Author: Bryan Wolford; Steve Wands; Matt R. Jones; Casey Criswell
Date: 2000-01-01 05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Werewolves; chupacabras; creepy; undead; living dead; wierd; scary; Monsters; Zombies; Horror
Description: Fourteen authors come together to bring you their vision of horror in Dark: A Horror Anthology. Many of the iconic creatures of horror's history resurface in fresh and innovative ways-zombies, werewolves, and chupacabras abound. There are plenty of new things to fear as well, a broken world, a myth of the murky depths, and a knife that cuts twice. Whatever your favorite flavor may be there is an author in these pages that serves it up. Authors include: Matt R. Jones, Bryan Wolford, Casey Criswell, J.P. Moore, Keith Latch, Sal Cipriano, Desmond Reddick, Sean Keller, Dezi Sienty, Cassandra Thoma
Publisher: CreateSpace Publishing

Dark: A Horror Anthology

- Dark: A Horror Anthology
- Midpoint
- About the authors

DARK

A Horror Anthology

by

(In order of appearance)

Matt R. Jones

Bryan Wolford

Casey Criswell

J.P. Moore

Keith Latch

Sal Cipriano

Desmond Reddick

Sean Keller

Dezi Sienty

Cassandra Thomas

Blake M. Petit

Corey Graham

Derek M. Koch

Steve Wands

Compiled and edited by

Bryan Wolford and Steve Wands

SMASHWORDS EDITION

* * * * *

Published by:

Steve Wands on Smashwords

Dark: A Horror Anthology

Copyright © 2010 by Steve Wands

Book Design and Layout by Apparatus Revolution

Cover Art by Steve Wands
http://www.darkhorroranthology.blogspot.com

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

* * * * *

Thanks and Dedications

Thank you for picking up Dark. Thank you to all the authors for whom this anthology would not be possible.

From Bryan:

Thanks to all the monsters under my bed that kept me up in my youth and thank you for letting me tell your stories. A big thanks to all the authors in this book. We couldn't have done it without you. And to Amanda my greatest inspiration of all.

From Steve:

Thanks to you for picking this up, I hope you find something to fear. Thank you to all the authors, it was great reading your stories—some of you are just plain sick! Thanks to my family and friends, especially Carmela and my son, Jacob—soon kiddo, very soon your education in the macabre will begin.

* * * * *

DARK

A Horror Anthology

* * * * *

Egads! Zombies!

By Matt R. Jones

I was on my way to work on a bright and sunny spring morning, minding my own business. Then the cars ahead of me slowed down and then came to a complete stop, totally blocking up my side of the four-lane highway, thus putting an end to the good time I was making.

"Son of a bitch," I growled, rolling my eyes. I have little to no patience when it comes to delays on the highway, because once I'm in motion, I like to stay that way. "There'd better be a damned good wreck ahead, or I'm gonna be really pissed."

As it turned out, there was.

My annoyance was quickly swept aside when I stuck my head out the window of my battered station wagon and peered ahead, noting a jackknifed 18-wheeler sprawled across the grassy ditch that separated the four lanes.

From the deep furrows ripped into the ground, the sucker must've been moving awfully fricking fast when it finally spilled over, and it looked as though it had been attacked with an industrial-sized cheese grater. Cars in various states of mutilation were liberally strewn around the fallen semi, like a pack of velociraptors that had finally felled the dreaded T-Rex but had lost their own lives in the process.

Cops and EMTs were busily scurrying around this way and that, and I stuck my head farther out the window in hopes of seeing some bodies. After all, isn't that what really rad wrecks are about?

The traffic in front of me started to very slowly creep forward as the skinny state trooper in the Smokey Bear hat self-importantly waved people on through. He was only letting a few cars at a time, since a tow truck and fire engine were screwing around on the road near the downed semi, apparently not quite sure what to do with themselves.

By this point, I’d pretty much forgotten about the delay, because I finally got to see a body.

After having been held up by countless wrecks along the Illinois highways over the years – people in Illinois are among the shittiest drivers in the union, bar none – I'd been witness to all manner of scenes of carnage. I’d seen huge fires, cars shredded to confetti, and even bumpers hanging from trees, but I'd never actually been able to spot a body at any of these accident sites.

Today was different.

My inner ghoul squealed in delight as I gawked at the body lying on the side of the road across the ditch from me. I lifted up my sunglasses in an attempt to discern more details, but my efforts were thwarted by the obnoxious pink tarp that was draped over the body.

Only a bloody hand sticking out from beneath the brightly-colored shroud was visible to let me know that somebody's day had been thoroughly ruined a short while ago, and then insult was added to grievous injury by the presence of the bright pink tarp. The universe had a real douchebag sense of humor at times. Since the joke wasn't on me this time, I chuckled.

"Sucks to be you, pal," I said.

Then the body sat up.

My jaw dropped, not believing what I was seeing. But no matter how many times I blinked to clear my eyes, the bright, clear morning refused to alter the tableau it was presenting me. Whoever was under that tarp wasn't dead at all.

"Aw geez, what a rip-off! It’s just a survivor!" I growled after the initial surprise had passed. Once again, the universe had shorted me the opportunity to observe the grisly human price of unsafe driving practices. "That's bullshit!"

Across the wide ditch, the body – still covered in the pink tarp – looked just like the little pink ghost from Pac-Man, minus the vacant eyes.

The resemblance ended when the body jerkily got to its feet, the tarp sloughing off like a shed snakeskin as the accident victim resumed its former upright position. With the tarp no longer obscuring the body from view, I saw that it was a younger man, probably mid-20's or thereabouts, wearing a t-shirt and jeans, artfully decorated with his own guts.

The reanimated street pizza nearly tripped over his own ragged intestines as he stumbled forward, unmindful of the excessive damage done to him. He looked as though some inconsiderate jackass had used him as an eraser on a sheet of paper made from asphalt, and there'd been a lot of mistakes on that paper.

There were places on the left side of his body where the clothes and skin had been scraped away, revealing abraded bone and shredded muscle. That side of his face was gone as well, resembling little more than a plate of chewed, gristly hamburger.

This guy was ALL fucked-up.

But that didn't seem to bother him as he stumbled towards the nearest cop, who was leaning into his car and talking into his radio, unaware of what was approaching from behind at something slightly slower and more awkward than a trot.

I watched the guy draw nearer and nearer to the oblivious cop, my disbelief returning at a steady canter. "No way," I muttered. "No fucking way."

When the guy had reached the cop, he grabbed hold of the officer and chomped down on his neck, yanking away a large chunk of flesh as jets of blood arced through the clear morning air.

The cop's muffled scream was lot amidst the racket of the tow-truck and fire engine jockeying for position by the dead semi. Vrooms and backup beeps filled the air as they attempted to ... do something. I don't think they knew what they were doing, and the cops trying to direct them didn't seem to know either.

But both sides would be damned if they were going to be the first to admit they were clueless, so they carried on acting like assholes while the former corpse made a snack out of the hapless cop.

Having had a few moments to process my disbelief, my eyes widened as my brain adapted to this surprise by altering a few of the rules of reality it had previously taken for granted.

"Zombie!" I murmured, shaking my head.

Well, actually it didn’t HAVE to be a zombie, I supposed. It could've just been a cannibal with a really high pain threshold for motor vehicle injuries. Sure, that could've been it.

I'm from a small town in the Midwest. I know cannibalism – among other unsavory habits – is alive and well among the more… interesting locals. The reason The Texas Chainsaw Massacre always succeeded in creeping me out was because I knew firsthand that there were people just like the Sawyer clan running around the countryside not too far from where I lived

Maybe this guy was one of 'em. He could just be really hungry following his horrific wreck, and was grabbing a quick bite before letting himself onto the ambulance for treatment.

Another cop finally noticed what was going on, well after the first cop had been killed, and he rushed at the road kill cannibal, swinging his club around. He got a couple of bonks in before he got grabbed and chomped, too.

By this point, I was pretty sure that I was looking at a zombie and not one of our colorful local flesh-eating rednecks. Oh shit. This was NOT good. If you wanted one of the rednecks to go back from whence they came, usually all you had to do was wave any small electronic device – preferably with blinking lights and beeping sounds – in their direction, and they'd run off back to the woods, thinking you were using witchcraft on them.

Zombies weren't nearly as easy.

Fortunately, I'd pissed away a decent chunk of my life watching and re-watching zombie films and reading zombie books, so I knew a few things about the living-impaired. Hell, I'd even read The Zombie Survival Guide, and had taken an online quiz that told me I was 94% likely to survive an all-out zombie attack – I was smarter than the average bear when it came to the walking dead.

Cranking up Slayer on my car stereo to set the mood, I pulled out of the line of cars that was still oblivious to the mayhem across the ditch, revved my respectable little V6 engine, and stomped the pedal, sending my station wagon roaring across the grassy divide between myself and the zombie.

The car bogged down slightly in the soft ground, but the wagon was front-wheel drive and the most sure-footed vehicle I'd ever driven, so it pulled through after a few seconds. The wheels were spinning so fast when I reached the pavement on the other side that I launched forward like a rusty, paint-flaked cruise missile adorned with all sorts of cool heavy metal stickers.

White-knuckling the steering wheel, I aimed right at the zombie, putting the pedal to the metal just as Tom Araya loudly and fiercely declared that God hated us all. "Yeah, he probably does," I muttered; the mere existence of Gary Glitter was adequate proof of that.

I held my breath as I careened toward the zombie, who was so busy chewing up the police officer that he didn't notice me zooming towards him at a rather alarming speed.

THUD!

Instead of going under my wheels, as I'd hoped, the zombie flipped over my hood, grazed my windshield, and rolled over and off the roof of my car, landing behind me somewhere. There was a smear of congealed blood and other substances I didn't want to think about on my windshield, as though a gigantic bug had splattered against it.

"Dammit!" I snarled as I whipped the wheel, making my tires squeal in protest as I pulled a tight turn that saw me drive back into and out of the ditch. As I turned, I flipped on my wipers to get that nasty-ass smear off the glass before it had a chance to dry there – once that kind of shit set up solidly, it was always a pain to get off.

Ahead of me once again, the zombie was already getting back to his feet in the slow, retardedly-methodical way of the living dead. "You're getting it this time, fuckface!"

Flooring it, I hit the zombie like a freight train, sending him flying once more. I whipped another U-turn, nearly hitting a parked police car in the process, as I got the zombie in my sights for another go at it. The bastard was nearly back on his feet again, and I let out a growl of frustration. Zombies never knew when to quit.

I took aim and hit the zombie squarely one more time, slamming on the brakes as I did so, sending him splatting back to the pavement with a wet squishing sound that I heard over the squeal of my tires. Yuck!

Throwing my car into park, I grabbed the big, heavy Mag-Lite flashlight I always kept by my seat and hopped out of the wagon, determined to finish the zombie the right way.

As I strode towards the zombie, my heart started to pound faster and I broke out in a nervous sweat. Ten minutes ago I was driving towards work on a normal day, and now I was going after a zombie with my big-ass flashlight; it was just a bit of a mindfuck. Luckily for me, I have a rather large and overactive imagination, so when given a few moments and the proper motivation, I can adapt to the bizarre rather admirably. That was a very good thing, because I couldn't afford to hesitate.

Hesitation is one of the things that always gets people killed when they're dealing with zombies. Zombies, at least those not of the fast-moving, scary-as-all-hell Dawn of the Dead remake or 28 Days Later persuasion, are slow-moving, unintelligent creatures guided solely by the instinctive drive to eat the flesh of the living. While one would think that they'd be rather ineffective with such an MO, they're actually pretty formidable against most people. You know why?

Because most people are stupid, scaredy bitches. They see a zombie and get all freaked out instead of taking matters into their own hands. In close quarters, all a zombie needs to get a lethal strike in is a few seconds. If you hesitate, the zombie will have no qualms taking advantage of your idiocy and making a meal, and possibly a fellow zombie, out of you.

So I gritted my teeth as I approached the zombie, who was doggedly getting back to his feet, though he was definitely worse for the wear after getting hit by my station wagon a few times.

Broken bones crackled as he moved, and rather repugnant fluids were oozing out of his broken skin, mixing with his thick blood to create a hateful-smelling ichor that dripped to the warm pavement with every staggered step. Judging from the smell and lack of decay on his body, I'd say this guy was a very recently created zombie, and may have actually sprung to his initial reanimation right there on the side of the road under the pink tarp.

Regardless of his origins, I was taking this peckerhead down.

As I closed in, my heart rate increased and the urge to run grew, but I continued towards the zombie, determined to put a stop to this before it had a chance to get REALLY ugly. The zombie began to move faster as it drew near, sensing prey, and its one remaining bloodshot eye was fixed on me like a laser beam, while its jaws gnashed in the perpetual hunger of its kind.

A low moan escaped the zombie's maw – the sound sent a chill down my spine and formed shards of ice in my bloodstream. I remembered reading that the moan of a zombie has a certain quality to it that creates despair and fear in the living, and though intellectually I knew that was going on, it didn't make things any easier on the emotional end of it.

I came within striking distance of the zombie, and I studied him with fearful eyes, hefting the reassuringly solid flashlight in my hand as I psyched myself up to brain the bastard. At the same time I was arguing with my feet, which wanted to turn around and run away as fast as they could. After all, I was just some doofus on the way to work ... why not just head back that way and let the cops deal with this?

I was hesitating as the zombie drew uncomfortably close, his freshly-dead stink filling my nostrils, and if I kept fucking around, I was gonna either gonna become a snack or a zombie myself, neither one a fate that I wanted. But I was rooted to the spot. I couldn't move. I stared dumbly at the zombie, the flashlight half-raised in my hand, apparently never to strike. I was fucked.

But just as the zombie lunged forward, I caught sight of his t-shirt, and a sudden raging fury energized me. With a snarl, I kicked the zombie backwards and brought the flashlight down directly in the middle of his skull with a heavy, sickening thud. I did it again, and this time the wet crack of the zombie's skull shattering filled my ears, which redoubled my assault.

"Fucker! Die!" I screamed as I laid into the zombie's head with a ferocious attack that sent brains, blood, and skull-chips spraying in all directions.

I pulverized the zombie's head, reducing his features to the creepy liquid lines of a classic Graham Ingels drawing. I kept right on going until I'd knocked every last one of the prick's teeth out and had launched his lower jaw out into the ditch somewhere. I then swept the zombie's feet out from underneath him and proceeded to put the boots to him, kicking and stomping until the zombie was starting to lose all resemblance to his original humanoid form.

I kicked the shit out of him … among other things.

Finally, panting and with sweat streaming off me, I stopped and spat onto the visceral rubble that was once a zombie. "That'll teach you to wear a Radiohead shirt, you cocksucker!" I hissed, giving him a final kick. "'Only band that matters' my ass! Tell that to Motley Crue, asshole!"

"Yeah? YOU can tell it to the judge, asshole!" barked a voice from behind me as strong hands grabbed my wrists, forced them behind my back, and slapped a pair of handcuffs on me. The flashlight fell from my hand and dropped onto the pavement with a loud clatter as I was spun around to face a furious-looking cop. "Though I oughtta just kick your ass right now! What the fuck's your problem?!"

"That guy was a zombie! Didn't you see how fucked-up he was?!" I demanded. This was no way to treat a hero!

"I saw you beat down a survivor, you son of a bitch!" growled the cop.

"He got up from under that tarp after he was dead! He didn't survive shit!" I retorted, struggling against the handcuffs, but to no avail.

"He survived just fine until you killed him!"

"You're lucky I killed him! If I hadn't—" The cop slugged me in the stomach, knocking the wind out of me and sending me sprawling onto the pavement, where I lay gasping and flopping around like a fish out of water.

Ah, good ‘ol Midwestern cop brutality.

"Resisting arrest, huh? Any other charges you wanna add?" the cop snapped as he leaned over and waggled his finger at me. "Any more bullshit you wanna throw? Come on, tough guy! Wanna try it?"

Still struggling to get my wind back, I wasn't able to warn the dumb bastard of the zombie cop shambling up behind him. Apparently one of the officers that my zombie had chowed down on earlier was done marinating and was ready to roll.

The living cop yowled in surprise and then screamed in agony as the dead cop latched onto him and ripped a huge chunk of meat out of his neck, raggedly tearing tendons and muscles as crimson gore geysered out, sparkling luridly in the bright sunlight.

The cop's pained breathing suddenly became extremely loud as it violently whistled in and out of his demolished windpipe, and I shuddered at the horrific racket he was making. Then the cop's legs gave out and he collapsed to the ground in a trembling heap, his lifeblood spilling out onto the asphalt. He was toast.

As he leaned down to go after his meal, the zombie cop noticed me. I just about pissed my pants. Oh, hell no.

Now ignoring the swiftly-dying officer, the zombie cop leaned in towards me; his ragged, bloody features alight with the slack intensity that only the living dead can manage. I started to squirm and jerk around as I tried to get back to my feet, but it was hard going with a nearly-dead cop laying across my legs and my hands cuffed behind my back. Fuck me running.

Dead hands that were still faintly warm with recently-escaped life grabbed me in a steely grip. The zombie held me in place and moved in for the kill, his bloody jaws opening wide to take a big bite out of my shoulder. Then with a hungry moan, the zombie lunged forward and bit deep into my flesh. I screamed.

And screamed.

And screamed.

* * * * *

I sat bolt upright in bed, soaked in sweat and panting as though I'd just run a marathon, my heart thundering in my chest, ready to leap right out. I frantically pawed at my shoulder, sure that I was going to find a big, gaping bite where the muscle was supposed to be. But there was nothing there but my nightshirt and shoulder.

It had just been a dream.

"Ohhhh damn!" I groaned as I flopped backwards onto my sweat-soaked bed, practically melting with relief. I was safe! Zombies were just something reserved for movies and books!

Speaking of which, I glanced down at the pile of Walking Dead comics I'd been reading before falling asleep and gave them a shove of relieved annoyance.

"Fucking things," I muttered, chuckling a little at myself. First nightmare I'd had in years, and what a doozy it was.

As my heart rate slowed down and I started to relax, I began to drift off towards sleep again, since it was still dark outside and I wagered I had a few hours before I was going to have to get up.

But then a familiar scratching and growling came from outside – something was clawing against my heavy front door.

I tried to ignore it, but it increased in intensity. Several razor-edged howls suddenly cut through the night air, filling it with an eerie, primeval sound that traced down through my nerve endings to the more primal, base parts of my brain, making my hair instinctively stand on end.

Werewolves.

"Can't a guy get any sleep around here? Fuck!" I growled as I flung my covers aside in annoyance and sat back up.

Feeling sorry for myself and my lack of sleep, I listened for a few moments as the scratchings and bangings downstairs redoubled themselves, followed by more angry howls. Luckily, my entire house had long ago been barricaded against such things, so they weren’t getting anywhere for the time being.

From the sounds of it, my latest attempt at killing that goddamned werewolf had been less than successful. Not only had he gotten himself back together, he'd brought along a few friends and/or family with him.

As if to confirm my suspicions, a throaty snarl drifted up towards my bedroom window as my longtime lycanthropic adversary shouted for my blood yet again.

"Come out, Neville!" he roared.

"Oh, fuck you, Cortman," I grunted, rubbing at my eyes and getting to my feet. "Lousy family curse." Where the hell were my pants? I found them by tripping over them, and fought back several massive yawns as I shrugged them on. This was going to be a looooooong day.

But at least there was no such thing as zombies. Werewolves, vampires, trolls, ogres, sorcerers, mummies, mutants, and that kind of thing, I could – and did – live with. But zombies creeped the hell out of me.

* * * * *

Knife

By Bryan Wolford

John came out of the store with the knife wrapped in a roll of cloth. He couldn't believe how he had swindled the shop keep into giving it to him for a mere four dollars. They were in the middle of a Great Depression for god sake. 1934 had been a terrible year for everyone. Most places had raised their prices just to hope to break even by the end of the month but somehow he had talked the shop keep into lowering his price by half.

He now unrolled the knife and looked at it. The blade gleamed in the sunlight. Its edge appeared razor sharp as if it had not even sliced through a loaf of bread. The handle was a smooth polished black. It fit in his hand almost perfectly. He hoped it looked menacing enough, as his intentions were less than honorable. It was hard during the depression and if he had any other means to get by he would have. Mugging was the only thing he knew to do. The bank had rejected him for a loan and the factory had shut down. What else could he do?

The plan was simple. He would hide out in the park after dark. Most people opted to walk in the park nowadays as it was rather nice in the evening during this time of the year. More importantly it was free. Many would think to use a gun. John had considered this but decided a gun would be more costly. First of all a gun would cost more. Then after that you had to keep buying bullets to refill it. In the end it was just a bad investment at this point in time.

By the time John had gone to the park the sun was nothing but a sliver behind the trees and the sky was a magnificent orange and pink. He walked around the perimeter of the park twice to find a good spot to hide. There were many clumps of trees and bushes that would make some good spots to try. Diagonally through the park ran a stream that, at various points, had small bridges running over it. He tried to remember where all the bridges were so that he wouldn't be caught off guard and have to go running through the water. There were a lot of couples milling about. Some held hands as they walked while others stood an arm's length apart from each other.

The sun had finally disappeared and a cool breeze began to blow. Shadows now crowded the grass. John waited patiently. A couple walked by but John let them go. The man was too large. John would have easily been overpowered by him. A few minutes later another couple walked by. This man had a skinny frame. He no doubt worked in an office and not in a factory. John quickly stepped out of the shadows with his new knife in hand.

"Give me your wallet and all the missus' jewelry." The man quickly reached into his pocket and produced his wallet. His girlfriend had taken off her necklace and had begun to take the ring off her left hand. "Leave the ring." He may be stealing people's money but only because he needed it. A thug he was not. When the wallet and necklace were in his hands he ran off through the bushes.

The man only had five bucks on him but he knew he would be able to fetch at least six or seven dollars for the necklace. His investment in the knife was already making him a profit. He kept running until he was on the edge of the park. The stream gurgled by as he approached one of the footbridges. With a flick of the wrist the wallet splashed into the water. He slowed his pace to avoid suspicion.

The night helped him escape the park. Buildings began to come back into view as the park fell away. He wished that he had made more of a score but staying in the park was too risky of a chance. The couple would have found a police officer and the hunt for him in the park would have been on. He made his way back towards his apartment. Most of the small shops had closed already. As soon as the sun went down most people went home. There were still people who found their way to some underground gambling casinos and nightclubs. John knew where a few of them were and headed towards them.

As he approached a casino run by a man named Sammy the Butcher he heard two people arguing in the alley to his left. He crept to the opening of the alley. A man and a woman were there arguing with each other. John quickly pulled out the knife and stepped into the alley.

"Give me all your money and jewelry," he said. Both the man and woman stopped talking and looked at him.

"Get the hell out of here," the man said to him.

"Come on, I don't want to have to hurt your. Just make this easy." John brought the knife up so that both of them could see it. The man didn't seem intimidated by it and advanced on John.

"I told you to get out of here. You ain't gettin' nothing." The man reached for John. The knife came down with a quick flash and caught the man in the left shoulder. John could feel the blade strike the man's shoulder joint. He quickly pulled the knife out again and ran off into the street. The man fell to the street as the woman began to scream.

John ducked down a few different streets. After awhile he began to slow down. He looked down at his hand and saw blood covering the blade of the knife. John shook his head. He had never intended to stab someone but the man had advanced on him. The knife was supposed to only be for show. He had no other choice but to defend himself.

After another twenty minutes of walking through the back streets to avoid anyone from following him home he entered his small apartment and went right to the bathroom. The light overhead flickered on and then began to blink on and off. He turned on the faucet and splashed some cool water on his face. This night hadn't turned out how he had wanted. As he began to reach to turn the faucet off he felt a small pain in his left shoulder. He ignored it and went to bed.

Sleep did not come to him right away but when it finally did it was filled with nightmares. In them there seemed to be a group of black people were chanting while covered in paint. In the center of them he saw the knife he had just purchased. It sat in a blazing fire. A woman out of the group grabbed it out of the fire as she screamed from the pain.

John sat up in a cold sweat. The image of the woman with the knife lingered at the edge of his brain. He ran into the bathroom and splashed water on his face once again. The cool water felt good. He looked into the mirror and noticed that he was shaking. For five minutes he stood there gripping the sink until the shaking stopped. When it finally did he turned to go back to bed. As he turned his shirt caught his eye. He was wearing a common white cotton t-shirt but right over his left shoulder there was a red spot. It appeared to be blood.

When he lifted his shirt there appeared to be a small scratch on his shoulder. He had no recollection of running into anything that could have caused it. Then he remembered the altercation with the man in the alley.

"Must have gotten me with something," he said to himself. There seemed like no other explanation. John washed the scratch with a washcloth and then went back to bed. He did not dream again that night.

The next day brought much of the same as the day before. He robbed a few people without incident. One guy didn't even have any money on him. John's shoulder began to ache by midday. When he reached in his shirt to rub it his hand came back with blood on it. He stepped into an alley to look at it. The wound seemed to have gotten bigger. As he put his coat on he heard a voice behind him.

"Alright buddy, turn around slowly and empty your pockets." John turned and saw a man slightly smaller than himself standing with his hand in his pocket as if he might have a gun. The point of it stuck out at him. "Come on now, let's make this easy," the man said. John had no intention of giving up his loot that easily. He reached into his pocket and drew out the knife with his left hand. With a fluid motion he leapt at the man. Before he got to him the man pulled his hand out of his pocket. There had been no gun. John's momentum pulled him forward. He couldn't stop. The man tried to turn and run but the knife caught him in the stomach. Blood began to flow onto the pavement. John looked around and found no one watching. He wiped the blood from the knife onto the man's jacket and began to dig through his pockets. The man was carrying a total of twenty dollars.

"You must have been having a good day…up till now that is," John said. The man looked up at him with eyes that were already starting to get glassy. John put the knife in his coat and ran out of the alley into the street. No one was looking at him suspiciously. He walked along the sidewalk with his hands in his pockets. His shoulder ached unbearably now. After walking around for a while longer he returned to his apartment.

When he entered through his doorway he went straight to the bathroom. When he took his coat off he saw that his shirt was now drenched in blood. He lifted his shirt to find the wound on his shoulder was now larger and deeper that it had been earlier that afternoon. When he reached for the faucet with his left hand a sharp pain exploded through his arm. He put his arm down and used the other arm to fill the basin with water. When it was full he took his shirt off and washed the wound. He wrapped the wound with a clean part of his shirt and then went to lie down.

Sleep came upon him quickly. Again he began to dream. This time he was seeing a long field. Along each row he could see workers bent over. All of them were black. One of them stood up and John realized it was the woman from the dream before that had drawn the knife out of the fire. In the light he could see that she was middle aged. She wiped her brow and bent back over to work. Next to her was a kid that couldn't have been more than fifteen. Somehow John knew that this was the woman's son. The kid stood up and began to stretch. Almost instantly a man came up with a whip and gave the boy a quick snap.

"Back to work," the man said. The boy fell to the ground but stood up once again facing the man.

"No more. I was just stretching," the boy said back to the man. The man drew back again and let the whip crack. This time the boy put up his arm and the whip looped around it. With a quick tug the whip was jerked out of the man's hands. The boy's mother began to get up but the man reached over and pushed her down.

"Stay down or you'll get some too," the man told her. The boy bent over to help his mother when the man pulled out a knife and began to stab him unmercifully. John realized it was the knife he now owned. Cuts appeared all over the boy’s body. The mother began to scream in horror. When the man was done the boy was covered in stab wounds. Blood began to seep into the ground that he was lying on. He was dead. The mother was crying hysterically.

"I curse you," she said. I will curse you and your instrument of death." The man kicked a clod of dirt at her and walked away. The next thing John saw was the man's body lying on the ground covered in stab wounds much like the boy's. In his belt was the knife.

Again John sat up in a cold sweat. His apartment was dark. As he got off of his bed the springs creaked. He made his way to the bathroom. When he turned on the light he gasped in horror. In the mirror he could see a small line on his stomach. He touched the small cut. For now it was just a scratch. Quickly he unwrapped his shoulder. The wound was now very deep. It was agony just to move his arm. A realization came upon him then. He saw himself stabbing the man in the shoulder and then the man in the stomach. The wounds that were showing up on him were the same wounds he had inflicted on the other two.

"The knife is cursed," he said to his reflection. The dreams now made sense. Some time before the knife had been cursed to inflict the same wounds that the owner inflicted on others. "I have to get rid of it."

John thought of taking it back to the shop he had purchased it from but the prospect of explaining how he knew it inflicted its owner with wounds after being used on others did not appeal to him. He instead made his way towards the riverfront. There were a few dive clubs down there. No on would question why he was walking along the river in the middle of the night.

When he reached the riverfront he looked down into the water. It looked black. He pulled the knife out of his pocket and held it in his palm. His only hope was that it would sink to the bottom of the river and never hurt anyone again. Just as he was about to throw it he heard someone approach behind him.

"Looking for a date?" a lady asked him. It seemed that one of the prostitutes that patrolled the area had wandered upon him. As he turned to face her, his legs tangled together and he fell. Everything seemed to slow down as he was falling over. He reached out to steady himself and felt the woman grab him to steady him. They both fell to the ground with John on top of her. When he began to get up he saw that the woman lay motionless. He looked down and saw the knife sticking out of her chest just above her heart.

"No!" John screamed. "No, no, no!" He grabbed the knife and pulled it out of the woman's chest. With a quick snap of his arm he launched it into the river. It made a small splash and then sank below the surface. He looked back at the woman on the ground that now had a massive wound in her chest. Instantly he knew that sometime soon a small line would begin to appear on his chest as well.

He looked around and saw that no one had seen what had happened. A few people strolled by the river but they were far away and walking in the opposite direction. John turned and ran back to his apartment. He didn't stop the whole way there. By the time he reached his door he was breathing heavily. His heart beat against the inside of his rib cage with a maddening force. The key turned in the lock and he hurried inside. Once inside he fell to his knees and buried his face in his hands.

He stayed that way until his breathing slowed. Slowly he got back to his feet. His whole body was still shaking. As he began to walk to his bed he glanced at the kitchen table. He gasped in horror as imbedded into the tabletop was the knife. Next to it was carved the words 'You Can't Escape Me.'

John ran into the bathroom and locked the door. He splashed water onto his face and looked at himself in the mirror. Pain began to flair through his stomach. The wound had finally gaped open. He took off his shirt and saw in the mirror the open gap in his stomach. It was bleeding steadily but would only cause discomfort in the end. He then felt his chest over his heart. Already he could see a small white line. Tears began to stream down his face. He turned and filled up the bathtub with cold water. As he slipped into the cold he hoped that the end would come quickly.

* * * * *

Deep Lies the Murky Floor

By Casey Criswell

“Come on chicken shit, you’re the only one who hasn’t swam across.” Billy Connolly was typical for a twelve year old bully; pudgy in girth, pig faced in both appearance and attitude. Seldom did he pass the chance to impose himself upon those of lesser stature.

“You know Billy, I don’t really care if everybody else did it. I’m not going to.” Simon was the antithesis of Billy. Slight of frame, bony in nature, he often set off the feeding instinct in many a mother who gazed upon him at the beach.

That summer at Price’s Pond was a long one for Simon. The pond was private swimming hole filled with those whose parents were privileged enough to afford the membership fees and was small to an adult gazing upon its width. For those of Billy and Simon’s age, the far shore was a vast distance indeed.

Simon could swim. It wasn’t a matter of the lack of skill or a fear of drowning. He spent the bulk of that summer practicing his strokes in the deeper area just out side the ropes blocking off the shallow end. Leaving himself able to touch the sandy floor of the pond with the tip of his toes he was always sure of being able to catch himself when needed. With people like Suzanne Jenkins in attendance every day, he could not afford to be seen within the confines of the children’s beach.

The problem stalking Simon that summer was Billy Connolly. It was well known that Billy came from a family lacking in the funds to provide such a wistful summer getaway for their portly child. When the final bell of the school year rang, Simon breathed a heavy sigh of relief knowing that his summer should provide a relief from the attentions of Billy for a solid three months. That sigh turned to one of shock and dismay when Simon and his mother drove through the gates of Price’s Pond for the first trip to the beach that summer where he found Billy Connolly throttling a far younger patron in exchange for soda.

Billy’s existence was marginally miserable. With poor parents unable to provide him the luxuries that many of his peers enjoyed he took it upon himself to obtain them. Be it intimidation, physical threats, or physical damage, he cared not. It was well known that few people cared to be in the presence of Billy aside from his trusted friends, so when Billy saw a flash of love or admiration between two classmates, he made it his personal mission to end that flash whenever possible. Because of this, Suzanne’s presence made Simon’s summer one to loath as opposed to one to remember.

The other problem plaguing Simon that summer was the age-old tradition of swimming across the pond. Some considered it a right of passage between the ages of eleven and thirteen; facing ones fears and stuff like that. They would build up their courage and set their eye upon the far shore of the pond and make the swim. The pond grew deep across the middle the water growing cold from the murky depths that sat below the surface, the depths hiding untold terrors. What did the blackness hold below your kicking feet? What exactly was that slimy thing that scraped across your thigh as you pulled yourself out of the water onto the far shore? For an active twelve year old, the possibilities were endless. That which you could not see became far scarier as you fought your way to the other side, much like the transition from youth to teen.

“You know Suzie’s watching you don’t ya?” Billy wore a sneer of menace across his lips. He knew full well where Simon’s weaknesses lie.

Simon took a deep breath to steel his tongue, clenching his fists at his side to contain his frustration and anger. His summer was an endless stream of similar threats, however this was the first to call out his manhood in front of the one person he wished to look tough in front of.

There was a larger fear to Simon’s reluctance to swim the pond. Many agreed in his reluctance to attempt the passage yet they were able to overcome their fears. Simon however held on to a deeper seeded terror when his mind turned to thoughts of the task. He knew he could swim yet he was far from being strong. Often tiring quickly he did not know if he had the strength to make the entire trip. What if his asthma reared its ugly head as he made his way? What if his legs should begin to burn with painful cramps as was known to happen when he spent too much time in the water? And perhaps the strongest angle keeping him from proving himself in front of Suzie; what was hiding in the inky depths below his toes as he crossed into the icy deep water in the center of the pond?

“It’d be a shame if you looked like a wienie man before your little girlfriend!” Billy let loose with a throaty cackle as he poised his face mere centimeters from the tip of Simon’s nose. The smell of soda that Billy stolen from some random victim drifted into Simon’s nostrils; he could smell the distinct citrus flavor of Mountain Dew upon his breath.

For a change, Simon actually agreed with Billy. He had worked hard on his image that summer, always aiming to impress the young Ms. Jenkins. Making sure his hair was always combed just right, silently flexing his muscles as he crossed her path, always looking away just at the right moment so that she didn’t catch him staring; all would be for nothing if Billy humiliated him in front of her. How could she possibly be interested in a man who failed to swim Price’s Pond, especially if he was the only boy who failed the passage that summer?

Simon took a deep breath and drew himself up tall as he looked Billy in the eye; “I can’t do it today. I don’t have my inhaler.”

Billy’s head cocked back as loud bursts of laughter escaped his lips. “Aww, is wittle Simon making excuses?”

Simon turned a bright crimson as he noticed many heads turn in their direction at Billy’s outburst.

“Listen chump, your sad excuses aren’t going to help.” Billy poked his index finger into Simon’s chest as he drove home every syllable. “This is the last day of summer, school starts next week. You don’t swim it today, I’ll make sure the entire school knows just how big of a pussy you are; especially Suzie Jenkins.”

Billy folded his arms across his chest as a smug look of satisfaction settled upon his eyes. The large boy took a step back knowing that he had upset Simon. The look of fear that flashed across Simon’s face was enough to make Billy feel that the day was a day well spent, despite what else may arise.

A group had begun to form around the two boys facing off upon the beach. Most were quiet as they all waited for Simon’s response. Some took the chance to add extra tension to Simon’s situation, as kids are often known to do; they began to discuss loudly the tales of their own passages across the pond. “I don’t know what it was, but something big brushed against my foot” and “I swear I saw a huge fin stick out of the water when I reached the middle” could be heard whispered in the background. Simon gulped loudly as he scanned the crowd in search of Suzie’s face; the rest were inconsequential to his decision.

“Come on cupcake, time’s running out!” Billy reached out with his meaty right hand and gave a quick shove to Simon’s shoulder. The crowd buzzed with this show of strength from the master of ceremonies. “You got one minute to decide, or I’m going to decide for you!”

Simon remained silent as he looked through the faces surrounding him. So far he had not seen Suzie amongst the children surrounding him. He could stand to lose face amongst the boys in his group of friends; they’ve all had one thing or another that they lacked the strength to accomplish. There would be a silent understanding amongst those closest to him, he was sure of that. But Suzie would not have that connection; her view of this young boy wanting her attention would be settled upon a simple yes or no.

Not seeing her in the crowd surrounding him, Simon turned back to face Billy, a come back of epic proportions forming itself in his mind. He may not be man enough this day to tackle his right of passage, but he could build a reputation of his own should he choose just the right words to attempt a counter attack upon the bully standing before him.

“You know what fat-ass,” Simon smiled inwardly as the crowd around him audibly gasped at his audacity in the face of humiliation and pain. Billy’s smug visage morphed into a mask of anger and rising red.

In the distance Simon saw out of the corner his eye a vision of beauty enter the circle; Suzie had come to see what the fuss was about. His anger trailed off as his mouth hung open; how would he answer with her there to bear witness?

Billy clenched a ham-sized fist and lifted it before him, preparing to pummel the scrawny boy who dared stand up to his threats. Cocking his arm back, he was prepared to unleash his fury upon Simon. He stumbled when an unexpected phrase tumbled meekly from the lips of his target.

“All right. I’ll go.”

* * * * *

Stopping briefly to tread water, Simon glanced back towards the beach to judge the distance he had covered; what felt like miles turned out to be merely a few yards. The crowd that had gathered to watch his attempt at swimming across the pond was growing as word of his swim traveled along the beach.

He pushed his arms in a slow back and forth motion to keep himself afloat; he felt downwards into the dark water with his toe to judge his depth. Feeling nothing but a growing cold far below him and the tickle of seaweed rising up from the muddy lakebed, he felt slightly reassured knowing that the lakebed was close by. With a sigh he turned and began to swim once again.

To keep his fears in check, Simon carried on a dialogue with himself as he made his way towards the center of the pond. “You can do this” and “Almost halfway” was heard as he coaxed himself along. Peering to the shoreline he spied a group of children making their way around the pond to wait for him on the far side. It was quite an accomplishment to swim across the pond and congratulations were in order when one climbed out onto the grassy shore.

As he swam, a panic arose in Simon. He wasn’t positive but it felt as though a slimy and spiny something had brushed against his outstretched leg. Stopping once again to tread water, he frantically scanned the water around him in an attempt to see into the depths. Unable to spy anything beyond the muddy surface he probed once again with his feet to locate the culprit; what he discovered was the growing cold about him and the lack of weeds tickling his feet. He was on his own from this point forward; he was in the middle of the pond.

