Fossil Lake II: The Refossiling
Author: Christine Morgan; H. P. Lovecraft; Edgar Allan Poe; Kenneth C. Goldman; Jodi Lee; Doug Blakeslee; Patrick Lacey; Brian Keene; Brian M. Sammons; K. H. Koehler
Date: 2015-02-01 08:00:00+00:00
Keywords: fossil; lake; Horror
Description: Welcome back to Fossil Lake, where the water is dark, and deep, and strange. Where wonderful mysteries and abhorrent monsters dwell together, lurking far beyond the shadowed reach of reality. Where sediment preserves in its layers a perfect record of that which will never be forgotten. 40 stories and poems, and a bonus cartoon, await in this second anthology of the aberrant. Come for the swimming, the fishing, the view. And stay … forever. THE REFOSSILING Foreword by Brian Keene Featuring the work of: K.H. Koehler John Goodrich Uncle Don Ken Goldman Deborah Walker Special appearances by: Edgar
Publisher: Sabledrake Enterprises

Fossil Lake II:

The Refossiling

Copyright © 2015 Sabledrake Enterprises

All rights reserved

1st Edition – Spring, 2015

Cover Design by Stephen Cooney Copyright © 2014

Dinosaur images by KeithBishop © 2007

Published by
Sabledrake Enterprises

Edited by
Christine Morgan

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

* * * * *   SMASHWORDS EDITION   * * * * *

Thank you for downloading this ebook. Kindly observe that stories and poems contained herein are copyright of their respective creators as indicated and are reproduced here with their permission. They may not be reproduced, scanned, or distributed for any commercial or non-commercial use without permission from the respective author. Quotes used in reviews are the exception. No alteration of content is allowed.

If you enjoyed this book, then encourage your friends to purchase their own copy. Your support and respect for the property of each author is appreciated.

* * *

Dedication

For the dinosaurs.

Don’t be an extinction-denier

Copyrights
©

Foreword by Brian Keene, © 2014

The Lake, by Edgar Allan
Poe, © 1827

Ricky’s Summer Vacation, by
A.
Stinky Cat,
© 2014

Fetch!, by
Ken Goldman,
© 2014

Perfect Ten, by Scott R.
Jones, © 2014

Bruce
Too, by
Jodi Lee,
© 2014

Dark Operator, by Clayton Chandler, © 2014

Blind Date, by David Neilsen, © 2014

Music Hath Charms, by Mark Orr, © 2014

Leviathan, by Richard Leavesley, © 2014

The
Tub and
Takahashi, by Gregor Cole,
© 2014

Signs, by
John
M.
McIlveen,
© 2014

Hellhole
Fishing, by Stanley
Webb,
© 2014

Returning
Magic to the
Kingdom, by
Brian
M.
Sammons,
©
2014

The
Author as
Fossil, by
James
Ebersole,
©
2014

The
Surface Beneath, by
Michael
Burnside, © 2014

Beyond the
Boneyard Gate, by Alicia Austen, © 2014

Critter Marrow, by
Patrick Lacey, © 2014

My
Beloved, by
J.M.
Northwood,
©
2014

Bloodbound, by
William
Andre
Sanders,
©
2014

Trapper Keeper, by A. Stinky Cat,
© 2014

Lady
Ghost, by
Edward
Martin
III,
©
2014

Innocent
Passage, by
Randy
Attwood, ©
2014

Frozen in
Stone, by
Doug
Blakeslee, ©
2014

The
Body in the Lake, by
Peter
Sutton,
© 2014

Gods and Mice, by Bruce Boston, © 2014

The
Sea is in my
Blood, by
Deborah
Walker,
©
2014

Harmless, by Uncle Don, © 2014

Retirement Home, by K.H.
Koehler, ©
2006; formerly published in the collection

Tales for
3
O’Clock in the
Morning.

Playing Games, by Kerry
G.S. Lipp, © 2014

The
Incident in Central Village, by
Doug
Rinaldi,
© 2014

Forest of
Borth, by
Claire
Smith,
©
2014

Nickolaus
Passionate and the
Children of
Ereshkigal, by
John Goodrich, © 2014

Red Ochre, by Mary Pletsch, © 2014

Dollmaker, by
Alan Loewen, ©
2014

Secrets in the
Soil, by
E.S.
Wynn,
© 2014

First to
One
Hundred, by
S.L.
Dixon,
©
2014

The Unspeakable Confession of
Dicky
Rashone’s Dog, by Lorenzo
Passion,
© 2014

A
Far Southern
Land, by
D.J.
Tyrer,
©
2014

They Say Gloria’s Still in the Lake, by Michael Penkas, © 2014

Blessedly Offended, by Shaun
Avery,
© 2014

The Nightmare
Lake, by H.P.
Lovecraft, © 1919

Table of
Contents

Foreword by
Brian
Keene

The Lake, by Edgar Allan
Poe

Ricky’s Summer Vacation, by
A.
Stinky
Cat

Fetch!, by
Ken Goldman

Perfect
Ten, by
Scott
R.
Jones

Bruce
Too, by
Jodi Lee

Dark
Operator, by Clayton Chandler

Blind Date, by David
Neilsen

Music Hath Charms, by
Mark Orr

Leviathan, by Richard
Leavesley

The
Tub and
Takahashi, by
Gregor
Cole

Signs, by John M. McIlveen

Hellhole
Fishing, by Stanley
Webb

Returning
Magic to the Kingdom, by Brian M.
Sammons

The
Author as
Fossil, by
James Ebersole

The
Surface
Beneath, by
Michael
Burnside

Beyond the Boneyard Gate, by Alicia
Austen

Critter
Marrow, by Patrick Lacey

My Beloved, by J.M. Northwood

Bloodbound, by
William Andre Sanders

Trapper
Keeper, by
A. Stinky Cat

Lady Ghost, by Edward Martin III

Innocent
Passage, by Randy Attwood

Frozen in Stone, by Doug Blakeslee

The
Body in the
Lake, by
Peter Sutton

Gods and
Mice, by Bruce Boston

The Sea is in my Blood, by Deborah Walker

Harmless, by Uncle Don

Retirement
Home, by K.H.
Koehler

Playing
Games, by
Kerry
G.S.
Lipp

The Incident in Central Village, by Doug Rinaldi

Forest of
Borth, by Claire
Smith

Nickolaus
Passionate and the
Children of
Ereshkigal, by
John Goodrich

Red Ochre, by Mary Pletsch

Dollmaker, by Alan Loewen

Secrets in the
Soil, by
E.S.
Wynn

First to One Hundred, by
S.L.
Dixon

The Unspeakable Confession of Dicky Rashone’s Dog, by Lorenzo Passion

A Far Southern Land, by D.J. Tyrer

They Say Gloria’s Still in the Lake, by Michael Penkas

Blessedly Offended, by Shaun Avery

The Nightmare Lake, by H.P. Lovecraft

A Preview of Fossil Lake III: Unicornado

About the Contributors

NICKY AND THE UNICORN

(AN INTRODUCTION)

Brian Keene

Came the day Nicky had sex with a unicorn.

It didn’t end well. At least for Nicky. The unicorn had a grand time.

But I’m not here to talk about that. Instead, I’m here to talk about this book, and tell you a bit about how it—and its predecessor—came to be.

The Internet is a wonderful thing. Some of you who are reading this may have grown up with it all your lives, running in the background. As a result, perhaps you take it for granted, the way the generations born after the invention of electric light or refrigeration the automobile or pasteurization did with those benefits. For you, the Internet is always there. It’s always been there, running in the background. Some of the rest of you, like myself, probably remember when the Internet first became available to be. I sure do. Windows 2.0 running on a Magnavox 286 with a dial-up modem. It took about twenty minutes for a single website to finish loading, and there were only four dedicated to horror fiction—Horror Net, Gothic Net, Masters of Terror, and Chiaroscuro.

Obviously, things have improved since then.

We turn on our computers, phones, video game consoles, or (increasingly) televisions, and the Internet is there, connected as surely and quickly as the illumination that comes with the flicking of a light-switch. It allows friends and family to stay in touch instantly, no matter how many miles separate them in the real world. It provides information to anyone who needs it—a wealth of information; health, politics, history, geography, pop culture. It allows us expression and creativity. It is used to form friendships, businesses, and even love. It aids commerce, wealth, and human understanding.

But it also allows assholes into our lives.

Bullies, trolls, sociopaths, and assholes existed before the Internet came along, of course, but it was never so easy for them to infect our lives. Before the Internet, maybe you dealt with them at school or at work, but they were localized—confined to a geographic location. With the Internet, they can abuse anybody, regardless of the physical distance between them.

There is one asshole in particular, a sociopathic little troll well-known to writers, editors, publishers, and some readers of horror, bizarro, and science fiction. This individual—we’ll call him “Nicky”—fancies himself a writer, but he is not. What he is is vile, loathsome, repugnant, incoherent, racist, sexist, homophobic, misogynistic, abusive, unhygienic, incompetent, and many other adjectives, none of which are complimentary. For almost two decades, this individual has stalked, harassed, threatened, slandered, libeled, and abused a vast number of professionals, including but not limited to myself, Ramsey Campbell, Poppy Z. Brite, Clive Barker, Cherie Priest, Darren McKeeman, Mary SanGiovanni, David Niall Wilson, Janrae Frank, Nick Mamatas, Angelina Hawkes-Craig, Michael Rowe, Monica J. O’Rourke, Kevin Lucia, Ellen Datlow and dozens—literally dozens—more. His various offenses have included false allegations of “plagiarism” against his perceived enemies, as well as threatening to burn their homes down, have them beat up by imaginary street gangs, and, in one particularly heinous case, threatening to kidnap their children.

What was their crime? What did these individuals do to deserve such rancor? Simple. They were female. Or gay. Or rejected one of his stories. Or refused to buy one of his self-published books. Or suggested that he shouldn’t threaten to rape people.

Despite his Internet infamy, he still manages to prey on the unsuspecting, particularly minors. In addition to fancying himself a writer, he also plays at being a publisher. He has a long track record of accepting submissions from young, novice writers—often teenagers—and then not paying them or outright publishing them without permission. When called on it, he responds with more vitriolic threats and abuse.

But a strange thing has happened over the last decade. Strangers whom might never have interacted with each other have been brought together by this individual’s retarded reign of terror. Partnerships have been formed. Friendships have been forged. Careers have been kick-started. All because people found out they shared a common denominator—they’d ended up on an asshole’s radar.

This anthology, and its predecessor, the original Fossil Lake, were also birthed from that chaos. Both books came about because a number of their contributors, as well as their editor and the publisher, had been among the asshole’s targets.

You’ll note I didn’t say victims. That’s because to be a victim, one must be victimized. One must give in to terror, and bow to abuse. But despite the number of people who have indeed been terrorized and abused by this diseased munchkin, every one of them has triumphed and come out the other side better for it. Logically, he should be a reverse Midas. Everything he “touches” should turn to shit. That’s his intent and his hope. But instead, most of the people he’s touched have instead spun gold out of the slime he left behind.

And that’s more magical than any unicorn.

Welcome back to Fossil Lake. I hope you enjoy your visit.

Brian Keene

December 2014

THE LAKE

Edgar Allan Poe

In spring of youth it was my lot

To haunt of the wide world a spot

The which I could not love the less—

So lovely was the loneliness

Of a wild lake, with black rock bound,

And the tall pines that towered around.

But when the Night had thrown her pall

Upon the spot, as upon all,

And the mystic wind went by

Murmuring in melody—

Then—ah, then, I would awake

To the terror of the lone lake.

Yet that terror was not fright,

But a tremulous delight—

A feeling not the jewelled mine

Could teach or bribe me to define—

Nor Love—although the Love were thine.

Death was in that poisonous wave,

And in its gulf a fitting grave

For him who thence could solace bring

To his lone imagining—

Whose solitary soul could make

An Eden of that dim lake.

Ricky’s Summer Vacation

A. Stinky Cat

FETCH!

Ken Goldman

Look at him watchin’ me, like that canine understands every word I say. Probably feels what I’m feelin’ too. I’d put my last dollar on it.

“Do ya understand what I’m sayin’, Giddy? Hey, do ya , boy?”

He’s a real good dog, my Gideon is. Call it a cliché if you must, but these fourteen years my yellow Lab has been this old man’s best friend. More than any two-legged creature I know, Giddy understands fidelity ain’t only what comes outa fancy stereo speakers. This dog would lay down and die for me if he believed that’s what I was askin’ of him. ‘Course I’d never ask that of a companion what’s meant so much for so long. That fidelity thing, well, it goes two ways, you know. And there ain’t much left besides my Giddy I can truly call my own.

“Ain’t that right, boy? There’s a good dog ...”

Yeah, he’s old, I know that, and probably not long for the world. I try not to think about that ‘cause I’ve suffered more than my share of loneliness. Since Mattie passed on I could do a chapter or two on solitude, ‘specially livin’ in Jasper’s north woods by ol’ Fossil Lake. When the snow flies in Jasper you may not see a living soul for weeks on end, and those whisperin’ pines offer up their own brand of seclusion. But I won’t bore you with no sob stories, being fortunate to live so many years with one fine woman. Ol’ Gid, he misses her too, that’s a fact. More than one occasion I found him whimpering in his corner after sniffing around Mattie’s side of the bed.

“Yeah, Giddy. I know, I know. I loved her too.”

Now, Gideon’s being a Labrador, what he knows best to do is fetch. That can mean anything and ever’thing he finds ‘long the lakeside, if you know the retrieving ways of canines. He certainly recollected enough from back when we two hunted quail before my damned arthritis kicked in. It ain’t unusual for this dog to bring into my cabin some dead sparrow or maybe a ‘coon he’s discovered sloshing inside my trash. So, one afternoon he carries in what I believed were a dead squirrel. ‘Cept the damned thing weren’t dead, not dead at all, and once out of Gideon’s jaw that rodent near tore my place apart, darting about the cabin like some creature possessed. But I couldn’t reprimand my dog, not when he was merely followin’ what instinct God give him. Fact is, in the midst of the chaos that squirrel caused before it finally crashed through my front window to freedom, in the midst of all that, I laughed ‘til I was near hoarse. For the good time he provided that day, Gideon earned himself a steak dinner. Understand, laughter don’t come ‘round too often, so these days I take it wherever I find it. Gideon, he’s got this knack of fetching me a good many smiles.

“But then a few weeks ago you brung in somethin’ just plain crazy, didn’t you, boy ...?”

“What you got there, pal?” I asked when Giddy delivered his bounty right at my toes. At first I’m thinking here’s just some discarded piece of rubbish ‘cause it weren’t alive nor moving. But when I give her a closer inspection my blood near froze.

It was a bone. A large bone. All intact, too, like maybe someone’s arm or what used to be an arm but with no hand ‘tached. ‘Course, if it was an arm that meant it were human. So I asked, “‘Where’d you find this, boy?’”

His tail’s wild motion indicated Gideon had himself a secret he intended to keep.

That was the end of it, or so I thought. Don’t ask me why, but I decided to hold on to that shank of bone, believing I’d discover just where it come from if I did. So I put it in my freezer like last winter’s supply of venison, not really certain what else to do with it. I might’ve forgot about it entirely had Gideon not kept sniffin’ around where I’d placed it, as if that animal known more than he was letting on. But the Lord, He chose to keep most of his creatures inarticulate, and at least for the time being I decided to include myself in that particular category. See, I’d no intentions sharing Gideon’s find with no one, and since no one was pretty much who I talked to in Jasper, that presented no headaches.

Next day Gideon brings me the second of his gifts, his tail in full spin like he had some revved up motor inside his ass. Dropping this new treasure again at my feet, he’s jumping all over me to assure I give his latest discovery the once over right then and there. There was no denying it now. This latest chunk of remains was once someone’s hand, five fingers all present and accounted for, but the meat on them digits had been licked clean.

Human ...

“Is this the Twelve Days of Christmas, then?” I asked my companion. only half joking. Evidently Giddy had been to a spot near the lake he knew and remembered well. I carried that skeletal hand over to the freezer, held it against the first bony chunk Gideon had retrieved.

“My furry friend, I do believe we have ourselves a match.”

Sometimes a man finds himself doing what he knows others would consider more than a little odd. But a man what lives alone long as I have, he learns how his instincts owe damn little to what other folks might think. I pulled my nail gun from the shelf, dug out a couple of long thin pegs that wouldn’t do much bone splinterin’, and I fastened them two bony bastards together at the wrist. Laugh if you want, but I always like to sing while I work ‘cause it takes the edge off that moment.

“‘Dem bones,‘dem bones,‘dem dry bones ...’”

Gideon, he’s just watchin’ me fastening them bits together like I’m some mad scientist building his own Frankenstein creature, and at that moment I felt damned glad God didn’t give dogs no voice to express themself. It seemed clear the two bony members come from the same person. Whoever it was, back into the freezer I put ‘dem ol’ dry bones. Crazy thing was, Giddy, he set himself by that freezer box for hours like he felt some kinship with whoever’s bits and pieces I’d put inside, and he wouldn’t leave that freezer ‘til I turned out the lights for bed.

Next day another arm arrived at my boots, this time with the hand still attached. My Gideon was fetching me this complementary skeleton piecemeal, that’s a fact. Clearly someone had did some dismembering of this poor soul, and I weren’t favored of authorities sticking their noses into my business while searching for foul play. So I kept my dog’s spoils ‘tween only him and myself.

Next, Gideon retrieved what looked like a torso’s rib cage. There weren’t a stitch of clothes on it, and I figured maybe them decayed tatters ol’ Giddy chewed off to make the miles of transporting easier, or maybe they just plain tore off along the journey ‘cause he lugged that skeletal bastard all the way home ‘round Fossil Lake and through the driftin’ snow. Hoping to find some answers I tried followin’ him, at least as far as I were able. But ol’ Giddy, he wouldn’t have none of that. This job he clearly chose to tackle solo and he run clear past the lake, so I contented myself with that bony jigsaw and my trusty nail gun. I discovered some old door hinges worked just fine for them trickier moving parts. But there was something I knowed from the start ‘bout ‘dem dry bones.’ See, they seemed more than a tad familiar to my Giddy.

“‘Are these my Mattie’s bones you’ve been fetchin’ for me, are they, boy?’
I asked.

“But you weren’t tellin’ your secrets, were you Gid?”

Mattie weren’t exactly a small woman and these could certainly be her pieces inside my parlor. And the way Gid had been standing watch ev’ry night alongside my freezer, well, it just seemed the most natural deduction. I half hoped them bones would soon reunite with an accompanying skull, find a voice that distinctly sounded like Mattie’s, and say to me, “Why, hello, Abe. How the hell have you been?”

So I’m thinking I ought to take a walk up to the bone yard what held my departed wife’s remains, maybe stumble on some answers. But a fresh carpet of snow had fell practically every day, and judging whether Mattie’s grave had been tampered with might’ve proved difficult. My ol’ pickup weren’t much use in the snow gettin’ me up to Mt. Mariah where she lay buried, and in this cold my arthritis would scarce permit these creaky joints to attempt that long hike. So I had to rely on my natural intuition to determine what Gideon was telling me with new bones at my feet most every noon. A leg come one day, its accompanying foot the next, and I just kept piecing ‘em together, a regular Sherlock Bones workin’ out this mystery of connecting leg bones and hip bones and rib bones, just like in that dumb ass song.

‘Cepting for the fact there weren’t no head bone.

My Lab seemed purposely to be dawdling concerning that bony centerpiece. Maybe Giddy was saving that particular prize for last, I don’t know. My dog, he always had a flair for what’s dramatic.

“Lookit that tail goin’. Damn if Gid don’t know I’m talkin’ ‘bout him.”

Okay, so maybe what I’m telling you sounds crazy, but let me say this straight out ‘cause this next part got all the rest beat. Them bones, they was too many of ‘em to keep shoving into my freezer every evening. I don’t get too many visitors to this cabin, so I figure I can keep them skeletal remains flat on my floor, then wait ‘til Giddy decides to go fetch me that head. ‘Course, once my job was complete I had no idea what I might decide next, ‘specially if Sheriff Pete should come calling because some local cadaver’s been reported A.W.O.L.

As things turned out, that decision weren’t mine to make.

“‘Dem bones, oh ‘dem dry bones ...’”

But they wasn’t really dry ...

At first it seemed maybe my eyes, they’d gone as bad as my joints. I’m no kid no more, I know that. But what I seen - or what I thought
I seen on them remains - well, that just made no sense at all. I had to inspect up close to make certain my own brains wasn’t leaking through my skull. No, it was there, all right, plain as daylight ...

There was new flesh growin’ on them bones!

No, there weren’t much, not at first. Just tatters, really, little shreds of skin here and there like gnawed chicken parts. But it was flesh I hadn’t seen on them remains before, right down to the liver and onions stink of it. And Gideon, he just kept sniffing them skeleton bones as if to prove my mind hadn’t left town.
“You smelled it too, didn’t you, boy? I know you did.”

But that ain’t all. See, every day there seemed a bit more skin, and them bony remains was filling in nicely. Weren’t none of that rotting flesh neither, though maybe it might’ve started out that way. But that skin soon turned fresh, even took on something of a hue, not like no deteriorated corpse been in the ground for Christ knows how long. I know what I seen was clearly impossible, that no skeleton turns itself back into flesh and blood. But seeing is meant to mean believing, and the proof of what I seen lay on my parlor floor.

This body was -
Lord, is there even such a word? - recomposing!

There weren’t enough skin yet to determine whether my guest was man or woman, but I christened my creation Mister Bones, havin’ no desire to face crushing disappointment. See, had Mister Bones turned out a woman I was hoping he were my Mattie, though don’t you ask me why. I guess that’s what too much loneliness can do to an old fool.

So I’m thinking maybe time’s come to share my find with some professional hot shot - a doctor, maybe even a mortician - what might supply some highbrow logic to what seemed perfectly insane. ‘Course, a problem was how I’d spent two weeks welding pieces of some likely stranger, and go try explaining that to someone with a certificate on his wall while blaming all that grave robbing on my dog. ‘Yes, Officer, and I swear it was my dog what just farted too.’ On consideration, I figured it best not to involve no third parties. Answers would come. You wait long enough, answers always come, don’t they? Even if it’s answers you never want to know.

This particular answer come on the day Giddy dragged in that corpse’s head.

As he always done, Gideon laid that last bone at my feet, then set there all pleased with himself while I’m lookin’ down at this big grinning skull. In a day or two, sure as shinola, I’d see flesh growing on it with eyes in them sockets ‘stead of black holes, and a real face too. I picked up that head bone, spoke to Mister Bones like we was best friends.

“Whoever you are, maybe I owe you an apology. See, I mean no disrespecting of the dead, and that’s plain truth. My dog brung you here for a reason and what I done ain’t so horrible if it answers questions so badly need answers. So I’m hopin’ you forgive and consider what I done I done for good cause.” I ain’t ashamed to admit I picked up that skull, whispered to it, “And if you are my Mattie, welcome home ...”

Then I went for my nail gun.

Late that night I left that skeleton, newly complete, on my parlor floor still reposed as if finally resting in some semblance of peace. Too exhausted even to put out the embers in my fire place I never made it to bed, instead fallin’ into a fitful sleep right there in my easy chair. Slept clear to morning too with Gideon at my side. But when the first light of daybreak come, I rose up like a shot. My brain required a moment to register what I saw.

“ ... Sweet Jesus!”

Them skeletal remains was gone! Mister Bones had somehow got to his feet and left!

Giddy, he was scratching at the bedroom door, and I knowed why. Still, it took some time to muster enough grit to swing that door open. But when I did, there he was, Mister Bones reposing beneath my covers like he’s had himself one hell of a good night’s sleep. His head was turned so I couldn’t really see, and I damn near tiptoed to that bed. He already had some hair now, not a lot, just some tufts. It was thin and it was grey, but it was hair. I reached out to tilt the face on my pillow, and what I seen turned my insides to ice there on the spot. That dead man’s face was still unformed, but Mister Bones, he was a man, all right, and he had a face now, and ... that face ... Jesus, that face ...

... it was my own!

My dog, he’s sniffing at that corpse ‘cause he knowed who it was too.

“Giddy, what is this terrible thing you brung into our home??”

Gideon, he’s just staring at me, but he remained alongside the bed refusing to budge. I reached out to him, tried to pull him from that body, but my hand, it passed through my dog like I was reaching at air.

Now, the rest of this you’re going to have to take on faith. It’s not like I’ve any familiarity with the mysteries of time nor space, and I’m as much in the dark about the true nature of this world as the next fella. So I can’t make no apologies if this part don’t make much sense. But, see, at that moment my flesh, first it seemed there, but then it weren’t, and I’m watching while my skin is disappearing before my eyes!
My own hand, it might’ve just as well been made of smoke. My finger bones was peeking through what flesh remained, and I look over at that other me reposed there in my bed. It seemed I’m looking at a regular changing of the guard because I swear we was swapping places!

And then the damnedest thing of all ...

From nowhere all the sunshine in the world dropped in one spot. This abrupt feeling come over me, this peace inside I’d not felt in such a long while. And suddenly it’s like all what’s past, none of it matters ‘cause I’m not scared no more, not scared at all. Me and Gideon, we was inside that white luminescence, just taking it in while it washed over us like warm spring rain. It felt so damned good I can’t begin to tell you, and I don’t intend to try.

Maybe I would be with Mattie again after all. And my dog, he would be there too, my yellow Lab retrieving for one last time what happiness I lost.

“Will you take me to her, Giddy?”

He ran ahead where the light shone brightest but stopped to turn and wait so I might catch up, then ran only a bit further and waited for me to follow.

I did just that.

Such a good dog, my Gideon is.

So what is it you call this place ...?

Sheriff Peter Dexter’s new deputy, Walter, could make no sense of what they found. During his morning patrol of North Jasper’s wooded interior Walter had noticed smoke billows belching from Abe Samuels’ chimney. The old man had been dead for close to six months and excepting some worthless furniture Abe’s shanty had remained empty. Now two officers stood slack jawed with their discovery inside the old shack’s small bed room.

“That’s Abe Samuels, no doubt about it,” the sheriff said. “I attended this man’s funeral at Mt. Mariah last spring, saw him put into the ground myself. It’s vandals brought him back here, that’s my bet. Kids probably with nothin’ else to do but skim stones ‘cross the ol’ lake.”

“Where’s the mud they would’ve dragged in, Sheriff? And we had to bust the door ourselves, so how would kids get past a door locked from the inside without—?”

“—Door was left open, maybe the lock catch slipped back on after they left. And there’s snow on the ground, and maybe it dried up.”

Walter shook his head. He wasn’t buying it.

“Then what’s with the stuffed dog? Kids carry him in too?”

The remains of an old Labrador Retriever stood stiff alongside the old man’s bed, its belly badly stitched by someone who clearly knew very little about taxidermy. The yellow fur along the nape had gone ragged and grubby as if the dead dog had been touched too many times.

“That’s Gideon,” the sheriff explained. “This dog was all Abe had after his wife passed on. Mattie’s dead close to five years now, and his Labrador never left Abe’s side from the moment she passed. So when Gideon died too, Abe couldn’t bear to see his circumstances altered further. He stuffed that dog himself. Everyone in Jasper knows his story, Walter. After so much grief Abe’s heart finally went bust. It’s sad what comes of old folks.”

“You’re saying that stuffed dog’s just been setting here all this time? Okay, so Abe’s been dead and buried six months? This corpse looks fresh to me, Pete. How in hell did he get here in such condition? And where’s his clothes?”

“Snow keeps a corpse fresh in that cold earth. Vandals took his clothes to leave the poor ol’ guy naked, that’s my bet. Abe had nothin’ worth stealing.”

“I don’t know, Sheriff. Something here just don’t feel right.”

Pete Dexter mopped sweat beads from his forehead. He sat on the bed near Abe’s feet. “No one never said the world had to make sense, Walter. I think that may go double for North Jasper’s woods.”

The deputy offered his own take on the old man’s circumstances. “How’s this for no sense, then? Maybe Abe wanted to die but knew he couldn’t allow it, not while ol’ Gideon was still here needing him. His dog was already dead, but maybe Abe didn’t know it, or didn’t want to. This old guy had his own way of living, Pete. Maybe he had his own way of dying as well.”

Sheriff Dexter smiled a little wider than seemed necessary.

“You’re telling me Abe didn’t know he was dead too, that he come back here for his dog? That seems a bit hard to swallow, don’t you think, Deputy?”

Pondering the sheriff’s argument Walter managed an embarrassed grin, but Dexter wasn’t satisfied he had made his case stick. His tone became that of a man pulling rank.

“There’s nothing here out of the ordinary beyond some local kids’ vandalism, isn’t that just common sense? Isn’t it?”

The deputy’s face went crimson. He was new at this, but there seemed no point in coming off like a complete fool at his first real crime scene.

“Hell, Pete. I guess you’re right. Of course you are. You can’t blame a guy feeling a little spooked finding the old coot on his bed like this with his dead dog here standing watch. Sorry.”

“Strange things happen in these woods all the time, Walter. But corpses crawlin’ out of their graves, I’d say that seems a little far fetched. Abe’s remains will decompose soon enough, and I see no advantage goin’ into the unspoiled manner in which we discovered him. So we won’t be putting any of that into our report, will we?”

Walter managed to return the sheriff’s smile. “Vandals, that’s what did this,” he said, then bore with the uncomfortable silence that followed.

Finally Dexter managed to look at his partner again. “Glad we’re on the same page, Walter. Guess you and me ought take a ride up to Mt. Mariah this morning, eh? Let old Abe get back to restin’ in some peace?”

“I don’t mind getting my hands dirty, Sheriff. Maybe we should see that Gideon here finds some well deserved rest near Abe and Mattie too. A faithful dog deserves that much, don’t you think?”

Dexter nodded, and straightening his hat pulled his collar tight.

“I sure hope Patty’s got a fresh pot of coffee on for us. It gets damned cold in that bone yard.”

PERFECT TEN

Scott R Jones

No one really expected her to do as well as she did.

I mean, a new poet like that — attractive in a bruised but obviously affected way; defensive stare, pupils laser-guiding you away from the vacuity behind the eyes; black leather notebook full of angry or hopeful or political or dreamy poems — girls like that? Poets like that? The Moon Under Water sees half a dozen come in at each slam.

They get up behind the mic, and forget that there’s a time limit on their performance, forget that the moment the first word passes their lips, somewhere in the room the timekeeper has clicked her stopwatch. They forget that they’re being judged, forget about the random drunks in the audience equipped with score cards. Or maybe they don’t, maybe they remember the stopwatch and the cards because after all, it is a poetry slam, but they don’t care because they’re poets, faux-bruised for their art, and they go on for half a minute explaining the anger or hope, the politics or dream that fuels the poem before even starting the fucking thing. Clutching their notebooks in pale hands, knuckles ivoried from their own nerves and the lights above and the hundred eyes watching them. They finish, finally. They go overtime, usually, some by a few seconds, others by whole minutes.

They never score well. Either they don’t know how to use the microphone or they mumble lines from their pages and refuse to make eye contact with the audience or the poem is just no good in the first place and they go over the three minute time limit besides. People still cheer when they’re done, though. I mean, just getting up there on stage deserves encouragement; it’s harder than it looks. Most get a taste for it and come back for the next slam. Maybe some of them get better. A few get really good, with time and practice and the toughening that comes with competition. A poet gets to know what the audience wants at a slam, what the judges dig, and they alter their style accordingly. Become better performers, for what it’s worth.

But the new poets? The ones who have never slammed before? Girls like her?

No one really expected her to do as well as she did.

But then, she didn’t read from her notebook, which was faded yellow leather and not black. During the first round, when Slam Master Todd called her name (which, thanks to the shitty sound system of The Moon Under Water, became burst-of-hellacious-feedback-Castaigne), she took her notebook up on stage with her, and there she briefly consulted a page, in silence. From behind the bar I could see the timekeeper getting fidgety, thumb over the button. She consulted a page, then another, before letting the hand that held the book drift lazily to her side, forgotten, a handful of pallid dead leaves clinging to a November branch. She raised her eyes to the gathered hippies and anarchists and liberal arts students and drunks, then, this new poet, this girl, this burst-of-noise Castaigne, and her eyes were lasers, yes, but not defensive somehow, not meant to distract the gaze from her abyss but to target and lock on and draw it within her. I remember catching at my breath when she looked at me, as if I’d just stepped up to a cliff edge in the dark. The whole bar caught its breath.

And then she opened her mouth and did her poem.

That’s what we call it in slam. A slam isn’t a poetry reading, oh nothing so provincial as that, no, it’s a goddamn contact sport, so the poet doesn’t read or recite or even speak a poem; they do a poem. It’s meant to sound sexual and badass but mostly it’s just sad. I should know, I’ve done my share: went to Nationals with the city slam team, three seasons in a row, back when I thought this kind of public masturbation was cool and being broke delivering poems behind the mic seemed more pure than getting paid serving drinks behind the bar. Yeah, I was a poet. A spoken-word artist, if you want to be fancy, and most do. I’ve done poems. Never like her, though. Never the way Castaigne did that poem that night, drawing all the air out of the room with her words until every edge turned sharp and bright in every pair of eyes that locked on hers.

Even now, I couldn’t tell you what her poem was about. I couldn’t tell you what she said, exactly. That hardly seemed to matter at the time. I mean, it hardly matters for most slam poetry, where it’s almost never what gets said but the manner in which it’s said that’s important. Still, you can usually tell what the subject is. Castaigne’s poem that night, though; it defied even as it thrilled. It refused classification and slipped away like the ghost of an intuition. The impression was that of glaciers calving in the arctic night, hive communications in honeyed tunnels, scraps of commercial jingles for products you don’t remember, hot gravel in the skin and blood on the tongue and it was about her eyes and her mouth, somehow.

But that’s just the impression, and a vague one at that. I still can’t say what her poem was about, not really. Same goes for speaking about the shape of her mouth, or describing the feel of her tongue on mine and the chill of her lips between my legs. Same goes for the colour of the shadows she cast or her hair or her eyes, which might have been green.

Of course, she went overtime. They all do, the new poets. Castaigne went over by twenty seconds, which makes for a small penalty. The five judges loved her though, awarded her an 8.9, a 9.3, a 9.5, another 9.5 and a 9.9, so the penalty barely hurt her score. The room roared its approval of the judges decision and clapped and snapped its post-ironic faux-Beatnik fingers as she descended from the stage and came over to me at the bar.

I would like a beer, please, she said, as if she hadn’t just blown the room away.

You were amazing,
I replied.
Just... I can’t even... tell me you’ve slammed before. You must have!

Is that what the score cards are about? When I signed up for this earlier, I thought that Todd person was joking. I thought this was an open mic.

God no. This is competition. Fierce and unforgiving. See, that Todd person? He’s gonna drop your lowest and highest scores and add the three in the middle. That’s a 28.3 right there, before the penalty. That’ll get you into the second round for sure, considering...

Considering that her only real competition had consisted of the usual cast of slam night regulars: Donny “Dirty” MacIntyre bemoaning the seventh anniversary of his last blowjob (25.2); a kid named Fowler with a Dada-inspired scat session (23.9); a street rapper, spitting his poem straight into a zone of high-speed incomprehensibility (26.1), and a riot grrl with yet another poem reminding every male in the bar that rape? Yeah, rape is bad: 27. Same old slamming shit.

Anyway, all that considered, I really thought it likely that Castaigne would go into the second round. I was right, too. It was intermission, and Slam Master Todd announced the eight poets for the second round: she was at the top. Scored higher than anyone, even with her time penalty.

Good Christ,
I breathed.
I’ll say it again, that’s amazing! No one ever does that well first time outta the gate! This?
I pulled a pint of India Pale ale and handed it to her.
This is on the house.

She reached for the sweating glass and her fingers touched mine and I know I caught my breath again. It was audible. I’d only dated a couple of girls since breaking up with my boyfriend the year before and I was having a little trouble finding my groove, I’ll admit it, pun intended and everything. I knew I was looking for a kind of emptiness I could let myself get lost in, but go a little way into most girls and that vacancy in the eyes turns out to be a pretty lie and instead they’re full to bursting with neuroses and prejudice and politics and whole histories of hurt. Souls like a well clogged with dull stones and dry sand. No refreshment there.

Castaigne’s cool fingers against mine as she received the glass, the mere brushing of skin on skin and I was back at that cliff edge in the dark, a moist wind curling up from below. She looked at me, half-aware, perhaps, of what I was feeling: shock, vertigo, embarrassment. The beginnings of lust. I coughed and started wiping at the bar with a rag while she sipped at her beer.

I don’t have a second poem, she said, her eyes wide.
What do I do?

What, really?
I said, simultaneously grateful to move further into the conversation and regretful of moving away from that delirious precipice.
No second piece?
I pointed at her yellow notebook.
Nothing more in there?

No. Nothing usable, at least, not yet. Like I said, I thought it was an open mic.

Then you, my dear, will simply have to forfeit, said Todd as he came up behind her. Not all Slam Masters are preening, self-promoting, sexist creeps with the grabby hands, but the ones that are would likely select Todd as their one true King.
Which is a fucking shame, he continued.
Because that was a spell you weaved up there, sweetness. That was, like, rare witchcraft, what you did...

The way Castaigne’s slight frame went rigid, the pressure wave of cold air that came off her shoulders... well, the effect was impressive. The thing about Todd is that the creepiness gets slipped in beneath obvious physical and sure, I’ll even allow him some intellectual charms. Most girls miss it the first few times around. Not Castaigne.

It wasn’t about the words, she said, and she wasn’t looking at Todd when she spoke.
And I guess I’ll just have to live with the shame.
She was looking at me.
Thanks for the drink. Will I see you later?

I stammered some kind of reply, a string of affirmative noises, appended with the hour I was off work. She smiled, a little, turned from the bar and walked off to find a seat to watch the second round. Slam Master Todd fumed for a moment, thrown off his balance by the early frost. He cast me an evil look, easily deflected with a shrug and a grin.

Try not to corrupt her too quick, alright?
he snapped.
Did you see that score? We need her back. We need her on the team.

You’re one to talk. And yeah, I saw.

I’m trying to build a decent team for Nationals, you know. You used to care about that.

Uh huh. You’re also trying to get into as many pants as you can, Todd. Now, there’s people who care about drinking behind you. Walk on, little man.

He did, grumbling about what a bitch I was. I knew he’d like to move the slam to another venue, but what other place would have him and his crew, or an audience like this? Cheap hipsters all, half of them drinking coffee at a bar; I really had to hustle to sell anything worth selling. The Moon Under Water, with its shit sound system and its largely unseen, apathetic owner, was as good as they’d ever get, and they knew it.

Second round at a slam is tight, fast paced. The poets save their best for last and become Howitzers behind the mic, words flying like shrapnel. Second round is almost always the angry stuff, the political stuff. I’d steal glances across the room as I worked, trying to gauge Castaigne’s reaction. The room would erupt around her after each overdone rant, but she was calm like lake water at dawn, still like the ruin of a building. When Todd got to Castaigne’s name on his list, he sighed like an old theatre queen and announced that the winner of the first round had no more poems for the night and was forfeiting her spot. A groan went up and heads turned to Castaigne in disbelief but she only smiled.

Next time, Castaigne?
Todd pleaded.
Next time you’ll take this thing, baby girl! Don’t leave us hanging, am I right folks? C’mon!

The ghost of a nod from her and the applause boomed again.

The round finished with the last two poets; riot grrl with a devastating poem about her mother’s battle with cancer, followed by Dirty Donny, aware already that he was beaten, phoning it in with an onanistic ode to the crusty graveyard of sweatsocks under his bed. I caught Castaigne looking at me, one eyebrow raised, and, feeling weirdly bold, I mouthed cancer at her. She smiled. I hadn’t really been keeping track of the scores since she dropped out, so I didn’t actually know who the winner would be, but hey, cancer poems beat jerk-off poems every time. Todd briefly checked in with the scorekeeper and announced the winner.

Yeah, cancer beats everything. Cancer got riot grrl a spot in the finals. Thanks, sick Mom. Thanks for hanging out at Death’s door long enough for me to get a fucking poem out of it.

Coulda been yours tonight,
I said to Castaigne as the bar emptied out. We close early on slam night; the poets frighten our regulars away and then they don’t stick around to pay for booze.

I dunno, she breathed.
Seems a little arbitrary?

Yeah. The judges are random. Different people each time, and they can’t know any of the poets. Sometimes Todd just pulls judges in off the street. Scoring’s entirely subjective. Assigning numerical value to artistic output? Jesus. It’s meaningless. A game.

She smirked at me.
But I could have taken it tonight, huh? Like Todd said?

Yeah, well, for once I agree with him. Your piece was just... it was pure.
Behind her I could see Todd working his way through the thinning poets toward the bar.
But we’ve spoken of the Devil, so I’ll let you deal while I finish up, and then, I dunno...

She reached a pale arm across the bar and caught at my wrist with those cool fingers that sent a shock up to my shoulder. My vision spun. My lungs emptied.

There’s beauty in the death of meaning,
Castaigne whispered.
When it bleeds out, finally? That’s purity...
Todd was bellowing stupidly behind her, his mouth working like a fish, but his voice was distant and faded to me, as Castaigne’s words vibrated and howled in my ears. I yanked my arm from her grip and she instantly turned away, plastering a smile on her face for the oblivious Todd.

The next hours were lived in fog. I closed up The Moon Under Water, my movements automatic, and when I was done, there was Castaigne, waiting for me in the street. She smiled at me and I found my voice. The sound of it startled me, as if I’d never spoken before.

I didn’t catch your first name over the feedback,
I said as she took my arm.

Technically, you didn’t catch my last one either. Names are false. All language is false, but names especially so. Shall we walk? I’m new to town. I suppose that’s obvious, though. New to this great, old, terrible city of numberless crimes...

She laughed and I laughed with her. It sounded strange, like I’d laughed yesterday or last week or only once, just the one time, back at the beginning of things when everything shone and I was new, and the sound was only catching up to me now in this exhausted street of dull brick and smashed glass under sickly orange clouds lit from below.

Where’d you hear that? You’re giving this place too much credit. Naw, nothing ever happens in this city.

She sighed.
There’s that, too. I know another city like that. It’s perfect.

If you say so. Where are we going?

She told me she lived at the docks, on a converted trawler that used to belong to her father. Or at least, that was the impression I got, of fathers who were not to be named and absentee mothers. Ships on dark water, making dark crossings of weary seas between tired, ancient ports. And with those impressions came a vague sensation of Castaigne wrapping her arms around my waist and drifting with me, attached to me, lamprey-like. Her head on my shoulder, hair scented with wood smoke and brine.

She told me so many things, as we moved through nighted streets like dreaming rivers, our faces flashing halogen-bright with oncoming traffic. Things I can’t remember now or more likely never understood at the moment of telling. I do recall that a police siren punctured her low murmuring at one point, and that the thickness around my head lifted, in time for me to hear her ask whether any poet had ever received a perfect score from the judges. Had she been asking questions all along? Had I been answering?

Like a perfect ten, you mean?
I clarified, and the asking sharpened my mind. I shook my head violently and pressed a palm to my temple.
All five judges unanimous?

Yes. Unanimous in their arbitrary, random, entirely subjective, essentially meaningless decision.

I’d only seen it happen once, and it was a joke, really, at an off-season novelty slam. Dirty had done an impromptu and completely predictable haiku about his dick. Over in twenty seconds, well under time. Gales of stupid laughter. Tens all around.

No, I’ve never seen it,
I told her.
Not for a real poem. A true poem.

You believe in such a thing?

A true poem? Yeah, I guess I do. Something that speaks truth to power, makes you bleed, breaks your heart. Yes.

I meant Truth. That phantom...

Before I could answer, she resumed her murmuring, there at my shoulder, the sound of oily water sliding up over pebbled shores and drawing back in a steady lunar rhythm. The moment of clarity passed and I fell back into fog.

I returned to myself somewhat when I no longer felt concrete below my feet, but slick wooden planks. The tang of creosote and diesel fuel and low tide filled my lungs. Castaigne had brought me to the docks, and not one of the fashionable marinas either, but a crumbling collection of jetties between the decommissioned naval yard and an oil refinery. Her home was a black hulk among hulks at the end of the least decayed slip, and the only one that still floated. I felt a terrible anxiety well within me, tremors of fear skipping up and down my vertebrae, worsening when I saw the name of the trawler in faded gold paint on the stern:
The Heart of the Hyades.

That’s an awful name for a boat,
I whispered, though exactly why I felt this way was lost on me. I sensed some crime associated with it, something deep and unthinkable.
I don’t know why but why? God. Why that name? It’s horrible, oh, I can’t even...
but her voice was suddenly at my ear again, sibilant and laced with spiced honeys, and her hands were guiding my own to the ladder bolted to the hull and then I was aboard
The Heart of the Hyades and then shaking with reasonless terror inside the wheelhouse and then breathing hard below deck with her sure hands beneath my clothes, lifting, pulling, tearing and then naked and numb in Castaigne’s bed.

The numbness became a dream of viscous ruby seas, of floating, and I was but one floating thing among many, so many, floating soft and aimless with the wrack and detritus of a thousand ruined worlds fallen to the waves that rolled unheeded beneath blackened stars. And Castaigne, borne to me out of the dark on whispers and keenings and murmured anti-promises; Castaigne a pale, muscular serpent rising from lightless depths to pierce my dreaming with hollow staccato pleasures; Castaigne the walls of a cavern above and below me and on all sides and pressing in in in on me with nothing, nothing but weeping rock extending beyond the walls of her forever and ever...

I cried out.

I cried out in the dark of that hull many, many times.

Finally, I stopped. Whatever receptacle in me that held those cries had emptied. My heart slowed. My vision cleared and adjusted to the dark. Castaigne’s pallid features and indifferent eyes drifted before mine and I felt her cool palm on my cheek.

That’s not your name,
I sighed.

I read it. I read it in a book about a play about a place. It’s not true. It’s as good as any. And it doesn’t matter.

She lit a few candles, then, and showed me her books, arrayed on secured shelves either side of the bed.

Here’s Borges, the complete works. I love him. Clever little essays, so dry. He gives me chills. Here’s Spicer, she said.
As he lay dying in hospital with a ruined liver, he said “my vocabulary did this to me”. Poets, right?
She giggled.

I’m a poet,
I whispered.

Ah, you were a poet. But you went too far in, like all the good ones do. Too far in to meaning and then out the other side. Look at Spicer. Blaming the words, when it’s the reality behind them, the thing that languages are built to conceal, that, that is the problem. No matter. It’s easily fixed, with what I’ve learned. Things my father taught me, from the book.
She selected two volumes from the shelf.
And here it is. The book about the play. And this is the play...

She read it to me. When she was done reading, and I was done weeping and being sick over the side of her bed, she handed me her notebook bound in yellow leather.

Here’s all my poems so far, she said.
There’s space for one more, I think.

Something embossed on the cover, only noticed through touch, a symbol I refused to discern clearly. Feeling it writhe beneath my fingers was enough to know I did not want to see it. Pages with single words, the letters scribed in insect-thin lines stretching the height of the page but crushing the eyes nonetheless with intolerable weight. Pages with short phrases that opened into the void. Pages blackened to the edges with howls. A single page in the centre of it, blank. I nodded, the numbness returning. Castaigne lifted her book from my dead hands and pressed it to her breasts.

So, when’s the next slam?
she said.

What is a week? Arbitrary collection of hours to be sold or ransomed, random meals and collisions, arguments and sleep and stupid joys that fade into aches of misplaced longing. I know that being with Castaigne caused me to lose time; of my escape from her I could recall nothing save bright panic and hot bursts of pain deep in my bones each time I fell while running. The time that had passed since my flight barely registered on my consciousness. What is a week? A planet spinning for a while in the dark.

When she entered The Moon Under Water, I felt it. I could not look up. I heard her talking with Todd at the sign-in table. Even over the chatter of a very full room, I could hear her. She was all I could hear. Todd was joyful at her arrival, guffawing like an idiot, asking her if she’d prepared at least two poems to crush her competition with. The disappointment in his voice when he heard her answer.

But... but you need two, girl! There’s two rounds!

I’ll only need the one, she said, and in my ears the words sounded true, sounded real, the first real words I’d ever heard. Words understood by the ignorant and wise alike as the prophecy they were, envoys of the doom that lay behind them. I hung my head, in supplication, in fear, and with shuttered eyes waited for her, my lungs straining not to breathe and then she was there, coming around the bar to stand in front of me, and I still could not look at her when she took my hand in hers and placed a soft, pliant thing in my palm.

You’ll need this. For after.

It was a key chain, the foam kind that floats. Yellow.

Everyone expected her to take the slam that night. No one expected her to do it the way she did. And when to raucous cheers and hoots she took the stage and lightly gripped the microphone stand in long-fingered, cold hands and raised her vague eyes to the audience, I turned my face to hers and grateful I fell, finally, from the cliff edge of her to plummet between her lips at the moment she parted them to speak.

This one is called
Home to Carcosa...

A planet spinning in the dark.

Black waves, glinting with the light of rubied stars, breaking on obsidian lake shores.

A moon rising and the towers of a city behind that moon, impossible, an insult to the eye but true, a deep truth that pains and maddens with the knowing of it, and the song that drifts through the ruined streets and haunted causeways of that city, the song of a mother, a queen in a tower behind the moon, a song that mocks sorrow even as it mourns for all the weak, fragile meaning that the girl Castaigne is draining out of the dry, hopeless well of our world with a poem, the last poem anyone in The Moon Under Water will ever hear, a poem built of words that could only be spoken in the living shadows of Carcosa, tattered shadows that spread and lengthen from her feet to engulf and make void and bring all that they touch within her terrible blank gaze.

The Moon Under Water is there now, translated, and literally so, I know, translated to a grey suburb of the unchanging city at the heart of the Hyades. In fear of the burst of meaningless noise that she is, the judges take up slivers of shattered pint glasses and carve ones into their eternally renewing flesh and laugh. In honour of the lie that is her name, they carve zeroes and weep. The timekeeper sits in a corner where she clicks at her useless stopwatch, measuring out eternity in three minute segments. The slam master silently mouths now the King is coming and now the King is coming and give it up folks for the King in his coming into a dead microphone. With sere mouths and bleeding lips the poets yammer endless empty verses into the dust of each other’s ears. All there thirst. There is no one to tend the bar.

When the night is clear, and I am able to bear it, I come out onto the deck sometimes and lie down. The light of Aldebaran finds the vacuity of my eyes just as I imagine it finds hers and in that moment I will all the myriad worlds between us to crumble and fall and join me to float in the sea.

I will it, but I don’t have the words.

BRUCE TOO

Jodi Lee

Aubry James was born ten years before the northern polar ice cap disappeared, covering a great deal of North America in what was re-dubbed Lake Agassiz. In fact, due to the melting of both caps, a lot of North America was either islands, peninsulas or rocky hills where mountains used to be.

She could remember the rolling grass hills of the prairies though, pastures and farmland as far as her little eyes could see. She’d seen these things often during trips with her parents, following paved roads in an old car. A distant memory, of course, but there nonetheless. Then things changed, and little by little the lands were flooded. Fresh water mingling with sea water decimated whatever fish and aquatic mammals weren’t able to adapt, and Aubry, with her quick mind and fierce drive, determined to save them. She enrolled in bio-engineering, with minors in marine and paleo biology.

The year after she received her Masters degree, and allowing time for her studies to achieve her doctorate, Aubry joined the team at PaleoGen. There she would be working under her professor, Dr. Brown, to retrieve or reconstruct DNA from fossilized remains of animals that had lived in the original Lake Agassiz. Animals like the mosasaur, pliosaur, and carcharodon. Dr. Brown hoped to be able to combine the DNA found with that of present-day species having difficulty adapting to their new world, in effect, saving two different species by making them one.

Aubry was put in charge of mosasaur research. At the end of her four year term and just before she presented her thesis to the board, she was offered a permanent position. Her thesis, a paper on the
Hainosaurus pembinensis x megaptera novaeangliae, secured her doctorate, yes, but the research that went into it and the four foot long specimen in the tank at PaleoGen secured her job. She loved the little bugger, as much as any parent could love a child. With PaleoGen’s permission, she named him Bruce Too.

Bruce was a 43 foot tylosaur – part of the mosasaur family – found in a bentonite mine smack in the middle of the original Lake Agassiz. Aubry had been to see a replica in a museum as a very young child, and it had terrified her. Now, swimming in the tank with a juvenile Bruce Too, she didn’t understand what she’d been so afraid of. He was just a giant reptile, and like any other beast, he could be tamed.

Unfortunately, Nick didn’t think so.

She’d been with Nick for a few months, and early on knew he wasn’t right for her, but still… he was something to do after-hours. After a particularly nasty incident in the tank room, though, she told him she couldn’t see him anymore. Aubry knew workplace romances were usually trouble, but she didn’t realize exactly how bad it could get until she broke up with him.

First, her computer was shut down because of a virus threat, and IT couldn’t save most of her research. Thankfully she’d been smart enough to back everything up on a flash drive nightly, and stored it on an external hard drive at home. She turned the hard drive over to Dr. Brown, and continued on.

Next, six months of physical research was destroyed when the climate control in the DNA lab failed. IT found wires had been cut between the controls and the machines. Still, she didn’t put it together until Bruce Too stopped eating. Calling in a friend from university, a marine bio tech specialist, Aubry spent a week at the facility with Bruce Too, keeping everything under control and getting him back up to peak condition.

The smirk on Nick’s face when she returned to the office was enough. She went to Dr. Brown, but his hands were tied. Without specific proof, hard evidence, there was nothing he could do. What he could do, though, was order more security cameras, and hire guards to walk through the tank room regularly.

That put a stop to the hijinks for a while, at least at work. At home, Aubry suffered through prank calls, broken windows, burning feces at her door, and the occasional drug raid. Changing her phone number didn’t work; somehow Nick always managed to get it again. Finally, she began using throw-away cell phones, and completely got rid of her land line. Even so, she’d only have a week of silence before it all started over again.

In November of 2045, Aubry, along with Dr. Brown, Nick and fifteen other staff and VIP guests boarded the
Starr research vessel and headed across Lake Agassiz. With tears in her eyes, she watched as they lowered Bruce Too into the water, and released him to the wild. He, along with twenty-five other bio-engineered hybrids, slowly swam away into the dark waters. Soon enough, the only acknowledgment of their presence was a chorus of steady beeping from the lab below-deck.

Aubry was still bleary-eyed when Nick strutted past, nearly pushing her over the low rail. Dr. Brown steadied her, and though Nick apologized, it was clear to everyone that he’d done it on purpose. The captain escorted her to her cabin, and had one of his men keep an eye on Nick.

Perhaps now there’s enough evidence to fire the son of a bitch, she thought just as she fell asleep.

When Aubry returned home from the release trip, she had three messages on the machine. The first was from Nick, his voice high and squeaky with rage. He’d be after her now, she’d better watch her back, blah blah blah. She deleted the message before it had even played through. The second was from Dr. Brown, apologizing for not acting sooner and assuring her Nick would no longer be employed at PaleoGen.

The third was from a police officer, asking her to call and give a statement about the incident on the
Starr. She thought about it, even wrote the number down, but put it off. A clear head was required, and frankly, she was still quite shaken. Over a few days, the scrap of paper with the phone number on it was pushed further and further to the back of the desk, and then one day it slid off, landing on the floor unnoticed.

Aubry had no further trouble with Nick, and calling the cop completely slipped her mind. For a long time, everything was quiet and life was good. And eventually, Aubry forgot all about Nick.

In July of 2050, Aubry was once again aboard the
Starr, heading out for a six week long check of Bruce Too and the other released specimens. Although they’d kept tabs on the pod of hybrids, they’d only been out on the water twice before, due to funding cuts and lack of research grants. This trip was privately funded, and the sponsor would be joining them in a few days.

The captain told them stories from local fishermen and pleasure boaters, indicating the creatures they’d created in the lab had not only survived, but flourished. The interesting thing to Aubry were the reports of folks seeing small mosasaurs and pliosaurs swimming about, following and sometimes racing their boats much like dolphins.

Aubry couldn’t wait to get out there again. She knew Bruce Too’s tag was functional; she’d occasionally turn on the programs and track him for a while. He’d stayed pretty much where they’d released him, and that was where they’d be anchored for a week. She’d packed a special dive suit just to get in the water when – and if – he approached the vessel. Despite Dr. Brown and the captain warning her off, she was determined to say hello to her old friend. The first night on the water, they made a circuit of the area they’d be researching, then in daylight, made for the area she really wanted to be.

Most of that first day was spent locating each creature, and the staff were thrilled to find that all but four still swam Lake Agassiz. Whether the others were dead or had somehow lost their tags, they’d never know. Eagerly, Aubry watched the screen, momentarily worried that Bruce Too had disappeared as well. When his blip finally appeared, she couldn’t restrain herself and gave a triumphant holler.

That afternoon, after lowering a speaker into the water and playing the music she used to play for him in the tank, Aubry climbed out onto the dive deck, and stepped off the boat.

She stayed on the surface briefly, getting used to the water, before diving below. The water was clear for quite a distance, surprising her. The last time they’d been out here, the water had been murky, filled with particulates. Obviously something had changed for the better. Aubry dove deep into the darkness below with only the light on her headpiece to guide her. Spotting a shadow below, she thought at first it was a school of fish, but once she approached realized it was a small pliosaur. No more than five feet in length, the little guy swam right up to her, bumped her once with his nose, then swam off.

Aubry spent another half hour in the water before she surfaced, coming face to face with a very disapproving Dr. Brown. Enduring a lecture as he helped her aboard, Aubry then recounted all she’d seen below, sparking his curiosity and sending him scurrying to the lab to make notes. She went to the galley and filled a plate; diving always made her hungry.

Less than an hour later, the
Starr received her last passenger, and seeing the man board from the smaller speed boat, Aubry nearly lost her meal onto the deck.
Nick.

“What’sa matter, Bree? You look like you seen a ghost!” Nick shoved his way past her and down into the stairs to the cabins below.

Aubry sought out Dr. Brown, demanding why he hadn’t told her Nick was the one sponsoring their research, and how he’d come to have the funds to do so. From the look on his face, she realized the professor was just as confused and shocked as she was. “What are we going to do? I can’t stay here with him! He’s…sick.”

