerald trim, although it was difficult to tell in the lessening light. A tree that looked like it had begun life as a weed was much too close to the house, leaning over and scraping the roof with its naked branches. The landscaping looked to have been managed by a professional; otherwise, the lawn was kept at a trim two inches, edges sharp. Toby didn’t know much about vegetation, spotting the golden spirea at either side of the house and the dark-leafed Japanese maple nearer the road amidst all the other bushes and vines.

The walkway was unpaved as he circuited to the porch. Again, without giving it significant thought, he knocked on the door. The impending night brought a strange silence. No animals called, no grasshoppers reeped, no wind stirred the air. One of the most relaxing things about this place was sitting on the porch at night with a beer and a couple citronella candles to keep mosquitoes at bay. The coming dark dragged across sky and earth, a giant eraser that would take away everything when the sun finally set.

Even him.

Toby knocked again and the door pulled open immediately. There hadn’t been any sound from inside—no approaching footsteps, no one calling for him to hold on or a television being muted. It was almost like the empty-eyed man who was staring back at him had been waiting right behind the door all along.

“Mr. Laferle,” Toby said, putting on a smile and trying to swallow his heart back in his chest. The wan light coming from inside was a lifeline and it was all he could do to keep from cramming himself through the semi-open doorway. “I’m sorry, I’m your neighbor up the road in the corner house. We see each other when we pick up the mail at the same time sometimes. I hope this isn’t a terrible imposition, but I could really use a phone right now. I seem to have lost mine and I have to call in with the missus.”

He was a little more verbose than he had intended; however, it couldn’t be helped. When Toby was scared, he tended to get wordy. Any grade school bully who had thrashed him on the playground could have vouched for that.

Mr. Laferle stepped back and Toby took that as a sign to enter. Once more, not thinking, otherwise he might have caught the too-wideness of the man’s eyes, like he was drinking Toby in.

He was grateful to be inside and resisted the urgent and clichéd need to put his back to the door and let loose a sigh of relief. The man was still walking backward, his eyes on Toby when Toby realized he had a more pronounced version of the same expression as Wanda earlier today. Hers had been budding confusion and . . .

. . . and adulation?

No, that couldn’t have been it, could it? And Pete Erskine was probably one of the only people who hadn’t read him. Could both men be fans?

They made their way to the kitchen, which was immaculately well-kept in comparison to the shambles that Toby had seen so far. The kitchen smelled of mothballs, pizza, and roach spray with an undertone of good old human sweat. An off-white phone was on the wall next to the fridge and he made a beeline past Mr. Laferle and snatched it up.

The dial tone had to have been the sweetest sound he could have asked for at that moment. He turned to his neighbor as he began thumbing in his wife’s cell phone number while the man stood by the stove, a pot of boiling water over one of the gas eyes.

“You’re going to have tea?” he asked, and regretted immediately. It came to him like he was asking without asking for his own cup and Toby wasn’t interested in anything in here beyond the phone call. “I don’t know how long-distance works but I’m more than happy to pay for the call,” he said, hoping to erase the tea request.

The line buzzed three times before Phyllis answered.

“Hello?” his wife said.

“Honey, it’s me,” Toby said. “I lost my cell phone and I’m at the neighbor’s—Mr. Laferle—using his phone.”

“What happened?” The panic in his wife’s voice was thick. “Why didn’t you call me back? The girls and I were so worried about you!”

He didn’t say that he’d just told her he’d lost his cell phone. She was understandably worried. He figured it was also not the best time to tell her he’d finally gotten something significant down on paper. “I tore the house up looking for my cell. I looked inside and out before calling it quits twenty minutes ago and coming down here to call. I’m sorry I worried you.”

“You had me worried. Are you okay?” Phyllis took a deep breath and blew it out into the phone. “Should I come up there?”

“No!” he said a little too loudly. “I’m fine now that I finally got to talk to you. Everything’s fine.”

“What did the sheriff say?”

“Not too much in the help department.” There was a little anteroom off the back of the kitchen and Toby was half-mindedly examining the junk inside through a window when he spotted what looked to be a wavy strip of white aluminum siding sitting atop a pile of junk. “Uh, honey, I gotta go, there’s a call coming on the other line. Love you. ’Bye.”

He hung up the phone and put his back to the fridge. Mr. Laferle was still standing there. Maybe that particular siding hadn’t come off his house but Toby noticed the man’s half-bandaged hands. One was pretty well wrapped even though blood had soaked through until it looked like he was wearing a red mitten. The other hand had a deep gash through the palm and Toby would have guessed he’d severed some tendons. The bandage on that hand was haphazard, wrapped securely at the wrist and looser as it went up the hand like he’d lost interest in what he’d been doing. The man didn’t seem to notice his still oozing wounds as he stood silent as a mummy, his wide eyes on Toby.

“Mr. Laferle, are you okay?” His layer of panic stripped away, Toby was able to process his surroundings more effectively. The man was in shock. There was still an air about him, however, making Toby nervous. More than his own issues, though, he was worried about the man. Was it possible for someone to bleed to death from the cuts on his hands? At the very least, he could have permanent damage if his wounds weren’t tended to promptly, Toby guessed.

He spotted a stack of books on the kitchen table. He recognized the cover of the one on top and realized it was one of his. Mr. Laferle was a fan! Maybe the man was in shock and a little bit in awe of an author he’d been reading now standing in his kitchen.