Continuing on his swim, Simon pondered the consequences of giving in to Billy’s pressures. Once completed he no longer would have to worry about the ridicule of not tackling the swim. He would be a brother with all who accomplished the task, surely this would bring along a sense of new friends. Also, Suzie would see him as a man, a man who both made the swim across Price’s Pond and one who stood up to Billy Connolly. Surely this factor would outweigh his newfound brotherhood and friends. Regardless of the positives, his nerves remained on high alert as he neared the center of the pond.

With a start Simon felt the clammy caress across his leg return. As a dog licks one’s hand in a friendly greeting, Simon felt a similar sensation across the arch of his foot.

As sudden as its arrival, the presence went away once more. Not pausing this time to locate the source of torment, Simon poured his strength into his breaststroke in an effort to speed his swim across the lake. Muscles burning, the fear pushed him on causing his breath to come in ragged gasps.

Fear began to sink its way into his chest with icy fingers as his asthma began to rear its ugly head. Brought on by exertion and fear, he began to wheeze as he gasped for breath. His stroke faltered as he began to flail in panicked motions. His splashing drew the attention of the kids standing on the far shore. “Hey, is he having problems?” one was heard to ask. Fighting against the pull of the murky blackness below as well as the tightening of his chest, Simon could make out the children waving at him. The notion that he was at the halfway point was a slight relief to his current struggle.

Pausing in his fight to stay afloat Simon grew aware of something massive looming beneath his feet. There was neither the caress of slime nor the prickling of spines as in earlier encounters, just the passage of something far larger than he was far below him. Regardless of it being fact or imagination, it caused Simon’s panic to rise along with the burning of his clenched chest.

Teetering upon giving up, Simon considered throwing in the towel. Surely he would face ridicule and the loss of affection from that special girl, yet he saw no other way to avoid the conclusion. His fear was overtaking him and his breath was coming shorter. He needed to call for help; facing the group of boys on the far side of the pond, he began to wave his arms and attempted yell.

“Hey, what’s he yelling?” one of the children asked?

“Don’t know, he’s too far out” was the reply.

Seeing that no one was hearing his call for help, Simon reluctantly decided to finish his swim across the pond. Despite what anybody thought of him, death was no way to end his summer vacation, a fact that Simon was acutely aware of. Resuming once more he inched ever closer to his destination.

Feet kicking furiously, Simon traveled only a few feet before he felt his toes kick against something solid. Fear was his initial reaction as the recollection of his unseen visitor from moments ago was fresh upon his memory. Continuing to kick past this newfound obstacle, he probed below him as he swam over. The feeling beneath his fingers was firm and unyielding and covered with fine gritty sand. Testing his weight against the apparent sandbar, Simon let his arms cease their panicked beating and stood tentatively upon the hidden island. Head and shoulders rising above the surface, relief poured throughout his body as he sucked in a long deep breath to ease his sore lungs. Simon had discovered a sand bar in the middle of the pond giving him a brief respite in the face of failure.

Relieved in the chance to rest his tired arms, Simon smiled broadly. He was going to make it across the pod after all. Gazing at the children huddled on the shore, he waved at them enthusiastically knowing that he found his break.

“How’s he doing that?” The child voicing the question looked puzzled as he watched Simon grinning madly in the center of the pond.

“I don’t remember a sand bar out there when I went across.” This second child showed an equally puzzled look as Simon stood magically out of the water.

Confusion and surprise was a mixture upon the faces of the young boys watching Simons swim. Most stood with their arms limp to their sides or their hands cocked above their eyes to shade them from the sun. Simon was confused at their lack of excitement at his find in the center of Price’s Pond but shrugged it off; he was going to save his fate yet.

As he stood watching Simon noticed that the group awaiting him upon the shore was moving away. They stood stock still along the lapping edges of the shore, yet they were growing farther away at a creeping pace. This discovery sinking into his young brain, he noticed that they had made this connection as well; many of the kids were beginning to point excitedly in his direction.

He muddled through the idea that his sandbar was in fact moving. Gazing towards his feet he tried to see the shelf of land below him. The water, which was at his knees when he first stood up, was now around the waist of his trunks. He was sinking as well as moving. Watching the water level creep upwards along the length of his body, he felt a sudden shift below him. Simon threw his arms above his head in an attempt to balance himself as his fear began to rise once more; sandbars were not mean to move as far as Simon knew.

Searing pain ignited the calf of his left leg, the suddenness causing the boy to gasp. From knee to ankle he could feel a firm tendril wrapped tightly, soft and clammy at first touch. Soon thereafter his leg began to twinge much like the onset of poison ivy. Intense itching then followed the burn, both progressing upwards along his leg.

Simon let out a scream of pain as the appendage wrapped about his leg began to pull him downward. His feet still planted firmly upon the grainy surface moving below him, he began to sway off balance from the pressure of being pulled harder.

Simon began to thrash and attempt to jerk his leg free of its confining trap. Each forceful tug caused the tentacle to grow tighter, the burning grow sharper, the itch spread faster. Misery and pain painted itself upon the boys face and he began to scream louder, his pleas echoing off the water.

Those gathered on the far shore watched as Simon began to fight against an invisible foe. “Do you think he has a cramp?” one child asked. “Must be,” replied another.

Simon sensed the bulk beneath his feet shift, pulling him towards the far end of the pond further from his friends. As his course shifted the slimy appendage increased its pull causing him to tumble into the muddy water. The beating of his arms rose to a frantic pace as he fought to keep his head above the surface.

Along the shore the boys gathered in wait began to trot along, keeping pace with the retreating Simon. Many shouts of excitement and worry could be heard as they watched astonishingly at Simon’s sudden change of course.

Fighting in the open water of the pond Simon felt the tendril pull against his leg once more, its force providing no competition to his flailing arms. Feeling himself pulled beneath the surface Simon swallowed one final lungful of air knowing full well it could be his last.

He attempted to open his eyes, hoping for a glimpse of what was pulling him to the murky floor below. His view blurry as the muddy water invaded his eyes, all before him was cast in a hazy sheen. Below he could see the long tentacle attached to his leg disappearing into the gaping darkness spread across the bed of the lake, the coldness wrapping around him like the hugs he dreamed of from the young girl watching above.

As he sank Simon glanced back towards the sandbar he was plucked from. Before him was an immense wall, mottled in browns and greens, a thin layer of sandy rocks covering the surface. His eyes drawn along the length of the structure, Simon followed the curves of his moving sandbar in search of what was moving the behemoth beneath his feet. Eyes bulging, Simon nearly lost the precious breath held in his lungs as he came across an unexpected feature in his search; staring back at him was a large eyeball nearly his height in diameter, locked upon him with a hungry intensity.

The weight of the predicament fell against Simon as he let his stare slide down the length of the eye, landing squarely upon the crease of a large mouth tucked away at the bottom of the creature. Teeth stood jarringly at jagged angles from the mouth; it was obvious to Simon that he would make a quick and tidy meal to whatever it was that inhabited the deeps of Price’s Pond.

Managing a small smirk at the irony of it all, Simon looked back at what brought him to be trapped in the clutches of this unseen horror. He often fretted over his fear, the idea that there was something lurking in the cold dark of the middle of the pond. The humor wasn’t wasted upon him when he discovered that he was in fact right; there was something to fear lying deep upon the murky floor. With the air in his lungs growing thin Simon’s chest began to burn as he fought against the arm pulling him down, down into the muddy weeds. Feeling no give in the grip upon his leg he fought the urge to scream, knowing it held nothing but pain and finality.

As he sunk, Simon took some time to think back on his attempt to swim the pond. Surely somebody would think to blame Billy for forcing him on his fateful trek; that would surely put an end to his bullying tactics for some time. While this thought made his heart grow fondly, the feeling was cut short as Simon turned his thoughts to Suzie. Surely she would have been impressed when he pulled himself upon the far shore, yet now he would never know what her tender kiss might feel like. It was truly a shame he figured, he had looked forward to that kiss for the entire summer.

Soon the end grew near, the burning of his lungs growing too strong to bear, the burning in his leg overcoming his entire body at this point. Glancing upwards he took in the bright sunlight that rippled across the surface for a final time. The fight left his outstretched arms as they began to float upward, whatever lied in the darkness below began to pull him quicker as if it sensed the fight leaving its meal.

With one final flinch Simon let go of the final breath he held in his lungs, the bubbles escaping in a large torrent as icy water rushed in to take its place. His body flinching once in the grasp of the tentacle, he grew limp as the large eye turned to watch him sink lower into the weeds at the bottom of Price’s Pond.

* * * * *

When Jeb Killed a Man
by J. P. Moore

“Last in line,” Pablo said. “How long have you been with us?”

Jeb shrugged.

“Two months,” he answered.

Pablo and Rory laughed. It had seemed longer to Jeb.

“I bet your hands are still soft,” Pablo said.

Jeb blinked. It had been a mistake to leave Boston in the first place. The South had surrendered. The war was over and his father's factories bankrupt. There had been little for him to inherit. Still, Jeb might have fed off of the corpse. Like a vulture.

But a new world beckoned. The West.

It had been a mistake.

He spat into his bowl. He barely had any saliva left. He swirled it around with his fingertip, making mud of the dust.

Jeb was at the end of the chow line. He watched as, ahead of him, Rory punched Pablo in the shoulder. Augustus, the fourth of the group, fed them.

Rory was of ancient Irish blood. The quirks of inheritance, rather than any failure of industry, had robbed all but his eldest brother of any meaningful inheritance. Rory, then, was also looking for manhood and means by wrangling cattle for an ill-bred ranch owner. The Irishman seemed frail and had a tumbleweed of wild, curly brown hair, atop which his Stetson magically defied the wind. Rory, though, could speak a serviceable amount of Spanish, but with a brogue. Jeb had often tried but always failed, particularly when drunk, to imitate the effect.

Pablo was the boss on this ride. He had come from Mexico and, as far as Jeb could tell, knew more than anyone about herding and ranching. Pablo was quiet about it, though accomplished most tasks with a simple ease that left Jeb quite jealous. As easy as thinking, it seemed. Pablo never wore a hat, but would lay his hand over his brow to shade his eyes. He would stand in this way for seemingly hours, looking over the land as if he knew something inside, as if he could hear the cattle moving miles past the horizon.

And there was Augustus, a giant African who was rumored to have escaped slavery years before the war. He never spoke except to answer a question. Sweat beaded on his bald dome in the morning and, by afternoon, was like rivers pouring down his back. He was perhaps more skilled than any with the rope, but terrible with a skillet. Somehow, he had become their cook.

They were three days west of the ranch, still on Mr. Holden's property in Texas but close to the Mexican border. The rancher needed over two hundred head to keep the operation alive another month. Three days looking for cattle--they had only found ten head. With their rations now running short, Pablo had ordered that they take the cattle home in the morning.

Augustus lifted a spoon from the Dutch oven. The brown stew bubbled and smelled like rot. He slapped it down into Jeb's bowl, where it made a sucking noise as it fell from the spoon.

“What is it?” Jeb asked. It was the closest he could get to having a joke with the man, because it was always the same thing. Dried beef and flour.

“Dried beef. Flour. Water. This time, something else.” Augustus smiled. “Cactus.”

Jeb moved to the fire and sat across from Rory and Pablo. Behind them, a mesa loomed against the western sky.

“Let’s see your hands,” Rory said over the fire, then looked to Pablo. “I don't think he could do it.”

Pablo smiled.

“Do what?” Jeb asked.

“Would you kill a man?” Pablo asked.

“What were you, anyway?” Rory asked. “A teacher?”

“A tutor,” Jeb replied.

“For little girls?” Rory pressed.

Jeb shook his head.

“Little boys,” Pablo said.

Jeb turned to Augustus, who was now sitting far from the fire, eating his stew with a lust that Jeb could not understand. It was a horribly sour, gluey mess.

“How do you avoid these conversations?” Jeb shouted.

“Don't talk to him,” Rory said. “He won't answer. And look at him. He's probably killed more men than all of us.”

Augustus bared his teeth. Rory laughed out loud.

“Vicious, that one,” Rory said.

Jeb was relieved, for Rory and Pablo seemed to have forgotten the question.

* * * * *

Jeb felt sleep creeping from the edges of his thoughts. The ten head of cattle had shown surprising reluctance on the march, almost like toddlers. They were distracted by everything, making as much work as they could for the four cowboys. Smart, Jeb thought. Perhaps they knew that slaughter lay ahead for them.

“Where are the others?” Pablo asked one, staring into its dumb wet eyes as if it would answer. It did not, of course, except to burp up its cud and begin grinding it between flat teeth.

“So kill me,” Jeb said. “March me, brand me and kill me.”

“What?” Pablo asked.

“That's what she's saying.”

“He,” Rory shouted from the rear of the bull.

Augustus smiled and snorted a laugh, which was the most he ever did to contribute to a conversation.

Jeb closed his eyes for a few long seconds, then opened them. His cheeks tingled. He felt drunk. The night sky through the flap in his tent was clear but for thin strands of high clouds. Jeb felt the heat rise from the sand, through his bedding and his body. The stars spun slowly on whatever point he fixed with his gaze. There was no breeze, and no noise but the horses huffing, and the ten head of cattle moaning at whatever they saw in the dark—perhaps just one another.

Some time passed. The other men went to sleep as well.

Then, shouts. Rory.

“No! No! No!”

And stoic Pablo burst into laughter that sounded out of his control, so forceful as to deplete all of his breath before threatening to rip his lungs out of his body.

The cattle and horses were next, exploding in an almost human chorus of panicked shouts.

Jeb lifted himself onto his elbows, thinking that he might stand and help, or run. The stars fell all around him, through his tent and bounced on the sand. Dying fireflies, he thought. Or tiny comets. They were hot and smelled like sulfur, covering his thighs. A blue orb, another world, came down upon him, falling so quickly that it threatened to drown him in its piss warm sea.

Suddenly, it was morning. Rory was kicking him.

“Get up, Jeb.”

Pablo and Augustus stood across camp. The Mexican had his arms crossed and stared at the ground. Jeb looked at Rory.

“I know,” Rory said. “We all saw things.”

Rory pulled him by the wrists. Jeb's knees buckled and his stomach swam in nausea. He stumbled several steps forward, the ground seemingly weaving out of his path. He shook his hands as if they were wet. They were tingling, like he had slept on top of them all night.

The sun was high and hot in the sky. It must have been noon, though Jeb was not hungry at all.

The cows were spread farther apart than Pablo would normally have allowed. Jeb counted the head. He could only come up with eight. The horses huddled close to camp, standing by the makeshift hitch even though they were untied. Perhaps it meant some kind of protection to them.

“We're missing two head,” Jeb said.

Pablo snapped out of his trance.

“Over here,” he answered.

Jeb followed the other three as they descended into a gully on the edge of camp. There were two corpses, ripped open as if they had exploded. Flies buzzed over the glistening bones.

“There's no blood,” Jeb said.

Pablo shook his head.

“Chupacabra,” he said.

“What?” Jeb asked.

“'Goat sucker,'” Rory said. “What the hell is that?”

“It is...” Pablo began. “It is a creature. 'Goat sucker.' Chupacabra. It is a legend. It kills the livestock and drinks the blood.”

“A monster,” Augustus bellowed. His voice rolled over the plain. “A demon.”

“Demon?” Rory asked. “What kind of demon?”

Jeb rubbed his eyes, not entirely sure that he was seeing the truth. Every movement trailed a ghostly image. Voices were distant, as if coming through water. His ears felt clogged. He could see signs in the others. Pablo kept blinking hard. Rory had a tic that lifted the corner of his mouth every second. Augustus, however, seemed unaffected.

“Let's eat,” Pablo said. “Then, we can get this herd moving.”

“Let's just get out of here,” Rory said.

The wind rose suddenly, driving the sand into their faces. Rory cried aloud, covering his eyes. Pablo led him back to the camp. Jeb thought he saw faces in the swirling sand—drawn and stretched faces, long with sunken cheeks and empty sockets. Their mouths opened and closed. He could hear their voices, but could not understand the words.

Augustus dished the cold remains of the previous night's stew. He beamed proudly, as if he had just prepared it. After, the sandstorm intensified. Pablo decided to wait it out, calling out the decision but silent under the roar of the wind. The faces became more numerous and the voices louder as Jeb lay in his tent, hugging his knees. Mouths closed on the fabric as if they were trying to chew it open. Long, sharp fingers poked at the cloth. Rory and Pablo screamed from their own tents.

Rory went silent with a choking gulp as a shadow fell over the camp and the wind died. Pablo whimpered. Jeb was certain that his own tent was buried. It would be his tomb, his pyramid. He would die here, to be found ages away by learned men.

He opened the tent flap, expecting sand to spill in. There was none. Outside, the camp was almost as they had left it. The horses were gone. Two of the cattle had wandered into camp. They stood in the center, chewing by the smoldering coals. One of the cattle saw Jeb and groaned. The sun was setting behind the mesa. The sand of the plain rolled and shifted like the sea, but the faces and voices had left.

Rory and Augustus were gone, their tents empty. There were no signs of tracks. Pablo was asleep, tears tracking through the dust on his cheeks. Jeb kicked the soles of the Mexican’s boots. Pablo jumped, gasping, flailing his arms as if he were trying to wave away a cloud of flies. Pablo's eyes were wild and flashed red. Jeb was not sure if it were true, or if he were just seeing it.

Pablo shook his head and cupped his ears with his hands. He took two deep breaths and turned to Jeb.

“I think I'm all right,” Pablo said. “I'm still hearing things.”

“Rory's gone,” Jeb said. “So's Augustus. The horses are gone.”

Pablo sighed.

“How many head?” he asked.

“I didn't count.”

“Do it.”

“There are two in camp,” Jeb offered.

“Count the others.”

Jeb could only see the two. He walked toward the gully. The sand shifted so much that he had to drop to his knees. Looking down, he saw only the two carcasses. He could account, then, for only four of the ten head.

Pablo was out of his tent, looking at the mesa. He pointed.

“A cave,” he shouted.

The setting sun flared around the edges of the formation. Jeb squinted. There was a long cut, a cave like a half-open mouth drawn across the mesa.

“Can we make it?” Jeb asked, unable to stand even on level ground.

“There's a slope. There. We can see the whole plain. We should be able to see the horses. And I think… I think it will be a safe place to spend the night.”

* * * * *

Before long, Jeb was feeling better, less dizzy. He and Pablo walked up the slope at first, but the grade became so steep and the ground so loose that they had no choice but to crawl. The sun had almost set. The shadow of the mesa fell over the plain behind them. Stars appeared on the eastern horizon. The moon was now visible, a fine and brittle etching against darkening blue at the top of the sky.

There was a sharp pain in Jeb's stomach. He was not sure whether it was hunger or something else. The hallucinations had passed, for the most part. When he moved his eyes rapidly, the world wobbled. But that was all.

“Rory is probably up there,” Pablo said. “And Augustus.”

Jeb squinted, but saw nothing in the yawning darkness of the cave. He felt a tap on his shoulder and heard a buzzing by his ears. He reached up to swat it away, but it was nothing. The movement, though, was careless and he lost his footing. Jeb grabbed a larger rock at the last possible moment. It held his weight but spun him toward the eastern sky. It was now full night, with whirls of stars. Distant suns--time and light so far in the past was just reaching him at that moment, washing over but completely oblivious of him.

“What are you doing?” Pablo shouted.

Jeb simply lay on his back and stared. The stars gathered into ropes that twisted into tight knots. He could feel the tension, as if that tautness were pulling him even here from Earth, from Texas, to some other place. It ached in the back of his eyes and lit a flare of itching anxiety at the top of his spine.

“Keep climbing,” Pablo said. “Look at the ground in front of you. Do not look up or down.”

Jeb saw a flash in the corner of his eye, from the cave. He turned. There was light, dim and diffuse. Shapes moved. Rory or Augustus, he thought at first. But there were too many. He could see structures built into the very rock. Stairs led to terraces. Windows looked out from the walls. Dread shot down his back as he saw heads moving in and out of view. Pale orbs of eyes watched him. Voices carried over the light breeze. They spoke clear syllables of words that he could not understand. They grew in number and pushed against the lip of the cave. A crowd gathered and growled. Dark creatures, their wings unfolded. It was not just vicious intent, not just threat, but excitement in their voices.

Pablo did not seem to see any of it.

“You have to keep going,” the Mexican said.

They were Pablo's last words. The creatures flocked and shot from the cave in a stream, a river in the air. It spun all around Pablo in a blackness of leathery arms and wings, bristles of hair like needles. It wrapped the Mexican and lifted him from the ground, passing him into the cave. Pablo's mouth and eyes opened in a scream, but his throat was clogged shut.

Wild fear filled Jeb's lungs. It choked like dry stone dust. They saw him. Their eyes fixed on him. Their voices ceased. Their ancient alien minds arrived at an action that would bring his end. Jeb now knew that he was an intruder. They had all been, for days. Horses, cattle and men. They had crossed some line in the dust, perhaps arousing interest at first, perhaps even fear. Now, nothing but hunger.

Rory must have been there, a corpse hanging on hooks or splayed, bloodless, on an altar. The horses were already devoured, warm and raw. Pablo was now in shreds, torn apart so violently that his blood was a cloud of red mist in the air.

Jeb did not think. He did not choose. He released the rock and began scrambling down the slide, so fast that he lost control. The stones carried him in their tide, banging him against boulders and dropping him down a short cliff. He plunged into a narrow crevice.

He landed on his back. Straight above, night pushed the last of day's blue from the sky. It seemed like hours before Jeb felt that he could breathe again. He felt no pain on that first breath. He had survived. He could move his legs and arms. He could lift his head.

The world above was silent. He waited and listened, hearing only short bursts of wind. Then, a shallow raspy voice, like scratches on the rock. Jeb turned slowly, trying to make as little noise as he could.

There, Augustus lay broken upon the rocks. Blood spattered down, a darker but glistening gray, almost silver, against the stone. The African rambled. Gibberish. Jeb only caught bits of it.

“Do not leave ... this ... their land!”

“Augustus!”

He would not answer.

“Amen! ... spirit ... ancient spirit!”

Sharp stones jutted up through Augustus' stomach and thighs. Jeb held his breath, certain now that even the slightest disturbance would kill the man.

“They have always been here,” Augustus said. His voice was now calm and clear. His wet eyes pierced the dark and found Jeb.

Jeb scrambled into a shadow, fearing that Augustus would attract the creatures. Augustus slipped in and out of consciousness, belting out guttural noises that meant nothing at all to Jeb but seemed to conform to the rules of some language. Oddly-accented English phrases escaped the African's mouth now and then, though sounded unnaturally low and gruff, inserted into his throat by someone else.

“Lords of blood.”

“Elders of the plain.”

“Goat suckers.”

As morning approached, Jeb could no longer bear the hunger. It had risen above the pain in his stomach and sapped strength from every inch of his body. He waited until Augustus was unconscious, then crawled toward the man's battered pack. Jeb found dried beef and water, and devoured these without thinking. He was about to return to the shadows when he caught the moonlight glinting on metal. It was a revolver, fully loaded. Jeb took the gun into hiding and kept it cocked, waiting for the creatures to fly over the crevice. He vowed to take six of them with him.

They did not come.

Perhaps he slept. Eventually, the sky went purple and pink. The sun crawled toward Augustus' feet, climbed up his body and touched upon his face. Augustus was an ashen gray. His lips still moved though he had been silent for hours.

Jeb rose. Pain from the fall rang through his body. He crawled to Augustus, who gripped Jeb's wrist in a heroic expenditure of strength.

“I'm sorry,” Augustus said. “I'm sorry.”

“What?”

“The voices!”

“Tell me,” Jeb said.

“The voices,” Augustus said. “They told me to poison you.”

Jeb swallowed. The dust made a giant stone that forced its way down into his stomach.

“They told me how to poison you. They told me how. So you would not see them.”

Jeb squinted. He stepped away from Augustus.

“Save me,” Augustus said. He reached for Jeb. “Take me with you.”

Jeb stood still for one moment, feeling nothing. He pointed the revolver at Augustus' forehead.

“No,” Augustus said.

The sound of the single shot bounced from wall to wall of the crevice and filled the plain above. As Jeb climbed, he could still hear it locked in the ringing rock. When he reached the surface, he was not afraid, not thinking of what might be watching from the cave. There were now only five bullets, but it did not matter.

Jeb walked through the camp, past the two dead cattle. He imagined the shot skipping ahead of him, bouncing on the caked, crunching sand.

He put the mesa at his back. Walking east, with the sun in his eyes, he thought he might die. Or, perhaps someone would find him. He did not care. He walked as fast as he could, only to get away from the cave, away from Augustus.

* * * * *

I Love Your Mind

By Keith Latch

Jonathon Harp had writer’s cramp and it was getting worse. He set the ink pen to the side and began to flex and twist his right arm, circling his wrist like a carousel. With his professional and practiced smile he looked up to an unending line consisting of housewives, college students, local high school teachers and just a few riff raff thrown in for good measure.

This was his first book tour and he had somehow expected it to be a bit more...well…maybe glamorous was the word. So far, though, except for his first appearance which held all the unyielding excitement of a first experience, the whole tour had been dull and had even begun to tax him.

When Artie, his editor, had first approached him with the idea of a multi-city book signing tour, Jonathon had been quite taken by it. He had published his first work over a decade ago at the ripe old age of twenty-three. It was a short story about a serial killer armed with only an umbrella. The story itself wasn’t very ambitious but Jonathon was. He had persevered even after the rejection slip pile seemed to grow larger than his manuscripts. In then last three to four years his novels had begun to receive considerable attention and he was now well regarded in the world of commercial publishing. Hell, he’d even sold a short story to the tune of two grand around Christmas of last year. A book tour seemed to be an excellent idea or at least at the time it had.

Jonathon’s head rose to the sound of the beeping noise of the entrance door as a couple of college-aged kids walked through the door with his latest hardcover, Unmasked, in tow. They joined the healthy line of autograph seekers. Jonathon selected a fresh pen from the desk before him, “Next please.”

A burly lady with bleached blonde hair stepped up and shoved her copy of All the King’s Men in front of him. “Could you please make it out to Marge,” the lady said. Her eyes were glancing back and forth from Jonathon to the poster behind him. The poster was a tasteful advertisement of Unmasked with the dates and locations of his appearances at this specific chain of booksellers. Below his itinerary was a studio photograph of him with the Pacific Ocean as a backdrop. Jonathon couldn’t tell if the woman was only shocked to be meeting a real semi-famous author or just plain disappointed in his real life appearance. He handed the book back to her. She grasped it with one huge hairy hand. “Thank you, Mr. Harp,” she said with a smile although Jonathon couldn’t quite tell if it was genuine or not.

“You’re very welcome, see you next time. Next.”

She stepped up to the table and it was if Jonathon were a lost soul catching a glimpse of the Gates of Heaven. She was tall and lithe. Her tanned skin resembled the shade of almonds. Her gorgeous straight dark hair cascaded past her shoulders and complimented her green, almost emerald, eyes exquisitely. Dressed casually, she wore a blue button up blouse and khaki slacks.

Jonathon pushed his glasses back upon his nose as she placed her copy of Unmasked onto the table. With pen in hand he opened the book and looked up to meet her eyes.

“Mr. Harp, I can’t believe it’s you. I’ve been waiting for this ever since I heard about it on 102.3. I just knew something would happen and you would cancel or you would leave before I made it through the line or my car would have a flat or...”

Redness filled her cheeks. “Oh my god, I’m babbling. I’m so sorry, Mr. Harp. I’m just so excited.”

“That’s fine.” And it was. He could see that her excitement was genuine and he was flattered. “Have you had a chance to read this yet?” he asked, tapping his finger against the book.

“Oh, of course. I got my copy the day of the shipment. I had my mother pick it up for me. My boss wouldn’t let me leave work to get it, I knew he wouldn’t. I considered calling in sick, but I need the money. I read the whole thing in three days.”

Jonathon realized she was absolutely bubbling over. “How did you like it?” he asked. After all these years of writing he still asked the question with mixed feelings. It was a question he rarely asked. Although he’d become accustomed to the cynicism of mixed reviews from the so-called professional critics, face-to-face criticism always weighed on him more heavily.

“Mr. Harp, I loved it. I absolutely loved it. Detective Fink is my all-time favorite fiction character. He’s like a knight in shining armor; always there when you need him.” The color of embarrassment had begun to recede from her face, if only slightly.

“What’s your name?” he asked. His pen was finally in the position to write.

“Heather.” As she spoke her own name it was if she realized the conversation was almost at an end. Her mood changed and it was evident all the bubbles had deflated from her bubbly attitude.

In barely legible handwriting (on a keyboard he was king of all he surveyed, with pen and paper he was merely a peasant) he wrote, ‘To Heather, one of the sweetest people I’ve met in a while,’ and in his trademark autograph scrawl he added, ‘Jonathon Harp’

Upon reading the inscription, happiness returned to Heather’s face. She smiled, and he saw that that it was contagious, he also began to smile, as she spoke, “Thank you so much Mr. Harp,”

“Not a problem, Heather. And I had better see you next time I’m here, okay.” He realized he was grinning like a schoolboy.

“I promise. And again, I loved the book.” she turned and walked away.

An overweight man with the three chins stepped up for his turn to meet the famous Jonathon Harp and set down a tattered and stained hardcover copy of The Birth of Genius. It was Jonathon’s first ‘successful’ novel and still had a big place in his heart. The condition of this man’s edition immediately made Jonathon dislike the man. Besides that, the corpulent man stank of horse manure.

* * * * *

Several hours later...

Jonathon shook hands with the bookstore manager and walked to his rental. The night was cool and a gentle breeze was stirring. It reminded him of his younger years growing up on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi. The days were hot and smothering, the nights refreshing and mild. It had been quite a while since he had thought of home. Honestly, he couldn’t remember the last time he had. This soothing night brought back those memories, however. A slight chill ran up his spine.

He sat behind the steering wheel and felt his stomach start to grumble. He had chosen to forego lunch in lieu of signing more books. It had seemed like a reasonable thing to do at the time. Now his stomach begged to differ.

Jonathon glanced at the clock on the console, 9:20. He realized by the time he made it back to the hotel and got a table, the in-house restaurant would be closing. He pulled onto the highway choosing the opposite direction.

By the time he had the Toyota up to speed he spotted a Waffle King. It was just the greasy spoon, smoke-filled kind of place he was looking for. It was places just like that where he had penned most of his fiction. The neon sign which was usually in the door of such places that read ‘OPEN 24 HOURS’ was like an old friend. It was usually a beacon to the oddest assortment of clientele imaginable. And it was within that night-time mixture of cigarette smoke, greasy hamburgers, drunks trying to sober themselves with gallons of hot, black coffee, amidst prostitutes and other urchins of the late hour that Jonathon felt most comfortable.

The aroma of frying grease greeted him as he stepped through the door like the handshake of a best friend. Chatter of patrons and a classic rock radio station registered to his ears as he looked around for a place to sit. The counter by the register was packed and it looked as if almost all the booths were full as well. He decided to use the restroom before placing his order to eat.

Returning from the restroom he saw a familiar face. He walked up the booth, realizing it had just the one apparent occupant. “Well, hello there.”

The woman’s eyes darted upward in shock. It took less than a second for her gaping mouth to transform into a wide smile, confirming recognition.

“Mr. Harp, what are you doing here?”

“Trying to fill my gut. But looks like all the seats are taken,” he said. Somehow, he hadn’t even noticed her when he’d walked in. That could have been due to his bladder, perhaps.

“Oh, yeah. It’s crowded tonight.”

“But it was nice seeing you again,” he said. He turned and began to walk away.

“Hey!” she half screamed. “Would you like to sit here?” She motioned toward the empty seat opposite her.

“Well, I don’t mind if I do.” he said exhibiting his professional smile. “I thought you would never ask, Heather.” She seemed both stunned and pleased he had remembered her name.

For several minutes both said nothing. Jonathon scanned over the menu and ordered a patty melt plate with hash browns and coffee. As Heather finished her meal of a southwestern omelet and toast he realized how very pretty she was. Still dressed in her previous attire he could now smell her perfume. He had never encountered it before but found himself drawn to it.

“So, a beautiful girl like you accustomed to eating alone?” he said. And as soon as it escaped his mouth he realized how lame it sounded.

“I had read somewhere that places like this are where you do a lot of your thinking. I just thought it would help me too.”

“What are you trying to think about?” he asked.

“Nothing. Everything. Nothing and everything all at once. Anyway, how do you like our fair city?”

“Actually I’ve only been in since this morning. As soon as I checked in at the hotel and freshened up I had to be at the bookstore. But I will tell you this; it has its share of beautiful women.”

Realizing that he was complimenting her, that all too familiar blush rose in her cheeks. “I still can’t believe I’m sitting in a Waffle King with Jonathon Harp. No one’s gonna believe this.”

Looking into her eyes he saw utter adoration.

After both had finished their meals and a long conversation, on everything from Heather’s job at the tanning salon (where she did most of her reading) to whom the best writers in America were, Jonathon paid the tab. Heather protested that a famous author shouldn’t have to buy a fan’s dinner, that it should be the other way around, Jonathon protested and produced a twenty dollar bill and handed it to the cashier before Heather could even get to her purse. They walked out together into the still night.

“Well, Heather that was a nice date,” he said with a smirk on his face.

She smiled. “If I only knew you would be here. I would have brought my paperbacks and hard covers.”

“You buy both?”

“Anything I can get my hands on, either by you or about you. I...I just love your mind,” she said. Her face was not the most crimson he’d yet to see.

“I’m flattered,” he said. Closing in on her he realized how strikingly beautiful she looked underneath the moonlight. He touched her gingerly on the face and leaned in to kiss her.

The kiss lasted a long time. He felt a stir in his pants.

After it was over, “Would you like to get out of here?” she asked.

“I thought you’d never ask.” he said. He disengaged his arm that he had unconsciously wrapped around her waist.

“Just follow me; I don’t live too far from here.”

“Just don’t speed off and try to lose me, okay,” he said.

Heather realized he was joking and began walking towards her car, an early ninety's model Nissan. He jumped into his rental and followed her out to the highway.

Jonathon looked into his rearview mirror and saw that he was grinning to himself.

* * * * *

He followed the taillights of her Nissan through several miles of heavy traffic. They were now entering a section of the city that seemed a bit...seedy. The buildings they passed were run down and traffic was light. On the sides of the road Jonathon saw a few hookers and pimps dressed in their distinctive garb. He checked his door locks.

Heather pulled up to a building that looked like something even a slumlord would have been ashamed of owning and parked. Jonathon followed suit. He got out and hurried to join Heather. In the distance, sirens were piercing the night and for a brief second Jonathon wondered whether or not he was making a mistake.

He immediately felt a twinge of guilt. It wasn’t so long ago that he had been living in the same conditions. And at the time he had been chronicling the experiences of an umbrella-wielding psycho he had been fortunate to even have a roof over his head. It had seemed like a lifetime ago before, but now being faced with this environment it seemed like only yesterday.

“It’s kinda a rough neighborhood,” Heather said as she noticed Jonathon’s eyes darting around. “It’s only temporary.” Jonathon couldn’t quite tell if she was talking to him or to herself.

He followed her into the building and up the stairs in a remarkably comfortable silence.

They reached Heather’s apartment and upon entering Jonathon was almost as nervous as Heather had seemed at the book signing.

“Would you like something to drink?”

“Yeah. A beer if you got it,” he said.

“Sure, have a seat, I’ll be right back.”

He flopped down into a huge recliner. It almost swallowed him up and he found it was immensely comfortable. The day had been long and he was exhausted. He felt he could fall into a deep sleep a chair such as this.

“Light beer okay? I haven’t had company in a while and it’s all I drink,” she said.

“That’s fine,” he said taking the cold bottle from her. She took a seat on the sofa and began to drain her beer. “I like your place.”

“Thanks. They say home is where the heart is and at least for me that’s true,” she said.

Sitting together on the sofa, each with a fresh beer in their hand, he put his arm to her neck and gently began stroking it with the tips of his fingers. His very touch seemed to relax her and she dropped her head as he began to rub her shoulders.

He looked around the place for an ashtray and found one. “Mind if I smoke? Drinking always makes me crave a cigarette.”

“No, please go right ahead,” she said.

He pulled a pack of Marlboros and a gold Zippo lighter from his pocket and lit up. She got up and walked over to the small table that held the ashtray and handed it to him.

“I’ll be right back. Please, please don’t go anywhere,” she said, her voice almost pleading.

“Heather, there’s no other place in the world I’d rather be right now,” he said. He saw her cheeks brighten once more before she turned and walked down the hallway.

Jonathon took a pull of his cigarette and sipped his beer. He was glad he had met Heather. This sure beat the hell out of sitting alone in his hotel room tapping away on his laptop or watching Nick-at-Nite.

Heather seemed like a wonderful person and she had welcomed him with open arms. And as the night progressed he wondered if she would welcome him with spread legs as well.

“I’ve been saving this for a special occasion,” she said as she walked into the living room. On the coffee table in front of them she sat down a pack of Zig-Zag rolling papers and began to unroll a sandwich baggie. The inside of the baggie, Jonathon could see and recognized immediately, was filled with a green leafy substance. “You do smoke it don’t you? I read in a magazine interview you lived on it for quite a few years.”

“Yeah, I haven’t smoked since I’ve been on this book tour though. Too dangerous to travel with,” he said.

“Cool,” she said. Expertly, Heather began to roll a hefty sized joint. He handed her his Zippo and they began to toke. Jonathon could tell right away the quality of the marijuana was superior to what he had expected.

“Darling, you’re full of surprises,” he said when he had absorbed the smoke thoroughly.

“How about some sweet tea?” she asked.

“Huh?”

“Sweet tea is the best thing to drink when you’re high,” she said.

“I’ve never heard that, might as well try it.” His beer bottle has miraculously emptied and he was getting a little dry-mouthed.

As she brought him a frosted glass of tea he began to feel the effects of the weed. He felt cozy but disconnected. A large smile spread across his face and he was happy. Heather walked over to the entertainment center and put a CD in to the player. Suddenly soft music filled the room. Jonathon felt his body, involuntarily, respond to the rhythm.

They talked for an hour. Sometimes their conversation was coherent, sometimes it wasn’t; they kept on talking. Jonathon learned that she wasn’t quite able to make ends meet as a tanning salon attendant and that her mother, God bless her soul, sent a sizeable check every month to help out. She told him about the way her father had treated her (coldly) after she dropped out of college. She was an electrical engineering major, but found it too hard and too boring. Instead of finding another major she had tucked her tail between her legs and just quit.

Jonathon told her about how he had first broke through the stone wall of the writing business (more luck than anything else). How he had worked three low-paying, menial jobs at a time just because they gave him an opportunity to write instead of sticking to one job that would require more brainpower and time. He told Heather he had grown up on the Mississippi Coast, which she already knew. He did not, however, tell her the truth about why he had left. He just told her it was in search of new experiences to write about.

They finished two glasses of tea each and Jonathon asked to use the little boys’ room. As he stood he found balancing himself was a true test of skill. He made his way there and back only with the help and support of the hallway wall.

When he returned to the living room the lights had been lowered. A small assortment of scented candles were lit and scattered around the room. From the sound Jonathon realized Heather was busy in the kitchen. Settling back onto the couch he reached for the marijuana and papers and began to roll another joint.

