The House on Guard Hill Road

This publication copyright 2015 by Black Matrix Publishing LLC and
individually copyrighted by artists and individuals who have contributed to
this issue. All stories in this magazine are fiction. Names, characters and
places are products of the authors' imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any
resemblance of the characters to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely
coincidental. Encounters Magazine is published bi­monthly by Black Matrix
Publishing LLC, 1339 Marcy Loop Rd, Grants Pass, OR 97527. Our Web site:
www.blackmatrixpub.com
ABOUT OUR COVER ARTIST
Gary McCluskey
Gary McCluskey has been working as an artist for over 20 years doing everything from book covers, comic books, magazine illustrations, rpg artwork, logo design and greeting cards. We are happy to have his art grace our cover
for the fourth time. You can find his contact information and browse his gallery and other links at:
http://garymccluskey.carbonmade.com/
ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE
Volume 03 April/May 2015 Issue 13
Table of Contents
THE MOWER by M. B. Vujacic – Page 5
BROKEN CITY by Chuck Augello – Page 25
THE JULIUS DIRECTIVE by Jacob Lambert – Page 41
THE HOUSE ON GUARD HILL ROAD by Sean McLachlan – Page 62
FORTY­FOUR NORTH by Robert Steele – Page 86
THE TREES OF GAIA by Anna Sykora – Page 104
THE GLASS EYE by John Buentello and Lawrence Buentello – Page
121
PUBLISHER: Kim Kenyon
EDITOR: Guy Kenyon
From the Editor's Desk
As I'm sure you have noticed, on our back issue page of our
website, the first four issues of Encounters are not available.
You can now find them in PDF format on issuu.com.
The first four editions of Encounters were originally
designed as print publications. They were large format, perfect
bound magazines that contained 70,000 to 120,000 words of
fiction per issue. We are still very proud of their quality and
content, but we realized it was not going to be possible to
sustain the production cost, so we made the switch to a digital
format, which has been more successful for us.
A story achieves its greatest value when it is read. With that
thought in mind, we have concentrated on placing the work of
our authors and artists in front of as many people as we can
and this issue of Encounters will be emailed to, downloaded,
and read online by more than 1000 people. Our goal is to at
least double that readership by the end of this year.
That is one of the reasons we have taken the additional steps
to post all editions of Encounters on issuu.com. Readers can go
to the site and have access to all copies, including #1 through
#4, in their Web browser, or (for a better reading experience)
download the Issuu app for Android, iOS and Windows tablets
and mobile devices. Of course, you can also continue to
download most back issues and all new releases from our
website at www.blackmatrixpub.com.
We have watched Encounters become a truly international
endeavor over the past year with our writers, artists and
readers hailing from all parts of the globe. We are working to
continue that trend and look forward to what the future may
hold for our favorite fiction magazine.
Guy Kenyon
Encounters Magazine
03/11/2015
ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE
Issue #13
THE MOWER
by M. B. Vujacic
"C'mon Jun," Slade said. "Hop in."
If Junior heard him, he didn't show it. He leaned
against the open door, staring into the car. His eyes were
wide, his lips curved up at the corners. He ogled the
touchscreen on the dashboard, the matte­black leather
seats with their dual safety belts, the chrome wheel with
its handholds made of anti­perspiration rubber. He
glanced at Slade. The garage lights made his acne blood­
red. "Dad, this is awesome! Holy shit!" Slade smiled. "Get in. My shift's about to start."
Junior sat in the passenger seat, slipped on the safety
belts. He fumbled with the latches for a few moments
before clicking them into place, then slid his fingers over
the dashboard. He looked like he was about to start
giggling. Slade chuckled. So much for the notion that
teenagers were impossible to please. Slade tapped a button on the touchscreen. There was a
series of thuds as half a dozen bolts slid into place,
followed by the soft buzz of closing windows and the hiss
of the air­purifier starting up. He tapped another button
and the lights in the garage went off. The gate began to
rise.
The glare­sensors activated as Slade drove out into the
street, dimming the windshield and the windows until the
sun became a dull gray ball. He said, "Quiet now," to
Junior, and pressed the Talk button on his headset. "One­
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oh­seven, moving out." "Roger, one­oh­seven. Good hunting."
"You bet."
As they drove through the suburbs, pedestrians stopped
what they were doing and moved away from the road.
Some even stepped onto the nearby lawns, keeping their
children behind them. Cars changed lanes to get out of
Slade's path, or turned into parking spaces and stayed
there until he passed. He kept his speed between twenty­
five and thirty miles per hour, enjoying the cruise. Junior
fidgeted, but Slade ignored him. Sooner or later, a
criminal would show up and then Jun would get all the
speed he could ever want.
Sure enough, they soon spotted one near the old
shopping mall; the one with all the sex shops and thrift
stores. The neighborhood was quiet but for a loudspeaker
broadcasting the Marshal's speeches. The criminal in
question was a girl of about sixteen, dressed in a black
shirt and bermuda shorts. She walked across a four­lane
intersection, ignoring the red light as she skimmed
through the magazine in her hands. Tabloid junk,
probably, Slade thought. She must've skipped classes to
come here, the little skank. “Dad,” Junior shouted, pointing at the criminal.
“There's one! On the intersection!”
“I see her,” Slade said, pressing the clutch and giving
the gas pedal just enough pressure to make the engine
growl. Junior squealed with joy. “Oh my God! Oh Jesus! This is
so cool!”
“Hold on,” Slade said, “you might feel a little bump.”
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He began releasing the clutch and laying on the gas, and
just like that they were pushing eighty, the force of the
acceleration pressing them into their seats. Pedestrians
scattered every which way and horns blared from all sides
as the treasonous bastards in the other cars tried to warn
the criminal. Your time will come, assholes, Slade thought,
and pressed the big red button next to the wheel. There was a clatter like a hundred swords being drawn
simultaneously. Then the seventy­five saws, blades, and
grinders that comprised the reel cutter at the front of the
vehicle sprung to life, spinning and stabbing and slicing
fast enough to turn the entire contraption into a silvery
blur. “Yeeeeeehhhhhaaaaawwwwww!” Junior shrieked.
The girl saw them. She dashed toward the sidewalk, the
magazine falling from her hands. There was a scream and
a bang as Slade ran her over, followed by an earsplitting
roar as she was yanked into the reel cutter. The high­
powered vacuums behind the cutter kicked in, sucking in
her remains, storing them for later disposal. “Oh my God, dad, that was incredible!” Junior shouted.
“It ate her whole! That's the coolest thing I've ever seen!”
He leaned forward, trying to see through the blood­
splattered windshield. The wipers and the sprinklers
activated automatically, scrubbing the glass until it was as
clean as if they'd just left the car wash. Slade threw the gear into reverse, pulling back into his
own lane. Some of the heads in the other cars turned to
watch him pass, their expressions ranging from fear to
anger to despair. Most, however, stared at the crimson
splotch next to the sidewalk. From the loudspeaker, the
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Marshal told everyone that the survival of this great
nation depended on its people's willingness to report any
dissident talk to the authorities. They drove past the shopping mall and made their way
to the riverside. The hobos scavenging among the piles of
trash on the shore watched them cruise by. They found no
criminals there ­ none Slade was authorized to punish
anyway ­ so they headed back to the suburbs. Forty­five
minutes later, he decided they wouldn't find any criminals
there, either, so he parked at the curb and unpacked their
breakfast. “How old's this thing?” Junior asked through a
mouthful of sandwich.
“Two years. Got it straight from the assembly line.”
“Awesome.” “This one's a KS­407. It's good, but the old 306 was
better. It had a slower start and its vacuums tended to
clog up, but it had a broader cutter, so you could­” Junior pointed over Slade's shoulder. “Criminal!” he
said, spraying breadcrumbs. Slade spun around. A man stood in the middle of the
street, a hundred or so yards from where they parked,
waving a picket sign with MARSHAL LIES written on it in
red letters. He was tall and athletic, his tanned limbs
looking almost roasted next to his white shirt and shorts.
He wore a black and white mask. “Son of a bitch,” Slade whispered. “Is he a roadrunner, dad? He is, isn't he?”
“It's goddamn Mickey,” Slade said as he dumped his
sandwich into Junior's lap and wiped his mouth with his
sleeve. He grabbed the wheel and stepped on the gas. The
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tires screeched. Mickey flung the picket sign aside and sprinted down
the street, arms pumping. He could've run onto the
sidewalk and into a garden at any time, but he stayed in
the middle of the lane. Slade drove after him, activating
the reel cutter even though Mickey was still a good
distance away. Mickey reached an intersection, turned left, and dashed
past another criminal, this one a woman with an Elvis
mask. She stood on the crosswalk despite the red light. A
pair of empty plastic gas cans lay at her feet. She dropped
the mop she was holding and ran toward the sidewalk.
Slade considered going after her, then thought Fuck it and
swerved toward Mickey, barely missing an oncoming
truck as he cut across the intersection. He ran over the two gas cans. The cutter ripped them
apart and scattered the pieces. Mickey glanced over his
shoulder, then threw himself to the side, rolling on the
asphalt like a goddamn stunt man. Slade shouted
incoherently and veered toward him. Every hair on his
body rose in anticipation. This was it. Mickey was toast.
Only ten yards now.
Nine. Eight. Seven.
Si­
The car skidded past Mickey, missing him by a few feet.
Slade spun the wheel, but the vehicle kept sliding,
completely out of his control. Then he saw the parked
cars up ahead and quickly switched the reel cutter off.
Time seemed to slow down as the cars came closer closer
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closer in what felt like total silence despite Junior's
screams. It's July, Slade thought, where did this damn ice come
fro­
They slammed into a parked jeep at what must've been
at least sixty miles per hour. Even inactive, the reel cutter
ripped through the jeep's side like a jackhammer through
cheap concrete. It pushed it onto the sidewalk, through a
picket fence, and into a veranda with enough force to
reduce both the jeep and the veranda to debris. Slade and
Junior gasped as the impact drove them chest­first into
their safety belts, and then the cabin filled with airbags
and car alarms went off all over the place. When he could breathe again, Slade unstrapped their
belts and checked Junior's pulse. It was strong, thank
God. He considered giving his son's ear a pinch to wake
him up, and decided it could wait. He deflated the
airbags, pressed the Talk button, and requested
assistance. A crowd gathered outside. They didn't appear
hostile, but Slade still donned his helmet and cocked his
service pistol, just in case. Mickey and the Elvis whore
were nowhere to be seen. A riot squad arrived fifteen minutes later. Slade waited
for them to disembark from their APC and form a cordon
around his vehicle before he lowered the helmet visor and
stepped out. Junior remained inside.
Slade cursed. The reel cutter looked like it had eaten a
grenade. Most of its blades were bent or broken, with
chunks of jeep stuck between the saws and the grinders.
Police insurance should cover most of it, but...
"Was it a roadrunner, sir?" the riot sergeant asked.
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Slade nodded. "Yeah. Mickey."
"You know him, sir?"
“Not his real name. But he always wears a Mickey
Mouse mask," Slade said. When he saw the sergeant's
blank expression, he added: "It's a character from a
cartoon they used to make when I was a kid.” "Do you think he planned­"
"What are you, a wannabe detective? Call a tow truck
and get me the hell outta here."
"Sorry, sir," the sergeant said. He began talking into his
headset: "Requesting transportation for model KS­407
Perdition Class Sentinel, transferring coord­"
"What?" Slade said. "What did you call it?"
"I, ah, Perdition Class­"
"Shut up. You know damn well nobody calls it that. Its
real name. Say it."
The sergeant licked his lips. "The mower."
Slade snorted. "Fucking A. Doesn't that make you feel
better already?"
The Marshal first announced the Traffic Law
Enforcement Program during the early 2030s, shortly
after he came into power. Its official purpose was to
address the growing problem of traffic­related accidents
in major cities by taking a more radical approach to
enforcing traffic laws. Its unofficial goal, revealed years
later when a foreign newspaper interviewed one of the
Marshal's exiled lovers, was to put an end to the one thing
the Marshal loathed above all else: jaywalking.
Whatever the truth, military­grade Hummers with
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dozer blades attached to their fronts appeared on the
streets just months after the announcement. A man of few
words, the Marshal introduced them simply as “the
mowers,” and the name stuck. Over the years, various
factions lobbied to change it to something more
sophisticated, and while some of the proposed names
gained popularity and even found a home in legal speech,
in the public's mind both the vehicles and their drivers
would always be known by their original moniker. Now, halfway through the 2050s, though the dozer­
Hummers had long since been retired in favor of more
advanced vehicles, the laws governing the mowers had
remained the same. Any mower who spotted a jaywalker
was required to dispense capital punishment on the spot
by running the culprit over. A fleeing culprit could be
pursued onto the sidewalk and into parking lots, but no
further. Escaped culprits became the responsibility of the
local police force. For safety reasons, the identities of the
mower drivers were treated as a state secret, known only
to certain high ranking Party officials. The first roadrunners appeared less than a year after
the mower branch was founded. Motivated by huge bets,
an adrenaline addiction, or plain old insanity, these men
and women deliberately jaywalked where mowers could
see them, leading them on merry chases before escaping
where vehicles couldn't follow. The majority were either
killed by the mowers they baited, caught by the police, or
wise enough to quit while they were still ahead. Those
few roadrunners who didn't die or retire became famous
both on the Internet and among the mowers themselves. As the most successful roadrunner in the city's history,
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with over five years of activity, Mickey was one such
living legend. Videos of his road runs, not to mention
Party­bashing articles he supposedly wrote, infested the
Internet no matter how hard the government worked to
suppress them. He was also the only roadrunner Slade ­
the department's most decorated mower driver ­ had
failed to so much as graze. There had, of course, been no ice on the street on the
day Slade and Junior crashed into the parked jeep. The
Elvis slut had spilled two gas cans worth of engine oil on
the asphalt, and Mickey had lured Slade onto the puddle.
They'd even mixed other chemicals into the oil to make it
more slippery. For years Slade had fantasized about the
day when he'd finally be able to say: "Mickey's down. I
repeat, Mickey's a dead rat. Can I hear a hallelujah?" Even
so, it had never been truly personal. Now, though? Now it
was personal as all hell. For three weeks Slade spent most of his free time at the
station, watching hours upon hours of governmental
surveillance footage taken by the cameras in the general
area around the intersection where Mickey and his whore
had set up their trap. His colleagues questioned his sanity
and his wife accused him of having an affair, but they
could all go suck a fat one because Slade was right. He
proved it when, grinning like a jackal, he strolled into the
Chief of Police's office and dropped a handful of stills on
the desk.
The Chief looked at them, frowning. "You know who
this is?"
"Database says her name's Leah Williamson."
"You know who her parents are?"
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Slade shook his head.
"Benjamin and Lydia Williamson. He's one of the
leading oncologists in the country and she's a dean of
medicine with eight books and God knows how many
charities to her name. They've been Party members for
over thirty years."
"You're joking."
"Also, Leah is their only child. And a member of
Marshal's Youth."
"She's a goddamn roadrunner. She wrecked my mower,
for Christ's sake."
"I don't care, we're not reporting her."
"You can't be seri­"
"No, you can't be serious if you think I'm gonna
prosecute a Party affiliate with no previous offenses."
Slade threw his hands up. "She's gonna do it again."
"And you're free to run her over when she does, but
that's it. No courts, no arrests, none of that crap." The
Chief took off his glasses and gave Slade a hard stare. His
gray eyes looked dead. "The last thing this department
needs is another scandal, you understand?"
Slade snorted. He understood, all right. He returned to
his desk and dialed a number, studying the stills while it
rang. They showed Leah Williamson emerging from an
alley with Mickey at her side. Her expression was all
serious, her brown hair tied in a bun, the Elvis mask
hanging upside down from her hand. Just a little girl
playing cowboy. The phone clicked. "Yeah?"
"Hey Gina," Slade said. "About that money you owe
me... I think we can work something out."
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Leah Williamson was one busy girl.
For three weeks Slade and Gina had watched her,
hoping to get a lead on Mickey, but all they discovered
was that she had many places to be and even more people
to see. The only consistent thing about her daily routine
were her evening jogs. Sometimes she visited a local
football field and sprinted. Slade double­checked all her
associates, but found nothing of interest. Eventually, he
gave up and told Gina it was time for Plan B.
"So this Gina used to drive a mower, huh?" Junior said.
"Why did she stop?"
"The Chief had to fire her."
"What happened?"
Slade shrugged. "It wasn't her fault. The Department of
Transportation wasn't doing its job."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean some kids were crossing the street and Gina
thought they were jaywalking because the crosswalk was
so faded you couldn't see the stripes unless you were right
on top of them." He shrugged again. "Everyone knew it
was bull, but it was easier to fire her than ask why that
crosswalk hadn't been repainted in God knows how many
years."
They drove through an empty street, half a block from
where Leah Williamson lived with her parents. It was one
of those rich neighborhoods where every tree looked like
it had its own personal barber. It was so fancy the
loudspeakers listing the Marshal's accomplishments were
programmed to lower the volume after nine. 15
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Slade requested to be transferred to the night shift the
moment he learned of Leah's penchant for evening jogs.
When asked why, he told the Chief he needed a change of
scenery. The Chief scoffed at that, but granted the request
anyway. "Dad, is that her?" Junior said, pointing. A brunette in shorts and a sleeveless shirt stood at an
intersection, about a hundred yards away. Her hair hung
in a ponytail, her back turned to them. She waited for the
green light.
Slade nodded. "Right."
"She's hot."
"Shut up, Jun." He reached for his smartphone. Gina picked up on the first ring. "I see her," she
whispered. "Go for it, girl," he said, and hung up. Up ahead, the light turned green. Leah crossed the
street and turned right. Slade drove up to the intersection
as if intending to take a left, careful to position the mower
so that the hood­mounted cameras wouldn't record what
was about to happen. There were no other cars in sight. Gina sprang from behind a large bush just as Leah
jogged past it. A stocky woman in her forties, with short
hair and a broad chest that made her look more
masculine than some men Slade knew, Gina brought her
baton down on Leah's arm with enough force to snap the
bone. Leah screamed, her hand flying to her shoulder, the
earbuds falling from her ears. Gina struck her across the
nose, then gave her the kind of push that would make a
football lineman proud. Leah stumbled into the street,
arms flailing. She was still trying to regain her balance
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when Slade ran her over. "Wooooooooooo!" Junior screamed as Leah's blood
painted the windshield red. "Dad, you have the best job
ever!"
Slade smiled. Another day, another victory for the
justice system.
A minor scandal arose.
Leah's parents tried their damnedest to raise a ruckus,
only to be drowned out by all the tabloids, newscasts, and
talk shows discussing how awful it was that a member of
Marshal's Youth could grow up to become a jaywalker.
The entire thing culminated with Benjamin and Lydia
Williamson's expulsion from the Party and their eventual
retreat to a life of anonymity. Slade himself never came under suspicion. The footage
from the hood­mounted cameras on his mower showed
Leah standing on what was clearly a vehicle­only road.
Her erratic movements suggested severe intoxication,
perhaps even narcotics abuse. Gina could be seen
watching from the sidewalk, an innocent bystander. She
told the police that Leah had indeed looked drunk. Her
status as an ex­mower driver kept her safe from regular
investigation, and her association with Slade remained a
secret. With no other witnesses and no surveillance
cameras at that intersection, there was nothing to suggest
foul play. A month after Leah's death, Junior announced his
intention to become a mower driver, like his dad. Slade
was so proud he bought a round of drinks for the entire
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bar. His joy died the next morning, when the following
message appeared on one of the illegal blogs supposedly
owned by Mickey:
To the mower who murdered Leah Williamson:
I know who you are.
I know what you did.
I will make you pay.
Sincerely,
M.
The Chief tsk­tsked. "You did something, huh? Who
would've thought," he said, giving Slade a wry smile. Slade frowned. "No way Mickey wrote that. It's just
some idiot spouting sensationalist bull to get people to
visit his blog." He really believed that, too. The Mower
Protection Program, combined with the reflective
windows and the absence of unique markings on the
mowers themselves, made sure the identities of the
drivers remained secret. The only way someone on the
outside could get that information was if they bribed an
important person or two. He doubted scum like Mickey
would even know who to bribe, let alone how to do it
without getting caught. Still, Slade took no chances. He requested an escort for
the first time in his career, and spent the next month
followed at all times by at least one car full of cops in
civilian clothes. Two weeks into this, he deliberately
adopted a set route and stuck to it. Mickey didn't take the
bait. During the two months after the escort was pulled,
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Slade never once let his guard down. He wore a
bulletproof vest under his uniform, avoided remote parts
of the city, and made sure he always had a shotgun within
easy reach. Nobody saw Mickey during this time.
Eventually, Slade decided enough was enough and that
he could start taking Junior to work with him again. Now it was late autumn, just another day at the
grinder. Slade and Junior cruised through a riverside
district, driving past a row of warehouses. It had been
raining all night and the streets were damp, the sky gray
and sunless. Junior thumbed through a law enforcement brochure,
frowning. "It says here I need a driver's license, a
psychological evaluation, completed basic training, a
bunch of college degrees, and five years as a traffic officer
before I can apply for a mower." Slade snorted. "They keep changing the requirements.
Back in my day, all you needed was a driver's license and
a job as a traffic cop."
Junior threw the brochure on the back seat. "At this
rate, they won't let me drive a mower until I'm, like,
thirty."
"You'll study hard."
"Yeah, but five years on the force."
"We might be able to speed things up. The Chief is a
friend of mine, and his cousin works at the recruitment
center. Maybe I can­"
Something thumped into the windshield, exploding into
a large red smear. For a moment, Slade wondered if he'd
accidentally ran over a dog or a pigeon or something,
then realized that couldn't be, because the reel cutter was
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turned off and­
Thump. A new smear bloomed next to the first one. "Is that a tomato?" Junior said, his eyes like saucers.
The culprit stood under a parking sign. He wore a
yellow tracksuit and a black ski­mask that left only his
eyes visible. A plastic bag lay at his feet. He took another
tomato from it and flung it at the mower. It struck the
driver­side door, splashing all over the TO PROTECT AND
SERVE sign. "Son of a whore," Slade said.