He smiled and pointed at the books. “Hey, why don’t we get you to the hospital and I’ll sign some of those for you.” His neighbor lunged at him, wrapping oozing hands around his neck. Toby batted at his arms, breaking his weak grip and stepping aside. Mr. Laferle crashed into the refrigerator and Toby circled around him. The shorter man turned, his eyes locking onto Toby. He had that same expression, but the sudden violence changed the tenor of his eyes. He almost looked mindless.

They stood in front of each other, the air between them like ice. Toby wanted to run, but he didn’t think he could get the door open and out before the man was on him.

“Now wait a minute,” Toby said. “I don’t know what’s going on, but we can just forget I was even here.” He held out a placating hand. “Just let me walk out the door and we’re good. Okay?”

By way of reply, his neighbor’s mouth fell open. Toby thought he saw a blue light from behind his teeth and a millisecond before the man charged again, Toby snatched up the boiling pot and swung it in an arch at his head. It connected with a ping, but redirected him rather than stopping him. Mr. Laferle whirled, his bloody hands up like a 10 percent–wrapped mummy, and Toby hit him again. The man didn’t go down, didn’t seem to understand his face had just been smashed open, didn’t appear to hear the pot clanging off his skull, his eyes never wavering from his target. Toby didn’t stop swinging, each time the pot pinging off Mr. Laferle’s head until his forward momentum stopped and he was driven back. There was a dent at the corner of the man’s hairline before he fell and Toby stood over him, panting heavily.

His neighbor’s eyes were still pointed at him, but they were glazed. Toby sidestepped to make sure they didn’t follow like a creepy wall painting. Mr. Laferle was dead.

Toby dropped the equally misshapen pot, his hands going to his mouth as if to stop it from speaking some secret against his will.

He had to call the police.

He had to get out of here.

The whole episode had taken on an eeriness he couldn’t stand to be around.

Toby backed away. He retreated to the phone, grabbing it off the wall mount, and thumbed 911. The county operator he was routed to took his information and asked him to stay on the line while she contacted the local police. Toby let the phone slide from his hands, already headed for the door. He knew what this looked like and it would still look the same from the relative comfort of his own home. Let them say he’d murdered a man because he’d torn off a piece of Toby’s house. He knew the truth, and if that were anyone’s conclusion then he had a pit bull of a lawyer who would muddy the waters enough for a jury to not know what to believe. But staying there was not an option.

He tore open the front door, making a beeline for his house. “The writer didn’t dare look into the moonless night or listen to thick silence,” Toby said as he ran. “His eyes and ears were only for the house in front of him.” Toby’s lungs were starved for oxygen by the time he got the door shut behind him. He went through the house and turned on all the lights as if to wash the dark off him and sweep it back outside like a receding tide.

He was paranoid, he knew, and clueless as to what to do. Toby partially wished he’d stayed long enough to call his wife back. He needed more than just her shared concern; Phyllis would have known what to do in such a horrible circumstance. He peeked through the shades, hoping to spot blazing red and blue emergency lights. He would have welcomed a dozen of them even if they were coming to arrest him just so long as they got him out of here.

What had happened, though? Why did Mr. Laferle force Toby to kill him? He looked at his still trembling hands and noted the puffiness of one index. He touched it with his other hand and found it was sensitive like he’d been burned. It had to have been the scalding water that had been in the pot. He had to have slung some of it on him when he’d used it to hit his neighbor.

A flash of light passed by.

Toby peered outside again and saw the taillights of what had to have been Sheriff Carey’s cruiser. He wanted to step out on his porch and wave her down, but thought better of it.

Something bumped outside. Or rather, something bumped into something outside. It had sounded like the little picnic table scraping on the concrete patio and he dashed into the kitchen and peered through the vertical blinds of the patio door.

The table was gone.

Sure, it was small, but it would have taken two or three people to move it that fast. And the little grill he never remembered to bring in was missing too. There was a punch followed by shattering glass back in the living room and Toby saw a bloodied arm poking through his bay window waving around, grabbing at air.

“No!” he shouted. “You go away!”

Surprisingly, the arm withdrew, but not before it had picked up the tiny cactus plant he kept on the sill and taking it. The fillet of skin the arm left behind had a distinct tattoo of a fish Reggie Tillman had been proud to show off because he’d allegedly caught one just like it in North Carolina. Toby had signed his paperback copy of Deathwork when they had run into each other at the pharmacy last year.

Were all of these crazy people his fans?

Sheriff Carey pulled into his driveway and he saw her climb out. Toby thought he could feel more of them out there, closing in, and he wanted to call out to her. She sauntered up his walk and onto the porch. Toby yanked open the door and hustled her in, locking it behind her.

“Did you see them out there?” he asked. She didn’t answer, wandering over to the couch and hooking her thumbs into her belt.

“Hank Laferle’s dead.”

Toby sat on the couch, the fear of the home invaders temporarily forgotten. He couldn’t meet her eyes, though: mirrored sunglasses were securely on her face.

At night.

He opened his mouth to speak and Sheriff Carey interjected. “It’s a good thing I answered the call,” she said. “When he woke, all he kept sayin’ was how you attacked him with the pot he was usin’ to make tea.”

“You . . . killed him?” Toby recoiled despite not moving. The sheriff sauntered into the kitchen. He felt equal parts relief and fresh horror. He hadn’t just murdered someone, but here was an officer of the law confessing freely that she had on his behalf. And she had a gun, too.