She walked into the room carrying two more glasses of sweet tea. She handed him his and took her seat beside him. “Rollin’ another one?”

“Yep. I figured what the hell,” he said.

He lifted the glass of tea to his mouth and drank. EEEEWW. The sweetness of the tea had dissipated; in its absence sourness had materialized. Sourness on the verge of bitterness. His face showed the shock.

“Oh, Jonathon I’m sorry. I put a little lemon juice in it. I must have put too much,” she laughed.

“Shit, at least it’s wet,” he said.

Before he had a chance to ignite the joint she reached for him. Her mouth connected to his. Slowly at first, then more rushed, they began to explore each other’s mouths. He tasted the sweetness of the tea within her and plunged his tongue further in.

He began to caress her neck with his hands. Goose pimples erupted on her arms as she surveyed his chest. Lifting his shirt she began to rake her fingernails upwards and downwards on his bare chest. Unbuttoning her shirt, Jonathon reached for her breasts. She wore a lace bra and with expert and practiced skill, he unhooked it using one hand.

He held both of her breasts with either hand and began to rub and tease her already erect nipples. Heather began to breathe heavily and at that moment within his hazy mind he knew he was home free. He began to ease her back onto the couch.

She resisted.

“What’s the matter?” he asked, almost pouting.

“In the bedroom,” she said.

The smile returned to Jonathon’s face as he pulled her to her feet. Dizziness bombarded him as he stood upright. He felt as if he were being rocked by ocean waves in every direction. With some doing, he steadied himself. Unease fired in his stomach, almost a mild nausea.

With Heather leading the way he was able to make it to the bedroom without collapsing. Figuring the marijuana had gotten the best of him; he accepted his condition and tried not to let his sickness show. Heather shoved him onto the bed. The firmness of the mattress threatened to bounce him off but before it had the chance, Heather pounced down on of him.

She freed herself of her blouse and removed his shirt for him as well. As Heather bent down and kissed his neck and ears her soft dark hair covered him. The sensation was wonderful, like hundreds of soft, fantastically soft, feathers massaging and tickling him. He reached for her breasts and kneaded them like a baker going after his daily work with the reverence of one truly inspired.

His eyes began to shut automatically and he had to fight to reopen them. His thoughts started to swirl together until he couldn’t be sure whether he was thinking lucidly or not. He tried to look into her face.

His eyelids shut.

He pried them open.

His eyelids shut, hard.

He used every ounce of his strength to open them.

They slammed shut.

His eyelids parted and he was awake. He felt her riding him. The rhythm was maddening and he gave himself to it. Heather bent down to his face and he could smell her tantalizing aroma mixed with sweat. Her mouth was only inches from his ear. Her breath smelled of sweet marijuana smoke.

“I love your mind,” she whispered.

His eyes closed once again.

“I…I don’t feel so well…,” he managed.

“Shhh, now, darling. You’ll feel better in just a minute. Much, much better.” She was grunting between words. The rhythm of her hips like second nature.

It felt wonderful, but there was something else, a conflicting sensation gaining in power.

The odd feeling was unlike anything Jonathon had ever felt before. It was a queer cross between the flu and a really audacious hangover.

But he wasn’t so far gone he didn’t realize something was wrong. Very, very wrong. He wrote crime thrillers for a living. And if he believed his own hype, he was very good at it. He was well aware, the more he thought about it, that he’d been drugged. Jonathon had no way to know what kind of drug had been used. But that didn’t matter. What mattered was that he was no longer in control of his own body.

Cracking his eyelids required monumental effort. Through the narrow slit, he saw Heather, a vision of erotic beauty atop him, glowing in the ambient light. But this glimmering goddess was no angel. But a devil. And to what end she had drugged him, only she knew.

Jonathon had no intention of finding out.

From a well of strength he didn’t even know existed, he found he could lift his arms. He did more than that, though. Gripping her in the bend of her thighs and her waist, he tossed her off his crotch. The irony of throwing a hottie like this out of the bed was not lost on him, but the thought only survived a moment. He had more pressing things on his mind.

Like living.

Heather fell hard on the side of the bed, hitting the floor and rolling. She was on her feet in an instant. The energy expended to throw her off seemed to be just all he had in him. Jonathon tried to scramble from the bed but found moving, even minutely, was like sloshing through heavy oil.

A mere six inches was all he’d been able to scoop when, through the slit he managed to keep his eyes open, he saw Heather standing over him. The soft look of adoration was gone replaced by a much harder look. One that could only be described as hate.

“You fucker! What’d you do that for? I was giving you the ride of your life and you do something like that. You’ll burn for that you bastard!” The last word was more of a growl than actual speech.

Heather reached down, grabbed hold of his hair with both of her hands and slung him off the bed. It was Jonathon’s turn to hit the floor, and boy, did he hit hard.

“Mr. Big Time Writer! I bring you to my home. You drink my beer! You smoke my weed! Even put your cock in me and you want to throw me away like I’m a PIECE OF TRASH!” She was over him now, his body covered by the triangle of her legs up to her body. A foot crashed down into his ribs. His body’s movements were sluggish and he only hung onto consciousness by a hair’s breadth, but he could still feel. And he felt the two ribs crack as surely as if were hooked to an X-ray machine and could see the damage instead of merely feeling it.

“Stop. P-P-Please…” Jonathon was in bad shape. Much worse than he’d been just seconds ago. Unknown to him, one of the cracked ribs had punctured a lung and even as he fought hard to stay awake and alert, his breached lung was slowly, but most surely, filling up on him making breathing harder than he’d ever thought possible. Every breath was a war and every gasp a battle.

“Aww. Poor little thing. He’s sad now. Ain’t ya?”

How the so sweet, so kind, so endearing Heather had morphed into this demonic Lilith was beyond Jonathon. She was no longer remotely attractive. Her eyes were crazed, bloodshot. Her muscles tensed, muscles he hadn’t even noticed before. Her lips curled around teeth that were too sharp, too white.

“I just wanted to talk, book boy.” She bent closer to him. “Just you. Just me. Is that so much to ask. Apparently it was. Should have sent along a picture of my tits or how about my bare ass! Yeah, that’d probably done it huh?”

“What do you mean? I-I- don’t…” but he couldn’t say anymore. The little air left in his lungs was too precious.

“I wrote you, Jonathon Harper. Seven times, I wrote you. The P.O. Box number in the back of all your books. You know the part, ‘All correspondence should be addressed to yada-yada-yada. Seven times. All I wanted was a little note. A little something. I gave you my email, my cell number, my home phone, my address. I gave you everything. And what did I get in return. An empty mail box. That’s what. You conceited fucker.”

“I didn’t,” he started. He struggled for air. “I had no way to—” Another foot crashed down. This one to his testicles and it smashed them almost to jelly.

“But you had a way to know how to get in my panties didn’t you. Oh, yeah, men always know that.”

“But, what about when the morning comes? You’d have grabbed your pants off the floor, threw your clothes on and been gone. Another city, another signing. Another quick piece of ass.”

And then suddenly, the hate was gone from her face. As suddenly as the adoration had melted away and anger had risen, so too did her rage fade out. Replaced by, replaced by sadness.

“I loved you. Truly and deeply. Irrevocably. I loved the stories you told, the images you let me glimpse, and the people you introduced me to. I loved you more than I have ever loved anyone. And your mind, I loved it more than all the rest, because it is you.”

There was no more air in his lungs to plead his case. He was hearing this she-beast, but the words were sounding funny now, the sound of her voice like they traveled a long, long tunnel. Jonathon realized that he was fading. His life-force dimming with each tick of the clock. And for what? For not answering a fan letter. Or, what’d she say, seven, fan letters?

It was crazy, it was pure lunacy. It was like something you’d read about, or something he’d write about. It was happening, though. No denying that. It was happening here and now and to him.

“P-P-P…” he tried, but the plea just couldn’t escape.

“How the mighty have fallen. Bet you wish you’d been a little better about returning correspondence, eh, book-boy?”

Jonathon feebly raised an arm. It made it half way up, straightening at the elbow when Heather spoke again. “But now you are mine.”

* * * * *

The very next morning...

Heather awoke to bright mid-morning beams of light cutting between her bedroom blinds. Although, her body was tired and sore she rose from the bed. Jonathon’s scent still lingered.

Cutting a glance to the bedside clock, she realized she was late for work. With a yawn and a stretch she stood and began to ready herself for work.

Heather forewent the shower, having cleansed herself thoroughly last night—almost scrubbing the skin off her body, actually. She dressed in khaki pants and a light blue pull over blouse.

She walked into the kitchen where the automatic coffee maker had brewed a pot hours earlier. She poured herself half a cup and walked to the refrigerator.

She opened the freezer compartment and smiled. Sitting amidst her frozen waffles, a partially consumed gallon of strawberry ice cream, and ice cube trays was a clear glass container housing Jonathon Harp’s brain within formaldehyde. Heather had told a little white lie to her favorite writer. She had not studied electrical engineering during her college days, but chemical engineering. Feeling a lie was necessary, she thought of the electrical part. After all, she didn’t want Jonathon wondering about what she’d put in his drink until it was too late, now did she?

She touched the container and closed her eyes. “I told you, Jonathon, I love your mind. And now it’s mine…forever,” Heather said in barely a whisper.

She closed the freezer door and picked up her coffee and went to work.

* * * * *

Groan of Tedium

By Sal Cipriano

It’s my birthday. I should be excited, right? Or at least, like…happy? But no, I’m far from it. Instead, there’s that same old feeling, the groan of tedium as I affectionately call it. It’s that feeling of the same old same old, the bullshit grind that’s swallowed my life whole. Naturally, I’m too weak to pull away from it. Perfect. Well, for me at least.

“Vinny! Get back in here, smoke break’s over!” Thank you, you fuck. And just like that my heart sinks further south.

Jimmy, my boss here at Cotton Glass Funeral Home, likes nothing more than stamping out any fleeting moments of pleasure that I may get. In this case: a couple of drags from a Lucky Strike.

“I’m done! I’m coming! Sorry!” I say, but not meaning it. I’m sorry my ass, is more like it.

“Yeah, sure you are, but I don’t wanna hear it, just get Chapel 2 cleaned up, then come on up to my office. I got something else for you.” The Fucker is ready to ruin another birthday.

“Wait…what?! Jimmy! It’s my birthday! Lisa’s meeting me in like 30 minutes! You know this!” Because that’ll get me anywhere.

“Hey that’s not my problem, so stop your whining. She can wait in my office.” Well a fuck you, too, then.

Twenty minutes later and Chapel 2 is cleaned up. There was a hell of a lot of tissues used tonight. You can always judge a person’s worth to society by the amount of tissues used at their funeral. Mrs. Margaret Fesko had to up there. A shit ton of tissues, everywhere you can imagine. A mess, but an honorable one.

Five minutes of scrubbing possible mucus matter off my hands does the trick afterwards, and I’m up to talk to Jimmy Vivona, the aforementioned fuck of a manager. He’s a slimy, creepy, real disgusting snake of a man in every way imaginable. He’s a coward, too. I see him on the phone trying to conduct whatever shady deal he may be in on, and sweating each and every time. Loser.

Up in his office, I’m usually comfortable. After all, I take mighty nice naps on his cushy couch just about every day. Another one of those fleeting moments of daily pleasure I get. Tonight, though, it’s not comfortable up here at all. I hadn’t noticed earlier, but Jimmy is in sweaty mode, and the terrible feeling that he’s about to involve me in something stupid, AKA dangerous, sets in.

“I’m gonna lay it right on ya, Vinny…” Of Course. “…and I’m really…ah hum…sorry to do this to you…” Wait for it. “…but I need you accept a shipment tonight.” Bingo! Cue Stupid Dangerous Shit.

“A shipment? Tonight? Who brings shipments after hours?” Dumb question, of course, but in incredulous moments like this, I need to be somewhat humored.

“Do I haveta answer that? I know you know things, Vinny, but you’re a good kid. I know you know how to keep that trap of yours shut. And I know you’re loyal, am I right?”

Fucker is right. I’m loyal to a fault, hence why I’m usually too weak to change anything bad in my life. Who ever thought loyalty and weakness went hand in hand? Thanks, Dad. The man instilled those two attributes firmly within me with a variety of tactics that pushed my fragile young spirit to its very limits. He would regularly beat on Mom and Natalie, and make me watch, and then tell me things like how guys don’t tell on guys, dad’s your best friend, your general, etc. I never squealed on him, cause…well…he’s my dad, my best friend, my general. And I’m a good kid, a loyal soldier. Yeah, it’s messed up.

“Yeah, Jimmy. This gonna get me in trouble in any way?” Why. Do. I. Bother?

“No, no, of course not. These guys are pros. In and out. They drop it off. You’re outta here.” Against better judgment, I almost believe him. I should just refuse. Better yet, Quit!

“What time should I expect them?” Ugh. How about, ‘why don’t you wait for you’re f’n shipment?!’

“A little after 11PM.” Damn it!

“I can’t believe this! Lisa’s going to strangle me!” No, seriously.

“Relax, I’ll buy you both a nice dinner tomorrow night. Alright?” Yeah. Happy birthday to me.

Lisa soon arrives to her disappointment. She’s dealt with a lot of bullshit from me, and I feel bad, but this is who I am. She lays it on me real good. I deserve it.

“You can’t keep saying yes to him, Vinny! He’s a horrible person who doesn’t care about you or anyone! You don’t owe him anything! This is killing you! Us even…” And that hurts most of all, but I kind of expected it. I do my best to try to make it right.

“I’m sorry, Li, really. Look, he said he’ll buy us a nice dinner tomorrow night. Alright?” Ugh. Now I’m quoting the guy; real classy, Vin.

“It’s not alright. Have a happy birthday, Vincent” Ouch. Vincent. And just like that she’s gone. I don’t blame her. What have I done to keep her here anyway? The bell rings, though, and my heart jumps up to my mouth. Well, I guess I’ve done enough to keep her coming back.

Or not…

“You Vincent?” Oh fuck, the delivery is here, early. Good, but bad because I’m just not ready for these guys yet.

“Uh…yeah…delivery right?” I say to this enormous man mountain. The tracksuit says mob, but something about his face doesn’t scream it.

“S’right. You wanna come out an’ gimme a hand?” Of course I do, there’s no way I’d say no to you, big man. Holy crap he’s huge! We head outside to an old 80’s Lincoln, dirty grey, an ugly boat of a car with plenty of trunk space. Not good.

Another man gets out of the Lincoln. Small and scrawny looking, walking like he’s got a stick up his ass. His little mustache makes him feel bigger than he is; yes, I can sense that…

“Hey, Fucko, hope you got lotsa paper towels in there. This shit’s a mess.” See?

The trunk opens and it’s beyond a mess. Mess is my kitchen sink after a week. There’s blood and flesh wads everywhere. I love blood and gore in the movies as much as the next guy, but this is out of control for real. It just looks like a butcher’s table in there. I’m too shocked to be grossed out, and with Emilio, the little one, barking and cursing we just get to it.

Me and the big guy, Angelo, do all the dirty work. The two bodies are wrapped in soaked through cloths, and not very well. I’m nervous as hell that someone will see us since we’re going in through the only way in or out, the front door…

See, Cotton Glass is a small, old time parlor, and when this whole block was built, they failed to build an outlet to it. The tiny backyards of the attached storefronts just lead to the backs of the next block’s storefronts. There’s no real way out of any of these places except the front door. The fire department once tried to shut down every business here, but this whole area is owned by the mob, so that’s that. Luckily, all seems dead out, pun intended.

Me and Angelo bring in the first body, and head for the stairs that goes down to our cooler. Halfway down, the body’s guts spill out onto the stairs, and the big man slips and drops onto his ass. I laugh for a second, before I realize he’s let go of the body and as I grab hold of it tight, indescribable gore splashes onto my face. I hurl right there on the stairs and body. Angelo starts laughing, and after a second, I join him in the ridiculousness of the situation.

We get the second body down with less fanfare. I’m sweating, and pissed that Emilio just smoked a cigar and talked on his cell the whole time. When we’re done he tosses his phone into the Lincoln, and leads me back into Cotton Glass. I get the urge the shove my foot up his ass, but resist. I think Angelo can tell. He smiles. We’re getting engaged after the job; after all, it looks like I’m on the market again.

“You did good, kid. Jimmy told us as much; good to see the Finoch was right for once. So, listen, we’re gonna need you to hold the merchandise for just a coupla hours. We’ve arranged a final resting place, and we just need to make sure everythins’ in order. Ya got it?” No, no, NO!

“Are you saying you want me to stay here till you get back, cause Jimmy didn’t…”

“Jimmy’s a moron, fuck that guy.” You’re no better, that’s for sure.

“That’s the job, kid. You baby sit for a coupla hours, you get something’ extra, sound good?” My birthday’s ruined already, why not…

WHY NOT?!

And just like that, they’re gone, too. There’s a lot of strange symmetry to this night, but I try not to think about it. I mean, what good would that do? All I do think of is how I’m glad Lisa left. I don’t know how I would explain this. I go back inside, and begin to clean up the mess, which might take me right to the point where Heckel and Jeckel return.

I start by mopping the stairs, as it’s the quickest way to some sort of normalcy. The carpet in the lobby is more worrisome. Jimmy’s going to murder me, but that might be a far better fate than whatever I might expect if I get caught in all of this. I stop thinking about it, and just lose myself in my work. I’m in some sort of crazy zone brought upon by ridiculous panic. It makes the mopping goes quick. It’s absolutely shining within a half hour, and I’m proud of myself. I turn my attention to the carpet. I get out the cleaning fluid and wet-vac when the bell snaps me out of it, and into a real panic.

They can’t be back this early, can they?

I grab one of Jimmy’s spare sport coats that he keeps on the rack in the lobby and toss it on to hide the fact that I’m covered in blood. Hopefully it really is them, because this jacket isn’t much of a cover. Getting these bodies out of here early would be nice. I may just hit McKee’s for the rest of the night and drown myself in some birthday whiskey. The idea brings a smile to my face.

It’s not them, though. I don’t know who these folks are. I open the door for a bald, muscular looking, well groomed, man in a suit who wears his sunglasses at night, and a little, and I mean real little, veiled old lady in black. Could they be very late comers to tonight’s wake? I don’t know, but I get the instant chills when the lady starts speaking...

“Voglio vidiri e’ figli mia,” Sicilian. I know it well being half myself. She wants to see her boys. This can’t be good, but before I can even contemplate, the man follows up.

“The Lady wants to see her sons. You will make this happen.”

“I’m sorry, but the only viewing right now is for a Mrs. Margaret Fesko. You must have the wrong place.” At least that’s what I hope. The two bodies I’m cleaning up after were both males…

The man easily pushes me aside as he lets the old woman in. I can’t even talk, and don’t know what I’d even say at this point. Luckily, the man does all the talking. I’m more than happy to just listen and get this night over with. The request is simple enough, too. Take the lady downstairs to see the bodies. Not much more is said, but from what I gather these dudes were her sons. I’m curious, but I know when to keep my mouth shut. I lead them downstairs, but the man asks for some privacy. Sure. I spot the old lady pulling out some Rosary beads as I sit on my newly mopped stairs. I begin counting the minutes down while admiring the shine coming off the metal edges of the steps.

To my surprise, they’re done quick; couldn’t have been more than six or seven minutes, tops. I take them back up the stairs, where the man gives me a generous tip and thanks me for my accommodating nature. They quietly leave. That was strange, but easy enough, and for some reason I actually feel good about it, too.

I wet-vac the carpet, and finally get myself cleaned up. I’m tired, and Angelo and Emilio seem to be running late. I’m on Jimmy’s cushy couch for about 2 minutes, with my eyes starting to close, when a honking horn almost knocks me to the floor. It’s 2am, who the fuck honks like that?!

The answer both surprises me and doesn’t all at the same time. I open the door to see three of my buddies, all of whom seem rather drunk.

“Heh, hey! Look, what the cat dragged out!” says Matt, my sometimes-best friend. Sometimes because he often does stupid shit at the wrong times, like screaming and honking at 2am! The other two, John and Tim, back-up Matt with their own relentless hollering. Don’t get me wrong, I love these guys, but tonight is a bit different. Tonight I’m severely not in the mood.

It almost doesn’t matter though as the biggest surprise waits till I get outside.

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HONEY!” And just like that Lisa has brightened my miserable night, and salvaged my last glimmer of faith in people. She’s holding a cake, red velvet (my favorite), with lit candles that are just lighting up her face perfectly. A genuine smile breaks out on my face.

We all go inside and enjoy it with the wine that John gave me as a gift washing it down nicely. Jimmy’s office subs for any local bar we may’ve hit tonight. As long as I have my girl, and few good friends I feel completely comfortable right here. It’s all going smoothly until Matt says something terribly, ridiculously, horribly wrong…

“So I heard the stiff’s a hottie…mind if I have a peak?” See? Sometimes-Best Friend! Sometimes!

“Dude, what the fuck?” Is all I can get out before he runs off, tongue flapping to the side like a kid at a carnival or a friggin’ maniac. I chase him downstairs and tackle him tight end style! We wrestle around violently for a bit as John and Matt cheer us on. I hadn’t had this much fun in awhile, so of course…

“The fuck is this?!” I must’ve left the door unlocked, and Emilio and Angelo are back. Emilio has his gun out, not pointing it at anyone, but more of a show of his unhappiness. Angelo is chowing down on what looks like some sort of chicken cutlet sandwich; looks good actually.

“Uh…hi, guys, these are my friends.” Is all I can blurt out as I get to my feet. Anything good about the last 35 minutes or so has gone out the window. Worse off, I’ve gotten my pals involved. I’m hoping Lisa hears this and stays upstairs; maybe calls the cops, although who knows if that’s even a good idea. Right and wrong are sorta blurry at this moment.

“I don’t give a rat‘s ass! Are you outta you’re fuckin’ gourd? We got business to attend to, and this is how you fuckin‘ treat it?! I oughta plug you all right now, and get it the frig over with!”

Matt tries to intercede, “Hey…hey, I’m sure there’s some sort of misunderstanding here. Right, Vin?” but Angelo’s imposing figure bumps Matt back and shuts him up. Some of the sandwich falls apart and lands on the big man’s shirt. This whole scene almost amuses me…I’ll laugh later.

I’d imagine the guys are shitting their pants right now, I can’t even face them. I should’ve said something, protected them, something. I got too wrapped up in the moment. What they did for me tonight…this is how you repay them, huh, Vin?

“Alla you, downstairs, now!” Emilio isn’t happy. I try to get something out, anything to ease this, but before I know it I’m on the floor and my cheek is stinging badly. Everything is spinning, and as I try to get my bearings, I just yak all over the freshly cleaned carpet. John and Matt get me up to my feet as Emilio yells something that’s incomprehensible at the moment.

As we go downstairs, I replay what just happened, and I believe little Emilio gave me one giant pistol whip across my face. I feel somewhat embarrassed. I’m also pissed that I have to wet-vac the damn carpet again!

Down in the cooler, Angelo, sandwich finally finished, mayo globbed onto his shirt, pushes us towards the back end of the room. My mind is swirling at this point, trying to figure a way out of this. Maybe they’ll just let us go, but I just look at the two dead guys under the sheets and it tells me that’s unlikely. My eyes deceive me, though, as I could’ve sworn that I saw some sort of movement under there. I dismiss it as an optical illusion brought on by the pistol whipping.

“You put us in a real stupid position, Vincent. This coulda went down simple, now it’s gonna be anything’ but that. Understan’? I gotta think, but while I do that, I want you mooks to grab these stiffs and take ‘em to the car. Let’s go, move!”

We don’t hesitate to do what Emilio says. Matt and I grab the one closest to us, I mouth “I’m sorry” to him, but he refuses to give me any sort of response. John and Tim try to grab hold of the other one, but they’re having a difficult time. The body drops to the floor with a disgusting wet thud that splatters blood in every direction. Tim is clearly freaked out.

“Whoa…dudes, I think this one’s still alive! Totally moved on me!” Huh, that wasn’t the body that I thought saw move. If this isn’t an optical illusion, then what the heck…?

Just as I think that, Matt howls in pain behind me. I turn to face him, and the sight makes me drop my end, the feet, down to the ground. The head is biting Matt’s arm through the linens it’s wrapped in! I clearly see teeth ripping into Matt’s flesh!

Everyone’s frozen but me. I jump up and kick down onto the head. Holy crap…the force rips a piece of Matt’s forearm muscle right off! No time to contemplate though as I stomp the head down into the ground with a sick crunch. Now everyone’s stirring.

John and Tim grab hold of Matt, who looks like he’s going to pass out from the pain. Angelo and Emilio push past me and start firing down at the body. The noise from the discharges within the insulated cooler are deafening; the rest of us all cup our ears as tight as possible.

They stop and we all gather around the smoking body, a huge moat of blood forming around it. We all give each other confused/worried looks. Matt is holding his arm close to his body; his shirt pulled up around it and already soaked in blood. He looks sweaty and pale, but before I get ask him anything there’s a tree chopping sound and blood and flesh and track suit flies past Emilio, and smacks into me and John!

Angelo looks down at his chest where a hand is holding out his still beating heart! The hand retracts, and Angelo’s eyes roll up into his head. He drops like a building collapse, and in his place is the other body, clearly dead, but yet still standing there. Clear because he’s wearing a tattered suit filled with bullet holes, but more obvious because half his head is gone!

“YOU FUCK!!!” And with that Emilio unloads the rest of his gun. The body goes flying over the table it was laying on, and hits the floor on the other side. Cursing, he reloads the gun, and begins to walk over towards the body. I motion for Tim to help me with Matt, but Emilio turns and stops us.

“Where the fuck you think you’re going!?” The question is almost as unbelievable as this situation. The dead guy that bit Matt starts to get up though, stopping Emilio from caring. He almost barrels us over as he jets up the stairs before us!

With our cover gone, I pass Matt over to John, and urge him and Tim to get our injured and faint friend upstairs. I then run towards the half-headed dead goomba, I assume these guys were also mafia, and give him the worst looking one legged drop kick ever attempted! It works, though, as the body goes crashing back into the wall and falls forward, tripping in its wrappings, and falling flat on his face.

The other dead goomba, the one that Emilio shot to shit, is getting back up. I haveta get up those stairs now! Easier said, though, as I slip in Angelo’s blood and crash down hard on my back. I can’t move. My back feels like it’s given out on me. This happens often, but what a horrid time! The dead man has lumbered over and stands over me, it doesn’t look happy. I start thinking of Lisa, when I see a bat smashing the zombie, I believe I can fairly call them that now, in the face the force caving its nose in, and sending it over a moving cabinet of mortician’s equipment! The cabinet goes down with the zombie emptying a variety of sharp objects onto it.

My savior is the girl I was thinking of. Lisa drops the bat, and grabs hold of me.

“Is this the right time for a knap, hun?” Can you see why I love this girl?

She helps me up, turns me around, wraps her arms around me, and cracks my back as she always does. No wasted motions with her. No questions about what the heck is happening neither. Still shaky, I put my arm over her shoulder and get out of there. She mentions something about a problem upstairs, but I only half pay attention.

Once we get upstairs, I easily see what she’s talking about, although I’m not as quick to understand. Emilio has a chair in hand, and the front glass door has been broken. Upon seeing me, Emilio tosses the chair down, and grabs me by the collar and pulls me to the door. He’s in a bewildered state, and I can see why…

There’s a fucking brick wall where the front exit used to be!

“What the fuck…”…doesn’t even begin to convey what I’m thinking.

I’m entranced by the sudden wall, but a quick, hard backhand by a livid Emilio snaps me back.

“What the fuck is right!!! I’m gonna kill all you little fucks for what you did to Angelo!” but in that instant, an enraged Lisa jumps on Emilio‘s back! Both fall to the floor, and the gun glides away and under a China closet! John and I help pin the weasely, squirming mobster down, while Tim goes for the gun.

“You prick! This isn’t our fault, and right now we all have to figure out how to get out of this shit together!” I scream out to the foaming-at-the-mouth little fuck. I feel like there’s some sort of reluctant recognition of what I’m saying in his eyes.

“Plus we got your gun, dude!” Tim adds in as he stands with the gun in hand.

To our horror, it’s the last thing Tim will ever say. The zombies have made it upstairs. Halfa-Head chomps down hard on Tim’s neck, and violently rips his head right off!

Everyone screams, panic floods me, one of my best friends is dead…I grab hold of Lisa’s hand and make a dash for the stairs to Jimmy’s office. I catch Emilio running off into one of the chapels. John, closest of us to Tim, grabs the gun off the floor. He’s dangerously close to the zombies, who seem slow to move till they come near you, then it seems like their reflexes accelerate, but he manages to fire a couple of rounds into the zombie with the protruding instruments. I see that one goes down, and I yell for John to follow us, but he’s not listening; a bloodlust has surely come over him.

We turn to go up the stairs, and we find Matt lying by the stairs, passed out. We grab hold, and lift him up the stairs; thankfully Matt is one of the smallest guys I know!

We lay him down on my favorite couch, where I know he’ll be ok; I’m momentarily jealous. There’s more gunfire from downstairs. Lisa runs into the bathroom to grab the first aid kit, while I break Jimmy’s firebox and grab the ax. A different kind of adrenalin washes over me, it’s of the “I’ve watched one too many movies” variety. I take a few quick deep breaths, give Lisa a big kiss, tell her to call the cops, and run back downstairs. I momentarily wonder if Lisa knows anything about the brick wall, but I file it for later and brace myself for the worst…

John has emptied the gun into the zombies; the smoking barrel outstretched towards the corpses that refuse to stay down.

“Headshots aren’t keeping these guys down, Vin, and this piece is done,” says John without looking at me, his gaze focused on the rising dead men. I step forward with my ax ready to chop these fuckers into cold cuts.

John finally looks at me, then at the ax. “Huh, that might work.”

Before Halfa-Head is completely up, I swing the ax and try to lop off the rest of its head. I catch it at about the jaw joint though, and halfway through the ax gets stuck! Instrumental, the other zombie, grabs hold of the ax handle, maybe trying to help his brother, and that thought hits me hard. These guys are brothers. I let go of the ax as John smashes a chair over the Instrumental’s head. The force of the chair-shot finishes the job, turning Halfa-Head into No-Head!

To our mutual dismay, the fuck is still coming. The old lady flashes before my eyes. She did something, placed a curse or something. An old Sicilian curse maybe. I remember my grandparents talking about such things in the old days. This is what I think about.

There’s a scream from Chapel 1. Emilio. Part of me doesn’t care, but if this is a curse, then it’s Emilio that these guys want, not us.

Well, possibly me for my involvement, who knows.

“Come on!” I yell, partially to John, partially to the zombies, as we bound into Chapel 1. I can imagine what’s happening. There’s an airshaft that leads to the backyard here, behind the altar area, it’s the only way to get out there since Jimmy had our backyard door replaced with a wall. The asshole didn’t want to promote visitors going out there. More symmetry, I know. Anyway, it’s not easy to go through there, believe me I’ve tried, and I’m pretty sure Emilio is stuck in there.

As we move around the altar, I see that the casket has been toppled over, and Mrs. Fesko’s body is gone. I gulp as Emilio is indeed stuck; only his lower half can be seen sticking out of the shaft…

“HELP!!! YAAAH!!! HRRLLP!!!

…but the now the zombified woman is feasting on his rear-end! For some reason, after all we’ve seen already, this makes John instantly vomit. I guess literally eating someone’s ass is way grosser than expected for him!

Mrs. Fesko turns to us, distracted by the hurling. We give each other a look that means ‘time to go!’, but the zombie brothers have entered the room. We grab a couple of folding chairs and toss them their way. John’s is a direct hit, mine isn’t.

“If we can get them behind us, we can lock ‘em in here!” I think out loud, not trying to wonder if the zombies can understand me at all. Meanwhile, she-zombie is closing in behind us. John picks up another chair and backs her up, giving one final push into Emilio’s flailing bloody legs.

Grabbing a couple more chairs we make our move. We split up, each of us going around either side of the brothers. This works better than expected, as neither of us even have to swing our chairs. We simply go around them and get out into the lobby. I quickly close the chapel doors, locking them in. They seemed to be going towards Emilio anyway, not even looking at us as we ran out. Maybe the curse really has marked him.

“Disgratziata…” …we hear the doomed mobster cry. I almost feel bad. Almost.

We then turn around and there's a new zombie right in front of us! Angelo has risen from the dead, giant gaping hole in his chest and everything! His mouth is gaping as well, as it looks like that chicken cutlet sandwich wasn't enough for him, and we're next! How we didn't see him I don't know…

Our moment of hesitation is all Dead Angelo needs to grab both of our throats. As the air rushes out of me all I can see is the big man's hole, and I think of how Halfa-Head put his hand through it. I start blacking out, thinking of Lisa as I do, but then...

Angelo lets go. Everything is blurry. I sort of see John holding his throat, struggling to breathe. Something is happening above me, I try to focus, but everything is spinning. Angelo goes down with a massive thump; someone is on top of him. Oh my God…Lisa?!

No, Lisa is now next to me, getting me to my feet. I feel John clinging to me as well. We help him up, and then all stare dumbfounded at the struggle going on in front of us.

It's Tim's body, what's left of it at least, fighting off Angelo. The curse has brought him back, too, but apparently nothing will stop him from being our friend.

Lisa snaps us back to reality, “We have to get back upstairs!” She's right. That's the best place to either try to get out of here or make our last stand. I follow Lisa to the stairs. John is still staring; Tim was his best friend after all. I wait to make sure he doesn't do anything stupid. He doesn't, and we both get upstairs, and lock the door.

Matt lying face down on the floor is about the last thing I wanted to see right now. I pray he’s not dead. Ok, he’s not, but he’s delirious, burning up with fever. The thought that he might turn into one of those things crosses my mind, but I focus on getting him back on the couch.

John grabs the phone, but the line is dead. Of course. Lisa says her cell isn’t getting a signal. None of ours are. It doesn’t surprise me, though, I mean, the dead have friggin’ risen, nothing surprises me!

John puts forth the theory that it’s the end of the world; he’s getting hysterical. I calm him down, and tell them about the old lady and the curse I’ve convinced myself this is. It makes perfect sense to me, if only this made any sense at all!

We hear rustling on the stairs, and time is shortening. I wanted to ask Lisa about the wall, but who cares at this point. All we care about is survival. I suggest that slowing them down may be a good idea. I’m honestly not sure what a good idea is at this point either, but they think it sounds good.

We grab some chairs, open the door, and see the brothers zombie and Mrs. Fesko halfway up the stairs. I imagine Angelo and Tim locked in immortal battle elsewhere.

I fire my chair down hard at the first brother, hitting him square in the chest. The force drops him back onto his brethren, sending them all down at very awkward angles; crunching bone and rending flesh. They automatically start getting up, though. John tosses his chair, nailing the lady in head, the force snaps her head back, clearly cracking her thin neck. The gruesomeness of tonight’s event is definitely lost on all of us by now.

We grab whatever’s not nailed down, and throw them down at our antagonists. It’s a mess down there, and for a moment, I wonder how I’m going to clean it all, but only for a moment.

And as I toss down a file cabinet with all my might, I shout, “Fuck it, I quit!” surprising both John and Lisa. While John is confused, Lisa gets it right away, and plants a huge kiss on me. I take it all in, and give it right back.

It may be the last fleeting moment of happiness I ever have.

We’re out of furniture to toss and the fuckers are still coming.

John suggests we try to make a jump for it. We’re a couple of floors up, but the considering the alternative I’ll take my chances with the concrete. Lisa agrees, but there’s one problem:

Matt.

He’s out cold, and not waking. Again I fight the urge of thinking of him turning into one of those things. We’d have to toss him down, but he may die in doing so.

“It’s too risky. You guys have haveta go without me, get help.

I’ll fend ‘em off as long as I can.” Lisa is not going to let me do it. She’s staying with me, urging John to go instead. John is losing it, and clearly uncomfortable with this decision. He wants to go, sure, get the heck out of here, but he’d rather stay and give his friends a chance. He also knows I won’t leave Matt. It’s a dilemma for all three of us, but soon just for two.

From behind, No-Head grabs hold of John! I can’t believe we let it get up here that fast! Time is melting away, John is going to get squeezed to a pulp, and I’m frozen. John kicks back with all his might, and manages to get the zombie off of him for a second. The other zombies join the first at the top of the stairway, and John gives us a half-crazed look.

“Good luck!” And just like that, he bum rushes them back down the stairs. The sound of the four of them fumbling down the stairs is deafening. I run over and look for a second to see John fruitlessly fighting for his life at the bottom. It doesn’t look good. He looks up at me.

“Go, you asshole, go!”

I run back over to Lisa who’s struggling to get Matt over to the window. I grab hold of his other hand, and suddenly he grips back, and pulls me tight to him. At first, I think he’s been zombified, and I gasp, but he hasn’t…

“This…place got gas…right?” He pulls out a lighter, and I think I know what he’s getting at. My heart sinks.

“Pull me to…pull me to a pipe, Vin. I don’t have much time.” He doesn’t, that much I’ve figured, but what if we can save him?

I look him in the eye, and I know I’m not going to have any choice in the matter. Lisa helps me get Matt up and over to the gas pipe that runs from the basement, through our small kitchen area in the rear of Cotton Glass, and up through Jimmy’s office to the roof.

“Now…how about getting me a drink?” I oblige with the wine that my all but departed friends had brought me. I’m glad I will have that memory to think back on, if I can get out of here myself.

Matt chugs down the last of the wine, and then quickly smashes the bottle against the valve head jutting out of the pipe on the floorboard. The cap pops off and a stream of gas whistles out. Matt looks at his lighter and smiles at me. Lisa hugs him tightly, and then I follow.

Lisa and I get back to the window. We open up the double windows and stare down. It’s about two stories down. Some broken bones, or worse are on the menu, but it’s better than getting eaten alive.

“I want you to know that no matter what happens to us now, it doesn’t matter. You’ve more than made up for everything, Vinny. You stepped up when it counted. I love you.”

“I hate to shatter the moment, but ahem…” Matt thumbs back to the stairwell where the zombies have made their way up.

I nod, grab hold of Lisa by the waist, and jump! I imagine Matt saying something witty as I do, and his gas explosion rockets us all the way past the sidewalk, and to a park car where we smash down onto its hood!

Everything is swirling blue and purple. I can’t focus, the wind’s been knocked out of me, my back is burning, my thigh going numb. I feel something soft on my lips, and I focus on that. My vision slowly returns. Lisa is crying, but suddenly starts laughing.

I painfully sit up, Lisa looks OK, she confirms that. The hood had give the concrete wouldn’t have. I cough up blood and phlegm. The block is stirring, lights are coming on, windows are opening. Smoke is swirling out of the second floor of Cotton Glass; fire can be seen behind it.

“Holy crap! Jesus! What the fuck happened here?! What did you do, you friggin’ piece of shit!” No. No. NO! The last thing I need is to hear it from Jimmy after all we’ve been through. I don’t even know where he came from, the fuck!

I stand up, physically shaky but confidently pissed. Jimmy is fuming, too, foaming at the mouth, snotting at the nose as he continues his barking. I clench my fist so hard, I’m sure my nails have drawn blood.