“Now Aubry, we’ll think of something. Perhaps you can request he be banned from your cabin area, and I can make sure he doesn’t step foot in the lab, funding or no funding. It’s a big boat, my girl, you’ll be fine.” Dr. Brown patted her arm and turned back to his notes. Sighing, Aubry left the lab and returned to the deck, watching the calm water for any sign of her Bruce Too. At least she’d have that.

Aubry pulled the speaker up from the water slowly, letting the sounds drift into the waves as long as she could. Bruce Too had been circling the boat overnight, and today she was going to get her change to swim with him again. She was elated, even though Nick stood not fifteen feet away, smirking.

Ignoring him seemed to make him try harder to annoy her, but Aubry was too excited about catching Bruce Too’s attention to let Nick’s petty bullshit bother her. As she was already in her dive suit, all she needed to do was strap on her tank and get in the water, and in no time she had done just that. She dove down just below the boat, let her eyes adjust to the darkness, and waited, occasionally squeezing a squeaky toy that had been her boy’s favourite in the research tanks back at PaleoGen.

Finally, a shape approached from her right. Aubry could see it was massive, at least 40 feet, if not more. Bruce? Maybe. She wouldn’t be able to tell until it came closer. She squeezed the toy again, and the massive beast came closer, gliding past silently. Aubry turned as it circled the boat once, and as it approached her again, she saw it was indeed her little Bruce Too, all grown up.

Bruce opened his mouth as he came to a stop right beside her. Aubry shivered a little, and not from the chill in the water; Bruce Too’s teeth were perfectly proportionate to his body. In comparison, she was nothing more than an oversized burrito.

The reptile’s massive teeth did not stop her from reaching out to touch him. As her hand slid against his bulk, a splash from behind her startled them both, and Bruce dove down deep, almost dragging her with him.

Fighting to keep her place in the water, Aubry turned just in time to see Nick attempt to pull the line on her tank. She swung out at him, but it did little good. They struggled for a few moments, and she began to weaken. He pushed her against the bottom of the boat, the force slamming her head hard enough she saw stars, and the mouthpiece flew out from between her teeth. Loosing herself from his grip, Aubry brought her knee up to Nick’s groin, all the while her hands desperately grasping for her breather.

When she finally got hold of it and had taken a few breaths, she realized Nick was staring over her shoulder, fear very evident in his eyes. She turned, and there was Bruce Too, coming up fast from behind. Aubry pushed herself deeper into the water to avoid being hit by her creation, but Nick was too slow. Bruce opened his immense jaw and snapped it down again, trapping Nick’s legs inside his mouth.

Nick’s breather fell in a burst of bubbles as he screamed. She could hear it, feel it in her chest; it reverberated in her blood.

Aubry could have moved to stop Bruce Too, perhaps he would still listen to her commands.

But she didn’t.

Instead, she swam to the surface, climbed the ladder, and quickly shed her gear. No one asked where Nick had disappeared to, and she didn’t bring the subject up either. Only the captain turned and gave her a sharp look when one of the crew noted that there was damage to her head gear and tank, and that another set of gear was missing.

Back on shore, the trip cut short for ‘lack of funding,’ no one raised much of an alarm. The captain filed a report that Nick had never re-surfaced after diving on his own. A Coast Guard cruiser went out to the last coordinates given by the captain, but when nothing was found in 48 hours, Nick was listed as a missing person, presumed dead.

Aubry threw five-pound steaks out into the lake every night for a month, just in case Bruce came close to shore. A meagre thank you, but even if he didn’t get it, she knew Bruce Too understood. Somewhere in that reptile brain, he’d had enough instinct to save his mother.

As she gazed out over the water, Aubry smiled. Her boy had done good.

DARK OPERATOR

Clayton Chandler

I am the angel on her shoulder. I am the devil whispering in her ear. I am the hand up her skirt, thumbing her panties aside as she puts the razor to her wrist.

The call came in ten minutes ago. I could hear the chick bawling when I answered the phone. She was really going at it, snorting back tears.

“I need help,” she stammered. Talking about how her boyfriend just left her. How she’s failing three classes, about to have to drop out of school. Mom’s on her ass. Pressure’s too much.

“It’s okay ... kiddo,” I say. I can’t remember the chick’s name. She sounds like a brunette, though, and I like brunettes. Not as much as blondes, of course, but close enough. This chick has a nice husky voice. I bet she goes to bars a lot. Party girl. Likes to have fun — just my type.

“How old are you?” I ask, cutting into her monologue.

“Uh, twenty-one,” she stammers.

Twenty-one. That’s perfect. She’ll still have a nice, firm body. And great tits. Really perky. She probably shaves herself, too … all the young girls do that these days, judging by what I see on Jizzspot and Teenwet.

The girl goes back to her monologue. How Jeff, her boyfriend, kissed this other girl. In the background, I can hear a bathtub filling. “I’m holding a razorblade right now,” she says. Good, so she’s serious.

I hate wasting my time with attention whores.

“I’m sure you still have a lot to offer,” I say. I’m scrolling through thumbnails on Teenwet until I find this hot little brunette number totally ramming herself with a big, pink dildo. She’s fucking amazing. Nice tan legs, round tits. The tits look fake, but her nipples are like little pink bullets, so fucking hard and pointy. She has freckles on her nose. How cute.

This is what I imagine the girl on the phone looks like as she sniffles into the mouthpiece. Standing naked in front of her tub, nice shaved pussy, good firm tits, a blade winking like a lover in her fingers, urging her to test its sharpness with her flesh.

“You don’t want to do this,” I say.

The chick on the phone — was it Kenzie? — probably doesn’t realize what’s at stake yet. A lot of our callers are too young to fully grasp the enormity of the decision they are about to make. Ending life. Calling it quits. That’s an eternal decision. Yet every day, every hour I’ve got sobbers on the line begging me to talk them out of it. That’s how it is with these suicide hotlines: you get a lot of really needy people. Girls just craving attention. Guys who don’t have an outlet for their frustrations. It’s my job to walk these crackpots back from that ledge, but I can just as easily tip things the other way, force them forward … give them a nice and gentle push toward the soundless drop. Heaven, hell, fate, eternity — all hang on the balance of my words. God, that’s a lot of power.

“You aren’t going to do it,” I say.

“Excuse me?” The girl’s tears stop just long enough for her to sound indignant.

“You obviously haven’t been doing your research. I bet you don’t even know how to cut yourself properly.”

“What?”

“It’s not easy, cutting yourself the right way. Most girls fuck it up. They miss the artery and some family member winds up finding them. You’ll wind up with crazy scars, and for what?”

The girl doesn’t realize it, but I’m standing in the room with her, as invisible as my voice, quiet as the silence between our sentences. Pressing myself against her naked flesh. Feeling my cock throb and swell as her ass presses into my jeans. I put one hand between her legs while with the other I grab her wrist to guide that blade. It’s a new blade. Fresh out of the package. Nice and sharp. Grinning light. Just what she needs to do the job.

Will she? I hope so.

“I know how to do it,” she stammers.

“How to what?”

“How to cut myself properly.”

“Well I’m proud of you. So would you say that the girl your boyfriend kissed is hotter than you are?”

I turn the lights in my bedroom off. A nightlight next to the door provides the only illumination. I’m lying on my bed with my pants around my knees, toying with my cock, which is now stiff and hungry. Ready to play.

“Yes,” my slut says.

“Really? How sad. So what did you do to him to make him go looking for another woman?”

“I didn’t … do anything.”

“Right.” I chuckle. “Just tell yourself that.”

“What do you mean?”
My slut doesn’t realize it, but my fingers are now deep inside her pussy. I have four crammed in there. She has a very loose pussy … too much banging with that dildo, I guess.
“What did that mean?”

“I mean sure I believe you. It’s not your fault that he left.”

“You sound sarcastic. Are you saying it is my fault?”

“I’m just saying there must have been a reason.”

The chick — was it Kasey? — starts sobbing again. I am really good and hard now. My God she’s precious. I wish I could remember her name — it’s hard to really get a good visual without a name.

“What was your name again?” I ask.

Sniff, sniff, sob. “Kelsey.”

“Yeah, that’s right.”
Kelsey, the slut bent over the bathtub with my entire fist inside of her.
The razorblade is hovering over her wrist, inching closer as I pull my fist free and unzip my pants. My cock pops out to fill up that pink wet hole that’s gaping open in front of me …

This is a good call. Not like that last chick who hung up before I could establish a solid rapport.

“Listen, I think I need to go,” Kelsey says. Through the phone I can hear her turn the water off. Bathtub’s full.

“Wait. Hold on. We’re not done yet. You haven’t told me how you plan to tell your mom that you’re failing.”

“I … I don’t,” big gulp of air. “I don’t know.”

…
God my cock slides right inside of her. She’s so wet and ready. My eyes roll back and I can’t quite stifle a groan as I pound her until her tits start jiggling
…

“I’d be careful. She’s going to be pissed.”

“I know.”

“College is expensive. I’d be so mad if my kid went and fucked it up like a moron. But I wouldn’t worry too much … I’m sure she’ll get over it.”

“I …” Kelsey’s voice cracks. “I have to go.”

She hangs up the phone.
Damn!
I mean, I’m like 89 percent sure she’ll go through with it, but I wish I could have kept her on the line just a little longer — really feel her out, maybe even listen in while she did the deed, but I’ll be sure to watch the obits for Kelsey.

…
in my mind my cock is deep inside of her and suddenly I’m cumming, cumming, cumming as the blade starts its long, wet slide up her arm
…

Remember that: Kelsey. Kelsey. Kelsey. Rhymes with Chelsea.

BLIND DATE

David Neilsen

As the slightly balding priest raised the human entrails over his head and cried out in a language not heard by human ears for centuries, Horace Whitley looked down at his coat and frowned.

Not only had the frothing waves, whipped to a frenzy by the man’s flamboyant ritual, utterly soaked him to the bone, but several flecks of viscera had found their way from the bloody innards being used to summon the great beast supposedly slumbering below onto his $6,700 Cesare Attolini Checkered Cashmere jacket.

Those stains were going to be impossible to remove.

He supposed it was his own fault. He had known full well the messy nature of the evening’s undertaking, but had dearly wanted to impress his date, the lovely and untalented Miss Peggy Balderheim. Normally, Horace did not stoop to being set up on a blind date by an acquaintance, but his old friend Wallace Gronk of the Saxonville Gronks had been adamant, and in the wake of the old boy’s ghastly demise, Horace had not the heart to cancel. His first sight of the uncommonly gorgeous Miss Balderheim had lifted his spirits immensely, and he thanked God and the late Wallace Gronk of the Saxonville Gronks for his good fortune, as well as his decision to go all out and wear the Cesare Attolini.

Alas, Miss Balderheim seemed far more interested in the morbidly ghoulish atrocities currently underway than in the quality of Horace’s wardrobe.

He was rudely shaken from his thoughts when his spellbound companion suddenly clutched his arm and screamed. Looking up, Horace quickly noted the emptiness of the priest’s hands and how the remaining passengers were now staring at expanding ripples on the surface of lake and he deduced the entrails were even now descending into the watery abyss.

“So, that’s it then, is it?” he asked. “Lovely. Is there any cognac onboard?”

“How can you think of cognac at a time like this?” asked Lady Gaithwaite, a matronly woman whose face was a mask of passivity due to an overindulgence in Botox.

“Maggie’s absolutely right,” said her husband, Sir Reginald Gaithwaite. “Full moon. Demonic ritual. A haunting chill rising from the lake. I’d say it’s more of a brandy moment.” The unapologetically obese British Lord tossed a wink at Horace, who couldn’t help but admit to himself a growing fondness for the man, despite Gaithwaite’s prosthetic leg.

“Do not mock G’Wyb’leh!” shouted the balding priest whose name Horace was incapable of remembering and whom Horace felt had been taking the entire experience far too seriously. “Or he shall devour your very souls and slowly digest them within his Star Temple over the course of a thousand years.”

His eyes bugged out as he spoke, and Horace thought it gave the man’s face a spectacularly frog-like quality.

“Oh, I don’t think I’d like that,” said Peggy with her usual bluntness.

“My apologies,” said Horace. “I was merely suggesting that a good bolt would ease the tension as we wait for Gullible-”

“G’Wyb’leh!” interrupted the priest.

“Yes, that’s what I said,” continued Horace. “As we wait for Him to make an appearance.”

“How long would you say we’ll have to wait, Brother Fiff.. Fitfhth…Fffithppp...” Sir Reginald’s attempts to pronounce the enigmatic leader of the evening’s pleasure cruise caused him to spray his wife with spittle.

“Fiffthithimithiff,” said Brother Fiffthithimithiff. “No mortal can know the mind of the mighty G’Wyb’leh. We have requested a summons. Only time will tell if He will choose to answer.”

The four passengers exchanged looks, none of them overly satisfied with Brother Fiffthithimithiff’s answer.

“So.. what? Ten minutes?” asked Sir Reginald.

“Fools! Time has no meaning to Mighty G’Wyb’leh!” barked the increasingly-annoyed cultist with what Horace felt was a dash more animosity than was absolutely necessary. Still, his outburst had what he could only assume was the desired effect of cowing everyone into an awkward silence.

Everyone, that is, except for Lady Gaithwaite. “Excuse me young man,” asked the septuagenarian condescendingly. “In your experience, how long does your little abomination generally take to show up? My doctor insists that I’m in bed by nine, and the moisture in the air is playing havoc with my rheumatism.”

Brother Fiffthithimithiff sagged and turned away. “He has never answered my summons,” he said.

The four passengers stared at him.

“Yet,” he added.

“My good man,” began Horace. “When I booked passage, I was promised a romantic couple’s evening under the stars on a moonlit lake featuring the summoning of an apocalyptic horror from beyond time and space.”

“I never said the summoning would succeed,” said Brother Fiffthithimithiff, avoiding eye contact.

“Boo,” said Peggy. “I want a demon.”

Horace frowned as his date released her grip on his arm, signaling her displeasure at the disappointing turn of events. Feeling his chance of future coital activity with Miss Balderheim rapidly evaporating, he pressed his point.

“Now look here,” he said. “I paid good money to see an abomination, and I expect to be fully satisfied or I shall raise a stink. Now you either bring your elder terror forth this very minute or prepare to face my full wrath!”

“Here, here!” said an animated Sir Reginald. “That goes double for me!”

“Don’t raise your voice, Reggie,” scolded his wife.

“Yes, dear,” he replied.

Brother Fiffthithimithiff spun around, gyrating his arms wildly and acting, as far as Horace was concerned, incriminatingly defensive. “Did you not see me toss human entrails into the lake?” he asked. “Do you know how difficult it is to find fresh human entrails? Do you have any idea what I went through to secure them for your entertainment?”

A part of Horace empathized with the sprout little cult priest, however it was not the part of him that still entertained hopes of sinful activity with Peggy Balderheim, and that’s the part which held sway over his thoughts and actions. “This has nothing to do with human entrails,” he argued. “Though I will admit. Nice touch. However, the complete lack of mind-bending horror is unacceptable! I promised Peggy an unspeakable eldritch horror and I’ll be damned if I’m going to disappoint her!”

Normally, of course, Horace would never have raised his voiced and let loose with such language, but he felt the occasion merited vulgarities. He even went so far as to clench a fist in the hopes that Miss Balderheim might be impressed with such a blatant display of manliness.

Unfortunately, before he could properly gauge the effectiveness of his sudden burst of testosterone, the world went mad.

There was a horrific sucking sound, which Horace could only equate with the flushing of an enormous toilet bowl, and a violent quake which rocked the flimsy, seventeen-foot craft back and forth like a badly-oiled pirate ship ride at an amusement park. The five souls on board were tossed hither and yon, their bodies crushed together into a mass of startled human flesh. Screams were heard, private parts inadvertently groped, and at one point someone was speared by the ship’s mast.

When it was over the boat rested motionless at a slight angle. Horace slowly climbed to his disturbingly off-balance feet, awed by the eerie silence. Even the soft tickle of the lake lapping against the sides of the vessel was absent. “Well now,” he said. “That was extremely unnerving. Was that part of the summoning, then?”

Brother Fiffthithimithiff pulled himself out from beneath the awkwardly-spread legs of Peggy Balderheim and nervously rubbed his bald head. “I… uhm… yes. Yes, I suppose so.”

“A bit excessive, wouldn’t you say?”

Brother Fiffthithimithiff grunted in agreement.

The others got to their feet and stood around limply, not quite sure if they should be terrified, startled, or in Sir Reginald’s case, screaming in agony from the long wooden mast which had snapped in half and pierced his chest.

He chose to quietly die, instead.

“The water’s gone,” said Peggy with her usual aplomb.

Brother Fiffthithimithiff spun around and gasped. His gasp caused the others to gasp as well, aside from Sir Reginald, who, as has been mentioned, was now dead.

All around them, where there ought to have been the crystal clear waters of a mountain lake, there was instead a vast, glassy surface stretching to the shoreline. Horace was very put out by the sight.

“Good Heavens!” exclaimed Lady Gaithwaite. “Reginald look! The lake’s gone! Reginald? Reggie?”

Lady Gaithwaite took a wobbly step towards the fresh corpse of her suddenly-late husband before Horace managed to stop her with a gentle touch to the shoulder. “I’m terribly sorry, Lady Gaithwaite,” he said. “But it would appear from the amount of blood seeping through his clothes that your husband has passed on. Again, terribly sorry.”

Various muscles around the corners of Lady Gaithwaite’s mouth twitched as the desire to break down into cries of incommunicable grief fought against her basic breeding. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I see. Pity, that.”

A growing pool of crimson flowed effortlessly out from Sir Reginald’s body, eventually coming into contact with the toes of Peggy Balderheim’s Gucci ankle-strap patent leather stilettos, whose heels she’d told Horace were coated with meteorite dust- a fact he was certain had been told her by the salesman to justify fleecing an extra thousand dollars from the naive little waif.

“Ew. Ick,” she said, quickly stepping away.

“Behold!” shouted Brother Fiffthithimithiff, holding out his arms theatrically. “Mighty G’Wyb’leh has come!”

Horace looked out, expecting to see some sort of unmitigated horror shambling towards them from across the oddly-glassy surface. Or perhaps a roiling ball of other-worldly smoke. Or at the very least a decrepit old man with a cane. Instead, his penetrating gaze came up empty.

“What, behind the nothing?” he asked.

“Now look here, Brother Fiffthithimithiff,” said a surprisingly plucky Lady Gaithwaite, impressing Horace not only with her ability to bounce back so soon after her husband’s death but also her ability to pronounce the man’s ridiculously complicated name. “This has not been the most pleasant of outings, what with poor Reggie’s death and all, and quite frankly I no longer care to witness an ungodly horror from the depths of humanity’s worst nightmares. That was always more his thing anyway. I demand that you turn this boat around and row us back to shore at once!”

Brother Fiffthithimithiff staggered back a step from the force of this unexpected verbal onslaught before steadying himself and gesturing (once again unnecessarily theatrically, thought Horace) to the glassy surface surrounding the boat. “Foolish human female!” he cried. “G’Wyb’leh has vanished the very waters needed to fulfill your faithless request!”

“Yes, about that,” said Horace. “ Just how, exactly, did you rid the lake of all water?”

“It was consumed by G’Wyb’leh!”

“Right, yes. Well done, Gweeby,” continued Horace. “Excellent parlor trick and all. Reminds me of the time I was seven and my uncle pulled nickels out of my bellybutton. But seriously, where did it go?”

The evil smile which appeared on Brother Fiffthithimithiff’s face could have curdled milk and tortured puppies. “He drained it through his tear ducts.”

The three remaining passengers stared uncomprehendingly at the self-satisfied cultist. Though in truth, Peggy just happened to be looking in that direction.

“Tear ducts?” repeated Horace, rather hoping the man had answered ‘a giant, industrial-strength pump facility hidden just out of sight sucked out all the water’ and he’d simply misheard him.

“Behold!” shouted Brother Fiffthithimithiff yet again. “G’Wyb’leh has come!”

This time when the balding little man gestured theatrically with his arms, Horace allowed his gaze to look out and really take in what he was seeing.

Which was when he realized their boat was currently resting on the surface of a very large eyeball.

The tiniest bit of panic crept over Horace, followed quickly by quite a bit more. His knees trembled, his eyes widened, and his bladder emptied.

“Is He not glorious!” cried Brother Fiffthithimithiff.

Glorious was not an adjective Horace would have chosen to use at that particular moment. Horrifying worked better. As did Monstrous. Repugnant. Soul-Crushing. Inexplicably-abhorrent. Mind-numbingly vomitous.

“Now hold on, young man,” said Lady Gaithwaite, struggling to shrink the reality of the moment into bite-sized chunks. “Are you saying this vast, glassy surface surrounding us- the one that resembles more than anything a gigantic eyeball- is in fact, a gigantic eyeball?”

“If you value your lives, you will join me on the Holy Pupil and grovel in supplication,” said Brother Fiffthithimithiff, awkwardly hoisting himself over the side of the capsized vessel and climbing down to the non-watery surface below.

The passengers, however, paid him no heed.

“That’s an eyeball?” asked Lady Gaithwaite to anyone who would listen. “An eyeball?”

“It would appear so,” said Horace.

“Oh, that Reggie had survived to see this. He would have been thrilled.”

“I’ve no doubt,” agreed Horace.

“I’m bored,” mumbled Peggy to no one’s surprise. Horace and Lady Gaithwaite chose to ignore the dim girl and shuffle a few feet further down the tilted deck.

“What on Earth did you see in her?” asked Lady Gaithwaite as they walked.

“Effortless sexual gratification,” answered Horace. He received a knowing nod in return.

“Oh Mighty G’Wyb’leh!” shouted Brother Fiffthithimithiff from the surface of the eyeball. “Regale me with your ancient wisdom! I am yours to command! Your fervent servant! What be thy bidding?”

Horace wasn’t sure what sort of bidding a giant eyeball might have, nor for that matter how it might make such bidding known. He reached up and absently scratched his chin. “We do seem to be in a slight pickle,” he announced.

“Rubbish,” admonished Lady Gaithwaite. “Being surrounded by Nazis and out of ammo during the first battle of El Alamein was a pickle. This is child’s play.”

“I like to play,” said Miss Balderheim, whom neither Horace nor Lady Gaithwaite had noticed cross over to them.

“I suppose in a pinch, we could simply walk back to shore,” suggested Horace.

“Across the eyeball?” asked Lady Gaithwaite.

“I don’t see why not,” answered Horace. “It’s an eyeball, after all. Hardly the most dangerous element of human anatomy.”

“If his eyeball is that enormous, doesn’t it stand to reason the rest of him is equally huge?”

“No,” said Horace, taking in a deep and self-satisfied breath. “I believe this Gweebly character consists of nothing more than an abnormally immense eyeball.”

“Would you stake your reputation on that deduction?” asked Lady Gaithwaite.

“I don’t know if I’d go that far. But my life, certainly.”

This seemed to satisfy the elderly woman, who- with a final glance back at her quite dead husband- grabbed hold of the railing and proceeded to climb down to the surface of the eyeball with surprising agility. Horace followed Lady Gaithwaite, neglecting to usher his date to do the same. Thus Miss Balderheim remained aboard the marooned craft, smiling blankly at the sky.

Horace found the experience of standing upon the surface of a monstrous eyeball a bit of a let down. He had rather expected to encounter a flooring far more solid than what met his feet as he dropped the final few inches to what, for lack of a better term, could be called the ground.

“I say,” he said. “It’s quite a bit more squishy than I would have suspected.”

“Of course it is,” chided Lady Gaithwaite. “It’s an eyeball.”

The knowledge that Lady Gaithwaite had, at some point in her past, discerned the proper surface tension of a human eyeball impressed Horace greatly, and his estimation of the woman rose accordingly. He took a few unsteady steps towards the prone form of Brother Fiffthithimithiff, who was busy mumbling unintelligible syllables while communing with his God.

“Excuse me, Brother Fiffff… Let’s just call you Brother F, shall we?” asked Horace, loathe to interrupt what appeared to be a truly solemn religious prayer but equally loathe to remain atop a hideously abominable eyeball a second longer than necessary. “Not to be rude, but could you kindly point us in the direction of our original point of departure? The Lady Gaithwaite and I would like to return to our vehicles and call it a night.”

Rather than lift his head up to answer, Brother Fiffthithimithiff mumbled something directly down into the stygian depths of G’Wyb’leh. Horace looked at Lady Gaithwaite and shrugged.

“Honestly, Brother Fiffthithimithiff. The customer service for this tour has been abysmal,” snapped Lady Gaithwaite. “Now I’m very wealthy. Actually, I’m incredibly wealthy now that poor Reggie has passed on. And I demand you see to my needs at once!”

Brother Fiffthithimithiff again mumbled into the eyeball, this time with a bit more fervent passion. It was still disappointingly unintelligible, however.

“I must tell you that I find your behavior to be quite rude, and I shall speak of it to the proper authorities,” continued Lady Gaithwaite. “Now, would you be so kind as to pause your inhuman, paganistic, unabashedly horrifying communion with the unspeakable fiend you have summoned from dimensions apart from ours and point us towards our cars?”

This time Brother Fiffthithimithiff’s mumbled answer sounded to Horace as if it included an inappropriate amount of laughter.

“Well, I never!” huffed Lady Gaithwaite, turning her nose up and crossing her arms. “Have you ever been confronted with such indignity?”

Horace did not answer her, however, because his attention was grasped by the large, dark, blackness rolling towards them from beneath the surface of the eyeball.

“Well that’s certainly ominous,” he remarked.

“Is that a pupil?” asked Lady Gaithwaite. “Is this demon god horror thing actually looking at us?”

“G’Wyb’leh judges you unclean!” screamed Brother Fiffthithimithiff in a shockingly moist tone. He rose from the surface and turned to Horace and Lady Gaithwaite, his face a melted mass of flesh and pus where it had been pressed up against the eyeball.

“Good Heavens, man!” cried a shocked Horace, trying desperately not to vomit at the sight.

“G’Wyb’leh shall devour the world!” continued Brother Fiffthithimithiff through drooping lips. “Rejoice!”

The massive pupil centered itself beneath the feet of the three scrawny humans. Horace could not resist staring down into a darkness almost material. The black of the pupil burned him from within, and he felt himself withering under the unholy gaze.

“Oh, now this is really too much!” said Lady Gaithwaite as the sponge-like surface beneath her feet began to bubble and froth. “How does an eyeball devour anything?”

She was answered not by Brother Fiffthithimithiff, but by G’Wyb’leh himself (or herself, though truth be told it was a bit difficult for Horace to discern the eyeball’s gender). A vast, repugnant, grotesque appendage reached out from within the impossible darkness below, rising into the air with a howl of horror. As Brother Fiffthithimithiff exalted in ecstasy, the wide, flat, slightly-red horror wrapped itself around Lady Gaithwaite and pulled her, screaming in terror, down into the eyeball itself.

“The feeding begins!” cheered Brother Fiffthithimithiff.

“A tongue? Seriously?” asked Horace. “How in the world does an eyeball have a tongue?”

“G’Wyb’leh is not of the world! G’Wyb’leh is of G’Wyb’leh!”

Oh Bloody Hell, thought Horace. He realized none too soon that the elder demon writhing literally beneath his feet was going to wreck havoc upon the entire Earth unless somebody did something. Since Sir Reginald was currently dead, Peggy Baldenheim was about as useful as a jar of pickles, and Lady Gaithwaite was currently enduring centuries of unmitigated agony within the cornea of an inter-dimensional horror, Horace supposed it fell to him to save the world. As usual.

“Now look here, Brother F!” he declared, placing his fists on his hips and striking a defiant pose. “I’m terribly sorry, but I simply can’t allow you to bring forth an apocalyptic terror that shall consume all mankind. I’m afraid I’m going to have to put a stop to this at once!”

“Nothing can stop G’Wyb’leh!” said Brother Fiffthithimithiff, though by this time most of his lower lip had melted into a puddle at his feet, so that it came out sounding more like “Nohee caa shoo G’Weela.” Horace, however, was fairly confident as to his translation.

“I’m warning both you and your rather immense deity,” said Horace, choosing the perfect time to wag a finger at the smearing blob of humanity that was Brother Fiffthithimithiff, “I have powerful friends. I may not be as rich as Lord and Lady Gaithwaite were, but I do have a goodly sum of money and people listen to me. I can have a regiment of riflemen out to this lake in a jiff, and they are crack shots, I promise you.”

“You cannoo haarr G’Weeellleuea!”

Horace chose to interpret that as “You cannot harm G’Wyb’leh” and responded accordingly. “I have no intention of harming your abomination. I shall simply stand by while 100 of the finest crack shots in the land pepper your oddly-shaped leviathan with bullet holes!”

Brother Fiffthithimithiff laughed, his body shaking with mirth and dropping bits of flesh onto the surface of the eyeball where they sizzled like recently-flipped pancakes. It was a truly disturbing sight. “No poa en errr caa haarr G’eeeggega.”

Horace cocked his head a moment to better decipher Brother Fiffthithimithiff’s words. “Sorry, missed that. Try again?”

“No paa en err caa-”

“No what?”

“Paa-aa.”

“Pow-wow?”

“PAA-EH!”

“Oh! Power! No power on Earth can harm Gweeby. Is that it?” asked Horace excitedly, oblivious to the bubbling and frothing taking place directly under his feet.

Brother Fiffthithimithiff nodded enthusiastically and gave a hearty thumbs up.

And Horace got an idea.

“Peggy! Oh, Peggy, are you still up there, darling?” he called.

Back on the craft, Miss Peggy Balderheim heard her name being called. So she turned away from staring up blankly at the sky and looked down at Horace with a smile.

“Lovely girl!” called Horace. “Might you come down here a moment? I’d like a word.”

“OK!” replied Peggy with a friendly wave.

“Whaa aarr yuu doii?” asked Brother Fiffthithimithiff.

“One moment,” replied Horace, stepping away from the broiling surface beneath him just as the unholy tongue launched itself once again into the air with a roar. Horace ducked to the side as the repulsive appendage flailed about a moment in the air, spraying ick and goo in every direction. Horace was momentarily upset to notice a little bit of Lady Gaithwaite’s plastic-like face still attached to the surface of the tongue, but he shrugged the feeling aside and dove out of reach of the demonic muscle, which- failing to seize its prey- slunk slobberingly back into the pupil from whence it came.

“Nasty thing,” muttered Horace to himself.

“Hi,” said Peggy Balderheim, startling Horace with the way she’d managed to appear next to him without his noticing.

“Ah. Yes. Peggy. Thank you,” began Horace, standing up and dusting himself off as best he could under the circumstances. “Am I correct in recalling that you claim your stiletto heels are coated in a layer of meteorite dust?”

“I paid extra,” she said.

“Right. Would you be so kind as to stomp firmly down onto the stomach-churning truth below our feet with said heel? Vigorously, if you please.”

Peggy frowned. “Like a dance?”

“Yes! Quite! A dance where we stomp our heels.” Horace proceeded to stomp his heel against the disturbingly pliant surface of the eyeball in demonstration. “Like so.”

“Fun!” Peggy raised her luscious leg high and brought it down with a firm and insistent stomp. The result was exactly what Horace had hoped.

“Oops!” cried Miss Bladerheim. “I popped it.”

And so she had. The meteorite dust-covered heel had gone right through the optical membrane, piercing into the flesh of the horror at their feet.

“Noooooooooo!” screamed Brother Fiffthithimithiff.

At once, a spurt of inky black foam erupted into the sky, coating Peggy head to toe both on the way up and back on the way down. The poor girl screamed in terror and agony as the innards of G’Wyb’leh ruined her dress and dissolved her flesh.

Despite every rule of chivalry urging Horace to grab his date and pull her out from the shower of abominable death raining upon her, he chose to neglect his good breeding and instead back away in fear for his life.

“Waaa haaa yuuu duuu?” cried Brother Fiffthithimithiff, leaping into the inky black jet of Hell, shoving the deep-fried Miss Balderheim out of the way and thrusting his gooey fingers into the rip of G’Wyb’leh’s eyeball. The effect was much like trying to plug a hole in a crumbling dam. Even as the acidic black gore dissolved the very finger attempting to save its life, additional holes sprouted in the vicinity, including one directly beneath Brother Fiffthithimithiff, which thrust its deadly goop clean through the balding, drooping, melting man’s stomach.

Taking a few more steps away from the ongoing carnage, Horace nodded to himself for a job well done. True, the deaths of Lord and Lady Gaithwaite were unfortunate, but they were old, and therefore not a true loss. He did regret that his blind date with Peggy Balderheim would not be ending with a proper shag, however on the bright side, he was spared what would have obviously been a painful attempt at post-coital conversation.

As more and more ruptures in the lens of the gigantic eyeball churned forth and the behemoth that was G’Wyb’leh sagged its way to oblivion, Horace turned and walked with some haste towards what appeared to be the nearest shoreline. He might not make landfall anywhere near either his car, or a proper dining establishment where he could calm his nerves with a sifter of acceptable cognac. However, he felt that, as moderately wealthy as he was, if he simply kept walking, someone would find him.

MUSIC HATH CHARMS

Mark Orr

“As we learned in the last class,” Dr. Ottermole began, “musical tastes tend to form between the ages of ten and sixteen. This is not to say that music experienced earlier has no effect on later tastes, nor that most of us stop expanding our musical horizons after sixteen. But the core of what we prefer is what we hear in those magical years. That’s the heart of our musical nostalgia, that pain for the past we all feel as we age.”

He waved a large, strong-looking yet graceful hand at the chart of the human brain on the wall behind him. Those who met Dr. Ottermole casually often remembered nothing about him except those hands. Even long-time friends remarked among themselves that they were perfectly ordinary in repose, and yet so memorable in action. His brother, who was an old movie buff, often called them ‘The Hands of Orlock.’ Very few people got the joke.

“We know that those areas of the brain most susceptible to music’s charms don’t fully develop until the tenth year, and their growth concludes at about sixteen. Newly experienced music can build new connections after that, but the structures themselves are quite complete.”

He smiled around the room. “This reality may, on the surface, appear to have more cultural applications than neurological. We can surmise, based on this knowledge, that a die-hard country music fan was probably exposed primarily to that genre of music in the formative years. Jazz fans who reject all other forms, or classical music devotees who refuse to acknowledge that other genres even exist may also fall into this category. I can only assume Mr. Franklin’s inability to express himself except in rap rhythms is symptomatic of the same phenomenon.”

Even Mr. Franklin chuckled at that. Final grades would go out soon, and even a bad joke deserved acknowledgment.

“And yet,” Dr. Ottermole continued, “I have also heard Mr. Franklin’s angelic voice expressing itself in other ways. I have not attended church in many years, but when I happened upon Mr. Franklin and some friends engaged in an a capella rendition of several old gospel tunes the other day, I was almost tempted to drop into the chapel for a quick fix of religion. Almost.”

More chuckles.

“Nearly all of us, if pushed to the wall, will admit to enjoying more than one type of music. We may not seek it out as assiduously as our favorite, but when we come across it, we tap our toes and hum along, if the tune or the rhythms or some other aspect of the music find connectivity here,” he said as he tapped a spot on the chart at the lower rear of the frontal lobe, “in the nucleus accumbens, and here in the hippocampus, and here in the amygdala as well.”

His fingertip moved to the back of the chart. “And in the cerebellum, the home of the rhythms we utilize not only in locomotion but in musical expression and enjoyment. As these structures process the sounds, comparing them to sounds from our formative years for pleasurable correlations, even a type of music foreign to our experience might reveal itself to be soothing to our savage breast, and so become part of our internal repertoire. We learn to enjoy new music because of what we like about the old.”

Ottermole moved around to the front of his desk and half-sat on the corner, those remarkable hands folded benignly over one knee. “But what about those who cling to only a very narrow sub-genre, and utterly reject every other form of music? What if our subject, or our patient, can only abide something called Death Metal?” Ottermole smiled. “I’ve forced myself to listen to some of this music.” Two long fingers from each hand executed a ballet on each side of his head as they formed quotation marks around the last word. “Frankly, it seems indistinguishable to me from a dozen different barely tolerable sub-genres, or from the noise a barrel full of stray cats and scrap iron might make while rolling down a hill. Despite my expressed opinion, there is a certain regular patient of mine currently housed in the Fossil Lake State Mental Health Institute who becomes enraged if forced to listen to any other kind of heavy metal music. Or, indeed, any music except this so-called Death Metal.” He adjusted his glasses and looked around the room. “Have we any metal-heads in class today?”

Two young men raised their hands.

“God help the future of medicine.” He stood and waited for the chuckles to subside. He was about to continue when a young lady in the front row raised her hand.

“Yes, Miss Douglas?”

“This patient of yours wouldn’t happen to be our old friend ‘Bert,’ would it?” she asked.

Ottermole smiled. “It would, indeed.”

The students stirred in their seats. Bert Granchi had been bouncing in and out of the state insane asylum for years, and was often used in Ottermole’s classes to demonstrate the array of psychiatric and neurological impairments human beings were subject to, for Bert possessed each and every one. As these future doctors were all apt to treat Bert at some point in their careers, Ottermole had been allowed to relax some of the requirements of confidentiality, in the interest of the future of medicine. Besides, Bert had been persuaded to sign a release of information form upon each admission. The fact that he thought he was signing an autograph seemed to have never occurred to the admitting nurse. If it did, she had not let on.

“What did he do this time?” Mr. Franklin asked.

“The usual,” Ottermole said. “Internet harassment, phone harassment, threatening, inciting others to threaten, having a melt-down in the food court at Skyways Mall because he saw the picture of a celebrity with whom he imagines he has an on-going feud on the cover of a magazine. Nothing out of the ordinary.”

“You think his mother will agree to the lobotomy this time?” someone asked.

The laughter was heartier than for any of the teacher’s jokes. “She has already begun the process of obtaining his release,” Ottermole said. “I’ve never understood why she continues to do that every time he gets sent away, given that she can’t even stand to live in the same state with him. For some arcane reason, she won’t allow him to stay in our custody long enough to receive any real treatment. Does she really hate him that much? I have to wonder.” Ottermole sat on the edge of the desk again. “I don’t mean to imply that I agree with Mr. Johnson’s opinion that a lobotomy would be called for.” He grinned. “Nor, in fact, would I necessarily disagree.”

More merriment.

“The fact is,” he continued, “Bert presents with such an array of symptoms that we can’t prescribe effective treatment without more extensive testing and observation than can be accomplished in the few days we are able to keep him. In our previous discussions, we’ve provisionally diagnosed him with the entire DSM-V, including several varieties of malignant tumors. The most popular diagnosis seems to be fetal alcohol syndrome coupled with borderline personality disorder with narcissistic traits, but without more testing than his mother ever allows for us time for, we can’t be certain. Had I the opportunity to hook him up to the proper equipment, I could possibly discover where, if anywhere, he is unable to process sounds outside his restricted comfort zone, and prescribe the appropriate treatment.”

“Are you suggesting,” another young woman asked, “that a very limited taste in music can be used as a diagnostic tool?”

“You’re getting ahead of me, Miss Stevens.” The bell rang. The students gathered books and papers, stood and stretched. “Your answer must wait, I’m afraid. I’m hoping to have some more film of Bert for the next class to help illuminate that very notion. In the meantime, finish reading Chapter Twenty-Three, and be ready for a pop quiz.”

The Future Doctors of America groaned as they filed out of the room. Ottermole closed the door behind them and took a cell phone from his vest pocket. “I’ll be there at midnight. Will everything be ready by then?”

He got the answer he was hoping for, and prepared for his next class.

Ottermole arrived at the Fossil Lake State Mental Health Institute at 11:30 P.M. He signed some papers, then met his assistant just outside Bert Granchi’s room.

“Are you sure you can remove the implants without leaving a trace?” he asked.

Dr. Everett Weiss nodded. “I’ll do the autopsy. No one will ever know, at least from that angle. Don’t you think, though, that someone might wonder why he’s in a regular room, unrestrained, with all those hard walls and sharp corners?”

“Bert has always been much too narcissistic for us to suspect he’d ever do what he’s about to do,” Ottermole said. “Relax, Ev. As soon as you take the implants out of his ears, your part is done, and my niece can rest in peace.”

“I’ll be in the morgue.” Weiss left Ottermole standing in front of the door.

He watched his colleague vanish around a corner, then clicked the intercom switch. “Bert? This is Dr. Ottermole.”

The voice that came from the speaker was high, nasal and whiny. “When are you mother-fuckers going to let me out of this fucking dungeon, you baby-raping cunt-faced asshat?”

“We will when you repent of your sins.” Ottermole looked in through the glass panel. Bert was on the other side, eyes wide and barely sentient, hair long and greasy, his fleshy mouth surrounded by a Bluto beard that was trimmed off-plumb.

“What fucking sins, you pedophile kiddie-porn collecting liberal fuckwad?” Bert’s mouth opened wide when he talked, revealing rotten stumps of what once were teeth. “You’ve only got me locked up in here because I said something nasty about the president.”

“Do you remember Betty Oakley?”

There was a snort. “You mean that dickless wonder Billy Oakley, who cut off his own balls so he could turn into a girl? Yeah, I remember that uncle-fucker.”

“She killed herself last week, Bert. You drove her to suicide.”

The laugh was loud and nasty. “Good riddance. I’ll piss on her grave, as soon as I get out of here.”

“I know you’ll want to, Bert.” Ottermole took a small device out of his inside coat pocket. He held it the palm of one hand and hovered a graceful finger from the other over it. “But I’m not going to let you. Betty was my niece, you piece of shit, and you are going to atone for the crime you committed against my family.”

Ottermole turned the device on. Bert screamed from inside the room. Ottermole looked up and down the corridor, but there was no one to hear the agonized cry.

“What the fuck is that?” Bert screeched, hands covering his ears, stubby fingers digging through the long hair and into the temporal bones. “It’s in my fucking head!”

“That’s Doris Day, Bert,” Ottermole said. “And there’s more. Englebert Humperdinck. Rosemary Clooney. Helen Reddy. Merle Haggard. Olivia Newton John. Teresa Brewer. Mel Torme. Dolly Parton. Every song I knew you would hate is stored in this little box of mine, and we’re going to spend the whole night enjoying them together.”

Bert reeled around the room, bouncing off the bedside table, the iron bedstead, the walls, the door. “No! Make it fucking stop!”

“I can’t, Bert. Only you can make it stop.”

“How the fuck do I do that?”

“Figure it out, asshole.” Ottermole pressed the volume button. No sound came from the device, but Bert reacted immediately, flailing about, running into walls and bouncing off the steel wardrobe.

Bert flung himself across the room and ran into the nightstand, driving the corner deep into his abdomen. He coughed, spewing blood all over the top and onto the pillow beyond. He lurched back and skidded along a wall before ramming his forehead into the wardrobe.

He leaned back and drove his skull into the heavy-gauge steel over and over. Blood splattered the room, partially obscuring Ottermole’s view through the small window. He heard the distinct crunch as Bert’s skull exceeded its breaking point. Bert staggered back and turned to face the door. The bones around his right eye had crumbled. The orb slipped out of the ruined socket and dangled against Bert’s cheek from the optic nerve.

“I’ll make you a horror target,” Bert mumbled. He swayed a moment while Ottermole adjusted the device.

“You ought to enjoy this,” he said. The Village People filled Bert’s head.

“No!” Bert screamed. “No! Y.M.C.A.! I fucking hate Y.M.C.A.!”He ran at the cinder block wall and turned his head just before contact, crushing the fingers on his right hand and visibly flattening the skull on that side. He hit it again several times before the blood splatters covered the window. Through the streaks, Ottermole could just see Bert reel away from the wall and fall backwards on the bed.

He heard a series of gurgles, the staccato noises of a body jerking around on the mattress, then silence. Ottermole waited a long time before looking around. No one had come to check on Bert. There was no staff in the entire wing. Ottermole had seen to that. It was nice to be able to schedule rounds in such a way to provide him the solitude he needed to accomplish minor tasks like taking revenge on poor Bert Granchi. He put the device in his pocket, rubbed those remarkable hands together and walked away, whistling.

Weiss looked up from the autopsy table the next morning and smiled at his friend. “I’ve never seen a human being deform their own skull so badly,” he said. “It looks like a jack-o-lantern that’s sat on the porch for way too long after Halloween. It’s a shame we can’t write this up for a medical journal.”

“What did you do with the implants?” Ottermole asked.

“I picked one up off the floor, where he’d dislodged it.” Weiss held up a small device that looked like a dead wasp. “Just took the other one out.”

Ottermole took the device between his finger and thumb and dropped it into a pocket. “Keep one, if you like. Who knows, they might come in handy again, one day.” He went to inform the family of Bert Granchi’s passing.

Bert’s mother seemed more relieved than upset. She declined to claim the body, and wouldn’t even consider driving the fifteen hundred miles to arrange a service. Bert wound up in the little Potter’s Field the institute maintained behind the softball field.

Ottermole and Weiss watched the grounds keepers fill in the grave and wander off, the chaplain close behind.

“How much coffee did you drink this morning?” Weiss asked.

“Two pots. You?”

“About the same.” He unzipped his fly. “Time to get rid of this load.”

“Amen, that.” Ottermole followed suit.

They pissed on Bert’s grave a long, long time.

LEVIATHAN

Richard Leavesley

In the deep dark I swim

Aware of monstrous creatures moving in.

I dare not look back in case I see

A tentacle reaching out to me,

Or open jaws and misshapen fins!

Faster, faster I try to swim

Before some huge tongue can drag me in

To some dark maw or serpent’s beak!

That’s when I completely freak!

I panic and begin to thrash!

The horror nearly at my back!

Can’t think, can’t breathe

I fade to grey...

…as jaws slam shut and tear me away…

THE TUB AND TAKAHASHI

Gregor Cole

Takahashi was stuck in his bathtub.

He had been for several days from what he could make out. He hadn’t slipped or fallen and hurt himself. He had simply nodded off then awoken to find himself unable to get out with the water cold up to his chin.

His feet poked out at the other end.

He wiggled his toes.

It made him laugh.

The water rippled under his mouth.

It was like the water had frozen, but it hadn’t. He hadn’t damaged his spine as he wouldn’t have been able to move his feet or head. It was like the water was holding him in, keeping him immobile in the tub.

If only he hadn’t made fun of the old woman in the fish market. He hadn’t meant to laugh so hard at the giant hairy mole on her nose.

He just found it funny.

He didn’t mean to point either but there was an attractive girl working on the crab stall. The old lady said the Sea Witch would have retribution. He had laughed the threat of a curse off. She mumbled and coughed over him, waving a fish head in his face and it was all he could do to stop himself pushing her into a tub of live crabs.

The cute girl rolled her eyes and went back to work as Takahashi fought off the fishy woman. It had been an ordeal, yet funny none the less.

He wasn’t laughing now.

Takahashi turned to drink some of the water. It tasted of weak lime bubble bath. It choked him a little and some came out of his nose. He spluttered in the water, unable to move.

The water had its hold on him.

Takahashi lived and worked alone, there was no one coming to help him out, to pull him free from the water’s icy grip. There would be no one passing for a cup of tea or popping in on a flying visit. He was stuck.

Why had the water decided to hold him?He had done nothing to offend the water, he had nothing but the highest of respect for water. His own father was a fisherman many years ago back when he lived on the island. When he moved to the city he had bought a fish tank and fed the fish every day and cleaned the tank once a week.

He loved the water. But here he was, a prisoner in his own bathtub with the murky water his shackles.

He looked around the room and his eyes locked on his cute octopus bath towel hanging over a rail in the corner. The octopus smiled at Takahashi and it made him sad inside. What he wouldn’t give to be able to get out of the tub and towel off the cold water from his skin. To be wrapped in the thick warmth of his octopus friend right now would be amazing.

But the idea made him sad.

He looked back at his toes.

He wiggled them again but doing so didn’t cheer him up this time.

The cute octopus had made him sad.

Takahashi woke up with the sound of the postman shutting the gate outside his apartment and he began to shout. Due to the building being right by a motorway the construction of the apartments had required sound proofing.

The postman didn’t hear a thing.

The apartment above him was empty and the apartment below was occupied by some death metal guy.

He was out most of the time.

When he was in the guy listened to loud music and head-banged in every room or slept in piles of pizza boxes on a smelly couch.

Takahashi didn’t like the man.

He smelt of cheap incense and weed.

He coughed out some of the stagnating water he had swallowed while trying to raise the alarm. The octopus smiled at him.

Takahashi was starting to dislike his friend the cute octopus.

There was a rubber duck floating around in the water with him. He used to love playing with that duck. Takahashi tried to move his hands to play with it once more, but nothing. The water wasn’t letting go just yet.

The duck had floated up by his face and it was all he could do but watch it bump into his bottom lip. Takahashi blew air out of his nose and it slowly span away to the middle of the bath. He then wiggled his toes to send ripples towards the duck, sending the plastic water fowl back to his face.

This game kept Takahashi going for three days.

He had stated to notice that his skin was wrinkling and becoming white on an alarming scale. The skin around the joints in his ankles had swollen and aged dramatically in the week he had spent in the water.

The top layers of dermis had started to peel away and formed a film of scum on the water. He didn’t like to drink it anymore.

The film had coated the side of the bathtub forming a ring of dirge as the water level had dropped slightly. It had slightly discoloured as it had dried into a mucky brown. He could feel it rotting on the back of his head, in his hair.

From what he could see the water had started to bleach all of his submerged flesh.

Some parts of his waterlogged body had changed to a horrid blue colour and he was aware that his stomach had bloated out somewhat.

The bathroom had started to smell a bit from the foetid water.

He was rotting in his own filth.

He had tried not to shit in the bath but he couldn’t hold out for as long as he had liked.

He felt his bowels give and a tear rolled down his face; he had never felt so alone and helpless.

The octopus on the towel smiled at Takahashi as he cried and uncontrollably shit into his watery tomb.

Faecal matter bobbed next to the rubber duck like little logs.

He decided to stop playing the rubber duck game at this point.

Takahashi stared at the cute octopus.

The cute octopus stared back.

He was starting to hate that smile.

The idea of towelling himself down now was the last thing on his mind. The colour of the water was now a rank brown. It had bits floating in it.

The ring of filth around the bath was now a good three inches thick and the majority of his body had absorbed a large amount of the water. He was swollen and bloated out and stuck.

He was finding it harder to breathe with the size that his neck had gotten. His breaths were shallow, rushed.

He knew the end was near but he had made peace with his god; but not with the cute octopus.

Then it happened.

His arm was moving.

His arm could move.

It was heavy from soaking up so much water but he could lift it and Takahashi started to smile for the first time in so long.

He smiled at the octopus.

The octopus smiled back as if to say “good job, buddy.”

His bloated hand wrapped around the edge of the bath, the rotten skin splitting down to the bone as he leaned over to lift himself up. He could move. The bloating around his throat muffled his shouts of triumph, not that anyone would be able to hear with the combination of soundproofing and the man downstairs’ death metal.

The water had finally given up its grip on him. It must have been from where his flesh had absorbed so much from the tub. His frame was heavy but he managed to get to his feet. He was free.

Takahashi looked at the cute octopus. The first thing he would do was flush the towel down the toilet. He would never eat octopus again.

He got to his feet and straightened up, his body now sagging like a bag filled with wet shit around the top of his legs. His ankles had swollen at the bottom of his legs and resembled a baby elephant’s. He would have to call an ambulance as soon as he was out.

In a fit of victory he threw his fists into the air. The slack rotting skin of his chest split all the way around his chest. It fell away like the outer skin of a burst salami and it fell into the last of the putrid water.

The puffed up flesh of his belly rolled away and everything that was inside Takahashi began to fall out of him. His intestine, his lungs, his heart, everything plopped into the water where he was standing. Sinew and tendons peeled away from the bone and ligaments snapped from the strain of the bloated offal falling away.

Takahashi looked at himself in the bathroom mirror. His head sat perched on an empty skeleton. The skeleton was happy about something with its arms in the air in triumph.

Then the bones of his legs gave under the weight of his head.

The bones tumbled into the tub and clattered like someone had dropped a glockenspiel. His head landed face first into a sloppy pile of himself and rolled over.

The last thing Takahashi saw as his head slowly slipped under into the human soup in his bathtub was the face of the cute octopus.

The octopus was smiling.

Takahashi was beginning to really hate that octopus.

SIGNS

John M. McIlveen

Well, the first sign weren’t no big deal, it was the same one Lenny n’ me always saw comin’ outta the
3 Sisters Bar & Grill.
You know the one I’m talkin’ ‘bout, the dancin’ hog carryin’ a tray-a dead meat. Lenny says the pig looks like Gina, but I think it could be any of them three sisters. They ain’t much to look at, but they sure serve up a mean mess a grub. I s’pose them sisters cook so good ‘cuz they ain’t got nothin’ else for doin’, ain’t no one in a right mind would wanna fuck ‘em.

Huh? Oh yeah…the sign. Sorry. Like I was sayin’, you know the space under the dancin’ hog, where they switch them letters round ‘n say what’s on special? Okay. So we come outta the 3 Sisters ‘cuz it’s still dark, but we can see the sun’s comin’ up. That’s when Gwen, you know she’s the sister that runs the night shift? Well, she makes us leave so the breakfas’ people don’t have to see us drinkin’ folk fallin’ all about. So, ‘cuz it’s dark, the sign under the dancin’ hog is all bright an’ says
At 3 Sisters yer dollah gits you a hilla beans…
sumpin’ like that, right? So we get in Lenny’s pick-up an’ start for his house, but when we get to leavin’ the parkin’ lot, the sign now says
YER AN ASSHOLE!

So Lenny says to me, “You catch that?”

I says, “Un-huh.”

“That sign there done called you an asshole.”

But I says, “No, I think it was callin’ you an asshole, ‘cuz ain’t signs meant for the driver?”

“Rekin’ you might be right, there,” Lenny says. “Why you think it’s up to callin’ me an asshole, Carl?”

“Ain’t right sure, Lenny. Maybe ‘cuz you are an asshole.”

“Yeah, s’pose there’s that,” Lenny says.

So we pull outta the parkin’ lot an’ Lenny says, “Ain’t what it said when we come outta the 3 Sisters.”

“Nope, t’aint,” I says.

“How you rekin’ it changed so fast?”

How the sign changed so fast is beyond me. Ol’ Joe does all the sign changin’, but he’s in Coventry ‘til Sunday, so I didn’t say nuthin’. I’m figgerin’ you must know why the town outlawed them sisters from climbin’ that ladder anymore, right? Yessir, three-hundred-fifty pounds of woman in a Mumu perched ten-feet up can raise an eyebrow or two, ‘specially since none of them ever think to wearin’ panties. Just a gander can twist yer guts ‘round some. They still call ’em panties if they’s big as a circus tent?

Oh, right, back to the story. What’s a dolt?

Well, so anyhow, I’m guessin’ we just let it go, ‘cuz we ain’t so much as mentioned it again, but then that second sign done comes up.

We was jus’ kinda drivin’ along an’ you know them big green an’ white signs that tell you what town’s on up ahead-a you? Well, this one here usually says
Farmington 6 mi.
You know the one I’m talkin’ ‘bout? It’s prob’ly ten miles outside Farmin’ton? Right...that one.

Well last night it didn’t say
Farmington 6 mi.
a-tall, but it did say
COCKSUCKER in big white letters, bright as all get-out.

So Lenny, he says to me, “Now that ain’t right, it calling me a cocksucker like that. I ain’t no cocksucker.”

But I says, “I don’t know ‘bout that, Lenny. You tend to take a pull or two from mine once you get to drinkin’, an’ you drink a lot.”

So Lenny says, “I s’pose that’s true ‘nuff, but I ain’t too keen on advertisin’ it.”

“Appears someone is.”

“Think it might be Butch?” Lenny says.

I says, “Might be.”

You know Butch the plumber? Lenny fetched him to roto-root his shitter after he tried flushin’ a dead rat. Big fucker. When Butch finished he settled in for a few drinks an’ next thing you know he’s over every night since, totin’ a fresh bottle a Turkey. Don’t right like Turkey myself, I prefer Black Label. Lenny likes Turkey. Y’ever puke Wild Turkey? Ain’t pretty.

How’s that? Is a buffoon like a dolt? They’s related? Well, hot shit, who’da figgered?

Okay, okay…back to the signs. Keep ya boots on.

So, after the cocksucker sign, we commence to thinkin’ that it was Butch yankin’ Lenny’s chain. We both knows that ain’t the truth of it, but we ain’t sayin’ nuthin’, hopin’ that was the end of it, but, then we passed the bank. You know the Farmin’ton Five an’ Dime at the four corners, how it went an’ got itself a new sign with lights an’ shit? An’ how the lights slide…yeah, scroll…that’s it! However, last night it weren’t tellin’ us how we can ‘ford a new home for some percents an’ stuff. Instead, it just says
MOTHERFUCKER, with them big red letters slidin’ outta one side an’ into the other.

Now Lenny gits all mad like a hornet just bit his pecker, an’ he yells, “Ain’t no way Butch knows about that!” An’ I figger that’s true enough ‘cuz I knew nothin’ ‘bout it, either.

So Lenny slows his truck down to get his shit in line an’ cool his conniption, then he says to me, “We best leave that one be.”

So I says “yup.”

Now Lenny, his farmhouse is right smack-dab behind that bank, ‘cept about four miles up Henneman’s Path, as you rightly know. So we drives up there all silent, ‘cuz Lenny’s all bucked-up, bullshit, an’ bothered ‘bout bein’ a motherfucker, an’ it ain’t just his momma that knows it now.

So, when we get to his house the sun’s full out an’ must already be eight-a-five d‘grees out, an’ this ain’t helpin’ none ‘cuz Lenny’s already set to boilin’.

Thinkin’ to cool him down, we set for the back of Lenny’s truck to get the case a Black Label out, an’ that’s when we see what’s on the tailgate.

You know on a Ford pick-up, where it says Ford? Well, it no longer says Ford, but now it says
U KILT ME, ‘cept it’s all bumped out like Henry Ford hisself done it.

Stamped? No I din’t do no stampin’, but Lenny looked set to start jackhammerin’. Now Lenny, he jus’ stannin’ there, eyes buggin’ like he jus’ got a fence pole drove up his ass, so I says to him, I says, “Lenny, you got sumpin’ you ain’t tellin’?”

An’ Lenny, he says, “Carl, I got sumpin’ I gotta tell you.”

