ApexScienceFictionandHorrorDigest#11


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Copyright ©2007 by Apex Authors
First published in 2007, 2007


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What Say You
Editorial by Jason B Sizemore
Congratulations to Justin Stewart, our resident artist and content designer, for his Chesley Award nomination. Although he didn't win, nobody will deny that being recognized by the top SF/Fantasy art awards in the country isn't damn cool.
Justin has been with us since the genesis of Apex Digest. He did the covers for our first four issues, all free of charge. He continues to do amazing work for Apex, be it creating advertising art, banners, flyers, book covers, etc. Without Mr. Stewart, there would probably be no Apex Digest.
Congratulations, Justin, on your nomination. Next year, please win.
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Jason Sizemore: Editor in Chief

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Deb Taber: Editor/Art Director

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Table of Contents:

Blackboard Sky—Gary A. Braunbeck
Interview with Gary A. Braunbeck
Spinnetje—Stefani Nellen
Ray Gun—Daniel G. Keohane
Uncanny—Samuel Tinianow
Curses of Nature—Alethea Kontis
The Moldy Dead—Sara King
Interview with Bryan Smith
Cain Xp11 (Part 3): Sorry About the Blood—Geoffrey Girard
What to Expect When Expectorating—Jennifer Pelland



Gary A. Braunbeck writes mysteries, thrillers, science fiction, fantasy, horror, and mainstream literature. He is the author of 19 books; his fiction has been translated into Japanese, French, Italian, Russian and German. Nearly 200 of his short stories have appeared in various publications. He was born in Newark, Ohio, the city that serves as the model for the fictitious Cedar Hill in many of his stories. The Cedar Hill stories are collected in Graveyard People and Home Before Dark. His fiction has received several awards, including the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Short Fiction in 2003 for “Duty” and in 2005 for “We Now Pause for Station Identification,"; his collection Destinations Unknown won the Fiction Collection Stoker in 2006. His novella “Kiss of the Mudman” received the International Horror Guild Award for Long Fiction in 2005. For more information about Gary and his work, please visit: www.garybraunbeck.com.
BLACKBOARD SKY
By Gary A. Braunbeck
"Children of the future age.
Reading this indignant page,
Know that in a former time,
Love, sweet love, was thought a crime..."
—John Milton, A Little Girl Lost
#
When I was six years old I fell down the stairs of our house and cracked my spine. Had it been one centimeter deeper I would have been paralyzed for life, but as luck would have it the injury required only one surgery followed by months of bed-rest, during which I could only move my arms or have my head propped up on pillows when it was time to eat. I read hundreds of books during those months, learned how to play poker from my mother, and drew so many pictures my father threatened to wallpaper every room in the house with them if I didn't stop. To save both paper and his nerves, he devised a contraption with hooks and pulleys that enabled me to raise or lower a small blackboard above my bed, allowing me to lie on my back (I was supposed to remain flat as often as possible) and draw pictures with the dozens of pieces of different-colored chalk he purchased at an art supply store. I thought of it as my blackboard sky. Some of the chalk was of the glow-in-the-dark variety, and every night before I fell asleep I would draw a picture of a guardian angel so that if I woke up in the middle of the night, frightened, I had only to look above to see my glowing angel with its luminous wings, and I'd know that I was all right, I was protected, someone was watching over me.
If it weren't for that, if I'd not had my blackboard sky on which to depict glowing guardian angels and the dreams of all I planned on doing once I could walk again (flying to the moon in a rocket ship was right at the top of the list), I think my head would have started ticking like a bomb on a subway train, and I would have gone stark, staring crazy by the time I was seven. I still have that blackboard, and every so often I take it out of the closet and spend a half-hour or so drawing on it, just to remind myself that at least I had an outlet as a child when one was so desperately needed.
Or, rather, I used to. I used to do a lot of things, look forward to things, plan for things, hope for things. And then came the story of the Boy in the Box Tower.
#

The first part was jammed between pages 93 and 94 of a used paperback edition of Anton Chekhov's The Party and Other Stories on a stained piece of notebook paper that looked as if someone had spilled coffee on it and then, in anger, crumpled it into a wad and thrown it away, only to have someone else later find it, smooth it out, and write on it. The handwriting (printing, actually) was that of a child—perhaps 7 or 8 years old—and if the spelling, punctuation, and grammar were any indication, not a particularly bright child; but I stopped thinking about those things by the time I reached the end of the first paragraph:


The boy In the boxTower

befour he was calld the boy in the Boxtower his name was vincent. he was not like everyone else. he was difrent. he had a special gift for distruction. vincent could distroy anything just buy looking at it when he was upset. he hated it but didn't no what he could do too stop it. it was resess and all the forth-graders went outside too play. vincent walked too a corner of the playground and sat alone. he didn't hav friends. everyone thought he was a freek. vincent wasn't intoo math or science or reeding or righting or history. he was intoo horror and ghosts and creetsures and aleyans frum space in books and movees. he yousd to watch horror movees with his dad befour his dad got all sad and killed himself. that was why vincent was always depressed. he never reelly talked two people or got along with anywon. he was always alone, even when he was home with his mom who was always drunk and on the fone with her sister asking four monee to help with the bills. a kid was walking to vincent, a big kid.
"hay, freek!” the kid shouted at vincent. then he hit vincent in the face hard. vincent fell back but then got up. vincents nose was bleeding and his left eye began to twitch.
"you would not bee like this if yore dad wasn't mean and hit you all the time,” said vincent to the big kid.
"well at leest my dad is alive and not some psycho who killed himself!"
vincent grabbed a big rock and beat the kid in the face with it. the kids face all bloody. vincent stood with tears in his eyes. the twitch in his eye went faster. he felt very hot inside. all the heat like fire heded to his eyes. vincent stared at the kid with the bleeding face. with his eyes he made the bleeding kid go on fire all over. the big kid started screeming reel loud. vincent cryd harder and took off running until he reechd the big tower of cardbored boxes. it took him 7 hours to climb to the top of the tower where there was a room for him to hide. noone new where he went, but they started looking four him. but vincent was not alone in the box tower. the device was there with him. the device always found him. the device was his only friend.
"That is seriously fucked-up,” came a woman's voice from behind me.
I started, nearly knocking over the stack of books I'd been inventorying, and turned to see that Claire, who worked one of the cash registers, was standing there reading over my shoulder.
"Jesus, Claire! Have you been taking some kind of ninja training on your days off? I never heard you."
"You were so engrossed in that, I just knew it was something odd."
I tilted my head and grinned. “You were hoping it was another twenty, weren't you?"
"Can you blame me?"
I'd once found a twenty dollar bill inside a well-read copy of Love Story. Claire and I—along with the other volunteers who'd been working that night—had used it to order a pizza.
The place we work is called, simply, BARGAINS. It's a second-hand store, not unlike those run by Goodwill and the Salvation Army, where people who can't afford to shop at regular department stores come to buy clothes, furniture, household appliances, televisions, VCRs, DVD players, assorted other electronics ... and, of course, books. I volunteer on Friday nights and Saturdays, and am in charge of the electronics and books sections. (I'd taken the day off work on this particular Friday because of a too-long doctor's appointment, and had decided to come into the story early.) I make it a point to always go through every box of donated books that comes in and remove anything left inside. Over the years I have found concert tickets, bank receipts, phone numbers, addresses, photographs of people whose names I'd never know, money, candy bar wrappers ... people will use the damnedest things as bookmarks, and then forget to remove them before tossing the books into the large metal BOOK DONATIONS bin outside the store. I'd once suggested that we request people leave their names when donating books in case something of value was found inside, but the store has no computer to create such a database, and even if it did, cataloguing who donated each book would soon become a full-time endeavor; so, instead, I go through each book before placing it on the shelves.

"There's more on the back,” said Claire.

I turned over the page and there, in the same childish handwriting, was this:
* * * *



* * * *
....
the device was sending him a message, so vincent listened very carefully. he almost never understood what the device was telling him but it was nice to have someone talking to him and not yelling at him or ignoring him.
"The wavelength in the waveguide is: lg = 2p/b, which is always greater than the free-space wavelength of l0 =2p/k—except for the 00-th mode, where lg = l0 applies as frequency decreases, the guide wavelength increases until it becomes infinite, at a cutoff frequency of:
* * * *



* * * *
"—where ‘c’ is the speed of sound. Below the cutoff the propagation constant b becomes imaginary, and the mode decays rapidly instead of propagating without loss. So the 00-th mode has a cutoff frequency of zero."
vincent smiled at the device. “thank you, C'haill-ol-i,” he said.
"What the hell?” I said.
Claire put her hand on my shoulder and leaned closer. “Got any idea what that is, Mr. Wizard?"
"Some math equations that are way beyond me—and please stop calling me ‘Mr. Wizard.’ I teach 6th-grade science, not quantum physics."
"So maybe it's just something the kid made up?"
"Probably.” I found it hard to concentrate with the touch of her hand sending waves of heat down into my chest. “Probably,” I said once again, folding the page and moving to place it in the stack of other items I'd found left in today's books, but Claire was faster and yanked it from my hand.
"C'mon, Patrick! You're actually expecting me to believe that this doesn't interest you in the least? Look at it! All of a sudden, when ‘the device’ starts talking to Vincent, his grammar and spelling are fine—okay, his capitalization still needs work, but otherwise...” She waved the page in front of my face. “Tell me this isn't the most attention-grabbing thing you've encountered all day. C'haill-ol-i? What kind of word or name is that?"
I just smiled and shook my head, amazed as always that this lovely, vibrant, so alive woman showed any interest in me at all. I knew she thought of me as a friend, and I kept hoping things would turn into something more, but I was too afraid to make the first move. Besides being ten years younger than me, Claire was far too vibrant to weigh herself down with a man who had to use a set of canes to walk around—an after-effect from my childhood injury. Although the crack in my spine did eventually heal, it left quite a bit of nerve and muscle damage behind that decades of twice-monthly physical therapy has done little to improve. I can walk short distances without the canes—say, from my living room to my bedroom or to the kitchen—but for anything farther, I need the canes. When I'd talked briefly to Claire about how frustrating it sometimes became, she'd laughed, cupped my face in her hands, and said, “Yeah, but you get the best parking spaces.” How could a guy not fall for a woman with a sense of humor like that?
I found myself suddenly full of courage and decided to ask her out for a bite to eat after the store closed, but when I turned fully around to face her, she was staring past me, her face drained of color.
"Claire? What's wrong?"
Saying nothing, she pointed toward a row of television sets a few yards away; all were tuned to the same local channel where the noontime news was just starting with a breaking story.
A solemn-faced reporter stood at the edge of a school playground that was swarming with police, EMTs, several teachers and parents, and a lot of crying, frightened children. The volume on all of the televisions was set at low so it was difficult to hear everything the reporter was saying, but the words “two young boys,” “fight,” and “fire” came through loud and clear.
Claire touched my face and made a beeline for the nearest set, turning up the volume, though by that time there was no need; I think we both knew what had happened.
Two young boys from a local 4th-grade class had gotten into a fight during recess and the boy who'd started the altercation had somehow been set on fire. The boy he'd hit had run away during the confusion and still hadn't been found. The names of the boys were not being released yet.
I was still trembling when Claire came back to the sorting area.
"When were these new boxes of books brought in?” she asked me in a thin, quavering voice.
"This morning, right after I got here.” I picked up the copy of the Chekhov paperback. “This was in one of the bottom boxes."
"So it would have to have been dropped in there either last night or some time this morning before the store opened, right? I mean, there were other boxes on top of it, right? So that book and this piece of paper had been there for a while, right?"
I looked up at her. The color had still not returned to her face. “Right,” I whispered.
She unfolded the sheet of paper, staring at it as if it were something diseased. “Please don't say this is a coincidence."
"I wouldn't insult your intelligence like that."
She stared at the page and tried to smile. “Good. I probably would have hit you. Oh, God, Patrick—” She took hold of my hand. “—what're we going to do?"
"We could go to the police and show this to them, but my guess is that someone would think we were trying to ... I don't know ... pull something on everyone. That we'd made this ourselves somehow and were just using it as a way to draw attention to ourselves."
She gave a slow nod of her head. “They'd think we were either a couple of scumbags or a couple of crazies. Or both."
I squeezed her hand. “I didn't want to be quite so blunt about it, but yes."
She stared at the page for a few more seconds, then released a breath that seemed to take everything out of her. “Jesus Christ—look at it now.” She threw the page down on the table.
In the last two minutes, the story had been continued:
* * * *



* * * *



* * * *
—said the device to vincent as he lay down his head to rest.
"yes,” whispered vincent. “they're coming for me. but they won't find me right away. And when they do come, they'll have to come over the bridge."
* * * *



* * * *
—said the device again.
"I will,” replied vincent. “i'll make sure to do it right."
"Patrick, I swear to you, I swear to you, I didn't do that."
"I know,” I said, this time struggling to my feet and taking hold of both her hands. “I was looking at you the whole time. I know you didn't add that."
"Then ... how?"
"I don't know."
We both looked at the page on the table, and then Claire said: “Patrick, when the store closes later, I want to come home with you. I don't want to be alone tonight."
"I think I'm even more scared than you are."
She tried to smile but couldn't. “That's why I like you so much. You don't have a false-macho bone in your body. That's a good thing, in case you were wondering."
"You can sleep in my room and I'll take the sofa."
She shook her head, never taking her gaze away from mine. “No, I want to sleep next to you. I don't want to fuck or anything like that, I just want to fall asleep feeling safe.” And then she kissed me full on the mouth; not a quick, we're-just-friends kiss, but one with deeper affection behind it.
"I figured you'd never work up the nerve,” she said, starting back toward her register. “And, yes, I've known how you feel about me for a while now. It's mutual."
My heart should have soared, but I was suddenly terrified that I wouldn't be able to keep her safe from ... whatever it was that was happening.
#

Theirs was a dying world, one that lay far too close to the place where the expanding universe began to contract. For this reason, all of their efforts were directed toward finding another place where their race might be able to sustain itself and, eventually, prosper. It was a time both exciting and frightening to young pupils, and the pupil C'haill-ol-i knew that his destiny lay in the fulfillment of this most important task.


As time passed, C'haill-ol-i achieved high status; not yet a Seeker, but already a Sentient, and he created a Device to search for other life among other stars in other galaxies, unseen but known. The Device passed through the LayerSpace Plane and back as it was programmed, but in the messages it sent were uneven waves that emerged as streaks of clashing colors, mud-gray splotches, even a black spray that swelled and shrank, appeared and vanished. With regret, the Seekers who were C'haill-ol-i's teachers Wished it Undone. The fountain of multihued lights that recorded the Device's existence dimmed and faded. The messages ceased. A second Device, this one much altered by C'haill-ol-i, was dispatched but did not send any messages after its passage through the LayerSpace Plane; instead, a column of blackness marred the fountain of lights. This black column did not waver, nor did it grow—it shifted; first here, then there, moving from point to point without traversing the space between. The black column persisted despite all the Seekers’ efforts to remove it; even after a Seeker Wished it Undone, the column of darkness continued to lash within the fountain of lights.


Seekers were appointed to examine the work, test the equations, study the methods; they could find no flaw, yet the fountain of many colors remained disfigured and hideous, marred by darkness that had become the darkness of ignorance, and then the shadow of fear. “We cannot find the Device,” said one Seeker at the review hearing, in a voice composed of the complex mathematical equations that were the core of their language. “Once it passed through LayerSpace, it was lost to us. We know it still exists somewhere. We know it is seriously flawed, perhaps fatally flawed. It will pass out of the galaxy eventually, and until it does, it poses a problem, perhaps even a threat, to any life form it locates. It does not respond to the self-destruct command. It is beyond our ability to stop it or to correct it. We have tried to no avail."


The Seekers gazed at the marred fountain of light, a pale, sad flicker here and there the only visible reaction among them.


"Sentient C'haill-ol-i,” the Seeker of Seekers said, “the pursuit of knowledge is to our race the highest order of intelligence, second only to love and respect for intelligence itself. You have brought dishonor to this pursuit, and a threat to life. However; in doing so, you have also alerted us to the dangers of unknown hazards that lie beyond LayerSpace. We thought ourselves ready to travel among the stars in search of Absolute Unitary Being, but find instead that we must be resigned to roam no farther than the reaches of our own star system until we have solved the problems your Device has revealed. This knowledge is most precious to us, for we now know that our race is doomed to die here, so we must now concern ourselves with preserving our knowledge and casting it to the stars in hopes some worthy race will discover and interpret its meanings. But there still remains the matter of your failure.


"Because the good you have brought to your own race is overshadowed by the evil that you may have brought to other life forms, it is the decision of this review panel that you must complete the project you have begun. Until the lights of the Device fade, you will monitor them, for however long the Device continues to exist."


C'haill-ol-i's own lights dimmed and flickered. “May I,” he asked in a low voice, “continue to work on the Device in order to try to solve this mystery?"


"Yes, Sentient C'haill-ol-i. That is the only task you will have for as long as we continue to exist."

#
The boy who had been set on fire did not die; to everyone's amazement, his body sustained only first-degree burns. He would be hospitalized for a week or so, but he would be fine. His name was Eugene Oberfield. The boy with whom he'd had the fight, Vincent Martin, had still not been located by the time the 11:00 p.m. news began.
Claire and I sat next to each other on the sofa, holding hands and watching the newscast, hoping for something that would help us make sense of everything.
The television screen showed a tearful little girl, her teacher kneeling by her side with an arm around her shoulder. The little girl was talking to a reporter: “...an’ then Vincent, he was all bloody and crying, he ... he looked up at Gene and his eyes ... Vincent's eyes ... they were red, I swear it, they were red, an’ then Gene, his ... his shirt started to burn an’ the next thing he was all on fire and there was so much noise in my head, it hurt so much...."
Claire picked up the remote and muted the sound after that. “I'm sorry, I can't stand to hear how scared she was—hell, she is probably still scared. All those kids are going to have nightmares about this for the rest of their lives."
Every witness—most of them children—had described something that could only be classified as spontaneous combustion. The local news had spoken with a handful of so-called “experts,” all of whom offered different explanations for how this could have occurred. None of them sounded as if they believed their own words.
"Why do you suppose your friend hasn't called back yet?” said Claire.
I checked the time. “It's only 8:20 in California. He's probably just now checking his personal e-mail."
Once we'd gotten to my house, I'd copied the equations from the page and scanned them into my computer as a jpeg file and sent it to Derek Trial, a friend of mine from college who now taught physics at UCLA. I'd tried to be blasé in my explanation, telling him it was something one of my students had found in an old textbook, and if he had the time, I'd appreciate him letting me know what the hell it all meant so I could put the student's curiosity—and my own—to rest. I'd given him my phone number and told him I'd be up very late, so he shouldn't hesitate to call. I was starting to worry that maybe I'd been too blasé about it and he'd figured it was nothing that needed his immediate attention.
Claire scooted closer to me, slipping her arm through mine and resting her head on my shoulder. She'd showered and changed into a pair of my pajamas, which were far too big for her and made her look ten times as beautiful. “Thanks for letting me stay tonight."
"You're welcome,” I said, kissing the top of her head. She surprised me by turning her face up to mine and giving me a deep, passionate kiss, her tongue slipping briefly into my mouth.
"You're a pretty good kisser,” she said after that.
"I practice a lot when I'm alone."
And for the first time in hours, she laughed, genuinely laughed. “Oh, God, you're a Woody Allen fan, too! Love and Death, right?"
"Right."
She put her head back on my shoulder. “I'm so glad I know you."
"Tell me that the first time you have to help me with my back brace."
"You wear one of those?"
"Not all the time, but every once in a while I have a bad patch and it's the only thing that helps. That, and a lot of Percocet."
"How did you hurt yourself, anyway?"
I told her about the accident, about the months in bed, and about my blackboard sky.
"Do you still have it?"
I nodded. “It's in my bedroom closet. It still has what's left of my guardian angel in the bottom right-hand corner. I never erased it. I have to touch him up every so often—glow-in-the-dark chalk doesn't last forever."
"Nothing does,” she said, looking back at the television. “Do you think Vincent wrote that himself? Do you think he knew what was going to happen before it did? That he was going to hurt that other boy just by looking at him?"
A slight chill went through me. “I can't help but think of what Sherlock Holmes said. I don't remember the exact wording, but it was something like, ‘When you've eliminated the impossible, whatever remains—"
"—however improbable, must be the truth,'” said Claire. “Oh, God—you're a Conan Doyle reader, too!"
"Guilty as charged, my dear Watson."
"I'm feeling a little better now."
"Good.” I turned to kiss her again. Just as our lips met, my cell phone began ringing.
Claire's entire body went rigid. “Oh, boy—I bet I know who that is."
I gave her a quick kiss. “Here's where we find out something ... I hope."
"Your lips to God's ear."
I answered the phone. Before I'd even finished saying hello, Derek was practically shouting at me.
"Bull-shit a student of yours found this in an old textbook, Mr. 6th-Grade Science Teacher."
"Great to hear your voice again, as well."
"Sorry, Pat. I didn't mean to raise my voice, but—do you have any idea what this is?"
"I was hoping you could tell me."
"It wasn't an actual question, I was—aw, fuck what I was trying to be. You were always faster with funny comebacks than me."
"Well, I had to practice something between ballet auditions."
"Pat, please—where did you get this?"
"I found it in an old book at a used bookstore. The paper it was written on was pretty old, as well, but it seemed interesting and I figured you were the man to go to."
"The book and paper might have been old, but..."
I felt my back tensing—never a good thing. My back stays tense for too long, it's hello-medieval-torture-brace time. “But what? C'mon, Derek."
"Okay. At first I thought it was just a random assortment of basic sound-wave equations—I mean, the business where the propagation constant b becomes imaginary, and the mode decays rapidly instead of propagating without loss, so the 00-th mode has a cutoff frequency of zero, pretty basic stuff, but the more I examined the patterns—what is it?"
"Uh, nothing, sorry—I took a drink and it went down the wrong way.” Which was the best lie I could come up with to explain the sudden gasp I'd released. Derek had used the exact same words as Vincent had written in the story. “Please, go on."
"Have you ever heard the term ‘entrainment'?"
"No."
He was talking in a rapid, deadly cadence now. “It's been proven that externally-imposed sound vibrations can have a profound influence on human physiology. Say you're sitting in your kitchen trying to balance your checkbook and you begin to notice that your shoulders are hunched up and your back is tighter than normal. Suddenly the refrigerator snaps off and you heave a sigh of relief. Your shoulders drop, your back loosens up, and your whole breathing pattern changes. What do you think just happened? Certain biological rhythms have unconsciously “entrained” themselves to the 60 cycle hum of the refrigerator's motor. External sound vibrations temporarily altered your physiological makeup."
"Okay...?"
"The basic theory of entrainment has been applied in Cymatics and proven to be successful. Sound and vibrational waves can be used to heal the human body."
I was getting dizzy. “That still doesn't tell me what all this means. What the hell did I find?"
"It's a theoretical equation set for the organic production of a very powerful torsional wave. You know what I'm talking about, right?"
"Galloping Gertie,” I replied, looking at Claire with my best I-need-a-little-privacy-but-it's-nothing-personal look, then standing up and walking a few feet away. My legs were wobbly and my back was starting to hurt like hell. “The Tacoma Narrows Bridge, right?"
"You got it. There's no way to test this equation without going back to Hans Jenny's research and cross-referencing its equations with these, and even then you'd probably have to go back to the work in early Cymatics, but ... Jesus, Pat! Even the idea..."
"Tell me one thing, will you?"
"If I can—this is really freaky stuff."
"If—and I mean if—this was more than theoretical, what would we be talking about?"
After a long moment of silence where I swear I could hear his brain cells crashing into one another and creating sparks, Derek said, “We'd be talking about something that would be able to organically employ Cymatics and entrainment to force anyone or anything in its focus to vibrate at its natural frequency and achieve resonance."
"In simpler words...?"
His voice was thin and tense. “You'd have a human being whose sheer will could affect and alter—if not outright destroy—the standing vibrational waves that hold all matter in place."
#

The second Device emerged from the LayerSpace Plane in the star system of a primary with five satellites. One by one it orbited the satellites until it found life. When it completed its examination of the new place, it left behind a trail of destruction, death, and madness. Sentient C'haill-ol-i prayed to the intelligence that ruled all Absolute Unitary Being to destroy it, but the fountain of many lights remained undiminished; the blackness at its heart continued. It had become something evil.


C'haill-ol-i's people launched a life-ship into LayerSpace, one containing records of all their knowledge, all their art, science, philosophy, everything that had made them as they were.

C'haill-ol-i continued to monitor the fountain of lights with the blackness of evil at its core. He knew exactly when the Device emerged from the LayerSpace Plane, and when it reentered, teasing him like a child playing a game. He could not know what it did in the intervals. He no longer saw the multihued lights; all he could see was the blackness, the evil.
C'haill-ol-i often gazed at the glowing heavens, with the three pathways of stars that looked like ribbons, and his own lights beat in harmony with the gently pulsing lights from above. Those nights his shame drove him to renew his efforts to find the evil he had launched, the ugliness he had injected into such beauty. Each time he knew the Device had emerged from LayerSpace he prayed that this time it would be destroyed. In charting the emergence of the Device from LayerSpace, he was also charting planetary systems, more than anyone had imagined, could imagine—no race could explore them all; one might as easily examine every grain of sand on an infinite beach.
But then something changed. The fountain of lights with the unquiet black column was glowing one second, then it flickered, dimmed, and faded. For one millisecond, contact with the Device had been established, only to be lost again. The Seekers turned to C'haill-ol-i for an explanation, only to find him gone, as well.
Now in LayerSpace himself, C'haill-ol-i flared with laughter. Folds, he thought; of course. Space did not fold by itself, one had to fold it; in the brief moment of contact, C'haill-ol-i had folded himself into the Device and brought with him all the knowledge of his race, as well as their genetic codes.
How little it had changed, he marveled, centered in the midst of the ever-rising, ever-falling torrent of light that ranged the spectrum of color. How beautiful it was. How could something this beautiful spread such darkness, such evil? C'haill-ol-i had done his work well, better than he had known. But he had not programmed the Device to be self-repairing, so how...?
He did not know, but the Device had that capability, as well as many others it had either learned, assimilated, or taught itself throughout its journeys. In the Device's sine-wave memories was a dead creature being probed by the photoscan, another creature that walked without grace through the darkness that was the core of its primitive heart, one weighted down with sadness as much as rage. This creature was alive, but tired ... and so alone...
...C'haill-ol-i touched the creature, and knew at once...
...The Device...
...The Device had been gathering its own knowledge, sampling genetics from other races, merging them with its own organic structure to create a new being, one descended from C'haill-ol-i's original Device yet very much its own. The evolved Device had learned to create organic life and instill that life with knowledge.
C'haill-ol-i looked beyond and found himself outside the Device, surveying the world it had been probing; a lovely planet, with clouds, seas, obviously with an intelligent life form. C'haill-ol-i knew he could fold space/time again, if he chose, and have enough time to explore the galaxy and still return to learn everything there was to know about this planet, but then the Device sputtered, and there was a mini-nova in C'haill-ol-i's mind, and he knew that the Device had proven itself superior to its creator, perhaps even equal to the Creator of Absolute Unitary Being (thought of as “God” by this new life form the Device had chosen); C'haill-ol-i was now forever trapped within the Device he had created.
And the Device was now in the hands of a human child, a small boy named Vincent, who was tired of being picked on, beaten up, mocked, hungry, and lonely, a boy who was so very, very angry at the world...
#

Slow down,” said Claire, cupping my face in her hands and kissing me hard on the mouth. “There, hold onto that for a moment, okay? I'm not going anywhere, I don't think you're crazy, and I know something's going on here that we can't explain to anyone else and not wind up in straightjackets. So—look at me, Patrick. There you go. Now, I was following you just fine until that tonsorial wave business or whatever—"

"Torsional wave,” I said. “It's a vibrational wave that's not only dispatched vertically, but twists in a wave-like manner, as well. Listen to me, Claire: ‘Galloping Gertie’ was a nickname given by engineers to the Tacoma Narrows suspension bridge in Washington State in 1940. They called it that because of its frequent and unusual undulating movement. All bridges vibrate to some extent, but Gertie was unique; motorists who had to cross her every day often compared it trying to drive a car on a roller-coaster track.
"On the morning of November 7, 1940, four months after the bridge opened, the wind was blowing at exactly 42 miles an hour. This wind hit the solid girders of the bridge deck and caused the deck to vibrate back and forth just as it had been doing every morning since the bridge opened for traffic, so at first no one thought anything of it. But then Gertie began twisting and undulating like a piece of soft taffy in a pull before it completely collapsed.
"The wind caused the bridge to vibrate at its natural frequency and create a torsional wave that helped the bridge achieve resonance in two orientations: one over the length of the bridge, causing the undulating movement, the other from side to side, causing the twisting motion. The damn thing was toast once that happened. Resonance occurs when the frequency of a wave achieves a standing vibrational wave with maximum amplitude and—"
"Calm down, you're losing me again."
I closed my eyes and took several deep breaths. “I asked Derek to give it to me in the simplest terms possible."
"Simple would be good,” said Claire. “I like simple. It gets me hot.” She tried to smile at her joke but didn't make it.
"There's a lot of evidence to back up the theory that everything in nature is held together by sound waves. Don't ask me how, but somewhere out there tonight is a little boy—a very hurt, angry, and probably lonely little boy—who's been given the power to alter both the physical and the physiological by manipulating those waves."
She stared into my eyes for a moment, then said: “He can change or destroy something with sound just by looking at it?"
"He can change or destroy everything just by willing it."
She began shaking. “How do you know?"
I nodded toward my computer desk where I'd placed the sheet of paper I'd found in the book. “While I was talking to Derek, I went over to my desk to look at the page. Go see for yourself."
She looked at my desk, then back at me. “I'm really starting to freak out here, Patrick. I don't want to look. You tell me. You tell me and I'll believe it."
"Will you help me put on my back brace? We need to get dressed and get out of here."
"But what about—?"
"The one page has now become five, and it's all in Vincent's handwriting, and it's probably the first genuine record of extraterrestrial contact ever written, and no one will believe a word of it because the race who contacted us—who contacted Vincent—no longer exists ... except in Vincent himself."
"How do you even know where to begin looking for him? Jesus, the news said that there must be a hundred people in a bunch of different search parties out looking for him. How can we hope to—?"
"Because Vincent told us where he is."
"The tower of boxes...?"
"The tower of boxes near a bridge."
It only took her a few seconds to figure it out. “Oh, my God—the recycling plant."
I nodded. “From the freeway you can see that enormous pile of boxes they let stack up during the week."
"And the 21st Street Bridge is the only way to get there until they finish with the roadwork."
I pulled her toward me and kissed her. “I knew you were the girl for me."
A tear slipped from her eye. “Oh, Patrick—that poor kid. Can you imagine the way he's been treated all his life, to want to ... to...?"
"Don't finish that thought,” I said, struggling to my feet. “We need to get out of here."
"Right beside you all the way."
"You do know that I've been a little bit in love with you for a long time now, don't you?"
She smiled. “So I guess it's only fair you should know I've been a little bit in love with you since this afternoon. I hope we get a chance to enjoy it."
"Your lips to God's ear."
* * * *
I can tell you now what I didn't know then; I can tell you about the conversation that was taking place between C'haill-ol-i, who was now the Device he'd created (and would be that way forever) and the part of the device that was now its own Absolute Unitary Being. I can tell you about what was perhaps the most important conversation in the history of the multiverse; Vincent listened as C'haill-ol-i/Device had a conversation with himself, as God has been talking to Himself since the beginning, pretending that He's us:
* * * *