I grab him by the shirt, and his demeanor changes completely. The smell of shit momentarily rises up to me. I rear back, but there’s a whoosh, and Jimmy is ripped away from me with a horrid crunching sound, which is followed by me and Lisa being covered in blood and gore. Again.

I look down to see a flaming mass of flesh. I make out one of the zombies. Neither is stirring. Lisa grabs my hand.

We turn as a black limo pulls up. The back window slides down, and the old Sicilian woman pulls up her dark veil within. She does the sign of the cross, and the limo pulls away. We walk to the middle of the street and watch it turn the next corner. Jimmy was the last part of the curse. Makes sense somehow.

I yawn, a groan really, but for once it’s most certainly not out of tedium.

* * * * *

The Doom that came to Black Water

By Desmond Reddick

The way the dust kicked across that landscape, you’d think he materialized outta thin air. He came with the storm that night. He came on a horse black as sin.

Which is funny, him bein’ a preacher man an’ all. We were drinkin’ the night away. Wasn’t much else to do in late summer what with the crops gone and the days being so long and hot. It was still bright out when he came to town and the sky was beginnin’ to go all shades of pink.

Now, Black Water ain’t always a quiet place. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. But that night things were quiet. Just the usual ruckus, but nothin’ outta the ordinary. A coupl’a shitheels started making trouble and some of my boys took ‘em out back and kicked the shit outta their heels before anything got too messed up.

I liked an orderly town. Took me months to get it that way once I became sheriff. Winston Pratt was sheriff ‘fore me and he’d grown fat and tired. Too tired to deal with the swindlers and mercenaries runnin’ rampant in the shit-hole Black Water had become. When it came time for me to have the badge, I showed ‘em no mercy. They could leave or they could kill me and stay. Needless to say, I don’t die easy. In fact, I got away scot-free ‘cept for a bullet that tore through my knee. Hurt like the devil at the time, but lately it only aches a bit in bad weather like that night.

I was puttin’ back two fingers of bourbon when that negro boy came in. If you thought things were quiet before. You could’a heard a pin drop once he walked through the door. No one said nothin’ probably ‘cuz no one knew what to say. It was quite an audacious move if I do say so myself. I liked that.

He stood there behind me for what must have felt like hours for the poor boy. Now, I never associated with negroes but I didn’t necessarily dislike ‘em. I don’t really care either way. Most of ‘em stay as far away from troublemaking as possible. This kid took care ‘a half the town’s horses an’ never ran afoul ‘a me. Judging by the fact that there were as many eyes on me as there were on him, I gathered that everyone was waitin’ to see what I was gonna do.

I turned around on my stool and that boy couldn’t’a been wringing that hat of his any harder between his calloused hands than he was right then. I smiled a toothy, dangerous smile. I suppose I liked makin’ people nervous.

“What are you doin’ in here, boy?” I bellowed to him.

“Shu-shu-Sheriff Muh-Mason, suh. Yuh-yuh-yuh – “

“Spit it out, nigger. I ain’t got all night” He was startin’ to piss me off. I had some drinkin’ to do and this stable hand was takin’ me away from that. Worse yet, he was makin’ me look bad.

Rawls, my deputy, started to move in behind him but I shot him a glance that told him I could take care of myself and the stutterin’ negro gathered his wits. Rawls was the first person I brought into town after I became sheriff. I worked with him an’ his daddy out west an’ both ‘a them were as straight a shooter as you’d ever meet. A sheriff and his deputy need to have a trust and I trust Rawls with my life and the life of this town.

“Puh-Preacher Man. There’s a preacher comin’ into town.” He looked proud of himself. Poor fella, probably scared shitless in a bar fulla drunk white folks.

“Tell ‘im Black Water’s already got a Preacher, ain’t that right Wells?!” I shouted in retort to cheers of approval. Wells, balancin’ his head on his fist in the back corner, raised his glass in agreement to more cheers.

“This ain’t like no preacher you eva seen, Sheriff.”

I had to admit that my curiosity was piqued. I finished my bourbon and put the glass down on the bar. It was the only sound you could hear ‘cept for the wind howlin’ outside. I followed the boy through the quiet saloon to the batwing doors. Rawls followed close behind me and the bar got back to its usual jovial self once we left with the negro.

The night was electric and the sky still pink. It certainly felt like a storm was rollin’ in. When I looked east down Main Street, I could see him. He slowly made his way into town through the gathering dust storm but sat up tall in the saddle of the blackest damn horse I ever seen. He made as though the storm never bothered him without as much as a hat for protection. And the closer he got, the more I was convinced that he was a ghost.

The settin’ sun behind us illuminated the fella pretty well. But still he almost disappeared set against the deep black cloud behind him. Nothin’ but a blank, pale face on a sea of black.

“Go into Barrett’s. Tell everyone to get home and close up shop. This storm is not gonna be pretty.” Rawls turned to walk into the Saloon. “An’ Rawls.”

“Mason?”

“Tell ‘em they’ll spend the night in a cage if they don’t listen right away. There’s a real hair in the butter tonight. I feel it.”

“Sure thing.”

As the dark horse brought the preacher closer, I could see more and more of his pale face. His sunken eyes, tightly stretched skin and blank expression would have made him for a dead man if his chin wasn’t waggin’ so much. I couldn’t hear what he was sayin’ but it couldn’t be good.

The roilin’ mass of black clouds behind him seemed to creep through the big sky real fast. Unnatural like. The bourbon sat heavy in my belly and my skin crawled before I set off toward the preacher man.

His face was whiter than his collar and by the time I reached him, most of the town had cleared Barrett’s and was standing in the street behind me. Rawls was shoutin’ at them to git but it took a gunshot to get ‘em movin’. Sometimes people need a little motivation when they’re on a bender. But neither the preacher nor his horse registered even a flinch at a gunshot that would have set most horses wild. That’s certainly outta sorts.

The horse took a few more steps and then collapsed on its own legs. There was a dull thud I could fell in the backs of my legs when it hit the ground. The preacher still sat straight up as a prairie dog until he tipped over and hit the ground beside his horse. Then, what happened next I’d never be able to express in words but the horse went from on its haunches with its head in the dry dirt to a fuckin’ skeleton. The hide seemed ta recede into nothin’ as the muscle and sinew pulled back quickly rending itself from the bone. The blood ran straight down off the beast and pooled into the dusty ground below creating a black pool of sludge before him. Just bone. In moments. The flesh just melted off ‘im like day inta night. Most peculiar and terrifyin’ thing I ever seen. And thankfully, Rawls had managed to steer everyone away by that time. I wouldn’t know how to explain that.

For a while, that black pool in front ‘a the skeleton was like a reflection of that thing in the sky. That is, until it seeped into the ground, leavin’ only a wet crimson stain where it once was. The wind stopped dead. The dust settled back onto the ground before my eyes and the air was still. I blinked a few times at the horse skeleton before me to make sure I wasn’t seein’ a trick ‘a the eyes. It happens out on the plains a lot but this was somethin’ else. Somethin’ terrible.

I dove to the ground where the preacher lay and lifted his sweat-beaded face out of the dirt. “Devil!” I stared into his blank eyes and thought it better than to provoke conversation. He didn’t seem like he was able to carry a conversation in the state he was in. Nor was I interested in hearin’ what he had to say after seeing what happened to the horse. His chin was still waggin’ but no words came out. I looked for someone to help pick the preacher up but not even the negro boy was around anymore.

I picked the poor bastard up out of the dirt and threw him over my shoulder. It was like he weighed nothin’. Much lighter than he looked. Light as a feather, but cold. He was real cold. I took another look at the storm clouds above before headin’ back to the office. It was much closer and much less like clouds than it looked before.

It inched forward with jutting black arms, pullin’ itself across the sky. A shifting, shapeless thing with a torrent of activity across its huge facade, it looked more like a liquid mass than anything else. Like a black sea in the sky. A black sea over Black Water.

* * * * *

I should’a been locking the shutters but the black mass over the town was mesmerizin’. It chilled me to the bone in the middle of summer. It was beautiful in a way I’d never experienced before. But I couldn’t stand around doin’ nothin’ all night.

“What’d you bring to my town, old man?” I shot a glance over my right shoulder to the slight figure on the bed in the cell. He mumbled something incoherently in the dark.

“Speak up, preacher! This ain’t natural.”

He sat up on the bed with a new clarity in his eyes. The last of the sunlight through the windows put the shadows of prison bars across his face. I couldn’t see much of him but he appeared to be more coherent.

“How can I explain what I don’t understand, Sheriff?” He spoke in a cold near whisper. An accent Mason had never heard before was well-hidden but still evident.

“That’s part of your vocation ain’t it, Preacher Man?” I stepped closer to the cell and spoke through a clenched jaw. “Now loosen your tongue or I’ll show you how I ain’t averse to cuttin’ it off.”

There was quiet. Dead quiet. There wasn’t nothin’ but my own breathin’ in my ears for what seemed like ages. The preacher sat in complete stillness for a long while before I reached for my knife. That stirred him.

“My name is Silas Hasse. I was the preacher in Dry Gulch for almost two decades before the events of last month.” His cadence was slow and deliberate. “It was Sunday afternoon and the church was empty after the morning service when a strange man came in. He was in quite a state.”

“Sounds familiar.”

“Believe me, Sheriff. I wish it wasn’t.” He continued. “He was asking for confession and when I told him I wasn’t a Catholic priest he confessed anyway.” The preacher stopped to wring his hands, his bony fingers cracking as he twisted them in his palm. It was an eerie noise set against the silence of the evening.

“He’d come from Massachusetts, he said. It was there that he ran afoul of a most mysterious cult of satan-worshippers. Their idol was fat with the head of a frog and went by the name Tsathoggua. He told me of the strange sacrifice he happened upon but I fear I haven’t the stomach to retell such horrors. His interference, he said, was what set loose this frog-demon.

“No. Not a demon,” he continued. “a god. An old god.”

“That thing out there don’t look like a frog to me.” I couldn’t believe what I was hearin’. But he looked so terrified I couldn’t help but go along with it.

“That is but a servant of the creature. When it is hungry, it demands sacrifice. If no sacrifice is made, it will seek it out by sending one of...those.” His first gesture was a nod towards the window, no doubt referrin’ to the black thing in the sky.

“What happened to this fella?”

He winced for only a second before continuing on. His breath was shallow and his speech quickened.

“He wouldn’t calm down. He just kept on screaming that it was after him. I didn’t know what he was talking about until I saw that thing out there. And by then it was too late.” His accent had begun to betray him. “I thought the answer was in that book he had, but it only confused things.”

“What book? What happened, preacher?” I was gettin’ angry by that point and he was doin’ his damnedest not to answer my questions.

“He gave me the book and then he ran. I heard him scream as soon as he left my church but the book compelled me to read. It tells of all kinds of heretical worship of Gods long forgotten by the rest of this blissfully ignorant world. It told me my fate.”

He stood in the cell for the first time and walked slowly to the bars facing me. The corners of his mouth drew up damn near to his small ears in a terrible grin and he pressed his forehead against one of the bars. His words echo in my head still to this day.

“Your town is doomed, Sheriff.”

I unholstered my Colt service revolver and put it to his head. “Where is the damned book?!”

“In my saddlebag.”

* * * * *

The thing over Black Water made no sound as it moved through the sky. It deadened the air. My body numbed as I stepped out of my office into the dusty street. The sun had almost fully set and it was getting harder to see it against the darkening sky above.

It appeared to stop moving as it loomed overhead. Terrifyin’. It just hung over this town like some terrible black hole. That’s almost what it was. In fact, if I couldn’t see it moving and stretching, I’d ‘a thought it was a hole in the universe.

I slowly moved to the skeleton of the horse in the middle of the road in front of Barrett’s and my entire body numbed but for my teeth. My, did they ache?! I kept my eye on that black mass in the sky as I ran to the fallen horse.

Even though I’d seen it die under the strangest of circumstances, the events of the evening made the horse’s quick decomposition seem almost mundane. Strange how one day can change your entire outlook. Guess that’s how the preacher felt.

I stood there watchin’ it. It was right over me, just hangin’ there. It was the most horrible thing I ever seen and yet it was quite beautiful. Like a wild horse bearin’ down on ya. If it wanted to, or if it could, it would have killed me right then. I shook the compulsion to look at it outta my head and reached down under the flap of the leather saddlebag. I grabbed the only thing inside: a black, leather-bound book with no markings on its cover. I tucked it under my arm and hustled back to the office.

The door creaked open and Rawls was standin’ in front of the cell lookin’ at Hasse. The lantern on my desk had been lit and Rawls was illuminated as he spun ‘round on me with his revolver drawn.

“Kee-rist, Mason! Where in the hell have you been?” He lowered his pistol and holstered it on his hip.

“Jus’ walked over to the preacher’s horse, or what’s left of it. I was only gone a short spell, quit hollerin’!” I shook off the numbness of the night outside and shuffled towards my desk.

“Horse shit! I been here an hour at least and you were nowhere to be seen, boss.”

“Fuck.” How long had I been starin’ at that damned thing? I looked into the cell for Hasse and he was lyin’ on the cot. “Get up!”

“Good luck, Mason. Preacher man been half dead since I walked in here.” He walked over to the wall cabinet and opened it. “Whiskey?”

“Yeah. Can’t hurt.” I stared over at Hasse who looked nothing like he did when I left. There was a cold madness in his face when I left and all I saw when I returned was a man getting a much needed rest. I wouldn’t be surprised had he ridden from Dry Gulch to Black Water without stoppin’.

Rawls took a swig from the bottle and passed it my way. I filled my mouth with the terrible mare’s milk and spat it through the bars at him. He slowly sat up and looked at me as I filled my mouth with more whiskey. That time it was for me.

“I’m surprised you made it back, Sheriff.” There was a nasty tone to his voice that made me want to thrash the butt of a rifle across his face with every word. I opened the book and stepped forward, closer to the cell. It was written in a language I didn’t know. Like jumbled up words to me.

I reached through the bars and tossed the book onto the floor beside the cot. “Tell me about the book and maybe I won’t decorate the walls with your insides.”

He picked it up and flipped through it, not lookin’ at the pages. Just staring off into the wall. “Unaussprechlichen Kulten.” He said. “The Nameless Cults.”

Hasse flipped to somewhere near the middle of the book and began to recount a chapter about a Hungarian sect who worshipped a black toad god. He described it as a god who waited for sacrifice and fattened himself on offerings he made no effort to receive. After he recounted, he stepped to the bars and whispered its name: Tsathoggua. That may have well been the language the book was written in but it didn’t mean nothin’ to me.

“How does a preacher like you come to read a language like that?” I asked through a burnin’ throatful of whiskey.

“It’s German, Sheriff. I came here out of the seminary as a young man from my home country and set up my church in Dry Gulch. It was a town that needed saving and, in the end, I brought it nothing but death.” He seemed quite upset and withdrawn but I needed answers.

“Why did you bring it here?”

“Sheriff, I rode hoping it wouldn’t follow and your little godforsaken town just happened to be in front of me. It wasn’t anything personal.”

“Neither is this.” I grabbed him by the collar and yanked his face in between the bars. He registered terror in his eyes real quick when I put my revolver between his eyes. “The book, Hasse. A madman gave it to you and it’s in your native language. You seem to have the damned thing memorized. I might be quick to use my gun but I didn’t become Sheriff because I was stupid. What aren’t you tellin’ me?!”

“The cult. The books says that it is long extinct and from a prehistoric age. But the detail in the chapter is more than any archaeologist could gather. And the illustrations –”

Rawls reached through the bars and snatched the book out of his hands. He opened to the first page and the name Gunther Hasse was second billed.

“–were drawn by my uncle. A renowned still life artist.”

“What does it mean, Hasse?”

“It means the cult was anything but extinct. My uncle could recreate what he saw better than anyone but he was terribly uncreative. He saw these sacrifices taking place. I can only assume this cult and their Old God want nothing more than to be perceived as long dead.”

I let go of him and holstered my Colt. Rawls offered the book to me and I waved him away. The bottle of whiskey on my desk was lookin’ mighty invitin’. Hasse straightened his shirt up and stood where I left him. Rawls lit a see-gar and smoked in the corner. I took a swig of the whiskey and knocked my knuckles on my desk while I thought about what I’d do next. I swore to protect this town and the people in it and for the first time in thirty odd years of service, I had no idea how to do that.

“One thing, Hasse.” I broke the silence.

“Yes, Sheriff.”

“You said somethin’ about your fate earlier. And that this cult just wants to be left alone. That’s why you got the book and why it’s been chasin’ you ‘cross creation. That right?”

“I suppose.”

“Then what’s stoppin’ me from throwing you out to face that thing out there on your own?”

His face fell. “Your good Christian nature?”

“Preacher man, I done worse in my life and felt good ‘bout it.”

* * * * *

The dust kicked up behind him as he stumbled out the door of my office. He hit his knees in the middle of the street and collapsed below the black thing in the sky. I could hear him weepin’ from the porch.

Just when I thought the night couldn’t get any stranger, the sound of knives cutting through the air filled my ears and something burst out of the belly of that formless beast. In was as black as the thing in the sky but looked like an unnaturally slim fella with wings and a tail. Looked like the silhouette of the devil on a can of chaw. Its tail coiled around Hasse’s waist and he screamed bloody murder as it pulled him into the sky.

I could hear him screamin’ but couldn’t make out what he was sayin’. Sounded like “No! Not you!”

Rawls was as shocked as I was. So shocked, his cheroot fell to the ground without him even noticin’. I wouldn’t ‘a even noticed if he wasn’t standin’ right beside me. My eyes were glued to the devil and the preacher in the sky.

The cuttin’ sound multiplied as tons, hundreds even, of the black devils shot out of that thing and began swarmin’ the town. The screams of the townfolk began and Rawls and I both made for the arms cabinet in the office. I was stopped dead in my tracks, and Rawls soon after, when one of them devil creatures was standin’ at my desk holding the book Rawls’d left there.

My heart beat quicker’n a jackrabbit and when it pointed at us. It made a deep hissing noise like something in the ground was about to give way. These things were after us too. Just then it occurred to me what Hasse had actually said: “They know! They know too!”

I drew my Colt from my hip holster and fired two shots into the devil thing as Rawls went for his Winchester rifle. He unloaded a shot of .44 into what passed for the chest of the monster. It shrieked like nothin’ I ever heard before disappearing. The book fell back on the desk and the noise outside got louder.

Rawls ran to the window and looked down the street. “Church is on fire. People are in the street. Those things are everywhere!”

I pulled another Winchester out of the cabinet, loaded it and grabbed extra cartridges. I loaded another revolver and tucked it into my belt. “I never met a problem I couldn’t solve with these until tonight. Now that we discovered those things can be killed, it’s time to kill ‘em. Black thing in the sky be damned!”

Rawls pushed the door to the office open and stepped out with his rifle drawn. I followed suit. The cuttin’ sound grew louder by the second as I assessed my surroundin’s. Where the street had been quiet and damn near a ghost town only moments ago, these black things sure stirred the folks of Black Water. They must’a gone into their homes and chased ‘em out. That I didn’t like.

I also had problems with openin’ fire on things with so many of the people I’m ‘sposed to protect runnin’ around. But it ain’t as dangerous as standin’ around doin’ nothin’. Quicker’n I could pull my trigger, gunshots started ringin’ from across the street.

Eddie Barrett was holdin’ a standoff out the front door of his saloon! I never knew the old buzzard had it in him. I nodded at Rawls who made his way towards Barrett’s to offer support. I just stayed to survey the situation.

Maggie’s place down the street had them things crawlin’ around the windows. Maggie’s used to be the whorehouse in these parts ‘til one of the whores got gutted. It never opened up again after that. The whores moved on outta fear o’ the men in town I guess. I been to meaner places. Nothin’ much goes on around here, especially after the lynchin’ bee we had with the whore-killer. No one but Maggie and her daughter livin’ there now and they don’t come outta the house much.

Rawls and Barrett seemed to be holdin’ them things off so I figured I’d round up who I could and bring ‘em to Barrett’s. Should’a stayed there in the first damned place.

I started runnin’ toward Maggie’s. Those things didn’t really pay me no mind as long as I was movin’. I passed Wells, drunk as a skunk and mumblin’ somethin’ to himself as he walked right down the middle of the street towards the black thing in the sky. Figured he’d either make his way to Barrett’s or right square into his death in the middle of the road. Anyone walkin’ towards that didn’t deserve to be saved. Old drunk probably set the church on fire by accident.

Passing the church, I could feel its heat comin’ on real strong. I did notice that none of them things were flyin’ round the fire. I could barely stand it runnin’ by.

As I neared Maggie’s I passed a whole lot of folks runnin’ out of their hotels and businesses. I hollered at them to get to Barrett’s or wait for me to come back. I’m sure they could see by the way I was haulin’ ass that I wasn’t stickin’ around to go into details.

I was within spittin’ distance of Maggie’s by the time one of those things turned around and looked at me. The light from the burnin’ church illuminated the whole façade of Maggie’s rundown place and gave me the best look at these suckers yet. This one had no face. Or at least no features that I could see. There were tiny little devil horns stickin’ outta the top of its head which just happened to complete its devilish look. It turned around and crawled down the outside wall of the place towards me. Its moves were quick but measured. I’d never seen nothin’ like it before ‘cept maybe when a cat is crawlin’ up on its prey. I saw the other two crowd the window as the other stalked me down the wall. I wanted to blast him with the rifle but I didn’t know if Maggie and her daughter were right behind the wall.

I started runnin’ faster and made my entrance by takin’ the front door off its hinges with my foot. The wood splintered and shattered as it tore away from the frame, sending shards across the room. I stepped into the dark lobby where the ticket desk still sat. My rushed entrance disturbed dust on the floor. That only confirmed that they hadn’t left the place in some time. It was eerily quiet and, thankfully, nothing seemed to move in the darkness.

“Maggie?!” I called out to the seemingly empty home. I paused longer than expected to try and remember Maggie’s girl’s name. Pretty thing. Mute too. Some would say that’s the perfect woman. I got more class than that. “Muriel?” That was it.

There was a long silence and then I heard Maggie shout. “We’re on the landin’!”

I lowered my rifle and took the stairs three at a time. There they were, huddled ‘gainst the wall starin’ at the closed bedroom door. All of the bedroom doors, and this was a whorehouse so there were at least six of ‘em, were closed. But one near the middle was shudderin’ and screeching with an awful noise.

“What the hell’s goin’ on in there?” I asked pointin’ at the door in question.

“Them things. We boarded the windows in time but they got through that one before we could get it so’s I locked the door there.” She was remarkably composed. ‘Spose she had to be for Muriel. Poor girl looked awful frightened. Maggie was clutching an unlit lamp to her breast.

The door was creakin’ as the center of it bulged out. The wood seemed to stretch to the point of breakin’ and then drew back to normal. It stopped for a moment and began to shake violently. It was the only noise in the entire house. The cuttin’ sound of them things outside was barely there anymore but I was sure they were still out there. The door started to bulge out again and I decided it wouldn’t last much longer.

“Gimme that.” I said pointin’ to the lamp. She did.

“I…I been keepin’ it out so’s they couldn’t see the light an’ all.”

“When I say so, you two get up and run, y’hear? We’re headed to Barrett’s.”

Muriel and Maggie both nodded quickly. The door let go an awful whine at the latest push of them things on the other side. I smashed the lamp at the bottom of the door, lit a match and dropped it in the oil. The place caught fire quick and I heard the cuttin’ noises get loud over the fire. Could mean them things turned and flew away. I raised my Winchester, made for the stairs and shouted for the girls to follow me.

Wasn’t even at the bottom when two of them things were standing in the doorway. The fire from the church lit their devilish features from behind as they stalked towards me. I fired four times and they disappeared into nothing. I kept firin’ in case more of them stepped out but I guess I scared ‘em off.

The street was even worse than when I left it. Townsfolk were screamin’ and runnin’ wild. Some of ‘em were bein’ picked up and dragged into the black thing in the sky. It was mayhem. Rawls and Barrett were still pickin’ them fuckers off from the front door of the saloon. The sound of fire crackling and gunshots rang in the air. I looked behind me to make sure the girls were payin’ attention and took off runnin’ for Barrett’s.

It was dark out, but the fires burned bright and lit the entire town. Even the black thing in the sky was easy to see. Bu t I think that was because it had lowered itself closer to the ground. It was just above the rooftops then.

* * * * *

The first little while inside Barrett’s I spent catchin’ my breath. Been a while since I exerted myself like that and I wasn’t any younger than the last time, that’s for sure. My breath came hard and my knee was fittin’ to pop it hurt so much. Guess I didn’t have time to stop and limp. Should’a known better than to kick the door with my right leg.

The saloon door and windows were boarded up, and as I learned when I got there, that’s what the few folks inside were doin’ while Rawls and Barrett held the door. The looks on the faces of the people in the saloon told me they didn’t feel too safe regardless. The way the screams outside were dyin’ down, I can’t say I blame them.

Hardly nobody made it down to the saloon. The Porters, a big family of eight kids, were all there, almost all of ‘em, anyway. Old Mr. Porter clutched his youngest, his only daughter, to his chest and his boys were outfittin’ themselves with weapons. A lot of rifles. Nice to see they came prepared. Mrs. Porter was nowhere to be seen and by the look on the old man, she didn’t make it. Sally Hunt and her little boy sat cryin’ near the bar. Wallace Hunt obviously didn’t make it. Then there was Arliss Hopkins and Paul Werther. Both of them’re prospectors from up north who come into town every other week or so for supplies and liquor. They both sat in the corner drunk as skunks. Then it was just Barrett, Rawls, Maggie and her girl, me and the negro boy.

“What the hell are we goin’ to do, now?” one of the Porter boys bellowed. He was a slight kid. I ‘spose you never got fat when you were competin’ for food with a bunch of other kids.

“I got a cellar. It ain’t much but a dugout really. It won’t fit more than two.” Barrett was lookin’ ‘round the room. I guess he was gaugin’ reaction to his little hidey-hole and since there was round ‘bout twenty people there, that wouldn’t do.

Rawls looked at me and I nodded at him.

“A’right now. Just keep your heads on!” He peeked out the space between two slats of wood. “Right now, seems that them things have stopped flyin’ round. I don’t see ‘em out there. That might mean it’s over.”

I struggled to get to my feet on my achin’ knee and grunted when it seemed like it wouldn’t buckle under me. “I don’t see any reason why we should be doin’ anything but waitin’ to see what happens.”

The entire bar looked my way.

“Wait in here for those monsters to do to us what they did to my dear Audrey? You’re a fool!” They were the first words Mr. Porter had spoken since I got there. If I couldn’t keep my cool, they were goin’ to be the last he ever said.

“They just wanted the book. Rawls, you got it?” I spoke carefully and deliberately. No need to stir up the den of frightened folk in here even more.

“It’s on the desk in the office.”

“Then they prob’ly got it. We’ll wait it out.” I was satisfied with that.

Mr. Porter pushed his daughter off his lap and stood up quicker’n I ever seen him move. He made for the door and started pullin on one end of the table that had been nailed into the doorframe. “You can’t make us wait, we’ll die in here!”

“You’ll die in here if you don’t go and sit on your ass old man!” Rawls yelled so that everyone could hear him. The oldest Porter boy stood up with a rifle pointed at Rawls and three of his brothers followed suit.

“Now, now. Let’s all calm down. Rawls, holster your revolver. That’s an order.” I trained my gun on Porter and his oldest turned the rifle on me soon as Rawls holstered his gun. The place was on edge. Cryin’ and hollerin’ all over the place. I spoke only as loud as I needed to. “Porter, I ain’t never shot an innocent man in front of his children before and I don’t think I’d appreciate it if you forced me to tonight.”

He stopped and looked at his children. All of ‘em had tears in their eyes. The armed boys were red-faced and itchin’ to pull their triggers. The girl was bawlin’.

“Go and sit with yer girl. She needs you right now. An’ maybe we can all calm down and figure out a plan, y’hear?” my hand loosened around the grip of my revolver as I talked. Porter’s face dropped as he walked back to the girl and the boys lowered their rifles.

I holstered my gun and looked at the three boys. With my finger pointed right at the oldest, I spoke between clenched teeth: “You little fuckers point a gun at me again and I’ll tear you down like the rabbits you sissies use ‘em on. Y‘hear?!”

The boys nodded and one made an apology before sittin’ down and puttin’ their rifles on their laps. The place had finally calmed. The prospectors got back to drinkin’ and the cryin’ got quieter.

“Sheriff?” Barrett, peekin’ through the boards over the window, spoke like he didn’t believe the words comin’ out of his mouth. “You need to see this.”

I hobbled over beside him, my knee achin’ worse and worse. I peeked through the same spot he did and didn’t believe what I saw. I ran to the far side of the bar, knee be damned, to look through the farthest window.

“What is it, Mason?” Rawls was walkin’ to the spot I just left.

“The black thing. It’s gone.” I spoke happily. Others ran up to the windows to see for themselves. “The winged bastards’re gone too!”

There were exultations of relief and prayers to God. The prospectors cheered loudly and toasted their good fortune. Sally Hunt hugged her boy even tighter and the Porter boys were hollerin’ and huggin’ their Pa and sister.

Barrett tossed me his keys and told me to go check ‘round back to make sure and got Rawls to help take the table off the doorframe. I usually don’t like bein’ told what to do but the sooner I had a drink in me, the sooner my knee would calm down. I hobbled to the back of the bar and was just started walking through the hallway when the negro boy stood up in the middle of the bar and spoke. I stopped and leant an ear for a second out of curiosity.

“They came for the book.” The voice was not the stable hand’s from earlier. There was no evidence of a stutter. And it sounded like nothin’ I heard before. Like it was being spoken but was so powerful it filled the room. I turned and looked at him and couldn’t believe it. I could only see him from behind as he stood looking at the other folk in the bar but he was as tall as a horse is when rearin’. He wore somethin’ funny and gold on his head and nothin’ but bedsheets ‘round his body. His skin had gone from a black man’s skin to literal black. There was no color to him. He was as black as that thing in the sky was. He turned towards me but I ducked behind the wall in time.

Shit. He turned into someone else real quick. Funny to think, but that still wasn’t the strangest thing I seen last night. It got real cold all of a sudden and my knee was throbbin’. The whole feelin’ of the place was off.

“They came for the book,” he repeated, his voice sounded unearthly and seemed to rattle in my ears somethin’ fierce. “and I came for the survivors.”

I spun around the wall to see what the hell he was on about and somethin’ was happenin’ with the front of him I just couldn’t see. Whatever it was had everyone terrified. They all began screamin’ their heads off. He bellowed a loud noise and arched his back. It helped me see a little bit of what was goin’ on. There were snake-like things hangin’ off his face and shaking violently. I drew my revolver, the only gun I had on me seein’ as I left the others on the bar to help get this place up and runnin’, and pointed it at the strange fella.

I felt like I was drunk all of a sudden. I was woozy and it was hard to keep my eyes open. I could clearly see the gun waving side to side in front of me and decided not to shoot. The place had exploded into madness. Whatever the stable hand had turned into was makin’ everybody go crazy as shithouse rats. The screamin’ grew louder and Sally had started to scratch at her boy’s face and neck while the Porter boys took turns touchin’ their sister all over. Mr. Porter sat back and touched himself. The prospectors were vomitin’ all over each other. Buckets of the stuff. Maggie was carvin’ something in her leg with a nail she pulled from a board as her daughter Muriel was speakin’ in tongues. Ten minutes earlier, she couldn’t talk if you put a gun to her head. I tried to call out to Rawls but thought better of it when I saw him beating Barrett’s head in with the butt of his pistol. Over the ruckus I could hear the soft wet sounds of the impact of gun on broken face. I absolutely couldn’t believe what I was seeing. That is, until I wanted to join in.

I closed my eyes and ducked back around the wall. My head started to slowly come back to normal, or as close as it could. There were stars in my eyes as I made my way to the back door down the long hallway.

“You are mine.” The voice continued to echo in my ears but much quieter than it was before. “Join me. Be my Brotherhood of the Beast.”

I was fittin’ ta run back there guns blazin’ an’ at least put the townsfolk outta their misery. But the voice was too much. I didn’t want to end up like one of them and my head was swimmin’ this far away. Whoever it was the stable hand turned inta, it wasn’t anythin’ I ever heard of. Seems to be a runnin’ theme for today.

The voice in my head faded the farther I got down the hallway so I knew I had ta get outta there. But when I got to the door, I realized that my horse wouldn’t be in its stable anymore. Neither would any of ‘em, I figured. Seein’ as the stable hand was behind alla this, he wouldn’t ‘a wanted me to escape so easy.

The mud room by the back door was sparse, ‘cept for a few coats hung up on hooks. I slowly and quietly unlocked the deadbolt of the back door and peered out onto the street. It was quiet. The only thing I could hear was the mayhem goin’ on down the hallway behind me. Somethin’ told me not to chance it outside. I’d have no horse and a man couldn’t survive longer’n a couple a days out there. Black Water was at least a two days ride by horse from anywhere else with a name. I was trapped in the town I failed to protect.

For the first time in my life, my only choice was to turn and run. I didn’t like it but I couldn’t do nothin’ about it. I closed the back door as quietly as I opened it and looked at the floor. I saw the deadbolt ‘fore I saw the outline of the hatch.

I heard ‘a worse ways of bein’ put in the ground.

* * * * *

It was cramped but it was cooler in there than even the mornin’ air outside. Barrett wasn’t foolin’ either; this wasn’t more n’a clay pit. Only took me a few minutes to pull a couple’a crates of whiskey outta the ground to fit in there. I left one crate in with me seein’ as I might’a been in there a while.

But after near half a bottle, I was as sober as I was when I started. I decided not to push it since my head was swimmin’ like it was when I walked down the hallway. What I wanted was some water and a quick bit ‘a shut-eye.

I was close to driftin’ off when I heard the scratchin’. It was unmistakable. Rats. I was under the ground an’ all. There was bound to be rats.

That infernal scratchin’ was enough to drive me cracked and I figured the bottom of a whiskey bottle had to be a good rat hammer. So I fished around my pockets for matches ‘til I found the rattlin’ little box. It wasn’t easy getting’ ‘em out as cramped as I was but I did an’ all it did for me was make me want to have a see-gar. Hell, even a cigarette would do ‘bout now. Over the rattlin’ of the matchbox, I heard the scratchin’ get louder.

I lit one match off my belt and held it up in front of my face. I leaned in ta see the rats on the other side of the crate when a face appeared out of the black and stared back at me. I was so scared I dropped the damned match. Torn between goin’ for the revolver on my hip and the matchbox on my lap, I panicked as the scratchin’ got louder. Got so loud I couldn’t hear a thing ‘til the only thing louder than the scratchin’ was my screamin’.

* * * * *

They come for me by dusk that day. I was still screamin’. I must’a sounded a mess.

As it turns out, someone from town made it out on horseback durin’ the night and run into a bunch ‘a injuns from Caddo. The all brung a ranger from Binger to Black Water. Whole dang town went ghost after one night. I thought ‘bout tellin’ ‘em what happened, an’ I still do, but seein’ as they already got me ‘hind bars, I shouldn’t push my luck.

The only thing they found in Black Water was what’s left ‘a Barrett and the Porter girl. Only thing more horrific than what happened to Barrett’s head’s what happened to the poor Porter girl’s body. T’make matters worse, somehow I was holdin’ the gun Rawls used on Barrett when they found me.

I don’t think I even know what happened that night anymore. I still hear the rats scratchin’ when things get quiet. I do know that. I also know that the face I saw down in that hole looked a lot like the stable hand, only darker.

* * * * *

Red Noise

By Sean Keller

Terry pulled a gold record off the control booth walls and lowered it gently into a cardboard box. The recording studio was smaller than you'd think. Three chambers separated by double-paned soundproof glass. A drum kit sat mic’d in one room, a piano in another. A rather large analog mixing board seemed to swallow the control booth.

A month had passed since that last day on tour and he figured that the something new for which he was so desperate would never roll around until the old had been swept away. He reached for another framed record, this one platinum, and paused. The Thrill - "Thrill Me Deadly." He chuckled, looking at the younger version of himself alongside Duke, Bill and Eric on the album cover. Eric was an ethereal beauty, part Bowie, part Plant, part something else, something new Terry thought he was something new.

Danielle stepped into the booth sipping a beer. "Last waltz down memory lane?" She was in that perfect state, a woman at the peak of femininity, full and soft and lived in. Confident in a way no young girl could be, confidant enough to know that the road is the road and home is home - two separate worlds with separate rules.

"It's harder than I thought it would be."

"You don't have to do it, you know. There's nothing wrong with leaving it up. You should be proud." She smiled and sipped her beer.

"It's just, it was his band. I'll always be the guy in his band." Terry pulled the record off the wall and placed it in the box.

"No. You aren't going to do this, I won't let you."

"You won't let me take it down?"

"No, I won't let you get all self-pitying on me. It's horse shit and you know it." Danielle took his face in her hands. "You wrote the music, you're a brilliant musician and what about Maldoror? What about The Brothers Grimm?" She was only half right. Terry had been the front man of the other two bands, and they had done well, but it was because they were fronted by the guitar player from The Thrill, and they both knew it.

"Not the same thing, baby" he said. "So let me do this my way, all right?"

She stepped back and nodded. "Fine, wallow in your past. Perfect way to start that "something new" you keep talking about, huh?"

Fuck her for being so smart

Danielle turned and started out the door. "Aaron called. He said he's got someone who'd love to meet you."

"Who?” Terry’s heart leapt, nervously. His manager, Aaron, was less than thrilled when Terry told him that he was hanging up touring life and needed something new. Was this it?

"Didn't say. Give him a call."

* * * * *

Ken Hallowell was seated and sipping a cup of tea when Aaron showed Terry into the drawing room. Leave it to a Hollywood queen to call his living room the drawing room. Hallowell was short and round, not so much fat as cherubic. And yet this gentle, soft-spoken man was responsible for creating some of the most soul-shatteringly terrifying films of all time: Post Mortem, The Night Man, Salad Days, the list goes on and on. Terry struggled to recall an odd anecdote about the director driving one of his stars to madness or murder or something like that, but the thought was derailed as Aaron cleared his throat.

"Terry Ryan I'd like you to meet Ken Hallowell."

Terry stepped forward beaming. "Mister Hallowell, it's an honor. I'm a big fan. I've seen Post Mortem like, a dozen times." That was cool, way to look like a dipshit.

Hallowell shook Terry's hand barely muttering "Likewise" under his breath.

Aaron wasted no time. "Mister Hallowell would like you to write the score for his latest film." Aaron gave a proud nod to Terry "What do you think?"

Terry swallowed hard as he took a seat. "I'm not sure.

A film score? I've never...are you sure I'm the right guy."

"You're perfect," Hallowell spoke with a quiet authority "because I chose you. Making a film is about casting. Trust me, you're perfect." He leaned forward, sliding a script across the coffee table to Terry. The title, written in dripping red lettering read: "Red Noise."

"Red Noise?”