An’ that’s ‘bout when his girl Elaine showed up ‘cuz she must a saw us drive up. So you can ask her, too. Yeah, I know Elaine can’t talk, but she knows Lenny’s story.

Yeah, so I grabbed two Black Labels from the case an’ gave one to Lenny. Elaine, she don’t drink none. Beer was warm as pig piss, but ain’t the first warm beer we ever drinked, an’ it did rub the dust off our gums.

Now, you know Lenny, he don’t ever wear much more than his overalls, but it was hotter than the devil’s dick out there, n’ he was all fidgitin’ an’ sweatin’, so we moved over to the shady side-a the barn an’ set down against it.

Now, you listen up here, ‘cuz what I tell you now is pretty in line with what Lenny telled Elaine n’ me. He said, he reckoned we both prolly guessed that before Elaine come along he was thinkin’ ‘bout endin’ it all. That’s right, he was gonna kill hisself. Now, Lenny’s not one to usually be thinkin’ as such, so he felt it needed some ‘splainin’ so we unnerstan’ why he done what he done.

He done kilt his wife. I near shit myself when he tell us that, but Elaine, she just set there. Her not bein’ able to talk makes me itchy sometimes.

So, Lenny says he come to thinkin’ that we both might be smellin’ her by now, with all the heat of late, an’ that he ain’t seen to buryin’ her proper. Been a couple weeks since he set her in the root cella’, an’ if he din’t see to movin’ Suzy soon, she’d raise all kinds a stink on the vegetables.

He didn’t wanna do his Suzy in, but he done come home early from a delivery an’ when he got to lookin’ at what ol’ Red n’ her was up to in his bedroom, it got him all funny in the head. They was so lost an’ pantin’, huffin’ n’ carryin’ on that they didn’t even take to noticin’ him stannin’ there. So, he went an’ got his rifle an’ shot ‘em right where they was.

Got ol’ Red right in back of the head, he did. An’ Suzy...well you can ‘magine where ol’ Red’s head was, lappin’ away like Suzy were some big ol’ salt lick. Kinda like what Lenny an’ Elaine have commenced to doin’, I reckon. S’pose that also ‘splains why ol’ Red’s breath was so foul of late.

An’ while Lenny was tellin’ us this, God’s truth, Elaine layed on the ground an’ done put her head on his lap, right on his bid’ness! I mean, anyone puts their head on my bid’ness, they best be plannin’ on a mouthful-a…

Right. Shut the fuck up an’ git back to the story. Okay, I hear ya.

Well, Lenny said the first shot done took ol’ Red outta the picture real quick, an’ done quite a hurtin’ on Suzy. Said she looked to him real sad like, but he weren’t in no forgivin’ mood right then.

After contemplatin’ the situation a moment, he figgered Suzy was too far gone for savin’, anyhow. Took him three shots to put Suzy away. Reckon he could-a done better, but he ain’t never shot a real person before. Wouldn’ta been so bad, but he runned outa bullets. Had-ta pack more buckshot. Lenny said it din’t matter none, Suzy weren’t goin’ nowhere since the first shot blowed her kneecaps clear over her shoulders. An’ he was right, he even fixed himself a couple a san’wiches an’ jawed with me on the phone before he packed them bullets. Was near on an hour afore he got back to Suzy an’ she din’t hardly move an inch, he said.

Her whinin’ an’ such had Lenny feelin’ real bad, but seein’ ol’ Red layin’ the way he was got him all shakin’ mad, which weren’t no good neither — couldn’t even hold his aim. The second shot done hit Suzy smack in her armpit. Always a shame wastin’ good bullets, so he done got up real close so’s not to miss. Seein’ her lookin’ so sad got him feelin’ off, so he done what had to be done. Y’know, nuthin’ changes the look on someone’s face like a twelve gauge.

I know it ain’t like ol’ Lenny, gettin’ all worked up n’ jealous over his woman. Fact is, he was good for sharin’ Suzy out to his friends an’ all, as long as she comed home to make his dinner. An’ she were pleased as peaches to oblige, ‘specially with Pastor Fred. Suzy was always jawin’ that ol’ Pastor Fred’s meat stick hanged nearly as low as Smoke’s.

Smoke? That there’s Suzy’s horse, an’ Lenny din’t mind none when she got the hankerin’ to favor Smoke ever once ‘n a while, but ol’ Red, he were Lenny’s dog! Lenny said shouldn’t nothin’ come between a man an’ his dog, Ol’ Red should a knowed that. Red oughta been ministratin’ only for Lenny!

Well, Lenny done thought everthin’ over real good an’ he figgered he got no reason to live no more. Weren’t nuttin’ left for him, an’ he was bad hurtin’ for what he done to ol’ Red, too. Best servicin’ dog he ever had. Ain’t no easy road trainin’ a knack for pleasin’ into a dog. Done took Lenny a life-a years to teach ol’ Red, an’ he were betta stock than your average dog… purebred Irish Setter he was, with some Spaniel an’ a bit a Shepherd, too!

We’re all gonna miss Suzy a whole bunch. She was one fine woman, an’ pretty as first prize. She were real good at servicin’ too. Most taken gal in Farmin’ton, ‘specially since Smoke done kicked her last tooth out. That tooth could sure put a hurtin’ on a fella, ‘specially when Suzy started heatin’ up. Smoke sure made for a buncha fellas celebratin’ that day. An’ ol’ Smoke never gave to kickin’ Suzy again, once she shared a bit of her know-how with him. Fool horse got big as a fence rail ever time Suzy done walked by him.

Why you lookin’ at me like that? Looks like you just tasted yer first shit san’wich. Yeah, I’ll get back to the story, but yer the one lookin’ sick, not me.

Well, Lenny knowed he was gettin’ on in years, an’ findin’ another lady like his Suzy jus’ weren’t likely gonna happen. ’Sides, they never got to havin’ no young’uns since Smoke done messed up her insides, so there’s none of them needin’ lookin’ after. Addin’ up all that, Lenny figgered there ain’t no reason to livin’. An’ that’s when Elaine done saved his life.”

Lenny said bein’ a husbin’ an’ a workin’ man took up all his time, but he ‘membered when Elaine was a young’un, her mama so proud an’ showin’ her off to ever’one. She was a cute ‘un. But after that he done forgot about her, she was just a kid. Then he done saw her the other day, comin’ out ol’ Filban’s house.

Lenny said the way Elaine was lookin’ at him, got him whole new way of thinkin’. He never knowd she growed so much to look so nice. Got him to thinkin’ that maybe there were sumpin’ to be livin’ for.

He figgered, Hell, once he buried Suzy nice an’ deep, he could jus’ say she runned off with some truck drivin’ fella, like ol’ Spellman’s lady done. You remember ol’ Spellman? He were so happy with her gone he commenced to buildin’ hisself a new g’rage the next day, cement floor an’ all.

Lenny told us he got Elaine now, which throwed all thoughts a suicide right out the window. And there I am, feelin’ happy for him an’ Elaine, not thinkin’ ‘t’all ‘bout what he done, ‘til we got a gander at that last couple a signs. That’s when the shit done hit the chipper.

Huh? Yessah, the chipper. Ever dump a pail a shit in a chipper? Ain’t nothin’ pretty ‘bout it. Done it on accident a while back. Painted damn near everthin’ for…

Well, yessir, I do know what an imbecile is, my mom and pa raised nine of ‘em.

Okay…okay. So Lenny, he gets off the ground an’ says he done made Elaine a present an’ was right proud of hisself ‘cuz he even put her name on it. He said it’s in the barn an’ we need a have a look-see.

It was a might darker inside Lenny’s barn, but we all saw it soon as we got in there. Lenny took three small wooden crates an’ done nailed ‘em to each other an’ made a biggun, ‘bout two feet wide, four feet long, an’ some-odd inches tall. Lenny painted Elaine on the lid in big white letters,
E-L-A-N, pretty as pie. Lenny said it was a standin’ box an’ that it’d do his back a spell a wonder when him n’ Elaine was servicin’, with her bein’ so short an’ all. He was prouder than a stud Morgan ‘bout it all, but then he seen his truck.

Y’know how it says Smitty’s Farm on the side of Lenny’s pickup? Smitty’s Lenny’s last name — was his daddy’s, too. He gived Lenny the farm when he keeled over. It don’t say Smitty’s Farm no more, no sir. It says
LENNY SMITH IS A THIMBLE DICK COCKSUCKIN MOTHERFUCKIN MURDERIN ASSHOLE.

Now them’s angry words, an’ it ain’t Butch yankin’ Lenny’s chain. We all know it’s Suzy, there ain’t no doubtin’ it now, so Lenny gits all scairt now, an’ me, too. Ain’t sure ‘bout Elaine ‘cuz she don’t ever say nuttin’.

I says to Lenny, “Lenny, you’re needin’ to make peace with your Suzy”, but Lenny was just starrin’ at his standin’ box, an’ he’s shakin’ an’ his face is redder ‘n road rash. So I looks at his standin’ box an’ it don’t say ELAN no more, but it says
CARL FUCKS SHEEP.

Well, I ain’t never fucked no sheep no matter how pretty they might be, but Lenny ain’t hearin’ none of it.

Lenny says, “You got your sights on my Elaine?”

I tells him, “No way, Lenny. I ain’t never took no fondness to fuckin’ sheep. You know I git wool rash.” But then Elaine comes up and bites me right on the pecker! It weren’t a bad bite; fact is it felt kinda good, but Lenny, he’s madder ‘n a snipped bull, an’ he goes full-throttle eye-buggin’, arm swingin’, leg kickin’ bat shit on me.

If I planned on seein’ a next day I had to fend him off…

…and that there, sir, is why you found Lenny with a pitchfork in his head and stuck into the center post.

How’s that?

No sir, I ain’t full-a shit, had me a hefty crap jus’ afore I got here.

Oh, you don’t believe me. Well, I ain’t never had a reason for killin’ Lenny, he was my friend since we was kids. But, I reckin’ I do unnerstan’ no one will believe it. I’m havin’ a tough time a believin’ it myself, but maybe that’ll change yer ‘pinion.

No, looky there, on yer patch...right there.

Yep, I know you see it. It’s written all over yer face.

And if I ain’t mistaken, that there patch is s’posed to say Farmin’ton Police Department, not
CARL, YOU DONE GOOD.

HELLHOLE FISHING

Stanley B. Webb

Pat Tinker backed his pickup truck to the boat ramp at Hershel’s Bait’n Break in Constantia, New York, on the shore of Oneida Lake. He dragged his white-oak skiff out of the back, and it hit the ramp with a bang.

“Watch it, Tinker,” he spoke to himself. “She leaks enough, already.”

He dragged the boat down the muddy ramp, pushed it in until the bow floated, then returned to the truck for his fishing pole, flashlight, and oars. He left them in the boat, and took his empty thermos into Hershel’s.

“Evening, Hersh!”

“Hello, Tink,” replied the fat, bald man behind the counter. “Bullheading tonight?”

“Oh, yes; I finished the mess of them I caught last week. I’ve had bullhead for breakfast, dinner, and supper, seven days straight. I had to dig a hole this deep to bury all the bones.” Tinker held a hand waist-high.

Hershel grinned, and said, “It’s amazing you could fit all those fish in your galvanized pail.”

“I filled it fifteen times!”

Hershel laughed. “What can I get you?”

“Two ham on ryes, a thermos of black coffee, and a can of night-crawlers.”

A gaunt man entered.

“Evening, Stosh,” said Hershel. “Having your usual?”

Stosh nodded. “Egg sandwich, and apple pie.”

Hershel disappeared into the kitchen.

Tinker silently considered how to tease Stosh. He finally asked, “You going out to look for Hellhole tonight?”

Stosh nodded.

“In your little, old canoe?”

Another nod.

“You have your camera?”

Stosh closed his eyes, and nodded.

“You know, I think I found Hellhole once,” said Tinker. “I was out bullheading, like I’m going tonight, and I found a place where my anchor never touched bottom. I’ve got a two hundred foot line on that anchor, you know?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Anyway, I knew I couldn’t catch any bullhead there, because there wasn’t any bottom for them to feed on, but I thought I’d drop my line anyway, to see what I could hook.”

Stosh rolled his eyes.

“I hooked something,” said Tinker. “But I couldn’t reel it in. Whatever it was, it kept pulling my line out. So, I set the drag on high, and then, the thing started to tow me! I think it got me going twenty, twenty-five miles an hour. I was afraid it would swamp my boat, so I cut the line. Whatever it was, it had pulled me so far, it took me two hours to row back.”

Hershel reappeared with their orders.

Stosh said to Tinker, “You’re not the first man to make fun of me, nor the best.”

“Aw, Stosh, don’t you have a sense of humor?”

“Not after listening to guys like you for forty years. I still dream about that night. I was just a kid, out bullheading on the lake, and it happened like you said: I found a place where my anchor didn’t hit bottom. The monster rose beside my boat. The moon was dark, so I could hardly see it, but I smelled it; just as if the bottom of the lake had risen.”

“Seriously,” said Tinker. “It was probably a waterlogged, old stump.”

“It was alive! Someday, I’ll get its picture; maybe tonight! Then, you’ll see, you’ll all see!”

Stosh paid for his order, and left.

“You shouldn’t fun him,” said Hershel.

Tinker gestured broadly. “How can I resist? You know as well as I do that there’s no monster in this lake; there’s no Hellhole, either. Oneida Lake never gets much deeper than fifty feet.”

“Have you dropped anchor on every square foot of that lakebed?”

“Most of them.”

“Oneida Lake is all that remains of prehistoric Lake Iroquois, which once covered most of New York State. I’ll reserve judgment on what might be down there.”

“Maybe you should help Stosh hunt his monster.”

Hershel shivered. “No, thanks.”

Tinker chuckled as he left. Evening had become night. He sat in his boat’s middle plank seat, locked in his oars, and put his gear on the stern seat before him. His feet splashed on the bottom boards.

“An inch of water already,” he said.

He set his bailing can between his feet.

“When that floats, I’ll bail out.”

He rowed toward the middle of the lake. The Bait’ n Break’s lights went off before he arrived.

“Hershel’s closed up, and gone home. I feel kind of lonely, now.” Tinker raised his voice. “Can you hear me, Stosh?”

A silent minute passed, then a faint echo returned.

“I guess Stosh ain’t close by. I’ll catch a fish to keep me company.”

Tinker checked the knot at the bow, then played out twenty feet of line, until the grapnel anchor caught the bottom. He bailed, then pulled a night-crawler from the bait can, crammed the struggling worm onto his hook, and dropped it to the bottom of the lake. Tinker lay the pole aside, and hummed as he poured himself a cup of coffee. He took a cautious sip, just as the tip of his pole sagged. Tinker set down his cup, took up the pole, felt the weight at the end of the line, and gave a jerk to set the hook. The fish tried to run. Tinker laughed as he reeled it in.

“You’re a good one!”

The bullhead was a black, slimy fish, with whiskers around its mouth, and stinging spines on its fins. Tinker avoided the spines as he removed the hook, and dropped the fish into his bucket. Then, he examined his bait.

“You’re still wiggling, I think you’re good for another go.”

He sank the worm, and resumed his coffee. Some while later, he reeled in his line, and cast to another direction. Tinker finished his coffee, poured another cup, and opened one of his sandwiches. When the sandwich was gone, he reeled in again, and studied the limp bait.

“I guess there’s not enough left of you.”

He pulled the dead worm from the hook, and threw its fragments into the lake.

“I’m feeling restless; I think I’ll try another spot.”

He bailed, then rowed for a while, and let down fifty feet of anchor line.

“The bottom seems steep in this direction.”

Tinker baited his hook, then looked at the glittering stars.

“The dark of the moon,” he said, then looked around. “Stosh! Are you nearby? I ain’t going to tease you anymore.”

Twenty seconds passed quietly, then his echo returned, clear and distant. Tinker smiled.

“I’ll have a sing-a-long.
’Was a farmer had a dog, and Bingo was his name-oh!”

The seconds passed, and his echo sang back to him.

Tinker sang the next line.

“B-I-N-G-O, B-I-N-G-O, B-I-N-G-O! And, Bingo was his name-oh!”

He tapped his foot when the song returned, then continued.

“’Was a farmer had a dog, and Bingo was his name-oh!”

When he sang the following line, Tinker dropped the first letter from the dog’s name.

“…-I-N-G-O, …-I-N-G-O, …-I-N-G-O! And, Ingo was his name-oh!”

The song continued in that way until the final verse, when Bingo’s name was silence.

A close and heavy splash broke that silence. His echo returned, followed by the echoed splash.

“What in hell was that?” Tinker asked softly.

A single wave passed under the boat. He drew a quivering breath, then reeled in his line.

“I’m going to call it a night.”

He stowed his pole, then pulled the anchor up. He unshipped the oars, turned the boat around, and paused.

“If I run away, I’ll never be able to tease Stosh again. That was probably just a sturgeon; they grow pretty big. I’ll row in that direction, and have a look.”

Tinker waited at the oars for a long time.

“Damn it, I owe it to Stosh.”

He bailed, then rowed toward the splash. He shipped his oars, and lowered all two hundred feet of his anchor line, which hung vertically in the lake. Tinker bounced the anchor a few times, in the futile hope that he would feel the bottom.

“If Stosh was right about Hellhole…”

He pulled the anchor in, seized the oars, and stopped.

“Don’t be a coward, Tinker; start fishing.”

He baited his hook, and pinched a ball sinker onto the line. Tinker swung the tip of the pole over the water, and released the reel. The line dropped into the lake, and sank. His expression turned increasingly gloomy as the line spooled out, until it reached its end. Tinker bounced the sinker.

“Bottomless.”

He let the line hang there for a while.

“Well, there’s nothing here. I might as well go home, after all.”

Tinker tried to turn the reel, but the line would not come.

“Snagged. I must have hit bottom, after all.”

He strained against the snag, until his pole bent double.

“It’s snagged good.”

Then, he noticed that the line slowly traversed around the boat. Tinker went still. The line circled the boat, then went slack. He reeled a long time, before the bitten end appeared.

“There is something down there. Stosh, you’ve been a true man all along, and I’ll tell you as soon as I’m ashore.”

Tinker put the oars in the lake, then reconsidered.

“If
I were a true man, I’d catch that monster. Well. I tried, didn’t I? And, it broke my line.”

His eye fell upon the anchor, and he sighed.

“Lord, I’ve not been a good man, but I don’t think I’ve been bad. Mischievous, I’d say, but if you see it differently, I pray that you’ll be forgiving, and protect me tonight.”

Tinker opened his last sandwich, baited the anchor’s prongs with ham, and let it sink. He sipped another cup of coffee as he waited.

The anchor line suddenly jerked. Tinker dropped his cup, and clutched the gunnels. He eased forward, and took ahold of the line. Great power vibrated up from the depths. He held his breath, and set the hook. The line jerked out of his hand.

“Ouch!”

The bow dipped. Cold water poured in.

“No, No, No, this old bobber has too much float in her! Let up!”

The bow rose again.

“Thank you, Lord.”

The boat lunged ahead. Tinker fell backward. He scrambled up, and gripped the sides. Rooster-tails of water rose from the bow as his catch towed him. The boat cut to the left, then to the right, then made tight circles. Frightening sounds came from the old oak planks.

“Please, hold together!”

The boat stopped, and wallowed in its own wake. The line went slack. Tinker retreated to the stern.

“You’re coming up, to find out who’s caught you.”

The monster surfaced. Tinker found his light. An armored hump floated alongside, ten feet long by three high. A serrated ridge went down its middle. Huge crawfish swarmed upon it.

Tinker felt relief.

“You’re just an overgrown turtle! Wait until Stosh hears.”

The monster raised its long neck.

“Dear God!”

The head resembled a crocodile’s more than a turtle’s. His anchor hung from its narrow jaws, which bristled with teeth. Its eyes stared like twin moons.

“I’m sorry, I hope I didn’t hurt you. Surely, I couldn’t hurt such a big fellow. I’ll just unhook you, then, we’ll let bygones be bygones.”

Tinker reached out with an oar blade, and poked beneath the anchor’s prong. The anchor came free, and dropped back into the lake.

The monster regarded him for another minute, then sank vertically. An oily slick whirled in its wake.

He cried for a time. Then, he noticed that the water in the boat was above his ankles. Tinker bailed desperately.

“I do not want to go swimming here, no sir!”

Dawn was near when he returned to the Bait ‘n Break. He loaded his boat and gear into his truck, then went inside. Stosh was among the breakfast crowd. Tinker joined him.

“I didn’t go out last night,” said Stosh.

“No?”

Stosh shook his head. “I’m tired of being a fool.”

“Well,” said Tinker. “There are fools, and there are fools. I’ve been a bit of a fool myself, and I’d like to make amends. It would be a shame for you to give up the lake; suppose I take you fishing tomorrow night?”

Stosh looked suspiciously at him. “What’s the joke?”

“No joke, I’m just tired of fishing alone. I need someone to talk to, before I start talking to myself.”

Stosh considered, then shrugged. “Why not?”

“Remember to bring your camera; one never knows when he might catch something worthy of a photograph.”

RETURNING MAGIC TO THE KINGDOM

Brian M. Sammons

This place sucks, Billy thought as he crushed out his cigarette on a poster of the famous cartoon vermin. After giving the rodent a smoldering third eye, he turned around and surveyed all the witless people before him.

God, these idiots make me sick, he fumed as he watched the undulating mass of humanity moving in brightly colored herds from one attraction to the next. Worst yet, Billy’s family was out there in that churning cheerfulness, and he knew they were probably enjoying it like the mindless lemmings they were.

It wasn’t like Billy didn’t like to have fun, but he was fifteen now and way too old for this place. He couldn’t ride the Cup N’ Saucer or float down Pirate Bay. What would people think if they saw him, trying his best to look hardcore with his baggy shorts, Reebok B-Ball shoes, throwback Pistons jersey, and his gold thug amulet, getting on the Danger Mine ride? They would think he was just some punk-ass wannabe, a poser, and Billy wasn’t having any of that.

When I was little I would bug Dad to take me here all summer long, and that cheap prick never did.
Billy seethed as he continued to radiate scorn at the crowd. Hell, we were even living right here in Florida at the time, and he still wouldn’t do it. Oh, but once we moved to Michigan and Dad got a new flat-chested wife and her dumbass kids, then all of a sudden coming here was a great idea. Never mind that it costs a lot more now. Never mind that we had to travel all across the country now. Never mind that I’m too fucking old for this place now!

Billy pulled out another Marlboro Red and lit up. The fact he was standing just three feet from a No Smoking sign made him look even cooler. He was sure of it.

And then, before leaving for here, that asshole has the nerve to smile and grab my shoulder like we’re buddies and say, ‘Come on, Billy, you always wanted to go there.’ Well sorry, Dad, but you’re too damn late.

Billy spun around with the intention of going into the MENS room to find something to break when he spotted her. The sight of the girl caused all his thoughts of therapeutic vandalism to vanish in a flash. She was about his age, maybe a year or two older, and she sure wasn’t his usual type. She looked more like a metal chick than anyone interested in hip hop. In fact, she could have been a Goth if her skin wasn’t so beautifully tanned.

Her lips, nails, eye shadow, and most of her hair were jet black. The only color to her at all was some crimson streaks strategically placed to break up her ebony tresses. She had on biker boots, newly faded and ripped jeans, a vintage Metallica concert t-shirt, and matching silver eyebrow and nose rings. Despite being an obvious metalhead, she was smoking hot. Thin waist, curvy hips, and big round breasts; she was every fifteen-year-old boy’s wet dream made flesh. Best of all, she was looking at him and smiling. Well, it was more of a sneer, but Billy knew that it was as close as this babe would ever get to a smile. After all, he understood all about keeping up appearances.

Billy sneer-grinned back and the heavy metal hottie laughed before turning around and disappearing into the crowd of merry dimwits behind her. That almost caused Billy to gasp out loud like a sap in a chick flick, but luckily he remembered to gather his cool before he could do too much damage to his badass image.

Shoving his hands into the pockets of his low-riding shorts, he began to saunter after the black beauty. At just fifteen, Billy knew all about the hos playing hard to get before letting a guy tap that ass. As if saying no two or three times before getting nasty didn’t make them a slut.

Billy slid through the masses like a surly shark. Into the sea of fat families he swam, and through breaks in the waves of ruddy, sweating faces he would catch dark glimpses of his quarry. The hard-on in his jeans was his divining rod, wherever it pointed, he followed. He saw that she was continually looking over her shoulder as she went, no doubt checking if he was following. That was a good sign, the game was most definitely on.

Then all of a sudden, the game was off.

Billy had cut through the crowd like a heat seeking missile only to come out the other side with no sign of the girl he was chasing. He turned and scanned the area around him, but couldn’t find a trace of her. In front of him was the swaying sea of simpletons, and now behind him was a small brick building nestled within a clump of trees, a little touch of green in the concrete-gray landscape.

Where the hell is she?
Billy thought as he felt his anger starting to rise and his penis starting to shrink.
Man, this ain’t fair. First good thing to happen all day and… hey, is that a trail?

Billy noticed a slim separation between the trees behind him. He stepped closer to examine the trail and saw that someone had run down it very recently, someone in about size eight biker boots. With his grin restored, Billy followed.

Unfortunately there wasn’t any teenage, naked, metal goddess waiting for Billy at the path’s end as he had hoped. Instead all he saw was the back of the small brick building he had noticed earlier and an open steel door. Billy closed the door to check if there was a sign on its face. There was and it read: AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. He opened the door once more and peered inside, but only saw a dark hallway staring back at him. Looking around and seeing that he was out of sight of the nearby bustling horde, he leaned into the hallway and risked a low shout.

“Hey, you in there? Hello?“

“Hello,“ someone answered, but it didn’t come from in front of Billy. It came from behind. Nor was it a girl’s voice.

Billy cried out like a wimp and hated himself for doing so. He spun around and standing just two feet behind him was a tall, handsome, smiling man wearing an expensive suit. The man’s fine-lined face placed him at about fifty years old or so, but his full head of curly blond hair and his sparkling blue eyes made him look much younger.

“Who are you?“ Billy blurted and then wondered to himself, and where the hell did you come from?

“I could ask you the same question, young man. What are you doing here and why did you open that door?“

“I didn’t open the door, it was already open, and I was just following someone.“

The tall man looked down at Billy and smiled, “And whom would you have been following? There is no one here but you and me.“

“It was just some girl, aight?“ Billy said, instantly on the defensive.

The well-dressed man’s smile grew even wider as he said, “Well perhaps you should just come with me, then.“ He reached a hand towards Billy’s shoulder in a gesture that was eerily like Billy’s father. It both creeped Billy out and reminded him just how pissed off he was today.

“Hey, back off, dick! I ain’t going nowhere with you.“ Billy did his best to sound and look tough while his eyes darted back and forth, looking for a way to dash around the creepy old fossil and get out of the little pocket of trees that hid him and the man from the nearby crowd.

The man’s eyes continued to twinkle despite the shade cast from the trees overhead and he asked, “You don’t like it here very much, do you? This lovely park I mean.“

“No man, I think it sucks!“ Billy said through one of his patented sneers.
This dude is too close, I can’t run around him, Billy thought as he took a step back towards the open door.

“I didn’t think so. Perhaps then we could help each other out?“

“What, you a homo or something?“

The man’s smile faltered, his bright eyes went dull and dead, and at once Billy was very sorry for making that last stupid joke.

“No,“ the man said coldly, “I am certainly not a ’homo.’ I am an executive of the company that runs this park and that makes the movies I’m sure you’re aware of. Your obvious disdain for this wonderful place makes you an ideal consultant. Your opinions might be able to help us make this park more appealing to people like you.“

“What you talking about?“ Billy asked, now intrigued. Despite his practiced gangsta ways, Billy was still just two years removed from being a middle school honor student. He was much smarter than he acted, and right now he could smell money in the man’s offer.

“I’m talking about a few hours of your time. You answer a few questions for us, and in return you’ll get paid.
How does two hundred dollars sound?“

TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS!
Billy’s mind shouted before calming down and remembering to play it cool. “How do I know you ain’t some perv who just wants to get me alone and fuck me?“

The man sighed and shook his head, “Look if that was all I wanted, I could do it right here and now and I dare say there is little you could do to stop me.“ The tall man took a step forward, which caused Billy to back up into something behind him.

Scratch that, someone behind him.

Billy screeched like a pinch-tailed cat and whirled around to stare at the biggest, broadest man he had ever seen in real life. The slab of beef wore a blue security uniform that was stretched to the point of ripping over his muscled frame. He had on a blue baseball cap with the famous mouse on it and dark sunglasses. The big ass dude didn’t have a security belt or any handcuffs, not even a nightstick or pepper spray. Billy was sure that was because a man of his size didn’t need any of those things to protect him. Billy saw on the silver nametag pinned to the button-straining shirt that the guard’s name was
Pitt.

An unseen hand on Billy’s shoulder from behind made him yelp again before he heard the well-dressed man’s voice close to his ear. “Now come along young man, you have a security guard to accompany you, not to mention two hundred dollars.“ From over Billy’s other shoulder, a well-manicured hand appeared holding a small wad of twenty dollar bills. “For just answering a few questions. Surely you’re not scared, are you?“ The smile in the man’s voice at that last part sounded bigger than ever and it ate like acid into Billy’s heart.

“Nah, I ain’t scared. I just wanted to make sure you weren’t no pervert, that’s all,“ Billy said, playing it cool again. “Come on pops, let’s do this thang.“

With that, Billy used his practiced thug shuffle to stroll into the dark hallway, past the steel door and the huge guard who had stepped off to one side.

The trio walked down the hallway for a length of just thirty feet before stopping at a set of closed metal doors. Mr. Pitt reached out a burly hand and pressed the only button in sight. Instantly the doors parted revealing a gleaming elevator finished with white leather, brass, mirrors, and soft muzak.

“What exactly is this place?“ Billy asked as they all boarded the elevator and Pitt pressed a button that caused it to descend.

“It’s the control center for the park, but really it’s far more than that,“ the smiling stiff in the suit said. “I guess you could say that it’s the heart of this Kingdom of Magic. It’s the place where the magic happens, or at least where it once did.“

The man’s nearly continuous smile took on a sad twinge. It reminded Billy of how his father looked when he talked about his dead mother: a mixture of love, loss, and regret.

“So what goes on here?“ Billy asked, but before he could get an answer, the elevator stopped, the doors opened, and Billy saw with his own eyes some of the behind the scenes magic that went into keeping this kingdom alive.

The elevator opened on a well-lit hall that was nearly as crowded and busy as the tourist packed streets above it. All around, people dressed in blue walked back and forth carrying countless files, papers, and briefcases. In that regard it looked to Billy like any big corporation office he had ever seen on TV. However, that did nothing to explain the oddities that he saw. Most easily spotted was the fact that everyone down here wore the famous, and God-awful silly, mouse-ear hats. Billy could understand such forced cheerfulness going on up top where the happy saps that visited this place could see it, but why these somber-faced worker bees would wear the cheesy beanies down here, where no one could see them, was beyond him.

Then there were the singular idiosyncrasies that would pop out of the crowd to catch Billy’s attention. Like the man walking two black goats through the hall on leashes, or the strange, low growling sounds coming from behind a door labeled ANIMATION UNDER DUBBING, or the large black dude with the skull-painted face that wore only a blue loincloth, a mouse-ear hat, and carried a long-bladed machete with red and black strips of cloth tied to its handle. When Billy was passed by someone dressed in blue doctor scrubs complete with paper mask, rodent-ear hat, and blue latex gloves smeared with wet blood, he once again thought about running, but knew it was too late for that. He would have to bide his time and keep his eyes open for now.

“So like I said, what is it you people do here?“ Billy asked, trying hard to sound calm.

“I told you, Billy, we make magic. We are the Kingdom of Magic, after all. What, did you think that was just a name?“

“Magic, huh?“ Despite all the weirdness down here, Billy wasn’t about to swallow that one. “I thought your place in California was the real Kingdom of Magic, not here.“

They passed a door that opened unto a room with a huge map of the theme park on the far wall. As Billy peeked in, he saw a series of red dots and lines superimposed upon that map by an unseen projector. The lines connected the dots and together they formed a pattern: a five pointed star, the star that anyone who had ever listened to a heavy metal CD or seen a horror movie knew was connected to witchcraft and the devil.

“Well yes, that is a Kingdom of Magic too, but then so is this,” the smiling man said while nodding to a woman passing them. She was dressed in a blue leather dominatrix outfit and carrying a bullwhip. She also wore the mouse-ear hat. “Both of our parks are located in lands that are connected to life. California, with Hollywood and its wealthy, beautiful people who go to any lengths to remain young and vibrant, is a nexus for the hopes and dreams of this great nation. California is more of a symbolic and empathic connection to youth and life to be sure, but a strong one nevertheless. While here in Florida, the connection to life is a far more tangible thing. Tell me, Billy, have you ever heard of the Fountain of Youth?“

“Yeah, sure I did.“ His answer wasn’t really a lie because Billy had heard the name before even if he didn’t really know anything about it.

“Well our Illustrious Founder,“ upon saying that, the well-dressed man and the hulking security guard both stopped, bowed their heads, and placed their balled up fists to both sides of their forehead. Once that latest bit of bizarreness was complete, they continued walking and the smiling man picked up talking as if he never stopped, “spurred on by His regretfully inevitable demise, and able to utilize nearly limitless financial resources, succeeded where Ponce de Leon could not. Unfortunately the mystical fountain did not live up to its overblown reputation, although it was proven that the power in its waters was greatly enhanced once crystallized.“

“Crystallized? You mean frozen?“

The man gazed down at Billy with an almost fatherly look of pride. “Yes, Billy, I mean frozen. Being that the fountain is in Florida, no one had ever tried to freeze the Waters of Life before we came.“

Twin light bulbs suddenly lit above Billy’s head. One was about him and the other was about the mysterious “Illustrious Founder”, so naturally Billy asked about the one concerning him first. “Hey, that’s like the third time you said my name, how do you know it? I didn’t tell you or anything.“

“Sure you did, Billy. You must have told me before we got into the elevator.“

“Oh…well I don’t remember doing that. Anyway, this founder guy you were talking about, you don’t mean -“

“Shhh,“ interrupted the older man with a wide-eyed look. “We don’t say His name, not since He went away. It’s not allowed.“ Once again both the executive and Mr. Pitt stopped, bowed, and put their balled up fists to the sides of their heads.

Oh man, Billy thought as he suddenly understood what they were doing, they’re making little, round mouse ears with their hands on the sides of their heads. Just like how Dad would sometimes cross himself before Mom died and he gave up on God.

From behind another closed door Billy could hear chanting in some weird language and the clucking of a chicken. The clucking soon became terrified chicken-screams that were cut short by the sound of something heavy chopping into wood and the chanters simultaneously letting out an almost orgasmic cry.

Just keep Mr. Fancypants talking until you see an exit and then run for it. These crazy bastards can keep their two hundred dollars.
Billy thought, then said, “So what exactly do you want me to do?“

“We want you to help us get the magic back, Billy. You see, somewhere along the way we lost it. Ever since He left us, things just haven’t been the same. I’m sure you have noticed it in our movies.“

“Not really. I don’t watch a lot of cartoons.“

The well-dressed man looked surprised and perhaps a little sad. “Well nowadays I guess I can’t blame you too much. Gone are the grand days of Jumbo, The Sleeping Princess, and 102 Dachshunds. It’s as if we just can’t do it correctly without Him. Our audience is shrinking, people are ignoring the messages we put into our cartoons, and just look at what’s happening to the youth of America because of it!“

The man stopped and let his smiling facade drop for a moment as he gave Billy a look of disgust.

“Uh-huh,“ Billy replied, not really listening. His attention was focused on a disfigured, hunchbacked dwarf about three feet in height that was pushing a cart filled to overflowing with old, leather bound books. As the cart passed, Billy looked at the top book but couldn’t make out the title. It was called NECRO-something-or-other.

“So it was decided by the Sacred Holders of the Stocks that we had to bring Him back.“ Again, both men made the mouse-ear gesture. “Even though it was not yet His time to return. So naturally we went to France.“

“Huh, what… France?“ Billy turned to the young-looking old man. That was when he noticed the steam coming out of the man’s mouth. There was also steam coming out of Billy’s own nose as his warm breath clouded in the cold air.

Man, when did it get so cold in here?

“Yes, France, surely you have heard of the Holy Grail? No? Well no matter, France was a complete disaster. We lost billions, not to mention hundreds of followers. Damn Templars. It took every bit of power we had to survive that fiasco and keep things quiet, let me tell you.“

A thought then struck Billy that caused him to stop. “So, why are you telling me this?“

Pitt the guard continued walking. The hallway was coming to an end and two large, ornately carved doors awaited them. The well-dressed man stopped and turned to Billy. “We want you to understand just how important you helping us is, not only to the Company, but to the good old U.S. of A and the future of children everywhere. Things were so much better when He was with us and we know that He will make everything right as rain once He is fully awake.“

Realization, like the frigid air around him, chilled Billy to the bone. Something really bad was about to happen to him, he was sure of it.

“What are you going to do to me?“ asked the terrified little boy who once harbored delusions of being a badass.

“What we have to do, for Him.“ The man beamed a radiant smile before nodding to the giant security guard at the double doors.

Mr. Pitt grunted as he pushed the doors open and an arctic blast of air filled the hall. From the room beyond came the sound of squeaking, clanking metal and an eerie pale blue glow. Then into the archway stepped an all-too familiar silhouette backlit in cold blue. The long nose ending at a black bulb, huge round ears, big yellow shoes, and immense, four-fingered white gloves: the shape was unmistakable.

Billy’s first panicked thought was,
Holy shit, he’s real. Then he saw that it was just another guy in a mascot costume. He had seen fools dressed like that all day today. But that realization didn’t calm Billy down at all because this giant rodent also wore a leather butcher’s apron stained with years of spilt blood.

“Oh fuck!“ Billy shouted and spun on his heels to make a dash for it, only to slam into a wall just inches behind him. The wall was brightly painted with pictures of all of the Kingdom of Magic’s famous cartoon characters on it and it appeared to be made out of patches of leather sewn together. When Billy saw that a nipple with a gold ring hanging from it was part of the patchwork wall, he let loose a long pent up scream of terror.

“You see, we still have some magic left, but not enough I’m afraid, not by a long shot. That’s why we need you, Billy. Mr. Pitt, would you be so kind?“

Billy glanced over his shoulder and saw the hulking guard reaching toward him. For the first time since meeting him, Billy saw Mr. Pitt smile, and the teeth behind those stretched lips were sharp and yellow.

Billy tore at the wall of stitched-together skins but couldn’t even scratch its gaily painted surface. A huge hand clamped onto the back of his neck and Billy was lifted off of his feet and carried down the hall towards the cold, blue-lit room and the giant, blood-stained mouse.

The room beyond the doors was little more than a large crater in the ground. In its center was a mound of earth and from that a huge crystalline column of ice rose up. White clouds of frost billowed all around the ice shard and the blue light that filled the room was radiating out from the frozen column. The flickering light gave off no warmth, whatsoever, and revealed someone or something frozen within the ice.

Around the frozen fountain stood a ring of people all dressed in long blue robes with hoods covering their heads. On top of the hoods were the ever-present mouse ears.

Overhead ran a complex line of chains, gears and pulleys. Dangling from the chains every two feet or so were long hooks. Billy watched the slowly rotating hooks as Pitt held him aloft by the neck. The man in the mouse suit took a knife from his belt and cut the clothes from Billy’s body, gashing him in several places as he did so. Then the cartoon butcher bound the boy’s hands above his head with thick rope.

Billy felt little of this, his eyes were riveted to the chains overhead, specifically to one hook in particular that had something hanging from it. As Billy was lifted up and hung by the ropes around his wrists on his own hook, he got a good look at the dangling thing that captivated him. It was the dried, shriveled, nude corpse of a woman. The desiccated thing looked like a mummy and could have been a thousand years old or more if not for her long black hair with the bright crimson streaks in it.

“Oh God no, please no,“ Billy cried. “You can’t do this to me.“ Then a glimmer of hope came to him. “Hey, what about my parents, huh? My parents will be looking for me, you can’t get away with this you son of a bitch! They’ll be looking for me.“

The well-dressed man, who was now wearing his own mouse-ear hat, shook his head slowly and said, “No, Billy, I don’t think they will.“ He gestured into the crater below.

Billy followed the pointing finger until he saw two of the blue robed figures pull back the mouse-ear hoods and smile up at him. It was his dad and his stepmother. Next to them stood two tiny robed figures with hoods still drawn up. They were swaying back and forth and giggling at him.

“No! Dad, please, help me!“

His dad looked a bit shaken by Billy’s outburst but he stood resolute. “Sorry son, but you’re a disappointment and you know it. I guess some of that is my fault, I could have been a better father, but well, it’s too late for that now.“

“But why, Daddy?“ Billy pleaded as he rotated overhead, getting closer and closer to the column of ice.

“Well it was Tina’s idea. You would have been a bad influence on the twins. With you gone, we have a chance to do things right by Kim and Ken, not to mention make the world a better place.“

“And we get to be filthy rich, too,“ Billy’s stepmother shouted without a trace of remorse.

“Fuck you bitch!“ Billy screamed. “Fuck all of you, you crazy assholes.“

“You see,“ the well-dressed man said, “that’s the problem with the kids today, no respect for their elders.“

Billy was about to unleash a torrent of defiant obscenities, but the chain holding him stopped moving. He was now directly above the glowing, icy column.

The hook he hung from started to lower and he began to descend towards the ice. Billy looked down to see that the column was hollow and in its center a dark, man-sized thing lurked. As he got closer, Billy felt the incredible cold radiating out from the hollow shard. It froze his tears to his cheeks and instantly dried up his running nose.

He was sinking into the center of the column, surrounded on all sides by shimmering blue-white ice. As he sank lower and lower, Billy heard something even over his own sobs and the chanting that the circle of robed, mouse-eared people outside had begun. It was a rustling, crinkling sound and it was coming from beneath him.

Not wanting to look down but unable to stop himself, Billy saw a frost covered thing twitching and shuddering beneath him. It shook a layer of rime from its body like a snake shedding skin. Then a head that was little more than a skull bound in withered, bluish flesh looked up at him through frozen, unmoving eyes. Thin, withered lips peeled back from yellowed teeth and a dry whisper wafted up.

“Hello little boy, what’s your name? You can call me Uncle if you like.“

Then Billy, who had thought he was all screamed out, began to scream from the depths of his soul. Outside of the icy tomb, faithful followers in ear hats chanted and prayed, and above them crowds of happy tourists continued to enjoy one of the happiest days of their lives.

And as night fell and the lights came on in the Kingdom of Magic they seemed to shine just the tiniest bit brighter than before.

EXHIBITION: THE AUTHOR AS FOSSIL

James Ebersole

It had always been Chauncey Anton Nicoletti’s ambition in life to be a writer, and not just any writer, but one of the greats, a man of historical note, remembered long after all of the bullies, his so called peers, were rotting in the ground.

They mocked him in middle school. They mocked him in high school. They mocked him in college (well, they would have if he had gone, which he didn’t because he saw what was coming for him!)

When he put out his first collection of short stories he hoped to finally be recognized and accepted. But that didn’t happen. He was only mocked even more.

But while they were mocking, he was making plans. He was going to be the most well preserved and remembered writer to ever live. Long after sea level rises and drowns Hemingway’s house in Key West, or Brite’s in New Orleans. Long after the statues of Shakespeare and Dickinson crumble to the ground. Long after all things Lovecraft are swept into a far corner of the cosmos, and the houses of Poe fall amidst the rubble of the cities that claim them. Long after all this and more. He would outlast it all, for he had a plan.

He was going to fossilize himself.

Sure, he tended to go off on tangents from time to time, and wasn’t afraid to speak his mind about his enemies, but he didn’t understand why his videos got so many negative comments. His final video said only this:

“Hey everyone, Chauncey here. This is my last video, and to all my enemies, I only have one thing to say. You think you all are hot shots, writers who have succeeded. But you haven’t and never will. You’ll die and be forgotten. You can’t win. But C.A.N. can. And C.A.N. is me, Chauncey. See you on the other side of the lake.”

The comments came in swarms.

They thought he had lost it (though they’ve thought that for a while) and that the video was a suicide note.
Let them think that.
Even if the process was technically a suicide, it was killing off a sub-par life to pave the way to a greater existence.

He drove the stolen car twenty miles south, to the lake that would seal and fulfill his fate.

In the trunk were all the books he had never sold. He tied bundles of these together, joined to ropes knotted around his arms and legs. These would weigh him down. All the way down, to the bottom of the lake, where trilobites and other things have clung to the darkness, to outlast eras, to be preserved.

He dove into the water, black as the sky above it, black as the t-shirt crumpled on the stony shore, black as the ink of the text on a page, black as his heart.

His long dark hair billowed in the water around him. He dove deeper into the murky depths. When he could no longer see the moonlight above, he stopped paddling.

And as the oxygen deprivation was taking hold, he felt a momentary sensation of being flipped around, and could not make out which way was up, or down. And in that moment of disorientation, doubts crept into his mind.

What if a revered literary immortality was not his destiny? What if death was the end of him? What if he had been the villain all along?

But no. He wasn’t. He was something greater.

He was the writer. He was the fossil. He was, in his darkening and fading mind, one with the lake.

66,666 years later, at the Milky Way Museum:

The girl wandered away from the rest of the field trip tour group, to a forgotten corner of the museum where bits and bobs of organic matter from the first modern era sat in dusty, climate controlled cases. The half remembered menagerie formed a ‘U’ shape around the centerpiece of the exhibit, a fossilized human, the remnants of his face hinting at a sublime yet anticipatory agony.

The plaque on the pedestal at his feet simply read:

‘THE WRITER’

Carbon dating put’s ‘the Writer’s’ death at circa 2000 AD. Because of the prevalence of a ‘print only’ catalogue of work by the more technophobic and copyright obsessed writers of the era, it is doubtful works penned by ‘the Writer’ have survived.

However, the cryptic nature of the fossil encouraged wild speculation about the man. Anything with an anonymous or indeterminate authorship was attributed, at first jokingly, to the writer. This soon caught on in more legitimate academic citations and cataloging practices in the aftermath of the EARTH ARCHIVE Wipe of 2214.

‘The Writer’ currently has

67953686439694766680867856668196783466654758069079375768798666
written works attributed to him by the Library of the Universe.

Even in the moment the girl’s eyes scanned the digital counter, the number changed a dozen times.

The spinning numbers, rapidly increasing with each second, nauseated the girl. She began to make her way to the rest of the group over by the space exploration exhibit. But she felt a nagging sense of something similar to a hot breath on the back of her neck. She turned around, craning her neck up at the fossil.

The fossil looked down at her, and smiled.

THE SURFACE BENEATH

Michael Burnside

It was on a hot, muggy day some twenty years ago when Jamie Dugan suggested we go for a swim. I was fourteen. Jamie was fifteen. The lake was called Fossil Lake by most of the kids on account that you could find fossils of shells and small crustaceans all along its shores. I called it Mud Lake. The water was always murky. You couldn’t see anything in front of you once you had swum a few feet below the surface. Fish would often brush past your legs and, in the shallower areas, plants growing up from the bottom would grab at your feet.

I hated that lake.

I agreed to go to the lake with Jamie right away. You have to understand, it was Jamie Dugan, the most popular kid in school, asking me to go. I’d been lucky enough to have grown up in the house right next door to his. I was friends with him before he ever became popular, and managed to hold onto that friendship even after his social circle exploded. Without Jamie, I’d have been sitting in the far corner of the lunchroom with that kid who dresses funny. Jamie was the key to all the friends I had in school, so when Jamie asked me to do something, I did it.

We arrived at the lake in the afternoon. The sun was high overhead baking the mud on the shore into a crunchy crust that hurt to walk on. I remember insects chanting in that strange rhythm that rises and falls, a sound that provides the background music to every summer outing on a hot day. Growing and dying vegetation clustered in the shallows , giving off a smell that was a mix of fresh cut grass and decay. The lake was shaped like a kidney, a mile across at its widest point. It was supposedly thirty feet deep in the center.

Jamie ran out in front of me, his blond hair bright in the sun, his eyes impossibly blue. “Today we’re touching the bottom!” He pulled his shirt off and kicked away his shoes.

“Can’t we just try swimming across the narrow part ?” I asked. I understood that we needed a challenge. Adolescent males can’t just do a thing for the fun of it. They must always be proving themselves lest their fragile egos collapse like a deflated balloon.

But my ego be damned, I had no desire to try to reach the bottom of the lake. We had tried it before, swam down into the murk, our lungs straining, our heads aching from the pressure. You had to know when to quit, when to head back up. Push yourself too far, quit too late, and you wouldn’t have enough air to reach the surface. The last time we had swum for the bottom, I had thought I was going to die.

Jamie dismissed my suggestion with a “Nah.” He tramped through the weeds and splashed into the water.

It didn’t even occur to me refuse. I accepted my fate glumly. I took off my shirt and kicked off my shoes. I winced in pain as my bare feet stepped on the jagged surface of dried red mud. Tall grass scraped the skin on my legs as I walked into the brown water. The mud beneath the water oozed up between my toes. The water wasn’t cold. The water in Fossil Lake was always spit warm. I waded into the lake, the mud trying to hold onto my every step, until I was in deep enough to swim. Jamie waited for me, bobbing up and down in the brown slop. We weren’t at the center of the lake, but we were well past the point where the bottom dropped away. We were far enough out that the fish that brushed past felt massive. The flick of their tails was strong enough to push your offending limbs out of their way.

“Ready?” asked Jaime.

I wasn’t. Had I known what was about to happen, I would have realized I never would be. I inhaled and exhaled in long slow breaths, trying to prime my body with oxygen. Jamie waited patiently, confident in his ability to hold his breath for several minutes or more. It wasn’t a lack of air that had stymied his past attempts to reach the bottom but a lack of direction. The disorientation of swimming blind had always resulted in him swimming up when he thought he was going down. Direction had not been my problem, rather it had been a lack of nerve. I resolved that this time I would give it everything I had. This time I was going to come back up with a fistful of mud to show Jaime. He’d brag about my feat at school. I might even become cool enough to stand on my own.

I sucked in as deep a breath as I could and then nodded to Jaime. Jamie inhaled deeply, and then flipped upside down. His legs kicked furiously and he vanished beneath the surface leaving great bubbles of foam behind.

I dove down after him. After the first few strokes, I could still see his feet off to my left, but after a few more strokes, they vanished into the brown gloom. I tried to pace myself, to not use up too much energy and air with useless flailing. I moved my legs back and forth smoothly. I reached forward with both my hands, flexed them into cups, and then pulled them back to my sides with wide sweeps. I was maybe ten feet down when I lost sight of my hands.

I pulled myself deeper into the brown realm. It grew darker with every kick. I began to feel the water pressing in on me. It pushed on my temples and shoved in my stomach. This was where the disorientation kicked in, where up and down become impossible to tell apart. The natural buoyancy of the human body urges it to rise. Tired sloppy strokes shift one’s direction. But I knew the trick was to simply swim toward the black. That had to be the way down; that had to be the path to glory.

I shoved myself down farther. My lungs were beginning to burn.

Something large swam past me. I felt the sharp edge of a fin cut into my face. I clamped my jaw shut, willing myself not to scream. I was still moving. I had to be close. With every stroke I expected my hands to touch the bottom, at any moment my face would smack into the muck.

But instead the water began to brighten, the dark brown giving way to caramel. I thought I had somehow gotten myself turned around. I inwardly cursed in frustration, but my survival instinct was ecstatic. My body was spent, my lungs were on fire. I pushed my way up toward the light. My body’s natural tendency to float helped lift me through the water. I gained speed quickly and the shimmering surface rushed toward me like a freight train. I came up so fast that half my body rose up out of the water. I breathed in deeply.

The smell of sulfur burned my throat. I hacked and coughed and almost inhaled water as I plunged back beneath the surface. I came up sputtering, gasping, and choking. As I treaded water, trying to catch my breath, I noticed that everything in the world looked wrong. Everything was gray.

The water was gray. The shoreline was gray, as if dark charcoal coated every bit of ground. The sky was gray. At first I thought that I had held my breath too long. I must have burst a blood vessel in my brain and now could only see in black and white.

But then I saw Jamie bobbing in the water a few yards to my left, his bronze tanned skin and blond hair a stark contrast to the colorless world that surrounded us.

I felt something running down the side of my face. I reached up and touched it and found my fingers colored red. I heard a soft dripping sound and looked down. The drops of blood falling from my face looked like tiny red cherries dropping off a branch. The fish that had cut into me had gotten me good.

I looked around for any sign that this was the Fossil Lake I knew. Perhaps some freak storm had hit while we were underwater and had dumped a strange gray powder on everything. But nothing looked familiar. There were no plants along the water’s edges. Instead, large gray rocks lined the shore. There was a warped dead tree a dozen feet back from the shoreline. It had four trunks that joined together into a single twisted shaft that rose up and then bent down like a worshiper before some unseen altar.

I had never seen anything like this place. All I knew was that we had to get back home and the only way I could think of to do that was to go back the way we came.

“We have to swim back down!” I yelled at Jaime.

Jamie ignored me. His eyes were wide open and his mouth partially agape. Something else had his attention. I followed the direction of his gaze. That’s when I saw the thing that would steal my life.

Reclining on a gray rock was a woman with ash colored skin. She had a perfectly symmetrical face, full gray lips, and round eyes that appeared to glow white. Long silver hair flowed down across her back and draped off the side of the rock. She was covered by a piece of linen that looked like smoke. The fabric was translucent, allowing us to see her smooth back, the curves of her hips, and long shapely legs. She was beautiful, but I somehow knew she wasn’t really human.

Jamie swam toward her; perhaps his mind was filled with the tales of daring spacemen who always managed to bed beautiful female aliens.

I yelled at him to stop, pleaded with him that we had to go back, that we had to try swimming back down. He paid me no mind.

I swam after him but found it difficult to make much progress. The water had an oily, greasy feel to it. It beaded and ran off my skin like rain on a waxed car hood. Jaime’s larger limbs propelled him through the strange liquid at a far better pace. I saw him reach the shore and approach the thing. I paddled furiously, but just ended up splashing more.

I saw Jamie clamber out of the water and walk up to the gray woman. She sat up and looked at him, her robe of smoke shifting and barely covering an ample bosom.

I kept swimming. As soon as I could touch the bottom, I began trying to run. The mud in the lake engulfed my feet. Great clumps of it shifted beneath me as I willed my legs to move me onward. I dug a trench there, my feet scooping and shoving mud behind me. My chest was out of the water when I saw Jamie trying to talk to her. The water was churning around my knees when I saw her bend down to him.

He had raised his hand to stroke her hair. She smiled at him and brought her face close to his, as if to kiss him. Then she opened her mouth revealing rows and rows of sharp little teeth. She chomped down on his arm.

Jamie screamed and tried to pull away. She slid off the rock upon which she had been lying and stood up on perfectly formed gray feet. She grabbed Jaime’s arm with both hands and continued to bite down.

My legs were free of the water. I ran up the slight bank and seized a log I had spied on the ground. The wood felt wet and warm and wrong somehow, but I ignored that and charged the creature. I swung the log at the back of her head. It connected hard with a loud smack, but I felt the log give way as if it were flesh instead of wood. Though I had not delivered the crushing blow I had hoped, she did release Jaime. He fell away from her with his arm drenched in blood.

I pulled the log back and swung at her again. And that is when I lost my self. She reached out and grabbed my wrist, stopping my swing with ease. Her touch burned my skin, not with heat but with the frigid pain an ice cube delivers when it is stuck on your flesh. I felt something leave my body. My center felt hollowed out. My heart was chilled.

I screamed. I ripped my arm free of her grip. I dropped the log, which had somehow become a wiggling creature. I grabbed onto Jaime and dragged him toward the lake.

Sometimes the body acts on pure instinct, even after the soul in the body is gone.

We ran into the lake, splashing through its oily water. Jamie was in a daze. His arm was bleeding heavily. Bright red syrupy strands fell to coat the gray surface with color. The creature that had touched me had held him for much longer. He too was just a shell. But I refused to give in to despair. I never was very good at knowing when a fight was over.

I screamed at Jaime, “We have to swim down to get back home!” Jamie looked at me and blinked. I think he understood what I was saying. I had no idea if what I was saying was true or not.

Then the tree behind Jamie moved. It unwound the bent over top trunk and lifted its head. Glowing white eyes stared at me. The gray woman was pointing at us and yelling at the moving tree in some guttural language. The tree pulled its four bottom trunks out of the ground. The roots that formed the thing’s feet looked like the paddles of the model plesiosaur I had seen in the natural history museum. But this thing was no extinct water dinosaur, it very much existed in the present, and it came towards us in a skittering rush.

In a panic, I decided I had helped Jamie all I could. He’d have to swim on his own. I turned and scrambled deeper into the lake. Jamie followed . I heard him splashing behind me. I also heard a louder splash, one that displaced a great deal of water. The tree thing was now in the lake with us.

I pushed my feet out from under me and started to swim as soon as I could. As a child, there had been many times when I forced myself to swim faster by pretending that an alligator or shark was after me. Well, a real predator was behind me now, and adrenaline flowed through my veins. It took all I had to focus, not to just frantically paw at the water, but to move through it with long powerful strokes.

The surface color of any body of water appears darker where it is deeper. That was true for even this gray filth. When I left the chalk colored water for the elephant colored, I took a deep breath and dove down.

As I swam down, I concentrated on moving as fast as I could with as little energy as possible. I made every motion smoothly. Every movement connected with every other and all served the purpose of driving me down into the lake. I concentrated on these things to make good my escape, but mostly to prevent my mind from freezing in fear.

The gray water grew dark quickly and soon became black. I swam down blindly. In the black, my mind slipped free of the cage in which I had placed it. What if all this was for nothing? What if there was no way out? Any moment I might hit the bottom and get a face-full of mud.

I swam anyway. Although I was terrified on one level, I was oddly detached on another. Something had already been taken from me. The thing that made me me was gone. I swam because I was like a twitching tail dropped by a lizard. Even though it had been left behind by its host, the tail still twitched because that was all it knew how to do. My body fled, because the body places its own survival above all other things. My body fled because that was all it knew how to do.

My chest ached from my exertions. My lungs were unhappy with the quick breath I had taken. They wanted more, soon. Then the blackness turned to dark brown.