* * * *
000 COMMUNICATION ... WITH ... THIS ... RACE ... MUST ... EMPLOY ... THE ... ELECTROMAGNETIC ... SPECTRUM ... AND ... MOST ... LIKELY ... THE ... RADIO ... WAVE ... LEVEL ... OF ... THE ... SPECTRUM ... OR ... NEUTRINOS ... OR ... TACHYONS [001]
* * * *



* * * *
002 BUT ... WHATEVER ... THE ... CHANNEL ... IT ... WILL ... REQUIRE ... MACHINES ... THAT ... ARE ... A ... PERFECT ... FUSION ... BETWEEN ... THE ... MECHANICAL ... AND ... THE ... ORGANIC ... COMPUTER ... ACTUATED ... MACHINES ... WITH ... ABILITIES ... THAT ... APPROACH ... IF ... NOT ... EQUAL ... THE ... HIGHEST ... FORM ... OF ... INTELLIGENCE [003]
* * * *



* * * *
004 STOP ... REPEATING ... YOURSELF ... I ... UNDERSTAND ... NOW ... YOU ... MUST ... REALIZE ... THE ... NUMBER ... OF ... ADVANCED ... CIVILIZATIONS ... IN ... THE ... LAYERSPACE ... MULTIVERSE ... HAD ... BEGUN ... LONG ... BEFORE ... THE ... FIRST ... AMOEBA ... WRIGGLED ... TO ... LIFE ... NOT ... AWARE ... THAT ... BEFORE ... IT ... BILLIONS ... OF ... YEARS ... OF ... EVOLUTIONARY ... TIME ... AND ... TRIAL ... AND ... ERROR ... WERE ... AVAILABLE ... FOR ... THE ... PRECISE ... SEQUENCE ... OF ... EVENTS ... THAT ... ARE ... TAKING ... PLACE ... HERE ... FROM ... THE ... EXTINCTION ... OF ... THE ... DINOSAURS ... TO ... THE ... RECESSION ... OF ... THE ... PLIOCENE ... AND ... PLEISTOCENE ... FORESTS ... HAVE ... NOT ... OCCURRED ... IN ... EXACTLY ... THE ... SAME ... MANNER ... ANYWHERE ... ELSE ... IN ... THE ... LAYERSPACE ... MULTIVERSE [005]
* * * *



* * * *
006 AND ... THAT ... IS ... WHAT ... MAKES ... THIS ... PLACE ... AND ... ITS ... INHABITANTS ... UNIQUE ... IN ... EVOLUTIONARY ... HISTORY ... PARTICULARLY ... THE ... SECRETS ... CONTAINED ... IN ... FOSSILIZED ... ENDOCASTS ... DEMONSTRATES ... A ... PROGRESSIVE ... TENDENCY ... THAT ... COMES ... FROM ... INTELLIGENCE ... BUT ... WE ... MUST ... REMEMBER ... TO ... BE ... CAREFUL ... TO ... BE ... PRECISE ... WHEN ... THE ... TIME ... TO ... LIFT ... THE ... VEIL ... ARRIVES ... AGAIN ... FOR ... ONCE ... INTELLIGENT ... BEINGS ... NO ... MATTER ... HOW ... HIGH ... OR ... ADMIRABLE ... THEIR ... GOALS ... ACHIEVE ... TECHNOLOGY ... AND ... THE ... CAPACITY ... FOR ... SELF-DESTRUCTION ... OF ... THEIR ... SPECIES ... THE ... SELECTIVE ... ADVANTAGE ... OF ... THEIR ... INTELLIGENCE ... BECOMES ... MORE ... UNCERTAIN [007]
* * * *



* * * *
008 I ... UNDERSTAND [009]
* * * *



* * * *
014 I ... AM ... NOT ... SURE ... IT ... WILL ... WORK ... [015]
* * * *



* * * *
...
* * * *



* * * *
018 I ... DO ... BUT ... IF ... THE ... CALCULATIONS ... ARE ... EVEN ... SLIGHTLY ... INCORRECT ... [019]
* * * *



* * * *
020 YOU ... MAKE ... A ... STRONG ... ARGUMENT [021]
* * * *



* * * *
I know this conversation well. Vincent made me understand.
Vincent made me a lot of things.
Vincent made me more than I was.
Vincent made me.
Made us.
#
By the time Claire and I reached the 21st Street Bridge, it was all over the news; all of the children and teachers who had been witness to the fight between Eugene Oberfield and Vincent on the playground were now hospitalized and under heavy sedation because of auditory and visual hallucinations that had terrified them and sent many into fits of violence.
"Entrainment?” asked Claire.
I nodded my head. “Vincent is testing his power. He's lashing out at everyone he thinks has wronged him. Except instead of hitting them with his fists, he's attacking them on the physiological level. If he can maintain this, then he'll figure out pretty soon that he can do more damage."
Claire put her hand on my leg. “I'm sorry that neither one of us had the nerve to act on our feelings before now."
"You and me both."
"Do you think he'll ... do you think Vincent will listen to us? That he can still be reasoned with?"
"Look at me, Claire. I've got this goddamned Spanish Inquisition torture device strapped to my back and I stumble around on two metal canes. The kid's going to take one look at me and know I haven't had the best of times, either. The trick is going to be how long I can hold his sympathy once I've gotten it."
We took the 21st Street exit and drove across the bridge toward the entrance to the recycling plant. The plant had gotten a lot of criticism in the last several months because it dumped all cardboard items—especially the numerous boxes—from both residential and business clients into one large pile that it took care of once a week in order to save energy. Some weeks, the pile of boxes was so high it towered over the fence surrounding the plant.
Once over the bridge, Claire and I could see the top of the “box tower.” It rose easily twenty-five feet above the ground.
Claire covered her ears with her hands and winced. “Oh God—can you hear that?"
I'd slammed on the brakes and covered my ears, as well. All I could do was nod my head and look in the rear-view mirror. Claire did the same, and a few seconds later we both turned to look out the back window.
The 21st Street Bridge was twisting and rolling and collapsing in on itself, its metal girders and concrete braces becoming rubber, the entire structure undulating exactly like a piece of soft taffy in a pull.
It took less than forty seconds for the entire structure to crumple and give way, crashing down in a burst of dust and debris.
The unexpected pressure that had jammed its way into our ears and skulls subsided at once. Our heart rates returned to normal. We could see clearly again. And the sudden internal heat we'd felt in our chests evaporated.
"He knows we're coming,” I said.
"Do you think he wants to hurt us?"
I shook my head. “No. If he wanted to hurt us, he would have destroyed the bridge while we were on it. This is a kid who's learned how to fold time, space, and all the matter that exists within and without. You can't sneak up on someone like that.” I was almost laughing at the absurdity of it all. “He destroyed the bridge because he wants us to have some privacy. It's his way of saying, ‘Come on in.’”
Claire pulled me to her and kissed me once again. “I hope you're right."
I put the car in gear and continued toward the recycling plant. It didn't surprise me to find that the entrance gate had been twisted inward and everything lying between the car and the tower of boxes had been parted like the Red Sea. We were able to drive right up to the tower.
Claire got out first, then came around to my side and helped me get out and to my feet. Instead of the canes, this time I'd brought the metal arm-crutches that braced around my forearms. I did not want to fall or stumble.
We started toward the tower of boxes, and as we neared, it began to re-shape itself; boxes that had been broken down and flattened were made square and firm again; others that had been soaked with rain or sewage crackled as they dried; and as every box was re-made, the shape of the pile became more and more tower-like, with windows at various points around its circumference and even gables at the top. Claire and I entered through a set of tall swinging doors and found ourselves looking at a great winding staircase leading up to the top.
It was no longer a tower of cardboard; it was now solid stone.
"There's no way I can climb those stairs,” I said.
"You don't have to,” said a voice from behind us.
I turned around and saw a small shape standing in the shadows.
"Patrick,” whispered Claire, grabbing my arm. "Look."
She was pointing toward one of the windows. We were at least a hundred feet above the ground. A sudden wave of vertigo caused me to grab onto her to keep my balance as I looked down and saw the seemingly endless staircase winding down, down, down.
"Hello, Vincent,” said Claire.
"Hi,” said a child's voice as Vincent stepped into the light.
I had never seen such old eyes in a child's face; in them were memories of loneliness and sadness more profound than any adult ever knows by the age of fifty. His clothes were dirty and old, not hand-me-downs but the type of clothes people bought at our store, people too poor to afford even the basics. He walked in a heavy heel-to-toe fashion as if he feared the ground might open up and swallow him before his next step. One look at him and my heart broke in a thousand places but didn't make a sound; the heart never does when its cracks.
"We came to help you, Vincent,” I managed to get out. “And C'haill-ol-i, too."
"He told me you'd be coming,” said Vincent. “He said you'd be my friends."
I moved closer to him. “He was right."
"I know."
I glanced around the bare room.
"You're looking for the Device, aren't you?” said Vincent.
"Yes. You wrote so well about it, I ... I wanted to see it."
Vincent unbuttoned his shirt and pulled it open to reveal the longest, ugliest wound I'd ever seen running down the center of his chest. It was pink and moist, still fresh, but in the light it also looked slightly metallic, as if the surgical site had been soldered closed instead of stitched.
"C'haill-ol-i told me it has to be like this,” said this broken and frightened little boy. “He said that my ... my flesh had to be re-made. Hey—I got something to show you, Patrick."
Before I could ask what, he tore off his shirt and lifted his arms as a pair of wide, luminous wings unfurled behind him, wings that were both flesh and machine, and shone with an incandescence that seemed almost holy.
My breath caught in my throat, and for a moment I was six years old again, lying flat on my back, looking up at the guardian angel I had drawn with glow-in-the-dark chalk, the guardian angel whose home was my blackboard sky.
"Do you like it?” he asked. “I thought this was the way you drew me."
I felt a single tear burst from one of my eyes and run slowly down my cheek. “It's perfect,” I said to him. “You got it just right. Thank you, Vincent."
"You're welcome."
He turned his head toward the window as a sound in the distance began to come closer; the sound of dozens of angry voices.
"My story didn't have a good ending,” he said, folding back his impossible wings and walking toward the window. “It ends like that Frankenstein movie with Boris Karloff. All the villagers come with torches and burn the castle to the ground."
In the distance I could see the bright flickers of dozens, maybe hundreds of torches, the flames snapping against the night.
"I think I'll make them all crumple up like a piece of paper."
"Please don't,” said Claire.
He stared at her, his face expressionless. “Why not? C'haill-ol-i and the Device showed me how. I can turn them into anything I want. I can make them nothing. Nobody was ever nice to me. Only my dad, and he killed himself because he was so sad all the time and the doctors couldn't do anything to help him."
"We'll be nice to you,” I said. “Just give us the chance, okay?"
Vincent looked at my crutches and the way I was standing, stooped over and shaking.
"I'll bet people made fun of you, didn't they?"
"A lot of them still do,” I replied. “But I don't let it hurt me anymore."
Claire put her arm around my waist and held on tight.
"Could you maybe show me how to make it not hurt? C'haill-ol-i and the Device, they're inside me now, and they kinda have to do what I want. They showed me everything, told me everything, they gave me powers. It's weird but kinda cool. Kinda scary, too. Hey—did you know that C'haill-ol-i and the Device, that their world is all gone?"
Claire nodded. “Yes. We read your story."
"Did you like it? Was it a good story?"
"Oh, yes, yes it was. Very exciting, but also very sad."
His face brightened. “You really mean that, don't you, Claire?"
"I do, hon. Really, I do."
I looked outside; the torches and angry voices were even closer, much closer than I thought they'd be.
"I don't have the folding down too good yet,” said Vincent. “Sometimes I make things happen too fast, or at the wrong time. That's how come you kept finding the story getting longer. I'd write it in my head, but then I'd cause things to fold and the words were just ... just there on the paper you had."
"It's a pretty neat trick,” I said. “Will you show me how you do it?"
He smiled. “Sure. Maybe—hey, maybe you can tell me what I'm doing that's not right. C'haill-ol-i and the Device keep trying to tell me, but I don't understand a lot of the words. I will, though. I think I'll understand them when I'm a little older.” He looked out the window once again and glared. “They never been nice to me. Why should I be nice to them?"
"Because I'm asking you to,” I said. “As a favor for me. As a favor for your new friend."
He turned to face Claire and me, holding out his hands. “C'haill-ol-i and the Device said that if you were telling the truth, then you wouldn't be afraid to touch me."
Neither one of us hesitated. It took me a moment to untangle myself from the forearm braces of the crutches, but as soon as I did, I took hold of one of Vincent's hands, Claire took hold of the other, and then she and I joined hands.
As soon as all our hands were joined, the walls within the tower began altering themselves, filling with glowing spheres that shone not any single color, but all colors, one bleeding into the next until it was impossible to tell the difference between gold and red, red and gray, gray and blue, and with each burst of color and combinations of colors there came musical notes. The first was a lone, soft, sustained cry that floated above us on radiant wings, a mournful call that sang of foundered dreams and sorrowful partings and dusty, forgotten myths from ages long gone by, then progressively rose in pitch to strengthen this extraordinary melancholy with tinges of joy, wonder, and hope as the songs of the other spheres and colors joined it, becoming the sound of a million choral voices raised in worship to the gods, becoming music's fullest dimension, richest intention, whispering rest to our weary hearts as the light moved outward in waves and ripples, altering our inner landscapes with every exalted refrain, voices a hundred times fuller than any human being's should ever be, pulsing, swirling, rising, then cascading over our bodies like pure crystal rain; then suddenly the rain, the music, all of it was inside us, assuming physical dimensions, forcing us to become more than we were, more than we'd been, than we'd ever dreamed of becoming. The sound grew without and within us, and we became aware not only of the music and the colors and whirling spheres, but of every living thing that surrounded us outside the tower; every weed, every insect, every glistening drop of dew on every blade of grass and every animal in deepest forest, and as the sounds continued rising in our souls, lavish, magnificent and improbable, we saw the Earth and the Moon as they must have looked to the Device as it moved through the cold, glittering depths of the cosmos and LayerSpace; the dry, pounded surface of the moon, its craters dark and secretive and dead as an old bone. Just beyond was a milky-white radiance that cast liquid-grey shadows across the lunarscape while distant stars winked at us, then a burst of heat and pressure and suddenly we were below the moist, gleaming membrane of the bright blue sky, Earth rising exuberantly into our line of sight. We marveled at the majestic, swirling drifts of white clouds covering and uncovering the half-hidden masses of land and watched the continents themselves in motion, drifting apart on their crustal plates, held afloat by the molten fire beneath, and when the plates had settled and the rivers had carved their paths and the trees had spread their wondrous arms, there came next the People and their races and mysteries through the ages, and in our minds we danced through some of those mysteries, holding hands as we stood atop places with wonderful and odd names, places like Cheops’ pyramid and the Tower of Ra, Zoroaster's temple and the Javanese Borobudur, the Krishna shrine, the Valhalla plateau and Woton's throne, and then we started dancing through King Arthur's castle and Gawain's abyss and Lancelot's point, then Solomon's temple at Moriah, then the Aztec Amphitheatre, Toltec Point, Cardenas Butte, and Alarcon Terrace before stopping at last in front of the great Wall of Skulls at Chicén Itzá. The skulls were awash by a sea of glowing colors, changing shape in the lights from above, their mouths opening as if to speak to us, flesh spreading across bone to form faces and then—and then we were One, all of us, we were the first to find the state of Absolute Unitary Being that C'haill-ol-i's world had perished in pursuit of.
We were un-made and re-made, all of us.
And we knew everything; that no one thing was true. It was all true.
And it was all so ... fragile.
We are in here with Vincent, with C'haill-ol-i and the Device, and we know, Claire and I, why the actions of the Device were perceived as evil, and why Vincent's anger at the world is still a very dangerous thing. We strive every moment to teach them about understanding, about acceptance, about love.
But we also share their fury, their desire for destruction, and look upon the world and the multiverse with equal parts compassion and contempt.
And we draw on the blackboard sky of the multiverse, creating new worlds, new races, new possibilities, always knowing that at any given moment, on the flash of a nearly-ruined child's anger, any or all of it can be erased.
We draw on the blackboard sky of the multiverse, and yet still hold a special affection for Earth and those who walk upon it. But this special affection walks hand in hand with a special hatred, that born from the beaten, half-broken spirit of a child who deserved neither the pain inflicted on his body nor the affliction now carried in his soul.
We have a special eraser for this particular place on our blackboard sky, for if and when it is decided that the Earth no longer has a place in our state of Absolute Unitary Being. Every so often, just for fun, we do the math. So far, the equations balance out. But numbers can change, waves can alter, feelings can be hurt beyond repair.
Sometimes, Vincent smiles down upon the Earth and says, “They'd better be nice."
So far, the equations balance.
So far.
Still, we keep the eraser within easy reach.



Interview with Gary A. Braunbeck
Everybody plays a role, even in the literary genre of horror. There's Brian Keene, the rebel with a zombie-chip on his shoulder. We have Stephen King, the distant rich relative. And Cherie Priest, the young hot-shot on the rise. In such broad strokes of categorization, one could place Gary Braunbeck as the gentleman artist. His words are painted together to create unmistakeable masterpieces that pull at your heart and your fears. In person, he's a gentleman who sports a sharp intellect and noble nature.
On behalf of Apex Digest, Steven Savile presents this in-depth interview with Gary Braunbeck.

Steven Savile: Could you explain a little about how you became a writer? Your background and what drove you to choose horror?

Gary Braunbeck: I was born and raised in Newark, Ohio (the city on which a lot of Cedar Hill, Ohio is based), in a lower middle-class blue collar family; I was baptised a Catholic—now a recovering Catholic—and once briefly studied for the priesthood until I was asked not to by several priests and monsignors at the seminary; I have no college education (I was lucky to graduate from high school); and I was not a very social person until I got involved in theatre and debate in high school.
I don't know that I so much “chose” to be a writer of dark fiction; I simply gravitated toward it because it is the type of fiction that best allows me to explore and express my worldview. I know that both my father and I had a special affection for old horror movies—when I was a child, we'd watch them together every Friday night when he got home from work; Frankenstein, the Wolfman, the Mummy, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, Dracula, all the classics. My love for all things dark and scary began there.

SS: They say write what you know, but sometimes it strikes me as terrifying to read something like In Silent Graves and contemplate that the author might know such things—how much of the process is cathartic to you as opposed to pure fiction, story for story's sake?

GB: Only one scene in In Silent Graves was taken from my own life, and even then it had be re-structured quite a bit—fiction doesn't give a damn about how something really happened, it's only interested in how that something can be re-formed to suit the story being told. In the case of Graves, it was the death of the newborn. My first wife and I had a daughter who only lived 6 days, and because we were experiencing some serious problems in our marriage at the time, I was never allowed to see my daughter until after she died—even then, it was only through the good will of a sympathetic 1st-year intern who helped sneak me into the morgue—and this was well after my daughter had been opened up and her organs removed. Since the body was to be incinerated and not buried (at my then-wife's insistence), no one had bothered to close her up afterward. I had about two minutes to say good-bye to this infant whom I'd never even had the chance to say hello to. Hold a dead baby in your arms for 120 seconds and then see how long you carry that feeling with you.
That moment—revised and re-shaped—found its way into In Silent Graves, and many people who've read the novel say it's one of the most heart-rending scenes they've ever encountered in a horror novel, and I suppose it's because I decided going in that, even though I was restructuring the sequence of events and adding a few things that didn't actually happen, I was in no way going to whitewash the remembered feelings. You can't do that in a story—be it a horror or not; readers can tell when a writer is trying to manipulate their emotions, and once that happens, the story's ruined.
I can't separate the “cathartic” element of your question from the “story for story's sake” element, because when one employs and reshapes an incident from one's own life in order to serve the story, the two things walk hand-in-hand. Yes, there is an element of self-exorcism to everything I write, but it has to take place through the story's sensibilities and structural requirements. For as much of the grief as I was able to release by writing that scene in Graves, I still carry a lot around with me, and I'll never be rid of it. I don't want to be rid of it. But at least now I can live with it better than I could before I wrote Graves.

SS: You tackle some incredibly difficult subjects in your work, ones that run very close to the truly horrific in human terms instead of the monstrous outsiders we can band up against and defeat—how much of this is conscious? Does it reflect a world view, dare one suggest, of a pessimistic variety?

GB: The simple answer—it is a conscious decision to deal with internal horrors instead of external bogies and beasties. There are at least a dozen writers out there who can give you a ripping good yarn about zombies or vampires or serial killers or demons summoned from Hell or what-have-you ... the safe kind of horror that is meant to keep your stomach in knots for a few hours or days, however long it takes for you to read the novel. Brian Keene's zombie novels are great fun—they're fast-paced, suspenseful, entertaining (I mean that as a compliment), easily accessible to hundreds of thousands of readers, and don't really force the reader to confront anything deeper than the shambling horror clawing to get through the door—but they're not intended to, and that's what makes them safe and fun and popular. They're what Joe Lansdale calls “popcorn” books (not meant as an insult). I wish to hell I had it in me to write “fun” novels, but my particular worldview can't be filtered through such bogies and beasties. I have to have the greatest and most dangerous darkness come from within the human heart, because in my worldview that is precisely where it lies. The monsters aren't “out there,” stumbling from the midnight mist of graveyards, they come from inside us.
Bear in mind, I'm speaking only for myself. I begin each story or novel with an impulse, and a subject, image, or particular theme I want to explore, and, of course, an area of experience that I can draw upon. I have never been in the armed services (I was 4F by the time I was 10) so I wouldn't dare try to write about a career soldier as a central character. Someone like Weston Ochse, who's had a military career, can write about such a character with a great deal of knowledge, authority, and unimpeachable authenticity. I'd be a poseur, talking of affectations that most readers would see through before they reached page 10.
If you're going to truly disturb a reader, if you want to give them a reading experience that they're going to carry around for them for days after they've finished a book or story, then you have to be absolutely merciless when it comes to portraying the inner darkness we all carry around. That darkness can be as obvious as the impulse to torture and kill, or it can be as subtle as the denial of grief or the habitual inclination to turn away from the suffering of strangers.
Look—all of my work shares the same central concern: it grapples (or tries to, anyway) with the connections between violence, suffering, and grief, and how we try to reconcile those things with the concept of a Just universe watched over by a benevolent God wherein even the most insignificant and trivial of our daily actions have some greater meaning. I don't think I have a pessimistic worldview; I think it's more a pragmatic one that's been run through a pessimistic filter and then presented to you by a cautious optimist. I look upon my stories and novels—and, God, I hope this doesn't sound self-serving or pretentious—as being cautionary tales. There's a line from one of my Cedar Hill stories where a character says, “We must love one another or die,” and there's another line from another Cedar Hill story that goes something like, “The mystery isn't that there is so much darkness; the mystery is that there is any light at all.” There is, somewhere, a bridge uniting those two thoughts, and I'm stumbling my across it, trying to make that final connection so that my definitive worldview will at last show itself to me. But I know this is where it lies, somewhere between those two thoughts; there is something that links them, and I'll find it one day.
Now, after hearing all that, are you still shocked that nothing I've written has ever turned up in The Year's Best Humour Writing?

SS: A lot of your writing strikes me as being intensely personal, intimate even, especially when dealing with subjects like death, which is a staple of bad horror (the theme not the intimacy), now given your own health problems, and the loss of loved ones, has it become harder to be shallow? After all the world loves a monster romp, giant crabs, Godzilla vs. Mothra, and all that jazz—or have you never felt the urge.?

GB: In other words, “Why the hell don't you lighten up, Braunbeck?” Thanks, Steve—coming from the guy who wrote Laughing Boy's Shadow—otherwise known as The Great Light-hearted Slapstick Romantic Chuckle-fest of 2007, that makes me feel so good about myself.
Seriously, though, I have been trying to lighten the mood in my work—"The Ballad of Road Mama and Daddy Bliss” from my collection Destinations Unknown was the first time I'd ever attempted to write a story that was intended to be funny, to show what my sense of humour is like ... and to prove that I do, indeed, have a sense of humor.
Health problems and the loss of loved ones ... concentrating on the last seven years, those go together. I lost too many people over too short a time when my own life was swirling the drain, and I acted very stupidly and flung myself head-first toward self-destruction, and now I'm paying for it, as I damned well ought to be.
So, yes, I flunked Shallow 101, but have hopes that one day I, too, can learn to be as vacuous, inane, and empty-headed as any well-toned sun-bather/body-builder on a Southern California beach in July—you know, the type of person who finds Jackie Collins's work to be deep and challenging—although I suspect Ms. Collins's work deals with a different type of crabs than what you're talking about.
Goddamn—that was almost a joke, wasn't it? Quick—to quote one of my favourite songs by The Who—"Tell me some bad news before I laugh and act like a fool."

SS: For a long time you were primarily known as a great short story writer—this is changing now, with more novels coming from Leisure, the latest of which Mr. Hands started out life as a short story in Cemetery Dance a few years ago. Your short stories are nothing if not intense—how easy has it been to carry that same intensity into your novels, or do you find yourself consciously writing differently in the different forms?

GB: I'd like to think that my novels share many of the characteristics that readers have come to associate with my short work, but the truth is that the level of intensity one tries infusing into a short story simply cannot be maintained over the course of a 300-plus page novel. The closest I've come to doing that, I think, was with the final third of In Silent Graves and the entirety of Prodigal Blues. Those two are forever linked in my mind not only because they share similar moral concerns, but because the first draft of each was written in an almost feverish burst. The final third of In Silent Graves was written in one marathon, non-stop sitting that lasted nearly 3 solid days ... with the occasional bathroom and I've-got-to-eat-something-before-I-pass-out break. The first draft of Prodigal Blues was written over the course of 2 weeks of similar marathon sessions, because I knew that if I took a break, if I backed off for more than a few hours at a time, I'd lose the immediacy that was needed to maintain the story's momentum—and when you're writing something like Prodigal Blues, a novel where the events take place over a less than 72-hour period, maintaining that momentum is vital. I don't care what other writers say; for me, in order to infuse a novel with that sort of intensity, I have to work myself into something not unlike an emotional frenzy, jam it into a vial, and then do all I can to remain in that state until the first draft is done, releasing it bit by bit as needed when the story calls for it. Call it “Method Writing,” if you want. But for me, it works—it kicks my ass like you wouldn't believe—I was down for the count, emotionally and physically, for about 10 days after finishing the first draft of Prodigal Blues, but it was worth it.
All of which is a long-winded way of saying that no, I don't write differently when switching between novels and short fiction. Each is an endurance test, the former lasting much longer than the latter, but if you're not going to fling yourself head-first into something, there's no point in even starting. For me, it's all or nothing once the main character speaks his or her first line of dialogue.

SS: I've read a lot of your stuff, including the incredible Fear in a Handful of Dust which ought to be required reading for young writers—how did that one come about? And on that personal side again, did you intend to lay your soul bare or was that just part of the process that happened naturally as you moved on with the writing of it?

GB:
Fear in a Handful of Dust: Horror As a Way of Life came about because Alan Rodgers—who used to edit Twilight Zone's NIGHT CRY magazine (where I made my first professional sales) was working with Wildside Press and contacted me about doing a couple of books for them. He thought it might be interesting for readers if I wrote a non-fiction book about horror. Initially, I think we both were expecting it to be something along the lines of Danse Macabre, but the more I began looking at the themes that were emerging, the more I realized that it wasn't going to be the same kind of book as King's—and no way was it going to be anywhere in the same league. (I had some fun with that in the first part of the book, when the writer—me—is trying to write the non-fiction book and keeps getting distracted because his edition of Danse Macabre keeps talking to him, asking him why he's even bothering.)
The further into the writing of Fear that I got, the more I realized that, if I was going to make any salient points about writing horror fiction—and by that I mean points that hadn't already been made a hundred times before by other, better writers—then I had to do more than explain the “how” and “when” and “why” of writing a short story or novel. I mean, c'mon, Steve—you've had to have sat on panels at cons before and had someone in the audience ask “Where do you get your ideas?"
That oft-heard question gets a lot of undeserved mockery within the writing community. For a long while, until I wrote Fear, I was one of the writers who made fun of it. But as Fear really started to take shape, it finally dawned on me that that question—Where do you get your ideas?—is actually more astute than it's given credit for (okay, maybe it's astuteness is accidental, but I'm not going to nitpick); ideas do come from a place within the writer; they comes from what burns brightest in his or her burning core. So I decided, Fuck the nuts-and-bolts approach; if someone wants to know where the ideas for my stories “Union Dues” and “Duty” came from, then they were going to get the full, unfiltered answer; how the impulse to write the piece found its central image and how I, as the writer, drew upon my areas of experience to give each story what I hope is emotional honesty. I can't be blasé about explaining where an impulse/idea comes from—to me, that puts a lot of distance between the writer and the reader, and the act of one person reading the words of another is far too intimate and holy to take lightly. A reader has to know they're plunking down their hard-earned money for, and investing their time in, a writer whose work they can trust. Fear in a Handful of Dust was my attempt to convince readers that they can trust me.