Aaron jumped in. "It's brilliant. There's this thrash death-metal band that holes up in a house on Loch Ness to record their masterpiece. Two weeks later, the cops show up and it's a blood bath. The band, their producer, recording engineer everyone is dead - brutally murdered. The only clue is the album they've been recording. The cops play it and it drives them all crazy, they end up killing each other. The album captures evil in such a palpable way that it drives the listener into murderous rages..."

"The house in question used to belong to Alistair Crowley," Hallowell interrupted. "That's why the band chose to record there, thinking they could tap into the history of the location for inspiration. And they do." Hallowell shifted in his seat. "The music is everything to this film. The album recorded by this fictional band has to sound like madness, like homicide, but it also has to sound legitimate, like it was composed by a real rock star. You will make the music that will drive men mad."

"Why me?" Aaron's eyes went wide with a panicked look of what-the-hell-are-you-doing which amused Terry to no end. "I don't do scores and I certainly don't do thrash death metal."

Hallowell continued. "You've seen the darkness. You found Eric's body didn't you?”

That was unexpected. He should have seen it coming, but the cold slap of reality caught him off guard. "Yeah" was all he could manage.

Hallowell wouldn't let it go. "You cut him down. There was a note right? A note to you?"

Aaron cleared his throat again. "That was a rumor."

Hallowell pushed further. "The note, what did it say?" Terry could feel his head spinning. The meeting wasn't supposed to go this way. He was supposed to pick up a gig and move on. He didn't come here to relive this shit.

"It's like Aaron said, that was just a rumor" Terry muttered "his life was a waste and so was his death."

Hallowell set his cup down, wiped his mouth and rose.

"Perhaps I was wrong; you aren't the man for the job after all. You clearly don't have the requisite darkness in you for this job." He nodded and stepped to the door. Terry could feel a burning sickness in his stomach. What the fuck is this little man trying to do to me?

"He blamed me."

Hallowell stopped in his tracks.

Aaron stared at Terry incredulously. "You said…"

"I never told anyone." Terry lit a cigarette. Hallowell turned back to Terry.

"Blamed you for what, exactly?"

"Everything. The fame, the drugs, the madness. He said that I wrote song too beautiful for this world and that singing them was a curse. That we'd offended the very..."

Hallowell interrupted "...offended the very angels in heaven."

Terry turned to Hallowell, his eyes burning holes right through the manipulative bastard. "What the fuck?"

"I have my sources."

Terry leaped to his feet and pushed passed the diminutive director. Aaron chased behind him, his pleading falling on deaf ears. At the door Terry spun around to face Hallowell. "He was strung out, it was all bullshit." He fumed "And fuck you for bringing it up you little prick!"

Aaron panicked "Terry, calm down."

Terry continued on "To think I was actually excited to meet you. You're a real piece of shit, you know that?"

Hallowell smiled "When was the last time you wrote something with that kind of emotion to it? Can you do it again? Do you dare? Or is everyone right about you? Are you just going through the motions these days?"

Terry stared the little man down. What a dick. He spun on his heel and stormed out the door.

Hallowell turned to the stunned Aaron with a satisfied smirk. "Told you he was perfect."

* * * * *

Sweat rolled in rivulets from his brow and armpits as Terry pummeled the five-piece drum kit. He was lost in it. Total focus. The beat was hypnotic, tribal and his head swayed, eyes closed, with the rhythm. His face screwed into the tightly pursed grimace of a man struggling with his own skill level.

Danielle allowed her eyes to linger on Terry's shirtless frame. He'd lost weight in the past two weeks and, even though she hated him not eating, she had to admit to herself that he looked good. Really good.

He hadn't heard her enter the control booth, hadn't looked up, hadn't even opened his eyes in the past fifteen minutes. She loved these stolen moments, seeing him creating, happy, "lost in it" was how he always described it to her, as if there were any accurate way to relay the sensation of creative bliss to the uninitiated.

Colored lights jumped on the equalizer, pulsing into the red with each rhythmic thump of the kick drum. Her hips moved unconsciously to the beat. It was a good, strong beat; dirty and primal. Terry leaned into it. His grimace twisted tighter, his eyes pinched as if the driving force had moved from pleasure to pain. Danielle's nipples grew erect inside her bra. Terry bit down hard on his lip as he continued to thunder away on the kit; the fury of the blows intensifying with each bar.

Danielle leaned into the corner of the mixing board, pressing her crotch against the padded vinyl corner of the console. The music was doing something to her, all right, and she was close to falling into a thrall when something clanged, followed closely by a tirade of profanity as Terry rose fast yanking the headphones off his ears.

"Fucking shit!" He exclaimed, kicking over the high hat. He stormed through the carpeted, sound-proof door and into the booth. "Fucking floor tom!"

"Jesus, Terry."

"What?"

“You're bleeding."

He looked down to his bare, sweaty chest that was suddenly quite covered in blood. Danielle moved to him, concerned. She touched his lower lip. He recoiled, suddenly aware of a burning sensation and a throbbing. "Must've bit my lip."

"I think you need stitches." She reached for the lip again. It was gushing. Terry pulled back. "Just hold still." She examined the wound closely. Terry's teeth had obviously met just inside the lip, leaving a half-inch slit of flapping flesh. The taste of blood and her flesh swirled together in Terry's mouth...He wanted her. He grabbed her hips and pulled her close.

"Um...no. We need to get you to the hospital and get that lip taken care of."

"It can wait." He started at her jeans. She pulled back. "Come on, give me a little lovin'."

"No baby, we need to fix you up." She pulled back from him.

"If you're not going to help me then get the fuck out of the way. I have work to do." Terry snapped. He pushed her away from him little too hard. She fell back into the black leather sofa along the back wall. Terry grabbed a handful of tissues from a box on the mixing board and, stuffing them into his mouth, began rummaging through a cupboard filled with odd musical instruments. He pulled several drum heads from the cupboard. No floor tom. "Damn it."

"Terry."

"Not now, I gotta run to Sam Ash and get a new floor tom head." He grabbed a dirty Rolling Stones t-shirt and threw it over his bloody chest. He pulled the wad of bloody tissue from his mouth and tossed it in the trash.

"Terry, wait."

"I'm close; really close I just need to..." He grabbed another handful of tissues and stuffed them into his mouth.

"They aren't open."

Terry glanced to the clock over the mixing board. "It's four thirty-five. Traffic will be getting shitty, but I can be there and back in like twenty..."

"It's four in the morning." Danielle smirked. Terry paused, processing the information. "It's Thursday morning. You've been lost in it for half the week already. Now please, come with me..." she took his hand, leading him slowly toward the door. "We're going to the emergency room and I'm going to have the doctor prescribe something to help you sleep as well."

Terry yanked his hand free. "No."

"Honey, please. I know this is important to you, but you're starting to scare me." She tried to take his hand again, but he turned his back on her.

"You don't have to be so fucking dramatic." He sneered.

"You're the dramatic one. I'm the sea of calm, remember? Listen to me. You're going a little over the edge here and you need a break. Besides, you can't get the equipment you need for another couple of hours...come on." Danielle pleaded, hand outstretched.

"Leave me the fuck alone, I'm working here" he barked at her and plopped down at the chair behind the mixing board.

"Terry" her voice cracked.

"Are you fucking deaf? Get out!" He hit the playback. Drums thundered, He brought up the levels on several other tracks and a droning, grinding noise joined the pulsing rhythm. It was a slow, repeating wail that lagged, unsettlingly behind the beat.

Danielle knew the routine. He'd come crying to her later, apologizing, begging her to forgive him like he'd done a dozen times before. And she'd do it. She knew she'd forgive him, but right now she just stared at him with a burning anger, a rage that threatened to bubble over. The music was maddening. It was a wall between them. A thought rose in Danielle's mind, an ugly, vile thought; something she'd never felt before.

Kill him.

It shocked her, terrified her, but remained in the back of her head. A glowing ember of rage that wouldn't die. Kill him.

Terry killed the track and turned to her, snapping "Dani, please... I have to finish."

Danielle backed away from him. A feeling of shame and guilt washed over her as the homicidal instinct slowly receded. She stared at Terry, unable to move or speak.

"God damn it, I said get out!" His eyes had lost the kindness she had come to depend on. The sharpness of his tone forced her to instinctively backpedal out the studio door. Terry turned back to the mixing board and hit the playback again.

Danielle slammed the door and stepped backward to the pre-dawn quiet of the poolside patio. She plopped down into a striped chaise, her mind reeling. What the fuck just happened?

* * * * *

She washed the Xanax down with a bottle of water and sat on the edge of the bed, staring out the window at the red light over the studio door. The sun was coming up. She was truly worried about him. He'll be done soon and be back to normal, she thought, just like before. Just like all the other times.

But this wasn't like all the other times. There was something different going on, something almost foreign about him, about that music, it seemed...evil. Stupid. It's just fucking music; it can't possibly be good or evil. Can it? Stop it, you're overreacting.

The Xanax was kicking in and her anxiety started to fade into the soft, warm fuzz of acceptance. She spread out on the bed and was asleep before the next thought could completely form in her head. I really wanted to kill him, didn't I?

* * * * *

Terry looked like death; hollow eyed and rail-thin. He hadn't eaten anything more substantial than an apple in two days, and that was just to shut the bitch up. Well she wouldn't be getting in here again, he thought. No more distractions.

A wooden board that apparently used to be part of the now-shredded sofa had been nailed across the studio door. Terry lit a cigarette with his blistered and scabbed-over fingers. He shouldered the Les Paul, slinging the strap over the deep red welt where the guitar strap had cut into his flesh. He couldn't feel a thing now; nothing but a yawning chasm of need that could only be filled by the work, the sound.

He reached for the standby switch on the Fender Twin Reverb as a knock came from the door. He pushed the intercom button and screamed. "Can you not see the red light? You almost fucked-up a take! Leave me alone!"

A thin voice crackled through the speaker. "Mister Ryan? Is it done yet?"

Fear flashed across Terry's eyes. It was Hallowell. "Almost. I'm just polishing it up. I'll have it ready for you any day now, honest."

Hallowell's voice chimed again "I would very much like to hear a sample, may I come in?"

"No. Soon."

"When?"

"Soon, come back soon. I'll have it all done." Terry's heart pounded in his chest. The pressure was going to crush him, he could feel it.

Hallowell piped up again after what seemed like a full minute. "I'll be back tomorrow."

Tomorrow? Shit, that's too soon. "Can you make it the end of the week?"

"Tomorrow is Saturday. It's been more than two months." He paused. "How does it sound?"

What kind of question is that? You can't describe a sound! Terry pounded his fist against the intercom, trying to reach through the devise and crush the little man's smug fucking face. "It's good. It sounds really fucking good, all right?"

"Is that what Eric would say?"

Terry went white and looked up to Eric, who swung limply, creaking from the exposed rafters in the control room, his purple tongue bulging from the lifeless lips.

Outside the studio door, Hallowell waited for a response. Danielle stood behind him, putting on the brave face, trying not to appear concerned. A patch of white was creeping almost imperceptibly into her blonde locks.

"How the fuck did you know Eric was here?" Terry's voice crackled over the intercom.

"Oh god." Danielle cried as she pushed past Hallowell, pounding on the door. "Come out! Please come out of there! You're killing yourself!" The sea of calm was gone replaced by panic. Hallowell simply smirked and strode off toward the driveway.

She chased after him, jumping between the little man and his car. "Go back there and tell him to stop!”

"But you heard him, he isn't finished yet."

She slapped him hard. "He'll listen to you. Tell him to stop and come out. Tell him there isn't going to be a movie, that you've moved on to something else." The tears were flowing fast as she pleaded with the director. "Please, you have to help him."

A red hand print blossomed across Hallowell's cheek. "He isn't done yet." Danielle collapsed to the flagstone path weeping.

* * * * *

The guitar squealed over the speakers. Terry sat at the console, listening to the isolated guitar track. He tweaked the equalizer the tiniest bit and then unclicked the isolation button. The force of the full orchestration filled the room. Terry closed his eyes tightly, cranking the volume. He put his head down, adjusting levels, bringing up odd clanking counter-point percussion. A screeching, wordless vocal track shrieked over and over. The repetition of the beat, the off rhythm guitars and the droning mad calliope sound all blended into a nightmarish cacophony. But something was missing. Something vital.

Terry's eyes popped open.

* * * * *

The bedroom door opened silently. Light streamed across Danielle's sleeping body. She sat up quickly, disoriented. She barely gasped at the sight of Terry's skeletal silhouette in the doorway. "I'd like your help...if that's okay?"

She leapt from the bed, throwing her arms around Terry, practically knocking his weak frame to the hardwood floors. "I've been so worried. Are you all right? You look terrible."

"I'll be fine." He voice was cold, distant. "I just need a little help and I can be done. You'll help me won't you?"

"You're still not done?"

"Almost. I just need some help," He repeated. "You will help me right? "

"Of course. Anything."

Taking Danielle's hand, Terry stepped slowly down the hall. "It's going to be beautiful, you know. It's going to be like nothing anyone's ever heard before."

* * * * *

Hallowell stepped across the back patio toward the studio's open door. Terry appeared in the doorway, a disc hanging limply in his bloody hand. Hallowell paused, but made no outward expression of fear or disgust or anything other than professional curiosity.

"Is that it?" He inquired. Terry nodded. His bare chest spattered with a fine mist of blood. "May I have it?"

Terry handed the disc over and turned back into the studio without a word. Hallowell followed, wiping blood from the disc and tucking it carefully into one of the over-sized cargo pockets on his pants. Looking up from his task, Hallowell froze in his tracks.

A ring of various microphones surrounded what was left of Danielle's body. A long, skinny SM57 was stuffed halfway down her throat. Hallowell couldn't help but think the hundred tiny flaps of skin flayed away from muscle and bone made her look like the piñata he had purchased for his daughter's birthday last summer. The coup de gras was evident from the pool of blood spread out from a deep slit across her throat.

"She isn't tied down?"

Terry looked up from behind the mixing board. "She said she’d do anything for me...she helped me finish." He managed a weak smile and drummed his fingers on a bloody straight razor. “In love her so much.”

Hallowell nodded. "She must have loved you very deeply indeed." He allowed his eyes to linger once again over Danielle's mangled frame. He patted Terry on the shoulder. "Well I have some music to listen to. I trust you won't be available later for my notes?"

Terry laughed. It was a surprisingly hearty laugh, bigger than his frail frame should have been able to support. "I don't suppose I will."

"Then I thank you for your diligence. I'm looking forward to hearing it." Hallowell smirked again and strode out of the studio. Hopping into his car and firing up the engine, he slid the disc into the CD player and pulled down the twisting driveway, music blasting from the speakers of his convertible S-Class Mercedes.

* * * * *

The music kept blaring long after Hallowell's Mercedes plowed through the crowd at the L.A. Farmer's Market and slammed into the trolley. The impact that sent Hallowell's body flying sideways out of the wreckage seemed to have no effect at all on the stereo. That's quality German craftsmanship for you.

It was difficult to hear at first. The cries of the mauled and those grieving the dead rang for several minutes before the music began to rise above the din. But soon, Terry's haunting, cacophonous dirge echoed across the scene as angry victims and witnesses alike descended en masse to see what maniac could have done such a thing.

The shoppers never knew what hit them.

The madness repeated in waves, starting over again every time the screams subsided enough to hear the music. By noon, the disc had replayed three times and gutters ran red with blood.

* * * * *

Contacting the Dead

Words by Dezi Sienty, plot by Dezi Sienty & Cassandra Thomas

Death. It is something that all us mortals must confront at some point in our lives: death of a friend, death of a family member, the death of ourselves. It is part of our nature to die. It is something that is final—something that should never be tampered with. Before you read the rest of this tale, heed my warning…

Do not try to contact the dead.

Our tale starts with the death of a young boy, the son of one Doctor Henry Doyle and his beautiful wife Adelaid. Dr. Doyle was an intellectual; a brilliant surgeon who made a large sum of money. He had a well to do life and provided the best for his wife and his only child. He was not a religious man. No, Dr. Doyle believed in science, in cold fact. With all things he was reasonable. He was madly in love with his wife Adelade and showed his love through the lifestyle he built for her, through intellectual conversation and though the private moments they shared as he lie in bed with her every night and woke up with her every morning, 5:00 am on the dot. When they’re son died of an illness that Dr.Doyle could not treat, everything changed.

The Journal of Dr, Henry Doyle, PHD

My heart grows heavy and my mind numb. It has been four months since my son passed away, and my wife is still in bed, motionless. She hasn’t spoken, hasn’t moved in. Save for some bread, soup, and water every couple of days she does not to eat. All she does is sleep. She misses our son. I failed him. I have failed her.

Though the grief I experience is great, I keep it locked tight inside. I must retain my decorum for the public, for my patients, though my heart bleeds every day. I have suffered a great loss, and wish I could believe that my son is in paradise. I wish I could, but at heart I believe what I can see, hear, touch and prove. I am weighed down with guilt. I see no reason to otherwise assume that when we are not meant for this world anymore that we are simply dead, asleep forever. Adelaid though, she feels differently. I have never seen someone so in tune with her emotions, or with her beliefs. It is the reason I fell in love with her and have continued to love her. It was a horrible trial to lose my son, I can not handle losing my wife too. I fear this. She stays in bed all day and night, hoping for some sort of sign that our boy is ok, that there was a reason for his early demise. I will do anything to save her. If there is a way to prove that there is an afterlife, that my boy is ok, I will find it. I begin my search tomorrow. Recorded this day-
the 29th of September, 1929

Many days and weeks passed. Dr Doyle would work feverishly after hours talking to different people of different religions, finding rare books on the subject at strange occult shops. He consumed book after book on life after death. Some of the authors were from the far east, others claimed to be modern day prophets or shamans. They all said something different. Still the good doctor continued his quest, soaking in information.

One day, Dr. Doyle ran across a former patient named Robert. Robert, a former engineer, was once a strapping, brilliant man with broad shoulders and dark hair. Now he was a withered away raisin. He hissed when he talked, was always very tired, and retained a simple posture of an arched back huddled over a wooden cane. These two men of reason started talking. Henry Doyle was telling Robert the events of his wife and son and of his quest.

Robert became very excited as he listened to Dr. Doyle. He told Dr. Doyle that he has had a new way of looking at death, that he has found proof.

“My day is coming soon, and when that day comes no one wants to be a skeptic. There is a man, a psychic who many of my friends claim can talk to the dead. I have seen his work though he claims he is just an illusionist, I have seen him work miracles. He will cost you, but even if he can not contact the dead, maybe he can at least convince your wife that has, her some peace of mind.”

Dr. Doyle listened earnestly. Though skeptic, Dr. Doyle sought out this psychic. After doing a little more research, he found that the person he was looking for was called “The Amazing Arthur”.

From the Journals of Dr. Doyle- December 1929

I have not been attending to Adelaid of late as much, but I do it for her benefit. Upon recomendation I have been following a fellow who many believe can contact the dead. He claims he is a simple illusionist, that this is for entertainment and has no real powers. The Amazing Arthur. I assure you it is a fabulous show that I have seen many times. While I do not know what I feel given my research, the one thing I do know is that if anyone can convince my wife that our son is alive, it is Arthur. If there is a god, may he forgive me for testing the fates, but I miss my wife and can not bare this. Against my better logic I am finding that out of my desperation lies sliver of hope that this might work. Forgive me my son, but you are dead, I am not. Forgive me.

Around the time of the Holidays, Dr. Doyle had arranged for a private meeting with the Illusionist. The Amazing Arthur was a tall, pale, skinny man with a pot belly. He had deep, piercing black eyes and was soft spoken. Dr. Doyle told Arthur his problem, of his wife and his son, and propositioned Arthur to hold a séance using one of the Doctor’s rare books on the occult.

“Please sir, I will pay you handsomely!” pleaded Doyle.

“Realize Doctor, that I am an illusionist, not a priest. I have used my psychic abilities before for very small feats, I have never held a séance nor do I make any cIaim that I even have the ability to talk to the dead. I want to make this perfectly clear before we continue.”

“Yes sir, I understand,” said Dr. Henry Doyle.

Suddenly the Doctor thought about his son, about the idea of contacting him. He knew it was a long shot, but maybe between Arthur’s abilities and his collection of books, maybe there was a slight chance of contact. Even if not, he know Arhur would be convincing. All at once the good doctor broke down, skin red and crying. Tears started pouring from the plump doctor’s cheeks uncontrollably. His knees became weak as his legs gave out from under him. He knelt down, sobbing, clutching Arthur’s jacket. The proud doctor reduced to an innocent, upset child.

“Please, I don’t know if it’s going to work. I am not a man of faith, but I just want my wife back. There is nothing else I can do. Please!”

Shocked, Arthur helped the quivering man him to his feet.

“I’ll do it. Let us meet soon, and we will discuss details.”

“Thank you. We will figure it out together. Let us meet after the holiday and I will pay you then.”

From the journal of Dr. Doyle

December 29th-1929

The time is upon us. Tomorrow the Amazing Arthur comes to my home and performs the séance. I have told my wife, and for the first time in a very long time she smiled. There is a faint glimmer of hope. She wants to hear from our son so badly. I am praying for a miracle. I have scoured every library, every shop of the occult, and read through many books on the procedure. Upon my research I found a particularly old and rare book on the subject, and have selected that to be the book we will use to perform the procedure. I am anxious but excited. Something in my heart tells me that this will work. I will have my wife back to me, and perhaps maybe even proof that my son is ok.

The Amazing Arthur showed up right on time.

“Here’s the book,” said Dr. Doyle as he handed it to Arthur. It was a very old, dusty book with strange, almost other worldly markings.

“I found this at an old bookshop and paid handsomely for it. I figured out of all of my books and readings, this seemed to be the most unique,” said Dr. Doyle.

“I couldn’t agree more. It really is fascinating,” replied Arthur. “Let us get on with this.”

The two men quietly tiptoed up the long spiral staircase that was in Dr. Doyle’s home. Dr. Doyle quietly knocked on the door.

“Sweetheart? It is time.”

The two men entered the room. Adelaid looked weak and frail, as if she was one step away from being a corpse herself. With a flicker of light in her eyes she smiled. She was going to talk to her son. He was going to be ok.

Arthur and Dr. Doyle sat on the bed. The good doctor helped his weak wife sit up. The three of them held hands as the Amazing Arthur start flipping and quoting pages from his book of the occult.

“Keep your heads bowed and your eyes close.” repeated Arthur over and over again.

“Spirits, can you hear us? Those above, those below? We beseech you, show us that you are here!”

Arthur’s speech was long and drawn out with conviction, like that of a preacher. His demeanor was calm even though every muscle in his arms and face twitched violently. Every now and then Arthur would look down at the book and read the next page. Hours went by. Page after page Arthur read to his captive audience.

At first, nothing happened. Arthur repeated the text. Still nothing. Upon the third reading of the text, Arthur started shaking violently and speaking in tongues. His voice dropped and crackled like a burning log over fire. There was a great gust of wind that seemed to just appear from nowhere. The air was hot. It burned. The covers came flying off of Adelaid as her lips gaped in fear. Dr. Doyle’s eyes got very wide. He was not expecting this.

Arthur’s eyes rolled into the back of his head as he began coughing up blood. The blood was so thick it was almost black as the tributaries ran down his chin, staining the bed sheets.

It was chaos. Books were being thrown left and right due to the hard winds. Outside there was a symphony of dark, black clouds, heavy rain, lightning and thunder. Furniture slid across the floor as every fly and insect made it’s way into the Doyle’s bedroom, infesting the place. Arthur’s speech was gone, replaced only by manic laughter as he was silhouetted perfectly against the violent window behind him.

Adelaid cried and screamed as loud as she could. In a fit of desperation she clutched on to Arthur’s bloody shirt and pleaded:

“Please, I just want to talk to my son, please.”

Arthur was no longer in control of his body. His skin was a pale gray, his eyes were white, his teeth were pink from his bleeding gums. He walked amidst the great gusts of wind in the room towards Adelaid, as if he was a marionette and someone unseen was pulling the strings.

“This has gone on too far! Stop this! GET AWAY FROM MY WIFE!” shouted Dr.Doyle.

Arthur’s cold, boney fingers savagely grabbed Dr. Doyle around the neck. With one hand he lifted him up. Arthur pulled Dr. Doyle close to him so that they were face to face.

Arthur cocked his head to the side, staring at the paralyzed doctor as a child would look curiously at an insect. Face to face, the last thing the good Doctor saw was the curved, bloody lips of Arthur, smiling as they bore down into the Doctor’s main artery. The Doctor grew white as a sheet as his body went limp, a river of blood flowing out of him collecting pools on the bed. Adelaid’s heart gave out at the site of it. I guess one really couldn’t live without the other.

Then everything went black. As I looked down, I saw two dead, one savagely mauled, the other relatively clean and graceful. The contrast was almost poetic. Then I saw him. He’s the perfect image of me. My hair, my height, my skin color, my eyes. He was wearing my rust colored clothes, no longer clean and prestine like they were earlier on that day. He got up over from the dead bodies, stares gently stared directly at me and smiled. That’s when I realized I’m not myself anymore. I have no body. I was looking down at him from above. One should not interfere with the dead, even if one isn’t serious. Never contact the dead, you never know what’s on the other side…and if anyone sees the Amazing Arthur…run.

* * * * *

Copper

By Blake M. Petit

Clem never saw the stranger as he approached his fire. He didn’t see his face in the flickering tongues of flame, didn’t see a black silhouette of his body blocking out the stars, didn’t see a glint of moonlight reflecting off the six-shooter dangling from his hip. As he stepped into the circle of orange light, Clem could see that his dirt-colored clothes were flecked with spots of copper that made him wonder if the man had once been a miner. His hair was coal-black, and so were his eyes, and his face hadn’t seen the sharp edge of a razor in a least a week. Of course, Clem’s hadn’t met one in years, so who was he to judge from beard growth?

“Mind if I join you, old-timer?” the stranger said.

“Mind if anyone I don’t know sits at my fire,” he said. “Mind if most folks I do know sit here, but that don’t apply to you, does it?”

“Guess not,” the stranger said. He smiled, baring a set of teeth impossibly white.

Clem would usually try to run off someone muscling in on his camp, but the iron hanging at the stranger’s side kept him friendlier than he otherwise would have been. “What’re you lookin’ for?”

“Short and to the point, eh? Just some warmth, maybe some water. Some conversation.”

“Conversation?” Clem laughed. “What the hell would you want that for?”

“What can I say? I collect stories. I was hopin’ I could hear yours.”

“Ain’t got much to tell.”

“Aw now, that ain’t true. Everybody’s got a story in ‘em.” He glided a hand down to the pocket of his dry, dirty jeans, fished around for a moment, and came out with a small, black bead.

“What’s that?”

“Just a little somethin’ to exchange for the company.”

“I got no use for no jewelry.”

“This ain’t jewelry, friend.” He sat at the fire then, uninvited, and held the bead out in front of him. The light danced through it and refracted through like a brief burst of obsidian lightning.

“Naw, this ain’t jewelry. You say you ain’t got a story to tell? No hopes, no dreams, nothin’ you want to do before you die? Come on, son, ain’t you ever wondered what you’re really capable of? Well this little sucker here can show you all that.”

“What are you talkin’ about? Some sort of Indian mumbo-jumbo?”

“Somethin’ like that. But this mumbo-jumbo really works.”

Clem scoffed, stroking his beard. He didn’t need no magic bead to know what he could do. He’d been mining for 30 years now. He’d spent all this time doing best he could, diggin’ out nuggets, spending the money on food and feed. Never getting ahead.

He could have done more.

“How do I know that works?”

“If it don’t, what have you got to lose?”

Clem didn’t say anything, but the stranger correctly found assent in his eyes. He held the bead out over the fire, relaxed his fingers and let it fall. The flames hit the head before it fell on the embers, and a puff of black smoke escaped, drifting over to Clem’s nostrils. The first puff didn’t do anything. Or the second.

By the third, the world was swimming.

Clem had expected to see himself pulling pans of gold and setting himself p in a mansion – servants and fine foods and wine floating like water.

But what he saw was just himself, slagging into town, broke again, another claim picked clean. And he saw himself paying a visit to Mary Parson, the widowed school marm. He saw himself paying a visit to Mary’s daughter, Ellen, not a tick older than eleven years old. He saw himself giving her a special visit.

She was small, she didn’t fight it much, and he saw her not fighting it much. Then when her mother tried to chase him out of the house, he backhanded her – one blow, hard enough to shut both her mouth and her eyes for a while, so he had time to finish.

Ellen wasn’t the only one. Town to town, girl to girl, sometimes greasing a palm so the law would look the other way, sometimes greasing a parent to let him in the room. Over and over, ‘till they found him dead in a bed in Carson City next to a 13-year-old girl that already had his replacement in her belly.

The vision dissipated, parted like smoke, and he realized he was curled up like a baby, shaking back and forth, with the stranger staring him down with red eyes.

“Whut… I ain’t never…”

“No, you didn’t,” the stranger said. “But you would. If you could.”

He hand drifted to his his, then, and he sighed. “Just once I’d like to see one of you rangers didn’t turn out to be a complete waste ‘o flesh.”

Clem saw what he was reaching for, drawing his gun, pointing it dead between his eyes, and the last thing Clem thought before the hammer came down into the chamber was maybe those flecks on the stranger’s clothes weren’t copper after all.

* * * * *

Redemption

By Corey Graham

Trevor stuffed the last tough lump of bread into this mouth, gulped his water, and grinned at Jim. “If I told you the truth about what I've done, you'd kill me faster than you'd kill any of those things out there.”

Jim stared at him wide-eyed. The late dinner he had just eaten – hard bread from the local bakery – churned in his stomach. He suddenly feared for his daughter's safety in the company of their new companion – their only companion now. Sara was in the next room reading a teen magazine Jim found for her the day before.

The candles scattered around the rundown apartment cast soft shadows, making Trevor's appearance all the more menacing. Silence.

Sucking the rest of the water from his bottle, Jim emitted the best fake laugh he could. A bead of sweat formed at his hairline and slid down his face. Trevor was amused, brushing his unkempt hair out of his eyes and shifting his 275-pound frame in the creaking kitchen chair.

“What's the worst thing a man could do?” Trevor asked, locking eyes with Jim.

The look sent a chill through Jim, and all he could do was stare back, frozen. Something about Trevor's eyes said there was something not quite right going on in there.

Sara screamed.

Jim leaped out of the rickety chair, knocking over his bottle and running into the next room. Trevor rose to his feet but stayed in place.

Sara cowered in the dark corner of her room. “Someone's out there,” she pointed a shaking finger to the window overlooking the parking lot.

Sara wasn't handling things very well. Jim could see it, and it tore him up inside. The dead were walking around eating those who were still alive – that alone was enough to drag even the most level-headed person to the outer edges of their sanity. Jim hoped they could hold themselves together until they got somewhere safe, with more people. He and his daughter had witnessed three family members being gutted and eaten alive, their house in roaring flames with the rest of the neighborhood, on top of too many other nightmares.

Jim lay a hand on Sara's shoulder and she flinched, sobbing. He crept to the window and parted the blankets they had fastened over it. Somehow the public lamps still illuminated most streets and parks in town – that meant the power plants were still running, meaning there were still people out there somewhere.

“Do you see him?” Sara breathed.

He didn't. The view through the window could have been a photograph – everything was perfectly still. The parking lot was set back between the neighboring buildings. Just beyond it was River Street, and beyond that was the river. The lights spilled out past the road to the bank of the river, and Jim saw nothing out of the ordinary.

“Are you sure it wasn't your imagination?” Jim asked.

“Yes!” she snapped. “Someone's out there.”

A second scan of the parking lot produced the same results. “Stay here sweetheart, I'm going up to the roof.” He went to the corner and helped her up, embracing her in the most reassuring hug he could give. She cried, not wanting to release him.

He kissed the top of her head and finally pulled himself away. “I'll take care of things.”

“Dad,” Sara pleaded, her voice breaking up through the tears. “Please don't go out there.”

He paused in the doorway. “We're safe up on the roof. We'll be right back.”

His words didn't help. Sara pulled herself into a ball in the corner, visibly shaking. Jim forced himself to go out to the kitchen, where Trevor was already shoving shells into his shotgun.

Jim grabbed his 9mm from the back of the sofa. The small gun looked large in comparison to his lanky body. Clicking off the safety, he marched toward the door at the far side of the kitchen.

“Whoa there,” Trevor stood up. “Slow down, give me a second.”

Jim paused, resting the gun on the barrier of furniture and boards in front of the door. The last thing he wanted to do was to leave Trevor in the house alone with Sara – he was probably a child molester or something even worse.

“Yeah, man,” Jim said, still facing the door. “Sorry.”

Trevor sensed something different in Jim. He knew Jim didn't trust him, and maybe he was justified in being cautious – Trevor never dreamed he would be capable of doing what he did before everything fell apart. The funny part about it is that none of it mattered now. Everything was different – the playing field was leveled.

Jim shoved his gun down the front of his jeans and released the 2x4s that wedged the door shut. Trevor slid the old dresser out of the way with one hand and gripped the shotgun with the other. Jim took one more deep breath and reached for the doorknob.

Trevor grabbed Jim's shoulder and he jumped. He turned towards Trevor, terrified.

“Remember – don't shoot unless you absolutely have to. We take them down silently first,” Trevor instructed.

Jim gave a slight nod, looking down at his pistol. Then he grasped the doorknob and twisted slowly. The latch clicked; the hinges whined ever so slightly as the door cracked open; Jim held his breath. He squinted and moved closer. The sea of pitch blackness beyond the doorway gave him no clue as to who – or what – may lurk outside. He stepped out.

Trevor followed, shotgun over his shoulder. The tapping of Jim's footsteps on the rusted metal ladder up to the roof broke the unnatural silence that was characteristic of the outdoors since the dead rose.

The silence was almost worse than the walking dead – it had just about driven Jim's wife Tammy insane during the first weeks after the initial panic fizzled out. They had to keep quiet to avoid drawing the dead's attention, and there was nothing – no cars, no insects, no birds, no anything – to provide that constant background drone. Even though the silence made Tammy crazy, Jim would have given anything to have that crazy woman with him again.

Stopping just outside the door to let his eyes adjust to the darkness, Trevor strained to look into the alley below for signs of movement. Things had calmed down in the town of Walker for a couple weeks, which is why they decided to stay there instead of moving on. They wouldn't stay there forever, that was for sure. Others were surely out there somewhere, and soon Trevor, Jim and Sara would have to venture out to find them.

The alley was clear. Jim was on the roof already, and Trevor grasped the rusty rungs to begin hoisting his large body up. Holding the shotgun at the same time didn't help the awkward climb. Finally reaching the top, he tossed the shotgun over the top and swung a meaty leg over. Jim crept along the far side of the roof and looked down into the parking lot, trying to spot the man Sara insisted lurked there. Trevor joined him at the roof's edge, gasping for breath and mopping sweat off his face.

Visibility was next to nothing beyond the green cast of the parking lot lamps.

Jim grew impatient. “What do we do? I think she was just seeing things.”

Trevor was still for several seconds. Jim didn't think he was going to answer, and almost asked again, but Trevor finally spoke.

He exhaled slowly, having finally caught his breath. “You know, this is all my fault.”

“What's all your fault?” Jim asked.

“The people out there, the dead people walking around,” Trevor said, staring toward the river. “It's because of me.”

Jim thought he was joking. “Because of --”

Trevor turned and looked directly into his eyes, interrupting him. “I'm telling you this here and now so Sara doesn't have to hear it.”

Jim folded his arms in an attempt to relax and hide his trembling hands. The big man was clearly disturbed, and Jim was terrified of him, not sure if he really wanted to know what Trevor had to say. He opened his mouth to respond, but nothing came out.

“But I'm a changed man,” Trevor said, retrieving the crushed pack of Camels from his hip pocket. He put a bent cigarette between his lips but didn't light it. “Still need to quit smoking, but I've come a long way.”

Jim faked a smile. “What did you do?”

Trevor held his gaze. His lips formed a smug smile, and the cigarette bobbed.

* * * * *

February 2nd. Trevor decided to pile the dead bodies along the windowless wall. He did a half-assed job of wrapping each one in clear plastic from a roll he had stolen from the UPS store. He hoped the plastic would help contain the smell of death.

There were going to be more bodies. He hadn't intended on there being this many at the beginning, but once things got going, they just kept rolling. If you're going to do something, you might as well take it as far as it will go. There was one the first day, two the next day, two more the next… and he just hit number 11 after dinner.

His apartment was the second floor and attic of a big old house on the outskirts of Walker, a depressed rural town that was a shell of what it had been thirty years ago. The guy downstairs who smoked all hours of the night and was a general asshole was given the honor of being victim number 2 – mainly because he saw Trevor drag victim number 1 into his apartment. Trevor didn't even know his name, and didn't even bother to take the wallet out of his pocket to find out. He pulled that kill off so well that when the police knocked on his door after a few days of his neighbor being missing, they only asked him if he had seen or heard anything. When he said he hadn't, they thanked him and left. That was it.

There was another thing really funny about number 2: he was the only one of the 11 that was over the age of 10.

The attic was damn cold. Trevor opened one of the warped windows and lit a cigarette. He thumped his big ass down on the filthy carpet and blew smoke outside, admiring the way he piled the bodies. Then he glanced out the window, down to the sidewalk below. The mailman shoved envelopes into the box at the dentist's office across the street, and the fat retarded guy who did nothing but roam the streets all day stood at the corner waiting for the light to change.

What an easy kill that fucker would be, Trevor thought. But he'd never be able to kill the retarded guy – he'd feel bad about that. Kids, on the other hand, were pesky little fucks. Spoiled and loud, always running around without a care in the world. The look of terror on their little faces when you grabbed them around the neck, squeezed, and thrust a blade between their ribs was unmatched. After the first one, Trevor was addicted.

It was too cold in the attic for a second cigarette. He rolled back to his feet and went downstairs, locking the flimsy attic door behind him. He threw his coat into the corner of the hall, pulled his creeping t-shirt down over his gut and kicked off his work boots.

“Son of a bitch,” he grunted when he saw no beer in the fridge. He didn't bother to put his coat back on, immediately marching downstairs and out the front door. Turning left, he headed for the corner bar for a twelve-pack.

Trevor walked fast for a man of his girth, but he was freezing. A line of traffic headed north on his street – going toward the interstate, no doubt. He wondered what had been going on in town to produce that much traffic on a Tuesday night. Then an ambulance appeared, zipping around traffic, its deafening siren filling the air as it went halfway onto the sidewalk to get around the crowd.

Strange.

But beer was on Trevor's mind – not the heavy traffic. As he continued down the sidewalk, three more ambulances and two police cruisers sent by in different directions. After five minutes he pushed through the thick oak door of The Chief.

The place was dead – not even the bartender was in sight. The worn TV on the wall behind the bar was muted – it looked like a news report about a fire. Trevor didn't pay much attention, going straight for the cooler in the far corner.

The selection was pathetic. Settling for two six packs of cheap swill, Trevor clanked the beer onto the bar in hopes of drawing the attention of the bartender, wherever he was. He watched the TV while he waited. Now it showed the scene of a pileup on the highway. It must have just happened, Trevor thought. The reporter on location looked panicked and disheveled, and cars were pushing through the accident scene like the wreckage was just in the way.