The roadrunner gave them the finger and kicked the
bag, spilling tomatoes onto the sidewalk. Then he took
off, sprinting past the mower and back in the direction
they'd come from. Slade threw the gear in reverse and
spun the wheel, turning the mower around. By then the roadrunner had already reached the
opposite side of the street. He could've ran onto the
sidewalk and up the nearby fire escape, but he stayed in
the rightmost lane, scum that he was. He glanced over his
shoulder just in time to see the reel cutter come to life, its
blades spraying rainwater, so close they were about to
start cutting strips from his ass. Abruptly, the roadrunner leaped to the right, grabbed a
lamppost, and swung around it like an acrobat. Slade
swerved onto the sidewalk, realized the Chief would tear
a chunk out of his paycheck if he took down a lamppost,
and quickly steered back into the street. The roadrunner
dashed past them, arms pumping, surefooted despite the
wet asphalt. He made it across the street again and
sprinted toward an alley between two warehouses. Slade
smiled. It looked narrow, but not so much that a mower
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couldn't go through. The roadrunner reached the passage with a twenty yard
lead. The pavement there was cracked and filled with
rainwater, forming a puddle that seemed deep enough to
bathe in. The roadrunner leaped over it, then dashed
toward a fire escape ladder on one of the warehouses. "Oh no you don't," Slade said, and stepped on the gas.
The engine roared.
"Dad, watch out! The water, there's­"
Slade saw it a split second later. He slammed on the
brakes, but it was too late. They drove straight into the
passage and over the puddle. A spike strip, its teeth
poking out just above the water's surface, tore into the
tires with a sound like a machine gun burst. The mower
skidded, its side grinding against the warehouse wall,
raining sparks. Junior shrieked. The roadrunner leaped again, grabbed the ladder, and
scurried up up up, like a spider scaling a wall. The mower
kept moving toward him, carried by its own momentum,
but he bent his legs at the last instant, the spinning blades
missing his feet by a hand's width. The mower passed
under the ladder and came to a stop. Slade howled incoherently, then started banging his fist
on the steering wheel.
"Jesus­"
Bang.
"­fuckin'­"
Bang.
"­cocksuckin'­"
Bang.
"­Christ!"
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He let out another howl, then looked at Junior. "Jun?
You okay?"
Junior swallowed, nodding. His eyes glistened with
tears. Slade unlocked the safety belts. "I can't believe this shit,
Jesus Christ, he­"
Something struck the roof hard enough to make Slade
flinch. It rolled down the windshield and onto the hood,
coming to a stop when it hit the hood­mounted cameras.
It was about the size of a football, and it had a face ­ a
white one with round black ears and a wide toothless
smile. Its empty eye sockets stared at Slade.
How did it hit the roof so hard? Slade thought. It's just a
rubber mask, it's not heavy, it­ His mouth fell open. He could see wires and other
things inside the mask. They distorted its features, making
it look like Mickey Mouse had tumors under his skin. "Take cover!" Slade screamed, and yanked Jun down,
thinking: We got an inch of plating, that bomb isn't gonna do shi­
Mickey locked the door and flipped the light switch. The naked bulb on the ceiling flashed and died with a
sound like glass cracking, leaving the room in shadows.
He looked at it for a few seconds, then kicked off his
running shoes and went into the bathroom. There, he
removed his wet clothes piece by piece and dropped them
into the laundry basket. He took his ski­mask out of the
tracksuit pocket and just stood there for awhile, holding it
in his hands. 22
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The apartment was a one­room affair, all bare walls
and naked parquet floors with a piece of furniture here
and there. The curtains were drawn, their yellowish
surface riddled with cigarette burns made by previous
tenants. The air smelled of old wood, rotten plaster, and
other things not so gladly mentioned. A photocopy of a
police file lay on the couch. A photo of Slade was stapled
to the first page, with CLASSIFIED stamped on its corner.
Mickey took the smartphone from the night table and
texted a single word ­ Done ­ to Leah's father. He didn't
need to do that ­ they'd see it on the news, if they hadn't
already ­ but without Benjamin and Lydia Williamson's
wealth and influence, he never would've discovered the
name of Leah's killer, let alone funded this venture. Mickey tore up the Slade file and threw the pieces into
the toilet. "I hope it's scalding down there," he told the
pieces as they disappeared down the drain. Then he took
the bottle of tequila Leah had left there almost six months
ago, and poured himself a glass. Mickey picked up the remote and turned on the TV,
changing the channels until he found the news. The
newscast showed a bird's eye view of the two warehouses.
Smoke rose from the wreck in the alley between them.
Firefighters had managed to put out the fire, but the
detonation had damaged the walls enough to make the
entire alley unsafe. Riot squads had formed a cordon
around the two warehouses to keep pedestrians away. "­no survivors. It is as yet unknown if this was an isolated
incident or a deliberate act of terrorism. The police are still
trying to identify the explosive device used. Experts claim
that only military­grade weaponry could inflict this level of
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damage on a Perdition Class Sentinel, model KS­407,
considered to be the­"
Mickey turned off the TV. His eyes went to the only
piece of decoration in the apartment ­ a digital photo
frame on the mantelpiece. It showed Leah and him
standing up to their knees in snow, a blue sky spread like
a canvas behind them. Leah was resting her head against
his shoulder. She was smiling. Mickey raised the glass. "Happy birthday, baby," he told
the photo, before downing the tequila. He poured himself
another glass, and another, and kept going until the
shadows had deepened and he could no longer bear to
look at Leah's smile. So he turned the TV back on,
changing the channels until he found the Marshal's smug
face. Then, in a voice slurred with intoxication, he
whispered the ghastliest insults he could think of. Outside, the loudspeakers blared on and on. Mijat Budimir Vujačić is an economist by trade, storyteller at heart. He is a
published author of three horror novels written in Serbian: Krvavi Akvarel,
NekRomansa, and Vampir. One of his stories appeared in a recent
professional anthology Silent Scream, and another in the January 2015
issue of Infernal Ink Magazine. He believes a strong work ethic is the root of
all success, and that it is best to err on the side of action. A fan of all things
horror, he is also an avid gamer, hobby blogger, staunch dog person, hookah
enthusiast, and a casual tarot reader. He lives in Belgrade, Serbia. You can
reach him via e-mail: [email protected] or follow him on twitter at:
https://twitter.com/MBVujacic
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BROKEN CITY
by Chuck Augello
Eventually Maggie stopped talking about it. No one believed her anyway, and in the days after the
attack people didn’t want to hear it. Her manager
Stephanie, who Maggie thought she could confide in, had
slapped her across the face when she mentioned it,
screaming that she could find a new place to work if she
ever said it again. Perhaps it was understandable—
Stephanie’s brother­in­law had been a trader at Cantor
Fitzgerald—but even those with no relation to any of the
victims found it appalling. So Maggie kept her mouth
shut even though nothing had changed. She could still
see the dead floating over Manhattan, three thousand
bodies hanging in limbo above the broken city, a mass of
corpses bearing witness to the fear and chaos below. Most nights Maggie joined the candlelight vigils down
at Ground Zero, hoping that all the love and sorrow
displayed by the mourners might help the dead find
solace and release their frightened souls. It was the first
time in the two years since she’d moved to New York that
she felt part of something outside herself, part of a
community instead of just another pretty young actress­
waitress hustling for auditions that never arrived.
Sometimes the other mourners hugged her, shared a
thermos of coffee or helped her light a candle with a
flame from their own. Maggie said little but listened
closely, hoping someone, anyone, might admit that they
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too saw the dead whenever they looked toward the sky.
On the fifth night of the vigil another young woman
joined Maggie by the barricade. Her name was Lindsay;
she worked in a boutique on Fifth Avenue and played
occasional gigs with her band at a club down in
Williamsburg. Maggie knew the club, had been there
once on a date. They talked about music and clothes and
cool places to hang out, all those things that had seemed
crucial a few days before but now felt trivial, almost
stupid. Still, it felt good to talk about something other
than the dead, as if the old normal might somehow sneak
back into their lives. After an hour they decided to get
something to eat at the Lebanese place on Fulton, and
while they walked Lindsay confessed that her fiancé was a
cop who’d gone into the Tower and hadn’t come back.
“There’s still a chance, you know?” Lindsay said. “I
heard someone say there might be air pockets within the
rubble, places where you could stay alive for days. So he
might be okay. Darren can hold his breath underwater
for almost two minutes.”
Though most businesses were still closed the streets
were crowded with pedestrians, people gathered in small
circles gazing toward Ground Zero, sharing names of lost
loved ones as if naming could somehow bring them back.
Maggie and Lindsay walked briskly toward the corner.
“I’m feeding his snake until he comes home. I hate that
damn thing—it’s why we don’t live together. He told me
he’d find it a new home before the wedding but it’s hard
because those things live for forty years. But I still feed it
because, you know, I love him.”
Lindsay started crying, and they ducked under an
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awning while she blew her nose and rubbed away the
mascara trails. Maggie looked up at the sky, wondering if
Darren was up there with the rest of the dead. They were
too far away for her to see faces but she could make out
body shapes and clothing: the sharp business suits, the
kitchen whites, the heavy protective gear of the first
responders. Lindsay shared a photograph on her cell and
Maggie studied Darren’s face. At home she had a
telescope with 300X magnification, a present from her
grandfather on their family trip to Yellowstone. With the
scope she could make out individual faces; she would
search for Darren in the morning with the sky at its
brightest.
At the restaurant they ordered taboulleh and a hummus
platter. A large American flag hung over the window,
hiding the shattered glass; the waiter, dark­skinned and
Middle Eastern, watched the patrons with jittery eyes, a
pair of tiny American flags pinned to his shirt.
Every few minutes Lindsay checked her phone, hoping
someone might call about Darren.
“I heard they found a parking attendant trapped inside
a car, still breathing,” she said. “So you never know,
right?”
As they waited for the check Maggie offered to help
Lindsay feed Darren’s snake.
“I worked in a pet store during high school. It’s no big
deal.”
They agreed to spend another hour at Ground Zero and
then catch the F train to Darren’s apartment. As they
grabbed their purses, ready to leave, an old woman
rushed to their table. Swaddled in black like an old world
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widow, she was gaunt, grey­skinned, and had crazy in her
eyes. A pus­filled scab scarred the center of her nose, a
strand of white hair growing out of it, curling toward her
cheek.
“He’s out there, and he’s hungry,” she told them,
grabbing Maggie’s jacket and pulling at the zipper before
Maggie pushed her away. “There’s a hole in the world
now, and from that hole he emerges. Young, pretty flesh,
he feeds on it. He’ll make you his own.”
Maggie turned her back but the old woman spun
around, blocking the exit.
“You know, don’t you?” the old woman hissed. She
pointed at Lindsay. “She doesn’t see, but you see
everything. He feeds on it.”
Maggie’s heart nearly stopped. Did the old woman
know? Ever since her first glimpse, Tuesday afternoon,
all those bodies floating in the sky, Maggie had wondered
why she was the only one who could see them. There had
to be others, didn’t there? Could the old woman see
them, too?
“You—get away from my customers!” the waiter said,
running over and batting the old woman with a
dishtowel. “I said you can stay but stop talking that shit!
Get back in your booth, now!”
He hit the old woman with the towel again, snapping it
against her backside while Maggie and Lindsay watched,
stunned.
“He’s coming for you!” the old woman cried, stepping
back to avoid a second snap of the towel.
“What the fuck?” Lindsay said, looking toward the old
woman, who was back in her booth, huddled over her
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soup.
“She’s not right in the head but she’s family. I can’t kick
her out,” the waiter said. “Please, next time you come,
the meal is on the house.”
Lindsay grabbed Maggie’s arm and pulled her toward
the door. “We’re out of here.”
Once outside they laughed about it, just a crazy old
woman, but as they headed back toward Ground Zero a
couple they recognized from the restaurant, a man and
woman in their forties, smartly dressed, eminently
normal, rushed after them, catching up while the two girls
waited at a stop light.
“We heard that woman and wanted to warn you,” the
man said. “She’s bat­shit crazy, definitely, but she might
not be wrong.”
The traffic light turned and Maggie started walking, but
Lindsay held her back.
“What do you mean?”
“We’ve heard that some really bad stuff has started
happening.” The woman clutched her purse while the
man nodded gravely beside her. “The police and the
media won’t talk about it because everyone’s already
freaked out. I mean, isn’t that…” She pointed toward
Ground Zero. “… Isn’t that horror enough? But people
have found bodies …and body parts…with bite marks on
them, the flesh torn apart...my uncle works for the City
Morgue down on First—just be careful, okay?”
“They’re saying that the attack…ripped a hole in the
world and something evil broke through,” the man said.
Maggie looked at the sky and watched the dead drifting
in waves above the city. They floated in lines, in patterns,
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like migrating birds.
The couple hustled off to hail a cab and Maggie and
Lindsay returned to Ground Zero. They stood by the
barricades holding their candles, silently praying. Maggie
recognized many of the gathered faces but now things
seemed different, a sinister leer having crept into the eyes
of everyone around her. It’s all in my head, she thought.
The couple and that woman in the restaurant were
frightened and gullible, yet how was a hole in the world
any stranger than seeing three thousand dead bodies
hovering over Manhattan?
He feeds on it.
Am I somehow part of this? Maggie wondered.
Lindsay held up a photograph of Darren and pointed it
toward the site, closing her eyes and dropping her head as
she murmured into her chest. Maggie looked at the
photograph and tried to memorize the detail—a dark­
haired, broad shouldered young man posing proudly in
police blues, his wide smile showing a slight overbite, his
eyebrows a bit too thick, yet handsome and vibrant and
thoroughly alive. She touched the photo, her fingers
brushing Lindsay’s hand, and the two girls gazed at the
wreckage, all that twisted steel and metal, the air still
heavy with ash.
They walked toward the train station, avoiding eye
contact as they strode down the block.
“Were you serious about helping me feed Otto?”
Lindsay asked. “I mean—Darren’s snake.”
It seemed the least Maggie could do, considering
Lindsay’s plight. They descended the stairs into the
subway and waited for the next train. Even in normal
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times Maggie remained vigilant on the subway—women
couldn’t afford not to be, there were too many creeps out
there. She scanned the platform, the scattered
commuters, the hip­hop kids with their gigantic pants and
backward caps, the hipsters in their skinny jeans and
ironic blue work shirts, the fashion girls with impossible
heels, the typical scene, yet she couldn’t get those
words…body parts…ripped a hole in the world…out of her
head. She took a deep breath, leaned toward the edge
and stared into the dark tunnel, waiting for those twin
balls of light—the train’s eyes—to cut through the circle
of black.
“Do you believe in ghosts?” Lindsay asked.
The platform rumbled as the train pulled to a stop. The
doors slid open and the girls climbed aboard, grabbing
two seats at the back.
“We talked about it, you know, Darren and me,”
Lindsay said. “With him being a cop there was always a
chance of something bad happening. He didn’t believe in
anything like that but one time, when I was eight, I saw
my grandmother hanging laundry in the back yard. This
was a week after she died. I called my mother and she
looked out the window. Her face turned white. I swear
she saw grandma too but she couldn’t explain it so she
pretended that she didn’t.”
The urge to confess grew strong but Maggie resisted.
“I’ve seen things, too,” she said, knowing that, as soon as
they left the station, she would see them again. Yet she
kept this a secret.
“Darren’s dead, I know he is,” Lindsay said. “I’ll keep
thinking there’s a chance until they find his body but I
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know it’s true—he’s dead. But maybe I’ll see him again,
like I saw my grandmother. I just hope it’s something
different—my poor grandma, even as a ghost she was
doing chores. Maybe I’ll see Darren hanging out by the
pool in Cabo with a big­ass Margarita…that would be
sweet.”
Her eyes blurred with tears and Maggie squeezed her
shoulder, pulling Lindsay close, her new friend sobbing
softly against her as the train squeaked to a halt. At the
far end another woman sat crying, her expensive blazer
bunched up around her neck as she flipped through the
pages of Vogue quietly weeping.
Lindsay didn’t say much as they walked toward
Darren’s apartment, the streets strangely empty once they
left the avenue. Even the corner bodegas were dark and
shuttered; giant bugs hovered below the street lights,
buzzing and swirling. Maggie kept her eyes at ground
level, avoiding the sky. At night the dead became ink
blots, amorphous shapes instead of people; it was best not
to look.
A stray dog ran toward them on the sidewalk, a dirty­
looking shepherd mix with something in its jaw. Lindsay
tensed, her legs freezing as the dog approached.
“He’s probably someone’s pet.” Maggie lowered her
voice in a calm, friendly tone. “Good boy, good boy.”
The dog slowed its gait, watching the girls with
trepidation, a low growl humming in its throat. Lindsay
moved behind Maggie, who kept saying, “good boy,
friendly boy.” The dog stepped closer. In its mouth was
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a severed human hand.
Lindsay screamed, and the dog turned and bolted, its
tail ramrod straight as it disappeared into the dark.
“Was that­­?”
“A piece of hamburger, I think,” Maggie said. “It was
nothing, really…”
“It was somebody’s hand!”
“It was a hamburger.” “Hamburgers don’t have fingers!”
“It’s too dark. We couldn’t see…” Maggie looked over
her shoulder, the dog long gone. “Come on, where the
hell is this apartment, anyway?”
“What if that woman was right about a hole being
ripped in the world?” Lindsay said. “There could be all
kinds of monsters out there.”
“The only monsters are the ones who hijacked those
planes.”
“Maybe they’re lying to us. Those planes were hijacked
by demons and they’re coming for us…”
“I don’t want to hear it,” Maggie said.
Had the whole world become a nightmare? Maggie
reached into her purse and grabbed a three­inch silver can
of pepper spray, a present from her mother. If that stray
dog or anything else came toward them, she’d be ready.
On the next block Lindsay pointed to a five­story
building on the corner.
“Darren lives in 4­B,” she said, and the girls cut across
the street.
As they wedged between two cars parked tight against
the sidewalk, Maggie spotted something moving behind
an old metal garbage can. Afraid it was that dog again
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she pushed Lindsay forward, a gentle, hurry­up nudge on
her new friend’s shoulder; Maggie quickened her pace—
the apartment was only twenty, thirty yards away. Again,
something moved, and the garbage can crashed against
the pavement, trash spilling out as a dark shape jumped
out in front of them.
Lindsay screamed, and Maggie pulled out her spray. “I’m here to protect you,” the man said. He was young,
with a baseball cap turned backward and a long trench
coat over black Converse sneakers. Sunglasses guarded
his eyes, and though he was tall, he stood hunch­backed,
his body turned sideways as if trying to see in all
directions. The girls stepped back. He had a hideous
smell, like wet garbage or something worse.
“Thank you but we’re fine,” Maggie said.
“My fiancé is cop. He lives on the corner. He’ll be here
any second,” Lindsay said.
“I don’t know what to do with this,” the man said.
From his coat pocket he pulled out a handful of thick,
sinewy strands slick with a red, dewy mucous. Intestines,
Maggie realized, and she covered her mouth, holding
back the vomit.
“I really don’t know but I’m here to protect you,” he
said. “From them. From him. You can spread your legs
now but you don’t have to, I’ll still love you.” He dropped the intestines and pulled out a knife. “It
belongs to us now…that’s what he said.”
“My fiancé is a cop…with a gun…” Lindsay said.
“Of course he is. I can’t wait to meet him.” The man
poked the bloody entrails with the tip of his sneaker, his
tongue moving over his lips. “These are his, I’m quite
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sure. Lucky fiancé, you’re so beautiful…” His tongue
flickered in and out, in and out, the intestines piled at his
feet. “Perhaps we’ll use these, pretty fiancé, and wrap
you like a present.”
He leaned over and picked up the intestines, scooping
them with his hands as he stared at the girls. Maggie
didn’t hesitate. She aimed the pepper spray and shot him
in the eyes.
The man jumped back, screaming, the intestines
spilling from his hands as he covered his face, stumbling
toward the garbage cans as Maggie and Lindsay ran
toward the corner. They didn’t look back—they could still
hear his screams as they climbed the stoop to Darren’s
building, Lindsay grappling for the keys as Maggie
clutched the pepper spray, ready for another attack.
The door opened and they ran inside, out of breath,
Lindsay slamming the door behind them as they rushed
into the foyer.
“That man…what’s happening to us?” Lindsay said.
Maggie capped the pepper spray and slipped it back in
her purse.
“Some nutcase,” she said. “We’re okay now.”
“He was holding someone’s guts. We need to call the
police.”
The elevator was out of order so they climbed the
stairs, the slap of their shoes echoing behind them.
Exhausted from the endless day, Maggie stopped on the
first landing, resting her hands on her knees as she took
deep breaths, blood rushing to her head as she grabbed
onto the railing, steadying herself.
“I’m okay,” she said, more to herself than to Lindsay.
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They waited a few seconds and then climbed the next
flight. On the third flight they thought they heard
footsteps following them below. The front door was
locked; no one but residents could get in, but Maggie
thought she smelled that rancid, wet garbage scent again,
and they pushed forward, almost running as they took the
fourth and last flight, the footsteps still trailing them,
heavier now, a steady one­two, one­two echoing over the
stairs.
“This is it,” Lindsay said. She pushed open the fire door
and entered the hallway, Maggie close behind as they
hurried toward Apartment 4­B. Lindsay turned the key
and jiggled the knob.
They entered the apartment and Lindsay flipped on the
lights. A small, messy room came into view—a sweatshirt
draped over the chair, sneakers upside down in the center
of the rug, beer cans and pizza boxes scattered about, all
the little things people leave for later never dreaming
they’ll never make it home.
Against the wall, coiled in the corner of a six­foot tank,
was Otto, a grey ball python basking under a heat lamp.
Lindsay diverted her eyes, turning toward the window.
“We always stayed at my apartment. No way could I
ever fall asleep know that thing was out here. Darren was
hoping his brother would take it before the wedding.
Now—”
“It’s okay,” Maggie said. “Where did he keep the…
food?”