“Get over here,” Sheriff Carey said. Toby stood and saw her filling a pot roughly the same size as the one he’d used on Mr. Laferle. She placed it on the stove and turned on the eye. Save for the bedroom and bathroom the house had an open floor plan. Everything he could see and hear going on outside she had to have heard as well. He stood at the edge of the kitchen’s linoleum floor, watching as silhouettes stripped the siding off his house.

“C’mon,” the sheriff said. She held up a shaking hand and waved for him to come closer.

He took a few small steps over and she smiled as if to disarm him. The woman was a good fifteen years older, four inches shorter, and had a good deal of husk on her frame, but Toby wasn’t sure he could take her.

Finally, he stood by the stove next to her.

“I want you to show me,” she said, gesturing to the already boiling pot. “What happened?”

Toby hardly saw the point of re-creating the scene. “He attacked me—was going to attack me,” he said. “I—” She held up a finger then pointed it at the pot.

“Show me.”

He was about to speak again when she casually rested a hand on the butt of her holstered revolver.

“Pretend I’m Hank.”

Toby looked over at the pot and hesitantly reached for it. How far was she going with this? He grabbed it, the hot handle setting his nerve endings ablaze. Toby arched his arm slowly, rotating the pot in his grip to not slosh out the steaming water.

He was inches away from her face when he said, “Like this.”

“Good,” she said, and snapped a cuff around his wrist. With a slight twist of his body Toby felt like his shoulder was about to be wrenched out of the socket. He tried to fall to his knees in compliance but she stretched his arm out and a second later he was handcuffed to the cabinet door handles above him.

He’d burned himself again. Something crashed through the bathroom window and a moment later came a grunting voice. It took a few minutes of working before something broke.

Sheriff Carey’s whole body was twitching now. She slowly and deliberately reached into her shirt and plucked out a collector’s copy of The Big Sleeper with a leatherette cover and gold foil stamping. Toby didn’t even have a copy of that.

“Sign this,” she said, handing it to him with a Sharpie. Toby’s mouth hung open.

“I’m right-handed,” he said, indicating his restrained hand.

“Sign!” She slammed the book down on the counter. Toby opened it and thumbed the cap off the Sharpie then awkwardly scrawled his name as quickly as he could. He’d seen that same trace of blue light flicker in her mouth as had been in Hank Laferle’s.

Unintelligible chatter in falsetto began and he recognized his ringtone. Sheriff Carey took his cell phone out of her shirt pocket, her shivering hand reaching into the sink and depositing it into the disposal.

“No!” Toby snatched at air as she easily stepped out of his reach and flipped on the disposal. It made an angry, metallic chewing sound and a minute later the cell phone was gone save for a stubborn chunk of plastic.

“Don’t need that anymore,” she said. She turned her back to him and fell to the floor in a full-body palsy. When she stood again her hat was canted at an odd angle and she didn’t fix it. Her sunglasses were gone.

She had the same expression as Hank Laferle. She opened her mouth wider and he saw the blue light, tracing the inside of her mouth. Carey took a lurching step toward him.

“Fran?” Toby said. “Fran, stop.” He pulled on the cuffs, trying to yank the cabinet doors off. His wrist was more likely to break first, though, and he tried shoving her away.

She stumbled back and came on again. He tried shoving her again and she latched on to his wrist. Her mouth swung open and she stuffed his hand into it. Toby screamed as his hand suffused with an alien heat. A moment later his wrist popped out of her mouth and was a smooth nub.

He leaped back from her, expecting her to come at him again. She turned and shuffled toward the door. Toby yanked on his cuffs again, his mind reeling. Had to keep calm. The way out was simple. It had to be or the others would be in here and on him soon.

He’d replaced these cabinets himself last summer and had a hell of a time keeping the doors on. They fell off easily if a little upward force was applied to the bottom. He used his blunted arm to push, and the first one came off immediately, a corner catching him in the forehead. He could hear more of them in the house, but hadn’t seen them yet. Someone was in the bedroom, someone else had climbed in through the bathroom window. The back door and the front door were both intact, but occasionally one of them would rattle as someone tried the knob.

Toby had to get somewhere to hide. He couldn’t take for granted that these were just thieves set on looting his house while he was still in it. Sheriff Carey had taken his hand. He didn’t want to dwell on it for fear of sending himself into shock; he instead concentrated on working the other cabinet door off its hinges, using his remaining hand to steady it so he didn’t get bashed in the head again.

The door came free, the two of them clattering together on the counter. The commotion around the house stopped and Toby knew they had heard him. He picked up the doors as silently as he could and ducked behind the island.

They were moving closer. He wanted to cry out, to scream at them to leave, to drop what they had taken. It was wrong, it was all wrong, and there wasn’t more proof of that than what was missing at the end of his arm.

He risked reaching into the drawer over his head and fished around until he had a butter knife. It was tricky using his hand and stump, but eventually he got the screws for the handles undone and snapped the other bracelet around his wrist. Toby didn’t want to chance getting it snagged on something else and getting stuck all over again. He peeked around the island and saw the throng of residents milling about. So much of his house was bare from what he could see. The couch and television were gone and someone was in the process of lifting an end table, letting the vase atop it smash to the floor.