I swam harder, willed myself forward faster than I have ever swam before or since. The brown brightened to caramel. I felt the pressure of the water come off my face. I felt myself being lifted up by my buoyancy. Soon, I saw light shimmering through the water.

I broke through the surface and gulped in air. It didn’t hurt me. The air was full and sweet and life giving. Even the smell of rotting vegetation did not dissuade me from breathing it in. Everything was as it should have been. The sky was blue. Plants and dried mud lined the shoreline of the brown lake. There was no woman seeking to feed on me, no tree man waiting on shore to crush me.

The thought of the tree thing spurred me back into action. If I could come up through the lake, then so could it. My body kicked back into flight mode. I swam hard for the shore. I heard a splash and I managed to over-ride my body’s flight instinct long enough to look back.

Jamie had made it through. He floated there for a moment taking in large breaths. Then he saw me. His gaze looked like the thousand yard stare war veterans sometimes get. He looked at me, but he also looked through me. I don’t think I looked real to him.

He began to swim toward me anyway. He moved on his side, dragging his useless arm alongside him beneath the surface. He was about halfway to me when something grabbed him and pulled him under.

I looked at the ripples that marked where he had disappeared in shock.

He came up again, his head and face bleeding. He reached out for me, mouthing words I couldn’t hear. Something pulled him under again, this time with an incredible amount of force. A plume of water shot into the sky from where he had vanished. The survival instinct in my body took over again. I swam for the edge of the lake as fast as I could. With every kick, I expected something to crush my toes or to take hold of an ankle and snap my foot clean off.

I was so focused on swimming away my hands and chest hit mud before I realized I was in the shallows. I stood up breathing hard, covered in muck, and I ran. My feet were painfully crunching across the dried mud before I looked back.

I saw nothing. There was no trace of Jaime. The water on the lake was glass smooth. There was no indication that anything had happened.

I ran all the way back to my parents’ house. In between gasping sobs, I told my mother that I had seen Jamie go under. I hadn’t seen him come back up. I said nothing about other worlds or monsters.

Emergency crews were called and an intense search of the lake commenced. They found nothing. I was accused of lying about seeing Jamie drowning, but Jaime’s parents soon confirmed that he was missing.

In the days that followed, the search turned into recovery. A pair of small boats ran a chain across the bottom . They found nothing.

A memorial was eventually held for Jaime. A plaque was put up near the lake. I was instructed to never swim there again.

What my parents didn’t realize is that neither Jamie or I had actually survived. Jamie had lost his soul and body; I had just lost my soul. Perhaps it would have been better if I had lost my body as well.

I can still feel fear, hunger, desperation... all the instincts a body gives us. But things like love or joy, those are things that come from the soul, and so they are beyond me. So very much is beyond me. Food can be flavorful but I cannot savor it. Friendship can be given to me but I cannot return it. I can hear music but it cannot move me. I am a vacant aging husk. An empty vessel that has no real purpose now that what was inside has been taken.

Despite my parents’ wishes, I have been back to that lake many times, seeking to regain what that creature took from me. I have run my hands through the sludge at the bottom of the lake. I have clawed at it, dug it up, thrown dynamite onto it, but all to no avail. The door to that other world is closed.

So now I wait, getting older, living but dead. I wait but I am always ready. When the lake claims its next victim, when the door is again open, I will dive down into that chasm, come out the other side, and find a way to kill everything I see.

I will die or I will get my soul back. Either way, I will know peace again. Either way, I will be free of that damn lake.

BEYOND THE BONEYARD GATE

Alicia Austen

“The next three houses are empty,” says the old man, pointing to his right. His hand is uncommonly smooth, creaseless. “The gingerbread ones.”

I swivel the cap back onto my camera lens, and look past his outstretched arm to the trio of decaying, pastel-colored mansions. They are lovely but beaten-up, just my sort of thing.

“They ain’t as old as they look, but they’re plenty old at that. Built by three brothers right before the war. That’d be the Great War to you an’ me. Gotta be a hundred years old by now, though they look like refugees from the nineteenth century. Anyway, all the brothers came back alive. None of ‘em ever married. Lived to be real old. Hell, I was middle-aged by the time the last of ‘em died. That’s been thirty years. Their cousin’s kid owns the houses now. She’s older’n me and lives upstate. Don’t think I’ve seen her since the last of ‘em was buried.”

He falls silent long enough to climb the stairs, extending his thought as soon as his feet fall flat against the boards of the porch.

“No one would know if you went pokin’ around the back with your camera. Even though the houses are separate, they share a yard. The fence you see on this side wraps around the lot of ‘em. They were a peculiar set, those brothers. It’s a real boneyard back there, too. Kind of like the insides of a museum was tossed outside and left to rot. There’s beauty in everything, I suppose. Even in neglect.”

I thank him for letting me take photographs in his tidy garden, what he called a real widower’s hobby.

“An old man has to spend his days doing something, especially when the nights are so long,” was how he explained away its size and neatness.

I’m already walking street-side, halfway to the brothers’ boneyard gate, when his voice, followed directly by the shutting of a door, reaches the back of my head.

“You’ll want to watch where you step, miss.”

I’m a dust collector. I love junk, old things. The entire array of ROY G. BIV can be found in the right rusted object, if you pay close enough attention. Imperfection photographs better than beauty. It holds up to repeated viewings to a degree that flawlessness cannot. It’s never the same thing twice. I’ve learned, quickly, that there are advantages to living in a place with history etched on every surface and on every face.

My husband and I have lived in this small Southern town for three months, but it feels like six. Everyone is polite and voluble, but conversations never go anywhere. They speak in anecdotes, mostly about long-dead relatives or neighbors. I’ve no idea what most acquaintances do for a living, but I know how the breath of scandal hit their husband’s cousin’s father-in-law’s grandfather 60 years ago.

The people are closed to us, but the scenery is not. The crumbly old buildings that run down Main Street tell better stories than the townsfolk do, and are less threatened by outsiders. Healthy, bright flowers that bloom to past human height are neatly ensconced behind erect hedges. There are statues wherever one glances.
Polished, clean-edged, or impressively decayed, they live in parks, cemeteries, and on admirably shellacked front lawns.

Nothing is ever really fixed here; it’s just shined up or loudly painted, and presented as good enough. This sloppy philosophy is mesmerizing. I am anxious to discover what treasures are waiting beyond the brothers’ shabby gate. Shading myself from the piercing arrows of an army of sunbeams, I step inside.

There is so much visual chaos that I’ve no idea where to rest my eyes. I start counting statues to steady my nerves. After four careful surveys, and a temporary miscount, I decide that there are twenty-seven.

They are spread, seemingly without any rational thought or eye for aesthetics, across the span of all three lawns. Or, what would have been three lawns had these brothers been a mite less emotionally conjoined.

Yet, the longer one stares-gapes, really, like an ill-mannered child-the more one becomes convinced that there is a strange, haphazard pattern at play. The statues look as if they were frozen in the midst of a foot race or hedonistic frolic: some appear to be in solitary flight, whilst others are jumbled together in faintly frightening yet awkward groupings, engaged in conversations that will never be finished. Time has not been kind to the materials they were crafted with; it is impossible to tell what most of them represent. Not knowing what they are seems a terrible unkindness.

What is truly alarming, though, is the state of their faces. Most of their features have been sloughed off; due to exposure to the elements or poor construction I am not entirely certain. Some have retained the curve of a nose or the upturn of a lip, but most are merely pock-marked surfaces gouged through with empty mouth holes or a single jagged nostril. They all have intact ears, which, I realize with a shudder, sounds like something straight out of a particularly vengeful piece of Greek mythology.

I’ve not composed a single image, and I’ve been standing here for at least ten minutes. There is too much to make sense of in one visit, but I know that I will not have time to return whilst the weather holds warm. Deciding it best to take a few moments to gather my thoughts, I sit down under the shade of the only tree and pull out a book of Ibsen’s plays.

I love reading aloud in strange places, and this boneyard
– this decrepit museum
– is the strangest of all. Cemeteries, for all their contained death, are orderly and peaceful. Here, the irregularities could not be bleached away by a dozen alien suns. I read for a few minutes, my voice barely above a whisper, but cannot escape the aching thought that this place
– which is just a regular backyard run amok
– is ripe with secrets. Ibsen is too logical a companion for this scene and I shut the book before the last few words trail off.

Then, there are the poppies. They are strong and perfect, and are everywhere a statue does not stand. One must walk on them uncaring, like grass, or remain fixed by the gate like a statue oneself.
Every greedy inch of the ground is a deep bloody-orange. I rise, clutching at my book and camera, before I am devoured by claustrophobia.

As my eyes continue adjusting to this richly orchestrated madness, layer upon layer of details emerge. Small trinkets and ephemera are strewn on and amongst the statues. Together, they form a grandmother’s attic of random memorabilia: empty, faded envelopes; a frayed, dusty-pink pillbox hat; a table top artist’s easel; a blue Hermes Baby typewriter with rusty keys; costume jewelry with missing stones; a decayed oar; a bicycle basket; a purple high-heeled satin slipper; a gold-plated lighter. For every step I turn, I see at least a dozen new objects fading in and out of the poppies. They tease me with their solidness, only to disappear a second or two later. Blinking my eyes does not bring them back. Dusk is here.

I am walking now, quickly and deliberately, towards the gate.
I’m unnerved, and have to stifle the impulse to run through the poppies until the hard comforting pavement of the street is underneath. Solid, drab. Safe.

My left arm rams into the cold, slimy surface of a statue. I scream, and do not move. The face has been eaten away, exposing an incomprehensibly rotted stone skull that looks almost as human as it does inanimate. Foulness lives here, inside this ugly thing, quarantined from all that is rational. It is a soldier, wrecked beyond identification except for the tattered cap on its head. The cap is real. He is a doughboy. He smells of cigarettes.

No, I catch myself. I smell cigarettes. Someone has to be smoking something strong, nearby. It must be the widower next door. I turn to move away, away from this statue, so maleficent and disturbing, and doubly away from the ridiculous spasms of my imagination. I close my eyes.

I open them on the inhale. Smoke laps against my prickly face. A bright orange dot glows from the statue like a pulsating beacon, growing and then receding with each pull of breath. His breath. Moonlight glances off of a face whose features are re-forming before me, as stone becomes flesh and sinew. I pant, voiceless, and do not scream again.

My senses are diverted, for the space of a few heartbeats, by a rustling sound emerging from the West.
The old widower steps out of the shadows of his house. He stares at me, and grins; his teeth are like white flares in the night, illuminating the darkness with horrifying clarity.

My hands go slack, as the camera and book are drowned in the smooth sea of poppies.

CRITTER MARROW

Patrick Lacey

Make your dick three times larger with Ventrimex.

Gary rolled his eyes and clicked delete.

The next one was for a free subscription to a bestiality magazine, followed by tickets to a swinger’s party in Bangkok. There were a few notices that he’d won a contest of some sort. To redeem his prize, all he had to do was enter his Social Security number, date of birth, and address.

He checked his watch. It was nearly six and his boss had told him the company junk folder had to be emptied before he could leave for the weekend. He’d almost told Emily to fuck off but he’d bitten his tongue. From what he’d heard, the internship was close to becoming a full-time position, and with his college loan grace period ending in two months, he couldn’t afford to make any such rash decision.

Me horny long time with you and your uncle. Call me now.

Where the hell did this stuff come from? He’d never thought twice about his own junk mail, usually deleted it as soon as it appeared, but if you spent nearly two hours treading through the stuff, searching for any important messages that may have accidentally been flagged as spam, you got to wondering.

Gary scrolled down and saw he was nearly done now. Only a handful left.

Sir, may I ask of you a favor for my starving family and our dogs?

Delete.

My pussy is waiting for you.

Delete.

He stopped himself on the next one, nearly ready to delete it like the others. It looked like an email from a concerned customer, seemed legitimate. He moved it over to his inbox. He’d deal with it on Monday and let Emily know he’d found something after all.

New study finds meat is cause of aids, cancer, pedophilia, and arthritis.

Delete.

Dolly Dix has shared an album with you.

Delete. Just one more now. He could feel the weekend calling to him.

He clicked on the email.

Critter Marrow.

His finger hovered over the mouse, ready to click the moment he was sure it was junk like the others.

A picture appeared in the body of the email. It was hard to make out at first. Gary had to squint and lean back to make sense of it. When it began to come together, he tensed.

It was an image of a dog-like thing. It had mangy fur and it looked emaciated beyond return, bones threatening to burst from paper-thin skin. It stood over a man, who lay on the floor, shackles on his ankles and wrists. In the background were three figures watching the scene. They had no faces, just smooth flesh where there should have been eyes and noses and mouths.

For a moment the image felt less static, as if it were a window into the actual scene, into whatever madness was on the screen in front of him. He could imagine the dog-thing opening its uneven jaw and digging into the chained man. He felt uneasy, like the faceless figures could see him at his desk.

The words somehow bothered him the most, like they meant something he could never possibly understand, something so outside what he knew his mind could not begin to process their meaning.

Critter Marrow.

Gary’s hand ached from straining against the mouse.
What’re you waiting for?
he thought.
Just delete it and get the hell out of here. It’s Friday night. Your friends are waiting at the bar and this is just a piece of junk mail, nothing more.

He nodded. Of course it was nothing more. It was weird as hell—he’d admit that much—but it was some strange advertisement or thread just like the others. Emails were just words on a screen.

He took one last look at those awful figures and the dog-thing and clicked delete.

A small pinwheel appeared in place of the cursor, letting him know the computer was working its magic, sending the file away to the trash.

The words seemed to grow larger for a moment but it was just a trick of the eyes.

Critter Marrow.

Someone moved from behind. Gary spun around, ready to explain why the image was on his screen.

But there was no one there. He was the only one left on his floor save for a cleaning employee vacuuming across the way. He could have sworn otherwise.

When he turned back around the email was finished, the junk folder officially empty.

He logged off, grabbed his bag, and hurried downstairs.

At the front door, he realized he’d forgotten his sunglasses but there was no way in hell he was going back to his desk, not with the sun going down.

Not with those words still so fresh in his mind.

“What’s got you down?” Bradley asked.

Gary nearly jumped. He’d been spacing out. The band on stage was playing something soft and forgettable, nothing like their upbeat opening songs.

“Just tired is all,” he said, taking a sip of his beer. It had gone warm.

“Overtime again?”

He nodded. “Emily’s been on my back all week. I honestly think she wants me to snap at her. That’s why she keeps pushing me.”

“Don’t take it personally. She’s a bitch but she’s still your boss. Learn to deal with it if you want the job. We all put up with her and it pays off in the end. Trust me.”

“If you say so.”

“Another round?”

“Sounds good to me.” He handed Bradley his half empty glass and leaned back. The band was done with the boring tune now, stepping off stage for intermission and going outside to smoke. For a moment the bar was silent save for the chatter and clinking of glasses. It got under his skin somehow, like without the music his mind could wander to places he’d rather it didn’t.

His mind started to form the image and then the words.

A glass slammed down in front of him. His knee jerked upward, hitting the table. He winced and put pressure on it.

Bradley smirked. “Jesus, maybe you ought to go home and get some sleep.”

The thought of darkness and silence did nothing for his nerves. He grabbed the newly poured beer and drank it down in a half dozen gulps. The brain freeze seemed to clear his mind for a moment, making the words and the picture seem distant. “Maybe you’re right but I think I could use a few more of these first.”

He patted Bradley on the shoulder and headed for the bar. There was a line of four girls up front, all flirting and competing for the bartender’s attention.

Gary yawned and looked through the front windows. It was dark now and the streetlights were on, the closest one blinking frantically, a dying bulb. Across the street stood the band, passing a joint around and laughing at something.

Behind them, from the shadows of the alleyway, stood a figure. The darkness mostly obscured its features but even from here Gary could tell it had no face.

“What do you want?” the bartender asked but Gary didn’t answer. He made his way outside. The temperature had halved in the last hour. He zippered his sweatshirt.

He made his way across the street. A few cars swerved and beeped. The band’s drummer noticed Gary first, his eyebrows, both pierced, raising, as if Gary was coming over to start something with them.

The guy had a face. That much was for sure.

Gary checked all of them, making sure there were the correct amount of eyes and ears. Then he walked into the alleyway. A homeless man slept on the ground near the dumpster but Gary could see a grey beard. A cat meowed from somewhere nearby.

There was no sign of the figure from the picture.

Because it was just a picture and that’s all. Get a fucking grip.

He put a hand against the brick wall for balance. Suddenly he felt much drunker, the world spinning.

“Gary!” It was Bradley, crossing the street and heading his way. “That’s it, I’m calling you a cab.”

He wanted to protest but maybe sleep would do him good. He hadn’t noticed how tired he was until this very moment. It was an act of will to keep his eyes open. He thanked Bradley and hopped into the first cab that pulled up to the curb.

“I’ll see you on Monday,” Bradley said. “Get some rest. And don’t worry about Emily. Truth is, I think she likes you. I think you’ve got this job in the bag.”

Gary smiled, his head bobbing. He lay back in the seat and watched the bar recede in to the background. He double-checked the alleyway again but they were speeding off too fast.

And besides, he was just being paranoid.

The brightness woke him.

“Son of a bitch.” The sun. How was that possible? He felt like he’d only slept an hour or two at the most. There was a pounding in his head and ear canal, a hangover already taking shape in his skull.

He got out of bed and opened his eyes halfway, wincing at the light, ready to close his curtain.

But his curtain was wide open and the sun was nowhere to be found in the sky. It was pure blackness out there. His bedside clock was on. He read the numerals twice just to be sure. It was half past two in the morning.

His eyes followed the source of the brightness.

His laptop lay on his desk. It was flipped open and the screen was on, illuminating the room in a strange blue hue, distorting things, covering the walls in uneven shadows.

It had been closed and turned off when he’d stumbled into his room and passed out. He was sure of it. He was impeccable about those sorts of things, always gave his roommate shit for leaving the television or the fan on overnight. He walked over to the desk, reaching out to power it down, telling himself it was just a coincidence.

And batted his hand away when he saw what was on the screen, as if he’d been about to touch a spider’s web, trapping his finger in place, forced to wait for whatever had spun it in the first place.

The words on the screen stared at him and he stared back, unable to look away, though he wanted to badly. His headache seemed to triple and his heartbeat followed suit.

Critter Marrow.

It wasn’t an email for any sort of program he’d ever seen. There was simply a white background with the words typed in the middle of the screen in plain black lettering.

He forced his frozen arm to move forward and pressed escape.

Nothing happened.

He clicked the mouse a dozen or more times, trying to find a way to exit, but the words remained.

He clicked the power button, trying to look anywhere else but in front of him. He held the button for what must have been thirty seconds. Nothing happened.

It couldn’t be. It wasn’t possible.

Critter Marrow.

Something in the dark room shuffled. He was not alone.

“Leave me the fuck alone!”

From down the hall there was a crash and then his door was opening wide. He was sure it was the faceless ones or the dog-thing coming to shackle his limbs and take their time with his pain.

But it was just his roommate, Zeke. He wiped at tired eyes and shook his head. “What the fuck’s wrong with you? Do you know what time it is? I’ve got to be at work in three hours.”

“Something is happening to me. I can’t explain it but I opened this email earlier and it’s…it’s messing with my head. Just look at my computer.”

Zeke threw his arms up. “Are you high? There’s nothing on your screen.”

Gary turned his head toward his laptop, tensing as his eyes drew closer to the words.

Except there were no words. His laptop was closed and powered off.

Though the next day was Saturday, he left his house the moment the sun was in the sky. He’d popped two Excedrin and washed them down with some orange juice, hoping to battle his hangover. His eyes burned and his skin was oily but a shower was the farthest thing from his mind.

He caught the subway and rode it four stops to his job.
Not a job yet, he thought.
And it may never wind up that way. You might get laid off once the internship’s over and go back to making yuppie lattes for less than minimum wage.

That is, unless you don’t go insane in the meantime.

He headed up the front steps, checked in with the security guy at the front desk, and rode the elevator to the tenth floor.

It was simple, really. Crazy and superstitious maybe, but simple too. He’d turn on his computer, open up his email, and sift through his trash until he found the message. Then he’d take great joy in deleting it once and for all. He couldn’t explain it—couldn’t explain much of what had happened in the last twelve hours—but knowing that email still existed in some format, hiding in some digital crevice on his computer—it made him feel like something had latched on to him somehow. He’d wipe it from his hard drive and be done with it—all of it.

The elevator door opened and his office immediately felt like a tomb. It was pure stillness except that he didn’t feel alone. He walked down the main aisle and turned left toward his cube.

His computer screen was black. Every inch of him screamed to turn away, remembering last night, the words appearing from nowhere. But despite himself, he turned it on and waited as it powered up.

After an eternity, he typed in his password and opened his email. There were nearly a hundred messages in his trash. He thought of deleting all of them at once but decided against it. He wanted to see those words as he sent them away forever.

He worked patiently, looking at each message and permanently deleting them.

At the very bottom of the list, it lay there, the email that had nearly made him lose his mind.

Critter Marrow.

He highlighted the message, right clicked, and chose delete.

He prepared to breathe a sigh of relief.

It caught in his throat.

The message remained. He clicked delete again. Nothing happened.

The message opened up and he was left staring at the words and the accompanying image, the one he’d never wanted to see again so long as he was alive.

Three faceless bodies, a dog-thing, and a shackled man.

Gary shook his head.

Delete. Nothing. Delete. Nothing.

Still it remained.

His throat constricted and he felt a scream forming in the pit of his stomach.

He should never have accepted this internship in the first place. He remembered the interview, how badly it had gone. He was sure that they would pass on him. Even then he couldn’t stand Emily, could tell she was rotten to the core, the kind of person who took great joy in intimidating those beneath her.

I’m afraid you’ll be staying late tonight, Gary. We’ve got a boatload of junk mail and it’s your job to sift through it.

The message vanished. For a moment his mind couldn’t catch up. He checked every folder, every inch of space on his computer, searching for those two awful words, but they were nowhere. They were gone, deleted after all.

Suddenly he hated this place a bit less.

There were worse places out there.

He shut his computer off and headed toward the elevator, thinking he’d go straight home and get some much deserved sleep.

“Gary?”

He stopped in the aisle.

“Gary, is that you?”

He turned toward the voice. It was Emily. She was sitting in her office, a cup of coffee in her hands. “What’re you doing here on the weekend?”

He tried to think of a sensible explanation. “Just catching up on some work. I was swamped yesterday and I just hate leaving things for Mondays. I guess I’m a little obsessive sometimes.”

“Obsessive is a good quality, especially in a place like this. You could say I’m a little obsessive too. I’ve been here since seven.” She did something Gary had never imagined possible. She smiled. He was taken aback. For the first time he realized she was quite beautiful.

“Catching up on work too?” He smiled back.

“You could say that. Ever since the merger, I’ve had corporate assholes on my back left and right, people I’ve yet to meet, people I sometimes think don’t actually exist. They want this place to run by their rules, not ours, not anymore. It’s enough to drive a woman crazy.”

He wasn’t sure what to say. He hadn’t spoken this long with her before. He offered a nod and a reassuring grunt.

“But enough about that. I’ve got something I’d like to talk to you about while I have you here. Do you have a moment?”

“Sure.”

“I’ll make it quick. It’s the weekend and neither of us want to be here longer than necessary. The bottom line is that you do good work. You show up on time, you’re willing to go the extra step, and you never complain.” She laughed, another first. “And you put up with me on a daily basis. That’s enough in my book. I’d like to offer you a full-time position.”

He froze, couldn’t quite speak. He thought of the student loans coming his way, remembered all the nights he’d lay awake crunching numbers, cursing his parents for not offering any help.
You want to go to school, figure it out for yourself, his father had said time and time again. All his friends had their education paid off before they’d even graduated, but he’d been forced to make do and constantly wonder about the future. “I don’t know what to say. That’s great news.”

“Is that a yes?”

“Of course.”

“Great. We’ll start you on the payroll on Monday. I’ll have HR schedule a meeting about benefits. It’s a ton of paper work but then again so is the job.” Another smile.

For a moment he was sure all of this was a dream.

“Thank you,” he said.

“Don’t thank me. You earned it.” She bit her lip and stared at her computer screen. “We’ve got this month’s customer survey results. I’ve been going through it all morning. We have them fill out these questionnaires. Usually they’re straight forward enough, but this answer…it doesn’t make any sense to me. Here, have a look. Tell me I’m not crazy.”

She spun the screen around.

He swallowed and tried not to scream. Suddenly everything seemed more like a nightmare. They were there, on her screen. No faces, except for the creature and the victim.

“What do you suppose this means?”

“I…” He couldn’t manage any words. Emily’s office begin spin around him like a carousel.

“I think maybe they’re referring to something in development?”

They were not looking at the same thing, he realized. She could not see them as he could. He clenched his jaw.

“Is everything all right?”

He made eye contact with her, except that wasn’t apt, because she no longer had any eyes. Or a nose. Or a mouth.

“You’ll have to excuse me,” he said. “I think I’m coming down with something.”

He backed out of her office.

“Well, feel better,” she said through smooth skin and no lips. “We’ll see you on Monday.”

He half-jogged toward the elevator, thinking he needed a doctor. Something wasn’t right in his head. The door opened and he stepped inside, trying to calm himself as muzak played quietly over the speakers. He pressed the lobby button and the doors closed.

Something caught his eyes on the button panel. There were the usual numbers for each floor and the basement level but at the very bottom there was a button he was sure had not been there before.

In nondescript letters, etched into the metal paneling, was
CM.

“No,” he said. “No. No. No.”

Why had he bothered to open the message? He could have just deleted all of them and no one would’ve known the difference.

He watched the button as the elevator descended.

Where did it come from?
he thought. Whose computer had nested the original message and who had bothered to click send? How many email addresses had it skimmed until it wound up in the company’s junk folder?

The elevator stopped at the lobby floor but the doors didn’t open. Some part of him, defeated and terrified, was not surprised.

The music became distorted, out of tune somehow. The gears began to turn again and suddenly the elevator descended quickly. He held on to the bar for support. The basement light went on and for a moment he felt relief, but only for a moment, because the elevator moved downward still. It was an eternity between the last two buttons but eventually the last one lit up.

CM.

Critter Marrow.

He began to frantically push buttons, not caring which floor he went to, so long as it wasn’t this one.

He took out his phone and dialed 911.

Except nothing happened. The call would not go through. He had plenty of bars. It wasn’t real. None of this was. It was just an email, a strange chain letter and nothing more. He needed a doctor and a night’s sleep.

Something growled, distant but not too far off either. It was the worst sound Gary had ever heard.

He punched the button console and willed it to the work, wishing he’d dropped out in his third semester of college like he’d wanted to so badly.

His phone chimed. He held it up with a shaky hand, recognizing the tune. It wasn’t an incoming call or text. It was a notification for his email.

You’ve got mail. You’ve got mail and it’s going to fucking eat you.

He opened the message and saw what was by now burned in his brain.

The doors began to open.

There was a corridor in front of him. The floor was dirt and the walls and ceiling were an endless maze of pipes, a boiler room deep beneath the ground. Up ahead, shadows flickered. A single bulb hung from the ceiling.

Three figures stood in the distance.

He looked at the message and an idea came into his mind, one last and desperate thought. If it could not be deleted, maybe it could be transferred. He went through his addresses, thinking it was useless until a name popped up.

I’m afraid you’ll be staying late tonight, Gary. We’ve got a boatload of junk mail and it’s your job to sift through it.

No. She’d been good to him, had offered him a job.

And she’s the reason you’re in this elevator right now.

Down the corridor there were screams and pleading and the undeniable sound of shackles banging against the ground.

Shackles he knew were meant for his ankles and wrists.

He chose her name. The address bar filled in her email.

Something moved toward him, something on four legs. It was fast, coming straight for the open elevator.

He forwarded the email.

He braced himself and closed his eyes, ready to feel claws and teeth ripping into his delicate flesh.

The doors began to close just as the dog-thing was nearing. It slammed against the metal and the elevator began moving upward again. It felt as though he’d been inside the compartment for years. The journey back up was longer than anything he’d ever known.

This time it stopped at the lobby.

The doors opened and bright light shone through the front windows. Gary thought that he’d never run so fast in his life.

“You look much better,” Bradley said on the subway Monday morning. “Finally get some sleep?”

Gary nodded. “I slept most of the weekend.”

“Ready to face the beast this morning?”

The subway came to a stop and they waited for the car to clear before they hopped off and walked toward the escalator. “You’re too harsh on her sometimes, you know that?” Gary smiled. “She has quite a nice smile, actually.”
And there are worse beasts than disgruntled bosses.

Bradley’s mouth hung open. “Are you okay?”

“Much better.”

As they stepped outside and onto the curb they stopped short of the company’s front entrance. There were police cars everywhere, lights spinning and officers directing people away. Yellow caution tape lined the way.

“What the hell’s going on?” Bradley asked over the commotion and chatter.

“I’m afraid there’s been an incident,” the closest officer said.

“What kind of incident?”

The cop began to speak but he was cut off.

The front doors opened and two EMT’s wheeled out a body bag. Cameras flashed from every direction. A line of reporters stood nearby yelling out questions, each one trying to pronounce more than the other. Suicide? Foul play? Identity of the victim—if that’s what it was.

The EMT’s brought the body into the nearest ambulance and closed the doors.

Bradley’s face went pale. “Who the hell do you think that was in there? God, I hope it’s no one we know.”

“Did I tell you I got the job?” Gary watched as the ambulance drove off, certain of whose body lay beneath the plastic.

Two words popped into his head but they faded away just as quickly as they appeared.

MY BELOVED

J.M. Northwood

Some may call him a trickster, but I call him “Beloved.“

I remember when we met. I was taking shelter in a small cafe, trying to avoid a rainstorm that brought a smell of new-washed silk to the streets of St. Louis.

I’d been traveling through Senegal on assignment, trying to photograph as much of its history as I could. To some, these settlements and cities were fossils of a past best left forgotten — forced colonization, forced conversions, forced ... everything — but to others, they were a reminder of a richer time. The area shone with a brilliance that rivaled that of the sun: it was a reminder that we once built for beauty, for permanence, and for love of empire and ruler.

Now, we only build for greed, overpopulation, and self-aggrandizement.

But enough of my rambling.

I’d been seated on the veranda, drinking strong coffee and staring into the rain, when I felt the table move. I looked up, past an extended hand, into a brilliant smile and radiant eyes.

He was alone, he said, and lonely, and was hopeful that a lovely traveler like me would take pity on him and let him remain at her side. I was flattered, of course, but also somewhat wary: I was, for all intents and purposes, alone, and he was ... intense. So very intense.

For good or ill, I invited him to sit, and we began to speak. For hours our conversation meandered through history, folklore, culture, food, and — slowly — our own lives.

He had dallied before, with glorious women, who put up with his foibles, but who had never stayed with him for more than a day or two. He admitted, unblushing, to a his marriage with an amazing female who’d heard all of his excuses, and still stayed with him, and he spoke of their children who covered the globe. He’d travelled the world, as had I, but his stories never ceased, where mine were limited by my experiences.

He spoke of princesses seen and queens dethroned, and of tar-babies built and hornets outsmarted; and then, as the day wore on, he regaled me with tales of how he hung the moon and sky for his mother, but his father despaired of him ever settling down, and “had to correct the angle, for everything was canted.”

I’d never been married, and I’d long ago quashed the thought of a prince astride a white charger, reaching for my hand to carry me away; still, there was something there. A spark, perhaps. A gleam in his eye that matched my smile. And I wanted to know more about him.

We agreed to meet up the next day, and spent our time wandering the streets and markets of that beautiful city, talking of everything and nothing. We spoke of our lives, our dreams and our fears, and — heaven help me — of the slow-blossoming feeling that there was something here greater than the both of us.

Well, let’s be honest: greater than me, at least.

Over the next week, as I completed my assignment and prepared to leave, I realized that I wanted to be rash and impulsive for once in my life. I didn’t want to have a life hedged about by cheques for work completed and itineraries for work yet to be done.

I would wake to flower petals on my bed, even though my room was still locked from the inside, and go to sleep hearing his voice, even though he was miles away. With his hand in mine, I stepped through beaded curtains of webbing hung with dew, and emerged both dry and smelling of exotic spices. He introduced me to fresh-baked yams and crisp-cooked rabbit, and always had a smile or a quip for those around us.

We spoke at length of what we offered one another: a comfort, a warmth, a safe harbour in the storm that life threw against our respective shoals. He had no permanent attachments, and I had no husband or boyfriend for whom jealousy would be an issue. Should children come of the union, he said, he would care for them as he has all of his others. Should none be borne, we would — as best we could — remain friends, and perhaps see one another when next I passed through this region.

The lies we tell ourselves.

I wanted to take him back to my room, but he said that our tryst should occur under the eyes of the sky: that way I would know of his honesty. And all the while, his eyes twinkled like multi-faceted mirrors reflecting the myriad of stars above us.

We stood before a rough-spun silken hammock and slowly removed our clothes. He reached for me and helped me into our bed, then drew a gossamer cover over us. For some time, we simply lay there together, naked, pressed against one another, and let the silence of the night wrap around us.

Slowly, however, our hands began to wander, and our breaths to mingle. His kisses were gentle, yet electrifying, and I felt my nerves awaken and start to sing.

As our movements grew more heated, he reached for my breast, and for the briefest of moments it wasn’t his hand I felt, but a thousand hairs tickling my skin. I moaned as he bent forward and drew my nipple into his mouth, suckling at it until it stood — moist and erect — crinkling in pleasure. I grew damp and heavy, and trailed my hand down his body, wrapping it around his erection.

It was his turn to gasp, and mine to smile, as I slipped under the covers and took him into my mouth. I was inexperienced, true, but it was all the more exciting for that. I slicked my tongue along his length, and nearly dislocated my jaw with his girth, but when he was — I felt — wet enough, I took him into my hand, then rose above him.

He stopped me, hands on my hips, and whispered “are you sure?“ My answer was, I thought, rather clear: I slowly lowered myself onto him, my breath hitching at his entry, and shifted until he was fully sheathed within me.

We began to move as one, his hands alternating between my stomach, my hips, and my breasts, as I would occasionally fall forward to capture his mouth with mine. He fit within me like a key to a well-turned lock, and I knew that he was making me his. Just as, in a way, I was making him mine.

I do not know how long we lay there, limbs entwined, ere the dawn lightened the land around us. We gathered our clothes, dew-damp and cold, and struggled into them, laughing and nervous. The light of day brought new life and new hope, but it also brought the inevitable awkwardness of a new relationship, and the realization that it may be over before it began.

We walked in silence toward my hotel, holding hands and smiling at one another. When we arrived, we tore one another’s garments in our haste to couple again. This time, he was in charge, and his pace was furious. He thrust into me as I arched against him, drawing him as deep as I could, hoping to etch this feeling — his body, his hands, his scent — into my soul. Time was fleeting, and tears of regret ran down y cheeks and into my hair, even as I called his name and moved with him.

As the day warmed, our moods dipped. We showered and dressed, and he helped me pack. All too soon, my taxi was at the door, and I was on my way to the airport. He took me in his arms as I left and whispered, “should it happen, I will know.“

I spent the flight home curled in my seat, trying to muffle my sobs with his silken handkerchief.

Over the course of the next few months, I became moody, irritable. My ankles began to swell, and my breasts to hurt. I’d realized after I’d missed my second menses that I was pregnant, and I was torn between missing my beloved more than ever before, and wishing he were here that I might kill him for doing this to me. And then, damn me, admitting that it was the path we both trod that led us to this particular patch of life.

As my due date approached, he began calling me. A feat that — in hindsight — should have terrified me, as we had never exchanged numbers. Still, to hear his voice was glorious, as was his assurance that he would be there for the birth.

He arrived, true to his word, well before my due date. We spent that time catching up, and I learned just what could — and could not — be done while pregnant.

Key in lock, indeed.

My belly continued to swell, the skin rippling and coursing as though a million feet were tapping against its constraints. I would lay in bed upon my side, holding my weight against a pillow, and wake to find myself on my back, hands cradled about the newly-forming life within me.

All too soon I awoke in the middle of the night feeling as though I were ready to burst. My cramps grew in intensity and shortened in cycle, all the while he rubbed my back and murmured words of encouragement.

I felt a tearing first, a hot release that spattered fluid — thick and warm — down my thighs, and left fibrous tendrils laying limp against my legs and sheets. What was a trickle became a rush, and then subsided. As I lay there, I could feel a movement in my womb, and I smiled up at him.

“They’re coming.“

A tiny foot stuck out, tentative, tapping about and tickling my most intimate areas, and then the rest of the body followed. That movement, that first child, opened the gates, and the rest exited in a rush.

Thousands of spiders — lime green and mocha brown and cherry red, bulbous of body and slender of limb, spread from my loins, rippling against my flesh and crawling up my legs, and thence to my chest. Each feather-light brush brought a new burst of love to my heart, and as they danced across my lips and tongue, tickling the inside of my ears as they explored their new life, I made sure to whisper my love to them.

As my beloved opened the window that they might take to their silken threads and fly, I felt my heart break a bit. They were so small, so young. And yet their father named each of them as they flew away, and the look of pride his face held was only matched by my joy at bearing them.

He turned to me and took me in his arms, and I kissed each of his eyelids as he lay around me, cocooning me in his legs.

My trickster. My beloved. My Anansi.

BLOODBOUND

William Andre Sanders

The aftermath of Kemper,

Dahmer, Gacy,
impregnating a whore
overdosed on Klonopin
in a bloodshed orgy,
results a psychotically
schizophrenic monstrosity
thirty-four years grown
inside me.

I don’t barbeque the flesh,
or serve a dish of bitch fillet;

I take pleasure out of anal fucking
some slut’s carcass’ soul
straight to hell.

I behead the torso,
assuring the fantasy—

I can have my dick sucked
during any minute of the day.

Ed Gein got off frolicking
around the farm in cadaver skin,

I prefer to fuck the flesh,
cum inside cold pussy—
burying my signature
immortalized.

Then I toss the useless bitch
in a mass grave
beneath the swings set
on my back lawn.

My founding fathers,
sperm donors of sadistically
acute detestation,
kick and scream—
stirring rot
within their forgotten coffins.

Even death does not allow them
escape from wretched dismay,
traumatizing their spirits
by serial murder
imprisoning the bloodline.

TRAPPER KEEPER

A. Stinky Cat

I suppose you’re wondering why I became a horror writer. Maybe you’re wondering why I’m still writing horror stories—self-publishing them because I can’t find anyone else to publish them. Sometimes I don’t know why I put up with all the anonymous bloggers ridiculing my best work. Let’s face it, I know I suck.

So why on earth would I keep writing after all these years? Why would anybody in his right mind spend every day in his grandma’s basement, writing stories nobody will ever read instead of getting a job and moving out on my own even though I’m pushing forty?

I’ll tell you, but I don’t expect you to believe a word of it. In fact, I’d almost forgotten about it until the other day when I saw an episode of
Saved by the Bell.

It happened one day my senior year. The other kids used to call me “retard,” “pussy,” and “short bus rider” just because I was a retarded pussy who rode the short bus. I must have spent half my high school career stuck in a locker. I can’t tell you how many times I had the waistband of my underwear pulled up over my head. This day was no different. I was walking down the hallway on my way to see the guidance counselor. It was between classes, the halls were full of kids standing around, waiting for the next bell to ring.

I was a scrawny little runt. By some lapse of judgment, I thought dressing up like a page boy and attending Renaissance Faires over the weekend would make me a hit with the ladies. Naturally, it didn’t occur to me wearing my Renaissance Faire logo on my jacket would make me fodder for more torment. By the day in question, I wasn’t surprised to hear a taunt referencing unicorns or “Princess Dustin,” so I barely noticed the kids mocking me as hustled down the hall of Fossil Lake High, looking at the ground in an effort not to look at anybody, not to dignify their jeers with a response. I just had to make it through the next few months without killing myself. One day I’d be a great writer like Stephen King or H.P. Lovecraft. I carried their books in my backpack like talismans to make me impervious to the mockery of my classmates. They were shoved in there with my Lisa Frank-style glittery Trapper Keeper which brightened my days.

I had all the ideas and inspiration to be the next big thing, except one—I couldn’t write. For that matter, I could barely even read. You couldn’t blame my teachers for having given up on me. If I’d had half a brain I’d have given up on myself, too. That’s why the guidance counselor wanted to see me.

His door was open. Looking up from his newspaper, Mr. Porras motioned for me to sit. He was a chubby, balding old fellow with a short sleeved button-up shirt and a clip-on tie—the kind of guy who was obviously so unsatisfied with his life that he seemed to get some kind of perverse pleasure out of crushing young people’s dreams. I pulled up a chair to his desk, and he asked me my name.

“Dustin Cameron,” I said.

“Oh, right. We have an appointment,” he answered, shuffling through the pile of folders on his desk. “Let me see… Here it is.” He pulled a folder from the stack, inspected the contents, glanced at me, and cleared his throat before addressing me with unexpected formality, “Mr. Cameron.”

“Yeah.”

“Some of your teachers are a little concerned about your writing.”

“Yeah. I know it’s dark and gothic and…”

“Not that. It’s…just not good.”

“What?”

“How can I put this delicately? I know you want to be a writer, but…um, have you considered something more suited to your…uh…abilities?”

“What? What do you mean?” I tried to keep my eyes from watering. Was this some kind of joke?

“Maybe some light vocational training. Home economics, custodial engineering something along those lines.”

I couldn’t speak.

“I don’t want to crush your dreams” he continued,” but you need to consider how you intend to make a living. The writing market’s a tough one.”

I’d never wanted so much to kill somebody. If I weren’t such a retarded pussy, I would have stabbed him with my rainbow eraser topped pencil or pushed that fat bastard out the window.

“It’s just that students interested in a writing career tend to enroll in a university writing program…and your grades are less than…stellar.”

“So I should apply —”

“Let me stop you right there. I think it’s great that someone like you has goals, but you need to be realistic. You are enrolled in…special education classes. College curriculum is going to be a little too advanced for you.”

I looked down, holding my backpack with my Stephen King novel and H.P. Lovecraft books inside. I just had to get through this. One day I’d look back and laugh. I finally managed an “okay,” and he handed me some brochures on crockpot cooking and toilet cleaning as I was on my way out the door.

As soon as I stepped out his door into the hallway I ran into a strange guy I’d never seen before. The stench of him almost knocked me off my feet, and I had to step back to recover from it. That pause gave me a chance to look up to see the man. He seemed vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t quite place him. He was a fat guy with long, greasy black hair. He was far too old to be in school.

He looked me in the eye and said, “Don’t give up, Dustin. You’ll be a great writer.” Then he walked past me and into Mr. Porras’s office. That was the last I saw of either of them. I dropped out of school that day.

For the next twenty years I didn’t give much thought to Mr. Porras and the smelly guy. Then, a few days ago I watched an episode of
Saved by the Bell in which Screech got shoved into a locker. That got me thinking about school and what ever happened to those chomos who used to beat up on me every day. It wasn’t too much to hope that at least a few of them had died horribly gruesome deaths.

I didn’t have any trouble finding most of them on Facebook and Twitter, but I had more trouble locating Mr. Porras. Looking through some old newspapers, I managed to find an old article dating to the day after I’d last seen him.

He’d been slaughtered right there in his office in the middle of the day. A couple students had seen a pool of blood coming out from under his closed office door. He’d been cut to pieces, with bits of his intestines scattered all over the room. His eyes had been plucked out of their sockets and were neatly impaled on a couple of pencils which were sticking out of his mouth. Oddly enough, they had the rainbow eraser toppers I used to use.

The suspect was a smelly man with long black hair. A little more research revealed that the killer had never been found.

God, I couldn’t believe I was there just a few minutes before he was killed!

I tried to convince myself it couldn’t have been the same man I’d seen in the hallway. But it must have been. Scrolling down the page, I came in for another shock. A security camera had captured a photo of him.

It was me.

It was the thirty-six-year-old version of me, but it was definitely me.

I still don’t know how it could be possible. Honestly, I wouldn’t have believed it possible.

You must think I’m out of my mind, but, if you look closely at the picture, you’ll see he’s wearing the same jacket I’m wearing right now, and he’s carrying a copy of one of my books—a novel I published last year!

LADY GHOST

2. Edward Martin III

Jacob drank the entire pint in one pull. Impressive – I know how bitter that beer is.

“She’s real,” he said. “And I’m going to find her.”

“You’re a nutter,” I said. “And I’m going to buy you another beer, because God loves us more when we buy beer for nutters.”

He approached the next beer – which was his sixth , by the way – with a little more caution. I imagine the first one was finally having some effect. Plus, I think he premedicated before coming to the tavern.

“She’s real,” he repeated. “I saw her.”

“You saw her?” I asked. “You saw the Lady Ghost.”

He stared into his beer and was silent a moment. “Well, Old Bill saw her, and I know he was telling the truth.”

“Jacob, Old Bill moved back down to the Lower 48 ten years ago. Why are you bringing this up now?”

Jacob polished off the last of the pint, and slammed the glass onto the table. “Because it’s time. It’s time, dammit, and I’m going to show you he was right all these years. I’m going out there tonight to see her, and then you’ll know.” He leaned forward. “I know she’s real.”

Abruptly, he stood up.

“I’ll see you when I get back,” he said, and he spun on his heel and marched out the tavern door.

Shawn leaned over and took the empties away. “What was that all about?” she asked.

I shook my head. “Jacob’s off his rocker,” I told her. She smiled. I’m sure to her, we were all off our rockers. She came up only two years ago from Portland. No matter how crazy it might seem in Portland, by the time you passed through Kotzebue, the entire rest of the world must seem saner than sane. “He’s off to play footsie with the Lady Ghost.”

“Who’s she?” she asked.

“Oh, that’s right,” I said. “You don’t know about her. Well, it’s not complicated — the Lady Ghost is a lady ghost. She walks out on the Bay, looking for a mortal man who can love her, so she can move on into the afterlife. Yadda, yadda, yadda. It’s a local thing.”

Shawn nodded. “Okay, that makes sense. Yeah, we had Bigfoot down where I grew up.”

I nodded, too. “Everybody’s got legends. If there’s a swamp nearby, it’s a swamp devil, or if there’s a forest nearby, it’s probably something to do with a goatman. When I lived in Phoenix, it was the Lost Dutchman, who apparently mislaid his treasure trove somewhere on the mountain. The world’s full of weird-ass legends.”

I drank more.

“So Jacob’s going out to find this one, the Ghost Lady?”

“Lady Ghost,” I corrected. “Yep, he’s gonna wander around out there all night in the fog looking for her, and if we’re lucky, he’ll pass out near a dead seal and swear it was her, because that would make a terrific story.”

She pointed. “Is that his coat?”

It was. I sighed. “Shit. I don’t want the old bastard freezing to death on my watch.”

Fifteen minutes later, I was dragging Jacob’s big coat with me, and tramping down the path toward the bay.

I didn’t expect him to go far. Normally, six beers was barely enough to wake him up, but as I said, I was pretty sure he had premedicated earlier that evening.

“Jacob, where the hell are you?” I muttered. I wasn’t going to start calling out his name – not yet. I’d probably just scare him to death. Safest move would be to find him, give him his coat, and let him make the call.

I reached the beach in ten minutes. It was pretty cold out.

The water was still like a mirror, and a thin fog was everywhere. I could see trees and the beach, of course, but if I had to guess, I’d say visibility was maybe forty or fifty feet.

I stopped to catch my breath.

Damn, it was beautiful. There was a half moon up in the sky, and everything was cast in shades of silver. The water made tiny laps at the pebbled beach, and the wind was only the tiniest gust. I took a deep breath, and the air was so crisp and fresh I could almost feel the insides of my lungs burning. As much as I hated the lack of conveniences, this place kicked Phoenix’s ass nine ways from Sunday.

I raised my voice a little more: “Jacob!” I called. “Where are you?”

No answer.

Damn, he had already passed out. Now I’d have to actually hunt him down in the fog. Annoying.

I tripped and my feet tangled in something soft. Something that wasn’t just pebbles or a branch. It was a cloth something.

I bent down and picked it up. It was an old work shirt, worn through in spots, torn in spots, and filled with humanity. More distressing, it was the shirt Jacob was wearing when he left.

I tucked it under my arm – the absolute very last thing that I wanted to find is Old Jacob lying somewhere sleeping it off with only his long-handled underwear on. I would not be able unsee that. Better to be able to cover him. Once I found him.

“Jacob!” I called a little louder.

Then I saw her.

At first, I thought she was just a reflection, some trick of the light my glasses played on me, but nope, there she was.

I have to admit, the Lady Ghost was, in fact, stunningly beautiful.

She was exactly what I expected to see – a thin beautiful woman with long flowing hair. She walked softly, ethereally, across the bay, right on top of the water, in a place where I knew it was at least twenty feet deep, if not deeper.

Did I say beautiful? She practically glowed.

She wasn’t wearing much, and what she wore left little to the imagination. It was a sort of a slip. She was barefoot. Where her feet touched the surface of the water, the most delicate ripples spread.

I looked around, thinking maybe someone was fooling me, maybe Jacob was in on it, but there was no one there, no one except me and this beautiful slender vision of a woman.

She turned and started her gliding walk toward the shore.

I stepped closer, and rubbed my eyes. I didn’t expect that to actually solve anything, but I’ve seen people do it in movies. She was still there, and still softly and slowly walking closer to the shore.

Closer to me.

My god, she was beautiful! Her eyes were clear and perfect, her skin like some kind of cross between the smoothest alabaster and something magical.

I stepped closer, and stopped at the water’s edge, watching her.

“Who are you?” I asked.

In response, she glided closer.

I was stunned. Absolutely stunned. When I returned to town with her, everybody was going to completely freak.

“Are you okay?” I asked. “You look cold.” It seemed like a pretty stupid thing to say, but I was pretty much saying whatever came out of my mouth.

I reached out to her, and she reached toward me.

In a man’s life, there are few times when he knows without a shadow of a doubt what love really is, and in that exact moment, as I reached toward her and she reached toward me, my heart and mind sang with this exact feeling, with the sense of absolutely pure and passionate love.

Her embrace was brilliant. It was everything a man could ever want in life, in love, and for the rest of his days.

Then I felt her arms tighten like steel bands, and I was lifted from the beach, high into the air.

The water heaved upward, and erupted in chaos, revealing Something Horrible. Something Horrible looked like some kind of frog or fish, but fifty, maybe sixty feet wide, with a body that trailed fatly down into the depths of the bay. Something Horrible’s head had a thick tendril protruding from it, for nearly thirty feet, and ending at my beloved Lady Ghost. I looked into her face, but it wasn’t quite a face anymore, and the arms tightened and tilted me upside down.

I dropped Jacob’s shirt and watched it fall upward back onto the beach.

A blast of warm moisture struck me and I looked back at Something Horrible.

Something Horrible’s mouth opened up, and there were rows of teeth, wet and still red, probably from Jacob. Something Horrible swung me over its mouth.

Then, Something Horrible let go, and my last thoughts were of how beautiful the Lady Ghost had been.

How very, very beautiful.

INNOCENT PASSAGE

Randy Attwood

The skies were cloudy all day.

Since morning, Fred and I had been peering out of the tiny windshield of his car as the overhanging sky loomed above us and met the horizon: flat and far ahead. The black metal skull of his even-then ancient 1935 Ford, with its sets of human eyes, prowled the sand roads across the prairie.

It was late afternoon. I was driving. We were both irritable.

As far as we could see, there were no houses. The few acres of wheat that had been sown, cut, and the stubble plowed under bespoke infrequent human contact to the land. The rest was poor pasture—brown from lack of rain through July and now into a mid-August Kansas hell—where no cattle grazed.

“Hit a left,” Fred said.

“Why?”

“Just hit a left up here. Looks like a promising road.”

“Now just what makes it look so promising?” I asked, but slowed the sputtering car and depressed the clutch to downshift.

“You forget I’m the one who spotted the last four houses?” he reminded me, his eyes scanning the horizon. No houses had been seen all day.

Haunted house hunting, we called it. The legal term was breaking and entering. The county sheriff had warned us that he knew we were responsible for the summer rash, but couldn’t prove it. If he caught us, he’d “throw your asses in jail,” as he so quaintly put it.

We hunted anyway.

What we found was a treasure-trove left by those whom the land had defeated. There was a vast, though spotty, salvage yard of farm houses abandoned by failed farmers; retired farmers who had moved to town; dead farmers whose city offspring didn’t bother to come back and claim what was considered trash in their modern lives.

Our hunting had started harmlessly that summer in 1964, the summer before our senior year in high school. We happened upon the first haunted house among a stand of trees at the edge of town. The high weeds scraping against the bottom of the car as we pulled into the driveway told of long disuse. The roof of the two-room shack was caved-in at spots. A porch beam listed. Early summer insects rose up from the waist-high weeds as we walked to the open door. Inside, litter was covered with years of dust. Fred’s foot kicked something, and he reached down to uncover a wooden crank-type telephone. In a corner was another.

We took this find to Fred’s family farm, cleaned off the telephones, followed the schematics inside the casing, hooked them together, attached a battery, and turned the crank on one. The bells rang on the other. I picked up the receiver to say hello, and heard Fred’s voice. “Hey, it works!”

I often stayed the night at Fred’s father’s farm. We slept on air mattresses on top of a wooden platform he had built among an opening in a hedge row of trees. We would stare up at the stars hoping to see meteors while we talked late into the night of different girls and what it would be like to screw them; or what it would be like just to screw. How exactly did it feel?

Invariably, it was I who would fall asleep first and be told when I awoke in the morning, “You missed a really gigantic falling star.”

The night after finding the telephones, we talked about how many abandoned farm houses there must be across the prairie; what they might contain.

“Tables, chairs, lamps and beds, who knows what. Why, I bet we’d need a house to keep it all,” Fred said, and we turned to each other.

“A house.”

We could hide it right here in the hedge row, build it with wide screen wall panels and a veranda porch. We would furnish it with the free booty we would find, booty that had been left to the wind and dust, and us. We would entice girls to join us there. We would score. His old Ford certainly wasn’t working for us when we dragged Main.

But now summer was almost gone—school a scant two weeks away. Our house had yet to get off its foundation, but we had our finds hidden in the stand of trees protected under a tarp.

We had become experts on the nooks and crannies of our and surrounding counties. We scoured over larger areas, probing deeper into the prairie: north to the slabs of limestone used as fence posts on the treeless high prairie; east along the Big Arkansas to find abandoned efforts at orchards and flood damaged homes; south along the rich wheat fields and clusters of small dying towns that came alive only at harvest time; and west across the ever flattening empty reaches.

We would camp out in old cemeteries where we found tombstones containing the names of Russian, German, Swedish and English immigrants who had come to Kansas in hopes of a future: a future that became a present of digging through blizzards to the barn; fixing broken machinery; the endless buttoning, and unbuttoning, of children’s clothes; the watching those same children die of fevers; prayers for a decent crop to pay off the loans from the bank; and hail storms ruining those same crops.

We hunted for what remained of their efforts.

The first sign would be a roof without a television antenna, at which the cry of “haunted house” would be raised and make our hearts pound as fiercely as those of whalers who had spotted the spray of whale. But our screams were followed by stealth.

First we’d find the road that led to the house, then slowly approach, looking at our prospect as it came closer. Dirty windows, padlocked doors, driveways with high weeds were signs of life to us, and time for greater quiet.

We were, after all, opening a tomb. We were about to enter a place once full of human life and pain and hope and fear. The people would be gone, but the house still contained the spirit of their lives.

And from those houses we claimed those tables and chairs; railroad lanterns, a spittoon, even a nickel slot machine full—to our ecstatic delight—of Indian head nickels.

We kept hunting, not I think, for what we might yet find, but for the thrill of the entry. We were, in a sense, prairie vampires: feeding in the farmers’ tombs, drawing life from their failure. We fed on the possibility of the find more than the find itself.

“Haunted house!” Fred called out.

“Where?”

“Ahead, to the left.”

Far ahead was a clump of cottonwoods and the top eave of a house could just be seen through the leaves.

“Number five. That makes five in a row for me.”

“Maybe it isn’t haunted.”

“It is. No one would live out here.”

The paint was peeling off the second-story structure. A rain gutter had fallen from the top of one side of the roof. I parked the car behind a shed that held the skeleton of a tractor. The car hidden from the road, we walked to the house.

The windows were empty and curtain-less, the porch swing hung by one chain. Spider webs encased it. The front door was unlocked and Fred opened it, stepped in and I followed: the rush of excitement hitting again and filling me with anticipation.

Empty.

Wallpaper hung from the walls in strips. Water stained ceilings, dusty floors, but not a stick of furniture greeted us.

“A bust,” Fred declared.

I sat on the steps as he went to the second floor. I thought I smelled a human odor mixed with the smell of dusty house, and got up to walk into the kitchen to investigate. There I found a door that was locked.

“Nothing upstairs,” Fred said as he came into the kitchen. “What’s that?”

“Locked door.”

“Well, give your magic keys a go.”

I pulled a ring of skeleton keys from my pocket and the second one I tried turned the lock. A powerful stale human smell billowed out when I opened the door. Light streamed down the steps and fell upon a face.

“Jesus Christ,” I whispered, and Fred stared over my shoulder.

“A girl,” he said. We heard her whimper.

Her pale face was dirty and her hair long, brown, tangled, and matted. She kept reaching a hand out up at us, and put it in her mouth. A dirty dress covered her body.

“She looks retarded,” Fred said.

“But what in the hell is she doing out here?”

Her mouth hung open and her eyes watched us as we walked down to her. Behind the dirt and the idiocy, she was pretty. As we approached, she stood up and ran away. We saw the outlines of her heavy breasts swing against the thin cotton dress.

Her bare feet slapped against the concrete floor, and she sat on a mattress in the corner of the dark basement. Again she put her hand out to us, and then to her mouth.

“She’s hungry,” I said.

“Go get a couple sandwiches and a Coke from the cooler,” Fred directed.

It was when I started up the stairs to carry out his order that we heard a car brush against the high weeds in the driveway.

Fred reacted instantly. “Jesus. Lock the door.”

I ran up the steps, but dropped the keys when I pulled them out of my pocket. I picked them up and it took me four tries to find the right key, finally turn the lock as the car door slammed.

Fred found us a place to hide behind a curtain where old dresses were stored. We crouched against the musty, velvet cloth, sitting on our haunches and trying to calm our breathing as we heard a key turn the lock, and the door open.