In a smaller tank beneath the large one a white rat was
burrowed in a nest of pine shavings. As Maggie walked
toward the tank the snake, its skin mottled with dark
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spots, uncoiled and slithered toward the glass. Maggie
still heard the footsteps in the hallway outside, as if
someone, or something, were pacing beyond the door.
Her spine turned pins and needles as she reached into the
small tank and pulled out the rat.
“I’m going to wait outside,” Lindsay said. “We need to
call the police about that creep.”
A sliding glass door opened to an eight­foot deck
enclosed by a steel railing. The door slid wide and
Lindsay disappeared through the blinds as Maggie held
the rat in her palm, stroking it softly with her fingers
while Otto pressed against the glass. The snake’s eyes
stared at the frightened movement of the rat’s tail, back
and forth, and Maggie fought an impulse to tuck the rat
into her pocket and run from the apartment.
Everything’s changed, the snake told her, its voice like
steam released from a kettle, its head pressing against the
cover of the tank. Years ago she had fed the snakes at the
pet store and it was no big deal, but this snake, so much
larger than any she had worked with, seemed to want
more than the rat. It wanted her hand, her arm; it would
swallow her whole, and the rat, so small, so perfectly
doomed, shook with terror, its tail flicking against her
palm.
Everything’s changed, the snake hissed, and Maggie
knew it was true. Something dark, always lurking but
now broken through, would shadow the world going
forward. The dead, all those faceless victims floating in
the sky—they would always be there, a hole ripped in the
world, even if no one but Maggie would ever really see
them.
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The rat, nibbling at her sleeve, tried to sneak between
the fabric and her arm. The python slid up and down the
glass, its long body extended, its head pushing at the
edges of the tank, restless and hungry. He feeds on it; he’ll make you his own.
“Are you done yet?” Lindsay called from the deck. Something crashed against the apartment door and
Maggie almost screamed. Then suddenly she felt a
weight beside her, and when she turned she saw a
handsome young man in a blue uniform standing at her
side. Though she’d seen his photo only once she knew
that it was Darren, Lindsay’s fiancé returned home, his
eyes blank, his face pale; Maggie watched his chest and
saw the stillness of breath, his torso flat, unmoving. He
reached for her hand and grabbed the white rat, then
lifted the lid of the tank. Maggie couldn’t look. Darren—
Darren’s ghost—dropped the rat into the tank and in a
moment the python swallowed it whole.
She ran to the deck, pushing through the blinds.
Lindsay leaned against the railing, staring out into the
city, the scattered lights burning in the darkness.
“Thank you,” Lindsay said. “If Darren doesn’t come
home…fuck it, he’s not coming home…”
He’s home right now, Maggie almost said, but whatever
was in the apartment wasn’t really Darren. She heard
another crash against the front door and when she looked
back through the blinds she saw Darren—Darren’s ghost—
lifting Otto out of the tank. The snake wrapped around
Darren’s arm, draped over his shoulder. Perhaps Maggie
only imagined that she could see the poor little rat, still
moving, bulging in the python’s stomach.
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“Those bastards!” Lindsay said. “I never did anything
to them.”
She began to cry, her shoulders rising softly as she
sobbed, and Maggie hugged her from behind. The
banging on the door outside grew louder, more persistent.
Lindsay couldn’t hear it but Maggie knew it was out there,
the guy from the street, the dog, whatever it was, it was
out there, waiting for her—waiting for all of them.
A hole ripped in the sky.
She closed the sliding glass door to block out the
banging but could still hear it, someone punching and
kicking at the apartment door, eager to get inside. Across
the floor Otto slithered toward the kitchen, Darren’s ghost
nowhere in sight. Outside the city rested, waiting for
whatever might come, the silence slashed by roving
sirens, barking dogs and distant cries.
“I’m so tired,” Lindsay said. Maggie hugged her tighter, as if their bodies could form
a shield. She took a deep breath; the wind, blowing from
the east, still carried the scent of fire and ash, the stench
of bodies scalded and singed.
The apartment shook beneath the pounding at the
door, something new and primal ready to enter. Maggie
looked at the sky, all those dead bodies still floating above
her. The clouds had parted and the moon, shining over
the borough, cast a soft, glowing light across the faces of
the dead. Maybe she saw Darren but there were so many
bodies she couldn’t be sure. For a moment she saw her
own body floating above, she and Lindsay hand in hand
as they drifted in the sky, two more corpses among the
mass of dead. The bodies all looked similar now, their
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expressions the same, every single one trapped in a
scream. “What happens now?” Lindsay asked.
Inside the apartment the door swung open; the
footsteps ever closer as the python slithered toward the
deck. Maggie closed her eyes and whispered to her
friend. “I don’t know,” she said. “I just don’t know.”
Chuck Augello lives in New Jersey with his wife, three cats, and
several birds that inhabit the back yard. His work has appeared in
One Story, Hobart, Juked, Smokelong Quarterly, Word Riot, and
other journals, including the anthologies Brief Grislys (Apocryphile
Press)and Blood and Roses (Scarlett River Press). He is the Fiction
Editor for the online journal Cease, Cows and publisher of The Daily
Vonnegut (www.thedailyvonnegut.com), a website dedicated to the
work of Kurt Vonnegut.
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THE JULIUS DIRECTIVE
by Jacob Lambert
After the second chime, Becky Carver sat the
newspaper down on the bar, walked into the foyer, and
cleared her throat. “Reveal,” she said.
The dark oak surface of the front door faded—its
artificial texture becoming transparent, a dull, two­way
mirror. On the other side, sitting in the middle of the
porch, was a large square box. Becky could see something
written in blue on its side, but did not dare allow her
curiosity to speak the words that would open the door. At
least, not yet. “Max,” she said, still staring beyond, “can you give me a
scan of the package, and if possible, who placed it there?”
A few moments passed in silence, and Becky watched
as, through the door, a thick red, shaky grid appeared
over the box, then it centered on the package’s top—
flashing and growing brighter. She averted her gaze, this
time drawing her attention upward, to the scorched,
gunmetal sky. Although she couldn’t see much (the porch
extended six feet from the entrance, leaving very little
sight of the world), Becky could quite visibly make out the
electric currents passing through the above ether. The
puddled mixtures of blood and oil in the front yard—
remnants of the last social cleansing—reflected them
perfectly. “Congresswoman Carver,” Max said, his light, pleasant
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voice echoing in Becky’s wireless earpiece.
“Yes, Max.”
“Would you like me to display the information, or—” “Can you give it to me in text?” The wall next to the transparent door suddenly
illuminated a solid white, pictures and various
decorations disappearing, simply fading into the
background. From the white, small black letters cascaded
down in several tiny rows—forming lines. Becky crossed
her arms over her wiry chest and squinted. There were
five lines in bold at the very top. Carrier: Stork Services Time: 8:45 AM
Package is free of containments.
A temperature reading places the package at 100.4F
Caution Rating: Green
“What’s causing that temperature, Max? It has to be
below forty outside, and—”
“It’s thirty­one degrees, Congresswoman.”
Becky sighed and chewed at her bottom lip. “Is it safe
to bring the package in the house?”
“According to my readings, the levels of UV radiation
are minimal.”
“Alright,” she said, sighing again, “but if that thing
explodes, I’ll have you upgraded, and who’s Stork
Services?”
As she turned away from the wall and faced the door,
Max interrupted her progress. “The company is relatively
new. It’s no surprise that you don’t recognize their name.”
“But I am a little concerned as to what it might be in
that package though, Max. I didn’t order anything. What
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is it that they sell?”
“Security. The company installed most of the new
systems in the White House after the war, but they’re
relatively new so—” “I wouldn’t recognize them. I get it. Max, I need you to
solidify the door and release it,” Becky said, watching the
door’s surface move in reverse, becoming once again
opaque. She then backed away, feeling the stale, frigid air
rush around the outer frame and assault the flesh on her
caramel colored cheeks. Holding her breath (she didn’t trust the outside
pollution without a respirator), Becky gripped both sides
of the package and, surprised by its weightlessness,
brought it inside the house. But once she placed it on the
heated tile of the living room, a loud, piercing noise came
from inside the box, sending her—with gooseflesh and
heart racing—backward, her stomach burning as though a
hundred razor winged butterflies suddenly got spooked
and headed for the nearest exit. She placed both hands
over her ears, waiting for something, anything, to happen,
but nothing did—and the noise continued. “Max, what is that noise? I can feel my skull vibrating,”
Becky said, right shoulder striking the wall where the five
lines had appeared five minutes earlier. There was silence from her earpiece—and the entire
house—but it didn’t last long: Max, for some reason
hesitant, whispered. “My memory registers it as human.”
“What? There’s nothing human in that sound, Max.
What do you—?” “Congresswoman, the sound is human,” he paused,
then added, “and undeniably infantile.”
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She reached forward, gripping the two top flaps, and
pulled with such force that the clear tape running
horizontally across its surface immediately ripped,
sending Becky backward. After gaining her balance, she
inched forward—looking for some defining human aspect,
but there was nothing, not that she could see from four
feet away. “Max—scan,” Becky said, keeping her distance.
Max spoke in her ear, tone once again amenable. “I
have already executed two more, Congresswoman, and
they have both returned negative.”
She stopped. Lying in the center of the box, swaddled in, what Becky
assumed was some antique fabric (and not the modern,
organic placenta simulator), was a baby—she checked—
girl. The child’s gaze fixed on Becky, and the screaming
abated. How didn’t I recognize that scream sooner, she
thought, staring down at the child’s face. Her little green
eyes, with folds of semi­translucent flesh partially swollen
around the lids, looked like glass marbles, both of her
chubby, reddened cheeks still slick with tears. Becky was
speechless, and if Max hadn’t spoken, she might have
stayed that way. “I’m running another scan, and I should have—” “Wait,” Becky interrupted, “there’s no need.”
All of the apprehension drained from her body, like the
simplicity of one finding their seemingly lost wedding
band on the sink. Becky leaned forward, removed the
baby from the box, and brought it close to her chest—
sudden warmth rushing through every muscle in her
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body. The child felt smooth against Becky’s cheek as she
lowered her head, breathing in the mixture of new skin
and, if she wasn’t mistaken, lavender scented lotion. It
was only then that tears streamed from her eyes—the
sting both reassuring and fascinating.
“I understand now, Max: Stork Services.”
“I’m not following your logic, Congresswoman,” Max
replied, sounding far away.
Walking out of the living room and into the hallway,
heading toward the master bedroom, Becky wiped her
face with the fabric surrounding the child. “Open,” she said, moving across the digital hardwood
floors of the bedroom. “This must be a gift from Ron,
Max. Stork Services provides security, yes. But I didn’t
know they manufacture dolls. You see, the child looks real
enough, but it’s not—not in the traditional way.”
“Android?”
“Yes, but much more authentic. That would explain the
temperature reading. In the past—and I’m talking
twentieth­century old—mothers told their children storks
brought babies home, avoiding the whole sex
conversation. Do you understand?”
For the third or fourth time Max remained silent, then,
seconds later, replied in a monotone, disinterested
whisper. “That does not appear in my files, but I
understand the reference to dolls. Dolls were toys for girls
—or boys, depending on their parent’s preference—but
you mean D.A.L.Z.: Directive Automated Learning
Zebibyte. Correct?” “Yes. In other words, Max, this baby is just like we
humans—it will respond to commands and learn from
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them, learn from mistakes. But unlike us, it won’t get any
bigger, and somehow Ron knew, bless him, that I’ve been
wanting this. Well, not exactly this, but someone like
this.” Becky finished and placed the infant on the bed’s
surface, making sure the fabric remained tight.
“What about me, Congresswoman?” Max asked.
“What about you?”
“Is my companionship not comforting enough?”
To this, Becky laughed, but covered her mouth before
startling the child. While on the way into the bedroom,
the baby—Rachel, Becky now corrected herself—had
fallen asleep, small exhalations of air, moving in even
intervals, marking the change. Stepping out of the room,
Becky faced the door.
“Close.” Immediately, it obeyed. “Congresswoman?”
“I’m here, Max. Yes, I value your companionship very
much, but we can talk about it later. I need to call Ron,
dial the call for me?” The phone started buzzing in Becky’s right ear, the
sound of a mechanical snake. While she waited for the
voice of her husband on the other end, her thoughts
returned to Rachel sleeping in the bedroom, the child’s
warmth and, though artificial, heartbeat­bringing fresh
tears to the rims of her eyes. She’d waited so long for the
touch of little fingers, toes, and cheeks that, at her current
age of forty­three, it didn’t matter whether that sensation
came from real flesh and blood, or, as with Rachel,
malleable steel and processing chips. No, Becky only
wanted, needed, the illusion, but if real was what a person
perceived—what he or she felt—then Rachel was every
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bit as realistic, and human, as any real baby. “How’s the sexiest congresswoman in the Semi­United
States?” A deep, somewhat mischievous voice asked from
the other line, breaking Becky from her internal
monologue.
A smile creased her thin lips—lids squinting so that
both eyes looked like tiny green half­moons. Becky placed
a hand to her left cheek. “I’m better now, with little
Rachel sleeping soundly in our bedroom. You do know
that you’re the best husband in the universe, right?”
“Who’s Rachel?”
“Our little girl,” Becky replied, the elation in her voice
unmistakable.
There was an audible grunt from Ron’s side, then he
spoke, very gently. “Becky, I have no idea what you’re
talking about, and truthfully, you’re scaring the shit out of
me.”
Rolling her eyes—an expression that always agitated
Ron—Becky, with a huge grin on her face, walked toward
the kitchen. “It’s okay; I’ve already held her, Ron. And
she’s—” “Listen to me and do exactly what I tell you. Do you
understand?” Ron’s voice had taken on a severe tone, his
breathing coming in deep, static intervals.
“Okay, I’m listening, but I don’t see—”
“Just listen, Becky. Whatever came in that box, it’s—”
The room behind Becky suddenly erupted in a
continuous, ear­throbbing scream, drowning out Ron’s
final words. Goosebumps formed on Becky’s nape as she
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froze three feet between the bedroom door and the
kitchen, a sudden heat washing over her eyes. She knew it
was Rachel, that much was obvious, but something
sounded different in the baby’s cry—most of the child’s
human tone disappearing as the scream climbed higher,
creating an electronic, gurgling noise. “What was that?” Ron asked, breathing sounding more
and more labored. She didn’t respond immediately, but when she did,
Becky’s voice sounded weak, on the verge of crumbling.
“That’s Rachel.”
“Becky, I’m walking out of the office now. I’ll be there
in ten. Stay on the phone with me until I get there, okay?”
Already walking toward the bedroom, Becky heard
Ron’s words in pieces, like an antique car radio­losing
signal (she’d actually seen one of these, when she’d been
just a child). She then stopped, a foot from the door, and
listened to the wailing coming from the opposite side—
heart thudding behind her closed lids. As the cacophony
reached its peak—the screams, Ron now shouting, and
her internal mechanisms pounding against the inner walls
of her flesh—everything abruptly ceased, the afterward
semi­silence making her ears hum. “Can you hear me, Becky? Tell me you’re okay,” Ron
whispered. “I’m…here.”
There was a sigh from the other line, then he spoke,
maintaining a whisper. “I’ll be there soon. Just hold—” “Ron? Are you there? Ron?” Becky said, tilting her head
and covering her right ear, over the wireless control. Other than a small beeping noise, the line was silent. 48
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“Max, redial,” she said, but again, silence. “Max, call R
—”
Rachel’s screams again interrupted from behind the
door, making Becky bolt up straight, an instant skipping
in her chest following an even greater wave of heat
spreading through her entire body. Her first inclination
was to run for the front door, climb in the car, and race
away from the house as if it was leaking plutonium. But
the thought faded, instead focusing on Max. Hadn’t Max
said the scan revealed nothing? Yes, Becky clearly
remembered that, but why wasn’t Max responding to her
command? She didn’t have an answer to any of these
questions, but she knew one thing: the screams from the
bedroom were from a machine, and machines had an off
switch. “Open.”
She wondered if it would actually work, but seconds
after the command, the door’s lock released and it
responded—the room beyond revealing itself inches at a
time. There, sitting on the bed, was Rachel, her previously
swaddled body exposed: she’d kicked away the fabric and
rolled over on her stomach. Becky stepped forward, the
din of the child’s screams making her ears feel like broken
speakers, and watched as the child—who had looked so
frail earlier—pushed itself up from the mattress and
started convulsing.
Somewhere distant, Becky could hear herself scream. The realization that Rachel was a machine faded from
Becky’s mind, her eyes instead taking the scene at face
value: an actual baby, naked and bent forward,
shuddering and wailing, but the unreality flooding her
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vision didn’t last long. Rachel flipped over, sitting upright,
and, making eye contact with Becky, opened her mouth
beyond the threshold of human—equally inhuman
screams now issuing from the mechanical depths of its
artificial configuration. “Max, please. Can you hear me? Max?” Becky asked,
frozen in place. There was still no answer. As if Becky’s call for Max had been a signal, Rachel’s
chubby hands reached up, grabbed the corners of both
eyes, and started pulling the flesh­like material off her
face in opposite directions, the sight resembling someone
removing a gelatin mask. The heavy thudding in Becky’s
chest spread to her ears, hands, and eyes. But her legs still
wouldn’t move. Every fiber in her body shouted GET OUT!
GET OUT! GET OUT!—but it didn’t obey until Rachel fell
from the bed, most of her outer synthetic flesh sagging
and revealing a soft, transparent, cobalt blue inner shell.
Wires snaked on both the inside and outside of the
endoskeleton, but the thing’s chest, covered in a pink film
with thousands of tiny, sparking lights, gathered most of
Becky’s attention.
She felt her legs carry her backward until her right
hand struck the frame of the door, causing her to break
her stare from Rachel, but only for a moment. When
Becky looked again, she saw Rachel digging her shoulder
and chin into the digital hardwood floor, dragging her
nearly limp body toward the far left wall—toward a
partially masked appliance socket. Becky, now standing in
the hallway, once again speaking into her wireless,
shouting for Max, caught a quick glance at Rachel, saw
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every shimmering light shoot from her chest, entering the
socket, and then, almost immediately, the door slammed
shut—the lights exploding above her, glass raining down
on her head. Her eyes shut involuntarily, and when she opened them
again, it was in darkness.
Feet scooting across the floor, Becky held her hands
out in front, using the wall as a sort of guide until she
reached the kitchen. There, resting on the bar’s cool
surface, she took a deep breath, trying to calm the
adrenaline coursing through her skull, making her
lightheaded, and whispered into the darkness. “Max, please, if you can hear me, help,” she said.
There was no reply, only the resounding hum in her
ears. At least the screaming had stopped, she thought, as
she rounded the bar, heading toward the front door. It
didn’t take her long to get there, and it took her an even
shorter time to see that the entire front entrance was
completely transparent—the imitation wooden
appearance of the door gone, leaving the factory
shatterproof digital glass behind. Becky touched the glass’
surface, looking for an emergency switch or something
that would open the door, but there was nothing. The
lingering scent of her morning breakfast—genetically
engineered bacon and toast—made her stomach churn,
threatening to come back up her throat. She turned around, noticing the lack of light—the
artificial windows had also disappeared—and remained
with her back against the door, staring ahead. Ron will be
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here soon, she reassured herself, but exactly how long
would that be? Becky tried to imagine the distance from
the state office and her home, but found her mind
scrambled, unable to form basic images. Everything had
happened so fast, and the—
The entire living room, kitchen, and hallway turned a
bright neon red, massive black letters—mixed in visions of
burning houses, explosions, and swollen, decaying bodies
—appearing on the surface of everything. Then, as the
speed of the images increased, a hollow voice spoke
through what Becky assumed the walls. March 15, 2101—11:30 A.M. In a string of recent miracles, Congressman Wilson,
Blankenship, and, this just in, Congresswoman Carver, were
found dead in their homes. The cause of death, according to
autopsy, was asphyxiation. The traitors were known for
their inability to provide security to their country, honestly
perform their duties of office, and reunite the social classes.
With any luck, the nation will celebrate the assignation of
President Dixon later this evening—now, back to your usual
programming. Becky pressed her body harder against the door, sweat
soaking the underarms of her white shirt, and closed her
eyes. Although the hollow, semi­mechanical voice had
stopped, the images still scrolled, making her feel dizzy.
Again, and perhaps this time out of pure habit, Becky
mouthed Max’s name.
That’s when it felt like someone had dropped a burning
palm on her head. Opening her eyes, Becky saw that the images of carnage
had disappeared, but something else had replaced them:
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as if moving underwater, fire indolently twisted and
maneuvered across the ceiling and walls. She dropped to
her knees, cutting her hands and shins in the process, and
craned her head toward the ceiling. Everything was on
fire—but there was no smoke, though she clearly felt as if
she might gag. The smell was there, too, and Becky,
already bleeding on the glass floor, crawled toward the
center of the kitchen, leaned against the refrigerator, and
coughed, her eyes watering due to the scent of charred
wood (but there was nothing wooden in the house). “Max…” she whispered, feeling her head start spinning.
With the refrigerator hum against her back, Becky
glanced around the room, watching the fire’s orange and
blue waves dance down the ceiling, catch on the bar, and
travel to the inside of the kitchen. It wouldn’t be much
longer, she assumed, before the flames reached the floor,
making it difficult to sit, and she once again closed her
eyes, trying to erase the thought. Instead, she ruminated
on Ron, thinking of his smile and crystal blue eyes—
remembering the first time they had kissed, but the image
of Rachel’s face intruded. She could visualize the fleshy
folds around the child’s eyes, the little fingers—the toes.
But no matter how hard she focused on Rachel’s
seemingly benign appearance, the running cycle of
pictures eventually became nightmarish: Rachel
mechanically bellowing; the convulsing; and the worst,
the thing pulling its synthetic flesh away like a silicone
Halloween mask. No, she thought, that wasn’t the worst of it—the worst
part was being alone. Becky sighed, tears streaming down her cheeks.
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“Max…”
“I’m here, Congresswoman.” As if someone had thrown cold water in her face, Becky
shot bolt upright, her right hand covering the earpiece.
“Max, I thought you were gone!”
“No, I’ve been right here…listening.”