SS: Characters don't tend to fare well in your stories, emerging scarred mentally, emotionally or physically more often than not, why do you put them through so much grief?

GB: Because, for me, the closer horror fiction—or any fiction—is to real life, the more immediate and identifiable its characters are to readers. And let's face it, no one emerges from a crisis unscarred, be it one in real-life or a character in a story. I am not a believer in the traditional “happy ending” in either fiction or life. Sure, things may work out, but there's often a heavy price to pay for ending up in a place of safety. I get a lot of shocked stares when I tell people that, in my eyes, In Silent Graves, Keepers, and Prodigal Blues all have happy endings—"happy” by my personal worldview definition of the word, which is basically, Death has been postponed, what misery that could have been avoided has been, and you have been given a reprieve; now you'd damned well need to make the best of what time you have left, unknown quantity that it is. Again: a cautionary tale; love one another or die, and wonder why there is any light at all.

SS: Following on from this could you describe the writing process for you, in terms of a path from initial idea to execution, perhaps using Mr. Hands as a template without giving any major spoilers?

GB: You just reminded me—Mr. Hands is another novel of mine that I think has a happy ending; two, actually. One is pretty obvious, the other you may have to think about.
Most of my stories usually come to me in pieces, like finding sections of a jigsaw puzzle that aren't immediately recognizable as being parts of the same whole. But the one thing that is a constant is a central image; nearly all my stories have begun, in my head, with the appearance of a single image that is so compelling and enigmatic that I have to figure out what it means, where it came from, and who the person or persons in it are, how they came to be there at that place at that time.

Mr. Hands was a bit easier because I wasn't starting from scratch. Alan Clark had asked me to try and write a story around his beautiful painting Fossil Hands. He had tried to come up with a story for the painting but didn't like any of them, and then a few of his friends had given it a shot but Alan still felt it wasn't right. So he asked me to give it a shot.
I'm looking at this painting, and it occurs to me that this will have to be the central image of the story, only in this case, the central image carries with it the promise of something epic and complex and easily reduced to a one-sentence sound-byte synopsis. There was much, much more going on in that painting than the image itself suggested. So I look at this mountain climber, and I look at this thing he's come upon, and eventually I asked myself: Was this an accidental discovery? Did he just happen to come upon this thing? And the answer was a resounding no.
Okay, so he didn't just happen to find this, this is something that he intentionally went in search of. Next question: why? Then I notice how the climber's free hand seemed to be reaching toward this thing, and that's when it dawned on me that I was wrong about the central image; it wasn't the moment depicted in the painting—that would be one of, if not the, final image. No, the central image of the story was hidden in the reason the mountain climber was reaching toward this horrible monster.
Keep in mind, I'd never written a story with a “traditional” monster in it before, and having a monster in there for its own sake just wasn't good enough. There were two stories here—one that of the climber, the other, that of the monster itself. And that's where the novella “Mr. Hands” came from—searching for those missing connections.
Now because Cemetery Dance wanted this to be their first serialized novella, I was working with a definite word-count limit for each instalment. Rich Chizmar wanted something with cliff-hangers—this was a serial, after all, and what's a good serial without cliff-hangers? So once the novella was finished, I set about finding two strong stopping points, and it was published as 3-part serial. But in the process, I'd cut something like 15,000 words from it. When Alan Clark and I later collaborated on Escaping Purgatory, I restored those missing 15, 000 words. A few years later, while re-reading it on a whim, I realized that I still hadn't told the entire story, that the novella people are familiar with actually came in two-thirds of the way.
And so I set about telling the story of everything that had happened leading up to the birth of Mr. Hands, and wound up adding over 50,000 words of new material (bringing the novel's grand total to just under 80k) that I now realize should have been there in the first place.
Sometimes you get it right the first time. Sometimes it takes years before the story that was trying to be told actually emerges.

SS: As a writer of some often wild fantasies do you ever worry that the reader just won't ‘get’ it?

GB: Oh, hell, yes. I've lost count of how many hate e-mails I've gotten from readers who didn't understand the ending of Keepers, or gotten blasted by people on message boards who thought that the real story in Prodigal Blues was what took place in Grendel's house before the kids escaped. I've stopped both explaining these things or trying to justify them; sometimes people look for the story they want, rather than see the one I'm telling. I don't like it, either as a reader or a writer, when everything is tied up in a nice, neat, easy-to-understand little package, its lovely bow intact. As both a reader and a writer, I want stories that are going to make me have to think about things, both during the tale and after it's over.

SS: You're heavily involved in online marketing, with podcasts, messageboards, rants etc, do you see a visible return for the effort? Does it make you more a part of the nebulous community that is often spoken about?

GB: I do know that being more active on-line has raised my visibility with some readers who otherwise would not have noticed my work. I'm hoping that the newly-designed website and upcoming premiere of the podcast program will turn even more readers in the direction of my work.

SS: Likewise you are heavily involved in the small press, how important is a small press presence to an up and coming horror writer's career?

GB: It can be invaluable to a new writer, if he or she understands that the readers/collectors who buy small press books do not represent the majority of the book-buyers out there. I've seen way too many writers get very full of themselves after seeing a lot of success in the small press, and you have got to avoid thinking that as goes the small press, so goes the mass-market.
What makes the small press experience invaluable to a new writer is that he or she will get a first-hand look into everything that goes into the production of a single book. They will also have the pleasure of seeing a version of their book that is infinitely more beautiful and well-crafted than anything they'll get from the mass-market. Yes, there are exceptions, few and far between, and this is in no way meant as a slam against mass-market packaging, but small presses such as CD, Subterranean, PS Publishing, Necessary Evil, Earthling. HW Press, Gauntlet, and many others, are concerned with offering readers a first-class physical production, complete with interior art, signatures, Smythe-sewn binding, slipcases, traycases—in short, they're offering not only a fine story for you to read, but also a book that can be, in itself, a work of art from just a production standpoint. That can get a new writer noticed very quickly.

SS: Who influenced you most as a man, and as a writer—and why?

GB: My parents. They showed me what genuinely constituted unselfish love, they always supported me in any of endeavours, they never failed to express their pride in my accomplishments, and they were always there. I learned about sacrifice from them, saw the toll a lifetime of hard labor took on each of them, and realized that, for them, their dreams were realized in the accomplishments of their children.

SS: Desert Island Discs time—five books you would HAVE to have with you if you were being marooned for a year, no television, etc. What and why?

GB: I'm going to cheat with the first one: it would have to be Stephen King's The Dark Tower series (I consider all seven volumes to be a single book, so, yeah, it counts) because it's one of the most wondrous literary achievements I've seen in my lifetime, and I find something new to admire in the story every time I re-read it; my second book would have to Carson McCullers’ The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, because it was the first novel to really, deeply move me, and experiencing her prose over and over again never gets old; the third would be The Collected Stories of Ray Bradbury—and do you really need to ask why? Didn't think so; the fourth would be Dan Simmons’ The Terror, because it's the only novel I've ever read that made me feel cold in the middle of summer, plus it's brilliantly written and compelling and scary as hell; and the last would be a book about the plants, fauna, and geography of the particular island where I'm going to be stranded.

SS: Do you have any particular advice you'd care to give to young writers embarking upon the path the young Braunbeck decided to tread?

GB: Take the work seriously, but not yourself—never yourself, and don't be afraid to go too deep into those places in the human heart that most people would rather never be mentioned. Also, have a well-paying job outside of writing, or marry someone who does, and whose job offers great health insurance. And read outside the genre, goddamn it. Nothing can grow in a vacuum, least of all a story-teller's abilities if they have only a single point of reference.

GB: What does the future hold for Gary Braunbeck?

SS: Sadness, grief, loneliness, misery, emptiness, and a slow, agonizing, inconsequential, wretched death in some dirty little room in a shit-hole flophouse, my mind filled with endless regrets and my soul crippled by decades of self-loathing. But before that, lunch with chocolate pie for dessert, and Disc Three of The Adventures of Danger Mouse. Plus there are litter boxes to be changed. It's a rich existence, but someone has to live it.
www.garybraunbeck.com www.stevensavile.com



Stefani Nellen is a psychologist-turned-writer who lives in Pittsburgh and Groningen (the Netherlands) with her husband. Her short fiction appears or is forthcoming in VerbSap, Bound Off, Hobart, Smokelong Quarterly, Cezanne's Carrot, Hiss Quarterly, FRiGG, and Grendel Song, among other places. She co-edits the Steel City Review.
SPINNETJE
By Stefani Nellen
Milo waited until Terri fell asleep. He lifted his pillow, picked up a small metal box, and opened it. The metal spider inside rose onto its needle-thin legs as if it had expected him. Milo's heartbeat picked up. A film of sweat formed on his upper lip. He pushed the tip of his index finger under the spider's round body and as one, eight legs clutched his fingertip. The bot purred softly as it verified Milo's identity by analyzing a speck of skin. After a moment, its body pulsed red, twice. It let go of Milo's finger and stalked up to the back of his hand.
Milo swallowed. His own breathing sounded loud to him. He held his hand next to Terri's ear. The earlap looked like an entrance to a cave, guarded by strands of hair.
Milo had often watched Terri sleep, intrigued by the idea of her brain sitting inside her skull, a shimmering treasure forever hidden from him. He could probe her mind with words or try to read her gestures, but she could always retreat at will. And words were so blunt, so slow.
In Milo's favorite fantasy, he crawled into Terri's ear and through the dark fuzzy spiral of her auditory canal until he breached, armed with a gentle diamond drill, the barrier separating him from his wife's pearl, her throbbing wet mind. Inside her brain, he would go around and marvel, record the distant surge of her bloodstream and the cackle of neurons, and perhaps he would catch a glimpse of ... of what? At this point, his fantasy usually stopped, and his practical mind took over. His inventor's mind.
He would never be able to penetrate the tissue of her blood-brain barrier by himself. But perhaps this would.

Spinnetje. Archaic Dutch for “Little Spider."
Terri would hate the name.
The spider jerked toward Terri's ear hole. Milo's hands shook. He had simulated Spinnetje's excursion into his wife's brain multiple times; he'd tested the material, the signal, every possible crisis; he'd tested the preconditions for a self-destruct; he'd ... He jerked back his hand. What was he thinking? This might kill her.
Too late. The spider had darted into Terri's ear. Its legs quivered over the earlap and then dissolved into her flesh. Milo exhaled; Spinnetje had responded exactly as planned. Upon recognizing Terri's DNA, the nano units constituting the bot separated from each other and broke through Terri's skin. It looked as if the metal spider had melted into her ear. Driven by Milo's programming, they would make for Terri's brain without damaging any tissue. At least Milo was reasonably confident they wouldn't damage anything. He couldn't be sure, not on the basis of simulations.
Terri turned her head away from Milo's hand, her fists close to her lips, an embryonic posture. She appeared to be fast asleep.
Milo needed no effort to stay awake. His heart pounded; he could have run around the block, cooked a five-course meal, and painted the apartment green. He gobbled down some leftover NutriJoy tart he found in his stay-at-home-lab. He played timed, five-dimensional Sudoku against his buddy Jake, who was online and awake as usual. Milo usually won, but not tonight.
Five hours later, Milo went back to the room.
Terri snored a soft melody. By now, Spinnetje's program should have sent a signal traveling through Terri's skull, penetrating the layers of neuronal tissue, until all of Spinnetje's particles gathered again inside her earlap, re-arranging into spider-shape.
Milo waited. Nothing happened. He wiped his upper lip.
Terri kept snoring. After three more snores, a metal sphere formed close to her ear hole, grew, and sprouted eight legs. Spinnetje was back. It obediently crawled up the ramp Milo made with his palm. He closed his fingers around it and felt its warmth. Terri's warmth. Exhausted, he inserted the bot into its box and fell asleep clutching it.
* * * *
As soon as Terri left the next morning, Milo went to the lab and locked the door behind him. The lab, a windowless dungeon smelling of dried food and socks, simmered in the heat of three large computers. Its state of organic disarray stood in marked contrast to the composition of sparkling surfaces and lemon scent in the rest of the apartment—thanks to Terri's regular summons of Housekeeping Services.
Spinnetje wriggled its legs between Milo's fingers. With his free hand, Milo swept plastic bottles and plates from a keyboard and pounded in his password. The machines woke up. Small windows opened on the screens. Cursors blinked at the start of command lines. Pick me! Type here!
Milo dropped Spinnetje into a box sitting in a nest of cable, and the bot inserted its legs into holes at the bottom. Milo closed the box, grabbed the nearest keyboard, and typed. Lines of code flew across the screens. Milo was surrounded by a concert of slow electronic crickets. The screens emptied except for one last, blinking line:

—experience built src =Spinnetje

Milo's heartbeat thumped in his throat when he took Spinnetje out of its box. The spider seemed to look up at him eagerly.
Virtual Experience, or Vex, the company employing Milo and Terri, wouldn't approve of the device, even though it used a variant of the technology Milo had developed for them. He imagined the reproaches—Frivolous—Why use a spider? A chip would have been perfectly adequate—It's too dangerous—and sat down on the fleece-covered cot behind the door.
Sure, the simulations sold by Vex always required the user to be physically connected to the computer administering the simulation, but while the helmets and data gloves were clumsy, they gave people a sense of safety. Being connected to a computer made it possible to monitor the simulation and interrupt it in cases of overload or measurable discomfort.
Spinnetje, on the other hand, was an autonomous creature composed of a horde of nanites that could crawl through brains like a crowd of over-eager tourists crawling through ruins. The spider recorded every piece of synaptic activity, maintaining context and tracking changes. It translated them into a format that could be understood by any brain willing to play host to the virtual experience it created—or so Milo hoped.
He hadn't tried it before. But he imagined it liquefying, a flock of nanites flowing into his sulci and gyri, sowing sensations, orchestrating and reproducing the exact experience it had picked up. Milo could only hope that it would obey its programming, end its task on time, and lie next to his ear when he woke up.
He tilted his palm. Spinnetje lengthened its legs on one side to remain stable.
Of course, Vex simulations always dealt with one specific experience. No simulation lasted longer than half an hour and all of them were clearly defined in terms of place and time.

Spaghetti Bolognese with real tomato sauce and meat. Target audience: people post-stomach reduction who missed the experience of gobbling down pasta.

Catching the ball. For clumsy children who suffered from being mocked by their peers.

Speaking in front of a hostile audience. For academics.
Spinnetje crouched and jumped up in the air, once, twice. It turned around, stood still.
Milo smiled. “Impatient, are we?"
He held the spider to his ear, felt its legs prick his earlap, and swallowed. He felt like throwing up.
Roaming in Terri's brain, Spinnetje hadn't recorded anything specific. It had absorbed what it could get. Milo was about to experience what it was like to be Terri.
He felt for the spider. It flattened and dissolved. His head turned warm.
* * * *
Milo remained aware of himself, a dot of consciousness flowing in a shroud of perceptions. No images. Alien thoughts in a female, high-pitched voice bit into him like barbed wire. Terri's vocabulary engulfed him, her thought-voice dark chocolate now, words grown from the thicket of childhood.

She-doo for shoe. Ba ba for man. Female, perfume, admiring male looks snapping around her waist like fire whips.
To gaze out into the world from behind a mask of make-up. To feel the tip of your nose burn with hair-scent, with others’ expectations. To balance on a smooth surface, on the tip of your toes. To bend and twist and always move ahead, nose first, scented hair flowing behind. To shrink and bulge.
Milo picked up emotions that shook him and let go like a vigorous breeze. Anger, shame, joy.
Words bounced in: “Salty."
"Too hot!"
"No."
"My pink cream birdie. So sweet."
"Excited, are we?"
"Pitty-pat. Your heart goes pitty-pat. Hear that?"
"Ten-fifty."
"Out of twenty."
Other words, brown and cursive, the script of Terri's thoughts, spun in a spiral. “More. Milo. More. Out. Open, taste buds!"
Food came in, a coil of flavors popped in her mouth. Slime, foam, and crisp morsels begging to be eaten. Terri became all tongue, red and meaty. She and Milo rolled out and licked, savored, swallowed.
More words. Formal capitals nourished Terri's straight spine. Pride.
Milo couldn't follow; he could only drift. He closed what he thought of as his eyes and rode Terri's perceptions, jerked with her movements, let everything wash around the pebble of his self.
For a moment, he wondered whether he would return. He could see himself lying on the cot of his lab, drooling and groaning. Perhaps his brain had turned into mucus by now. Disembodied, he laughed.
A spray of orange, color and scent, coexisted with the need to shit. Terri and he consumed and emitted, transformed and conserved.
The experiences piled up like a stack of two-dimensional line drawings that, placed on top of each other, yielded a three-dimensional image.
The essence of Terri?
She twisted toward any opening as a plant would. She spread her petals to new light, new scents and sounds. She reached out und unfolded. If he had to paint one image of her, he'd paint a fishing net tossing itself into the sea of life.
Milo woke up. A cold, metal pellet pushed against his cheek. Spinnetje. A glance at his watch told him he'd been gone five hours.
* * * *
Terri came home late that night, as always. In the living room, she groaned and kicked her shoes into a corner. Her hair shone in a new shade of blonde, one of the few artificial enhancements she permitted herself.
"What a day,” she said. “I want it back.” She tousled her hair and blew up her cheeks. Her eyelids twitched.
Milo observed her from the sofa. The simulation had kindled the acuity of his observations.
Two lines tugged at the corners of Terri's mouth. Lean bones shifted inside her hands. Her wedding band slid toward her knuckle. She walked to Milo, red toenails peeking through transparent tights, imprints of her shoe straps crossing over her feet.
Milo supplemented Terri's tentative walk and her slack face with emotions he could tease out of the plethora of simulation memories. She walked past him in a cloud of day-old perfume, and from his memories emerged the stink of sweat. Terri lowered her head with an apologetic smile. He remembered painful steps, bones sticking in throbbing flesh, the soothing pain of a cold surface. He had felt what she felt when she walked down their hallway barefooted after a day in high heels.
She dropped into a chair at the table and stretched her arms, making a joint or two in her torso go ‘pop.’ Her thin-waisted body bent like a snake.
Milo stared at her in wonder. He understood what the simulation had done to him. His perception and knowledge of Terri had changed. She'd become a vessel of mysterious sensations, a treasure trove of memories. He wanted to dig deeper.
She said, “I'm so hungry."
Milo went to the fridge. Could he anticipate Terri's cravings, or was it too early for that? He probed his memory and found blandness ... paper dough, processed pulp, a flat line of taste through which grain and orange juice spiked in the mornings.
He said, “Proposal—I cook something spicy for you.” He remembered her mentioning a dish on the phone. “Some pasta with pepper powder and real olives. Just let me order them. It'll be a couple of minutes."
He typed the order into the kitchen computer. Out of the corner of his eyes, he caught her incredulous smile.
"You and spicy?” she asked. “What happened to Egg-Meal and Cheese?"
He ventured forward. “You're in the mood for something spicy today."
She started and, after a second, laughed. “Okay. You're right.” She propped her feet onto the second chair. “I had an all-day argument with Jake. I messed up the data from the infants. I just looked at the spreadsheets and.... “She shook her head and rubbed her brow. “I don't know what it was. He basically had to walk me through the analyses again, and again, and again. Embarrassing."
"He adores you. I'm sure it made him happy."
Terri shrugged. “If he likes retarded women."
Milo rolled his eyes. “You just had a bad day, that's all."
The supply chute beeped, signaling the arrival of olives, pepper, and pasta.
The preparation of the dish wasn't an easy feat for Milo, who hadn't known that real olives had pits. But Terri, silent with hunger, ate without complaint.
Small muscles shifted in her jaws. Milo caught himself chewing in synch with her. Soon, he would be experiencing the sensations of this meal from inside her. He would be the homunculus hiding inside her brain, or maybe cuddling next to it, immersed in its whispers. His fantasy had come true.
Terri wiped her nose. “This is super spicy. Great."
"I knew you'd like it."
"How?"
"I have my sources,” Milo said.
She frowned. “By the way, where have you been today? You were offline all day. I waited for the hazelnut data."
"You waited for the hazelnut data.” He imagined a string of zeroes and ones, with hazelnuts instead of zeroes, and laughed out loud.
Terri frowned harder. “Hazelnuts are tricky. You know that."
"Very tricky. But not as tricky as you. By far."
She put down her silverware and leaned back in her chair. “I'm tricky?"
"And complex,” he said. “But I'll crack you."
She glanced at him as if he were a problem she had to puzzle out. She didn't look tired anymore. At last, she leaned closer and touched Milo's hand. “Just you try cracking me."
He imagined the taste of pepper and olives on her tongue, her leather belt cutting into her waist. He smiled back. “I will."
She kissed him. It had been a long time.
* * * *
She fell asleep past midnight, legs wrapped around the blanket. Milo tickled her earlobe. She jerked away, but didn't wake up.
Milo debated with himself. Could he send Spinnetje on another exploration into Terri's brain? He itched to see metal spider legs caress her earlobe. And why not? Spinnetje hadn't harmed Terri. It had brought them closer together. It could do even more, given more information.
He gave in, fetched Spinnetje and knelt next to his wife. As soon as he opened his fingers, the spider lunged at Terri's ear. All intelligence craved to learn. Milo smiled, proud of his creation.
Spinnetje squeezed into Terri's ear hole as if pressing itself into the flesh, speeding its dissolution. Terri smacked her lips together and swallowed.
A knot loosened in Milo's chest. He realized how afraid he had been that he might never taste Terri's perception again, might become as severed from her as before. He crept underneath the blanket and held her. She stretched in his arms, ribs and muscles straining against his chest, and he held her tighter, relishing the knowledge that her muscles, skin, and bones were not enough to keep him out.
* * * *
Soon, Milo was using Spinnetje every night. He couldn't indulge in simulations every day, because he had to keep up with his work for Vex. He accumulated a backlog of simulations that he enjoyed one hour at a time, once or twice a week, with many more hours left for the future.
During his days without the simulated Terri, he entertained the real one with new foods she might crave, musicals, concerts, sex. He fattened her mind with new impressions.
One night, he undressed her and asked her to remain limp and let him arrange her limbs on the bed. He propped a pillow underneath her head and spread her arms. He bent her left knee such that her left sole pushed against the side of her right leg. She looked like a ballerina, frozen into stillness by a camera. Her skin shimmered. He stroked her legs and hips, molding her muscles. For a moment, he was torn between savoring the experience as Milo and as Terri. He dipped his tongue into her bellybutton, grasping her buttocks reverently, excited with the promise of harvesting her experience, all of her experiences, all of her.
* * * *
Weeks passed. During the simulations, Milo gradually learned to recognize specific images and scenes.
One time, Terri danced. Whether in a dream or in reality, Milo couldn't tell. She spun around her axis, flat and light as a butterfly, wings fluttering in the surge of her spinning, until her feet left the ground and she flew away along the high rises with their breakfast bubbles, into the freedom of white cotton balls and blue sky.
After the dance simulation, Milo felt emptiness instead of his usual exuberance. It had been the happiest he'd ever experienced Terri, and she had been alone. She hadn't asked him to dance with her.
He scratched his sweaty brow. His belly spread under his t-shirt. His shoulders slumped. No, he wasn't her match as a dancer. He could only watch her, sneak a peek here and there, but he couldn't join her. He couldn't join her in anything.
Come to think of it, she had grown more distant lately, accepting his offerings of food, games, and sex rather than enjoying them. Small things, such as forgetting to call Housekeeping Services or botching routine assignments at Vex, bothered her. She ate his food without comment. Sometimes when they made love she clung to him as if to shake herself awake, then groaned in frustration. He tried to talk to her but she would shrug and turn away.
They still had good times—feeding each other fruit bits or reading each other jokes from the Sunday Transmit—but at that moment, stinging from being excluded from Terri's dance, Milo only remembered the moments of defeat.
He burped. Synthetic onion.
Onion ... food ... he remembered the dinner after the first simulation, when he had guessed the food she craved based on the simulation. It had opened her up to him, surprised and enchanted her.
His mistake had been to forget about that evening in favor of secretly enjoying his insider's knowledge of his wife's psyche. He slapped his thigh. From now on, he would use his knowledge to make her smile and feel safe. He would anticipate her every need. He would make her dreams come true and become part of her world again, part of her thoughts and fantasies. Simulations and reality would melt into one. Spinnetje would disappear into its box.
She would ask him to dance.
* * * *
Milo moved the furniture against the walls of the apartment and pushed a music stick into the stereo. A synthetic barrel organ played a waltz.
When Terri came home, he walked toward her so fast he stumbled. She had to steady him. He led her into the living room, put one arm around her waist, and grabbed her hand in an imitation of a waltz demonstration he had picked up online. He took a step and hit her knee with his.
She winced and rubbed her kneecap. “What's this all about?"
"I want to dance with you."
She bent and stretched her knee. “Cripple me, more likely."
"You'd rather dance alone?"
"No."
Her blatant lie angered him. “Come on,” he said. “You do. I know you do."
"What are you talking about?"
He said, “I know you like to dance alone. Don't deny it. I know you. I know things about you."
She took a few steps back. Her heels clicked on the stone floor. “Okay. I do. If it makes you happy.” She bumped into the wall. Her skin mirrored the off-white paint.
"So,” he said, “what are you waiting for? Dance!"
She shook her head. Her mouth formed soundless syllables. The synthesized waltz picked up speed.
"Dance!” he yelled, then flinched. How dare he shout at her? How would this come across in the simulations?
Milo and Terri stared at each other. The waltz reached new heights of saccharine delirium. Terri shook herself out of her pose, turned off the speakers, and walked out of the living room. The music stick hummed for some moments, unamplified. When silence returned, Milo found himself alone. His hot face didn't cool down for a long time.
That night, he humbly approached her as she lay in bed. He kissed her ribs, crouching next to her like a repentant dog. She didn't refuse him. He tilted her face and found her eyes closed, her mouth frowning indifferently.
"I'm sorry,” he whispered. He cupped one of her breasts in his hand and moved the orange-sized lump of flesh around in its skin. The nipple, root of purple veins, seemed to stare him down. Goose bumps grew under his fingertips. Out of habit, Milo tried to anticipate the feeling of his own hand—his squeezes and strokes and kisses—
Terri sat up. “What are you doing? What's so fascinating about my breast?"
Milo's hand lay on her thigh now. He couldn't answer. His failure to connect with her paralyzed him.
"You're always doing this lately,” she murmured. “You do all these things to me, but where are you? What are you thinking? Right now?"
Milo, recoiling from her question, moved to his side of the bed.
"God,” Terri said, rubbing her brow. “I can't think straight anymore."
Milo struggled for an answer to soothe her. He couldn't find any. What was he thinking? What would Spinnetje find if someone sent it down Milo's brain?
It would find a black, greedy vortex, sucking, absorbing, and destroying, until nothing was left for anyone else to experience or understand or love.
* * * *
Milo held up his fork with a piece of pancake and drew eights in the air. Jake followed the pattern with his blue, computer-taxed eyes. Both of them felt uncomfortable in public spaces, but silently agreed that never going out together would make their friendship pitiful.
Milo swallowed the piece of pancake and coughed. “Can't get used to chewing so damn much."
"That homemade stuff is odd,” Jake agreed. He had ordered a selection of liquids himself and nipped on different colored straws in a manner that reminded Milo of a HummingBot.
"So,” Milo said, “how's it going? A light at the end of the tunnel?” It was their code for Jake's love life, which had been marred early on by an unrequited crush on Terri.
Jake shook his head. His long chin pushed against a straw. “Nope. They stay one night and don't leave a note. Women."
Not too long ago, Milo would have echoed the complaint with a remark on Terri's long hours and her endless phone calls with a horde of friends. Jake would have agreed that this was suspicious. As it became late, Milo would have speculated whether Terri had an affair with some nutrition specialist or even a lowly intern. It was Milo's and Jake's routine.
Spinnetje, however, had changed things.
Milo longed for the old, uncomplicated days of mild jealousy and “women!” huffs. He put his dirty silverware on the plate and wiped it off the table. The plate folded into a ball, tucking leftovers and silverware inside his core, and bounced off toward the kitchen.
Milo leaned across the table, glanced at Jake through the straw array, and said, “Can you imagine what it's like to understand women?"
"How do you mean?"
"Well.” How to explain this without technical details? “Imagine you could read their minds."
Jake sighed. “I try to do that all the time. I always want to talk. I ask them what they're thinking, and they flutter their lashes and giggle. Say, Miles?"
"Huh?"
"What's the deal with you and Terri?"
Milo sighed. “That's exactly what I mean. Good example. See, I understand her. Really understand her. You'd think that'd be a great thing, but it turns out—” He stopped when Jake flinched. “What's the matter?"
"Nothing,” Jake said.
"Come on."
Jake pushed his bottles aside. They, too, changed into small balls and bounced away between the legs of chairs, tables, and people.
"I shouldn't have asked,” Jake said.
"Why did you, then?"
Jake fumbled with his sleeves.
Milo joined him. At the same moment, they turned up their caffeine cannulas.
"Come on,” Milo said. “Spill."
"She seems a bit confused lately, that's all, and I thought you guys had a problem. I wanted to offer my help."
"Did she say we had a problem?"
Jake bit his lip. “No."
"What's this all about then?"
"I don't know. She seems kind of fragile at work lately. She's easy to startle and real nervous when she has to give a presentation or something. She's never been like that."
Milo nodded. His lips grew numb.
"She seems scared,” Jake said, “and sort of apprehensive. I've seen her walk alone and turn around as if she thought someone was following her.” After a while, he added, “and she seems angry, too. With that crease between her brows. She sits at her desk like an angry statue. But, since you really understand her,” he glanced at Milo, “you probably know what's going on."
* * * *
Milo checked his watch and glanced at the entrance of Vex. Terri should come out any moment. He took a deep breath, not used to being outside. The flurry of smells and voices choked him. He adjusted the caffeine cannula in his arm.
It had been a couple of days since the meeting with Jake. He had continued to use Spinnetje but, seized by guilt, was unwilling to sample the simulations. He wanted to make peace with Terri first. He needed to tell her about Spinnetje. Many things needed to change between them. He needed to turn around the greedy vortex inside his mind.
Terri started when she passed through the revolving door and spotted him waiting. She crossed the stairs with small steps. Her hair, lighter than ever, bounced behind her. She'd lost more weight and compensated for the loss of presence with loud make-up.
She pecked him on the cheek. “What brings you here?"
"Nothing,” Milo said. “I just wanted to see you.” She appeared tired instead of angry. She'd concealed the rings underneath her eyes.
"Okay.” She took his hand. They walked toward the metro, bumping into each other at times because their steps didn't match.
Terri said, “Sometimes I just want to leave. Take a year off. My brain feels like—” she kneaded the air with her free hand “—like a dripping sponge in need of a good wringing. Full, yet empty.” She winced. “That was deep."
Milo squeezed her hand.
She squeezed back.
She sighed and stopped to gaze at a selection of chocolates displayed in a shop window, then moved on without commenting, lost in thought. She walked next to him, as remote as in the days before Spinnetje.
She said, “Milo. I noticed something. About you."
He shifted, and their steps fell into synch.
She said, “You don't see me anymore. You look at me, but you don't see me. You seem to—” she let go of his hand as if her next remark couldn't be made while touching him. “You seem to anticipate something when you look at me. Or plan something."
They'd arrived at the metro entrance. She stopped at the top of the stairs. People streamed around them, pushed them closer together.
She said, “This is going to sound bad. But I don't trust you anymore."
* * * *
At home, Terri boiled quick pasta. Milo sat at the table. Neither had spoken since her declaration at the metro entrance. Milo snapped his fingers and MosquiBot buzzed over to sit on his shoulder. Terri stirred tomato powder into the boiling water.
Milo grabbed an orange from the fruit bowl, held it over a glass and let MosquiBot latch onto the peel. The bot rammed its proboscis into the pulp and squirted juice into the glass via a hose dangling from its back. Milo had made it as a birthday present for Terri.
Without turning around, Terri said, “Okay, it happened when you wanted to dance with me."
Milo let MosquiBot crawl from one palm to the other.
She drained the pasta. Her voice shook like high-strung wire. “One day, I walked home and, without knowing why, I saw myself dancing. Music played in my head, even though I have no musical talent. I imagined I was wearing this princess dress. It was quite embarrassing, actually, considering I hate dancing and princess dresses in real life.” She distributed the pasta onto two plates and poured sauce over the maggoty heaps. “But there I was, dancing away in my mind, and it made me happy. And part of it was that no one was there when I danced—it was just me. No handsome prince. No brilliant programmer."
She put the plates on the table and retrieved two sets of silverware from the dispenser. “You had no business knowing about this dance. But you did. In fact—” she sat down and raised her voice “—you bragged about it. You said, ‘I know things about you.’ That one phrase haunted me. ‘I know things about you.'” She chewed fiercely, punishing the pasta for Milo's transgression.
"So, what do you know? And how?” she asked. “It's something abnormal. I feel it."
Milo didn't touch the pasta. MosquiBot crawled on his palms, back and forth, back and forth.
"Sometimes, when I'm all alone,” she said, “I let my mind wander, and it's as if there are were footprints telling me someone has been there before me."
MosquiBot stood still and waved its antennae at her, as if it sensed her distress.
"Talk to me!” Her shout made him flinch. She swiped the metal insect from his hands. It pinged on the ground. “Tell me I'm wrong! Or crazy! Anything!"
In the face of Terri's rage, an image flashed in Milo's mind. Terri and himself, amorphous and sexless, clinging to each other like two embryos, feeding on the same nutrients, the same blood and brain.
Terri stomped on the floor. When she raised her foot, MosquiBot lay flattened, its antennae twitching once, twice, no more.
Milo hated her. She would stomp on Spinnetje. She would stomp on anything he could do.
Her face turned red. She opened and closed her mouth, shouted and gestured at him. He hid in a shell of cold rage. Shaking his head, he waited her out.
"I don't know what you mean,” he said.
His voice rang flat. He repeated again and again that he didn't know what she meant, until the absence of her yells told him she had gone.
* * * *
Milo didn't dare let Spinnetje feed on Terri again. The procedure had affected her, draining her mind of flavor. The bot hadn't harmed her physically, but it had damaged her in ways he couldn't comprehend, no matter how often he stared at the data retrieval logs. He didn't want to find out what would happen after more of Spinnetje.
They lived past and around each other for a while. Terri took the month off and spent her days outdoors. Color returned to her cheeks. She stopped dying her hair. She made her own food and asked Milo to sleep in the living room. She seemed to be gathering the strength necessary to leave him.
Her grains and juices sat in the fridge. Milo couldn't stomach them without her company. He dissolved powders in sugar water and chewed energy cubes. He sat naked in the breakfast bubble and watched the leaves float past.
Over the days, Terri's physical presence ceased to affect him. He didn't notice her comings and goings any more than he would have noticed the weather outside.
In his lab, Spinnetje moved around in its box. Its unrest pulsed through Milo's veins. He dreamt of Spinnetje throbbing with Terriness. He only needed to log in and suckle another delicious dose of his elusive wife. Spider legs tickled his naked skin. He paced back and forth. Give in! Be her!
He paced faster. His buttocks rippled.
Spinnetje was bursting with unvisited simulations of Terri. His strict discipline—no more than an hour at a time, never on consecutive days—paid off now. He had so many simulations left. Why not taste just a little sip—be with her for a moment, mingle with her, sneak a peek at the secret solo dances she craved.
Did she miss him, too? Or had Spinnetje digested part of her mind, so she missed the lost part of herself? Whatever was left of her couldn't be as sweet, as fragrant and pure as Spinnetje's treasure.
He crouched in front of the lab door, listening for scurrying legs on the synthetic panel. When he slept, he dreamed of the Terri locked in his lab and forgot about the real one.
* * * *
The lab looked the way he'd left it. Dried soup pots cluttered tables and keyboards. Wave patterns saved the screens. The cool air gave him goose bumps. He wrapped his robe around his body and started the computer.
Spinnetje didn't jump up when he opened its box, but it shifted its legs and lifted its body.
"Sorry for the wait,” Milo whispered.
Milo selected a recent date from Spinnetje's recordings and transferred the rest to his computer. More data would mean a clearer vision, but he couldn't waste all of Terri in one go. He'd noticed that the simulations grew flat if he experienced them more than once, as if they wilted in an alien brain.
He started the procedure. With Spinnetje ready, he lay down on his cot and clutched his robe with one hand. Spinnetje clung to his earlobe. The telltale warmth in his head told him the dissolution had started.
"Hi honey,” he whispered. “I'm home."
* * * *
He swam in the warm water of her mind. Golden swirls enveloped him, chocolate and caramel. He landed on a dollop of whipped cream. Cardinals chirped in marzipan trees. Fresh grass grew through him, black earth and roots as soft as silk tassels.
Pain. He snapped back, ground into a mesh of bone and blood. He'd hit a concrete wall. A red splotch proved it. He spun around. Doors slammed shut around him. Garage doors crashing down, fridge doors smacking shut, creaking trap doors, every door imaginable. He became a blur as he spun faster and faster, carried by the cacophony of shutting doors until he flattened and thinned out and stopped.
He floated over a lake of black ink, still throbbing with pain. A bright patch twinkled. It grew until a cone broke the water surface, shaping into a moving statue of a man and a woman, her legs wrapped around his hips. They made love. Terri's body was unmistakable. The man looked up at her, eyes bulging in that stupid pre-orgasmic grimace that doesn't care.
An unknown. Her dream man.
* * * *
Immediately after waking from the simulation, Milo got up and paced back and forth, clenching his teeth. Terri moved away from Milo, into the black lake of solitary imaginations. She constructed traps for him, slammed doors in his face. He mustn't let her disappear. For the sake of his dream, for the sake of their intertwined embryonic fingers, he had to protect her. He would keep her safe.
Milo was sitting at the table when her key turned in the lock. A moment later, she entered the living room.
She played with a strand of hair, light at the tip and darker at the root.
"Hey,” she said.
Spinnetje convulsed in Milo's hand. “Hey."
She took small steps toward him, her ankles shaking slightly on her high heels. She had developed freckles.
"Look at you,” she said. She sat down on the coffee table.
He crossed his arms, Spinnetje safe in his fist.
"What happened to you? You're a mess.” She picked at a dried slab of all-in-one meal that clung to his chest hairs. After a while, it came loose.
"Everyone misses you at work,” she said. “Please, can't you ... snap out of it?"
"I invented something wonderful."
She didn't flinch.
"Do you trust me?” he asked.
"I don't know.” But her eyes said she wanted to.
"This is Spinnetje,” he said, and opened his fist.
Terri shrieked. She shot up, stepped back, and almost fell over the coffee table.
Her shrieking rang in his ears. What a stupid woman she could be. Milo held the spider under her nose. “Don't be so ridiculously prejudiced!"
She slapped at his hand. The spider jumped onto her face and, circumventing her screaming mouth, crawled down her neck.
"Get off me, get off me,” Terri screamed. She grabbed Spinnetje and, with a wail, slammed it against the wall. It bounced off and came to lie on the floor.
Milo fell to his knees next to the spider. He prodded its body and tugged at its legs. “Spinnetje, stay. Please."
Spinnetje didn't move. After a while, Terri knelt down next to him. “What is this?” she whispered. “Did I break it?"
Spinnetje blinked red and arranged its legs. Terri jumped. Milo grasped Spinnetje with one hand, and Terri's neck with the other. She struggled to escape his grip, and he fell on top of her. His hand holding Spinnetje struck her temple. Recognizing its target's identity, Spinnetje dissolved into Terri, restoring her skin as it did so, making for the main prize, her brain. Terri stared into space as the insect dug into her, Milo's hand patting the bulge of tissue and crowding nanites in her head until, finally, she fainted.
"I'll explain,” he whispered, his brow touching hers. “One day."
As soon as Spinnetje reappeared, he downloaded the data and sent it into Terri's brain again, ignoring the requirement for deep sleep, the identified limit of one feed per day, her convulsions. And then he did it again, and again. When Terri grew still, he went to the lab and let the salvaged remains of Terri invade him in an orgy that lasted hours.
* * * *
Jake visited Milo and Terri on the first day of winter. The snowflakes melted on his boots as he entered the apartment. Milo didn't comment. He looked good, slim and neat. He wore a suit. Next week he'd be back to work. It had taken him some time to live through Terri's breakdown, but he looked calm. Ready.
The apartment sparkled. Milo put a plate with fresh cookies and two glasses of orange juice on the table. He motioned Jake to sit down.
Terri sat in a wheelchair. Her neck was propped up in a padded steel collar. Her head lolled against the padding, one eye squinting past Jake, the other half-hidden under a swollen eyelid. Spittle covered her lower lip. Jake had to look away.
"Look, Terri,” Milo said, crossing his legs, “Jake is here. Do you remember Jake?"
Terri didn't make a sound.
Milo shrugged. “I like to talk to her, you know? It's probably silly, but ... I like to think it pleases her."
"I'm so sorry,” Jake said, ashamed of the tears in his voice.
Milo picked up a cookie and took a bite. He chatted about a new technology he planned to introduce to Vex soon after his return, something about attaining more complete and immersive access to sensory perceptions, emotions, and memories.
Jake had difficulty listening. The dreadful apparatus that used to be Terri distracted him. He was also struck by a new quality in Milo. If he hadn't known better, he'd call it feminine. The flourish of his gestures, the wide smile, the melody of his voice ... it all seemed familiar, like an old song, but Jake couldn't pinpoint the familiarity.
Confused, Jake took a sip of juice. Milo joined him.
"Something bothers you,” Milo said. “What is it?"
"I don't know,” Jake said.
Milo gestured at Terri. “Is it her?"
Jake cringed. “Maybe."
Milo said, “Jake.” The melodious syllable floated across the table in outright seduction.
"I want you to know something, Jake,” Milo said, leaning back, holding his glass with a familiar grace. “Terri and I were close before she ... broke down. Very close. The body you see here, this ... thing in the wheelchair, has nothing to do with the real Terri. The real Terri—” he touched his chest “—is here. In my heart. The real Terri is in my mind, my thoughts. We are one, she and I.” He smiled again. “She's safe."
Milo's smile kindled a memory inside Jake. He'd almost grasped it, almost put a name to it, when Terri grunted. She twisted her neck and grunted again. Milo took her hand, kissed it, and turned back to Jake.
"It seems your visit is over-stimulating her. Would you excuse us?"