He used the momentary distraction to run through the thin crowd. He’d almost made it to the stairs when Pendleton White grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and held him in place. Toby got a good look at his invaders: Brenda May, Martin Stubblefield, Boyd Carr amongst others—it looked like his last book signing in town at the K of C.

Toby didn’t ask, instead plunging the butter knife into Pendleton’s forearm. His grip sprung open and Toby raced up the stairs, hearing them right behind him. He was only going to have one chance with the door so he spun around and kicked as hard as he could, catching someone with the same build as David Bowers in the face. The man didn’t go down, though, rather Toby’s shoe stuck to the man’s face and came off Toby’s foot. “David” sucked it down, his mouth awash in blue glow, and began retreating.

Others surged forward, their arms reaching for Toby as he climbed the last few stairs and shut himself inside. He hoped the flimsy lock would hold them at bay long enough to get onto the roof. The house was a ranch and this had been the attic, but the prior owner had converted it into a small study. The fall from the roof was about fourteen feet, and if he did it right he could keep his ankles intact.

Toby realized the lone window was painted shut after tugging on it a few times. He figured he had seconds before they had the door open and piled on him. He turned to his little desk and typewriter. They wanted pieces of him, right? He grabbed the small stack of typewritten pages and tossed them behind him, letting them scatter to the floor. What sounded like a giant fist pounded on the door, and he thought it had already been knocked off its hinges. He scooped up the heavy typewriter and flung it at the window. It went through much too easily and he found himself wondering if he should have saved it to fend off the people at the door. They had to have wanted that.

Toby was still kicking out glass when the door finally gave and he climbed through. His pants tore on a shard he’d missed, but he lifted himself out, concentrating on his footing, not wanting to go tumbling off the roof. He almost lost his balance trying to grab hold of the window frame with his missing hand. Hopefully, most or all of them would be in the house and he could leap down, make it to his SUV, and drive away. As soon as he was fully on the roof someone reached for his legs. Toby sidestepped and the person climbed out after him. Before Dwight Mullins could stand, Toby grabbed him by the collar and heaved him toward the edge of the roof, watching as he tumbled off. Someone else began to climb out, but he didn’t wait to see whom. Toby crept to the edge and peered over. He saw there was no hope of getting off the roof and to his vehicle; there were just too many people on the ground. That wasn’t what made his heart drop, though. Phyllis’s vehicle was parked in the driveway behind his. He hadn’t heard her call to him and hoped that didn’t mean what he was thinking. He hoped, too, that the girls weren’t with her.

“Phyllis!” he called to his wife. The people on the ground who hadn’t noticed him yet looked up. All were familiar faces, strange in the wan light coming from his house. Wanda was there. So was Mel, though Toby had not known the man had actually read any of his books. He wondered if just liking the fact that Toby was a writer had been enough to change him, too.

He was past the point of doubting; his missing hand was all the evidence he needed. There was no reason to any of it. It just was and there was no one to whom Toby could cry for deliverance.

Someone else was on the roof behind him. He didn’t turn to look and the grip on his shoulder was firm. Toby went to his knees, managing to not fall over despite the pitch of the roof. Marv Redding rolled head over heels and disappeared over the edge. He finally spotted her in the crowd and his wife’s face was as alien as the others.

“Phyllis,” he said. “Please, look at me.” He willed her to recognize him but those eyes held nothing for her husband. They all lifted their hands up to him, reaching like they had fallen overboard and he was a lifeline. His will left him and he rolled to the edge, wanting nothing more than for them to take him as they were taking his home.

He went over, his body rag doll limp, and he snagged on the gutter. He was too high for the ones on the ground to reach him and the ones on the roof fell over when they reached for him.

The gutter held for a few minutes and he watched them with their arms out to him as if in supplication. He knew just about every one of the faces looking up at him.

They were his fans. Every single one of them.

And the look. It was more than adulation. It was adoration. They wanted him. They all did.

Toby fell.

They descended.

Constrictor-like open mouths filled with blue-lit teeth fastened onto him, bloodlessly tearing off limbs. It was impossible for him to fight and a moment later there wasn’t anything for him to fight with. Phyllis reached and picked him up by his curly hair and held him in her hands, staring.

His wife walked to her car, opened the door, and put him in a nice box she had taken from the house.

Toby heard the car start and felt the rumbling engine as she slowly backed out of the driveway. The writer merely wished to return home, he thought. But he dreaded his daughters seeing him in such a state. They were much too young to appreciate his work.

Mister Poo Poo

Jimmy Pudge

Bobby was born with only two fingers on his right hand. He used to hold up those two fingers, his thumb and index finger, like a pistol, firing at his father when he shut him in the closet at night. Father loved him; Bobby knew this. But father had to find a new wife since Bobby had made his first wife leave. Father said Bobby was pure fucking ugly and he would make the women-folk sick. That’s why he’d started making Bobby sleep in the closet.

Bobby was playing with a boot in the closet one night when he heard an unusual noise. He sat up from his towel, which Father had laid on the floor for him when he was younger, and tried to peer into the darkness. He rubbed his eyes and saw yellow dots dancing. The dots disappeared and the blackness remained.

“Hello?”

He heard the noise again. A crunching sound. Something warm and wet landed on his head.

“Hi ya, Bobby!” a voice said. “Want some Cheetos?”

Bobby scooted his ass back until he hit a wall. “Help!” He kicked the closet door as hard as he could. “Please!”