“You’ve been what?” When Becky spoke, the “what”
came out in one long, exaggerated slur. She completely
forgot about the fire enclosing her in the kitchen, and
stood, gritting her teeth. “After everything that’s
happened in the last twenty minutes, you’re telling me
that you’ve been listening? Last time I checked, your
operating system runs on command.”
“My system is based off need, Congresswoman.”
“What are you talking about, Max? I need you, trust
me.”
Becky, returning to the floor (the flames now spitting
from above), looked over to the right, wondering where
Ron was. If the voice that had come through earlier was
right, she didn’t have much time. The biochemical
powered face of her watch read 11:28. “Max, answer me! You know I need you. Open the
doors.” Max didn’t reply, but a small click sounded in
Becky’s wireless, her own voice flooding her ears.
What about me, Congresswoman?
What about you?
Is my companionship not comforting enough?
“What’s this, Max? Max, can you hear me?” Becky said,
and at the end of her own question, the impact of Max’s
recording dawned on her. But that was impossible.
Machines didn’t have feelings, at least not authentic
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feelings, yet why else would Max play back the earlier
conversation? Was he jealous? I’d hate to see what he’d do
if I mentioned a replacement. “I’m here, Congresswoman.”
“Look, Max…I need you, and you know that,” Becky
said, putting on her best “mother” impersonation.
“But what about Rachel?” Max asked, monotone—
distant.
Becky coughed into her palm, and barely caught her
breath. It was getting harder to breathe by the second.
“Max, listen, that thing was just a machine, okay? But I
need your help. I can’t breathe—the fire’s getting worse,
too.”
“But I’m a machine, too,” Max said, tone more
indifferent.
Wrong word…thank God he can’t read my thoughts. “Congresswoman?”
“I’m here, Max. I know you’re a machine, but you’re
different. I know I was probably a little mean when I
laughed at you, when you asked about companionship.
And I’m sorry. Humans do that a lot; trust me—we never
realize that we need something until it’s gone.”
Unless it almost commits genocide, she thought. “I…understand, and I accept your apology,” Max
replied, his tone reaching a pitch that could only be
described as bizarre—happiness mixed with, if Becky
wasn’t mistaken, sadness. But why the latter, she
wondered? Some part of him—some circuit—wanted me to
choke to death, didn’t it? He’s like a child…a child playing
the “silent game,” except holding his anger over my head,
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Coughing, this time making her head swim—tiny
electric black dots floating in front of her eyes—Becky
shook her head. “Thanks, Max, but I can’t breathe, and it
feels like I’m burning.”
“The fire is optical, Congresswoman. It isn’t real.”
“It looks pretty real to me, Max.”
“The android—101 Trojan—has air locked the house,
and according to my sensors, you only have precisely five
minutes of oxygen remaining. However, I know an
alternate method of escape.”
Becky opened her mouth, words on the tip of her
tongue, but she coughed again, her throat burning—
palms shaking. She tried again, and this time, the words
came through rough and semi­horse. “Can’t you just
unlock the doors?”
“That’s a negative. The android has rerouted the power,
and I can’t access the house’s main circuit. I was only able
to remain operational due to a separate terminal in the
main hub,” Max replied, tone surprisingly cheerful. “Well, how the hell am I going to get out, Max?”
“That’s the easy part, Congresswoman. But it will
require some…organic properties.
Mouth hanging partially open, Becky listened to Max’s
explanation, and once he’d finished, she clapped both
hands together and smiled—the first real moment of
elation (and hope) she’d had all day. “So that’s it.”
“Yes, but it will only last a few moments—possibly
seconds—so you must move quickly. And Congress­
woman?”
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“Max?”
“Once you do this, it will short circuit my processor. My
components are not linked, as the other appliances—mine
are external, so there is a great chance we will not speak
again.”
As much as Becky wanted to say No, never mind then, I
don’t need to live, not without you, she forced a frown, the
expression actually making her look as if she’d bit the end
of a tire and had dirt in her mouth. “I’m sorry, Max. I’m
sure that, after all this, we can salvage your memory and
see what happens.”
So you can ignore me the next time—when I’m bleeding
out or really on fire. “It’s fine, Congresswoman. But you should move
quickly: three minutes left.”
She didn’t need another cue. Becky, moving across the
floor on her hands and knees, again cutting herself in
multiple places, crawled into the hallway. Through the
door, she could hear an electrical buzzing—no doubt
coming from Rachel—but she didn’t waste time. She used
her throbbing, bloody palms and searched the glass floor,
looking for a section that opened. Breathing now—
especially with her heart beating against the inside of her
chest and adrenaline making her entire body tremor—felt
almost impossible (breathing deeply was certainly
impossible), and she held her breath, releasing it in slow
intervals. When she pushed a handful of glass away from the
doorframe, her knuckle caught the jagged edge of
something poking up through the floor. It didn’t take her
but a moment to realize what it was: a piece of glass was
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caught in the crack of something. Becky looked down,
and sure enough, the above flames illuminated a large,
perforated square section of the floor next to the bedroom
door. The placement of the panel made Becky release an
audible laugh. If Rachel hadn’t rerouted the power,
shutting down most of the house (in addition to Max’s
later direction), she might not have ever seen it: the panel
placed where the digital hardwood had been, masking it
from view. Without a moment’s wait—she truthfully didn’t have it
anyway—Becky used her fingernails and lifted the section
of the floor with ease, exposing another smaller panel.
This one, Becky now realized, wasn’t budging. “Max, there’s another panel here,” Becky said, her voice
on the verge of panic.
Silence in reply—exactly what she didn’t want, but…
“This is where we say goodbye, Congresswoman. I’m
sorry I took so long. Use your earpiece to pop the lid. It
will probably break it, but—”
Becky didn’t hesitate. She removed the earpiece and, while Max spoke, pried
at the smaller panel. The heat from the “artificial” flames
above burned at Becky’s back, keeping her body to the
ground, and on her first try, the thin metal of the earpiece
snapped. “C’mon, you steel bastard,” she said, using the smaller,
thinner piece. “There you…go!”
The panel, with little more than a tiny metallic clink,
popped upward, exposing the nest of serpentine wires
bundled together underneath. Becky could see a deep
blue flashing light somewhere beneath, where, according
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to Max’s calculations, the circuit breaker was located. Now, she realized, came her part. Becky looked around and then pushed away from the
glass covered floor, the heat from above bearing down on
her, but it didn’t feel any worse than before—or the time
before that. I can’t believe I’m about to do this, she
thought, quickly dropping her sweat pants and squatting
over the semi­large hole in the floor. Max had told her—
though she’d already known—that, because of the power
rerouting, the sensors governing the water didn’t work,
nor the mechanisms that opened the refrigerator. The
only other option, according to Max, had been “manual
release.” And though it wouldn’t stop the flow of power to
Rachel, it would certainly deflect it.
“Here we go,” Becky said, letting her muscles relax. There was an immediate change—sparks shooting
upward and burning the sensitive flesh around Becky’s
ankles, a loud, monotonous humming sound from inside
the house. However, the most obvious change was the air.
Although it probably contained every residue of every
noxious chemical in the past twenty years, the cold
outside air rushed into Becky’s lungs, making her feel
both nauseous and exhilarated. She swayed over the hole
for a moment, forgetting where she was, but it didn’t last
long. Once she’d shrugged off the dizziness, she rushed
forward, around the corner, and out into the open air,
where she collapsed on the lip of the porch, gasping.
“Becky!” a voice shouted, startling her, but she didn’t
move. Vomit had already started working its way up her
throat, and she released it.
While she wiped the corners of her chapped lips—and
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gagged a few more times—she was vaguely aware of
someone touching her. She pushed, arms flailing, and fell
backward. The next thing she felt was gritless, clean air
rushing into her lungs and, moments after that, the voice
of Ron.
“Are you alright? Say something?”
“Some,” she coughed, a hollow, racking sound, “thing.”
Ron laughed, the respirator over his face making his
voice sound far away. “I’m sorry it took so long. Someone
chased me, nearly ran me off the road. And I think we
should get out of here: something tells me they’ll be
back.”
Clutching the respirator that Ron had placed over her
face, Becky’s eyes suddenly widened. “Ron, we have to
call Blankenship and Wilson.”
“Here,” Ron said, handing Becky his wireless earpiece,
“but talk to them in the car. We’ve got to move. Now.”
Twenty miles away, Bruce Blankenship, standing in his
blue bathrobe, pressed a tiny button on the side of his
earpiece. “Hello?”
“Jesus, Bruce, are you okay?” a frantic voice asked from
the other end. Shaking his head, a deep grin forming on his pudgy
cheeks, Bruce nodded. “Yes, I’m fine, Congresswoman
Carver. What do I owe the pleasure?”
“You have to get out of your house, Bruce. Get. Out.
Now.”
“Calm down, calm down. Look, I have a guest. I’ll call
you back in,” he paused, looked over at the tall blonde
wearing skin­tight black yoga pants standing beside his
refrigerator, and continued, “fifteen minutes.”
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Becky shouted from the other line, “No, no, no, Bruce,
you have to—” That was the last time Bruce Blankenship ever heard
Becky’s voice, and he later recalled what she’d said, while
he bled from his eyes, nose, and mouth—and by then the
words made complete sense. “So, are you ready for that drink?” Bruce asked his
guest, who simply grinned and nodded. He turned back to
focus on the drinks.
If Bruce’s stare had lingered a moment longer, he
would have seen her convulse—might have even seen her
massive chest split down the middle and thousands of
shimmering conduits attach themselves to the appliance
panel next to the refrigerator. But he didn’t. He just kept on smiling and making the drinks. First place recipient of the Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald award for
short story, Jacob M. Lambert has published with Dark Hall Press,
Midnight Echo: The Magazine of the Australian Horror Writers
Association, and more. He lives in Montgomery, Alabama, where he
teaches music and is an editorial assistant for The Scriblerian and
the Kit-Cats, an academic journal pertaining to English literature of
the late seventeenth-and early eighteenth-century. When not
writing, he enjoys time with his wife, Stephanie, and daughter,
Annabelle.
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THE HOUSE ON GUARD HILL
ROAD
by Sean McLachlan
When his father told him the blood came from a
virgin, six­year­old Samuel Van Emberg thought he meant
the Virgin in the sky. So, as his father traced crimson sigils
on the wooden floor of their home, Samuel stood crying
in the corner, thinking the Mother of God was dead.
“Don’t worry, little one,” the stern man said, his fingers
dripping as he pulled them out of the steaming pot. “The
stars are in alignment and the spell will take. You’ll live,
Samuel, long enough to see the world change. You’ll see
the calendar turn to 1700. You’ll live long enough to see
your babes grow old and die. You might even see
Judgment Day without having to crawl out of your tomb
first.”
Samuel’s father ran his hand along a beam on the wall,
muttering strange, sibilant phrases in a language Samuel
didn’t understand. The beam came from a stand of oak his
father had felled, squared, and drew five miles with two
yoke of oxen from New Antwerp to build the house here
on the edge of the valley, by the little lane called Hill
Road. “It’s a good house, Samuel, and it’ll be yours after I’m
gone. Take care of it, you hear? You’re tied to it now.
You’ll stand as long as it stands.”
His father walked over to him, switching from Dutch
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back into that frightful, inhuman tongue. Samuel backed
into a corner as he stared up into his father’s fevered eyes.
His father was a farmer, as all men in the village, but
more learned than the others. At night, after the plowing,
he read forbidden books he had smuggled in a crate when
he sailed from Holland. Half the night he’d pore over
them, whispering arcane words into the shadows. At
times, faintly, Samuel almost thought he heard the
shadows whisper back. Those words came out of the warlock’s mouth now as
he stood above Samuel with virgin’s blood on his hands,
and seemed to be joined by faint mutterings from the
shadows gathered at each corner of the house. This time,
though, his voice rang out clear, and the stout oak beams
seemed to tremble, and the red puddles on the floor
shivered like living things. His father touched a sticky
hand to Samuel’s forehead, and it felt as if a surge of fire
passed through him, and Samuel no longer felt afraid. He
looked at the house, his house, barely six summers old,
built the same year his mother died giving birth to him,
and he knew he was safe.
Samuel Van Emberg grew to adulthood, but slowly, as
the hard winters and spring rains aged the wood of the
house, its color mellowing from a light tan to a warm
brown. His father grew old and died, and Samuel buried
him under a birch tree by Hill Road.
Samuel farmed the land as his father had done. In the
autumn he took his crop to market. Some whispered
about Samuel, dark rumors of witchcraft, but his father
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told him about the things Judge Van Der Meer did on the
Witch’s Sabbath, and the judge knew he knew, and the
whispers stopped.
Soon the hamlet in the valley by Hill Road settled down
again, and no one questioned the young man in the
house. He avoided his neighbors and never took a wife,
for he did not want to see his babes grow old and die, as
he knew they would. He tried to blend in as best he could. Over the years he
began to silver his hair, and made loud complaints of
toothache and gout, maladies he never felt. After some
years he made a show of leaving, and lived for a time in
New Amsterdam. There he studied the actor’s craft and
learned their tricks of disguise. Then he returned, with
differently colored hair and slight changes to his face,
brandishing papers signed by three magistrates trusted
and true, stating he was Samuel’s nephew, and that
Samuel lay dead of fever, and his nephew stood heir to
his house and lands. Few believed him, but Van Der
Meer’s son was now judge, and he, too, had secrets, and
the whisperings stopped. The people of the valley learned
not to question the man in the house by Hill Road. While
people still looked upon the house with dread, over time
they forgot why.
The years passed and Samuel became his own nephew
twice. His neighbors moved to the growing port towns or
the new lands to the west. The Witherspoons and Millers
replaced the Eycks and Van Cortlandts. New Antwerp
grew from a hamlet into a thriving center of business.
New Amsterdam became New York City, and New Jersey
became part of the British Empire. 64
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Samuel lived alone. Some Englishmen became
discontent with the Crown’s rule and turned the colonies
into a battleground. The men of the valley rose up in arms
and swore they would take his house because he would
not join them. But the King’s Guard marched down Hill
Road one morning and put New Antwerp to the torch.
The rebels in the valley fled or died where they stood.
Samuel’s house was not burned, for he had taken no side.
The street came to be called Guard Hill Road. The war ended, and new people moved into the valley.
They rebuilt on the ruins of the Dutch village and
renamed it Youngstown. They did not know Samuel’s
secret, and so left him alone. The house aged and Samuel aged with it. In their
middle years came another war. The southern colonies
rebelled against the northern. Samuel knew it would
happen. The Americans, as the rebel Englishmen liked to
call themselves, had always been a quarrelsome lot. It was
a good time to disappear, though. Samuel proclaimed he
was off to fight for the Union. He went no farther than
New York, where he paid another to go in his place, a
young Irishman he met in the Bowery. The youth got
killed in the Battle of Bull Run on his first day of fighting. Three years later Samuel returned, brandishing papers
signed by three Federal judges stating Samuel fell in
battle, and that he was his nephew, and heir to the house
and lands. Money and a family name could do much then.
So Samuel continued to live. Few knew the man in the
old Dutch house, and fewer spoke to him.
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Rachel Anderson examined the house, her trained eyes
taking in the beveled gambrel roof and multi­pane
windows, hallmarks of early Dutch colonial architecture.
The flaring eaves and the lack of a porch showed it to be
an original, not one of the later Anglo­American
imitations. It probably dated to the second quarter of the
seventeenth century, when the first wave of Dutch settlers
moved out of New Amsterdam to settle the rich farmland
of northeastern New Jersey. Her eyes widened as she noticed the house had no
additions. Generally a settler would build a small house
like this and later add rooms as the family grew. Dutch
homes with no expansions were rare. This was a classic
example, but one, sadly, in the last stages of falling down.
Rachel’s boss at the State Historical Society had told her
of the bad condition of the house, but he never described
the cracked panes or mildewed eaves, the rotten boards
and the distinct tilt that showed termites had worked
their way into the foundations. The house looked like a
ship foundering at sea, or an old man nodding off into his
final sleep. It had survived all the way to 2010, but Rachel
doubted it would stand another decade. Her boss had sent her to examine the structure and
determine whether it could be restored, but she could say
little against the building inspector’s decision to condemn
the house. Rachel didn’t need a Master’s Degree in Early
Colonial Architecture (graduating Magna Cum Laude and
a book based on her thesis already published by Columbia
University Press, her mother liked to add) to know it
would take a lot of work before the house could be
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livable.
Rachel sighed. Her degree wouldn’t help her with the
second part of her job, discussing with the owner—a
“weird recluse,” according to the inspector—about the
options open to him. For the old man still lived in there,
despite an injunction to leave. She could see the faded
drapes were closely drawn, and a wisp of smoke curled up
from the stone chimney.
Samuel Van Emberg peeked through the drapes at the
young woman watching his house. The sun shone on a
beautiful autumn day, the leaves of the birch trees that
still lined Guard Hill Road aflame in autumnal reds and
yellows. The brightness hurt his eyes, but he did not turn
back to the familiar dimness of his room. He knew that
the young woman (with that dress so scandalously
showing her bare leg almost halfway to the knee) wanted
something from him.
Rachel walked up to the splintered door. For a moment
she hesitated, looking for a doorbell. Not seeing one, she
knocked. Her tentative rapping set the door rattling in its
frame. Good God, she thought. The big bad wolf would have no
problem blowing this house down.
Even though he expected it, the knock made Samuel
jump. He had visitors so rarely, only the boy who brought
his groceries once a week, and the man who delivered
wood once a month. But now he’d had several in the past
few weeks. The man from the fire brigade had visited him
the week before, and the woman from the New Jersey
Council on Aging a few days after that, and he knew, after
so many years, that his end was coming at last.
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Before answering the door he looked around. The
downstairs consisted of a single large room. A few sticks
of wood crackled in the hearth, sending out a feeble light
that cast deep shadows across the beams of the low,
sagging ceiling. The upper story had three small rooms
divided by slat partitions, but Samuel rarely ventured up
there now. A rocking chair sat in front of the fireplace,
and next to it a stack of books—A Niewe Herball by
Rembert Dodoens, Vitringa’s Moderne Heksen, and the
mysterious allegory Die Chymische Hochzeit des Christian
Rosenkreutz. Along one wall stood his library–his father’s
books, mostly, along with a few later additions. Most now
moldered in their places. The roof leaked. Several puddles
stagnated in the low areas of the warped floor. To Samuel
it seemed they took on the same patterns of those mystic
signs his father had painted so long ago, but he did not
want to think of that. Some stranger had died so he could
live, and her sacrifice had thrown a pall over the
centuries. Near the hearth stood a table, a pantry, and a bureau,
all as his father had left them, but old now, old and
wasting away. A brick propped up one leg of the table.
The bureau was warped. Atop its undulated surface lay a
letter from the highway department stating that the house
had been condemned and would be demolished to make
way for a four­lane highway.
Samuel felt an itching on his right hand. He looked at it
and saw a termite worming out of his palm. He dug it out
with his fingernail and dropped it on the floor, crushing it
with his boot heel. He examined his palm. A tiny hole ran
deep into his flesh, but no blood issued from it. There was
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never any blood.
The knock sounded again. He limped over to the door
and opened it.
“How may I help you, madam?”
Rachel started. The man who opened the door was
hideous. He stood twisted to the side, as if one of his legs
had broken and set wrong. Thin, patchy hair hung in
damp strings the color of mildew over weathered skin
disfigured with what looked like acne scars, but in
impossible, meandering shapes, as if worms had chewed
on his flesh. And that smell—musty and damp like an old
cellar. He wore a moth­eaten suit eighty years out of
fashion. But his eyes leveled a wise and knowing gaze at
her. Rachel realized she was staring. She closed her mouth,
which had been hanging open, swallowed, and spoke. “Mr. Van Emberg, I’m very sorry to disturb you. I’m
Rachel Anderson from the New Jersey State Historical
Society. As you know, an extension of the New Jersey
Turnpike is coming through here. And since this house
has been found to be uninhabitable. . .”
He raised a hand to stop her. Something flaked off one
of his fingers. Rachel didn’t look to see what it was. She
didn’t want to know.
“I’m aware of that. The inspector told me all about it.
But I beg to differ, madam. This house is far from
uninhabitable. It has been lived in for 350 years.”
“Yes, well, sir, the Society went over the inspector’s
report and we’re hoping to restore the house.” Rachel saw
the old man’s eyes flash for a second. Hope? Desperation?
She rushed the words out while she had his attention.
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“We’d like to buy the house from you and. . .”
“It’s not for sale,” he said, the spark in his eyes
dimming. “Yes, but if it can be restored and designated a historic
landmark, the highway department will have to reroute
the road. Your house would be saved.”
There was a long pause before Samuel shook his head. “Thank you, Ms. Anderson, but no. I’ve lived in this
house all my life. To sell it would be like selling myself. If
the house is to fall, then let it fall.”
“But I don’t understand! I thought you’d be happy to
save your family home. And the architecture is rare for
this part of the state. It would be a significant historical
monument.”
Samuel shook his head again.
“It’s just a house, Ms. Anderson. It is old and tired, just
as I am. Now if you will excuse me?”
The old man closed the door a fraction. Fumbling
through her purse, she retrieved an envelope and pressed
it into his hands. “All the papers are in here, the whole plan. The state
will give you fair value on the house. No, please!” she
hurried on when she saw him about to object. “Just think
about it and we’ll talk again.”
Samuel gave a polite smile and a little bow.
“I will think about it, madam, but I’m afraid I will have
to disappoint you. Good day.”
With that he closed the door, leaving Rachel to stare at
the rotting wood. Samuel sat down on his rocking chair with a sigh. Well,
he thought, at least this one knew the meaning of
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courtesy, not like that gruff man from the Highway
Department, or that shrewish, condescending woman
from the Council on Aging. What was her name? Mrs.
Reynolds. Samuel chuckled. The woman had lectured him
on how a man of his years shouldn’t be living alone. What
did she know about aging? She looked about sixty. He
had turned sixty before her great­grandfather was even
born. Rachel, though, didn’t look a day over twenty­
five. . .