“Hello, Honey,” a baritone voice said. His steps made the stairs creak and fear crunched in our hearts. “Here, have a piece of bread.”

We heard a whimper and something splat against the basement floor. It was followed by a scampering and the sound of eating. The man walked in front of our curtain, and we could hear particles of dirt being ground against the cement floor under his heavy heel.

“More bread, Honey? Well, now, Honey, you know you got to pay for your bread. Your Daddy’s no rich man, now is he?”

Our velvet curtain seemed to be a gigantic zipper as the unzipping sound echoed in the basement. I expected a muscled, suntanned farmer’s thumb and finger to reach through and grab us.

There was a sound of clothes being shed, a jangle of coins, the noise of a belt buckle hitting the floor.

Fred began fiddling with the curtain, and I wanted to scream at him to stop touching the flimsy tissue that kept us secret. He had found a moth hole, lined his right eyeball to it, and looked out.

I sat to Fred’s right and watched his face as I heard cloth being rubbed against skin, and I imagined the thin cotton dress being lifted over the girl’s head.

Fred’s right eyelid opened wider, and I could see his cornea: a piece of blue crystal embedded in white, shifting slightly up and down. I wondered what the girl’s breasts looked like. We heard the fall of bodies on the mattress , and I saw a bead of sweat slide through Fred’s hair down next to his ear.

More drops of sweat formed on Fred’s prominent brow as the sounds of the man’s lust increased, and the sound of smacking sucking slap of skin made Fred’s chin quiver. His jaw muscles bulged. His slender nostrils flared, and I saw a white spot develop in the center of a red pimple in the hollow of his nostril. A grunt and deep sigh, and then the sound of a fart reached us.

Fred took his hands off the curtain, letting the moth hole flutter back into the folds of the heavy cloth.

“I was going to fix this place up for you, Honey, when I got some money. Clean you up, get the hot water heater fixed so you could have hot showers, fix it so you could have the run of the house, and put your mother’s dresses on you, and it would be just like when your mother and me were first married. Wouldn’t that have been nice? And I really wanted to.

“But I’ve got to sell the place now and I can’t have anyone finding you now can I, Honey?”

We heard him pulling his pants on and the zipper raised.

“Oh, I’m going to miss you. But I can’t take you to the city with me. Too many people there. But I tell you what. Day after tomorrow I’ll come back and we’ll have a party. Thursday, some people are coming out to look around, so I’ll come out Wednesday and we’ll have a kind of party. I’ll bring a cake. And I’ll do it real gentle, Honey, just like I did with your mother. It’ll be just like going to sleep.”

Fred and I looked at each other. The walls, the curtain, the dresses steeped in moth balls, the dirt, our own faces seemed to be screaming at the man that we were listening. I kept thinking the girl would walk over to the curtain, and pull it open. My hands started to shake. I was cold, but sweat ran down my face. My hands shook more, and I felt faint until Fred gripped my wrist and held it hard, pouring an injection of cement through his fingers into my bones, and giving me strength to last out a few more wretched minutes.

“Got to go now, Honey. See you Wednesday. We’ll have a real good party.”

We listened to his footsteps on the staircase and his key lock the door. We stayed hidden until we heard the motor start, and the car brush against the weeds and enter the sand road. Still we didn’t move, listening for any possible return, until Fred released a sigh and stood up.

We saw the girl, her thin dress back on, lying on the mattress, two fingers in her mouth.

“Jesus, I’ve never been so scared in all my life,” I said.

“No reason. Skinny little guy. I was tempted to throw open the curtain while he was screwing her just to give him a heart attack. We could have taken him easy.”

“Did he hurt her any?” I asked.

“Hell, no, she just opened her legs and laid there,” Fred said and stepped closer to the girl.

“We’ve got to go get the sheriff,” I said.

“I know, and he’s going to have his proof that we’ve been entering houses,” Fred said, and looked at the girl.

“But we’ve got to get him. That guy will kill her.”

“I know. I know. Look, she’s still hungry. Why don’t you go get some sandwiches and a Coke for her and a couple of beers for us. I could use one.”

I unlocked the door and walked outside to fetch the cooler. Sunset was near. The rain-promising clouds that never had brought rain were breaking up so that the low rays of the sun bounced on the underside of the clouds and turned the sky yellow.

I wanted to carry the girl to the porch so she could see the sun and smell the air and look at the trees.

I carried the cooler down the steps. Fred must have undressed her. The girl was naked, her breasts large, red in spots and parts of her body showed bruises.

“Now just sit down, Brad. Open us a beer. Give the girl a sandwich. I want to talk to you,” Fred said as I stared at the girl’s nipples: brown and distended, and the black curly hairs, glistening, between her legs. The first time I had seen a nude girl in real life.

I handed the girl two sandwiches, and watched her breasts jiggle as she grabbed for the food. My faced turned red.

Fred reached into the cooler, opened a beer, and handed it to me.

“Sit down, Brad.”

I could feel an erection push against my jeans as I sat next to the girl. I drank from the can to hide my face.

Fred was quiet as he reached into the cooler again. I saw the toilet and the cold water shower in one corner, rows of cupboards with empty jars. I wanted to look at the girl again, but I couldn’t turn my head. Fred opened his beer and took a drink.

“Now, what we have here is a golden opportunity,” Fred began to explain and my heart and erection leaped when I saw him put his hand on the girl’s thigh.

He explained how the next morning we could fetch the sheriff and bring him out here, saying that the night before we had camped nearby, came here looking for water, heard the girl screaming, and broke in. We didn’t need to mention the farmer at all. The sheriff would easily find out about him.

Tonight, Fred said, his hand moving higher on the girl’s leg—who looked wide-eyed at me as she ate—we could do more than just talk about what it would be like to screw a girl.

I wanted to hit him, to run from the basement, to vomit thinking of the slurping sucking, smacking sounds I had heard. But I was afraid that my heart, thumping so loudly, would burst if I moved.

Wednesday, the paper carried our pictures in a story that hailed us as heroes.

FROZEN IN STONE

Doug Blakeslee

Megan watched the men enter the run-down hotel. Three months of running ended now. She didn’t know how they’d tracked her from town to town, but enough was enough.

They were her mother’s warrior-priests and would be prepared to block her abilities with mirrored sunglasses and thick clothing. Euryale might be bound to her ways, but that didn’t stop her followers from taking on modern trappings. Attacking them head on would be difficult, but Megan needed time to reach the oracle, and they needed to be stopped.

A musty aura pervaded the hotel, the sense that it was trapped in time and no amount of renovation would eliminate it. Threadbare carpet and old men watching TV completed the scene. She passed by the man in the cage who barely gave her a glance, seeing only the working girl headed upstairs to a client. Glamour and her changeling nature bewitched mortals with nary any effort on her part. The less magic she used now, the less chance her prey would be alert. Room 215 sat at the end of the hall, just around the last corner. All she needed to do is lure one of them out.

Megan pulled out the taser as the elevator door dinged and slid open. The shock on his face must have mirrored her own, though his reflexes fired a second too late. CRACK! SNAP! He folded as voltage crippled his nervous system. She kicked away his sunglasses and let her glamour flow, freezing and twisting him into cold, hard stone.

One down, two to go.

Two days and three hundred and seventy miles away, after a trip she’d thought would never end as the bus paused at small towns and big cities to pick up or drop off passengers, Megan finally disembarked.

She’d left town after a terse conversation with the last warrior-priest, who had begged for his life to no avail.

Someone would doubtless wonder about the three statues decorating the second floor of the hotel, but they couldn’t be linked to her.

She knew now that her charm of concealment was useless. Without the blood and eggs of a cockatrice, the enchantment had faded. One more piece of information her late father had failed to impart.

The first stars of the night twinkled in the sky, as the streetlights flickered to life. Fatigue ached at her joints and muscles, while her stomach nagged for a substantial meal to chase away the hunger. A look at her pockets gave the same results as the last four times: an expired bus ticket, forty-three cents in change, the burned out charm of concealment, and the business card.

The neon sign at the end of the street proclaimed “EAT!”
Maybe they’ll exchange a meal for a couple hours of work if I ask nicely.

A rough hand pulled her into an alley and pressed her against a wooden wall. Megan saw another changeling, a child of Arcadia and humanity like herself. His sneer revealed gnarled, stone-like teeth. Amber colored sap oozed from his eyes, soaking into his shirt. He was more Fae than human. She felt her hair stir and writhe. “What do you want?”

“You’re trespassing, girlie,” he said. “This is my territory and I don’t like intruders.”

“I’m traveling the roads and claim the right of hospitality.”

“Ain’t none of that here. Maybe they follow that custom up in Pierre.” He chuckled, a rasping and grinding that sounded like it emerged from the core of the earth. “I don’t like your type, you smell of trouble.”

She glared at him. “I’ve done nothing wrong. If you’re not going to help me, then get the hell out of my way.”

“You’re feisty for a soft lander. I’m thinking you’ll make some good sport.” Glamour twisted around her, seeking to bind and restrain.

Megan laughed as the thick snake-like ropes of her hair writhed and hissed, shattering the enchantment. She could feel her mask burn away, knowing it would show the small scales on her hairline and her slitted eyes. Her hand shot out and grasped his throat. “Little man, I’m not some toy for your amusement.”

His eyes bulged in terror and fear, the threads of glamour vanishing and unraveling. “You’re her! The cyclops was right.”

“What cyclops?”

She followed him to the edge of town and a small, time-worn cottage. Tufts of dead grass made up the lawn and bare rose stalks formed a crude fence along the dirt pathway. A pale light shone from the front window. The other changeling thumped on the door, the sound of stone on wood. It creaked open, the rusted hinges protesting at the movement. Megan’s stomach growled as the smell of roasted chicken and vegetables drifted out from somewhere inside.

“Hello, Ray,” said a hooded figure. “You’re late and disobeyed my order. We’ll talk tomorrow on why I should continue to keep you. Go home.” The voice was stern, but the voice had a not-unkindly tone.

Ray bowed rapidly as he retreated into the night.

“Welcome Megan, daughter of Euryale, child of the Gorgons. Please come in and make yourself at home. My home and hearth is yours for as long as you wish it.”

“May your goodwill and generosity be repaid ten-fold.” She held up the business card. “You’re the oracle?”

“I am. Such a polite young lady.” The hood fell back to reveal a bald-headed woman with a single eye in the middle of her forehead. She smiled, showing a line of silvery teeth, and stepped back to let her in. “I’m Krynee the Ocular, and you’ve come at an opportune time. Dinner is almost ready.”

After two weeks of cartons or fried on the grill, Megan would have treated a bowl of soup as a royal meal. A whole chicken, mashed potatoes, steamed vegetables, and fresh bread filled the small folding table. Megan barely savored the taste before the first helping disappeared. The second plate was placed in front of her as she finished the initial one. “This is delicious.”

“Hunger makes the best seasoning, but I do pride myself on being a good cook. It makes the menfolk appreciate my talents.”

“I didn’t expect to find a changeling here, much less two of them.”

“Fate leads us to strange places. You were destined to be here, as was I. Ray has always been here and always will.”

“He tried to put a spell on me,” Megan mumbled around a mouthful of food.

“He has spent too much time alone with the earth and rock. He’s more Fae than changeling, tied and bound to this place,” Krynee said.

“You’re not fattening me up to eat, are you?”

“That is not my purpose. I’m here to guide you and then I shall move to the next place and await the next hero.”

Megan choked on a piece of bread at the comment. “I’m not a hero.”

“You seek to hide from your mother. I can provide assistance, but there’s a small matter that needs solving.”

“Now I know why oracles were feared and disliked.”

The cyclops smiled sadly. “It is our fate to be like Cassandra. For you, there may be a happy ending to this tale.”

“What do I need to do?”

“There’s a well nearby. You must cast a token into the waters to bind that-which-should-not-be back into the earth. In return, I will cloak you from the eyes of your mother for a year and a day.”

That was an easy and quick decision. “I’ll do it.”

“Good. Remember on your journey that ancient bones only sleep until they are woken.”

“Is that supposed to be advice?”

Krynee smiled and chuckled. “I’m an oracle. All I have is advice.”

Megan stood at the edge of the drop, sun beating on the back of her neck. Sweat trickled and matted her shirt, providing scant relief. The Badlands stretched out before her, walls of rock that wound for miles and miles in a maze of canyons and broken ground. The hot, humid wind gusted from below, bringing the smell of sulfur and other pungent odors. A faint path wound down along the wall, barely wide enough to walk on, and uneven with rocks. Her shoulders ached where the backpack straps dug into them, the full weight pressed against the base of her spine.
What did I agree to do? It’s not even a prophecy.

Her mind went back to the offer. The oracle would hide her from her mother for a year. That was worth all the heat, dust, and tired muscles. She’d looked over the token that Krynee had given her. A simple stone that fit in her hand. A fossil skull decorated one side, while the other contained three bones in a parallel row. The enchantment on the token pulsed in the manner that reminded her of a heartbeat. She returned it to the side pocket of the pack as she began her descent.

Scree crunched as each step took her towards the valley bottom and the myriad of hot springs that bubbled and burbled. The natives knew enough to avoid the area, even during the times when they had nowhere else to go. This was one of the hidden places where people vanished, never to be found except for a few bones or scraps of clothing. Dead-end canyons and lack of preparation were blamed for their loss, not the dark creatures of legends and power that lived here. They no longer heeded the call of Fae or man, if they ever did in the first place.

Megan pulled out her map and read the directions printed at the bottom.
Through the pools, to the canyon of skulls, past the three pillars, along the red stone path, to the dark pool. Talk to the guardian, but accept not his hospitality. Beware of the green vapors, for they ensnare and tempt. Pass under the arch of bones to find the source.
Her route was drawn in a heavy black line, easy to follow, no chance of getting lost.

Mud sucked at her boots, dragging at her steps, spattering on the legs of her pants. Her hair writhed in irritation, echoing her mood at the oppressive miasma that hung overhead. Only a mile wide and she’d spent an hour to cover less than half that. “Sisyphus’ hill has got nothing on this place.”

“You don’t like my home?”

Hera curse me.
She paused to seek the source of the voice. “Who’s out there?”

A pile of mud oozed and slid out from a pool, mouth forming sloshing words. “I do not know you, but you’re familiar to my old and imperfect memories.”

“I’m just passing through to the other side.”

“A long ways to go, please feel free to stop and rest.” It raised a gooey arm in the direction of a bubbling cauldron of mud.

Tempting.
“I can’t. I need to reach the canyon of skulls. Am I on the right path?”

It heaved and humped into a dripping pillar. A single eye, agate-like in color, pushed out of the mud. “My brothers guard the pass and death waits for those that enter. Turn away or your pretty skull will join the others.”

“Thanks for the warning.”
Why can’t it be a canyon of puppies?

“I know the way around, but favor I ask.”

“What sort of favor?”

“My form is not like my brothers and you smell of stone and poison. Make me like them,” it said.

It wants to be stone? That’s an absurd request.
“Are you sure? I can’t reverse the effect or promise that it’ll last very long.”

“Long enough is long enough.” An oozy tentacle formed and pointed to the far end of the pools. “Take the left path through the canyon. They cannot reach you there.”

Megan closed her eyes, drawing in the surrounding glamour, twisting and weaving it into a hard and unyielding force. Her hair swayed and hissed as her power built towards its climax. Her eyes opened and a baleful green light flashed, engulfing the mud thing. It caressed the creature, infusing and changing the slick and slippery substance from within and without. Layer by layer, the creature hardened to stone, freezing in place with mouth open and the agate eye encased behind solid lids. It was now a stone pillar in a sea of mud.

“Hello?”

No response.

Megan ran a hand along the statue, seeking any lingering enchantment and to see if the change was temporary. There was nothing but cold, hard, unfeeling stone. “Well, I hope you like your new form.”

An array of fossilized skulls, from the largest predator to the smallest herbivore and everything between, pushed out of the canyon walls.

She’d found the entrance to the cut as the sun reached midday, casting the shadows just so to reveal the skull of a narrow faced dinosaur.
Some sort of carnivore judging by the teeth.

Megan found herself squeezed as she slipped through a narrow gap. Protruding fossils tugged at her backpack and clothing as if seeking to keep her out. The path widened and split. To the right, it headed towards the canyon edge in a smooth and even fashion. On the left, a steeper, rocky track dove deeper into the rocky maze.

“Hello, lovely lady. Which way do you go today?” asked a small Fae as he stepped out onto the ledge. A silver pickaxe rested on his shoulder while a dirty pair of overalls covered his thin frame. He stood no more than a foot high with a broad grin and twinkling eyes.

Megan smiled. “I’m looking for a well.”

“A nasty place that, all wet and full of mud. No place for a lovely young lady like yourself.” He pointed to the right-hand path. “Now that way is a nice shaded viewpoint. A good place to rest your head for a spell.”

“You’re a Tommy-knocker aren’t you?”

“Kobold.” He tapped the tool on the ground. “Our picks are silver, not stone.”

“I haven’t met your kind before.”

“We’re children of the earth. Hard as stone and durable as a mountain.” He licked his lips. “Who are you?”

“I’m Megan, daughter of Euryale.”

The little Fae jumped behind a rock, waving his pick. “Left path is for you. It leads to the well.”

“Thank you, little Kobold. Your brother told me to take that one.”

He snarled, showing a row of serrated silver teeth. His face wrinkled and twisted in fear. “Changeling knew and played game with Kobold. Not fair, not fair at all.”

“You’d have waylaid me if I took your advice. Turnabout and all that.” Megan stood and started down into the shadows of the canyon. “He’s stone now.”

“Who?”

“Your brother.”

A wailing cry of dismay sounded behind her,rising into a chorus before fading to silence.

Three pillars and a red path. Could she have been any more literal?

Megan toed at the red sand covering the track that wove between the tripod of stone spires. Each started with a wide, round base, then tapered in the middle, before ending in a similarly wide, round top. Greyish-white flecks colored them so they stood out against the path.
All that’s missing is the green vapor.

Silence lay over the canyon as the wind died down. No dust stirred to choke her; there was no sound, save a faint scrabbling echoing off the walls. The formation pulsed with latent power. She knelt in the middle of the pillars and placed her hand flat on the ground. Glamour writhed beneath the surface, a sluggish and thick stream that flowed along the path to pool here before moving on deeper into the canyon.

Megan.

She started at the seductive hiss of soothing venom and enticing desire of the familiar voice. “Mother?”

My child. Come to me. Return and take your place at my side.

“Where are you?” Her words echoed . Nothing moved in response. She gazed at the top of the canyon, expecting to see one of her mother’s servants outlined against the sun.

Here in your soul, never far from my most favorite child.

“You can’t be!” A cold streak of dread and terror pierced her being, as if someone had walked on her grave.

My soul is yours for we are eternally entwined. Immortality awaits, all you need is to take it. I offer it freely to you.
A pair of green eyes gazed into her mind. They carried a timeless quality, full of wisdom, knowledge, and venomous desire.

“That’s not true, you want my body, so you can live on.” She clenched her eyes shut to drive away the image. Her limbs stiffened, as the glamour seeped into her being.

You. Me. There’s no difference. In the end, we will be as one. Stop this futile running.
Snakes hissed in her ears, their tongues flicking and tickling at the flesh.
I know where you are.

“No! Get out of my head!” Megan jerked upright, breaking contact . Green tendrils of smoke snapped and prodded at her . Hundreds of them writhed inside the stone triangle, forming and dissipating in turn, little more than fragile threads. Her boots dug deeply into the sand as she stumbled and tumbled away. The mist of green spread out and flowed back into the pillars, leaving nothing to show they’d ever been.

She’d fallen for a simple trap and nearly paid for it with her life. What’s more, it’d alerted her mother. “Dammit.”

The sun had begun to descend as Megan started down into the box canyon. A hot wind blew through the rock formation. Centuries of dust and grit had worn regular grooves into the stone, turning it into a vertebral-like arch.

The oracle’s been accurate every single time. That well should be just on the other side.
She drained the last of the drops from her canteen to moisten her lips and tongue.
I’ll refill it before I leave and maybe take a bath as well.

As predicted, the well thrust up from the stone in the middle of the canyon. Glamour infused the water, giving it an oil-slicked appearance in the last rays of the sun. She studied the patterns and flow of the rippling surface.
That’s odd, there’s no aspect or focus. It should tie to one element or another. This is a pure source.

“Hello again, girl,” Ray said, pushing his way out of the stone wall. He landed heavily on the path in front of her.

“What are you doing here?”

“Following you to the well.” His face wrinkled in a maniacal grin. “I always knew that it was out here, but couldn’t find it. Then the cyclops arrived in town and I knew she was the key to finding it.”

“There’s something bad in there.” The token vibrated in her backpack.

“It’s pure glamour.” Ray shuffled his feet as he approached it. “All that potential. Mine.”

“It’s not yours.”

“It’s mine!” He vanished into a pile of dirt, reappearing at the edge of the well. “My power.”

“Wait! You don’t know what it’ll do to you.” Megan took a step forward as he scooped up a draught to his mouth, swallowing in a single gulp.

His skin faded to a grey, then fractured into dozens of small fissures.

“I can feel the earth and stone. It’s me and I’m it. We’re one. No more weak, soft flesh. I’m pure.” Ray looked at her. “I know who you are, daughter of Euryale.”

Megan stared at him, seeing the lines of glamour trace jagged marks in his skin. Becoming more of the Fae and less human. “Oh damn.”

“Your mother will reward me when I turn you over to her.” Ray cackled as the pieces of red-colored stone fused to his body. He grew taller and wider with each addition, towering over her in short order.

“She’ll destroy you,” Megan said, slipping the pack off, judging the distance to the well. She heaved and sent it tumbling through the air. It landed on the edge, one strap floating on the surface. “Damn.”

“Stone is eternal and forever.” Gravel and scree slithered to cover his face, leaving only a crude outline of eyes, nose, and mouth. Thick fingers flexed with the crush and scrape of gravel while his steps mimicked the sound of falling stone. “The cyclops was right. I’ve become one with the earth now.”

Her hair spit, spattering globs of sticky green on Ray’s new skin. It slid off without effect.

“Useless magic. A child of the Gorgon and she’s helpless before the might of the earth.” He reached to grab her, fingers closing on empty air.

“You’re too clumsy to catch me.” She glanced at her pack.
The token’s still in there.

“You can’t escape from here and I will never tire.” The sun continued to drop, casting deeper and deeper shadows along the canyon.

Megan dashed and snapped up the pack, thrusting her free hand inside to grab the token. Her fingers wrapped around its smooth surface when she found herself pulled into the air.

“Not so clumsy now,” he said with a cackle.

“Die in a fire.” She twisted in his grip and threw the token into the water. Waves rippled, lapping back and forth, growing in speed and intensity. Water droplets spattered t in an ever-growing ring. The level o dropped as the pool agitated with a vigorous motion. Ribbons of green slime hit the stones with a squishy and meaty smack.

“What’s happening? What did you do?” Ray shook her, stirring the blood pooling in her head, inducing waves of dizzy nausea.

“What I was told!”

The canyon floor heaved and shifted. Ray stumbled, fingers slipping and sending her tumbling. Megan half hung over the edge of the pool, staring into the empty eyes of a huge partially-submerged skull. The snout thrust out of the muddy bottom, half open to show serrated, dagger-like teeth the length of her hand.
That’s one hell of a fossil.

“Girl! I’m not done with you.” Ray rose and stomped forward.

Ancient bones. Sleeping.
Krynee’s words pushed their way to the front of her mind. Megan’s eyes flashed green as she infused the last of her glamour into the skull. “Sleeping bones, wake and rise. Cease to slumber, heed my cries.”

The earth elemental, formerly known as Ray, reached down to grab her. “Come here.”

A roar echoed through the canyon. One that hadn’t been heard for millions of years, filled with rage and hunger. The skull arose from the well, attached to a skeleton of hardened, stone-grey bones. Short forearms waved in agitation as it emerged, powerful hind legs dragging a long bony tail behind it. The mouth creaked open and another roar rattled the canyon as it looked down at Megan. It crouched low and nudged her with its snout, as gentle as a mother to her child.

“How did you do that?” Ray stood a few feet away, hands at his side, and crude facial features scrunched up in surprise.

“Sic him!” She pointed .

The immense head swiveled, as its eye sockets blazed with a green light. It roared again.

“Shit!” Ray attempted to flee with slow, heavy steps. He’d not gotten far when the fossilized T-Rex head-butted him in the back, sending him toppling to the floor with a crash. A clawed foot pinned him as the tiny arms scraped at his rocky exterior. Bits of stone clattered under the treatment.

Then the T-Rex’s claws scraped only dirt, as Ray merged into the stone, sinking into the canyon floor. Megan whipped her head around. Sand and rock bulged in a snake-like fashion towards the vertebral arch at the far end. “There he is.”

The snout thrust into the ground, burrowing, then jerked back. Ray, no longer covered in stone, struggled around the dozens of teeth that pierced him. Muddy sand poured from the wounds, forming wet craters. With a triumphant snort, the T-Rex stomped back towards the well.

Its gait grew weaker and more uncertain as it reached the edge. The massive jaws opened and released Ray’s limp body. A final roar resounded as the last of the glamour and the green light in the eye sockets faded. The dinosaur bones cracked and splintered, returning to dust as the skeleton collapsed. Only the skull remained fully intact.

Megan walked unsteadily to the well. Ray’s body lay in the mud with limbs twisted in angles that bore no resemblance to anything normal. There was no more solidity to him, just an empty wrapper. The T-Rex skull had come to rest on top of the former changeling, snout pointing to the sky with mouth half open. Water trickled along its edge, slowly seeping back to refill the pool.

“Well, now what?” she asked aloud.

A boulder shifted and thudded heavily to the floor, as if in response to her question, revealing a tunnel cutting through the wall. At the far end, the artificial lights of town twinkled.

“Never look a gift horse in the mouth.” Megan said, and stumbled towards the promise of escape.

“You knew that it was Ray all along?” Megan winced as her hostess rubbed ointment on her sunburn.

Krynee sighed and slathered on more of the cooling goo. “I did. His fate is sad, but unavoidable. Left alone, he’d become too wild and unstable. In time, the town would have suffered and come to ruin. He’s returned to the earth and is happier for it.”

“How do you know? Did you see that as well?”

“I’m an oracle.”

Megan nodded. “Okay, that job’s done. Now what about me?”

A tin medallion shaped like the head of a Gorgon dropped onto the bed next to her. The coils of serpent hair were crudely sheared off and the eyes punched out. “Keep it on your person. It’s good for a year and a day, use the time wisely. There’s a bus leaving tonight that will take you back to your point of origin. You’ll be safe there.”

“She knows that I’ve been here.”

“And left. Her hunters move eastward, thinking you still flee in that direction. They will not look for you otherwise.”

“Thanks,” Megan said.

“Thank you. Ray is at peace and I’m free to move on,” Krynee said.

“Where are you going?”

“To the next place where old bones sleep, where I’ll await the next hero.”

THE BODY IN THE LAKE

Pete Sutton

The body was half in, half out of the water. I wouldn’t have seen it at all if not for the bull. It had chased me you see. I was off the beaten track, for me, in the farmer’s fields. I’d got half way across before I spotted the ‘cow.’ It had started to walk towards me before I noticed it was alone in the field. I was hurrying, it was getting close, I ran, it trotted, there was a small woodland and I made for that. It’d be easier to avoid it amongst the trees, I thought. I picked up a stout stick in case I had to defend myself.

Inside the close wood, which smelt strongly of cow, there was a small ruined house, completely surrendered to nature: trees coming out of the roof, bottom floor colonised by weeds, the works. I found myself climbing over the rotten windowsill as the bull, curious or angry, came snuffling into the woods. I hid and watched its great bovine face, with deep unfathomable eyes, stare at the house. It didn’t come closer, as though the house held some foreboding. It swayed its head, with a coating of flies, once or twice as if trying to smell me out. It then started to nip at the leaves of the nearest tree, its great lewd lilac tongue lapping at the branches. I wasn’t getting out the way I came, so I climbed over the debris in the building and through a half collapsed inner wall into the back of the house.

The back of the house was all nettles and spiders and my stick became a machete to attack the greenery with, but I still ended up with stings, and not a doc leaf in sight. I came to the back window which was even more rotten than the front with great trailing globules of slime smeared on it, like a giant had wiped a snotty finger on the wall. I climbed out, knowing from bitter experience that my mum would tan my hide if I came home covered in ‘filth.’ Below the window the ground angled steeply through another patch of nettles down to a lake.

That’s where the body was. Naked, white, glistening, with a great green tidemark up its back, as if it had been further in the water at one point but someone had dragged it partway out. I thought it was a woman, but it was hard to tell with it face down and the bottom half in the water. It had long red hair and the skin was otherwise hairless as far as I could tell in the green shade. There was just enough room for me to half climb, half scramble round the edge of the small lake. I wielded my ‘machete’ and bravely went forth.

Closer, it seemed more like a woman, or maybe a young boy, slight and slim. I got as close as I could. There was a gassy, sour smell and flies buzzed around the body. A spider had spun an intricate web joining the hair to a weed growing near, and sat bulbous and contemplative in the centre. I could imagine it watching the flies.

I poked the body with my stick. It yielded then lifted a little then flopped back into place when I stopped poking. I shuffled round some more until I could see the face. It was a woman, a young one too. I looked around but couldn’t see her clothes.

I decided to call her Judy. It was a name I liked; I’d told some of the other boys that I had a girlfriend called Judy. I could tell them now we’d found a secret place together. Although her hair was the wrong colour. On the other side of the body one arm was thrown up the bank, like a swimmer mid-crawl. Her nails were bright red against the pale doughy colour of her flesh. Her eyes were closed, I noticed. I’d said that Judy liked to close her eyes when I kissed her.

I grabbed her hand and heaved, careful not to topple into the water, and turned Judy over. A trickle of green slime escaped her mouth and drooled down her chin. I watched it curve sinuously across her chest, around a medium sized breast. I could just make out a tuft of hair where her body met the water.

My eyes travelled back to her breasts. My first naked woman. Real one anyway. Her nipples were darker than rest of the flesh, which was white as paper. I felt myself go stiff. That’d been happening a bit recently. Some of the other boys said that if you rubbed it, stuff came out, but I’d rubbed it lots and nothing had come out; I wondered if I was deformed in some way. It seemed wrong to rub myself here, but that made it all the more compelling. I wouldn’t mention the slime when I spoke about Judy watching me rub myself, lying naked waiting for me. I looked all around, although I already knew I was alone, and then dropped my shorts. It’s not as if it was the first time for me to go naked outdoors. I’d done it a lot, always wanting to stay secret but half hoping to be caught. Just rubbing felt good though and I went and brushed the spider off her hair and touched her face, which was of course cold. I watched my hand trace the contour of her cheek, slide down her neck and across to her breast. My heart hammered in my chest and I was shivering.

I felt something building; it made me rub harder, my thumb and forefinger tweaked her nipple before my hand covered her breast and my dick throbbed in my hand and something came out. Gouts of stringy mucus like stuff. It flobbed off my hand and down Judy’s body, all over her breast. I lifted my hand and sniffed and held out my tongue for a tentative lick. It was like hot mucus to taste, slightly salty. I wiped my hand in her hair and pulled my shorts back on.

Now I could tell the other boys that I’d cum. That Judy had helped me with a hand job. I wondered if she’d help me lose my virginity too. I looked down to where the hair just poked above the water. I’d need to find a rope first. I decided I’d come back the next day with one from the garage. Best let Judy rest again, so I heaved her back into her swimming pose and walked back to the house. Luckily the bull had wandered off and I was able to make my way back the way I came.

When I eventually got home my mum gave me a smack around the ear for being late, but my clothes were relatively clean.

“Where’ve you been till this time? You’ve missed Knight Rider, I know you love that program, I’ve been worried,” she said.

I just told her that I’d been playing with a friend and lost track of time. She swallowed that lie, just like she’s swallowed all the others. After supper, in bed, I ran through all the things Judy and I spoke about today. I had a lot to tell the other boys. Maybe tomorrow they’d see I was one of them, maybe tomorrow they wouldn’t call me names, maybe tomorrow they wouldn’t beat me up. I’d be able to tell Judy that all my friends were jealous that she was going to take my virginity. That’d make her feel better, I think.

GODS AND MICE

Bruce Boston

Its buildings were like monuments,
pristine and undisturbed.

Across deserted city blocks
not a voice could be heard.

The kitchens were all stocked.

The closets full of clothes.

This world awaited someone.

Who it was we did not know.

Beyond the city’s boundaries
the forest flourished green,
filled with various flora
yet no fauna to be seen.

Then we began to notice
things that did not jibe.

The forest was synthetic.

Its plants were not alive.

The houses had been built
at exactly the same time.

The food could not be eaten.

The clothes were paper thin.

This world awaited no one
but some fool it could take in.

We jumped to our conclusions.

They may not have been right.

Yet who would make a mock-up
on such monumental scale
but some race of super beings
that remained beyond our sight,
who watched our every action
as if we were laboratory mice?

We fled that world in panic.

Let’s face it: Call it fright!

For across a hundred stars,
a thousand years and more,
we had always stood alone
as masters of the stellar night.

We know it’s only paranoia
that stalks within our heads.

Our ship is safe in subspace,
just another streak of light.

Still we feel the eyes upon us
of gods we took for dead.

THE SEA IS IN MY BLOOD

Deborah Walker

Julia studied the body of the dead fish lying on the marble slab of the work surface. How should she transform this piece of cold flesh? Even before her ministrations, the underside of the ray bore a striking resemblance to a grotesque human face. The fish’s nostrils might be large, blank, empty eyes and the wide-toothed mouth grinned in a silent leer.

The image came to her. This fish would become a bishop. She took out her steel boning knife and began to carve. There was artistry involved here. As she made her swift cuts, Julia saw the future. She visualised the effect that would occur once the fish dried, the changing and warping that would occur as the moisture dried into the air. Julia fashioned the fish with those changes in mind. She understood the final decorations that time would add to her work.

She cut the pectoral fins away from the head and moulded them into a headdress that would resemble a mitre. She cut at the ventral fins and pulled them into a shape that might resemble legs. She cut away the ray’s tail; a bishop had no need of a tail. And, finally, she inserted black beads into the nostrils to resemble pupils and pulled at the flesh of the fish, carefully shaping the emerging expression.

The newly created bishop stared at her with its bead eyes, but she had no time to study it. She slid it onto the drying tray. Julia had many more monsters to create.

The old fashioned bell of the door rang. Julia wiped her hands on her canvas apron and walked through the workshop to the front of the shop.

Two women, dressed in their protective tourists suits, entered.

“How wonderful,” said the tall woman, twirling around to look at monsters arranged on the wall.

“How wonderfully old-fashioned,” agreed the small woman, breathing in the scent of varnish in the air.

Julia smiled at the women. “Please take your time to browse. I can answer any questions you might have.”

“They’re Jenny Hanivers, aren’t they?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“How wonderful.” The small woman fingered the hard, dried flesh of the Jenny Hanivers displayed on the counter. “Did you make them yourself?”

“I made some of them. My mother also crafts them, and my father . . . some of the works are my father’s.”

“Your father, yes, I see.” The tall tourist looked at Julia with a look of understanding.

Carved and dried, the Jenny Hanivers looked down upon the tourists; mermaids, dragons, basilisks, bishops; the once living creature, harvested from the sea, then mutilated into a new shape to spend an afterlife as a glazed dream. These were souvenirs for tourists with a taste for the macabre.

“Will the men be at the dock?” asked the tall women.

This was the reason tourists came to Shipsdown. They came in bus loads, to see the infected men of the docks, to buy their strange shells and to listen to their stories. If it wasn’t for the men of the docks, there would be no tourist industry

“The men are always at the docks,” said Julia, smiling. “They’ll be glad of your support.”

“I can’t wait to see them,” said the tall woman. “What’s this one?” She pointed to a Jenny Haniver that had caught her eye.

“It’s a mermaid,” said Julia. “In old days the Hanivers were seen as proof of the existence of all sorts of strange creatures. Sailors would buy them and take them home, spreading the tales of the sea to the land.”

“It’s very finely made. Perhaps we’ll call back, after we’ve seen the men.”

“You’ll be welcome,” said Julia, “Goodbye.”

“Goodbye, my dear.”

Julia sighed. She had felt sure that woman was going to buy a Haniver. The tall woman had looked at the mermaid with an intensity that often preceded a sale. She would have bought it if she’d been here on her own. Perhaps, she would come back, without her friend. But the tourists seldom came back.

Julia went back to the workshop. The dead fish were slowly transformed into what the tourists called folk art. After a time, rows of rows of Jenny Hanivers were laid out on the drying boards.

“Mum, I’m finished. I’m going out.” Julia shouted upstairs. No doubt her mother was staring into her silver edged mirror, a wedding gift from Father.

“Hold on,” shouted her mother. Mother came down the stairs slowly and entered the workshop. She was a hard faced woman, her mouth pressed into a lipstick grimace, a slash of vermillion in stone tinged skin. Mother’s face had been drying and changing, these past two years. Somehow, it always managed to surprise Julia, these changes in her mother. She had seen her mother staring at her image for hours; trying to see something different in the mirror. What was she looking for? Was it something she could ever find?

Let me see anything, but not this face destroyed by the harsh salt air — desiccated and unloved.

“Did I hear the shop bell ring?” asked Mother breaking into Julia’s speculations.

“Two tourists came in, but they didn’t buy anything.”

“Hmmmm.”

“They said that they’d be back.”

“Hmmmm.”

Her mother inspected Julia’s work. She had only just allowed Julia to work on the fish these past six months. There had been a small ceremony, of sorts, when Julia had turned sixteen. “Now you’re old enough,” her mother had said, as Julia had unwrapped the boning knife that had served as her birthday present. “You’ve old enough to understand what needs to be done, to create the Hanivers.”

“It’s good work,” said her mother, casting her practiced eyes over the rows of dead fish. “How many have you done?”

“Ten mermaids, five angels, thirty devils and five bishops.”

“That’s about the right ratio,” said her mother. “No dragons?”

“We’ve still got two dozen dragons in the shop.”

“Good work. I’ll set them to dry and you can have the rest of the day off. This rain will keep off most of the tourists. I can manage on my own this afternoon.”

“Thanks, Mum,” said Julia, wiping her hands clean.

“Don’t go down to the docks though.”

“Mum, of course not,” said Julia, striving for authenticity in her lies. She ran upstairs to change out of her work clothes.

When she came down she saw that her mother was examining her face in a small make-up mirror.

“Don’t do that, Mum,” said Julia.

“Do what?” Mother put the mirror into her handbag. “I’m sorry we have to stay here, Julia.”

“Mum, it’s all right — really.”

“We make a good living here, don’t we? I just don’t know if we’ll be able to live anywhere else. I’m not ready to move on, yet.”

It had been two years since Julia’s father had been lost to them.

“Mum, I like it here. Don’t worry. I understand, you know.”

“But, I do worry. Sometimes I think that we should get away. I worry, Julia, all the time.” She reached into her handbag again, seeking out her mirror.

Julia needed to get out of the shop, out of the smell of dead fish, and varnish; the smell of transformation. She just didn’t want to have this conversation again.

“Mum, it’s okay. I’ll see you later. I won’t be long.” Julia opened the shop door quickly, almost knocking the spring bound bell off its wire.

“Don’t go to the docks,” said her mother as she began to set out the dead fish to dry in front of the clay oven.

Julia walked along the edge of the old stone dock. She wasn’t supposed to be here and that was what made it so exciting.

Her mother had been right; the rain had kept most of the tourists away. But there were a few, walking along the dock, taking in the sights.

“Hello, Julia.” It was one of the men.

“Hello, Mr. Crackle. How’s business?”

“Passing slow.”

Julia stepped aside as a couple of tourists paused in front of Mr. Crackle. She looked at their foolish tourist suits. Nobody knew how the disease was passed. Some people believed you had to touch one of the infected fish, but that was unlikely. Fishing had been banned for eighteen months now. The boats stood rotting in the harbour, each day bought another layer of decay, and the lichens rose up covering them with a cloth of green, and blue and mustard yellow; and still new cases of infection were found.

But the tourists were careful, wearing their plastic suits against the threat of sickness. Still, it was one more source of income for this dying town. Now that the fish industry had died, tourism was the only way to make a living.

Julia was wearing a dress with a bright red flower print. She wasn’t a tourist. She lived here.

“Will I sing for you?” Mr. Crackle asked the tourists. They nodded, and within their plastic suits Julia made out the form of a man. Julia was surprised, the tourists were usually women, women couldn’t catch the disease — or so the Government said.

“Sails of silk, and ropes of sandal,

Such as gleam in ancient lore;

And the singing of the sailors,

And the answer from the shore.”

The threaded reed of Mr. Crackle’s voice came to a halt. The tourists waited for a moment, as if unsure if that was all they would get, but it was.

“Thank you,” said the tourist man. He put a five pound note into Mr. Crackle’s tin cup, and they moved away.

“That was beautiful, Mr Crackle. Did you make it up?”

“No, love. A fellow called Longfellow wrote it a long time ago. I added it to one of the old shanties, it seemed to fit.”

“You were never at sea, were you, Mr. Crackle?”

“No, Julia.”

He reached out his strange hands to remove the note from the tin. His hands were corrupted by the new infection which merged with the code of a man’s body to produce something new. Or perhaps, the disease resurrected the old data, the messages of the sea that swims in us all, and had been only been forgotten – but was now remembered in the shape of a fully scaled hand.

“I used to own the coffee house. But nobody wants to buy drinks from the infected. Still, the sea is in my blood now. I remember things, the songs, they come from somewhere.”

“I know what you mean,” said Julia. She hummed a fragment of the melody. “They are very beautiful, aren’t they - the old songs.”

“You understand, don’t you Julia, and yet you’re a woman. How very strange.”

“Am I strange, Mr. Crackle? The world is strange to me,” said Julia, still humming a fragment of his melody. “The seas are poisoned, the fish are dying and changes are all around. The Government can’t control anything, let alone the disease that has grown and multiplied on our coast. Maybe I’m strange, or maybe I’m not.”

Mr. Crackle looked closely at Julia, and she saw that the disease had progressed to his face, hardening the flesh and recreating it in the image of something other.

Last month, Julia had seen a man looking out on the dock with the eyes of a fish. She had wanted to talk to him. She had wondered what he saw through those strange eyes. But the Government had taken him away before she had a chance to ask.

“Well, take care, Mr. Crackle. I enjoyed your song.”

“And you got it for free,” he laughed. “Come back again soon, Julia.”

“I will.”

Julia knew all of the men on the dock. She used to come here with her father. The men, in their various states of transformation, sat on the edge of the dock, their souvenirs laid out in front of them, shells and driftwood, the flotsam of the sea.

Julia watched the gazing gaping tourists. Every now and again a tourist would let out a cry when they saw a particularly strange twist of flesh. The men of the dock were usually old, with their faces ravaged by years of sea spray, washing away, to produce the hard crags of their faces, as if the flesh of their faces had turned to rock. Then, on top of this change came the new corruption, the disease.

“Here’s a pretty shell for a pretty lady.” A new voice called along the dock, a young voice. The voice surprised her. Julia caught sight of the shell waved in her direction; it was an iridescent gift.

“Hello,” said Julia, staring like a tourist. This man was young. His face had not yet succumbed to the inevitable petrifaction of the sea, and the scales of his face gleamed in the air. He was quite beautiful. This is what the diseases looked like, then, when it caught the scent of youth.

She did know him. It was Michael Kenwood. He was a couple of years older than her. She’d seen him at school – before they’d closed it down a year ago.

“Michael, hi.”

Julia was surprised she thought that all the young men had left Shipsdown.

Don’t go near the fish men.
Her mother had warned her time and time again. “They harbour all types of dangers for someone like you.” Julia had never understood the warnings – until now.

“Hello,” he said. Michael was sitting on a square of tarpaulin, he moved his body to reach up to her, and in that movement, she saw the flashing of a shoal of fish.

Julia wondered what had kept him in Shipsdown. A girlfriend, perhaps? She looked at his face. No — it must be his old mother, keeping him here. He had stayed behind to care for her.

“Will you buy a shell?”

“What?”

Michael’s voice had broken the day-dreams that were sweeping over her. “How much?” she remembered to say.

“One pound for you, but I wish I could give it away.”

“It’s all right. I know you people don’t have much money.” A wave of embarrassment coursed over her. Why did she say that? It was her mother. Her mother’s prejudices were lettered irrevocably through Julia, no matter how much she tried to escape them. Her mother’s constant teachings had cast a net over her daughter’s thoughts.

But Michael appeared not to notice and only held out the shell, patient as the sea.

“You’ve carved it, how lovely. Please, wait a minute.”

Julia stopped to pull on her gloves. She wished she didn’t have to. It seemed so rude. But she’d promised her mother that she’d never touch a man without protection. She wished she’d thought to put them on before she came out.

“It’s all right,” said Michael seeing her hesitate. “It’s only sensible. Who knows? You might be infected, you might be protecting me.”

They laughed together at this small joke, as if she could be infected; she was so clean and silky, smooth; she was a woman.

Julia took the shell and passed him over the pound coin. She turned the shell carefully, examining the carvings. “Oh, it’s a Jenny Haniver. We sell these to the tourists.”

“It’s a sea dreamer.”

“I’ve never heard them called that before.”

The small carving was delicate, delineating an image that was both grotesque and beautiful, rendered deeply into the surface of the shell.

“She sings in my dreams. I saw her, once, when I was out fishing. She rose out of the sea and called to me. Listen to her song:

“Sails of silk, and ropes of sandal,

Such as gleam in ancient lore;

And the singing of the sailors,

And the answer from the shore.”

It was the song that Mr. Crackle had sung an hour ago.

“It’s a beautiful song. Did Mr. Crackle teach it to you?”

“It’s the song she always sings, although she doesn’t sing in words, of course. This is just our poor interpretation.”

His belief was so insistent; his confidence was so strong, that she found herself slipping into his shell of certainty.

“Did you want to join her?” asked Julia.

“I did, but I had strong ties to the land, then. But now, now, I think there’s not much to hold me here.”

“I’m sorry.” Julia found herself staring at his face, at the silvered scales that circled his eyes. She wondered how much of his body was covered in the gleaming flesh. “Where have you been? I’ve not seen you for a long time – since they closed the school.”

“I’ve been staying in Starmouth — not too far away. I’ve had the sea dreamer’s touch for nigh on six months, but she calls us all here. This will be her place of resurrection, I reckon.”

For a moment longer he held Julia in the spell of his story, but then she smiled. She knew that the men liked to weave tales, explaining their disease.

“I’m not a tourist, you know.”

“Listen to the shell.”

“Will I hear the sea dreamer?”

“I think you will. A shell carved with the sea dreamer will speak to you. She comes from before, before we poisoned the sea. I have the memory of her. Listen to the sea dreamer, Julia.”

Michael was becoming agitated. The pleasant encounter, the shared magic of the tale was turning to something else.

“Julia!” It was her mother’s voice coming along the dock. “What are you doing here?” Her mother grabbed her arm. “I’ve told you not to talk to these people, it’s not safe.”

Quickly Julia pushed the shell into her pocket.

“I’m sorry,” she apologised. She reached into her purse and took out a five pound note, and held it out for him.

“I don’t take charity,” he said.

“It’s for your mother.”

He looked bemused.

“Quickly take it.”

But he didn’t, and her mother pulled her away.

Her mother was so angry. She walked away from the dock, pulling Julia behind her. Julia began to cry.

But something was strange – all over the dock she could hear that same song rising, and the tourist women were pushing off their protective hoods and holding something to their ears. Julia wanted to stay but her mother’s hold on her was relentless.

“It’s bad enough that we have to stay here. I need you to help me, Julia. This is a bad time for me” said her mother. “You’ve let me down badly.”

“I’m sorry, Mum. I need to be on my own sometimes.”

“Not down there. You weren’t alone, down there.
You were making a fine show for them all. They were all looking at you, especially that young one. Did you touch him?”

“No.”

“Did he touch you? Tell me the truth.”

“No.”

“They’re freaks. Stay away from them; they’ll corrupt you.”

“They’re not freaks,” shouted Julia. “They’re like Dad. Was Dad a freak?”

“Yes, yes, he was. He used to touch me with his scaled hand, and I couldn’t bear it. I was glad when they took him away.”

Her mother gave Julia a look full of hatred. It was a curious expression to see on the face of your mother.

Her mother had left, gone upstairs to lie down.

Julia took out the shell Michael had given her. It wasn’t quite empty. There was a touch of silver substance in the peak of the spiral. She held it up to her ear, and she shuddered as she felt a needle-thin tongue of pain.

Everything changed.

Julia felt the tiny Hanivers invading her flesh. The sea dreamer had found a way to answer the call of the men. The Hanivers swam in Julia’s blood, and they sang out.

Julia sat in the shop – listening to the Hanivers calling her out of this life and into somewhere strange and ancient.

An aspect of the old Julia said, “You’re not real.”

The Hanivers answered, “We are real now. We are ocean and land.”

“I don’t want it.” Fainter now, the old Julia, the real Julia was slipping, slipping away.

“But you do want it, Julia. That is why you listened to the shell.”

This was what it felt like to be infected, with the strange new disease that had crossed over from the sea creatures to man and, finally, to woman. The salt in her blood sang.

Like the constant moving sea, the sea dreamer had changed. She couldn’t touch the bodies of the women, so she touched their minds instead. The molecules of the dreamer were coursing through the sea of Julia’s blood, and swimming in her mind.

Outside the shop Julia could see the men walking. They had left the docks and their voices rose in the old song.

“Sails of silk, and ropes of sandal,

Such as gleam in ancient lore;

And the singing of the sailors,

And the answer from the shore.”

Soon the men would come for Julia, they would touch her skin with their scaled hands, but, first, she must make herself beautiful for them.

Julia took out her boning knife and began to cut her face, making it as beautiful as a mermaid. The tiny Jenny Hanivers ran down in her salt, blood-red tears.

Julia would be the most beautiful of all, because she knew how the cuts would look when they dried and changed. Julia cut her face, not only with the knowledge of what is but, what will be.

Soon, she would be dried and complete.

“HARMLESS”

Uncle Don

Jan pulled up to the rundown house in the middle of the last block before the road dead ended at the railroad tracks. The squeal of her brakes echoed on the silent street. Aside from the cold breeze, there was no movement—no sign of life—among the empty cars lining the sidewalk. Some were missing windows. One had a club affixed to the steering wheel but was missing all its tires and stereo.

This wasn’t what she’d expected when she took this job. Fossil Lake, Illinois was just a college town, a sleepy little place where nothing much happened, so she assumed she’d be delivering pizzas to frat boys and sorority girls. They were her crowd. She’d graduated high school last year and was planning to apply to Fossil Lake College as soon as she saved up enough money for tuition. It wouldn’t be long before she’d be partying with those frat boys, and pizza delivery would be a distant memory.

But, two weeks into her job, it was Winter Break, and the town was practically deserted. It was eleven already, and this was only the second delivery she’d made all night. If anyone else had been available, she would have refused to make a delivery to this part of town. It was one of those neighborhoods on the outskirts that everyone tries to pretend don’t exist. The college was miles away, and students weren’t welcome here.

The customer’s address was a two-story frame house that looked just about like every other house on the block—run-down with peeling white paint on wood so rotten she imagined the front steps would snap under her weight. The wood flexed with her first step onto the bottom stair, so she leaned onto the handrail to steady herself. Bad idea. It broke and fell off into the bushes beside it.

The planks groaned as she crossed the porch. When the doorbell didn’t work, she knocked on the door. Her knock was answered by the sound of deadbolts unlocking from the other side. Then the door opened just enough for a gust of hot stench to burn her nostrils, making her gag. That was just the beginning. By the time the door was fully open the smell was enough to make her throw up a little bit in her mouth.

As if by reflex, she backed up a step from the occupant, a short, round troll of a man with greasy black hair clinging to an old Chicago Bears sweatshirt caked with food particles and stains.

“Frank’s Pizza,” she said.

The troll’s voice was a high pitched sort of snarl. Whatever he said was barely comprehensible, so she answered what she thought he might have said.

“Pepperoni and anchovies?”

“Yeah. Yeah,” he said. Or at least that’s what she assumed he said.

“That’ll be seventeen fifty.”

“[Incoherent mumbling]”

When he thrust a wad of cash into her face, she reached into her back pocket for her money clip. The shift in weight made the wood crack under her, and her left foot broke through the porch. Her ankle popped, followed by a flood of expletives. She was stuck up to her knee, and the troll hadn’t even bothered to help her. In fact, he wasn’t even in sight anymore.

“Somebody fuckin’ help me, dammit! Isn’t anybody gonna help me?”

Just then, the troll reappeared in the doorway with a strange grin on his face and a roll of duct tape in his hand.

“Could you give me a hand, sir? I think I broke my ankle.”

His response was another incomprehensible muttering and the loud rip of duct tape being pulled off the roll.

“What are you doing? Hey, what are—“

He wrapped some tape over her mouth and around her head. Then he started rolling it around her neck and shoulders while she swung her fists at him, landing a blow to his side or gut about half as often as hitting the air. The tape pulled her arms close to her body. He giggled as he encircled her with layer after layer of silver. Unable to scream or fight back, her only option was to swing her head in hopes of hitting him. She lost her balance and fell on her back. The troll yanked her by the shoulders to dislodge her from the hole.

If he could extract her, she believed she could kick him in the head or face and run, or at least hobble, out of there before he could recover from the blow. Her ankle was throbbing even before he pulled it out, snapping it in another direction. She would have screamed if she could.

She went limp and waited. Pretending to be unconscious, she opened one eye just a sliver—just enough to see him start wrapping her feet at the ankles. She waited for his face to get in range. Then she kicked. She channeled all her terror and all her agony into landing a foot to that fat troll’s nose. And it sent him reeling.

Rolling sideways to the edge of the porch, she kept the presence of mind to turn her body enough to slide off onto her good foot, and she hopped to her car. Her arms were immobile, but she could reach into her pocket for her keys. She clicked the keyless entry button before slamming into the car and trying to slide her finger under the handle to open the door. She got it open just enough to slip her hand into the opening and—he slammed it shut on her fingers. She felt—not just heard, but felt—the crunch of metacarpals. She accidentally touched the ground with her injured foot, but it wouldn’t hold her weight. Jan hit the ground with a thud. Before she knew it, he’d wrapped her feet, ankles, and legs.

The troll dragged her by the broken ankle up the front steps and into his house. The pavement scraped the skin off her back, and the loose nails and splinters on the porch tore into her flesh. The pain was so intense she couldn’t think or try to escape. Her head bounced off every step on the way onto the porch, over the threshold, and down the basement stairs. At the bottom, the back of her head slammed onto concrete, and she passed out.

Maybe she was out for a minute. Maybe it was an hour or a day. She came to her senses lying on a couch. Everything but her eyes and nostrils was rolled up in duct tape.

She heard a distant knock and footsteps walking across the floor above her.

The troll answered the door. “Hey. Can I help you?”

“We’re following up on a missing person case. There’s a missing girl. Have you seen her?”

The troll paused. Maybe he was looking at a picture being shown to him by a police officer. “No…no I haven’t seen her.”

“Well, we found her car parked on the street outside your house.”

“Oh? I ain’t seen her.”

“That’s funny. You see, it turns out she was delivering pizza the night she disappeared. Do you like pizza, Mr. Campbell?”

“No. I like pasta.”

“Really? It turns out she was scheduled to make a delivery here that night. Are you sure you haven’t seen her? Maybe you can take another look.”

“No. I’ve never seen her.”

Jan knew the cop had caught the troll in a lie. In a few seconds they would storm the house and find her. They would throw him in prison where he’d spend the rest of his life.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. Yeah, man.”

“Okay. Thanks for your time. Here’s my card in case you happen to see her.”

She felt sick to her stomach when she heard the cop leaving. The door closed. The troll crossed the floor and opened the basement door.

In the front yard, the cop told another officer, “He hasn’t seen her.”

“Are you sure? She must have been here. Her car’s—”

“He’s just the town crazy…never leaves the house. He just trolls the internet all day. We’ve gotten a few complaints about him harassing people online and calling in bomb threats to schools in New Jersey, but he’s harmless. He doesn’t even own a gun.”

RETIREMENT HOME

K.H. Koehler

Ron called Victor into his office just as he was going off shift. Victor knew it was bad. He felt it. He hovered uncertainly in front of Ron’s ginormous executive desk, playing with a paper cafeteria napkin he had stored in the pocket of his lab coat, rolling it round and round, while Ron finished up with one of his always important phone calls. “I want it ten minutes ago!” Ron demanded just before hanging up. He sucked down the last of his smoke and indicated a chair.

Victor shook his head and crossed his arms.

Ron frowned with annoyance. “Have a seat, Vic. I can’t stand it when you hover all ominous like that. Are we having a storm tonight or something?”

“You tell me,” Victor replied grumpily. He leaned forward, fingers splayed across the manila file lying atop Ron’s desk calendar. It was closed, so he couldn’t read the contents. This annoyed Victor and fed his hubris. “What’s up?” he asked. “Or do I even want to know?”

Ron lit a fresh Havana and sat back in his all-leather, office-recliner-chair-thingy. It was one of those orthopedic deals that was supposed to straighten out your back without you doing anything. It had eaten up a good deal of the annual budget, Victor knew. Like the Havanas.

Ron sighed.

Good god, this was worse than bad.

Victor played with the paperweight weighing invoices, the one containing Dr. Pretorius’s mermaid homunculus, turning her idly while she scowled up at his careless handling of her aspic. “Spit it out, Ron!” Victor said. “I don’t have all night!”

Ron puffed. “This is...sensitive.”

“Adam hasn’t been fighting with the wife again...?”

“No, no.” Ron dismissed that by waving away a cloud of smoke and sat forward. “Nothing like that. He’s been good as gold of late. Elsa’s even getting him to do the company barbecue this year. He’s coming along just fine. Should be over that whole pyrophobia thing in no time.”

Victor touched the file again. “So...?”

Ron’s expression twisted this way and that, facial tug-of-war. Finally he gave in and spat it out. “It’s about...Jack, actually.”

“Jack? What’s Jack done now?”