He heard heavy footsteps on the floor.

“Bobby, you wouldn’t rat out your best friend, now would ya?”

“Help!”

“Everyone loves Mister Poo Poo, you little bastard!” the voice said, hot breath and the scent of decay slapping Bobby in the face. “Just remember, Bobby! You created me!”

The door opened and Bobby’s father looked angry. “Bobby, what the hell? What are you shouting about?”

“Someone’s in my closet, Father!”

The old man reached up, yanked a chain, and a dim light from a 40-watt bulb bathed the clothing and shoes and cardboard boxes a putrid yellow.

“Ain’t a damn soul in this closet but you. What are you doing in here anyway?”

“Father, someone’s in the closet with me!”

“No one’s in the closet, son. Now please, get up and go to your bed.”

“But you said I was ugly and had to live in the closet.”

Father looked confused. “Huh?”

“You said I was an ugly motherfucker and would scare all the women-folk away!”

“Oh shit. You haven’t been taking your medication, have you, Bobby?”

“It’s poisoned. I know you want me dead.” Bobby looked into his father’s eyes and could see the rage. He rolled himself into a ball, prepared for the onslaught.

“Bobby, you look damned ridiculous in that closet. You’re twenty-four years old, son. It’s time to start acting like a man. Get out of that closet.”

It wasn’t until later that night when Bobby heard the crunching noise again. This time it was coming from under his bed. He pulled the covers over his face, fear punching him in the gut.

“Bobby! Why don’t you crawl out of bed and come down here with me. Aww . . . come on, Bobby, don’t be a pussy! Come down here and hide under the bed with your pal, Mr. Poo Poo. We’ll talk about things, Bobby. We’ll talk about all sorts of fucking things, Bobby.”

Bobby could feel his heart racing. He tried to take deep breaths, but the fear had tightened his chest. He could hear someone or something moving under the bed. He could feel it pushing against the box springs and the mattress. He could hear it on the wooden floor, sliding out from its hiding place and into the shadows engulfing the room.

He heard heavy footsteps and felt something tugging at his sheet. And then the phantom hand was gone.

“Bobby, look at me!”

Bobby kept his eyelids shut and the sheet over his head.

“Why create me, Bobby, if you’re not going to play the game? Huh? Why make Mr. Poo Poo, little baby?”

“Leave me alone.”

“Then look at me, you chickenshit motherfucker!”

Bobby jerked the cover off his head. Mr. Poo Poo stood six feet tall and his belly was massive. In the darkness, Bobby could make out little else but the outline of something in the man’s hand. The smell, however, was overpowering. His eyes watered as he inhaled horrible aromas he could not place.

He reached for the lamp on his nightstand and gasped at what he saw. Mr. Poo Poo was butt-ass naked and grinning and his teeth looked like rusted scalpels. His bald head was the color of marble and a blazing blue neon light suddenly emerged from it. Bobby glanced up and saw the word BITCH in neon blue spelled out on the ceiling.

“Like my razor?” Mr. Poo Poo said.

Bobby stared at the huge hand that was stretched out to him. An ivory handled straight razor gleamed as the hand came closer.

“Touch it,” Mr. Poo Poo whispered. “I want you to.”

Bobby ran his hand over the side of the razor. “It’s cold.”

“I know it is, Bobby. Let’s warm the motherfucker up.”

Bobby sat up in bed. “How are we going to do that?” he said, his voice cracking.

“Well, Bobby, first I need to know why your imagination birthed me. You see, I’m like a genie in a bottle. I can’t go free until I grant your wish. That’s the game, Bobby. I need you to play it. I’m hungry, Bobby! Tell me what you want! And tell me now!”

Bobby’s lip trembled and he lowered his head. His heart was speeding, blood was flowing, and a million thoughts wafted through his mind and died at his tongue. He told himself to remain silent, to scream for Father. But instead of calling for help, he heard his high-pitched, squeaky voice spill out of his trembling mouth. “I want—I want you to kill Father. He’s trying to kill me with those pills I’m taking. They make me feel so icky. I can’t do anything with those pills. I can’t concentrate. They’re destroying me. That’s why you’re here! I want you to save me.”

Mr. Poo Poo sat down on the bed and the frame groaned under his massive bulk. He moved up the bed, leaving a brown trail where his ass had slid. “You want me to save you?”

“Yes.”

“No problem, Bobby!”

Mr. Poo Poo tightened his grip on the razor and ran it across Bobby’s face with a vicious swing. The blade sliced through Bobby’s flesh like butter and popped an eyeball.

Bobby screamed and his hands reached for the razor. “Please stop it, Poo!”

“Fuck you!” Mr. Poo Poo shouted. “I’m saving you from yourself, you crazy sonofabitch!”

Blood was running into Bobby’s one good eye and the pain was white lightning in his veins. “But I—I created you. How can you do my bid-bidding if you kill me?”

“Because I already know what you want, you stupid motherfucker!” Mr. Poo Poo leaned over Bobby and put his lips on the ruined eyeball he had sliced wide open and slurped fluid building up in the socket.

“I drink your eyeball, Bobby.”

Bobby shouted for his father.

Mr. Poo Poo ran the razor across his throat and Bobby jumped out of bed, running wildly across the room. Red frothy bubbles boiled from the wound and blood splashed the floor and Bobby tried to hold it in but it seeped through his hands and rained on his feet.