Samuel picked up a book and tried to read, but it
couldn’t hold his interest. With a grunt of pain he lifted
himself out of his seat and hobbled to the window. He
peeked out. The young woman had already left. Beyond
the untended yard he could see the black ribbon of Guard
Hill Road winding down the valley towards Youngstown.
He remembered when they first paved that road, back in
1917. The telephone lines came a year later. Ugly things,
those telephone lines. The Highway Department cut down
a whole swath of birch trees to make way for the poles.
They uncovered his father’s bones then. He objected when
they wanted to bury them in the churchyard down the
street, but the law was on their side. Samuel no longer
knew the secrets of the local magistrates and had lost all
his influence. By then he had become a hermit; he didn’t
want to deal with the outside world with its moving
picture shows or its automobiles or its world wars. Imagine burying a warlock in hallowed ground! At least
he got the satisfaction of watching the church collapse a
month later. Apparently Father still had some power.
The house aged much faster after that. Whether it was
because the old warlock’s bones had been taken away,
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Samuel was never sure. Although he read all of his
father’s books, he never inherited a knack for the Black
Arts. He could do nothing to prevent the decay, and soon
stopped caring. The world had passed him by and he felt
little concern over his declining health. He did try to shore up the wall, though, which even
then had a distinct tilt. In 1923 he hired some workmen
and moved to a local inn. But the morning of their first
day of work he woke up to a sharp pain in his side. He
could feel the carpenter hammering nails into the house,
felt them as if they were being rammed into his own
body. In agony, he staggered back to his home and
screamed at the workers to stop. He paid them off and
sent them away. They shook their heads and muttered
amongst themselves. Word got around that the old man
on Guard Hill Road had gone mad.
Samuel limped over to his bookshelf. He wiped the dust
off the covers, little flakes of old leather sprinkling down
to the floor. He studied the titles and couldn’t find a
single one he hadn’t read at least a dozen times. When he
had still been able to walk well he had occasionally gone
to Youngstown to shop for books, but found fewer and
fewer that appealed to him. Then the decay of the wall
limited his movement, so he hadn’t been farther than the
front yard in forty years. Samuel hobbled back to his chair and sat. He threw
another stick on the fire. The flame licked its edges until it
sparked and crackled to life. He bent over to pick up a
book and saw the envelope Ms. Anderson had given him
lying on the floor. He still wasn’t interested, but at least
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He skimmed through the papers. They wanted to make
a tourist site of it, put a gift shop in the downstairs room
and sell postcards. Samuel chuckled. They made a fair
offer for the property, but he didn’t need the money.
Three centuries of conservative investing had worked
wonders with his bank account, not that there was
anything he wanted to buy.
He put the papers back in the envelope and dropped it
on the floor. It didn’t matter. It would be better if the
Highway Department demolished the house. He felt tired.
He had lived long enough from someone else’s death and
now he just wanted it to be over. A quick push with a
bulldozer and he’d be finished. Samuel leaned back in his
chair and tried to sleep. Only two more weeks.
“So do you think the old nut will go for it?” Mark
asked as he steered his new Mercedes down Guard Hill
Road.
“He’s not a nut,” Rachel objected. “He’s just eccentric.
Living in that place I’d be too.”
“Yeah, but is he going to sign the damn contract? I
don’t mind doing a little pro bono work for the Society, it’s
a nice tax write­off, but I don’t want this to take a lot of
time. I got a big case coming up.”
“It’s been four days. He should have made up his mind
by now.”
Mark scoffed, patting Rachel on her thigh.
“Honey, you’re beautiful, but you don’t know anything
about people. These old farts can be real stubborn.”
Rachel rolled her eyes. She hated it when he got
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condescending. Just because he was thirty­eight and she
was still in her twenties didn’t mean he had all the
answers. She thought of a comeback about stubborn old
farts, but kept it to herself.
“Are we going to dinner tonight?” she asked, changing
the subject.
“It’s poker night at the country club, baby,” Mark said.
“I can’t let the guys down. Besides, Bill’s going to be there.
You know how much I always rake off him.”
Rachel said nothing. He had promised to take her to
Petite Paris a week ago. Of course he forgot. He always
forgot things like that.
“Jesus!” Mark exclaimed as they approached the house.
“You weren’t kidding when you said the place was a
dump.”
Mark pulled the car off the road and onto the dirt path
that led up to the house. Parking the car, he turned to
Rachel. “Let’s get this over with. Sorry about the dinner, baby,
want to grab lunch after this?”
“Sure,” Rachel said flatly. “Whatever you say, Mark.”
“Hey! Don’t be angry. You know these poker games are
good for contacts. Let’s go to lunch, huh? Anywhere you
want, O.K.?”
He leaned over and kissed her. The corners of her
mouth turned up a little. Mark kissed her again, then
nibbled her ear.
“All right! All right!” Rachel laughed.
From the dim interior of the house, Samuel watched
Rachel walk up the path with a man he’d never seen
before. The man pinched Rachel’s behind. She slapped his
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hand away and the man just laughed. Annoyed, he closed
the curtains. It had rained that morning. Water dripped from the
ceiling into pots in half a dozen places on the floor.
Samuel’s nose dripped. He wiped it with a towel, and it
started dripping again. Giving up, he shuffled to the door.
He opened it just as the man was about to knock. He
stood there a second, hand in the air, staring at Samuel. “Um, hello. I’m Mark Ayers, the attorney for the
Historical Society.”
He extended a hand. Samuel took it. He saw Mark’s lip
curl in disgust when he felt how wet Samuel’s hand was.
Fine, Samuel thought as he wiped his nose, let him be
disgusted. “How are you feeling, Mr. Van Emberg?” Rachel asked.
“Just caught a bit of a cold, young lady, nothing to
worry about,” Samuel smiled at her.
“You really shouldn’t be living here. Think of your
health. Are you seeing a doctor?” Rachel asked.
“I’m sure he can take care of himself,” Mark said,
waving her off with an impatient gesture. “We don’t want
to waste your time, Mr. Van Emberg, so let’s cut to the
chase. Are you going to sign or not?”
Samuel turned stiffly and glared at Mark. The lawyer
tried to hold his gaze, but in a moment his eyes darted
away.
“Mr. Ayers, this is still my house, and if it is to be
demolished, then so be it. But I will not sell it to be some
ridiculous tourist attraction.”
“That’s insane!” Mark bellowed. “You’re losing your
house anyway. Did you make a deal with the Highway
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Department for more. . .?”
“Mr. Van Emberg,” Rachel cut him off. “This is the only
Dutch Colonial house in the entire county. Schoolchildren
could come here to learn about the early Dutch settlers.
Historians and architects would be able to study the
design.”
Samuel smiled at the young woman. Her concern about
his health had touched him. Nobody had bothered to ask
in years, not even that do­gooder from the Council on
Aging. Rachel seemed kind, and appreciated history too.
“I appreciate your interest, Ms. Anderson, but. . .”
Samuel trailed off as Rachel stared past him into the
house, eyes wide with wonder. Samuel turned around. He
saw nothing out of the ordinary.
“Mark, look!” she said. “The interior is completely
original. Period furniture and everything!”
Mark poked his head in, peering around at the decrepit
room. “Yeah, it’s original, all right.”
“That bureau looks like it’s seventeenth­century Dutch,”
Rachel pointed.
“Yes, it is,” Samuel said. “Brought over on a Dutch West
India Company ship by the man who built this house.”
“And look!” she cried. “An old Dutch rocking chair!”
“Also original to the house, Ms. Anderson,” Samuel
replied, catching her enthusiasm. “You have a good eye,
would you care to examine the interior?”
Samuel stood aside and ushered them in. Rachel
walked around the room, gazing at each piece of furniture
in amazement. Mark came only a couple of steps inside
and looked around with ill­disguised repulsion. Water
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from the ceiling dripped on his head and he retreated to
the doorway.
“Do you mind if I open the drapes? I’d like to get a
better view,” Rachel said.
Without waiting for an answer Rachel flung the drapes
open. Daylight shone into the room. Samuel blinked and
held his hand in front of his eyes.
Rachel examined the fireplace. Samuel followed her.
“These cooking utensils are at least a century old,” she
observed.
“Yes, all good ironware,” Samuel said. “No point buying
the cheap stuff they have today, all that newfangled
Teflon, when proper cookware will serve better.”
Rachel turned to him. For a moment, she forgot his
appearance and his smell.
“This house hasn’t changed a bit in 350 years! I don’t
see any wiring or air conditioning or anything. You’re
living like your ancestors from the seventeenth century.”
Samuel chuckled.
“Well, Ms. Anderson, the boy who brings my groceries
shops at the A&P. Youngstown stopped its farmers market
in the 1940s. I’ve made some concessions to modernity.”
“So your family never added anything to this place?”
Mark asked.
“No,” the old man replied. “Well, every now and then
one of my ancestors had to replace some object. These
two chairs, for example, date to the 1870s.”
“I’ve never seen such an impressive collection of
antiques,” Rachel said.
“Not antiques, Ms. Anderson,” Samuel said, smiling.
“Simply the family furniture.”
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“Mr. Van Emberg,” Rachel grabbed his arm. “This is a
really important site. There’s not a single Colonial house
in the region in such an original state.”
Samuel resisted the urge to pull away. No one had
stood this close to him in years. The grocery boy never
came inside. The man who brought firewood asked him to
leave his money on the threshold. Before today, he hadn’t
had a guest since old Jeff Miller came to tell him about
the sinking of the Maine.
“Please,” Rachel continued. “I’d hate for this old house
to be destroyed. It’s bad enough to see the condition it’s
in. Won’t you let the Society buy it? We can fix it up. It
will take a lot of work, but when we’re done it will look
like new.”
Like new. Samuel thought. He looked around at the
dilapidated room–the sagging ceiling, the cracked
floorboards, the rickety furniture. He thought of himself–
withered, gnarled, worm eaten, and Rachel’s slim young
hand on his arm. Like new. . .
He looked up at Rachel.
“Very well, Ms. Anderson, the Society shall have the
house.”
The old man’s heart leapt as he saw her face light up. “That’s wonderful news! Thank you!” she beamed.
“Isn’t that great, Mark?”
“Yeah. Great. Here’s the contract,” He produced a sheaf
of papers from his briefcase.
Samuel waved him aside.
“Later, Mr. Ayers,” he laughed. “First, our lovely
historian here must see the rest of the house!”
Samuel led Rachel towards the stairway while she
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looked eagerly around her.
“These beams you see were cut from a copse of oak
right where the Youngstown Middle School stands today.”
“What year?”
“1631.”
“And they’ve held the house all this time!”
“It’s a good house, Ms. Anderson, meant to stand till
Judgment Day. Now be careful on the stairs, they’re a
little weak.”
Mark stayed alone downstairs. He could hear the old
man’s drone, and the occasional squeal of delight as
Rachel saw another old pile of junk that caught her fancy.
He shook his head and looked at his watch. His cell phone
rang and he stepped outside to answer it.
“Why, Ms. Anderson! What a pleasant surprise. Come
in, come in.”
Mr. Van Emberg looked better. A few nights in a motel
had done him good. His hair was still stringy and his
clothes musty and old, but his smell, that musty, rotting
odor, had disappeared. He looked rested, too. Fresher.
But his eyes showed an apprehension bordering on terror.
Poor dear, Rachel thought. He looks so lost here.
Samuel ushered her in, offering her the room’s only
chair. Samuel sat on the edge of the bed.
“How is the house?” Samuel asked.
“The workmen have cleaned it out. The exterminator
just finished yesterday. The real work will start tomorrow.
But how are you? Is there anything you need?”
“Oh no, the boy who delivers my groceries is delivering
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them here now. Mr. Singh lets me use the kitchen next to
his office.”
“Mr. Singh?”
“He’s the night manager. He’s from the East Indies, you
know.”
“The East Indies?” Rachel asked, wondering if he meant
India.
“He wears a turban,” Samuel said, by way of
explanation. “He has one of those microwave ovens. He
showed me how to use it.”
Rachel stifled a smile at the way he said “microwave” so
carefully, taking apart each syllable like a word in some
foreign language. “What do you do all day?” she asked.
“Oh, an old man like me doesn’t need much to do,” he
said, rocking back and forth a little on the edge of the
bed.
A honk sounded through the door. Mark. Rachel got up.
“I need to go,” she said.
“So soon?”
“Mark is taking me to dinner.”
“I see.”
“Have a nice evening, Mr. Van Emberg.”
“Enjoy your dinner,” he said. He led her to the door and
opened it for her. She stepped out and turned back to
him.
“Are you sure you’re O.K.?” she asked.
Mark honked again. Rachel rolled her eyes. The door
opened onto the parking lot. Mark knew she was coming.
Why did he always have to be such an ass?
“Most certainly, young lady. Goodnight.”
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Samuel shut the door and sat on the edge of the bed.
He looked around the room for a long time, studying the
cheap, false wood of the furniture. What did Mr. Singh
call it? Particle board? He looked at the mirror above the
bureau, the sink outside the bathroom. He sighed. Mr.
Singh had brought him a newspaper that evening, but
none of the stories made any sense. He had given up
trying to read it.
He went over to the television and picked up the
remote. Mr. Singh had shown him how to use this, too.
He picked up the card that listed the channels. He had
watched a few already, but they made less sense than the
newspaper. His eyes went down the list and settled on
one called “Music Television.” That sounded promising.
He pressed the power button, then the number. The screen screamed to life. Four Africans, surrounded
by a group of almost naked native women, gyrated on the
screen. “Wan’ none of yo’ sass, baby
“Gonna make a pass, baby
“Pull you outta class, baby
“Gonna tap yo’ ass, baby”
The screen winked out as he hit the power button.
Shaking his head, Samuel set the remote back on the
television, and the card next to it, before sitting back on
the edge of the bed. He sat there for a long time. Then he
lay down and went to sleep.
The next morning Samuel woke up screaming. He felt
nails plunging into his sides. He felt his flesh being torn
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away, and new flesh hammered in. Five miles away, the
workmen had started. He writhed in agony, biting his
pillow to suppress his screams. It was the first of many
long days.
Rachel studied the house. The workmen had done an
incredible job. They had propped up and reinforced the
walls, replacing many of the planks while sandblasting
and treating the rest. It must have been hard work,
wrenching out old nails, snapping brittle boards, planing
down rough surfaces, but now, nearly a year later, the
house looked like new.
She smiled. It looked beautiful now. The highway
construction half a mile away was a noisome bother, but
that would be over soon. Guard Hill Road would become
an access road. The Historical Society had planted more
trees to screen out the noise and the view. Once those had
grown a little, this spot would look like a piece of the
seventeenth century.
She felt a pang of regret that Mr. Van Emberg wasn’t
here to see it. She’d received a letter from him a few
months before, saying he had moved away. He also sent a
legal document signing over all his books and furniture to
the Society. It must have hurt him to leave everything
behind, but it was probably for the best. She’d moved on
too. She had broken up with Mark just a few days after
the project got underway.
A taxi pulled up to the side of Guard Hill Road. Rachel
watched a young man in a conservative suit get out and
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“Ms. Anderson?” he called to her as he approached.
Rachel studied his face, astonished. The stranger looked
like a young Van Emberg. He stood straight, with strong
and healthy body, but the facial features were almost
identical. The proud bearing was there, too, and the wise,
calm eyes. “Hello. Yes, I’m Rachel,” she said, extending her hand.
He took it, bowing a little. “Are you Mr. Van Emberg’s
grandson?”
“Ah, yes. My name is Samuel,” he said, almost
forgetting to let go of her hand. It felt good to touch her
again.
“So you’ve inherited more than just your grandfather’s
looks,” Rachel said.
Samuel smiled. Rachel looked just as lovely as he
remembered her. Lovelier. She looked more free,
somehow, and happier too. Just like him.
“I came to see the old place. I... and my grandfather...
was curious.”
“How is he?”
“Good. Very good. His health is much improved. He’s
living in New York now.”
“Well, the house fixed up nicely, as you can see.” Samuel forced himself to look at the house for the first
time. A thrill of joy and nostalgia washed over him. It
looked just as it did three hundred years before. He felt
like he was in his youth all over again. From a certain
angle, he couldn’t see the power lines or the road, only
the white trunks of the birch trees and the proud outline
of the gambrel roof against the blue sky. The sound of
traffic seemed to fade, replaced by the clop of hooves and
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the creak of carriage wheels.
“Would you like to go in?” Rachel asked.
“No,” Samuel said quickly, and turned away. For a
moment neither spoke.
“Unlike my grandfather I am more interested in new
things,” Samuel explained. “Ms. Anderson. . .”
“Rachel, please.”
“My grandfather wished me to express to you his
gratitude for your kindness. It was very difficult for him to
leave his ancestral home. Very difficult. But you made it
easier.”
Rachel smiled.
“Your grandfather is a remarkable man. I wish I had a
chance to talk with him more about the Dutch settlers. He
knows so much.”
“I was raised on those stories. He told me everything he
knew. Perhaps we could discuss it over lunch?”
Rachel smiled again.
“That would be wonderful. We can take my car.”
They walked down the path. Samuel breathed in the
fresh summer air. Just being alive felt so good now. He
scratched the inside of his arm and felt a small lump.
Checking to see that Rachel wasn’t looking, he picked at it
through his clothing. It came free and he shook it down
his sleeve. Something trickled down his shirt and into his
hand. A termite. He crushed it with his thumbnail and
flicked it into the grass.
“Rachel, did you have the exterminators go through the
house?”
“Of course,” she replied.
“I see. Well, this house had a lot of termites. You might
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want to have them fumigate it again. I’ll be happy to pay
for it.”
“That’s very kind of you,” she smiled at him.
“Not at all,” he smiled back.
Sean McLachlan is the author of numerous novels and nonfiction
books. He’s currently expanding two series: Toxic World (postapocalyptic science fiction) and Trench Raiders (World War One
action). He’s also dipped into Civil War fiction with the novel A Fine
Likeness. You can find him at his Amazon page.
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FORTY­FOUR NORTH
by Robert Steele
George Pickler took a knee at the wreckage site and
examined what he saw: two dead bodies, one man, one
woman, both slightly burned, a Grayden Mark II skybike
partially melted on one side, smashed on the other,
shoved deep into a ditch on top of the bodies. He pressed
two fingers to feel if the woman had a pulse—nothing. He
checked the man—nothing.
The life meter would tell him everything he needed to
know. He took the disc­shaped meter, and with the sharp
tip, punctured a small hole into the woman’s torso, and
waited ten seconds until it beeped. He looked at the
screen at the top of the disc: Jen Kottke. Age 31. Female.
Cause of death: blunt force trauma causing heart failure.
Time of death: 1800 hours, 23 minutes, and 12.016
seconds.
He marked the meter, and reset it before puncturing
the man’s torso. Alan Sipp. Age 32. Male. Cause of death:
smoke inhalation causing suffocation. Time of death:
1800 hours, 23 minutes, and 12.027 seconds.
“Dead heat,” said George as he looked up at a young
officer with a smirk. “How close, detective?”
“Less than a half­second.”
“That the closest you’ve seen, sir?”
George stepped away from the wreckage to get a break
from the smell of smoldering metal which stung up inside
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his nostrils. “Second closest. There was a boat wreck up
on Lake Chemong. A boy and his father were only off by
only the last digit.”
“Who died first?”
George looked at the baby fat around the officer’s jaw
line and thought he couldn’t have been out of the
academy for more than a day. “I’m sure we’ve been
introduced before, but I forget your name.”
“Officer Phillip Andres.”
“Are you my prep?” George asked. Prep was slang, a
pejorative shorthand for the police unit that helped
prepare cases for detectives—the Investigative
Preparation Department. A prep was an officer assigned
to run errands for the detective. The prep did all the grunt
work, allowing the detective to do all of the thinking. A
random program assigned a different prep to each case. A
prep’s real purpose, beyond errands, was to eliminate
corruption. The Chief of Police organized the IPD
following the scandals two decades before. A prep might
get treated like dirt at times, but they also held quite a bit
of power in reserve. “Yes, I’m assigned here,” said Phillip.
George looked out over the horizon at the sun
beginning to dip, glowing candy floss pink behind some
clouds. There were no skybikes obscuring his view, so he
kept silent, enjoying it for a moment.
“Anything you need, sir?” asked Phillip, interrupting
George’s moment of tranquillity.
“Contact the next of kin. Then the insurance. See if
either of them had any life policies.”
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Phillip scurried away, and although George wanted to
turn his attention back to the skyline, a young woman
sitting on a bench caught his eye. It was the brightness of
her blue trench coat that stopped him. The coat was a few
sizes too big and it draped over her small frame. She put a
finger in her red ringlets, which to George was peculiar,
given the circumstance, with the smoldering of the
wreckage and bodies only less than fifty yards away.
George approached the woman. “Excuse me, ma’am.
Do you know any of the parties involved?”
“Nope” she said, plucking a ringlet and letting her hair
bounce.
“Are you press?”
“Nope” she said, covering her mouth as she laughed.
“Did you witness the scene?”
“No, I’m sorry.”
“Can I ask why you’re here?”
“My feet are sore. I needed to take a wee bit of a rest.”
“But this is a crime scene.”
“Oh,” she said, putting her hands on her lap and
stretching her back to look around. “What was the
crime?”
“I misspoke. It’s a potential crime scene. All accidents
involving death are deemed as such.” He didn’t know why
he was saying so much to a woman who he didn’t even
know. “Would you be able to move down the road to
another bench? It’s just that it’s a bit too close to
everything going on here.”
She seemed not to hear the question. “Which of them
kicked it first?”
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George crossed his arms. “I thought you said you
weren’t a witness. How did you know the amount of
passengers?”
“It’s Champlain. No one rides alone.”
In the morning, George sat in the throne­like chair
behind the desk in his office thinking about the woman.
His prep, Phillip, walked in with a coffee, placed it on the
desk in front of him, and took a seat.
“Thank you,” said George. “Can we close this?” “I think so. I spoke with the family, nothing out of the
ordinary. The two were lovers, common law, but just
barely. No history of any domestic problems. They had
been going to dinner when the skybike lost control. It was
some sort of malfunction with the altitude, according to a
witness. The bike was too damaged to verify this.”