Dan Keohane's short fiction has appeared in Cemetery Dance, The Pedestal Magazine, Fantastic Stories, Gothic.Net, Extremes, Poddities and many others. His novel Solomon's Grave was recently released in Italy (as il Segreto Di Salomone) and is due for release this November in Germany from Otherworld Verlag (as Das Grub Des Salomon). One of these days he'll sell a book in English. You can visit his website at www.dankeohane.com.

RAY GUN

By Daniel G. Keohane
Hank Cowles’ eyes opened with a start. He stared at the ceiling, trying to place the morning. Where he was; who he was. It came to him, slowly, as it often did these days. His waking had been sudden, not his usual slow rise out of sleep. Pushing aside the heavy quilt, Hank muttered, “Shit,” and got out of bed. He did this slowly, the way a man in his early eighties needed to do everything if he wanted to make it back unscathed at the end of the day. Most days he succeeded.
He stood beside the bed and rubbed his face with his hands.
The slippers were in the right spot. A nice surprise. A couple of days ago he'd taken them off halfway down the hall and there they'd been, waiting for him like dogs too tired to run to their master. He slipped into them now and shuffled out of the room. By the time he was standing over the toilet, his right leg had begun to shake with the tremors of a new day. Not badly, though. It would settle down soon enough.
Hank looked to the left out the bathroom window. Rain pattered against the glass, running in slow rivulets before pooling at the bottom of the pane. Beyond, his wooded backyard was blurred, gray in the dawn light. It was too gray out there. Too early. He hadn't bothered looking at the clock. Maybe he'd been woken by thunder.
When he was finished, he buttoned up his pajama pants and hesitated in the hall. If it was too early, he could go back to bed. If he went into the kitchen, early or not he'd be too hungry to sleep.
"Piss in a shoe,” he muttered, and turned toward the kitchen.
The clock on the microwave read five thirty-one. A good two hours early. He almost turned back toward the bedroom, but he made the mistake of looking out the large picture window facing the woods. More rain, the wind blowing in from the northwest. Even so, he could see there were less trees back there than yesterday. Deeper in, if he looked long enough—
Something went BAM BAM BAM against the storm door. Hank gasped and stepped back.
A man's shape hovered beyond the curtained window of the door. Hank stepped heavily in his slippers across the kitchen and opened the door with as much force as he could manage. His left wrist screamed in protest. Stupid, he thought, should have used the right. He recognized his visitor a moment before shouting, “What the fuck are you doing, Martin, slamming on my damned door at five-fucking-thirty?"
Martin Greenough, seventy-one, unruly white hair pressed down under his blue Red Sox cap, smiled beneath his umbrella and tipped his cap's rim in greeting.
"Heya, Hank,” he said over the light patter of rain above him. He looked at his watch. “Five thirty-four, actually. Just thought I'd check in with you before going UFO hunting in your backyard."
"What—” Hank began, then Martin's words registered. He looked past his old friend's shoulder at the jagged opening where trees once stood. Some of them were still there, but only for the first dozen feet. The rest had disappeared.
"What the hell happened to my property?"
Still holding on to his amused grin, Martin stuck his free hand into his chinos pocket and turned slowly, glancing behind him. “Crash site, I think. Meteor, maybe. Big, too.” He pulled his hand free, held out a yellow pack of gum. “Juicy Fruit?"
"Shit on a stick."
* * * *
They were alone. Either the crash hadn't made much noise or everyone else in the neighborhood and their uncles were busy sleeping off a drunk from some party Hank hadn't been invited to.
He stumbled over a fallen tree trunk and thought, I'm too old for this. The yard was secluded, sitting in the middle of a five acre parcel abutting a two hundred acre state-owned wetland. Whatever landed would have remained unknown until Hank eventually wandered out back. If Martin Greenough hadn't seen the long black streak race over Hank's property while walking his dog, he'd have written off the rain-muffled impact as thunder.
Nurse Charles, Martin's small, curly white Shih-Tzu whose name had never been explained by her owner (nor would Hank lower himself to ask), scrabbled ahead of the men, sniffing, running around the fallen trunks when climbing proved too daunting for her small legs.
Gasping with the effort of climbing over one particularly tricky set of branches, Martin said, “Something came down, that's for sure. See?” He'd given up trying to keep the umbrella over his head and had it folded and tucked under one arm. Rain dripped off the front of his cap. He gestured ahead of them. “Tree trunks are getting lower, and something's steaming down there."
He continued on, moving casually, stopping occasionally to inspect a burnt, broken trunk. Hank knew Martin was letting him catch up, and appreciated the gesture. Not that he would ever tell him. His neighbor was one of the few people who truly knew and understood Hank Cowles. Phyllis had, when she was alive. But that felt like such a long time ago. Most of that world was lost to him now. Only snatches of memory remained, but even those were questionable.
Nurse Charles barked excitedly up ahead. Hank thought of a red, blinking light. Something he was supposed to do. Damn, fuck, piss on a cat. What was it?
Didn't matter.
"Tell me again why we're out here?” He considered climbing over the same tree Martin had just traversed but decided he needed the exercise and moved around it instead. Rain tapped against the hood of his parka, muffling the sound of their steps and Martin's voice. His friend wiped a wet hand across his face and looked ahead a moment to see what his cat was yapping about ( ... dog, Hank remembered, it's a dog, not a cat ... ), then turned back to Hank. “Meteorite crashed in the woods. We're exploring."

Yes, that's right. This man had been standing on the porch. Something had woken him. Hank hesitated, watching the rain fall inches from his face, dripping off his hood. The man looked at him a moment, then added without a trace of irony, “I'm Martin. You're Hank."

That's right, he thought again. Too early for this to start up. He did better in sunlight. He should have gone back to bed. “Fuck you, Martin, I know that. What's Charlie barking at?"
"Her name's not Charlie—"
Hank hissed, “Nurse ... Charles...” between clenched teeth. He hated that fucking name.
Martin turned back toward the dog's small voice. “Let's find out."
* * * *
They stepped over a few more scattered trunks and branches before arriving at the end of the newly carved path. Here, the toppled trees had little or no trunk left.
The vehicle—some bizarrely-shaped airplane, or maybe a satellite—lay bent and twisted against a large boulder that resembled a hand raised up from the earth, holding the wreckage in its palm, offering it to the men. Wherever rain hit the object's wrinkled and dented surface, it hissed away in a puff of steam. The Shih-Tzu spread her short legs as far as possible and yap-yap-yapped in defiance or excitement. You never know with cows, Hank thought.
He crept closer. Martin was waiting for him beside a surviving maple. Was it a plane? Maybe a spaceship, he thought without any of the excitement he might have felt had he been seventy-five years younger. Its shape—its original shape, at least—was hard to figure out. The end closest to them was narrow but tall. A thin oval opening, buckled in places, led into an interior that was too dark for details. A slow drift of steam, like breath in winter, fingered its way from this crevice. The engine, he assumed, an exhaust port. He searched for some other kind of entrance or door. The most prominent feature was a bubble, or pimple, halfway down the side of the craft. Some kind of pipe emerged from a crack in the pimple, ran along the outside of the hull, and disappeared again into another, longer crack wide enough to fit a man if he were stupid enough to try and squeeze through.
No one spoke. Even Nurse Charles stopped barking. She whimpered once, licked her chops, then looked back at the men for guidance.
Hank hovered beside Martin and the tree. The maple might provide cover, if needed. It wouldn't protect from radiation, but it was too late for that now, wasn't it?
If it was a spaceship, could aliens breathe this air? Maybe they'd died from germs like in that old H.G. Wells story. Martin opened his umbrella again, held it overhead and stepped forward once, twice, feet pressing lightly on wet leaves, old brown acorns, and damp, fallen sticks. He made no sound.
The strange pipe wriggled along the side of the ship. Part of it lifted away. Ten feet ahead of Hank, Martin froze. The pipe continued to writhe and move, a smaller section bending, reaching back into itself, repairing itself? Hank could make out no details in the thing. Grainy brown, like packed beach sand. Darker than sand though, changing and twisting. One long section plugged itself back into the center of the mass, then broke off again. At its tip was something quite different, something with detail—mostly round, short triangular protrusions, and one longer, cylindrical section.
As Hank's straining mind tried to categorize what he was looking at, the extrusion of brown sand waved the object unsteadily toward them. Holding it. Holding ... That's an arm.
His heart hammered, his brain screamed, arm arm! An arm! His eyes scanned the rest of the mass hanging horizontally from the pimple. It wasn't an exhaust—
A bright, flashing streak burned the air beside his head. Hank dove to his right, away from the tree, mostly out of reflex and fear. He hit the ground, rolled over sticks and leaves wet with decay. The hood of his slicker twisted around, blocking his view. The world became a bright blur of yellow that faded in intensity toward the inside of the hood. He held out his arms. His hands were wet, the leaves under his fingers cold. He reached up, shoved aside the hood just as a heavy, earth-shaking boom rocked the woods around him. The maple's trunk, the one he'd hoped would provide protection, collapsed in on itself as if it had been lifted into the air and dropped, ripping open a lightening jag up its trunk. For a moment Hank thought it might remain there, taking root. It wavered unsteadily on its burnt ends before tipping and falling away from him, crashing and crunching into the woods beyond his line of vision. The ground shook again with the impact, then stilled.
He blinked away more rain from his eyes and slowly sat up. His pants were soaked through. Where he'd been standing a few seconds before remained only the burnt base of the tree no higher than his waist, smoking like the stack of a deeply buried factory.
He took in a breath, let it out.
Where the hell was Martin?
Nurse Charles ran past as Hank tried to stand. She stopped and gathered her courage, turned back toward the ship and barked once.
"Shut the hell up, Charlie..."
The top of the umbrella lay upturned a few feet from Martin's legs, which were bent and curled beside twisted blue and red ropes piled where he had been standing.
No, that wasn't Martin. Hank stood straighter, forgetting the rain and his wet pants and the renewed fire in his ankle and wrist, trying to decipher what he was seeing. The legs were still in tan chinos. He could tell they were legs because of the exposed ankles. The top part of ... something poked above the belt. It was shredded and splashed with red. Where his friend's torso should have been, ropey glop spilled out, staining the pants.
Nurse Charles stopped barking. She cried. Her small paws stepped on leaves behind Hank, letting him lead.

That can't be Martin.
But the tree...
Hank closed his eyes. This wasn't real. He was hallucinating. Having another of those spells Dianne got so worked up over.

Red blinking light.
He remembered now. Dianne—his daughter. She must have called last night and left a message, probably wondering...
Hank opened his eyes, saw the wreckage of the ship. He was dreaming. Had to be. The brown, twisted sand shape was no longer stuck to the hull. Instead it bent and snaked across the forest floor toward him, the weapon flailing in the grip of an arm used primarily to maneuver itself along the uneven ground.
It must have spotted Hank. The creature—the alien pilot of the doomed spaceship, strange, strange dream, nothing else—straightened, then tipped sideways as if unable to maintain its balance. It aimed the gun in his direction—a ray gun, Hank thought and almost laughed at the absurdity of it. The sand creature tipped again, falling over completely.
The weapon slipped from its impossible, wormy grip.
He stared at the ball-shaped object, knowing if this was not a dream he would be dead soon—like Martin, like my friend—if the creature regained its balance and got a hold of the weapon, aimed it, burned him up—like Martin—like the tree. There was no specific face or head, mostly one brown limb growing out of another, writhing atop last year's leaf cover. An octopus with too few legs one moment, too many the next. The arm that had held the gun flailed about, looking for...
Hank stopped thinking. He stepped forward and picked up the ray gun, careful to keep the extruding cylinder aimed away from him. The creature wriggled and slapped itself across the ground, never rising back up to its full height but moving steadily toward him in a drunken zigzag crawl. With shaking hands, Hank aimed the cylinder at it, felt around for some way of holding it better, some trigger. There were a number of holes in the side, hand-holds too awkward to grip. His thumb ran along one of the triangle shapes on top and pressed down.
Bright, bright flash. A million sparks danced around the beam as the falling rain exploded. Hank squinted. The creature twisted and flipped in the light, then was gone. No kick, no fire, just a burnt oval of smoldering earth, glistening like mica. The flash's residue hovered in the center of his vision.
Hank held the gun away from his body, toward the new hole in the ground. Otherwise he did not move, save for the shaking of his hands.
It was gone. Burned away. He wanted to laugh and cry because he didn't know if any of this was real. Hank eventually lowered his arms and stepped back a few paces, into the pile of Martin's bowels. His foot shot out in front of him. He fell back, caught a brief glimpse of the treetops and a frozen scene of more rain falling from the dead, gray sky before something slammed into the back of his head. The flash's lingering after-image exploded again, erasing everything around him.
* * * *
Hank Cowles’ eyes opened with a start. Bird song chittered around him. He stared at the sky, blinked when rain fell across his vision. He squeezed his eyes shut. Not right. Should have been a ceiling. How did he get outside?
That was one fuck of a dream.
He didn't move, searched around his throbbing brain for an explanation. I need some Tylenol, he thought. Headache. He spat water from his mouth, moved his foot. It slid away on the wet leaves. He was cold.
He turned his head to the side and opened the eye sheltered from the rain by his nose. Someone's legs beside him. A small dog whimpering near them, muzzle atop its paws. Someone else out here with him...
His cry was like an animal's howl, lost in the storm. His scream as he raised his head and saw the remains of his only friend was strangled, choked under the constant falling rain.
* * * *
It took him hours, it seemed, to work his way along the broken path to the yard behind his house. In his right hand, Hank carried the round thing like he would hold a bowling ball, thumb in one hole, first two fingers in another. It had been lying on the ground beside him when he returned to the useable fragment of his senses. The object was small and weighed next to nothing. However, the finger holds were spaced too far apart, and he'd dropped it twice. Each time he would cringe away, waiting for the flash of death. None came. He'd been lucky.
He'd been dreaming.
All of this was nothing but a disease-induced hallucination. They came sometimes, usually on the cusp of the evening when his confusion with reality hit high gear. Sundown Syndrome, Dianne called it. This morning, the storm, lack of sunlight...
Everything felt real, as real any anything ever could these days. Best thing was to get back to bed, fall asleep in his dream so he could wake up to reality. Maybe. One more day at least, just to prove Martin was still around. After that, he didn't really give a shit.
The Shih-Tzu strayed no more than a few feet from his ankle during the journey. No longer bubbling with excitement, her small ears were pressed back against her head. She offered a continuous stream of whining. Crying for her lost master.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no...

With this single word repeating in his mind, Hank faced the wide expanse of his backyard. The house loomed dark under the heavy blanket of the storm, except for one light glowing from the kitchen. He hadn't brought his watch, but it should have been brighter outside even with the rain. Time wasn't real in dreams. His knuckles ached. He looked down at the ball and dropped it gently into the palm of his open left hand, keeping the firing cylinder turned away. He raised it, aimed the barrel toward the edge of the woods on his right.
He couldn't bring himself to press the trigger again. To do so would be to accept what had happened, to participate in the delusion. Bed, he thought, perchance to dream. He walked toward his house, his friend's duck following obediently beside him. Up the steps, heavy footfalls and light, ticking paws. He opened the kitchen door, held it to allow the ... dog, it was a dog ... to enter before stepping inside. With his toes, he peeled off the wet loafers he'd switched into when ... when he'd sleepwalked outside into the rain. The dripping parka was next, laid over the back of a kitchen chair.
Why was Nurse Charles here?
"Go home to your master, mutt,” he mumbled, half stepping, half stumbling down the hall to his room. “He's waiting for you, alive and happy and full of life like he always is.” He made no motion to let the dog out. For her part, Nurse Charles only followed him to the bedroom, sat patiently as he climbed, fully clothed, under the sheets. Leaves and one stray twig fell unnoticed to the floor. The ball he'd been carrying made a loud thunk as it landed. He ignored that, too.
Hank closed his eyes and fell asleep immediately. He shifted his legs, mumbled in his sleep, stilled, and hardly twitched when the soft weight of Nurse Charles landed at the foot of the bed.
* * * *
An hour later the dog was awakened by the closing of a car door. She raised her head, stub of tail wagging tentatively against the bed cover. The Shih-Tzu sniffed, waited, growled when the front door opened. The emergent scent was reminiscent of her new master. Female. Nurse Charles like females. No Bad Scent on her. She waited expectantly as the visitor called out, slowing making her way toward the bedroom.
* * * *
Hank Cowles’ eyes opened with a start. Silence all around him. No, not complete silence. A low whimpering breath. Dianne had asthma. He heard the girl's labored breathing. Every time he thought of his daughter's battle, her frightened struggle to take in air during the bad nights, he was filled with such sadness he wanted to wrap her in his arms and cry like a baby himself. He would hold her, keeping his tears at bay until she was asleep and he was back in his own bed. When his arms were again wrapped around Phyllis, his wife let him cry out his helplessness without complaint. Nothing he could do now but make sure Dianne took her meds, had the inhaler nearby, and pray to God for his little girl's health. He'd heard that they sometimes grew out of it. Hank stared at the ceiling. Dark all around. What time was it?
He turned his head. So tired, must be the middle of the night. The clock on the bedside table read ten thirty-six. Felt like he'd been asleep for hours, not...
That wheezing breath again. Not a breath. A dog, crying.
They didn't have a dog. Not since Blackie was put to sleep years ago when they'd learned about Dianne's asthma. A long dormant pang of guilt jabbed his gut. Another memory, teasing his mind.
Phyllis was gone, too. To make certain he reached out, felt the cold sheets on her side of the bed. A pale glow beyond the drawn shade, gray. Had he left the back porch light on?
Hank sat up and was immediately greeted by pain in his right leg and the back of his head. The two sensations merged, waking him completely.
He was old. He was old and Martin was dead.

No, it was a dream. One shit of a dream, but a dream.