He slipped in the blood on the floor and fell on his back, his head bouncing off the wood. Mr. Poo Poo casually strolled to Bobby and lifted him to a sitting position. He grabbed his chin with one hand and propped him up with the other. And then he pulled the head back, the skin splitting like a plastic bag.

“What a fine meal you’ll make, Bobby!” Poo shouted, ripping Bobby’s head off. He took it in the kitchen and placed it in the microwave oven for four minutes.

He sat at the table and watched the microwave as the head rotated. Goddamn it, I forgot to add seasoning, he thought. And then he smelled the scent of burning hair and he grew enraged for not scalping Bobby’s head before he put it in.

He walked to the oven and laughed when he saw Bobby’s only eyeball explode on the glass. He cleared the time remaining and opened the door.

“You’re not even worth a shit dead, Bobby!”

He pulled the smoking, blackened head out and tossed it in the trash. Then he went to the kitchen counter and looked through the drawers until he found a meat cleaver.

Hank was snoring and his wife hit him with her pillow.

“Honey, you’re snoring again,” she said.

“Huh?”

“Quit snoring.”

“Okay, baby.” Hank turned on his side and closed his eyes. Maybe it was time to admit Bobby to the hospital and get him some professional help. He remembered the last time they had sent him away. It had been the most difficult month of his life. He suddenly felt like talking about it.

“Sarah,” he said. “Sarah?” He shook his wife until she slapped his hand.

“What?”

“Bobby was in his closet again. This time he said there was someone in there with him.”

Sarah opened her eyes. “Oh, no. The paranoia’s coming back?”

“That’s what I’m thinking.”

“Hank, I can’t send my baby back to Westville.”

“I know. I don’t want him to go either. But things are escalating, darling. I don’t know how long he was in that closet, but you should have seen how he reacted when I told him to go to bed.”

“Hank, I can’t deal with this right now. Let’s talk about it tomorrow.”

“Goodnight, baby.” He rolled on his stomach and mashed up his pillow, trying to get his mind away from his son.

The windup alarm clock on his nightstand ticked steadily on and he felt hot. He was burning up. Hank kicked off the covers and touched his feet to the floor. He stood up and stretched and headed to the hall. There was a strange noise. He stopped. Heavy footsteps. A shadow passed the bedroom doorway. A really big shadow.

He walked to the dresser and grabbed his .357 revolver out of the bottom drawer. He pulled back the hammer on the pistol and ran into the hallway. He flicked the light switch. Light filled the hall.

Not a soul was there.

“Bobby?” he said.

No answer.

He walked down the hallway to his son’s bedroom and opened the door.

“Bobby, you in here?”

There was a strange smell in the room. He flicked the light switch on and gasped. Blood was splattered on the walls and a puddle of blood surrounded his son’s headless body, which lay motionless on the floor.

“Bobby!” He dropped to his knees in the puddle and put a loving hand on his son’s shoulder. He wanted to break down. But he wanted to kill whoever had done this more.

Hank screamed, stood up, and ran to the closet and opened the door.

It was empty.

His eyes were wild as he ran out of the room and into the bathroom.

Empty. He checked the living room and the utility room.

Empty.

He opened the door to the kitchen and walked inside and almost lost his balance as the smell of burned hair attacked his nostrils. His eyes watered and he searched the kitchen, under the table and in the pantry closet.

He caught a glimpse of his son’s charred head in the trash can and his heart fluttered. The urge to vomit flared and he hunched over, clutching his stomach as he threw up his supper and five shots of J&B and gagged on the bitter taste.

He thought of his wife then and ran into the hallway.

“Look up, motherfucker,” Mr. Poo Poo said.

Hank raised his head and saw a six-hundred-pound naked man with massive arms and legs pressed against the hallway walls, his back touching the ceiling. Before the pistol could be lifted, Mr. Poo Poo let go with a huge belly flop on Bobby’s daddy.

Hank kicked and scratched at the man’s back, his face absorbed in the stomach. He couldn’t breathe and he couldn’t get the massive weight off him.

He could feel his heart racing. He fought for air but nothing was there but oily skin and a cold hardwood floor beneath him.

He heard Mr. Poo Poo laughing and could feel his body tiring. And then the weight was gone and he could breathe again and he took in gulps of air, coughing as he exhaled and inhaled.

“I’m Mr. Poo Poo and I’m gonna kill you!”

Hank looked up and saw a meat cleaver pointed at his face.

“I think I’ll cut off your arm first.”

Hank tried to speak.

“What did you say?” Mr. Poo Poo said.

“I said you can’t cut off an arm with a meat cleaver, you stupid sonofabitch. The bone’s too thick.”

Mr. Poo Poo laughed and Hank watched the enormous belly shake. “I ain’t goin’ through the bone. I’m goin’ through the cartilage. Let me show you.”

Hank felt the man’s massive hand on his forearm and then a powerful squeeze made him scream.

“I’m going right where the shoulder and the arm are connected. So be real still,” Poo said, swinging the meat cleaver. Steel went through Bobby’s daddy’s flesh. Mr. Poo Poo pulled it out with no effort and swung again. Hank suddenly felt his arm give and heard it drop to the floor.

Pain flared, white and hot, and he tried to call out his wife’s name but suddenly realized he couldn’t because he had been screaming since the hacking had begun.