“Nothing antisocial! It’s just, well...that was the boss man I just spoke to, and he’s decided we need a turnover. I mean, the joint’s making no profit, so we’re in for some big budget cuts. It’s like with Wal-Mart—you save through the employment angle—”

Victor flinched, thinking of Jack’s certain fate as a Door Greeter at Wal-Mart if this gig fell through, though, admittedly, he was getting a little tired of cleaning up his messes. He set his jaw and stuffed his hands deep into the pockets of his lab coat. He was almost afraid to go on. But go on he must, he knew. It wasn’t in his nature to give up on anything. It was his job—nay, his duty—as Assistant Manager here.

“And what do these new employment angles have to do with Jack?” he hedged.

Ron made a helpless hey-it-ain’t-my-fault gesture. “We gotta let him go, Vic.”

“Let Jack go,” Victor intoned. “Are you crazy?”

“No, Jack is.”

“He’s supposed to be.” He gave Ron his profile. “It’s what he gets paid for.”

“Boss man says the slasher craze is over. Big bug monsters are coming back. I ain’t arguing with him, are you?”

Not in this economy,
Victor thought. He dropped his eyes, thoughts of Door Greeting in his immediate future flitting through his head like demonic sparrows.

“I’m really sorry, Victor.”

Yeah, sure.

Victor shook his head. Poor Jack. And to think he and Norman were getting along so well, too. “Just where do I come in on all this?”

Ron opened Jack’s file and flipped through it nervously. “I was hoping you’d...you know, sit him down and...”

“Serve him his papers,” Victor finished abruptly.

Ron painted on a painful smile.

“Ron—”

“Now, don’t start with me, Vic,” Ron snapped. “You tell me you want knowledge and power and the whole friggin’ Faustian package, want to replace God—”

“I never said I wanted to replace
God, only that I knew what God felt like—”

“—and all that, and now you pull a face. What is it with you and responsibility? I’m starting to believe all the things your son has told me about you—”

“What’s that monster been saying about me?”

“Don’t matter.” Ron dismissed it all with another chop of his hand, sending the fumes of his cigar into Victor’s face. “All that matters is the bottom line. Focus, Victor, focus.”

Victor waved it away. Now he was really annoyed. Once he had been a god among men; now he was a stiff-necked paper pusher like all the other lowborn Neanderthals running this place into the ground. But that was the price to be paid for semi-retirement, he supposed.

“Can I count on you or not?” Ron said.

“I’m not personnel, but…I suppose.”

“Good.” Ron steepled his professionally manicured fingertips together. “The others do admire you—”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“—and look up to you, you know.”

“Wundervoll!
Anything else?”

“Big bugs. Think big bugs. Are Them! up for retirement?”

“No.”

“Wasp Woman?”

“No.”

“Mothra?”

“No!” Christ on a cracker. Victor stormed out of Ron’s office, slamming the door behind him so hard the heavily leaded glass rang in its frame. He paused outside, steaming, staring at Ron’s name emblazoned in gold on the glass.

Oh, just drop it on Victor...Victor doesn’t mind. Everyone admires Victor.

Sure. Sometimes he really regretted working his way up to Assistant Manager.
Overachiever, Victor thought, that’s me.

He heard a subhuman groan and turned to find its source. Kharis was limping down the corridor, headed right for him, his time card gripped tight in one overmittened hand. Victor pushed past him. “You’re late! You’ll need a swipe!”

Kharis dropped his card.

Victor swung around. “Not one click overtime!”

Kharis raised his fist slow-mo-like, and groaned out an Egyptian curse at him.

He didn’t care. Didn’t care that it would take the relic a good ten minutes to pick the time card up and another five to swipe the damned thing. He kept walking, sulking, his head down until the formaldehyde on his lab coat started to get to him.

Work had to be done. And he was the go-to guy, after all.

He took the stairs down to the lobby of the museum, stomping hard to let his presence be known to the few remaining employees on the floor. It was long after-hours and the main display room of the wax museum was empty save for two black-clad ushers snapping velvet snakes across the exhibit coves. They glanced up at Victor’s approach, then quickly averted their mascara-blackened eyes. The help wasn’t paid enough to talk to anyone.

Country western music was pouring out of hidden speakers in the ceiling in lieu of the usual low-key, decidedly unspooky soundtrack, trading one annoyance for another. Tim McGraw twanging through a wax museum at three in the morning was simply not a pretty thing to experience in a state of sobriety.

Victor stomped over to one of the ushers and tapped him on the shoulder.

The usher started, then looked at his companion as if seeking a way out of this.

Victor squinted through a growing headache at the little man. “You seen Jack?”

The usher looked dumbfounded by the question, as if he’d been asked to do advanced calculus in his head. Victor thought again of buying that cattle prod he’d seen on Amazon. He couldn’t help it; he did have a thing for electricity.

“Well?” Victor repeated, talking in a way a slow child of three or four, or even an online Nitwit, might understand. “Have. You. Seen. Jack?”

“Out, Victor,” came a soft, cultured voice from the next exhibit cove over. Victor turned in time to see Erik slide out on a crawler from under his pipe organ. He had a handful of tools in one hand and a mangling of unidentifiable parts and wires in the other. He groaned as he pulled himself up to his full seven-foot height. He was sweating profusely under his porcelain mask.

“Out?” Victor echoed as he wandered toward the man.

“Oui.
Left fifteen, twenty minutes ago.” Erik dropped his useless parts in a crazed mechanical pile on the floor of his exhibit. Somehow, Victor doubted that old pipe organ was worth so much work to save, but if he knew Erik—and he thought he did—he could be damned obsessive about some things.

“Out where?” Victor asked.

Erik blotted his neck with the hem of his opera cloak and shrugged. “Monsieur Jack is a very strange one, eh?”

He checked his pocket watch. “Did he say when he’d be back?”

“Who is to know, mon ami?”

Not me, obviously, thought Victor.

“Thanks,” he said and turned away.

Some night this was turning out to be. Old home week on the funny farm, staff cuts and the return of the big bug craze. He thought about ringing Waspy—he knew the old girl would be abuzz with excitement if Victor offered her a job and got her out of that cheesy Vegas show she was doing, but they had a history and there was nothing worse than having to work in the same environment as your ex. Jesus Christ. He should have stayed in Geneva. He could have gotten tenure at Ingolstadt and kicked back and written a few anatomy books, maybe taken up fly-fishing in his retirement.

Larry was coming in the back door. He was wearing a Lakers tank top, hairy arms cradling a basketball to his flank. He saw Victor and smiled, a flare of white teeth in his unshaven face. “Yo, Vic, look sharp, man,” he said and flicked the ball.

Victor caught it and turned it idly in his hands as Larry jogged up. “Little one-on-one?” Larry asked. “Give you a handicap, man.”

“No, thanks.”

“Let you experiment on me if you win, dude.”

“I really don’t feel up to it tonight.”

“Yo, man. Whassup?”

Victor flicked the ball back at him. “Boss man’s letting Jack go.”

“Bummer,” he said and hung one long, befurred, ape-like arm companionably around Victor’s neck. “No one likes the bearer of bad news. Suppose Ron’s having you drop da bomb?”

“You know it.”

“Double bummer.” Larry walked him to the door. “You always the villain, man. Always the villain.”

“You seen Jack?”

“My bad. He and Vlad just left, man. Going for a couple after-work drinky-poos. You know those two lady-killers.”

“Yeah.”

“You really look like someone kicked your dog, man.”

“Life’s a bitch,” he answered Larry obliquely. “Jack the Ripper back as a Door Greeter at Wal-Mart.”

Victor was smoking an unfiltered Newport near the Dumpster of the museum when he had a revelation. He was ruminating over the fact that there was no smoking room in the employee’s lounge while Ron was busily eating up funding with orthopedic chair-thingies when he heard a commotion nearby. Fearful it might be Vlad’s lackey chasing rats, he picked up a small rock by his shoe and turned to glare into the darkness, trying to find a moving target. Torturing some small, helpless animal was just what he needed tonight. Better than a six-pack after a shitty long day.

A number of rats had trapped a small cat in the space between the Dumpster and the weedy green privacy fence that separated the wax museum from the adult video store next door. They did that sometimes—the prey turning the tables on the predator. Victor had even seen a couple of big brazen ones trap and kill a raccoon once. He’d tried to convince Ron that a
Willard remake was just around the corner, but Ron had been stuck on serial killers at the time.

It gave him an idea. A good one

“No, Vic,” he told himself, throwing the rock at the rats. “An excellent idea.”

Victor was leaning against the wall next to Ron’s office when he stepped into the hallway and turned, locking up for the night. He looked surprised—and perhaps a tad worried. “Hey, Vic.”

Victor looked up. “Hey, Ron. How’s the back?”

“What?”

“You got all those fancy office toys. The back massage chair. They must be working.”

“Oh…yeah.” He gave Victor’s relaxed posture a nervous once-over. “Doin’ great. You get Waspy’s number?”

“Waspy wasn’t in.”

“And them?”

“Them?”

“Them!”
He glared at Victor as if he had suddenly gone stupid.

Victor smiled and showed his pearly whites. He pushed his glasses up his long nose. “Actually, Ron, I have a better idea. It’s really something. We’ll get the joint out of the red in no time.”

Ron gave him a dubious glare. “Oh yeah? Impress me. Hell, if you can impress the boss man at this point, he’ll probably make you manager.”

“You think so?” Victor put his arm around Ron and started walking him down the hallway.

Ron laughed nasally like a jackass with a bad head cold. “Sure thing. But let’s be honest, Vic, I’m not likely to lose my job anytime soon. You’ve never had a decent idea in your life.”

Victor smiled good-naturedly. “That may be so, but just hear me out…it’s really funny. I think you’ll appreciate this.” And with that, Victor reached into the pocket of his lab coat and put the nose of the taser he’d bought off Amazon into Ron’s back and gently squeezed the trigger.

Ron did the electric boogaloo in the middle of the hallway while the sexy little device whirled and crackled and the faint odor of ozone and burning hair filled the air. Then he dropped like a University of Florida student at Victor’s feet and lay shivering with spent electricity.

Victor flicked the trigger with amusement. He wished he’d had these types of toys back in the day.

Down the hallway the darkness parted like a curtain and Victor saw eyes. A lot of them. Green and white and bright hellblazing red. Blinking eyes. Laughing eyes.

This was better than strip poker night and getting Vampira out of her dress.

The darkness down the hallway surged forward as one—a veritable tidal wave of menace. The employees of the museum slithered and wiggled and slouched and shambled forth, their leering, laughing eyes pinned to Ron’s prone form.

Ron mumbled, then floundered like a great fish out of water. One of his meaty hands reached out and clawed the evil green carpeting in the hallway as he slowly pulled himself into a safe corner. Except that in this funhouse of the dead and the damned, there were no safe corners. A sudden low-lying mist surrounded him, pressed in. Hands pawed at the air in front of his face. Knives, claws and teeth glinted in the dilated pupils of his eyes.

“It’s time you retired, Ron,” Victor told his boss, standing over him with a smirk. “The joint’s making no profit.”

The Creature scrabbled at Ron’s ankle with one slimy, beclawed flipper. The Bride tottered up to him, grinning at him as she bent forward, showing a lot of undead cleavage. Vlad’s wives crawled across the walls and ceiling like angry, chittering cockroaches. But despite it all, Adam made it there first like a walking brick shithouse, a Hulk-smash look on his pale, bluish face. He reached for Ron.

Ron screamed. Or tried to. But Victor’s son’s hand was like a cold, grey slab of meat, clutching Ron’s mouth closed and cutting off his cry of protest.

After tallying the receipts for the week, Victor sat back in Ron’s fancy orthopedic chair, sipped coffee from Ron’s engraved
Best Boss Evah!
mug, and lit up one of Ron’s Havanas. No more red. He patted the thick leather pouch, then went downstairs to tell the others the good news.

The museum was packed, so much so that Victor had to slide sideways through the crowds gathered twenty deep at all the exhibit coves. The soundtrack pouring down from the PA system was still decidedly unspooky, but the patrons didn’t seem to mind. They were too enthralled by the performance at Cove One.

Victor stopped and observed the performance with detached interest. After a week one would think the patrons would be tired of it by now, but some things never went out of style. Like torture. It was a hit for the Romans, after all.

Tonight Igor had Ron on the rack and was stretching out his troublesome back. The patrons oohed and aahed and whispered about how realistic the blood, crackling bones and cries of pain were, better than the usual phony Hollywood stuff you saw in the movies.

Larry stopped and hung one furry arm about Victor’s neck. “You’re gonna love it, dude. We’ve even got rats to run all over him tonight.”

“Rats, huh?”

“You no fan of rats?”

“Could take ‘em or leave ‘em,” Victor said. “I think they’re overrated.”

“But one of ‘em’s Ben.” Larry grinned triumphantly, then turned, scowling at the performance. “Betcha didn’t know a human body could do angles like that.”

“Actually…yes, I did.”

“Oh right. You the anatomy man.” Larry nodded. “Just remember you working tomorrow.”

“Am I?” Victor said. He checked his calendar on the cell phone inside his pressed Italian sports jacket. “Amputation or electrocution?”

“It’s your bag, man. Whatever you think will make him scream.”

“I doubt the rats will make him scream.”

“A fiver says Ben will.”

“You’re on.”

PLAYING GAMES

Kerry G.S. Lipp

She’s staring at me and she won’t fucking stop.

I’m not bothering her. She shouldn’t even know that I’m around, that I’m in the room. And it’s my room, my house, anyways. But she won’t stop staring. She just sits there, in the corner, staring at me.

I’m just trying to play Xbox. I didn’t even invite her over. She just…showed up.

I bought a new game today to try and get her off my mind. She’s taken over my life and I wanted to a night to myself so I could be myself, so I could play and drink and check Facebook on my phone to chat about the game whenever it hits a load screen. But she won’t let me. She doesn’t speak; she just stares as if she can’t believe that I’m more interested the game than her.

Uh, newsflash, bitch. I’m saving the world from parasitic, carnivorous, bug-eyed aliens. What have you done for me lately?

I try to ignore her, but I can feel her eyes boring into the back of my head.

I sip my beer and splatter virtual guts all over the screen.

She’s still staring at me. I’m sitting on the edge of my bed, she’s perched at the top behind me, her body slumped up against the headboard, eyes scowling, her mouth dropped open in an expression of disbelief.

Like she just doesn’t understand that sometimes, I just want to play Xbox. It has nothing to do with her. I don’t hate her. I don’t even not like her. It’s just I like to play games, too. God knows she plays her own all the time.

I kill a boss and am treated with a cut scene.

Instead of tweeting about the level I just completed while the next level loads, I look back at her and force a grin. She just stares back with that empty, incredulous expression.

I fucking told her I didn’t want to hang out tonight.

Why the fuck is she here, anyway?

Oh, that’s right. She texted me that she missed me and then just showed up.

God, it’s not like I didn’t just see her this morning.

Why didn’t she bring a book or something?

Is she testing me?

I don’t even know why I answered the door. It’s not my fucking job to entertain her. And I told her that, so I don’t feel the slightest bit bad when I turn back to my television screen and let it entertain me.

I feel her eyes on the back of my skull, hating, judging, not understanding, and finally I can’t take it anymore.

When she starts playing games with me, which seems to happen every single day, I don’t question. I let her play.

I let her tell me that she might come over late tomorrow after her ex drops off the rest of her stuff when he gets off work at midnight. Or that she got hit on three times at the bar during ladies’ night on Thursday. I’m not that needy, so I let it go. I’m confident in our budding relationship so I let her play her games.

Sometimes I even play back.

So why won’t she let me play mine?

“Stop fucking staring at me!” I scream. “I just want to play, just for one fucking night. You shouldn’t even be here, anyway.”

She’s fucking pathetic, slumped back there. Now she’s playing more games, taking her clothes off. Poking me in the lower back with her toes.
I will not turn around.

But I finish another part and as the game’s loading, I can’t help myself.

I turn around and see her naked, legs spread, arms posed to support her breasts, making them symmetrical and perfect. She’s watching me, taunting me, teasing me, beckoning, daring me to put down the controller and play with her body instead.

I will not.

She doesn’t understand that the video games I’m playing now are far more enjoyable than the mind games she likes to play. I love her body and I’m sweet as hell on her, but I’m not fond of her head games. Taking hours to answer a text message, ignoring phone calls outright. She reaps some kind of sadistic pleasure as she bats me around like she’s a big cat and I’m a little mouse. Sometimes, I think she’s crazy.

She can’t handle it when I fight back, and I don’t want to fight back. I don’t want to play her games tonight. I don’t want to read every text message and wonder what she’s doing and how drunk she is and when she’s going to decide that she’s found someone better than me. I don’t want to stare at my phone all night.

I told her I was unavailable. I told her I wanted to play my own games tonight. Harmless games. Games that don’t induce unpleasant anxiety at every turn.

Apparently, she took that as a challenge.

Apparently, she can’t handle it when I have fun that has nothing to do with her.

Apparently, she’s an even bigger bitch than I thought.

I’d kick her out, but she’ll refuse to go. I don’t know what she wants.

Does she really need that kind of validation? To be the only game I’m willing to play?

What does that say about her, anyway?

I mean, most girls get all up in arms if you refer to them as entertainment, but the split second you choose a movie or a book or a game over them, suddenly they feel betrayed. Saying things like, “you’re enough for me, why can’t I be enough for you?”

I think about this as I blow an alien’s brains all over a wall. One of his eyes sticks to the wall and stares at me; crazy how far games have come.

Now, I’m getting it from the screen and my girl because she’s still fucking staring at me.

I can feel it.

I turn and look.

And she’s naked.

I throw my blanket over her head. Her body. I don’t need such distractions.

She doesn’t respond.

Whatever. At least I can’t feel the stares anymore.

When she stares, I feel like she’s judging me; critiquing my game performance. Being critical even though I’m kicking alien ass. I feel like she accusing me of something. Accusing me of liking games more than her even though I’ve only been playing for an hour. She’s been playing with my heart for months.

I ignore her.

I turn back to the screen and move down the hall, away from that alien eyeball that’s still stuck. I make a right turn. Aliens ambush me in the next corridor. I pump them full of lead. I don’t think I miss a shot.

Finally, she can’t take it anymore.

“You’re fucking pathetic,” she says and throws off the blanket. I can feel her moving around on the bed trying to find her clothes.

I pause the game and set down the controller.

“I’m pathetic?”

“All you care about is that fucking game.”

“I just asked for one night,” I start, and then realize that’s not going to work. “At least this game is harmless,” I say.

“What are you talking about?”

“The games you play mess with my head. Mess with my heart. You don’t answer text messages. You tell me about how many guys are hitting on you while you’re drunk at a bar. I don’t think you have any idea what that does to me. I bought this game solely to distract me from that shit, but you won’t let me have that either.”

She doesn’t answer. But her wide eyes blink at me. Even now, they are pretty. I can’t tell if she still doesn’t get it or if my aggressive honesty is helping her to put the clues together.

She doesn’t have her clothes on yet.

I stare at her beautiful body. I glance back at the game on my screen, glance down at the controller in my hand. Look back at her.

“Yeah, that’s right, come play with me. You know you want to,” she says, and bats her eyelashes.

And I do.

I’ve had enough.

I like my violent games. And I don’t like her bullshit games.

But if she wants to play, then I’m happy to play.

She wears me down.

I come at her so aggressive that she starts screaming.

More games.

At least, she thinks they are.

Behind me, on my Xbox and my television screen, the aliens are attacking.

I hear my character taking damage and then dying in the background.

Her eyes are staring at me, as if she can’t believe how I’ve reacted. Like she can’t believe that I’d wrap my hands around her throat.

But then she smiles. And nods. Lets out a sexy moan.

“I think I like this game,” she rasps.

Her cell phone chirps from a pocket in her jeans. I reach for it. She tries to stop me. I slap her across the face. I pull it out. Look at it.

This text message proves that I’m not the only person she’s playing.

I look back at my screen.

My character is dead.

The game is loading.

She stares at me, eyes now fearful instead of annoyed.

I squeeze.

I wonder how long it takes to choke someone.

It takes longer than I think.

Her eyes.

So wide.

So scared.

So pretty.

My character respawns in the midst of battle. I hear him take damage, and then die.

Her face is purple but her eyes still blink.

Shit.

Fast as I can, I take one hand off her throat and hit the start button on the controller.

The game loads while I strangle.

My character dies again.

And then she follows suit as I win this game.

She will not respawn. She is out of continues.

She liked to play her games and I liked to play mine.

Looks like I’m better.

I turn back to my screen and press start.

I wonder how far I am into the game and think that maybe I can finish this one tonight since I won’t have any distractions.

I check my phone while the game loads.

No messages.

Then I throw it across the room.

It’s time to play.

I am reborn with twin pistols in my hands and I start blasting more aliens.

Lost in the game, I don’t think about her anymore.

Everything’s cool for a while.

But even in death I can feel her playing games, naked, legs still spread, eyes still wide, body still slumped up against the headboard.

She’s staring at me and she won’t fucking stop.

Every now and then I look back at her, and she’s still naked, still dead, still fucking staring. I cannot allow her games to continue because they interrupt mine.

I decide to put a stop to things.

I have to pee anyways.

And get more beer.

I ask her if she wants anything.

She doesn’t answer. She just stares.

I come back into the room with an empty bladder, a fresh beer, a knife and a spoon.

She’s still dead and I still have no messages on my phone. Hers keeps beeping though.

I check her phone.

Damn.

Either I wasn’t enough for her, or she was a lot thirstier than I ever saw.

She’s staring at me while I check her phone, but I’m judging her now, for her games, and not the other way around.

She was good at playing them, but not good enough.

She’s fucking dead.

I sip my beer and before I start my game again I go to work.

With my spoon I dig her eyes out and with my knife I cut them free. There isn’t as much blood as I thought there might be. I put her eyeballs on a towel and go wash my hands.

I don’t want to get blood on my controller.

When I come back, I put her eyes on top of my television. I look back at her body, only empty black spots where her eyes used to be. Two black pools of nothing. They see nothing, they judge nothing, but their absence says it all.

She looks prettier without her judging eyes, and her naked body doesn’t hurt either.

Her phone rings again.

Bitch.

I ignore it. I’m done. Now it’s time to play.

I press start and start shooting.

On top of the screen her eyeballs are staring at me and they won’t fucking stop.

But now, I’m starting to like it.

And that bitch behind me?

I might play with her later. Probably will in fact.

Spoils of war.

Might even put her eyes back in.

We’ll see.

But for now, I’ve got a rocket launcher, grenades, body armor, and I just upgraded my stealth skill.

Her game is over, but mine is just beginning.

THE INCIDENT IN CENTRAL VILLAGE

Doug Rinaldi

I ignited a blazing trail of velocity in my descent down Kinney Hill Road, but in front of me, the windy day kicked up enough road dust to sandblast my face. Being that it was my first week on a ten-speed bicycle, I figured, what would be the worst that could happen?

Watching all the other kids in the neighborhood whiz on down the mammoth hill with skill and ease, I knew that accepting such a challenge would put me on the cool kid radar for sure . . . as long as I didn’t end up repeating the embarrassing hyperventilation episode from a few days ago. Apparently, dropping the bike into the lowest gear and then trying to pedal up an incline was not how one got it done. Dad had to come get me as I sat on the side of the road defeated and barely able to breathe, fearing death.

But that was all in the past as I heard mighty Kinney Hill calling my name and challenging my budding manhood.

The scenery continued flashing by me in color-streaked blurs; the rushing wind pounded against my eardrums. My smile beamed ear to ear and I didn’t care at all about the road spitting dirt up into my mouth. It felt immense. As I quickly, yet sadly, neared the end of the asphalt giant’s path, I felt triumphant, like a genuine badass. First week riding a ten-speed—take that!

At the bottom of Kinney Hill, I merged onto River Street and applied my brakes. I guarantee it would’ve been the smoothest stop ever had I squeezed the correct hand brake. Before I realized what had happened, my soft head made swift and painful contact with the hard and unforgiving blacktop. By applying the wrong brake, I managed to somersault with the grace of a buffalo on a trampoline right over the handlebars and embed gravel and chunks of dirt into my forehead.

I collapsed into a pitiful pile right in the middle of the intersection of River Street and Sachem Drive, screaming and crying for help. Of course, no one came to my aid as I bled all over myself and the poor street, probably due to everybody being over at the Ram’s field watching the high school’s big rivalry game today. Just my luck. . . .

Despite not seeing anyone around, I hoped that nobody sat staring out his or her window in stitches over my mishap. I quickly got to my shaky feet and dusted myself off. My head pounded and spun in agony. As I wiped the trickling blood off of my face and out of my eyes, flicking it off my fingers and onto the road, I felt all the little bumps and indents from where face met gravel. I’m sure it read Braille for ’dumbass.’

I grabbed the collar of my shirt and dried the tears from my face. A faint, almost sizzling, sound reached my ears and I quizzically glanced around. I saw nothing until I looked down at the bloodied pavement. Like an egg hitting a hot frying pan, my blood sizzled as it filled in the road’s cracks. The ground rumbled softly beneath my feet. Birds that had been perched high in the tops of some neighboring trees by the river squawked and cawed as they took quick flight in the opposite direction.

Again, I looked back down, but my blood was gone. My head swiveled, looking for any sign of where it possibly went. It was as if the road had sucked it all up. “Screw this shit,“ I said, hobbling over to my fallen bicycle.

I lifted the bike to its tires and noticed that the fall bent the front wheel to all hell. “Dad’s gonna kill me!“ I hopped on anyways. Whatever was going on started freaking me out and the faster I got home, the better. Pumping and pumping, I pedaled with all my strength up Water Street with the bent front wheel wobbling in protest. The ground rumbled again, this time from behind as if the sound followed me home.

I ditched the bike behind some bushes in the yard. Dad was gonna kill me either way, so I figured I’d hold off as long as possible from bringing him the bad news. Everyone’s cars were in the driveway, but I heard nothing but a spooky kind of silence as I walked inside through the back door. A weird moaning followed that silence.

Then the screaming started.

Sam, my stepbrother, was home in bed sick with some flu thing, so I immediately thought it was him screaming. I ran down the hallway to his bedroom. Sweat covered and dripped from his whole body as he sat cowering in the corner of his bed, hysterically crying and pointing at the wall.

“Get them off the wall!“ he wailed. “Don’t let them get me!“

I looked up to where he pointed and saw nothing. “Sam! What’s wrong? There’s nothing there.“

“DON’T LET THEM GET ME!“

“Stop freaking out,“ I said, not knowing how to help. “I’m gonna get Dad.“ I bolted out of the room, looking into every bedroom and finding no one at all. “Dad?“ No answer. I ran to the kitchen and looked out the side window. “His car is still here. Dad!“

I looked out the other window to the back yard. My father and my little sister, Anna, were walking through the neighbor’s yard toward the pond in the woods. “Dad!“ I shouted one last time, but between the thick window and Sam’s yowling, the call went nowhere. “Shit cakes.“

Sam’s crying subsided, only to return to that strange moaning chant. “Sam, what’s going on?“ I asked as I headed back to his room. “I can’t understand—“

He stepped out into the hallway in nothing but his underwear, hiked up over his stomach like a miniature Sumo wrestler. As he moaned, he held out his arms towards me and stomped his feet in a slow beat. Blood trickled out from his eyes and ears, mixing with the sweat covering his pasty skin.

“What the heck, man!“ I said. “Get back in bed. You’re sick. I’m gonna go get Dad. He went outside.“

Though Sam didn’t listen, he just kept stomping his feet and chant-moaning some gibberish. I swallowed hard.
What’s going on? What do I do?
Sam freaked me out, and when his stomping became steps toward me, I took off.

I ran down the hall, through the kitchen, out the back door, and jumped over the deck railing into the backyard. Behind me, I still heard Sam stomping and chanting. I looked back to the house and a chill shook my body. Sam stood at the window, staring out at me, grinning like a lunatic, rocking back and forth.

Dad! I had to find Dad. When in doubt, find Dad.

I broke into a sprint across my yard and through my neighbor’s to the pond in the woods in the center of our properties. Not a big pond, just enough for skipping stones and practicing our line casting. I would never swim in it or eat anything I caught from there because it’s kinda gross, but usually it was just a neat place to hang out. Except today.

I finally reached the pond and stopped short behind an old tree. My lungs burned, screaming at me for more oxygen, but I didn’t dare move or make a sound. Standing all around the small body of what used to be murky green water, a bunch of people from my street held hands. They all swayed in unison to some rhythm that I wasn’t able to hear. The dirty pond water, now a gross shade of red, bubbled from the center outwards to the shore. The faster it bubbled, the faster they all rocked.

I spotted my father and sister next to each other at the far end of the pond. Everyone looked possessed; their eyes and ears bled and their hair stood on end as their skin began to molt as a bug’s would. My eyes locked on the sight and another chill claimed my body. I heard something move behind me and, instinctively, I turned. Stomping down the dirt path was Sam in his tighty-whities ready to join the morbid circle. Thankfully, he didn’t spot me hiding behind the tree trunk.

What was I supposed to do now? It seemed like the whole town went crazy. First my blood soaking into the ground and the quakes, then my stepbrother freaking out, and now this?

Now that my breathing settled down, I realized that my head still spun from my earlier misfortune. I reached up and felt the craters and bumps under all the dried blood. With all the craziness happening, I completely forgot to—

Snap!

I must have shifted or moved and stepped on a branch. The sound echoed across the water. The swaying stopped. I cringed. “Oh, shit!“ I looked up at the crowd. Even though their moving stopped, they didn’t seem to notice.

Something started rising out of the middle of the pond, something puke green and covered in bumps. The reddish water cascaded off it as it broke the surface. It reminded me of a toad, but only about a thousand times bigger. In the center of the thing, folds of skin squirmed and parted, revealing a huge, glossy black eyeball.

As it continued to rise up, with its boil-like bumps and rotten-looking skin, I saw these long tongue-like things slither across the surface towards my motionless neighbors on the shoreline. They started swaying again as they held hands and looked up to the sky, with mouths wide open. A foul stink wafted off the pond up to me, creating a thick fog. My nose crinkled at the smell and my eyes started watering.

The tongue-things made their way to land and began wrapping around everyone’s legs. I scanned the scene, still unable to make my brain compute what it saw. My eyes landed on my father at the far side of the pond. His own eyes were completely white like they had rolled back into his head. I strained my neck around the tree for a better look, mesmerized by the whole thing. In my curiosity, I slipped and fell forward into a bush.

My eyes shot up to my father. He looked right back and his mouth opened so wide I thought his jaw dislocated from his skull. I hopped to my feet, aware of my deadly mistake. A harsh, shrilling scream erupted out of his mouth as his raised hand pointed right at me.

The water-tongues released their hold. Everyone else turned to me with mouths wide open and pointed. They released the same horrible sound. In the center of it all, the bumpy frog-thing’s big black eye rolled lazily in my direction, staring me down . . . or sizing me up.

I started running, pretty sure that my life did depend on it. Through the woods and brush, I plowed, forging my own path.
Just run! Run as fast as you can!
I heard the screeching getting closer as they gave chase.

I ran. Ran faster than I did when Toby Gillis and his band of goons chased me across Ram’s Field to steal my paper route money. Faster than I did when my father chased me through the house for ruining his work papers with my crayons. This time if he caught me, I bet I’d be getting more than a size ten to the tailbone.

In an effort to gain as much distance as possible, I shot a beeline through my next-door neighbor’s yard, through my backyard, and right into my step mom’s nice clean sheets drying on the clothesline. Instantly looking like a cheap ghost on Halloween, I flailed wildly to free myself from their tendrils of crisp, spring freshness.

Their bizarre shrieks echoed behind me, closing the gap. I skidded to a stop in my driveway and scooped up my bike. “Damn!“ Busted tires wouldn’t get me anywhere. I spied little Cara’s two wheel ride sitting over in my other neighbor’s yard. Without a second thought, I grabbed it and hopped on, not caring the slightest that it was a hot pink girls’ bike. At least she had already moved on from training wheels. “Sorry, Cara.“

I pedaled my legs off, so happy not to be on the ten-speed. I blazed down my street, creating a generous amount of space between the horde and me. No sooner than I’d turned onto Texas Heights Road did everybody bust open their front doors. On both sides of the street, people popped out of their houses, all screaming with their gigantic mouths and pointing their fingers. The ground started rumbling again. “Oh, great!“

Something in my head told me, begged me, not to turn around and look behind me, but I couldn’t resist. The horrible, bumpy pond-thing rose up above the treetops, its disgusting eye searching the streets. I switched back into speed mode and pumped the pedals just as the townspeople started coming forward to join the chase.

The quaking of the ground as the thing skulked made it hard to keep my balance. I glanced over my shoulder to see that it, too, followed me now. As it crept along like a legless slab of amphibian meat, helped by its hundreds of slimy tongues, it rolled right over my neighbors, violently crushing and absorbing them into its body. The sick sound of pulverized and devoured skin and bones tortured my ears.

Once I got to the top of Water Street, my heart sank. The river had risen. Murky, bloody, dirt-colored water flooded the streets below and raged against the bridge that separated me from the rest of town. I psyched myself up; I needed to cross that bridge. While sucking in a deep breath, I dropped all my weight on to the flimsy pedals, hoping that they wouldn’t fail me as I tried to hit warp speed down the small hill.

Sparks erupted out of the welding shop on the far side of the bridge, setting the building ablaze. Sheets of fiery metal careened down the rapids, where even the flowing water failed to extinguish them. As I sped towards the chaos, I plotted my course through the burning rubble and wild flooding like a killer game of Zaxxon. Fire and smoke licked the air as the windows of the welding shop imploded.

You only get one chance at this, my brain yelled.

The river hadn’t completely submerged the bridge as the wheels of my stolen, pink bicycle sloshed through the bloody water. I gave myself a well-deserved victory shout and fist pump once safely on the other side. With that out of the way, I set my attention back to the ever growing and slimy monstrosity cruising through Central Village. Its tentacle tongues latched on to trees and utility poles, using them to pull its hulking mass forward. As it gobbled up my neighbors, they didn’t seem to care in the slightest; they looked to almost welcome the painful death as, one after another, the thing abruptly snuffed out their moans and chanting.

I finally made it to the top of Water Street. With each thrust of my legs, I felt my lungs hating me more than I hated Brussels sprouts, but I couldn’t stop or slow down. If that thing had possessed (or killed and eaten for that matter) my family and everyone else I knew, I had nowhere to go . . . except out of this loony bin that Central Village had become.

I scanned left and right, back and forth. Streets looked empty in both directions, but I knew better.
Pick one!
With that nightmare cruising down the street towards me gaining ground, staying still was not an option. To the right, I saw movement coming across Main Street and that made my decision for me.
Okay, School Street, don’t kill me.
Maybe there were some normals down at the field watching the game that could help me; in the least, I’d be able to warn them of what was coming.

The ground shook again.

I lost my balance on the bike and almost revisited the face plant scenario. The quake didn’t stop; the rumbling and grinding of stone and earth vibrated the air around me. Help. I had to find help. As the road beneath me jiggled like jelly, I pushed onward to the football field, hoping with all my might that things hadn’t gone completely crazy there yet.
Not too much farther! Just past the playground and around the bend.

From behind the trees that circled the field, came an explosion, not like the one at the welding shop, but more like the one the time my dad put some dynamite he had “laying around“ between some rocks and concrete blocks. I skidded to a stop on the shaking ground when chunks of dirt and grass erupted high into the air. In one massive clump, as it flew across the sky, casting a shadow over the playground, I spotted the painted Rams team logo on the end zone.

Under the weight of heaved earth, the playground equipment exploded into pieces of colorful shrapnel. Mangled and uprooted trees now gave me view to the field beyond. All around the hole that used to be the end zone, a crater billowed red smoke; it puffed out in waves in rhythm with the rumbling ground. People circled the hole, just as they had at the pond, holding hands and staring up into the sky. Between ground trembles, their moaning, or chanting—or whatever the hell they were doing—persisted. My brain felt like it was on fire from all the craziness.

Oh shit!

So lost in the confusion, I forgot about the gigantic Weeble Wobble from the pond hot on my tail. I spun around, hoping that the path to some other, any other, street was clear. I no longer saw the pond creature, but I listened to it as it sloshed around in the flooded river near the burning welding shop. In its place, another mob of local lunatics had marched up Main Street and now followed me.
I guess they made the choice for me.

The ground shifted once more. An earsplitting crack toppled lampposts and shattered windows. I fell off the bike again and onto my blood crusted knee. The weirdoes chasing me also tumbled over like sacks of bricks. Underneath me, the road broke open, releasing a hiss of foul steam. I jumped for safety, but the crevice made my neighbor’s bicycle its first victim.

As the ground lurched about, I felt my balance slipping and my good sense wriggling free from the already feeble grasp I had on it. My heart and mind raced as I began to panic. Through labored gasps for air, I sensed the onset of another bout of hyperventilation.

A gas main exploded and part of it rocketed out of the ground and into a two family house, setting it on fire. Trees creaked and groaned as they swayed like a troupe of used car lot inflatable dancers. More steam shot up through the cracks; manhole covers blew sky high from the pressure building underground.

I turned to face the football field as I fought to regulate my breathing. This vile, molten sludge, indescribable in color, bubbled up from the end zone crater. The people that circled around it stood like statues with that same twisted open-mouthed expression on their faces as they slowly melted into the ooze.

As soon as they vanished beneath the mire, the earthquakes stopped. I nervously scoped the streets—unable to see another person. The sudden quiet hurt my ears as the cloud-covered sky overhead turned a terrible reddish gray.

I slowly walked toward the field, stepping over the cracked and uneven ground with care. The disappearance of everything, except the bubbling sludge, frightened me worse than anything else had so far today. Not a bird flew across the sky. Not a squirrel ran across the grass. Nothing but the silence and the evil stench rising from the pit.

And then came the voices.

As if every soul that had inhabited Central Village started talking at once, the voices chased all my thoughts away. They called out to me, chanting my name amidst indecipherable murmurs. I finally broke and fell on my ass. I began to cry, holding my hands over my ears in a pointless attempt to block out the voices. What had happened here remained far beyond my understanding. Did I do something to cause this or was it inevitable, waiting for the perfect time to sock it to us?

The lake of slime drew closer. Its revolting stench almost corroded my nostrils. I shuffled backwards on my butt, trying to escape its reach. In the center of the pool, a huge bubble from deep within the pit surfaced followed by one after another, popping and spitting up more stink, turning into a sudsy foam. I moved back farther until I bumped into the boulder that held the Ram’s memorial placard given to them by the Kiwanis Club for their undefeated season a few years ago.

Too scared, too petrified, my body refused to move anywhere else, so I just pulled my trembling knees up to my chest and continued to cry against the monument. The ground vibrated and the foamy flood of slop receded back into the massive pit, leaving nothing but scorched earth in its wake.

Was it over? Am I dead? Dare I even move?

Curiosity (and borderline bat-shit craziness) overpowered rational thought and common sense. I had to see - no, needed to see - what lay over the edge of the crater, what further madness awaited below.

I peered over an outcropping of jagged rock into the blackness. My hobbled brain had lost all ability to find words to describe, to classify, the kind of darkness swirling in the depths. The pit seemed to go on forever, swallowing every bit of light in an unforgiving binge. I saw movement, different from the tricks the dark played on my eyes. Something moved, rising back up to the surface—something big.

I lost control, wetting myself. Warm streams of piss streamed down my leg into a puddle under my feet. I began to shake as sweat poured out of my skin.

It continued rising, getting closer and closer. I heard a deep, wet-sounding groan or growl coming up with it. To my accosted senses, it sounded like the bellow of a buffalo played full blast at half-speed. Unnatural and hungry: very, very hungry.

I stepped back until my legs gave out and I collapsed.

As whatever hideous atrocity now funneled up from the bowels of what I only assumed was Hell, it squeezed its hulking mass through the ruptured earth. In slow motion, a monstrous column of unidentifiable flesh grew out of the pit. Its staggering size matched the width of the football field and climbed to dizzying heights. Opaque eyes, the size of truck tires, blinked in and out of focus under putrid, undulating skin. Its alien surface texture, covered in slime, rippled and stretched, making sickening pops and squishing sounds.

I didn’t realize screams had erupted out of my mouth until my throat went raw and sore. My hands gripped my hair as they squeezed my skull like a powerful vise.

One of the milky, off-white eyes, roughly about my height, stared at me. Baseball sized irises of varying shades of the worst kind of green ever seen floated around the vitreous gel within. It blinked; a gooey, flaccid flap of skin unrolled from within misshapen rolls of rotten looking meat. The smell of the thing, far worse than the sludge that preceded it, made me woozy to the point of almost passing out.

My brain couldn’t handle anymore, wouldn’t square what it saw before it. I felt it throbbing, pressing on my skull. I shut my eyes tight and plopped down on my back, ready for either this nightmare to kill me or for my body to shut down from shock.

I squinted through my half shut lids for just one more peek at it, one last look at its grotesque enormity. I thought that I had witnessed all the horrendous things one should ever be unfortunate enough to see, but what I saw looming before me, more than likely preparing to devour me whole, was a horror beyond all other horrors, beyond understanding and description.

In my acceptance of the end, I heard the pillar of roiling and dripping flesh tearing and shredding. From top down, it began to separate, to peel like a banana, each new slice of it like a tentacle. These horrid appendages moved independently from each other as they spread out from their origin point and caressed the decimated field. They fanned out like leaves of a flower while, from the center, a single eye, like a hellish nucleus, rose to the surface.

One of the tentacles slithered towards me and attached itself to my leg like a leech. I laid there and let it happen. I just wanted this to be all over, so I clenched my eyes tightly and let it do its thing. Up my leg the tendril crept. Its slimy coldness nauseated me, but I held still, ready to let go. Vomit climbed up from my stomach, its bitterness burning and stinging the back of my throat as I choked it back down.

All my memories rushed back to me in that final second: recollections of my dad failing miserably to teach me about the birds and the bees, my little sister’s first dance recital, winning the Pinewood Derby, and my first kiss with my secret crush, Maryanne, as we walked along the river. My tears faded and I forced a smile one last time.

I’m ready . . .
Just get it over with.

FOREST OF BORTH

Claire Smith

The sea has feasted on Cardigan Bay for weeks:

A battered, water-beaten and fragile landscape.

The ocean’s greed to eat its fill of a fresh meal

Dished up by storms come across from the Atlantic

To satisfy its never ending appetite for this coastline.

It dines on slate, sandstone, and crustacean fossils.

It chews on rock-cake food, spits out peat-bits;

And it leaves a black swamp of scraps when it’s stuffed full.

Its leftovers – pieces of gristle, the bones, and the fatty bits –

Are all discarded on its sand-dune platter.

These rounded coves burst forth with nature’s relics.

Trees that have been dead these six thousand years,

Black stumps from pines, alders, oaks and birches

All grew and flourished in ancient forests once upon a time.

Ancient woodland surrounding a lost Kingdom,

Cantre’r Gwaelod, drowned below the tides all these centuries.

It became a hiding hole for sea urchins to feed on and roam;

A place for shoals of fish to hide in; and somewhere seaweed grew.

The ocean’s victim, its quarry, its prey, they found fossil footprints –

Marks left on the exposed, mustard, beaches –

And walk-ways people ran over to escape

Those starving-hungry waves. The ocean feeds on the coast

All through these winter months. Through the season’s flash storms:

The lightning, high winds and the thunder filled sky.

The residues of a long and a lost past are thrown up,

Regurgitated, and spat out by the poison-waves –

The historical riches of Cardigan Bay – a priceless trove

Exposed for archaeologists, geologists, and scientists...

The forest has been exposed by a flood of sea-sickness;

Now shows black, short, finger like branches.

Each stump is a sour reminder of loss

Each stump is a relic the Irish Sea has left

Each stump is a tree’s ashen-black corpse.

A Golden Age that was swallowed whole

By the swelled, and ravenous, tides of climate changes.

They ate woods, a city, and hundreds of forgotten lives.

*Author’s Note: After reading
‘Prehistoric forest arises in Cardigan Bay after storms strip away sand’ by Maev Kennedy published in
The Guardian, 21st
February 2014.

NICKOLAUS PASSIONATE AND THE CHILDREN OF ERESHKIGAL

John Goodrich

Nickolaus Passionate loved having Isaac’s cock in his mouth.

Not so much the physical sensations of heat, firm flesh, and motion, but the effect it had on Isaac.

Nickolaus’s head hung over the edge of the bed, and Isaac thrust into his mouth with a cock that stretched his jaws. The feel of hot flesh in his mouth... he’d never imagined it would make his soul so complete. He loved the scent of Isaac’s sweat, masculine and musky. He even loved the gentle brush of his feather-light pubes.

Isaac was so unique. Everything about him was delicious, addictive. Two months ago, Nickolaus couldn’t have imagined spending so much time with a man. Now, he couldn’t imagine being without Isaac. He’d had a life before falling in love, but that was a distant, dimly-remembered past, like a black and white film.

Isaac grunted and his hips bucked. He was getting close. Nickolaus opened his mouth a little wider. Isaac was in a frenzy, moving his hips as fast as he could, all thought forgotten, focused entirely on pleasure. Nick swirled his tongue over the rapidly-moving head as best he could. Isaac’s back arched, his wings slammed out to their full eighteen foot span, quivering at the moment of complete release. Hot semen gushed down Nickolaus’s throat, the liquid essence of his lover’s ecstasy, tasting of pomegranate.

Sated for the moment, Isaac stumbled into the broken-down upholstered chair, his erection flagging. “I can’t believe you,” he said, throwing his head back in exhaustion. “I can’t believe us.”

Nick looked around at their dingy squat. No electricity, but there was running water in the basement. They had few belongings because Isaac’s wings smashed things when he was in the throes of orgasm. Which was as often as Nickolaus could manage. But they didn’t need much. They had each
other.

“You are a miracle,” Isaac said.

“I love you,” Nick said.

Their kiss was tender, undemanding, each taking solace and comfort in the presence of the other. “Is there anyone else like you?” Nickolaus asked.

“So we can have a threesome?”

Nick chuckled.

“There are others,” Isaac said. “I’m not a genetic freak.”

“I never thought so. Your wings are too perfect to be a mutation.”

Isaac’s smile was rueful. “Sorry, I get defensive. I, we, have been hunted down, persecuted, for thousands of years.”

“I has no idea,” Nick murmured. One hand went to his lover’s softened cock. Isaac wasn’t ready to go again. Not yet.

“In Babylon we were the Lamassu, the wise guardian spirit. We were revered, sometimes even worshiped. But there is a meanness, a resentment from people who are small.” Isaac sighed. “If we weren’t messengers of the gods, we had to be demons. For two thousand years, we have been hunted, persecuted, murdered. Lamassu became the Lamia, and we were called seducers, demons, even eaters of children. We, who had been seen as the voice of gods, who taught the ground-dwellers agriculture, kindness, and love, have learned to call the last two and a half thousand years the Burning Times.”

“How awful,” Nickolaus said. “People can be terrible when they are jealous. Envy so often turns to hate.” Especially, he thought, if Isaac’s surprising size were inherited. “Then you have had contact with your people. I’d love to meet them.”

Isaac stood and turned his magnificently winged back to Nick. “We call ourselves the children of Ereshkigal and Gugalanna, the Great Bull of Heaven. And we no longer welcome the outsider. I can never introduce you to my people, Nick. They will not accept you–won’t even meet you.”

“That’s ridiculous. How can they?”

“My parents are dead, murdered by fanatics. The persecution has never stopped.”

“I didn’t realize. I’m so sorry.”

Isaac half-turned back to Nick, so he was in profile. “I love you. Nothing is as important to me as you are. But your people have killed mine for thousands of years. You can’t expect them to trust one of you now.”

“You know I’m not a threat. I love you. I could never hurt you. I would be honored to meet your family. More than honored.”

“They are frightened. They’ve been betrayed many times,” Isaac said. “There’s even a chance I will never see them again because of us.”

“There has to be some way. There has to be something we could do.”

Isaac looked at him, spread his hands. “I can’t think of anything. A lot of us have been isolated for so long, some of us have forgotten how to trust.”

They left it at that. But the advantage to living in a squat was that Nick had plenty of time to think. Two days later, he had an idea.

“I could write about it, about you, in sort of a roundabout way. About our love, and a little bit about your people. Think of it as me declaring my love for you, almost publicly, without having to say your name.”

Isaac looked at him with surprise on his face.

“You write?”

“I used to. I was terrible at it. Had to set up my own self-publishing company and trick novice writers into submitting. Now...” He considered Isaac. “Now I have something to write about. Something from the heart.”

“From the crotch, you mean.”

“If one way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, the same can be said about his dick.”

“As a million failed marriages demonstrate.”

“Sure, but even the shortest marriage carries an emotional connection. It might not last the rest of someone’s life, but it’s there.”

“Words only,” Isaac said. “No pictures of me. And definitely no video.”

The idea stopped Nickolaus cold. He imagined how glorious it would be to film Isaac, how unique. For someone else to watch that moment of beautiful orgasm when his wings batted the air in uncontrolled ecstasy. Was it selfish to want to keep that to himself?

“No. No porn.” But Nick filed that idea away.

The only problem was, they had nothing. The furniture had been left by the last tenants. They had no lights, no typewriter, not even any paper. Isaac couldn’t go out without fear, leaving everything up to Nick.

In the end, he scooped up a tablet at an outdoor café. He felt bad, but he had no other way to get his work done. They lucked out with two bars of an unsecured Wi-Fi network not too far away. Nick could write, and he’d be able to submit.

With this one tool. Nickolaus went to work. He set up on a rickety desk, and tapped away at the tablet’s screen. His former writing efforts, horror and ghost stories, seemed trivial now. He had something to say, something the world needed to know. Except for Isaac, he had few distractions.

In two days, he had finished his first erotic piece. He sent it off immediately, to the market with the best pay rate he could find. Paranormal Romance, he discovered, was something of a hot market. He felt good tapping the ‘submit’ button.

Rejection was swift. No polite feedback, just a note saying the magazine had filled their quota of stories, and Nick’s would not be included.

Enraged, he almost smashed the tablet on the concrete floor. Isaac saw what he was doing, and stopped him before it was too late.

“You can’t give up after just one try.”

“They’re obviously fucking retards who wouldn’t know a good story if it waltzed into their offices, stripped naked, and fucked their mothers senseless on their own damn desks.”

Isaac sighed. “Let me know the next time you get a rejection.”

“There won’t be a next time. I’m through. The system is obviously a circle jerk.”

“Hey,” Isaac’s voice was soft. Nick tried to resist, but he was pulled into Isaac’s warm, comforting arms. “You tried and you didn’t get in. Are you going to give up? Let one defeat knock you out of the game?”

Nickolaus glared at Isaac, but only for a moment. He couldn’t be angry. He had a purpose. The rage was draining out of him already. If one shitty magazine, admittedly with a lot of money to sling around, didn’t want his story, he’d just have to find someone else to buy it.

“Fine,” he said. “I won’t give up.”

“I tell you what.” Isaac stroked Nick’s cheek. “You sit and start writing again, and I’ll encourage you.”

Somehow, Isaac managed to get himself and his wings under the desk, and nestled his head against Nick’s knees. Isaac seemed content. Nickolaus pecked away at the tablet. But he couldn’t get the rejection out of his head. Damn it, it had been a good story. Isaac had liked it. People just didn’t appreciate confrontational writing. He hammered a fist into the desk. He couldn’t concentrate.

Isaac’s hand wandered across the front of his jeans, then found the zipper. He lifted his hips, and Isaac took off his pants. Nickolaus felt silly sitting without pants. This was the way to watch porn, not write.

“I can’t write while you’re...” He stopped when he felt Isaac’s hot breath on his erect cock.

“Ah,” he said as Isaac nuzzled his way up and then down, stopping to nibble delicately on the bottom of the shaft, working his way slowly up to the sensitive head.

Nick gripped the rickety arms of his chair, nearly breaking them when Isaac engulfed him. The heat from Isaac’s mouth was shocking. Isaac’s tongue swirled.

“You having fun down there?” he managed to ask.

Isaac said something unintelligible, his mouth full. His hot mouth traveled up down Nick’s cock, slowly picking up speed. Nick relaxed, as much as he could. He knew how this dance ended. He gasped when a slick finger entered his anus. The digit pressed deep into him, then found his prostate, and Nick was coming like an oil rig blowing crude. Isaac slurped and swallowed, somehow sending Nick to new heights, pouring out semen like a human fire hydrant.

“I think my ears are still ringing,” he said when he could articulate again. His orgasm had been so intense that his erection was still tall and proud.

“You’ll get one of those every time you get a rejection.” Isaac sounded so smug. Nick realized he had truly achieved the best of all possible worlds.

Encouraged, he began to churn out stories. At first, all he got back were rejections, but each one gave him another ear-ringing greased lightning orgasm, so they weren’t that bad after all. He was a little disappointed when he made his first sale, the third submission of his seventh story. Isaac made it up to him in other ways.

After that, the dam burst. Nick was producing better quality stories, and faster, and they were selling. Not for much. Three cents a word on a four thousand word story was only a hundred and twenty dollars. But Nickolaus made a rule, that he would never sell a story for a lower rate than he’d sold the previous story. He would not go backwards.

He could push out thousands of words in a day, writing and revising short stories in less than a week. Response times were slow. Nick didn’t care. He’d flood the market with stories of love. After a year, they couldn’t afford anything but the squat. Even when Nickolaus started getting three and four hundred dollars a story, the checks were slow to arrive, inconsistent enough to make paying a rent impossible. Still, they no longer had to steal food.

Close to a year and a half, and innumerable blow jobs after he started writing, Nickolaus woke to see a winged figure standing over him.

“You are Nickolaus Passionate, the writer?”

Nickolaus barely heard the words, he was so awed by the woman’s breathtaking beauty. Dusky but perfect skin, piercing brown eyes shaped like almonds. Her flips were full, made for whispering intimate an forbidden secrets.

Where was Isaac? They’d been in bed together, but all Nick could feel was the cold bed beside him. The woman held up a book.
Curious Love, Volume 6, with two men with incredibly chiseled abs on the cover. With his feature, “Leather and Feathers.” It had been the first anthology with his name on the cover.

“Yeah. That’s me.” The writer. The writer who lay on a beaten mattress, on a crumbling concrete floor. In an otherwise-unoccupied apartment building, paying no rent.

“We have been looking for you.”

“Thanks. I think.” He couldn’t think straight when he looked at her. “Who is we?”

“The children of Ereshkigal and the mighty bull of heaven, Gugalanna.”

“What?”

“Come with me.” She caught him in an iron grip.

“Where...” but she dragged him along. He looked for Isaac, but he was nowhere to be seen.

“Who are you?” She had to be of Isaac’s people. Were they angry with him? Had he revealed too much?

“Anatu,” she said.

“Where are you taking me?” A stupid question. They were already on the stairs, going up. “What have you done with Isaac?” Nickolaus had the sudden dread that she would take him to the top of the building and drop him off. He tried to shrug Anatu off, but she held on.

She opened the roof door to a quiet night, and five winged figures. Four strangers and Isaac.

“Is this him?” one asked. Like Anatu and Isaac, she was beautiful. Strong, dusky skinned, her pinions a lustrous black.

Isaac nodded, and the clutch of winged strangers clustered around Nick.

“You have shown us love, child of the Earth,” Anatu looked at him with a sly expression. “And the world has accepted it. We come from the court of the last Mardukian King in order to bring you to him. We have not brought one of your sort to our court in many centuries.”

Isaac gathered Nick to his chest. Nick could feel the heat of his body, the thump of his heart.

“It will all be fine,” Isaac whispered. He took five, six running steps and threw himself off the roof. His great, beautiful wings caught the air, and then they were soaring into the night.

RED OCHRE

Mary Pletsch

The stories here are very old, painted in a substance modern science has yet to identify, on the great granite rock that rises out of Mazinaabik Lake. Pictographs hide on the surface of the stone, playing peek-a-boo from behind ledges and amongst tufts of hardy grasses and under shadowy overhangs. To my uncle, they’re the voices of our ancestors flung forward in time. To me, they’re cryptic graffiti.

I remember being twelve years old and discovering manga. I’d had to go online to research the idiom—a teardrop on the face suggests embarrassment, a nosebleed means a perverted reaction—so different from the superhero comics I’d grown up with. There was no key on the internet to teach me what the pictograph artists had implied, and if I tried to ask my uncle, I’d get some trippy cocktail of history, mythology and New Age nonsense, so thoroughly mixed together that I’ve never been able to sort out the truth of my own ancestry from Uncle James’ wishful thinking. Is it so wrong that I prefer to spend my time on things I can prove; things I can touch?

Things like the rock. I’m studying geology in university and Mazinaabik Rock is massive, over a kilometre long. The cliff rising above our canoe stretches at least a hundred metres high, and when I crane my head back, there is brilliant June-midafternoon sky behind me but only stone marbled with quartz and topped with gnarled cedars before me. Mazinaabik’s presence presses down on me, and I am cool in its shade. The guidebook says that the rock extends even farther underwater, down into the deepest of lakes. For a moment I can almost understand why my ancestors believed that stones have spirits.

Just ahead, partially obscured behind a dwarf tree, another pictograph teases me with a half-seen glimpse of red ochre. Another story drawn by a nameless person whose bones have been dust for centuries.

I beckon to Perry in the stern; he stabs his paddle into the lake and sends us lurching forward. He’s not as good with the canoe as he thinks he is. I’m guessing the “experience” he told me about on the drive up here dates back to Boy Scouts.

I get a quick glance at the image: a man with long ears like a rabbit, and a great beast at his side. Underneath the two figures, a long horizontal line links a series of vertical columns. I have no idea what concept this image is intended to convey. Age has blurred the russet paint, but the beast’s curved fangs and spiked tail are still visible as it towers over the man.

Then I glide past the pictograph and watch the prow of the canoe hurtle at an angle towards Mazinaabik Rock. I thrust my paddle downward in an attempt to slow our forward momentum, but I’m only partially successful. The prow still impacts the rock with a shudder that I can feel in my teeth.

“Sweet,” Perry says behind me. His attention’s on the pictograph, his little bumper-boat manoeuvre already forgotten.

I lean forward to make sure we haven’t actually damaged the canoe; it belongs to my uncle, and I wish Perry would be more careful. I can’t tell if he’s scraped the paint, but at least the canoe’s still watertight. I look back over my shoulder just in time to see Perry running his hand over the image of the rabbit man: pale skin and red ochre in the summer sun.