He reached out in the darkness, pretended not to notice he was fully clothed, legs still damp. He found the lamp, turned the switch and felt the old reliable pain in his wrist.
The light poured over a scene Hank could not accept. He closed his eyes, saw the room imprinted there anyway. Not what he saw. An illusion. Then why don't you just open your damn old eyes and see?
See what was sprawled on the floor beside his bed.
The dog whimpered again. Was that Nurse Charles in his bedroom? Hank opened one eye and stared, letting the world outside turn slowly without his brain for a few more minutes, waiting for it to resolve into normalcy, looking—still with only one eye—at the woman's body on the floor. Blood everywhere, everywhere, running along the hardwood, shiny in places, thick and non-reflective in others. He heard a distant trickling. Blood leaking through the floorboards. No, no.
Half of the woman's head remained intact. His daughter's—his adult daughter, not the sweet, angel-faced child struggling to breathe in the night, when his wife was alive and his life was alive and his mind worked and he hadn't been in the woods when his best friend was burned away and this couldn't be Dianne, it couldn't be her—face, what was left of it, staring at the ceiling, the remaining eyeball sunken in the pit of its socket. The skin ended like a cliff face beyond the remnants of her regal nose. She was so beautiful these days, elegant, her brows weighed down recently with too much concern for her drifting father but still ... still ... down the chasm that had once been the left side of her skull, pieces of muscle and skin, odd colors, muted reds and blue, a lot of blue, why would the inside of a head be so blue? Something lumpy and white balled on the floor, spotted with red, looking like a wad of wet paper towels.
Her left shoulder was gone, burned away. Like Martin. She wore a dress, dark blue, the edges where her shoulder had been now frayed and stuck to the skin above her left breast.
One tooth hung awkwardly in the half-mouth. The remaining ones were straight and perfect—no braces.
The left arm bent on the floor, no longer attached, deflated like a spent water balloon, a fragment of sleeve. A round metal ball on the floor beside it, fingers curled but not enough to hold on to it.
All of these images drifted in through the unreliable window of his open eye. They settled, burrowed deep, looking for a place to lay eggs like flies on a window screen when the weather warmed. When the world was sunny and good, and he still had his mind and his soul.
Nurse Charles took two quick steps toward him on the comforter, small red paw prints trailing behind. She nuzzled her head under Hank's elbow. He stared, scratched the dog, imagining the screen of his kitchen window, Phyllis bustling around the room behind him, occasionally sneaking up and slipping her arms around him.
Then he was falling backward, down a hole, the rabbit hole from the stories he'd read to his daughter who was now dead on his floor, down into a darkness where gravity was too strong to resist.
* * * *
The day was gray and wet, rain falling relentlessly on his shoulders. He didn't remember getting dressed, felt as if he'd done this before, gotten up, walked out the back door. Too much fluff in his head. Usually the mornings were the clearest time of the day.

Martin's legs lying lost and abandoned on the ground. Flies on the window screen. Dianne's face a torn Halloween mask.

Hank shouted, a quick bark of pain and sadness, then stumbled down the porch steps and across the grass. He was barefoot. Something in his hand. He looked down, saw the odd ball with the indentations and protruding dorsal shape. What was this? Where was he going without shoes?
The woods at the back of the house looked wrong, a tree or two missing. Some of the darker branches moved back and forth, looking for a way to escape. No wind. How were they moving?
He tried to remember why he was outside, carrying such a bizarre object in his hand. Taking it back, putting things right again.
The branches stepped out into the clearing, stumbled and fell, raised themselves up and moved apart to reveal a handful of distinct forms. Branches didn't do that. Hank took a few steps toward them but his feet were slick on the grass and the ball in his hand was too heavy. He knelt, let the ball roll away, blinked away more rain. The branches moved with no sense of grace, as if they'd just come to life and hadn't adjusted to the world below. Slowly, cautiously, they converged on the place where he waited.
He was dying. It explained everything. The bad dreams, nightmares of death. These were angels, too beautiful to comprehend so he saw them only as tall, dirt-colored stick-people who couldn't walk for shit. The one closest to him reached down, lifted the ball, turned, stick-walked away. The others followed, entering the woods from the same place they'd emerged.
Was he supposed to follow? They'd only taken the ball. Maybe that was his soul. It fell from his body and now he was empty, a shell left to rot on the grass.
Inside the house, Nurse Charles barked, Stop! Stop! Here! Me! A voice from the Old World—that purgatory where he'd been left to stare at his bedroom ceiling every morning, struggling to remember his name, where he was, where he'd been. That wasn't his world anymore.
Hank got up slowly, the pain in his ankle trying to pull him back down. His pants were soaked through, clinging to his knees and thighs. He limped as the angels had, toward the edge of the woods. Nothing for him in there either, but that was where they'd come from. He'd been left behind, his death incomplete.
The rain transformed the woods into a gray-black underwater scene. The stick figures moved and swam among the remaining trees, disappearing behind one only to emerge from the other side. The one with the ball zigzagged toward him. No expression, no face. You cannot look into the face of God and live, he remembered reading.
Hank Cowles raised his arms and shouted, “I'm ready. Please, take me with you.” The angel seemed to nod, raised its arms and bathed him in glorious white light.



Samual Tinianow lives in Columbus, Ohio. Any further details really depend on when you ask, but at present he puts up a living as an editor, ghostwriter, and pizza cook.
UNCANNY
By Samuel Tinianow
I wish I didn't have to be here. I hate Alice, and the hospital monitors and stuff are annoying. Mom and Dad and Jenna are all delusional—after they learned about the accident, and what Alice is, they convinced themselves they didn't hate her. And Brent, well, he was always delusional. But I hate Alice. I don't care if she might be dying, and I don't care what she's made out of; she's a ditzy, flaky, airhead.
I'm sitting by her bed, alone. I was reading when Mom asked if I wanted anything to eat, so I missed the fact that everyone else was going with her. They're probably talking right now about how “negative” I've been. I stand up so that I can look down at the bed and think, at least I'm human and alive.
Alice got the fracture in her head while they were skiing, a freak accident on the lift. She fell. They say if she was human, she would have died instantly. I still think she deserved it.
Nobody knows where Alice came from. Whoever made her left nothing to go on; nobody in her cell phone knew anything; she doesn't have any family, even parents. All she has is titanium bones and hydraulic muscles, the doctors say. Her brain is human (we don't know where that came from either), but that's it. Everything else is fake, even though it looks and works like it's real.
Nobody has asked Brent about it yet. I know they did it though; Mom and Dad always talked, behind closed doors, about how Alice was keeping him in her pocket by being a little slut. Not even the doctors or scientists have asked about it, even though I'm sure they've seen down there during the examinations. I can't help but wonder if they know, and what the answer is.
I hate Alice. I hate everything she does, for Brent's sake. Not even for mine. Brent is eleven years older than I am. It's not right that she can take advantage of him the way she does. Did.
Her eyes open. It happens just like that, no fanfare or drama or anything, and they just sit there in her head, all glossy, looking at nothing. I figure they just opened on their own until she starts turning her head to look around. She finds me and stares.
Right away I know all the questions I should be asking. Where did you come from? Who made you? Why? Did you even know that you were ... this? I don't say anything. I can't. Somewhere in the room there might be a machine that's beeping or pulsing or doing something faster that shows she's awake. I can't hear it though. Time is still moving, and I can still see her and smell the rubbery hospital smell, but I can't hear the monitors, and I can't say anything.
She opens her mouth. What comes out is gibberish, sounds made by a machine.
"What did you do with Brent?” I feel myself ask.
I'm not sure she's awake anymore. This whole thing is hazy, like nothing in the room is real, the way Brent told me when I was eleven of how it feels to be drunk. He doesn't talk to me much anymore, but I always remembered that conversation when I thought about all the times he and Alice must have been drunk.
My hand floats through the air and comes down between her legs. All I've seen is the diagrams they show us in sex ed, and there's a blanket, a sheet, and a hospital gown between me and her. I don't know if I can feel anything that might be anything. I'm not even sure what I'm looking for. But I love it. I can't make my fingers stop pressing.
"God damn it, I hate you,” I say, or maybe just think.
When I've finished, I pull my hand away and straighten the covers.
I'm reading when everyone comes back. They ask if there's been any change, and then notice Alice's eyes are open. They flip, of course, and Jenna is ready to call the doctor when Dad checks Alice over and sees that she's not really awake.
"They told us we might see stuff like this,” he reminds everyone, heartbreak in his voice. “They said she might move or make noise or even talk a little, the way people do when they're asleep."
Jenna asks if she should get someone anyway, and Dad shakes his head. Brent starts to cry. And it's really weird, right now, how much I feel sorry for Alice, and how much I can't stand Brent.



Alethea Kontis's first publication was her essay in Apex Digest issue #3. She is now the author of AlphaOops: The Day Z Went First and the official Sherrilyn Kenyon Dark-Hunter Companion, as well as co-editor (with Steven Savile) of the SF all-star anthology Elemental. Find out more about Alethea's plans for world domination on her website: www.aletheakontis.com
CURSES OF NATURE
An Essay by Alethea Kontis
Most kids grow up afraid of something.
I was afraid of an eye.
Okay, so it wasn't technically an eye—actually, I think it was an artist's rendering of a peacock feather. But it looked like an eye. It was an eye to me. An omniscient, ominous, omnipresent eye. All-knowing, unyielding, never tiring. I couldn't hide from it; it saw into my head when I was asleep and watched my dreams. I was afraid, and that's all that mattered. My parents took it down off the wall so I could sleep at night.
In a Greek family, eyes are something to be afraid of.
Eyes are also used for protection against other eyes, unfortunately not something that occurred to me as that painting stared malevolently down and scared any thought of sleep far, far away. I knew, deep down, that this eye had no intention of keeping me safe. This eye was evil.
And, as everyone knows, evil eyes can curse.
"Cursing” in a Greek family is not exactly the same as it is South of the Mason-Dixon line. In our house, “ugly” was the four-letter word we were frowned at upon using. (Although I did get smacked once for saying “jeezem crow.") When we say “cursing,” we mean it in the traditional, legend-steeped Old World Gypsy sense of the term. Little old ladies and devil horns. Whammys and hexes. Wishing for something, and then wishing you never had (á la Stephen King's Thinner). Curses: intentional, unintentional, and all ways otherwise.
The same rule applies, however: nice girls don't curse.
Nice girls don't curse, especially if they want to stay nice. Call it the pagan “threefold” rule, call it karma, most backgrounds and religions have the same basic tenet. Don't put anything out into the world that you aren't prepared to get back and then some. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Do the world right, or prepare for Fate's ultimate smackdown.
And don't mess with the universe.
I grew up superstitiously. Nothing as inane as sidewalk cracks, black cats, misplaced ladders, or tails-up pennies (pick it UP for heaven's sake, it's MONEY)—you're rarely going to experience any misfortune you didn't bring upon yourself. (And if God wants to give you a sign, He'll Give You A Sign.)
But we threw salt over our shoulders, never spoke ill of the dead, never sang at the table. We didn't open umbrellas in the house; we never gave knives as gifts. We ate every bite of the New Year's bread, and predicted the sex of unborn babies with coffee grounds and pendulums. We wore new clothes on Easter (well, my Nana bought them, even if I refused to wear dresses). We paid attention to itchy palms and looked for ladybugs. Any time a piece of silverware hit the floor, we knew exactly who would enter the room next.
And we spat. A lot.
Oh yes, it's easy enough to curse a person when you don't mean to. Call a baby cute and it will grow up homely. The Greek version of knocking on wood is spitting—and when every other word that comes out of your mouth can harm someone, you realize (as I like to remind Sherrilyn Kenyon) how important it is to stay hydrated.
But why would you want to harm someone intentionally? If you're taught not to put bad things out into the world, then where did this cursing mythology come from? What special power do wizened old ladies have that makes them immune to all repercussions? Perhaps a lifetime of pious living tips their scales so far into the good that once their hair goes white Fate gives them a blank check where cursing is concerned ... but I highly doubt it.
I've heard their stories too.
I learned, by reading Little Women, the universal truth of writing everyone tells you: write what you know. Well, I know this. Up until a few months ago, I had only ever cursed a person once. I have a ridiculously high pain tolerance, but this particular individual went above and beyond. He hurt me, emotionally and physically (no, not on purpose, or there wouldn't have been a body left to curse). More than I hated him, though, I hated myself for letting him waltz right in and use me as a doormat.
So I cursed him.
I knew I had it in me, knew that I had to have been born with the gift. I was sure it was buried deep down in my DNA, a furious dragon waiting to be awakened so that it might rear its head back and wreak its wrath upon an unsuspecting populous.
I was scared to death. When I spoke the words—the only words I knew to use—I could only manage to say them at a whisper. (Those of you who read “Foiled” in Apex Online know what I'm talking about firsthand. You also know the words to use; if you decide to learn them, use them wisely. And do NOT repeat them in front of a Greek person.)
He deserved it. At the time. Maybe. Maybe the only thing that made it easy (not that there was anything easy about it) was knowing that it would be an essentially wasted curse—the worst thing that could ever happen to this person, honestly, was simply having to be HIM for the rest of his life. I didn't really think the cursing would do anything beyond making me feel better ... and just a little bit powerful ... and after completely freaking myself out I wrote the story that explored the possibilities of what could have happened.
Deep in my heart, I still knew it was wrong.
And then my little sister told me a story that changed my life forever.
It's not a rare thing, my sister telling stories. She has a repertoire of jokes second only to my father, and she is the first one at the table to arrogantly yell, “Don't let her tell it, she always tells it wrong.” Wrong or not, the arrogance is justified. Few people can tell any story as well as Sam.
Sam works at a fancy, exclusive jewelry design studio that makes amazing and unique creations that can only be afforded by the crème de la crème of upper crust society. (Crème and upper crust? I'm suddenly craving pie.) And, I know this may shock you, but some of those women are selfish, snotty, and just plain mean for no reason.
Which is why, my sister tells me after relaying one incident in particular, she cursed this woman's necklace.
We'll call this woman Mrs. Smith-Hayes (because Mrs. Smith is far too hoi polloi, and I hear hyphens are “in"). So Mrs. Smith-Hayes commissions this necklace, and my sister designs it to exact specifications ... which Mrs. Smith-Hayes then flatly disagrees with and forces her to change three times, because she's rich and important and she can.
When the sale is finally completed (several weeks of work later), Sam wishes Mrs. Smith-Hayes a cheerful goodbye and gives her a mischievous smile. Suspicious, her boss asks her what's up. After the door closes, Sam admits to cursing the necklace. Her boss laughs. End of story. Or so they thought.
A month later, Sam's boss rushes into the studio a-flutter.
"Did you hear about Mrs. Smith-Hayes?” Sam admits she hasn't. Her boss waves her arms about frantically. “She's got throat cancer."
"Oh my gosh, that's horrible,” Sam says with genuine concern.
"I can't believe you gave Mrs. Smith-Hayes throat cancer,” says her boss.
"What?!?"
"The necklace! You told me you cursed the necklace!"
Sam takes a few minutes to regain her composure. “Whoa. What kind of monster do you think I am?"
"Then what did you do?"
I know my sister, just as well as I know she did not say the following with a straight face: “I cursed it so that every time she wore it she'd look like she gained ten pounds."
I imagine at that point they both dissolved in gales of laughter, throat cancer or not. (I have since heard that Mrs. Smith-Hayes went into remission and is doing fine.) It's a great story. (Yes, Sam tells it better than I do.) But more than a great story, it was an epiphany.
This was it. This was the magic recipe, the secret ingredient. This was the evil eye that white-haired, hunchbacked yia yia gave you when you crossed her. Wishing ill on people was without a doubt going to get you backhanded by Fate. But petty annoyances ... now, THAT is where the craft lies. In fact, if you're inventive enough, the Furies might just be so impressed by your uniqueness that they back you up one hundred percent.
Oh yes, even in the realm of the Gods there are points given for originality.
Sam's story opened my eyes. I was reborn into a world of power, and that power was mine to have ... and to USE. If someone comes into my office and asks me to drop everything I'm doing to complete some inane task, I figure that justifies a bad hair day. If someone completely ignores my greeting in the hallway, that's worth an hour of unnoticed spinach in the teeth. At least.
Garlic you keep burping all day. Hiccups. Broken fingernails. Stuck behind a 45-mile-an-hour grandma on the highway. Socks that don't match. Shoes that give you a blister. Split ends. [Insert evil laugh here.]
The world is my oyster, the universe at my fingertips. The possibilities are literally endless. Even if none of these things ever comes to pass, the simple act of thinking them up on the spot and imagining them happening in great detail to the victim is worth every second.
Shall I give you an example?
A few weeks ago, I woke up a little after three in the morning. Groggily, I wondered if the phone had rung. You know when you're half in the dreamworld and half out, when you can think you hear something but are sure you have only imagined it? Right. So I was betting the phone hadn't actually rung in the real world, and I turned my head to try and fall back asleep.
Thirty minutes later, the phone did ring. Again, apparently. Only once. I was lucid enough to hear it, and opened my eyes in time to see the light on the display go out after a brief moment.
Thoughts instantly started pouring through my head. What if someone was trying to get a hold of me and couldn't get through? What if someone was ill ... or hurt ... or trapped in some foreign country with a stolen wallet, a rip in their trousers, and a concierge refusing their hotel reservation? (That one's for you, sweetie.)
I went from sleepy to adrenaline-driven in sixty seconds. I took the phone off its holder and set it next to the bed, so that I might catch it if it happened again. Just in case. And twenty-nine minutes later, when it rang once more, I picked it up in time to hear the click.
Excuse me?
I'm still wondering what—or whom—that might have been. The half-hour timing seemed almost electronic, but a fax machine wouldn't have hung up after only one ring. Which left the human element. A very annoying, very evil, very sadistic human element that deserved at that moment to die a slow, painful death. (And no, it didn't occur to me to star-69 ... it was four in the morning. Sleep was really a priority at the time. Give me a little credit.)
I did not freak out. I kept my cool, unplugged the phone, and went back to a fitful sleep.
It wasn't enough.
Work the next day was torture. I crawled through meetings and yawned through orders. I drank coffee like it was going out of style. My friend Janet told me that the hours between three and five in the morning are the most crucial in the circadian rhythm. Oh yeah. I believe it. That day I was living proof.
And somewhere in between the second and third cup of blessed caffeine, divine inspiration came to me: a stubbed toe.
A toe stubbed so badly you'd think it was broken. The kind of stubbed toe where it hurts to walk, and putting on shoes is excruciating. It doesn't bruise right away—maybe never at all—but you can feel it. You can't take your mind off the dull throbbing. It only lasts maybe a day max, but for that one day it is the most supreme annoyance you can possibly imagine.
THAT was what my 3 a.m. caller deserved, and I wished a Badly Stubbed Toe in his direction with every fiber of my gypsy-DNA being.
I could almost hear Fate giggling, tickled by the perfect justice of it all.
So watch your step next time you cross me—I'm armed and dangerous, and I'm not waiting until I'm a haggard old white-haired witch. The twenty-first century is all about progression. Wear protection, and treat me and my friends (and pretty much everyone else you know) with the utmost respect.
I walk softly and carry an evil eye.



Sara King is an Alaskan writer who wrote her first full-length novel at the age of 12. “The Moldy Dead” represents the very first dollar she's earned with her writing. Sara has short stories upcoming in Blood, Blade, and Thruster Magazine and Aberrant Dreams. Check out her website at www.kingfiction.com
THE MOLDY DEAD
By Sara King

Unnamed Planet, 8th Turn, 93rd Age of the Huouyt

It took eight and a half turns to reach the mold planet. During the envoy's journey to the Outer Line, seven members of their crew died: three to suicide, two to old age, and two more simply didn't wake up, their bodies rotting inside substandard Congressional casks.
* * * *
Esteei had risen that morning to find that only eight of their original fifteen were left. The Ooreiki were whispering foul play, giving the Huouyt suspicious glances, but Esteei was accustomed to the inter-species angst. He was more worried about the other Jahul, whose frozen corpse now drifted somewhere in their wake.
The senior Jahul Emissary was one of the three who had simply put on their spacesuits and thrown themselves into the ship's backwash while everyone else slept. It left Esteei, the only remaining Jahul on the ship, in charge of an ill-fated mission nobody wanted anyway.
Now, staring out at the clammy, glistening black landscape spread out before him, Esteei wondered if he should have done the same.
The entire planet was covered with mold.
The only areas clear of the glistening ebony organism were along the beaches, where their ship now rested. The rolling black waves halted at the highest tide line, leaving about five rods of shoreline where Esteei and his envoy could set up for their turn-long stay.
It was a pointless gesture. There were no beings here for Esteei to make contact with. Anyone could see the only thing that lived here was mold.
Endless miles of mold.
Grimacing, Esteei stepped back onto the ship to fill out the death reports.
* * * *
Crown's peers buzzed with conversation. The ship had descended at an angle perpendicular to the ground, as the Philosophers had thought it might. It meant their visitors were well beyond the aero-based technologies, as they had foreseen. In fact, everything about their visitors had been theorized long in advance ... except for the way they looked.
Not even the Philosophers could predict Nature.
Nature, it seemed, had produced three other sentient species, each vastly different from the next. Most of the visitors were short, squat, brown things with tentacles bearing long metal instruments, probably some form of energy weapons. They had large brown eyes with slit pupils, the surfaces sticky with clear mucous. Yet, despite their grotesque appearance, their simple intentions were clearly written in their expressive faces.
They were the guardians. The brown bipeds spread out in a fan, testing the area, ready to draw enemy fire from their wards, should they encounter hostility.
Of course, they encountered none.
The Philosophers had been waiting for this a very long time.
Soon, they would be free.
The other two aliens were different. The first was tall with white cilia coursing over its skin, giving it a downy appearance. It alone had the biological compatibility to leave the ship without wearing a protective suit. It walked on three muscular legs and appeared to have some aquatic ancestry, since its upper body had a hydrodynamic cylindrical shape and it had trouble keeping itself upright.
It was the eyes of this one that bothered Crown's peers. Those Philosophers who could see them said the tripod's eyes were unnatural, blue-white and difficult to read. They determined that he was a leader of sorts, as it was he who struck out along the shore, following the waterline.
The third alien intrigued them. The guardians ringed him, their sticky brown eyes alert and watchful. Whatever his purpose, he was very important to their group.
It walked on six legs, though from the way its splotchy green skin folded in the center of its back, it appeared as if it could shift its weight onto the back four legs and manipulate objects with two three-fingered hands.
The hexapod was not physically strong. Like the aquatic alien, it appeared to be struggling under the gravity of the Philosopher planet. Its six legs were spindly, almost out of proportion with its long, dome-shaped body. Its eyes were even more of a mystery. They were completely black, yet they somehow conveyed more emotion than the other seven aliens combined.
When Crown discovered they were heading in his direction, he grew excited. He was tired of subsisting on thoughts passed through a million others before they reached him. He was tired of listening to second-hand accounts, tired of theorizing, tired of hypothesizing, tired of imagining.
Crown wanted to see them.
* * * *
They began to explore the shoreline first, putting off wading through the endless acres of black mold as long as possible.
The Ooreiki youngsters, desperate to find some form of life on the planet other than the omnipresent black mold, picked up several odd-shaped stones and suggested they were broken carapaces of aquatic critters, and that possibly the dominant species of the planet lived in the oceans and not on land.
Esteei and Nirle, the only two survivors who had been on a Congressional envoy before, gave them the benefit of the doubt, though it was painfully obvious to both of them that the stones were just that.
Bha'hoi was not so tactful.
"Those are rocks, you ignorant Ooreiki morons. Jreet hells, I've had enough of this. I'm going back before their stupidity rubs off.” Frustration flaring off of him, the Huouyt Overseer turned and stormed back to the ship, leaving the seven of them alone on the beach.
The young Ooreiki dropped their prizes dejectedly, their expressive faces wrinkled in shame.
Nirle lifted his rifle and watched Bha'hoi go through the scope. Tempers had flared ever since they'd been assigned their destination, and for a horrible moment, Esteei thought the Ooreiki was going to fire.
"Two hundred credits says I can kill him in six shots."
Esteei was curious, despite himself. “Why six?” He knew a Huouyt was hard to kill, but Nirle was a trained Ooreiki Battlemaster. They prided themselves in their weapons mastery.
"I'd have to blow his legs and arms off first."
The younger Ooreiki snorted.
Esteei, who had not been trained in the arts of killing Huouyt, was lost. “Why?"
"Because it would hurt more,” one of them answered. “Five for the limbs, one for the brain."
Nirle grunted and dropped his rifle again.
They moved on, dutifully scouting the empty shore for life—an endeavor that was becoming more pointless with every tic that passed. Eventually, the younger Ooreiki became more animated, their shame disappearing with their Battlemaster's anger. They even began picking up odd-shaped stones again.
Anxiety suddenly rolled over Esteei's sivvet in a tide. He frowned, glancing at his companions. “Is something wrong?"
"Yeah. I didn't pull the trigger.” Nirle looked down at his gun like it had betrayed him.
Esteei glanced at the younger Ooreiki, who were watching him with curious, sticky brown eyes. Which one of them was anxious? And why?
His sivvet continued to burn, the acidic-metallic taste right before fear. None of them, though, appeared worried. As Esteei scanned the endless expanse of black mold that seemed to be creeping toward them as they stood there, shock hit his sivvet like a cold splash of alcohol.
"Boys, let's get our Emissary back to base. If there was something here, he would've felt it already."
"Wait."
Nirle paused on the flat, wind-lapped stones. “Wanna give it a few more tics? Don't blame you. Truly, Jahul, I'd shoot myself if I had to have the Huouyt in my head."
Esteei frowned out over the waves of mold, feeling the anxiety growing to something bigger. “There's something out there."
Nirle's face hardened with seriousness. “Where?"
Esteei scanned the glistening mass, but saw no break in its rolling perfection. “I don't know. Maybe underground."
"What'd you feel?” Nirle asked, coming to stand beside him.
"Shock,” Esteei said. “Fear."
"So we've been sighted.” At his words, every Ooreiki in the group took a position around Esteei, protecting him with their bodies.
They waited.
Nothing.
There was one rock that kept drawing Esteei's attention. It was shaped like an upside-down teardrop, weather-beaten to near oblivion. The sticky black mold had crested the top, gleaming in the sun like an ebony raindrop.
As Esteei watched, the mold moved.
Like wind over a field of grass, it rolled. The rolling spread outward from the tear-shaped rock, until every glistening black surface was moving.
"You see that?” Nirle whispered.
Esteei felt sick. “Take me back to the ship."
* * * *
Never in his life had Crown been so impatient. He heard reports that the tripod aquatic alien had turned back, some sort of dispute, and that one of the guardian aliens had aimed his weapon at the aquatic one's back.

Please, Crown thought, Just let me see you.
As if the universe was answering his prayer, the seven remaining aliens stopped on the beach in front of him.
When Crown saw the hexapod's face, he flinched in shock. It was the same face that had haunted his subconscious for thousands of turns, the face that Crown had always thought to be a construct of his own boredom.
But here it was, and it boded poorly for the Philosophers.
Replaying in a tiny corner of his mind for a thousand years, the face had always watched them die.

They're going to kill us. Crown sent his message out, and immediately the other Philosophers responded. Their fear was increasing, not because of what Crown had said, but because the aquatic alien had changed form.
It had changed form. It had placed a tiny piece of material into a receptacle in its head, swallowing it with squirming red appendages, and then its entire body shifted into something else. Something that could move unseen under the Philosophers.
And now it was spying on its fellows.
* * * *
It was a young Ooreiki who finally named the mold.
Wiping it off his boots after another slogging adventure through the glistening black terrain, he wrinkled his meaty Ooreiki face. “Man, this stuff's as nasty as geuji."
Geuji.
Or, in Old Poen, ‘Draak shit.'
The name stuck. It became so colloquial that Esteei even used it in his reports to Congress by accident.
Outraged, the Botanical Committee immediately came up with a new name—something in ancient Ueshi meaning ‘great black sleeper'—but to everyone actually living with it, the mold was known as the Geuji. Fondly capitalized, since it was a lot of geuji.
The Geuji resisted every attempt to control it. With the high tides threatening to invade the ship, Nirle led patrol after patrol out over the glistening landscape, attempting to carve a landing clearing into it with fire and shovels. It was pointless—the Geuji healed in hours, leaving unblemished, glistening terrain behind.
Esteei caught Nirle on his way back from another failed attempt. Frustration emanated from the Ooreiki in an emotional barrage on Esteei's sivvet.
"Still doesn't work?” Esteei asked, nodding at the slime-covered shovel the Ooreiki carried with him.
"If you look hard, you can see it growing back,” Nirle growled. He stalked onto the ship. Inside, Esteei heard a shovel clang against the wall, then hit the floor in a clatter.
Esteei glanced down the beach. The Geuji remained in a perfect line above the high tide mark, never dipping below, following it with extreme precision.