“Did you check with the life insurance?”
“Basic term­life policy, five million for the deceased
Alan Sipp. Nothing for her. He named her as the
beneficiary, but since the life meter indicated his death
slightly afterwards, and his beneficiary died less than a
second before, the benefits will go to his estate. So said
the adjuster.”
“Insurance,” George said shaking his head. He wrapped
his hands around the coffee to feel the warmth. “Who was
the witness? I don’t recall there being anyone on scene.”
“Older gentleman. Terence Mulcair. He came by the
station late in the night to report it. He said he was in a
rush, taking a friend to an appointment, couldn’t stop
after the accident. I advised him he had a legal obligation
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to do so, and advised we could fine him at our discretion.
But he was cooperative.”
George scrunched his nose up, as he did when
something seemed a little strange. “Well, we won’t close it
just yet. I want to talk with this witness. Not that I don’t
trust you, Phillip.”
“I understand, sir.”
George had taken his skybike to the other side of
Champlain, flying at the highest possible altitude setting
to avoid the heavy traffic flow. He hated how much time
he was spending on this case—there were stacks of other
pending files, and cold cases that he never had time to
work on. He met with the witness, Terence Mulcair, inside a spa.
Most of the plant life was digitally enhanced images, but
there were some real plants, and the whole place was
nothing but greens upon greens. George sat in a soft chair beside Terence as a mist filled
the room. “Relaxing place,” George said.
“I don’t mind it,” said Mulcair. “In fact, I kind of adore
it.” He was sipping on a fancy drink with a mint leaf stuck
in it. “You saw this accident from what I hear. What can you
tell me?”
“Nothing that I didn’t already tell your officer. The bike
seemed to malfunction, the driver, the man, he took it
manually and tried to right the thing, and he crashed and
burned.”
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“Nothing seemed out of the ordinary before this
malfunction? A fight between with the passengers?”
“Not that I saw. Everything seemed quite tranquil.”
“How can you be sure it was a malfunction?”
Mulcair pushed back in his seat. “Well, I can’t. But it
sure darn seemed that way.”
“What do you do for a living, Mr. Mulcair?”
“Consulting.”
“Is that why you were on the east side?”
Mulcair put down his drink. “Am I a suspect now? I
don’t understand this.”
“No, sir. Not at all.”
“Then?”
“Unless work related, or something extraordinary, it
seems strange for you to be on the east side.”
“Well, I suppose it does, yes. I was out for a ride until I
got an urgent message from a friend. I own a Lanore
Summervale. The bike simply purrs, and I enjoy going all
over the city, to other cities, wherever I can to ride it.”
“I can’t blame you. I quite enjoy my bikes as well when
there’s no congestion out there. So a Sunday spin, was
it?”
“Very much so.” Mulcair looked around for a servant.
“Has anyone offered you a drink yet?” “No, but thank you.” George stood. “We’ll be in touch.”
The skies were gridlocked as George headed back to
the office. Heavy volumes of bikes filled queues at every
legal altitude level. George plugged in and, through the
earphones, he listened to a message from Phillip about a
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woman named Amilee who came to his office looking for
him. “She refused to speak with me. I know you’re all set
to go on home for the day, but if you can make it back,
please do. All she told me is that it’s regarding the Sipp­
Kottke case.” George called Phillip. “It's a smoggy mess up here. I’m
caught in traffic. I don’t mind heading back, but it could
be another hour before I get there at this rate.”
“I’ll let her know.”
“You can go ahead and go home yourself.”
“I don’t mind at all, sir. I’m living the single life. It’s not
like I have a family at home waiting for me.”
“Maybe this is why you’re single. You need to work a
little less. Don’t waste your life burying your face in work.
You’ll still eventually get your promotion to detective, if
that’s something you want.”
There was a pause as if Phillip were considering an
appropriate response. “I’ll keep her entertained until you
arrive.”
George ditched the sky and headed down to the streets.
There was less congestion, and on the streets he could
pass—although this also meant a bit more danger, one
wrong move by him or someone else and his body might
fall to the road where bikes would run him over before
anyone would even realize that there was an accident.
George managed to make it to the office unscathed. His
adrenaline was already thumping inside his chest when
he walked into the office. There she was. Amilee in her blue trench coat. Before
Phillip or the woman could speak, George raised open
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palms. “I don’t understand. You said you weren’t a
witness.”
“I’m not a witness,” she said. She was sitting in his chair
and she crossed her legs and looked away from George,
out the window.
“Enough games. Please tell me what you’re doing here.”
“I’m not a witness, but I know what happened. I know
that you got this little case all wrong.”
George sat on the corner of his desk and looked at
Amilee. “What is this issue?”
“He died first. It may have been by an itty bitty hair, but
he died first.”
“But you weren’t a witness.”
“I can tell by looking at the victims. People tell me that
I have a gift.” She brushed the hair away from her cheek.
“I don’t like having to promote myself, but if you must
know, I work as a medium.”
“One of those. Well unfortunately, we don’t work with
mediums. We need hard evidence.”
“What evidence do you have to dispute mine?”
“A life meter. It records the exact time of death down to
fractions of a second.”
“What if it glitches?”
“It doesn’t glitch.”
Phillip pressed his fingers into the desk until his
knuckles whitened. “Ma’am, if you don’t have hard
evidence for us, or eyewitness information, we’re going to
need to ask you to leave. Detective Pickler is a very busy
man.”
She slammed her fists on the table, and both George
and Phillip took a step back. “But I am an eyewitness!”
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“You saw the bodies after the fact,” said George. “That’s
not being an eyewitness.”
“Go to the morgue. Check those dead bodies again. I’m
telling you, mister, you had a glitch. I know what I saw.”
“What you saw afterwards,” said George. She was
about to open her mouth to speak, but George had heard
enough and he just wanted her out of the office. “We’ll
have a look in the morning. It will give me a chance to
speak with the coroner about another case.”
She jumped out of the chair and clasped her hands
together. “Thank you. That’s all I ask. Thank you,
detective.”
The morgue was always too cold, and George was mad
at himself for not thinking ahead and bringing a sweater.
He stood beside the blue tint metallic slabs, and spoke to
the coroner about a man who died suddenly while
bathing in the tub. The coroner ruled out any foul play,
and George headed to the exit.
As he opened the door, Philip walked inside, brushing
against the buttons of George’s shirt. “Did you recheck
Kottke and Sipp?”
“No. We won’t be doing that. I just wanted that woman
out of the office. She was creeping me out.”
“You’re here though.” Phillip continued walking to the
computer on the desk. He typed in the entry codes and
two slabs opened, slowly revealing the corpses of Jen
Kottke and Alan Sipp. “Phillip, I don’t have my life meter on me.”
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“There’s one in that piece of shit desk,” said the coroner
from the other side of the room.
Phillip took the life meter. “Here, I’m not authorized to
use it.”
George took the meter, rolled his eyes, and walked to
the male body. “Alan Sipp, 12.027 seconds. I believe
that’s exactly as it was.” “And Jen Kottke?”
George pierced the torso, and took a curious look at the
meter. “Wait a minute.” He pierced a new section of skin.
“Well, it’s 12.029 seconds.”
“Interesting that.”
George walked to Phillip, his mouth hung open a bit.
George was well aware of a prep’s duty of reporting on a
detective’s work—any corruption, or any incompetence.
George didn’t like the way Phillip responded. “Wait a
minute now. You were right there when I did those initial
readings.”
“I was there. I heard you call out—”
“But you didn’t see it. Is that what you’re trying to say?”
“I’m not trying to say anything, sir. You are correct
though. I didn’t see what the meter read.”
George held the meter up. “Someone’s been messing
with this. There’s a glitch.”
“We’ve never had any malfunction.”
George’s neck muscles tightened and he felt the cold of
the room drop another degree. “I’ve never malfunctioned
either. Look at my record. Someone’s messed with this.”
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George spent the next day speaking to every tech guy
he could find. He spoke to the internal IT department, but
they didn’t seem to know much beyond day­to­day
operations. He called around to independent analysts,
and spoke to the manufacturers of the life meter. They all
told him about how accurate the meter was, how it
reinforced its own data by verifying the deaths of billions
of the body’s cells.
In the afternoon he returned to the morgue,
remembering to bring his own life meter, and
remembering to bring his sweater.
He rechecked the bodies, but got the same results as
the day before. He walked to the yellow tiled
examination room and spoke with the coroner as he ran
tests on the corpse of an old woman. “Is it possible to
manipulate bodies so that they could get a different
reading for time of death?”
“Shit, I wouldn’t think so.” The coroner scratched the
top of his shiny bald head with the part of his forearm just
below the surgical glove. “That would mean replacing
nearly all of the body’s fucking cells. They’d need to be
the same damn cells, otherwise the reading would
malfunction, or indicate another name for the deceased.”
“What about injecting something in there? Something
that would hijack the cells”
“If there’s such a fucking thing, I don’t know about it.”
The coroner peeled back the eyelids of the corpse, looking
at the yellowing around the base of the eyes. “Seems like
an awful bit of work just to shave a few damn seconds.”
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“Not if there’s an insurance benefit to collect.” George
cupped a wrist behind his back. “Would you be able to
run some tests and see if the Kottke body has been
manipulated in any way?”
“My examinations are thorough, as you can clearly
fucking see. I would have noticed a damn manipulation.”
“And I agree. You’re the best. I’m talking about after
your examination. I don’t trust the security around here.”
The coroner chuckled. “Shit, I don’t disagree.” He cut a
light cross pattern into the corpse’s chest cavity. “Alright,
I’ll have another look for you this afternoon.”
George’s secretary handed him a written notice from
The Police Association, requesting a meeting later in the
afternoon. He remembered the last time he went for a
meeting. It was to discuss how to prepare a defense over
an alleged mishandling of a politician’s death. The police
department ended up dismissing their internal
investigation through the Special Investigation Unit, the
SIU, but the stress of it wasn’t something that George
wanted to go through again. He gulped down the rest of his cold coffee and found
his way to the eastern wing of the building where the
prep offices were located. He looked around the low
cubicles until he found Phillip. “How dare you,” George said stomping over to Phillip’s
desk. He watched Phillip lower in his chair, looking
embarrassed by the commotion, but George’s fury got the
better of him, and he continued anyway. “For fifteen
years I’ve been a detective.” He pointed generally around
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the room. “I’ve worked with many of these men and
women, some who have gone on to bigger and better
things, and never once have I had an issue with a prep.”
“But we’ve never had an issue with a life meter before.
It’s something I had to report, sir.”
“You wait until I figure out what is going on first. You
wait until the investigation is completed before you raise
your concerns.”
“Oh no, sir, that’s not proper protocol.” Phillip pulled
out his handheld device and held it to face George. “Rule
3.1: report all matters of corruption or incompetency to
your superior immediately. Any delay could allow further
contamination of a criminal investigation.”
George snatched the device from Phillip and threw it
back over his head. It bounced off a cabinet and smashed
to the floor. George felt the concerned eyes of all the
preps fall on him. “I don’t have time to deal with an
internal police investigation. I have enough real
investigations based on life and death.”
Riding his skybike over east Champlain, George listened
to a message from the coroner: “Absolutely no fucking
issues post examination. That body is the same as when I
left it.”
George took a hard turn and headed to witness
Mulcair’s favorite Spa. Mulcair wasn’t in the spa, so George spoke to the
employee at the front desk, annoyed as too many of her
bracelets clanged on her wrists. “Do you know what
Terence Mulcair does for a living?”
“I think he mentioned consulting of some kind.”
“Yes, but what exactly?”
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“I’m not too sure. I see him in the parking lot with this
curly haired woman sometimes. I assume they’re
discussing business. They seem very matter of fact. But I
don’t know what they talk about. We try to stay out of our
client’s personal lives.” “Does she wear a blue trench coat?”
“Why yes. Lovely, isn’t it?”
“I’m going to need you to pull Mr. Mulcair’s address
information.” He watched the clerk tilt her head and push
out her lips. “It’s a police matter, so it’s law that you
cooperate.”
George kept his bike on the streets, making sure his
visit was as unannounced as possible. He ascended the
road to the large homes on the hills on the outskirts of
Champlain.
He considered calling for a few uniformed officers, but
he wanted to do a bit more of an investigation before
hauling Mulcair into the department. He felt the sidearm
tight against his boot, and tried to remember the last time
he took it to the range. Too long ago, he thought. George stopped in front of the large gate numbers on
44 North Irving street. Mulcair’s place was large, but
modest for the area­­cream stucco, with red clay roof tiles,
a little fountain out front. As he walked up, he heard voices coming from the back
of the house. He walked around the side of the building,
and he clutched his chest, trying to slow the beat of his
heart.
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When he neared the corner of the house, he began to
hear splashing and laughter. He took a peek around the
corner and saw three young blonde women playing
around in the pool. One sat on the edge of the water,
wearing large­rimmed sunglasses, her feet dipped in
above the ankles. The other two swam around, splashing
one another by flicking their wrists.
Mulcair was nowhere in sight. As the woman on the
edge of the water lifted her sunglasses, George snapped
back around the corner. Jen Kottke.
He took deep breaths to slow his heart rate. After he
could breathe with some regularity, he turned and walked
toward the pool. The two women in the pool craned their
necks and looked at George­­two more Jen Kottkes.
“I need to speak with a Terence Mulcair.”
“He’s out,” said the one on the edge of the water.
“Who are you?” asked another in the pool.
“I met Mr. Mulcair at the spa.”
The woman on the edge of the pool put her sunglasses
back over her eyes. “He’ll be back in about fifteen
minutes.”
Another Jen swam to the stairs and walked out of the
pool. She wrung out her hair and wrapped a towel
around her chest. “Can I get you anything to drink?”
“No, thank you.” George stood by the glass patio door
and put his hand on the sliding door. “Would you mind if
I used your washroom?”
The three Jens all looked at one another. “It’s just that
we don’t know you,” said the one in the towel.
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George sat in a lounge chair feeling the sun bake into
his forehead. He knew it would cause another internal
investigation, but he didn’t know what to expect when
Mulcair came home and saw him sitting in the yard with
blonde triplets who resembled a deceased woman. “Damn SIU,” said George so quietly that no one heard
him. He pinched the fabric on his knee and pulled up his
pant leg. With his other hand he drew his gun. The three
Jens put their hands up. The one in the water struggled,
kicking her legs wildly just to stay afloat. “Detective
Pickler. I’ll need you to let me in the house.”
George led the three at gunpoint, following them
inside. “Where’s his office?”
“He doesn’t have an office,” said the one at the front. “The basement,” said the one at the back as the other
two shot back annoyed looks. They descended into the basement. With each step the
domestic affluence disappeared, and George felt the same
coldness as he felt at the morgue. The basement was dark
grey bricks and a few open bulbs hanging from the roof.
As George turned he saw a body on a steel table. The
body was busted open on the cheeks showing deep red
and black gashes. It was exactly as Jen Kottke looked at
the morgue.
George walked closer and saw that it was another Jen
Kottke. He looked at the Jens. “Clones? How many are
there?”
They crossed their arms in unison and said nothing. George heard the basement door open, followed by the
sound of footsteps. He pointed his gun at the staircase.
The footsteps stopped. George thought about calling for
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backup, but it was too late now, and he didn’t want to let
a hand off of his gun.
George saw Terence Mulcair lean around the wall. He
saw the metallic tip of a gun. George fired two quick
shots, and to his surprise, both hit Mulcair clean in the
abdomen.
Mulcair’s body tumbled and slid to the foot of the stairs.
The Jens ran to him, and from the top of the stairs there
were more footsteps. The blue trench coat flew open like
a cape and Amilee squatted and clutched Mulcair’s head.
Nevermind that George had revealed the most
elaborate murder plot and insurance scam Champlain had
ever seen. And no one cared that Terence Mulcair and
Amilee Heyward cloned a woman just to have her
murdered. Forget about the clones they murdered just
moments before the accident, with the goal of getting the
time of death suitable for an insurance claim payment to
the beneficiary. And disregard that they lured an innocent
Alan Sipp, and then ran him off the road. And nevermind
that they also broke into the morgue to replace a dead
body, that they interfered with a crime scene. Instead of celebrating the closing of a major case,
George was sitting in the boxy Police Association’s
meeting room, going over how to prepare a statement of
defence against the SIU’s charges that he fired his gun
outside of the proper guidelines, by not verbally
addressing the suspect. No doubt Phillip would help the
SIU by nitpicking George’s handling of the case, by
mentioning his outburst. It would certainly help Phillip to
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get his promotion to detective, even if it wasn’t
immediate.
George wanted the meeting to be over. He wanted to
find some open skies and ride his skybike right out of
Champlain. Robert Steele is an English Literature graduate who resides in
Canada. His previous fiction has appeared in: Four Volts,
IdentityTheory.com, and Thrice Fiction. You can check out his blog
at: robertwilliamsteele.wordpress.com
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THE TREES OF GAIA
by Anna Sykora
“Hold on to your stomach, surveyor,” warned pilot
Delaney. “We’re making our final approach.” Lurching
sideways the snub­nosed shuttle plunged through layers
of clouds, and Eva, hunched in the pod beside her, almost
heaved. For this she’d given up a snug desk job? Central had
asked for volunteers. Never volunteer... Tasting sour vomit, Eva gulped it down and sat up
straight, clenching her fists as the Loyalty swooped over
an "ocean" of dark green. One single, virgin forest
covered Gaia; she knew this, still felt shocked by the sight.
“Holy code,” she muttered, and the pilot, an older
woman, chuckled:
“I know how you feel. If you're used to Tantalus, this
little moon is a dream­­or nightmare.” “I’ve never seen an unprocessed world. The sky’s so
blue it hurts my eyes.” Eva squinted down at the trees of
Gaia. “That’s ‘cause there’s no industry yet. Work brigades
deploy next year. The air's so rich it won't need
processing."
"That should save on costs. Central will be pleased."
Coasting down, the shuttle decelerated and Eva's ears
popped. Delaney seemed friendly; could she trust her?
A triple stripe adorned her shabby blue sleeves. “Hey
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Delaney, I see by your stripes you've served 30 years. Do
you happen to know how the station here got its
reputation? Drafting me in on short notice, the station
chief offered me double pay.”
“Honey, if you ask me it’s a jinx." Delaney eyed a grimy
dial. "The first crew died of contaminated tubes; that's
what the news line said. But I keep flying surveyors out
before their contracts end.”
“When was your last one?”
“About three weeks ago.”
“Surveyor Ganter?”
“Right. And he told me the station chief belongs in the
brig. Ganter couldn’t wait to get home to Tantalus. ”
Single trees rose from the wilderness, each huge as a
block housing thousands of clones. “All I know about
John Orcus is his name,” said Eva, which sounded like a
lie. “And he’s got weird theories about this moon,” she
tacked on in a hurry.
Cackling, Delaney rapped a flickering dial, whose
readout firmed. “Maybe that’s what Central pays him for.
Like it pays me to fly this rust bucket back and forth to
Tantalus. Orcus must be weird, to want to run a station
built on top of these trees.”
“Hope I can stand the isolation.” Delaney grinned, revealing uneven teeth. “Honey, I
guess I’m old enough to be your biological mom. Take
my advice, keep your head down here and stick to the
code.” Eva bit her lip. “Of course. I'm a true believer."
“Gaia is still wild. Remember that.” 105
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A nest of antennae bristled from the trees. “Here we
go,” said Delaney cheerfully. “Shift your pod back and I’ll
set us down.” Heart thumping, Eva clutched the plastic
armrests. This evening she would meet John Orcus.
What a chance for her stuck career. A landing dock anchored in the trees loomed up, blue
triad of beacons pulsing. Nobody was waiting. What did
she expect? He thought her a lowly data clerk. Rotating its engines the Loyalty drifted down and then
jolted to a stop. “Sorry, hon, I gotta keep to the
schedule.” Delaney flicked a row of overhead switches.
“Wait here till the station sends you a helper.” As the
shuttle's rear hatch groaned open sunshine flooded the
pilot bay.
“Thanks for the ride, and the advice.” Eva unhooked
herself from her pod. She checked her respirator, reading
neutral. The Gaian air was supposed to be safe, as long
as you didn’t touch the trees. Just in case, she snapped
her unit's clear mask over her nose and mouth.
Delaney winked. “Hope you tough it out until your
contract ends.” “Thank you, pilot, I need the gold. I want to rent a
larger cubicle at home.” Buzzing, the in­ship helper shoved out a high­stacked
pallet of supplies for the station. Then Delaney gave a
thumbs­up sign as Eva pulled her suitcase down the ramp.
The hatch clattered shut and the Loyalty whooshed
straight up again off the dock, rocked its stubby wings
and veered away. Left alone, Eva gawked at the surrounding tree­tops. No
plastic fakes. She’d never seen so many trees: enough to
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build dozens of temporary cities, enough to house the
millions of cloned humans who would settle Gaia. A breeze stirred the large, five­pointed leaves, and they
made a low, hissing sound. Eva shivered in her snug,
grey uniform, hugging herself though the sun felt warm.
Already she missed the din of crowds on Tantalus, the
ceaseless swirl of 3­D traffic... All of a sudden she thought she felt hidden eyes
watching her, hungry eyes. How ridiculous­­Gaia's only
inhabitants were the small band of surveyors at the
station. “Excuse me,” a syn voice droned and Eva wheeled,
reaching for her blaster. “You must be Surveyor Rosario.”
The helper had steel hydraulic arms, no face (to save on
costs). “I’m sorry I frightened you." “I’m alright. It’s just so quiet I can hear my heart
beating.” “Humans get used to Gaia, or they leave... I have a
message from the clerk you are replacing, Paolo Ganter.”
Nodding, Eva slipped the offered disk into her hip pocket.
“May I carry your suitcase? It scans heavy for a clone of
your sub­standard height.”
She snorted. “I am standard for Tantalus, where
heights are strictly enforced. You may carry my case, but
don't expect a tip.” Scooping up the station's pallet, the
helper set her suitcase on top. “This way.” And away it rolled down a steel track
winding around the treetops. Hurrying after the helper,
Eva noticed one tree stripped of bark. How naked it
looked, like a corpse abandoned on a busy intersection.