“Probably where those ambulances were going,” Trevor muttered, annoyed that he had to wait. The Chief had been his second home for the better part of two decades, and he never had to wait around for someone to help him. It was also odd that no one else was there – every night the same pack of drunks arrived to drink up the government's money.

Horns honked outside. More sirens came and went. Trevor thought he heard a gunshot in the distance, but dismissed the thought. Everyone knew you couldn't fire a gun within city limits.

“Hey,” he shouted, pressing his bulging gut against the sticky bar in an attempt to lean over and look into the back. Grunting, he pushed away from the bar and went around to the end, where he lifted the hinged counter and walked behind the bar. He looked down and almost threw up.

Trevor was used to violence and blood – 11 cadavers in his attic proved that – but he wasn't ready for what he saw on the floor leading back to the kitchen. Blood was everywhere. Pooled on the floor, smeared on the walls, flung on the counter. In the middle of it all, Cigar the bartender (Trevor had never seen the man smoke a cigar – that's just what he was called) lay disemboweled, permanently staring at the ceiling.

“Son of a bitch,” Trevor said, backing out through the bar, colliding with an unsteady table and knocking over a stool.

I'm a killer, I should be able to deal with this, he thought, feeling cold sweat begin to seep from his brow. But what kind of sick bastard does something like this?

Grabbing the two six packs from the bar and one more from the cooler – hey, what the hell – Trevor eased out the front door as calmly as he could and scampered around the corner into the alley. The street was still bustling, and Trevor was sure that a lot of eyes were on him, but a guy carrying beer out of a bar was forgettable. At least, he hoped so.

Hugging the beer to his chest, he took alleys the whole way back. He didn't notice the stinging cold as much – he was shaking because of Cigar. Because of the pile of flesh and organs soaking in the pool of blood.

“I fuckin' hate guts,” Trevor puffed as he walked as quickly as he could through the dark alleys. Town was loud that night – louder than Trevor had ever known. It seemed as though everyone had jumped in their cars and drove around town all at the same time. Something was going on, but Trevor wasn't interested in finding out what it was.

What he needed was a lot of beer. And when he finally barreled through his apartment door, he set the cans right down on the floor and cracked one open. Damn near the best beer he'd ever tasted.

Finishing it in seconds flat, he let the can fall to the floor, took off his boots and scooped up the remaining beer. He opened another one on the way up the rickety staircase, chugging before he reached the top.

Throwing the remaining beer in the refrigerator, Trevor sat down in the middle of the living room floor in silence. Cars, trucks, vans and buses rumbled outside. Trevor tried breathing slowly and deeply in between long swigs of foamy beer to help calm himself. The image of Cigar's splattered innards swam through his mind, turning his stomach. The second beer was gone, then a third and a fourth. By ten o'clock, six pack number two was nearly kicked and Trevor had almost forgotten the gruesome scene as he stared out the window at the clogged street. Traffic had come to a halt. People were yelling at each other now; one man in a dirty suit jumped out of his car and kicked the fender of the car ahead of him. A fight broke out between two people farther down.

Something was definitely going on. But Trevor was getting drunk and cared even less than before. He still wasn't to the point of being sloppy – he had a disturbingly high alcohol tolerance – and was sure-footed as he lit a cigarette and headed to the bathroom.

A loud knock on the wall behind him scared him in mid-piss. “Whoa,” he blurted, thrusting out a hand to steady himself. “What the hell?”

Another thump, but not as loud. Trevor finished his business and tried to figure out what kind of animal could get into the walls and thump around like that.

That was it. The attic. The noise was coming from the narrow stairs to the attic – he had forgotten to close the window again. A bat or a bird must have flown in and was thumping around in a panic. It had happened a year before – Trevor was drunk, the bat flew down the attic stairs, and he spent nearly an hour chasing it around with the laundry bag. A lamp and the rocking chair had both suffered fatal damage in the process.

WHOOMP! The wall shook more violently than before. Whatever thumped around was definitely bigger than a bat.

“Shit,” he said, and hurried out of the bathroom to the attic door, letting the cigarette fall from his lips. He reached out to grab the knob, and just as his fingers came in contact with the cold metal, the door burst open, ramming his face and landing him flat on his ass. His head snapped back when he hit the floor, and the back of his head bounced off the corner of the wall.

His vision swam; he saw gray. Blood flowed from the front and the back of his head. It filled his eyes; the last thing he could make out was a shape falling through the door. He heard something moving around at his feet. Was that the crinkling of plastic?

Rolling onto his hands and knees, Trevor crawled down the hallway into the kitchen, still mostly blinded by the blood flowing from his forehead. Spinning around on the dirty linoleum kitchen floor, he dragged the back of his hand across his eyes to clear his vision. He gasped – he was surely hallucinating.

Someone walked toward him from the hall – the boy he had just killed earlier that day. Still half-wrapped in plastic, the boy stumbled into the kitchen, falling onto the cracked linoleum with a wet thud.

Two more rolled down the stairs, hitting the bottom and crunching against the wall, leaving red splats on the cracked white paint. These ones weren't in their plastic anymore. They all rose to their feet again, their bodies contorted at sickening angles. Trevor's asshole neighbor appeared next, managing to stay on his feet as he turned to face Trevor. His jaw hung slack and his eyes were closed; dark blood was crusted around his throat where Trevor had slit it.

“Oh God!” Trevor screamed.

At that moment it all became clear – they were coming back for revenge. His actions were so deplorable that God was punishing him right there and then. He deserved to die – none of the 10 kids or single adult he had killed deserved to come to that kind of an end. Trevor's victims wouldn't be able to rest until they were avenged – he had seen enough movies to know how it worked.

Trevor dropped to his knees as the dead advanced, tears gushing down his cheeks, mixing with the blood. More dead children tumbled to the bloody carpet; the nearest two were a few feet away and getting closer.

“Ahhh,” he sobbed. The closest dead boy shed the plastic from his head, stared at Trevor with empty eyes, and opened his mouth. His t-shirt, originally yellow, was stained red in front, and the two holes were Trevor had stabbed him were in the middle of the red splotch. The boy reached out a pale arm and lurched forward.

Trevor peered through the blood and tears and screamed, toppling backwards into the kitchen table. Clambering to his feet, he shoved the kitchen table to the side and, without thinking, dove straight out the window, shattering the old glass easily. The frame caught his arm and flipped him forward. A man his size wouldn't survive a 2-story drop onto asphalt, but Trevor didn't care.

But he didn't drop onto the asphalt. The landlord had parked his 20-foot enclosed trailer in the alley just below the window, so the drop was cut to about 8 feet. Crashing to the roof, Trevor felt the metal deform under his weight. He sat upright, stunned, gazing into the street light at the end of the alley and listening to the traffic, watching the puffs of his breath drift up in the winter air.

His pursuers came to the window above. Trevor broke his trance and looked up to see the boys crawling over each other to get out the window.

“I'm sorry!” he screamed, crawling to the tiny ladder at the back of the trailer. A boy fell out the window, cracked his head off the trailer, broke his neck, and slumped to the alley with a gurgle. Another dropped down but missed the trailer all together, falling to the alley with a sickening thud.

Trevor took one step down the ladder then jumped the rest of the way. His boots smacked the asphalt, sending waves of pain up his legs. He looked up again; three of the kids were trying to come through the window all at once, along with his asshole neighbor.

There was movement behind the trailer. One of the kids limped toward him, her arm bent around at a strange angle. The top of her head was a mash of blood, brains and splintered bone.

God was punishing Trevor, but didn't want him to die yet – of this he was sure. God saved Trevor by putting that trailer in the alley, and had a plan for him yet.

“Show me the way, God!” Trevor screamed, running the down the alley on throbbing legs.

The kids followed.

* * * * *

“My wicked ways are finished. I'll never kill again. And God brought me here to you guys,” Trevor said, turning to look over the parking lot again. Then he whispered: “Oh shit! Get down!”

He hunched down; Jim didn't move. He was entranced by the images running through his mind – Trevor killing kids; packing them in plastic in the attic; the bodies getting up again and coming after him. Jim was terrified that he had let this man live with him and his daughter – and his wife, originally. It was completely irresponsible of him. Trevor was capable of being a monster, and they were all at risk.

“I -” Jim breathed, finally crouching with trembling legs.

Trevor gripped his shotgun with both hands and pressed his back against the wall. “He's coming from the river,” he said.

Jim's shaking hand raised the pistol, and he began to stand up again. He spotted the figure right away – a tall man shambling along the riverbank. His long shadow danced across the grassy area and up onto an aging picnic table.

“No!” Trevor whispered loudly, grabbing Jim's elbow. Jim froze. His arm shook in Trevor's grasp.

“You stay up here and cover me – I'm going down to smash him,” Trevor said, releasing Jim's elbow and crawling toward the ladder.

Gunfire would draw attention to them, and more walking dead people would come. Carelessly firing guns had almost been their death sentence the first time Jim and Sara went out looking for food – they learned that lesson quickly. One gunshot drew dozens of zombies from a supposedly empty area within seconds. They had managed to remain silent while they had lived at the apartment, and had very little trouble with the dead finding them.

But Jim was on edge now that he knew who Trevor really was. As he watched Trevor drag his belly to the other end of the roof, he remembered they were running out of food, and planned to make another run tomorrow. How could he trust Trevor the murderer with their lives? He wasn't about to buy the religious awakening story – once a killer, always a killer.

Trevor pulled himself over the top of the ladder and climbed down. Jim had never wished harm on anyone during his 39 years, but he hoped Trevor didn't survive down in the parking lot. Sure, he was big and strong and could toss the shambling corpses around with his bare hands, but if the mood caught him right, he very well may slice them both up.

The rusty ladder squeaked as Trevor's weight stressed it. Jim closed his eyes, breathed deeply and gripped his pistol tight with both hands. In another minute he heard Trevor's footsteps tap down the fire escape and into the alley; his hard boots echoed off the buildings as he approached the parking lot.

Jim peered up over the ledge, trying to spot the wandering man again. He saw no one. Trevor's shape appeared on the edge of the grass where the last bits of light fuzzed out to darkness. Creeping into the light, Trevor suddenly raised the butt of the gun and sprinted to the other end of the lot. It was the fastest Jim had ever seen him move, and he almost laughed at the sight.

There was only one hit—a sickening crunch that seemed louder than it should have been. In another moment Trevor reappeared in the light, catching his breath, running the butt of the gun through the dewy grass. Satisfied, he walked back around to the alley, glancing around for any more visitors.

Jim felt sick. He couldn't help but picture Trevor killing all those kids. Sara could very well be his next victim. So could Jim.

I should just shoot him now and tell Sara he had been bitten, Jim thought. The bite was a sure way of dying a coming back again – Tammy found that out first-hand.

Jim immediately felt horrible for thinking such a thing, and for wishing that Trevor would be killed in the parking lot. Tears formed in the corners of his eyes, and he ran a trembling hand through his greasy hair. What was he becoming?

Trevor's footsteps echoed in the alley again. The pistol never left Jim's sweaty grip as he crouch-walked to the ladder, drying his eyes with the sleeves of his sweatshirt. Trevor was already in the alley below, and they met up on the fire escape at the back door.

“Got him,” Trevor grinned, opening the door.

“Good job.” Jim faked a smile and followed Trevor back inside. Sara was wrapped in a blanket on the couch, and snapped her head up when the two of them came in.

Jim rushed to her. “Are you okay, sweetheart?”

She nodded, sniffling and rubbing her eyes. Jim sat down beside her and wrapped his long arms around her, watching Trevor as he re-secured the door.

Trevor knew he was taking a risk when he told Jim about his past. He saw right away that it bothered Jim, but that was to be expected. He didn't care; God brought him here for a reason, and he knew for sure that this was where he was supposed to be. He had to be completely up front with everyone – it was the right thing to do. It was worth the risk.

“You two get some rest,” Trevor said, sitting on the wicker chair in the corner of the living room. “I got first shift tonight, I'll wake you up in five hours. We have to go out tomorrow.”

* * * * *

The sun threw its first rays down the river and Jim hoped he could get some sleep before they went out for food. He hadn't slept at all while Trevor was on watch. He was desperate to protect his daughter – the only family he had left, the most precious thing in the world to him. She was the only reason he clung to life after he saw his wife succumb to the infection and then come after them. He hadn't been able to bring himself to kill the thing that his wife had become – she still roamed around out there somewhere. But without Sara to love and protect, Jim would probably have let his wife take him with her.

He was petrified with indecision. Trevor had it in him to kill innocent people for no reason at all; at the same he time was extremely valuable for survival – smart, strong, focused. He didn't get rattled easily or make many mistakes. Jim's 160-pound physique was barely adequate to protect himself, let alone his daughter.

Jim couldn't sleep while all these thoughts rolled around his head.

All three of them would go out that day. It was unsafe to go out alone, and Jim wanted Sara with him at all times, even though he hated putting her in that kind of danger. The more people that went together, the safer everyone was.

Light gradually filled the valley of the tainted town of Walker, and Jim did one final groggy check of the surrounding alleys and parking lot before checking on Sara. He eased the door open and stuck his head in. Curled up on the only bed in the apartment, she slowly inhaled and exhaled, her mind in a place far better than where her body lay.

A board creaked behind him. Jim spun around, kicking the door and waking Sara, who sprang upright. It was Trevor, up with the sun as usual.

“Morning,” Trevor grunted.

Sara was already out of bed, pushing past them and walking to the bathroom.

“You scared me,” Jim admitted, leaning against the wall.

“We should get this food run out of the way as early as we can,” Trevor said.

Jim said nothing, crossing through the kitchen and collapsing on the couch, exhausted. Could he sleep while Trevor and Sara were both awake? No – he had to stay up and keep an eye on Trevor.

“Sara gets a gun,” Jim said as he sat up on the couch, avoiding Trevor's eyes.

Trevor was stunned by Jim's forwardness, but wasn't about to change his stance on giving a young girl a deadly weapon. They had been over this twice before. “No, she doesn't,” he said, calmly leaning on the kitchen chair.

Jim got up and walked into the kitchen and retrieved the spare 9mm from a drawer under the counter. He pocketed it and walked back into the living room.

Trevor raised his voice. “The baseball bat is good enough, it's a lot safer.”

“Be quiet!” Jim snapped in a hushed yell. “Do you want to draw a mob of those dead people right before we go out?”

Trevor didn't know how to react – Jim had never talked to Trevor that way. He was speechless.

“I'm giving her a gun. She's all I have.” Jim walked to the single window in the living room and parted the thick blankets hanging over it.

Trevor rose and took a step towards Jim. “We're not giving --”

Sara came out of the bathroom. Trevor saw her and froze.

“I wish you guys would stop arguing about me,” she said, slamming her glass on the kitchen counter and filling it with water from a pitcher by the sink. She drank the entire glass in one gulp.

“Honey, I'm giving you a gun when we go out,” Jim said, taking a step in her direction.

Trevor wanted to stop him. He wanted to grab the gun and knock Jim sideways for encouraging a sixteen-year-old girl to wave a gun around while they were trying to gather supplies. It was much safer if she used the bat like she did the first night. But Trevor restrained himself – he was a different man now. These were dangerous times, and they couldn't afford to let squabbles like this endanger their safety.

Jim handed Sara the gun. “This is the safety,” he told her, pointing.

“I know,” she cut him off. “Can we just get this over with?” she huffed.

“Um, okay.” Surprised Sara knew anything at all about guns. Jim turned to Trevor and looked him in the eye for the first time that day. “Are you ready?”

Trevor snatched his shotgun from the table. “We need a plan. Let's go up to the roof.” He looked at Sara, who held her new weapon at her side, and took a deep breath.

Confidence washed over Jim with the small victory. Trevor arrived and took control so quickly, Jim felt like he and Sara were just along for the ride. Even though Trevor was big and strong and could level a dozen walking dead without much thought, Jim had suspected that something was up with him from the very beginning. Now Jim was completely disgusted with the man.

The three climbed to the roof. From the far corner they could see the top of the town's only large grocery store a few blocks away. The presence of the walking dead drifted through the air, and the stench of death was stronger than ever. The only sound was the gentle flow of the river. Walker was a skeleton of a town where the dead roamed freely.

“We can't go roof-to-roof, can we?” Jim asked.

Trevor watched how Sara handled her gun. “There's no way,” he said. “And we shouldn't go through the alleys. I don't want to be surprised if we need to run down an alley and it's blocked.”

“I don't see any of those dead people at all,” Sara said, standing on the ledge and tucking the gun in the back of her pants. She pointed north. “If we run up along the river and turn up Elk Street, it'll be 2 blocks to the parking lot.”

Trevor raised his eyebrows, impressed. “Good,” he said. “You lead us there.”

Jim couldn't believe what he just heard. “Sara -”

“It'll be easy,” Sara said, shrugging. “We'll just have to be quiet.”

With that, Sara led them down to the alley. There they stopped, studying each direction.

Jim was shocked. This was a completely different Sara than he had known in the prior weeks. Overnight, she changed from the fragile, sobbing teenager to a confident leader. As she stood against the wall in the alley, Jim felt a lump in his throat, realizing that she looked like her mother – every bit as beautiful and strong.

She started down the alley toward the river, staying close to the grimy brick wall. Trevor and Jim pushed themselves to keep up with the teenager's quick pace as she paused at the junction of the alley and Elk Street. Pressing her back against the wall and holding her breath, Sara gripped her gun with one hand and peered around the corner.

Sara gasped and hopped back.

“Two,” she whispered, catching her breath. “Or three.”

Trevor moved up past Sara and looked around the corner. And there they were – three shamblers in single file headed the other way. All three were on the sidewalk just in front of the Lutheran church, and suddenly one of them stepped off the curb and came crashing down to the oil-stained street. The other two didn't seem to notice.

Bringing the shotgun up to his chest, Trevor looked back at Sara and Jim. “Three of them right in front of the church,” he said. “If we run past them, they could follow us to the store.”

Sara pulled the gun from her back.

“No Sara!” Jim snapped, immediately regretting his harshness. He rubbed his forehead and put the other hand on her shoulder. “Sweetheart, only in an emergency.”

“I know, dad,” Sara said with a textbook teenager eye roll. “It makes me feel safer if I'm holding it.”

“I can smash them with my gun,” Trevor said, keeping an eye on Sara's gun. “You two look around for more.”

He didn't wait for their approval – he ran down the street. The walking corpses heard the clop-clop-clop of Trevor's boots coming toward them and turned just in time for Trevor to smash the first one on the nose with the butt of his gun. Bone crunched and thick dark blood oozed from the hole in its rotten face. It raised its hands, grabbing for Trevor as he dislodged the gun.

The second corpse came around the first and Trevor took a step back. This one wasn't as rotten as the first, but was just as repulsive. A woman in a gray business suit covered in bloody gore, she hobbled because a huge chunk of her left thigh was missing. Bites were taken out of her chest and abdomen, and when she raised a hand up toward Trevor, two of the five fingers were snapped at the second knuckle, dangling loosely. He shoved the woman away for the moment, coating his hand with her blood. With the other hand, he swung the shotgun upward at the first corpse, connecting underneath its chin and snapping its head back so hard that its neck cracked. The head did not snap forward again – it stuck, the neck bulging strangely. The corpse could only stare upward, and it lost its balance, collapsing to the sidewalk.

The woman came for him again, and this time Trevor swung the shotgun like a baseball bat, obliterating her skull, sending red bits of skull and mush through the air.

Jim watched from the corner of the alley, wondering if Trevor had done similar things to his victims. He looked like he was enjoying it too – he'd probably enjoying doing those same things to Sara, right before he wrapped her in a plastic bag.

Sara looked in the opposite direction, squinting to make sure nothing moved. She didn't want to see what Trevor was doing – the wet crunches she heard were more than enough for her.

But the sounds didn't last much longer as Trevor made short work of the third corpse. He bent down and ripped a sleeve off the body at his feet and used it to clean the gore from his gun. Discarding it, Trevor wiped the sweat off his brow and gave a thumbs-up to Jim.

Jim faked a smile and awkwardly returned the thumbs-up. Only then did he glance around to make sure nothing else stalked them. Sara turned and started towards Trevor, and Jim followed.

They were one block from the store now – and no other walking dead in sight. Bodies were scattered throughout the streets and alleys, on porches and in cars. They rounded the corner into the parking lot of the store, slowing in case anything lurked there – but it was bare. Debris fluttered across the lot; only two cars sat in the farthest row out.

Lights were still on inside; lottery signs lit up the front window. Trevor leaned against one of the cars, catching his breath and surveying the area as Sara and Jim caught up with him.

“We each get a shopping cart,” he puffed. “We get as much as we can. Hell, if the power's still on, then the freezers and coolers are still on…there might be some meat and stuff like that's still good.”

They nodded, all looking around in fear of being silently assaulted.

“Let's just sit tight a few minutes,” Jim said, clutching Sara's arm. “See if anything's moving around in there.”

Trevor snorted. There could be a hundred of them packed in back of the store as far as they knew. But he decided not to question Jim. He noticed a big difference in the way Jim acted around him ever since he learned about Trevor's past. He obviously didn't trust Trevor anymore. But they had to work together to survive, which meant Trevor would have to make an effort to be as cooperative as possible.

He still wrestled with why God had led him to Jim and Sara – and Tammy. Especially after everything that had happened in the weeks before he ran into them – but he didn't want to think about any of that. All he knew is that God had a purpose in it all – something…anything.

A few minutes passed and Trevor had enough. They were accomplishing nothing and wasting daylight.

“It's clear,” he said. “Let's roll.”

He looked at Jim before he moved. Sara was ready to go too, gripping her gun with both hands. She looked at her father and nodded.

“All right,” Jim said, frowning.

Sara led them again. Jim wanted to catch her and pull her behind him, but held back – she needed to do this. Their footsteps echoed loudly through the streets of Walker even though they tried to move silently.

At the front doors, Sara stepped on the rubber pad. The doors whooshed open. Jim and Trevor followed her inside, and they all paused just inside. Everything was still lighted – the displays, the lottery booth, the soda machines – as if nothing had ever happened.

The shopping carts were lined up by the door, and Trevor didn't wait for the others – he grabbed a cart and darted to the nearest aisle. Sara did the same. Jim was more cautious, watching Sara closely and trying to keep up with her. By the time he had his cart, Sara and Trevor were on opposite sides of the store.

Jim went for the center aisle, loading his cart with crackers and cookies and chips and pretzels. The cart filled up quickly, and he ran to the back of the store to see if any of the meat or dairy was still good.

The scream pierced the air and terrified him – he was hoping he'd never hear it. Abandoning his cart, he sprinted in Sara's direction. Rounding the end of the aisle, he wailed as he saw a man in an apron take bites of flesh out of Sara's shoulder. Blood spurted onto the walls, the shelves, and the floor; Jim tackled the man at full speed, ripping him off of Sara and knocking over a peanut butter display.

Jim was on top of him. The man's right eye was gone, and his face was covered with blood. Bits of blood-soaked skin and muscle were still in the man's mouth. Jim punched him in the face.

He heard Trevor's footsteps. Spinning around, he saw Trevor running to Sara's still body. Jim kicked free of the biting man and raced to Sara, shoving Trevor aside.

“Get away from her!” he yelled. The puddle of blood around her was enormous and growing. “Sara!” Jim wailed, hugging her limp body to him.

“She's dead,” Trevor said.

“Shut the hell up!” Jim screamed, hugging Sara tighter.

“If you're not careful, she'll -” Trevor started, but held his tongue. He reached down for Jim's shoulder to pull him away from Sara's dead body. She could come back at any time, and wouldn't care whether it was her father or not – she would be hungry.

As Trevor's hand was touched Jim's shirt, Sara's eyes snapped open. Trevor couldn't react fast enough – Sara grabbed his hand and bit off the first two fingers.

Blood sprayed onto Jim's face. Screaming, Trevor pushed away from them and clutched his hand tightly to his chest. The blood kept spurting.

Jim stood up, watching in horror as Sara spat out the severed fingers and reached for him. He stumbled backwards, then heard a shotgun blast. The man who had attacked Sara flew back across the floor, his arm blown off by Trevor's unsteady shot.

“Run!” Trevor screamed, struggling to reload.

Jim couldn't move. Sara's hand clutched his calf and squeezed, and he sprang back in terror. “Sara,” he breathed as she came for him, bloody mouth open.

Her head exploded with another shotgun blast. Jim avoided most of the splatter, gasping at the mess that used to be his beautiful daughter.

“You son of a -” Jim roared, turning to face Trevor just as he spun the shotgun around toward his own face.

“Get food and get out,” Trevor said peacefully, and pulled the trigger.

* * * * *

The Law

By Derek M. Koch

Rain collected in the divots of Marc Temple’s black leather jacket. His dark hair hung in streaks across his forehead and into his vision as his tight eyes dared the body before him to rise. For good measure, his trigger finger flexed and another bullet lost itself in the rotting corpse’s head.

The rain muffled the sound of the gunshot as well as the meager parking lot area lights’ illumination. Marc let the muzzle of the Baretta cool before tucking it underneath his jacket and into the back of his jeans. His eyes drifted from the dead thing to the parking lot itself. He moved the hair out of his face and scanned the area. Three cars. One his. One truck. Two dumpsters. A few shopping carts. No movement. The rain blanketed the shopping center’s lot. Still no movement.

Marc scraped his car keys off the wet asphalt and unlocked his car door. He tried to brush the collecting water off his sleeves and shoulders before sliding inside; his wet shoes squished against the floorboards. Starting the engine first, Marc retrieved his cell phone from the glovebox. The cell’s screen was flashing, indicating a new voicemail.

Not waiting long enough to let the engine warm up, Marc turned on the heat anyway and brought the phone to his ear. He let his eyes drift across the parking lot through the rain-riverred windshield while he listened to the message.

“I know you told me not to call you once you started,” it began. Marc recognized the nasal sound of the man’s voice immediately. “But I wanted to tell you something important.”

Marc’s jaw shifted as he ground his teeth. “I know you told me I shouldn’t have,” the voice continued, “but I called the police. I didn’t know – ”

Marc dropped the cell phone on the passenger seat and turned on his headlights. Foggy beams of light slammed the dumpsters several feet in front of his car. Marc turned his head and surveyed the parking lot. The same truck. The same shopping carts. Still no movement. The two other cars…

Marc pushed the gear shift and slowly backed out of the parking space. He turned the steering wheel, sweeping the blurred streaks of light across the lot. He drifted as the haloed headlights came across one of the cars. Through the wet darkness, he could make out details he missed before – a broken window, jagged scraps of torn fabric draped across the car door, the rain mixing with something darker, trailing away from the car.

And a dashboard police light hanging across the back of the driver’s seat.

He reached behind, retrieved his Baretta and checked the ammunition – half a clip. Marc punched off the phone before shifting the car back into, “Park,” and getting out.

He left the car door open as he inched his way toward the police car. The rain had let up just slightly. Marc moved toward the car alongside one of the fuzzy bright shafts of car headlight, his outstretched arm and gun carving a slice of shadow. He could see even more detail now – red mixed with the rain around the police car. Speckles of glass shimmered like tiny red rubies in the muted light of the parking lot. And blood.

Marc shook his head. He had been hired to take care of two of these things. Animated corpses, zombies, undead, whatever the client wanted to call them – he was paid good money to deal with two of them. Two. He put one down in the alley on the other side of the closed grocery store. That one was easy; it had no idea it was being hunted. The second one took Marc Temple by surprise. Attacking from underneath his car and moving faster than Marc would have liked, it tried to knock his gun from his hand, but only succeeded in making him drop his keys before catching the first of two bullets in the brain.

The brain was the key. For whatever reason, the zombie movies had it right. Those in Marc’s profession had even jokingly named it, “Romero’s Law,” after the director who made a number of the zombie films.

Marc watched for movement, but saw none. No more than a few feet away from the police car, he stopped his approach and started to circle the vehicle, keeping a slight distance between himself and anywhere one of those things could be hiding.

A thump. A scrape. Marc peered into the car, but saw nothing. The thumping noise again. The sound wasn’t coming from inside the car. The headlights of his own car were trying to reach him, but the moisture in the air and the police vehicle blocked them. The lights were shining directly at him, and that’s where the sound came from.

With one hand, he brushed his hair out of his face, and with the other, he raised the gun. From the direction of his own car, another scraping sound, like wet wood on metal, sifted through the rain. Keeping the police car between himself and the source of the noise, Marc watched more intently, and saw movement.

It wasn’t his car, but the dumpsters further behind it. Shadows gulped the light around them, and Marc could barely make out the figure – the partial figure – trying to pull itself out of the rusty green metal box.

Marc moved quickly to his own car and reached underneath the driver’s seat. He pulled a flashlight and shot the beam at the dumpster. One half-hand had broken itself on the lip of the dumpster and the other hand had managed to wrap its rotten fingers around its edge. The top of the thing’s head bobbed up-and-down as it tried to pull its wet, worm-eaten weight out of the dumpster.

Using the flashlight to mark his target, Marc took aim and waited for the head to raise high enough for him to get a good shot. It would only take one, but if there was an officer down, someone would eventually come looking for the missing policeman and he didn’t want to be here when they came around. He had to do this quick and get out of this town, preferably tonight.

The flashlight’s beam caught the gleaming near-triangle of skull white surrounded by a scabbed scalp and runny clumps of hair. Muddy eyes that had fallen deep into the thing’s skull rolled loose as it finally brought its face to bear. Its features were slack and sanded away by decay. An ear – its left – hung limp, barely attached and resting on its shoulder.

Marc didn’t hesitate. He pulled the trigger and the corpse’s head burst into wet confetti.

As the loose body fell back into the confines of the dumpster, Marc heard more. He kept his flashlight and gun raised as he slowly advanced, straining his ears, ever listening for the inevitable sounds of police sirens. Through the rain, he heard it again. It wasn’t the expected sirens.

What he heard instead was a groan. Getting louder. Human? Coming from the dumpster.

Marc quickened his approach, his flashlight and gun barrel leading his eyes. He shot the flashlight beam into the dumpster, skimming over wet trash and garbage and two bodies. One was the creature he had already dispatched. The other was much more intact.

But not much. Half of his shirt had been torn, revealing equally torn and gnawed flesh beneath. Two circular chunks had been chewed away from the pale man’s body – one from his neck and one from his arm. The flashlight reflected off the gold badge attached to the man’s bloody belt. When Marc moved the light to the man’s face, the light disappeared in another bite wound across the man’s left cheek. The light pooled in his shocked pale brown eyes. He squinted and slowly moved his uninjured arm to block the light from his face.

Marc cast a quick look around, saw no further movement, and lowered his Baretta. “Can you stand?”

A shiver ran through the officer’s body. “Maybe,” slipped from his lips as he struggled to put his weight underneath him.

Marc took a few steps back. These walking dead didn’t normally speak, but he didn’t want to take any chances. He kept a finger wrapped around the trigger of his gun and watched as the police man – a plain clothes officer – slumped over the edge of the dumpster and worked to put his feet solidly beneath him on the wet asphalt. His wounds were fresh. The rain washed a sheet of blood across his pallid face.

“You have a license for that weapon?” The man’s voice wobbled as much as his legs. An errant hand reached to the bite mark on his cheek.

Marc watched the policeman carefully. His gun was lowered, but he kept his finger arced around the trigger nonetheless. “How long?” he asked.

“What?”

“How long since you were bitten?”

“I don’t…” His hand slumped to his side. “What time is it now?”

“Doesn’t matter. You have a gun?”

“I did. I dropped it.” He looked to the dumpster. “In there.” He started to turn toward it.

The Beretta raised a few inches. “Leave it. You’re going to need to listen to me, and I’m tired of getting rained on. Your car. Come on.”

The officer hesitated until Marc raised the Beretta a few inches more. His hand trailing back to his chewed cheek, he slowly started back toward the police car. Marc glanced around the parking lot before following, watching, listening for more.

Rain found its way through the car’s broken driver’s side window, soaking the seat pink. The headrest had been torn off, and spongy stuffing oozed through the rips and tears in the seat itself. The wounded policeman slumped as Marc slid into the dryer passenger’s seat. He kept the gun on the man as he pulled the door closed.

“I’m going to tell you some things, and I need you listen. To really listen. I don’t want to hear, ‘That’s impossible,’ or, ‘You’re crazy.’”

The policeman nodded.

“And I really don’t want to hear, ‘Dead things don’t attack people.’”

The policeman blinked.

Marc inhaled. “I’ll give you the Reader’s Digest version as we…” What was left of the man’s collar had finally reached its saturation point and now blood from the man’s neck wound was starting to drip down his chest. “You don’t have much time.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re going to die. Soon.”

“So take me to a hospital. Please…”

Marc shook his head. “There’s nothing that can be done. And even if there was…” He gestured the Beretta at the man’s neck. “I couldn’t get you there in time. Did you call for back-up?”

“What?”

“Before you came here. Did you call for back-up?”

The man hesitated. Marc’s eyes tensed, urging for an answer.

“No. I should have, but…No. I didn’t. Artie called me on my way home, so I just thought I’d swing by.”

Arthur Letzler was the name of the client.

Marc cast another survey around the parking lot. Still nothing. Back to the policeman.

“Family?”

“No. An older brother in Tulsa, but…no…no one.” His voice was starting to waver. “I’m cold.”

“Start the car and turn on the heat.”

The police car’s heater rattled lukewarm air at first, but slowly started warming.

“I’m going to die?”

“Yes. If it makes you feel any better, it’s not your fault. If you’re the kind of person that needs to blame others, blame Letzler. He had no business calling you after he hired me.”

“Hired you?”

Marc chose his next words carefully. “I handle ‘special eliminations.’ I’m an exterminator.”

“The thing in the dumpster?”

“Right. Letzler only hired me for two, but it looks like a third got you. Did you see any more?”

The policeman shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

“When they bite you, you die. It might not happen right away, depending on the severity of the bite, but you will.” He paused. “What’s worse is that after you die, you eventually come back as one of them.”

“Like in the movies?”

“Just about.”

The policeman sighed. Over that sigh, the sound of the car engine and heater, Marc thought he heard something else. Another gasp?

“What are you going to do…to me?”

The rain had started to come down hard again. Rain drops on the car’s roof peppered the warming air with soft thuds. It was getting harder to hear much more than the car and the officer’s own wet breathing.

“I haven’t decided – ”

A slimy sucking sound interrupted Marc. A splotched green-and-brown arm shot between the driver’s and passenger’s seat. If the window hadn’t already been broken out, the policeman would have slammed his head against the glass as he jumped in surprise. Marc twisted and saw the undead clawing its way up from the floor between the front and back seats. It had been younger – a pre-teen girl – in life, and its hungry eyes stared into him. The girl’s t-shirt was splattered with dripping mud and several maggoty worms clung to one of her armpits. Her face twisted in what looked like a combination of desire, pain and rage.

“Get her off me! Get it off me!”

The girl’s eyes were on Marc, but its arms and searching fingers had found the policeman. Her right hand snaked its way around his seat and her crusty fingernails were tearing at the bite wound in his cheek. He tried to turn way from her, and lunged forward. He jerked, and into Marc’s raising arm, knocking the Beretta away and to the floor.

The girl-thing hurked over the seat, crawling toward the two men. The policeman writhed and coiled away from her as best he could. Marc reached out and tried to move her head away from the two of them, lifting her face (careful to keep his fingers away from her teeth) to the roof. He pushed until a wet vegetable-cracking sound vibrated through her neck as Marc cracked dead vertebrate with a shove.

Her body spasmed, but her weight kept coming after the policeman. Marc reached to the wet floorboards, his fingers searching for his gun. The tips of his index and middle finger skimmed the grip of it. He would have to release his hold on the girl’s head to reach it. Cold drool dribbled down her cheek and iced itself down Marc’s arm and into his coat sleeve. He shoved her away and bent to retrieve the weapon.

As he brought it to bear, the policeman shifted the car from, ‘Park,’ to, ‘Drive.’

The dying man stomped on the accelerator. Wet tires took hold, heaving the policeman’s car across the asphalt. The dead girl slipped into the back seat, taking a few fresh inches of the policeman’s face under her fingernails. He screamed while Marc tried to take aim, but the policeman jerked the steering wheel and all three bodies lunged to the side.

The vehicle slid around the parking lot, narrowly missing one of the other cars. Through the diffusing rain, Marc watched his car speed by as well. The policeman was still accelerating, but he was avoiding the other vehicles in the lot, leaving them behind.

The girl flung herself between the two front seats. Her right arm flipped across Marc’s shoulder, knocking back his Beretta and sending a burst of collected rainwater flying from his jacket. Her loosely-held head landed on the policeman’s thigh. With a wet gurgle, she/it opened her jaw as wide as she could and started tearing through his pants with her teeth. Her left arm pushed at his face.

The policeman’s screams turned to sobs until some of her teeth found their way through to his flesh, then he screamed again. Marc tightened the grip on his handgun and slammed the barrel against the girl’s skull, but he couldn’t find an angle that wouldn’t send the bullet through its dead head but into the policeman’s groin as well.

The policeman stopped turning the wheel. Marc looked up to see him opening his mouth wide, bearing his teeth as the screaming drifted into breathy laughter. He held the wheel steady; rain splattered in through his broken window. The girl continued to chew on his leg.

Marc cast a quick glance through the windshield. The speeding car was pointed at the dumpster.

“What are you--” The question died before it left his lips. As the policeman’s eyes grew wider and tears leaked down his cheeks, Marc pushed the girl’s arm away from him and turned to reach for his door handle. His damp fingers slid against the chrome-plated lever, but he eventually found purchase and, snagging a fingernail, managed to pop it open.

The car continued to race toward the dumpster. Marc cast one last look at the terrified policeman before shoving the door open and spilling himself out on the asphalt.

His body rolled in a controlled crumple, coming to a stop in time for Marc to watch the policeman’s car hurtle into the dumpster. Metal squealed and tires spun. Through the misted light, Marc could barely see the policeman convulsing in the driver’s seat. The rear wheels kept pushing the car into the metal dumpster. Rain mixed with the rapidly spilling dark fluids coming from the car’s undercarriage. Above the noise and the rain, Marc could hear the screaming laughter from the victim of his client’s mistake. The laughter died beneath a whooshing sound as something sparked and caught fire. The pooling liquid around the crashed car lit with light blue flame. Marc threw a hand up to cover his eyes as the car burst into fire. A quick gush of heat flicked over him.

Marc slowly came to his feet, noting a stiff pain in his left leg and ankle. He limped to his own car while wiping the Beretta off as much as he could on his pants. He tossed the weapon inside before easing himself into the car. The seat was soaked and oozed rainwater as he let his weight settle into it.

The blazing police car and dumpster proved to be a greater force than the rain and licked the night air with feathers of flame. Marc pulled his car door closed and exhaled. The engine was still running. The heater was still on, and it was warm.

The phone rang. Marc stared at his cell phone for a moment before grabbing, his eyes focusing on it. He picked it up and held it to his face.

“Yeah.”

The nasal voice on the other end sounded surprised. “Mr. Temple?”

“Yeah.”

Marc could hear the man breathing obnoxiously loud. “I thought…I was expecting – ”

“What do you want, Arthur?”

“Did the police…? I mean, I called the police.”