If they grow so fast, why haven't they grown toward the water?
Suddenly conscious of being alone outside the ship, Esteei hurried back inside.
Panic was spreading amongst the Philosophers. Something horrible was going on, something they had no control over. The aliens were fast, terrifyingly fast, yet their minds were slow. The aquatic tripod seemed to be the only one to realize what the Philosophers were, but for some reason it hadn't told the others.
Something was wrong.
* * * *
Two days later, the patrol came back one short.
It was an odd day, one where the Geuji erupted in constant motion around the ship, coursing with wave after wave of activity that almost appeared to have a pattern to it. Entranced, Esteei had stepped outside to watch it.
It reminded him of the rolling oceans of grass on his home planet, yet here there was no wind. The mold had been moving since early morning, a few hours after Nirle had left with his ground team. The longer Esteei watched it, the more it made his pores itch, yet he could not look away.
"Esteei,” Nirle called, breaking the spell. He was jogging up the beach in a heavy, lumbering Ooreiki gait. With him were four of his five ground mates. All of them emanated fear. “Did Tafet come back?"
"No,” Esteei said, tearing his gaze from the Geuji. The waves stopped suddenly. They were now as utterly, glistening calm as if they were fields of ebony. “There's nobody here but me."
Esteei had been choosing to stay behind lately. He'd quickly learned that the mold was some sort of emotional magnifier for the Ooreiki, giving his three sivvet the equivalent of an emotional beating when he got too close. He could only handle one or two hours at a time without feeling sick.
And now the Ooreiki were afraid. It was as palpable as if someone had opened up Esteei's skull and wrapped his sivvet in wet, putrescent cloth.
"Where's Bha'hoi?” Nirle demanded.
"Down the beach."
"Which direction?"
"West,” Esteei said, stunned at the fury emanating from the Ooreiki. “You think Bha'hoi would—"
"You haven't been to war with the Huouyt,” Nirle said. “I have. They're smart and they're psychotic. If he thought he could kill us all and get away with it, he probably would."
Esteei stared.
"But we went east,” Nirle said reluctantly. “Climbed through a rock formation, and that's where we lost Tafet. Spent all damned afternoon looking for him. He's not answering his headcom."
"Did he fall asleep?” Esteei asked.
Nirle gave him a dark look.
"What about your PPU?” Esteei quickly said.
Nirle brought it out and showed it to him.
Five small green dots clustered near the point Nirle had marked ‘Slime Removal Station.'
"Where's Tafet's?” Esteei asked, confused.
"There's only two ways the PPU stops picking up the signal,” Nirle said. “Either something fried his tag, or something killed him."
None of them bothered stating the obvious—in a land of rolling waves of mold, the amount of electro-magnetic interference was inconsequential.
Esteei glanced out at the gleaming black landscape, fearful now. Tafet was the one who had named the Geuji. Aside from Nirle, Tafet had been Esteei's favorite Ooreiki, the least likely to assault his sivvet with a barrage of harsh emotions.
"You think the Geuji—"
"No,” Nirle said, harsh. “I think—” He choked off his words with a glare down the beach.
Bha'hoi was trudging toward them from the west, his three muscular legs working awkwardly in the sand and rocks.
Nirle's sticky brown eyes fell to the Huouyt's legs, obviously looking for signs that he'd been walking through the mold. One didn't need to have sivvet to feel the suspicion in the Ooreiki's gaze.
The Huouyt reached them, then scanned the six faces gathered at the ship. Concern brushed Esteei's sivvet. “Where's Tafet?"
"Not here,” the Ooreiki said.
Bha'hoi's white-blue eyes were unreadable. “Where is he?"
"We'll take care of it,” Nirle said, starting to put his PPU away.
The Huouyt saw the instrument and his gaze immediately sharpened. “Give me that.” He held out a downy, paddle-like tentacle.
The two of them faced off, the shorter, brown-eyed Ooreiki glaring up at the taller, electric blue-white-eyed Huouyt.

Don't fight, Esteei prayed, afraid to move. His sivvet were rated sixteenth in all of Congress for sensitivity. Fighting, especially between two different species, hurt.
Reluctantly, Nirle handed the PPU to the Huouyt Overseer.
Bha'hoi's mirror-like eyes flickered to the screen only a moment. “There are only five tags registered on your Planetary Positioning Unit, Battlemaster."
Nirle wrenched the PPU away from the weaker Huouyt's cilia-covered tentacle. “We'll find him."
Without waiting for further orders, the Ooreiki Battlemaster led his grounders back over the moldy black hills, toward the east. For a brief instant—less than a quarter of a second—Esteei felt satisfaction emanate from the Huouyt. Then it was gone, replaced with nothing.

He's pleased, Esteei thought, startled.
Esteei was still staring at Bha'hoi as he climbed back onto the ship, leaving Esteei standing on the beach alone.
* * * *
The Ooreiki groundteam came back well into the night. When their shambling forms neared the lights of the ship, Esteei's internal pressures spiked.
They were dragging a corpse.
Esteei ran out to them, stretching his sivvet to capacity, straining to get any sign that Tafet was alive.
"Don't bother,” Nirle said, bitterness hardening his voice. He and the other four Ooreiki carried their friend aboard and set him inside one of the vacuum casks set into the far wall. Seeing it in the light, Esteei recoiled.
The corpse was still covered with black slime.
"From now on,” Nirle said, “We go out in twos or we don't go out at all. Esteei, you won't be going anywhere without at least three Ooreiki to guard you, understand?"
"Battlemaster, I really don't need—"
"You're the most important person on this ship,” Nirle interrupted. “The rest of us, especially that useless Huouyt, are expendable. You're our best chance of contact with whatever killed Tafet."
Esteei felt his eyes dragged back to Tafet's corpse, to the sticky blackness clinging to it. “You don't think it was the Geuji?"
"It wasn't,” Nirle said.
"Then what was it, Battlemaster?” Bha'hoi was climbing down from abovedecks.
Nirle glared. “Not the Geuji."
"Enlighten us, since you obviously saw the tracks,” Bha'hoi said.
Nirle remained silent, loathing filling the ship as he glared up at the Huouyt Overseer.
"You found no tracks.” Bha'hoi did not bother to hide his smugness.
Nirle looked ready to draw his weapon on the Huouyt. Behind him, his grounders fidgeted. “It wasn't the Geuji,” Nirle repeated, his voice dangerously calm.
Bha'hoi glanced at Tafet's corpse, which was still visible through the lid of the cask. “Then he simply decided to roll in the stuff before he died?"
Nirle swiveled and left the ship. Alone.
* * * *
No, this was all wrong. The aliens were killing each other.
The aquatic one, the smart one, was hunting the others. It spied on them from beneath the Philosophers, then, when the others weren't looking, it had dragged one of them underneath the Philosophers and killed it.
It was framing them.
But why?
Crown's peers were in an uproar, trying to determine what was going on. Was it simply an inter-species scuffle? They didn't think so. They'd already pieced together most of the aliens’ speech, and from what they could decipher, the strangers were on the planet to seek out intelligent life.
Yet the aquatic one was killing its companions.
Why?
* * * *
It was on one of the rare days that Esteei went out with the Ooreiki when another grounder went missing.
One moment, he had been with them, laughing, joking. The next, Esteei's sivvet were crushed with someone else's terror. He fell to his knees in the slimy black Geuji, curling into an instinctive ball at the agony in his head.
"What?” Nirle demanded. “Emissary?"
The fear was so thick Esteei could not respond. He simply whimpered and curled tighter.
Faintly, he heard one of the Ooreiki shout, then a commotion and weapons’ discharge. Esteei could not even bring himself to open his eyes as his chambers purged themselves over his skin.
And still the terror continued to grow. The Geuji magnified it, contorted it, made it so unbearable that Esteei had to choose between voiding his chambers a second time or exploding from the inside.
Somewhere, he knew he was screaming, but it was a far away place. Only the horrible pounding in his sivvet was real.
"Get him back to the ship!” Nirle shouted. “Gratii can wait!"
Two grounders carted Esteei back to the ship as fast as their meaty legs could carry them. As soon as Esteei was safely back in his room, they hurried back to rejoin their friends.
It took Esteei several hours to recover. He lay in bed, enduring the pounding waves of the residual emotions like a seasick traveler enduring the ebbing waves of a dying storm. When he finally managed to steady himself enough to look outside, the Geuji was rolling in rapid, eerie patterns, some of which almost made sense to him. Fearing he was losing his mind, Esteei went back to his room and stayed there.
Later, during the night, the four Ooreiki returned with another body.
It, too, was covered with Geuji.
"That's it,” Bha'hoi snapped. “Nirle, no more outings. I'm declaring the Geuji a hostile non-sentient. I'm going to request eradication measures."
"It wasn't the Geuji!” the Ooreiki Battlemaster roared, turning on the Huouyt. “It was something else. I saw a portion of it, right before Gratii disappeared. Like a Jreet, but thinner, without scales."
Bha'hoi was clearly irritated. “You saw a worm kill your grounder, Battlemaster?"
"It would explain why there's no tracks."
"If it's a worm, then it's using the Geuji as cover. We wipe out the cover, the worms cannot surprise us, and no more will die."
"No!” Nirle snapped.
The Huouyt cocked his head. “No, Battlemaster?"
"I think the mold is...” Nirle hesitated, catching Esteei's eyes.
Nervousness doused Esteei's sivvet. Nervousness and suspicion.

He was going to say ‘sentient,’ Esteei realized, stunned. And he doesn't want to say it in front of Bha'hoi.
"The mold is what?” Bha'hoi demanded, harsh now. When Nirle didn't reply, he continued in a low, hard tone. “From now on, Battlemaster, you will clear all excursions with me. I will have no more deaths. Your buddy system is obviously not working."
"Fuck you, Huouyt."
Nirle grabbed his rifle and left.
"Ooreiki, go retrieve Battlemaster Nirle and lock him in his room."
"No. He can go."
The Huouyt turned to Esteei. “Excuse me?"
Esteei continued to watch Nirle depart. “Let him go, Overseer."
"But, little Jahul, military matters are clearly—"
"You will address me as Emissary Esteei,” Esteei snapped, “Not ‘little Jahul.’”
The Huouyt gave Esteei a cold look, then flung a cilia-covered, paddle-like arm at the other Ooreiki, “Put that body away."
Esteei turned to see the Ooreiki's figure fade into the darkness.
Suddenly afraid for him, Esteei jogged off the ship and sloshed through the tide after the Battlemaster. Behind him, he heard the Huouyt give orders for the other Ooreiki to stay. Esteei's pores prickled at the thought of being out in the Geuji alone, but he kept going.
A strange, percussive sound stopped him. Esteei hesitated outside the threshold of the ship's light, turning back to glance at the figures on the ship. He thought he saw flashes from the inside.

Is that weapons-fire?

Then, This mission is getting to me.
Feeling tired, Esteei hurried into the darkness after the Ooreiki Battlemaster.
"Nirle!” he called, after the Ooreiki's lumbering bulk.
"Go back to the ship, Jahul.” Nirle didn't slow.
Esteei felt the first bit of Geuji squish under his feet, but he kept moving. Ahead, he could feel Nirle's pain like hot irons in his sivvet. “Nirle, wait!"
The Ooreiki slowed, his fleshy sudah flapping in the sides of his neck, betraying his anger. “Esteei, was Bha'hoi on the ship when the grounders took you back?"
Esteei flinched, coming to a halt beside him. “I can't remember."
"Think! This mission's lost nine out of fifteen members. Don't you think that's a bit odd?"
Insanity, yet ... “Why would Bha'hoi kill your grounders?"
Glaring, Nirle turned to look the way they had come. In the distance, the ship's lights were drowned out by the darkness of the night and the eerie blue light of the moon. All around them, waves of Geuji glistened in the night.
Esteei got the distinct impression they were being watched, their every word consumed and analyzed by alien minds.
"It's sentient,” Nirle said, staring at the Geuji.
The Geuji seemed to shudder, the texture shifting and changing, going from glossy to rough in ripples around them. Esteei started back toward the ship.
Nirle caught his arm. “It's not going to hurt you, Jahul.” He sounded awestruck, like a creature in love.
Esteei had the sudden concern that the Geuji could broadcast emotional energies, much like the Jahul could receive them. It would explain what was wrong with his sivvet.
It would also explain why Nirle was acting so strangely.
"Sit with me, Emissary."
Esteei recoiled. “Nirle, I really don't think—"
The stronger, heavier Ooreiki yanked him down, forcing Esteei's six knees to collapse or break. Reluctantly, he sank into the squishy black mass, uncomfortable at the way it pressed against his belly and legs.
"Look,” Nirle said. He reached out with a tentacle and touched the Geuji in front of him.
A wave of rolling black current spread outward, flowing away from them, disappearing over the hills.
"They're greeting us,” Nirle whispered.
Esteei found it particularly disturbing that Nirle was communing with the mold so soon after finding another grounder dead. He tried to stand.
Nirle kept him in place with a tentacle forged of ruvmestin, forcing Esteei to endure the tickling sensation of the slime against his belly. He began to panic.
"Be still, Jahul,” Nirle said. “They're curious about you. You've been avoiding them."
Esteei's internal pressure climbed until his inner chambers were near bursting. He tried to stand again, but the stronger Ooreiki held him, entranced by the rolling waves of ebony.
"Nirle...” Esteei began, fear burrowing into his soul like poisonous worms. “I don't think you're well."
The Battlemaster released him suddenly, laughing. “Maybe you're right.” He glanced back at the mold. “But I've spent so much time out here—I know it's not the Geuji killing my boys.” He absently began to draw lines in the glistening surface of the Geuji, symbols spiraling outward from a single point in the Congie style. In moments, he'd written the Ooreiki proverb, “Trust thyself, and thy works will soar."
Quietly, Nirle repeated it to himself. Then, “Emissary, I caught the Huouyt making a call off planet, short-wave. I thought we were supposed to be alone out here."
"We are,” Esteei said, frowning.
Suddenly, Nirle's writing vanished, the surfaces of the Geuji tightening into a void of blackness. To Esteei's amazement, the Ooreiki proverb appeared again a couple rods away, and it was not a copy. The words were bigger, with more flourish, and a tighter spiral. It was, in truth, better than Nirle's writing.
Esteei sank back to his stomach, stunned. “You can communicate with it?"
Nirle looked as shocked as he was.
Emissary instincts taking over, Esteei said, “Let me try.” Esteei leaned forward and wrote a simple note, “Do you understand us?"
Nothing.
"Speak it aloud,” Nirle whispered. “They've heard me and the boys chatting enough ... maybe they understand our speech."
Though skeptical, Esteei did. “Do you understand us?” He drew the words for ‘yes’ and ‘no.'
"Yes,” was the immediate reply. “Yes, yes.” Insistent. Like it wanted more.
All around them, the land was rolling again, like it did when the Tafet and Gratii disappeared. The sight of it made Esteei tense. Is this where it eats us?
He wanted to run back to the ship, but now duty bound him to stay.
Esteei began his Emissary duties, introducing them and their purpose, but before he could finish, his medium went stiff, erasing his work.
In an enormous, acre-wide spiral, the Geuji wrote, “No trust Huouyt."
Esteei stared.
All around them, the Geuji was rolling waves of insistency, flashing patterns that only now began to make sense.
"I knew it,” Nirle growled, tentacles tightening over his rifle.
"How pretty,” a cold voice said behind them. “And they did it with such flourish. Almost makes you think they're sentient, doesn't it?"
Even as Nirle was swiveling, rifle in hand, Bha'hoi fired an energy burst point-blank into the Ooreiki's meaty head.
Nirle collapsed without a sound, his body pooling on the ground in a gelatinous, boneless huddle.
"Well,” Bha'hoi said, lowering the gun. “I can't say I haven't been looking forward to that."
The Geuji began to flash its message—angry, defiant.
"No trust Huouyt. No trust..."
The Huouyt fired into the center of the Geuji's warning, and the Geuji flinched away from the wound, in obvious pain.
Esteei stared at the gun in Bha'hoi's grip.
The Huouyt could change form. They could take patterns of other creatures as it pleased them, as long as they had water to negate it afterwards.

It was him all along.

"The Geuji didn't kill the Ooreiki. You did."
Amusement wafted over the Jahul's sivvet as Bha'hoi looked at him. “What gave it away?” When Esteei did not respond, the Huouyt's amusement increased. “Because I really want to know. Was it all the suicides? Was it the Geuji flashing warnings these last few days? Or was it the fact I just shot your friend in the face?"
Glancing at the corpse, feeling shamed and scared, Esteei backed away.
"Now, little Jahul, don't run off. You have a report to make to the Planetary Claims Board. Come with me."
"NO,” the Geuji flashed, over and over. “No, no, no, no..."
Bha'hoi shot the Geuji again, but this time the message kept flashing. “No, no, no..."
Esteei hesitated, caught between the urge to run and the fear of being alone on this alien planet. Even the Huouyt, who had murdered the Ooreiki in cold blood, was at least familiar to him. The alien blackness was not.
But when Bha'hoi took a step toward him, his electric, white-blue eyes were more alien than anything Esteei had ever known. He ran.
Behind him, the Huouyt laughed. “I can always take your pattern and do it myself, Jahul!"
Once Esteei was out of range, he turned to look. He saw Bha'hoi's silhouette against the light of the ship, saw him climb aboard and watched the tiny square of light disappear as the gate drew up. An instant later, the ship began drifting into the night sky, blocking out the stars.
In moments, Esteei was alone with the Geuji.
* * * *
The hexapod wasn't listening to them.
Not smart enough, his peers thought.
But Crown was skeptical. The hexapod wasn't even trying to communicate with them. Like Crown, he was scared.

He thinks he's going to die.

Apparently, he didn't realize what the aquatic alien was doing. The aquatic alien wasn't there to kill the hexapod. He was there to kill the Philosophers.
And, Crown knew with horrible certainty, he would be back.
* * * *
Bha'hoi returned, two days later. Esteei was burying the dead Ooreiki that the Huouyt had pushed off the ship and was collecting their oorei for transport back to Poen when the ship set down in the same indentions in the sand from last time, startling him. When the gate began to open, it didn't even cross Esteei's mind to pick up one of the Ooreiki's weapons.
He fled.
When Bha'hoi stepped out, he was dragging a wooden crate. He saw the Ooreiki rifles still strewn on the beach, looked out at Esteei, and snorted laughter.
"What are you doing?” Esteei called, eyeing the crate.
"Come find out,” the Huouyt offered, disappearing once more into the ship.
Hesitantly, worried at the range of the Huouyt's weapon, Esteei got just close enough that he could hear something moving inside the crate, then stopped.
"What is it?” Esteei called.
"Vaghi,” Bha'hoi said, dropping a second crate beside the first.
Esteei recoiled. “The vermin?"
"The very same,” the Huouyt said. He boarded the ship once more and returned with a third crate. “I hear they have an appetite for the same molecular makeup as the Geuji. We'll see."
Esteei was stunned. Voracious, vaghi could eat six times their own weight each day and breed dozens of times a week. More, if food was plentiful enough.
"But the Geuji are sentient."
The Huouyt snorted. “Of course they are. It took me two tics after first stepping off the ship to determine that.” The Huouyt tapped its downy head. “Simply because your brain is the size of a pebble, you assume everyone else's is, too."
"Then what...?"
The Huouyt's cilia rippled over its body, amusement pouring off of him in a wave. “The Huouyt are next in queue for a planet, little Jahul. This one has an ocean absolutely unpopulated by native filth."

The Huouyt are aquatic.

Terrified, Esteei said, “You don't need to kill them. The Geuji aren't using the ocean. You can share the planet."
"The Huouyt don't share."
Esteei stared at him, unable to speak.
"Now,” Bha'hoi said, continuing to unload crates. “You have a decision to make, little Jahul. Will you hold still while I kill you quickly, or will you make me leave you here on Neskfaat, to starve to death?"
"Neskfaat...?"
"It's what we're naming it. It means—"
"Holy water."
Bha'hoi's face twisted into a frown. “Yes.” He moved to the closest box of vaghi, which squealed when he neared.
"You loose those things on the land and you'll never get rid of them,” Esteei said, desperate now. Around them, the empty shoreline stretched miles in both directions, the blackness of the Geuji reaching to the highest tide mark.
Bha'hoi snorted. “We don't care what happens to the land.” He kicked open the first crate and watched the scaly flood that followed with greedy eyes.
The sudden, intense fear emanating off the Geuji as the vermin coursed over its glistening black body almost drove Esteei over the edge. He stumbled back, toward the water.
Bha'hoi kicked open two more boxes before Esteei regained his wits. He ran forward, intending to knock the Huouyt away from the box.
The Huouyt caught him and held him by the throat, his downy arm like solid ruvmestin.
"Listen to me very carefully, little Jahul.” The Huouyt's mirror-like eyes were icy cold. “I'm not an Overseer. I never went to Huouyt Basic. I was trained in a different place, one you might know. Does ‘Va'ga’ mean anything to you?"
Esteei's inner chambers stretched to bursting, pumping rank fluids over his skin.
Bha'hoi's face twisted. “I thought it might."
To punctuate his statement, he kicked open another box, to the resulting terror of the Geuji.
"Now,” Bha'hoi continued, “Of all the creatures on that ship, I liked you the most. You didn't get in my way.” He kicked open another box, allowing the vaghi to course out over the landscape. “In fact, it would've been hard to split the Ooreiki up without you taking up Nirle's cause like that. Truly noble of you, Emissary."
Esteei shuddered at the cold, psychotic emptiness of the assassin gripping his throat.

He was faking. All this time, he was faking his emotions. It was all an act.
"The little Jahul finally understands,” Bha'hoi said, smiling. “Yes. I can switch off my emotions as easily as you flip the incinerator switch on your body wastes.” He cocked his head. “I have the feeling you picked up one or two real ones, but it never worried me. I knew your brain was too small to put it together."
Absolute, psychotic nothingness radiated from the Huouyt—so devoid of emotion it was an emotion.
"Let me go,” Esteei whispered.
Bha'hoi released him. “Stay within sight. If you attempt to call the Claims Board, your death will be much more horrific than the simple one I have planned."
"Please,” Esteei said, backing away down the beach. “Let me go."
Bha'hoi laughed. “You want to stay on Neskfaat? What will you do out there? You have no food, unless you wish to eat your Ooreiki friends.” He motioned down the beach at the half-buried corpses, laughing. “You'll die slowly, Jahul. If I do it, at least it will be painless. Besides, you've got time. I've still got three other continents to visit.” He kicked open another box.
Esteei continued backing up. He could outrun the Huouyt. With six legs, running was one of the only physical advantages the Jahul had over other species.
"Come here."
Esteei froze.
The Huouyt assassin sighed and started toward him.
Esteei ran.
* * * *
Agony.
It was all around him.
The Philosophers were being eaten alive.
Crown flinched as the tiny jaws ripped at his flesh, burrowing into it, consuming him as he lay there, unable to fight. Crown's memories were disappearing with the agony in his body; the connections, the conversations, the theories that he had made during his lifetime were slowly being devoured with his flesh.
Crown endured it, but many others couldn't.
Around him, Philosophers were losing their minds along with their bodies. They rambled, they pleaded, they cried.
The vermin continued to devour them.
When the first Philosopher died, it was the most horrible experience Crown had ever felt. It broadcast its final, terrified moments outward to all the others to help the others understand, maybe prevent their own deaths.
Crown wished he had kept it to himself.
In time, they would all understand.
* * * *
Esteei stumbled along the shoreline, plagued by guilt, weak with hunger. The vaghi were spreading across the planet. When Esteei could catch the squirming, biting beasts, he ate them.
Jahul did not eat living creatures.
Yet Esteei endured the anguish in his sivvet and smashed the vaghi's scaly heads open to reach the tiny clump of edible flesh inside ... anything was endurable now that he had to listen to the Geuji's constant emotional scream.
They were being eaten alive.
Esteei was sure it was ‘they,’ since the Geuji along the coast had been whittled down to patches, now. Each patch gave a different type of scream. It built in an unending crescendo in his head, driving Esteei to the very brink of sanity. He had nowhere to escape, trapped between the ocean of water and the ocean of Geuji.
After two weeks, Esteei turned back, praying the Huouyt hadn't left, willing to die to avoid the Geuji's scream.
Bha'hoi and the ship were gone.
"Please,” Esteei whimpered, slumping against a Geuji-covered, tear-shaped rock. “Please. I can't take any more.” He didn't know how far he had traveled, or how long he'd been going, but his legs would no longer carry him.
Slumped against the rock, Esteei trembled from the pressure in his sivvet. He slid into a ball as he had countless times the past two weeks, knowing it would do no good against the torment, but instinct taking over.
* * * *
Suddenly, Crown understood.

The Jahul can feel us.

He passed the message outward, sending it to everyone he could still reach.
Immediately, the Philosophers silenced their emotions. They knew the chance was slim, that the Jahul would be more worried about his own life, but it was possible that he could help them.
Could. But would he?
From what Crown had seen of these creatures, they were not like the Philosophers.
They were nothing like the Philosophers.
* * * *
The emotional anguish stopped.
Esteei tentatively unrolled.
His eyes fell upon a single patch of Geuji, a ring of vaghi around it, eating it.
The Geuji was clearly alive, its ebony flesh flinching away from the gnawing teeth as they chewed toward its core.
Turning, Esteei saw another, only a few feet away. It, too, was being eaten.
And another, further up the hill, bore its own ring of vaghi.
But the Geuji weren't screaming.
The silence in his head was as absolute as if someone had removed his sivvet.
Given the first peace he'd had in weeks, Esteei's mind was suddenly very clear.
"Get away from them!” he screamed, diving at the vaghi.
They scattered, only to resume chewing on another patch of black, further away.
A heavy, palpable fear hit his sivvet from the Geuji that was now being eaten at twice the speed, then disappeared just as quickly.
"Get away!” Esteei shouted. He ran at the vaghi, making them flee over the rise. Esteei felt the sudden fear of the Geuji on the other side before it was contained.

They're doing it for me, Esteei realized, stunned. They're dying silently so it doesn't hurt me anymore.
Behind him, another vaghi had found the Geuji the others had fled. Furious, Esteei reached down, plucked up a rock—sticky from Geuji residue—and threw it. It hit the vaghi, making the animal shriek. It ran over the hill and disappeared, needing no further encouragement from Esteei.
Amusement coursed through the air around him, coming from many directions at once.
"You understand, don't you?” Esteei said.
"Yes,” the one upon the tear-shaped rock flashed. It was the only one that was still mostly whole, saved by the shape of its perch, but even that wouldn't last.
"I can survive,” Esteei said. “You don't need to endure it."
But, as one, they continued to hide their pain from Esteei, allowing him peace.
"I can't save you,” Esteei whispered.
The Geuji sent him an emotion that broke his heart. Understanding.
Fury uncoiled in Esteei's soul. He picked up another handful of rocks, and this time he aimed to kill.
* * * *
Esteei went back to the Ooreiki's bodies and collected their rifles. He staked out a territory encircling the tear-shaped rock and patrolled it during the day, while the vaghi fed, and he gathered surviving clumps of Geuji from the surrounding areas at night, bringing them into his circle.
When Esteei's nightly journeys grew too long, when he began collapsing from exhaustion, unable to focus during the day, Esteei whispered apologies to those he couldn't reach and stopped seeking out survivors. He knew there were more out there. He felt them die, even as he felt gratitude from the ones he protected from the vaghi's gnawing mouths.
The vaghi eventually moved on, finding easier pickings deeper inland.
Without vaghi to eat, Esteei began to starve.
As weakness overcame him, Esteei propped himself against the tear-shaped rock and continued to watch his tiny domain, rifle across his lap.
Esteei's days became a haze of sunny delirium, followed by a night of rest. When he was lucky enough to kill one of the vermin, he crushed its scaly skull open and sucked out the flesh raw. Killing no longer bothered him.
Neither did dying.
Esteei was barely conscious most of the time. More than once, he lost a Geuji in broad daylight, too weak to protect it from the now-starving vaghi.

Give up, a tired voice in his mind told him. No one's going to come.
Then, a louder, angrier voice said, I am the Emissary of this planet. I'm sworn to protect these people.
And so it went on. His inner arguments grew longer, what he remembered of his days shorter. He lost more and more Geuji, the vaghi growing bolder with every passing hour.

I'm going to lose them all, Esteei realized.

No.

Just hold on.

Just a little longer.
Esteei wasn't sure if the words formed on the Geuji's dwindling bodies, or if he imagined them. Either way, he somehow found the will to stay alive.
Every horrible day, Esteei stared up at the sky, felt himself slipping away, then dragged himself back to shoot more vaghi.

Just a little longer.
* * * *
The planet was dead. Except for their tiny patch of survivors, the entire planet was dead. Crown knew it as surely as he knew the Jahul was dying.
Soon, maybe only days, the respite from the vaghi's gnawing jaws would end.
Crown wished he could do something. In the beginning, the Jahul had communicated with him, scribing in his flesh, giving him words to show their rescuers, if they came. Over time, the Jahul had stopped responding.
Now, he said nothing, wrote nothing. He just stared out over the tiny patch of ground, killing the vaghi, losing consciousness in broad daylight. The other Geuji were failing with him, no longer connected, no longer having anyone to speak to but themselves.

This wasn't what was supposed to happen.

Fury overtook him when Crown realized his people would not have the bodies that they had hypothesized, had waited millennia for. He knew that somewhere, this alien culture had the power to grant them mobility, but they were never going to get it.
They were all going to die here.
He could only watch as the Jahul began to slip away.
And somewhere, over the rise, he heard the vaghi.

Please, Crown wrote. Please stay awake. Just a little longer.
* * * *

Neskfaat, 10th Turn, 93rd Age of the Huouyt

Excuse me?"
"A Jahul, sir. He's clearly mad. He's staked out an acre of land inside our claims territory."
Pingit sighed. “Who's he with?"
"Sir?"
"Which company?"
"Sir, he's been here a very long time. He's been eating vaghi to stay alive."
Pingit recoiled. “Vaghi?"
His assistant nodded. “Has piles of corpses around him. We think perhaps since the first exploration. He matches the description of the Jahul who went missing."
"Jahul don't kill their food."
"He was starving, sir. He's been starving a very long time."
"Bring him here."
"He won't leave the area."
"Why the hell not?"
"He's defending a patch of Geuji against the vaghi."
Pingit's headcrest quivered with surprise. “Some of the mold survives? Congress registered it as extinct two turns ago."
"A few patches still live inside his territory."
"It's our territory, now. We've leased it from the Huouyt."
"The Congressional recon force stayed to help him fight off the vaghi."
Pingit scowled. “You let him commandeer our troops?"
"The Ooreiki decided to help him. Everything he mumbled was gibberish—I don't think he even knew we were there—but he had rank, sir, still pinned to his tattered atmosuit. An Overseer of some sort."
Pingit cursed. “So it was the Emissary. Take me to him."
* * * *
That Jahul is dead,” Pingit snapped. It had already released its death-toxins, drowning the place in a putrescent, eye-burning smell.
Yet the Ooreiki continued to shoot the vermin, ignoring him. The multitude of vaghi that had accumulated to gnaw at the edges of the Geuji were quickly being picked off to nothing.
Frustrated, Pingit grabbed one of the Ooreiki by the arm. “What in the hell—"
"Sir,” the Ooreiki said, nodding at the rock against which the Jahul now leaned in death. It went back to firing.
Pingit frowned at the mold spread across its surface. In it, someone had scribed, “Help."
"Who wrote that?"
Then, before any of the Ooreiki could answer, the impressions in the Geuji's skin shifted and changed. “Sentient."
Pingit's headcrest quivered against his skull.
Beside the tear-shaped stone, his assistant was trying to lift the limp Jahul from the ground. The death-toxins rubbed off on him, and the assistant backed away, gagging.
Pingit's gaze returned to the Geuji covering the rock.
"Help,” the mold said again. “Sentient. Register us."
Then, “They ate us alive."
"Somebody call the Regency,” Pingit managed in a whisper. “We've made a big fucking mistake."