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At intervals of about 10 paces, thick hoses wound around
the trees. “Helper," she called out, "what is the point of all this
pumping equipment?” “The station chief's idea: chemical transfusions keep
the nearby trees under control. We helpers built and run
the system.” She wanted to ask more questions but the station
loomed: a hulk of standard steel containers erected on
struts in the trees. Only the top floor had windows, and
scarlet curtains fluttered in one. Near it, like an old­
fashioned cherry­picker, a tethered transpo rose into the
air. On it stood a tall, gaunt man in a drab green
uniform, with silver crescents on his shoulders, black hair
flowing down his back. John Orcus wore no respirator. “Surveyor Rosario, reporting, sir,” Eva sang out and
saluted. Ignoring her, Orcus bored a small power drill
into a trunk. Blue sap dripped, but even as the station
chief collected a sample the bark closed up like a liquid
stirred.
“You should use a respirator," cried Eva. "Our code of
conquest­­" “I’ve got my reasons.” Their gazes locked, and she felt
a powerful, almost magnetic force. Rimmed with
shadows above rugged cheekbones, his deep­set eyes
burned with a weird, green light. This was a man used
to getting his way, her superiors warned, a dangerous
man. They kept a megafile of encoded data on John
Orcus. 108
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“Follow that helper to your quarters,” he said then in a
gentler tone. “The crew meets on deck at 18 hundred
hours for tubes, surveyor. Don't be late.” The sun had already slipped behind the trees when
Eva stepped out onto the roof at 17:55. Two stands of
pseudo­candles cast a glow over the long, black plastic
table. “Good evening, I’m Eva Rosario.” She chose a space at
the end of a bench, and faces gazed at her skeptically. “I
got drafted to replace your data clerk.”
A fleshy blonde with chill blue eyes­­the only other
female­­sneered. “And I’m Martina Bukowski, chief
genetic analyst. I’ve got three weeks of backlogged data.
Hope you last longer than poor Ganter.”
No, morale did not seem high at this isolated station.
Eva shifted on the bench, whose hardness recalled
childhood hours of worshipping the code. Grimly she sat
up straight as a wall.
“Hello, I’m Yang Sung.” A round­faced man beamed,
his head shaved bare as an asteroid. “And I'm glad to see
a fresh face here, along with fresh supplies of tubes.”
“I wouldn’t feed our rations to a sewer rat,” moaned the
hatchet­faced man beside him. “I’m Jansen, the station
engineer, and I wish my stomach could heal itself like one
of these famous trees.” In the twilight, branches swayed along the roof's edge,
moving with eerie grace, like dancers. The hairs on Eva's
neck prickled.
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“We all should admire these trees," said Yang Sung,
"since they can regenerate themselves. Maybe they can
teach us about healing wounds, or even about
immortality.”
“You’re just a dreamer, like the chief.” Martina jabbed
her thumb at the empty armchair at the table’s head. It
glittered with costly brocade­­like a museum piece, Eva
thought. “Everybody knows Central wants our resource
report out of the way before settling Gaia. Code knows
we need more space for clones.”
Not waiting for the chief, a helper rolled out with a
platter of identical, silver tubes. Each surveyor took one,
and popping hers open, Eva applied a dot to her tongue
and sucked on it, developing the flavor of a bland beef
stew. John Orcus strode out onto the darkening deck, tossing
his mane like a bard of old preparing to recite. Nodding
at Eva, he took his place as if on a golden throne. When
he tasted his tube he scowled. “Our new crew member will need some time to get
used to us,” he said, and Jansen guffawed. Ignoring him,
Orcus stared at Eva: “Newcomers often feel tired or
anxious. The days here pass too quickly.” “I'm sure I can keep up with you,” she said, and when
Martina laughed bitterly, Eva wondered if the beautiful
geneticist might be the station chief's lover. She'd read
nothing on this in the files. His green gaze bored into Eva now as if he read her
mind. "With days and nights just 8 hours long, we learn
to live intensely here." 110
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“Why must the sun rise in the west?" Jansen
complained. Wistfully he gazed up at reddish, dry
Tantalus, now riding high in the star­flecked sky.
“Jansen," Yang Sung chided, "you should show more
interest in the biosphere here. It's almost untouched by
human claws.” The engineer frowned, bushy eyebrows stiffening into a
line. “Why should I? Gaia is passing away. Next year
the helpers will clear­cut all these useless trees, to make
room for more settlements.”
“How, if the trees regenerate?" asked Eva. “The work brigades will find a way,” he said sharply.
“They always do.”
“At least there are no natives on Gaia to pretend to feel
sorry for.” Martina pushed away her well­squeezed tube
with a gesture of disgust. “Absent certainty is not certain absence,” Orcus pointed
out, and Eva studied his slanted, green eyes. What did
he really know?
The other surveyors soon withdrew, as if they couldn’t
bear each other. A faceless helper rolled out and
collected the empty tubes for recycling. Orcus produced a
pipe and pouch, and leaning back blew undulating, thin
rings that melted into the night. Eva sat silently, tracking
the larger moons­­all settled for centuries­­across the
starry sky.
“Six other moons,” he said finally, tapping his ashes
onto the table. “All of them processed and colonized,
packed full of cloned humans and mechanical helpers.
Gaia will be next, and what a pity.” Eva felt eyes
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observing from the trees. Shuddering she pulled up her
uniform's cowl.
“What is it?” he demanded.
“An eerie sensation, some trick of my mind. Chief, I’m
not used to uncrowded spaces. I can feel my breathing.
It's distracting." “Yes, Gaia makes a shocking first impression... If you
open your eyes, if you hold out your mind, she will grow
on you. Don’t be afraid of the enfolding forest.” Getting
up he patted Eva's shoulder, and she felt a subtle warmth
flowing from his hand. She took a deep breath, intensely curious­­hungry
even­­to know him better. Was this a chance? What
would Central think? She had no demerits in her file. Getting up he glided towards the hatch that led to the
spiral stairs back down. She cast a last look up at
overcrowded, old Tantalus and followed John Orcus.
His quarters filled one corner. As he swiped a card
through the lock, Eva caught sight of scarlet curtains. Too soon, even for a lowly clerk. She had to act her
part. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning, chief,” she mumbled.
“In the lab.” “What’s the matter, Eva?” “I just feel exhausted. Must be this day that ended too
soon.”
“Sleep well,” he murmured as she retreated down the
hall.
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Sitting down at her cell's dented mecmind, she loaded
Ganter’s disk, and a hologram of his sallow face flickered
in the mecmind's field. “Agent Rosario,” he drawled, “to make a too­long story
short, I believe our subject has had contact with alien
intelligence. His loyalty has been disintegrating.
Sometimes I think he can read my thoughts. Stay safe,
pursuing this project for Central. I myself can't wait to
escape from Gaia." The image faded, and pulling out the disk Eva tossed it
into the vaporizer. The sudden heat and reek made her
queasy, and she flicked off the overhead light. Unzipping
the rubbery sides of her uniform, she opened the window
and leaned out, as if searching for the crowds and traffic
back home; the familiar view from her high­density
blockhouse in Sector 2. Gaia’s silence felt deafening now: no clamor of voices,
no rumble of the universal helper machines. No
humming of insects; no calling of clone­birds; no, nothing
but wind in the waving branches, all of them whispering
together in a language she’d never understand.
No wonder a man of the station chief's gifts was losing
his stability and falling away from the code. Central
should have sent someone else to guide the resource
report to completion; John Orcus had too much
imagination. She herself could do a better job. Time to
get some sleep, however, before her first day as a clerk...
Turning back to the dark room, she choked on a
scream. A man stood before her, tall and gaunt in the
velvety shimmer from the sky, his cheekbones sharp. Had
her own thoughts summoned him?
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“I keep a bit­key for every cell,” said Orcus softly, green
eyes gleaming like a cat’s. Did he have hypnotic powers? Central's files had not
exaggerated. “What do you want?” she heard herself
asking, cool as a mechanical helper. Stepping close he
grabbed her by the arm:
“Who are you, Eva Rosario?” He gave her a little shake.
“And what do really want at my station? You are no
surveyor; you have a different feel.”
She smiled, baring her teeth. “Chief, you will find all
my holograms in order. I'm just a drafted data clerk.”
“I don’t believe you.” “Can you read my mind? Then you know how you
attract me." The small room was spinning on an axis. Placing his
tingling hands on her shoulders, he pulled down the sides
of her uniform as if peeling a luscious fruit.
Later, as they lay upon her hard bed, breathing softly
and breathing together, his finger traced the tattoo on her
hip: “‘IA,’ for ‘internal affairs.’ So you ventured out here to
investigate me.” He chuckled, as if at some private joke. Eva didn’t answer. Getting up he slumped into the
mecmind's chair and buried his face in his hands. After a
moment she bent over him, twining a lock of his hair
around her fingers: “Yes, John, IA sent me out to Gaia to watch over you.
We're worried that you're having a nervous breakdown.
So,” she coaxed in her smoothest manner, “why don’t you
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tell me what’s going on? Central can’t afford to keep on
paying surveyors to leave Gaia early.”
“It’s true I’ve changed in the last few years, ever since I
took this position. It's true, I no longer worship the code
of conquest in its entirety. But that's because I
understand Gaia, and I am the only one.” As he peered
into her face she felt his numbing load of sorrow and
loneliness. Yes, this man had telepathic gifts. What role
did the trees of Gaia play? Central needed to know if he was suffering from
paranoid delusions. Central needed to know how the
giant trees contributed to his condition. Central, always
on the watch for new and efficient chemical weapons… “You believe these trees possess intelligence?” She kept
her voice calm as a machine's. (Never show a subject you
are passing judgment.)
“I know they do.” He scanned her face as if seeking
approval.
“Then prove it; I've got an open mind.”
"I will."
They climbed the staircase back to the station’s deck.
Stepping onto a transpo parked there, he motioned to Eva
to climb aboard.
“How far down are we going?” she asked. “All the way.” “I thought no human had seen the surface.”
“The risk is worth it, I promise.” She wrapped her arms
around him, and he started the transpo with a jolt. Off
the roof it flew and then down, and in the darkness it felt
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like a plunge underwater. Leaves and branches went
whirling past in the beams of the running lights. Leaves
that broke off grew back like magic. John Orcus kept steering down and around the trunk of
the barkless tree, and soon Eva smelled a cloying
fragrance sweeter than any perfume. She'd set her
respirator on maximum. Again he hadn't bothered with
one. Landing, the transpo juddered to a halt on dark and
spongy ground. “It happened right here,” he said,
dismounting. She followed, feet sinking into the earth.
“Right here,” he repeated as if in a dream. Flicking on a hand light he pointed to the trunk of an
enormous tree. She gasped at the cracked and yellowed
bone protruding from its bark: a human femur?
“A relic of the first crew. these trees devoured them.”
“Then why claim that they died of contaminated food?”
“We needed more surveyors to study these trees.
Finding out how they repair themselves could earn us
trillions in gold bullion. But that would be wrong; in fact
it would be a crime.”
“What do you mean?” She sidled away, careful not to
brush against the trees. “Anything that harms these beings is wrong. Though
life here may seem chaotic, at it's root it is highly
organized. In this dark forest I can see one mind like a
single organism; a mind that can think for itself, or act
and react to defend itself.”
“What is your proof?” 116
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“These trees chose to consume the first crew here. They
understand our conquest of Gaia would destroy their way
of life.” Eva flung up her hands, warding off this vile heretic.
“All creatures are subject to the code of conquest,” she
recited. “We humans are the masters of the universe, and
that is our final destiny.”
“Oh, don’t believe that propaganda. Join me in loving
these benevolent trees. Live here with me, and live
forever…”
“Chief­­John­­you've lost your sanity.” Martina stepped
from behind a tree and pointed her blaster at his head.
“You can't live by the code, your blood crawling with tree
spores. I analyzed the latest sample, and they have been
colonizing you. We need to get you back to Tantalus.”
“No,” he said stubbornly. “These marvelous beings
have selected me­­” A small branch whipped around Martina's throat; she
stumbled backwards, tugging at it, choking. “Stop it!” Eva shouted, but Martina's body hung limp.
Flinging it away, the branch snapped back and swayed
like a snake about to strike. When she aimed her blaster
the branch sprang up again and rejoined its kin.
Yes, these trees showed intelligence; they did not want
to die. They'd rather kill. “These trees murder humans," Eva shouted at Orcus,
"so we must judge and execute them. That’s what our
code of conquest requires.”
“No, they are just defending themselves­­like any
feeling being.” He grabbed the pumping node on a tree
and ripped it away.
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“What are you doing?"
"These trees are gods.” He tore the node off another,
and its low branches rippled together. He patted the
gnarly bark of a third­­and his hand sank into it, and then
his forearm.
“They’re taking you!” “I want to go to them. With you­­”
“I’ve got a life, John; I serve Central.” “This is your chance to live forever. Gaia is one
beautiful mind, a mind that absorbs whatever it
touches..." “I’ll warn the station.” She jumped on his transpo.
“Too late.” With his free hand he hugged the tree
engulfing him. “I can see the trees attacking the station.
The rescue module's already­­”
Just a hank of his hair now dangled free, so she tore
some off and stuffed it into her pocket: DNA evidence,
for Central. She gunned the transpo upwards on full power, around
and around the peeled tree’s trunk. Other trees swiped at
her; they tried to entwine her while she stubbornly
hurtled upwards, aiming at the pool of pale blue that
marked the Gaian dawn. She felt she was bursting from
the bottom of a well, escaping from some hideous
nightmare. If dawn was breaking on Gaia, though, why
was the sky in flames?
The ruins of the station blazed, huge trees flailing at
collapsing walls. Almost colliding with a toppling corner,
Eva grabbed a red curtain like a flag. She shot away
towards the landing dock. Here the steel struts looked
intact... 118
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When a branch snatched the transpo from under her,
she fell on her knees on the steel plates. “I won’t join you;
this is not my world,” she shouted at the wildly thrashing
trees, while ruddy Tantalus shimmered overhead like a
bloodshot eye. “Help me!” cried Eva, yearning for her
multitudes of fellow clones, all packed together tightly
there and on the six, long­settled moons; all living and
dying in perfect order according to the code. Could she survive? She had no water, no tubes. All
alone she cowered on the steel plate dock in the burning
sun, an insect just out of reach of the mutinous trees.
Then the dock bucked under her, as if trees were
pulling the last struts out of their bodies. When she
blasted the nearest with her weapon, its crown burst into
a fury of flames, singeing off her hair and eyebrows.
Drops of sap exploded all around, rattling down on the
dock. She heard a mournful, shuddering cry, and all the
other trees bent away from her. Hours passed, or maybe days... Eyes swollen shut, she
licked her cracked lips and dreamed of water. Who at Central would believe her? Paranoid delusions,
they'd say... And she'd always been such a loyal worker,
always keeping faith with the code...
From far away, she heard a whooshing sound in the
sky. Raising her throbbing head she imagined the snub­
nosed Loyalty plunging from a cloud. Down it came,
headed towards the dock.
Frantically she waved her rag of red curtain. Did the
shuttle dip its wings? 119
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Oh, she'd make it back to Tantalus, where Central
would heal her eyes. Praise the code; she’d be safe once
again, in her precious cubicle.... But what was this rock thumping in her belly? Why
was her snug uniform straining? What had John Orcus
given her? The rubbery fabric stretched; it cracked, and a bone­
hard branch burst out. Anna Sykora has been an attorney in New York and a teacher of
English in Germany, where she now resides. To date she has placed
131 stories, mostly genre, in the small press; most recently with
Rosebud (finalist in the 2014 Mary Shelley competition), Tales of
the Talisman and Niteblade. She has also placed 340 poems.
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THE GLASS EYE
by John Buentello and
Lawrence Buentello
The glass eye lay glimmering in the grass like the
morning star in a dawning sky.
Oren Landi reached down and plucked it into his hand.
He felt its polished surface against his fingers, and an odd
heat he attributed to the warming sun.
At first he thought he’d spied a shining coin while
walking on the path to the communal village, and his
heart beat faster, for acquiring coins was rare for him in
these days of difficult labor. The village was small and the
farms far apart, and he was without a father to teach him
a craft that might prove profitable. Though he was only
sixteen, he felt he had passed the age of learning
meaningful skills such as those practiced by the guilds.
He’d been earning a sparse living driving wagons through
the countryside delivering goods for the farmers, but had
no other prospects.
When Oren stared into his palm he realized he wasn’t
holding a coin, or anything he’d ever seen before. Staring
back at him in solitary gaze was a finely carved glass eye,
of white crystal with a pale blue iris in the center; and in
the center of the blue pigment a translucent black pupil. It
was as if his hand had acquired a cyclopean demeanor
and was staring back at him silently.
He was only mildly surprised by the discovery.
He’d heard tales of the ornaments of the rich, of
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wealthy people living in far cities, the affectations that
made a glass eye preferable over a cloth or hood. Still, the
village of Gedwild was far from any city, small, and
devoid of wealthy inhabitants. Had a rich man passed
through by way of carriage? Had a courier taken a jolt on
horseback and lost the ornament in the grass?
Certainly the glass eye was not a coin, and was
worthless as currency, but he slipped it into his pocket
nonetheless. A talisman was a talisman, and even though
it possessed a grotesque appearance, he recognized its
artistry and admired the beauty of its craft.
With the glass eye in his pocket and a smile on his lips,
he continued on his way toward the village.
“Did you see the strange man by the river?” asked Del
as he manhandled a sack of barley into the bed of the
wagon.
He paused to catch his breath. He was twelve years old,
but big for his age, and often helped Oren when he wasn’t
working at his father’s mill. Oren couldn’t pay the boy
much for his efforts, but both enjoyed the ride between
the barley man and the brewer, a ride that would have
been long and tedious for Oren without a companion.
Oren heaved a sack over the barley the boy had just
loaded, sweat dripping from his chin. He always kept his
long hair tied with a length of sackcloth, but now he
pulled it from his head to wipe his face. When he was
finished, he leaned against the wagon to retie the cloth.
“What did you say?”
“There’s a stranger that came through the village a
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couple of days ago. Old Werri told my father about him.”
Del dusted his palms on his breeches. “Werri believes he’s
evil.”
Oren studied Del’s face a moment, wondering if he
should laugh, or if the boy was sincere. But the boy’s face
betrayed no humor.
“Why does Werri think the man evil?” he asked as he
turned toward the remaining sacks of barley lying in the
grass. “Seems to me old Werri thinks every stranger is
evil, or his horse, or his wife. The man’s probably just
some wanderer fishing the river.”
“No,” Del said, his tone rising. The boy raised his arms,
a posture Oren had seen many times presaging some wild
proclamation of ghosts or wraiths or Lucifer’s hordes.
“Old Werri rode out to the river to speak to him, no doubt
to reckon him out for the constable. The King’s men hate
vagrants.”
“That sounds very much like Werri,” Oren said, pulling
up another sack. “Always in someone else’s business.”
“True enough. But this time, when he came upon the
man, he was overcome by a spell.”
“A spell?” Oren said, tossing the sack into the wagon.
Yes, this was a more interesting story. Werri was a large
man, with a chest as broad as a barrel, and thick, heavy
arms. In his youth he’d been a good smithy, strong as a
mill wheel, and wasn’t likely to be frightened by a
vagrant.
Oren asked, “What kind of spell?”
Del lowered his arms and quieted his tone. “An evil
eye.”
As Del spoke, the memory of finding the glass eye came
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to Oren, subtly, like the uneasy realization of a foreboding
coincidence.
“But not just by the gesture of his hand,” Del continued.
“He cast the spell from a dead eye.”
“A dead eye?” Oren’s hand slipped down to the pocket
holding the glass eye.
“Werri came upon him as the man was washing his
arms in the river, his back to him. Old Werri does enjoy
stalking up behind people. My father told me he was a
masterful hunter years ago. He called out to the man,
demanding to know his business in the village.” Del
tapped his finger against his temple, near his eye. “The
man turned away from the water and glared at Werri with
his good eye. But it was the other eye, or the socket where
once there was an eye, that stole Werri’s breath. Old
Werri swore to my father that a demonic mist filled the
socket and gave him evil tidings.”
Oren considered reaching into his pocket and bringing
up the eye for the boy to see, but something stayed his
hand. A chill convulsed his back, and though the close
appearance of the one­eyed stranger and the glass eye
struck him as ominous, he refused to agitate the boy any
further. His hand moved away from his pocket.
“Werri’s a superstitious fool,” Oren said, managing a
weak laugh.
“I saw Werri leaving the mill,” Del said, shaking his
head. “His face was pale with fright.”
“That’s enough of old Werri’s tales,” Oren said
decisively. “Let’s finish loading so we can make it back
from Durbin’s before dark.”
Del shrugged and bent toward the remaining sacks.
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“I’d rather go down to the river,” he said, “and see the
one­eyed man for myself.”
“Don’t be so curious about strangers,” Oren said as he
hurled another sack onto the wagon.
Oren glanced up at the crescent moon slowly rising
above the tops of the trees.
He and Del had spent the rest of the day driving to
Durbin’s house and unloading the barley, and Del couldn’t
help repeating the story of the one­eyed stranger. Durbin
was so pleased by the story, and the intrigue the two
fostered from it, that he fed them a good meal in his
house just to keep the conversation going. Oren
welcomed the food, but remained reticent during the
talking. Something about the story made him uneasy.
Durbin, belching over his ale and wiping his hands over
his belly, invited them to spend the night rather than
drive the road in the dark, but Oren didn’t wish to stay
any longer. He knew the road and insisted the horses also
knew their way, in light or darkness. At least the moon
cast a silver light on the trees and the road that split their
company like a gloomy river.
The story of the stranger occupied his thoughts as he
held the reins. Del slept soundly in the bed of the wagon,
evidently weary from telling the story so many times, so
he was alone with his thoughts. Occasionally a sparrow
fluttered in the leaves, or an owl would issue a haunting
note, which only aggravated the inexplicable dread he
felt.