“Hey,” I call back to him.

He looks up at me, but he doesn’t lift his fingers.

“You’re not supposed to touch.”

Perry snorts. “Get real. If these pictures were really so fragile, they’d be in a museum behind glass.”

I can only imagine what Uncle James would say about white people excising his—our—tales from the living rock. But Perry does have a point. This is Canada: the pictographs get rained on, and snowed on, and I can see a spider creeping across the great beast’s left horn. Perry speaks again, and voices what I’m thinking.

“Come on, Meesha. I’m not going to hurt it.”

And yet, somehow, I feel an irritation creeping up my spine. I can’t find words to convey it, but my expression makes the point just fine.

“Geez. Sorry,” Perry says, but he doesn’t sound sorry, particularly not when he mutters “fuck” under his breath.

The hairs on the back of my neck stir, just a little. I don’t really know Perry all that well. Sitting next to him in introductory biology last semester had been fun – he’s got a great sense of humour – but we never had much time to hang out at school. By which I mean
I never had much time. I held down two jobs to pay my bills and a scholarship to pay my tuition, and I needed to keep my grades up to maintain my scholarship. This is my best chance at a higher education, and I’m not going to blow it. My dad would never forgive me if I proved correct all those stereotypes about lazy Indians. I could never take Perry up on his invitations to go clubbing or partying, so this camping trip had seemed like the perfect opportunity to spend some time with him before my summer job takes me out of province.

Now I’m not so sure.

Perry didn’t mean anything by his comment. Right? Still, there’s something about his lack of….of respect…that eats at me. I’m fumbling for words, debating between trying to explain myself further and changing the subject entirely, when I glance upwards.

What I see isn’t mentioned in the guidebook.

A huge vein of translucent quartz runs through Mazinaabik Rock two feet above my head, and countless fossils hang suspended in the stone. Above and to my left, a perfect skeletal fish swims through crystal; on my right side, a trilobite scuttles across a patch of rosy feldspar. I tilt my head back and my breath catches in my throat. High overhead, a massive skull the likes of which I’ve never seen stares down at me.

My first thought is it’s a dinosaur, but that’s ridiculous on two counts: the guidebook would’ve mentioned a dinosaur skeleton, and the shape of it is wrong. The skull is too rounded, too mammalian. It looks like some kind of predator, though, with enormous eyeteeth longer than my hand. Its forward-facing sockets gape at me, as though it can see me gawking up at it through stone and millennia, and it looks back at me across the eons. It’s posed as though it’s leaping out of the rock towards us, with its—I don’t know if those were massive paws or flared flippers, because only bone and thick black claws remain—folded in front of it and its spiny tail lashing out behind.

“Holy shit,” I say.

And I can’t shake the sensation that it recognizes me.

I vaguely remember my uncle talking about the Great Underwater Lynx, the Manitou of Mazinaabik Lake. I’d responded with Nessie jokes and then tuned him out. I’d never imagined that the legendary Underwater Lynx might have some basis in fact. This thing’s incredible. I can’t believe it’s not in the guidebook. I lift my gaze to marvel some more…

…and blank grey stone looks back. A thin vein of white quartz winks at me in the sun as the canoe bobs up and down.

I blink my eyes, feeling dazed. Did I seriously fall asleep right here in the canoe? I shift in my seat and the canoe rocks alarmingly. I yelp and cling to the gunwales. Perry laughs.

“Wake up, Meesha,” he says teasingly.

I did. I drifted off. I feel like an idiot, but Perry at least seems amused. “I guess we should head back,” I say reluctantly. The sun’s hot and I’m obviously more than a little tired; maybe that’s why I got so upset with Perry.

Perry starts to paddle, and I do too, but as the canoe turns I take one last look back over my shoulder. The pictograph is unchanged: rabbit-man, fabulous beast, and those columns I can’t understand. It seems small and pale next to my dream, which slips from my mind even as I struggle to recall it, but I seem to remember the skeleton of something very like the creature in the pictograph looming over me, pouncing through the wall between death and life to claim me as prey.

By the time we carry the canoe back to the campsite, Perry is back to being the funny prankster I remember from class. We laugh through a supper of hot dogs and chips, and then Perry opens his cooler.

“Beer?”

He’s got to have a whole case in there. Does he really think we’re going to drink twelve beers each in one night?

I don’t want to be a party pooper, so I accept a beer, but I’m glad my own cooler is filled with pop. We sit, drinking and talking, while the fire dies down and Perry adds to the collection of empty bottles on the ground. I tease him about Boy Scouts, and he responds by trying to scare me with a ghost story he heard at Scout Camp.

Two can play that game, but unfortunately the only scary stories I know are the ones I’ve learned from Uncle James. I tell Perry the tale of the grand old inn and tourist resort that used to be here in this place where we’re now camping. The local tribe were tired of holidayers polluting the lake, and their requests for respect went unheeded, so their medicine people summoned the spirits to raze the resort and purify their sacred land.

“What,” Perry smirks, “was it built on an ancient Indian burial ground?”

No. It wasn’t. It was built on our land, our home, without our permission. The stereotype is irritating coming from Perry, and I bite off a retort, even though I’m the one telling a tale about a curse. I don’t believe in Uncle James’ faith, but I do know several medicine men, and none of them spend their time cursing people. Still—leave it to Uncle James to feed me his revenge fantasies and call them culture. I am suddenly weary of Perry and Uncle James both, and I do not recognize this ember smouldering in my soul.

“There really did use to be a resort here,” I say instead, “and it really did burn to the ground in a thunderstorm. You can read about it in the guidebook. It was before the province bought the land and turned it into a protected park.”

“This place is seriously in the middle of nowhere. I can’t imagine it as a tourist destination.”

“Some people like the middle of nowhere.”

“Why couldn’t we have gone to Sauble Beach instead?”

Sauble’s a much more popular party spot. I sighed. “Because Sauble’s expensive, the provincial parks book months in advance, and Uncle James said I could use this campsite he’d reserved.” I roll my eyes. “It’s probably part of his constant agenda to put me back in touch with my heritage.”

“You Indi…er, Native?”

“Anishinaabe,” I say. Perry just looks confused. I guess I can’t blame him; it’s a bit of a mouthful. “Ojibwe is fine.”

He looks relieved at that. “I wondered,” he said, “but I never knew how to ask.”

“Yeah. My Uncle James told me that tale about the inn, and he knows a legend about the pictographs, too. ’To touch them is to enter their world’ or something like that.” I roll my eyes again, and Perry laughs.

“Is that why you freaked out on me this afternoon? You think I’ve brought us into the Twilight Zone?”

Yes. No. I don’t know. I suddenly feel guilty for mocking Uncle James, even if I don’t believe as he does. “I don’t believe that stuff,” I say, and the words sound lame to my ears. “It’s just that the guidebook says not to touch them.”

They’re part of my heritage, aren’t they? They’re not for Perry to put his hands all over.

Uncle James would have interpreted my dream in the canoe as a message from the spirit world. I just call it too much sun and my subconscious mind at play; but now I’m wondering what James and his medicine man friends would have made of it. I think of that fossilized creature in the rock, monstrous huge, alive in death and jumping out at me, and I shiver.

I’m a twenty-first century woman and all those myths belong to a world long since dead. I can’t live in my uncle’s ideal of an Anishinaabe Eden.

“Wasn’t anyone there to stop me,” Perry says easily. He finishes the last of the beer in his can, and I know he’s about to get another and try to press one on me, like he’s been doing all night. It’s getting annoying. I decide to head him off by opening a Pepsi instead.

“Hey, can I show you something?” he asks, taking me by surprise.

“What?” I set the freshly opened Pepsi down on our picnic table.

Perry grins. Behind him, embers take flight like transient fireflies while the smoke blurs the stars. “You can see the stars better over the lake.”

Perry and I abandon the dying coals of our campfire so quickly that I barely have time to grab my flashlight. He takes my hand and leads me along Camping Loop C, which writhes like a snake between scattered stands of trees. We pass mothers tucking children into pup tents, families gathered under the overhangs of RVs lit by sun-faded patio lanterns, and packs of young adults passing smokes around blazing fires. Perry’s surprisingly steady on his feet given the number of beers he’s had.

We leave the gravel lane behind and holy hell, it’s black out here. Living in the city, it’s easy to forget just how dark the primal night can be. The provincial park’s lights are few and far between, and the glow of campfires fades quickly behind us. I can feel the asphalt under my sneakers as we follow the main road that runs through the center of the park like a spinal column. Trees loom over us, swaying in a high-altitude wind, but straight above the sky sparkles with the sheen of a thousand thousand stars spattered across the sky.

I don’t know how long we’ve been walking when Perry tugs me to the left. “This way,” he says, and for just an instant my flashlight beam plays over a wooden sign. I think I see an illustration of a swimming figure and the ornate H that denotes a historical site, but Perry’s halfway to running now and I stumble trying to keep up with him.

We leave the spine, following a dirt track that creeps downhill into the forest. I wish I had half the magical nature senses that Natives in popular fiction always seem to be blessed with; maybe then I’d know where the hell we were and how to stop tripping over stones. I’m still trying to formulate words to ask Perry what the hurry is when we emerge from the cover of the trees onto the open, starlit beach.

The beach isn’t merely deserted; it’s utterly desolate. It’s actually kind of creepy that we can’t even hear the noise from the campsites. Just this afternoon, I’d been in this lake along with a hundred other people, lazily swimming, listening to kids shriek and chase each other. Perry and I have come to a different place by the light of the stars.

The lifeguard chair stands stark and lonely in the cold beams of the moon. I breathe in damp sand and dew-covered forest. The floating line that marks the family swimming area is the only thing that dares to mar the eerie flatness of the lake’s surface. Perry was right, though—the view of the stars is breathtaking, with no trees or smoke or firelight to get in the way. I’m glad he brought me here, and I feel badly for being so sharp with him in the canoe.

Perry sinks to his knees on the shore and, after a moment’s pause, I follow him. The sand is cool under my butt, but at least there’s no dampness creeping through my jeans. The lake’s surface is perfectly still, from the shoreline where we sit, all the way out to the great hulk of Mazinaabik Rock. In the far distance, a slight haze of mist rises from the surface and blots out the places where we saw the pictographs.

I try to tell Perry that I’m glad he brought me here, but when I open my mouth, a shard of a story slips out.

“It looks like….like the world ended, and left us behind.” Great. That doesn’t make me sound like a weirdo, does it?

He surprises me when he agrees. “It does.” He turns to me with a snigger. “Is it up to us to repopulate it?”

Gross. In school I would’ve laughed, but out here with the two of us all alone at night his joke falls flat. I decide to ignore his juvenile innuendo. “It’s like the lake has grown bigger,” I said instead, “and everything else here…like the boat slip and the buoys and the lifeguard chair…is smaller in the dark.”
And us.
I look out over the empty flat expanse and watch the reflected stars twinkling faintly, as though they’re encased in quartz. I realize, after the fact, that my words are sort of, kind of, true. It’s easy to imagine that I feel a presence radiating from Mazinaabik’s waters.

That’s when Perry wraps his arm around my shoulders and yanks me towards him. Shocked, I don’t move when he puts his mouth on mine. He thrusts his tongue between my lips and I taste sour beer and saliva. I’m so utterly taken by surprise that for a moment I’m frozen, as paralyzed as a trilobite in shale.

Perry takes my lack of protest as encouragement, and slips his hand up under the hem of my T-shirt. It takes time for me to process that this is really happening, and all the while his hand is climbing higher. When he grabs my breast, alarm flares in my brain and breaks me free of my paralysis. I shove him away, hard, and jump to my feet.

I can still feel my breast throbbing, as though the touch of Perry’s hand has seared through my bra and into my skin. I gawk at him, as though I’ve never seen him before. He’s completely blindsided me. “What the fuck was that about?” I splutter.

Perry blinks at me, blankly, as he rises. He looks disappointed, and I feel uncertain. I had no idea he thought about me like that. What signs had I missed?

“I didn’t come out here to talk about stupid legends and look at the sky. I thought you invited me camping because you wanted to…”

My temper sparks like flint. “I invited you here because I thought you were my friend.”

“Fuck,” Perry says. He shoves his hands in his pockets and glowers at me, as though I’m the one who’s done something to him without cause.

It’s the glower that gets to me. Suddenly, I can’t be alone with him a second longer. I turn and storm into the embrace of the forest, my mind whirling madly, my thoughts struggling to catch up with my reality. What the hell just happened and what did I do?

I rack my brain, but I can’t recall a single instance when Perry had suggested he thought of me in a romantic—no, sexual—way. Not unless I count all those stupid innuendo jokes that he makes about, and to, every other girl we know. He’d certainly never asked me to be his girlfriend, and I feel sick when I realize he hadn’t been asking that now. He’d been asking to fuck, which was a totally different thing.

I considered going back to the beach, telling Perry I was sorry, he’d just freaked me out, but I wasn’t interested in him that way, and could we please go back to the way we were this afternoon? I’d actually paused when it hit me: Perry hadn’t even asked to fuck. He’d just presumed. Hands all over me.

Hands all over me as if he had every right.

Shit, what am I going to do now? Perry and I drove up here together. I can’t just leave him stranded. Can I? I don’t want to be a bitch.

I also don’t want to call Dad or Uncle James and try to explain why I need one of them to give Perry a ride home. Fuck, where am I going to sleep tonight? Not in a tent with Perry, that’s for damned sure. I no longer trust him to stay in his own sleeping bag.

I thought we were friends. I thought we were friends. Look what’s happened.

I realize, too late, that I’m not following the path. I have no idea how to get back to the trail Perry used to get us here. I’m weaving in between the trees, heading upslope, and my flashlight can barely keep up with the blur of trunks and bracken and rocks. Behind me, a twig snaps, and I realize, of course, Perry is following the light from my flashlight.

And I’m out alone with him in the middle of the deep dark woods.

I need to get back to civilization. I need to return to the campground, to the pup tent moms and the patio lantern RVers and the kids with their smokes. Once I’m back in sight of people, Perry won’t try anything. I’ll get in my car. I’ll leave. I’ll get someone else to take Perry home tomorrow. I break into a run, knowing everything will be okay once I’m in the warm light of campfires again. I know what to do and everything will be fine if I can only make it back.

But Perry runs faster than I do.

His hand falls on my shoulder and then he plants his feet and digs his fingers into my flesh. The force of my momentum half-turns me to face him. The trees around me flicker as though they’re caught in a strobe light, and it’s only then I realize how much I’m shaking; the flashlight is dancing in my hand. Perry’s face looms pale and surreal, like a monster in a horror movie. I’m terrified. I’ve been very stupid and very trusting and…

…and that strange glowing ember ignites.

I jerk my shoulder from Perry’s grip. He scowls, and he starts talking, but I can’t make out his words. I don’t care what he’s saying. I take one step backwards, away from him, and suddenly, everything changes.

The trees around me snap into straight lines, one behind another, lined up like soldiers at attention. My flashlight beam shines on forever through the endless corridors between the perfectly aligned trunks. It’s uncanny—unnatural—and I turn, sweeping the area with the light, but it’s like that everywhere, all around me. It’s as though I can feel the natural order inverting, and then Perry moves towards me and I should be running, I really should be running but I’m angry, I’m angry at Perry and his presumption, his hands on me, his hands on the pictographs and then Perry’s left leg slides out from under him and he goes down like a crippled deer in a snowbank. His knees slam into the ground and I can see pain in his eyes. I smell the agony-stink rolling off his body, seasoned by just the slightest whiff of fear.

It’s not surprising he’s in pain. The ground beneath my feet is hard, not yielding humus and soft rotting leaves like it should be. I glimpse charred stone and the ghosts of walls in between the ranks of trees. The ground around me is a huge sunken depression, and its size and shape give me a hint as to where I am.

This must be the site where the resort had once commanded the lake, decades ago. I lower the flashlight’s beam and see that I stand on smoke-stained brick. Perry has fallen in what was once the fireplace at the heart of the former inn. Half burned sticks and broken crockery lie about us like scattered bones.

To my left I see the shard of china that tripped Perry. The flashlight reveals delicate blue designs beneath a shiny glaze: leaves and flowers, a meadow, something that might be a child’s arm—the rest of the figure is gone. I expect that the vessel, when whole, depicted a pastoral scene wreathed in vines, and I can guess at the story it told: a white man’s paradise.

Of course the trees are in straight lines here. They must have been planted by hand. The provincial park committee has done its best to return the site to nature, but there is only so much that can fairly be asked of mankind. Right?

But my anger is a rising tide. I have not lingered a hundred hundred years to be disrespected on my own land. On this holy ground I have turned the voyageurs’ canoes asunder. I have called down fire from the Thunder Beings to burn an inn to ash. I long ago lost patience with the entitlement of foreign men. I feel my fury howl through centuries of stone and Meesha Kakwabit is such a tiny vessel.

No. I’m a twenty-first century university student. Still, I have the distinct impression that neither Perry nor I will be returning to school in the fall. Perry struggles to stand. I struggle to breathe. High on the ridge above the lake I feel as though I’m drowning. The presence of Mazinaabik looms over me, pressing me down and under the tides of blood and time and the bottomless waters of the lake.

I move my mouth and what emerges is a kind of choking grunt, because my mouth doesn’t seem to be quite the right shape for the sound that fights its way out between my teeth. Perry is blubbering a self-serving apology that I can barely hear. I would give more time to my own regrets if I could dare to split my attention, but my entire being is now consumed with the effort to stay conscious. If I go under, I will be submerged, swallowed up, subsumed.

I fight with the last strength I can muster, but Mazinaabik Rock is far too heavy for me to shoulder. Blood and heritage roar in my ears like raging rapids. The momentum of eons is a riptide, and the lake here is very, very deep.

Perry’s presumption has doomed us both. My last mortal thought is a pale hand on a painting in red ochre, a man with the ears of prey, and columns, trees like columns, all around.

DOLLMAKER

Alan Loewen

You walk into my store looking for some quick money because you have heard on the streets that I hire without asking questions, and a runaway cannot afford to work for somebody who asks questions.

Like so many others before you, before I even register on your consciousness as a harmless, wizened old man, you will first see the dolls that line my walls.

I will watch and weigh and carefully judge.

And if your eyes grow wide with wonder, if I see your hands reach out as with a will of their own to stroke hair or brush fingertips against a tiny, lace petticoat, or if I see your puzzled look at the sad expressions of my creations, I must let you go, for the Rules were set years ago.

I will show you the broom and the cleaning supplies and in a few hours you will wander back into the streets with enough money to feed you for a day or two, but you will never return because it will not be permitted.

Yet, if you enter with a cold heart and see my dolls only as an old man’s eccentricity, then I will smile and welcome you with open arms.

Come into my parlor.

I will pour you tea that you most likely will leave untouched, for your world-weary palate desires stronger libations. I will question you—I, gray-haired with bleary eyes—and you will see me as only a harmless old man.

You will most likely answer my questions with monosyllabic contempt, but I am a master in my own right. You will eventually open up to me.

And if you left hearth and home and heart because of true cruelty and not just some self-centered perception of it, if you fled because those that should have loved you are as twisted and evil as me, and if you sought the shelter of the streets because home gave no shelter at all, then again, I must let you go.

The Abandoned have another Father and I am forbidden to touch them.

I am father to the Arrogant.

So, if you tell me of passions denied by those who measured restraint out of love, if you left their protection only to bitterly complain that the world will not bend itself to your whims, if you blame all and sundry for not acquiescing to your demands, if all you are is a complaining lump of clay, than I will nod wisely in agreement.

The pastry I set before you I have baked with my own hands and includes special flavorings not found in this world.

And after you have eaten, I will take you by the hand, and lead you into my workshop.

I will remove the studs and rings from tongue, cheeks, ears, and nostrils and smooth the flesh, making it as unblemished as the day you were born.

I will wave away the tattoos, making them fade into oblivion, and with just as much ease I will remove from your mind all that you are, for you are mine now and your father has the right to give you a new name.

You will be dressed in crinolines and laces, your nails trimmed and shaped, rouge and eye liner applied with all the love of a master and your hair will be carefully brushed and exquisitely arranged.

And though I cannot remove the sad expression from your face—for even my magic has its limits—I will transform you into that which is useful.

Then you will sit with your brothers and sisters on the shelf until your new owner appears.

And eventually she or he will come. They will enter the door, making the little bell above it jingle, and will look around wondering how and why they ever entered such a place.

I can see their wounds.

I see the slit throats of their souls bleeding to a death they will never reach. Some come with faces marred beyond recognition because of the deep cuts and lashes and scratches that life has given. Some of them have been reduced to shambling horrors with their incorporeal forms flayed alive and it takes all I am not to scream.

They will stare at the walls and blink in surprise until their eyes fall on the one doll they have unknowingly come for.

It may be you.

I will teach them how to care for the priceless clothing, how to tend to the delicate hair, and how to ensure the fine china skin remains unblemished.

And after they pay me my price, they will leave with you carefully packaged in a box, never to return, for these lost and lonely flayed souls will never again find my store.

They will have no need to.

The little bell above the door has rung and as I look up from where I sit behind the counter, I see a young girl with her upper lip curled in a contemptuous sneer as she stares at the dolls that line my walls.

She will look just fetching in indigo.

SECRETS IN THE SOIL

E.S. Wynn

Aureus was supposed to be a clean world. Earth-like, ripe for colonization. The kind of place where plants could take root and grow as well as they do back home.

No life, no prior inhabitants. Clean. No mess, no fuss, no life displaced, no life to study. No extra paperwork to file or red tape to deal with.

No secrets lurking just beneath the soil, waiting for the first plow to unearth them.

A clean world. Yeah, that’s the way it was listed. That was the way the survey team who’d claimed to have spent a month on the surface billed it. That was what we paid for. A clean world.

We weren’t on the surface three days before one of the kids came running to the colony portables with a stone about an inch across covered in ridges and striations. “A coin,” he called it, but we didn’t need a geologist to tell any of us that it was something more. Something that shouldn’t have been there. A fossil. Evidence of life, however ancient.

Not the kind of thing you expect to find on a clean world.

Drummond, our colony supervisor, dismissed it as an anomaly, and got our chief geologist, Doctor Harris, to write up some report on the iron content of the “coin” that basically dismissed it as a naturally occurring nodule that just happened to look like the remains of some ancient creature.
Not a fossil,
Harris maintained throughout the report. None of us believed him.

Other “coins” started showing up after we broke ground on the fields where we were going to sew the seeds of our first crop of hybrid corn. To his credit, Drummond made every effort he could to keep the truth from getting out, even going so far as to erase autoplow logs and bribe people to collect the fossils before the rest of the colonists even knew about them. But, in the end, even he caved and admitted what all of us already knew. Aureus wasn’t a clean world. The sheer number of fossils just beneath the first six inches of topsoil could attest to that.

You can probably imagine what followed. Lawsuits, hold orders, waivers, med-scans. Col-Ad, Colonial Administration– they dropped a team of geologists, exobiologists, exopalientologists and a whole bunch of other exo-specialists on Aureus. Standard procedure for finding evidence of life on a world that should have been clean. Bac-scans, deep-soil cores– within a week, they had a full biological profile of that particular stretch of the world, and the summary we got as colonists was better than a lot of us were expecting.

Fossils. Lots of fossils, but nothing else. The survey team who’d discovered it, listing it as clean, had done a bac-check. Subsequent scans only showed earth-strains in the soil and atmosphere. Stuff we’d brought with us, but no native bacteria. Other scans over other hemispheres showed more of the same.

A dead world, clean but for an explosion of life that had happened several hundred million years ago. No one could say why that explosion had ended, why the world wasn’t still crawling with life.
A mass extinction, complete and planetwide, was all they would say. Close enough to a clean world to warrant continued colonization, as long Drummond agreed to host a small research team and everyone involved was willing to sign another battery of waivers.

We’re farmers and craftsmen, not lawyers. We signed the waivers and went back to work.

Worst mistake of my life, looking back. Worst mistake any of us could have made.

The first sign that something less than kosher was going on came with the reports of the “coins” disappearing. The research team had quite a collection of them by that point, so when half the samples went missing from a locked case one night, Drummond authorized a door-to-door witch hunt in an attempt to find out who might have stolen them.

To say he was thorough would be an understatement. We didn’t have much, a lot of printed spinplastic furniture and spinwoven work clothes, but Drummond’s goons made a mess of it all, turned whole units inside-out trying to find the missing coins. In the end, all he managed to dig up was a lot of ire, a lot of anger that culminated in a town meeting the next night.

Town meeting. Hah. That meeting had more in common with a war-crimes trial than any kind of reasonable, civil discussion. Issues of trust, of boundaries, responsibility and the like were brought up, and by the time Drummond started accusing his most fervent detractors of being low lives and thieves, we were pissed enough at him that we took a vote to request a new colonial supervisor.

You can probably imagine how that went over with Drummond. One order, one dramatically delivered ultimatum, and his staff of four security officers were at his side, stunsticks out, crackling with life.

And that was when the lights went out. That was when the nightmare began.

Biologists have such a narrow definition of life. They take into account the material aspects, the physical characteristics. Does it breed? Does it die? They look at fossils and they think “this is a copy of something that was alive once.” To them, it’s stone, minerals that replaced biological materials, an ancient facsimile of organic matter.

But these fossils, these coins– they were something else. They were intelligent, aware.

And they were hungry.

It was dusk when it happened. The planet’s twin suns were resting at the edge of the horizon, bathing the colony in just enough crimson light for us to see the columns as they rose from the dirt.

Columns.
Great pillars of swirling stones, of those fossil coins gathering into knots and eddies, spreading into the sky. I remember standing at the door to the portable we’d made into our town hall, dumbstruck, staring, one of the technicians at my side. Light danced off smooth, fossilized lines like flickers of fire across the cracks of a fractured mirror. They were beautiful, the columns. Beautiful. Deadly.

It only took one collapsing column to cause a panic. Half the colony was watching them twist into the sky when it happened, when one of the pillars tightened suddenly, then shattered with a great, rattling boom.
Eyes met eyes, uncertain.

And then the screams started.

Like vicious insects, the “coins” homed in on a pair of colonists that had strayed a few paces closer than the rest of us, pelting them with such speed that skin and bone began to break, yielding to the burrowing edges of the rippling alien fossils. For an instant, no one moved– all we could do was stare, watch as bloody eyes bulged, as the “coins” cut to the core and spun through meat with such electric ferocity that the pair of colonists exploded into fountains of meat and gore.

I didn’t wait. I don’t think anyone did. We scattered like roaches, ran, sprinted into the darkness, but there were so many of them. So many columns, so many pillars of the vicious little coins spinning like stony tornadoes across virgin earth.

To this day I still don’t know how I survived. I locked myself in the first portable I could find, barricaded myself under a bed with broken chunks of a spinplastic dresser.

All night long, the winds rattled and howled with clouds of the hungry stones. Sometimes the sound of the fossils scraping across the walls was like the scratching of great talons, the searching movements of massive hands. By the time dawn came, the stones had gone silent, but it wasn’t until I ran out of food and started to starve that I actually dared to leave the portable.

And that’s when I saw it; the monument. The coiling columns of stone dark with thousands of those fossil “coins.” Even days after the slaughter, the thing was still wet and glistening with blood, seeming to pulse and stir with some terrifying semblance of life. I didn’t stay outside the portable for long, just lingered only long enough to cram a bunch of food in a pack and send a priority-one distress message to Col-Ad. That night, I barricaded myself back under the bed again, but the winds stayed calm.

For days, they stayed calm. Nothing moved, nothing, and no one else showed up to pick through the colony’s supplies but me.

Twenty-three days. That’s how long I lived off ration-packs, hidden under that bed, just listening, waiting for even the barest sound of stone scraping plastic.

The recovery and rescue team Col-Ad sent realized they were out of their depth the instant they saw the monolith. A few minutes after their ship settled on the surface of Aureus, they were hurrying me aboard, eager to get back into orbit. I can’t blame them. Hell, I was ready to leave myself. At my request, they did a quick scan for survivors during our ascent, but found nothing, nothing but the hot blood pulsing on that bizarre, alien monument.

Aureus. I still don’t know what happened to that world. One of the officers I talked to during the inevitable Col-Ad debriefing told me it had been quarantined and marked as off-limits to visitors, but when I was finally released three weeks later, I couldn’t find any record of it in the Inter-Star network. Nothing.

Like it didn’t even exist. Like none of the people I’d known had died there. Like none of it was real.

But it was real. All of it was real. Even now, I sometimes see the monument in my dreams, the coins, the blood, pulsing.

Almost as if it’s calling me. Almost as if the monument is reaching across time and space, tugging at the edges of my mind with fingers made of stone, made of coins, fossils.

Fingers stained with blood.

FIRST TO ONE HUNDRED

S.L. Dixon

It was just one of those things, an item on a list, not quite a bucket list although it almost became the final tick on something of that nature. Just something that came up and took hold like a mental vise grip.

I’d always loved dinosaurs, spent weeks in both Alberta’s badlands and Montana’s badlands, went to museum exhibits all over the continent, scoured articles and journals, but it was always as if I was missing something. Late for the show, I suppose.

The life wasn’t in those bones anymore, and I wanted a thriving, shaking, scratching, biting view of the great beasts. It wasn’t a reasonable urge, but matters of the heart rarely are.

I even tried on the
Jurassic Park movie when it came back out in 3D (hell of a lot of fun, but not what I needed).

“Pard a da reason de’s still ‘round, is de smarts,” said a man with the right arm of his shirt noticeably empty of extremity.

He spoke of the alligators. You see, I thought the alligators were to be my link, the living snapping, snarling dinosaurs I so eagerly sought. The man leading our little pleasure cruise into the swamp was a man named Big Tuck. He spoke broken swampy slang, smoked roll-your-owns (amazing what he did with his one arm and the shredded tobacco) and had a general reluctance about city dwellers. That included me; it also included the Asian couple snapping shot after shot on their Nikon Ones and a clueless man and his two sons (the boys looked bored enough to toss each other in just to see what would happen).

Big Tuck was extra stern with the boys. He explained loss. Said he once had two arms. Said once he once had a brother. It was a sad swamp reality. Kids die and the remnants of the Cretaceous Period aren’t exactly against helping with the effort.

“Big’un dat got ma arm, he’d still out dare. Cetus, he more den fiddeen foot, weigh ‘bout de same as a truck,” Big Tuck swung his stub and his existent arm with the same enthusiasm. His loose cigarette showered embers onto his vest of alligator hide. “Got ma brudda en me when we’s skippin’ rocks off de shore.”

Now Cetus (See-tus, named after the ancient beast of Greek mythology and Biblical lore) was just the kind of beast I wanted to see and I asked Big Tuck if it was likely. The man paused and then shrugged, telling me Cetus was old and the old ones get that way by staying smart. There’s something very respectable about that if you ask me, of course, I had no idea of how smart they really were before the trip. It’s one of those you’ve got to see to believe kind of things.

We’d been out on the boat, a pontoon, for much of the day. We’d seen a bunch of little gators, but nothing that pounded home the prehistoric bloodline. I started to wonder in hope, was Cetus trailing behind, perhaps scouting, hoping for a proper meal of a tourist? I doubted it.

I was wrong.

The two boys started tossing bits of their pack lunches, sandwich crusts and then potato chips, in an effort to see more action. I thought a gator would have to be as stupid as it got to snap at such obvious danger. Well I was right that a gator would have to be stupid. A babe, no more than four feet in total, snapped up the chips and we all rushed to the side. Big Tuck warned about throwing food, but the boys ignored and kept on tossing. The little gator came back and snapped again. He didn’t rush back down, just waited and spied the surface.

A stupid move for a creature in a dog eat dog environment. Even a tourist could’ve nabbed him if natural selection hadn’t come along and showed its teeth.

It was bubbles at first and then a swish and then a great wave. After that, I saw that jaw and those teeth, another gator just about swallowed the young gator whole.

Amidst our oohs and ahs, Big Tucks jumped to his feet and his face went pale. “Oh sweet Lordy!” he screamed and throttled down on the accelerator.

Pontoon boats can be slick and I hadn’t much considered my foot wear from a traction standpoint, mostly just for moisture resistance. My big green rubbers slid and I found myself on the wrong side of the boat in the time it took me to blink.

I flailed stupidly, everyone screamed and Big Tuck swung the boat back around once he’d noticed my unplanned evacuation. “Hold on!” he yelled (as if I had other plans).

I saw the bubbles, but the head didn’t come up. I felt teeth sink into my life jacket and the waist of my Levi’s. Despite the awesome buoyancy of foam-filled life jackets, I went down like a rocket. I could hardly see through the muck, but I saw enough to know I was face to face with what I’d always wanted. Suddenly I wished I’d gotten into horseback riding, or skydiving or train dodging.

It was Cetus; I knew it when I felt his body against mine, he could’ve cocooned me with his pale belly. He spun. I knew a definite start point and remained conscious of one full revolution, but after that first go ‘round it blurred. The act melded together my entire understanding of life and death; I saw what keeps certain beasts around for millions of years (in one fashion or another). There’s the intelligence, it’s always a factor, but there’s more than that.

We spun and spun, I felt my lungs fill and then the world slowed and my soul crept from my body. I looked back and every second happened in long minutes, slowing further and further, almost pausing for me.

I heard a metallic clicking and light poured through the murk around me.

When I turned my focus, I saw the white light. I thought that perhaps it was the afterlife folks that die and come back to explain to scores of unbelieving ears as that white light. I walked on the muddy floor into the light. I didn’t hear any welcoming voices or encouraging serenades, it just seemed the only real option.

I stepped through and my eyes adjusted.

It was a small waiting room, like a doctor’s office or a dental clinic. There were two lines. One said
New Arrivals and the other said
Rematches. I stepped forward to an officious looking box with a sliding glass window. There was a figure, back turned, in a tall office chair. I cleared my throat, got no response, and looked around the room. The
Rematches line was long, a dozen or so people of all manner of sizes and ages wearing the same annoyed look on their faces.

There was something about the whole thing I did not like. Part of me wanted to go back out and try my luck out in the murky swamp water, but when I looked back, the door was gone, dry-walled over in a matter of seconds.

I cleared my throat again and still got nothing.

“Ding the bell, dickface,” said a young man smacking chewing gum at the front of the
Rematches line.

I looked and saw the little silver bell. I tapped the button and the chair spun at the sound.

It would be the understatement of a lifetime to say that what I saw startled me. I was about ready to hide in the corner and start sucking my thumb as I rocked to and fro, tugging on my hair and scratching away at my eyes, but I didn’t. My shock froze me; if I’d still had a bladder at that moment I would’ve released it into my rubber boots.

It was a small alligator wearing red lipstick, fake eyelashes and a gold watch. What I assumed to be a she looked at her watch and pointed one of her tiny upper legs toward a seat. I didn’t move and the secretary gator shrugged and picked up a nail file. She sharpened her teeth with the file and I watched until a door opened next to the box. A small boy stepped out, looking furious.

“Exy-lem, what de hell is dat?” the boy asked.

“Xylem, young man, those X words are tricky,” said an older man at the back of the line.

“It’s stoopid, triple ledda stoopid!” the boy added and stomped to the back of the
Rematches line.

The secretary cleared her own throat and pointed to the door. I stepped forward past all the sneering faces in line and through the open door. It was dark and a spotlight shone down on a chair. Some impulse deep within, perhaps curiosity, moved me forward. I got to the chair and a voice boomed all around me, “Sit, please.”

I did and the spotlight grew. I saw a Scrabble board and then I saw my opponent, larger than life, Cetus. He smoked a pipe and winked at me. I tried to speak, but nothing came but a whispered gasp for air.

“Loose rules, no slang or person’s names, but places and types of supper welcome. First one to one hundred wins. If I win, you go to the rematch line, if you win, you join your body. Let me warn you, if you don’t win your first try, your body won’t be much to go back for. Good luck!”

I gulped down my nerves as Cetus reached into the satin bag for his letters. He handed the bag over and I took my tiles. I hadn’t played Scrabble in years and the last time I had, I’d lost by a bundle. I remember thinking it was all about luck.

“House goes first,” he said. Every time he spoke it sounded as if my head my caved in through my ears. “I’ll start light and give you a chance,” he added, puffing the dark wooden pipe between his teeth. His tiny limbs put down the word DOILY. It was worth thirteen points and I thought it that was his version of going easy I was doomed.

My letters were still a mystery; I hadn’t even looked yet. I watched Cetus pull five letters from the bag and thought about the clothing and the language structures out in the waiting room. Some of those folks would never leave the game. I understood that fate immediately and it scared me as nothing had before.

“Time’s a wasting.”

I forced myself to look at the board and then my letters and then the board. I almost hit the roof. My fear washed away with some luck. “Zoic,” I said as I placed the tiles.

He grunted. We both did the math; the Z found a triple letter score.

“No more Mr. Nice Scales,” he said and quickly slid four letters onto my Z; AGAZE, thirty-five points, same as my ZOIC. “You need to pick your letters before I do,” he reminded me, and I stuffed my hand in the bag hoping for some tile gold to go along with my K, A, N and J remaining.

I pulled two Es and a B. Somewhere, someone smiled on my hand and I went to work; YANKEE, double letter on the Y and double word under the first E.

We did the math again and Cetus’ grunt became a small growl. I thought one more of those (easy right…) and I had the game.

Cetus fished his letters and I eagerly fished mine. It took a few seconds, but then he looked up at me with a grin, smoke billowing through the spot light’s shine.

“V, E, X, E, D, vexed, double word score.”

The second E fell onto the sweet spot in the word YANKEE. I looked down at my tiles and wanted to cry.

“Tick, tock,” he said.

I bit down and put what I had after I’d gathered a handful of vowels to go along with my consonants. There are better words, especially since I hit another double word score, I know, I’ve checked since, but I put COPE on the end of AGAZE and the battle felt a whole lot closer.

I was up by only three and I reached into the bag. Cetus had an annoyed look in his eyes. It seemed obvious he wanted to deal the final twenty-point blow. He glowered and then decided to go with it. Three shy of victory, DOWDY ran horizontally from his vertical DOILY, the double letter score just not enough.

My relief was obvious and I needed but sixteen. My tiles seemed to spin beyond recognition; I no longer understood English or board games. The pressure crushed me and forced my mind back to past games, flipping through my imagination, picturing things that may or may not have ever happened during a game of Scrabble. I saw my siblings, my parents, they taunted and laughed, three letter word, huh, good luck with that one!

“Quick, I’ve got the finishing touch,” Cetus said, a smile in his voice.

What I had wasn’t enough, but I’d run out of time. I put down a J and a B around the O in COPE. I was done, my body would die and I’d be in the waiting room at the back of the line. It wasn’t hard to imagine my parents crying over my empty casket after I’d just imagined them laughing at my stubby word choice. I then began to imagine eternity.

Cetus slumped back and I lifted my head and waited for him to take his turn. “Well…?” I said finally.

“It’s been many years since I lost first round. That time was to a stupid boy that got lucky with the word quiz.” He sounded so sad and angry, I didn’t understand until I noticed my B fell on a double word score.

“I won? I won!”

He growled, grunted and then softened. “You did, good game, now off you go, before your body dies,” he said.

For a second I wanted to shake his hand, but those claws didn’t look so sporting and the entire situation was so far beyond asinine that I threw nicety out the window. I tore out into the waiting room and slowed, hiding my smile. It was like smiling during a wake; those in line looked at me with jealous and sullen eyes, grieving for their lives, their afterlives.

I didn’t really care enough to force a complete emotional check. With an undeniable excited bounce, I bounded past.

“Hey, you ’dere, ya ev’ meet a boy named Lil’ Tuck, tell’m I ain’t wanna skip no damn rocks in de firss place, shud be him in’ere.”

I smiled at the boy at the back of the line despite his anger and took another step toward a dark opening. It sucked me through like a vacuum and shot me back into my body. I felt Cetus let go of my body. He winked and swam off, the bubbles staying in view long after he’d gone. It was only a second before I found my way back to the lighter shades of muck. I heard yells and an engine coming to a stop.

Big Tuck eyed me suspiciously as the others pulled me into the pontoon. It was there, the knowledge of intelligence under that scaly skin, but something more, the stuff making up the gods and demons of the universe. Big Tuck knew about it and I pondered him even as I choked out muck from the swamp.

“Your brother says it should be you in there,” I said. The other tourists gawked, likely thinking that I’d lost my marbles somewhere in the filthy water.

Big Tuck shook his head, “He still ’dere.” It wasn’t a question, but a solemn statement. “He jus’ ain’t got de luck. S’times ya jus’ get lucky. Quiz is a good’un on trip’ word.”

Now, given the man’s manner and speech, I assumed I drew a longer straw in the brains category, but it didn’t mean that he wasn’t right.

Sometimes you just get lucky.

THE UNSPEAKABLE CONFESSION OF DICKY RASHONE’S DOG

Lorenzo Passion

What follows may be my last words. I implore you to read them as warning. Take heed lest you be condemned to my fate.

I have known
Dicky all my life, his grandparents having adopted me as a puppy. Although the old humans were kind to me, their grandson lived in a dank subterranean room I dared not enter. Even from my dog bed on the second floor I recoiled at the stench of whatever was down there. Remember, I’m a dog, so I am not unfamiliar with licking my own butt or sniffing other dogs’ excrement, but there was something about his odor that made my stomach turn.

As I mentioned earlier, the old humans showed me nothing but kindness since I was a puppy. They took me on walks and played fetch with me as long as their health permitted, but, as their strength diminished, they began asking
Dicky to walk me. He never had much interest in my welfare, and I suspect he even hated me—resenting his grandparents’ attention as he did. But, since he was living in their home rent-free, he had little choice but to comply.

At first, the infrequent walks, though brief, were only mildly unpleasant. We passed those times in silence, he barely stopping long enough for me make the occasional bowel movement before he yanked my leash and practically dragged me back home. When we returned, he refused to make eye contact with either me or his grandparents. Even now I shudder at the thought that his behavior may have had less to do with his loathing for me than with his secret urges.

When the grandmother was in ill-health, the grandfather thought it best that I stay in the basement with
Dicky. Though I howled and barked in protest,
Dicky pulled me through the door and down the rickety wooden stairs to what my nose told me must be the very bowels of Hell.

The elderly humans had forsaken me! How could the people who had once loved me subject me to such torture—such horror? For hours I howled and scratched at the door, but the old man would not rescue me. I wept until there were no tears left to cry. I howled and whimpered until I had no voice. Finally, having abandoned all hope of salvation, I surrendered myself to my fate. It was then a soft, staccato clicking from the opposite corner of the room attracted my attention. Though the stench of place burned my eyes, I peered through the darkness to just make out
Dicky’s crouched form silhouetted against the cool light of a computer screen.

Now, it is a little known fact that dogs and cats can read and understand English even if our vocal chords do not permit us to speak the language. You might be asking how it is that—with neither fingers nor opposable thumbs—I am writing this account (a question you probably should have asked a few paragraphs ago), but I think we’ll all enjoy this a lot more if you merely suspend your disbelief rather than require me to come up with some ridiculously implausible explanation. So for the purpose of this narrative, I can understand English, and you can read Canine or whatever language it is my kind speak.

Anyway, I followed the sound to discover (as you might have already guessed)
Dicky typing furiously. Nobody could be more shocked by this than I, since I’d always just assumed he was illiterate. What I saw next made me wish he were. Out of curiosity, I glanced at the screen.

“Cum guzzling faggots!”

Those three words caught my attention, and, as much out of interest as out of self-torture, I decided to read more.

“Piss off you AIDS infested sperm guzzler. Quit trying to fuck me over when it comes to getting submissions because I don’t want stories that glorify faggotry.”

He was certainly an angry young human. I continued reading only to suffer a headache from the general incoherence of it all. Although I’d never considered him either clean enough or well-dressed enough to be gay, he was obviously well-versed in homoerotic literature because he was able to name several homosexual writers in what was apparently a blog entry.

When not spewing the vilest hatred in his blogs, he googled his name and commented on any other blog that happened to mention him—even ones that had been posted a few years earlier. He went all night typing without sleep or food. Why shouldn’t he stay up all night? It’s not like he had anywhere else to be. His grandparents were taking care of the house and bills while he got to live off the government dole thanks to a little disability fraud.

He especially hated some writer named Rian Eene, who had somehow managed to ruin
Dicky’s life by preventing anyone from buying his self-published diatribes. I may be just a dog, but I’m fairly sure it was
Dicky’s writing that prevented him from being able to convince anyone to pay for his rambling, nonsensical prose. I can imagine few tortures worse than reading his word vomit about the Loch Ness Monster in Lake Michigan.

At this point, I was tempted to pity the dim-witted, delusional human until I read, “Kindly rape a dog.” One could almost overlook such a thing until he wrote, “Go guzzle horse cum.” “You couldn’t write if you had a horse’s dick up your ass.” “Rape a dog up the ass!” With each entry I became even more convinced he felt some overwhelming desire to perform horrible, nonconsensual sex acts on animals.

Now it all made sense. His refusal to speak to me – or even look me in the eye – was not a reflection of hatred so much as embarrassment over his latent bestiality.

My terror escalated with each increasingly vivid description of man-on-animal rape. Unable to sweat (because I’m a dog after all), I panted frantically. I ran up the stairs, scratching and howling in vain at the door, even struggling to turn the doorknob. I threw myself against the door. I chewed the knob. I howled and barked until I once again lost my voice. Pausing to catch my breath, I realized that the typing had stopped.
Dicky was no longer at his desk. He was standing over me, and I shuddered to discover his bloodshot eyes fixed on my tail. With neither the voice nor the strength to resist, I cowered against the door and prepared for the worst. His smelly hands grew closer, encircling me. Then, in an instant, I peed on the steps in hopes that it would distract
Dicky from his dreadful plans. It didn’t work. I emptied my bowels as if the smell would repel him, but he apparently couldn’t smell it over the general stench of the room.

Now his pants were down. By God, he was pulling down his underwear! He dragged me kicking and thrashing down the stairs and grabbed my hind legs, spreading them and…I cannot continue. It is too agonizing to describe. Fortunately, I lost consciousness.

When I awoke – I wish I had never awoken –
Dicky was smoking a cigarette and holding me next to him in his sleeping bag. He was staring off into space, once again too ashamed to look at me. All he could say was, “Gramps doesn’t have to know about this.”

For months,
Dicky has refused to walk me or remove the piles of my feces which now litter the floor. I have become his concubine, and he refuses to let me see his grandparents. When he forgets to feed me, I am only able to survive by breaking the tops of his pill bottles and swallowing the contents.

The end is coming. If the old humans do not rescue me soon, I shall be dead. I leave this record of the atrocities I have suffered as a warning to all other dogs to flee the presence of this despicable internet troll.

A FAR SOUTHERN LAND

D.J. Tyrer

“I wouldn’t bother listening to him,” the barman said as he plonked two beers down on the table, suds sloshing onto long-unpolished wood.

“Why not?”

“The bloke’s a crazy old coot,” he replied as he turned and walked away.

The old man seemed to take the insult in good humour, giving me a ‘what can I say?’ sort of grin, before raising his glass and taking an appreciative sip and presenting me with a frothy smile of thanks.

“They all know me around here and they all think I’m as crazy as a kookaburra and twice as annoying! They don’t take kindly to new ideas around here; they’ve only just begun to entertain the idea that Aborigines are as human as them. My theories just don’t fit in at all.”

“But, what exactly are your theories?” I asked him. I’d been told he was an archaeologist and he certainly had an academic’s tones, quite out of place in this godforsaken, fly-infested dump called Neversay Creek. I’d been told about him when I mentioned that I was a writer; apparently Leonard Hulke had ‘quite some stories to tell.’

“Well, I’ve spent the last two decades out here looking for evidence that the Egyptians came to Oz.”

“What? You mean ancient Egyptians? Rameses and that crowd?”

“Exactly.”

“That does sound a bit crazy! Ancient Egyptians in Australia?” I had to chuckle. “However did they get out here? I mean, did they even know how to build boats back then?”

It was his turn to laugh. “Did the Egyptians know how to build boats? Did they! There were boats buried beside the pyramids. Hatshepsut sent ships to the Horn of Africa, if not beyond, and, later, the Egyptians employed Phoenician sailors, the greatest navigators of the ancient world.”

“But, Australia? I mean, it wasn’t even discovered until, what, the 1700s?”

“Oh, Europeans got here in the 1500s and the Chinese before that. And, of course, the Aboriginal tribes got here from Asia millennia ago. Australia isn’t some tiny speck of a desert island in the middle of an ocean, you know.”

“I suppose not, but still...”

“As I said, Hatshepsut sent ships at least as far as the Horn of Africa, that is modern Somalia, and possibly beyond. A Phoenician crew in Egyptian employ sailed right around Africa – something Europeans would only achieve two millennia later. Solomon of Israel sent his ships to the land of Ophir, which some have identified as Australia, in search of gold and jewels. The very name of Australia goes back to the ancient concept of a far southern land. There is no reason to doubt that the ancients sent ships out here.”

There was a well-timed burst of mocking laughter from one of the iridescent-winged kookaburras that were lurking in the trees across from the bar.

“Okay,” I said, after a moment’s pause, “let’s say it’s possible that their ships could make it here. Do you have any evidence, or is this all just wishful thinking?”

“Oh, this isn’t some fancy that I just plucked out of the air, some airy-fairy theory based on a romantic reading of some musty old text. I didn’t come out here looking for proof. If anything, the proof came to me.”

“What do you mean?”

“A local – George Sands was his name – a rancher and prospector, sent me a little statuette he’d found, asking me to identify it. He thought it had to be Aboriginal, but had seen nothing like it before and was curious.”

“I take it it wasn’t Aboriginal...”

He shook his head. “Egyptian. Seventh century BC. Definitely not Aboriginal; nor European.”

“But,” I interjected, “even if it was the real deal and not a reproduction, how do you know the Egyptians were here? I mean, maybe it got traded and someone from, I don’t know, Borneo, brought it down here centuries later. Or, it could have been lost by some collector.”

“Well, I couldn’t rule out either possibility, of course, although I doubt a collector would lose it right out in the middle of the bush. But, it was genuine and that intrigued me enough to do a little research. Don’t get me wrong; I had a good career and was hardly going to throw it all away on a hunch, especially one that sounded rather crazy.

“No, I didn’t rush out here and start digging like some lunatic,” he went on before I could ask. “I looked up similar reports and found there had been finds of seemingly-Egyptian objects and even ruins out here in the past – not that anyone paid them much heed; they were each filed away and ignored as impossible. And, individually, they didn’t amount to much, but together... Well, the records were there for anyone who cared to look. Only, no one did until me.

“Oh, and, of course, I spoke further with George Sands and he told me about other finds people had made and of possible ruins out in the bush, on the edges of the desert, which piqued my interest to come down here and have a look around. I didn’t make my big discovery, obviously – if I had, I’d be famous!” He laughed, paused to drink some more of his beer, then continued. “But, I’ve found enough to convince me that the Egyptians were here in antiquity and I hope to prove it with the weight of evidence.”

“So, you mean you actually have evidence?”

“Naturally. I can show it to you, if you’re interested.”

“I am...”

Hulke lived a good four or five miles away, down a rough dirt track that made the ride in his pick-up feel more like three times that, in a two-room house that was really little more than a poorly-built shack with an outside toilet and an emu lurking in what passed for a yard.

“Don’t worry,” he chuckled as he led me inside, “she won’t bite!”

The building was full of boxes, mostly cardboard, some wooden and a few tin.

“The only problem,” he cheerfully told me as he selected a few to lay upon the heavy wooden desk in the middle of the room, “is that the damn creepy-crawlies get in and nibble at them. Ideally, they should all be properly stored in a museum; once my research is vindicated, they will be.”

He proceeded to open the boxes and show me his various finds. They were largely unimpressive to my eyes: different statuettes, amulets, beads and such like, that could only really excite an expert like Hulke. I had to take his word that they were Egyptian in origin, as I didn’t have a clue. Although, they were nothing like anything I’d seen associated with the Aborigines, so I was willing to concede they probably were anomalous. There were a couple of little statues that made me think of Anubis and Isis, which provided a more convincing case.

“Okay,” I said at last, “you’re winning me over. But, if they really were here, why haven’t I read about it before? Surely, there ought to be some records somewhere; unless they were just a handful of explorers or lost merchants who got shipwrecked here and never returned home.”

He nodded. “That was my initial thought. A failed expedition or lost mariners or even a band of exiles who had no intention to go back. There just seems too much spread over too wide an area and dating over too long a period to be able to dismiss it so lightly. All the evidence is that the Egyptians were here in numbers for a long time. In other words, it was a colony or outpost of the Egyptian Empire just as, more recently, Australia was part of the British Empire.”

“Let’s say that’s true. Why were they here? Why did they leave? And, why do we have no record of them?”

“To answer that last point of yours first, it is admittedly a little odd that we have no record of their presence. It may just have been regarded as a minor outpost compared to more prestigious conquests and ports of call. More likely, it is in the records and we just haven’t recognised it because we didn’t know they had come this far. Places like Biblical Ophir could be here, not Africa or some never-never land.” He paused.

“Or, of course, there is another possibility...”

“What’s that?”

“Well, that’s bound up with its abandonment, so perhaps we ought to discuss your other questions first. Now, the Egyptians were as curious and interested in trade as any Renaissance or nineteenth-century explorer, but, unlike the British and French, if they needed more lands for their population, they had far greater potential to expand into nearby lands. Thus, they had no need to plant colonies for their excess people. Most likely, they came here in the search for gold and other precious resources, either to mine them directly or to trade with the tribes who lived here.”

“Right.”

“As to why they left... Well, the mines may have been played out or the trade route disrupted. Or, the conquest of Egypt by the Persians, then the Greeks and Romans, may just have caused its abandonment due to the chaos and conflict. But, there is another possibility...”

“The one you hinted at when you said there was another reason why we might not have heard of them being here?”

“Yes.” Suddenly, he seemed reticent, as if he was unwilling to reveal his theory.

“Please, go on,” I prompted. I was genuinely interested to hear what he thought; he’d successfully reeled me in and I didn’t want to be left dangling.

He nodded as if he’d made up his mind.

“My interpretation of the evidence is that something terrible happened here. Now, I don’t think the local tribes are likely to have been either numerous, organized or warlike enough to have attacked the Egyptians, nor does it seem too likely that a rival power or pirates could have sacked the place; certainly not so thoroughly as seems to be the case.”

“So, what are you saying?”

“It is my belief that the Egyptians destroyed the colony themselves.”

“Sorry?”

He repeated his theory.

“But, why? Civil war? A rebellion? It makes no sense.”

“Some sort of civil war does seem unlikely and, if they went rogue, they were too far away for the homeland to easily punish them. No, I think it was something more fundamental. I think the colony was cursed.”

I couldn’t help but laugh, especially as he said it so earnestly. “You sound like something out of a Hollywood movie!”

“I’m deadly serious.” He did look it. “Yes, it sounds melodramatic, I know, but superstition is real even if the superstitions themselves are nonsense..A They can drive people to extreme acts. I believe that the Egyptians thought a curse had fallen upon the place and abandoned it. There are statues of what appears to be the local deity — ” he rummaged around in a box and produced one. “— and the name has seemingly been ritually obliterated on many. See? Probably they thought they had offended against their god in some way and that they punished the guilty before abandoning the place, hence the signs of a violent overthrow.”

He was silent for a moment. I said nothing, either.

“Are you interested in archaeology?” he asked, finally.

It seemed an odd question to ask now. “Yes, of course, fascinating subject.”

“No, I mean actual archaeology – digs...”

“Oh, um, I guess.”

He grinned like a boy. “I think I’ve located a tomb. It may well be the vindication I have been seeking and may even answer some of the questions about what happened here... I was planning to open it up. You could come, too; if you’re interested. You said you’re a writer; maybe you could help me write up my find?”

We went out in his pick-up along an even rougher track early the next morning. I’d slept in a dingy room above the bar, having promised to say nothing to the locals, and he’d dragged me out at an hour I considered utterly uncivilised.

After a couple of hours, he parked the car in the middle of a region of scrub that was empty but for a couple of curious kangaroos and we began an hour-long trek. I must confess my still-sleepy mind did wander onto half-remembered cases of kidnap in the outback and I began to worry if he was planning to murder me out here. But, eventually, we reached our destination and I saw he hadn’t been kidding.

The tomb was a low-lying structure of mud bricks. To be honest, I guess I’d been expecting him to lead me to some sort of pyramid. After all, when someone mentions tombs and Egypt, it’s those or the Valley of the Kings that come to mind. But, of course, it was unlikely we were talking about a king’s resting place, so I shouldn’t really have been expecting anything so grand.

“This isn’t Aboriginal – they didn’t use mud brick – and the bricks aren’t the style of those used in early colonial times; besides, this area was only really settled just over a century ago. And, of course,” he added, as a thorny devil skittered across the tomb’s surface, “there are the hieroglyphs; they’re worn away, but you can make some out here.”

“Can you read them?”

“There aren’t enough to make a full reading, but I think it declares it to be the tomb of a priest. There is a name, here and here again; it begins with an N, but I can only make out the ending ‘hotep’ down here. Most interestingly, it says something about a curse...”

“Aha! You think this tomb might shed some light on why the colony was abandoned?”

He nodded. “Possibly. Of course, it could just have said that anyone who opens the tomb will be cursed, like in a gothic novel.” He chuckled. “If you want to avoid becoming cursed, you might want to leave now.”

“Nah, I’ll take my chances.” I laughed at the thought. “So, let’s get to work.”

I assisted in the careful dismantling and uncovering of the tomb. Although I was an amateur, Hulke was a careful teacher who took me through each task step-by-step. We paused for the heat of midday under a wide parasol he’d brought in the back of the pick-up along with all the tools and enjoyed a few tins, as he called them, of lager. Then, when it was a bit cooler, we got back to work; even then, it was sweaty, tiring work.

Uncovering the tomb properly would take weeks or even months of painstaking effort, but Hulke hoped we might be able to locate the burial chamber beneath it with a minimum of effort. I think he was desperate to know if the tomb really was what he believed it was; so did I. We were both excited.

We finally broke into the burial chamber just before nightfall. Out here, without city lights, the night was surprisingly light, the sky awash with stars and the moon bright like a searchlight. He’d brought a halogen floodlight and a small generator, but we almost didn’t need it.

We weren’t going to pause just because the sun gone down.

We ought to have...