Interview with Bryan Smith

Bryan Smith is a quiet individual—he prefers to let his fiction do the talking—who generally avoids the spotlight at conventions and the internet message boards. This practically makes him an aberration in the world of horror literature. The truth is, he doesn't need to raise hell to attract attention to sell a book. With writing that reflects an appreciation of old school 50s horror that stretches to more modern influences such as Jack Ketchum and Ed Lee, Bryan Smith has made a name for himself as one of the top writers of mass-market horror in the business.


Jason Sizemore: Fans of Apex Digest will be especially delighted to know that your latest novel, The Freakshow, has a plot heavily influenced by old-school science fiction. Do you see yourself pursuing a mix of science fiction and horror in future novels?

Bryan Smith: I'm not sure. There may be an element of that from time to time. The thing is, I tend not to plan out my novels in advance. I just let them develop organically, and sometimes this means I wind up incorporating weird, unexpected elements. This makes for an interesting—and sometimes exhilarating—experience. I'm entertaining myself, and I often feel as if I'm a spectator in an audience, watching some wild, freaky low-budget horror/exploitation movie. This was especially the case with The Freakshow.

JS: Leisure, your publisher, tends to print straight horror. Was the SF a problem for them?

BS: No, at least not in this case. Don D'Auria never mentioned it as an editorial concern. Based on his comments, he essentially saw it as a fun horror novel. I think it's a matter of context. Yes, there are SF flourishes in The Freakshow, but mostly in the sense of cheesy SF movies from the 50s and later. Some have mentioned Killer Klowns From Outer Space as an inspiration, and it certainly was to some extent. Throughout the writing of The Freakshow, I continually referred to it as my “psychotronic book". I wanted it to be as absolutely weird and twisted as I could possibly make it, following in the tradition of such sleaze classics as Street Trash, Blood Diner, Basket Case, Brain Damage, Strange Behavior, Frankenhooker, and so on, as well as more respectable weird fare with SF touches like Videodrome and Liquid Sky. Ultimately, The Freakshow is so extraordinarily over the top in terms of explicit subject matter and presentation that it is solidly a pure horror novel, despite the SF stuff.

JS: Two of the most vile literary creations, Melinda and Miss Monique, have come from your pen. Were you abused by girl gangs as a kid?

BS: (Laughs). These characters are strangely popular. They are supposed to be super-evil and are intended to evoke fear and revulsion, like any good horror novel villain. And they do, for some people. But a surprisingly large percentage of people have written me to tell me how much they love these characters, especially Melinda from Deathbringer. There's a reason the femme fatale archetype is so prominent in noir fiction and movies. A large percentage of the readership for this sort of thing gets a charge out of characters that are sexy and menacing at the same time, and I guess I must too, because I keep coming up with these characters. And it's funny that you phrased your question that way—there's an actual girl gang of sorts in my forthcoming novel, Queen of Blood. (Laughs again).

JS: What inspired Miss Monique and her ability to simultaneously create immense pain and pleasure? Way beyond anything a sadomasochist would enjoy.

BS: I have no idea. Usually these things just hit me like lightning bolts. Twisted, bizarre atrocities that arrive in my head from seemingly nowhere. This goes back to my earlier statement about how these novels develop organically in my head, made up on the fly from scene to scene. I'll be sitting there at my computer, wondering what should come next, then one of these crazy images appears in my head. Then I'll think, ‘Oh, man, that is so fucked-up right there.” Then I'll start writing it down.

JS: Your next novel is a return to your first work, House of Blood. Is it a direct sequel?

BS: Yes. All the characters who survived the first book return, as do one or two characters who died in that one. Even very minor HOB characters return. It's set a few years after the end of HOB. However, there are some big differences between the two books. Queen of Blood is a much darker and more violent novel than HOB. I made a conscious decision to break some of the patterns I established in my first three books. The main action takes place over the course of several months rather than one wild night. I pulled my punches a bit with HOB, primarily because it was my first novel and I didn't quite know what I could get away with then. There are no pulled punches in Queen of Blood. The returning main cast of characters will develop in ways that should surprise people. Some of them will go down some very dark roads. Some good people will become not-so-good people. And there is little or no promise of redemption for many of them. I consider it a deeper, darker book than what I've done before, but rest assured it will not lack the explicitness fans of Deathbringer and The Freakshow enjoyed. It will be there. Big, disgusting buckets of it.

JS: Any plans to revisit the sadistic Melinda from Deathbringer?

BS: Not presently, but I would like to at some point down the line. A while back I started a sequel to Deathbringer that was to focus on Melinda, but it just wasn't working out and I abandoned it. It was the wrong approach at the wrong time. But I had a good time writing that character in Deathbringer, and someday she should be resurrected.

JS: A perceptive reader will pick up that Deathbringer and The Freakshow are set in the same universe ... in and around the town of Dandridge, TN. Are you making Dandridge, TN your Derry, ME (Stephen King's favorite city to abuse)?

BS: That wasn't my original intention, but it's beginning to work out that way. Stephen King is an obvious influence in this way. I don't write like King, but he's my favorite writer, and I guess this Dandridge thing is a manifestation of his work's lasting impact on me. I've actually used Dandridge as a setting going back to unpublished work from the early 90's, including a novel called Depraved. I'd be the only person who knows this, of course, but there are small things in House of Blood that refer to things in Depraved. Also, it turns out there actually is a town called Dandridge in Tennessee, a fact I was blissfully unaware of until Deathbringer was released and residents of the town informed me. My Dandridge is not THAT Dandridge, which I guess I'll have to make clear in any future work set there. My current in-progress novel, Madhouse, returns to Dandridge, and of course incorporates some of the ongoing mythology without being a direct sequel to anything. Small bit of trivia here—the name of the town was actually taken from the name of the vampire in Fright Night, Jerry Dandridge.

JS: In our fourth issue, you contributed an entertaining novelette based on a noir-style detective agency (with supernatural elements). Any plans to bring these characters back to life?

BS: Definitely. It is my hope that Jack Grimm and crew will loom large in my future. I would like to sell it as an ongoing mass-market cross-genre series in the vein of Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden books or Simon Green's Nightshade books. My Grimm novels would be more pointedly influenced by old pulp. Think of these stories as Gold Medal meets Kolchak. Richard Prather and Mickey Spillane teaming up with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The original chapbook was very popular. There was even some recent film interest. I'm convinced Grimm could be very successful on a mass market level.

JS: For readers thinking of trying out a Bryan Smith novel, how would you describe your work?

BS: Not for your grandmother. And probably not for your mother. And definitely not for anyone the least bit squeamish or high-minded. It's horror pulp, the end result all the gloriously trashy things that shaped me back in the 80s. If you need a literary reference point, Richard Laymon and Edward Lee are probably the closest to what I'm doing. This applies to the horror novels. My Grimm stories are quite different.

JS: From a writing perspective, who's the biggest influence on you in terms of style?

BS: Again, probably Richard Laymon and Edward Lee. I admire the fearlessness of both these writers, and I try to be equally fearless. I write hardcore horror and I'm proud of that. I especially admire the spare quality of the prose in Richard Laymon's early novels. Minimal but effective descriptions with lots of snappy dialogue. I'm wordier in my descriptions than Mr. Laymon was and would like to work toward getting closer to that style. I've been reading Laymon for a quarter-century now, and his books are a big part of the reason I'm writing the kind of thing I'm writing. Stephen King is my favorite writer overall, but stylistically there are no real similarities. He's better than me, for one thing. But that's okay. He's better than everybody else, too.

JS: What is your favorite “horror” moment?

BS: I've been a horror film and fiction fan for so long now that it would be impossible to identify a single moment that towers above all others. Some candidates would include the time I saw a midnight showing of Dawn of the Dead in the early 80s, a theatrical screening of The Evil Dead back in 1983, all the opening nights of the Friday the 13th movies back in the 80s (always a wild and crazy experience), the day in 1982 when I read Richard Laymon's The Woods Are Dark in one sitting, when I read The Shining in ‘79 or ‘80, when I read Edward Lee's Coven in 1991 and was bowled over by how simultaneously gross and hilarious it was, reading Fangoria every month back in the 80s, the first time I saw Re-Animator, and ... well, I could go on just about forever. You can see what a major formative time the decade of the 80s was for me. But there have been recent experiences that very nearly equal the best times from those halcyon days, especially seeing Slither and Grindhouse on the big screen. I love those fuckin’ movies just about as much as any genre flick I've ever seen.

JS: What does the future hold for Bryan Smith?

BS: The release of Queen of Blood in mass market paperback from Leisure in 2008. A soon-to-be announced signed and limited edition of House of Blood. The HOB limited will be beautiful and will blow fans of that book away. And currently I'm working on Madhouse, a novel that retreats slightly from the deep darkness of Queen of Blood and returns to the drive-in B-movie fun of House of Blood. In fact, I'd describe it as combining that HOB B-movie vibe with the sheer outrageousness of The Freakshow. Hell, who knows, I may even work in a few Freakshow-style SF flourishes before I'm done. It's gonna be a corker and I'm having a blast writing it.

www.bryansmith.info


members.iglou.com/jasonb




Geoffrey Girard first appeared in Writers of the Future (a 2003 winner) and has since penned and sold more than sixty short stories of dark fantasy and horror. His latest book, Tales of the Eastern Indians, thirteen original tales blending history and Native American myths, was published this Fall. Find out more at www.GeoffreyGirard.com.
This is the third installment of a four-part novella. The first part is available online at www.apexdigest.com.
CAIN XP11: SORRY ABOUT THE BLOOD
By Geoffrey Girard
The darkness recoiled in a flash of light and noise. When it returned, the thing in the doorway had already vanished back into the night.
Becker fired two more times to make sure.
He'd rolled behind the boy's bed as he shot. Chasing away the last clutch of sleep, ignoring the confusion and shock of the door bursting open, to put three bullets into his anonymous target. Whatever the fuck it was.
He didn't know for sure. He'd simply woken and decided it was a threat. Some intruder, some danger, pouring into their room. He'd worked Special Ops for ten years, on missions everywhere from Angola to Syria, and had never once fired at an unidentified target. Until now.
This guy just felt like something he was supposed to shoot. Familiar, almost.
The last two bullets had only a moment ago chased after the retreating form, as the doorframe splintered out into the night instead. He'd moved so damn fast.
Becker steadied the gun over Jeff's still form beneath. Was the kid dead? Hadn't Jeff screamed? Someone had screamed, a terrible sound. Becker allowed that it may have been himself and focused even harder to complete waking. Had he simply shot the boy by mistake? On purpose? The dreams. Such horrible dreams. Had he only imagined the whole thing?

No. Becker reached out with his free hand and felt the kid's skinny leg. “Jeff,” he shook him. “Jeff!"
"I didn't. I—"
"Quiet,” Becker ordered, and scrambled over the foot of the bed toward the doorway. He kept low to the curtained window, clinging to the same darkness his enemy had recently retreated to. “Get behind the bed."
He stole a glance out the door into the parking lot. How many were there? Just the one?
For two months he'd been hunting a dozen killers across the country. His latest mission from the Defense Department was not quite the same as tracking down senior Al Qaeda operatives, but not all that different either. He'd apprehended three. Killed another. Which meant there were another dozen left that he knew of.

So, then, how many of those same killers were now hunting him?

Light from the La Quinta sign above cast a jaundiced sheen over the empty sidewalk and every car in the lot.
The whole world looked sick.
And empty.
Becker cursed. When exactly did I become the prey?
A fence rattled in the distance and Becker gave chase. “Stay put,” he shouted back into the room.
His bare feet slapped loudly against the walkway as he sprinted toward the chain link fence. Something ripped into his heel. He could see where the top of the fence still trembled as if someone had climbed over only a moment before. He quickly scanned the cracked doorway as he passed, and then the ashen face behind a barely drawn curtain in the next room. No threat. Only the curious. Other tourists alarmed by the clamor. Too afraid, too smart, to come out and do anything about it.
The police would arrive soon, he knew. Shit.
Over barren, wet dirt he reached the fence. Fingers of his free hand wrapped within the links. Beyond, a deeply-shadowed hill of weeds and an empty exit ramp. No blood on the fence or ground that he could spot. He thought for a second of jumping the fence. Then his training kicked back in.
"That's it,” Becker said, catching his breath for the first time since springing awake. “Cops and robbers ends now."

I shot him, he thought. I must have put at least two into the fucker. He backed slowly from the fence, concealing the pistol again in the front waist of his sweats. Maybe not ... He kept his fingers around the handle. Cops in three, maybe four, minutes. He lowered his head, moved past the other rooms.
"Hey,” someone dared from one of the darkened doorways. “What the hell's—"
Becker turned to the voice and the man stalled mid-sentence. “Sorry about the noise, sir,” Becker said, moving past. “Firecrackers, looks like."
"Goddamn kids,” the man's voice trailed after him.

You have no idea, Becker thought, but said nothing.

Had it really been one of the ‘kids?' One of his targets? The genetically-manufactured killers DSTI had concocted so many years before. Or was it something else?
Something worse.
He stepped quickly into his own room, pulled the door shut behind him. It bounced back freely on its newly busted hinges. “Get your—"
"Good to go,” the boy said in the darkness. Sure enough, he'd already pulled his own bag together and was working on Becker's. “Thought you'd want us moving,” he added, looking over his tiny glasses. The hair on his head was tousled and pillow-shaped.
Becker couldn't help but smile. This kid...
"I told you to get behind the bed."
Jeff was smart. Never complained. Eager to learn, to always do the “right” thing. Any parent would be thrilled to have a kid like this. Did any of that other shit matter?
That he was a genetic clone of the serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. That the exact same cells and DNA had once eaten dead flesh and fucked skulls. So what?

So what...

"I just thought—"
Becker looked away. “Thanks, man. Good idea. You all right?"
The boy nodded. “What was that?” he asked.
"Who,” Becker corrected, noting that the boy had felt it too. That there was something wrong about the guy. “I don't know."
He moved quickly across the room. “We'll talk about it later. There's a Waffle House about half a mile that way. Go.” He grabbed his wallet and fished out a ten. “Buy breakfast. Read your book. I'll come when I'm done with the cops. Okay?"
"Okay."
Becker smiled again. No questions, no bullshit. The kid had no problem doing as he was asked. Pin some stripes on the little bastard. “You sure you're not hurt or—"
"I'm good,” the boy said, then lowered his head and grabbed his Flyers book bag. “Um, how long will you be?"
"I'll get there as soon as I can."
"Sure.” Jeff opened the door and stepped into the sickly light. “Thanks, Becker."
Becker half shut the door behind him and flipped the light on to check the room again. He could see where the door frame had taken a bullet. Nowhere else. Body armor? No slugs. He finished tossing the rest of his own things into his bag. Some clothes. The Murder Map he'd put together over the past eight weeks of trailing his targets. Pictures of the family recently murdered in Delhi, Colorado.
He grabbed his cell and made the call.
"Becker.” It was 3:00 a.m. but Major General Durbin's voice still came through clear and interested.
"Yes, sir."
"Late call, Captain. What's the situation?"
"Don't know, General. I think one of them might have tried to kill me tonight."
"But I'm talking to you, ain't I, kiddo?"
"You are indeed, sir."
"Which one was it?"
"Don't know yet. He was ... Tried to chase him down but he escaped."
Becker pictured the dark shape sweeping into the room. Something glittering in its hands. Blades, he supposed. But something else ... like a ghost, almost, floating across the darkness toward him. No...
Toward the boy, Becker now realized.
Toward Jeff.
"Real Hollywood, sir. Fucker kicked in the door. Twirling blades of some kind. Woke up in time. Pretty sure I dropped him, but—"
"Becker,” The Major General stopped him. “Where are you?"
"Forty klicks south of Colorado Springs. Florence."
"Fine, fine. Locals on the way?"
"Affirmative. I took a couple shots at—"
"Clear out, Captain. We'll, ah, clean up with you offsite. And—"
"Yes, sir.” Becker stopped packing, really focused on the call for the first time. Something he'd noticed in Durbin's voice ... “Sir? Come again?"
"Are you alone, Becker?"
"Yes, sir,” he said quickly, adding feigned surprise to his reply. What did Durbin mean?
Jeff?
Becker hadn't told anyone about the boy. Not yet. Not since he'd found him hiding in Dr. Jacobson's home. One of the many “rats” snuck out of the lab by Jacobson for unadulterated testing. Jacobson's big secret had become Becker's. His big lie.
But it wasn't a lie right now. The boy wasn't there anymore.
"No one else was with you tonight?"
Becker heard the confusion in his commander's voice. “No, sir,” he said.
"Florence,” the colonel repeated. “You know what, Captain, cancel that last. Hold until they arrive, is that clear?"
"Sir?"
"Flash your badge. Buy some time. I'll get someone out as soon as I can to help clean up.” The Major General laughed—a terrible, forced sound. “Don't worry about it, kiddo,” he said. “You're doing fine. We'll get all this mess sorted out soon enough. Hang tight, pal. We'll be right there."
"Thank you, sir,” Becker said and hung up. “Asshole."
He grabbed his bag and was out the door
The world waiting outside somehow seemed a bit more yellow. More sick.
* * * *
Her hair was wrong.
It had to be the hair.
It was a little too short. Too clean.
Everything else was spot on.
Perfect.
The body was two-thirds across the bed, left side. The shoulders flat. Head turned to the left cheek. Legs spread wide. The left thigh at a perfect right angle to her trunk. The other at an obtuse angle to her pubes.
One breast under the head, the other under her right foot. Liver between the feet. Intestines on the right side of the body. Spleen on the left. The flaps he'd removed from her abdomen and thighs were on the bedside table.
The Thing on the Bed.
Just like in the pictures.
Just like in the dreams.
Jacobson dragged the kukri knife gently along her forehead.

Do I cut again?

He'd already hacked off her ears and nose.

Do I rip some more?

Slashed away her lips and down over the chin. Her eyebrows and lids, her cheeks.
Except for the hair, there was nothing left.
Picture perfect.
She'd lived for almost two minutes while he cut her. Hemorrhaging slowly, painfully, from a deep slash across her throat that went down to her spine. The carotid artery slowly filling her slashed windpipe and then flooding her lungs as he continued his work.
He'd started next on her abdomen. Then her face.

Was this the moment I did wrong?

Perhaps he was supposed to start with the face. He simply did not know this detail, forensics in 1888 not being what they were today...
He closed his eyes and leaned back, letting the vulgar smells of the tiny room fill his nose. He could suddenly feel the warmth of the small fire on his face. Something warmer and wet trailed slowly down his left forearm, and his mind chased after the promising and familiar sensation.
His very first memory, his first recollection of childhood, of being, had always been a dream. He'd been four or five at the time. He'd woken, screamed for his parents, found he'd wet the bed like a baby. He could not stop crying. His father had spanked him that night.
The dream returned later. He didn't recall exactly when, but it had. A month later, a year. He'd screamed and wet his bed again, but he did not call out for his parents this time. He made sure his terrified sobs were as quiet as possible, and only his bedroom's darkness was there to comfort him. Boy became man and still the dream came. Once or twice a year. He no longer screamed or cried. He simply woke up, methodically cleaned himself.
In the dream, he was in a small, dark room. There was a fire in one corner and a bed in the other.
And, there was something on the bed. Something “evil.” He knew that part. Felt it. Completely.
That it was evil.
That the thing on the bed wanted him to get closer. That it wanted to destroy him, consume him. That it wanted inside him. He also knew that it was much stronger than he was. That he would ultimately surrender to its wishes.
He could not win.
As the years passed, the Thing on the Bed became more detailed. In his teens, he learned that it was a woman. That it was soaked in blood. Ripped open. That it was still alive. Years later, it spread its misshapen legs wider and thrust its hips lewdly at him. It burbled blood from its missing lower jaw. It tried to talk to him. To kiss him. It wanted to fuck him. In his twenties, he stood over it. He held a blade.
There were other dreams. Other women. Each became more familiar over time. But none had ever returned as often as the first. These eventually became fantasies he carried into the waking world. Girls he saw at school, some of the women he worked with, a stranger in a bookstore. He could picture them on the “dream bed.” Ripped open and waiting for him.
He could not ejaculate unless he imagined such horrible things. Sex proved unspeakable. To finish, he would close his eyes and imagine pushing into the Thing on the Bed. In college, he'd dated only two girls because of this. The last, he'd asked if she would play out a silly fantasy with him. To tie her up, to pretend to cut her. It had not gone well. He'd avoided women thereafter and focused on what he hoped was his true passion.
Science.
But, while his career as a geneticist blossomed, he closed his eyes to the darkness each and every night, knowing that he was a freak. Monster.
Until ... until that day. May 14, 1978.
During a conference in Baltimore, a colleague had been reading a book and, one afternoon, curious, Jacobson had picked up the paperback. And, just like that, everything made sense.

Everything.

Right there, in black and white, on page 176.
The Thing on the Bed.
She was real. The woman in his dreams.
Mary Jane Kelly. Murdered on Friday, November 9, 1888.
He spent the next hours reading the book from cover to cover. Then again. And again.

Jack the Ripper: Memoirs of the World's First Serial Killer.

That one of the many suspects was named Tumblety, he was not surprised.
What else, the geneticist marveled, was passed on through RNA and amino acid sequences? His research and efforts refocused. The offspring of killers studied, and then the killers themselves. Their clones. Searching for the root of evil. But not to cure...

To find the basest traits of our forbears absolves us.

Now, if he could only finish what was started. Reach the same release his own blood had once known.
Then, everything would make sense. It would.

It had to.

He looked back down at the bed. The fire's shadows cast unevenly over the mutilated shape there. He gently traced the blade sideways across the skin on her thigh, cleared away a thin trail between pools of blood.
Mary Jane Kelly. The blood-drenched act that had somehow ended the Ripper's career. He'd studied every report he could find, knew the crime scene pictures as well as he knew his own face. The very same molecular fabric of his own body, his own mind, the blood pumping through his veins, had been there. Then, and now. It was the same.

The Thing on the Bed.

He sighed. No. This was not the one. Not yet.
But there was still time. Please, God...
He would simply have to try again.
* * * *
Becker tossed another stone into the dark waters of the man-made lake, and the stone skipped twice before vanishing into the blackness beneath. The irony of the lake's origin was not lost on him. Sitting on its shore, he could think of little else.
Yes, the lake was filled with black bass and frogs, and framed in fall-burned spike-rush. Yes, a small sunfish had jumped briefly behind the splash of his stone as the setting January sun draped golden lace along the treetops of the opposite shore.
But he knew it was only an illusion. Unnatural.
The fish were stocked, dumped from the backs of trucks each spring. Added only for future hooks. And, the artificial flow velocity and sediment loading found in such reservoirs barred the algae and bottom-dwellers found in real lakes.
Some men had fabricated this lake beside Montrose, Colorado. It looked like a lake, sounded like a lake, even smelled like a regular lake. But it was, he understood fully, not. It would never be.
Years later, some other men had fabricated a boy.
Dozens of boys, actually. Killers.
How “real” were they? How real was Jeff?
Becker looked over at him.
He knew very well how Jeff and the others had been “stocked.” How some of them had been abused, molested, neglected. Injected with varying levels of serotonin, dopamine. Tweaked and modified.
It seemed that Jeff had not. His test group was to be raised in a loving environment. An environment tolerant of his passive nature, of his emerging homosexuality. The end result was a kid who was polite, curious, and sharp. Yet, he'd still been crafted from the DNA of one of the worst serial killers in history. Becker knew such men were often gifted socially. They could mimic and master, for a short time, social norms. They could use them to their advantage.
Is that what Jeff was doing? Was he merely waiting? Pretending? Was it all only a matter of time?

Where did the fabrication end and the true boy begin?

"What's that you got?” he asked aloud, hoping to chase away his own dark musings.
"An old bobber.” Jeff held it up. “Some line, too. Washed up on shore."
The early winter wind swept back the kid's shaggy hair and ruffled the new jacket Becker had picked up for him in Topeka. Christ. Becker couldn't even remember being that young any more. “You fish?"
"Couple times."
"Did Dr. Jacobson take you?"
"No,” Jeff shook his head. “So, where we going next?"
"I don't know.” Becker allowed the boy to change the conversation. “I think my bosses want me off this mission now."
"How come?"
"Don't know. It happens."
"Maybe they're afraid that guy will kill you."
Suddenly a chill swept down his back, one not born of the low breeze off the lake or the cold ground beneath him. That guy, whoever the hell he was, had been ... he'd been like the lake, but more noticeably so.
He'd been unnatural.
"Maybe,” Becker said. “Doubtful. Wish I knew who ‘that guy’ was, though."
"Yeah,” Jeff agreed.
Becker looked back over the lake.
"You gonna turn me over to DSTI?” the boy asked.
"I don't know."
"But you will eventually."
Becker warmed his hands together. “This will all end soon."
"I could run away. You'd let me, wouldn't you?"
"And then what? You're thirteen years old."
"I wouldn't be the first. I'd manage."
Becker shook his head, imagined the road Jeff was choosing. “Most people seem to."
"So, are you gonna quit? The mission."
"If those are my orders, yes. Don't know if they are yet. Officially."
"Not answering your phone. Is that, like, legal?"
"For right now."
"Won't you get in trouble?"
"I'll check in again soon. I just ... I think we're real close to catching up with these guys. I feel it, you know. You get this ... a feeling. Feels like we're close."
"Yeah,” Jeff said. “I think so, too."
Becker looked back at the boy, struggled for the next words. “Whitaker,” he said. “I've been thinking about Whitaker."
"What about him?"
"Nothing, maybe. But ... I guess I've tracked down some real bad guys over the years. Men who've killed a lot of people. But I always knew what I was dealing with. I got it. The fanaticism. Or greed. Power. Duty. Whatever it happened to be, I understood it."
"But not Henry."
"No,” Becker admitted. “Not Henry Whitaker. Or Henry Lee Lucas. These kids or their original selves. Physiological, biological ... they're, they've become monsters to me. And I'm too damn old to believe in monsters anymore."
"You've killed people,” Jeff said.
"Yes.” Sure as Hell killed that Whitaker kid.
"Are you a monster?"
"That's exactly what I'm talking about. War is different."
"It is?"
Becker laughed. “You a Michael Moore clone now?"
Jeff looked down at his feet. “That bothers you a lot, doesn't it?"
"What's that?"
"That I'm a clone."
Becker lowered his head. Damn it. It had been a shitty thing to say. But, yeah, you're sure as shit right it bothers me. “Doesn't it bother you?"
Jeff tossed the bobber and string back into the undead lake. “I know I'm not that other guy,” he said.
Becker pulled himself up to his feet.
"Becker."
"What?"
"I don't want to ... to hurt people,” Jeff said. “I don't think about hurting people. I don't care whose blood is inside me. I never even think about ... I'm not some disgusting monster."
"I know."
"Do you?” The words were a soft plea. “Do you really?"
Becker stared at the boy. He didn't reply.
"Well, don't feel too bad,” Jeff said, turning to look back over the lake. “To tell the truth, I'm not totally sure either."
* * * *
Dr. Jeremy Erdman cupped the fetus in his left hand, holding it up to the light for a better look. Its tiny head dangled awkwardly off the end of his forefinger as fluids from the incubator dripped down the geneticist's wrist. One of its small hands had mechanically latched onto the tip of Erdman's thumb.
Seventeen weeks, the chart read. So much had already started, but the option of speeding up gestation to adulthood or continuing to retard development for another couple years was no longer his to make. Another decision had been made already.
DSTI was cleaning house. Or, at least, sweeping everything under the carpet.
Erdman didn't mind. He'd never cared much for the “Cain” project anyway. That had always been Jacobson's hard-on. Erdman's lay elsewhere. Therapeutic cloning had already become the trillion dollar industry everyone expected it to be. While the rest of Nasdaq had fallen 35 percent in the last year, the biotechnology indexes had risen 40. It was time. IVF, transgenic foods, commercial eugenics, pharmaceuticals, Americans already paying $500 a year for the storage of DNA for pets and loved ones. The dot-com orgy would prove pennies compared to what was coming, and Erdman was sure as hell not going to miss it.

We must never approach the temple of science with the soul of a money changer. He could still hear Jacobson's reproof. Fuck Jacobson. He was the asshole who'd gotten them all into this jam anyway. His fascination with the XP11 gene, his fanatical deals with the powers that be for more funding. Now there were a dozen, or more, manufactured serial killers running about the country. And worse.
If things didn't clean up quietly, DSTI and everyone with it would lose everything. They'd already chemically lobotomized two dozen kids, including an Ed Gein clone they'd recently brought in. Others were being disposed of more absolutely by the Pentagon apes. And Jacobson, where the hell was he? Dead, murdered by the special children he'd bred, or, as it was rumored, running around the country on some unknown crusade?
Erdman almost hoped Jacobson wasn't dead yet. Because he knew what was out there looking for him.
"This the last of it?"
The geneticist turned. “Yes,” he said.
Major General Durbin nodded and slowly surveyed the room. A hundred cylindrical incubators, which ran from the floor to the ceiling, were lined in several long rows. Almost half had already been removed, except for their wide bases. Three DSTI workers had begun dismantling those, too. Dr. Mohlenbrock hosed down one of the emptied cylinders. Its surface cast a light blue glow across the lab's floor. There were two large steel bins on wheels lined with black plastic in the center of the room.
The rest of the pods were still occupied. The clones inside ranged from five weeks gestation to eight years. Each floated serenely in the piss-colored liquid inside. In another room were two more that had been matured to thirty years. A different project altogether, really. Durbin wanted to keep those, for now.
"So,” Erdman asked carefully, “the FBI still puzzled over why John Wayne Gacy's DNA keeps showing up at murder scenes?"
"As he's been dead for more than ten years now, yes, they are."
"How are—"
"Focus on what's here,” the Major General said. “We have the situation well covered on the outside."
"You still think you can control that thing, don't you?"
Durbin smiled. “Keep up the good work, Doctor. Everything will turn out fine. Always does.” He winked and stepped slowly from the room.
Erdman watched him go, then looked back down at the experiment growing cold in his hand. Its eyes were closed, thank God. Seventeen weeks. Only five inches long and less then five ounces. Yet ... a hundred billion neurons already firing away. Vocal chords. The genitals of a man. A thyroid gland already pumping male hormones into its premature brain. Testosterone artificially laced with genetic rage and malice.
It gasped suddenly. It had been only a tiny sucking sound, then another. New lungs fighting for their first taste of air. He felt the tiny shape shift against his wet palm. What thoughts were even now forming in its primal brain? What terrible thoughts?
Erdman had forgotten already if it was another clone of Bundy or DeSalvo. He reminded himself it no longer mattered.
He reached for one of the steel bins.
#

Jan. 9—What a dance I am leading. The papers now carry the story. Perhaps this is what is missing. Attention? She is never satisfied. No details released yet. Only that the authorities suspect a “serial killer.” Ha ha ha. La police, ne t'a pas encore trouvé? [50W Parma drive, rebeca] I gave birth to the twentieth century. I've given birth to the twenty-first also.