He looked up at his torturer and Mr. Poo Poo was holding his arm like a turkey leg, eating the raw flesh and sighing with delight.

“You taste soooo good.”

Hank held his hand to his wound and the blood was raging like a flood and he saw the pistol on the floor and went for it.

Mr. Poo Poo took Hank’s arm and beat him with it. “You don’t want to do that,” he said. “That’s not a good idea at all, Hank.”

Hank could feel the numbness setting in. His eyelids were growing heavy and it was hard to keep them open.

“Why are you here?” he said.

Mr. Poo Poo quit eating the arm and lowered it. “I don’t really know,” he said. “Your son imagined me. I was born in his closet less than two hours ago, Hank.”

Hank closed his eyes. “That doesn’t make sense.”

Mr. Poo Poo grinned. “Nothing really makes sense.” He put the arm back to his mouth and took another bite. “How tender is your wife, Hank? Does her pussy taste sweet?”

The man didn’t respond and Mr. Poo Poo grinned. He dropped the arm and headed into the bedroom.

She was sound asleep and he liked it that way because it gave him time to smell her shoes in the closet. He really liked the red high heels and decided he was going to take one in his hand and put the heel through her eyeball.

He lifted his great weight and his knees popped as he stood to his full height. Mr. Poo Poo walked up to Sarah and reached underneath his enormous belly until he found what he was looking for. Then, he pissed on her.

She sat up in bed gagging, spitting the venomous green liquid from her mouth. “Hank!” she yelled. “What are you doin—”

She looked away from Hank’s side of the bed and spotted the hulking giant standing beside her. His smile was childish and his dome head was glowing neon blue in the darkness.

She couldn’t speak. She couldn’t breathe. All she could do was watch in silent horror as he lifted his hand and brought the pump down in an arc. The heel missed her eyeball and snapped off as it connected with her pig nose.

Mr. Poo Poo cursed and tossed the pump aside.

Blood ran down her face and she clutched her broken nose.

“You fucked up my shoe!” he screamed, reaching down for its twin.

A thought occurred to Bobby’s mom as Poo went for the shoe. She jumped out of bed and ran.

She saw a pump fly past her and bounce off the bedroom wall and she was in the hallway and her husband was on the floor looking helplessly up at her, his mouth forming words. She jumped over him and turned to see Mr. Poo Poo come flying into the hallway, his huge foot smashing Hank’s head like a rotten pumpkin.

“Come back here, bitch!” he screamed.

Sarah fled into the kitchen and the smell almost doubled her over as she opened a cabinet door and grabbed a frying pan.

She heard him in the kitchen and turned to see the huge beast slowly walking toward her.

“Damn, I was looking for that,” he said. “I wanted to lightly brown your son’s liver, but I just couldn’t find it anywhere. And there it is. Stupid me.”

“Leave my son alone!” Sarah screamed.

Mr. Poo Poo grinned. He reached into the trash can and tossed the head at her. It landed at her feet and she dropped the frying pan in shock.

She looked at Bobby’s head and then at Mr. Poo Poo, her face pallid and her eyes dim and watery.

His eyes met her eyes and his expression suddenly faltered. “You have the gift, too.”

She only looked at him with unblinking animosity.

“You can animate the imagination. You can create life!” he said. “I want you to take that hatred I see wrinkling your face. Take that blackness seeping through your veins and think of someone or something ripping my head off. Think real hard and visualize it happening.”

Sarah’s face reddened and she could see a monster, scales like daggers protruding from his chiseled chest slamming into the abomination that grinned at her, the scales puncturing his blubber. Yellow fat oozing from the wounds. She saw this thing—its wings extended from one side of the kitchen to the other—slowly wrap those black leather instruments of death around Mr. Poo Poo. She saw the fat fucker disappear in that embrace and she could hear him screaming for his life.

Sarah grinned and a sudden pain in her stomach caused her to fall to the floor. She squeezed her stomach and felt movement. And suddenly a black egg shot from underneath her nightgown and rolled on the floor to the wall. The egg was covered in blood and shone like obsidian underneath the kitchen light.

Mr. Poo Poo laughed and walked to Sarah. He lifted his massive foot and brought it down upon her head in one fluid motion. He looked down at the woman, blood splattered upon her caved-in face like cracked glass, and laughed.

He walked to the egg and stared at it, wondering what creation would spring forth from its black shell. He wondered if it would resemble him. Would it be as evil as him? Could it be controlled? The egg shuddered and the shell cracked.

“Come to Daddy!” Mr. Poo Poo said.

A small hand emerged from the egg and he could hear laughter from somewhere inside. It was a high-pitched laughter and it made him nervous.

“Are you ready to consume this fucking world?”

Another hand emerged.

AUTHOR BIOS

Tim Curran hails from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. He is the author of the novels Skin Medicine, Hive, Dead Sea, Resurrection, Hag Night, The Devil Next Door, Long Black Coffin, Graveworm, Skull Moon, Nightcrawlers, and Biohazard. His short stories have been collected in Bone Marrow Stew and Zombie Pulp. His novellas include Fear Me, The Underdwelling, The Corpse King, Puppet Graveyard, Sow, Leviathan, Worm, and Blackout. His short stories have appeared in such magazines as City Slab, Flesh&Blood, Book of Dark Wisdom, and Inhuman, as well as anthologies such as Dead Bait, Shivers IV, World War Cthulhu, and In the Court of the Yellow King. His fiction has been translated into German, Japanese, and Italian. Find him on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/tim.curran.77.