Marc slid his car into gear. He rolled down his window as the car inched toward the burning police car. “I know you did, Arthur. I got your message.”

“Oh. Right.” He paused and breathed into the phone. “Did they get in the way?”

Marc steered the car away from the fire, passing it on his left. He peered into the flames as best he could, squinting. No movement.

“Your police friend’s dead now, Arthur, but no, he didn’t really get in the way.”

Before waiting for his client’s response, Marc tossed the cell phone out the window and into the fire before driving off.

* * * * *

Palmistry
by J. P. Moore

The only piece to seem out of place was the man himself, the denizen Cairo. Rich mahogany panels and expensive scarlet curtains wrapped the round room in an air that was quite at odds with his own. He was understated amidst Victorian London’s most exotic possessions, gifts given to him as gratuities over his fees. Cairo wore a tasteful scarlet jacket, but no tie. A middle-aged man who seemed unwilling to fuss over his aging frame, Cairo was modest until he billed.

He was almost justified in charging more for the atmosphere. Four windows overlooked gas lamps, stray dogs and children late to bed and hurrying, frightened still by Jack the Ripper though he had been dead for decades. By nine o’clock a mist had often risen from the sidewalk. It was a ghost of dust kicked up by the day’s traffic. At night, only occasional hoof beats clop-clapped on the wet cobblestones. This and all sounds were as harsh and sharp as light reflected from glass into one’s eyes.

The energy in his upstairs chambers seemed frantic but controlled. Books littered chairs, a large round table that rose during séances and was not even rigged, and end tables everywhere. Cairo’s library was valuable, full of volumes that had been almost impossible to secure. Bookcases filled in between the windows, but the shelves were reserved more for relics. These idols and amulets, along with the manuscripts and tomes had all been bought by the rich of Europe who, between their appointments with Cairo, traveled their far-flung empires and thought of him when chancing upon some primitive trinket or odd bit of Templar magic. Cairo’s couriers and scavengers were Earls and Ladies, Dukes and even Lord Carnarvon, who mounted entire archaeological expeditions just to appease the man who read their palms.

Cairo cradled a skull in his lap, rolled it around and placed it in the center of the table. Lord Carnarvon had left the skull days before and asked Cairo to develop as detailed a report as possible. The Lord offered a dousing rod from a countryside Celtic barrow in addition to the normal fee. Rumor was that the skull had been perched atop the shoulders of a notorious Xhosa chief caught and decapitated by the Queen’s regulars in South Africa. Its value would have been insured, of course, if Cairo were able to prove it to be that skull. And even though Cairo was not a phrenologist—he was skeptical of the objectivity of reading bumps on one’s head—he was considered London’s foremost metaphysical authority.

The thick skull of a chieftain was a tough item to read and would have posed a challenge even to a dedicated and qualified phrenologist, of which there were very few in London. Some of the average head’s bumps and furrows are of skin, of which Chief Hintsa had parchment flakes. And the fate was already certain. The man, Hintsa or not, had been decapitated. This made Cairo uncomfortable with the subjectivity of his report. But he felt guilty. There was a mysterious death running in the deep lines of Carnarvon’s hand that Cairo could not bring himself to reveal. He wondered if his silence were borne upon selfishness, for Carnarvon was one of Cairo’s greatest sources of artifacts.

Cairo put more stock into his verdict on Carnarvon than he would have on any of his phrenology reports. Palmistry made perfect sense to Cairo. Scientist’s had proven that the body’s energies were heightened around the hands. Furthermore, empirically sound studies supported the notion that these energies shaped the hand. Lines, after all, had never been observed on a human hand until well into gestation. The data also suggested that men of similar destinies had similar hands.

Cairo moved to sit before a mirror, the skull landing again in his lap. He ran his hands through his own hair. Bumps on the head. Which are of bone? He knocked and heard it dull in his ears. He felt through his hair while feeling the skull. There were the phrenologist’s landmarks. Seat of affection. Seat of caution. Seat of destructiveness. Cairo took up a hand mirror and angled it into the reflection in front of him. There was a bald spot, growing larger and larger. It was smooth and shiny, speckled. Seat of veneration. Hintsa had a bump there, quite proper for a chief. Cairo continued the exploration, down around his own temples and round cheeks. His second chin rolled well out of the phrenologist’s landscape.

A commotion rose from the street. Carriages and horses — someone of importance had arrived. People began to fill the empty downstairs parlor. Zeno had gone home hours earlier, leaving his appointment and invoice books unmanned. There were never casual, curious clients this late in the night and nothing formal had been scheduled for this evening, despite the profitable atmosphere London offered with its mist and moon.

Cairo placed the skull in front of the mirror. The empty sockets peered into themselves, disrupting Cairo’s calm. He turned the skull and moved to the window. A large entourage surrounded six ostentatious carriages. The trim of a blue cape fluttered into the doorway. The coachman lit his pipe and a milk white feminine forearm rested below the carriage’s side window. Cairo straightened his clothes and brushed the grit of Hintsa from his lap.

The best pose for gentry had proven to be that of sitting in the red chair, facing the doorway, gazing out with the head pitched downward, hands as if in prayer touching the chin at the index fingers. A comfortable chair sat to the right to beckon the distinguished visitor. Once seated, Cairo and client could converse across a round table that was of perfect height for examination of the palms.

Cairo could hear them gathering downstairs. He was represented in the parlor by Zeno’s appointment book, which always sat in silent efficiency with a ragged red ribbon flowing from between the pages. A lamp stood beside it, turned off. There were not enough chairs and some of the guests must have looked about, wondering if they should sit. Perhaps they knew better and offered the seat to their lord or duke or whatever nobility he was.

An angry burst of a foreign language, a rough Eastern European language. Then, in accented English: “I am coming up.”

Heavy footsteps shook ceramics on the bookcase near the stairs. Thump, chin-chink. Thump, chin-chink. Cairo broke his pose, stretched and then composed himself.

The words, the accent—it was Russian. Tsar Nicholas II stood then in the doorway. Cairo recognized him. His wedding had been the event of the decade. Not yet thirty and so decorated, cloaked in sky blues and golds, the Tsar wore a grin that turned his mustache up at the corners. Medals piled upon his chest as if honors had been invented in hordes just for this one man.

“Such drama,” the Tsar said.

Cairo’s pose fell and he failed to hide his surprise. He managed an invitation toward the chair, and then scrambled to clear an aged, open book from its seat. He fumbled with this as bits of powdery paper dropped like ash.

Nicholas placed his hands on his hips.

“My wife should have come up for this,” he said. “She might appreciate it.” He gestured to the whole room. “Were you not referred to by kind Lord Carnarvon as a scientist, I would not be here.” He moved to the table, examined a book and flipped a page. “Will-o’-the-wisps, Faeries and Leprechauns. This is not science, Mr. Cairo. I was kept waiting for this.”

Cairo adopted a more conservative pose. He sat, crossed his legs and let his hands fall to the arms of the chair.

“Please sit.”

Nicholas did.

“There is no magic in Russia, Mr. Cairo.”

“I am, as you say, a scientist.”

“And the leprechauns?”

“Unexplained phenomena. To a scientist.”

“Were I king of your islands, Mr. Cairo, I would forbid magic. Farmers in Russia do not fear strange beasts and lights in the sky. Edicts put an end to magic, and farmers work.”

“What do they fear?” Cairo asked, recovering his airs.

“Poor crops. Bad winters.”

“The future?”

“Yes. And also my police.”

A servant peered through the doorway, his head craning sideways. Cairo raised an eyebrow and Nicholas turned. The Tsar bellowed. It was a good language for commands. The servant withdrew.

“My fate,” Nicholas said, “may disturb them. They shall wait in the carriages and I shall lie.”

Cairo smiled.

* * * * *

“Carnarvon recommended me?”

“He did.”

The Tsar’s blotchy hand was laid out flat. Blood fled and pooled.

“He meets with me every week,” Cairo said. “Still a very young man, in many ways. His chauffeur insists that he prepare by clapping for twenty minutes. He claims to have read that.” He took up a magnifying glass. “I can picture the man giggling himself to death while Carnarvon claps and claps in the carriage.”

The Tsar laughed. He was drinking a fine brandy that Cairo reserved for formidable guests.

“Funny thing is,” Cairo said, “that I believe it helps the reading. Your hand, for instance, is like most.”

“I would hope not.”

“Blood is forced out of some tissues and collects in these fleshy mounds. Is this mood, which would be significant, or the fact that you are stretching it all out and I am pushing it all around? Or is it the brandy? It is distracting. Carnarvon’s hand is as red as a beet all over. Somehow, that is easier.”

Cairo examined the skin and the Tsar sighed.

“What does it all say?” Nicholas asked.

“I am not done.”

“What are your impressions?”

“Luck plays a large part in your life. Some bad luck.”

The Tsar frowned.

“What else?” he asked.

“You have strayed from your destiny. Show me your other hand. Look. You can see the differences clearly.”

“I was born to be Tsar.”

“Yes. But there are clear differences between your hands. This hand is your destiny. This one is what you have made of yourself.”

So these, Cairo thought, are the hands of majesty. These are the palms of old sick man empire, palms and fingers with translucent skin at too young an age. The man was like jelly, with soft palms that had not performed an hour of work. The mounts were low and the lines shallow. He was not an exceptional man. Perhaps he was not born to be Tsar. There was plenty of fortune in his palms, but perhaps his left hand, his favored hand, would show that he enjoyed more than was planned for him.

“You have been Tsar for two years,” Cairo said.

“You could have read that somewhere.”

“I did. How old are you?”

Nicholas did not answer. Cairo looked up from the Tsar’s hands.

“I am thinking,” Nicholas says. “I am twenty-eight.”

“You have not been married to the Tsarina for long.”

“Two years.”

“Ah, yes,” Cairo said. “I remember. The marriage and then the coronation. You will have children. Several. Male and female.”

Cairo refrained from mentioning that the heir would be sickly.

“Glorious,” the Tsar cried. “The Tsarina will be delighted.”

“But I am concerned. The differences between your hands are alarming.”

“A word your clients do not like to hear, I imagine.”

Cairo smiled.

“Forgive me,” he said. “How long are you in London?”

“Several days. We are not certain.”

Cairo leaned back. Nicholas looked much older in this light. It was the pressures of his post, no doubt. Cairo returned to the hands. The favored hand showed what a man had made of himself. The lesser hand showed what had been planned from birth. It would have taken an uncommon man to stray so far from his fate, to have so many differences that he would appear to possess the hands of two different men. It would have taken an uncommon man, an emperor. Perhaps that was all there was to it.

“What are you thinking?” the Tsar asked. He was concerned. The brandy may have been getting to him. Perhaps his wife had put him up to this and he was curious. The brandy always worked to make friends of these skeptics, but the Tsar appeared nervous. His horses knew it. They whinnied and huffed below the window.

Cairo reached behind, opened a drawer and retrieved two small glass panes. He was beholden to friends at Scotland Yard.

“Run your hands through your hair. Press down upon these plates. Press very firmly so that your palms are flat.”

“What is this?”

“We have made images of your palms. You cannot see them well, but I have a dust to bring them out. I will prepare a report and send my assistant to your accommodations in the morning.”

The Tsar stared across the small table.

“Is this often required?” he asked.

“Yes. I must also confess that I keep a collection. These are clearly the most distinguished palms of the lot.”

Nicholas laughed. He stood, stumbled to the window and shouted. The coachmen and attendants snapped to attention, jumped out of slouching and gambling. The Tsar continued to laugh, bent down and slammed the brandy glass onto the table. Cairo was surprised that it did not break.

“This is a good brandy,” he declared. Then, with sudden severity: “Tomorrow morning. The Crowne Saint James.”

“By all means, sire. My assistant will deliver the report personally.”

Nicholas stared for one second.

“Good,” he said. “Very good.”

* * * * *

A ribbon of milk swirled in a cup of cold tea, not yet stirred by the cinnamon that had come from a box of sticks arranged like cigarettes. The spice had been an expensive and posthumous gift delivered by a pretty young woman, an acquaintance of a generous earl. The earl and his wife had caught the sleeping sickness in Zanzibar. She succumbed in the wilderness. He died on the steamer and was buried at sea by a crew frightened of his disease. Only the cinnamon made it to England.

Cairo stared into the liquid. It had fallen asleep in the cup. For London’s foremost metaphysical authority, however, it was shaping up to be another sleepless night. Questions tugged at his mind, particularly the question of whether a person was able to stray from destiny.

He had been having more and more such nights.

The palmist always avoided the temptation to make too much of his palms, to read too deeply into his own lines. Flippant, easy responses—you will have this number of children, you will live that long—were made to clients. When a palmist looked at his own palms, all objectivity was lost. Children. Cairo was destined to have two children, but he had none.

“Mister Cairo.” Another Russian.

Cairo turned to see a bearded fat man standing in an ill-fitting suit as if he were not used to wearing them. He had entered the room and something had come in with him. Something wrapped around the room, clinging to the paneling and books. It darkened the windows. The skull of Hintsa, if it was indeed Hintsa, took notice. There was almost an expression of alarm to its empty sockets. The pages of books seemed to flutter, as if the tomes would launch up like butterflies and hover about the visitor. For a brief moment, Cairo wondered if the man had come to reclaim all of the relics and idols. He had no explanation for this thought, or why it had come to him.

“I am not taking visitors,” Cairo said. “If you call again tomorrow, you may make an appointment with my assistant.”

“I am not here for a reading,” the man said. He walked toward Cairo. The clumsiness of his gait did not detract from the power that preceded him. “I am here, rather, about a reading.”

“You are with Tsar Nicholas at the Crowne Saint James.”

“Not exactly,” he replied, smiling. “I have not yet met the man, thought I will save his child.”

Cairo shuddered.

“You have me at a disadvantage,” he said.

“Ah, yes. Mister Cairo, you are well known. I … not yet. My name is Novykh.” The man bowed. “Grigory Yefimovich Novykh. Many, and you may, call me Rasputin.”

“A strange word in your language, if I am not mistaken. ‘Rasputin’ carries connotations of debauchery.”

Cairo struggled to keep a solid front, to claim something over this man, but the grave feeling that had filled the room now swelled from the walls, toward the table at which Cairo sat.

“I do not wear the name with shame,” Rasputin said. “One is closest to God when he is in the throes of passion, no? May I sit?”

“Sir, I am not taking visitors.”

Rasputin smiled as he entered the light of the lamp, which dispelled some of the darkness about him. As he sat, his foppery disappeared. Rasputin was young, with tight skin and not a single trace of gray in his bushy black beard. His eyes pierced and seemed to see all things at once. They reminded Cairo of The Mona Lisa.

“I am here,” Rasputin said, “because of what you will tell the Tsar.”

“How could you know? I do not yet know what I will tell him.”

“But I know what you will tell him. You will tell him nothing.”

Rasputin tapped the table to punctuate his point.

“I am a proud man,” Cairo replied. “I do not take well to threats.”

“Those are his palms?” Rasputin gestured toward to the glass panes that sat before Cairo.

“Sir—”

“The man will die. His own people will kill him. But you do not see everything.”

“You are a palmist?”

“No, Mister Cairo. I find the lines of the palm to be inaccurate. Now, lines in the air. Lines in the sky.” He spread his hands above his head and smiled. “Lines on the ground. That is what I read.”

“Lines in the sky, sir?” Cairo’s voice cracked at the end of the question. He took a deep, quiet breath to compose himself. A chill was rising up his spine. It had begun in the balls of his feet. Rasputin’s power was now above and below. “His destiny is not what it should be.”

“Should? What is this word? There is no ‘should,’ Mister Cairo. Plans can be rewritten to accommodate the ambitions of powerful men.”

“You fancy yourself such a man?”

Rasputin leaned closer.

“You know that I am,” he said. It was a growl. “You are a dabbler, Mister Cairo. You play now with forces beyond your understanding. Your shop, your fancy sign on the street. The eye of Horus, the sphinx and the pyramid—all of that. You are just a dabbler, soaking the wealthy. In the end, your insight is but a taste of what there is. You are a charlatan.”

“But you are here to threaten me.”

“Look. Look at this globe.” It had been a gift and had always stood beside the table. “Read Europe’s palm, Mister Cairo. Read Russia’s palm. The life line. It is so short, now. It draws to an end. It is time for her to die. It is time for powerful men to take control of her, and all of the dying empires.”

“Powerful men like yourself?”

“Powerful men. Austria-Hungary, Germany—read their palms. Powerful men must give … life. They must give life back to belief. Back to magic, Mister Cairo.”

“To what end?” Cairo asked.

“To its end.”

“To make it a slave?”

Rasputin laughed.

“It is like electricity, Mister Cairo. It serves he who commands it. Palmists can squander it. It can be dribbled out to the sick and the weak. Or it can be used to bring the fury and the command of God to this world.”

Cairo challenged his growing fear and stared into the man’s eyes. The future played, there. Cairo could see it. Armies marched across the continent. Arcane powers that had been just a trickle to men like Cairo became a flood, drowning them. Cities exploded and disappeared. The innocent, the unknowing died by the millions. The fury and command of God—Cairo saw Rasputin in the next century, dealing death and destruction like cards across a table.

“You will kill the Tsar,” Cairo said.

“No. He will die without me. Perhaps even violently. The circumstances of his death, the world after his death—these are open.”

“And if I tell the Tsar what I see? The fate you write for him?”

Rasputin smiled, revealing crooked and dirty teeth.

“You will only inconvenience me.” Rasputin stood. The air seemed to flee from him. The building creaked as if it struggled to contain him. “I am not kind to men who inconvenience me, Mister Cairo.”

The bearded Russian turned and departed.

* * * * *

The sun was already reaching above the Anglican chapel, the ministers of which were Cairo's landlords though he had been meaning for months to broach the subject of buying the property. Vicar Hawke had never been in just the right mood to hear the proposal whenever their paths had crossed. The sun cast a shadow of the chapel's intricate roofing on the upper reaches of Cairo's wall, and this projection sank toward the floor. The light hit Levi's Famous Hands, which was splayed open to Robert the Bruce. Two palms pressed flat against the page, as if the rebel king of Scotland were trying to push from beneath the table.

Many were born to be such great resistors and rescuers, but many more were destined to be victims. It was unlikely that they could ever escape that. Carnarvon was a strange mix of the two. The lines on his palms seemed to say that his greatest achievement would also cause his death. Only turbulent times decreed such a fate as that, as they decreed the violent death of monarchs.

It could not have been clearer than on the Tsar’s hands. Cairo was not sure when it would occur. A Tsar lived a full life, in many ways, by a young age. This distorted any map of the life line. But Nicholas was to have several children, though one would be ill. Nicholas had none yet, so he would live at least several years into the next century. Rasputin would fail in the short term—good news for a report in need of good news, if Cairo chose to write the truth of what he saw.

The night had given way to earliest morning without revealing any answers to countless questions. Rasputin dripped with power and could make good on his threat. The Tsar might not have been able to change his destiny, but Rasputin was in a position to capitalize upon it. Cairo wondered, then, on a question that had never occurred to him. Was there that much power in the knowledge? Could a man such as Rasputin, such as himself, use knowledge of the destiny of others to gain such enormous power, to make such ambitious plans? Perhaps anything was possible when one was given such knowledge about powerful men. Rasputin knew the Tsar’s fate and would use it to control the fate of an entire nation, perhaps the world.

Unless it were all wrong—Cairo had spent hours seeking a technique to the palms of high nobility, some set of exceptions that might prove the reading to be incorrect. The hands’ lack of work might have meant that neither hand was favored. A king’s destiny might also have been his own to make. His palms might therefore have been meaningless. Perhaps his destiny could be changed on a whim. A Tsar could forbid magic. But not all of it—Rasputin remained.

Pages of old text, brittle and broken edges of paper, Ancient Egypt up through the modern French thinkers—Cairo had in fact proven that men in power were more beholden to destiny than most. One Ancient Egyptian wrote that he lied to each and every Pharaoh but told the truth to the favorite wives, so that at least they might be prepared. Otherwise, the Pharaohs would make fools of themselves, would purge all of those around them in an attempt to stave off the unpreventable end.

Cairo sat and turned his head from the intense sunlight. The fog had lifted as he had paced the night away, mulling over the Tsar. He knew the books to be right. If it were possible for men such as Tsar’s to change their destinies, then why did they not will themselves away from death, as easily as they had willed themselves into power? The only answer was that perhaps an assassin was born for every king. Cairo wanted to own that book, if such a book existed. Infamous Hands.

An assassin for every king, but not a Rasputin.

"Mister Cairo?" It was his assistant. Zeno stood at the top of the stairs and leaned his thin face into the doorway. "Mister Cairo? Have you been here all night?"

Cairo wiped his brow and shook his head clear.

"Zeno. Zeno, I did not hear you come up. You are a quiet, sneaky old Italian."

Zeno did not smile, but remained expressionless.

"Are you feeling ill? I can make you some fresh tea, Mister Cairo."

"No. I am fine, though puzzled by two strange visitors in the night."

"Well, take comfort. You have a light day. Carnarvon is coming in at noon, and a new client, a man from Sussex, at two. He sits in the House of Commons. But that is all. The sun may stay out today, they are saying."

Zeno stepped into the room stood, his head bowed, though he was a full twenty years older than Cairo.

"They know nothing, Zeno.” He paused, staring into air. “My friend, I have a report to prepare. I will send you at … ten. Yes. You will deliver it to the Russian mission at the Crowne Saint James."

"The Tsar, Mister Cairo? You met with the Tsar?"

Cairo seemed not to hear him.

"Tell me, Zeno. Do you think a man is born to be king? Do you think a man is ever born to be a ruler of men? Or is such a thing unnatural?"

Zeno paused and bit his lip in thought.

"A man seizes that power, even if it is given to him. He seizes it, even if only in his heart. That act changes him. He becomes cruel. He becomes corrupt. Even if he does good, he makes enemies."

"Spoken like a true Roman."

"And you, Mister Cairo? English and Egyptian blood in your body—they both agree. Monarchs become tyrants and are killed."

"Monarchs are killed."

"So often, Mister Cairo, that we celebrate when they are not. We call it glorious when one outlives his reign, when one leaves peacefully."

Cairo nodded.

"Zeno, would you say that to the Tsar of Russia?"

"I would not. He should know it. His blood knows it, or it would not be written in his palm. And a man who knows his destiny—he cannot change it. He can be more careful and perhaps delay it, but it will catch up with him."

Cairo smiled. Zeno was correct.

“He might even become insane,” Zeno continued. “He will be wary of people around him so much that he will trust no one, not even his family.”

Cairo stood. Not even his family. Not even wandering men arriving at the palace gate with promises of miracle cures for sick children. Cairo looked straight at Zeno and pointed.

"You will deliver a report that tells the Tsar of Russia that he will die violently by the hands of his own people."

"Only if it is sealed, so that I have time to escape before he reads it."

"It is not the Tsar who worries me, Zeno. You have nothing to fear from him. But I will save the verdict for the final line."

"It might buy me a few more moments, Mister Cairo. My how your mood has changed! Such energy for man who has had no sleep!"

"Make me some tea, Zeno. Tea would be lovely."

Zeno backed out of the room, bowing, hiding the traces of a smile. The trappings of divination—the head of Hintsa and the relics of forgotten mystics—cluttered the room with moldy, arcane magic. Vestiges of Rasputin’s power clotted in dark corners and under the furniture. The entire place was busy with secret currents and strange energies coming together to produce truths. Some were not true until they were revealed. In the end, though, all had their day.

“Monarchs are killed.”

A skull and its reflection stared at a point along the edge of a mirror. Cairo removed Chief Hintsa to a shelf, sat, took up a pen and addressed the last Tsar of Russia.

* * * * *

The Worst Part

By Blake M. Petit

Something moves in the darkness, but that isn’t the worst part. You have spent enough time in the shadows and shrubs to know that not every rustle, not every slow brushing sound is the lumbering dead, but even if it were, it wouldn’t be the worst part.

The sound grows louder, and you start to feel concerned. A quick rustle is nothing to get worked up about. When that sound sustains, when it grows closer… when the dull moans that have filled the world join the rustling, that’s when you have to concern yourself. The moaning is a call, they think. An announcement that fresh flesh is nearby, filling their senses with the rudimentary awareness of prey.

On instinct, you try to retreat from the sound of the moans, even though you know it’s pointless. Sitting in the dirt, you shove and kick with your bare feet, moving all of 18 inches before the iron ring around your ankle stops you, the chain staking it to the ground tight. You kick, trying not to shout and confirm your position, but the ankle-clamp and chain, rusty as they are, hold strong. Your prison is a fifteen-foot circle worn in the grass, the extent of your reach with the chain on your leg. And for anyone – anything stepping into the circle, you will be easily overtaken.

That isn’t the worst part.

As you’ve done so many times, you grab the chain and pull, tugging harder than you ever have, but your arms don’t have the strength they once did, and the stake is set in ground solid as concrete. You struggle, and the chains rattle, and the moans grow louder.

The trees finally part and you see it – the slow, trembling figure that once had a human face, human smile, human mind. The flesh is clotted and gray now, and hangs from the skull in strips. Something ripped a huge chunk of skin and meat out of this thing’s cheek, and the tattered strings of sinew still hang across the gaping hole, yellowing skull and teeth. Its mouth and chest are covered in dried brown blood, and both arms are outstretched, the torn skin dangling from the right like some sort of obscene banner. It reaches for you.

This is the first of them.

That isn’t the worst part.

The trees and bushes part again and again, finally spilling out four of the horrors, each of them sloughing towards you, teeth gnashing, fingers grasping. They’re so slow. It still astonishes you, even now, how slow they are. You could easily outrun all of them, but you cannot run. You could kill each of them, maybe all of them, but you have no weapon.

You won’t need one.

They approach from the far side of the circle, and by the time they cross the stake that keeps you chained, you can feel the scream beginning to gurgle in your throat. You force it back, refusing to give it voice, even as the first creature steps across the halfway point of the chain. Its fingers flex and its teeth chatter, ready to begin consuming you. In its mouth, you see a dead tongue reaching out. In its head, dead eyes are rolled up in their sockets, betraying no emotion at all.

The hands claw at your leg. You feel cold, moist fingers wrap around your ankle.

This isn’t the worst part.

The air is ruptured by a blast, and the thing’s head explodes into every direction. Its lifeless body falls across your legs, finally inert, and you see the living man behind it lower his rifle. The three remaining shufflers turn towards the sound and are greeted by the living man’s friends, each with a weapon of their own. A baseball bat and a hatchet each resonate with a dull “thud,” and two more of the creatures fall, bathing you in tepid, congealed blood and half-rotten brain matter. The last creature moans, not comprehending, even as an axe embeds itself in its shoulder. A second chop and the thing’s head is completely separated from its body. It continues to chatter for a few moments until the bat cracks it open. You breath, realizing only now that you had stopped.

“Please,” you whisper. “Please.”

The men with the weapons pass damp towels, wiping themselves clean of putrid fluids and gore. Most of them refuse to meet your pleading eyes. Those that do see you do so with a look of pity.

“Here,” says the one with the rifle. He unzips the pack on his back and withdraws a bottle of water and a tin of potted meat, both of which he tosses to you. Too hungry to ignore it, you grab the tin and pop it open, ignoring the gel at the top of the can and devouring the meat beneath. The one with the rifle nods. “That’s it. Eat up. Just like fishing, right boys?

“Live is best.”

He turns his back to you, and his friends join him. As they walk away, the tin of meat tumbles from your hand into the dirt and you begin crawling after them, shouting, pleading, and finally cursing them. None of them spares you so much as a glance backward, and not even when you reach the end of your chain again and shout at the pinch about your ankle. Your dirt-caked fingers reach out for them, ending just at the lip of the circle in the ground. The living continue their walk away, vanishing into the shadows, while the bodies of the dead lie in your circle, not moving unless you again find the strength to heave them away.

This. This is the worst part.

* * * * *

Eight O’Clock Downstairs

By Derek M. Koch

7:43pm.

“Their kind is predictable, you see,” Todd said, pulling the black windbreaker’s zipper up to his neck. “They don’t deviate from their patterns. They don’t create new routines.” He pulled the hood over his wiry red hair and pulled its strings tight, sealing most of his head in a severe vinyl cocoon.

Cary listened and nodded, but his eyes were on the baseball bat he tightly held in his hands. His heart pounded as he listened to his older brother preach; his fingers gripped the crisp, smooth wood of the bat; his blood pulsed through his tightened knuckles and tensed fingertips.

Todd produced a pair of cracked leather gloves from the windbreaker’s pockets and slid them over his veined and wrinkled hands. “They won’t expect an interruption. They never plan for one.” The right glove’s fingers were missing, cut away so that Todd could easily touch the trigger of his well-oiled 9mm. He took the gun from the dining room table and checked the magazine. “They should be starting in fifteen minutes.”

Cary finally looked up. “Why don’t I get a gun?”

“You don’t need one. All you need to do is keep them from leaving the apartment, and for that, you only need that bat.” Todd slid the gun into a pocket and moved to the kitchen sink. Pulling a glass from the cupboard, he continued. “Don’t worry. The bat was blessed last month. On Easter.”

“Blessed. That’s good.” Cary rested the bat over his shoulder. His heart still pounded and he anxious sweat edged across his brow. After his brother filled his cup from the sink, Cary prepared his own glass of water and gulped it down in hungry swallows.

“Easy, Little Brother. Don’t choke before this business.” Todd clapped Cary on the bat-less shoulder. “We’ll drink more than water when this is finished.”

Cary nodded and set the glass down. “Okay,” he said, and followed Todd to the front door.

“Ten minutes now. We have just enough time to get downstairs.” The older sibling turned to face the younger. “Are you ready for this?”

Cary nodded.

“Are you sure? This is your first time, so if you’re not ready, I can do this alone.”

Cary shook his head. “No.”

“You just got of jail.” Todd hesitated. “I can do this on my own.”

“No, I’m good.” Cary brought the head of the bat down to his palm. “I’m ready.”

“Good.”

With that, Todd smiled and turned to leave so he and his brother could kill the cultists living in the downstairs apartment.

8:09pm.

Cary ran back to his brother’s apartment, clanging up the metal stairs. The baseball bat almost slipped from his hands as he yanked the door open.

8:22pm.

Cary finished throwing up in the sparse bathroom and pushed himself up from the toilet. He moved to the sink and jerked on the cold water. Cupping it to his face, the water splashed across his eyes and cheeks, but brought him little comfort.

8:30pm

Cary did his job well. After Todd kicked open the downstairs neighbors’ door and rushed into the unsuspecting living room, Cary took position in the open doorway. He cradled his bat, twitching but keeping his place. His brother instructed him to keep anyone from leaving, and that was what he was going to do.

Because the short hallway leading from the doorway yanked to the right, passing a bathroom before emptying into the living room, Cary could see little of what happened.

But he could hear. Todd screamed a lot, and his voice was drowned out by the gunshots. The people in the apartment screamed, too, but their voices (he could make out at least three different cultists’ voices) were more shocked and sad whereas Todd’s voice was loud and angry. The shots rang down the hallway, and when a middle-aged woman burst into view, her shoulder a bloody mess of fabric and flesh, Cary stood strong and barred her way. She slapped at his chest, but he pushed her back, knocking her across the throat with the length of the bat.

Todd appeared behind her and took her by the collar. His wild eyes flitted back and forth as he spun her around and pushed her into the living room and out of Cary’s view. The muzzle flash splashed over Todd’s face, highlighting the wicked grin stretched across his thin lips. Todd stepped out of view then, and more gunshots sounded.

Then all was quiet.

Cary waited for his brother for five minutes before running back upstairs alone.

8:41pm

Cary still waited for Todd. First, he paced around the small apartment, circling through the kitchen, living room and the short hallway connecting the two. When Todd didn’t let himself in through the locked front door (he assumed his brother would have a key to his own apartment), Cary laid down on the couch in the one-bedroom apartment.

9:22pm

The distant sound of police sirens jerked Cary awake. It was a sound he knew too well; it was one of the last sounds he heard before he was arrested seven months ago and locked away from the world and his brother. The bat lay on the floor next to the couch; Cary scooped it up and rushed to the door to listen.

The sirens were getting closer. Cary gripped the bat tighter, and his heart pounded faster.

9:24pm

When the sirens blared from the parking lot outside, Cary checked the deadbolt. Satisfied it was locked, he took his bat and ran to the only bedroom in the apartment.

Todd never let Cary into his bedroom. The one time Todd thought Cary had been snooping around while he was getting take-out, his brother beat him bad enough that he had to wear long-sleeved shirts for the rest of the month while the bruises faded. Todd didn’t believe Cary, despite his whining and pleading. He had never come into his brother’s room before. He never wanted to.

The room smelled.

Even now, with the police outside and pounding on the downstairs neighbor’s door, Cary hesitated before reaching for the bedroom’s doorknob.

The rotten smell seeped through the small gap between the door and the floor, and rose like sick smoke to Cary’s nose. He flinched, like he flinched when Todd hit his shoulder with the spaghetti pot, but the police were outside, and Todd wasn’t here to protect him.

They would find Todd downstairs. Why hadn’t he come upstairs yet?

Cary hoped Todd wouldn’t catch him hiding in his bedroom.

He forced himself to twist the doorknob and push the door open.

9:28pm

Cary didn’t know Todd had a pet guinea pig, and from the looks of it, Todd may have forgotten about it, too. Its corpse, with its crusty, matted calico fur and oozing face, curled in a heap in one corner of its dirty and greasy glass aquarium. Cary avoided looking at it and started for the bed. The dirty sheets smelled like old grease, and suddenly Cary was grateful to have a much cleaner couch to sleep on while staying at his brother’s apartment

A handful of dirty pictures spilled from beneath a sagging pillow. Still worried his brother might catch him in his room, Cary wanted to leave, but the subject of the photographs caught his eye.

It was the woman who tried to get past him downstairs. From the looks of the photos, it didn’t look like she knew she was being photographed. Cary didn’t pick them up, but fanned them across the mattress. In some of the pictures, the woman was alone, jogging, shopping, taking out the trash. In two of them, it looked like Todd was outside the downstairs neighbors’ apartment window, taking pictures of the woman while she drank from a coffee mug or cooked something in her kitchen (which looked much cleaner than Todd’s). One of the pictures showed the woman holding hands with a man; black Magic Marker streaks scratching out the man’s face.

Cary turned to leave the room as quickly as he could, and noticed the shopping bag balled up on the floor. It was from the sporting goods store at the mall, and he picked it up and took it with him as he left.

9:32pm

Todd bought the bat four days ago, which was two days before he picked Cary up from jail. Cary stared at the receipt and cried as he listened to the police coming upstairs to Todd’s apartment.

* * * * *

On The Porch

By Matt R. Jones

When Gus sat down on the back porch next to me, I was three-fifths of the way through a bottle of Jack Daniels, and was, as a song once put it, comfortably numb. I gave him a glance and a nod, barely taking my eyes off the southern sky.

“Ain’t’cha surprised to see me?” he asked, sounding mildly offended.

I took a swig of the whiskey and wiped my mouth off with the back of my hand. I’d downed so much by now that I barely felt it burn on the way down. “After everything I’ve seen tonight, ain’t much going to surprise me, old pal,” I replied, handing the bottle to Gus out of habit.

“Thanks.” He tipped the bottle back and a few seconds later I heard the whiskey splashing onto the concrete.

“Now what’d you go and do that—“ I started to ask, turning towards Gus in annoyance. But after I’d gotten a good look at him, I saw that he hadn’t intentionally spilled the whiskey; he simply couldn’t help it in his current state. “Oh. Sorry.”

“S’okay. Got enough down to make it worth my while,” he said, holding the bottle out to me.

“No, you can keep it. It’s all right.”

“Suit yourself.” He tilted the bottle back again, and the scent of whiskey filled the warm night air as the amber liquid spilled all over Gus and the porch. He tossed the empty bottle into the overgrown grass of my backyard. “Ah, that hits the spot.”

“So,” I slowly said, grateful for the dullness the whiskey had brought to my senses. “What…brings you here?”

Gus snorted. “You probably wouldn’t understand.”

I pointed towards the southern sky, where strange lights flickered and swirled through the air like a madman’s aurora borealis, high above the damnable factory. “It has something to do with that, doesn’t it?”

He made an approving grunt. “Not bad. That’s part of it.” I could hear the sound of sirens howling in the distance, along with the occasional scream and muted explosion.

“The factories, too,” I murmured. “The ones the government built, after the Second Depression. It was all planned out years ago.”

“Hey, you’re a sharp one, y’know that?” Gus gave me a clap on the shoulder, just like he always had through the long years of our friendship, up until his death last year, when he’d been killed while at work in the local factory. His mutilated face still bore the marks of the horrible accident that had claimed his life. Or his old one, at least.

“Yeah. I guess.” I didn’t say anything about the kid that had warned me about all of this a few days ago, when he and his family and friends had skipped town in search of someplace safer. I fervently wished I’d gone with them.

Gus watched the sky with me as the night’s madness grew closer and more frantic. Finally, he asked, “Well … you about ready?”

I closed my eyes for a few moments. “This is the end, isn’t it?”

“Pretty much,” Gus replied. Then he put his hand on my shoulder again, gently this time, as his voice softened. “Look, I’ll make it quick, okay? For old times’ sake.”

“Thanks,” I whispered.

“No problem.”

He was true to his word. Unfortunately, he hadn’t told me what came after I died.

* * * * *

A World Most Broken

By Steve Wands

Standing in the living room for what could easily be the hundredth time today, Grady stared at his family. He waived a hand in front of his sister’s unblinking eyes, shook his father’s broad, sagging shoulders and screamed into his mother’s face. They all seemed frozen in time, watching the television—but the television was made of some strange substance and displayed jittery images of what was just outside the bay window, like a cheap security monitor. His father’s mouth was wide open and his hand was stuck midway from a bowl of popcorn to his gaping maw. Inside his mouth, dripping from his gums, was rain. Inside his mouth was grey and cloudy and raining, but the rain didn’t accumulate and pour out; it was a continuous rain, as if his mouth were a window to a storm. His mother’s skin color continually and slowly changed from color to color–the creepiest being pale yellow. He noticed nothing odd about his sister other than that she hadn’t moved in days, at least he thought it had been days.

Grady thought he had lost his mind. He had walked all over town and even attempted to drive on one occasion, but the world wasn’t making any sense and when he attempted to start his car it only made odd noises—noises that no car had ever made. He thought he was dreaming but he couldn’t figure out a way to test that theory. He couldn’t wake himself up and he hadn’t been able to sleep. He hadn’t seen anyone, aside from himself, that appeared normal or even functioning.

On his initial venture outside his family’s home, he noticed a helicopter stuck in the air with the propeller blades still spinning. They were spinning slowly but moving nonetheless, this would be typical of all things he came across with varying degrees of additional oddities. The fire hydrant down the block, for instance, had become transparent, and the water inside was red. It looked more like blood than water. A couple walking their dog was stuck in mid motion to the sidewalk. The dog’s fur was still soft and would move if you were to pet it. The sky seemed to be moving, though night hadn’t fallen since the world broke.