Jan. 10—In violence, we forget who we are. All the men and women who passed me today, who looked me in the eye ... who know nothing of what I truly am. Veritas Lux Mea. Since the Renaissance, God's Death, we have presumed to elucidate, to alleviate, Violence through Science. Before, when I was T., they presumed anthropometry could reveal the mark. That specific facial characteristics and body measurements could tell if you were looking at a Killer of Man. Rapists were blond, pedophiles had long left feet, murderers were homely with smaller foreheads, etc. This was scientific fact. Absurd? Any more than claims of possession by Satan or other primitive gods? Any more absurd than our pursuit of the Cain gene? Xp11.23-11.4 Do we only need to look there? No. I am still marked. Now art thou cursed from the earth? In violence, we remember who we are.

Jan. 10—What is broken when he can bring himself to kill another? Men are responsible for ninety percent of all violent crime. In every culture, every country. In every age. Serial murder is criminal abstraction, masculine in its deranged egotism and orderliness. It is the asocial equivalent of philosophy, mathematics, music. There is no female Mozart because there is no female Jack the Ripper.

Jan. 12—the others called again today. Something troubling. Wanted to talk. It is only because they are alone. So very alone. I know. Do I now destroy what I have created? Or will they destroy the creator? Either may still satisfy. Yours ‘til death.
* * * *
When Ted was nine years old, he'd hit a nest of rabbits with the lawn mower. It had been an accident. Or, at least, he thought so at the time. Later, he would learn the incident had been staged, prescribed, as part of some test group to see if his MAOA levels would exceed another “Ted” somewhere else who hadn't killed rabbits. Fucked up.
He still remembered the weird thump sound, and then little black shadows running in all directions, scattering. He remembered screaming. And blood on the grass. His dad, who'd been watching, had moved slowly toward him. Not his real dad, he knew now. Some guy they'd hired with stock options and monthly payments.
"That's a damn shame,” his fake dad had said. “But no use sniveling like some pussy girl. They shouldn't have been there.” Ted had worked to stop crying. “Nothing to be done about it now,” his fake father continued. He'd handed the boy a shovel. “Here, best learn yourself."
Several of the baby rabbits had stopped no more than ten feet away. Even when Ted moved right over them, they crouched perfectly still. As if he couldn't see them. As if they were too afraid, too stupid, to keep running. “They're gonna die now anyway,” the fake father said. “You're doing ‘em a favor. Make it quick. Go on. I said, go on now.” Each time Ted lifted the shovel, they still didn't move.
He thought of those rabbits now while watching the other kids.
Seemed like the whole goddamned town had shown up. Every redneck in Orchard City between fourteen and seventeen, anyway. All he had to do was talk to some girls outside the school and flash some of the money they'd stolen. Party at Adria's house. Free beer. The rest took care of itself.
The lights were down low, and fifty-six bunnies had crowded into this rich bitch's giant finished basement. She'd told Ted her parents were in Antigua for the week. He hoped they were having a good time. They were in for quite a surprise when they returned.
There was beer, as promised, and pot. Even some GHB.
And also bleach and ammonia. Big tubs of it for later.
They'd wanted to use Zyklon B, like the Nazis had when they were wasting Jews, but you couldn't buy that shit anymore. Not even on eBay. Next choice was sarin. One drop could kill a dude, and they even found how to make it on the Internet, but it was way too fucking hard to figure out. Isopropylamine and sodium fluoride and heating it and all ... shit could kill you. Forget it. Googling some more, they found much easier ways to kill lots of people.
"What about that one?” Albert nodded toward the crowd below. The music in the room was so loud that Ted had to lean closer to hear him. “That one!” The three boys sat on the basement steps above the rest of the party. “Big tits, red sweater!"
"Her name's Laura, I think,” Ted replied. The room was hazy with smoke cut by a cheap strobe light someone had brought. “Proof of God."
"So you like to say."
"Well, they are. What the fuck you want me to say?"
"Bet she's cunty fresh."
Ted laughed. “Yeah, okay. I guess."
"Wanna find out?"
"Not enough time,” said Ted. “Doors close in ten."
Ten minutes. John had already moved out into the crowd to take care of the back door. He still wore his clown suit and makeup. Ted had almost forgotten what the kid looked like without it. He supposed it didn't matter anymore.
John had moved among the middle of the party, bumping into the locals and patting asses as he went. Everyone was laughing. Thought his clown outfit was a riot. Bunnies. If they only knew he was a clone of John Wayne Gacy. Guy who'd butchered and raped thirty-three poor dumb fucks. How funny would that be? If they knew who they'd been dancing with, throwing their arms around. Ted shrugged. They never would.
"What was that?” Jeffrey asked.
"What?” Ted leaned closer to hear.
"I don't know. Thought I ... I don't know. Drunk, I guess."
"Yeah.” But Ted had felt something also. Like a door opening somewhere in the house. Every door and window at once, in fact, with a blast of cold air. Fuck it. It was almost time to close every door.
There were all kinds of industrial materials to create toxic gas, they'd discovered. But Ammonia and bleach were the easiest to buy. Twenty gallons each. Mixed in three plastic trashcans they'd bought and set outside. Stir it up a bit and let it sit. Chlorine gas.
They'd tried a batch earlier. The shit burned green like a witch's cauldron, then burned their eyes and throats. And that had been standing outside. Down here, three batches of it would blind every eye and burn out fifty-six larynxes. Then, collapse and death. Beautiful. Not quite as personal as Ted usually liked, but it was something. Something different. He had to admit the rest was, well, getting kinda boring. Same shit over and over.
Jacobson had finally called them back. Some of the other guys, John and Al mostly, had been having bad dreams. Baby stuff. Shit, Ted had them all the time too, but he wasn't crying about it. But these ... Ted didn't know. The guys wanted to talk to their old pal Jacobson about some stuff. Like when they used to sit around in a circle back at DSTI and talk about their feelings and shit. Fucking lame. Jacobson was an asshole. But now he'd finally called back and was trying to put together some kind of meeting. Fine. There was history there. Something Ted might enjoy, maybe.
Albert mumbled something.
"Three minutes,” Ted shouted back, ignoring Albert and whatever he'd felt. “Why don't you head down now to help John. We'll get the one in the closet."
"Cool.” Albert stood.
"Look at this guy,” Jeffrey said, pointing over the crowd to the back door.
"What the fuck?” Ted leaned forward on the steps to get a better look. “Guy's in a costume or something."
"John's got competition.” Albert laughed. “This town's got its freaks too."
"Yeah.” Ted peered though the smoke. “I guess.” His whole back tingled with ice again. He stood.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing.” Ted tried to shake off the feeling but could not. Had the guy really just shut and locked the back door? “Who is that fuck?"
"Looks like a dude, an old dude. Or—"
Someone screamed.
The sound was half lost in the music, but Ted heard it perfectly. He knew all about screams.
A girl at the back of the crowd fell. People pointed, laughing. Then another collapsed. A boy this time. He was tossed aside by the thin dark man, and Ted had seen something spray. Dark beer, maybe. He didn't think so.
"What the fuck?” Jeffrey jumped up beside him. “Did he—"
"Yeah,” Ted said. “I think he..."
"What the fuck!"
"Yeah."
More screams. The dark man moved quickly into the room, making his way deeper into the crowd.
Toward John.
"We should—"
Before Ted could even register the thought, the man clasped John's costume from behind and spun him around.
"Mother fucker..."
A dark hand slashed across John's painted face. Blood splashed out from the wide clown collar, sprayed the startled crowd.
"We should—"
"What?” Ted asked, frozen, not taking his eyes off the thing. Another thrust pumped into John's thrashing body, another. Another. The blade, Ted figured, was at least a foot long.
The man tossed John to the ground and looked up at the steps. His eyes found Ted's.
"What the fuck is that?” Albert shouted. “Ted? What the—"
"I don't know,” Ted replied calmly. Too calmly. Warm piss spread down the front of his legs. “Come on."
He, Jeffrey and Albert raced up the stairs. Behind them, the crowd screeched and scattered in every direction. Just like they'd been hit with a lawnmower, Ted thought. Shrieks and confusion drowned out the damn music as their shadowed forms barreled up the steps toward them.
"What about the chlorine?” Jeffrey asked.
"Fuck it,” Ted shouted. They'd fallen in with several of the other kids. Each one running for their life.
Like he was.

Finally, he thought, covered in piss, bursting with the others out the front door and into the night, Something different.
He started laughing.
* * * *
"Copy cat killer. Absolutely."
"Makes sense. All that Tumblety stuff this ‘Doctor’ was collecting.” Was this another clone he'd missed? A clone of Jack the Ripper? Becker sighed. But there were no records of a “Jack” clone. For guys who haughtily kept records on everything, there were no files about a boy made from Tumblety's DNA. None that Becker knew of.
"I'm looking at the crime scene photos you sent,” Kristin said. “Several are almost duplicates of Ripper crime scenes from a hundred years ago. I mean identical. The murders. They're staged."
Becker listened, half watching Jeff flip through the same twelve cable TV channels. They were in some dump motel for the night in a town called Delta.
"The FBI. must be all over this by now."
"Have to be. Want more?"
"I don't know. Do I?” It was a toss-off line. Becker was stalling, deciding if we wanted to tell her everything. About DSTI, the clones, Jeff ... Everything.
"Once I made the copycat connection, I refocused on Tumblety a bit,” she went on. “One of a dozen Ripper suspects, right?"
"Right. So?"
"So, you told me his grave was robbed almost a year ago."
"Affirmative. Drove to Syracuse to see it myself. My younger marks weren't loose then, so I've always assumed it was this other guy."
"The absent doctor? Why is he so fixated on Tumblety?"
"Because he's fucking crazy?"
"The Becker I know would never accept that answer."

The Becker you know is two years dead.

"You're the psychiatrist,” he said aloud. “You tell me."
"I want to throw some names at you,” she said. “Family names associated with Tumblety. See if anything makes sense."
Was this another one of Jacobson's side projects? Like the one that'd adopted out some of these kids into normal, unsuspecting homes?
"Fine."
"Blackburn, McNamara, Caine, Jacobson—"
"Where you getting this, Kris?"
"Jack the Ripper (A-Z)"
Jacobson. Caine?
"How? How Caine? How Jacobson?"
"Tumblety traveled Europe for two years with a bisexual named Sir Henry Hall Caine. It's assumed they were lovers."
"And Jacobson?"
"Tumblety later married twice in New York. Briefly both times. There was a child. A daughter, Ellen, who later married into a prosperous Philadelphia family. Phillip Jacobson, councilman and surgeon. Just like Tumblety often pretended to be. Had several children. She died in childbird in ‘43."
"A doctor,” Becker finished. “Like ‘my’ doctor.” He reached for his files. Found the one on Jacobson. Sure enough, his father's name was Phillip.

Goddamn. His grandfather?

"This Tumblety guy, was he really—"
"Probably not,” she cut in. “Most evidence now points to some artist named Walter Sickert. They've done DNA analysis and everything. It's pretty much case closed."
"Then if this guy thinks he's a direct descendent, some kind of rebirth of Jack the Ripper..."
"It's all in his head."
"Okay.” Becker breathed deeply. “So, Kris."
"What?"
"When did they come to you?"
She did not respond.
"Kris? You're good, babe, but not this good. Jacobson, for God's sake. I've never used that name once."
"It's a name in a book. You could have found it yourself. What if I tell you we got lucky?"
"We've never been that. When?"
"The Major General called Sunday. Late. I didn't ... I thought this info could help you."
"Durbin. Durbin called ... you told him we'd spoken."
"They've got phone records, Becker. Why lie?"
Becker laughed.
"He's worried about you. We're all ... I think—"
"Becker?” Jeff's small voice intruded from his other ear. Becker waved him off.
"You could have told me,” Becker said into the phone. Betrayal. “You should have."
"I just did. Look, I don't know what's going on. And I don't want to know. I ... Let's meet somewhere. We can talk."
"Like we used to?"
"Shawn..."
"You were working for Durbin then, too, of course. I wonder ... was all the rest only part of your professional duties? Standard services? Spreading those long legs for Uncle Sam?"
"Don't do this."
"Thanks for the info, Lieutenant."
"Don't do this to me. I ... you know I still—"
"Thanks,” he said, and hung up. “Bitch."
"Becker."
"What!” Becker rubbed his stubbled face. “Christ, kid. Give me a break."
"Sorry,” Jeff said. “You need to see this."
* * * *
The hotel had been less then twenty minutes away from the house with all the dead kids.
Becker parked a good two miles from the news vans and flashing emergency vehicles. The gawkers and hillbillies of Orchard City were out in full force. A helicopter swooped overhead again, already broadcasting images of carnage over FOX News. The same images and scrolling blue headlines Jeff had noticed: 9 BELIEVED DEAD. TEENAGERS. MASS MURDER IN ORCHARD CITY.
Becker flashed his Defense badge twice and that had been enough to get into the house. The FBI was another hour away, the guys in Grand Junction another ten minutes, and these rubes still hadn't locked the scene down yet. He looked like he knew what he was doing, so they simply left him alone.
Becker moved into the basement slowly, covering his nose and mouth with the top of his shirt. The whole house stank of ammonia. And blood. He could see where both had splashed and soaked the carpet as he stepped carefully into the butchery below. There were five bodies there. He'd passed four more on the stairs leading out to the front porch. They'd been cut. There wouldn't be the time to look any closer. Soon, someone would show up who knew he didn't belong there.
Downstairs, he found the boy in the clown outfit.
One more of his targets down. The face under the makeup was definitely the kid he knew from the files.
'John’ lay sprawled over a dead girl and had been stabbed half a dozen times. His throat was slit and the blood had pooled out below several of the other nearby bodies. The cuts were deep and had clearly been done with a strength Becker could barely imagine.
He knew immediately who'd killed the boy. He literally shuddered at the memory. Could still picture the dark man's retreating form. But this kid didn't shoot back, did he, asshole?
Becker pulled on gloves and inspected the body. Found two deep pockets in the side of the pants from which he retrieved a handful of twenties and a cell phone. He replaced the money and tucked the phone into his own pocket.
He patted the rest of the body. There was nothing else but a half-eaten bag of Combos. Becker looked around again. The head of one of the girls was twisted, angled crookedly to one side. But most of the others looked as if they'd been stabbed too.
More police had arrived.
He moved slowly from the house and back toward the car. His eyes moved over the crowd, again looking for a familiar face. Wondering what he'd do, what he could do, if he actually saw one.
He opened the cell phone he'd taken and checked the history. There were no text messages. A couple of short calls had been made. Ohio area codes. Toss away phones, he assumed. But another dozen calls had been made to the same New York number over the last five days. None of them had gone through.
Then, in received calls, the same number calling back.
And a ten minute chat.

Gotcha.

Becker unlocked his car door and slipped inside where Jeff clung to the shadows in the back seat.
"Was it them?” Jeff asked.
"Yeah. Here...” he handed the boy the cell phone.
"What's this?"
Becker started the car and pulled slowly away down the street. “I need you to make a call. Number's already there."
"Okay, Becker,” Jeff said, inspecting the phone. “Whatever you need. But who am I calling?"
Becker checked his rearview mirror. They were not being followed, and the flashing lights had already become a wine-colored blur in the distance. It looked like someone had misted Orchard City in blood.
"Your goddamn father,” he said.
* * * *
Past Colton and down Route 96 to Scofield, there is an isolated canyon known as “Winter Quarter,” where a coal-mine town thrived for two generations until the mine exploded May 1, 1900. Every available casket in Utah was shipped to Winter Quarter that week, and it was not enough. One hundred and ninety-nine men died that day. Burned, buried alive, or poisoned by the coal dust's afterdamp. The entire town was completely empty thirty years later.
While scouting the location, Becker had learned from the locals that the place was undeniably haunted—strange lights in the mines, the desperate wails of the dying men and their mourning wives—but he didn't care much about the ghosts tonight. Let the dead wail all they wanted.
Jacobson would be there. Becker assumed the geneticist had arrived first, that he was even now, despite Becker's best maneuvering, watching him.
Becker had kept Jeff back in the car again, a good mile back, then hiked over the fence and along the forsaken railroad grade past the dark canyon. It was moving in on midnight.
Below him, caved-in cellars and broken foundations were all that remained of Winter Quarter. There was one two-story building still standing, two of its stone walls completely collapsed, the others close, desperately clinging to the rotted frame beneath. Becker moved slowly along the top of the hill, watching every shadow below, keeping low, as the January winds whistled up the canyon toward him. The old mine was beyond the canyon and ruins at the top of a small hill, beneath him. He'd come in through the back.
Becker leveled his gun and moved toward the mine. He thought again of calling for backup. Jacobson was insane. And he might not be alone. But Becker had crawled into enough caves before. He could certainly handle this one more, capture Jacobson, and call it a day.
Mission over. Durbin and the others could take it from there. As for Jeff...
Becker couldn't afford to think about that now. He listened, then climbed slowly down an overgrown footpath toward the mine opening. Someone was just below, half lost within the opening of the mine.
"Dr. Jacobson,” Becker said, and cast his flashlight directly onto the shape.
The man stepped back from the light. He'd looked unarmed. Becker dropped down after him and kept the light on him, his finger ready on the trigger. Still, he reminded himself, I want this guy alive.
Jacobson shielded his eyes from the light. The tunnel moved only another fifteen feet back, and then the mine behind was completely boarded over. “The boss man,” Jacobson grimaced. “Yes?"
"Put your hands up where I can see them. Hands up!"
Jacobson did as he was asked as Becker scanned the rest of the mine's entrance. It appeared, except for the shifting doctor, completely empty. “Down now. On your knees. Do not move or I will shoot you. Understand?"
"Fine, fine.” Jacobson lowered slowly to the dirt floor. He grunted with the effort. “Who sent you? Where are the others?"
"All the way down,” Becker moved closer, checking behind him, keeping the light on the doctor's face. “Just relax. Relax. Everything is going to be fine."
"Of course. If you don't mind—"
"Down,” Becker closed the gap and drove the man's chest completely to the ground with his left hand and flashlight. “Easy now."
Jacobson's next words were mumbled, his face buried in dirt. “Of course...” Both arms were secured behind his back with two custody strips.
"Come on,” Becker lifted him up from the ground. “Time to go home."
"Home? Did DSTI send ... no...” He squinted against the light and studied Becker. “I recognize the breed. C.I.A., yes? Or Department of Defense."
"This way.” Becker led him to the mine opening.
"How did you ... Jeffrey told, didn't he? Where is Jeffrey?"
"Safe,” Becker said, pushing him ahead. “We want everyone safe."
Jacobson laughed.
"Something funny?"
"Safe. Coming from you,” Jacobson smiled. “From the kind of men you work for. It's, shall we say, ironic."
"Not interested in your bullshit, doc."
"I see,” Jacobson said. “But you are assuredly ‘interested’ in them. Yes?"
Becker followed the man's eyes. Below, down from the hill and standing at the edges of the ruined city, were three figures who were not the ghosts of the Winter Quarter miners.
Three. Narrow shapes. Looked young.

Shit.

"Who is that now?” Becker asked and pulled the doctor closer as a shield. He'd put on his vest for the arrest but wanted the extra barrier in case.
"John, I think,” Jacobson said. “John, Ted, and some of the others. I, well, I invited more than Jeffrey here tonight. I honestly thought we would be alone."
"How many others? John's dead, by the way."
"Is he?” Jacobson's voice sounded distracted, distant.
"Murdered last night. Throat slashed, stabbed a dozen times. Some people will want to talk to you about that, I'm sure."
"Me? No, no, not me. They'll want to talk to me about other things, I suppose. But not about John. Slashed, you say?” Jacobson chuckled softly.
"More irony, doctor?” Becker found that he was moving toward the bodies below, not away.
"I wondered if they would..."
"Would what?"
"You'll find out soon enough, agent. Or captain, is it?"
"Stand still.” They were now only fifty yards from the others. Becker recognized every one of them. He'd studied the files enough to recognize each face. Albert, Ted and...

Jeff!

No, he reminded himself, this was the other Jeffrey. Four years older, even.
Becker stuffed the flashlight into his jacket pocket and retrieved his cell. His gun was trained on the three boys who stood perfectly still. Waiting.
"Becker?” The Major General's voice came over the cell, calm and forgiving.
"I've got Jacobson. Get whoever you can to “Winter Quarter” mine outside of Scofield, Utah. Now. There are at least four more marks here. Copy?"
"Copy that, Captain. Air support out of Salt Lake in fifteen. Can you—"
"I'll manage."
"Fine work, soldier. Hey, kiddo, I wanted to—"
"Later,” Becker hung up.
"Your masters are pleased, yes?” Jacobson asked. “That's always important."
Becker shook him quiet. “I have a gun!” he called out to the others. Christ, it was freezing cold all of a sudden. “Is that understood?"
"'I've got a gun,'” one of the boys mimicked in a high-pitched silly voice. “Fuck you, asshole."
"And, if you move, I will shoot you."
"If you move, we'll shoot you,” one of the other voices said, and the other two laughed.
Becker pulled Jacobson even closer, tried to attach voices to the faces he'd come to know so well from file photos. It was always odd hearing their voices...
"Jacobson?” the one named Al shouted. “Who's this loser? You Jeffrey's new friend?"

Jeff?

"This is over,” Becker said. He was not sure if he'd meant it for the kids, Jacobson, or himself.
The teens giggled.
"It's over,” he said again, to Jacobson specifically now. He wanted someone, anyone, to agree.
"For me,” Jacobson said, “perhaps now. But ... over? No. This isn't over yet. Science without conscience is the soul's—"
"Save your bullshit for the shrinks,” Becker snapped. “I'm not interested.” Jacobson stilled and Becker looked over the dark horizon. It would be another twenty minutes, at least, before backup arrived. He needed to stall. “Quite a party you guys had the other night,” he shouted over at them. “The one back in Orchard City."
"Yeah, so? What the fuck do you care?"
"I don't, not really. Just an observation. Nine dead. You see it on the news?"
"Yeah, well. Wasn't us."
"We'd have killed sixty,” said another voice. It was Jeff.

No, not Jeff.

'Jeffrey,’ rather. Only another, older, version of the same mold. He'd sounded so much like the boy Becker knew...
"The Ammonia,” Becker tried. “Interesting idea..."
"What the fuck you know about it?"
"Enough. I also know about the family in Jefferson. And the woman in Diamond Springs."
"Yeah. You're some kind of fucking genius, aren't ya?"
"I've been told.” Becker decided then that he would kill all three without blinking if one moved an inch. Jacobson was the key, though. Jacobson knew every turn this Hell had. The rest were only more collateral.
"You the guy who did John?” Al asked.
"No way,” Jeffrey said. “It ain't him."
"You're a dead faggot,” Al shouted.
Becker checked the horizon again. The kids would probably run when the copters were in sight. Run, he thought. They'll get you easy. Jacobson shifted in front of him. He'd mumbled something. It had sounded foreign, Latin maybe.
"You kill anyone today?” Becker forced the doctor still again and shouted back at the boys.
"Not yet,” the last boy spoke, finally. Ted. His voice had been deeper and more serious than the others. He'd meant it. He'd also drawn a gun.
"Easy there, tough guy,” Becker warned. “Put the gun down or I will end you."
"Then do it,” the teen said, stepping forward. “You think I really give a fuck?"
Becker reset his own pistol, aimed at the boy's head. “You don't,” he agreed. “I've read your files, asshole."
The kid stopped, smiled broadly. For a second, Becker thought the skin might actually split open against the ever-widening jaw. Almost as quickly, the smile vanished.
Ted turned, looking behind the other two into the ruined city. What was this? Becker tensed, scanning the surrounding shadows.
Jacobson mumbled something in Latin again, then moaned.
"What's that, doc?” Becker crouched closer behind him.
"He's here,” Jacobson said.
"Who—"
Then Becker knew, too.
He twisted instinctively, reacted to the sudden movement from his right. One of the shadows had leaped out at them.
Becker felt his entire body lift from the ground, weightless, reality suspended. He'd seen his attacker for only a second, felt the steel-fingered hand against his shoulder and rolled against the expected strike. Burning pain sank briefly into his lower back. He crashed to the ground on his side. Someone close was screaming. There were gun shots, not his own. Becker knew he'd been cut, and deep. But he'd rolled away from the blow and the vest had taken the worst of it. He scrambled onto to his knees, fought back up.
Someone stood directly between him and Jacobson.
The man was small and lean, almost completely lost against the night. The same guy from the motel room.
He lifted Jacobson by the throat up into the moonlight, as if studying him. The geneticist's feet kicked inches from the ground. Dark fingers had sunk deeply into Jacobson's neck, and a blade in the dark figure's right hand had already been jammed into the doctor's middle, helping to lift. The doctor's screeches were pitched too high, like the wails of a ghostly widow.
Becker put five bullets into the dark man's back.
The man stumbled forward with the impact but did not drop and, instead, heaved his arm sideways. Blood sprayed across the distance between them and splashed hot across Becker's face.
Jacobson literally split open from the middle.
The doctor's entire body buckled open to one side as his intestines burst from the gaping wound with a wet slurp. The corpse was tossed immediately to the ground as Jacobson's killer turned now to the others.
The boys.
It was going straight for the three boys. Becker could still see them sprinting back through the deserted town.

Do I let it go? Becker wondered. He felt the fresh wound burning in his back, thought of the dead kids he'd seen barely hours before.
He fired another burst of shots. Each hit and their rapport echoed through the canyon. Scare away all the ghosts, Becker thought, suddenly fighting to remain conscious. He'd lost so much blood already.
The thing—Becker could think of it as nothing else now—turned toward Becker. He emptied what little was left of the clip at its head.
It spun backwards against the force of the bullets, whirled to the ground with a screech that was not human. As quickly, it jumped back up and sprinted in a crouch away from Becker deeper into the ruins.
It was hurt. It had to be. Still, Becker had never seen anything move this fast before. It had almost completely vanished into the night's shadows. Becker ran closely behind, charged another clip.
He looked for the others. The three boys were gone. Or well hidden. Jacobson's killer moved more slowly now, only fifty yards away. It tottered ahead, stumbled, crawled on knees into one of the half-collapsed cellars.
It was hiding. Trying to, at any rate.
Becker had to admit, if he hadn't been looking, he never would have seen it. The dark figure was slumped against the far left corner of the shadow-filled cellar. It was twisted, misshapen, to hide itself better. Like a giant spider or a bat that was part human. And the long knife still glistened in the moonlight, like a single giant fang.
Becker emptied his second clip into the shape. All nine shots.
It buckled from the corner and rolled out from the shadows onto the floor. Becker reloaded his third and final clip and climbed down into the small cellar, using the collapsed rubble as stairs. There was no blood at all. Not that he could see.
He looked up, wondering if the copters would ever show up. Had Durbin sent that somehow? No. There hadn't been time.
He dared to touch it, to confirm what he already knew.
The man was dead. The thing. Whatever.
Becker stared for a while. He tried to make sense of what he was looking at.
The strange eyes, now fading in death. The narrow head and grotesque skin. Its flesh was already changing, fading to a sickly grey. Two gaping holes where the nose should be, the mouth...
Yet, still so eerily familiar. Becker could not tell how that was even possible. From his dreams, perhaps. Was that it?
He climbed slowly out from the dark cellar, leery of the others. Ted, Al, and Jeffrey. They were probably still running, though. He couldn't blame them.
Becker touched his side. It was wet and sticky with blood. He kept his hand against the wound and moved out of the canyon as fast as he could. His breaths were long and slow by the time he reached the top.
He could see two helicopters moving swiftly into the canyon from the west. He'd not heard them over his own ragged breathing.
Along the railway again, toward his car. He felt lightheaded, knew he'd lost too much damn blood. Knew well how much that took before he'd collapse.
He had a thought then, a memory.

So fucking familiar...

Then he saw his car and the thought carried away on the night's icy wind. He moved slowly toward it again, gun drawn.
"Jeff?” He checked the woods outlining both sides of the dirt road. “Jeff!"
The car's windows were busted out. Front and back. All four windows on the sides. They'd been having fun, Becker thought. Teasing their prey. Anger crawled through him.
The shattered glass lay everywhere. There was blood on one of the back windows. A paperback discarded in the back seat, Jeff's Flyers bag in a heap in the front. The tire tracks of a second car were furrowed deep in the dark ground
They'd taken him. Jeff's “brothers."
Becker rested against the front of the car, blew his breath out in small grey clouds against the cold. The ghosts of Winter Quarter mine whispered in the distance. Or maybe it was the helicopters.
Becker didn't know which. He didn't care.
He just knew he had another boy to find.
To be concluded in our next issue
December, 2007



Jennifer Pelland lives outside of Boston with an Andy and three cats. Her short fiction has appeared in several issues of Apex Digest, as well as Helix, Strange Horizons, Electric Velocipede and others. Her first short story collection is forthcoming this spring from Apex Books, and will include two previously unpublished stories. Visit her on the web at www.jenniferpelland.com.
WHAT TO EXPECT WHEN EXPECTORATING
by Jennifer Pelland
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USE ONLY AS DIRECTED.





Visit www.apexdigest.com for information on additional titles by this and other authors.



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