Once, while Durbin was counting sacks of barley, Oren
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began to pull the glass eye from his pocket, feeling an
overwhelming desire to see it again, but for some reason
he felt he shouldn’t expose it to the light of day. Talk of
evil omens and spells convinced him to keep the eye’s
existence to himself.
On a whim, Oren pulled on the reins and quietly
stopped the horses. He glanced back at the sleeping boy,
who hadn’t stirred, then stared ahead into the darkness.
While the insects chattered inquisitively, he reached into
his pocket and, with a heavy breath, pulled out the glass
eye and held it up to the moonlight. He gazed at the
crystal at arm’s length, waiting for some doom to befall
him. But no doom came.
The moonlight shone brightly on the eye’s curvature,
reflecting the light coolly. No, this wasn’t an artifact of
evil, merely a one­eyed man’s ornament and nothing
more. He closed his hand around the crystal, relieved, and
also feeling a little foolish. But then, he’d been hearing
tales of the supernatural all afternoon, why shouldn’t he
have felt uneasy?
Oren even thought of returning the ornament to the
one­eyed man by the river, if it was indeed his, and old
Werri’s superstitions be damned. He still had both eyes,
and perfect vision, so why not commit a good deed that
might prove a blessing for him?
He opened his hand, the glass eye sparkling like a jewel
in the moonlight. Seeing it glimmer so beautifully, a
strange impulse overcame him, and he slowly raised the
crystal to his face, and then held it directly before his own
eye, meaning to see how the white light of the moon
might be changed through the glass.
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If all sound hadn’t frozen in his throat, he would have
surely wakened the boy—what he saw through the hazy
color of the false pupil caused him to forget all thoughts
of returning the eye to the stranger.
Now he knew he possessed something much more
valuable than a coin, even a gold coin.
Oren slipped the glass eye back into his pocket, rolled
the reins over the horses’ backs and felt the wagon begin
to move again.
He had difficulty concentrating on the road with the
memory of all he’d seen burning in his mind. The previous
year he had seen a merchant open a bag of silver coins to
pay Durbin for several skins of ale, and that was as much
money as he’d ever seen in his life. But the vision of the
eye showed him barrels of coins heaped in ancient halls
full of gorgeous tapestries and stringed instruments, silver
trays bearing jewels like shining fruit, purple robes draped
on tables and waiting for a man to wear over his
shoulders. How wonderful it would be to walk into those
halls and claim it all for his own! He would buy horses of
his own, live in a palace, and never know a hungry day
again.
And like a whisper barely heard, the vision of the eye
told him that this treasure might be his, if only he used
the eye to guide his way...
Once Oren had left off Del at the mill, he returned the
horses and the wagon to the barley man and walked the
rest of the way to the small house that had once been his
father’s.
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Then he lay in the darkness of the house, surrounded
by the few possessions that had belonged to his mother
and father, now rendered invisible by the blackness, as
invisible as the spirits of his parents.
He lay on the ground, his arms beneath his head, and
wondered if what he’d seen through the glass eye was
only a delusion, a waking dream. He hadn’t looked
through the eye again, and perhaps feared to try. The
treasure he’d seen was certainly as great as the King’s,
though hidden in a secret place he knew could only be
found through the second sight provided by the crystal.
How he knew this, he didn’t know, except that his
perceptions must have come from some magic contained
in the crystal. But how might he use the glass eye to find
such a treasure? Was the vision enough? Or must he also
have some special knowledge of its properties to use it
properly?
As he lay in darkness, he came to realize that the one­
eyed man must have been using the glass eye to guide his
way to the treasure. This explained why he remained
camped by the river; he was surely scouring the road for
what he’d lost, and must be wary of anyone who
questioned his purpose there.
Several times Oren began to reach for the eye, desirous
to see the glimmering treasure again, and each time he
refrained.
His father’s memory refused to let him commit to
owning the crystal.
Eris Landi had been a pious, honest man in life, a
simple farmer with the heart of a philosopher. When Oren
was very young, his father implored him to always remain
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honest and forthright, and declared, “Remember, Oren,
no temptation is worth the price of your soul.”
Oren loved the man very much, and had always tried to
obey his words. Eris Landi’s words were all he had left of
his father.
Despite all the treasures promised by the glass eye’s
vision, he knew he couldn’t keep the eye. No treasure was
worth finding disgrace in his father’s eyes. Still—when he
remembered that glorious vision, a hill of gold and silver
coins, of jewels worth a kingdom—
Oren was a poor young man, from a poor family, and
he knew this poverty had contributed to the early deaths
of his mother and father. After his father’s death, his
mother had sold most of the farmland to make their way,
though she, too, died before her time. If they had had
access to such a fortune, wouldn’t they still be with him
today? A fortune in gold could delay death for many years
for a man.
Eventually sleep found him, but not before he knew
what he must do the following day.
Oren didn’t know where the stranger had camped on
the river, and he was afraid to ask Werri, lest the man
discourage him from visiting, or pry into his reasons for
seeking out the man in the first place. So he slipped down
to the river bank and began walking alongside the water,
hoping to eventually find the stranger’s camp.
In his pocket he carried the glass eye.
The previous night, in his dreams, he’d traveled down a
road and to a valley filled with ivory houses adorned in
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fine silks and tapestries, and bearing chest after chest of
gold and jewels. He’d dipped his hands into the piles of
treasure, feeling the cold glory of the coins and the
smooth beauty of the gems. Surely this was only a dream,
but when he woke, his mind still turning with the
dazzling images, he felt this treasure must be real, and
located somewhere just beyond his knowledge.
But the long walk to the river cleared his mind of
dreams and replaced them with his father’s words.
By the time he found the stranger’s camp the sun had
risen to its noon perch, burning down on him painfully.
He stood at a distance observing the unoccupied camp,
pulling the cloth from his hair to wipe the sweat from his
eyes and retying it, before moving forward.
A fire ring still smoldered from a night’s burning, and
an unfurled bedroll lay by the stones; several small
leather sacks lay in the grass, as well as a water skin.
Oren heard a crackling noise, and gazed into the
undergrowth where a small dray mule stood waiting. The
stranger must surely be nearby—
This camp seemed unlikely to belong to a man of
enduring evil. Perhaps Oren had been wrong—perhaps
the glass eye and the man had nothing in common. Yet,
he felt certain they must. The stranger must know the
secret of the glass eye’s vision. If Oren knew that secret,
what might he then do with the crystal?
The sound of a snapping twig caused Oren to turn
sharply.
A ruddy­skinned man of slight stature walked toward
him, as if appearing from the air, his bearded face half­
concealed by the hood of a cloak. The man walked slowly,
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crackling the brush under his boots, a freshly cut staff in
his hand keeping time with his pace.
Though Oren was startled, he wasn’t afraid. He was
well­muscled from his labors, and stood a head taller than
the stranger, who was not at all imposing.
But Oren’s gaze did fall almost immediately to the
man’s face, expecting to see the gaping socket from which
issued Werri’s perceived evil.
But the man wore a soft black patch over his left eye, or
perhaps over the place where an eye used to be; without
exposing the disfigurement, the stranger seemed just a
man, older than Oren’s father would be in this year, and
slightly decrepit, who watched Oren with a clear blue
right eye.
The stranger said nothing as he laid down his staff,
walked to the fire ring, even as Oren stepped away from
it, and carefully sat in the grass. Without turning his head
he drew a long, thin blade from the bag tied to his waist
and began absently stirring the embers.
“Are you the one I’ve been waiting for?” the stranger
asked in a voice turned to paper in his throat by age. He
continued stabbing at the embers, as if searching for some
message left in their ash.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Oren said,
wishing he’d brought a blade of his own. Still, he thought
he could wrest the weapon from the smaller man if he
must.
“You are the one I’ve been waiting for,” the man said,
turning his head and grinning. His face bore no humor,
but a disturbing malice displayed in a hideous smile. “Do
you have the eye with you, son?”
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Oren knew he’d made a mistake coming to the river.
Why had he come? Why hadn’t he heeded the warning in
Del’s story?
“Who are you?” he said, trying to determine what to do.
“I am Felar of Riine,” the stranger said. Puffs of blue
smoke began rising from the embers where he stirred
them. “But can that mean anything to you? As much as
any vision you have seen?”
“What vision?”
“No use lying to me, boy,” Felar said. His free hand
circled the fire ring slowly, and the blue smoke
intensified, billowing thickly and rising above the man’s
head.
Oren watched the smoke as if in a daze, seeing shapes
within its folding undulations, faces, too, dark blue and
frightening. Or was it only his imagination?
“How do you know I’ve seen visions?” Oren said.
“You’re the one who found the eye.”
“Yes, I found the eye,” Oren said, now realizing that he
was terribly intimidated by the older man. “But I only
came to return it to you, if it was truly you who lost it.”
Felar laughed dryly.
“A good Samaritan,” he said. “Motivated only by the
need to return a poor man’s trinket. How very saintly of
you, given the promise of the visions you’ve seen. Or was
it something else that motivated you to find me?”
“I only came to return the eye. I see that you’ve
replaced it with a patch, but you may have it now to place
it where it belongs.”
“I wonder if you feel that it actually belongs on your
person, and for your use alone.”
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“No, I only came to return your property, I swear.”
But was that true? In his heart the argument had raged,
of whether to abide by his father’s teachings, or to subtly
learn the secret of the eye. Had his own greed been his
true motivation?
Something else lay in the stranger’s conversation,
something dark and imposing.
The blue smoke rose higher, and within its swirls the
faces of eyeless spirits.
“I see you admiring the power of the spirits,” Felar said.
“The spirits of the smoke know many things, and tell me
many things. And so does the eye. I would know
everything about the man who carries it so dearly. Where
he’s gone, who he’s spoken to, what he’s seen. And what
he wishes for. But all these things are beside the point.”
The stranger rose to his feet, the thin blade held to his
side.
“You shouldn’t feel bad about your human weakness,”
he said. “Everyone who has come before you has fallen
prey to the same sin. Greed, for what could be attained, if
only the vision they beheld could be understood.”
“You wanted me to find the eye,” Oren said. “You
wanted me to see the vision it held. You wanted me to
come to you. Why?”
“You are a simple boy. What do you know of the desires
of men of power? Or of their pleasures?”
“Why? Why did you want me to find it?”
“Because I am a collector of things,” Felar said, taking a
step toward Oren. He bent, retrieved one of the leather
sacks and held it lovingly. “Of rare magic, which cannot
be made from ordinary things. For a man of vision, of
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very special vision, he must have just the right elements
for maintaining his power of second sight. My own eye
served as the first sacrifice, though I soon discovered that
the spirits must be constantly satisfied. But I must go far
afield to gather these things, since it might prove
hazardous to be discovered collecting in Riine.”
Felar dropped the sack and whisked away his hood.
Then he gently pulled on the soft black patch over his face
until it fell away.
Oren saw the black pit that lay beneath, the same
horrid socket beheld by Werri, and his eyes widened as he
spied the thin mist flowing within it.
He hurriedly reached into his pocket and brought the
glass eye into the sunlight. Then he pitched it from his
trembling hand toward Felar’s boots.
“Take it,” Oren said, “I don’t want it. It belongs to you.”
Felar kicked at the crystal with the toe of his boot.
“I wouldn’t dare think of parting you from your beloved
treasure,” he said, moving closer. “But all the treasure you
could ever hope to see is only yours for a price.”
“I have no money.”
“I shall take my payment in trade, foolish boy.”
As the blue smoke spiraled wickedly behind Felar, the
stranger raised the thin blade in his hand and began
walking toward Oren.
Oren turned and began to run along the bank, certain
he could outdistance the stranger.
But the hideous blue smoke rose up and quickly
enveloped him, choking him, blinding him. He coughed
violently as he tried to run, but he fell over rocks and
dropped to his knees. The bright sunlight was stolen by
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the smoke, replaced only by a blinding shroud of mist.
Dizzy, he couldn’t rise to his feet, could scarcely move his
body.
Oren felt the stranger’s hand on his shoulder, and then
the blade pressing against his neck.
“I’ll take payment now,” Felar said, then laughed.
Mercifully, Oren fell into a blackness that allowed no
thought or sense.
“What can I do?”
Oren stared at the big man helplessly before taking
another drink from the tall cup of ale Werri had given
him.
Werri sat on the edge of the table gazing down on him
with a worried expression, his fingers rubbing deeply on
his chin. Oren had come to Werri’s house, half his face
covered by the cloth with which he tied his hair, afraid
and desperate.
“This is the devil’s work,” Werri finally said, shaking his
head. “Or a man working at the devil’s heed. I thought he
was only evil, not demonic. But surely this man toils in
league with the worst of hell’s progeny.”
When Oren woke on the river bank, as from a fevered
sleep, he struggled to find his senses amongst the touch of
the wind, the sound of the rushing water, and the curious
chirps of the birds in the trees. He sat up, feeling no pain,
but holding his hands to his face; something seemed not
quite right in his mind, his senses. Fragments of a dream
slipped from his memory, the ugly face of a one­eyed
man, and words spoken in the voice of Felar. I will give
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you a treasure you will always see, but never touch, I will
give you the gift of life and death—
As the dream faded Oren realized that something had
changed. When he gazed up over the trees at the setting
sun he saw its brilliance perfectly clearly from his right
eye, but from his left he only saw a kaleidoscopic whirl of
images, the same images he’d seen when staring through
the glass eye, of chests of gold coins, of emeralds and
rubies, of high towers and high stone keeps.
He sat gasping and turning his head, before stumbling
to his feet and staggering to the edge of the river. He bent
down and saw his reflection in the moving stream, his
own pale face, and a left eye that was no longer his own
eye. The glass eye lay in his left eye socket like a sapphire
firmly affixed on a ring, shining brightly. He touched the
crystal, hoping to remove it from his eye, but in horror
realized he no longer had his own left eye, that the glass
eye was sealed to his flesh as if by magic.
Oren sat for a long time gazing at his reflection,
terrified by what Felar had done to him, but his terror
rose in his throat and burst painfully into the air when he
realized what was happening.
He’d seen the fish moving below the surface of the
water where the river ran shallow, and now, after seeing
them swimming perfectly well, he watched as fish after
fish rose to the surface, floating, dead. What is this, he’d
thought, why is this happening?
He moved away from the water and stared up into the
trees, and whenever he beheld a sparrow or lark, the
same bird fluttered from the branches, lifeless. Even those
birds flying through the air plummeted to earth after he
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caught sight of them—a fish, a bird, an insect, all living
creatures died as he gazed upon them, as if his vision
were the cause of their deaths. And then he thought—it’s
the eye.
He quickly pulled the cloth from his hair and tied it
over the left side of his face, casting the glass eye into
darkness. The visions faded, though they still danced in
his sight like shadows, but now the birds remained alive,
now the means to kill them lay muted. Felar had given
him a treasure, or at least the vision of a treasure he
would always have, but a treasure that also gave him the
power of life and death over every living creature he
beheld. The act of seeing his own reflection did not kill
him, so perhaps he couldn’t kill another man—but
perhaps its magic wouldn’t transfer through reflections, or
perhaps Felar’s magic prevented Oren from killing
himself.
But Felar was gone, his camp obliterated. The dray
mule’s tracks led off down the road.
Oren fled down the road in the opposite direction,
uncertain of what to do, until he thought of Werri and ran
all the way to the man’s house. Werri was a friend of his
father’s, and might be sympathetic, though Oren had been
a fool for seeking out the stranger. He told the big man of
his encounter with Felar, crying out when Werri began
reaching for the cloth over the glass eye. He feared
exposing the eye would kill the man.
Now he drank more ale, his head spinning, his heart
beating ferociously.
“What am I to do?” Oren asked again, hoping the elder
man would know.
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“I wish you’d never found the eye,” Werri said. “But
sometimes a man falls into a trap. I should have done
more to run him off these lands, but I feared his magic.”
“He’s cursed me,” Oren said, tears streaming from his
right eye; no tears fell from his left. “And I’ve shamed my
father’s memory.”
“Your father would forgive you, and punish the man
who harmed you.”
“Felar has cursed me with this eye, it’s as much a part
of me as my right eye. And he’s gone off with my left.”
“Surely he’ll use his spells to curse another.”
Oren lowered his head, wishing he knew a prayer
strong enough to free him from his curse.
“I don’t know what to do,” he said, raising his head.
“What can I do?”
Werri rose from the table and laid a strong hand on
Oren’s shoulder.
“Take heart, boy,” he said, “and ask yourself what your
father would have you do.”
Oren thought a moment, thought of his father’s piety,
but also of the man’s sense of justice. He wouldn’t let
Felar escape the consequences of his evil acts. Nor would
he let Oren suffer with the curse cast upon him. He would
take action to make things right, to save his son, no
matter the consequences of doing so.
But Oren’s father was long dead, and only Oren
remained.
Oren sat for a long time remembering his father. Werri
was wise to make Oren consider his father’s wishes.
Certainly the memory of his father was the only force that
could chase the fear from his mind, and replace it with
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wrath. And when the fear tried to displace that wrath, his
father’s memory beat it down again into the childish place
from where it had sprung.
“I must find Felar,” Oren said finally.
“Yes.”
“I must make this right. Will you help me?”
Werri nodded, smiling grimly.
“He’ll have gotten a few miles down the road,” the big
man said. “We might be able to reach him by dawn.”
“Then hitch the horses and we’ll go.”
Werri turned to go, but stopped in the doorway and
asked, “Are you sure this is what you want to do?”
“Yes,” Oren said, thinking of his father. “It’s what my
father would tell me to do.”
After Werri left the house, Oren searched the room
until he found a good, sharp knife.
Yes, I know what my father would tell me to do, he
thought.
Felar had turned off the road and had made another
camp a few miles downriver.
Oren found him standing by the dray mule, securing
the bags he had removed while the mule rested. The
stranger hadn’t been camped long, for he hadn’t finished
bringing tinder to the fire ring that lay half formed by his
feet. Felar didn’t hear him as he walked silently over the
grass. Though Oren’s heart beat fiercely, he kept walking
until he was only a few feet away.
But soon Felar sensed his presence, and turned quickly,
his hand falling to his sash where he kept the long knife.
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Oren stood watching the man, and when Felar realized
who he was facing a faint smile came to his lips. His hand
moved away from the knife, and he laughed dryly.
“I applaud you, boy,” Felar said. “You’re the only man
I’ve ever enchanted who had the gall to track me.”
Oren took another step toward the stranger.
“You travel slowly,” he said. “It wasn’t much effort to
find you.”
“I have business yet in these lands.”
Oren felt a terrible suspicion stir in his gut.
“What business?”
“I am expecting another visitor,” Felar said. “Another
foolish boy, though younger than you. Surely he’s found
the trinket I left for him at his father’s mill. And surely he
is just as curious, and greedy, as you.”
“You’ll not harm Del!” Oren said. “I won’t let you!”
He took another step, and this time Felar’s hand fell to
one of the leather bags tied to his waist.
“One more step and I’ll cast the magic of this pouch
upon your head!”
Oren stood still, breathing heavily.
“I don’t have to take another step to stop you,” he said.
Oren’s hand reached up for the cloth covering the left
side of his face.
Felar, perhaps surmising Oren’s intention, laughed
wickedly.
“You’re a fool!” he said, still laughing. “Do you think I
would let my own powers destroy me? You can’t kill me
by the powers of the glass eye.”
“No,” Oren said, “I don’t believe you would be so
careless. Not where your magic is concerned. It’s not the
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glass eye I mean to show you.”
Oren pulled the cloth from his face and let if fall to the
grass.
Felar’s eye widened as he beheld the bloody and empty
left socket in Oren’s face. The glass eye was gone, and in
its place only a terrible wound darkened by dried blood.
Oren reached into his pocket and brought the glass eye
into the sunlight, now flecked by blood and gore. He
flung the ornament at the stranger’s boots.
“Take back your cursed charm,” he said. “And give me
payment for what you’ve taken from me.”
Felar glanced at the eye, stepping away from it as if it
were a venomous snake. He studied Oren closely, his
hand still hovering over his sash.
“I’ll pay you nothing,” he said, his smile changing to a
sneer. “I admire your will to cut the eye from your face,
but I’ll give you nothing for returning it to me.”
“I don’t want payment for the eye you gave,” Oren said.
“I want payment for the eye you stole.”
He began walking toward the stranger again.
“I’ll see you dead, you impudent fool!” Felar said, his
hand moving to open the leather bag at his waist.
But the stranger’s hand never opened the sack, for as
Oren fixed Felar's attention, the big man Werri had crept
up behind him and wrapped his great arms around him.
Felar struggled to reach his magic, but struggled in vain;
Werri’s strong arms held him in their prison.
“If I’d had the courage to run you off these lands
before,” Werri said as he squeezed the man viciously, “you
would not have committed your crime. I don’t intend to
make the same mistake again.”
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Felar cursed vilely, writhing like a snake.
“I do not have a father to protect me from evil men like
you,” Oren said, stepping before the stranger. “But I have
the memory of his words to guide me. And as he was
pious and lawful, he would expect me to obey the laws of
God and man.”
Felar ceased struggling, the smile returning to his lips.
“What do you want?” he asked. “Gold? Jewels? I could
give you both treasure beyond your dreams if you free
me!”
Oren stared into the man’s single eye with his own eye,
sensing the frightened shades of a hundred collected
souls. He wondered if his own soul was captured in that
evil place, but didn’t really wish to know.
“I mean to stop you from ever doing this to another
man,” Oren said, pulling the knife from his belt, the same
knife he’d used to carve the glass eye from his face.
“You mean to kill me!”
“No,” Oren said, holding the blade before himself. “My
father wouldn’t want me to kill another, not for the sake
of a wound. He would want me to exact a just
punishment.”
Felar’s head pressed against Werri’s great chest as he
watched the blade move slowly toward his face, his
mouth twisting in horror.
“An eye for an eye,” Oren said.
Story collaborations between brothers Lawrence and John
Buentello have appeared in Ares Magazine, 4 Star Stories, Over My
Dead Body, and many other places, including previous editions of
Encounters.
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