It took about an hour’s work to create a space big enough to actually access the burial chamber. Archaeology is a slow and tedious business, even when done at a rush. As keen as we were, we didn’t desire to emulate the old antiquarians who tore ancient monuments down in search of secrets and treasure; even if we were a little slapdash compared to more organised excavations.

Finally, we had access to the burial chamber and the proof that Hulke had spent so many years searching for.

We positioned the halogen light and eagerly peered inside...

The chamber wasn’t that large, just big enough for a body and a few grave goods: a wooden staff with a golden top shaped like an eye on one side, three canopic jars on the other and a box of wood decorated with gold at the body’s feet.

The body itself was nothing like the stereotypical mummy of Egyptian provenance: for a start, it was only partially wrapped, rather than fully swaddled in bandages. Also, rather than the pristine white or even stained yellow one might imagine, the bandages and exposed, desiccated flesh were a tarry black. Strangest of all, the black substance had been heavily plastered over the face so as to obscure its features with a blank resin mask.

“Weird,” I muttered.

“Actually, it makes perfect sense,” he told me.

“Really?”

“Yes. If you remember, I mentioned the god of the colony.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Well, in my researches, I’ve come to the conclusion that they worshipped a faceless god. From what I’ve been able to reconstruct, I think they may have called it Bagon or something similar to that. See, I think those are the same hieroglyphs here; if only we had better light.” He sighed. “So, you see, if this man was a priest, that was most likely the god he served. Thus, in death, he was made into the image of his god.”I nodded.

“Indeed. Well, here we have the canopic jars – you know what they’re for, of course. The box likely contains items of use to him in the afterlife and I’d hazard that the staff is his badge of office. The eye on the staff is a little ironic, don’t you think?”

I nodded again.

“Have you read any Discworld?” he asked suddenly.

“Um, uh, yeah,” I stuttered, wrong footed by the question.

“Perhaps their Bagon was like Pratchett’s Blind Io, with eyes independent of his face.”

I had to laugh. That was our final levity that night.

“Shall we take a look inside the box?” he asked.

“Yes, that would be interesting. Oh, but, is it safe? I mean, the box won’t just crumble away, will it?”

“This area is very dry and the wood is most likely cedar, unpalatable to insects, so it should be very well preserved. But, I won’t just wrench it open. If it seems fragile, we’ll leave it.”

“Okay.” Of course, with hindsight, it should have been our safety that I was worried about.

He reached into the tomb and gently examined the box.

“Yes, it seems fine,” he said and carefully lifted it out.

Carefully, he opened it. To our mutual surprise, the box was empty. There was only a slight hiss as of escaping air as the lid opened, but nothing inside; nothing tangible.

Maybe there’d been a warning written on it that he’d failed to read, or perhaps a warning placed on the tomb itself, obliterated by the elements. Of course, even had Hulke seen a warning, I doubt we’d have heeded it. Nobody believes in ancient curses, not even when opening out-of-place Egyptian tombs in the outback.

“Well, that was anticlimactic,” I was saying when I noticed movement in the tomb; the slightest movement on the periphery of my vision.

I turned to look, thinking that it would be a snake or lizard disturbed by our probing, only to stare in horrified disbelief as the arm of the mummy twitched. I thought I must be imagining it, but then both arms twitched. It was impossible, yet it was happening.

“Did you see that?” I asked. Hulke had been replying to my remark, but I hadn’t heard a word he said.

“See what?” he asked, absently, still staring down into the box.

“The body – it’s moving!”

“What?” He didn’t even look up.

“Dammit, man, look!”

My tone must have caught his attention, as he finally raised his head. I pointed into the tomb where the body had begun to sit up and shouted, “Look!”

Now, I know corpses can move due to the electricity in nerves and gases of decay, but not after centuries. There was absolutely no rational explanation I could think of for what I was seeing. It was impossible, yet it was real. The halogen glare ought to have made the scene more real – banished imaginary phantoms – yet all it did was put the solid-shadow that was the blackened mummy into stark, horrific relief.

Hulke began to gibber, pointing uselessly. He’d spent so many years of his life seeking to prove his theories, but had never expected to prove them so spectacularly. Hell, we’d just proved an aspect of the paranormal, as well; even if presenting said proof would be impossible.

“We’ve got to get out of here!” I shouted at him.

He didn’t react, which was a bit of a problem, as I don’t drive. Assuming he’d left the keys in the pick-up, I might’ve been able to drive away at a crawl, but could I outpace it? I could probably run fast – but could I even outrun it?

“Hulke, c’mon!” I tried again. Still no reaction. He was staring in horror at the mummy as it climbed out of the tomb. I tried pulling at him, but he barely moved. Finally, the mummy having stepped out of the tomb, I gave up, turned and ran.

Behind me, there was a scream. I stopped for a moment and looked back. The risen corpse had gripped Hulke’s head and would have been staring into his eyes, had it possessed eyes. The professor’s jaw hung open and there was a sort of haze between his mouth and the blank black mask of the mummy, as if it were sucking his breath – or his soul – from his body.

Dropping Hulke’s limp form, it began to advance on me with surprisingly smooth strides. Silhouetted against the halogen lamplight, it was like a figure of pure blackness, a spindly shadow come to life. I turned and ran.

I kept running through the night, heedless of the dangers of the outback and uncaring of whether it yet pursued me, fearing only that it was, until I finally saw the lights of a house in the distance. I ran to it and hammered on the doors begging to be let in. I doubt I made any sense, but, thankfully, the couple living there let me in rather than turning me away as the raving loony I must have seemed.

Once I was inside, I calmed down enough to realise just how crazed my story would sound and chose to edit what I would tell them. I claimed we’d been attacked by some lunatic in the bush, that I’d managed to get away and that they should call the police. When they arrived shortly after dawn, I repeated my half-truth and they set out to search for Hulke; they located his desiccated corpse the next day.

What should’ve been the find of the century went unreported; the police had no interest in the tomb, which, from what little I was told, was apparently totally empty when they located it and Hulke’s body. I had other worries than the preservation of his memory: unless I’d hallucinated the entire episode – and Hulke’s death told me I hadn’t – there was still a walking sacred corpse out there that wanted me dead.

If I had any doubts on that last point, they were swept away when I saw it from the window of the hotel in which I was staying afterwards; I immediately called a taxi and fled, heading for the airport and taking a flight right across Australia – I couldn’t leave the country whilst Hulke’s death was being investigated, being the only witness and a possible suspect.

Whilst waiting there, I was informed that Hulke’s place had burnt down, taking with it all the evidence of an Egyptian presence in the region. I also picked up rumours of mysterious deaths in the area of Neversay Creek, initially thought to be the work of the same killer, only to be dismissed as due to the bite of one of Australia’s many venomous creatures.

I had a hope that it might give up or lose my trail, but there was a report in the news of a mysterious shadowy figure spotted in a nearby town that I was certain was the mummy seeking me.

Perhaps I was being paranoid, but I took a flight to the UK as soon as I could. I was reasonably certain that the hideous tar-coloured monstrosity couldn’t swim and I doubted it would be able to book passage here, even if had some way of tracing me to the far side of the world, so home seemed the safest place to be, even if I couldn’t escape the guilt that I was partially to blame for what had happened.

More recently, though, I saw a brief article online about a New Age cult in Perth, Australia, drawn from Egyptian beliefs and led by a man called Neterbyagoona, who is never seen in public. I couldn’t help but recall that Hulke has said the priest’s name began with an N and began to wonder if this was the risen priest. Did he have plans to rebuild his lost domain in the west of Australia?

Although I tried to ignore the possibility, I could do so no longer when I learnt that the cult plans to preach in the UK and that their priest would be flying over to inaugurate their first temple here.

Could it be a coincidence or was he coming for me?

I believe that he is – and I won’t let him drain me as he drained Hulke…

THEY SAY GLORIA’S STILL IN THE LAKE

Michael Penkas

I wasn’t looking for Gloria Swedon. I knew she wasn’t in the lake, no matter what everyone else was saying.

The police had dragged it twice and turned up nothing. They’d searched every one of the properties surrounding that lake. They’d searched the woods surrounding the properties. That should have been enough for anyone.

But people still thought she was down there. Some of them even said they could see her hand reaching out of the water some nights. During the day, they saw something shimmering in it that could have been bleached skin. What had been the wind howling between trees last summer had become her ghostly voice this summer.

It was the first Friday in October and, for the first time in six years, my cottages were not all reserved for next summer. Nearly half my regulars had already informed me that they wouldn’t be renting again. So there I was, sitting in a boat filthy with dust, pouring gasoline into a motor that hadn’t been used in two years, just to see what was in the middle of the lake. I owned twenty-eight of the properties surrounding it and losing half my rentals was a seven-figure problem.

My clothes were soaked from dragging the boat into the water and my hands slipped on the gas can, leaving gasoline on my ruined sweatshirt and jeans. It was a good thing I’d changed out of my suit before coming here. I started up the motor and was surprised, with my luck, that it caught on the first try.

It was past ten and there was a full moon, but I saw nothing as I looked at the lake. I headed out slowly, searching for the piece of driftwood or plastic or whatever it was that had scared off a small fortune over the summer. I saw the moon reflected in a distorted oval, lumps of white and black shimmering so that, if I wanted, I could see a face there. Gloria’s smiling face, looking just like it did in the photograph that appeared in every newspaper this side of the state for about three months.

Her car had been found, abandoned, half a mile up the road from here on Valentine’s Day. Gloria Swedon had been the kind of girl who was so perfect that her life could only end in tragedy. A seventeen year-old head cheerleader at the local high school, dating the captain of the football team and slated to be valedictorian. The week after her disappearance, it was learned that she’d been granted a full-ride scholarship to one of the Ivy League colleges out East. It was the kind of story that reporters pray to get.

The general consensus was that her boyfriend must have killed her. Probably while drunk. Probably after having his sexual advances spurned. He’d spent six weeks under a media spotlight, having every facet of his relationship to Gloria exposed, before it was proven beyond a doubt that there was no way he could have killed her or even seen her that night.

Of course, I was the only one who had known all along he hadn’t killed her. Just like I was the only one who had known all along Gloria Swedon’s body was not at the bottom of the lake.

Eight months ago, I’d been on my way to check out one of the cottages. The road between the highway off-ramp and the lake was little more than dirt and there were no lights. It had begun to rain and I’d been tired from a long day at work. She’d been dressed all in black. My truck was going at least fifty miles an hour. She’d probably died instantly.

So there I was, fingers on the throat of the Homecoming Queen, not getting a pulse.

I knew that the police wouldn’t care about the dark dirt road or the rain or the fact that she was dressed all in black or the fact that no one was supposed to be out there that time of year anyway. All they’d care about would be the test showing I’d had three beers earlier in the evening. That’s all the press would need to know and there would go the business I’d built over the last twenty years. And, likely, my freedom. All gone, because Gloria Swedon went wandering where she shouldn’t have been one Friday evening. She should have been home studying or out playing hard to get with her boyfriend. This hadn’t been my fault.

I’d buried her in a patch of woods a hundred miles away . I had a friend out of state who worked on the front of the truck, no questions asked. The rain had washed away whatever blood had been on the grille.

Eight months later, here I was near the center of the lake. The moon’s reflection seemed to focus down to a point on the water and then pull out of it. Ten feet in front of me, something pure white stretched up from the surface. I slowed the motor and just drifted towards it.

It was a thin hand, chalk-white except for the nails. The nails were blue. It didn’t flex or fidget, just held itself out of the water, like a statue of a hand instead of an actual one. Water dripped from each slender finger. I had no idea what I was going to do.

The boat bumped against the hand. It was solid. Not a ghost that could be ignored.

The hand fell against the edge of the boat, grabbing on and tilting it. A second hand, just as white, joined it after a moment, pulling.

I heard the head emerge before I saw it. I knew it was coming, but where could I go? She wasn’t letting go of the boat and there was no way I was jumping into the water to swim away.

Short black hair was plastered against an angular, almost elfin, face. Her eyes were sunk so far in that I couldn’t even tell if they were opened or closed. The sweater she wore was tattered and covered with so many holes that it seemed ready to fall away from her body. Water splashed into the boat as she fell in, scrabbling with legs in blue jeans that had fared better than the sweater. She was barefoot and, as she pulled herself into a sitting position across from me, I noticed in the moonlight that her toenails were blue just like her fingernails. Then she just sat there, her expression blank. I caught a flicker of white from her shadowed eye-sockets that suggested her eyes were open. After a minute or two, I finally spoke to her, stating what was obvious to both of us.

“You’re not Gloria Swedon.” Gloria had been a busty blonde, a full head taller than this woman, whose hair reached down well past her shoulders. She wasn’t even dressed like Gloria had been dressed that night. I’d never seen this woman before.

She looked at the floor of the boat, perhaps observing how much water she’d brought in. Her voice was harsh and choked, with a trace of some Eastern European accent that I couldn’t quite identify. “Drew.”

We sat for a while in silence after she’d said her name. Her chest was rising and falling. I wasn’t sure if she was breathing or crying. I was about to reach for her when she finally spoke again.

“Gloria Swedon killed me. Steve was going to ask me to the prom, so she killed me.”

One of the rumors stirred up by the press was that Steve had been seeing someone else. I’d ignored it. There’d also been rumors that Steve was gay, HIV positive, a drug addict and even a twin. I gave the press no credit for guessing until they accidentally got something right.

“How come no one knew?” I asked. With all the ruckus stirred up by Gloria, it would seem that someone would have connected a second girl disappearing around the same time.

Still looking at the floor, the dead girl said, “I was from out of town. Ran away from home. Waitressing. No one notices. Steve was my only friend.”

“He’s okay,” I offered, not sure if she’d still care.

“I know.” I thought I saw a bit of a smile. The night sky seemed to be getting even darker. “I know he’s all right. He thinks that I killed Gloria and left town. But he never mentioned my name. He protected me.” She began shaking again.

I almost reached out, almost forgot that this sad girl had been at the bottom of the lake for the past eight months.

I kept my hands to myself, though, and instead offered her a simple, “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t,” she snapped back. “Gloria was crazy. She laughed when she pulled the rope around my neck. She smiled when she brought me out to the lake. She weighed me down with sacks of rocks. I was still alive when she threw me over and, as I sank, she waved.”

The sky grew even darker. “I’m not ... why are you ... still ...?” I wasn’t sure how to word it, what exactly I was trying to ask.

“I needed to thank you,” she answered. “I needed one person to know I was gone. Don’t feel guilty for what you did.”

Guilty?

“Thank you,” she said again. Then she slumped over. I didn’t need to check to know that whatever was inside her was gone now. The thing that had been haunting the lake all summer was gone now.

Well ...

Not gone.

The body was still in the boat. It just wasn’t moving any longer.

So ...

Damn.

I guessed that I could wrap her in the tarp that I’d kept the boat in. There was a shovel in the shed next to where I kept the boat. It was still early enough that I could drive her out of the county to bury in some patch of woods far from my property, preferably a hundred miles in the opposite direction from where I’d buried Gloria. At least there wouldn’t be any work done on my truck this time.

I wondered if anything else could go wrong tonight, when the dark skies cracked with thunder and it began to rain.

BLESSEDLY OFFENDED

Shaun Avery

I lie in wait for the comedian when the show is done, my hacksaw hanging loose but ready in my hand.

The crowds have long since gone by now, their faces happy and contented. I pinned the same look on my face for the duration of the performance, but inside the usual rage was burning.

It’s time to set that anger free.

As if prompted by that thought, the door to the club opens and the man of the moment emerges.

The man.

The filth-monger.

The offender.

I step out of the shadows, step into his path, and the first thing he seems to see is the hacksaw.

He tries to go for a joke then, saying, “This is a little far to go for an autograph, isn’t it?” But with no mob there to lap up the smut that he is peddling, I can see the fear in this so-called comedian’s eyes.

“I didn’t come,” I say, “for an autograph.”

I take a step nearer to him.

I bet he’s thinking that in weeks to come, all of this stuff will be a thing of the past. There’ll be no more stepping alone out of small-time comedy clubs; no, it’ll be the big time all too soon. The painful thing is, I know he’s probably right. That’s the way it goes for his type these days. The offenders.

How I wish I could stop that happening.

I take another step towards him.

Placing myself between him and the nondescript car that will soon be a limo.

“I bet you didn’t see me,” I say, “in the crowd tonight.”

“Sure I did,” he replies, his eyes straying uneasily to the hacksaw by my side.

“No you didn’t,” I tell him, and I believe every word. “I was just another face, enjoying the show.”

His hand is straying towards his inner coat pocket now.

Reaching for his phone.

No doubt thinking that he’s in danger.

“But you see, Mr Funny-Pants, I was actually keeping myself a little list.”

He doesn’t know what to say to this.

His hands still reaching for the phone.

I let him do so.

He’ll know the truth about what’s happening soon enough.

“Black people,” I say. “Gay people. Poor people and rich people.”

He blinks.

“Irish, British, American,” I say, “man, woman, child, disabled, healthy, actors and police and politicians” and here my voice is rising, spittle flying from my lips as the rage builds up inside me, “police and criminals and babies and the young and the old and the infirm” and now I start to scream at him, “and you made fun of all of them!”

And that’s when I raise the hacksaw.

And start to cut myself.

Yes.

That’s right.

I cut myself, not the comedian.

Sorry to mislead you.

I hope you’re not offended by surprise.

But the thing is, you see, we long ago realised that it’s the filth-mongers that rule the media. That’s why the TV is filled with the foulest of people performing the most depraved of acts just to become famous. We long to hurt those people, to punish the offenders, but we know that to do so would be counter-productive – the minute we hurt someone, their media profile would be doubled as their fans and management came out in sympathy, and their pervasive influence on what remains of our society would skyrocket.

So instead, we hurt ourselves.

It’s the only way we have to express ourselves.

And there’s more than one of us.

That’s why I said “we,” you see.

After I finish with the comedian – he passed out at the first sight of blood, like the coward he clearly was – I limp on my torn legs towards the hideout. Eager to bring news of the blow I have just struck on behalf of The Self-Neutering Society.

It was Brother Arnold who came up with our name, and he who has been active in the cause for the longest. As I enter, he has a phone in each hand, making complaints about two different shows, clearly busy. Yet he still spares my limping form a look and says, “What news, Brother?” Then he shouts, “Human Martha, pull up a chair for the weary crusader!”

Now, despite the group’s name, none of us have carved actual chunks off ourselves. We’re a catalogue of scars, true, and the odd arterial nick has resulted in a few impromptu visits to the hospital for certain members, but we’re all more or less as God made us to be.

Not Human Martha, though.

Once our most militant female member, Human Martha long ago realised that the body God gave to her was potentially offensive to some other women – her breasts bigger than average, which could make the small-chested feel bad, and her vagina tight and well-muscled, which could offend those who had given birth.

So she’d had the former surgically reduced.

And then asked us to hack off what was left.

I admit I had some qualms – I was used to harming myself, after all, and not others. But she’d begged and pleaded with me, asking me to put myself in the place of lesser-sized women, who might be offended by her huge size. And as she said, “None of us want to offend anyone, do we?”

She was right.

We drew the line at slicing off her vagina, though. I think she did, too. But to finally rid herself of offensive notions of male and female, she asked us to hammer a prosthetic penis into the surrounding area, making her genderless. That’s why we now call Martha not Brother or Sister but instead
Human
Martha.

Who brings me over the requested chair.

Then begins to rub my shoulders as I wearily sit.

Letting my body relax, I take the chance to watch Brother Arnold in action.

He has two sets of notes in front of him – physical versions of the merely mental list of grievances I just shot out at the comedian, and with his eyes on them he says, “Yes, I wish to make a complaint about a particular TV show.”

Words we all live by.

He flicks the phone onto “speaker,” so we can all hear the reply:

“What, sir, is the nature of your complaint?”

“This show featured nudity, bad language, sexual references and . . . wait a minute, that’s the wrong show.”

He grabs the other list and resumes.

“Yes, well, this one has the same problems – plus drunkenness and depravity!”

There’s the hint of a sigh from the other end of the phone as they say, “this is a late night show, sir. There are warnings given before it.”

These are the standard excuses. We’ve all heard them before. But they’re just not good enough.

“Besides,” the person taking the complaint says, “what else can you expect from a show that’s called
The Scumbags?”

Then they hang up.

Okay, maybe that wasn’t the best example. But Brother Arnold really is the best, believe me. He’s had horror movies banned for being too scary and comedies pulled for being too funny. He’s even complained about a few things that don’t actually exist, just to make sure.

He’s a hero to us all.

An inspiration.

But he’s not the only effective member of our group.

I’m on my way to meet another now.

You wouldn’t know that Brother Benjamin was a Brother, were you to see him in the street. Then again, perhaps the same could be said of me. Perhaps without my hacksaw I’d look just like everyone else.

Brother Benjamin, though, he does look better in a suit than I do.

Mostly for one reason.

Unlike me, he remembers to take his clothes off before he begins to cut himself.

The jeans I wore to the comedian’s show are pretty much ruined now.

Anyway, my fellow complainer greets me with a warm welcome as I enter his office. He shows me to a seat across from him and says, “What news, Brother?”

I tell him about the comedian – the second time I’ve shared the tale, having passed it on to Brother Arnold and Human Martha the other night – and he nods along, entertained by the story. His face only grows grim when I tell him how our foe passed out.

“Typical, isn’t it?” he says. “How many hundreds of people have his sick jokes hurt? Yet when the consequences of his ‘humour’ are right in front of him, he just can’t take it.”

“Too true, Brother,” I agree.

But Brother Benjamin is not to be defused, and he removes his suit jacket and rolls up the sleeves of his shirt as he carries on speaking.

“Someone swore on the radio this morning,” he says. “Can you believe that?”

Sadly, I can.

“No apologies, no helpline to call, nothing.”

He’s reaching into a drawer now.

“Damn,” he says, after some fruitless searching through it.

“What is it, Brother?” I ask.

“Left my favourite blade at home,” he says. “Right in front of the TV. Caught that damn ‘Scumbag’ show again.”

“Brother Arnold –”

“Bless his name.”

“– has a plan to take care of those.”

He swivels in his leather chair, and looks to the glass window.

“I could smash that,” he says. “Use a shard to cut myself. But that’d raise too many questions.”

“No problem, Brother,” I say.

He spins back around to face me.

“I always come prepared,” I tell him.

And I hand him a knife that I had strapped to the scar tissue of my leg.

“Brother Stewart,” he says, laying the blade against his skin. “You truly are a saint.”

“Not quite yet, Brother,” I reply.

He cuts and the blood flows and then he looks to the door and switches the office fan on extra loud so that it will cover the sound of what comes next and as he slices into his skin further and further his eyes roll back in ecstasy and he screams, “Stop offending me, TV!”

And he sinks back in his chair, spent.

The beauty of the moment has almost brought me to tears.

When a few seconds have elapsed, he reaches into his drawer again and pulls out a small bag and shows me the contents and says, “Ever tried these?”

I look inside.

Then shiver, slightly disgusted.

“No,” I reply. “Used them for what?”

“They’re good for healing wounds,” he says. “Seen it on a history show once.”

Then he lets them loose on his cuts.

A handful of maggots.

“Ah,” he sighs more than says, before looking to me and asking, “What was the purpose of your visit, Brother? Before we got so carried away.”

“A get-together, tonight,” I say. Still feeling slightly uneasy at the sight of the maggots crawling over his skin.

“At the hide-out, Brother?”

“No,” I say. “Somewhere else.”

Our newest foe in the never-ending war against depravity – you may have guessed this already – is a TV show that’s all about scumbags.

The
Scumbags, to be precise – a controlled experiment to see how far its stars will go just to remain on television.

Needless to say, it has been a big hit, despite the four thousand complaints that Brother Arnold has personally placed against it. And tonight the six stars – three men and three women – are making a personal appearance at a local night club.

The queue to get in – to see these offenders in action – spirals all the way across the street.

“I just don’t get it,” Brother Benjamin says, pulling a stack of protesting banners from the back of his van. “What makes people think these guys are so special?”

“They’re on TV,” I reply. “That’s enough for most people.”

“Well, I still don’t see it,” he says, and sniffs a maggot up his nose.

We all look at him.

“It helps get me in the mood,” he explains.

I take a banner from him, and walk across the road towards the club. Stepping into line beside me, Human Martha briefly touches my hand.

I look across at them.

See the promise of fun to be had when our protest is done.

Brother Arnold is already way ahead of us, leading the charge, standing in front of the door to the club.

The doormen eye him warily. Suspiciously.

“We’re making a protest,” he says. “There’s nothing illegal about that.”

Then he begins to chant.

He’s pretty loud, and even the people in the line are beginning to notice. For a second I dare to hope that his words will be enough, that his message will have the power to draw these people away from the false gods that they worship.

But then one of them appears at the top-floor window of the club.

One of the stars of
The Scumbags. A woman.

“Fuck off, freaks!” she shouts down at us.

One of the male members appears, too.

“Wankers!” he cries.

The fans that have brought their children to see these stars cheer.

Then the woman climbs up on the window ledge.

Spreads her legs.

“Get some of this!” she shouts.

I look up at her.

Feel the spray of liquid against my face.

Warm liquid.

I recoil, spitting.

The crowd is laughing.

The woman is, too.

But then it happens.

She falls off the ledge.

Comes hurtling down towards us.

“Uh-oh,” Brother Benjamin says.

She must have been wearing pretty big high heels.

I know this.

We all do.

Because as she splats against the ground, one of them comes hurtling through the air, separated from the rest of her shoe, not to mention the mess that is now her body, by the force of the fall.

It slices across Brother Benjamin’s cheek, shredding skin from skin.

“Sweet,” he says, and pulls out another bag of maggots.

Human Martha takes my arm as the doormen and the fans look on, agog.

“Maybe we’d better go,” Human Martha says.

I nod.

“My place?”

I don’t need to be asked twice.

I can’t refer to Human Martha as either “he” or “she” whilst I’m writing, because it doesn’t feel right – feels offensive, even – to think of them in gender terms.

When they’re standing nude in front of me, though . . .

That’s a different story.

The house is perfectly inoffensive – walls unpainted so that no-one’s favourite colour is neglected, furniture bare and sixth-hand so that impoverished people will never be offended by the sight of something that they cannot afford.

I like it here.

Especially when Human Martha starts to get naked.

First a unisex jumper is pulled off

Then down come the trousers.

My eyes stray to the prosthetic bulge just jutting from the underwear.

I helped hammer that in.

How it takes my breath away,

The underwear, by the way, is half male boxer shorts, half woman’s silky knickers, stitched together, patchwork style. Much like their dear owner.

I’m sliding out of my own clothes now.

Assuming the position.

Facing the TV.

As she slides into me from behind, she switches the screen on.

And we bask in the glow of
World’s Best Hymns as we make sweet, inoffensive love.

Afterwards they lie beside me on the floor and they say, “Stewart?”

Not
Brother
Stewart, you’ll note. The moment feels too intimate for that.

“Yes?”

They put a hand on my battered and torn chest, one nipple half-missing after I got carried away that time the singer said “penis” on live TV, and look at me and ask:

“What would happen if one of us offended someone?”

“Impossible,” I reply at once. “How could we? We don’t swear, smoke, drink or appear on reality TV shows.”

“But what if?”

I look at Human Martha, sensing this is truly something that bothers them. If that is the case, of course, they should be taking it to Brother Arnold, the leader of our group. But I’m kind of flattered that they’ve come to me instead.

“It’s just,” they go on, “if we have to hurt ourselves when someone offends us . . .if we offend someone, would we then have to hurt them?”

Now, that’s a tricky one – so tricky, in fact, that even Brother Arnold might struggle to answer it. Maybe we’d have to go one step further up the ladder of cleanliness and decency and ask God himself. I mean, hurt others? I only know how to hurt myself. And just looking at this body shows how good I am at that.

“Darling,” I say, “we could never be offensive.”

Then I take them in my arms and make love to them.

Eventually.

And somehow.

The next day Brother Benjamin invites me to his house, and I know that we’re in for some fun when says, “Bring your hacksaw.”

I put it inside a briefcase that he lent me and then head on over to his place.

He has the main room all lined up – multiple TV screens in a long row so we can soak up as much offense as possible and a number of bladed instruments so we can indulge all of that offense.

But that’s not all.

As he shows me to my seat, I see he has a multitude of maggots crawling across his table.

I look at them wriggling and squirming.

Something about them turns my stomach.

Almost . . .

Dare I say it?

Almost offends me.

Human Martha’s question comes back to haunt me, but I try to push it away. It’s not easy, though. That lovemaking session has left me tender. And not just around my bottom.

“Look,” Brother Benjamin then says, and switches on the screens.

Suddenly noise and light fill the room.

I look towards the nearest TV.

There’s a woman on a life support machine, covered in bandages, what you can see of her body a horrible ruin.

I say, “Isn’t that. . ?”

“Yeah,” Brother Benjamin confirms. “Her from
The Scumbags.”

I cringe. “They let her go back on the show after she fell out that window?”

“Yeah.” He grins. “Apparently she makes a lot more sense now.”

As he speaks, he’s picking up a scalpel.

“They’re showing her best bits,” he says. “From her audition onwards.”

I nod.

Remembering, this time, to remove my shirt before the cutting begins.

I pick up my hacksaw.

Take a knife in the other hand.

Brother Benjamin runs his nose along the table, inhaling a few more maggots. A few, too, he takes in his mouth, crunching away.

I shiver at this.

Really feeling rather revolted.

But he’s my Brother.

A comrade in arms.

Meanwhile, on-screen, mournful music is playing.

Someone from the audition asking the girl, “Will you do all the things written on this piece of paper to get onto our show?”

Brother Benjamin is slicing his legs with the scalpel.

Letting maggots run across the wound.

“Yeah,” the woman on the screen says. “Of course I would. I want to be on TV so bad.”

She looks up at the camera.

“But what’s coprophagia?”

And I cut and cut and cut.

Brother Arnold is waiting for me in the hide-out, and he smiles kindly at me as I enter.

I’ve decided that it’s time for a heart-to-heart.

Not literally.

“Brother Stewart,” he says, beckoning me to take a seat across from him. “You sounded troubled when you called.”

“Yes,” I say. “It took me a while to get through – the line was engaged.”

“A few more complaints to make, my Brother.”

Of course.

“I guess that’s what is getting to me, Brother Arnold,” I say. “How can this war of ours ever be over when there are so many filth-mongers out there?”

“Ah,” he says. “Your faith is weakening.”

That’s part of it, I suppose. But also, the question posed by Human Martha the other night is troubling my head. With this world around us so full of corruption, isn’t it merely inevitable that we will end up being tainted, end up offending someone, too?

So I say, “Brother Arnold, you’ve been at this the longest.”

“Yes,” he replies, “that is correct.”

“Do you think that things have got any better in all that time?”

To my surprise, he says, “No.”

I blink. “No?”

“No,” he repeats. “They’ve got worse.”

Then, perhaps sensing that this is not what I need to hear, he adds, “But it’s only everyone else in the world that has got worse. We, in this fine Self-Neutering Society, have grown stronger. More powerful.”

The average doctor or surgeon, especially one with a fondness for full nipples or large breasts, might disagree with this analysis of our prowess. Still, I feel the need to point out, “But the rest of the world, Brother Arnold . . . that’s an awful lot of people.”

“Yes, ’awful’ is the right word for them,” he replies.

Then he opens his shirt wide.

It’s the first time I’ve seen him so exposed.

Beneath the cloth, he’s barely there at all.

You can see bone in places.

Quite a lot of places.

“The more they hurt others,” he says, “the more we hurt ourselves.”

He reaches out a hand.

Grabs mine.

Rests my fingers against the remnants of his skin.

“See, we serve a sacred purpose, Brother,” he tells me. “There can only be so much hurt in the world. By drawing some of that pain into ourselves, we reduce the damage that the offender causes his victim.”

He pulls his hand back.

Begins to button up his shirt.

“Maybe we even save their lives.”

He has a way to make you believe again, and thank God, he’s done it once more. But there’s still one question that lingers, and I pose it as I stand.

“And what, Blessed Brother Arnold, if we were to offend someone?”

He thinks it over.

“Well,” he eventually says, “I think the ultimate sacrifice of all would then be in order.”

When you think of all the blood we’ve shed and skin we’ve shredded, it might be hard to imagine sacrificing anymore. But I guess as long as you’re still breathing, you’ve still got more to give.

Just ask that woman from
The Scumbags.

That was meant to be a joke.

Was that offensive?

Sorry.

Better prepare the hacksaw.

But anyway, Brother Benjamin has taken to offering me the odd bit of employment. He knows that only the offenders of the world have money to burn, and knows further that it’s hard to find work when you’re getting on a bit and your body is a protest patchwork. It’s nothing too taxing, of course . . . just taking minutes at meetings.

So I grab the train to the tower block in which his business resides, and oh my word you would not believe the profanities that assault my ears along the way. It is going to take a lot of cutting to put right all the things I heard.

I eventually reach his office, planning to head to the boardroom with him, and when I hear the fan set to its fastest speed and therefore loudest volume I know that he has obviously had a tough morning, too. See, no one else is allowed to enter when it’s on that loud – it’s like an unwritten rule, a sign that he is working hard and not to be disturbed. But normal rules don’t apply to fellow Self-Neutering souls, and I walk right on in.

The head of supplies, a bitter-faced old woman called Sally, notices this, and she flashes me a dirty look as I enter.

Once inside the office, I see that Brother Benjamin is on the table, naked except for his socks and shoes, and he’s cutting into his chest.

“Cab driver had Tourette’s,” he explains.

Say no more.

I’d like to join him, but I’ve never been one for mixing business with pleasure, and being here in this office is all about the former. So I just stab myself in the leg a few times with my minute-taking pen and leave it at that.

For now.

Then I wait whilst he gets dressed.

Thinking that we’re heading to the boardroom, like usual.

But instead he stands by the window.

Says, “I’d like to do things a little differently today, Brother Stewart.”

“Oh?” I look at him.

He grins. “Call all the usual suspects in here.”

This is irregular, is something new. But you have to roll with the punches sometimes, and besides, it’s Brother Benjamin that signs the cheques that pay me. So I head out and call in the various department heads for the weekly strategy meetings.

Including Sally.

Her expression even dirtier than before as this non-official body comes to call her to the boss’s office.

“Why the big change?” she asks me in an outraged tone.

“I don’t know,” I say.

She sneers.

Serves her right for asking a lowly minion, no?

When we get to Brother Benjamin’s office, though, I see immediately that something is very wrong here.

He’s produced a huge sack from somewhere. A huge sack and it’s lying on the table and it’s bulging, its contents alive.

I flash back to our past few meetings.

And I don’t need to take too many guesses to work out what is in this sack.

“Mr Moorland,” Sally says. “This is most unusual.”

She doesn’t know the half of it.

See, at first, Brother Benjamin is sitting at his chair.

When he stands, though . . .

He’s stripped off again.

Razor blades still jutting from bloody wounds.

Maggots crawling across his body.

And of course, he’s looking at me, right at me, making me a party to his madness.

“I’ve got it now, Brother Stewart,” he says. “I understand.”

“Brother
Stewart?” Sally enquires, eyebrows rising.

Ignoring her, he says, “We can’t do it alone. We can’t take on the people who swear, the people who drink, all the people who offend on our own.”

“Mr Moorland,” I try, hoping I can nip this little thing in the bud, knowing that Brother Arnold will take a dim view of this, “I don’t think –”

“We need new numbers,” he goes on, cutting me off. “We need to be bigger.”

And he grabs a handful of maggots and eats them.

His sub-ordinates groan.

I’ll admit to feeling a little queasy, myself.

“I’m hurting,” he says, and I almost allow myself to breathe a sigh of relief, hoping that he’ll pass out before too much damage is done. “But don’t worry. I know how to take care of that.”

And he pulls one of the blades from his skin.

A plume of blood flies out, into the eyes of Mr Wiggins from accounts.

Brother Benjamin doesn’t notice.

No, he’s too busy with other business.

Namely splitting the bag wide open.

And diving headfirst into the sea of maggots that lie inside it.

Sally is sick, then, vomiting all over her shoes.

Is it offensive to think, serves her right?

Maybe so.

I think it anyway.

And so my fall begins.

For that, you see, is when Brother Benjamin looks up to me.

His face covered in crawling, squirming, squelching maggots.

Only small portions of his skin visible.

He opens up his mouth, and says to me, “Join in, Brother Stewart.”

Then he says something else, but you can’t quite hear it through the army of maggots that march into his mouth.

He reaches a hand towards me.

Coming up from the table.

He mutters something else unintelligible.

But he’s looking at me as he says it.

Friendship in his eyes.

Solidarity, too.

But all I see is the creatures that swarm over him.

And I bat him away.

A bit too hard.

As he slips back and back and back until his body meets the window.

And goes through it.

Sally runs to the window in what seems like slow motion, and looks out of it.

Looks down.

Then back at me.

I recognise what’s in her eyes.

Oh dear,
I think.

Looks like I just offended someone.

They’re all gathered around me.

Brother Arnold.

Human Martha.

The urn of Brother Benjamin.

The first two wearing black.

Standing in the hide-out.

The last place I’ll ever see.

Human Martha hands me my hacksaw.

My old friend.

My dear tool.

We’ve been through so much together.

But no more.

I begin to saw.

It’s shocking how easily my head comes off.

I’ll really have to complain to God about that when I see him in just a few seconds.

THE NIGHTMARE LAKE

H. P. Lovecraft

There is a lake in distant Zan,
Beyond the wonted haunts of man,
Where broods alone in a hideous state
A spirit dead and desolate;
A spirit ancient and unholy,
Heavy with fearsome melancholy,
Which from the waters dull and dense
Draws vapors cursed with pestilence.
Around the banks, a mire of clay,
Sprawl things offensive in decay,
And curious birds that reach that shore
Are seen by mortals nevermore.
Here shines by day the searing sun
On glassy wastes beheld by none,
And here by night pale moonbeams flow
Into the deeps that yawn below.
In nightmares only is it told
What scenes beneath those beams unfold;
What scenes, too old for human sight,
Lie sunken there in endless night;
For in those depths there only pace
The shadows of a voiceless race.
One midnight, redolent of ill,
I saw that lake, asleep and still;
While in the lurid sky there rode
A gibbous moon that glow’d and glow’d.

I saw the stretching marshy shore,
And the foul things those marshes bore:
Lizards and snakes convuls’d and dying;
Ravens and vampires putrefying;
All these, and hov’ring o’er the dead,
Narcophagi that on them fed.
And as the dreadful moon climb’d high,
Fright’ning the stars from out the sky,
I saw the lake’s dull water glow
Till sunken things appear’d below.
There shone unnumber’d fathoms down,
The tow’rs of a forgotten town;
The tarnish’d domes and mossy walls;
Weed-tangled spires and empty halls;
Deserted fanes and vaults of dread,
And streets of gold uncoveted.
These I beheld, and saw beside
A horde of shapeless shadows glide;
A noxious horde which to my glance
Seem’d moving in a hideous dance
Round slimy sepulchres that lay
Beside a never-travell’d way.
Straight from those tombs a heaving rose
That vex’d the waters’ dull repose,
While lethal shades of upper space
Howl’d at the moon’s sardonic face.
Then sank the lake within its bed,
Suck’d down to caverns of the dead,
Till from the reeking, new-stript earth
Curl’d foetid fumes of noisome birth.
About the city, nigh uncover’d,
The monstrous dancing shadows hover’d,
When lo! there ope’d with sudden stir
The portal of each sepulchre!
No ear may learn, no tongue may tell
What nameless horror then befell.
I see that lake—that moon agrin—
That city and the things within—
Waking, I pray that on that shore
The nightmare lake may sink no more!

Look for “The Maven”
by Nikki Hetfield, coming in
Fossil Lake 3: UNICORNADO!

A tween girl’s notebook cover come to life.

A group known as the Plagiarists and their nutjob leader.

The old Campbell property past Fossil Lake.

“The signature calling card of the plagiarism posse is the sexual abuse of unicorns.”

Look for “The Maven“ by Nikki Hetfield
Coming in 2016 in
Fossil Lake III: UNICORNADO!

http://fossillake.wordpress.com/

ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS

Randy Attwood

Randy Attwood grew up at Larned State Hospital where his father was its dentist. He has been a journalist, director of PR at an academic medical center, and retired as Media Officer at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City. His fiction touches many genres. He has nine novels and two collections of shorter works published.

*

Alicia Austen

Alicia Austen is a writer who specializes in silent cinema, old books, and dead wordsmiths. She also writes short stories and plays. In her free time, she edits books, drinks too much tea, listens to punk rock, reads, bakes delicious goodies, and blogs at onetrackmuse.com. She lives in Ohio with her husband, their beloved dog, and a hand-me-down cat.

*

Shaun Avery

Shaun Avery is a crime and horror fiction writer whose work has appeared in many magazines and anthologies, with more currently forthcoming. He has also co-created a self-published comic that is coming soon, about which he is very excited. “Blessedly Offended“ casts a satirical eye on two of his least favourite groups of people – those who complain endlessly about TV shows, and those who would do anything to get on TV shows. Although he admits he has perhaps exaggerated the attitudes and actions of these groups for comedy value. Perhaps.

*

Doug Blakeslee

The author lives in the Pacific Northwest and spends his time writing, cooking, gaming, and following the local WHL hockey team. His interest in books and reading started early thanks to his parents, though his serious attempts at writing only started a few years ago. From time to time he blogs about writing and other related topics at The Simms Project at http://thesimmsproject.blogspot.com/. Published works can be found in the anthologies
Uncommon Assassins, Zippered Flesh 2, and Someone Wicked from Smart Rhino,
ATTACK! of the B-Movie Monsters, Astrologica: Stories of the Zodiac, and
A Chimerical World: Tales of the Unseelie Court. His current project is an urban fantasy novella featuring a group of changelings in the modern world. He can be reached on Facebook or simms.doug@gmail.com.

*

Bruce Boston

Bruce Boston is the author of more than fifty books and chapbooks, including the dystopian sf novel
The Guardener痴
Tale and the psychedelic coming-of-age-novel
Stained Glass Rain.
His poetry has received the Bram Stoker Award, the Asimov痴
Readers Award, the Rhysling Award, and the Grandmaster Award of the Science Fiction Poetry Association. His fiction has received a Pushcart Prize, and twice been a finalist for the Bram Stoker Award (novel, short story).
www.bruceboston.com

*

Michael Burnside

Michael Burnside is a graduate of Ohio University whose inquisitive nature has led him to study and work in a wide variety of fields. His interests include gaming, science, computer technology, history, politics, and, of course, writing. Michael is the creator of the role playing games
Space Conspiracy and
World War Two Roleplay. His fiction writing specializes in the steampunk and horror genres and has been featured in several anthologies. Read more nice things about him, as well as some free stories, at www.michaelburnside.com

*

A. Stinky Cat

Hailing from a cat farm near you, Stinky Cat aspires to die laughing. An architect, curator, cat herder and comic artist, Stinky Cat is always in search of new adventures.

*

Clayton Chandler

Clayton Chandler is an author and artist. His fiction has appeared in
The Storyteller Speaks: Rare and Different Fictions of the Grateful Dead
(Kearney Street Books),
Control Literary Magazine, 365 Tomorrows, The Strange and the Curious, The Earl of Plaid, 3 Elements Review, TexasTechToday, and
AnotherRealm. As a journalist, he won a Texas Associated Press Managing Editor’s Award for deadline writing, The Hearst Newspapers Eagle Award, and a Council for the Advancement and Support of Education feature-writing award. His artwork has exhibited in New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Baltimore and Basel, Switzerland.

*

Gregor Cole

Gregor Cole works out of Kent (the garden of England) in the UK spending most of his free time scribbling away in the gloom and watching classic horror. He sharpens the knives of his craft on a diet of tea, biscuits and lemon loaf cake, constantly waiting for the postman to deliver his weekly selection of gore films and bizarro literature.

*

S.L. Dixon

S.L. Dixon is a Canadian author and former print-journalist residing in Northern British Columbia. He has written four novels and five collections of stories, as well as several titles in numerous magazines. The bulk of his work falls into the horror field, but occasionally steps outside the genre to write science-fiction and humor. He can ice skate, but cannot swim, he cannot eat mushrooms because of how they feel in his mouth, once purchased petrified dinosaur feces on eBay for $10 and in the eleventh grade was arrested at a school dance wearing only a bathrobe (crime and attire unrelated).

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Uncle Don

Uncle Don spends his days collecting mason jars and his nights reminiscing about his glory days as a former Illinois State Fair Mason Jar Stacking Contest semi-finalist.

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James Ebersole

James Ebersole’s stories and poems have appeared in publications such as
The Horror Writers Association Poetry Showcase, Richmond Macabre, and
Explorers: Beyond the Horizon. He is currently working on a Creative Writing MA in Edinburgh.

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Ken Goldman

Ken Goldman, former Philadelphia teacher of English and Film Studies, is an affiliate member of the Horror Writers Association. He has homes on the Main Line in Pennsylvania and at the Jersey shore depending upon his mood and the track of the sun. His stories have appeared in over 730 independent press publications in the U.S., Canada, the UK, and Australia with over twenty due for publication in 2015. Since 1993 Ken’s tales have received seven honorable mentions in The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror. He has written five books: his anthologies of short stories,
You Had Me At Arrgh!! Five Uneasy Pieces by Ken Goldman (Sam’s Dot Publishers);
Donny Doesn’t Live Here Anymore
(A/A Productions), and
Star-Crossed
(Vampires 2 Publishers); and a novella,
Desiree, (Damnation books). His novel,
Of A Feather, was published in January 2014 by the UK’s Horrific Tales Publishers. Ken would be famous except for the fact nobody seems to know who he is. However, he looks forward to the day when he and Stephen King are called to the dais and someone asks “Who is that guy standing next to Ken Goldman?”

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John Goodrich

John Goodrich dreams of a time without bullies, without intolerance, without fear of the other.

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Scott R. Jones

Scott R Jones, author of
Soft From All The Blood and
The Ecdysiasts, as well as
R’lyeh Sutra
(as skawt chonzz). Look for my non-fiction auto-ethnographical book
When The Stars Are Right: Towards An Authentic R’lyehian Spirituality in 2014

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K.H. Koehler

K. H. Koehler is the author of various novels and novellas in the genres of horror, SF, dark fantasy, steampunk and young adult. She is the owner of K.H. Koehler Books, and her books are widely available at all major online distributors. Her covers have appeared on numerous books in many different genres, and her short work has been featured on Horror World, Literary Mayhem, and in the Bram Stoker Award-winning anthology
Demons, edited by John Skipp. She lives in the beautiful wilds of Northeast Pennsylvania with two very large and opinionated Rottweilers. Visit her website at http://khkoehlerbooks.wordpress.com

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Patrick Lacey

Patrick Lacey is an Editorial Assistant in the healthcare industry. When he’s not reading about blood clots and infectious diseases, he writes about things that make the general public uncomfortable. He lives in Massachusetts with his wife, his Pomeranian, and his muse, who he’s pretty sure is trying to kill him. Follow him on Twitter (@patlacey).

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Richard Leavesley

Richard Leavesley was born, raised and lives in central England. He’s been writing poetry and short fiction for small press magazines for over twenty years. He’s currently working an a uniquely sarcastic children’s fantasy novel about monsters that live in the dark recesses your bedroom...

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Jodi Lee

Jodi Lee has lived her entire life on the Canadian Prairies, which she credits for her over-active imagination. Owning a possessed mirror which takes her through to a strange and sometimes horrifying town (New Bedlam), and finding spaces between the walls can lead her to even darker places where shadows sleep and Others await, keeps her busy. Well, that and running a tiny publishing house (Belfire Press), freelancing, and participating in almost every wrimo challenge known to man...

She is the author of the
Creating New Pagan Family Traditions chapbook series, as well as a collection of horror fiction,
Into a Long Ago Future, and a dark urban fantasy serial,
Galleys Between.
All are available on Amazon. For more information, visit her website http://www.jodilee.ca/

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Kerry G.S. Lipp

Kerry teaches English at a community college by evening and writes horrible things by night. He hates the sun. His parents started reading his stories and now he’s out of the will. Kerry’s work appears in several anthologies including
DOA2 from Blood Bound Books and
Attack of the B-Movie Monsters from Grinning Skull Press. His story “Smoke“ pioneered The Wicked Library podcast’s explicit content warning. Currently, he’s shopping a bizarro novella and editing his first novel. KGSL blogs at http://www.newworldhorror.com/

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Alan Loewen

Born in 1954, Alan Loewen is the product of a long line of German Mennonite farmers on his father’s side and Episcopalian whalers and fishermen on his mother’s side. His writing comes from his experience as a factory worker, inner-city security guard, park ranger, youth worker, radio personality, stage actor, stage magician, an ordained member of the clergy, computer salesman, counselor for mood disorders, and a host of other vocations. Loewen presently lives in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Married and with three sons, he shares his home with a Sheltie, three cats, and a sun conure lovingly dubbed “The Death Chicken.“

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H.P. Lovecraft

Howard Phillips Lovecraft (1890-1937), one of the few authors to have an entire sub-genre named after him, While “a product of his time” may be used to explain some of the more unsavory traits prominent in several of his stories, one would hope his true literary heirs would have evolved beyond such things and not go spewing hate, rampant racism, misogyny, homophobia and general shitty-person-ness all over the internet.

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John McIlveen

John M. McIlveen, author of
Jerks And Other Tales From A Perfect Man, has numerous stories, poems, and articles published in several anthologies, magazines, and other such places, including 21st Century Dead, The Monster’s Corner, Epitaphs, From the Borderlands, and Buzzymag.com, just to name a few. His first novel,
Hannahwhere
(paranormal suspense), is finished and en route to a kind and loving home. If luck prevails,
Hannahwhere will get huge bids on the paperback floor and generate a brutal movie option battle between Peter Jackson and Guillermo del Toro. John is well into his second and third novels,
Going North and
Corruption, both of which will make Oprah swoon. John is a father to five lovely daughters, owns a shotgun, and has nerves of steel (which also defines the colour of his hair). He’s an Electrical and Mechanical Designer, and the O&M/MEP Liaison at MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory, and lives in Marlborough, MA with a beautiful Italian goddess. He has an affinity for black licorice, whoopie pies, and good tequila.

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Edward Martin III

Edward’s second book —
Through the Night
— was just published and can be found on Amazon. He’s an award-winning screenwriter and an author who constantly experiments what his work. His second feature film —
Flesh of my Flesh
— should be out by the time this is published. Find him online at HellbenderMedia.com

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David Neilsen

David Neilsen is the author of a number of slightly-disturbing works of fiction age-appropriate for people age-appropriate to be slightly-disturbed. Based in Sleepy Hollow, NY, when not writing about folks summoning forth eldritch demons with a penchant for human vivisection, David sends audiences into the depths of madness through his storytelling, particularly with his one-man show, H.P. Lovecraft’s Call of Cthulhu. Visit David online at:
http://neilsenparty.wordpress.com/

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J.M. Northwood

Between the slithering horror of his birth, and the eventual inevitability of his death, J.M. has split his time between interpretive dance, the culinary arts, and avoiding acting like an adult. Writing under the pseudonyms of Captain Fabulous, Hardyn Thicke, and Spanky Taillift: the Lascivious Hampster of South Chutney, his poetry and prose have enthralled thousands of his invisible friends.

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Mark Orr

Mark Orr is a highly educated (some say over-educated) writing machine who could use an infusion of spare parts now and again. He labors in the intellectual armpit of all the known universes that is Middle Tennessee, and frequently wishes he were some place else. Belize would be nice, or Prague. London, if it weren’t so expensive. Le sigh.

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Lorenzo Passion

Lorenzo Passion hails from parts unknown. He has no memory of his life before he met a traumatized Labrador retriever who dictated to him a tale of woe.

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Michael Penkas

Michael Penkas lives in Chicago and has had over twenty stories published. His work has appeared in
Shock Totem,
DarkFuse and
Dark Moon Digest. His first novel,
Mistress Bunny and the Cancelled Client, was published in 2014. A complete list of his published work can be found at www.michaelpenkas.com.

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Mary Pletsch

Mary Pletsch is a glider pilot, toy collector and graduate of the Royal Military College of Canada. She is also a camping enthusiast who likes to see what she can stir up out of deep forests and dark lakes. She has published short stories in a variety of genres including science fiction, fantasy and horror. She grew up in Ontario, but now lives in New Brunswick with Dylan Blacquiere and their four cats. Visit her online at www.fictorians.com.

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Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) invented detective fiction, revolutionized the science fiction genre and wrote the only poem popular enough to have an NFL team named after it.
A UVA dropout who was expelled from West Point, Poe went on to become the first internationally influential American author, termed by Alfred, Lord Tennyson “the most Original American Genius.” Known in his time as a literary critic, poet, and mystery writer; Poe is now justifiably renowned for developing the modern tale of psychological terror with short stories like “Berenice” (which almost got him fired) and “The Tell-Tale Heart” (which was rejected by the first magazine to which he submitted it). Now Poe’s face adorns bobble heads, action figures, and the Beatles’
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover. He even appeared on an episode of the animated series
South Park and the Batman comic series
Batman Nevermore. He has been portrayed on film by the likes of Joseph Cotton, Klaus Kinski and John Cusack.

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Doug Rinaldi

Doug was born and raised in the bowels of Connecticut. He spent most of his time exploring the woods behind Washington Park, envisioning otherworldly scenarios that would engulf him and ignite his budding imagination. Art was his life. Throughout his adolescence, he had written and drawn, creating little tales of horror about the devious lunch ladies at school and the like. In 1995, Doug graduated college and received his degree in Computer Animation and Special Effects for stage and screen. However, writing dark fiction had always been his bigger passion. At the turn of the millennium, he relocated to Boston, Massachusetts where he has been continuing to hone his writing and artistic skills ever since.

http://www.facebook.com/DeviatedTruths
deviatedtruths.wordpress.com
http://twitter.com/thugrinaldi

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Brian M. Sammons

Brian M. Sammons has been writing reviews on all things horror for more years than he’ll care to admit. Wanting to give other critics the chance to ravage his work for a change, he has penned a smattering of stories that have appeared in such books as
Arkham Tales, Horrors Beyond, Monstrous, Dead but Dreaming 2, Horror for the Holidays, Mountains of Madness, Deepest, Darkest Eden and others. He has edited the anthologies
Undead & Unbound, Eldritch Chrome, Edge of Sundown, Steampunk Cthulhu, Dark Rites of Cthulhu, Atomic Age Cthulhu, and
World War Cthulhu. He is also the managing editor of Dark Regions Press’ new Weird Fiction line. For more about Brian you can check out his infrequently updated webpage here: http://brian_sammons.webs.com/ and follow him on Twitter @BrianMSammons.

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William Andre Sanders

William Andre Sanders resides in the town of Narrows, VA, with his wife and two children. He hasn’t published much poetry so far in 2014, but does have several poems scheduled for release before year’s end. Andre is currently concentrating on finishing the initial draft of his second novel, while his first novel is making rounds in hope of finding a publisher willing to gamble on his throw it all out on the table approach. While he is nearly halfway finished with the second novel draft, he does intend to induce fear every once in a while by returning to some of the magazines that gave him his start and deliver fresh work that he has toned into a horrifying craft. Feel free to contact him via Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/williamandresanders. Or, simply shoot him an email:
william_a_sanders@yahoo.com.

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Claire Smith

Claire Smith has previously had her poem, ‘Burial Ground’, published by Gloucestershire Archaeology Society in their journal
Glevensis
(2013); and the poem ‘Sea Princess’ included in S. T. Joshi’s journal
Spectral Realms
(summer 2014). She has also had two short stories published in anthologies, by Inkermen Press, ‘Cells’ in
Loss and ‘The Scenery’ in
Cold Turkey
(both 2009). She worked as a Research Assistant at the University of Gloucestershire (2004-2011); and has an MA in English from The Open University (2013). She currently lives in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, UK.

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Peter Sutton

Pete Sutton has a not so secret lair in the wilds of Fishponds, Bristol and dreams up stories, many of which are about magpies. He’s had stuff published, online and in book form, and currently has a pile of words that one day may possibly be a novel. He wrote all about Fishponds for the Naked Guide to Bristol and has made more money from non-fiction than he has from fiction and wonders if that means the gods of publishing are trying to tell him something. You can find him all over social media or worrying about events he’s helped organise at the Bristol Festival of Literature. On Twitter he’s @suttope and his Bristol Book Blog is here:
http://brsbkblog.blogspot.co.uk/ He’s contributing editor of Far Horizons e-magazine which can be found here:http://info-far-horizons.wix.com/far-horizons-emag

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D.J. Tyrer

DJ Tyrer is the person behind
Atlantean Publishing and has most recently been published in
Amok!
(April Moon Books),
In Creeps The Night
(J.A.Mes Press),
State of Horror: Illinois
(Charon Coin Press),
Steampunk Cthulhu
(Chaosium),
Tales of the Dark Arts
(Hazardous Press) and
Cosmic Horror
(Dark Hall Press), as well as in
Sorcery & Sanctity: A Homage to Arthur Machen
(Hieroglyphics Press),
All Hallow’s Evil and
Undead of Winter
(both Mystery & Horror LLC) and
Fossil Lake
(Sabledrake Enterprises), and in addition, has a novella available on the Kindle,
The Yellow House
(Dynatox Ministries).

DJ Tyrer’s website is at http://djtyrer.blogspot.co.uk/

The Atlantean Publishing website is at http://atlanteanpublishing.blogspot.co.uk/

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Deborah Walker

Deborah Walker grew up in the most English town in the country, but she soon high-tailed it down to London, where she now lives with her partner, Chris, and her two young children. Find Deborah in the British Museum trawling the past for future inspiration or on her blog: http://deborahwalkersbibliography.blogspot.com/

Her poems have appeared in
Dreams & Nightmares, Star*Line and
Enchanted Conversation.

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Stanley Webb

Stanley B. Webb is a life-long fan of monster movies, and crypto-zoology. He began to write stories in childhood, as a way to realize the adventures of his dreams. His preoccupation with fantasy failed to prevent him from earning an honest living. He has worked as a short order cook, and a factory drudge. Now, he is retired on a small homestead in upstate New York, where he devotes himself to fiction.

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E.S. Wynn

E.S. Wynn is the author of over fifty books in print and is the chief editor of seven online fiction journals. Link: www.eswynn.com