Grady peeked through his neighbors’ windows; they were all frozen in time, some of them caught with their pants down, some in mid argument. The whole scene was mind-blowing and Grady subjected himself to it over and over in hopes to find something that made sense. He wasn’t looking for anything in particular really, just anything would do. He tried the phone, to no avail, and even picked it up when it rang.

He could hear howling outside in the distance, long drawn out howls, unnatural howls—more like sirens. The sky grew darker. Grady wondered if the sun was going to set—it had been a long time since he remembered seeing night. The last night he remembered was before the world had gone all mad. He went out for another walk. He walked further than he had done previously. His early ventures had been accompanied by feelings of anxiety and timidity, but now his feelings were more of curiosity and bewilderment. The things he passed continued to blow his mind; for instance, he passed by a car accident. The car, a mid-sized sedan, had crumpled into a much larger SUV. The vehicles were in the middle of spinning off each other, fragments of the sedan’s windshield had broken off and clung to the air. The windshield itself had spider-web like cracks as a result of a young man’s head smashing into it. The man’s forehead had the early marks of lacerations and the tender redness of torn flesh developing. His face was squeezed into a multi-layered expression that looked as if he were shitting out a cactus. The sedan was otherwise empty but the SUV was full; a mother behind the wheel, the second row had two young boys and a baby girl—their expressions were of total fear. The mother’s face had a mix of concentration and terror. The baby girl was oblivious. Her open mouth seemed stuck in a laugh. She had two teeth starting to pierce her gums.

Even more disturbing than that were the gaps—pieces of the earth or sky, buildings, people, whatever, that were missing or replaced by some other sort of material or object. There was a section missing from the road—no debris, just a big gaping hole that looked like it had no end. From what Grady could put together there were no sounds either permitted or emitted. There were smaller instances of the gaps, too. Like his father’s mouthful of perpetual rain, or where the Pick Quick convenience store had some of its brick facade made of material that appeared to be flesh. He imagined those bricks being part of someone’s new anatomy, someone’s frozen, and useless, anatomy.

The sky continued to darken, but in an unfamiliar fashion. It darkened from the corners of the wavy horizon and up toward the center of the sky. The moon seemed to grow with the oncoming darkness, almost pulsating. The moon grew to a size that should have been impossible, like the moons often depicted on comic book covers to backlight a central figure, but this wasn’t printed on a pulpy piece of paper. Everything was changing color, becoming bluer, greyer, and duller. The huge moon did not create any extra light, and it seemed to have no effect on the changing colors.

The howling he heard earlier grew louder and more raucous. It sounded violent, unnatural. Grady grew nervous and began to jog back toward home. When he turned back, the landscape had changed; there were cliffs and trees popping out at random, a mist was rolling in and there were sand dunes of a deep red and bright orange variety. A loud, window-rattling wind joined the howls and created an ominous soundtrack to the nightmare Grady found himself in. Grady picked up his jog and turned it into a run. He heard the fluttering of wings. He ran harder and the fluttering gained on him. He was soon running with a swarm of bats. They didn’t attack him or bite him and the bats quickly passed him by. He didn’t stop running, if anything, he picked it up another notch. He was terrified and needed to be home in the comforting proximity of his frozen parents.

The wind continued to pick up, blowing the mist closer in, now blanketing the street. Soon, he wouldn’t be able to see the street at all, and with the gaps, that could be lethal. He ran up a sand dune that was covering a car and jumped down on the little platform of a hood that was still visible. His home was in sight, now. The sun was extinct. The sky was oozing black, dripping night over the twitching stars. Howling was carried on the hectic winds. The sounds filled the air; it was a symphony.

Grady’s foot landed into what should have been his lawn, but when he looked down, the blades of grass looked like long maggots or sun-bleached earthworms swaying back and forth. Grady dry heaved and continued to do so until he was inside and behind the closed door to his home. He calmed his breathing but his heart was still pounding in his chest. His head rested against the door. His eyes were closed, and the hair on his arms was standing at full attention. The howling grew more hectic. Grady gathered his nerves and forced himself to go near the bay window in the living room. His shaky hand reached for the soft white curtains draped in front of the windows. He pulled it to the side and moved his head closer allowing him to peer out the window. The mist had choked the street and must have been about four feet high. It looked more like wet cotton than any mist Grady had ever seen. He could see the silhouettes of bats as they erratically flew in and out of the shape of the moon. The wind shook the windows and did its best attempt to push the house on its side.

Diluted shapes could be seen in the mist. They were huge, bulking, humanoid forms moving in a way that could’ve been a march, but it was more like a football team getting rowdy before a big game. Large disproportionate arms hung nearly to the street. Bulbous calves disappeared into the cover of mist. Grady couldn’t be certain from the distance, but he thought he could see tufts of hair on the beasts. The howling certainly came from these creatures. He left the window and ran to the light switch. He ran through the house and turned off every light he could find. Some of the lights didn’t follow a reality Grady grasped and therefore could not be turned off by any of the switches. Grady slowly crept back to his post at the window. As he did, he could see the creatures moving through the mist.

His assumptions had been correct. He did see hair, and as his jaw moved closer to the floor, he realized that what he was seeing was indeed a pack, and a large one at that, of werewolves. Grady pulled the curtain closed and crawled over to his family. He sat between his parents and could feel his sister staring at him. He refused to look at anything other than the ground. He stared so intently at the carpet that his eyes began to make patterns out of the fabric. After a few minutes the howling grew faint as the creatures continued onward. Another set of minutes ticked—not that Grady could tell—he hadn’t seen a working clock since all this began. They either spun out of control or barely at all. Digital clocks blinked random times and often only partial numbers.

“Help me,” a voice called. The voice seemed to have no point of origin. It was as if the voice was in his head.

“Help me,” the voice called again. It sounded familiar but distorted.

He could feel his sister’s eyes again, but they hadn’t moved. He heard—no, felt the voice again. It was clear now—the voice did belong to his sister. He grabbed her by the shoulders and looked her right in the eyes. He had never been the serious type. He was always a clown. He was in his mid twenties and didn’t want to keep a job. He made every excuse in the world to do as little as possible. He still lived at home and his mother had still been doing his laundry, at least until recently. The look he gave his sister was the most serious thing he’d ever done. It was gravely serious.

“Help you how? Talk to me. Please, Lucy, c’mon.”

“Fix the world,” she said.

The whisper hit his mind like a sledgehammer. The impact of those three little words knocked him to the ground. He sat, staring at her. He tried to talk to her, tried to get answers but he couldn’t hear her anymore and maybe she couldn’t hear him. He was lost before, now he was utterly and profoundly lost with the added weight of the world on his shoulders.

Lucy was only seven but she was sharp as a dagger. She didn’t waste time talking nonsense like most kids her age. In many ways she was everything her brother wasn’t. She needed her big brothers help, but this wasn’t fixing a bike seat or gluing one of her toys back together. She asked him to help her by fixing the world. He couldn’t even wrap his mind around the concept let alone figure out what to do or where to start. It’s not like there’s a manual on world repair. Was it the world that was broken? Was it reality? Was it time? Either way, Grady was certain of only one thing; he didn’t know what to do.

Grady left Lucy and returned to the window. His thoughts were lead weights. Outside the window the sand dunes now towered over the homes. Hanging from these massive dunes were spiders the size of dogs and hairier too. How their webs were able to stick to the sand without being pulled down by the weight of these beasts didn’t matter, this world worked differently now. Beyond the sand dunes were what looked like mountains made out of glass. They were stunning and even beautiful. It was quite possibly the only peaceful thing about the nightmarish landscape. The phone rang and Grady jumped at the sound, hitting his forehead on the windowpane. It continued to ring till he picked it up.

“Hello,” he squeaked out.

“Hello,” echoed back a voice more alluring than his.

“W-who is this?” Grady asked.

“I can see you on my television. I’ve been calling numbers for days trying to find yours. I did it!”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“I have numbers in my head, phone numbers and addresses, I don’t know how or why—but they’re in there,” answered the woman’s soft voice.

“Uh, okay—you’re still not making any sense,” he said slowly.

“I’m coming over,” she said with a snap.

Before Grady could say anything, the woman on the phone began crawling out of the television. As she did this, the television emitted loud static noises and it sounded like it was rapidly changing channels. She crawled through feet first, her legs hung out from the television screen with a pair of beat up black chucks leading the way. Her jeans were of the designer faded variety and led to a slim and almost curvy figure. She now stood in front of the television wearing a black t-shirt with a red hooded sweatshirt over it. Her eyes were big and blue and hiding behind a thick pair of framed glasses. Her hair was blonde and messy, she looked nervous and tired but managed to smile and wave her hand. She was cute and despite Grady’s usual carefree composure, his expression let her know it. It had been days since he’d seen anyone moving let alone a girl and a cute one at that. He raised his hand in a half wave. The fact that a girl just climbed through his television didn’t bother him at all, with what he’d seen over the last hour or so it was a welcomed visit.

“Uh, hello,” he stumbled out.

“Hi,” she said as her eyes fixated on his family.

“I’d introduce you, but they aren’t talking to me,” Grady smiled.

She giggled and blushed, his sense of humor still worked even if the rest of the world didn’t. She crossed the distance between Grady and herself and held out her hand.

“My name’s Kara,” she said.

“Grady, nice to see—meet you,” he blushed.

“You too.”

“So, what the hell were you talking about?”

They started talking, and did so for hours, exchanging accounts of what the past few days had been like. She explained to him that her head was full of numbers; phone numbers and addresses were the only ones she could decipher--the rest just seemed to be gibberish. She told him how she discovered her television could be used as a portal. If they had this conversation days earlier–it would’ve been in a sanitarium. Grady told her about the werewolves and spiders and she hit him back with the creatures that came out of the lake. They both encountered the sand dunes and the gaps. Their conversation was cut short by a loud thunderous noise that made the ground tremble. The noise reminded Grady of a subway but amplified a hundred fold. The few lights that were on, flickered, as did the television. Picture frames fell, the house rattled and the noise subsided. They both stared at the door waiting for it to burst open. A minute passed and they hadn’t moved. A quick, polite knock-knock-knock stirred Grady to his feet. He slowly approached the window, peeking from the behind the curtain, he gasped. Outside was a huge train made of what looked like dinosaur bones and leather, at the door was the conductor. The conductor was oddly tall, lanky, and thin. At first glance he appeared to be normal but on closer inspection he looked more like a mummy, almost a skeleton if it weren’t for the dried up flesh that clung to his old bones. Knock-knock-knock.

“What do you want?” Grady yelled from the window.

The conductor slowly turned his head—not his body, and looked at Grady. He had black holes for eyes and no mouth. The conductor lifted his arm and pointed a long bony finger at the enormous train that took up the street and sidewalk, still his body didn’t move—only the appendage necessary to interact. Grady’s head pounded as Lucy’s voice reverberated in his mind, “go,” she said. Grady looked at Kara as if she was going along with him, her eyes gave him an answer before he asked the question.

“Call me if you ever come back,” she said as she crawled back into the television.

He nodded and opened the door, the conductor towered over him but stepped aside still pointing at the train. Grady cautiously stepped out and headed toward the massive vessel. It was disgusting and creepy, it’s leathery surface looked slick under the night sky. The conductor stood behind him, practically on top of him. Grady noticed he smelled like old books—really old books. He pointed at a set of stairs that led onto the train car. He looked back at his home and regretfully boarded the beast of a train. Once on board he took in his surroundings, the interior was vastly different; it was reminiscent of a very elegant parlor from the eighteenth century. The people and creatures on board were very much an amalgamation of animals—familiar and alien—and humanoid, some with very nonhuman attributes. One creature had a mouth that went down the middle of its head like a zipper and beady little eyes like marbles toward the lower end of its mouth. It was wearing some sort of suit and smoking a pipe that looked like a bone, the smoke was yellow and glittery. Another creature—it had to be female—looked burnt, the blackened and blistered kind of burnt. An older fellow toward the back of the train car stood out like a fly in a bowl of broth. He had white hair, a monocle and was wearing a bright shirt with palm trees on it. The man looked like he was going on vacation to Monster Island. Grady stopped staring and found a seat. The train started moving and was surprisingly smooth and quiet, the little noise it did make was a pulsating heartbeat-like sound. Chug-chug-chug-chug. Grady looked out the window to his right, which was not visible from outside, it bothered him not understanding how this world worked, or didn’t work. He watched the sand dunes rise and fall as the train gathered speed. He would catch a glimpse of a half buried car or home. He watched as a group of spiders skittered away from the approaching train. His eyelids began to flutter, and though he tried to fight it, they eventually closed and Grady fell asleep.

The conductor was lurching over Grady, his long boney hand was wrapped around his shoulder and the mouth-less man was shaking him awake. Grady opened his eyes and jumped, forcing his body into his seat to create as much distance as possible. The conductor raised his hands up slowly, making it as clear as he could, that he meant no harm. Grady relaxed and realized that the train was empty and had come to a stop. He looked back at the man with no mouth, unsure of where to look he looked into the blackened holes he had for eyes expecting some sort of gesture and receiving none. The conductor led Grady off the train. The tall man pointed to a woman, a woman much like himself, holes for eyes and lack of a mouth. The woman was holding a piece of torn board, maybe cardboard, maybe not, with Grady’s name on it. It was written in what looked liked red chalk by the quavering hand of a child unsure of his or her letterforms. Grady uneasily walked over to her. The woman moved her arm and hand in a follow me movement that was unnaturally stiff. She then turned and headed toward a long corridor.

It was dark and moist, silent and seemingly empty. Grady wondered where the people from the train had gone. The walls of the corridor, upon closer examination, looked as if they were made of skeletal remains and golden semi-transparent wax. He could clearly make out skulls and ribs, a few spines and then bones that didn’t look human at all. He saw a large jaw with pointed teeth, skulls that could’ve belonged to wolves or cattle and plenty of remains that he couldn’t link to anything he’d ever seen before. Fear stuck him in his stomach like a fistful needles, his palms were sweaty and his heart raced. They came to the end of the corridor. There stood a large set of double doors, deep red and at least twelve feet high, the kind of doors you’d see in a fantasy painting of a castle. The woman’s long bony hand wrapped on the door knock-knock-knock, the sound echoed past them and ran down the corridor. A moment passed and then the doors parted and opened inward. A man that could’ve been Vincent Price smiled from behind the door, he had a smoky beard and penetrating eyes. Though he had the appearance of age he also carried himself with the strength of youth. He stood straight and looked built of sturdy stock, he could’ve been a lumberjack but his glasses told Grady otherwise.

“Ah, you must be Grady! Come in, come in,” said the man.

“Do you know what’s going on?” Grady asked him.

“Nothing more than speculation. As for why you’re here I called for you,” the man said as he led him into the room.

“And why is that?”

“A trade, a proposition, an opportunity—if you will.”

“I don’t have anything to trade,” Grady said.

“Quite the contrary, Grady, I lost my apprentice, you lost your family—I can give you back your sister in exchange for you taking the place of my apprentice.”

“You have my sister?”

“No, not quite. Her soul, her essence is stuck in the Soul Garden.”

“What the fuck is that? What are you talking about?”

“Please, Grady, calm down. This is not my doing it is simply what happened. It’s no one’s fault, except for maybe God or the Devil. By chance, while searching for my apprentice, I came across your sister, she said you would help her.”

“So, you’re using her as some sort of bait to get me to help you, is that it?” Grady grew angered.

“Not at all young man! To free your sister is not something I can do alone, only blood can free blood. I am however offering you my services in exchange for yours, you would never make it there alive on your own.”

“Take me there. Please.”

“You’d sign your life away so easily, without so much as a question about what you’d have to do for me?”

“It doesn’t matter, I’d do anything for my little sister.”

“Ever kill anything, Grady?”

“No.”

“Good, there’s nothing like some on the job training!”

The man, who later introduced himself to Grady as being George Waggner, grabbed a backpack from a workbench that was several feet from the door. He tossed it to Grady who barely caught it. He grabbed a similar one from underneath the table and slung it over his shoulder. They walked out of the room and down the corridor, the woman with holes for eyes followed behind. They boarded the train and the conductor was there to greet them. Waggner led the way toward the rear of the train, passing car upon car of interesting passengers. He opened the door to a private room and put his bag down, Grady followed behind him and did the same. They sat, Waggner looked at Grady and Grady looked back and forth from his gaze to the window and beyond. Grady felt awkward by Waggner’s direct and dissecting stare. Waggner picked up on this in an instant but continued the game for his own jollies. After he bored himself of watching Grady squirm, he opened his pack and began explaining its contents, which were identical to those in Grady’s. He showed him a set of silver daggers and knives of varying lengths, he explained how to use each one and that they were only to be used on werewolves. He then pulled out a round stone, roughly the size of his palm, and told him “this stone can suck the moisture from any water-based creatures, wet-devils and such—dries ‘em right up, just stay away from anything much bigger than yourself.” Grady took his own rock out of the bag and held it in his hand. It was gritty and felt like chalk. Waggner did this till the pack yielded dirt and lint. He explained the weaponry for Stone Beasts, Bloodsuckers, Mind-eaters, Leekers and the rest of the creatures they could possibly run into on their trek.

Hours passed and the conversation was minimal. The train stopped many times along the way. Only a few folks had remained when they finally reached their stop, which also happened to be the end of the line. The passengers stepped off the train with the weight of dread on each step. Grady looked back after a moment as the train slowly grinded away on tracks that remained to be seen. He looked forward and shuddered. The other passengers dispersed into varying directions of the junkyard-like landscape.

George Waggner led the young man through a series of gates and rubble. The gates creaked and clanked and spiraled down the edge of a rusty red cliffside. They continued on till they reached a landing, George called it the Essence Overlook, and told Grady to “go ahead and look over the edge.” He did and what he saw took his breath away and crumbled it into a ball and threw it to the wastebasket where it bounced off the rim and hit the floor. It was a field that stretched for miles; farther than he could tell, with glowing blue-green orbs that resembled pumpkins disappearing into the darkness of the horizon. He didn’t need to ask what this was, he knew, it was obvious. They headed down a long staircase that winded down the rest of the cliff and entered a final gate.

Now, inside the Soul Garden they weaved through the rows of glowing orbs. Grady could hear the sounds of moans and whispers, pleas and cries. He felt a chilling breeze with hands clutched at his shoulders. The ground felt soft, sinking soft, yet he continued to follow the man who held the deed to his life; the life he so easily signed away. He could hear his sister’s voice in the whispering cacophony. She wasn’t crying, she didn’t sound upset, she was simply calling her brothers name as if creeping into his room unexpectedly. His eyes widened and pace accelerated. Grady now led the charge, his body cutting through chilly air, and Waggner approved. They came upon his sister’s orb. It was pulsating. Grady put his hands on the slimy firm surface of the orb. It felt like cold wet tofu, his sister’s voice echoed in his head, he knew she was in there.

“Lucy,” he called.

He kept his hands pressed to the surface, calling her name again, “Lucy, it’s me.”

George kept his head on a swivel, surveying the land, his eyes fixed on a particular part of the field that had grown darker. “Leekers,” he whispered to himself.

“Hurry up, Grady, we’re running out of time here.”

“It’s not like I’ve done this before.”

“You’ve got to rupture the skin, it’s like peeling a fruit, now, get to it!”

“What the fuck’s the rush?”

“Leekers.”

Grady didn’t respond to his one-word answer, he peeled away layer after layer of slimy skin. His frantic fingers tore at the orb, and eventually a mist began to rise up from inside the orb. The mist bloomed a face, a neck, shoulders, and hair. It was Lucy. The rest of her body refused to form. She was a floating ghost, ethereal and abstract. Her need of a body was insignificant now, she only chose to resemble her earthly form as to not alienate herself from her brother any more then she already did. Lucy formed a hand and gently touched her brother’s face.

“We have to go,” she said.

“Agreed,” said George.

Grady was lost for words.

As they turned to head back to the gate a screeching noise filled the air. The cries and pleas rattled the air, the ground grew softer and the air grew colder. Grady turned his head to see what had made the noise and instantly wished he hadn’t. The Leekers had spotted them and were headed right for them. Lucy flew through the air like a thought. She was a light in the darkness leading the way to the gate. They ran, chasing a ghost as quickly as a dreamer chases a dream knowing that nightmares were chasing them. These nightmares, these Leekers, feed off the orb’s—they eat souls. They look like a cross breeding of giant stingrays and rabid dogs with a touch of bat and a dash of death. As they passed the gate George slammed it shut, they ran for the steps. Grady’s lungs burned as Waggner passed him by, “C’mon,” he yelled. Lucy was fast, fast and effortlessly so, she wanted to pick them up and whisk them away to safety but she couldn’t.

“Grady! Use the Cadaver Dust!” George yelled.

Grady reached into the pack that was slung around his shoulder, his finger dug like beggars for change. He pulled from his pack a small purple satchel. He untied it and turned to face the hounds at his heels. The creatures were just passing the gate. He paused. His timing would have to be just right. “Now!” George yelled from behind him. Grady launched the satchel at the beasts; the grey glittering ash spilled forth following the arc of his throw. The ash rained down before the Leekers, glittering to the ground. The creatures gnarled and licked at the ash.

“Run!” George yelled.

They continued up the hill. By the time they reached Essence Overlook the Leekers had realized what they were consuming was not a soul—angered, they took chase again. Waggner hoped the dust bought them enough time to get away. They ran, legs furiously pumping, arms slashing through the air and lungs on fire. At the top of the cliff now, barely able to catch their breaths, their run turned into a jog. Grady dragged his feet with each step as wisps of Lucy’s ghostly form flickered back and forth gesturing her brother and his older companion to keep moving. The train was coming back. They could see it in the distance, taking its sweet old time to close the gap between safety and certain doom. The Leekers joined George, Lucy and Grady, their speed had not diminished, they did not tire—in fact, they do not tire—at least not till they’ve fed. George threw another satchel of dust at his stalkers, but it had no effect, they would not be fooled so easily a second time in such quick succession. Grady had left George’s side and followed his sister toward the approaching train. George quickly rejoined them and the creatures nipped at his heels. A conductor was hanging out the side of the train car. His black-hole eyes watched unaffectedly. The Leeker in the lead licked at George Waggner’s essence, the creature was practically on his back, lashing its purplish black twisted tongue at him. Its tongue was pulling George’s soul from out of his back. George Waggner was a resilient bastard, though. He laughed at death his whole life and spent most of it killing the un-killable, hunting the hunters, and thriving on it, but he knew there were beasts out there he could never defeat—age and time both of which were catching up to him—and eventually would lead to his demise. His demise, he hoped, would not be at the lick of a Leeker and would come some time after he had time to train his apprentice.

The conductor hopped off the train as it slowed to a stop. He approached the frantic runners calmly. He stood before them, his long lanky arms pointing to the earth. He slowly raised his hands, fingers spreading and curling, George, Grady, and Lucy passed him and their attackers came to a screeching halt. They didn’t look back until they were on the train and when they did they could see the Leekers at a standstill with the conductor. They lashed at him with their tongues, screeched loud enough and high enough to crack crystal. The conductor did not budge. He grabbed the first Leeker by its thick burly throat and dug his boney fingertips below the surface of the creatures flesh. It whimpered and whined and discouraged the rest of the pack as they began to whimper as well. He then tore the Leeker in half, black blood and gore dripped from the beast and from within the creature rose up a glittery mist—an undigested meal. The other Leekers licked at it, took their scraps and scampered off toward the edge of the cliff. The conductor dropped the halved creature to the dirt, its black blood pooling around his feet. The creature twitched, two writhing stingrays looking for its better half at low tide. The conductor walked away and boarded the train. The train receded once more into the horizon.

The three of them found their seats, not that Lucy took one. She hovered in the air above them, like a dragonfly—her form fluttering. They caught their breath as the train began to move. They sat quietly for a few moments.

"Thanks George,” Grady said.

“My pleasure, but no need to thank me it’s all a part of our deal,” he replied.

“Right, the deal. First we need to do something, though,” Grady said awkwardly.

“Oh?” George asked.

“Yeah…we have to fix the world,” Grady spoke in almost a whisper.

George let out a hearty laugh. He slapped his knee and rocked back and forth in his chair. Grady stared at him with a mix of anger and embarrassment.

“Fix. The. World. Are you serious?” George asked.

“Yes,” he replied.

“I hate to tell you this Grady, really, I do, but I don’t think that’s possible. You see, something’s just can’t be fixed, broken is broken. Sure you can glue, or stitch, or even put a piece of tape on something, but you can’t really ever fix anything,” George said in all seriousness.

“But Lucy said I have to,” he looked hurt.

“Well, do what you have to, but broken is broken and that’s that. When you get a cut, your skin is never really the same, sure it’s healed, but more often than not it’s scarred. Think of this world we’re on now as a scar between two worlds. It’s as good as it’s going to get,” George said.

Grady stared out the window, George looked tired, Lucy floated about, and the train rolled on.

* * * * *

The Loch

By Bryan Wolford

“All aboard,” Dave Robinson bellowed. He stood by a small pontoon boat. Six people climbed the small set of stairs to take seats on the boat. Loch Ness Tours was written on the side of the boat. It was dark out. A mist hung over the water.

During the day Dave ran a tour boat company. He would take tourists out on the Loch and show them points of interest. They would stop at numerous points and he would tell stories over the loud speaker about stories of eye witness accounts of The Loch Ness Monster. The stories were mostly made up by Dave and a few of his friends. He threw in a few of the more well known stories just to give the rest of the stories some credibility. Most of the locals knew that the whole Loch Ness Monster thing was a load of manure but since it looked good on a t-shirt and kept the local economy up no one spoke ill of it. During the day trips Dave would scope out the tourists and find a few targets. He would let slip that he had seen the monster itself. Knew of a spot that it frequented. The mark would then want to go but Dave would refuse saying it was to dangerous. They would offer him a few hundred bucks to take them. He would act as if it was impossible. They would raise the offer. He would begrudgingly accept. It never failed. He would take them out at night and his friend Steve would be already in position.

Steve had come up with some of the greatest tools for this scam. He had created a speaker that sat in the water facing upwards. It floated just on the surface of the water. At night it was near invisible on the surface. It would wirelessly sound off a low growling sound. They had created it by mixing together the sound of whales and slowing down the screech of Howler Monkeys. It was perfect. Steve had also found a small, un-manned underwater sub. They had attached a giant rubber hump to it so if you brought the sub to the surface and then dove again quickly it would appear that the back of giant creature had just surfaced. Steve would sit on the shore with the remote controls and wait to see the boat approach. They had planned the whole thing out and had done some trial runs before hand. Dave had to make sure to only catch part of it with the spotlight just as it went back underwater. The scam had made them very rich very quickly. They had figured a few more and they could retire to a tropical beach somewhere. Tourists seemed to pay insane amounts of money to catch a glimpse of something that shouldn’t exist.

Now people settled into their seats. He had found a group of tourists from Canada. They were part of some sort of traveling sales team or something like that. But they all had paid a lot of money for Dave to take them out onto the Loch to find the mysterious Nessie. Dave climbed on board and stood before the group.

“I really do not like the idea of us doing this but since you are all offering such an amount of money I can’t really say no. But this is extremely dangerous so I’m just saying now that if we run into any trouble I am turning this boat around and coming back to shore. The last thing I need is one of you falling into the Loch and drowning and me getting my business taken away from me.” They all nodded in agreement. Dave turned to start the engine. He had a smug smirk on his face. The engine started with no problem and he steered the boat out into the Loch.

“Now every time I have seen the monster it was very docile. All it ever really did was look at me and then go underwater. But we have to remember that this is an animal. If it has had a baby or something it may become aggressive. You never know. So if the opportunity arises please don’t try to touch the animal. I would recommend not taking pictures only because the flash might agitate it. I’m already taking a risk by bringing you guys out here. I don’t want to have to fight for my life.” All the passengers nodded. One even took his digital camera and put it back into his pocket.

The night was cool. As the boat sped out into the Loch the mist parted in front of it. Dave hit the first checkpoint and lowered the speed of the boat. Steve should be in position on the left bank a few miles up. Dave took out the spotlight and swept it over the surface of the water.

“Sometimes I have seen it out here at night. The schools of fish come to the surface here at night to try and catch mosquitoes that land on the surface of the water. The monster is probably attracted by the free meal.” He dramatically swept it back and forth across the water. As if to help aid his story a fish jumped out of the water. “See. Free dinner.” The passengers whispered among themselves. The boat kept moving forward. A few more yards and they would be within range of the speaker. That should really get the passengers going. Most people got bored up to this point as there was no evidence of anything but once that growl hits the air they got all wild eyed and enthralled.

Dave moved the boat more out towards the middle of the Loch to make sure he didn’t run into the speaker. Once he had kept the boat to far to the left and hit the speaker. Luckily he passed it off as a piece of driftwood and most of the passengers had bought it. Just as the boat got into position a small growl came from the distance. Dave quickly hushed the group and had them listen. The growl grew. Just about all of the passengers seemed to get really excited.

“Okay. We’re getting closer. Again everyone be careful. Any sign of trouble we’re going back.” The growl got closer and closer. Then just as they were within the usual area for the full Loch Tour effect the growl suddenly went dead. A loud splashing was heard off in the darkness. Everyone on board was getting very excited and they all leaned forward to look out into the darkness to see what they could see. Another sound hit the air. To Dave it sounded like an elephant. The only thing he could think of was that Steve must have updated the tape. Why Steve would do that now was beyond him.

Dave flipped on the spotlight making sure to keep it pointed mostly to the front of the boat. In about thirty seconds he would hear a splash and would first move the light to the left. After not seeing anything he would go to the right and then would catch just a slight glimpse of the rubber covering on the sub as it submerged again.

He swept it back and forth across the front of the boat and sure enough there came the splash. First he went left and then right and according to plan he caught the very slight glimpse of the sub submerging.

“There it is,” someone said. Dave had to smile at himself. It worked perfectly. They would sit for another few minutes and then he would say that the spotlight had probably chased it away. After another fifteen minutes or so he would then say they would probably not see anything else that night and begin to head back.

“There it is again,” someone on the other side of the boat said. Dave turned and saw most of the passengers on the left side of the boat staring out a few feet. Dave turned the spotlight and again caught just a glimpse of something going underwater. Steve was changing the plan. This was not good. He would have to chew him out later about almost ruining it. From behind them came another splash and that elephant sound again. Dave was startled as the sound was way to close. The speaker should be closer to the shore.

“Okay everyone. Things seem to be picking up here. I don’t want to take a chance of it getting aggressive on us so I’m going to start heading back.”

“No way,” one of the passengers said. “I paid you to see Nessie and I want to see it. Get that spotlight on it.” Dave stepped back to the passenger that had spoken.

“I am not risking all our lives just so you can see it. I’m heading back.” All the passengers stood up.

“We want to see it,” one of them said.

“Yeah,” another agreed.

The elephant sound came again and it was on the right side of the boat. Dave ran back up to the spotlight and flipped it to the right side. A pair of eyes flared in the darkness as the light hit it. It dove into the water and was gone. Everyone on board was talking back and forth to each other. Dave started the engine and began to turn the boat back to the dock.

“What are you doing?”

“Taking us back. The tour’s over.” Dave kept the engine at full speed until he saw the dock. He pulled into his spot and ran off the boat. Most of the passengers were confused but began to make their way off. They were excited and couldn’t wait to tell their friends and families when they got home about the trip. Dave was nowhere to be found when they went to thank him for the tour.

Dave paced back and forth in his house. Steve was late getting back. Usually they met up at Dave’s house after a night tour and Dave gave him his cut. Tonight he hadn’t shown up yet and Dave was getting worried. After about an hour Dave considered going out to where Steve was supposed to be on the bank. Just as he was about to grab his coat a knock came at the front door. Dave opened it and found Steve standing there looking irritated.

“Where the hell have you been?” Dave asked.

“Where do you think? Thanks a lot. You know how much it’s going to cost?” Dave looked at him confused.

“What are you talking about?”

“The speaker. The sub. Both are trashed man. Did you not remember where to go? You hit both of them.” Dave looked at Steve and saw that he was serious.

“I didn’t hit anything.”

“The hell you didn’t. Come out and look at them.” Dave followed Steve outside. The back of Steve’s truck had a tarp over it. He lifted it up and inside was the floating speaker and the small sub. The speaker was totally trashed. It had looked like it had been run over a few times. “And what was with playing the other tape off the boat? When did you decide to do that?” Dave ignored him and looked at the sub. A whole side of it was crushed. The rubber covering was torn and looked like it had almost fallen off the sub on its way back to the shore. Dave ran his finger over the crushed part of the sub. He realized that the shape his finger was tracing on the sub could very well have been a giant bite mark.

“Steve, we’re officially retiring. I’m never going out on the Loch again.”

* * * * *

DARK

A Horror Anthology

About the authors

(In order of appearance)

Matt R. Jones has previously appeared in the Robots Beyond anthology, AlienSkin, and in his own Hollywood Vampires books, as well as the occasional bit of childish graffiti. He resides in central Illinois, getting his IQ regularly traumatized by the inhabitants, but enjoys the endless cheap joke fodder that the rampant inbreeding provides him – despite being viewed with suspicion for being “one ‘o them dang out-breeders.” For tons of free stories and other examples of his work, check out the Realm of the Hollywood Vampires at www.hollywoodvampires.net…he can also be found on Facebook and MySpace.

Bryan Wolford has been an avid horror fan from a young age. He couldn't explain why these scary things intrigued him but they did. Years later he found himself a co-host of a successful horror themed podcast called Drunken Zombie (found at www.drunkenzombie.com). Through this he has had the fortune to meet a lot of his childhood horror icons, become friends with people working in the horror industry, and even run his own horror film festival in November of 2009. He is a published author with two of his short stories available in horror anthologies and is a hopeful horror filmmaker with his short horror film "Shadows" in post production. For more of his writings and musings head over to http://www.bryanwolford.net.

Casey Criswell Having spent several years writing essays on horror films at his website Cinema Fromage, full time duties writing news and film reviews for Bloody Good Horror, as well as sharing his love and knowledge of horror films with anyone willing to listen, Casey finally decided to stray from the path of other peoples nightmares and invent a few scares of his own. His previously published stories include "Jackboots for Jesus" in The Jack, "A Fine Line" in the Sonar 4 ezine, and "Secret Symphony" for Six Sentences. Casey can be heard weekly co-hosting the Bloody Good Horror Podcast.

http://www.cinemafromage.com
http://www.bloodygoodhorror.com

J.P. Moore writes in southern New Jersey, which is a long way from the settings of his novels and stories. Moore is no friend to his characters. He enjoys forcing them into terrifying situations, and challenging those poor souls to bring their worlds back from the brink of ruin. Once in a while, they do. Not content to limit this sadistic behavior to the low word-count of short stories, Moore wrote Toothless, a zombie apocalypse novel set in the 12th century. The novel has gathered thousands of fans as a free audio-book, and is available at http://www.jpmooreonline.com

Keith Latch is the author of four novels ranging from horror to contemporary romance, to thrillers, and numerous short stories. The imagination of Keith Latch knows no bounds when it comes to storytelling. He'll take you to the edge of your seat and then knock you off. Definitely not for the faint of heart! Visit http://www.keithlatch.com to keep current on his projects, which include novels, anthologies, and podcasts.

Sal Cipriano Born, bred, and still proudly residing in Brooklyn, NY, Sal Cipriano is a professional writer and comic book letterer. He was initially educated in Film at NYC's School of Visual Arts, but because he wanted to make far less money, he soon moved into the Cartooning and Illustration Department. Sal's published creations include The Adventures of Bio Boy, Vengeance of The Vapor, and The Hill. Currently, he is lettering various comics, writing articles of fact and fiction at multiple websites, and working on his first novel.

http://www.salcipriano.com
http://www.besballtalk.com
http://www.flixfiend.com

Desmond Reddick is a writer, podcaster and teacher living on the west coast of Canada with his wife and two little demons. He hosts three podcasts: Dread Media (http://www.dreadmedia.com) about horror culture, Earth-2.net The Show (http://www.earth-2.net) about comics and Married to Movies (http://www.marriedtomovies.com) about...duh...movies. He also enjoys writing about himself in the third person.

Sean Keller writes short stories, movies, comic books and songs. He has performed in films, on Broadway and in various theaters and dive bars across the U. S. of A and has even lost big on Jeopardy. He drinks too much, swears too much and enjoys corrupting the morals of America's youth.

Dezi Sienty is an artist living in NYC who has a love for all things monsters. He's done illustration and comic work for a number of clients.  This is his first foray into short story writing, so he asked for help from a friend, Cassandra Thomas. You can see his work at:

http://www.dezicnt.blogspot.com
http://www.cavedrawingink.com

Cassandra Thomas spends most of her hours slaving away as a medical resident, but also enjoys dreaming in technicolor, scribbling poems on napkins and inspiring her good friends with her whimsy.

Blake M. Petit is a freelance writer, columnist, reviewer, podcaster, actor, director, teacher, and unlicensed tree surgeon from Ama, Louisiana. He is the author of the novels Other People’s Heroes and The Beginner, as well as the podcast novel A Long November. His weekly comic book column, Everything But Imaginary, has appeared Wednesdays at comiXtreme.com since 2003. In January of 2007 he joined with his longtime friend Chase Bouzigard to host the weekly 2 in 1 Showcase comic book podcast, appearing every weekend at comiXtreme. Blake is a member of the board of directors of the Thibodaux Playhouse theatre company in Thibodaux Louisiana, where his original stage play The 3-D Radio Show was produced in 2004. In a former life as a newspaper editor, his weekly Think About It column won the Louisiana Press Association Award for best column in 2001. In his free time, he teaches high school English, which at the moment pays better than the rest of his more impressive-sounding endeavors put together.

http://www.evertimerealms.com

Corey Graham is a freelance writer, web designer and podcaster. He earned his Bachelor's degree in Communications Media from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and has been writing all his life. He currently resides in Western Pennsylvania in his zombie-proof bunker. His online residence is at:

http://midnightcorey.com

Derek M. Koch Ever since his movie-restrictive childhood, Derek has been fascinated by all things horror. From the Creature from the Black Lagoon to Jason Voorhees, George A. Romero to Patrick Devaney, Derek has spent his post-driver's-license years catching up on all of them, and by far, his favorite subgenre is the Zombie Film. How to get his wife on board with hundreds of hours of zombie movie viewing? Why, start the Northwest’s premiere zombie movie podcast and invite her to be a co-host! Derek, a.k.a. Brother D, and his wife, Miss Bren, have just celebrated two years of 5-star weekly zombie podcasting at Mail Order Zombie. In addition to producing Mail Order Zombie, Derek finds time to write for websites like Paperback Reader, as well as his own short and long-form fiction (and he often writes about zombies!). Derek's official website is House Improbabilia.

http://www.mailorderzombie.com
http://www.improbabilia.com

Steve Wands lives in New Jersey with his wife and son. He’s a comic book letterer for DC Comics by day, and an artist and writer by night. He drinks massive amounts of coffee, and sleeps very little. He is the author of Stay Dead: The Stranger and Tunnel Rats, Modern Nightmares, and Damaged.

http://www.stevewands.blogspot.com
http://www.pleasestaydead.blogspot.com

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You can keep in touch with all of the authors of Dark: A Horror Anthology by following the official blog: http://www.darkhorroranthology.blogspot.com