Armand Rosamilia is a New Jersey boy currently living in sunny Florida, where he writes when he’s not sleeping. He’s written more than 100 stories that are currently available, including a few different series: Dying Days (extreme zombie series), Keyport Cthulhu (horror series), Flagler Beach (contemporary fiction series), and Metal Queens (nonfiction music series). He also loves to talk in third person . . . because he’s really that cool. He’s a proud Active member of HWA as well. You can find him at http://armandrosamilia.com for not only his latest releases but also interviews and guest posts with other authors he likes! And e-mail him to talk about zombies, baseball, and Metal: armandrosamilia@gmail.com.

Jeff Strand is the four-time Bram Stoker Award–nominated author of such books as Pressure, Dweller, A Bad Day for Voodoo, Kumquat, Dead Clown Barbecue, and a bunch of others. You can follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/JeffStrand, or friend him on Facebook at www.facebook.com/JeffStrandAuthor, or visit his website at www.JeffStrand.com. He drinks too much soda as an adult because it was usually withheld from him as a child.

Rebecca Besser resides in Ohio with her wonderful husband and amazing son. They’ve come to accept her quirks as normal while she writes anything and everything that makes her inner demons squeal with delight. She’s best known for her work in adult horror, but has been published in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry for a variety of age groups and genres. She’s entirely too cute to be scary in person, so she turns to the page to instill fear into the hearts of the masses. Find out more about her at www.rebeccabesser.com and www.rebeccabesser.wordpress.com and on Twitter @BeccaBesser.

MontiLee Stormer is a troublemaker, writing acts of mayhem and despair for her own selfish pleasure. Her interests wander from abnormal psychology and serial killers to lost loves and the storied Paradise Valley of Detroit. MontiLee has found herself published in strange and wonderful places like Daily Nightmares, The Sinister Bedfellows Anthology, Black Ink Horror, Murky Depths, and Necrotic Tissue. She’s an active member of GLAHW, contributing to their annual charity anthology Erie Tales every year, and is a Supporting member of HWA. MontiLee employs a “well-compensated” sniper to keep the growing but disturbingly dedicated legion of fanboys at bay. She lives in the Detroit metro area with her husband, two cats, and several knitting projects, which keep her safely off the streets. You can follow her on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/montilee.stormer or on Twitter @MontiLee.

Lee Moan grew up in the seaside town of Torquay, England, the birthplace of Agatha Christie. His stories have appeared in numerous print and online publications. He has a number of longer works also available, including Lazarus Island and The Infernal Realm, and a short story collection, The Midnight Men and Other Stories. His Twitter is @LeeJMoan and FB is https://facebook.com/lee.moan.

Tonia Brown is a southern author with a penchant for Victorian dead things. She lives in the backwoods of North Carolina with her genius husband and an ever fluctuating number of cats. She likes Fudgsicles and coffee, though not always together. When not writing, she raises unicorns and fights crime with her husband under the code names Dr. Weird and his sexy sidekick Butternut. You can learn more about her at: www.thebackseatwriter.com.

Jake Bible, novelist, short story writer, independent screenwriter, podcaster, and inventor of the Drabble Novel, has entertained thousands with his horror and sci-fi tales. He reaches audiences of all ages with his uncanny ability to write a wide range of characters and genres. Jake is the author of the bestselling Z-Burbia series, the Apex Trilogy (Dead Mech, The Americans, Metal and Ash) and the Mega series for Severed Press, as well as the YA zombie novel Little Dead Man, the teen horror novel Intentional Haunting, the middle-grade sci-fi/horror ScareScapes series, and the Reign of Four series, which he calls “medieval space fiction,” for Permuted Press. You can follow his tweets @jakebible on Twitter and find full info at jakebible.com.

Faye McCray is the author of Dani’s Belts, a Kindle collection of short stories that follow a young college student turned unlikely heroine of the zombie apocalypse. She is also an essayist whose work has been featured on a number of websites, including For Harriet, Madame Noire, Rachel in the OC, Graveyard Shift Sisters, and Black Girl Nerds. Faye was born and raised in New York City. She is currently braving the Mid-Atlantic suburbs with her southern husband and two young sons. You can find Faye’s updates, thoughts, and ramblings on her blog at www.fayemccray.com. You can also connect with Faye on Facebook at www.facebook.com/fayewrites and Twitter @fayewrites.

Gerald Dean Rice, a lifelong fan of horror, has published several short stories in various anthologies, magazines, and ezines, such as Where the Monsters Are, The Butterman Cometh, The Little Door, and Mona. He is the author of Fleshbags, The Zombie Show, Tales from an Apartment, and the YA novel Vamp-Hire. He lives in southeast Michigan with his wife and two children.

Jimmy James “M.F.” Pudge was born into this world on 6-9-1979 in a truck stop toilet at a TA Travel Center in the backwoods of South Georgia. An honest and conscientious man, Jimmy served several prison sentences because he refused to give in to the federal laws that impose on independent spirits’ rights to be entrepreneurs. An expert in the art of pruno, shank construction, and paper-dart blowguns, Jimmy briefly served as a leader in his dorm room before being released early for good behavior. He is the author of several poorly written novellas, including Bad Billy and Kitty’s Revenge.

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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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